The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming (47 page)

“You all right, Colonel?” Jenovec calls me on his
link channel, wondering why I’ve stopped.

“Fine, Specialist. Debating taking a quick loop all
the way around the hole,” I make a reasonable excuse.

“Quiet here, sir,” he encourages.

“Ping me if anything moves,” I insist. “I’ll come
running.”

I figure the whole pit is less than three quarters of
a klick around. I could get back to the ‘Horse in less than a
minute from the far side.

It’s a dark and uneventful hike. I check in with
Jenovec again when I’m almost exactly opposite him across the pit,
and he repeats that it’s still quiet. The dig between us makes a
ghostly sound as the dying winds whistle across it, all the eerier
as I scan it with my night vision. Infrared only lights up the
‘Horse. Other than blowing dust and plants rustling in the breeze,
nothing moves. That’s not at all comforting.

I’m about to start moving again when I notice that
Kel has rolled off and stopped a little ways further from the edge,
sensor head scanning something on the ground. I walk over and find
a shattered slab, possibly a chunk of the colony foundation dug out
during the scavenging. It looks like it’s been partially pieced
back together like a puzzle. There are words carved on it, but
significant sections are missing or crumbled, so it takes me a few
minutes to recognize what I’m looking at.

“WE… THE LAND OF THE ICE AN…

“…NIGHT SUN, WH… WINDS…

“HA …F THE GODS WILL DRIVE OUR SHIPS TO NEW
LANDS…

“FIGHT THE H…ND CRYING VALHALLA I AM…”

“Coming,” I finish. “
Valhalla I am coming.
It’s from a song. Led Zeppelin.” The tune plays unbidden in my
ears, less organic memory and more like a perk of my Mods. “Good
song. A classic... Not sure why someone took the time to carve it
into the concrete.”

And they did, taking time with it, each neat letter
five centimeters high and a centimeter deep, cleanly cut. And it’s
old: weather-worn and oxidized, perhaps for decades. Was it an
attempt to preserve a piece of where they came from? Or did it have
deeper meaning to them? (Was the whole colony decorated with old
song lyrics? Will I find more such relics?)

“But someone did try to put it back together.” Not an
idle task: “Some of these pieces must weigh several hundred
kilos.”

I look for the telltale scars of whatever machinery
moved them, and find nothing obvious. That makes me think Asmodeus
did it himself, leaving it here for me to find. But why?

“Valhalla was a kind of heaven for warriors,” I
explain for no other purpose than to think out loud. Or maybe to
make conversation, to value Kel’s find. “If you died in battle, you
would gain entry to a place where you could eat and drink and fuck
and fight until the end of the world, so that you would be prepared
for the final battle.”

Is that why Asmodeus preserved it, set it out here?
Is it supposed to be some kind of commentary on our existence? Or
is it just how he sees himself: killed in battle and resurrected in
another world to eat and drink and fuck and fight until… What? Does
he see some apocalyptic end-game? Is he planning one?

Or maybe it means nothing. Just a random find in a
ruin, an idle puzzle to pass the hours and days while his minions
dug everything useful out of the abandoned colony.

(
Was
it abandoned? Or did he murder or enslave
whoever he found here? I flash on what he gleefully made us watch
him do to a few of the women he had taken, and feel the rage fresh,
knotted in the frustration that he’s keeping himself very
intentionally just out of my reach.)

I look back across the manmade crater, see the
enhanced ghost of the Warhorse. Everything still looks completely
peaceful. But I don’t see Jenovec. He may be sitting on the back of
the rig.

“Jenovec? Status?”

“Quiet here, sir.”

I feel my gut drop. He’s said that three times now.
Exactly that.

“I can’t see you, Specialist. Come around the front
of the track.”

No reply. No movement.

“Ram to Corso. Reply.”

Nothing.

I scan around the perimeter of the pit. It’s a
shorter trip around the north side, but the ground is far more
challenging as it includes the Rim foothills sliding down into it.
It will be faster to run back the way I came. So I do.

The run is an agonizing and clumsy fifty-five seconds
over the scrubby, rocky terrain. I try to calculate how long I was
away from the vehicle in total. Ten minutes? Fifteen? I thought
they’d be safe in the open. I thought I’d be able to see a threat
incoming.

