#Solar Scouts

[breathingxspace]

Objects in Motion

A staple of any youth's upbringing, a stint in the Solar Scouts. S1E4, Objects in Motion is the story of Ish, Vel and Jem trying to get their capstone badge, but not counting on the void of space trying to get in the way.

Izzy gets the art badge for this poster.

Listen Here

[jacscorner]

The Solar Scouts return!

Just playing around with my OCs, more so how I draw them. Feels like I'm reconnecting with something I lost over the last 5 years.

[gingerale13]

Magnet Yuri

I am slowly becoming a shit post account aren't I

[spygoinghome]

TF2 SOLAR SYSTEM AU!!!!

Feel Bad for sniper:(

[24bughours]

Haiiii. I died. lol

[theconstellationcollective]

happy total solar eclipse day ive never been so terrified of the sun

[l3rking]

Bungie needs to bring this baby back. 

Give it random rolls. Let it have kill clip or box breathing. Make it an NF weapon. I would grind the daylights out of it. 

[lxghtbound]

@caresofeternity​ from here!

“‘S not nothin’.” Scout’s first instinct is to watch for anyone following close behind Mordecai, before ushering the other Hunter along -- that would definitely need tending to, at least until they’re hidden away in a safe enough space for Mordecai to allow his Ghost out.

There’s a den nearby. It’s meant for nothing more than quick pitstops, so no one else should be lingering there for too long.

“Let’s get goin’ before anyone realises you’re not gonna be bleedin’ out on the ground for ‘em to find.”

[mary-freaking-sue]

Solar Eclipse Coconut Caramel Cookies

Made shortbread cookies. Mixed toasted coconut into homemade caramel. Melted chocolate with black food dye for moon discs. Dyed regular coconut yellow and arranged around the chocolate discs. Put cookies, coconut caramel, yellow coconut strips, and black chocolate discs together!

[buriedwithit]

"nah, man. that just means you've got nobody else to blame. me? i blame my dad for why i'm such a hardass." and for how he managed to turn out as good as he did... "but tell you what, i'll come find you when this shit is all over and buy you a drink. sound good?"

"Well, ya know, you don't raise yourself without getting to be pretty resourceful." Scoffing, she shakes his shoulder free from her hand. "Not to mention learning all the tricks in the book. Diego's just got that competitive spirit." That was one way to put it. "Listen, come find me when you decide you want that drink."

[tresradiossolis]

@yellowhug ♡ for a starter!

Sunny was not a confident man. While working part-time at the local daycare he was always a bundle of nerves, which sometimes caused the children to get stressed out along with him. He was always just so jittery and anxious all the damn time, he struggled to really relax and keep his mind focused...

But when he was with his scout troop, everything was different. The fresh air, the smell of nature, the clinking of loaded backpacks as they all wandered through the woods together... and of course, when the weather and members allowed it, his trusty Golden Retriever Ollie trudging along next to the kiddos... it invigorated him. Breathed new life into his chest, and he found himself nearly bouncing with every step he took.

They hadn't quite set off today though. It was still early morning and the sun had came up, and they just got off the bus together, busy grouping up. Sunny was looking over the kids and made sure that they all were present, Ollie sitting by his side, patiently waiting for them to set off. While his fellow scout leader began telling the kids about how to follow a map and where they'd set up camp, he took a moment to check if any of the kids might have something on their minds...

It wasn't rare for the children to get homesick. Some were scared of the idea of going out into the forest for the first time, and some may even have a bad attitude. For all his flaws, his fellow scouts did often tell Sunny that if somebody could get a child excited for camping, he was the one.

[thezombieprostitute]

Tech Tuesday: Curtis

Summary: Curtis decides to take the next step and ask if you're willing to meet offline.

A/N: Reader is female. No physical descriptors used.

Warnings: Meeting someone from online, Mentions of past bad experiences. Please let me know if I missed any.

Part 1

Series Masterlist

It's 2 o'clock and you're at the library. Your friend, Cassandra, works the reference desk here so she's holding onto your computer, and you'll have an escape if things with Snowpiercer/Curtis go south. You've also packed your mace and Cassandra was nice enough to let you park in her usual spot in the library lot so you could sneak out the back if needed.

Part of you feels ridiculous for being so cautious about someone you've been talking to online for a couple years now, but you can't let go of the "what if". You're genuinely hoping it goes well, you really are, but it never hurts to be careful. Especially after last time.

