Echoes in the Data
Night had settled over the city as Emma returned to her lab, a cluttered haven of specimens and softly glowing monitors. She sank into her chair, eyes fixed on the magnified wood sample. Under the scanner's light, its cells thrummed like constellations, shifting in ways no Earth plant should.
"Living. Breathing. But nothing like I've ever documented," she murmured, tapping restless fingers against her desk. Her hands trembled violently, ink smudging her father's notebook as she sketched the cellular rings. The tremors mirrored how her father's hands had once shaken while tracing these same patterns before cancer claimed him. His voice seemed to whisper from her faded notebooks: *Protect them, Emma. The forests hold secrets deeper than we know.*
"Chloe," she called, voice sharp with focus. "Run a full spectral scan on this sample. Its energy signature is... wrong."
Across the lab, Chloe glanced up, violet hair catching the monitor's glow as her fingers flew across the keyboard. She adjusted her glasses, a nervous habit since childhood, the same gesture she'd made at her brother's funeral after the logging collapse. Her other hand clutched a worn photo of him tucked beneath her keyboard.
"Running now." A pause. Her eyes widened behind smudged lenses. "What the hell? This frequency shouldn't exist in organic matter." She leaned closer, glasses slipping. "Doc, this isn't just encrypted. It's targeted, like it's responding to something specific."
Emma's scanner suddenly hummed with a faint signal, alien, encrypted, eerily similar to the probe's transmission from the orbital station. Her breath caught. The display flickered with fragments of text: "...MI-RA...vessel hunted...scientist silenced..." On a secondary monitor, a news report scrolled past: *Unidentified meteor reported near Blackwood Forest. Authorities investigating.*
"That's no meteor," Emma whispered. Her heart pounded so violently she could barely hear herself think.
---
Far from Emma's lab, the infiltrators watched.
Scout Vren, now wearing the mask of a corporate executive, traced wood grain with absent fingers, receiving messages through vibrations only he could interpret. WoodDust burned beneath his human skin, the agony constant as his flesh rebelled against the disguise. His sister had died on Zogar, lungs turning to dust as the atmosphere thinned. He'd volunteered for enhancement to avenge her, to save what remained of his world.
*Take their forests,* Zar had commanded. *Find the essence, the core of their power.* His human mask smiled, concealing Zogar's hunger.
His comm buzzed with an update: Scientist Kai detained, his treason exposed. The smuggler's vessel crashed but intact. The warning lived.
A construction worker adjusted his grip on a steel beam, lifting more weight than any human should. His eyes flickered with alien luminescence, a microsecond betrayal of his true nature.
A neighbor laughed at precisely calculated intervals, her movements too fluid, too deliberate to be natural, her mind still containing fragments of the real woman whose identity she'd claimed.
They blended seamlessly, unnoticeable yet ever vigilant. Their focus never wavered from the forests, Earth's beating heart, its treasure. Each infiltrator connected through the rhythm emanating from the wood, linked to Zogar's grand design like Kai's treason and the smuggler's desperate warning.
---
Emma's attention stayed locked on her screen, comparing spectral data to forestry reports. With each correlation, cold dread pooled in her stomach. She accessed her father's encrypted files, finding an ancient myth he'd documented: *When the wood is stolen, fire comes. When the dust is harvested, worlds fall.*
"These deforestation patterns are strategic," she whispered. "The cutting isn't random, it's methodical. Almost surgical." Her scanner hummed, detecting the faint echo of Kai's encrypted signal from the orbital station, confirming her worst fears.
Chloe's fingers trembled against her keyboard. "Doc, I'm detecting energy bursts near every major logging site. Brief, encrypted signals. Someone's deliberately masking their activity." She swallowed hard. "It's just like what happened at Westridge before the collapse that killed my brother, unusual frequencies, unexplained equipment failures."
She gripped her brother's photo, resolve hardening. "We'll expose this, Doc. For him. For everyone. Whatever's happening, the logging companies are involved."
Emma's spine stiffened. "Encrypted?" She connected disparate threads, mind racing. "Nobody conceals standard logging operations. Unless..."
Her gaze snapped back to the cells on screen, watching as they synchronized into patterns too deliberate for natural evolution. The cells contained a distilled energy remarkably similar to what her father's notes described as Zogar's fabled WoodDust, cosmic essence bound in organic matter.
The realization hit like a physical blow.
"It's not about the wood," she breathed, voice barely audible. "It's what's inside it. Some kind of... essential energy. The same energy that powers their technology, maybe even their bodies."
