Justice (11 page)

“
Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jimmy asked when she
headed for the outer door.

“
I don’t have a choice, Jimmy. But you’ve done well. Don’t get
yourself killed. If things get really ugly get out of here
okay?”

“
Got it boss, but I won’t let you down,” Jimmy replied. There
was a line of sweat on his upper lip as he gazed at the barricaded
door.

“
Of course not,” Nova replied with a smile.

She walked to
the exit door with a grim sense of déjà vu. She wanted to turn and
run back to Crusader, but she wouldn’t. She forced herself to walk
to the inner door and let herself into the airlock. It hissed and
then the outer door opened. Once again she was faced with the green
line of trees.

She didn’t
waste any time finding the tracks. Now there were three sets of
footprints leading through the trees. She followed the path she and
Jack had taken the day before, moving as fast as her exhausted legs
would allow. At first the way was clear thanks to her and Jack
hacking their way through the last time, but as she got deeper she
was faced with more dense foliage.

It got to a
point where if it wasn’t for the footprints beneath her feet she
would think the track had never been touched. It was as if the
trees had grown back over to block her way with an impenetrable
wall; the leaves and branches knotted together tighter than ever
before.

“
I’m not dealing with this again,” she said through clenched
teeth.

She stepped
back and reached around her helmet to the gun. It had a hefty
weight which felt good in her hands. She pulled back the charger
and the gun hummed to life. The gentle buzz was a welcome change
from the silence of the jungle.

She waited
until the gun clicked, letting her know that it was fully charged.
She took aim at the wall of leaves and pulled the trigger. A blast
of red energy shot out of the end and careened through the air. It
hit the wall of foliage and kept going for another fifty
metres.

The ball was
half the height of Nova and twice as wide. It burst through rows of
trees and left glowing pieces of branches and vines in its wake.
The embers burnt along the foliage to create a hole just smaller
than a door for Nova to walk through. She stepped into the tunnel
created by the blast of energy and smiled.

The energy
blast sizzled out and Nova strolled through the burnt remains of
the green wall. She grinned at the burning vines and charred
leaves. How’d the forest like her now? She made a mental note to
thank Gus for the gun when she next saw him.

She kept her
gun in hand, ready to blast away at the foliage once she reached
the place where the last energy ball had run out. But when she got
to the end of the burning tunnel she found that the leaves were
suddenly less dense. The branches pulled away from her path,
twisted almost, and the twigs and sticks stopped dragging at her
clothes. She walked with relative ease, as if the forest were
afraid of her.

She reached
the place where they’d been attacked by the plant. Muddled
footprints mixed with broken branches littered the ground. The
orange plant was gone, but Nova kept her gun in hand just in case.
She picked up the trail a few metres away, now just one set of
footprints and drag marks.

***

Nova heard the
threat before she saw it. A mighty crunching, snapping sound echoed
between the trees, creating a stark contrast to the silence of the
forest. She whipped around and held the large gun out in front. She
didn’t have to look far.

Lumbering
between the trees came seven orange plants with jug-like bodies.
They scurried between the trees with ease, their tentacle vines
waving through the air. They closed in on her like a pack of
hunting wolves, any hint of caution cast aside.

She turned in
a tight circle but there was no easy way out.

“
Just remember, you attacked me,” she said, pulling the
trigger.

The big gun in
her arms pulsed with every blast of energy she fired. She aimed
carefully and took her time with each shot. A gun of that power
couldn’t fire many rounds at once and she wanted to conserve shots
wherever possible. Her arms vibrated with the recoil but it didn’t
throw off her aim.

The first red
blast sliced through the trees and blasted into the centre of one
orange creature. The jug exploded in a shower of charred plant
material and orange chunks. The creature quivered and folded in on
itself. The vines fell out of the air and lay about the ground in a
tangled mess. The remaining plants closed ranks and blocked the
newly-opened exit.

Nova turned to
the second creature. She had a limited amount of time; the plants
at her back would be closing in, and it would only be a matter of
seconds before one of the damned vines wrapped itself around her
ankles. She fired off a second shot.

The plant
caught fire and the column of flames caught some of the surrounding
trees. Thick smoke filled the air.

Nova squinted
through her helmet but the green leaves created a thick haze which
was almost impossible to see through.

The attacking
plants didn’t require sight to find her. Their well evolved sensors
detected her movements and they closed in on her. She strained her
ears for their advance but noise echoed from all directions.

“
A little help, Cal!”

“
I can only see what you see!” he yelled back.

“
Dammit!”

Nova clenched
her teeth and fired blindly into the smoke.

The ball of
energy shot off through the smoke, creating a hazy glow across the
whole scene. For a brief moment it lit up the bodies of the plants
as it streamed past. Then it blasted into a nearby tree which
caught fire and added to the smoke screen.

“
Grishnak,” Nova cursed. Another shot wasted and more smoke to
contend with.

She turned in
a blind circle, searching for the violent plants. The smoke blocked
everything, including the trail of footprints, leaving her in a
swirling noxious cloud.

She took a
deep breath and gripped the gun tighter.

A vine shot
out of the smoke, headed for her face. She dropped to her knees and
the vine sailed over her head. A second vine lashed out, forcing
her to roll to her left, the suit crinkling beneath her and
collecting leaves.

The vines
stopped, poised above her. Their tiny sensor hairs waved back and
forth through the air, searching.

She fired into
the smoke at the retreating vines. The red blast lit up the smoke
and plummeted into the centre of an orange creature. The vines fell
out of the air, collapsing to the ground with solid thuds all
around her.

