Foundation of All

Emily lay on the bed with her eyes wide open. Asuta’s face was buried in her chest and she was snoring a little as she tightly gripped Emily even while she was asleep. Emily tried to squirm a little, but Asuta just mumbled and gripped her tighter like she was a stuffed animal. Emily sighed, it seems she was trapped. She would like to pace around a bit to help her think, but it seems that that wasn’t in the cards for now.

She knew that Asuta probably wouldn’t even care, Asuta had told Emily about all sorts of other people she had slept with out in the galaxy. Her sexual exploits. But it wasn’t very often that Emily got to do the same. Not like there were too many Immortals she liked out there that were willing to sleep with her anyway.

Maybe it would have been easier if she was bisexual like Asuta or Brenda, but Emily was lesbian all the way. Maybe she could sleep with some mortals, but that had always felt sort of icky to her. Even if Asuta seemed to think it was fine. It was one of the main things they seriously argued about even after all of this time. Either way, it was especially gross for Emily given what she had done back in the beginning of it all…

Emily had been surprised by Brenda. The woman had completely ignored all the rumors surrounding Emily and just taken Emily as herself on the station. Ignoring the future and just focused on the present moment in that steady way of hers. It was beyond the sex, which was also nice, but Brenda just didn’t care what others on Immortus Station had thought of Emily. Their conversation in bed after had been casual and about nothing much, but important all the same. Somehow it felt different from the others Emily had been with, that conversation more like cheating on Asuta than the sex had been.

Asuta probably wouldn’t even care. But Emily steeled herself to tell her as soon as she woke up. She wanted to let it off of her chest and explain before she could get any more anxious about it, twisting her thoughts all up in knots trying to think about it.

Emily was being ridiculous. She knew it. She knew Asuta would know she knew it. But Emily had to tell her anyway for her own piece of mind at least. She just had to.

Despite Emily’s worries, the conversation was easy after Asuta woke up. They were sitting up, leaning their backs against the headboard as they sat next to each other. Asuta listened to Emily’s story and then assured her that it was fine. Actually, Asuta had the opposite reaction as the one Emily had feared.

“Tell me about her,” Asuta said, “She do anything interesting we could try out as a couple? Just when you think there’s nothing new, someone always comes up with something… On a scale of one to ten, how good was she?”

“No,” Emily said, “Just the normal stuff. And I’m not going to give a number…”

“C’mon, I’ve given you all the numbers!” Asuta protested, “Even that guy that was a zero!”

Emily snorted, “Are you talking about the one that was an android that tricked you? The one you just pulled off the street when you were bored? What was his name again?”

“Xaeon-154. I thought it was just a local planet thing! Stupid design anyway, just pissed me off. I’m glad I bought that corporation and forced them to pivot to diaper sales… They were really terrible at it.”

“What was so wrong with the design again?” Emily goaded, “Didn’t he give you the corporate spiel? Can’t you tell what one of them are with about ten seconds of conversation? You didn’t even talk to him that much before you went for it?”

“I thought it was a joke, so I went along,” Asuta said while pointedly avoiding Emily’s last question, “How was I supposed to know that it was real?”

“That was the only problem?” Emily prompted.

“Fine,” Asuta said, “We were going at it and it waited until I was almost there and then stopped and asked for payment. Stupid damn robot, killed the mood entirely. Just thinking about it pisses me off, I’m revising my score to negative one. I would have just paid the thing if it had just asked up front…”

“Yeah, sounds pretty bad,” Emily agreed, “Glad people eventually got rid of most of them. At least they passed galactic laws so the big corporations reprogrammed the androids that are left so they don’t just invite themselves to random parties and public events anymore to look for customers.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Asuta said, “That was so annoying having to fend them off without getting sued by their parent company when I ended up destroying them… But quit distracting me! You brought up the embarrassing story and now you pay! Number now. How was this Brenda?”

Emily thought about it, “Eight,” She eventually said.

“And what am I?” Asuta asked with a small smile.

“Fifteen,” Emily replied instantly, “Past the scale.”

When she was there, Emily added silently as she remembered the vast stretches of time between the time they were together.

Asuta was shocked by Emily’s quick answer.

“Wow, you had that at the ready. Thanks. I guess I’ll just have to live up to my reputation. Oh, speaking of my reputation. I’ve got to tell you all about my lesson as Sensei to our guests! I think they’ve really improved, by the end of our first lesson they were even dodging most of my grenades instinctively!”

Emily groaned slightly and ran her hand down her face. Asuta, there shouldn’t have been any grenades in their first lesson…

“TAG! Got ya, Sean!”

Sean reluctantly lowered his arm and threw the primed red grenade to the side where it exploded far away from the two of them. He stood there and watched as Asuta charged towards Roger who was doing his best to keep her back with his own barrage of green and red grenades. He wasn’t having much success, Asuta rolling and darting around to dodge around his throw with casual grace.

