by Ben Johnston
The plants and dirt rushed up and, at the last instant, with a feeling like she was coasting down a ramp that was curving sharply, the floatboard’s crystals blazed and its deck shoved against Anniya’s feet. Spirit’s paws hit the ground just ahead of Anniya, raising not a single mote of dust, and he leaped upwards and slightly forwards, kicking out no dirt, leaving behind no paw print, yet snapping the rope tight with a flash. The harness sent the surge of impulse to Anniya and she had to fight to stay on her board, swinging its nose almost straight up, the citrine crystals blazing as Spirit’s powerful tug lurched Anniya up and away from a collision with the ground.
After regaining control, she leveled out the board, lowering its nose to point straight ahead and settled into a swift cruise, weaving between the trees and vines of the rainforest, the shiny little fox propelling them down the sloping ground toward the bottom of the valley.
“Spirit! Why did you pull so hard!?”
“Because you fell so far.”
“Did anyone see my flash?”
“No. Nobody saw that flash, though they should have.”
Anniya ducked just in time to avoid getting hit in the face by another leaf, almost identical to the one from earlier. She let some pressure off the handle. They slowed down a bit.
Coasting off a low ledge, they landed smoothly on a broad and flat creek bed, half-full of slow-moving, shallow water trickling around flat rocks. They followed the half-empty creek as it ran between the trees down into the valley. The creek made a clear and wide path, so the rope slackened as Spirit slowed to a fast trot, never disturbing the shallow surface as he moved over the water and the rocks.
Anniya cruised behind, her floatboard’s tangerine repulsors shimmering and glowing above the clear water. The fox and the girl moved smoothly down the wide, tree-lined, rocky avenue, easily leaping over fallen trunks and sparse brush, smoothly hopping off drops over low, babbling waterfalls. After a few minutes, when the shallow creek ended and widened out into a small dry marsh near the bottom of the valley, Anniya hopped off her board, leaving behind the withered, dead trees and entered into the green and fragrant overgrowth, stalking off in the direction of the outpost.
As she drew nearer to the outpost, holding the floatboard under one arm, using bright green light to push aside vines and overgrowth with the other, she caught glimpses of the outpost’s walls. She stopped, set her floatboard down, then left it to move in closer, crawling right up to the edge of the jungle to peer through the last branches, vines and stalks.
The dense rainforest had been completely cut back from the walls of the outpost, creating a wide and flat field. Covered in tall grass and young plants, the big open area formed a broad buffer between the tall black walls of the outpost and the thick viney wall of the jungle.
After spending a moment considering the moonlit clearing and the big looming black walls with their sparse contingent of guards walking along them, Anniya sank back into the jungle.
She snatched up her floatboard, then stalked back into the overgrowth. Locating a small spot hidden between some sprung-up plants, she tossed her floatboard down, reached into her satchel and took out a folded, black satin sheet. In one move, she tossed the dark fabric out into the air, where it flung open, unfurling to fall gently over the floatboard.
Anniya stomped down some grass around the sheet, then bent down to fold and tuck the edges, making sure that the floating board was nicely concealed such that no little flecks of light escaped from under the cover.
Standing, Anniya pulled her canteen out and wiped her face, wincing as her sleeve touched the cut on her cheek. She took a quick drink, then put the canteen back into the large satchel slung over her shoulder. Wearing her empty, but bulky backpack, she bent down and, after a brief moment of ringing silence, leaped up with a faint flash and apparent ease into the upper branches of the nearest tree. Then, after pausing for a few silent moments there, she moved with another flash from that tree to the higher branches of the next.
Her flashes disturbed little as they threw her sailing through the trees like this, her clothing whipping in flight, the leaves rustling gently as she landed. Each time, her soft black boots met the branches without a bounce, snap or creak. A small bird might have made more noise in the night.
