Battered & Shaken

 The fight with the Krayt hadn't gone well.  Whether from the rifle blasts or the Krayt itself much of the cave system had begun to collapse, forcing them to retreat down a side tunnel in the cave.  The Krayt had attempted to pursue them but it's massive bulk prevented it from going any further than it's shoulders causing the entrance to the tunnel to collapse as well.  It may well have been what saved them. 

As they gathered themselves, Mal took count. Good! Nobody was missing. That had been the most chaotic and frantic battle he'd been in to date and he had lost track of Una  almost immediately.  In truth he believed she had been trampled by the Krayt, so her presence among them was a relief.  She looked considerably worn and a bit pale, "I could have sworn that thing trampled you." he said, looking her square in the face.  "For a moment, I thought it had as well," she responded, "however the impact of the charge sent me flying instead of underfoot. I landed within a couple feet of this entrance and crawled inside almost immediately." she struggled a bit to catch her breath as she was clearly favoring her right side.

The light in this tunnel was nearly non-existent but Mal's keen eyes and senses could  easily make out that she was suffering from a broken rib or two.  Reaching over to her he placed his left paw on her helmet and said, "You've taken point enough for one day I think. "  With that he turned to Vanel, "Check her over ... especially those ribs." 

While Vanel worked on applying a body wrap to Una's  ribs and some ointment to more than a few rather nasty looking bruises the rest of the squad checked themselves for injuries and missing gear.   They had lost most of their packs with the collapse.  Mal and Vash both had their packs but all the ascension gear had been in lost packs.  They did have have one 30 meter rope, but without any climbing gear they could find themselves in trouble.  Fortunately they also had one rocket fired beacon some water and two energy cells for recharging their lights and other equipment.

With Una patched up they began making their way down through the tunnel.   

Meanwhile, back inside Razor's Edge, Tyria was beginning to worry.  She had lost contact with the squad nearly an hour ago.  She paced back and forth through the cockpit entrance for several minutes before grabbing her data pads.  "There must be a protocol for what to do!" she thought to herself.

She poured through the field manual looking for some sort of directions.  Then she stopped, a cold realization washing over her.  Back in the swamp, when she was about to become the meal of that ...thing, Mal hadn't needed to lookup protocol or directions.  His immediate response was to leap into the frey ... saving her life.  She dropped her data pads onto the operations table and began gearing up.  She was going to find out exactly what was going on for herself!  If her squad needed any help, SHE was their best hope for getting it and she wasn't going to waste anymore time wondering what the 'proper' thing to do was. 

She hopped into the pilot seat & fired up the engines. She knew their last known location....if she hovered over the area, Razor's sensors would be much more likely to break through any interference.   The engines roared to life as the ship lifted off.

Apparently they weren't the only things that had sought refuge down this tunnel. The tunnel had proven to be home to a fair number of Duracrete Slugs and Spice Grubs.   Though it may have begun fairly small, the tunnel had opened up several times into larger caverns each with branching tunnel systems leading off in various directions.  Their sensors were proving worthless down here as well.  After many hours of trudging through tunnel after tunnel and a few brief skirmishes with slugs and grubs they found themselves in a large cavern with an open ceiling and waterfall. 

They setup camp in a good defensible location behind the waterfall and Mal launched the beacon up through the opening and into the fog beyond.  Hopefully Tyria was a bit more observant than she had  proven to be up to now.

They had only needed to wait maybe two  hours before Tyria's voice was shouting down to them from above, "Hey! Any of you slackers want a hand out of there?" her mocking voice filled the cavern.  

"Not bad," he thought to himself, "I'm definitely gonna have to recommend a commendation for her in my report."