by Aeryn Leigh
"Interesting constraints," said Andrew. "These sets of power armour are capable of great destruction, let alone that gunship out there. You wouldn't want to give the new operators too much rope to hang themselves by."
"Not at least until they learned to use it," said Rob.
"With great power comes great responsibility," said Andrew.
Marietta snorted. "That is a load of whale crap. What use is great power if you already dead."
They all regarded Beowulf trying to get inside his suit, a set of power armour with two-foot-high bone antlers mounted into the top of the helmet. A great machine-gun was strapped to its back, a wolf pelt on its shoulders.
"Although," said Marietta, "perhaps discretion is the better part of valour." She stuck two fingers in her mouth and again whistled. And again. On the third try the commotion paused long enough for her next words to be clearly heard. "Stand down the lot of you. No one is to get inside one of those things without my command, is that understood? Good."
"Ah," said Ella. "Where is Amelia?"
Griffin shrugged. "I just let her down," he said. "Amelia," he called out.
No response.
Ella fought the rising panic. "Amelia," she shouted. "Come out this instance." A quiet hum filled the air. The throne burst into light, blue spirals glowing within the very stone metal under their feet. The ground began to shake. Small pieces of rock fell from the high vast ceiling, raining pebbles upon heads. Then silence. Ella looked at Griffin then back at Marietta, then lead weight fell from her stomach and into her pit of dread. Golden rainbows of afternoon light streamed through the mural lead lights, onto the throne, and the sound started again. The silver figure moved in its seat, its throne. To a person they all took a step back. The pack of dogs sat on their haunches, tongues lolling.
The steady, slow certainty of a glacier moving, the Queen of Valkyries rose to its feet. Her winged, helmeted head twisted left to right, as if shaking out stiff muscles.
"This can't be physically possible," said Rob in amazement, his voice the only other sound in the room. "The inverse square law should apply." His head, like the others, was craned all the way back just to even see that high.
"Surprise," said the unmistakable, incredibly loud singsong voice of Amelia Gruder. "I've found out how she works!"
Chapter Forty-One
OPEN
AS LONG AS the rest of them would live, the memory of Ella Gruder marching right up to the Valkyrie and yelling at her daughter, using one crutch to whack against its armoured shin plate, one long stream of incomprehensible German, and then Amelia hefted the massive weapon up and against one hip, and bending over, picked her mother up in one free hand, lifting her right up to the level of the helmet wings, palm outstretched flat. And by doing so, unleashed a stream of invective from Ella that would make German sailors blush.
Such a sight would live eternal.
The suns were setting low on the horizon as the last of the weapon crates were brought out onto the landing pad. They were stacked neatly to one side, next to the unused suits. Ella had got back inside Painkiller and fireman-lifted each suit off the sled, one sensor suite always trained on Amelia, sulking in the hoversled’s corner.
On the other side of the landing pad, rested the Queen Valkyrie, collapsed into a kneeling, tuck position, its great weapon between its arms pointing outward, resembling as Laurie observed, the arse end of a wombat. Mick helpfully pointed out that wombats don't have long, serrated, spiky tails, which only set off an argument amongst the Australians. The proportions of the compact Queen Valkjur were an exact fit for the width and shape of the tunnel.
Ella called out for Volfango. "Do not let her out of your sight," she said.
"Understood," said Volfango. He looked up at the impassive face of Painkiller.
"Good," boomed the vocal hailer. "She may help in preparation of getting the gunship ready for flight, but nothing more. Certainly, do not let her anywhere near that," said Ella. The dragonfly appeared by her side, and docked in her forearm. "This training session should not take long."
Laurie, Beowulf, Mick and all the others who'd had a suit open for them hopped up onto the hover sled, including the Inka commander. Incredibly, Mick had dared the former Inquisition Sergeant-Major to touch the remaining Valkjurs, hoping to rub it in, the old my dick is bigger than yours, male ego thing, and one opened. Marietta near went critical before Volfango diplomatically stepped in.
