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Grass Eaters 3 | 05 | Song and Dance II
🕑 Added 2024-11-04 17:47:01 +0000 UTCGrand Chancellery, Schpriss Prime
POV: Sonfio, Schpriss (Chancellor of the Confederacy)
“Your history, Minister?” he asked carefully.
“Yes. Our history. Short as it is compared to your civilization…”
“Of course, Minister,” he answered politely. His inner academic was curious. And… “The complexity and richness of history is not determined by its length. Even in our own, there are times when history is deep, and times when it is shallow.”
And it is my hope that this part of our history is as boring and shallow as possible.
“We have a similar saying,” she said. “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”
He digested the peculiar Terran saying for a moment and nodded in delighted agreement.
She continued, “There was a time in our history when decades happened in weeks. There was a man who lived on our home planet, back in a time when we were still divided into hundreds of nations and tribes…”
Sonfio’s eyes brightened with recognition. “Wow, such archaic concepts. We had those too in our history, many thousands of years ago. Some of our historians find it hard to separate the history from the mythology in those eras long past. How long ago was this story from?”
“About 185 years ago.”
Sonfio bit back his surprise. There were people in the Confederacy who were alive 185 years ago. A pawful of them, but they were there. Heck, Schprissian historians who studied anything within the last three uneventful centuries were generally not regarded as serious ones among academics… “That is… not a very long time ago at all, Minister.”
“We are a young species… This man from 185 years ago… his country had been destroyed, broken by defeat in war and economic ruin. In its ashes, he picked out an easy scapegoat. He filled his countrymen with the same hatred in his evil heart, and as they rebuilt into an industrial powerhouse, he became their dictator and gave them a new purpose: territorial expansion. First, they armed themselves. From the loss of the previous war, their country had been prohibited from making large quantities of military equipment and certain classes of ships. Boats in water, not space. They violated all those agreements and began rearmament. Guess what their neighbors did.”
Sonfio flicked his tail absentmindedly. “I suspect they had harsh words for them. A clear diplomatic response for such grave treaty violations.”
“Harsh words, yes. Clear response, also yes, but probably not the kind you think… Next, the evil dictator looked to his country’s neighbor to the south. They were a sovereign state, one that had been specifically split away in the previous war, its independence guaranteed by treaty. He marched his troops in, forced a sham referendum, and annexed them. Guess what their other neighbors did then.”
“Another clear diplomatic response, I suppose?”
“A very clear response indeed. They lodged several diplomatic protests. Their leaders reasoned that the locals mostly supported it anyway. Then, the dictator marched on. He invaded another neighboring country, this time to the east. He demanded about a third of their territory, in industry and population. He said to all his neighbors, this is the last piece of territory we will claim; acquiesce, and we shall have peace.”
“Did they agree to it?”
“Yes. They handed the territory over and breathed a sigh of relief. Peace had won out, and they averted war. The evil dictator had told the truth. That was the last piece of territory they ever took, and their acquiescence saved the continent from another potentially brutal, devastating war.”
Sonfio leaned back in surprise. “Wait… really?”
Minister Tsai shook her head. “See? Even you don’t believe that. And no, of course not. He took the rest of the country he coveted in less than six months, and then proceeded to invade every other neighbor, conquering forty percent of the continent before he was stopped in a war that killed at least 50 million people.”
His eyes were open wide with shock. “Fifty—”
“Like you said, each time he pushed and prodded at his neighbors, they did send him a clear message after all. By doing nothing, they told him that he could keep going. With every inaction, he was emboldened until he was eventually convinced he could not be stopped.”
Sonfio looked at the human uneasily. “That is… an interesting story, but what does that have to do with us today?”
“The evilness of this dictator was unique, but his expansionism and the world’s tepid response to it were not. It echoes throughout our history. Even in this very war, we did not believe the evil would come for us, until they did. It is, perhaps, an endemic flaw in the human condition. That we would rather deceive ourselves, that if we cover our eyes and hide under the blankets, the monsters in the night would simply pass us by. Why die for Danzig? Why die for Datsot? And as I gaze upon the grandeur of your Confederacy, as I see your indifference and inaction, I’ve just realized something else: that this flaw is not only human after all.”
Sonfio didn’t understand the references, but the tone of her message was clear enough. He stiffened again. “This is not applicable to our current situation at all! What could we do?! We have way fewer worlds than the Malgeir and Granti. Fewer people, less resources. Even if you expect us to ship our people to the front of your bloody war, what good could that possibly do?”
“Chancellor, the failure of appeasement wasn’t that they didn’t have enough troops or enough resources. That is almost never the problem. The bar is much lower than that. You don’t need to show the expansionists that they can’t win; you need to show them that they can’t win for free. You need to show them that you can make them hurt, every step of the way. That there exist people who will stand up and stop them. And to do that, yes, you need to commit resources, and sometimes, you need to commit troops.”
