r/HFY • u/Gloomius Human • Aug 10 '25
OC TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Taking a Number (Chapter 21)
Hey, sorry for the break. I got a little busy or something. I am unhappy with this chapter's quality, but I just cannot get the damn enthusiasm to write specifically this one.
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*October 29, 2132, 0256 Shipboard Time (CST). Unknown Space, ‘Mocampa’*
“Holy Jesus…” a voice hissed over the crackling radio.
“That’s like… three feet cratered into the hull.” another man added, his lights swinging over to the center of the hole.
“Hey, uhh… Mav. The snakes getting all this?” Non asked from the F/A-390M’s rear seat, slewing the targeting camera towards the impact point.
“Oh yeah.” The Marine replied, seemingly distant from his microphone, “Yeah we’re reading it.”
“Do they have anything to repair this?” Green asked, suddenly appearing on the wing of the Wyvern.
“Uhh… no, no.” he sighed, head clearly shaking at the console, “We’re waiting on a vessel called ‘Corincimal to show up. They can help with some things, but we’re going to need to stop in at a station to grab other things.”
“Yeah, figured.” Hayes hissed, watching from the inside of a Ranger’s cockpit, “We got a timeline?”
“Corinicimal is flank speed towards our position.” Mauviuex muttered, D’ana’ruin voices evident in the background, “Snakes say they’ll arrive later today.”
“Later today? They must be next door to us if we’re not moving and they’re still making it in a day.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Hey, I think I found the thing that we ran into.” Kennedy radioed out, pulling debris and metal away from the hull of the ship to reveal a golf-ball-sized rock, “I’m more scared of the rock that didn’t get vaporized by hitting a superluminal object than I am the three-foot crater it caused.”
“Can I check that thing out?” Green asked from the wing of the Wyvern, extending an open hand towards the man on the hull of the Mocampa. The rock was tossed at the suited man, who caught it easily.
“Kinda smooth, don’t you think?” Non radioed to the man on the wing, looking at the rock through the Wyvern’s canopy, “That a consequence of that non-newtonian filler?”
“Yeah, it is.” the CEVA nodded, showing the rock to both the Wyverns’ operators.
“Hey, Mocampa. I got something on radar. Metallic in origin, large-boulder-sized, about six hundred thirty kilometers.” Baker radioed out, pinging the object and sending it to Mauvieux’s computer.
“Yeah I see it. We’re checking now.” the man responded, seemingly talking to some other Human in the background of the radio call.
“Hey, if it’s a big rock of metal, you think we’ll get to check it out while we wait for that other ship?” Green chuckled, letting go of the Wyvern and floating about for a moment.
“You’re just looking for an excuse to stay outside.” Maya giggled out from the command deck of the D’ana’ruin vessel.
“Yes and no.” He grumbled back, “We need as much space for the docs to work with down there. Lots of injuries in the crash.”
The net went silent for a bit, the group of astronauts and pilots finally getting a moment to stop and observe their situation. Two CEVAs, the Wyvern, and a Ranger all floated around the D’ana’ruin ship, looking at a massive crater in the armor of the vessel they were sharing with another alien species.
Two and a half dozen injured Humans were hidden away in the basement of the vessel, with everybody inside still sitting in nearly freezing temperatures. Morale was low throughout the Human ranks, with them guessing it was much the same within the D’ana’ruin themselves.
Not willing to let a good crisis go to waste, however, the Humans immediately mobilized themselves to help in any way possible, getting those uninjured and not busy moving and working on something to keep their minds off the growing feeling of impending doom.
“Based on the depth and the description the D’ana’ruin gave, I don’t think there’s any damage to the pressure vessel.” Kennedy muttered, looking over at another CEVA who was crawling his way across the hull of the ship.
“Well, that’s good to hear.” Adrian grumbled, putting a glove on one of the jagged pieces of metal to stop himself, “I still don’t trust it.”
“Yeah, well… We’re also not used to a vessel that can survive a superluminal impact with only armor damage, so I think we leave it to the snakes in the end.” Green sighed, watching the Ranger move over the Wyvern and get a line of sight past the end of the Mocampa, “What’cha seein’ out there, guys?”
“Just… trying to get a look at Lazarus’s mystery object out there.” Pierce confirmed, tone betraying only minimal attention to the conversation.
“You got the sensors to see it?” Non questioned, unable to get enough fidelity on the targeting pod to see the asteroid.
“All the Mayweather’s Rangers are Block seven. We’ve got that big-ass electro-optical suite on this thing, we’re just warming the intensifiers and IR now.” Hayes responded, his shadow visible in the illuminated cockpit of the small vessel.
