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Grass Eaters | 1 | Different Kind of Strength
🕑 Added 2024-03-04 23:57:27 +0000 UTCIt’s not just your deadlift.
Your hundred-meter.
Your high jump.
Tomorrow’s battles require a different kind of strength.
The strength to stand out in school, and to stand up for what’s right.
It’s more than physical strength.
It’s strength of character.
Strength of will, purpose, and determination.
The strength to serve your community, your district, and your Republic.
The strength of a Republic Spacer.
(Title text: AIM FOR THE STARS)
(Subtitle text: Find out if you are a Spacer today.)
“Strength”, Terran Republic Navy Recruiting Commercial, March 2123
---
The war had been raging for ten years.
The Granti had been close allies to the Malgeir Federation for centuries. As a fellow peaceful predator species, they had long tubular snouts, fur colors varying from icy white to the deep brown of old trees, and beefy limbs ending with sharp talons. Physically, they towered over the Malgeir at over two meters tall, and their people were known by the Malgeir as gentle giants.
The Malgeir loved the Granti like they were their own. Over centuries, the two civilizations shared and traded everything from their technology to their very lives. Their love of seafood. Their fashion. Their snout-counting governance. Their taboo against thinking machines. Among the other civilizations Malgeir met in the stars, their connection with the Granti was unparalleled. Some even fell in love with each other, adopting each others’ families, and some of them grew old together. Nothing could come between the two peoples.
When the Granti reported violent skirmishes against a newly discovered alien race near their border about a decade ago, the Malgeir jumped in, no questions asked. They sent resources. They sent food. They provided shelter for the refugees streaming from the front. And before long, their warships joined ranks with their longtime ally as well.
The Malgeir fought alongside the Granti, shoulder-to-shoulder. And then, as the war grew increasingly desperate, back-to-back.
The narrative among civilians was of a rising tide that had somehow turned against them. But veterans in the Malgeir Navy knew it hadn’t been a tide: the enemy had been a tsunami from the start.
Their foes, the Znosians, were an enigma. Unique among all the interstellar species the Malgeir had met, these white furred, petite mammalian creatures with elongated ears and short tails thrived on non-carnivorous diets. Oddly enough, such peaceful dietary habits belied their bloodthirsty appetite for combat. It was still unclear to most what their ultimate objectives were, but the way they painted the fertile soil of occupied Malgeir and Granti planets with the blood of their former residents made it clear that they could not be allowed to succeed.
While many derisively called them “Grass Eaters,” their appetite for destruction was far from vegetarian. Despite being born having short claws, soft hides, and brittle bones, they more than made up for their natural shortcomings with machinery and an innate understanding for the lifeline of war: logistics. These creatures were relentless, and they were unparalleled at what they did.
All the Malgeir could do was be there. There in the defense of the Granti: in one spacer after another, one ship after another, and one fleet after another. Retreat after retreat, they stood with their allies until the very last escort ship out during the final evacuation of Grantor.
That was about four years ago. It had taken the Znosians a mere six years to wipe out what the Granti built in tens of thousands.
When they were done with the Granti, the Znosians did not stop; they immediately turned their sights to the Malgeir. And as expected, the Malgeir Navy felt the weight of the new onslaught, suffering crushing loss after loss.
Civilians at home were shielded from the brutal truth, kept in the dark about the scale of the disaster. Still, whispers of entire colonies vanishing from communication networks reached their ears. They saw their own go into the stars, towards the war, and their loved ones came back in boxes, bags, or not at all. Worse, rumors filtered through from the occupied worlds, tales so chilling that some dismissed them as mere war propaganda.
Those in the Malgeir Sixth Fleet who had witnessed the atrocities on occupied planets first-hand knew better. The stories: they were not exaggerations; they were the price of losing.
---
Malgeir Navy Ship Oengro
Fleet Commander Grionc steadied herself against the sturdy railing of the flag bridge of her mammoth Alpha-class warship. She stood there for a minute, just taking in the practiced chaos of her crews as they worked. Despite what Malgeir Navy doctrine called for, she reminded herself to refrain from jumping in and micromanaging her subordinates.
