It was definitely a disadvantage being so tiny.

The Deminutian commander sighed heavily, stretching up on her tiptoes in a vain effort to add a few millimeters to her height, craning her neck to see the holographic display. She was standing next to the Ryukyuan lieutenant who was at the holodisplay. Not out of some display of superiority. Just because she literally couldn’t see anything from the floor and did not particularly want to end her days as a commander by being crushed under some GalSen operative’s heel. Not that her current position was much safer; she was somewhat afraid the Ryukyuan was going to just forget she was there and fling her to the floor. 

She studied the holographic maps intently. The clear goggles she wore were broadcasting to her lieutenant and her captains, though none of them were in the room, instead helping to pilot the mechs to set up the firebase.

She was about to suggest checking the medical records when she was interrupted by a sound that made her blood run cold. A wail from the corridor.

“Bloody hell, Aeli, are you alright? Your vitals just went crazy.”

“Shut it, Kaiov, I’m fine.” The terror that seized the girl made her snippier than usual, even.

“Oookay… what are our orders?”

She hesitated for a second, looking at the Ryukyuan commander as he gave orders. A dim thought wormed its way into her mind.

“Aeliryn?”

“Sorry, I was thinking. We listen to the Ryukyuan guys now, I’m not in command.”

[i]Any volunteers?[/i] the lieutenant asked.

Aeli didn’t at first realize that she’d spoken until the words were already out of her mouth. She was proud that her voice wasn’t trembling as she tried to project her voice, make herself seem bigger than she really was.

“Us. We’ll go. You all outgun us and outstrength us but we can get into places you all can’t. we’re fast and we’d be hard to bite or claw, if that’s what those… things attack is. Besides, there are seventy of us. We can cover a lot of ground all at once.”

Her headset was buzzing with her subordinates’ anger, and she hissed, “Shut up, the lot of you. You know it’s the best thing we can do. We’re out of our league here for firepower.” The girl was trembling, from the excitement, terror, or just from being cold.

“Commander, we await orders.”

She thought quickly. “Scramble, all of you. Leave the machines behind the firing line. Jetpacks and magnets. Hydrogen packs. Lasers. Someone bring my gear and at least two medkits—On second thought leave the medkits.”

There were muffled sighs of protest, but she ignored them. They were a wonderful group, when they listened, but suggest anything that wasn’t protocol and they flipped out.

Within a few moments all of the Deminutians were assembled. Kaiov brought Aeli’s suit to her and she started putting it on, sighing in relief as the hydrogen filter whirred to life and she could breathe easily again. Deminutians breathed almost pure hydrogen on their homeworld, and while they could breathe human-type air, it was very heavy and hard for them to fully catch their breath. Their space-suit contraptions had a small filter mechanism in the mask that enabled other gasses to be filtered out. These suits also had small magnets on the soles of the boots, to enable the Dems to walk around on the ceilings and walls and keep from being flung around inside their mechs as they were moving around. The third unique feature was the small jetpack on each suit that in effect enabled flight, or at least, very-long-distance leaps. All in all, the suits were an extremely useful bit of equipment. 

“You sure about this, Aeli?” Kaiov asked as he helped his young commander zip herself into her suit.

“We need the report sent back to GalSen that we were useful. Otherwise we’ll be kicked off the senate for not pulling our weight.”

“Yeah, but do we all need to volunteer to go into the dark?” Kaiov swallowed, and Aeli realized that he was afraid.

“Yes, we do.” She said, and turned to face the Ryukyuan lieutenant again.

“Well?” she asked, crossing her arms. She would have seemed imposing, if not for her height.