You shake your head. No, you're not going to think about Chase again. He doesn't deserve the time and energy involved in thinking about him. And already Curtis was showing himself to be not like him. He suggested going to a public space for a first meeting. He didn't pressure you to say "yes" to this meeting. And he didn't argue with you, at all, about the time and place.

He also didn't argue when you asked him to send a photo of himself without sending one of yourself to him. You're fairly certain the photo is really him, but those eyes look too beautiful to not be touched up a bit. At least the rest of him lined up with things he'd told you about himself previously. Pierced lip, beard, buzzcut. Maybe the lighting just really highlighted the eyes.

Curtis had arrived at the cafe a half hour early. He'd parked as close as he could in case he needed to take the computer home. He was hopeful he could fix it here with his laptop, but it would be nice to have an excuse to meet you again.

He was worried you wouldn't show up at all. He tried to acquiesce to your requirements for meeting up but that doesn't guarantee you'll be here. For all he knows, he's the one being catfished. But with how long the two of you have been talking, the gradual building of trust on both sides, he's hopeful. He's not usually the type to give in to hope, but you changed that.

Curtis can't help but continue looking around as people come and go, wondering if one of them is you. You'd told him you'd be wearing your scrubs but maybe you were scouting him out first, making sure he was who he said he was. You'd told him that you'd had bad experiences meeting in person before. It was a big part of why he was going so far out of his way to accommodate your requests. He'd had to clock out of work early, though it also saved him from having to argue with Bucky about the legacy code. He'd driven all the way across town to the main branch of the library. He just really wanted this all to go well.

A beautiful woman in scrubs walks up to the counter and orders a drink. Curtis wants to go up and ask if it's you but he stays put. He doesn't need you to walk in on him trying to talk to someone else. His knee starts bouncing because of his nerves. The woman gets her coffee and walks over to his table.

"Hello, Curtis," you say.

"Hello, Heart," he smiles.

Part 1

Series Masterlist

Tagging @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82 ; @peyton-warren @ronearoundblindly; @stellar-solar-flare

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Poop Crystals

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)  

The pace in which human technology progressed over the millennia was rather standard for a class 4 species. Even when accounting the periods of scientific degradation which resulted from natural plagues or religious persecution; it was expected that humans would not achieve advanced space travel until another 2-3 thousand years had passed.

Scientifically speaking human scientists were well more advanced than the society they lived in, but due to the technological limitations of the human race they were held back from implementing their designs. A primary limitation was the lack of a sufficiently powerful power source. They did have many different forms of power generators ranging from solar to nuclear, but to power larger machines often required equally large energy sources. To power their ships alone around a third of their vessels were dedicated to the power cores.   

With these restrictions in place travel between stars for humans often relied on decade long journeys in cryo sleep; which ironically required even more power generators to maintain. Their large size made them easy targets for natural disasters such as space debris or prowling space pirates seeking an easy profit margin at the slave markets. These dangers became a standard for human travel until the Terran civilization encountered the planet Nolla 987 and the species that called it home.

During a long duration colonization trip the human ship “Midas” was struck by the trail debris of a rogue comet and knocked off course. The robotic caretakers tried their best to maintain the course, but with the damage done to the ship their primary programming to maintain the lives of the crew kicked in and diverted the ship to the nearest habitable planet for debarkation. Nolla 987 was the closest planet with a stable atmosphere. Originally charted several years earlier but deemed unsuitable for colonization or industrial expansion, it was not ear marked for either and left alone; until the Midas incident that is.

The landing was not a smooth one. Several engines had been damaged and multiple hull breaches resulted in portions of the ship being shredded away during the entry process. It would be safer to say that the Midas crash landed during the final stretch of the maneuver, but with a 73% survival rate of the crew a rather acceptable crash landing.

One by one the crew and colonists were unfrozen to find the ship a burning wreck and only a handful of robotic assistants still functioning. The industrial printing machines were relatively undamaged but without the ships power core they could not be used to print components or tools needed to make the necessary repairs. The crew was then forced to ration its remaining power supply and divided into two teams. The first team would comb through the wreckage and salvage what they could of the wreck while also building shelter. The second group would scout the surrounding area for anything of use and then report back.

It did not take long for the second team to stumble upon a nest of the dominant species of the planet. An insectoid called the “Sectar” which ranged from the size of a house cat to as large as a two story building. These insects digested their food and excreted the waste into a dense crystalian substance that they then used to build massive hive like complexes.

