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Grass Eaters 2 | 11 | Remedial Training
🕑 Added 2024-06-10 16:47:10 +0000 UTCMalgeiru Orbital Transfer Hub, Malgeiru-3 (2,400 km)
POV: Speinfoent, Malgeir Federation Navy (Rank: Beta Leader)
Speinfoent’s gaze swept through the sparse interior of the shuttle as he boarded. Dozens of empty seats stretched before him, each with a hint of wear, their synthetic cushions showing signs of countless past occupants. Rows upon rows of them lined the cramped cargo bay, uniform in their arrangement. Beyond the translucent windows, the spaceport he just debarked stood out against the dark expanse of space.
A few months ago, he would not have noticed the suboptimal design choices that made up the troop transport. Now, he had to actively suppress the portion of his subconscious that threw up mental red flags about Terran Navy regulations and code.
There were too many seats and too few exits; troops would take forever to get out in an emergency.
No escape pods for most of the occupants; only barely enough for the flight crew.
No seat belts or restraints. No fire-proof interior coverings. No oxygen masks above each seat.
He looked around for the hull breach quick-patches or fire extinguishers: they were supposed to be included on every troop transport but realized that they had probably been sold by its crew on the black-market decades ago.
And the windows — so many large windows! A Terran luxury space yacht would be jealous of the size of these windows and the engineering that made them possible in the vacuum of space… and if the enemy saw them right now, they would probably rub their evil little paws in joy at the hundreds of structural weaknesses the Malgeir themselves dug into their own spacecraft.
Speinfoent tried not to dwell on it.
He squinted at the other end of the bare transport module and noticed the only two other occupants of the shuttle: a female and male figure seated next to each other. Both looked deeply engrossed in their handheld datapads. He marched over, picked an empty chair across from them, and settled into it.
Staring across the aisle, Speinfoent noticed the rank insignias and their fleet badges sewn into their uniforms. Eighth Fleet for the female and Twelfth Auxiliary Fleet for the male. Both omega leaders.
He cleared his throat noisily. “Hey, you guys going to the training?”
The female’s attention shifted from her datapad, her dull-orange eyes flickering with a hint of curiosity. Speinfoent guessed she was in her early forties from the subtle grace in her posture. Her gaze landed on the shiny new beta leader insignia on his uniform, and her eyebrows raised ever so slightly in surprise.
“Ah, yes. I think the flight was just waiting for you, Beta Leader. The crew said we had only three on this flight,” she replied, her voice carrying a hint of amusement. Her paw swept across the near-empty cabin. “Not a popular destination, I guess.”
“Call me Speinfoent,” he said, holding out his paw out of recently acquired habit.
She looked oddly at him for a second, and Speinfoent hastily withdrew his paw, internally cringing at the instinctual Terran custom. Instead, they nodded at each other in proper greeting.
“I’m Uintrei,” she introduced herself, then nodded at her companion. “And this is Durnio.”
The male looked about the same age as Speinfoent: late twenties or early thirties, he guessed. His dark brown fur was a match of Uintrei’s except longer and slightly unkempt.
“Hey,” Durnio greeted him casually. “So… Beta Leader, what did you do?”
Speinfoent’s head tilted in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“To deserve the remedial training,” Durnio clarified. “I got sent down here after I broke our head chef’s snout in a fight; he was stuffing our dinner rations with garbage after he sold the actual meats on the black market.”
“I volunteered. You got ordered here?” Speinfoent asked. “I thought everyone volunteered for this.”
Durnio let out a snort in disbelief. “Volunteering? How long have you been in the Navy? And they said this is going to be over a year. I swear I didn’t know his snout was going to be that fragile… even if he deserved it.”
Speinfoent turned to Uintrei in curiosity. “Did you get sent here as well?”
Her nod came slow and heavy. “There was a battle a while ago, against the Grass Eaters. Didn’t work out for Eighth Fleet. The Fleet commander and the flagship ate it, so they blamed it on me and a couple other squadron leaders that survived. Nothing but demotions and punishment postings since.”