From tree to tree, she wove through the canopy, keeping close to the jungle’s edge, following the perimeter of the outpost. As she skirted the edge of the clearing, she kept herself hidden by launching from within thick cover of leaves, landing between sheets of hanging moss, or jumping through walls of vines. Planning, pausing, then leaping, Anniya moved. Eventually her boots came down on a smooth branch offering her a view through the tangled jungle out across the long grassy field to the tall rear wall of the outpost. With narrowed eyes, she looked at the black wall before sinking back into the jungle.
After a few more leaps from tree to tree, she landed on a branch hung with vines which hung directly over a well-worn pathway. She followed the vine-covered branch to where it joined the trunk, turned around to look up through the twigs and leaves at the stars, folded her arms, leaned back, and waited.
A federation trooper walked below Anniya on the well-worn pathway. Suddenly, the hanging vines glowed and shot down, seizing him, wrapping quickly around his mouth to stifle his screams, then around his arms and body.
His wide eyes frantically searched the jungle as Anniya landed in silence behind the trooper and placed her fingers on the back of his head. A faint blue flash radiated outward from his head, causing his body to stiffen. Then, his eyes rolled back and his eyelids fell shut.
Immediately, the vines dropped away from around the trooper’s mouth, their green glow vanishing, and his limp head fell forward, drool dripping from his open mouth to the ground. He snored.
Anniya’s lips puckered to the side. “There’s got to be a nicer way to do this, right Spirit?”
Spirit sat on her shoulder, looking at the drooling trooper. “The nicest thing to do would be to not do it at all.”
Anniya rolled her eyes and brought her hand to her face. “Why do I keep addressing my rhetorical questions to you, Spirit?” Then, quickly shooting a glance at the fox on her left shoulder, she snapped her hand to point at him. “Don’t answer that.”
Spirit looked at her finger with shining eyes, then back to the snoring trooper wrapped in glowing vines.
The vines laid down the unconscious body onto the soft, leafy ground of the pathway, unwinding to release and roll the man onto his back. Anniya crouched down and reached into the trooper’s pocket, withdrawing a shiny sapphire card, inscribed across its face with intricate , silvery filigrees of thin, winding lines, swirls, and sigils.
For several silent seconds, she stared at the glittering card, the jungle ringing around her, the trooper snoring softly. Then, she closed her eyes and as she held the card, its metallic lines pulsed, glowing as though they had become hot before fading.
Anniya reopened her eyes, then looked at the card with a nod. Smiling, she slid it back into the trooper’s pocket and gave it a quick pat. “Thanks for that!” Then her smile soured, as she crouched there looking over this snoring person. “But, sorry about the headache.” In a sudden wind, a few leaves lifted up from the ground to blow against the trooper’s face as Anniya leaped away into the canopy.
Reaching the edge of the jungle, she dropped down off her branch to the ground, crouched, and stared out over the tall grass, across the clearing. Even under the light of the full moon, even with no trees throwing shadows over it, the walls of the base were featureless, each a long square shadow against the dark jungle, a sharp, black horizon under a sky of twinkling stars and thick silver clouds.
She looked up to the top of the wall. A trooper was walking along it, on guard patrol. She waited and before too long, another guard appeared. The two met and began to talk to each other. Anniya looked intently out over the clearing, staring at the top of the black wall, to those two figures standing at the top. She looked d
irectly at them, focused, then closed her eyes.
For several moments there was only the sound of the ringing jungle. Then, from across the field, from atop the wall, there came a distant sharp cracking followed by shouting.
Anniya opened her eyes again and looked back to the two guards at the top of the wall. One of the guards was now holding his nightglasses out in front of him, gesturing at them angrily. The glasses were pouring out smoke and spitting out sparks, crackling and fizzling loud enough to be heard clear across the open field over the shouting and curses.
Anniya smiled, then bolted out of the jungle towards the big flat wall. With each of her soaring bounds, a pale raspberry puff of warm light, too faint to even cast a leaf’s shadow, threw her forward and into the air. In three of these soaring bounds, three rushing moments, she swiftly crossed the wide and dark clearing, slamming silently to an abrupt stop against the outpost wall in a final burst of faint, warm light.
The jungle night rang, the guards on the wall above her cursed, and she remained flattened against the wall, motionless, the translucent warm light fading like lilac breath in the air.
