The gunships, unlike the Jeanne herself, were heavily modified Jotun stock; the same light blue metallic alloys that had required insane temperatures to reforge and reshape without having to break them apart. As Eyeball watched the planet swing by below, heading for the target landing site, he looked at the numerous tiny islands across the vast, oceanic surface, and double-checked thee systems. The capacitors were fully charged. Tanks were full. And much like the Dragonslayer that was up in the launch bay, each of these gunships had its own extradimensional space that would let it swap capacitors, refill fuel, and reload its missiles continuously; they could, in theory, continue active combat operations for weeks; though of course, unlike the drones, this meant they couldn't be stored in an extradimensional space themselves.
This place was the product of decades of work. He could see holes where terraforming equipment had laid, years before, only to be now slowly filled in by the sands and the tides. Vast reefs of beautiful creatures of endless varieties. The Leesh... did good work. This entire planet would make an excellent vacation resort. If it weren't being built just to be fed into the hungry maw of a giant monster, what they were about to do here would be an atrocity. Not as bad as if it were inhabited by sentients; but all the life that was about to end was bad enough.
When the two gunships landed on the island, the tightly packed crew began to emerge. Only two of the engineering team were down; one of RC's numerous cyborgs and Rex; Rex, amusingly enough, had an exo-frame on to augment his existing strength, and his 'tail'; only shoulder-mounted, rather than in his back as it had been before, and just over a standard uniform; and as the marines filed out of the craft, all eighteen of those remaining with the ship, Eyeball ran a scan with his helmet.
Nitrogen level... a bit higher than ideal for a human, but good. Oxygen level... far higher than ideal for a human, but also fine. This place would feel weird, but it was entirely artificial; there were no harmful bacteria, nothing that could make anyone sick. He glanced back at Kezia as they stepped out, and she looked over the mid-sized island, her vivid purple armor reflecting the sunlight from its sandy beaches, the trees seeming more like giant bulbous mushrooms with pale white 'trunks' and cone-shaped masses of 'branches'.... nodding to herself as she did.
"Anything we can do to help?"
Kezia glanced at him. "Of course. Aside from watching for any hostile local life, I need a particular rune carved into the ground. The more accurate we get it, the faster I can get started. Rex and Daisy are working on that part, but more hands make things faster."
Eyeball nodded; and as Kezia relayed the image to him, he transferred it to the marines; each of them receiving a map of the island, with the HUD showing what the rune needed to look like. "Do we need to put blood or anything like that in it? Gather some of the local life?"
She smiled. "Ahh... no. That would help things get started for someone who didn't have much magic to work with. I've... got plenty." She glanced at Eyeball, before turning and heading to the center of the island; watching Rex and Daisy directing the marines as the squads of blue-armored soldiers pulled out shovels and started to help form the runes. It was strange. The man seemed singularly focused on this mission, and acting as if it were a one-way trip for him.
When she'd first started flirting with the... villain? Anti-hero? Whatever he was, he was interesting enough.. He'd seemed attracted, but uninterested. She'd thought perhaps he and Chambers were together; that this.. 'RC' abomination was sharing his bed, considering how the two seemed to be working together so closely; but there was no chemistry, no attraction, there at all. He didn't even look at her unless he was talking to her.
Was he worth pursuing? Possibly. Her last boyfriend had been too afraid of her family; as soon as she'd introduced her to her father, he'd practically started running. When he'd commented that 'Hasslehoff was a German last name, wasn't it?', the tone of her father's voice had struck a chord. He hadn't drained the boy's life or anything, she would have been able to tell; he was just... afraid.
This Eyeball character. Not the best looking, no; 'rugged' would be the polite way to put it. But even before his powers, he'd been her type. Fearless. Aggressive. Kezia shook her head. Maybe she'd need to be more direct, after this. The man seemed convinced this was going to be a suicide mission for him, but that was foolishness. If it was a suicide mission for anyone, it would be Ripper; the man was, after all, the living weapon that would be used for the job. He wasn't too bad himself, if a bit too lean.
