Dominion State Security HQ, Znos-4

POV: Svatken, Znosian Dominion State Security (Position: Director)

"What are we going to do about this, Director?"

"One in twelve. One. In. Twelve," Svatken said in shock.

"Yes, Director," Khesol bowed.

"One hundred times the acceptable amount! How could we have missed this?!"

"I'm still trying to find out the specifics, Director, but I'm sure the Great Predators are involved somehow."

"They kept it a secret too! For over a year at least!" Svatken thumped a foot in rage.

"A year is the minimum amount of time," Khesol added unhelpfully. "They could have been operating for longer. There is some evidence that some of the hatchling pools in Grantor have possibly been tainted for over two years, and I still haven't figured out the full timeline—"

"How did we not detect this at all?!"

"Well… most of our internal safety measures are for guarding against negative factors. All indicators for productivity and output are up, and with most of our resources focused on the increasingly difficult war with the— I mean, I have a list of names of people who might be responsible."

"Responsibility will be thoroughly assigned," Svatken said through gritted teeth. "But… we must reverse this sabotage. Immediately."

"How— how, Director? Even if we undo the hatchling machine alterations and find a way to eliminate all chances of outliers from the hatchling pools, and even assuming they've only been tainted for one year, we can't equalize the ratio even if we produce no outliers at all for the next hundred years," Khesol said. "Even if they all expire on schedule, it would take over a decade! And even that would be devastating for our society. We'd be— it's like putting all our eggs in the same pool!"

"You are right," Svatken said simply. "We can't simply wait for the Dominion to recover from this error naturally."

The room felt like it had chilled twenty degrees in five seconds.

"N—naturally?" Khesol stuttered, "Then how— how else do we— we fix this?"

"The only possible way," Svatken replied coldly.

"The only—"

"A mass culling."

"A— a what?" Khesol asked in horror.

"We must recycle everyone who was hatched within the tainted time period."

"But— but— but I'm in that population!" the young Khesol almost cried.

"Well, obviously you can continue to live." Svatken rolled her eyes as she issued the magnanimous exception. "But everyone else must be recycled."

"A mass culling of everyone— Director, we're talking about billions— many billions of— of our own people, on potentially hundreds of planets…"

"Yes. But the alternative is worse. Way worse. Unaddressed, this taint will destroy us. Think about it. That is the reason this was done to us by our enemies. They are destroying us from within. For the security of the Dominion state, we must cull the contaminated population. There is no choice to be made here."

"That— but what about the war—"

"I'll deal with the war. But the logistics of this monumental task are up to you."

"I don't know— we haven't ever—"

Svatken put a heavy paw on her shoulder. "Khesol, this is a solemn responsibility. In every generation, we are tested by the Prophecy. And when the test comes, we must do what is necessary for the Dominion to survive. This is our test. We must rise to the occasion. And a couple years of hatchling output… it is a small price to pay for the havoc that a hundred times the normal ratio of outliers will bring. Do you understand?"

Khesol took several deep breaths, then reluctantly nodded. "Yes, Director. We will do what must be done."

"Do not think I came to this decision hastily, Khesol." And it was true; she'd been thinking about this problem for at least five minutes. Svatken looked into the face of her cowed subordinate, trying her best to summon a kind expression onto her own face. "It is a difficult decision that must be made. Whatever we must do — the Dominion comes first."

"Yes, Director."

Ration Distribution Center 2128, Shchakst-5

POV: Khukto, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Four Whiskers)

Khukto took aim through the scope fixed atop her marksman rifle at the normally orderly crowd lined up all around the block at the ration distribution center.

Normally orderly.

They were anything but that today.

She didn't exactly blame them. It was an unusual situation. For some reason, the planetary governor had given the order to close down the ration distribution to this district. She didn't know why. She didn't care. She wasn't bred to.

Normally, the gates of the ration distribution center opened just after dawn. Now, they were closed. Thousands of sacks of rations laid there, unopened, in their stalls. The workers had been ordered home. Thousands of people had gathered in front of it, waiting for the gates to open nonetheless. Out of habit, probably. There were rumblings that there might be trouble. Perhaps even predator spies or apostates. The planetary governor had called for Dominion Marines.

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So here they were. And here Khukto was, stationed in the fifth-floor window of an emptied building across the street. Pointing her gun at a crowd of targets, of people she wasn't trained to fight.

She noted that the average Znosian in the crowd was much smaller than the various predator silhouettes they'd been drilled to shoot. She wondered how much of an advantage that gave the Dominion in war. At least some, she reasoned.

As Khukto adjusted her position in the window, her spotter also shifted uneasily next to her.

"Something's going on," he said, then pointed a claw at the street corner where the crowd was flowing in, near the gates of the distribution center.

Not very descriptive, but she saw the disturbance in the mob as she shifted her sight.

"Who is that?" she mumbled as a small figure squeezed through the crowd to get to the front.

"Just some hatchling, it looks like. What are they doing here? This is a ration distribution center for workers, not hatchlings."

Khukto grunted in confusion as she stared at the tiny figure parting the crowd through her own scope.

Her radio buzzed, and the voice of her fellow Marines filtered into her headset, "Sniper Team Cottontail, I've got an anomaly down the long street."

"Copy, Sniper Team Angora. We've got eyes on it," she replied. "What are we to do about it?"

"I don't know," Angora replied. "We've called it in, and we're waiting for orders too."

The hatchling reached an opening in the crowd near the front. She made a gesture to someone else in the crowd, and she was lifted onto a tall shoulder. She made a loud whistle through some kind of electronic device she produced, and the rambunctious crowd stopped their mumbling to stare at her.