“And Amelia," said Ella, turning down the volume just a little, "I do love you."
She turned the volume up. "Let's do this," she said. The hoversled accelerated back into the dim, blue lit tunnel, and before long arrived back in the ceremonial hall, now empty, stripped of all Nordic data cores and weapons and anything of material value, save for the claimed Valkjurs. The hoversled stopped, and they all got down, their footfalls lost in the massive thud of Painkiller's feet landing on granite.
Ella opened the forward hatch, so that they can all see her face. "The suits do not have much fuel," she said. "But these power armour are now yours. At least you ought to know how to use them. In here," she said, waving her arms around, "you can go a little crazy without damaging the others." She closed her eyes and commanded the hoversled back to the landing pad. "If you can't get the suits to work for you today, that's also fine. It took me a long while to work it out. Beowulf, Magnus, you might have an easier go of it, given the command interface is in old Norse. As for you Laurie, well, with that thing in your ear you should have direct control from the beginning. Now repeat after me. The Nordic word for open is hniga."
BACK AT THE LANDING PAD, Amelia and Volfango walked up the drop ramp, followed by Andrew and Rob. The hulking, drooped form of the hunched armour sat menacingly on the left, and as the four walked by, heading towards the forward hatch, both Andrew and Rob touched it.
"Wishful thinking," said Rob.
"Indeed," replied Andrew.
Amelia started to say something, but stopped. Everything she seemed to do at the moment got her into trouble. They almost reached doorway when Marietta appeared from the other side, with a worried expression on the face.
"There you are," she said. She leaned over putting her hands on her knees, and regarded Amelia. "You can fly this thing, can't you?"
"I guess so," said Amelia.
"Well," replied Marietta, "all of you come with me. I refuse to fly in this ship piloted by only one person, and as much as I care for you Amelia, you are too young for such responsibility." She studied Andrew and Rob. "But you too however, have experience flying in these contraptions. Amelia will teach you how. Lead on, child."
"Okay," said Amelia slowly. A smile came back to her face. She led the way forward, through the bulkhead, along the short corridor, showing off the small rooms that ran off the sides. She pointed out the mess hall, the medical infirmary, the armoury, and led them through another bulkhead into the cockpit area.
"Damn," said Rob, digging underneath the folds of his shirt as the pendant grew hot. He tried removing the pendant at the same time Andrew began hopping up and down on one foot trying to dislodge the burning pendant burning in his right groin, straight through his trouser pocket. Volfango seemed perplexed until Marietta spoke.
"Well," she said, "looks like your hands are red after all." The cockpit burst into life, holographic displays crawling left and right, up and down, and the seats either side of the central pilot position rotated around to meet them.
"So," said Amelia innocently, "which one of you is the copilots and systems officer, and who controls the weapons of this Aries-class gunship?"
Andrew made a dash for the weapon's chair, narrowly beating Rob. "Ha!" His triumph was short lived as nothing happened. Marietta raised one eyebrow. The two men swapped chairs. A hum that almost sounded content filled cockpit space.
"So we just need a pilot," said Marietta.
"And fuel," said Andrew. "Unless we can work out how to recharge this, she isn't going bloody anywhere."
Chapter Forty-Two
GATE OF GOD
THE PRIME KORELLIAN lowered her heavy rifle and considered their latest obstacle. The gleaming, pale white stone wall, more than five times her height, was just under one quarter of a korel thick, according to the weapon’s estimation readout. Made completely from local stone, it was a formidable barrier, even by Korellian standards. But every defence has its flaw, especially if access was required either in or out. She lifted her hereditary weapon, and this time focused her attention on the single, large gate, the only land access into what remained of this Hrothgar accursed territory. Upon each side of the gate, stood more of the huge statues she’d seen back at the mountain fortress. More testament to their folly.
In the two sun cycles upon landing, her assembled ken-korel had swept and cleared and scrubbed clear every taint of the two legged creatures.
