Njord’s force would continue to scan the system for additional vessels and establish an orbit near the Kuiper Belt to monitor for threats entering the system. Skadi and her crew would remain behind the moon, attacking any ships that left Earth, engaging with full force unless hailed with a specific code, indicating it was Vili or his crew.
Skadi couldn’t rely solely on automated pilots in her Nemesis fighters. She had one Aesirian pilot for every four automated ships. Each pilot controlled their own ship and sent commands to the four robotic fighters that followed them into battle. Real pilots were needed if they had to engage any Olympians escaping Earth, who could easily out-maneuver any AI, no matter how advanced.
In 58 minutes, the two Storskips set course for Earth.
Act II, Chapter 5
Guard
Location: Pachacamac, Peru
Atlas returned to the research facility in Pachacamac, Peru, piloting Athena’s sleek, gold ship deep into Pacific waters and following the underground tunnels to the hanger. Donning his armor, his pistol on one hip and ax on the other, he grabbed his duffle bag containing additional weapons and stepped out of the Aegis to locate Athena within the facility.
“I’m back,” Atlas said over his comm device. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the ninth room on the left, in the hallway at the top of the hanger.”
Atlas jogged up the ramp leading to the main hall and noticed the facility bore the markings of an intense battle. When he found Athena, he was surprised to see her facing a wall with her spear out, ready to attack.
“What are you—” Atlas stopped midsentence as he saw the grim warning etched onto the door Athena was facing. “Did our military obliterate this facility?”
“I don’t think so,” Athena replied, without turning around.
Atlas walked to her side. “What’s behind this door?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was this part of the reason you came to Earth?”
“No.”
“Any sign the intruders have been here?”
“No.”
“Any good reason we think the intruders will come by here?”
“No.”
“Then why are we still here?” Atlas was losing his patience with Athena’s constant secrecy and vagueness.
“This may be as important as whoever is on Earth.” She still hadn’t looked at him.
“Then tell the Council and let’s go. We can’t waste all of our damn time surveying old research facilities.” He stepped in front of Athena so that she was forced to face him. “Humans now know they aren’t alone. We have to find and kill whoever is on Earth. The Council and scientists can work out how to salvage their little experiment after we’re done.”
“You’re right,” Athena said to Atlas’ surprise, still in her fighting stance. “I don’t want them to open this though, even if there is only a small chance they know about this place.”
Atlas threw his hands up. “Ok, so what the hell do you want to do? Stay down here and guard this place while the intruders continue to make fools of Olympia?”
“No. I want you to stay down here.”
Atlas felt a rush of warm blood permeate his body and gradually closed his fists. His next words were slow and deliberate. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Yes, it will.” Athena’s eyes finally centered on Atlas’ face. She retracted her weapon and hooked it to her side.
“I already spent one thousand years ‘guarding’ Earth—I’m not spending another second guarding some other worthless location while Olympia is under attack.”
“This isn’t indefinite. Stay here while I fly out to contact the commanding officer on Bellum. I have comm devices in my ship that will allow us to communicate across Earth. I’ll contact you after successful transmission. It’ll be easier to strategize against this threat knowing enforcements are on the way.”
Atlas liked the way the last sentence sounded. Finally, some action. “I won’t wait long. If I don’t hear from you, I’m forging my own path.”
“Your own path? Like when you slaughtered our people? No. You’ll follow orders.” Athena put her hand on her weapon.
Atlas acquired his mace from his bag and unhooked the ax from his belt, his next words dripping with menace. “I’m doing what’s best for Olympia, even if it means going through you.”
* * *
Athena saw the growing hostility in Atlas. I’ve lost him. He’s still more use to me alive than dead. I’ll give him enough info to make sure he stays. She took her hand off her weapon and stepped back. “Ok. Do what you want, but I don’t think the Council knows about this place and, as I said, I don’t think Olympia was the one to attack this facility. The first facility we inspected in Bandurria was untouched by our military and the experiments there involved Olympians. I don’t know what they were doing exactly, but it looked like they were trying to create a hybrid creature between the Olympian and Huacan bloodlines.
“This facility bears the markings of a particularly violent conflict, but even if we did ‘clean’ this facility we wouldn’t have used weaponry that could cause this type of damage. The Huaca are hiding something here. Even if the intruders aren’t planning on entering this facility, the Council needs to know about this place.”
Atlas lowered is head and stood dumbfounded. Athena was unsure if it was her change in tone or the information she shared that struck him speechless. He hooked his ax back to his belt and lowered his mace. “What the fuck? The Huaca were experimenting on us?” Atlas turned around to face the door. “Alright. Go alert the Bellum system.”
* * *
Atlas was left with his thoughts while Athena left to grab comm devices from the Aegis.
He retrieved his shield out of his bag and stood facing the door; a mace in one hand and a shield in the other. Intruders on Earth and unknown experiments on Olympians? Maybe the Council is more incompetent than I thought.
Athena soon returned with the comm device, laying it on one of the shelves containing vials. “I’ll be in contact soon.”
