Kari Zel has seen her fair share of battles: growing up under the repressive regime of Demeter she has witnessed many futile attempts at rebellion, and during her time as a member of the Vanguard she’s been at the front seat of way too many military engagements.
But the last two weeks have been something else: Hera’s forces are constantly engaging the Egyptian fleet and they’re not making much progress. Hera does have some pretty formidable ships, but they’re clearly not enough to defend an incredibly vast territory. Most of the planets in the Zeus sector are even more primitive than Earth; almost none of them have achieved spaceflight.
If the Egyptians wanted to simply kill everyone, the war would already be over. But there are more than a thousand planets in the Zeus sector, and convincing every single one of them to worship a pantheon they’ve never heard of is proving to be a very slow process.
Kari is acting as the commanding officer of the N09-Chernobog, one of the ships that Noriko gave to the Covenant, the galactic resistance movement that she created. Another Kari is the pilot: there’s half a dozen Kari duplicates on board. She couldn’t spare any others: normally she’d be able to create up to ten thousand duplicates, but since her original body back on Myridia is currently pregnant she can’t create any new ones.
<We are approaching the border of the Hera sector, miss Zel.> the ship informs her.
<Thank you L.O.K.I. Shields up as soon as we drop below lightspeed.> she tells the ship’s artificial intelligence.
Then the viewscreen shows the images of the current battle: it’s an incredibly confusing mess, with hundreds of ships firing all kinds of weapons against each other in an incomprehensible dance.
<Status report. What’s going on?>
<Scanning. I have identifies 974 Egyptian and 261 Greek ships. Correction: 259. Correction: 256.>
<They’re getting slaughtered! Can we call for backup?>
<Communications and long-range scanners are being jammed. Suggested action: retreat.>
<Scr#w that. This is a warship with a hull of neutral matter, they don’t have anything that can even scratch us. What’s the most powerful weapon we have on board?>
<Ionic Plasma Cannons. We can fire one shot per minute; I estimate it will take 5 to 7 shots to destroy each ship. Assuming we don’t miss, we will need from 3 hours and 15 minutes up to…>
<That’s way too slow. Shouldn’t we be able to fire a black hole from this thing?>
<The Negative Drive can be converted into a Black Hole Generator, yes. Our odds to escape its activation are 0.001%. Should I proceed?>
<Uhm, on second thought, I don’t feel particularly lucky today.> Kari admits, right when the ship is shaken uncontrollably.
<Case in point… what’s going on?>
<We are under attack by an unknown lifeform. Extrapolating data.> L.O.K.I. says, showing on the viewscreen a computer image: it’s a woman with the tail of a scorpion instead of legs, and she’s so big that she’s holding the ship in her hands.
<You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s Serket!>
<Pressure is increasing. Shield failure in ten seconds.>
<Fire everything we have as soon as they’re down!> she orders. L.O.K.I. obeys, and the ship is quickly surrounded by a cloud of pure destruction. Kari waits patiently for it to disappear… and when it does, the viewscreen shows the cleavage of a very annoyed goddess.
<That’s not the worst way to go.> Kari quips, then she loses her balance and is violently thrown against the wall when the ship experiences an extremely sudden acceleration.
Only her superior Myridian physiology allows her to remain conscious, although very confused when the whole ship is upside down.
<What just happened!?>
<Serket threw us at the planet and is currently wrapping her tail around us. Hull pressure is over 700 gigapascal and increasing.>
<Is… is that a lot?>
<More than twice the pressure of Earth’s core. The hull’s Neutral Matter can resist indefinitely.>
<Okay, then let’s get started on that black hole thing. I hate to lose duplicates, but…>
<Intruder alert. Biological material inside the circ#%$@[ corrupt data f#~£$%>
<Uhm… Loki? Is everything ωηατ τηε φθcκ!!!> Kari shouts, walking back from the console once a swarm of scorpions crawls out of it. It’s not the only source: every corner of the ship is vomiting a disgusting quantity of arachnids running towards her.
<I hate hate HATE these things!!!> she shouts, trying to squash as many as possible.
Many of the scorpions group in a mass the size of a person, who then transforms into Serket.
<So this is how you people intend to fight us? With metal toys?> she asks, moving towards Kari. Two of her duplicates rush her: Serket impales one with her tail and grabs the other one by the throat, squeezing it so hard that the duplicate’s head is detached from the body in the fraction of a second the duplicate needs to disappear.
The main Kari duplicate gets ready to use her 10K Rise technique, but before she can shout the name her mouth is filled with scorpions burrowing into her throat.
<This was quite entertaining. I look forward to doing the same to your mortal friends.> are the last words these duplicates hear before they die.
Thousands of light-years away
This should really be empty space: the nearest place with any sort of strategic importance is several light-years away. Which might just be the reason why the official border between the Zeus sector and the Mortal Republic was placed here: nobody should really care about it.
Unfortunately, the Egyptians gods are very heavy on protocol: sending ships to take over the Zeus sector means they need to secure all of it, including this stretch of nothingness, no matter the cost.
So far, the ships provided by Hera are the ones who have paid that cost, since they’re both outmatched and outnumbered by the Egyptian forces by a ridiculous margin: it’s only because the invading army wants to rule the Greek planets that they have mostly avoided the civilian population.
