[scifan] plantation - books one to three

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  Their presence cannot be suspected or it will be the end of them. They will remain hidden in the trees hoping not to be picked up by the sensors among the commotion that the attack will surely create.

  The sensors can, in theory, send signals to the plantation and that is our biggest fear. Theo

  doesn’t have access to the satellite coordinates anymore and he cannot block them.

  Biscuit, Theo, Zoe and Doc have climbed onto the branches of two huge oak trees. They are

  scanning the area for the first visible signs of the convoy. My job will be to immobilize the aliens

  with the receptor before they have time to reach for theirs. It is likely they will carry at least one sensory receptor among them. I will have to act fast to prepare the terrain for Damian, Finn and Nya

  who will attack the Sliman head on once the aliens are under my control. Theo, Zoe, Doc and Biscuit

  will cover us with their pulse guns from above.

  “Rabbit, tie the Sliman up and stay close to them. You can shoot them on the spot if they so much

  as move a finger,” Damian says.

  “Hang on,” I say. “Damian, I need Wudak. You can’t just have him tied up. I need his guidance.”

  “He doesn’t need his hands for that, does he?”

  “I can’t believe you sometimes.”

  “I’m not changing my mind. End of the conversation.”

  Rabbit looks confused. He has no idea what to do until Damian repeats the order. Rabbit quickly

  ties Malzod and Gritu but hesitates with Wudak. Damian takes the rope from Rabbit and ties Wudak’s

  hands behind his back.

  “You can stay close to Freya until the convoy is here and she switches on her energy,” he says

  abruptly before he leaves to talk with Finn and Nya.

  “I’d be careful with that one if I were you,” Wudak says.

  “What do you mean?” I say quite astounded.

  “He’s after you. And not in a way that would make sense in human terms.”

  “The only thing that doesn’t make sense is your words,” I whisper.

  “I wish I could reveal more. As it is, I can only promise to protect you.”

  My head starts spinning and my focus diminishes.

  “Steady there,” Wudak says. “Do not pay attention to my ramblings. Like I said, I don’t

  understand human vulnerability all that well.”

  “On the contrary, I think you understand us quite well. I think you’re trying to create problems

  for us. Making us suspicious of each other.”

  “Forgive my insolence, it will not happen again,” Wudak promises avoiding my eyes.

  Biscuit gives the sign. He sees them. We all move to take our position.

  The seconds go by with remarkable sluggishness. They drag their feet in my ears with a ticking

  sound. Every beat of my heart lasts an eternity.

  I hear the sound of the alien vehicle. It moves slow to keep pace with the Sliman who are on

  foot. They might as well be a brigade of marching elephants in metal boots.

  Wudak bumps me gently with his shoulder.

  “It’s time, dear Freya,” he says. “I will count to three and then you will let the shield fall and

  you’ll bring your blasting energy back. Allow your brain to be fluid in its commands. Do not strain

  yourself.”

  I nod and he starts counting.

  “One.”

  Damian’s right behind me.

  “Two.”

  Finn and Nya on each side.

  “Three.”

  I place the receptor in front of my face and gently blow at it. My breath is visible as it touches

  the small screen on the receptor. Immediately, the energy switches and I jump out of the trees and

  right in front of the convoy. The two Sliman that lead the way are caught unawares and waste seconds

  before reacting.

  It’s all I need. My receptor’s energy field slams the alien vehicle and tears off its roof. At the

  same time, the aliens are engulfed in a blue mist that keeps them immobilized. Their breathing

  becomes labored and they have to focus their entire being on that simple function.

  Simultaneously, Damian falls over the two leading Sliman. He grabs them by their necks and

  crashes them with a ferociousness that I have not seen in him before. Their lifeless bodies fall to the ground.

  Finn and Nya attack the remaining six Sliman, Finn from the left and Nya from the right in an

  avalanche of pulse gun blasts coming from the trees. Two more Sliman go down. Damian steps in

  front of me and walks to the open vehicle that holds the three stunned aliens inside.

  “You’re free,” he tells me as he pounces down on the aliens with all his force. I stare at him in

  horror, unable to reconcile the violence of his assault with the gentleness I have seen in him. I realize that he doesn’t just want to kill the aliens, he wants them to suffer a bit first. He wants them to know they are at his mercy. That is why he instructed me not to kill them with the receptor. It was not to

  avoid having the vehicle explode on us like he said. It was so that he could finish the job himself.

  I wake from my trance when I hear Nya scream. The eight Sliman are all dead or badly wounded

  but a ninth Sliman has appeared out of nowhere. He has thrown a knife at Nya’s thigh. I turn the

  receptor on him but Finn reacts faster and shoots the Sliman dead. Doc climbs down the tree as fast as he can and rushes to Nya’s side. Her thigh is bleeding. The knife is still inside her flesh. Doc

  examines the wound and places a gauge around the knife before he pulls it out.

  “No punctured arteries and it’s not magnetic,” he says relieved. My hands tremble and I feel

  weak in my stomach.

