"Mind if I sit down?" I asked. I loosened my harness, unbuckled my belt. "Have you heard of J-bombs?" I said, and dropped.
Before I struck the floor my gun-weighted hand had leapt out, and the silence was shredded by a staccato blast of sound. I jack-knifed upwards, holding the trigger tight against the butt emptying destruction into the night with desperate haste.
My gun brought its stuttered sentence to a halt and, as if a period were being added by the pen of chance, there was the metallic punctuation of a heavy object dropping to the ground.
Then, miraculously, the interior of the cave brimmed with radiance, and objects stood out in stark relief. There was a glint of brightness on metal: A gun of strange design lay directly before me.
And above me the explosion-pocked body of a Noble hung suspended from the ceiling by suction-cupped feet. It dripped blue blood upon the rocky floor, its eyes vacantly staring.