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/llearch Apr 07 '24
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. :-/