Königstiger: Odin's Warriors - Book 3

by Aeryn Leigh

  "Wargs?"

  "Wolves."

  "Wolves cannot carry things. Can they?"

  Ella shifted around slightly on her crutches. "I don't think so."

  "We have the cream of warrior Vikings here, and they don't know it? No wonder Odinsgate fell." She added quietly, "joking, of course." Marietta walked over to the tethered warchargers, and patted their flanks, in the shadow of the colossal Valkyrie. She quickly swapped hands. She chewed her bottom lip.

  Ella regarded her girlfriend, and wondered about life. And language. Barriers existed in both. She just wanted to hug her, just for one night, and leave the worries of the world behind.

  Just one night with Marietta, back like they used to. Ella placed down her crutches, and moved into the light. The enormous head and furry pelt of the wolf, the warg, draped over one shoulder of the Valkyrie, the wolf head attached to the armour's shoulder pad. Directly overhead, the sun cast twin shadows, one for each massive ear.

  One before, and one after.

  One warg ear before the sun, one warg ear after the sun.

  Grasping after it always.

  Ella hobbled up the ramp and then hit her stride, running along the cargo bay, Marietta chasing her.

  She entered the cockpit. Andrew and Rob were still learning Old Norse and trying to understand the actions, tasks, and responsibilities under their command. Magnus and Beowulf stood either side of the pilot chair, shouting Norse words at the central projection, the display hovering directly in mid-air, the runes front, bold and centre.

  "Did you try sun?" said Ella. She leaned against the pilot seat.

  Magnus and Beowulf laughed. "Of course, Ella Gruder. One of the first words we tried."

  "But you are Elysium born and bred," said Ella. "You have two suns. Did you use singular or plural?"

  Eyes lit up. "Plural. Sóls. The Norse Goddesses of the Sun," said Magnus.

  "So," said Ella, "if there was only one Sun..." She made her way around the chair and sat in it. "Sól."

  The projection vanished, and was replaced by another. The cockpit was filled with an orange glow, as the display showed some kind of charging meter. Ablative ceramic armour on sections of the gunship withdrew, and dull, matte-black panels appeared instead.

  Ella yelled for her child, as the gunship took the thermonuclear radiation from the twin suns, and brought back to life from the one-way journey the child of Odin had brought it, using the last of its reserves.

  This time, the gunship swore, it would not be left abandoned and imprisoned in stone for millennial. Penance had been paid. The taint of the hated enemy filled its sensors. There would be battle.

  Such glorious battle.

  The Valkyrie-blessed Hrothgars were yelling out commands, to load up the gunship with their Odin-gifted armour.

  Aries was going to war.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  MEANWHILE

  FAIRHOLM FELL to Snorri’s command. Or rather, it was thrust upon him by the sheer circumstances of the day. Marietta and the child, plus the acting Chief of Security, were whisked away by an strange, powerful ship.

  Guilds clamoured for someone to take charge. And then, compounding the matter, small daemons began washing up on shore. Their spikes were lethal. And as they fed, they grew larger, and the bay was declared off-limits on the second week. By the third week, every Viking that could swing a sword, every Republic citizen that wield an axe, did so at their peril, the creatures lethal and growing more canny.

  With the emergency caverns gone, by the end of the third week, a huge mass of them had swept in from the north, encroaching on The Pit’s perimeter, over-running the Republic’s under-staffed military base.

  The only safe space it seemed, was out on open waters. Abe activated the emergency siren as instructed, and the noise swept over the whole of Fairholm.

  The signal to evacuate.

  Chapter Fifty

  SPOT FIRES

  MERRION DIDN'T KNOW whether to laugh or cry. Minutes turned to hours, hours stretched to infinity as morale crumbled up and down the breadth of their lines. The constant, non-stop shelling ground down your mind. Nerves frayed, tempers rose. He'd thought he'd seen it all. Especially, especially after the events of the last year, and last bloody week.

  Merrion spent every waking hour putting out spot fires of the human condition. The enemy sent two or three onslaughts to do the job. Waves every day, and every night. Not enough to severely threaten their defences, yet it could not be ignored. The daemons charging them were much smaller than the initial first wave, and Merrion could have sworn less organised.

