The subterranean dome pulsed with a dim, sickly red light.
Thick crimson veins throbbed along the cavern ceiling, dripping yellow sap that hissed as it hit the stone.
The exits were sealed, fused into solid, calcified bone barriers by the shifting terrain.
Dozens of slaughtered lower-rank recruits littered the spongy moss, their standard-issue gray armor crushed flat into the digestive mud.
The heavy stench of hot sulfur and accelerated organic rot filled Caleb's helmet.
The warped Danger Class-7 Mimic stood in the dead center of the graveyard.
Thick biological cables wove through its heavy steel plating, pumping luminous fluid into its synthetic muscle fibers.
Its featureless black dome angled toward the squad.
It raised its right hydraulic scythe.
"Dodge," Caleb ordered over the local comms.
He drove his boots into the slick biological membrane and threw his weight sideways, letting the custom ballistic weave carry him out of the kill zone.
BOOM.
