I thought I heard a lot of commotion as I fell to the ground. I wasn't sure what was being said. I wasn't hearing anything that made sense. It sounded like rushing water and then screaming, then a fairly loud explosion. I felt the ground tremble, but that could have just been my death throes.

My eyes opened to Adrasta's face. She was looming over me with a blank look on her face.

"What the hell happened?"

"We left."

"What do you mean, we left?"

"After the yautja ship blew up, we left. You didn't feel like hanging around until they realized what was going on."

"Right. . ."

That is how I would do things. Why the hell don't I remember it? Adrasta crumpled to the floor and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

"I've never seen one you know."

"One what?"

"A yautja. Their bodies are gorgeous, demeanor, not very appealing."

"You're telling me. I had to live with them, I was stalked by one for a while. . ."

I rolled over to get away from that memory, but when I closed my eyes, I could see his face as it was before I scarred it so badly. I started banging my head against the wall to get that image out of my head. When all the lights on my ship flickered off and then back on I hopped up and looked around. Adrasta was just sitting calmly twirling her hair. The vacancy behind her eyes is so freaky because I know there is always something going through her mind. I can tell that about her.

My ship turned all on its own, as I watched a large green planet swing into view, I had a foreboding feeling. It happens often, but that feeling has never been wrong.

"What are you doing ship? You're being just as difficult as the wraiths were."

"Weird things they are."

I halfway glanced in Adrasta's direction, but was a little more interested in why we were going to be landing on this planet. I couldn't think of a single reason. It wasn't even close to Orpheous and I just fueled up. Adrasta was suddenly sitting in the copilot chair watching the ground get closer. I could see it reflected in her freaky eyes.

"Why are your eyes white?"

"Lack of pigment in the iris. I suppose it's just a weird defect."

"Right. . ."

My ship landed and completely powered down. The door opened by itself as well. I didn't like the fact my ship seems to have just gained a mind of its own. Adrasta was up and out the door already. I looked at Sponge Guy.

"I knew I should have shut her in the cargo hold."

I set Sponge Guy on my shoulder because it would be really good to have an extra set of eyes on this planet. I saw Adrasta skipping through the trees and I quickly followed her. I'm not sure Beleth would know if I had lost Adrasta, but the fact that my ship knew exactly where to go to find him. . .I'm not going to risk it. I was trotting along not really worrying about my surrounding, which I should have been because I was tackled from the side by a giant black something. My immediate response was to go for the neck. I heard a yell and turned to see where it had come from. Adrasta was standing on a branch yelling something at the big black creature that was attacking me. I wasn't expecting her plan to work, but it forgot about me and got ready to jump at her. I went for its tail because I was pretty sure Adrasta hadn't thought ahead to the part where it attacked her and killed her. I missed, of course, and the thing. . .that I had seen somewhere before. . . .

It's a Kiande Amedha. . .

"Adrasta!"

She let out a short cry as the thing leapt at her. She managed to duck just before it hit her. The creature landed in a tangle of vines. It was about to attack again, but the vines ensnared it and started to pull it towards a large flower with teeth. I watched as the kiande amedha was decapitated by the plant, but the blood that sprayed the flower caused it to start sizzling and screaming. Adrasta lost her balance on the branch she was now crouching on and landed next to the flower.

"Get away from that!"

She crawled as fast as she could towards me and ducked under my legs as we were completely surrounded by Kiande Amedha. I wrapped my arms around Adrasta's head as she smashed her face into my stomach. I didn't know what else to do except not let her watch them kill her. I closed my eyes and tried to shut everything out. The ground started shaking a moment later and I heard panicked hisses come from what would be our killers. I dared to open my eyes after the shaking stopped. They were gone.

"Earthquake."

"Yeah, I guess. Great timing for that."

Adrasta stood up again and ran her fingers through her hair to fix it. I suppose I had really clamped down on her head for a moment. We headed back to my ship to see if it would allow us to leave.

No such luck. It refused to power up, but the navigation system was blinking at me. I flipped the switch and a blip appeared on the radar. I put on the helmet that had been stored in a niche under the console. I linked it up with the radar on my ship and flipped the single eye cover down. After grabbing a bag with some emergency supplies in it, I stepped towards the door of the ship and looked at Adrasta.

"Shall we?"

"Would be a shame if we didn't die."

I shook my head as we set off. Adrasta stuck close behind me which I was thankful for. I don't want her running headlong into a swarm of hard meats. That most likely wouldn't go over well with Beleth. The question is, why do I care?

The signal led us to an old ship that seemed to have crashed. It had definitely seen better days.

"I hate being under the control of something."

Adrasta, to my utter amazement, didn't have any sort of comment. I didn't recognize the ship. It didn't seem like anything I had ever seen. It was a dark orange and shaped like a giant scythe. I looked to my left to see what Adrasta's reaction to it was, but she was already headed inside. I ran after her. The inside of the ship wasn't in much better shape than the exterior. I took a few flares out of the bag and lit a couple. I dropped them along the corridor we followed for what seemed like at least 5 minutes. Adrasta seemed to know where she was going, but that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever since this ship looked like it crashed about two decades before she was even born. We finally came to a door.

I pried it open and held Adrasta back from going inside.

"I'll go in first, ok?"

She slowly nodded. I stepped in and lit a couple flared which I tossed into the dark recesses of the room. They lit up a few mummified corpses here and there. The corpses looked human and like they had died in extreme agony. Adrasta walked in, I was going to tell her not to look, but it was too late. She surveyed the area.

"Oh yes. . .this makes sense."

I waited for her to continue, but she offered nothing else. I decided to pry.

"What makes sense?"

"These humans were being transported when the ship crashed. The beings that were taking them must have gassed them when the ship crashed. Better to have dead cargo than let them run around."

I felt myself gaping at her. Her total lack of compassion for her fellow man was still coming as a bit of a shock to me. Even I was upset when Brody and Jack were killed, and I'm not one of them.

"I just wonder who was doing the transporting and if they are still on this planet somewhere."

"No. They were picked up."

Adrasta touched the face of one of the mummies and some of what used to be skin crumbled off. I heard a loud clang come from somewhere else in the ship and swung around with an unlit flare in hand. I listened for any other sounds. After about five minutes I was satisfied that it was just a freak occurrence. I turned back around and Adrasta was adjusting a glove. She had donned a sleeveless black coat, a pair of baggy black pants and a pair of boots that looked like they were meant for stomping on things you really wanted dead.

"Why would anyone wants spikes on the bottom of their boots?"

"I suppose for the same reason they wanted their gloves to do this."

She flicked her wrist back and a knife shot out of the wrist of it. I didn't really feel comfortable with her having knives in her gloves, but if we run into something, at least she'll look semi intimidating. I do wonder if Beleth taught her anything about self defense at all.

I was about to say something else when I heard a louder clang. I swung around and looked. There was definitely something right outside the door. It was a large black thing, sniffing at the flare just outside the door. I willed it not to look into the room. Too bad that never works for me. I was going to get rid of it when the door slammed shut and I heard a hissing coming from the vents. The room started to get cloudy.