Sons of the Gods

by James Von Ohlen

  The Titan sensed him coming, turning towards him and fired a burst from its rifle. He changed the direction of his assault, sliding underneath it and hacking through an armored plate there protecting bundles of synthetic muscle fibers and optical data cables. Sparks showered down on him and the Titan turned and slammed a fist down at the space where Torsten had been a second before, crumpling the plates of metal that constituted the floor.

  Before it could recover from is failed attack two more figures bearing blades were on it. It parried their initial attacks, but failed to see they served only as distractions. Ed descended on the armored monster with a furious blow of the construction hammer turned giant slayer. The impact rocked the Titan, causing it to reel backwards several steps.

  Torsten, still behind the armored unit, cut deeply into the back of its legs, striking where he thought vital locomotive components would be located. He was rewarded for his efforts with a back kick that sent him skidding across the battered floor of the chamber for dozens of meters before he came to a stop. He checked the sensory input of each man in his crew as he pushed himself to his feet.

  Each man was still alive and in the fight. They swarmed around the Titan, cutting it where they could and setting up heavy blows from Ed’s hammer when possible. Though the monster was quickly learning who the real threat was and the men of Torsten’s crew rapidly found themselves defending Ed from the Titan’s fury.

  Torsten took a deep breath, feeling pain throughout his chest. The armor may have kept him alive, but the impact from the kick had likely broken a few of his ribs. He felt a tingling sensation along his upper arm as his suit informed him that medical nanobots had just been injected into his bloodstream to deal with detected internal injuries.

  Zen like calm and an intense focus simultaneously overcame him. Sangfroid on another level. He raised his assault carbine, not needing a firing solution from his suit. A single round snapped out, the characteristic sound of a hole being punched in the air reached his ears as sparks erupted from the Titan’s back. His order reached his crew at about the same moment as the fired round.

  They rolled away from the Titan as the 30mm rounds for its twin shoulder-mounted cannons exploded in their storage compartment inside the Titan’s back. Shrapnel scythed outwards as the Titan froze and postured like a man who’d been hit too hard in the head and then collapsed face down. It squirmed for a moment before it grew still with the sound of heavy equipment being de-energized. A massive steel fist unclenched and opened, palm facing up.

  Very poorly designed, Torsten thought, sharing his insight with his crew. There was silence for a moment, followed by the sound of renewed battle ahead of them. On to the target, he shared, issuing orders as he took point once more.

  They moved at a steady pace down the remaining length of the viewing chamber, clearing the area of threats before proceeding. There had already been more than enough surprises.

  Torsten pondered the timing of the Coalition assault on the UN battle station. It couldn’t have been mere coincidence that it happened with him and his crew on board as well. That the Titan had been able to see him and his men, that spoke of something going awry as well. Somehow the remaining Coalition forces had known they were going to be here and had attacked to eliminate both of its enemies in one fell strike.

  The Coalition. Not the Coalition, he reminded himself. Mordechai. If that was the man’s real name or some code name dreamed up by his superiors, it didn’t matter. He was on the one who had somehow discovered a way to track them. The same man who had murdered Torsten’s nascent family with his plague.

  Another head to put on a stake before this was all over.

  At the end of the chamber they found a narrow corridor, choked with the remains of gray men and bronze knights. Blood and synthetic fluids mixed on the floor amidst the wreckage. The gray men had been human bodies run by machines after all. The testimony to this fact was written in the carnage of the mortal remains before Torsten’s crew.

  In the distance several spots on the wall still glowed red-hot where beam weapons had missed their mark and impacted.

  As Torsten’s crew advanced down the narrow hallway, reports filtered in to Torsten’s mind from the suits each man wore. The self-healing nano material covering their suits was indeed repairing some of the damage dealt by the Titan. Torsten looked back to see Ragnald’s form, visible when his optical camouflage had gone down, blur back to wavy light indistinguishable from the background save for his outline in friendly vision.

