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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/micktalian on 2026-03-14 20:49:42+00:00.
Part 161 A respectable foe (Part 1) (Part 160)
There is something to be said about the satisfaction of defeating a competent adversary. A warrior can only truly sharpen their mind against a foe who poses an actual challenge. Plans falling apart upon contact with the enemy is exactly how a strategist improves their skills, soldiers learn to improvise, and training regimes are put to the test. It is only through real trials and tribulations, encounters that force people out of their comfort zones, that anyone can hope to become better than their previous self in the realm of combat. Constantly going up against a far weaker opponent is how a warrior slowly loses their edge.
That mindset is precisely why Tensebwse found himself genuinely angry over the events of the past few hours. These Shartelyks royals, supposedly elite members of the Order of Kelithezh Knights with vast resources at their disposal, had proved themselves utterly incompetent. Fifty of them, including a handful of so-called Scribes that claimed to the tech experts, alongside three teams of hired mercenaries adding another seventy combatants, had been overwhelmed by just twenty Qui’ztar drop troops. If Tens hadn't opted to remain hidden until a true danger presented itself, he would have personally given the unqualified Master-Paladin a piece of his mind.
Luckily, Tens didn't have to deactivate his cloaking field to ensure that particular Shartelyk would be properly scolded for his incompetence. After Commander Oeditluva had fully secured every potential enemy and detained them in a relatively safe place, she decided to have a private chat with Master-Paladin Neitzhyl. That would have given Tens an opportunity to express his displeasure with the Shartelyk noble if he weren't busy setting up the defenses that should have already been in place. Not only had these six-limbed sheep failed to put up a good fight, they hadn't bothered to take the kind of basic precautions that both humans and Qui’ztars would instinctively know.
“I was told you and your people weren't going to be a real threat but…” Oed had forced Neit to take a seat in an empty and poorly-lit storeroom and stood glaring over him. “Tell me… How long have your people been on this planet, Master-Paladin?”
“This will be our forty-seventh day here.” Neit couldn't tell which was worse, Oed’s pseudo-friendly smile from earlier or this new straight-faced expression.
“Forty-seven days and you hadn't established networked defensive systems, restored planetary shielding over this settlement, or even bothered to set up a secondary fallback position? I'm not even a Captain and I know to have all of that in place within the first few days! And you're the equivalent of a full-bloom Admiral?!?”
“You act like it's simple!” Though the Master-Paladin was feeling defeated in multiple ways, he simply couldn't abide being talked down to like this. “This colony was abandoned almost a hundred million years ago! I was surprised we found buildings still standing, let alone structurally stable enough to act as a command post! We spent these weeks trying to physically reinforce this position so it wouldn't collapse under its own weight and finding reliable sources of food and water!”
“Then why were my technicians able to reestablish power to and control over the three anti-air and space laser batteries? And why are they telling me we'll have the shielding ready to activate in half an hour?”
“Obviously they're lying! There's no way-” There was a loud crack as Oed cut Neit off by punching one of his horns. “Ahhh! Fuck!!!”
“You could have gotten every single person under your command here killed because you are a terrible leader!!!” Oeditluva screamed into Neitzhyl's face loud enough that she was sure his subordinates in the nearby room would have heard. With that rage finally expelled, and the black-furred noble wimping, the Qui’ztar Commander took a deep breath and squatted down so she could look the Master-Paladin square in the eyes. “I am happy that none of my soldiers were injured in this battle. Schemes as pathetic as yours aren't worthy of that kind of sacrifice. But I am ashamed by how little care you've shown towards your own soldiers.”
“You… You…” Neit couldn't see the damage Oed had done with her single strike but assumed the worst. “You broke one of my horns…”
“You still only think of yourself?” Commander Oeditluva stood back up to her full two and a quarter meter height and shook her head at the sniveling excuse for a royal. “Relax. I barely fractured a horn, you pathetic weakling. You aren't even bleeding. But that shouldn't be important to you. The only thoughts occupying your mind should be about the people you are responsible for. What if this command post of yours had been attacked by real pirates? What would have happened to your contractors? Your soldiers? Your civilian support personnel? Your pets?!? You risked all of their lives with this stupid distraction campaign of yours and your inability to take even the most basic precautions. If you were a Qui’ztar, my Matriarch wouldn't even bother executing you. She would force you to live out the rest of your life as an example of abject failure.”
“Would you rather my people have killed one of yours?!?” Neit thought that was the wrong thing to say but couldn't come up with anything else with the throbbing pain bouncing around his thick skull.
“Like I said, you weren't considered a real threat by the people who planned this counter-operation.” Oed's dismissive scoff stung worse the agony of a fractured horn. “The estimated probability of casualties on this mission was less than a single percent. That being said… If you and your people had been able to mount a defense capable of injuring one of my drop troops… Well… I might have considered you a foe worthy of respect. But this…? To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement.”
“What would you have done differently?” The Master-Paladin struggled to get out anything close to a real question through his splitting headache.
“You mean besides just paying for the proper licensing to harvest from that supernova and avoiding all this idiotic scheming?” A haunting laugh escaped Oeditluva's deep blue lips as she turned away from the pathetic sheep-man. “I would have started the same way you did. Reinforce structures and establish essential logistics. But that would have taken my troops just a few days at most. From there, defense turrets, shielding, and networked control systems would have been ready in no more than a week. After forty-seven days? This place would have been a fortress needing an entire assault company plus orbital support to defeat. And before you say something stupid, yes that is a scenario my drop troops are trained on. I have personally participated in wargames on both sides of this kind of combat action. The only real difference between those hypothetical battles and this one was the presence of competent military leaders on defense.”
“Are you just going to keep trying to offend me or-”
“Offend you?!?” Oed's rage resurfaced as she took a step towards Neit. However, seeing the man flinch before she even raised her hand allowed her to realize how futile hitting him again would be. Instead, she took a step back and began to slowly walk towards the closed door to the storeroom. “I'm not sure if you can intuit this, Master-Paladin Neitzhyl Thilka, but you have offended me with your utter incompetence and disregard for the lives of your people. You should be thanking your gods that I am the one having this conversation with you. That I only struck a horn instead of laying my fist through your jaw. There is someone else who would have loved to inform you of the errors of your ways. That person is not as gentle as I am.”
“You've already struck me once and caused serious damage!” Neit's meager complaint came from a mixture of noble indignation at his treatment and a sudden remembrance of galactic laws concerning prisoners. He simply assumed that Oed reaching for the door's handle and beginning to open it meant she was leaving him to stew in his suffering. “Anything more would be considered torture or abuse under the laws you are trying to enforce.”
“That's debatable.” A very recognizable avian squawk entered the room before Tarki stepped in with a medical satchel over one shoulder and a tablet held in one of her claw-hands. “Torture and abuse of prisoners is frowned upon under most circumstances. However, Galactic Penal Code 11-139.7, Subsection 3, allows Independent Fleets to set their own definitions of torture and abuse within a fairly wide range of actions. In addition, the GCC Convention on Sapient Rights set a wide range of punishments for crimes which entail a high likelihood of harm to civilians. But, uh…” The gold and tan eagle woman paused for a moment to evaluate the clearly dumbstruck noble's injury using the scanner built into her tablet. “Shartelyks are known for fracturing their horns in the darndest of ways. In the future, I would strongly recommend not ramming things stronger than you.”
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