The Only Gods We Know, Ch 6: Ash and Regret

The psychic scream of the dying god-planet had finally faded, leaving behind a silence so absolute, so profoundly dead. It pressed in, a physical weight. Every rasp of her armor's joint was a profanity in the dead air.

In the twenty-four hours since Thor had smashed Node Primus, a creepy, unnatural stillness had fallen over Iðunn's Orchard Prime. The constant pressure in her skull - gone. Only a raw, scraped-out hollow remained. Her mind kept reaching for the noise, the grinding presence, and finding nothing.

She stood watch on the newly reinforced perimeter of FOB Vanaheim, her hand resting on the cool, familiar handle of Storm-Singer. The jungle, their relentless, living enemy, was dying before her eyes. The once-bright, glowing plants that had pulsed with an eerie, inner light now sagged. Their colors faded to a sickly, uniform grey-brown. Massive, cathedral-like trees, which had once seemed to reach for the alien suns with defiant life, were now just brittle, skeletal structures. Their leaves crumbled to dust in the thin breeze. The air, once thick with the strong, complex smells of alien life, now smelled only of decay and ash. They hadn't just won; they had poisoned the well, salted the earth, and switched off the fucking sun.

Her eyes swept across the Einherjar grunts manning the line. There was no loud celebration, no swapping of war stories, no triumphant polishing of armor. They were quiet, subdued, moving with a heavy, robotic efficiency. Shoulders slumped, armor scuffed, they stacked munitions and checked power cells without a word. She saw a young soldier, barely two centuries old, his gaze fixed on something beyond the dying jungle, his eyes flat and unfocused. The skin over his knuckles was stretched taut and pale where he gripped his storm-bolter. She saw a hardened veteran, a man with campaign rings in his beard, quietly tracing a protection rune onto the metal barricade.

Astrid appeared beside her, a restless energy coming off her, a sharp contrast to the deep stillness of the world around them. She wasn't smiling, her usual post-victory happiness noticeably gone. Her eyes scanned the grey, wilting landscape with a kind of agitated boredom.

"So this is 'order'," Astrid said, her voice flat, pointing with a gloved hand at the dying jungle. "It's… quiet. I preferred the noise. At least then you knew where the enemy was."

Brynja grunted in agreement. "There's nothing to fight anymore."

"Exactly," Astrid snapped, her voice sharp with an unusual frustration. "What's the point of a victory if it just leads to… this? This silence? It's unnerving." The deep horror of the psychic scream, the all-encompassing, mind-shattering pain of a planetary mind being killed, had clearly unsettled even her, though she would likely die before admitting it. It had lacked honor, lacked a worthy opponent in the final moments. It was just… an execution.

A quiet footstep announced Mist's arrival. The younger Valkyrie's face was pale, her eyes fixed on the datapad in her hands. "Lead. Astrid," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "I've been comparing the data from the orbital ISR platforms with our ground-level sensor readings. It's… worse than we thought."

She angled the datapad so they could see. It showed a holographic model of Iðunn's Orchard Prime, angry red indicators spreading across its surface like a virus. "The entire planetary life network is in a chain reaction of failure. It's not just this continent. The destruction of Node Primus… it was like ripping the heart out of the organism. The secondary and tertiary nodes across the globe are failing in a chain reaction. The mages are calling it 'Symbiotic Necrosis'." She brought up another screen, showing changing weather patterns, ocean currents turning a toxic, sludgy brown. "The planet's entire operating system is crashing. We didn't just kill their god, Brynja. We broke their world."

Brynja stared at the dying planet on the screen, then out at the dying jungle before her. A sudden, sour heat rose in her throat. The scale of their "victory" was huge, a sin so vast she couldn't even begin to understand it. And High Command, she knew, would log it as a success.

The order to report to the C2 tent came an hour later. Brynja, as a squadron lead who had been at the front of the attack, had to attend the high-level AAR. She stood at the back of the tent, providing security in theory, but really just another observer, another set of ears for the official story to be stamped upon.

The holographic forms of Tyr and Thor filled the space, their presence crackling with authority. Tyr began, his tone as cold and unbending as space itself. "After-Action Report for Operation Verdant Prize. Primary objective, the neutralization of hostile planetary intelligence Node Primus, was achieved. The threat has been eliminated. The beachhead is secure. The operation is designated a complete and unqualified success."

He pointed to a holographic display showing casualty figures. "Asgardian casualties were sustained, but losses are rated within acceptable parameters for a decapitation strike against a Class-A esoteric threat."

