Sons of the Gods

by James Von Ohlen

  The bottle made its way back to Torsten and he held onto it for a few moments, taking a sip and enjoying the burn. “I’ve wanted to kill them all for such a long time. Even though I didn’t believe in them, I wished they were real. So that I could drag them by their hair before their followers. Beat them, humiliate them, and then take their heads. Have them powerless to stop me.”

  “Because of the merchant.” Ed spoke softly. He knew what Torsten had lost in the plagues unleashed by Mordechai’s follower.

  Torsten looked at Ed and nodded. “Yes. It wasn’t enough that I killed the man myself and sold his crew and family into slavery.” His face hinted at anger and his eyes shifted focus, as if he was looking through the far wall. “I wanted to find the God he did it for, the God that ultimately was the one who murdered my wife and my children. And have it out with him.”

  “Well, now that’s exactly what you’re getting to do.” Ragnald spoke, inciting a few laughs amidst the otherwise grim turn in the conversation. “Maybe it’s the wrong God this time, but we’ll get out hands on the other.” The bottle was raised in toast to that and quickly passed so that each man could drink again.

  When the cheer had died down, Eric spoke up.

  “Not to be a downer, but it’s not the wrong God this time. As much as Mordechai needs to die, so does Anhur. Don’t forget what he’s done. Though we may not have walked through the ashes of the heart cities and seen what’s left with our own eyes, as faceless as the murder of the entirety of The Kingdom was, it still happened. A much larger offense than the already grievous massacre of the Mountain Men in their village, which was itself a violation of the most basic laws of decency.”

  Several nodded before Ed spoke.

  “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say without using the word ‘fuck’.” A chorus of laughter washed over them. When the joke had passed, Torsten spoke again.

  “That makes his words no less true. Our cousins lay dead by our own hands and Anhur thinks he can get away with it. Thinks he has already gotten away with it. Even if Modi and Vidar turn out to be senile and crazed, or full of distortions of the truth, if nothing else we have seen is real, it still makes Anhur no less deserving of death.”

  The bottle was finished by Styg and he casually tossed it back over his shoulder where it shattered against the nearest wall. The sound echoed through the hall for a moment. A series of beeps and clicks sounded and small panel opened in the wall. A disc shaped robot moved out, riding on a cushion of air and began to clean up the mess of the broken bottle.

  Pier was returning from the mess storage with another bottle when he saw it. “What the fuck is that thing?” He asked, face deadly serious as though he faced life and death on a battlefield, his words echoing through the hall. Everyone laughed again. Scowling at the general laughter at his expense, he rejoined the group and handed the bottle to Torsten.

  Torsten opened it and took his sip. After so many months of nothing at all to drink, the whiskey was hitting him hard. His head buzzed pleasantly and his limbs felt a little slower, a little warmer than usual.

  “But to answer your question, Ed, when this is all over, meaning the remains of the UN and Coalition have been laid to rest, I will begin to rebuild. I’ve seen nothing to suggest that Modi and Vidar are dishonest. With their help we could potentially rebuild the old civilization in a few generations. Imagine the world we could forge. The kingdom we could raise.”

  “And where would we start?” Styg asked.

  “Good question.” Ed began. “Do we walk back into the ruins of The Kingdom and begin anew? What if there’s not enough people left alive to rebuild?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead. But we could try to start with the Mountain Men. Though they’re spread out, there’s seems to be no end to their numbers. We might have to crack a few heads to get them on our side, but with their balls and Modi’s brains, who knows what we might be able to accomplish?”

  “A noble goal, that.” Ragnald spoke. “It might be nice to build something for a change instead of just destroying. And if that doesn’t work, I can always go find another tribe of Mountain Men and bang all of their daughters before I declare myself king.” More laughter followed.

  “I’m with you, sire.” Ed said as he nodded to Ragnald, trying his best to keep a straight face but failing.

  The men continued talking. Reminiscing on past exploits on the battlefield and in the gambling halls. Another bottle broken and another opened. It took them a while to realize that another figure had joined them. Torsten was the first to see her, though he couldn’t say how long she’d been there before he noticed.

  “Hello, Modi.” He said and she smiled, but remained silent. She appeared to be enjoying listening to the stories being told. Torsten wondered how long it had been since she had had any significant human contact. More than a lifetime, he concluded.

  Pier had just been in the middle of telling the tale of his conquering of a dignitaries daughters, a set of twins no less, after a night working security at a diplomatic function. He had described every moment leading up to them stripping down with the excitement of a man reliving one of the highlights of his life when he saw Modi. He paused in midsentence and began blushing before falling silent.

  Men enthralled in his tale began to laugh, questioning his sudden bought of shyness. It was unlike the giant of a man to show discretion in just about anything.

  “Don’t worry Pier,” Modi began. “I may have been a woman at one point in time, but now most of my collective are actually men. They’d like to hear the rest as well.” She smiled expectantly at him. He remained silent, mouth frozen open as he looked back and forth between Modi and the other men of Torsten’s crew.

