I keep denying them. We had to be smart about it. Pick the proper time where we had the best chance of either escape or destroying the vessel and taking each and every one of these demon spawned Titans with us. I would prefer the former, but being stranded over a hundred light minutes from home in space, the later seems to be the most probable. I could live with that, knowing that I died taking the leader of the Titans with me in a blaze of glory.
The Titans are just like the Frost Giants. They actually believe that they are gods even though their superiority is maintained by deception, smoke, and mirrors. It is only their technical superiority that gives the illusion of divine power. That hubris was Ymir's downfall and by the Tree of Ages, it will be Rhea's as well. By my hand.
They just expect everyone to do their bidding. Rhea wants me to battle the Jotunn for her and I refuse. She thinks pain can motivate me to do her bidding, since the sugar she offered with her manufactured pheromones hold no sway over me.
Searing energy arced through my body, causing me to stiffen in agony as she hit the control. She held it a second then stopped. “Again dear sweet pet, deactivate the self-destruct circuits in your nanites so that I may examine them. I don't like losing them before I can get any useful data from them. It is a shame we did not know about the tampering mechanisms before we lost your armor. Such fascinating technology.”
She looked down at me. “We must learn how you are able to manipulate magnetic force as energy, that should be an impossibility. Thea here was responsible for the designs that brought this realm into being for Ymir. She designed all of the planets and moons you call home. She says it cannot be, yet here you stand wielding such power.”
I glanced over at the other Titan that gave me a sneer before she ignored me. I am assuming she is the equivalent of their first scientist. She always summoned her whenever these torture sessions occurred. At first I believed the other Titans were almost like mindless drones that did Rhea's bidding. But I could see the tiny facial ticks on Thea's face every time Rhea causes me pain. She does not approve of it, yet she still remains silent.
The Titan Queen shocked me again. I staggered, but I would not fall. They thought they knew what pain was, this is nothing compared to some of the things I have been through. I involuntarily remembered the pure living agony of waking up after my body was mostly burned away after reentering the Folkvangr atmosphere as I plummeted from space. Now that was pain.
She sighed. “This was fun for a little while, seeing you squirm on the leash, but you aren't giving me what I desire. You must be punished for such insolence. Let's move on shall we. Join me in our fight against the Jotunn. Help us rid this realm of their tyranny, it helps your people too.”
I gritted my teeth then just smiled defiantly at her. She sighed and reached down and caressed my cheek gently as she hit the control again and I spasmed in pain. I fell to a knee but forced myself to a standing position again. She pulled me into a hug saying, “It doesn't have to be like this Kara. You are my most fascinating pet. I love the games so much, you entertain me. I can make things pleasant for you instead of painful.”
I pushed her away from me and she backhanded me. I went tumbling along the floor and collided with a console, damaging it and re-cracking a rib. She never let my bones fully heal, my nanites could only supply enough power to repair me at a rate a little slower than average Asgard nanites. I think she is just testing the endurance of the Verr since her energy leeching tether can't seem to drain them entirely. She isn't aware that they are harvesting magnetic force from their vessel and the asteroid field around the vessel. The power feed from Valhalla is too faint inside the ship, behind its thick armor, to contribute much.
She said, “That is for deigning to touch me without permission.” She said it with a smile, she was enjoying it. Then she snapped at the Halfling that was manning the console. “Get her to her feet!”
The Halfling did and I struck him in the chest with all my might when he roughly hauled me up. I could hear his breastbone cracking as I pushed it into his heart. He fell lifelessly to the floor and I staggered but maintained my footing.
Then I saw white as I was colliding with a wall after being struck by Rhea again, I could feel my jaw break, again. Rhea was clapping like an excited child. “I do so enjoy a challenge. That my precious little pet was for killing another of my children. Will you never learn?”
I smiled through my own blood. I krothing hurt, but I could play this game as well. Though it was but one a day, I could dwindle their numbers. It would take months at this rate but as long as she wanted me alive, I could get away with it. I'm sure eventually when her Halfling numbers start thinning, she will stop letting them get close to me.
