On a planet where eating meat was so illegal that even replicated meat grown in nutrient vats can mean prison time, the deathworlder's ship landed heavily. Fortunately, they got the whole ship down and hadn't needed a life pod, but repairs were going to take months. However, hearing the strict law against eating meat on this planet was going to be a problem. While meat replacements worked for a small amount of time, they needed actual meat to survive or they would, quite literally, starve to death. Their species were almost pure carnivore. For a while, he tried to hide the nutrient growth vats where meat was grown for consumption, but the planetary officials in the area where his ship was soon learned of it. -- DaniAndShali
Good news, bad news, good news, bad news... around and around it went. Harro didn't know how to feel about it. Bad news, a micrometeor got past her Hungry Caterpillar by being sharper than the gathering maw and the retaining, gathering tunnel beyond. It was also faster than any of the other 'mouths', and thereby pierced her hull in a critical place. Good news, she was flying near a habitable planet and could actually survive to get there.
Bad News, it was going to be a close call. Good news, the planet was inhabited. Bad news, by people who considered her anathema. Good news, she could survive the soft landing. Bad news, barely, and by sacrificing large portions of the ship. Good news, there were enough resources to rebuild the ship and get away before the people here arrested her for being a carnivore.
Welcome to Plabarli. No carnivores allowed. Depending on how one measures the time, some centuries or millennia ago, Humans made a colony based entirely on having a clean herbivorous lifestyle. They therefore looked into bringing with them pollinators that would only pollinate because they wanted to, herbivorous pets, and all the things they might need to make their high dreams a reality. Eating meat, using animals at all, was the worst of sins. Needless to say, they were highly isolationist and very angry that their pure example had not lead the rest of the universe into their own virtues. They were especially offended by obligate carnivores.
Good news, Harro stuck the soft landing. Bad news, most of the ship had sheared off. Good news, lots of it was salvageable and easy to gather. Bad news, some of it was beyond repair. Good news, she could do something with it. Bad news, but not the protein synthesiser. Good news, she could make a personal meat cloning facility. Bad news, it was hellishly illegal on this world and, according to the transmissions she caught from the natives, authorities had scanners that could identify if one was in operation.
If they caught her, they would imprison her and attempt to convert her to their brand of proper ways. It would be a slow, lingering, bloodless murder in which the Vegans of Plabarli would insist that Harrow was failing out of spite. As if starving for the lack of certain trace compounds not found in plants was an act of will. They would kill her over the passage of years, if they caught her, with their variant of kindness. Best then, to not get caught.
Step one: Play dead while anyone curious investigates the initial crash. Easy enough. Her livesuit had stealth capabilities and all she had to do was bury herself in the softened dirt and lay very still while flying machines cruised overhead. They lost interest, since the crash site was remote, and went back to their croplands. Good.
Step two: Gather everything possible and conceal all signs she was ever there. Harder. There were only so much of her stores and rationing made it more difficult than it had to be. She could survive on some of the plants nearby, but that was where the poison of the Plabarli argument lay. Just because she could, didn't mean it was a great, long-term idea.
Speaking of long-term thinking... Harrow started a wilderness made of the specific plant life she would find useful. Not just for feeding her surviving synthesisers, but also as nutrients for her cultured, cloned meat matrixes. Plant life that would also thrive with the use of the waste products from her machines. She had images from truly wild areas to guide her into making it all look like nature was reclaiming the zone sullied by a "filthy carnivore" crash.
Good news, she could keep most of her operations out of view from the overhead surveillance that happened by once in a while. Bad news, she might go steadily insane for want of sunshine time and a view of the open sky, and a decent hunt. Good news, all the plants attracted animals, and some of them were even compatibly edible.
Harrow was even careful enough to engineer perfectly natural 'accidents' for those creatures. Some of them, fearless enough to wander into her tunnelled base, paid for their curiosity with their captivity, farming, and eventual demise.
Every little bit helped.
A repair that should have taken a week, tops, dragged on for a year and a half. In that time, she made conversation with clans of the inedible birds while scattering about the leavings that they would eat and not alert the authorities of Plabarli. Other leavings had to be processed underground, into forms that would not cause alerts. Some even made decent construction material for her rebuilt ship.
A year and a half. A slow descent into madness, where the alternative was a slow and lingering death in captivity whilst her captors blamed her for her own unstoppable biology. Unable to communicate with anyone, lest she give away her position. Only able to listen in to whatever transmissions were available.
Good news, this included the heartening news that her people were trying to recover her wreck. Bad news, the Vegans of Plabarli were being obstinate to the point of threatening war. They would only allow truly pure beings to set foot on their soil, or show wing in their airspace. Or, for that matter, run any long-range scans. All of a sudden, the limits of Plabarli space were of great political import to those who called it home.
If there was anything more aggressive than a pissed-off vegan, Harrow couldn't think of it.
Therefore, she planned her escape very carefully. The launch vectors, the escape velocity, the places she could run and dodge any attempt to capture here. Where the wormholes were, and most vital, the gaps in the overhead patrols.
Her escape was by the skin of her teeth anyway.
Hail to Harrow the Veganwraith, welcome her back from the dead. Give her rich meat and blood sausage and good ale. She has well earned it.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / monticello]
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