Gabe adjusted his belt, the pants he was given weren’t a perfect fit, but they fit when a belt was applied. The shirt he was given was just a plain t-shirt. Seems Anaya had a love of uniformity because the colors matched the rest of the crew, Grey on top and black on the bottom. The only quip he had was with the hole in the back that was obviously for a tailed individual.

He stepped outside the door to his room, Yeah the captain was also kind enough to provide him with his own personal space. Rhenixa was leaning on the side of the corridor waiting for him to get dressed.

“Not half bad.” She meandered around him getting a look at every angle. She gave him a slight pushing him forward. Even though she was just as big as him, which somehow by Caloricean standards was unusual, She still possessed that outrageous strength.

“Ready?” She cocked her hip to the side and placed resting her hand on her side.

Coming to a stumbling stop he turned back around to face her, giving her a thumbs up.

She looked around, She looked at the ceiling of the metal corridor. She looked back him squinting one eye. “What?”

“Oh boy.” Gabe’s displeasure was voiced in his native tongue. “Mean’s good or yes.”

She nodded slowly several times. Before turning around to leave for the mission. Her silvery tail swished calmly left and right. Denying him from staring at her butt. He had to do a light jog to catch up.

“What’s the mission?” He asked finally keeping a pace with her.

“It's an easy one. We are scouting.” The turned a left at the corridor.

“Scouting for what?”

“Weapons!” She almost sounded a little too enthusiastic about her answer. “When we got captured we lost a lot.”

“I don’t know if-”

“Shhhh.” She put a finger to his mouth. “Scouting mission begins now.” With her free hand, she pressed the door release. The mechanisms in the door could be heard as they slowly forced the hydraulics to pressurize the cabin.

What awaited them on the outside was lush greenery. For the mission, they had landed on a place called Fuytis. A beautiful Earth-like planet that was known to have clean waters, Giant trees and most important of all, Giant insectoid aliens.

The oxygen content of the planet had been slightly above the norm for gaia worlds. Most of the more ferocious creatures didn’t really hunt until nightfall when their camouflage actually worked. But other than that it was listed in multiple galactic sources as one of the top resort areas.

“Captain, We are about to begin our mission.” Rhenixa pinched the microphone that was attached to her neck. This form of handless communication was often the preferred method of relaying information since there were times where one needed to shoot and give orders at the same time.

“Got it, Be safe.” Anaya's voice was received through the earpiece in both their headsets.

“So what are we dealing with?” Gabe had approached a very colorful flower.

“Don’t touch that!”

“Huh?” Gabe stopped short of the plant’s bulb.

“When agitated the plant releases spores,”

Gabe thought of mushrooms that did that and they were more or less harmless, unless you had asthma, but he still failed to see how the plant was dangerous. “And?”

“The spores have hooks on them that slice up your lungs up as yah breath. Making yah drown in your own blood.”

Gabe looked back at the colorful plant and back away slowly raising his hands up as if to appear non-threatening to the plant.

“Now c’mon.” She started to head into the thick shrubbery entrance of the giant forest.

Gabe tried to catch up to her. But got caught on the thorny exterior of a bush costing him a few seconds.

Gabe was absolutely awestruck at the scenery, back on his home planet he saw a few wonders, but nothing was as breathtaking as this. The trees were thick at the base but eventually thinned out as they threatened to pierce the sky. Which itself was also just as amazing, not a single cloud one could almost make the comparison that it was the sea being suspended above their heads.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Gabe.” She brought him back to his senses from his wanderlust. “Did your planet not have anything like this?”

“It did, but…” He stretched his arms out and spun in a circle. “Nothing like this!”

She smiled. A bird landed on a branch in front of them. It was colorful like most of the foliage. The head crested upward making it seem like it had a mohawk. It cooed softly making the tree’s limb its perch.

Another flew by and joined it. This bird looked nearly identical. Except for its slight variation in colors.

“That reminds me.” Gabe didn’t really speak that part for Rhenixa to understand. “Are you and Anaya related?”

Rhenixa stopped walking to turn around. “No...We-”

“She’s a member of my clan.” Anaya chimed in. “Anaya is just my family’s name.”

“Oh so. Anyone could be an Anaya?”