She dragged me to her feet using the tether. “I did not give you permission to lay down pet. You will learn to do what your Queen desires, it is inevitable.”
I spat a mouthful of blood on the ground beside me and just said in a growl, “You are not my queen, you are a charlatan who holds onto power by trickery and fear.” I braced myself for the coming strike and then I was flying through the air, half conscious. I was suddenly yanked to a stop mid air by the tether and fell to the ground. I groggily grinned as my Verr showed me it was nearly twenty yards. I had finally learned the limit of the tether. The Titans keep giving me information about them and their technology every day without even realizing it.
Then she stepped to my side and almost gently pulled me to my feet. She looked over at Thea. “Clean her up and take her for exercise, I will feast with her for mid-day meal.”
Thea stepped up to us and the tether transferred from Rhea's power pack on her hip to Thea's and she left the room. Once the door slid closed behind her I collapsed on the ground. Thea quickly knelt and scooped me up like a broken doll. She gently stroked my hair with her armored hand and whispered, “Poor pet. Why do you not just give our Queen what she desires?”
I turned to her and my Verr had to adjust my blurry vision. Great, another concussion. I gently pushed away from her and she set me on my feet. “I am not a pet, my name is Kara.”
She nodded as she started walking, the tether dragging me stumbling along with her. “Kara, though I shall not address you so in our Queen's presence.”
She brought me into her lab. When I say lab, imagine Frankenstein's laboratory if it took up twenty football fields. There were literally thousands of experiments. Some with hideous creatures merged with cybernetics, some robotic entities, and some things that resembled energy weapon mounts.
She brought me to the sunken area and had me sit on a stool. I really hated this part, it was humiliating. She motioned her hands up and I sighed and pulled the bloodied and torn dress off. Then she hosed me down like an animal, as I sat there naked, while she washed the blood from me. Then the air jets hit me from above, almost knocking me off the stool onto the floor with their force. When I was somewhat dry, she stepped up to me and handed me another dress.
I do not know why Rhea insists upon keeping me in dresses. I think it may be because that besides the other nine Titans on the vessel, the rest of the crew are all male Halflings. I'm a novelty for her, a toy she is using for dressup. With all the bruises and cuts and scrapes on my swollen face, the dress is about the only way to know I was female.
I sat back on the stool as Thea knelt beside me, tending to my open wounds of the day that were healing far too slowly for my tastes. It was a powerful temptation to disable the krothing collar just so my nanites could do their thing unimpeded. The Titan gave an almost sympathetic look as I winced when she applied some sort of antiseptic salve on my cuts.
She took a sample of the blood she had swabbed from a cut and I saw the lights of a heads up display flickering in her copperish colored eyes. She sighed. I had to suppress a grin. She keeps hoping to get viable samples of my nanites, but my Verr dissolve into proteins instantly when they leave my body.
Unlike all other Asgard nanites, the Verr don't actually have the anti-tamper subroutines, they had long since
removed that from their own programming and can actually survive outside of my body for five or six minutes before dissolving. But they have told me that they would be damned if they let the Titans get a look at them and have temporarily reactivated that part of their programming in defiance. I love my friends, my protectors. A low power message scrolled faintly in my vision, “The Verr love our charge, Fire Soul, as well.”
Thea finished up but stayed down at my level and asked, “Why do you do this to yourself Kara? Even the stupidest animal can learn when a punishment is repeated often enough. Why can you not learn? If you give our Queen what she demands, then you will be rewarded. Your stay with us would be most pleasant.”
I looked at the woman, trying to read her, she didn't approve of Rhea's methods I could see, but she never said a word. I didn't usually speak much, but I decided to explore the possibility. “All sentient beings have the right to free will. To live as we see fit. To be bent to the will of another is just slavery.”