Atlas grunted in reply, and she left. After the sound of her ship igniting slowly rumbled through the halls, the facility fell quiet. He sat there in suffocating silence. I spent years fighting for Olympia and a millennium asleep to guard an experiment, and now I’m guarding a door like a green recruit, waiting for ‘Death’ to greet me.
Act II, Chapter 6
Attacked
Location: Earth’s System
Athena left Atlas to guard Death and directed her ship out under the Pacific Ocean. This should be quick, then I can deal with Atlas.
She glanced at the dials controlling her long-range communication over the aion network. Better play it safe and send a message to Olympia once I’m clear of the Svalinn shield. It was unlikely the shield could interfere with the aion communication, but she wasn’t willing to take any chances.
Athena knew the shield stations sat at the Earth’s Lagrangian points, so she figured the closest non-shielded area would be just past the spot on the side of Earth facing away from the sun. The moon was also on the far side of the Earth at the moment; she decided to use it as cover to minimize the chance of being tracked from Earth. Now that humans knew they weren’t alone in the galaxy, they were likely constantly monitoring the skies. Any detection of my ship by the humans will lead to global news, which will get back to the intruders.
Her Olympian standard HARPE system—technology which combined readings from electromagnetic waves and gravitational anomalies to scan the vessel’s immediate surroundings—detected no ships as she approached the moon. Why would it? The intruders murdered everyone at the research facilities and nothing has been reported about additional spaceships around Earth.
* * *
Skadi’s team, now deployed after a 100 year delay, made quick work of checking the stations by Jupiter and the sun. They obliterated intact portions of the floating debris to ensure there was no salvageable evidence for the Olympian
s to collect. Her ship maintained radio silence with Njord’s crew in the Kuiper Belt throughout the process.
Following the cleanup at the research facilities, she led her crew to the side of the moon facing away from Earth and addressed the ship’s pilot. “Land the Thrymheim in the center of this hemisphere of Earth’s moon.”
Skadi then left the cockpit and met her fighter pilots in the hanger. She was accompanied by Haki, a veteran pilot who had fought alongside her in their initial skirmishes with Olympia nearly one thousand years prior. He had spent the past 100 years training the pilots in her crew. Haki had long, thick brown hair that he kept untamed and only a shadow of facial hair. He was covered in dark, leathery skin, and stood uncharacteristically motionless and serious behind Skadi as she addressed his crew.
“I want four detachments consisting of two pilots and eight automated fighters, each, to land 2,000 kilometers away from the Thrymheim; space yourselves every ninety degrees using our Storskip as your reference point. Land your ships and power down to life-support only.
“Other crew from this ship will use an all-terrain vehicle to drive a hard-wired camera past each of your landing sites and plant them in a location that allows clear observation of the Earth. The live stream from Earth will be monitored from the Storskip.”
Skadi saw confusion cross some faces in the room. “We have to stay invisible to any detection systems—likely HARPE—running on Olympian ships fleeing Earth. The only way to do that is to only use hard-wired tech—we won’t be sending any signals into space. Yes, Gna?”
Gna was young, like most of Skadi’s crew, and had never experienced live combat. She was taller than Skadi, athletically built, and had deep blue eyes to match the admiral’s. Her long blonde hair was held in two buns running vertically on the back of her head. “So are we just looking for heat signatures leaving Earth?”
Skadi had to force herself to swallow a smile, she saw not just a shallow physical reflection of her younger self in Gna, but a likeness at the depths of personality. “Yes. We will have the cameras set to pick up abnormal movement in the infrared and visible light spectrum. It will alert us here at the Storskip.”
“But we’ll be blind?” Gna asked, clearly not comfortable with the plan.
“Correct. But the team bringing out the camera will also be bringing out hard-wired communication. I’ll alert the groups at the edge of the moon where the target is heading and give instructions on how you should deploy your weapons.” She’s confident enough to risk ridicule among her peers by asking seemingly simple, but important questions. Putting knowledge of the mission ahead of fleeting respect.
Gna nodded in understanding.
“Any further questions? Good. Let’s get going. Remember to fly low to your holding positions. Haki will assign you to groups.”
* * *
Gna was ordered to pair with Haki and fly to one of the points surrounding the Thrymheim. She pulled her helmet over her hair buns and fired up her Nemesis fighter, Hofvarpnir, waiting for Haki’s signal to depart. She watched as he entered his ship and exited the hanger, his three-winged vessel fading into the darkness of the moon. Gna followed him, low and slow, out 2,000 kilometers away from the Storskip.
Gna and Haki stayed in their respective cockpits after landing, not able to speak to each other due to the enforced communication blackout. They were waiting for a crew to deliver their hardwired tech. Gna took the chance to gaze out into the galaxy. Due to a lack of atmosphere, Earth’s moon had no sky, but that didn’t mean Gna couldn’t see the stars. She focused her vision toward the center of the galaxy, revealing a splatter painting of gas and light cutting across her field of vision. The stunning view sent prickles down her spine which radiated to her arms and lower back, causing her skin to horripilate. She lost track of time.
