The war raged on for two more days, neither side gaining the upper hand. The gods were coming at the wizards with everything they had, while the wizards, vastly outnumbering the gods, were able to hold them off. The gods, however, were determined to win, and defeat the wizards once and for all.
"Commander Forthwith," said Mercury over the phone, "we have new orders for you."
"I am listening, Mercury." said Commander Forthwith on the other end.
"You and I both know that this war is going nowhere, and we aren't making any progress in defeating the wizards," said Mercury, "well we have devised a way that will surely make them surrender."
"Yes?" asked Forthwith.
"We want you to raze WizTech." Mercury said.
"What?" asked Commander Forthwith, "You want us to vaporize the school?"
"Not vaporize, Commander Forthwith," said Mercury, "we want you to annihilate that school in the most vicious, destructive, horrifying, spectacular manner possible, and we want you to do it the day after tomorrow."
"Why then?" Forthwith asked.
"Because there will be an honor ceremony going on there, and thus the place will be packed with students, teachers, and parents from all over. We want you to obliterate the school and everyone in it. Witnessing and hearing of their deaths will, hopefully, completely demoralize the wizards, and they will simple give up."
"You want us to destroy a school… full of children, adolescence, and adults?" Commander Forthwith asked.
"That is what I just said, Commander," said Mercury. "I want you to completely destroy that school. Do something huge, something that will reduce the entire campus to a hundred-foot-deep crater. That is all." And he hung up.
Commander Forthwith got up from his chair, and addressed the crew.
"Men," he said, "I have just received orders from Mercury: the gods want us to destroy the wizarding school WizTech in the most violent manner possible during a school function."
At this, the entire ship went silent save for the low hum of the cooling fans. One man stepped forward.
"Commander, as a loyal employee of Starcrushers Inc, I will of course always do as I am told, but personally I find the task given us to be an immensely pointless waste of life." He said.
"You have a good point, Fourteen," said Commander Forthwith, "I will retire to my quarters to weigh our options." And he did.
About four hours later, Commander Forthwith emerged and made an announcement.
"Men," he said, "after considering all the possibilities, I have determined, that this war is far more trouble than it is worth for us, as it shows no sign of ending soon and the two powers are in stalemate. I have also judged that destroying a non-military target for the sole purpose of demoralization of the enemy would be an obscene act and its very consideration shows that our employers are slipping into barbarism—which of course is a very inefficient mode of existence." He added quickly. "Therefore, I have decided that we shall abandon service to the gods, and continue our quest for the guitar solo on our own, as before."
"But Commander," one man asked, "I personally doubt that the gods will just let us abandon them like that. Don't you think they will try to stop us?"
"You pose an excellent point, Nine," said Commander Forthwith, "and I agree that we will most likely have to shoot our way out. But we have done it before, and we can certainly do it again. Tomorrow at the stroke of noon, we will break position, go after the Skullsquishers to finish them off, then evacuate the region as fast as possible."
The one-hundred-man crew of the Starcrushers nodded in agreement and they set to work preparing to desert the gods.