Spooker
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(Bonus) Missing in Action
🕑 Added 2024-03-05 00:29:53 +0000 UTC“How could that possibly have happened?” Atluftrosh could scarcely believe his ears as he stared uncomfortably at the uniform of the fleetmaster. The crimson red on his collars accentuated his snow-white fur, and numerous parallel lines adorned his plain insignia.
The enemy — the predator abominations — they used fancy pictures and other complex symbols to denote rank: another one of their inefficient waste of resources. And Atluftrosh heard that their eyes had problems counting parallel lines in a hurry. He wasn’t sure if it was true, but he never had any problems recognizing the ten lines on Ditvish’s rank patch.
Ten lines, for ten ranks. The second highest of the Znosian Dominion, only subservient to the Grand Fleet Commanders… and State Security, of course.
“I do not know,” Ten Whiskers Ditvish admitted. “The fluffle’s last message through FTL radio was that the enemy was there, that they were in position for ambush, and then we never got another from them again.”
“Perhaps they are running into trouble with their communication equipment?” Atluftrosh suggested.
“Perhaps,” Ditvish snorted. “But can you come up with a communication equipment failure scenario that results in all four missile destroyers of a raiding fluffle simultaneously losing their ability to report their status, Seven Whiskers Atluftrosh?”
“I would have to consult with my combat computer, Ten Whiskers,” Atluftrosh said. “Maybe it could—”
“No,” the fleet master cut him off. “I have already tried. If I needed insight from a machine, I would not be calling you. And it came to the same obvious conclusion that I know your brain is also capable of reaching: something disastrous has happened to our Special Raid Fluffle 28.”
Atluftrosh bowed, unsure if he should feel chastised. “Yes, Ten Whiskers. What is your directive?”
“Take your ship out and investigate this— this anomalous incident in Oettro,” Ditvish ordered. “We cannot have any surprises waiting for us… not with the planned invasion of Datsot coming up.”
“Yes, Ten Whiskers.”
“And remember, Captain Atluftrosh,” Ditvish said, emphasizing his position, “unlike the bloodthirsty abominations we face, we do not let things go. We do not hide failure. And we will certainly chase every threat down into the hole it came from until we find it, no matter how dark the tunnel or how deep it goes.”
Atluftrosh’s eyes filled with understanding. Before civilization, the Znosians were a subterranean prey species. And if there was one thing you knew as an underground species: there were no unexplained mysterious passageways, only dead colonies. And when breeding was fast and life cheap, the equation of sacrifice was simple, unconscious even. You sent people down into the dark. And if they didn’t come back, you sent more. And if none of those people came back, you sent hoppers to nearby colonies telling them what was going on before you sent everyone down in there. And if your entire colony didn’t make it, your neighbors would come and flood the tunnels until everything was dead, then dig it up to review the remains.
If there was something in the dark, you must know. Such was not so different from the Dominion’s interstellar policy. If there was a potential threat somewhere, you didn’t stop until you fully learned of its nature and put an end to it. No mysteries were tolerated.
Mysteries like how a predator supply fleet — with all their incompetence and inadequacies — could possibly silence four top-of-the-line missile destroyers of the Dominion, captained by Servants of the Prophecy that the fleet master handpicked for the raiding mission.
“Of course, Ten Whiskers. I understand. We will leave no burrow unmarked.”
---
ZNS 2228
“Captain, we have completed blink-exit preparations,” Ditvish’s trusty computer officer reported from her station as the ship completed its complex task of recovering from the faster-than-light jump. “We are now in Oettro.”
Thirty seconds for post-blink. Not terrible.
The predator fleets would give their tails for a thirty… minute post-blink time.
“Right at acceptable standards, Six Whiskers Ktotssu,” Atluftrosh commented. “But we have both seen better, haven’t we?”
Ktotssu was an atypically ambitious Znosian Navy officer with a strong personality, but she knew better than to question his authority. Not on the bridge of the ZNS 2228.
Instead, she nodded curtly. “I take full responsibility for our delay, Seven Whiskers.”
“Your responsibility is accepted, and you are hereby verbally reprimanded,” he said lightly as she bowed to accept it wordlessly. “You will do better next time. Now, what do our sensors see?”
