The War of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic (Saga of the Iron Dragon Book 5)

by Robert Kroese

  “They will believe it, because it is their only hope.”

  “You have come here to convince us to give our enemies a doomsday weapon, telling them that we wish them to use it to destroy our home world, while assuring us that it will never be used for such a purpose?” Richard asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why would we do this?”

  “Because you know that I am telling you the truth. The planet-killer will not be the thing that ends this war.”

  “No?” said Aaron. “Then what will?”

  “The other weapon you are hiding.”

  Murmurs went up around the room, and Freya knew she had passed the third test.

  “The weapon is not ready,” said Aaron. “We have not tested it.”

  “I have seen the results. It is ready.”

  There was some muted discussion around the table.

  “The weapon represents the culmination of many generations of Fractalist effort,” Olivia said. “Why would we just give it over to you?”

  “Because I’ve passed all your tests. Because you know I’m telling the truth. And because in three weeks, this facility will be destroyed.”

  The group erupted into pandemonium. When once again Aaron had managed to silence them, he asked, “What do you mean by this?”

  “The Cho-ta’an High Command knows about this facility. They probably know what you have been working on, but they do not realize how far along you are. Shortly after Andrea Luhman departs with the planet-killer, a group of Cho-ta’an ships will arrive and deploy nuclear missiles against you.” Freya was not actually certain the High Command knew about Kiryata, but if they didn’t, they soon would. Her grandmother had suspected a traitor amongst the Fractalists had informed the High Command about the planet-killer.

  “We must converse a moment,” said Aaron. “Please wait outside.” A man armed with a gun came into the room and escorted her into the hallway. Freya waited impatiently for several minutes, the guard eying her suspiciously. At last she was summoned back into the room.

  “We will give you what you ask for,” Aaron said, “because there is little harm in it. As for your other request, that we give the planet-killer to the crew of the IDL ship, Andrea Luhman, I can make no promises.”

  “But you will send the signal?”

  “Yes. If there really is a ship out there, it is undoubtedly an exploratory vessel, as you say. It may be useful to us, even if we decide not to give them the planet-killer. By the time it arrives, we hope to have made a decision.”

  Freya smiled. “I am confident you will do the right thing.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  V alkyrie emerged from hyperspace only a few thousand miles from Yavesk and quickly dropped into a low orbit over the planet. Her hyperspace drive was modeled after the Izarian variety, allowing them to emerge from a jump well inside a system. Valkyrie also used stealth technology based on plans Jörmungandr extracted from Amelia’s memory, making it unlikely the ship would be spotted until after Freya and the Norsemen had begun their descent to the surface.

  They were launched in quick succession, each mech-suited man encapsulated in a protective eggshell. Freya went third, right after Eric and Bjorn. It was only her second jump, and the first one—to the surface of Earth—had been twenty years earlier, from her perspective. That time there had been little chance of her getting shot down, as a mech suit’s radar profile would look more like a meteor than an airplane. This time, rather than jumping alone into a vast desert on a technologically backward planet, she would be jumping into a heavily populated area of a technologically advanced planet with six other mech-suited humans. She didn’t expect them all to make it to the surface. She could only hope at least a few of them did.

  The outer shell of Freya’s suit sloughed off in the upper atmosphere. Then the second layer went, scattering chaff in the process. By now, the Cho-ta’an would have detected the incursion, but the chaff would confuse their radar. Her shell was rocked by explosions—hopefully just missiles impacting the chaff. But as she continued to fall, the explosions continued, and two names on the squad roster went gray: Sven and Lars. Freya had hoped they were far enough out to be safe from the city’s defensive railguns and missile batteries, but they’d known there was a good chance at least some of Norsemen wouldn’t survive the jump. Their entire attacking force was down to Freya and four Norsemen. Freya closed her eyes and waited, knowing there was nothing she could do.

  The explosions stopped around the time that the second layer finished burning off. Freya could see the planet’s yellow-green surface rushing toward her. The chutes deployed, slowing her fall, and then her rockets kicked in for a few seconds, working in concert with the other suits to bring them into a tighter formation. The rockets went silent, and a moment later her parachute deployed. After a few more seconds, the parachute tore away, and the rockets fired again, easing her to the ground with a thunk. She was in a field of yellowish grass; to her left was a highway leading toward the capital city, the tops of its buildings just visible in the distance.

