Special Needs Forces

A week passed in which nothing happened except for some missions to kill monsters that happen often because it is their job and they work every day like workaholic firefighters. Tawny was teaching Tanager to fly all this time because when Captain found out that Rigel had ordered another pilot, he patted him on the head and said it was a great idea and Rigel was very happy that he was praised. Tawny, on the other hand, was not happy because he had been telling Tanager for over a week how to fly, or rather what the buttons do, because he was doing a good job with steering the ship when he was focused, but he still remembered only what the button to start the engine looked like.

“Actually, you've got the hang of flying already, you know how to take off, not crash, and land without crashing, I don't think you need to know the rest of the things" Tawny told Tanager

"Nah, I want to know how to do everything else too because I'm a perfectionist. For example, I would like to know where the radio is, where is the air conditioning, where is that tiny closet that can be opened like in the car and people keep candy in it.. "

"I have already told you several times which button does what and how I quickly distinguish them"

"Tell me one more time, this time I'm focused"

”Okay so you already know that the red button makes the ship take off and fly. The other more or less important things are like this: Amaranth button shows the radar, carmine is blocking the door, scarlet is air conditioning, ruby radio, crimson is changing the lights, strawberry is hovering in the air and cherry is reverse gear "

"Wait a minute... What is carmine?"

"A color" Tawny replied, Tanager was shocked and speechless

"I thought you were telling me about some desserts all this time" he confessed

"Oh, God" Tawny facepalmated

“Alright let me hit the radio then,” and Tanager switched the lights

"No no, this is crimson, not ruby"

"I'm sorry", Tanager got sad because he can’t even see normal colors, let alone those which names sound like food

"Eh, just read the subtitles on the buttons, they are small and inconvenient to read but they’re still there, you don't need to know the colors"

"I thought they were important because you repeated it many times"

"It’s just how I remember them, I repeated it many times because you asked me to repeat it"

"Oh." Tanager said and began to read the buttons and not look where he was flying although he flew very slowly "I found radio!" he rejoiced and clicked the button and some shitty disco polo station came on which disgusted Tawny and he made a sound of displeasure "What's going on?" Tanager asked

"Nothing, it’s just this music makes me want to jump out the window"

"Okay, wait, I'll change the station" and Tanager started to read the little inscriptions on the controls again and there were a lot of controls

"Tanager- look at the road!" exclaimed Tawny who saw them slowly approaching some top of a tree and the ship hit that top of the tree but the tree was dry and just broke off

"Wait a minute, I'll find it," said Tanager, still staring at the inscriptions on the controls. Tawny was pretty sick of flying for today

"You know what, actually this music isn’t that bad" Tawny lied "Go back to base, today's lesson is over"

"Oh, okay! I hope I did well” said Tanager and they turned the ship around and they flew to base. When they entered the base, there was a meeting in the living room and there seemed to be a tense conversation with Melisanda who had just hung up. Captain and Frezja were clearly a bit pissed off and the rest were a bit surprised so Tanager and Tawny came to ask what they miss

"In Region 24 a team medic slipped on a banana peel and hit his head on the edge of the floor and died" Captain said "And from what Melisanda said, someone in the system saw that we have two doctors on the team and one person more than the statistical teams have-"

"So Lawenda gets transferred?" Tawny asked

"No, they moved me because I have higher stats" Frezja said, half angry half sad because she didn't want to leave this team

"Whaaat? But how, why? I mean I know why but wtf why is it possible?! " now Tawny was also angry

"This new system sucks" said Frezja

"Damn, can you disagree?"

"I can't, I tried"

"Captain, can you disagree?" Tawny turned to Captain

"I can't, I tried"

"But- It's.. damn what a shit system, Frezja has been on this team longer than I have." Tawny was pissed off with this situation and didn't even know what to say about the fact that his favorite person on the team was transferred somewhere very far away from this region. He involuntarily glanced at Lawenda reproachfully because he was a bit bitter that she wasn’t transferred instead but he knew it wasn’t her fault, so he just went elsewhere, maybe to say goodbye to Frezja or something. Lawenda, on the other hand, was saddened by that whole conversation from the very beginning to the end, because she actually did feel like it was her fault that the person that they had known for a long time got taken away just because she got added to this team. She started to feel a bit shitty so she went to Rigel to talk, found him in his room and luckily he wasn't watching porn this time because that would be very awkward in the current situation.

