0011 Predatory Plant Life, Part 2

  The fruit exploded in a concussive burst, spraying the glade in red pulp the thickness and shade of blood.

  The blast hit him like a battering ram, knocking him back into a bristle patch. His ears rang from the blast, red pulp had sprayed against his visor, and for the second time in thirty minutes, he was blind.

  As he tried to get up, his hand crushed a golden berry-looking thing. A white, milky substance from the berry burned away the pulp on his hand. He quickly crushed another and used it to wipe away the mush on his visor.

  His HUD had flared with impact warnings, and he lost some health as he held a hand to his head. But at least it wasn't all negative, as a skill alert flashed in his HUD:

  [Skill: Resistance 2→3]

  CelestOS: Warning: Volatile organic discharge detected. Proceed with caution.

  Well, no shit, Sherlock. Ethan groaned, picking himself up out of the bush. He heard another rustle in the vines and looked left only to see a vine throw another fruit like it was a damned pitcher in baseball. Had he mentioned he hated that sport?

  The vine hurled the fruit downward at his feet. This time the explosion was more visceral. He went soaring into the air as he waved his good arm dramatically, trying to find something to save him. Time stretched thin, and Ethan saw himself above the treetops, spinning as gravity released him, the world tilting over and over.

  This is how I die? After all of that? He wanted to weep, but he was just so tired. And so thirsty.

  But fate was on his side as his working arm somehow found purchase against a vine, and he quickly clung to it with his legs, holding on for dear life. The vine snapped, and he fell back down to the earth, landing with a crunch that couldn’t possibly be healthy.

  He ducked behind a tree and tried to collect his thoughts. When CelestOS had said this place was hazardous, he hadn't been expecting the fruits to be actively hostile.

  “The trees are aiming for me? How?!” He practically yelled at CelestOS.

  CelestOS: Defensive targeting behavior confirmed. Celestitech thanks you for your service and, in the event of your inevitable death, would like permission to use your organic matter to produce a CelestiMed MK 3 in order to save Reyes. Would you like to be a body donor?

  A red pop-up filled his HUD with two options.

  Yes/Yes.

  Ethan stared at the prompt, absolutely flummoxed by her audacity. “Are you for real?”

  CelestOS: Consent protocols bypassed. Mission priority override. Priority? Preservation of Lieutenant Reyes.

  “No. No. No. Fuck this day, fuck that noise. I'm not going to die here. Not today. Not until I save Maria.”

  More vines were twitching now, and Ethan could tell he was going to have a hard time not just surviving this, but harvesting one of the fruits. As another fruit landed to his right, he took off, trying to find a new tree for protection. But his new vantage point was worse as three more vines took aim at his location.

  “I’m pinned.”

  CelestOS: Clarification. You are trapped in a hostile bio-reactive kill zone without a viable exit vector.

  “Yeah,” he hissed. “Pinned.” He dived out of the way of all three fruits, just barely avoiding another hit to his suit integrity. What was he doing? He hadn’t signed up for this. He had just wanted to see his fiancée again. Sure, he had made a couple of mistakes, but accepting this mission had been on her. And it wasn’t his fault Celestitech hadn’t signed off on his request to join her. And besides, she hadn’t had to go, right?

  Ethan crouched back down behind the same tree, hoping the fact that the nearest vines were ‘empty’ would give him a reprieve. He scanned the vines, looking for more active hostiles.

  “Cel, please. Talk to me. Weak points, a way to take a fruit… anything.”

  CelestOS didn't immediately respond, and he thought for a second she was just going to send another body donation request his way. But then she said,

  CelestOS: Thermal anomalies detected. There is only one living tree in this patch. Three vines exhibit elevated bio-electric energy which feeds in spurts to the other vines. This energy is most pronounced at the base of a tree at bearing 243.

  Ethan risked peering around the twisted root wall. There, half-shielded by a thick curtain of Dark purple chitin, was a fleshy orb the shape of a heart fruit but the size of an escape pod. It throbbed in time with the vines barely visible behind the base of the tree. Thick red vines seeped up from the ground and pierced through the chitin and into the base of the fruit, like some sort of Frankenstein contraption. Weren’t roots supposed to be under the ground, not above? He shook the thought away. At least he had his target, and he wasn’t going to let this sick and twisted thing win.