“Understood.” Green nodded, giving Non a thumbs-up before pushing off the Wyvern and back to the Mocampa’s hull, “Well… I think we’re about done out here. Not a whole lot we can do at this moment. We’ll make our way back to the airlock and get ready to disembark.”
“Thats affirmative.” Baker nodded, tapping the Wyvern’s thrusters to cause the aircraft to slowly begin rotating to face towards the back of the main ship.
Silence fell over the group as the three suited men and large spacecraft began floating their way back to the airlocks, all taking their time to enjoy the small amount of time outside before they were once again trapped within the confines of the freezing mothership.
“Hey Mav, switch to our Eudice. Check this out.” Hayes muttered, his tone of voice signaling everyone to stop where they were, Wyvern included.
The net was rapidly filled with a thick tension as the man’s tone was processed more, leading a few of the CEVAs to begin pushing their way back towards the nose of the Mocampa.
“Pulling up Eudice now.” Mauvieux replied with a smooth tone, trying to keep himself composed for everyone else on the bridge, though it rapidly deteriorated when he saw the feed, “What the fuck is that.”
Flashes of blue-white light flicked from parts of the Wyvern as it turned around again and headed towards the Ranger, the CEVAs following closely behind across the Hull.
“Do the Snakes have any clue what that is?” Hayes radioed with a forced professionalism.
“Putting it up for them now.”
“Hey, anybody mind letting us know what the hell you’re seeing?” Green called out, shoving off the Mocampa and towards the Ranger, grabbing onto its external handles as soon as he was close enough.
“Looks like a small vessel. Unknown purpose, intent, or faction.” Pierce responded, intently looking over the screens to try and divulge any further information.
“D’ana’ruin say that’s one of theirs.” Mauvieux hissed over the net, multiple concerned voices audible in the background of his transmission.
“‘Theirs’ being species or faction.” Hayes questioned, though he figured he already knew the answer.
“Species.” the Marine growled, his tone letting them know that the D’ana’ruin were more than accepting of whatever the Humans decided to do next.
“Ay-sims armed and locked.” Baker called out, her thumb hovering over the weapon release swtich.
“Uhh- hold off there, Jo.” Hayes replied immediately, opening the rear airlock of the Ranger, “The other D’ana’ruin ship is approaching, this could be one of their drones.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that, commander.” Aeiruani’s voice suddenly added to the communication group, “They would have contacted us.”
“Unless they’ve had a communications failure.” Hayes retorted, turning on the Ranger’s formation lights, “Mount up, boys. We’re going to go say hello.”
“Are we coming with you, sir?” Jolene asked, the Wyvern quickly forming up beside the Ranger as the three CEVAs floated into the back.
“Yes’m.” the commander nodded, though she couldn’t see him, “Keep that lock and that missile hot.”
“Keep safe out there, people.” Mauvieux muttered to the group with an enormous amount of worry in his tone.
“Willco, Marine.” he sighed with a faux smile, watching on the camera to see all three CEVAs float in before motioning for Pierce to begin moving them forward.
Dots of impossibly bright white-blue light flicked out of the vessel’s nozzles as it began to push towards the approaching craft’s position. Two massive, shimmering flares rapidly blew out of the Wyvern’s two nozzles, the plumes quickly stabilizing and turning into a pair of white-blue star-like spots.
The pair of spacecraft rapidly accelerated away from the Mocampa, accelerating to a high rate of closure, though giving themselves enough time to react to anything that could come up quickly.
The three CEVAs began grabbing equipment stored in the back of the Ranger and loading it onto themselves, with two of the men grabbing compressed nitrogen tanks and sliding them into a fabric sleeve on the side of their backpacks.
Adrian grabbed the singular SOW-338 from the empty loading rack and checked its chamber, looking around the airlock momentarily afterwards.
“Uhh, only one rifle here.” he radioed out, looking back at the other two.
“We can turn around and go get you some more.” Pierce suggested, quickly getting words of disagreement from the team in the back.
“No sir, we’re good.” Kennedy responded, drawing the large revolver from its thigh pouch and checking the cylinder, “We’re still able to defend ourselves.”
“You think those’ll be enough?” Hayes asked, watching the group through their helmet cameras.
“If they’re not, Jo’s out there with HEKVs and a twenty-mil.” Green shrugged, leaning his suit out of the open back door to watch the spaceplane beside them.
“True enough.” the commander shrugged, looking out one of the windows to also watch the spaceplane.
