Sons of the Gods

by James Von Ohlen

  “I saw the war coming here and destroying this world before it began. I knew there could only be one outcome, no matter how mightily we struggled against it. No matter how many foreign invaders we killed on the ground, and no matter how many of their ships we knocked from the skies. There could have only been one end. Seeing the coming total collapse of our entire civilization, one neutron bomb, one nuclear orbital strike, and on weaponized virus at a time, I set out to create what I could that would be of use to future generations in the time I had left. “

  “And my creation is the other half of what the UN and Coalition came here for. The Prometheus Device. A device that enables the harvest of energy and particles flowing backwards through time. The end result being unlimited free energy.”

  The implications of what he had just heard stunned Torsten. The room was dead silent except for someone sucking in a great breath. A few seconds later that same inhalation became a whistle. Shrill. Drawn out. Grating.

  Torsten turned to see Ragnald stepping towards the image of Vidar.

  “Why exactly have you been holding that back? The Titan unit we fought nearly killed all of us. And if you had unlimited free energy, why weren’t some heavy beam weapons plugged in and charging to deal with it instead of some fucking hammers?” The man sounded angry, though his facial features remained passive.

  “My apologies for that, warrior. But there is a matter of infrastructure and capacity. Though the source is truly unlimited and free, there is only the one unit and it comes only at a trickle. It takes a great deal of time to harvest enough of it to use. It could continuously power several relatively advanced towns or small cities on Veldt, or it could be used to power up various old facilities. What then? Those cities would be destroyed by the remainder of the alien invasion forces and the facilities seized and turned against us.”

  “There is also the matter of the actual unit. It stands within this installation as well. It could have powered some weapons, but there are enough at hand still functioning and with ammunition stores enough to serve you in your final task. The power required by the gateway is truly enormous. The numbers mean very little to human minds. You may grasp at the written number, but to fully understand it requires a truly unique intellect.”

  “The point being?” Ragnald asked.

  “The point being, that the power source had been trained exclusively on charging the gateway since the day it was activated. And only very recently has it approached completion of the charge necessary to activate that same device. In fact, the charge will be completed in three standard days.”

  “And then?” Torsten asked, stepping forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Ragnald.

  “Then,” Modi spoke, the music of her voice easing the tension the warriors felt. “You will be able to board Anhur’s battle station. And put a permanent end to his meddling.”

  Torsten couldn’t help but smile.

  “I like the sound of that.”

  SO easy to track him. Anhur looked at the visual data projected around him in the air of the bridge. Cold. Sterile. Just like the air in the rest of the battle station. As he sat on his command throne, he had trouble telling what was physically there and what was in his mind. Did it really matter? The end result was the same. He saw what he needed to.

  He knew exactly where Mordechai was, at that very moment. He reached out and touched a floating point of light representing his enemy’s position in the debris cloud around Veldt as it slowly rotated around him. He closed his fist around the spot, imagining that he was crushing Mordechai’s skull in his hand.

  It had been such a simple matter to track the trajectory of the Coalition drop-ship back to its spot of origin. And incredibly frustrating to be able to do nothing with this knowledge. Power levels and ordinance supplies were depleted after he had obliterated the heart cities of The Kingdom. That might have been enough to stop them, but to make sure he’d expended a few of the remaining neutron bombs in his dwindling stockpile against the larger population centers outside of The Kingdom’s center.

  He’d really had no choice. His puppets were gone and he had a literal and figurative gun pointed at his head. After such careful planning and selection of capable warriors to do his bidding, they had gone offline en masse. And because of scrambling interference from somewhere below, he hadn’t even been able to see what was happening when they were lost. Had they been killed in action or had the ground simply swallowed them?

  After retrieving what he needed from Skull Face and the ruins of Andersonville, he should have been able to retrieve his puppets. The next step would have been dispatching them to the Royal Academy where they would kill everyone and eventually seize control of The Kingdom. In a few years the Church of the War God would come to power and his influence would spread ever further and faster. Their loss would be difficult to recover from, but not impossible. The loss of the decryption Nexus though… that would set him back quite some time.

  With that one piece of equipment he’d hoped to be able to decipher the workings of the computer virus that robbed him of his reserve systems. The power he would have at his disposal then…the thought of it caused him to breathe faster. Though it was but a pale fraction of the armies he had commanded when he first came to Veldt, it was far beyond anything else to be found in the entire system. Anhur weighed the situation in his mind, resigning himself to the fact that he would simply have to send some of his bronze knights to the surface of Veldt to find the device.

  The shipboard security robots had served him well. As long as he’d been able to keep them maintained properly. The past few decades, reserves of spare parts had begun to run thin. There would be a time in the near future when he would not be able to keep them running any longer without cannibalizing them. It would be a shame as they had served him well.

  Anhur realized it was foolish to attach sentimentality to inanimate objects, or even animate objects for that matter. But he couldn’t help but make sure his bronze knights were well taken care of after they’d helped him turn back a Coalition boarding party in the final days of the war. They had even saved his life, helping him to destroy the pair of Titans specialized for boarding enemy ships and to kill the score of marines that had accompanied them.

