[i]24 hours earlier[/i]

It was really was a miserable day. The wind rustled the trees violently and the rain beat down onto the muddy jungle floor. No birds sang and no creatures slithered in the undergrowth, all the subjects of the animal kingdom deciding as one that this really wasn't the weather for whatever they normally did. Apart from one. The figure pushed itself against the trees and plants of the jungle, through the wind and rain, long thin legs trudging along the muddy slurry the floor had turned into, the brown exoskeleton soaked in water. It looked rather depressing, small against the fury of nature. Antenna dripping and being blown around by the storm, and if there was any way for the terrifying figure of a giant ant like creature to look sad, this was probably it. However nothing could be further from the truth.

His name, or at least the one short enough to use, was Scree, and he was many things. He was a member of the local indigenous population, - the Anarti. He was a Mapper, division 148. His job was to scout, map, explore the unknown, and then return this information to be added to the hundreds of other little pieces, piece by piece developing the gaps in the Anarti's knowledge of the world around them. Scree had a little blue and green leather satchel. It was a little ragged around the edges due the many years of environments like this he'd mapped and explored, but otherwise in as good a condition as may be expected. Every few meters he'd stop and reach into this, drawing the next part of the map before closing it back up. He was also very happy, like he always was, even in this dreary situation. Full of pride at the work he did, full of joy at being able to explore the unknown and bring that information back to the hive, and in general more than thankful to be given this opportunity to help.

His plans were to continue onwards for a few hours, then head back to camp. Eat, perhaps see what new information had come out of the more recent exciting experiments with, of all things, static. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, this was not to be for Scree came up to a clearing and just stopped. It very obvious wasn't a natural clearing. Broken trees lay all around, giant trunks shattered and tossed about as if toys for a Larvae. But mostly he saw the... thing. There were no real words in his vocabulary for it. Later he would learn the word spaceship, but this would be jumping ahead in our tale. For now he just stared at the giant metal structure, bigger than anything he'd seen before. This wasn't natural, and the thought of that, and what it possibly entailed... excited Scree with a childlike curiosity, no fear or hesitation as he made his way over to it.

The craftmanship was superb. Even from this small glimpse at one of the giant pillars it was resting on, Scree could see it was far beyond anything the Anarti could create, tens of hundreds of panels all fitting together perfectly, pieces so small and fine that it seemed to deify reality. Something had made this, something with a far greater knowledge then they had, something new that they had no idea existed on their planet. He wanted to know who, to know why, and so he began to climb.

It's worth noting here the luck required for this moment to happen. Normally there would be rules of guards and people making sure nobody was doing exactly what Scree was doing. However this was the crews first test landing, before they set out on their journey for real. Most of them were partying and those who probably should have been outside were attempting to avoid the wind and rain. Besides, according to their data the only intelligent life on this planet were a set of bronze age tribes, far far far away from here. Unfortunately like many none space traveling planets, this data was wrong and out of date by many a year. These events meant the giant insect was allowed to climb all the way to the top, and slip inside.

Even the dingy interior where the landing gear stood when not in use blew his little mind. Pipes and wires crisscrossed and traversed around him, little dim lights flickering on and off in a giant hall made of more metal then he'd seen in one place. Scree pulled out his paper and started drawing what he saw almost by habit, taking in every detail in excitement. Which meant he wasn't quite ready to react when his entire world shook around him as the ship started to take off. He grabbed on for dear life to whatever he could hold, as unknown to him the entire structure began to move. However as the landing pillars retracted, he did see to his slight horror the gap by which he'd entered close up, leaving him in near darkness as his world continued to shake.

Trapped. As soon as he could Scree had explored his surroundings in greater detail, quickly realizing that he was encased entirely in all directions. The walls were impenetrable, his pushing against the metallic slab now blocking his original entrance doing very little, Scree unknowing that the void of space lay now beyond it. He'd tried to gain anything's attention, repeatedly banging in sets of three to try and let someone or something know he was trapped in here, but eventually he even tired of that, slowly falling asleep as the night continued onwards. Sleeping, until all hell broke loose.