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Grass Eaters 3 | 11 | Underground I
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 16:47:01 +0000 UTCContent Warning
Chapter includes depiction of self-harm that could be disturbing to some people.
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Grantor City Outskirts, Grantor-3
POV: Guinspiu, Granti (Head Councilor)
Guinspiu admired the camouflage netting the trio of Terran operators had thrown over their landing shuttle as they began to unload their equipment with a fancy-looking cart. The netting itself was made of some kind of digital fabric that transmitted image from one side of it to another, hiding what’s underneath in a semi-invisible cloak. Up close, she could see there was something there… like a haze. But from far away, there was no way anyone would be able to visually spot it, especially not with the patch of trees behind it breaking its silhouette.
She noticed something that looked familiar on the cart and called Mark’s attention. “Hey, isn’t that one of our object fabricators?”
He took off his armor’s helmet and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. “Is it? Probably. We appropriated a lot of technology from you and the Malgeir a while ago.”
“What did we bring that for?” she asked as he began to drink from a straw in his suit.
Mark gulped twice to swallow the water. “For your people.”
“My people?”
“Yeah, your people,” he repeated. “What? You think we’re just going to leave your people down here to rot and ignore them while we beat the Znosians ourselves? Just the three of us?”
“You’re going to— to— to fabricate and print things for us?” she asked, still puzzled.
“Yeah, that’s… why we brought one of those. What else would you need one of those for?”
“But what are you making? My people here need food. They need safety.”
“We have plans for that too, High Councilor, but no, your people don’t need safety,” Mark said, shaking his head lightly. “Your people need to fight back.”
“With what? Our claws? Oh…” she came to a sudden realization. “You’ve brought those to make us guns.”
“Guns?” Mark chuckled dryly. “Please, High Councilor. You’ve been watching too many of our movies.”
“Huh?”
“Contrary to popular opinion, guns don’t win insurgencies on their own, High Councilor. Not most of the time. How many guns do you think we can make with a portable printer every month? How do we get them to people? And what munitions do they fire? Are we going to be starting a local firearms and munitions manufacturing industry here with a single printer?”
“I guess not… So what are you making?”
Mark put his armor helmet back on, securing it fully. “Replacements for our gear, mostly. A few radios, probably, until we can find something better.”
“What about my people? You said they have to fight back. What weapons will my people use?”
“Weapons? I know somewhere you can find weapons. Right here on Grantor. No complicated or additional manufacturing necessary.”
“Where?” Guinspiu asked excitedly.
“We’re on an occupied planet with millions of Znosian troops, High Councilor. I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to find the weapons we need. The real question is how many fighters we can find to use them.” Mark smiled inside his helmet, continuing, “This almost reminds me of the good old days of the TRO.”
“The good old days of the TRO?” she asked.
“Yeah, pre-Republic. Before the abuse scandals hearings, before the reforms. Before my time.”
“Huh. Yeah. You guys never talk about that. What did your organization do before you found all of us aliens in space?”
“Nothing nice. You’ll see, High Councilor. You’ll see.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grantor City Work Camp 6, Grantor-3
POV: Torsad, Granti (Prisoner)
Torsad massaged her sore paws as she stirred the Grass Eater hatchling nutrient vat in front of her with a long stick, the hot acid fumes in it reaching up to sting her eyes without protection. The strip of cloth she wrapped around her paws barely protected her from the foul-smelling orange liquid.
She blinked and then coughed… away from the vat, knowing what the consequences would be if she hadn’t. At merely thirty years old, she had taken on the wrinkles and appearance of a much older Granti female.
As Torsad turned to the side, she saw her old neighbor next to her, Sossui, having a similar issue. He was having a much harder time with the Znosian occupation. With the official cutting of all meat supply, she knew Sossui hadn’t been able to secure protein in secret. Besides his gaunt appearance, he was slowly going blind from the lack of nutrition. That was happening to a lot of people.
As she turned back to continue to stir her own vat, she heard a series of hard coughs, and then clattering followed by quiet swearing next to her.
She looked over. Sossui was standing on his tippy paws peering into his bubbling vat with despair in his half-blind eyes. He whispered at her, “My— my stirring stick… it fell… oh… Oh no.”
Torsad looked around. Hopefully none of the Grass Eater supervisors saw—
“What’s going on over here?” a rough voice yelled. “Why aren’t you working, lazy predator?”
No such luck.
