Ravens of Eternity

447 Ragnar?k, Pt 1“I want you to know that I had much higher expectations of you,” Eris said with a hint of derision. “When I first saw you, you were just some space tramp. Now look at you, leading nations and fleets. That’s because of me. I did that.”

Freya pursed her lips in annoyance. She had heard words like these so many times before. The words were said by people like Eris, or like Grenn, or like Grizz. And they had been said in different ways with different words, different insults.

But in the end they all came down to the same thing: they all needed to assert their domination over others, through every means possible. Even with the dumbest words strung together in all of existence.

The words had little meaning or purpose or argument past that. And it was laughably transparent.

“And you’re exactly what I expected,” Freya replied. “A narcissistic, social parasite. Probably the best that humanity’s ever produced. You oughta be proud. Or wait… did you honestly think that you were the only one like you?

“You oughta know that there’s people just like you all over the galaxy. Nothing special between all of you, besides your crippling need for blind adulation. Well, okay, you might be extra special though, since you’re the worst I’ve ever come across. I mean, best.”

Eris was taken aback by what Freya had said – she didn’t expect to be called out quite so bluntly. No power-hungry narcissist ever did. The surprise was plastered all over her face, with her mouth agape and her eyes wide as plates.

Every word that Freya said struck her deep, over and over.

It didn’t take long for her expression to quickly shift towards anger, to the point where the Pirate Queen bared her teeth like an animal.

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“I was gonna spare you, give you a chance to reconsider and be by my side in all this,” she half-growled. “But it’s clear you’ve gone insane, babbling about things you don’t understand, hmph. As if you’re some kinda expert like me.

“Truth is everything in the galaxy eats everything else. Wolves, sheep, grass. Carrion, maggots, birds. Everything does whatever it needs not just to survive, but to thrive.

“People tear each other apart just to life. Not just as individuals like you and me, but as gangs and tribes and nations. I’m just doing what we’ve all been born to do, since the beginning of time. Survive and thrive, by any means necessary.”

Eris immediately narrowed her eyes predatorily.

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“And I’ll do whatever it takes to be at the very top of all that. To be the wolf over all the sheep, without anyone above me. That’s the truth of all life, and you’re too blind to see it.”

“And hey, you know what else?” Freya continued unabated. She brushed Eris’ words off as though she had never even said them. As though they weren’t even worth listening to.

Eris was the kind that needed to be the center of attention, and of admiration. It was crucial to her that she was seen as some kind of savior or hero. Grizz and Grenn were just like that, too. They held onto that ‘strong man’ archetype so tightly that their own machinations tore themselves down.

The Pirate Queen wasn’t the type to let things like that tear them down. Although she too was driven purely by her ego, she was also highly calculating and careful.

Freya knew that the best way to beat Eris was to completely unbalance her – to make her ignore the data and move carelessly. And she hoped that depriving her of even an acknowledgement of her position would do just that.

“We’ve been traveling all over the galaxy killing, eliminating, neutralizing people just like you,” Freya said. “Power-hungry tyrants and greedy executives and corrupt officials and overripe royals – dead in the gutter where they belong. And the real fun part of it is… you paid for it. Your own money helped put down people just like you.”

Freya couldn’t help but chuckle and shake her head at the irony of it.

“Don’t you dare compare me to those bloated shits!” Eris erupted. “These big, fat, disgusting nations are all massive wastes! All they do is suckle from the tits of the most industrious people! Like me!

“All I’ve ever wanted was to get rid of all of them! Humanity would be so much better without a single one. Hegemony or Federation or Empire. Kings and queens and ministers and senators and judges… All pointless, useless wastes! And hell, the only reason they even exist is because we pay out through our own taxes!

“Thieves, every last one of them. They all deserve to die and burn at the end of my guns. And that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. Reset the galaxy. With me to lead it to a better future!”

Eris flung her arms around wildly as she ranted and raved. She seemed so angry that spittle flung from her mouth wildly.

“No, Eris,” said Freya. “You’re the thief. You steal from everyone and everything around you. And all that you’re doing right here, right now, is trying to steal the galaxy. Which is honestly the dumbest thing I’ve ever experienced. ‘Coz it’s impossible.

“Well anyway, guess what? That ain’t happening. Because deep down, you’re just an unrestrained self-serving egomaniac pretending to be a clever human. Nothing you do or gain or steal won’t ever change that.

“And like I said, just sit tight. We’ll take care of your fleet before we come get you. If you think you can stop us, go right ahead, champion. Hit me with everything you’ve got.”

By this point, the Pirate Queen had lost all composure and become the terror that her entire crew had always been fearful of. But even Eris’ bridge crew had never seen her so angry – it was so palpable that they literally shivered at their stations.

With her vision a complete blood red, Eris leapt up from her command chair and screamed into comms. Whatever she shouted out seemed to be a mix of insults and threats and commands. While she raved on, she stomped across the bridge floor and smashed her fist on a few consoles.

