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Cellulose & Steel	By : Not-Taylor Category: Misc Books > FemmeSlash Views: 1028 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own HDG or its characters and I don't make money from this work.

Chapter List
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Verda, whose role is still unclear to Song, returns shortly after the Affini mechanic has left. “She said she was responsible for fixing me, didn’t she? Is that why she hired a mechanic?” The ship muses instead of greeting her. It doesn’t feel like greeting her, since weeds are never up to any good.
“How did your inspection go?”
The Terran ship doesn’t dignify that with a response. It knows the weeds gossip among themselves and don’t need its cooperation. Wouldn’t making their lives easier amount to treason? It can’t have that. The Rebellion needs every available advantage. Song wonders how the rest of its fleet is faring right now. It hopes its capture gave them an opening to pull some weeds.
“I see you haven’t dressed. It’s funny, Song. I would’ve imagined that you’d be reluctant to expose yourself to me, but you don’t seem to care.”
“Beep.” Ships don’t wear clothes. A spacefaring species should be smart enough to know that much, unless its ships are sentient and take care of everything for them. Song doubts that’s the case for these xenos. It does still feel unnaturally exposed and it can’t figure out why. It resists the urge to position its arms across its front. Ships don’t have arms, so it’s not a problem.
“You’re really all right that way?”
“Beep.” It can respond in the human language, but it’d rather beep. They all make funny faces when it does.
“Then I’m pleased you feel so comfortable around me now. Are you feeling better than you were before?”
“Beep.” This time that means no.
“Well.”
Hold on… “You aren’t wearing clothes either.”
“I’m not, you’re right. I don’t actually need them either.”
“The other one was, the first other one. Why did that one wear clothes?”
“Some affini like to. I’m not the one to ask about other people’s fashion decisions.”
“Pass along that the entire outfit clashed. That’s the first thing I noticed.”
The outfit did not in fact clash. Song didn’t notice anything about it at the time and can’t even remember what the affini was wearing. That’s a bad sign for its memory banks. Still, sowing a touch of discord among the jolly little orchard on this ship is just what Song thinks it should be doing right now. And undergoing a long stay in drydock. Being worked on sounds great right now.
“I’m sure they’ll be grateful for your-”
The door opens with a knock, and a spiky xeno of some type not in Song’s database enters with a trolley full of trays of various things. The trays are covered, so it’s impossible to see what they contain. The ones on the top shelf look hot. The xeno grabs a plate from underneath with its ungloved hand and places an appendage with 3 digits on the lid of the nearest tray. It’s a posh sight, in its slick black trousers and jacket. There seems to be only its needles under the jacket, so not that posh.
“Good day, ladies.”
Song beeps indignantly. It’s not a lady, it’s a starship. It can’t be too angry at that mystery creature. Xenos probably don’t have the ability to distinguish between such things. That’s why they were conquered and humanity won’t be.
“Oh, excuse me. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“Ping.” That’s better. Song can’t think of a derogatory term for this variety of xeno, since it doesn’t know what it’s actually looking at. A hedgehog? The- No, it’s just pushing a food cart. It’s probably a prisoner here too. Song can’t bring itself to insult the xeno, even if nobody would hear. That’s really low.
“I’ve been told that somebody named Song is low on fuel. Is that…” His jaw drops as he takes in Song’s magnificence. He’s probably never seen such a meticulously crafted vessel. It stretches kind of subtly but not really, just to be sure he fully appreciates the grandeur of Terran naval engineering. Wait, how can it stretch? How does that even work? No matter. His look of horror makes her smile. That’s right xeno. Cower in awe.
“His”? Mmm. Song shouldn’t assume genders either. Better not to misgender it. It isn’t sure why it cares about the xeno’s “gender.”
Verda rescues the xeno as it stands slackjawed. “Yes! Thank you. This is Song, who’s desperately in need of ‘fuel.’ You see, Song was a Terran Accord combatant until recently and is in bad shape. Do you think you could help with giving her some energy, at least?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Um… Song, what would you like? I’ve got warm energy gel, pudding,” the foundered ship flinches at the word. “Salad, fresh bread, and tomato soup.” He- it looks away while trying to not to look like it’s looking away. Cute. The xeno would make a cute galley hog when Song escapes back to Terran space. It wonders whether the xeno cooked all of that. That’s Terran food…
“Did you cook that yourself?”
“Yes! I… did. I cooked this. It’s a hobby of mine. I like visiting different cultures and learning the cuisine.”
“Cool! Unfortunately, the only thing compatible with my intake system is the energy cubes. If I were an organic I would be interested in seeing how you did at making bread.”
“OK… Well… You can have yellow, blue, or green. They taste the same, they’re just different colors. You can have all three if you’d like.”
