by Per Holbo
***
Baldur had just reported to Thor, that he was ready. There was a buzzing sound as the hammer began its start up sequence. His three companions out there depended on him and he knew he had to be precise when firing the cannon. The hammer was a terrible weapon and it was a little strange to know that in this situation it was the only thing that could save lives. His friends´ lives. And he had to be quick when calculating the readings. Even the slightest error in the configuration of the shift would tear their bodies apart instead of keeping them together. Even though he always complained when Thor and Sif went on and on with their scientific explanations, he understood very well how this worked. When the hammer was fired, it would emit a compact radiation and create a small pocket where time was shifted either speeding it up or slowing it down compared to normal time. If the Aseir would ever decide to use “Thor´s Hammer” as a weapon, such a pocket increasing or decreasing the time flow while embracing part of a vessel, while the rest of the vessel remained in normal time, the result would be devastating and tear the target apart.
But right now he had to focus on reading the fluctuations in the time flow on both sides of every membrane his friends had to go through and then use the gun to smooth out these time differences based on some rather complicated calculations. Finally, he had to make sure to hit every one of them exactly as they were completely covered by the bubbles the hammer created. If an arm or a leg wasn´t inside the pocket, the time flow would either slow down and stop the blood from flowing inside of that body part or it would speed up time subjecting them to rapid aging turning that body part to dust. The end result would be the same: a body that exploded in the pressure of blood that could not be pumped freely around. Under normal circumstances, the body's natural ability to defend itself would kick in and reduce the blood flow, but this was anything but normal, and the body would not even detect that something was wrong. Baldur shuddered at the image of his friends being torn apart when being hit by the hammer. Anyone looking at it from a distance would just see the body disintegrate, but for the affected, time could be reduced so much that the torment could go on for hours or days, even weeks or years.
Baldur knew how demanding his job was and he was focused on performing with perfection. He kept a close eye on the three dots on the 3D model in front of him. They had almost reached the first membrane, which would be the easiest. Here there was only one possible difference between standard time and time behind the membrane. For each new membrane it would be somewhat more difficult, as he had to keep track of both standard time, shift after the first membrane and then an extra shift for each membrane, they came through. And he could not count on the three coming through the membranes at the same time.
First reading. Time differences were minimal. Just 0.93. This meant that the time behind the membrane was seven percent slower than normal time. He readied the gun and set it at minus seven percent and fired it three times in rapid succession. All three dots lit up on the screen, confirming a successful hit. They glided through the membrane without problems.
According to their initial scans there would be plenty of time before the next membrane. At least 20 minutes, which had now increased a little due to the time flow being seven percent slower than outside the pocket. Baldur leaned back and relaxed. He might as well grab the opportunity to rest, because it was impossible to know how long he had before the next few penetrations.
He set the alarm on console to warn him in good time before the next membrane, closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander aimlessly. Thoughts of Sif, who was like a mother to him, even though she was married to Thor and therefore his sister in law. She had always taken good care of him. Unlike most other women she had never seemed interested in him, at least not in a romantic way. Strangely enough, He had never even thought of her as a potential girlfriend, despite the fact that she was very beautiful and had more between her ears than most of the women he knew. Now she floated out there helplessly and quite indispensable to the fight against the Yetten expansion. It was strange in a way. Once they had been enemies, Aseir and Vanes, but after a war that none of them could win, they had finally figured out that it made no sense to continue. It had happened hundreds of years ago, before the Yetten had left their domain at the other end of the galaxy and started a ruthless mayhem wherever they went. Perhaps the real reason for peace between Asher and Vanes had actually been the emerging of the Yetten and their brutality in the sense that it made all other contentions seem so utterly indifferent? Baldur wasn´t sure, but it made sense. He had never been interested in politics. He was a warrior and pilot and performed his job to the best of ability and that had is entire focus. However, he had been interested in quite a lot of women and even though Sif had not immediately occurred to him as a potential girlfriend, it certainly wasn´t because he didn´t like Vane Women. On the contrary. They were hot - at least most of them ... Even the unapproachable Freya had caught Baldur´s eye - every visible inch of her body had in fact caught his eye. Thinking about it, he wondered if it was in fact her inaccessible appearance more than anything else that made her particularly attractive?
In any case, it had been a great day when Freya and Sif had come to Asgard along with a small delegation. As part of the peace agreement it had been decided to exchange talented people between the two races and the Aseir had at the same time sent Hoener off to Vanaheim. Hoener had been meant to be a kind of ruler in Vanaheim, which was at the time a sort of enlightened kingdom and already then Baldur had been ashamed about it. The Aseir had actually tried to dupe the Vanes sending Hoener to be the new leader of the Vanaheim kingdom. He was in no way Chief Material. He could barely decide whether to put on his left shoe before his right shoe or vice versa, without asking anyone for advice. And of course, when they had put him in the royal chair on Vanaheim and lead them through troubled times, he did whatever he could to avoid making any important decision, but instead tried to get others to choose any course of action that might have serious consequences. That way he thought he could avoid anyone blaming him for being wrong.
At first, Hoener - and the Aseir Council, who had sent him - had gotten away with it, because the Vane nobles believed, he was just trying to find his place in his new home and that he was eager to figure out how the Vane society worked, but after a while, it became more and more clear, that Hoener and the Aseir Council did not in any way have the Vane Society´s best interests at heart. The Vane nobles had been furious! They had sent the council a clear message: if peace was to be uphold, the Aseir Council had to pay a severe fine for not abiding by the peace agreement. It had been quite expensive and the tribute had brought the Aseir economy to a crisis, they hadn´t experienced in the past 300 years, but all this happened long ago and the following centuries, the two races developed side by side becoming more and more intertwined and today no one even thought about who was Vane and who was Aseir. They had become a single people, with one common enemy: the brutal Yetten. All that was left of the old Aseir and Vane societies was the fact that their respective cultures sometimes collided, especially when it came to the use of weapons. Originally, the Vanes had not believed in using weapons aggressively, but had built massive defensive capabilities against the Yetten forces, but it had proven to be inadequate and they had changed their views to fit the situation. The debate between Aseir and Vanes on the council was not about using or not using offensive weapons, but rather which offensive weapons to use and how to use them.
Sveessj!
Baldur sat up with a startle as the door behind him opened! He spun around quickly and stared at the man who stood in the doorway with his uniform in tatters and with a scar on his left cheek.
“Hi, Baldur, caught you off guard, did I? It´s not often, I find you speechless, huh?” The man sat in the co-pilot seat and caught Baldur's gaze with authority and determination in his eyes.
“I´m sorry to just burst in this way, but there isn´t much time and certainly not enough to explain everything,” he said as Bald
ur slowly put his jaw back in place with his left hand.
“It is very important that you listen carefully to what I´m about to tell you, alright? In a minute I´ll be gone and you cannot not tell anyone that I have been here. Promise me!”
Baldur nodded eyes wide open and the man continued telling the most incredible story. When he had finished, he disappeared just as subtle as he had arrived and there was no reading of his presence on the internal scanner. Strange??? He checked the clock. 2 minutes left. He had better get ready to save his friend from certain death...
