Many older Grehonnek have a strong dislike of Earthers for obvious reasons, but particularly Earth females. During the war, Earth invasion troops were probably about 70-30 male to female, but this wasn't the case in special forces; the urban combat groups were something like 80-20 female, almost all under 155cm (5'1") in height, with the men in the groups operating mainly as muscle while the women did most of the dirty work of sabotage and sneak attacks.

It was hinted at in the late 20th century that women, due to their smaller frames, might make better fighter pilots than men, but it wasn't until the mid-21st that Earth armed forces started using women in tight-quarters special forces operations frequently. The UNE special forces had already benefited from well over a century of training in that regard, and when Grehonnek started telling each other ghost stories about the war, the boogeyman was inevitably a ghostly, sneaky Earth woman, less likely to seduce you than garrote you in your sleep. It didn't help that the slightly built, often dark-haired (and, frequently, dark-skinned) young women that the Earth forces trained in special forces combat appeared simultaneously sinister and skeletal to the stockier, pale-with-red-hair Grehonnek.

And it really didn't help when Amistin Morrikan's son (Celsus' father) divorced his Grehonnek wife and married a five-foot-nothing, rail-thin half-Mexican, half-black woman from North America and had Celsus' brother David.

The UNE urban combat forces remain operational, now as a part of the Fleet's peacekeeping forces, known as the Covert Urban Combat Division. Nicknamed the Grey Angels after a 21st-century movie actress known for her action roles, the Angels are even more overwhelmingly female (approximately 15,000 active female members to 1,100 male) and include both Grehonnek and Earth members (though the Grehonnek contingent are overwhelmingly the lankier second-wavers like the Astegari, as opposed to the stockier first-wavers like the Saaxi or Mwerissek). Many grew up as gymnasts or martial artists; some were plucked out of lives as sex workers or liberated from refugee camps. In turn, the CUCD serves as a farm team for future Fleet intelligence officers. The male role in the group remains small, but the men who join are generally small and quick like their female counterparts, and no longer serve just as muscle (they usually farm that out to the Fleet Marines who sometimes accompany them).

Like the rest of the Fleet, the Grey Angels have a unique and somewhat peculiar culture; heavy drinking, obsessive gaming and gambling, sexual promiscuity, and general hedonism are common (some say even encouraged, due to the Angels' ninja-like specialties and extreme job stress), and many of them cover their bodies in tattoo displays that are elaborate even by Earther standards. Obsessive training between missions and partying is common; perhaps surprisingly, drug use other than caffeine and alcohol (and occasionally pot) is vanishingly rare. (It's been rumored that Saaxi President Ashaela Mondushna served in the CUCD for a time; however, sources close to the President say that although she was a "morale officer" (Fleet slang for a prostitute/den mother) for a time, she was way too tall to be an Angel.)

Their extremely effective record in peacekeeping operations is well-known, perhaps a bit more so than the Fleet would like (especially as most of their work involves areas of civil unrest where women are traditionally treated like dirt). Their record as prankstresses is also well known; it's been rumored that more than a few unfaithful lovers have come home to find the most peculiar devices embedded in some very unlikely parts of the house, generally after said devices have been triggered to do something extremely humiliating to the target.