The Valkyrie Chronicles: Titans (10 page)

Then she looked around, and seemed to deflate. “So many have died since the witch took you?”

His brow knotted in confusion as he followed her gaze across the Olympians between the gate shields, then his eyes brightened in comprehension.  “Oh, no.  This is not all of us.  My Qu... Rhea kept half of us as pets and breeding stock, the rest she distributed among the nine other Titan ships in this universe.  Only a handful of us have met our demise in the beginning when they were dissected so Rhea could learn all of our secrets.”

I cringed at the mention of breeding stock, it reminded me of the Ragnarok.  When they were at war with the Asgard, they used captured people of all the other races to breed more soldiers to man their generational transports to replace the men lost in battle against the Valkyrie.  They called the intermediary offspring mutts.  Then once the mutts bred again with Ragnarok warriors, then pure Ragnarok were born.  I saw it as nothing more than organized rape.

I murmured, “The Halflings.”

Eros caught it and his eyes lowered. “That is our shame, the Titans used us to breed a new warrior sect to try to tip the scales in the war against the Jotunn, but they were not enough.  Any female offspring were killed at birth, any males would fight for Rhea.”  He took a deep breath. “Demeter was my son with Rhea.”

Artemis' eyes narrowed and Eros looked even more shamed. He tried to defend his words. “You do not know the hold she had over us. I didn't want to but I would do anything for her, she was love itself.  That demon-spawn Demeter was her final victory over me, showing me she was my god, my Queen.  She had our first two children, females, killed, I do not know why.”

Artemis snapped maybe too harshly, “Because Rhea can only control men... and Asgard women.  It was done with a nano-phage.  Technology, not with magic.  Titans are no gods.  The Asgard have found a way to counteract the phage.  Their technology almost rivals the Titans.”

I looked around as Inatra and Arina joined us.  “We can discuss this in the Central Spire with father.  I will make introductions on the way.”  I made an ushering motion and looked back and grabbed Rosig and rolled my eyes at him as I dragged him along. “Come on big man, you too.”

We debriefed the men, and there wasn't much tactical information except the layout of the vessel that they could give us.  Rosig had only been on board a short time and he only had eyes for Rhea at the time to notice much else.  Eros gave us details of every corner of the ship but knew next to nothing about its technology or armament except how to operate it.  They saw it all as the magic of their Queen, who they loved unconditionally against their own will.

The hierarchy among the Titans was of vitally no value either.  There was Rhea, all other Titans, then all the pets.  It seemed that all the Titans were of the same rank and importance among their kind. To Eros it almost seemed to be of a hive mind though he cannot be sure since he could not see much individuality at all except in Rhea.

I thought about that for a second that was like our observations of the Frost Giants, Ymir seemed to be the only one to stand out from the others, who just seemed to follow his commands.  When we broached the subject back then with the healers in the mental health discipline, they gave a couple possible ideas.

One that they were of a hive mind, following their leader like worker bees, with no real individuality.  Or perhaps they have fallen to what we have called the fog of ages here in Valhalla.  With lifespans that outlast the stars, very old Asgard people can fall into a never changing rut with nothing to stimulate them.  To combat this, every few centuries, most Asgard will change their discipline to master something new.

If the Frost Giants were indeed ancient even to our civilization, then this was a real possibility.  With then spending an eternity with the same ten people doing the same thing, I could easily see dropping into that fog.

Most of the ex-hostages from our mixed races wanted to bring the battle to the Elivagar for vengeance against the Titan who had warped their will, and to free the champion of Valhalla.  Most of the Olympians were of the same mind.

There were however a small number of Olympian men who were still loyal to Rhea, pledging their love to her.  The eons had warped their minds into accepting Rhea as their Queen, as their love, as their god.  Those men are under guard at all times and escorted through the city by Einherjer. Our healers have them going to therapy sessions to try to break the hold of Stockholm Syndrome on the poor men.

For weeks, going on four months, the Elivagar has remained in place at the asteroid field.  We are constantly threatened by Rhea with ultimatums and the like, she keeps transporting Hybrids to our gates, I believe just to keep us wary of her.  But she has not followed through on her threat of destroying Ragnarok and leaving the system after she has broken Kara.

