Dawn grimaced as the marine’s corpse tumbled onto the alien forest floor - although whether it could really be called a forest, she wasn’t sure. She checked her rifle one last time, making sure it hadn’t been damaged in the crash. Really, there wasn’t any way to tell without firing it, but she didn’t know of any instances of the electronic mechanism jamming. It would have to do.<br/><br/>As soon as she heard the telltale tapping of the alien thing’s feet over the roof of the shuttle, she crouched by the door, peering into the darkness. The gigantic bug apparently wasn’t smart enough to recognise a trap, so they had that going for them, at least. She pushed back her disgust at the sight of her comrade being devoured and brought the scope of her rifle up to her eye, switching it into covert mode.<br/><br/>From what she could see, the creature’s chitin didn’t look like it would stand up to much gunfire. Still, she didn’t want to risk a non-lethal shot. She lined up her rifle with one of the creature’s bead-like eyes, just above the huge maw that was tearing into her fellow soldier. At such close range, there was no way she couldn’t make the shot. If it had been longer, a sniper would have been far more suited to the job than she was.<i>This is as good a shot as I’m going to get,</i>she thought, and squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession.<br/><br/>The two bullets blasted through the creature’s skull one after the other, sending a splattering of whatever it was that the creature had in its head - she didn’t care to know what - across the ground. Her grey eyes cautiously scanned the collapsed bug, watching it for any sign of movement. After a moment, she poked her head out of the shuttle and glanced around. If there were no more enemies in sight, she’d give the all-clear for the squad to move out.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>