Spooker
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Grass Eaters 2 | 60 | Margins IV
🕑 Added 2024-10-02 16:47:01 +0000 UTCZNS 1006, Plaunsollib (4,700 Ls)
POV: Stsinkt, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Ten Whiskers)
“What did they get?” Stsinkt asked, her face stony as she watched the predator shuttle carry their Marines off to safety… twenty minutes ago.
“Uncertain, Ten Whiskers. They did get onto the bridge, but the ship data should be heavily encrypted.”
“That’ll stop them long enough for us to reach the Great Predator Nest?”
“The Digital Guide thinks so. Theoretically.”
“What do you think?” Stsinkt asked.
“Hard to tell. I’m beginning to see the folly of underestimating these Great Predators,” he admitted. “They did capture the invasion fleet of Zero Whiskers Ditvish. Perhaps they have found ways to break into our encryption schemes from their possession of our ships. Maybe that would still work even through our latest software upgrades. The point of the encryption is not to hold their codebreakers out forever… just as long as it takes for the information to become irrelevant.”
“So… we don’t know.”
“We don’t know,” he confirmed.
Stsinkt was silent for a moment, wondering just what the predators could do with all that information. She had come up with several options for taking out the Great Predator Nest, but they hadn’t decided on one yet. Perhaps it was time to make new plans.
“Tell the relay ships to ask Eleven Whiskers Sprabr to come up with new options for the Nest and the Great Exterminators.” She shrugged. “As for fleet procedures and the other secret information about our ships and weapons — it’s the Great Predators. They already had them.”
“There are some reports… the Digital Guide is unsure how much it is enemy disinformation, but the information we have suggests— it suggests that the enemies who boarded our ship were Lesser Predators.”
“Absurd predator lies. Everyone knows that Lesser Predator Marines are the least competent service in this sector of the galaxy. I’ve seen them in action myself, and you saw what my former subordinates did to the ones on one of their ships; the one we captured with its data intact. In and out of one of our ships in half an hour? It obviously wasn’t them.”
“There is camera footage of a few of them in action,” he offered. “In fact, none of the footage show any—”
She snorted. “Fakes from the Great Predators, surely.”
“What about their fleeing boarding carrier ship?” her computer officer asked after a while.
“What about them?”
“We shouldn’t chase it down? If we take a couple squadrons—”
“No point. The minute they got onto our bridge, they’d gotten what they wanted from this action. Their Marines they sent onto our ship: their lives too were forfeited to their apostasy the day they left their… hatchling pools as well.”
“Huh, I never thought about the predators that way,” he replied.
Stsinkt shrugged, as if she were stating the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “They sent a single boarding carrier to board a battlecruiser among a fleet of five thousand. Alone, under fire, and without any other support. The conclusion is obvious: wasteful inefficiency is the nature of predators, and the commanders of that ship must be more wasteful of their Marines and spacers than we are.”
“But they didn’t lose many of theirs today,” he pointed out. She felt a mixture of annoyance and surprise. Annoyed at the contradiction, and surprised at the rare insight.
“That’s just today,” she countered.
“And they haven’t lost that many to us. Very few of the Great Predators, at least. If any.”
Stsinkt sighed. “Well, that’s the theory anyway. It appears reality has had an uncomfortable relationship with our theories lately.”
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ZNS 1233, Grantor-3 (1,200 km)
POV: Sprabr, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Eleven Whiskers)
“We have a problem, Eleven Whiskers.”
“We can be a little more specific than that, can’t we, Seven Whiskers?” Sprabr admonished as he stopped his suitcase packing to look at his computer officer.
“Yes, Eleven Whiskers,” she blushed. “We believe we’ve lost contact with Quistqueu, the former border system between the Lesser Predators and the Slow Predators.”
“The local ground authorities, or?”
“The whole system, Eleven Whiskers. We haven’t heard from them in two weeks.”
“Two weeks?! Why am I just hearing about this now?!” Sprabr exclaimed.
“It’s the FTL jamming, Eleven Whiskers. We have to send relay ships. Grantor Station requested an update from them two weeks ago. They sent a relay ship to the next system, which was supposed to send a relay ship to the next system, which was supposed to— the whole chain was supposed to take a week to get to them and a week back. So Grantor waited two weeks for the response, but—”
“Let me guess,” Sprabr sighed. “We sent a relay ship to check in on the relay ship we sent to check in… with explicit orders to return immediately, and the time for them to return has passed.”
