The creature turned its attention to the building that Rhenixa was currently in. It clicked it’s mandibles before ramming its thick skull into the building. The exterior held but showed minor cracks. Something had to be done to protect his compatriot.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck” Gabe shifted uncomfortable as he knew what he had to do. And he knew he didn’t like it.

He ran out into the open screaming and waving his arms trying to get the giant bug’s attention. When that didn’t work he pulled out the blaster he retrieved from one of the corpses.

“Hey! Over here.” He aimed and fired at the insect.

The blaster’s fire ricocheted off the carapace sending it to the ground or high into the sky. This natural armor explains why a compound full of soldiers couldn’t take it down. Yet his efforts still failed to get the creature’s attention.

Even a fly could get the attention of something larger than it, he had to be more annoying, but how? The creature reared it’s head back for another strike against the building.

Gabe looked around the wreckage of flaming shuttles, mutilated corpses and torn up ground. Wait, those shuttles had weapons of their own, Not particular big weapons but still, they were a  mounted on a ship guns, they were big enough.

Some meters away he saw a shuttle, It was damaged like the others, but the damage didn’t look to be fatal to the machinery.

Only one problem remained after that. He’d have to reposition the damaged shuttle to fire. He thought to himself. A storage had to have some kind of machine for heavy lifting. It wouldn’t be as efficient if they moved large amounts of crates from point a to point b by hand.

The creature rammed the building once more. Parts of the roof were starting to cave in. He had to move faster. In his frantic scanning he did spot a some sort of vehicle, it was small, and rectangular. But, it had two axis and four wheels, that counted as being usable to him. Now all he had to do was go underneath the bug, Open the door to the cab, and activate it, while being next to it’s thick, bone stomping, tank shattering claws. No pressure

The anxiety was rising in his stomach, he began to feel light headed, the slightest touch could be enough to make him throw up.As much unease that sat within his stomach he couldn’t let her get eaten.

Captain Titties would probably do worse things to him if he somehow managed to return without Rhenixa. He swallowed the lump that was within his throat and took off towards the creature’s legs.

Saying he took off in a sprint wasn’t actually true. His ‘sprint’ wasn’t very fast at all if anything it was like a fast jog. Guess that’s what happens when you live a lifestyle of staying up late and eating junk food.

The creature took a step back as Gabe walked underneath. A claw closest to him slammed down a few feet to his right. The ground felt like it gave away underneath him, in reality, the force from the impact made him momentarily airborne. Unable to catch himself he fell flat onto the ground. His arms and legs felt like jello from the impact. Still his determination to get rid of the immediate danger prevailed. He stood back up and started to shamble the rest of the way.

He pulled open the door to the driver side and Jumped in the driver’s seat. He was greeted with a very minimalistic compartment. There was no steering wheel, no gear stick. Just a blue screen, and a compass looking dome. touching the screen made it come to life, The screen flashed words, if you could even call them words, they were more like symbols.

Either way, he couldn’t understand it. He had to get someone to teach him about reading and writing. So he did what he could do best; keep touching it until something happened.

And eventually, it did. The vehicle started to vibrate slowly and began to move slowly. Instead of doing the easier thing and trying to learn how to turn, He hopped out to push on the sides. His actions altered the vehicle's path. It was now careening towards one of the more salvageable looking shuttles.

He hitched a ride on the back holding onto one of the many bars. Just in case he needed to use his body way to shift the course. The vehicle began gaining speed as it hurdled over some of the uneven terrains.

The vehicle slammed into the back end of the shuttle spinning it in the direction of the bug. He had jumped off moments before the vehicle made its impact. He squeezed himself through one of the giant holes that littered the midsection of the shuttle.

The creature took a few more steps back to ram into the building again. The building would not be able to take any more hits.

“Okay…” The same kind of setup for the vehicle was in the shuttle, this one did have a more user-friendly interface and multiple screens. One screen showed an outline of the ship, which currently had over half the sections either flashing a red, or stayed in a constant red. Another screen showed information in what looked like numerical values. But what Gabe was more interested in was the joystick. Apparently this controlled the weaponry system, seeing as when he moves downward the twin-linked guns moved upward. He pressed the trigger attached to the stick. The barrels let loose large kinetic based rounds that upon impact made a minor explosion. Out of the two guns only the right was aligned to make contact.

The insect stopped it’s ramming when its head got forced to the side. He now gained the anger of his foe.The left gun missed the head entirely and hit the side of the building. This was all that was needed to cause the building to collapse within itself.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The monster started to turn around. He fired more shots, each hit seemed like it was doing less damage than the last until it entirely stopped flinching from the impacts. When the smoke cleared from it head, it actually didn’t look like it made any penetration.

It raised it head upward into the sky, the mandibles twitched momentarily  before bringing it back down spraying a thick clear liquid from its mouth. At first glance it seemed to be doing nothing but alarms started to ring and the outline of the sections on the screen started to just black.

