The Only Gods We Know, Vol. 2 Ch 5: Scorched Earth

The sky above Folkvangr Prime didn’t darken the way storms did. It turned orange. The chemical, furious orange of an atmosphere eaten alive by incendiary warheads.

Shield-Captain Brynja Vingfalk gripped the edge of the console until the metal groaned. The tactical display—usually cool blue vectors and friendly icons—was a riot of red. Her squadron, the Stormbringers, held tight formation off the starboard wing. Their Valkyrie interceptors looked like gnats beside the capital ships of the Sun-Eater Battle Group, which were swinging into orbital bombardment positions overhead. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Fleet-Wide Override,” Mist said. Her voice was tight. Her fingers moved fast across the alien controls of the stolen transport. “Wing Commander Astrid. Priority One Alpha.”

“Main screen,” Brynja ordered. She already knew what was coming. You could taste it in the recycled air. Ozone and violence.

Astrid’s face filled the viewport. Immaculate, as always. Blue dress uniform pressed to a blade’s edge. Blonde braids wound with silver wire. Her eyes were cold as dead stars. She didn’t look like a woman about to murder a world. She looked like an administrator filing a particularly aggressive tax return.

“All elements of the Myrkviðr Sector Fleet.” Her voice was modulated. Smooth. Authority without effort. “Intelligence confirms the planetary government of Folkvangr Prime has been compromised by the Cultivator insurgency. Bio-weapons caches detected in major population centers. The planet is hereby designated a Class-4 Bio-Hazard Zone.”

Brynja felt the blood leave her face. Class-4. Total sterilization.

“By the authority of Lord Tyr and High Command,” Astrid continued, “I am initiating Protocol Surtr. All ground assets withdraw immediately. Orbital bombardment commences in twenty minutes. The rot is deep. We burn it out to save the rest.”

The transmission cut. Silence came back hard.

“She can’t do this.” Sigrun’s voice was low from the weapons station. Face pale in the red emergency lighting. “Folkvangr Prime is a loyal agricultural world. Three million citizens. We buy our grain from them.”

“She just did.” Brynja’s voice was quieter than she intended. “Mist. Get me a direct line to the Sun-Eater. Override the communications blockade.”

“Already on it. Punching through their firewall—now.”

The screen flickered. Astrid reappeared. Not broadcasting. Sitting in her command chair. She looked annoyed at the interruption.

“Captain Vingfalk,” she said coolly. “I assume you’re calling to confirm your withdrawal vector.”

“I’m calling to tell you this is a mistake, Commander.” Brynja kept her voice flat. “Suspected collaboration. That’s your grounds for planetary genocide. Three million people. Farmers. Families.”

Astrid sighed. The sigh of a teacher running out of patience. “Loyalty is fluid when a bio-plague is involved, Brynja. The Cultivators have infected the soil itself. One spore ship breaks orbit, we lose the entire sector. I’m making the hard choice.”

“You’re making the easy choice.” Brynja stepped closer to the screen. “It’s easy to burn a problem from orbit when you don’t have to smell the smoke. Call it off. Give me twenty-four hours. I get a team on the ground, I verify the threat.”

“Negative.” Astrid’s eyes narrowed. “Bombardment begins in eighteen minutes. If your ship is still in the kill box, I add your silhouette to the target list.”

“Astrid—”

“Protocol Surtr is active. Clear the area. Direct order.”

The link died.

Brynja stared at the blank screen. The rage in her chest was cold and hard. Eighteen minutes wasn’t enough to stop a fleet. Maybe it was enough to save something.

“Mist.” She turned. “That Cultivator data-node. The one in the capital. Signal still active?”

“Weak. But yes.” Mist’s hands moved fast. “Deep in the temple district. But Captain—if we go down there—”

“We’re not fighting the fleet,” Brynja said, strapping into the pilot’s seat. “We’re beating them to it. Sigrun, get the assault team up. Hot drop.”

“Into a bombardment zone?” Sigrun was already moving toward the armory.

“Into the furnace.” Brynja pushed the throttle forward. “We grab the data. We grab who we can. We’re out before Astrid turns the sky to glass. Stormbringers, form up.”

