It was dark, cold, and the rain beat down against her suit, pelting her.  She was thankful for the lightweight armor, it kept her from feeling the drops that were big enough that they would have been painful.  The planet’s atmosphere could sustain her, she really didn’t need the armored space suit, but she felt safer in it, was safer in it in fact, and the rain had an acidic touch to it, she could almost see it slowly eroding the rocky, craggy formations in front of her.  This was the site her ship had indicated the strange life readings, yet upon her arrival, she found only mountainous terrain, no sign of life in any form, except the strange, crawling, insect-like creatures that lived within the rock itself.  They weren’t big enough to set off the readings that she’d gotten from her ship.  She must be missing something, but what?

She approached the rocks in front of her, reaching out to touch the rough surface.  It was as if the stone itself breathed, but she knew that was impossible.  Whatever she had gotten for readings, they must be within the stone, within the mountains, and that meant that she would have to find a way in.  She’d had harder assignments than this, granted, she always seemed to get the strange or difficult tasks.  She shrugged.  It didn’t matter. 

She altered her suit’s capabilities to scan in the infrared range, seeking any type of fissure or joint within the rock.  Off in the distance, she saw a distinct line of red within the dark blue that represented the cold, hard stone, and began heading towards it.  She was cautious, backing away just in case, as she approached what turned out to be a large but well-camoflauged series of paths that wove down into the mountain.  Astonished and confused at how she could have possibly missed this before, she began to descend into the rock, wondering what she might come across this time.

All through the past, she had hunted all sorts of strange creatures.  There were the crab-clawed creatures from Zerta IV, who had been partcularly vicious.  They had hunted down humans for sport, and she had been sent to “send them a message,” so-to-speak.  She was unofficially on contract with the Space Military Federation, as their next step after their special forces failed.  She was their last resort.