Spooker
patreon
Grass Eaters 3 | 19 | Feel Like Winning II
🕑 Added 2024-12-06 16:47:01 +0000 UTCTRNS Sonora, Sirius (18,000 Ls)
POV: Catarina Ibarra, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Rear Admiral)
The newly promoted rear admiral stared intently at the Resistance-flagged ships that they were supposed to be escorting through Sirius. Her ship was now accompanied by the three Python squadrons (one of them so newly activated that the radiation-absorbent paint on their hulls was still drying) and Rear Admiral Carla Bauernschmidt’s squadron of assault carriers and auxiliaries for backup. But that didn’t ease her a bit about the scum they were now accompanying.
“You know, Admiral, you can’t kill them by just staring at them, right?” the Sonora’s new captain asked. With the massive expansion of the Navy, there were plenty of new spots to fill. Kyrylo Holub was her old executive officer, and he jumped up in rank and stepped neatly into her shoes once she got promoted to squadron commander after the Battle of Terra.
“Yeah?” she asked, distracted.
“Railguns kill. Missiles kill. But looks… well, maybe your looks can—”
“What they’ve done with the Endurance…”
“It’s grotesque is what it is.“
They watched as the squadrons of Resistance ships slowly organized themselves into a passable escort formation around their flagship: the former TRNS Endurance. A thirty-year-old workhorse with three decades’ worth of patched repairs and upgrades, including its latest retrofit — a massive FTL drive ringed around its rear quadrant. That particular piece of technology was a captured prize from none other than ships of the Grand Znosian Navy. The modified carrier was, in every sense of the word, an abomination.
It’s a miracle it even made it out of Sol.
Catarina sighed. “I just— I can’t believe we’re supposed to escort a bunch of damn terrorists just so they can go make themselves at home in Bun territory.”
“I know,” Kyrylo said, looking at their symbols on the map sourly. “But that’s the Treaty of Hano for you. The war is over. The Resistance is done. The Republic won. Peace in the Red Zone. Magnanimity in victory… or something.”
“So why doesn’t this feel like winning, Captain?”
“What does winning feel like?”
“I don’t know… Would we even know?”
“I have no idea.” Kyrylo walked up to stand next to her, watching the new SRN-flagged ships prepare their alien blink drives on the screen. “But we didn’t lose, and now we’re fighting the right war.”
“There’s a story I was recently told.” Catarina glanced at him and smiled. “There was an old, wise man who owned a horse. One day, he forgot to tie up his horse and it ran away. Everyone in the village consoled him for his loss. He said, we’ll see. A few weeks later, his horse returned with a herd of wild horses. Everyone in the village was jealous of his large, new herd. He said, we’ll see. The man became rich with his stable of horses, and his son grew up and learned to ride them. One day, his son fell off one of his horses, breaking his leg. Everyone in the village felt sorry for him. He said, we’ll see. A few years later, war broke out, and all the men in the village were drafted to war, except his son.”
“And everyone was jealous, but the wise man said, we’ll see,” Kyrylo said, completing the story for her.
She shook her head, grinning. “Ah. No, actually. The wise man said, son, get out of my house and enlist. This ain’t the dark ages. Not having all your limbs isn’t considered a 4-F disability anymore. The Republic Marines will grow you a pair of new legs for free.”
Kyrylo chuckled dryly twice, then patted her on the shoulder. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with that Admiral Waters, huh?”
“How could you tell?”
“Just a feeling.” He scratched his nose and pointed at the Resistance ships in the virtual window. “What do you think they’re thinking over there?”
Catarina paused for a while, staring at her own reflection in the smooth glass for a long moment. “Probably the same thing we are… I guess.”
“Then, maybe this is what winning feels like.”
She took a deep breath. “We’ll see.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Naval Station Europa, Europa (100 km)
POV: Ditvish, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Zero Whiskers)
Former Ten Whiskers Ditvish stared at his growing bookshelf, wondering what he should add to it next. He went through a phase where he exclusively requested non-fictional Terran history and technical manuals, hoping that he could memorize all of it. And one day he’d be able to return to his people, and he’d be able to at least give his people an advantage before they lined him up against a wall. Maybe there would still be redemption for his bloodline.
