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Grass Eaters 3 | 21 | Teamwork I
🕑 Added 2024-12-11 16:47:01 +0000 UTCGrantor City State Security HQ, Grantor-3
POV: Sprabr, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Eleven Whiskers)
“What exactly is the problem here, Administrator Krelnos?” Sprabr asked the shorter female figure in front of him as patiently as he could. This new station director had been giving him a headache for the past couple months. If that Director Svatken hadn’t promoted this one herself, he’d already done something about her meddling whiskers weeks ago. As it was, she was testing his patience.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Navy Eleven Whiskers,” she answered haughtily, putting a special emphasis on his service as if it were a pejorative. “This is a matter of State Security, not a problem you can simply blow up with one of your ships.”
Sprabr gave her an amused expression. “Station Director Krelnos, I think you will find it easier to do your job here if you can brief us on your intentions so my spacers and Marines can better help—”
“Do not forget your place, Sprabr,” Krelnos replied sharply. “You may be an Eleven Whiskers in the Navy, but the security of this planet is both my responsibility and mine to command. As is the task of wiping out these new Great Predators you people declined to brief me on before your fleet went missing looking for their home system.”
That disastrous decision made by your superiors. Your department… Somehow, you seem to all think it’s my fault now.
He gave her an exasperated sigh. “Of course, Station Director. What do you need from us?”
“Twelve divisions of Marines for the security of Grantor City.”
“Twelve divisions?!” Sprabr exclaimed.
“Do you think that’s too little?” she asked.
“No, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were about to exterminate a whole new predator infestation with that kind of force! There is at most a platoon of Great Predators in Grantor City! Perhaps a more judicious use of force would be an appropriate solution—”
“What’s the problem, Eleven Whiskers?” Krelnos asked silkily. “Is your troop readiness inadequate to supply us with the force we need? Would you like to take full responsibility for that now?”
“That’s not my point—” Sprabr paused and took a deep breath. “Station Director, we are supposed to be withdrawing from this planet soon. Bringing in and landing that many Marines will create logistical issues in even the most well-prepared fleets. And they are additional people that we will either have to evacuate with the fleet or take responsibility for when they fail in their ultimately futile mission in the next few months.”
“Oh yes. Futile! In its infinite wisdom, it appears the Navy has decided that Grantor will be given up on!” she snapped. “That we are going to abandon an entire system— no, an entire constellation of the Dominion to the predators without a fight!”
“Station Director Krelnos, that decision is also corroborated by the calculations and analysis of our—”
“How convenient! That your Digital Guides simply supply you with the exact policy directives that align with your personal preferences!”
Sprabr tilted his head. “What exactly are you insinuating here, Station Director? That I’ve tampered—”
She ignored his question. “Unlike your defeatist officers, Eleven Whiskers Sprabr, I intend to do my job here. Until the abominations invade this system, land their troops on the surface, and physically come here to remove me, I will continue to do the job I was charged to do by my Dominion: pacifying the predators on this planet and preparing it for future Dominion colonization. Until new orders arrive from Znos, I will not assume otherwise and assist you in your scheme to dismantle our own defenses here.”
“That is bordering on— I wish you good luck in completing your mission, Station—”
Krelnos continued without breaking pace, “And for that purpose, I require twelve divisions of your Marines. And well-trained ones this time, not those conscripts you’ve dressed up as Marines like you tried to pull on us last week. I want a well-formulated plan for transporting them here and integrating them into our Grantor City security plans by the end of the week.”
He hid a frustrated sigh. “Yes, Station Director. If that is your directive.”
“It is,” she said imperiously before redirecting her attention back down to the datapad on her desk.
Sprabr waited patiently a moment before he asked, “Can I leave now, Station Director? I have some Navy business to attend to.”
She looked up and smiled thinly at him. “Yes. But your afternoon flight has been cancelled.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your flight. Back up to the fleet. That supply shuttle. I have cancelled it for you.”
His jaw dropped. “May I ask why?”
“You may. You are not allowed to leave Grantor City. Therefore, I have cancelled your flight.”
“Not allowed to— Am I under formal investigation?” he asked, keeping the nervousness out of his voice.
“No. But until you have completed your tasks on Grantor that I have ordered from you, you will stay here. When they are complete, you will be allowed to leave.”
“This is highly irregular!” Sprabr protested. “My duties require that I be with the fleet over Grantor!”
“Do you not recognize my authority — State Security’s authority — over you?” she asked dangerously.
