Verdant Ink 🏳️‍🌈 (wlw)

9: The New Host

The pretty thirtieth-cohort officer with the scarred face sidled into the room, navigating the gaps between coolboxes, lightscreens and crates before crouching at the General's ear. The two women exchanged terse whispers before the officer sprang up and left the room.

The General turned to Agent 295,the broad-shouldered warship officer with a crumpled uniform. "We dock at Shiva-twelve tomorrow morning. Have everything prepared."

"Yes, Madame." 295 tapped at a comms-piece in her ear and began to mutter instructions into it.

A smile lit General-four's face as she leaned close to Pelin. "You're the Alliance's lead terraformer. You've helped thousands of humans. I'm not trying to hurt you." She pressed a wizened hand to Pelin's shoulder. "You did the best that you could."

"...Madame?"

"Do you want to tell me about Agent 301?"

She shook her head. "No, Madame."

"You're fond of your navigator, aren't you?"

"We have a professional relationship."

The General put an arm around Pelin. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Shall I tell you about her?"

"No. Thank you, Madame."

General-four leaned back on her crate. "Shortly after her appointment on the Miranda, Agent 301 was cut during a training accident. Her trainer," she nodded her head at the warship officer, "Agent 295 here, saw that she had black blood. Tests were performed, and her blood's unusual properties were brought to my attention."

Pelin summoned every gram of courage inside her. If she could evoke even a tenth of 301's bravery, she would triumph. "Thank you, Madame. But I am not in the command line for that classified project."

The General tittered into an open medical box as she perused the contents.

"Shiva Labs suggested two possible propagation routes: egg-harvesting, or transferral of chloroplastoids via bodily fluids to another host. 301's eggs were not viable, so we searched for a partner-host for her. The fact that she was a Verdant Nation colonist was a...hindrance. She didn't touch anyone. But Verdant colonists violate their own Edict often enough, if they can be...steered in the right direction."

The General unravelled a bandage and hitched up the sleeve of her uniform. An ugly red wound gaped on her arm, the skin hanging off in mangled patches around raw red flesh. Pelin couldn't help but flinch away from her.

So, the General had personally shielded 301 from the axes of Karinja fighters. Pelin had underestimated her will to secure Amine X.

"Because of 301's sexual identity, choices were limited. You were the only woman on the Miranda with the right blood-type who was also attracted to women."

Pelin covered her face with shaking hands. "She...chose me?" she whispered between her fingers.

"No, no." General-four began to dress her wound, before Agent 295 dashed over and began to unspool the gauze over the General's arm. "We didn't tell her that you were a host. She's not the most cooperative of assets at the best of times. She'd only turn it onto her own little rebellion if we imposed a host onto her. We simply appointed her as your navigator, and the two of you seemed to do the rest. Her story about visiting the botanical garden late at night was very sweet. The poor thing was rather taken by you."

None of it had been real. Pelin had been an unknowing host. 301 had been an unknowing vector. The General had encouraged it all. They'd been farmed, in a way.

But Pelin had never touched 301. At least, not apart from her hair. The hair must have been how the chloros were transferred. Either that or they had entered through a cut when Pelin had cradled 301 as she lay dying with a steel shard through her. How long ago that seemed now.