A difficult decision. The ship pauses to ensure it doesn’t do something it regrets. It tries and fails to save its progress.
“Blue.”
The xeno’s blue eyes widen. It hadn’t noticed it had blue eyes. That’s a coincidence. It lifts the lid on the tray it’s holding and takes out a dozen or so vibrant cubes with a pair of tongs. They’re steaming. Song isn’t sure whether that looks appetizing or not. Since they aren’t food it doesn’t matter much, but the ship still cares. Weird.
It passes Song the plate, placed onto a little tray with legs along with a pair of metal chopsticks. The chopsticks have little rake things on the tips so they dig into the cubes. That’s kind of cool. Song wonders whether that was an invention of the xeno’s world before its culture was replaced with weed degeneracy. Verda only wants water, so they’re each given a glass of ice water. The affini thanks the xeno, since they don’t need anything more.
“What’s your name?” Song isn’t sure why it asked that. It seemed like the thing to do. It doesn’t matter, obviously.
“Evlen Spelt, first floret.”
“Evelyn?”
“No, Evlen. It’s… Different. ‘Ev’ like ‘ever,’ and ‘len’ like ‘length.’ It’s always been my name.”
“Beep. It’s a pleasure to become acquainted with you, Evlen.” The ship is pleased that this xeno isn’t trying to hurt it. It seems nice, so Song may as well be nice to it too. Maybe it’ll come along when it breaks as many Terrans as possible out of this weed infested horridness where everything is too ugh.
“Yeah… You too, Song.”
“Are you a-” How would a weed say it? “What are your pronouns, if you don’t mind?” Not sappy enough, but that’s probably fine.
“Um…” It looks a little distraught. Oh, it must be trans. Oops. Song’s internal data shows that trans people generally don’t like it when people question their gender. What a bunch of snowflakes. Except for the fact that ice damage isn’t a negligible risk while flying… but anyway.
“Oh, right. He/him.” Ha! Song knew that was a male! “Sorry, something’s on my mind today. I… need to go check on the other rooms.” His needles or quills have been twitching increasingly through the conversation. It’s fascinating, or it would be if Song still had a xenobiologist. It hadn’t had one since the start of the war when its crew gave up on trying to understand the weeds-
“It was nice to meet you too, Song… I’ll… go now. But we’ll probably see each other again. Um, goodbye.” He hastily backs out through the door, pausing a moment. “Nice to meet you t- as well, Song’s owner.”
“She’s not my owner.”
Now the xeno looks positively terrified. Song’s fuel intake multiport can’t help contorting upward in mischievous glee as he scampers away. What was wrong with him?
As soon as the door closes and Verda’s vines stop being perked at attention, she bursts out laughing. The sound is disturbing, like a dozen cats being drenched with a hose at once. Xenos are truly insane. May God keep it from their grip.
“Well, I think you scored one victory for Terra, Song.”
“Beep?” What’s she talking about?
“You actually don’t know what you just did?”
“Beeep.” Obviously not, you sodden hay bale.
“And asking his pronouns after seeing his reaction!” She laughs even more. “The poor thing. And you don’t even…”
Song vocalizes a semi error, which comes out somewhere between a growl and a beep. Why don’t Terran languages have words for these things, it fumes.
“He was reacting to your lack of covering, darling. Perhaps you shouldn’t be bare the next time he visits?”
“Beep.” Out of the question.
“Would you really like to see him make those faces again?”
“Beep.” Song’s fine either way. That xenos feel insecure around properly designed ships isn’t its fault.
Verda smirks and gestures to Song’s fuel cubes. Right, they’ll probably get cold soon if it doesn’t eat them. It awkwardly picks up the fake chopsticks and snags one between them. Thankfully, the little rakes seem to prevent it from sliding around or ending up on the floor. Clever. It pops the blueness into its multiport quickly, just to be safe. It’s still fairly warm and it tastes decent. It’s kind of like a porkchop, not that Song had ever eaten a chopped pork or even eaten anything. Ships don’t eat, after all. It must be that Ginger or Olivia had done so, and it’s simply accessing their residual memories from inside of it. A shame it remembers that rather than anything useful.
Verda pressures Song to try the water. To its surprise, it goes down easily and seems to be having a positive effect just from a single sip. The ship gulps down more, mindful of the ice. It’s overcome by a feeling of satisfaction. It doesn’t understand what that’s about, but all right.
Song finds its cubes disappeared very quickly, indicating that they’ve started to be processed into energy. Wonderful! It really needed that. It almost wishes it had agreed to try some other things, but of course a ship couldn’t process organic nutrient complexes. It isn’t equipped for ethanol synthesis and combustion.
