Star Wolves (The Tribes of Yggdrasil Book 1) (10 page)

“Is there no code of honor among your people? Among my tribe, bravery in the face of certain doom is a virtue.”

Devrim stared back with a poisonous look. “My honor was lost at birth, so I have nothing to lose.”

Interesting, Hal thought. There has to be a story here.

“So all Hrymar are an honorless lot? What a shame … ”

“No, just me,” Devrim corrected.

Hal cocked his head slightly. “What’s special about you?”

Devrim said nothing.

“This is your last chance to talk before we feast on you, so say what you need to, Devrim.” Hal could see the look of resignation on Devrim’s face turning almost to relief. Did he want to die?

Then he began … slowly and quietly. “I am the only offspring of our great Hrymar Over-Chieftain, Egemen. I was- am, a great disappointment,” he looked Hal right in the eyes, “you mock my size and stature, but my brothers are great warriors! Strong and proud. The Norns decreed I should not be their equal, and I was fashioned a weakling by birth.”

Hal wasn’t expecting this. Maybe he would have to change tactics from domination to empathy.

“Normally, I would have been left out on the surface of Niflheim to die, but my sire had been attempting to produce an heir for many years, and I was the first offspring to be born alive by all his concubines. And so he relented, against the advice of his advisors, I was kept alive.”

“Continue,” Hal said.

“Even though he is my sire, he treated me as harshly as a slave, mocking me at every opportunity. Many days I wondered why he bothered to keep me alive if I was such a shameful creature. But he did. After years of failing to meet the standard of my peers, I decided I would have to find other ways to distinguish myself, so I tried to cultivate my mind.”

“So why were you in our space, attacking a human ship? That seems contrary to your sire not trusting you.” Hal said.

“It does. We learned of your people from a miner and my sire wanted an expedition to search out and gather information on this new source of slaves. He sent his servant, Serkan, and bid him take me along. I suspect he thought I would not return from the mission; my captivity has confirmed his faith in me. I am not worthy to be a Hrymar, therefore I
should
die.”

Hal said nothing, he just stared at Devrim. Finally he sat down across from Devrim as he had on his previous visit.

“Devrim, perhaps there is a way we can help each other.”

Devrim looked up at Hal.

“Instead of marching off to die, perhaps you would prove useful in other ways. We would like to know more about the Hrymar. Maybe you would be willing to help with this?”

Devrim’s eyes were wide with anger. “I would never betray my people!” He stood up quickly, Hal followed suit.

Hal was a head taller, and was looking down at him. “You would not betray your people? Yet they have thrown you away like refuse. What manner of man are you? If I were you, I would be furious, vengeful even. I would help my people’s enemies and take my revenge. If not on all of them, then perhaps just on my sire.”

Hal saw Devrim thinking. Devrim slumped back down into his corner.

“If you can provide us information, then I might find a way to release you. Maybe you can exact a few pleasures from life before you die, Devrim … like seeing your enemies kneel before you.”

Hal turned and knocked on the cell door. “Guard!”

H
al woke
to a knock at his door. He shook his head and wiped the sleep out of his eyes. “Just a minute.” He wrapped a towel around his waist and walked to the door. Siani was standing outside his door, smiling and holding a cup.

“Did I wake you?” she asked.

Hal nodded. “Yeah, but that’s ok, I needed to get up. C’mon in,” he gestured for her to enter and walked back to his bed and sat down on the edge, “what’s up?”

Siani handed him the cup. “Coffee.”

“For me?” Hal asked.

“Indeed, I wouldn’t drink that toxic brew,” she teased with a smile.

“Thanks. Must be important if you’re bringing me coffee.”

“It is. Saeran wants you to meet her at the stellar-com when you’re ready. We have a meeting this morning.”

“Ok, give me half an hour to shower and drink this coffee and I’ll be there. Hal stood up and the towel fluttered to the floor. “Damnit!” he said, as he hastily tried to grab the towel back up while balancing his cup of coffee.

Siani cocked her eyebrows, pursed her lips and smiled. “Hmm, no need to apologize, no need at all.” She winked and left the room.

Hal might have been embarrassed if he wasn’t only half awake. Hal shook his head and smiled. That flirty little minx.

H
al made
his way to the stellar-comm building while nursing the cup of coffee Siani had delivered. He didn't rush. The morning smells and sounds in Llangernyw were intoxicating. Hal thought it was like walking through an arboretum and an apothecary at the same time; the thick scent of flowery perfume and a sweet musky moss, mixing in equal measure.

Upon arriving at the stellar-comm building, he noticed a huge increase in security. Security of any kind was extremely rare on Alfheim. Once he presented his ID, the guards let him into the building.

Once inside, he saw Siani, Saeran, his entire team, and Andras, Hilmir (Admiral) of the Alfar Stellar Fleet, all sitting in front of the viewing screen. On the screen, presented side by side, were the images of Governor Zelinski, President Rukundo and Prime Commander Archibald Lowe of the SID Stellar Armed Forces. Heady company! There were also many of Lowe’s direct reports at the meeting: High Commander Clare Artman of Stellar Fleet, High Commander Augustine Birkey of Logistics, High Commander Loraine Stem of Engineering and High Commander Forest Gorneault of the Stellar Marines (Gina’s ultimate boss). Hal wasn't exactly sure who his boss was at the moment.

