EliteCommander

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Well hey, if that’s how it’s going to be, then I think we have the edge here. If we need someone for guard duty, then you’re in the presence of a professional” Senjen laughed, giving an exaggerated bow. “Most people out there don’t really have a chance of overpowering me. A Tindrel can maybe do it, but the only Tindrel here is on our team. I mean, I’m not looking to hurt anyone over some plants, but I can be a wall if we need one.”

Pclendafuun’s suggestion was not immediately clear to Senjen. “Do you mean defensive items as in barrier plants, a literal barrier, or something else?”

Jess was standing around, arms crossed and looking down at the plot. “If you need me to build something defensive, I can do it. Otherwise, I reckon I’m not going to have too much else to do this round.”

Officials had not yet announced their time had started, but it looked like their opponents were already looking to get their seeds. They needed to get moving too. Senjen might have been more of the muscle in this round, but he still took a moment to think. “I actually know some really resilient plants from Orostro. Not native, but used there. A lot of native plants were lost in the extinction, so they’ve been importing plants to re-seed the badlands and get them to the point where they can support native plants again. They might make a good core to base our plot around, since they’re so hard to kill. Speaking of defenses, though, maybe we should plant some sort of barrier on the edge of their side? Something herbicide-resistant, and maybe hostile like before?”

Surprisingly, out of all of them, it was Jess who actually spoke up right away. “Russian thistle.”

Senjen appeared mildly startled as he glanced back. “Huh?”

“It’s a really stubborn weed back home. It’s hard as hell to poison, for how long we’ve been trying to get rid of it. It’s thorny, hard to handle, and when it gets past a certain point, part of it breaks art and starts rollin’ around in the wind to spread its seeds. I’ve seen them bury houses when they bunch up enough. You could push it right into their plot and make it their headache.” She suggested, shrugging.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen had a hard time keeping track of how well or poorly their group was during in the middle of the first round, as he had been far more focused on doing one task after the next. Only he and Pclendafuun could really handle most of the plants they had chosen safely, so they had to take on a greater share of the labor. Fortunately, he was at least familiar enough with horticulture that he could follow Ruk’s instructions without many misunderstandings, which likely contributed to them not failing entirely. One could tell he was remaining enthusiastic, and it was not until after the end of the round that he finally realized they were not performing quite as well as he perhaps imagined they were. The disappointment shook him for a moment, but he did not let that get to him for long. At least, not outwardly. They were still in the competition, so until they were knocked out, he still needed to have his mind on competing.

Once again, Senjen stayed close to Ruknar as they were starting to get ready for the next round. They had managed to seed an unwanted companion into another plot, so they would have that reward available for this round. He was starting to get an idea of how it would be useful, but there were still plenty of other questions swirling in his mind. “Okay, so head-to-head, then. Sounds like this is all about area, not art, so we just need to encourage the most voracious plant we can. What exactly are the rules here? I gather we’re going to be growing our own plants while trying to kill theirs. Is it going to be all about chopping plants and spreading herbicide, or am I going to have to worry about people trying to get physical with me?” He asked Ruk.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Jess did not say anything, nor did she need to. She had her task and her time limit, and she knew how to execute it. She took a rectangular sheet of thin metal and readied it to cut into triangles, stopping only for a moment to get an estimate of the size. Based on what Ruknar had described, she had a rough idea of what she wanted, but she double-checked the measurements with Ruk first before starting in earnest. Once cut, she could bend the metal into a conical shape, using instinct and simple geometry instead of hard measurements. It did not need to be machined to tight tolerances for gardening, so she could just worry about getting it to be good enough, quickly.

Senjen had no idea what Dessous was, but Ruk seemed to like it, so that was good enough for him. He may not have been as much of an expert as her, but he was interested enough in the hobby to be able to follow her directions without needing to be micromanaged. He understood what kind of basin Ruk wanted, so he dug as quickly as he could, though a half-meter deep would take some time no matter how quickly he worked. Pclendafuun had no other task, so they could help with the digging, after which he set to work on planting the roses. He had the instructions for that particular plant up in the corner of his field of view, so he could know how deep and far apart they liked to be planted. All the while, he was recording his perspective as a reference in case they needed to do damage control on some sabotage.

“You know, it’s nice to be able to do this. Back in the ship, I just have a few planters under artificial lights. Now that things are looking up, maybe we’ll be able to get our own place somewhere eventually? I wouldn’t mind having a balcony, or maybe even a whole yard if it’s somewhere outside the city.” Senjen remarked.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen stared ahead and blinked. Utaysi had other mechanisms to serve the original function of eyelids more efficiently, but they were still included on any standard Utaysi frame for the sake of communication. Their eyes were perhaps their most expressive physical feature, and Senjen’s easily expressed his bewilderment. His translator seemed to catch the meaning of a few words, but he was not exactly sure of what the Humans were trying to say. After a few seconds of silence, he made some effort to salvage the idea that he knew what he was doing. “Um...yeah, yeah. I always appreciate some strong competition too. Don’t think I’ll go easy on you or anything, so uh...yeah. Best of luck.”