“But we are neutral,” Sonfio explained again. “We have repeatedly declared our neutrality. That is a policy decided many centuries ago! If we participate, we will no longer be neutral. We will become subject to attack.”
“Yes. Correct, Chancellor. You will become an active participant in this total war, instead of being the dessert on their dinner plate for after they have digested the main course. There is another thing humanity learned in that war over a century ago: neutrality is not declared; it is defended.” She bore her eyes into his. “And both sides in that war freely violated the neutrality of many supposedly neutral states that stood in their way.”
Sonfio swallowed. “Is that an implied threat? To our neutrality?”
“No, actually, I’m supposed to make that one explicitly,” the human said, tilting her head. “An ultimatum. Or a warning if you prefer. Our Republic is engaged in a total war, one that concerns the existence of our people. We’ve suffered losses. We’ve made sacrifices. And now, we need your people’s resources. We’ll have it one way or another. My guess is you’d prefer it one way over the other, so… we are giving you that option now.”
“But… but… even your people were originally neutral in this war! Like you said, you too delayed your own entry into the war! For years! This— to force us into it now— this is hypocrisy!”
“Yeah, and that was a mistake. One that we are saving you from.”
“Saving us?! We deserve to make our own choices, like you did. This is unfair!”
The lines on the human’s face deepened. “Perhaps. We do live in an unfair galaxy, and we all play the cards we’ve been dealt.”
“That is… absurd!” he protested. “How can you people come here demanding for our concessions by force while claiming the moral high ground in this war?!”
“The moral high ground? How many combined arms divisions is the moral high ground worth in a battle?”
“What if we resist?” Sonfio asked. “Such a conflict between us would be harmful to both our species. Surely that would give you pause before such a reckless venture.”
Minister Tsai shrugged. “It’ll be unfortunate if it comes to that. But if you’ll recall, we are pretty good at this. Much better than you are. In fact, our strategic computers consider your civilization more like a resource piñata than a speed bump if it comes to that.”
Sonfio was outraged… for the honor of his Navy. “You think we are so weak that we won’t be able to resist you at all? We have a Navy too! And they’re sworn to protect our people!”
“I will be honest with you, Chancellor. My people are betting that if you’re so pacifist you won’t assist your neighbors when their house is on fire and the fire is spreading to your backyard, you would be insane to resist if we come in merely to borrow a hose — for the purpose of fighting the Znosians which you were even preparing to fight just a few months ago! And if you really are that irrational, we’ll deal with that scenario then… So, Chancellor, what will it be?”
The chancellor let out a frustrated sigh. “This is— this is— a lot to process and decide, Minister. We must have time to make this decision.”
“How long will you need?”
“I need to consult my advisors and ministers, we need to have a Confederacy-wide snout-count to gauge public opinion, and there are intelligence assessments we need to make in light of the new information you’ve given us. I expect we can have an answer for you in… two years?” Sonfio suggested.
“Two years?” the human guffawed. “Sure. Take your sweet time. We begin moving our missile destroyers by the end of this Schprissian day.”
“But— but—”
Tsai’s voice softened, if only barely. “We just need a hand, temporarily, Chancellor. Our word is good. When we said loans, we meant it. We will repay you when we can. But we need those ships and raw resources and equipment, and we needed them yesterday. We won’t take no for an answer this time. We simply can’t. That… is the nuance of our offer to you.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Good cop, bad cop diplomacy, huh?” Niblui asked with a grin on her face.
Minister Tsai gave her a wry smile. “Well, you never specified who was which.”
“At least we got an answer and a commitment from him. Congratulations on making history; you’ve done what I haven’t been able to accomplish in decades!”
“Just a shame that we had to resort to threats of force. But we really don’t have a choice.”
Niblui tilted her head. “If he had said no, would your people really have invaded the Confederacy?”
“I’m not sure. But it would have been either that… or something just as unpleasant. After all, there is more than one way to skin a cat… and yes, Niblui, that is very much an outdated expression.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 year before Battle of Sol
Granti Embassy, Malgeirgam, Malgeiru-3
POV: Guinspiu, Granti (Head Councilor)
Granti High Councilor-in-Exile Guinspiu panted as she sat down from the exertion — dripping water from her snout — and wiped her grimy paws on her apron.
Recently, she had decided to take up gardening in her apartment. It turned out to be a lot harder than it looked. Transplanted roots from High Grantor City grew in Malgeiru soil, especially in the temperate climate of its capital Malgeirgam… but they required special attention.
The Terran operative who visited her on occasion — Hersh, if that was even his real name — had offered her a gardening robot that Hersh claimed could do all the work for her. But that took all the fun out of it. The whole point of her taking up gardening was the difficulty of the challenge, the satisfaction of success after weeks to months of failure. She just didn’t have the heart to tell him all of that and return his gift.