  At the end of the hallway there was a heavy door that had been cut through with some type of force field weapon. The edges of the panel cut out of the door showed where they had momentarily flowed like liquid before solidifying again. Beyond that, an active firefight played itself out on the bridge of the UN battle station. The map predicted by Vidar hadn’t been exact, but it had been very close.

  Gray men and bronze knights took cover amidst banks of computers and command thrones, moving to flank one another and exchanging fire from beam weapons and hard round throwers. None paused to notice Torsten standing in the doorway leading into the large, open room.

  A series of explosions rippled through the command center of the battle station, destroying bronze knight and gray men alike. A human voice roaring above the mayhem sounded, drawing the attention of all to it. A familiar voice at that.

  “Mordechai! You coward! You dare not face the God of War in person!” Anhur shouted as he stepped into the fray. He was clad in thick plates of golden armor. It seemed to glow with some strange energy barely contained within. He was covered head to toe in the battle suit, but it was unmistakably him. His voice and gait gave him away. Fists clutched a huge rifle that fired dark beams of energy, obliterating all in their path. A custom UN variation of captured Veldt tech and the fabled antimatter rifle, Torsten suspected.

  Bolt after bolt leapt from the barrel of the weapon, never missing their mark amidst the gray men. Everything hit by the dark energy was destroyed. They returned fire on the War God, but their weapons were powerless to penetrate his armor. He laughed with contempt as he waded among them, destroying them with his bare hands as the fancy struck him.

  The golden figure was outlined in thick red lines in Torsten’s vision, clearly identified as a serious threat. Torsten’s suit failed to identify what type of unit it was he looked upon, but suggested data streams including heavy combat vehicles popped up. Perhaps Anhur had a few tricks left up his sleeve.

  Finally seeing his enemy in person, thoughts unclouded by the corruption of alien implants that lied to him and told him he was in the presence of a God to be obeyed at all costs, Torsten clenched his fists, ready to attack and destroy. Patience, he reminded himself. Anhur isn’t going anywhere. Let him expend his ammunition and tire himself out.

  Then kill him.

  The attack of the gray men faltered before Anhur’s onslaught. Within moments of joining the fight, he had reduced their number by half. As his laugh echoed across the bridge a strange crushing sound overcame it.

  Threat warnings blazed and Torsten’s crew leapt from the hallway into the command center as the ceiling was ripped open in several places and gray men began raining down into the chamber. Why would there only have been the one boarding party? Torsten thought for a second before the position just abandoned by his men was washed with some burning liquid that coated it in flames. No threat to armor, but more than hot enough to cook the men inside of it.

  Sensors showed him the hulking mangled shape of the four-armed Titan tearing its way down the narrow hallway towards them and spewing flames ahead of itself as it did so. Not destroyed then. Somehow it had reactivated itself and come after them. He should have finished the monster off when he had the chance. There was no waiting out the fight now. It had come to them, a mirror of the historical conflict involving the three factions now locked in battle once more.

  Apprehension turned to a moment of shock as the gray men leaping onto the bridge from above were jo
ined by the armored mass of another Titan. Anhur laughed in delight as he drew his weapon once more and began firing into the newcomers to the battle. The bronze knights redoubled their fire, concentrating on the falling Titan unit.

  The world shook as it hit the floor, sending several gray men and bronze knights to the ground and threatening to do the same to Torsten and his crew. The amount of fire it took from the bronze knights that remained on their feet seemed to Torsten to surely be enough to destroy it. It rose from where it had landed, unfazed by the storm of beams and hard rounds that tore at it. Another variation more advanced than the first they had battled.

  The Titan roared in a voice to challenge Anhur’s in sheer volume and anger, shaking loose fittings throughout the large chamber. A fraction of a second later it raised its right arm revealing that from the elbow down it had been replaced with a huge automatic cannon sporting multiple barrels. The cannon roared to life and Torsten’s crew threw themselves flat as the storm of explosive rounds turned everything in its path to scrap.