In the dim lighting of the cargo bay, Speinfoent’s face softened, shadows playing across his features. He’d never met her before, but her story was disturbingly common. “That sucks. Must have been bad.”
“It was. The Grass Eaters savaged our fleet without losing a single ship, and we only got out of there because they didn’t expect us to be so stupid to attack them there. The minute Raulur — our fleet commander — was confirmed dead, I took command and ordered the fleet scatter and flee. This was… about three years ago now. Gruccud, right after it was taken. You ever been to the system? You seem a little young to have—”
“Yeah, I’ve been there. Beautiful planet… before the war,” he said, catching himself before revealing more. The smashing success of the Sixth Fleet operation was not exactly a secret, but he didn’t want to answer the inevitable questions that would come if they knew he was part of the liberation fleet. And those details were most certainly highly classified. In fact, most of Sixth Fleet was still information-quarantined on the Gruccud front—
Uintrei’s eyes narrowed slightly at him in skepticism, then continued, “You said you volunteered for this… training?”
“Yeah. Most of my fleet did too, actually, but the Admiralty refused to let us send more.”
“Things must be pretty bad in Sixth Fleet then,” she guessed, “for people to want to volunteer for this. A whole year of back-breaking grunt labor on some colony world, probably building houses for some rich idiot with Home Fleet connections. I can’t wait.”
“Hard labor?” Speinfoent asked. “They’re sending us to— to a school to learn how to fight.”
Uintrei let out a similar snort to Durnio’s. “Is that what they told you too? How long did you say you’ve been in the Malgeir Federation Navy?”
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The gentle hum of the inertial compensators kicked in as the shuttle exited blink, waking Speinfoent up from his nap.
Uintrei’s gaze met his across the aisle, her eyes glinting with curiosity. “We just completed another blink. That’s the third I counted.”
He offered a nod. “Third from Malgeiru. They should be here soon.”
“They? Huh? Who is here?”
Speinfoent’s eyes drifted towards the sleeping Durnio.
Sensing his hesitation, Uintrei looked sharply at him with curling lips. “You know something we don’t?”
He shrugged. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“You know, Beta Leader… I’ve been reading up on your Sixth Fleet,” she said, tapping her datapad with a claw.
“And?”
“Nothing about it recently other than rumors a few months ago that some ground troops on Datsot claimed that they’d been abandoned by Sixth Fleet. Not even a whisper since. Now, isn’t that strange?”
“Operational security,” Speinfoent replied evasively. “We take it seriously in Sixth Fleet.”
“I know for a fact that we still have Datsot. The news can dress it up all they want, but the Defense Ministry wouldn’t be able to hide a core world loss if it happened again,” she continued speculating. “And the rumors of a major counteroffensive breakthrough in Gruccud.”
Speinfoent looked down, refusing to meet her eye.
Uintrei pressed on undeterred, “I’m no math professor, Speinfoent, but I can count to six. And I know for a fact there aren’t that many intact offensive fleets left in the Navy. Just one, really, if I think about it.”
“I’m just a beta officer. I don’t really keep track of things like that,” Speinfoent lied.
“Sixth Fleet liberated Gruccud, didn’t it?”
“I am not at liberty to confirm nor deny details of such a military operation,” Speinfoent parroted the line he learned before he was allowed to volunteer. He reflected that there were probably some things that could be safe to tell her, especially given their current status and destination, but he knew far better than to make the call himself. The amount of paperwork he’d have to do if their advisors found out…
She looked at him for a long moment, an unreadable expression on her face. “How did you solve the space mine problem at Gruccud?”
Now, that was something he definitely could not tell her.
“I am not at liberty to confirm—”
His denial was interrupted by a loud clang from the shuttle’s hull. They both snapped their heads towards its source at the rear of the cargo bay, towards the entrance. Durnio stirred in his seat, peeking his right eye open.
