by Tim C Taylor
“And to make a human-Littorane joint operation successful is essential,” added Zhang. I’d assessed him as a sociopathic credit pincher, but he spoke with obvious passion. “Our two peoples are warring back on the mainland,” he continued. “We have to show the world that we can succeed together.”
“We are Revenge Squad,” I said, walking over to stand beside Silky. “We don’t give up easily.”
“I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” said To’as-Kan. “There’s been enough violence. Fail now. Please. Trigger your non-completion payout and go home. We will deal with the problem. No one else needs to die.”
“Except the tree things,” I said firmly.
“The plants,” said Zhang. “They’re drenting plants, you dumbwad drellocks. Exotic specimens – yes. Unusual behavior – yes. But plants. For frakk’s sake, they aren’t intelligent beings with their own civilization. Even if they were, they have no legal status, and they are not your frakking concern.”
The Littorane rolled the tip of his tail in a lazy circle. I had lived with one of the amphibians briefly, long enough to know this was a sign of agitation, of stress. It appeared that the Littorane was being forced into a position it was struggling to justify. I studied Zhang’s face, but found no room for compromise in that stony exterior.
Revenge Squad and its clients glared at each other.
Only one thing failed to make sense to me. It wasn’t much, but I’d been taught from an early age that if you see an opportunity, you seize it with everything you’ve got.
I looked out the window at the Littoranes enjoying themselves in the water. Despite all the horror of recent days, the word I could best find to describe them was frolicking.
“Honored Gishleene To’as-Kan,” I addressed the Littorane formally. “Your workers seem remarkably relaxed in the circumstances. Can you explain that to me?”
“They lie secure behind the fence and your warriors who are keeping watch.” The Littorane’s body language relaxed, and I realized he was conflict avoiding. “The location of Unity Ascent is perfect. Warm shallow seas, gentle currents, and corals filled with an abundance of colorful fish. It is remarkably like our homeworld. The wildlife here is poisonous, of course, but we can hunt, chase, and play with the fish through the coral arches. It’s a beautiful location.”
“You mean, it’s a great spot to relax. A place of purity where the song of the Goddess resonates so strongly that even with the tragedy that has visited this island, your people out there can feel it from the top of their heads to the tips of their tails.”
The Littorane reared up, pivoting halfway along its torso to take on an appearance that now resembled a crocodile-centaur hybrid, a stance that they preferred in combat. “I see you know a little of my people’s culture. I thank you for making the effort to do so.”
“I don’t know much,” I replied, “but I do know those waters won’t seem so pure when they’re stained forever by the dishonor of xenocide.”
The Littorane crashed down to the floor, settling its body into a crouch, its tail – which happened to be a highly effective melee weapon – held aloft and ready. I was highly adept at pissing off aliens.
“The sooner you accept reality,” said Zhang, “the sooner you go home safe. Is your professional pride worth risking your lives?”
Silky and I looked at each other. “Yes,” we said in unison.
“My recommendation, boss,” I said to Silky. “Let’s go do some forest recon.”
She looked up at me and smiled, which made this already odd-looking alien look even weirder. With her scaly skin the pallid gray of perished rubber, Silky looked like something dredged out of a dried-up river bed, and the human smile I was teaching her didn’t yet touch her eyes. But once in a while came moments like this when she looked impossibly cute. Whether that was cute like a puppy or rip-your-clothes-off cute was something I still hadn’t figured.
The smile vanished and her game face was back on. “Agreed. But this time we equip ourselves properly. Bullets and darts are no good. We need blades, flames, and lasers.”
I grinned because my SA-71 carbine would be perfect. And when I say my carbine, this was the same gun I’d liberated from the Legion after carrying her for two centuries of war. Without powered armor, she was a brutal weight to lug around the forest, but blades, flames, and lasers: she could do all three.
At last, things were starting to look up.
— 4 —
“Let’s see what a pulse laser does to those fuel blisters,” said Silky, excitement coming off her in waves from the tentacles on her head. Savagery always thrilled her. “Open fire, NJ.”