Ktotssu pulled the map of the system up on the main screen of the bridge, with several points of notations on the side. “The most obvious sign of combat is the enemy’s mining outpost: it has been completely destroyed. According to the combat computer, the pattern of debris is consistent with that of our orbit-to-ground munitions. That corroborates what our missing raid fluffle reported before they went dark.”
Atluftrosh felt an eyebrow raise. “You are assuming that our missing ships’ last report may not have been accurate?”
“That was your directive, was it not, Seven Whiskers? Assume absolutely nothing?” she asked.
“Correct. And you have followed it well,” he praised after a moment’s thought. “It looks like you will come out ahead today.”
“Thank you, Captain,” she nodded, pleasure evident on her face. “I will let the sensor team know as well. The second most obvious sign of combat is an expanding debris field near the blink exit. We’ve identified the remains of two predator combat ships — their missile destroyer escorts — and enough mass for an additional six of their heavy transport ships. This, too, is consistent with the last report of Special Raid Fluffle 28.”
“What about our ships?”
“There is also additional debris near the site: enough mass for four of our missile destroyers. The four ships of our raid fluffle. The only plausible explanation is that the missiles from our raid fluffle reached all eight of their ships… Then, our fluffle was destroyed itself.”
“Well, at least we know what happened to them. But how?” Atluftrosh asked quietly. “Two of their escorts for four of ours. I can barely understand such an inefficient exchange ratio if it were doubledto be even, much less from a special raid fluffle specifically geared and ready to ambush a predator supply fleet. And they must have died instantly to not send further updates via FTL radio. How did they die, Six Whiskers?”
Ktotssu read off her console, “Three of them were clearly instant as you expected: the radiation residue on the remaining masses points towards reactor explosions. The fourth is a bit of mystery.”
“Do we need another talk about your use of imprecise language, Six Whiskers—”
She continued, “The fourth ship was clearly able to eject its reactor, because some of the remnant ship parts are still big enough to catalog. But… the ship is broken into so many pieces… That is unnatural. The only possible conclusion is that the predators forced the ejection of her reactor, and then they pounded the disabled ship to bits later for some reason.”
Unusual, but not implausible.
The predators do hate us. And lack of discipline is in their nature.
Atluftrosh clarified, “Is this your conclusion or the combat computer’s?”
“Mine. But the combat computer has corroborated it.”
He nodded. “That will be our working hypothesis for now. But how do you explain how two escort ships destroyed our four ships?”
“I am… uncertain. And so is the combat computer. It should not be possible.”
He sighed. “And you were doing so well, Six Whiskers. If you had figured this out, you’d probably get a ship of your own.”
Her eyes lit up with untempered excitement for a second before she hid it. “Thank you, Seven Whiskers. But I was not done with my report. There is possibly a way to find out.”
Atluftrosh sighed again. “Computer Officer, if you keep doing this thing where you keep me in suspense with the most important part of your report, you’re going to find yourself at your next posting cleaning up predator liquidation facilities on Grantor, not your own ship.”
“Yes, Seven Whiskers, I take full responsibility for my use of—” Ktotssu must have seen the sour expression on his face, because she immediately got to the point next. She pointed at a corner of the sensor screen. “The predator’s ships still haven’t come by to inspect this site yet. We have signals of at least a dozen escape pods near their broken missile destroyers. And their ship bridges... they have been broken off, but they still look intact enough that we may be able to board and extract data from them.”
He took a double-take at the screen and then a deep breath.
Of course. The predators are not known for their efficiency. If these are indeed the only ships they had in the system, they would take far longer—
Ktotssu continued her report without regard for his internal monologue. “And that… does lead to an interesting inference for us: if they had any other ships in the system, they would have stopped to pick up survivors.”
Atluftrosh hid his growing excitement. “Are the survivors in the pods likely to still be alive? It’s been almost a week, and you know the predators don’t use hibernation pods like us…”
“Perhaps not all of them,” she conceded. “But… with them and the somewhat-intact ships, I like our chances.”
He thought for a moment before he gave her the affirmative gesture. “I agree. Not bad, Ktotssu.”
“Perhaps Ditvish will give you your own fluffle once we figure this out, Seven Whiskers,” she said happily.
