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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Malice_Qahwah on 2025-12-18 08:53:50+00:00.

Was lorebuilding for another purpose entirely and this came out. Short and hopefully fun.

The Terran Defence Forces battlecruiser Fenrir screamed as she tore through Earths upper atmosphere. Shedding fragments as she died, antenna and armour, sensor domes and point defences burned as they tumbled away from her. But she did not die alone. Far beyond the orbit of Luna the remainder of her sisters coasted towards empty space, shells of steel and ceramic filled with the dead, surrounded by shoals, entire fleets, of the enemy who had died in their thousands to break even one of those mighty fortresses. Fenrir alone remained, her crew focused on the battle that they could not, must not, lose.

“Admiral, we just lost forward sensor array alpha. Beta and Gamme are still up but don’t have the resolution for computer targeting.” The yeoman standing between gunnery and damage control shouted. Her officer was dead, thrown clear across the bridge when the inertial dampeners had failed.

“Just have to take the shot on manual, keep an eye on the timer. Helm where are we?” The Admiral had no business commanding the bridge crew but there were few left to actually fight the ship any more. Like the gunnery officer, the captain, exec and several other critical people had been killed earlier in the fight.

“Gravity shot worked to get us up to speed, we’re thirty seconds from least time line of sight on the enemy command ship. Trajectory analysis had them tracking to get behind the moon, but we should have a five second window to get them in sight and fire before they are in the lunar shadow and we can no longer track a shot into them.”

“Five seconds? We might get two shots, guns, how are we looking on the keel cannon?” The admiral was grinning. If the Fenrir didn’t blow herself to pieces on the first shot it would be a miracle.

“Uh, let me…” The yeoman moved from the damage control panel where most of the board was red, or dark, and got herself aligned with the gunnery console. “Keel guns still live and charged. Four rounds in the magazine, and I did qualify on manual targeting.”

“Get ready then, we’re entering visual range.” The admiral reminded everyone as the Fenrir, moving so fast that atmospheric drag was less of a burn and more of an unending ringing hammerblow against the armoured hull finally edged into sight of Earths Moon, the ancient companion where twelve million people lived and over which the enemy had placed their command vessel. Thirty kilometres across, almost circular and five kilometres thick it was packed with landing craft, troops, weapons, laboratories… Never expecting to find Humanity in a position to fight back they’d played their hand too soon, attacked in waves. Ten nations who’d been involved in Humankind’s unceasing petty squabbles had come together like the jaws of a well oiled trap, ships and personnel and weapons turning outwards to face the threat from the stars.

And all that remained, of all of them, was the Fenrir. And the command ship.

“Sir they’re out of position! They must have accelerated harder than we…” the yeoman at the gunnery panel shouted, furiously recalculating her targeting solutions.

“Six seconds. They found six seconds.” The Admiral replied miserably. They could still see the enemy ship, but it was too close to the moon. If they fired now it would take ten seconds for the shots to reach the target, but the target would be out of sight behind the lunar horizon before the shots would reach where they appeared to be now, itself a one and a half second illusion due to the distance.

“Sir. Permission to fire anyway. I can still hit them.” The young woman stated flatly. Her hands were still on the panel, poised over the firing keys.

“Per… Permission granted yeoman.” He understood the wish. To do something, anything to say they’d at least tried.

Fingers slammed down and the Fenrir belched out her final cries, four lances of lethality, any one of which containing the firepower to destroy the behemoth starship which had so jauntily evaded their jaws. They watched, as the Fenrir's engines finally flared and died as the atmosphere burned through critical systems, as the shots arced across the space between Earth and Moon, moving at near light velocity. Watched as the first and second shots crashed into the lunar surface, blowing it apart, gouging deep holes into the dust and rock. The third blowing through the primitive crust and opening a vast bite deep into that oldest of companions and revealing the shocked and already tumbling command vessel beyond. Its surface was burning as liberated rock in the form of superheated plasma hammered into it, the fourth and final near-cee round catching it dead centre.

Fenrir fell, exhausted, her work done. Her crew clinging to her innards as she burned through the skies, the atomic fires on the surface of the world she had died to save illuminating her and buffeting her, until she crashed into the Canadian Rockies, her bulk burrowing deep into the bedrock, her final duty fulfilled, her battered crew of humans from every nation, every walk of life who had volunteered to fight safe in her depths.

Sally and Mabel sat together on the tin roof of Huboon Hotel, a blanket wrapped around their shoulders. Under the cover they held hands, and Mabel rested her head on her taller girlfriends shoulder as she listened to Sally’s story.

“So when the Ancients fought the Final War, for reasons beyond understanding, they woke a terrible beast. Slumbering beneath the Hills, she woke up and with glowing eyes she reared over the nations of the world! She was furious that they had been fighting each other. All the wars, all the killing of humans on humans, she had grown tired of it all. “Beware!” she howled, her voice a storm that swept fleets of ships from the seas and cast them inland. “Be afraid!” she whined, and the secret places broke open to disgorge the horrors mankind had made. “Behold!” and she raised her head, her muzzle opening as wide as the sea and as deep as the stars and she bit the moon! And through the hole was something so terrible that humanity was unprepared for! She snatched it in her jaws and devoured it before it could finish the great burning, and then she left, retreating back into the deep forests of the North.”

“Sally, isn’t that where your Mom is from?” Mabel giggled, giving her girlfriend a pinch under the blanket.

“Ow! Yes, so? Its just a story she used to tell me when I was little. The moon didn’t really get bitten by a giant wolf, that’d be ridiculous.”

“I wonder who the enemy was in the story.” Mabel’s hand wandered.

“Hey! Ahh. Who can say? They were the enemy, and the enemy exists to be destroyed.” They giggled and stayed under the blanket, forgetting for now the sky awash with stars and the scattered sparkles of the Bitten Moon drifting overhead.