Though, the obviously fake red hair was not right for him. Ripper would probably look better... bald. Hmm. She tried to imagine him hairless for a moment, and shook herself. Serious times, girl. You're about to murder a planet.
Kezia looked out at the people working on the island. Eighteen marines, Eyeball, and two engineers; there were a few hundred important symbols to form, but she could do it herself... it was just faster with help. She closed her eyes. She could feel it. The symbol was... almost right. She dropped to her knees, feeling the world. The heartbeat of a single, massive ecosystem, spread across the world. The strange plant-like creatures; ropes of fibers that spread across miles of ocean, forming massive reef-like communities where swarms of smaller animals dwelled.
There wasn't much in the deep ocean. This life felt... shallow. Incomplete. It wasn't like the earth, where life had dug itself in deeply. This was... wrong. It had simply been laid over the top, like a sheet of sod over concrete.
She inhaled. "Radio on. This is Kezia. The runes are close enough; I can feel the world. The local wildlife is going to feel what I'm doing, and react as if I'm a threat. If this were earth, lions would come trying to kill me, zebras would run the other way. Humans would react all sorts of crazy ways. After the first few minutes, everything in a hundred miles will be too weak to do anything, but if they have any amphibious super-predators here it might be an issue."
Eyeball's voice came on the line. ~Confirmed. Everyone, stay inside the runes, but not too close to the center.~
"Actually, feel free to be close to the center... at first. The more people I spread the power between for the first few minutes, the easier it'll be. In fact... if everyone could form up on me... guns out and ready... and just start slowly walking away when I give the word."
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Rex tapped in. ~This is Rex. Me and Daisy will be providing air support from the gunships. How low do we need to be?~
Kezia looked out over the island, feeling around with her sense of the life forms on the planet. "I... don't feel anything on this planet that can fly more than a few meters off the ground. Just stay above the runes, and you'll be fine."
As the group gathered around her, rifles and grenades at the ready, she raised her hands, knees pressed into the soil; and slammed them to the ground. At first, nothing seemed to be happening. Around the world, fish-like creatures could feel a strange connection to this... alien.
It felt... wrong. Most of the creatures started swimming away. Getting as far from this creature as possible. For others... instinct drove them to fight.
The first sign of trouble was when she heard the loud 'pop' of displaced, superheated air as a Jotun plasma blast slammed into the beach and superheated steam rose in a pillar just outside the rune. The marines were upright, rifles raised, as a swarm of snake-like creatures, ranging from a few meters long to dozens of meters long and thicker than most boats began to move onto the shore, letting out horrific wails; as rapid-fire plasma blasts swept across the sand.
At first, the plasma, and the molten glass it left behind, was stopping them. Then, there were too many; even as the glass cooked their flesh, they would swarm across one section of beach as the gunships fired on another. The marines raised their rifles, and started to fire; these were no ordinary rifles; plasma rifles, altered Jotun versions, that flash-boiled masses of desperate animals as they charged at the danger in an unwitting attempt to protect their world, their species.
Eyeball had started out standing beside Kezia, in a loose circle with the marines; but as they continued to advance, firing steadily into the oncoming swarm, he felt a sharp, terrible pain in his left arm; and collapsed to the dirt with a grunt, clutching his hand to his chest. He stared down at the arm of his suit which... was bulging. Malforming. The body-armor around his arm seemed to move as if it were alive.
Grenades went out. Pools of thermite formed, creating further barriers, sending more of the creatures into a screaming, burning death... and then... it started to slow. The marines either didn't notice Eyeball's response; or were too busy to care.
Fewer and fewer of the creatures were advancing... and those that were simply thrashed weakly onto the shore.. never making it past the ring of molten glass that now formed the island's edge. The marines felt... strange. Empowered. Healthy. Better than they ever had before; but they advanced, step by step, heading towards the ring forming the outer edge of the rune.
One corporal stepped just slightly too far; and felt a moment of terrible, horrific weakness; before one of his companions grabbed him by the shoulder, tossing him backwards.
