Skrymers Glove
The Fyrkat Project
Copyright Per Holbo 2013
Contents
Chapter 1: Under Attack
Chapter 2: Silence after the storm
Chapter 3: Fyrkat
Chapter 4: Alfheim
Chapter 5: Abducted
Chapter 6: Brimir
Chapter 7: Skrymer´s Glove
Chapter 8: Behind the membrane
Chapter 9: The traitor
Chapter 10: The escape
Chapter 11: Thor´s Hammer
Chapter 12: Tjalfe vs. Skrymer
Chapter 13: Fading hope
Chapter 14: Endgame
Chapter 15: A new life
About the author
Chapter 1: Under attack
“Thor, the Yetten fleet has almost breached our perimeter. We have to evacuate! Right now!”
Loki raised his voice as hard as he could trying to overshout the noise from various explosions around the Svalinn. It wasn´t easy in itself, but the fact that Thor was so focused on his task and seemed to form a mental bubble around him while working his magic on the consoles didn´t exactly help either.
“Not just yet, Loki...” Thor finally responded, though in a rather distant voice.
“Thor! Please!”
”I´m almost done, Loki,” Thor went on, his voice and body language still showing a slight absence as he continued punching the virtual keys on the upright screen in front of him, “I need to shut down Fyrkat before we can leave.”
Loki grabbed his friend´s arm. “Thor, we need to go! Now! Overseer Odin gave us a direct order!”
“Let me go!” Thor barked as he wrestled angrily from Loki´s grip. “If we don´t shut down that device, it may fall into the hands of the Yetten! The entire galaxy will be at their mercy! You know this! Now, let me finish! It´ll take only a minute or two. Then we can evacuate!” Thor turned back his focus on the consoles as if Loki wasn´t even there.
Loki frowned. He had absolutely no idea what the Fyrkat device could do, but he knew it was important. The Asgard council wouldn´t have sent them on a mission this far away from home in such a remote corner of the galaxy, if it wasn´t important. Add the secrecy surrounding the whole expedition, and you´ve really got something of high significance. And even if this mission wasn´t all that high profiled, letting any technology fall into the hands of the Yetten was per definition a bad idea. They would use any and all means to achieve their goal of complete dominance of the entire galaxy. Likewise, Loki would stop at nothing to prevent them from reaching that goal. And it wasn´t without risk.
The Yetten weren’t exactly known for being kind to their prisoners. Especially not if they believed those prisoners to have vital information.
Loki made a quick decision and opened a channel.
“This is Captain Loki,” he said, “message to all Skarfi units: protect Svalinn at all cost. I repeat: Svalinn must be protected. All other units: retreat immediately. Requesting landing permission is NOT required. Just come home.”
Outside the ship the battle had already gone to the next phase. The remaining Skarfi´s were trying to get back to the hangar with Yetten attack vessels on their tail and a battleship firing wildly at them from so far away that it didn´t even show up on their scanners yet.
Suddenly a big blow hit Svalinn and the chock of the blast worked its way through the hull and shook the entire crew. Two Skarfis crashed right into the side of Svalinn and one of them cut a power cord as it met the surface of the cruiser. Dieeew! The crew at the bridge heard the sound of systems shutting down. Then everything inside went completely dark...
The Aseir cruisers and scouting ships outside the window of Svalinn complied with their orders at once and went for their respective hangar ships, while the Skarfi fighters still operational moved into protective formations around Svalinn getting ready for the incoming enemies.
Loki observed them closely through the front window at the bridge with a concerned expression on his face. The Skarfi was indeed quick and easy to maneuver, but the Yetten attack vessel, the much bigger Farbauter, was still a formidable adversary. Its heavy weaponry made little room for error by the Aseir pilots and many a good pilot had been killed as a result of making even the slightest mistakes. Only the very skilled pilots were able to take advantage of the Skarfi’s superior maneuverability to put their ship in a position to make a kill.
Two of the Skarfis out there seemed to have exactly that kind of pilots. Surrounded by dozens of Farbauters they threw their Skarfis up and down and to the sides crossing each other’s paths and succeeded with these maneuvers to get the Yetten in range. One by one they thinned out in the enemy numbers, before their counterparts knew what hit them.
