ZNS 9520, SIRIUS (25,000 LS)
POV: Zvojshur, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Nine Whiskers)
Nine Whiskers Zvojshur was getting nervous. Half of the ships of the Grand Fleet were waiting on the wrong side of the Great Predator Nest here with her in charge in the system of Sirius.
For the first couple days, the relay ships came back from the other side with consistent frequency as the attacking fleet began their travel to the enemy home and colony planets. But after that, the relay ships and messages stopped coming.
She assumed that the relay ships either couldn’t get refueled yet on the other side or the Great Predators were blowing up the relay ships. Which… would be concerning, but not much more than the other mini-catastrophes that had already happened in this campaign. What was one more delay?
After a week, though, she began to get nervous.
It wasn’t the supplies. They had enough supplies. More than enough, actually, since Ten Whiskers Stsinkt decided to leave all the remaining supply ships with them. They could stay here for several more weeks, months if they had to. And if it came down to it, they could make some hard decisions about which Servants were more valuable to the Prophecy… maybe they’d even be able to last years.
But the far more concerning thing was: based on the latest estimates, the Grand Fleet in the Great Predator Nest had enough ships and equipment to destroy every planet in the entire system, multiple times over. They should have been done by now.
As she was starting to consult with her engineers and contemplating some improbable drive-by refueling operations around the Sirius-A star with some extreme heat-resistant contraptions, her computer officer suddenly spoke up, “Nine Whiskers Zvojshur, there’s a blink emergence… it’s the 2239 and her escorts!”
“That’s… Nine Whiskers Tvadnek and his Battlegroup Cottontail?” Zvojshur demanded.
“Yes, Nine Whiskers,” he reported, then pulled up their visuals on the main screen. There were multiple gasps on the bridge as Zvojshur’s officers digested the imagery. “By the Prophecy… they’ve taken severe battle damage!”
There were blackened perforations and metallic patches all over the entire remaining… battlegroup of just eighteen ships, each obviously hastily repaired in battle. For a second, Zvojshur was impressed by how they could possibly remain vacuum-worthy with that much apparent damage. She didn’t know that damage control crews were that well-bred.
“Get them on the radio. Now!”
“Yes, Nine Whiskers.”
She put on her headset, “Nine Whiskers Tvadnek, what in the Prophecy happened in there, in the Great Predator Nest?!”
An unfamiliar face came onto the screen. From his uniform, insignia, and patch, she could tell he was an eight whiskers missile destroyer captain. One of his ears was missing and there were several bandaged wounds on his body. “Nine Whiskers, this is Eight Whiskers Krizvum,” he managed to cough out in his wounded state. “Battlegroup Commander Tvadnek is… with the Prophecy now. The predators attacked our battlegroup with sneak tactics and surprise ambushes all over their Saturn battle area. This squadron and a half — it’s all that remains of our battlegroup now.”
“What of the Will of the Prophecy?!” Zvojshur asked in astonishment.
Krizvum cracked open a small smile of pleasure. “We accomplished our part, Nine Whiskers. We exterminated every last predator around their Jupiter planet. That’s how we refueled our ships. Battlegroups Dwarf and Ears are still hard at work on Terra and Mars. There is some resistance remaining from the Great Predators, but everything is going as Ten Whiskers Stsinkt had planned: the Great Extermination will be completed. She says it will just take a little while longer than expected. But the Will of the Prophecy shall be done.”
“Excellent!” Zvojshur replied excitedly. “And what is the directive for us from the Ten Whiskers?”
Krizvum looked at the camera and took a deep breath. “As we are otherwise combat ineffective, we are here to fuel and bring as many of our ships here into the system as possible. We’ve brought enough with us to each refuel one of your ships here in addition to ourselves. It will take some time, but as we have 18 ships, we can bring 18 ships from here into the Great Predator Nest each time in preparation for final cleanup of the Great Predator Nest.”
Zvojshur nodded and pointed a claw at her computer officer. “Send him a list of 17 other ships along with ours and tell them to be careful with the docking. Those ships do not look to be in great shape.”
It took a couple more hours than usual for the docking operation to safely complete given the horribly damaged state of the remnants of Battlegroup Cottontail, but they managed to connect the couplings without any accidents. When it was done, Zvojshur met the wounded Eight Whiskers Krizvum at the airlock.
Krizvum greeted her with the proper respect and bowed as best he could with the multiple burn injuries on his body. She muttered a quick thanks to the Prophecy for the advanced state of Dominion medical technology.
