by Per Holbo
Chapter 3: Fyrkat
The console of the escape pod still didn´t work exactly as it should, but with a bit of luck Thor had managed to push the heating shield on the front aside using his hands. Then at least they were able to see where they were going. Even better, to Thor´s big surprise, there wasn´t anything wrong with the engine either. The problem had been much simpler and easier to fix than he´d expected. The conduits between the engine and the energy crystals had been damaged in the rough landing and it had proven to be rather easy to reconnect them.
The pod couldn´t fly as both navigation and controls were still off line, but they had full power and full control over the horizontal steering and should be able to reach the fjord leading in to the country close to Fyrkat within a few hours. Hopefully they would make it in time to disconnect the crystals and the console from the device before the Yetten gained control of the fortress and started ripping the whole site apart to steal the new technology.
The pod sailed in a manner similar to an old fashioned semi submarine its top being some few centimeters above water and the rest of the pod submerged. This way Thor could easily observe how the bottom of the ocean raised up as they approached the coast and found the fjord. He poked Loki, who opened his eyes and sat up.
“Are we there yet?” he uttered in a slightly confused voice while rubbing his eyes. He barely remembered how they got into the pod in the first place and he certainly couldn´t remember walking to it. Maybe Thor had carried him there?
“Almost there,” Thor answered, “We’ve reached the fjord and are about to begin sailing in through the entrance. I need your help steering through the more narrow turns. I would hate to be grounded somewhere this close to our destination.”
Loki got up from his seat and placed himself in the front of the pod and Thor instructed him how to keep an eye on the ocean bottom at his left and inform Thor if they came too close to obstacles. It proved to be a good call. No more than a few minutes later they had to turn sharply to the right and then right away an equally sharp turn to the left. They barely avoided being grounded and even heard scraping along the hull as they continued inward through the fjord. The next curve went sharp right, but it wasn´t too difficult getting around. After that they sailed straight ahead for a long while, then a sharp left turn, even more sharp to the right and after a few turns to each side they finally reached the inner third of the fjord. The rest of the journey was like a walk in the park.
Fifteen minutes later the pod crept quietly to the bottom of the fjord and landed on the southern beach. There were no people there, which was what they´d hoped. The last thing they needed was for someone to notice them resulting in hordes of curious villagers bringing their presence to the attention of potential Yetten troops in the vicinity. After all, their “boat” wasn´t exactly of indigenous design and if any of the locals saw it, they would not be able to avoid being detected.
Exiting the pod they were met by a refreshing breeze. Even though the pod did have a rather effective internal environmental system, it couldn´t reproduce the feeling of actually being outdoors.
They attached a rope to the pod, tied it around a nearby tree and pulled in the pod. Although the pod was heavy, they managed to drag it out of the water and hid it beneath some trees that were turned over by a recent storm. Finally they grabbed their backpacks packing them with some items they might need and began their journey inwards in the direction of the Fyrkat fortress.
Not long after reaching the edge of the forest, Thor looked at the radiation meter which showed such high levels, that it was clear Fyrkat hadn´t been completely shut down yet. Thor had expected as much, but he was still quite concerned.
“These levels are way higher than they are supposed to be,” he explained, “even the ordinary procedure of cooling down can´t explain it.“ He looked puzzled. “In fact,” he mumbled, “the only explanation I can really give is that someone tampered with the console at Fyrkat, but...” That was when a terrible thought struck them both at the same time! They looked at each other with a frightened expression on their faces and it was clear to them both what was going on.
“The Yetten!” they burst out and picked up the pace. They didn´t run because they had to conserve some of their energy. If the Yetten had actually taken control, they would need their strength to make an insurgent attack to obtain the valuable pieces of the Fyrkat device. It wouldn´t do much good getting there quickly, if they didn´t have the strength to fight. So, they went as quickly as they could, without depriving themselves of being able to talk on the way.
Loki wondered about something and now felt it was time to ask.
“Thor?”
“Hmmm...” Thor mumbled preoccupied.
“What would happen, if the Yetten did get hold of the Fyrkat device?” Loki continued breathlessly as they were going up a strong hill. Thor still had his focus on the radiation meter and didn´t look at Loki, but almost ran undauntedly downhill and continued down the path that would bring them to the Fyrkat fortress. Loki kept up as best he could, waiting patiently for an answer. Up till now he hadn´t cared much about what the Fyrkat device was and what it could do. He hadn´t felt the urge to know or even deemed it important to know. Being a warrior, he seldom found it necessary to know why different kinds of technology was important and to him, it was more than sufficient to just know, that it was important and that it should be kept away from the Yetten forces at all cost. Likewise all he needed to know was the purpose of his mission on Earth: to keep Thor and his team of scientists safe during the testing of the Fyrkat device. But now the situation had changed. Right now they were on their way to the Fyrkat fortress to dismantle the device and obtain the console and the energy crystals. As a strategic expert and soldier he found it important to know more. He had to work out some kind of plan to give them the best chance of success. To do this he had to get some idea of what could potentially happen out there.
