Alchera was an ESA conglomerate facility, dedicated to macro-tech manufacturing, a support industry for the other colonies, and for the planned expansion further into Coprates. Even the meaning of the name—from the native Australian for their concept of the Dreamtime—implies a place of ideas and creation.
They did no risky nanotech or biotech research that I’m aware of. But they were still burned. I remember studying the old pre-Bang maps against the newer mapping we culled from the Lancer. The terrain showed the telltale scarring of an airburst detonation, almost right over the colony site. And the ETE (when they were still willing to talk to us about such things) reported no significant feed line draw over the decades after. But they did have reason to believe there were survivors who potentially relocated because the site was so thoroughly compromised.
If so, how far did they get? And are any still around? It doesn’t sound like the Liberty survivors met them with open arms. I wish I’d had the time with the local Knights to ask if they’d met them, perhaps provided assistance as they do, and if they knew anything of their ultimate fate.
I suppose I could ask the Katar, the Pax or the Forge, assuming I ever get the chance. But that doesn’t help me to understand what happened here now. I can only beat myself up for not gathering better (or much of any) intelligence before throwing myself into this mission.
I could run ahead and take a look, but I don’t want to risk getting too far from the ‘Horse, especially if this is some sort of a trap. On the other hand, bringing the ‘Horse and its payload in close is probably exactly what the demon wants. Maybe that’s why we can’t see anything from a distance, nothing to either confirm or discount his presence. He’s led us here, left the breadcrumbs. He knows what we’ll do.
And I know I’ll have to give him what he wants.
But that decision gets made for me. Corso gives the order to roll in close, slow and steady, with Simmons, Horst and Jenovec manning the turrets.
“That is a really big hole,” Smith proclaims.
We couldn’t see it from a distance. There were no raised, excavated edges, but it is an excavation, that’s clear. The ruins of the colony have been dug out, down a good ten to twenty meters in places, in what resembles an act of archeology-meets-strip-mining. The roughly clover-shaped pit is even somewhat terraced to show that it happened in stages, as Asmodeus’ human, bot or drone workers dug systematically downwards, rooting out all the structural materials they could cut or rip from what I’m guessing was an extensive underground facility.
And they did it carefully and artfully so it wouldn’t be obvious from orbit. I compare the satellite maps to what I’m seeing up close now, and it’s like Asmodeus took a cue from the Katar, hiding the dig edges, minimizing shadows, even replacing where ruins and plants were previously visible with convincing 2-D paint patterns.
I can see the torn and shattered mouths of several remaining tunnels exposed in the dig all around the inside of the wide, shallow pit. I wonder how much is left, how much they had to leave when Asmodeus pulled out of here.
And he did, as far as we can see. There’s no sign of him, his ships, his drones. There’s no heat or movement. The tracks I can see—bots and boots—have been well-dulled by wind.
But this could still be a trap in any of a number of ways. That’s why I talked Corso into giving me link gear, parking the ‘Horse fifty meters back away from the edge of the artificial crater, and letting me get a look down into it for them.
She’s sent Horst out to somehow babysit me. He stands like a relay halfway between me and the rig, sealed in his H-A shell. The Box—Kel—stands next to him, at my request and Corso’s discomfort, but I want to give him whatever protection I can.
I scan the hole with their eyes and mine, but if there’s anything here waiting for us, it’s certainly well hidden. It suddenly strikes me that the trap may not be some ambush of drones, but something more old-school. With all the digging, this whole place could be laced with explosives. Maybe that’s why he left some of the tunnels un-stripped.
“Corso! Roll back another twenty-five. Carefully.”
The ‘Horse begins to slowly grind backwards. And I’m on a razor’s edge, expecting something to happen. Nothing does. The treads slow and stop, and everything is quiet again. All I can hear is the evening winds howling across the pit. But nothing feels peaceful about this.
Doubt buzzes around my head like some harassing mosquito, because I know every move I make could have been predicted. But if he wanted me to park farther away from the pit, I’d think he would have left some small telltale sign that the place was rigged. (Or maybe that’s his play: Show me nothing, and let me sweat out everything it could mean.)