“What’s that?” Uintrei asked with mild concern.
“I’m guessing that’s them.”
“Who is them? Do you always talk in these confusing riddles?”
He said nothing in reply, his gaze fixed on something unseen beyond the hull.
Moments later, the shuttle pilot’s voice came over the speakers, “We have been docked. They’ll take you from here.”
“Who is they?”
The three in the cargo bay watched the docking entrance hissed open and a singular armored creature walked in, its face covered. Despite knowing the nature of their future host, Speinfoent still felt a little unease at something about them… their straight upright posture, the jet-black armored suit—
It spoke, and he could tell that it was a woman from the way her translator relayed the information in slightly higher, smoother pitch to signify a female speaker for their benefit. “You are candidates for the Staff College pilot program: Uintrei, Durnio, and… ah, Sphinx?”
Speinfoent’s cheeks warmed with a blush, and he tried his best to not look at his curious compatriots. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. You guys are right on time, surprisingly for a change. Alright, let’s get started. I know that you— that some of you may have some questions. I will answer them in due time. For now, you can call me Carla,” she said, producing a tablet for them. “I will need you to sign these forms.”
“What is it… Carla?” Uintrei asked suspiciously, rolling the strange name off her tongue.
“It’s a bunch of agreements and waivers. For the duration of your time at the Staff College, you are still considered in the service of the Malgeir Navy, but you will follow all commands given to you by the staff of the College. We will be responsible for your well-being, within reason. Your living expenses at the College will be covered by an adequate stipend. And in exchange you agree to follow instructions to the best of your ability. The whole agreement has been legally vetted by the Navy. And the most important thing: what you are about to see and learn in the next few months is highly secret information. If you breathe a word of it to anyone, you will go to prison for a very long time. Any questions?”
Durnio shrugged and accepted the tablet, signing his name without bothering to read it and handing it to Uintrei, who finally did put her name on it after some hesitation and the apparent realization that she didn’t have much of a choice anyway.
Taking the tablet back from Speinfoent, Carla made some taps on the tablet. “Okay, looks like we are good to go.”
With a swift motion, Carla unsealed her helmet, revealing her distinctively Terran face. Her pale skin contrasted sharply against the light-absorbing darkness of her suit.
“What the—” Uintrei almost jumped out of her own fur. “You’re not Malgeir.”
Durnio looked at her like she was stupid. “That wasn’t obvious from the suit?”
Carla’s lips curved in a half-smile, “Correct. I am from the Terran Republic, a new, highly secret ally of your species.”
Uintrei’s eyes widened when she saw Carla revealing her teeth as she talked. She blurted out, “But you are a Grass Eater!”
“You people always leap to that one, huh? No, I do not eat grass. Not exclusively anyway. You tell them, Sphinx,” Carla said, looking at Speinfoent, who had been sporting a wide grin throughout the exchange.
“It’s good to see you again, Commander. Is Amelia here too?”
Carla’s smile broadened, her finger tapping the updated insignia on her own uniform. “It’s captain now since we pulled off Anaconda. The admiral got promoted to a desk job and they made me a cross-species liaison for… these types of things.”
“My condolences to her,” he joked. “And to you.”
Carla let out a chortle. Turning to look at the pair of still bewildered omega leaders, she smiled at them, without showing any of her scary front buck teeth this time. “I’m sure you both have plenty of questions. For now, follow me onto our shuttle. You can ask on the way to Sol.”
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Meta
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Comments
Solo
"and for making incredibly cool music videos." - I got that reference.
87894354
"Do you always talk in these confusing riddles?” she asks, to the guy called "Sphinx". Made me smile :)
Monkinto
I'm betting it isn't a coincidence that Uintrei ended up here is it? I'm betting the humans arranged this on purpose, especially considering the previous chapter she was in the report on the battle specifically notes "Fleet Council intends to blame this outcome on the officer who correctly called for retreat to avert disaster. Officer shows promise"
