(Bonus) Neutrality

Sector 183, Schpriss Prime

POV: “John”, Terran Reconnaissance Office

Operative “John” stepped onto the apartment balcony, clutching his cloak as the wind billowed around him in the dark. Sixteen floors up. Not the tallest building in the sector, not by far. He identified at least six other vantage points that could look down on him. Lots more. He counted them out in his head’s up display as it recorded before returning back to the emptied residential room.

The blue alien tape adorning the room indicated that the local police had been there just a few days ago. A red smear on the wall was the only sign of its previous occupant. He sampled the dried blood with his suit. It probably didn’t help his own investigation, but it couldn’t hurt.

There was a small hole in the window, barely four centimeters across, slightly above head height.

“What do you think?” asked the voice in his helmet.

“I think… the locals did their jobs this time, Director, or at least they gave it a good college try,” John murmured as he recorded the evidence. “They killed her from somewhere above. High powered sniper rifle, somewhere in the ballpark of a 338. One of the several overlooking buildings with at least twenty, thirty floors. My guess is slightly more than a kilometer, given what the local police found. Or in this case… haven’t found.”

“Think you can get access to the buildings to take a closer look?”

“Not looking like this,” he replied. The active camouflage on the skin of his suit was enough to keep him a blur in the night outside, but anywhere inside and he was at serious risk of exposure. The aliens weren’t supposed to know about the Terran Republic, not yet, and all it took was one curious security guard. He didn’t want to kill unnecessarily. “These fancy private apartments are one thing. Those office buildings up there have real security.”

“Real security? From you?” Director Mark chuckled dryly. “I can hear the taxpayers banging on my doors, asking for their millions of credits in elite TRO training and equipment back.”

“They’re welcome to try this themselves,” John snorted, taking care not to disturb the blue police tape as he ducked under it on his way out of the room. “Prime Directive or not, allegedly friendly species or not, I’m not looking forward to being the first Terran spotted by aliens. Or worse, captured… I’m egressing.”

“So… what have we learned from this little field trip?”

“Not much, I just wanted to see it for myself,” he admitted with annoyance. “Local sector councilor has a problem with the psychos in the Znosian Dominion. Loudly clamors to join the defensive war on the side of our allies in the Malgeir Federation. Shot to death in her home two months later. Oddly familiar story. Twice may be coincidence, but you know what they say when the third body falls.”

“Enemy action. You think it’s their own government doing this?”

“Chancellor Sonfio?” John snorted again, shaking his head in his own helmet. “Not a chance. Not enough spine. This is almost certainly our Grass Eater friends at play.”

The director made a wry expression on his face, “You know they call us Grass Eaters too, right? The Malgeir. The few that know about us, anyway.”

“Yeah, but we’re their Grass Eaters. And this is the kind of dirty work they need us for.”

“Running around in the dark, playing detective for them on a neutral alien planet?”

“Detective?” John holstered his concealed carbine in his suit with a soft click. “Who said anything about solving crimes?”

---

POV: Plusdi, Schpriss (Sector Councilor)

“You what?!” Councilor Plusdi stared at the investigator in disbelief.

“We’re closing the case out. The trail’s gone cold. We checked every building, every open window within a kilometer of her apartment building—”

“And you’re just giving up now! What if they’ve got a rifle that can fire more than a kilometer? What if—”

The officer began to protest, “We’ve dedicated half the department’s resources to this one for a month… There’s just nothing we can find—”

“How much did the Grass Eaters pay you guys to tank this one?” Plusdi asked crossly.

“Excuse me, Councilor Plusdi,” the officer scoffed. “We know she was your friend, but there’s simply not a shred of evidence to her wild conspiracy theory that agents of the Dominion are active on Schpriss Prime, not to mention them going around killing our people randomly.”

“Except once she started talking about it, she took a bullet to her head. It shouldn’t take too many brain cells to add two and two together, but apparently that’s just too much to be asking from Sector 183’s finest—”

“She was a sector councilor,” he countered. “She had other enemies. We found death threats from at least—”

She dismissed it with a wave of her long tail, “Bah. Unspecific online messages from weirdos living on the outskirts of the sector don’t count. They’re just blowing off steam. I get those twice a day.”

“Perhaps we should assign some additional protection to you,” he suggested.

“No thanks,” she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know which of your men are on the take from the Grass Eaters, but I have no intention of letting any of them get that close to me.”

He sighed in exasperation, as if she was just another one of those crazy politicians with their incendiary rhetoric. Which she supposed she was.

