Vision blurry, I struggled to my feet. Looking around, Sam and the rest of the crew are strewn around the room, slowly returning to consciencness. I helped Sam to stand up.
I moved back to the control room, except it was barely recognizeable for the vines invading the room.
When I saw him, what else I saw took me my surprise. The vines were slowly making their way up his legs.
"Captain!" I yelled as I ran over to the unmoving figure.
The vines then reared up to form a wall between me and the captain, thorns brandished.
"Help! Big, thorny vines of death are trying to impale the me and the captain!" I screamed.
Sam was the first to arrive.
"What is this, Sam?" I shouted.
"I don't know! This thing doesn't exist on Earth!" He ran to the shattered window the plant had crashed through, picked up a shard of glass and began to attempt to saw through tendrils that had begun to visibly snake into the room from outside. Others arriving on the scene followed suit, cutting me free.
I snatched a large piece and shouted, "The captain is still behind that wall of plants!"
At that moment, I looked outside, and what was out there was horrifying. A bush, with the vines flowing from it, seemingly endlessly, was the source. The vines were tearing chunks from the Viper's hull with its thorns.
Running to Claw's aid, I got Sam's attention and said, "You wondered what plants that are here? Now you know."
Sam chuckled darkly. "Yeah. Now I know." He turned his focus back to hacking through the vines that had turned to the offensive.
Whipping and cutting tendrils waved in an elegant, deadly display of nature's wrath. Some crew members were picked up and thrown into the walls.
Eventually we cut through the vines to discover the captain was no more. All that was left was a few shreds of cothing and a trail of blood to a hole that the plant had torn in the wall.
"Captain!" Sorka, our defence expert, dashed to the hole, dodging whipping shoots, and stuck her head out. "Captain! Captain!" Turning back, she let a tear drop.
The vines were slinking back from whence they came.
"I saw his hand dissapear under the bush. He's gone."
No one said a word. The only sounds were the captain's bones crunching under the deadly bush, and the ground shifting as the vines slid away.
"We should get moving before that... thing gets violent again." Sorka took a shaky breath. We all agreed.
She led back into the hallway and into the crash room. We all grabbed supplies from cupboards installed in the wall. This included a blaster, provisions, tents, and extra charges. I helped open the hatch in the roof, climbed out, and slid down to the forest floor.
The surrounding jungle was a mass of huge trees, thick fern-like plants and grasses. Squawks, screeches and faraway roars created a wild symphony. I pulled out my blaster and loaded in as many charges as it could hold.
Sorka led us through the trees in silence. She took us far away from the deadly bush and into a clearing. She had us set up our tents and start a fire.
Not long after the fire had been made to be roaring strong, the sound of screeching metal started up.
"It probably sees the Viper as a threat, and it probably won't stop until there is nothing left." Sam sighed. "How are we gonna get back?"
"I say we blow the bush to smithereens!" Said a crew member I didn't know.
"No! I need to study it, maybe we can learn to identify them so we don't get into more trouble with them." Sam objected.
"Then do we kill the (insert cencorship noise here) out of the (insert cencorship noise here) thing?" The man said again.
"Um, sure." Sam retreated into his own thoughts.
After a few moments of silence, the foliage started to rustle.
"Hold your fire." Sorka murmured. "Don't waste your charges."
Out of the bushes burst a herd of small animals, long tails tucked under them. They rushed through the camp without giving any of us a second glance. Their colors varied from sandy-brown, shades of green, and jet black.
A black one stopped right in front of me. This was my chance to get a good look at one. It was roughly a foot tall at the shoulder, and maybe five feet long from nose to tail. It resembled a dragon from Western mythology, without wings. It had a row of quills down its spine to the end of its tail. Its stout claws dug into the ground, its tail whipped out from under it, and it lunged onto my leg and up onto my back before I could react.
I stayed completely still. "No one. Move." I said unnecesarily, no one moved a muscle or said a word.
The animal scrambled onto my shoulder and sniffed my head. It huffed and whined loudly until six others appeared. They yapped at each other for a minute, and the new arrivals climbed up crew of their own. I tried relaxing to see the reptile's reaction. It simply shifted on my shoulder.
"I- I think I'm going to turn in now." The camp agreed they would do the same.
I crawled into my tent with the animal moving around to stay on. I lay down and the creature moved onto my chest. I fell asleep to the sound of a tiny pair of lungs slowing to the slow rythm of sleep.