  The Republic and German defences be gained to ration their artillery strikes, as the precious, oh so precious ammunition stockpiles dwindled with every passing salvo. It was left to the smaller calibre weaponry, and mortars, at the coal face of battle to finish the job. Aliens reached point blank range when they died. A lot were killed four to five-hundred yards out, but quite a few, wave after wave, reached hand grenade distance. Body started to pile up in sections, which had to be targeted by phosphorus ammunition and burned to the ground lest the enemy using them as cover.

  Eight frontal attacks every full day cycle. Combined with the endless shelling, it became a battle by itself just to maintain combat readiness of the troops. In the psychological warfare arena, the enemy was leagues ahead. Rotation of the front-line troops was implemented after the third day, sending them back uphill to the slightly less dangerous rear support lines. But for the more specialised soldiers and crewmen, operating the cannons and artillery, Manning the self-propelled guns and machine guns and tanks, there was no respite.

  There was no one to take their place.

  Germans fell asleep standing upright, seconds at a time. Men and women of the Republic entered a waking nightmare, serving their cannon batteries as fatigue smothered them.

  The single battalion Major Mauss had left behind to guard their beachhead, failed to respond to wireless communication, and was presumed dead. Their last communique gave no indication of danger.

  The only bright spark, thought Merrion as he trudged his way along a support trench, munching on a piece of dried fish, was the wireless communication between the RAF aircraft and the command headquarters. Wolfgang called it a FM wireless set. What it did was nothing short of a miracle. Inger flew sortie upon sortie, circling around and around as high as her operational ceiling would allow. There had been no more beam attacks. Inger was able to in real-time spot and direct the German batteries. The larger the daemon creatures grew, it would appear, the carapace took on a steel grey hue. In the one and two-storey buildings behind the Inquisition great wall, in the city's outer suburbs, the speaker creatures took refuge. Where there was a grey daemon, there was also an artillery piece, amazingly mounted on the back of a fellow daemon itself.

  When the aircraft was in the air, and circling overhead, the artillery strikes stopped. Those first two days injure walked howitzers right up to and onto the buildings themselves, or any gun platforms in the open.

  But they only had one aircraft. When it was flying back to the aerodrome, and being refuelled, or critical maintenance performed upon it to keep it flying, the enemy fire returned. Even Lucius James Junior himself began flying, alternating shifts with Inger, all day, all night. Weather permitting that was.

  It was approaching the end of monsoon season here on Elysium, and last night had been able to get a flight up at all, the sky full of low altitude clouds.

  Merrion reached the front line, waved to the Fifteenth Legion, readied both his crossbow and new Lee-Enfield rifle, and waited for the next attack.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  FOR THE HELL OF IT

  "I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT HELLSBAENE," said Beowulf, arms crossed. The last weapon cache had been loaded onto the gunship. All that was left was to board the gunship, secure the Valkyrie underneath, fly to the Inquisition mainland, and help defeat this alien threat. Andrew had a breakthrough in his attempts to interface with the gunsh
ip's systems, locating the greatest concentration of enemy on Elysium. The globe was littered with smaller threat indicators. But one massive blob, right on the southern tip of the Inquisition homeland.

  "There's not enough room," said Ella, sympathetic to the Viking's plight.

  "What about the wings of fire you used to rescue them at the stronghold?" said Magnus, in a slow, monotone, aghast at leaving the flagship behind.

  "There's not enough energy," said Ella. She looked at Laurie, after this point silent, stroking Skippy's fur.

  "She's right mate," said Laurie. "The Republic is in trouble. Hellsbaene, Oslo, and the others will just have to make their way the old-fashioned way. Unless Beowulf, you leave your suit behind and go with her."

  Inner turmoil was writ across the Viking King's face. Wherever the Queen of Valkyrie's armour went, the powered suits moved too. Magnus had translated those runes, those instructions, himself. Each suit had a maximum range of eighty leagues from the Valkjur. As to why that was, nobody yet knew.

  Beowulf sighed. "Odin wept." A skeleton crew of Vikings must stay behind. But this time, Beowulf flat out decided who was coming, and who was staying. Those Vikings staying behind accepted their responsibilities and walked over to the side of the landing pad, and with the almost magical rope ladder descended to the Viking fleet and Trinity below.

