The dune rider glided across the empty expanse of desert, following the vales and peaks twisting and turning across the desert. The sands shifted endlessly under the rider as they hovered above it, the desert seemed endless as it stretched across the horizon.
After travelling for a while on the dune rider, they came across a small river. Barely a river, but a water way, nonetheless. They hid the dune rider and made their way along the river on foot doubling back along the way they had come. They continued to walk until they arrived at an oasis were Mongrel ignored the tranquil bright blue liquid in the centre of the Oasis that so enticed Seth after the hours of walking. Mongrel walked up to a distinct tree and stomped his foot three times in a peculiar pattern. The sand in front of him and under his foot lit up in a grid pattern, before the sand on the ground shifted away from the centre of the pattern opening a hole in the ground, looking inside the stairs that lay inside where previously there was just sand led down below too far for the bottom to be seen.
The steps down the hole were metallic, with a shimmer to their surface. A thin film of sand covered the stairs near the top with less and less as they ventured deeper. He slowly walked down the stairs into the dark abode below, the air slowly becoming more and more wet, and when he finally stopped climbing down walking through a doorway, he was met with light scattered around the interior of a domed room.
This was his ship, a scouting teams ship. He made his way deeper into the ship until Seth and Mongrel came upon a room lighter than the rest. Inside the room were three other people waiting.
"Seth come lay down, I want to check how you are doing" she then turned and spoke to the two other men "we will continue this talk later".
"Good to see you too after so long Maria".
"Are you injured?" she asked.
"Yes I am".
"Then do what I say and lay down" she commanded as she ushered the other men out of the room.
The table was metal, cold and long. Longer than Seth and he was tall for a human, but this table also doubled as an autopsy table. It was designed to be big enough to hold a Druin.
The table had held many Druin as they breathed their last breath, and laying down on it also stole his breath with how cold it was. Stiffening his body from the cold metal on his back, his eyes locked onto the dark black scales suspended in liquid on the shelf reminding him of who else had laid on this table before.
His shirt was taken from him by Maria, she examined his bruising which went ran down the side of his body from under his arm pit down to his hip.
"Three ribs fractured, extensive bruising, all over your body, you really were injured badly this time, you are never careful"
"I told you; I was needing an extraction because I was injured"
"Seems to be true. But this... this is very bad; you will have to heal up in the 'liquid' "
"Not that slime, please, Maria"
"Liquid, Seth and you need it" said Maria.
"That shit is sticky, cold and somehow invades your body. I can always feel it slowly moving inside my skin. I can just heal normally"
"You need to be healed, you cannot travel in this state, a few hours and we will be off this rock, but only when you are healed, this is not a suggestion"
"Yes Ma'am, I'll get into that shit"
Seth got up from the slab of metal Maria called a table/bed depending on her 'patient' he took off his old blood-soaked changing into a medical before climbing above the large cylinder filled three quarters the way with transparent full of green, white liquid.
When Seth placed his leg into the liquid, it started to climb up his leg reaching up to his knee before it started to work its way under his skin forcing its way into his pours. He continued to delve into the strange liquid. The liquid slowly encapsulating his whole body and when he had fully submerged, the liquid began to fill his lungs as well.
Slowly Seth began to drift into unconsciousness. The liquid now replaced the oxygen in his lungs allowing him to breathe. His body healed extremely fast in this liquid, but to enhance this further and the general environment of the liquid it would cause the person to remain unconscious for the duration of the healing.
"He is out. How was his mission Mongrel? Report".
"Yes, Ma am, the whole place was on lockdown. There was way more of ya Druin than normal. They keep increasing the security. They seem to be trying to stop our advance deeper into their sectors"
"Did he complete his mission Mongrel"
"Yes, Ma am, he took down the communications hub. He left the whole outpost in a mess, and ya human ships will be in range soon. By the time he wakes they should be destroying the outpost"
"We can join the forces when they are done, he cut it too close with this one"
"We finished it in time, what does it matter," said Mongrel.
"I will ignore your poor attitude to a superior if you answer my question honestly, do you think he is becoming soft, he got more injured this time" said Maria.
"No, I do not think he is getting soft, that is ridiculous"
"He does have a reason to stop this line of work he could retire and spend time in the human territories. He may be going soft"
"Do not question his motives. He risked his life for this mission and every mission for that fact, and that other comment is a low blow, even more so when coming from ya"
"I will have to report how injured he had become on this mission; I am just making sure"
"He did what he had to. The Druin are increasing their defence of the outposts, one scout and his team is not enough anymore"
"Is that your personal or professional opinion, Mongrel"
"Both. Now just do ya job and report the number of Druin from Seth's scans, and how many he killed, you will see for ya self how 'soft' Seth has become".
Maria walked to the table that Seth had left his equipment on. The table moved like a wave with the surface coming up to cradle the equipment, and when she picked up his gauntlet the table lowered and became smooth again. She took the gauntlet over to her stations table. The table moved like a wave until it conformed to the gauntlet. Soon, streams of light began to flow down from the gauntlet and over to her panel on the side of the table. It showed that Seth scans had recorded 20,000 Druin living in the outpost.
"That is a lot more than a normal outpost would contain. About five times as many and included over 1000 elite Druin. Mongrel may have been correct about the number. Let us see how many he killed" Maria said as she looked over at Seth in the cylinder.
"10 regular Druin killed; 6 elite Druin killed. That is a lot of deaths for an infiltration mission, three times more than last mission he ran. I guess this justifies the injury. A lot of Druin died for him to become that injured. Can he keep this up if the council will not allow multiple scouts to work together? We may need two crews for each outpost now. Damn this report is going to be a pain, if they won't let more scouts work together, we will need to start either sacrificing Mongrel's or scouts to take out an outpost.