Ravens of Eternity

432 The Unleashing of Typhon

Outside the station, the many thousands of previously aggressive ships had long since descended back down to the station itself. They all dipped down into the nanite pool they came from. And there, they were all quickly dissolved and redistributed back into the pool itself.

Once they were all gone, the ships of the Einherjar and the Republic also descended down to the surface. But instead of sinking down into the pool, they instead landed solidly on its surface.

There, nanite swarms flowed through the landing gears up into the ships themselves. They coursed all throughout every ship in both fleets and repaired and reinforced them from the inside out.

Because the station had a near-infinite amount of raw materials of every element, it was easy enough for the nanites to recreate raw omnitronium ore. Or even better, to recreate stable omnitronium alloys.

The simple fact was that the galaxy was richest in raw elements here at the center. The massive cloud that surrounded them was itself filled with chunks of materials, whether they were stars or planets or asteroids or comets.

Every manner of celestial object swam here.

In fact, that was how Sagitarrius A* fed itself – it pulled matter from any rapidly orbiting stars and pulled those parts into itself.

Of course, the station could easily reach out, grab what it wanted out of the much, and absorbed everything it needed. Its nanites could easily break anything down to its molecular structure and reform them into whatever was required.

And in this case, the nanites swam all throughout the ships’ structures and exoframes and laced omnitronium alloy meshes wherever they went. More than that, they reinforced any armor and chitin compounds with tight omnitronium alloy frameworks.

.....

Doing so vastly improved their defensiveness and durability on every level.

But those were far from the only improvements the nanites performed. The fleets’ weapons were made sturdier and more efficient. Their wires and circuits were rebuilt and refreshed. Their modules and systems were realigned and tuned. Their power plants and generators were optimized and stabilized.

The nanites even recreated ammunition and missiles and food and medicine. Everything the fleet needed to survive and grow in the chaos of space.

It was as though the fleets had been born anew.

While the fleet refreshed itself on the surface of the station, its leadership met on the Tactical Bridge. All of the officers of the Einherjar and all of the First Feathers practically packed the room.

Among them was Raijin, who no longer looked anything like her physical self. Instead, the hologram that was projected in her stead showed a woman made of pure electrical energy. Tiny arcs of electricity swept up her body, as though she was an endless storm of lightning.

“Our takeover of this station is coming to completion,” she began. Her voice seemed oddly harmonic, as though she was shouting from afar and also whispering from up close. “My analysis predicts it will take another half hour for all my code to propagate across every system. Even for the ones located at the edge of the Milky Way.”

“What about the war?” asked Halbrecht.

“What could possibly have changed?” countered Sin. “We’ve only been here a few hours.”

“Is that a joke? We’re at the center of the galaxy. Time dilates severely here – time’s moving slower for us than the rest of the galaxy.”

“Time is slower for us, correct,” Raijin said. “But not significantly. We lose fractions of a second out of every cycle at most. You would only have to worry about gravity significantly warping time if you fall into Sagittarius A*’s accretion disk. But at that point you have far larger problems to contend with than a galactic war.”

“I see...” muttered Halbrecht.

“But that does not mean the question is invalid,” she continued. “I’ve been able to tap into a far greater network than previously. And with it, I can see almost exactly how the galaxy is devolving. It does not look good.”

Raijin gestured with her hand and uploaded a refined version of the data she pulled in. She sent it straight to the tacmap in the center, as well as to the rest of the analysts and tacticians all around. Everyone needed to see what the state of the galaxy was.

The tacmap filled with the map of the galaxy, which was marked off by large color-coded territories. The largest of them crossed over numerous spiral arms, from Perseus, through Orion-Cygnus, past Carina-Sagittarius, and into Scutum-Centaurus.

Though the territories didn’t stretch all the way up and down each of the arms, they covered much of the space between them. In fact, the territories of the main three galactic nations encompassed nearly half of the galaxy itself.

Not only that, but over the course of the war, they had been joined by a fourth galactic nation, although it was still technically in the process of formation. It was still busy clawing for its freedom from the Federation, as its previously proclaimed Colonial Sector.

All four were shattered and fragmented on every side, with only the very core of their territories strong and solid and whole. At least, relatively speaking. It made it seem as though they were surrounded on all sides by countless nation-states, all of whom were warring with everyone else.

“All of the major galactic nations are fracturing significantly,” said Raijin. “What they leave in their wake are countless warlords violently claiming territory for their own.”

“Where did they all come from?” asked Anali. “Enemy forces? Uprisings? Can you tell? Do you have the data?”