“Well, at least you should take it easy,” the officer suggested. “Maybe take some self-defense classes…”

“Self-defense classes?” Plusdi almost screeched. “Is there one that teaches you to dodge sniper bullets?”

“Well, no… but they teach things like de-escalation,” he muttered. “And knowing when to drop something—”

“I have no intention of dropping this,” she declared. “I’m going to find me a private investigator who will actually look at the case and figure out who killed my friend. Send over any evidence you have to my office so someone who knows what they’re doing can do the job.”

“Sure,” he sighed. “Whatever you need, Councilor.”

---

POV: Vuzhor, Znosian Dominion State Security Unit Zero (Rank: Five Whiskers)

Operative Vuzhor waited patiently on the call as the other end authenticated. The familiar face of the State Security Director appeared after a couple seconds, her soft-furred, bookish face a sharp contrast to her gritty record ferreting out apostates of the Prophecy. In the Office of State Security — in Vuzhor’s experience, there were people who knew what had to be done for the long-term security and stability of the Dominion state, and there were people who enjoyed doing their jobs.

And like her, the Director was both.

“Director Svatken,” she lowered her head in professional respect.

“Five Whiskers,” Svatken replied casually. “Any news about the clean-up?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, Director. The councilor was alone at the time, and I got away clean after the shot. I did consider the possibility of paying the local law enforcement to shut down the investigation entirely…”

“And why not?” the director challenged.

“Too messy. The predators act in unpredictable ways, and we’ve left no trail for them to follow anyway. Giving them a money trail now would be… inadvisable. And forcing them to blunder in the dark around this culling wastes a little bit more of their resources anyway. When we come for these long-tailed predators, in half a century perhaps, our future bloodlines will have us to thank for that additional inefficiency.”

“Hm… good thinking, Five Whiskers Vuzhor. As long as you’re careful not to leave any additional traces back to us. We need to keep these Cowardly Predators in their place. Their neutrality… at least until we’ve had time to fully process the Slow Predators and the Lesser Predators. They must be kept complacent.”

Vuzhor resisted the urge to fidget. “There has been… one salient complication.”

“You do know how I feel about that word, don’t you, Operative?”

“Yes, Director. I take full responsibility—”

Svatken snorted, “Unnecessary exercise. We both know what you are.”

Vuzhor bowed quietly. She was an outlier to the Prophecy. Someone who did too much extra thinking. Critical thinking, as the predators called it, instead of one of the mindless drones of the Znosian species. She had the ability — and the authority — to color beyond the lines. To go above and beyond. And do what was necessary. That was why she was sent on this mission, and not one of the other of numerous operatives bred and born for special infiltration missions to predator worlds.

Svatken continued, “What is the nature of this complication?” She put a dirty emphasis on the last word.

“There’s another local sector councilor. A friend of the deceased, it appears. She wouldn’t drop the case. And she’s been poking around a lot.”

Svatken’s eyes were dangerous. “I thought you said you’ve left them no trail.”

“I haven’t,” Vuzhor clarified quickly. “She won’t find us. But she doesn’t need evidence. She’s taken up the cause of her friend out of some insane predatory sense of sentimentality. She’s been going around the sector, railing against the Dominion, calling for an end to Schprissian neutrality, calling for war aid for the Lesser Predators… the usual insanity.”

“And has this agitator been... effective?”

“Somewhat. And I take full responsibility— Well, there’s a small legion of Cowardly Predator volunteers that emigrate to the Lesser Predator territory and help them fight us on the battlefield. The Schprissian Legion, they call it. They’ve been attracting a lot more volunteers than usual from this sector.”

“A completely voluntary system of job allocation,” Svatken snorted. “Back when I was a xenobiology professor at the Shlirurk Institute, I didn’t believe it… To see it with my own eyes… More evidence that these abominations deserve to be eradicated, all traces of their apostasy wiped out from the galaxy.”

“Yes, Director. What about the councilor? She doesn’t have many friends among her peers, and if we eliminate her, I suspect very few people will care.”

Director Svatken looked thoughtful on Vuzhor’s screen for a minute. “The extra volunteers don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but fires start from embers, and I don’t like embers.”

“Do I have your permission for this culling?”

“Yes. Something… quiet for now. Quieter than the last one. A personal touch.”

“Understood, Director.”

---

Vuzhor hummed quietly to herself as she worked her slim metallic device into the crevices of the simple keylock.

“One pin… Two pins… Three… Four is binding… Back to one… Click on two… Ah.”

The Cowardly Predators made a lot of intricate and functional devices, but this apartment door lock was obviously not one of them. With another soft click, the lock mechanism disengaged and the door swung open a few centimeters.

