[UF:FI][FanFic] Twilight - Fourth Seal: Prelude

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

21h40 ASGARD TIME

Gryphon and Skuld returned to the tent he had left alone,
finding it empty. They left their boots and cloaks by the door
(Gryphon was especially fond, in this design, of the little pegs that
came out of the inflatable wall to hold coats up); ever the good host,
he let her have the bed and sat in the chair. They left the light on,
for this was not a night to be sitting in the dark, and the silence
lay heavy for a while, pressing close with the fear.
Presently, silently, Gryphon reached out his hand and took
Skuld's, clasping it palm to palm; then he spoke, his voice low and
deep, reciting words worn smooth in his memory with use and
consideration.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at the close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Skuld was silent for a moment; then, softly, she asked, "Did
you write that?"
Gryphon chuckled. "No," he replied. "Dylan Thomas did. He
was a Welsh poet, he died before I was born. But, as it happens, his
is a sentiment I agree with. I've never been much of a poet, except
maybe for haiku. Master Takanaka used to say I was hopeless at that,
too."
"Can you make one up for tonight's situation?" asked Skuld,
half-joking.
Gryphon pondered that for a moment, then said,

"Freezing my butt off
Waiting in the blowing snow.
Must be Zoner's fault."

Skuld considered it, then opted for honesty and said, "I think
your master was right."
Gryphon sighed. "Everyone's a critic."
"Do you remember the last time we did this?"
"What, sat and talked when we should have been sleeping?"
"Yes."
"Of course," he replied. "It was on 03F8. I prayed for your
help, and you showed up wearing that bizarre outfit... "
Skuld laughed. "I was in my 'oh, see what a rebel I am'
phase. I used to dress like that just to drive poor Belldandy as far
up the wall as I could. Some kind of childish revenge for marrying
Keiichi, I suppose it must have been." Chuckling impishly, she went
on, "I suspect it may have flustered you a bit."
"You could say that," Gryphon replied wryly. "I had a very
definite image of you in my mind from my time on Tomodachi, and it
didn't involve five extra inches of height, combat boots or a halter
top."
"Silly of you; it was decades later. Did you think I was
going to keep looking thirteen my whole life? Oh, and it wasn't a
halter top, you unsophisticated lout. It was a bustier."
"Well how should I know? I've never worn either. As for your
apparent age, I never gave it any thought. I figured the gods were
constant and unchanging."
"Huh! If we were, we wouldn't be people. Hey, can I ask you
an incredibly personal question?"
"Sure. A man shouldn't have secrets from his patron deity."
"When you said goodbye to me on 03F8, I had a feeling... it
might just have been my hormones, Allfather knows I had those to spare
at that age, but... I thought, for a moment, you wanted to kiss
me... or more... "
Gryphon arched an eyebrow.
"I did," he replied, steepling his fingers before him.
"Why didn't you, then? I would have let you. I would have
jumped off a bridge if you had asked me to. I would have stayed with
you the whole time you were in exile if you hadn't sent me away.
That's why I didn't see you again until today at your house... for the
longest time I was angry at you, and then I was afraid you might be
angry at me."
Gryphon considered the question, then shrugged. "I'm not
sure. Part of me was still raw and bleeding from the reason I was in
exile. Part of me didn't trust women, part of me didn't want to be
unfaithful to Kei, part of me wanted to know what the hell I thought I
owed her, and the rest was confused by the conflict. And... well, you
were older, but you still looked so young. You still don't look much
over eighteen. Plus... well, you're a bit above my station in
existence. I didn't want to overstep my bounds."
They looked across the space that separated them for a few
very long seconds, eye to eye.
"Will you overstep them tonight?" Skuld asked softly, her face
deadly serious, as she took his hands in hers.
"Yes," was his reply.

/* A. Vivaldi "Winter, Part 3" _The Four Seasons_ */

Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presents

UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
-=TWILIGHT=-

FOURTH SEAL: PRELUDE

Benjamin D. Hutchins
Lawrence R. Mann
MegaZone
Kris Overstreet

"Do Not Go Gentle" by Dylan Thomas

Excerpt from "Paradise Lost" by John Milton

07h00 (60 MINUTES BEFORE DAWN) ASGARD TIME

Kris and Butch Overstreet stood above a deep entrenchment of
Asgard Regular Army troops, eyes straining towards the still-darkened
horizon. Neither man had slept a wink; both had spent the night
walking down the Asgard line, talking about life, the afterlife,
people they'd known, people living and dead. With dawn maybe minutes
away, the pounding sleet which had soaked and iced down the
battlefield gave way to a gentle snow.The wind faded and died, leaving
a stillness more terrible than the storm, a silence which slowly drove
Kris buggy with anticipation.
"Dad?" he asked as Butch looked through his binoculars towards
the horizon. "You remember a couple hours ago, when I complained about
the wind freezing my ears off?"
"Yeah..." Butch said, waiting for the followup line.
"I changed my mind," Kris grumbled. "I want the wind back.
It's way too still."
"Every once and a while, back in 'Nam, it would get still like
this," Butch said. "No birds, no insects, no wind. And then you'd be
up to your ass in Viet Cong."
"Gee, thanks, Dad," Kris grumbled. "Make me more anxious, why
don't ya?"
"I thought you'd be used to this by now."
"I never get used to waiting," Kris said. "Usually I'm on the
attacking side."
"We can't always get what we want," Butch said.
The silence drew on, as a faint glimmer of light snuck up on
the cloudy sky. Finally, Butch mumbled, "You want a rifle or
somethin'? They'll be coming soon."
"Don't need it," Kris shrugged. "But I'd like a couple minutes
with the strongest power source you can muster up."
"What for?" Butch said.
Kris grinned mischieviously. "Call it breakfast."

Loki surveyed the massed troops spread out before him.
Uniformed in blacks and greys, they formed a dark sea, seething with
anticipation. He smiled. His troops were champing at the bit. If
they followed his plans, as his final grand joke, this day's twilight
would be -the- Twilight. And, if they didn't - well, they wouldn't
want to make him angry. They wouldn't like him when he was angry.
It was time to get this rolling. He clambered onto the back
of a troop carrier and keyed his microphone, so his words would be
carried to all of his troops, wherever they may be.
"Warriors of Darkness! Today we fight the battle not to end
all battles - but to end EVERYTHING!" He paused to let the cheering
subside. "We will smash the forces of Asgard and fulfill the
prophecy! The Ragnarok is upon us, we will not fail!" More cheering.
"We will tear the walls of Asgard down and burn the city! The snow
will steam with the blood of the slain!" Cheers again. "Go forth and
conquer! Hela, my daughter, will lead you to victory! Death! Death!
Death to all who oppose us!" The crowd went wild. Loki smirked,
muttering to himself as he jumped to the ground, "Yes, this will do
nicely. I wonder if these jerks even realize that the 'end of
everything' I'm talking about -includes them-."
Hela greeted him, smirking, as he strode towards the command
center. "A wonderful speech, Father. You have the troops in a fine
lather. The fools should fight well enough, if a bit blindly."
"Tools. After all, everything is expendable this time." Loki
grinned at his own joke. "Quite literally, in fact."
They arrived at the command center presently.
Loki approched a battered figure, chained to a bunk in the
corner. "So, Peorth, what did you think of my little pep talk?"
"A fine fiction. You will never win."
"Ah, you still have some spirit." Loki raised his hand as if
to strike; Peorth cringed meekly. "But I see you are learning
obedience. You can be trained after all, my pet. Pity I won't have
more time to enjoy you, but you can't have everything. Well, not for
much longer, anyway."
"You really are evil."
Loki grinned ferally. "You haven't seen anything yet."

Gryphon awoke with a start from a dream of a dark-haired man
he did not know turning up in the doorway of a room he apparently
lived in, but did not recognize. On a starship? The walls were metal
and the door was a powered bulkhead. The dark-haired man had his hand
in the hand of a very pretty, very pale woman who looked at him (the
dark-haired man, not Gryphon) with the kind of tacit adoration most
men spend their lives hoping to find, and as the door opened, he (the
dark-haired man, not Gryphon) grinned with lots of white teeth and
said something.
Unfortunately, it was just as he was speaking that Gryphon
awoke, and that part of his memory went instantly blank. He worried
at it for a few moments, but it only made the rest of the image fade,
and then the rest of his memory tapped him on the shoulder and
reminded him that he had other things to do.
He glanced at his watch. Seven o'clock.
He slipped from under the unzipped sleeping bag and got to his
feet, stifling a desire to curse the cold floor under his bare feet.
Quietly, he went to the folding camp sink built into the far corner,
brushed his teeth, washed his face and hands, got his hair wet enough
to run a brush through a few times, then tied it back in a ponytail
out of his way. Poking through the clothes thrown over the back of
the chair, he took his best guess as to what was his; he buttoned up
the only white shirt in the lot with ease and tried with comical
futility to get a leg into the wrong trousers before retrieving the
correct ones from the bunch.
He pulled on his socks and fastened his boots, arranging the
cuffs of his trousers; then he knotted his tie without bothering to
use the mirror. Zoner had ribbed him once for wearing a tie when he
went civvie, wondering aloud if his friend were going suit; Gryphon
had sighingly replied that Zoner didn't understand the first thing
about -real- individualism and promptly cited role models for casual
tie-wearing, undermining his entire opening point.
Then, regretting that he could delay no longer, he knelt next
to the bed, gently turned Skuld's sleeping face up, and kissed her
softly. "Skuld, wake up."
"Wha," she replied, opening her eyes and blinking sleepily up
at him.
"It's after seven... it'll be dawn soon," he said.
At that, she uncurled with a sigh, gazing up at the blue
plastic ceiling of the tent as she rolled onto her back.
"Damn," she mumbled.
"Yep," agreed Gryphon as he shrugged into the shoulder rig for
his guns. "It's such a -good- day for loitering in bed, too."
He removed the magazine from one of his automatics, checking
the row of status LEDs that ran up the side; in the year since he had
invented them, Andrew Petrarca had refined the design of the
hyperdimensional magazines, based on the same operational principle as
his very popular hyperdimensional Pez dispensers, and eliminated the
haphazard tangle of wires and lights which marked the originals.
Gryphon thumbed off a round and watched as its replacement popped into
being in its place with a faint blue flash, fascinated.
"Hey, that's keen," said Skuld, sitting up and tugging her own
shirt off the chair. "Who built it?"
"Andrew," replied Gryphon, slapping the magazine back into the
weapon and racking the slide a couple of times, pumping a couple of
rounds out onto the corner of the sleeping bag. Satisfied, he set the
safety, put the gun away, and repeated the procedure with the other
before scooping up the loose shells and putting them in his trouser
pocket.
"You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get two of
these things," Gryphon mused as Skuld assembled her Valkyrie uniform.
"When I was a kid they were the most popular thing since sliced bread,
you could get this design from any number of manufacturers in quality
levels ranging from astounding to awful. Last spring, there were none
in production. The WDF Quartermaster General had to pull these
two out of an Army arsenal back on Earth and send a fold transport
after them to get them to me in time."
"I wish I'd known," said Skuld with a smile as she braided her
obsidian hair into a single tail, then pinned it into a coil on the
back of her head and settled her peaked cap over it. "We've got a
vault full of old weapons here, mostly stored by the Einherjar when
they found something in the modernization program they liked better."
She secured the Sam Browne belt on her uniform, opened the holster
flap and took out her own sidearm, a Luger that heightened her
uniform's sinister appearance. "I got this one from a Luftwaffe pilot
who was shot down in 1942. I did my own version of the transmat
magazine conversion on the Ruger I gave Yuri before trying it on this
one, because the geometry of the magazines is similar."
Gryphon pulled on his Inverness cloak, buttoning it and
smoothing the overcape and sleeves, and plopped his slouch hat on his
head. He knew the outfit was woefully inadequate for the climate he
would be fighting in, but somehow, he doubted he would be very cold.
He turned to Skuld, who was fastening the belt of her
overcoat, and as she looked up from that and met his eyes, they fell
silent for a moment, well aware that their conversation so far had
been mainly chatter, filling time.
"Will this cause problems for you?" she asked, more interested
in his assessment than the actual answer, since she felt she already
knew that.
Gryphon considered for a moment.
"No," he replied at length. "It won't. Will it for you?"
"Never," Skuld replied. "Never in a million years."
Did anything more need to be said?
Gryphon reached into his coat and shirt and touched his
fingertip to the pendant she had given him the day before.
No; it was enough.
The moment passed, time grew short, and he offered her his
arm, very formally.
"General," he said, smiling, "if I may escort you?"
Slowly, Skuld walked to him, pulled him into a surprisingly
powerful embrace, leaned her forehead to his, and kissed him, very
softly, once.
Then she took his arm and said with a smile, "You may."
As they walked through the curiously calm snowfall toward the
large prefab structure where the Valkyrie equipment awaited its users,
Gryphon wondered what he could possibly give to her that would equal
in value the things she had given him. He had no way of knowing that
he already had.
And then there was no more time for such thoughts.

