by Scott Moon
“Beautiful,” Seccon said.
Sveinn looked at him for a moment. “It is a valley.”
“The farther you travel from your home, the more you will appreciate the view.”
Sveinn made a skeptical face, then looked to see all the animal handlers were doing their jobs. He shifted the straps to the shield hanging on his back. “Will we see Aefel again?”
“Perhaps,” Seccon said. “Is this something you want?”
“He was teaching me new ways of fighting,” Sveinn said.
12
SHOWDOWN
GRENDEL 0473829: VALLEY OF LIGHTS
MISSION CLOCK: N/A
“They have come! Only the strongest among us endure the frozen heights with such vigor!” Jorgo roared. A second later, he saw what had already stunned Aefel to silence.
Thousands of Grendel warriors — men, women, and children — fled other Grendels.
Except the pursuing mass of native humans weren’t really Grendels. Aefel was one of the few living souls to have witnessed the reach of a Carosn Device. A tremor ran through his body like an electric shock.
Jorgo stopped and took a short step back as he watched in horror. “What are those demons? They look like my people but covered in frozen blood.” He squinted to see through the early morning haze.
Aefel sat on a rock, unwilling to speculate on the scene from this distance. There would be time enough later. “The intensity of the Carosn field causes capillaries to burst. In extreme cases, if the subjects resist long enough, blood vessels deeper in the muscle rupture. Sometimes the organs pop out. Death comes in stages.”
“Speak plainly,” Jorgo said, clenching his giant fists as he loomed over Aefel.
“Doctor Carosn engineered the end of all war, or so he thought. While under the effect of the field, a person must comply to authority or explode,” Aefel said. “There are several problems with the application of the technology.”
Jorgo backed away from him and returned to his observation point on the ridge. Wailing in agony, voice deep as a bear’s, he watched the slaughter on the other side of the valley.
“The most obvious problem being who is in authority,” Aefel said. “I wouldn’t go any closer if I were you. Not yet.”
“Damn you, Aefel! How do I save my people?” Jorgo demanded.
“Nuke them from space,” Aefel said, staring between his feet.
“It is not just my people in danger,” Jorgo said. “Sky Clan is in the Valley of Lights. They will be murdered by these demons. What is a nuke?”
Aefel nodded wearily. “There are two things we must do, Jorgo,” Aefel said, forcing himself to his feet. Fatigue grabbed every muscle and joint and squeezed. His brain told him he was already feeling the CD, even though he understood he was out of range.
“Tell me the rules of this quest. I will save my people with or without your help,” Jorgo said.
Aefel almost believed the man could do it. The genetic modification of Jorgo’s ancestors, regardless of how they had found themselves on this abandoned reenactment world, showed in his size and single mindedness. Aefel was a big man and well muscled, yet Jorgo dwarfed him.
“A Carosn device must be placed in a human that acts as a conduit for controlling the rest of the horde. Less than one percent of modern humans can tolerate the device. Once it is implanted, they are effectively immortal until physically destroyed,” Aefel said.
“How do you know this?” Jorgo set his jaw and stared at Aefel, chest rising and falling as he breathed.
“I was tested long ago on a planet called Remington World. If you tell anyone, I will deny it.” Aefel stood and took stock of the forces moving in the valley. The fleeing Grendels were an obvious threat, but he also sensed modern warriors on the hunt for something or someone.
“What are the two things we must do?” Jorgo asked.
“Stay alive and kill the Carosn Host,” Aefel said. He pointed with the tip of his sword at the center of the swarm coming out of the ice pass. “Whoever the unlucky bastard shackled with the device is, he’s sensed our presence. He knows we know. There can be no turning back, no hesitation. The device works on the mind.” Aefel tapped the side of his head.
“Then it is time,” Jorgo said. “Ready yourself. Sky Clan will be eliminated by the time we cross the valley. The hotjidelig-ed will be concluded and I will go home to my people.”
“What?” Aefel said. He turned to see a caravan of Grendels with a small escort from First Base. They moved away from the horde and could not see it from their vantage point. Closer to Fey and the others was an NGO strike team.
Aefel doubted they were going to take prisoners this time. Fey, her sisters, and her brother Sveinn were about to be assassinated with the subtlety of a heavy weapons barrage.
“Fey!” Aefel shouted, then bolted down the mountainside toward the floor of the valley.
“What are you doing? You said we must attack the Carisin, Caron, Carosn Host…” Jorgo’s voice held more menace than the first time they had fought. “Do not betray me!”
