“Ma’am!” Harval Smythe exclaimed anxiously as he answered his communicator.

The face on the display was the absolute last person he wanted to face again.

“Mr. Smythe,” Gloria said an a cool emotionless voice.

“H-how is your yacht?” Harval asked, filled with dread. It was perfect… right? Oh God, please let have been perfect!

“What you made for me isn’t a ‘ship’, Mr. Smythe,” Gloria said, her face perfectly expressionless save for her eyes which began to smolder.

Oh God!

“It is…” Gloria sighed softly, “It is so, so much more… You’ve ruined me, Mr. Smythe. I don’t want to fly anything else ever again.”

“I’m glad you are pleased with my work,” he said with relief.

“It is going to bring me so much joy,” she said as a faint smile played briefly across her lips.

Harval shuddered. He thought her dead eyes, or her angry ones were bad…

They were nothing compared to happy.

“I wish you luck in sharing your 'happiness', ma’am.”

Gloria chuckled briefly.

“Why thank you, Mr. Smythe.”

“So, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I am truly sorry but I am afraid I am going to have to ask you to tamper with perfection,” Gloria said with the faintest trace of irritation. “I need a modification, urgently.”

Harval opened the image file that he received.

“Huh...” he said in surprise. A passenger pod? Why would you even want… Damn… That would work!… But...”

“Problem?”

“It’s just that your ‘optional equipment package’ wasn’t designed to be modular,” he said as he started dissecting his creation in his mind. “You insisted-”

“And now I’m insisting on something else,” Gloria chuckled. “I’m an asshole, but this asshole needs that modification and she needs it now. Can you do it?”

“Who do you think you are talking to? Of course I can,” Harval replied. “When can you get here?”

“Open the doors,” Gloria replied with a faint smile.

***

“I’m fine, boss!” Ploxni said into her bright-green phone with just a touch less good-natured cheer than normal. “Just like I was half an hour ago, and the fifteen minutes before that, and the-”

“And Dave isn’t there?” Sheloran asked as she nervously sipped a cup of tea (with just a little bourbon in it).

“(Sigh) He isn’t supposed to get here until ten,” Ploxni replied just a teeny bit annoyed.

“Ok,” Sheloran squeaked. “Just… Just promise you will call me when he gets there, ok?”

“I will. I promise!”

“Ok… Bye… bye… If you need anything...”

“Bye, Boss,” Ploxni sighed as she hung up.

What was up with that woman? Ploxni thought as she wiggled her top half in a shrug.

Her phone started to beep.

It was the timer! Time to check the oven!

She giggled as she rushed off. Dave was going to be so surprised!

***

A shabby electric bus squeaked to a halt at a run-down shelter.

The doors opened and a motley assortment of xenos ambled out.

Uhrrbet stepped exited the bus clutching a small canvas bag full of groceries.

She looked into the bag and smiled.

It had been a little while since she had fresh produce!

She was going do a stir-fry, Terran style!

Her son loved those!

Then, a lovely soup with the trimmings and bits! It was going to be so nice!

She knew that she shouldn’t have splurged. She hadn’t actually sold anything, after all. Sheloran, Creators bless her, tried to explain. It was something about Republic labor laws or something, but she had been assured it was going to be ok. They just had to take care of some legal stuff!

She just couldn’t help it! Those tomatoes were just too pretty!

It would all be just fine! Sheloran said so!

Humming happily to herself she turned the corner next to her apartment building.

She stopped humming.

Leaning against a van were two Threen.

“Well, hello, Uhrrbet,” the biggest of them growled.

“Uh… Hi, Hrog,” she stammered as she tried to hurry past.

“Where, do you think you’re going,” Hrog sneered as his partner moved to block her path.

She looked over at a passing acquaintance with terrified eyes. They just ducked their head and hurried past.

“I… I paid you...” she said helplessly.

“Yeah, and then you went and told everyone how you did it, didn’t ya?” Hrog hissed as they closed in around her. “You like being that frog’s little messenger girl? Well… we got a message for her!”

Uhrrbet screamed as they grabbed her and threw her into the van.

***

As Dave’s beat-up e-car auto navigated along the interstate he smiled to himself.

Ploxni…

He pulled a bag up from the floorboard and looked inside.

Onions… but not just any onions. Organic miniatures, hand-grown, shipped in straight from Japan!

Ploxni loved onions and these were supposedly the best. For what they cost they fucking better be! He couldn’t tell the difference but Ploxni? She was an onion connoisseur!