It’s getting dark, making my decision (or indecision) all the more urgent.
“Ram to Corso, I’m advising you to pick a spot at least a hundred meters back from the dig, out in the open so you can cover all approaches. Then wait out the night. We can explore further in the morning.”
“Are you coming in, or staying outside?” she comes back after a delay she probably spent deciding whether or not I’m trying to trick her. She sounds like she’s hoping I’ll take the second option.
“I’ll stay out here.” But I’m not doing it for her.
I cycle in long enough to get some supplies, some of which I could use (water, nutrition bars) and some I really don’t need (a portable heater and a survival blanket). But asking for the latter gets me more access to the stores, where I can perform a little sleight-of-hand.
Corso lets Horst come in and get some rack, but sends Jenovec out in a shell to keep me company for first watch.
“Keep your eyes open, Specialist,” I tell him when we’re back outside. “I’m going to take a quick look around. I won’t go far.”
I start taking a slow, smooth walk around the dig, keeping a good twenty to thirty meters from the edge, like I’m daring something to come out of it. Kel follows me, which is what I want, and when we’re far enough from the ‘Horse so that Jenovec doesn’t have good eyes on me anymore in the fading light, I stop Kel and pull what I’ve taken out of the pack I put together when I was inside.
“It’s only two hundred and fifty rounds,” I tell the Box as I open the access panel to load its one working gun with 7.62mm micro-explosive caseless. The guns are conveniently chambered for standard UN rounds rather than some proprietary load, probably to take advantage of any existing stockpiles, or stealing from the enemy. “Shoot sparingly. I’ll try to get you more. And maybe a new barrel for your twenty.” I saw where the spares were kept when I was in the stores, but concealing a nearly-meter-long gun barrel enough to walk out and away with is going to be a trick. That, and I think they’ll notice the replacement. Maybe circumstances will convince them to just give me what I need to give Kel back his (her?) teeth.
“You all right, Colonel?” Jenovec calls me on his link channel, wondering why I’ve stopped.
“Fine, Specialist. Debating taking a quick loop all the way around the hole,” I make a reasonable excuse.
“Quiet here, sir,” he encourages.
“Ping me if anything moves,” I insist. “I’ll come running.”
I figure the whole pit is less than three quarters of a klick around. I could get back to the ‘Horse in less than a minute from the far side.
It’s a dark and uneventful hike. I check in with Jenovec again when I’m almost exactly opposite him across the pit, and he repeats that it’s still quiet. The dig between us makes a ghostly sound as the dying winds whistle across it, all the eerier as I scan it with my night vision. Infrared only lights up the ‘Horse. Other than blowing dust and plants rustling in the breeze, nothing moves. That’s not at all comforting.
I’m about to start moving again when I notice that Kel has rolled off and stopped a little ways further from the edge, sensor head scanning something on the ground. I walk over and find a shattered slab, possibly a chunk of the colony foundation dug out during the scavenging. It
looks like it’s been partially pieced back together like a puzzle. There are words carved on it, but significant sections are missing or crumbled, so it takes me a few minutes to recognize what I’m looking at.
“WE… THE LAND OF THE ICE AN…
“…NIGHT SUN, WH… WINDS…
“HA …F THE GODS WILL DRIVE OUR SHIPS TO NEW LANDS…
“FIGHT THE H…ND CRYING VALHALLA I AM…”
“Coming,” I finish. “Valhalla I am coming. It’s from a song. Led Zeppelin.” The tune plays unbidden in my ears, less organic memory and more like a perk of my Mods. “Good song. A classic... Not sure why someone took the time to carve it into the concrete.”
And they did, taking time with it, each neat letter five centimeters high and a centimeter deep, cleanly cut. And it’s old: weather-worn and oxidized, perhaps for decades. Was it an attempt to preserve a piece of where they came from? Or did it have deeper meaning to them? (Was the whole colony decorated with old song lyrics? Will I find more such relics?)
