This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Spooker0 on 2025-06-30 15:32:06+00:00.
First | Series Index | Website (for links)
++++++++++++++++++++++++
101 Special I
5 years after the Armistice
POV: Sjulzulp, Free Znosian Marines (Rank: Seven Whiskers)
“Well, well, well… look who we’ve got here!” the familiar-looking predator belted out as he practically skipped down the shuttle ramp. “Six Whiskers One-Ear! Slurp!”
Sjulzulp smiled. “Actually, it’s seven whiskers now, Frumers.”
“You and your silly whiskers! Of all the ridiculous things you guys kept from the Dominion…”
“This makes the most sense of all!”
“Bah! And look! His ear grew back some!” Frumers said, excitedly holding up Sjulzulp’s regrown ear with a paw to show his squad.
The predators fed him some drug that did that while he was training with them. It didn’t work immediately, but he noticed the regeneration a few weeks after he returned to the front. It itched a lot at first, but the sinew grew back eventually. The fur… there were still some patches, just enough to remind himself of the close shave he had with death.
“Ow!” Sjulzulp yelped as Frumers handled his ears not-so-gently. “Careful! The nerves grew back too!”
“Right, sorry Slurp,” Frumers apologized with a grin as he released him.
Sjulzulp nodded and pointed at them for his people. Many of them were new. “Guys, this is Lemming Squad. They were the instructors who trained our officers when we went there for exercises a couple of years ago.”
His people jabbered and pointed at the four bigger Malgeir in their shiny armor, who began waving enthusiastically at the gathering crowd.
“What are they doing here?” someone in the crowd shouted in question.
“Careful, or they’ll eat you for lunch!” another shouted back, snickering.
“I’m not scared! I’ve seen sharper claws!”
“Oh yeah? What about these teeth?” Spommu grinned and bared at her sharp fangs at his younger recruits. Not to be outdone, they reflected the gesture good-naturedly, showing her their blunt teeth as they howled in laughter.
Sjulzulp grinned at her. “Now you know why they call us Predator Platoon.”
“Rawr. Predator Platoon, huh?”
“Yeah. That’s what they say.”
They’d intercepted some enemy communications at the Battle of Britvik-3. The radio recordings of enemy Skyclaw pilots and orbital fire control panicking as they spread rumors about fighting predators down at the spaceport got Sjulzulp’s recon unit a lot of propaganda mileage… and free carrot juice on the house anywhere in Free Znosian territory. It was one thing to defeat an enemy in battle, and quite another to thrash them so hard they thought they were fighting literal aliens all along.
Sjulzulp waved at his people to settle down as the Lemming gathered up. He frowned slightly. “Hm… Wait a second. What are you guys doing here?”
“What did they tell you?” Baedarsust asked.
“I just received unofficial word on the radio that we had some visitors, and we’re supposed to work with you on something. But they didn’t say much more than that in the message. What is it, actually?”
Baedarsust grinned at Sjulzulp. “Super special, top-secret mission.”
“Top-secret?”
The Malgeir squad leader winked. “Yeah, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Okay, that’s a hard bargain, but I will take it. What is the secret?”
“Oh, Slurp, never change… Alright, gather your troops and pay attention. It’s very important that you all remember your parts.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“High Pack Leader… do your people know that you are here?” Sjulzulp asked.
“Some of them,” Baedarsust replied noncommittally.
“Some?”
“Like… a few in our government and Navy.”
“How many?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Slurp.”
Sjulzulp was insistent. “Don’t redirect. How many?”
“About… five people,” Baedarsust admitted a few seconds later. “Maybe six.”
“Five people in your entire military know your squad is here?!” he exclaimed. “By the false Prophecy!”
“Six, maybe.”
“That’s not very much responsibility at all!”
“No. No, it’s not… But it’s a legit op. And the mission computers know about it.”
Sjulzulp thought for a long moment. “You’re not… going rogue, are you?”
“Of course not! Where— where did you even learn that concept?!”
“You were the one who showed me all those old movies back when we were training—”
Frumers chose this moment to cut in. “Actually, that’s exactly what we’re doing. That TRO spy said we’re supposed to—”
“Shut up Frumers,” Baedarsust sigh exaggeratedly. “We’ve gone over this! We are supposed to be here.”
