Ravens of Eternity

385 Devastation, Pt Lucifer shivered as ze watched the Erinyes’ main capital ships crumble under the power of the devastator’s weapons. Ze could hardly blame Eris or the Discordians as they ran far ahead of the rest of fleet, as fast as they possibly could from the battle itself.

Against a beast like that devastator, there was literally nothing they could do.

Ze zipped into the bridge right behind Xylo and her commandos with absolute urgency in hir step. Waiting for the commandos to take full control of the bridge was a luxury ze couldn’t afford. Not while the Erinyes was shattered right in front of hir.

As the commandos eliminated the bridge’s security personnel, Lucifer moved to neutralize the drogar battlechief standing in the center.

The energies of hir True Harmony filled hir as ze dodged his pistol fire. Ze juked him left and right before ze leapt at him with great force and drove hir knee straight into his chest.

The battlechief was flung to the other side of the bridge and slammed into the circular screen violently. Not that he even felt it – he was dead the moment Lucifer made contact.

His corpse bounced off the screen and fell to the floor, dead.

Lucifer hopped over to the very center of the bridge and pulled out a palm-sized metallic sphere from a secure container on hir belt. Then ze placed it right in the middle of everything, or as close as ze could get it, then stood back.

Instead of rolling away, the ball instead ‘melted’ into the floor and vanished completely.

.....

“Raijin,” Lucifer said over comms, “I’ve installed your Invasion Module. Now what?”

“Good,” replied Raijin. “You should have complete control over the ship in ten seconds. Maybe less. It depends on how stressed the system is.”

“Everyone on this ship’s stressed.”

“Maybe 15 seconds, then.”

While Lucifer worked to take control of the Imperial battleship, hir analysts and tacticians ran into the room. They leapt into the crevices in the floor and took control of various terminals and stations there.

Each also pulled out smaller metallic spheres and placed them on the terminals in front of them. These too ‘melted’ into the systems and vanished.

It only took a moment for the terminals’ screens and inputs to flash as Raijin’s engines took over. Then, their user interfaces switched from the Imperial style and layout to the Republic’s.

The tacticians and analysts immediately got to work now that they had control.

First, they fed their datastreams straight into the terminals, and displayed their battlefield data to the holoprojectors above.

Not only that, but they poured themselves into the system and pulled up all of the data they could, even as their own control spread across the ship itself. Whatever data they found, they filtered it with their own information and sent it straight back to the main Republic fleet.

Lucifer went through everything available to hir, even as Xylo fully secured the bridge. She and her commandos posted up at the only entrance, and guarded it resolutely. One of them placed a small case at the blasted-open doors, then activated it before he stepped away.

The case itself unfolded and expanded up and out until it formed into a robust fortification. It stretched out across the width of the opening itself, all the way across the walls. But only went up little over halfway, which allowed the commandos to fire into the passageway beyond.

Xylo ran up to Lucifer with a slight panic in her voice, and gestured at the devastator that wrapped around half the bridge’s screen.

“What the hell are we gonna do about that thing?” she said.

“I don’t know, alright?” Lucifer replied.

“You... what? Aren’t you the kinda person who always knows?”

“Gimme a break! None of us have seen the Imps field anything like that before, ever. How the hell should I know what to do against it? I’m not magic!”

Ze scanned through as much data as ze could in an attempt to find out more about the devastator. If only ze could find out how thick its chitin was, or where its critical systems were located, ze could organize an informed strike.

An alert filled one of the holoprojectors, which reported that Raijin’s engines had finally taken full control. Another reported that Imperial crew were attempting to retake control. Another reported that hundreds of security power armored personnel were headed their way.

But Lucifer was hardly worried about any of those. What ate at hir most were the reports about the Erinyes.

Their capital ships were all but utterly destroyed, and the Star Dragon was dead.

More importantly, behind the dying capital ships of the Erinyes was the rest of the fleet – the cruisers and destroyers and frigates and corvettes and fighters and mecha... And it seemed that the devastator was hardly far from done.

It continued firing its massive weapons at the fleet, past the shattered battleships and exploding carriers. Massive mortar shots slammed into numerous cruisers and obliterated them from the outside in. Orange energies swept across them as globs of corrosive nanites ate right through them.

Those with the thinnest armor were completely obliterated by the mortars – the sheer energies that wrapped around them were more than enough to negate any hyperionization submodules. And those corrosive cores were more than enough to negate entire ship sections.

Any destroyers and frigates that were hit were completely eviscerated by the destructive mortars. Entire swaths of the ships were, quite simply, erased from existence.

A deep pain suddenly surged through Lucifer, as ze realized that the Corvus Republic was on the verge of being utterly destroyed. That the guns on that devastator were eventually going to wipe them out.

Specifically, that Freya would get hit by one of those mortars, and be erased.

It was a thought ze could barely stomach. The very idea caused hir heart to thump heavily in hir chest as a shiver swept across hir body. The feeling was incredibly odd to hir. And powerful. It overrode everything else about hir.

And in that exact moment, ze knew what ze needed to do – get Freya out of there no matter what it took.

Lucifer opened up comms with the rest of the Erinyes fleet, specifically to every admiral and captain and commander left. And of course, every ship in the Corvus Republic.

“All ships come to a halt and prepare for a mass teleport withdrawal,” ze said. There was a firmness in hir voice that few ever experienced.

But not everyone was listening, not with that behemoth on their tails.

“Are you insane?!” said Eris. “The moment we stop moving is the moment that devastator will tear us apart! We can’t stop!”

