Amee squealed when Janasai grabbed her, apologizing the whole time, not that Amee would understand her.  “I’m sorry, little one.  But I kept telling you to come down and I don’t think  understand me”, Januasai said as the little Terran hissed and spat as she fought tooth and claw.  Literally.  “Relax, Amee!!”, she said, and then put the little Terran on her shoulder.  She wound a vine around the Terrans lower legs, and shortened herself a bit more so that Amee wouldn’t accidentally bang her head on the ceiling.

The Amee was furious and scared at first.  Something had grabbed it, and The Amee didn’t know what it was.  Then it saw that the grabby-thing was The Jane.  The Jane had grabbed it and pulled it off The Pipe and was going to put it in The Wet.  The Amee didn’t want to go off The Pipe until it knew that it could get to The Not-Wet Place, but The Jane pulled it off anyways.  Amee tried to fight, but The Jane was too big and it was overpowered.  Then The Jane did something that confused The Amee.  The Jane put it on its back, and then looped a Rope-Thing around it.  Holding it in place.  Then it began to move, which puzzled The Amee.  Was The Jane taking it to The Interesting Noise?  IT WAS!!! Hooting, The Amee happily patted The Jane.  The Jane was a good The Jane.

Clearly she’d made her new friend happy, judging by the happy patting and wiggling she could feel.  Another fifty meters through a long hallway festooned with the ubiquitous lichen, and the Januasai noticed that the water was receding.  No…it wasn’t receding.  The floor was sloping upwards.  Once she was standing on dry land, she put Amee down.  Then she continued forward. An abrupt right turn brought her closer to the noise, and  there Januasai found the first inkling of what had been planned.  Ahead, the noise, a steady crash, a howl that never ceased.  To her right, a single open that read, “Hydroelectric Plant, Level 2”.  She grinned, looked down at the little sophont who crouched there, having licked the floor and hooted.  “Well, my little friend.  I hope that Fortune smiles on us today, little one.  Maybe we’ll find some working equipment or something that can help us get to the surface.”

The Amee watched as The Jane went into The New Place.  Then there were a lot of sounds, The Moving Food and The Flying Moving Food and The Jane and The Loud Noise, so The Amee went in to see.  Maybe The Jane was making The Moving Food into The Not Moving Food.  It blinked, since The Jane was NOT doing that.  The Jane was making sounds, but standing there.  Maybe The Jane needed to visit The Empty Place and make its wet.  It didn't know.  The Dry Stuff didn’t taste of The Tasty Wet or The Crunchy Stuff, so it didn’t know what was here.  

Ignoring The Jane for now, The Amee looked around.  There was the glowey stuff, and evidence that The Moving Food had been here.  A few of the Crunchy Stuff, maybe left over from The Flying Moving Food.  Looking up, The Amee could see The Flying Moving Food still hanging Up There.  The Amee looked around, seeing The Thing piled on top of The Thing.  Crawling closer, it tapped it, and felt a dull thud.  Not bone, not food.  It turned around, not knowing what it was as The Jane made noises.

“That was the equipment I’d hoped had been set up.  Or at least….”, Januasai sighed as she cracked one of them open.  The contents were rusted beyond belief, probably from all the moisture in the air.  Looking towards the left side of the doorway that she’d come through, she could see an aperture that had been drilled through the rock.  ‘Probably the hole for the drive shaft’, she thought.  She blinked, and then took a step closer, seeing something on the floor.  Scooping it, she smiled.  It was a lamp, the kind that was worn on a helmet, but powered by a pack worn on a belt.  Made for deep exploration and long term use, she’d seen them before, and while she doubted that it worked, there was still a slim, slim, slim chance.  Taking it, she inspected it.  They were intact, possessed a dial that was a variable power setting, and looked to be powered by a lithium-sulfur battery.  A label on the pack said that it contained a charging mechanism that was motion activated.  Well.  She took the pack and began to vigorously shake it behind her.  She looked around and found Amee crouched on top of a stack of crates, looking at the flying creatures that were nesting on the roof, chittering as they hung upside down.  Staring intently at them, no doubt trying to figure out a way to get up there.  “Amee”, she said, and waggled her hand, showing her the lamp.