Her gaze settled on the command console directly in front of her. Alerts flashed and beeped, listing out a cocktail of problems. There was some irrecoverable fault in the ventilation shaft’s pressure sensors. The hangar bay’s computer was perpetually fried. The main kitchen was out of seasoning for grade-three rations. Typical… Grionc dismissed the bothersome notifications and focused on the personnel screen: the hundreds of officers under her who managed her flagship of five thousand spacers. Other than a few dozen paws nursing upset stomachs in sick bay after a recent wave of food poisonings, she was satisfied to note that no major yellow flags jumped out at her.
Behind her in his own duty station, sat the second highest-ranking Malgeir officer on this side of the galaxy — Alpha Leader Vastae, captain of the Oengro. She was a paltry thirty-seven years old to his thirty-eight years of age, both some of the youngest of their ranks in Malgeir history.
Physically, Grionc looked every bit a typical Malgeir: jet black fur trimmed to regulation-perfect length, fierce crimson eyes, and a snout and ears fine-tuned from evolution for acute hearing and smell. One facial feature set her apart: a long gash on the right side of her snout, a brutal souvenir acquired at the deadly Uidquu shipyard raid two years ago that destroyed the quarter of the Malgeir naval leadership meeting there as well as almost eighty-five percent of the tonnage in much-vaunted Malgeir Second Fleet.
That was the event that earned her the promotion to fleet commander. She was not just experienced, and she was not just competent: she was a survivor. And these three rare traits in the Malgeir Navy were too much for even the Fleet Council to ignore.
Captain Vastae’s eyes danced over the screen, skimming the updates. After a minute, he pivoted towards Grionc, his expression satisfied and voice firm and clear. “The Oengro is combat ready, Fleet Commander.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Grionc replied calmly. “What is the status of the rest of Sixth Fleet?”
Vastae had clearly anticipated this question. While he was not in command of any ship other than the MNS Oengro, it often fell on him as the flag captain to coordinate between the fleet commander and the rest of the fleet.
He straightened and reported, “Squadrons 1 to 4 are ready for combat. Squadrons 5 to 9 are completing their final checklists. Squadron 8 still with a few ships calibrating their local sensors. Squadrons 10 to 12 warming up their subspace drives but should be good to go in half an hour.”
Grionc’s lips curled into a hint of a smirk. “Not bad for a Malgeir battle fleet, eh?”
Vastae shrugged.
Indeed, it was not bad at all. In fact, of all the fleets in the Malgeir Navy, Sixth Fleet had the highest combat readiness, which showed its excellence even in the rigged exercises that Home Fleet hosted annually.
Whether it compared favorably to the enemy, well, Grionc’s inner voice commented, nobody compared favorably to the Grass Eaters in military prowess.
She could only hope what Sixth Fleet had here today was enough.
Grionc gazed out at the Malgeir core world of Datsot with a heavy heart.
Only four months ago, the planet shimmered with abundance of life and civilization… before the Znosians came.
The Navy, busy in far-off battles, couldn’t arrive to defend Datsot in time. And without their presence, the planet became easy prey. Its orbital defenses were in tatters, ripped apart within hours of the enemy’s arrival around the planet.
The relentless Znosians ignored their mounting losses and dispatched their troop ships onto the planet. Despite stubborn resistance from its defenders, they kept coming, ship after ship, full of their troops. Soon, the Malgeir’s connection with Datsot’s civilian leaders went dark. The only thing that got through the FTL communication net were the cries of death and war.
The once crystal-clear blues and whites of the beautiful planet’s atmosphere were now stained with muddy brown filth, a grim result of a planetary conflagration that had consumed its lush forests. Grionc had no doubt in her mind who the culprits were.
Her paws danced over her sensor console, showing her a ray of hope: signs of life still flickered on its surface. The ten billion souls of a core world do not simply give up in four short months. Some areas were ominously silent, obviously “pacified” by the Znosian invaders, but many others still showed sporadic flashes of fire visible from space, the signature of the ground artillery used by both sides launching their explosive payloads, scorching its colorful landscape with circles of blackened soot. The surface of Datsot was scarred with layers upon layers of endless trenches dug into its fertile soil, snaking through its forests, its plains, and its cities.
Grionc felt for the plight of Datsot’s still determined defenders, spraying their sweat and red blood across the golden farmlands of Datsot, holding out for as long as they could against the tidal wave of Znosian shock troopers, conscripts, and space-to-ground artillery pounding their positions to dust.