  The Titans had been monsters. Like what normal people must have thought when they saw something like Anhur. He flexed his steel arms without thinking about it. Bronze knights had thrown themselves onto the beasts, distracting them long enough for Anhur to close the distance and put the projected force field blade and antimatter rifle he favored to good use. Safely within the shell of his Golden Fleece. The strength there was unmatched by anything made of flesh and blood in all of the known universe.

  But then, the Titans weren’t flesh and blood. He’d faced them a few times before during his days as an operator. Then, nothing short of a heavy heat lance would take one out. Each one was like a walking main battle tank. One that had a human brain hard-wired into it for higher performance and better on the fly decision making.

  Anhur played back the recorded trajectory of the drop-ship launched by Mordechai. Based on its class, it was unlikely that it had carried anything other than a Titan unit. It landed at a site listed in his database as a Veldt planetary defense forces base. Insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Not located in a strategic position. Data suggested there had been at least one UN assault on the base that had been turned back, though he had no memory of ordering such a thing.

  If there was something of value to be found there, a Titan unit was less than ideal for a search and recovery mission. It was more of a kill everything, seize ground, and hold until relieved type unit.

  Kill everything, Anhur thought. Perhaps it had been dispatched to do just that. His puppets had gone offline, but there was nothing to suggest they were actually dead. Repeated scans of the ruins of Andersonville had turned up nothing even remotely resembling the control units he had outfitted each man with. The brain implants and collars should have continued to fun
ction for quite some time after the death of their associated soldier. They would have shown up bright and clear on his scans.

  So, he thought, somehow the collars and implants were disabled and hidden from his view. Then for some reason his puppets traveled for weeks on end on foot to the middle of nowhere to a dead fort where Mordechai tracked them down and dispatched a Titan unit to kill them.

  Why not just obliterate the site from orbit, Mordechai? The gears in Anhur’s mind spun as he thought. Aside from the obvious, that Mordechai didn’t have the ordinance to spare, perhaps there was something there he wanted to capture. After all that was what Titan units were meant for. And what might there be in that place worth capturing?

  Surely, weapons and armor. Perhaps even a few units of heavy armor or even an orbital shuttle that could serve the purpose of fighter or bomber if need be. Anhur looked at the maps and suddenly everything clicked. The very reason he had come to this fucking backwater.

  The gateway.

  The fort was situated far enough from any population center that an adverse effect from the gateway that didn’t outright destroy the whole planet would only kill a minimal number of people. The facility was mostly underground, from what his scans could tell. And it was still powered. Though that could be the result of various types of reactors or solar or geothermal power. It could also have been their particle catcher.

  How had the intelligence units under his command missed all of this? If any of them had still been alive, their lives would be in danger now. He clenched his fists and took a deep breath of cold air. Give them the benefit of the doubt, he thought. The cyber warfare capabilities of the planetary defense forces had been far beyond anything anyone had imagined. They did an excellent job of hiding and misguiding. Warfare by deception at its finest.

  He changed the projected display to a map of the remains of the Veldt fort. Fort Kasper it said next to it in blocky red letters, indicating a still hostile element. Though it had been abandoned for centuries. On the next pass over the area he would have to do some further research. He calculated in his mind. Approximately eleven hours.

  A check of reserve power levels showed enough to run a battery of scans over the area. If there was anything down there worth seeing, he would find it. In the meantime, he would dispatch some of his bronze knights to the nearby remains of a strike cruiser.

  Hydra, that one had been called. It had been designed specifically for the purpose of launching missiles against planetary targets. It had a payload of 75% capacity remaining when it had been crippled and then destroyed by a kamikaze attack. Unfortunately there was no data plug detailing those events. Anhur simply stared at the bits and pieces of the cruiser through his view ports to remind himself of the need to avenge it.

  Quite a bit of ordinance had been lost or destroyed when the ship had died, but a good amount remained. Enough that it had served as Anhur’s primary source of ammunition for the past three centuries.

  It was tedious work, and risky at that. But the rewards far outweighed the risks. The first few missions to the remains of the UN ship had been led by Anhur himself, suited and armored against the void. With a group of bronze knights in tow, he’d dared the lengthy space walk and returned with a priceless treasure of no less than three multiple warhead strike missiles. A paltry sum in days gone by, but in desperate times it was enough to crush entire nations. And that was exactly what he had done with them.

  He retained his emergency supplies of ordinance now, but he would definitely have to send his bronze knights to gather more from the wrecked cruiser. Once he had his power supplies replenished and some weaponry to put to use, he would take in all of the available data and decide what to do.

  Anhur switched the display back to the map of the orbital debris cloud, staring at what his station’s algorithms determined to be the position of Mordechai’s station. How ridiculous that the two greatest generals and warriors in all of human history were reduced to this. Both still living because neither had the power to strike at the other. Those days would end soon enough though. Mordechai had made a grave mistake when he revealed his position. Anhur would make sure of it.

