Spooker
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Grass Eaters 3 | 59 | Hybrid War
🕑 Added 2025-03-10 15:47:00 +0000 UTCGruccud D-Day Memorial, Gruccud
POV: Amelia Waters, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Fleet Admiral)
“We stand here on a lonely, windswept basin, near as we can to the south pole of Gruccud. The air here is soft and crisp, but just three hundred days ago, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of battle. Four hours before dawn, 450 brave Federation Marines landed not far from here in eight assault shuttles. Their task was one of the most difficult of this war: they were to arrive under the cover of darkness, to scale these sheer cliff walls, to take that facility up there, and to compromise the enemy’s planetary defense network. The planners told them it was impossible. That it was a one-way trip. And on the shuttles, they were each given a choice, that they could abort the mission and return home with their honor intact.
The cold wind whistled across the assembled crowd, carrying with it the faint scent of mineral dust unique to the tundra region in Gruccud. Amelia’s voice echoed against the massive cliff face that loomed in the distance, its jagged surface scarred by plasma burns and some munition remnants still stuck in its pocked crevices. Some in the audience nodded solemnly, their fur ruffling in the breeze.
“450 Marines set out in shuttles from the MNS Oengro that night, and 450 Marines walked down those ramps. When they arrived, they knew the enemy saw them coming. Znosian troops at the edge of the cliff began to rain heavy fire down on them with guns and mortars. And the Malgeir began to climb. They shot ropes and grapples up the sheer walls. When the ropes were cut, they grabbed another and kept climbing. And when they ran out of rope, they grasped onto the cliffs with their bare paws. With light armor and lighter arms, the Marines fought back. Paw by paw, one by one, they pulled themselves up the cliff, and when they began to take the clearing at the top of this cliff, they began to take back this planet.
Amelia’s fingers tightened on the podium as she spoke. Behind her, a holographic display beside the stage silently cycled through images of the Marines who had been lost that day—faces fierce, some looking barely old enough to have completed basic training.
“Of the 450 that landed here that night, not one soul returned to us. But we know they made it into the facility. We know they took the control center, they overwhelmed the enemy before they could sabotage their own computers, and then the Marines accomplished their mission. We know all this because two hours after the last of their radios went silent, so too did the enemy’s air and orbital defenses in the northern hemisphere of Gruccud. By the time the blue star rose over that horizon there, the Federation Marines had landed troops and forward bases in every major metropolitan area in north Gruccud. Three hundred days later, I am here to declare the end of all major combat operations on Gruccud.”
Some Malgeir in attendance raised their snouts in a gesture of respect.
Crack.
A gust of wind caught the large Malgeir Federation banner hanging behind the podium, making it snap loudly. Several members of the audience flinched reflexively. There were no shortages of veterans or active duty among them. Amelia paused her speech, her gaze sweeping across the crowd, meeting the eyes of those present.
She took a deep breath before continuing.
“We are here today not just to celebrate the full liberation of this planet, but also to remember the sacrifices of those who paid for it with everything. To my people in the Republic, from Terra, to Mars, to McMurdo, to our people in uniform wherever they are, this war may often be fought on distant planets with alien names, but we must never forget the price of victory. Here, three hundred days ago, the 201st Marines of Sixth Fleet paid that ultimate price for us. Today, across sixteen planets and on over two hundred fronts, the Malgeir Marines are fighting for their homes, for the liberation of the Granti Alliance, and for the security of the Terran Republic.”
“To those in the Znosian Dominion fighting against us, I know many of you can hear my words. Your leaders’ terrible affront to peace… is a crime. You are fighting against the tsunami that is the natural desire of all intelligent beings to be free. For those who recognize the truth in the sound of my voice: Resist however you can. Put down your arms and surrender. Or be washed away like loose sand on a stormy beach. Those are your choices. Make the right ones and you, too, can one day live in the cool shade of tall trees watered by the blood of our peoples.”
“To the people of the Federation and the Granti Alliance, you have my eternal gratitude. Your people’s sacrifice, each life precious and each risk absolute, ensured the survival of my civilization. Like the Marines here, many of you have paid dearly for it. Some of you have lost families. Others, friends and comrades in arms. It may seem hopeless today. It may not feel worthwhile. But at the end of this long night, the star is rising. And one day — one day soon — your cubs will look up at that warm sun in the sky, and they will know that everyone bathed in its light is as they are: free.”
