Königstiger: Odin's Warriors - Book 3

by Aeryn Leigh

  Merrion cleared his throat. "There is no easy way in, however some parts are – easier – than others." He tapped the western shoreline. "As we previously discussed, this is our best bet. If we can take this fortification quickly, and strike west, we could with our new weaponry sever the mainland in two, if we still intend on using the poison gas?"

  The general looked up at Brutowsky, whose expression did not change. "Yes, I am, Lieutenant Colonel."

  Under Commander Lucius James Junior's command, when they were half a day away from the Inka's west coastline, the Republic Air Force would launch the six Gruder Mark IV's, converted into seaplanes under Daniel's engineering team, and split into two flights, all carrying extra fuel tanks, basically as much fuel as they could carry.

  A one-way trip, a long-range strike. Attack, then land the air planes off the coast, and pray nothing came for them in the time it took the armada to reach the rendezvous point, and refuel.

  One flight would drop poison gas on the naval emplacements, anchored fleets and the main barracks and airfield. The second flight, would fly to the southern-end of the island, and eliminate the smaller airfield and barracks. With any luck, the RAF could disable Inquisition air, land and seapower, long enough to establish foothold.

  All three of them knew that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Yet fortune favours the brave. General Versetti clasped her hands together, and pursed her lips. Even without luck, she wasn't intending it to be a battle. All she wanted, was pure slaughter.

  "But we will not do that, Merrion. I refuse to fight a war on two fronts. What we will do, is use the air delivered poison gas to take and hold their main port, whilst the second flight attacks the nearby army barracks and airforce and renders their northern forces dead."

  Merrion took in a breath, but didn't speak.

  "Starting from the northernmost tip of their mainland, from their industrial harbour and oil refineries, we are going to methodically roll south, killing everything we meet, until we arrive at the main gate. Your mission however, remains the same."

  With Merrion's diversionary attacks planned for that same morning, on the other side of the island, they held enough poison to wipe out the entire Inka capital city. Their main wall, their Great Wall, with the huge Gate of God standing proud in the middle, surrounded by cliffs and mountains, that peninsular tip of the island would be their undoing. Their tomb wall, a bucket to pour full of gas.

  She only wished, that she could be there in person to watch the Emperor choke on his own disintegrating lungs.

  "Dismissed, Merrion Blackheart."

  Chapter Eighteen

  LAURIE’S PLAN

  HELLSBAENE BOBBED UP AND DOWN, the Viking fleet a short distance from the forbidding, towering shoreline of the mountain. A light drizzle fell, that annoying type of rain where you wished it would either just get on with it and rain proper, or just bugger off completely.

  The Viking longships formed the defensive quarter-circle, Hellsbaene and the Oslo right in the middle. "Fine day for flying," said Mick, leaning out over the port side, staring at the little green pieces of seaweed floating past. Boredom. Sheer boredom. They had reached the spot almost a full day go, and with it the arrival of heavy storms, and following Ella's advice to not drop anchor, it had been a long night of manning the oars, maintaining their rough position in proximity to the towering cliff face.

  By morning the storm cleared, the bulk of it anyway, the heavy swells easing, but the misty rain still fell, heavy fog and cloud reducing visibility. But even with the bad weather, they can all still see the thousand-foot-plus high cliff in breaks from the cloud, the mountain either side swarming with a million seabirds, yet none squawked or even for that matter flew over the exposed bit of rock jutting overhead.

  Griffin munched another piece of dried beef, his second-last bit of jerky in fact, withholding it for a special occasion. The other piece he wanted to give to Rob. Griffin picked his way around Andrew gesticulating wildly about all the wonderful marine birds, past Magnus lamenting the loss of high octane aviation fuel, around Beowulf consoling Magnus and promising his friend and kin that one day the mighty beasts would roar again, over half a dozen snoring Vikings, completely dead asleep from their all night rowing and a morning skinful of fermented coconuts, till he joined Laurie at the dragon head prow, and put one hand on the waterskin-covered twin .50s.