"Hey Rigel, what are you doing?"

"...Makeup.." said Rigel, who was just painting over his face scars and was embarrassed because he would rather be caught watching porn than this

"Oh, you’re wearing makeup?" Lavender asked, and she walked closer and saw that he had half-covered scars on his face “Oh. Okay, you don't have to answer this question" and there was an awkward silence that was broken by Lawenda because she came here to pour out her sorrows and it turned out that it got strange

"If it makes you feel any better about it, I didn't notice that you were scratched so badly in general.. and if that doesn't comfort you, I can also say that the scars add to the charm" and it actually cheered Rigel up

"Aww do you really think so?"

"Sure," said Lawenda. "Well.. listen, I have a problem. I mean, it's not a real problem but err.. I don't know how to put it "

"Let me guess, you’re feeling down with the fact that Frezja is leaving because you feel it's your fault?"

”Oh, I can see you put your perks in the charisma skill tree because yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. Do you also blame me that I exist?"

"No, don't say that, nobody blames you for being here."

"Tawny looks like he does"

"It’s just Tawny’s default expression"

"No, this time he looked at me as if he wanted to kill me"

"Don't worry, he doesn't kill people anymore"

" … anymore?"

"Come on, don't be afraid of him. You can just talk to him normally if you want and you will see that it's nothing personal. He only overreacts to the fact that his girlfriend is leaving ''

"Oh, are they together?"

"I assumed so"

"And how do you feel that your friend is leaving?"

”Well, I'm a bit sad, but on the other hand, it's just a transfer elsewhere, she’s not dying or anything. We'll still see each other at meetings or something, so it will be alright. When Gloster moved elsewhere it was also sad at the beginning and then everyone got used to it, and now he is with Crow’s team and there is easy access to visits so don't worry too much about it "

"Well, I hope that I will be accepted into the team sometime in the future, because so far I think I joined at the worst possible moment and I caused a shit situation and it made me feel a bit bad"

"Stop feeling bad, it'll be okay. If you want, we can watch cat memes for consolation” and then they watched cat memes for consolation when Rigel finished his makeup and at that time Frezja packed up and said goodbye and flew away with her new team.

Meanwhile, Captain was ranting to Lukier because he didn’t like that they took his good medic and a friend because the system says that they can and you can’t disagree or anything. Well, unless the captain of the new team agrees to give the team member back, which made no sense by the way, because why is the new captain allowed to disagree and the old captain has nothing to say? I mean, maybe they had a point because Biel had two medics and Helios, the captain who took Frezia, had zero medics, but it still pissed Biel off. Anyways, it was almost afternoon and it was time to take Captain to the hospital because it was the day he was supposed to get a surgery for that eye he lost when he died but not for real. Melisanda called when Tanager was about to take him to the hospital and Captain decided to still pick the call up before he left.

"If you’re not calling to say that there has been a mistake and you are returning the Frezja to us, I do not have time for that" said Captain

"Unfortunately not, Captain. But an important task has been displayed and this is an emergency"

"Oh okay that sounds like something for us"

"Captain, you should be on your way to the hospital..." Lukier reminded him

"Okay, I'm going but I want to know what this mission is"

"This is a task in the cave of the fallen, where there were some anomalies inside. There were two missions in it in the past, and two of your teammates died there if the reports are correct... Somehow the entrance that was blocked by our people has been opened and it looks like a monster did it. You have to go see what opened it, kill whatever opened it and close the cave again"

"Tsk, well, it could have been interesting, but probably when I come back from the hospital, someone will take this mission from us because of this peepee system"

“Wait- this is the cave where Jackdew died, and then Neptune" Lukier said

"Well, maybe it's good that we’re not going there because another teammate would die."

"No, I think we should take it. I mean, not you, Captain, you're having a surgery, but you could entrust this task to the rest of the team "

"Lukier, do you have any inner need for revenge for the fact that a swarm of cave dragonflies killed your girlfriend and that is why you want to lead your team into a bad luck cave?"

"No- I mean- okay, maybe a bit. But also because this cave is dangerous and, as you can see, securing it did not help, because something opens it every now and then and we should stop avoiding the problem. Instead let’s kill the problem once and for all"

“Okay, then I'm delegating this problem to Rigel, I hope he won't panic. If he does, slap him in the face for me and tell him to get over it." Captain said and then went with Tanager to fly to the hospital and Lukier went to tell Rigel that they have a job without Captain to do.