“Yes, Eleven Whiskers.”
“The problem, then, isn’t in Quistqueu. It’s the whole chain outside Grantor to our north,” Sprabr said. “Something… or someone, is in the Grantor North perimeter system, with enough firepower — enough ordnance at least — to take out the whole defensive squadron there. It has to be more than a single Great Predator hiding ship.”
“But… unless the Lesser Predator Sixth Fleet abandoned their post in Gruccud three weeks ago—”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Sprabr countered. “They wrecked our besieging fleet there. They know where our Grant Fleet is going. And they know we’re still here with the secondary fleet because one of their hiding ships is still zooming around out there, and one of their annoying saboteur teams is running around on Grantor giving our administrators and State Security operatives all kinds of trouble.”
The seven whiskers gaped at him. “What can they possibly be planning to do to us here?! Even our secondary fleet here greatly outnumber their Sixth Fleet, and we have ground and system defenses in Grantor. Even if they can out-maneuver us and cut us off, we can hold out for years here with our manufacturing facilities down on Grantor.”
“Astute insight, Seven Whiskers,” he praised. “What can they possibly do indeed… but we must also consider the high likelihood the predators have also considered these factors before they flew their fleet all the way over here. And I’m certain they didn’t come here just to blow up a few of our relay ships and defensive infrastructure for fun.”
“Desperation, maybe? The Great Predator Nest is threatened. Their practical extinction is at hand. They are doing what any other predator does: lashing out before their death.”
Sprabr shook his head. “Much as I’d like that to happen, Great Predators are not like the other predators. Their nature is more like us than either of our species would like to admit. So a better way to think about this question is… if we were them, and they were us, why would they fly their fleet down here? And in that context, with that perspective, the answer becomes obvious: they are here to engage our secondary fleet.”
The computer officer’s tongue hung out. “But… we have a thousand—”
“I didn’t say they were here to destroy us. To engage us,” Sprabr interrupted. “All they have to do is stick around Grantor and threaten to invade while wreaking havoc on the defensive squadrons and structures in our surrounding systems, and they can pin our entire secondary fleet here. We can’t move to support the Grand Fleet. Which would likely be their intention.”
Realization dawned on her face. “That would mean that—”
“Yes, Seven Whiskers. That would mean that the leaders of the Great Predators not only think there is a chance they can defeat the Grand Fleet if we don’t reinforce it with the secondary fleet, they are willing to gamble the last real battle fleet of the Lesser Predators to do it, along with at least another one of their hiding ships.”
“We need to inform Ten Whiskers Stsinkt!”
Sprabr nodded. “File this observation in with the plan updates she requested in the next relay ship, and warn her that it might be her last communication before she takes the Great Predator Nest. As she is entering proper Great Predator territory soon, she will likely lose all communication with us. They have their own advanced jamming devices, and I can’t imagine they will allow our relay ships to freely fly around in their territory behind the Grand Fleet once they enter.”
“Yes, Eleven Whiskers. And what should we do about the enemy fleet encroaching on Grantor?”
“That… is something we must discuss on the supply transport to the planet, Seven Whiskers,” Sprabr replied, calmly gathering the remainder of his personal items into his kit bag as he gestured towards the exit. “Because we have been on this ship for far too long. As far as I can tell, that predator hiding ship running around us in Grantor — the one they call the Nile — still has at least three invisible ship killer missiles in its rack. And I am in no hurry to rejoin the Prophecy — with the four squadron leaders and two Marine chiefs they’ve already managed to locate.”
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TRNS Mississippi, Sirius (19,000 Ls)
POV: Amelia Waters, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Fleet Admiral)
Amelia stood tall with her hands clasped behind her back as she reported remotely to Atlas Naval Command. She kept her face calm and professional; she knew her image was being broadcast directly to the over ten billion citizens of the Republic throughout Sol, among others.
“Citizens of the Terran Republic. Two hours ago, enemies of the Republic, aliens from Znos, ships of the Znosian Navy crossed into the territory of the Republic. It is not the first time an event like this has occurred, but it is the first time that they have done so knowingly. Intentionally. Their purpose is xenocide. Their objective is to travel to Sol, home to over ninety-nine percent of our people. There, they plan to lay waste to our people, our civilization, and our Republic. They threaten our very extinction.
