It was so amazing, new DNA for our pool because of his sacrifice. I found myself fascinated, “How many have...?”
She looked disappointed, “Two.”
I understood, there weren't many of us firstborn in the Citadel. But if we can rescue the other men on Titan ships spread across the galaxy, we may be ok. Especially if we integrate our people with the other races. Then we wouldn't need to resort to such extremes.
I could tell where he had at first been smug, he was getting uncomfortable with the topic and then prompted with a hand to the bow and quiver on my back. “Where did you get that second-rate bow? What happened to the legendary Bow of Justice?”
I quipped, “This second-rate bow took you down didn't it?” It was true though, it was a second-rate bow which almost felt like a toy in my hands.
He chuckled back, “That's was the archer, not the weapon.”
I shared a sad smile with Arina, then explained, “I gifted Justice to an Asgard Valkyrie as an overture to the peace accord Arina is here to broker. This one I took from one of our hidden weapons caches at the prior location of the Citadel.”
I really missed my bow. There was only one other like it, and it hung over the forge of Hephaestus. None can pull the string of the Bow of Wrath. I was the only Olympian to be able to pull the string of her twin. He had misjudged when he forged them and overpowered the point singularity for the nock.
He still shakes his head in wonder that I could draw the string on Justice when even he could not.
I remember that fateful day when I was to pick the weapon that would be with me all the rest of my days. I saw Justice and Wrath over the forge, they were the first bows Hephaestus had forged with the circuitry to pull on the power of our jump packs to project a micro point singularity and invert the draw to send projectiles away at hypersonic speeds.
He and father had such a laugh about it as both of them were only able to draw the string halfway. The successive bows consumed far less energy, and all Olympians could draw them. Father was trying to get me to select vibro-javelins like many of the firstborn because they are so versatile and can be programmed for a variety of attacks.
But my eyes were on the two majestic bows above my brother's forge. It was the one weapon I surpassed Eros with, mother said that the skill had selected me, it was the closest to praise I think she ever offered when it came to my combat abilities.
I pointed at Justice, and Hep had chuckled at me and pulled it down from the hooks so that I could look at her.
“Sorry sister, but Justice and Wrath are here to remind me that we are all fallible. We could have just replaced the projectors in these or dialed them back, but overpowered as they may be, they are my first bows, so forever my forge they shall adorn.”
He placed the bow in my hands, and I smiled at the beauty and wonder of it, it was his finest work, the craftsmanship unmatched. It weighed almost twice that of the bows I had practiced with. And the new vibro-arrows Hera and Hep had developed to combat the armor of the Gods which the Jotunn wore, were four times the weight of the normal plate armor piercing type.
I ran my hands along the length of it almost lovingly, and I swear the metal warmed to my touch like it was responding to a kindred spirit. As my brother turned away and started discussing with father, the possibility of custom javelins for me which befit my station, I raised the bow and licked my lips as I moved two fingers between the upper and lower limbs. With a hum which seemed to harmonize with the core of my being, a coherent photon string appeared.
I started pulling back, and as the point singularity started to form, making my fingers tingle and the tendons in my arm start to creak with the effort, I knew that bow must be mine. My arm started shaking when I had the string drawn halfway back. I inhaled deeply then growled as I kept pulling back, my fingers aching. That's when I noticed the silence, Hep and Zeus had stopped their discussion and were staring back at me, wide-eyed.
Both my arms were shaking then, as I screamed at Justice in challenge. I would tame her! My hair started drifting toward the point singularity and weapons in their racks around us had started leaning my way. Sweat was beading on my face as I pulled harder and passed the three-quarters mark, causing the heads up link to finally activate, feeding targeting data overlays into my vision.
Then with one last scream, I reached full draw. I held the string there for five long heartbeats as my smile bloomed. I released the string, and it snapped back faster than my cloak processors could follow and vanished, dust which had been floating toward it, dropped back to the ground.
