As he is pouring the caf, he hears a short scream, cut off quickly. The voice sounds like Karn Fenn, and came from the edge of the camp.

Rakan's eyes went wide and his heart immediately beat into overdrive. He dropped the caf, swung his Rifle around into a ready position. Slowly he made his way towards where the sound came from, the storm making everything hard to see.

"Fenn!?" He barked "Everyone! High alert,"

Shapris's glow rod pierces the fog as Rakan approaches, revealing the shadowy figure standing over a fallen Fenn. The figure comes into focus, a sharply angular figure vaguely similar to a human in form. It reflects the light of the glow rod and makes a hissing noise, receding back into the fog.

"Son of a Schutta!" Rakan growls firing a few shots into the fog. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! He ran up to Fenn's body, checking it for life signs. He turned and shouted into the camp.

"It's here! The shadow creature is here! Everybody, to the center of the camp!"

The Weequay was badly torn up, like the other corpses, and was already dead. Shapris was the first to react, drawing his pistol and rushing to follow Rakan's orders. "Emperor's ghost." he muttered under his breath, "Come on, you heard the wolf-man!"

There is a tense silence for a moment, then Nem yells, "There! There it is!" He points across the camp, and Breshenal takes off running in the opposite direction. Nadriana sprints towards the body as the others fire towards the apparition. After a moment's hesitation, Sorotai takes off after her. As they all fire towards the predator, Rakan sees through the mistake, realizing that it was just a trick of the fog.

Rakan made his way towards the center of camp and turned. His rifle in a ready position. Ready to blast anything that reared its head. Hearing the exclamation from Nem, and the blaster fire, he swung around his senses heightened and vision pinpoint.

"That's not it!" He barked. "Nadriana! Sorotai! Get back here!"

Rakan rushed forward towards the two, knelt down beside them and slowly rotated on the spot, just waiting for the creature to appear for another strike. He heard something and snapped to that direction. Nothing. He started to feel the sweat build up under his fur, and the adrenaline was coursing through his veins.

"Where are you..." He growled through gritted canine teeth. The fog receded somewhat, revealing more of the camp around them.

Breshenal screams in pain, and you whirl around to see the creature looming over him, as he scrambles to his feet and starts to run and stumble away towards the group by the speeder, clutching his left side and arm.

Nadriana Juna stands up and sprints towards the speeder while Ashen, Ad, and Muub fire a few shots at the creature as they retreat back towards the center of the camp and Rakan.

Sorotai yells, "Nadj, wait!" as she grabs the Weequay’s blaster pistol and runs back towards the center of the camp. Shapris runs towards Nadriana and fires a couple shots at the predator. He gives a satisfied shout as one of the bolts hit home, but his shout quickly turns to confusion as it seems to go right through the predator, but its movements become more erratic as it keeps moving towards the camp. Shapris grabs Doctor Juna’s arm, "What’re you doing! Get back here!"

As the shot passes through the creature, Rakan raised an eyebrow. "Interesting.." He lined up his Rifle, took aim and let loose a volley of shots. BLAM BLAM BLAM. He lowered the gun to observe the damage or effect, then rushed forward to the center of camp, closer to the creature.

"Can anyone get the Prometheus on Comms!? " He bellowed

The bolts seemed again to pass through the creature and it froze for a moment, shimmering and flickering, almost like static. Then it turns and begins moving away quickly.

Breshenal staggers towards the center, moaning in pain, still clutching his wounded side. Nadriana shakes off Shapris as she lunges into the vehicle, "IT'S DOCTOR !" She grabs her medkit from its pocket in the wall and pushes past him, running back towards Breshenal.

As the predator retreats, Sorotai and the others lower their blaster pistols. Sorotai then speaks up, "Well, Rake. Now what?"

Shapris shakes his head and ducks quickly into the vehicle, his horns nearly scraping the canopy. He sits in the driver's seat and starts warming up the comm. "Working on it Rake! Whaddya want me to tell 'im?"

As the entity starts to seemingly retreat, Rakan grits his teeth and lines up another shot. BLAM. it scorched through the humid air and whispy trails of fog to hit it's mark once more. Something wasn't right here, something seemed off. The entity seemed as if it were a hologram or some kind of projection. Perhaps with the real culprits in hiding? Was the predator being used as a scare tactic to warn away newcomers? Or was it indeed some strange creature?

"Tell em to get ready for emergency extraction of the ground team on my mark, in the meantime, see if they can do some more scans of the surface, particularly around our current position. Anything seems off, I wanna know about it!" He barked.

He started making his way over to Breshenal and the Doc, "How is it?"

The projection or creature or whatever it is stops short again, frozen in place and shimmering violently.

