Sitting atop a chair carved from a single enormous bone, a massive creature; almost four meters tall, and vaguely resembling a blue-black crab, bar the solid skull projecting upwards from the rounded torso, with four limbs and two claws containing dozens of tendrils for fine manipulation, absently scratched at his chin.
His Majesty, King Jotun the seventh, was... enthusiastic. For a quarter of a million years, he had ruled his sector with an iron fist. Hundreds of worlds called him King, of dozens of species, and while the Empire was there, an ever-present overpowering force lurking in the darkness, they merely demanded their periodic tribute of a single world's biosphere every now and then to stay out of Jotun affairs; something easily contributed either via terraforming or conquest for a kingdom with resources as vast as his own.
There had only been one intensely irritating thorn in his side; he personally had been ruling his kingdom for over one hundred and seventy thousand years, ever since his father had first encountered... the Titans. These infinitely powerful, unstoppable menaces, content with remaining on their own world, had utterly crushed the fleet when it reached them, and slain his father. And while the Empire had a few Titans of its own, the Jotun lacked them; and had simply bided its time, waiting for a solution.
Every once in a while, one of their scout fleets had passed by this 'Terra'. Not too often; he feared provoking them into beginning a war that would be impossible to win for either the relatively small number of Titans or his own vast but limited fleets. But every time, the fleet had been obliterated with ease by the same old enemy; Cronos the mighty, ruler of earth, and of course, the slayer of Jotun the sixth; an especially heinous act as until his death it was believed that the sixth was destined to rule for eternity, and even someday overcome the Empire itself.
This time... had been different. The scouting fleet had discovered, amazingly enough, that while there were still Titans on earth, only one of the old ones still lived; Atlas; and he was hidden away, imprisoned somewhere. There had been a rebellion; the unstoppable force brought down from within. Terra had been so weakened that the scout fleet might have won the day, if only they had more ships.
Jotun gave a low, chittering laugh as he examined his screens. They would not have that problem this time.
His own vessel; the Claw of Jotun; was a ten-kilometer long behemoth, armed with six of the plasma lances that formed the standard ship-to-ship weapon of the Jotun fleet. There were two sixes of even larger vessels; planetary bombardment platforms containing vast facilities for the production of tailored biological weapons, mass drivers for extreme-range planetary strikes, and two hundred and sixteen sixes of assault vessels; equipped with both weapons for orbital combat, and a deployment of ground assault forces for each. All told, there were over 1300 ships in this fleet; and it had been less than 30 in the scout fleet that had easily overwhelmed most Terran forces. And only two Titans had resisted that fleet! Even if they couldn't kill those two, even a Titan couldn't defend an entire planet on its own; the fleet would either conquer... or it would exterminate.
Even better, his spies had reported that while more titans had been born since the last invasion, not only had they been slain; but the most dangerous of the titans that had fought off the scouts had died as well; and another fled his world in fear to some colony which, of course, the Jotun would hunt down in due course. There was, most likely, just the one Titan left to defend the earth.
One of His Majesty's numerous technicians approached; a tiny creature compared to the king; giving a low bow, scraping his carapace on the ground. "Your majesty. We have detected an unusual quantum fluctuation along our path."
"Oh? More than the usual storms?"
"Not... especially, your majesty. While the intensity is low, it has a pattern to it. Our sensors indicate it is a low-intensity storm that may cause some slow-downs but... normally they are more... chaotic, and it is almost precisely at the threshold to be rated low-intensity. I would recommend we divert."
"You know the standard procedure. Don't bother me with this sort of nonsense. If it's low-intensity, ignore it. At worst, it slows us down, or throws us off course a few light-seconds and we need to re-enter hyperspace."
The technician started to hesitate... but then bowed. "Of course, your majesty."
The king frowned as the tech skittered off to his control panel, pressing his claws into their holes so that his more delicate tendrils could resume their fine manipulation work. If the fluctuation were at medium-intensity, they would divert. Something low-intensity was either a low-energy storm, or a very small number of objects, debris in hyperspace.
Despite knowing there was no logical reason to be concerned, his claws gripped his seat firmly as they passed through the area... and relaxed when the ship emerged from the other side without a problem. He nodded to himself... before the same technician let out a squeal of distress.