“Well,” Thor began, “basically the Fyrkat device is nothing more than an expanded version of our transportation system.”
“But,” Loki replied in a puzzled voice, “the Yetten already have a similar transportation system.”
Thor continued undauntedly down the path while trying to explain the details.
“Yes, they do,” he said, “and in many ways their system is like ours. That is the basic problem. The Fyrkat device massively increases the range of transportation. Our current transportation system has a very precisely defined limit to its range based on the laws of astro physics, but the Fyrkat device should, in theory, be able to transport all kinds of material any distance as long as there is power enough. And since the Yetten transportation system resembles our own, there is no reason to believe, they can´t make it work with their own technology.”
Loki let the information sink it while trying to figure out the consequences of such an outcome. Unlimited transport distance? So, anyone with an understanding of that device would be able to transport anyone to any place in the galaxy? Maybe even to other galaxies? Even with his vast experience, Loki was chocked. If the Yetten were ever to get this kind of technology, they would be able to attack anyone everywhere at any time! Their only limit would be set by the amount of energy they could get hold on, but with access to this many planets and solo systems, that wouldn´t be any problem either. They could harvest energy from stars, black holes, nebulas and who knew which other energy sources were out there in the vast emptiness of space that neither the Yetten, nor the Aseir had come across yet? And even worse: the time it would take for the Yetten to obtain the needed energy would be short. Most of the solo systems in the Milky Way alone were uninhabited and the few that were occupied by sentient beings were mostly so technologically disadvantaged compared to the Yetten that they wouldn´t stand a chance at defending themselves. Alone the fact that no more than 2 out of 100 civilizations had the knowledge and means to send spaceships to even their nearest neighboring planet, meant that the Yetten would meet virtually no res
istance at all. Furthermore, Yetten history showed without a doubt that they would have absolutely no problem using that advantage. It was simply a defining part of their culture to subdue other races making them slaves and when the Aseir had first encountered the Yetten more than ten thousand years ago, it became clear almost instantly that negotiating was no viable option. At that point, the Aseir Counsel approved Overseer Odin´s suggestion to make the stand against Yetten expansion their number one priority.
The strategy had been to send in small fighter units hit and run missions in an effort to inflict the Yetten infrastructure and supply lines as much as possible and it had proven rather effective. It was on one of these missions, Odin met Loki. As a young Yetten warrior, Loki was not comfortable with the brutality of his race and it bothered him how they treated other races. During a mission in the Vanaheim system, Odin had managed to capture Loki and bring him back to Asgard. It had been the perfect timing for both of them. The Vanes were a peaceful race and even though they were every bit as advanced as the Yetten, they had never done much research in the application of their knowledge to offensive means - or even defensive measures. They simply did not believe it to be necessary. The result was on one hand that the Yetten had no problem defeating the Vanes, but on the other hand the Vanes were still a proud race completely refusing to subdue to Yetten rule. The only respond the Yetten could think of was to increase their brutality, which in turn made the Vanes even more stubborn. It had to be a never ending bad cycle and if the Aseir had not succeeded in pushing back the Yetten forces with a single huge and determined blow, the Vanes would most likely have been utterly wiped out in the end.
As it happened, Loki was posted on Vanaheim and had been increasingly disturbed by what he saw there. The brutal and even arbitrary arresting of Vanes to be interrogated by common soldiers with no goal of obtaining intelligence, but simply being used as a means to terrorize the Vanes, had Loki stretched between his loyalty to his superiors and his own conscience. He was at the brink of falling apart emotionally, when Odin captured him and brought him to Asgard. At first, he was a prisoner of war, but Odin had soon won the trust of Loki and he slowly began to develop a deep sense of sympathy for the tall Aseir. Looking up to Odin and as their relationship moved toward something resembling the relation between a father and his son, Loki revealed an ever increasing number of Yetten secrets to the Aseir council. After some time, Odin even decided to adopt Loki as his son. Not an action the Aseir council were too happy about, but Odin wasn´t a nobody and in time they even had to accept Odin´s decision to let Loki join the ranks of the Aseir military.
