Wrath of the Gods Read online

  WRATH OF THE GODS

  James Von Ohlen

  © Among the Pines Publishing, 2014

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  SOMEWHERE below them, hidden by several feet of snow, rested their target. Torsten gazed out the viewing port of the small cargo shuttle, looking for signs of… anything. All he saw was ice and snow, piled atop one another and stretching in every direction. Just like every other time he’d looked out of the window for the past several hours.

  A glowing blue beacon showed in his vision, illuminating a patch of snow seemingly no different than any other in the area. A distance marker showed that there should be a large steel door visible at a distance of no more than 50 meters. He dismissed both from his vision without conscious thought and turned back to his immediate surroundings.

  The interior of the cargo shuttle was mostly unlit. The gentle hum of the engines carrying it caused a loose piece of equipment to vibrate somewhere behind him as he sat in the copilot’s seat. Next to him, Ed had the controls of the shuttle.

  The pilot’s seat was a rare thing in that it had actual controls that required manual use. Most craft built around the same time as this one would have relied on direct interface with a pilot’s brain to guide them. From the position jokingly referred to as the “command throne” among the men who used to pilot such aircraft, Ed looked back at Torsten.

  A leather eyepatch still covered the ruin of his empty eye socket and the place from which Anhur’s prosthetic had been plucked. Ed simply nodded once to Torsten and looked back to his console. The HUD before him reported a broad range of data, not the least of which was their position in global coordinates, directional heading, and speed.

  A scant few months before Torsten would have likely regarded the thought of a flying machine as utter folly. An impossibility bordering on the ravings of the mad. He now had several at his command. Slow, outdated, and technologically ancient things by the military and even civilian transport standards of the Ancients, it was still amazing to him.

  A machine weighing thousands of pounds that could reverse gravity with its own power. The impact on those who had seen it in the past few months was nothing less than momentous. They had assumed such was the chariot of a God descended from the heavens. For the time being, Torsten had done nothing to discourage that belief.

  The day would come when such petty superstitions were going to be cast aside, but for now they had their uses. If the people of Veldt thought him to be a God, perhaps they might actually listen to what he had to say.

  The experience of flying was still very much a novelty, no matter how many times Torsten was a passenger or pilot in the transports, and one that he enjoyed. The scenery flashing by below him as he rode in the cargo shuttle seemed almost quaint. And though it moved at hundreds of miles an hour, it still struck him as stuck in slow motion.

  Then again, few things planetside could compare to leaping out of a burning battle station in low orbit and screaming through Veldt’s atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour with only a thin layer of armor between his flesh and utter annihilation. Armor that had seemed near magic at times in its abilities, but still just a thin piece of composite material. Advanced alloys, plastics, fibers, and ceramics. Still just under a centimeter of material in the end.

  Having to rely on a Special Forces drop pack from the ancient enemy during his first flight had been injurious to his pride, but it had served its purpose well. Minutes after leaping from the crippled space station, Torsten had stood with his feet on the firm ground of Veldt once more. Oddly calm and ready to continue. To move on with what needed to be done.

  Having seen Anhur’s body into the beyond and the War God’s brain into the custody of Modi and Vidar was icing on the cake after such a feat. Of course, he’d had to spend several weeks among the tribesman and small villages that populated the plains where he fell before he could deliver his gift.

  They had seen him fall from the skies, trailing fire behind him as the engines of the drop pack activated. His optical camouflage could have covered most of it, but something in the back of his mind had told him it would be better for them to see. To men held in a primitive state by force, he appeared as some God descending among them. Herald of salvation or annihilation, well, that remained to be seen.

  After landing, Torsten had a few hours of peace to himself before the first of them arrived. He took off his helmet and enjoyed the fresh air of that distant land. The smell of the tall grass. The cool breeze on his face. Only minutes before, ever experiencing such things again seemed a very distant and unlikely thing.

  A meandering stream of water that remained unpoisoned by the destruction brought to the Ancients gave him a comfortable place to refresh himself and wash the sweat from his brow. As he sat there, enjoying the sound of it, he noticed he was being watched.

  A split second later his suit alerted him to the presence of another person. Score one for me, he thought, taking satisfaction in the fact he had identified his watcher before his suit had. Though he suspected it had been due to the fact that the watcher presented no threat and the suit’s identification algorithms looked for hostiles first and foremost. Not so much when it came to unarmed children.

  She was no older than six or seven years old. Perhaps she was the bravest of the tribes that had seen him descend across the sky, or the most foolish. Maybe she had simply been the closest to where he’d landed.

  Regardless, she was the first to arrive. At first her words meant nothing to Torsten. They bore little if any resemblance to the language he had grown up speaking in The Kingdom.

  Very recently though, The Kingdom had died and its language was likely lost with it. He and a handful of other men who had served under his command were likely the only survivors of that once mighty nation. The others were all dust in the wind. Radioactive dust at that.