I allowed my carbine’s charge state to reach maximum and placed the tree in my sights.
Our reconnaissance had gotten us to this moment of impending human-on-tree violence, because Silky had ordered us to take a route directly through the forest on our way to Brintz outpost, the first site that had been taken out by the tree things. Away from the coastal path, the foliage was thick and unwelcoming, every footstep a little farther into the dark terror of enemy territory, and a little farther away from the hope of ever returning to Port Zahir alive.
That had been Nolog’s view of Silky’s plan, in any case. It was dangerous, for sure, but Silky had made the point that if the human trails were being watched by the killer ivy, then cutting cross-country might be an unexpected change of tactics they would be unable to respond to quickly. Besides, we wanted to know how widespread were the trees with the blisters the ivy seemed to feed off.
So far, the answer was unclear. The parasitic plants were common, but none appeared threatening. We had simply avoided them.
Until we reached the clearing.
A single tree stood proudly in the center of a hundred-foot circular open space. It possessed the fuel bulges but was larger than most at about 25-feet high. The parasite that rode the trunk spread its branches outward like humanoid arms. Feathery white and red tassels dangled from the tips of the branches, and there was something about them that bothered me.
Hell, I’m no botanist, but in my experience blossoms, catkins, tassels, berries and whatever tend to be spread throughout branches, whereas these beauties were only on the tips.
“There is a problem?” asked Silky, her enthusiasm replaced by worry, because I’d developed an inconvenient reluctance in recent years to pull the trigger on humanoid targets. I knew instinctively that firing at trees wasn’t going to be am problem. It was the tassels. They look like displays – meant to convey information. What were they trying to tell us?
I set my carbine to safe mode, but I didn’t power her down. Then I realized the solitary tree was not alone, after all.
“See there?” I pointed to the perimeter of the clearing – “and there” – indicating the opposite side. Alarmed, I swiveled around to check our rear. Nothing behind us.
“Relax, Grandpops,” Shahdi told me. A crackle and hum indicated she’d activated the ignition unit on her flamethrower. “Anything works its way behind us and I’ll roast it.” Frakk, she reminded me more every day of Sanaa when she’d been a teenager.
“Flank guards,” said Silky. “We have encountered the enemy, and on ground of their choosing. Open fire.”
“Wait!” I said. “I’ve been to Earth. Read up on its history. There was a period called the Days of Yore when men wore brightly colored tights, gaudy shirts that looked like overstuffed pumpkins, and big hats. Man, they were really into hats.”
“Is this a prewar period?” Silky asked.
“Pre-spaceflight,” I replied. “My point is that the commanders of opposing armies couldn’t communicate via radio or microwave beams, so they sent human go-betweens called heralds. To stop them getting their heads shot off, the heralds carried brightly coloured pennants to denote their status. Those colored tassels on the tree. I think they’re pennants, and that there’s a herald.”
“My people have an analog to your heralds,” said Nolog-Ndacu. “They would con
nect by mineralizing and sharing fragments of each other’s bodies until they were in sufficient concurrence to move onto words. The stupid process takes years. I wish to return home in a shorter time scale, so how do we talk to this alleged herald?”
“How does a person relate to a tree?” asked Shahdi.
“Perhaps we should relate to them as an opposing force,” Silky suggested. “On balance, I think it is a good working assumption that they are displaying tactical awareness. That is a common frame of reference that we share.”
“They’re soldiers,” I said. “Like us.”
“Count me out,” said Shahdi. “I’ve never been a soldier. I don’t want to be… not unless I ever have to fight to defend my home… to… to defend against invaders. NJ, you’ll always be a soldier, but those trees? Maybe they’re more like me, forced to defend themselves?”
I turned and looked at the team’s youngster. “You gone total tree hugger, Shahdi?”
Her eyes might shine with the brightness of youth, but there was confidence in her defiant look. “I think I’m the clearest thinking one here,” she shot back. “You’re all military veterans. Answer me this. If the trees are fighting a war to push the invaders from their islands, why have they never attacked Unity Ascent?”
