Heretical Edge

Prompt: A look at a time when the combat-oriented members of the Olympus were endangered, leaving only the 'mad scientists' to save them… and no one to rein them in.

The Olympus was in trouble. Or, to be very specific, part of it was in trouble. The advanced vessel was capable of splitting its three gunships off from the primary orb structure, and had recently done so in order to send the more combat-capable portions of the ship into battle. The slower, less maneuverable main body where the science labs and other academic rooms were housed had stayed behind. The purely combat-intended parts of the ship going into battle while leaving the less maneuverable, more vulnerable part behind should have turned the situation into a quick fight and simple mop-up. After all, the planet that the Olympus had been sent to investigate had initially reported only a single pirate vessel harassing their main spaceport and disrupting shipments. A strong one, to be sure, but nothing they couldn't handle by themselves.

Unfortunately, those three gunships had run into a much bigger problem than they had been warned about. What had been reported as a single pirate ship wasn't technically connected to any pirates at all. Or at least, not the sort of pirates one generally thought about with the word.

No, this ship was part of the group known as the Surehk-dubah in the language of its commander. Or, in more common language, the Infinite Sun. The core members of the Surehk-dubah, and their leadership, had originated from a civilization of sun worshippers who believed that a universe of pure heat and light existed directly underneath the physical universe, and that stars were where holes had appeared in this universe, allowing just a hint of the glory and might of that other reality to peek through. They were convinced that the ultimate fate of this and all other universes was to be incinerated and lost forever as the heat from that one burned through enough of the fabric between realities. Eventually, they thought, the place of heat and flame would be all that existed within the material plane, like unchecked fire engulfing a home.

Not only did they believe that, but they believed that the best way for them to be rewarded with eternal life and glory once this inevitably happened was by feeding the stars, or holes between universes, with as much wealth and power as they could gather. They would steal and abduct treasures of all kinds, be it monetary, technological, or magical, and sacrifice all of it by throwing those things into the nearest star. Worse, they did the same for any living beings they believed might actually impress this universe of fire. Anyone they could find who was in any way unique, strong, intelligent, anything that made them stand out, they would sacrifice them into the stars.

The core, original species who had created this organization and ran it were known as the Kurebah-bae. They were a deadly organization, one of incredible power. Which might have seemed to be at odds with their habit of throwing things into stars like that, but the truth was that the leaders and founders of the Surehk-dubah had a gift of their own. The true reason for their belief that they would be blessed and rewarded for sacrificing such things was that they truly were rewarded. Their people, the Kurebah-bae species, were capable of recreating projected, temporary copies of anything or anyone they burned. Really, any death based in heat would do, but they found chucking things into the sun to be the most efficient. None of their ships or weapons were 'real' in the strictest sense. They were copies created and maintained by this power of theirs. The entire fleet consisted of vessels that only existed because a number of their people used their power to make it so. Dozens of their species gave their strength toward that for smaller ships, hundreds or more did so for the larger ones. Many of them would essentially meditate for hours at a time to keep the ships intact, taking turns pouring all their energy into it.

It was more than simply creating duplicate objects, of course. Because they killed people that way as well, and made copies of them. Any living being they killed could be duplicated like that, with some level of that being's own powers, skills, and memories. They were probably some special form of ghosts. That was the running theory anyway, though there was some confusion about how there could be ghosts of physical objects. The Surehk-dubah didn't tend to explain.

And now the Olympus gunships, along with their most combat-capable members and even the captain himself, had been taken by those people. They had gone in there expecting to deal with one lone pirate ship, but the moment that 'single ship' realized who the Seosten were, it had called in backup. Lots and lots of backup. Now Puriel and the others who had gone in there had been captured, the gunships disabled and towed into the gigantic container vessels (also just duplicated from sacrificed ships like every other object those people used) so they could be transported back to the Kurebah-bae home system. Any star was good enough for most things those people gathered. But only their own personal star, the strongest and brightest connection to that universe of fire, would be enough for something like the Olympus and its crew. They would only allow the true leader of their people, their Emperor, to be the one who cast Puriel and his crew into the sun. Only he deserved to create ghost-copies of people who were so powerful.

