Valkyrie Hunter

I sat at the controls re-familiarising myself with the setup of the console. We’d got lucky. It was a standard shuttle with four seats behind the cockpit and six on the back wall with a small kitchen and washroom. As much as I wanted a wash we didn’t have the time and someone had to fly this shuttle. I had given the shuttle a once over it would fly but it seemed the previous owners hadn’t kept it in good repair. It would fly and that was all that mattered. Even with the problems with the state of the shuttle a modicum of smug satisfaction filled me. I had managed to get the others to compromise over the dead. We gathered up the bodies and laid them under a plastic sheet from the shuttle covering it with rocks and branches. Miranda even agreed to send a burial detail over once we were safe. I looked again at the controls and took a deep breath.

“Here goes nothing,” I said to myself half convinced that it wouldn’t work. Hesitantly I tapped on the console see it light up. I breathed a sigh of relief. The controls hadn’t been locked out. That had been my biggest worry. I noted several red lights, unlike Cathon the planet that had started all this I knew how to deal with the red lights and how to bypass the problems.

“Are you sure you can fly this?” Miranda asked from the door.

“Certainly,” I replied more sure of myself.

“And those red lights I do know that means problems?”

“Nothing you should be concerned with,” I told her. “They had a rough landing. If you’re worried don’t be it will still fly.” I gave her a look. “Go back and strap yourself in. I’m just starting the engines.”

I turned my back on Miranda and tapped the console again more green than red lit up. I glanced at it not worried about the lights. I grasped the control stick. Slowly but surely we lifted. I gritted my teeth hearing the broken branches of the trees scraping against the hull. Suddenly we were free of the trees. I set the shuttle to hover and called back.

“Hey, I forgot to ask where we are heading?”

“Hall of Elders!” Miranda called back.

I frowned, the last place I wanted to go. “Why there?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to go straight to Martin territory?” At least I knew where it was even if I’d never been allowed to go there. Another place I’d rather not be but I had to see Miranda safe if she was being hunted.

“Yes and no,”

Miranda’s reply didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence. “What do you mean that that?”

“It complicated,” Miranda replied. “Our best bet is to go to the Elders.”

I felt unassured by Miranda’s words. “I’m not on the best of terms with the Elders.”

Defying them wasn’t a good move. I been at odds over them over Ljufu’s daughter and then later over their high handed treatment of an injured Runa.

“I’ll ask about that when we have the time?” Miranda said. “Just get us there.”

I knew I was in over my head. I would have to do as Miranda said. I wasn’t even sure where we are let alone where the Hall of Elders was in relation to us. “For that I’ll need directions?”

Miranda rattled off a list of numbers. I punched them into the nav-comp. The nav- comp or navigation computer locked onto the local relay system and calculated locations and destinations. A holo map appeared over the console showing our course. I stared at it confused. It wasn’t showing a direct route, it seemed to dogleg all over the place.

“Stupid computer!” I said aloud. I was still Imperial enough not to trust a computer.

Miranda and Ella crowded the doorway I hadn’t kept that thought to myself.

“What’s wrong now!” Miranda complained.

“This heap of junk.” I indicated the nav-comp. “It thinks we go around the mountains and not over them. We’ve got to go thousands of K’s out of the way. And how big is this mountain range?”

“Very big,” Miranda stated.

I looked at Miranda trying to work out distances in my mind without success. “Are you sure about that. Wouldn’t it be better to go to Martin territory?”

“Gwen do as the computer says. Yes, I know I’m asking to take the word of a machine rather than your own logic.”

“Even when it takes far out of our way?”

“Its better than crashing into the side of a mountain in a blizzard with no sensors to guide you.”

I remembered the holo that showed the crashing shuttle. The Palkkasir I assumed they were the same had lost a shuttle. Miranda was right this shuttle could have the fate of the other. I wasn’t that confident a pilot to risk it but I had to say what’s on my mind. “Why not go over the top this shuttle is space capable?”

Miranda considered what I was asking. “The extent of.” Miranda paused. “Lets call it a null zone reaches into the atmosphere.” She waved her hand. “These mountains cannot be scanned from any position and that includes space. As to why I’ve made it my life’s work to find the damn answer.”

I heard frustration in her voice.