  It was settled.

  The warchargers were secured into the gel webbing, and everyone not upon the bridge, no ifs or buts. Those lucky enough to score power armour sat inside them, or stood inside them, as the case might be. The task of acclimatising oneself to the suit seemed a lifelong task.

  "A mighty endeavour worthy of Odin," exclaimed Magnus. He settled into the into his armour, the forward access hatch open, totally impatient to dive into the secrets of the Nordic data case. In the cockpit, Beowulf, Laurie, and Marietta watched Ella and Rob begin the arcane start-up procedures. On the rear wall of the cockpit, there was two alcoves either side of the bulkhead, also containing gel webbing.

  "I suggest you stand in them," said Ella. "This might get a bit choppy." She closed her eyes, and started speaking old Norse. The three of them, Ella Andrew and herself, and the new power armour users, had changed into flight suits found within the supply hold. It felt as supple as leather, form fitting, snug but not too tight. The flight suits had been made, incredulously on the spot, after their figures were electronically scanned. G-force suits, Ella explained to Andrew and Rob. The Luftwaffe had experimented with them, especially with the near-supersonic jet fighters. Featherweight ceramic mesh weaved through it, might even stop weaponry.

  "It's time," said Ella. They donned their flight helmets. She found the image of the Valkyrie, and mentally moved the image to the bottom right of her retinal display. "Engine status Andrew?"

  "Ready," said Andrew.

  Easy, she said to herself, easy. Her left hand twitched ever so slightly as in the virtual reality cockpit, her virtual electric hand pulled back on the joystick engaging the vertical directional thrusters and with her right advanced the throttle. The gunship lifted from the landing pad, and hovered a short distance above it.

  "Now beautiful," she communicated with the interface.

  Below, wearing her own tailored flight suit, Amelia concentrated and willed the suit to move to the direct dead centre of the pad. The landing pad became a sea of swirling blue spirals, and was moved with near zero friction to it.

  "Ready!" said Amelia, wriggling slightly. Above her the gunship descended and the scooped-out belly meshed perfectly with the hunched back, arms, and legs-folded Queen Valkyrie. And still holding the Eviscerator-class weapon, tucked into its shoulder.

  "Let's go," yelled Amelia.

  Ella shook her head, just a fraction, before her enthusiasm kicked in two, because Mein Gott how could you not be in awe of such a flying technological marvel and she instructed Andrew to activate the transport wedding.

  For the first time in two millennia, Odin's Warriors launched for war.

  "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?" said Andrew as the three-dimensional topographical representation resolved into finer details. The entire Inquisition city behind the imposing wall was an ocean of red symbols.

  "Zoom in," said Laurie and Marietta simultaneously, from opposite sides of the room. The battlefield filled the display. Nordic symbols of all shapes and colours identified unit and weapon types alike. Across at least a seven-mile front, from ocean to ocean, the Republic had dug in.

  With company.

  Laurie's face fell. "You've got to be taking the fucking piss," he said.

  "Christ," said Andrew, selecting a small rectangle of the battlefield, a half mile by quarter mile box, and it zoomed in, the detail astonishing. Intermixed with the Republic's First and Last, were Nazis.

  An entire fucking division of them. Laurie shook his head.

  "Are they tanks?" said Marietta, craning forward.

  Laurie started laughing, mirth without humour.

  "Panzers," said Andrew, "Panzer tanks from our World War."

  "Were not they your mortal enemy on Earth," said Marietta.

  "Yes," said Ella, softly.

  "Andrew, "said Laurie, in a complete calm and measured tone, "I want a complete list of every single piece of military hardware the Germans have. Manpower, you name it. The lot."

  "Captain," said Andrew, "shouldn't you be able to access this yourself?" He tapped behind his right ear.

  Damn. He'd been avoiding using it. The sheer plethora of information gave him headaches in rapid order. "Just do it, Andrew. Marietta particularly will need it."

  "Yes Captain. Seventeen minutes until we arrive at the coast, said Andrew.

  "We better get cracking then," said Laurie.