  “Come on, little one.”  There was no answer, but she watched as Amee jumped from crate to crate,  She  landed next to her, looking up at her, and then cocked her head.  “I think the first thing I'm going to do for you once we leave is give you a bath.  Well, after we get you seen by the vet and also figure out who you are.  See if we can find any family you might have.  Fix your hair”, she said.  “Possibly the longest bath in existence.  Good thing I’m not reblooming anytime soon”, she said with a fond sigh.

Amee blinked as The Jane kept making noise.  Maybe The Jane was able to get The Flying Moving Food even with all the noises.  It didn’t know.  But The Jane was holding The Interesting Thing, and it wanted to know what The Interesting Thing was.  It tried to take it, but The Jane held on and didn’t let go.  The Jane made some noises, and then walked with The Amee, who let go of The Interesting Thing once it was clear they were going back out into The New Place.  The Noisy Noise got closer, and The Amee was suddenly covered in The Wet.  It looked at its footses, but there was no The Wet there.  Looking around, The Wet was not on top of it.  Confused, The Amee looked at The Jane, then back down.  There was The Wet on the floor!!! All over it, shining, and The Amee got down, giving it a lick.  It tasted like The Wet Place.

The hallway ended on a large ledge that was covered in drips of liquid rock.  Or what looked like liquid rock and Januasai realized what was happening.  Water was spraying all over and was landing on the stone.  Leaving mineral deposits, which must be gathering on the rock, forming new stalactites and stalagmites.    Covering everything in flowstone.  “Here, Amee, it’s slippery”, she said as she reached out both hands to the little Terran who just stared at her after licking the floor.  “Oh dirt”, she said as she took gentle hold of Amee under the armpits and lifted her up, turning her around and setting her around her neck.  Literally, since her vines opened up and basically engulfed Amee up to the hips.  “There.  NOW you won’t be scampering off, and possibly getting hurt”, she said, and then realized that Amee was playing with her antennae.  ‘Well, there are worse things’, she thought and shrugged, making sure that all her needles were far lower down on her body.  Amee hooted as she walked up to the edge.  “Look away for a minute, Amee”, as she held up a vine.  It began to glow, the brightness moving and growing brighter at the tip as Amee hissed and made angry sounding noises.  Like before, she flicked it ahead of herself.  Throwing some ichor forward, she watched as it sprayed out and fell, farther than she would have liked.  

Lichen dotted the walls of the chamber they were in, and Januasai estimated that the chamber was at least twenty five meters across.  Water splashed down on them, prompting Amee to first squeal, and then hoot, hands raised.  The large bat-things chirped and whistled as they flew overhead while Januasai fiddled with the lamp.  First making sure that it still worked, and then switching it to the lowest power setting so that it wouldn’t possibly hurt Amees eyes, then wove a small ‘shield’ of vines in front of her just to make sure.  She aimed out outwards, and flipped it on.  Then gasped.

Meanwhile, a few minutes before….

Glasha Xendrin, Ninth Bloom, looked up from the sleeping cutie that he was currently getting into a safety harness for transport to The Baeira.  The little sophont had fought like a deranged animal, snarling and even using its weapons on its own subordinates to get them to fight.  Well, that just wouldn’t be tolerated.  Seeing Alduriana Veru, Third Bloom, walking towards him, he smiled and pulled himself up.  “Well?  How are we doing, Alduriana?”

“Oh, I think we’re doing pretty well.  It’s a charming world, and once we get the living situations up to standard, then perhaps we can get different cuties to come and live here.  This crop is far too traumatized, sadly, to ever see this place again and not be hurt, I think.  I can also think of more than a few Affini who would love to live here.  And once we remove the stain that this…this barbarism was, then the world can heal. It really is a beautiful world, I can see why the Terrans wanted to live here.”

“You’re not wrong, it IS lovely.  Now…have we gotten all the Terrans?”

Alduriana nodded.  “Based on our scans, and having swept the city multiple times, we’re sure that we’ve gotten any stragglers or anyone that was hiding.  I have a few Blooms that are sweeping the city, and sniffer-drones moving in multiple overlapping passes, including the outlying areas.  But I'm fairly confident that we’ve got everyone.  Our initial scans of the planet showed that this was the only population center, and that there no others farther out.  Like when these sophonts barged in, they herded everyone into the city.”

