Writers of the Future Volume 28: The Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year

by L. Ron Hubbard

  My muscles quivered as I crawled on hands and toes through a narrow gap, feeling for solid footing through the thin fabric on my skinsuit’s hands and feet, trying to disturb the vines as little as possible. I groped forward and the vines constricted. My pulse ratcheted up. They must have identified me as an intruder.

  Somehow, I kept my wits and froze. Breathing deep, I studied the vines, arms shaking with the strain of holding myself still. They weren’t moving. They simply grew close together, knotting and weaving around each other as though in a deliberate barrier.

  My pulse still pounded in my ears, but now as I twisted my shoulders and hips, my heart hammered with excitement. I shimmied, pulled and wiggled through, anxious for sweet, bonus-worthy intel on the other side.

  Another meter forward, and the light brightened suddenly. My HUD dropped its gain and I blinked past the spots in my eyes, confused by the open space stretching before me. Disbelieving after so many hours in the forest’s close confines.

  I craned my head to see the roof of the canopy arching high above, and for a moment, I forgot the protests of my muscles, forgot the vines gripping my ribs and tangling my feet. A dozen meters of open space stretched before me, ending in what I first took to be a building. As my gaze traversed it, I realized it was an enormous tree.

  My neck began to ache from craning up, and my body rushed back to me, screaming protest at holding such an unnatural position after so many hours of travel.

  I pulled myself forward and somersaulted, slipping my legs out from the vines and crouching, one hand on my slug thrower as MilComm training kicked back in. My eyes tracked the open space in automatic threat assessment, but soon I was gaping like a tourist.

  The vines I had just pulled myself out of ended abruptly in what, as far as I could tell, was an enormous, gently curving ring, stretching off into the distance, fading into a yellowish mist. The thick tangle of vines climbed twenty meters into the sky. Above that, enormous branches arched outward from the forest I’d just escaped, forming a cathedral ceiling thousands of times bigger than anything on Hope’s Landing.

  Vertigo swept me, and I put one hand on the springy moss carpeting the open space, glad I hadn’t stood from my crouch. I knew I should move on, should pay more attention to the tactical data scrolling in my periphery, but I kept staring upwards. The limbs from the trees behind me merged with those sprouting like spiky hair from the great structure in front of me, and I felt like an ant crouched between two skyscrapers. That analogy wasn’t quite right. An ant in an inverted donut of skyscapers—forest to my back, the enormous tree in front of me, and a thin ring of open space between, fading away into the distance on my right and left.

  The canopy wavered and shifted in a breeze I couldn’t feel, and the sunlight, which had looked so sickly before, seemed suddenly beautiful. Gold glinted off aluminum-plated leaves, and I took a deep breath, somehow expecting the fresh scent of new growth.

  The faintly metallic tang of my suit’s air shook me, reminding me I was in hostile territory. I swept my surroundings. A few bugs skittered across the moss, absorbed in their own tasks.

  I studied the enormous tree, its sides a familiar, mottled gray bark. The HUD used its faint curvature to calculate a diameter of 200 meters. It had to be a building; why else would it be so large, so isolated?

  Whatever I was going to find, I would find it there.

  I slipped the safety off my slug thrower and launched from my crouch like a runner from the starting blocks, beelining for the tree and hoping to hell that my sprint wouldn’t trigger new defenses.

  No cutter-bugs swarmed, and I pressed my back against the giant tree-building, scanning the way I had come. Time to stop being a tourist and become a spy.

  I realized with a start that fifteen minutes had passed since my last shutdown. No other scan had taken so long. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I wondered if I’d made it past the scans. My stomach knotted in anticipation of what else awaited me.

  I wouldn’t come so far only to die.

  Gritting my teeth, I slunk along the tree wall, seeking an opening. Ten minutes passed before I found it.

  Three meters up from the ground, the HUD outlined a jagged shadow. Magnified, it resolved into an opening, and I couldn’t help but smile. At least all those years drilling soubresauts would be good for something.