I turned to the two stunned looking men holding the bow crossways in my fist as I said with a surety and conviction I had never felt before, “This is my choice.”
That was the first time I saw a flicker of pride in Zeus. He didn't say a word, just nodded once to Hep and I, then strode out of the armory. My brother looked smug as he just shook his head at me and chuckled. “Only you, little sister.”
I countered as I looked up at the huge man, “I am older than you, little brother. Don't forget it.”
It took months before I could fire Justice without my arms shaking, but by the end of the first year with her, she was simply an extension of my arm. Eros got a kick out of how accurate I was with her, and how much damage she could inflict upon my targets.
I took silent pleasure that he went with the configurable javelins when his choice came. He uses a bow as his secondary weapon, being the second best shot in the realm. Though he has always taken his own pleasure in teasing me, he has grudgingly shared on many occasions that as an Olympian with a bow, I had no equal.
Our transport lumbered along, and Hera asked Arina, “What is the fighting strength of the Asgard.”
I almost winced at the question, already knowing the answer wasn't going to be what they expected. We had not explained yet that the Asgard deplore violence, and that the Valkyrie and Einherjer were born of necessity to ensure the survival of their race, and only the Valkyrie will advance from the line to face the enemy. What my parents would not know, is that a handful of Valkyrie have stood against entire armies over the eons and yet still stand.
Arina said with all the pride in the world, “Our Valkyrie number twenty-one.” She sat tall. Then looked confused as Hera and Zeus seemed to deflate as they paled. Actually, that number was impressive, after almost being wiped out before Kara rejoining them on Earth, they are almost up to their full fighting strength of thirty after all these millennia.
Hera asked, “So few?”
Arina looked taken aback, and I held a cautioning hand toward her as I interjected, “Mother, father, one Valkyrie of Valhalla can stand against an army. They do not need great numbers. The Asgard are pacifist race. But there are tens of thousands of warriors from the other races that stand with Valhalla to fight our common enemy.”
Hera turned from me to look at the Little One, she just nodded in earnest. But then her eyes flew wide as she and I heard a commotion over coms, she flicked a finger from her ear to the cockpit and over the speakers we heard Inatra, “Forward diplomatic detachment, this is base camp. We are under attack, I repeat base camp is under attack.” I could hear Intark roaring out a challenge in the background, the deafening roar of Buttercup spitting out a rain of death.
Arina was already responding before I could, “This is the forward diplomatic detachment, base camp. We read. We are...” I saw lights flicker in her eyes and she said, “One minute out. Hold the line!”
I heard the screeching of some enraged beast then Inatra hissing back in answer like some sort of Terran cat. Then she was responding, “We will hold.” And I knew they would. Though I had a bit of worry in the back of my head, knowing that her lattice wasn't as powerful as normal, and Intark didn't possess one, as he only had normal Asgard nanites. I should never have run off ahead with Arina.
Zeus was growling out on our whisper channel, “All transports, proceed to target location at flank speed. Screechers attack our lost brethren.”
>
With that, I grabbed Arina and pushed her back into her seat as the cloaks dropped and the plasma drives roared to life, sending us rocketed forward, pressing us back into the seats.
Hera was nothing but worry as she looked back at me. “Tell me our people are armed. If so, maybe a few might survive.”
Were these screechers really that formidable?
I shook my head. “A few, but I doubt the Asgard will allow them to fight.”
I didn't need to explain more than that as we dove through the canopy to hover over the camp. Most of the camp was under a shimmering translucent globe. The Three Embers standing spaced apart from each other with a hand raised. The three still had that much power, for a shield of such size without the magnetic harvesters? All of our men were inside, and Eros was pounding on the shield, trying to get out, his eyes on the battle outside.
Chapter 5
Valkyrie
There were three figures in the middle of a swarm of nightmarish creatures which looked to be a cross of some prehistoric snake with no eyes and a velociraptor from Earth, as they had two forelegs with huge claws. Parts of their form looked mechanical, from the glimpses I got as they kept blinking in and out of the visual light spectrum appearing only as they struck.