“Of course I recognize your authority, but there is no need for this micromanagement! It is— it is highly inefficient!”
“No matters of State Security are to be considered inefficient,” Krelnos replied matter-of-factly. “Would you like to file a formal complaint against my inefficiency?”
Sprabr waited five heartbeats to calm himself down before he replied, “No. That will not be necessary.”
“Good, I am glad we have an understanding, Eleven Whiskers,” she replied. “If you have any questions about the task I have assigned you, my office is always open to you.”
She didn’t even bother to hide the smug look on her face as Sprabr turned around to leave.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grantor City Safehouse Yankee, Grantor-3
POV: Torsad, Grantor Underground (Department Leader)
As the Grantor Underground expanded its operations across the planet, more areas were now considered safe to operate in, and the Republic operators moved most of their equipment into the basement of a pre-war history museum. The aboveground floors had been ransacked and now served as temporary shelter for hundreds of refugees from the rural areas around Grantor. Sealing off the internal stairways and digging additional escape routes at the insistence of their Terran advisors proved relatively straightforward.
Importantly, the underground sections were powered by backup generators before the Znosian occupation began. The generators were no longer there — looted and taken away long ago, but the separate power infrastructure built into its walls still worked; connecting the adaptive Terran equipment proved trivial.
Department Leader Torsad looked around at their new operations room with pride. It was only accessible to the Terrans and a handful of Granti who had been “read in” into the program, but they’d done their best to make it their new home. More people had been made aware of the Terrans’ existence in the underground since the Battle of Sol, but the Terran Reconnaissance Office still liked its secrets on Grantor kept behind closed doors, armed guards, and self-destructing brain chips.
Today, there were five of them, not counting the Terrans.
Torsad read her latest update from her new tablet, “My action cells are progressing nicely along the metrics we’ve recently set. We’ve cut back further on direct operations and focused more on recruitment training. We are up to two regular divisions in the city in terms of quantity. And they have been trained to activate from cell to army at a moment’s notice… as you’ve instructed. That is the good news for our action cells. The bad news is that supplying them continues to be a challenge.”
Kara nodded. “That is expected. I think we were a little too efficient in sabotaging the Znosian war production facilities in the city. They’re moving the important machinery out to the secondary cities.”
“Possibly,” Torsad admitted. “And it is difficult to smuggle weapons in mass quantities into Grantor City in such a short amount of time, even with the development of our new dedicated logistics cells. If we make them too efficient—”
Mark interjected, “The Buns will find out, yeah. That’s fine. Two understrength divisions are still very good. As long as they can learn and they can fight, we can use them. Keep them on the training programs, keep feeding them, and tell them to keep up the good work.”
“Yes, Director,” Torsad smiled. “On the intelligence front, there is even better news.”
“Better news?” Mark arched an eyebrow.
“We have broken into the State Security main branch office here in Grantor City,” Torsad said to gasps and surprised looks around the circle. “We got ahold of their list of secret collaborators at the office, and a couple of them proved… cooperative with us when given the right incentive.”
“You should have led with that one!” Mark exclaimed. “I thought they stopped using collaborators in their critical installations after that Navy base raid last month!”
“They stopped using Granti collaborators to handle transport of their personnel after the officers in charge took responsibility, yes. But they’ve also brought in new units of Malgeir sniffers to try to find us. And while the new sniffers have found and turned over a couple of our lower-level cells, let’s just say the Grass Eaters didn’t quite break their Malgeir prisoners as much as they thought they did. And with the liberation of the Malgeir Federation on the horizon, we’ve been able to convince at least a few of them to see the… merits in defiance.”
Mark sighed in relief. “Good. We’ve spent a considerable amount of resources Pupper-proofing our operations the past couple months drawing from our people’s experience fighting with them in the Red Zone, but it would still have been a nightmare if—”
“You’ve— you’ve Pupper— Malgeir-proofed your operation?” one of the other department leaders asked, stuttering. Torsad noticed with amusement that he was newer to the program. “For— for—”
“Yes, of course. And don’t feel too left out. We also had contingencies for if your species’ collaborators proved less cooperative than we thought. Luckily, we never had to activate those.”
That left the new guy speechless.
“May I continue?” Torsad asked, smiling. “Don’t you want to know what we found out from their State Security?”
“Yes, please, Department Leader. If there are no other objections around the table?”
There were none.