  I holstered my gun and leaped, catching the fissure’s lip and chinning myself up. I hung with just my eyes above the edge, toes digging into rough bark. An empty tunnel twisted into darkness, a meter wide at its center, three meters tall, narrowing to sharp points at ceiling and floor.

  I heaved myself over the lip. Nothing rushed out of the darkness to attack me, so I pressed my back against the tunnel, one leg on the steep wall beneath me, the other angled out to the wall opposite. Slug thrower in hand, I scanned back the way I had come. No sign of pursuit.

  After a few steps down the tunnel, I holstered my gun. I needed my hands to balance against the tunnel walls as I placed one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker, struggling to step on the narrow crack where the sloping walls met. Whenever I stepped too far to the right or left, my ankles protested.

  The aliens must not walk on the floor, I decided, because this tunnel was hell. The image of giant, sentient cutter-bugs skittering out of the shadows sent a chill down my spine.

  Something was watching me, my hindbrain screamed, and my hand closed about the slug thrower. I squinted up into the darkness at the peak of the narrowing crevice, but even at full gain, my HUD failed to distinguish anything from the shadows.

  Swallowing hard, I blamed the fear on shutdown stress. After a few deep breaths, I managed to holster the gun and keep walking.

  The passageway darkened until my HUD failed to pick the merest outlines from the black. I wanted to turn on my headlamp, wanted to activate the suit’s sonar. But those could trigger defenses, so I kept on, trailing my fingertips along the walls, groping forward with my feet. The tunnel branched, and I turned right then left, right then left, climbing and descending. My breath sounded loud over the breather’s hiss, and the audio inputs amplified the scuff of my steps.

  A faint squelch-pop. I froze, holding my breath. My hand dropped to my gun. Squelch-pop.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I concentrated on the sound, trying to pinpoint its direction, trying to imagine the creature that could make it. When I opened my eyes, a faint light shone down a tunnel ahead on my left.

  I crept toward the glow, weapons holstered to keep my hands free for stealth and balance.

  The tunnel opened into a lumpy, spherical room. Flattening myself in the shadows, I craned forward.

  A bulbous creature with a dozen tentacle limbs clung to one wall, vines wrapping its body. The air before it shimmered and shifted—a display of some sort? I couldn’t resolve what it showed and wasn’t ready to waste time cycling my HUD through different EM frequencies. The scientists could sort that out later from the recording.

  I studied the creature, but couldn’t find anything on it I could call eyes. Maybe it saw through the puke-colored splotches the vines didn’t cover.

  Squelch-pop, squelch-pop. The sound came from above me. My head snapped up.

  Another creature scuttled down from a fissure in the ceiling. A chittering screech emanated from it as it flowed down the wall and out of my line of sight. The vine-wrapped creature chittered back.

  I leaned further into the room, hoping to see them interact. Was the new creature here to rescue the other from the vines, or had the first wrapped itself up intentionally? Had I stumbled upon a prisoner or bioengineered technology?

  Several vines lashed out, wrapping the new arrival’s limbs as it chittered away. A shimmer appeared before it, then widened, extending around the room to merge with the other’s.

  Suddenly, both fell silent. The shimmer disappeared.

 
My breath caught. Had they seen me?

  Heart hammering my ribs, I flattened back into the shadows. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe they’d responded to something else.

  A vine whipped around the corner and lashed about my arm. I yelped and jerked away, but the vine held. Without thinking, I grabbed my knife and hacked at the tendril. The blade bit, and I ducked another tendril as I sawed through the first. The vine tore loose, oozing grayish-white slime, and I stumbled back. More vines groped out from the room faster than I could retreat on that damn fissure floor. I slashed at one, but more flailed forward, whipping through the air around me and slapping my suit.

  One caught me about the throat and yanked me forward. I hacked it off, but not before the tip of another wrapped my leg and jerked my feet out from under me. I fell hard, helmet cracking against the floor. But I was too desperate to register pain, and my fall loosened the vine’s hold.

  I kicked free. Knife in hand, I scrambled back on all fours until I could get my feet under me. My left ankle screamed in protest—I must have twisted it in the fall—but the vines no longer slapped my suit.