“That… is a very good question,” said Silky. “Let’s find out. Cover me, NJ. I’m going to parley with that… plant.”
“No way, boss,” I pleaded. “The thing about heralds is that they weren’t just brave and looked good in tights, they were probably stupid, possibly drunk, and definitely expendable. Let me go first.”
I discovered that my feet were already taking me toward the central tree.
You’re not expendable, said Sanaa, and I am certainly not.
“Stow that drent,” Silky snapped, surprising me with the ferocity of her anger. “Revenge Squad employed me because I’m an empath. Our performance here will be under tight scrutiny. Let me demonstrate what I can do.”
I bit my lip in frustration but halted as ordered. She was right, but that didn’t make it easy to take. Did I mention we were married? I exaggerate. She had married me in a Kurlei ritual that neither required nor sought my consent or even knowledge.
As I watched her walk alone to the herald tree with her clumsy feet-outturned gait, I kept telling myself that I hadn’t actually married her.
I lay prone with my weapon hot and trained on the plant she was offering herself up to. She had married me, I reminded myself.
Then she stretched out a long-fingered hand to touch the leaves of the tree rider, and I discovered those stupid distinctions of who had done precisely what didn’t mean a damn.
I’d seen a lot of weird drent during the war. Alien people and alien worlds with alien viewpoints that made no sense to me. Though to be honest, the strangest behavior came from other humans, above all those I’d encountered in the liberation of Earth. But as I covered her anxiously, what Silky did was top of the list. She rubbed the trunk with the fat flesh tentacles on her head, or her kesah-kihisia as she had started to call them. Then she pushed herself against the lower branches of the parasite, thrusting her kesah-kihisia inside the colorful tassels, which twitched in response, like spasming fingers.
“Any reactions from our friends?” I asked Shahdi.
“A couple have appeared at our rear,” she replied, “but they’re holding position.”
The other members of the team were watchful but not yet squeezing triggers, so I returned my attention to Silky. She looked like an alien woman with her head stuck in a tree, not a delegate to an inter-species crisis summit on the eve of war, but if there was one thing I had learned from my time with Silky, it was that looks could deceive. If anyone could find a way to bridge the gulf between native plants and invading loggers, it was my Silky.
She pulled away, thoughtful but not defeated.
“Well?” I asked her. “What did the thing say?”
She didn’t reply directly. She knelt beside where I was lying prone, carbine to hand, and pulled at her chin. It was a sign of contemplation and indecision, just as with humans, but it was also a reminder that my alien companion was not human. Her chin extended by a couple of inches and her face narrowed and elongated. “Silky! Silky, you’re…” I stopped when Sanaa put a jolt of pain through the nerves in my ass.
I was about to tell Silky that she was worrying me, but Sanaa was right: it was not the right thing to say. If I could put myself in harm’s way to keep Silky safe, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Silky knew that. I think everyone – even Nolog – understood that. But it wasn’t right to fuss over her.
I know it’s difficult, said Sanaa. It’s because you’ve been a civilian too long. Trust her with your respect as you once respected me.
I ground my teeth. Sanaa had been my wife. Civilians sometimes found the idea of marrying your squadmate to be strange, even inappropriate, but in the world I grew up in we knew nothing else. You lived, loved, and died in your squad. There was no life outside the Marines. There were no civilians. No one waiting for you at home. No retirement. And if you were lucky enough to have children, you would rarely be granted a chance to see them, let alone be a parent.
Then, one day, along had come the Human Legion.
“Please don’t think I’m insane,” began Silky, her eyes unable to meet mine. And that lilac on her cheeks… was she blushing?
I laughed in her face, ignoring the voices of protest in my head and Silky’s angry frown. I couldn’t help it. Silky cracked me up. She could take on any one of us one-on-one in unarmed combat, and her wartime specialism had been to infiltrate behind enemy lines and kill high-value targets, before sneaking all the way back. She was a very dangerous person, and yet she could be so bashful.
