That dreadful roar

Lois, Ralph and Gwen had little time to think about the intense heat of he planet as they stood in the tiny clearing of towering alien trees.

When the roar echoed out from the deep inside the jungle Lois' heart nearly stopped.

It sounded exactly as she imagined it would. It sounded exactly like the roar of that awful ape-beast from her imagination.

Seconds later the jungle exploded into life. Dozens of purple creatures flung themselves down from the treetops and towards the Petersons. They were roundish, with large mouths set into their bulb-like bodies and studdied with short and stumpy tentacles. The strange alien creatures seemed to use these tentacles to throw themselves from branch to branch -- and were now throwing themselves straight at the Petersons.

True to form, the Enforcer, Gwen whipped a pistol into her hand and with two shots had taken out two of the beasts. Ralph had shot but missed.

A quick decision was needed. Lois considered retreating back into the space shuttle - surely it would be safer there? Not the best start to the rescue. But could they actually fight their way through dozens of these purple monkeyballs?

And what about that roar? Surely a similar sounding roar from somwhere in the planet didn't mean that all of Lois' fears would come true. Did it?