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Grass Eaters 3 | 65 | Critical Mass I
🕑 Added 2025-03-24 15:47:00 +0000 UTCThe Frontline, Znos-4-C
POV: Mgnistr, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Four Whiskers)
The first sign of friendly losses Mgnistr saw as they drove towards the temporary frontline was not from the effects of the nuclear weapon detonated by the predators. Rather, they took a break at an improvised resupply station about a dozen kilometers away from the front, where she observed a large gathering of abandoned vehicles less than a hundred meters from the converted tanker that was now transferring fuel to her troop carrier.
She squinted at the pile of twisted metal and frowned. “How did they get those?” she asked the three whiskers supply officer in charge of the fuel point.
He didn’t even bother to follow her pointed claw. “Our field artillery battalion? Well… former field artillery battalion. Flying machines and the enemy’s own light precision artillery,” he replied casually. “They have a lot of those. Not a good week to be in artillery. Or logistics.”
Mgnistr did a double take at him. “Logistics like you?”
“Like me. And you too at the moment, Four Whiskers, since you’re standing right next to me,” he replied dryly. “We’re their favorite. Most of my company has already rejoined the Prophecy. And if you don’t hurry up with the refueling, you will too. If— when they find us important enough to send one of their guided shells at us.”
She saw a million small holes through the barely recognizable steel barrel of a former Znosian artillery piece. “One of their shells did that?!”
“Yup. We call it metal rain. One shell, and it pokes those holes in everything within a couple hundred meters. That’s the one for if you’re more important than the flying machine swarms.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard about those.”
“Yeah. My own four whiskers rejoined the Prophecy from one of those… not two kilometers from here.” He pointed in the direction of the enemy beachhead. “Nobody came back from that supply convoy.”
She quickly muttered a prayer for the fallen — she’d been doing a lot of that lately — then asked, “Is it really that bad?”
“Bad? You haven’t seen bad yet. They’re attriting our logistics at an unsustainable rate. If we don’t overrun them in one or two more days, our Marines are going to need to start hopping towards their position on their paws.”
“What are they even doing on this planet?” Mgnistr asked idly. “I thought they’re supposed to be trying to get rid of us on some of the predators’ old planets all the way out there.”
The supply officer shrugged. “No idea what they’re doing, but I hear they’re digging.”
“Digging? Like digging in? In their positions?”
“More than that. Some of our people back at temporary headquarters said that they can detect constant shaking in the soil, like if they’re making tunnels. Whatever they’re doing, the predators are moving a lot of dirt over there.”
Mgnistr contemplated it for a few seconds, but nothing came up. “What do you suppose that means?”
“No idea. They bred me to deliver fuel, not think about soil.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mgnistr’s troop transport stopped again, another few kilometers in. They’d thrown a track, and the fix took two hours: more than an hour just digging the heavy vehicle out of the mud-ash mix. She noted in the back of her mind that the radioactive nuclear fallout they were now breathing in was probably not great for their long-term health. Then again, neither were the predators on their planet. She decided those were far more likely to kill her first.
By the time they were finished and got moving again, Mgnistr determined from her communicator that they were near their division command point, which had surprisingly moved all the way up here. She ordered her crew to drive towards it. “That way,” she pointed. “I want to see what’s going on.”
Entering a lightly forested area, they arrived at a bizarre sight.
Six friendly vehicles and their crews were parked up next to what appeared to be an alien equivalent of a Longclaw behind a thick dirt mound. The front and left side of its hull were heavily scarred from battle damage. Its reactive armor tiles were missing. Its barrel was bent and perforated. And pieces of its tracks were scattered over the forest floor near it. A small squad was behind it, carefully examining its insides from the open rear hatch, led by a young-looking officer.
Very young-looking.
Mgnistr dismounted and hopped over to the group on her tired paws.
They looked up at her. One of the group — another barely-adult five whiskers, acknowledged her presence. “Nice of you to join us, Four Whiskers.”
“What’s going on here?” she asked, some excitement creeping into her voice. Finally, some signs of the battle.
“We overran this position earlier today,” the commanding officer said as he stepped out from the enemy vehicle. “Great Predator Longclaw.”
“Did we get many of them?” she asked in awe, her eyes searching around for more signs of the battle. She glanced at his nametag and insignia. “We just got here… Seven Whiskers Spazglu.”
“We got this one, and another small group of lightly armored vehicles further into the forest.” Spazglu pointed a claw north. “Anti-armor missile carriers, it seemed. Their mobile mortar carriers got away.”
“Any prisoners?”
“None.” Spazglu sighed. “They weren’t even crewed by any… living thing. Just machinery. One of our squads made the mistake of moving up and thinking about capturing the crew of one of the vehicles that had been heavily damaged.”
She winced. The new instructions and recent training they’d got made it clear that the only dead Great Predator was one you personally put a bullet in — twice. It looked like not everyone got that training.