The first sign of trouble for the Egyptians is a ray of light reaching one of the ships and suddenly disappearing. None of the instruments pay much attention to the radio wave that passes through the hull and travels towards the ship’s engine: for the extra-galactic armada, radio communications are extremely obsolete, and radio waves are completely harmless.
Unless they transform back into Quantum, in the middle of the engine room. The Earth human takes a few seconds to get his bearings, and the Egyptian officers do exactly the same.
They yell something in a language he can’t understand, and they waste the opportunity to attack him while he’s human.
<Sorry, it’ll just be a moment.> he says, briefly transforming into a mass of photons: more than enough to blind the crew for several hours. He could stare at the alien vessel for hours, feeling like he’s in a science fiction movie, but he knows he has a job to do.
It doesn’t take much to find the faster-than-light engine, considering how many weird particles it’s emitting, and even less to blast it with enough energy to leave the ship stranded.
Now that he knows where to find a ship’s weak spot, it’s easy to take care of multiple ones in rapid succession: get inside one, disable the engine, leave, and repeat the process over and over.
By the time the Egyptians realize what’s going on, Quantum has already taken care of a dozen ships. Only the last one requires more effort: somehow, leaving the ship is much harder than it should be. Realizing that something’s wrong, he changes into a holographic version of himself and studies the situation.
Much to his surprise, the ships he disables aren’t standing still: they’re moving towards each other at considerable speed, crashing spectacularly. He covers his eyes to shield his eyes from the light of the explosion… a leftover human instinct, since he really doesn’t need to do this… and then looks horrified at the result: a contorting mass of crushed metal that left no survivors.
<An interesting tactic.> he hears someone say, communicating through radio waves.
Floating in space next to him there is now a young woman with very long blond hair, wearing a white military uniform with gold epaulets and the red symbol of Ares on her chest.
<A little inefficient, though. You could’ve killed them by yourself.>
<Adrestia!? Where the heck did you come from?>
<I am the goddess of retribution and revenge. Few can see me coming.>
<That doesn’t answer my… look out!> he warns her: the rest of the fleet has opened fire on their position. He can become intangible by transforming into neutrinos, but she’s an easy target.
Or so he thought. None of the shots reach her: space seems to warp itself in a bubble around her, which Quantum can sense as a massive amount of gravitons. Adrestia doesn’t show any reaction at being attacked, keeping her usual detachment.
<And even fewer can escape my judgment.> she continues, extending her arm towards the fleet and closing her hand into a fist. As she does so, the gravity inside the ships becomes so intense that in a matter of seconds they collapse into hyperdense metallic graves.
<Why did you do that!? I could’ve taken them out without killing anyone!> Quantum protests.
<And?> Adrestia asks him, looking at the mortal like he just said something incomprehensible.
<What are you even doing here? Your sector’s not under attack, right?>
<I am the daughter of the God of War. I’d never let the chance of a massacre go to waste.>
“Why do we keep running into crazy gods like these!?” Quantum thinks.
Aetolia, former Hera sector
When Apollo conquered Aetolia less than two months ago, the planet was in the middle of one of the worst drought seasons of its history. The fact that Apollo decreased the intensity of their sun’s energy output, just to mitigate the effects on their agriculture, was considered not only a miracle but proof of his superiority to Hera.
A pacifist matriarchal society, Aetolia has no planetary defense system and its military force is entirely ceremonial. Since its vast desert are the ideal environment for the Naga, the reptilian race has decided to occupy the planet instead of just bombarding it from orbit. They also brought with them an even greater miracle: while the Naga assemble their base in the desert regions, the populated areas have been blessed with lush vegetation; its rivers are now providing fresh water, something that’s been a high prized commodity on Aetolia.
Everything seems to be going well for the humans, provided that they don’t live where the Naga want to live. One of the nomadic tribes finds that out the hard way: a battalion of Naga soldiers has slithered into their camp and is rounding up the civilians, even dragging screaming children away from their parents.
<The ssscreaming of the little oness annoysss me.> the Naga commander complains under his breath, while his second-in-command keeps him updated:
<We are behind in our tribute, sssir. Lady Nephthysss will get upssset if we delay further.>
<Very well. How behind are we in our daily quota?>
<Sssix thousand dead bodiess, sssir. We catalogued ssseven thousand rebelsss in the camp.>
<You heard that, men? We’re about to get a bonusss! At my sssignal!> the commander says, raising one of his four arms as the other Naga charge their weapons. Before he can lower his arm, a pentagram of fire suddenly appears next to him: the commander doesn’t even see the humanoid jump out of it, but he definitely feels the red energy blade cutting off his arm.
His soldiers are too shocked to understand what happened; the assailant jumped several feet into the air, and when they look up, they can see the silhouette of a duster against the sun.
<Cut of a thousand deaths!> Torn shouts, releasing a flurry of tiny energy daggers that fly straight into the heads of each and every Naga. When the Demon lands, it’s at the center of a field of reptilian corpses. Naturally, this does nothing to calm down the locals.
<Don’t be alarmed. I don’t want to cause any harm.> he says, pointing his finger at a lone surviving Naga trying to escape from the pile of corpses and failing when a red scimitar decapitates him.
<To you. I don’t want to cause harm to you.> Torn clarifies, walking away from the dead bodies when they start to sink into small portals. He senses three things on the other side of the portals: death, an immense power, and the distinct smell of rotting dead people.
<This is Torn. I have a visual on Nephthys. Track my position.> he says through the Neural Transmitter, before jumping into the portal.
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