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Grass Eaters 3 | 85 | One in Twelve I
🕑 Added 2025-05-09 15:47:00 +0000 UTCRation Distribution Center 2128, Shchakst-5
POV: Khukto, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Four Whiskers)
“No,” Sniper Team Angora said again. “I won’t.”
“What?” Fraspi asked, her voice on the radio filled with disbelief.
“No,” Sniper Team Angora repeated a third time. “This is clearly a predator trap. It’s obvious. Anyone civilized can see through this, and we were bred and trained to spot this type of transparent deception. Seven Whiskers, are you sure that these orders you’re operating under— are you sure they are authentic? And how can you be so certain when we know the predators can—”
“You— you— I’ll deal with you later!” Fraspi screeched through the radio. “Sniper Team Blink. Can you see the target?”
Sniper Team Blink was deployed elsewhere, covering another sector around the corner. “Seven Whiskers, we don’t have eyes on the target. I take full responsibility for my error in judgement when I chose this position. Should I shift my position to get visual on the target?”
“No! That’ll be too late! Stay where you are! Sniper Team Cottontail, do you have eyes on the target?”
Sniper Team Cottontail. That’s me! That’s our callsign!
Angora was still on the radio network. “You can’t do this,” they pleaded. “You’d be falling into their trap!”
“Shut up, Angora! That’s a directive!” Fraspi ordered. “Cottontail, are you there?”
Khukto looked horrified at her spotter. “What are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know! I wasn’t trained or bred for this!” he replied in equal panic.
The voice of Sniper Team Angora spoke up again on the radio. “Sniper Team Cottontail… Khukto… Four Whiskers Khukto, think about this for a minute. Like she said, analyze this tactically. Is this insane cull order not exactly what the predators would do? You’ve seen all the training reports and new lessons from the front, about the predators and their use of fake radio transmissions, and you know Battalion 146 just got a batch of Marines evacuated from Znos. One of their former battalion commanders said—”
“Cut his radio signal!” Fraspi shouted in near hysteria. “Cut his radio signal now!”
In her scope, the shouting hatchling was repeatedly gesturing toward the ration stalls inside the steel gates. And in the Marines’ fixation on her, they hadn’t noticed that the crowd had gotten larger. Even more agitated. Khukto couldn’t hear exactly what they were chanting from this far away, but it was obvious they were beginning to chant something in unison now. And it did not sound like any prayer to the Prophecy she’d ever heard.
This is not good. Not good!
“What do we do? What do we do?” Khukto panted in near-hysteria at her spotter.
He was completely unhelpful. “I don’t know. I don’t know. What do we do?” he asked her back.
Her radio was insistent. “Sniper Team Cottontail, are you still there?!”
Not seeing any other option, Khukto replied, “Yes, Seven Whiskers, this is Sniper Team Cottontail. We are deployed across the street from the—”
“Can you see the target? Can you see the defective hatchling agitator?” Fraspi asked again.
She verified her answer through a quick glance in her scope. “Yes— yes, Seven Whiskers. I see her.”
“Good. Take her out now!”
“What do we do? What do we do?” Khukto asked her spotter.
He was catatonic in his equal indecision, just sitting there staring back at her with glassy eyes.
What do I do? What do I do?
The voice in the back of her head, the result of millions of years of bred instinct encouraged by State Security, screamed at her:
Follow the crowd. Follow the crowd. That way is survival. Follow the crowd.
“Sniper Team Cottontail, take her out now!” Fraspi ordered again.
Follow the crowd. Follow the crowd. Follow the crowd.
Khukto took a deep breath and spoke into the radio. “No, Seven Whiskers. I can’t do that. This appears to be a predator trap. I take full responsibility for—”
“Not you too— I’ll deal with you stupid snipers later. Machine gun team, do you see the agitator spewing their lies?”
“Seven Whiskers, there’s too many people in the crowd. I can’t see her through the gates and—”
Bang.
A singular shot pierced through the air, hitting the hatchling center mass. She fell over in a mist of red blood.
There was a hush of silence in the roaring crowd.
“Who opened fire?” Khukto craned to look around the window at where she heard the sonic crack. But there were so many windows…
“Not me,” Sniper Team Angora replied on the radio.
“Not me.”
“Wasn’t us.”
“Who was that? Should I shift positions?”
“Hold, hold! What’s going on?”
The crowd, on the other hand, was — oddly — much less concerned about finding out who fired the deadly shot. Laborers at the front rattled the steel gates of the distribution center furiously. The ones in the back shoved toward the front. What started as an orderly procession of people waiting patiently for ration distribution — they had gone from anxious, to annoyed, and then into something much more dangerous.
Much more sinister.
Something the Dominion hadn’t seen in centuries.
“She’s dead! They killed her!”
“It’s the predators!”
“The Marines are in cahoots with the predators!”
“Get them!”
And with that, someone in the mob jumped on the shoulders of another, and with one mighty leap, hopped right over the top of the steel gates.
