Beep! Beep! Beep!

Rachel groaned, and rolled over. Then, she realized where she was, and her cheeks reddened.

She had fallen asleep in Quince's arms on the small couch in the lab. She struggled to get up without waking him, and slipped out onto the floor.

She stood up, and went over to the DNA scanner, which was beeping noisily. The small screen, which had previously read the percentage of the scan completed, now said "SCAN COMPLETE. PLEASE USE THE KEYS BELOW TO LOOK AT THE SURROUNDING AREAS."

Rachel looked down from the screen. Underneath, there were arrow keys. She pressed the 'up' arrow, and the screen changed to a small blue map of the area. A textbox popped up in the top right corner, with a green arrow pointing in the same direction.

"HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF REQUESTED DNA LOCATED IN DIRECTION OF ARROW," read the box. Rachel pressed the keys until she found a large green splotch on the map which indicated a large group of Coissons. She checked her findings against a map on which they had marked Dr. Coisson's cave. 

The green splotch was nowhere near there.

Rachel let out an elated whoop. She had done it! The Coissons were saved!

Unfortunately, her whoop had woken Quince. He jolted awake, and fell off of the couch, arms flailing.

"Hey," he protested, sitting up, "not cool." 

'Sorry," said Rachel. "But I woke up, and the DNA scanner found more Coissons! A huge colony of them, a huge group!" She stopped for a second. "What would you call a group of Coissons?" She asked.

"A dart of Coissons," said Quince. "I asked the Doc."

All of their noise had attracted the others, and they came down to the lab, as well.

"What did you find?" asked Jay, rubbing his eyes.

"An entire other colony of Coissons," replied Rachel, her eyes shining. "It's amazing. When should we head out?"

"How about in a few hours?" suggested Wayne. "We still need to eat and get into our wetsuits. So, once we're done all that, we'll go."

"Yes!" cried Cinnamon. "We shall go and save the Coissons today!"

***

They knew they were close when the Coissons started acting up.

Cat's ears perked up, and she cocked her head, as if she was straining to hear something. Galaxy's hackles rose, as if she was sensing the presence of another leader, who might be a threat. Rachel noticed this, and she waved at the others to stop. They swam to the surface, where they could talk.

"It's probably best if we leave our Coissons here," said Jay, before anyone else could speak.  

"It's probably best if we introduce the two groups in neutral territory," Quince agreed. "Then they won't need to feel over-protective of the space, and be potentially aggressive towards each other."

And with that resolved, they dove back underwater.

After a few more minutes, a huge coral reef came into view. Tiny schools of multicoloured fish flitted here and there. There were a few large holes in the reef, but they looked like they had been there before the coral. Fish were swimming through the tunnels, but they quickly scattered when a small pack of Coissons swam out.

The Coissons swam silently after a school of large orange fish, who hadn't yet noticed the predators and were completely at ease.

The Coissons fanned out into a V, and the Coisson in front swam straight into the school of fish.

As soon as the fish realized what was going on, they scattered, but about half of the school was already injured, so they were soon nothing more than Coisson food. The eight creatures each took as many fish in their mouths as they could carry, and swam back down the tunnel they had come from.

That's way more than that few Coissons can eat on their own, thought Rachel, puzzled. What are they doing with all of those fish?

But then she realized: They were a hunting party. They were probably bringing food back to the rest of the colony. The rest of the crew seemed to have come to the same conclusion, so they swam towards the hole the Coissons had gone into.