Spooker

Chapter 57 Map

Grass Eaters | 57 | Crimes Against the Prophecy

ZNS 2228

Fatigue clung to Ditvish like a suffocating shroud, his crimson eyes heavy with exhaustion. The crew’s voices murmured in the background like distant echoes. He had been awake for forty-five hours straight. Even with a steady schedule of stimulant drinks and injections, he could feel the fight being sapped out of his body every passing minute. His fingers, once nimble on the controls, now moved with a leaden slowness, the tactile sensations dulled by the ceaseless grind of ...

Grass Eaters | 56 | Second Chances

ZNS 5349

“Nine Whiskers, we’ve lost contact with Squadron 4. The predators are heading our way with—”

Vnirkh interrupted his computer officer. “What does the Digital Guide recommend?”

“There is just one thing we can try.”

---

MNS Oengro

“High Fleet Commander, the remaining Grass Eater combat ships defending Gruccud are now burning towards the system blink limit,” Vastae reported.

“As we predicted in battle planning, they shou...

Grass Eaters | 55 | Clear Path

TRNS Amazon

“Captain Agarwal, the Malgeir are ready to go,” the executive officer reported.

“Good,” the captain of the Amazon, Kiara Agarwal, replied. “Their Marines are all ready to go?”

“Yes… and I can’t believe they have actual drop troopers. Did you know? They cram their real troops into these little metal pods and de-orbit them onto the planet’s surface. What a suicidally insane idea! Only the Puppers can come up with something like that. What if t...

Grass Eaters | 54 | Alone

ZNS 2228

“You seem to be recovering rapidly,” Skvanu said happily to Ditvish, who sat up on the medical bed with some effort.

“The marvels of modern medical technology,” Ditvish remarked dryly. “What is the status of the fleet?”

“We have retrieved all the troops that we can from the planet, Ten Whiskers, and the remaining on the ground have been given instructions to fend for themselves until we can return in force again. We are ready to proceed to return to ...

Grass Eaters | 53 | Apostasy

Datsot

“Now I know this is not what any of you want to hear,” the base commander announced to the shocked audience. “But it is the truth. The losses were total. As of today, our orbital supply network no longer exists. The fleet has declared our invasion… postponed. Responsibility is still being determined, but Ten Whiskers Ditvish has recovered from his injuries enough to assure us that he will be taking full responsibility for all the errors that occurred as a result of over...

Grass Eaters | 52 | Just Passing Through

MNS Oengro

“How’s the fuel status of the Oengro?” Grionc asked.

Vastae, eyes glued to his console, replied without hesitation. “We have just enough blink fuel for one jump, but we aren’t going anywhere once we get to the other side without a refueling ship.”

“Jumping is all we need. And if the Oengro is good to go, the other, smaller ships should be fine too then,” Grionc responded, bringing up the system map on screen with her paws. “Four minutes to blin...

Chapter 51 Map

Grass Eaters | 51 | Plan C

MNS Trassau

Speinfoent turned around to face Loenda and reported the battlegroup status. “Commander, all ships have successfully completed the blink. Squadrons 4 to 12 all reporting in.”

“Good. Now let’s find out if this ridiculous scheme of yours gets all of us killed,” Loenda said. “Are you sure your sire and dam were not Grass Eaters?”

Speinfoent ignored the jab and continued with the report, “Our sensors are still resolving the enemy ships, but I am cer...

Grass Eaters | 50 | Fishing

Plaunsollib

Six Whiskers Mgnats looked nervously down the bridge of the missile escort ship numbered 7633 with his bloodshot red eyes.

He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since they left port in Gruccud, and he knew he would not until they got to Datsot. In less than a month, this route from Gruccud to Datsot had gone from a safe escort posting assigned to unambitious captain to being nicknamed the Highway of Death. The loss rate on this route was astronomical, some ...

Grass Eaters | 49 | Fearless II

Datsot

For the third morning in a row, Longclaw Commander Skhork woke abruptly to the shrieking warning of the base sirens.

The increasing regularity of these attacks was why, despite it being cramped and uncomfortable, the vehicle crews opted to sleep inside their armored vehicle. Now, fog fading from their heads, they burst into action with practiced efficiency. Skhork reached up outside his station, pulled his commander hatch into the closed position, and secured it. He boote...