This tells us a couple things.  The one that keeps me going and stopping me from giving up on a rescue plan that seems impossible to accomplish, is that Kara still lives.  That she has not been broken by the Titan bitch.  Though I cannot feel my mate through our nanite-link, I know she perseveres, that she defies Rhea.  This gives me strength and hope.  I smiled, even now Kara inspires me.

The other thing it tells us is that Rhea is not sure she can actually break Kara and bend her to her will.  So, she sees us as a replacement for Kara should she fail.  She as much as said it once when she implied that she was aware that I possessed the same level of power as Kara due to my infestation of sentient machines.  From the way she spoke of the men we rescued, she isn't yet aware they are no longer held sway by her charms. We are not sure how to leverage that yet, so we are keeping it under wraps.

She would at times show us videos of Kara's beaten and bloodied body and some of the torture sessions.  I swore my Verr were the only things keeping me from dying on the spot.  That and the almost imperceptible defiant smirk on Kara's face in every video.  That smirk kept me going, she's always been a stubborn woman. 
God do I miss her!

I was knocked out of my musings when Artemis shook my arm gently as we sat eating breakfast with Arina and Ina in my quarters. “Kat?  Are you with us?”  I exhaled then took a cleansing breath and smiled and nodded at her.

I nodded then Arina, said between bites, breaking our no business rule in the quarters, “Loki pointed out that the Elivagar isn't fully in our system.  A small portion of its aft section is still in the quantum gateway.  Father has hypothesized it is so they can maintain their observation and scans of the Earth and Folkvangr systems from wherever their point of origin is.”

I took a long tug from my mug of mead holding the cup up for her to elaborate why that was significant.  The only viable rescue option we had come up with was still under construction in the Earth system.

My nanites had taught mother's less evolved ones how Kara's had figured out how to affect the Jotunn armor at the molecular level.  It is how they were able to help defeat Ymir, and how they reinforced Kara's body with the material.  There was still trace amounts of it lacing Kara's bones, making her even tougher than she had previously been.  It was a struggle, but they finally learned how.

Mother is dissolving chunks of the Ginnungagap's armor shards and they are coating Pegasus with the armor.  Since Jotunn energy weapons cannot affect their own armor, we can possibly get Pegasus in with a boarding party to rescue Kara.  It is most likely a suicide mission but every able bodied Valkyrie, Einherjer, Valkfela, Illrovin, Ragnarok and human had put their names in the hat to volunteer for the mission.  Kara had saved all of the races at one point or another in history, and they all wanted in on returning the favor.

I couldn't be more proud of all the races.  But I would not risk more people, it would be myself, Inatra, and Artemis to take the risk.  Mother informed us that they were just a couple weeks out from completion of the retrofit and Pegasus was aching for a fight, Kara is her friend too.  Kitty was still on station in orbit with the other Sky.  The Hornet pilots rotate out at the citadel, but Kitty has been on point in Swooper for all the months Kara has been held.  Hornets were keeping her resupplied.

Our plan is simple, flank the Titan vessel with a couple Hornets as a diversion at the extreme range of the Elivagar's main cannons and absorb the attacks with their lattice.  Then use the Titan's own quantum entanglement tunnel to get Pegasus eleven hundred miles from the Star Killer and make a run through the main and secondary weapon's fire, then dock and board.

We know in general where the torture sessions are held according to Eros' intel.  We would be dealing with at most ten Titans and around a thousand Halflings.  The Halflings were of no concern to me, it was the Titans.  It took the combined races, thousands of men and women, to take down ten Jotunn, the Titans would be just as formidable and we would be but three.  It would be all but impossible to succeed in the rescue, but we had to try didn't we?  I would have my mate back!

Arina took a deep breath, I could see her dumbing down her explanation in her head so those of us non-techs could understand more readily.  “By doing so, they are keeping part of their ship between the two points, so they can peer out of the spatial distortion like windows at the other systems.  Plus the energy required to maintain the quantum gateway like is the equivalent of multiple stars going supernova.  Which means, wherever their point of origin is, is the only place that can create the tunnels as their ships don't have even a fraction of that power.”

