As soon as Megaera entered the Gaian forest, the air became more humid and slightly colder. It was not long before the tree tops started obscuring most of the sunlight. She was walking along a muddy path that moved between the trees like a grey snake. A small blue insect-like creature flew close to her face and she waved it away.
Megaera stood still and took a device out of her pocket. The screen lit up and she took off her glove to access the touchscreen.
The device was scanning the area for heat signatures, but only 4 major signatures in a 150 meter radius could be detected, nothing that resembled a human.
She put the device away again and proceeded to follow the path.
12 minutes passed and muddy trail ended in a blue/greenish moss covered soil. She decided to run another scan and this time only 2 major signatures showed up, but nothing close. Megaera turned around to follow the path back to the ship.
A loud shriek could be heard coming from above her in the tree. She looked up and aimed the rifle at the source of the noise, but only saw a moving branch. Seconds later a tapping noise was heard in a nearby tree and Megaera pointed the rifle at it, but could not see anything. She adjusted the sniper scope to heat vision, but saw only the dark blue color in the tree.
She reached with her right hand to the scope to readjust it back to normal and saw some movement in the tree. She kept observing and zoomed in to see a yellow eye with dark spots watching her. Megaera smiled "Hello there, little one..."
Mi didn't notice anything what happened around Meg. She had been too far away and even if she wasn't, she had been quite focused on neatly camouflaging their ships. She was done by the time Meg encountered the wild animal and returned to the Sichel to wait for Meg's return. She tried to think of a plan how to spend the first night here in an attempt to distract her of her slight worries about Megaera's safety alone out there.
The creature moved up further into the tree and Meg lowered the rifle a little.
Suddenly she heard a sound behind her and on the muddy path was a reptilian looking creature looking curiously at her. It was colored in several shades of green and had a dark brown carapace on its back. Its claws were long and the fingers had 4 to 5 digits. Megaera saw it had the same yellow spotted eyes. The creature started hopping around making squeeking noises and Megaera slung the rifle back over her shoulder.
"So this is what you look like. Here to greet your goddess, are you not?"
Megaera streched out her arm to give it a headpat, when the tail of the creature came out of the carapace and with the stinger on the end, stabbed her right shoulder. She flinched and unsheathed her sword in a reflex. The creature was swaying left and right and Megaera deducted by the way its leg muscles were contracting that it was about to jump at her. When it jumped, Meg slashed her sword at it.
The creature shrieked and quickly vanished into a tree. On the ground laid its tail.
Away from all that mess, Mi had decided to take a closer look at Meg's Sichel. Going around it, inspecting it. It appeared slightly more customized than she originally expected it to be. She went inside the ship then and started to chuckle. She expected a way more modified interior than this. Though on closer inspection she atleast found out where Meg stored her tea! "Hmm... oh-oh-oh!" Mi was grinning. She had an idea how to surprise Megaera when she would finally come back. This reminded her, she should start looking for Meg if she didn't return within the next 30 minutes.
Megaera picked up the tail to take a look at it. She wiped off her blood and inspected it to see if it was designed to inject any poison substances. No ducts were visible and the blade of the tail looked solid otherwise.
Another shriek was heard behind her and she quickly took the rifle from her back again. She saw a tree branch move and took aim.
"I guess the other one is back for some divine judgement..."
She did not see the creature. The color of the creature's skin and its bark-like carapace provided perfect camouflage among the tree tops. She saw another branch move and one of the claws of the creature peek from behind the leaves. She took aim just above the visible claw and fired.
The bullet missed the creature and hit the trunk of tree. The creature quickly jumped towards the next tree and caught a branch there with its arms. It quickly climbed higher and jumped to another tree shortly after. It was quiet again, but a few minutes after the rustling of the leaves started again.
Megaera scanned the area for heat signatures again, but nothing in the trees radiated any visible heat.
"Must be some cold blooded creature like Golanski..."
Meanwhile Mi had prepared her little surprises for Megaera. She knew that the woman wouldn't even notice all of them. She left a few notes in the Sichel, secretly wrote her signature on its outer and inner hull panels and now planned to transfer a fun log entry into the Sichel's database.
The rustling sound came closer again and Megaera already located the source of the sound and she was waiting with her rifle ready for the creature. She saw the leaves move where the creature was at and took another shot. Nothing happened.
She reloaded the gun and tracked the movement with her scope. She was waiting for a clear shot this time, but the creature was constantly moving around and jumping from tree to tree. The throbbing pain in her shoulder was getting worse and was becoming an increased burden on her aim as her right hand started trembling
Mi managed to establish a temporary connection between her handheld device and the Sichel's database, uploading a small story she wrote a few days ago to its database. Once that was finished she checked the time. Meg was taking so long.. she started to think about possible scenarios and sighed. About time to search for her.
Megaera missed the third shot. She was getting impatient with the creature.
"Fine, then I will just bore you to death."
Megaera slung the rifle over her shoulder, flinching under the pain of her stabwound while doing so. She then pulled the handgun from out of her holster and casually watched the creature jump around in the trees, without moving a muscle. After 5 minutes the creature slowed down and sat on a branch staring back at Megaera. They looked at eachother for a while when the creature suddenly jumped out of the tree, straight at her. Megaera raised the gun and shot it point blank in the chest.
Before her own departure from the landing spot, Mi grabbed herself her scanning device and then got on the way, roughly aiming for the direction Megaera took. Unlike Meg who just met one of the creatures of Gaia, Mi wasn't really believing that there was anything really dangerous here and rather casually walked along the path Meg used before.