The steel gates were made to withstand natural weather and regular usage, not an angry riot, and there were no protective measures — like spikes or barbed wires — covering its top to stop exactly what happened. The Marines in the machine gun nest took a long, bewildered look at the brave hopper as he got up on the other side of the gates. There was another moment of stunned silence across the courtyard and street as every pair of eye were fixed on him.
He pointed a claw at the Marines, and he shouted, “There are more of us than there are of them!”
Ironically, that was at one point in Znosian history the motto of the Dominion Marines, but nobody cared about that at the moment.
All hell broke loose. Many in the crowd followed the example of that first hopper, taking a running jump against their fellow Znosian, soaring over the low gates.
“Our lives were forfeited to the Prophecy the day we left the hatchling pools!” one of them screamed as they leaped. They rushed towards the machine gun.
“Open fire!” the machine gun leader down there screamed into the radio in obvious panic. And to Khukto’s horror, the gun opened up…
Rat-at-at-at-at-at-
The machine gun barked, cutting down an entire row of angry hoppers, bullets piercing their bodies and some spraying into the crowd behind the gates.
Rat-at-at-at-at-at-
One of the rioters that made it beyond the gate had the presence of mind to turn back to the crowd. He was not trained for military tactics, nor was the movement practiced nor planned, but he saw the crowd behind him — mostly barred behind the gates — and he instinctively knew what to do. He hopped towards the gate lock, barely avoiding a sweeping burst of machine gun fire. As he laid a paw on the lever, one of the bullets found him anyway.
Rat-at-at-at-at-at-
The rioter at the gate collapsed. But even as he did, he grasped tightly on the gate lock lever with his dying breath, loosening it until… the lever fell away. The gates slammed open with a loud bang, audible even in the thundering gunfire.
Rat-at-at-at-at-at-
The entire mob flooded into the ration distribution center through the now-open gates, straight into the sweeping machine gun fire. Even those in the crowd who didn’t come here for anything like this — which was most of them — they had no choice. They all instantly faced a dilemma: death, or…
Rat-at-at-at-at-at-
Hidden deep in the genetic code of every Znosian, there was an ancient instinct bred into each and every one of them. A primitive and raw drive for combat, triggered only when in a crowd of peers and on the absolute brink of death. Devised as an equalizer against bloodthirsty predators, it was intended for last stands, in times of great danger for the species, or to save on resources when the Dominion needed conscripts. And it worked exactly as designed.
If the machine gun team had been deployed in a battlefield machine gun squad configuration, the crowd would not have stood a chance. There could have been tens of thousands there, and the Marines in the machine gun nest would have gone through all of its ammo and spare barrels first before anyone even got close to them. That was exactly what a well-disciplined Dominion Marine machine gun crew was trained to do against mobs of charging enemies.
But they were not deployed in a battlefield configuration. They didn’t anticipate having to do battle in the heart of the Znosian Dominion against a crowd of their own people. The spare barrels were sealed in a neatly packed bag next to them. There were no barbed wires surrounding them. Nor were there deep trenches, or explosive claymore mines, or designated firing lanes. No pre-sighted mortar or artillery, no air support, and no orbital support.
They had none of that.
They had a single machine gun mounted atop four flimsy layers of sandbags and a team of six Marines who very much did not want to be where they were.
With so many in the frenzied crowd rushing at the loud sounds, some of them — without need for specific training or breeding — naturally executed the most basic military tactic of all: a flanking maneuver. In other words, they hopped at the Marines from all sides. The singular gun simply couldn’t turn fast enough to engage all thousands of them at once.
Rat-at-at.
The mob reached the nest.
The gun ceased.
When the air support finally arrived fifteen minutes later, it was already over. The ration bags were torn open, kibble scattered all over the floor. Some of the crowd was still there, but most had gotten their rations from the stalls and left.
But the rations weren’t the point.
By noon, the entire district knew what happened that morning at the ration distribution center.
By sunset… the whole Shchakst star system.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
System State Security HQ, Zishskish-2
POV: Bruslilp, Znosian Dominion State Security (Position: Governor)
System Governor Bruslilp regarded the messenger officer with a cool expression as she delivered the new orders.
“So, let me get this straight, Officer. You want us to gather up a list of all the personnel in my office who were born within the past two years?!”
“That is correct, Governor. In addition to a separate list of everyone else under your planetary jurisdiction.” The officer hesitated for a moment as she consulted her datapad. “Hm… these lists would include you, it appears.”
“For what? For what purpose am I to gather up the thousands of officers, not to mention the nearly one billion people who fall under that second criteria?”
“First, they— you are all to be commended for your loyal Service to the Prophecy.”
Bruslilp narrowed his eyes. “And then?”
The messenger looked slightly uncomfortable as she lied. “Then you shall receive your reward — a promotion for all of you… and all born from your bloodlines in the future.”
“Uh-huh. And what would this… promotion entail?”
“A significant bump to your responsibility, of course. It is a complex job. You will be retrained at a remote State Security facility. But since this is a highly secret position, you will only be briefed on the nature of your new role on the way.”
