Olympus Diver Justice Pt.2

Part II: Ashes of Tarsh

The warp rip cracked reality open, and the Sovereign Divine emerged above Tarsh like a god descending for judgment.

No planetary welcome. No automated beacon. Only the cold static of silence.

High King Titus Octavius Kingsley VIII stood at the loading ramp in full battleplate, eyes fixed on the wounded horizon.

Beside him stood Trigger—Dante Jackson, the firewalker, the last survivor of Furnace Ridge. Clad in scorched steel and silence, Trigger had volunteered for this Mission the moment he heard the news. Titus hadn’t needed to ask.

When the ramp lowered, the dust met them like breath from a corpse. The wind carried the scent of scorched flesh, burned circuitry, and the oil-rich stench of automated death.

What once was Outpost 14 was now an open grave. The bots had left nothing intact.

Steel beams jutted upward like snapped bones. The command bunker had caved in on itself. Shattered optics flickered weakly among the rubble.

They walked in silence.

Titus moved with slow, heavy steps. Trigger followed, hand resting on his signature flamer but not drawn—not yet.

They passed a collapsed pillbox. Inside, five Helldiver corpses were piled together, their armor half-melted from laser fire. One of them clutched a Stratagem.

Trigger stopped. “They never send the Distress Signal.”

Titus said nothing.

They moved further into the base, stepping over shell casings, destroyed Turrets, and scorch marks in the dirt where men had tried to crawl away. Trigger crouched near a fallen Diver.

“I trained one of these kids,” he said quietly. “Saw him fire through a wall once—nailed a bot through the eye. Said he wanted to make his name here.”

He brushed ash from the boy’s helmet. “Guess he did.”

Titus didn’t respond. Instead, he reached into his coat and took out a small tablet. With a touch, he activated the Olympus Battlefield Memorial Protocol. As he walked, his voice echoed through the ruins, steady and low:

“You were not weak. You were abandoned. You are not forgotten. You will be remembered.”

Trigger saluted.

They reached the outer Defensewall—now a charred Wasteland.

The bodies there, burned into the ferrocrete. Some were charred beyond recognition, Armor melted to the bone.

At the gate, a group managed to make their last stand, creating a crude wall of Corpses.

All had fallen.

Titus sat in the dust, directly among them. Trigger sat beside him, the only sound the distant howl of metal scraping in the wind.

They stared for a long time.

“I’ve never seen you like this,” Trigger said.

“Like what?”

“Still.”

Titus finally turned to him, the flicker of firelight dancing in his eyes.

“I’m remembering.”

He placed his palm on a fallen soldier’s chest plate. “They fought. They stayed. They believed.”

Trigger looked back toward the ridgeline, where the bots had vanished hours earlier. “And the ones who left?”

Titus stood. “They will believe, too.”

He turned to the transport squad behind them. “I want all the names carved. All of them. The weak don’t get remembered. The loyal do.”

“Mark the graves,” he said. “Every one.”

Trigger finally reached for his weapon. “And what do we do now?”

Titus looked toward the stars. Somewhere, the deserters were running. Somewhere, they thought they could hide.

“We light the pyre,” he said. “And then we chase the Cowards.”

Tarsh had burned.

Now it was time to Hunt.