She overstepped. He took one glance at her brazen expression and chose to ignore the transgression. Atluftrosh very much liked the idea of having his own fluffle.
How did the Navy put its only two ambitious officers on this one ship?
He smiled thinly at Ktotssu. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Six Whiskers. Send a team to retrieve the pods, and make sure the Marines are armored and ready for combat. These are predators. Hungry predators after a week in vacuum. And send another team to the remains of their ship bridge. Yank their data recorder boxes. And then… let’s get ready to get out of this system. Predators may be slow, but that they haven’t come looking for our people doesn’t mean they won’t the very next second.”
“Yes, Captain. Combat computer concurs.”
---
It only took four hours to complete the lifepod retrieval operation. Working in vacuum — outside the comforts of the ships’ atmospheres and gravity fields — was difficult, even for the most experienced spacer and Marines. But the crew of the ZNS 2228 was good.
They knew the stakes. They worked fast.
The first bit of news they got was that some of the crew did survive. And it was all better news from there. Not only did some of the crew survive, but they also found the captain in charge of the escort fleet, alive in one of the pods.
Atluftrosh entered the brig, flanked by four heavily armored Marines. They watched the shackled prisoner carefully. It was big. A head taller than Atluftrosh’s average Znosian build. And even in its deeply malnourished state, it probably still weighed more than him. But heavy or not, fast or not, its hide was not thicker than the penetrating power of an automatic rifle round, and its reflexes were not faster than the trigger finger of a trained Znosian Marine.
Disgusting freak of nature, Atluftrosh thought as he watched the enemy captain gorge itself greedily on a predator nutrient drink through a straw, the fluid undoubtedly made of some other poor creature’s flesh and blood. He was glad they’d captured some of those in a previous operation and kept them on hand for a situation like this. The alternative was slaughtering and feeding one of them to another, and in his experience, that was generally not conducive to his crew’s morale.
“You done with that disgusting drink, abomination?” Atluftrosh began as politely as he could. He hoped that his translator correctly conveyed his pity. It was not the predators’ fault they were born monstrosities. Some of his people whispered that in death, even predators could find release and reincarnation as a civilized Servant of the Prophecy if they behaved well in this life and fully regretted the prey lives they had to take for sustenance, but State Security’s position on that particular ideology was not well-established.
The predator continued sipping on the flesh drink for another moment before it closed its eyes, making an “ahhh” sound of enjoyment through its large snout.
Yeah, this one is definitely not going to reincarnate well.
The predator looked at him with both of its front-facing eyes. Perhaps if the Znosians had not had their fear bred out of them thousands of years ago, Atluftrosh might have found that frightening, but instead all he could muster was contempt.
It croaked, “I am Beta Leader Preitamplo, former captain of the Malgeir Navy Ship Seiddiu. Are you going to kill me, Grass Eater?”
“Yes, of course. But first you will answer our questions,” Atluftrosh said matter-of-factly. “What happened in this system?”
The abomination leaned back in its chair. “So once we tell you everything, you will dump us out the airlock.”
“Correct, predator captain.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me or my people. What if I refuse?” it asked, tilting its ugly head.
“By the time you enter the airlock, you will do so willingly, and you will see this as the fairest deal in your life,” Atluftrosh said. He gestured to one of his Marines standing next to him. “Get started with the declawing. I know its type. It will talk.”
---
It only took two hours of screaming before Preitamplo begged to die. Atluftrosh knew that his people were getting good at this. He was glad that they were able to find so many prisoners alive. They would get plenty of practice.
He looked at Preitamplo’s bloodily bandaged paws. It looked so… harmless without its sharp claws. If he didn’t look at their ugly faces, it was almost like they were real, civilized, thinking creatures like him.
But they were not. They were predators after all.
“That is an improvement,” Atluftrosh praised, pointing at its paw. “Now you can’t use them to harm or gut any more prey.”
It sobbed twice. “We don’t use our claws to kill things or eat anymore. They’re just for grabbing things and typing on a datapad now. We use utensils… We’re an interstellar species… like you.”
“Live creature farming and butchering,” Atluftrosh said, feeling even more revolted by the image he conjured in his head. “Just as disgusting. Even if you let others do it for you.”
“But we’re obligate carniv—” it started to protest.
