Chapter 3

"Did Loki laugh?" Sighed a bemused Odin, still ill in his bed.

"Yes." "Well, let him have his fun. That little trickster… But he did his job. Now, we cannot intervene."

"Why father?" "The timeline dictates that we have to let humanity to fend for itself. That was one mistake we made back in the day. Take care of them and they will not evolve. Let them be, and progress happens. In any case, all gods must obey the laws of Time, that blasted thing. Only Kronos knows him best. Can you recite Time's law…"

"Yes." Said Thor, and spewed out a barrage of words.

Law One: Be subservient to Time while he/she picks their nose. You are all gnats to me.

Law Two: Never bother me, just ask Kronos, Quixilion, Aion, Geras, Gaea, Heh, Moros, Saturn, Tinia, Mario, Luigi, the entire My little Pony gang, (YOU), and all the other time gods I can't remember.

Law Three: You may only change the recent past, up to ninety year's worth. Anything otherwise and I will have to eliminate you and your own timeline. It's okay if the change in ninety years changes another timeline otherwise, as long as that timeline exists already. Ask the above gods. I only do this for five billion Jell-O bites. They are ESSENTIAL.

Law Four: I hate you all. Leave me ALONE! I like cookies. Cookies are good.

"Should I go up to law fifty billion and six?" "No, I think Time's still adding to that list."

Silence filled the grey, fog-like room.

Light slowly formed in the eyes of every crewmember aboard the Enterprise. Strangely, all of them were in the same positions they were in when they braced themselves for the terrors of the black hole.

Kirk was the first to speak in the bridge. "Where are we…And how did we survive?"

Spock replied, with his usual monotone, "I believe we are in the other side of a black hole. We are in the same situation in which my elder counterpart is in, so I would expect we are in some past or future of our timeline. As to how we survived, as our technology has not yet been adapted to survive in black holes…"

"Spock, I appreciate your scientific knowledge, but what is it I see across our viewscreen?"

Everyone whirled around to see a six-tipped star-like thing covering a vast expanse of space. Nobody could miss the unmistakable missile streaking towards them.

"Shields up!" Shouted Kirk. The shields were barely raised in time when the missile made contact with the Enterprise's hull. Unwelcome showers of sparks exploded in the bridge, and once could only imagine the chaos happening in the lower decks.

"Damage report," Coughed Kirk. "No major hull breach, but a section of Deck Twelve is being sealed off at the moment. Twelve crewmembers are dead in total." "Sulu, get us out of here, NOW!" "Captain, I would urge you to attempt to at least make some contact with this anomaly…"

Kirk whirled on Spock as Sulu, with a black eye from the missile impact, quickly steered the ship away from the hulking star of death. "I think firing a missile at us shows their message clearly, Spock. They want us to get the HELL out of here!"

"What is that thing?" Asked a Number Eight. A nearby Gold Plated centurion tilted its head in her direction. The Eight dismissed the Centurion with a wave, and growled, "Well, the Colonials have had their days. First they enslave us. Now they TRY TO INVADE US SO BLATANTLY? Well, we are invading them now. Just blow that thing out of our space. Actually, let's try out our new back-door system. God will bless the Six that programmed this." "By your command."

"…Captain, I would still highly advise you to try a communications line with them. They could just be paranoid. The species that just attacked us only had low-energy missiles, and only fired once."

Kirk sighed in despair. "Alright. Just one minute of communication. Sulu, ready the warp drives and phasers. We weren't ready a few moments ago, but I think we should deal some payback." "Shouldn't we also scan their life form.." "GO AHEAD!"

The Enterprise waited, as her attacker came closer and closer. Suddenly, a few yellow lights appeared at Spock's station.

Spock quickly ran over, and replied to the tense crew, "The other species are currently trying to hack into our systems. It seems they are attempting to override our systems, but the system they are using is primitive. The situation our computers are in is the same as if the Heartbleed bug of the 21'st century tried to find an opening in our systems. Completely futile."

"Is our back-door system working?" Asked the Eight. "No," Droned the Centurion next to her. "They are attempting some communication with us." The Eight snorted in contempt. "Are the Colonials that stupid…Fire away."

As the metallic star shaped ship came closer, tension grew in the bridge. Crewmembers stopped what they were doing, watching viewscreens situated across various parts of the ship.

Just as Spock confirmed that most of the alien vessel was filled with inorganic lifeforms, save for a few, more missiles streaked through space.

"Warp, Sulu, warp! We can't afford to lose anymore lives!" Kirk commanded. "Where, Captain?" "ANYWHERE!"

"I sense high energy readings from the ship. It looks like the ship is trying to jump." "Idiots," said the Eight. "Nothing can save them now…"

The Enterprise disappeared in a flash, leaving a sparkling blue trail that soon dissipated, pointing towards Colonial Space. The Eight was speechless.

A Pantheon of gods was situated around in a Greek Omega position. As usual, they were arguing. Suddenly, a god at the center of the half-circle slammed a beautiful golden staff down into the misty floor. "SILENCE!" Roared Zeus.

Hekate stood. "My lord, as we have feared, Odin has sent ships of the twenty-third century into our targeted past. We cannot touch his pawns now."

Ares stood. "I don't believe a word of it. That old Geezer of a god will go against his own kind? What kind of age do we live in, the …"

Whatever age Ares was trying to talk about was lost to Athena throwing her shield at his face. Ares's face crumpled in on itself, and slowly started to reform. No blood fell.

"Athena, what are your ideas?" Asked Zeus.

The goddess of wisdom and war furrowed her eyebrows. The Pantheon stood still.

"I believe what Odin has done is detrimental to our cause, but understandable. Our time is gone, yet who are we to give up the one instinct all sentient things possess? Our instinct to survive, however primitive, is still the one thing that…"

"What we ask for is a strategy to bring down Odin's plan. We cannot physically get to the past without Time, and that blasted creature will not help us."

"As we ourselves cannot go, in a physical form, shouldn't we go in another way?" "What do you mean?

"Oh think," smirked Athena. She was a wisdom goddess, but she was not about to give up her secrets. Not just yet. Time to let these monkeys think.

"Athena…" "Oh. Alright. Why don't we possess those in the past? We are not breaking time's rules, as we travel by minds. We could use the Niddhog. It is loyal to us, with a shell of impenetrable metal. It's practically a sentient ship."

"Athena, do you remember the last time we possessed humans?" "Vividly. We temporarily forgot who we were and ended up marrying each other. This time, however, I remember a robotic race, easy to possess. How foolish we were back then, backing humanity when we should've supported the race so easily fooled into worshipping us…"

Hades stood. "As I remember, the blasted god called "God", to the robotic race broke Zeus's back, in one of our first battles. We could only sign an armistice, ENDING THE WAR, as soon as humanity found Earth 2.0. Do we really need to fight the same fight twice?"

"We shall not fail like last time. We cannot take control of our former forms, as that would, in effect, kill us. So, all in favour for our lives?" No god was unaccounted for.

DUN DUN DUNNNN! The tension builds as gods pit against each other, with the Enterprise with no way back home. The genocide of humanity awaits, but what awaits the crew of the Enterprise? Wait for a billion years until the next update! (P.S. Can anybody correctly guess where "God" of the Cylons are? Also, what will the Colonials react to the sudden appearance of a Federation Starship?) CYA!