  Bronze knights burst into fragments and fell to the ground in slow motion as Torsten scrambled to find a position to return fire on the Titan. Proximity warnings sounded all around him and he tried to ignore them, drawing a bead on his target. Too late, his shot was obscured and a fraction of a second later the hand of a gray man slapped his rifle down and then punched him in the face.

  He reeled backwards, almost falling and throwing an off-balance side kick that sent the gray man crashing away from him. Fire erupted from his crew, shredding a path through the scores of gray men pouring down onto them from above and returning fire.

  Hard rounds glanced off of Torsten’s armor as he lifted his rifle again, firing single shots at individual targets as he moved through the sea of confusion around him. His men moved to follow his orders and they remained in formation as they cut a bloody swath around them.

  A single round fired from Torsten’s assault carbine shattered the chest of a gray man. A storm of fragmented armor and pulped flesh sprayed back from the dead man as he fell. Each round he fired had a similar effect. Each round fired by every man of his crew had a similar effect as well. A slow motion display of death and dismemberment. Those catamites back east would love this, he thought as he remembered his earlier thoughts. Then he realized all of those catamites back east were dead.

  Another jet of flames erupted from the hallway. As the fire cleared the opening onto the bridge, three huge armored fists gripped the edges of the doorway. The sound of the father of all hunks of metal being ripped in half filled the air as the damaged Titan unit pulled itself into the command center.

  Wordless screams filled the air as Anhur roared. The damaged Titan raised its voice to challenge his and then stopped as Ed’s hammer slammed into its face.

  The Titan’s jaw fell from its face in dozens of pieces and it tried to take a step back, being stopped by the bulkhead above the doorway. Torsten’s crew descended on it with blades drawn. There would be no unfinished business this time.

  Fists flew and blurred, venting rage on the insects around them. Blades sung as they cut the air and screeched and shrieked as they cut armor. The dome of the universe rang as Torsten barely slipped a massive punch from the Titan and took a glancing blow to the head. Stars cleared to show his blade being stabbed down into the monster’s armored chest with both hands. A burst of hard rounds stitched across his back and warning signs showed no damage, but the potential threat of damage if further rounds hit home.

  It dawned on him that the gray men could see him now. Perhaps it had to do with the Titan unit being able to see him and relaying his location to the others. They would find out when the Titan lay in pieces. A beam sizzled past his head, leaving a visible trace in the air as it produced plasma with its passing.

  Torsten looked to see where the shot had come from and saw Anhur closing ranks with the other Titan unit, firing as he advanced then finally dropping his rifle and drawing a huge glowing blade as the two came to grips. Part of him hoped the Titan ripped the War God to pieces. Most of him wanted the War God for himself.

  Back to more important things, as another beam round sizzled by his head. He drew his pistol and fired a single shot, slagging the gray man that had fired at him. A hammer blow slammed into his back and he tumbled end over end once more, courtesy of the mangled Titan unit. Hard rounds followed his form through the air. Torsten couldn’t help but think that the gray men would be far more of a threat if they were a better shot.

  On his feet once more and closing on the Titan, now being swarmed by four more swords and a very large hammer. A blow brought the beast to its knees and Torsten stabbed deep into the coils of wire and synthetic muscle fibers in its neck. A high pitched whine sounded from the mangled remains of its mouth.

  A blade rose towards Torsten, impossibly slow as he watched through his optical sensors. There, in the blade he could see his own reflection. Dark silver armor with the featureless faceplate looked back at him. The optical camouflage had failed, likely damaged by the last blow from the Titan. Something else moved fast, coming in behind him in an arc that would take it just over his head.

  Ed’s hammer slammed into the Titan’s blade before it could take Torsten’s head off, shattering it into millions of tiny pieces. Swords repeatedly stabbed into the armored beast. Torsten flowed like water around the Titan, moving with unmatched speed. A series of precise cuts opened the remains of the backplate of the monster and a final stab with his sword pierced its now exposed brain casing. The entire structure of the Titan went limp and stopped moving. This time it actually was dead.

