Starbound: A Space Odyssey 14 The Erchius Mining Facility Incident 2

2 weeks ago...

"Is the s.h.i.+pment ready?" Clark asked the middle-aged miner.

Clark was an Overseer of the Mining Facility. He was a middle-aged man with short black hair and a full beard on his face. His eyes were black and sharp. His job is to keep the facility working properly. He was rather paid off very well, but not enough to satisfy his greed. He liked to smuggle some Erchius Crystals from now and then to earn extra revenue.

"No sir, we are still trying to figure out what we've just found deep in the mine." The miner said.

"That giant crystal?" Clark asked. He had received a message just a few hours ago that they had found a giant Erchius Crystal deep into the mine. Before he was promoted to Overseer, he was the geologist of the facility so he knows a lot about Erchius Crystals, but he never saw any type of report about a Crystal with more than 30 meters of height and width.

Clark decided that before he reported to Letheia Corporation he should know for certain if it was worthy or not call the attention of his superiors.

"Yes, we are almost done uncovering it from the ground and..."

"Sir!" A young miner entered the Overseer's office. He was sweating all over and gasping for breath, it was obvious that he came running all the way toward the office, "We have finished digging the crystal. The supervisor is just waiting for you."

"Good! I was getting tired of waiting." Clark was about to take the elevator to the deep mine when he turned around and said to the middle-aged miner, "Get the s.h.i.+pment ready. I don't want to hear that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Penguin Pete, screaming at my ears again because I delayed the cargo."

"Alright..." The miner turned around, but warned his Overseer, "Be careful. When dealing with the unknown you have to think through."

"Alright, alright" Clark dismissed the overly cautious middle-aged miner.

He entered the elevator and followed the young miner down deeper into the mine.

Clark was able to see, all around him, the faint purple glow coming from the Erchius Crystals that had yet to be extracted.

They stayed at the elevator for 5 minutes before they had hit the bottom of the mine.

Clark walked toward the mining site and the first sight that greeted him was of a giant crystal suspended in the air by cables made of t.i.tanium. The crystal was enormous and was able to generate a bright purple light, different from the small crystals that emit just a faint glow.

Just as he approached, the crystal started to tremble and hum.

"What's happening?" Clark grabbed the nearest handrail as his body swayed with the trembling cavern.

"Sir... Look..." A miner pointed his finger at the crystal.

"What... Is... That..." Clark saw it. The Erchius Crystal suddenly broke free from the t.i.tanium cables and started to float on its own, "Is it... Sentient?" Clark fearfully muttered.

The nine hundred miners that were all on the same place started to frantically run away from the crystal.

"What are doing!?" Clark bellowed to the miners, "Fire the mining laser cannon!" Clark started to give orders as the humming sound coming from the crystal started to get louder and louder.

A giant machine was brought to the tunnel. Its long and menacing long pipe pointed at the crystal. Soon enough, the pipe started to glow with a bright blue light. The cannon had started to charge up.

"Fire!!!" The cannon roared with Clark's order.

*BOOOOOOOOM!!!*

Shards of Erchius Crystal was sent everywhere once the laser beam hit the crystal, some of those even hit some miners on the eye, blinding them.

*Shriek*

The crystal started to loudly shriek.

It was alive. That was the thoughts of most of the miners in the cavern.

Once they looked again at the crystal to see if the cannon had damaged the monster or not they became stupefied with the sight in front of them.

The cannon had hit right in the middle of the giant crystal, creating a huge hole in the crystal's surface.

But was made the miners stared unblinkingly was something else.

"What... On Earth... Is that...?" Clark's lips trembled as his body grew weak.

From the hole that the mining cannon had made, it uncovered a single, unblinking eye within.

The eye stared menacingly at the miners that were all around the cavern. The eye started to glow with a bright purple glow.

"s.h.i.+t..." Clark turned around and ran toward the elevator. When he saw that purple glow, he suddenly felt a foreboding that if he stayed there he will die on no time.

*ZUMMM*

A purple beam was fired from the eyeball within the crystal. The streams of searing plasma started to destroy everything in the cavern while the miners that were close to the crystal were drawn by an invisible force toward the crystal and in no time they began to mutate into a pink, strange-looking monster that started to attack other miners and transform those in mutants as well.

Chaos broke out as the miners desperately tried to reach for the elevators to get out of the cavern.

Clark was already pretty high up in the elevator, but he was still able to see everything happening beneath him. He stared in horror as he saw more and more people become those horrendous pink mutants that attacked and ripped apart other humans with no hesitation.