“But someone did try to put it back together.” Not an idle task: “Some of these pieces must weigh several hundred kilos.”
I look for the telltale scars of whatever machinery moved them, and find nothing obvious. That makes me think Asmodeus did it himself, leaving it here for me to find. But why?
“Valhalla was a kind of heaven for warriors,” I explain for no other purpose than to think out loud. Or maybe to make conversation, to value Kel’s find. “If you died in battle, you would gain entry to a place where you could eat and drink and fuck and fight until the end of the world, so that you would be prepared for the final battle.”
Is that why Asmodeus preserved it, set it out here? Is it supposed to be some kind of commentary on our existence? Or is it just how he sees himself: killed in battle and resurrected in another world to eat and drink and fuck and fight until… What? Does he see some apocalyptic end-game? Is he planning one?
Or maybe it means nothing. Just a random find in a ruin, an idle puzzle to pass the hours and days while his minions dug everything useful out of the abandoned colony.
(Was it abandoned? Or did he murder or enslave whoever he found here? I flash on what he gleefully made us watch him do to a few of the women he had taken, and feel the rage fresh, knotted in the frustration that he’s keeping himself very intentionally just out of my reach.)
I look back across the manmade crater, see the enhanced ghost of the Warhorse. Everything still looks completely peaceful. But I don’t see Jenovec. He may be sitting on the back of the rig.
“Jenovec? Status?”
“Quiet here, sir.”
I feel my gut drop. He’s said that three times now. Exactly that.
“I can’t see you, Specialist. Come around the front of the track.”
No reply. No movement.
“Ram to Corso. Reply.”
Nothing.
I scan around the perimeter of the pit. It’s a shorter trip around the north side, but the ground is far more challenging as it includes the Rim foothills sliding down into it. It will be faster to run back the way I came. So I do.
The run is an agonizing and clumsy fifty-five seconds over the scrubby, rocky terrain. I try to calculate how long I was away from the vehicle in total. Ten minutes? Fifteen? I thought they’d be safe in the open. I thought I’d be able to see a threat incoming.
Kel keeps up, grinding after me. The noise kills any possibility of stealth, but I’m sure there have been eyes on me since we got here. Is it Asmodeus? Or his bio-technological atrocities? Or some other innocent he’s thrown in my path?
There’s no obvious sign of violence. Everything looks peaceful, the ‘Horse as intact as it was when I walked away from it, the warheads still in their tubes. I don’t even see tracks other than mine and Jenovec’s H-A boots meandering around the track. But there’s no sign of him.
I draw my pistol and unseal the rear hatch.
I find Jenovec.
He’s been left for me, displayed for my benefit, his armored body wedged on the floor of the airlock, which is puddle with fresh blood. His cleanly severed head had been propped on his chest, blank eyes staring out to greet me.
Shaking with rage, I climb in, climb over him, and pop the inner hatch without bothering to seal in and cycle. The pressure inside the bay has already been blown anyway, equalized to outside.
I get a surge of relief when I find no more bodies, but everyone else is gone. I scan a few traces of blood on the deck and surfaces, enough to tell me there was a fight but not enough to confirm fatalities. There are no signs of gunfire, but there are discarded weapons. Whatever happened, happened fast.
Kel watches me through the open rear hatch, over the top of poor Jenovec, as I do a quick search of the other sections. Everyone else is indeed gone, taken somewhere.
And now I know who did it, and why I didn’t see them come or go. There’s a katana propped in the pilot’s seat: long hilt wrapped in black plaited cord, black lacquered scabbard, simple iron guard. It’s identical to the sword Hatsumi Shingen gave me as a gift.
I take precious seconds to break into the stores, get a replacement barrel for Kel’s main cannon and get it functional. Then I feed Kel a full load for both guns. Finally, I make some quick adjustments to the sensor heads.
“This will let you see through their camo,” I explain, then order: “Stay here. I need you to guard the rig. Start shooting and I’ll come running if I can.”
Then I go get the sword.