Aliens!
“I’m sorry,” I said, but she could read my mind and knew that I wasn’t sorry in the slightest. “Go on.”
“The… plant creature…” she said. “It wants to talk with you, NJ.”
— 5 —
My name is NJ McCall, and I’m a professional tree hugger – at least when duty calls.
With my arms wrapped completely around the trunk, I gave a tentative squeeze as if we were equivocal lovers, but the tree was not ready to speak with me.
I heard a girlish snort behind me and looked back. Shahdi appeared dutifully in position, ready to flame anything coming at us from our rear, but I wasn’t fooled. Especially when her shoulders jerked with laughter.
“You can wipe that smirk off your face, young lady,” I roared at her, only half in jest. “When we get back to Port Zahir, you can go to your room and stay there without supper. Damn kids these days.”
“Come on then,” I growled at the silent tree before me. “Are you talking or teasing?”
But it made no reply. I sighed, relieved because I’d seen the inside of other people’s minds before, and it was never exactly a comfortable experience. It drove many insane, and I feared talking to an alien tree creature would be just as bad.
But nothing was happening, and so I relaxed. Maybe slackening off the tension was what I’d needed all along, because the outstretched branches sprang into action, curling around to encase me in an unbreakable embrace. I’d seen what these tree riders could do to the human body. It would be easy for it to suffocate me or snap my neck, but I could still breathe, and the embrace was less the coiled death of a boa constrictor and more like the muscular hug of an overfriendly Marine after a skinful of beer.
“I’m okay,” I called out to my friends.
The plant pounced with its branch tips, pulling apart the flesh of my back and ripping into my spine.
“Still okay,” I squeaked above the pain, because I guessed what it was trying to do. Here we go again!
When I was a young Marine, enjoying time in Sanaa’s rack and paying heed to my veteran squad leader, Sergeant Chinole, they used to call us Stegosaurus Squad, on account of the cerebral ports sticking out along our spine. We wore that label with pride, but on mo
re than one occasion over the centuries that followed, uninvited guests had noticed our lumps and seen them as gateways, as a route to NJ McCall’s inner workings.
They want me to act as conduit, said the ghost of Sergeant Chinole. They want to speak through me. Do you accept, boy?
Do I have a choice?
The Sarge hesitated before replying. It says yes. From a tactical point of view, the enemy can kill you in an instant. I think it would pay to listen.
Will the process hurt you? I asked.
Another pause. I don’t think the Sarge had considered that angle. No, he replied eventually. They will withdraw after this parley. They won’t deliberately hurt any of us, but, hey, an alien life form no one knows anything about just ripped open your back and interfaced with highly advanced combat AIs – tech so advanced that even the best Legion brains can’t reverse engineer. We are treading through unexplored territory.
Good, I replied, trying to sound calm despite the excruciating pain. That’s why Revenge Squad pays us the big credits. Do whatever you have to, Sarge.
I greet you, said the Sarge. He didn’t sound any different, now that the alien creature was presumably speaking through him.
Nice to meet you, tree-thing. You know who I am and why I am here?
I have the gist of it. You people in this clearing are a mercenary company, paid to kill those who attacked the tree-cutting sites.
Yes… our job is to take revenge on whoever killed the loggers.
I killed the humans, and the few Littoranes I found. I am your enemy. You are paid to kill me.
Perhaps. Right now, we’re here to learn more. Who are you?
My people… the tree riders… you may call us the animus.
Okay, animus. Let’s start with the basics. Just so we don’t kill each other over a misunderstanding. The loggers want to cut down trees and you want to stop them. That makes you… what? Ancient tree guardians?
Not exactly. You do not understand, and it is important that you should. My people are spread throughout the islands, but each individual animus is a group unity. You have the idea of a Revenge Squad unit. You are individuals but unite to form a single team. I am a squad. This unit arranged here before you in and around this clearing is a single individual, and the part of me that embraces you now is but a limb of that individual.
