The Jotun, of course, worked in sixes. Each of their Assault ships; a 250-meter craft which was the precise target for which every human warship had been built to fight, with 43 of them from a variety of nations each designed to, hopefully, take one on; had six smaller 'Assault vehicles'; which could carry its pilot and 36 Jotun soldiers. Not a tank, or a jet, these craft were as agile as a helicopter, capable of flight at Mach 9 in atmosphere, and more durable by far than any human vehicle built pre-invasion; with enough firepower to wipe out a city.

Jotun craft lacked names; the Assault Ship that would be the first to emerge from hyperspace simply had a number; and was generally referred to by the name of its captain, Grubbi. Inside the vessel, the crew were making final preparations; they may outnumber the humans twenty to one when it came to starships, but that still meant that a few Jotun craft might be destroyed if they didn't act with appropriate prudence. They would appear outside of effective lance range of the enemy; but inside missile range. Which, of course, meant that the enemy would launch missiles as soon as they arrived.

Hopefully, the Jotun could simply launch one overwhelming mass of missiles; obliterate all of the human ships; and close in to search for prisoners and useful salvage before beginning what promised to be a long slog of a ground invasion with their orbital bombardment options dramatically limited.

Regardless, there would be at least some losses. So even before the ship launched, each of its AVs were loading on its own crew and soldiers, and preparing; they would launch as soon as Grubbi emerged from FTL in lunar orbit. If Grubbi herself were lost, the 216 soldiers she carried would still be delivered to the surface. Across the fleet, thousands of assault craft were similarly being loaded.. with all the soldiers and supplies needed for an invasion.

***

Eyeball frowned as he studied the display on his headset. He had issues to deal with. Breaking in a new security chief, testing out his new gear, seeing how much difference the gun made... did he really have time for... Ahh. Apollo.

"Accept call. What is it?"

"It's time. Things still look bleak, but survivable. We could use you up here." The disconcertingly youthful voice was familiar by now, despite only half a dozen conversations.

Eyeball frowned. "I suppose you could. I built myself a fighter. But... it can handle the smaller attack craft without an issue, at least, it can with me flying it. Haven't figured out a way to really hurt the big assault ships using a fighter... " He looked down at the handgun. "...At least, for a reasonable price. I'd bankrupt the DoD for what I'd need to make a man-portable starship killer to take out that fleet, and need months."

"Eh. I don't care about your fighter. Look. I can see generalities. Every time I make a change, I get visions of possible futures. I can't shoot a pistol and know exactly where the bullet lands, I can tell you which beach the British will be making their landing on in three hours and what will happen if I warn the Germans about the wrong one. The bigger the events, the more I can tell you, but when it comes to the position of a single ship four seconds from now, I just have to guess."

"That honestly is incredibly useful when it comes to battle. If I'd been able to predict Ascension in advance... How important could four seconds be in the face of that kind of incredible prediction?"

"The Jotun primary weapon is the lance. An energy beam of sorts. It can hit targets up to twelve light-seconds away, but past eight its just a flashlight, and past seven it can't pierce heavy armor, needs multiple shots to do damage. Our gravitic sensors can pick up the location of enemy ships in real time... but the beams are stuck moving at lightspeed. So when the beam goes out to someone at seven light-seconds, it hits where the target was seven seconds ago. And even our stations have thrusters enough to randomly move around a bit, make that sort of extreme-range shot unlikely."

Eyeball frowned. The implications were clear. "So... despite an actual range of seven light-seconds, the actual effective range is much shorter; and the more the target moves around, the shorter the range. In combat terms, anything that doesn't home in like a missile is pretty much in knife-fighting range."

"Exactly .The Jotun normally settle in about seven light-seconds away, randomly shifting to make long-range fire useless, taking random pot-shots at slower-moving craft, forcing the enemy to constantly waste fuel to keep from getting nailed, and empty their missile bays at the target to overwhelm them in a single mass wave of fire. They get good, solid targeting down at that range, and don't advance until they've emptied out the missiles.. or wiped out the targets."

"...Seven light-seconds is still too far for me."

"It won't be by the time you get here."

Eyeball blinked. "Wait. What?"

"Look. Your powers and mine. They interfere with each other. Before you had yours, I could see more possible futures, it was easier to sort them out, I could see further. If I weren't around, I'm sure your own powers would work more effectively. And, well. None of the futures involve me surviving more than a few hours from now if I stay conscious and working. The Jotun get me, and soon, or the Chain does and I get myself; and once the war is actually started, my powers are no longer such an advantage. So. You get up here. And by the time you're standing on the bridge, things should be clearer for you."

"...Are you seriously going to kill yourself just to boost me?"

On the other line, he could hear a laugh. "Oh, no. I'm going to use a drug to boost my precognition as much as possible, its going to let me make more accurate predictions for the next hour or so, and then I'll lose my powers and be in a coma. I'll probably die before I wake up, but hopefully you can do something about that. By the time you get here, you should be the only precognitive on earth for a while... and able to designate targets for our ships and stations. And if, somehow, you manage to keep me alive, I will happily retire without my powers, should it come to that."

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Eyeball stared at his phone for a moment. "... Leave some of it for me. If what you're saying is true, there might be a very narrow window where I could make an enormous difference."

***

Around the world, final plans were being put in motion. The survivors of the previous Jotun war were giving soldiers last-minute talks. Anti-Jotun weapons were being dusted off, loaded, prepared. All the various facilities where Nukes were being stored were making last-minute preparations; making sure that, at minimum, it took two commanders to launch anything.