He got past that phase a while ago. How long? He wasn’t sure. The days blended together sometimes…
Some more fiction, perhaps? He mentioned romance last time… perhaps I could give that a try.
The cell door opened. He looked towards the entrance to see which of his captors was due for a chat today.
It was Hersh. One of the Terran State Security people. This Hersh took over his routine interrogation after the one called Mark left. Hersh was more talkative than Mark, and he was interesting in his own abominable way even if both of them had very similar tics and habits.
For example, as always, Hersh turned the observation room window opaque and manually disconnected the cables to the camera that recorded everything in the room.
“You doing alright here?” the Terran operative asked, sitting down opposite Ditvish after completing the paranoid ritual.
“Maybe if I ridicule you for that silly question enough, you will stop asking it of me,” Ditvish replied dryly.
“Just doing my job, Ten Whiskers.”
“Any news out in the galaxy? Anything new?”
Hersh’s eyes twinkled. “Yeah. A few.”
Ditvish sighed. “I see you are happy. This is bad news for me and my people again, isn’t it?”
“Very. Take a guess?”
“No, thank you. I won’t play your stupid games. If you care enough, you can read my guess off my mind anyway.”
Hersh crossed his arms. “Fine. I’ll tell you. Your people attacked our home system.”
“I already suspected as much.” Ditvish shrugged. “That’s why you evacuated me to this new cell a few weeks ago. Or… the most likely explanation anyway.”
“And—”
“And you won,” he said indifferently. “Of course. That’s why I’m still sitting here and not in front of an execution squad of my own people.”
“Yes… would you— would you prefer that?”
Ditvish didn’t bother to answer out loud. They’d read his thoughts right from his brain anyway. “I am… not surprised you won again.”
“Alright then, clairvoyant fleet master. I just thought you might want to know.”
“Any news other than what I’m sure was a foolhardy attack on your home system?”
“Yes,” Hersh said, still grinning. “We are counterattacking with the Puppers— excuse me, the Lesser-But-Improved Predators.”
Ditvish snorted at the translator’s butchering of the Znosian language. “Of course. Whatever we expended on an attack here… that must have left us weak. I’m guessing you’re going for all the Lesser Predator’s territory and perhaps all the way back to Grantor?”
“You’re not supposed to be ruining the enjoyment I get for telling you all this,” Hersh huffed. “What’s the point of beating your people if I can’t see the shock and disappointment in your eyes every time I describe to you how your people lose?”
“Tell me at least this one… the State Security operator, ah— the director as you’ve mentioned last time. Svatken. The one who put me in this position in the first place. Did she at least get punished severely for the fiasco?” he asked hopefully. “A demotion, at least?”
Hersh grinned. “Nah, she’s doing just fine. In fact, she’s doing really well. Got another promotion after her superior took responsibility for the failure, the ultimate promotion. Went from sector director to just… the overall director of the entire office. Falling upwards seems to be her specialty. And we’ve spent significant resources making sure nothing bad happens to our Dear Director.”
Ditvish sighed. “Even you know she— she—” He stopped talking, unsure if he should continue.
“Eh. She’s not a total idiot, but her replacement would be much more annoying to deal with just by virtue of his deference to the Navy. Your old mentor, Grand Fleet Commander Sprabr — he is really not a big fan of Svatken, and the feeling is mutual. He’s a couple of bad days away from finding himself face down in a shallow ditch on her orders.”
“Eleven Whiskers Sprabr was not part of the attack?!”
“He stayed home. Smart fella. Turns out he even told them not to do it… at least before they could be more prepared to deal with us. They didn’t listen to him about that. Thankfully. Well, maybe.”
