Taking cover wasn’t really an option.  The ground shook and threw them all off their feet.  Even Doris had to drop to one knee and plant her spear deep into the dirt to stabilise herself as the world shook.


    “We weren''t meant to be blowing up the world!” complained Bob over the comm link.  The distant hills exploded, hurling megatons of matter into the sky, completely obscuring the gas giant that hung low on the horizon.


    “Shields!” called Flash.  He and Evie threw up their strongest barriers in a series of shells to protect the team from the rapidly approaching dust cloud that moved across the surface like pyroclastic flow.


    “Up top as well!” called Raoul who had shrunk down to a mere four metres and was struggling into his power armour despite the still shaking ground.


    Sam threw up a concrete and steel dome that while illusory still echoed as debris began to fall from the sky.  Evie and Flash shifted their shields to cover directly above them as well.  The twins held hands and black and gold power spread out to form yet another shell surrounding the team.  Soon all vision was lost, except to John, as the dust and debris rained down on their little bubble of life.


    The shields heaved and sank deeper into the ground.  The narrow gap, only a few metres, gradually creeping closer to the teams heads.  Evie and Flash were both cursing but Zeeg was wandering in and out of the barrier and provided a running commentary on how many metres of dirt were building up above them.


    John had long since lost his irrational fear of heights but claustrophobia was something he hadn’t really had to deal with.  That worm of fear began inching through his guts and he forcefully reminded himself he could blip everyone out if he needed to.


    Zeeg wasn’t exaggerating, although her blasé attitude to their unexpected burial wasn’t helping the nerves of people who couldn’t teleport.


    “Most of it has stopped now.  I think," said Zeeg happily.  “It’s a good twenty metres deep.  I’m pretty sure you don’t need the shields.  It’s formed its own structure and should hold up if you stop using your powers.”  It had been a long half hour as the thuds of falling debris became more and more distant above them.


    “I think I’ll keep the shield up until we teleport out,” muttered Evie.  “Is it safe to go back onto the surface?”


    “Yeah.  Everything got trashed.  Shit, even the first base I built is in ribbons!” Bob complained.  “It seems like it’s pretty much safe now though.  John, if you’d like to do the honours?”


    John blipped himself into the now clouded sky.  When he''d used the ice cannon the dust had blocked the sky for a few hours until it was whipped out into streamers by the high altitude winds.  Now the sky was black and grey clouds stretching from horizon to horizon.  He brought the others out at the first base, near the portal.


    “Bloody hell.  How long are the clouds going to last?” asked Evie.  The sight of the looming gas giant had become both familiar and reassuring to the team over the last few weeks.  At first it had been disconcerting, a constant reminder of how small they were, how insignificant Earth was in comparison to that giant world.  It had gradually shifted to become a reassuring beauty that made this new world less bleak and desolate than it truly was.  Now that was gone, replaced with roiling black and grey clouds.  “It’s a bit like being back in Yorkshire now.  Constant clouds!” she finished with faux-cheerfulness.


    “It’s going to take months or years to clear.  I’ve been building some satellites to go up around Bob-World-One but it wasn’t a big priority while we were clearing out the Void critters,” said Bob.


    “Dad it might be worth going to check on the slug we salted,” said Evie.


    “Why?  It’s got to be dead!” said Felix.


    “Dead!” affirmed Felicity.


    “No team report.  Either we didn’t get credit or…” said Sam as she caught on to Evie’s point.


    “Ah crap.  We just devastated the world!” said John.


    “Yeah and we specifically weren’t meant to do that!” grumbled Bob.  John ignored him.


    “How can it still be alive?” John finished.


    “Might be some kind of ability or power.  Might be that we didn’t get credit because we salt-bathed it to death.  We need to be sure though,” said Vic.  “Run along Mr. Teleporter!” she laughed as she slapped him on the butt, shoving him forwards.


    With a grumble John vanished.  He appeared a good kilometre up, below the new cloud layer by a good margin but as he moved towards the site of the detonation the air became even more clogged with debris.  He stopped when the roar of the dust around him was echoing through his armour and looked down.  He was still nowhere near vertically over the crater so had to look through the sides.


    The crater was huge.  A couple of miles across and that was only because the surrounding hills that hadn’t been launched into orbit had subsided and filled most of the hole back in.  He narrowed his eyes and focused.  Below the crater floor, strewn with jagged rock and smooth sections where the dirt had formed a flood, something still lived.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    It was the same size as before, tiny in comparison to the other high level Void beasts they’d slain over the last few weeks, and it was moving feebly.  Whatever it had done had vapourised the water.  With a start he noticed he had closed the temporary portals instinctively when he had fled with the team.  He hadn’t intended to do that but perhaps it was for the best.  The beast was only under a few dozen metres of rubble at this point.


    John began blipping away the rubble.  He tried to be careful but every layer he blipped away caused a new land slide.  The primary Void monster became increasingly distressed, squirming and wriggling desperately, as it tried to wriggle away from the rumbles and sliding sounds above it.


    It took a few minutes but eventually he had cleared the rubble enough to get a proper look at the thing, unobstructed by debris and crushed dirt.  It was a few metres long, a pale white slug that began to heave itself onto the surface.


    Name: Void Overlord


    Level: 92


    Ability: Planetary Management


    Huh.  That’s a lot of levels.  As he contemplated the thing from a few miles away it pivoted and pointed itself straight at him.


