[In the Forest]

Alex had become more and more uncomfortable the longer he spent on the surface. The more time he spent watching, listening, and walking around, the more he couldn't shake the idea that he was being watched. Evaluated. Analyzed. It was uncomfortable. He tried chalking it up to his fear of the open spaces, his time outside a vac-suit and the fact that the horizon went on forever, both stretching into infinity, yet contained. There was no end in sight of clean, breathable air and solid ground to plant his feet on, but at the same time it was just too far. There was nothing in the sky keeping it all in - no hard plating over his face to protect him, no bulkhead and gamma-welded metal holding the bubbles of air together. There was simply... nothing. It was terrifying. Nothing solid and physical telling him where one thing ended, and another began. It felt like he shouldn't be able to breathe - and with this thinking, his breath began to catch in his own throat, his body fighting to not release any air to the void, a void he thought into existence. He had to pause and close his eyes, listening and forcing himself to heel in order to calm down.

As he'd been walking, regardless of his reasoning, he had become more attentive to the sounds around him. Where he would usually listen for alerts, proximity warnings, the dull thud of metal reverberating through his suit and whatever he was touching, or even the nothing of free-floating in space, always monitoring for the hiss of air, he now found those ears primed and searching for other, subtle sounds. To go from an environment in space of hearing little to hearing all the sounds of a full ecosystem, it was equal parts relaxing and terrifying. But, it made him notice things, such as when that sudden wilderness got quiet. When it felt like a wave of silence had forced all the animals into frozen places, afraid to move at all. It was a warning.

He reached down and extracted the disruptor from his holster, powering it up to half power, enough to put down almost anything in one good hit. The whine of the disruptor filled the air, as his commbadge at his shoulder, where he'd moved it, chirped out with a message from Costa. Something was drastically wrong, for her to actually have caved and contacted him. She ordered him back to the ship, and to lock it down tight. He turned on his heel and began moving quickly again through the trees, moving back toward the caves as branches scraped at his face and small brush was tramped to the ground underfoot. He paid no mind to trying to be subtle or careful as he blundered through the woods. Costa, for all her flaws, stubborn attitude, and the like was his Hed. He'd defend his Hed and his freightalowda.

=\\= Na, Hed. Keting showxa tu? Mi ere mi we, tu nakangepensa pashangwala. Ge kopengda kong tim! Ere dédeya. =\\=

He quickly changed his comms frequency, calling the ship and one of the few crew he knew on the ship. The Engineer, Baggy.

=\\= Oye, Baggy! Lock im xox gut, sasa ké? Hed's showxa. =\\= he said, sharp and curt, before switching back channels. Baggy would follow orders, or he'd be a moron. Either way, that was his problem.

As he approached the clearing, he raised the disruptor and prepared to fire on anything that didn't resemble a human being, and didn't right care what it was at the time. He spotted a target, and let loose, the whine and shine of green death streaking forth from the emitter of his weapon, screaming through the void seeking a target.