The One Tree of Luna by Todd McCaffrey Page A

I told him.
    â€œWhat would you do if I don’t?” he demanded. “What can you know of my power?”
    I smiled. “I know this, you’re no match for me,” I said, moving forward once more to trap him exactly where I’d planned. I threw a handful of nano-suit at him, using the last of my power to cause it to flash in brilliant light. On that signal, all the other flyers threw flashes of nano-dust light at him and surrounded him in it.
    With a horrible scream, he brought his arm in front of his eyes but it didn’t matter, it was far too late — our power-packs were completely consumed delivering that one burst of intense laser light. Stone would have shattered, steel melted. As for the jiang shi — he simply dissolved.
    There was a moment’s stunned silence and then my Hamadryad moved forward through the group, shouting, “You killed him!”
    â€œNo,” I told her, turning toward her even as the afterglow faded in my eyes, “he was never alive.”
    â€œBut — he kissed me!”
    â€œHe took your life force,” I told her. “He took it, he took your mother’s, and he would have drained you to the death with his last kiss. He’s already killed at least five other of your kind — you’re the last that we know.”
    â€œThe last?” Hama said in dismay. She turned back to her tree. “Mother, is this true?”
    The tree my father planted for me shivered as though shaken by an invisible wind and a terrible sorrow and then Hama turned back to me, “She says this is so.”
    â€œJenny?” Stan came over to me. “Who are you talking to?”
    â€œCan’t you see her?”
    â€œHe has to get my mother’s permission to see me,” Hama said. She made a face very much like ones I’ve had when dealing with my mother. “She says I should have asked about that man, too.”
    â€œStan,” I said, “go touch the tree and ask for permission to speak with her daughter.”
    â€œJenny, are you all right?” Moira Adamson asked, coming up beside me. She gave Stan a worried look.
    I sighed. “Look, it’s a long story that you won’t believe until you do what I ask. Go touch the tree and ask for permission to speak to her daughter.”
    â€œThey can’t see me?” Hama asked, looking at me in surprise. “Or hear me?”
    â€œNo,” I said as the others started, with obvious skepticism, to walk toward the tree.
    â€œThen how can you see me?” Hama asked. She turned back to the tree, even as the others reached it, touched it and murmured the question.
    â€œOh my goodness!” Moira Adamson shrieked as her eyes lit on Hama. “Guys, look, look! There’s a girl and she’s wearing no clothes!”
    Hama looked at me. “What is all this about ‘clothes’?”
    I laughed. “I’ll explain later.”
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    Okay, so I’m a Loony. I make no apologies. I guess you grubbers have your place, your home and you love it, too. If you want to stay in that gravity well, I’ll be okay with that.
    You’re probably wondering what happened. Well, only the flyers ever saw Hama. With my father’s approval, they became the air guard. Mostly that didn’t change anything, we still flew our regular patrols, fought and bickered, egged each other on for endurance records and plotted to win the lead flyer position in the Animé Parade.
    It was Hama who came up with the best idea, though.
    And so when the Emperor of Japan came to view the Luna Animé Parade, the parade was covered by thirteen different flyers all changing off so that the whole parade had at least three flyers at any point.
    At the end of the parade, on a signal, we all stooped from on high and split in an aerial rainbow over the Emperor of Japan.
    Of course, only we knew that the thirteenth flyer wasn’t even human.
    And my pod expanded our