In the hazy dark, Dr. Lawrence Mann could have sworn he saw
himself open his hand and obliterate another human being in a blaze of
light.
That was when the world of dreams abandoned him, leaving him
floating in a quiet, dark sea of semiconsciousness, trying to make
sense of what he'd just seen and managing only to bury the rest of the
images as his senses spun inexorably back up to conscious level and
focused on what they felt to be more important matters.
Notably, the silence. When last he'd been conscious, the wind
had been howling outside. Now, everything was quiet; at the risk of
making a cliche, too quiet. He opened his eyes and was presented with
a view of the tent ceiling, dimly illuminated by a nightlight. The
familiar surroundings quickly made the silence a little less
oppressive; he was still alive, still here...
Yeah, this wasn't some godawful dream. He was still here, and
the End of the World was still coming, and that thought alone would
deny him any sort of further sleep.
His awareness of his surroundings continued to increase and he
became more aware of the person in close proximity to him. More
accurately, lying halfway on top of him. His senses also pointed out
a small wind against his neck, the result of the breathing of the
tent's third occupant, who was curled up next to them. Hm. Somehow
they'd managed to end up a lot closer to each other than they'd been
when they all fell asleep, perhaps out of some subconscious need for
closeness. Go figure.
In another place and time he might have taken the time to
enjoy this, but he couldn't forget what was coming, and the silence
outside was making him increasingly uneasy. He needed to find out
what was going on. This of course necessitated his extricating
himself from Yuri and probably waking her up in the process, but
unfortunately that couldn't be helped. Sighing, he looked down--
And abruptly realized that it wasn't Yuri on top of him.
"Uh?" he remarked, derailed, a part of his mind suddenly
thankful that they all were still at least half-dressed.
Kei stirred at that point, roused by the movement underneath
her. One eye cracked open, followed presently by the other, and then
she abruptly looked up, taking in her position and her surroundings.
And then their eyes met.
"Um..." Larry ventured, at a bit of a loss.
"Sure, that's what they all say," replied Kei with a wink.
"Then they go out for pizza and I never see them again."
R-Type felt his face flushing and could do nothing about it.
"You're so cute when you blush," Kei grinned. "I dunno about
this thermoplastic body suit, though," she continued, prodding at his
chest with a finger. "It's way too 'Nine Inch Nails video' for my
taste. I didn't think Yuri was into that kind of thing either. Boy,
you think you know someone."
"You take what you can get in an uncertain world," R-Type
replied wryly. "Sheesh."
"Nothing's uncertain about my world any more, chum," said Kei
cheerily. She paused then, face sobering, and directed her attention
toward the closed tent flap. "You hear that?" she whispered.
"If you mean the wind, or lack thereof," Larry whispered
in response, "yeah, I hear it."
Kei got up, the rather awkward wakeup already forgotten,
smoothing out her rumpled clothes as she padded quietly over to the
tent flap. Larry meanwhile got to his feet, pausing only long enough
to plant a small kiss on Yuri's cheek, and went about straightening
out the black body glove he still wore while Kei unzipped the flap
enough to poke her head outside for a moment.
R-Type glanced at his wrist, saw the spot on the body glove
where he couldn't wear his watch or it would interfere with the
vambrace-gauntlet joint of the over-armor, and cursed.
"What time is it?" he asked Kei softly.
Pulling her head back in, Kei checked her watch. "Little
after 0700, local time. Darkest hour," Kei replied, motioning
him over to look out through the opening. Indeed, it was quite dark
out. Dark and silent. The wind had died down to a barely noticeable
breeze, and the snow they could see fell slowly and quietly. And
except for the sentinel lights from nearby places in the encampment,
everything was pitch black.
Darkest hour, all right.
"Only about an hour 'til dawn... well I'm not gonna get any
more sleep," R-Type sighed quietly as Kei zipped the flap closed again
to keep the cold out.
"We gotta get up now anyway..." Kei replied. Both their gazes
went to Yuri's sleeping form for a moment, both thinking the same
thing, neither of them really wanting to follow through at the moment.
Larry voiced his opinion first. "Let's let her sleep a little
longer."
"Yeah," Kei nodded.
That decided, Kei went about gathering up the rest of her
outer clothing while Larry began organizing the pieces of his armor,
preparing to put them back on again. Kei buttoned a heavy red flannel
shirt over her t-shirt and stuffed the tails into her jeans, then
folded the cuffs of her jeans legs flat, secured them with chunks of
tape from the tent's field kit, and pulled a pair of heavy wool socks
over them. She left the pair of heavy black thermal boots she'd
borrowed from the Asgardian Army until later; no sense in overheating
her feet before she had to leave the tent.
The silence between them was broken a moment later. "Thanks
for coming, by the way," she whispered, glancing over at Yuri. "She
was pretty upset for a while there."
"Yeah, I know," Larry sighed. "I could feel it from up there."
"I -was- kinda wondering why you went back up to the ship."
"Well I did need to brief my own people, be a corporate
officer and do the morale thing and all that.. Seemed like a good
idea at the time."
"Was it?"
"Yeah, for about two hours, and then it got wrong."
Silence again, shorter this time. Then Kei walked over to him
and spoke even more quietly, almost whispering in his ear. "You
didn't see her in the truck. She didn't want you to go. She didn't
want to be left alone down here."
"I'm sorry," he whispered back, eyes closed. "I thought it
was the right thing--"
"I wasn't faulting you," Kei replied, silencing him with a
hand on his shoulder. "You had your responsibilities, I know that.
I just..." Sighing, she sat down on the tent floor, laying the
enchanted rod Skuld had given her across her lap. Not knowing quite
what else to do, Larry sat beside her.
"I just don't want her to be alone ever again," she said
softly, her grip on the rod tightening a bit. "She spent 90 years
like that, and it damn near tore her to shreds. I don't think she
would've survived the last decade if you hadn't come into her life. I
sure as hell wasn't any help. And if you weren't here now, I don't
know what would've happened..." She trailed off and sighed, shaking
her head, and Larry found himself wishing he could know what she was
thinking, or at the very least, what she was feeling.
Then, unexpectedly, she reached over and took his hand.
"Just promise me something-- no, two things, okay?"
"Anything," he answered, slightly surprised.
"First off, stay out of trouble today. Leave the fighting to
the fighters, okay?"
"Yeah, sure. I was gonna do that anyway," he said. "'Sides,
I don't think Kawalsky and Feretti will let me out of the command
center once the shooting starts. What's the other thing?"
Kei was silent for a moment, and then her grip on his hand
tightened a bit, and the volume of her voice dropped proportionally.
"Don't ever leave her alone. Okay?"
"Not if I can help it," he said, putting his other hand over
Kei's. "You watch yourself out there too, huh? I don't want Yuri's
best friend leaving her -- hell, any of us -- alone either."
There was a pause which drew out into several moments as they
looked quietly into each other's eyes, and Larry became increasingly
aware of feelings which he realized weren't his own...
"So, trying to steal my boyfriend, hmm?" said a quiet and
mischievous voice behind them, and Larry found himself being hugged
from behind. Somehow Yuri'd managed to get up and sneak over to them
without being noticed.
"Steal? No, I wouldn't do that," Kei replied. "Although, I
was thinking about applying for a card from Yuri's Library of Guys."
"Are you kidding?" said Yuri. "You've still got vid discs you
rented in 2268."
"YOU pay cr133,764 in late fees," Kei grumped.
"I don't have to," Yuri said smugly, showily tightening her
grip on R-Type. "I don't rent."
In a small voice, R-Type said, "i'm doomed"
"I'll decide how best to make you pay for talking about me
behind my back later," Yuri threatened.
[Wonder how long she's been awake?] Larry thought to himself
with a smile.
"Since the bit about staying out of tr--" Yuri started to say,
then abruptly stopped and blinked.
Larry and Kei both blinked as well, Kei at the apparent non
sequitur, Larry at its significance. "You heard that?" he asked.
Before Yuri could answer there came a tapping, as of someone
gently rapping, rapping (more or less) at their chamber door, and
the vocoder-masked sound of Nico Feretti's voice could be heard.
"Boss? You up? Will I be struck blind if I open the flap?"
Reluctantly disengaging from Yuri's embrace, Larry got up and
zipped open the tent flap, confronting the masked faces of his two
bodyguards. "Grow up, Feretti. What do you want?"
"Looks like things're starting to happen," Kawalsky said.
"Ugly Otto wants you over to the command center PFQ."
"Right, give me a few minutes," Larry nodded, and ducked
back inside. "Gotta figure out how to put this stupid suit back
together... " he muttered.

Urd walked into the Great Hall of Odin's palace. Over the
course of the night, which for the Norn of the Past had been long and
lonely and sleepless and spent over a well-worn volume of ancient
Earther poetry, a technical crew of dwarves from Alfheim had converted
the massive room into the nerve center of the defense operation.
Massive display screens covered the walls, while at a dozen ranked
consoles, elves and minor gods sat with headsets on, coordinating the
allied forces on three fronts. Amid it all towered Odin, resplendent
in his most ancient and traditional battle-finery, his hands clasped
behind his back as he surveyed the preparations for battle with his
one remaining eye.
Soon, he would switch on the all-call public-address system
the dwarves were fine-tuning, and speak to all his troops, doing what
he could to bolster their spirits after the terrible night and hurl
them clear-headed into battle. For now, though, he paced, looking
terribly human and vulnerable as he muttered over the words of his
address, discarding phrases and polishing expressions. Urd wondered
if she had ever seen Odin look unsure of himself before, and couldn't
remember.