  Laurie lowered his telescope, and passed it to his friend. "Think you have better eyes than me mate. Would do you see?"

  Griffin wedged himself between the machine-gun support brace and wrapped his left arm around the hardwood dragon, and now supported, lifted the brass telescope, putting the eyepiece close to his left eye, and then telescoped the old brass tube outwards. Griffin concentrated. Birds, birds, and more birds. Clouds and birds, he thought. He traversed the telescope slightly, found the jutting outcrop, and the lack of white seagulls. A gap in the clouds.

  There was the landing pad all right. Just above it, the short, reasonably flat bit of mountain before it once again took a precipitous incline straight up, and at the base of it the wreckage of the Cat. The Catalina they'd spent so long making from scratch, powered by two engines from Damage Inc., sat mangled and destroyed.

  He lowered telescope, handed it back to Laurie. "I think we’re quite mad."

  "Yeah, it's pretty bonkers. I can't think of another way to get them out. I know we all have been trying to come up with alternate plans, mate. That's the only way we're getting up a thousand feet of sheer rock." His eyes fell upon the captured Inquisition seaplane. "You have tripled checked the rope?" His gaze now fell upon Spanish galleon. Twelve hundred feet of rope spliced by the new Inka – wait, his – marine battalion.

  "Yes," said Griffin.

  There was a brief explosion of sound, of movement, as in the clearing mists the entire population flock of seabirds lifted off, heading away from the mountain, the millions of wings flapping overhead, right over them, heading straight out into open ocean.

  "Wondered what startled them," said Andrew.

  By the time it took the mists to clear, and the odd couple hundred thousand tufts of small white feathers to settle down over them and the entire ocean surface, Laurie's plan was underway. Twelve hundred feet of rope sat coiled in the Oslo, wrapped around an empty, large barrel of fuel. Nailed on each end, to much larger flat, circular wheels. Laurie unhitched the rope connecting the Oslo and the seaplane, and Hellsbaene and the longships backed off slowly with a few dozen strokes from their oars.

  Laurie shuffled sideways along the port pontoon, and for the third time since they captured it, Laurie ran through the start-up procedures. He climbed up the side of the fuselage, and squeezed his frame into the cockpit. The motor hiccupped, once, twice, then burst into life. He could just imagine Magnus's sour face. The fuel powering the seaplane was nowhere near high enough quality to power each high-performance Merlin V12.

  He reached up onto the top biplane wing, and started pulling down the makeshift pillows, stuffing them in around himself, his torso, anywhere that wouldn't get in the way. One big pillow still remained strapped, right at the centre top wing.

  Must be fucking mad.

  He opened the throttle. The Supermarine copy accelerated, and Laurie aimed the nose at a point on the horizon parallel to the mountain shoreline. When he cleared the last longship, he pushed the throttle to maximum. He quickly turned his head back, saw the rope semi-taut, and spiralling from the impromptu cable housing.

  The seaplane rode the bottom of a swell, and then on the next up swelling wave, leapt into the air. Laurie immediately banked to the left, climbing as hard as he dared, swinging around as the drag from the rope began to show, with every foot gained. Laurie kept the plane in a upward corkscrew, tight as he dared, spiralling up and up and up, using the half circle of ships below as a guide, and climbed up and up, and then he reached the height required, all that was necessary to achieve his goal.

  Crash the seaplane right onto that piec
e of open ground where the wreckage of the Catalina lay. Hopefully, survive the landing, secure the rope to the wreckage, and then find Ella and Rob, and then shimmy on down that rope, to the awaiting fleet below.

  The airframe shuddered, the strain of lifting eight hundred odd feet of rope starting to show. Come on girl, just a little bit more. Just a little bit more. Nine-hundred feet. Just one more full banking circle and he'd have enough height. He could just see the wreckage and the tunnel beyond the landing pad on his right as he started the final banking turn.