  He seated himself in the command throne of the battle station and felt the interface tendrils snap into place along his spine and at the base of his skull. He closed his eyes and ran a rudimentary systems check. It was something he did frequently. He didn’t like surprises, and at this point any surprise could potentially be lethal.

  Background scans took to the fore of his mind as he did so. Something down there, far below him on Veldt was powering up. Whatever it was, it was large and drawing a great deal of power to itself. Normally it would have been easy to pinpoint its exact location, but it was masked.

  He concentrated intensely on the energy signature. It didn’t appear to be a weapon. Anhur spent several hours studying it, getting no closer to identifying it. He would have to assume it was a threat aimed against him. He hadn’t lived this long by being foolish with his own security.

  His reverie was interrupted by a high priority communication. His mind snapped into focus on it. He hadn’t received such a thing in hundreds of years. It was like opening a present as a child.

  The familiar monotone of a bronze knight spoke to him. The machines never made actual voice transmissions, but Anhur converted them to a voice in his mind. Even though they had been physically given voices indistinguishable from those of humans when they spoke in person, Anhur always heard them as machines in his thoughts.

  “Lord Anhur, we have found something that requires your immediate attention.” No further details, but none were needed. Anhur concentrated a little harder and through his command throne he found himself experiencing sensory input form the bronze knight unit. The coldness of the dead ship always struck him hard. He shivered for a second on his throne.

  Anhur found himself looking through the visual sensors of the command unit sent with the other bronze knights. His feet felt heavy as electromagnets held them to the floor of the darkened hallway in which they stood. Sensors indicated no atmosphere and a temperature within a few degrees of -150 C. Normal for near orbit and not in direct sunlight.

  The command unit faced an active access panel that controlled a doorway into a munitions storage hangar. Routine access codes had failed and the command unit had been unable to enter the storage area. A blinking light indicated that the area was at full capacity. Another said that the area was highly restricted and carried a classified payload.

  Under Anhur’s direct command the, bronze knight hardwired itself into the panel, allowing Anhur to interact directly with it through his mind. He found the access codes easy enough. When he realized what they were access codes to, he began to smile. Somehow, they had been isolated from the Veldt virus that had wrecked almost all other systems. Perhaps all was not lost.

  The door slid open and the bronze knights stepped into the munitions storage bay, fanning out with weapons at the ready to secure the area. The command unit brushed aside the floating corpse of a long dead corpsman and moved to the side of a large torpedo shaped tube. A small green light blinked every few seconds, indicating the unit still had power.

  Begin the activation process, Anhur sent with a thought. The bronze knights obeyed. After a few seconds of machine interface he received his confirmation.

  “Activation complete, Lord Anhur.”

  “AND what will you do when this is all over? If we survive?” Ed asked as he passed the bottle to Torsten. Torsten accepted and took a long drink. He swished it around in his mouth, enjoying the harsh taste. The burning sensation in his mouth and throat followed by the warmth spreading in his stomach. Whiskey of all things.

  They’d found several bottles of it in a mess storage area. The stasis field had remained powered by the sites geothermal capabilities, and all of the food and drink held therein was as good as the day it had been placed there. Thousand year old whiskey, Torsten mused. How often did distillers of spirits back east brag about their vintage
being aged 12 years or even 20 years? He’d never heard anyone claiming it was a thousand years old. He took another drink before passing it to Pier, the next man on the left. Drink and pass. Drink and pass. That’s how it worked.

  “Normally, I’d say that I would go home and enjoy doing nothing for a few days. Then spend a few days drinking and a few more days fucking. Or a few weeks fucking.” Torsten answered. Grumbles of agreement rose from the gathered scouts, seated around a metal table in the mess hall. Gentle lighting shone above them, matching the intensity of the late afternoon sun far above that on the surface.

  “But now, even if there was a home to go back to, I’m not sure I could. Knowing what we know. I’ve always felt some type of contempt for followers of the Gods. As if I thought they were weak. That I was somehow better than them because I could rely on myself without begging help of some imaginary divine power. But now, we know that they’re real. Though not actual gods, they’re real, and they have been trying to exterminate or enslave us for centuries.” More agreement came from the assembled warriors.

  “No, I don’t think I’d be able to go home. We’d always just have a giant target on our backs. Everyone around us, those we love and those we do not, would always be in danger.” Torsten reached for the bottle as Pier passed it to Styg, intercepting it and taking another swallow before passing it back. The officer’s imperative he had always called it when he drank out of turn. Styg simply shook his head as he was offered the bottle.

  “Who’s to say that Mordechai won’t drop another Titan on us the first chance he gets?” Torsten continued. “And what if we’re in the middle of a crowded city when that happens? Not in an abandoned military base filled with weapons of the Ancients to deal with the threat. I’ve never been squeamish about collateral damage on our missions before, but now that I know the history of our world, I can’t help but begin to see everyone out there as my people. As my nation.” More nods and grunts, agreement all around from the gathered men. “I feel I need to do what I can to protect them. Protect them from the would-be Gods.”