The occupants of the hive had been driven from the hive by the crash landing of the Midas leaving it almost completely empty save for a few eggs and new hatchlings who were not strong enough to flee on their own. Several of the second team members had been scanning the crystal structures while interacting with the newborn Sectar’s. To quote a journal entry of one of them, “They were like insect golden retrievers. Extremely derpy with at least four times as many sets of eyes. They followed us around on their legs like we were their mothers and clung to our legs when we began to return to our ship for the night.”

At least one of the second team was confirmed to have brought a hatchling back to their camp. There was a debate amongst the survivors on if they should try and eat it, but the notion was quickly squashed as they still had food reserves and no one was brave enough to see how the alien’s bio matter would react inside the human digestive system.

The same human who had brought the hatchling back offered it a portion of food which it eagerly ate. Not long after the hatchling excreted a hardened crystal roughly the size of a thimble. When the human made to pick up the seemingly beautiful gem they recoiled as an electrical discharge shocked their hand. This immediately drew the attention of the rest of the crew who began carefully examining the crystal substance. After some rather rough jury-rigging, the crystal was wired into one of the printer machines and to the surprise of everyone powered the machine. The crew quickly learned that the older Sectar’s would produce larger crystal excrements but were extremely hostile and territorial. Smaller Sectar’s were deemed more desirable for the time being as they were easier to train and harvest crystals from.  

Within a matter of days the crew had not only collected enough crystals to power all of their machines and send out a distress signal, but also used the new found crystal power to create a full settlement on the planet complete with water filtration, crop fields, and a sizeable wall to keep out the native wildlife.

It would not be for another thirty years before a passing human shipped picked up their distress signal and went to investigate the planet. When they arrived on Nolla 987 they were astonished to find a fully functioning colony complete with limited orbital facilities. Nearly every human settler and their descendants had a Sectar in their household that they would take care of and feed and in exchange use their crystal excrement to power nearly everything they needed to live.

From there it was only a matter of time before the entirety of human space was aware of the events of Nolla 987 and the Sectar species. Within the decade the colony on Nolla 987 became the capital for a fully settled world with dozens of cities and communities. The Sectar species were transported throughout human space and began being implemented in all aspects of society.

There was initial resistance to the new power source by existing power blocks which realized Sectar power would be far more efficient than nuclear powered engines, but unlike other power sources they had squashed in development the Sectar power option had thirty years of trial and error to back it up with research as well as a fully functioning model with the planet of Nolla 987.

Sectar’s became a common sight on every human planet and were treated like common pets. It was even studied that when introduced to different food sources the energy output of crystal excrement could be increased resulting in certain food industries booming overnight. The composition of spices, cooking technique, and flavoring became an entirely new and highly prestigious academic field with the most successful of its practitioners being highly sought after by companies.

The technological capabilities of humanity experienced a massive surge in advancement within fifty years to the point humans no longer needed cryo ships to travel between stars. Those who had been studying humanity found themselves now being introduced to them as humans winded up on their doorstep with a Sectar on their shoulder and a perverse obsession with collecting its bodily waste.    

[sheepwavehdg]

HDG story recs: Ongoing mid-long length works

Some more recs of stories that aren't front page on ao3 or SUPER commonly talked about. This time focusing on stuff you can sink your teeth into as they're currently updating;

Tears of lavender by callmeprismatic: a frustrated artist creates what might be feralist propaganda, and ends up in a wardship. an absolute hidden gem in the setting, criminally under-read.

Dollhouse by PyxxieStyxx: an egg is given an invitation to a mysterious dollhouse, but they definitely arent a doll themselves, definitely not...

Root Privileges by shitpostleft: a comedic story about a failgirl affini systems admin and her friends trying to get her to go outside. inspired by the idea of affini-swapping the cast of wellness check.

Ramifaction by fuckingterrify: a lawyer has her mind slowly eroded by the biorhythms of her Affini guardian. This story does some incredibly clever things, and is one of my absolute favorite stories in the entire setting.

Artful Manipulation by floof_likes_plants: while I am known as The Pladdy Writer, I was not the first. This story was, and it rules. An irate affini surgeon ends up helping a human who gets under his skin.

Empty shell by stimulacrum: an emotionally empty Terran prison guard helps arrange a defense from the alien invaders, until it turns out the invaders aren't quite so bad.

