Jotun settled in on his throne, glaring at the screen. Earth's forces had been cleansed from orbit; every starship, station, satellite; every piece of artificial matter outside of earth's orbit had been obliterated; and, for the most part, deliberately set to scatter across the planet, preventing it from interfering with operations. The cost had been... insane.
Three hundred and seven ships destroyed outright. Eight hundred and six damaged significantly. Only seventeen ships had emerged completely undamaged... from an assault on a hapless third-rate planet that was using cheap copies of Jotun equipment. The damage to his own flagship was disturbingly familiar; he'd seen exactly the same patterns in the wreckage of enemy ships during the many wars the Jotun had won over the years.
If any of the damaged ships entered the atmosphere before being repaired, they would never leave without a full rebuild. Hundreds would never enter FTL again. If any of his enemies saw the state of the fleet, they would invade immediately. This must absolutely be kept quiet.
He blinked, at a sudden flashing red light on his display; it showed a projectile, arcing up from the surface; incredibly fast, extremely dense; it was a wire of some description... and as he watched, it rammed directly through one of the undamaged ships, sending pieces of it scattering in all directions.
He cursed. "Pull the fleet back to lunar orbit, and watch for incoming. Call for the Chain of Eternity. Its time to even the score with these monkeys."
***
The Chain felt amazing. She was sweeping across the surface of the earth, mentally assessing thousands of souls at a glance. She would stop to focus on one, analyzing its potential; and move on. At first, she focused on leaders; presidents, generals, admirals. None of them seemed like a good option. The Titan, Valkyrie, seemed a good candidate. Jotun would certainly be happy about getting her out of the way; but she could tell the Titan's allies were ready. If she took over, Valkyrie would be merely out of action for a day. Same thing with this Odin character; or Zeus.
It was terrible. These people were ready for her, and had made plans, gotten dangerous folks out of the way... she needed to do some truly catastrophic damage to this world if she were to help make up for the disaster in orbit, and she wasn't allowed to take the easy route; making subtle mental suggestions, influencing events over time... she was a powerful telepath, and such was well within her ability.
No.. they wanted her to find someone protected, use the artifact, and gain complete, total dominance.
She did feel something in the oceans. Was there some sort of dangerous undersea monster she might make use of? One of the minds she'd come across had been thinking about a 'Sea Titan', but she couldn't locate this person. Oh. No, it was machines. Accursed things. She couldn't think in ones and zeroes.
She happened across a submarine in her search; a Russian nuclear submarine. The captain would be an excellent candidate; this thing had twenty nuclear warheads, and they'd even given him more control of targeting and launch, just in case they needed to use the missiles against Jotun craft. But no. It absolutely required two people to control the weapons. Even if she took over the captain and killed the XO to take both missile keys, she'd still need to force another crewman to turn the other key at the same time.
She almost moved on; when she noticed something. One of the bodies... was just a body. It's mind was only a tiny sliver of a much larger mind. A mind spread across the entire world, one with thousands of bodies... she looked closer. Her mind flooded with information. This man.... an arms dealer. A bodyguard. A janitor. He was in so many places, with so many jobs, in so many dangerous places.
A mind that was vast, incredibly powerful, and grew stronger with each brain added to its collective. For any ordinary telepath, conquering it would be impossible. Even for her, the best she could normally do would be to make suggestions, twist things a bit.
At least... if she didn't have access to the Chain of Eternity.
She squeezed the controls in her tiny, almost vestigial claws, her dull, pale carapace gleaming with internal energy as she focused. One moment, she was attached to the network of chains and cables, secure and imprisoned in her ship. The next...
She was everywhere.
***
One moment, the Clone body was lying in a bunk; his bodies needed sleep, just like anyone else, and the three of him on this submarine each spent their allotted time on a bunk. The two of him that were security on the ship immediately moved; heading for the ship's armory; while the third, primarily a mechanic, analyzed the situation, studying the layout, the best possibilities... and moved back. It was Chain, now, and Chain had her own purposes.
As the two security guards opened the armor, checking their equipment; loading up a pair of shotguns, armored vests, and handguns; the mechanic headed down into the engine room; and, with a few carefully placed blows with his hammer, triggered an alarm.
Throughout the ship, men scrambled, running. The XO was already on the bridge; the captain moving to join him; and the helm had already sent the ship headed for the surface, as the engineering crew moved through, checking their equipment.
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The ship moved like a well-oiled machine. As most of its crew; over a hundred and fifty souls; moved to ensure they were safe and ready to resume their patrol, three of them acted. As the mechanic started to carefully create a series of electrical fires in the environmental control, the guards reached the bridge; and, just as the fire alarms went off, entered; and opened fire.
Working their way through the crew on the bridge, each guard emptied his shotgun; dropping the weapon on the deck and swapping to the handguns with smooth precision; and within seconds had the bridge cleared of opposition. As the rest of the crew was struggling to find the source of the steady stream of problems the mechanic was causing, and the mechanic simply kept right on causing more problems... the guards took the keys.
