Vegetation

November 13th 3113

11:00 PM Galactic Standard Time.

Wednesday.

Location: Long-Range SSF-42 craft, Epsilon Delta System, Orbital Path around 3rd planet, Official Name; Flora, Nickname; Veggieland

Personal Log: Captain Joshua Revan

I never thought I would see the Plant home planet. I imagined it much differently. I expected a rock covered in the Plant’s green thick foliage and was so dense it would look like a crawling mass of living ropes just winding about a planetoid. Maybe it would have gaping jaws that would easily close around and destroy the largest of our city-ships or even a world-ship. I saw it having pulled smaller planets and moons to its mass and would seed them until they were smaller versions of itself.

I was wrong. The galaxy in which I find myself isn’t altogether different from our own. In fact if it wasn’t for the dying red sun and the various planets being different sizes and shapes it could have been Sol. And Flora isn’t a snarling Plant beast waiting to eat and turn humanity into it’s slaves. I’m looking at it now and the planet is a blue orb swirled with continents and floating innocently and beautifully.

Just like our planet. Just like our home. Maybe that’s why they entered our colonies so many years ago. I barely remember it now. I was just a young man trying to take care of his family on the Alpha Centauri colony-ship. I remember the excitement we had when we first landed on the terraformed planet Rigous. It could have been any small plot of land on ancient Earth.

We worked hard for two years to get our colony up and running. My parents worked hard to provide for all of my siblings and were more than happy when Lee and I announced she was pregnant and that we were moving out on our own. I still remember my father’s happy and shocked face and the pride in his eyes. I remember the dead look in Lee’s eyes as she pleaded with me to join her and let the Plant take me…

At the time, no one knew what the Plant was, or where it came from and definitely not what it wanted. It started like all those horror holovids would. A few people acting strangely while others went missing. Every search party that would return would have one or two less people then when it sent out. The leaders of the colony wouldn’t hear those of us shouting that something was wrong, maybe they were already turned and we just had no idea. I don’t know.

All I know is, I woke up one night, and the town was ablaze. People were running and screaming. The local marine corps was doing all it could to fight off…something…that looked like it was human. It was easy enough to see it was the people who had gone missing but they weren’t…what they used to be.

They’re bodies were changed, longer and some missing limbs or rotting away entirely. They’re skin was as green as the swamp they must have been hiding in. Some of them had two heads. One that was once a friend or neighbor and another that was formed out of the Plant’s own cells. One head would be moaning in drug induced euphoria while the other snapped and spit it’s seed wherever it could.

All it takes is one bite, or if you’re immune system was weak just getting spat on or licked would be enough. Almost instantly, the person you were was gone and the Plant started taking over. You’d never know it, it would whisper to you, make you feel and think things you never would. If you’ve ever seen or heard an infected person you’d think they were in the height of pleasure, and maybe they are…but the price...

I remember running with my family, as hard and fast as we could until we found the caved and barricaded ourselves inside. I still don’t know if she was bitten or licked and had been fighting it with all her will or if some managed to get in…but my daughter woke up screaming one night…and lunged at me with a knife. Her strength was incredible and there was nothing I could do. To the day I die, which might be in the next few hours, I will hold the guilt in my heart, if having to take my daughter’s life.

I didn’t know it then, but once you pass a certain point, there was no chance of medics changing you back. I know there was no medical technology that could have saved her and she was too far gone, but I still wonder…I didn’t have much time to wonder then. My wife, my beautiful Leeja, had been bitten while we struggled with our daughter.

Sometimes late at night, I can still hear her moaning in passion and lust as the Plant took her over. How badly she wanted me to join her and be with her. How she moved and touched me. If it had not been for what we had watched our daughter try to do minutes before…I would have joined her.

In the morning, I was the only one to crawl out of the cave. Filled with anger and vengeance I ran back to the town and swiftly found a Marine’s rifle. I can’t remember much of what happened the following weeks but I’ve been told I killed every last infected person on the planet.

And if it had not been for the Medical Technicians working so swiftly against an infection and disease they had no understanding of, I would have ended up like the rest of my colony. Of course there was an investigation and even a trial. Lucky for me they found enough evidence to draw out the trial…long enough for the Plants to attack another more colonized planet.

Overnight I went from murdering psychopath to military expert. Lucky me. Over the next handful of years I was trained and sent out in mission after mission. Fighting the Plants and trying to save as many colonies as we could.

Eventually I became a Sergeant Major and was sent out on the mission that would eventually lead me to where I am now. Over the years we realized the Plant was intelligent and for one reason or another, needed humans to survive. It’s been guessed the Plant needs developed brain matter in order to learn, grow and propagate. The more they fed on us, the more they learned about us and where and how to hit us.

If it wasn’t for my insistence we start developing new technologies for scanning and detecting the Plant we probably would be extinct by now. We’ve gone as far as only a ship’s Captain knows the location of Sol and the inner colonies. In the event a ship is breached and infected, the Captain will do what he has too.

