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In the depths of space, a tiny little spore, borne on the solar winds, drifted past the devastated remains of Phunulon...through the spaces left by the Great Conjunction, pausing briefly to drop a sibling spore on the abandoned but still thriving world of Cluckulon, before getting caught up by an errant feather.
Carried once more aloft into space on the particle trail left by the evacuating chicken people, the spore's travel through space continued, slowing down only as it passed between a moon and its planet, before getting caught in the world's gravity.
Instead of burning up on entry into the atmosphere, the spore gently wafted into the pink and orange clouds, before catching a breeze and alighting beside a single red rose growing on a hilltop. The rose opened its petals curiously and bent to inspect the little bluish spore that had traveled so far to land here of all places in space.
After a long silence to consider the tiny spore, the rose returned to its original position and closed its petals. But overhead, a single tiny cloud formed and a gentle rain fell, allowing the spore to open, release its seed, and settle into the comforting embrace of the fertile soil.
The rose waited. In the morning, the tiny spore had taken root, and begun sending up a tiny yellow-and-green shoot. The rose bent carefully over the new seedling, making sure it got partial sunlight. The seedling responded by growing little by little over the planet's peculiar day-night cycle. The rose moved aside so the new shoot could get moonlight, and it seemed to thrive from that as well.
“Maurice?”
“Oui, ma chere?”
“I have a feeling, deep in my core, that this little flower is not just a new growth on me, but that it … means something.”
“But what, cherie?”
“Wander. He's in trouble. I just know it.”
Maurice, the moon, brightened at the name of the old friend who brought him together with his love. “What makes you think that, Janet?”
Below Maurice, who orbited her constantly, Janet the planet rustled several of her trees in restless thought. “Who else could have kept a tiny little seed pod alive in a spore long enough to travel through space and reach me?”
Maurice considered for a moment, going gibbous as he pondered Janet's words. “This is a fair point, my sun and stars. But what shall we do to help him? We don't know where he is. Or what kind of trouble he is in.”
Janet's oceans lapped against her shorelines – troubled waters growing stormy with her concern. “What can we do?” she wondered, mountain ranges rumbling and grumbling with her growing unease.
“We can find him. We can help him, non?” Maurice suggested. “You do not have sentients populating you. I've seen what you can do, ma amore.”
“So sweet,” Janet crooned at her moon, who was always shining compliments on her. He had no other way to show his love without colliding with her. “But you're right. Perhaps we should go looking for Wander … and Sylvia.” Janet's beautiful flowering meadows wilted a little in shame for how she'd treated Sylvia in her loneliness and jealousy. Some time had passed since then. She hoped the Zbornak would remember her as she was once she had come to her senses.
“Toute de suite,” agreed Maurice. “Where shall we begin?”
“Just a moment, darling,” Janet said. “This is not the proper outfit for meeting up with Wander if he's in trouble.” The ground quaked as continents shifted, tectonic plates ground up against one another, and magma boiled to the surface, as Janet traded her tropical appearance for something much craggier and more combative-looking. Thorny and carniverous plants twined into deadly brambles across her equator and over her northern hemisphere. “You too, Maurice.”
“Oui, of course.” Maurice turned his dark side toward his beloved Janet, and she fired lava bombs at him, coating his back in protective stalgmites. They looked like a true battle couple, and on a moment of unspoken agreement, both of them began to spin faster and faster, as they broke free of their orbits.
“We're coming, Wander!” Janet shouted into the spaceways, picking up speed as she slingshotted around her sun. Before her, other spores from the plant that grew beside her hilltop rose laid a breadcrumb trail to where she was sure she would find her friend. As she followed them, Janet welcomed them to the hilltop with the shoot that had already grown enough to flower. She grew rock formations to protect the hilltop and its new flowerings.
It was not long before Janet's planetary intuition was confirmed. She had resided far on the edge of the galaxy. It was why she had been out of her mind with loneliness when Wander had found her and spoken so kindly to and about her. But the closer she and Maurice got to the center, the more dread she felt, chilling the magma in her subterranean channels until it formed rocky blockages.
“What has been happening?” Janet demanded in a whisper only Maurice could hear.
“La devastation, il est terrible,” Maurice agreed, voice hushed. The planets they passed didn't shine with life, or glow with potential. They were broken, blackened, dead. Maurice peered one crater through a planet which had been blasted clear through its center. “What could have done this?”
“Dominator,” said a voice that resonated through Janet's ore veins. Janet paused and listened, thrusting iron through her heated core and then out through her surface to form an antenna to better hear the signal.
All through the galaxy, sentients were passing on the word, the warning. Dominator was a destructor. One who destroyed for the sake of destroying, and nothing else. One who found no value in love, beauty, or hope. One who found joy in taking life and happiness from others. One who thought Wander, the one who helped them all evacuate, who helped them find safe planets outside her swath, was a fool and whose destruction she most planned to relish.
“No!” Janet gasped, her south pole growing even colder at the idea of this evil alien pursuing her dearest friend. “Maurice, we must hurry. We have to find him and help him!” Janet rearranged the silicon on her beaches, heating it with lightning from her stormy, worried spirit. Before long she had a miles-long reflector on her western side, large enough to flash messages, or to focus into a beam weapon.
“He's not a fighter,” Janet said, with determination. “But I am.”
Maurice, for his part, said nothing, continuing only to follow in her wake. He did not speak of his fear that his beloved Janet would meet the fate of the planets they passed. He knew she would not be dissuaded. He swore only to carry her story to the stars if he was lucky enough to live through the battle he knew was coming.
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