Rigel was not happy to have captaincy again and he was given a mission that failed twice, even with the old captain, and Rigel was in a bit of a weak position because he had power against his will and had to be responsible but he didn't have enough power to deny power. On this mission there was him, Lukier, Tawny and Lawenda, so basically all remaining people. And this mission was proof that training Tanager as a pilot was a good idea. I mean, not necessarily choosing him in particular was a good idea, but it was good that there was an additional pilot, otherwise they would not be able to go on a mission while Captain was being taken to the hospital.

When they got there and entered the cave, they didn't know what exactly they were looking for. There were some minor insect monsters living there, but they certainly weren't gnawing tunnels in rocks and metal and everything else that had been used so far to close the cave. There must have been something bigger there, but no one has found out what it was yet, because all the trips to this place so far had been unsuccessful and often there were also fatalities, so it was decided to collapse the exits, but as you can see, even this turned out to be ineffective.

The team was walking along the corridor without forks so far and Lukier was preemptively killing all the worms he found, even though they only seemed to be doing their wormy cave things and not bothering anyone.

“I used to catch flies just to throw them into an electric trap because it flashed and looked cool, but damn Lukier, we are on a mission, we can not stop at every ant so that you can stick a knife in its back?” Tawny asked

“He’s doing good. If these insects form a swarm and it notices that it has an advantage in numbers, it will eat us alive.” Rigel replied instead of Lukier because he, too, had been on the two previous trips to this cave and he knew that every harmless looking nice shiny insect in here is just waiting for its compatriots to come in to pounce on you and bite you until you die or pass out, and then eat you for dinner for the next week.

"Actually, Tawny and I don't know much about this cave, do you have any other pro tips?” asked Lawenda

“I would like to, but this place is too unpredictable” said Lukier “I would advise not to split up, but we won’t be able to search the entire cave while walking in a group. Besides, even a group of four will not help if, for example, the ceiling collapses on you.”

"Does… this happen often?"

“The walls in this cave are probably hollow, but it’s not known which ones and how thick or thin they are. It is possible that the tunnel we are walking in right now is stuck on a thread that can be gnawed at any time. Soon we will come to a chasm in which the ceiling collapsed onto the floor and the floor also collapsed under the weight of stones falling from the ceiling. This is where Neptune died.” 

And as Lukier said, they finally reached the chasm, as it was in the main entrance tunnel before any forks. This place had collapsed two years ago, and that was the last time anyone had passed by, and it looked as if the bugs had made a huge nest between the broken stones and in the exposed hollow tunnels.

"First of all, yuck" Rigel commented "Second of all, it's the only way, and forgive my inept captaining once again, but I don't know what now." he finished and looked stressed

“Captain said that I should slap you in the face and tell you to get it over with when you start to panic, so appreciate my kindness because for now I will only do the latter. We won’t retreat at the very beginning. I can go first if you want” Lukier replied and went first without waiting for approval from Rigel, and Rigel did not question it. 

The rest of the team watched as Lukier almost literally crawled into the anthill and they also thought that most likely this nest was built on the remains of their teammate and that was not a pleasant thought to think about. After a short while the bugs got pissed off that someone was stamping his feet on their roof so much that the plaster from their walls most likely started to fall on the floor and flew out of the house to chase the intruder off. The team saw it and they got a bit scared. They didn't exactly know what to do now because they were large bugs, maybe the size of a cat, and normally it was best to shoot a swarm, but they couldn't shoot a swarm that rushed at Lukier without shooting at Lukier too, because even with 100% accuracy, they were sure the bullet would go through the bug and hit Lukier in the end. On the other hand, Lukier himself could shoot and he did quite well because he already had experience with fighting monster antdragonflies. Rigel finally snapped out of staring at Lukier and ordered the team to run to the other side of the chasm while the swarm was focused on Lukier, and he slowly backed up to the other side of the nest, but while he was shooting the bugs he hit the floor several times and the inhabitants of the nest were now incredibly angry. If at this point the entire team of four did not have automatic weapons, the bugs would finish them off. But fortunately they had automatic weapons and they finished off the bugs and the whole floor was littered with dead bugs and Rigel wondered if this sight was more disgusting or the nest itself. In any case, this view was definitely better because it meant that the first wave of enemies had been defeated and the journey deeper into the cave could be continued.