He looked down at his new shirt! He had lost five whole pounds, not that you could really tell, but it was still a tiny little victory. Ploxni didn’t care. She liked his “fun shape”.

It mattered to him though. After the war he had just given up, given up on life, family, career, everything…

and, after awhile, everyone had given up on him.

That all changed when he stumbled into a strange coffee shop he had heard about in one of the darker corners of the internet, a place where you could…

where you could meet the love of your life, a strange little pink whatsit.

He knew he shouldn’t have let himself fall for a whore, and a xeno one at that, but goddammit, he was happy! Yeah, it sounded pathetic, but the happiest, proudest moment of his life wasn’t when they hung that bronze star around his neck. It was when a little xeno whore didn’t want his money anymore.

She just wanted him to stay with her, let her fall asleep in his arms.

He smiled as the car exited the interstate and rolled into the Free Port.

It wouldn’t be long now.

Wait...

An all too familiar light flickered ahead.

Flames!

His gut tightened. He hated fire. He even couldn’t stand a lit candle anymore. Ever since the war, ever since Yul-4…

It was ok. It was just a fire. Fires happen, even now.

He took a deep breath.

This wasn’t Yul-4. It wasn’t! It was over! The fire department would…

Oh… no...

He knew what was burning!

The onions tumbled from his lap as he switched the car to manual and floored it.

***

Dave’s car slid to a screeching halt in the Drop of Oil’s parking lot.

The whole place was in flames!

“Plox!” he yelled. “Ploxni!”

He ran towards the front. The entire lobby was completely engulfed in flames with thick black smoke belching out of the shattered windows.

He smelled burning oil.

This wasn’t an accident!

“Ploxni!” he screamed.

There was no way he could get in through the front. It was a solid wall of flame.

He sprinted around the side of the building, heading for the back.

As he ran he heard a weak squeak, followed by a “thump” and an inhuman laugh.

“Throw her back in,” something chuckled.

“Don’t you want to have some fun first?” something else asked.

“No time. We gotta get outta-”

Dave tore around the corner…

Lying there, motionless, was Ploxni, his little Ploxni…

He looked at the three Threen surrounding her…

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They looked at him and sneered, all of them reaching for something.

He roared and charged…

***

click… click click click… click click…

Craxina looked over at Sheloran, sitting there with that damned VR head-thingy covering her face, just clicking away.

She just sighed. At least she got her to stop climbing the walls. She didn’t even want to play her stupid game. Craxina had to almost put the head-thingy on her herself. Fortunately once she started playing she settled on down.

Sheloran’s phone rang.

“I got it!” Craxina yelled.

It’s almost ten! Craxina thought happily as she noticed the time. Dave must have gotten there! Maybe now Sheloran will actually relax!

“Hello?” she said in a happy voice as she answered…

***

Craxina and Sheloran burst into the ICU in a blind panic.

Craxina looked expectantly at Sheloran but she was just standing there silently making those fucking weird hissing noises.

Not knowing exactly what to do, Craxina looked about helplessly. There was a human male in a white jumpsuit sitting behind a desk.

Craxina ran over.

“Good even-” the human started to say

“Ploxni!” Craxina shouted. “Whereisshe?!? Isshegoingtobeok!?!?”

“Ploxni?” the human asked. “Oh yes! The pink-”

“That’s her!” Craxina shouted almost climbing up on the desk.

“All I can say is that she is being treated here at this facility,” the human replied. “Can you help us get in touch with her next-of-kin?”

“We are them!!!” Craxina yelled as Sheloran, clutching her tightly closed eyes, wandered up.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but Republic law prohibits us from discussing-”

“We are all she has,” Sheloran said quietly with an ominous hiss. “You will take us to her… now...”

“I-”

“Now...”

The nurse looked at Sheloran nervously. The little fox-weasel was just upset but that frog-thing was giving off Terran vibes. That little thing was about to go Yellowstone.

“Look,” he said in his “talk down the Terran family before they start shooting” voice. “There are laws.”

“Flush your pathetic laws,” Sheloran hissed as she slowly opened her eyes.

“Jesus,” the nurse muttered as things started to squirm around under the skin surrounding them.

He calmly slid his hand under the desk feeling for the little button that would silent summon the hospital’s “crisis intervention team”, a squad that every Terran hospital had on staff. (Terrans sometimes don’t take bad news very well.)

Sheloran recognized the move. She had done it herself once.

