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Grass Eaters | 48 | Outside the Box II
🕑 Added 2024-04-22 16:47:01 +0000 UTCEverything hurts. That was Ktotssu’s first thought when she woke up. As the tranquil inertia of unconsciousness slowly began to fade, she stared at the sterile lights above her in confusion.
“What?” she struggled to form the shape of words through her dry mouth as she twitched in the soft, warm bed she was in.
Then, the pain subsided, and the itching started. Her chest, her foot, her whiskers. It itched everywhere. She realized that her arms and legs were not responding to her controls as she tried to raise them to scratch herself. And then as quickly as it came, the sensation left.
“Where am I?” she mouthed. Her voice did not come out as anything but a wordless moan.
An unseen hose snaked itself through her lips, hydrating her vocal cords.
“Where am I?” Ktotssu asked again, unsure who was even supposed to answer. This time her voice came out somewhat audibly.
“You are in a medical facility, Ktotssu. You were in a space battle. Do you remember?”
And then it all came back to her.
---
Black Site Deimos
Ktotssu glared at the alien interrogator sat in front of her in silence. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it certainly was not one of the Lesser Predators she’d ever encountered. Not that she’s seen many in person. Only a few prisoners. Now the shoe was on the other paw.
The only thing that was clear to her was that she was a captive, and her fluffle must have lost the battle, or she would not be here.
“I just want to talk, Ktotssu,” the alien said to her. “Trauma manifests in many ways, including memory loss. Unlocking your memories can help you heal, and that’s what we are here to do today.”
Seeing no response, the alien sighed and continued, “Ok, let’s start from how you got here. You are a seven whiskers captain of the Znosian Navy. Your ship was the Birtevrut. It was heavily damaged in the battle. Then, you gave the orders to abandon ship. What happened next?”
What happened next was her sensor officer ruined her plan to go down with the ship. She knew that would have been wasteful and frowned upon, but she’d grown irrationally attached to it…
He picked me up against my protest, unceremoniously stuffed me into a lifepod, and then everything went black when the sedatives kicked in.
She’d never experienced its unpleasant side effects before, but she’d heard that the life pods came with extremely potent drugs that were used to trigger their innate hibernation instincts. It appeared to have worked.
“Good — that’s really good — so you do remember everything,” the alien said. “Your sensor officer. What was his name?”
Wait, what?
“Your sensor officer. His name, if you can remember?”
Did it just read my thoughts?
Screw that! I’m never going to tell them anything about my crew, especially not my sensor officer— nope, can’t even think of his name or his personal significance to me.
“That’s okay, Ktotssu. We already know about Sensor Officer Vnamja. He’s a six whiskers, right? In fact, we rescued him around the same time as you, and he is recovering very nicely too. We just wanted to confirm that your memory is working properly.”
She felt a sigh of relief, then suspicion. After all, these people were predators; they were the enemy.
They might be telling her lies for all she knew.
“True, I guess you have no reasons to trust us. But we did rescue you—”
Yeah, rescue me. After they blew my ship and crew to bits. My crew. I wonder what happened—
“We managed to get most of your crew, the ones that got out in a pod anyway—”
“Get out of my mind, Lesser Predator!” she screamed in frustration, abandoning her vow of silence.
“Interesting. You use the term Lesser Predator. Is that an official categorization or are you just assuming we are one of them?”
“You are a predator, are you not?” Ktotssu countered. “I’ve never seen a picture of your species before, but it doesn’t take a xenobiologist to figure it out. I can see from your face. Those forward-facing eyes, the pointy canine teeth. Ugly face, just as the Prophecy made you. Whatever your abomination species is, you are with the Lesser Predators!”
“Again, fascinating. Above average reasoning skills, mixed in with a sizable dose of bigotry. I can see why they made you captain. Most of your crew didn’t connect these dots immediately,” the alien said, almost patronizingly, as it jotted something down on a tablet in front of it.
“My crew. Where are they?” she demanded.
“I think we got most of them. But that depends. How many crew members did the Birtevrut have?”
“I’m not telling you, savage monster!”
“Alright, well, let me just put it this way. We picked up 314 life pods from around your ship. Your escape pod technology is very impressive, by the way. Those hibernation drugs are interesting. Most of them survived the process.”
314? 412 minus 314 is — oh no! I take full responsibility for revealing state secrets to—
The alien continued without skipping a beat, “That’s alright, Seven Whiskers. This is a safe space. No one needs to blame anyone for anything here. You don’t have to take responsibility for what you do here. Some of your peers find that to be unsettling; others find it a relief. But the most important thing is that you don’t blame yourself for what is happening right now. We already know most of the information we are asking you about. For example, your friend Vnamja gave us an accurate crew count when he woke up. He is your friend, right?”
“Yes,” Ktotssu grinded out through her gritted teeth. “Can I see him?”