“A squad of predator combat robots came out guns ready. They liquidated the whole squad, got picked up by another transport, and then they retreated further north into the forest,” he continued. “No one should be making that mistake again.”
She pointed at the wreck. “This one too?”
“Not this one.” He shook his head. “No. This Longclaw was scuttled by the predators themselves.”
“Scuttled?!”
“Yeah, look again.” He gestured toward the blackened interiors. “See? There was a fire inside. We didn’t do that. No shell penetrations as far as I can tell. Their vehicles are built to be hardy. We must have immobilized it — tore off the tracks. Then, its crew sabotaged and abandoned it when we got close.”
Surprised at his insight, Mgnistr took another look at his face. He was about as tall as average, but the youthful look of his face betrayed his age. He was surely just a hatchling. “Wait. How old are you?”
If the non-sequitur caught Spazglu by surprise, he did not show it. Most likely, it was not the first time he’d been asked that question recently. “Eleven months.”
“Eleven months old?!”
“Yeah.”
Mgnistr asked, “And you are a…”
“Battalion— no, division commander now that ours died. Your division commander actually.” He pointed at her unit patch. “But most of the division is now missing or destroyed anyway.”
“Eleven months old division commander?!” she exclaimed.
Spazglu shrugged. “I was blessed by the Prophecy.”
“I’d never heard of someone as blessed as you,” Mgnistr said after a while.
“Or perhaps cursed,” he sighed sadly.
“With all due respect, Seven Whiskers. I take full responsibility for any—”
“No offense taken, Four Whiskers,” he interrupted her. “I get that question a lot.”
“Yes, sir. What is our directive, Seven Whiskers?”
“We’ve spent most of the armored assets we brought up here. And with that last nuclear strike disrupting our coordination, I doubt we can push further today. We should take a break and defend our current position.” Spazglu turned his head to the setting Znosian star at the horizon. “And hope we can survive the night.”
“We still have our night vision equipment,” Mgnistr offered. “We can mount an attack.”
“Whatever night optics we have, the Great Predators have better, I’m sure,” Spazglu replied. “And night time is not good for the offense. The enemy will be waiting for us, or worse, perhaps they are gathering for a night counterattack of their own right now. We should prepare for that instead.”
Mgnistr scratched her whiskers, once again impressed by his insight or… “Is that from your Digital Guide?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Ours died before the predators even landed. That is my assessment based on my training and… limited experience. Why? Do you have a better idea?”
“No— no, of course not, Seven Whiskers,” she said hurriedly, bowing in respect for his rank. “My squad will dig in for the night, as you directed.”
Mgnistr hopped back to her squad vehicle and ordered them to dig the troop carrier under the dense foliage. She knew that if the predators wanted her dead, being so close to the new division commander, she was dead anyway. But training and bred instinct did not go away easily. They did as they were ordered.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
As dusk fell, she heard some commotion near the other vehicles. Curious, Mgnistr hopped over from her squad.
A new vehicle had joined Spazglu’s original six, another troop carrier like hers. But this one was a completely unarmored one with an open top. In the light of the nearby campfire, she saw a dozen Marines — all of them young like Spazglu, and half of them still had not outgrown their big hatchling eyes — sitting in its back. As she approached, she realized with some surprise that they were restrained.
An officer had hopped out of the transport, and they were talking to Spazglu in increasingly agitated tone.
“Seven Whiskers, you have your directives!” the newcomer half-shouted at the young seven whiskers.
“But those directives make no sense!” Spazglu argued back. “We can’t attack the Great Predators during the night. We’d lose all our people and equipment for nothing!”
The new officer wasn’t wearing an insignia, but as she turned to reveal their snow-white cap, Mgnistr gasped. She wasn’t a Marine officer. Nor even one of the Navy spacers.
No, the new officer was State Security.
“Do you refuse to comply?” she asked frostily.
“Of course not… officer.” Spazglu bowed after a heartbeat. A heartbeat so long the hesitation almost seemed… disrespectful.
Luckily for him, the officer did not notice it as Mgnistr interrupted the argument. “Seven Whiskers,” Mgnistr addressed the arguing duo. “And…”
The State Security officer barely turned to glance at her. “Nodjuk. But my name is irrelevant to you, Four Whiskers.”
“Officer Nodjuk, I only question the authenticity of your orders,” Spazglu continued arguing. “Not your authority to issue them.”
“The authenticity?” the agitated State Security officer asked. “The authenticity of my orders?!”
“Indeed. Where did your orders come from? We’ve been sporadically cut off from central command for hours at a time. It seems odd to me that you’ve been able to get orders. Are you using your radio? The predators are spreading disinformation on them. We can’t trust what we hear—”
“How dare you! I got my orders straight from the top. You simply don’t understand. You must attack imminently. The predators are on our planet, executing their dastardly plans!”
“What are they planning?”
“I don’t— I don’t— That’s not your concern!”
“That much is obvious,” Spazglu dared to reply. “We will attack. But we can’t just assault them from the front haphazardly without adequate preparations!”
