Sayeeda moved quickly towards Neil pleased and impressed that he had taken the insurgent down quietly. She was only thirty meters away when suddenly a rock leaped at her, carroted rather belated on her motion detector. She swung her weapon to bear instinctively but the thing was almost the size of a battle tank. Its body temperature was within a few degrees of ambient, close enough that her AI had assumed it was a boulder holding a little residual heat from sunlight but now that it was in motion the mistake was obvious. It was ten meters in length and three meters to the top of its horned head. Bony protrusions served as natural armor and three long tusks protruded in a delta pattern from the center of its face. It stank of rotting vegetation and some sort of organic decay, bad enough that the nose filters in Junebug’s helmet clamped shut in case it was harmful. Sayeeda managed to squeeze off a shot before the tusk hit her like a medicine ball, slamming her chestplate against her and pitching her into the air. She tumbled for a moment before another toss of the things head smashed into her ribs, this time the point of the tusk tangled in her webbing and she dangled, stunned from the point of the things upper right tusk. She regained her senses enough to fire her rifle. It was impossible to miss at this range but the displacer round merely pulped a dinner plate sized portion of armor, lacking the penetration to reach the things vitals. She squeezed the trigger to use a burst but the thing went berserk stomping its feet and tossing its head so that  she tossed like a rag doll. She had the confused impression of Neil shouting as the world whirled around her in a dizzying disorienting blur. Desperately she dropped her rifle, allowing the sling to catch it and pulled a cutting bar from her belt. Aware that the cutting bar was as dangerous to her as the creature she pressed it against the tusk and powered it on. Counterturning diamond teeth whired and bit,  and there was a spray of bone and what might have been blood. The maddened creature bellowed in pain and tossed its head violently. The tusk gave way with a crack and Junebug flew free, arcing through the air and crashing into Neil, knocking him flat with the combined weight of her body and the bony lump still tangled in her webbing. For a moment she lay atop the pilot dazed before she felt the thunder of the thing charging towards them. Letting out a sulphurous oath she rolled onto her back, dizzy and pained to the point that the world momentarily rendered itself in shade of gray and red.

 The thing was bellowing mad as it charged, great gobets of foam dripping from its mouth and dark blood running from the stump of its severed tusk. It barreled towards them like a freight car and Junebug swung her rifle to bear. Suddenly the thing screamed and flinched backwards, churning up the earth as it attempted to reverse its progress. It wheeled away as though repelled by some shield, turned and tried to press home again only to scream and vere off once more. Junebug came up in to a kneeling stance and aimed at the thing, but it bellowed in frustration once more and then bounded off into the trees, shattering saplings as it fled. For a moment the jungle was silent before the usual cacophony of birds and small creatures resumed. Junebug touched the retraction button that lifted her face shield and wiped blood from a split lit, spitting into the dirt. 

“What the fuck was that?” she wheezed, falling back onto her butt and trying to catch her breath.