by Scott Moon
Put the strong in Strongarm, soldier. When he smiled at the thought, the thin gap between his lips admitted too much cold air and it took several minutes to bring his hypothermic shivering under control.
He mentally reviewed everything he understood about his self-imposed mission. When his eyes refused to stay open, he daydreamed of his wife, then of Borghild, then his wife again. A mental alarm, some part of his mind he retained after disconnecting from the servers that housed the software for his more advanced Internals, jarred him like an air raid siren. He awoke desperate, looked around fearfully, and settled into his chair in the cleft of a large tree.
He was alive, which proved something. I should just say “thanks” and go inside.
On the other side of a valley, near the crest of a hill covered with evergreen trees, a red light blinked twice before someone, or something, covered it.
Seccon smiled grimly.
“Welcome to Sky Clan village, you bastards,” he said without moving. Not so long ago, when he was the Chief Strongarm of the Emperor, Seccon could have given them a proper welcome. All of his soldiers had been battle tested, equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, and trained by the best weapons masters in the known universe. He missed his team and wondered if they felt betrayed by his actions.
The light made no further appearances and he thanked whatever higher power ruled this bankrupt planet for his luck. Commonwealth Recon Teams rarely made mistakes. He had probably seen the single breach of tactics they made since arriving on the planet.
The time he spent shivering in the cold felt like penance, but it helped him think. Over the years, some of his hardest and best-made decisions came when under pressure. Freezing his ass off and wondering who had pounded his fingertips with hammers helped him to focus. All he needed now was for someone to light the proverbial fire under his ass and he would unlock all the mysteries of the universe.
He didn’t expect a large strike force. More likely, the Recon team would paint targets with an infrared laser and the village would be bombed from space. It would look to other Grendels like a meteor shower or punishment from the gods.
Moving quickly now, he reached the first row of buildings as the sun came up and young thralls emerged to tend cows and goats. He smelled a bucket of milk before he saw the first young woman duck out of a low shed that protected cattle from the elements.
“Good morning, singer,” she said, avoiding eye contact because she was essentially a slave, taken in a battle before Sky Clan came upon misfortune.
Seccon hurried past the woman, scanning right and left in search of Gunnarr or any of the older women who remained in the village. It disturbed him that Fey seemed to be in charge as much as anyone, but that made sense. She was the older sister of Sveinn, who was by all legal rights and tradition, the lawful Emperor of the Earth Systems Commonwealth. Although no one in the village understood his lineage, Seccon believed they felt the Blood Royal’’s authority.
An unusual gust of morning wind sent snowflakes into his face. For some reason, the cold bite against his skin and momentary blindness caused him to worry about an immediate attack from the Recon soldiers. They wouldn’t attack now; he was convinced of it. The time for a direct assault would’ve been at sunrise or shortly before sunrise. There was a slight chance, a very slight chance, that they were overconfident and would just waltz into the village expecting minimal opposition.
Seccon laughed grimly. The Recon soldiers had not seen the women of the Sky Clan fight. And they would be foolish to forget that Aefel was out there somewhere. If Seccon had to bet money, he would place his wager that Aefel had also seen the momentary red light that gave away the position of the Commonwealth force.
“What is your hurry, Sangerhinde?”
Seccon stopped suddenly, turned, and saw Fey stepping from between two buildings. He wondered where she was coming from, because her dwelling was at the other end of the village.
So much for avoiding the woman.
He wanted to speak to Gunnarr in private for two reasons. The Jarl was young, a boy by common-law standards, although a man in this place, and he seemed to listen when Seccon spoke. The conversations had been infrequent, but Gunnarr had taken his measure carefully, as a leader should.
Seccon didn’t want to stop and deal with Fey, but she dogged him, plucking at his sleeve and constantly moving in front of him until he stopped abruptly. He fixed her with his gaze and stood straighter, squaring his shoulders as though he were in the Emperor’s court doing official business. “I need to speak to Gunnarr.”
