Before they could celebrate freeing themselves from the maze, the next obstacle was on them. As they stood just on the other side of the rock wall, they saw row after row of pits on the ground. There was only enough room for them to stand in between each one, and Baston had a feeling the pits weren’t the only problem they would be facing.

He remembered Ation’s warning about the space worms. Apprehension grew like a boulder in his stomach, but he kept his expression steady lest anyone see the real depths of his hesitation.

“Move forward with caution, the worms might be inside the holes,” Baston warned.

Each of them held their spear up and prepared to go along the edges of the holes. Baston looked in both directions and saw that the holes stretched too far to go around. They would be traveling at least a couple of miles before they made their way over the holes. The massive ravines sat silent as they pondered their next move.

The first hole they inched by was empty, or appeared to be so. The next was the same. Baston knew better than to get too comfortable, but he started to think maybe this was just a field of holes. Nothing more.

By the fifth one, the tightness in his shoulders had eased a bit. The heightened tension was wearing him down, but he had to keep alert, even if things appeared calm. Luck would have it, that was when a large mouth came up from nowhere, and the worm attached to it almost took his arm off. He speared the worm through the eye, eliciting a scream, and it disappeared back into the hole.

“We need to move fast, they may not be in every hole!” Baston yelled behind him, his eyes trained on the holes. This would keep them busy the entire journey, and not in a good way.

He couldn’t look behind him, and hoped the other two were able to fend for themselves. The next worm was larger than the first, and snapped at Baston’s leg, cutting him in the thigh. He ignored the burning pain and blood dripping down his leg as he prepared to fight back, escaping its grip with expert precision.

With a loud yell, he stuck his spear into the back of the worm and watched as the weapon broke off and the worm retreated with the sharp part of it. He cursed and started moving faster. He could hear his friends having battles of their own with the worms behind him. Jumping and ducking, he managed to miss most of the worms, getting scratches from their teeth here and there. The never-ending field of pits wore him out as he leaped over some smaller ones and went around the larger ones. Hustling across the field of holes, it felt as though it would never end. His lungs burned while his muscles started to seize from the hard sprint.

At the last pit and the biggest of them all, he took a flying leap and misjudged the distance, catching himself on the edge. Slamming his body against the side, he could feel the walls of the hole rumbling as the worm came up towards him. Right before the largest worm he’d seen swallowed him, he threw himself up out of the hole and rolled away. Rocks and dirt embedded into his skin, caking his wounds with painful stabs. Had he lost his weapon? He looked around and saw it just a foot away. Just in time, he lunged toward his spear and turned.

Breathing heavily, he gathered himself and watched as Sca shoved his spear into the large worm towards the end, and was thankfully able to pull it back out before joining him. Cherie was further behind, taking her time around the holes. One of the worms jumped from its hole and over her as she ducked down. The worm went into another hole where he fought with the worm that already occupied that area. Their large teeth gnashed at one another and they fell back down to the ground.

She took the moment to rush past them and came to the end of the pits. The large worm rose in front of her and she froze. Her eyes widened, but she was focused and ready to take it on.

“Cherie, run! Come on, hurry!” Baston yelled.

The worm had lifted up into the air and had its mouth open wide as it came down towards her. She stood with her mouth open, the spear at her side, staring up at the giant worm. Why was she freezing up? This worm was big, yes, but no different than the ones she’d already dodged. Something had her completely transfixed and she wasn’t going to be getting out of the way like she should.

“Shit!” Baston yelled, and ran with the large knife Ation had given him. He slid the knife across the worm as he grabbed Cherie and pulled her away. The worm threw its head back in pain, giving them just enough time to run by. Ation had said the worms wouldn’t leave the pits if they could get past them.

Cherie threw her arms around Baston and shook violently.

“I froze, like a coward. Did you see that? Stupid.” She pulled back away from him and looked up into his eyes.