  Their numbers held at five. Looking to her left and right, Freya saw the rest of her squad, each member about a hundred yards from the others. They would remain far apart until they reached cover, to make it harder for the defenders to target them as a group. Debris clattered to the ground around them; some of it was undoubtedly from the suits of the two dead men.

  “Forward!” Eric ordered. “Bjorn and I are up front. Ragnald and Halvar bring up the rear. Protect Freya!” He bounded forward, and a second later, Bjorn, a hundred yards to his right, did the same. The others followed, keeping Freya in the center. Their target was the Cho-ta’an High Command Center, located some five miles away, in the heart of the capital city.

  It didn’t take the Cho-ta’an long to mobilize their defense: the attackers had advanced less than a mile when Freya’s radar told her that five aircraft were inbound from their right. The Norsemen’s only chance was to get to cover before the Cho-ta’an planes launched their missiles. They loped across the field at top speed toward a cluster of buildings on the outskirts of the city. There was not yet any sign of the city’s ground defenses; the Cho-ta’an they encountered fled in panic.

  Eric and Bjorn had moved past the first few buildings and taken cover. Freya did the same, crouching against the wall of a large steel warehouse. Her display showed Ragnald and Halvar moving into position behind her. Freya waited for an attack, but it didn’t come. The aircraft shot overhead. The Cho-ta’an had decided they weren’t enough of a threat to justify launching missiles at their own buildings. Good. Cho-ta’an overconfidence was about the only thing they had going for them.

  “Move!” shouted Eric, who was already bounding forward again. The others followed his lead. By the time the aircraft had circled around, the Norsemen had moved into the city proper. Cho-ta’an fled before them by the hundreds, even though the Norsemen had not yet fired a shot. Freya’s suit identified several groups of Cho-ta’an soldiers taking up positions at various places ahead of them. As the attackers continued to advance rapidly, automatic weapon fire rang out all around them. Bullets plinked against their heavy armor, doing little but scratching paint. Unlike the machines, the Cho-ta’an did not have the precision necessary to damage the suits with handheld machineguns. The Norsemen tightened their ranks as they advanced down a main street toward the city’s center. Vehicles swerved wildly to avoid the mech-suited warriors, some of them smashing into buildings or each other.

  “Incoming rockets!” Bjorn shouted, and Freya’s display lit up. She dived behind an abandoned vehicle as the little missile shot between her and Eric, blasting a hole in the pavement the size of a small house.

  “Keep moving!” Eric shouted, as Freya’s suit was pelted with sand and rock. “Don’t let them pin us down!” He sent a missile toward the window that the rocket had come from, punching a hole in the building, and then continued running down the street.

  Freya got up and ran after Eric and
Bjorn, keeping tight against the wall to her left. Ragnald and Halvar followed at a distance of about twenty yards, periodically stopping to loose a barrage of fire at Cho-ta’an creeping up from behind.

  As Freya moved to follow Eric and Bjorn across a street, heavy machinegun fire rang out from her left, and a barrage of large-caliber rounds tore across the suit’s midsection. She zeroed in on the machinegun and blasted the two Cho-ta’an manning it. Her suit was screaming at her about another threat moving toward her from the opposite direction. Turning, she saw three armored vehicles barreling down the street. Eric and Bjorn, already well across the street, were busy blasting their way through Cho-ta’an who had taken cover behind parked vehicles lining the street.

  Not wanting to get bogged down in a firefight, Freya ran diagonally across the street, ducking into an alley just as the machineguns on the three vehicles opened fire. She ran down the alley and then veered right at the next intersection, making her way back to the center of the elongated rectangle formed by the four Norsemen. She heard heavy machinegun fire from behind her and felt a barrage of bullets tear across the rear of her suit. No warnings: the armor had held. She spun, targeted the pair of gunners set up on the sidewalk, and splattered them across the wall of the nearest building with her machineguns. She turned and bounded around the corner after Eric and Bjorn.