I watched her aura carefully, hers was slightly different than the other Titans and Jotunn I have seen. Where theirs are a purplish hue, with the red of violence and blue of justice mixed freely, telling me they had no moral distinction between right and wrong, Thea's was always in flux. I could see the blue trying to work its way to the forefront whenever Rhea was torturing or beating me. At some level, she knew it wasn't right.
She looked at me for a long moment then said, “We take care of our obedient pets. It doesn't need to be like this.”
I took a chance and reached out and laid a hand on her armored arm and said softly, “I am no one's pet. I can see you do not agree with Rhea's methods, why do you not speak your mind?”
She looked down at my hand then back at me with a confused look on her face. “Rhea is our Queen, we follow her. It is how it has always been, we are eternal.”
I nodded sadly. “Then you are as much her slave, her pet, as the Halflings.” Then I repeated, “Everyone has the right to free will. Until you exercise it, you are just as much a captive as I am. I cannot imagine living that way for eternity like that, I don't know how you stomach it.”
She raised the back of her hand almost as if to backhand me and paused. She looked at her arm poised to strike then at me. Then she lowered her hand, looking at it. She absently said, “Before there was a before, and before I designed this realm for us to escape into, we had more... individuality. The war made it necessary to devote everything to bringing and end to the Jotunn. They have chased us into nine other realms. Always setting up cosmic engines to power their attempts to kill us, like the one the planet below is part of.”
She looked up at me. “Rhea was able to kill her son so that the Titans could... become. When the before became the now when we layered the dimension of time over the creation of the Ones Who Came Before. We were able to secure our freedom from Ymir's will.”
Wait, the Ones Who Came Before? I thought the Jotunn were the ones who created everything, the first beings. I prompted her, “The Ones Who Came Before?”
She nodded. “Yes, the ones who created our realm, far from this one. They were gone and dust when the Jotunn first became.”
Huh. I was not expecting that. I'd have to see if I could get more information about that later. Because right now, it was time to push some buttons to get a reaction. “And all of your existence you were subject to Ymir's will, then Rhea's. You have never known freedom... always a slave to those you serve. At least I fight for my freedom.”
She growled and stood and yanked me to my feet by the energy tether. I smiled inwardly, I was getting her to think, to re-evaluate the fog of ages that she has been in. I was making her mad at herself. Unfortunately, I was going to be the target for that rage for now, but I could see the battle raging inside her aura.
I tripped and she dragged me across the floor until I could regain my footing. She said, “I am to exercise you before I bring you to our Queen for mid day meal.” I groaned at that, their idea of exercise for me, the weapon they hoped to unleash on the Frost Giants, was not as glamorous as it sounded.
She was still upset with my prodding when we got to the pit so she just threw me in. I fell the ten feet into the fifty foot diameter arena and my tether snapped to the console at the center of the area. The pit looked to be carved of a single sheet of white alloy. The coherent photon projectors started up. They reminded me a lot of Aunt Freya's holo-clone technology, giving the feel of mass and substance to the projections.
Today like every three days, they added another opponent, seven today. I started backing to the wall as they started circling me. This is what they thought Ragnarok were? Their impressions were truly that we were all animals to them. The projections looked roughly like Ragnarok men, but they had brutish dull looks in their eyes and they drooled and showed their teeth as they attacked.
Seven Ragnarok, if I had full use of my nanites, nano-lattice, and other abilities, would last less than a minute against my fury. But with the energy leech flaring and burning into me anytime I tried to draw on more power, I was a mortal Asgard. Typically, less than a match for seven of the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy. But I am more than the sum of my parts, even powerless like this, I am Valkyrie!
I spun and dodged and deflected a hurricane of blows from three directions, keeping my back to the wall. I was hit with powerful electric bursts every time I came in contact with one of my opponents. I rolled between two of the projections and kicked the knee of one to the side, and he fell into his buddy and his form dissolved. I rolled into a three-point stance then flipped twice avoiding blows from the others that pressed the attack.