  A chorus of laughter joined by Modi herself greeted him and he indignantly waved them off.

  When the laughter died down Modi stood.

  “I came to inform you gentlemen that another injection is ready for your gene therapies.” Torsten rubbed his arm, still a little sore where he had been given the first few injections. He had been told there was technology available that made it so a man wouldn’t feel the injection, during or after. But the Veldt military had resorted to the ancient injection methods because men complained of feeling like they hadn’t really been medicated if they didn’t feel something. He had half a mind to invent a time machine just so he could slap those same men.

  “And this time I’ll add a little something to help get rid of the alcohol. But I don’t envy the hangover you’re going to have.”

  “Hangover?” Torsten asked. “I thought by now you’d have a cure for something like that.”

  Modi smiled for a moment, looking like she was about to laugh before she answered.

  “Oh, there is a cure for that. But we never stocked it on military bases. To keep the enlisted men from drinking too much.”

  “Well…fuck.” Eric answered to another round of laughter.

  TIME passed quickly. There was a lot to do. After their injections the scouts spent most of their time going over intelligence on Anhur and what the expected layout of his battle station could be. Vidar even showed his face long enough to describe in depth the bronze knight security units that the scouts could expect to encounter and how best to deal with them.

  Torsten was of the opinion that all of the methods described by Vidar amounted to very fancy ways of saying “blow the shit out of them.”

  There was even time for the men to don their repaired suits of armor and function-check them. Slight modifications had been made to the nano-reactive coatings and Vidar wanted to see how they would hold up with continuous use. Torsten’s crew began to spend a good deal of time training for taking control of the UN battle station. They were aided in their endeavor with training rounds in a mock-up of what Vidar predicted the bridge of the battle station would look like.

  As they entered the training center the hivemind activated, giving each man the insights of the others and allowing them to communicate without
conscious thought. One mind, many hands. Many hands with many weapons.

  So much information and so little effort needed to fully process it, Torsten thought. This must be only a tiny fraction of what Modi experiences in every second. The hivemind made him feel…good. There was really no other way to describe it. The feeling must be what allowed Modi to retain her sanity after so long in a digitized state. Or machine body. Or however it actually worked.

  The scouts entered the training center with the gear they would carrying with them on the battle station. Each man carried a carbine version of a heavy infantry select-fire railgun. Each fired a 5mm armor-piercing projectile that relied on kinetic force to destroy its target. They had proven especially effective against armored foes. A back up side arm that consisted of a miniature heat lance in pistol form was carried by each as well.

  It would cause nowhere near the damage of a full sized heat lance, but it would be much better than nothing if it was needed. Two men in the unit, Pier and Styg, carried heavy infantry heat lances as well that could be deployed against targets with heavier armor. Finally each man carried a hand to hand weapon.

  For all but Ed, this consisted of a sword. Not very different from what they had all been trained to use during their days as fresh recruits in The Kingdom’s armies, it was familiar enough that they liked them. The similarity was purely superficial though.

  The swords they now carried were of an alloy that was far beyond the capabilities of even the best blacksmiths in The Kingdom to forge, and some of the elements found in the alloy didn’t even exist on Veldt. The rare components had been mined from asteroid fields in the system and brought back in the distant past. The blades had been honed to a monomolecular edge as well. If that wasn’t enough to ensure the blade could cut through almost anything, the entire length of the blade was cased in a smart projected forcefield. “Smart” in that it would adjust its strength on the fly to prevent the wielder from cutting themselves in a mishap.

  Ed chose differently in armaments though. The hammer that Anhur had given him reflected well his personality and personal tastes as well as his abilities. A short while after refusing the sword offered, he had customized a rig to hold the construction hammer carried into battle against the Titan. We would be able to carry it into battle in Anhur’s Hall of Iron. If there was anything in the universe that could stand up to a pounding from a solid hammer, he had yet to see it.

  They ran through possible scenarios they might encounter on the bridge of Anhur’s battle station for several hours. The halos ensured that lessons learned in these sessions were imprinted directly into their memories. They would be as prepared as possible for their attack on the Hall of Iron.

  After training, it was to the officer’s barracks. Food and rest. The food found there was much better than what else was available in the fort. Preserved in the same method as the whiskey, it was as good as the day it was placed there. Veldt lobster was on the immediate menu. Named for its similarity to the crustaceans found on Earth, it was a native to Veldt. Numerous to the point of being a pest in the shallow equatorial waters, it was a common part of the diet in the southern isles.

  Here in the north far from any sea where it might live, it was a rare delicacy indeed. A lamb’s shank completed the surf and turf with a leafy green that Torsten didn’t recognize, but didn’t mind the taste of. As he ate he searched through the room that had belonged to some high ranker of the Ancients. Veldt Planetary Defense Forces, he corrected himself.

  The quarters here were large and comfortable. After so long in close contact with everyone in his crew, it was good for the men to have some time alone. An extra nap or some time spent wearing an entertainment halo might help them to relax. Torsten thought the entertainment halos were a waste of time, so he searched through the barracks to see what he could find.