  "What about the Republic," said Marietta. "How are we faring?"

  Andrew hummed for a second, and found the information. He converted the Norse numerals. "One thousand, twelve hundred and six bodies," replied Andrew, analysing the mass burial pit behind the mobile medical hospital. He tilted his head. A clump of red detached from an area just behind the northern section of wall, and spread into long, thin misshapen line. "The aliens are attacking."

  The display tracked each blue artillery shell fired by the Republic and Germans in response, falling amongst the latest attackers, tiny circles of red vanished. The clumps of attacking red grew smaller and smaller as they reach the narrowest part of the choke point, before fading out. Alien artillery fired back. The projection plotted their trajectories, and they fell in a cluster on the westward secondary trench. Blue symbols winked out.

  "Twelve hundred and forty-three," said Andrew.

  Laurie swore under his breath. "General, if I may?" Marietta nodded. "Rob. I know you're struggling with the weapon systems, the Nordic interface, we all are. Guilty of it myself. But work it out with Ella and Andrew mate, the best you can. We need you. This is a gunship, right? Aries-class?"

  He shut his eyes, and accessed the real-time projection and his data library. What took like an eternity in Laurie's mind, happened in mere seconds to the others. "Cross the coast here, where the spires are. Low as you can, but not too stupid. Strafing run right through their guts, from here to here. Turn hard ninety-degrees and follow that wall, then turn sow smart mines right along that choke point in front of the wall heading due north-east until we reach the cliffs." He stopped, and unconsciously picked his nose, as on the projection he drew his tactical plan.

  "Don't worry Ella about Amelia, there's nothing on this world that can penetrate that Valkyrie." He drew an orange circle on the display and more lines. "And then you do this. Everybody got that? Good. Beowulf, with me. We got armour to prepare. You like jumping out of perfectly good aircraft. You've got another chance."

  LAURIE AND BEOWULF entered the transport bay and climbed up into their butterflied suits. "Listen up everybody, we're about to combat drop, fourteen minutes from now. Just like being a brain surgeon. At some point, you need to stop using dead cadavers and get into the pink,
alive, warm porridge and dig around. Melee weapons only. Use inbuilt gun weaponry as last resort. Despite what we practised fighting on in the ceremonial tomb, this time, these buggers can fight back." He waited for the orders to sink in. "And Thorfinn? Griffin? Mick? Do you want the good news or the bad news? Boy oh boy, are you gonna fucking love this. And by all means Griffin, bring your sword. That’s an intimidating bastard all by itself.”

  ROB RUBBED HIS HANDS TOGETHER. His mouth was dry. The destructive power at his fingertips was intoxicating. Damage Inc. had been one of the most heavily armed, bad-ass bombers in the European theatre. And now, on Elysium so was this. It's purely a question, he thought, of overkill. How much death did you want to deal out? Kill 'em stone dead? Completely shattered ten times dead? Pulverise them fifty times over?

  Don't use too much ammunition, Laurie instructed. Seek out and destroy only high value targets. Be creative. Fresh ammunition could be made by the gunship's armoury, according to Magnus. It would take a while, but it was possible.

  Nevertheless, Laurie didn't want to jump the bone.

  Rob couldn't shake the nagging feeling, that the gunship was thoroughly enjoying itself for the first time in a long time.

  IT WAS NOW DUSK, the suns at their backs. By Andrew's calculation they'd be flying over the enemy forces, the breadth of the entire Inka city, for eighty-two-point-seven seconds.

  They crossed the southern-most shoreline at subsonic speed, fourteen hundred metres above sea level. Hundreds, thousands of smoking buildings flashed underneath, some burning, some smoldering. 15,300 metres from the coast to their target point of the great wall, their path straight as an arrow across the city before the complex set of manoeuvres.

  Power thrummed through Aries' systems. The weapons officer engaged the firing sequence, and Aries felt the Hrothgar's pleasure and matched it. Fourteen triple-belt, turreted autocannon barrels spun up to 19,000rpm, all around the gunships exterior, their buzzing like the finest wine to a warrior's palate. The drum belt on the twin-linked 130 mm howitzers, mounted either side of the gunships nose, cycled up.