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Grass Eaters 3 | 50 | White Flag I
🕑 Added 2025-02-17 16:47:01 +0000 UTCZNS 2040, Vdrajma (1.2 LY)
POV: Khluti, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Seven Whiskers)
The hull of ZNS 2040 echoed with the sound of buckling metal, groaning as the ship’s exterior cameras showed the return of coherent starlight.
At least four hours before it was supposed to.
As captain of one of the Forager-class missile destroyers that patrolled the perimeter systems around the populated regional capital of Vdrajma, Khluti was neither an idiot nor a defect.
Her eyes flitted to her status panels, which told her exactly what she knew they would. “This is the Great Predators. They have used their blink interception weapon against us. This far into the Dominion, somehow. Communications?”
“Jammed, as expected,” her computer officer replied just as competently. “All communications, non-responsive. We are sending out light-speed signals in every direction in the hope that a ship will stop by near here, but it seems likely they are jamming that too.”
“Understood,” Khluti said, nodding her head. “We are to activate our contingency plans for such a scenario. Begin preparations.”
“Are you sure, Seven Whiskers?” he asked.
“Yes. The enemy is out there somewhere. We can’t hit what we can’t see. And we can’t kill what we can’t hit. If they intend to kill us, we will die. If they intend to board us, they will take over our ships. It is time for a different approach.”
“Yes, Seven Whiskers.”
“Record and transmit this, Computer Officer.” Khluti calmly picked up her headset. “This is Seven Whiskers Khluti of the Dominion Navy to any Great Predator vessel in our vicinity. I am ordering my ship to stand down. Our weapons and their targeting sensors are offline. Our drives are disabled. Our reactor is functioning at the bare minimum necessary to sustain life support. Our hangar bay is open. We are defenseless; we pose no threat to you. And we are no longer a military target. We are surrendering to you.”
“You think they’ll buy that?” her computer officer asked.
“No idea. Where are we on wiping our Digital Guide memory?”
“It’s working. It should be completed in ten minutes.”
“Good. Run someone down to the engineering section. Make sure the damage they do to our engines is permanent.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
TRNS Sonora, Vdrajma (1.2 LY)
POV: Catarina Ibarra, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Rear Admiral)
“That is— that is a new one,” Catarina remarked as the alien transmission message terminated.
“I thought we were just supposed to blow them up.”
Catarina nodded. “Those were our orders. What do you suppose they are up to now?”
“I don’t know. But we don’t have enough troops on board to board her properly. Maybe we just leave them stranded here in the middle of nowhere?”
She snorted derisively. “As soon as we’re gone, they’re going to call their friends and tell them we’re coming.”
Kyrylo tilted his head. “What if we leave one of our jammer drones here with them?”
Catarina thought about it for a few seconds. “Can’t risk them finding it and taking it out.”
They stood there and just watched the surrendering enemy ship on the main screen. Sure enough, its engines had turned cold and they could see from afar that even the lights in some of its exterior walkways were turning off from the power loss as its reactors powered down.
“It’s not even moving. I don’t suppose we can just… trash it,” Kyrylo said after a moment.
“Against our RoE and the rules of war.”
“The ones they don’t follow anyway.”
“No, they don’t.” She sighed. “But we do. Open a communications channel and send them this message: This is the Republic Navy. We accept your surrender. You may leave your ship from your lifepods and unarmed shuttles — except your dual-use boarding shuttles — and get to a safe distance away from your ship. You have ten minutes to comply before we begin demolitions.”
As lifepods began ejecting from the Znosian ship, in ones and twos, then dozens, Kyrylo raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of them. More than the regular complement and crew. We’re not going to have enough space for them all on the ship.”
“Send for the Crete to come and pick them up.” Catarina shook her head in annoyance.
“But aren’t they busy preparing for—”
“We’ll simply have to delay our operations for this bunch. Unless you have another suggestion that our onboard legal intelligence would not outright veto?”
It was quiet on the bridge deck for a while.
“I guess not.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
TRNS Crete, Vdrajma (1.2 LY)
POV: Baedarsust, Malgeir Federation Marine Special Warfare Team (Rank: High Pack Leader)
Baedarsust knew that the Grass Eaters being unloaded from their shuttles had been thoroughly checked for weapons and explosives by the combat robots, but that didn’t mean he was going to drop his guard. “Listen up, Grass Eaters. I am High Pack Leader Baedarsust. I will process you today. Comply with all our instructions, and I promise you will not be harmed.”
“Look at that plump one. Mmmmm… my, you look juicy,” Spommu jeered at the prisoner in front of the line.
The prisoner didn’t look amused. Nor particularly fearful.
“Shut up and let me do my job, Head Pack Leader,” Baedarsust said irately. He pointed a claw at the first prisoner. “Name and rank?”
The prisoner fixed him with a cool stare. Or what he imagined a cool Znosian stare would look like. “May your eggs shatter—”
“Look. If you don’t give me your name and rank, you may not be eligible for prisoner exchange when the time comes.”
Hearing of the possibility of going home one day, the prisoner’s demeanor improved — if only slightly. “Oh. Huh. Those are the rules?”