  Modi had given Torsten and the men of his crew knowledge of the language of the Ancients, gifted to them through their halos and delivered directly into their memories. It had been useful as a starting point from which to examine the variety of languages to be found across Veldt, since they were all nominally descended from the same starting point. But even with that knowledge he couldn’t tell what the girl was saying.

  He motioned for her to wait for a second, and put his helmet back on. She smiled nervously and took a step back as he lifted the armored helmet and lowered it over his head. A buzzing sound emanated from the helmet as it set itself in place and completed the seal with the gorget that it sat upon.

  There was a tiny fraction of a second of darkness between the time his eyes were covered and the sensory input from the helmet kicked in. There were no eye pieces or holes to look through. Such might present weak points that enemy weaponry might be able to penetrate, as well a compromising his peripheral vision. There was nothing quite so crude about this armor.

  Instead, there was an array of sensors embedded in the helmet that gathered data and delivered it directly into his brain through the halo unit. At his discretion he could make the face plate of the helmet transparent and look through that if he needed to, but he hadn’t done so for any significant time yet. The sensors linked to his mind through the halo unit, and then he saw everything exactly as he would as if he hadn’t been wearing the helmet at all.

  Perhaps not exactly though.

  Data streams scrolled across his vision, detailing things around him that might be of interest. The smallest, seemingly most insignificant things were visible to him and
due to the time dilation effect of the sensory input, he could see individual drops of dew falling from blades of grass in slow motion.

  Details on his suit’s integrity forced themselves into his conscious mind, as well as a reminder that most of the nanobots that could repair the suit had been destroyed upon reentry to Veldt’s atmosphere. A recommendation that he seek a repair unit before reentering combat elicited a short laugh, and the child looking up at him started, but didn’t flee.

  The halo unit embedded within his helmet would prove invaluable in the coming days and weeks. The computers and cogitation units found in his suit of combat armor were good for more than just destroying things that stood in his way on a battlefield. Though they were damned good at that, he thought to himself with satisfaction. He quickly replayed a data stream detailing a burst fired from his assault rifle as it shredded a bronze knight into scrap.

  The security units onboard the UN battle station were literally the thing of legends. How easily they had fallen… He grinned at the strength he now commanded. No petty would-be God or alien tyrant would be able to stand against him.

  Torsten reached back to check his assault rifle and found it still locked securely in place behind his shoulder. That weapon might make him the most powerful warrior on the plains, but he had only the ammunition carried in the single magazine currently housed in the rifle.

  The heat lance pistol he had carried into battle aboard the UN battle station had been lost during reentry. Perhaps it had been destroyed or someone had found it and already set about making themselves king of their tribe with the newfound weapon of the Gods that they carried.

  Once the ammunition in the rifle was gone, that left Torsten with his sword. As far as he knew it didn’t need to be reloaded, but it was unlikely that any tribal blacksmith had the tools needed to repair the monomolecular edge of the blade or the projected force field generators that covered it with crackling energy.

  That left him with just his suit and his greatest asset: his mind. Mindweaponization he had called it in the past. Training himself to rely on his wits. That had always been a high priority for him. Even before his days of cutting throats throughout the back alleys of The Kingdom and her trade partners. Even before his first days as an enlisted man and basic training.

  He’d known all along, since he was old enough to think for himself, that his mind was his greatest tool and most dangerous weapon. Honing it had been something he considered a necessity and the effort had paid off well.

  Torsten had always been a quick thinker. That had gotten him out of many tight spots before, escaping from fights that would have killed him had he been even a fraction of a second slower in the conception and execution of his plans.

  Combined with the technology of the halo unit and his combat armor, he’d been near supernatural in his planning and fighting abilities. He hadn’t bothered to check and see how many men were recorded shooting down incoming automatic cannon fire at point blank range with aimed single shots of their own, but he could guess that number was somewhere between zero and one.

  The girl spoke to him again, bringing his wondering thoughts to bear on the present. With the halo unit in place and active, it provided a real time translation of the girl’s words to him.

  “Hey, mister! Are you okay?” She asked, as she peered at him from behind the perceived safety of a clump of tall grass. A gentle breeze played through the grass, entangling it with the edges of her hair.

  “Never better.” He answered honestly, the suit’s systems translating his words into something the girl could understand. She smile for a second and then giggled like only a child can.

  “You talk funny!” She nearly squealed with delight. Torsten’s suit suggested that the speech used had been overly formal and noted that it would be adjusted in the future.

  “Want something to eat? You flew a long way. I saw it. I bet you’re hungry now.” She spoke quickly, blurring her sentences together as she stepped from behind her protective clump of grass and smiled.

  Torsten froze for a second. The resemblance was uncanny. It was like looking at a young Modi. A very young Modi. He began to tell her as much, but then stopped himself. The girl would have no idea who Modi was and might think he was crazy. And it couldn’t hurt to have at least one friend here, wherever the hell here was, no matter how young they were.