“I apologize, Three Whiskers,” Sossui said, bowing almost as low as the supervisor’s stature. “My— my stirring stick— it fell in.”
“You what?!” the three whiskers screeched. She jabbed his leg with a buzzing baton, activating it as she did. “Whose fault is it?”
Bzzzzzzt.
“Owwww! Three Whiskers Pukhat, please,” Sossui whimpered in pain. “I take full responsibility for— for the mistake— for my mistake and— and my weakness.”
“You better! Now you are responsible for fixing it,” Pukhat said, glaring at him. “Go get it!”
“How?”
“How?!” Pukhat exclaimed. “Reach in with your paws and grab it!”
“But— but it’s hatchling nutrient liquid,” he whined.
Torsad watched the exchange, knowing what happened to the last prisoner who reached into one of these vats when they were being processed. A heartbeat, and the corrosive orange liquid would burn off all your fur. A couple more seconds, and your paw was good as gone.
Pukhat was not having it. She jabbed Sossui again with her shock stick.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzt.
Sossui cried, falling down in convulsions.
“You idiot! This isn’t the Navy. We don’t just have extra equipment lying around! And I’m not taking responsibility for your error! So either you go in and grab it, or I’ll have you replaced with someone who will.”
Torsad quickly looked back at her vat, stirring as hard as she could, as all of the rest of the row did. There were no volunteers in this camp. Volunteers did not live long.
“Okay! Okay! I’ll get it,” Sossui moaned as he crawled on the ground. “I’ll get it, Three Whiskers.”
“Good,” Pukhat said. She pulled up a stool next to his vat helpfully. “Here, stand on this.”
Sossui climbed onto the stool. He looked over at the rest of the row, most of which had stopped stirring again to look at the unfolding drama now that they knew they weren’t in danger of being volunteered to lose their paws. He gave them all a weak smile with his cloudy eyes. “I’ll get it,” he said, more confidently.
“Use both paws,” Pukhat advised. “In case you lose your grip with one.”
Sossui nodded at her. “I take full responsibility for this, Three Whiskers.”
“Yes. You already did,” Pukhat said, a puzzled expression forming on her face. “Now you just have to— What are you— no!”
Sossui looked into the vat, took a deep breath, and then hopped in headfirst. The vat sizzled for a couple seconds. There was a brief moment of liquid thrashing in it, and then the vat went silent.
“Oh! Great! Just great! Another stupid jumper!” Pukhat screamed at the vat. “That’s the fourth one of you idiots this month!”
She stepped up onto the stool, peering into the vat herself. She stepped back and glanced at the instruments embedded into its side. “Hm… at least the vat’s still good. Still within margin… But we’re down a stirring stick today.”
Pukhat looked up and around, her eyes sweeping the unfortunate workers before her gaze settled straight at Torsad. “You, get over here. Hey, you, prisoner number thirteen. Come grab the stirring stick.”
“Me?” Torsad squeaked as she heard her number called.
“Yes, you! Who else? Come here. I saw the stick almost at the surface when I looked in,” Pukhat said. “If you grab it quick with both paws, you should be able to hold onto it. And you might even keep one of your paws if you’re lucky!”
Torsad paled. “But— but I didn’t drop my stick in the vat!”
“Am I hearing an argument from you, prisoner?” the three whiskers asked dangerously, approaching her with her baton.
“But— but I didn’t do it. Why am I—”
“Wrong answer.”
Bzzzzzzt.
Torsad felt her vision go white from the pain as she collapsed onto the ground, screaming, “Ahhhhh!”
As she recovered, Pukhat muttered, “And now you’ll do it. You Slow Predators never learn. Always have to teach multiple times.”
“No, please,” Torsad begged, shaking her head. “Three Whiskers—”
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
The pain was much more acute this time. Torsad felt like her leg was going to fall off as she crawled on the floor, struggling to get up.
“Pick up the stick, predator.”
“Okay, okay, Three Whiskers, I’ll do it,” Torsad wheezed as she massaged her legs.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? Two shocks. Maybe the next one of you will follow instructions with just one next time,” Pukhat said, pointing at Sossui’s vat.
Torsad stood up and stretched her paws above her head, limbering herself up.
Pukhat watched her skeptically as she waved her shock stick around. “Stop stalling and do as I say. This is your final warning.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll do it.” Torsad put a paw on the stool, as if to steady it before climbing on.
Then, she picked the stool up by its leg, swinging it around in a circle around her as hard as she could.
Crack.
