Hopefully I'll whip out another today...here's hoping I can keep my ADHD focused enough! :D

Remember to share your thoughts and opinions...I'd like to know what you think so far ;)

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Chapter Two

“Mission control this is Condor 3,” the pilot said speaking into the com gear on his head. “We have the package, repeat, package is secure, but you won’t believe what we just found.”

Just two hours ago they had been told to take flight into the heavily enemy occupied territory of the quarantined zone, an entire continent blockaded to contain forty of the largest Great Spires that had managed to remain unconquerable. A satellite had managed to pick up the residual energy of a distress beacon from the continent before it got destroyed. When they arrived they found a small horde of spire trees attacking a very large black one, the largest they had ever seen in a very long time aside from the Great Spires.

The tree was having no trouble defending itself and as it moved around those who had access to view ports could see that it was wearing the Alocarta family crest on the armor on its back. The tree seemed to have grown over some parts of the armor as the armor appeared too small and it was in tatters as well, but enough of it remained intact that the large golden pillar with an alpha above and two wings to either side could still be distinguished.

Landing had not been an option, the chaos below would have assured their destruction and as the saplings stopped to charge their seed cannons the pilot took it upon himself to retreat but before he could even attempt to dodge the volley chains erupted from the large black tree and swung the transporter around taking it completely out of harm’s way before pulling itself up and into the hangar.

The engines whined with the weight of the great tree but they would hold as they retreated back to an offshore carrier group. The spire trees chose not to follow.

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“Have you contacted Sezaria?” elder Noah asked the woman to his side. She was one of his dozen secretaries that helped him with his affairs, normally he had them running tasks for him so the fact that out of the dozen there was only one to his side was no surprise.

“Yes elder,” she replied looking at the electronic pad in her hands. “All the elders of the Fortino clan and the patriarch himself are all accounted for.”

“Did you check for high ranking officers and officials?” he asked trying to check off all the possibilities.

They were currently waiting for the transporter to return, besides the elder and his secretary the captain and his officers were all gathered around.

“Anyone who can make a priority summons is accounted for,” she replied.

“Yet here were are waiting for a VIP of the Fortino clan,” Noah muttered under his breath. He was nervous, among the Alocarta family the Fortino clan was the strongest and wealthiest even as small as it was compared to the other thirteen of the great Alocarta pillar families. Noah, himself and everyone on the ships around them, belong to the Geno clan that is famous for its mercantile nature and shipyards. The Geno family was tasked with keeping the quarantine zone secure.

Minutes later the transporter could be seen making its approach, the engines appeared to be overtasked and smoking from overheating. Its landing was rather hard as the engines momentarily threatened to quit, the impact on the great fleet carrier thundered throughout the ship as even the landing gear’s pistons were crushed and twisted. Noah barely had a moment to contemplate the pilot’s demotion when the hangar door dropped and the quakes began. Noah realized what they were, footsteps.

From within the transport emerged the biggest war suit ever seen and it was not the soft green of forced growth, the tree was solid black, its bark was like scales of armor. This tree was ancient and it was powerful. Noah panicked for a moment but then he saw the chest armor and upon it was a small crest, it was the family crest, and on its back the crest was plain to see across it.

“I am elder Noah of the Geno clan,” he greeted the armored clansman. “We have no record stating that there would be a leading member of the Fortino in the quarantine zone. As elder and guardian of this zone I am inclined to ask as to your reasons for being here and who you are.”

There was no response.

“Can you not answer me?” Noah asked.

“Elder Noah,” the voice was crystal clear and powerful with no discernable point of origin. The Fortino clansman had replied using thought speak, it was a common thing to do, but the strength he had used to speak with was practically shouting strength. “For now know me as Fortino Alocarta. I need rest and access to your information network.”

“Sir the systems cannot identify him,” the secretary informed elder Noah. “I am receiving an error message and a request for access to the main archives of the family tree.”

“A lost clansman?” the elder pondered the conundrum, but decided that it was not the moment to be lost in thought. “Show this clansman to the lower hangers where he may dock his warsuit, although I doubt he will fit in any of the standard docking stations. Give him a room and a meal.”

Bonded trees were rare and usually were only employed by the fighting forces of the family which usually went offworld to sell themselves as mercenaries. Only the fleet carriers kept six docking stations for spire trees and that was mostly as a formality in case high ranking members decided to take a rest on one of the dozens of fleet carriers that swarmed the oceans patrolling the waters.

