The ship was dark, the human's pilot absent. The machine was like a dead beast, silent and cold. The humans slowly surrounded the opening of the ship, reading their weapons to kill anyone who came out with the guns pointed and the man at the front made signals. The Druin Gunner thought the shadows could see but could not understand. The other men surrounding the single man looked between one another before nodding slowly. They advanced with caution towards the opening of the ship. They came from both sides and the front, forming a semi circle around the entrance to the ship. Each person had their rifle trained where they were looking, trying to find the Druin in the murky blackness of the ship.
Outside, the humans had their eyes trained on the entrance, waiting for someone else to advance before them. The darkness on the ship was overwhelming in its intensity, and the eerie feeling had struck the men to their core. Three red prongs suddenly shot out the back of the man who finally advanced first. The prongs glowed with a red wave before pulsing and with a flash. The men were suddenly blasted, killing the men in the front and injuring the rest the men. Scattered and hurt, some on the ground knocked on their asses, others shocked at the sudden explosion were lost in a see of white, their ears no longer worked with ringing the only sound left.
Druin gunner turned, flinging the dead body off of his trident and made his way to the cockpit. On his arms and legs small, red spider cracks had begun to appear. When he got to the cockpit he slammed his hand down on the fungi that had been integrating into the ship, by now it had gotten full control.
The ship whirled, spluttered, lurched, and finally came to life. The Druin Gunner held his hand in one location in the center of the fungi. He was unable to move it while he was integrating into the ship.
Humans flooded from the main outpost towards the flight zone. The men as they came running onto the tarmac could see the ship as it slowly lifted off the ground and darted towards the dunes beyond the base. Holding low to the ground, the Druin Gunne made a mad dash into the side of a dune and disappeared from view seconds later. An explosion rang out from the Druin, so forceful the dune shook and the top collapsed onto itself.
...
The light remained of the fire from the dune until the humans had gotten it into view. The burning rubble that was on the side of the dune, bright, glowing, red, hot, debris scattered across the side of the dune was all that was left of the ship.
"Do you think he is dead?" asked a commander of the airstrip while looking into the fire.
"I hope so sir, but we will need to conduct an investigation before it will be decided" said the second in command as he stood tall, next to his bewildered commander.
"Go ahead. I hope that bloody Druin is dead. Their wasn't supposed to be any left of them on this rock" said the commander as he kicked the sand underneath his feet.
"Should we tell high command about the remaining Druin?"
"Nooo" shouted the commander. "Soldier, this was an extermination mission. Any Druin left over would be a failure" he said after calming himself down.
"That may be the case sir, but the loss of a plane and many people and vehicles. This cannot be explained easily unless we tell the whole truth"
"I will handle the reports. We can make this disappear. No reason to show our dirty laundry and make an enemy out of General Maple"
"But Sir"
"No buts soldier. This is a command. Do not speak a word of this to anyone, I will handle this situation. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir"
The man with glasses who had voiced his concerns shrunk slowly, leaving the light from the burning rubble and from the yelling of her superior.
...
Inside the dune a ship was flying fast through a small space just big enough to fit the plane.
"Damn that was close" said the Druin Gunner
He had set up this space over the last few months. He made it through the fungi and the use of water to harden the sand around the tunnel before removing the middle, allowing this passage to be created. He knew he would never get away from the Human's technological eye in the sky, he would not be able to hide anywhere on the surface of the planet, thus he had taken to hiding in the ground like a vole.
'It may only give me a few days before they start to put the scraps back together and realise it is not a ship, just parts from many vehicles' thought Druin Gunner.
After flying until he was under the main portion of the fungi that he had been building, the center of the domed structure underground held a single downwards pillar that stopped short, just before the ground. This pillar held the darkest fungi, the darkest and thickest fungi was just before the spike at the end of the pillar.
He touched down on the ground. The fungi was on the walls, ceiling, and the floor. Every space was covered with the blood-grown Fungi.
The fungi's fruiting bodies slowly enveloped the Human ship, slowly modifying it into a more Druin-like construction.
Druin Gunner limped to wards the center his eyes drawn to the bottom of the pillar his legs were heavy and he was struggling to make it.
"I need to put the trident there before I collapse. I used it far too much, I cannot handle holding it any longer"
The Druin Gunners had never been modified into an Elite, and thus his body could not handle the stress of the trident and was now breaking down from the inside out, but he needed the power otherwise he would not have been able to get this ship or get off this planet.
When the Druin Gunner reached under the pillar, he collapsed while placing the trident into the ground under the pillar.
As the trident was placed into the ground, a small mushroom cap grew in front of the trident and next to the Druin Gunners face. He pulled his heavy arm up, slowly pushing it towards the mushroom that was shimmering and see-through. The light delicately danced around the inside of the mushroom. When he plucked the mushroom, a small puff of blue spores broke from the base of the mushroom. The Druin Gunner managed to get the mushroom to his mouth. The mushroom touching his tongue melted, the liquid running down his throat. A single gulp and the mushroom was gone, so was the pain. His body relaxed and soon he fell asleep.
In the hours that followed, the cracks in his arms and legs slowly came together and eventually got smaller and smaller. The small cracks healed completely, but the larger ones couldn't heal in time.
A whole day later the Druin Gunner finally woke from his slumber. His body was sore and his eyes hurt like nothing else as he looked at the pillar. It was now a lighter colour, no longer crimson red. Looking around the dome, the Druin Gunner spotted the ship he had stolen before falling into his slumber. The ship had be morphed into a different shape, a shape that was reminiscent of a Druin ship and a Human ship merged together.
The Druin Gunner dragged his body towards the trident he held. The trident in his hand looking at it, it was not as sleek as a true trident, but it worked all the same. The Druin gunner took one last look around the dome before making his way to the ship.
In the cockpit a crimson glow came from the console. it was the glow the pillar originally had. Placing the trident into the slot in the middle on the console, the ships engines whirled to life and hovered above the ground.
A hologram of the galaxy was projected into the space above the console.
"Soon, I will be able to leave this planet and meet up with the mother ship"
A ship was tracing its way across the galaxy, coming closer to the The Druin planet and the Human ship that was still orbiting the planet"