/* Enya "La Sonodora" _The Memory of Trees_ */

She went out onto the balcony off the great room and looked
out. The mountaintop was so high that any view of the city gates far
below, let alone the plain spreading out below them, was blocked by
the foul weather, but she noticed that the wind had ebbed, and
shivered. Closing her eyes, she could feel the press of presences all
around her, friends, strangers... enemies. Distant but drawing
nearer, enemies...
For a moment, shock and fear got the better of her; then she
swallowed hard, set her jaw, and narrowed her eyes.
[No. Not this time.]
Squaring her shoulders, she began to chant in the quiet night:

"Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile
Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd
The Mother of Mankinde, what time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,
If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms."

[You're not going to get away with it any more, Loki.] She
looked down to the places where, though she could not see them, she
knew her sisters were, one preparing to tend the wounded at the aid
station, the other getting ready to lead her Valkyrior into battle,
and though she was a goddess herself, she prayed for them.

Kawalsky and Feretti loitered a discreet distance away from
the thermotent, along the path which led to the White Legion sector of
the massive camp, while Larry said his goodbyes in the gathering
light.
"I'll stay in the command center, barring drastic
circumstances," he promised, "and if I do have to leave for some
reason I'll have Kawalsky and Feretti with me. I won't do anything
rash."
Yuri smiled. "I know you won't," she replied.
"Be careful," he said one last time.
"I will," Yuri nodded, and then they pulled each other
close and proceeded to do a decent imitation of an old Big Red
commercial. Kei finally had to clear her throat to get their
attention.
"Oh, sorry," Larry said as they disengaged, looking sheepish.
"Why?" Kei asked with a smirk. "I feel all warm and tingly,
and I was just watching." It was hard to tell whether the redness in
Yuri's cheeks was from the cold or from something else entirely.
Actually, no, it wasn't.
Larry seated his icetrooper helmet upon his head, grateful for
the warmth the action brought, and made for Kawalsky and Feretti's
waiting forms. As he trudged through the snow, he paused once and
looked back, hoping to catch one last look at Yuri and Kei.
He saw them just as they topped the ridge of snow and headed
down into the drift valley which contained the Valkyrie camp. Yuri's
red trench coat blew dramatically in the wind; lit from the side by
one of the camp's sentinel spots, she cast a sharp-edged shadow and
the brim of her fedora shaded half of her face into sharp relief.
Beside her, Kei looked positively bulky, with the borrowed pair of
Asgardian Army thermal boots encasing her legs up to the knees and her
broad-shouldered Starfleet field jacket.
[They look like a comic book cover,] he mused to himself.
[Sex and Violence... ] Then he trudged after his bodyguards to the
White Legion mobile command center, trying to restrain the gnawing
sense of foreboding in his belly.

The Valkyrie staging area was a bustle of activity. By the
time Skuld arrived, Brunnhilde had the rest of the corp armored, and
was checking and ranking them for inspection. Off to the side, the
Lovely Angels awaited their new chief's arrival. Kei had the golden
Cosmic Rod slung over her shoulder on a somewhat improvised strap,
while Yuri had found a shoulder holster for her pistol somewhere; she
had her hands in her trouser pockets and the butt of the gun was
peeking out from her trench coat, half buttoned despite the bitter
cold. Gryphon noted, not for the first time, that she was one of
those rare women who looked better in a tie than most men.
Catching sight of them, Skuld broke away from Gryphon, trotted
over and greeted them, Yuri with an embrace and Kei with a kiss, which
took Yuri slightly aback. Yuri, but not Kei, who smiled serenely,
bowed her head, and then shot a wink over the amused goddess's
shoulder at Gryphon, who hid a snicker behind his hand.
Yuri jotted down a mental note to interrogate all three of
them later. There was nothing which got on her nerves quite so much
as being in the dark about a subplot.
"I've had no time to make proper equipment for you, so you'll
look a little out of place compared to the rest of us," Skuld said
apologetically, "but my welcome still stands." She handed them
winged-skull pins; Kei stuck hers on the lapel of her field jacket,
and Yuri affixed hers rakishly to her fedora, coming up with the first
real smile Gryphon had seen on her since the mess began.
Excusing herself, Skuld ducked into one of the armored
container units, and Gryphon wandered over to the Lovely Angels, hands
in the pockets of his cloak.
"You two are up to something," said Yuri suspiciously, "but
damned if I know what."
"Not now," Kei said with mock gravity. "When you're older."
"Yeah, uh huh," grumbled Yuri, feigning unwillingness to talk
to them any longer.
The personal armor worn by the Valkyrior was the most
sophisticated and powerful personal armor system known at the time.
Each suit was hand-built by Skuld, customized to the strengths and
weaknesses of each individual Valkyrie. She called the system "Black
Talon", and its black and silver coloration and sleek angular
lethality fit the name very well.
With their visors up, the ranked Valkyrior still had faces;
they were not yet the anonymous armored warrior-maids, the seeming
forces of nature, legend had called them. One of them, the shortest
of the group - slender and petite despite her armored covering - broke
away from the ranks for a moment, walked up behind Gryphon, and seized
him in a powerful hug.
"Urph!" Gryphon remarked. Released, he spun around, to be
pinned by a familiar gleaming smile and sparkling eyes. Eyes popping,
jaw dropping, he gasped,
"Gally - !"
The dark-haired, smiling Valkyrie, almost childilke in stature
and yet possessed of a languid, powerful grace that was entirely
adult, grinned and saluted.
"Major Alita Ironheart, First Valkyrie Armored Cavalry,
reporting for duty, sir!" she declared, then hugged him again. "You
look so shocked! I'll bet you thought I was dead."
"The suspicion had crossed my mind," said Gryphon hesitantly.
The truth was that he had felt certain of it, and had grieved long and
hard, counting her among the friends gained and lost again in his
century-long Exile.
Gally - to him she would always be Gally - smiled up at him
for a moment longer, then turned serious. "We don't have time now,
but when this is over, we'll have to catch up. OK?"
In a conversation with somebody else, Gryphon might have
pointed out that the odds of there being a "when this is over" were
rather long, and the odds of both of them living to see it even
longer; but Gally had a powerfully serious look and a way of saying
such things that made her impossible to gainsay, so he smiled and
nodded. She looked satisfied by his acquiescence, squeezed his hand,
and returned to the ranks.
As Skuld emerged from the container unit in her own Black
Talon, two dozen pairs of eyes focused on her. She stepped to the
front of the ranks and examined her troops.
"Any equipment problems, Hilde?" she asked her lieutenant.
"None," Brunnhilde replied. Despite the weapon ports on the
vambraces and pauldrons of her Black Talon armor, she still held in
her right hand the silver spear which defined her name, just as Skuld
still carried her magic mallet Bjarnnil, that which was both weapon
and tool, magnetized to her upper right arm with its haft collapsed to
a length of eight inches. Several other Valkyrie also carried special
weapons; one had a long silver sword, another a curious halberd-like
weapon, another an ornate spiked battle-mace.
"Any personnel problems?"
"None," Brunnhilde repeated. "The Choosers of the Slain are
ready to defend the Golden City."
Skuld smiled. "Good work." She turned to her assembled
warriors, looked up and down the four six-woman rows, and said calmly,
"We knew this day would come eventually. We've trained for it;
hopefully we're prepared for it. We know what they want to do to us.
It's up to us not to let them do it.
"These are your orders: Keep your eyes on the status messages
from Heimdall and the Air Force. Stay informed on the status of the
fight on all parts of the battle line. Go where you think you are
needed most. Keep your ears open on the emergency channels and answer
any emergency help requests you can. Remember that you're the
smartest, toughest, deadliest, best-equipped, best-motivated,
best-trained, best-looking warriors in Asgard, and it's about time
everybody from Jotunheim to Muspelheim knew it!"
The Valkyrior cheered with one voice.
"ASGARD!"

Some distance away, at the GENOM staging area, R-Type stood on
the platform at the side of the mobile command center and looked out
at the assembled White Legionnaires, armored vehicles and assorted
equipment. Colonel Skarne was giving them a rousing motivational
speech, but R-Type wasn't listening to it; he was preoccupied with an
entirely understandable, but still quite disturbing, feeling of dread.
Dread, strangely enough, not that he would be killed in the coming
battle; rather, dread that something would happen which he, a
survivor, would have to deal with for the rest of his life. Just
what, he didn't know, but he felt very uneasy.
He was so wrapped up in this contemplation that he almost
didn't notice Colonel Skarne coming over to him and saying, "Would you
mind saying a few words to the men, sir?"
"Uh, well, I... that is... "
"Nothing fancy, sir, but you're the senior company official
here; they expect you to say -something-."
Befuddled, R-Type went to the makeshift podium Skarne had been
speaking behind, looked out at the troops, and tried to organize his
thoughts for a couple of seconds.
Then he gave up and shot from the hip.
"I know a lot of you don't understand, completely, why you're
here," he said. "But I also know that it doesn't matter. I know
you'll listen to your orders. I know you'll do your level best to
carry them out. I know you'll fight as bravely as any men and women
here today, and show our enemies that mortals can fight alongside the
gods and make a difference. I know you'll do your duty and make me
proud of you.
"Why do I know that? Because I know you're the White Legion
of the GENOM Corporation Military Arm - the finest fighting force ever
assembled - and that's all I need to know."
The assembled soldiers snapped to attention as one and saluted
as R-Type left the podium.
"Nice," said Kawalsky as R-Type rejoined his guards.
"Yeah," agreed Feretti. "Not too dramatic, good ego boost for
the guys. No theatrics. Good job."
"I'm so glad you approve," said R-Type dryly.

/* Thomas Dolby "Armageddon" _The Gate to the Mind's Eye_ */

Heimdall Farseeker stood on the balcony outside the War Room,
near the peak of Odin's great castle at the peak of the Golden City,
overlooking the plain and gazed bare-eyed into the dark distance.
Light was filtering into the clouds; somewhere behind them the sun had
risen, but it would never really be daylight today. The wind was
picking up again. Visibility, even with a sophisticated pair of
IR/UV/thermal-imaging rangefinder binoculars, was nothing short of
awful.
Heimdall saw them coming anyway, even before his most advanced
sensors. [Nice to know I haven't lost the touch,] he remarked with a
private smile.
He raised the golden horn in his right hand to his lips, drew
a breath, and blew.

Gjall's single peal rang everywhere. The frozen air of the
great plain seemed to reverberate with it. It echoed through the
corridors and decks of the ships at sea and in orbit. It sang in the
earphones of every crewmember of every armored vehicle and
aerospacecraft which owed allegiance to Asgard -- and all who opposed
the gods were summarily informed that Heimdall had seen them coming.
The waiting was over.