Irregular orbits by rocketmermaid: a safety scout on an outpost long abandoned by the accord is rescued from a killer solar flare by the affini. what first appears to be gentle help may be more manpulative than it seems. depraved kink and a heartfelt story of reconciliation ensues.

Knock upper bend over by sapphicsounds: a pregnancy kink mob-boss-to-housewife story. I have beta read the full thing, and it's one of the hottest things I have ever read.

Freedom's ember by kanagen: the ramifications of No gods no masters are explored in this sequel story set 60 years later.

Golden Ladder by ashinbloom: a depressed egg is rescued from a solar flare by a strangely human affini, and must navigate life in the compact.

Alder's Prize (M/f) /Adelira's prize (F/f) by Sheepwave and 4WheelSword- Hard noncon forcefem that plays out a lot like the original HDG but with the horny turned up to 11. Has both M/f and F/f versions. it's still my list and I'm still allowed to Include one of mine, plus I cowrote it so it's only half mine.

Sol is Short for Solace by witch_freya and Fluxom: a Terran rebel on the run goes on a hitchhiking space road trip and is constantly getting fucked along the way while her future owners stalks her prey from afar. this one is depraved and i fucking love it.

Angels on her shoulder by pyxxiestyxx: One of the setting's only drone fics, a rebel is given a mysterious latex suit that connects her to an affini from afar, and has to try to get out without being caught by her insane crewmates. yeah I'm including two by my girlfriend and nobody can stop me

[spygoinghome]

Tf2 solar system au

Tf2 solar system actually make by me, lol, what a cringe au

[deathworlders-of-e24]

Liz, Biotechnician

Part 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Vending Machine whirred softly as it produced the 5th candy bar in a row. It’d been a week since the science division had turned into a chocolate factory, but Liz wasn’t that worried. Coco didn’t have a chemical makeup that could be affected by diabetic amounts of sugar. The opposite, in fact, the little Sprygan was doing better than ever, and wasn’t so little anymore. Just like plants on Earth, botanical lifeforms needed glucose to grow, and apparently when given daily supplements of the stuff, their growth rate accelerated at frightening speeds.

Liz walked back to the lab, with a hearty Halloween’s worth of candy bars in her hands and pockets. Some crewmen gave her odd looks as she passed, but she paid them little mind. The door to the lab opened with a quick hiss.

“So we got milk, dark, white with macadamia nuts, and… what are you doing?”

Coco was standing in the center of the room, their new fuller branches seemingly vibrating. Liz thought they looked excited. The same Coco, who at the time when the mission began, was at best maybe 3 feet tall, now stood almost 5 1/2 feet in height and had a significantly thicker trunk. They were about as big as Liz was herself now, with a thicker canopy in the beginnings of bloom. They leaned in Liz’s direction, vines trembling.

“I just got a message from the bridge. There’s a uncharted planetoid in this system with a moon that might have breathable atmosphere, and they want a full ecological report written up.”

“So we’re going down there?”

“Correct! It’ll take 2 cycles to get there, but then it’s all ours!”

Liz was overjoyed! Finally, some actual field work instead of editing someone else’s papers all day. A whole new ecosystem with god knows how many new species… if it had atmosphere, of course.

Can’t get too excited yet girl, Liz thought.

“Does the moon have water?” She asked.

“Indeed.”

That’s a real good sign though, she figured.

“Can I have my chocolate now please?” Coco asked.

“Oh right, yeah, here you go,” Liz said, setting the bars on the table. Coco’s vines reached out and snatched them, taking them back into their canopy to be the plant equivalent of ‘digested’. The usual humming started up as they enjoyed their snacks. Liz wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see bark physically forming on their trunk now, or perhaps it was simply a discoloration.

“You’re sure this much sugar is good for you hon?” Liz asked, concern slowly winning out over scientific curiosity.

“The thing you call cocoa seeds are not plentiful on my planet, so I’m unsure if any Sprygan has ever had this much in such a short period of time, but I’ve never had so much energy before. My growth rate is miraculous, I’m almost completely out of my juvenile sapling stage now.”

“And that’s a… good thing?”

“Very. Saplings on my planet are the easier targets for predators. With a harder outer layer I’ll be much safer now. I’ve been composing a paper on this for days, it’ll be of great significance to Spryga.” Coco continued humming, ‘munching’ away on her candy bars.