Nova rolled to
her feet as vines shot out of the smoke and tried to hold her down.
She narrowed her eyes at the smoke, after finding one thing to be
grateful for: the plants didn’t change their attack, each using the
same mindless method of thrusting out its vines and therefore
giving away its position. She supposed there was only so much
intelligence a single plant could possess.

She darted
around a lashing vine, pulled the gun to her shoulder, and fired
into the smoke. Without pausing, she dashed behind a thick tree
trunk, avoiding another slashing vine.

A dull thud
echoed through the trees as another one bit the dust.

She dashed
between the smoke, taking cover behind trees and firing at receding
vines, until orange bodies littered the ground and only one set of
vines remained. The red glow of the fire lit the scene as it spread
between the trees.

The vines shot
out of the dark smoke and wacked Nova’s upper body. She tucked her
head away and took the brunt of the blow on her shoulder. The
impact sent a shot of pain through her arm, making her fingers
clench. She stumbled out of the way of a second hit, wincing as her
shoulder brushed against a nearby tree.

The vines
slammed through other trees and branches without slowing. She
winced as she imagined what it would feel like if one smacked her
face.

Heat raced up
her back from the wall of flames and sweat dripped down her face to
pool against her suit. Her lungs pumped like a worn bellows,
gasping for air as her exhausted muscles pushed her to dart around
the trees and stay away from both the fire and the murderous final
plant. She blinked the sweat out of her eyes and stared into the
smoke.

Two dark
silhouettes loomed out of the smog.

She dove to
the left, avoiding a burning shrub, and the vines sailed overhead.
She landed hard on top of the gun, the air knocked out of her. She
groaned as she pulled the gun out from under her ribs and levelled
the barrel where the vines disappeared out of sight. She took a
steadying breath and pulled the trigger.

The spherical
bolt of red energy sailed through the air, twisting and turning as
tiny electric fields danced through it. The smoke lit up in a
bright tunnel until the blast of energy exploded into the orange
flesh of the last remaining plant. It exploded, sending bits of
waxy orange flesh into the air. They thumped to the ground with wet
slaps and the jungle returned to silence, except for the crackling
hiss of the growing fire.

Nova pushed
herself to her feet and stumbled away from the flames. There was
nothing she could do; they had already grown too big to be put out
with anything she had. The best she could do was hope that the
green leaves proved too much of a challenge and the fire sizzled
itself out.

“
Cal, what kind of fire defence does the complex have?” Nova
asked.

“
Standard,” Cal replied. “The metal casing can withstand
temperatures hotter than any forest fire is going to
make.”

“
Good. Probably best to put the external video feeds onto some
kind of repeated relay though. The last thing we need is that
powder keg of a situation exploding because someone thought they
were going to burn alive.”

“
Aye, aye, boss,” Cal replied.

“
Thank you,” said Nova.

“
And boss?” Cal asked.

“
Yes?”

“
Good shooting.”

Nova smiled
and shook her head before taking up the beaten trail once
again.

***

The footsteps
went on and on. How one person could have travelled so far dragging
a body and still make it back to the complex in time for Nova to
notice the wet footprints baffled her.

“
They could have antigravs,” she reasoned with herself. That
would have made carrying the body easier. But still, it was a long
way to walk so quickly, and without being eaten by some of the wild
plants, not to mention they wouldn’t have left a trail in the
dirt.

She shrugged.
When she worked out who had taken the President then she could ask
them how they did it. Of course that was assuming that at the end
of the gruelling journey, she would find the President. Doubt
gnawed at her insides, suggesting that the trek into the forest was
nothing but a waste of time.

If she got
back to the complex only to find that the President was performing
some kind of publicity stunt like his son suggested, then she would
certainly have something to say. Charging President Feders for her
overtime was only the start of it.

“
Then again…” Nova said, coming to a complete stop.

She reached a
small clearing where the trees pulled back just enough to reveal a
patch of ground. Spread out over that patch of ground was a body,
or rather, half a body.

The
President’s head was still recognisable but the rest of him was a
mangled mess. His clothes, or what was left of them, lay in
tattered rags, just strips of fabric across his exposed flesh. His
left leg ended at the thigh with bloody pieces of torn tendon,
while red welts covered his right leg. It looked as if a giant
octopus had gotten hold of him, because the sores followed the
shape of a tentacle.

She thought of
the vine-tentacles that had so recently attacked her, and
shivered.

A huge portion
of his torso had been eaten away. Ribs poked out from beneath the
flesh, bright white against the blood-stained darkness of the rest
of the corpse. For a planet made entirely of plants, they certainly
knew how to kill.

Nova knelt by
the body and rested her helmeted head against her hand. Her stomach
clenched tight as she wondered how much longer she would have had
before there was nothing left of the President’s body. She’d
already seen multiple creatures that could have swallowed him
whole. The fact that he’d only been partially chewed was a
blessing.

President
Feders’s face was twisted in a grimace of pain, his mouth curled at
the corner. Nova frowned. A tan line on his finger showed where a
wedding ring should have been. She couldn’t make out much more than
that from his mangled body.

She frowned at
the missing jewellery. No one would be foolish enough to drag him
all the way out into the forest just to take a few pieces of gold.
It was either the worst cover-up attempt that she’d ever seen, or
there was something else going on.

She stepped
closer to initiate the antigravs.

The ground
around her erupted.

Small vines,
the width of her fingers shot out of a nearby shrub and wrapped
themselves around Geron’s arms and remaining leg. The vines twirled
around until they had him in a tight knot and dragged him across
the dirt towards the shrub.

“
Oh no, you don’t,” Nova said.

She pulled the
gun back over her shoulder and took aim. Geron’s leg was already
covered by the leaves. A few more moments and the rest of him would
disappear.