  “Don’t suppose you have a spare drone with a rocket launcher?”

  He checked his vitals while he waited for her response. Just a couple more hits, and he'd be just as dead in the water as Reyes.

  CelestOS: Affirmative. However, you do not have the 200,000 CelestiBucks that would be required for purchase.

  “Figures.” He swallowed hard. He was on his own with no help forthcoming. He thought of his brother. Maria. Everyone was counting on him, unknowingly reliant on his idiotic ass to save the day and fix everything. He pulled out his axe from the magnetic clip and charged blindly.

  The glade lit up as every HeartFruit in the vicinity was now being aimed at him. The blinking 23 on his health bar almost gave him pause, but he surged ahead. And that was when the first blast hit, sending shrapnel which dug into his side, but he ran forward anyway, unwilling to compromise. Unwilling to let this be the end.

  The heart was just ahead, pulsing with an insane electricity he was worried he’d have to interact with. Instead of aiming for the heart though, he wondered if he could just rip out the roots. He sprinted the final stretch, debris littering his path as explosive fruit after explosive fruit failed to make contact. But then, a vine gripped his ankle and he fell hard, but he was undeterred, spinning with the motion of the fall and bringing his axe down on the vine. The grip loosened, and he used the axe for leverage to get back up.

  He used the momentum from the lift to run towards the five veins of roots that had the heart in a vise-like grip behind the destroyed curtain of chitin.

  He brought the axe down and—Brinkk! The axe bounced off the red roots with a metallic screech. He wanted to cover his ears; the noise was so unnerving. He tried again and again to no avail, but he couldn't stand still.

  Ethan ran a circle around the tree, not wanting to get caught one-handed. As he ran around the tree, a crazy plan formed in his mind.

  He went for a longer circle and built up as much momentum as he could muster, letting the speed of his legs empower his thrust as he brought the axe down again. Sparks flew, but so did the blood-red bark of the wood. The root recoiled like a severed nerve.

  His thrust had hit its mark, and the Heart screamed in terrifying agony, like a child being slaughtered in the night. The vines redoubled their efforts, sending fruit after fruit at him, the explosions getting angrier and angrier. He ran again.

  The heart shuddered as more roots collapsed, the angry electricity calming as the clear source of power weakened with each run. Vines reached for him, and fruits took aim. But he was a man possessed and single-minded in his task.

  Two more strikes, and the final rootline tore free as a final shriek pierced the night.

  [Skill: Combat 2→3]

  CelestOS: Core structure destabilizing. Recommend evasive actions.

  Ethan dove behind a smaller tree as the large heart exploded. Violently. And like a tree beset by lumberjacks, the large purple wood pitched forward, taking all of the vines with it. There was a loud boom, and a shockwave of dirt and blood billowed out from the form of the dead tree.

  CelestOS: Threat level revised: Green. Body donation request temporarily suspended.

  For a moment, there was only silence. Then Ethan coughed once, twice, and let out a low, hoarse laugh. He had done it. Somehow, against all odds, he had survived.

  The ‘battlefield’ was quiet. The glade fumed with acrid smoke and was covered in a layer of blood-red pulp. Ethan's ears still rang from the blast, and his suit was covered head to toe in absolute filth.

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  He staggered to his feet, leaning heavily on his axe like a crutch. The massive trunk lay split in half, its sections buried a few inches into the forest floor, red chitin reaching to the sky like a dying man gasping for water. The hostilities had ceased.

  Ethan limped forward, scanning for anything that could be usable. “Come on, gotta be something left.”

  Near the wreckage of the grand old tree, he spotted the first intact HeartFruit. It had rolled into a collection of vines tangled under the trunk and was miraculously undetonated, despite being practically crushed under the weight of the vines and trunk. He grabbed the fruit and placed it delicately into CelestOS’s bin.

  “Is that thing going to explode in there?”

  CelestOS: Probability of internal detonation: 3.2%.

  Ethan sighed and got to work looking for any more of the fruit. It didn’t take long, as he only found two more. One was curled up in a tangle of vines that still tried to fight him despite being dead, and the third was simple in the dirt, resting as if it wasn't a dangerous explosive.

  “Thank fuck we’re done. I need a break,” Ethan said to the air. He stretched his arms above his head before turning to head back to camp. He had an idle thought about harvesting the chitin of the tree, but CelestOS had said it was Tier 3 or something, and he knew his axe and pick couldn't pierce it.