“Well alright then, so long as you’re okay,” Liz said. “So tell me more about this moon.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deep in the Antares System, hidden from scanners by the solar radiation of the tertiary star, was a desolate little rock burnt to a crisp by stellar winds during a flare eons ago. Its moon, however, was protected from the fire while in the shadow of the planet. And so it continued to turn, with barely a few degrees changed, undisturbed.

Until now.

The Noah entered the system from WARP, keeping a safe distance from the tertiary star in case of solar flares, and settled into a comfortable orbit around the planetoid to scout the surface of the nearby moon, now being called MX13.

From the Bridge, Liz and Coco read the initial scans from various probes launched when they’d arrived.

“Gravity reads…damn, big moon,” Liz said, surprised, “9.1, just a little under galactic and Earth standard.”

“Gas spectrometer reads as breathable atmosphere to 70% of known intelligent lifeforms,” Coco read on, “but not humans. You’ll have to wear a mask Human Liz.”

“What’s the chemical makeup like?” Liz asked.

“95% methane… similar to what you call Titan in your Terran home system. Without a mask you’d have a few minutes at best before you suffocated.”

“So yeah, rebreathers are fashionable this time of year,” Liz laughed. Even the idea of suffocating in a potentially hostile ecosystem wasn’t enough to bring her spirits down. It had been ages since she’d set foot on extraterrestrial soil.

“Ahem,” grunted Skitch, as much as a bipedal bug man could go ‘ahem’ with mandibles.

“What does fashionable mean?” Coco asked quietly.

“I’ll tell you later,” Liz whispered.

Captain Skitch had been waiting off to the side for a while now while they geeked out over the moon.

“Now then,” he said, arms behind his thorax stoically, “in six rels[?] [GAIL standard term: 1 rel approximately 1 earth hour(s)] we’re sending a shuttle down to the moon to conduct the requested ecological report. Our main objective is to see if there are any lifeforms, intelligent or otherwise, living there. If it is deemed uninhabited, we’re to declare whether or not it could become a potential colony for GAIL member races.”

Liz was almost painfully excited. Uncharted habitats, potentially establishing a colony, this is what she worked 6 years in the academy for, what she lived for.

“Sir, what are we supposed to do if we do come across any lifeforms down there?” She asked.

“You know the rules. On the off chance you come across anyone intelligent, you do not get involved, you do not get seen. We’re here to record the natural evolution of the universe, nothing more.”

“There’s very little chance of that,” Coco chimed in, “the first scans of the surface are being analyzed, there doesn’t seem to be any structure of any kind on the surface, so it’s unlikely we’ll come across any sentient species.”

“On the off chance you do have an encounter, I’m assigning commander Koatil to the landing party. She’ll be in charge of everything, and has my full authority to make any judgment call she sees fit.”

As if on cue, First officer Koatil made the bridge, her thermal suit fitted with extra armor for the expedition, hiding her powder blue fur. It seemed to Liz she’d freshly sharpened the horns on top of her head as well. She’d always figured they looked like rams horns, and thought how interesting it was that Doun women were the only ones with horns in their species.

“Good to meet you both,” Koatil said. “I’m sure this’ll go smoothly for all of us, just stick with the group and everything will be fine. Permission to depart, Captain?”

“Granted.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Noah’s shuttle bay was about the size of Liz’s old high school gymnasium, vaulted ceiling and wide open space, plenty of room for the three docked shuttles. Commander Koatil stood nearby, doing her final check as bay staff loaded the shuttle with cases of the scientific instruments they’d use to analyze the moon’s ecosystem.

Liz and Coco, along with the shuttle pilot and 2 other security personnel, stood ready to board at the commander’s say. She inspected the crew going down to the moon with them. The pilot seemed fine, even had two more arms to steer, so that was reassuring, but it was the security personnel that caught her attention. If Liz was seeing it right, the two were not on friendly terms with each other. The first one, an Indoprime, was standing at an awkward distance from the other guard, a Sed man. Neither spoke to the other, the Indoprime even slightly leaning away from the Sed, who stared straight ahead and said nothing. Both had plasma pistols on their belts, as well as upper armor over their uniforms. Liz was going to be severely disheartened if they messed up the ‘roadtrip’ she’d been waiting for.

Commander Koatil handed the pad to one of the crewmen and made her way to them at the shuttle.

“All aboard to MX13,” she said, resting her big paw on the pistol on her hip as she climbed in the door. The rest of them, Liz and Coco, the pilot, and the security personnel followed behind her. The door sealed shut behind them.

