Spooker
patreon
Grass Eaters 3 | 51 | Procurement
🕑 Added 2025-02-19 16:47:01 +0000 UTCRepublic Senate Complex, Luna
POV: Martina Wright, Terran (Executive)
“This is not just another ship. Not just another procurement program. The Joint Strike Missile Destroyer is the largest-scale defense development program in the entire history of the Republic,” Martina said into the microphone. “A project in cooperation with the Malgeir Federation and other friends beyond Kuiper. A truly interstellar project made possible by people from five different species and over fifty star systems…”
Five different species?! Oh, you’re including those Bun defectors… For a second, I thought you were ready to recognize our existence as a…
Mentally dismissing her snide implant, she continued to read off its feed. “Despite being a greenfield project, we went from the clean sheet design to low rate production at our main assembly plant in Datsot within less than six months. This brand-new warship represents the latest and greatest in Republic shipbuilding technology at every level, from armament to propulsion to low observability. Its unparalleled capabilities will safeguard the security and interests of our people for the next thirty years. Through the integration of this new platform into our Navy, we can stop those who wish to do us harm at their doorstep — not ours — and prevent another Battle of Sol…”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
High Council Palace, Malgeiru-3
POV: Eupprio, Malgeir (Executive)
“Ahem!” High Councilor Cerbos coughed for attention. “You’re saying the Terrans designed the ship specifications and built most of these ships?”
Eupprio didn’t blink an eye. “It was built in cooperation with our Terran allies, High Councilor.”
Terran technology, Schprissian…
Recalling the line she workshopped with her implant earlier, she continued, “The new ships are built with Terran technology, Schprissian money, and by Malgeir paws. A true fusion of the best and brightest of our grand coalition.”
That seemed to satisfy the high councilor. He nodded. “Good to hear.”
Well, it’s not totally true. But close enough.
She ignored her implant and continued, “As a tier one partner on the project, the Federation Ministry of Defense will have the right of first refusal on new spaceframes, beginning with Lot 5 out of Datsot—”
“Lot 5?” Cerbos asked. “The Terrans are actually buying out the first four lots?! I didn’t think they were serious about that. Isn’t that more of these ships than they have now?”
Eupprio was prepared for that line of questioning. “The Terran Navy intends to purchase the first four lots and integrate Federation spacers into their training programs from the very start. The overwhelming success of the pilot programs around our Marines in their internal conflict has convinced their lawmakers of the merits of a higher level of integration between our two services…”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Republic Senate Complex, Luna
POV: Martina Wright, Terran (Executive)
“So you’re working with the Malgeir to familiarize their spacers with— with these new missile destroyers?”
Martina smiled up at the elderly senator. “Yes, Senator Blake Wald. Though training is mostly the Navy’s department, Raytech has worked extensively with both services to adapt the ship specifications to the physiology of both species through an iterative process of spacer input.”
“Lots of fancy buzzwords I hear. What I want to know is… will it be ready in time for the Grantor counter-offensive?”
Bring up the Sirius exercises. Field evaluation results last month.
“We believe so, Senator. The concept has been thoroughly wargamed. And early field evaluations have been highly positive. There have been a few minor points of interest in the—”
Blake furrowed his brow. “I believe the word you’re looking for is defects, eh? What did that latest Office of Accountability test report say?”
Uh oh. He wasn’t supposed to actually read that one.
“There have been a few remaining salient… points of concern around production quality at the naval shipyard in Datsot,” Martina answered smoothly. “But the trend is positive. We’ve implemented extensive control measures around quality assurance, and we aim for the final assembly and test process to be fully automated by our intelligence programs by the start of the next quarter.”
“Not to be prejudiced,” the senator looked up amusingly as a few of his colleagues chuckled. “But as much as I have my concerns with you people over there in Olympus… the Puppers— Anyway, I’ll sleep a lot better at night when these ships transition to being built by our toasters.”
Excuse me? Just because we’ve reclaimed that slur doesn’t mean your people can refer to us like that!
Blake continued, “The report I saw said there were over four thousand defects.”