Kel keeps up, grinding after me. The noise kills any
possibility of stealth, but I’m sure there have been eyes on me
since we got here. Is it Asmodeus? Or his bio-technological
atrocities? Or some other innocent he’s thrown in my path?

There’s no obvious sign of violence. Everything looks
peaceful, the ‘Horse as intact as it was when I walked away from
it, the warheads still in their tubes. I don’t even see tracks
other than mine and Jenovec’s H-A boots meandering around the
track. But there’s no sign of him.

I draw my pistol and unseal the rear hatch.

I find Jenovec.

He’s been left for me, displayed for my benefit, his
armored body wedged on the floor of the airlock, which is puddle
with fresh blood. His cleanly severed head had been propped on his
chest, blank eyes staring out to greet me.

Shaking with rage, I climb in, climb over him, and
pop the inner hatch without bothering to seal in and cycle. The
pressure inside the bay has already been blown anyway, equalized to
outside.

I get a surge of relief when I find no more bodies,
but everyone else is gone. I scan a few traces of blood on the deck
and surfaces, enough to tell me there was a fight but not enough to
confirm fatalities. There are no signs of gunfire, but there are
discarded weapons. Whatever happened, happened fast.

Kel watches me through the open rear hatch, over the
top of poor Jenovec, as I do a quick search of the other sections.
Everyone else is indeed gone, taken somewhere.

And now I know who did it, and why I didn’t see them
come or go. There’s a katana propped in the pilot’s seat: long hilt
wrapped in black plaited cord, black lacquered scabbard, simple
iron guard. It’s identical to the sword Hatsumi Shingen gave me as
a gift.

I take precious seconds to break into the stores, get
a replacement barrel for Kel’s main cannon and get it functional.
Then I feed Kel a full load for both guns. Finally, I make some
quick adjustments to the sensor heads.

“This will let you see through their camo,” I
explain, then order: “Stay here. I need you to guard the rig. Start
shooting and I’ll come running if I can.”

Then I go get the sword.

I take the “gift” to the edge of the pit, hold it up
over my head for a moment, then throw it far out into the abyss. I
don’t hear it hit the rocks at the bottom, but I
do
hear
movement. They’ve broken stealth. I stand with my empty arms open
and wait for them.

They come rustling out of the rocks on either side of
me. Without my enhancements, I wouldn’t have heard them at all. Or
seen them, since they’ve got their new visual camo and the
darkness, but they do read as heat, EMR and motion, showing up in
my vision as ghostly, shimmering silhouettes. I count eight total.
I don’t make any aggressive movements, and they don’t draw their
weapons. The closest one on my left silently gestures me down into
the pit.

I look back once at Kel, who sits put in front of the
‘Horse. The Shinobi ignore the bot, as if it’s inconsequential. I
give Kel a reassuring nod and start climbing downward.

The Shinobi flank me at what they may think is a
reasonably safe distance as we descend. The downhill hike is slow
and noisy, at least for me: The Shinobi manage impressive stealth.
I still only hear them because of my enhancements. I wonder if
they’ve used the same nanotech they’ve cloaked themselves with to
mask their footfalls, or if it’s all just skill.

I scan for tracks as I shuffle down the loose slopes,
terrace-by-terrace, for any sign of the Warhorse crew having been
brought this way ahead of me, but there’s nothing I can see in my
night vision. When I look up, there’s another Shinobi standing in
my path, twenty meters down slope, almost in the bottom of this
part of the dig. He gestures me to his right. I pause and look
where he’s pointing. There’s an exposed tunnel that way, and now I
can see faint heat from inside it. I stand put for several seconds
as my “escorts” form a rough circle around me, and test their
patience. They stop still and wait for me, apparently in no hurry.
But they’re confident my urgency is greater than theirs. I start
moving in the indicated direction.

When I get to the tunnel entrance, there’s no visible
light, but my enhancements show me that it’s cut through the
ground; walls and ceiling packed and sealed and shored up with
scrap that Asmodeus decided to leave behind. The floor is also
well-packed, showing signs of years—decades—of foot traffic, but
only a few trails in the dust look fresh. It stretches for several
dozen meters that I can see. Even with my Mods, the end is lost in
darkness.