"Ahem, and we're absolutely certain of that?" The question came from Radueriel, chief engineer of the Olympus. The man had replaced many parts of his body with cybernetic improvements, and had the habit of tinkering with those improvements while he was nervous or lost in thought. Such as right now. He had part of one of his arms open, revealing a mix of tissue, bone, and metal within as he used a small multitool to adjust something. "I mean, that they won't head right for the nearest sun to throw our people in." He was, of course, worried about his long-time partner, Abaddon. When the man had discovered what happened, it had been all the rest of them could do to stop him from jumping in the nearest shuttle and going after those people all by himself.

Cahethal, the Seosten who would, at some point in the future, be known as Demeter on the distant planet of Earth, gave a nod. She and the many of the remaining scientists of the Olympus, the researchers and other members of the crew who had been deemed unimportant for the combat mission the gunships were sent on, had come together in the main orb's primary briefing room to discuss options. Which had begun with the woman giving a very thorough explanation of just what they were dealing with. "Yes, we are as confident as we can possibly be. They are gathering the energy they need to make the trip back to their home system. Puriel by himself would already be powerful and unique enough for them to make that journey. With the rest of our crewmates added into the bargain, there's no question. It's a bit lucky, in a way."

The look that Radueriel gave the woman could have melted steel. His mouth opened to snap a sharp retort, but before he could get the first word out, another, smaller voice spoke abruptly. "You mean because it gives us extra time to rescue them?" It was Chayyiel, standing between her guardians, Lucifer and Sariel. She had looked back and forth between the engineer and scientist before quickly piping up to stop what would easily have become a bigger argument.

Instead of arguing with each other, then, the two senior officers gave hard looks at the young girl. It was Cahethal who spoke, her voice sharp but not overtly harsh. "You have summarized my intent adequately, yet in the future, you would do best to request and await leave to speak." Her eyes shifted to the girl's guardians, adding, "You should have been as such taught by now."

"Do we really have time to get bogged down in those sorts of details?" Lucifer pointed out, his own voice a little testy. "Our captain, first officer, tactical officer, and more are missing. Every single person on this ship who has command experience, actual tactical command experience, has been captured. The combat portions of our ship are gone. The central sphere has a few weapons, but nothing that could pose a real threat to that fleet. We need to discuss how we're going to deal with this, not bicker about pointless minutiae."

His words were echoed by agreement from several other crew members. With the gunships and that part of the ship's complement gone, the remaining crew consisted of Cahethal, Radueriel, Sariel, Lucifer, Chayyiel, about thirteen other lab technicians working under Cahethal, fifteen of Radueriel's engineers or gofers, and ten members of the kitchen staff, headed by Chef Paschar (known in the future as Eros or Cupid). Less than fifty Seosten remained on this largely unarmed central orb to try to deal with what had happened to their captain and the rest of the ship's crew.

Oh, and one other very important member was still on board, though many would have argued against just how important they could possibly be. In fact, most lumped them right in with Sariel, Lucifer, and Chayyiel as the reason there would never be any more Tartarus-boosted Seosten.

But having people hold lingering grudges against them wasn't enough to make Cassiel keep silent, especially in a situation like this. They were already raising their hand while speaking up. "Yeah, what he said. Tauesie already said there isn't another fleet close enough to get here in time." The small, mysterious Seosten was nodding toward one of the other crew members, who had sent a handful of SOS communications to no avail. "By the time any help gets here, those creeps are going to be back in their own space, and the Seraphs won't waste the resources to try a rescue against a fortified system like that. Not even for Puriel and the others. They'll say it's too late, too risky, too everything. If anyone's gonna get them out of there alive, it has to be us."

Radueriel, who had up to that point showed at best no opinion whatsoever about them, was now pointing at Cassiel. "Exactly, they know what they're talking about. We have to do something, or just--" He stopped himself, the words 'accept that they're going to die' refusing to leave his lips. His face twisted a little visibly before he finished with a flat, "If we don't save our people, they are going to be thrown into that star. I am not going to let that happen. Not while I can still move." By that point, the man was glaring at Cahethal, as though challenging her to try to object to that.