“You can speak to me,” Fey said. “What are you doing out from behind your girlfriend’s skirts? Do you plan treachery? Because I will see you dead first.”
Anger flared in Seccon’s breast. “This is no treachery, girl. I told you I was going outside to look for Aefel’s enemies. The stakes are bigger than you can imagine and you would be wise to consider your boyfriend’s true loyalty. Aefel comes from an army of soldiers that could conquer this entire planet in a matter of weeks. You would do best to listen to me.”
Fey put both fists on her hips and stood to block his path. “Then talk, singer.”
Seccon started to respond even as he stifled the urge to think of his dead wife, then surprisingly, Borghild. The memory of the first and the hope to see the second always brought comfort, but he heard a high-pitched whine in the distant sky and knew with conviction that his time of relative comfort was over.
He flinched at the unnatural sound. It wasn’t something he had experienced recently. Aefel, on the other hand, or any of the FALD Reavers, would know it well. Seccon wasn’t sure, but he thought an orbital assault had begun. Within minutes, there could be artillery shells pounding the area or drop-ships full of heavy infantry establishing a beachhead.
To his surprise, Fey sensed his alarm and put aside her own hatred of him. “Talk to me, Sangerhinde.”
Seccon stepped forward and grabbed her arm forcefully. He yanked her close and spoke his hot breath into her face. “The wrath of the gods is about to strike this village. Have you ever seen a meteor strike?”
Fey hesitated, but then met his gaze firmly. “I am not sure what that means, but I understand you well enough. When Aefel was sick, he spoke of meteors. I did not understand what he meant because he seemed to be talking about himself and the way he landed from his fall. I knew from the moment I saw him that he was different, because I saw him fall, but I didn't see where he fell from.”
Seccon nodded emphatically, despite caring nothing for her story. “That’s fantastic. Sometime we’ll talk all about it. A meteor is a big rock that falls from space. It falls so fast that it burns with fire and destroys everything it touches.”
Fey went pale. “Then I know what a meteor strike is. Every man and woman and child from Sky Clan has seen stars fall in the distance and the chronicles are full of descriptions of such things.”
Seccon paused for effect and then spoke. “The people who want to kill Aefel can cause a meteor strike to happen. They have chosen this village as a target of their vengeance. If you want anyone to survive the day, you must get them out of the village and as far away as possible.”
Things happened fast after that. Unlike Borghild, Fey possessed great influence over the rest of the village. She ran like a graceful she-cat to Gunnarr’s dwelling and entered without knocking. Seccon was still catching up when she finished her conversation with the young Jarl. Almost before Seccon could catch his breath, the evacuation began.
It should not have surprised him that they could move so quickly. In this primitive society, raids were common and enemies were everywhere.
There was a moment of doubt after the first few minutes when no meteors or bombardments came. He wasn’t sure of how long it should be before impact and he began to second-guess what he had heard. He believed the sound had been the whining scream of a kinetic artillery shell entering the atmosphere. But if he had been able to hear it, then he assumed it had to be near enough to
be dangerous.
As Fey and the others moved into the hills, choosing trails that led into a rocky mountain pass, Seccon watched the sky and saw numerous vapor trails. They were far too distant to identify, but he understood that the end was coming to Sky Clan. By the time Fey and Gunnarr had the villagers gathered in an upland meadow, Seccon had spotted the drones.
They were small and quick and nearly invisible. One stopped long enough for him to look at directly and, even then, he could barely see it. It seemed like a piece of the sky with its camouflage paint and high-tech camouflage. He had yet to see a true cloaking device as many companies had promised, but this was a very near thing. He looked around at the villagers to see if any of them noticed what would surely be magical creatures to them, and found that while they were confused and disoriented, none of them were panicked by magical pixie demons flying patterns in the cold sky — which meant they didn’t see them.
The closest device remained thirty or forty feet above his head. Some approached ground level, but stayed concealed behind trees and rocks. Seccon counted two dozen. When they suddenly disappeared, he braced for the impact of an orbital bombardment.