We’ve tried all manner of communication with the Plant, and the mission that got me here was one of peace. We were sent in to try and communicate with a system that had been taken over but had not moved to try and expand. That alone was odd enough to warrant investigation but the Council wanted their shot at opening negotiations.

So in the most advanced and newest ship in the fleet, we set out. We had all kinds of orders, some secret and some not so. Our primary mission was to communicate. Failing that, a small team was to set down on the planet and retrieve vital information. Which we ended up doing, and it was what got the Plant to finally move.

We made it back to the ship but somehow they had better hyperspace technology than we do and they were quick behind. The ship was infected, the Captain killed and it fell to me to be Acting Captain and save who I could.

The story is long but we managed to save almost 90% of the crew and their families with no chance of carried infection or technology stolen. We were ushered swiftly back to Earth once the rescue ship found us and in grand fashion the military forces had me and the other military units whisked away for debriefing…

The door pushed open slowly, and a woman in a white lab coat walked in, it going down to just above her knees. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail tightly, neatly, not a single hair out of place.

"Good morning Sergeant."

She sat in a chair nearby, pulling out something that almost looking like a clipboard, but was actually a screen that was tucked under her arm. She drug her finger across it obviously getting ready to ask some questions, or so it would seem. But the only thing she asked was

"How are you doing?"

Sgt. Revan raised his eyebrow and shifted a bit in his chair. He sat up to lean his arms on the table. He watched the woman for a bit before shrugging and leaning back. He answered honestly.

"Tired. Hungry. Somewhat depressed. Same as every time a medic examines me...you're not what I was expecting...."

She smirked a bit as she tapped at the screen again, and then looked up at him, flipping it upside-down on the table and just looked at him, the smallest smirk on her lips, very deep blue eyes, ruby red lips, and a pale complection

"I.. get that a lot."

She sat back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other, and a few moments later another person walked in with a tray that smelled of meat with some bread on the side

"Hopefully you enjoy that.. I asked someone to make it up for you, figured you would be hungry. Is there anything else you would like before we talk? I would like to make you comfortable as possible."

Looking over the tray, Revan slowly sat up again and picked up the plain metal fork and poked at the meat a little.

"I'd like to know why a Medic is debriefing me and not some military brass like usual...I don't mean to be hostile..."

He glanced at her and took a bite of meat. He chewed and swallowed before speaking again before she could.

"But other than the usual depression I've been acting normally..."

"I have volunteered another approach to the debriefing. You're my..test subject so to speak. Although I have done this with many others they still dont believe it to be effective.."

She shook her head a little

"I apologize.. I shouldnt be the one speaking. Please, tell me everything that you remember, when you feel comfortable enough to."

She didnt even have the screen up to take down notes, she just watched him

He took a few more bites of the meat before leaning back with the bread in his hand. He closed his eyes a moment then shrugged.

"Whatever you want Doc. "

He broke off a piece of the bread and rolled it around in his fingers before eating it. He swallowed then started speaking.

"Our mission was simple...open communications, if that failed, retrieve the data from the planet's surface. Which meant going into an infected city...."

He paused and caught himself then looked over her lab coat for some sort of rank insignia.

"Are you cleared for information on the mission?"

She smiled a bit more, but it was still very soft. She pulled something from her lab coat pocket, and slid it across the table. On it was her ID number, and a code, ranking her as one of the psychologists

"If you do not feel comfortable talking to me I could get one of the military personnel to do it.. although they normally dont feed the person which I still find strange"

She shook her head a bit, just waiting for him to continue

He picked up the badge and read over it before sliding it back across the table. He ate another piece of bread before speaking again.

"...I've been serving for years...as I'm sure you already know...but I still don't consider myself part of the military..."

He shook his head a little.

"Anyway...the data was important. Statistics on how many people were killed and turned. Among a few other things You're not cleared to know...and other things I'm not cleared to know."

He shrugged a bit.

"We got what we needed and returned to the ship with minimal injuries. No one was infected but it should be noted the infected were using our weapons. I've only seen them do that once."

The sergeant watched her as he spoke, and smirked as she seemed to remember the datapad.

"So naturally, the Captain ordered us out of the system since the Plant pod-ships were closing in on our ship and we hit hyperspace."

He sighed a bit then and more or less tossed the bread back onto the tray.

"Dunno how, whether it was they got caught in our hypersace jump or created their own and just moved faster than we thought...but they caught it mid-jump."

He slowly sat forward again.

"There was two of them, big enough to crash into the forward and mid landing bays. Unfortunately where the Captain was greeting us at the time. He was one of the first infected when they flooded out of the pod-ships. He put me in command and as per regulations I shot him before he was fully taken."

She nodded slowly, and seemed to wince, just the slightest as he talked about shooting his own captain. She continued to take down her notes of what he was saying.

"So they actually learned how to make an even faster ship..interesting.."