Grass Eaters | 48 | Outside the Box II

Everything hurts. That was Ktotssu’s first thought when she woke up. As the tranquil inertia of unconsciousness slowly began to fade, she stared at the sterile lights above her in confusion.

“What?” she struggled to form the shape of words through her dry mouth as she twitched in the soft, warm bed she was in.

Then, the pain subsided, and the itching started. Her chest, her foot, her whiskers. It itched everywhere. She realized that her arms and legs were not responding to h...

Grass Eaters | 47 | Fearless

Datsot

Longclaw Commander Skhork peered through his scopes at the endless, soggy sea of marshland stretching out before him. It seemed like the swamp had swallowed up the world, with not even a hint of dry land in sight. They had seen nothing else out here for dozens of kilometers.

His Gunner, peering through her own scope, chimed in with a mix of boredom and disbelief, “Nothing but endless predator swamp, huh?”

“We should be hitting the outskirts of their city soon....

Grass Eaters | 46 | Logistics

Preirsput

The Znosian captain of the escort ship numbered “13312” was an unremarkable member of his species. For a ship captain, he was neither particularly ambitious nor too careful, and that was the hallmark of his bloodline. For a captain, Pachte (his given name) had an average height, an average build, and an average intellect for a Navy captain. The Servants of the Prophecy did not expend unnecessary resources to develop special talents for the specimens who fulfilled average...

Grass Eaters | 45 | Celestria III

MNS Oengro

“Does anyone have any questions about this exercise?” Grionc asked, her gaze sweeping over the squadron leaders and the Oengro’s bridge crew.

Predictably, none came.

This time, Sixth Fleet was raiding a Celestrian shipyard that looked suspiciously like what Naval Intelligence thought a Znosian one would look like. It did not seem like a terribly complex operation, but it did require her to split her fleet into two major battlegroups: one that engages and p...

Grass Eaters | 44 | Celestria II

MNS Trassau

“We don’t have a problem, right, Loenda?” Speinfoent asked the senior officer nervously.

“It’s Squadron Leader Loenda or Battlegroup Commander Loenda to you. And why would we have a problem, Gamma Leader?” she replied, her tone sharp.

“I don’t want you to think I’m replacing you and stealing your ship from under you—”

Loenda didn’t even bother to glance at him. “No, because you will do nothing of the sort. The High Fleet Commande...

Grass Eaters | 43 | Celestria I

MNS 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 han...

Grass Eaters | 42 | Orbital Control

ZNS 1841

The dense cloud of artificial objects in Datsot orbit hinted at the age of the Malgeir civilization. Even the Znosian home planet of Znos did not have this much space infrastructure. Centuries of development had left this core world’s orbit a chaotic mess of rusting hulls and drifting derelicts among the pieces of functional satellites for anything from communication to weather forecast. Unfortunately for the invaders, it appeared that the Malgeir defenders had rigged at le...

Grass Eaters | 41 | Best Laid Plans

Datsot

Like most in his Datsot Invasion Fleet, his flagship did not have a name; the fleet referred to it by the last four digits of its serial: 1841.

Ten Whiskers Ditvish watched the frenetic activity of 1841’s flag bridge. There was the staccato of his computer officers tapping away at their consoles, interspersed with random pitch changes of the inertial compensators as his flagship put itself into formation. Several subordinates were speaking into their c...

Grass Eaters | 40 | Allies

Malgeirgam, Malgeiru

Grionc heaved her freshly earned medal into her duffel bag with less care than she might’ve tossed a piece of scrap metal. It landed with a thud, a sound far too weighty for the flimsy honor it represented.

Looking back, she really should’ve seen it coming.

The Navy had to explain why it lost more ships to the High Council, and there was no better way to do it than making heroes out of the survivors. They were honored, their participation in the �...

Grass Eaters | 39 | Outliers II

Grantor

State Security Officer Svatken took a final, lingering look at her minimalist desk. With quick, practiced motions, she stuffed the few items she owned into her backpack in preparation for her next assignment. The Znosian species wasn’t one that valued private ownership and frivolous sentimentality, and she was no exception. The drive to possess large collections of such useless trinkets was merely a defect suffered by predator races. It was much more efficient this way, and ...