“Sorry if this is an inappropriate question, but is breaching the nest of these insects what killed the other member of your team?” Lawenda asked and Rigel was afraid that Lukier would be rude to her after this question because it was a dangerous topic to start in his presence but surprisingly it did not happen because Lukier didn't act like Lukier on this mission at all.

“Don’t worry about the appropriateness in such a situation” Lukier reassured her. “Jackdew died on the first mission in this cave, but we didn’t find any nests back then. These dragonflies just swarm, maybe they are hunting. In any case, now we will not repeat the same mistakes, so until the ceiling collapses on us or the tunnel cutter kills us in some other way, we will be able to do it.”

"You sure cheered us up with that" commented Tawny

“What mistakes do you mean?” Lawenda asked

“We didn't know the cave then, we got lost, we separated in search of an exit and Jackdew ran out of ammunition.” Rigel explained because Lukier seemed as if initiation of Lawenda and Tawny's into the rules of this cave hurt him and he tried not to show it, but it didn't work out.

“At the beginning of the mission we laughed that they sent us there to kill flies. But there turned out to be more of these flies than bullets” added Lukier and saying it aloud made him even sadder so he decided to collect himself and he went ahead so that Rigel would not see it and try to comfort him or something like that.

They went through several cave chambers that looked like forks but were really dead ends and Rigel knew it but he had the team search them anyway because within two years new tunnels might have been hollowed out. However, they did not find anything new, but during the search they were attacked by two more swarms and they dealt with them well, which made it a bit difficult for Lawenda and Tawny to understand why this cave scares everyone if it’s enough to take enough ammunition and not be so painfully unlucky that the ceiling of this entire giant cave will collapse centrally on you.

Finally they came to a place with a great chasm, like some cave ravine in the walls of which you could finally see how much the interior of this cave is hollowed out by tunnels.

“Well, this is probably our trip’s destination. Uncharted territory.” Rigel announced

“You mean you've never made it this far before?” Tawny asked

“I did. And Jackdew.” Said Lukier “But after an hour of wandering in these tunnels and the death of Jackdew, I was only looking for an exit, and now we are looking for clues what might be the thing that hollows them.”

“Please don’t consider this an attack on your competency, but it looks like something that will take us at least a dozen hours with a very small chance of finding an exit and returning safely” said Lawenda and Rigel thought the same, but knew he could not say it aloud as temporary captain so they only looked at each other with understanding and accepted their fate. 

Everyone went down the stone ledge to the nearest tunnel and it turned out that they would not do the above very stupid plan, which would most likely end as Lawenda predicted, because the tunnel they were looking at, as well as all other tunnels, turned out to be covered with a nest all over the place and if all insects from literally kilometer long tunnels rushed at them, all the ammunition on the planet would not be enough to shoot them all. They stood there for a moment in shock, and finally Lukier spoke.

“Okay, this wasn't here before... what are we doing then?”

Rigel was a bit surprised by his question, because all this time they were really doing what Lukier wanted and now, when Lukier wasn't telling Rigel what to tell the rest to do, Rigel didn't know what to do, and at that point they were so far away that even he didn't feel like turning back, knowing they had wasted a lot of time and ammunition to change his mind in the end. On the other hand, they all felt a bit of a relief, such as when you have to make a difficult call and it turns out that the person is not answering.

“How about trying to lure this stone dredger out of the tunnels somehow?” Tawny suggested.

“It would be a good idea if we knew literally anything about this monster. No one has ever seen it” said Rigel

“Well... we know that he has to be somehow related to these insects, right? After all, they only build nests in its tunnels, and not in naturally hollow rocks.” Lawenda said, but they still didn't know what to do about it.

"Then maybe it is actually the bugs that bite the rocks, and they bite through the barricade each time because they have nothing to eat here" added Tawny.

“But wait, Lukier mentioned that the swarm is hunting something” continued Lawenda “Then either it's not true and the flies have some other reason to fly around the cave in a swarm, or something else lives here too.”

“Us.” Lukier said, looking somewhere into the distance thoughtfully “they are hunting us. And the driller is also hunting us.”

“What? And where did this conclusion come from?” asked Rigel, confused, and Lukier stopped spacing out.