“Now stop crying. You are not a hatchling. I hear my people say you are ready to talk, Beta Leader,” he said impatiently.
“Yes,” Preitamplo croaked quietly as his tears stopped flowing.
“Now, I addressed you as your proper rank, predator captain,” Atluftrosh admonished. “You should address me properly as well.”
Preitamplo squinted at his insignia, rubbing its eyes with its wrists now that its paws were properly trimmed, still sniffling. “Yes, Seven Whiskers.”
“Very good, Beta Leader. Now, tell me what happened in this system.”
“We — my supply fleet — we entered this system a week ago to resupply the mining outpost. They had run out of industrial byproducts that they needed to replace, so our supply fleet included them on our route to—”
Atluftrosh interrupted it, his voice dangerous. “Stop stalling and skip to the important part, Beta Leader Preitamplo. Or I have other business to attend to, and I can come back in another two hours when you get to the point.”
“No, no,” it said hurriedly. “I was— when we entered the system, we immediately came under fire from Grass Eaters— from your ships. Four of them. They fired several missiles at each of our ships. We weren’t ready for that.”
Atluftrosh already knew this from the raider’s last report, but it was good to get confirmation. “Then, what happened?”
It hesitated for only a brief moment. “An Omega-class ship appeared within range of our ship, and we opened fire on it with everything we had.”
An Omega-class ship?
Atluftrosh turned to his Marines. “I think it’s lying now. Perhaps you need a few more hours with it—”
“No, no! Please, Seven Whiskers, you have to believe me! It was a tiny ship. It just appeared off to the side near one of the asteroids…”
“Beta Leader Preitamplo,” Atluftrosh said patiently. “Unlike your incompetent Navy, we do not use Omega-class ships in ours, not anymore. And we would certainly not send one into combat in a raid. Our missile destroyers are standardized. They are what you idiots call Delta-class ships.Even you cannot possibly make that mistake.”
“We— we didn’t know that,” Preitamplo said desperately. “At the time, we just— I just thought it was one of yours, so we launched everything we had at it. But it was there. And it was small, like— like one of our Omega-class ships. I saw it with my own eyes! Maybe it was not yours!”
“Not ours and not yours?” Atluftrosh asked, eyes glinting dangerously. “Are you implying that there was a third species’ Navy in Oettro? The long-tails?”
He snorted internally. The long-tails had not only the poor qualities of the other predator species they’d encountered in war. No, worse. The long-tails were cowards on top of being inexperienced with interstellar war and conflict.
It shook its head vigorously. “No, no. Not any of the known species. Not to us. I— I’ve been running those images through my head for the last week. It wasn’t like any of the ships for any of our species have ever met.”
Atluftrosh brought up his datapad and recalled a ship from one of the other predator species the Dominion had recently exterminated a couple decades ago. He was not in that war, but he knew his bloodline had performed well in it. His own genetic line was built from the new lessons the Dominion learned in that war.
He turned his screen to show the pitiful prisoner. “Is it a ship like from this species?”
“N— no. That ship’s too big,” it said, shaking its ears adamantly.
Atluftrosh operated the datapad to flip to another extinct predator species’ ship. “What about this one?”
“Not that one either.”
He went through about three dozen species before he gave up. The Znosians knew of a lot of dead predator species, but the prisoner maintained it was absolutely none of them. He sighed. “Never mind. Continue with your delusions, Beta Leader. Then, what happened when you shot it?”
“We couldn’t touch it. Not with our missiles. Not with our railguns. It just flew away.”
“It just flew away?” Atluftrosh repeated incredulously.
“It just flew away.”
“And you said you saw this ship.”
“I saw it on camera. Real camera, zoom optics. Not false color. Not thermal analysis. Not radar signature,” the predator insisted. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“With your low-quality optics. So it must have been close. Real close,” Atluftrosh deduced. “Close enough that even your kinetics had a shot. And it just flew away. Now, I know the standards for your Navy are bottom of the tunnel, but how in the Prophecy did they manage that?!”
“It flew… it anticipated our railgun shots somehow. And every missile we fired… it either shot them down or— or when we fired, our radar and sensor systems all broke,” its voice trailed off at the memory.
“Broke,” Atluftrosh repeated again.