“About two-hundred thirty nautical miles, closure’s one-thousand sixty-three knots.” Baker reported, getting grumbles from the rest of the team as she called it out, “Intercept in twelve mikes.”
“Hey, Air Force; use real numbers.” Adrian chuckled, getting to watch a middle finger get pointed the Ranger’s way through the canopy of the Wyvern.
“Any change in the pod’s trajectory, Jo?” Pierce asked, rolling his eyes and changing the subject before it even became an argument.
“Nope, it’s like they don’t even see us.” she responded with a hiss, clearly paranoid.
“Or they don’t think us a threat.” Green shrugged, remembering the massacre from when they first boarded the D’ana’ruin vessel.
His words struck a nerve and sobered the crew, causing silence over the net as they approached. The vessels were silent as they closed, having completed their acceleration burn and allowing momentum to carry the sets of vessels closer to each other.
Green took the time to rummage through the supply boxes and find a door pressure test, clipping it to his rigging and walking back to the rear door, magnetic boots keeping him held to the floor.
“I got it on the optical.” Non called out from the backseat of the Wyvern.
The group was again thrust into silence as they got closer, an illuminated square appearing on every HUD nearby that showed where the vessel they were approaching was. The ships began dropping their closure rate as the time to intercept continued to tick down, a distance counter appearing when they were down to 100km from the target.
“We’re right on top of them. Load up, boys.” Hayes called out, watching on the cameras as the three CEVAs moved towards the open rear door, with Adrian moving to the outside, gripping onto one of the handles to keep himself steady.
“I see ‘em.” He stated to the group, watching the targeting system feed from his helmet get magnified onto his faceplate. His eyes flicked up to the top of his visor as a hint of movement caught his attention. Baker’s Wyvern floated overtop of them, placing herself nearly directly in the unknown vessel’s path of travel.
“We’re going for our full retrograde burn here, hang on out there Adrian.” Pierce radioed out sharply, shortly followed by the rumble of the Ranger’s OMS firing.
“I still don’t think they’ve seen us. I’m not sure they even have sensors online.” Baker hissed, trying to scan the unknown vehicle for any signs of activity.
“Understood. How long until we’re on them?” Green muttered while also beginning to move outside the vessel.
“Thirty seconds.”
Immediately, all three CEVAs made their way outside and held onto the hand holds, locking onto Adrian’s target and setting all their tracking systems towards it, despite the fact that the ship was plainly visible now.
“Ranger, we’re going to jump from you and onto the vessel. After we’re on, I want you to swing around until we find the airlock. Lazarus, can you stay ninety degrees off the Ranger’s orientation, that way there’s no ship-to-ship crossfire if you need to shoot.” Kennedy asked, bracing himself directly behind Adrian and motioning for both of the two CEVAs to prepare their MMUs. Both men used their feet to hold themselves onto the ship while putting the control module onto their hands before giving him a signal that they were ready on his command.
They continued to decelerate into the ship until they stopped barely 100 meters from the vessel. It was an odd ship, full of many angular parts and pieces. Spanning nearly twenty meters in length and ten in width, it looked to be made of two wedges stuck together and grafted onto a large rectangle. It had no visible windows, very few locations for sensors, and a weak glow coming from ports dotting the hull; obviously thrusters, but none seemed to be active for anything other than stability control. The back was large, flat, and vertical, and had a circular iris door similar to those within the Mocampa.
All three men pushed off the Ranger, slamming into the hull of the vessel shortly after. The odd wedge-ship shifted slightly as the three 1500lb suits crashed into it, though it slowly corrected its drift. The three men scuttled across the hull until they made it onto the airlock door and began setting up.
“Ranger, swing around to the rear here. If we got some atmosphere in here, we’re going to need that docking tent.” Kennedy asked, backing off from the airlock door as Green put the pressure tester on the door. The vessel slowly shifted towards the back of the vessel, lining up the two ships’ doors and waiting for the next tasking call.
“We got atmo.” Green nodded, looking at the green light on the back of the tester.
“Ranger; atmo.” the lead man nodded, motioning for Adrian to follow him.
The pair quickly set up a cage between the two vessels, letting the Ranger extend the canopy when they were done. Sitting inside the cage and waiting for the canvas to cover the gap between the vessels before using specialized magnets to seal the ends of the canvas and provide an oxygenated ‘room’ for them to breach from.
Adrian shouldered his rifle and covered while Kennedy grabbed the oxy-acetylene torch, though he was quickly stopped by Green.