Before long, a four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle unraveling a thin wire approached her landing site. The motion caught her eye and she spun her head to get a look. Both the driver and passenger wore standard spacewalk gear, consisting of a sleek white body suit with a white helmet that consisted of a visor and protruding, perforated structure encompassing the mouth and nose. Gna always thought the piece of machinery that acted as both an air filter and generator resembled a stocky, sideways bird beak.
Two large spools of wire were attached to the back of the incoming vehicle, but one of them was nearly out of slack. The vehicle slowed and the passenger-side technician, likely Skoll based on their frame, gripped a section of the wire and used small jets on their back to speed across the low-gravity landscape to Haki’s fighter; the wire continued to unspool as Skoll floated closer to Haki. He slowed and stopped by the cockpit, clamped a device to the wire, slowly handed it over Haki, and then returned to the four wheeled vehicle.
The technician then unwound the rest of the wire, clamped another device to the end of it, and flew toward Gna. Gna opened her cockpit as Skoll approached. The masks she and her incoming colleague wore didn’t only have speakers and receivers—to allow individuals to communicate on planets with noxious atmospheres— but were outfitted with gear to read the lips of the other person talking and project the recreated audio into the suit. This feature was necessary on astronomical bodies stripped of atmosphere.
“Gna, here is your communication device. Click this button to talk. Anything you say will be heard by Commander Haki and Admiral Skadi. Any questions?”
Gna shook her head ‘no’ and Skoll quickly returned to his vehicle, speeding off to plant the monitoring cameras.
“Gna, how are you doing?” Haki asked.
“I’m ready,” she replied, not wanting to admit she was shaking a little.
Seemingly reading her mind, Haki responded. “It’s ok to be nervous, but use it to stay focused. Remember, nerves can be used to your advantage, but fear cannot.”
Gna nodded her head as she felt some tension leave her body and then realized she needed to say something. “Thanks, Haki.”
To Gna’s surprise, Skadi joined the conversation. “And you have nothing to fear. Haki has saved my life multiple times. We’re counting on his skills to keep us all safe.”
Blushing a little, but feeling much better, Gna replied. “Thank you, Admiral.”
* * *
Skadi’s monitoring system was finally up and running. She was at a waist-high podium with four sets of controls and eight screens positioned off it. She had four views of Earth in the visible spectrum and four in the infrared. Custom software was running in the background that would alert her to any electromagnetic changes resembling a ship approaching or launching from Earth, but she felt better being able to monitor the blue planet with her own eyes.
The four sets of controls on the panel allowed her to select which of the four stations on the moon she wanted to communicate with and allowed the pilots at those stations to communicate with her. She heard as the two pilots at each station exchanged words of encouragement and distraction when they received their comm devices, and then quickly fell silent. We may be here a while before something happens.
Skadi spoke to all four groups. “All stations, the equipment is in place. I’ll alert you if we detect anything suspicious around Earth. Stay patient. If nothing changes in eighteen hours, you will need to start resting in shifts—I want all of you to remain sharp. These lines of communication will stay open. Don’t hesitate to use them. Good luck.” And with that, silence again filled the air. I’ll give any ship leaving Earth five seconds to hail us—after that, we’ll attack.
* * *
Gna stared out at the dim, stark landscape of the moon. Impact craters marked the vulnerable terrestrial body. She could see that the tracts made by the vehicle hours earlier hadn’t changed, as if they were carved into stone that couldn’t erode. Any marks left by us here will take eons to heal without an atmosphere.
Does the galaxy lack a metaphorical atmosphere? Wounds caused during the Fracturing still haven’t healed, and the Aesir still hate Olympia. Have we all been branded by
our culture in one way or another—unable to peel off the scab of time and allow new skin to grow?
Why do we carry the anguish of our grandparents? Led to believe that our lot in life was determined by the hardships they faced. Our elders have refused to fully cooperate with the Olympians, and then blame them when we are treated as ‘Lessers.’ Do we care more about our pride than the well-being of our civilization?
There are plenty of Olympians who still show us disdain, though. Many still exist who would love to have us evicted from Olympia territory—without worry as to what would happen to us after. Is it better to fight with the weak for a potential spot in the galaxy or acquiesce to the powerful for a shot at the same? Would the outcome really be different either way?
“Haki, Gna, an unknown ship just left Earth and appears to be headed toward your station. I need each of your ships to fire discharge nets at these exact coordinates.”
Gna keyed in the coordinates for the projectile as Skadi shared them. Discharge nets were typically used in close combat to disable electronics, and potentially the engine, of an enemy ship. The dark, perforated nets were nearly invisible to both the naked eye and advanced detection systems, so they were very difficult for a pilot to dodge, but they were also difficult to aim and slower than bullets or missiles. Moreover, they were easily disarmed via simple projectiles (if spotted). Gna realized their only option was to create an obstacle course of nets that would catch this enemy ship by surprise. Their nearly two-kilometer-wide snares would remain open and suspended in the nothingness around the moon. If the enemy ship came in contact with any of them then that net would immediately wrap around the vessel and release multiple powerful magnetic pulses.
“While you do that, the fighters on the opposite side of the moon will creep up behind the rogue ship and detonate their anti-matter weapons,” Skadi said.
The Gods Who Chose Us Page 18
