Without a guide, we'll never find the entrances to these damned caves here!"


"It's not that bad either. After all, we now know what to look for!"


"That's right again. Still! Shit!"


Maiju turned to go: "If we stand around here and swear we won't find anything! So, are you coming?"


"I'm on my way!"


It was not easy to find the entrances to the caves without a "guide", but with patience they made it anyway and gradually learned what to look for. By evening they had left a considerable number of craters in the landscape. They slept in an empty cave and continued the search the next morning with renewed energy and a well-filled stomach - the locals had been so kind as to provide them with their full pantries - successfully.In the late morning they discovered something that they would never have expected here: a city. After the primitive caves, this town was a strange sight with its towering towers, modern buildings and busy streets. Scattered around it were small villages and sometimes individual houses that gave a very cozy impression.


Fir immediately radioed the captain and reported the discovery to him. As expected, Turnus' order was: destroy.


They did not take long to be asked. After about ten minutes the place where the city had been looked like a meteorite had struck. The villages had to believe in it next, and in the end the isolated houses. Then Maiju and Fir each did a few laps to make sure there were no survivors.


Maiju only met one, rather frightened, child who she could tease out that the big cities were all in the south before she sent them to hell.

She reported it to Fir, who immediately relayed the information to Turnus, then they flew south.


The further they flew, the more the landscape changed: from hilly to flat, from wooded to steppes. The cities grew in proportion, and the villages that they blew up one by one became more and more frequent. Maiju used to make fun of the townspeople who tried to flee without a head after they had turned the first buildings into ruins. And when they had flattened the settlements, she particularly enjoyed chasing down the desperate survivors and playing with them like cats with prey, only to kill them or sometimes just leave them badly injured. Not without making sure that they would most certainly die.


In this way, there were soon no more cities on the planet - the other two teams had also had enough of searching for the caves of the inhabitants in the dense undergrowth and focused on the easy-to-find cities.But now it was back to the forest!


After they met by chance, Turnus had reassigned the teams: Fir with Tiang, himself with Tarkran, and so Loé of all people remained as a partner for Maiju. The one she liked the least and who absolutely hated her. But she had no choice, so she made a good face to the bad game and followed him on the route he had come. The flight was quite silent, there was no more talk than the bare essentials.


When the vegetation became thicker, Maiju went down, knowing exactly if there were caves here, the entrances could not be found from the air. Loé made no move to follow her. Ignorant! But he would see what it would make of simply ignoring her!


Maiju sniffed, she had found out that the bird creatures had their very specific smell and that, once you had the trail, it was a breeze to follow her.But there was nothing here. Or? She inhaled the air; there was something!


But not the smell of the bird creatures, it was something else - smoke! It was very clear now. She rose again and followed her nose to the source of the fire.


It was closer than expected, a comparatively small fire that could soon grow into a full-blown forest fire.


Maiju wondered if she should do something about it. Why actually? In a burned down forest it would be easier to find the caves. It might even have been Loé's idea.


She switched on the scouter. No, I guess not. If the fire had grown on his dung, he would certainly be nearby, but Maiju neither saw him anywhere, nor did the scouter indicate his position.


She stayed where she was, hovering over the hearth of the fire while she watched it expand and greedily devour tree by tree, bush by bush.

Something was moving on the fire front. Maiju was there immediately and knocked down the unfortunate cave dweller who had not made it to cover in time.


That's how it works! she thought gleefully and hurled the little unconscious creature into the flames. She found the black hole at the entrance without any problems and disappeared into it shortly before the fire reached her.


She immediately noticed that the earth was nowhere near as trampled as it was with the other buildings. So this one couldn't be old. Too bad she'd destroy it again!


The corridor stretched endlessly. In between, Maiju began to wonder if this would ever end.


