Unconstant Love

by Timothy J Meyer

  The Ortok’s eyes land on the open flower that sprouts from the very center of the sapling’s crown. It’s a blue-and-speckled thing, meager and fluttering and only there by the slenderest of stems.

  {Curious}.

  Keeping his gaze firmly on that flower, Odisseus plunges a claw into the moist earth surrounding the seedling, approximately six inches from the central bulb.

  {Afraid}, comes the immediate sensation, filled this time with urgency. {Afraid. Afraid. Afraid}, it broadcasts over and over again, the only equipment it has to communicate.

  Odisseus makes an uncertain sound in back of his throat and inches back as far as he can in these cramped conditions. Once again, he scoops a claw into the ground, searching for the plant’s roots. All the while, as he digs, the pheromones relay fear and occasionally confusion, implicitly imploring Odisseus to be cautious and gentle with the excavation.

  This worry must, in some way, show in the Ortok’s expression or posture. Soon as Moira returns with pot and scrap of environtent lining, she questions him, in her gruff. “You alright?”

  Odisseus simply nods. “Gotta be careful with the roots,” he adds a moment later, when it becomes clear that Moira doesn’t notice the smell, the spores or their suggestion of speech and sentience beneath.

  Together, Moira and Odisseus work to gradually hoist the panicking plant from its place in the soil and into the pot. Soon as the sapling is situated, they tamp down any extra earth, to better support the unstable bulb, always mindful of the nascent thorns that cover the spiny bulge of its body.

  The slew of {Afraid}, {Afraid}, {Afraid} eventually gives way to occasional declarations of {Confused}. From this, Odisseus chooses to believe that the sapling wasn’t substantially harmed during the relocation. Once the chore’s done, Moira rises and stalks off on other business, dusting dirt from her hands. Odisseus is about to rise and follow when a new pheromone reaches his nose.

  {Thirsty}.

  Dropping back to his squat, Odisseus retrieves his aquafier from where it hangs at his belt. Uncorking the top, he considers what little water the device’s pulled from the parched atmosphere – a mouthful, maybe, sloshing at the tank’s bottom. Gritting his teeth, he dumps what remains into the pot, around the base of the sapling.

  Corking and stashing the aquafier back on his belt, Odisseus waddles out from underneath the overhang. He’s stretching from his stoop when he catches whiff of one last pheromone.

  {content}.

  No sooner has Odisseus rounded the ribcage’s corner than he’s unexpectedly greeted by another Gitter. Staggering unsteadily toward the center of the abandoned nursery comes a lone cactoid. By the height and the tattered harness, Odisseus supposes it must be a Firstseed. By its six or eight or ten severed limbs, Odisseus supposes it must have survived some catastrophe. Its trunk striated with gruesome scars, it limps forward, nearly toppling with each step, heedless of the world and the three Vesselborn around it.

  Moira draws her glassrock sword but she keeps the weapon loose in her hand, seemingly aware this wretched creature’s clearly no threat. Nemo, on the other hand, reaches Moira’s discarded Domino and swings the rifle around, beside himself with excitement at the possibility that he might get to needlessly incinerate something.

  The nearer comes the cactoid, the stronger grows its signature scent. Odisseus is suddenly reminded of that first afternoon beneath the desert sun; the heat, the exhaustion, the life-giving peaches he was fed.

  “Stalkchopper,” Odisseus mutters, shuffling a few steps forward. “Don’t shoot,” he commands Nemo, extending his paws like he’s about to catch any ammunition they might fire.

  Heeding his advice, Moira sheathes her blade but doesn’t move an inch, keeping her respectful distance. Nemo, on the other hand, is not so easily discouraged.

  “Who the bloom,” he groans, “is Stalkchopper now?”

  {Vesselborn?} the cactoid wonders, seeming to notice the offworlders for the first time. It stops its forward slog and attempts to drop to one knee, the typical Gitter gesture of reverence. It loses its balance and, too top heavy, thuds heavily onto the earth. Nemo suppresses a snigger.

  Odisseus comes as close to the toppled giant as he dares, unsure what assistance he could or should render to an armless, spine-covered cactoid. With what severed stumps it still has, the wounded Stalkchopper attempts to lever its enormous body into a more dignified position.

