But there wasn't much to hold onto! So Mi quickly held onto Meg, surprisingly tight as she was caught in surprise by the gunfire just like the Takatea! "Nasty things.. t-thanks. Now let's see how we get back to the ship? Once.. it calmed down that is."
The high pitched noises stopped and the trees looked calm again, but the takatea kept running. Megaera felt Mi's arms around her and they kept holding tighter untill she loosened her grip a little. After a short while the takatea slowed down to its normal slow pace. Infront of them, a large mud hill apeared in the distance. Megaera wanted to check it out, so she tried to figure out a way to make the takatea walk towards it. She tried pulling the tentacles on its head, but the creature only protested and eventually refused to move any further.
Megaera jumped off and walked besides it instead.
Megaera pointed at the large mud hill ahead. "That does not look like it is supposed to be there. It looks out of place in this terrain. Shall we investigate?"
The last of system's twin stars was close to the horizon by now, indicating that nightfall was soon upon them.
"I wonder if the beacon somehow attracted all those shrimps to the tea spot. If so, we should use another method to keep track of locations."
Megaera took her device and opened up a new display showing their current location and the location of the ship. She overlaid a grid on the map.
"Lets see. Purple will be us and our resources."
She pointed at the large mud hill in the distance.
"That unknown structure over there will be interesting to check out later. So that will be aproximately... here on the map. The tea spot where the beacon was located was around... here. And the dino shrimp encounters were around here and here."
She showed the display to Mi.
"For now we should head back to base camp. To secure the plants, let the takatea rest and see what we need to do with the captured dino shrimp."
Mi leant as close to Meg as she could without making it look awkward. They surely saw quite a lot of the closer area already. Though it were mostly Dino Shrimps afterall, right? "Agreed. We should rest for now, he's tired too I bet. Let's head back then, hai, tomorrow is another day and I really doubt that structure will run away." She briefly looked over at the strange structure, wondering what exactly it was. She felt like she saw something in proximity to it, likely another Dino Shrimp?
They arrived back at the ship with no difficulties. The shrimp in the net was still knocked out and Megaera wondered if it died from the shock. Upon confirmation it seemed like it was still showing what resembled vital signs and Megaera locked it up in a sturdy cage in the cargo hold. Mi helped stack the containers with the tea plants in the other corner. The takatea refused to go near the door and slept outside.
Night has fallen and Megaera sat outside the ship and looked at the stars.
"Beautiful, is it not? So many stars that have seen no life in all their many years."
She looked at Mi
"It seems you got some shrimp blood on you when I shot it."
Mi was sitting closely next to Megaera. Looking at the forest and the stars, Gaia was wonderful. With the exception of this annoying Dino Shrimps atleast! "I uh- what?" She looked down at herself, dried up blood was indeed visible. She didn't even really noticed it earlier. "Oh, yeah, I guess you did. Well, there's the lake here..."
Carrying her! Mi really couldn't do more than protesting, though she also blushed. This was sort of embarrassing! "I.. I could.. walk on my own!" When she finally stood on her own feet again she shook her head and started to laugh out. This trip was so much fun already. "Alright. I got it, I'll get clean then. The same goes for you though, today's been a long and eventful day, a relaxing bath sounds good, hai? C'mon, get ready!" Mi already started to take off her clothes, feeling suddenly relieved about the chain adornment she was more or less forced into, atleast she wasn't naked this way!
"Actually they are pretty rare. Just some of us have them.. it.. was quite a surprise when I received one." A little shy she looked back at Megaera and then laughed. "Aww why not? Nobody here would mind if you did! But alright, don't let me wait for too long though!"