Sjulzulp looked at him in alarm. “Woah, hold on. What was Frumers going to say?”
Frumers explained, “We were given orders to help your people with a special mission here, but the Grand Admiral of the Coalition made a pledge a month ago that none of the predator civilizations were going to have boots on the ground in any part of the Dominion while the civil war is ongoing.”
“Yes, but that refers only to regular troops, not us,” Baedarsust said, clearly rehashing an old argument. “We’re special troops who go on special missions. Our boots don’t count the same. And Frumers is being pedantic. He knows the human spy who gave us the orders had it all cleared with their legal intelligence.”
“Yes, but what he could have meant was we should stay in orbit and help them with the targeting. From orbit. Without getting our boots on the ground.”
“He said… do whatever is necessary to get it done.” Baedarsust looked at Sjulzulp while pointing a claw at Frumers. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just being lazy. I told Frumers he could stay on the shuttle if he wanted, and now I regret giving him permission to come with at all.”
“No way! I’ve been stuck on the shuttle for two months!” Frumers exclaimed. “Do you know how long the trip from Grantor to Tatolm is?”
“Two months?” Sjulzulp guessed. He remained alarmed. “Woah! Hold on. If you guys are not supposed to be here…”
“We are! Ignore his whining!”
“Wait, isn’t there an easy way to settle this?” Sjulzulp asked. “Just… call the guy who gave you the orders and clarify if he meant you should come down here to do the mission!”
“No, because if we call him, he’ll say no for sure.”
“What?!”
“That’s why he said do whatever is necessary and outfitted us entirely for a surface mission. We’re not supposed to ask or clarify! We’re supposed to infer.”
“Infer?”
“Infer!”
“But what if— what if you get caught down here? Or killed?!”
“Then he’ll tell them we didn’t have permission. And since we don’t have the combat robots with us, we might as well just be a bunch of Alien Legion volunteers with expensive tactical gear that anyone can buy in the gray markets over Titan.”
Instead of alarmed, Sjulzulp was just confused now. “Wait… Wait.”
“But if we don’t get caught, then this is fine.”
“Isn’t that— isn’t that just identical to something not being allowed?”
“No, not at all. It’s totally different. We just have to make sure to not get caught down here,” Baedarsust said matter-of-factly.
Sjulzulp repeated, “Isn’t that identical to something not being—”
“No, not at all!”
Sjulzulp looked between the two of them for a minute and then sighed. “I just… don’t understand you predators sometimes.”
Frumers nodded sympathetically as he pat Sjulzulp on the back. “You and me both, Slurp. You and me both.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Baedarsust counted every paw as they stepped onto the medium lift chopper, waiting until everyone was fully seated and tied into their seat restraints. One of the convenient things about loading Grass Eaters onto these transports was that they were tiny, and they were efficient with it.
He waited for the signal from all five of the adjacent choppers that they were ready.
With one final look at his tablet, he nodded, mostly to himself, and activated his microphone. “Phase One, go.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Enemy rotary wing just landed outside Perimeter Line Angora, Nine Whiskers. Two kilometers to the east, by our estimates.”
Nine Whiskers Sklolust played with her whiskers as she considered the local battle map. “How many of them?”
“Six of their medium-lift. We estimate that’s about one hundred, maybe one-twenty paws. And there are rumors—”
Sklolust rolled her eyes. “Yes, their secret alien advisors that landed with their supplies last week.” That secret was out of the bag before they even landed. It wasn’t easy for them to hide anywhere. And in Sklolust’s experience, there were only two kinds of predators who fought on the frontlines of the schism, the crazy volunteers and the ones who were not supposed to be here. “Did we get eyes on them?”
“We sent a flying machine over their base, but they shot it down. From our records of this unit we’re dealing with, they are likely legit, not the… the volunteers.”
“Good. Clandestine troops. Our bloodlines will be well-rewarded if we manage to kill some of them here,” Sklolust said savagely.
“Yes, Nine Whiskers. They flew in low, so we didn’t manage to get the flyers on the flight in. But based on the position of their landing zone, their target is obvious: the evacuated village down by the river.”
“What do they want with that old village?”
“Digital Guide says… they might want to occupy the position so they can bring in more supplies by water. The schismatics are getting adept at using those new boats of theirs.” A...
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1loakoo/grass_eaters_3_101/