Some of the creatures had fled, wailing in pitiful terror, but most had stood their ground and died right there and then, firing until their final breath.
Each of her eight score ken-korel, each with her bone shards safely within each, her protrusion securely scabbed over, had begun a new and raised from birth their own fighting force, using the dead Hrothgar as meat pits for breeding. First at the mountain fortress, then continuing on the primitive, rickety wooden contraptions across the ocean's depths, then now upon landfall.
When they scoured and stripped everything of value from the mountain fortress, one of her ken-korel had chanced upon a small group of Hrothgar survivors bunkered in a small cave. Splitting their flimsy brain cases apart without destroying cortical stem proved interesting, the frail creatures dying before intelligence could be gathered, but on the very final creature a breakthrough. She fractured a portion of skull quick enough to remove it and insert her index finger straight into its hippocampus and the nanofibres on her claw tip interfaced with its memories just long enough before it died.
The image of its homeland. The biggest threat existing on this planet, led by one who called itself God Emperor. Whole armies of Hrothgar, horizon to horizon full of savage, primitive industry. And protected by a huge wall, their capital city, in effect making the Hrothgar penned like fat plaklambs for slaughter. Millions of them.
From such a meat and industrial pit, if she got there in time, one could take war to the gods.
The Prime Korellian withdrew to an inner part of her mind, and used the mind link to communicate with her brood. She became aware of each of them, their thoughts, and visual fields. Every fighting unit dragged two and four wheeled Hrothgar-made carts, laden with those spare crude artillery and gun pieces they were so found of. No guns were left behind, a trifling matter to rip them off supports made from the simplest of alloys.
Other carts carried meat of the enemy dead, useful as breeding fuel and to provide the most basic organic chemical blocks necessary to construct improved explosive compounds.
For when you war with gods, be one.
But time was of the essence. The wild ken-korel, operating on basic primal programming, would be already swarming at will over this planet, following their instinct. To kill, consume, transform the planet's resources and its own mass into a sun-killer, and in the process, immolate themselves. But not before seeding a trillion kinetic kill vehicles with their brethren to all surrounding star systems, and the cycle begun anew.
With their exponential growth before critical intelligence mass, only seven, maybe eight moon cycles remained before this planet died.
Or was allowed to die.
And so, it came down, like all things in the universe, to fundamental basics.
Resources.
Mounted on the backs of the bigger ken-korel, one great long line of cannons welded to creatures fired. The six-legged gun platforms recoiled ever so slightly, and the roar of guns made her twin heart sing as the top fortifications along the wall disappeared in white smoke as they too fired back. Explosive shells rained amongst them and the artillery duel began. Smaller korel rammed iron balls down cannon barrels chasing waxed gunpowder bags, or with the slightly less primitive weapons, opened breaches to remove spent shells and reloaded them.
She absorbed all the firing data and issued new commands, constantly moving her weapon platforms as her hind cerebral-cortex plotted trajectories and gave further azimuth and angle adjustments and the Hrothgar's manning the artillery emplacements on top of the impervious, impenetrable wall were targeted. Gun emplacement by gun emplacement had artillery fire walked to it, blowing it apart and the daemons moved onto the next down the wall.
Lucky shots here and there blew limbs off a few of her ken-korel, but nothing hard enough to put them out of the fight.
Incoming fire slowed to a trickle, then to a halt. Smoke drifted upwind, right past them. She hefted her hereditary rifle, and through the optics sighted a masonry block just a few micro-korels away from the main gate. She thumbed the safety off, selected a medium power setting, and fired. A dazzling lance of white shot from her rifle and bored a perfect circle straight through sixty feet of solid stone and super-heated molten granite exploded in a shock wave that kissed the far horizon. Why destroy a perfectly good gate, when you could just open it from the other side?
Her fresh wave of smaller ken-korel advanced towards the hole, ignoring the sporadic bursts of small weaponry still firing from odd patches of the now-dazed defenders, and so ended the five hundred and thirty-third year of the Inquisition Empire, not with a whimper.