  “The fuck’s wrong with you?” demands Nemo as he approaches, showing very reluctant interest.

  {I was bested}, explains Stalkchopper, {in the games of succession}. It gestures feebly with a severed limb across its body. {This punishment is all that befits a failure such as I. That the Foreplanter might not have any rivals to its rule}.

  “Flamescar,” mutters Moira.

  {It is no longer known by that name. It is Forep–}

  “Yeah, that guy’s cooked,” Nemo informs him, swinging the Domino towards the heap of charred cactoid bodies still piled there. “Your Heavenly Douchebags beat us to the punch.”

  {The Skyscratch grove is no more, then}, concedes Stalkchopper grimly. {No Firstseeds are left standing to be Foreplanter}.

  “What’s he doing here?” Odisseus wonders, a question quickly translated by Moira. “Why come back?”

  {For one day and one night, I wandered the wastes aimlessly, mine purpose in life cut away}. With a groan, Nemo stomps away, Stalkchopper’s tale of woe too tedious to endure another second. {Steadily eastward did I head, seeking Fernhollow and the only honorable death mine maimed body might find. It was then}, the cactoid explains, horror tinging its spores, {that I came upon the Secondseeds, abandoning their duty as nurses and out about the duty of water-hunting, a task only the Firstseeds are worthy enough to undertake}.

  “And?” prompts Moira.

  {And here I came, to feel for mine own roots, what fate befell the noble grove that once I called my own}.

  “And the Vesselborn?” advances Odisseus.

  “Have you seen any sign,” Moira translates, “of our kindred, out among the wastes?”

  {Great vessels}, Stalkchopper informs them, wonder in its spores, {tearing the sky with their screaming. I erred in thinking they had come for me, to ferry me to God Beyond. It was folly to think so, that, in this impure form–}

  At mention of these “great vessels”, Odisseus and Moira exchange looks. As the Ortok starts to draw in the dirt with a claw, Moira provides the necessary translation. “These vessels,” she prompts, “did they resemble this?”

  Dragging his claw through the sand, Odisseus starts to make the crudest possible rendering of an R-Type 621 Dropcraft, composed of simple lines scratched through the mud. As best he can, Odisseus attempts to extrapolate how a 621 might look when seen from the ground, foregoing the fiddly technical details that distinguish the 621 from the 622 or even the 618.

  Stalkchopper is a patient audience member. Soon as Odisseus has finished scratching, it renders its verdict. {So loudly did they roar}, it recalls vividly, {the very ground did shake with fury. As it screamed through my spores, such an outline did I behold}.

  “The 621 Dropcraft,” announces Odisseus, falling back on his haunches and sighing significantly. “Sorta good news. Means they’re not landing any warships to hunt us down. Just more rangers.”

  “Probably don’t wanna upset,” Moira theorizes, “the natives anymore than we already have. Sight of a GCF cruiser breaking atmo would probably knock loose a few pieces of their theology. How many,” she then asks of Stalkchopper, her tone a little gentler, “such vessels did you behold?”

  {Three such tore the air past me}, Stalkchopper concludes, after a moment of contemplation.

  “Let's assume, for Jotor's sake, those're each individual ships, rather than a single hopper making a series of patrols,” Moira argues, tabulating quickly on her fingers. “That'd be ninety-six rangers, within a day's walk, maybe an hour’s flight.” She counts the pirates with thumb, pointer and middle fingers. “Ther
e’s three of us and one gun between us. What we need is more guys.”

  {With thy blessing, Vesselborn}, entreats Stalkchopper, starting to rise clumsily onto its feet, {may I be permitted to continue my grim pilgrimage, that I might come upon Fernhollow before another sun may rise on my pitif–}

  “Nah,” comes the unexpected answer from Nemo. “We still need you.” Finger extended, he advances a few steps, weaving between and stepping over whatever bones or saplings get in his way.

  “For?” wonders Odisseus archly.

  “You’re right,” Nemo answers, shrugging a little. He levels up on Moira’s left, still scowling curiously at the wobbly Gitter who stands before him. “We need more guys.” Both Odisseus and Moira share a scowl at this, unsure how a crippled cactoid could necessarily help them defeat five score spice rangers.