Ditvish brushed his whiskers. “He told them not to attack?! That’s… perceptive.” He wasn’t sure if he’d made the same choice if he didn’t know what he now knew about the Terrans, but then again, Sprabr had a couple more years of intelligence and information gathering. And who knew just how much he learned from the missteps and leaks from the Lesser Predators…
Hersh confirmed with a nod. “Yup. At least that’s what it seemed like.”
“So… he was right. And State Security has a problem with him for that?”
“Even more now that he was proven right; nobody likes a smartass. He didn’t go around saying I told you so, but everyone knows he’s thinking it, which makes it just enough to be uncomfortable around him. Turns out your people aren’t so different from ours after all,” Hersh said, letting off a little chuckle.
“Surely that bias would be offset in a proper assignment-of-responsibility— ah. You did something about that too.”
“Hey, you’re catching on!”
Ditvish looked at Hersh suspiciously. “I don’t know… what did you do?”
“That’s the trouble with responsibility, isn’t it? It relies on accurate reporting and intelligence. Of course, since none of your Grand Fleet actually got out of the Republic cluster… we got to tell the story our way. And we get to spread some nasty rumors about some very competent people in your Dominion.”
“And they… believed you?!” Ditvish asked in disbelief.
“There’s… a bit of motivated reasoning too. Who do you think is actually responsible for the disaster?”
“The people who planned it, of course.”
“And?” Hersh prompted.
“And… since the secret of the invasion itself must be kept within the top echelons to prevent leaks to you and your spying, the people responsible would be… ah.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
“Nobody high up in State Security is taking responsibility?”
“Why would they?”
“Because… they are supposed to.”
“Our Dear Director Svatken disagrees. And obviously, given her extensive training and experience in military operations, of course they’ll have to defer to her—”
“She is not trained or bred for naval operations at all!” Ditvish objected.
“Hey, wow! We’re learning a lot about the real world today, huh?”
“Nobody objected to this insanity?!”
“Well, some of them did. Past tense.”
“And she had them killed?!” Ditvish asked in astonishment. “That’s… unprecedented! Surely she knows a move like that would be terrible for the Dominion.”
“Heh. No. I mean, she had a couple of them purged, but she wasn’t nearly as selfish as we wanted her to be.” Hersh admitted, “We took care of the rest of them. Anyone who would object. Anyone who would point a claw at her in the responsibility assignment. Car accidents. Heart attacks. We’re getting pretty good at that stuff now. Anyway, they traced responsibility in a loop, drew up a list of officers to feed to the firing squad… it looks like they’re about done for now on Znos.”
Ditvish shook his head in disappointment. “And it’s… all our officers you deemed competent?”
“Not so clean. There are some incompetent ones in there as well. And we couldn’t get literally everyone. Sprabr was spared; they just eye him with a little suspicion now. But the important thing is: Svatken’s in charge and the Dominion is slightly worse managed today than it was yesterday. And as such, your Navy as well.”
Ditvish buried his face in his paws in despair. “Perhaps allowing non-naval officers to control our Navy this closely was a mistake in the setup of our system.”
“You mean civilian control of the military?” Hersh asked. “We have that too. Seems to work just fine for us.”
Ditvish shook his head, pointing a paw at the books on his shelf. “Even some of your visionary writers disagree.”
“Ah, I see you’ve been reading Heinlein,” Hersh chuckled. “Most people now reject that particular utopian vision, but hey, they were fun stories… Wait a second. You know Starship Troopers is a piece of fiction, right? Totally made up. A complete fabrication.”
“Yes, yes. You’ve explained that concept to me, and I’ll admit it has been an enjoyable idea despite the apparent waste of social resources in its creation. Still… the inefficiency in our own system that is State Security could be avoided by an implementation of your author’s vision.”
“Heh. Just because your State Security is run poorly doesn’t mean the whole concept of civilian control of the military is a bad idea. Maybe your people are just doing it wrong. Are you aware of our idiom: throwing the baby out with the bathwater?”
Ditvish sniffed twice with disdain. “Yes, though I’m unsure why that itself is supposed to be a bad thing. We recycle corrupted hatchlings from tainted pools all the time.”
Comments
jrharper42
Ditvish is back!