The loss of Datsot hurt. It was the first core world invested by the enemy this far towards the Malgeir homeworld.
This is why we are here. This is why we fight.
With a heavy sigh, Grionc turned back to the immediate task at hand. “Status report?”
The main tactical display flickered to life, revealing a constellation of enemy vessels near the planet.
"Fleet sensors show sixteen space combat vessels, Delta-classes, holding position in high Datsot orbit. About two hundred auxiliary ships with enemy signatures in the system, likely for logistics and orbital support," Vastae reported, eyes scanning the data.
Grionc absorbed the information, her mind racing. "Looks like intel earned their pay this time… Classify all non-combat ships as hostile. Engage only if necessary, but show no mercy if they approach."
“Yes, Fleet Commander.”
Grionc's thoughts lingered in her memories. The Znosians taught them the hard way that they could turn even non-combat vessels into dangerous weapons. More than once, entire squadrons were wiped out when transport ships armed with improvised weapons got themselves into range. As it turned out, just because they had no armor and ran dirty drives didn’t mean they had no teeth if they got close.
Sixth Fleet wouldn’t be making that mistake against their cunning foes. Not today.
Unlike the other formations in the Malgeir Navy, Sixth Fleet was an elite and uniquely offensive fleet: other than its flagship, almost all its combat ships were the combat-tested Delta-classes known for their dedicated missile capabilities and their crews of five hundred battle-experienced spacers.
With twelve powerful squadrons at their disposal, each with the standard complement of twelve ships, they had both the firepower and the numbers on their side. And, with six extra ships for supplies, they came prepared for their Datsot liberation mission. The enemy’s paltry sixteen ships in orbit dwarfed in comparison.
But Grionc wasn’t about to let her guard down. “Move in on Datsot and keep a close watch on the Delta-class ships. The moment they make a move, I want to know.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
---
A few hours later, the enemy did exactly that.
“The Znosian fleet at Datsot is burning away from us,” Vastae noted, his eyes flickering over the latest readings on his console. “Looks like they’re running.”
Grionc’s lips curled up in contempt. “How are their acceleration numbers?”
“Their drives are still warming up. Based on the observed numbers, it looks like they’ll top out at a third our combat burn,” Vastae reported, his claws dancing over the controls for confirmation.
“A third?!” She glanced at her own console in surprise. “So we can intercept them before they get to the blink limit after all?”
“Yes, Fleet Commander. About a dozen of their orbital support crafts are attached to their fleet, towing their orbital infrastructure, and they appear to be slowing their combat fleet down.”
Orbital math doesn’t lie, Grionc thought. If the enemy fleet only tops out at a third of our acceleration numbers, we can catch up and wipe them out hours before they escape…
“You’d think they would cut and run,” she mused, mostly to herself. “They’re not known for being sentimental.”
“No, ma’am,” Vastae shook his ears in negation and bared his teeth. “The Grass Eater mind works in truly mysterious ways.”
“Be careful, Captain. The enemy is fanatical, not stupid. Let’s not make the mistake of underestimating them; it’s one we won’t get to repeat,” she cautioned.
“Of course, ma’am. I’ll keep the fleet on high readiness and ensure our ships keep up the sensor sweeps.”
“Excellent. Burn for intercept, and make sure they are not leaving behind any traps for us as we close on them.”
---
Meta
This story was inspired by a trend of HFY stories generally connecting predatory instincts and natural strength with military might. I have a respectfully different take here, but I have to give all credit for the genesis of my story to the other authors here who raised such interesting questions.
In terms of what this is, this story takes an anti-cynical view on technology and the future: grounded but without going into a Black Mirror/Terminator dystopia. Most characters in here are not stupid, not even aliens or enemies of humanity — though sometimes they may be ignorant or naïve. This story is centered around a war, but it is not about constant combat. I would not call this hard science fiction; something in between military sci-fi and space opera, leaning more closely towards the former.
This is a lengthy story, a little slower than my usual. It is split into three book-length parts each with their own standalone satisfying (hopefully) conclusions without unnatural cliffhangers between them.
I have mostly finished writing Books 1 (58 chapters, ~150K words), Book 2 (65 chapters, ~165K words), and I’m writing/editing Book 3. I will release the first ten chapters quickly within the week, and then the remaining of Book 1 on a steadier cadence.
