Ghost Wing (The Ragnarok Saga Book 4)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  It was good for them. They needed the time to decompress before heading back out there again. Two fights with the enemy and they’d still come nowhere close to achieving their objective. The ring… It was the key to everything. The aliens were defending it with ferocity and ingenuity. Overcoming them was going to be tricky.

  Sam stood in a large room just off the common space. She wondered what this area had been for, on the actual Hermes. Max said the simulated environment they gathered in was based on the original schematics of the ship. If the big common room was the mess hall, then perhaps this was the kitchen. Whatever the original purpose, it would do for what she needed. She called up an image of Neptune and the space around it. The simulation complied by creating a movie-style holographic image in the middle of the room. There was the planet, its moons, and the ring. Sam set them into real-time motion so she could watch the orbits.

  Something niggled at the corner of her mind. There was a weakness in the minefield protecting the ring. Her gut said there was a way in. She just needed to figure out what it was…

  “Still working even on your time off?” Max said from behind her. Sam jumped, startled.

  “We don’t have a lot of time left for messing around,” she replied.

  “No, we don’t. What’ve you got?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Sam said. She threw her arms up in exasperation. “I don’t see any way to approach the ring that won’t result in all of us being blown to bits.”

  Max chewed on his lip, staring at the projection. “The Hermes could probably clear a path using her missiles. Stagger a series of detonations in space, one after another, to plow a road for you.”

  It was a decent idea, but Sam could see the flaw immediately. “That puts the Hermes in range of their main guns. It probably gives their fighters a shot at you as well. It might work as a last ditch move, but it would be an all or nothing gambit. We’d either win or all die.”

  “I think we’re getting close to that point now,” Max said. His face looked pained. He apparently hadn’t thought this mission would be as complicated and costly as it already had been. Sam felt for him, but she also knew better coming in. No plan ever survived contact with the enemy. An alien race strong enough to fly to another solar system wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  Of course, they could still give up. Return home again and live to fight another day. Sometimes Sam wasn’t even sure why they were fighting at all. Was Earth still her home, even? It was confusing. She could still feel the emotions the old Sam felt toward her family and friends, going about their business back on Earth without any knowledge all of this was even happening. All of the old Sam’s memories were a part of her.

  And yet she was someone else now, too. That other Sam was still around. The other Sam was living the life she remembered. Her family might understand and have some sort of acceptance for her - she hoped they could, anyway. But her friends would never understand. Hell, Sam barely got it herself and she was living the experience. There was no way someone who’d never been a part of this mess would be able to comprehend it.

  What humans didn’t understand, they feared. Would Sam and the others like her be the victims of that sort of fear forever?

  “Why are we doing this?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t understand,” Max replied. “Doing what?”

  “Fighting this battle. Killing ourselves off to defend - what? A planet that may or may not actually accept us once all of this is over? It’s not like humans have a great track record for accepting someone who’s different,” Sam said. “Not too many folks more outside the norm than we are.”

  Max shook his head. “They’ve already passed the law. We have citizenship.”

  “Any law that was passed can be revoked just as quickly if they see the need,” Xiang said from the doorway. “Sorry to intrude. I overheard you talking and couldn’t help but want to chime in with my thoughts. Samantha is quite correct. Humanity doesn’t do well with things they don’t understand. First, they will fear what they don’t comprehend. Then they will hate it. That hate will turn to anger and aggression. It is inevitable.”

  Sam turned to face Xiang. “Not always. We’ve done the right thing sometimes. We’ve given rights to those who didn’t have them before.”

  Xiang waved a hand dismissively. “Sometimes, and only when public pressure became so great there was no choice but for the leaders to manage that. That sort of public opinion only works for those who are weaker than the masses.”

  “We’re not numerous enough to be strong,” Max pointed out.

  “How long will that last once we return and demonstrate what is possible?” Xiang countered. “Hundreds of people will want to become uploaded citizens. To live without growing old? Without the risk of disease or disorder? We can live a very long time, if not forever. That’s an enormous advantage over the rest of humanity. We are the next step, in a way. We can do things they cannot. And they will turn on us for it.”

  It was a chilling thought. What if they won this war for humanity, only to have humans change their minds and turn on them down the road? What Xiang said rang true. Humans were crappy at dealing with things that were different from themselves. But what else could they all do? Xiang wasn’t suggesting they just allow the aliens to take out the rest of humanity, was he?

  “You could be right,” Max said. They were all silent for a moment. Then Max went on. “They might hate us. They might fight against us, someday. But for right now, we have a damned good reason to fight.”

  “Which is?” Xiang asked.

  “Back on Earth is the seed of everything good about humanity as well as the bad. If we want to survive in the long run, we’ll need them. If we want to keep those we cared about in life safe, this is the way we can do it,” Max said. “We might all be ghosts out here, shadows of what we were. But here we are at the end of the world as the last line of defense between Earth and whatever fire is coming her way. There’s no place I’d rather be.”

  Sam heard what he said and couldn’t help herself - she laughed aloud.

  “What was funny?” Max asked, a hurt look on his face.