Brynja flinched inside. "Acceptable parameters." She thought of the Einherjar in body bags, of Loras the Combat Mage, now a mindless, drooling wreck in the med-bay. She wondered whose parameters they were talking about.

"The ecological collapse that followed," Tyr continued, his voice without any emotion, "is an unfortunate but necessary result of neutralizing a hostile, planet-wide intelligence. The asset is now denied to any potential future enemy. The planet will be designated a Quarantine Zone pending further study and possible future terraforming."

Thor, always the blunt tool, chimed in, his voice a low rumble. "It was a foul beast, a world-serpent strangling its own potential, and we killed it. The land withers, true, but soil is soil. It can be re-seeded in time, made to serve Asgard's needs. It was a worthy battle, and a decisive victory. All warriors who fought here have earned their place in the sagas."

They won't write about the silence, Brynja thought, a line from Sigrun echoing in her mind. Or the smell.

Then, a new voice, silky and full of smug amusement, patched into the comm system. Loki. "My congratulations, Lord Tyr, Lord Thor, on a most… thorough cleansing. A brilliant application of Asgardian problem-solving. I trust the Lore-Keepers and I can begin drafting the official historical record? 'Iðunn's Orchard Prime, successfully sanitized of its hostile, parasitic intelligence, paving the way for a future of Asgardian prosperity.' It has a certain ring to it, don't you think? A testament to Aesir resolve."

Brynja listened from her post at the back of the tent, her hand resting on her spear. Regret, she realized with a chilling certainty, was a luxury only for the trigger-pullers, the grunts on the ground.

***

For High Command, there was only the cold, hard math of victory and loss, and this, by their numbers, was a resounding win.

Later, trying to escape the suffocating self-praise of the command tent, Brynja made her way to the med-bay. The smell of antiseptic, blood, and ozone was thick, but it was an honest smell, a real smell, unlike the perfumed lies of the official story. She went to check on a young Einherjar from Third Platoon who had taken a nasty hit from a Symbiont near her position during the final push. He was alive, but his eyes held a vacant, haunted look.

The real horror, however, was in the esoteric wing, where the mages were struggling to treat the victims of the Root-Mind's psychic death scream. Loras was there, strapped to a bio-bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Others were in similar states, catatonic, or worse, thrashing against their restraints, screaming at phantoms only they could see. Their minds had been shattered, their souls scoured clean by that final, silent scream. The mages worked with grim determination, weaving complex runes of healing and peace, but Brynja could see the exhaustion and frustration in their faces. This was a wound their magic had no easy cure for.

She found Sigrun in the mess hall, away from the others, methodically sharpening the edge of her massive energy axe with a whetstone, a pointless but calming gesture for an energy weapon. The rhythmic shhhk-shhhk-shhhk was the only sound between them for a long moment.

"They'll call this a grand victory in the sagas," Sigrun said finally, not looking up from her work. "A chapter in the great book of Asgard's expansion." She tested the edge with her thumb. "They won't write about the silence that came after. Or the look on that mage Loras's face. Some victories, Brynja, leave deeper scars than any defeat. They fester."

Brynja had nothing to add. Sigrun had said it all.

Later still, she found Astrid in one of the training cages, a holographic opponent flickering before her. She moved with a cold, frantic intensity, her energy whip a blur of motion. Her strikes were precise, dispassionate, meant to obliterate.

"You're quiet," Astrid said without turning, her voice tight as she sidestepped a holographic lunge.

"There's a lot to be quiet about," Brynja replied, leaning against the cage wall.

"Don't start, Brynja," Astrid warned, her whip cracking the air.

"Start what? Admitting what we did?"

Astrid spun, deactivating the hologram, her face flushed, her eyes bright with a mix of anger and something else… something that looked like defensiveness. "What we did was survive! What we did was follow orders and neutralize a threat that would have killed every last one of us! It was them or us, Brynja! It was a monster!"

"Was it?" Brynja asked, her voice low. "Or was it just… different? And we broke it because we didn't understand it? We didn't even try."

"There was nothing to understand! It attacked us!"

"We landed an army on its soil, Astrid," Brynja countered, her own voice rising slightly. "We were the invaders. What if another race, more powerful than us, landed on Asgard and decided the Allfather's presence was a 'hostile planetary intelligence' that needed to be cleansed?"

Astrid stared at her, horrified. "That's treasonous talk!"

"No," Brynja said, shaking her head, a deep weariness settling over her. "It's just a goddamn question."

Astrid took a step forward, her whip sparking. "You need to stop asking them, Brynja."

"Maybe I do." She sighed. "I'm tired. I need sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, sister."