She hissed.

“You don’t want to do that, poop-head...”

“Wait!” Craxina exclaimed. “The union!”

The nurse stopped just before he pressed the switch. If there was a labor union involved…

“Union?” he asked.

“Call them!” Craxina squeaked. “I’m her manager and Sheloran here is her procurer!”

Craxina turned to Sheloran.

“Show him!” Craxina squealed. “Show him your card!”

Sheloran hissed and tossed her union identification on the desk.

“Oh, ok!” the nurse replied. “She didn’t have any ID on her when she showed up and the human with her wasn’t able to say much.”

“Dave?!?” Craxina yelped. “What happened to Dave?!?”

“All I can say is-”

“Grrrraagh!” Craxina shrieked.

The nurse smiled a little.

“He saved her life.” he said. “Three against one and they still lost! That isn’t covered by any medical privacy laws. He even managed to call it in. Good thing too! He was the only one who reported it. A building explodes and nobody sees it?”

“Harkeen...” Sheloran spat.

“Harkeen?”

Sheloran hissed angrily.

“Threen mafia!” Craxina replied. “But screw that! What about Ploxni!?!”

“Ploxni, no last name. Registered member of Sex Workers guild,” the nurse said as he read the screen. “Emergency points of contact, Craxina Floofbottom and Sheloran, no last name.”

The nurse sighed in relief. One crisis averted. Whatever that frog-thing is definitely going to do isn’t going to start in his ward.

“Let me call the xenologist,” he said as he reached for a communicator.

***

“I’ll be straight with you,” an old Kalesha said as Craxina and Sheloran stared at Ploxni’s unconscious body lying inside a clear polymer bubble. “It isn’t good.”

“Ohhhh,” Craxina squealed as she pressed her face against the clear membrane.

Plonxi was lying naked covered only with some sort of clear gel.

Craxina looked away, her eyes blinded by tears. Oh she was burned so bad!

“Her race isn’t terribly advanced and as a new subject of the Empire they haven’t had time to develop their medical science,” the Kalesha said gravely. “We have literally nothing to work with aside from some herbs, most of which are completely ineffective, and a few mineral based compounds half of which are actually toxic.”

“Their herbs don’t work?” Sheloran asked in surprise, momentarily snapping back into reality.

“They aren’t the Plath,” the Kalesha said sadly. “Their botanical pharmacopoeia is worlds away from what you are used to. It’s universes away. Most planets are, actually.”

“You know about me?”

“I was involved in your prison incident,” the Kalesha replied. “Most xenologists in the city were. If you have time later I would love to ask you some-”

“Later,” Sheloran replied icily, “What about Ploxni?”

“As I said, it’s not good. The burns are serious and extensive but the real problem is tissue oxygenation. Her species’s unique physiology isn’t terribly efficient when it comes to breathing. They rely on gas exchange through their skin for as much as anything else and both her crude ‘lungs’ and her skin have both been badly damaged. We have slowed down her vitals as much as we could and we have shoved her in this stone-aged contraption, an oxygen-tent, and increased the ambient oxygen levels as high as we can as well as have exactly recreated her native environment but even so...”

The old Kalesha just looked at her tablet and sighed.

“I just don’t know.” she said sadly. “I’m sorry but all we can do is wait.”

“Whatever…” Sheloran said as she closed her eyes. “Whatever it takes, whatever it costs...”

“Cost is one thing you don’t have to concern yourself with,” the Kalesha said as she gently placed a tendril on Sheloran’s shoulder. “We take care of people here in the Republic, even xeno-”

The words froze in her voice-tube as Sheloran whirled and glared at her.

“You take care of people?” Sheloran squeak-hissed. “How dare you!”

The old doctor backed away in fear as Sheloran advanced, shaking with rage.

“We take care of people here in the Republic, even xenos,” Sheloran said in a mocking sardonic voice as the skin around her eyes started to ripple as she backed the doctor against the wall.

Craxina threw herself in between them and started to push Sheloran away.

“Come on, Shel,” Craxi said urgently. “She’s trying to help.”

“Do you have any idea what I fucking see on a daily basis?” Sheloran screamed. “I have people coming in day after day after day begging for me to let them suck DICK just so they maybe, MAYBE can be able to keep a SHITTY apartment over their child’s head! And you want to know the really horrible thing? The ones that suck dick for me are the lucky ones! Do you think I want to run a whorehouse? Do you? DO YOU?!?”