Sean counted down the seconds in his head. Roger only had to last five more seconds before Sean was back in and could help him in trying to pin Asuta down…

Three seconds left and Asuta rolled forward under one of Roger’s red grenades. It exploded behind her and she charged forward. Roger cocked his arm back to toss another red grenade at her at close range, but Asuta fell and slid across the ground with her leg extended just as Roger threw. The grenade just barely flew past her head as she slid right into Roger’s shin and sent him tumbling to the ground.

Asuta rolled over and landed a massive slap on Roger’s stomach, causing him to grunt. Sean groaned. If Roger had lasted another few seconds then Sean would have been back in and they could have won…

Roger stayed on the ground as Asuta popped up to her feet and brushed some dirt off of herself for a moment before looking at Sean.

“Did I get him in time?”

“Yeah,” Sean admitted, “With a few seconds to spare.”

“There you guys go, Sensei Lesson number two!”

“What was the lesson again?” Roger asked from the ground.

Asuta looked down at him and lightly kicked him in the side.

“Get up, lazy. Lesson is getting better at throwing grenades. Or teamwork, or bending like a willow tree against a strong wind? Yeah, whatever. Something profound like that. I’ll think of something mysterious for lesson three. Bye, bye!”’

Asuta left, and Roger came over to Sean.

“You think we’ll ever beat her?” He asked Sean.

“Ten rounds to zero today certainly says otherwise,” Sean said, “We couldn’t even hold her back for two minutes for the win. And it was two on one. It’s ridiculous.”

“We’ll get there one day,” Roger said, “Hopefully.”

“Hopefully.”

“So, what are we doing again?” Roger asked as their small ship came to a stop over a forest that looked the same as the others they had been traveling over for the last hour.

“Burning!” Asuta said, “I thought it would be fun. The flamethrowers are in the back, go get them and we can get started. Oh, and remember the hoods too. Those are the most important. Choking on the smoke is such a mood killer if you’re having fun.”

The thrusters outside cut off as they safely landed in a forest clearing ringed by trees. Roger hauled out the equipment outside while Asuta and Sean stepped out to inspect the area.

Roger started fiddling around trying to figure out how to put on the hood and metal tank that was supposed to go over his back.

“Hey Asuta, why are we burning? What are we burning?” Sean asked as she expertly picked up a hood and started putting it on. As soon as it went over her head it tightened leaving only her eyes exposed through two large flexible plastic windows.

She reached up and fumbled with something on the back of the hood for a second before it billowed out to a bigger size again and she took it off again.

“Oh, did I not tell you?” She said, “This whole place. We’re just going wild and burning the whole thing down. As much as we can today.”

Sean looked around to the peaceful forest and then back to Asuta.

“Why?”

“Contaminated,” She said, “Terraforming spores, probably dragged in on your ship and fell down through the atmosphere. We got to clear this place out before they spread more. Could just bomb the place like usual, but this will be much more fun.”

Roger stopped fiddling with his hood and looked up,

“Terraforming spores? What are those?”

Asuta glanced between the two of them.

“Really, Roger? Sean maybe I’d get, but you? You should be old enough to know. Do you guys know anything about terraforming new planets?”

“You throw a bunch of comets at a planet to give it water,” Sean said, “Use some large weapons to change its rotation speed and start the plate tectonics and magnetic field going… Then seed it with life and wait for a while, right? Was that everything?”

Sean glanced at Roger who shrugged, “Sounds right to me.”

“Yes, yes,” Asuta said, “But how long does it take before people can live there after you introduce life? Have a full ecosystem with animals and everything without outside support?”

“I don’t know,” Sean said, “The quickest was about thirty years, right? But some take thousands. Does it depend on what animals and plants they introduce?”

“True! Very true,” Asuta agreed, “There’s two big camps of terraformers. There’s the thousand year ones that carefully craft the ecosystem piece by piece, being careful about every species they introduce so everything is healthy and stable. This creates a curated ecosystem and you can customize it to whatever you want, much like I’ve done with the planet here.”

“You terraformed this place?” Roger said.

“Well, Emily did all the initial work,” Asuta corrected, “But I’ve maintained the biosphere and customized it to what it is today. Nice and peaceful for my home without nasties always crawling out to attack me or Emily.”

“So… what is the second type?” Sean asked, “What does this have to do with burning down the forest?”

“Oh. Well, second type is using terraforming spores. They’re extremely invasive and mutate like crazy to fill ecological niches like no tomorrow as long as you’ve already introduced some animals already nearby for them to alter. They have a total lifetime programmed into them after the initial release, usually about a thousand years or so, before they become infertile and die off. Less and less fertile with each generation after their release, you know. Basically you can just deploy them on a basic planet and wait until time is up and come back to a fully filled up biosphere. Done right they are much more complex than the handbuilt ones and usually resistant to extinction events and other disasters because of their diversity of life.”