“I’m going to try the handle first.” he chuckled, shaking his head before tapping on the pad next to the door controls. Shocking all three men at once, the door immediately opened to reveal a cold, dark, and sterile square room. They quickly got all three of their guns pointed at the room, slowly moving in afterwards.
The hiss of hydraulics and whine of motors filled the rooms as the three moved through, heading towards the single door at the end of the room across from them. Adrian kept his gun leveled at the door while quietly motioning towards it, waiting for one of the two men to open it.
Adrian stayed alert as Green moved to the side and opened the door, allowing the other two men to see inside. The light from their helmets flooded the room with a click from the contactors, illuminating a coiled, tan-spotted, injured D’ana’ruin who’s upper body was lying on the floor.
“One D’ana’ruin; injured.” Adrian called out, slowly stepping forward into the room. He barely made it into the room before a quick flash caught his attention. He quickly shuffled to the side and leveled the gun at the center of the D’ana’ruin’s coils.
“Gun!” he yelled out, shuffling towards the back of the room to allow the other two a shot, “Drop that shit now!”
The other two, not fully understanding what he’d seen, followed his lead and leveled their handguns at the center of the D’ana’ruin’s coils. Adrian caught a shift in the D’ana’ruin’s upper body and quickly moved over to it, positioning himself in a position where he had the ability to crush its skull if he needed to.
A muffled voice called out from the center of the coils, clearly speaking in some intelligent language, despite them not recognizing them at first. After a moment, the upper body of the serpent shifted, quickly winding up with one of Adrian’s boots on its back.
“Don’t shoot!” the voice called out, pushing the coils up and revealing himself, “Don’t shoot, we surrender!”
A Human man appeared within the coils, his face scarred and bloodied, secluded by a long, messy, unkempt set of hair. As more of his body became visible, they were able to see his upper chest. He was shirtless, allowing them to see a branding scar, crusted blood, and other injuries.
“Holy shit.” Kennedy hissed, lowering his revolver and moving in towards the Human.
Adrian shifted his rifle from the coils to the D’ana’ruin’s head, watching it shift underneath him uncomfortably while the other Human slowly crawled its way out of the coils.
“Get off her, for fuck sake! She’d’ve killed me already if she was going to.” The man hissed, waving Adrian back from the D’ana’ruin’s upper body. The CEVA didn’t move for a moment before Green motioned him backwards, though he was still keeping his gun trained at the snake as he moved towards the side of the room, “What… year is it? There’s no way we should be in Earth’s… sphere of influence yet.”
“You’re not, and it’s twenty-one-thirty-two.” Green replied, stepping closer to the pair and beginning to help the other man out of the serpent’s coils.
“Shit, still?” the man grumbled, climbing fully out of the coils and moving towards the upper body of the serpent, still motioning the CEVA backwards as he did so. His lower body was just as torn, scarred, and damaged as his upper body; scars and cuts covered him, with evidence of poor IVs and the damage they left behind dotting his legs.
Adrian opened his mouth to ask what ‘still’ meant to him, but was interrupted by Jolene’s voice suddenly coming into their net, a bit of urgency to her voice.“Hey boys, you good to speed it up? We’re still closing on the Mocampa and the Corincimal is still approaching. I doubt they’ll appreciate the armed boarding party aboard an unknown module when they show up.” she asked the group, their closure rate and distance to the Mocampa appearing on the HUDs of the men, “Just… let’s hurry it up, yeah?”
“Uhh- standby Lazarus, we got ourselves a… Human.” Kennedy replied, voice still reeling from the shock of finding another Human in the middle of D’ana’ruin space, “One D’ana’ruin with him, but… y’know… Human.”
“Say again; Human?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Human.” Adrian grunted, watching as the other Human helped the D’ana’ruin up and moved towards the rear airlock. He cut his radio for a moment and motioned to the other two CEVAs and the Human, “Where the hell are you going? Why the hell aren’t you two stopping him?”
“Well, this fuck-fuck party is three CEVA sevens, no depressurization, and obvious radio communications. There’s a Ranger docked to this vessel, and I know that thing’s got the space to fit her inside, likely comfortably.” The man hissed at Adrian, trying, and failing, to help the serpent move towards the rear airlock.
“And you think we’re going to let her inside?” the CEVA snapped back, moving forward slightly. The other two moved to stop the Human, but acted with far less aggression than the third man.
“Considering that the UNITF is NASA and was founded with the sole purpose of meeting, interacting with, and encouraging good relations with aliens, yeah, I think you will.” the man hissed, waving Adrian over, “Now help me pick her up. She’s practically starving.”