On the screen, it showed that seventeen of the fleet had suddenly lost communication, being abruptly slowed down and possibly forced out of hyperspace by the disturbance. He wasn't too concerned. Seventeen out of thousands? Not impossible for a low-intensity storm. The ships should catch up before arrival at Terra.
The technician seemed unusually alarmed; withdrawing from the console, running back before the king, throwing himself down again to his knees. "Y... Your majesty!"
"...If this isn't important, you will regret having been hatched."
"Your majesty. seventeen vessels fell out of formation and off sensors when we passed through the disturbance. Twelve of them were the Bombardment ships, and five were the escorts of the Chain of Eternity. I find it extremely likely someone somehow laid a mine field in advance for us... and was targeting those ships and the Chain deliberately; the escorts took a strike meant for them, and more might be coming."
Jotun abruptly rose to his feet, a claw in the air, taking a half-step towards the lesser creature, rage filling his heart... and stopped. This... simpering technician had advised him to divert. His actions had shown both intelligence, and courage, in disturbing his King. Crushing him would be distinctly inappropriate. "Signal the Chain to fall in behind us, and six sixes to form up in front of us. Adjust our approach angle... and order the Chain to drop out of hyperspace one light-week before the rest of the fleet. Assign new escorts.. of your choice, Commodore. Choose a replacement and send him in immediately."
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The technician almost protested. While he was among the best techs in the fleet, he was the lowest rank of officer; it would be a decade before he could command a ship, much less a flotilla. But... this was the king. He sprinted back to his console to find the next best technician to take his place.
***
"When Prometheus made its outward voyage, I had them plant thirty-four mines. Seventeen to pull targets out of hyperspace. Seventeen to kill those targets. Thirty-five mines would have triggered an alert that would cause them to divert; it had to be thirty-four. No more, no less."
The figures around the table wore the uniforms of various nations; US, Russia, Japan, Germany, China; but while all of them were older men, the one speaking seemed... child-like. Perhaps 12 or 13, he stood atop the table wearing what looked like a grey bodysuit, and had a helmet under his arm; while the meeting was on a defensive space station, he was the only one who wore vacuum-resistant clothing, which gave the officers pause.
"I had two choices. Either I could use enough of them to kill the Chain of Eternity, or I could destroy all of their bombardment ships and delay the Chain's arrival. Even a single bombardment ship would be able to wipe out all of humanity within hours; so the choice was obvious. We are holding this meeting because the various possible futures finally collapsed. The mines have gone off. The bombardment ships are gone. The enemy will be expecting another trap."
He gestured; a holographic map of the solar system appeared. "Assuming they detect no changes from the present, they will be cautious on arrival. They will emerge far above the ecliptic, in this area.." He waved his hands around a small spherical region. "Scan the solar system, and then make a much shorter, smaller jump, to here..."
He tapped again; this time near the earth and Luna.
"We have approximately 47 hours before arrival. If we place stealth mines precisely correctly, we may be able to deal critical damage to their fleet when it emerges. Remember that light takes six hours to reach their emergence point, so the mine-layers will need to be gone at least seven hours beforehand. So... we have 40 hours to turn that little patch of space into floating death. Any questions?"
The Russian Admiral nodded. "What do you feel about our chances?"
"...Slim. If this were another scouting force, we would win handily. But the earth only has forty-two ships that would make a good match for one of their Assault ships, and they have brought over a thousand. I feel we will likely destroy several hundred with mines, and perhaps a few hundred more with our stations and warships. My most likely future predicts that they still have hundreds of surviving vessels after every human starship or station is destroyed, and they move in for the kill. Worse, their ground troops will most likely survive, even on the destroyed ships; they will be already aboard landing craft, preparing for the invasion. With over two hundred Jotun warriors aboard each ship... and thousands on the flagship... we may have as many as a quarter of a million Jotun warriors landing, and thousands of their assault craft."
The man shook his head. "We are doomed then?"
