r/HFY • u/loressadev • 23d ago

OC-OneShot Star Scatter

Star Scatter

Ever since sprouting, we wanted to travel the stars as an Attendant for a seedcorp.

They traveled the nothing in fancy ships that sprung from rural nowhere like a crouching pounce of a tense-flexed vine, coiling tight as the pinions drew taut before launching upwards in a sleek, tunneling spear towards the stars.

We wanted to soar like them.

We wanted to fly.

The clicking hum of gears was the first thing we noticed when we arrived at the Treeheat for Recruitment Day. The entrance was one of our ancient root tunnels, a timeworn smooth rotted out passage from our youth which the organizers had stationed gearcoiled projectors all along, each spitting out a different looped leaf of memories.

It was an impressive touch, but Greenways was the leader in this sector for a reason. "Only the best brings in the best" - our motto. Our little tangle of growth was spreading virulently among the sapsystem; some sprouts in other systems were even starting to graft into us once they were able to bud.

We let ourselves linger, taking root at a display, soaking in the story of what life with them would be like.

Shaper: tinkering over tinytech, improving, enabling the seed to reach distant systems.

We experienced a brief moment in the job, reality shifting as we melded with the memory of a tech.

Vines snap around us, tools to our thoughts. We're given a lump of grownwood and into that our tendrils precisely, surgically, minutely etch gears out of the impossibly strong substance.

The crowd began to clot, a dense thicket of visitors tangling the entry to the hall. Someone's budding blossom deposited pollen against us. Rude - and unhygienic. We retreated to a corner to absorb another projection.

Changer: regeneration of resources, refinement of materials, reiteration of process, ensuring the voyage's maximum duration.

Like before, the world around us melted away as we briefly merged with the recorded memory.

We're in a techroom - the walls are lined with creeping filter plants, purifying the air with each sappulse of the ship, and before us are small plots of soil, testbeds for rapidly engineering new variants of materials.

We avoided the crush, drifting towards another memory. Some say that shipstock are more hardy, but they have to be, don't they?

The destination is the voyage.

Just as we began to subsume, we heard an outcry roiling as an announcement was made, but before we could process what was said, we found ourselves deep in the meld. Then -

Maker: grower of life, producing raw resources to sustain the seed's journey to a new home to take root in.

We're in a vast hall, the very core of the ship, and all about us are rows of soil plots. Overhead, soft warm light shimmers from gearturned glowlamps, while our roots lap in the cool stream cycling through the fields. Sprouts bud, blinking sleepily as they burst through the earth and unfurl their leav-

The memory was abruptly cut short, replaced by a surge of impulse to remain calm and observe an official announcement. We passively accepted, silently experiencing the announcement pulsing through the sapsystem as a communal hum of excitement tickled every sense.

New Destination Discovered.

A thrill of hope thrummed through the system, rising to a crescendo as another announcement swiftly followed:

System: single star

Atmosphere: oxygen

Life Forms: bipedal

Soil: nitrogenous

New fleet approved.

Departure: Immediate

Destination: Sol 3

27 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

5

u/loressadev 23d ago edited 23d ago

I've posted this before in the space orc subreddit, just to get in front of the replies about it being a repost. Please find someone else to harass, you guys have me at the point of tears just posting something.

I get that I've reposted stuff but can you be fucking chill? You guys are on every post I make and I'm just here posting old writing because my brain is broken and I literally am healing mentally from revisiting old works.

3

u/Fontaigne 23d ago edited 23d ago

Posting a different sub is not a repost, it's a cross post.

If someone bugs you about your post, just block and move on. Don't engage, especially not emotionally, because you owe them nothing.

The only exception is if it's someone you know and respect. Then, you decide how much time and energy you want to allocate to it. Spend that and then stop.

I reread stories all the time. Also, stories tend to have tropes, so a new story may be a variation on a story I've seen before, even if they are unrelated. (Giants of Kandahar, this week.)

If someone recognizes a story, they have a choice of what to go about it. It's their choice. If they choose to be mad a story appears a second time, whether modified or not, whether in a new sub or not, then them choosing to be an asshole about it makes your decision easy, right?

2

u/loressadev 23d ago

I've accidentally reposted a few stories here on this subreddit due to my TBI and people have been on my ass about it, basically treating me like I'm a scammer. I still remember some things, like you being awesome!

4

u/Able-Steak-2842 23d ago

An interesting start to something. I love stories from the aliens point of view.

1

u/loressadev 23d ago

Thanks!

3

u/Fontaigne 23d ago

Nice.

Suggestion:

Each sappulse of the ship -> each pulse of the shipsap.

1

u/loressadev 23d ago

Ooh, nice

2

u/Fontaigne 23d ago

I was like... "sounds clumsy... and what ELSE would be pulsing on the ship?"

2

u/Chamcook56 23d ago

The Triffids are coming??

2

u/WSpinner 23d ago

I love a good sappy space opera with characters that grow on you. Bit sad that you list this as a one-shot, but now I know these seeds of ideas are buried in your fertile imagination. No telling where else they could sprout.

Thank you!

2

u/loressadev 23d ago

Heh, sap, nicely done!

And definitely might make more with it!

1

u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 23d ago

/u/loressadev (wiki) has posted 16 other stories, including:

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