Eva looked back at Hal, smiling at him with a small shrug.

Hal looked a bit taken back. “Good morning, all. My apologies for being late.”

“No need to apologize, Hal,” Saeran said, “this was a last minute conference. It is a challenge to get all of us on stellar-com at the same time, so we seized the opportunity. Thank you all for coming,” Saeran said, looking at all those seated.

“May I ask what the topic of discussion is, Saeran?” Hal asked.

“Certainly. Actually, let me turn the introduction over to Governor Zelinski.”

“Thanks, Saeran,”
the Governor said.
“As you know, we’ve been looking for a ship for your team to use on the upcoming scouting mission. While this mission is important, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve been discussing the security of our respective regions of space for some time now, and given this recent incursion by the Hrymar, we’ve had to re-think our strategy,”
he paused and took a drink of water from a glass on the table beside him,
“Earth and Alfheim both have Stellar Fleets for local defense, but not New Midgard, which is now an immediate problem. Long term, we had planned to build a local fleet, but for now, Earth and Alfheim have agreed to deploy ships to serve our area. So that’s a heads up on the local New Midgard defense situation. Any questions?”
He looked out to the audience.

Hal spoke up. “When do we expect to have ships built and deployed to New Midgard, Governor?”

“At least twelve months, Hal. We had ships under construction back on Earth, and we’ve bumped up their delivery dates. We’ll pay a premium for the compressed schedules, but we don’t want to leave Earth or Alfheim holding the bag.”

Hal nodded.

“What we've been planning for a while, is a joint reconnaissance force,”
the Governor continued,
“Hal, you’ve been involved with system surveys for the past couple of years, but now we intend to push those boundaries even farther. And given what we now know of the threats beyond our borders, the mission parameters have changed somewhat. What was purely a scientific mission has now evolved into one including military and political aspects. We don’t intend to let incursions into our space go unanswered. While we don’t want to antagonize our neighbors, they need to know we can, and will, defend ourselves.”

President Rukundo took over.
“A century ago, the last superpower, the United States of America, practiced projection of power with their aircraft carriers. Their main objective, in addition to aiding in rapid response to threats, was to ensure everyone could see, and feel their power. That way their enemies were far less likely to begin hostilities. America’s enemies could plainly see the wrath they would invite with hostile activities. Neither Human nor Alfar has had to do this for some time, but given these new threats, we will again begin to use this strategy.”
President Rukundo motioned for Governor Zelinski to pick up again.

Zelinski continued.
“Long term, we’ll deploy very heavily armed ships throughout neighboring star-systems, and pay social visits to our neighbors. Prior to that though, we need to get the lay of the land. We need to know where to project that power, what neighbors might be an imminent threat, and so forth. To that end, we're commissioning a new branch of the Fleet called the Stellar Scout Service, or S3. The head of S3 will report to me for now, eventually there will be a dedicated Director of S3 who will report jointly to the Prime Commander of the SID Stellar Fleet and Hilmir of the Alfheim Stellar Fleet.”

Interesting, Hal thought, that’s likely where he would end up working. Could be fun.

The Governor turned his head to look at Saeran and nodded.

“I suppose that’s my cue,” Saeran said, “to enable S3, we’ve designed a new class of starship, the Sleipnir-class. I’m sure you will all recognize this as the name for Odin’s Horse, Sleipnir, who carried him throughout the nine worlds.” The images of the remote attendees were replaced with the image of the Sleipnir class starship, rotating in three dimensions. The ship was almost egg shape viewed from above, and Haldor thought the side view resembled the silhouette of a horses head—a coincidence?

Saeran continued, “our engineers, aided by those from Earth, designed this ship for speed, stealth and versatility. It is approximately ten percent faster in hyperspace than any of our current ships, and has twenty-five percent more acceleration and maneuverability.” The display showed several ships in formation, with the Sleipnir accelerating away from them briskly. “It has a reasonable stealth capability,” she continued, “the ship is not invisible, but its electro-magnetic emissions are near zero, and the hull is coated with a light absorbing material. If you accelerate modestly in the Sleipnir, you will be nigh undetectable. Under full acceleration though, the ship can no longer mask its thermal signature, so keep that in mind.”

Saeran stood up and pointed to the display, which was now showing a star system with various points plotted, and detailed information showing for each. “All of these aspects of the Sleipnir class are exactly what you would expect as we refine our designs over time. What you will not be expecting is what you see on the screen now.” She looked at the members of the audience and said nothing.

What appeared on screen was a map of sorts. Haldor thought it looked somewhat like a lidar or radar display, only on a grander scale. Instead of hundreds of miles, the unit of measurement was in Astronomical Units—this was a map of a star system— and the contacts moving about on the map appeared to be tracked in real-time.

Cadfael broke the silence. “It is a sensor map of our star system,” he said matter-of-factly.

Saeran nodded. “Yes…and?”

