Continuity

Here be Giants

The shuttle lifted off, thrusters sending papers flying throughout the vehicle bay. The pilot gently brought the shuttle into the massive airlock, where they waited for a few minutes for the air to vent and the doors to open, exposing them to the vast emptiness of space.
The trip to the edge of the planet's atmosphere took a couple hours. The pilots let out a warning that they where on approach, a few seconds later the shuttle began to shake as it fought the growing air resistance. Flames erupted around the outside of the shuttle, the heat and violent shaking got so intense, everyone on board thought this was it.
"Hang on guys, trying to compensate for the higher gravity!" One of the pilots voices strained to be heard.
Just as it seemed like the shuttle was ready to fall apart, it suddenly became calm, the shuttle entered a smooth glide toward the layer of clouds obstructing their view.
"S.S. Continuity, this is transport one, planetary approach successful, beginning landing approach."
Everyone let out sighs of relief, looking out the windows at the cloud banks coming up quick. From orbit, Terra 13 was mostly blue, massive oceans covered alot of its surface, leaving room for barely any green. As the shuttle burst through the clouds they could see how wrong they where. Massive tall blue tree like plants shot up towards the sky, rivers winding their way through underneath. Huge mountains rose up in the distance, green familiar looking foliage emerged in these higher places.
"Its beautiful" Cassandra remarked in awe "all these blue plants...we thought they where all oceans. I wonder how much water is actually here." Everyone was arching their necks back to look at the amazing view.
"Hey Doc, do you see that?" Ren asked, pointing towards the odd structures. Erupting up through the blue trees where three structures, they looked almost like pyramids.
"Yes, those look like... ziggurats? We need to get a closer look at those." Cassandra was excitedly jotting down notes, she seemed about to bubble over with excitement.
"I'm taking us in Captain" with that the shuttle banked and began decending towards an open field awash in orange.
"Roger that." Ren turned and addressed his soldiers. "You heard him, lock and load! We don't know what here is and isn't hostile so stay alert!"
"Yes sir!" The reply rang out over the shuttle engines.
"Yes sir" Cassandra sarcastically added after them. Ren could see this would be an interesting day.
The shuttle doors slid open as they got close enough to the ground, revealing remarkable sights.
The blue trees looked almost like mushrooms, all the branches converging to a center point high above the trunk. The strange blue colour contrasted with the Orange moss all over the ground gave a truly alien feel to everything. The shuttle passed over a small clearing and everyone was taken back to see what looked like a deer, only much bigger, easily twice as tall as Ren.
"Sir we might be the bottom of the food chain out here." Jenkins piped up, for once Ren agreed with him.
The shuttle arrived at a clearing large enough to drop into, slowly decending down until the wheels touch down.
"Alright let's move! Remember, stay alert, this is only a reconnaissance mission, don't get eaten Jenkins!" Ren always enjoyed poking fun at the hound marine, he was a good kid though, accurate as hell with a rifle.
Ren jumped out into the ground, almost falling over. The Orange moss was thick, and sticky almost. The extra gravity was immediately noticeable, only a few months of physio couldn't get them prepared for this.
"Alright let's take it slow, Doc grab whatever samples you need." Ren waved them forward, and they began their slow march to edge of the forest.
Cassandra was collecting everything she could lay her hands on, moss, dirt, little chuncks from the fleshy blue trees, even a strange bug she found. Pushing deeper into the unknown things became surreal, dappled sunlight gave the forest floor a twilight feel.
Strange noises echoing through the woods kept everyone on edge as they proceeded, having seen already one massive creature no one wanted to take chances.
It seemed like hours they walked, finding streams of crystal clear water flowing down from the mountains. Cassandra bottled samples of that too.
"We should turn back, we are getting close to those structures, I dont think dealing with any locals is a good idea right now." Ren sat down on a fallen tree, pulling out some ration packs. "Lets have a quick break first, at ease."
With that everyone say down, drained from the long hike through the dense gravity.
"You get all the samples you needed Doc?" Ren asked through a full mouth.
"I don't need any samples of what your eating, can you chew with your mouth shout?" People chewing with their mouths open was always a huge pet peeve for Cassandra.
Ren replied with a chuckle before eating more.
"These samples are great though, yes. We can test the soil for crop viability, the water if course we need to see if it's safe to drink. This is the stuff we need, this dirt is potentially the future of our race..." Cassandra was cut off mid  sentence by Jenkins raising his gun and standing up.
Everyone looked in the same direction, all 14 guns now pointing at the humanoids.
"Oochetti!! Oochetti!!!" The strange words rang out, at least 20 of the strangely human looking creatures had them surrounded.
They where tall, much taller than anyone Ren knew,  they would look almost human of not for the jaw being very angular, and the tips of their ears where pointed.
"Sir what do we do here?"
"Hold your ground"
"We are almost surrounded, we should fall back!"
"I said hold your ground!" Ren didn't have the ability to argue in that moment, they where totally outnumbered, their opponent was bigger, faster, and stronger. They had a hard time walking this far let alone retreat running.
One of the humanoids stepped forward, leveling a spear towards Jenkins, Ren moved to fire when Cassandra jumped in front.
"No!!" She yelled throwing her arms up, frantically trying to stop Ren from shooting.
The sound that came next stuck with Ren for years.
The twang of a string, the woosh of an arrow springing forward.
Cassandra stumbled forward, blood splattered up Ren's vest.  He caught her as she fell, an arrow protruding from her back, just missing her spine and vital organs.
"FIRE!" The world hadn't even fully left Ren's lips when the gunshots started, bodies quickly fell as they ran back the way they'd came, the natives giving chase.
Cassandra was going limp as Ren and another soldier dragged her back with them.
The sound of a war horn split the air, Ren didn't know what it was signalling and didn't want to find out.
They could see the shuttle through the dense trees up ahead, so close. The battle had them all almost out of bullets, thankfully the enemy didn't have guns or they would all be dead.
Ren was lifting Cassandra over a log when something hit his head from the side, sending him crashing down. Everything was going black, he felt himself being drug, seeing blurred images of creatures chasing.
A scream came out of a soldier nearby, followed by yelling to leave her, it was to late.
The darkness was almost absolute, Ren began to feel warm as his consciousness slipped away.