“Yup.”
“That’s a stupid predator rule.”
“Whatever you want to think. But as you can see…” Baedarsust gestured at the growing line behind the obstinate prisoner. “I’m a little busy here, so I’m not going to ask again. Name and rank?”
“Sjulzulp. Five Whiskers,” the prisoner pointed at the simple lines on his insignia, giving Baedarsust a mocking stare. “Blind predator.”
“How do you even spell— nevermind. Slurp, Five Whiskers,” Baedarsust read out as he typed into his datapad.
“It’s Sjulzulp!”
A second later, a small printer device on the table next to him beeped and spat out a warm card with the prisoner’s name and rank on it. Baedarsust handed it to the prisoner. “Five Whiskers Slurp it is. Next!”
Sjulzulp refused to move on and held out his card. “What are we supposed to do with this?”
“You hold onto it. Keep it safe. It’s your identity card.”
“What if I lose it?”
Baedarsust shrugged. “Find one of us, and we’ll print you another one. Move along now. You’re holding up the line.”
Sjulzulp was that guy. He stuffed the card in a utility pocket in his uniform. “Okay. I’ve lost my card. Print me another.”
“Cool. I’ll get back to you after I’m done with everyone else. Just a word of warning though, you need to produce these to be fed at mealtimes, so if it takes me a while to print you another… And get out of the line, or I’ll have Spommu show you to your new home…” He let his voice trail off to make his implication clear.
Sjulzulp finally took the hint, slinking off grumbling something unintelligible to himself.
“What an idiot,” Frumers muttered at the retreating five whiskers, just loud enough for everyone around to hear.
Quaullast snorted, “Yeah, as if we haven’t seen every one of these dumb little tricks when we were in the Red Zone for a year. These guys really think they’ll come up with something more creative than human assholes?”
Baedarsust looked up at the next prisoner in line. “Next! Name and rank?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
POV: Carla Bauernschmidt, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Rear Admiral)
“Admiral, the prisoner as you requested,” Baedarsust said, lightly shoving the Znosian officer into the conference room. He nodded in recognition at Speinfoent at her side. “And Alpha Leader Speinfoent.”
“Thank you, High Pack Leader,” Carla smiled at him. He nodded his appreciation and left, closing the door behind him with a light click.
Carla turned to the prisoner. “Seven Whiskers Khluti. Or Captain. Whichever you prefer.”
“Seven Whiskers is fine,” Khluti said sullenly.
“Seven Whiskers it is.” Carla gestured at one of the empty seats. “Take a seat.”
Slowly, Khluti did as directed, awkwardly plopping herself into a seat clearly designed for much larger creatures than her. “Am I here for you to gloat at me, Great Predator?”
“No, of course not.”
“Ah, torture then,” Khluti said, sighing in resignation. “Do your worst, abomination. You won’t get anything important out of me. I doubt I know what you’ll want to know anyway.”
Carla chuckled lightly. “Nothing quite so unprofessional or crude. Ah, Speinfoent, get rid of those unnecessary restraints. Surely you wouldn’t try to hurt us here, right?”
“I can make no guarantees.”
Shrugging, Speinfoent reached behind the prisoner officer and removed the zip ties around her wrists.
“What is this about?” she said, still glaring at the Terran as she massaged blood back into her paws.
Carla ignored her question. “Here, you must be hungry. Broccoli?” She gestured at Speinfoent, who grabbed a paper plate of stir-fried greens and plopped it on the table in front of the prisoner.
Khluti’s nose sniffed twice at the plate. She looked up suspiciously at the human. “No flesh?”
“No flesh.”
She sniffed at it hesitatingly for another couple of seconds.
“It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Carla added, smiling. “Or drugged.”
“Besides, it wouldn’t make any sense. If we wanted to drug you, it would be easy to tie you up and force-feed it to you,” Speinfoent muttered next to her.
Khluti glared at him. “That is an utterly nonsensical statement, irrational Lesser Predator.”
Speinfoent wrinkled his snout. “Nonsensical?!”
“It may be easy for you to force feed me, but it costs you literally nothing to lie to me,” she huffed. “If I were in your place, I would try lying first, too. More convenient.”
“Sure,” Speinfoent said, breaking out into a grin and baring all his sharp canine teeth at her. “But have you considered that I might really enjoy the painful process of force feeding you in your hypothetical?”
Khluti didn’t have an answer to that. Instead, she looked at the tempting plate in front of her for a few more seconds quietly.
Sighing in exasperation, Carla reached out her long arm, grabbed one of the broccoli stems out of the plate, and popped it into her own mouth. After chewing it for a few seconds and gulping it down, she opened her mouth and made an ah-ing sound to show she’d swallowed it. “There, happy?”
Khluti shuddered at the sight of her teeth. “Disgusting. Barbaric.”
Carla shrugged. “Whatever. The plate’s yours. Do with it what you want.”
After a few more seconds, the Znosian captive gave in to her rumbling digestive organs. She picked up the vegetables in the plate with a paw and began to chew experimentally.
