Cyber Viking 2

by Marcus Sloss

  “Why are you teaching me about sewage plants?” I asked.

  “Oh, the power shut down to the Aspen facility. The people who worked at the plant quit, died, or whatever. So we still haven’t fixed our water and sewage problems. I have not bathed inside a shower in a week. I use a wet cloth with soap and rinse on a balcony. I tell you all this because Reinhardt was insanely jealous. He wanted all the supplies you received. He wanted the awesome electric RVs, the hesco barriers, and the MREs. He mulled over attacking you in the open a few times so we could have your base to have showers in. He would always complain about your anti-tank weapons. I see you frowning.”

  “We literally served in the same army. The only thing we have left is each other. I tell myself that, but deep down. I understand his reasoning. Now I have—”

  Harry interrupted, “Ah, Lilith killed Reinhardt to merge you into a single expanded community. Ulander likes to defer problems to a superior. You are now that superior. The people of Aspen want their problems solved. Reinhardt struggled to do that mainly because he was too focused on being better than you. Humans are weird; the dynamic has changed. With these crixxi buffing your numbers, your rule will be unchallenged. Especially once you figure out how best to incorporate your new troops.”

  “I am excited to figure out all the logistical issues and get ahead of them. We will have plenty of time in meetings soon enough,” I said.

  The bike exited the battlefield clearing for the northern trail. There were additional pockets of hardened lava here from the recent clearing of lurrol. Evidence the water helped end the spread of the destruction was shown with partially destroyed trees, cleared underbrush, and rocky, scorched terrain. The canopy shading covering us was a testament to how massive this jungle was.

  I saw a trail of despondent crixxi approaching our location. They were miserable looking with slumped shoulders, baggy eyes, and with minimal items being hauled. I could only imagine the suffering the lurrol put them through. Then you add in the fact they won, only to lose again.

  My Gpad pinged an alert.

  “You need to fight the tribe leader. They all surrendered to me with that condition. Technically you don’t have to, but then I would be a liar and you would be seen as weak. So fight the male crixxi named Basra.” - Lilith.

  Great. I had wondered how our transition was going to be handled. Crixxi were big on tribe leaders, strength, and dominance. Well, I had someone’s .308, my armor, and wits.

  I slung a leg off the bike, then kicked the stand down. Jevon stopped with Ulander hopping off the back. I went over to her, noticing she was wearing a proper military vest.

  “Want my knife?” she asked, seeing me eyeing it. When I nodded, she popped the button to free the weapon. The knife was pressed into my hand gently. I tested the edge and found it sharp.

  “I am challenging the one they call Cap of the humans,” a seven-foot crixxi bellowed. Basra. Yeah, had to be him. The crixxi had brown hair with a light brown skin tone. He wore only a kilt with no other armor. He thrust his spear into the air while scanning for me with his golden eyes.

  I contemplated putting a bullet in his forehead without warning. I would win, but who knew how that would be judged.

  “Rules?” Ulander asked curiously. Already starting to like her.

  “He accepts my challenge, then we fight. Weak humans getting giants to do their dirty work.”

  I stepped away from the bikes to give space to Jevon and Ulander. A crowd of crixxi were gathering. Their sour expressions brightened when word spread a challenge was being made.

  “I accept,” I said with my feet balanced.

  Good thing I had not taken his challenge lightly. A spearhead was immediately shot in my direction. I rolled right just barely avoiding the object. Basra cursed. When I exited my roll I hurled my knife. The blade parted fur off Basra’s mane but did little else due to his dodge. I had him dead to rights with the rifle.

  “Is there any dishonor if I use projectiles like he did?”

  He frowned.

  “You could use magic. It would be allowed,” a feminine voice from behind me said. “You earn more respect if you do not, though. You will have far fewer challenges down—”

  Basra drowned out her voice with a battle cry. I figured his spear was ready to fire again. I rolled left when he charged. My cybernetic hand shot up in between us. I mistimed his launch as well as his angle of attack. The spear tip crashed into my left collarbone with a cracking smack.

