The Silicarite

Chapter 11: Heartbreak (Mercury)

Oh hi, fellow, ho! / Where the mistbellows blow! / Beware the betrayer who stoops so far low! / Hi, fellow, ho! / Now the stars are aglow! / Velumar grants us our safe passage home.
-"The Apostatical Sailor", chorus.

Mercury braced its limb, wishing to have some level of give to be able to move, but woefully attached tight to the Heart. The propagation process was nearly complete... but according to Tintin's scans, the deposition was only 90% finished. Fortunately, even with only approximately half of the gem intact, Tintin indicated there was still enough propagite to form a new Silicarite.

Mercury didn't dare attempt to move the remains of the Heart until after propagation had completed, at risk of damaging its own core. It and the Heart were essentially immobile for the time being.

"LIAR," Pentagonal Prism repeated, the vessel firing another crystal blade that barely swept past Mercury and the Heart. "DECEIVER. FALSIFIER," Each of Penta's words were accentuated with another razor missing Mercury's structure and the Heart by fractions of a unit. The discs tore through the overgrowth just past the split Heart, carving new paths through the jungle.

"This guy just can't take a hint, huh?" Battus' facial bones were bared, but this time, the translator noted his vicious intent.

"Pentagonal Prism is exasperatingly persistent. It must have-"

The Killer Quartz dropped almost fifteen units from its ship, landing on the sand with a noticeable impact tremor. After recovering from the collision with the planet's surface, it began its advance up towards Mercury and the Heart, marching deliberately. The vessel's autopilot maintained its altitude to hover above the surface of the water for a moment, before flying over the jungle to land in the canopy several hundred units away.

"Did you think I wouldn't be able to track the propagation signal straight to the Heart? Your lying only served to delay me!"

"Battus... flee!" Mercury ordered. Penta was here for the Crystalline Heart, and likely to destroy Mercury as well. There was no logic for Battus to sacrifice himself.

"I'll hold him off until you can finish!" Battus began to move away from the Heart, scooping up chunks of the crystals that had fragmented when the Heart was split. He began tossing them at the blue Silicarite.

"Hey! Asshole! Over here!" The projectiles had hardly any effect against Penta's outer structure, but it was enough to garner its attention for a moment.

"Stay out of this, pet. This is between us Silicarites," Penta's upper limbs shifted into razor-sharp curved blades, turning back towards Mercury. An enormous section of the boulder's remains collided with it, nearly knocking it over, an impressively large burden for the human to launch with significant force.

"Very well. If you insist," Pentagonal Prism recovered its stance, and began shifting towards Battus. "I will not deny your death wish."

"Aw, [EXPLETIVE CENSORED]," Battus dropped the rest of the geode fragments and accelerated into a patch of the remaining foliage in the clearing. He disappeared through the underbrush, and Penta followed in close pursuit, slashing and clearing away the organic growths.

"PROPAGATION DEPOSITION. NINETY. SIX. PERCENT," Tintin flashed to Mercury, wheeling around at the Silicarite's base columns. It almost seemed to be standing guard in Battus' stead.

Mercury focused, wishing the process to occur at a quicker pace. It could not perceive Battus nor Pentagonal Prism from this vantage point, and it was eager to not be attached to the Heart any longer. There was little it could assist with until deposition had finished.

"NINETY. NINE. PERCENT."

Mercury's core deposition began to slow, the dark structures reforming and retracting back to its center of mass in Mercury's central spire. The sensations of propagation were certainly foreign, but there were more pressing matters on the Silicarite's mind at the moment.