It hadn´t been long after Loki had proven the council wrong. His fierce opposition to the Yetten brutality and his strategic abilities had saved quite a few lives; Aseir as well as other races´. With time Loki had become an accepted member of the Aseir community and only a few Aseir still had some concerns about Loki knowing as much as he did, biologically being a Yetten.
All of the sudden Thor stopped and Loki almost ran him over. Further down the path they could see the sad remains of the Fyrkat fortress. Thor sighed at what he saw there. Smoke was reaching up from several places inside of the palisades and the palisades themselves were all but destroyed. But it wasn´t as much the destruction itself that concerned Thor. No, it was more the glowing light coming from the center of Fyrkat. It was a pulsating glow in many colors and it expanded more than 500 meters out from Fyrkat. They both knew this could mean only one thing: someone had activated the Fyrkat device and the Yetten could already have obtained the technology!
Thor and Loki started running toward the fortress. They held their eon rifles in front of themselves ready to shoot their way through if need be. While they were running, the glowing and pulsating light grew up and over the top of the fortress and further upwards. It had the shape of a bubble and expanded around the fortress in all directions.
Oh, no! Thor thought while trying to concentrate on not putting his foot down in the wrong place and find himself tripping on a stub or an elevation on the ground. The only way the bubble can grow this rapidly is if it is trying to establish a stable wormhole to somewhere far away from here.
Loki held his riffle tight with one hand as he signaled Thor with his free hand. He wanted Thor to run clockwise around the fortress to the next gate while he himself would run the other way and try to get to the northern entrance. Thor saw his signal and understood Loki´s plan at once. It really was their luck that they had been on so many missions together in the past. It made it much easier to communicate and Loki wasn´t sure, Thor would get the idea, if they hadn´t known each other as well as they did.
Thor made a few short sideways jumps to the left and was now able to look through a big hole in the palisades. His experience told him that if he had clear vision through that hole, then the potentially battle ready Yetten soldiers on the other side would of course be able to observe him in return and instinctively he jumped flat to the ground. Just in time before hitting the ground and getting himself moved away from a possible clear shot he caught a glimpse of the two figures standing close to the center stone. Tjalfe??? What in the world is he doing here??? And who is standing with him???
To the right from where Thor was now lying flat down in the grass, Loki had managed to get close to the northern entrance and as he had anticipated, this was exactly from where the Yetten had decided to capture the fortress. The obvious advantage of their strategy was the fact that they wouldn´t have to worry about being discovered by local fishermen coming home from work and have to deal with those as well as the Aseir. The southern entrance was too close to the forest, where any potential enemy could easily hide and prepare for an ambush. Of course the Eastern entrance was another viable way to get easy access to the fortress and Loki expected the Yetten would probably try entering through there as well. Coming from the West and being only the two, Loki and Thor wouldn´t have the Eastern option, though. So, the northern entrance was the best option.
Loki had hoped to make it to the northern entrance before the Yetten forces had had a chance to move in through the gate, but apparently they had been inside the fortress for quite some time and had already posted guards at all the gates.
Loki carefully sneaked closer and hid himself beneath a bush from where he had a clear view through the gate. He pressed hard against the ground as best he could in the hope that the Yetten wouldn´t be able to see him in return.
Inside Fyrkat a big Yetten commander screamed orders at his soldiers, who scattered evenly around the center stone in a half circle about 25 meters in radius. A smaller group of about 8 men were busy trying to evacuate injured troops from the area, which had clearly been a battle zone less than an hour ago. Or rather, as Loki thought about it, more likely there had been a major explosion in there.
In the middle of the fortress, close to the center stone, two kids were standing. The energy crystal was lying on the ground in front of the children imbuing its surroundings in pulsating light in all colors of the rainbow. Loki was puzzled. The crystals worked only at the touch of an Aseir. In fact, this had been somewhat of a challenge, when he had joined the ranks of the Aseir military. Most of the Aseir technology had a built-in security based on DNA and because his genetic code didn´t match what this system was searching for, Thor had been working overtime to find a solution granting Loki access to the use of those crystals without granting any other Yetten the same advantage. After months of trial and error, Thor had finally come up with a way and Loki had been injected with a serum changing his genetic code slightly. Not to the extent that his body had changed as such, but just enough to make the crystals accept his touch.
Could the Yetten have found a similar solution? Loki certainly hoped not. It was one of the most important security measures the Aseir used as a means to keep the Yetten from obtaining advanced technology and if they had actually found a way around it, the entire structure of the Aseir security had to be re-thought.