  Popping a bite of lobster into his mouth he opened a chest at the foot of the bed and began digging through its contents. A small halo unit that could be worn on the head without an encapsulating helmet was the first prize. He’d read about them in data streams, but hadn’t found one before. He powered the device on and slipped it over his ears, like a pair of sunglasses that happened to interact directly with his brain through EM fields.

  Data streams had suggested that precisely aimed beams of very specific frequencies at very specific intensities could activate neurons. Activating them in a specific pattern could impart certain knowledge and memories directly into a target’s brain. Torsten didn’t bother reading further into that data stream as he felt it was unimportant. He didn’t care about the how and why at this point, so long as it worked.

  The battery powered on no problem and he found himself being addressed by the unit as if he was Michael Martel, captain of the Veldt planetary defense forces. Mike Hammer, Torsten thought. What a stupid name. No matter, he could still access and use the equipment.

  Suggested data streams based on the unit’s last use popped up. Mostly history. Torsten looked through a few of them until he found one that interested him. The known history of the schism between the UN and Coalition. Knowledge of UN history entered his mind.

  Originally founded as a non-governmental body to act as an intermediary in disputes between independent planets and independent nations sharing the same planet, its scope and function had changed rapidly over its 200 year history. Based on the model of the UN from Old Earth, it functioned in largely the same manner. Nominally for the service of all nations, but really as a hammer to bludgeon the foreign policy of the strongest members down everyone else’s throats without the unseemly appearance of having to resort to military threats.

  The two most powerful nation-members had a population of roughly 25 billion between them. The Union for the Prosperity of Mankind and The Free People’s Interplanetary Republic. Each spanned several planets and sported large armies relatively well armed for that point in time. Before the discovery of more exoplanets suitable for human life, they had been on a collision course that threatened the existence of both. Out of the stalemate of mutually assured destruction, the two had founded the United Nations of Humanity.

  Not out of some idealism, but purely out of the economic interests of the powers that be in both nations. After all, what good was all of the money in the universe if you were too dead to enjoy it?

  At first the UN had functioned as its charter implied. It acted as an objective body to arbitrate disputes between nations. In some cases it even managed to act in a manner beneficial to all of humanity. Finally, during a small war that threatened the control of a valuable mining deposit on an uninhabitable planet owned by one of the largest corporations with a significant financial presence in both the Union for the Prosperity of Mankind and The Free People’s Interplanetary Republic, the UN had openly become a military force.

  Its first deployment had ostensibly been to end the slaughter of miners by rival factions fighting for control of the space around the planet in dispute. Ultimately it had conquered the homeworlds of both nations fighting the dispute and added them to the roster of member-nations. At gunpoint.

  The pattern had been established and a strong central government emerged, controlled entirely by monetary and fringe political interests that entirely subsumed the independence and identities of the member nations. The two behemoths of mankind among the stars had merged into one and began a long history of dominating all others by force.

  As with all honeymoons, it had to come to an end sooner or later.

  Shifting corporate and religious alliances set the stage for the schism that ultimately saw the UN torn in half and explode into the civil war that had come to Veldt. Many other smaller nations had been consumed by the war in the process as well. Several had been rendered lifeless husks of irradiated ash. Others realized that they had no choice but to choose a side or be exterminated and joined willingly.

  A few had managed to hold off smaller expeditions by the UN or Coalition, especially in the waning days of the war when the strength of both
sides was greatly depleted. But even then, the reprieve was only temporary. All eventually surrendered or were destroyed.

  And then the war came to Veldt.

  Torsten showed interest in a brief description of a battle fought at one of these smaller planets. A local planetary commander had managed to completely trash a Coalition expeditionary force with his small and outdated fleet. Records of known strategies opened in depth in Torsten’s mind. He absorbed all that he could, but by its nature the data was limited. The Coalition had returned in force and conquered the planet. And they weren’t very eager to publicize how they had been so embarrassingly defeated before.

  The existence of AI simulacra that helped command larger ships was mentioned in the description of ship to ship combat tactics, and Torsten began pursuing that data. True AI, self-aware programs, had never been achieved, at least according to this data stream. Something about the nature of physics that seemed to disallow such a thing. Though much effort was being spent on its discovery. Two suggested data streams detailing the technical information behind the last two statements popped up. Torsten dismissed them, continuing to skim through his current knowledge implantation.

  Despite the apparent impossibility of true AI, programmers had gotten fairly close. They had designed programs that could appear to be self-aware if they were not in fact, and that could develop their own personalities. They had proved invaluable in the command of large fleets and troop formations during the decades of war that ripped through the whole of humanity’s presence in the galaxy.

  Known weapons and tactics deployed by UN and Coalition personnel in their battles against one another and with third parties passed through Torsten’s mind. He slowed down the data stream and paid close attention. Actual video footage of the rival factions in battle had been captured.