She, however, simply exhaled before giving a short nod, her voice one of a person doing their best to explain something to a particularly slow student. "Yes, of course we need to attempt a rescue. But as has already been quite thoroughly established, we do not possess the firepower to accomplish anything useful in a direct assault. We need a better plan. So, who might have one?"

"Wait, are we actually doing this?" Paschar objected, the tall man straightening up to his full height, that luxurious blond hair held, as usual, behind a white cap to keep it contained. "You said yourself that we don't have the power to pose a threat to them. Even our energy weapons are useless. The Kurebah-bae absorb energy and turn it into more of their duplications. If we throw ourselves in there, the only thing we'll accomplish is losing the entire ship and crew instead of just half of it."

"Your objection is noted, Chef," Cahethal replied coolly, before Raduriel could raise his voice to start an argument that wouldn't accomplish anything. "I shall interpret your words as you having nothing of note to contribute to the endeavor. Kindly refrain from speaking again unless that changes."

"We need a plan," Lucifer announced, his voice cutting off what would have been a series of arguments from the members of the crew who thought, like Paschar, that any attempt to effect a rescue was pointless at best and suicide at worst. "If we're going to save our captain and the rest of them, we have to do it without weapons, without our soldiers, without any of that. But that's okay. Come on, none of us have ever relied on brute strength and power. We rely on these." His hand rose, pointing to his head. "So think about it. How do we save our people?"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

That started a whole discussion, ideas being thrown back and forth, most quickly rejected while others were batted around slightly more seriously. Rather than inject her own thoughts, at least at first, Cahethal gave Lucifer a long, considering glance. The man had effectively convinced the crew to sidestep any further discussion about whether they should try to do something and moved them on to planning out what they could do. He hadn't tried to give any orders like she had. He had simply begun the discussion at the point he wanted it to be at, and now they were all talking about that as though there wasn't any other option to begin with. She was certain he hadn't even used his power to do so.

It made her take a moment to reevaluate him. Though, to be fair, she had been doing that fairly consistently since he and the other members of that little group had been assigned to the ship to begin with. At first, Cahethal had dismissed them. Particularly him and his partner. They had, after all, simply been interns, barely qualified to clean lab equipment before their blundering had resulted in their people being completely cut off from Tartarus, a place that could have ended the Fomorian war. And yet, she found herself repeatedly forced to adjust her opinion of the pair the longer she knew them.

Even now, Cahethal had to reevaluate what she thought of them as the discussion about how to try to rescue the rest of the Olympians continued. Because in the end, it was Sariel, Lucifer, Cassiel, and even little Chayyiel who came up with the plan that they would use, albeit with help from a sarcastic and completely unserious remark from Paschar himself. He had made what was intended as a 'suggestion' that would be so absurd, no one would ever put any real weight behind it. But they did. They took that scornful, mocking 'idea' and ran with it, turning it into something that was so ridiculous, so dangerous that it was a good thing Puriel was one of those they were trying to rescue, because there was no chance that he would ever have approved it.

But he wasn't here. He was in danger, and those who remained were going to do whatever it took to get him and the rest of the crew back safely. Even if it meant running with this wild plan.

A plan that began with a discussion of just what it would take to make a star go supernova.

*********

The Surehk-dubah fleet, the one that had so effectively captured the gunships of the Olympus, had intended to fly straight back to core Kurebah-bae space, the system their people had come from. There, they would have sent Puriel and the rest of their imprisoned Olympian Seosten into the heart of their own sun. After all, there was no greater entrance to their beloved Fire Universe than the star of their own homeworld. None, that was, save for a star that was about to explode.

Once their people had detected the sudden, unexpected event, all plans to leave the system were abandoned. This was clearly a sign. They were meant to stay here, to cast their prisoners into this star. What else could it be? There was no other reason for it to have so rapidly jumped into the end of its life cycle. It had been completely stable only hours earlier. And yet there was no question about it. This star was, with very little warning and absolutely no real explanation, less than an hour from becoming one of the most destructive explosions that could ever exist.