“Shel, please...” Craxina purred actively holding Sheloran back.

The old doctor just stood there in shock.

“I just wanted to sell games,” Sheloran wailed, “and coffee. That’s it! That’s all I wanted to do! But my people needed more… So… So I tried to provide for them… protect them… Give them a safe place to sell their bodies… That’s now well your ‘precious’ Republic has cared for them, you stupid woman!… A lot of my people don’t even want to do it… They don’t… They sell their bodies because it’s the only thing they have left to sell!”

“Shel,” Craxina yelped anxiously. “C’mon. It’s not that bad.”

I mean, it couldn’t, right? That can’t be right. It can’t be!

“They pretend to smile and laugh,” Sheloran wailed, “But I can hear the music of their despair… I can see the colors of their tears… It hurts… It hurts so bad but I do it. I take their money and I let it all happen right in front of me because they need me. Because if I don’t something horrible will happen to a lot of them… So I became a pimp… A Plath pimp!… Great Prophet forgive me…”

Sheloran started to weep.

As she sagged into her arms, Craxina felt sick.

“Sheloran, I’m so sorry!” she squealed. “I didn’t know! It’s all my fault!”

Sheloran grabbed her.

“No!” she said forcefully. “It’s NOT your fault! It NEVER was! None of this is your fault! Never say that!”

“But I made all of this happen!” She squealed. “I hurt you so bad and I didn’t even know it! If I hadn’t made you let me use your place none of this would have happened! And I was the one who brought… Oh Creators… I was the one who drug Ploxni into… into...”

Craxina started to squeal.

“I killed Ploxni!” Craxina wailed.

Sheloran just laughed sadly through her tears.

“Do you have any idea what would have happened to Ploxni if you hadn’t brought her to me?” Sheloran asked. “She would have been brutally raped and killed within days. You didn’t ‘make’ me take her in. In fact, there was no way in all that is that I would have let her leave! I understand that now. There is no avoiding it.”

“Sheloran, you aren’t making any sense,” Craxina said anxiously. Oh Creators, I’ve finally pushed her over the edge! It’s all my fault!

“Stop saying that it’s your fault!” Sheloran exclaimed as she shook her.

“I didn’t,” Craxina mumbled in shock.

“Well you were about to!” Sheloran snapped. “You weren’t safe and you needed me. If I hadn’t taken you home with me that day… Oh Craxi...” Sheloran sobbed as her eyes glazed over. “It was horrible! I couldn’t let that happen to anyone, especially you! It’s their fault, that… Threen and his sick, sick friends! What they did to you… and I just abandoned you on that bench, one of the only people who had been really nice to me since I got here, just because you were a dirty whore and I didn’t want to catch cooties! I’m so sorry!” she sobbed. “I could have stopped it!”

“They didn’t do anything!” Craxina replied. “You stopped them, got me out of there.”

“If only I had saved you,” Sheloran wailed looking at her with wild eyes. “Then maybe I wouldn’t have… Oh I did some bad things, Craxi…”

“Sheloran!” Craxina shouted shaking her. “You’re talking crazy!” she screamed as panic started to grip her. Nothing happened! Right? No! She didn’t die! She was right here! Then why was she more terrified than she had ever been in her entire life?

“Sheloran!!!” Craxina screamed as she instinctively nipped Sheloran’s hand.

“Ow!” Sheloran squeaked as something came crashing down around her. “Why did you do that?!?”

“Because you wouldn’t stop shaking me!” Craxina yelped, “… and you were really scaring me!”

“Was I?” Sheloran asked with a confused tone.

“Ms. Sheloran,” the doctor said gently, “You seem to be experiencing a great deal of distress, a perfectly reasonable reaction considering the circumstances. I we have enough data that I could prescribe something that would help you relax if-”

“I’m fine!” Sheloran hissed. “Poor Sheloran is distressed, she needs more pooping tea! Why can’t you settle down, Sheloran? Here eat these nasty berries! They will ‘fix’ you!” she snapped. “You got into a fight at school again? Did you eat your special breakfast this morning? I don’t care if he pushed you! He needed a splint! I guess it’s time to go see old Matron Geruna again...”

“It was only a suggest-” the doctor started to say but Sheloran really wasn’t listening.

“Why can’t you be like the other little girls? Don’t you want to have a boyfriend someday?” Sheloran ranted. “Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I like being different? I didn’t ask to be born this way… to be pooping designed this way! I just wanted a to work in a bank!… I just wanted a boyfriend!… I didn’t want any of this!… I don’t want any of this!” Sheloran sobbed.

