Planet Qwonin Crystal Dreams

The Dead Crystal Compound

Edging their way back into the undergrowth, Jones began blazing a trail back though the tangled woods off at tangent towards the nearby waterfall to their left. Twenty hard minutes later and they were standing on a ledge overlooking the secondary spillway near the four-hundred-meter waterfall.

Taking in the view Jones opened his backpack and began pulling out a large coil of twin dynamic rope from its secure container before securing them around the base of the giant Rarn tree with a double carabiner and spike before throwing the lines over the edge. Then checking that the lines were secure Jones slithered over the edge and down through the wash.

"Don't forget to seed the rope and ties before you come over." Jones muffled voice suddenly said through the coms unit.

"Roger that." Chador replied opening her pack and taking out a nanite package. Seeding the spike, double carabiner's and ropes near the trees base she crawled forward to the edge and looked down shivered, shaking her head in disbelief. Moments later after arming the nanites Chador reluctantly followed Jones over to the edge shivering as she began dropping through the spray when she noticed that Jones had already disappeared through into mist below her.

Hating height's Chador descended too quickly almost burning her hands on the way down when her half rotten gloves disintegrated despite Qwonin's lower gravity. Humphing in shock Chador hit the bottom with a 'THUD' when it unexpectedly arrived out of the mist Sniggering Jones helped her up, almost laughing when he saw her gloves and hands.

"Why didn't you wrap your gloves in Rarn's leaf?" Jones asked pointing at the discarded half dried leave he'd used nearby.

"There were plenty of them near the ground." He continued "That's one of the reasons I had you place the nanites." He finished almost laughing again as he activating the nanite remotely as he pulled firmly on the rope, waited while the nanites did their job.

Two minutes later Jones was recoiling the ropes into the backpack as Chador sat fuming silently nearby.

"Idiot." She cursed herself, "Why didn't I think of using the leaves...Still," she mused "it wouldn't have hurt to tell for Jones to tell me about them!" she whispered as Jones finished coiling the rope.

Smiling, Jones walked over to one of the nearby trees and pulling some of its grey fungus off the bark, handing it to her with a smirk.

"Crush that into your hands for about two minutes." He showed her how to do it, crushing the fungus into his own hands.

Chador nodded following his example, almost immediately noticing that the heat in her hand was cooling, like she'd put suddenly shoved her hand into the deep freeze, straight onto the ice. Moments later the swelling and pain lessened as the fungus turned black

Opening his pack Jones pulled out a small roll of anaesthetic tape, accepting the tape from Jones, Chador tore off a length and proceeded to wrapped her injured hands, noticing that Jones who was doing the same. Both finished, Jones signalled the move as he began blazing a trail out through the undergrowth towards the enemy compound. Twenty minutes later they found a half grown back clearing near the first hut, on the river bank, almost by accident.

Examining the clearing it had obviously been intended to serve as the stepping off point for building a wharf, well at least that what they thought it had been until someone on planet had examined the plans and perhaps remembered that this was supposed to be a covert mission, situated on a protected planet, in a protected system.

Nodding her agreement Chador stood guard while Jones opened his backpack and stripped naked so he could attach all the necessary bits before put on the recon suit, stuffing his camo suit haphazardly into his backpack as he finished the attachments... Chador had to stifle a laugh as she caught a glimpse of Jones 'tackle' swinging slowly in the breeze as he bent over to pack his camo away.

Once Jones had applied the contact jell and dressed Chador followed suit, dropping her panties as she stripping to skin, hating the suits designers and the experience, mostly because her attachments were just a little more invasive. Then, after liberally applying the contact jell Chador completing the attachments and reached down to don her own suit. And that was when she noticed Jones watching her out the corner of her eye.

"Did you enjoy the view?" she asked almost sarcastically.

"As much as you did." He replied smiling back at her.

"That much hu?"

"Apparently." Jones retorted still smiling as he shouldered the backpack and headed towards the edge of the clearing. Chador followed grinning from ear to ear because, apparently at least Jones dry sense of humour.

Melting back into the forest was easier in the recon suits as they continually reflected their surrounding of dappled forest sunlight, as well as muffling their footprints, leaving only the occasional bent twig as proof of their existence.

Ghosting to the compound was as easy as cutting butter with a hot knife, and cutting the compounds fence with the monofilament cutter took seconds. Unsurprisingly, the guards they evaded didn't even notice their passing as almost all of them were either asleep at their post or playing cards in the huts.

'They appear to have a sensor net beyond this fence.' Jones whispered over the com's system as they ghosted up to the compounds second fence, hiding in plain sight behind the nearest tree.

'How modern?' Chador asked as she dropped her backpack near a stump.

'Second generation at least.' he replied, pointing along the fence to the right where Chador saw a small glint of light reflected from the top of the fence post.

"Right. We should be fine then." Chador replied passing Jones the myofilament cutters. Jones nodded agreeing as he began cutting out a small enough section of fence for them to crawl though.

Once they were both through Chador replaced the fence section, repairing the tear with a small laser. Double checking Chadors work Jones smiled, sure that it would take more than a casual inspection to identify that the compounds fence had been breached.