Valkyrie... was sitting on a mountaintop beside Odin, carefully winding up long strands of pseudo-neutronium; the element so dark it seemed to practically absorb the light. Odin's newest armor was... impressive. Dark grey, with various weapons attached, a massive gun, field generators... it could even reach orbit if it deployed fast enough.

And... it required a code-word from Valkyrie to activate, and a second code-word, only spoken by her, could de-activate it. She studied it for a moment; her own outfit was far more simple; massive black boots, distributing her weight across the entire plateau the two stood on; boots which, at a word from Odin, would deactivate and send her, and the thousands of tons of neutronium strapped to her, plummeting into the depths, where it would take days for her to get back out.

She grimaced; and felt her own weapons for the fight to come; essentially Bolas. Long cords with a pair of Neutronium beads at either end, she would toss them into space... and with Odin's help, hopefully strike enemy starships in orbit. She'd done it before with just handfuls of neutronium fragments; but the impact on the countryside had been devastating. She'd destroyed mountains with her missed shots.

If, by some miracle, the Chain didn't grab either of them... she could nail any ships that dared to cross the horizon. She glanced over at Odin. "So. These guys... they can't kill me. And might not be able to kill my son, by now. And they know that. Doesn't that mean that the obvious target is me? Just nab me, make me leap into space?"

Odin smiled. "I will be opening the doors to Valhalla and releasing hundreds of millions of warriors. Doesn't that make me the obvious target, when, in theory, a single properly aimed gravitic weapon could take you into orbit without controlling you?"

"...Ahh. I think you have one of those in the armory. Like a telekinetic gun?"

"Like a telekinetic gun. We didn't have them ourselves until the Jotun showed up. Would've come in real handy to deal with Atlas, but, well. Then we wouldn't have Valhalla."

"Hmm. So. Its gonna be one of us?"

"Probably not. The Chain is a powerful telepath, faster and better than anything humans have ever developed at reading minds. She will likely see that the two of us have plans, and skip to another target. Frankly, I'm worried that Ascension might be the one hit. The amount of damage that machine could cause in seventeen hours..."

Valkyrie blinked. "Wait. Ascension is still around? I thought Spike and his girlfriend wiped out the machines?"

"Ohh, no. Apollo believes that Ascension is probably the single most potent military force on earth at present... scattered across millions of little bunkers, mostly underwater. It may not survive the Jotun war... they have methods of dealing with networked machines more effectively than we can... but for however long it lasts, it will likely cause massive damage."

***

The facility didn't look like a terrorist training facility. Or even a mosque. It looked... like a resort.

A hotel, surrounded by tennis courts, a golf course, pools, a beach; for most visitors, including a suspicious CIA agent who had dropped by the year before, the facility seemed to simply be a hotspot for the children of wealthy oil barons to vacation with their friends and employees. The Black Death had investments in the place; but she was a wealthy land-owning woman who had numerous investments she'd built up with her fortune from oil sales, so it was one of many.

Granted, most hotels didn't have extensive underground bunkers. Clone pulled to a stop at the entrance to the parking garage; two of his 'brothers' began unloading the back of the truck, carefully arranging the shells in neat stacks so that a forklift could handle the rest; and glanced up.

A friendly, smiling arabic man with a long, slightly greying beard, an expensive suit, and a closely-shaved head had emerged, with a few guards surrounding him; who glanced at Clone and his brothers, and then promptly ignored them, studying the surroundings.

"Ahh, Clone, my friend. You said you had news for me?"

While each of the Clones looked almost identical, the one taking the lead was wearing a simple grey suit and had nasty burn scars across his face; while the other two wore black and white camo and looked... fresh. Practically newborn. "Yes, I do. The moment you claimed would never happen is upon us. The Jotun have arrived in our system, thousands strong. These..." He nodded at the stack of shells. "Are anti-Jotun munitions that I was unwilling to sell you earlier. Sixty semi-automatic rifles that fire 30mm armor-piercing rounds, each with two hundred shells. Ineffective against their Assault craft aside from damaging external components, but able to penetrate their infantry armor anywhere but the torso. I'm making a similar delivery at each of your camps. I'm not completely certain money will have value when this is over. But if it is, I'll be expecting payment then."

Aziz stared at Clone, then at the boxes. "...Surely, you must be joking."

"Not even slightly. This is it. The biggest war of our lives. And if we survive til the other side... we'll be well-positioned to come out on top. The biggest powers are going to be the Jotun's first targets. And if your camps survive? Well. Your dream of an Islamic state, taking out Israel, crushing the superpowers... that might be accomplished by the end of the month."

Aziz walked up to the first box; and opened it gently; revealing... a long-barreled, magnetic accelerator weapon. A Gauss rifle. A man-portable anti-tank weapon which could take out any armored vehicle on earth.. and be used to open bank vaults in a pinch. The number of meta-humans who could survive a shot from this weapon could be counted in less than a few dozen. The Americans had thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, but had never used them in war against his people.

What he could've done with just one of these from a rooftop...

He glanced at Clone. "If money has value when this is over, you will get far more than my initial offer. Is this not too late? Who will show my men how to fire these?"

"I will. Your people have nine hundred and seven camps that I'm aware of. Each of them has a few of me there, making a delivery."

Aziz looked shocked. "....So many. I knew there were quite a few. No wonder I can't grasp your mind. Will one of you remain here, to give me updates as this goes on?"

"Of course. Though... I will only give you updates on your own forces. The only army and navy I'm thoroughly infiltrated into are the Russian ones for obvious reasons, but I have scattered members in a few others, strike teams, distributors, janitors, aides.... Whichever way this goes, I've been setting it up so that our major opposition won't survive this war. And if I can take out the Jotun at the same time, all the better."