  I edged backward. The vines still lashed the air, but could no longer reach me. Part of me wanted to hang around and learn more, but the aliens had clearly spotted me, and who knew what they would do next.

  Suddenly, the vines retreated and three of the bulbous creatures scuttled into the tunnel, clinging to the walls. I picked up my pace, reaching for my slug thrower. One of the aliens clutched a dark, boxy device in a front tentacle, and before I could grab my gun, the boxy muzzle flashed, and something slammed into my chest, sending me sprawling backward while my HUD screeched alarms. The enhanced image flared white, then black.

  I landed hard on my back. Impact drove the air from my lungs.

  Through my faceplate, I saw only darkness. I chinned the HUD’s reboot, but nothing happened. A bubble of silence quarantined me from the creatures’ chittering.

  Something rubbery grabbed my bad ankle, squeezing tight. I jerked and kicked, but a tentacle caught my other leg and pinned me. I struggled but another wrapped my arm, squeezing so hard the knife fell from my grip.

  Before they could catch my other hand, I went for my gun. A sudden pain cut through my right thigh. I screamed and fought their holds, but more tentacles wrapped me, pinning all my limbs, squeezing so tight that my fingers tingled and went numb.

  Lightheaded with pain, I stopped fighting. The moment I went limp, the aliens started dragging me somewhere.

  The nauseating taste of rotten eggs turned my stomach as I banged down the tunnel on my back. As my vision adapted, I saw dim outlines of tentacled forms crawling over and around me. There had to be a dozen of them, at least.

  Just like everyone had said, I’d joined MilComm to die.

  Poor thing, they whispered when they thought I couldn’t hear. Lost the audition because she’s disfigured.

  Pain twisted my vision as the creatures dragged me toward the room with the vines. I couldn’t stop them.

  I had danced as well as any applicant and better than most. One judge had taken me aside and told me I was the best she had seen. But she clucked her tongue and waggled her fingers. “You will never achieve true grace with such a handicap.”

  My eyes watered, burning from sulfuric acid and helplessness. Dark blood welled from a cut on my thigh. With my skinsuit compromised, I had maybe a minute to get to my patch kit before the atmosphere poisoned me. But pinned by the aliens, I was as powerless as I’d been after the audition.

  My MilComm training was as useless as my perfect pliés. I flexed my left hand, my forefinger digging into my palm, the stub of my middle finger barely brushing it.

  I opened my hand and lifted it slowly—the alien had relaxed its death grip now that I’d stopped fighting. My two and a half digits made an awkward silhouette in the dim room, and I remembered Sergeant Miller’s gruff voice in that tiny office light-years away. “You’ve got seven and a half perfectly good ones.”

  I couldn’t die here. MilComm needed the data I’d collected. And unlike on Hope’s Landing, in MilComm, I had people who cared if I made it back. I wouldn’t make Sergeant Miller blast back into orbit alone.

  The aliens stopped dragging me. The creature holding my left wrist chittered loud enough that I heard it through the skinsuit; with another tentacle, it gestured with a blocky shape. I recognized that shape. That alien gun had slammed me to the ground and shorted out my HUD.

  If I could bring the gun home, MilComm might unravel how the aliens slagged our electronics.

  I twisted violently in my captors’ holds and grabbed the alien gun with my left hand, two and a half fingers perfectly sufficient to wrench it free of the tentacle. The creature screeched, distracting the others enough that I jerked my other hand free and pulled the slug thrower from its holster. I pressed it against a bulbous body and fired.

  “I’m going home,” I yelled, rotten eggs thick on my tongue. I fired again, and the creature fell away. The tentacle around my right leg loosened, that creature reaching one arm out to its fallen comrade.

  Had I killed it? The creatures screeched louder. I gripped the alien gun like a lifeline—MilComm needed this tech. Still firing, I kicked my legs free and stumbled to my feet. Agony shot down my leg.

  An alien lunged down the wall, knife in its tentacle. My chest armor stopped the blade and I aimed dead center on its bulbous form and pulled the trigger. The creature fell from the wall like a heap of rubber hose.