This part he completely believed. Half the predator equipment they captured were either broken or useless. They didn’t maintain them like the Servants of the Prophecy carefully did in the Dominion. Their poor logistics was responsible for it. Stupid predators who never figured out real industrial farming. Hard to fix things when they didn’t even have the parts on paw all the time. If they figured that out… But he wasn’t about to give them tips on how to better kill him.
“It broke,” the predator repeated. “Our sensor computers immediately crashed once our missiles went towards them.”
“And then, what happened next?”
“Then, we kept shooting at it with our railguns for a while. And the missile tubes: they took a long time to reload. They never finished.”
“Why not? Did that break too?” Atluftrosh scoffed.
“Because the missiles fired from your ships reached us first,” it replied, looking down.
“Ah.”
The predator captain shrugged. “The hits took out something important in the back.”
Something important in the back. If a Znosian Navy officer gave such a sloppy report, they’d be on the shortlist for dangerous duties.
It continued, “I think the Seiddiu reactor ejected automatically to save the ship. But it was doomed, so we just made our way to the escape pods. We kept quiet, because we didn’t want to be found by Grass— by your people. But after a day, we agreed to turn on our transponders and communicators… And we realized that only escape pods from our two Delta-class escorts survived. All our cargo supply ships were gone. And your ships were gone too.”
“This supposed Omega-class ship you shot at—”
“Maybe it wasn’t yours,” Preitamplo said quietly.
“I knew that, abomination captain!” Atluftrosh exclaimed. “If you haven’t been making that up—”
“I swear— I swear by my clan. It’s what I saw with my own eyes!”
Atluftrosh tried to think about what to do. The predator was clearly delusional, but it probably did believe every word of what it just said. Maybe if he gave it a couple hours of rest before starting it on the de-teething, it might come to its senses. Or perhaps another officer from his bridge who was still alive—
“Seven Whiskers?” Ktotssu’s high-pitch voice came out from his earpiece. “You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Computer Officer,” he replied absentmindedly. “What’s going on?”
“We just retrieved their data recorder boxes, and we got into them almost immediately. They were not encrypted.”
Atluftrosh almost rolled his eyes. “Of course not. It’s the predators. What did we find?”
“Your prisoner is… somehow not lying. You should come here and see this.”
---
Atluftrosh looked intently at the dark black ship on his command console. It was so black against the background of space that it felt… almost uncomfortable to look at. Like it was absorbing light from the starfield around it. A black… monolith, with only a few things he found familiar. The thrusters in the back. The subtle dark gray markings on the tail.
“What in the Prophecy is that?” he asked.
“I have no idea, Seven Whiskers.”
They had played the engagement on the screen a dozen times. Preitamplo did omit one detail: the unknown… ship entity did open one of its internal compartments to launch… something. It was probably chaffs or decoys or whatever it used to break the predators’ ship sensors. And then another internal compartment, to launch counter-missiles. That… he was sure.
And now he was confident Preitamplo was not lying, at least not intentionally. The predators mistook the… ship as one of theirs and fired on it. But whoever was controlling the black ship, they didn’t shoot back. Just run away. In the split second it opened its internal compartments, he saw the silhouette of at least one much-larger missile in there: an anti-ship missile. There was no mistaking that.
It could have shot back at the predators, but it did not. That missile in its belly. He didn’t know why, but it looked lethal. Perhaps because of how much it resembled his own.
This looked like a ship that could kill four of his missile destroyers. And Special Raid Fluffle 28 obviously was not aware of this unknown ship’s presence. And the way that fourth ship was trashed… He didn’t need his combat computer to come to the obvious conclusion.
“Another species?” Ktotssu offered.
He nodded, still transfixed by the image. “Which one, though?”
“Maybe a new species? In the region of space past the Slow Predators and the Lesser Predators,” she speculated.
“More savage predators, you think? One that has the sense to hide itself?”
Ktotssu hedged. “Probably. We’ve only met other predators in space. The Prophecy heavily implied this would be the case, even if it is not exactly clear on that point…”
Atluftrosh agreed with her reluctantly. Another species to fight and exterminate. But what he’d seen of their ship… it screamed danger. Properly civilized Znosians were not supposed to feel fear, but caution… they had caution.