  “Are you okay, Freya?” Finn says. “You look so pale.”

  “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.”

  Finn calls Zoe and Theo to check out the surrounding area, guns in hand.

  I look to Damian. My heart freezes. He lifts his face to the sky. His hands and shirt are covered

  in blood, his features are hardened. In his hands, he holds the two sensors he has found in the vehicle.

  They are bloodied as well.

  He looks like a primitive god, a warrior king. I turn my face away in shock. Maybe I am too

  naïve. Maybe he’s right about this as well. You can’t win a war with kindness.

  I rub my hands together. They feel clammy and cold. I always feel cold when I get a bad feeling.

  I sense a shadow behind me and when I turn, I come face to face with Wudak. He looks down on me

  silently.

  “I’m not that interesting, stop staring at me,” I blurt out but he doesn’t respond. I take a look at

  Nya. Doc has cleaned and bandaged her wound. Biscuit has given her water and some kind of bread.

  “Is she okay?” I ask.

  “She’s fine,” Doc says. “She’ll recover quickly.” I nod and I take off into the woods looking for

  a moment alone. A moment to pull myself together. To take in all that has just happened.

  We have won, we’ve killed three alien invaders for the first time and we have made a statement.

  Wudak’s word was good. He has proven that he can be trusted to some extent. I wish he’d never stare

  at me that way again, though. His deep green eyes are so penetrating, I feel like he could expose my

  soul. I’m afraid he can sense that I somehow failed myself during the fight, that my thoughts took over and for a few moments I was useless and looking at things from a distance.

  I need to grow thicker skin, maybe become more like the Sliman who can literally make their

  skin thicker when it’s too cold or when they are underwater.

  Most of all, I need to examine my feeling
s for Damian. I need to see why I spend so much energy

  trying to figure him out.

  I take a deep breath, tap the receptor in my pocket to make sure it’s there and decide to go back.

  I see Damian approaching with long strides and I know it’s the last thing I need right now.

  “You can’t run off like that,” he says and before I know what’s going on, he lifts me up and hides

  his face in my hair.

  “That felt good back there, didn’t it?” he says. “We make a good team.”

  “Put me down,” I say but his lips are on mine already. I feel paralyzed, unable to push him away

  and this time I can’t blame it on overwhelming grief. I’ve grown closer to him over the past couple

  months. I’ve come to like him and trust him. I even like it when he kisses me. But being with him is

  not an option for so many different reasons.

  “Put me down,” I repeat as I pull away.

  He does so but a moment later he pulls me in his arms and kisses my neck. His breath is warm

  and sweet and his tenderness takes me by surprise. I have to be careful or this won’t end well.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I say. “You can’t just grab people and kiss them whenever you

  feel like it.”

  He turns his head left, then right to show his bewilderment.

  “People? What does that mean? I don’t kiss people. I kissed you. And you kissed me back.”

  “This is the part where you’re supposed to apologize,” I say.

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “You make me so furious sometimes. You can never do that again, do you hear me?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

  “Yes, that is what I want.”

  “Fine.”

  “Let’s get back. I can’t believe we’re arguing about such stupidities in the middle of nowhere

  while our lives and the lives of our friends could still be in danger. Do you have any idea how

  inappropriate this is?” I keep going on about how we could jeopardize everything by being careless,

  how we should put the common good first.

  “You will grow up one day,” is the only thing he says in response. He speeds up his pace and

  leaves me behind.

  *

  PIP COMES RUNNING when we return to the camp late in the evening.

  “You’re all safe,” she says and claps her hands.

  “Of course, what did you think? We have super powers, remember?” Finn says.

  “Nya, what happened?” Tilly asks when she sees Nya’s bandaged leg.

  “A little souvenir,” Nya smiles. “So I remember the day I killed two freaky Slimies.”

  Gritu cringes at this. “I’m not slimy,” he says.

  Nya offers him one of her coldest smiles. “Of course not,” she says and rolls her eyes.

  Scout, Tilly and Pip can’t help but laugh but they stop when Wudak and Damian come in last.

  The seriousness on their faces cools the celebration.

  “The Sliman have given signs of trustworthiness,” Damian says when we are all gathered in

  front of the cave. “They can stay tonight. Unarmed, but guarded.” He turns to Wudak, “You understand

  that I cannot let you walk freely about the camp. From now on, you will have to let us know about

  your visits.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Wudak says. “We do not plan to visit again.”

  “We need details of the fight,” Tilly interrupts.

  “How did it happen?” Scout says.

  “We’ll give you all the details, Till,” Damian smiles, “while we have our victory feast.”

  “Finally, something worth living for,” Biscuit says.

  “I’ll get the dishes out,” Rabbit says.

  “We’re not done,” Damian says to Wudak when most of the Saviors have gone to prepare for the

  celebration. Only Theo and me still linger outside.

  “No, we are not,” Wudak agrees.

  “What do you mean you’re not visiting again? I thought your great plan was to train Freya, to

  protect her.”