Krizvum apologized again. “I take full responsibility for the poor state of my being and my ships. It has been a difficult battle, and many Servants have rejoined the Prophecy along with our battlegroup commander—”
Zvojshur waved it aside magnanimously. “That is of little importance. As long as the Will of the Prophecy is complete, our lives have all been forfeited the day we left our hatchling pools.”
“Yes, Nine Whiskers.” Krizvum added in a lower voice, “I didn’t want to announce this over the radio to prevent the predators from intercepting and hearing it, but there is some additional great news. We have captured many prisoners at their shipyards over Ceres. Some of them are scientists and engineers — the ones from their equivalent of the Ship Design Bureau who invented the hiding ships and the blinking missiles. And if you’ll follow me onto the ship, I can show you—”
Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Say no more, Eight Whiskers. Lead the way. We must interrogate them thoroughly for future campaigns of the Dominion.”
“Yes, Nine Whiskers.”
Krizvum led her and two of her bridge officers onto his ship, into one of the secondary cargo bays of the 2239. And, as they entered, Zvojshur heard the cargo hold blast door slam shut behind her.
Thud.
She was deciding whether to question him about why there were so few ship crew members doing their jobs around… when a cold metallic object jabbed into her ribs from behind her and her officers.
“I apologize, Nine Whiskers,” Krizvum said as he turned back, looking at her sadly. “I take full responsibility for my personal weakness—”
“No, no, don’t apologize to the bitch,” one of the many predators who were now materializing out of the dark shadows of the cargo hold corrected him. “You did great, Krissy. Excellent performance. Oscar-worthy. You’ll get a reward for this if you keep it up.”
“Yeah,” another one said. “Hero of the Resistance, possibly.”
Krizvum stared at the hull beneath his paws. “I recommend you do as they say, Nine Whiskers. It would be better for both of us—”
“No! Never!” Zvojshur shouted, now shaking with a mix of righteous fury and fear. “I would rather die than betray the Prophecy to the abominations… like you did!”
“Hm… that’s what Krissy here said at first… before we fed him his ear…” a smug voice emerged from another shadow in a corner of the cargo bay.
“What are you?” Zvojshur asked angrily, turning to the voice.
It — their leader, it looked like — stepped out of the dark in its armored EVA suit, towering over the nine whiskers who stood just a head over a meter tall.
“Excuse me, where are my manners?” It held out a hand and forcibly squeezed Zvojshur’s fragile right paw with an iron grip, making her wince in pain as something audibly cracked in her bones. “Nice to meet you, Zvo-whatever.”
Crunch.
Zvojshur felt her fragile wrist snap and then shatter.
“I am the Ace of Clubs. And Zvo — you and eighteen of your ships — you are now property of my Sirius People’s Navy.” The Ace stared at the nine whiskers whimpering in pain with a hungry grin. “How many more round trips do you think we can make here before your people realize what’s going on? The betting pool right now has the total at four, but I’ll be honest with you, Zvo: I put my credits on the over when I saw that we were going to bag ourselves a live nine whiskers. I think the Reps come and ruin our fun before your people figure it out—”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The cruel predator stopped and looked at its minions around it. “What are you fools standing around for? Aren’t you all supposed to be pirates? Go take control of our new ships!”
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OUTPOST MCMURDO, MCMURDO SYSTEM (600 LS)
POV: Zwena Tanith, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Commander)
“FTL sensors report incoming from the Sol side,” Bert reported as a new alert popped up on the main screen. “Not ours. And not the… the SRN.”
Zwena looked at their screen in disdain. “The Bun stragglers are still coming through?”
“Znosian relay ships,” Bert replied, inspecting the signatures as they materialized. “Two of them, trying to escape to report back.”
“You know the drill, Bert. One each,” Zwena ordered.
“With pleasure, Commander.”
A couple hours later, the pair of anti-ship missiles from a nearby autonomous defense platform found their targets, and the wrecks of the Znosian relay ships drifted uselessly into their final graveyard orbit around the McMurdo system star… joining the squadron or so of their survivors who had managed to refuel from each other and attempted to break out of Republic territory to report the destruction of their fleet.
Should have stayed home in Znos.
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NAVAL GROUND SUPPLY BASE 105 (GRANTOR CITY), GRANTOR-3
POV: Svatken, Znosian Dominion State Security (Position: Director)
On his screen, Director Svatken’s fury was unmistakable. “Is there anything— anything you can tell me, Eleven Whiskers Sprabr?”
