That bow of hers is an amazing piece of technology that is a great equalizer. Its arrows can actually damage and even penetrate that unholy Jotunn armor. I watched her cloak shimmer to life and grinned, the protection their reactionary cloth gave them was nothing to sneeze at either. It afforded her as much protection, if not more, than our regenerative Valkyrie armor.
She looked at me nervously. “There are six this time. They are learning. We should call for backup.”
I understood the apprehension. These sentinel hybrid creatures were virtually mindless bio-mechanical creatures run by combat computers. They looked like the old three horned dinosaurs of Earth that I had seen once as a child. What were they called? Triceratops? But their bodies were augmented with mechanical implants, weapons systems and their immense bony foreskull was covered in that infernal Jotunn armor that only my power of Thor or Odin's Spear could damage. Or of course Artemis' arrows.
They always faced their enemies, to keep that tough armor between us and them. The energy weapons they used at long range while ineffective against us Valkyrie, who could absorb the blasts without nano-lattice, were an extreme danger to Intark and Artemis.
If we could flank them and get around to their sides where they are more vulnerable, then a couple of us can do enough damage to take them down. The battle computers on board allowed the lumbering beasts to counter our movements efficiently if they worked in concert with each other. So our general tactic so far has been to isolate them one at a time to take them down. We have taken hundreds down across the planet like that, but they are learning, like a hive-mind and are anticipating our patrols like this and coordinating attacks.
Before I could respond to Artemis, an elated cry was heard over our coms. “Yeeeeeetahhh! We don't need backup, I am your backup!”
My eyes snapped to the sky to see three familiar incoming cylindrical wind riders, marked in the colors of the Sky. They numbered six now, a race of sentient ships of the Asgard. There was a woman in her familiar three-point stance, standing on the roof of the lead vehicle, Pegasus, as the other ships, Looper and Swooper started barrel-roll peel-offs. They dipped below the lead vessel just as the woman leapt off the roof of Pegasus as she veered off.
The figure fell hundreds of feet just to lithely land on the roof of Swooper, and somersault off of the ship like it were a springboard. The hybrids that had just arrived in the clearing in front of us opened fire at the last incoming vessel that just absorbed the blasts with its own nano-lattice. Others opened fire on us.
I stepped in front of Intark and Kate stepped in front of Artemis and we absorbed the blasts and waited for the beasts to get within our own range. Inatra hissed out a challenge like a Terran cat and Intark just stood patiently like a hunter, ready to fire a steady stream of thermite rounds into any target the beasts presented him.
The woman in the sky had just rebounded off of Looper's roof and the wind rider veered off, when she spread her arms and photonic webbing appeared between her arms and legs. The coherent light sails making her look like a flying squirrel from Earth as she soared the last couple hundred yards to the jungle canopy. There she switched off her glide suit and snagged a tree branch and swung around it bleeding off half of her speed. She whipped up in a graceful arc and took a magnetic lance spear from her back as she took constant fire from the hybrids. She landed in a three-point stance on the rearmost hybrid, sinking the lance into its skull behind the immense bone and armor shield.
The beast roared in protest and swerved. Then it swerved back erratically and ran full speed into the nearest hybrid, great horns impaling it. I snorted in surprise, she was using the lance to guide the beast, like a horse. Another Hybrid turned from us to contend with the woman and her rouge hybrid.
She dove off just as they collided, taking each other down in a horrific sound of bone and armor cracking. She landed lightly on the ground in a roll but just kept rolling under a fourth. Bringing her spear to bear as she passed quickly under it, disemboweling it as she passed.
Kate and I concentrated on another with our power of Thor. The lightning of pure compressed magnetic energy leapt from our hands, mine striking the ground and blowing a crater in front of the animal, causing it to trip before it could react. Kate's striking its eyes and destroying them and cracking the armor around its eye sockets. Before we could blink, the deafening roar of a chain gun sounded out and Intark was hitting the eye sockets of the beast and the cracks in the armor with a steady wall of thermite tipped bullets. His battle cry sounding out. The projectiles chewed through the creature and Intark must have emptied a couple hundred rounds into the hybrid's skull before it dropped.
Then we all turned to the final hybrid. It was almost upon us. I grinned in anticipation and as one, Kate and I broke from the group and ran at an oblique angle away from the others as we fired lightning at the beast, it had learned from what it just saw and compensated. I chuckled at the stupid beast, we were just the bait.
I could feel it in the air before I saw it. The compressed gravity of an infinitesimally small point singularity as Artemis pulled back on her bow and let loose an arrow at hypersonic velocities. It went in one side of the hybrid's unprotected hind-skull and out the other side like a hot knife through butter. It embedded almost a foot deep in the plasti-crete wall behind the beast.
It stood there motionless for three long seconds then simply just crumpled to the ground. Inatra was dispatching the wounded hybrids with her lattice claws. Then everything was silent. We all looked at each other and grinned then let fly our battle cries in celebration.
I looked over to the small graceful figure off to the side who spun her mag-spear in her hands rapidly and deftly slid it in place on her back. She stepped toward us with a huge grin on her face asking, “Now who here needed backup?” I couldn't stop smiling at Kitty the Efficient, Second to Pegasus of the Sky, First Valklopt of Asgard, Valkyrie of the Sky. I still saw that tiny girl at the gates of Valhalla from eons ago whenever I looked at her.
I bumped shoulders with her as she reached us. “Showoff.”
She gave me a toothy grin, even for how small she was, she was still slightly taller than me. She chirped out in an over amused tone, “Why should you get to have all the fun Valkyrie?”
We all shared a cathartic laugh and turned to finish scouting the grid as Pegasus swooped down to retrieve her charge.
I smiled as I looked around, New Ishatak, this would make a fine place for the Ragnarok to start resettling the planet of their ancestors.
June Page 16
