One of these days I'll write about something else. But not today!
Vicious Thorns - Though one may think that the Irrita are peaceful folk who prefer to trade and grow over any kind of violence, to think that they are incapable of bearing vicious thorns and poison'd spore against those who wish them is a fools thought.
(Focus: Some manner of fighting with an Irrita against an self-chosen foe.)
The Song-of-the-Void was... rather upset. Their fronds quivered in rage as their sensors showed the vessel bombarding Brimup Primus, firing archaic weapons down at planet below. The pirate craft was small for a non-Irrita ship, and custom built without any true understanding of voidcraft construction.
But for all the crudity of the attacker, the settlements on Brimup Primus had no way to respond. Or at the very least the ones that did had decided against unleashing their meager anti-space arsenals on behalf of those they shared the planet with. After all, it looked like the attacker was targeting the Green Lords. They controlled the largest area of the planet and had the largest population, but they didn't have advanced technology.
The Song-of-the-Void began drafting a scathing message to be directed to every ship, station and planet of the Shipwright's Alliance. This pirate was one of theirs, and was picking over independent systems as easy bait. It would not stand, they would
demand that the Shipwright's Alliance deal with their infestation, or be held accountable for harboring and even trading with such scum. The message joined one of a dozen other such messages, and the Song-of-the-Void wilted in helplessness. Their demands had fallen on deaf ears for too long.
Maybe it was time to bring other Irrita into the campaign. They knew other traders who plied the independent worlds, who were witnesses and occasional prey to the pirates of the Shipwright's Alliance. Together they could complie a mighty mound of evidence and demand that the Shipwright's Alliance cure themselves of their own parasites.
But for now, there was one more option. They were not a Song-of-War, had not embarked upon the path that might lead them one day to be a Song-of-Strategy or any of the other myriad positions that would qualify them to spit death at those who would steal and corrupt. Their ship was not a behemoth of war, one of those mobile voidbourne forests that could absorb any attack thrown at them before they engulfed their victims and strangled them in strong roots and tearing thorns.
No, they were not that. But they had seen fit to procure and integrate
some method of reprisal into their ship. The spore-sprayer was not a weapon to win battles, and only a trusted Song could use the device. Its effects took a long time to be felt, and had to be deployed from close range or against an enemy that was not maneuvering. But as the Song-of-the-Void's ship drifted silently towards the planet, all systems shut down but the bare necessity, they felt a kind of grumpy satisfaction. They did not have access to any of the truly virulent spores, but against this pirate, in this place, they felt confident of their success.
A vine curled into the necessary control mechanism, and an invisible plume of spores fountained from the ship. The spray continued for minutes before the Song-of-the-Void altered their course ever so slightly. They would enter into a far orbit of Brimup Primus, and wait for the pirate to leave. If they were found they would outrun the smaller craft. Once the space was clear, they would be free to render aid to the Green Lords.
Meanwhile, the cloud of spores would continue on their path, and intersect the pirate craft in its orbit. There they would bury themselves in every vulnerable area. Corrosion, sensor panels, exposed sealant, thruster nozzles. The worse the maintenance on a ship, the more points of entry the spores would have. Then they would begin to sprout, spreading through every aspect of the ship they could. They would clog air recyclers, fill water reservoirs and spoil every foodstuff they could.
It was possible to clean the spores, of course. There were certain hormones and disinfectants that they would respond well to, and in their vegetative growth phase they were not well-suited to growing across a planetary surface. They would burn up in the atmosphere, and even if they reached the surface the fungus would simply become another part of a planet's food web, a decomposer that recycled death into new life. But aboard a ship, every single technological system would become unusable as its guts were devoured and recycled into more fungus. An experienced crew in good control of their ship could keep ahead of the damage, could cordon off infected areas and slowly disinfect back towards the origin points. But it was like fighting a fire, and any break in the defense would let the fungus claim the entire ship.
A military ship could survive an infestation of these spores. But this pirate ship would be a drifting hulk within a week. Long before they returned to their void station homes. Which was good. Unleashing this weapon against an inhabited station in a place where the Irrita could not help control and limit the spread would be a crime beyond consideration. To say nothing of the more virulent spores. Those had been developed during the cult wars of the past century, for use against the forces of Chaos.
There had been much debate there, if the spores would even be effective against those who could corrupt life and corruption itself. Many had argued that the use of the weapons would backfire, that the enemy would seize the new growths for use against the Irrita and their allies. And so the weapons had never been used. But they still existed, somewhere in the most secure of vaults. And if the Irrita were ever pressed by a non-chaotic enemy, they might unleash spores which could invade animal and ship alike, seizing enough control of each to further their spread.
The Song-of-the-Void quivered at the consideration. They were not using such weapons, and had no desire to. They hoped they would never
be used. But in this Galaxy, it may be inevitable. They had peaceful allies, and room to grow within them. But the day would likely come when a terrible foe pressed upon them and necessitated their use.
I can only beseech the sunlight that it is not the vile forces of Chaos. We are not suited to fight them. Yet another argument to seek out those who are so blessed, and empower them so that they will defend us against the corruption. I do not know what a corrupted Irrita would be like, and I do not wish to find out.
Author's Note: In my mind the Irrita engineered something like a
Zombie-Ant fungus that would rapidly infect people and cause them to spread it to others to take over a ship in hours. You know, the thing from the Last of Us except it also infects ships in addition to people. They've never used it. The fungus used here is a lot more benign, able to eat sealants and insulators as it spread through ships over the course of a week or two.
