The War of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic (Saga of the Iron Dragon Book 5)

by Robert Kroese

  “A little foreknowledge goes a long way,” Freya said. “I landed in the southwestern United States. Hid the suit, then sold a small amount of gold for a few thousand dollars. Took the money to Las Vegas and turned it into a few million. Made some contacts, set up a new identity, bought shares in several companies that were poised to skyrocket in value. I had a net worth of over $100 million in less than a year. I moved to Zurich and spent a year buying companies to use as fronts while doubling my net worth. It tripled every year for three years after that.

  “To be honest, making money was the easy part. Developing this organization along with the influence to make it effective required a great deal more finesse and foresight. But I applied essentially the same principle to developing people as I had to building wealth: I located people who were going places and I made myself indispensable to them. When I had the requisite wealth and influence, I began working on—among other things—acquiring all the physical evidence of the Iron Dragon project I could find. This was actually a fairly straightforward process, as most of the artifacts had fallen into the hands of a joint U.S.-British effort called Project Firefly, and they didn’t seem to know what to do with them. The collection is now technically owned by the CIA, but on the off chance anybody starts looking for the stuff, they’re going to face an endless tangle of red tape. Over the past two years I started acquiring controlling stakes in aerospace and other tech firms. These companies operate almost completely independently of Jörmungandr, but we poach technology and personnel when we need to.”

  Walking around the suit, Andi gasped as she saw what was beyond it: a winged craft that looked like a sleeker version of the old NASA space shuttle. It looked to be in even worse shape than the mech suit. They walked toward it.

  “Is that…?”

  “The lander, yes. We pulled it up from the bottom of the North Sea last year. Remarkably well-preserved, considering how long it was down there.”

  “You recovered it as part of your project to build another ship?”

  “It’s not much use from a technological perspective,” Freya said. “The more advanced components are corroded almost beyond recognition. I suppose I wanted it because our collection didn’t feel complete without it.”

  “But you’re really building a spaceship to take you to an alien planet three thousand light-years away?”

  “I hope to, yes. With your help.”

  “But you don’t expect the ship to be completed for two hundred years?”

  “I don’t know how long it will take, but it will need to be ready by 2227. I plan to arrive just before Andrea—I’m sorry, this must be very strange for you.”

  “How did I get a ship named after me, anyway, if I’m building this one in secret? How does anybody find out about me?”

  “Oh, dear. My goodness. Don’t you know what you’ve done? Your work at Next Horizon is already going to revolutionize the space travel industry. It will take a while for people to recognize your contribution, of course—your problem is that you’re ahead of your time. But eventually people will see that it was your work that put humans on the path to the stars. Your work here is, as they say in America, ‘gravy.’”

  “You say you need my help, but you already have the plans for this ‘hyperdrive.’”

  “We have documentation of the design of the key components, yes. But designing the tools to create those components and figuring out how to put those components together is going to require some highly rigorous and creative thinking. Imagine trying to build a Titan II rocket in medieval Europe. Not only would you not have the tools or materials you would need, you wouldn’t even have the tools to create those tools or fabricate the materials. Besides that, your engineers would lack the language to talk about the problems. They’d have to learn calculus, differential equations, Newtonian physics, and all sorts of engineering concepts and principles. That’s the sort of challenge we’re dealing with.”

  “And you plan to do that all here,” Andi said, “in an underground facility in Iceland.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  F reya smiled. “It’s being coordinated from here, and this is where we expect to do much of the theoretical work. The practical research will mostly occur elsewhere, at our partner companies’ facilities.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” Andi asked. “Won’t these companies want to incorporate the technology into their own projects?”

  “For the most part, the research is too lacking in practical applications to be of much use, and the companies are too siloed from each other to be able to synthesize the projects into anything useful. But yes, eventually the research is going to trickle into other areas. In fact, we’re counting on it. Development of the technology required for interstellar travel is going to be an iterative process. We feed ideas to them, and we glean results from them. We always stay a few steps ahead on the overall goal—and of course the technology required for a self-contained hyperspace drive will never be disseminated outside Jörmungandr. Humanity will not be able to make use of hyperspace travel until IDL scientists reverse-engineer a Cho-ta’an jumpgate in 2143.”

  “If that’s true, then how do you know Jörmungandr can develop a hyperdrive by 2227?”

  “I don’t. I think we can do it, but that’s more of an intuition than a conclusion based on empirical analysis. Understand that for the last leg of the project, we’ll be on our own. In 2185, the Cho-ta’an will launch an all-out attack on Earth, rendering the surface all but uninhabitable. At that point, we’ll be confined to this facility. And you’ll have twenty-two years to finish the hyperdrive.”

  “Me? I’ll be long dead by then!”

  They had walked around the craft, and Freya led them past a replica of an Icelandic turf house and a crenelated stone wall that must have been reconstructed from a castle somewhere. They proceeded toward a door in the far wall.

  “Maybe, maybe not. We now have twenty more stasis chambers like the one I use. They aren’t as good as the Izarian chambers; they use the technology that will eventually be used by the IDL. Maximum stasis time is ninety days out of ninety-nine.”