But he had to worry abou
t that later. Right now, the important thing was to get the Fyrkat device as far away from the Yetten as possible - and as Loki rather reluctantly had noted by now, it looked like they had to rescue some stupid human kids as well. Loki turned his focus to the scenario inside of the fortress again and observed as much as he could. From tiny signs at the battle ground Loki´s trained eyes detected and deducted information most other people didn´t even notice and what he found, was rather disturbing. First, Loki noticed foot prints on the two main paths crossing each other inside of the fortress. The size of these prints was a dead give away: they had to from the big Yetten army boots, he despised from the minute he joined the academy and till he was a P.O.W. However, it wasn´t likely they´d deserted the place to recapture it later. It wasn´t their battle style. On the other hand, there weren´t any corpses inside the fortress. The only reasonable explanation, Loki could think of was that they´d taken control of the Fyrkat fortress a few minutes before Svalinn crashed and when Thor managed to shut down the Fyrkat device, the resulting explosion had sent such a forceful blast of radiation that the initial Yetten troops had been killed instantly. This would explain, why there were corpses on the ground, as the heavy radiation would´ve dissolved most of the organic matter, leaving nothing but dust and ashes. After that, they´d sent in new troops to recapture the fortress and scavenge the technology, they believed to be inside.
If Loki was right about all of this, the situation was much more serious than they had thought at first. The Yetten were definitely skilled warriors, but courage and honor in the Aseir sense of those words weren´t among the Yetten virtues. They´d never have sent in troops as long as there were Aseir troops sufficiently guarding it. A small Aseir fleet had been posted in this solo system just in case, but apart from the council and of course the team of scientists under Thor´s leadership, only a handful of people knew about the scientific mission on The Earth. If the Yetten knew when, where and how to strike, the only reasonable conclusion, Loki could think of, was that the Yetten had infiltrated them. In other words: they had a spy in their midst!
Loki and Thor waited in their respective hiding places observing the Yetten soldiers inside the fortress and preparing themselves for the upcoming battle. They were vastly outnumbered by at least ten to one, but they weren´t too worried about it. The Yetten were indeed a challenge when fighting in space, but in close combat on a planet surface the Aseir were by far the strongest. The Aseir hand weapons and especially their personal shields provided them with a huge advantage. Usually a group of 6-8 Aseir warriors could take on whole platoons of thirty to forty Yetten foot soldiers and even though Loki and Thor were only two against at least 24 men, they still had the advantage of experience and even more importantly the element of surprise. The platoon inside the fortress didn´t look very experienced, with the possible exception of the commander and some of his sub commanders.
The pulsating light had almost reached its maximum and Loki was running out of time. He turned his eyes toward the elevated area where Thor had taken cover and signaled him. The time had come. Thor acknowledged nodding his head and watched Loki closely as he counted down using his fingers. 3.. 2.. 1.. GO!
From each of their locations they jumped up and jolted forward while shooting wildly at their enemies. These tactics worked exactly as they were supposed to. The most inexperienced young Yetten soldiers took cover almost immediately. The two Aseir warriors were able to take down nearly half of the Yetten troops before the commander at the northern entrance regained control of his people by shooting those of them who tried to escape. After that the battle was a more equal fight.
Loki fought his way through the gate and threw himself beneath a car from under which he had a clear view of most of the fortress´s interior. It was the perfect place to work out how to proceed. Thor wasn´t as lucky. He succeeded in defeating the four guards standing by the entrance, but as he went through the gate, he hadn´t noticed a lone Yetten warrior, who had pressed himself flat to the mound wall to the left.
Click!
The sound behind him startled him and he turned around on his heels. The Yetten soldier looked at his weapon with a frightened expression and tried frantically to get it to work. Thor knew instantly how lucky he had been. If that rifle hadn´t malfunctioned there was little doubt Thor would have been killed right there on the spot. The short distance had definitely made it a sure kill if he had been able to fire. Thor reacted swiftly and the Yetten could do next to nothing as the fierce Aseir warrior stormed toward him and with a forceful jolt jabbed a knife deeply into his flesh just beneath his left shoulder blade and punctured his heart. The Yetten fell to the ground with a thump and Thor turned around to face the five Yetten soldiers who had rushed to aid their comrade and now pointed their weapons at Thor.
Loki saw it all from under the car and aimed. Two of them fell to the ground before they knew what hit them, but the remaining three managed to throw themselves flat on the ground. However, they had no time to appreciate their luck, because the moment after Thor made sure they were in no condition to fight.
