Happy New Year, everyone! If you’re interested in submitting your work for our 2025 spotlights, click here. This year, we’re highlighting a new author every week with one of them chosen for our monthly podcast. Exciting stuff!

To kick off the new year, we’re going with the rarest of stories — a feel-good sci-fi war story from author Mark Salzwedel titled An Unexpected Cookie. It is, at its a core, a story about true diplomacy: Cookies.

Also, be sure to look out for his episode of the Moxie Press Podcast tomorrow, Thursday, January 2nd.

An Unexpected Cookie

by Mark Salzwedel

The battle for Kepler 3b was going badly for the humans. It took supplies four times as long to arrive from Earth than the relatively short trip from the Kafnurian home world. Human forces were spread mostly between deployment platforms orbiting the star and the massive dreadnoughts patrolling the planet’s path, the drawn-out campaign meant the null gravity was taking its toll on the bone density, muscle tone, and fluid balance of the human soldiers. Leaves to spend time at the rear command center where centrifugal forces staved off many of the deleterious effects had long waiting lists.

Down on the surface of Kepler 3b, gravity was half of Earth normal, but getting down to the planet’s surface was hazardous. The Kafnurians’ favorite strategy was to destroy any craft or drop pod descending through the atmosphere before it landed. Down on the rocky landscape dotted with mesas and eskers, humans held the larger open areas with their tanks and flak turrets. Kafnurians were deft climbers and picked off human patrols with their snipers when they wandered in among the tall rock formations to try to clear an enemy nest. They had what the scientists called “contact empathy”; they could communicate with each other instantly by touching.

Greta A2998035 had started her military career fighting human pirates near Alpha Centauri. Somewhere around the time of the second Cometary Wars, her faith in the exigency of military force in establishing peace and order had deteriorated. She saw entire colonies wiped out when massive balls of ice were redirected toward them. There was no honor among the widely spread humans any more, and the Kafnurians she now fought on Kepler 3b showed no signs of distinguishing combatants from non-combatants either.

Her squad had the record for the fewest casualties in a twenty-six cycle. The men and women that fought with her were tough, quick, and smart, but they were getting worn down and ragged as the war dragged into its third year. “I think we are at a stalemate,” Greta told her squad as they traveled to retrieve one of the few drop shipments that had made it through the Kafnurians’ defense grid. “Until we get more reinforcements or better tech, it’s all about holding our ground.”

When the six of them got to the landing site, they saw a Kafnurian patrol slowly, carefully descending one of the steeper eskers nearby. The humans quickly unloaded the supplies onto the rover, one keeping watch of the approaching Kafnurians.

“Hey, Sergeant!” one of the men called back to Greta. “They sent us chocolate chip cookies!”

Greta went over to inspect. Indeed someone in command had thrown a box of cookies into the drop pod. Maybe it had been a joke, or maybe a half-hearted reward for three years of service. It gave her an idea. “Leave it,” she ordered.

“Leave it?” the man asked. “I haven’t tasted sugar in over a year!” He seemed unwilling to set down the box in his hand.

“You heard me,” Greta said. She only allowed her orders to be questioned once.

No one else wanted to get on Greta’s bad side, but three of them looked longingly at the not-quite-emptied drop pod as they rode away. Even though it was still light out, Greta and her squad turned in to sleep.

It was only a few hours later that Greta awoke to the automatic “All hands!” announcement over the camp P.A. system. She and everyone else in the bunkhouse quickly slid into their battle armor again and reconnected their com buds to their ears.

“Massive force of Kafnurians moving this way. Estimates around 400 hostiles.”

Greta took the ear bud out and then reinstalled it. “Please repeat,” she called out.

“Four hundred hostiles in two columns from north and northeast, due to arrive in twenty minutes.”

Greta headed to the captain’s tent where all the surveillance equipment was stationed. “Can I see the infrared?” she asked a corporal who was sitting at one of the long-range monitors.

The captain, a tall, older man of Asian descent named Lao put his hand on Greta’s shoulder as he stepped up and looked down at the monitor too. “From this perspective, it looks like a colony of ants leaving the nest, doesn’t it,” he commented. “So I can’t help but notice that they’re approaching from the direction of that last drop pod you emptied. Is there something I should know that didn’t make it into your mission report?”

“We were hurrying because hostiles were approaching,” Greta lied. “We might have left one or two of the supplies behind.” Her mind immediately latched onto the fear that some ingredient in the cookies had poisoned the Kafnurians, and now they were retaliating with a huge direct assault. She looked down at the infrared monitor again. The two phalanxes were not attempting to find cover as they usually did when they approached. The camp’s defenses could easily mow them down.

A man at a com relay called out, “Captain, we have reports from the sentries that the lead hostile in the northern group is holding a yellow box above its head.”

“Try to improve the resolution,” Lao called back. “Let me know if they can identify what’s in or on the box.”

“Chocolate chip cookies,” Greta volunteered. She stepped to the side to face Lao and await her dressing down.

“Captain,” the com officer interrupted again. “All of the hostiles are lying down prone now except for the one holding the box.”

“Was that intentional?” Lao asked Greta. His face was somewhere between wonder and exasperation.

“I had a hunch,” Greta replied, “that the Kafnurians, though adept at repelling our attacks, were no match for sugar.”

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