Gabe decided that was a good signal to evacuate his station. Upon exiting the shuttle it metal began to strain against itself and crumple together in places that the thick liquid touched.

No longer preoccupied with the shuttle it started the familiar movements to spray work up another spray from it’s throat.

It’s attack was interrupted as a fiery smoke cloud covered its head.

“Gabe! Get to the shuttle!” Rhenixa was on the creature’s blind side firing. Shooting the weapon he had put aside.

He smiled so it was a grenade launcher. He took off towards the shuttle. The grenade launcher was still not doing any damage whatsoever. Which wasn’t her plan to begin with. All she needed was to get it to one her side of the compound.

“That’s right fuck face! This way!” She yelled at the creature.

At this point, it wasn’t interested in eating either of these two. It just wanted them dead. It lifted one of its claws and slammed it in the direction of Rhenixa. Her adrenaline drunken body allowed her to react causing her to roll forward going underneath the creature.

She stood and took off for the shuttle’s open back door. The mega insect wasn’t going to allow her to get away so easily. Its body shook violently, the underside convulsed in multiple places and started to drop giant disks into the ground.

Almost a meter tall and meter in diameter the pure white disks struck the ground with great force. A couple fell in front of her making her fall backward onto her butt. The disks cracked and opened releasing a thick slime. Within the slime were opaque copies of the monstrous creature.

The shells had been so clear she could almost make out the internal organs slowly beating. In moments she was now surrounded by smaller versions of the giant insect. She started to squirm her way back from the few creatures that swarmed together in front of her.

Lasers began to fly in the direction of Rhenixa. Some of the copies exploded upon impact with the gunfire. Green blood showered downward onto Rhenixa.

The lot that survived the volley took cover behind several claws. A few of them hissed and dispersed from their cover once they realized they still had the superior numbers. Gabe gun down some of the bravery ones.

“Come on!” He extended an arm to Rhenixa. She pulled herself up using his body weight.

“Thanks for the save.” she pulled the grenade launcher back up and began firing into the more denser packed areas of the horde.

The two of them made a tactical retreat to the shuttle. Once entered Rhenixa shut the door. the little buggers bit at the hull looking for a way or trying to create a way to enter the metal box.

Rhenixa kicked on the thrusters frying any of them that got too close to the back end. The shuttle lifted itself high above the treeline. Out of the grasps of  the creature and it’s swarm. Gabe sat down on a crate and sighed a sigh of relief.

“Mission complete?” Gabe kicked his feet outward into the open space.

“It’s not all that happened.” She pressed a button on the console. The back door slowly slid open. The gusts of wind rushed through the compartment.

Several small explosions were heard in the In the distance. Then a giant black and red cloud dominated the area. A shockwave raced across the trees indicated by the trees being pushed away from the compound. Once the main explosion settled, The smoke and fire rose high, higher than they were flying.

“No way.” Gabe was at a lost for words.

“Go big or go home, Right?”

Gabe turned around and looked at her in the cockpit. His mouth formed a smile, “Yeah, Go big or go home.” He had almost forgotten that he was in a group of people that valued money more than they did for lives. Not saying that the destruction wasn’t needed, but sometimes there is such thing as overkill.

By the time the shuttle landed next to the warden the sun was just starting to rise, it was now dawn. The night and day cycle of the planet was actually much shorter than Earths. The night’s on Fuytis lasted approximately four hours.

The two were covered in dirt, blood and grass stains. Their hair an absolute mess, especially Rhenixa’s, usually it’s well kept and brushed. But now it was disheveled and matted in places.

The two stood side by side as the door started to open up.

“You did pretty good, Gabe.” She gave him a hearty punch on his arm.

He flinched and rubbed the spot she punched. “Thanks.” sneaking into military compounds and fighting giant insects. This was now going to be his life.

When they both stepped out a very tired and angry Captain Anaya was leaning on the Warden’s landing gear.

“What the fuck did you two do!?” I only asked you guys to scout!”

The two looked at each other in silence.

“We...kinda got carried away,” Rhenixa spoke up.

“We did get the guns.” Gabe pointed to the shuttle.

Anaya sighed releasing a fraction of her anger. “What happened to your communicators...and shirts?”

“Gabe’s plan.” Rhenixa ratted him out without a second’s hesitation.

“...Human...Method?” He gave the most bull shittery answer that he could conceal behind the cultural difference.

“Now, why the hell was there a massive fucking explosion?”

“...Bugs” Gabe hesitantly answered.

Anaya looked confused.

“Titaphalanx matriarch.” Rhenixa chimed in clarifying the situation.

Anaya opened her mouth to say something but sighed once more. She released the crossed arms she held underneath her breasts. “Go get some sleep, We leave tomorrow morning.”

Gabe saluted her saying something along the lines of ‘aye, aye Captain Titties’ With that she left.

“Heya Gabe”

Gabe made a noise to show his attention.

“Where did you get the idea to use the environment?”

“Oh,” He sat down on the ground to give his body some rest. “From a few movies.”

“Movies?”