Ravens of Eternity

100 Chaos Theory, Pt The galaxy spun back into place as everyone ported into unfamiliar space. Every fighter slowed as the pilots shook off their dizziness and disorientation.

Both fleets had ended up near a mostly ocean planet. Many large domed cities littered its surface and multiple stations floated in its orbit. No-one had seen it before, and couldn’t identify it at all.

On the bridge, the Admiral took initiative and ordered all her drones and fighters to move back to her position. Not knowing where they were, she intended to turtle up and keep her remaining forces tight.

She spoke, but her voice was somewhat distant, as though she was waking up from a dream.

“Recall all units to our position,” she ordered. “And report on field status.”

One of her officers shook her head to clear it, then tapped on the terminal in front of her. An array of numbers scrolled past. She responded after reviewing it for a few moments.

“Enemy forces reduced nearly one quarter – fighters are down to 1,414 and frigates are down to 9. Our side has suffered relatively fewer losses. We’re down to 424 fighters and 1,127 drones.”

The Admiral grinned with absolute satisfaction. The pirates had been reduced to less than half since the very start of their attack. She too had suffered casualties – but they were mostly drones and were easily replaceable.

At the moment, they had similar numbers, but the pirates still had more frigates. But with Eva around, she wasn’t too worried about them. Instead, she was rather more concerned about where they were.

.....

“What’re our coordinates?”

Another officer tapped on his controls and opened up a full galaxy map of the Milky Way. He marked their fleet, and a ping appeared in one of the sectors. As he zoomed in on their location, he paled further and further.

“Oh no,” he muttered. “We-We’re in the middle of Drogar space...”

Everyone went quiet the moment he said that. This was the last place anyone wanted to be. Not the Federation, or the Hegemony, or even the pirates themselves. Truly, not a single living human wanted to be there, not in the slightest.

The Admiral was dumbstruck by the revelation. It made absolutely no sense to her.

“Why’d these pirates bring us all the way out here? Are they suicidal?”

Miko came on the comms display and responded to the Admiral directly.

“They did not intend for us to be here,” she said. “I randomized their destination at the very last moment. Is this a bad location? What is a Dro-gar?”

Miko recalled that conversation she and Eva had with Jackson Stone. They discussed at length about all of the threats that they had programmed into the game. While they had come across some of them, he never once mentioned the Drogar.

Or Godeater for that matter.

With a hoarse voice and dry throat, the Admiral replied.

“A brutal, warlike species. Their entire civilization is based on warfare, death, destruction. They’re bipedal monsters with incredible intelligence and cunning.”

“So, just like humans, then?” Eva asked.

As per orders, she had fallen back and slid up alongside the Admiral’s frigate. And now that she wasn’t immediately in the line of fire, she felt free to interject.

“Er, yes, I suppose like humans. Except they’re reptilian rather than mammalian, and much larger. Perhaps two and a half meters tall? Let’s just say most of them are larger than most of us.”

As they spoke, the pirate frigates moved into position in an offensive group and gathered their fighters together as well. It appeared as though they were preparing to launch an offensive against the Admiral.

They began to advance on their positions aggressively. A few even began to fire at them.

“Ready for the next round?” asked Eva. “‘Coz I am.”

She had already targeted Merlin and Valos’ frigate, as well as identified all of its subsystems. Without a doubt, she was more than ready to tear it to pieces.

But before the Admiral could issue any new orders, an alert suddenly rang through the bridge. One of her officers immediately cried out, her voice filled with anxiety and dread.

“Admiral!” she yelled. “Incoming Drogar port! Thousands, ma’am, thousands!”

“All units engage evasive maneuvers if you’re shot at. And depower all weapon systems! I repeat: depower all weapon systems immediately! Do not return fire!”

Flashes of light appeared all around them as dozens of Drogar warships and thousands of fighters ported in.

It was the first time many of them had seen them, and were overwhelmed at the sight. Unlike the angles ever present in human ship design, Drogar ships looked far more organic.

They were armored in chitinous segments, and the fighters employed dangerous-looking elongated claw-like weapons on their ships. Each one had one up top and two on the bottom, all of which were spaced out equilaterally.

The capital ships were also of similar design – they had powerful weapons but were mostly front-facing. Although they had some turrets along their broadsides, they looked more defensive in nature.

Eva felt a wave of dread spread through her just looking at their ships. A quick scan of their systems showed that they were nimbler and more devastating than Federation ships of their class.

“We’ve got a nonaggression treaty with the Drogar at this time,” said the Admiral. “We’re not gonna be the first ones to break it! So keep your cool!”

The Drogar fleet commander came on everyone’s comms display. And like the Admiral had said – he was reptilian in nature. The eyes on his elongated face were slitted, and his scaly skin was a beautiful gradient of multiple blues. Attractive spines ran along the edges of his profile.

Eva was reminded of Komodo Dragons the moment she saw him. If they evolved into huge bipedal monstrosities, at least. And his speech was completely unknown to her, but her core automatically translated for her. She assumed the same was happening for everyone else as well.

To her surprise his voice was rather melodic in nature.

“I am the Swarmfather Retholis,” he said, “Commander of the Drogar Empire’s Third Defensive Fleet. And you are all deep within Drogar territory. This is a clear violation of every agreement we have with you mammals. Cease all hostilities and explain yourselves. Or be annihilated.”

