Ravens of Eternity

458 Crushing Inevitability, Pt Cheers erupted all across the bridge as the assault fleet’s attack on Godeater continued. Although it was only at a quarter of their original intent, it was more than enough to rip through hundreds of its many thousands of mirrors.

Their sheer destructiveness left the planet’s outer satellite layer scarred and splintered all across the surface. It almost seemed like a vast egg whose shell had been cracked and broken.

Despite all the damage they had done, it was still a fraction of the entirety of the stations. Although that fact certainly dampened their spirits, it wasn’t enough to completely snuff their hopes outright.

“Maintain the barrage!” Anali commanded. “Empty out every disc we’ve got! Do not break sync!”

As ordered, the assault fleet continued to fire their weapons in near-perfect synchronicity. Each ship would change bearing as they loaded and primed their guns, then fired in unison once all were aligned. Then they would repeat as quickly and furiously as they could.

But before they could fire off their 13th barrage, alerts swept across Anali’s command MFDs. All reported anomalous behavior from Godeater. Or, more specifically, the mirrors surrounding it.

She quickly zoomed back in on the tacmap to get a better look, and saw that sections of its mirror satellites had frozen in place.

“What’s going on here?” Anali asked. “What’s it doing? Is it aimed at any of us?”

“Yes and no,” answered a tactician close by. “Its peering at the celestial objects our fleets are hiding behind. Or, according to trajectory analysis, right at their edges.”

.....

Anali narrowed her eyes as she tried to figure out what was going on.

“What about past that?” asked Halbrecht. “Did anything get hit?”

“Yessir, numerous planets. Some already struck previous. The most notable one is a populated Rank 5 planet in former Imperial territory. Conversion is in progress. Full consumption will occur in 127 minutes.”

There came a sigh from a number of crew aboard the bridge.

“Doesn’t matter,” Orsethii added. “That shot didn’t affect us tactically.”

“Commanders!” shouted out an analyst. “Every subfleet is detecting stations and satellites in their vicinity powering up. They’re reporting steadily increasing signatures! And some are even adjusting their bearing.”

Anali, Halbrecht, and Orsethii were all equally shocked by the report. Their mouths hung open, if only for a moment.

“Survivors?” Halbrecht blurted out. “Maybe someone detected us, powered up, and are trying to get our attention?”

Both Anali and Orsethii immediately shook their heads. If they were survivors, why did they pick this moment to power up? And why didn’t they send any comms requests this entire time. Or even as they powered up right at this moment.

Both of them quickly came to the same conclusion, but it was Anali who spoke first.

“No… shadows,” she breathed out. “All ships, abandon all current attack patterns and prep for a full retreat!”

Every ship in the SAF that were already stopped de-powered their weapon systems and linked up with the rest of their subfleet. They linked themselves together through their teleport lattice and sat completely still as their navigation intelligences calculated and authorized their galactic shift.

Space warped around them as a bright flash of light whisked them elsewhere.

But those who were still settling into their teleport formation were easily struck by Godeater’s reflection. Spots of shadow spread across their hulls, even as their energy lattices began to form up.

The reflection itself bounced off the numerous reactivated stations and satellites, or more specifically, off their reflective panels and photoelectric receptors. They crashed in from Dendrus’ mirror satellites, and reflected them into the doomed SAF ships.

Its shadow spread across their hulls, down their structures, through their circuits, and into the passageways and rooms. From there, Godeater consumed everything inside: systems and machines and crew and everything in between.

Even as Godeater’s gaze bore through the ships and consumed them, so too did it take the stations and satellites. After all, their panels and receptors were never made to handle something like Godeater.

Tiny parts of it slipped through between the reflective particles and material flaws and sank deeper below. Godeater crept through structure and circuits and modules in tiny bits and consumed it slowly from within.

By the time the stations and satellites had been completely converted, so too had any remaining SAF ships. They turned into masses of void, devoid of life and movement and energy.

So, without their thrusters counteracting gravity, all began to descend down to whatever celestial body they were hiding behind. Each sank down further and further, some through thick atmosphere, most with no friction at all.

Those that crashed onto void planets simply became subsumed into the greater mass. There wasn’t any sign of their bodies shattering or breaking or bending – they simply fell in and that was it.

Those that struck untouched planets or asteroids or moons instead caused the void to creep across their surfaces. Godeater spread itself across those celestial bodies through the void ships and ultimately consumed them all in time.

Godeater itself paused for a moment as its darkness swept over those sectors, as though in quiet contemplation. Then its mirrors shifted once it had completed its counter attack and everything it struck had been turned to shadow.

By this time, the last of the SAF’s Storm Discs raked against its outer shell and became completely spent. Although many more of its mirrors lost all capability and fell down to the surface, there was still plenty all around.