She continued. “Nor do I want to be shot down. Our best bet is to follow the nav computer.” She gave me a look. “I know how much you don’t trust machines. Just do it this time Gwen we have to get out of here?”

“Ok I get it,” I replied. As much as I wanted to argue, it was a argument I couldn’t win.

I applied myself to the route calculating fuel levels and distances. We had enough as long as we didn’t take any detours.

“Hold on!” I called out and powered up the engines switching from hover to drive.

We flew keeping low over trackless forests and rocky spires thrusting their way through the canopy. We passed over cataracts of foaming water with no sign of habitation. These were truly the wilds of Alfheimir. I also kept an eye out for other craft within the range of the shuttles sensors. Nothing, not a damn thing and that had me worried. Suddenly several red lights appeared on the console more serious this time. We’d have to land I wasn’t going to fly in the dark with those warning lights on the console.

“I’m going to land!” I called out.

Miranda was at the door in an instant. “Problems?”

“Yes, I have to fix them and in order to do that I’ll have to land.”

“Do what you have to do. Find a safe place to land.”

After a few minutes of searching I found a decent spot with more than enough room to land safely.

“I’ll set her down here.”

I dropped the shuttle down as gently as I could.

The shuttle was in a worse state that I had first thought. Externally it looked ok but internally I could see years of neglect. The only thing in my favour was that it wasn’t a monumental task.

“Can you fix it?” a familiar voice called out.

I turned to see Ella watching me with her a coil assault gun cradled in her arms she was wearing armour she had purloined from the dead Palkkasir.

“Where’s Miranda?” I asked her.

“Sleeping, I slipped her a sedative in her drink.”

That surprised me. “Why?”

“To help her sleep,” Ella admitted. “She is having nightmares again.”

Which implied she had them before. “Are they common?”

There was an awkward silence, when Ella spoke again she changed subjects. “What can I do to help?”

“Do you know much about shuttles?” I wondered why she was here and why she was being so talkative.

“No,” she answered truthfully. “Which was why I was glad you did.”

“Well I could do with some watching my back while I work. The last thing I need is someone creeping up on me while I’m busy.”

Ella looked confused for a minute. “Watch your back? I see one of those Terran expressions just not literately. Miranda tells me that all the time.”

“I can do that.” She resolutely turned and scanned the trees surrounding us.

I pulled off a panel and peered into the dark hole it had hidden. Luckily Runa’s training had included shuttle repairs. Unfortunately that hadn’t included being hit with a round from a rail gun. I put on the image intensifiers I had with me, immediately seeing a number of corroded modules. Nothing too bad once they were cleaned off and put back in. It was a bit of a struggle to remove the first module. It was covered with dirt and corrosion.

I glanced to Ella. “Do we have any alcohol?”

“I think we do,” Ella said thoughtfully. “There was some left over from the previous occupants.”

“Did they leave anything as why they were hunting use?” I went into investigation mode.

“I did find a couple of datapads but they were heavily encrypted.”

I knew at least one Ezaran that could breeze through any encryption. Ella disappeared into the shuttle emerging minutes later with a recognisable bottle. Valkyrie wine, that stuff was better as paint peeler. I certainly wasn’t going to drink the stuff. I had no doubts it would do the job what did worry me was that it was liable to dissolve the module at the same time.

“Will this do?” she asked handing me the bottle.

“Yes,” I said dubious about the contents of the bottle.

I popped the cap on the bottle using a rag to clean the contacts on the module and several others. The alcohol fumes were making me giddy. I decided I had done enough to keep the shuttle flying.

“That’s it,” I told Ella. “It’s as much as I can do. I’m starting see double with all those fumes.”

“Will it be enough,” Ella glanced at the door to the shuttle.

“It will have to. I don’t have a week in a workshop to fix it all but she’ll fly.”

“Good enough for me.” With that she went back into the shuttle.

I followed her in nodding at her foresight. Miranda was asleep on the emergency bed a cover over her and Ella had set the other bed up.

“You can sleep there,” Ella said to me.

I shook my head. “I’ll take the cockpit it isn’t the first time I’ve done that.”

“You won’t be able to sleep properly there,” she cautioned me.

“Don’t worry I be ok.”