Chain already knew the codes, the commands. Everything that was needed. The sub didn't have the range to reach the US; but it could reach quite a few European targets... and it wasn't the only sub with Clones aboard.
***
The body had been showing the men how to use the Anti-Titan rifle when Chain took it over. This encampment, in the middle of a desert... one of hundreds run by a powerful military organization running from Siberia down into Africa; camps hidden inside cities, in the wilderness, pretending to be other things... but every one of them had a handful of Clones nearby; and in those where it was daylight... those Clones were heavily armed, even showing off weaponry.
In 'Camp Nile', hundreds of miles south of the river that was its namesake, Chain's three nearby bodies took hold of assault weapons and started moving; rapidly gunning down the local soldiers; even as the one demonstrating the Anti-Jotun rifle turned the weapon on the crates of ammunition, and began to obliterate them; each shot sending a cascade of explosive ammunition scattering off into the night in a terrifying chain reaction... that ultimately killed the firer, as well as many of the inhabitants of the camp.
***
For the past several minutes, Clone had been speaking with Aziz about additional ammunition shipments, in the event the war with the Jotun dragged out longer than expected. He was sitting in a conference room; exquisitely appointed; with Aziz and two of his bodyguards, going over the plans. At first, Chain decided to simply continue the conversation, as if nothing had happened; best to lull this group into a false sense of security... and then gun them down as they left the room.
Only to find Aziz staring at Clone's body, a weapon already leveled on him. ".... What are you? How did you do this? I thought manipulating Clone was impossible! I've tried it myself a hundred times! I'm the most powerful telepath on earth! I've used technology, drugs, magic... but this..."
The body smiled. "I am the Chain of Eternity. And this... Clone... was the perfect vessel to maximize the damage I could do to this world. My master's original plan was to destroy human civilization. Send you back to the stone age so that you couldn't resist effectively, then hand you over to the Emperor to be eaten. A few large-scale strikes to drastically reduce the human population... then more precise strikes to take out military bases, manufacturing centers... remove your ability to support technology, power generation. We would take a year, methodically ensuring that you couldn't rise from the ashes, but still had at least some population to feed on."
Chain rose from the chair, seemingly unconcerned about the gun pointed at her torso. "That plan seems to have changed. It seems we might be looking at a more permanent occupation. Enslavement, rather than consumption. You should feel proud. You've impressed us."
Aziz frowned; and opened fire. Four shots; hitting both arms, both legs, leaving the Clone falling to the floor. He turned to his guards. "Have the other Clones shot. Pass the word to all of my people. Clone has been taken by the enemy. This one... ensure it doesn't bleed to death, and chain it to a bed. I will study it in detail once this is resolved."
The bodyguards nodded; one lifting his phone to start making calls, the other starting to drag the laughing, bleeding Chain out of the room, leaving a faint blood-trail leading out into the hotel hallway.
***
When the first submarine launched its payload; twenty nuclear devices launching out over europe, covered in paint and special polymers intended to hide the expensive warhead from interception by some flying metahuman; Ascension noticed it within minutes. First, seeing the missiles in the air, the first detonation over France... and noticing two other submarines armed with Nukes both rising towards the surface.
The first... launched its payload before Ascension's forces could reach it; the submarine, based off of the eastern seaboard of the United States, targeting primarily military and political targets... but, of course, those targets would also include dramatic civilian casualties. The second, in the mid-pacific, its target unknown; but likely to be an extreme-range, uncertain-to-succeed shot at the western seaboard; was stopped before it could launch all of its missiles... and the nukes went off underwater, the ship rupturing and detonating in a terrible chain reaction that destroyed a few of Ascension's underwater production facilities on a nearby volcanic vent. What few missiles it managed to launch were all intercepted far short of their targets.
Uncertain of the precise origin of the threat, Ascension determined these were all Russian submarines; and started locating, and sinking, every Russian submarine it could find; which, considering it had been quietly tracking every nuclear-armed vessel for years now, was all of them; unfortunately condemning hundreds of innocent sailors to a compression fatality far below the intended depths of their craft.
***
From Lunar orbit, Jotun watched Chain's handiwork. If he were to recover this fleet, and get it back to Jotun space, he would either need to build a full shipyard up in space and spend years of work, or he would need to enslave the locals, and force them to gather and refine the raw materials needed for the work. First... he needed to crush all forms of organized resistance. This work of the Chain's would go far towards that. As nuclear detonations blossomed across the world, he smiled.
Most of those pinpoints of light were human cities; locations of great historical significance to them, with millions of people. This was only the beginning of their punishment for daring to do such damage to his fleet. It might be more efficient to gather and refine the needed materials in space; and likely he would have his engineers work on exactly that; but the humans would be forced to pay for every Jotun life they had cost today.
Perhaps they would be allowed to live on, as vassals of the Jotun. More likely, they would fulfill the same destiny he'd intended for them from the beginning; yet another sacrifice for the Emperor, to keep the peace.