Gabe watched over the camp. Very few guards were actually keeping watch. They’ve must’ve thought that a base hidden on a planet filled with nothing but jungles they were utterly safe. Boy were they going to be so wrong.

Gabe imitated a bird call from earlier. This had been a signal to Rhenixa to begin the first step of the plan. He heard the call be returned. In the distance, a small light started to flicker to life, in the matter of minutes the fire grew substantially and kept growing until it was the size of a large bonfire.

From Gabe’s concealed bush position. He saw a few of the watchmen perk up from their sitting positions to alert the others. They scrambled to pick up their weapons, fumbled to their feet. A good handful of them formed formations before starting into the green expanse.

Under the vantage of the darkness, Gabe followed close behind staying within the bushes and shadows of the trees.

They formed a semicircle around the roaring fire each person observing the surrounding environment, except one. He pulled out a communicator. Gabe assumed he had a higher standing in the group considering he was leading the group into the fire.

Gabe moved quietly in the darkness to a nearby tree with a vine wound tightly around one of the lower branches. He whistled the same bird call he used earlier. The same call was given back. Gabe took a deep breath and used his make-shift spear to cut the vine. The vine flew upward at an accelerated pace. He turned back to the men on the defense. Two pieces of cloth fell into the middle of the group. The cloths flew open filling the area around them with orange dust clouds.

During their time in the forest, Gabe had an idea to weaponize the razor spores. The plants grew on thick stalks so what they decided to do was cut them a few centimeters away from the bulbs as to not to agitate the plant too much, wrap them in their shirts, tie them closed with a vine and hoist them over the fire area. Effectively creating a simple chemical warfare.

Over half the men that ran out were on the ground either coughing up blood or bleeding from their noses. The mostly quiet forest was filled with screams of pain and incomprehensible alien languages.

Gabe smiled in the success of the plan. The other rest of the men were either smart to cover their faces or just plain lucky to be out of range of the dust clouds.

The ones that were out of range were quickly taken care of by Rhenixa. The stragglers were left for Gabe. Hey threw his spears into the guts of those who were preoccupied trying to help their asphyxiating comrades. The total lack of leadership and lack of direction of an attack left many to fire blindly into the tree. Out of the five spears, he threw wide causing them to fly somewhere into the jungle and stick harmlessly into the ground.

The two had managed to escape the assassination attempt and ran back into the direction of the base. Both Gabe and Rhenixa stepped out into the carnage She extended a bent arm. Gabe took her hand in his. The two shared an adrenaline filled handshake.

They had both become shirtless due to using them as bags for their bombs. The only difference was that Rhenixa’s compact chest was hidden behind her combat vest. Although her front was covered her slightly toned arms and her slim sides were left uncovered, paired up with her short shorts she was very dangerous to anyone who looked at her.

“Fuck yeah! That was great!” Her tail was swaying rapidly to reflect her mood. “What’s the next step?”

Gabe grabbed a blaster off an enemy corpse along with a few spears that weren’t thrown in the direction of the spore clouds. “We go to their base!”

“Yah can’t be serious.” She dropped the weapons she was carrying. Her tail stopped it’s swaying to and fell to the ground.

Gabe had already started to walk in the direction the fleeing enemies went. Rhenixa was hesitant at first but she grabbed the dropped weaponry eventually joined him in the journey.

Noticing Rhenixa at his side he smiled. They continued to walk the silence of the darkness. They made it nearly 3 meters from their original position before she tackled Gabe into a nearby bush.

“Rhenixa, The fuc-” Gabe was cut off by her hand covering his mouth. Seeing Rhenixa in the moonlight, her ears had become twitchy moving in several different directions.

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“Shhhh.” The tackle put her on top of Gabe. Her thighs spread across his mid-section. It wasn’t hard to guess that he was getting the wrong idea of this.

“Rhen-” Gabe tried to speak but his voice only came out in muffles.

She got closer and clenched her hand tighter. “Shut up!” her voice slightly above a whisper.