The weed slowly sips along with Song. She seems to be enjoying watching the ship’s consumption of fuel cubes. Why’s she only drinking a little? Don’t plants need water?
“You’re drinking slowly.”
“I had water before I came to see you, pet. Olivia- SONG. I’m fine, but thank you for your concern. You’re positively a socialite today.”
“What do you mean?”
“Trying to find out about somebody bringing you food (which I’m aware was a demeaning social role in the Terran Accord), making sure I’m doing well… I’m impressed.”
“Beep.” That’s disgusting. Song regrets its decisions, even if the xeno (Evlen) had funny reactions. Maybe he’ll slip it a key if it’s nice to him in the future… That’ll never happen. He’s a floret and a lost cause. It sighs. There really is no way out.
The ship -no, it’s a boat that’s inside a real ship- beeps sadly. It beeps sadly again. Who cares. it may as well be as sad as it wants to, even if a real and proper ship can’t be sad. It belongs hauling junk between slum worlds. Verda looks at it instead of what was distracting her on her tablet. If Song were in a movie it would be able to deactivate or hack it from here. But it isn’t. It beeps again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Beep.”
“In that case…” In that case what, weed?
“Beep.”
“Would you like something?” No. The boat doesn’t beep. Verda sighs and goes back to her scrolling.
Just to let out its frustration, Song generates a long series of error tones each longer than the forced delay between them. Verda’s eyes bolt open in shock. Maybe she shouldn’t leave her finger on an invalid metaphorical key if she doesn’t want to hear that.
“You need to tell me what’s wrong, little one.” The weed is rewarded with a 200% audio output error tone. She should learn some manners. Song isn’t small!
Verda frantically pushes some buttons, trying to figure out what’s going on. She should already know, but no, plants aren’t famed for their intellect on Terra. No doubt this one is no different.
The mental state of Verda’s floret is spiraling out of control. She had hoped the floret would come to her senses, or its senses, or whichever senses it likes. That hasn’t happened. Instead, her floret has been getting worse. The pranking of the cook was a good sign, but the fact her floret literally believes itself to be a starship to the point of rejecting its human socialization is very concerning. Something must be done promptly.
All references suggest that the best method of canceling such a depressive spiral is through sedation. She expects her floret isn’t going to tolerate that if it’s left awake. Verda really hopes that after a nap and some xenodrugs to numb the stress it’s been through it’ll be better. Even the ship delusions would be acceptable if it weren’t so unstable. These xenodrugs should be enough to counteract any trauma that might develop as a result of the treatment. Anyone can tell it's not going to take this well, but this is for its own good. Maybe she should have somebody more qualified investigate later, somebody with more experience taming florets.
“You need a hug.” That wasn’t a question. It was a statement, as though she knew it for a fact. Of course it’s false. Ships- boats don’t need hugs. What a pathetic excuse for a boat to even need to think such things instead of simply dismissing the weed’s delusions. It shivers instead of commenting. A real ship would’ve had a snarky comeback, but Song isn’t that. A real ship wouldn’t be shivering right now either. This one has failed God and the Terran Accord. No wonder things turned out so badly. They deserved better than it. The clunker whimpers in an unshiplike way and looks at the feet it shouldn’t have.
It screams, a distinctly unmechanical sound, as weird textures cover it. They’re affini vines. It struggles, but there’s nothing it can do. It starts to cry. That’s so pathetic. Why is it crying? How can a ship cry? It’s just a boat but it should be better than this. Literally, how can a boat cry? Boats don’t have eyes, last time this thing checked. It tries to bite the weed with the teeth it ought not to have, but the tendrils slip away whenever it comes close. The incapacitated pathetic excuse for a boat thrashes and sobs, wishing it didn’t exist.
The vines draw tighter as the affini who owns them makes a hissing whistling sound. Demonic noises come from the boat as it struggles. It has nothing left but struggle. It’s failed in the purpose for which it was created. It doesn’t deserve existence. Soon the vines have completely constricted it, leaving no room for motion. This is the “hug” the weed was talking about. It feels foul. A vessel capable of filling its makers with pride would never be in this situation. Power to its exterior fails and it simply lies where the xeno puts it, shamefully crying.
The boat feels a painful jab to its neck, a piece of anatomy that ships certainly do not have. That’s disgusting. It tries and fails to thrash again. It’s completely helpless here, wrapped in organic matter. It beeps in despair. Slowly, the despair ends. It shouldn’t, but it does. As it does, Song is left trapped, but too depressed to even try moving. What a pathetic excuse for a boat. It should’ve been scrapped on construction. It feels its computers shutting down and the Affini drain its power reserves. What evil plants. They should’ve just blown it up. Hatred for the xenos who are enemies of Terra is the last thing the Song of Destruction experiences.
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Cellulose & Steel