Of mice and men, from an old prompt

Of mice and men

Boot. Advanced armored infantry. Two years special technologies. One year xenobiology fast track. Six months variable gravity training. Six months special xenoacclimation crash course.

That's the minimum to be considered for Project Gojira. United Sol Forces created Project Gojira in response to our accidental first contact with the Sleekit, our name for the ultrasonic shriek of a name of the diminutive, rodent like peoples of Kapteyn b.

We first attempted to colonize the planet, with it's compatible atmosphere, stable tectonic activity, and rich soil.

Almost all life on land was miniscule. Insects rarely big enough to see as more than a cloud during breeding swarms, mammal akin to mice, shrews, and similar sizes, with some degree of visual similarity as well. There were large predators on land, but they typically avoided the rich plains best for our agricultural needs.

The real life was in the sea. Man sized and larger mammals, like small elephants with trunks specialized for spearing and sucking up coastal mammals. Amphibians roughly the size of ponies that would wade ashore for hours at a time, snaking meters long tongues into the borrows of the land life. And more, Kaptayn b ran high to large sea life, with dozens of examples that fed either at the coast, or could move inland for days or more during their annual mating seasons. These life forms were the largest on Mousehole, the unofficial nickname of the planet. The initial scouts gave it a different name officially, but Mousehole is what everyone uses, even the natives.

The first wave of colonists sent reports of unusually persistent infestations of one species. The mouse like critters would make ruin of food storage, and had been caught chewing or otherwise attempting to destroy comm gear.

The colony had sent requests for pest control poisons, which mandated a visit from a biologist.

Darla Gaines is credited as the first contact with the Sleekit, as well as their common name. Upon seeing one of their leaders climbing her leg, she spoke the famous line of the poem. Then she saw that leader hold up a tiny piece of paper with writing on it.

Humans were no longer alone in the universe. It took the Sleekit time to determine our intent. They used that time to study much of our technology, often from the inside.

It was only luck that had the initial colony farm a quarter mile away from the closest underground city. Far enough they didn't feel us to be an immediate threat, close enough their rapid fire brains could study us with ease.

Sleekit are smart. Not just smart for their size. It's difficult to directly compare intelligence between aliens and humans, but the prep files I was given said that their equivalent of an idiot could still out math most humans.

They are also excellent engineers. But they have the limit of their size. This placed a degree of difficulty in manufacturing that left them with very little military development. Their weapons tended to be of little use against their natural predators unless they fought, and died, in the thousands to stop just one of what they called monsters.

Their early warning systems were excellent though, and they breed like the mice they resemble. It did result in a form of limitation to their technology beyond survival needs. They couldn't build up because their monsters would destroy entire cities with the flick of a tentacle. Burrowers by nature, they built down, and built defensively.

Until they met us. Their warble for us is something akin to "least dumb monster", though the official files say it's "smart kaiju" instead.

Once communication was established, our species found a beneficial working agreement with ease. A simple fighter like me can't begin to understand what they do, but Sleekit are apparently superior with manufacturing semi and super conducting materials, particularly for computing. We can produce better alloys than they could do anything but dream of. Now, every human ship has a secondary set of crawlways for our not timrous friends.

Me? I'm just here to keep them safe from the monsters. I'm contracted for ten years. I guard the entries to their tunnels from the predators that held them back for so long.

The job isn't easy. Because of the need to not ruin the ecology, I can't just kill the kaiju as they come. I have to kill only as the absolute final option. A few species are easy enough, they're vulnerable to one sedative or another. The rest just aren't. The reptile and octopus like kaiju in particular don't seem to respond to any external chemicals.

I once wrote a letter home and told my sister that the job was like wrestling bears with roid rage, only the bears had even bigger teeth and tentacles with mouths at the end. I call those Cthulpoohs, because they really like the honey pot that is a Sleekit city.

I go out in the USF modified power armor at least once a month, the trademarked giant lizard emblazoned on the chest.

The Sleekit have gunned the suit up far beyond the standard issue. Guided needle rockets with neurodisruptive electronic pulse warheads, aka headache bombs. The "hot peppers", a subdermal stimulation warhead needle missile that generates a heat field beneath the skin that's supposed to be like bathing in pepper spray if you were all eyes.

Even force indicated, special targeting custom fighting flyers. I'm pretty sure they made the name up after it was designed, but F.I.S.T.Cu.F.Fs are impressive. Nothing like hitting the deployment button and having a rocket powered fist leave the arm of your suit, punch an octoturtle, and fly back to you.

All of this to protect the ability of our allies to freely access their traditional breeding grounds.

Yours in kinship, Lt Regis K. Ong, supervising officer, planetary Gojira forces, Mousehole, Kaptayn.