Aefel didn’t have the time or energy to explain it was a hopeless quest. Jorgo, despite his genetic gifts, could not fight his way to the center of the horde, and if he did, he wouldn’t know what to look for. The two of them together had a slim chance, but even that was more about dying well than a real chance of success.
“Look for a man with burning green eyes,” Aefel said. “Or help me stop the NGO bastards. Help me save my people, and I will help you save yours.”
Jorgo thrust a finger at him. “You said no hesitation. You’ve already lost. I will not fail so easily.” The giant jogged toward the swarming mass of Grendels under the influence of the Carosn Device. They left a trail of their own dead.
Aefel took one last look. He’d never seen so many CD victims. His experience on Remington World had been with a single squad. Keeping First Sergeant Cindy-Loren, Paul, the rest of his platoon from them had taken required trickery and outright lies. He’d set Cindy on the Capital Trading Company Command post only to keep her and the others away from the Carosn Device, because by then, he knew he could be used as a Host.
His stolen, poorly tuned gear fought him as he ran. Cursing, he pushed himself and the armor harder, jumping over boulders, fallen trees, and streams. Each time his feet hit the ground, he felt the impact of his weight. Sensory experience was heightened. The mountain forest rushed by. His heart pounded as he neared the gap between Sky Clan and the NGO force.
Normally, he would be checking in with his squad leaders. His only potential ally at the moment was Seccon, who no longer possessed communications technology.
He assessed the tactical situation on the move and realized there were three modern forces converging on Sky Clan faster than he was. Proximity provided his only advantage. He would arrive first, followed by one of the two unknown units.
Fey pushed past Seccon and ran to the front of the Sky Clan order of march. He couldn’t hear what she was yelling, but the sight of her made him glad.
“Say again, we are inbound,” a voice said. “Come on, Aef. What the...are you doing...Shut it, Paul, I see the CD victims same as you...”
Aefel stopped short, listening to the open comlink few people used in the field. “Sergeant Loren?”
“Thank God, Lt. I thought you were deaf in the horrible outfit you have rigged up,” First Sergeant Cindy-Loren said. “I’ve made contact with Seccon’s bodyguard, Jon Black. The half-company on my left are Strongarms looking for Seccon. The rest are NGOs.”
“Copy that,” Aefel said, moving forward. He added information to his heads-up display in his retinal shorthand. “Give me a situation report on the NGO force.”
“Too much for us to handle,” Cindy said in his earpiece, then proceeded to report by the numbers.
Things happened fast after that.
He heard the roar of the Carosn Host, sensing how close they were beyond the next stand of mountain trees to his right. On his left, the NGO lai
d down suppressive fire as they locked forces with his FALD platoon and the Strongarms.
Seccon screamed at Sveinn and his sisters, waving them toward Aefel and the relative safety of modern combat. The young emperor was having none of it.
Thousands of Grendels surged over the rising, trampling saplings and underbrush by force of numbers as they surged into the clearing. Aefel saw the young boy, the rightful emperor of the Earth Systems Commonwealth, standing on a slight rise, shield on one arm and sword held ready. His childish army gathered around him to face what must have appeared as demons to them.
“Sky Clan! To the fight!”
“Paul!” Aefel screamed. “That boy with the sword. Guard him with your life. Weapons free, Paul, give me everything!”
Paul surged ahead of the other FALD Reavers, driving his huge armor faster than seemed possible. In moments, he was free of the NGO forces and other modern warriors. He cut across the clearing and burst upon Sveinn and Gunnar’s flank as they stared in surprise and fascination.
Aefel tried to catch up, yelling at Fey, who was also in the shield wall. “Fey! He’s with me. Get behind him.”
Paul opened up on the first wave of the Grendel Carosn slaves with both weapons, laying bodies down in swaths of gore.
Wanting desperately to lift Fey in his arms and hold her to him, Aefel addressed her and her brother instead. “Your real enemy lies that way. Take Paul and my unit. Seccon and his Strongarms will help. Face down the NGOs. They are trying to take your birthright, Sveinn.”
“I don’t understand,” Fey said.
Gunnar, already wounded, watched in mute misery.
Sveinn listened carefully.
“I must help Jorgo kill the champion of this Grendel horde. The people who look like my people but are attacking us have come to kill you, Sveinn. I can’t explain now, but you have a destiny. Your people and mine must become one. Use Seccon as your bodyguard and my sergeant as your general.”
“Aefel,” Fey said.
“I’ve got to go now. Jorgo needs my help.”
She shook her head. “That is the strangest thing you’ve said yet.”
He turned away.