“Your lives were forfeited to the Prophecy the day—”
“Be that as it may, your directive might be outdated or inauthentic. That is the most logical explanation for such a wasteful directive.”
Nodjuk quivered with rage. “You— you— Seven Whiskers, I will allow you your— utter irresponsibility because you— you are a mere hatchling. But if you refuse to comply with directives, do not think I will hesitate before throwing you into the back like one of them!”
Mgnistr and Spazglu both shot a glance at the truck she came in with. At a closer look, the prisoners in the back of her vehicle were in a sad state. Several of them had been visibly wounded, and a couple did not look conscious.
“What— uh— what happened to those Marines?” Mgnistr asked with a dry mouth.
“Deserters,” Nodjuk replied with a disdaining sniff.
“Huh? What is that?”
“They tried to retreat from the front without completing their objectives, against explicit orders.”
“What?!” a shocked Mgnistr asked. “Is that— is that an option?”
“Of course not! That is why I have been tasked with rounding them up!”
“What will happen to them?”
“Interrogated and recycled. What else? As will be your seven whiskers’ fate if he continues to refuse my directive.”
Spazglu hurried to deny it. “I’m not refusing—”
“That’s what it sounds like to me. And even now, I don’t see you preparing for the attack.”
“Fine, fine. I will accept the authenticity of your directive and begin my preparations to follow them,” Spazglu ground out a second later. “Just give me a few hours to get my assets in order. I’ll need at least three to brief my battalions — what’s left of them.”
Nodjuk looked at him coldly for a few heartbeats. “No.”
“What?”
“No. It’s too late now.”
“What do you mean?” Spazglu said.
“I knew you were one of those.”
“One of those what?” Mgnistr asked.
“Tell her,” Nodjuk sneered at Spazglu. “Tell her what you are.”
He didn’t answer, merely looked at the paws beneath him in silence.
Nodjuk spat on the ground. “An outlier!”
“A what?” the confused Mgnistr asked.
Nodjuk rolled her eyes. “Like one of the deserters I’ve captured. Four Whiskers, you ever wondered how he had the level of insight he had for such a young hatchling?”
“I figured he was blessed…”
“You got anything to say for yourself, Seven Whiskers?”
Spazglu looked back up at her and sighed deeply. “I guess not. I never knew that was what you called it, but I found out I was different when I was three months old. I tried to hide it… not very well. I went through training too quickly, but when I was sent here, I figured this was just something they allowed.”
“It is… tolerated, as long as you keep your ears down and do as you’re told,” Nodjuk said. “But not those who would refuse to follow directives. As you just did. I can see through your stalling tactics, clear as water.”
“I always figured I’d be found out one day or the other,” Spazglu said sadly. “But I didn’t expect it to happen here of all places.”
With a fluid motion, Nodjuk reached into her holster and grabbed her handgun. She pointed it at Spazglu, then, with her other paw, threw him a thin plastic restraint. “That’s right. Now… tie up those little paws of yours and get in the back of the truck with the rest of your kind, Seven Whiskers.”
“What?!” Mgnistr gasped. “Recycled just like that? But he said he was going to comply once you explained it to him. Surely he can take full responsibility for his error and be spared a wasteful recycling?”
“You don’t understand, Four Whiskers. His kind… they are dangerous. They lie like predators. They’ll say one thing, bide their time, then stick a knife in your back years later… Stay out of this. Now, Seven Whiskers, are you going to comply with this…” Nodjuk gestured with her gun. “Or are you going to save me from having to bring you back to local headquarters?”
The hesitant Spazglu seemed to begin to comply, then stopped himself with a jerking motion.
He looked at Nodjuk defiantly. “No.”
“What?”
“No! I haven’t done anything wrong.”
For a moment, Nodjuk’s face flickered with mild surprise in the dancing campfire. “You— very well. Suit yourself. Makes it easier for me. Goodbye, outlier.”
She steadied and aimed her gun at his head.
Bang.
Comments
Valdis Trautmanis
The Critical Mass will be reached when a rationally thinking outlier Bun shoots their Stasi commissar I'm guessing
M
100%
Kyle Lindstrand
Mignistr totally just shot the state security officer and good for her for doing so. Not that I'm rooting for the enemy here, but this a good signs in the long run.
Wastl
I give it a 50/50 that the ending is state security getting shot.
Retroburn
It'd be nice to see, but the end result would be the same. Any Znosian that is not an outlier would likely attack anyone who attacked a state security officer. Even if not, I doubt they would continue to follow orders from a mutineer. In this case, the best case scenario for the seven whiskers, if they mutinied, is to be left alone and isolated on a battlefield, where both sides want you dead.
TheArchivist
Hnngghhh just one scene please where they do it the other way These “outliers” have zero preservation instincts, ITS ONE FUCKING STATE SECURITY OFFICER!!! Save it for a juicy revolution I guess, that’s how great these chapters are
Aurxite
All is well. No need to worry about the boys up in the front. I’m sure everything is fine.
