---[ POV: Flynn ]---

With the help of the Stygian Predator and its fully unlocked potential, scaling the face of the cliff proved faster than Flynn had anticipated.

The young man was able to easily bury his fingers deep in the rocky facade to create solid anchor points or use the propulsion thrusters and jet pack incorporated in his back and boots to jump from ledges to ledges and adjust his trajectory mid-flight.

The armor was able to generate a restricted anti-gravity field around him that would not negate gravity entirely but was able to reduce it greatly, effectively reducing his weight and allowing him to cover upward of 10 meters at a time with each boosted jump.

In less than 5 minutes, he had climbed the cliff and gotten to the top.

Looking around him, Flynn was able to confirm his earlier analysis; he was apparently in the middle of a mountain range, somewhere between a ridge of snowy peaks to the west and the forested valley he had discovered to the east. The local ecosystem shared a lot of similarities with the alpine biome of other Earth-like planets. It seemed mostly composed of rock formations, albeit of strange shapes, dry bushes, groundcover plants, and small distorted trees here and there; all in all, a pretty desolated landscape. The conditions up here were just too unfavorable for any other plants to thrive. This included strong winds, unfavorably low temperatures, low carbon dioxide levels which inhibited proper photosynthesis, and too much exposure to sunlight.

The mountain range ran from north to south and Flynn was apparently located somewhere along its eastern slopes. He had no way to determine just how far west the mountains reached since the white peaks blocked his vision completely to the west.

A chill wind coming from the north blew past him. There were now three moons shining in the sky but ominous-looking clouds in the northern sky were gradually pilling up and menacing to engulf them.

There was a storm brewing.

"That's Lieutenant Flynn's luck for you right there."

Flynn followed the edge of the ravine for some time until JAX detected something unusual through the visual feedback of the cyber-eye and highlighted some marks on the grounds for the young man’s attention. It was effectively what Flynn was searching for; claw grooves and paw prints in the shallow and rocky soil.

A large creature like the shrieker was bound to leave some traces of its passage.

Flynn got down on one knee to look at the tracks and shivered now that he could once more appreciate the sheer size of the creature’s paw prints. The traces led away from the gorge straight south for some time before taking a turn toward the southwest.

The young man got back up and started to follow the trail. It was not particularly hard since JAX did all the heavy lifting for him, picking up the traces through his left artificial eye and the armor sensors and highlighting the signs of passage on the HUD. To make things even easier, the AI extrapolated the path to follow from cues Flynn had not even the time to consciously process and simply displayed an indicator on the HUD compass for the young man to follow. This indicator aligned with the one from the distress beacon most of the time so Flynn knew he was going in the right direction.

It got progressively colder as the night advanced and the clouds rolled down from the north. The wind created wild waves in the dried grass covering the mountain slopes and tortured the rare trees present, plucking leaves from their branches with furious whistles.

Midnight was fast approaching and Flynn had been walking for a couple of hours when he could hear the first sound of thunder not so far to the north. There were now some clouds above his head that blocked the moonlight and the stars.

The storm had not yet reached him but it would soon enough. Flynn’s armor would keep him warm and dry but he was not particularly happy about this development. Wind and rain would probably deteriorate the tracks he was following and would make it difficult to find the shrieker. Flynn could still orient himself in the general direction of his quarry using the distress beacon but it was not precise enough to guide him directly to his goal and there was no guarantee the beacon would stay active until the end; the signal could disappear at any time.

As if answering to the crackling sound of the storm, a long howl could be heard in the distance, somewhere to the west. It was soon accompanied by other howls and yapping noises. Flynn automatically pictured a wolf-like creature or some other kind of predatory hound.

"Oh yeah, definitively Flynn's luck alright!"

The young man pressed on, increasing his pace to a fast jog, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the storm could catch on. His lymphites boosted body coupled with the symbiotic muscles and the armor would allow him to keep this pace all night long without breaking a sweat.

Flynn had been walking up until now simply for fear of missing something important but such precaution and cautiousness was no longer a luxury he could afford.

At some point, his radar picked on some unidentified life forms at the edge of its detection range but they never got close enough to warrant him slowing down. There were about a dozen life forms and according to the reading, they were marginally larger than what would be considered a big wolf.

Flynn had no idea what they looked like but their howls followed him for some time before dissipating into the night. He had expected they would attack him but apparently, they grew tired or, their attention got caught by something else, and they left.

The rain started soon after, and by the time it was about 2 in the morning, the situation had deteriorated to a full-blown storm. The occasional flash of lightning, accompanied by the rumbling of thunder, split the sky at irregular intervals, painting a sinister portrait of the surrounding nature.

The wind and rain reduced Flynn’s visibility whilst the muddied ground and wet rocks made his footing unsteady.

The only silver lining in all this was that the beacon signal was getting stronger as he progressed.

Is the shrieker's den so close to the corvette?

That would make sense now that Flynn thought about it. It had taken the creature less than two hours to launch its attack after he had turned the transmitter on. He was probably right in the middle of its territory. That would also explain why the wolf-like creatures had quickly stopped to trail him; they wanted nothing to do with big boy lizard up here.

As Flynn approached his goal, he was forced to spend some time looking for tracks because the storm had slowly erased most of them. He did not have to waste as much time as he feared, however, because the beacon signal guided him through the maze of stone ridges, small ravines, and rolling slopes that composed this part of the mountain.

At around 4 in the morning, he finally discovered a dark and gaping opening that burrowed into a twisted crag.

The storm was still raging so Flynn was almost certain the shrieker was resting somewhere down below.

The young man found cover behind a rock and observed the entrance for a couple of minutes but there was no movement inside, only inscrutable darkness, so he decided to approach.

Flynn materialized the power-hammer in his hand from the storage and activated all the battle systems of his armor in case he got jumped by the creature or any other kind of dangerous critter.

The interior of the cave was dark but the sensors of the Stygian Predator could pierce through it, giving him a vision similar to a dimly lit interior. It was more than enough, but just to be sure, Flynn also activated the thermal captors and the vibrations detection of the armor.

It was unfortunate, but he had to make the decision of turning off his radar and communication system. He remembered all too well the sensitivity of the shrieker to those kinds of signals and wanted to avoid alerting the creature to his presence if it was not already too late.

The waves emitted by his radar and communication system were nowhere near as strong as those from a transceiver designed to relay messages across the stars so he had good hope that his presence had not been noticed yet.

Flynn followed the main tunnel for some time, making sure to keep close to the wall so that at least one of his flanks was covered. He tried to use the terrain disposition to hide as much as possible but he was not very good at sneaking around. He could not rely on his armor either since the Stygian Predator had been designed as a front-line combat armor and had no integrated stealth function other than sound dampening and radiation insulation.

There were some smaller tunnels that sometimes bifurcated from the main one, probably dug by the passage of water, but Flynn remained on the path that was large enough to allow the shrieker to pass through. There was no real risk of getting lost because the ground and walls along the correct path had been somewhat smoothed and cleared from most irregularity by years of the monster dragging its mass in and out.

Judging by the smoothness of the ground, either the shrieker had lived for an incredibly long time or this place was some kind of generational nest where the brood lived alongside their parents before taking their place upon their death.

The thought of facing multiple shriekers made Flynn shiver for a second, even baby one, and he implored the sky to grace him with an ounce of good luck for once and make sure the creature was alone.

As the young man was praying for his good fortune in a display of fervor he was not known for, he could hear a noise in the depths; a low, rhythmic, and continuous growl that came and went like the tides.

Flynn adjusted his grip on the power-hammer, gritted his teeth, and steeled his resolve.

Then he pressed on, swallowed by gloom and shadows.