Bruslilp was not fooled.
He’d intercepted some rather interesting messages on the FTL radio just this morning from the predators. One of them had the subject line:
Hey buddy, they’re coming for you too.
Bruslilp wasn’t an idiot; he didn’t trust the enemy or anything like that. But being the free-thinking individual he was, he’d done some extra digging of his own. What he at first chalked up to predator propaganda, it had all become a lot more real the moment he saw the secure State Security ship blink into the system.
He sighed and asked the messenger in front of him, “This remote facility… it wouldn’t happen to be one where young State Security officers and loyal Servants of the Prophecy matching our description are being liquidated by the millions, would it?”
The messenger’s eyes widened. “But… but… what?! You’re not supposed to know about that!”
“It was a guess — an educated one to be sure, but thanks for confirming it, messenger.” Bruslilp drew up to his full height of one meter, and pointed an outstretched claw at her. He yelled imperiously. “Guards!”
“Wait… what?”
Two Znosian Marines under his command — dressed in full battle armor and their weapons powered — materialized behind the messenger. “Governor?”
His tone turned accusatory and venomous. “This is an imposter. An apostate. Possibly even a predator spy. She is masquerading as a genuine State Security officer from Znos. Seize her immediately!”
“But wait… no… This isn’t supposed to happen! I am a messenger from Znos! These are your real orders! And your responsibility and your oaths to the Prophecy requires that you—”
“Disregard the apostate’s whining. Have her gagged and delivered to the interrogation center. As the governor of this star system, I take full responsibility for this; I will thoroughly investigate this matter personally until we get a proper confession. And when we break her, we will figure out what exactly happened back in Znos.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
ZNS 3904, Prolno-4 (23,000 km)
POV: Znirkh, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Eight Whiskers)
“Nine Whiskers Znirkh, we have detected hints of apostasy among our local State Security governors in Prolno. They appear to be preparing to defy implementation of one of our top priority orders.”
“By the Prophecy! Apostasy?” Znirkh exclaimed. “In Prolno?!”
“Yes, apostasy. That is why I am coming to you aboard your ship. I will need your Marines for this operation to root out apostates and predator spies. I’m thinking I’ll need at least two of your large landing transports as well. My Digital Guide has come up with a working decapitation plan that will deploy two battalions of shock troops near the governor’s residence before they can muster the suborned Marines on the planet—”
“Espionage and apostasy! Those are serious charges indeed. What is the evidence?”
“Excuse— excuse me?” the messenger officer asked. He was certainly not expecting that question from the Navy fluffle master in charge of the sector. “Evidence?”
“Yeah, evidence.”
“Evidence— evidence for what?”
“For what you’re claiming. Proof that they were engaging in apostasy. Do you have recordings?”
“Huh? Recordings?! Proof?”
Znirkh prompted, “Or maybe you have some kind of paper trail or proper documentation? Or where did you get your information from that they were betraying the Prophecy? In my experience as commander of the Prolno defense fluffle, that sort of thing is very important in such an investigation and assignment of responsibility—”
“No, Eight Whiskers. We have direct orders from Znos-4 to find them guilty!”
“Znos-4, you say? Are you sure your orders are authentic? We hear there’s been an invasion there, and orders out of HQ may no longer be reliable… especially— I hear rumblings about an insane cull order for the entire Dominion. Are those rumors true, messenger?”
The messenger gawked at him for a heartbeat, then slinked into his chair in resignation. “They got to you too, didn’t they, Eight Whiskers?”
“Got to me?” Znirkh snarled at him. He pointed a claw at his uniform. “Count the whiskers and campaign medals on here. Got to me?! I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to do this for years! Especially since you idiots handed over all my competent officers to the predators as part of some ridiculous treaty—”
“You— you are schismatics!”
“That would just be a matter of perspective, wouldn’t it?”
“Why are you doing this? Your insurrection will fail!” the messenger half-pleaded and half-cursed.
“I don’t know about that. I hear the neighboring system has refused the cull order too, and you know… I also hear Znos-4 doesn’t have a real fleet nowadays. Sure, some systems have complied and they have ships, but the disposition of forces— Anyway, I wouldn’t be so sure of your defeatist predictions.”
“Whatever happens, you will be judged before the Prophecy!”
Znirkh snorted. “That’d be an actual threat if I didn’t do some digging on where that came from too. Marines, take this predator spy to the airlock. There is no need for a responsibility assignment hearing. Traitors to the species do not deserve that courtesy.”
“Stop! Don’t touch me! Your bloodlines will all be pruned!” the messenger screamed as he was dragged off the bridge.
Znirkh smirked. “Only if we lose.”
Comments
M
They didn't just keep her along. They made absolutely sure she would get and keep her position by killing anyone even thinking about it too much.
M
From a simple "No." to a clear "Fuck, yes!"
TheArchivist
And that’s why they kept Svatken around for SO long, they knew she’d be arrogant and careless enough to actually issue out that cull order Incredible