    So you’re the executioner they’ve sent to end me?  The voice appeared in his mind.  It slithered in.  There was something distinctly serpentine or… slimy to it.  He began transferring his sensory feed to Bob directly so they’d have a record of the first time they spoke to the Void.


    “I am.  It’s not the first time I’ve done this kind of job,” he replied aloud.  He didn’t boost his volume or transmit it across the speakers built into his suit.  He just understood that the thing would hear him.


    It settled down, almost collapsing and seeming to deflate, before it continued.


    A noble crusader, fighting for your world.  The voice was androgynous and this time there was a definite sneer to the tone.


    “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.  You’re invading my world and we need to get strong enough to stop what happened here happening there.”


    A man?  Can a slave ever be a man?


    “I’m hardly a slave!” John scoffed.


    Oh they threw some power at you so you’re free?  Pfft.


    “They came to us because you- you’re side- is planning to invade us.”


    So they told you.  I won’t last much longer.  The water…


    “The salt?”


    Hah, such stupid creatures!  There is a microbe in the water that is rapacious when it encounters Heftiul biology.  It robs us of our minds.  Ah, you have a similar concept: zombies?


    John wasn’t terribly happy this thing was rummaging around in his brain.


    Hah.  You fear what you do not understand.  You don’t even know how little you understand.  I suppose it’s the only thing that allows you to function.  Is there such a thing as a just war?


    “I’m not here to argue philosophy with you.”


    Then kill me now and claim your Essence!  Or don’t and listen.  I find I no longer care.  I am numb to the pain and soon my mind will have been consumed.  I wasn’t able to avoid infection.  Its mental voice became bitter towards the end.  Bob and the team were spamming him with messages, suggesting things to ask about or in the case of the twins, telling him to kill it quickly.


    “There is such a thing as a just war.  Good and evil are in all of us and sometimes the evil wins out.  When that happens on a societal level they become a threat and need to be fought, whatever the cost.”


    They sent children to kill me?  I am offended.  Can you define evil, little human?


    “Ugh, not very well.  But I know it when I see it!”


    So it’s something you perceive?  Could another not perceive it differently?  You’ve killed all my children, how do you think I see you, morally speaking? Who is the arbiter of good and evil?


    “Shit I don’t know!  God?”


    Hahahaha!  The wheezing laughter echoed in John’s mind.  You’ve met your god and my own!  The gold and the black, remember?  When you “died”?


    “I don’t think those were gods,” John replied.  The twins began screaming in his ear and he muted his comm link.  “I think they were once like us.  Like you and me.”


    Perhaps you are not as lost as you seem.  You love your species?  If you do find a way to escape the trap the “gods” have put you in I would be surprised.  Now I''m tired.  End me, if you want the Essence.  That’s why you’re here, after all, little mercenary.


    “Kill it John.  It’s fading fast,” sent Bob.


    John remembered the beauty of the ice rings orbiting the gas giant.  It seemed only fair to reunite this thing with a sight it would never have again.  He opened a portal and a blast of ice and rock shot down into the crater.  The Overlord withstood the blast.  It was dug deeper and deeper into the dirt as the bombardment pushed it into newly loosened soil.  John summoned half a dozen hundred ton slabs of rock and let them fall.


    He brought them down in quick succession, barely a fraction of a second between each impact and a new cloud of dust shot out of the crate, reaching up to try and connect with the omnipresent clouds above.


    Team Report:


    Void Overlord (Level 92) killed: 1.  Essence per kill: 19740274219166800000


    Essence Gained per team Member: 19740274219166800000


    “Holy Mother of God!” exclaimed Evie.  “How many levels is that?”


    “Enough to get to ninety two.  Maybe a bit more with what we got from the Captain and the other void-things but probably not.  Don’t level up yet!  We’ll level just before we get back to Earth, otherwise we’ll get totally fucked on the mission levels!” snapped Bob quickly.


    “Can we just head home now?  We’re way past the bloody Monarchs!” said Sam excitedly.


    “How do we do that love?” asked Raoul.  “Ask the Lord Captain to detour and drop us off?”


    “We could ask?” Sam said hopefully.


    “It was just an administrator.  It was weak,” muttered John.  “Like Anna and the Cogitator, Christ, I can’t even remember his name!  Like them. Bugger all combat ability.”


    “That was for the best,” said Felix coldly, still annoyed about John’s blasphemy.  “Perhaps in the future we should allow people with stronger faith to speak to our enemies?”


    “Enemies!” snarled Felicity.


    “I’m not so sure who the real enemies are,” said John.


    “John, We’ve completed this mission.  We’ve got enough Essence to make a huge difference when we get home and thankfully none of us have died so far.  Let’s not make things more difficult than they have to be?” Vic asked softly.  “We’ve got a daughter to get home to.  People we need to protect.  Let’s play the game for now?”


    “Sure.  Looks like we’re stuck here until the Kipragtsek decides to pick us up.  We might as well make ourselves comfortable for now,”  John said.


    “You mean now you’ve trashed the bloody place?” Bob complained.  “I really liked that view!”


    “You were on board with the ‘drown the bastard’ plan as well you grumpy git!” laughed Evie.  “How long is it going to take you to set up some kind of resort?  I’d like to go swimming!”


    “The temperature’s going to drop.  You might have been able to do some skiing but we blew up all the hills as well,” Bob muttered.