Suddenly she saw the beaked face of a local in front of her. She froze. Same with her. Then it tossed around with a squeak and raced back down the hall. Maiju wanted to go after him so that it could not alert his whole tribe, but the small creature had an invaluable advantage: it could walk upright here, while Maiju could only crawl.She silently blamed herself for not paying attention. The element of surprise was over. She crawled down the tunnel as fast as she could and reached the cave just in time to hear the bird creature she had encountered sounding the alarm in the main cave.


Following a suggestion, she simply stepped out. The effect was impressive: the bird creatures froze into pillars of salt on the spot. Items were dropped. Every head in the hall turned to her, who, with her head raised, one hand on her side, tail playing quietly, stood there in an absolutely self-confident posture and, without turning her head, scrutinized the inhabitants of the cave. Then she bowed her head a little, just so that she could look directly in the eyes of whoever discovered her. He shivered under her gaze.


"You screwed up the surprise effect for me!" she stated softly, with an almost appreciative tone in her voice, "But that won't help you!I'll make you so cold too! "


One of the little figures suddenly found his voice again: "I will know how to prevent that! I will not allow you to harm the members of my clan!" His voice was unusually deep. He towered over the others by a head, that means he went up to Maiju's shoulder.


Maiju's eyes narrowed: "You want to threaten me, you little boy? Can you even fight?"


"I am the strongest Chiritaki in a hundred years!"


"That doesn't have to mean anything!"


"But that means something! I have mastered all fighting techniques that exist on this planet!"


“And next?” Maiju noticed a movement further up, her head jerked around, her hand went up, and the Chiritaki, who was about to escape through an emergency exit, fell to the floor, pierced by an energy beam.


"Do you think that impresses me?" she continued, as if nothing had happened "If you really want to fight me, please - I haven't had anything to laugh about for a long time!"

The Chiritaki took up a fighting stance with a hateful expression on his face. Maiju didn't move, knowing full well that this would humiliate him and make him even angrier. The rest of the Chiritaki took cover.


Maiju's challenger began a silly singsong that was supposed to be intimidating and fluffed up, with the result that he now looked no bigger and stronger, but at most thicker than he was.


His tribe mumbled excitedly. Maiju switched on her scouter and had to suppress a giggle when his fighting strength appeared on it. He had only just made the hundred.


"Come on, start!" she said bored.


Her opponent didn't start, however, but began to dance around her in a circle, still singing.


Maiju stopped. She could guess what he was trying to do: lull her to slow her reaction. He really thought he could defeat them!She almost laughed out loud.


Time dragged on. Her challenger still made no move to attack. Maiju involuntarily admired his perseverance. Also your casual caution! - Highly explosive! - Posture didn't seem to take away his courage.


For the third time he passed before her. She probably had to pretend she had lost focus. So she pretended to absent-mindedly study the ceiling of the cave, even though there was really nothing interesting to see there and her attention never let up for a moment. She had really learned a lot from the tree snake.


If he'll attack me, it'll only be from behind. First I'll pretend I'm completely overwhelmed and could only evade. And if he then thinks he has won ... Tschack! Chop the head off. So don't dodge too quickly, he should think he's the better one, and to do that he has to meet me!


Suddenly the chant broke off. Don't evade!

In the time it took the Chiritaki to strike the first blow, Maiju could have killed him three times. But she didn't evade, pretended that the blow that had just tickled her had hurt terribly, fell forward, rolled over and, growling with anger, seemed to come back up with difficulty. The bird creatures cheered. They will utter completely different tones when they realize that I was just acting the whole time! Maiju made a grimace to hide her grin. She rushed awkwardly at her opponent, who dodged effortlessly and brought her down again with a forward kick. When she got up again, the Chiritaki attacked her, kicked and punched and Maiju backed away, pretending that she could hardly fight back and that his blows hurt terribly, although she hardly felt them. Then she received a blow on the head, she stumbled, buckled and fell, and the Chiritaki prepared to kill her.

The inhabitants of the cave hooted and cheered, laughed