I quickly reversed my direction, taking one of the oncoming opponents off guard. I grabbed his arm, searing pain going through my hands and used my momentum to flip myself up on his shoulders and then I grabbed his head and gave it a violent twist and his form dissolved.
I was hit from behind by a staggering blow and I gasped in pain. I noticed Thea's eyes go wide almost in concern. Hmmm... I just stopped fighting and stood there as two of the false Ragnarok restrained me and I bit back a scream of pain from the electric pulses burning through my body. A third one started landing blows to my abdomen and I just stood there, not struggling, not fighting back. The third projection grabbed my hair and pulled my head back then reared back a fist to deliver the killing blow.
Thea yelled, “Enough!” The projections disappeared and I fell to the ground gasping in pain, trying to catch my breath. She jumped down into the pit and grabbed me from the floor, cradling me with one arm, examining me. “What were you doing Kara?! They could have killed you!”
I looked up at her and shrugged weakly. “I will not fight for your amusement.”
She looked angry as she glared at me. Then she said with a measured quaking tone, “I do not find it amusing. Our Queen wants you to stay in fighting shape, so you need your exercise.”
I pushed out of her arm and stood shakily and said defiantly, “Then the coward can come down here and fight me herself.”
This time she did backhand me as I hit the wall of the pit and slid limply down the wall. She stared at her own hand in shock and whispered to me, “See what you made me do?”
I pushed myself up the wall backward, using it for support. “You really stopped the fight for your Queen? Or were you worried about me.”
She looked frustrated and quickly retorted, “Rhea has ordered you feast with her. It wouldn't do for you to get blood on the new dress.” The energy tether jumped to her hip pack and she started stalking away. Steps formed under her feet from the very surface of the seamless arena raising up to her workshop floor. I was yanked along behind her and through the endless corridors of the mammoth vessel to Rhea's quarters.
From the glances I have seen throughout the ship whenever Thea was ordered to take me for a walk like a dog, there were thousands of cavernous bays for research and science experiments and not many habitable areas. From the looks of it, there are only a couple hundred Haf
lings and the ten Titans on the ship. It must get incredibly lonely.
Rhea motioned to the second chair at her table that had the bland synthesized proteins that passed for food here, in different colors to give some sort of illusion of choices. “Please join us Thea.”
Thea lowered her head in acknowledgment and silently sat in the second chair as my tether transferred back to Rhea. Rhea loaded up a plate with a small portion of food for a Titan and reached down and placed it on the floor beside her. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the plate and stood with it. I hated being treated like an animal, a pet. I longed for the day I would make her pay for the treatment.
The worst part about it is that I believe she really didn't do it in spite, or to keep my morale down. I really think she believes she is being kind, that I am actually just an animal to her. She smiled down at me and said, “You look positively lovely in that dress.”
I ignored her and started eating the flavorless food, it reminded me of tofu or rice cakes from Earth. I knew I'd only get water to wash it down, how I longed for a good mead. Kroth I needed a drink!
She seemed perturbed at me not acknowledging her. Then she looked to Thea as they both ate plates with at least twenty pounds of food on them. “How was exercise?”
Thea said without meeting her eyes, “She refused to fight today, so I ended the session before she got herself killed.”
Rhea stood quickly and swept Thea's plate off the table with a clatter hissing, “And you let her do that!?”
Then she swept her glare down to me and raised her hand high to backhand me. But then Thea's shaky voice said, “Wait!” Then she quickly added, “My Queen.” Rhea's glare snapped back to the other Titan who quickly said, “It is, of course, your right for her defying your will, but the poor creature seems too stupid to learn from punishment. Maybe we should try other forms of encouragement and training.”
Rhea stared first at her then at me for a long moment, then her smile bloomed on her face as she said to me, “Oh, this IS a fun game isn't it?” Then she looked back to Thea thoughtfully. I could see the gears spinning in her mind. Then she handed another plate to her as she said thoughtfully, “No, I think she is more intelligent than we are giving her credit for.”
Valkyrie Chronicles 4 & 5 Bundle Page 28
