Justice by S.J. Bryant

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