"Are you sure they are going to want to see us after what happened?"

"My money is on killing us on sight."

"Ether way, I think it's important that we try to make contact with them again, a lot has changed since they went into hiding."

The group of marines, and two Drev were in orbit over the Adaptid home world. Below them thousands and thousands of miles of densely packed forest clustered around thin trailing source of water. The entire planet was a bog, or at least this side of it was. The other side was supposed to be mostly rocky, comprised of large pillars that reached up towards the sky and were pockmarked with dozens of caves.

He could only imagine what kind of adaptids spent their time there.

Admiral vir adjusted them into an angled dive and headed towards the planet's atmosphere, listening to the rattle of the ship as they slowly lowered through the first hundred feet or so. Little tongues of flame liked up at the side of the screen before fog began to build up on the front of their windscreen.

The planet was humid, humid and hot.

All of the creatures here were bigger than they arguably should be, and that included the trees which towered hundreds of feet into the air, twisted and warped like great old oak trees, supporting themselves on each other like crippled old men straining for purchase

It took them a moment to find an open clearing near what had been the nest of the queen Adaptid. They lowered themselves through the canopy and, eventually, found purchase on a tree branch wider that most helicopter landing pads.

When the engine was cut, their shuttle was filled with the distant sounds of swamp creatures, low moaning, and the high chirping of insects.

The marines readied their weapons as the Admiral did, and Sunny and Canon readied their spears as they opened the ramp and jogged out into the muggy heat.

Adam was already sweating as he wiped his hand against his face.

Maverick was panting with the heat.

Sunny and Cannon didn't seem disturbed in the slightest as their heads turned around the dark forest. Most of the sunlight from above was drowned out by the twisting canopy and it's strange alien leaves, leaving what lay beneath in near complete darkness. Small beams of light filtered down on occasion, flitting over branches before vanishing moments later.

Adam readied his weapon and jogged forward down the branch, sliding some twenty feet before coming to the forest floor. His boots squelched against sodden mud, clods of moss jumping away from his footsteps.

A small blue animal, not so different from a frog, leaped out of his way and into the murky green water.

A ripple spread out under the giant arching roots of the tree, and then went still. The marines jogged down behind him, Ramirez taking point, Adam just behind him. The marine held his weapon in his two hand though an ancient Spartan spear was inexplicably slung over his back. They continued their way forward into the darkness of the trees.

The GPS on Adam's implants was beeping softly, getting more and more urgent as they got closer and closer. They did their best to keep on dry land, though the wet suits they wore came in handy plenty of times as they waded through waste deep puddles of slime.

No creatures bothered them, though he saw strange apparitions and shapes appearing through the mist. He thought he saw a troop of spider legged creatures vanishing behind a root before the beeping of his radar finally went off, and they emerged onto a patch of land he had not seen in a very long time, though he could hardly forget being the recipient of an alien egg sack.

That was a memory one did not forget lightly.

Which is why the suit he wore today did it's best to mask his body head in case something were to go awry.

Everything was silent.

He tilted his head listening for the distant sound of cracking, though he heard none.

Something splashed distantly in the bog, but other than that, there was silence.

He inched forward slightly, scanning the ground before him, and pausing only when his eyes fell across something strange, something that didn't belong there. He knelt down in the center of the clearing, reaching forward with a glove hand and lifting the strange object from the ground.

The strip of fur that he held was caked with dried blood on one side, but not yet rotting.

"Admiral." One of the marines called, and he got to his feet still holding the strip of fur and walked over. He peered over the marine's shoulder and looked down, "What did you find."

The marine looked up, holding out a cylinder of plastic.

He took it in one hand, "What is this."

It was Sunny's tur to butt in, and she took the cylinder in one hand examining it from end to end as she rolled it over in her hands, "This is the canister for a modified Tesraki Stun rifle, model 3 if I'm not mistaken.

Admiral Vir held up the fur, "Well that makes sense with what I found here.

A couple of the other marines crowded around though the rest formed a small perimeter watching the trees above.

"Some kind of fight?"

"It seems like it."

He dropped the piece of fur back to the ground and looked up, "Hopefully they will be more accepting of my visit.

"Well mating with the queen should generally put you on good terms I would think." Ramirez said, smirking from across their little huddle.

Adam sighed, "Whatever that was, it wasn't mating." He turned his back on them and muttered low under his breath, "I hear mating is supposed to be way more fun."

With those words mostly dead on his lips, he reached up and began clambering up the nearest root. It was slow going, but not because the climb in itself was difficult. The humidity made the bark of the branches rather slick, so he was careful to deliberately place his hands and feet at every juncture as he dragged himself up the side of the tree. He could feel himself sweating profusely under his wetsuit as he climbed.

Below him, a couple of marines tagged along, and they made it almost thirty feet up into the tree before signs of adaptids really began to speed up. Sticky filaments and strings like spiderwebs hung from branches. Spots of dried brown blood stained bark and moss alike, while strips of fur and clothing littered the area. Small animal bones were found in the crooks of tree limbs.

Climbing even higher they encountered a nest, large and milk white in the darkness, it was made from the same sticky covering that coated the branches, made into a large circular shape with a hole in the side, like some sort of elaborate birds nest. Peering inside he found it to be vacant. More small bones covered the ground, as did the discarded remains of eggshells.

Ramirez stepped forward onto the sticky mat and reached down, plucking a bone white skull from one of the piles and held it up for Adam to inspect.

Tesraki.

Adam looked down and chose another skull holding it up to the light.

This one was clearly human.

