Kate snorted. I got it too, I have been working diligently on understanding humor better. Mostly the masked woman had just said, “We come in peace, take me to your leader.” I noted that the scan intensity increased at an order of magnitude directly over Valhalla. The dome shield of Geiravor attenuated it and nothing got through to the citadel.
I stared at the elongated mask, the only part of her face not covered were her eyes. I blinked. All of the Jotunn warriors had the bluish skin tone of their copper based blood and almost black eyes. Her's were a copperish red. Was that an aberration or was this indeed a different race? But then why were they using the same tech as the Jotunn?
Father eyed me with a questioning look. I said, “Her eyes are not Jotunn.”
He glanced at the screen then nodded once, then opened a com channel with no visual. “This is Odin of Asgard, ruler of Valhalla. We are not in need of your assistance, we are quite capable of defending against Jotunheim incursion. Please identify yourself.”
Her eyes blinked twice, as if startled then she tilted her head and it were as if her eyes were glittering as she reached up behind her head. There was a clicking sound as she started pulling the mask forward while she said, “Salutations Odin of Asgard, I am Rhea, Queen of the Titans.”
She shook out her long ebony hair as she pulled the mask off, and she looked back up to the display. The only word I could use to describe the light blue-skinned beauty was, gorgeous. But she was... a Frost Giant! Then she smiled, an endearing smile to be sure, as she waited for a response. I thought I detected something almost predatory in her eyes.
Father spoke cautiously, he saw it too. “Well met Queen Rhea of the Titans.”
She tilted her head in a charming manner, “Oh Ymir's Horn, please address me as Rhea. I find titles quite bothersome. I did not intend to imply you couldn't defend yourselves, it is just that most undeveloped races like yourselves, find themselves easy prey for the Jotunn.”
Father quirked an eyebrow and asked the question on my mind, “And you may address me as Odin... But you yourself are Jotunn are you not?”
Something akin to raw unadulterated fury flared in her eyes. She took a breath to calm herself before she replied, her smile seemed forced now as she said almost harshly but trying to keep a sweet tone in her voice. “We are NOT Jotunn. We are Titans.” Then her face relaxed again. “Would you speak with me in person? Ruler to ruler? I can transport you to my ship. I find it tedious communicating with someone I cannot see.”
Father made a motion with his hand and activated the visual on our end, but noted he kept it tight on his face so the rest of us would not be displayed. I grinned, knowing where I get my suspicious mind from. Rhea's smile doubled. Odin's beard it was inviting. She said, “There you are.” She arched an eyebrow and then inclined her head in acknowledgment.
My father seemed to be thinking then he said, “If you wish to meet, please come down to enjoy Asgard hospitality and break bread with us. I have many questions.”
She chuckled in pure mirth. “Ah, a man after my own heart. Suspicious and careful. I think I would enjoy feasting with you in your little village. I accept your gracious invitation.”
Father nodded with a sly grin and then said, “Our protectors, the Valkyrie, will welcome you at the main gates at your convenience, how long will it take you to arrive?”
She grinned. “I will be there momentarily after I dress appropriately for a feast.” Then the transmission was cut from her end.
Artemis blurted out, “Odin, you cannot have that creature in Valhalla. I have been trying to tell you that the Titans and the Jotunn are a single race. The Titans are the female of the species. That is why there are but one thousand of each. Before there was even time to mark the passage of events, the Jotunn believed that they should alone rule all of existence. That the Titans should create more Jotunn since the females of the species were the only ones capable of it.”
She took a deep breath and continued, “But the Titans refused, stating that there should always be a balance that there would always be one Titan for one Jotunn. All of creation would suffer if one held sway over the other. The Jotunn tried to force it and the Titans resisted with extreme prejudice. Ymir's son was killed trying to enforce his father's edict. He died at the hands of his mother, Rhea! That started the war between the Jotunn and Titans that has raged through all eternity.”
Inatra squinted her eyes in distaste and asked, “So their war is about... procreation?”
Artemis nodded. “Yes. However, they have always been at technical parity and every battle has always been a stalemate with neither ever gaining ground. So the Jotunn tried creating entire races to battle in their stead to overwhelm the Titans.”