  CelestOS: Task completion premature. Please collect the second organic component before being lazy. The Crystal Seed Fungus is 1.7 kilometers to your southwest.

  Ethan hung his head as if he had just heard that the world was ending. How was everything he had done not enough? His body felt ready to collapse. His eyes screamed for sleep, his mouth ached for water, his belly cried out for food. He looked at his blinking health bar, and the already draining oxygen down to a mere 60%. He'd have just enough time to get there and back, if there weren't too many complications; however, given the day he’d had so far, it was all he was expecting at this point. It was so, so tempting to go back to the chitinous tree, curl up with a nice bundle of vines, and just sleep everything away.

  But, if he gave up now, what would happen to Maria? What would happen to Reyes? He scrunched his eyes close. Pain welling up behind them, and he couldn't even massage his temples. A tiny voice sounded from far away.

  Just give up. It's too difficult. Maria didn’t really want you, or she wouldn’t have come here in the first place. And Reyes deserves to die. Did he bother saving you back on the ship? No? Then why are you trying so hard for him?

  He didn’t know where the voice was coming from, but he froze, terrified. Did he really think that? Maria loved him, he knew that. She had to come here; The Discovery would help everyone.

  And Reyes, well, no one deserved to die. And besides, had the situations been reversed, maybe he would have done the same as Reyes. He thought of his brother, then. Stalwart, strong, always ready to help others, but never him.

  The weight of his brother’s memory bore down on him like the ever-present heat of the planet. It invaded his body and his mind. Growing up, they had always been compared, and maybe that was why he had decided to take his brother's place. And the truth was, if his twin brother had been here, it's likely nobody would have died at all. That was just the kind of man Julian had been.

  Still, he dragged his feet forward. People were counting on him. How could he give up now? Reaffirming for himself that he had to do this, he held his head high and beat on to the next location. It was time to save Reyes and find Maria.

  As Ethan ran south out of the forest, the environment changed once again. He was no environmental scientist, but even he knew it was odd that the environment changed so rapidly on this planet. But maybe that was part of what the scientists were here to study. As soon as he exited the forest, there was a sharp decline as the forest gave way to a natural trough sloping down into a wide basin peppered with rocks and crusted mineral veins, all visible through a haze distorting the air like rising ghosts. He was about to yell at CelestOS for sending him off on a wild goose chase earlier, when she piped up.

  CelestOS: This is outside the initial 2.5km scan I used. These resources would be great for when you start to mass-produce machines, should you choose to take that route.

  Before she had finished speaking, there came a low rumble as if the ground were angry at being disturbed.

  “That doesn’t sound friendly,” Ethan said, glancing at the ever-present screen following behind him. “Any idea what that is? Or what I’m even looking for?”

  CelestOS: Subterranean geothermal activity detected. Luckily for us, Crystalseed Fungus thrives in low-light, high-temperature conditions. Cave entrance detected 62 meters southwest of current location. He trudged off, keeping an even pace to reserve what little energy he had left.

  As he kept his steady gait, he kept an eye out for the entrance even as the distance got closer and closer. He took one more step, and the world screamed into a burst of redhot pain and heat.

  CelestOS: Warning! External Temperature Spike— 257°C.

  Celestitech Industries (commonly referred to as Celestitech or CelestiCorp) is an Allied American States (AAS) multinational megacorporation that specializes in advanced survival systems, fabrication hardware, autonomous artificial intelligence, and deep-space infrastructure. As of the 2060s, it is considered one of the five dominant contract holders for interplanetary colonization missions sanctioned by the AAS.

  Main Article: Celestitech Products

  1. Keller, M. (2044). Rebuilding Tomorrow: Profiles in Post-War Innovation, Western Technical Press.

  2. Zhang, E. (2046). The Gold Rush to the Stars: Private Sector Investment in Early Colonization, Lunar Economics Quarterly.

  3. Patel, A. (2056). War Applications of HR-Class AIs, American Martian Journal.

  4. Mendez, R. (2060). Survival or Subjugation? Inside the Colonization Economy, Free Europa Press.

  5. Dawson, J. (2063). Tactics and Terraforming: The Logistics War, AAS Defense Review.

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