She thought a second then added, “Their own systems seem taxed by maintaining even the small quantum tunnel of their space bridge.”  She motioned with her hand like she was setting that fact aside and said, “The Titans, like the Jotunn, are masters of deception.  While their technology is phenomenal, their strength is mostly based on slight of hand, putting on the appearance of gods with unlimited power.”

She grinned slightly. “So they are not only using the distortion to spy on the other systems, but it is their escape route if they are forced to... retreat.”  Then her smile curved almost predatory at that point when she said, “So, if we were able to somehow close the gateway, they would not be able to reopen it here with their limited power.  Their only means of escape would be at fractional C sublight speeds where we could track and pursue them.”

Then she took a bite of her favorite cheese as if to reward herself and said, “So we need only cause a simple imbalance in the gateway and it will collapse. Maintaining a gateway is an extremely delicate feat.”

I nodded.  That was all well and fine long-term, but it didn't help us in rescuing Kara.  I think Arina saw this in my eyes and her's dropped a bit. “I know that doesn't help Kara much now.”

I smiled sadly and reached over and cupped Arina's cheek in my hand, she leaned into the contact, closing her eyes.  I smiled and removed my hand and said, “No, that is good news Little One.  Once we do get her back, then we can put the krothing Titans on the run if they don't decide to destroy the planet first.”  But Arina grinned at me like I had missed something.

Inatra had got it before I did as she suddenly sat up straight and said, “But you said that the part of the vessel is still on the other side of the gateway.  So if the tunnel collapses...”

Artemis shared her grin and popped a piece of cheese into her mouth as she finished for her. “Then the vessel would be crippled.  And injured prey will run rather than fight if they are not in a corner.”

I quickly pulled down the main holo-display and looked at the ship. I twisted my hand and the view rotated until we were looking down on the Star Killer, a portion of its starboard engine just wasn't there, it was on the other side of the gateway.  Losing one of its three main engines would certainly cripple them.

To get in range of the planet for a sustained attack on the planet's core without falling into its gravity well with only two engines would be impossible, we saw that at Folkvangr.  The only way to get into range of their main cannons would be to make a flyby of the planet at escape velocities.  So the only logical thing to do would be to run and repair the vessel or call for help.  Even at light speeds that would give us a respite of centuries.

But then my smile flickered. “Can they fire their main cannons through their space bridge?”

Arina's smile faded too.  “Oh...  Yes they could.”

But Artemis and Inatra were looking at us like we were fools.  Ina said, “But we know those spheres are not armed and the Jotunn armor on them cannot be any thicker than their battle suits.  Our Hornets and Sky would have no problems disabling them with magnetic spears.  They have to have a finite number of replacements on board.”

I nodded.  “Ok, we have a solid plan for after we rescue Kara, that just leaves the rescue itself.  We need some sort of advantage if we are going to take on ten Titans.”  Then the same conundrum that has vexed us for four months sobered us all.

Artemis moved her hands in the air and a virtual console appeared in front of her in the main holo-display.  She pulled up an image of a beaten and bloodied Kara being struck by Rhea in one of the videos the Titans sent us to break our moral.  She mused out loud, “If only we could get a message to Kara then she could fight her way free, and we could meet her half way.”

I blinked at Artemis and looked at that energy tether to the collar around Kara's neck.  “How can she fight free, that collar seems to be leaching her energy, we can barely detect any healing in the videos.”

Artemis shook her head and actually chuckled. “We are talking about Kara the Wild One here, the Reaper of Ymir.  We know that her nanites can infest Jotunn tech, why would that collar be any different?  She is a survivor.  I believe she is just biding her time, choosing her moment.  She is over a hundred light minutes away in space, she must be trying to figure out a way home before she moves.”

I blinked at that and looked back at the image being displayed, there was that almost imperceptible smirk on Kara's face.  Was she really just allowing herself to be tortured, until she saw a window of escape?  I had not thought about the Verr's ability to defeat Jotunn tech so that energy leach she was just allowing them to use as well, to give them false confidence?  But what if Artemis was wrong?

I closed my fist in the air and the display disappeared.  I put my mug down on the table and said, “We need to speak with Odin.”