“Has it really done nothing this entire time?”
Kohra swiped through pages and tabs on his tablet, going through data, before nodding. “Yeah. It’s done nothing. If anything, the only thing it has done is expand by four centimetres. Apart from that? Absolutely nothing. No change in movement, no change in spin or velocity, no change in density, nothing. It’s just sitting there, menacingly.”
There was one small snicker to Kohra’s statement. The rest of the Twelve Anew were confused, but Aesop was amused by Kohra’s reference.
“So… it really has done nothing?” Maresia asked. “Maybe the quarantine stuff we were doing actually worked?”
Epani wasn’t quite paying attention. She was thoroughly reading through all the data Kohra and Elkay had gathered.
Dalosisaar seemed unsure. “Sure, we may have been able to quarantine ourselves, but I’m pretty certain that us going near it to nuke the damn thing is just going to set it off.”
“Buddy, dragonboy, Dalo, friend, this is the damn future!” Aesop exclaimed. “We can do shit remotely. Kohra and Elkay have been doing shit remotely this entire time. We have set up the nukes to go off remotely because that’s how you set off nukes. Although, if I’m really honest? I’m not sure why Mistress Epani hasn’t just turned it into a black hole.”
“Black holes are super dangerous and also nearly impossible to destroy…” Aster muttered. “Epani doesn’t allow anyone to create them. They break the “eternal-inside-non-eternal rules” or something like that. Also, you can’t really move a black hole once you made it, so we’d end up just replacing the white ball with a black hole.”
Aesop was about to make a mean comment, but Aster’s words made sense. “Ah… fair enough. So, we’re definitely going to nuke it?”
“We are, apparently…” Valksia frowned. She was clearly unhappy that Epani was going with Aesop’s initial idea. “A lot of nuclear waste and material is about to be created.”
“But you didn’t ask me to get nukes from my old boss.”
Aster also frowned, but for a different reason. “We decided it was just easier to ask the Spasts and the Temthans. They had a joint treaty where all their nukes would be locked away inside a jointly protected vault on a Spast-owned moon. We spoke to both sides and they allowed us to take everything because they were sick of dealing with it.”
“Huh… A shame…” Aesop tutted. “So what are we doing here, setting up the actual plan so we can finally nuke the fucking ball?”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing!” Kohra perked up. “We’re going to nuke it. We’re going to nuke the heck out of it.”
“Well, bloody good! I’ve been saying this the entire time!”
Valksia clearly didn’t agree. “We’re going to make a mess. Radioactive matter is not easy to get rid of.”
“I hate to be that guy, because I totally am that guy, but we’re nuking the bottom of the universe!” Aesop countered. “There’s nothing there. We can just… leave the nuclear waste and not care about it, since there’s nothing there anyway. Or we can, I dunno, funnel it out of the universe. Once it’s past the universe’s walls, I don’t give a fuck either way. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“That exact thinking is why highly populated Torr worlds are over-polluted shit holes!” Valksia snapped.
“You’re completely right, Valksia!” Dalosisaar butted in. “Normally, I’d agree completely, but when it comes to the Episkeft, we need to just… get rid of it now. We’ve managed to keep Kairos at bay, we’ve minimised all exposure, we just need the stupid thing to be scared off since moving it off peacefully hasn’t worked.”
“Good! That’s what I’ve been fucking saying. And, like, we’re fucking gods. I’m sure there’s a way we can use all these nukes and keep this shit contained, right?” Aesop was way more optimistic now. “We nuke the fucker, scare it off, then fix everything up and Kairos can go back to being a normal cunt instead of a super cunt… By the way, dragonboy, did my suggestion to distract Kairos with a bunch of lady Thraki work?”
Dalosisaar grunted. “Somewhat, yes. But I also spoke to the Mages’ Circle and… arranged some festivals and intense worship of Kairos and some special ceremonies too and that also helped.”
“It did?”
Syksis nodded. “It seems that, since the Sudden Darkness, an affliction known as Dispa, which affected both Sini and Epani, has somehow also been passed down to Kairos due to… uh… Life Goddess and Time Drake things. But thankfully, Dispa is relatively easy to treat in males.”
“Is it curable?” Aesop asked.
“Uh, no. At least, I haven’t worked out a cure for it yet. But I’m not great when it comes to medical issues in greater deities. But once we’ve… nuked the visitor… I can get back to work on fixing that. Because I am pretty sure the white ball is exasperating the problem, for both Epani and Kairos.”
“It is…” Epani muttered. She had finished what she was doing and was now looking over her little deities. “I apologise for my quietness, I was just figuring out the details of my plan. Unfortunately, we have… hit a small snag.”
“We… we have?” Kohra exclaimed, before suddenly realising what it was. “Oh. You got to the part in my report where I worked out that the ball interferes with technology and stuff.”
The smirk on Aesop’s face faded. “So my comment about remote-detonating nukes is… no longer correct?”
Epani nodded. “Someone is going to have to set the nukes off at a… not exactly comfortable range.”
“I will do it!” Litvir immediately exclaimed.
“Uh, why?”
“I am the deity of protecting things. I do this, I protect you all from both the nuclear thing and the ball. Also I can move the fastest, I can shoot lasers and I get to see the big explosions up close. That is good, yes?”
Epani inspected Litvir for a moment, then sighed. “Alright, fine. Let me get everything sorted, to minimise exposure for the rest of you, then we can finally get rid of this damned thing…”