His body stirred and felt warm as he looked into her eyes. They were still standing fairly close to the pit and a smaller worm jumped up, surprising them and biting Cherie’s arm. She cried out and Sca threw his spear into the worm who let go, but left quite a gash in her arm.

This time Sca ripped Baston’s pants to tie up her arm.

“Couldn’t you have used your own pants?” he protested, although not with much force.

Cherie winced as he tightened the cloth around her arm, and the three moved as far away from the pits as they could without entering the dark trees that once again waited for them

“What else could be waiting for us?” Cherie wondered out loud.

“Who knows? I’m no more eager to go forward than you, but we need fuel to get off this planet. Once we reach our destination, Ation said they will fly us back over all of this.” Baston hoped the promise from the leader was the truth.

The ground started to shake, and at first, Baston wasn’t sure what was happening. He realized the ground was shaking because the worms were coming for them. They’d left their holes underground. Ation hadn’t mentioned they had tunneling capabilities.

“Run, now!” Baston yelled. They took off again as the ground burst open beneath them and large teeth snapped at their legs.

They were coming up on another patch of trees. He wondered whether if they ran in, the worms would get stuck and not able to go through the roots. They were massive worms; the roots would probably be easily broken by them, and the trees could come down on their heads.

“Get in the trees!” Sca yelled, as he ran ahead and climbed up a tree, clinging to the top limb he could reach and waving for them to do the same.

“And what,” Baston yelled back, “wait until they get bored?” Even as he said it, he was climbing a tree and saw Cherie doing the same. The worms seemed to lose them – maybe they couldn’t sense where they were when they weren’t running over the ground.

“They can’t find us, the dumb bastards!” Sca yelled, laughing, and immediately one of the worms hit the tree he stood in. He almost fell to the ground and quickly steadied himself.

Baston put a finger to his lips. They couldn’t find them if they were quiet. The worms could feel the vibrations. He’d seen something about it on one of the nature shows he kept on simply for background noise.

“They aren’t coming past the roots,” Cherie whispered. “I think we can move back into the forest and be safe. She was the first to jump down to the ground and slowly back into the woods. One of the worms heard the thud as she dropped out of the tree. It charged, but stopped before it actually entered the forest. She was right, so the men followed her lead and jumped down as well.

“Ha, you dumb worms!” Sca yelled at them.

“Don’t antagonize them, or they might figure out a way!” Cherie hissed.

The trees brought Baston’s mind to several horror movies he'd seen recently. He was about to voice this to Cherie and Sca when a branch smacked him in the face. He was pushed back by the force of it, his cheek burning.

Sca was in front of him, so his natural reaction was to think the branch had come from Sca walking into it and letting it snap back. "What the hell?"

He'd barely gotten the words out when a vine wrapped around his foot and caused him to trip.

Sca laughed. "Watch where you're going, big guy." He turned around and stood against a tree which Baston saw was slowly lowering a branch towards him.

"The trees," Baston started to say, but the vine chose that moment to pull him across the forest floor. He felt his pants tear as they were pulled over sharp rocks and sticks. Little scrapes caused his skin to burn, the dirt gathering as he was pulled across the ground. He reached for the vine around his foot, trying to free himself, but it was too strong.

"Whoa." Baston reached out, trying to grab passing plants and trees to slow himself down, but it didn't work. The vine was pulling him too fast. He heard Sca yell behind him, and soon the vine dragging his friend had caught up with him.

The vine stopped suddenly and pulled Baston into the air. He hung high above the ground from a tree, and the vine swung, slamming him into the trunk.

"What do I do?" Cherie stood at the bottom of the tree looking up at him, a mixture of worry and fear evident in her voice.

"Get me down!" Sca answered, swinging from a nearby tree. A supple branch slapped him on the back and then ass. It was almost as if it was playing with him as it quickly moved to his face and slapped his cheeks.

"I know, but how?" Cherie held both hands out, at a loss for what to do.