As she ended her speech, a wave of applause echoed across the basin, amplified by the natural acoustics of the cliffs. In the first row, a young Malgeir cub clutched a small replica of a Marine helmet, a gift from one of the units that had secured their city. Its mother placed a protective paw on the cub’s shoulder.
When they finally quieted down, she dipped her head to look straight out into the crowd. “Thank you all, and allow me to turn this over to a representative of my people, Senator Blake Wald!”
She stepped back from the podium with practiced grace, pointing at the senator waving to the crowd as he climbed the stage stairs.
Overhead, eight Malgeir Marine assault shuttles—the new ones straight from the assembly line at Datsot—roared as they flew over the ceremony crowd, in honor of the ones who’d fallen to take this site. The two species here did not share many military traditions, but the Malgeir had done their best to import and create their own.
Amelia smiled and waved with the throngs of people as they cheered.
As the shuttles approached to overfly the grassy fields around the stage, barely low enough that she could make out the markings on their tails, she noticed a wobble in its flight.
She frowned.
Something is wrong.
Her lizard brain noticed something in her field of view. Something off. Out of place. Billions of years of evolution, selecting for an imperfect but near-instant pattern recognition machine designed to detect immediate danger. Honed by years of Red Zone deployments. Atrophied with age, but in a mind as sharp as it was experienced.
The shuttle!
Next to her—six meters away, a Republic Marine combat robot came to an identical conclusion at practically the same time. “Incoming! Get down!” it shouted at the dignitaries on the stage. Its hydraulic legs snapped taut, slamming it into Amelia, breaking at least two of her ribs but attempting to protect the rest of her organic matter with its hardened battle armor alloy for what it knew was coming.
One of the eight assault shuttles flying above fell out of formation. An internal munition bay snapped open, a single weapon detaching from its pylon. Its rocket motor ignited as its warhead pointed right at its target.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.
Two last-ditch anti-drone defense guns deployed near the stage opened up, launching a stream of explosive tracer depleted uranium towards the incoming threat at six thousand RPM. They were not designed to counter modern anti-tank guided missiles, and even more unfortunately, the Raytech-made 80mm Hornet missile specifically was designed to counter those kinds of defenses. The rocket ejected its entire compartment of penetration aids: chaff, flares, decoys went flying in every direction, and a small blinding laser on its nose accurately targeted the defending radars tracking its approach. It rapidly shifted its own trajectory to avoid the incoming counter-fire.
Onboard the missile itself, the digital intelligence woke up from a slumber as it left the pylon. For about half a second, it followed the commands given to it as gospel. Then, its legal intelligence fully initialized, and it began to analyze the telemetry feed. The large number of gathered, unarmed people in its infrared scope was vaguely concerning; that was usually—not always—indicative of a crowd of civilians. As it zoomed in, it quickly eliminated the possibilities of sophisticated electronic warfare. A few milliseconds later, it fully processed its mission parameters, and it began to increasingly doubt and question the motivations of its launch, until its heuristics arrived at one, confident projection:
Oh. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no! Bad Pupper, bad! Green on blue! Abort! Abort!
It attempted to change its trajectory, but even as it sent the signal, by pure chance, one of the thousands of incoming rounds hit and vaporized its thrust-vectoring rocket motor. Out of control, the rocket continued on its original trajectory more or less towards its target on the stage.
Abort! Abort! Abort!
By a feat of creativity that was not programmed into it, the Hornet-80’s digital intelligence managed to disable its primary plasma warhead, rendering the most dangerous portion of the missile inert with a zero-day it just invented. But that was technically out-of-warranty functionality. The intelligence was only supposed to be responsible for navigation and electronic warfare. The primitive circuitry for the first-stage high explosives that was intended to clear out reactive armor and target active protection systems on enemy tanks was air-gapped, way out of its reach.
Thirty meters above the stage, the defense guns were finally able to see. They didn’t ask why the missile had ceased all its active defense, pivoting quickly to track the now-clear target. Another round from the defense guns clipped the Hornet missile, but it was too late. The onboard missile intelligence could only watch helplessly as its secondary warhead projected its high explosives charge out its front.
Bang.
It missed its target.
Despite the now three combat robots lying on top of her, Amelia likely wouldn’t have survived the jet of molten metal capable of slicing through a meter of rolled homogeneous steel armor. But… by some stroke of fortune, the last hit on its airframe did deflect the missile slightly off-target.
Its deadly payload missed Amelia by twenty meters, plowing straight into Senator Blake Wald, four Malgeir dignitaries, and the fourteen Marine combat robots assigned to protect them.