“If records exist, Yggdrasil Station can retrieve it. And from the data I have thus far collected, the vast majority appears to be full-blown rebellions and hostile takeovers. There are the usual pirate and bandit crews, of course. But most are simply those previously in power, attempting to claim more of it for themselves.

“These warlords are led by the former clans and houses and corporations across each of the nations. Most seem to be fighting with each other, perhaps to further their territory. Perhaps to keep others off theirs. I will have to dig further into the data to know more.

“And I have yet to begin on the galactic nations themselves. Of course, they are still warring with each other, unconcerned with the growing chaos that surrounds them. There are still many fleets out there turning each other into dust.

“Of course, this is likely a manipulation by the former engineer of this station.”

There was a murmur among everyone around. They all knew things had gone bad, that the galactic nations’ grip on their own territories was waning. The signs that they were slowly collapsing were all around them.

But none realized just how bad it had become.

Every nation seemed myopic in that sense, that none could see the bigger picture. Then again, it was as Raijin said – all were subtly manipulated from the start. It was possible that the Administrator obfuscated the bigger picture as best she could.

“This is real bad,” said Freya. “We’re here to try to help the galaxy right itself, somehow, yeah? But how are we gonna do that if everyone’s gonna be hostile to everyone else? We can’t just wipe everyone who’s angry off the face of the galaxy. And not everyone’s gonna be calm enough to sit down and talk.”

“We calmed you down, didn’t we?” Azrael interjected. “If we can do that, then we can get anyone in the galaxy to sit down and talk.”

“I doubt it’ll be that easy,” Freya replied with a deep sigh.

~

The fully operational array of stations surrounding Dendrus IV hummed and vibrated in synchronicity as the mirrors themselves adjusted their angle. Drones flew all around their backsides and made numerous final adjustments.

Pointed out towards the vast emptiness of space was a massive barrel whose interior was a vast array of angled mirrors.

Floating above all of them was the large central station that oversaw the weapon that they had turned Dendrus into. Close to them was the station’s powerful defensive fleet, who ensured the entire station’s safety.

Deep inside the station, within the primary control room, dozens of analysts, engineers, and overseers sat at their terminals. Each one was incredibly busy and harried, as though whatever they were dealing with on their screens was the most critical thing in the galaxy.

Certainly to the Matriarch, it was true. She stood on a raised platform and observed all of the station’s techs work below her. By her side was the station’s Master Engineer and a member of the Grand Parliament.

Behind the three of them was an assortment of scientists, officials, and High Admirals.

The screens at their fingertips told them all that the weapon was finally ready.

“Target locked,” said a High Admiral right behind the Matriarch. “The Typhon Array is primed and ready to fire. At your command, Matriarch.”

The Matriarch responded by inhaling deeply, then exhaling it out at length. She then spoke with a deep sadness in her voice. Or perhaps it was guilt. Either way, she held firm all throughout.

“Our Hegemony has suffered the trauma of war for far too long,” she began. “And with such incredible intensity. In just these few years, we’ve experienced a kind of collapse that none have seen in hundreds, if not thousands of years.

“Our Houses have been torn to the ground as our planets have been razed to cinders. The souls of countless trillions of good people lie at our feet. All of them begging and pleading for us to take action, to take revenge. To save them from their fates, and to save their children from the guns of our enemies.

“And we’ve tried, oh how we’ve tried. We’ve attempted every method at our disposal to stop those deaths. But of course, none availed. Not against our ever-hungry enemies. For them, there’s no stopping what they started. So as such, we’re left with the only means left at our disposal – the use of this terrible technology. As cruel and as ruinous as it is.

“May we all be forgiven for our sins…

“Fire the weapon.”

Outside, the bottom section of the central station opened up and revealed a cluster of particle emitters surrounded by an array of mirrors. The emitters each fired a single particle which reflected off the mirrors down to Dendrus itself.

Or at least, incredibly close to Dendrus. Each one skimmed the very surface along different edges and caught Godeater in their wake. The particles were partially-consumed by Godeater by the time they struck the next mirror.

They were bounced all around, and sometimes scraped against Dendrus even more. Each of those times, those particles became more and more consumed by Godeater’s darkness.

Then, once they were almost-fully converted, they were reflected into the barrel. There, the particles bounced up and down its length through the many interior mirrors until they had joined together into a cluster and formed into a Void Quark.

The Void Quark was reflected towards a distant star, far beyond Hegemony territory. Defiant of the physics of light, the Void Quark also simultaneously struck that star and pierced through to its core.

It was there that the star’s internal energies shifted, as its absolute inner core was consumed by the sudden intrusion. And as a result, the star collapsed in on itself. Violently, rapidly, completely.