The massive black tree was lowered into the hangers below using the elevator that was used for lowering and elevating condor transporters and a number of other kinds of crafts. Once in the lower decks he was shown to the docking stations which were really just boxes of dirt with sprinkler systems and UV light sources. The great tree lowered on fist into one box and it immediatly began to take root, it did the same again with its other fist in another box and again with his legs until he was rooting in four boxes. The docking stations adjusted accordingly turning on the sprinklers on low and flickered on the UV light at a precisely measured strength.

The secretary had been waiting patiently as this had been going on and once she saw that the act was completed she motioned for the pilot with to disembark and follow her.

“I am afraid I cannot follow,” the voice from the tree informed her after she requested for him to follow her. “For reasons of my own I cannot leave my suit.”

“I understand,” she said. “What about your meal?”

“The tree provides for me,” he replied. “But if you have cow milk please bring some in a bottle.”

“Cow m...right away sir,” she bowed and turned away confused.

She returned minutes later to find a canopy had formed around and over the tree composed of strange purple crystals that looked like chains. The tree resembled a willow with its handing down branches and leaves. One of the branches suddenly shot out at her and wrapped itself around the bottle she was carrying in her hands, in her surprise she let it go. The branch retracted and entered the inner canopy surrounded by the tree’s four great trunks that before had acted as its arms and legs. It was too dark to see inside but when the branches parted to allow the bottle in she was sure she saw the shadow of an infant.

The branches would not allow her to approach the canopy so she turned and left in defeat, her curiosity left unsatisfied. Had she really seen an infant? What did it mean?

The next day Noah was informed by his secretary that the cameras inside the hangar had been destroyed, they had been crushed but the retrieved videos revealed nothing. Telekinesis was common in the family and crushing the soft covering of a camera was child’s play, but the interesting bit was that no one had felt the manipulation of telekinetic forces down in the hangar. Their guest continued to remain silent limiting their interaction to the few moments a day he’d request a bottle of warmed milk and when an engineer had finally brought him a tablet. They had hoped to get a visual within the canopy using the cameras on the tablet but they too had been skillfully destroyed, skillfully because the tablet remained functional.

The search history was available to them, but it revealed nothing as well since most of the sights he searched for made little sense. He had sifted through the family tree archives, world history, news, etc. Innocent safe sights that revealed nothing about him.

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The world had gone through many changes since Santiago first set foot on it and began its conquest. There was little recorded history of the first century of the world’s colonization, back then the family had been more preoccupied with winning the war than writing about it. There was mention of him as the founder of the Fortino bloodline, the first, oldest, and purest of the Alocarta family. In time thirteen more branches established their distinctions as they spanned the globe conquering Great Spires by the handfuls.

Most of this Santiago already knew about but then there was a fifty year gap explained away as a time of great conflict as the family sought to eradicate the remaining Great Spires. Nearing the end of this period with the near complete conquest of the planet a fleet of nearly fifty Great Spires slammed into the planet impacting around the ocean waters surrounding the lone continent that still had sixteen surviving and unconquered Great Spires. Unlike normal Great Spires these carried matured trees and they swarmed the world.

The battles that followed devastated the family, many of the main fighting forces were lost and even though they managed to regain the orbitals only one of the three family owned Great Spires survived the fighting. While they owned the orbitals they found themselves unable to approach the other side of the world without losing the spire ship to ground-to-orbital seed cannons.

The fighting force of the family was so greatly reduced that conquering a singly Great Spire had become a great deal. The forces that Santiago once lead conquered dozens.

While capturing a Great Spire was no longer possible since they all opted for self destruction instead of being subjected to soul bonding replenishing their ranks through time should have been possible, but the massive losses during the second wave had pushed the family away from bonding. Only the more military of the family continued the tradition of bonding with saplings.

The family had since evolved into a major mercenary clan employed by wealthy individuals or governments to subjugate colonizable worlds and rebellious worlds.

The more he read about the direction the family had taken the more and more Santiago grew furious, there was no mention of the old ways, there was no apparent family strength. The family had become corrupted by the passing of the last four hundred years.

Days went by as he continued his seclusion which ended when he was informed that they would soon be docking in the coastal city of Gran Domingo.