The new FRAGO came three days after they'd killed the planet. Not from Tyr this time, but from the top. Odin-Actual. His hologram appeared on every bridge and in every mess hall, a silent, commanding order for attention that cut through the low hum of the fleet. The Allfather didn't speak often, so when he did, you fucking listened.

His single eye, ancient and cold, swept over his unseen armada. He projected an aura of absolute ownership, the gaze of a man assessing assets on a galactic balance sheet.

"Warriors of Asgard," his voice resonated, a low, powerful hum that felt less like sound and more like a pressure wave. "Operation Verdant Prize is over. The hostile esoteric entity known as Node Primus has been successfully neutralized. The operational objective has been met."

He paused, letting the statement hang in the air. Brynja stood on the bridge of the Hrafnfljúga, arms crossed, her face a mask of professional disinterest. So far, it was the same old bullshit victory speech.

"However," Odin continued, and the change in tone was obvious, "due to unexpected and continuing environmental problems, Objective Iðunn is now a Level Four Quarantine Zone. All plans to colonize or take resources are stopped for now. All ground forces will make a strategic withdrawal to FOB Himinbjörg and fleet ships. We are bugging out."

A ripple of confusion went through the bridge crew. Brynja felt it too. All that blood, all those KIAs, the shattered minds in the med-bay… for what? To secure a shithole they were now abandoning?

Odin seemed to expect the question. "Let me be clear about the strategic goal of these first operations. The fights in AO Jörmungandr and AO Iðunn were not wars of conquest. They were tests. Reconnaissance-in-force across the whole system."

Jörmungandr. Iðunn. Two nests poked. Two different monsters. A test. A goddamn calibration.

"The information we gathered has been very valuable," Odin stated, his voice without any emotion. "We have set up a secure supply base at FOB Himinbjörg and have confirmed how well our forces work against different kinds of threats. Now, the real war begins."

The holomap behind him changed from the dying green of Iðunn's Orchard Prime to a new system. It was a complex network of orbital habitats, asteroid mining bases, and heavily armed planetoids, all glowing with the hard, sharp lines of advanced technology.

"Our next main objective is the Svartálfaheimr Cog-Network," Odin declared. "Home of the Chitin-Cog Ascendancy. A hard-working, technologically advanced race. Their ability to make and move things is a possible long-term strategic threat to Asgard's control of the region. Unlike our previous fights, this will not be a punitive mission or an esoteric cleansing. This will be a conventional, systematic war of attrition. We will dismantle their industrial base, seize their resources, and break their ability to wage war. Geirskögul, Tyr, your operational commands will send out the new OPORDs within the next cycle. Prepare your forces. The Allfather has spoken."

The hologram vanished. The bridge was silent for a long moment. The crew processed the cold, hard reality of the Allfather's grand strategy. They hadn't been bringing order. They had been kicking over anthills to see how hard the ants would bite, all in preparation for a war with the real wasps' nest down the road.

Brynja felt a deep, chilling feeling that she was nothing more than a scalpel in the hands of a cold, practical surgeon who saw whole worlds as just tissue samples to be cut out and studied.

***

The withdrawal from Iðunn's Orchard Prime was quiet, efficient, and almost shameful. The last of the infantry were lifted from the now-silent FOB Vanaheim, their boots leaving prints in the spreading grey dust that had once been living soil.

From the observation dome of the Hrafnfljúga, Brynja watched the planet get smaller as the fleet pulled back into high orbit. The maneuver was done with the cold precision of a funeral procession. The world below was a planet-sized corpse. Its bright, life-giving green was now permanently stained with huge, spreading patches of grey and brown, like a deadly sickness eating a once-healthy limb. It was a monument to their "success," a tombstone the size of a world.

A small, automated sensor station was deployed from a logistics ship, a tiny metal star left behind to monitor the planet's slow, agonizing decay. A final, clinical insult.

The raw, emotional horror Brynja had felt in the moments after the psychic scream had started to cool. It was hardening into something colder and much more dangerous: understanding. She now understood the true nature of the Allfather's grand campaign, stripped of all its poetic, self-important bullshit. She now understood the Allfather's grand campaign, stripped of its sagas and songs of glory. Any piece that could not be controlled would be swept away. That was the only rule. It was about eliminating any and all potential challenges to Asgard's supremacy, no matter the cost, no matter the methods. If a world was too complex, too different, too potentially defiant, it wasn't to be understood; it was to be broken. Cleansed. Sanitized.

