Sons of the Gods

by James Von Ohlen

  Time snapped back into its normal flow as Torsten looked down the sights of his own heat lance pistol, sensors indicating that the shot he had just fired was likely lethal and that the War God had been neutralized as a threat. A far easier and less painful death than Anhur had deserved, but the man had been dealt with. Torsten allowed himself a moment’s elation before the battle washed over him again.

  Back, he sent to his crew. The six men cleared a path for their egress from the command center. Assault carbines fired, cutting down everything in their path as the men took cover in the hallway. They paused for a moment watching the gray men finish off the last of the bronze knights. Once that fight was done it would be a simple matter to mop up and take control of the battle station.

  Through a haze of static, Torsten heard a familiar voice calling to him. Modi. He concentrated intently on her voice and it seemed to clear enough that she could be understood.

  “Torsten,” she began. “What’s happening up there? The station seems to have been badly damaged and its orbit is rapidly deteriorating. I’m sorry, but we won’t be able to bring you back in time.” Her voice snapped in absolute clarity with the last word.

  “What do you mean?” He asked.

  “We won’t be able to reactivate the gateway in time to bring you back. You’ll have to find a way out before the battle station enters Veldt’s atmosphere.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Silence for several moments.

  “There should be lifeboats and escape pods accessible from close to your current position. Vidar’s prediction of their location is being uploaded to your halo right now.” As she finished speaking a light blue pathway showed in Torsten’s vision. “That should lead you there.” She finished.

  Fuck, Torsten thought. She actually sounded concerned. It seemed there was a real possibility they might all die. He declined to share that thought with his crew.

  “Alright gents, change of plans.” He spoke to them as he transmitted an update of their situation and mission addendum to them. Grumbles of concern came back to him.

  The six men turned their backs on the firefight playing out on the bridge and began moving down the shredded and burned remains of the hallway they had entered through. They found themselves making a few oddly placed turns and then approached a bank of doorways. Each leading to a lifeboat. Poorly placed for any personnel that needed to abandon ship from the bridge. Displays above the doors showed that only one was still docked.

  Torsten looked through the viewing portal in the door to see the interior of the lifeboat. It would be cramped, but they could all fit. They managed to interface with the control panel and get the door open, wasting precious time as they did so. Torsten ordered the men of his crew in the boat while he entered the course it should follow as it descended to Veldt. The closer they got to Fort Kasper, the better.

  There was resistance from the control panel as Torsten tried to enter the destination. His halo translated the protest for him, revealing that the control panel was worried that he was trying to send the lifeboat into hostile territory. Finally something these people had done made sense. But of all the times for that to happen, why now?

  Guided by a data transmission from Modi, he found he was able to access the override for the control panel. Explosions sounded somewhere above as the battle on the bridge reached a heated climax. For several minutes Torsten moved through the sequence necessary to send the lifeboat to the correct destination. Finally when he had entered it, he turned to his crew. He couldn’t help but smile at the nervousness they transmitted back to him through their halos.

  He opened his mouth to speak to them directly when warning signs flashed. Something was moving to attack him, but his sensors were too late. It had already reached him.

  Something pulled him back and threw him through the air into the wall beyond with such force that he nearly blacked out. Sensory input from his suit showed a figure in golden plate armor throwing something into the lifeboat through the open door and then punching the launch button on the control panel.

  The door slammed shut and the lifeboat ejected away from the station and into the void. There was a signal of panic and then nothing from his crew as a light flashed within and the lifeboat fell away towards Veldt.

  As Torsten rose, a golden fist slammed into his head and sent him skidding along the floor, leaving deep scratches in it that marked his passing.

  “I’m not so easily defeated, traitor.” Anhur’s deep bass, boulders grinding against one another voice. Torsten’s head cleared and he found himself facing the War God.

  “Now, you will face me. And you will know my wrath.” Anhur spoke as he drew the large two handed sword he had carried earlier from a sheath across his back. Torsten couldn’t help but smile.

  “So be it.” He said as he rose to a fighting stance and drew his own blade.

  Power crackled along its length and he gripped it with both hands. He looked at the War God. It was him, of that there was no doubt. Minus the left half of his head from just behind the eye back. Something flowed over the wound, seemingly closing it very slowly. The same trick Torsten had seen a few times before now. Nanobots repairing damage as fast as they could. Somehow they had allowed Anhur to survive. Torsten wouldn’t allow that to happen again.

  The War God surged forward with a powerful strike that Torsten slapped down and answered with a straight snap-kick to the remains of Anhur’s head. The War God stumbled and fell to his knees. Torsten slapped him hard with an open hand just behind the ear, knocking him to the ground and sending fragments of the man’s helmet flying.

  Sloppy on the attack and leaving himself exposed as he was, the War God was quick to return to a solid defensive position. He rolled and struck in a wide arc about himself to hold Torsten at bay while he sprang back to his feet, returning to a fighting stance.

  The great blade flashed with incredible speed and Torsten parried it before delivering a cut to Anhur’s chest. The War God wobbled on his feet for a second before he recovered his balance. Another strike was slapped down with ease by Torsten, and he returned a scoring cut of his own once more.

