Petty Feuds

By TheJudddman

What you have to understand is that Earth sucks. At this point in time, in the far future, the main planet of earth is a ruthlessly hot, smoldering mess of corporations fighting over resources, land, and they are all taking whatever crap they can find.

With this violence, anyone can understand why a mass exodus of people would take place. A generation of men, women, theys, thems, and what have you left earth behind, looking to carve out a name for themselves and plant their destinies in the ground and watch them grow and inspire generations upon generations of…

Galactic Expatriates.

Except…reality is often more disappointing than fantasy.

Since the world as we know it is embroiled in a conflict between everyone and everything, the major players in the neverending war of the earth don’t really have time to focus on so-called “Pressing issues” like human rights or using taxpayer dollars responsibly. 

Also, said corporations have tapped into the market of agencies for setting these Expatriates up with just enough materials to be able to carve out a life for themselves, and considering the negligence towards human rights, you can guess that some people got scammed and have been shipped to places that are isolated, hard to terraform, or generally lackluster in their conditions.

Such is the case for our two farmers.

What is basically a rock, desolate with sparse weeds and spiraled ferns known as Talcan 2 is slightly smaller than Pluto, only taking about thirty-six point six days to circumnavigate on foot. It’s purple-grey rocky desert contrasting with the white speckled black void of space.

This was where Octavius Spagan began farming five years earlier.

Now, 25 acres of fertilized, artificially planted soil were filled with kragfruit trees, pike roots, and alien wheats and grains. The barren purple rock looked a lot more vibrant than the other dumb rocks lightyears away.

Octavius himself was a solid man. He was a veteran of 5 years having fought for the HENSEN company, who are surprisingly responsible for harvesting precious gems. Octavius was tall, well built with subtle muscle definition attained from his service. His skin was a light gray and developed gills for breathing. His Brown hair was stained black from ash and he had scars along his chest from shrapnel.

He stepped out of his Titanium reinforced HENSEN standard issue permanent housing unit, basket in hand and moonscreen slathered across his tank top brandishing form, he strolled casually to the kragfruit section of his farm. 

He grabbed the hard, stone-like fruit of the nearest tree, fingers gripping across all of the fruit’s morel mushroom-like pockmarks. A swish and a flick of his hand and into the basket the fruit went with a thatchy Thud.

With his barren feet on soft dirt terraformed with company provided dirt, (Yes that’s a thing here) he enjoyed going about his day, or at least that’s what he told himself. 

Truth is, his life here was awfully isolated. There were only a few other people on the planet, but they were spread out in their locations for miles with very little chances to converse with each other. Most here were veterans for their companies, and with some of them believing a bit too much in the ideologies of their respective companies. The occasional clash would happen between two opposing parties. Octavius wasn’t much of an exception, for his company subscribed to the beliefs held by the late, great Portimus Hensen, the founder of HENSEN and the creator of Maxxovism, where firm belief in order and discipline was above all else.

In fact, Octavius was such a firm believer in all of this that his company-provided farming equipment still looked as if it were brand new, despite being under daily use for the past five years. That’s how deep the belief goes. His company loves order so much that any inkling or notion of disrupting it is seen as extending from the macros of individuals or groups of people to the micros of an untightened bolt or a loose nail. If it disrupts functions in any way, then it ought to be fixed as soon as possible.

This would not be so easy to enforce when referring to Tomas Hinger.

Tomas was a rebel, an outlaw. He did not ally himself with any company, nor did he really like anybody except for his mother (May God rest her soul), his own privacy, friends, and people who make other people in suits really, really, angry.

He spent most of his life on the run from authorities enforcing the moral foundations of not staying out late and not feeding the hungry man on the side of the road. Tomas did not like these rules. So he didn’t follow them. He did not like the people who followed the rules, so they did not like him.

Despite this rebellious behavior, Tomas did enjoy his peace and quiet, so he took up the role of a slightly humble farmer to pass the time and to hide out from the law as a consequence of he and his friends’ exploits. He was able to go to Talcan 2 because of a favor from a colleague. His equipment was not of the best quality and he wasn’t the most well-versed in the art of farming, but he seemed to want to try anyway.

He only arrived here about a month ago, stationed not too far away from Octavius’ plot of land and did not want much to do with anyone.

The heft of the shovel.

The clang of the metal.

The whirring of the Moisture-extractor.

Octavius had to occasionally extract the meager amounts of moisture from the only slightly damp soil of the planet to use on the plants in the offworld soil he planted them in. The native soil was not rich enough in nitrogen to sustain his crop.

In the distance, Tomas, a young, bald man with dark skin and a scar on his right eyebrow had stepped into his car, started it with a sputtering vroom and set off from his driveway to find a general store that could hopefully provide him with a book or two about farming so he would finally be able to know what the hell he’s doing after a month of failure. 

Inching up and out of his driveway, Tomas turned the barely functional truck to the right, down the quiet dirt road.

In a few minutes, Tomas’ rage would quell to immeasurable proportions.

All of this would occur upon seeing the dimly faded HENSEN logo lying across the housing unit Octavius owned.

Octavius knew. He may have been a simple farmer but he wasn’t an idiot.

He has been hearing reports of a brutal murder of a fellow HENSEN employee. His house has been vandalized with anti-Maxxovist rhetoric and the occasional expletive.

Fellow veterans, working alongside his fellow brothers and sisters in a quest to root out all that is disorderly in the world. A comrade, dead. Even if he was retired, his passion for delivering justice lived on.

And Octavius had his suspicions…

For Tomas, however, it is unsure whether or not he committed said murder, But his emotions were in fact quite definite and incensed.

His mother disappeared. Had gone missing. All of this was under supposed rumors of assisting fugitives into neighboring sectors. One does not get a fair trial anymore. Every enforcer is judge, jury, and executioner.

And the one who made his mother disappear worked with HENSEN.

These two men had never met before.

They would soon know each other in the worst ways.

Two residences.

Two farms.

Two kingdoms.

Two very angry men.

That night, Octavius stashed his standard issue enforcer pistol in his nightstand.

One of them had to go.