Baston's head was starting to throb as all the blood rushed to it. He remembered his knife and pulled it out, striking the vine above his foot. It loosened and dropped him down towards the ground, but still held on. He hit it again and it dropped him the rest of the way. Thankfully, he wasn’t too far in the air after it had dropped him down the first time.

He tossed the knife up to Sca who did the same thing, but the vine let go completely as high as it had him. Baston’s friend landed on the ground with a loud thump and groaned. He’d landed in a bush which had broken some of the fall, and now lay stretched out over it with his head upside down.

About that time another limb slapped him across the face.

“I’m over this damn forest!” he yelled and took off. Baston and Cherie followed, getting slapped and poked by the trees. They jumped over branches and dodged vines. Baston kept his knife out so he could hit them when they got too close. They were beginning to think the forest stretched on forever when they suddenly reached the end of it.

“Did you hear that?” Baston stopped and held his hands out.

Cherie stopped and looked back towards the woods. “I don’t hear anything.”

Baston wasn’t sure what he’d heard, but it almost sounded like a grunting. A distant grunting. He started to think it was possible that the tendrils of fatigue had started to wrap themselves around his mind. Perhaps he was just hallucinating.

As he thought this, a boar the size of his spaceship ran out of the woods towards them. Sca and Baston moved out of his way immediately, but Cherie stood frozen in his path. Baston lunged back to grab her right before the large tusks pierced her in the stomach.

“Get ready, he was running from something.” Baston could only imagine what a boar of that size would be afraid of.

Cherie nodded and picked up a large stick, planting her feet in preparation. Sca couldn’t find a stick, so he put his hands up in a fighting position. Baston held his large knife out in front of him and waited for whatever was chasing the boar to emerge.

They came one by one from the woods. They were little primates with green fur. Baston thought he recognized them as Sida Monkeys. They looked small, but he knew they were dangerous in packs. If you ran up on a pack like this alone, they’d take you down like ants taking down a dung beetle.

Each one of them sniffed the air as they walked, their curly tails bouncing back and forth. One went up into a tree and started screeching down at the others.

“How cute!” Cherie cooed, and knelt on the ground, beckoning to one of the primates.

“Get up!” Baston snapped and pulled her off the ground by her arm. “They’ll bite your hand clean off, and then the blood will start a frenzy.”

“Those little things? How do you know?”

“I know about Sida Monkeys, and they will tear you up. Don’t draw attention to us.” Baston said slowly backing away as the monkeys continued to sniff. They were hopefully looking for the boar and were focused on that.

“You just learn about weird animals in your spare time, do you?” Sca asked quietly as he kept his eyes on the monkeys.

“Yes, for situations like this one,” Baston hissed.

“They are just adorable,” Cherie said, still smiling at the small green primates.

“When did you turn into such a girl?” Sca asked, receiving a piercing glare in return.

Baston counted there were about a dozen of them. If one of them had been alone, the monkeys would have probably tried it, but since there were three of them, he thought they might pass them by. Once they had walked past them, the three travelers gave them a lot of time to get out ahead before they started again.

Another grove of thick trees was ahead, but luckily, these didn’t attack. Sca still ran through them as fast as possible, not wanting to give them a chance. Baston and Cherie followed him, realizing that while the trees were thick, they didn’t stretch forward for very long. The branches whipped their faces due to the speed they were running at, snapping tree limbs as they raced.

Sca was running in front of them, and the next minute, he was gone. They heard him yelling and getting further away, so they slowed down abruptly before they reached the end, and saw him rolling down a large grassy hill.

Cherie attempted to walk slowly down it, but the steepness caused her to pitch forward, and soon she was rolling down as well. Baston chose to scoot on his rear end, using the knife to stab the ground, and lower himself down little by little. Cherie and Sca lay at the bottom, and once they had caught their breaths, they laughed at him, holding their stomachs and rolling back and forth on the grass.