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(POV shift: You are Kasimir Craney, part of a recon section led by chief explorer Serret.)
You adjust the plating of your protection suit. It is far too tight in some places, and far too open in others. You were just an infantryman a decade ago, so you were quite used to such suits. Of course, back in those days, the suits were of high quality make and actually comfortable, though they had impaired your movement a lot more than this suit, however, the large gaps in your joints that allow for such mobility make you still feel uncomfortable. It is hard to lose instinctual knowledge of using plating that now doesn’t exist to tank shots and make sure they are glancing at best. Now however, you had to unlearn something you had with you for your entire adult life.
Still, you suppose you are better off than those poor buggers. The men around you that you are commanding are all in bulky spacesuits, their movements awkward and each step has to be measured because if they slip, they are not getting back up in any reasonable amount of time in a firefight.
As you march ahead, you halt before a dead tunnel dog. You had been moving down for about fifteen minutes and had continuously run into a group or two of various dead animals. This one is no exception, frothing at the mouth that had long since dried out open eyes that seem to be rotting in real time and the bloated corpse is a mildly disturbing sight.
“Log, another dead one. Looks like a tunnel dog, body’s bloated. Time of death…uh…roughly three days.” You check over the interface before your eyes and log your finding for a future report. Command wants these tunnels cleared, so having a good idea on how effective the bioweapon was is considered a secondary, but an important objective.
“Sir !” You hear over the comm from one of your men. “Chamber ahead.”
“Roger. Weapons ready, fan out and secure us an entrance, keep your eyes on the ground and ceiling they have both diggers and flyers, want two men keeping an eye on one. Move out !” You quickly state raising your rifle and shouldering it, moving into the large open chamber.
Moisture covers your surroundings, and further away, where your torches barely reach, you spot glistening.
“Water ?” One of the men calls out.
“Underground river seems like.” Another answers.
Moving ahead and into the chamber, you do spot what appears to be a rather large lake occupying about a third of the chamber, and sure enough, the noise of flowing water intensifies and you can see that the lake is both intaking water and letting it out.
Other than that, the chamber appears to be large and open with the ground surprisingly smooth with naturally formed pillars maintaining this small serene land.