  A savage yank, and the whole plane shuddered, and his airspeed dropped towards stall. Three quarters of the way through the turn, Laurie willed more power out of the struggling engine. Just a bit more. Just a little bit more. He reached up with his right hand and grabbed the last pillow, and as the airspeed washed off the airframe and the nose of the aircraft lined up with the small area of ground Laurie shoved the control strip stick back to centre and pulled down the pillow in front of him and kissed his arse goodbye.

  An horrendous jolt. The sensation of his brains being splattered out through his eyeballs, forcing them open. Something had gone wrong with the spool. The seaplane wouldn't make the little rocky strip, but instead was aiming right at the open smooth ground of the landing strip and tunnel.

  With a horrible wrenching sound, he struck landing pad at a 45° angle, and skipped straight for the tunnel entrance, the wings shearing off either side as they smacked into the tunnel and then he skittered like skipping stone across a lake into the black depths.

  Laurie had no idea how long he travelled up the black tunnel, not knowing whither his eyes were shut or open because it made absolutely no difference, bar from the after-shocks as after flashes since at some point the engine separated, in flames, but he knew they were going up a slight incline, that was about it.

  When forty-two lifetimes passed him by, the wreckage of the seaplane came to arrest, Laurie recognised he still had control of all his digits and toes.

  There was a moment of perfect stillness.

  Then he began to slide backwards. The feeling as if he sat upon a million ball bearings. The air on his face intensified, as the cockpit section which he still sat began to rotate, then scraping noises as bits of wood and metal struck the tunnel wall, doing nothing to stop the slide back out. Laurie threw out the pillows around him, nothing more sacks of coconut husks and rough fibres, and did his best to get out of the cockpit, standing up, praying the tunnel was high enough that he wouldn't crack his noggin wide open.

  A dim light. From around the bend, the light increased, Laurie hastily removing himself from the cockpit. Bits of debris, the burning engine, alight pools of liquid fuel, all disappeared around the bend, flowing downhill like water. Laurie jumped off the fuselage, and landed on the cool, smooth floor.

  And immediately shit himself. The floor was as smooth as a baby’s arse, slippery as all hell. Friction? Absolutely no friction whatsoever.

  Laurie spun his legs wildly, trying to use his feet to get to the side wall of the tunnel, and accomplished nothing but slipping over and landing on his butt. His heart pounded. Think, you old bastard, think. He used his legs, pushed off against the side of the seaplane fuselage, and succeeded in cracking his head against the tunnel wall, so great was the acceleration in such a small distance.

  Blinding sheets of pain, his vision now woozy. Jesus Viking Christ.

  They rounded the bend, and hundred yards away, the tunnel ended, opening out onto the wide landing circle, and he could only stare horrified as small bits of aircraft wreckage sailed straight over the edge like some bloody waterfall.

  In clearer light he could see the tunnel walls and now the floor etched in that swirling pattern of Celtic knots he'd seen that day they fought the metal giant on their way to the stronghold. Shit. He tried sticking his hands on the wall, palms down, trying to use surface friction to stop his momentum, and that too failed.

  The burning engine disappeared over the edge. The rope however, some part of his brain rationally thought, lay still attached to the tail section of the aircraft. My plan would have worked.

  Sixty yards from the edge. Laurie laid on his back, suddenly at rest. So, today's the day you die. Well, he thought, there are worse ways to go. He stretched out, and did something that he forever longed to do in snow, a starfish angel. He waved his arms and legs.

  Thirty yards. He passed underneath the lip of the tunnel. A section of the tunnel roof seemed a little bit different colour to the rest of the tunnel, as if something had recently damaged it, and been repaired. Nice, he thought. He used the fuselage wreckage and pushed and pulled himself along, used it like a kick board, scooting along the frictionless surface until his momentum stopped, the last foreign thing in the tunnel. He put his hands on his rough, leather trousers, hoisted himself into a sitting position, a tripod between his butt and his two feet, stable enough platform to meet his death. Sitting upright, and in control, the landing pad was huge, he noticed. As wide as the Lanc's wing. Odd pieces of white feathers landed upon the surface next to him, and they also floated with him to the precipice.