It didn't take long for the opposing forces to become visible
to the rest of the troops, either. First, they appeared as a black,
crawling line on the horizon; then, as they drew nearer, the
keenest-eyed of the defenders could make out some details. The more
details they determined, the more dreadful they noticed the enemy
were. Some walked, some shambled, some flopped or slithered, some
rode motorcycles or halftracks or tanks of various descriptions. The
evil dwarves of Svartalfheim made up the vanguard; they were short
enough that the frost giants of Jotunheim could shoot over them. From
Niflheim came the hideous, corrupted, dishonored equivalent of the
Einherjar, in the rotting tatters of a thousand different sorts of
uniforms and clutching the rusted remains of a million different sorts
of weapons.
Of their overall master, dread Loki, there was no sign; nor
could any see the Fenris wolf or Jormungand. Hela, Loki's daughter,
goddess of the dead, led the armies advancing on the Asgardian plain.
To either side of her, frost giant standard-bearers carried the flags
of Jotunheim and Niflheim, while a vanguard of regenerating trolls
shielded their general from fire.
Inexorably, they advanced, the tramping of their feet and
creaking and whirring of their vehicles becoming audible even over the
renewed howling of the wind.

At sea, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto lowered his field glasses and
signaled to the communications officer of his flagship, IJS Yamato.
Great ships, like great warriors, also go to Valhalla when they die,
at least in spirit; and in Asgard, spirit is everything.
"Turn the carriers into the wind and launch all aircraft," he
ordered tersely. "All ships prepare to open fire!"
On the tossing grey horizon, emerging from the mists and
sleet, the strange black ships of the enemy were drawing into sight.

Above the planet, the Asgardian Space Fleet fanned out into a
Pensley staggered wave and energized their weapons, dividing into two
echelons and forming an open V with Njord's flagship at the point. The
ships' names read like a list of the greatest space legends of the
past aeon, mixed in with the sleek silver designs built in Asgard
itself. At the core of the left echelon cruised WDF Concordia, systems
armed and ready for action, while the CFMF Charlemagne anchored the
right echelon. Starfighters swarmed around the fleet, the Viper-like
Lances of the Asgard forces, TIEs and Alpha-class assault gunboats,
X-Wings and Y-Wings, Valkyries and Legios, Rapiers, Victories, all
moving into position, maintaining fleet cover and awaiting the word to
attack.
Half an AU distant, the black, spindly fleet of the forces of
evil burst from their flagship's massive defold trace and moved into
attack formation. The dark ships' lines bore homage to the wet-navy
tradition of ages past, from the small corvette-sized 'longboats' to
the immense ship-of-the-line in the center. Where masts might have
stood on a planet-based ship, however, the ships extended upward to
spikes, and in the place of mounted spears or cannon, gunports and
torpedo launchers sat mounted and armed for combat.
From a few of the larger ships swarmed hundreds of fighters,
dark and swift, all bearing a resemblance to a headless crow or
falcon; the Raptors' wings ran almost as long as the fuselage, nearly
square against the ovoid center, with a large laser cannon on each
wingtip. In fact, they strongly resembled miniature versions of the
classic Romulan Warbird- a resemblance bitterly resented by the
Romulans serving on the three Warbirds in the Asgard forces.
On the bridge of the Niflheim flagship Blefnag, Admiral
Borogar Bloodclaw, a pale frost giant with long red hair and a
mustache to shame any dwarf, sneered at the tactical display. Look at
all those ships, spread out in that idiotic V formation! They were
too far from the center, the echelons too widely divided. Why, with
the speed of his flagship, he could punch into the middle of the V,
destroy the Asgardian flagship at its vertex, and loop around the
planet without breaking a sweat.
The fact that the V was easily turned into an open-ended cone
was a concept a trifle beyond the frost giant's rather limited
understanding of spatial geometry.
He barked an order to his helm officer, gripped the arms of
his conn with long, carefully manicured hands and fixed his attention
on the Asgardian flagship, floating with deceptive quiescence at the
center of the formation.
"If those bow booms start opening, begin immediate evasion and
activate the displacement drive," Bloodclaw growled to the helm
officer, flicking a claw at the display.
Fully aware of the capabilities of Njord's ghostly flagship,
the officer nodded. He had no more desire to be blasted out of
existence by the SDF-17's Reflex cannon than had his captain.
"Njord Seafarer," grated Bloodclaw at the monitor, "your ass
is mine!"

On the bridge of the SDF-17, Njord smiled.
"He's going for it," he remarked to his XO, "just as Thrawn
said he would. All ships, prepare for attack!" Watching his screen,
he smiled as first the opposing starfighter forces made contact, and
then as the larger capital ships fired across the gap. Slowly,
carefully, the larger ships began to fan out above and below the
vulnerable-looking two-dimensional V shape, slowly forming a giant
cone. Oblivious to the danger, the enemy fleet plowed ahead, not
bothering to do more than take potshots at the flanking Asgard
ships. More and more ships filed into the huge cone, following
Bloodclaw's battleship.
Finally, with half of the enemy fleet inside the cone,
Njord said merely, "Send the signal."
A technician pressed one button on his panel.
A moment later, on the other side of the planet, the
Executioner-class Super Star Destroyer Vindicator, flagship of the
GENOM Corporation Military Arm Strategic Starfleet, surged into
action.

"Time to range of the Asgardian flagship?" Admiral Bloodclaw
asked.
"Three minutes, my lord," the weapons officer said.
"Excellent," Bloodclaw rumbled. "Cease fire on flanking ships
and bring guns to bear on the flagship. Target her bow."
"As you command, my lord," the officer said.
Before the gunner could order the guns to bear on the SDF-17,
loud sirens whooped through the bridge from the sensor station. The
dark elf manning the sensors shouted, "Admiral, there's a ship coming
in at high speed from the far side of the planet!" His voice squeaked
as he exclaimed, "By Hela, how can anything so big move so fast??"
"Put it on screen," Bloodclaw rumbled. The viewscreen's image
shifted from the Wayward Son to an enormous ship moving at extreme
speed around the curve of the planet beneath them. The immense white
arrowhead charged towards them, engines producing a halo behind it as
they pushed the limits of relativity. Bloodclaw had never seen, never
imagined in his worst nightmares, such a ship.
"How big IS that thing?" he gasped at last.
"Ten kilocubits long, at least!" the dark elf gasped. "Sire,
as I read its course, it's going to come around behind us!" Flashing a
tactical display of Hela's starfleet in the center, surrounded by the
Asgard force, with the Super Star Destroyer filing in behind them, he
gasped, "It's a trap!"
Bloodclaw grumbled to himself for a moment, then said,
"Proceed with the attack. If we can break through their flagship, we
can regain the advantage. Go to flank speed!"
Gulping, the dark elf gasped, "As you command, my lord," and
returned to his scanners.
Bloodclaw's claws rattled on the armrest of the command chair
as his fingers drummed nervously. That huge ship had quite literally
come out of nowhere- as of two weeks ago, the Asgardians didn't even
have a ship that big on the drawing boards. Still, despite its absurd
size, it was but one ship, and not even the greatest threat.
It didn't bother him in the least that he'd stuck his neck out
and committed to one goal, while depriving his fleet of any hope of
retreat.
Nor did he notice, or concern himself with, the two -other-
ships that Asgard hadn't had two weeks before.
In fact, his only thoughts focused on when Njord would engage
the Wayward Son's main gun, and where to target his ship's guns first.
(Thrawn had, the night before, spent an hour quietly studying
the paintings, tapestries, carvings and pottery of the giants of
Jotunheim, and in his final analysis he pointed to the exaggerations
in figure, the sparsity of color, and above all the nearly identical
subject matter: giants slaying gods in combat.
("It is safe to say, if you will forgive me being blatantly
obvious," he said to Njord, "that your average giant is not only crude
and unskilled, he is completely unimaginative and obsessive to a
fault. Give him an target, and he will attack. Give him an idea, and
he will not shift from it - in fact, he will hold on to it until the
very end. I suspect most of this tenacity may be attributed to the
giant's not being troubled by any other ideas in the meantime."
Bloodclaw didn't know it, but he was proving Thrawn right on
all counts.)

On the bridge of the SDF-17, Njord watched as the enemy flew
deeper into the formation, now totally committed to the attack. With a
very small, quiet smile, he said, "Target the main gun on the enemy
flagship. You may fire when ready. Signal Concordia to stand by."
"Aye, sir," the helmsman said, activating the Reflex cannon
charging sequence. Slowly, gracefully, the bow of the battlefortress
separated, lightning dancing between the halves as they rotated into
position. The flashes of lightning grew more powerful, and the ends of
the fork glowed with energy, as the Reflex field effect built to its
maximum level.

"Activate displacement drive!" Bloodclaw bellowed.
Forgetting, in his haste, to make a verbal response, the
helm officer slammed the relevant control into battery. On the
targeting scope of the SDF-17's weapons officer and Commander Finney
aboard Concordia, the black vessel seemed to jump about a dozen
kilometers to its left.

Finney glanced up at Saavik, who cocked an eyebrow at the
tactical display, then nodded to Finney.
"SDF-17, this is Concordia," Saavik called into the tac net.
"Fire on your target's original position. We will cover the new one."
"Affirmative, Concordia," replied the voice of Njord's weapons
officer.

The Wayward Son's Reflex cannon loosed its barbaric yawp,
carving an orange line of fiery brilliance in the sky. Its radiant
section missed the black shape of the Jotunheim flagship, but that
made little difference; the particle-energy lethality zone of a Reflex
bolt is significantly wider than its visible portion, if more
insidious in effect. Blefnag was already dying, burning from within
as its power systems flashed over, when Concordia's phase transit
cannon speared it like a bug.
As Bloodclaw's flagship erupted into a brilliant fireball,
Njord's smile grew into a triumphant grin. "Hook, line, and sinker,"
he said, "and now to fillet the fish. All ships engage, repeat, all
ships engage," he said to the comm officer.
Slowly, resolutely, the sphere of Asgard ships began to
contract around the confused, milling forces of evil.

/* Pop Will Eat Itself "Def. Con. One" _This is the Day... This is
the Hour... This is THIS!_ */

An Einherjar gravtank lay at rest behind the Asgardian
entrenchments, recharging its power plant after giving its all to a
single man, windbreaker flapping in the growing wind, walking towards
the foxholes, glowing with a brilliant red aura. The Redneck stared
out at the oncoming hordes, dark elves, trolls, demons, and giants
rushing forward, infantry and armor advancing on the Asgard defenses.
Butch watched as his son walked past, his curiosity
momentarily overriding his interest in the enemy. Here and there,
stray blaster shots flew wildly around Kris as he jumped over the
entrenchment and onto the breastworks; the ranges were only just
starting to close to meaningful combat distances. As he raised his
hands to the enemy, he turned for a moment to his father and said,
"You're gonna love this."
Then, face going stiff with concentration, Kris turned to the
enemy, picked out a particularly large and ugly piece of treaded
armor, tracks and turrets and gunslits jumbled together into an M. C.
Escher and focused. A HUGE beam of energy flew from his hands
towards the giant crawler, spearing it and punching through to the
ranks behind it. In a huge fireball of shrapnel and debris, the
crawler exploded, blasting a large hole in the oncoming hordes.
A cheer arose from the surrounding defenders, and Kris paused
a moment to relax. "How about THAT, bastards?" he shouted towards the
enemy.
"Not bad, Kris," Butch nodded, "but can you do that all day?"
The hole in the enemy lines had closed up around the smoldering debris
of the crawler, with the plume of smoke the only sign that any action
had taken place. Again the enemy seemed endless on the plain.
"We'll find out, won't we?" Kris said, picking out a new
target to zorch.