Twenty Surehk-dubah vessels, the smallest of which was slightly larger than the full Olympus itself, gathered on the edge of safe space before the star's rising energies would rapidly damage them. Though even that was fluctuating quickly. This area of space would not be safe for long. If they were going to throw their captives in and collect their life-source, it had to be done quickly. Even now, the sensors aboard the ships were largely useless, the rising and dramatically shifting energies from the nearby star completely overwhelming them. They were relying heavily on a variety of danger detection spells pointed toward the star to ensure they stayed on the relatively safe side of the line.

One of those ships amounted to little more than a floating platform surrounded by a dome to protect the occupants from the ravages of space. Most of those occupants, at the moment, were Puriel and the rest of his captured crew. They all wore what appeared to be gleaming metal chest piece armor with fist-sized reddish-gold gemstones embedded in the center. These were the reason the Olympians had not already escaped. They were Jaresh stones, a special rock capable of blocking any use of Tartarus abilities. One was exceedingly rare. To have dozens, enough to use one for every single captured Seosten here, would have been impossible. Except all the Surehk-dubah had needed was a single one to be cast into a star, then they were able to use their own power to duplicate it. So long as there were enough of the actual Kurebah-bae people focusing on maintaining these copied stones, Puriel and the others were cut off from those powers. The shackles on their wrists and feet, did the rest of the work of keeping them contained. The dome around the 'ship' even acted as a shield to prevent them from recalling to a recently possessed body. Another thing that should have been impossible to do on this scale.

The Olympians were surrounded by a small army of these Surehk-dubah cultists. About half of them were Kurehbah-bae themselves, figures of between seven and nine feet in height who looked like bipedal elephants with intricately curved tusks and clothing made largely of beads. The other half were a mix of many other species, all people who had been brought, willingly or otherwise, under the control and influence of these people. They were ready to see the Olympians cast into the fire, so their life-source could be harvested, their essences ready to be copied and used to strengthen the Surehk-dubah as a whole.

But first, the Olympus gunships themselves would be burned. All three of those powerful vessels were already being towed out toward the distant star by more life-source ships, with life-source crews. The tugboats and those controlling them were all created and controlled by other members of the Kurebah-bae. That was a large part of what made them so dangerous as a people. It didn't truly matter how much damage was done to the majority of their fleet, because so much of it wasn't real. It could all be destroyed and then quickly recreated. Unless the Kurebah-bae themselves, the beings creating these weapons and ships out of what amounted to pure focused thought, were killed, then none of that mattered. All the effort to destroy dozens of life-source ships and crew was utterly meaningless.

But, no matter how meaningless it might be, Puriel wasn't going to let his ship and his people be sent to their deaths without a fight. Cut off from his power, shackled, disarmed, most would have thought him helpless. He didn't care what most thought. He and the rest of his people were going to--

Three simultaneous explosions interrupted his thoughts. The towing vessels, the ones taking the Olympus gunships out to be destroyed, had abruptly blown apart. They were gone, their cargo drifting helplessly toward the-- no. No, the gunships weren't drifting at all. They were moving with purpose, coming together, connecting back into place against… against…

Against the Olympus central hub, the main body. It was right there, having been hidden both from physical view and from actual sensors by the blinding energies the star was giving off. With the destruction of those towing vessels, the hub had come forward out of those energies, emerging into view while summoning the gunships back into place. Now the Olympus was intact once more, and coming straight toward the platform ship Puriel and the others were imprisoned aboard.

The rest of the Surehk-dubah ships were already moving to intercept, but they were too far back, having kept themselves safely away from the exploding star. Before they could close the gap, the Olympus had already fired all of its weapons on the engines of the prison platform, destroying them and preventing the vessel from withdrawing back to the safety of the rest of its fleet.