Valos didn’t even hesitate to respond. Just like the Admiral, he knew the risks of offending the Drogar, especially one with this high of a rank.

“Ah, great Retholis,” said Valos. “I’m known as Valos, a Discordian Templar. I deeply apologize for the incursion. Our intent was to steal this asteroid from these Federation scum. However, our navigation systems... appear to have glitched and sent us here by mistake. We didn’t mean to offend!”

Retholis stroked the spines coming down from his chin as he mused over the humans’ situation. He responded after only a few moments of thought.

“Very well, Templar. Since this was performed in error, then a slap on the wrist is appropriate. Offer me half of your forces as sacrifice, and you may leave unharmed.”

“Th-that’s insane! You wanna kill half of us?”

“Would you rather offer all of your forces instead?”

Valos paled, then quickly relented. He immediately cut off half of his fleet, surrendered them to the Drogar, and backed away with the rest.

The pirates he had sacrificed didn’t even have the time to get angry and retaliate against him. Drogar fighters and frigates blasted them with devastating bolts of energy. Their orange glow screamed towards their targets like tiny meteorites, and shattered them to pieces with utmost efficiency.

It took perhaps only two or three good hits for them to wreck a single pirate fighter. The larger bolts were equally devastating against the frigates, which were annihilated with ease.

Through her core, Eva noticed that their meteorite projectiles were highly-charged slugs encased in disruption plasma. They ripped through the pirates’ electronics and armor with equal strength.

She noted just how well-tuned their weapons were. And they far exceeded the pirates’ weapons by far. The Drogar were clearly more technologically advanced than the Federation was as well. So she sent her scanned data over to Miko via her DI. Maybe they could do something with that info.

Valos didn’t wait for the massacre to finish. He and the scraps of his fleet ported away in a blinding flash, his tail between his legs.

“Admiral,” said Eva. “They’ve still got the core.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” the Admiral replied. “Besides, I’ve got a little surprise for them. As if I’d be stupid enough not to employ anti-theft measures on all my prototypes. Especially with Prometheus.”

“And now, Federation mammals,” said Retholis. “What shall we do with you, hmm? Shall we sacrifice you to the cosmos as well?”

The Admiral knew there was absolutely nothing she could do. Their tiny fleet was nothing compared to theirs. Far from home and with no reinforcements coming, she said the only thing that she could.

“In accordance with the Andromeda Treaty of 554 Tau-Omega, we surrender to you. As this asteroid and all of its assets, which include myself and my fleet here, were stolen by the pirates, it is classified as spoils of conflict.”

Retholis smiled widely and bared his jagged teeth.

“Oh, how interesting! And as I have defeated those pirate mammals as a member of the Empire, you are now my prisoners of war. Very clever of you...”

He paused and waited for her to introduce herself. She immediately understood his intent and replied quickly.

“Admiral Chase, Head of Experimental Weapons Research, Federation Navy.”

“...Admiral. Researcher. Weapons. Yes, you and your rock appear to be worth quite a ransom. This is valuable to me. On behalf of the Drogar Empire, I, Swarmfather Retholis accept your surrender.”

“Can you guarantee the safety of my people and my research?”

Retholis nodded easily.

“You shall all remain unspoiled. Come aboard my flagship, Admiral. Unarmed. We will discuss further details on the planet below.”

~

Valos and what remained of his ships ported back to the main fleet. His face was grim and hard, having lost too much in that fight. He knew how much of a risk he was taking, but was incredibly confident of his own victory.

In fact, this was the first time in a very long time that he had lost. He had been a pro strategy gamer back in his old life on Earth and won a ton of championships. How he lost this one was completely out of the blue!

Some megapilot had wrecked three of his heavy frigates, and some superhacker broke into his databank and wrecked everything else.

With a deep curse, he vowed to find whoever they were, and blast them into a million pieces.

“Cheer up,” said Merlin. “At least you still got one of the Prometheus Cores. Those things are still gold, man. I know it’s not gonna be trillions or quadrillions or whatever... But it’s better than nothing.”

Valos nodded, but the sour taste never faded.

Down below, one of the MFDs on the Prometheus Core turned on. The screen on it read ‘Tartarus Signal Not Detected’. Under it was a counter that started at 100, but counted down swiftly.

When it hit zero, the screen switched to ‘Core Wipe Initiated’. And under that was a counter that started at 10, and counted down one per second.

The moment it hit zero, all the MFDs and lights flashed off. After a few moments, they flashed back on again, as though the system was rebooting. A percentage meter appeared on the middle screen, and it quickly spun up towards 100%.

But it didn’t stop. In fact, it kept on going past 110... 120... 130...

‘Limiters Disabled’ flashed red on one of the other screens. Another flashed ‘Automax Power’. A third flashed ‘Exceeding Safe Operating Thresholds’.

Once the percentage reached 150, it was replaced by ‘Self Destruct Initiated’, and all of the lights inside the core turned red.

A soft klaxon bounced around inside the core as the power plant overcharged its own cells beyond capacity. Power poured out of it and into every system and module and overloaded them.

Electricity arced up and down its housing as fissures began to appear all over the surface. It finally ruptured in a great ball of fire, which consumed the fighter itself.

.....

The frigate was ripped open by the explosion caused by the Prometheus Core, and many pirates who were in those decks were thrown out into space. Although it didn’t take out the whole ship, it did leave a gaping hole behind it and rendered it useless.

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