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Grass Eaters 3 | 13 | Underground III
🕑 Added 2024-11-22 16:47:01 +0000 UTCGrantor City Safehouse Romeo, Grantor-3
POV: Guinspiu, Granti (Head Councilor)
“What’s that do?” Guinspiu peered at the simple glass contraption in Kara’s hands.
“It’s a Molotov cocktail,” she replied, smiling.
“A Molotov cocktail?”
Kara’s smile widened further, if that was possible. “Take any— well, I don’t need to teach you how to make one. It’s an easily made incendiary device. Which means, it burns.”
“What’s that liquid in there?”
“Could be anything that burns. Fuel mixed with something else that thickens it, usually. But we brought a plasma synthesizer with us, and the mixture we have will burn through whatever we want it to. Vehicles, concrete, skin, fur. Anything.”
“Interesting.”
“Ask it,” Kara prompted.
“Ask what?”
“What you’re dying to know. Ask what’s in our secret sauce.”
“No, I don’t think I want to know now, Kara,” Guinspiu shook her head. “What’s that other device?”
Kara held up the improvised explosive. “Simple car bomb.”
“Car… bomb? For their vehicles? To blow them up? How does it work?”
“What do you think is the easiest way to blow up a car?”
“What is the— I don’t know. I’m a politician in exile, not a trained assassin!”
“You see this switch?” Kara pointed at a vial of silver-looking liquid on the crude device.
Guinspiu squinted at the tiny device. “Yeah. What does that do?”
“Well, the old way of doing this, the way your people were doing this before… you rig up one of their ground vehicles, right? You open up the car, you find the place that connects to the engine igniter, wire the bomb in, put everything back, and when they start the car up, kaboom.”
“Right.”
“See, that’s way too complicated. It takes a while to set up. And if you don’t put everything back right, they might find out. Plus, you need someone who’s basically a car mechanic, and that narrows down the number of people that can do the job.”
“Huh… Right. How do you make it easier?”
“Well, this here is a tilt switch,” Kara explained as she unplugged the vial to show the councilor. “There’s a bit of mercury in that vial there. Which is easy to get and make. And when you tilt the switch…” She flipped the vial ninety degrees. “The two metal wires make an electric connection.”
Guinspiu nodded in understanding. “Ah. So when you put it on a moving car…”
“Yup. When the car accelerates or decelerates enough, the connection is made, and it goes kaboom. Now… installation is much simpler. No need to open up the car. You simply secure the device to the bottom of a vehicle with some tape, set the timer, and get as far away as you can. Anyone can do it. Even a cub can— not that we’ll make them, of course,” Kara hurriedly added at the end.
“What’s the timer for if you already have a switch like this?”
“Do you know what type of profession makes you most likely to die to a car bomb?”
Guinspiu frowned at the non-sequitor. “Uh, a Marine general? An unpopular politician? Maybe… a guard at a secure facility—”
“Nope. That was a trick question. It’s bomb maker. Bombs kill their creators more often than you’d think. The extra timer makes sure the switch doesn’t go off when you accidentally bump it before you get out of there.”
“Ah. I… see. So what— whose car are we blowing up?”
“Nobody’s.” Kara shook her head. “Not with this. At least not us. You should really think of us here as more of a school than a factory. We design and teach people how to make things with what they have. If we wanted to go on a real mission with real stakes for us, we’d use our own stuff, made in a real factory with real quality control.”
“But we’ve been holed up here for months just… recruiting people to do the dirty work for us.”
“Aren’t you a High Councilor? Isn’t this paw-shaking administrative stuff just… like a more exciting version of your normal job?”
“Yeah, but we haven’t made any progress finding my mate,” Guinspiu said sadly. “Not that this Underground work isn’t… important. It is important. I just—”
“He’ll show up,” Kara assured her with a light rub on her shoulder. “We’re tracking it all and expanding our net. One way or another, I’m sure he’ll show up.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dominion State Security HQ, Znos-4
POV: Svatken, Znosian Dominion State Security (Position: Director)
Director Svatken looked at the administrator in front of her with dismay, her voice light but dangerous. “Sector Governor Krelnos, I knew I recognized your name from back when I was only one of many agents, back in Grantor. I took my eyes off the sector for a couple months, and now everything’s falling apart over there. What happened?”
