Spine

"Pierrette: I have a plan." 

"Plan? What do you mean?" I asked. We were about to land on the final moon, 56-Vow.

Pierrette walked over to the terminal and from there she beckoned me over to see what she was accessing.

On the monitor was the shop that we had neglected so far to use. 

"We hardly have any credits, should we really be buying anything?" 

Pierrette nodded as she typed in a selection of what she wanted to purchase.

It was a single phrase: Stun grenade.

"A flashbang!? I've never used one before." The idea of potentially misusing it by accident made the hairs on my body stand. 

"Pierrette: It's our last resort. Everything else is either too expensive or pointless, we don't venture too deep into the facilities to need a flashlight and a shovel is far too heavy to carry." She put in an order for the single stun grenade, costing 30 credits and leaving us with 30 left.

"When will it be delivered to us?" I asked.

"Pierrette: Soon, it should arrive via a special delivery system once we land."

I nodded, with what we've faced so far; attaining some sort of escape plan was a solid plan. 

"Let's just hope that whatever we'll face down there can be stunned in the first place." 

---

Arriving to the moon we found ourselves in the middle of a dense forest. A complete contrast to the barren wastelands that were the last two moons, this one was teeming with life with sprawling trees and running water. 

Unfortunately, due to our negligence; we had failed to notice that this moon was currently in its flood season. 

Where we were, water was already pooling at our ankles in the forest. 

"When is it coming?" I asked Pierrette.

Pierrette pointed up to the sky and from a distance through the thick gray of the storm clouds, a small light had appeared.

The small light grew bigger and bigger, with it finally touching down before us; it belonged to the thrust system of a small rocket.

Pierrette walked towards it and flipped a lever, from small vents attached to it; it released the stun grenade that we had bought. 

She picked it up and attached it to the hook belt on her waist. My hands felt clammy just from looking at it. Hopefully, we wouldn't have to use it. 

Once we had gotten our stun grenade, the small rocket closed its hatches and took off; disappearing back into the clouds.

"What an odd way of delivering product," I noted, but Pierrette shrugged.

Now that was over with, what was left was to find the entrance to the facility. But with the storm and the density of the forest; visibility was low. 

"Pierrette: Look, a lake." She pointed to a pool of water that was contained within a large crater. 

"Pierrette: Maybe it has a dam connected to it?"

With no other viable options, we began to follow the perimeter of the lake in hopes of finding a cut-off point. 

After what was nearly an hour of trekking through the forest's edge around the crater, we found a cement bridge that spanned a man-made dam; the water that was held within it was rapidly rising from the rain. And just across the bridge was a large, rectangular building; the facility that we've been looking for.

"The likelihood of this bridge being submerged under the rain is high within 1-2 hours." I pointed out. 

"Pierrette: Let us hurry then." 

The bridge was solidly made- allowing us to cross it without issue. As we did, we noticed that there was another bridge at the other end of the flooding river. 

"We would've died if we had found that one first." 

It wasn't constructed the same way as the bridge we had just used. It was rickety and looked like it would collapse if someone were to cross it. 

I shuddered over the fate we would've suffered if we had found that bridge first before this one. 

Facing the megastructure before us now, Pierrette and I stood at the foot of the entrance; us both unsure of what was to come next. 

"We might die today." I grimly muttered to Pierrette. 

"Pierrette: We might." 

"Pierrette: But it isn't for certain. Besides, there is no future for us if we do not fulfill the quota." She placed a hand on my shoulder and softly shook me. 

"You're right. We have a job to do, whether we like it or not." 

With the flooding worsening by the second, we braced ourselves for the hell awaiting inside as we stepped into the facility. 

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