Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 68 - Root Cause

Episode 68

“How did you get this scanner?” asked Cha Dzeeny.

Baaii gave him a sly grin. “I have my ways.”

“Let me guess: equipment storage was crewed by one of the youngsters, melting away when faced with your charms.”

She didn’t answer, and Cha fell in line walking behind Baaii, who proudly carried the depth tomography unit. The harsh conditions during the colony’s establishment should have left everyone hunched and maimed, but the spores permeating every breath did their miraculous work without growing tired of restoring those humans into top physical shape. The same spores puffed out by plants that tried to destroy the colonists.

“Do you think there might be several factions out there?” he asked.

“Off-world, you mean? What kind of question is that? Of course, until the Joining.”

Cha shook his head. “No, here on Green Wave. Maybe not all plants think and act alike.”

“They’re well-organized, but not sentient.”

“Says who? The Remnants? They think all organic life is stupid.”

“The Isonomih have supported the Goddess faithfully. They’re part of the plan, Cha.”

One fight at a time. Cha bit his tongue. They got the equipment they needed to track the vines, and that should be his focus now: proving one theory before arguing about another.

Their path followed the previous intrusion of hostile vines Cha had logged. No one stopped or even asked them what they were doing. Few colonists ventured near the perimeter fence; security patrols greeted their superior, and the small, winged aliens didn’t even acknowledge the couple’s presence. Everyone just assumed that everything that happened was part of the plan.

The scanner chimed, and Baaii turned to Cha. A projection appeared above the device in her hands, showing a cube of thick, intertwined tubes, and several thin highlighted lines meandering between the larger chunks.

“It’s fully calibrated on the patterns from previous attacks,” said Baaii, “we should be able to track any of your elusive stealth vines now.”

These are not my vines, thought Cha, but he asked, “Does it reach deep enough? We don’t want to miss anything.”

“It’s a prospecting scanner, goes all the way down to bedrock. Where do you want to start?”

***

The center of the colony had densely clustered, taller buildings, obscuring the view of the dark green horizon.

“I don’t like it when I can’t see the wave coming,” said Cha.

Baaii remained focused on the scanner. Starting here had made sense, working their way out in expanding circles, covering more sections of the colony with less walking as if following the sprawling, irregular fence line. Also, if the enemy had penetrated deep into their home, they’d realize it right away.

Winged workers scurried along the paths between buildings, their six legs carrying them seemingly without effort across the trampled, rough top plant layer.

“We used to have roads,” said Cha. “Transport loops. You know, for humans to get around.”

“Shh. Let me focus.”

The scanner made clicking sounds, the projection flickered, and Baaii made adjustments, hand-gesturing across the bluish hologram.

Cha suppressed a sigh; this had been his idea, and Baaii was working on proving his point. It’s just been so hard to focus on any task outside the plan. Staying on a topic, on a complex thought for more than…

He looked up. Red mist waved over the shadowed canyons formed by the admin buildings around the colony’s true center—the hall of the diin. Two exhaust pipes high on its roof bellowed out puffs of the leftover from the diin’s briefing of the large leadership aliens. Pufkiipak like Terg. The diin was the most alien of them all, speaking in a gas-based language only its largest underlings could decipher. The red excrement stung one’s nose, and if the atmosphere was humid, it started to cling to surfaces, would even corrode softer materials if not rinsed off. Why didn’t the machines build a chemstick for the red diin language? What did that twisted tree have to tell the large aliens each rotation, like clockwork?

The exhausts closed—the briefing was over.

“Second wave will be here soon.”

“Just give me a few more passes,” said Baaii.

A deep rumbling and metallic squeaks said she didn’t have that long.

“Secure yourself,” said Cha. “I don’t want you to fall and drop the valuable scanner.”

Finally, a smile. “Good to hear you’re back on mission, Dzeeny. And here I thought you’re just trailing my kyong for the view.”

Cha waited until she secured her belt hook at the closest corner pole, then clicked his own hook into the metal rings. He smiled back.

“It’s a fine kyong.”

He held his breath. Yellow mist puffed out of the ground when the pre-wave contracted the surface layers. Structures ached, torsion producing what sounded like the groaning of a large creature in pain, then the wave hit.

A green bulge swept them off their feet and sent them airborne. The belt line pulled at Cha’s pelvis and the pole metal slipped out of his glove’s grasp. Weightlessness lasted only a fraction of a tick, then Green Wave’s gravity sent him back on the ground.

He checked the surroundings for open surface cracks, typical leftovers of violent waves. Two were nearby, but not close enough to be dangerous, and he unlocked the hook.

“Big one. Are you alright?”

Baaii grabbed his lower arm to pull herself up. “Yes, thanks. And the scanner seems fine, too.”

The projection flickered again, this time longer, then switched to a fractured image.

“Are you sure?” asked Cha. He pointed at the device. “This looks broken.”

Baaii steadied her stance, held the scanner with both arms stretched out, then slowly turned the device. She shook her head.

“No, it’s not broken. The wave has just rearranged the upper layers. And now it registers an uptick in activity.”

“Activity? What’s active?”

“Do you see these thin, long structures? They got shifted, and now they’re moving back.”

The star burned hot, and the air was humid and sticky like after every green wave, yet Cha shivered.

“Vines.” He looked closer at the hologram. “All these ‘cracks’ are vines? Living, moving vines?”

Cha had hoped to be wrong, but it seemed the enemy was here, right under their feet, in numbers.

“Looks like it. At first, I thought this pattern was a leftover from the groundwork, drilling the foundation anchors for the buildings and such, but now it looks like it was formed by vines digging their way…“

She pointed to the hall of the diin.

“…over there. These vines are long, and they’re coming in from all directions.” She looked at Cha. “They’re coming for the diin!”

She ripped at her hook, still attached to the building pole, struggling to get it off. Cha held her hand, unlocking the hook with a steady motion.

“No. If they wanted to attack the diin, they would’ve done so already.”

The hall of the diin. Logistical and production center of the colony. An organized enemy, a sentient force, would strike there, but the slithering vines below them didn’t reveal their presence, forming webs rather than poking through the surface.

“Let’s look into those cracks,” said Cha, “like the one close to the hall.” He started jogging.

“Dzeeny! The vines are close to the surface—careful!”

She was right, but he had to know. He pulled the automatic off his back and held it at the low ready, approaching the ruptured surface, the split running a quarter of the length of the hall, close to its foundation. There was no sound, no cracks, no plant layer settling into place; the ground—as violated as the wave left it—seemed solid enough to venture to its very rim.

He peeked down, his weapon’s aim following his gaze. He wore no helmet, had no lights, but the overhead star beamed brightly on the scene.

“Magii,” he said under his breath.

Baaii had caught up with Cha, looking down the chasm. “Ancestors, what is that?”

“Vines,” said Cha, “as we feared. And the gnarly black stuff, these are roots.”

“Roots?”

“Yes, from the diin. It was planted into the surface here, and these thick filaments are its root system, deeply entangled with the vines.”

Baaii shook her head. “Entangled? Why?”

“To bond with the Green Wave ecosystem, exchanging nutrients or…“ Cha shouldered his weapon.

“Or for communication.”

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