“I will not hide the truth from you. Under my command, the extrasolar-capable combat elements of the Republic Navy have exhausted all our conventional options. The Mississippi’s suite of strategic denial weapons have failed to stop the enemy fleet in its tracks. Space Superiority Squadrons 9 and 10 have dealt serious damage to their fleet’s fuel supply section, but the enemy is undeterred. Our combat squadrons, along with the Mississippi, are currently returning to Sol to rearm. And with the help of our Malgeir allies, the Amazon has pinned the enemy’s backup fleet deep in Granti territory.
“As for Sol itself, Peacekeeper Squadrons 4 to 8 are currently preparing for fleet battle. All combat-capable warships have been commandeered. All defensive contingencies have been activated under Sol Command. Mandatory civilian evacuations are ongoing across the entire system. Critical chokepoints and transfer routes in the outer system are being seeded with dangerous weapons, and we intend to turn Sol, our home, into a deadly fortress. We recognize the incredible disruption these extreme measures cause for our people, but we would not have ordered them if we did not think them absolutely necessary.
“Yet despite all our preparations, against the numbers of the enemy fleet, against their Grand Fleet of over five thousand ships, the odds are stacked against us. The situation is still as desperate as it has ever been in the history of our civilization… Extraordinary measures are now required to preserve the continuity of the Republic and its people. I fully recognize the devastating impact these decisions will have on the future of our civilization: for our children, for our grandchildren, and for our great-grandchildren, but they are our only significant chance of survival. They are our only hope.”
She took a deep breath before looking back at the camera.
“As the newly appointed Supreme Allied Commander of the Grand Coalition, I have approved and ordered the execution of Order 15. You may have heard of it referred to in the press as the Maikop Option. The Order has now been carried out by personnel of the Terran Navy and Marines. This decision was ultimately mine, and mine alone. It was not taken lightly. I take full legal and moral responsibility for its conception, planning, and execution. Please allow me to explain, for you and for the historical record, the impetus and necessity of this tremendous sacrifice…”
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ZNS 1006, Datsot (22,000 Ls)
POV: Stsinkt, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Ten Whiskers)
Two blinks after the boarding action at Plaunsollib, the Grand Fleet finally reached the system the Great Predators called McMurdo. This was not an unfamiliar system for the Znosian Navy. Dominion ships had surveyed it and infrequently entered it for operations during the first invasion of Datsot. And it’d lost one of its elite raiding fluffles here, obviously to the Great Predators — obvious, in hindsight.
As the information about the system began to pour into the ship’s sensors, Stsinkt noticed the distinct lack of enemy presence.
She was not surprised. Great Predators had had a long time to dig into this system; undoubtedly, whatever fortifications they had here must be well-hidden.
“Let’s go around everything. Straight up — away from the system plane,” she ordered, pointing on the battlemap. “We don’t want to deal with whatever they have here. The fluffle we lost here two years ago— one is enough for this system.”
“Yes, Ten Whiskers. We’re burning hard towards the normal; that should take us well outside any mine volumes they have in this system soon.”
Stsinkt looked closely at the projected trajectory of the fleet on the battlemap, nodding in approval.
She paused. There was something odd about this McMurdo system. She just… couldn’t quite put a claw on it.
Two hours into the burn, it dawned on her.
Where in the Prophecy is McMurdo-6?
Comments
AnAbsoluteVillain
Wait! Are they going to move Earth? Waters a steely eyed planetman.
Cosmic Bananas
The new observation system they have will make it a particular type of bullet hell
Ndreda
Where in the Prophecy is McMurdo-6? It went out for a carton of eggs, milk, bread and some cigarettes!
Boogus
The difficulties they will face in the great Predator nest with Humanities advanced weapon systems, and the fact their going in absolutely blind. Exciting to see what Humanity has kept hidden away in storage for a rainy day, especially since Celestial bodies are now missing from their original star system
Boogus
Exciting to see the Znosians believe the defeats they've faced, and the advanced tactics they've been on the receiving end of, have been at the hands of the Great Predators. That they chalk up the polished and well executed tactics to the indominable Great Predators. I'm eager to see their reactions when they finally put two and two together and realize that the Humans have simply been defeated them via outdated and proxy support.
Bradiation
I do hope that we get to see the rebel fleet help fight the remnants of the Znosian grand fleet