“Yes, Director, I take full responsibility for this,” she replied, bowing so low she could kiss the ground.
“What happened? Start from the beginning, Governor.”
“At first, it was nothing. Just a few acts of sabotage and murder of low-ranking people that were easily replaced. Then, they got more and more people to join. Two of our work camps in Grantor City were fully purged, and within a couple days, they were back. It seems like every other worker we have is in it. We rolled up one of the cells, and under heavy interrogation, they said that they knew they were all going to die, but their families would get paid for the whole month and extra. Whatever that meant. The camps are now breeding grounds for the so-called Grantor Underground.”
“The Grantor Underground?” Svatken echoed.
“I don’t know what it means either, but they don’t seem to dig many tunnels. If they did, we’d have an easier time finding them with our expertise… Anyway, the only solution I can think of is purging the work camps more regularly—”
“Why not?” Svatken asked. “Do you need my permission or something?”
“Uh…” the administrator stuttered, seemingly unsure how to answer for a moment. “I would always abide by your directive, Director, but the reason we have not begun our full transition to Phase 4 is that the metrics we use show that it will cause even more problems for us if we do it now. We are following the schedule set by our State Security guidelines. Our Digital Guides say we should only make that phase leap next year.”
Svatken let an annoyed expression show on her face. “Do as they say. On this matter, the math is more often correct than not. How is this problem suddenly popping up now? I thought we completed Grantor pacification at least three years ago while I was there. Didn’t your sector report no major anomalous activity for two years in a row before this?”
“Yes, Director. And I have begun a full review of our reports for accuracy. So far, I have found nothing out of the ordinary until this wave of unrest started, but I will be sure to report anything, and I take full responsibility in advance if anything is found.”
“That is… acceptable. Continue with the report, Governor.”
“The reason for my in-person visit— Director, I noticed something when it first began. We captured some members of one of their important combat-oriented cells. And I noticed that whenever we captured anyone, the Underground would immediately react. All the other members of the cell would disappear before we could get to them. No matter what we did. We tried secret raids. Night raids. We lured them out of the city. Nothing worked. So we suspected—”
“Apostates,” Svatken hissed.
Krelnos nodded, relief spreading across her features. “Exactly. Apostates to the Prophecy. But we quickly eliminated the possibility. I checked up and down the chain myself, and no one could have leaked all the information to the predators. Some of it were state secrets that even I did not have access to before my investigation. It was a mystery, but I couldn’t do anything about it except report it up the chain with my full responsibility attached. Then, strangely enough, our collaborators started disappearing. In the beginning, it was just the people who ran the camps for us. After most of them were gone, it expanded to even secret collaborators. Now, none of our collaborators feel safe. Normally, that would not be our concern. Predators killing predators is usually a positive sign of development that we encourage, but we are having problems recruiting new collaborators to replace them now!”
“Why am I just hearing this from your sector and not others?” Svatken demanded.
“I believe the epicenter of this wave of… Underground activity is in my sector, which I take full responsibility for. But I also believe that is not the only cause. I have noted in my report that some of my peers are whispering that perhaps we were going too fast and we might be pushing the Slow Predators on Grantor too hard—”
“Absurd!”
“Do you want their names now, Director?”
“My assistant will read your report and draw the correct conclusions, Governor.” Svatken nodded as she skimmed the report on her datapad. “Your instinct is likely correct and if your full report reflects what you just said, you will be rewarded. Those peers are idiots. And their bloodlines will be assigned to less complex tasks in the future. I may not be an expert on much, but I am an expert on this: this is clearly not a problem of pushing the predators too hard.”
“Yes, Director,” the administrator bowed again, glad she was right after taking that risk.