  His stomach growled at the mention of food. The nutrient delivery system in his suit worked well and the thousand year old paste that was available for consumption or direct injection seemed to do the trick, as well as not tasting bad at all. According to his User’s Manual, the suit could produce more of the paste from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water if given enough time. It advised against relying on the nutrient paste for long periods of time though, as, despite its name, there were relatively few nutrients in it. So he was set on food. For now. But there was something about sinking your teeth into actual food that the suit just couldn’t compete with.

  “Something to eat would be great. What do you have in mind?” He asked her. Immediately she was overcome with excitement and began jumping up and down.

  “My Mom makes the best rabbit!” She yelled. “She’s cooking some now! Come with me!” And with that she turned and began to run back through the tall grass.

  A bad idea, Torsten thought. No telling what might be slithering by or lying in wait for an easy snack. Various types of great cats and wolves had been brought to Veldt by early settlers. And there had been a few native species of similar animals that hadn’t shown a problem with eating a person if the opportunity presented itself. He jogged to catch up with the girl and asked her to slow down. She looked up at him as if he had just ripped a lollipop from her hands and ground it into the dirt beneath his heel, pouting.

  “Okay.” She said dejectedly, before grabbing his hand and skipping along beside him. Her fingers closed around two of his, her hand not large enough to grip any more than that.

  They passed through the tall grass and onto a large patch of well-kept land. Cattle grazed and some reindeer mulled about in the distance, rooting through some bushes near a small cottage. Not quite what I was expecting, Torsten thought. Somehow mud huts and shirtless savages with painted faces had been his expectation.

  I should know better than that, he reprimanded himself. These people are descended of the Ancients, just as I am. Their blood is the same that bore the suit I wear now and that makes me seem as some God to the uneducated.

  “Mom!” The girl called loudly as they approached the cottage. “Mom!” Not waiting for an answer.

  “What is it?” An impatient voice responded from within.

  “We’ve got a visitor! And I told him you’d feed him!”

  The door of the cottage began to open, and the voice answered from within. “Did you now? And who might our visitor be?”

  The woman stepped into the doorway and looked at her daughter before her vision turned to the armored visage of war that Torsten surely appeared as. There was a moment of frozen terror, etched across her features in exquisite detail. Torsten could see every muscle twitching in her face as her mouth opened in slow-motion and she began to scream.

  It took several minutes for Torsten to convince the woman that he was not there to kill her and her children. That he was in fact just a traveler looking for a good meal that he was more than willing to barter for. The woman still seemed terrified as she clutched her daughter to her chest, but at least she had stopped screaming.

  A few silent minutes passed as the woman seemed to weigh her options before she turned and walked inside, motioning for Torsten to follow her. He entered and found no one lying in wait to ambush him. He opened his faceplate, allowing his halo to continue to function while showing his face. The aroma of stewed rabbit filled his nose and he grinned as he sat at a table set for a midafternoon meal.

  It hadn’t taken long for word of his arrival to spread. By the time he finished eating, several mounted warriors had arrived and insisted that he acco
mpany them to the center of the village to meet with the shaman who led them. The men tried to keep a hard look about them, but it was clear to Torsten that they were afraid. In their position he might have been as well. But he doubted it. He would have been looking for a weak point to sink a knife into if that was what it came down to. Or the nearest cover and concealed path to anywhere else.

  The shaman had been more than happy to receive what he believed to be a God descended to Veldt in the flesh. The wizened old man had bowed and apologized profusely for any disrespectful treatment Torsten might have received at the hands of his people.

  With the shaman’s aid, Torsten called together the most senior members of the village. Priests, warriors, and chieftains all. Aided by the translation abilities of his halo he had tried to explain to them that he was in fact, not a god. That there were no Gods, just men with powerful weapons.

  The disbelief was clear on their faces, but they let him speak as if they were being tested by the divine. An act of faith. He explained to them that the War God, Anhur, was dead by his own hand and that they no longer owed sacrifice or allegiance to him. Though his words lacked physical evidence to back them up, most accepted that he was the one they had seen fall from the heavens.

  And if such a man said the God of War was dead, who were they to question him?

  The assembled village elders conferred among themselves for some time before they invited Torsten to stay and share his knowledge. Communications with Modi had been spotty at best, but she had been able to tell him it would be several weeks before he could be retrieved. Or he could start walking and make it back in the span of several months to a year.

  Staying with the village seemed like a good option.

  He showed them what he could. How to better dig wells and where to find higher quality water. More advanced farming techniques that would increase their crop yields and benefit them. He taught the use of medicinal herbs and emergency first aid that they didn’t already use. He showed them relatively advanced construction techniques that would give them taller buildings that made better use of the available space and stout walls within which they could shelter against men and nature. But there was only so much that could be done with what they had.