My breath hitched when I saw the body of Intark laying unmoving between the legs of Kitty as she swung her double-bladed mag lance spear through the group trying to get to her. Talia blinked in and out of visibility, using her chameleon shroud to devastating effect as she danced a protective circle around our two allies, using misdirection and precision strikes, a wicked smile on her lips.
I absently wondered if the chameleon shrouds that Freya had devised, also cloaked smell, as these beasts were blind and hunted by scent. They seemed disoriented trying to track the Vanger as she swept through their numbers. Her fighting style was an odd amalgamation of Freya and Kara's.
With a kick of Kitty's foot when the screechers backed away to regroup, Intark's body went tumbling through the intelligent shield of the Three Embers. The strength of the Valkyrie, well Valklopt in this case, never ceased to amaze me.
It looked as if Intark started to stir as he came to rest. The shield must have been blocking the effects of the paralyzing sound the monsters made.
A flood of the beasts were diving on Inatra, dozens of bodies lay all around her, and her lattice flared blue with every strike. We could hear her battle cry over the intercom. My head felt like it was going to explode as the screeching of the creatures below was making it through the walls of the transport.
I grabbed my bow and moved toward the doors. Father stopped me with a warning hand on my arm. “You can't Artemis. Their screeching shorts your nervous system without the filters our new cloaks provide, and even then it just mutes the effect. I do not know how those women below stand against them.”
I smiled at the smirk on Arina's face, and I opened the door, my head almost exploding as I said, “I'll be fine, I have Arina.” We leapt together, and her shield bloomed around us, giving me a measure of relief as the screeching muffled when she increased the density of the shield.
We landed side by side, cratering the ground slightly. I looked up from my three-point stance to see the girls had gotten separated, and Kitty was starting to struggle against the sheer numbers, even though every strike hit one of the cloaked hybrids. Talia still blinked in and out of existence, blazing a path of carnage back toward her.
I was about to ask how they were seeing their attackers when one of Arina' Verr overlays interfaced with my targeting scanners, and I saw purplish outlines of maybe eight dozen of the screechers. A couple dozen of which were piling on Inatra. I knew better than to discount the Ragnarok, so my first concern was Kitty. I yelled out, “Kate! Get behind the shield.”
She looked surprised to see us, then shook her head and dove into the air, in a high flipping arc, and landed on... nothing and went swooping toward the jungle canopy. Pegasus was there, using Freya's chameleon shroud!
I fired the four arrows I had replenished from Caeneus' quiver. Each one slicing cleanly through a minimum of three targets. My hand went instinctively back for another arrow before remembering it was not my quiver which held a score as I grasped empty air.
I heard a muffled roar, the unmistakable battle cry of Inatra, the Singing Rain. And beasts went flying in all directions, blue lattice claws raking at them all in wide arcs, slicing cleanly through the cybernetic beings. I had to grin at the sight. She was smiling in that euphoria she got in the heat of battle.
I could see some of their clawed and fanged attacks were making it through her weaker lattice, as her hands and face were bloody, and her regenerative armor was repairing itself. I felt useless I couldn't leave the protection of Arina's shield to battle with my bow as a weapon since I was out of arrows.
With a robust, “Yeeetaahhhh!” Kitty came swooping down, the photonic webbing of her wingsuit flaring, and she landed on her feet, sliding as she spun her magnetic lance, taking the heads of four screechers.
I looked up and then yelled over the whisper channel, “Father, the Bolt of Zeus!”
He was looking down from the ship as Caeneus shot arrow after arrow at the screechers that were momentarily visible when they struck. Female archers started firing from the other transports. He responded, “I cannot, daughter, it would kill those Asgard and our men too.”
I growled out, “If you ever trusted me, father, then believe me when I give my word they are all protected, even from the Bolt.”
