Saturn's Rings ~ f. millstone

The Queen

"Whew. Here we go. Haven't set foot in here since... Well, I'm ready. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Here we go," Nyoka muttered to herself as she shifted back and forth on the heels of her feet.

Willow approached the terminal and put in the password. Everything was quiet for a second. Nothing happened. Hope had begun to diminish until the doors opened, creaking and whining as they did so. The captain looked back at Nyoka who let out a deep breath and gave her a nod.

The dirt crunched under their feet and echoed down the cave. They lightened their steps a bit in hopes of not alerting any possible inhabitants. From the dim and flickering light, Willow could see a couple sprats crawling around, who couldn't care less about what they were doing there. Nyoka was surprised to see that most of the lights inside were still functioning after all those years.

The two women continued with Nyoka leading the way. Willow followed close behind with her gun drawn. She noticed the hunter slow down occasionally to look at decks of playing cards spread out over containers, or empty bottles on their sides in the dirt. Her lips pursed at the sight and the captain recognized the grief in her eyes. She lightly tapped her elbow to remind her that they needed to keep moving.

Nyoka held Willow back when they reached the main section of the cave. They could see the tops of a few mantisaurs bobbing up and down as they fed on something. They tiptoed to the left where they found a woman lying face-down on the ground. Nyoka dropped to her knees and sighed. Opal.

At the sound of the airlock shutting, footsteps followed. Felix rounded the corner and his eyes lit up at the two women removing their metal armor and tossing them in the bins by the door.

"You're back!" he exclaimed. "What happened?"

Nyoka looked over at Willow with a quirked eyebrow. "Things," she stated plainly.

"Ah, she's just upset I gave her a little scare," the captain said to Felix, jabbing a thumb in Nyoka's direction.

"You were gonna get yourself killed, Cap."

"I had it under control!"

That piqued Felix's interest. "You almost got killed? It was that bad?"

"Depends who you ask. I say it was just my typical nine to five. Nyoka might say something different."

Nyoka hummed in disagreement and began walking up the stairs to the galley. Willow laughed and followed with Felix not too far behind. He started excitedly asking questions.

Nyoka screamed ferociously as she took out the last remaining mantisaur drone at the feeding grounds with her machine gun. They both looked at each other, breathing heavily, and staggered over to the bones.

"Well, this is the spot," Nyoka informed, dumping the pheromone glands around the bone piles. "You know, I thought I'd be angry. I thought I'd storm in here in a rage and exterminate all these bugs and everything would be alright in the end. But... I ain't. I'm mostly just... empty. A little sad, maybe. The first night Hayes and I spent in here, we knew it was home. It's safe. It's got a nice chill to it. But mostly... it doesn't stink of sulfur."

Willow noticed that when they first stepped inside. She thought that maybe the sulfur stench had finally made her lose her sense of smell. At least she could spend more time on Monarch without gagging had that been the case. She let Nyoka continue.

"Monarch folks often joke about it. Not 'cause or the smell or the grittiness it leaves in your throat, not 'cause of the headaches or the coughing... It's 'cause there's no escaping it. It's life here and there ain't anything you can do about it. But here... somehow the sulfur never made it. The nights we spent in here felt like vacations. So we started building."