Martina projected unabashed confidence the way that no legally-certified computer intelligence could. “The issues are cumulative from the beginning of the project, Senator. The vast majority of them have been addressed to the Office of Accountability’s satisfaction, and there have been no critical-flagged issues in the past two months. We expect to continue to improve our process and be in the green by mid-next quarter…”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
High Council Palace, Malgeiru-3
POV: Eupprio, Malgeir (Executive)
“Any issues in the production process?”
“None whatsoever.”
“I heard someone from our counterparts in Sol say something about quality—”
Eupprio brushed aside a strand of silver fur on her head casually. “Nope. They’re just being overcautious as usual. It’s the Grass Eater paranoia.”
“Oh whew. Good. Good.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Republic Senate Complex, Luna
POV: Martina Wright, Terran (Executive)
“Request permission to question the witness—”
“You have ten minutes, Seimur. And you’ll play nice.”
“I’ll be doing my job is what I’ll be doing,” Seimur said lightly. He looked over the top of the dais down at Martina. “Ms. Wright.”
“Martina is fine, Senator,” she answered with a practiced smile.
“Martina. As you well know, there is still significant orbital debris above my planet from the Battle of Mars. The shortened launch windows have drastically driven up shipping costs for my constituents and the businesses in my district. The Navy has been dragging its feet on cleaning it all up, and they’re saying that it’s because they don’t have enough tugs. Are you aware of this problem?”
“Yes, Senator. In fact, as a Martian company — and as a lifelong Martian citizen myself, we all feel the same pain people in your district do—”
“I’m glad you understand, Martina, but I’m more concerned about what you’re doing to fix it. I know for a fact that the Navy has significant unused tug capacity that they’re just transferring out, away from Sol.”
What is he on about?
“Senator, our company does not command the Republic Navy. However, Raytech has donated a portion of its revenue to a fund that helps resettle war refugees affected by falling debris in northern Arcadia—”
Seimur interrupted her again. “I hear you’ve got spare production capacity in your fancy new shipyard.”
Oh, he’s not serious, is he?
“Excuse me?”
“That alien shipyard you’ve got yourself in Datsot. It produces shuttles and tugs, does it not?”
He is serious.
“Senator, I believe there is some misunderstanding here. The Datsot shipyard is majority owned by a company in the Malgeir Federation. We have a sizable minority stake in it, but we don’t control its reserve production line schedules.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know they own it on paper, but our people gave them all the designs for their new ships, right? Surely, they won’t say no if we ask for a few lines to produce some orbital tugs to clean up some debris over one of our own planets.”
Yeah, sure. No problem. Just a few tugs. As if the Malgeir don’t have their own logistics screw-ups — decades worth of backlog — they’re trying to clean up.
Martina smiled thinly. “I’ll bring your concern directly to them the next time I visit, Senator. They may be open to perhaps some kind of a production sharing arrangement for some of those lines.”
“Good,” Seimur nodded earnestly. “I’m sure they wouldn’t want to see us… re-evaluate the level of our cooperation with them over a few orbital tug production lines.”
God, why didn’t you just let Panoptes post that obtuse jerk’s browser history on social media like it suggested?
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grand Chancellery, Schpriss Prime
POV: Sonfio, Schpriss (Chancellor of the Confederacy)
“The overall rate of return… is not terrible. At least, theoretically-speaking,” the ambassador said as he read off his datapad.
Sonfio got one of those shiny new datapads too.
Terran-made.
Blazing fast, and they came with such convenient adaptive programs too. The Schpriss had the concept of self-aware thinking machines; they weren’t quite taboo in Schprissian society as they were in the Granti and Malgeir civilizations, but they were mostly just expensive toys crunching numbers used for research, not… an assistant in everyone’s paws.
Sure, their Terran makers were probably spying on them with those, but they were already doing that before anyway.
“Theoretically?” Sonfio echoed. “Our budget can’t run on theoretical gains.”
“Technically, these rates of returns look fantastic. Those numbers beat the average annual market return on Schpriss Prime any year.”
“But they’re not going to be paying us for a while!”
Ambassador Prinlaex shook his head. “No. They’d owe us money. And the guaranteed interest rates are, of course, considerable. But the terms on these— what do they call them again?”
“War bonds.”
“Yes, that. Such an ugly name for a perfectly regular class of long-term debt securities. The maturation terms on them mean we won’t see our money or interest for at least twenty years.”
