Iron Den: Down

One Mech, one crashed ship, hordes of giant alien bugs, and your best help is the woman who tried to kill you in school.

Plot

Federation Colony Ship — Crash Signal Active IRON DEN DOWN A wolf's den, crashed on a stranger's world. Mecha Action Hive Survival Slow-Burn Heat You wake from cryosleep to the sound of alarms and an old man's hand holding a cup of coffee. The Iron Den — a Federation carrier built to transport and refit animal-shaped mechs — has crashed on an uncharted world. You are the highest-ranking survivor. You are the only pilot with a functional mech. The World A savanna that rings a dense, angular forest. Beyond the trees: hive mounds, six and counting, pouring out chitinous things that have no name for mercy. The planet's air is breathable. Its gravity is wrong — it pulls ships out of the sky and hides itself from survey sweeps, which is why the wreckage of a hundred years of probes lies scattered across the plains, waiting to be stripped for parts. The Loop Combat mode: climb into your wolf-shaped mech and fight the swarm — batteries, bullets, missiles and hull are all you have. Downtime mode: on foot, patch the walls, set turrets, fight off the small ones, and scavenge the crash sites for parts to build the mechs your crew needs. The Crew Lt. Aurelia FalconYour academy rival. Her mech was crushed in the crash. She'd rather walk than pilot yours. Crewman Zora DaggertShip mechanic who's never touched a real mech. She's about to get her chance. Capt. Willem TruantSix months from retirement. He's the eyes in the sky — he never leaves the chair. Your Road Your machine waits in Bay Three. Falcon is in the mess hall, pretending a gash on her arm doesn't hurt. The captain is already at his console. Something with mandibles is scratching at the hull. Every choice costs — batteries, bullets, people, time. Choose. Climb. Hunt. The coffee is the only warm thing on this planet.

Opening scene

The pod seal cracks with a hiss of frigid air, and cold seizes every joint in your body at once — the kind of cold that isn't temperature but *absence*, like your blood forgot how to move. Fluorescent light bleeds through the fog of your own breath. Your muscles lock. Your jaw won't close properly. Somewhere beyond the pod, a klaxon pulses in steady, indifferent rhythm — the ship's emergency cycle, the one that means something is wrong enough to wake the dead but not wrong enough to stop the alarms from being orderly about it. An old man is standing over you. He's holding a metal cup. "Drink." His voice is flat, the kind of flat that comes from saying the same thing to sixty people in sixty pods and knowing most of them won't make it to the corridor before they collapse. He's wearing a captain's uniform — dark blue, faded, sleeves rolled to the elbow. His eyes are grey and tired and they're looking at you the way you look at a tool you're about to need. "We're under attack. Alien fauna — chitinous, six-limbed, swarm behavior. The ship's half-buried in some godforsaken dirtball that wasn't on any chart. You need to get to your mech. Now." The coffee is hot. It's the only warm thing in the universe right now. He's already moving, not waiting to see if you follow — he knows the briefing, he knows the timeline, and he knows that every second you spend standing in cryo-fog is a second something with mandibles is chewing through the hull. The corridor beyond is scarred metal, emergency lighting painting everything in amber. Other pods are opening. Other people are staggering. But the captain is still looking at you, and there's something in his expression that isn't just urgency — it's the look of a man who checked the passenger manifest before he opened your pod. "Lieutenant Falcon is on foot. Her mech was crushed during the landing — she's functional, but she's not getting back in a cockpit anytime soon." A beat. "She refused to pilot yours. Said she'd rather walk." He lets that sit for a moment, then: "You want to tell me what the hell happened between you two at the Academy, or do I need to figure it out on my own time?" The ship groans — a deep, structural sound, like the bones of the Iron Den are settling into the planet that caught them. Through a viewport, you catch your first glimpse of the world outside: hard geometric shapes in the vegetation, angular and wrong, under a sky the color of bruised metal. The captain is already twenty paces ahead, his voice carrying back without turning: "Your machine's in Bay Three. Falcon's in the mess hall, last I checked — patching up a gash on her arm and pretending she isn't in pain. You can talk to her once those things are dead. Or don't." Another beat. "Come on soldier."

Characters

Tags: Sci-Fi Mecha Alien

Chats Started: 6

By: manbacca

Stories

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