Rivet watched the monitor of her PMA as it went through the reboot subroutines. To her surprise no errors immediately flashed across the screen. It looked and sounded as if the generator was stable. A slight breeze started blowing down the tunnel, immediately seeming to drop the temperature around her by forty degrees. She smiled and laid back, letting the cool air slide across her and dry her sweat soaked skin. Surrounded by the gentle hum of a machine in desperate need of an overhaul, glazed in the sweat of dangerous situation, and rewarded for a job well done with simple fresh air; this was her few moments of happiness.
After a few seconds of resting, she sighed and propped herself up on an elbow. Clicking on her radio, she was about to report that the generator should work for at least how long it took for them to do what they needed to do, but stopped herself. No sound came through the comm. She pursed her lips and smacked it a few times before pulling it off her ear. Turning it over in her fingers she looked for anywhere she might have somehow busted it. She turned her eyes up to the generator and cursed to herself. She had forgotten the first rule in maintenance. "Don't rush, take it all step by step," she muttered. The generator had let out a localized magnetic burst when it started up. Her earpiece was designed to be used in conjunction with her helmet and as such didn't have the same EMP shielding as it. This wasn't the first time she fried a comm and it probably wouldn't be the last. Besides, the left receiver was still in her helmet.
Under the hum of the generator, Rivet heard sounds of some big commotion. She shrugged it off as the power suit moving around and got to work putting her PMA back in its satchel. Just as she closed it, something clattered near by. She looked down past her knees towards to small tunnel opening. Her helmet rolled slowly past. She scowled and shouted out "Hey, quit fuckin' around with my shit!" No response. "Hello?" She slipped a small flashlight from her belt and clicked it on, shining the beam through the opening. "Is someon-" Something flashed past. Low to the ground. Far too many legs. Rivet's hand slipped to her pistol, slowly unbuckling the holster.
The generator hit its main phase with a loud click and the power burst back on, flooding the chamber with light. Immediately the forelegs, head, and thorax of what appeared to be a massive insect slammed through the opening. Rivet screamed, barely pulling her legs away from it. The creature thrashed wildly, trying to force itself further into the opening. Rivet kicked it in the head, crushing one of its eyes, then desperately pulled herself out of the spider's reach. Pulling her pistol, she fired repeatedly down between her knees, into the head of the monster. Four bullets, one of the mandibles burst off the body. Eight, half of its head was torn off. Click....clickclickclickclick. All twelve rounds spent. The insect lay in a heap several feet in front of her. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing heavy. The sweat was back. A loud ringing reverberated through her ears from shooting in such a confined space. "FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCKING SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK?!" She dropped the empty magazine from the pistol and quickly loaded in another, keeping the barrel pointed at the corpse. A faint amount of light streamed around its abdomen. Shadows darted past the light, along with the sound of multiple legs running around. She looked down at the floor. Her satchel, radio, and the still lit flashlight where sitting between the forelegs of the spider. Slowly, she inched forward towards the items. Just as she reached out, something slammed into the corpse on its other side. Rivet fell back and fear took over. She could put up with many things, but insects weren't one of them. She crawled as quickly as she could to the back of the tunnel and knocked open a vent. Inside was a small cramped room lined with massive cables leading through the wall into the generator. On the far wall another vent grate sat half way up. She pulled it open and climbed inside, dragging herself through the narrow space, further into the facility.