She glances up from treating his wounds, "Not too bad. He's lost a lot of blood, but I think he'll be fine. His wounds are similar to the others, as you might have guessed, but far shallower than Fenn's." she glances sadly over towards the Weequay's body.

Shapris is busy yelling to Arcturus over the radio, and the others are all grouped around the center, still holding their weapons. "Do you want us to go after it?" Sorotai asked.

Rakan nodded to the Pantoran. Listened for a moment to Shapris on the Comm, then looked over at the entity.

"Keep up attack." He nodded, raising his Rifle and walking towards the creature.

"Anyone know of specific technology that could project an image like this? Or have you encountered anything similar?"

Sorotai takes off like a shot, rushing to get into range. She raises her blaster and fires several more bolts at the creature, again passing straight through. The creature gives a loud hiss and darts farther back into the trees. "Never seen anything like it Rake!"

The others follow her more cautiously as the fog starts to close in on the camp again, the predator becoming a shadow in the mists.

Rakan tries to fire again, but the rifle had overheated. kriff. Need to get this thing sorted. Without missing a beat he took off towards the creature following Sorotai.

"Blaster!" He shouted as he ran past the others and snatching one out of the air as it was thrown he opened up with a flurry of shots at the creature.

With the fog whipping up again, he wasn't sure he wanted to hunt through it. But he'd give chase for just a little while, in case it was close to being downed.

"Just a little farther then we'll break off back to camp, Sorotai."

Sorotai rushes up to Rakan as the predator keeps running. The silvery sheen fades out and it turns to shadow, but inspite of this, Rakan manages to keep his eyes on the creature.

Rakan chases and fire at the creature. The bolt hit but seemingly didnt have much effect. He stopped, watched it continue further into the forest and shot once more, the bolts sizzling through its head. Nothing.

He stood there for a moment, perturbed and confused, and unsure of what to do next.

"Sorotai," He said as she reached him. "Fall back to camp.."

Reaching camp, he made his way to the Doc and Breshenal again, to see how he was doing, then touched base with Shapris.

Doctor Juna had managed to get the bleeding stopped, and Breshenal was in fairly good condition all things considering. Shapris reported back to Rakan, "Garm says he can get to the landing zone in a couple hours. He'll enter low orbit and await further instruction. Anything else?"

"Good work" He says with a nod to the Chagrian.

"Anyone else hurt or missing?" He says glancing around. Counting the group. Then kneels next to Breshenal, swinging his rifle over his shoulder. "How would you like to proceed? Want to stay? Or do you want to leave?" The Shistavanen looked at him intently, if there was any bad blood the day prior. It was old news now, as far as Rakan was concerned, in light of the current situation. "If the creature returns and we can't take it down. I may have to call for emergency extraction."

"No, everyone is accounted for." Doctor Juna says, maintaining her calm despite the circumstances.

Breshenal shakes his head, "Sorry I ever doubted you. We've got some readings at least, I think we should get while the getting's good." He nods sadly towards Karn Fenn's body, "We should bury him before we leave."

He nodded to Breshenal then turned to the group. "You heard it, let's give Fenn a quick burial, then I need everyone to pack the essentials, and get it on board the Ranger."

Rakan then walked over to the Chagrian inside the Ranger, and said to him softly. "Alert them to rendezvous with us at the LZ, but to be ready to perform emergency extraction. Then see if you can get the Ranger repaired on the quick." He gave him a pat on the shoulder and found a good spot to sit down and fix his weapon.

Shapris and Sorotai set about fixing Epimetheus while the others give Karn Fenn a hasty burial. Once that is done, they start to break camp, which they accomplish in record time. Once Sorotai and Shapris finish the repairs, it is the work of only a few minutes to load up the Ranger with the equipment and prepare to get underway.

Shapris approaches Rakan, looking for final orders. "It should only take us about half an hour to get back, less if we push it. Garm commed, he's over the LZ. Do you want him to land and wait for us?"

"No, tell him to stay in the air. When we're a couple minutes out, then have him land." He replied. "I don't want the Prometheus on the ground longer than it needs to be."

Rakan didn't want to take any chances, especially with that thing out there.

"Alright everyone. Let's get out of here! I've seen enough of this kriffing jungle." He growled, slinging the rifle over his shoulder, now primed and ready to go.

The group loads into the speeder and Shapris pulls out, weaving through the trees. The going is slower than Shapris had projected because of the poor visibility, but they are making good time. As Rakan peers out the windows, searching for potential threats, he thinks he catches a couple glimpses of the figure, but it's hard to tell if it really was the figure, or a trick of his imagination and the fog. Then there's a break in the fog and he gets a good look. The figure is moving along at a fantastic speed, keeping pace with the speeder. The lower half of its body is blurring as it speeds along, and its red eyes narrow as it makes eye contact with Rakan. Then the fog closes in again and it slips further off to the side, knowing it had been spotted.