  A line of boxy military vehicles had formed ahead of them, creating a near-solid barrier across the street. Several dozen Cho-ta’an took cover behind the vehicles, pointing their machineguns toward the Norsemen. The Cho-ta’an opened fire as the Norsemen approached, riddling Eric and Bjorn with bullets.

  “We go through, you go over,” Eric’s voice said in Freya’s ear.

  “Roger that,” Freya said, doing her best to keep Eric between her and the Cho-ta’an. When they were nearly to the barrier, she leapt, the suit’s rockets supplementing its servos to launch her fifty feet into the air in the low gravity. She sailed over the vehicles as Eric and Bjorn, having closed ranks, stiff-armed their way through the barrier, sending the vehicles skittering aside and crushing the Cho-ta’an who couldn’t get out of the way. A few brave Cho-ta’an kept firing, to little effect. Ragnald and Halvar ran through the gap, saving their ammunition for bigger threats.

  Freya’s rockets fired, slowing her descent, and she landed just behind Eric and Bjorn. Ragnald and Halvar followed close behind. Ahead, another barrier was going up. This one was made up of interlinked units of welded metal struts that would be a lot harder to push aside. “We’re all going to have to go over,” Bjorn said.

  “Wait,” said Freya. A hum overhead prompted her to turn. A dark shape came into view above the buildings, followed by several others. Warnings flashed on her display. “Gunships!”

  “This way!” Eric shouted, and darted down a side street to their left. Most of Freya’s information about Yavesk and the capital city had come from the IDL, by way of her grandmother, but the Fractalists had specifically warned them about gunships: essentially airborne tanks that each hung from an assembly of four flexible rotors. The rotors—typically the weak point on such vehicles—could move independently of each other and even dodge missiles when necessary. Each gunship had a pair of heavy machineguns. Leaping over barriers wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Their best hope against such vehicles would be to move to the part of the city with taller buildings, limiting the number of gunships that could attack at once. That was where Eric was taking them.

  For a few seconds, the gunships were blocked by buildings. Eric led the attackers a block down the street and then turned sharply right, putting them back on a path toward the Command Center. As Freya followed him around the corner, heavy machinegun fire rang out and Halvar let out a shout. Her display said his suit had been damaged. While she, Eric and Bjorn advanced, Halvar and Ragnald hung back.

  “Leave him!” Eric ordered, barely audible over the guns raining fire from above. “No time!” After a moment, Ragnald’s dot began to move. Halvar’s went gray. The gunships came into view again and lined up to target the Norsemen. “Squad, missiles ready,” said Eric. “On my mark, give them all you’ve got. Fire!”

  A volley of missiles shot from the suits, each launcher firing one after another in quick succession: their only hope was to send so many missiles at once that the gunships couldn’t dodge them all. A staccato burst of explosions rang out overhead as Freya ran, deaf and half-blind, after Eric and Bjorn. At last the cacophony ceased, followed by the crashing of debris all around them. Freya’s display told her that three gunships remained, but for the moment they held their fire, having moved aside to avoid being caught in the carnage. This was fortunate, as it was all the Norsemen could do to dodge the chunks of debris, some of which were big enough to do serious damage. They were now less than a mile from the Command Center. A few blocks ahead lay another roadblock. If the gunships held off for a little longer, they might still make it.

  It soon became clear, though, why the gunships were remaining at bay: one of them had lost two of its rotors and was weaving erratically overhead, trying to set down on top of a building just ahead of the attackers. If it kept the other gunships from attacking for a little longer, the Norsemen could leap over the roadblock, and then they’d be home free.

  A squeal of shearing metal announced the failure of another rotor, and the gunship wobbled and began to lose altitude. Freya slowed, but Eric urged them on: “Under and over!” he shouted, and Freya pressed on, understanding what he meant: they would pass under the falling gunship and then leap over the roadblock.

  Moving at top speed, Freya followed Eric and Bjorn through the shadow of the falling gunship and then leaped, her rockets carrying her in a long arc over the barrier as the huge machine crashed to the street. As she came down on the far side, she saw that Ragnald’s dot had gone gray: he’d been crushed by the gunship.