After a while one of the Skarfi pilots made a sharp turn and looked as if he was about to make a run for it. Loki knew what the pilot was up to. They had developed this maneuver based on data from previous encounters with the Yetten and for months they’d been practicing it using simulations. Now it was time to find out if it worked. The basic idea was to make it look like they were fleeing the fight drawing the most aggressive, that is: those who were most potential to let their feelings control their actions, away from the Svalinn.
The maneuver seemed to work. At least a dozen Farbauters tailed the “fleeing” Skarfi leaving just a little more than half of the attacking forces for the other Skarfi to deal with.
The pilot in that Skarfi was good. Really good, actually. He made a series of slalom maneuvers which they had a hard time following and Loki nodded satisfied and confident as he watched this pilot´s skills. Those Farbauters may be strong, fast and heavily armed, but when it came to maneuverability, the Skarfi was without doubt superior to them. The Yetten pilots’ only chance was to predict their adversary’s next move in time to compensate and this proved to be a very difficult task. One by one the Skarfi put them in awkward positions and shot them down.
Loki was impressed and opened the console to punch in the ID of the Skarfi. That fighter pilot sure was skilled and he should be commended for it, when all of this was over - if he survived...
Loki froze for a second looking at the virtual screen. “Baldur,” it said. Loki glanced at Thor, who was still punching numbers like crazy. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to tell Thor that his brother was out there alone with half a dozen Yetten fighters. Loki returned his focus on the ongoing battle outside. The other Skarfi was on its way back with no less than four Farbauters on his tail. The rest of them had probably been destroyed, although at a price. The Skarfi tipped from side to side as if there was a problem with the controls.
Loki opened a channel to inform Baldur of the problem, but it proved unnecessary.
“Skarfi 7!” Baldur yelled, “Are you okay?” Loki looked at Thor and sighed with relief. Luckily he´d remembered to turn off the speaker. Thor couldn’t hear Baldur and continued the shut down procedure of Fyrkat without being disturbed.
“Skarfi 7 here” the other pilot responded with a slight sound of panic in his voice, “my exhaust pipes have been damaged and I have a few bogies on my tail. Can you place yourself between us?”
Baldur responded in a coded message to his friend and threw the Skarfi around the incoming Farbauters. His skilled and well performed maneuver created brief chaos among the Yetten pilots and their formation scattered in all directions. As one of the Farbauters turned its side toward Baldur, he saw that it had been damaged even more than Skarfi 7. Baldur had expected the fighters to easily evade collision, but this particular Farbauter didn’t have the needed maneuverability. Instead of passing Baldur with a few meters’ to spare, it glided by really close. The sound of metal against metal reached Baldur’s ears as the Farbauter’s right front wing tore a deep scratch in the
body of his Skarfi before passing and continuing toward the Svalinn.
“Whoa!” Baldur shouted, “THAT was close! Skarfi 7, are you alright?”
Loki didn’t hear the answer. He had his eyes intensely fixed on the Farbauter approaching the Svalinn at extremely high speed on a collision course.
The next few minutes felt like a dream. The kind of dream, where everything seems to happen fast, but at the same time in a very slow motion. The Yetten fighter grew in size right in front of him and Loki could do nothing else but wait for the inevitable impact. Suddenly the Farbauter went out of his view at the lower right of the front window. Loki took a deep breath and waited for what was bound to happen...
and then...
Crash! The sound of the Farbauter smashing into the hull of Svalinn shook his mind and the trembles through the ship shook his body. Deeeuw! The sound of all systems shutting down waned upon the crew At the bridge and covered the ship like a blanket. Then complete silence. And darkness...
Loki had the same feeling you have when you are sitting in a roller coaster moving upward and anticipating the thrill of the first top. He glanced at Thor and much to his surprise his friend didn't at all look as if all the things happening around him had had any effect on him.
Suddenly the floor beneath Loki jerked downwards and his body flew up stranding mid air. The weightlessness could mean only one thing: Svalinn was about to crash land.
“Thor!” Loki yelled as he was trying to regain some control of himself. His eyes swept across the bridge and found Thor clinging to the console with one hand still frantically typing in the last few algorithms. Finally he seemed to have finished and hammered his hand on the red circle in the middle of the screen.
A humming sound started from the bridge and sent out visible energy from the ship’s hull. The growing and glowing bubble of energy reached the planet atmosphere on which only the half on the outside was visible, while the half on the inside disappeared. The visible half diminished and after a while completely vanished into the atmosphere.
