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Grass Eaters 3 | 93 | Mercy of Predators
🕑 Added 2025-05-28 15:47:01 +0000 UTCTRNS Crete, Spofke (25,000 Ls)
POV: Carla Bauernschmidt, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Rear Admiral)
“We will… consider the information you have sent us about the… situation in the Znos system. But we will need to verify it ourselves first.”
Carla nodded earnestly. “Thank you. That is all we ask.”
“Regardless… before that happens, our fleet must traverse this system,” the ten whiskers said. “We have already been delayed here for too long.”
“Understood.”
“Is your previous offer of an escort through this system still valid?” Telnokt asked nervously. “And perhaps through the next couple of systems?”
“Of course. We can provide you protection from the Ace and her ships. But if you come under attack from… another Znosian fleet, we do not have the authority to intervene.”
“That is enough for us. Thank you… human. For— for…” her voice trailed off.
“No problem, Ten Whiskers. We’ll see you around.”
The connection cut out.
As it did, Beth spoke up, pointing to a blinking light on her console. “Admiral, the Ace is waiting for you on the line.”
“Yeah, yeah, bring her on. I’m sure she has something to say about—”
The video popped up on the screen, and the old pirate didn’t wait for introductions before her spittle started flying.
“You… treacherous Rep fuck!” the Ace screamed in uncontained rage. “We had them! I had them! You alien-loving piece of scum!”
Carla looked into the camera calmly. “This is Republic Navy Rear Admiral—”
“I know who you are, asshole!”
“SRN ship, you have just opened fire towards a Republic fleet in an apparent breach of the Treaty of Hano,” Carla continued with linguistic precision. “As you may have been unaware of our ships’ positions, the Republic First Expeditionary Fleet will not use this as an excuse for turning you, and every one of your ships and bases in this system, into an expanding ball of plasma… at this time. However. Now that you are aware of the facts, if you insist on continuing—”
“A breach of— Fuck you and your high horse—”
“If you insist on continuing to target our ships after being informed of the consequences, we will not hesitate to use deadly force to defend ourselves. That is all. Have a wonderful Spofke day, Ace. Crete, out.”
And with that, she cut the connection.
“You think she’ll get the message?” Speinfoent looked at Carla worriedly. “What if she—”
She let a slow grin fill her face. “Frankly, I don’t care.” She pointed out toward the direction of the Ace’s personal ship. “And I don’t think Admiral Ibarra of the Sonora sitting on top of her ship does either. If the Ace wants to screw around and test us, like I’ve said before: I look forward to seeing the big, glorious statue they’ll build for all of us back in Sol.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Naval Station Europa, Europa (100 km)
POV: Ditvish, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Zero Whiskers)
Ditvish had gotten used to the artificial 24-hour day and night cycle of the orbital station that now housed him.
His schedule was simple, repetitive. Routine was good. It kept him sane.
In the morning, his guards woke him up and took him to their mess for breakfast. If he behaved and they were feeling generous, it’d be something good, perhaps even a dessert. If not, something boring but serviceable. He survived on Dominion Navy rations for decades, so pretty much everything they fed him was a superior alternative. He did decline their offer for him to try meats though; the very thought repulsed him, even if he half-believed them when they insisted it wasn’t made from a real, living creature.
After breakfast, he’d read one of the many books off his shelf. Lately, he’d taken up writing himself. It felt odd, but seeing his own words on one of their datapads… it did make him feel better. Even if the words were about fictional events.
Lunch would be served at noon. Lunch was usually better than breakfast, but not as good as dinner. Again, he couldn’t find a real reason to complain.
After lunch, various people would come to interrogate him. In the beginning, it was mostly about military matters. People in their Navy, asking questions about his job.
“What is the allowable intrusion response time of a warship in the Grantor perimeter?”
“How long does it take a numbered supply fleet to fill up on counter-missile munitions?”
“Which State Security official is responsible for long-range reconnaissance in Znos?”
“What is the minimum lock-on range for a current generation planetary anti-missile defense?”
He only knew some of the answers, and he’d sometimes refuse to answer. It didn’t matter. No matter how much he tried to resist, the machines they had read whatever they wanted off his brain anyway. No amount of biological willpower could overcome the electric charges running through his neurons, betraying him and his Dominion.
On some days, they put him in an observation room to get his thoughts while they ran one of their naval exercises. One of them was a simulated invasion of an unnamed Dominion system, but he instantly recognized the orbital defenses of Znos, no matter what language the labels were written in. At some point, he gave up trying to resist and actually tried to help defend the simulated Znos; he lost anyway, but he forced the Terrans to break one of their own rules during the exercise. He considered that a minor personal victory.