“Not just anyone, only people me or my family accept. She’s Rhenixa Anaya just like how you are Gabe Anaya.”

That was pretty off-putting. Just the sound of that was gross ‘Gabe Anaya’ Maybe he’d use his full name when referring to the clan. But something now bothered him.

“What’s your actual name then?”

“Selarixa, Selarixa Anaya.”

Gabe has no idea what he was actually expecting.

“Enough talking, more scouting.” She ordered the two. They began walking again.

They spent a little while on the trip without talking. Until they came to a cliffside. Rhenixa ran ahead and laid on her stomach pulling out a pair of binoculars

“Lenrex’s shit.” She handed Gabe the device. At first, he looked at the minimalistic rectangular design they had. And then put them to his eyes.

“In the clearing.” She directed Gabe to where he should be looking. “You see the markings on the shuttles?”

In Gabe’s perspective what he could see was twenty to twenty-five lightly armored men running around, giving orders or just sitting around. Looking a bit to the left he spotted a small gray ship that had a black emblem painted on the side.

“The moon with a slash?” He responded.

“Yeah, this shipment belongs to Galori.”

He put the binoculars down to look at Rhenixa.

“He’s pretty bad news. We might have to call this mission off.”

Gabe picked the device back to his face. “Or not.”

“We don’t need Galori sniffing our trail. I can assure you he’s much more competent than Zelgrek.”

Gabe handed the binoculars back to Rhenixa. “We do it without getting spotted then.”

“How? Between the two of us, we have one knife.” She questioned his reasoning putting the binoculars back into a pouch on her hip.

“Simple. We wait for nightfall.” He pointed to the setting sun.

She grabbed his head and looked him and moved her head around causing him to follower her with his eyes.

“Have you gone mad? The night will kill us.”

He gave her a stupid smile. “Go big or go home.”

He got up and started to head down a side path. He paused and waited for her. Rhenixa’s fight or flight intuition was conflicting with her interests. She was pretty sure she would be able to reach the ship safely if it came down to it. But a single ambush from a creepy crawler could make all the difference. But she was starting to become a little enthralled with Gabe’s species. She bit her lip as she weighed her options.

She let out a defeated sigh. “My life is in your hands.” She got up from her position to reach Gabe.

“Teach me some of the dangers of this planet.” He asked as they headed towards the camp.

The first thing she started off with was massive insects. At first, this worried him. But for some reason, he was confident that they would stay away.

The next thing she told him about were the passive killers, the plants. That ranged from the deadly spore releasers to the ones that made you trip balls for hours on end.

Then Gabe tripped over something sending him right into a shallow river crossing. Rhenixa started to laugh at his misfortune. Before he could get any anger out he saw what exactly he was dealing with.

He had tripped over the discarded shell of Theronipi. minus one HP, right?. The Theronipi was a crab-like insect that stayed near water sources to hunt and breed. Out of all the insects in this forest. Apparently, this was one of the smaller ones. It had been slightly over 3 meters.

Staring at the curved claws gave Gabe an amazing idea.

“Can you give me one of the claws?”

Rhenixa was mostly confused by his needs. But she still broke it off the husk. The leg parts were a bit too flexible for Gabe’s liking. But that was easily fixed with the help of a vine and branch.

Gabe crudely made a spear. It probably wouldn’t pierce anything harder than chitin. But that had been enough.

“Now we both have weapons.” The spear had been slightly taller than him.

She thought she began to understand his methods. If they were going to be fighting in the dark, they’d have to make it as quiet and untraceable as possible. Clever boy.

He made a few more of his spears just in case he would end up losing one. He had a total of four. It took them two and a half hours to reach the tree line of the jungle. By then the sky was now dyed deep orange. Everything had been prepared for their attack. The only thing that stood in their way now was a way to lure them over into the green expanse.

They spent the last few moments of sunlight bickering about what would work and what wouldn’t work. Gabe threw out some idea’s that were farfetched. He suggested she could use her ‘charms’ to lure some of the more doggish patrolmen. She rejected that idea almost immediately, besides they were trying not to get spotted.

They both immediately agreed on something a little more conventional. If they were going to act primal. What was more primal than fire?