Besides, what if his species took offense to that?
Instead, she left the Terran’s gift in its original rugged hard-plastic suitcase, stashed in her tools closet. She was not averse to tool usage, but one that did all her work for her: that was simply one step too far. And there was just something about thinking machines that always made the fur on her back stand up…
Picking up her datapad, Guinspiu strolled into her foyer. At her insistence, the Malgeiru government gave her an uncensored stream of Federation Channel One that was now mostly being produced out of Sol. At least, the interesting parts of the news were.
The Datsot ground liberation campaign was mostly complete, with some pockets of stubborn resistance. A small holdout group blew up an old hydroelectric dam in the countryside that flooded the area and killed over a thousand villagers. But the Malgeir were re-establishing security and had a handle on the enemy holdout troops in most areas.
The Gruccud campaign was much worse. Much more brutal. The Grass Eaters had taken control of the planet for years, almost four years. Their defenses were much more stubborn, dug in throughout the planet in their infamous underground defensive complexes. Everyone knew that the Znosians were a partially subterranean species, but it only really hit when it became apparent how at home they were fighting beneath the surface of planets they’d lost the orbits of.
At first, the Malgeir Marines were happy to seal off the exits and let the holdouts there starve themselves to death in their dark holes. But that was not considered an acceptable solution by the liberated civilians who were now living in those areas, undergoing constant raids from enemies that burrowed their way to the top. Eventually, the Defense Ministry on Malgeirgam ordered the Marines to go in and clear the enemy out.
Initially, the Marines sent their troops into the tunnels — wave-by-wave — and few ever came back out. Flooding barely did anything; the enemy tunnels were dug in modular sections, with proper ventilation and drainage. It was only after they sent in their new units, the highly-classified “elite Marines”, that the footage of Marines going into the tunnels was replaced with enemies coming out with their paws in the air — or just as frequently, in dark plastic bags. On the news, she watched as a war reporter gave a tour of one of the captured underground facilities.
On the surface, their occupation camps left scars on everyone who lived in them. Guinspiu felt for the malnourished, abused local prisoners that the Malgeir troops were now freeing all over the planet. Even through the fast-moving footage, she could see in some of their eyes that they didn’t believe they were now free. That perhaps this was some new trick, some new torture from their Znosian jailers.
Guinspiu only hoped that her mate who’d been left on Grantor during the evacuation was somehow spared their fates. The Terrans had promised they would try. But every day, her loosening grasp on hope ran dimmer. What was he to them? One more alien, one more victim of the Znosian xenocide machine.
She shook herself.
One day at a time.
On the tablet, Federation Channel One reporters had begun reporting on local news in Sol, for the Malgeir troops and people who had been marooned there. They knew too much to be allowed to return to Federation space — for now, but they were treated well as guests. A few of them were even sports stars and movie celebrities now!
In Sol, there was new construction on one of the Terrans’ asteroids. Some new orbital shipyard module or another. Some new polling data for the upcoming Republic Senate elections. And the latest breaking news: the Terrans had managed to invent an engine that could move an entire asteroid!
Guinspiu blinked in surprise. Not at the fact that they could do this; no, engineering miracles were not beyond the half Grass Eaters. Her surprise was that they’d simply announced to everyone in their home system they had done this: leaders, civilians and all. No secrecy at all, despite their normally paranoid focus on their secrecy from others.
After the war, perhaps, that might be something the Granti and Malgeir should investigate.
Guinspiu turned off her datapad and stood in front of the indoor waterfall, watching the water cascade down into the pool below and feeling it wash some of her anxiety away. She stood there for minutes, just watching the mesmerizing patterns…
Then, she felt a slight temperature in the room. A slight breeze from behind her.
She smiled.
This again.
Guinspiu turned around with the smile on her face, ready to face the Terran operative who always insisted on this silly game of Paws and Peeks with her, trying to get a rise out of her by appearing behind her like he was the predator and she was some prey animal—
Only to realize it wasn’t her friend Hersh.
It was three separate figures moving into her home wordlessly, armored from head to paw, each carrying a weapon. And worse, they weren’t the slightly shorter figures of the half Grass Eaters.
They were the much shorter figures of the real Grass Eaters. And their weapons were pointed at her.
Snnnnnnnnnp.
Guinspiu felt her paws get weak and her vision go dark as her datapad clattered to the floor next to her.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Guinspiu woke up facing the glass ceiling of her gardening room. She tried to move, but quickly realized that her front paws were tied above her with strong rope and her rear paws were secured to something hard.
She looked down. She was lying on her hard wooden preparation table, and whoever tied her up knew what they were doing because they used restraints made of hard metal — strong enough to keep a Granti Marine prisoner, when those still existed anyway.