  “They don’t actually give you more time, though, right? It just spreads your life out over a longer period.”

  Freya allowed her eye to be scanned again, and the door opened for them. They continued down another hall. “Sometimes it’s helpful to take some time away,” she said. “Suppose, for example, you need our software development team to write a module to test some hypothesis of yours. Rather than waiting three weeks for them to build it, you assign the project, sleep for three weeks, and then resume your work. Or suppose you need some piece of technology that we know will be developed by one of our partner companies in six months. It’s a way of making the most of the time you have. And frankly, I would feel better if you were around for the last phase of the project.”

  “But you don’t know if I’ll be successful. I mean, as I understand it, you know the big events of the future, but the future of Jörmungandr is essentially unknown.”

  “That’s the idea. We remain under the radar, so to speak. The historical record, as of 2227, considered Jörmungandr an unremarkable foundation with the somewhat grandiose purpose of ensuring the survival of humanity. To the extent that we are remembered, we are thought of as a failure. But history after April 29, 2227 is unknown. Our intention is to start writing a new history starting on that date.”

  “But how? Even if we get this ship built, how are you and a few frozen Vikings going to alter the balance of the war?”

  Freya smiled. “Did Amelia tell you about the Cho-ta’an’s attempt to use biological warfare to disrupt humanity’s technological progress?”

  “The plague they spread across Europe at the end of the ninth century? Yes. O’Brien and the others stopped them by spreading another, less virulent strain of the virus. That strain provided immunity to the deadlier strain, saving millions of lives—assuming the story is true.”

  “You doubt the veracity of Amel
ia’s account?”

  “No. Yes. That is, I still have trouble making sense of some of this.”

  “Amelia is incapable of lying, and she has perfect recall. That story came directly from me, and I got it firsthand from O’Brien, Helena and the others involved. Is there anything in particular that bothers you about the virus story?”

  Andi thought a moment. “Yes. Amelia told me that as far as anyone knew, the Cho-ta’an had never taken a live human prisoner. She also said the four Cho-ta’an on Earth in the ninth century took an existing virus and modified it, making it far more deadly—in a makeshift laboratory, without any advanced tech.”

  “And?”

  “Well, how the hell did they get so good at working with viruses that target humans? And how did they just happen to have individuals with such expertise on the team that pursued Andrea Luhman to Earth?”

  “Those are some very good questions.”

  “For that matter, if they could design an incredibly deadly virus in a few weeks, why didn’t they do it before? That is, earlier in the war. If you wanted to wipe out humanity, it would be a lot easier to drop a few aerosol devices to spread a virus rather than pelting a planet with nukes.”

  Freya nodded. “I knew there was a reason we recruited you. This way.” She opened the door, and they continued into what looked like a morgue. Latched doors lined the walls, and in the center of the room were three stainless steel tables.

  “You’re telling me you’ve considered all this already.”

  “Indeed. I was a lot slower to figure it out than you were, though. I didn’t know how we were going to defeat the Cho-ta’an until we were almost to Earth.” She went to one of the doors and opened it, and then pulled out a steel drawer on which rested a large plastic tub. Freya pried the lid off the tub, set it down, and then reached into the tub and pulled out a skull. She handed it to Andi, who had pulled on her own gloves.

  “What… is this human?” she asked.

  “Cho-ta’an.”

  “My God.”

  Andi turned the skull over in her hands. It was almost, but not quite, human. It was too long and narrow, and the teeth were too short and too numerous.

  “Ever see a femur that size?” Freya asked, pulling a long, slender bone from the tub. The owner of that bone had to be nearly seven feet tall.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Project Firefly. The Brits got it from the Vatican. Until 1942 it was interred in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.”

  “This was one of the Cho-ta’an who followed the crew of… that ship back in time?”

  “We believe so. Our best estimate is that it’s been dead about a thousand years. We think it was imprisoned in the Vatican for many years. When it finally died, they didn’t know what to do with it, so they left it there under a false label. During the war, the bones ended up in British hands.” She turned and opened another compartment. She pulled out a container and placed it on the table next to the other.

  “Another one?”

  “Sort of,” Freya said, taking of the lid.

  Andi gasped, looking at the contents.

  “The creature’s innards were thoroughly desiccated. This was inside it, but I don’t think the Brits knew it was there. We only found it with an MRI, and even then it was so poorly differentiated from the surrounding tissue that it was nearly invisible. We cut it open and pulled it apart very carefully. That’s what we found.”

  “Was there another adult?”

  “We don’t think so. The Cho-ta’an are hermaphrodites. They cycle between male, female, and neuter states. It is suspected that in extreme circumstances, they may be able to reproduce asexually.”

  “But that thing, it looks….”

  “Yes, it does. Now do you understand?”

  Andi nodded. She saw now how one person could end the war with the Cho-ta’an. They were silent for some time as they made their way back up to the antechamber by Freya’s office.

  “So, now that you’ve seen everything,” Freya said, “are you ready to get to work?”