  “You really don’t know your Norse mythology, do you?” Sam asked. She hadn’t known much about it before arriving in Valhalla Online, either, but she wasn’t about to tell Max that. You couldn’t stay in Valhalla very long without learning a thing or two about the old Norse beliefs. “Valhalla is where Odin keeps his einherjar, training them for the final battle - Ragnarok, where the Earth will perish in fire and blood. The gods and their warriors will fight together against the giants and other forces of evil on that day.”

  Both of the men in front of her stared at her with such blank looks that Sam couldn’t help but laugh again. They still didn’t get it! All of this - everything they were experiencing - it was like something from one of the old tales. Her heart felt lighter just thinking about that. In the Norse stories, the gods of Asgard knew that Ragnarok would be their end. They knew they would lose. But they would fight the battle anyway because it wasn’t whether you won or lost that mattered most, but how you faced life and death.

  “Don’t you see? We are the Einherjar. We are those warriors, returned from the dead to defend Midgard. The aliens threaten Earth with destruction, and we rise with the gods to fight for her. We’re riding in a god right now - Hermes,” Sam said, chuckling to herself at the string of coincidences. “The gods don’t battle against Ragnarok because they expect to win. They fight that battle despite knowing they will lose, because it is the right thing to do.”

  “You may well be right,” Xiang said. “But I am not wrong.”

  “No, you’re not. If humanity turns against us someday, then we’ll deal with it,” Sam replied. “But if we fail out here, there won’t be any humanity left to turn against us. And we can’t make babies, Xiang. If Earth is lost, we’ll be the last humans to exist. We’re not the future; we’re an evolutionary dead-end.”

  She turned back to the project
ion, an idea springing to mind. It was seeing the sweep of Triton’s path out of the corner of her eye that had sparked the notion. The ring was locked in a geosynchronous orbit. Triton was not, and swept past the ring periodically. That was the weak spot. That was how they’d win.

  “Gentlemen, I know what we need to do,” Sam said.

  16

  Admiral Thomas Stein could see the Intrepid from his office window. It floated there in space as a constant reminder of the battle ahead. The ship was almost ready. Crews raced around the clock to finish her construction. The Albucierre drive was already installed, but secondary weapon systems were taking more time to route into the power grid than they’d anticipated. Thomas threw the report down on his desk in disgust. If only they’d had a little bit more time!

  The Hermes was still out there fighting the good fight, but as expected they were having little effect. As of the last reports he had - there was a four-hour delay in transmissions - the squadron had attempted a second engagement with the enemy and been rebuffed by a hidden minefield. An entire area of space seeded with mines too small to be seen on radar! That would be a risk for anyone flying through that sector of space for years before all of the mines finally collided with a chunk of debris or fell into Neptune.

  Still, the one actual firefight hadn’t gone too badly. They knew the alien tech was good, but not worlds better than their own. It was going to be like fighting early rifles while using flintlocks, perhaps. But at least they wouldn’t have to take their flintlocks up against hover-tanks.

  Losing almost half their Wasp squadron meant the Hermes was barely combat operational now, though. He was half tempted to order her home, or at least to stand down from attacks and remain in the area as their eyes and ears. The odds of them doing more than slow the alien construction down a little were slim, and they would pay heavily for causing even a small delay. But a few hours might mean the difference between the Intrepid arriving in time to stop the gate or not. As much as he hated to risk throwing those lives away for no gain, the fact was they were the only asset he had to play with. They had to continue the mission as best they could.

  A knock on his door brought Thomas back to the present. He took the seat behind his desk before answering. “Come.”

  Captain Fairhaven opened the door and stepped inside. “I’ve spotted something I think you’ll be interested in, sir.”

  “Oh?” Thomas asked. From the look on her face, it was grave news. He didn’t need any more… No, this was his job. He’d stepped up when Earth needed him. Now he had to play out the role he’d taken on. To the end, whatever that might be.

  Fairhaven dropped a manila folder on his desk. Thomas reached over and opened it. Inside was a single page of paper with a list of names. He scanned the list, not sure what he was looking for. They looked like the cast of characters from a movie. “Harald? Grimalf? Gurgle? Sam? Oh - these are..?”

  She picked up when his voice trailed off. “The names of Commander Knauf’s recruits from Valhalla Online, yes sir.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Second name from the bottom.”

  Thomas scanned down the list of names until he reached the one she’d mentioned. It was simply ‘Xiang.’ The name rang a bell for him, but he couldn’t place it right away. It was a common enough Chinese name, but why would it have special meaning? Then the memory struck him like a gunshot. He recalled sitting down to dinner with a man who bore that name. Of all the people on Earth, he was perhaps the most dangerous Thomas had ever met. Choi Xiang, the former President of the United Nations. That dinner ended with Choi blowing up the restaurant, killing or wounding scores of people in an attempt to kill Thomas or failing that frame him for planting the bomb. Either would have worked for Choi just fine. He was as ruthless as they came and intelligent enough to make him deadly.