  This does, however, appear to be Nemo’s idea. “You’re the only big guy we got,” he admits, waddling a few steps closer to the standing Stalkchopper, “so you’re gonna hafta do.”

  {I grow}, Stalkchopper manages, rising to a crooked and unsustainable height, {to serve}.

  Jag is as surprised as anyone to discover the spaceship lying abandoned in the middle of the wasteland. Like a derelict tanker at the bottom of a dried-up lake, it tilts sickeningly to the side, is patinaed in a thick layer of dust and looks positively forlorn, a relic from a forgotten era of interstellar engineering. Every time his eyes fall across that sand-blasted hull, Jag reminds himself those aren’t the time-picked bones of some ancient wreck.

  That is the vehicle a team of offworlders used to penetrate all the Consortium’s impregnable defenses.

  It is not the duty of the Stargazers to speculate how. It is the duty of the Stargazers to track the interlopers down and bring them before Consortium justice.

  Centered on the mysterious freighter, this patch of unremarkable desert had become a spice ranger stronghold. Two triangular Dropcraft – Alpha and Beta – sit on either side of the trespasser’s vessel. The three wingtips are folded for landing, their hatches are wide open and their payloads go bustling about the scene.

  Teams of rangers, from species originating all over the Hegemony, scamper across the freighter’s hull, seeking any possible means of ingress. A squad of rangers from Alpha Flight goes hustling past the momentarily idle Jag and he spins to stay out of their purposeful path.

  When the entirety of the Stargazer troop descended on the site, Jag and his comrades of Beta Flight, the original squad to discover the presence of offworlders, somehow became lost in the shuffle. According to Ark, the most senior ranger in Jag’s Flight, the whole troop had never been assembled like this, not in the Kavobu’s living memory.

  By now, it was fair to assume this was far too elaborate to be a drill.

  Overhead, Jag hears the thrum of Dropcraft Delta’s engine as it goes juddering past, performing its concentric patrol circles. Aboard, crackshot Stargazer snipers were no doubt scanning the horizon for mottibles in every direction, searching for any sign of the offworlders returning to their abandoned ship.

  The comms, thus far, had been silent. For a situation this severe, the Stargazers were reduced to their most basic measures, including word of mouth and visual targeting. Code Trespass assumed that, in order to breach this far, any interloper must already possess exhaustive knowledge of the Consortium’s security and its protocols. Thus, even an encrypted channel was deemed unsafe against such a cunning foe.

  All they could do, until word came back from Commander Hego, was scan the horizon and attempt to gain entry to the freighter, this impossible incongruity on Gi’s primordial plains.

  For a ship that supposedly circumvented every exhaustive layer of secrecy and security that protects the planet Gi, she’s really not much to look at. She resembles more, to Jag’s thinking, a piece of space trash, a hunk of mismatched teltriton that the atmosphere didn’t burn completely to cinders, than any operative vessel anyone would willingly fly.

  She’s The Breadwinner, according to her registration, a Vbeck & Rhissol MO9 Expatriate-Class Cargo Scow. She’s obviously not, however, as Crex’s scan reveals; the MO9 is a far cry from the ship standing before them. Whatever she actually was, she’s quite determined to repel any boarders.

  The triple-thick hull is more or less impervious to both heatblade and cutting beam. All their efforts against the boarding ramp resulted in simply superficial scars to her outer shell. There’s a devilish counter-measure installed in her door controls, something that all the Consortium’s mechanical arts has yet to crack. The two airlocks, then, seemed the next logical choice for ingress – until the anti-boarding booby trap was discovered.

  The ensuing explosion sent three rangers straight to critical condition and gave the team hard at work on the starboard airlock something to think about.

  The trespasser might be devious, their vessel might appear impervious, but Jag knows it’s only a matter of time. Sooner or later, armed with all resources afforded the Gitter Consortium, the Stargazers would be streaming aboard the trespassing vessel.

  Soon as Commander Hego arrives from her eastern hunt, she shows no interest in these developments. The moment she’s extinguished her heatblades and her hooves touch the earth, she’s stomping purposefully towards that anomalous spaceship. Along the way, Beta Flight comes thronging around her, eager to hear the news and eager to brief her fully on the progress.