But with a bang.
Chapter Forty-Three
QUID PRO QUO
THE TRIP back to the Seventh and 501st went in silence. The clanking and squeaking of tank treads, the squeal of suspension and joints, every man lost in their own thoughts, as dawn slowly broke.
Merrion sat in the rear bed of the half-track, his hands tied with rope, as German soldiers stared at him. His face was an impassive mask, and his own mind raced. He absent-mindedly loosened the knots, the picture of subdued, fully compliant, and palmed the knuckle knife they'd missed when searching him.
His whole reconnaissance legion, yet again, laid dead. Somehow, inexplicably, Merrion Blacker remained alive to tell the tale. His eyes move up to the large metal lantern mounted above the driver's cabin, wire cables and pipes hanging off it, guessed that was a technology that allowed them to see in the dark. The soldier to his left carried a MP 40, in the new sunlight glinting off the metal he could see manufacturers stamp marks, the quality and finish of the gun leagues above the crude copies made here on Elysium. And the metal wasn't the only thing stamped, etched. These soldiers wore the experienced, battle hardened expressions unique to veteran fighting men. His attention now turned to their leader as they made their way around a tight corner, and the tank they followed briefly came into forward view.
A man standing half out of the tank, whipped his head around and stared directly back at Merrion, his own face expressionless, before trees broke their line of sight.
Watch him, Merrion. Metal upon metal grated as one side of tank tracks stopped, whilst the others continued, pushing the tank around to the left and as the small oil refinery came into view, Merrion's left eye twitched.
Jesus St Mary Ella Donna on a stick. It wasn't just a couple of these men. There wasn't even a dozen of these armed and equipped soldiers, a diabolically powerful force to be reckoned with. Now, on Elysium, an entire bloody army of these things had been sent through. Up ahead, an army was breaking fast and preparing itself for war.
Whatever you do, thought Merrion to himself, you have to get these new arrivals to fight the alien threat.
A memory popped into his head, a nugget of information from a report he'd read before giving it to Marietta, now probably composting somewhere on the bottom of her desk. Bloody hell, he thought. This was the army that Ella Gruder had fled from, the enemy Mick, Laurie and Griffin and the others were fighting back on Earth before they came through.
And one of these SS officers had come through with them, falling in league with th
e Inquisition and single-handedly advancing their war technology to whole new levels. Merrion thought hard, trying to remember the salient points from the information Ella and the others had gave him when they first returned when they first arrived at Fairholm.
This army was from Germany. Led by some Emperor wannabe, and his direct henchmen, the terror police, the SS and the Gestapo. Nazis. And under them, the regular armies of the German nation. Army, land sea and air. Ella flew as a test pilot for the Luftwaffe, the air branch. He couldn't see any boats, so that left land forces, so these must be the Wehrmacht, as none of them wore SS insignia, not even their leader. What they did have, was numerals. Five oh one. The numerals were on the lapels of the uniforms and painted on the side of their vehicles, as the two vehicles now joined the outer perimeter of the encampment.
They trundled their way through a gap in the outer perimeter, the earth still soft from heavy rain overnight, and Merrion saw a whole range of different numerals. And machines. The crude tanks the Inquisition deployed when nothing compared to the arsenal around him. Merrion did not like this, not one bit at all. In the recorded history of Elysium, only two times had forces of equitable forces come through. First, when the Ninth Roman Legion was taken as they traversed a shallow, foggy swamp in the lowlands of England, and secondly when the Inquisition arrived, a massive Armada of Spanish galleons, swallowed on their way back from the failed invasion of England. And now this.
Something wasn't right. Only last year the latest newcomers arrived, like clockwork, once a generation. Only last year. And which way with this army go? Join with the Inquisition? Would they join forces with the Republic? Or would they forge their own path, destroying all? Assuming, that was, the multi-legged aliens didn't kill them all first.