She slowly pushed it open with her left paw, keeping her small stun gun in her right aimed at the hallway beyond it. With the night vision goggles over her face, she could see the contours of the apartment even in the pitch dark.

Like most predator dens, this one was adorned with hundreds of useless sentimental decorations. Books on shelves. Pictures of landscapes. Meaningless gadgets littered all over their flooring.

Taking care to muffle the sound, Vuzhor closed the door behind her deliberately. She proceeded deeper into the enemy’s home with her weapon carefully aimed, slouching to maintain her small profile.

Living room, clear.

Kitchen, clear. She scratched her whiskers, avoiding the urge to throw up at the overwhelming revolting smell of dead aquatic meat emanating from it.

Bedroom, clear.

Bathroom, clear.

The other bedroom — how wasteful of the predator to have a second one when she was living alone — it was clear too.

Empty apartment, as expected. Her abundance of caution was unnecessary, but as an operative on an alien planet, the unnecessary could become necessary in seconds, and doing the unnecessary kept her alive.

Now, I just need to find a spot to hide and wait.

Vuzhor made her way back to the living room. Her night vision goggles showed her a small dark spot behind the couch. That would do nicely if she could just fit herself into the small-confined area—

Click.

The heart-stopping sound of a weapon in the dark. A real one. Not the piddly stun gun she had in her paw. She froze.

“No sudden moves, bunny rabbit,” a deep voice whispered in her large ears in perfect Znosian. “Or this apartment is about to get real messy. Drop your zapper.”

Vuzhor complied slowly, letting the stun weapon fall from her grasp.

“Good,” it said from behind her. “Your goggles too.”

She obliged and removed them from her eyes.

Whoever this was, it was good at its job. It knew that her second most potent weapon was being able to see in the dark. Without them or an armored suit, her fragile bones and weak muscles were no match for whatever sharp claws and fighting instincts this predator stalker had in close quarters. Her mind raced as she activated the transmitter in her mouth. She was a dead operative walking, but whoever this was, at least the next Servant of the Prophecy to walk in her path would know more about the enemy that got her.

“Turn around.”

The predator was unlike any alien species she’d ever seen at 1.8 meters tall. It wasn’t the tallest; the Slow Predators were bigger. And it certainly was not one of the locals. Even in the dark, she could see the no-nonsense lethality in the array of gadgets it had on its own combat suit. The thick armor and padding in all its vital spots. The six tubes on its head for its own night vision. The well-oiled servos for its joints that operated without creak. All blacker than night. And not a single light source from any of its electronics. This was a real infiltrator who was outfitted for the job.

Vuzhor let the confusion wash over her for a heartbeat. Predators weren’t supposed to be this competent.

Aiming its short weapon at her, it directed her to the kitchen, to the dining table with the disgusting smell.

“Sit.”

She did as it ordered. And it sat down too opposite of her. It laid its weapon, a strange black rifle it looked like, on the wooden table, carefully still pointing its barrel in her direction.

“Now, I suppose you are the one who shot the councilor,” it said.

The accuracy of the translation to Znosian was… uncanny. She wondered whether the Schpriss or one of the predator allies had improved their technical capabilities beyond what State Security had assessed.

“Who is she to you?” she asked, fishing for information.

It shifted in its seat. “Let’s just say… I care about her well-being. And you — well, you have been a very naughty Grass Eater. Surveillance on her phone and activities. Sneaking inside her apartment while she isn’t home. Somehow, I get the feeling you’re up to no good.”

“What are you going to do about it?” she taunted. “Arrest me? Hand me to the local law enforcers?”

It made a rumbling sound in its chest. Predator laughter. “Something a little less pleasant.”

“Ah, now you’re speaking my language,” Vuzhor said, sitting back in her chair comfortably. “Torture. But I’m afraid I won’t be sticking around for it.”

It tilted its head. “Oh?”

She bared her teeth at the predator with hostility. She pointed at them defiantly. “My teeth. Explosives. I’ll be too dead to tell you anything vital to my people. Possibly you too, depending on how thick that armor of yours is.”

“I guess I won’t have to ask who you work for,” the predator snorted. “How is Svatken these days?”

Vuzhor stiffened.

How did this predator know about the internal structure—

“Anyway, there’s not much you have in your head that we want. You being here is enough.”