Senjen ended up in an unintentionally awkward stare towards their neighbors for a few more moments, but shook himself free when the others returned to the group. He turned back around to focus on his own plot, and hoped that the Human was willing to do the same. It was not like they were going to be having a productive and meaningful conversation, at any rate. Making a distraction for Light had been the whole point, and now that he was back, all that was left was to finish their own creation. He did not do anything too overt to acknowledge Light, but they had both played their part. Jess made it back shortly beforehand with a scattered arrangement of scrap metal. Senjen did not have the faintest idea how she planned to work with that mess, but he did not need to. No small number of the replacement parts he had bought from her over the years were not made for his frame, but she had got them working together regardless.

“Okay, now that all that’s done, I’m feeling pretty good about our chances. What do we need first?” Senjen asked. He sat back in the dirt next to their plot and gave it a quick look over, saving a few pictures of its current state. If he kept saving and updating images of their progress, then he figured he could probably use them as a reference for comparison to look for anything out-of-place if someone tried to sabotage their plot.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Jess seemed undeterred as she followed Ruk’s direction over towards the shed. It was crowded, with no shortage of competition for the best materials. Many of the others were much larger than her and had arrived sooner, so they were naturally occupied with struggling against each other for the materials they wanted. Jess, meanwhile, was a new arrival, small, and easy to miss among the crowd. Easy to forget. As much as it went against her nature, all she had to do was to stay quiet and squeeze through around the fringes of the crowd. There was no way she could compete for the most obviously useful materials without drawing unwanted attention to herself, so she focused her attention on the less obviously useful pieces. It would be easy to take a look at her and assume she was just settling for whatever she could get her hands on, but in this place, she was right in her element.

Senjen, by this point, was getting focused, especially once Ruk started giving him more concrete tasks. He made notes of her instructions as she gave them, then tried to picture what their plot would need to look like by the end of it. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how exactly do we get an aquatic plant to grow alongside terrestrial ones? Doesn’t it need to be submerged, or is there some way around that?”

The question was soon interrupted by the first attempt made on them at sabotage with a drone. It certainly spread a lot of seeds, but it did not seem to impact Senjen’s confidence in the slightest. He brushed away the seeds caught in his frame, away from the patch, then laughed when he returned back to Ruk. “Ha! They should have waited until we were done prepping the soil for that.” To take care of the seeds would be easy enough for him. He could just scrape away the whole top layer of their plot, since they were going to be replacing it anyway with their own medium.

Senjen took a few minutes to carefully remove and replace the soil per Ruknar’s instructions. Since they had not yet grown anything, Ruk could easily help with that step personally. Though, as he was working on it, he was already looking around the area and thinking on the next part of his own schemes. As they were finishing up with the soil, Senjen leaned in close and whispered into Ruk’s ear. “Keep watch over the plot for a moment. I’m going to try something.”

Turning himself towards one the plot of one of their neighbors, Senjen gave a laugh. “A drone, really? You’re going to have to try better than that.” He flicked a single one of the invasive seeds in their direction. He did not know, nor care, if that group was responsible for the drone, nor if it made him look like a fool to pretend that they were. If it did, all the better, because what he really cared about was the fact that Light and Pclendafuun were soon to be passing by their plot on the way back, and he would prefer their attention to be on himself.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Soon enough, it seemed that everyone was contributing something, and Senjen couldn’t help but to be proud about it. “Alright, we’ve got something here, see? We’ve got a plan, we’ve got experts, I can be your labor. Now let’s just stay cool under pressure and get it done.”

“You just need a sturdy bit of scaffolding for your plants, right? Don’t much matter what kind of materials they’ve got on hand, I’ll get it together. Just show me where to find it.” Jess remarked. Naturally, she did not bring a full set of tools with her everywhere. The most she had in her pouch were a few useful multitools for spot repairs, but for a job like this, that would be more than enough. Senjen could tell that Jess had been somewhat ambivalent going into this, but now that her contribution was now focused on an engineering challenge, he could see she was getting more invested. Putting together solutions with scraps was second nature to her, so he felt she would be up to it.

Something Senjen had not expected came along with the announcement that they were about to begin. Not only were they allowed to interfere with other plots, but they would be rewarded for doing so. That opened up a whole new angle to this competition, and he had only a short time to think about it. They needed to go get their seeds, and their plot was not exactly the closest to any of the terminals. Someone would have to take a short walk...right past several other plots. He realized there was actually a way to turn the competitors’ privilege to their advantage. “I guess I’ll go-, wait, actually…”

Senjen leaned in closer to Light, speaking softly. “Might be able to get tricky with this suit of yours. Why don’t you go get the seeds? You could eject seeds from the suit at any angle as you’re passing by. Could be hard to notice. You could sprinkle a few over the competition on the way back. I’ll keep watch here.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Okay, okay…” Senjen began, tapping a claw against his own arm as he sorted through a search of native Earth plants. He filtered them down by a few criteria that came to mind as a few ideas started to pop into his mind.