Liz took her seat, helping to secure Coco in theirs. The buckles weren’t well suited to thumbless species. She’d made sure the belts didn’t dislodge their own pistols from their holsters. Having a rogue plasma shot in here wouldn’t end well.

Buttons were pressed, dials turned, something that looked like a cup holder was pulled out of the dash, and the shuttle came to life.

“Shuttle Alpha, you are clear for departure.”

“Acknowledged,” replied the pilot.

The hangar doors opened, leaving behind the gas mesh, a thin blue wall of light to keep the air in the room from exploding into the void. Their shuttle passed through it easily, heading into open space.

“Haven’t seen this view for a while,” Liz said. Sure, of course there were windows on the ship, but it felt different in a shuttle. Like the void was just a hair’s width away from her now, waiting for her.

“My sensory receptors can’t make out anything but the shuttle,” Coco said, “could you describe it to me?” Coco’s leaves were shaking slightly, so Liz reached out and put a hand on their branch. The shaking calmed.

“Well first it’s just the sheer amount of stars,” Liz said quietly, “like a million points of light. There’s a nebula about 12,000 light years away off the port side that looks like butterfly wings if you squint… if you look at it right. Coco, I can’t express it right, the moon looks beautiful.”

“Human Liz, I’m jealous of you. Seeing in the visible spectrum must been so interesting.”

“Well what does the world around you look like? What do you perceive?”

“Well as you know, my branches have a sensory function to detect my surroundings, vibrations, light, even sensations in a way. But I don’t know how one would compare our two sensory experiences.”

“Your communicator is built into your brain isn’t it?” Liz asked. “Couldn’t it be adjusted to send sensory signals to your mind as well?”

“It’s possible, but the technology isn’t developed yet,” Coco explained. Liz looked at her a moment.

“Think we could fix that? I’d hate for my best friend to miss this view for their whole life.”

Coco didn’t say anything to that. She just listened as Liz described the universe around them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boosters fired.

Air brakes deployed.

Shuttle Alpha landed safely on the moon MX13.

The landing party filed out, and except for Coco, everyone decided against the worst case scenario and wore respirators. It wasn’t as bulky as Liz first thought, just a face mask with a line to a small air cleaner on her belt. Coco was the only one who didn’t need to breathe, so they were totally fine.

Stepping off the shuttle onto the moon’s surface, Liz was surprised at the vegetation around them. Muddy purple grass bed the ground, surrounded by rocky patches across the valley where they’d landed. Off in the distance were what appeared to be trees, thick branchless trunks growing straight up, splitting into angular canopies. Liz brought her camera up and snapped a photo.

“Alright, spread out but try to stay in sight of the shuttle,” Koatil said over their radios. “I know we’re setting g sensors pretty far out, so if anyone gets into trouble out there, launch a flare and we’ll come get you. Grite! You’re with the science team, go with them.”

The Sed man, Grite, looked almost pained at the idea of tagging along with Liz and the Sprygan.

“Aye, commander.”

“Think you can help us carry the sensors?” Liz asked, hoping to break the ice. She already had 2 bags strapped to her back and another slung over her shoulder. Coco was too small to carry anything.

“You can carry your own supplies,” growled Grite, keeping his distance from them.

What a dick, Liz thought, shouldering another bag on her other arm. The sensors she was carrying were heavy, but she was still in high spirits. Field work! Hurray!

They must’ve walked for over a mile, planting sensors every few hundred feet in ‘places of interest’, namely places Liz and Coco thought looked cool or had neat vegetation or rock formations. They’d made their way into a swampy area, heading towards a line of hills in the distance.

Coco went off a ways to plant a sensor by a small marshy cove they’d detected. Grite followed behind Liz, glaring every time she looked back. She didn’t know what she’d done to annoy him so much, she’d just met the guy, but maybe she’d done something or said something offensive by alien standards.

Whatever, don’t need him for this, Liz thought. This is a brain mission, not a buff rock guy mission.

“Human Liz,” Coco called over the radio, “there’s a rocky area here, with a subterranean tunnel system.”

“Cool, moon caves,” Liz laughed. “I’ll be right there with the another sensor, just wait for me, okay?”

“There are these round stones here half buried in the soil, at the entrance,” they continued.

That made Liz pause a moment.

“Just one or two, or are they in a kind of a pile?”

Static.

“Coco? Talk to me hon, pile or no pile?”

Static still. A few pips and pops, followed by a squeal of feedback noise. Liz’s blood ran cold.