I heard his exasperation over the coms, but he just leapt. With a thrum, he hit the ground, the trees around him shaking. Then he pulled the Bolt of Zeus from his back, and I could hear the whine of the four jump packs he wore at his waist all power up the most deadly weapon ever devised by Olympus.
He roared and slammed the base of the lightning bolt into the ground and with a flash of power release, a ribbon, which swallowed the very light around it because its density matched that of an event horizon spread out in a sweep horizontally in front of him.
Dozens of screechers fell, cleaved cleanly in half, trees for a quarter mile fell in a cacophony of sound as their trunks too were sliced cleanly through. Inatra and Kitty's lattices flared bright blue, and the women were thrown back. Talia's impossible reflexes afforded her to dive gracefully over the sweeping ribbon of the event horizon, to land in a roll back to her feet.
I watched the ripples flow across both Arina and the Three Embers' shields, as even the power of collapsing stars could not penetrate the bubbles as they attenuated and even consumed some of the compressed energy to strengthen their shield.
The Bolt was a frightening display of power, but it had no utility in a prolonged battle because it could only be used once before a long recharge cycle unless of course, he had a large supply of our jump packs available to him.
The silence which followed was deafening, and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. Then the men started cheering. My attention was not on them though, my eyes swung to Inatra, staggering to her feet and chortling as she moved over to snag Kitty by the scruff of her neck and stand her up.
Men started crowding the large shield bubble, but Zeus held up a hand in warning, his voice commanding, “Hold! There may be more of the beasts about!”
I shook my head, placing my hand on his arm as he sheathed the Bolt and started to draw a javelin. “No father, that was the last of them. I see no more.”
He growled, “They cloak themselves, and can be...”
I shook my head and pointed to my eyes. “Arina is feeding me targeting data. That was the last of them.”
This shocked him to the core at the implication. “They can peer beneath their cloaking technology?”
I grinned a little as Arina dropped her bubble while I shared, “That and more. They can see beneath the shrouds of Olympus.”
He sputtered as he turned to Arina, “Then you truly are Gods!”
She blushed and said, “No, Zeus, we just have
technology that is beyond yours in some ways.”
He realized that all eyes above us, and behind the large shimmering dome, were on him as Inatra, Talia, and Kitty made their way over to hug Arina, and to my delight, myself. He made a motion with his hand, and the transports began their landing sequences.
Arina crinkled he nose at the Embers, and they dropped their arms, looking tired as the dome fell. Another cheer rose up when Hera stepped out of the transport to move to Zeus' side. It was obvious she was well loved.
I called out, “Olympians! You are home!” And I had to wipe a tear from my eye as Eros moved in front of our parents then dropped to a knee to give them the centurion salute. Mother had no problems showing her tears as she pulled him up into a fierce hug.
Father looked torn between welcoming his son, and the others who were all his kin, home. Then his eyes alighted on the two women who had survived the Bolt of Zeus. His eyebrow arched when he saw Inatra's wounds healing dozens of times faster than an Olympian as her Verr worked valiantly to repair her cuts and bruises.
Arina was all smiles as she chastised her mate, “I leave you alone for an hour and you go and find something to fight.” Then she turned to the girls moving in to join us. “You three stinkers are supposed to keep her in line.”
I chuckled as they shrugged in unison, the same look on all three faces as Samantha provided, “You know how aunt Ina is. If there is something to hit, then...” She left it open. It was true. She and Intark.
Intark! I looked over to see the man, fully conscious and growling about the dirt all over his precious Buttercup. That paralyzing screeching of those hybrids must be bad if it could down the burly Ragnarok like that.
Mother was calling out with the authority of the ruler she was, “Enough of this out in the open, everyone load up and we can continue this reunion at the Citadel!” Then she gasped and drew her sniper rifle in one smooth motion, and Zeus started reaching for the javelins on his back when Pegasus shimmered into view hovering above us as she deactivated the chameleon shroud. When our party didn't react, he relaxed, and then I saw lights in his eyes as his cloak fed him information.
Tales From Olympus: Gods Reunited Page 6
