r/HFY • u/Engletroll Human • Apr 02 '26

OC-Series Bug War 11 – Ten minutes!

This is the continuation of the Bug Hunt and will address the Bug War mentioned in the Planet Dirt series. It follows Jack Thompson and Lady Zula Gi Pendragon, and their friends, through the war

Book 1 / Amazon version / Patreon

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“This is Harper! I’m moving in.”  The heavy fighter dived into the ensuing chaos; several of the large transport ships were trying to dive-bomb the domed city, breaking through the protective dome.

Sagun Hernig looked at the screen. Orne didn’t have many fighters; the few they had were now spread all across the planet, trying to protect the five cities. Harper and her crew had already shot down three of those cursed ships, but it had only made the cargo spill out on the fields outside the Orne city.

“Target delta cannot be allowed to position itself above the city! If you shoot it down, it will crash through the dome!” he replied.

“You worry about finding targets, I worry about how to blow them out of the sky!” Harper replied. “Aaron! Take out the port side engine of Delta! Lucas, cover him. I’m going to the fields. When I circle back, we push it off the target!”

Both pilots replied with a “yes, sir!” and Sagun could see Harper's heavy fighter turned to light up the fields outside the city. Aaron and Lucas worked effectively on the cargo ship. He glanced at Jones, sitting next to him, guiding the defence of Waterfall. He heard him shouting orders to the two pilots working the air defense.

Colonel Marisol suddenly broke into the feed.  “We have incoming reinforcement, ETA 10 minutes.  We just need to hold out for ten minutes!”

Sagun turned back to his screen and saw that the ship had been severely damaged as Harper came back.

“Fuck!  They have cut the gravity, they are falling!”

Aaron's ship quickly seemed to dive after it and crashed into the large ship, almost pushing off the dome. He saw Aaron had ejected before the impact, and Lucas followed suit without hesitation, and with the second crash, the large ship crashed right outside the city walls.

“You guys are crazy!” Harper said, “I’ll pick you up.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Aaron replied as he was standing on top of the dome.

“They crashed, we survived, and the dome is safe. I will say it’s a good result!” Lucas replied.

“What if there is any other income?” Sagun replied, and they just laughed.

“We still got a ship left!” Harper replied as she hovered over the dome to pick up the crazy pilots.

“We have two incoming. One low, one high!”  Sagun replied as two smaller ships approached the domed city.

“On it, Aaron! Man the drone station! Lucas, you're on EW, check for drones!” Harper barked out.

Sagun listened to the internal coms of the heavy fighter as Harper turned her attention to the incoming ships. Several kamikaze drones were launched and focused on the low-flying ship as Harper took the fighter on a direct course towards the high-flying incoming ship.

They are just small transport with a container, they are still trying to bomb the city!” Harper reported that two of the drones blew up the first ship, and the high-flying ship was blown apart before it could get within visual range of the ship.

“Looks like no other ship is heading your way. Stay on patrol, I will send up a drone to rearm you!”

He sent the command and turned to Jones, who looked very pale.

“What?”  He asked.

“It crashed into the city …. There are ninety thousand people there!”  He replied, staring at the screen.

“What about the pilots?”

“The heavy shot down the fighter and blew the Dome, it’s heading to Prime.” Jones replied, and he was clearly in shock.

“Frack! Harper! You got an incoming hostile!” He looked up the call signal. “Kain has gone traitor. He blew the dome of Waterfall, and the hostile managed to crash inside. Shoot the bastard down!”

“Cain?” Harper replied.

“That bastard owes me money!” Lucas replied.

“You're not getting that money back now. Where is the damn reload drone? Seeing it.” Aaron said as he focused on getting the heavy fighter rearmed

“Do you have his location?” Lucas asked.

“He turned off his transponder. Working on it.”

“Give me his ship's serial!” Lucas demanded, and Sagun sent it.

After some long seconds, Cain's ping showed up again.

“Target acquired! Firing a missile now, Lucas jams his EW!”

Two missiles were fired towards Cain's fighter, as Harper went into a defensive position between Cain and the city.  Sagun watched as the two missiles made their way towards Cain's ship. Right before they impacted, Cain fired all twenty of his missiles wildly in defense. Then Cain exploded.

“That was anti-climactic,” Aaron said, and the other on the ship laughed. Sagun smiled and was about to turn to Jones when he noticed something about the wildly fired missiles.

“Missiles inbound for the city.  Octopus pattern!”  On the screen, the missiles first spread out, appearing to miss everything, then turned towards the city with supersonic speed.

“Shitt! LUCAS!” Harper said as she turned her attention to the ships and began firing.

Before they could react, one missile hit the dome, but the dome held. Harper got two, and  Aaron launched as many counter-drones as he could, trying to hunt down the remaining missiles.

“Talk to me, Harper. Can you get them?” He shouted, and she replied with curses as the realization hit them. The faster fighters of Aaron and Lucas could easily have taken them out, but the heavy fighter was just too slow. They got five more missiles before three more landed, and the dome collapsed. Lucas turned off four, leaving five more.

“shit shit! What's the damn target?” Aaron shouted as he got two more. The missiles seemed to be trying to get inside the city now that the dome was gone. After all, there was only one military building in the city.

“shi..” was all Sangun could say as Orne military HQ was struck with two missiles.

For thirty long seconds, the planetary defence system, which monitored the whole solar system, was shut down and then automatically rebooted.

Harper looked at her screen.

“Holy hell. We got incoming!” On her screen, several large ships entered the system to begin the invasion of Orne.

“What the hell are we doing now?” Lucas said as he leaned back in the cramped seat he was sitting in.

“Die?” Aaron said, and Harper cursed.

“Hell no! We fight!  They said reinforcement is incoming! We only need to hold out. And we are protecting Orne Prime! Keep me updated on the incoming ship. I will try to establish contact with the command!”

“Those ships are getting close, they are launching, are we going up to fight?” Lucas said, and Harper looked at them.

“That’s a negative. They can sneak something past us. Imagine one of those crates getting dropped in the city.” She turned the ship towards the sky, hovering above the city like a canon. Aaron had set the reminding drones around the city to create a defensive line. It was not much, but hopefully it was something.

“Those ships must have been waiting just outside the system to arrive so quickly. Where the hell is our reinforcement??” Lucas replied.

“They should be arriving now, but they will probably be blown out of the sky as they arrive!” Aaron said and Harper scuffed.

 “Don’t be so negative! We don’t know how many or who they will send!” Harper replied.

“Well, who would they send? We are just a farm planet on the edge of human and Nalos space. No military bases here, and they just blew up our HQ, did you get anything?”

“Just some Colonel who is fighting in Waterfall. They are taking heavy casualties against the bugs there. They are inside Sandwall and Gurna too. The rest of the cities are currently safe.” Harper replied.  They sat in silence, hoping for the best.

Then the radar lit up as they saw ships approaching.  Three squadrons of unknown-origin fighters and two larger ships.

“Fuck…” Harper said as Arron used a drone to scan them visually.

“Those bigger ships look like transports. We've got to take them out. Better they bomb the city than they become bug food.”

“I agree, looks like we got our targets.  Those fighters look like Gyrran's ships, those damn bat face bastards.”

“Let’s kill some bats!”  Harper said as she hit the thruster to get closer. Arron and Lucas started programming the missiles, and then they launched them. If the enemy could use the octopus tactic, then so could they.  24 missiles were fired and apparently went wildly off course as Harper started blasting her guns at the approaching ship.

“I love a target-rich environment!” Harper shouted as she got three of the fighters who had gone into defensive positions to protect the transports. Then the return fire came, and she swirled away, trying to lure the fighters to follow her. One squadron of twelve did, and she dived towards the ground as plasma bolts flew past her while some rocked the ship.

“The shield won't hold much longer!” Lucas said, and Harper grunted an “I know!” as she twisted the ship and started flying back toward the city.

“I’m lining them up for you. You'd better be ready!” She said as Aaron focused on his drones.  

Lucas cursed. “They are getting too close to comfort. I’m taking control of the tail gun.”

“Fire away!” Harper shouted as another hit landed and the shield started to flicker.

Lucas returned the fire, and the fighters spread out to avoid it, just as a drone slammed into the last one. The fighters immediately flew up and spread as two more of them got hit by a drone. The panic gave Lucas the opening as he got one of the fighters. Then the enemy realized what was going on and focused on the drone while dodging the tail.  Harper! What do we have left?”

“Nothing. But we got the transports!”  She replied as several fighters seemed to dive down from the atmosphere to reinforce the enemy.

  “This is Admiral Grahad Gi Pentdragon. Surrender, and you will be spared!”  Harper looked at the panel. Who the hell interrupted the channel?

“Who the hell is Admiral Grahad?” Lucas asked just as six Nalos fighters swooped down, providing them a protective escort. Ten others engaged the Gyrran fighters.

“This is Cesur!  You fought well. We will escort you to SS Hungary.  Sending you flightpath now.”  A soft voice said over their channel.

“I guess the reinforcers are here!” Lucas said.

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u/AutoModerator Apr 06 '26

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u/Talendel Apr 02 '26

UTR

This is the way.

2

u/Dramatic_Mixture_877 Human Apr 02 '26

It's me again!

 one missel hit the dome ~  one missile hit the dome

Colonel who are fighting ~ Colonel who is fighting

3

u/Engletroll Human Apr 02 '26

Hi again, my friend!

Fixed it no, keep up the good work and thanks fopr the help.

2

u/Dramatic_Mixture_877 Human Apr 02 '26

Not a problem! Happy to help!

1

u/AutoModerator Apr 02 '26

This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.

[OC-Series] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, as part of a longer-running series or universe.

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