  “You forget who I am and where I’m from, General Kasabian.” Torsten spoke. The fragment of Anhur’s face visible behind the ruined helmet twisted with rage.

  “You will address me as is befitting of a God.” He screamed and his voice echoed down the hallway on both sides of them.

  “A man playing at God.” Torsten spit as Anhur lunged at him with the great sword. Torsten knocked the blade away from him contemptuously.

  “You had a better chance with a gun. You have far more experience there than I do. But with swords,” Torsten was interrupted by an attack that he easily parried. “You’re just outclassed.” He finished his statement.

  “I was born with a blade in my hand. Thanks to your keeping my entire planet in the Middle Ages. I suppose I should thank you, at least a little.” Torsten slapped down Anhur’s blade and kicked the War God’s legs out from under him. Anhur sputtered with rage as he rolled and tried to strike at Torsten’s legs with his sword. Torsten stepped out of range and waited for the War God to regain his feet, motioning to him with one hand.

  “You should have killed me when you got the drop on me. That was the only way you’d walk away from this fight, Kasabian.” Torsten spoke, mocking contempt dripping from every word.

  A flurry of strikes from the huge sword came his way and he turned them aside as easily as he would have the slaps of a child. When the flurry died down, Torsten launched his counter attack and cut both of the War God’s hands from his wrists in a shower of sparks and machine fluids. The huge sword clanged on the ground, steel hands still gripping it hard from within golden armor. Torsten slammed the pommel of his sword up into Anhur’s jaw and dropped the War God to his knees again.

  “Just so you understand, Kasabian, you never stood a chance against me. It was inevitable that I cut you down.” A voice spoke through the external speakers of Tors
ten’s helmet, but not his own. Vidar’s. And just like that it was gone.

  A knowing look passed over Anhur’s face. As if he recognized the voice for what it was. Anhur roared in rage as he leapt to his feet and began battering at Torsten with the stumps of his severed wrists. Torsten turned the blows aside and cut downwards, taking off Anhur’s left leg below the knee. The War God tumbled again, falling face first.

  He pushed himself to his knees, speaking in a language that Torsten didn’t recognize. His halo unit identified it as UN standard, a mix of permutations of various Old Earth languages. The translation showed a stream of profanity that would have made any drill sergeant in The Kingdom proud. Torsten had never thought such things were possible to do to a man’s mother.

  Torsten enjoyed the absurdity of the moment, allowing himself a smile before he stepped forward and cut Anhur’s head from his shoulders with a single strike. The mangled head rolled away spraying blood as it went, but the body held its posture. A second later and it began trying to rise to its feet.

  Of course, Torsten thought. Why would the brain be housed in a vulnerable place like the head? Better to put it behind some heavy armor in the chest. Torsten shoved the body to the ground and began cutting through the golden armor and into the backplate, until he found what he sought.

  The brain case didn’t really look that different to the brain casings he had seen from the Coalition Titans. He looked down at it as he raised his sword to deal the final blow. He lowered his weapon in thought, then cut the brain casing away from the body which went limp as it was severed. It would make a nice present for Modi.

  Now the only problem was getting back to her to deliver it.

  “Torsten.” This time it was Vidar speaking. “You don’t have much time left. The orbit of the UN battle station has deteriorated significantly. I have a way for you to escape… but you’re not going to like it.”

  A data stream popped up and Torsten scanned through it at the speed of thought. Only one response seemed appropriate.

  “Are you fucking insane?” Torsten spoke out loud, his voice broadcasting over his helmet’s external speakers and echoing in the hallway.

  “There’s no other way.” Vidar’s response sounded final. Torsten took a deep breath and then began running down the hallway following a new path projected into his mind’s eye, carrying the brain case taken from Anhur.

  He passed by a wreckage strewn hallway leading back to the command center. The firefight had drawn to its inevitable conclusion and gray men sifted through the damaged computer banks spread out there. One looked up and saw him standing there. A silent signal to the others brought their undivided attention. A second later they were all moving towards him, firing as they did so.

  “You don’t have time for this.” Vidar spoke as Torsten drew his heat lance pistol and burned through two of the gray men with one shot. He pushed the pistol back into place and took to his heels as hard rounds and beams struck all around him. If one hits the brain casing, he thought, we might lose a lot of valuable data. Of course, it might be lost altogether if any tiny thing went wrong with Vidar’s plan.

  He ran through sections of the battle station he hadn’t seen before, sticking to Vidar’s path. This had a very slim chance of not ending very badly for him. Torsten paused at a large door labeled with blocky letters that said “Hangar”.

  He couldn’t find a control panel to open the door, so he drew his sword and cut a rectangular opening out of the door for himself to walk through. Immediately air began sucking into the new opening, indicating the hangar beyond was open to space.

  Putting the sword back in its sheath and holding tightly to the brain case, Torsten stepped through the opening he had just cut. Electro magnets in the soles of his armored boots activated, securing him to the floor and preventing him from being sucked into vacuum.

