Disclosed are various embodiments that provide short packet transmission by a network interface controller (NIC). The NIC may receive a signal indicating that a set of buffer descriptors is available for fetching from a host device. The NIC is configured to fetch the set of buffer descriptors from the host device, the set of buffer descriptors comprising a control flag, the control flag indicating whether the set of buffer descriptors comprises immediate packet data; and the NIC may transmit the immediate packet data as a transmit packet if the control flag indicates that the set of buffer descriptors comprises immediate packet data.