“No, nothing additional to report,” Sprabr replied calmly. “We have had no contact from the direction of the Great Predator Nest, and they have been completely cut off for weeks. What was unthinkable for you just weeks ago is now a matter of certainty. All we can assume is the worst, Director, and I take partial responsibility for this turn of events.”
“Partial— partial responsibility?”
“Eh. About fifteen percent, if I had to put a number on—”
“You have so much more to answer for! You can’t possibly think—”
“However, I will have to say in my defense,” Sprabr continued, cutting her off. “That I recommended on the record against this course of action initially when you first proposed this obviously ill-fated operation.”
Svatken bristled at him in rage. “How— how dare you! Committing the Grand Prophetic Fleet to the destruction of the Great Predators — a hybrid predator species — was the only acceptable course of action under the Prophecy! It was the military execution and planning of this attack that has clearly failed!”
“Perhaps,” Sprabr countered simply. “We will have to see about that at our assignment-of-responsibility hearing.”
She gaped at him, then closed her mouth angrily. “Be careful, Eleven Whiskers. Your tone of voice is beginning to sound like apostasy.”
“Apostasy?” Sprabr shook his head. “Perhaps you do not understand the gravity of the situation, Director. I don’t believe you have been fully informed.”
“What are you talking about?! I have been following and tracking down every lead about these new predators since you gave me your alternative hypothesis of the Ditvish fiasco. The only thing I have not taken your advice on is the decision—”
“—is the only important thing, Director,” Sprabr said. “These new predators — the Terrans — our chances of victory laid in their complacency. All we have accomplished, it appears, is to awaken a sleeping predator and fill it with a terrible resolve. What we should have done — if you’d listened to me — was to sow doubt among their people with diplomatic overtures about peace while we mobilized further. With our resources and population, if we delayed a confrontation, we could have mustered more…” He sighed. “In any case, what is done is done, and the situation now is extremely dangerous to our people.”
“Don’t you think I realize that?!” Svatken asked indignantly. “We have… lost our Grand Fleet for the first time since… ever! The blow this is for internal security… not to mention our plans to take Malgeiru will now take additional years if not a decade—”
“As I said, Madam Director,” Sprabr shook his head. “You are still gravely underestimating the nature of the problem. And I don’t blame you for that. What is happening to us now — this has not happened to us ever, not strategically. It is something that normally happens to our enemies — to the predators.”
Svatken looked almost ready to order his execution right then and there. “You don’t blame me— Please. Enlighten me, Eleven Whiskers.”
“In offensive war, there is a strategic concept. It is called culmination. The culminating point of an attacking force like ours is the point when we are no longer able to effectively continue our advances,” he explained patiently.
“I know what culmination is, you condescending predator spawn, you—”
He continued, “At that point, additional offensive operations become wasteful, give diminishing returns, and put the attacking force at risk of destruction from an effective counter-offensive. Please, Director — for just one minute — stop thinking about this like a State Security problem and like a real grand strategic issue we are now faced with!”
Svatken seemed to think about what he said for a moment and appeared to calm down a little. “You are saying the Navy’s campaign against the Lesser Predators has now culminated with the possible defeat of the Grand Fleet? We can advance no further?!”
He sighed. “Culminate now? Now? No… No, Director. We culminated two years ago, at the Second Invasion of Datsot. What we have done since then is… strategic overextension. And because we have overextended in blunder, we will now pay that heavy price in fleets and in territory.”
“Price. What price?” she asked, her anger evaporating to be replaced by fear and alarm on her face.
“The Lesser Predator will push us out of their entire pre-war territory. This will likely happen in the next couple months when their less competent Second and Third Fleets finally receive the supplies, direction, and support they need from the Great Predators. And they will not make the mistake they made with the Cliunc, not again. That bit of fortune had the paws of the Prophecy in it, and we can’t count on something like that to save us again.” Sprabr continued, his eyes closed as he thought, “Then, they will reach into the pre-war territory of the Slow Predators. They will besiege Grantor. Grantor will fall. With the Great Predators assisting them, this will happen within a year… two at most if we dumbly try to cling onto it against sense and reason. Without the Grantor cluster holding together all of the Slow Predator territory, they will quickly retake all the Slow Predator systems.”
“Then what?” Svatken asked, shivering internally.
Sprabr kept his eyes closed. “Then… they will attack into pre-war Znosian territory.”
Svatken’s mouth hung open. “By the Prophecy… Is there any good news?”
“Not really. I guess… with the destruction of our Grand Fleet, we can now construct a new one from scratch, using what little we have learned about fighting the Great Predators so far. The new Grand Fleet we will build will put the old one to shame… But fleets take time to build, and the predators will not stop at our border and wait for us to get ready.”