A wing of twelve silver, dagger-like Asgardian Air Force F-77
Dragon aerofighters screamed low overhead, strafing the oncoming
forces of darkness with their twin 25mm plasma autocannons; they left
exploding armor and scattered troops in their wake as the howled up
into the clouds and prepared to reverse course for a second pass.
They wouldn't get the opportunity; though; though a trifle late, the
enemy's air cover had arrived, and the Asgardian fighters were soon
tangled in a vicious dogfight with the delta-winged Wyvern fighters of
Niflheim. Ground attack wasn't the job of the Dragon pilots anyway,
really; keeping the Wyverns from destroying Asgard's real
ground-attack aircraft was.
Wing Commander Friedrich "Fritz" Koopman figured that wouldn't
be too hard. He just hoped he'd have a chance after the battle to
hang with the guys; after all he hadn't seen them in four hundred
years, although he'd been able to keep up with their exploits through
the newspapers.
Trust me, he thought to himself, to get killed just when it
was getting interesting.

Larry Mann stood in the White Legion Field Command Center,
hands folded behind his back, helmet off, watching Colonel Skarne
direct the opening stanzas of the battle. In the center of the room,
which was really the inside of a standard Mark IV cargo container, a
field holotank drew a three-dimensional, easily manipulable picture of
the battle, with the enemy represented by icons in red, GENOM forces
in blue and allied forces in green. The shapes of the icons depicted
what they represented: a little tank for armor, a man with a rifle for
infantry, and so forth.
Skarne, short, barrel-chested and balding, had held command of
the flagship's White Legion detachment since the MILARM reorganization
early in the previous year, and it was widely expected that he would
succeed General Tarkinson as commander-in-chief of the Legion upon the
elder officer's retirement, anticipated in the coming year. He was a
line soldier from bald crown to well-worn bootsoles, having started
out as a stormtrooper third class and worked his way up through a
combination of administrative flair, solid competence and almost
disturbing courage. The livid scar that traced its way from just
above his right eyebrow to the left corner of his mouth attested to
his combat experience; the simple but sturdy cyberoptics mount, not at
all camouflaged to look like a real eye, spoke of the underlying
pragmatism of a man who lived, ate, drank, and breathed the Legion.
Scarred, squat and ugly he might be -- in fact, among his
troops he was affectionately known as "Ugly Otto" -- but Skarne was
undoubtedly effective, and his troops loved and respected him. Today,
as he watched Skarne quietly but firmly instruct and reassure his
troops while they hurled themselves into the teeth of the enemy for
him, R-Type could see why.
Two elements of icetrooper infantry were on the move, one on
each flank of the armored force which was spearheading the assault on
the Niflheim armored division which had broken from the main assault
body and made for the GENOM corner of the lines. Perhaps the enemy
had heard that these warriors came from Midgard and had assumed their
part of the line was weak.
"By God, they're about to get a surprise," Skarne muttered, as
if he had heard R-Type's thought. "Major Veers, commence your
attack."

Major Feran Veers pulled the command periscope of his AT-AT
command walker down and peered through it at the enhanced image of the
enemy forces. Their tanks were ugly and ungainly, but they were
undoubtedly effective; he had already seen one of them ash an AT-ST/A,
the advanced model with an energy shield similar to those mounted by
WDF Destroids, with a bolt from its main gun.
"Target the lead vehicle," Veers ordered his gunner, "and open
fire. Maximum power, medium repeat rate; let's not overheat the mains
if we don't have to."
"Max power medium repeat, roger," said the gunner, and bent to
his own scope.
The AT-AT's head swiveled on its armored neck, and the massive
blasters under its "chin" pivoted into line with the lead Niflheim
tank. The first salvo whined out with no apparent effect, splashing
from the black tank's armor and leaving shiny patches and streaks in
its wake; the second, as the gunner corrected his range, punched
straight through the top deck armor and gutted the vehicle. The
AT-AT's height advantage was its greatest strength in
vehicle-to-vehicle engagements; traditional tank armor was still,
after all these years of tank warfare, weak on top.
"Fast attack unit, hit their flank," Veers said into his
tac-net com, in the calm, clipped tones that marked him as a graduate
of the MILARM officer school on Niogi.
To the left of the Niflheim tank force, a group of small
armored vehicles burst from a snowbank and raced at high speed for the
enemy, blasting at their vulnerable tread drive gear and weaker side
armor. Before they could react, five of the Niflheim vehicles were
crippled and one destroyed. The attacking GENOM armor scattered,
relying on their speed to avoid destruction.
Veers still hadn't quite gotten used to these somewhat bizarre
vehicles. During the MILARM reorganization, it had been determined
that there was a need for a low-cost, fast, light armored vehicle, one
which could be easily transported by existing equipment and which
would not have a long learning curve for reassigned personnel. There
had also been a need to scrap a large number of the original
hex-winged TIE fighters, which were nearing the end of their
operational lifespan.
The innovative solution to this problem, a product of the
collaboration of Colonel Skarne and Fighter Command General Rayna
Tangril, the originator of the TIE program, was to convert the command
pods of these old TIEs into the required armored vehicles. They
weren't spaceworthy any longer, but with a drive system mounted in the
old engine bay and large, lozenge-shaped, armored tread panels
attached where the wings had been, they made a fine, if
bizarre-looking, light fast attack tank, with moderate armor for a
vehicle of its tonnage and a pair of good heavy blasters. An added
benefit was the sensor system the vehicle inherited from its space
fighter origins, far superior to anything usually fitted to anything
but a command AT-AT.
Officially, these devices were called Light Attack Vehicle,
Treaded; everybody Veers knew, including himself and Ugly Otto, called
them 'TIE tanks'.
Veers winced as one of the TIE tanks caught a direct hit from
one of the Niflheim tanks, going up in a pillar of black smoke.
Moderate armor for a vehicle that light still wasn't very tough, and
those black bastards had very heavy main guns.
"AT-AT group, spread out in line abreast and concentrate your
fire on the heavy enemy armor," Veers ordered. "Gunners: watch your
ranges carefully. Their armor is very 'slick', it will resist up to
near-perpendicular hits. Fast attack unit, regroup and commence
attacks upon their infantry and cavalry vehicle support."

"Alpha Wing, this is Alpha 1," General Rayna Tangril called
calmly into her com. "Break formation and attack, repeat, break and
attack."
The six GENOM fighters, five TIE Interceptors and the
General's prototype TIE Advanced x1, scattered from their tight
echelon formation as if a bomb had exploded in their midst. The
Interceptors were piloted by five of the most highly-trained,
dedicated, and talented pilots in the Military Arm Tactical Fighter
Command; if they had not been, they would not have been serving as
wing officers for Rayna Tangril.
Tangril rolled her fighter down onto one of the enemy
formations and opened fire. Different TIE pilots fire-linked their
cannons in different ways, depending on their preference, what worked
best for their flying styles, and how many the model they were
assigned mounted. By default, the four-cannon models like the
Interceptor linked them two at a time and alternated, high, low, high,
low. (Some pilots preferred the crossways alternation Incom X-Wing
fighters used in this mode, and had their fire-control systems
reprogrammed to do that instead.) Rayna preferred to use the "rolling
thunder" mode, leaving the cannons unlinked and letting the
fire-control computer discharge them sequentially, clockwise.
Of course, all that was moot given the craft she was flying
now. The Advanced x1 had been constructed as a proof of concept for
the hyperdrive-equipped, shielded Advanced system, and used as many
off-the-shelf parts as possible; its fuselage was built around a stock
TIE/ln command pod, with twin chin-mounted cannon. This meant it was
undergunned compared to the Interceptors, but that was life. She
hadn't had time to complete the engineering for the Advanced x2, which
would have four wingtip-mounted cannon and dagger panels not unlike
those of the Interceptor, so she would have to make do with two chin
cannons on rapid alternating fire.
With this technique, she destroyed her first of the Niflheim
fighters, and discovered something fascinating about them at the time.
"Alpha Wing, this is Alpha 1," she announced. "Has anyone
else noticed that these fighters have all the structural integrity of
a wet thermal printout?"
"Ah, that's affirm, Alpha 1," called Alpha 3. "They remind me
of first-generation T.I.E.s in that respect."
From anyone but one of her own wing's pilots, Rayna, the
originator of that design, would not have taken the comment without
issuing its speaker a formal reprimand. True, the original
T.I.E. wasn't one of her proudest achievements from a purely
engineering standpoint, but it had been what was needed, and all the
high command would approve, at the time, and it had opened the door
for the improved models she was now emplacing.
"Young people today have no appreciation for the long term,"
said Tangril, whipping her fighter through an impossibly complex
maneuver to erase another Niflheim fighter. "You have to learn
to -- "
"Look at the big picture," chorused the voices of the other
five Alpha Wing pilots with their leader.
And, the conversation over, the pilots of Alpha Wing returned
to eerily perfect tac-net discipline.

Njord watched the tactical display on the SDF-17 with growing
concern. Between the flagship's Reflex Cannon and the Concordia's
phase transit cannon, the Asgard forces had been carving up the dark
fleet relatively easily. Granted, there had been a few losses, such as
the Defiant and the Royal Defender, but by and large the space battle
had gone all their way.
However, in one area on the left echelon, a group of Jotunheim
ships gathered around a large, galleon-shaped carrier had found a weak
point in the ring and were pushing hard against it, threatening to
break out. Concordia in particular was entangled with a group of light
cruisers, unable to pull free long enough to bring its main gun to
bear.
A breakthrough at this stage of the battle could be
disastrous, Njord thought; the enemy fleet would be able to take the
left echelon ships on both sides, nullifying the gains thus far. "Send
to all commanders on the left echelon," he ordered. "Tell them to
tighten up and close the formation; under no circumstances are any of
the enemy to be allowed to break the encirclement."
With that, Njord watched as the enemy ships concentrated on
the weak point in the Asgard formation.