  “But he’s dead. I killed him myself. I’m damned sure the job was finished properly,” Thomas protested. He could still remember that battle, the final one of the war between Mars and Earth. He’d engaged Choi in close combat with a Mars powered armor against a monstrous armored construction Choi had constructed from an amalgam of human and alien tech. That’s when Thomas learned that Earth had been contacted. When he discovered the motive behind Choi’s madness.

  “Yes, precisely. Minds are uploaded to Valhalla Online after the host dies,” Fairhaven said. “Wealthy people were known to use that upload as an insurance policy against death.”

  Was it possible? If it was Choi, what was he doing out there in space? Was he there to cause the mission to fail, or did he have some other agenda in mind? Thomas stood and paced, trying to think what his next course should be. He glanced at Fairhaven.

  “Xiang is a common enough name,” Thomas said. “You wouldn’t have come to me with this unless you had more information to support your hypothesis.”

  She nodded. “I checked with Afterlife. The upload data is confidential and under seal, but I got a judge to give me a warrant. They are gathering the rest of the information about this Xiang. I should have it soon. But they were able to give me the upload date.”

  “It matches the date of Choi’s death?”

  “The day after,” she confirmed.

  Still not a smoking gun. A lot of people had died in that final series of battles. It could have been their Choi Xiang, or any number of other people named Choi. Still, it was a hell of a coincidence. He didn't really believe in coincidences.

  “All right, good work. Keep digging. I want to know everything there is on this Xiang person. If he’s someone else, then there’s nothing to worry about.” Nothing more than they were already worried about, anyway.

  “And if it is the previous UN president?” she asked.

  “Then we have one hell of a problem,” Thomas said. Because the most deadly adversary he’d ever faced had found a way to put himself precisely where he could do the most damage possible to Earth’s future. There was no telling what Choi would do out there. The man had said he was acting in Earth’s best interests, so would he betray his homeworld somehow? The truth was, Thomas just didn’t know what he would do. That was always the biggest danger in dealing with the man - he was brilliant, ruthless, and not afraid to use both traits in combination.

  “Dismissed, Captain. Inform me the minute you have more information,” Thomas said. She saluted and left his office. Thomas took his seat at the desk again. There were so many moving parts out there, he worried that he was going to drop some of these balls if he wasn’t careful. Dealing with this new one was going to be a problem, but luckily he knew precisely who to bring in for assistance. Thomas tapped his desk panel.

  “Dial the UN President’s office,” he told the computer running his terminal. “I need to have a chat with my father.”

  Harald stared out into the void. He regretted that there wasn’t even a little buzz from the mead. If there was anything he missed about Valhalla, it was the ability to get himself a little drunk. The game mechanics even adjusted performance in about the same way alcohol did in the real world. It was all the booze without any of the liver complications. The simulation on the Hermes was nowhere near as detailed. It lacked the nuance of Valhalla, and the ability to get intoxicated.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling a rush from the meeting anyway. He didn’t know what inspired him to stand up there and roar his heart out to all the other pilots. It was something about the way they carried themselves when they returned to the Hermes. They looked broken. That was a bigger killer than anything else, for a fighting man. Any fighting person, he amended the thought. Plenty of women warriors out there too, even if there hadn’t been so many when he was a young grunt, he was able to stay with the times that much.

  Everything out here was different. He was back in the real world. Back in uniform - sort of. He was a Marine. You never stopped being a Marine. Even after his death, Harald still considered himself a Marine while he was adventuring in Valhalla. But he’d lost his way, there.

&nbs
p; Was there a chance he could find it again out here?

  He’d meant everything that he’d said to the other warriors in their band. The thought made him chuckle to himself. Terms like those rolled into his mind so quickly after all the years he’d spent in Valhalla. The place left an imprint on his soul, if he actually had one.

  That was the big question, wasn’t it? Was he still the same man he’d been in life, brought back from the grave with technology? Was he a new person? Were they people at all, or just software? The line between real and imaginary blurred in his thoughts. He stared out into space again to cool the racing in his mind.

  The stars didn’t care what others thought of them. They just were. They sat there, burning balls of light, pouring out the energy and materials from which worlds and life sprung. It was damned cool. Stars were one of the most fascinating things Harald had ever heard of, and they didn’t give two rat tails about what anyone thought they were. They merely existed, did what they were supposed to do, and then burned out.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” a voice said.

  Harald tried to turn, but he was in his fighter, watching the void through his Wasp’s scanners. There was no way to look over his shoulder and view the other person in this place. He felt a second of disorientation before his mind adjusted again to the reality he was living.

  “Grimalf. You left the party early?” Harald asked.

  “So did you.”

  “Yes, but that’s often my style and never yours.”

  “It is when I see a friend hurting,” Grim said. “What’s going on?”

  Harald gave a sigh. “You’re not going to leave me alone until I talk, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right then, you old bastard. I’ll spill. But no talking to Sam, all right?” Harald said, chuckling to himself. It was good to see Grim again, even if the man was a constant pest.

  So Harald told him the story of how he’d been turned into a living weapon, designed to cause the end of Valhalla and everyone living in it, the tool of a goddess gone mad. He told Grimalf how he’d finally broken free with Sam’s help and killed the goddess - who was herself the last vestige of the woman he loved, slain years ago.