Even his fellow explorers.. supposedly brave men had abandoned him after a few pitiful attempts at capturing and destroying the creature. Seven of them had died. Fools every one of them. He would do what so called brave and intelligent men could not and capture the beast single handedly. That would humiliate them all.. and he would be a hero.
Only a quarter an hour before the beast appears. Although the trap is simple, he decides to do a quick check of the equipment.. just to be sure. Level one simply consists of an array of lasers, all trained on the spot where the beast should appear. When the fools had attempted to kill the creature, they had used laser cannons. All three died, they must have been slow as well as stupid. This setup was guaranteed to kill the beast.
But just in case, he checked the apparatus on level two. An electric floor had already been tried.. of course they hadn't counted on him removing their power supply. He would have paid money to see their puzzled dim-witted faces as the monster had passed unaffected over the supposedly electrified floor. Another two dead. Evolution in action, weeding out the unfit.
Level three was also a precautionary measure. He was the only person who could possibly have thought of using chemical weapons. These hadn't been used in over five hundred years, since most battles now took place in space.. chemicals were of little use against the metal of ships. Most people just ignored the primitive. Even the local inhabitants hadn't thought to use the sulphur from the nearby volcano as a weapon against the beast. As a consequence they cowardly ran away, while he stayed.
They had wanted him to come with them. They told him it couldn't be stopped, and he'd be dead before the end of the day. None of them realized they were dealing with a superior intellect, and a man of courage. Unlike those cowardly fools.
After the checks, he returned to his observation deck, and waited. He could probably, go to sleep now. He was perfectly safe, and he was a little tired. The time would probably be better spent working on his acceptance speech for when they gave him the Order of the Galaxy. They had passed him over before. They wouldn't be able to ignore him this time though. He began to plan.
Ten minutes later, he was startled by a small explosion on the level beneath him, and the smell of rotting eggs. Sulphur dioxide.. obviously the now dead creature had somehow made it up to the third level, where the igniting sulphur had done it's job. They had told him that it couldn't be stopped. As usual, he had proved them wrong.
Staring out over the railing, he heard the creak of metal behind him. It was there. Slowly coming towards him. Everything about it signaled his imminent death. Almost paralyzed with fear, he forced himself to remember his emergency plan. Remembering at all times to be calm, he pulled the lever that would collapse the hundred meter long platform, just as the hulk had reached the far end of it. Nothing happened.
Fear took over. He grabbed at a large hammer, and began to strike at the metal which was preventing the platform's collapse. An uncontrollable sweat broke out making his grip on the hammer slippery. In the back of his mind, he was childing himself for being stupid. He should have checked this before.
The platform gave way slightly. One more hit, and the landing would collapse, and the brute would die from the hundred foot drop. They had said it couldn't be stopped. He would still show them. He waited for dramatic effect until it was about ten meters from him, and then gave the final blow that collapsed the platform.
As it hovered towards him, red lights from the flames below flitted against the walls
and the stench of rotting eggs and brimstone hung in the air. He was paralyzed with
fear, but as he disappeared into the shadow of the approaching creature, an observer
would have been able to hear the last words screamed in a voice of pure terror 'It
Cannot Be Stopped'.