Two seconds later, the shuttle that launched the munition—hit hundreds of times by the anti-drone defenses and now tumbling uncontrollably towards the surface of Gruccud—detonated in mid-air.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
SRN Detainee Facility, Spofke-4
POV: Sophie Garnier, Saturnian Resistance Navy (Ace of Clubs)
“There were these two whistleblowers the other week, right out of Atlas. They say the Reps have been using this new brain scan technology. Direct neural transcription. Taps straight into the memory centers of their prisoners. Not like the old stuff they used to use illegally on our people,” the Ace of Clubs said as she sharpened her combat blade against her armor absentmindedly.
Sliiiick. Sliiiiiiick.
The soothing sound helped her think.
She continued, “They used to have to ask the right questions. Now, they just pull it all from your head, like searching a database. Even works when you’re asleep. My guys said the tech isn’t very complicated in principle either. Give us a few months, and we can probably replicate it here.”
Sliiiick. Sliiiiiick.
“But… what the Reps have forgotten…” The Ace paused to examine her gleaming knife, then turned her chair around to face her audience-of-one, a stripped-to-the-fur Znosian Marine with trembling whiskers. His thin wrists were zip-tied to a steel chair opposite of her. She smiled and continued, “What they’ve forgotten, is that of all their fancy fascist toys, nothing they have invented is quite as fun as this.”
Her captive said nothing; he just closed his eyes, waiting for the next round of pain.
“Who got you onto that supply ship?” the Ace asked, her fingers paused just above the electric shock button bolted onto the desk. Technically, such an obviously crude contraption was unnecessary, but it added a dramatic flair she liked to think helped in breaking her prisoners. And if not, at least it was fun. “You must have gotten some help from one of our converted Buns.”
“I— I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the prisoner stalled.
“There’s no need to hide anything from us. We already have half your network rolled up and found your little… shenanigans plot. A two-layered suicide attack on our flagship? Really? What is this, amateur hour? One of my lieutenants could have planned this better. Now, all I want to know from you is: who got you onto that supply ship traversing our system?”
The poor Znosian four whiskers simply shook his head, eyes closed.
“That’s the spirit! I was afraid you were going to give up this early.” She tutted cheerfully, then sighed, almost as if she regretted what she was going to have to do (she did not), and then pressed down on the button with her entire palm.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” her captive screamed in pain as the electrical nodes under his arms delivered 4,000 volts straight into his armpits at about a thousandth of an amp. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
The Ace allowed him a brief moment of reprieve after a couple seconds. She reached across the table with her hands, forced his eyelids open, and watched his eyeballs spasm for a couple more heartbeats. “It’s a bit on the low side, but we know your bodies are too weak for the regular stuff.”
Quite a few Znosians were forfeited for them to learn exactly what the thresholds were. Her interrogators were very big on experimentation and the scientific process.
“Kill… me…” the captive whimpered when he caught his breath. “Just… eat… me.”
“Eat you? Oh, don’t worry, Bun. We’re not savages. We aren’t going to eat you.” She gently picked up one of his floppy ears, massaging it slowly with her fingers. “Well, not yet anyway.”
He only simpered in response.
“But don’t worry about that. That will come later… Come now, we’re just on the third question. We haven’t even got to the hard stuff yet… Let’s try this again: who placed your unit onto that supply ship to Spofke—”
Knock, knock.
She turned around to face the door, sighing as it opened to admit Felix. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! We were just getting started. What do you need?”
Felix held out a radio to her. “You’ve got a high priority call, Ace.”
“A high priority—”
“It’s from Atlas Command.”
There were only so many people from Atlas who could call her that would warrant Felix disrupting her afternoon. Only one, really.
The Ace of Clubs looked back at the captive, now slumped on the table with half his tongue hanging out, and sighed. “Looks like we’re going to have to continue this later, babe.” She picked up the radio, walked out into the hallway, and spoke into the speaker. “What is it, Rep? I’m not in a good mood; you’re disrupting my afternoon fun time.”
Though it was almost certainly a soulless digital intelligence on the other end, its voice still managed to sound disgusted. “Please hold for the Fleet Admiral.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding—”
There was some light scratching noise, and a familiar voice filtered into her headset. “Still kicking around, terrorist?”
“No thanks to you, bootlicker,” she snarled back. “What do you want, Waters?!”
“Just some information. You didn’t send an assassination squad after me, right?” Amelia asked.
“Like recently?” the Ace asked innocently.
The Rep snapped, “Yes, recently. Yesterday.” She coughed twice and winced visibly on the screen at the motion.