/* The Reverend Horton Heat "Jonny Quest/Stop That Pigeon"
_Saturday Morning_ */

The Charlemagne, first of a new class of RebelTech Industries
capital ships, fulfilled all of the CFMF Tactical Fleet's requirements
for its warships. Above all, the ship maneuvered beyond belief for
its size. Secondly, the hull and superstructure were incredibly
rugged, designed to hold together through centuries of hard service if
need be. Third and finally, although the Charlemagne had no Class
Omega weaponry and fewer weapons than the Star Destroyer it vaguely
resembled, its mixed array of rail guns, lasers, phasers, and photon
torpedoes made it potent in its own right.
The combat philosophy of the Charlemagne class, when not
merely acting as a container for 120 starfighters, was simple; run in,
hit hard, run out.
Captain Aya Nakajima, voted the Most Aggressive Starship
Commander of 2388 by Starships Monthly, was the perfect commander to
execute this philosophy.
From the bridge of the Charlemagne, Aya watched as the enemy
fleet drew away from her ship. "Tactical," she barked, and as the
graph of the massed fleets flickered onto the main viewing screen, she
nodded to herself. "That's what I thought," she said, "they're trying
to break out!"
"Looks like they'll do it, too," Homare grumbled from the
helm. "Concordia's pretty thoroughly entangled, and the Wayward Son
and Vindicator have been screened out. All the enemy has to do is
break the formation here," he pointed at three light cruisers
currently under attack by a dozen ships of the dark fleet, "and they
break our lines. None of the ships near them are able to assist."
"Hm..." Aya smiled a small secret smile, then a large,
bloodthirsty grin.
A bead of sweat trickled down Homare's temple as he asked,
"Um, sis, are you thinking of something crazy again?"
"You bet!" Aya said. "Break formation! All ahead full into the
enemy fleet! We'll take those bastards from behind!"
"We'll -what?-" Homare, and half the rest of the bridge crew,
gasped.
"With us hitting them from behind, they'll be distracted! They
won't be able to push forward fast enough to complete the
breakthrough!" Aya said. "Full sublight ahead! Take us in!"
"Uh, whatever you say, Aya," Homare said. He turned the
carrier into position, hands dancing on the helm console, and with a
flare of ions the ship lurched forward, speeding into the enemy fleet
The Asgard fighters scattered to make way for the Freespacer carrier
as it roared into the enemy fleet, pounding away at their ships,
surprising Hela out of their crews. One by one, ships erupted in
flame, leaving a trail of debris behind the speeding, wildly twisting
carrier as it cut through the enemy like butter.
In no time at all, Hela's starfleet had (figuratively
speaking) gone to Hell.

Fifteen days to dig the tunnel, begun almost to the moment of
Balder's arrival in Hel, now almost complete as the first shots of the
battle broke above them. The sappers, dark elves and dwarves of
Svartalfheim, had picked away at the earth beneath the Golden City,
shovelful after shovelful, for fifteen days without pausing. The
object of the tunnel: bypass the defenders of the city, strike in
their rear, and weaken the enemy to the point where their defensive
lines would shatter, allowing the armies of Hela to sweep the field
before them.
The leader of the expedition had a name so incredibly long and
Nordic as to make it unpronouncable even to its bearer; instead, he
answered to "Karl." The squat, ancient dwarf had served evil, and
served gleefully, since the earliest days. He had been a craftsman
under the lord of the storm giants, Utgard-Loki. He had wrought the
gates of Niflheim; his designs currently dominated the heavy armor
advancing on the forces of light on the plain above. For this
particular task, though, he had returned to the ancestral talent of
his race- tunneling.
Karl felt his pickaxe strike into a hollow above him; waving
his workers to silence, he quietly and carefully cleared an opening,
allowing light to pierce the darkness of the tunnel. Through the
little hole he heard the murmurs of an operating room, full of
casualties pouring in from the battle above. Grinning, he waved his
most powerful warriors to the top of the tunnel, exchanging his pick
for a battleaxe. What better way to start a panic than by violating
the sanctity of a place of healing and refuge?
The squad of dark elves and dwarves burst through the floor of
the operating room, snarling like animals, upsetting operating tables
and throwing patients to the floor. Blood spilled across the
once-pristine cement, and surgeons and nurses scattered. In moments,
the room was cleared of the living, and the grinning dark elves began
cutting the throats of the patients and fallen.
As one of the more inventive dwarves carved his name into one
victim's forehead, a young man burst into the room, clad in alien
armor (at least alien to Karl's experience), bearing a shield of the
Einherjar and wielding a longsword much too large for his
five-foot-one frame. Gasping for breath, he raised the sword and
said, "You shall not... hurt the people... in this hospital!" The
dark elves smiled even wider, pointed teeth flashing in the brilliant
operating theatre lights.
"Ye're a little late fer that, whelp," growled Karl.
From the opposite side of the room, a feminine voice said, "We
shall not permit further violation of this place of healing! Flee to
your holes, dark ones, or face the wrath of Verthandi!" The figure
speaking these words almost appeared harmless, in the scrub clothes
covering the usual Asgardian robes... but the large sphere of power in
her hands, and the grim, merciless expression on the face which
normally glowed with pity, forced the elves and dwarves to swallow
their smiles and take note.
Then, from the tunnel itself, a shriller, harder female voice
trilled in fluent Asgardian, <No, it is too late to run. For the
violation of a place of refuge, for the murder of the helpless, there
can be no forgiveness.> The source of the voice emerged in the midst
of the evil creatures, bright yellow energy blade humming in her naked
hand, a small confident smile on her face, red hair covered by the
hairnet of a surgeon.
Karl wondered if he'd been foolish to accept this assignment.
Another dwarf screamed in fury, raising his pickaxe and
charging the weakest-looking of the three - the male. Keiichi stumbled
backwards, and he brought the longsword around in a wild arc -
- and the sword cleaved through the pickaxe, slashing through
to the dwarf's skull, neatly bisecting it.
Karl stared at the blade, finally recognizing his cousin's
work, the blade which once upon a time had been that of Frey, the
blade which would slay any enemy, no matter how powerful. Against the
enemies of righteousness, it was said, the bearer of the blade was
invincible. Mortals knew it by many names, since it had passed
through a thousand sets of mortal hands since leaving Frey's
possession. The mortal knights who had known it during the Crusades
had called it Durandal; Karl's cousin Gefri had named it Grayswandir.
[Damn Cousin Gefri anyway,] thought Karl sourly, [always
giving his best work away to the Vanir.]
In desperation, three of the dark elves and two dwarves
charged Washuu, screaming. Axes flared, claws slashed, teeth nipped -
and found nothing. Washuu smiled and waved at them, standing now
beside Belldandy, before beginning her own charge. The beam of yellow
light flashed and flickered, and three of the the evil creatures fell
dead to the floor. The other two, not being totally foolish, dodged
and joined Karl and the rest of his squad.
Karl stood with the remaining handful of his troop, mentally
preparing himself for death. As he watched, Belldandy was enveloped in
an aura of holy light, chanting:

"Vassals of evil, hear my ley,
Spirits of night now gone astray
Be banished now, by the Allfather's might,
Power of Life now engulf the dark with light!"

The brilliant glow surrounded Karl and his troop, growing
brighter and brighter, penetrating down into every pore of his greedy
dwarven soul. For the first time in his long, selfish life, he felt a
twinge of regret.
The sphere of light contracted, dimming, until finally it, and
its prisoners, were no more.
Belldandy staggered with the effort of the spell, reeling on
her feet. Washuu and Keiichi both scrambled to support her, each
taking an arm over their shoulder and holding her up. "Hang on, Bel,"
Washuu said, "we've still got a long day ahead of us."
"Yes..." Belldandy whispered, slowly recovering a measure of
strength. "But we cannot remain here. The hospital must be relocated
within the city walls, and quickly." Pointing to the gaping hole in
the floor, to the gore splattered around the room, she said simply,
"This place is no longer safe."

/* Queen "Hammer to Fall" _Classic Queen_ */

In the field, the fire from the oncoming hordes of evil
thickened, driving even the most courageous and invulnerable of the
heroes of Asgard to ground. At one hundred meters range, the entire
Asgard line, end to end, opened fire, mowing down the enemy's forward
ranks. At fifty meters, the enemy met the barbed wire and abatis
before the trenches, bogging down as soldiers fell trying to worm
their way through, over or under. This slowed them down a bit, until
the armor came up and rolled over the obstacles, and more of the enemy
fell in the assault.
Still onward the forces of Niflheim and Jotunheim came, their
boots and claws stained with blood from the pulped bodies of their
fallen. The dwarves and dark elves ran forward as fast as they could,
taking the brunt of the defenders' fire. The giants strode onward,
towering over the field, providing easy targets for the Asgard
artillery. The dishonored dead strode on, some shambling with decay,
others marching in the formations of ages past, making up by far the
bulk of the dark army's initial wave, pressing relentlessly forward to
the trenches.
Then the dark wave crested, the troopers overrunning the final
physical barriers and dropping into the Asgard trenches. The fight
went to hand-to-hand combat, the heroes of Valhalla, the warriors of
Jotunheim, Aesir and trolls, GENOM troopers and undead of Niflheim,
all struggled in the foxholes, each trying to overrun the others.

Kei had expected that she would find doing battle with the
Cosmic Rod somewhat awkward at first, but the learning curve had
turned out to be extremely short. The curious weapon moved in almost
instinctive patterns by her capable hands. At the clash of battle,
its hooked head had begun to glow like a torch, and it burned like
one, too; the flaming brand slashed through the armor and thick hide
of the giantish warriors with ease, so hot it set their corpses to
smoldering where they fell.
It only occurred to her later that, for the first time in a
very long time, she had come into battle without a blaster; she had
left it behind in her tent and not even missed it.
Right now she was too busy to think of such things; she was
simply acting, reacting, relying on instincts honed by centuries of
experience at one of the galaxy's most dangerous jobs. As she burned
down a dark elf, she heard a sharp cry, and, looking up, spotted a
storm giant bearing down on the foremost of the Asgardian trenches, a
massive chaingun like those mounted on the Niflheim troop carriers in
its gnarled enormous hands.
Without thinking, she charged at it, as fast as her heavily
booted feet could plow through the still-falling sleeted snow.
Small-arms fire from the rifles of the Asgardian platoon pinned in the
trench, tiny but very-fast-moving pellets launched from the long,
spindly magnetic induction rifles they carried, tore at the giant's
armor and flesh, but it laughed at the wounds as it brought its own
enormous weapon to bear and started the motor. The pellets themselves
had tiny little repulsor drives built into them, and this gave the mag
rifles tremendous power, but saddled them with a somewhat unfortunate
limitation for an infantry weapon: a minimum effective range, inside
which their projectiles had not yet reached maximum velocity. At
twenty yards a single pellet from one of those rifles would have blown
the giant's vital organs out his back, armor and all.
Letting out what may have been the most impressive battle-yell
of her life to date, Kei Morgan took a last step at the edge of the
trench, one more off the top of the platoon sergeant's helmet, and
leaped into the air, clearing the trench and putting a foot firmly on
the heavy metal crossbrace that spanned the chaingun's spinning
barrels, and the other on the motor housing.
The storm giant blinked in flat incomprehension at the
Midgardian female who was standing on his weapon, and before it
occurred to him to shake her off and step on her, she had driven her
curious staff-like weapon through his head.
[Bugger,] he thought, and died.
As he toppled, Kei pulled the Rod free and took two more steps
over his head to land lightly behind him.
The cheers of the Asgardian troops were strangled off in a
collective moan of fear, and as Kei looked up from her landing, she
realized why: looming out of the sleet before her was the massive dark
shape of a Jotunheim tank, the great hexagon of its main cannon
glowing a dull orange as it drew an entirely too precise bead on her.
"Well, FUCK!" said Kei, and raised the Cosmic Rod as if to
challenge it. A bolt of yellow light, like the Rod's usual glow
amplified and directed into a beam, lashed out with a sound like a
heavy blaster and struck the tank's sloping front armor head-on, just
below the place where turret joined hull.
The effect was similar to that seen in many Toho Corporation
films, in which the effects people take a blowtorch and aim it at a
plastic tank model, but faster. The Jotunheim tank's forward
structure crumpled and melted at the same time. The magazine inside
touched off, and the turret blew off, catapulted into the enveloping
greyness of the sky. The path of devastation continued straight back
to the engine compartment and beyond, carrying enough residual power
to destroy the personnel carrier which had followed the tank in.
Kei looked at the glowing hooked end of the Cosmic Rod in
clear surprise as the Asgardian troops behind her cheered again; then
the turret of the Jotunheim tank she had just killed crashed to the
ground with a thunderous bang a dozen yards away, flattening a second
personnel carrier which was closing from the flank.
"Son of a bitch," Kei said, grinning.