The Skittermule shuddered as the engines roared.

***

The descent was a controlled crash.

They screamed through the upper atmosphere, the turbulence rattling teeth inside skulls. Outside the viewport the sky was already wrong. The fleet’s kinetic rounds were hammering the upper planetary shields, creating auroras of shattered energy—dazzling and terrible. The grid buckled. Flared white. Died. The world below lay naked under the Sun-Eater.

“Shields gone,” Mist called out. Her voice shook with the ship’s vibration. “First incendiary wave inbound. Impact in thirty seconds.”

“Hold it together.” Brynja fought the yoke. “Target the capital. Temple district. Landing solution that doesn’t put us inside a crater.”

They broke through cloud cover.

Folkvangr Prime was dying.

To the west, a continent-sized forest burned. Thermal lances had flash-ignited it from orbit, and now the wall of fire was kilometers high, eating golden grain fields into black ash as it came. The oceans were steaming. Vast white clouds rose where water had been.

“Gods above,” Sigrun breathed over comms.

The capital spread ahead. Chaos. Buildings falling not from direct hits but from seismic shockwaves miles out. The streets were choked with tiny figures running from a magnifying glass.

“Landing zone,” Mist called. “Public square, Temple of Sif. Clear.”

Brynja slammed the retro-thrusters. The ship groaned, decelerated violently, hovered for a sick heartbeat over the square—debris and ash whipping around the hull—and came down on the cobblestones with a bone-cracking thud.

“Ramp down. Move, move, move.”

The heat hit like a fist. Hot enough to blister paint off armor in seconds. The air smelled of burning plastic and ozone and things that had been alive. Brynja roared over the firestorm:

“Helmets on! Seals tight!”

The square was a nightmare. Civilians running blind, screaming, clutching children. Ash fell like grey snow. A skyscraper two blocks over groaned and tilted, shedding glass and concrete in sheets, then a wall of pulverized debris came rolling through the street toward them.

“Node signal’s strong!” Mist shouted, checking her scanner. “Inside the temple! Fifty meters!”

They pushed through the crowd. Brynja shoved a panicking man bodily off the ramp. “Back! Get back!”

The temple doors were barred from inside. Sigrun didn’t hesitate. Breaching charge, slap, blow. The bronze doors went inward.

They stormed through, weapons up, expecting a fight.

They found a prayer circle.

Hundreds of them. Farmers in roughspun tunics, scientists in white coats, children clutching toys—all huddled in the nave. They held seedlings in clay pots. Fruit-tree cuttings wrapped in wet cloth. They weren’t armed. They weren’t plotting. They were protecting the future of their world with their bodies.

They looked up when the armored giants came through the door.

They didn’t see rescuers. They saw silver and gold. The sigil of the Valkyrie. Choosers of the slain.

They screamed.

A woman in the front row held a potted sapling like a shield and shrank back. Her eyes were wide with absolute terror. “Please,” she sobbed. “We’re loyal. We paid the tithe. Please don’t burn us.”

Brynja lowered her weapon. The shame sat in her gut like hot metal. Astrid saw infection vectors. Brynja saw people begging for their lives from the soldiers sworn to keep them safe.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” she said. Her voice boomed in the vaulted space. “We’re here to get you out.”

“Captain.” Mist pointed to a server bank in the corner, disguised as an altar. “The node. It’s downloading.”

“Secure it.” Brynja turned. “Sigrun, start moving these people. Women and children first. Pack them in like cargo.”

“There are too many,” Sigrun said, scanning the crowd. “We can’t take them all.”

“We take what we can.” Brynja was already moving. “Go.”

Outside, the sky shifted to a brighter, deadlier orange. Second wave inbound.

***

The evacuation was a shoving, screaming mess.

Brynja stood at the temple steps directing refugees toward the Skittermule. The cobblestones were hot enough to melt the rubber soles of civilian shoes. She could feel the heat through her armor’s boots. The city was eating itself around them—gas lines rupturing underground, buildings settling into foundations softened by shockwaves, the sky turning colors that had no business being in a sky.

“Data secure!” Mist sprinted out with a hard drive clutched against her chest. “We need to go, Captain! Power grid’s collapsing!”