  Basra pressed the attack with a ferocious swing of his spear. I leaped back to narrowly miss his weapon. My left arm hung limp. My right cybernetic hand snatched his weapon. Instead of trying to wrest it from his grip, I yanked myself forward to close the distance. I lunged with all the power my legs had. When the whites of his eyes flared I smashed my skull into his lower face.

  I felt the agonizing pain of fangs tearing my skin. The head wounds bled freely from my forehead crashing into his shocked mouth. My opponent was staggering from the blow. I cleared my senses with a headshake. Basra was backpedaling for space. I came in again with another savage head butt. My ears rang and my head pounded from the immense impact. Basra hit the jungle floor. His hand burst through a thin layer of dried lava. A shriek split the air from his melting fist as lava consumed his flesh. The exposed skeletal fingers drooped, then dropped from his body. The fight was over. We both knew it.

  I yanked the spearhead out of my collarbone. Basra reacted desperately and tried to dick punch me. My hip spun to absorb the impact. My metal fist cracked the front of his skull.

  “I was going to let you surrender,” I yelled in anger.

  With his hand removed, his head split open, and with little chance of victory, Basra tried to submit.

  “No, you die!” I shouted.

  I jumped over his prone form. The back of my elbow connected with the back of his skull with the power of a piston firing. The crack echoed across the landscape. The nitrogen power plant in my forearm hissed from the power consumption. I was fairly certain he was dead. I did not stop, though. I smashed the top of his cranium with the base of my fist. The crack from the front of his head to the back was complete.

  When a foot firmly on the flopping crixxi’s neck, I dug my fingers into the gap in his skull. With a jerking lurch, I ripped half his skull off. The body stopped twitching at this point. The virum gave in to defeat as the black goo fled his body. I had never torn a warm brain out of a body before. This was a first. The mechanical sensors in my fingers said the substance was slimy. I managed to get most of the brain out.

  I tossed the pinkish material into the air nice and high. My cybernetic arm swiveled with impossible human speed and a very odd angle to latch onto my weapon. My arm and the .308 lined up with the falling brain. Ten cracking rounds later, the organ landed with a wet thunk.

  There were a lot of crixxi watching in stunned silence. I dropped the weapon to let it hang by its sling. I ejected the magazine so I could slap a fresh one in. A female crixxi cried over Basra while I did this. I watched her intently with a side-eye. She figured she had the drop on me when she reached for the fallen spear.

  My .308 clicked with the sound of a new round in the chamber. I waited to see what she would do. Her face turned into a snarl telling me everything I needed to know. I twisted my torso to dodge the fired spearhead.

  I fired, then fired the rifle again. Each round went into her shoulder with a spray of blood. She bellowed in pain from the rounds tearing bone, cartilage, and muscle.

  “Is this how your tribe operates? You try to kill winners after a fair challenge?” I bellowed as she moaned.

  I lunged forward with lightning speed and smashed her jaw, shattering it as if it were glass. She did not cry out because she went unconscious from the impact.

  My blood thudded in my ears. My adrenaline was at a peak with my desire to kill this woman. I clenched my jaw with a grimace.

  “How dare she?” I muttered unhappily.

  “Tribe maste
r!” The same feminine voice from before.

  I spun with the .308’s barrel coming to a stop with it butted between the eyes of a younger crixxi. With the virum, they all looked the same. This one seemed a few years younger than the others. Her purple eyes glared at me with pride. Her red hair flowed down her back and her hip fur was a tinge of forest green with black stripes. She was stunning, curvy, and very close to being dead.

  “Are you challenging me?” I asked, eager to keep killing.

  “No, my lord. You won. My mother sinned. May I touch your translator?”

  “Do nothing else,” I said hoping this was the conclusion of my dominance test.

