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Grass Eaters | 43 | Celestria I
🕑 Added 2024-04-10 16:47:01 +0000 UTCMNS Oengro
The truth about their new allies had predictably become somewhat of an open secret within the Sixth Fleet. It was relatively easy to hide it from Home Fleet and the other elements of the Malgeir Navy given the usual secrecy that each fleet operated in, but there were no commonsense explanations for the new ship components that were being quietly installed in vital systems on their ships. Or why the ships’ high-level officers had insisted on covering the windows to the hangar bay and exterior whenever they needed to conduct a refueling or resupply operation.
Or the sudden and drastic improvement in meal quality. There was no — absolutely none — plausible way to explain that other than… aliens.
Rumors spread quickly; there was not much else to do on the ships. That the “most likely theory” that most rank-and-file crew members bought was fairly close to the truth made it obvious that one of the higher-ranking officers talked, possibly one of the squadron leaders.
Mark wasn’t too bothered by this development. The secret would have gotten out one way or another anyway. And if this brought their new allies some renewed confidence, it would be well worth whatever blowback may come for the Terran Reconnaissance Office’s rather liberal interpretation of its authorized mandate.
There was a reason why the organization was rumored to have more lawyers than intelligence operatives.
Besides, the Malgeir fleet’s entire FTL radio network was now routed through a Terran Navy ship nearby, and if anyone in the fleet started blabbing to their friends in an FTL call, they would promptly find their connection mysteriously disconnected. And their unit would be getting a vague reprimand or repeat training about operational security.
In Mark’s experience, the training wasn’t supposed to teach anyone anything; it was simply supposed to annoy the crew members into peer pressuring each other to stop doing The Bad Thing they were not supposed to be doing. Sometimes it worked, and if not, the newly established (at his request) Malgeir squad of young Master-at-Arms did their jobs zealously.
Mark leaned back in his comfortable chair and looked around his private guest room. Space usually came at a premium on ships in the Republic Navy. Normally, he’d bunk with the spacers. If he got lucky and the mission called for a larger transport ship, he might get a small closet to run his operations out of. Here, the Malgeir set him up in a room with a downright luxurious amount of space, if not a little wasteful. His office area was furnished with a desk made of light-red alien wood, a sturdy chair, and empty shelves for his items. He had his own bathroom with all the essentials and a luxurious double bed with thick blankets and soft pillows. Martian luxury cruise ships had less space and fewer amenities than the Oengro.
The door chimed with an alien melody. “This is Grionc. May I come in?” Her voice echoed slightly through the intercom.
He eagerly welcomed her inside. “High Fleet Commander, this is your ship. Please, make yourself comfortable.” He gestured at one of his several unused chairs.
Grionc smiled appreciatively and sat down. She looked at his sparse luggage, her gaze landing on the half-disassembled gun he’d placed on his desk. “Ah, another of your Terran weapons. What does that shoot? Lightning and magic?” she teased.
Mark let out a hearty laugh at the joke, picking up the pieces from his desk and reassembling them in his hands without looking down. “Nothing fancy. Just thirty-six hundred rounds a minute of five point seven caseless. I was cleaning it.”
He cleared the service rifle twice for safety and handed it to her, grip first, continuing, “Not that different from your Marine rifles in principle. Our requirements for shipboard small arms don’t differ that much: what it needs to do is deliver a piece of metal from point A to point B, and work reliably without atmosphere or gravity. Everything else, the automatic aiming module, the high explosive alternate munitions, the underslung plasma, the integral suppressor, those are just the bells and whistles.”
She accepted and inspected the thin weapon, surprised at its light weight and simplicity. She raised an eyebrow. “Does it need regular cleaning?”
He tilted his head slightly and shrugged. “Technically not. It’s supposed to be self-cleaning and maintenance-free for twenty thousand rounds before it needs to be serviced, but taking it apart and cleaning it manually clears my head and lets me think. Ancient tradition, I guess.”
“I see,” Grionc nodded thoughtfully, handing the delicate weapon back to him gingerly. “Your people seem to have a lot of those… interesting traditions.”
Mark smiled. “Are you referring to my recent insistence that you don’t allow more than a third of your captains on board the Oengro at the same time?” he asked. “Because trust me, there’s a perfectly reasonable and up-to-date explanation—”
“No, I understand that,” she said hurriedly. “I know the dangers of that from first-hand experience.”
“Experience keeps us alive in war,” Mark agreed with a nod. “Speaking of which, we have another exercise for your fleet today.”
Grionc’s eyes lit up. “Any practice is good,” Grionc declared. “What are your fictional Celestrians up to today?”
“Glad to see you’re so supportive of these,” Mark smiled mischievously, almost… evilly, she noted, as he put away his carbine and pulled up the scenario he had in mind on his tablet.
---
Grionc peered through the window into the filled briefing room. Her officers were there, some in-person, other remote as the Terrans demanded: Vastae, the Oengro’s bridge officers, the twelve squadron leaders of Sixth Fleet, and their deputies. They were eagerly conversing amongst themselves, their voices barely audible through the thick door.
Vastae was speculating, “I think it’s another exercise.”
“Another exercise?” a squadron leader replied with a hint of annoyance. “This is what, the tenth exercise, we’ve had to do? I swear, my captains know more about how to fight in the ‘Celestria Red Zone’ than they do in actual Federation space. Who came up with that silly name anyway? I bet it’s our guests with the idea again.”