  I scrambled out of the room and down the passage-way, firing over my shoulder as several creatures scurried forward. I tripped and slipped along the angled crevice, bracing my shoulder against the wall to stabilize myself when I fired. The air tasted worse and worse, but my faceplate wasn’t fogging, so the weapon that shorted my HUD hadn’t compromised my breather.

  Alien screeches penetrated my skinsuit, but after I picked off a few more of them, they stopped advancing. I holstered my gun and ran, sealing the alien weapon in a pocket, then fumbling for the patch kit strapped to my side.

  Teeth gritted with pain and lurching on the awkward footing like a crazed drunk, I grabbed the largest patch, tore off the backing, and slapped it to my thigh. My lungs burned, each breath searing like acid as I gulped poisonous air.

  The passage forked and I turned right. Sprinting, I mouthed the words “Make it out, make it out” to the slap of my feet on the angled ground.

  I pictured Sergeant Miller’s pale face as he rapped his knuckles on my helmet for luck. The alien gun banged against my thigh, and I smiled through gritted teeth. That gun was intel gold.

  If I made it out.

  A quick glance behind me: no creatures. Had I scared them off? Were they too slow to give chase? I tried not to question my luck.

  Another fork, turn left. The passageway descended, then climbed. Right then left, I retraced my route, fighting not to second guess myself or worry that I’d missed a turn.

  More creatures appeared as I rounded a bend. I drew and fired, emptying my clip before one shot me in the leg. I turned the fall into a roll, hands already chambering another clip as I leaped to my feet. My aim would have made Corporal White proud as I brought down the one that had shot me, before picking off a couple of its friends. Still firing, I dove through the ambush, sprinting across twitching tentacles.

  They must not have expected a fight, I decided, lungs burning as I raced back the way I had come. Blood slicked the inside of my skinsuit from the cut on my thigh, but I gritted my teeth and kept going, slug thrower in hand. I kept expecting another ambush, but it seemed I must have outrun them.

  Daylight pierced the darkness as I rounded a bend, and seeing that sulfur-gas sunlight felt like winning the lottery. A muzzle-flash made me jerk to the side, and I stumbled. A handful of creatures blocked my exit. I kept running, firing as I did, their shots slapping me around like giant fists. But
their weapons didn’t penetrate my armor, and my slug thrower dropped them from the walls like rain.

  Chanting a MilComm marching song under my breath, I sprinted past the ambush and leaped from the tunnel into open space.

  I hit the ground with my hands, tucking around my gun and rolling to my feet, running for the vines. A few creatures streamed down the giant tree behind me, swarming across the forest floor. I holstered my gun and clawed through the thick web of vines at the forest’s edge.

  A tentacle wrapped my ankle, but I shot it and dragged myself fully into the vines.

  When the vines thinned, I crouched, turning to face my pursuers. But no tentacles wavered through, and I didn’t stop to worry why. I had the intel I’d come for.

  My breath rasped in my ears as I pulled the backup scanner off my calf. I tore open its casing and stripped away the shielding, tossing it aside as I ran. Slipping on metal berries and tripping over vines, I pressed the scanner’s power button. “Come on,” I said as I shouldered through a thicket of yellow fronds.

  A green light blinked on, and if it weren’t for my faceplate, I would have kissed it.

  I stopped, leaning against the rough bark of an iron-cored tree, chest screaming with every rapid breath. Pain lancing my leg, I glanced back the way I had come. Still no sign of pursuit. I held my breath, but couldn’t hear anything through the skinsuit.

  The scanner flashed red. I thumbed it off and dropped to my knees, arms and forehead resting on the ground. I chinned off my breather, sparing one glance back as I stopped my heart, wondering if I would come back from this shutdown, or if the aliens would lead the cutter-bugs straight to me.

  Strong hands held me as I convulsed, and over the rushing in my ears and jumble of torn scrapbook images flashing past my eyes, Sergeant Miller smiled at me. Sucking air reminded me how dry my mouth was, and God did I feel like I needed to puke.

  “How long?” I choked out. The ailing tree outside our practice room window wavered in the wind.