After a while, they tired of those kinds of questions and jobs. His knowledge became outdated, and his people back in the Dominion had obviously changed enough things for what he knew to be ineffective. The interrogations became of a different nature. The people who asked him questions were less curious about his fleet and more about his people. A few of them didn’t even wear uniforms and ranks.
Eventually, they tired of those kinds of questions too. The interrogations became less frequent. He had more time to himself. To read, to write.
Ditvish was in the middle of a particularly difficult passage when his cell door opened. He looked up.
It was Hersh. “Hello, Ten Whiskers.”
He nodded back in the predator’s own body language, which he’d learned during his time in captivity. “Hersh. More bad news for my people?”
To his surprise, Hersh simply grunted and sat down opposite of him.
Ditvish arched his brow at the Terran operative. “You forgot something.”
“Huh?”
“The camera,” Ditvish reminded him, pointing a claw at the camera in the corner, and then the transparent window of the observation room. “You forgot to turn the recording devices off.”
Hersh shrugged. “No idea what you’re talking about, Bun.”
“Huh?”
The cell door opened again, and another human walked in. A woman this time, he could tell. To his surprise, the insignia on her uniform was not one he’d seen before. It had more stars on it than he’d ever seen. It only took him another two seconds to figure it out.
She sat down, holding her hand out to him. “Ten Whiskers Ditvish.”
He shook it with his paw as he’d learned. “Fleet Admiral Amelia Waters, it appears.”
“Very good,” Amelia smiled with a closed mouth, shooting a glance at Hersh. “You’ve updated him.”
Hersh nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He’s properly house-trained.”
“Properly house—” She sighed. “Why do you spooks always have to make things sound so weird?” Amelia turned to Ditvish, gesturing to Hersh with one finger. “I trust my own State Security goons here have been keeping you up to date on the latest news from Znos, Ten Whiskers.”
“Yes, Fleet Admiral.”
“What do you think about it? The latest… schism from your own people.”
Ditvish considered his response for a moment. “The schismatics will likely fail, but your people will have at least a decade of peace to prepare. Likely more. You will wait and watch. And when the fighting is done, you will be in a solid position to continue the war. Eventually, no matter who wins, Znos will make severe concessions to your people. Concessions that will likely lay the foundations for yet another schism, which you will also encourage. Unless it doesn’t, in which case, the armistice will break.”
“Then?”
“Then… we will war again until you find something else. Something like the outlier hatchling problem. I understand now — there is no shortage of such weak points in the Dominion. Our system is built on conquest. We will have war, or we will have schism. The cycle will repeat until our people are destroyed, perhaps yours too along with us if you make all the wrong moves. I suspect this will take some time, perhaps many decades, but it seems… inevitable now.”
“Well, that’s a rather pessimistic reading of our projections.”
“It is the truth…” Ditvish sighed deeply. “These are the consequences of our actions. No one can take responsibility for this but us.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way, you know? What if there can be peace between our people?”
“Peace?” Ditvish asked bitterly. “A nebulous virtue. And a meaningless one. No one wants peace.”
Amelia arched an eyebrow. “That’s not true. We want peace.”
“Really?” he barked out a snort. “You can have it right this moment. Simply order your fleets to cut their thrusters, disable their weapons, and surrender to our Navy. You can have peace. Peace in your time. Peace in our pacification camps. Peace today, peace forever… But even you are not that naïve. What you really want is security. What the Lesser Predators want is justice. And what the Slow Predators want is revenge. No one in this part of the galaxy is the least bit interested in peace.”
Amelia didn’t seem interested in the philosophical debate. “Maybe. Perhaps not peace at any cost. But what about salvation? I can offer that for your people.”
“From who?”
“Ah, clever. Salvation from your Dominion. From your State Security. And with that, maybe… a path towards long-term peace. A long and difficult road, but there is a narrow way through. There must be.”
It didn’t take any more than four of his whiskers to figure out the implication. “You want me to join your favored faction in our schism. One of the losing factions.”
“The Free Znosian Navy, they call themselves.”
“Just 25 systems in schism, and you hope they can take on the entire rest of the Dominion?” he scoffed.
“We only had one, and we’re doing alright.”
He snorted. “That’s not what I meant…”
“And… it’s 25 today.”
Her implication was clear.
