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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Far-Help6106 on 2024-10-30 13:10:19+00:00.

Chapter 5

In the orbit of Alpha Centauri - 2 days into the siege of the planet

It had taken the Utkan fleet two whole days to control the space above Alpha Centauri. The Utkan commanders were appalled by the notion of space infantry which seemed to be so common among these Oomans. They thought it was wasteful and pointless to have forces that would die so easily, « like an ujak on a windshield » one Utkan commander had described it. The Utkan couldn’t fathom how a species could throw themselves in the harshest of environments with nothing but a piece of fabric between its body and the void. They had recovered the dead bodies of these Ooman fighters and poked and prodded at the white fabric of their suits, only to discover they weren’t armor, they were literally made of multiple layers of fabric. What type of species would send their own into the void with nothing but a piece of cloth between it and rigours of space? 

The skies above Alpha Centauri was littered with the burnt husks of Ooman ship, these space infantry who threw their lives away and anything else the Oomans could throw at them. The Utkan fighters fought to push into the atmosphere, they were met by staunch resistance in the air. Ooman warriors engaged the fighters in encounter suits. These suits allowed the Oomans to wield large weapons and hand held atomics. They weren’t as quick as the Utkan fighters and couldn’t survive being hit by their fighters’ weapons but it didn’t stop the Oomans. The Utkan fighters had to dodge the floatsome and jetsome that now littered the space around the world. 

Not only that but the Oomans also had a constant barrage of missiles coming from the surface. 

Again, the fighters didn’t find it difficult to evade the incoming missiles but, after two days of a constant barrage, the debris was making navigation difficult. The EM output alone was making any type of communication between the Utkan ships impossible. 

The initial barrage of missiles had been indiscriminate in its targets. It had struck both Utkan and Ooman ships. Shields failed, hulls were pierced. Light bloomed in the void with each reactor that was struck. Ships floated uncontrolled around the world and would need to be dealt with when the invasion was over. For the moment, the Utkan would have to dodge the increasing number of shipwrecks floating around, smashing into each other and creating more explosions that would burst in a sudden flash of light, EM and nuclear radiation. The Ooman satellites and shipwrecks were now giving so much radiation that certain parts of the space around Alpha Centauri were very unhealthy to station around.

But the Utkan had managed to take control of the space around the world in two days. Two days of constant barrage, two days of constant slaughter. They could now wage war on their own terms.

When they had engaged the Oomans in the skies, the Utkan fighters relied on orbital intelligence to determine where to engage. The Oomans found it difficult to engage these forces, not for lacking of trying. A good 90% of the debris in orbit came from launches from the ground of missiles and other spaceborn fighters that had been swept away by the Utkan. 

This seemed to have frustrated the Oomans who turned to alternate strategies, a strategy so crazy the Utkan had never even thought of them. The Utkan space commanders had not yet fully translated the Ooman language but they had managed to hack into their communications network and one of the command they had quickly noticed and become to dread were the words « Ramming speed. »

At first, they didn’t realize what was happening when one of the Ooman spaceships, a chunky ice hauler, had raced towards one of the Utkan drop cruisers and rammed it. But when cargoes, luxury yachts, interstellar pleasure cruise ships joined the Ooman Fleet and rammed the Utkan vessels, always howling their defiance, the Utkan ships quickly learnt to keep the Oomans at a healthy distance.  

From then on, the Oomans found it difficult to ram the Utkan vessels but there were a few cases where the Oomans had been successful in taking some of the Utkan out. These slight beings were putting up a fight. They had bloodied the Utkan’s space command’s nose but the Utkan were not worried.

The tenacity of the Oomans had taken the Utkan Command a little aback but they weren’t worried. After all, the Utkan strength came from their ground forces. Their soldiers were unparalleled in ground combat. They were deadly individually, performed ideally as a unit. They were able to think up strategies on their own, strategies that made sense, that were tactically sound but these Oomans and their strategies were… unfathomable.  So much so that, the Utkan soldiers planetside had became more than a little wary of any sort of direct contact with the Oomans on the ground. 

When the Oomans had rammed their ship, the Utkan ground troops had already been in their drop ships or had already been dropped and were on their way to the surface. They hadn’t been aware of the full extent of the destruction the Oomans had wrought. The Utkan Commanders among the ground troops had, of course, known some of their ships had been destroyed when they suddenly lost contact with it. But far from scaring the Utkan, it only seemed to fuel the warriors’ bloodlust. They had launched themselves with gusto against Oomans but the resistance the Oomans had put up was nothing short of madness. They had never seen or heard of anything like this. The Oomans howled in combat, throwing themselves at the Utkan soldiers without fear or hesitation. It didn’t matter who they were, male, female, infant. It didn’t matter.

As a rigidly set civilization, the Utkan understood castes and beings evolved to answer a particular need. Their own civilization was so rigid that individuals born into their caste couldn’t even think of a single task that concerned a field outside of their caste. Queens lay eggs, warriors fight, technicians build and scientists invent. It was so. 

But these Oomans were different. It seemed that their warrior caste was the entire population. Ulfni couldn’t believe that. That wasn’t possible, was it? There was no way a civilization could exist solely for war. There had to be castes the Utkan hadn’t seen, weren’t aware of. Could it be that these other castes were hiding underground? Could it be that the Utkan had already destroyed these Oomans’ nests? Maybe the Ooman queens had died. That would explain the madness. If their reproductive and scientific castes had been exterminated, it would explain the madness of these Oomans. 

The Utkan warriors were far from these concerns though. They fought. It was what they were trained for, what they were born for, what they were bred for. 

For weeks, the Utkans advanced, plundered and killed. They scourged the world. They rushed the streets, cutting down any they met. Their lasers lit up the night. The screams of these weak Oomans had filled the Utkans’ ears with joy. 

But as the weeks turned to months, the howls of joy died. The Utkans’ joy had turned sour. They fought on and on, killing these Oomans, slaughtering them by the hundreds, their males, their females, even their infants. Utkan soldiers’ had invaded thousands of worlds, made hundreds of civilisations bend the knee, slaughtered races in the dozens. The Utkan Command had heard of the Ooman nests that had been found, they had read the reports of the Ooman males fighting with fury when the Utkans had found their dens but what had shocked them was the females’ fury. 

Ulfni had watched with disinterest when Sho’Tak had lased a Ooman group. A single male, six females and ten infants. They were in a basement of a collapsed building, a dark dank room where Ulfni had had to use its infrared eyes to see anything. It was with its squad of six other Utkan, armed with lasers capable of cutting through flesh, steel and stone with little or no effort. It could smell the fear permeating the room. It made its heart beat faster. Its mandibles clicked in excited anticipation. Ulfni raised its weapon, the coil whirling to life. Ulfni pointed its weapon at the group and pulled the trigger. The weapon howled into life and unleashed a beam of plasma at the group. Ulfni watched in dreaded fascination as the luminous laser struck the male at the front of the group. Ulfni was fairly impressed with itself as, despite being one of the last into the room, it was only the second to strike at the mammalian biped. There was a flash of light, a scream and the male fell, a smoldering hole twelve centimeters in diameter in his chest. The room filled with high-pitched screams and howls but there was something more, a low growl that seemed to fill the room. 

It was coming from a female who was staring at Ulfni with utter hatred, its head low, its shoulders wide, its entire body coiled ready to strike. But what made Ulfni pause was its eyes, two non-facetted eyes that seemed to bore into Ulfni’s skull. Sho’Tak moved its weapon towards the group. That seemed to be some sort of signal as the female launched herself at the Utkan soldiers. Her claws out, her fangs bared. She was a female, a breeder. In Ulfni’s world, this sexed being would have been a queen, able to lay eggs for generations. Never would she put herself in such a situation. She would have had millions of warriors hardwired to defend her, there would …

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