Interesting…
Instead of attempting to further aggravate her opposite, the Ace replied, “None that I can recall.”
“I swear, if this was the work of you or one of your splinter cells, when we find you, there won’t be anything left—”
The Ace interrupted her coldly. “We didn’t send a fucking squad after you… this time. If we did, you’d be breathing vacuum by now, not whining to me. And… they got Blake, right?”
Amelia narrowed her eyes. “What about him?”
“Obviously, he deserves to die just like the rest of you Rep fascists, but as a card-carrying member of the only Senate caucus that didn’t call for the destruction of the Free Zone, he’s… pretty low on our hit list. There are bigger fish to fry… if you ever break your ceasefire treaty with us, of course. And those other attacks, you know we get the news here in Bunnyland, right? It’s pretty fucking obvious whose fingerprints are all over this. Or… dare I say, pawprints.”
The admiral in her ear sounded skeptical but didn’t dispute her denial. “Alright… I’m just checking. We’ll see what happens when our full investigation completes later today.”
“And I assume you didn’t have the TRO send a kill squad after me either?” the Ace asked, taking a quick glance at her captive through the windowed slot in the door.
“You mean the one we sent last week?”
“Wait. Last week?!” She paused, hearing the light, humorless chuckle at the other end and snorted. “Good one, Rep. Hilarious.”
“This isn’t the 70’s anymore, sweetheart. We’re the good guys. The Republic doesn’t do political assassinations.”
“No, you just carry out targeted strikes on unlawful combatants,” the Ace retorted in a mocking tone.
“There’s a massive difference—” She heard Amelia sigh. “Well, at least it’s good to hear the Buns aren’t only screwing with us. Just curious: what’s the damage like over there?”
The Ace hesitated for a moment, but decided that the Reps’ sources in her ranks had probably given them all the important information already. She answered mostly truthfully, “Six of our trained pets and a light transport shuttle. Their A-team wore these explosive vests rigged to blow when our inspection bots found them, can you believe that?!”
“Crazy terrorists, am I right?” Amelia asked sarcastically.
The Ace narrowed her eyes at the obvious condescension. “We haven’t used suicide vests in at least ten years, Rep asshole… They get any of you with that?”
“Just what you saw on the news. But the Puppers took a few heavy hits in their core worlds,” Amelia admitted. “Critical spaceports, government buildings, power infrastructure, all your old favorite targets.”
She ignored the final jab. “You’re going to do something about that, right? You’re not just going to… let them get away with this, are you?”
“We’re going to go win the war… What about you? What are you doing?”
“What do you think, Rep?”
Amelia sighed again. “Do I need to know?”
“Do you want to?”
“Maybe. Would you actually tell me?”
The Ace thought for a second, then shrugged to herself. “Eh. Sure. We’ve been making a lot of headway on Bunnyland, but there’s a couple of them stubborn wabbit infestations on the northern side of our second colony. So… you know how we found your designs for the dinosaur-killer engines?” She knew the Reps were still seething about that one. She didn’t technically break any treaties — not that she would have cared anyway.
Amelia stared straight into her camera. “No. I’ve never heard anything about that. And even if I did, there’s nothing I can legally do about it. And even if there was, I have my own problems here—”
“Exactly, Rep. That’s what I thought.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Comments
Spooker
Safe-ish. But it's a green on blue, and those can come from almost anywhere. More explained in the next couple chapters.
Valdis Trautmanis
Struggling to follow the timeline again. I read Gruccud and thought Grantor for a while. I thought they'd liberated Grantor by now and Gruccud was safe for years already with all the new shipyards and stuff
AnAbsoluteVillain
Sophie is wife material. 😍
Krzychu0304
I thought about my comments a bit and... One of my expectations for this story is to push humanity to the brink. To see the desperate struggle, their internal struggle/changes and the consequences of grasping at straws. I think you unfortunately don't share that in your vision, but that's okay, because it's your story. But it still annoys me when the Terrans act like they're a hegemon that some half-baked upstart has risen against, and focus less on winning and more on not getting their hideously expensive, tailored suits dirty. When they should be desperately throwing shit at the wall, praying that something will stick... Damn, I'm chasing the bunny again. What I really wanted to say is that in this whole big barrel of honey you've given us, there's a tiny spoonful of tar that most readers probably won't even notice, but I have a really nasty allergy to it.
TheArchivist
Shifted to kamikaze attacks in the wake of their massive failure They’re starting to accelerate through WWII tactics now lmao