“How— how far do you think they will get before we can muster enough forces to stop them?” Svatken asked, apparently horrified at the prospect of being on the defensive in fully pacified Dominion territory.
“That is a good question, Director. And it depends on what we do next.”
“And what are you suggesting we do?”
“We need to begin preparations for retreat from Grantor… and we must begin diplomatic negotiations with the Terrans,” Sprabr said.
It was Svatken’s turn to shake her head. “If I know anything about these hybrid predators — they will not stop for diplomacy. Not after we attacked them in their own nest system. We wouldn’t. Like you say… they have been filled with a terrible resolve. They will not fall for our tricks like that.”
“Not now, they will not. They will work out their frustrations by killing many Servants of the Prophecy. But they can’t destroy all of the Dominion. Not all at once. We have hundreds of systems. A trillion of us. As predators, they will eventually tire of war. Their anger subsides. Their rage dissipates. Their bloodlust fades. This is as much their biology as it is their history. And when they do, they will sue for peace… and we must agree, even if the conditions may seem painful to us when we do.”
“Peace? And live next to the savages? Next to the Great Predators?” Svatken scoffed. “Have their teeth and their claws hang over our necks forever?”
“Forever? Of course not,” Sprabr smiled. “But we will be patient. We outnumber them. We outbreed them. We outbuild them. And eventually, we will catch up to their advanced technology and catch onto their deceptive tricks. And our bloodlines will finish the job that is no longer possible for us. And when they do… then, the Prophecy can be fulfilled.”
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TRNS NILE, GRANTOR-3 (12 LS)
POV: Gregor Guerrero, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Captain)
“Yeah, Atilla the Bun is doing way too much critical thinking for his own good,” Captain Gregor Guerrero said to the image of Admiral Amelia Waters on his screen.
“And for ours.”
Gregor shrugged. “Can’t stop us from blowing through his ships.”
“I think we might be going about this the wrong way,” Amelia said slowly, thinking.
“How so?” Gregor asked.
“We keep thinking about them like this empire we have to take down system by system, fleet by fleet, battle by battle.”
“And what’s the alternative?”
“How did we beat the Resistance this time? Ignoring the part where we are allowing them to live in exile.”
“The Resistance?” Gregor thought for a second. “Find their leaders, one by one. Cut their finances. Cut their recruitment. Cut their logistics. But how does that apply here?”
“I don’t know… I’m still thinking. But I know we are far more experienced with that than what we’re doing here slugging it out with the Buns,” Amelia admitted. “I think… our eleven whiskers is right. We can’t blow our way through the combined resources and populations of six hundred systems. Not even if we try to do it quickly.”
Gregor shuddered. “I hope he isn’t. If we wait for them to build another one of those Grand Fleets, we’re screwed the second time around, especially since our Ceres shipyards are now a few trillion credits worth of orbital trash.”
“We might have a solution for Ceres.” She tilted her head. “Anyway, you have any luck finding Sprabr among the thousand ships they have over there in Grantor?”
“Not yet. Clever Bun. Every time we find a trace of him, he’s on a new ship. I think recently… he’s gone down to the planet itself. Our secret squirrels are trying to find him, but bar some incredible luck, it’ll be impossible to find him there for now. But… he’ll have to move out eventually when our Pupper fleets come this way. And then, we’ll have a shot at him.”
“There is something that unsettles me about that guy.”
“Yeah, he’s the head psycho Bun. That not enough for you?”
Amelia shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Gregor, at the start… what would you have said our chances of surviving this Grand Fleet invasion were?”
“I don’t know. One in five, maybe? Say twenty percent? Everything we did had to go perfectly right for us. And we stopped them right at the line.”
“Sounds about right. They had good odds. Excellent, from their perspective. Yet… their grand fleet commander was sitting at home in Grantor rather than at the head of the Grand Fleet in command of it all. Isn’t that kind of odd?” Amelia asked.
Gregor thought for a second before speculating. “Maybe he’s a coward. Fear of death isn’t that unheard of among their outliers.”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone— someone in the Znosian Navy believed in us more than we did ourselves.”
“Great. We’ve got fans on the enemy team. Why would that be unsettling?”
“Because so far we’ve squeaked by from being underestimated dumb predators who think with their guts and bloodthirsty instincts,” Amelia said, looking beyond her console. “And somehow… somehow I think that’s not going to last forever.”
“You know that old Orbital Demolitions Team motto?” Gregor sighed. “The only easy day… was yesterday.”