  There was nothing to do but keep going. Eric, having lost his brother as well as his son, tore down the streets like a demon, veering down alleys and side streets apparently by instinct, blasting Cho-ta’an gun placements and military vehicles as he went. Bjorn and Freya did their best to keep up. At last they were on a straightaway: a long, narrow street that cut like a canyon through walls of skyscrapers on either side. An ominous hum overhead told Freya the two remaining gunships were lining up to attack.

  Suddenly Bjorn, just a few paces ahead of her, stepped aside and came to a halt.

  “Bjorn!” Eric barked. “Keep moving!”

  “Get Freya to the target,” Bjorn said. “I will cover you.”

  “Damn you, Bjorn!” Eric growled, but he didn’t argue. Freya knew it as well: it was the only way they were going to make it to the Command Center.

  As Eric and Freya continued bounding down the road, Bjorn stood his ground, blasting the nearer of the two gunships with both of his guns. The gunships returned fire. The entire exchange didn’t last more than five seconds. As Bjorn’s dot went gray, Freya glanced back. Bjorn’s suit was a barely recognizable heap of twisted metal. The lead gunship, smoke billowing from two of its rotors, crashed into the one behind it. Their rotor assemblies became tangled, and the two gunships crashed into the side of a building and then tumbled toward the street below. By the time the gunships hit the street with a thundering crash, Eric and Freya were within a half-mile of the Command Center.

  The narrow canyon gave way to a vast open plaza, at the center of which was a cluster of important-looking government buildings constructed of pink marble. One of these, a squat dome standing on top of a base of thick, fluted columns, was the Command Center—the brain of the Cho-ta’an military operation. Eric slowed just enough for Freya to come up alongside him. His rage and sorrow had given way to the exhilaration of victory. “We have done it, Valkyrie!” he shouted. “We have brought the war to the heart of the giants’ realm!”

  Freya couldn’t help smiling. They still had some ways to go, but Eric’s mad euphoria was infectious. Maybe she’d been crazy to trust the future of humanity
to a band of bloodthirsty Vikings, but she wasn’t sure anyone else could have gotten her this far. The Command Center loomed ahead, its dull marble mirroring the eternally gray sky of Yavesk. But they weren’t done yet.

  “Stay behind me,” Freya said. “I’ll deal with anything coming out of the building. You just worry about—”

  She was thrown forward as the ground erupted just behind them. The suit’s left shoulder hit the ground and she rolled, ending up on her back. The suit was flashing warnings: several servos were no longer functioning. Eric’s suit was damaged as well, but he was still alive. Freya got awkwardly to her feet: the suit’s right arm had gone dead, and the right knee joint was frozen. Turning, she located the rocket launcher and blasted it with her machinegun. She limped toward Eric, who was struggling to get up. He waved her off.

  “Suit’s gone dead below the waist,” he said. “Keep going, I’ll hold them off as long as I can.” She saw now that Eric wasn’t trying to get up; he was just trying to orient himself to get his guns pointed at a group of Cho-ta’an who were setting up more rocket launchers and heavy machineguns. From where she stood near the center of the plaza, she could see three convoys of armored vehicles heading their way. In the distance several more gunships approached. “Go, damn you!” Eric shouted. Freya started to reply, but her words were lost in the roar of Eric’s guns.

  Freya ran toward the domed building as fast as the crippled suit would carry her. Behind her, gunfire continued. She was now a stone’s throw from the Command Center. Ahead was a line of Cho-ta’an armed with machineguns. They opened fire, and a hail of bullets hammered her suit. Still she ran. Behind her, a series of explosions sounded. Eric’s dot went gray. Freya fell.

  Unable to move the suit’s right arm, she fell hard on her face. Her display told her that her weapons were offline, and only a few servos on the left side of the suit were still functioning. Bullets hammered at her from all directions. She struggled to her feet and activated the suit’s rockets. The ground exploded under her a split-second after she lifted off. She flew in a high arc as gunfire followed her. The suit’s rockets cut out as she passed over the apex of the dome, and she fell.