The jet of plasma hit exactly where she wanted it, a little left of center of the tree's base, destroying it with fiery enthusiasm. The oddly-shaped bulge on top ruptured simultaneously.
An eight-inch spike of wood with enough intracellular silica to scratch porcelain whanged off Meyer's breastplate and flung her backward. Similar spikes drove through the log where the plasma cannon rested, knocked the gun itself away spinning butt over muzzle, and snatched the flame gun from its crossbelt.
Hundreds of people were screaming. Meyer rolled to her feet, gasping for breath. Her armor had saved her life, but the shock nonetheless punched all the air from her lungs.
She looked behind her. A spike had ripped apart the flame gun's tank and sprayed the fuel in a cloud across the landscape. Sergeant Daye was trying to run out of it. He'd almost made it to safety when the plasma cannon took a hop that thrust its white-hot muzzle into the atomized fuel.
The explosion was a whoomp rather than a sharper sound, but the blast hurled Meyer, armor and all, back over the log.
As she somersaulted, Meyer caught her last glimpse of Sergeant Daye: his helmet, at least, spinning a hundred feet in the air.
"There's a band of the same species all around the edge of the clearing," Tamara Lundie said. "I've reviewed recordings made by the helmets of the scouts as they moved out of the area. They show none of the species more than forty yards out."
"Doesn't surprise me," Farrell said. "And the tree shoots back at the shooter only?"
He couldn't logically justify his confidence in Lundie's ability to synthesize information from the helmet sensors. Maybe he trusted her because he didn't have any choice.
"That's correct," Lundie said, raising her voice to be heard clearly. The wounded were either calm or sedated, but children wailed in helpless terror in the background. Some were now orphans. "The head is armed in all directions, but it discharges only in the direction from which the plant's integrity is breached."
"All right," Farrell said. "I'll send the pair in hard suits ahead to blow the trees with grenades from the back sides before the dozer starts." He shook his head and added, "What a bloody damned planet."
The medics—the doctors—had the wounded under control. The project manager was organizing stretcher parties, which meant a number of the civilians would have to leave their personal luggage behind. Al-Ibrahimi didn't seem to be getting near the argument he would have before the tree's projectiles raked the crowd.
Eight dead, twenty-three wounded. Civilians, that was. Sergeant Daye had gone the way most strikers did, quick. Velasquez had a clean through-wound to the right thigh. She claimed she was fit for duty, marching included. As short-handed as Farrell was he didn't intend to argue with her, but he'd make sure Top put Velasquez on the rotation to ride the dozers.
Shit. He'd tell Kristal to put Velasquez on the rotation.
He'd recalled the scouts when the tree ripped the column, figuring at this moment he needed their expertise more than he needed to know about the magnetic source deeper in the forest. He thought about warning them specifically about the shooting trees, then decided against it.
When Farrell figured out what had happened—initially he'd thought the cannon had exploded—he'd radioed a general warning that covered everyone on C41's net, the scouts included. Gabrilovitch stayed alert, and Blohm didn't miss any damned thing that might mean his neck. No point in breaking their concentration again at what might be a bad time.
There weren't any good times on Bezant.
"I said `plant' and `species' rather than tree, Major," Lundie said, "because it appears to be a very fast-growing fungus rather than a woody plant. The band of them sprang up after the asteroid impact."
Farrell looked at her. "Planted by somebody, is that what you mean?" he said. "Do you think the Spooks put them there for a minefield?"
Ordinary mines were of little use against strikers. The helmet sensors sniffed explosives at distances of up to a half mile depending on the breeze. Trees mixed with a million other trees, though . . .
"I don't believe the Kalendru had anything to do with the occurrence," Lundie said. "I can't speculate as to what other directing intelligence might be involved. This particular species fits the pattern of hostility shown by almost all the other life in the crater, do you not think?"
"Yeah, I guess," Farrell said. It wasn't an assessment that particularly pleased him to hear, but it seemed accurate enough. He shifted his left bandolier to prevent it from rubbing. "I'm going to organize the clearance team," he said.
He nodded toward the colonists constructing stretchers of fabric and plastic tubing from the building supplies. "They'll be ready to go in ten minutes or so."