“But why would they be here or on our ship?” Roger asked, “Shouldn’t they shut off before people settle somewhere?”

“Oh, you’d think so,” Asuta said, “But people are impatient and settle places too early. Especially out in the outer rim. With the terraforming spores still active, all the wildlife becomes ultra aggressive and mega sized as they try to compete with the humans living there alongside them. Or just becomes generally nasty in other ways. That’s why those worlds are usually so hostile, because even when the spores eventually shut off the ecosystem is already established with all the wildlife mutated to include humans on their list of prey, even with all our technology backing us up. At least the terraforming spores specifically leave humans alone by design, could be worse.”

“But how would our ship be contaminated?” Sean asked in confusion, “I don’t understand, the planets we went to weren’t ancient but they weren’t completely newly settled either.”

Asuta waved vaguely in the air, “Eh, probably went to a planet where the terraforming spores were still active. Rural worlds are always being infected by them by ships coming in from the outer rim. The terraforming spores still die off after their given time, but they still can spread through ships before that happens. Hibernate in little cracks in the surface of your ship to survive for a while. They’ll come here and start mutating things again and ruin my whole ecosystem I’ve established here. They form these little mushrooms that release chemicals to guide the mutations of the wildlife around them. So now we gotta burn the area to clean them out. Could force every ship that comes in to clean off too, but that’s too much of a hassle. I’d rather just burn it up whenever it ends up popping up down here.”

Asuta took a deep breath and put on the hood again,

“Now enough of this science shit. Get geared up so we can get to it!”

After a few minutes Roger and Sean managed to put on the suits. There was the hood covering their heads feeding them clean air and a pair of giant metal cylinders strapped to their backs. The rest of their body was exposed with only a series of metallic straps wrapped around their chests keeping the cylinders on their backs in place. One hose coiled up and attached to the hood, while the other plugged into the other end of the gun like flamethrowers. Sean reached down and hefted it in both hands and squeezed the trigger experimentally and a little burst of flame shot out the end and hit the ground.

“Alright, that’s the spirit!” Asuta cheered, her voice a little muffled behind her own mask, “Come back here by sundown. Go wild, we have all day to burn stuff! Make sure to focus on any mushrooms you see just in case.”

“Hey, Sensei. What’s our profound lesson for today?” Roger joked as they stepped towards the forest edge.

Asuta paused and stood stock still for a moment, “Right, that… I remembered that, Sensei Asuta says…”

There was a long pause as she didn’t say anything and they stood there standing awkwardly.

“Sensei Asuta says burning stuff is fun! See ya later, remember. Back here by dark!”

Asuta ran in the forest and in a roar and crackling of flames released a stream of fire all around her wildly. Her maniacal cackles and shouts of “BURN BURN BURN,” quickly faded into the distance as she left a trail of spreading flame behind her. The two men looked at each other for a long moment.

Roger shrugged, “Hey, she’s not wrong. I’ll have to give it a try.”

He turned to his left and ran perpendicular to the path that Asuta had taken.

“BURN BURN BURN!” Roger shouted while releasing giant gouts of flame into the forest. Roger broke down laughing as he shouted like Asuta, even mimicking her little cackles occasionally as he roasted a poor family of mushrooms sitting at the base of a nearby tree.

“BWA HA HA! DIE UNDER MY FLAME EVIL MUSHROOMS!”

Sean stared at his flamethrower for a moment. Well, may as well… Sean ran into the forest opposite of Roger and started blasting. He didn’t shout out the ridiculous lines though. That was a little too far for him…

“That was a fun lesson,” Sean admitted as the three of them gathered back at the vehicle while absolutely coated in ash. Fires still raged in the distance where their flames had caught and spread into a genuine forest fire.

They climbed into the vehicle and Asuta pressed a few buttons on the cockpit, smearing the gray ash everywhere as she did so. She wiped her hand on her thigh, but all it did was smear it around since all their bodies were caked in the stuff.

“Gah. Forgot how sticky this stuff is,” Asuta groaned as she gave up. The thrusters outside fired up and they lifted off the ground, “You say something Sean?”

“I said it was a fun lesson,” he said again, “Roger seemed to really get into it.”

Roger shrugged, “What can I say? It was a good lesson. Sensei.”

Asuta smiled, “I’m such a good Sensei, aren’t I? Thanks, both of you.”

The ship started moving as the autopilot began piloting them back towards Asuta’s estate.

“Hahaha. Let’s clean off before we go inside though,” Asuta added as she smeared more ash around when she brushed against the wall.