The noise made the commander aware of what was going on. He burst with orders to his men as he ran toward Thor with his rifle raised shooting wildly at everything that moved. Thor saw it and ran sideways while returning fire. He reached Loki and threw himself under the car. The big Yetten commander ordered his men to storm the car. Thor and Loki quickly crawled out from under the car, turned it over and took cover behind it. Loki popped his head above the edge of the car to get a basic idea of the enemy´s positions and then sat down beside Thor with a disturbed expression on his face.
“Oops,” he said.
“Oops?” Thor responded, “What do you mean? Oops?”
“Erm... well, let´s just say that there are a few more Yetten soldiers than I expected.”
“A few more? How is that? How many more?”
“Look for yourself.”
Thor turned around and lifted his eyes above the edge of the car - not much, just enough to get a head count. His eyes widened at what he saw. From somewhere far away hordes of Yetten soldiers practically flooded through the northern entrance. Thor and Loki weren´t outnumbered ten to one, but more like a hundred to one! The Yetten had sent an entire regiment!
Thor turned around again and sat down with his back to the car.
“So,” he said, “that´s what you call ‘a few more,’ eh?” He looked at his friend with a theatrical resentment.
“It´s the entire Yetten nation out there!” he said in a loud voice.
Loki looked at Thor with a thoughtful expression. Thor looked back at Loki with a similar expression. Then they nodded at each other in a mutual understanding. They may be beaten, but they surely weren´t going to surrender. If this was to be their final hour, they were determined to go down with a bang!
They prepared themselves and hung extra eon grenades in the vertical straps of their uniforms in such a way that they just had to grab a grenade and the pin would be released automatically. That way they would be able to throw quite a few grenades in a very short time. Again they nodded at each other. Ready, set, GO!
Jumping over the car they began their death run against the enemy troops...
Time seemed to slow down the moment they both landed on their feet on the other side of the car. At first Thor fixed his eyes firmly at the approaching Yetten warriors, who´s facial expressions showed rage and blood thirst, but then, for some strange reason, he remembered Tjalfe and his companion in the center of the fortress. Thor turned his head toward them as a blast from a Yetten rifle passed him deadly close to his face, but he didn´t even notice it. He had suddenly realized who was standing beside Tjalfe. It was his little sister, Roeskva and Thor instinctively turned in their direction!
Both children were standing still as statues in front of the center stone looking at the energy crystal and it looked as if they had absolutely no idea what was going on around them. As if they didn´t even sense the hordes of Yetten warrior
s surrounding them. Not even the screaming and the battle noises seemed to bother them in any way.
Most other people would have been rather puzzled at this, but Thor knew exactly what was going on. He knew why they looked like nothing in particular happened around them. He knew, they looked like that, because to them nothing did happen around them.
The bubble of the Fyrkat completely covered those children and as a result the artificial wormhole set them out of both time and space. For the very same reason they looked as if they were standing still, because compared to the time passing for Thor, Loki and the Yetten, they were in fact standing still - or at least they almost were. Time inside of the bubble passed much slower than outside of it.
Despite the fact that this had saved them from the Yetten and still kept them safe, Thor was worried. If he weren´t able to sever the connection between the crystal and the Fyrkat device they might be trapped forever in the time dilated field of the wormhole. Thor didn´t have to think much about it. He knew exactly what to do. Sure, it was dangerous and he had no way of knowing if it would work or if it would rather destroy everything in a 10 kilometer radius, but it was worth the risk. If there was just a remote chance of saving those kids, he would do whatever it took to accomplish it. He grabbed a grenade from his strap and pulled it off of its place. With a perfect school example of a flic-flac he jumped up and over a couple of surprised Yetten soldiers, who had apparently been looking forward to overcome the mighty Aseir warrior in a moment of distraction. In mid air he let go of the grenade and as soon as his feet met contact with the ground beneath him he set off in another jump sending him a meter or so to the side where he threw himself flat on the ground and took cover behind an elevated area. He looked up and observed the grenade flying in a perfect arch over the bubble approaching its center, which was downwards bent and fluctuated with light distortion like a whirl pool. The grenade slipped into the stream and began hurling around the center, slowly entering the bubble itself.
Now there was nothing Thor could do but wait till the grenade reached its target inside the bubble. He took a deep breath and prepared for his inevitable demise at the hands of the Yetten soldiers who were gathering around him from all sides weapons raised and eager to avenge the deaths of their comrades in previous battles. Thor insisted on not closing his eyes and instead he sat up straight and looked them firmly in their eyes. Closer and closer they approached him with hatred and decisiveness. It was clear that they looked forward to this battle and meant to enjoy every moment of the victory over the Aseir warrior that was sure to come...