A deafening crack. Two blocks over, a kinetic rod found a skyscraper. It didn’t fall—it shattered. Fire and debris and a rolling cloud of pulverized concrete came at them like a wave.

“Inside! Now!” Brynja grabbed the last few refugees and shoved them up the ramp. “Seal it!”

The ramp didn’t close. Something at the bottom was blocking the sensor.

Not a refugee.

A black Asgardian dropship roared in low over the square and touched down on the far side. Its ramp dropped fast. Troopers poured out in matte-grey heat-resistant armor, tanks on their backs, flamethrowers in their hands.

Sanitation Squads. The cleaners. Sent to burn what the bombs missed.

The squad leader walked toward the Skittermule and leveled his weapon at the refugees still scrambling up the ramp.

“Halt.” His voice was flat. Empty. “By order of Wing Commander Astrid. This zone is quarantined. No extraction permitted.”

Brynja vaulted over the ramp railing and landed in front of him. Storm-Singer was in her hand, the blade humming with charge.

“Stand down, Sergeant,” she said. “These are civilians. They’re under my protection.”

“They’re bio-hazards, Sir.” No affect. No hesitation. “Protocol Surtr. Total sterilization. Step aside.”

He took a step forward. The pilot light on his flamer hissed—a small blue flame that wanted to be a wall.

Brynja moved.

She struck the weapon with the haft of her spear. The flamethrower flew from his hands and skittered across the hot stones. Same motion, same breath—she swept his legs and he crashed down hard. She planted her boot on his chest and put the tip of Storm-Singer an inch from his faceplate.

The Sanitation Squad raised their weapons. The Stormbringers on the ramp raised theirs. Asgardian against Asgardian. A standoff in the middle of an apocalypse.

“Anyone fires,” Brynja roared, “I execute your sergeant. Stand down!”

“Captain Vingfalk.” The voice came through her helmet comms. Secure channel. Astrid. Calm. “I can see you. I’m watching your feed. You’re threatening a loyal soldier for doing his duty.”

“He’s about to burn innocent people, Astrid!” Brynja shouted. “Call him off! This isn’t war—it’s murder!”

“It’s hygiene,” Astrid said. The disappointment in her voice was the worst part. “You look at them and see faces. Mothers. Children. I see vectors for a plague that kills billions if it spreads. You’re soft, Brynja. Sentiment has rotted your duty.”

“If this is duty,” Brynja said, “then I want no part of it.”

“Then you’re a liability.” A pause. “Get clear. Or burn with them. Final saturation wave is inbound. Two minutes.”

The line went dead.

Brynja looked down at the Sergeant. He glared up at her, defiant even with a boot on his chest.

“Go,” she said, stepping back. “Get your squad out before I forget I’m an officer.”

He scrambled up, grabbed his weapon, signaled his team. They retreated to the dropship and were gone.

“Ramp up!” Brynja sprinted back. “Mist, punch it! Get us off this rock!”

***

The Skittermule clawed its way into the sky.

The engines screamed, redlining as Mist pushed them past safety limits. The hull rattled apart and held and rattled again. Below, the city of Folkvangr Prime vanished into a cauldron. The final wave hit—not kinetic rods this time. Plasma. Sheets of blue-white fire washed over the surface, turning rock to magma, turning city to memory.

They broke orbit. G-force pressed Brynja into her seat.

“Orbit achieved,” Mist gasped. “Stabilizing. We’re… alive.”

Brynja unbuckled and walked to the viewport. Below, the planet glowed like an ember in the dark. A cinder where a living world had been.

The bridge was silent. From the cargo bay came the sound of the refugees weeping. Low and collective. A sound that moved through the deck plates.

Then the screens flickered.

Not just theirs. On the tactical plot, every ship icon in the sector fleet went grey. Every one. Fleet-wide override.

“Jamming?” Brynja said.

“No.” Mist stared at her console. “It’s a broadcast. High-band override. It’s coming from everywhere.”

The main screen cleared.

It wasn’t Astrid. It wasn’t Tyr.

It was the planet they had just left. Not the view from orbit. Drone footage. Surface level. High-definition. Unedited.