Near the edge of the clearing, servants of the Carosn Device dragged Jorgo down. The giant used the momentum of an attack to lift a blood-spattered warrior above his head and fling him into the fray. A second later, part of the same attack sequence, he smashed another man in the face with his axe. The scene burned into Aefel’s memory like a colorful photograph.
He moved, hating the decision he was making. Fey and the others screamed and fought behind him as gunfire and explosions shredded the morning light.
The open radio chirped in his ear several times. “Come back to us, Aefel,” First Sergeant Cindy-Loren said.
He wasn’t certain he’d heard the word correctly. Carosn fields pulsed in his vision and he felt the darkness of Hell surging around his consciousness.
Then, everything was violence.
Welcome to the charnel house, you Reaver dogs!
“I know you think you know what you’re doing, lieutenant,” Cindy broadcast to him from what seemed a universe away. Violence buffeted his senses, including hearing. “But you need us at your side.”
He ignored his sergeant. She was right. As always. But if he fell, the Carosn Device would take him and he would turn his friends inside out.
Fighting forward, he realized that his FALD units, a group of SALDs probably led by Jon Black, and the Strongarms were hitting the NGO troops with epic speed and violence. Sveinn and his shield wall faced the horrors of mangled and still fighting Grendels with calm determination beyond what armed children should be capable of.
Jorgo went down under the press of attackers near the center.
Aefel fired his weapons dry, then drew his FALD sword. Still sharp to the atomic level, despite weeks of use, he cut through the Carosn horde. They were dead already, he thought. The violence turned his soul sideways despite his years of war.
“Aefel,” Jorgo grunted as he pushed bodies aside, “have you come to finish this?”
He ran past the giant without a word.
A Grendel of average build stood in the center of the chaos like the god of storms in a hurricane. There was nothing human in his expression. Someone else was driving the body, controlling the Carosn field remotely — probably from inside First Base or high in a mountain cave.
“Who are you?” Aefel demanded.
“Finally,” said the Carosn Host. “This body is inadequate. With you to carry the wrath of our cause, the Commonwealth and all its offshoots are doomed.”
“I found the real Emperor and reunited him with his Strongarms,” Aefel said.
Liquid green energy pulsed in the eyes of the Grendel, reflecting on the bluish woad tattoos on his face. Like the rest of the ruin horde, his flesh wept blood as organs slowly ruptured inside his body. Whoever controlled the man forced down fear. “That doesn’t matter. It is too late to go back to the old way.”
Aefel attacked, knowing if he didn’t kill with the first strike, the Carosn Device would pass to him and damn him.
Jorgo roared as he fought a new press of Grendels.
On the valley floor, the FALD Reavers and their mismatched allies fought back a determined NGO advance. Zero Brigade fought on both sides of the melee. Attack helicopters swooped out of mountain caves and launched surface to ground rockets.
Aefel was aware yet unaware of the larger battle. All of his training, everything he had ever wanted from life, every pleasure and pain he could remember, sharpened the moment.
He lunged, knowing he gripped the sword imperfectly.
His rear foot slipped ever so slightly. In a normal fight, he would never have noticed the loss of drive.
Sunlight flashed from the snow-capped peaks, blinding his left eye completely.
He thought of Fey and wanted to lie down and go to sleep despite the flood of pain and adrenaline.
Sveinn is the Emperor. He lives with his sisters under the protection of his Strong Right Arm. Cindy and Paul and the others are fighting as they were made to fight. I am dying. I am becoming the field of life that fuels the Carosn Device.
The tip of his sword entered the CD Host.
I must not fail. Must survive and resist fate.
Power reached for Aefel’s soul, but he laughed. “You thought I had a soul?”
His weight drove the blade deeper. Moving as though in a dream, two sharp edges expanded the throat of his victim. He hated killing a man who had never chosen to corrupt the galaxy with evil. Perhaps death was a mercy, perhaps not.
Time accelerated as the hilt of his FALD sword slammed home, nearly taking off the CD Host’s head with the thrust.
He heard a voice cutting through the horror of the day.
“Aefel!” Fey screamed.
He turned to her and walked past moaning victims of the Carosn Device.
“Help me,” a sword maiden said.
“I can’t,” Aefel said. He gave her water and bound her external wounds, knowing she was dying inside.
Jorgo knelt near a pile of the people he had killed.
Cindy, Paul, and the other heavy gunner of the FALD Reavers chased away the remains of the NGO force with rivers of glowing tracer rounds. He had seen the aftermath of battles that were ended. The easy familiarity of the scene type drifted across his senses.
He made his way toward Fay and the others, wishing that he could truly become a Grendel and leave his past behind. Above the scene, the stars of the galaxy awaited.
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