“As we know, there has been considerable tension between the Station Director in charge of Grantor City and Eleven Whiskers Sprabr. More specifically, we now know they’ve had at least four or five meetings in the last week, and our sources say that she is extremely unhappy with him.”
“Fascinating,” Mark said. “What’s our local obergruppenfuhrer and Atilla the Bun arguing about?”
They’d read enough Terran historic material — required reading for cell leaders and above in the Underground now — to understand the morbid references.
“Likely about personnel. She keeps demanding he bring more of his Marines down onto the planet and into the city, and he’s been slow— slow-hopping the request for a while because he’s got one paw out the door on this planet already. Our collaborator doesn’t have direct access to the meetings; they just say it’s along those general lines. But Grass Eater infighting is not the best news. The even better news is that we got access to the movement logs and schedules of the people in the main branch office for the next couple weeks.”
One of the other department leaders nodded in excitement. “Fantastic. We’ll have one of our cells pay the Station Director a visit. Probably hit her vehicle on her way to work. That’ll show the Grass Eaters—”
Torsad shook her head. “No, she’s too useful for us.”
“Too useful?!”
“Too useful for us,” Torsad replied coolly.
Mark pointed a finger at Torsad. “Exactly right, Department Leader. She’s one of Svatken’s prodigies who cares more about internal security than the war. We’ll keep her around a while longer. What about her subordinates? Any of them showing signs of real competence we should nip in the bud?”
“We have a list, Director, but that’s not even the best part,” Torsad said. She pointed at a poster on the wall with a list of priority targets. Sprabr’s face was near the top. “Remember when you said you’d like a shot at… Atilla the Bun?”
“You got ahold of Sprabr’s schedule too?!”
“No. His schedule is with the Navy, not State Security, and the Eleven Whiskers is a very careful Grass Eater. He is too competent to allow that information to leak to collaborators. However…” Torsad paused with a glint in her eyes, “ever since they started arguing, Station Director Krelnos put a squad of trained operatives on surveilling Sprabr. Standard operating procedure with State Security for their own people who they find troublesome. And while Sprabr undoubtedly knows that they are watching him, there’s not much he can do about it. After all, they are his own State Security.”
“Don’t tell me… we have the schedules and location logs for the operatives who are spying on their own Eleven Whiskers,” Mark said, almost in awe.
“I won’t tell you that, then,” Torsad said smugly. “And it didn’t take us too long to figure out his routine from the convenient spies their State Security has placed for us.”
“Alright… wait a minute, wait a minute. What if— what if this is a trap?” Mark asked, but his excitement betrayed the genuineness of his devil’s advocacy. “What if they co-opted your collaborators and are feeding us this false information?”
“It’s been right so far. And we placed an observer along his vehicle’s route from the Navy ground base to the State Security office. It’s him. And we’ve got his visiting schedule too.”
“So the next time he’s called in to the principal’s office…”
Torsad looked at him curiously. “Are we going to use our operative cells, or do you want a piece of the action?”
Mark hesitated for a second, clearly considering the options. “I trust your people to handle this.”
Torsad noticed a discontented sigh escaping Kara to the side. She let a smile creep up on her face. “Our people it is, then. Dead or alive?”
Comments
AnAbsoluteVillain
120k+ buns. Like what is she going to do with them put one on every corner? 😅 Also dude just say no she doesnt even have an army to threaten you with. 😆 😂
Valdis Trautmanis
I thought Mark mockingly assigned Krelnos the rank of someone infamous from Terran history, either real or fictional, like calling Sprabr Attila. I thought of Hans Landa (Basterds), Heinrich Mueller (both real and fictional) and Max Otto von Stirlitz (17 spring moments), but their ranks don't match and Stirlitz was a double agent
51sydney
Sprabr has been right about everything and only gets shit from his colleagues in return. Sounds about right.
Christian
Obergruppenführer Krelnos
Spooker
This is current now. The point crossed around Ch 16-17.
Nicolae
Dead or Alive? I would prefer Mauled.
Valdis Trautmanis
Hmm.. Is this current events? I thought we were still in the past, and the "improved" Malgeir Navy Seals landing on Grantor being the present
Spooker
Wait, that was already done. That mission was referenced in Ch 16-17.
Valdis Trautmanis
Oof.. am getting the feeling this op will not go too smoothly and this will be how the Terrans captured that unfortunate Nine-whiskers commodore mentioned a good while ago. And which famous obergruppenfuhrer is Mark referring to?