“What do you mean, abomination?” Vuzhor asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“The kitties— the Schpriss… you’ve been smart to keep the Confederacy out of the war. Out of the way. Neutrality. Their star systems may not be too many, but their industrial and financial means are still… considerable. Far more than ours,” it said. She saw it relax back into its chair into the chair. With a hiss, its gloved paw unlatched its black, armored helmet before placing it on the table.

Two forward-facing eyes. Soft ears. Soft skin. No fur. No, correction, not much fur. Some short black fuzz on the top of its scalp.

Were these the phantom predators that some in the Dominion Navy whispered about?

Vuzhor’s heart pounded.

Whoever was watching her remote feed must be frantically gathering information, she knew. Even in her death, this could be the greatest intelligence coup in the recent history of the Dominion.

“Who are your people?” she asked, her mouth drying.

It stood back up, looking around the kitchen. “Just a concerned predator,” it said as it appeared to find what it was looking for on one of the kitchen shelves: a glass cup.

She looked at the weapon the predator left on the table.

Surely it isn’t that stupid.

It must have detected where her eyes were looking from the back of its head. It tutted with its soft lips. “No point, Bun. Carbine won’t fire for you. In fact, I can remote trigger it from here.”

The predator poured some oily substance into the cup from the kitchen shelf before it went over to the sink. As she watched, it activated the faucet and filled the cup in its gloved paws with water. With a swish, it dumped the mixture over the kitchen tile floor.

“What are you doing?” she asked, confused.

It bent down to inspect the wet puddle it made. “Just setting the scene,” it replied nonchalantly.

She was even more confused. “Huh? What scene?”

“Znosian assassin shoots and kills a local councilor. Her friend, Councilor Plusdi, has a problem with that. She looks high and low for the evidence, starts lobbying against the Dominion, agitating to help the defense of the Malgeir Federation. Then, the assassin breaks into the apartment of Councilor Plusdi in an attempt to kill her too,” the predator gestured around the kitchen. “And here, the story could go one of many ways.”

“Oh?” she asked.

“Yeah. If I shoot you now, that’s going to create a lot of problems. For me. People here might ask a lot of questions. They won’t arrest me if they find me; after all, I’m just doing a public service for their people. But they’ll still have some uncomfortable questions. I’m sure you understand.”

She played along, nodding. “So what are you going to do? Arrest me? Force me to walk away? Disappear me?”

“You? Disappear? No.” It chuckled again. “How about this one? Znosian assassin walks into a dark apartment. Comes into the kitchen, unaware that there’s some… whatever this weird cooking oil is… on the floor.” He pointed at the puddle. “Slips and falls, breaking her fragile Bun neck before the councilor could come home.”

“Slips and falls?” she mocked. “That’s the best you can come up with?”

The predator bared all its teeth at her. “Such a fortunate freak accident is, of course, suspicious. But they might be more focused on something else.”

It made a twisting motion with its gloved paw, and a voice began to play from its suit. It was her voice, “The councilor was alone at the time, and I got away clean after the shot. I did consider the possibility of paying the local law enforcement…”

“I see you’ve got interceptions of our communications. That explains a lot. But you’re just forgetting one thing,” Vuzhor said defiantly, sighing as the predator approached her. “My life was forfeited the day I left the hatchling pools.”

And with a firm push of her tongue, she activated the explosive device in her front buck teeth.

Click.

Nothing happened.

She tried it again.

Click.

Again, nothing.

Now standing next to her with a heavy paw gently on her shoulder, the abomination looked down at her amusingly, “Ah. Please. Nothing so crude. Your face has to be recognizable by the local coroner after all. Any last words?”

“May your eggs shatter and rot,” she grunted as it wrapped its arms around her thin neck in a familiar chokehold.

“Eggs? You’re making me hungry… Goodnight, Five Whiskers Vuzhor.”

---

POV: “John”, Terran Reconnaissance Office

“The locals buy the story?” Director Mark asked.

“So far. It was a thin cover up, and the councilor is very confused about why all her kitchen appliances are fried. They did get the recording off that nasty little device we replaced in her mouth though. It’s making the rounds on the local news, and the Schpriss are hopping mad, as they should be,” John replied.

“Sloppy work. We can’t afford to be this sloppy going forward.”

“She moved quickly. Was the best I could improvise given the circumstances. And a little mystery is good. These locals are way too complacent. They need a little something to wake them up. They should become a little more suspicious of what’s going on over here, on their own home planet. Perhaps that’ll get them to look a little more into the other Bun ops that have taken place here.”

The director’s image in his helmet shook his head. “Seems unlikely…” He shrugged. “But when the time comes, maybe this nudge of the needle will be what does it. Stranger things have happened, I guess.”