“Of course. In due time. We just need a little more information from you. You see… my superiors need to see some results before they would allow you visiting privileges. We have to give them something so they can give you this, you understand?” The alien almost sounded apologetic.
Maybe I can figure out how little information I could give out without them figuring out that is what I’m trying— ah never mind.
Get out of my mind! Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
“We can talk about anything you want to talk about, Seven Whiskers. Nothing critical. We don’t need the location of your home world Znos or anything like that; for one, we already know where that is.”
Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
“Since you don’t have a strong preference, how about let’s start with your ship’s previous posting over Plaunsollib?”
---
Kara peered intently at the exhausted creature slumped on the table through the one-way mirror. “Have we been able to get anything useful from these science experiments?”
“We did get the mind reader working for the Buns,” John replied, wiping his brows. “Factual information is easy; the engineering team is reading technical specifications off their minds by just making them visualize their manuals. The hard part is getting her cooperation in helping us evaluate things where she has much better context than we do. For example, I was trying to get at the relationship between their deceased fluffle leader and the fleet master Ditvish. Ktotssu figured my trick out and shut me down pretty quickly, but… she did reveal that the relationship was indeed unusual for an Eight and Ten Whiskers.”
Kara’s brow furrowed. “It’s too bad you’re not a trained interrogator, but none of the qualified ones are even allowed to know information this sensitive—”
“Adapt and overcome, Kara. Adapt and overcome. I’ll work at that link: it did seem to be important.”
“Alright, boot, you do you… The Navy did say that information on Ditvish is high priority for them,” Kara mused. “We need to know how and when he would respond to these Anaconda raids.”
“I doubt Ktotssu knows much about that. She’s three steps down the top of the ladder,” John speculated. He paused. “Though she did seem to think she was favored by him for some reason. Maybe. Or maybe it’s nothing.”
“Whatever it is, so far, all the other prisoners have given us are ‘dunno, maybe he’d check the combat computers’, and if we wanted that level of perceptive insight, we could have just asked the Puppers. Anything you get is already far more valuable.”
“Well, that’s better than having to go old school,” John shrugged.
“Old-school?”
“Become their friend, gain their trust, get them to reveal a few secrets, and then beat the rest of the information out of them with a hammer. You know? Haven’t you seen those old movies—”
“Why? Because I’m old? What are you trying to say, John?” she smirked.
“I’m just saying—”
“Get with the times, John. Beating prisoners is ineffective. Says so right in the handbook. Much easier to literally pry the information out of their minds with neuroscience. Don’t even need a warrant to do that with alien prisoners too: it’s all very convenient. I wonder when the lawyers are going to get around to that.”
John sighed. “Mind reading. You know… Pavlov would be sooo disappointed with what we did to his legacy.”
“Hey, any cooperation incentive is on the table too. If you can find out what these little critters want other than our extinction, I’ll nominate you for a Nobel Peace Prize myself. Just don’t offer her some barbecue; I hear their ship security officer didn’t take too kindly to that in the previous shift when the MPs started eating their lunches in front of the prisoners…”
---
“I’ve got some news for you,” John said to Ktotssu, flipping through a report in front of her. “There was a fleet action today. We raided another one of your supply convoys. That’s the sixth so far. They must be hurting for supplies over Datsot by now.”
No response. The mind reader drew a blank too.
“How would you feel about that if you are in charge of the Datsot Invasion Fleet?”
Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
“That one again, huh? This last raid was led by the Malgeir. Sixth Fleet. I believe you’re familiar with them. Took out the whole supply escort flotilla without any losses. Very impressive for a bunch of stupid Lesser Predators, I must say.”
Impossible. They must have been— Nope. Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
“Yeah, a month ago, I’d have thought so too,” John continued without missing a beat. “But the Sixth Fleet has really stepped up since then. They’re just taking apart these small Znosian formations piece by piece. Defeat in detail, that’s what we call it in our Navy. Very sophisticated. I wonder what the fleet master Ditvish is going to do next. He must respond somehow, right?”
Come for your home world. Burn, burn, BURN everything down. Cleanse your heretical species from the galaxy. You want to read my mind? Here are some fun images for you!
John chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what he would try if he knew where we were. Too bad he’s too busy personally sweeping his overstretched supply route now, trying to find Sixth Fleet wreaking havoc in his rear.”
Why is he personally sweeping the route? He’d just send Skvanu out— Oh no. No, no, no.
“Skvanu, huh? Let me see,” John smiled as he pulled up a profile on his tablet, spinning it around to show her the screen. He pointed at the mugshot. “That’s the guy who was in charge of that other raiding fluffle, right? Tall for your species, described as handsome? Chatty, unorthodox, given a wide latitude to run his own outfit? It is interesting that the Ten Whiskers keeps promoting these kinds of characters in his fleet. Are you a little bit like that too, by the way?”
Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
By the Prophecy, that is a great-looking picture of Skvanu— Don’t drool. Stop looking.
Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
---
“I guess we got the Navy their next target,” John speculated.
Kara nodded. “Yup. But enough about finding ships to blow up and assholes to assassinate. Hersh and I were going over the intelligence we got from these guys, and we have a new idea about what to do with these prisoners,” she said, her eyes glinting with a mix of mischief and excitement.
John raised an eyebrow. “Why do I get a bad feeling whenever Hersh is involved?”
Ignoring him, Kara continued enthusiastically, “Okay, so this plan is kind of a longshot. But what we’ve been doing, reading minds to get information, and cutting enemy supply lines… it’s just so… inside the box. You know what I mean?”
“N—no. Not really.” John shook his head in disbelief. “What we’re doing here is not unconventional enough for you two?!”
“John, I keep telling you. There’s more than one way to skin a Bunny.”
“More than one way to skin a— you know what, Kara? Never mind,” he sighed, throwing up his hands.
“There’s the Navy way, and there’s the fun way.”
John let out a resigned noise. “I can’t wait. What do you want me to do?”
“Just keep talking to the prisoners. In fact, let them mingle, like really mingle. It’s time we got to really know our enemy.”
---
“I’ve got some good news for you, Ktotssu. You’ve been approved to see members of your crew on a one-on-one basis,” John said warmly at the prisoner.
Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators. Stupid Lesser Predators.
“Ah, the silent treatment today, huh? I was just here to let you know the good news. We can start with a meeting with your security officer; he keeps demanding to see you too. How about that?”
That asshole? Why did they have to pick the one guy on the ship I don’t care for—
John grinned. “I’m just messing with you. These are supposed to be a reward for helping us out. How about your friend, Vnamja?”
“Yes, that will be fine,” Ktotssu said glumly.
Stupid Lesser Predators.
---
MNS Oengro
The crew cheered as the hangar bay director pulled down a curtain to reveal the ship silhouettes of the eighth convoy they’ve intercepted etched into the wall of the hangar bay. It hadn’t taken much convincing for the Malgeir to adopt this practice from their new allies. A massive cake was wheeled out — custom baked and delivered by a couple of Terran culinary officers on the Nile: it featured colorful frosting arranged in the cartoonish shape of an ugly Znosian caricature with an eye-patch hogtied up on a roaring spit roast. An impromptu line of eager spacers formed near it, with the Terran officers trying their best to hold back the crowd before they could locate some disposable plates…
On the bridge, Mark smiled at the display and winked at Grionc. He held up the glass of champagne he was sipping up to her. “Here’s to number nine.”
She returned the gesture. “Oh? You’ve found another target for us?”
He leaned in closer so they could talk more quietly. “There’s always another target. This next one is a little different though.”
She downed her glass and looked more seriously at him. “Different, how?”
“Remember when I said we’re not just trying to keep our heads above water?” Mark asked.
Grionc recalled the conversation. “Sure.”
“Ok, good. Let me ask you something else. Have you ever gone fishing?”
“Fishing?” she echoed.
“Like on your home planet or wherever. You ever tried to catch an aquatic animal? For food? You guys do that, right?”
Grionc squinted at him, trying to see where he was getting at. “I’m from the city, Mark. We don’t have wild aquatic animals where I came from. But… I am aware of the concept.”
“I’m from a landlocked district, and we didn’t do much fishing there either. I learned it in survival training. To fish on Terra, we stick these little bugs on the end of a metal hook tied to a long string. When the fish come up for food and try to devour the insect, they get stuck on the hook and we pull them up out of the water.”
“That’s… not how we do it, but I can… see that working.”
Mark continued, “And when we are trying to catch bigger fish, we don’t use small bugs, because the big fish won’t go for small bits of food.”
“For big fish, you use big bugs?” she extrapolated.
Mark chuckled. “Almost. To catch big fish, first, we catch the small fish with insects. Then, we leave the small fish on the hook and wait for the big fish to get interested.”
Her eyes lit up. “So… who is our big fish?”
“Funny you should ask,” Mark said, producing his datapad in his hands for her. As she started to skim over the document, he continued, “We did some digging, and I wouldn’t underestimate our prey this time if I were you.”
“Looks like we’re going to need some new… fishing equipment,” she said, still reading.
“Hey, you’re catching on… that’s coming in the next resupply. I think we’ll make fishermen out of all of you.”
---
Meta
The usage of live fish as bait, a practice known as live baiting, is prohibited in some jurisdictions and others have rules governing its usage. Please check with your district’s relevant fish and wildlife authorities before you attempt this controversial practice.
Comments
Gregoire Brougher
just all goofy and funny and then it goes full "listing out the side effects of the medication" mode
Gregoire Brougher
i love the change in tone for the meta section
NorkNork
Mingle, huh? Time for some hot, NSFW bunny on bunny erotica.