  The hangar was mostly dark and partially lit by sunlight. The open face of the hangar looked down on Veldt, a giant blue and green marble floating against the black of space beyond that filled most of his view. Torsten paused and looked at it with no small amount of awe. It was beautiful and breathtaking, and all of those things that men better with words than himself used to describe scenes of awe. And it was where he was going, whether he wanted to or not.

  Torsten moved away from the gas jetting through the pierced hangar door and set the brain casing in a secure spot before her ran back to a pile of cargo locked in place and began cutting through it. Scrap electronics. Medical supplies. Those might come in handy, but there was no way to take them with him. Nothing of real use. Not what he was looking for. Another suggested path sprang into his vision and he sprinted along it.

  It ended at a doorway on the side of the hangar with the same blocky lettering as above the hangar door. His halo unit translated it for him. “Special Operations: Orbital Drop Equipment.” There was no control panel so he cut through that door as well, though with significantly more effort than the last door. Either his blade was dulling or this door had been heavily armored.

  He shoved aside the remains of the ruined door and leapt inside, sensors mapping out the dark room for him. There he found what Vidar had sent him to find. A row of weapons that were of no use to him and then what appeared to be several huge backpacks. Squared and covered with a heat reflective coating, countless tiny openings passed through the surface of the unit.

  The orbital drop equipment referred to in the room’s label. The pack could be affixed to an armored man’s back and he could leap into the gravity well of nearby heavenly bodies. Once the user approached the surface of his target, usually the ground on the surface of a planet, the pack would fire a series of heavy retro rockets that would bring the user to a comfortable stop.

  The packs were designed for high risk insertions of military personnel onto hostile planets and large enemy ships. In the gravest of emergencies they could be used by unarmored personnel to move from one ship to another. Right now definitely seemed to be an emergency situation to Torsten.

  “Are you sure this is it?” He asked.

  “That’s it. It should have a cargo space that the brain casing will fit in.” Vidar responded before sending a data stream detailing how best to use the unit.

  “And you’re sure my armor will hold?”

  “There is a 5% probability of armor failure due to damage sustained during combat. But there is no other option.”

  “Did I mention that you’re fucking insane?” Torsten asked as he grabbed a pack and powered it on, waiting for the fuel gauges to indicate it was full. Vidar didn’t answer. A green light indicated that the unit was fully fueled and Torsten turned back to the hangar carrying it along.

  He ran back to the brain casing, lifting it and putting it into the cargo compartment of the drop pack. It was shielded against heat, so at least the brain wouldn’t be cooked. In a worst case scenario ending with Torsten splattered across the countryside, there was a small chance it might survive. If any of his crew survived they might be able to pick it up at some point in the future.

  Thinking of his crew, he sent a query to Vidar about their fate. Modi answered him.

  “We’re tracking the lifeboat right now. It appears to be on course, but we can’t scan the interior and there’s no signals from their suits. We’re not sure what’s happening.” She sounded sad, as if genuinely concerned about the scouts. Whatever she had become, Torsten thought, she had at one point in time been a human.

  Hard rounds passing by him silently caught his attention and he looked back to the cut in the hangar door as he locked himself into the jump pack. The surface of the pack began flowing like liquid and then hardened, pressed against his form. The pack buzzed and vibrated against him as it tightened its grip and locked itself into place.

  Gray men were crawling through the opening, fanning out and firing at him as they came. Several leaked fluids from their suits that dripped to the ground. No atmosphere, but the hangar still had artificial gravity. Either they had been damaged i
n the fighting or they weren’t hardened against vacuum. In any case their being sent into the hangar showed the callous disregard that Mordechai held for his underlings.

  Torsten fired a single shot from his heat lance pistol and locked it back into place at his hip, before turning and sprinting directly towards the open door of the hangar bay. Hard rounds and beams passed by him. They wouldn’t damage him significantly if they hit his armor, but if the jump pack was hit it might prematurely cancel his trip home. Or make it a whole lot faster.

  Mentally crossing his fingers, he maxed out his sprint speed and leapt into the void.

  There was a sensation of weightlessness and not moving. He felt as if he was just floating right outside the doors of the hangar, making an easy target for any gray man who cared to take a shot. He turned his head to look back and saw the battle station rapidly fading into the distance.

  Let’s get this over with, he thought to himself as he turned his gaze back to the world below. It didn’t appear to be growing any bigger, but sensor input told him that he was rapidly accelerating. The pack fired its engines a few times to adjust his course and speed.

  500 miles per hour.

  600 miles per hour.

  850 miles per hour a few moments later. Things were starting to get hot.

  1200 miles per hour.

  1500 miles per hour. That’s pretty fast he thought to himself, only to see the readout pass two thousand miles per hour scant seconds later.

  It felt like something grabbed him from behind and he began slowing, but not by much. The interior of his suit constricted on his arms and legs, forcing blood back to his head to prevent him from passing out. He hadn’t even been aware it was about to happen, but his suit had just saved his life.

  Torsten had a vision of the combat suit he wore being found months later in perfect condition and someone opening it to find his liquefied remains, completely smashed on impact with the ground.