Ditvish tilted his head. “What do you want from me, then? You already use my voice and fake my imagery to make your propaganda.”
“We want the real thing,” Amelia said softly. “We want you to do what you were trained to, Fleet Master Ditvish. Imagine yourself at the head of a new navy, without controls or directives from your State Security. One that can do the right thing for your people. This opportunity. I can offer that to you.”
“The Grand Fleet. Currently commanded by Ten Whiskers Telnokt.”
She nodded.
“Has she defected now?” he asked, slightly more intrigued. Even with its outdated ships, controlling the remnants of the old Grand Fleet would change the equation substantially…
“She is… heavily considering it. Her fleet is temporarily moored in an empty system two blinks away from Spofke. She is waiting to decide. Probably just needs something to push her over the edge. Someone. Perhaps someone who grew up and was trained next to her…”
“You think I can convince her.”
“It is possible. She may consider you a traitor. But, last week… for about half an hour, she walked in the same shoes you once did. She faced the complete annihilation of her command. And like you, she took the sensible way out. A situation that very few of your people have been in. She might understand you, and you, her.”
“Why bother asking? You can simply fake my voice and video.”
“She’s not that stupid. If she were, we wouldn’t want her anyway. We need you to go there physically and convince her.”
“If you release me, I could escape back to Znos. Reinforce it with the Grand Fleet and what I’ve learned here. If I help end the schism quickly, my crimes might be forgiven by the Dominion,” he speculated.
The human didn’t blink. “Yeah. You could.”
Ditvish didn’t say anything for a minute. He didn’t trust himself to say what he was thinking out loud. “If I help you, many of our people will die, even if we win… Perhaps you favor that outcome. And perhaps it is merely a side benefit for you.”
She declined to comment on his use of the collective pronoun. “Depends who you ask.”
Ditvish continued, “If we win, we will be at your mercy. We will be at the mercy of predators.”
She hesitated for a moment but nodded firmly. “You will.”
“How will you treat us then?”
“I would say… Better than your people treated everyone else… But that is in poor taste. All I can offer is a guarantee that it will be better than your own people treated you.”
“I’ve been here long enough to know that… is a low bar for you.” Ditvish lowered his head, considering it. “But not for us… I accept. Where do you want me to start?”
Amelia took out her tablet and flipped it upside down for him. “First, the most important thing is consolidating early support with your credibility. With you at the head of the fleet, you can double that 25 systems in very short order without firing many shots.”
“Then?”
“Then, once you solidify your lines, we want you to come back here. With your best officers and troops. We will train you. Actually, we won’t, because the damn Senate pulled the funding for that program again— Anyway, the Malgeir and Granti will train you; they have more resources than we do anyway.”
Ditvish sighed. “Your fickle people— if you can’t commit to this war, why would we do any better? Why should we?”
“Hey, it’s your civilization on the line too, not just ours.” Amelia pointed a finger at him. Then her face softened. “Our people… we are— yes, that short-sightedness is in our nature as well. But our Republic — it is built on this idea that we are defined not by our nature, but by how we overcome them. We are not slaves, beholden to our worst and most fearful impulses. One day, I believe, your people can have that too. And— and I still believe our people will come through. There’s the special elections next month… Anyway, however it happens, you will be trained in our ways. By us, or by our allies. We’ve taught them well— well enough.”
Ditvish mulled over the answer for a few heartbeats but seemed to accept its sincerity. He sat back in his chair. “That might not be necessary. I have already been trained. Perhaps I will ultimately be judged by the disaster that was my last battle, but you should remember… before that, I had many years of success in the Dominion Navy as a frontline fleet commander. A perfect record, until you people came along. I’m not just some ill-bred commander from some backwater—”
The human bared her teeth at him, but he didn’t detect hostility. Not aimed at him anyway. “Yes,” she said. “You have been taught to keep your head above water in the chaos of war. We will teach you to swim in it. To harness the currents of—”
He shrugged. “I do not know how to swim with my head above or under water… But I am sure your analogy will mean something more to me when I learn it.”
“We also have quite a few of your ships in mothball. You guys were very generous with those when attacking Datsot and our home system. You’ll just have to find the people to drive them.”
“Right… Ah, there’s just one thing I would like to do before I leave here.”
“What is it?”
“There is someone I want to talk to.”
Comments
EclipseDragon96
Ha I was right! They are going to get him to join the side their rooting for!
Satafly
What are...oh. Pls no nature
TheArchivist
>reads title >me: don’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsayit
