Ravens of Eternity

448 Ragnar?k, Pt 1The Einherjar all fought furiously and ferociously even as Freya utterly crushed Eris against Dendrus’ antigrav field. The same dark anger that flowed out of her wove through all of them, and caused every single one to stop holding back.

The viciousness of their prior lives washed through them once again, and poured all that darkness through their weaponry. And in doing so, absolutely massacred any Discordians or Federation in their path. Whatever few Imperials were left on the field were also fired on with wanton disregard, even if they were still trying to run from the fight.

The Einehrjar caused so much death in those few dozen seconds that even the de Jardin fleet was overawed and left dumbstruck by their brutality. Being on defensive duties had dulled them for so long that seeing such death jarred them deeply.

Though they weren’t exactly soft, seeing the Einherjar at their prime chilled many to their cores.

They watched as the Einherjar rained down destruction on their enemies and tore their ships apart as though they were paper. Federation and Discordian ships erupted as their hulls were perforated and shredded.

Countless crew were sliced to pieces or burned to a crisp or flung into the void or blasted into atoms. Any de Jardins who saw that on their feeds or reports gagged or paled. Not so much at the deaths themselves, but at the sheer amount they piled up in such a short amount of time.

Just as Freya’s bloodlust reached her peak, and just as Eris’ devastator was completely flattened, a wave of realization shot through her. Everything came to a standstill as it dawned on her what exactly was happening, that she was on the precipice of falling down that infinite darkness once again.

Worse, she brought the Einherjar with her.

All of them worked so hard to free themselves of their darkest demons, only to be dragged back by her. Freya felt incredibly low on realizing just how weak she was deep down.

.....

It took so little for her to slip, and even less to pull everyone down with her.

In absolutely no way would she bring anyone any further.

With her breaths hot and heavy and erratic, she pulled back on her telepathic connection to everyone and everything around her. And at the same time, she reigned in as much of that darkness as she possibly could. She pulled it all towards her with every ounce of energy she had left.

Freya grit her teeth as she physically strained to push it all back down deep inside. Both her hands curled into tight fists even while her heart and mind struggled to drag all those heavy shadows away.

She screamed into the air as she pressed it all into a tiny ball, then buried it deep inside. And once she was done, she collapsed on the ground right in front of her, physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

As her dark energies faded, and as her telepathic connection lightened, so too did the Einherjar’s violent brutality. That same darkness that hung over all of them receded back and gave them their full sanity once again.

The darkness that seemed to cloud their eyes and minds simply evaporated. And as a result, they eased off their triggers and pulled back from the very front. Many exhaled deeply – they were painfully aware just how close they had gotten to falling down that pit once again.

Unfortunately, Freya’s job was far from done. Eris might have been dead, but the Discordians and the Federation fleet were still out there, fighting as though nothing else mattered any longer. No doubt numerous officers in both fleets fought for command and control.

Regardless, they were committed to the fight, and none seemed to want to stop.

Freya’s mind spun as she pushed herself off the floor. Both her hearing and her vision swam and swirled chaotically as she fought to remain conscious.

She looked up at the wraparound screens all around her and did her best to focus on what was happening on the battlefield. And as her eyes refocused and her vision sharpened, she watched as countless mirror stations all over Dendrus shift ever so slightly.

At first she waved it off as an illusion, a trick of the light due to her eyes readjusting to everything around her. After all, her stamina was low and her optic systems couldn’t draw full power.

But it only took a few more seconds for her to realize that they were, in fact, moving. They were slight, but they were obvious.

Freya quickly pushed herself back on her knees and reopened comms to the Matriarch at the half-destroyed control station below.

“You need to deactivate Typhon!” she shouted the moment the connection was approved. “The moment you fired it was the moment that all the vultures came out of nowhere! If you fire it again, who knows what’ll show up next!”

“I-I agree with you,” the Matriarch stammered. “I’ve already issued a facility-wide lockdown and put all our systems into standby. I’m cycling up the self-destruct, and-”

“No, absolutely not!” said the Grand Parliamentarian. “Shut down, yes. Self-destruct, no. Like I said before, we spent far too many ducats on this base to simply throw it aside! And besides, none of us have the individual authority to make that decision in the first place!”

“Are you mad?” said Pavir. “We don’t have the time to call a… a… a council! We have to scuttle the thing, or we’ll be faced with enemy after enemy clamoring for control. They know where we are now, and they’re gonna throw everything they’ve got at us. Or did you honestly think this was the only time the enemy would try?”

As they argued, Freya was struck by something. A dread feeling washed over her as she realized something was off.

“Wait,” she interrupted. “If the base is on standby, then why are the mirrors moving? Why is the whole thing shifting? If you’re about to issue a self-destruct, why does it look like it’s aiming to fire?”

The Matriarch was taken aback, and quickly turned to the Chief Engineer for his input. He didn’t even need to be prodded – he was already poring through the data over his personal datapad. But he shook his head as he read the reports.