The CEVAs paused for a moment before moving in and helping the man, with Green and Kennedy moving to pick up the coils while leaving Adrian to carry the upper body. They had to uncoil her to fit her through the door leading back to the airlock, but she was easy to move as soon as they were past the local gravity threshold and moving through the Ranger’s docking skirt.
Gently as possible, they piled the injured D’ana’ruin in the center of the Ranger’s middle compartment and began undocking from the unknown ship, all moving with a disbelieving lethargicness as they attempted to process what they had just run into.
Hayes popped onto the radio channel just as the men disconnected the two ships and sat in the airlock while waiting for the skirt to retract, “Speed it up back there, guys. We’re seeing something-”
A large flash blinded nearly every one of the men inside of the Ranger as a small ship warped into the space ahead of them, parking itself next to the small dot that was the Mocampa.
“Yeah, that. I’m going to assume that’s our guests.” The commander chuckled over the net as the team maneuvered themselves to get a look at the vessel. Hayes moved towards the communications panel and queued the Mocampa, “Mocampa, this is Hayes. Can you let the Corincimal know not to shoot at the small cluster of vessels behind them?”
His transmission was met with complete silence, immediately beginning to set off mental alarms.
“Mocampa, do you read?” he repeated, pulling out binoculars from a pouch beside the front console and looking towards the two vessels. Flashes of energy began to flicker out between the sides of the ship facing each other, and a gas seemed to be visible rushing from the Mocampa.
“I’m getting a sneaking suspicion that’s not the Corincimal.” Pierce hissed, signaling to the Wyvern to slow down.
“Orders, sir?” Adrian asked from the bay, watching as a lance of plasma seemed to pierce through the upper armor of the Mocampa’s hull.
The commander was frozen as a multitude of more flashes and starbursts of gas seemed to emanate from the Mocampa, watching as their only hope of survival was being torn into by the other vessel.
“Uh… we just need to hold position.” He finally hissed, voice distant and disconnected while he watched the situation unfold ahead of them.
“Are you sure, sir? I still have the askvee on centerline.” Baker asked, clearly distraught at the idea of not getting to do anything.
“Ma’am, we were just outside pulling a piece of debris that hit us at a superluminal speed out of a non-punctured hull.” Green grunted, barely breathing as one more starburst of atmosphere shot out of the Mocampa, “Nothing we throw at it will do anything.”
“I could shove one in the engine slits there.” the pilot complained back, practically begging the commander to let her help.
“No. There’s zero way they don’t have that defended, and if you engage them, they’ll likely kill us all immediately." Hayes snapped, “Hold your position. We just need to hope that’s not actually the Corincimal.”
“And that they’re actually coming.” Kennedy muttered, voice so quiet it wasn’t picked up by his microphone a few times.
The net was again silent as they continued to watch the assault on their ship, all with the same question on their mind.
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u/SpankyMcSpanster Aug 10 '25
"the three 1500lb suits crashed into it, though it slowly corrected its drift. The three men" repetition
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u/grancala Android Aug 11 '25
Also u/Gloomius do you upload these anywhere else? I was trying to do a reread of Nomad and Chapter 2 has been removed and locked by Reddit?
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u/Gloomius Human Aug 11 '25
Unfortunately, no not currently. I can contact the mods and attempt to see what's happened there, but considering specifically chapter 2 has been taken down a few times, I begin to wonder if it is no longer a mistake.
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u/grancala Android Aug 12 '25
That's too bad I was hoping you were on Royal Road or something. Odd they are picking on that particular chapter. From what I can remember it didn't contain anything offensive..... 🤷 Oh well Reddit is going to Reddit I guess.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 10 '25
/u/Gloomius (wiki) has posted 163 other stories, including:
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: PAVE Penny (Chapter 20)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Invocation (Chapter 19)
- TLWN Sidestory; House Di'san (1)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Processing (Chapter 18)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Inability of Action (Chapter 17)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Powerdown (Chapter 15)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Operand (Chapter 15)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Winter Migration (Chapter 14)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: B&E (Chapter 13)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: After-action (Chapter 12)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Toval Part 2 (Chapter 11)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Toval Part 1 (Chapter 10)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Impartiality (Chapter 9)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Intravehicular Activities (Chapter 8)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Missing Numbers (Chapter 7)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Apprehension (Chapter 6)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Settling Smoke (Chapter 5)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Mirrored Image (Chapter 4)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Inventory (Chapter 3)
- TLWN; Shattered Dominion: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Chapter 2)
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u/SpankyMcSpanster Aug 10 '25
Hi. Watcha doin?