I take the “gift” to the edge of the pit, hold it up over my head for a moment, then throw it far out into the abyss. I don’t hear it hit the rocks at the bottom, but I do hear movement. They’ve broken stealth. I stand with my empty arms open and wait for them.
They come rustling out of the rocks on either side of me. Without my enhancements, I wouldn’t have heard them at all. Or seen them, since they’ve got their new visual camo and the darkness, but they do read as heat, EMR and motion, showing up in my vision as ghostly, shimmering silhouettes. I count eight total. I don’t make any aggressive movements, and they don’t draw their weapons. The closest one on my left silently gestures me down into the pit.
I look back once at Kel, who sits put in front of the ‘Horse. The Shinobi ignore the bot, as if it’s inconsequential. I give Kel a reassuring nod and start climbing downward.
The Shinobi flank me at what they may think is a reasonably safe distance as we descend. The downhill hike is slow and noisy, at least for me: The Shinobi manage impressive stealth. I still only hear them because of my enhancements. I wonder if they’ve used the same nanotech they’ve cloaked themselves with to mask their footfalls, or if it’s all just skill.
I scan for tracks as I shuffle down the loose slopes, terrace-by-terrace, for any sign of the Warhorse crew having been brought this way ahead of me, but there’s nothing I can see in my night vision. When I look up, there’s another Shinobi standing in my path, twenty meters down slope, almost in the bottom of this part of the dig. He gestures me to his right. I pause and look where he’s pointing. There’s an exposed tunnel that way, and now I can see faint heat from inside it. I stand put for several seconds as my “escorts” form a rough circle around me, and test their patience. They stop still and wait for me, apparently in no hurry. But they’re confident my urgency is greater than theirs. I start moving in the indicated direction.
When I get to the tunnel entrance, there’s no visible light, but my enhancements show me that it’s cut through the ground; walls and ceiling packed and sealed and shored up with scrap that Asmodeus decided to leave behind. The floor is also well-packed, showing signs of years—decades—of foot traffic, but only a few trails in the dust look fresh. It stretches for several dozen meters that I can see. Even with my Mods, the end is lost in darkness.
My escorts don’t come in with me. They just form a perimeter at my back, and one of them points me to go in. I can’t read their expressions through their tinted goggles and armored masks, but I
get the subtle sense that they’re uncharacteristically afraid of something (and these warriors have shown no fear of me).
I follow the tunnel. There are side-branches every ten meters or so, but half of these lead to collapsed sections and the others read as abandoned, the dust on the floor undisturbed. Only the straight path shows recent activity.
I’ve almost entirely lost sight of the starlight at the entrance behind me when I come to a heavy hatch, a good sixty meters in. It unseals at my touch, letting me into a squad-sized airlock, which automatically cycles as I close the hatch behind me. But it’s not just air that floods the chamber. It’s heat. And it intensifies when the inner hatch opens.
The chamber beyond is sizable—about the size of a barracks at Melas Two—but low-ceilinged. The walls, ceiling and floor are the same sealed, reinforced rammed earth and cut stone. The light that greets me is unexpectedly dim, provided by a very few chemical lanterns. It reminds me of candlelight. And the heat… It’s oppressive, humid, like Earth tropical. I see pots of water steaming on heaters around the space that explain the sauna-like quality.
The chamber is divided by shoji-type screens. The floor is partially covered with woven mats.
I read movement on the other side of the screens, just one human-sized shadow. Then the screens part.
“Lady Sakura,” I greet her coolly. She’s dressed in her usual black kimono, her eyes hidden behind small goggles and her mouth and nose behind her breather mask, her short sword in her red sash. But her black hair is down over her shoulders, not tied up as I’ve always seen it, and her kimono is open down to her cleavage, exposing pale skin. Behind her is a traditional Japanese bed: A mat on the floor with silken blankets and block pillows. It’s set for two. I get the immediate impression that this is supposed to be a seduction scene.
“Lord Ragnarok,” she greets me with my ridiculous title (a title she would only have heard from a Modded immortal). “Thank you for coming.”
The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Page 35