Ravens of Eternity

457 Crushing Inevitability, Pt Space flashed brightly as ships of the Einherjar ported into orbit. Their black hulls just barely stood out from the void-black planet beside them.

Anali de Jardin stood behind the lead helmsman and watched as the galaxy spun back into place. Then she walked back to her command chair and took a seat.

“Status,” she commanded.

The holoprojections of High Admiral Halbrecht and Dreadmother Orsethii shimmered onto the battleship’s bridge and stood next to Anali’s command chair.

“Fleet in position,” replied an analyst. “Projecting tactical analysis mapping now.”

The immediate space in front of the three officers shifted and blurred as a holographic tacmap formed. On it were the numerous star systems that were surrounding Purgatory, Dendrus’ home system.

And scattered across nine of those star systems were the communications signals from the rest of the Einherjar-led Specialized Assault Fleet. Each of the subfleets had ported to those different systems deep inside of Godeater’s reach, on the far side of Godeater’s vision.

Some parked themselves next to celestial bodies that had been thoroughly consumed by Godeater and were little more than black emptiness amidst the sweeping darkness. Others were still whole and hale, though most were already devoid of life.

The ships of the fleet shifted their bearing into position as they waited for further instructions.

.....

“Eighteen battleships, two hundred and sixteen cruisers,” Anali said. “Let’s hope we’ve got enough to do some real damage, eh?”

Their fleet’s numbers and statistics flashed up on the tacmap in front of them, and revealed the various ships in all of the nine subfleets. More than that, they revealed which ships they belonged to.

Only a bit over half of the SAF actually comprised of the Einherjar – the rest came from all the other fleets that were there with them, such as the Imperials or Federation. Those whose old identities were gone, and all they had left was their will to live and survive.

Every ship in the fleet was outfitted with the Storm Disc Launchers underneath, though the cruisers’ launchers were proportionally smaller. Even though their discs were smaller by half as much, there were certainly more of them.

And on top of that, they all had plenty of ammunition.

“Operation Thunderbird has the green,” Anali commanded. “We’ll begin with Slingshot Array Alpha. Synchronize in ten, nine, eight…”

Numerous drones flew out of the ships’ armament bays with a single Storm Disc captured in their combined antigrav fields. They swooped down to the weapons themselves and loaded their disc into an open breach sideways from the top.

The disc dropped down into a wide chamber, and was magnetically held aloft inside. There, countless electromagnetic nodes glowed as they poured energy into the discs and charged them to capacity. They reached out with bright blue-white tendrils of electricity and practically infused the discs with energy.

At the same time, each of the coil segments along the launcher lit up as they too charged up with massive amounts of electromagnetic energy. They grew brighter and brighter as they filled up to the brim.

Once Anali saw that every ship was primed and ready, she gave the order to fire.

Every single ship in the SAF fired their massive gauss rifles at the same time. Those electromagnetically charged discs screamed across space in absolute silence. Not only did the fleets fire their weapons towards Godeater from different angles, but each of the ships in those subfleets fired in different directions as well.

Hundreds of Storm Discs flung towards Dendrus from every angle possible, all across the local sector of the galaxy.

And just like their initial trial attack, each of the discs skimmed planets, stole their gravitational energy, and arced their way closer and closer towards their ultimate target.

Countless planets along the way were slowed significantly, to the point where their oceans receded somewhat from the equator. Some had their surfaces visibly shift and crack from the change in weight. Gas planets contracted or expanded as the discs sped through their gravitational pulls.

Regardless of what happened to them, the discs passed on by without issue. Each time, they sped up more and more until they began to close in on Godeater.

Anali, Halbrecht, and Orsethii watched the holographic tacmap with anxious anticipation – they observed their projectiles fly through the galaxy in real time. Dozens of seconds ticked by, minutes even.

“Commanders!” said an analyst off to the side. “We’re getting reports of movement across Dendrus IV’s mirrors!”

Anali didn’t hesitate and immediately zoomed the tacmap right on Dendrus IV itself. There, everyone watched as the mirror stations surrounding it shifted and moved in every direction. It almost seemed to them like the surface of a great ocean, pushed around in every direction by a chaotic wind.

“It knows we’ve attacked it,” hissed Orsethii. “Looks to me as though it’s trying to find our discs flying out in space.”

Alarmed by what the drogar had said, Anali quickly zoomed back out on the tacmap. But before she could get it back to their full operational view, dozens of alerts flickered across her screens.

“Admiral, we lost track of numerous Storm Discs,” said an analyst across the bridge. “Numbers rising.”

Out in space, Godeater shifted the mirrors all around Dendrus wildly as it scoured the galaxy around it. It sent its gaze outwards, caught a number of the incoming Storm Discs, and planted its reflection right on them.