Then her voice hitched as she said, “But the Titans countered with their natural abilities. They were able to take two-thirds of my race to fight for them instead. It is our people's shame. And they bred with our people to create a race of Halflings to fight in their stead. It is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.”
I asked, “How did they convince your people to join them?”
She shrugged. “To this day we still do not know. Witchcraft? Rhea had come into our base, preaching peace and cooperation. Zeus denied her an accord, stating that though we were designed to battle the Titans, we had free will and had refused, and as such were in hiding from the Frost Giants. We did not want to be involved in their war.”
Then there was fire and hate in her eyes, “She was upset and stormed out of our base and turned and simply said, 'Come with me now!' And all but twelve men of our race dropped their weapons and walked away with her, not a single woman did. They now fight for the Titans and are used as breeding stock for the Halflings. That was our one encounter with the Titans, and though no battle had ensued, we lost two-thirds of our people.”
Her voice quavered. “It took eons to get our population back to our one thousand. All seven hundred younglings were the progeny of the twelve male Olympians who stayed. To this day, no males but the twelve Olympians are allowed weapons since we know they are immune to Rhea's charms. To this day, we still do not know how Rhea had accomplished the feat.”
We all exchanged glances and I could see father was deep in thought. Then he shook his head and said, “We will have to be on our guard.” He turned to Arina and cocked an eyebrow at her, “Did you see?”
Arin grinned and said, “Yes, it was realtime communication at over a hundred light minutes out. Our hypothesis about it being a quantum entanglement tunnel out there was right.”
He nodded in appreciation of her observation and another alarm went off. We all turned to the tactical display as a Jotunn Star Killer emerged from the spatial distortion. Rhea's face appeared on our screen again, “I shall transport in five thousand oscillations.” Then she cut the transmission again.
Oscillations? Oscillations of what? Arina answered the unasked question for me. “They have started pulsing the energy flow through the quantum entanglement tunnel at a frequency just short of one second intervals, so she will arrive in five minutes.”
Odin spoke a single word, “Valkyrie.” The daughters of Odin were sprinting out to the wind rider pads with Artemis at our side. Kroth, Pegasus was in orbit with Kitty. It is funny how used you get to certain things like having your friends of the Sky transporting you around. I smiled at the thought of Pegasus. There is no ship more valiant than her, she almost sacrificed her life for me once.
Arina had us airborne before the doors of the vessel had closed. She was as efficient as ever and the most skilled pilot in Valhalla except maybe for Kitty. I looked around, it felt like we were riding in a machine. I mean I know the interior is identical to Pegasus and the other Sky, but without the warmth and welcoming of her artificial intelligence.
We landed smoothly at the main gates and strode out toward the shoulder to shoulder Einherjer, holding the line at the gates as immovable as they have always been for eons. My heart swelled with pride for these men. Artemis
was pleading with me, “Kara, you mustn't allow her inside the dome shield.”
I placed the back of a hand on her cheek. “We must learn all we can. Perhaps we can even determine how she was able to lure your men away.”
She took a deep breath and nodded once, her eyes dark. I saw the subtle movement of her straightening in resolve as she, in one fluid motion, removed her bow and one of her high-tech arrows from her back, and held them in one hand. Then she used an Earth axiom that she has become fond of after hearing Kate use it on occasion. “Then I have your back.”
I smiled then reached a hand out and tapped the shoulder of the secondary line of men and he wordlessly made a hole for us. Then I reached up and roughly slugged the shoulder of a huge man at the center of the primary line who looked to be carved from solid plasti-steel. Tyr was prepared and rolled his shoulder out of the way, avoiding most of my strike. He shot me a playful grin as he made a hole. I squinted an eye and shook my fist at him, then smiled.
He chuckled.“Well met Valkyrie and the most fair maiden of Olympus.”
I rolled my eyes as I stepped through the shield and out into the jungle clearing on Ragnarok as I said, “Well met old friend.”
