With a loud crackle a long red energy beam emitted itself from the barrel of the laser rifle and exploded upon impact against its intended target. The creature and several yards of jungle plant life disintegrated in that instant. All firing from that area of forest paused.

"Tanya?" Sandra's voice emanated from the commlock system. "Kano? Dr. Russell? Are you okay? What was that?"

Tanya touched the transmit button not bothering to bring the commlock device to her face as she tried to maintain an eye on the jungle.

"That was me, Sandra," Tanya explained. "I just putting the laser rifle on them."

"You know…we could use some of that over here," advised Sandra.

"I know-I know. Can you hang on for a sec?" Tanya had no intention of diminishing her coverage of Dr. Russell and Kano when he was in this state.

Sandra didn't answer immediately. She took a shot at a flash from the tree line and then put the commlock to her face again. She set it for full spectrum broadcast.

"Paul! Come in Paul! I know you are out there!" She then set it for narrow multicast again as the commlocks used up too much power when transmitting at full blast. She pushed the button again. "Come in Paul…or Alan! Oh please. Come in!"

On the other side of the ship Doctor Russell was about to operate.

"I see it, Kano," she declared with great relief. "Don't move"

Tanya clutched Kano's hand with as much strength as she could as if to distract him from the pain.

"Hold still, Davidka," she said in an affectionate Russianization of his name. "I think she is about to pull it out."

"That's right," Helena acknowledged while trying to maintain her normal calm dulcet tone as close as possible while still sounding urgent. "I can see it now. It's…it's long and dart like. It's nicked your aorta. It's coming out now."

With the x-ray light spectacles giving her an excellent view of the offending object, she could manipulate it with a magnetic probe. She dexterously pulled out the long and narrow dart bullet and plopped it to the ground. Helena quickly then inserted a trauma pain shunt into the hole. Kano shuddered a little and then subsided in his writhing.

"Is that working?" Helena didn't wait for response. She dug into her bag and found a new head for her probe and stuck it on. "Hold still. I'm going to stitch that vessel quick."

She drove the probe back in and made the necessary maneuvers. The spurting blood stopped immediately. Helena pulled the probe back and slapped an occlusive bandage over the wound site.

"Hold that there for a sec," she told Kano. She put all her instruments in the bag and got ready to stand up.

"Alright! Let's move!" Helena commanded when she was ready. She grabbed up her bag and put one of Kano's arms around her neck. Tanya took the other arm. The bandage had already sealed as it was designed to. Tanya fired two more laser rifle shots to the right and left to keep the enemy creatures' heads down. The jungle shook with the explosions.

When they had just gotten around the nose of the eagle they heard a fervent broadcast coming from the commlocks.

"Eagle One! Eagle One! This is Paul! I'm coming in! Don't shoot me! I'm coming in!"

It was good that he made that request as Sandra and Koenig were lighting up anything that fairly moved on that side of the ship not even waiting for a weapons blast most times.

Sure enough Paul emerged from the edge of the forest riding up on a yellow reconnaissance moon buggy. He paused a the tree line to make sure he was seen and not shot at.

"Yes! Paul! Come in! Come on!" Sandra screamed as she jumped; waving him on.

But Paul didn't come immediately. He put the commlock to his face and asked, "Where's Alan? Is he there?"

"No!" virtually everybody yelled back. No one at the eagle had seen Alan since the creatures had attacked.

"Damn!" cursed Paul. He began to maneuver the buggy around to go back into the forest.

"I think I know where he is! Paul shouted at the top of his lungs."

"No no no!" screamed Sandra incredulously back at him.

Those denials suddenly turned into "no's" of horror as she suddenly observed a creature detaching itself from a tree. Everyone could only watch in terror as the horrible multi-legged creature leapt from the tree trunk right on top of an unsuspecting Paul Morrow.

"Auughhhh!!!" Paul screamed as the huge spider-like creature wrapped all of it's many legs around him.

"NOOOOO!" screamed Sandra as she half-insensibly tore off in his direction.