“Do you remember the first mission? There was a stone bridge here. Jackdew and I started exploring the tunnels only because we were waiting for the rest of the team and the bridge collapsed due to some earthquake that stopped shortly after we split up. On the second mission, we waited in the main corridor for Captain to return for his climbing gear and the ceiling collapsed.

“You mean... “ Rigel started and he didn't finish because he didn't know what Lukier meant but he didn’t want to admit it. The silence was a bit awkward and Lukier didn't continue explaining so Rigel finally gave in 

“I don't know what you mean.”

“The tunnel driller was on our tail every time, but it must move very slowly and will catch up with us only when we stand in one place for a long time.” explained Lukier and it worried everyone a bit, because standing still for a relatively long time was taking place right now and to make it spectacular and dramatic, it was at this moment that the earth started to shake and everyone instinctively ran away, but Lukier was standing still.

“Couldn't you say the conclusion first and the explanation afterwards?!” Rigel shouted in panic

"We're here to find the monster after all, '' replied Lukier, while still standing there with his weapon ready. The part of the wall opposite collapsed, revealing a new tunnel from which a giant centipede came out. Lukier reflexively shot as soon as he saw it, but it turned out that not only does it have bulletproof armor, but it’s entire body is covered with the nest and shooting at it only pissed off the flies. In addition, the tunnel cutter turned out to be quite fast in the open space when it did not have to wade through the stone, and also mobile because it was so long that it never lost ground under its feet and could get into every corner of the cave.

The swarm, provoked by shooting at the monster, targeted Lukier, who started running down the rock ledge, but the centipede monster chose a larger available target, which was the rest of the team standing in front of the chasm in the main tunnel. Rigel's first thought was to find some small gap to slow down the monster again because it would have to dig into the stone again to catch up with them, but it just so happened that all the tunnels in this cave that were not gigantic were made by this particular monster so it fit perfectly, and they were covered with a nest.

“I don’t know what you were thinking Lukier, but now we are making a retreat and I don't care whether you slap me in the face or not” Rigel said over the walkie-talkie because Lukier disappeared from his sight and ran somewhere down the cave

“Split up, the monster is chasing the biggest target and your group is the biggest target” replied Lukier, completely ignoring the order to retreat. A retreat would probably be advisable, but whether they liked it or not Lukier was right, because they wouldn’t be able to run through the entire cave in a full sprint without being caught by the centipede and its dragonfly minions. And even if they succeeded, they would lead the monster outside, which was a complete opposite of the goal mission. The team was running through a rectilinear tunnel with no forks and they didn't quite know how to split up, so Tawny shot the monster in the head to stun it temporarily and they just headed back into the chasm room. As they ran in the opposite direction, the centipede just lifted its front end, clung to the ceiling, and continued to chase them. It was then that they realized the monster's length, because when they reached the chasm and the monster ran the entire corridor behind them being attached to the ceiling, part of its body was still walking across the floor at the exit point. The team tried to run on the rock ledges in opposite directions, and the monster made a loop and as soon as the tip of its tail disappeared into the corridor it smashed into the ground below it, destroying the safe passage between the shelves and the main tunnel.

Tawny ran to the right, which is the direction where Lukier went earlier, and Lawenda and Rigel ran to the left. The monster automatically set the route to a larger target, which in this case was a group of two. It was impossible to run on the rock ledge as fast as along the tunnel because it was uneven and did not have a very large surface, so the monster immediately started catching up with them. Lawenda followed behind Rigel, which means she was closer to the monster, and when it got to the point where she could choose between being eaten by the centipede or anything else, she chose anything else and jumped down.

“I see the monster has turned back, where are you?” Lukier said over the radio. Tawny replied because Rigel was busy avoiding death and Lawenda had just fallen to the bottom of the ravine and nobody knew what happened to her.

"I don't know, I'm running towards you somewhere, the monster rushed after Rigel and Lawenda."

Lukier was shooting at the insects all this time because the monster made such a racket chasing them that some of the inhabitants of the hollow tunnels went outside to see what was happening. Meanwhile, the centipede, who no longer had any big group to chase, changed the priority to the nearest target and continued to chase Rigel. In desperation, Rigel shot an entire clip into its head, but it did nothing more than delay the monster a few seconds and piss off the flies in the monster's nest even more. At this point, Lukier had almost made a full circle on the ledge and saw Tawny running on the opposite side.