Senjen had been staring off absently into space while going through the searches, but he perked up the moment his idea solidified. “There’s, um...firethorn, maybe roses? For the judging on this, does strictly size matter, or does what we do with the plants also count? If there’s an artistic portion, I might have an idea. Maybe we can put together thorny, toxic, and otherwise hostile plants that can survive each other? They’re hard to work with for anyone else, but they won’t even slow me down. And probably not Plcendafuun here either, now that I think about it. If they appreciate artistic statements, then putting together an arrangement of plants that are beautiful to the eye and dangerous to the touch is, um...well that’s ‘artistic’, right?”

Senjen seemed to dismiss his own doubt. “If we want to stand out, then we should play to our strengths, right? Do what the others can’t.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Between Senjen and Jess, there were two very different reactions to Pclendafuun. Jess turned her head and tried to subtly avoid eye contact, while Senjen stared in fascination. Sometimes, he felt like it took him more effort to understand organic species, but he was someone wiling to put in that effort. At times, he was jealous of Ruknar’s ability to pick up on signals that people may not have even known they were putting off. It was, quite literally, natural for her, and it even extended to Utaysi. He would probably have quite a few questions for her about Pclendafuun, after all this was over. Senjen was more than familiar with the fact that they were burrowers at home in the ground, given that he had been living in one of their ships for years, so he supposed it made sense that they might have some kind of connection with dirt and minerals.

Before long, the event runners called the participants to their positions, and naturally, they ended up following Ruknar to where they needed to go. For Senjen, it was mostly the way he looked around and how long he spent taking in all the novel details he observed that gave away his excitement. Curiosity was something that Ruknar would have seen in him from the moment they met. Right now, that curiosity was directed at sizing up their competition. He tried to get a sense of how confident they seemed, though he suspected that many of them were not so competitive as himself. This was, for most, more likely a casual and relaxing sort of competition.

Nevertheless, Senjen was focused. “Okay, so I don’t think we need a vote to safely say that Ruk is our team leader. What will we need to do first? Do we need to build something? I can help Jess with that. Or do you need help more? My frame is at your command.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen audibly scoffed. “Just a bright ball? Are you joking? Its surface has a tapestry of convection currents more mesmerizing than any mosaic, there’s coronal loops many times the size of entire planets. There’s no two ways about it: it’s magnificent. I know you’d see it if you could witness it up close.”

Senjen was not entirely sure of what Pclendafuun was meaning when they answered. He wondered who exactly this “they” was that did not want them to be a gardener. Did they mean the Tekeri? He was not sure why that would be the case, considering that the competition was open to everyone, and the event’s organizers had not given their group any trouble in joining. They seemed perfectly friendly. Was “they” someone else in the Tindrel’s life? He was not entirely sure what Tindrel on Korit did and did not respect.

As it seemed, Senjen was also not sure of something that Ruk evidently was. He looked on with a mild degree of bewilderment as Pclendafuun took the whole bag of dirt into their maw. “I, um…” He tilted his head towards Ruknar. “Don’t we, uh...need that?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen sat up, cross-legged. He gave a casual glance up towards the sky, though there was little but a few scattered clouds that could be seen during the day. “You are not wrong about that. The night sky can be a beautiful thing...when you can see it. It’s so bright here in the city, I would have to use such a long exposure just to get a glimpse of the stars. And I’d really like to see them up close too. Looking out at a star at the minimum safe distance...that has to be an experience. Or maybe a red giant, or pulsar? I’ve been in space more than a few times, but never...recreationally. I do want to go on a celestial tour, one day.”

Eventually, Pclendafuun made up their mind to approach, and seemingly investigate Senjen with how close they came. He returned a rather close stare and wondered about the marks on the face plate. It was not the first time he had seen a Tindrel like this, so was there some meaning behind them? Was it about art, symbolism, or something else entirely? The Tindrel, in turn, would get a good look at Senjen’s well-worn frame. There was a time he had a simple, sleek coat of black paint, but it was faded, chipped, and some plates did not look like they had been painted at all. They were “newer”, in a sense; replacements for damaged parts, though it was hardly as if they were new from the factory. A few plates and other visible parts looked like second-hand replacements, and some were jury-rigged just to be able to fit his body. One of his eyes was scratched along the bottom, likely from the fact that its socket was slightly misshapen from an impact and scraped against it in motion.

“Well then, you must have a lot of experience. You ever won before? What do you think about Ruk’s soil?” Senjen said, though he was quick to realize he was getting ahead of himself and gesturing to the Tekeri. “Oh, this is Ruknar. I’m Senjen.” He pointed to the other two in turn. “Into-The-Abyss-In-Search-Of-Light, and Jess.”