Her sheer strength tore through the metals with ease and rendered those terminals useless. Whichever techs or analysts that were sitting there simply ran out of the bridge in fear of their lives.

“Enact plan zeta!” she screamed with fury. “Fire every beam we’ve got! Erase every goddamned thing in existence!”

All five Discordian devastators angled their various broadside cannons downward, and without skipping a beat immediately fired them towards the planet. Heavy thermal beams and plasma lances rained down towards Dendrus like deadly solar and lightning storms.

Each of them widened greatly as the devastators poured excess energies into them, and all but instantly dissolved hundreds of defensive turrets. Since they were pure energy weapons, they passed through the antigrav field with ease.

Then they slammed into Typhon Base’s Central Station.

They easily ripped through its relatively thin armor plating above, and chewed into the structure below. Countless beams cut deep inside and slagged or dismantled or melted or dissolved everything in their path.

Drones and people and flooring and terminals and circuits, everything burned and liquefied into each other with unbelievable intensity.

Seeing Eris’ attack on the station below caused a wave of dark anger to sweep through Freya. She should’ve known that Eris was also a cowardly opportunist on top of everything else. Knowing she couldn’t do any real damage to Thanatos, she struck out at the weakest option on the field – the de Jardin control room.

As that anger swept over her, a lingering darkness came along with it.

And she was suddenly swept up with the need to destroy Eris right that moment. She needed to right the wrong that was happening right in front of her. The shadow felt familiar – it was the same that had consumed her for so long in her quest for vengeance. It slipped over her and around her easily, as though it had never left.

The desire to destroy filled her, it was deep and dark and alluring.

Because she was connected telepathically to the Einherjar, so did they. That need to kill poured through all of them, empowered by Sekhmet’s Bloodlust. And kill they did, as fiercely and violently as they had in the past.

All became more lethal and ruthless even as Freya was overwhelmed by her own dark desires.

She poured what was left of her Ascendant Form energies into herself out of that desire, and Thanatos also followed suit. The ship pulled an excess amount of energies from its demimatter generators and poured them through its liquid circuits.

Both of them spun the massive graviton wave disruption cannons so that they hovered above and below Thanatos, then faced them towards Eris’ devastator as they charged up beyond capacity.

Space warped visibly around the cannons’ tips, as though gravity pulsed inward further and further as the moments passed.

Then, they fired their disruptors with abandon.

Waves of gravitonic disruption energy pulsed through the Discordian devastator. Its passageways and rooms shook and shivered as the ship itself seemed to creak and shift and warp. Everything suddenly felt heavier and heavier even as time sped up or slowed in quick pulses.

The ship itself became heavier as a whole, and began to get pulled down by Dendrus’ gravitational pull. Though its thrusters fought hard to keep it up and away, they couldn’t beat gravity itself. Not by a long shot.

The Discordian devastator crashed through numerous defensive turrets as it careened further and further down to the planet. But instead of smashing into various mirror stations, it crashed nose-first into the massive antigrav field protecting the planet.

Its entire bow crumpled inward from the impact so powerfully that waves of force rippled up its body. Sheets of armor plating warped and split and sheared off as a result. But its weight kept on growing, and ultimately its massive body fell down its length and was fully captured by the antigrav field itself.

It was pulled further and further downwards by gravity, but completely repelled by the antigrav field. As a result, it began to collapse in on itself, and crushed everything inside slowly but surely.

Eris was aghast at what was happening all around her. The bridge contracted, unable to hold up its own weight. Every screen cracked and shattered as the walls closed in. Terminals sparked as they were crushed while the lights burst and went dark.

The bridge itself was slowly collapsing on itself, even as Eris’ crew died all around her. The gravitonic disruption waves didn’t just cause the ship to grow heavier, but also caused time to warp. It sped up and slowed down severely in countless, constant pulses.

And that caused her crew to age severely while she watched. Their bodies became withered and wrinkled as time ravaged them. All those around her collapsed to the ground as the weight of their own bodies became too much to handle.

Many stumbled down to their hands and knees, weary and in pain from the constant and sudden shifts to their biology. Some wailed like banshees as their bodies literally decomposed in front of their eyes.

Others fell on their backs or on their faces, unable to lift themselves up. Time had taken their strength while gravity had made them heavier at the same time.

Their bones crunched and crumbled as their own weight broke them to pieces.

Eris could only watch in horror as everyone around her painfully turned into broken, desiccated corpses.

She flopped herself back down on her command chair, unable to bear her own weight. Although she was unaging, she could still feel her body becoming heavier and heavier. Sure, she was a refugee and had the strength of one. But even she couldn’t fight against gravity.

Even in those last few moments, Eris couldn’t come to terms with her own defeat, her own end. It was something she never imagined, or even wanted to imagine. She refused to acknowledge it was happening to her at all and instead sat in silence as everything around her collapsed and turned dark.