Nobody spoke up. The team members exchanged puzzled glances.

“It’s a real-time display,” Saeran said.

Hal leaned forward, stroking his chin, and began to have his suspicions confirmed. “Are you saying that-”

“Yes.” Saeran replied, before he finished his statement.

Hal shook his head in disbelief, and turned to address his team. “The key to any military engagement is information—real-time information. In our discussions of stellar military engagements, we’ve always been concerned that our lack of real-time data would be our Achilles heel. How do you factor in time-dilation to a ship that’s moving at a decent fraction of the speed of light? If you’re trying to target and fire on it, you don’t. We have- had, no way of predicting or calculating the real-time positions of objects at those speeds. If this works …”

One of the Marines put up her hand and spoke. “But, sir, we have sensors like that now, don’t we? I’ve seen similar displays on starships.”

Hal shook his head. “Nope. What you’ve seen are charts of stellar objects with predictable movement, and the starships’ position on those charts. What if there were an enemy half way across that star system?”

Nila was smiling.

Gina stood up. “Captain, for us physics-challenged folks, could you spell it out?”

“Any enemy at an appreciable distance from you, that’s moving, would be almost impossible to shoot down. If she’s five light minutes away, by the time you see her, she might be somewhere else. We can’t sense the light, or any other electro-magnetic signature from an enemy any faster than light speed. So how the hell would you target and hit them with a weapon, which itself is firing at no faster that light speed?”

“It would be nearly impossible,” Nila said.

“Right.” Hal turned back to Saeran. “Ok, I know the what. What about the how?”

Saeran wore a broad grin now. “Quantum entanglement and an object’s gravitic effect on space-time. Our engineers call it the QEGEST sensor—Quantum Entangled Gravitic Effect on Space Time—they love acronyms. The common term is just gravitic sensors. Much easier to say,” she smiled, “I am not able to explain it beyond that, but I am sure your team’s physicist, Talfryn, can explain it further. Needless to say, this technology is of the second most closely guarded secrets of our collective people next to the interstellar bridges.

But now, on to other matters. The first ship of the Sleipnir-class will, of course, be called the Sleipnir. Captain Haldor Olsen, we would like to offer the ship to you. We would like your team to be the first S3 crew. In time we’ll assign a High Commander to run the organization, but, as there is only one operational ship, you’ll be acting-High Commander until we deploy more ships and find someone to lead the group.”

There was a roar of acceptance from the marines.

Hal was stunned, but stood and bowed. “It would be an honor.”

“Hal, this is going to be a tough assignment,”
Governor Zelinski added,
“in addition to your immediate mission to locate the captives, we’re counting on you to help us define what it means to be a member of S3. You’ll make the rules, then probably break them too. And you’ll be away form home—a lot.”

“Understood,” Hal said.

“You have our thanks, and best wishes, all of you,”
President Rukundo said.

L
ater that afternoon
, Hilmir Andras took Hal to the orbital shipyard to give him a tour of his new ship. As their shuttle approached the shipyard, Hal could see a dozen of the Sleipnir class ships berthed, all in varying degrees of construction, except for the first one … she was ready.

The Sleipnir was nearly one-hundred meters long and fifty meters wide in the middle of her girth. She had a pop-up plasma-cannon turret with a three-hundred and sixty degree field of fire on top, and two hard-points on her bottom with a missile launcher and a drone launcher installed.

As they flew closer to the ship, he could see eight engine ports on her stern. Hilmir Andras saw him looking and smiled.

“I see you notice her eight engine ports. There are actually only four engine vents, but in keeping with Sleipnir’s eight legs, we made certain … cosmetic allowances,” he grinned broadly.

“She’s a beauty. I can’t wait to take her for a spin,” Hal said.

Andras pointed below the engine exhaust ports. “See there … that’s a pinnace launch bay. She’s equipped with a twenty-five person pinnace with cryo-capability and emergency hyper drive. It’s also intended to be used as a planetary interface. The pinnace is also well armed in case you’re landing marines under enemy fire. There are two lightly armored aircars, but we assume you would use them once already on a planetary body.” Andras pointed to a set of doors above the aft engine ports. “Over there is the aircar landing and retrieval bay.”

Hal marveled at Sleipnir. This was a magnificent piece of engineering. No, he thought, she was a work of art. Like his Viking ancestors and their longships, Sleipnir was a prize beyond reckoning, and she embodied many of the same qualities which made the Viking Longships a terror to all her enemies; she had speed, stealth, and could pack a punch. Any enemies who saw her would think twice about attacking the race of beings who built such a capable vessel. Walk softly and carry a big stick, or a smaller pointy one.

The shuttle docked on the starboard side of Sleipnir, in what Hal reckoned must be the central deck.

They heard the
clunk
of a docking ring engaging, then a
hissing
sound as an atmospheric seal was made between the two vessels. Once the green light indicated a proper seal, Hal opened the hatch and gestured for Hilmir Andras to proceed him. The Hilmir ducked and made his way through the docking tube to the Sleipnir’s hatch. It opened before he got there and an officer wearing the flat black uniform of the newly formed Stellar Scout Service, snapped to attention and saluted.