Just a few meters from them was a tree that began to move. The slender foliage seemed to have uprooted itself and begin levitating only to be slammed down seconds later. More trees began to uproot themselves and reposition. Turns out they weren’t trees at all. They were claws that belonged to one of the native inhabitants of the planet.

Gabe could see slightly above Rhenixa’s head and it left him in awe of what he saw., the creature was so large he couldn’t even see the body. All he could see was the shadowy underbelly of the creature. The giant insect sauntered in the direction of the corpses. A starving beast wouldn’t give up an opportunity for an easy meal.

Once the creature passed by Rhenixa relaxed her grip and let out a sigh of relief. “That was way too close.”

“Better get to it then.” Gabe placed his hands on her and sat up, changing the position from her sitting on his stomach to now being within his lap. She made a quiet vocal noise at the sudden change.

Rehnixa locked eye contact. She had just noticed their color. They were very blue, actually, they were closer to violet than anything. This was encapsulating to her, This ‘human’ was filled to the brim with just weird traits, weren’t they?

“Rhenixa.” Her staring was actually starting to cut into the precious time that they had. The base was bound to send a larger patrol to investigate ten of their men dying.

“Oh, Right.” She stopped straddling him and got back on her feet. “Let’s get going.” Her movement became pretty rapid. She seemed embarrassed, for a race of aliens that didn’t mind being seen naked, it seems that they only become flustered for showing an interest in something.

They continued until they got to the edge of the tree line. Once they stepped out into the clearing their only source of cover would be the multiple grounded shuttles and buildings.

The base was a scrambled mess of men running to their respective squads. Others lining up to get information on the situation.

Gabe looked at Rhenixa and gave a thumbs up, she returned one and nodded her head. They both took off in a mad dash to the nearest shuttle. Rhenixa’s strong legs allowed her to reach cover much faster.

“The weapons are in there and there.” kneeling behind the shuttle so pointed to two adjacent buildings about three meters away. “I’ll take the further building. We meet up back here when we get the crates.”

Gabe nodded, they both went towards their separate buildings. Leaning on the side of the building he could see they actually had two guards posted here. But unlike his previous encounters, these guys looked like they’re doing their jobs properly.

He leaned back over to his side of the wall. To be quick and silent he could probably throw one of his spears, actually, that’s exactly what he was going to do. If the other guard didn’t react in time he could probably throw another or something. The plan will probably come to him as he went on.

He pulled one of the spears off his back and reared his arm back for a throw. Before he even managed to turn the corner he saw the guards run off towards the entrance of the compound.

Then the screaming and blaster fire came through. Whatever that was it was entirely fine with him. He went straight for the door and it looked like these people were actually competent, it was locked. So he did what he knew best. He shot the control panel, that sorta worked.

The door now was now freaking out. It was closing and opening at random intervals. He took a step back and counted to five before taking a sprinting roll. Upon entering the building he was greeted with a massive room filled with crates of varying sizes.

The first one he unlatched was filled with junk. At least it looked like junk. Gabe kinda wished Rhenixa was here. He had almost no clue what was valuable to take and what wasn’t.

“Whatever.” He flipped the box on its side so that it stood long. He pushed it near the door and waited for it fully open before wedging it. Now one problem was solved.

He opened another crate. “The hell is this?”

It was filled with round devices that had multiple buttons aligned the side. The lights slowly flashed red. he must’ve activated when he picked it up. He threw it back in and went for another box.

This box was smaller and longer than all the rest.

“Oh hell yeah!”

Opening it revealed a weapon that piqued several of Gabe’s interests. It had a short barrel, and a revolving cylinder right in front of the trigger. Gabe was definitely taking this with him. He set the weapon aside.

The weapon seemed to use actual physical objects since within the crate was a series of tubes aligned in a row on the foam.

Then for a moment. The screaming and blaster fire had seemingly stopped. But a constant heavy thumping remained. Curious he stepped outside the malfunctioning doors to see a giant claw cleaving shuttles in halves. Bodies laid on the ground, a few missing limbs others looking almost completely melted. The alien insect found the commotion of the camp and must’ve associated it with food.

“Fuck.” He muttered.