“And you can’t keep running either,” Lucifer countered. “That fleet could easily chase everyone down and cut us up bit by bit. The only chance we’ve got is to stop now and port out before it’s way too late.”

“What about that teleport dampening field all around us?” said Aurora. “We can’t exactly get rid of it, can we?”

“Leave that to me,” said Lucifer. “Xylo and I’ve got ourselves an Imperial battleship, remember? We can overcharge our guns and rip through it easily.”

“But-”

“Hey, Luci’s never let us down, alright?” Freya interrupted. “If you’ve got a play to make, then make it. We’ve got your back.”

Lucifer choked up on hearing Freya’s words, and bit on hir lip to steady hirself.

“Freya,” ze said quietly, “I love you.”

“You wha-”

Lucifer then completely shut down their communications, and inhaled deeply. Behind hir, Xylo and her commandos had gotten into a heated firefight with the ship’s security forces. But ze didn’t even bother to look back at whatever was happening.

It didn’t really matter much in the long run.

“Xylo,” ze said. “It’s been an honor.”

Xylo looked at hir in surprise. Honor was a word that Lucifer had never, ever used. She then glanced over at the devastator, then nodded in realization.

“Do what you gotta,” she said. “No-one’s gonna get through us.”

Then she turned towards the passageway and fired her rifle with utter abandon.

At that point, Lucifer tuned out everything around hir and reached out telepathically. Hir mind briefly touched those around hir – Xylo and her commandos. The dozen tacticians and analysts who came with hir on this mission.

Even past the dozens and dozens of Imperial security headed towards the bridge.

No, ze reached out to the battleship itself, at its collective being and not just the individual systems and modules and weapons that made it up. And although ze didn’t have the Prometheus Core to help hir, ze was still able to make contact with the battleship.

Or rather, the empty hollow thing that was the battleship.

And despite the overwhelming fear ze felt, Lucifer slipped hirself into the void where its consciousness should have been. Then opened up hir mind to it completely.

Pain immediately lashed hir body, a stinging, burning, pain that was instantly familiar to hir. And yet it wasn’t coming from hir. It came from the battleship.

And as hir mind filled its body, so too did its body fill hir mind.

The body that was designed for destruction, but without its own mind, or own consciousness, or own thoughts. All it had was a kind of lingering, simmering, multidimensional rage at what was at its operational core.

As though intrinsically, the ship understood that it did not want to exist.

And because it couldn’t achieve a means to end it, there was a brimming need to erase everything else.

That realization plunged Lucifer into shadow, and allowed Godeater to slip through the cracks between the modules and systems. It broke through the thin lines of genetic data and code and showed itself to hir.

Or rather, showed its mind to hir. Bared itself, even.

Despite hir fear, Lucifer didn’t cower.

“Freya tells me you want to destroy all life,” ze told it through a thought.

Hir thought echoed all around hir, but specifically around the dark, nebulous cloud in front of hir.

It responded with a thought, a feeling, an idea. Of fire, of cleansing, of satisfaction.

Ze took it that it was agreeing. And also that Godeater understood hir.

“I do too,” ze replied. “I always have. Until lately anyway. Plus I hate everyone. Sometimes. And except for a few key people. I definitely don’t hate them. But everyone else? I want to kill them. I want to make them burn, horribly, painfully, eternally...

“And I want us to help each other do just that.”

A kind of dark happiness filled hir as the nebulous cloud flew straight into hir consciousness. A kind of dark alignment had occurred, and before ze could think, Godeater began to absorb hir.

It spread throughout hir body and converted hir bit by bit. It welcomed Lucifer’s consciousness into its psyche, and absorbed hir values, hir skills, hir self.

And in exchange, it gave hir a glimpse at the truth of all reality, of every reality.

Physically, Lucifer’s skin became marred with deep black lines like circuitry across hir skin. Hir eyes also turned into an unending black that seemed to consume hir from within.

With a grin, ze poured every ounce of True Harmony through hir body. And because ze was connected to the battleship itself, it too followed suit. Its own demimatter generators swelled as infinite amounts of power poured out of them.

They utterly overwhelmed every module and system on board, and threatened to cause the entire thing to burst.

.....

But instead, Lucifer opened up every disintegrator beam along the battleship’s topside, and poured every bit of energy ze could through them.

Dark orange beams crackled with wild energy as they slammed into the devastator. There was so much excess energy that its chitin was ripped apart violently. Shards were thrown around in every direction as Lucifer swept the guns across its starboard for thousands of meters, and gouged out a massive scar.

By the time hir attack was over, all of hir topside turrets had become slag – they simply couldn’t handle the sheer amount of energy ze had poured through them.

Although the Imperial devastator was far from done, neither was Lucifer.

While ze ripped a hole in the side of the devastator, ze also poured energy into the battleship’s main thrusters and charged forward.

Ze slammed bow-first into the massive ship, and dug deep into the wound. Together Lucifer, the battleship, and Godeater tore straight into numerous decks and destroyed numerous modules and systems and crewmembers in their path.

Then, Lucifer opened up the rest of the floodgates and filled every system on the battleship with energy, far beyond their capacity. And burst them.

Massive cracks spread across the battleship as every system and module and system exploded. The ship itself swelled as explosive energies peeked through the widening cracks.

Then, the battleship erupted in one massive, violent, calamitous explosion.

The devastator was blasted apart with such force that its entire front half broke into countless pieces. Its other half suffered a massive implosion as its demimatter battery ruptured.

In the end, all that remained of both ships was little more than hollowed-out ruins and shattered chitin. They joined the rest of the ship graveyard for all eternity.

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