The stool hit the three whiskers with so much force Pukhat went flying. The diminutive Znosian supervisor smashed into a wall, her body crumpling onto the ground. Her baton clattered away from her body.
Torsad slowly ambled her way towards the fallen supervisor, limping with every step. She picked up the dropped baton on the way.
Pukhat coughed, looking up. She was somehow still alive after the impact. A sturdy Znosian, joining the ranks of very few who could say they survived a full-strength hit — from a malnourished prisoner but a Granti still — from a two-meter tall apex predator, without wearing any armor.
Not many bones intact though…
She spat out a mouthful of blood and barely squeaked out at the giant predator approaching her, “What— what have you done, abomination? You’ll— you’ll die for this—”
Torsad felt satisfaction she hadn’t experienced in a very long time as she jabbed the stick into Pukhat’s face, holding a claw on the activation button as hard as she could.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
She didn’t stop. She just held it there for a good minute. After a while — she didn’t know how long, her arms finally tired, she let go of the baton, hearing it clatter to the floor.
Without a second look at the smoldering flesh of the lifeless three whiskers, she walked back to her assigned vat and continued to stir.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was almost half an hour before someone came looking for Pukhat. Two Znosian Marines rushed in, their rifles drawn. Seeing her state on the ground, they pointed their guns at the row of vat stirrers.
“Who did this?” one of them demanded. “Which one of you? One of you did this!”
“If none of you say anything, you know the protocol,” the other added with a cold calmness.
“It was Torsad,” a voice called out from the end of the row.
“Torsad? Which one of you is Torsad?”
“That one,” his companion said, pointing at the name sign above Torsad’s vat. “Number thirteen.”
“You did this?” the Marine looked straight at Torsad, pointing his gun at her.
She raised her open paws in the air. To her surprise, they didn’t just shoot her right away. They conversed in their own helmets, seemingly asking for orders on how to respond. Prisoners did sometimes revolt, and the procedure for that was simple, but Torsad didn’t recognize either of the guards. She suspected these guys might be new.
“Get over there! Pick up her body,” one of them gestured at the corpse of the three whiskers with the barrel of his rifle after a moment. He was not taking his eyes off of her.
Numbly, she walked over to Pukhat’s burnt body, picking it up and cradling it in her arms.
“Out the door, now,” the Marine said shortly. “Go straight, don’t turn around.”
The two of them led her out of the camp’s work huts, towards the wooded area behind it. She knew what happened there. Everybody did.
“Put the three whiskers down,” he ordered when they arrived at a less disturbed spot. It smelled horrible here, even worse than the hatchling nutrient vats. “Don’t turn around, predator.”
Torsad heard a piece of metal clatter at her feet. She looked down.
“Grab the shovel. Dig a hole. If you make sudden moves or turn around, we will shoot you.”
She followed the command, picking up the shovel and began to dig. Slowly at first, and then the more dirt she removed, the deeper the hole got, the easier it got… to accept that this was the end for her. She wasn’t sure why she complied; she was going to die either way. But she dug. Everyone did.
“Good enough,” one of the Marines said after a short while. “Put the three whiskers in.”
Something’s not adding up. This hole isn’t deep enough for me.
Puzzled, Torsad pushed Pukhat’s body into the hole. She began to push the dug dirt over the dead supervisor with her shovel.
The other Marine made a noise. “Huh? Is that big enough for both—”
Bang.
Torsad flinched at the loud gunshot behind her. She looked down at her body. No holes. No blood. She made to turn around.
“Don’t turn around, predator, or you die too.”
Huh? Or I die too?
She complied. There were some grinding noises behind her. A couple minutes later, there was another thud next to her paws, and she saw another body appear next to them. This one was a Znosian Marine, stripped from his armor. Wasn’t this one of the two—
“Put him in the hole too. Bury them both. And don’t turn around.”
She did as he instructed, patting her shovel on the shallow grave with two Grass Eaters as she finished closing up the shallow grave.
“Now, walk. Don’t turn around.”
They walked deeper into the forest.
They walked for what felt like five hours — until Torsad’s paws blistered and sored — in silence other than the occasional reminder not to turn around from the Znosian Marine behind her. Her mind burned with questions, but only one was immediately important.
Why am I still alive?
As night fell and the air cooled, Torsad got a good look at her surroundings. She gazed up at the sky for what felt like the first time in years. Stars. The night sky of Grantor. She identified a few familiar constellations. It was hauntingly beautiful. She sighed in admiration.