Gunnarr strode angrily toward Seccon. He paused, turned in a full circle, slowly surveying the area and even looking at the sky theatrically. “Why do you panic my people?”
Seccon stalled wordlessly for as long as he could, but understood his miscalculation. The Commonwealth Recon team had summoned a strike force, but there was not going to be an attack, not now. Perhaps, when Gunnarr led them back to the village, everything would kick off and the villagers would be slaughtered: man, woman, and child. But he didn’t think so. In all of his long career as the Strongarm of the Emperor, he had never made a tactical mistake. Three emperors he’d served, guarding against overconfidence and complacency.
This world threw him off his game. During quiet moments with Borghild, he felt oddly at peace and at home. He was able, with effort, to think about his dead life without horrible guilt and longing. But when it came to taking action, the planet of Grendel seemed a living creature that resisted his every move.
“Aefel brought great danger to Sky Clan,” Seccon said. “The attack may not come today, but it will come. And when it comes, it will be worse than anything a rival clan could bring against you.”
To Gunnarr’s credit, he did consider the information. After a few moments, however, he snorted and turned back to the villagers. Most of them were women, surviving desperate times as thousands of generations had survived wars of attrition in the past. Most of them were old enough to be Gunnarr’s mother or grandmother since shield maidens often went to war with husbands, brothers, fathers, and cousins. The remaining women were already chiding him for his foolishness and he was in no mood for argument.
“Back to the village, women!” Gunnarr said as he stomped down the trail.
Fey lingered. When most of the others had left the clearing carrying baskets and all the items taken during the evacuation with them, she moved closer to Seccon. She was unusually quiet.
Seccon stared at the now invisible vapor trails in the distant sky. “You’re the only person in this village that doesn’t think I’’m insane.”
Fey didn’t respond.
“Tell me why, Fey. What makes you believe me?”
Fey moved closer and stared at Borghild until the larger woman grunted and walked away to unpack and repack the large basket of food goods she had taken when the order to evacuate had been given. Several times, she looked toward Seccon with a face that was unreadable.
Fey turned her back on the taller woman. She stepped very close and spoke in a low, somewhat angry voice. “I saw a red-eyed fairy in the forest.”
Seccon was not able to control his laugh and he thought that Fey would punch him in the throat. He gave himself several seconds of release. The tension of the last few hours was suddenly enormous. In the thick of it, he hadn’t thought about the stress he felt.
“My people call them drones. They come before the attack.”
“Why?” Fey asked.
Seccon considered several versions of how to explain the concept of drones to this Viking woman. She was completely ignorant of technology. Seccon feared that she would not remain ignorant for long. “Their masters can see through their eyes. They want to know who was in the village and if they’re worth killing.”
4
MORNING
SKY CLAN VILLAGE
GRENDEL 0473829: SURFACE, HIGHLAND VALLEY 83A2T
MISSION CLOCK: n/a – ROGUE OPERATOR
Aefel was thankful for the lessons he’d learned during his time with the Sky Clan villagers. Years ago, when he was a young soldier for the Commonwealth, he’d been trained in escape and evasion techniques and knew how to live off the land. Several times since basic training and his advance infantry training, he had been forced to use those skills to survive. But the emphasis in escape and evasion was on moving fast and there was always an expectation of rescue and relief. Making a home on a hostile planet while trying to protect people that he’d come to care for was an entirely different mission and was vastly more challenging.
He wanted to laugh at Seccon and his haphazard evacuation. The man should’ve known that he was acting prematurely. Until that moment, Aefel assumed Seccon knew more about what was happening on Grendel than he did. Night after night, Aefel stayed awake analyzing what he had learned in the Sky Clan village and what he understood of Seccon. He came to the conclusion that the man was not here to slaughter the innocent children of the Emperor’s sister. What didn’t make sense was that Seccon had come alone. If he planned to use these children, planned to barter the Blood Royal for his own purposes, he was completely without confederates.