"Servants of the Prophecy of District 2128. All Servants of the Prophecy of District 2128. There has been a horrible catastrophe in Znos," she began to say.

"What in the Prophecy is she talking about? Why is she here? And where is her teacher?" Khukto mumbled. "Shouldn't someone be responsible for her?"

The hatchling continued to a hush crowd, "The Great Predators have invaded the home system of our Dominion. The birthplace of our civilization. They have taken one of the moons of the home world, and they have thrown it into the Znos star. Planets and moons, our Marines fought valiantly but ineffectively. Thousands, no, millions of Dominion Marines are dead. And all of Znos has fallen to the Great Predators!"

There was some rumbling in the crowd. The news she delivered seemed unbelievable. How could Znos possibly fall to predators?!

Yet… it made some sense to those who had been paying attention. The predators had invaded the territory of the Dominion; everyone knew that. The Dominion Navy had seemed unable to stop their advance where they went; that was true. And flights had been diverted to Znos to evacuate some kind of military disaster there.

"Remember your schooling?" she asked confidently. "This is all as it is written in the Prophecy!"

Was it?

Was any of it?

No one knew. But she declared it so confidently; how could it be false?

"All of Znos has fallen. Our home world has fallen! The predators have taken over the State Security headquarters on Znos-4. They are masquerading as our people. They are masquerading as our officers. They are masquerading as our State Security messengers," she hissed the last part.

That last part. Everyone knew that the Great Predators did that. There were posters on the walls in every Marine base, even at street corners, warning people against trusting radio transmissions they couldn't verify the source of. The predators were masters of disguise and deception. They could even fake videos!

"Last night, a predator pretending to be a State Security messenger delivered a fake order to our planetary governor. Using the excuse of some hatchling pool machine glitch, they ordered him to cull every Znosian born within the last two years!"

There were some gasps in the crowd.

"And he fell for this!" she screamed.

"Predator lies!" someone in the crowd shouted angrily.

"That can't be right," Khukto muttered in her sniper's nest. "Why is she saying all this?"

Her spotter shrugged next to her. "What are we supposed to do?"

The hatchling shouted over the crowd with her electronic device. "But this is just the beginning for the predators! First, they will get us to kill all our own hatchlings. Then, they will order another cull. And another. And another. The next one, they are going to come for people who left the hatchling pool less than three years ago. Then, four years ago. Then five—"

"But I left the hatchling pool four years ago!" someone in the crowd wailed.

"They can't do that! That's not fair nor resource efficient!" another complained.

"Today, the cull order is for people like me. Tomorrow, they're coming for you! The predators are behind this! They're doing all this! Our brave district governor has decided to take a stand against this predator treachery. She has ordered the district not to comply with the insane cull order without additional confirmation of the authenticity. But the planetary governor above her has been fully convinced by the predator trap. He is carrying out the will of the enemies of the Prophecy in the other districts on Shchakst-5 right now, in defiance of all logic and reason!"

More gasps in the crowd at the injustice and the predator trickery.

The hatchling pointed an accusing claw at one of the Marines machine-gun nests set up behind the closed metal gates, which suddenly seemed a lot less secure than they did just a minute ago. "That's why the planetary governor ordered the ration centers in our district closed! That's why he ordered these Marines here!"

The crowd stared angrily at the nervous Dominion Marines behind the machine gun, their shouts becoming louder every second.

The hatchling waited for the perfect moment, when the chants crescendoed, and she yelled into her own speaker device at the Marines. "But it is not too late, even for those of you inside the gates! The predator trap is obvious. Anyone with a civilized eye sees through its lies. Such an insane cull order! Surely those of you bred with tactical skill and strategic insight in the Dominion Marines… surely you can all see through the obvious blunder our planetary governor has made!"

Khutko didn't take her eyes off her scope but pressed her radio to her ears. "Troop commander, what are we supposed to do? She is… making the crowd angry. And… is— is what she is saying true? Why are the ration stalls closed?"

Suddenly, an unfamiliar voice cut into the connection coldly, "Four Whiskers, this is Seven Whiskers Fraspi of Planetary Marine Command. The hatchling is lying. She is a defect, an apostate bred by broken hatchling machines. Disregard what she is saying. Sniper Team Angora, do you have eyes on her?"

The other Marine sniper team down the street replied into the radio in acknowledgment of their callsign. "We see her. She's in an elevated position in the crowd. Do you need a picture for confirmation of her identity—"

"Good, and no, identification will not be necessary," the seven whiskers rasped into the radio. "Sniper Team Angora, take her out."

"What?!" they asked with a surprised voice.

"I said, take her out now," Fraspi repeated.

"Like… shoot her?"

"Yes, shoot her. Kill. That is what you were bred for, Four Whiskers!"

Sniper Team Angora was silent for a moment. Then, their voice came back on the radio. "But… Seven Whiskers, what if she's right? What if this is an elaborate predator trap and we are doing the bidding of predators who want to do us harm? What if this is a deception? Why is the ration center closed? I have never heard of that happening anywhere else in—"

"Sniper Team Angora, you were given a directive. Execute the order now!" Fraspi ordered more sternly. "Kill her!"

The hatchling, blissfully unaware of the number of weapons trained on her, continued to shout. The crowd grew angrier with every sentence she uttered. Some of them began hurling angry questions and insults at the bewildered Marines inside the distribution center gates.

"Shoot her!" Fraspi's voice insisted on the radio. "Snipers, kill her now!"

There was a moment, amidst a temporary lull in the crowd noise, a moment of relative quiet, broken only by a single utterance on the radio.

"No."

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