Never Let The Sprigs Wilt

I woke up with the sun, as always. There wasn’t a Vulpeculan alive who could sleep through the blue-white rays of our sun, not a one.

Sand slipped into my tent, burying me in my sleeping bag. I pushed it off, the grains latching onto my coat of tan fur. There was no time to clean, there never was.

My uniform was gone, torn to shreds in a hail of gunfire (And thank God, thank God I was not.). The soles of my boots had worn away and I got rid of them, the hot sands blistered my feet just as they had my ancestors.

My gun remained. No amount of oil could clear it of the sand and grit clogging its fine machinery, but she still worked. I would find a new one and take it the moment I could, but for now she was mine.

I no longer even had a helmet, for what little good it did me. It fell from my brow the moment I fled into the hills during that one horrible skirmish.

Wrapping myself in tattered rags, loosely sewn together to make a robe the color of sand, I threw the sling of my rifle across my shoulder.

A tiny sprig rolled out of my bag. The smell of pine filled my nostrils as I picked it up and let its sharp needles run across my pads.

It was green, the humans said. Green, not yellow, though it looked like the latter to my species. I must always remember that it is green, the color of life, the color of the future, the color of a planet revived. Evergreen, just like our cause.

I slipped the little branch into a pocket across my heart, displaying it proudly. The Vulpeculan Republican Resistance might have capitulated to the Regulian Empire, surrendered itself for promises of nominal freedom in exchange for hunting its own down, but we would never give up. They and their Chancellor chose to be slaves while we let Lady Liberty and Father Anarchy guide our bullets.

We must never let the sprig wilt.

There weren’t many left of us, that much was clear as I exited my tent and looked over my comrades. The handful of us were all huddled around a stewpot and I tried not to catch wind of whatever foul food was being cooked up for breakfast. The less you thought of such things the better.

Let your mind wander to romance. Focus on freedom, liberty, resistance, the cause, heroism…the fantasies we need to wash out the taste of struggle. Let those take you over, plant their roots in your mind, and you can die free.

“Comrade!” a sharp whisper rolled over a dune to our right.

Marsay slid down the dune, her black paws dancing across the sand. One paw was on the tiny cross that dangled from her neck, the other was on her binoculars. A sprig of spruce was tucked between her left ear and crown. 

It wasn’t good news, nor bad news. We no longer celebrated nor panicked at such things. It was just news, nothing more.

“Armored convoy.”

Those were the words she told me. 

It was time to move.

I trailed behind Marsay, her tail sweeping back and forth as she climbed the dune. Her scent carried across the clean sand, filling my nose with worry, anxiety, and even love.

She loved me and I loved her. But we had a greater love to stoke before us, one of fire and steel. We both knew it and accepted it.

I didn’t need binoculars to see it. There was a column of vehicles slowly snaking between the dunes. Covered supply trucks flanked by two APCs with computer-controlled machine guns and one light cannon. They could shred us all to ribbons without so much as poking their snouts out of their holes.

The yellow and green (Though it looked like gold to me) flag fluttered above the head APC. What was once the flag of resistance had become the flag of collaboration. They could steal the flag from us but we would never let the sprigs wilt.

We were flat on the sand with our arms ready, all of us. Yilot was now beside me, his rocket launcher laid on the ground before the small Vulpeculan with the very last of our anti-tank rockets attached and ready to go. A blue beret, a luxury that carried a tiny twig of cedar fastened to it, was on his head.

We waited, watching the column slowly advance. What few soldiers were visible were hanging onto the sides of the supply trucks. I couldn’t blame them for not marching or patrolling, for who could find energy in working for such a debased army?

Belief was a power unto itself. We were starving, dehydrated, and sick, but we kept on going. We had to keep on going.

I ordered half of us back to the camp. We were outgunned and I knew for a fact that unless Yilot aimed perfectly, that APC wouldn’t stop, let alone blow up. Once that happened, they’d be on us.

“Now.”

The rocket hissed. A trail of smoke swept from our position and down towards the APC. None of their guns had so much as put a bead on our rocket until it was too late.

Dust blew out from the front of the APC along with a flare of yellow flames. My comrades opened fire, bullets plinking off of the trucks and APCs as their soldiers took cover.

My rifle jammed just before I finished my first mag. I cleared the bullet and swapped out for a new one without even looking before firing blindly again.

From the distance and with all the smoke and cordite in the air, I could not get a bead on the enemy’s feelings, but I knew they were afraid. They needed to take cover until we were done, they figured. Smart move.

When the smoke began to blow away and I caught my first sight of what remained of the lead APC, I whistled and gave the order to retreat. “Run, run!”

Their traitor flag was ablaze and the front treads shattered. The guns swerved and fired upon us just after we slid down the dune. The convoy was alive, yes, but the head of the snake had been cut off and they would have to continue on with only one side defended.

They would fear the next band of our kind. Nervously watching the dunes and cliffs for any hint of an unbowed Vulpeculan. They could not even hang put, for they would not know when we might return, nor how badly supplied we were.

We were always around, watching. We were too afraid to use radio nor anything else, but whispers and stray scents across the dunes gave us word that the resistance was still around. Small but not broken.

We took whatever we could pick up in a snap from our camp, leaving the rest of it for the enemy to discover. It would not be the first time we lost some tents and sleeping bags, nor would it be the last.

But one thing we all kept were our sprigs. Mine in my breast, Marsay’s tucked between her ear, Yilot inside the band of his hat, so lucky to have one still; and the others wherever they could.

For there was only one thing we loved more than each other and that was the promise of a better future. Food may run down to grains of saltrice, water may be mere drops sucked out from sparse cacti, and some say the very air of our planet might burn away one day.

All of those material matters paled compared to the greater idea. An idea that small species might be free from tyranny both large and small. Neither chained up in a dungeon nor begging the Empire for scraps of food.

We would die if need be, but fought to live.

And so we ran across the desert, gunfire and shouts growing distant behind us. We were safe and we were free. The enemy would never find us, so afraid of the desert and its perils that the moment they’d gain the nerve our paw-prints would be swept away by the wind. 

Smiles were plastered across our muzzles for though we had not stolen a single gun nor won a battle, we had fled from the scene with laughter and given the enemy a gentle reminder.

A reminder that we will always be around, we will never bow down to them. 

And most of all: we will never, ever let the sprigs wilt.

For we love them more than death.