“-uman Liz-… predator-… help-…”

“Grite launch the flare now!” Liz yelled, dropping the bags to the ground before breaking out in a sprint. She stomped and lunged through a few hundred yards of marsh, quick as she could, hitting solid earth at a dead run. The Sed was either behind her or he wasn’t, Liz couldn’t think about that in the moment. She had a pistol herself, and while she may have been the science geek on the ship, her dad had made sure she knew how to use it.

She cleared the marsh and crested a small ridge line, following the trudging trail of the little Sprygan. There she saw the scene, Coco on their side, massive claw marks raked up their trunk, and what looked like a cross between a mountain lion and a gator, long snout and mouth with jagged teeth and a ‘feline’ body, muscled and lithe with a forked tail. The thing’s back was covered in ridged scales, while its limbs were bare, wrapped in fur and old battle scars.

FUCK, Liz thought. She pulled her pistol and shot energized plasma directly at its head, but it barely even burned it. Whatever this thing was made of, its skin was fire proof. Her translator crackled in her ear.

“-human Liz…-?”

Liz didn’t hesitate any further. She leapt from the ridge, landing on the creature’s back. She took the butt of her pistol and started slamming it on the back of the thing’s head, over and over again, before the creature bucked her off.

Liz fell hard, hitting her head and mask on the ground with a sickening crack. Gas started venting fast, there was an inch long crack in her visor now, a whole chuck of it missing, falling somewhere in the dirt. Somewhere above her hair line she must’ve been cut on the rocks, because blood was dripping down into her left eye.

Dimly she was aware that she was already dead, if her mask was broken then there was no way to get back to the shuttle before she suffocated. But that being said, she was going to fuck up this monster trying to eat her best friend before making her grand exit.

What a way to go, huh Liz? she imagined in her father’s voice. He’d be smiling in a situation like this. Liz grabbed the side of her broken mask and ripped it off, throwing it at the creature as it crouched in front of her. She took in a deep breath of ‘air’, filling her lungs, and screamed. Her legs bent into a crouch, her back tensed, she tasted blood in her mouth. Adrenaline poured into her veins, dulling the pain, giving her strength and funneling rage into the center of her brain. She had one job now.

“COME ON THEN YOU FUCKER, LETS FUCKING GO!”

Liz charged the creature, firing bolts of burning plasma as she went, praying that dick Grite was somewhere nearby ready to get Coco out of there while it was busy mauling her to death.

The creature shrugged off the pistol fire, pouncing on her, pinning her to the rocky ground. Stones and the alien’s claws dug into her sides and back. It opened its jaws wide, and Liz realized it meant to eat her head. Fuck this thing.

“You hungry you big bastard?! EAT THIS!”

Liz worked her arm free, the one still holding a death grip on her plasma pistol, and shoved it down the creature’s throat. Its teeth tore into her arm, screaming pain ripped up her side, and Liz never stopped pulling the trigger. The smell of burning filled the air as the creature squealed and whined, its body going limp as bodily fluid poured out its mouth. She didn’t stop, emptying the clip into its blown out organs. Finally the thing was quiet.

Liz didn’t even bother trying to pull her arm out of the alien’s mouth, the thing was ruined, and she was dying anyway. Between blood loss and asphyxiation, her vision was already fading to little pin pricks. With the last shred of consciousness, she let out one more howl, screaming into the air, before everything went dark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elizabeth Collins didn’t remember what happened after that. All she knew was she was sore all over and weirdly cold, which would make sense if she was just a corpse, but why did she hear… was that ABBA?

Please not an eternity of pop music, she thought sluggishly. Anything but that.

She struggled, oddly weightless, and tried to open her eyes but found they’d been bandaged shut.

Oh good, I’m alive, people hardly ever bandage dead people.

What about mummies?

Shut up, me.

She reached a hand out and touched something smooth and solid. She tried to tap her knuckles against it, but only got one good rap at it before her hand hurt too much. Thankfully it seemed that’s all she needed.

“Human Liz, are you conscious? How do you feel? Are you in discomfort?”

Oh good, Coco was alive too.

“Wait, no, don’t try to speak right now, you’re in the regeneration pod right now, in nano surgery. I’ll be right here when it’s over, return to being unconscious please.”

Oh, okay, sleep sounded good anyway. Night night, Coco.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s gonna be twitchy for a few cycles until it adjusts to your neural pathways, but it should feel just like the old one soon.”