Ramirez looked on rather nervous, "Are you sure about this?"

"Glados and the others should still be here and if they are we will be safe." He turned to look around the nest, "As far as all of this goes, I have a feeling the Adaptids were just defending themselves.

Ramirez didn't look quite as convinced, but didn't argue as he followed Adam out of the nest and back up the tree.

More and more of the nests began to appear with greater occurrence. As did the blood stains and bones.

Carcasses were found, some of them from strange alien animals wrapped up in the odd silk and drained, while one was of a decomposing Tesraki with it's face down in one of the nests. Right next to it lay a wide eyed and open mouthed female, her doglike head open in a silent scream, her legs curled in and stuck in a rictus from her death throws.

Looking forward Adam found one of the small males attached to her belly.

Though she was dead, he gently prodded the male, and the two of them pulled back in shock and horror as it twitched, and then lifted it's head from where it was buried in her fur. It's movement was lethargic and slow.

Ramirez looked over at him with wide eyes.

"What do we do?"

"We have to help it of course."

Again the marine looked a little skeptical, but didn't say anything as Adam turned on his translator. It was only rudimentary and wouldn't really communicate with the creature quite right, but he hoped he could get his main point across.

"Here to help."

He reached down, tugging the spidery thing from the fur of it'd dead mate.

It's legs wriggled, but it offered no more resistance.

Adam held it out in front of him for a long moment, unsure what to do before sighing and pressing it to his chest. He could feel its thick rubbery body through the front of his wetsuit, feeling as its multiple legs slowly moved to attach themselves to him, gripping onto his chest and stomach like the world's worst baby carrier.

Ramirez grimaced, and the spider creature dropped it's head against Adam, either to exhausted or to scared to do much more.

It didn't attempt to communicate in return.

They left the body of the fallen adapted behind and scurried up the last few branches , past an even greater cluster of nests before finally coming to the last nest built high in the canopy where little dappled patches of light just managed to sneak through and lighten it's opaque surface.

"This must be the queen's nest."

They stepped inside.

There was plenty of blood and debris, and bones, but no sign of the queen.

Inside Adam felt himself relax.

No bodies.

Not Glados Or Cortona or Hal or Eve or Vicky or data.

They found no more survivors.

"Where do you think they could have gone?" Ramirez wondered crouching on the edge of a branch as he stared down at the forest floor hundreds of feet below.

"Probably moved to anew nesting spot. Get Jackie up here and see if she can't try and track the direction they might have gone, a mass Adaptid migration isn't going to leave things undisturbed."

They crawled down through the branches landing in the circle of nervous, waiting marines.

"Again>" One of them commented pointing at the thing on his chest.

He shook his head, "This one doesn't lay eggs. But it looks like there was some kind of massacre here. Bones of Tesraki and humans blood stains decomposing bodies. Likely the adapitds moved on to find somewhere safer after it was all over." He looked at Jackie, "Would you agree.'

She umped down the last few feet from her branch, having gone her own way to survey the scene.

"I think I can guess what happened." She pointed to the scene around them, "I don't know if you can tell, but there was no action down here o the ground. Whoever these people were, they came up the trees and into the dens of the creatures. Most of them were killed while they were inside. What you see lying here was dropped from above. The canister you found was a feed for a modified tranquilizer gun of some sort. My best guess is that they came to harvest the adaptids for some sort of medical project like the genetic splicing Sunny and the Admial took down, but it looks like things didn't go so well for them."

Adam was nodding along with her.

He had guessed much the same thing, "Do you think you can track which way they went?"

Jackie shrugged, 'I think so." She pointed off in a northerly direction (based on the magnetic pols of the planet) "All signs seem to be pointing in that direction.'

Adam nodded once and motioned for her to lead the way.

She took point and Adam and Ramirez fell back to second and third man in their loose triangle. Sunny and Cannon continued to bring up the rear as they made their way a little further into the forest. Adam glanced down on occasion to see how his new friend was doing.

It didn't move much, but the way it was still gripping to him seemed to be a good sign.

They inched through the forest passing through pools of shadow, and then into pools of water. Plant life brushed past their knees and feet, some grasses but mostly moss and fungus. Thick meaty vines, the texture and thickness of a man's forearm hung down from the canopy draping themselves over roots and wrapping themselves around trees.

As they went, a delicate mist grew up around them swirling and undulating in the currents of air under the canopy.

It was difficult to see too far ahead, so they were almost right on top of it wen Jakie raised a hand to stop them in their tracks.

She pointed upwards, and the group of them tilted their hands back mouths opening wide.

Just before them was a large stone pillar in the middle of the dense forest, and on top of that pillar was a large white ball made completely from adaptid thread. The bulbus white ball sat on top like some kind of strange skewer, and projecting out from it at all angles, great ropes and curtains of the silk radiated to attach to other trees.

The ball was pockmarked with large round openings, and the bottom was covered in a cluster of smaller round modules which made it look like a cluster of grapes.

As they watched figures began scuttling from inside the nest, like wasps swarming outward.

They took a step back as the swarm began to move downward.

Adam stepped forward in front of his companion's gun held ready but not pointed as they rushed forward to meet him.

One of the creatures charged at him seeming intent to rip his throat out.

"STOP! It's me!"

The creature didn't seem to care who he was and opened its mouth to bite. However something heavy knocked into it from the back and it jolted to the side limping away with a yip and back onto it's tree. Behind it, a figure shook its head and drew herself up to her full height.

Adam's mouth opened slowly eyes widening.

It tilted it's head bright green, human, eyes unblinking.

"Glados!?