Three of the battleship Yamato's massive eighteen-inch main
guns spoke at once, and the great vessel literally skidded sideways
for a moment under the recoil; moments later, a Jotunheim destroyer, a
weird vessel resembling a large black longboat fitted with naval guns
and depth charge launchers, burst in three places, split in half, and
sank.
The naval battle had not gone quite as decisively well as the
space battle for the Asgardian forces, but neither was it going
particularly poorly, Yamamoto considered with satisfaction as he
glanced at the tactical summary table. The forces of Asgard had
suffered losses, true - the cruisers Baltimore and Dallas, the
aircraft carrier Zuikaku, and the battleship Tirpitz had all been
destroyed by the powerful guns of the Jotunheim and Niflheim vessels,
and the aircraft carrier Yorktown was burning, listing and out of
action for the moment. It was not yet certain if that ship's damage
control officers could save her.
Still, Yamamoto knew his forces retained the upper hand. The
enemy were numerous, powerful, and good sailors, but they were
anachronistic even by the standards of the times in which Yamamoto had
lived and died. They did not understand the significance of
airpower. They had air support, but not carriers of their own, and
their aircraft did not seem to be coordinating their actions with the
commanders of the naval vessels. The enemy also had apparently missed
out on the value of submarines; they either had none, or the ones they
had were so ineffectual that no one on Yamamoto's side had noticed
them. Their ASW was pitifully inadequate.
Yamamoto watched with satisfaction as the battleships Bismarck
and Arizona hammered the ring of enemy cruisers which formed the guard
of the enemy flagship. Somewhere out in the dark, churning waters,
Mush Morton and the submarine Wahoo were angling for a shot of their
own at the spiky black battleship. If they could sink her right where
she was, in the mouth of the Golden City's harbor, they would
effectively divide the enemy force. All the ships in the harbor
(which was more like an inland sea surrounded by a reef to Yamamoto's
sense of scale) would be trapped there, under the guns of the
battleship force, while those outside would be unable to come to the
assistance of their fellows within the ring, prey for the submarines
and aircraft of Asgard's navy.
In his lifetime, Yamamoto would not have given much credence
to such a strategy, but then, he had never seen a harbor like this
one.

"Well, Captain, I've got good news and bad news," Claire
shouted over the rumbling and rattling of Charlemagne's bridge as the
dark fleet pounded away at their shields. "The good news is, the fleet
has consolidated to close up the weak point, so there won't be a
breakout by the enemy."
"Beautiful!" Aya yelled back. "What's the bad news?"
"The bad news, I would venture to guess," Lt. Commander T'Pall
said from her station, "is that the enemy fleet is now almost
perfectly centered on us. Concordia and Wayward Son cannot use their
main weapons without hitting us!" A powerful barrage rocked the ship,
and the Vulcan exclaimed, "I hope you have some idea for getting us
out of this!"
Aya's face went calm and still, only her eyes flashing around
the bridge as the wheels turned in her mind. The cacophony of the huge
bridge faded in her ears as she turned inward, examining the
situation, seeking a survivable solution. Her mind kicked up
alternatives, a few totally unacceptable, one or two infeasible, and
one...
The Plan fell into place all at once, estimations, damage
assessments, dangers, advantages, all coming together in Aya's mind to
form a viable tactic. It was simple, beautiful, effective, and even
possibly survivable. She slammed her fist on the intercom switch on
her chair, barking, "Shran! Prepare for a partial core vent on my
mark!"
"WHAT???" the Andorian exclaimed from the other end of the
comlink. Warp plasma was at best a tricky substance to handle... any
sudden disturbance could trigger an explosion second only to a direct
matter-antimatter reaction. A partial warp core vent would dump most
of the hot plasma from the engines into open space, away from the
protective control of the engines... and deprive the Charlemagne of
power in the meantime.
"Just get ready!" Aya said. Then, to Homare, she said, "As
soon as we begin the core vent, move us away from the plasma!"
"Um, right," Homare said, looking uncertainly at Aya.
Aya turned to face Schwarz and added, "Once we back away from
the plasma vent, I want you to fire into the cloud and ignite it!"
"But won't that..." Schwarz trailed off as he realized exactly
what would happen. Smiling behind his glasses, he said, "OH. GOT it,
no problem!"
T'Pall turned to the captain and said, "May I point out that
with our shield integrity at 50% and dropping precipitously, and with
ship's systems deprived of main power from the warp engines, there is
approximately a 62.8% probability that a warp plasma explosion will
destroy us as well?"
"Never bother me with the odds!" Aya said, the fires of battle
burning in her eyes.
"As you wish, Captain," T'Pall shrugged, and to herself she
whispered, "Humans are unfathomable..."

At the eastern edge of the line of battle, the Asgardian
Regular Army's XIV Corps were pinned under the guns of a mechanized
company of frost giants. In the trenches, the corps commander and
Thor considered their options. These soldiers were more prepared for
the close-in attack than their fellows in the west quadrant; they had
their bayonets fixed and their sidearms, short-range but powerful
weapons which resembled sawn-off lever-action double-barrelled
shotguns, at the ready.
There was a brief flurry of fire from the giants' position;
looking up in response, Thor saw a flicker of motion drop into the
trench, and as he wheeled to confront its source, he saw Yuri, rising
from her landing crouch and straightening her hat.
"Thor," said Yuri, her face taut and serious. "Sappers have
attacked the aid station."
The thunder god's ruddy face paled slightly, then darkened,
his tawny brows crashing together. "What?" he growled.
"Underdwarves from Svartalfheim tunnelled into the aid
station," Yuri repeated. "I just got the word from the comm post
on the east wall. Reports of the damage are sketchy so far; it seems
Belldandy, Washuu and Keiichi drove them off or killed them all, I'm
not sure which. They're all right, but I understand... " She paused,
then went on slowly, "A lot of patients were killed."
Thor considered this for a moment, his face darkening to the
color of new brick. He seemed to expand inside his clothes, making
the leather of his heavy bomber jacket creak. Then, with an
ear-shattering roar, he hurled himself up out of the trench and
charged straight at the giants' position, swinging Mjollnir over his
head in a thrumming arc.
Thunder crashed overhead as Thor's charge smashed the frost
giants. Like a man possessed, he plunged into their ranks, laying all
about him with his enchanted mallet, and the giants fell and fell.
Swords splintered against his iron-hard arms, skulls shattered under
his hammer. In seconds the carnage was over.
A cheer went up from XIV Corps, hailing Thor Ironhammer as the
scourge of Jotunheim, the greatest warrior in Asgard. The troops, and
Yuri, scrambled from the trench and charged into the open on the heels
of the thunder god, who had turned his attention to the company of
dark elves advancing on the White Legion lines.

Rayna Tangril's fighter twisted and turned in pursuit of an
exceptionally evasive Raptor, paying little heed to the pair of less
skilled fighters firing haplessly at her stern. Finally, her missile
lock indicator glowed red, the sweet buzz of lock confirmation echoed
in the tiny TIE cockpit, and she launched a single concussion missile
into the Raptor's tailpipe. She watched impassively as the fighter
exploded into shards of cheap metal, scattering into a flash of flame
and debris.
As she pulled up to face her two pursuers, laser blasts -
vivid orange instead of the deep red of the weaker Niflheim fighters -
whizzed past her cockpit. "Maman'de Dieu!!" she cursed, shoving her
yoke forward and diving her fighter out of harm's way as the blasts
zeroed in on the ships chasing her. On her scope, the blips of the two
pursuing ships vanished, replaced by a lone Freespacer X-Wing, IFF
transponder identifying it as C-114-C1, or Charlie-One.
"That's two off your six, Alpha 1," a cheerful young male
voice called into Rayna's headset.
"I had the situation handled," Rayna grumbled, forcing all
accent from her voice. In a softer tone, she added graciously, "But
thank you anyway, Charlie-One."
"No problem, General," the voice replied, and Rayna could
practically sense the wide grin on the other end of the transmission.
"What say we get together after the battle, maybe have a few drinks,
eh?"
"From the way you're flying, Commander Condorcet, I'd say
you've started in on your drinking already," Rayna replied, deadpan.
"Ouch," the voice said. "How'd you know who I was?"
"Educated guess," Rayna said. After all, she thought to
herself, there's only one Condorcet in the Freespacer presence here;
pity he's their starfighter commander.
Oh, well, back to work, she thought, picking out a new target
and blasting away with her guns. As she plugged away at the fleeing
Raptor, she imagined Commander Condorcet in the pilot's seat. Trying
to pick me up in the middle of a firefight? Who does he think he is?
Oh, wait, she thought as the tension eased out of the back of
her neck a bit. He's a Condorcet. Never mind, she chuckled, as yet
another Raptor met its demise.

Slowly, surely, through the mass of evil warriors, the
Bodyguard of Hela approached the center of the line. Trolls wearing
ragged tabards in Hela's colors- blue and black- walked through the
entanglements and over the ground soldiers without a care, while the
two giant ensign-bearers simply stepped over the obstacles. Hela,
Ruler of the Dead, stood atop a litter borne by two immense trolls,
smiling as she pointed her finger from one Asgardian of Einherjar
defender to another, one by one. Where Hela's finger pointed, a man
would shrivel, fall, and crumble to dust in moments.
The bodyguard hit the trenches almost without stopping, easily
slaying the defenders still in the trenches. The Asgard troops fell
back in total rout, disenheartened and decimated, leaving a huge gap
in the front line. The trolls hauled themselves up and out of the
entrenchments, one reaching over the trench to help carry Hela's
litter across the trench.
As he reached up to the handles of the litter, the troll
coughed softly. Smoke billowed from the troll's mouth, and then with a
cry of agony he exploded, spraying its ichor all over. A moment later,
the troll next to it popped, and quickly, one after the other, the
trolls exploded, their remains burning to ashes, beyond all
regeneration save the utterly miraculous. Hela's litter fell to the
ground, catching fire as one of its bearers was consumed, and Hela
barely managed to stay on her feet as she fell to the ground.
A flash of red light flashed across the face of the
standard-bearer of Jotunheim, and the immense giant fell headless to
the ground, the huge flagstaff thundering as it dropped from his hand.
Hela looked at the other standard-bearer just in time to see a human
wearing a light jacket and shirt, totally unsuited to the weather,
leap impossibly high and slice off the giant's head with a shaft of
light- no, a beam-staff, a quarterstaff of coalesced energy, she
observed, as the man landed from his leap and turned to face her.
<Nice trick you do with the finger, Hela, Usurper of the
Dead,> the man said, speaking the ancient tongue of Asgard with only a
trace of accent. A smaller blade of energy shot from his palm and
struck Hela's right wrist, severing the hand entirely. <Tell me, can
you do it without the hand?>
Gritting her teeth against the pain, Hela spat, <What is your
name, warrior, that I may know my victim?>
The man's eyes flickered with a fey light, and he said, <I am
Kristan the Red, Guardian of the Freespacers and follower of
Skuld. And today, spawn of giants, cursed usurper and corruptor of the
realms of the dead, it is your turn to die.>
<Perhaps, Kristan the Fool,> Hela smiled bitterly, and she
gestured with the stump of her arm towards Redneck. Redneck screamed
as his body overloaded with pain, every cell screaming, aging and
regenerating at the same time, trying to rip itself apart.
<You talk when you should strike, fool,> Hela smiled. <The
gesture is only that, a gesture, no more. All that is required is my
will, and you shall crumble to dust, no matter how mighty you may be.>
Behind her smile, Hela worried. The strange warrior might be in pain,
but he didn't appear to be physically hurt in the least, and he
certainly showed no signs of crumbling to dust anytime soon.
In fact, the growing red aura around him was probably a very,
very bad sign...

