Chapter 2
When I started my little farm in the stars, I thought being surrounded by blossoms and admiring the stars beyond the windows would heal the emptiness in my heart.
Instead, I’m stuck negotiating with a sour, fish-scented Xaethziol with double-lidded eyes and a catfish-shaped head over a single credit difference in the fertilizer needed for the whabuskel weed I’ve grown for their new-to-space colony.
The cost to grow my seedlings has increased beyond what customers want to pay.
With the Nebulous Empire wrecking worlds and stealing supplies, the colonies that flee into space don’t have much.
So I keep my prices as low as I can. I don’t want anyone to starve to death. But fewer resources mean higher prices.
The Nebs are destroying my business just like the government did to our farm back on Earth. Commercialize or die. Be the biggest or be nothing. Why does this keep happening to me?
I wanted to help others, to explore, and to do what I love: grow little things into big beautiful things without some government breathing down my neck, nitpicking my tactics.
I know what it’s like to wonder where the next meal will come from and if it even will.
Farm life on Earth was not glamorous. People didn’t want to pay higher prices for food, but the cost to grow the food is what it is.
I cannot simply grow an apple without water or fertilizer.
It takes years for the trees to grow large enough to start producing fruit.
That means years that I must care for the tree before I get paid.
I never thought of farmers as financial planning experts, but now that I’ve been on my own, I realize how much time I have to put into it.
Some days, I just want to quit.
The irony of the bowl of water on the Xaethziol’s head doesn’t escape me. He speaks a strange, bubbly language that my Intergalactic translator thankfully has in the database. Stars, if he only knew he was famous in old movies from centuries ago, we wouldn’t be here fighting over a stupid credit.
“We can’t afford that.”
“I know it’s a bit more up front, and no one likes to pay more or get paid less. But if I can’t cover my costs, I can’t return.”
A young Xaethzion swims up to the glass and looks in at me and then King Blaugamom or some shit I still can’t pronounce.
The translator built into the chest of my space suit always starts to form his name, then beeps like it can’t quite compute it either.
But it relays to me what the King says to the child.
The boy is hungry.
And my heart is back in the game again.
Fuck.
The Nebs have displaced many species from their homeworlds, sometimes from their ships, to new planets.
They are the masters of shredding other species to take their supplies.
But the Nebs never try to grow their own food or make medicine.
They steal and reengineer. Novarks do the same, but they mostly work solo or in packs of four.
Denarso are the biggest dickbags, greedy and sloppy, but mostly sadistic, like they get some sort of sick thrill out of ruining our lives.
Sure, I grow food mostly, a few flowers, and a lot of medicinal crops at the request of Ihna and Zariah, two other women I run into a lot out here who are also on humanitarian missions.
The king thinks and paces his dry meeting area for terran species. I know his ship is built to contain an ocean in space, but looking up at the dome of glass holding back the water really makes me nervous. One little crack, and I’m drowning in space.
How did she die?
In an ocean in space, because a fish dude wouldn’t give her one more credit for her weeds.
Sounds like a bad mushroom trip kind of story.
But I keep the smile on my face as I wait.
My white armored suit will keep me safe for thirty minutes in space.
Or ocean water. I mentally run through my suit inspection checklist again just to be sure I covered every part and to help me kill time while he thinks.
His feet flop around the deck, splashing water everywhere as he paces. “What if we could do an exchange for the remaining credits we owe?”
“What kind of exchange?”
“Fertilizer.”
I try not to wrinkle my nose. I’m not sure if I hold it back completely. I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I’ve never been a fan of fishy-smelling things.
“We normally eject what we filter out. But we could bring it to you in barrels. How many would you need?” he asks.
I can’t deny that the idea is appealing. If I could get the fertilizer cheaper by sacrificing fewer credits versus paying for processed commercial-grade stuff, then it’s a win-win.
Experience has taught me not to give a number. “Depends on the size. Can you show me?”
The Xaethziol’s guard walks out of the chamber into another with the same flop-flop-flop of his finned feet, and returns, rolling a barrel that’s chest height.
“How many?” the king asks.
“How many can you give me?” I counter.
They talk for a second before he replies. “Twenty a month.”
That will replace my regular fertilizer and then some. “When can you have it ready?”