And from there, Godeater took the Storm Discs and turned them into shadow.

Although the void black shadow spread across those omnitronium shells and consumed them from the outside in, it didn’t change anything about their properties. They continued down their paths and skimmed planets and other celestial bodies as they made their way towards Dendrus.

Their paths had been calculated long ago, and their destinations had been locked in the moment they were fired.

But that didn’t stop the mirrors from looking out in every direction, didn’t stop Godeater from hitting those discs with its reflection. Instead, it found as many of them as it could, as fast as it could, in every direction.

“Storm Discs are entering final stage,” said an analyst. “First wave has entered Purgatory space…”

“Numbers?” asked Anali.

“One quarter.”

Anali grimaced alongside Halbrecht and Orsethii. Of the two hundred Storm Discs they fired, only about fifty made it to Dendrus. Those pierced their way into the system, spun down in speed from the other planets, and went down to Dendrus itself. There, they were quickly captured by the planet’s antigrav field and opened up their attack.

But what they couldn’t see were the numerous void discs that came in alongside them. They too came down and were caught in the antigrav fields. Unlike their untouched, unchanged versions, lightning didn’t erupt from their blackened shells.

Instead, their hovering inner cores burnt themselves to death.

Meanwhile, the fifty that made it tore into numerous mirrors. The sheer electrical energies ripped into the thin reinforced housing and down into the structure and systems below.

Circuits were slagged into each other as excess power coursed through everything.

Nearly two dozen of the mirror stations were annihilated in the attack, fizzled out, and fell down towards the shadowy surface of the planet. They brought down whatever discs were atop them and crashed into millions of pieces before it was all completely swallowed up by shadow.

Anali cursed loudly at Godeater’s actions. She had absolutely no doubt that it acted to defend itself, and was clearly aware of what was happening. Not just in its vicinity, but in the galaxy in general.

She, and many others at Yggdrasil were ready to accept the reality that Godeater knew they were there, somehow. That it had some kind of omnipresence.

This was pretty much proof, at least as far as she was concerned.

The way it made its mirrors move synchronously with each other, with purpose and efficiency made her realize that they were dealing with something much more than some vast intelligence.

But seeing it all happen didn’t just shake her to her core. She began to question her every decision up to that point in time. After all, it shrugged off their attack with seeming ease – an attack that took massive amounts of time and effort to calculate and plan.

Even their perfect execution of that plan was nothing to it. A sense of inevitability struck her in that moment, that it was all pointless.

Then again, she wasn’t about to let something like that stop her. She took a deep breath and recentered herself.

“Adjust the strategy for Slingshot Array Beta,” Anali commanded. “Then move to Gamma right after! Go down the line all the way to Omega! Resynchronize fleet in five! Four! Three…”

Every ship in the assault fleet adjusted their bearing once again even while countless drones loaded up the massive guns beneath them. All moved with absolute precision at the same time, and locked themselves into their new firing positions.

Then fired their brightly glowing launchers in unison.

Once again, hundreds of Storm Discs scattered across the systems, and skimmed by countless planets and stars and celestial bodies along the way. They tore through empty space as they gathered up more and more speed with every gravitational slingshot maneuver.

But just like the first wave, many had been caught by Godeater.

Its rapidly fluctuating mirror oceans peered in every direction and caught dozens and dozens of discs as the moments passed.

Whether it caught them or not hardly mattered as more and more of them peppered Dendrus’ antigrav field.

The nine subfleets adjusted themselves shot after shot and fired hundreds and hundreds of Storm Discs at Godeater. They flung countless discs out into the dark void, and bounced them around the surrounding star systems towards their target.

But no matter how many they flung, at best only a quarter made it through to do any damage.

And in fact, the more they shot out, the less they actually made it. After all, the antigrav field began to get more and more populated with voided discs. Many new, untouched ones simply tapped or struck or bounced across them, and were instantly infected with Godeater.

The blackened void spread across their shells, even as their cores spewed as much electrical energy as they could.

Although so many of their Storm Discs had been taken and swallowed and neutralized before they could do any damage, plenty enough remained of the rest.

Over the course of the entire attack, hundreds of discs erupted across the antigrav field, in every direction.

It was as though Dendrus was under assault from a raging lightning storm that raked across its body. Countless tendrils of pure electrical energy whipped across hundreds of mirror satellites and tore them to pieces.

Their insides were slagged and torn apart from the sheer power of those storms, more than enough to shut them down completely. They too fell down into Godeater as broken, useless machines. There, they crashed onto the surface, splintered into countless shards, and were consumed by shadow.

Following after them were the Storm Discs above, some of which still flung their powerful electrical energies out their bottom sides.

They too crashed into the shadow, and joined Godeater alongside the rest of the dead.