In the next second, four glowing portals appeared on the platform, two at the front near the prisoners, and two at the back near the Kurebah-bae who were maintaining the vessel. The portals were small, barely a foot in diameter and equally spread apart. And right on the heels of their appearance, four actual figures arrived. Four very familiar figures. Radueriel stood at the front of the quartet, a strange, three-foot tall drill-shaped device in his hands. To his left was Sariel, while the tiny Chayyiel was to his right. Each held what looked like a fancy crossbow.

From their place at the back of the group, Cassiel hit the bolts of both crossbows with a shot of green paint from their extended hands. Green paint would dramatically increase the speed of the bolts when they were fired.

And in that second, even as the enemy began to react, they were. Sariel and Chayyiel released their bolts straight into the two small portals nearest them. Each bolt went into one portal and popped out of its counterpart on the opposite side of the platform. The bolts were perfectly aimed, cutting straight through the heads of all eight Kurebah-bae standing there in rapid succession, four for each bolt. Their people might have absorbed lasers and such, but they couldn't do the same for something like that. They were killed before they fully understood that they were under attack, the bolts going straight through one neck, then the next, and so on. Instantly, the platform vessel, no longer being maintained by their meditation, vanished right out from under the feet of Seosten prisoner and rescuer alike. The vessel was gone, and they were floating in space.

Or they should have been. But that was where Radueriel came in. At the same time that Sariel and Chayyiel had used their crossbows, the drill-shaped device he was holding had been aimed directly at the Jaresh stone embedded in Puriel's chestplate. Unlike the platform around them, that stone and the others like it were being maintained by Kurebah-bae in the other ships, a safety measure against Puriel easily killing those responsible for his own stone so he could access his power once more. And, of course, simply destroying the stone was impossible.

Except it wasn't. Because that drill device was driven right into the stone at the center of Puriel's chest, and with a screaming protest of tortured rock, the gem shattered. It blew apart into thousands of tiny pieces.

In the next millisecond, the Kurebah-bae were dead and the platform ship they had been maintaining had vanished. But Puriel had his power, and he used it to instantly create a forcefield bubble around them. Around his people, that was. The rest of the Kurehk-dubah members who had been standing nearby were sucked out into the vacuum of space.

The nearest enemy ships were already unleashing a furious wave of cannonfire against both the forcefield and the Olympus itself. But Puriel had his power back, and the worst of those lasers were instantly turned back on the Surehk-dubah ships themselves. He couldn't do that forever, of course, but he did it long enough for Cassiel to do their next part of the plan: creating and activating a transportation spell that grabbed hold of everyone in that forcefield and instantly transported them back into one of the Olympus's cargo bays.

"Jump, jump!" That was Radueriel, shouting the command into his communicator the second the group appeared. "Do it now!"

Just like that, the Olympus activated its Slide-Drive, vanishing just before the Surehk-dubah fleet could unleash unholy vengeance.

They were far enough away by then that the remaining fake Jaresh stones, and the chestplates they were embedded in, vanished. The rest of the Olympians were freed.

"What in the void did you people do!?" Abaddon demanded, even as he hoisted Radueriel off the deck to pull the man into a tight embrace. "Did you… is that…"

Puriel was the one who put voice to the question he and every other now-freed Olympian had. "Did you force a star to go supernova inside an inhabited system?"

"No," Sariel assured him. "We just made it look like it was going to. It will settle down and go back to normal now. Well, after it expands just far enough to destroy all of those Surehk-dubah ships. Then it should go back to normal."

"They like throwing people into stars," Lucifer called out from nearby. He and most of the science lab techs had been the ones responsible for the return transportation spell that brought everyone back. "So we just thought they'd appreciate a very close-up view."

Puriel's mouth opened, before the man looked at his crew, the ones who had almost died as well as those who had risked so much to get them back. He stared at them as they embraced one another, already trading stories about what they had been through and how all of this had happened. He saw his wife, Kushiel, sitting down with her head in her hands, her expression one of a woman coming to terms with how close she had come to death. All around him, the Olympus tactical crew were still realizing they were safe now, that the science members of the crew had snatched them right from the cusp of the void with a plan that had begun with 'what if we made it look like a star is about to explode?'

In the end, what could he possibly say? Except for one thing. The most important thing right then.

"I need a drink."