  Wudak closes in on Damian, their faces inches apart. They look like giant bulls about to ram

  each other. “We’re taking her with us.”

  Damian laughs in his face. “So you do have a sense of humor,” he says. He turns to me. “Did you

  hear that, Freya? Pack your bags.”

  “I just might and there’s nothing you can do about it,” I say just to provoke him. I don’t know

  what’s wrong with me.

  He stares at me a long while and I can see murder on his face. He decides to drop it. “I’ll go get

  cleaned up,” he says.

  Theo shakes his head before he goes too. He’s sad. He doesn’t understand. He’s disappointed in

  me. I can feel it. There’s no room for the old, reactionary Freya anymore.

  Wudak grabs my arm and I pull it back as fast as I can.

  “What are you doing?”

  “If you never trust me but once, let this be the time,” he whispers to me. “Stay far away from

  him.”

  5

  In a single moment everything you ever wished for might be taken away from you. In a dark

  corner of the universe, a genetic mix might be boiled in a laboratory to destroy the world as you know it. Things that you thought held the most importance for you, family, love, possessions, education

  would become irrelevant then and you’d find yourself running away from the flames just to stay alive

  for a few more days, hours, minutes.

  That’s what happened to the citizens of this world when the first alien invading ships arrived

  and began to bomb every major city in the world. That’s how dreams turned into ruins and that’s how

  intelligence turned itself inside out and concentrated its entire purpose on finding a way to survive.

  It’s a sad story and an even sadder lesson. But it is also the motivation a broken soul needs in

  order to invent a new world. To be reborn like the bird Phoenix out of ashes and tears.

  The night has been full of wonders. The Sliman have been ecstatic over Biscuit’s culinary

  talents and he has accepted their compliments with a solemnity that borders on the absurd.

  Pip has revealed a new side to her, a side that’s wise and thoughtful and consistent with the

  wonderful sweetness and politeness we saw in her from the beginning. She has asked me not to grieve

  over the loss of our sister but try and remember her instead. Try and keep her alive in our memories.

  We have decided to ask all the girls to join us in a reunion and get to talk about those we’ve lost,

  about us, about the future and our hopes for it.

  I wish I could take Pip to the library but it’s not safe anymore. All I can do is relate my favorite

  stories to her, explain the world as I have understood it through my readings and conversations with

  the rest of the Saviors, especially Finn.

  I remember the day I took my little sisters out in the woods surrounding the breeding village to

  show them how to pick mushrooms that were safe to eat. It was only a few days before my harvesting

  and I knew we didn’t have much time. I was seven and Pip was barely two. Our sister was four. We

  called her four. We all called each other by our age in the village, changing names every year. We

  didn’t know anything else.

  My brother had done the same thing for me days before he was harvested. He showed me how to

  pick mushrooms, how to pull dandelions out of the ground without breaking them, how to find bird

  eggs.

  I wanted to do the same for my sisters but they were too young and all they wanted to do was

&n
bsp; play. I threw my rope around a branch to make a swing and we pushed each other for a long time. We

  played hide and seek and we rolled down a slope. When we returned to the hut, my mother gave us

  soup and apples. We all slept together on the floor that night and I can still feel their soft breathing in my ears.

  It’s getting late. There are a few yawns in the company but nobody really feels like going to bed.

  The excitement of the day has not died down yet. We sit around a bonfire and the Sliman sit a bit

  further away. I have to turn my head to see them. They look out of place but do their best not to draw attention to themselves.

  Our faces take on a strange orange hue as the fire reflects on them. The stories we tell make our

  skin crawl. We talk about werewolves and vampires, about zombies and ogres that are after human

  flesh. Scary stories all, but our real lives are more frightening than anything we could conjure. Yet, I get a creepy feeling I can’t shake and so do most of the other girls. Not Nya though, she’s enjoying the stories, she wants to hear more.

  “Who would win in a hand-to-hand combat?” she asks. “A vampire or a werewolf?”

  “A vampire,” Rabbit says. “There’s no question about it.”

  “Werewolves have their own tricks up their sleeves and they’re super-strong. They could win,”

  Scout says.

  “Nine out of ten times a vampire would win,” Biscuit says.

  “Ten out of ten times a Sliman would win,” Malzod says. It’s the first time we’ve heard him say

  anything at all. So far he’s just listened and nodded. I can tell he likes our stories though.

  “Does today count?” Nya says to prod him.

  Malzod crosses his arms and retreats into silence again. It’s possible that he is not pleased with

  what happened today. Maybe if it were up to him, no Sliman would have been sacrificed. Maybe he

  thinks there should have been a better way to prove their loyalty to us. I know that’s what I’d think in his shoes.

  Finn and Theo play a game of chess with a set that I have helped make. I carved the pawns out of

  pieces of wood. As always, the game can go either way. They are both equally skilled at chess.

  “So, Tick,” Damian whispers as he moves closer to me, “do you think your boyfriend will win

  this time?”

  I look left and right to make sure nobody has heard him.