  “–using a scramble codifier,” reports Crex, having difficulty matching the Commander’s urgent stride, “even with her primary motivator offline–”

  “–Nix and Xell from Delta Flight,” reports Wad, reading scrolling data from his visor, “third-degree burns across much of the torso and–”

  “–trace of them, any closer to the grove?” presses Jag, ignored among the cloud of clamant rangers, crowding around their Commander. “What of the natives?”

  Instead of answering any of these questions, the Commander comes to an abrupt stop. She stands at the foot of the slanted spaceship, its bow looming over her, and places a palm flat against its dusty hull. For a moment, Jag wonders if she’s about to activate her heatblade and pointlessly attempt to cut her way through all that teltriton.

  Instead, she simply sweeps her hand to right, wiping away the dust and revealing something else beneath.

  Fractal paint twists in intricate designs of black, white and a dozen contrasting colors. It’s faded by time, dimmed by dust and marred in a dozen places by scratches and scrapes but the inherent artistry is still striking. From this small glimpse, Jag thinks he maybe makes out the shape or structure of a skull, three nostrils flaring over alien incisors.

  To see this design, writ so large upon the nose of the interloping vessel, draws an audible gasp from the assembled spice rangers. Even sequestered in the spice ranger corps this long, in this unreachable corner of the galaxy, it was impossible not to recognize that Jolly Roger.

  “It’s the Galactic Menace,” Commander Hego explains, as soon as she’s spun back around to face her clustered men. “He’s on planet as we speak.”

  Moira knows an angry mob when she smells one.

  They stand together as one encircling mass, perhaps three score in number, creating a hemisphere of cactoid bodies, arrayed before the pedestal and reeking of rage. They are each of them Secondseeds, lacking the height and scarification of the Firstseeds. To Moira, however, clocking in at an impressive height of five-foot-four, the appreciable difference between a fifteen-foot-tall angry cactus and a ten-foot tall one is pretty negligible.

  This is not to mention, of course, the hundred or more glassrock swords, sabers, spears and battleaxes they grasp in their hundreds of hands.

  All that stands between Moira and this mob is a limbless exile, some high ground and a stolen firearm, machine produced by Concord Industries and not impressing Moira any.

  The limbless exile is Stalkchopper, standing fifty feet ahead and almost fully surrounded by the Secondseeds. For minutes now, both Gitter parties have st
ood stock still, evidently conducting some secret conference on their spores. Unable to process the smell, Moira chooses to interpret the fact they've not ripped the helpless Firstseed to pieces as a sign Stalkchopper's making their pitch passably well.

  The high ground is the tuskwood table, the most strategically advantageous point in the whole nursery. Upon this, Moira stands, legs spread, weapon primed at the barely-contained horde below. She knows, when push comes to shove, how little this superficial advantage will avail her but it is Moira's constitutional imperative not to die a punk-ass death.

  The stolen firearm is a Concord Industries KZ647 Domino Heavy-Automatic Assault Rifle, once the property of the pinkskin ranger Moira strangled the night previous. Like the high ground, the Domino will be made almost instantly useless, as soon as the green, spiky floodgates open. Moira consoles herself with the knowledge that, before she sliced to pieces, at least a few of her cactoid assailants will quite literally explode from too much ditrogen in their diet.

  As for her partners in crime, neither will earn as lengthy a last stand as Moira intends to. One is too busy pacing to notice his imminent death by sword after sword after sword. The other is too busy puttering with machine parts.

  “Anything?” presses the Captain, pacing the exact same route he had nights earlier, before ascending to the lofty title of Badass Supreme.

  “Soon as there is,” Moira answers coldly, her eyes locked on the crowd, “you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Actually,” mentions Odisseus, a touch pedantically as he sniffs the air, “that’ll probably be me.”

  Before Moira can pull a face or make a withering comment, Nemo starts snapping his fingers in that way he does when he’s brainstorming. “Run me through our assets again,” he requests or demands, his gait urgent, his gaze focused on the ground before him.

  “This rifle, pretty much,” Moira sighs. “Plus half a bottle of DermEndure and what’s left of the inclement weather shit. Whatever the bloom he’s scratching at.” With no glance or gesture, Moira somehow indicates Odisseus and his tinkered device. “Assuming he can even put all that together again.”