Wrath of the Gods Page 3

  It soon became clear to all that Torsten outclassed everyone else. He moved too quickly, hit too hard. They couldn’t keep up with him. So he had allowed them to fight him two on one. Then three on one. And then finally, all of them against him at once.

  An open-handed blow sent Eric sprawling on the mats, and that was the last of them. Torsten had won again. He moved to each man where they lay, making sure none of them were injured beyond their pride, and offering a hand to help them back to their feet.

  Modi’s familiar voice spoke, filling the training hall with the music of her words.

  “Gentlemen,” she began. “We have a problem.”

  She explained to them that a member of the Modi Collective, the network of minds that formed part of her consciousness, had unexpectedly gone offline. In the past, members had been lost due to damage from bombardment or failed power supplies. In the case of failing energy stores, it could be seen ahead of time as monitoring equipment would show such an event approaching.

  This time, however, a member had suddenly gone offline without warning. Someone would need to go physically check the installation. Though her intellect was matched only by that of Vidar, both of them lacked physical hands with which to work. Torsten’s crew would have to go check it out.

  Once there, they could bring the member back online if possible. If the situation could not be repaired they could retrieve the member and return them to Fort Kasper for emplacement in a new neural interface unit.

  “Modi, can you elaborate on what this particular member… is?” Torsten asked.

  “A fair question,” she began. “Some members remain in their bodies, held in stasis fields that preserve them, but allow them to interact with the other members of the Modi Collective. Others are little more than brain casings hardwired into computer systems. A few others are actually digitized personalities.” She hesitated a moment before continuing.

  “This one is actually a human head fixed in a preservation system and hardwired into the network.” Several men looked at one another as she finished her statement.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t bite you or anything. It’s really just a head in a jar with a bunch of wires and tubes going in and out of it.” She said. Torsten couldn’t tell if she was attempting a joke or not.

  “Modi,” Ed began. “If it’s a head in a jar and it still has a brain in it, what keeps the brain alive?” He asked.

  “There used to be techs that would inject a ketone body nutrient paste directly into the brain through feeding ports. The paste would be metabolized and the waste products would be dumped through another port. Now that the techs have been gone for about a thousand years, a backup system keeps the brain fed and living. Catalysts use atmospheric carbon dioxide and various type of geothermal and solar power to produce sugars that can then undergo further reactions to produce the ketone bodies that are automatically fed into the brain. The waste isn’t such a big deal as there are systems in place to remove and recycle it.” She answered.

  Ed shrugged his shoulders as if that explained everything.

  Two days later Torsten found himself onboard the cargo shuttle with Ed and Eric, heading almost due north for hours on end. Gazing at endless expanses of snow and ice. Modi told them this location had been selected based on the preponderance of geothermal energy in the area, ensuring that despite its remote location even during the high point of the Ancients’ civilization its function would not be hindered by variations in power supply.

  After making a few circuits around the landing zone, Ed was satisfied the area was clear of immediate threats. The shuttle touched down, engines melting a huge patch of snow with their downwash before the vehicle came to rest on frozen ground. As always Torsten was the first out, rifle at the ready. Eric followed him a split second later and finally Ed.

  Scans of the area had shown nothing suspicious and the scouts had no reason to expect enemy contact, but they remained vigilant. Warriors who didn’t stay on guard didn’t usually live long enough to complete their missions.

  Torsten followed the path outlined in blue in his vision. A snow covered mound waited for him at its end. He crouched near the marked position and provided overwatch for the two men following him. When both arrived, Ed removed a large pack he was carrying on his back and opened it.

  He grabbed a large cutting torch for himself and passed the other to Eric. The blinding glare of the torches was neutralized in Torsten’s vision by optical sensor compensation. The torches seemed a little overpowered to him for cutting through accumulated snow and ice, but there was no other suitable equipment to be found.

  The cutting torches, designed for welding heat resistant alloys, made short work of the snow and ice. Ed sent to Torsten that they were done and he looked back to see a metal door in an indentation in the accumulated ice. Three or four feet back from the surface of the ice. It must have been a few hard winters since anyone had used the door.

  A thousand or so, he guessed.

  Torsten approached the door as Eric and Ed fell away and took positions to provide covering fire outwards from their position and inwards past the door if need be. Implanted electronics within the door began attempting to scan the three men, looking for their identification. As Torsten drew close to the door his suit acknowledged the scan and his implanted electronic ID, designating him a high ranking member of military intelligence, was acknowledged by the scanner.

  There was a barely audible beep and the door slid open with a hiss.

  A very neat hallway illuminated with white light diodes led to another set of doors. These were much heavier. Blast doors, Torsten thought as he approached. He cleared the hallway and the final corners at its end before signaling for Ed and Eric to advance.

  “Something doesn’t feel right.” Ed spoke to Torsten. Eric nodded in agreement, but remained silent, gripping his rifle tight.

  Torsten called for Ed to open the door as he took up a firing position facing inward. Ed knelt by an interface panel and punched in a series of commands. The door groaned in protest for several seconds and then sprang open with surprising quickness.