A wave of energy swept through the mirror satellites that survived, even as the wrecked and shattered ones were subsumed by Godeater’s shadow far below.

Moments after, the mirror satellites orbiting it began to shift around. They slid and moved and maneuvered until there were large spaces and gaps in their coverage across the planet itself, like giant holes. They then angled their antigrav fields in a way that caused every single Storm Disc to slide down towards those gaps.

It caused all of those discs to tumble down towards Dendrus, where they were quickly swallowed up by Godeater and vanished into the darkness.

Once its antigrav field was completely clean and clear, the mirror satellites shifted around yet again. They spread out completely evenly across Dendrus’ upper orbit. And this left visible gaps between the satellites themselves.

But the waves of antigrav energies pouring out showed that there was still considerable overlap between their coverage. No part of the planet was open to attack in the slightest. Not that the planet itself was vulnerable to attack in the first place.

Godeater sat still for only a brief moment before a kind of wave swept through the mirror satellites. Each and every single one of them peeked up, out in every direction, just for a moment. Then they settled back down to their neutral positions.

Most of them, anyway.

Only a half dozen remained pointed up. Godeater’s reflections shot out in the void of space in an instant, and struck exactly half a dozen planets teeming with life.

Its shadow spread across each of their lands and consumed all of the vegetation and animals it came across. Countless wild species ran away in panic from the oncoming shadow.

But it was all pointless.

It didn’t matter how fast or how well or how easily they ran – there was no escape regardless. Darkness washed over everything and took it all.

As Godeater spread across those planets, it came across those few settlements that the Republic had planted.

~

Hundreds sounded the alarm at the lakeside settlement, and pointed out to the mountains surrounding them. Or, more specifically, the shadow that they seemed to disappear into.

Countless panicked immediately and ran for the cruiser posted at the landing area. They didn’t bother to pack or prep or anything – they simply grabbed whoever they were living with and took off as fast as they could.

Others were too floored by what was happening. The sheer hopelessness of it all struck them all at once. It seemed to many that it didn’t seem to matter where they were, or where they went, the darkness was always there.

It certainly didn’t matter how much they created or destroyed – the end was the same.

So they sat there and simply waited for all of it to come to that end.

Of course, a few simply couldn’t just lie there and die. The Magpie Investigation Company joined the few CRCD members in getting everyone off the planet. They led throngs of panicked people down the slate walkways, back towards the cruiser.

“Come on, this way!” shouted the feminine twin. She waved her hands in the air and beckoned countless people around her to keep moving, to keep running.

She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, more than enough time for the young guy to catch up to her. He too was helping usher the crowd, and walked slowly alongside while the crowd itself rushed past.

“Keep going!” he yelled out and pointed. “Get to the ship, quick!”

Then, he stood by the feminine twin and caught his breath alongside her.

“Shouting’s more tiring than I thought,” he said as his breaths came in slightly heavier than normal.

“It’s the panic that’s got me,” she confessed. “Don’t know if we’re all gonna make it. That shadow’s moving awfully fast… And we’ve got maybe what, an hour to get outta here?”

The young guy nodded in agreement, then leaned in so fewer could hear him.

“I think maybe it doesn’t matter any more,” he said.

The defeat was so clear in his tone that it shocked her. He was always the most optimistic of the group. In fact, just hearing him say those words demoralized her to her core.

He waved his arms towards the cruiser and shouted out for everyone to keep going enthusiastically. But when he turned back towards her, it was gone.

“Think about our lives,” he said quietly. “Ever since we got here from Earth, it’s been good, right? We helped out a whole bunch of people. Angered a whole bunch of others. Either way we had fun along the way. Lots of it. And then there was the money, too. All that came rolling in.

“But for what? For this? For it all to end like nothing we ever did mattered? Everything we fought for, or against… it’s like, I dunno, who cares at this point? No-one and nothing’s gonna remember us, what we did, who we changed. Not even us. Get what I mean?”

The feminine twin pursed her lips as his words echoed in her mind. Of course she had been feeling the same, from the moment that word of Godeater’s attack began to spread weeks ago. Except she held onto the hope that it wasn’t all darkness, that there was a way out of all this. It was the entire reason why she signed up to help populate these settlements.

At least, up until now. Up until the shadows crept up from every direction, all around.

“I know,” she finally replied. Also quietly, so most couldn’t hear her. “I’m thinking of staying. I mean, I wanna help people who wanna leave, leave. But after that, I think…”

She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. But the young guy understood, and nodded solemnly.

Then he waved his hands enthusiastically in the air, and shouted for the crowd to keep running for the cruiser.

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