My escorts don’t come in with me. They just form a
perimeter at my back, and one of them points me to go in. I can’t
read their expressions through their tinted goggles and armored
masks, but I get the subtle sense that they’re uncharacteristically
afraid of something (and these warriors have shown no fear of
me
).

I follow the tunnel. There are side-branches every
ten meters or so, but half of these lead to collapsed sections and
the others read as abandoned, the dust on the floor undisturbed.
Only the straight path shows recent activity.

I’ve almost entirely lost sight of the starlight at
the entrance behind me when I come to a heavy hatch, a good sixty
meters in. It unseals at my touch, letting me into a squad-sized
airlock, which automatically cycles as I close the hatch behind me.
But it’s not just air that floods the chamber. It’s heat. And it
intensifies when the inner hatch opens.

The chamber beyond is sizable—about the size of a
barracks at Melas Two—but low-ceilinged. The walls, ceiling and
floor are the same sealed, reinforced rammed earth and cut stone.
The light that greets me is unexpectedly dim, provided by a very
few chemical lanterns. It reminds me of candlelight. And the heat…
It’s oppressive, humid, like Earth tropical. I see pots of water
steaming on heaters around the space that explain the sauna-like
quality.

The chamber is divided by shoji-type screens. The
floor is partially covered with woven mats.

I read movement on the other side of the screens,
just one human-sized shadow. Then the screens part.

“Lady Sakura,” I greet her coolly. She’s dressed in
her usual black kimono, her eyes hidden behind small goggles and
her mouth and nose behind her breather mask, her short sword in her
red sash. But her black hair is down over her shoulders, not tied
up as I’ve always seen it, and her kimono is open down to her
cleavage, exposing pale skin. Behind her is a traditional Japanese
bed: A mat on the floor with silken blankets and block pillows.
It’s set for two. I get the immediate impression that this is
supposed to be a seduction scene.

“Lord Ragnarok,” she greets me with my ridiculous
title (a title she would only have heard from a Modded immortal).
“Thank you for coming.”

“Your ‘invitation’ was not one I could ignore,” I
snarl at her. “But I’m sure you designed it so.”

“Would you like some tea?” Hatsumi Sakura ignores my
rage.

I nod cautiously, curious enough to see how she plays
this. She gestures to a low table at one side of the chamber. On a
flat-top heater near it is a rustic iron tea pot, and a smaller
table with a short cylindrical lacquer-ware container, a bowl-sized
ceramic cup, a thin spoon, a brush-like whisk, and a folded white
cloth.

Seeing her intention, we exchange bows, and I kneel
across from her at the table as she deliberately and precisely
makes a bowl of powdered tea. She presents it to me with a bow, and
I accept it in kind, carefully rotating it 180 degrees before
taking a sip and savoring it. The flavor is crisp and has a nutty
aftertaste. I use the cloth to wipe the spot I’ve just put my lips
to and offer the cup back to her in kind. She smoothly moves her
mask to the right (rather than lower or remove it—her own ritual?),
accepts the cup, rotates it, and takes her own sip before setting
it down and resetting her mask. (I notice she’s wearing gloves over
her clawed fingers.) Then we sit formally facing each other. If she
appreciates my familiarity with the ceremony, or my acceptance of
the gift of it, I certainly can’t read it in her eyes or on her
lips.

I suspect she knows what a poor and disrespectful
guest I’m being under my lip service to the ritual, because
throughout all I can think about is the life she’s taken for no
good reason and whatever deceptions she has in play. I had my Mods
analyze the tea for toxins and tracers (and found none obvious),
and consider what potentially useful materials I may have left for
her on the cup. Or perhaps the gesture is a simpler form of
manipulation.

I know my best strategy is to sit here quietly, wait
until she speaks first to reveal her intent. But she knows she has
me in the position of urgency, because she has lives in her hands.
(Is she even considering that I have her life and the lives of her
Shinobi in
my
hands? Or is she counting on the fact that I
value the lives she holds far more than she values the ones I could
take?) So I decide to play what I hope is a less expected move: