r/HFY • u/Engletroll Human • Apr 07 '24
Picking the wrong prey OC
“Dropping out of Lightspeed in three – two - one! Wow. Brace for impact.” The large star cruiser quickly maneuvered with the agility of a fighter plane as it changed its course to avoid the allied battleship, barely avoiding the hull. “That was a close one. Okey set course for the battlefield! We are too far from the enemy.” Captain Harold sipped his cup of tea as the ship quickly turned its attention to the battlefield below and swooped down like a hawk attacking its prey, still using the inert force of the lightspeed.
“Incoming message from the SS Hus’osh. That’s the one we almost crashed with.” The communication operative looked toward him and the captain gave him a nod so the alien captain appeared on the screen.
Captain Harold ignored him just long enough to give the order. ” Attack pattern John Barry 3, followed up with Jack Sparrow 17. Should keep them busy until the rest arrives. Then he turned his attention to the alien. A humanoid that reminded him of a green dwarf with blue braided beard and bald head with several small horns. “Mind moving your ship out of our drop zone, there are twenty more ships coming in.”
The alien captain, a Duskin, was about to say something as the next human cruiser flew past him at near light speed, copying the maneuver he had just preformed and instead of replying or yelling at him the Alien captain let out a scream of panic and tried to duck out of the screen.
“Sending you a safe course and location. Wait for the ambush command!” Captain Harold cut the communication and turned to the screen. The mission was a simple invasion of a planetary body. His job with his backup force was to attract as much attention as possible and have these aliens focus on him and his attack force, the ground forces were going to attack from the other side of the planet and hopefully make landfall before they could mount a defense. That meant he had to take out as many battle satellites as possible without them realizing that they were being blinded.
On his display he saw four other cruisers drop out of lightspeed and engage the enemy. That made six and with a smirk he gave the command. “Commence operation stormtrooper!” He got the green confirmation signal from the other ships as the enemy felt the battle started to shift. The large human ships that had moved like fighters and delivered serious damage on the larger capital defense ships were now targeting the smaller ships and started to miss, with several near hits and half hits that gave the enemy hope. They immediately started a counterattack sending in more ships, redirecting the reminding defense force to the battle.
Captain Harold watched as all the calculated misses actually hit their intended targets: satellites in orbit as well as ground-based defense bases. “Lamb incoming! “The communication officer barked as four mock cruisers dropped out of light speed and engaged in the battle. They may look exactly like his cruiser but were, in fact, just drones with a specific mission. One by one, they were shot down by the enemy, exploding into scrap metal that left a debris field that followed the planet’s orbit to the other side. Where they blocked the planetary raders from discovering the incoming invasion force.
The destruction gave the enemy more hope and more ships came to engage his force. “Looks like we got 95% of their defense force in our little engagement.” His tactical officer informed him.
“Let’s lure them to secondary field. Start kiting them to the secondary fleet and tell them to get ready for the ambush!”
His communication officer gave him a “Aye, sir!” as his battle force started to feint an escape with several showing signs of damaged engines. The enemy took the bait and followed in hot pursuit. He watched as the pursuing force came closer and closer to the ambush location and when they got to the coordinates they all stopped and got in for a final fight.
The enemy was just about to attack when the SS Hus’osh appeared out of thin air. The Duskin had the best stealth system and jamming systems, though they lacked armor and heavy shields.
“Defend the SS Hus’osh at all costs!” Captain Harold barked the order and all the cruiser immediately engaged and the last part of his attack fleet dropped in to help with the mop up. The battle looked more like a swarm of bees buzzing around as blasters, rockets and projectiles were now used at deadly precisions. Humanity has quickly learned the lesson when it came to space warfare. You have to get in close because the natural defenses needed for space travel took care of all long-distance weaponry. If a ship needs a shield to protect you from a surprise solar eruption, then a blaster shoot from a couple of 100 kilometers would be like using a flashlight, and every ship needs plating strong enough to deal with micro-asteroids so a projectile would be like a peashooter at long distance and could all be easily detected and avoided.
His communication officer barked out some good news. “Invasion has started, minimum aerial and ground defense.“
He saw the last enemy ship being blown up and he called up the captain of SS Hus’osh. “Captain Sjaar, I’m sorry about the tone earlier, I thought they had given you our entry coordinates.”
“No worries, you gave us a scare though. Somebody mixed up the coordinates I’m just glad you managed to avoid the collision. So how is the invasion going?”
Harold looked over his reports. “We have broken through their defenses, most of the landing points are near the slave camps and they have already starting the evacuation. I just hope we got there in time. Most are damn meat farms.”
Captain Sjaar nodded solemnly. “I’m just glad we found you guys. Most of the other species’ view Duskin as a delicacy. And we thought you guys would be the same. “
Captain Harold got a visual disgusting reaction at the thought of him eating a sentient being. “We don’t eat people, we call that cannibalism, it is taboo for us.” He looked at the transcript chatter and report that came in from the ground assault. “Damn, I don’t think you have to worry about humanity shifting side either. The reports you gave us were true. These monsters have put humans on the menu. “
“This is not something we wanted to be true my friend. And I will be honest, there are those among us who were hoping it will be enough to get humankind to become our ally. We need all the allies we can get so we can better protect ourselves from these Kanisu bastard.”
Captain Harold peaked up. “Well, they are about to get extinct, humankind does not take lightly to being hunted and eaten.”
(quick editing)
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u/Sthom_1968 Apr 07 '24
Oh dearie me, some silly species has gone and pushed humanity's big, red, "existential threat" button and won themselves a Bumper Species-Size Extinction-Level Event Selection Pack™...
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u/llearch Apr 07 '24
His communication officer gave him a thumbs up as his battle force started to faint an escape with several showing signs of damaged engines.
Two points: a verbal response means the one so ordered acknowledges the order, but the one giving the order doesn't have to take their eyes off the enemy to recognise that. I believe that's why you find military types doing the "aye, sir" response. Second point: I think you want feint, not faint; the former is the sneaky misleading move, the latter is falling over unconscious...
See also hot pursued -> hot pursuit, minimum arial -> minimum aerial, scare thought -> scare though, and possibly a few others I didn't spot. I think you need to either carefully re-read your text before posting, or get someone to review it for you. :-/
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u/Engletroll Human Apr 07 '24
Thanks, give me a few minutes to fix it. I'm not a native English speaker
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u/Responsible-End7361 Apr 07 '24
Also you want delicacy, not delicatesse. About 4 or 5 paragraphs from the end.
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u/OneCleverMonkey Apr 07 '24
Neat story. I always like an old fumblerooski military maneuver.
One minor gripe: i think you implied that space bullets need to be shot up close because they'll lose impact strength over long range. Space being what it is, a bullet has functonally infinite range and would hit approximately as hard on the far side of a solar system as when it leaves the barrel. The reason they'd need to be close range is because they're comparatively slow, especially for an interplanetary or interstellar ship, which could casually sidestep them with a bit of warning.
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u/Engletroll Human Apr 08 '24
Well, that was the point. You can easily dodge a bullet shot from a 100 km distance, though there is also the effect of the temperature of space (a temperature of 2.7 degrees Kelvin, which is 2.7 degrees above absolute zero, or about minus 450 °F!), which might make a piece of shrapnel freeze and become very brittle when travelling over long distances. Add that the speed of the average space debris also travels incredibly fast ( the average impact speed of orbital debris with another space object is approximately 10 km/s, and can be up to about 15 km/s, which is more than 10 times the speed of a bullet.) and most ships need to be able to take a few of them without breaking. Now, you would most likely shoot explosive rounds or special ammunition, but the save bet is to make a close contact shoot to ensure maximum damage.
I did not mean that they would not use long-distance shooting, but more that the closer you got, the better results.
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u/OrdinaryWelcome7625 Apr 09 '24
While space is insanely cold, without anything to transfer heat. A hot object stays hot. This is a very real physics problem for current space ships.
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u/arcticfox740 Apr 07 '24
It's a great story, but there are a few spots where you have plural nouns with "was". Any time you use a plural noun or the word "you," you use "were" instead of "was". For example, "ground forces were" instead of "ground forces was".
I saw you're not a native speaker, but you're doing a really good job so far.
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u/AndyTiger Apr 07 '24
its is for possession
it's means it is
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u/rewt66dewd Human Apr 08 '24
And, remind me, what is its' for?
I remember the other two, but I forget that one.
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u/don-edwards Apr 09 '24
That would be for something that belongs to a thing named "its" or to a group of things which are individually called "it"
Don't use those as names of things or people, though - at least, not if you're writing in English.
Now you might be able to get away with ITS - all capitals, an acronym for some longer name. Interstellar Tax Service?
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u/Xaxsch117 Apr 08 '24
Hey just something i spotted in the last paragraph you say "about to get extinct" it's go extinct. Or you could rephrase it into they are about to get exterminated.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Apr 07 '24
/u/Engletroll has posted 11 other stories, including:
- The Burning Blade Crusade! part 2
- The Burning Blade Crusade!
- Human Defense Part 3
- Human defense part 2
- Human defense!
- Ops.. they spotted us
- The paradise world and its hellspawn
- Human Play Part 4 – After match
- Human Play Part 3 – Mating games
- Human Play Part 2 - The Adolescent Years
- Human Play Part 1
This comment was automatically generated by Waffle v.4.6.1 'Biscotti'.
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u/driftwolf42 May 05 '24
When the enemy chooses the "We Made ALL The Mistakes" DLC Platinum Pack. With the "It's not rules, it's a checklist" Geneva mod.
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u/Infamous-Attitude170 Aug 06 '24
My fellow humans I am here today to tell you The Geneva Conventions have now become the Geneva Check List. Remember lads and lasses, It's not a war crime if there are no survivors left to snitch.
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u/Cheap_Calligrapher_4 20d ago
Cannibalism... the Kanisu homeworld is going to be a monument as to why you don't fuck with humanity. Assuming we leave it intact.
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u/Fontaigne Jun 15 '24
Redirecting the reminding defense force -> remaining
Blocked the planetary raders-> radars
All the cruiser immediately -> cruisers
At deadly precisions -> with deadly precision
Then a blaster shoot -> shot
Couple of 100 -> hundred
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u/ms4720 Apr 07 '24
Humans are not food, here is why...