Down on the surface the ring shaped formation started glowing red. Soon the red glow turned yellow, then white and POOMPF! The entire area was shaken and the ground trembled as a wave spread out as if the soil was made of water and someone had thrown in a huge stone in the center of the circle. Then complete silence...
At the bridge of the Svalinn the artificial gravity was acting up, going on and off as if a child was playing with the switch and they were both thrown in the air, slung to the floor and then again hurled into the air only to be thrown hard to the floor again. Having difficulty figuring out what was up and down, Loki reached out hands fumbling trying to get hold of something solid. Finally his hands found the console, but Thor was too far away from anything firmly attached and found himself at the dysfunctional gravity’s mercy. Each time the gravity switched off he was swirled even faster around himself and after a while he decided to give up trying to stop the spinning and instead started to focus on not lose his consciousness.
All of the sudden the entire ship moved in one giant yank and Loki almost lost his breath as they fell inside the planet’s gravity. It stretched out its hands, grabbed Svalinn and pulled it relentlessly downward.
Faster and faster it went and reaching the atmosphere, Svalinn lit up like a torch falling toward the surface. Shortly after, the energy circle around Fyrkat blasted from the surface and rammed Svalinn with such force that Thor was thrown head first into the console in the middle of the bridge. Loki was too busy holding on and could do nothing but watch Thor hit his head on the corner of the console. As the blood from Thor’s wound dripped into mid air like bubbles floating in oil, his eyes rolled and soon the lights weren´t on and nobody was home. After a while Svalinn’s fall to the surface smoothed out a bit and approached the planet surface at a softer angle towards its doom.
Suddenly the small red pebbles of blood fell to the floor and formed a puddle. At least now Loki was able to let go of the console and go help his friend. He crawled cautiously forward continuously finding new solids to hold on to for every move just in case the artificial gravity would shut off again. Reaching Thor this proved to be a rather good idea. The moment he tried to grab hold of Thor, his feet left the floor and his body tilted backwards and up over the rest of him leaving his feet dangling free. His hand slipped and there was nothing he could do as he drifted slowly toward the window. Sighing with relief he discovered the window was intact. At least they would not be sucked into space. He looked at Thor who had regained consciousness and accompanied his “I am alright” nod with a “thumbs up.” Thor punched in the command for shutting off artificial gravity. After all, floating in mid air would be preferable to being smashed to the floor on a regular basis. Loki hoped Thor would manage to turn on the main computer as well, so they could regain control of the ship. They wouldn’t be able to fly the ship, but maybe they could make a safe landing if they at least had some degree of control, even if it was no more than that.
But for now, Loki couldn’t do anything to help out, so he decided to get a better view of things the old fashioned way. He got to the window and looked down. The water between formations of land reminded him of a kneeling soldier and from the window at the bridge it looked as if the ship’s course would bring them to crash land somewhere between two areas, most of the earthlings called “Danimarca” and “Gardaria.” A well suited site for a crash landing, but unfortunately very far from land. They would need to get the computer running, if they were to get the escape pod to leave Svalinn at the exact right moment before the ship splintered hitting the surface of the water and it would greatly strengthen their chance for survival, if they had some kind of maneuverability of the pod as soon as possible after landing.
The sound of primary systems rebooting woke up Loki from his thoughts and he looked at Thor.
“Yes!” Thor yelled and threw a fist in the air, “that’s it! We are good - to – go!” He punched a few keys with those final words and then turned to another screen.
“All I have to do now is switch on the autopilot and then maybe Svalinn can correct its course before smashing into the surface…”
Loki kicked his feet against something and floated over to Thor, where he grabbed his arm. He didn´t say anything, but just looked at him letting his face do the pleading and this time Thor gave in.
“Alright, Loki,” he said reluctantly, “We should go - but we have to go find the console and the energy crystal from the Fyrkat device as soon as we land. We cannot let them fall into the hands of the Yetten, okay?”
Loki nodded in agreement. Not that he really agreed, but he knew he would never convince Thor that leaving in a hurry was the best course of action if he had the slightest concern about the Fyrkat device getting into Yetten hands. So he decided it was better to give a promise, he may not be able to fulfill.