Artemis said from behind me, “Kroth Tyr, when will you stop trying to win me over to the bed of you and your mates?”
He replied with humor, “When the Tree of Ages withers and dies lovely hunter.”
Kate bumped my hip and cast her eyes back with a grin, she was just as entertained by their familiar banter as I was. I took a moment to wonder again, why Artemis has never taken anyone to her bed in all her centuries with us here in Valhalla.
We spread out in our familiar line. Kate to my right then Mist and Inatra to my left. Arina moved behind me and Artemis a few paces to the left and back from Inatra, where she had a full view of us and any approaching threat. She always kept a clear line of sight. I appreciated that more than you can imagine. Whatever she aimed at, that woman would hit. I knew she was endlessly calculating angles and strategies just like I was.
A minute later an enormous cascade of energy streamed down from the sky and struck the ground fifty yards in front of us. My eyesight dimmed from the brightness as my Verr snapped a protective overlay across my vision. This was a Jotunn transport beam. I still couldn't grasp the fact that the Frost Giants and the Titans were of the same race.
All of us Valkyrie snapped up our nano-lattice, and Arina put a hemispherical shield between us and the transport beam, leaving a hole in it where Artemis was now aiming an arrow toward. I could feel the warping of the air around us toward the artificial micro point singularity on the energy string of her bow. There was a hum in the air from her jump pack as it fed power to the bow.
Then the beam was gone and my eyesight returned to normal. I started gathering energy in my right hand in preparation for a strike with the power of Thor if this were an attack instead of a parley. But then let the energy dissipate when instead of a Jotunn warrior decked out in battle armor like we had expected, there was instead a shapely, eight foot tall woman in a flowing white dress that resembled a toga. Her ebony hair was pulled up in a sophisticated bun, with tendrils escaping that trailed down her elegant neck and went all the way down to her waist.
She had the same bright purplish aura of the Frost Giants, her blue and red mixing freely, indicating to me that she held no distinction between right and wrong, good and evil. This disturbed me on multiple levels.
She shot an almost endearing smile at us and tilted her head as if she were appraising us. Her red eyes went dark as she saw Artemis still aiming her drawn arrow at her, my Verr calculated the projected trajectory. She was aiming directly at the pupil in Rhea's left eye.
A smile replaced the dark look. It was easy to tell it was forced. It startled me when instead of her guttural clicking and a tinny voice from Jotunn translator circuitry. She spoke in a smooth melodic feminine voice, in Olympian, well Greek I suppose. I had no problems with it since all in Asgard had learned Artemis' language within a day or two of her arrival in Valhalla, thanks to our nanites.
She said, “I know you. The little archer. You scratched my armor with one of your fascinating arrows upon my withdrawal from our first meeting. I've meant to find out how that was possible.” Artemis pulled back a little further on the energy string and narrowed her eyes in focus in answer.
The Titan regarded her for a moment longer. Rhea then turned to us Valkyrie and smiled more sweetly as she strode casually toward us, in an almost predatory manner, only to collide with Arina's shield ten feet away. It flared as light warped across the surface then it faded to invisibility again.
She smiled in curiosity as she touched the shield with one hand as I saw lights hitting her eyes from somewhere. I had seen this before with Ymir, information was streaming into her, some sort of virtual heads-up display. Then she looked between us all and back to Arina. Then she raised her left arm and typed something on some kind of clear plastic wrist console.
She beamed her smile past me to Arina and said, “You must tell me of this wonderfully confusing energy you are using. My scans cannot identify it nor its source. It is fascinating.”
Then she turned to me and said, “We have been observing you visually for a while now and are familiar with some of your customs. Though I must admit that your shielding perplexes us, we couldn't get any scans.” My Verr were warning me of low-level energy coming from orbit. I hid a smirk, she had her vessel scan us as we spoke from the quantum entanglement tunnel. She paused a second then said absently as I saw lights flashing in her eyes, “Intriguing.”
Then she held her forearm down and out to me in greeting. “I believe this is how you greet each other? I am Rhea, queen of the Titans.”
