“Captain Lafay to Command, all preparations on the Nine-hammer are complete. Now awaiting instructions.”

“Status report received. Please standby.” said the reply. Garbled by static and sounding strained as it came in through a ship’s communication systems.

“Captain Rex to Command, all preparation on the Blue-Reed are complete. Now awaiting instructions.”

“Status report received. Please standby.” said the reply.

“Captain Ivanhoe to Command, all prepares on the Fifth-Babylon are complete. Now awaiting instructions.”

“Status report received. Please standby.” said the reply.

This same process, and the accompanying communication was repeated over and over again for the majority of a week as the United Planetary Navy and Stellar Marine force of the Planet Askr were gathered.

The night sky above of Askr was little up with hundreds of millions, of man-made lights. All of them attached to skyborn, starborn machines. Glittering ships of obsidian metal and gray-blue glass, that crowed together like a school of fish.

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It should come as a surprise to no one that those who spent their time scheming against others were usually the sort who were schemed against the most.

The duplicitous Gray-God Vivek was planning to steal the divine thrones of Embla from the rest of its native gods. As his only on world partners were a few minor deities and demons that he’d either promised power to, or owed him favors, and the Greater God Dougall of the Dark Blue, once Dougall lost his people and pulled away from the fold Vivek had no choice but to turn to his allies off-world.

As one might imagine the kind of people that might agree to be part of such a plot were generally not of the nicest variety. Even the gods knew that so-called “honor amongst thieves” was a fairy tale. An illusory thing less substantial than the clouds.

The only thing that could be trusted was that people of their sort would do whatever they felt was in their own best interests, and take exactly what they thought they could get away with taking.

In the case of Vivek, the little trickster gray-god with dreams of taking his world’s divine throne, his allies had all pretty much been planning to get what they could take from him, right from the get go, a mere handful of centuries ago.

Meaning that the majority of all that groveling and bargaining was pretty much just them, squeezing their inevitable partner-in-crime to see what else he’d spit up in a desperate attempt to sweeten a pot that was already three-thirds honey.

It also means that rather than being put out when they got word through the divine grapevine, that their dear partner was having troubles they were ecstatic; A Desperate crook, was often a messy crook, a crook who made mistakes because he wasn't thinking too clearly.

Thus it was, that when Vivek alighted to the palace of Ferenc, a yellow god of war and conviction, and told his compatriots that he would need them to bring even more forced when he snuck them through Embla’s divine shielding, he missed the look his Askran partners shared between each other.

They’d planning to take advantage of him from the very beginning. If Vivek had been thinking just a little more clearly, he might have questioned his sanity for inviting this pack of foxes, into his hen house. Remembering that to them he was just more prey, instead of a full compatriot.

Less than a day after he’d contacted them for additional assistance, the gods of Askr would reach to their peoples with divine missives and prophetic dreams. Informing the mortals of Askr that the time had come. The time of manifest destiny was nigh. A rube had opened the opposition’s defenses, it was time for them to go conquer and take what should have been theirs all along.

Askr was a world of Darkgrand, and like all the worlds of this slice of the cosmos it was home to an exiled people. In Askr’s case rather than descending from monstrous beings, and fallen gods, the people were descendants of great men. Men who had become more than men. Their status making them hard to deal with. Making it so that the gods, angels, and demons couldn’t deal with them as they would normally deal with such offensive mortals.

Askr was home to humans, elves, halflings, and dwarves, who descended from ancient empires, that had been ruled by ancient immortal kings. Immortal-Kings who’d only allowed themselves to be sealed away if the gods gave word that their peoples would not be directly destroyed by them.

Instead of being destroyed these people were sent to the dark slice of the cosmos and put in thrall to the scheming deities of Darkgrand. Dark gods who promised them power, salvation, and vindication in return for servitude but only delivered on the servitude and power part of their promises.

Fast forward a few million years or so now all the nations of this world had sent all their most powerful ships, carrying all their most powerful men and weapons. Sailing them across the sea of stars to a planet sized jewel that was just waiting to be taken.

They sailed for three days straight, flying faster than any man or woman of their world had ever flown. Then mid-way through, they all simply disappeared. Every last ship was gone, every last man and woman was gone. Vanishing from the senses of their gods and the sensors of their mortal rulers.