“Tawny, jump!” Lukier shouted and Tawny, luckily, quickly connected the dots and without any questions he jumped to the Lukier’s ledge, and Lukier shot at the monster to get its attention.The centipede shifted the priority back to a larger target and left Rigel alone. Except Rigel was literally alone at this point, with an empty magazine, and too many flies trying to eat him to have time to reload.

“I’ll distract the monster, you go help Rigel when it follows me and disappear from it’s sight”  said Lukier and Tawny ran away. Lukier was waiting a moment to make sure that it’s him that the monster was chasing, and when he was sure he jumped in down, because his ledge was so much lower than the one Lawenda was jumping from, and he ran away from the rest of the team again. He ran along the bottom of the ravine to have a more stable ground than some uneven escarpment and it turned out that the bottom of the ravine was strewn with corpses of flies and it was, firstly, a very unpleasant feeling to trample on the crunchy corpses of insects, and secondly it slowed Lukier down a bit and he even fell over once or twice but he still managed to get away.

When Lukier took the monster on himself, Tawny ran to help Rigel ward off the flies that were giving him trouble. Rigel didn't seem to see much through the swarm because he was swaying over the precipice causing Tawny to react like when watching unsatisfying videos on the internet, so Tawny pushed him and he fell on his ass on the ground instead of the precipice and then Tawny shoot the pissed wave of flies on his own. After killing the insects, he turned to Rigel

"Are you alive?"

“I think so.. these damn things bite like horse flies, ugh" replied Rigel who was chewed on by the flies on every surface of his body that was not covered with thick clothes, which is mostly arms and face. The bite spots didn't look very good.

"Lawenda should look at you, I'm not a doctor, but these bites look pretty serious. Where is she?"

"I don't know.. she was running behind me all this time- unless the centipede knocked her down the ravine or something similar"

"Damn it is not good" commented Tawny and decided to ask on the radio how Lukier is doing with distracting the monster because he didn’t know at that moment whether he should try to help the team or escape from the cave, but when he was about to reach for the radio Lukier contacted him first.

“How's the situation there?” he asked over the walkie-talkie

“Rigel is badly bitten by dragonflies, but he's alive and we've finished the swarm. Climbing gear will be needed to take him to the main tunnel because all the passages are collapsed and while I can climb and jump myself, I don’t think it will be an easy task if I’d have to carry him”

“What about Lawenda?”

“Lawenda fell from the ravine from what Rigel says. If you can keep the monster away from us, I can go down and see if she somehow survived.”

“Then go while I have the strength to run from the monster.”

Lukier continued to run and slowly realized that they had once again lost a member of the team in this cave, and yet another one was injured and these were not ordinary wounds that happen every now and then, but insect bites that no human survivor had suffered so far. And Rigel was almost a halfblood, so if the dragonflies were venomous it might only be a matter of time before he too will fall victim to the cave.

Tawny led Rigel closer to the exit so he wouldn't accidentally fall into the abyss, then jumped down the gradual irregular ledges to the bottom of the ravine from which Lawenda had jumped. Fortunately, he was agile enough not to damage the nests and not annoy the bugs, because looking at Rigel's reactions to bites, it would only be worse for him. At the very bottom of the ravine it was as dark as hell, and he was glad to see in the dark. He walked a little bit and saw Lawenda sitting on the ground and probably having a panic attack, no wonder why.

"Lawenda?"

"Tawny!" Lawenda did not expect that it would be him who would come to her rescue because she was sure that Tawny would kill her in exchange for a packet of crackers, but in this situation she was happy and ran towards him. “I thought it was my time to die, I landed in some webs and other stuff that cushioned the fall but my equipment broke and there was no contact with you- "

"Well, for now we have to focus on how to get you out of here"

"What about the rest of the team? Did Rigel escape the monster?"

“Yes, Lukier is keeping the monster busy but Rigel was bitten by flies so you need to take a look at him as soon as possible."

"Oh no, is he allergic to insects?"

"More or less..." answered Tawny who didn’t feel like explaining Rigel’s infection in this situation, there was no time for that now. They were running out of time in all respects, because they did not know how long Lukier would last with the monster and how long Rigel would last with the bites. Without much thought Tawny gave Lawenda a piggyback ride and began to climb slowly but efficiently back to the top of the gorge.