Carla looked at her in amusement. “How is it?”
“Terrible,” Khluti said, licking a speck of particularly oily broccoli off her paw as she began picking out another from the plate. “Barely edible. I am doing this against my will, to survive as long as possible for— for the future possibility of conducting sabotage on your ship.”
“We can feed you the ration… paste that your nutrient dispenser makes instead—”
“That will be unnecessary.”
Carla guffawed. “You know… for all your people’s supposed expertise in war and ruses, you are horrible liars in person. Even compared to the Pup— the Malgeir. And the Granti, I suppose.”
“Yes, we are not natural-born swindlers like you abominations,” Khluti admitted. “There is little purpose for such deception within our people. As such, we do not practice it much amongst ourselves. It is a corruption. The very corruption that drains at your pets’ societies. The Lesser Predators. That was part of why they were incapable of resisting our attacks. And the Slow Predators.”
“Until we joined the war.”
The captive tilted her head, and admitted, “Until you joined the war.”
“Why do you think we’re not susceptible to the same problem then? Our people lie to each other all the time. Sometimes, we lie even to ourselves.”
Khluti bit into a new broccoli head. “Perhaps you succeed on the battlefield in spite of your degeneracy, not because of it.”
“Perhaps,” Carla said as she contemplated the possibility.
Seeing the plate in front of the Znosian captain was empty, Speinfoent grabbed it and replaced it with a new one — this one celery and hummus leftovers from the mess. “Another?”
“No flesh?”
Carla resisted the urge to roll her eyes, barely successfully. “Yes, no flesh.”
“I suppose… I suppose I’ll have more,” Khluti said with poorly-feigned reluctance.
“Do they have… food services where you’re from?” Carla asked curiously. “I guess you don’t have restaurants, but surely there has to be something better to look forward to than rations when you get off the ship.”
“Back on Znos?”
“Is that where you’re from? Znos?”
Khluti stopped devouring kale to look up at her suspiciously.
“What could it possibly hurt if you told me where you’re from?” Carla asked hastily. “Surely that’s not a state secret.”
The captive tilted her head, and resumed her lunch. “Yes, I am from Znos-4. We don’t have stores for wasteful food like you abominations. But we do have higher quality, more nutritious food for certain people.”
“Like who?”
“Infantry. Hard laborers. Jobs that require more strength development or have higher daily energy expenditure.”
“Sounds… coldly efficient. So for you Navy spacers, they just feed you and your— your families slop and you’re fine with that?”
“Family?” Khluti scoffed. “We don’t have such predator sentimentality. We have our bloodlines.”
“Sure, your bloodline… they just feed them that soggy crap too? Surely there is some perk to them being associated with someone as high-ranking as you.”
“My bloodline is of high-quality stock, carefully bred for tactical doctrine adherence and confidence in leadership,” she said proudly in between bites. “That is why I am a seven whiskers of the Dominion Navy. It is the job I was made for.”
“Well… until you surrendered your ship, had it scuttled, and got your whole crew captured.”
“They should not place heavy fault on me for that at my eventual assignment-of-responsibility hearing. That was a deliberate decision to waste your resources and—” Then, obviously realizing what she’d just said, she interrupted herself and clamped her mouth shut.
“Go on.”
“You lied!” Khluti pointed a shaking claw at Carla. “You said this was not an interrogation.”
“It’s not. And I said it was not torture.”
“That— there is no difference between the two. What— what are you doing then?”
Carla waved the accusation away casually. “It’s just a few questions, to satisfy my irrational predator curiosity. Let’s go back to talking about your family— bloodline, whatever. That can’t hurt, right? You don’t have to volunteer any information you think will harm your people.”
Khluti just stared at her, her expression indecisive as she chewed the food absentmindedly.
Speinfoent replaced her plate again. “More? You must be really hungry.”
The captive Znosian sniffed twice at the fresh plate distractingly. “What is this?”
“Roasted carrots. And before you ask, no, it’s not flesh.”
“Are you sure?” She prodded twice at the sizzling carrot before looking up at Carla suspiciously. “Why is it all… blood-colored like this?”
“I have no idea. I’m not a botanist, just a spacer like you. Do they teach you why your food looks the way it does?”
“No.” She looked at the plate and speculated, “Maybe you are simply fattening me up before you eat me.”
Carla rolled her eyes. “If we were, it would be easier to simply—”
“Yeah, yeah. More of that irrational nonsense again.”
“Whatever you want to think. Plate’s yours.”
Khluti took a good ten seconds to decide. Then, she took a bite. And another. No amount of practiced deception could hide the enjoyment on her face.
Carla continued, “So… your bloodline. Where on Znos-4 did you say you come from again?”
Comments
Leonardo s
"Five Whiskers Slurp it is." Clearly, the puppers learned more than one thing in the red zone, haha. You have an incredible ability to craft worlds so vivid that it's impossible not to get completely lost in them. Love your work.
TheArchivist
the most effective interrogation tactic we have that isn't the damn White Room: torturing them with kindness
xxm1rvxx
Bro I really love your writing style