  The hand tried to reach me but fell short. I lowered the weapon. I anticipated more violence; she had that glint of it in her eye. Her rough palm touched my translator. A contract flared into my mind. One meal a day and seventy years were the terms she had given to Lilith. Damn, no roof, no bed, no freshwater. Just one meal a day without even a serving size for seventy years. Savage. I would work on reducing this later. A transfer from Lilith to me was already approved by Lilith. I accepted. Her eyes flared with happiness.

  “I am Everly. Let me fix this transgression for our new master. Would you like that?” Everly asked.

  “Sure,” I said, not certain what the alien woman was referring to. She went to the weapon her mother had dropped. “Wait, what are you going to do?”

  “Kill her. She will not accept a ser—”

  My rifle whipped up to aim at her mother's head. I squeezed twice, unleashing two loud retorts. Brains splattered the area.

  “I would have—”

  “Everly. I am your master. I should have verified what the fix was before agreeing to it. I corrected my mistake in time, though. I am sorry I almost let you kill your mother.”

  “This is the way of the crixxi. I should be the tribe queen now. I knew the day would come. Thank you for sparing us and leading us into a better life. I am young. Eighteen last month. I am not enshrined in the old ways. I would like to serve at your side, organizing all—”

  “Done. The last one is in your line for transfer,” Lilith said, interrupting Everly’s talk. “I'm not going further into the jungle. There is good news and bad news. The good is that very few had to be killed. The bad news is that the lurrol attack forced the children and servants to flee ahead of my arrival. They were captured and absorbed by a larger tribe. I am not going to fight them for you. I suggest you take these crixxi and go home. The tribe can overwhelm your forces if you stay in the jungle. On Earth, they stand zero chance against your tactics.”

  I turned to Everly. If she was my go-to crixxi of the Hevina tribe, her insight would be helpful. The purple eyes fixated to mine.

  “We will mourn those lost. A new generation will be born with a bold new life. Please accept my people into a contract, and then take us home,” Everly said while waving her people forward.

  “Once you have been accepted into Stronghold Mansion, follow me,” Jevon called out.

  “Tribe master, I need the first few accepted to help herd our animals, gather equipment, supplies, and the list goes on.”

  I was about to answer when Lilith plopped a seat beside me. “They are safe. The other tribes are hiding inside caves. Sometimes they lose this bad, but the interior tribes generally have backup defensive spots,” Lilith said while snatching Basra’s body up. She plopped the corpse into her mouth. I contorted my face in disgust when she cracked the bones while consuming Everly’s father. “This is the way of the crixxi. Do not let it worry you, Cap.”

  The mother followed the father into the divine-ape’s gullet.

  I focused on my task. A hand was touched to my device, a contract accepted. I kept a running tally on my Gpad. There were a few older children, teenagers at a minimum among those giving me their contracts. However, the fact that the young were gone bothered me. The servants too. I wanted to be able to have help with our current young while molding those susceptible to change. Everly’s cheek was kissed after the contact was passed onto me. Every single crixxi did this.

  “Why are they kissing your cheek?”

  “They still need a crixxi leader. That is me. You are the tribe master. I am the crixxi liaison; that is the best interpretation. Do you not understand we will be loyal to you to a fault?”

  “I understand that. I do not understand where you fit into the equation. I already have Daphne vying for—”

  “The old hag, so pitiful. She will kiss my cheek. I bet she has not even done this yet,” Everly said, biting her lip and containing a scream. I watched her toned stomach open two slits. Stones were pushed out. She caught the small objects and handed them to me. I chucked the blood-covered stones over my shoulder. “I am glad you accept.”

  “Huh?” I said with a raised eyebrow. “Me tossing bloody stones from your uterus means nothing. I see you opening your mouth. Close it. Go, these crixxi will kiss your cheek later. I want your animals, fruit, and whatever else you have of worth being hauled home.” She went to reply and I pointed back to the way she came from. “Now.”

  “As you command,” Everly said with a pout.