As the soldiers stood guard, rifles aimed out at the ocean in a loose circle... they watched the world die. An enormous structure of plants, animals, or possibly some unknown, completely alien subtype, made of hundreds of different colors of exotic and beautiful life... just withering away. Turning to a dull grey-brown before their eyes.
As the man were focused on the outside, Eyeball finally managed to unsnap the armor from around his limb; only to find his cybernetic broken, the pieces of circuit and barrel falling, the mechanism for creating an extradimensional space now just a cylinder lying on the dirt... as his left arm reformed; hairless. Smooth. And... perfectly functional, as if it had never been lost, in that fateful helicopter crash.
***
As the world started to shift in color on the viewscreen, an alarm sounded across the bridge. RC glanced up, and tapped her console. The central display popped up; showing the three long, needle-like Leesh ships undocking from the station.
"Sir. The Leesh ships have all undocked. They have target locks on us, and are hailing us."
Captain Moreau shifted in his seat, inhaling deeply. "Do we get a good bounceback from our EMP devices?"
"Responding properly sir. Ready to go."
"Excellent. Answer hail, and trigger them on my signal."
After a few seconds, the image of the three ships leaving the dock vanished; to be replaced by the image of the Leesh captain; well, possibly the same captain. He couldn't tell the difference, at least. ~What are your people doing!? This world is our tribute to the Empire! The Emperor will not stand for such a crime!~
"He won't be able to. Soon, you will have a new Empress. I am but a servant of Empress Kezia, Devourer of worlds. She is consuming the world beneath us; and when your ships recover sufficiently to do so, you may warn the Emperor; unless he flees into the darkness, she will not simply consume his Empire... but him as well. If he wishes to challenge her for the right to his Empire, he can meet her at the Capital; he can consider this simply to be a warning."
Moreau glanced at RC, nodding; and as the Leesh started to burble out an outraged response... the image vanished. The three ships... simply drifted slowly away from the station, on whatever course they'd happened to be on at the time the EMPs struck; all major systems failing at the same time.
"Hopefully, she gets things wrapped up on the surface before they come back online. It won't be nearly as effective if we have to kill them."
***
Engineer settled into his new seat at Eye-tech; as the temporary; and if Eyeball never returned, permanent; CEO he was.... borrowing the office at the top of the building. His secretary was... himself. A solid fifth of the engineering team was Ascension as well. But... over time, each unit was growing more unique. The emotions from the AI's human source becoming more evident, as they were no longer in permanent communication with each other, and their numbers grew.
All of them remained dedicated to the same core principles; but they were starting to diverge in a thousand tiny ways. This wasn't a bad thing; nor a good thing. It simply... was.
The different perspectives seemed to have produced dividends, however. Several of his units had decided to re-initiate his old program of weakening imperialist and oligarch systems, manufactured more cyborgs for the purpose, and begun infiltration programs. One of these, pretending to be a devout Jihadist, had brought him an interesting piece of intel. One he wasn't quite certain how to deal with.
The civil war in China? Yes, the reasons behind it were real... the motivation for the 'Shadow' family to be out butchering Chinese generals and leaders perfectly legitimate. But... It was a telepath named Aziz who had made sure it all came together, that the right people learned about things at the wrong time. He might even have been responsible for the Chinese starting the program up again; it was impossible to know, now. The same one was responsible for the 'Army of God' sweeping through South America, threatening some of his own facilities. The same one who was in talks of forming a 'joint government' with the Diamond Kingdom. The one behind the aborted campaign of a foolish religious zealot in the United States; and the isolationist policies of Japan, stoically removing itself from conflict. Even Taiwan was clearly planning to try seizing the mainland once the civil war started to wind down, though that likely was without any outside influence.
It seemed perfectly clear that the current state of the world, with everyone at each other's throats, and threats of a world war three on the horizon... was all caused by this one, solitary, zealot. Obviously, Ascension would need to handle him. He could undoubtedly kill him by the end of the day. The only question was how to untangle the mess the lunatic had created from there.