ST:TTV111 | "Hunter Hunted"

Stardate Unknown

Her more or less leisurely trip had turned quickly into a run after the third pod crashed into the mountain side and apparently exploded. Add to that her tactical display pinged a shuttle coming down.

How her signal was so good here was a bit of a mystery to her, but her entire equipment load out was built by The Twins back at Halation, and the two Romulan inventors were as far as Antia was concerned, practitioners of dark magic.

---

Her more or less leisurely trip had turned quickly into a run after the third pod crashed into the mountain side and apparently exploded. Add to that her tactical display pinged a shuttle coming down. How her signal was so good here was a bit of a mystery to her, but her entire equipment load out was built by The Twins back at Halation, and the two Romulan inventors were as far as Antia was concerned, practitioners of dark magic.. The shuttle was far more interesting but it went down in an area Antia had already checked, she knew it was a swamp, the shuttle would have sank deep into the waters by now.

"Hnaev..." she said to herself. She was a pilot and generally well trained to take care of herself. The exploded escape pod? She already knew the chances were high anyone there was dead. There was not much worth heading in that direction.. but it was the easiest to find due to the smoke and the sound. Everyone would see and hear that. Plus some silly thing about Starfleet people never giving up until they see for sure, yadda yadda...

They'd all go for that one.

At this point Antia was closer to the second pod ((read: Osi's)), but she knew it was better now to course correct for the mountain pass. Maybe she'd run into any of these people on the way.

There was another issue, the damn explosion woke everything up. The swarm bats were the worst. Antia had her rapid fire pistol though which was fast enough to peg scores of them. It was her second night here though she realized they didn't much like her music. The day after she had started lining the trees with patches from a disassembled stun grenade and set up a frequency detonator in her display that let her trigger the nano charges within the material. Unlike flash bangs which make a percussive sound with a bright light, this was a high frequency stunner. The material when activated went under rapid vibrations that causes quite a high pitched jab in the surrounding air. The atmospheric composition helped to. She was luck she had a box of them in her ship and one grenade was enough to line a decent patch in the jungle. She'd created several paths she could activate independently in a hurry.

As she bolted through the trees, sure enough, there they were, they had started a chase, following on her auditory wake.

"I guess I play hard to get too much... but I just am not that enticed..." she said out loud as if the creatures could understand. She flipped over a nearby trunk, and let loose a rapid fire volley. Her weapon was essentially a plasma needler. Instead of bolts, it fired quick and fast pricks of plasma and it did so in very fast succession. The problem with the swarmers was they all liked to group so close together to cloud their target... but it made them easy to catch each other on fire too. After slowing them down she sprinted ahead a bit and lit up the path behind her. For a second an ear splitting screech could be heard and after a few more seconds of sprinting she could slow down. Nothing was following her.

Well that wasn't true. Steve was still following her. He'd been following her for over a day now. He was one of the bigger animals, but he seemed to enjoy his hunt. She'd had to watch for a few close calls. The creature had tried to trap her a couple times already. He also had come back even after she'd shooed away other things like the swarmers. She couldn't see him right now, but he was always around on the jungle floor. He knew she'd come back, and the screech bomb she just lit off meant he probably was watching her by now.

She was ok for now though, he liked to wait until nightfall to make his attacks. Reminded Antia of the stories of Kaa'hzz which lived on the Rihannsu jungle planet of Ch'Shrrh. Those things freaked her out... cause they were unbelievably fast and had a creepy grin on their face due to how their jaw was structured. She'd imagined Steve was similar.. but she'd yet to get a good look at him. He was also fast. She had to waste one of her micro-photon shells just to make him give up the first night. The second she nearly got him with a folding bat'leth one of her Klingon friends in LF had gifted to her. She didn't hurt him, he crashed off of it and jumped away. There were times in quiet moments she heard him stalking nearby, but there was no point in trying to chase him down. He was far more in control here.

The worst of it all was that at night, Antia was at her most vulnerable... she hated the dark.

For now she made for a quick pace to the mountain pass. If she could get out of the thicker jungle area, Steve might not be able to as easily mount his next offensive.

---

The evening was starting to fall on the planet, and while the aliens on the Gainsborough would likely find the night more of a challenge, Ghadruil looked to it with what could be described as glee, if only Korlackresses had such emotion and the situation was less dire. Unlike the warp-capable species that had yet to figure out that interstellar travel was a great folly, the Korlackress had kept their roots of being predators. Jungles like the one he was in now covered the poles of Aurking, and there his species didn't just survive, they thrived. Of course, while survival wouldn't be a challenge for Ghadruil, other things would be. The planet's atmosphere was thin for Federation standards, and even on the Gainsborough Ghadruil had to have his residence supplied with extra oxygen. Concessions had to be made, he wouldn't be able to expend effort climbing or attempting to glide, nor would he be able to expend extra effort lifting his body upright, finally he would have to make sure that his hunting was done through ambushes, and not through chases. It was, for this reason, that night favored him, for his dark body could hide perfectly to camouflage himself from any unsuspecting prey.

The situation still wasn't ideal though, and so before the night came, he sought out other crashed parties. Though his reliance on echolocation made it impossible for him to see any other pods land, he had heard some falling. Finding other people might be a chance to find a respirator and a chance to get home - but his goal lied more with the former. Survival was more important than comfort at the moment, and so with all this in mind he set out through the forest, making sure to slither close to the ground and conserve energy.