“Can you tell me about the dreams, Edgar?”

“Is this some sort of test? Trying to see if they cracked me?”

“Not at all. Your performance in the field has been exemplary. You’re the best pilot in the entire cosmic navy. Your victories more than speak for themselves. All I want is to make sure things stay that way.”

“Dr. Fields—”

“Please, call me Violet.” 

“Fine. Violet. I appreciate your concern, but really, I’m okay. They’re just nightmares.”

“People are worried for your wellbeing, Edgar.”

“Oh yeah? What did Kelly tell you?” 

“Conversations between myself and Sergeant Varey are confidential, just as conversations between the two of us are, you know that. But, just between us? There are people on this ship who care about you, and they’d feel a lot better if you talked to me.” 

“Alright… fine. You wanna hear about the dreams, Violet?”

“I do. I’m on your side here, Edgar.”

“Let’s talk about the dreams, then... They always start the same way; I’m back on that plant ship. I’ve been here for… I dunno—a few days at least? They’ve kept me in this cell. It was a nice cell, though, like having a house all to myself: comfortable clothes, fresh food, plenty of entertainment options. The cell in the dream is the same cell I had when I was actually there. Actually, the dream always starts out pretty much identical to how it was in real life. See there was this weed—and it’s always there in the dream, too, even if it doesn’t actually show up in the flesh. I just know instinctively that it’s somewhere close by—anyway it visited me a few times while I was held captive. I think its name was Neya? and something with an M for a last name. It kept telling me how it was going to make me its pet, but that I wasn’t ready yet. And the way it would talk to me… it was like the fucking xeno really thought it was doing a good thing—for me, I mean. As though it really thought making me its pet would actually help me. I’m getting off track, though. The last day I was there, it came to me, and told me the time had come for it to ‘make me’ ready, then it just picked me up and carried me off like it was nothing. I fought the best I could, of course, but there wasn’t anything I could do. 

“Next thing I know, it sets me down in some room, and that’s where the dream starts. The room I’m in, it’s filled with the other captives from Frigid Break. The weeds are all around us, we’re unarmed, a little bit sedated. It’s warm, but not in a bad way. There’s furniture for us to sit on, and it looks comfortable. I consider taking advantage of it, but nobody else is. I don’t want to be the odd man out, so I stay standing. We’re all waiting around for something to happen. I know something is wrong. I’m on edge, my skin is crawling, itching, heart’s pounding, I feel like I’m sinking. My thoughts are running a mile a minute, trying to understand what the weeds’ are actually up to. What does making me ‘ready’ mean? I’m a loyal terran, they’re fucking delusional if they think they’re going to make me one of those stars-damned pets.”

“You’re getting a little worked up, Edgar. Take a deep breath, relax.”

“Sorry—I—sorry, Doctor. Sometimes it’s like I’m there.”

“Again, just Violet. Is it easier to remember that way?”

“I guess so.”

“Would you be okay slipping back into it then? Close your eyes, and tell me what you see?”

“Yeah… yeah. The plants are telling us they’ve got this special tech they’re trying out. It’s supposed to make the process of domestication—of enslaving us—go a bit smoother. They say it’s for ‘feralists’ like us who are prone to ‘hurting ourselves’ instead of just ‘being good pets and submitting.’ They tell us it’s safe, none of us will be harmed, and soon we’ll all be ‘happy, beloved pets.’ We argue, protest, threaten them. A lot of us laugh at them too. It’s easier than fighting, I think. We can’t overpower them, but we can laugh at them, remind them that the spirit of terra is unbreakable. The ones who do resist more physically are restrained, carried to where they want us. There’s this door on the far side of the room. Corporal Mattis is the closest one to the door, and they decide she’s going first. She’s swearing up a storm, cussing out the weeds with all manner of profanities, swearing that she’s gonna kill them, torture them, burn them, you name it. Two of them grab her, hold her in place. One of them is supposed to be her ‘owner,’ the other is just making sure things go smoothly. She tries to headbutt one of them in the face, I can’t tell which. They both just smile at her, and tell her she’s going to be okay, then she spits in their faces and starts talking about using them as compost. 

“All that bluster doesn’t accomplish anything, though. They pick her up, tell her she doesn’t need to struggle anymore, that she can just relax, and soon she’ll be ‘safe and happy in her owner’s vines.’ The disturbing part is… it sounds like they’re being genuine? Like they actually think they’re doing the right thing. They aren’t mocking her. But anyway, she starts laughing. We join in. And then they carry her through the door; the door shuts behind her. No-one’s laughing after that. A couple moments later one of the affini who carried her inside—the one who isn’t supposed to ‘own’ her—comes out, Mattis and the other one are still in there, though. It gets real quiet; nobody says shit. We try not to think about how horribly she must be getting tortured, or worse, in there.

“I mean, Mattis is the fucking worst, militant terran supremacist to the extreme, sneeze too loud near her and she’ll call you a secret plant-fucking traitor, but still, she’s one of us. The plants seem to pick up on our fear. They try to reassure us some more. A few people break, say they’ll be good pets, they just don’t want to go inside. Those ones get carried off into a corner and soothed. I don’t pay them any mind. My eyes are locked on the door. She’s dead in there. They killed her; I’m sure of it, and we’re next. I want to scream, to fight, to kill every last one of those weeds, but I’m just scared. I’ve never been tortured before; I don’t know what it’s like. And they’re so much stronger than we are, what’s the point, you know?

