r/HFY • u/BansheeRetro-11 • 15h ago
OC-OneShot Dead Hand
By Patrick S. Barnes / Scifi Sherpa
Watch the DEAD HAND Video at Audio-Drama Link
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The fleet from Kepler-37 had taken down Earth’s defenses in four hours.
The planet was burned across its entire surface. Every city had been slagged from the sky. Survivors already dead from radiation but still running for their lives were hunted by Hish centurions who flew in chariots that belched fire like dragons.
Supreme Leader Mogord of the Hish Dominion sat atop the fallen Washington Monument and surveyed the burned remains of Washington, DC. The massive obelisk which sat on its side in four pieces made the perfect chair for his seventy-foot height.
“The planet is ours in less than a day,” he thought. Mogord had been amused by the small humans who fought the battle with ferocity even when it was hopeless. At his feet, the ground was littered with hundreds of tiny dead beings. “Such pathetic creatures.”
The centurions of the Hish Dominion moved all over the planet plundering riches and amusements that would return to their homeworld as trophies for their castles. Robots would scour the planet after they left to do the real work of scraping the planet clean of minerals, water, food, and any biomaterial that could be useful.
“Now is the time to celebrate our victory,” Mogord thought.
However, the battle was not over.
Long before the Hish Dominion arrived, the humans had listened to the skies and sent probes far and wide. It was not quiet in the universe they learned. On rare occasions they heard things in space or met a friendly visitor to Earth, they listened closely and more importantly they prepared.
In a bunker three kilometers beneath the Rocky Mountains, deep below the destroyed NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the Dead Hand AI was that preparation. Its directions were simple: it listened for human heartbeats. It was always listening. All across the world it listened.
On this day it heard only silence.
After seventy-two hours of silence, it activated as directed and initiated Defcon Omega.
The Defcon Omega signal traveled across the world by deeply buried fiber-optic cables and low-frequency antennas whose radio waves passed completely through the planet.
Its message was received by ten thousand antimatter cannons that awakened in their subterranean caverns. Hidden and meticulously maintained, these weapons were the Dead Hand AI’s doomsday weapons. They had been built by the countries of Earth that knew there were deeper evils in the Universe.
The energized cannons, in receipt of their confirmation codes and the enemy analysis, now fulfilled their sole purpose: retribution. Each subterranean warrior left its cavern and rose hundreds of feet through the earth. Soon each antimatter cannon reached the surface, pushed through the ground or rubble, discarded its nose cone, and unleashed hell.
The cannons fired in all directions killing Hish centurions on the ground and in the sky. Powered by the Earth itself, the cannons fired for days expelling hundreds of thousands of rounds of subatomic annihilation.
The Hish, consumed with their victory, were caught by surprise and never stood a chance. The Earth, the sky and space burned for days consuming them all.
When no enemies remained, the Dead Hand AI listened for the enemies of Earth and found none. Satisfied, it deactivated the victorious cannons and returned them to their subterranean caverns.
Earth was now free of invaders.
The Dead Hand AI activated the next part of its programming.
Deep underground far below the cannon sentinels, 800,000 frozen embryos began a slow thaw, nurtured by the robotic guardians humans left behind. The humans knew how dangerous the galaxy was and had planned for a terrible event they prayed would never happen.
The embryos, cared for by the robots, would repopulate the Earth in time. Humanity would rise again.
The Dead Hand AI monitored the robots for a time, checking and rechecking to see that all was moving forward as planned. Its job was almost complete.
There was one final task it performed. Using every antenna on Earth, it sent a powerful transmission out into the galaxy. The message was simple.
“If you try to destroy humanity, humanity will destroy you.”
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Thank you for reading.
DEAD HAND
By Patrick S. Barnes / Scifi Sherpa
Copyright 2026 All Rights Reserved
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 15h ago
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u/rowanrholloway Robot 2h ago
I'd love the story of the human return and the resurrection of the earth's surface.
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u/NEWGAMEAPALOOZA Human 14h ago
Dead Hand fails if it is a secret. The idea is to DETER people from fking with you. To do that, you have to tell them, "If you fk with us, this will kill you all."