“You are awake. Good.”
Guinspiu looked to the source of the voice. It was one of the Grass Eaters, its helmet off and carried at its side. From the ears, she could tell it was a he, and his plain black armor showed nothing more that would reveal which unit he was from or what rank he was. The translator voice box at his throat sounded again, “Do you remember your name?”
She spat at his face. “I won’t tell you anything, Grass Eater.”
“That is highly unlikely, abomination,” he said. “But good news: it appears your brain is still functioning enough to answer questions.”
Guinspiu looked back up at the sky, ignoring him.
“First question, High Councilor: have you been approached by the Great Predators?”
She didn’t answer, closing her eyes instead.
“You must answer now, High Councilor. We don’t have much time here.”
She ignored him.
One of the two other Znosians began saying something to him, its voice urgent. Guinspiu’s Znosian was rusty, but she could make out some of what they were saying as the one speaking waved around her datapad. “Seven Whiskers, I can’t get into…”
Looks like my datapad’s security system has been upgraded by the Terrans if they still can’t get into it.
“High Councilor, if you do not answer our questions, we will kill you.”
“You’ll kill me even if I answer your questions, Seven Whiskers,” Guinspiu retorted.
“Correct, but it will be much less painful for you if you answer quickly… I will ask again in case you did not hear me the first time: what do you know about the Great Predators?”
She decided that stalling might work better. “I don’t know anything about any great predators.”
“You are lying. You are a High Councilor of the Slow Predators. They must have contacted you.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The other Znosian said something to him again. This time she knew exactly what it said. “She is lying again.”
He nodded. “We will have to apply pain. Get the tools.”
“Wait, wait… don’t hurt me!” Guinspiu said frantically. “I will tell you the truth.”
“You will?”
“Yes, yes. What do you want to know about the Great Predators?”
“What do they look like?”
You don’t have the faintest idea, Guinspiu realized. I could say literally anything.
“Like you said, they are big. About three meters tall. Taller than even us. Long claws… about the length of your ears. Sharp teeth and big mouth: they can devour one of you in almost one single bite,” she said, visualizing the fictional creation in her own head.
He looked at her skeptically but didn’t interrupt her.
“They have horns, two horns on the top of their head. And they have rainbow-colored fur on their backs,” Guinspiu continued, trying to sound as confident as she could. “Their tails are…”
Rainbow. Wait. The secret words the Terrans taught her to say into a radio if something was wrong.
She stole a quick glance at her datapad.
Maybe they’re spying on me through my datapad, and they can hear me. They can’t help me now, but if I get the signal out, at least they’d know how I died.
The Znosian seemed impatient. “You said tails. What about their tails?”
“Their tails are multi-colored. Rainbow-colored tails,” she said loudly.
“Rainbow-colored?”
“Rainbow-colored,” she insisted, even louder.
That ought to have done it. If it worked.
“What does that even mean? Is she lying?” the interrogator looked at his compatriots, getting shrugs in return. “Ok, I don’t care about their appearance. Give us something more important. Where is their home system?”
“Home system?” she stalled.
“Yes, and where are they from? Where are their shipyards?”
That’s a good question. They never told me. But I doubt you’d accept that answer.
“They didn’t tell me directly, but I do have a few guesses,” Guinspiu said. “Near the border between the Granti Alliance and the Malgeir Federation, there is a system called Quistqueu. It was one of ours.”
It took them a few seconds to look it up, to call up a map on their own datapads.
“What about Quistqueu?” he said.
“Towards its galactic north, if you blink sixteen hops straight to the north… you’ll find their home system. It’s called the Great Predator… Imperial Territories,” she ad-libbed.
“She’s lying again,” one of the other Znosians said.
“Fifteen hops?” Guinspiu speculated.
“She’s just making all of this up. We’ve checked that star cluster multiple times with our recon ships. It’s marked as confirmed cleared and a dead end. There’s absolutely nothing there—”
“Seventeen, no, it was seventeen hops,” she insisted, as if she was remembering better. “I don’t remember the exact—”
“Get the declawing tools. We’ll extract the information out of her the more reliable way.”
Comments
Alex
I hope that "Gardening Robot" is equipped with a Martha Stewart voice mod. "When dealing with pest, it always helps to take a more hands on approach" pulls out a machete. "It's a good thing"
M
Depends on how you define "gardening"...
Ndreda
You wouldn't want the bunns to get into your garden and eat your carrots now would you?
87894354
Dangit, ninja'd by 10 seconds...
87894354
I'm sure that all the paperwork will clearly prove that it's a gardening robot. One that is particularly effective at getting rid of pests.
Valdis Trautmanis
I'm sure it is. For getting rid of garden pests
jrharper42
It's not a gardening robot is it...