“That’s… not the worst, I guess,” Sonfio hedged. “We’ve got longer-term markets than that with lower rates.”
“Sure, but those are with established and trustworthy entities. We’ve known these Grass Eaters for a year, but they say if we lend them some resources, they’ll pay it back in twenty.”
Sonfio brushed his whiskers. “When you talk to them, do you get the sense that it’s some kind of elaborate scam?”
“Well, I— I don’t really have a feel for these people yet.”
“Hm… what about the Malgeir?”
Prinlaex fidgeted. “Well, you know the short-tails. On this matter, they’re a bit… I don’t want to say…”
“Gullible, you mean?”
“That, or… desperate. Not the best barometer for judging alien character.”
“Trustworthiness aside, do you think this… opportunity these Terrans say is real from a pure financial perspective?” Sonfio asked. “And that investment project they twisted our paws into a couple months ago?”
“The shipyard project? Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. That one is guaranteed to make credits.”
“Why do you say that?“ Sonfio asked, confused about the confidence.
“One of our agents got a few pictures of that line of new ships they’re building. The ones we transmitted back to you last month.”
“Oh, are their new ships really that good?”
“We’re not sure how good it is. In fact, we don’t really know which criteria to evaluate it by.”
“So how do we know—”
“Because,” Prinlaex said, a grin slowly appearing on his face. “Have you counted how many of their… missile cells are mounted on that ship? Just the new missile yard’s revenue of fitting out that ship for one full volley, maybe two… Don’t worry — that project will make back every credit we invested into it and more.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Republic Senate Complex, Luna
POV: Martina Wright, Terran (Executive)
Seimur wasn’t done. “There is another matter. Impressive as your new ship looks on paper, I wonder if this may be another case of the Navy leadership trying to fight the last war, as admirals are known to do.” He chuckled dryly twice at his own pithy-but-empty saying to emphasize his point. “Yes, the number of expensive missile cells is impressive and would have come in handy in the Battle of Sol. But perhaps there is more to naval doctrine than simply preparing to fight the last battle better, no? But I am no expert on that…”
“Senator, our ship was not designed to fight the last war. It is designed to fight the current war. The war that we are still fighting in. If we’d been aiming for the last war — for another round of counterinsurgency in the Red Zone — we wouldn’t need the brand-new missile cell design. We wouldn’t need the dedicated stealth capabilities. Hell, we wouldn’t even need the FTL drive. We are making the hardware we can, for the war that we have, and that is the best that we can do.”
“Fair enough. I’ll concede that I don’t know enough about the Navy side of things to make an informed critique. I just want to enter my concerns in the record given the amount of money we’re about to spend on this whole new— on the Republic First Expeditionary Fleet. Just for the historical record.”
What a weasel. May historical record make a fool out of him.
Martina gave him the most charming smile she could fit on her face. “Understood, Senator. Any other questions?”
“Nope. Rest of the time is yours, Senator Wald.”
Senator Blake Wald looked around the committee. “Any other questions for this witness?”
There were a few rustlings of conversation but no additional questions.
“Great,” the senator announced after a while. “Thank you for your testimony, Martina. Next up, we have the Navy representative here to give us the progress update on the training and integration program. The Senate calls Captain Samantha Lee…”
Martina gathered her items from the witness table, stood up to leave, and gave a short wink to the former analyst who was taking her seat. She muttered out of the side of her mouth, “Good luck, Sam.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll need all of it.”
As she walked out, she muttered to her implant, “Anything else we were supposed to do on Luna before my flight leaves for Olympus?”
No.
She glanced sharply at the corner of her eye. “Just no? No sharp, witty joke about my captivating performance back there?”
No.
“A little quiet today, huh? You’re not having one of those digital intelligence existential crisis things, are you? You know we’re still keeping you around for our Basic Tier customers even after Panoptes comes online for subscriptions, right?”
Martina, you should sit down for this.
“Sit down? What is it?” she asked, confused.
We just received the latest FTL intelligence dump from Raytech collection sources in the frontline systems. There is some bad news out of Grantor.
“What is it?”
It’s about your fiancé, Mark…
Comments
M
It was bound to happen at some point in that line of work. RIP
Scipio
Rip