“Pushing predators hard leads to problems, but not like this. Angry predators break things. But angry predators do not learn resilient strategies and operational tactics. Angry predators do not suddenly learn how to make new improvised weapons from nowhere. And certainly not… the advanced plasma-incendiary weapons mentioned in your report. We have been exterminating them for centuries, and if we know one thing, it is that anger and motivation are useless without means, Governor. You were right to flag this. This is not just a local problem now.”
“And one more thing, Director,” Krelnos added, “We’ve managed to capture an example of the communication devices they’ve been using. They usually self-destruct before capture, but we got our paws on one. Our technical experts still have no idea how they work, but the security on them is… advanced. Worse, from what the prisoner said in the interrogation, it seems like— it seems like—”
“It seems like they hear everything you say on the radio. And they know everything you do,” Svatken completed for her. “That’s why you are here in person to deliver this report?”
“Yes, Director.”
Svatken thought for a moment, and nodded. “Your judgement was correct. In fact, you can expect a promotion within the month… future Grantor City Station Director Krelnos. And more to come if you continue to deliver this quality of insight.”
Krelnos bowed low. “Thank you, Director.”
“You may go. Send in the Eleven Whiskers on your way out.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“What do you think of that report from Grantor?” Svatken asked.
“Great Predators,” Sprabr said simply. “No doubt about it. Especially with the new information we are getting from the captured Lesser Predator ship, the Cliunc. They must have somehow placed some of their operatives on Grantor.”
“Agreed. What do we do?”
“We can’t let them know that we know of them yet, so we can’t use any of our newly developed methods to combat them to reveal what we now know.”
“Again, agreed,” Svatken said. “Not until we roast their Great Predator Nest to cinders at least.”
“I believe I have made my opinion clear on that strategy, Director,” Sprabr said, not hiding the dismay on his face.
Svatken tensed. “Yes, and the decision has been made. We are attacking Sol. Your job now is to make sure we win there, not to try to stop the invasion, Eleven Whiskers.”
“As you wish, Director,” Sprabr sighed. “What about the situation on the ground in Grantor? I suspect they’ve got a small cell on the surface. A special infiltration team, possibly a platoon. Can’t be much bigger or we’d have found some of them by now. And the localization does suggest they are operating out of Grantor City as your people reported.”
Svatken thought for a moment. “We should do what we would normally do.”
“Throw resources at it until the problem fixes itself?” Sprabr asked sarcastically. “That’s going to go over well against Great Predator saboteurs on Grantor.”
“We don’t have to be wasteful,” Svatken sniffed. “We can choose to deploy the resources in the right places, but… yes, the people who are on the ground must not know they are fighting the new enemy. Or we risk them getting captured and the Sol invasion plans leaked.”
Sprabr sighed. “Sure. And either the Grand Fleet succeeds, in which case this is all meaningless. Or it does not, in which case, our people on Grantor would only be delaying the inevitable even if they succeed in rooting out the enemies anyway.”
“The Grand Prophetic Fleet will succeed, Eleven Whiskers. And our people… their lives were forfeited to the Prophecy the day they left the hatchling pools anyway.”
“If you insist, Director.”
Comments
AnAbsoluteVillain
That would be kinda cool if they were all datedlike a countdown. Still I'm shocked people missed that this was in the past. xD You announced it AND the whole invasion of Earth started with us joining TRO figuring it out and panicking.
Bayliner1980
The grand fleet did not in fact succeed
Alex
Yeah it's been a while since the beginning of book 3. But if more people are having the same issues, then maybe consider before every chapter that is an event prior to book 2 having a time stamp added saying something like (6, 3 months, weeks before earth invasion event)... just some food for thought.
Spooker
I did a "1 year before" header before this all started, but it seems like a lot of readers missed it. Not sure how I could have illustrated it better except maybe more reference to past events. Anyway, the timelines are merging soon.
ColonelCodfish
Yeah I was kinda jarred by that too.
Alex
Oh OK this is starting to make sense. This is happening before the events in book 2. Not after.