The lab fell silent save for the quiet hum of equipment. Data continued scrolling, painting a picture neither woman was prepared to fully comprehend, one that stretched beyond Earth, beyond human understanding.
Suddenly, Emma's scanner beat with a new signal, urgent, foreign, yet somehow familiar. A rogue vessel, disrupting the infiltrators' communication net. Someone was fighting back.
"Chloe, lock onto this frequency," Emma commanded, hope flaring briefly.
Before Chloe could respond, the lab's security system chimed. Emma froze, staring at the security camera feed. Outside their door, a maintenance worker stood perfectly still, eyes flickering with an unnatural luminescence as he stared directly into the camera.
"They've found us," she whispered.
The wood sample surged in response, its rhythm matching the infiltrator's movements. The door lock clicked, mechanisms turning.
---
In the darkness of the Blackwood, Mira stumbled from smoking wreckage, clutching a data chip tight against her chest. Her features, though human in appearance, carried subtle differences in bone structure that marked her Zogarian heritage. Blood trickled from a gash above her eye as she oriented herself, scanning unfamiliar constellations.
Her mother's pendant cut into her palm, Lyra's courage burning through her veins. The data chip felt warm against her skin, Kai's final message encrypted within. His sacrifice would not be in vain.
Mira pressed a hand against a towering oak, feeling its essence respond to her touch. The tree's bark glowed faintly beneath her fingers, roots shifting visibly in the soil. The forests recognized her. They felt the WoodDust in her veins, the heritage of a world that had forgotten its ancient connection.
"I have to warn them," she whispered, the data chip warm against her palm. Kai's message had given her coordinates for Dr. Forrest's laboratory. A scientist who would understand, who might help prevent Zogar's desperation from consuming another world.
In the distance, scout ships hummed, circling the crash site. She had hours, perhaps less, before they located her.
The trees whispered around her, ancient sentinels suddenly alert to distant danger. But also, strangely, welcoming her home.
---
The door burst open with explosive force, throwing Emma backward. Vren stood in the doorway, his human disguise flickering as his eyes blazed with alien luminescence.
"The sample," he commanded, voice vibrating with an inhuman undertone. "Give it to me now."
Emma shoved Chloe behind a reinforced cabinet. "Run!" she shouted, grabbing her scanner and the wood sample. Equipment sparked as Vren's energy disrupted the lab's electronics. The lights failed, plunging them into darkness broken only by emergency backups.
Chloe scrambled toward the rear exit, clutching her brother's photo and Emma's father's notebook. "This way!"
Through the lab windows, scout ships descended, their engines humming so loudly the walls shook. The building trembled as they landed on the roof, trapping them inside.
Emma felt the wood sample vibrate in her pocket, syncing with something ancient and awakening. The forest's defense, rising. Her heart pounded so violently she could barely hear Chloe's frightened whisper.
"How do we get out? They're everywhere."
Emma's scanner flashed with Mira's coordinates from Blackwood Forest. "We have to reach the crash site," she gasped, ducking as Vren overturned a cabinet. "Someone's come to warn us. Someone who knows what these things are."
The wood sample grew warmer, almost burning through her pocket. Its cells synchronized with the distant forest, a network awakening to its ancient purpose.
Outside, among ancient trees whose roots ran deeper than anyone suspected, something alien stirred. The crashed vessel smoldered in Blackwood Forest, its lone occupant now Earth's unknown ally, racing against time as Zogar's scouts closed in.
And Emma, trapped in her lab with humanity's terrible truth, realized the invasion hadn't just begun.
It was already winning.
Around the world, infiltrators paused, receiving the same signal. Their eyes flickered with recognition. The forest network was awakening, responding to an ancient call. WoodDust flowed through their veins, burning as it synchronized with Earth's defense.
Vren faltered, pain searing through his disguise as Earth's forests reached out to the WoodDust in his blood. For a moment, he remembered Zogar's ancient forests, the canopy his people had once called home. Before desperation. Before survival consumed their souls.
Emma saw his hesitation and grabbed Chloe's arm, pulling her toward the emergency stairwell as the infiltrator struggled against the forest's call.
"They're connected," she gasped. "The infiltrators, the forests, the WoodDust. It's all one system."
In Blackwood Forest, Mira felt the network surge as she pressed her hand against the glowing oak. The trees responded to her touch, roots shifting beneath the soil as ancient connections reforged.
"Lead me to them," she whispered, following the forest's silent guidance. "Before it's too late."
The trees answered, a path clearing before her, roots illuminating the way through darkness as scout ships circled overhead. Earth's silent sentinels, awakening to war.