  I felt my broken collarbone slowly mending as the long line of crixxi gave their contracts to me. Jevon stepped beside me with his arms crossed.

  “Tally?” he asked.

  “Six hundred and twelve so far. The back of the line is visible at least. So seven hundred at most. What do you think, Ulander?” I asked.

  “Allowing me at the big boy table?” Ulander quipped. Lilith went from plucking a tree of its branches to glaring at Ulander. “I jest. Reinhardt never asked for feedback and—”

  “Eric will,” Lilith said. She returned to stripping the tree.

  “I have a long list of issues with Aspen that need sorting. Once that is done, we can start filling hotels. Unless you have more infrastructure?” Ulander said.

  “Seven hundred would put us to queued shower times again. It would also mean bed swapping until homes go up. We will be running convoys into Denver nonstop until the next blue portal. Together, Ulander. We will clear Denver north to south as a team,” I said, nodding my head to my words. “We will run convoys up and down as we clear. When the next golden gates appear, we will be ready to cash in all of what Denver has to offer.”

  “As you command, your grace,” Ulander said with no smirk or teasing in her tone. “I will head back now to ready the teams. I will also send our builders over. All of them who are not occupied to help you build homes for the crixxi.”

  “I will take her back. Want me to help run—”

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation. Ulander frowned, but nodded. Times were changing. Jevon was my best friend and most trusted soldier. He would have a council assembled, tasks handed out, and things running smoother soon. “Thank you both. Meeting tomorrow morning. Hmm… An hour after sunrise. See you both then.”

  Jevon gave me a hang-loose sign, which was rare, but not highly unusual. He hopped on the bike, with Ulander getting on behind him.

  I watched them meander across the rough terrain. I sighed. I wish I had been allowed to bring more support staff to help with this transition. We needed to catalog everything to figure out what was coming in. Then we needed to process crixxi to learn of their skills. I was sure some of these crixxi hauling vines for future growth would be wasting their time. The climate between Crixonia and Earth was vastly different.

  My disgruntled exhale was turned into a gasp when I saw a mini ferox.

  “You have ferox on this planet?” I asked the young male holding the cat the size of a dog. The cat wanted to be held but the lad was struggling with the task.

  Lilith scoffed. Her lips sputtered when she looked at the tiger. Maybe it was a tiger. I was conflicted.

  “That is not a ferox. There are thousands of variations of cats from small to massive. The larger the animal, the rarer it is,” Lilith said. She then tossed the tree into the jungle before lifting a new one from the ground with ease. Th
e snapping of roots assaulted my ears, causing me to react with a wince. When the ringing stopped, she continued. “We only survive being this size because we can farm so well. Both by pillage farming and actual farming. If you get a chance to buy a ferox, get one. They are worth the cost to feed. The first invisible spy that enters your base becomes a quick snack. Whereas others will send the invisible entity running… Not a ferox. They are very, very protective, assuming they bind.”

  I mulled this over. With so many variables at play, I decided to let the thought drop. The cat in front of me would be trained. Combat teams of animals with humans or crixxi were going to be a given in my growing army. I would need to keep the bunny breeding up to feed the new animals. Probably wall off our livestock too, or else I’ll lose it all to hungry cats. We still had a bunch of gargoyle meat.

  My mind drifted I found myself without another person offering a contract. Six hundred and ninety-two. I expected more, but we were not getting the children or servants.

  “Follow me. We are going to your new home,” I said, walking to my bike. I kicked the stand off and pushed the motorcycle by the handlebars. A glance over my shoulder showed five bored divine-apes watching hundreds of crixxi following my lead. I wondered how chaotic things were going to be in the coming days.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Mitchell, you are a hell of a soldier and have been a great officer so far. I cannot do anything besides pull her from the field,” I said to Mitchell in a hostile tone. He sat across from me in RV3 with a frown. “Did you need her help? No! Did she disobey a direct order? Yes. Hell, I should lash her still, even if the virum numbs the pain.”