I took one last moment to appraise her. I heard Kat's voice inside my head, across our nanite link as she felt me make a decision, “Be careful love.” I sent loving feelings back to her as I stepped forward and reached my arm up, passing it through Arina's shield and bumping forearms with the pale blue woman towering over me. I said, “Well met Rhea of the Titans. I am Kara the Wild One, First Valkyrie of Asgard, Demon of Vengeance for the Ragnarok, and Right Hand of Kenatar. Odin has sent me to determine if you are a threat.”
She clapped her hands together excitedly, “Oh this is simply delightful.” Then she tilted her head and gave a half smile and said, “Well met Kara... umm... and all the titles. Can we dispense with the formality of titles, I find them quite bothersome.” This I understood and tilted my head in capitulation, not losing eye contact with the woman. I didn't trust her as far as I could throw her. Well, actually I could probably throw her a great distance, but you get my krothing point.
I looked back at Arina and she dropped the shield. I started introductions, Artemis never lowered her bow. By the time I was done, I was sort of wondering why we were so suspicious of Rhea, I mean, she was so pretty and her smile was... I shook my head, what the krothing hell? My Verr were trying to tell me something with an overlay of my vitals, but I didn't understand them.
Arina and Mist kept staring at Rhea too, but the others were not. I must be imagining things. She stepped up to Artemis and offered her forearm. Artemis was a petite woman just slightly taller than me, so the eight foot tall woman towering over her, bending down to offer her arm almost stumbled back when Artemis thrust her bow up, bringing the arrow's tip just a hair's breadth from the Titan's eye and holding there like a statue.
The Titan started a scowl at her but then she smiled and tilted her head down in acknowledgment. “Still too soon for niceties I see.”
Then she turned to me, in a graceful motion that reminded me of... I blinked. She addressed me, “Kara, have I passed your appraisal? Shell we go speak with this ruler of Valhalla about what I have to offer?”
I looked back at the citadel then her again. “Just one moment.” I typed a message on my wrist console to father, who had been monitoring the encounter thus far, asking what he thought.
As I did
that she looked at Arina and asked sweetly, “What is this power your race wields that I cannot identify?”
Arina smiled back at her, she had never taken her eyes off the woman and Inatra was starting to look perturbed. The Little One just started telling her, “We use magnetic force harvesting cores to convert the force into usable magnetic energy utilizing...”
Inatra hissed almost violently at her mate. This seemed to snap Arina out of it and she looked embarrassed that she was about to share a detailed description of our energy systems with the Titan. I knew something else was going on here. Rhea smiled at my Ragnarok sister and said, “Why did you stop her? Don't you want her to help me?”
Inatra stepped into the Titan's personal space and extended her lattice claws threateningly and hissed up at the woman. The Titan didn't look impressed. Instead, she tilted her head and mused, “You are of a different race than these three.” Indicating Mist, Arina, and myself. Mist hadn't taken her eyes of Rhea since she greeted her. Then her eyes stopped on Kate and her eyes narrowed almost in a scowl. “And you are something altogether different than the rest.” Then she looked at me and clapped her hands excitedly again. “Your race seems to have a sexual ambiguity, this could be so interesting.”
I started to realize what my Verr were trying to tell me and I looked at my own vitals again. I was aroused. I had them scan her and saw it like a cloud around her, her pheromones were hundreds of times stronger than an Asgard's. Was this how she convinced the Olympians to go with her? Surely not. But then again, Arina had almost given her useful tactical information without even thinking.
The Verr scrolled a message through my vision, “Fire Soul now understands.” I nodded and had them send a message to father warning of the possibility. He told me to limit her contact with citizens and bring her to my chambers where we could speak with the Titan. Geiravor had come across the Bifrost and would meet us there.
I looked up at her. “Odin will meet with you. This way.” I motioned toward the gates. She offered her elbow down to me, and when I didn't take it, she offered it to Arina who blushed and reached to take it until Inatra hissed at her. So the Titan turned to a flush looking Mist who reached up and took her arm eagerly and we all walked back into the citadel, the men of the line making a hole for us to pass.
Valkyrie Chronicles 4 & 5 Bundle Page 19