He put it out of his mind for now. “We’ve got important intelligence on board. Burn us to rejoin the fleet at Gruccud immediately. Combatburn, full speed.”
“What about the prisoners, Seven Whiskers? Should we dispose of them?” she asked.
He considered it for a moment. They already had the data. These predators didn’t know anything their ship hadn’t recorded. And his experts probably knew their computers and systems better than the sorry specimen they’d captured.
Then again, he had to make sure. “Interrogate and break all of them to be sure. It’s good practice for our people. And when they reveal nothing interesting, toss them out the airlock.”
Ktotssu bared her blunt teeth. “Better than they deserve for a lifetime of savagery.”
Atluftrosh agreed, then ordered, “Contact Ten Whiskers Ditvish. Report everything we’ve found via FTL radio. I shall take full responsibility for our lack of complete knowledge of the new enemy.”
“Yes, Seven Whiskers,” she bowed.
“A possible new species… I suspect he will not see what we’ve found as a failure,” Atluftrosh mused. “Bad news, but not failure… Perhaps you will get that ship you wanted after all, Ktotssu. And me, my fluffle.”
---
Atlas, Luna
2 years, 4 months later
“The Amazon and the Mississippi were positioned at the equivalent of point-blank range in interstellar combat, and the Znosians were fixated on the exposed Nile. Their close-in defenses didn’t even have time to respond to our ambush. Three of the Znosian missile destroyers detonated instantly. The other managed to eject its damaged fusion core before it went critical, but subsequent weapons fire from our ships finished the job before they could evacuate…
“We stayed around for another twelve hours, firing our railguns into the only remaining Znosian wreck to break it up into smaller, unrecognizable chunks to get rid of any potential evidence of who we were… When we left Oettro, we were certain that we had fully sanitized the scene to comply with the Prime Directive. In fact, I erroneously testified to this in the original classified debrief that occurred right after the incident. However, recent developments have proven otherwise.
“We now know that the Znosians are aware of our existence, that they managed to recover at least photographic evidence of the TRNS Nile, and that their forces are preparing to fight us. I will not speculate on how this is possible, but Naval Intelligence confirms that the Oettro Incident is the only possible source of this leak,” Vice Admiral Amelia Waters finished reading from her statement to the Senate Committee. “Thank you for your time, Senators. I will now answer any questions you may have.”
---
“Admiral Waters, I have a question for you,” one of the elderly women on the dais asked.
“Yes, Senator Muller?” Amelia asked, looking up at her politely.
“Do you have any regrets? I know your personal opinion of the Buns… the Znosians, it’s probably like many of the officers of the Republic Navy. I know that firing on them was probably legally valid given our protocols for what happens when they see our ships, especially since the Puppers forced our hand by accidentally firing at us. And we certainly don’t condone what the Znosians do to the other alien civilizations—”
“The deliberate xenocides they are conducting, you mean?” Amelia asked. “The ones we’ve witnessed with our very own eyes.”
“That is what it appears to be, Admiral,” the Senator deflected. “But do you have any regrets for how this went down and how they found out about us?”
“Yes,” Amelia replied. “Yes, I do.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t regret how we conducted ourselves during that battle at all; I just regret that we didn’t do it sooner.”
“Admiral—”
“I regret that we didn’t fire on them the nanosecond those four raiding ships blinked into the Oettro system. That we didn’t fire a few months earlier when they took over Gruccud from the Puppers— the Malgeir. That we didn’t fire two years before that when they landed on Grantor and started their extermination camps there. That we didn’t fire at them eight years ago when they crossed the border into Granti territory. That countless innocent, intelligent lives have been lost, and that we have been merely sitting and watching. Doing nothing — except when we were discovered and forced to act.”
“That’s not what—”
“Then what were you asking, Senator? It is not up to Navy officers like myself to comment on civilian Republic policy. But if you’re asking about regrets, I think that if the Republic continues to do nothing, even if we survive what the Znosians are going to throw at us when they find out where we live, this— this will become one of our species’ greatest regrets. That we stood by and watched. Perhaps even if we do act now… some of us will have those regrets anyway…”
The Senator looked down at her notes, and Amelia detected a hint of real contrition and sadness in her voice. “I understand, Admiral. The people of the Republic and its representatives will take… what you said into consideration. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your time.”