  Most of Andi’s anger about the way Jörmungandr had recruited her had faded over the past three weeks, as she realized the scope of the challenge they were facing, but she had still been holding onto a little nut of resentment. Now, after talking to Freya, she found herself unable even to justify that tiny amount of indignation. These people were fighting for the survival of humanity, and they were counting on her to help them.

  “I think so,” she said. “Yes.”

  “Good. I will make sure you have full access to everything in the facility, including the stasis chambers. You will spend most of your time here, but I will set you up with a new identity in case you need to travel to one of our subsidiary sites.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  “Please let me know if you need anything.”

  “I will,” said Andi. “Thank you for the tour.” She turned to leave.

  “Andi,” Freya said, “there’s one more thing I need to tell you.” Andi stopped and turned back to face her. “Everything we’ve told you is true, with one exception. When Vordr pulled you out of the Atlantic, you were… rather agitated. Soren made a judgment call, but I wouldn’t feel right about proceeding without telling you the full truth. What he told you about your plane… it wasn’t true. You weren’t at fault.”

  “You sabotaged my fuel line. I figured.”

  “One of our agents did, yes. I could justify it by pointing to the fact that the historical record says you died on five September, 2021, so you’d be dead if we hadn’t intervened. But that doesn’t change what we did.”

  “‘We?’ You mean you gave the okay?”

  “No. I didn’t think sabotage was necessary.”

  “Because you trust LOKI to do what needs to be done.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not enough to tell your agents to leave my plane alone.”

  “I suppose that’s true, yes. I could have told them to stand down, but I didn’t. We all have occasional lapses of faith.”

  “After what you’ve been through, I can’t blame you.”

  “Then we’re on the same side?”

  “We are. Let’s build a spaceship.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  T he first ships capable of prolonged acceleration of greater than half a gee were developed in the middle of the twenty-first century. Two decades later, the humans established their first colonies outside the solar system. In 2075, the Human Colonization Consortium was formed as a partnership between several Earth governments and major corporations. By the end of the twenty-first century, a dozen worlds had been settled. Humanity appeared poised to spread out across the galaxy.

  Then, in 2125, a scout ship called Ubuntu was destroyed by an alien warship in the Tau Ceti system, less than twelve light-years from Earth. It was the first known contact with Cho-ta’an. In 2126, the human worlds founded the Interstellar Defense League to protect themselves from the threat.

  Seventeen years later, an IDL warship intercepted a radio signal from an unfinished Cho-ta’an jumpgate. The IDL sent ships to the location, eliminated the Cho-ta’an and took control of a gate. A research team reverse-engineered the gate technology, with the intention of building human-controlled gates. In 2146, coordinated Cho-ta’an attacks on human vessels began. In 2151, a jumpgate was first constructed by humans. Over the following decade, many more were built.

  In 2185, Earth was the target of an all-out Cho-ta’an assault that culminated in the detonation of scores of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere. Most animal life was eradicated, and the planet was rendered all but uninhabitable. Several more human worlds were the targets of such attacks over the next forty years. The IDL did what it could to hold back the Cho-ta’an, but it gradually lost ground.

  In 2227, the last human planet, Geneva, was on the verge of being destroyed. On April 29th of that year, an exploratory ship called Andrea Luhman, named after an earlier pioneer in interstellar space travel, transmitt
ed a message that the Cho-ta’an had hacked the IDL’s gates, and could now travel directly to any human worlds at will. Pursued by the Cho-ta’an, Andrea Luhman went through a gate in an attempt to flee to the Sol system, but she never emerged on the other side.

  Six weeks later, three huge colonization ships departed Geneva, with the intent to carry enough people to settle new worlds outside the Cho-ta’an sphere of influence. Two of these ships were destroyed by the Cho-ta’an. The third, attempting to replicate Andrea Luhman’s flight, disappeared. The population of Geneva faced genocide. The Cho-ta’an were on the verge of eradicating humanity and becoming the dominant species in the galaxy. That was the end of known history, as far as the Jörmungandr Foundation was concerned.

  While all this went on, Jörmungandr worked quietly and diligently to ensure humanity’s survival. For Andi’s first three years on the project, she spent almost no time in stasis, but as she became more familiar with the project and developed an understanding for its true scope, she began to see the value in a less hands-on approach. She could assign a task, go into stasis for three months, and then come out to check on the status. By her tenth year, she was spending almost as much time in stasis as Freya.

  A few of the other high-level Jörmungandr operatives also occasionally used stasis, when waiting for a project milestone to be reached or for some tool or software application to be developed by a subsidiary (or unrelated company), but most worked an ordinary schedule. Soren Bell never used stasis at all, so that there would be continuity in the senior leadership. He effectively retired in 2043 and died four years later. He was replaced by a younger operative. Only in very few cases were retirees allowed to leave the facility; most spent the rest of their lives on the two thousand square miles Jörmungandr owned. Jörmungandr personnel were barred from having children, because such offspring would essentially be slaves to the foundation—a circumstance that was considered less acceptable in the twenty-first century than in the tenth.