“Bahbuu glabbaglob.”
“Ten minutes,” my translator replies.
“May I test a sample to be sure this will work?”
“Erohbla.”
“Please.”
I have no doubt their fishy excrement is great fertilizer for their own plants, but I need to know what the breakdown of phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, calcium, nitrogen, and sulfur is, and if it will be useful for others without bacterial or viral contaminants.
Grabbing my test kit from my ship, I return. The assistant pops the cap, and the most wretched scent wafts out. I do my best not to gag, but I’m used to a different kind of funky stench.
Dipping my test strip in the barrel, it registers a decent match to the fertilizer I pay way too much for.
“Okay. Deal. Twenty barrels plus the same price as last time.”
“Ooba.”
“Deal.” My translator lights up on my chest.
“Great. I’ll bring in the seedlings. You bring the barrels in here.”
The assistant dips his head, making the water in his bowl-shaped helmet slosh.
After I’ve loaded up my hoverlift with the racks of seedlings in their little tanks, I return to the dry dock to see the king fidgeting with his helmet.
“Uncomfortable?” I ask as I swap seedlings for barrels of fish junk.
If a catfish man can blush, he does. “We are new to this form, suit, and way of movement. All of it is uncomfortable.”
I pull my tablet out of my bag and extend it to him while his assistant finishes the physical trade of goods.
Once the king has paid, I add a message to the receipt.
“I’m linking a reference to your payment confirmation of another species who has been in space a bit longer and has developed more comfortable gill respiration for terran movement.
They are allies of the federation. So they are safe to contact. ”
He thanks me and studies the notification on his wristband. With my hoverlift loaded, I return to my ship. I close up the ramp and begin moving the barrels into secure storage for travel.
My lift hoist seizes when it goes to pick up barrel two. I don’t have time to fix it now and lower the hoverlift to the floor. I close the containment doors and switch on the stabilizers inside, so I don’t have soup when I open them back up. But I’ve got another seedling drop off to do.
I connect the barrel I have unloaded to my fertilizer processor that isolates nutrients and burns off the stuff I don’t need, then make my way up to my bridge. Resting in the pilot’s seat, I belt in and confirm with the Xaethzion that I’m cleared to depart.
When I get the okay and ease away from their ship, something feels more off than simple inflation and my hoverlift’s broken hoist. So I check the scanners.
It’s just a blip, a hint of a ship. A situation I’ve been in many times already. There’s a small Novark ship riding like a leech on my hull. The Xaethzions have two.
“Xaeth Command, Brynna. You have two enemy Novark vessels attached to your starboard side! Attempting to resolve. Passing starboard side now.”
I bank back toward their ship, bring online my quill gun defense system, find the closest to the first Novark leech, and fire.
The EMP spear system lacerates and shuts down the enemy ship. It breaks away and drifts aimlessly into space.
Missile alerts flash on my screens. I bank hard and pray my precious cargo can take the G Force. The weapons race past and disappear into the void, darkening when they’re out of fuel.
“Sorry! We’re not good at this yet!”
“No fucking shit. Let me handle them, please, or you’ll never see me again!”
I circle back for the Xaethzion’s big bubble of a ship and aim my quill guns at their last Novark leech. I shred them and watch them break apart in space, then I turn my gun on the one down my port side. It breaks away in a shower of sparks and pieces.
“What did they want?” The captain asks over coms.
“Novarks are more skilled Denarso. They ignore social rules, cultural and species customs, laws, and they do what they want. They’re like Nebs, but less united.”
“Thank you.”
“Work on your defense system. It needs to have three or four backups out here. Brynna out.”
I dart out into space to the meet-up point for my second delivery of the day. When I arrive, there’s no one there. But I might have an infiltrator on board with the recent Novark leech.
I scan space and find the ship I’m scheduled to meet with is about an hour out.
With some time to prep the delivery, I bring my ship to a stop, switch on my defense systems, draw the gun from my hip, and then walk my corridors between the hydroponic greenhouse chambers, the arboretum, my freshwater and saltwater tanks, and check my germplasm repository.
Everything looks to be in order after the Novark appearance.
I find no signs of forced entry and no signs of humanoid life except mine.