The impatient squadron leader was a senior beta leader by the name of Loenda, one of the very few officers who had been in the Sixth Fleet since before the war. Hunched over at the ripe age of fifty-nine, her orange eyes still shone with the passion — and fire — of her youth.
No one questioned her experience or unwavering loyalty to the High Fleet Commander, but Loenda did not share what she saw as Grionc’s misplaced faith in their new allies. She continued her rant, “The paranoid Grass Eaters had us do four separate checks on the new hardware they integrated into our sensor computer system,” Loenda grumbled. “Four! These exercises aren’t free! And now they’re making us burn precious time and fuel running practice on fictional scenarios against fictional enemies, while the real Datsot falls into the real enemies’ hands.”
Speinfoent jumped to the defense of the Terrans. “I didn’t hear you complain about Grass Eaters when they were distributing dessert on Soft Serve Saturday. And it’s a good thing we are practicing! Last exercise, your navigators blundered the final powered gravity assist and burned half of Squadron 6 straight into the second moon of Celestria. In a real battle—”
Loenda wasn’t having any of it. She cut him off dismissively, “Bah, it’s all the simulation software. You can’t replace the real tactile feedback of a ship with messages on a computer screen. Gamma Leader, stay alive a little longer, and you’ll learn that nothing replaces real experience; ten seconds in battle beats—”
Speinfoent shot back, ignoring Vastae’s eyes pleading for him to just shut up and let it go. “You say that, Loenda, but if your squadron forgets to turn on your new communication system in an actual battle like they did in the first exercise, you may not last ten seconds in the next battle.”
Loenda rolled her eyes but otherwise overlooked the young officer’s obvious disrespect. “I still don’t get the point of that simulation. Our old communication system has never broken down and works just as well today as it did when it was first installed. If the High Fleet Commander hadn’t ordered it, I would never have allowed these supposedly friendly Grass Eaters install a bunch of their primitive hardware alongside our tried-and-true core battle systems.”
“Did you not pay attention to the training video they sent over?” he challenged.
“Gamma Leader,” she began to explain as if to a young cub. “I’m willing to bet you an entire week’s salary that nobody who makes training videos for a living has ever worked on a real naval warship before—”
“Yes, but if you actually watched the video, you might learn that communication systems can and have—”
Grionc decided to cut off their continuing argument and pushed open the door to enter the room.
Vastae’s loud voice echoed throughout the room, “High Fleet Commander present!”
She gestured with her paw, signaling them to not stand up. “Stay seated, commanders.”
They complied.
“We are conducting another simulated exercise today,” Grionc continued.
Scanning the room, her eyes sharp, she dared any of her subordinates to object. None made a noise, not even Loenda or Speinfoent. Good, she thought. Fleet discipline had not fallen so far yet.
Unfolding her datapad, she cleared her throat. “Ahem… this is the new scenario. Our dastardly enemy at the Celestria system are shipping large amounts of illegal combat drugs from their production facilities through our area of responsibility.”
When Mark gave her the script, Grionc had plenty of questions at this point, but she refrained from asking them to elaborate because she’d learned that in cases like these, the Terrans’ answers would often generate a larger number of even more unsettling questions.
“Naval Intelligence has learned of one such supply convoy. They estimate the enemy to have about twelve transport ships, escorted by six fast missile destroyers of the Delta-class. Our objective is to ambush them. If we can, we are to capture the enemy shipment. If we cannot capture them, they must be destroyed. Any questions?”
She looked around the room.
Seeing that no one else was raising their paw, Speinfoent started to ask, “What are illegal combat drugs and are there—”
Grionc cut him off, ignoring his question. “Are there any relevant questions to the practical parameters of this exercise?”
No one else spoke up.
“No? Good. The plan is simple.” And indeed, it was, Mark had provided her with the outlines of what they calculated would be the optimal strategy. “We are splitting Sixth Fleet into two evenly sized battlegroups. Each battlegroup will independently hide behind each of the two gas giants in Celestria, where we think they will come in for a fueling operation. Wait until they are vulnerable when refueling, and the battlegroup closest to the convoy will attack. The other battlegroup will then maneuver to cut off their escape. Any questions?”
There were no questions. This was not the first supply convoy exercise the Terrans had made her do. Grionc knew that her officers must be familiar with them by now.
She smiled. “Excellent. I will personally command Battlegroup 1 from the Oengro. Squadron Leader Loenda, you will command Battlegroup 2 from aboard your MNS Trassau.”
Loenda nodded crisply and acknowledged the command.
“One more thing,” Grionc said, turning to address her specifically. “We are adopting a new practice from our new allies. Loenda, you are commanding an independent flotilla of ships, and it would be distracting if you had to command your ship and your battlegroup at the same time. Therefore, I am assigning a new captain for the Trassau to run the ship so you can focus on coordinating the entire battlegroup.”
The squadron leader looked up at her, hiding her surprise and asking calmly, “Who am I losing my ship to?”
“You will still command your squadron and battlegroup from the Trassau,” Grionc assured her. “I am moving Gamma Leader Speinfoent to take charge of the Trassau to free you up to focus on your strategic duties. Will that be a problem for you?”
Loenda’s face betrayed no emotion. “No, High Fleet Commander. Not at all.”
“Good. If there are no questions, return to your ships and let’s get started.”
Comments
Will Clark
"That new fangled communication system's a damn gimmick, sonny." Good to see that Fudds are common amongst all species.