Finally she moved, rubbing her shoulder and looked up the sheer black wall. She grimaced and rubbed her shoulder harder. “Blinking, flecking, ouch!”
She gritted her teeth. “That last inertia throw was way too dim. Way too weak.” She looked down at Spirit on the ground. “But, what did they see, Spirit? What did the guards see?”
Spirit, although engulfed in the night shadow of the wall, still sparkled at her feet in faint silver points of light. “The guards saw nothing, Anniya. The guards were distracted by the nightglasses you exploded.” The lightfox’s eyes glowed softly, hanging in the darkness, illuminating neither himself nor anything around him.
Anniya smiled and grimaced at the same time. “Completely unseen. That’s great.” She moved her shoulder in a circle. “Just not completely unhurt.”
She slunk along the wall until she found a small, rectangular protrusion. It was about the size of a hand, positioned waist-high, with one small red light in its upper right. The protrusion was positioned alongside a tall rectangular outline. Anniya looked down by her feet at Spirit. “How many guards are on the other side of the maintenance door, Spirit?”
“Just the one guard. He is asleep.”
Anniya smiled and nodded. “Just like last time.” She turned her gaze to focus on the squarish card swipe and its little red light. After staring at the card swipe for a few moments, she closed her eyes.
The little red light turned from red to blue, she opened her eyes, and the door vanished open.
On the other side of the door, inside the outpost, the guard leaning against the wall awoke instantly. “Huh!? Who just phased the door open?”
He sprang up, grabbed his rifle, and rushed to the open maintenance door. Peering out, the guard pulled his glasses up onto his forehead, off of his face, closed his eyes tight, then threw open his mouth in a large yawn. Still yawning, his wide bloodshot eyes shot open to give a watery scan left and right.
He smacked his mouth and scratched his head. “Fleckin’ weird Ruin planets! Always fleckin-out equipment. Fracted nightglasses, ghosts unlocking and opening phase-doors. I need to get out of the Federation.” He pulled his glasses back down onto his face and turned back inside the base.
Now inside the base herself, Anniya watched from the shadows, hidden between some maintenance equipment and dumpsters, as the guard swiped his glittering card, manually phasing the door closed, then phased a chip up into a transparency, made a note on the transparency, phased it down, then settled back against the wall and folded his arms, instantly falling asleep, snoring.
Anniya looked down to Spirit, a wide grin on her face. “I didn’t even have to knock him out!” She held up a finger. “Just like last time.”
As easy as jumping up onto a table, Anniya leaped up onto the flat roof of the nearest building. She crouched down, narrowed her eyes, then looked to her left at the big admin building. Her eyes rotated slowly ahead, scanning over the wide assembly yard to the long and narrow commissary at the other end. “Spirit, this is almost exactly like last month, right after they had set up the outpost.” She stood and began to walk to the commissary. “Almost nothing has changed. I totally know what I’m doing.”
Spirit trotted alongside her on the rooftop, looking to his left at the dark, slightly sloping outline of the large admin building. Anniya looked down at the fox, and seeing that his attention was focused elsewhere, followed his gaze.
The huge landship sat in front in the open assembly area, resting on its marmalade cushion of light. Broad ramps extended to the pavement, troops scurrying on them, moving lines of empty carts up and lines of full carts down the ramps to and from the vehicle, and out across the assembly area and into the open front bay of the admin building.
“OK, Spirit. So yes. That’s different. That glitzy landship wasn’t here last month. On the other hand, all those batteries weren’t here last month either. But, before we get batteries, we’re going to get chocsugar first. Chocsugar, batteries, then we bolt like a slinger. That’s the plan.”
Spirit looked away from the admin building, one ear perked.
Suddenly, from the direction Spirit was looking, there came a powerful coordinated shout accompanied by a piercing, scraping screech. The loud sound cut through the night, then stopped.
Anniya cringed. “Spirit. What the ruin was that?!”