  A hallway descended steeply into a large dimly-lit chamber. The trio descended quickly, staying on guard. It was nominally friendly territory, but it wouldn’t be the first time automated defense systems had targeted them if they remained active.

  Sensors told Torsten that the room was much colder than it should be. At the center of the room a shaft of odd light descended from above, illuminating a mechanical chamber just large enough to hold a man. Torsten circled around the chamber, looking up to the ceiling to inspect the source of the light. There he saw that a large opening had been cut in the ceiling and through the ice above it. The shaft of light was sunlight.

  Realization of what this meant hit him as he turned back to the mechanical chamber. Data streams told him that it was a stasis chamber designed to house a human brain/machine interface. The face of the chamber that now stood in front of him was torn and broken. Bits and pieces of scrapped steel littered the floor along with a spreading pool of frozen fluids and broken tubing and wires.

  He approached the chamber and peered inside. Where the casing containing the head and brain of the member of the Modi Collective should have been, there was only an empty space.

  AS he drifted, he dreamed. A great sheet of ice surrounded him and he couldn’t move. The oppressive cold was all around him, locking him in place and threatening to crush him. A digital read-out blinked across his vision, showing a frosty -165 C. His mind’s interpretation of the sensory data that was being funneled into it in his current state.

  It was inaccurate to think of them as dreams, though. They were thoughts and memories that he could sift through. Still semi-conscious in his mostly dormant state. He could have powered down completely if he had wanted, waiting for his electrical systems to bring him back on line when the target approached.

  But that wasn’t his style. He enjoyed the memories he sifted through, both new and old. Glo
ries won on the field of battle and the thrill of new enemies discovered. Few things in life could compare to the anticipation of a good fight. And this new enemy had proven to be capable of putting up just that.

  It was unfortunate that they had not met in the field yet. But the time when they would clash was inevitable. Just a matter of playing the waiting game. And given how long he had waited to carry out the mission he was on now, it seemed a matter of no consequence to wait a few more weeks or months or even years.

  Something cold briefly touched his armored spine as he drifted and passive sensors poured data into the part of his mind that was still functioning. Composition, temperature, likely origin. High nickel alloy, approximately -150 C, scrap from a destroyed Coalition freighter. If only he’d been able to see its death, to hear their screams, he thought with a rush of excitement. That had been one of his favorite parts of battle. Hearing them scream.

  Alas, it was not meant to be. When this freighter had died and its crew likely along with it, he had still been in suspension. Somewhere between living and dead. The same place he’d been for most of the past thousand years. It strained belief, but all evidence pointed to the accuracy of that statement.

  One thousand years spent in suspension along with the rest of his unit. If Anhur’s minions had not found them in their search for munitions, he and his unit would still be floating there. Likely they would have done so for another two to three hundred years before the suspension systems failed and they began to rot away, unaware of their impending doom.

  But as fate would have it, they had been discovered and revived. Revived and given purpose. Unit 13 was active once more, seeking to destroy the enemies of the UN wherever they might be found. A joke of sorts, in his own mind. The UN had no shortage of enemies. It was unlikely that it ever would. Just as unlikely as the UN still existing.

  The situation on Veldt had grown grim, to say the least, while they had slept. Both UN and traitor Coalition forces had been brutally depleted in the fighting with the stubborn defenders of this backwater, and with each other. Anhur himself, the legendary Special Forces warrior turned general had been killed, even if only recently.

  His death was a serious blow to morale, but helped to give them purpose. They would deal with the Coalition seditionists and then they would bring this world to heel with a tidal wave of blood and flames. Of course, all that blood would likely put out the flames. The conundrum of the apocalyptic prophecy, he mused. Regardless, they would find the men responsible for Anhur’s death and they would avenge him. Not out of some emotional attachment to the man.

  They had hardly known him, interacting with him directly on only a few occasions. But as a matter of principle. They would look weak if they let someone kill their allies, their superiors at that, and then escape punishment.

  If only he could have been there, when the men from below and the Coalition had conspired to destroy Anhur. The suspension sickness had still been upon him though and he was powerless to do aught but lie still while he recovered. His mechanical body, the physical embodiment of war, had been ready from the moment it was reactivated. But his brain had been another story.

  Continually updated orders from General Kasabian had been relayed to him through the battle station’s computer systems, and he was able to watch in real time as two groups of enemies boarded the station and brought the continuation of the war there.

  He had ground his steel teeth in anger and frustration as he saw such frail enemies, enemies that he could crush with his bare hands, overrun the station and finally destroy it. Anhur’s final orders had been simple and to the point.

  “Avenge me.”

  And Oro would obey. At least for as long as it suited him to do so.

  Once fully operational, Oro, the leader of Unit 13 had issued his own orders to the men turned engines-of-death under his command. Nergal, Bishamon, Resheph, and Set. Each name that of a War God from Old Earth mythologies. Warriors identified strongly with the literary figures that held the keys to victory in warfare and the secrets of life and death on the field of battle. They behaved differently in battle when taking on an alter ego. Bolder, ballsier, more efficient. They became better killers.