Her finger moved a bit faster along the screen

"And what happened at that point?"

He shook his head a bit slowly.

"Learned or adapted or got lucky. It could be anything and I doubt we'll know since the ships been destroyed...but...backtracking..."

He glanced at the door set int he wall. He could barely see it since it was sealed so tightly and carefully.

"Lieutenant Hackfield and I made our way to the first computer point we could get too and activated the new scan and laser system. The grids along the doorways powered up as we figured they would and sure enough whenever an infected person tried to pass through the doorway, it was swiftly burned away."

He closed his eyes slowly.

"We stayed at that console as long as we could until Plant was starting to make it's way past the activated passages. So I started an evacuation of the ship and sent him onward to take command of whoever made it to the planet."

Nodding slowly, she watched him, her finger stopped moving as she stopped taking notes again. She was more interested in his story then documenting it, although that would come to bite her later on and she knew it, so she continued

"And from what Ive heard.. most of you got away at least."

She wasnt only taking notes of his story, but how he reacted as he told it

The Sgt. nodded slowly.

"Around 90% made it to lifeboats and drop ships in the other hangers and got to the planet safely. The SSF...the space superiority fighters...were already in flight so I had them scan pods and ships as well for Plant."

He opened his eyes again and couldn't keep himself from smiling a little.

"I went to the Captain's cabin. It's one of the only place the self-destruct and navigation override would work. When I got there and started setting course for the ship to be sent into the sun, I heard a noise. A little girl named Alicia Heinz was hiding there, thinking no place else could be safer."

He looked to the woman whose name he still didn't know.

"I scanned her and she wasn't infected so I calmed her down and waited there until all human lifescans were clear then I set the ship for maximum thrust towards the sun and the self-destruct to go off seconds after it hit the sun. I ordered Commander Packard to keep some of his fighters at maximum distance from the ship and intercept any transmissions that were broadcast then Alicia and I used the Captain's escape pod to leave the ship."

Again he sat back, as if he had to move every so often or he'd stop living.

"From what the Commander told me, most transmissions were partially turned people trying to contact their families to seduce them back to the ship."

At this he frowned quite a bit.

"The poor man had to listen to his wife as she pleaded with him to return to the ship and be with her...before the Plant fully took her"

He slowly trailed off at that, either to give the man's wife a moment of silence or remembering his own past.

As he went quiet, she looked up from the screen, and tilted her head a little. She wanted to press on but stopped herself from doing so, knowing it wasnt a good choice.

After a few moments, she spoke quietly

"Is there anything else you would like to tell me?"

After a few more moments of silence the Sgt. looked up again with the face of a soldier.

"We made camp easily enough and I set everyone to do their normal tasks they would on the ship. We made sure the ship reached the sun and was destroyed thoroughly."

He snatched up the last bit of bread and ate it with a piece of the meat before looking back to her.

"Just before the rescue ship arrived, we detected a group of pirates in orbit who were trading something. The rescue ship intercepted them and I believe it captured whatever the pirates were trading. You'd have to talk to the ship captain about it however."

He then shrugged.

"After that we were brought here. Is there anything else you need to know?"

The question didnt seem to register for several long moments. She was writing, picturing what he must of gone through, until finally shaking her head clear

"Hm? Oh.."

She frantically looked at the screen, and raised an eyebrow

"They didnt say anything about another ship in my notes.. or any trading.."

He raised his eyebrow again as he had a few times now.

"Strange, but you'll have to take that up with whoever you report too. We were getting ready to try and move into a set of caves we found so the pirates wouldn't detect us or our fighters, but the rescue ship came and managed to take care of the situation. I really don't know anything more than that."

He started getting restless and fought to keep himself from standing up and starting to walk around the cold metal room.

She was frantically looking through her notes on the screen, but nothing on a ship that had come. If they had not informed her then they were breaking a law they themselves set.

She stood up, setting the screen down on the table

"I believe that is all.. You can g-.."

Just before she could dismiss him, a large man walked in, several medals across the left side of his chest, and she quickly sat back down

-"Hes not free to go yet, we need more information"-

-"You are dismissed, Miss Orga"-

"What! But I wa-.."

-"You tried your way, now we'll do it ours"-

She stood quickly, facing the man who easily towered over her, and said with a very sharp tone

"I will not leave!"

The man waved towards the door, and a guard came in, one of which called her Amber, as she was basically forced out of the room, casting a glance back at the man she had just been asking the questions to, she didnt like the way the others debrefed..

-"Now.."-

Said the large man, waving his hand dismissively as if saying 'at ease'. He sat down in the chair and looked at the screen she had been taking notes on, not saying a word yet

-"Tell me soldier, I want names of the people you remember who were turned and didnt come back here"-

He obviously was using the straightforward approach the other officers used

-"I want names, and I-..."-

He narrowed his eyes, looking at the screen

-"Ship? What ship is this in her notes?"-