"No. We have been preparing for this day for a long, long time. A Jotun might be the equivalent of a grade B or A metahuman, but the catastrophic mass-death they expect to inflict using the Chain will never occur; any real chance of them conquering us depends on either orbital bombardment with dedicated ships that are now gone, or using our own tools to get the job done. All world leaders now require a back-up to activate their nukes, and no Titan capable of singlehandedly eradicating a good chunk of humanity remains on earth. On the plus side, they have less than two thousand in their entire fleet; so if we deal much damage, their enemies will fall upon them like dogs on a wounded lion. On the negative side... they will deal catastrophic damage over the course of what promises to be a very long, drawn-out war. The biggest factor will be who they decide to use the Chain on. But whoever it is... we will survive. Many of us will die. I doubt anyone in this room will outlast this war, including myself. But humanity will outlive the Jotun."
***
Gabriel was surprised when he entered his lab at Eyetech, to find Eyeball at work. He'd acquired a variety of tools and equipment, and even made friends among the technical staff as he worked to explain technology, and help with their attempts to integrate technology and magic; something that only Hephaestus had truly mastered, but there was no reason not to try.
Lately, Eyeball had been increasingly busy with running the security forces of the island. Building them up, advancing their aircraft, hiring more people... it was a strange difference coming from a man who, in the past, had barely done the job. Some days he barely even looked at the 'Rune Lab' as the sign on the door indicated. But today.. the forge was running, and Eyeball was on his knees before a small stone block, carefully carving; and in the manner of a proper rune-smith, putting a few drops of his own blood into the runes as he worked using a tiny needle he kept on a nearby table.
Gabriel was as quiet as possible; but Eyeball still waved at him absently as he kept working; currently sitting on the floor, sweating, just wearing a tank-top and shorts, his helmet and armor by the door; the room was intensely hot.
A few minutes after Gabriel entered the room, Eyeball laid back on the floor, setting his tools on a stone platform to cool; and Gabriel finally approached. "You've been putting this off for months. Why finish it now? I honestly felt you were going to have me finish the gun myself."
Eyeball kept his eyes closed; sweat pooled beneath him on the floor. "...Just a feeling. I'm probably going to need it soon. I've done as much as I can to strengthen La Famiglia. I've got my own personal custom fighter parked on the roof, Eyetech brand, and I can outfly just about anybody with it. I honestly shouldn't have a need for any hand weapons. But... for some reason, my instincts are telling me that I'm going to need it."
He looked up at the ceiling, frowning. "And soon."
***
Thousands of miles away, Ascension triggered a pre-programmed message; the first of many steps to prepare for the invasion, aside from sending thousands of it's units marching and swimming across the ocean floor. The Chinese navy had long been functionally hiding in its ports; foreign civilian vessels, or those owned by the rare few businesses outside the party, largely taking over trade; and while they had been working like mad to rebuild their fleet, they had not yet dared take them out to sea; the last time they'd sent a patrol boat out to test the 'Sea Titan', it had sunk a few miles out; fortunately with a Taiwanese craft nearby to enact a rescue of the crew.
Plans to hunt down and assassinate the Sea Titan had, so far, come to nothing. It was as if he were a ghost; and La Famiglia and the United States were of no help in finding him given the current political climate. While plans to halt construction hadn't been seriously considered, party leadership believed that if this continued for too long, China may simply need to give up its naval ambitions... and sell its warships to another nation, preferably one whose interests aligned with their own.
A device that had been carefully hidden in the shallows near the docks suddenly shot a high-pressure jet of water into the air... and a holographic projection appeared within it.
There were dozens of cameras; and hundreds of soldiers; watching the glowing fountain that emerged from the ocean, as a loud voice emerged in mandarin. "I am Oshe, the Sea titan, lord of the Oceans. It has come to my attention that invaders from beyond this world are approaching. Invaders who have no need for vessels of the sea, and whom my powers will be useless against. While I can never forgive the overlords of this despotic land for its crimes against my family and my people, I will allow this clemency; any vessel that moves forth to fight these invaders will be allowed to travel in my waters from that day forward."
When the fountain of water ended, and the hologram vanished... the device began burrowing itself into the ocean floor, working to hide itself... before melting itself down.
Even before it had completed this work, word was passing along Chinese naval ranks... and a single, experimental, patrol boat was being sent out to test the truth; whether the ocean would still remain the nemesis of the Middle Kingdom.