Her duty remained, an unbreakable chain made by oaths and centuries of training. But the faith that once gave that duty meaning, the belief in the rightness of their cause, had been completely scraped from her soul. It was gone, replaced by a cold, weary resolve to simply endure, to follow her orders with the brutal efficiency expected of her, and to watch. To be a silent witness, to remember the ground truth of what they did, even if - especially if - no one else would. The sagas would lie. The Lore-Keepers would spin their tales of glory. But she would remember the silence. She would remember the smell of ash.

"All hands, prepare for Bifrost transit," the ship's comms crackled. "Destination: Svartálfaheimr Cog-Network."

Brynja didn't look back at the dying world behind them. She turned her gaze forward, toward the cold, hard stars of their next target. The glory she had once sought had turned to ash in her mouth. The regret that had settled in her gut was now a permanent part of her, a cold, heavy stone she would carry into the next battle, and the one after that. Her expression, reflected in the viewport, was grim and unreadable.

***

Glossary

Acronyms & Jargon

• AAR (After-Action Report): A formal military debriefing and review process conducted after an operation is completed. Its purpose is to analyze what happened, identify successes and failures, and establish lessons learned for future operations.

• AO (Area of Operations): A defined geographical area where a commander is assigned the responsibility and authority to conduct military operations.

• Bugging Out: Military slang for a rapid retreat or withdrawal from a position, often under pressure or due to a change in strategic priorities.

• C2 (Command and Control): Refers to the exercise of authority and direction by a designated commander over assigned forces. The C2 Tent is the physical command post where these functions are carried out on a battlefield.

• Decapitation Strike: A military strategy aimed at neutralizing an enemy's leadership or command structure to cripple their ability to wage war. The attack on Node Primus is a prime example.

• FRAGO (Fragmentary Order): An abbreviated military order issued to change or modify an existing Operations Order (OPORD). Used to disseminate timely changes to missions or plans.

• ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance): The coordinated acquisition and analysis of information to support military operations. ISR platforms are the assets (drones, satellites, etc.) used to gather this data.

• KIA (Killed In Action): A formal casualty classification for combatants who have been killed in action.

• Odin-Actual: A military radio-telephony procedure term. Adding "Actual" after a callsign (e.g., "Odin") signifies that you wish to speak directly to the commander themselves, not a radio operator or staff member. It denotes the highest level of authority.

• OPORD (Operations Order): A formal, detailed plan for a military operation, outlining the situation, mission, execution, logistics, and command structure.

Locations & Designations

• FOB (Forward Operating Base): A secured, forward-deployed military encampment used to support strategic goals in a hostile area.

  • FOB Vanaheim: The primary base established on Iðunn's Orchard Prime.

  • FOB Himinbjörg: A secure supply base mentioned by Odin, likely in a safer, more strategic location.

• Iðunn's Orchard Prime: The official Asgardian designation for the "god-planet" that was the target of Operation Verdant Prize.

• Quarantine Zone: An area designated as off-limits to all personnel and materiel, typically due to extreme biological, esoteric, or environmental hazard.

• Svartálfaheimr Cog-Network: The designation for the next target system, home to the Chitin-Cog Ascendancy.

• Node Primus: The primary intelligence, or "heart," of the planetary consciousness on Iðunn's Orchard Prime. Its destruction caused the planet-wide ecological collapse.

Technology & Equipment

• Bio-bed: A medical device used for treating severe injuries, likely integrating biological monitoring and life-support functions.

• Bifrost Transit: The Asgardian method for faster-than-light (FTL) travel, allowing their fleets to move between star systems. A technological version of the mythological rainbow bridge.

• Datapad: A handheld electronic device for displaying data, maps, and communications, analogous to a ruggedized tablet.

• Energy Axe / Energy Whip: Advanced melee weapons that use contained energy fields for cutting or impact, rather than a conventional physical edge.

• Storm-bolter: A powerful, likely rapid-fire, ballistic or directed-energy rifle; the standard-issue weapon for Einherjar.

• Storm-Singer: The personal, named spear or polearm wielded by Brynja. Naming a weapon suggests it is either a unique, high-quality piece of equipment or an item of personal significance.

Threats & Concepts

• Class-A Esoteric Threat: An official Asgardian military classification for a hostile entity of the highest danger level whose nature is psychic, magical, or otherwise defies conventional scientific understanding. Node Primus was designated as such.

• Chitin-Cog Ascendancy: The formal name of the technologically advanced, industrial race inhabiting the Svartálfaheimr Cog-Network.

• Symbiont: A hostile lifeform native to Iðunn's Orchard Prime, likely a bio-construct or creature directly linked to the planetary consciousness.

• Symbiotic Necrosis: The term coined by Asgardian mages to describe the cascading, planet-wide biological collapse triggered by the destruction of Node Primus.