“Good work!!!  Most excellent work”, he told her, the Affini-dialect layering his words with respect-admiration-gratitude for presence that simple Terran would never be able to not only suggest but inflect.  ‘A simple but short sighted language.  So limited’, he mused, and then blinked.  “And how about our forces?  Any injuries?”

“Injuries?  Us?”, Alduriana asked, grinning.  “Oh goodness no.  One Bloom might have bent a vine as she was trying to fend off three Terrans while petting a fourth she found cute, but that is it.  But…umm…we DO have a problem.”

“A problem?  What kind of problem?”, he said, rising as the transport full of sleeping Terrans trundled off towards the transport ship.  “You know how I feel about problems.”

“Yes, I do”, she said with a straight face.  “I believe it was, ‘Alduriana, every problem is just proof that we need to Domesticate ALL of Reality so it can stop bothering us all with problems while we should be snuggling our cuties’ “, she said with a haughty, gruff tone that was teasing as well.

“I have never said THAT, nor sounded like that”, Glasha said in wounded tones.

“Beg to differ.  But you can be wrong on your own time and with your own cutie.  Who is adorable, by the way.  No, this is an actual problem.  One of ours is missing.  A Januasai Etheri, Second Bloom.  I’ve been trying to reach her, but her communicator must be broken, because I'm not even getting static.  She’s not checked in, and nobody has seen her since she took out that building of Ferals and then went to go chase some blip on her scanner.”

“Great.  Baiera, this is Glasha.  I’m trying to locate Januasai Etheri, Second Bloom.  Has she checked in at all?”

“Negative, Glasha.  Last we heard she was…wait a moment…hold on….”, and then a different sophont came onto the channel.  

“I spoke to her a while ago.  So it turns out that you’re all standing on top of a massive underground complex that’s attached to a naturally occurring cave system.  Januasai figured that the sophont in question was down there, and she..umm…well…she went down there.”

“She WHAT!?!?!?!”

“Without telling anyone else?!?!”

After his initial outburst that was echoed by Alduriana, Glasha held up an eight-fingered hand or two.  “Ok, one at a time.  Simple yes or no answers, please.”  He took a breath, letting the sound fade while he thought.  “We’re on top of a complex”, which was less question and more statement.

“Yes.”

“And this complex is big.”

“Yes.”

“Very big.”

“Yes.”

“And there’s a sophont down there….well…now TWO sophonts.”

“Yes.”

“And we can’t get in touch with Januasai, and neither can you.”

“Correct.  Errmm..no.”

“And she didn’t tell anyone.”

“Well…No.  Not unless you count me.”

“And neither did you.”

“Umm…no.”

He created some vines to massage his core, the equivalent of a Terran rubbing their  temples (which he’d seen his Laria doing and it was just adorable) . “Ok.  Now how can we get down there?”

“Well, there a few openings from the complex, but on further study, it looks like they were all sealed off.  Januasai used the one that’s about four miles northwest of the city.  A cave system that has a door that opens into the complex, like I told her.”

Glasha nodded.  “Ok.  We’re going to need directions, Baiera.  One moment, please.”  He switched the communicator to the channel used by the forces here and addressed them all.  “Ok, Blooms.  We have a missing Affini and a sophont, who may or not be a Feral, and they may or may not be armed, and we can’t get in touch with our Affini.  Apparently they're in a  bunker of some kind.  So I’m going to need three Affini to converge on my location and we can go find them.”  He waited a moment for the chatter and voices offering to help to die down, before he spoke again.  “I don’t know much more than that, if there are any injuries or if Januasai needed to Rebloom so I’ll need someone with medical knowledge–”, and he looked as four Affni skidded to a stop within his line of sight.  “Ok…we have our team.  Everyone else, thanks for the help offered.  Let’s not forget the sophonts that are here, and let's make sure that they get up to the ship.  Waving over the four Affini, he quickly got their names, and nodded.  “Baiera…we’re going to set off.  Gonna need you to guide us”, and they began to run.