Scratch

I want to make a side-scrolling shooter that includes some puzzles. here's a basic scenario:

Your a technichian on a space station orbiting a mining facility in a remote and virtually uninhabited corner of the galaxy. You're working on the outside of the station(in your High Altitude/Low Orbit mech) and suddenly there's a large explosion from the surface that severely cripples the station and sends you plummeting to the planet. You survive the crash but your mech is broken. You have to fix the mech and escape off planet. But there's also the thing that caused the explosion.

I need Ideas for puzzles, levels, and whatever the enemy is. I was thinking a swarm of huge bug-creatures that were awakened by the mining.