“From there, I don’t know, time passes. It’s a dream, so it’s a little vague. I think it was a handful of minutes back when I was really there, but either way, eventually the doors open. Corporal Mattis is in the doorway, but she’s different. She’s not wearing her uniform anymore, she’s got this flowery, lacey, pastel dress on. And there’s this distant, blissful, docile look to her. She’s just standing there, arms limp at her sides, looking right through all of us with a dopey smile on her face. A vine comes up behind her and gently ushers her back into the room with the rest of us. She seems to snap out of it, and gives a bright smile and an excited nod, then takes these energetic, stumbling steps forward. She trips, and the vines from before catch her, then set her back on her feet. We can’t actually see the xeno though, it's still inside the other room. 

“Anyway, Mattis is standing inside the room where the rest of us are now. She starts looking around, has this really lost, confused look on her face. Then she seems to finally notice us, her eyes focus a bit. She starts trembling, hyperventilating, she scrambles away from us, starts running toward the door, back where she came. Then that affini who was restraining her earlier steps into the doorway, and catches her, wraps her up in its vines. Mattis just ragdolls. The weed picks her up, turns her around in its vines to face her. And then… then….”

“It’s alright, Edgar, you’re safe.”

“She just starts crying. But not like, scared or sad, or angry. It’s relief. She throws herself into the plant’s arms, starts rubbing her cheek into its chest, calling it ‘Mistress,’ begging this fucking weed to protect her—to protect her from us. ‘Don’t let the feralists hurt me.’ She keeps whimpering that, over and over again. And the plant tucks her into its chest, shields us from her view. It starts comforting her. She starts to calm down, then she starts moaning, begging, telling it how much she loves it, how sorry she is for resisting in the first place. The weed says something to her, it sounds nurturing, kind. It looks up, and casts its gaze over to the rest of us, gives us this smug, knowing grin, then walks off with Mattis in her arms, happy as can be.”

“Is that how it ends?”

“The dream? no, it keeps going. The plants pick their next victim. We’re not jeering or laughing anymore. Sometimes someone insists it’s not gonna work on them, but I mean… they got Mattis, y’know? She was biggest xenohater on the whole ship, a real sadistic fuck. Seriously, everyone feared her, hated her, or both. Her only friend was the airlock. And they turned her into that. So of course, nobody can actually resist. From there it just keeps going. Someone gets put in, sometimes threatening, sometimes begging, sometimes just shell-shocked, then a few minutes later they come out all soft and happy and dazed looking. One of the plants scoops them up, and suddenly that’s all they care about; they forget the whole world for it. Sometimes they look a little different, too. A bit shorter, muscles faded away; some scrawny private came out looking so much like a girl I thought I just somehow missed them putting the next soldier in, but no, it was the same person. That one was… unsettling, really rattled me. I mean, if they could do that in a matter of minutes, then was there really any limit? A line starts to form; I dunno if the plants have herded us into one, or we’ve just given up? 

“I’m toward the back of the line, just like it was… when it really happened. Only, in the dream, nobody saves us. The Cosmic Navy doesn’t come. The marines don’t blow open the door and rescue us. Instead, the line just moves forward, one by one. From there, it usually goes one of two ways. Either it gets to be my turn, the doors open, and I wake up, or instead, there’s this other person ahead of me. I don’t know who it is. I never see their face, but I know that if they go into that room, it’s all over. The thing is, I can’t do anything. I even have this urge to go in ahead of them, to buy them time, but I just can’t budge. I’m too much of a coward. I can’t even move outside of how I’m… ‘supposed’ to. It's like I’m following a script, and the script tells me to wait my turn, so I do. I just watch, increasingly frightened as one by one, my comrades are turned into these blushy, fragile little things that gasp and moan at the mere sight of those god damn weeds. Everything they once stood for, that we all stood for, just gets washed away. And how are any of us supposed to fight against that? What does it even mean to be terran if the weeds can just take it all away that easily? 

“Eventually, it comes to be their turn. They get led in, real calm like, resigned, y’know? The doors shut. Time passes, just like any other. But, it has to be different this time. Whoever they are, they can’t crack like the rest. They need to resist, they will resist. If they don’t it’s… bad. It just is. There won’t be any hope without them fighting alongside us—and they’re already in there. And I’m praying at this point. I don’t even believe in that, but what else can I do? 

“A few minutes go by, and suddenly I can just feel it: the weeds are done in there. Whatever goes on inside that room, it’s over. My eyes are locked on the door, hands are twitching. The anticipation is the worst part. Time slows, my vision is getting hazy. The whole world is starting to swim. The doors are opening, but they’re so far away now. And that person, they’re in there. They step through the door. I can just barely see their outline, but it’s too hazy to make out their face and—”

“Edgar?”

“Can’t see’em, so blurry.”

“Eddy!” 

“Don’t go.”

“Eddy It’s not real. Babe, you need to wake up! You aren’t there. You’re in bed, You’re home. We got you out, remember?” 

“Fugoff; ‘sgoddamn weed ship’ll never be my home. Tell me wha’ happened. Whadja do to ‘em? Where’d they… go?”

“You’re not there. It was just a dream.”

“Kelly? What are you?... fuck. I didn’t hit you in my sleep this time, did I?”

“I can take it, but no, you didn’t. Did you forget to take the meds Dr. Fields gave you?”

“I took ‘em. Ugh, I took ‘em, and they don’t fucking work.”

“Same dream as always?”

“Yeah. This time I was watching as that… other person got put in. What time is it?”

“Four in the morning, still got a couple more hours of rest. You should take it. Gonna need it.”

“Mmh, you’re right. I wanna be wide awake when I see the look on those damn weeds’ faces as the whole fleet comes down on them.”