When he climbed to the top, he let Lawenda check up on Rigel and each of them unanimously decided that they wanted to go home, so Rigel told Tawny to run to get some climbing gear to get Lukier out of the cave's depths.

"We're uptop. Lukier, head towards the exit, you've got a rope slung between the broken end of the ledge and the tunnel entrance," Rigel said over the radio.

“What? We won't be able to escape through the main tunnel.”

"Better to try and fail than to give up and be devoured by the monster."

"I'm not going to let it eat me, I'm going to kill it."

“How?”

"I don't know yet, but before I figure it out, you might have time to get back to the ship."

“We won't leave you in that goddamn cave, Lukier. Stop fooling around.”

“You stop wasting time and run because when I get to you, we will all have a monster on our ass and then our slim chances of survival will drop to zero.”

Lukier had already ran through such a large distance that the very long monster, chasing him, straightened up in its entirety. Lukier himself was surprised that he was able to hold on for so long, he probably got some kind of revenge boost, which only intensified when he found out that centipede possibly led to the death of one more and a half members of the team. He decided that if he was about to get eaten by this monster, he needed to make sure that he would be its last meal. And that thought made him remember how Captain exploded the world-eater with an explosion from within, which in turn made him wonder what Captain would do in the present situation if he was here. Lukier thought about all the situations in which he and Captain avoided imminent death and the closest he could think of was when they were hiding in a sandhouse from the cultists and Captain asked what would win in the modified version of rock paper scissors. Lukier thought that running away from a giant centipede was nothing like playing rock paper scissors, but it was similar to a snake game in an old Nokia phone and for a moment he felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of it sooner. To make his new plan happen he had to jump on the monster, which would be easy while he was still running along its tail and not in front of the monster. So he did the same as his team before to slow the monster down for a while, which was turning around and shooting its head. It released another wave of flies, which also did not help in moving quickly. He climbed the monster and walked slower than he would like, but the spine of the thing was slick and steep. He wasted a few precious extra seconds firing the bugs flying after him, but his plan worked, and that was the most important thing. The monster began to curl into a noose and aimed at Lukier. Lukier was actually ready to die, but when he saw the monstrous drill jaws for biting tunnels in the stone up close, he decided that he did not want to have those in him and involuntarily made a dodge, which somehow managed to be successful. The monster's jaw hit only Lukier's weapon, which fell from his hand and was crushed when the monster bit the place where Lukier was standing, which happened to be its own back. The monster began to bleed and was pissed off. It still tried to hit Lukier while he was running on its back and thus it wounded itself along its entire length. And Lukier thought that the plan was working better than it should, because originally the monster was supposed to bite its ass once, and he himself did not expect that he would come out of that alive at all.

Somewhere in the middle of the tail, the monster finally bled out and fell, then Lukier lost his adrenaline rush and he also fell, but not to death but from fatigue, because he was running practically at full sprint all the time since unknown amount of time because he lost track of time a long time ago.

He woke up in the main tunnel to see Tawny, Rigel, and Lawenda seemingly disinfecting Rigel's dragonfly bites.

“Why didn't you go back ... and.. what? Lawenda is alive?” asked Lukier

“I jumped off the slope and some branches and cobwebs cushioned my fall but my equipment broke. Lawenda specified, not taking her eyes off whatever she was doing there.

“And now we waited for you to wake up because I had to drag all of you one by one up this cliff and I really don’t feel like dragging you unconscious to the ship.” Tawny added

“Jesus. How did this even work..” said Lukier with relief, still lying on the floor.

"I have no idea how you did it and to be honest, on the one hand you deserve a great admiration and on the other hand you deserve a long fucking rebuke for getting that bastard out of the tunnels without any plan" Rigel said.

“Okay, you will talk about it later. If everything has been explained and everyone is able to walk, let's go back” Tawny said and no one objected because the whole team wanted to leave this cave and never come back again.

When they returned to the ship, they reported that the task had been completed and the appropriate services were sent to collapse the entrance to the cave once and for all, so that all the worms living in it would die of starvation, and the team flew Rigel to the hospital instead of to the base, because Lawenda didn’t have the knowledge and equipment to cure him of a possible unidentified disease if any of the flies that bit him were spreading any and it turned out that the nearest hospital was the same hospital where Captain had his surgery.