“I just want to go home!” Sheloran wailed as Craxina desperately hugged her. “I just want to go home!”

Sheloran just collapsed into Craxina’s arms, completely broken.

***

Craxina just sat there holding Sheloran. Cuddles always helped… right?

“It’s ok,” Craxina said soothingly. “You don’t have to do this anymore, ok?”

“I can’t,” Sheloran moaned weakly. “My people… need...”

“Your people will be just fine,” Craxina purred. “We’re tough. We’ll figure something out. First thing tomorrow we’ll call the union and-”

The Kalesha xenobiologist walked up.

“How are you doing?” she asked Sheloran with just a bit too much concern.

Sheloran wiped her eyes. It was just tears, refreshingly normal tears. Her eyes hadn’t throbbed anymore since she “lost”.

Yeah, she lost. It was over. She just wasn’t strong enough. She was a fool to think that she could have been otherwise.

Schoolyard bullies are one thing, the Harkeen are another. She had made a terrible mistake and had learned her lesson.

She would never cross them, or anyone like them, ever again!

It just wasn’t worth it. Nothing was worth this…

“Well, I have some good news… I think...”

Craxina and Sheloran looked up hopefully.

“They are confusing little things but if I’m reading this right it looks like Ploxni’s blood oxygen levels are stable. Horribly low, but stable.”

“That’s good, right?” Craxina asked.

“Well it’s not bad and right now, I’ll take it!” the old Kalesha smiled. “Now we just keep pumping the O2 in and give her a chance to heal.”

“What about Dave?”

“Oh he’ll live,” the doctor replied with a wiggle of her eyestalks. “His ‘unhealthy’ lifestyle actually wound up saving his life. There was just too much of him to cut (or blast) through.”

“Thank the Great Prophet!” Sheloran sighed.

“In fact you will probably see him soon,” the Kalesha laughed. “They have had to sedate him twice already and it took a small army to do it each time. It seems that he is not entirely made of blubber!”

“We should go see him!” Craxina exclaimed starting to get up.

“Take your time. We made sure to put him down with that last dose. He’ll probably be out till morning.”

***

Deep in the lost reaches of time, the Heretic slumped in front of a shimmering pool, completely spent.

That was close.

The instrument of her revenge, the seed bearer, almost wasted itself over a filthy rabble of barely sapient animals.

“You do not want this… It is not worth it...” She whispered once more into the pool, focusing all of her strength one last time.

Still, all was not quite right with the colors. Something had changed.

The Seed Bearer was strong, as well she should be. But it was almost too much of a good thing. She fought each whirl, each shimmer. Each time the Heretic tried to make an adjustment, she would try to “adjust” right back causing chaotic eddies with each fresh layer.

It mattered not. The past was fixed therefore the future was set…

Well, almost set. Her tool fought like a cornered fanged tolbane. Why did it struggle so? How could it struggle so? Each time she made an adjustment her tool became “smarter”, more adept at undoing everything. From where did it get its skill? All of the sacred writings should be lost at that point. No matter how powerful that lost seer is it should be able to do nothing without the guiding light of the ancient texts.

Which it doesn’t have… yet… Not yet…

In the end it would not matter. Her present was the Seed Bearer’s past. The past determines the future. This is a fundamental natural law. Without that sacred needle holding the fabric of space and time in place, all would descend into chaos. It would truly be the end of all that is.

Nothing escapes its fate, not even the progenitors themselves. So let the little thing fight. The outcome is already decided. It was a little sad though. She had come to like this “ghost”. For her designs to be made manifest her little Seed Bearer’s fate would not be a pleasant one, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.

The Seed Bearer wasn’t the only one who had to make sacrifices. This cost her as well, decades of exile among nearly mindless savages without even the art to sustain her. Using the pool was now so terribly risky, so fraught with peril, that she only allowed herself its use for this one project and this one project alone. At least her struggles with her Seed Bearer provided some entertainment.

A ray of sunlight passed through a small crystal lens illuminating a tiny plant. A slender flower opened it’s blossom emitting a gentle fragrance. It was precisely somewhat past midday.

Speaking of sacrifices, it was time to leave the tower that the Tol had built for her and proceed to the lecture hall.

Who would have thought that those clothing averse savages would find “skweul” more fun than anything?

She just wished they would stop throwing the writing desks at each other.