  Ten yards. Christ. This was a complete joke. And Laurie went over.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WETWORKS

  PANDEMONIUM REIGNED inside the alien ship. A siren sounded inside the ship that would not stop, enough to make your ears bleed. The interior walls glowed pulsating shades of blue, raining radiating out from spirals, mesmerising and quite hypnotic if the ship wasn't the scene of current chaos.

  One child, two adults, three horses, and a pack of furry animals, all ran, bumped, yelled, barked, neighed, screamed, bounced up and down – no surprises as to which one that was – and a very small spiky alien, tried to find safety and somewhere or something to hang onto as the ship's acceleration made standing a little difficult. Grey snaking harnesses shot out from the walls, trying to secure its cargo, but the lifeforms on board refused to cooperate.

  Marietta yelled at Volfango, the general trying to settle her warcharger. Volfango yelled at Amelia, both of his hands full with the other two warchargers, prancing up and down. And Amelia tried to herd the eight dogs, having the absolute time of their lives. And all the while, the little black creature in her left hand quivered in fear.

  Marietta at last managed to lead her horse to the starboard wall, where a set of grey snakes, sans their heads, rose out from some part deep inside the wall and secured the panting charger. She ducked another snake heading to secure her. Pivoting on her left foot, she had a momentary grin of triumph before she failed to see another grey snake wrap itself around her torso, pinning her against the wall, the wall seemingly moulding itself to the contours of her body. "Volfango," she yelled. "The wall. The wall."

  Volfango was already on it, pushing the excited horses sideways, gently nudging them, and then the two horses and himself were secured.

  The dogs ran back and forth down the centre of the cargo space,

  Amelia waved, then disappeared through the forward doorway, taking the pack of animals with her, and the door shut with a loud hiss. Marietta and Volfango stared at each other from opposite sides of the cargo area. Marietta's heart felt fit to burst. She willed herself to slow her breathing, as she felt gravity fighting against her skin, yet somehow losing, and with her slightly calmer heart, moved her head left and right in the few degrees of movement the harness allowed.

  The cargo area could have swallowed Hellsbaene.

  And then she saw it. By reflex she swallowed. In all the panic and confusion, trying to fight gravity and stay upright and secure the animals, she mistook the two enormous black vertical columns as some kind of a support. The same colour as the ship's side, a translucent, shimmering combination of gunmetal grey, and intricate glowing blue spirals, Volfango stood between a pair of giant’s legs, sitting against the wall, its knees either side of the head. Marietta had seen a great many weapons of war in her time, the museum in Fairholm showcasing a rather eclectic assortment of weapon
s and armour and other peculiarities of all the warriors taken from earth, yet this, like the ship, screamed just but one thing – death.

  Amelia ran up the forward hatch way, her tongue stuck out between her lips, slightly cold upwards, concentrating hard. The gunship was not happy. It wanted to enact elimination protocols. Small gun turrets dropped from the ceiling, no bigger than a size of a grapefruit, tracking her left hand as she raced past. She entered the cockpit area, and Amelia stopped in her tracks.

  Stars. All the stars.

  In the forward cockpit windows, through wisps of clouds and what remained of the bluish tinge of atmosphere, all gave way to inky black and stars. Three seats. One in the middle, the pilot. On its left the copilots seat. The other side, the tactical gunners position. All the information scrolled through her head, her mind, Amelia instantly knowing everything and anything.

  But not that she understood all of it, or even most of it. She felt dizzy.

  Amelia went to take a step forward when a much bigger turret descended from the roof, it's quad barrel spinning up. Aiming not at the alien this time, but right at her head. A projection of blue light emanated from the ceiling, enveloping Amelia in dancing swirls of blue.

  The ship's intelligence spoke in her mind. Valkyrie-kin, Queen of the Valkjurs, Daughter of Odin, welcome. Dispense with the enemy now, no more intelligence can be gained from it.