  The hail of fire from the gray men towards most of Torsten’s crew ceased as the Titan died. However it had been sensing them, it could no longer relay their positions to its minions. Torsten wasn’t so lucky, as his optical camouflage had ceased working and he could still be seen. Hard rounds pinged off of his armor as he withdrew his blade from the dead Titan’s brain.

  Torsten sheathed his sword and returned to his rifle. His tactical rig crossing his chest reported that only two spare magazines remained. Some had been lost in his fight with the Titan. Likely dropped and gone for the moment. Ammunition was in short supply.

  The din of battle was pierced with an almighty cracking noise. Every head turned towards it to see the source. Anhur stood triumphantly over the prone form of the Titan, having just ripped its brain casing from its chest and holding it aloft like a war trophy.

  The War God dropped the brain casing and smashed it under his foot, pulping the mixture of brain and electronics housed within. Without missing a beat he tore into the nearest gray men, striking them down with his long blade. Beams and hard rounds tore at his armor, seemingly to no ill effect.

  With the Titan’s both fallen, victory seemed to have been denied to the Coalition despite the huge advantage still held in numbers by the gray men. Torsten shoved a gray man out of his way, sending it flying end over end into the distance as he ran towards Anhur. Let the bronze knights and gay men slaughter one another. His fight was with Anhur.

  Torsten turned on the external speakers housed in his helmet before shouting his challenge to the War God.

  “Anhur! Face me!”

  The War God froze in mid strike, hearing the voice. He turned to Torsten, seeming to see the man for the first time since the fight had begun.

  Anhur locked his gaze on Torsten and the rage was clear in his voice.

  “Traitor!” He roared, his voice echoing throughout the command center. The implication that he thought Torsten had gone over to Mordechai was clear. If only he could know the truth before he died, Torsten thought. The sword fell from Anhur’s hands as a gray man grabbed at Torsten’s rifle.

  Torsten shoved the gray man out of the way, losing his grip on his rifle. The weapon sailed away with his enemy.

  Suddenly in the raging chaos of battle the two warriors found themselves facing one another in a bubble of absolute calm. Hard rounds and beams seemed to be driven a
way from them altogether as if by some divine hand as they glared into one another’s eyes. Not even the universe would dare ruin this moment, its hand driving away the two battling sides from between them.

  Torsten’s order to stand down reached his crew just in time to prevent them from unleashing what remained of their ammunition on the War God. It was just the two of them breathing slowly and moving for advantage in the coming battle.

  Torsten’s rifle was gone and his sword sheathed. Anhur’s sword was useless at his feet, and his rifle was slung just slightly out of easy reach. Both men’s hands fell for their sidearms.

  Time slowed to a crawl and both moved to draw and shoot before the other could. Torsten watched everything flowing in slow motion, willing himself to move faster. Threat signals blazed across his vision, highlighting Anhur and the weapon he reached for. A Veldt issue heat lance pistol. The same weapon Torsten reached for, likely taken as a war prize at some point. Despite its compact size and limited range, it would easily punch a hole through Torsten’s armor and vaporize anything that lay beneath.

  His fingers closed on the grip of his pistol, feeling too slow and clumsy, almost missing the mark. Anhur’s hand closed on his pistol just before Torsten’s and the War God began drawing his weapon. Time froze for an instant and the same storm of predicted trajectories Torsten had seen against the Titan’s cannon filled the air, clouding it with numbers and calculations. The most likely outcome of the exchange of shots was that Anhur would shoot Torsten in the face, killing him outright, and that Torsten’s shot would go wide right, having no effect.

  Without thought, the muscles in the side of Torsten’s neck began clenching, the motion amplified by his suit, moving his head. His arm moved of its own accord. Torsten saw Anhur raise his pistol like lightning and he found himself looking directly down the barrel of the weapon.

  Something burst from the side of Anhur’s head. A cloud of molten metal, ashed flesh, and vaporized vital fluids. Half of the War God’s head disappeared in the growing cloud and the heat lance pistol fell from his hands without firing, clattering on the deck of the command center.