Kris's mind divided itself into two separate parts as the pain
gripped his body.
One part, the part that had been caught up in the battle, the
part which resonated with the power of Asgard, the part which had
lifted the Asgard language from the stray thoughts of the gods, that
part raged at the consuming fire slowly destroying his body. It
gathered together every ounce, every last bit of the immense amount of
power stored within him, focusing it for one massive blast.
The other part, the rational part, the part of him which liked
to think itself a Jedi, floated in a sphere of calm, reciting to
itself:

There is no emotion: there is peace.
There is no ignorance: there is knowledge.
There is no passion: there is serenity.
There is no death: there is the Force.

Show me what I must do.

Kris, blinded by the extreme agony, reached through the Force
and found his target's presence, immensely powerful... but vulnerable.
Focusing on that point, he focused his energies and, with an animal
cry of defiance, he threw every last ounce of his power into a single
focused blast of energy.
The bar of light flashed brilliantly, forcing combatants
across the battlefield to shield their eyes in some fashion. The beam
cut a huge furrow in the ground between Kris and Hela, dwarfing them
both, as it linked the two for a split second, and vanished.
Kris staggered backwards, totally spent, shaking from the
memory of the pain from moments ago. He couldn't channel a spark if
his life depended on it... and with him swaying on his feet, it just
might. The strange feeling he'd had, the glorious feeling of battle,
of being some sort of ancient Germanic warrior, vanished, the words
he'd said to Hela vague garbled echoes in his mind. He squinted around
him, forcing himself to focus, looking at the spot where Hela had
stood.
The enormous charred glassy crater said volumes about the fate
of the godspawn who, until recently, had been leading the forces of
evil on the battlefield. Not even ashes remained of the creature who
once ruled the realm of the Dead. Her spirit did not return to Hel,
or Niflheim, or anyplace.
Hela was uncategorically deceased.

Loki recoiled from the planning table, gasping. "Hela," he
whispered, then his shock turned to fury. "NO! They will -pay- for
this outrage!"
"Sir?" a hapless private, a dark elf, inquired.
Loki grabbed the private by the collar, hauled him up so they
were face to face, and spoke slowly and clearly. "They killed Hela.
I want them all destroyed." He then tore the elf's head, bloodily,
from his body and tossed the remains into the corner. "Such is the
fate of any who fail me." The remaining command staff bent to their
tasks with renewed vigor.
"Prepare my vehicle," Loki called to no one in particular.
"It is time I went forth myself."

Looking over the crater left by his blast, Kris saw across the
gap in the Asgard defenses a milling army of dwarves and giants. The
soldiers of evil watched him warily, waiting to see what he would do
next.
Kris swayed, and he took a step forward to steady himself.
The central column of the forces of evil, without exception,
screamed in terror, turned, and ran like rabbits, trampling each other
in their haste to get away. (The dwarves had rather a tough time of
it.) The crews of several armored vehicles bailed out and ran behind
their fellows. Within moments, the trenches sat empty, with hundreds
of meters clear between them and the terrified Jotunheim troops.
Kris mumbled, "Radio... whereza radio... radio... here!" he
said, finding an Asgard-issue walkie-talkie lying on the ground where
a retreating officer had dropped it. Keying on the command channel, he
said, "This is Admiral Overstreet, CFMF, to any command officers. The
center of the line is cleared, and the enemy is in rout, but you might
want to get some reserves to plug up the hole before they change their
minds."
"Admiral, this is Colonel Skarne, GENOM ground forces," a
voice replied from the speakers. "We are deploying our armor to your
position and relaying your request to other line commanders. Good
work, sir. We'll take it from here."
The snow and sleet thickened, blowing wildly across the
battlefield, and Kris noticed his hands and body steaming where the
flakes struck him. Feeling not a little exhausted, he staggered a few
steps away from the lines to rest. A little inner voice told him to
sit down, and seeing no reason not to, he fell flat on his back and
took a deep breath.
At about that point a TIE tank rolled at top speed right over
his head, treads passing to either side.
Scrambling up with a speed born of adrenalin, Kris looked
around at the roughly dozen or so remaining TIE tanks rolling like
shadows through the thickening weather. The thunder and growling of
the light armor's passage resonated through his body, shaking him
around. The voice in his head said maybe he should move aside for a
moment, and Kris rolled with the premonition, walking forward a few
paces.
An AT-AT walker planted its foreleg just behind Kris, knocking
him off his feet for a moment. Where the TIE tanks had gone before,
the AT-AT and AT-ST walkers followed, not noticing the man standing
literally beneath their feet. The final walker passed by directly over
Kris' head as he scrambled for the rear.
Following at a slower pace came a wave of orange and black
Incom Viper grav panzers, of the sort nicknamed "Game Tanks" by the
warriors of Asgard. Accompanying them was a force of small
Napoleon-class micro-tanks, and armored infantry, all behind the
battle-flag of the Confederate States of America. Hanging off the side
of the lead tank in the formation was Butch Overstreet, grinning and
waving his helmet with his free hand.
As the lead panzer halted and the other armor and infantry
deployed into a defensive position in the trenches, two men climbed
out from the panzer's cupola. The first one wore a red cape over his
flak armor, a large plumed hat sitting proudly atop his head. His long
golden hair and beard framed a handsome, friendly face. The second
man, in contrast, was bald, clean-shaven, in highly polished armor and
helmet, and grinning widely around the stub of a cigar which had long
since gone out. His face was neither handsome nor particularly
friendly; he looked like a bulldog who had his teeth full of a rival's
flesh.
"All right, Kris!" Butch shouted, dropping off the panzer and
running over to meet his son. "Good job, son! How are you, get hit
anywhere?"
"I'll be fine, but I need to rest for a bit," Kris replied.
"Killing a god can do that to a body."
"I see that Colonel Skarne's forces are kickin' the bad guys
in the teeth," the bald man rasped in a voice like a tracked tank
driving over gravel, looking with a thermoscope through the storm.
"Shall we take our armor and assist him?"
"Nah, George, I want the heavy stuff held back in reserve, in
case we have to fall back," Butch said. "Jeb, take your Napoleons and
provide support to the GENOM forces. You'll be under Skarne's
command, you understand?"
"Sir, I shall be the epitome of obedience," the extravagant
man said, and he waved to a passing micro-tank to slow and stop to
pick him up. As he mounted the little snub tank, he waved his hat in
the air, to the cheers and wild yipping war-cries of the infantry in
the trenches
"Um, excuse me, Dad, but who are these people?" Kris asked.
"Oh, sorry, Kris," Butch said. "George, this is Admiral Kris
Overstreet, my son the space admiral. I toldja about him. Kris, this
is George Patton, commander of the 1st Armored Corps, Reborn Army of
Northern Virginia. That was Jeb Stuart just leaving, by the way."
"Nice to meet ya, kid," Patton growled cheerfully, flicking
open a Zippo and puffing his dead cigar back to life. "Get yourself
some rest, dammed if you haven't earned it!" Grasping Kris's hand,
Patton shook forcefully, rattling Kris still further.
"L-l-likewise," Kris said.
"C'mon, Kris," Butch said, "I think I can spare another tank
for you if you need it..."
"No thanks, Dad," Kris said. "At this point, it would be a
drop in the bucket. What I need is a really, _really_ big
recharge... like say, a bolt of lightning or three."
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
The ground smoked around Kris as he staggered forward yet
again. Sparks flew from the zipper on his windbreaker as he shook
himself. Smoke curled up from several points on his clothing, but
nothing had apparently been damaged. Kris held up a palm and
concentrated, and a ring of tiny beads of light appeared and circled
around above it. Dispelling the energy beads, he looked up and
shouted, "THANKS!"
Above them, a Valkyrie waved before turning back to the
battle.
Kris' stomach rumbled loudly, and smiling guiltily to Butch
and Patton, he said, "Um... either of you got an MRE?"

To an observer watching the group of starships immediately
surrounding the CFMF Charlemagne, events played out somewhat like
this:
The dark fleet closed around the Charlemagne, attempting to
pummel it into nonexistence.
A small plume of warp core plasma rose from the upper part of
the Charlemagne's engineering hull. Then, slowly, gracefully, the ship
dove downward, firing wildly beneath it to clear a path of evacuation.
The dark fleet ships closed behind the Charlemagne, seeing a
wounded ship and going in for the kill.
A photon torpedo flew from the rear of the Charlemagne,
streaking into the volatile cloud of warp plasma.
The explosion, to quote Thrawn's reaction to it, was "most
impressive."

The lights dimmed, then relit emergency red, on the bridge of
the Charlemagne. A couple of panels shorted out and went dead around
the bridge. One crewman lay unconscious on the lower deck, having
been thrown from the upper level by the explosion.
"DAMAGE REPORT!" Aya shouted to anyone still conscious.
Shaken but awake, Homare pulled himself back up to his station
and checked the status readouts. With an expression of frank
disbelief, he said, "Incredibly enough, we still have shields! Down to
ten percent power, but we have them!"
"Shran in Engineering," a voice from the speakers squawked.
"Give me twenty seconds and we should have partial main power again.
Sublight engines at your discretion."
"Minor structural damage to the upper delta hull," T'Pall
said. "Sickbay reports moderate casualties, no fatalities."
"All weapons systems fully operational!" Shwarz called from
his station.
"Well, don't just sit there," Aya said, "-Get us out of
here!-"
The CFMF Charlemagne slowly pulled through and away from the
rattled and smashed core of the Niflheim fleet, blasting a path
through the confusion, leaving the mopping up to the more powerful
guns of the SDF-17, Concordia, and Vindicator.
On the ground, the battle raged on.

FOURTH SEAL: END

--
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder and Keeper-Straight of the Continuity
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company -><-
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