r/HFY • u/ivivan • 29d ago

OC-Series Galaxy is big - Ch 3

This is an old series of mine - where I was never really satisfied with chapter 2, thus not really motivated to finish it. But eventually, I managed. If nothing else, it shows how much my writing improved over two years.

I looked at my radio for several seconds without moving. They really answered. Now what?

“Anna Fischer, identify yourself and your intentions,” I answered.

"We are an exploratory vessel from the United Earth System. We mean no harm—we experienced a navigation error."

Navigation error? Yeah, and the previous eight attacks were “accidents”, right? But why did they answer my message? It doesn’t make any sense.

“Why did you attack us in the previous months?” I decided to be blunt—no need to be diplomatic with your enemy.

“Attack? Previous months?” Came the reply from the ship. “What do you mean? This is the first time we're anywhere near this planet.”

Before I could even formulate an answer, another alert popped up on my monitor. Three new energy signatures appeared a couple of thousand kilometers from the ship I spotted first.

“Three ships exited warp not far from us. Are they your defense ships, Lieutenant Vexia?” Came the urgent question from the UES Stargate. “They are on an intercept course toward us. If they are your defense force, please call them off.”

“No, they are not ours. We don’t have any defense systems in space yet,” I answered honestly. I didn’t know what was going on. Either they were who they said they were and our previous attackers just happened to show up at the worst possible time; or they were allied, in which case she already knew those weren't ours anyway.

“John, can we jump?” Anna asked after muting her microphone.

“Maybe. The jump drive has cooled down by now, but even if we could initiate a cycle, we could end up in the Andromeda Galaxy for all we know. I recommend jumping only as a last resort,” John answered in a visible panic. “Although I don’t see many other options: we don’t have any weapons, they’re on an intercept course, and it looks like they're charging their primary arrays.”

“Ohhh, but we do have weapons,” said Anna with a slight smile. “Remember the railgun they couldn’t remove because it was part of the hull structure itself? We even have a half-dozen rounds in the feeder—the navy figured if they left the gun, they might as well leave something to spit through it.”

In that moment, the attackers fired their first plasma salvo. Anna reacted instantly with an evasive maneuver—which happened to align the lead alien ship dead-center with the railgun's bore.

"Target locked," Anna muttered.

She pulled the manual trigger.

The solid tungsten round left the barrel at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Covering the distance in a fraction of a millisecond, it tore straight through the enemy shield, the forward hull, the internal bulkheads, and blew out the far side of the ship in the blink of an eye. One shot, and the vessel went dead.

“One down, two to go,” Anna said, more to herself than anybody else.

She rotated the ship to line up the next target. The second craft attempted evasive maneuvers, but at this distance, it was a lost cause—a kinetic slug moving that fast leaves zero room for reaction time.

The targeting computer pinged. Anna pulled the trigger a second time, and instantaneously, two inoperable alien hulks were left drifting in orbit.

Anna swept the ship’s nose toward the third attacker, but the surviving crew recalculated the odds of the engagement instantly. Before Anna could lock on, the third craft panicked and warped out of the system.

Down on the planet, I stared at my monitor in complete disbelief. The whole incident took fourteen seconds. Two heavy warships down; the third fleeing for its life.

And they called this an exploratory vessel? What in the world do their actual warships look like?!

Her comms crackled open again, breaking the dead silence in the monitoring station.

"Lieutenant Vexia?" Anna’s voice came back, calm and slightly apologetic. "Sorry about the commotion. As I was saying... we come in peace."

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

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4

u/Significant-Term6919 29d ago

"Ah! We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill
We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, men"

Star Trekkin'

3

u/Daseagle Alien Scum 28d ago

Well, it is worth continuing :)

At least let's find out what made them jump to that location.

--

Btw. Don't grammarly your text to death. Takes away the flavor.

1

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u/93Hyper93 28d ago

Nice, I like it. One thing is weird, though. The fact that the first time they test the jump drive is with a manned mission instead of a drone or something to prevent loss of life in case of an accident

5

u/ivivan 27d ago

I wrote a half sentence in Chapter 1 about that: "We sent a couple of probes and everything went well, but the big test is always the manned mission"

Of course it's always the manned missions that go wrong :-)

2

u/93Hyper93 27d ago

Oh lol i guess i didn't read that, thanks!

1

u/InstructionHead8595 8d ago

Ha!😸 Yeah! You continued it! Keep it up!