A family running through the streets. A child tripping. The mother turning back. The fire taking them both.

A field of grain burning. Oceans turning to steam. Asgardian ships overhead—beautiful and terrible—raining death on a loyal agricultural world.

No narration. No speech. Just the footage.

Then the camera held on a single image. A scorched Asgardian helmet lying in the mud next to a burned doll.

White text. Simple.

SEE THEIR LOVE.

SEE THEIR PEACE.

SEE THEIR IRON.

Brynja stared at the screen.

“He recorded it,” she said. Quiet. “The Architect. He knew Astrid would burn the planet. He let her do it.”

“He baited her,” Sigrun said. Her voice was heavy. “He sacrificed a world to prove a point.”

“And we helped him.” Brynja felt sick to her stomach. “Astrid just handed him the greatest recruitment broadcast in the history of the galaxy. Every neutral system that sees this—they won’t see protectors anymore. They’ll see monsters.”

The broadcast ended. The tactical data came back cold and indifferent.

Brynja turned from the viewport.

“We lost,” she said softly. “We burned the infection and killed the patient. And the Architect is laughing.”

She moved toward the command chair.

“Get the data to Freyja,” she ordered. “And get these people some water.”

She sat down.

“The war just got a lot longer.”

***

Glossary

In-Universe Military Designations & Directives

• Class-4 Bio-Hazard Zone: A planetary classification denoting severe, irreversible contamination by a biological agent (such as the Cultivator insurgency). Warrants total quarantine and immediate planetary sterilization.

• Protocol Surtr: A drastic military directive ordering the total surface sterilization of a planet via orbital bombardment, usually to halt the spread of an infection. Named after the mythological Norse fire giant.

• Sanitation Squads ("Cleaners"): Specialized Asgardian ground troops deployed after or during an orbital bombardment. Equipped with heat-resistant armor and flamethrowers to incinerate any surviving biological material or civilians.

• Shield-Captain: A high-ranking Valkyrie field officer (Brynja's rank) who commands smaller squadrons or assault teams.

• Wing Commander: A senior naval/aerospace officer (Astrid's rank) with authority over fleet operations, capital ships, and sector-wide military elements.

• Sun-Eater Battle Group / Myrkviðr Sector Fleet: The massive naval armada responsible for enforcing Asgardian will in the sector, equipped with devastating capital ships capable of planetary destruction.

Orbital & Naval Weaponry

• Kinetic Rods / Rounds: Massive, non-explosive solid projectiles dropped from orbit. They rely purely on gravity and extreme velocity to shatter targets with seismic, bunker-busting shockwaves.

• Plasma Waves / Saturation Waves: The final stage of an orbital bombardment. Sheets of superheated blue-white plasma that turn rock into magma and completely glass a planet's surface.

• Thermal Lances: Directed, high-intensity orbital energy beams used to flash-ignite massive surface areas, such as turning continent-sized forests into firestorms.

• Breaching Charge: A specialized, fast-acting explosive used by ground teams to blow open reinforced doors or bulkheads.

Tactical & Operational Jargon

• Fleet-Wide Override: A forced, high-level command broadcast that locks out localized ship communications and forces all screens in a fleet to display a single message or feed.

• Ground Assets: Military personnel, vehicles, and equipment operating on a planet’s surface.

• Hot Drop: A highly dangerous, rapid descent into an active combat zone or hazardous environment, often foregoing standard safety protocols to maximize speed.

• Kill Box: A defined three-dimensional target area. Any ship or unit remaining in a kill box when a bombardment begins is considered an acceptable casualty.

• Landing Solution: The complex, calculated flight path and thruster sequence required for a pilot to safely land a spacecraft, especially in chaotic atmospheric conditions.

• Priority One Alpha: The highest level of communication classification, reserved for critical, fleet-wide orders from High Command or commanding officers.

• Redlining: Pushing a ship’s engines or systems past their manufacturer-recommended safety limits (into the "red line" on a gauge), risking catastrophic mechanical failure for a burst of speed or power.

• Vector: A specified course, direction, or set of coordinates used for ship navigation or troop withdrawal.