  Each armored unit that housed what remained of the men that bore those names was a monument to the genius of the scientists who had been working with captured technology from the Veldt conflict. Each was the most advanced warfare system that had been produced to date by the UN.

  Their arrival to the fight had been late. Likely too late to turn the tide, but it was to be the baptism by fire of many new technologies. Each man had been an experienced warrior drawn from the UN Spec Ops forces, so this was not to be their first dance. They had been selected for their intelligence and mental stability as well as mental instability. Oro had participated heavily in the selection process, having already been tapped to lead the unit. And he knew exactly what he wanted.

  Men like himself.

  He wanted men who would do whatever it took to win, even if that meant murdering their own children. Men who would swim through an ocean of blood spilled from the innocent, though innocence was an illusion in Oro’s mind, to finish their mission. And he found them. Four of them to be exact.

  Killers through and through.

  Between the five of them, countless enemies had been destroyed. Generals and politicians and corporate figures assassinated in the dark of night or in very public places under the watchful eye of the people as orders dictated. Warriors and enemy spec ops units cut down with firearms and blades on the field of battle. Sabotaged enemy ships falling from the sky, unable to save themselves as they plunged into planets and stars.

  And once more these men, the very best available to choose from among the entirety of UN Special Forces, were ready for war. A war a thousand years in the making.

  After Anhur’s death, when they had finally been fully activated, they had sought out the traitor Torsten and his scouts to destroy them. But they were nowhere to be found. Their enemies had remained hidden, but their allies had called out to them. Through the temples of the War God, they could listen to men and women all across Veldt who sought his favor. They had descended to the planet below in shuttles embellished in appearance for theatrical purpose, fully intent on continuing Anhur’s plan of establishing religious dominance of the entire planet as a way to subdue its populace.

  Anhur, though, had been an idealist. He appeared to have believed, despite reason, that someday the UN would return. That particular delusion may have been the patriot in him refusing to believe that his nation could have been destroyed, or it could have been a thousand years of wear on his mind.

  Oro did not share that same delusion. If the UN still existed, which was unlikely given the course of human history, they would have already returned here if they had the capability. If not to finish their conquest, then at least to spy and make sure a fleet wasn’t massing to purge them from the galaxy in a conflagration of steel and nuclear fire.

  No, he did not expect anything quite as glorious as the return of the proud battle fleets, bristling with weaponry and stuffed full of marines ready to land. With the UN gone, there would only be one thing for Unit 13 to do: Avenge the great warrior Anhur, and establish themselves as the undisputed rulers of this entire world.

  Perhaps from the ruins of the old civilization, Oro and Unit 13 could forge a new empire. One with him seated squarely on the throne. But to do that, they would need an army.

  They sought out warrior tribes to serve them, and there were many.

  From the surface of Veldt they were able to begin piecing together the path that the traitor had trodden after slaying Anhur. They rallied their allies in the area, presenting themselves as Anhur’s sons. Divine flesh from divine flesh. And who were these backwoods savages to disbelieve them? If they knew what was good for them, not only would they believe, but they would evangelize. Evangelize with the barrel of the gun and point of the blade.

  Terrible Gods carved from living st
eel strode among them and smote them or rewarded them as they saw fit. The enormity of it all in their tiny minds ensured their allegiance. If not born of awe, then at least born of fear. And given his choice, Oro would choose the allegiance based on fear every time.

  The alliance had proved fruitful so far. Even now, as he floated through a cloud of debris in perpetual orbit around Veldt, disguised as just more garbage and closing on his target, his servants far below were carrying out his orders as if it was the will of a God. And indeed it was. If he was not a God to these people, then no one could lay claim to the title.

  Unit 13 had been tasked with seizing and extracting a unit suspected of being part of an advanced neural interface system when they entered the system. Now, a thousand years later, as Unit 13 carried out their stealth attack in orbit, wild tribesmen carried out the extraction planetside. Claiming one of many targets below that they sought.

  Something buzzed static in the back of his mind and Oro issued the first of his planned orders for this operation. Confirmations came in from each member of Unit 13 as they came back online. Orbital jump packs much like the one the Traitor had worn when he leapt to Veldt from the fatally wounded UN battle station, fired briefly, adjusting their course.

  The burst of combustion was short but intense. Carefully calibrated so as not to give away their position to anyone who might be scanning the area. And to take them on a collision course with their target.

  Sensory data flooded into Oro’s mind as he became fully aware again. Despite the stealth functionality of his mechanical body, it had been necessary to avoid detection for him and the men of his unit to remain dormant as they floated towards their target, lest their base functions give away their position and leave them vulnerable. Surviving this clusterfuck of ten centuries only to obliterated by something as base as an automated defensive laser battery would bring only disgrace. But no such thing had happened and now, as he sped towards his target, it was time to kill once more.