The sound came again, a screeching rumble and dozens of voices shouting in unison. Spirit stood, unfazed by the racket. “That is the sound of several dozen Federation reinforcement troops that have been ordered to drag carbon metal pallets across the assembly yard in order to ready them for loading onto the landship.”
Anniya looked at Spirit, her mouth an upside down U, her eyes wide. “That was a very specific answer.”
Anniya shuffled over to the side of the roof to peer over the edge. Off to her right, over the blacktop in front of the long and low commissary building, she saw the soldiers, a few groups of them, lined in rows holding straps over their shoulders, all heaving and pulling half a dozen pallets away from the commissary building. She followed the direction of their heaving, tracing a path to see that they were dragging the pallets all the way across the yard towards the big landship. “Why are they dragging them?” She pointed to the bustling activity of the troops unloading the landship. “Why don’t they just borrow those guys’ carts?” The troops way off to her left, down by the landship and the admin buildings loading bay, were all pushing floating carts. A few even operated light-powered forklifts. Quietly moving several pallets at a time, they coasted up and down the landship’s big rear ramp, hovering on their own little cushions of light.
“I’ll never understand the military.” Anniya drew back from the roofs edge, then stood and continued along the roof, ignoring the periodic loud shouting, scraping, and logical nonsense of the assembly area.
“So, as I was saying, Spirit, the plan is that since the chocsugar will be the easy thing to get, we’re going to get that first. I mean, I’m going to be surprised if they posted guards to defend their snacks.”
The girl and the lightfox reached the end of the long rooftop, the coordinated heaving, scraping, shouting and grunting from the assembly area continuing to be the loudest sound in the night. Anniya peered over the edge of the roof. In the clear illumination of moonlight, she saw down below, the side kitchen door of the commissary.
Anniya stepped off the high roof with the ease of someone walking off a stairway, falling casually to land on the ground in a puff of dim canary light. Without breaking stride, she continued walking forward through the faintly-glowing lemon mist. The air disturbance of her fall followed her down, softly meeting the hard ground to blow a swirling breeze behind her feet, scattering away motes of fading misty light like fleeing fireflies.
Anniya placed her ear against the moonlit kitchen door. “I don’t hear anything.”
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nbsp; The grating cadence of shouting, grunting and scraping continued out in the assembly area, echoing down the dark corridors between the buildings. Anniya scrunched her nose. “Not with all that noise.” She glanced down at the lightfox. The faint golden swirls in his fur shone clearly in the light of the moon. “Spirit, how many guards are in the kitchen?”
Spirit looked up at her with his luminous sapphire eyes which, although they glowed clearly, cast no light onto anything around him. “There are no guards in the kitchen, Anniya.”
Anniya smiled. “Of course there aren’t any guards. It’s just food.” She looked up from the lightfox on the ground, up to the door’s card lock. On the cardlock there was a single red light. She stared at the lock for a moment, closed her eyes, then was silent.
She opened her eyes.
The red light on the card lock remained red and the kitchen door remained phased firmly closed. Off in the darkness of the base, the scraping and shouting nonsense continued. Anniya scratched her head, staring at the red light on the card lock.
She glanced down at Spirit. “OK. That’s different from last time.” She looked back to the lock. “Last time, the trooper’s spectrum card pattern worked on the kitchen just like it worked on the maintenance door.”
Holding her hand up to the card lock, she made a circle with her thumb and pointer finger, then gave it a couple sharp flicks. The light remained red.
She looked down to Spirit and shrugged. “I didn’t want to break anything and leave any evidence, but I’m never coming back here, so I guess I just have to break it.” The shiny fox looked up at her, his head tilted. She looked at the lock again, scratched her head, then threw out her hands. “What choice do I have, Spirit?”
She quickly pointed at the little shiny fox. “And that’s a rhetorical question, Spirit.”
Frowning, Anniya gave a small shake of her head, then stared for a few long moments at the little light on the card swipe. Again she closed her eyes, and after a moment the indicator light winked-out and the door phased open, vanishing-away noiselessly. Opening her eyes, she leaned over to look into the dark and empty kitchen. “Totally empty.” She smiled down at Spirit. “Just like last time.”