Rebellions required people. Causing a revolution took supplies, money, and a base of operation. Destroying the order of the universe took armies. Rebellions required the will of the people and the desire for change whether that desire came from honest reasons or from revolutionist propaganda. So far as Aefel could determine, Seccon was just one man blundering around an abandoned historical reenactment planet making eyes at a moderately attractive Amazon who tried unsuccessfully to bully Fey.
Aefel climbed into a rock alcove in the foothills of the mountains surrounding the upland valley. Getting into the little cubbyhole was nearly impossible, even for an experienced rock climber like Aefel. He didn’t have tools, but he had determination. He knew the place where he could sleep without fear of being surprised.
He cooked a meal, confident his fire was shielded from outside eyes and that even the smoke was filtered through so many openings to the cave network that he was unlikely to be detected. If his enemies were looking for him, they wouldn’t need smoke trails in the sky. They could just re-task a satellite and drop a laser down his throat.
He ate a rabbit that he had trapped, cooked on a spit, and then salted with various seasonings stolen from the village in the night. He drank mead and chased it with thick ale. Water wasn’t something he trusted on a planet like this. It could be pure and innocuous to the locals, but toxic to him. At this point in the game, he could not afford even a minor stomach flu. The Commonwealth Recon soldiers he had been shadowing were good — probably from the Seventh Light-infantry Reconnaissance Division, SLRDs. Most of his fellow FALD Reavers called them SLRD Turds despite a state of mutual respect.
They were well trained, equipped, and dedicated. It surprised him that Seccon was able to spot them and sound his premature alarm.
Aefel had also seen the drones and the vapor trails in the sky. By his best estimate, there were three companies of Commonwealth Special Forces soldiers on their way to the area. And by “on their way,” he meant they were practically here. He understood what Seccon had been thinking. An orbital bombardment would be a very good choice, given what the locals thought about such a spectacle. The flaming smoke trails descending from the sky would seem like a natural phenomenon or an act of the gods, or God, depending on where they were in
their theological evolution.
He didn’t want to be found. After the first day of avoiding the Commonwealth Recon soldiers, he realized that the damage Fey did to his Internals and global positioning nodes had probably saved his life. He still had some functionality from the cybernetic enhancements that were attached to bone and others that flowed freely in his bloodstream. Some of the readings that he received in regards to his physical condition were inaccurate. Several times, he had been ordered by the automated messaging system of his Internals to report to the infirmary for total rest.
The concept of total rest was anathema on this world.
He received no further messages after the order to destroy Sky Clan. That did not mean the Commonwealth Command and Control was unable to contact him if they wanted to. And if they could contact him, they could track him. Of course they knew he was in the area. That didn’t mean he wanted to make the retaliation against his refusal to carry out the orders easy.
He needed to remove the rest of his Internals. Those that were affixed to his bone in various parts of his body could be cut out. The bots in his blood would eventually perish without support from the larger, bone-mounted units. In short, he was going to be in a hell of a lot of pain after cutting all of the devices free of his flesh, and then he was going to be sick as a dog as his body chemistry adapted to the loss of internal monitoring.
Ooja, Reaver. Good times!
For the better part of an hour, he observed the valley beyond his cave. Once he was certain that he wasn’t going to regurgitate his meal, he performed a series of exercises and meditated. Controlled breathing lowered his pulse rate and altered his state of mind. Then, without thinking too much, he took the sharpest blade he possessed and started with the most dangerous Internal that remained inside of his body, knowing it would be hard to reach.
The Core Internal that Fey removed after his crash landing came out of his hip. The primary reason for where it had been placed was that it also dispensed a minute amount of medication and sometimes sampled fluids and tissues to be retained for a future examination. The Core Internal required a reservoir for pain medications, antibiotics, and an assortment of other medicines. By contrast, the processor located on the back of his skull was the electronic nexus for the antenna that ran through his skeleton and was used to transmit and receive long-range communications.