“Keep moving, predator. And—”
“Don’t turn around?” she suggested weakly.
“Yes. Keep going.”
Trudging along in the dark, they eventually came upon a clearing, a lit campfire in the middle. Torsad rubbed her eyes with the clean— cleaner back of her wrist, unsure if she could believe what they were seeing.
An elderly Granti female sat at the campfire in the clearing, drinking from a pot. Torsad noted that she looked… healthy. Healthier than anyone had a right to be on this hell planet. Her stomach rumbled from hunger as she smelled what was on the campfire: meat. Real meat.
Perhaps she died back in the forest, and this was the afterlife that some of her people believed in. Believed before the occupation anyway.
The old Granti looked up. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“My name is Guinspiu.”
Torsad did not recognize that name. She kept her mouth shut. Keeping your mouth shut; that was what you did in the occupation, one way or another.
“What’s your name?” Guinspiu asked cheerily.
The Grass Eater Marine behind her coughed impatiently, and she didn’t see a choice other than to answer. “Torsad.”
“Good work, Torsad. I know you have many questions—”
“Why am I still alive?”
“That’s a good question, Torsad. All will be answered in time,” Guinspiu said gently. “For now, I have a question for you too. Do you know anyone by the name of Denspi? Tall. Old like me. A brown like you. Birthmark on his left cheek, shaped like a small ear.”
Torsad shook her head. “No. I don’t know a Denspi.” And even if she had, she wasn’t sure she would just reveal it like that to this stranger.
“That’s too bad,” the elderly female sighed. “Ah well, at least we’ve saved one, even if you’re not mine.”
“Saved? Yours?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Guinspiu said softly. In a stronger voice, she said, “I heard you took out a three whiskers guard back at the camp there.”
Torsad said nothing.
“That takes some guts. I like guts. I mean… at this point I’ll take anyone, but guts are a bonus.”
“Who are you?” Torsad asked.
“I told you. I’m Guinspiu.”
Torsad shook her head. “No, that’s not what I meant. Who are you with?”
Guinspiu smiled at her. “Now, that is the right question. I am… with the Grantor Underground.”
She’d never heard of that one before. There were some people who roamed the wilderness and the abandoned, bombed-out sections of the city. Some were bandits who stole from each other or the Grass Eaters indiscriminately, but she thought the Znosian Marines had stamped them out ruthlessly… how long ago was that now? Time passed differently under occupation.
Instead of revealing what she knew, she asked simply, “The Grantor Underground? What’s that? What do you do?”
The elderly one didn’t answer; she took a paw-sized piece of the roasted meat off the crackling campfire, handing it to Torsad. “Here. I’m sure you are hungry after a day of hard work in that horrid camp.”
If she is trying to kill or rob me…
Torsad nodded her appreciation as she took and almost swallowed the entire piece in one bite. It tasted strange. She hadn’t had meat in… years now, probably. Not the real stuff at least. And this didn’t taste like any meat she’d ever had. Perhaps it was Grass Eater. No… it looked like way too much meat for— She decided it was best not to ask or think about it.
Two more chews and she was certain it was the most delicious thing she’d had in years. “You haven’t answered my question. What does your Grantor Underground do?” she asked as she began eagerly sucking the juicy marrow out of a piece of bone in her paws.
“It’s in the name. We’re an underground resistance group. We run around, break things, and we make life hard for the Grass Eater occupiers on our planet,” Guinspiu explained lightly.
Torsad tilted her head in thought. She’d heard of resistance groups like this before. Not for a while though. Most of them died out within a few weeks to months after the Znosians landed. Dismantled piece by piece, from both the outside and within. The Grass Eaters were good at that. She suppressed her skepticism and asked, “How many people do you have?”
“Two and a half.”
“Two and a half?” Torsad asked in surprise.
“Yup, two and a half that you need to know about now.”
“You, the Grass Eater Marine behind me…” Torsad counted.
“Yes. Me and the Six Whiskers— he’s not happy about it, but he’ll do the job when prodded.”
“I guess that’s the half. Where’s your third?”
“That’ll be you. Unless you’ve got somewhere else you’d rather be?”
Torsad thought for a few seconds and shook her head.
“Then welcome to the Underground, Torsad.”
Comments
Bayliner1980
I'm sensing an inglorious basterds incoming
Valdis Trautmanis
What the hell are those Bun hatchlings eating? Boiling Piranha solution?