One of the other humans, a woman named Jane Shaw who worked in med bay, had sat down with her earlier that morning to go over her… condition.

“We had to replace the lining of your lungs with a prosthetic mesh to keep them working,” she’d said, “you were out in that methane air for a while. If it hadn’t been for your Sprygan friend feeding you oxygen from their branches, you never would’ve made it.”

“I don’t think even they knew they could do that,” Liz had forced a laugh, coughing a bit. “Now, about my arm?”

“Completely scrapped. Whatever stomach acid that creature had, it melted your arm down to the bone. Can’t repair what isn’t there, I’m afraid.”

“I understand. Thanks, Doc.”

Well ain’t that something? Liz was effectively 15, maybe 20, percent cybernetic now. She told herself she’d trick out her new arm with all sorts of cool gadgets, making every effort to distract herself from the fact that she lost her right fucking arm.

“On the plus side,” she said quietly to herself as she walked toward the lab, “got another new project too.”

The door hissed open. And there was Coco, still as a tree, which she guessed made sense. She could barely see the claw marks on their trunk now, but wished she couldn’t at all. She should’ve been faster.

“Human Liz?”

“What’s up hon, you miss me?”

It’d been three days since the landing party had come back with her bleeding out in the shuttle, three days since she’d gotten to relax in their shared lab. She tapped the new glass enclosure where the eggs they’d gathered were incubating, the sign on the side saying ‘these eggs cost an arm and a leg!’ Apparently Chief Ducane had gone down there to gather what equipment could be salvaged and decided they’d be worth something to the science team. Maybe he thought he was being funny, Liz didn’t know. She did chuckle a little. Just a little.

“Human Liz, you are… okay now, yes? The reconstruction…” Coco’s leaves were shaking.

“Come on Coco, you know me, I’m totally fine! See?” Liz held up her new chrome arm, the new metallic fingers twitching at odd angles.

“That’ll stop in a few cycles, Doctor Shaw said so.”

“Human Liz, why did you do that?” Coco stood stock still in the center of the lab.

“Do what hon?”

“Why did you risk your existence[?] [life] to help me? That is not what we do on Spryga.”

Liz blinked a few times.

“Well that sucks, you all just let people get knocked off there?”

“Yes, in order to maintain the bulk of the colony.”

“Well this isn’t Spryga, Coco, and you’re my friend, of course I was gonna come get you, you asked for my help!”

“I should not have!”

Liz sat down and took a breath. This would be weird and awkward for everyone in the room who wasn’t an egg.

“You asked for my help, and I’m sorry, but I give a shit about you, and yeah, it cost me an arm and some lungs, but I was going to save you. So can you relax about it now? I mean damn, you’re my best friend, I wasn’t gonna leave you out there!”

“I don’t know what that means!”

“Yeah you do. It means exactly what you think it does. That I’m coming to get you, whether you like it or not. We’ve only known each other three weeks on this boat, but you got yourself a very attached human who’ll make sure you live, got it?”

Coco was quiet a moment. Their branches started shaking again.

“I’m very very sorry you lost a branch[?] [limb] because of me,” they said quietly.

“It’s okay hon, I wasn’t mad at you about that. I’m just glad that Grite guy launched the flare so the shuttle could come get us.”

“Grite did not set off any flares,” Coco said, confused. “After you had killed the predator, I fired one into the sky before giving you oxygen from my leaves.”

Oh I’m gonna kill that guy with my new robo arm, Liz thought.

Back burner that for now.

“So yeah, hugs and kisses, make ups all around, love you too Coco,” Liz said, using her flesh hand to brush away the stale air between them. “You wanna help me trick out my arm? I was thinking a laser pointer and a universal remote control, what do you think?”

“I think you should be focused more on rehabilitation. From my research on lifeforms like humans, you require an extensive amount of time to recover from injuries this severe. It’s actually amazing, any other race would’ve been permanently incapacitated in similar situations.”

“Yeah, humans are weird huh? Perks of evolution on a deathworld like Earth.” She tried laughing again, dissolving into a coughing fit. Coco stood watching her. Liz could feel concern mixed with just a hint of judgment.

“Okay, yeah, I got rehab scheduled every other cycle after the shift is over,” Liz admitted.

“Good,” they said, content. “If my… best friend, is not functioning properly, I would be distressed.”

Liz smiled.

“And yes, I would most enjoy retrofitting your new branch[?] [limb]. We could make it… fashionable is the word, yes?”