Story Ideas

The Mother Ver. 2

Read version 1 for the alien info.

The forest was quiet. Suspiciously quiet. I scanned the undergrowth slowly, keeping my gun up and ready for anything. Despite such a dense forest, the lack of any wildlife made me more than a little unsettled. It didn't help the fact that I was alone, the nearest ally soldier almost 5 kilometres away from me. At first I thought that it was quiet because of me, as I was with a weapon, but I had no intention to kill anyone at the moment. The wildlife shouldn't be afraid of me enough to go dead silent, not an entire forest kind of dead silent.

One month ago, an envoy was sent to the Arian planet in hopes to establish peace with Arians. The envoy was the last step in establishing peace as the talks had been going on for almost over two year. Yet, barely one week after the landing on the planet, the envoy went dead on the mothership of the Galactic Empire. It was nothing new, short communication disruptions were common since we are talking about light-years of travel. But when a week passed and nothing was received, the Empire organised a rescue mission and sent a professionally trained team..

They went dead a week ago as well.

And here we were, a special combat squad, sent to investigate the disappearances of two Empire groups with high possibility of hostile attack. We have yet to discover the missing ships or any clues regarding the incidents, but it was imperative for us to do so. We had no idea what happened, who was at fault and why. If the peace was to be established, the missing ships were the answer.

The Arians themselves were a mysterious bunch. There was little information about them, but what we knew were enough to be weary of them. They were male dominant species ruled over by a single female that they call The Mother. She herself was the only being that was connected to their Nest - a living sentient tree that used Arians for protection and Arians used the tree as their home. The psychic connection between the Mother and the Nest was something both weird and amazing, but we knew nothing about that specifically. The Nest had roots all over the region it lived that functioned like the nerve system in humans. Upon detecting a threat or something of specific importance, the Nest sends a message to the Mother and she, through the same kind of psychic link, orders the males to protect and do other jobs. For them to be able to withstand the threat, be it a rabid band of monkey like lizards or a nuke from humans, the Nest gave the Arians, well...., superpowers. All through the Mother. They have the speed that we, humans, can only reach or follow with mechanical augmentation, their smooth scales were hard enough to withstand the said nuke, done and proven, and their bee like work ethics made them unstoppable. If they have the Mother, of course. She was an entire species strength and weakness that they protect with their lives.

The Arians themselves look nothing like your typical alien. They were a mix of a dog, a lizard and an octopus. Their bodies were in a shape of a dog, covered in smooth scales of a lizard. Their faces were prolonged like dog's, but with lizard shapes. From their head grew a separate limb that went along their bodies and longer, acting as their tail for stability and counterweight to their massive bodies. It looked like a smooth spear made of muscles that ended in a sharp tip. The limb was the octopus's part as it could split into six smaller limbs that Arian could control separately.

Despite knowing their basic biology, we still had A LOT of things we knew nothing about. How did the psychic link between the Nest and the Mother, between the Mother and Arians worked? How were they different? Why were there no females apart from the Mother? How did they not only keep, but also grew their population? How were the strengths of the Arians given since the changes are biological not psychological? And many many more.

I sighed as I reached what looked to be an ancient part of the forest I was sent to investigate. The trees were nothing like the ones back at home. Younger ones were the size of a good 12 story building, but these ancient ones definitely reached the clouds. They had dark grey - brownish bark with bright red - purple leaves that cover the entire canopy. The undergrowth was sparse, hard mud was covered with fallen leaves, that were the size of me, a 180 cm woman, as well as few bushes that looked like.... sheep. Dark green coloured sheep.