“According to my readouts… the entire base is truly on standby,” he said. “The particle generator’s shut, power levels are capped, instruction lines are gated, and motion systems are locked down. Without those systems up and running at full capacity, adjusting those mirrors is impossible…”

He then opened up his live feeds and watched as the numerous mirrors surrounding Dendrus physically moved and shifted. As Freya had said, it appeared they were adjusting their aim. His eyes widened greatly at the sight.

“Wh-what’s going on?!” he cried out. “That’s… That can’t be happening! We’ve literally choked off mirror control!”

The Matriarch also brought up the reports on the screen in front of her, and joined him in his incredulity. She tapped numerous touch controls to change and readjust the mirrors manually. And although her reports showed them changing as she ordered, the live feeds revealed otherwise.

It was clear that they had lost control of the base itself.

“Did we get hacked?” she cried out. “No, that can’t be! This system’s closed, too complex, too vast! No way the Federation has the tech to get in.”

“We need to get out of here,” added Pavir.

“So what if the station got hacked?” argued the Grand Parliamentarian. “We fight back against whoever’s hacking us and pool our coders to get it back under our control! Abandoning the base is the last thing we should do. We didn’t go through all this bloodshed to simply walk away and hand it over! What in the nine hells is wrong with everyone?!”

The realization dawned on Freya that the dread feeling that washed over her wasn’t because the mirrors were simply moving. It was because of what happened before it.

It was that heavy pulse of darkness that swept over her and the Einherjar. Godeater had touched all of them.

That dark wave of anger she felt wasn’t just because Eris had prodded her to that point. It was because Godeater itself pulsed outward. It had reached out and tugged at her. Hard. Its own presence grew significantly under this fight, a result of all those deaths.

And if it had affected them, it likely affected others as well.

She quickly switched comms back to the Einherjar, and faced all of her officers on the Tactical Bridge.

“Emergency port!” she said. “No exceptions! Get everyone and everything out of here as fast as possible! Friendlies, foes, doesn’t matter! No time to discuss it, just do it!”

She then left her officers in a daze as she switched back to the control room’s comms, where they were all in heated debate about the station.

“Last chance, Matriarch!” she cried aloud. “If we don’t get out of here now, there’s no getting out at all. Godeater… it’s making a move. I can feel its presence creeping up on us!”

The Matriarch went pale even as the Grand Parliamentarian scoffed. She even shut him up as he started to berate Freya on acting out based on her ‘feelings’.

“Quiet!” the Matriarch told him, then turned back to Freya.

Although she had been panicked and frenzied the past few minutes, hearing the word ‘Godeater’ shook the uncertainty straight out of her. Calm descended on her as she realized what had been happening, and what exactly needed to happen next.

“It’s just as well,” the Matriarch continued. “We… we brought this on us all. We created this monstrosity to fight against the rest of the galaxy. We used precious resources on creating this weapon, instead of finding other ways. We failed the Hegemony, and the galaxy.”

She glared at the Grand Parliamentarian who seemed to threaten to speak over her, and utterly silenced him with a single look.

Then she turned back to Freya, and gave her a thin, sad smile.

“You all go on and get out,” she began. “We’ll do what we can to contain-”

But before she could say anything further, the mirrors all around Dendrus stopped shifting. Reflected on their surfaces was Dendrus itself. Or, rather, Godeater.

Its vast empty void peered outwards through those many mirrors and pierced into everything directly reflected on them.

Godeater imprinted itself on its many reflections, and struck everything around itself with its own invisible energies.

A portion of the station turned ink black as Godeater’s shadow spread across it. Arcs of dark purple energy crawled outward even as the black void spread out further and further. Everyone and everything inside the station was quickly converted as Godeater spread itself out, as its darkness swallowed up all that it touched.

The station was far from the only thing Godeater reflected itself onto. Every turret and drone and ship above and around Dendrus was struck equally. All were imprinted with its void. As a result, its darkness spread across them without hesitation or interruption as well.

Its inky darkness crawled across the ships’ armor plating, down every layer through to the structure, and further into the passageways and rooms beneath. From there, it spread to every module and system and circuit along with every crew and officer and technician.

Everyone touched by Godeater screamed painfully as arcs of purple energy crawled across their skin. Their bodies were rewritten and turned into shadow, into parts of Godeater itself.

Even those in the Control Room were ultimately taken by Godeater – the Matriarch, the Grand Parliamentarian, the Chief Engineer, all their assistants and analysts and technicians. High Admiral Pavir and all of his officers were also consumed.

Everyone there screamed in sheer pain and terror as the shadow converted them atom by atom.

None were spared, and all were consumed.

Bit by bit everyone and everything around Typhon were taken by Godeater and turned into a formless shadow. All that was left of them were the echoes of their howling and wailing and crying and pleading, even as the undying shadow spread over everything else that remained.