The Only Gods We Know, Ch 2: First Contact, First Conquest
Asgard brings "order" to the stars. For pilot Brynja, the price of duty is paid in blood and doubt.
Duty was a cold stone in Brynja's gut as her squadron, Stormbringers, spearheaded the Asgardian approach towards the dense asteroid belt the K'tharr called home; today, that home would learn a new master. The Jörmungandr Drifts, as High Command had unceremoniously tagged this clusterfuck of rock and ice, sprawled ahead like the shed skin of some void-leviathan - a navigational nightmare where good light went to die and sensor ghosts danced like malevolent spirits. Behind her Vindbitr and the four other airframes of her element, the rest of the task force lumbered into position: a couple of sleek Asgardian ISR platforms, their sensor arrays already sniffing for intel, and the uglier, more pugnacious outlines of the assault carriers, their launch bays crammed with the First Asgardian Infantry Cohort - the "ground-pounders."
The void was dead quiet, a silence that Brynja found more prickling than a full-blown furball. She kept her fighter's Auspex suite on its tightest scan pattern, every energy flicker, every gravimetric anomaly logged and cross-referenced. Her wingmen mirrored her vigilance, a silent ballet of professional paranoia.
"Anything on the long-haul scan, Mist?" Brynja's voice was clipped, all business over the squadron net.
"Negative, Lead," Mist replied, her tone flat, metronomic. "Background radiation consistent with a Class Three debris field. No off-nominal gravimetric distortions beyond predicted asteroid mass. If they're out there, they're running colder than a witch's tit in Niflheim."
"They're out there," Sigrun's gravelly voice cut in from Stormbringer Three. "K'tharr know every shadow in these rocks. Won't break cover until they have to."
"Until they have to, Sigrun?" Astrid's voice, Stormbringer Two, dripped with aristocratic condescension. "These feathered jackals? Their tac-rigs are scrap and prayers. There's no honor in their doctrine, just banditry and running like scared groats."
Tarjan Delta, Brynja thought, the memory surfacing unbidden. Six months ago. The "inferior" Jovian separatists had let an overconfident patrol get deep into their asteroid maze before springing their trap. Three Valkyries had made it out of twelve. She'd been lucky to be reassigned before that clusterfuck.
"Honor's a luxury most don't get issued, Astrid," she said, her tone level but firm. "Asymmetric TTPs and desperation can be just as lethal. Don't write 'em off 'cause their birds aren't forged in Svartalfheim's fancy foundries."
Astrid's reply was forestalled by a familiar brush of fingertips against Brynja's arm - their old signal from flight school, a touch so brief it wouldn't register on tactical feeds but intimate enough to ground them both. Easy, love, the gesture said. We've got this.
Before Astrid could launch into a lecture on martial purity, a new voice, impossibly smooth and laced with something that always made Brynja's teeth ache, overrode their squadron frequency. Loki. His words, she knew, were being pumped out on a wide-band transmission, probably aimed straight into the guts of the Jörmungandr Drifts. Psyops bullshit, top to bottom.
"Hear me, inhabitants of the Drifts, wayward children of the void!" Loki's voice was like honeyed mead poured over razor wire. "I am Loki, designated herald of the Asgardian Expeditionary Force, speaking for the Allfather Odin. We are not here as conquerors, but as… an intervention force. Your current socio-economic paradigm - subsistence scavenging amongst hazardous debris and diminishing returns - is unsustainable. Asgard offers an alternative: integration, security, and participation in a divinely mandated, pan-galactic order. Abandon your current non-compliant operational posture. Pledge fealty. Accept the Allfather's magnanimity. You will receive uplift, protection, and resource allocation beyond your current capacity. Continued resistance will result in… terminal re-education. The choice, as they say, is yours. We await your timely and compliant response."
Brynja listened, a sour, chemical tang coating her tongue. Loki's "offer" was a masterclass in veiled threats and patronizing superiority. "Magnanimity." The word felt obscene against the backdrop of the heavily armed warships arrayed behind her. She pictured the K'tharr, huddled in their rust-bucket ships, listening to this silver-tongued bastard from the heavens offering them a five-star prison cell. What choice was that, really?
"Polished, as always," Astrid murmured, though even her voice held a note of something that might have been distaste for the psyops theatrics.
"Awaiting their compliant response," Sigrun grunted. "More like awaiting the first trigger-happy bird to break noise discipline."
As if summoned by Sigrun's cynicism, Hrist's voice, usually a torrent of youthful enthusiasm, now crackled with sharp tension. "Lead! Stormbringer Four! Multiple faint energy signatures, deep within designated Sector Einn! Erratic, low-observable profiles… like multiple bogies attempting silent running, but their drive signatures are… spitting sparks."
The universe outside her cockpit compressed to the Auspex display. "All Stormbringers, weapons hot, go to Condition One. Confirm those contacts, Mist. Probable hostiles attempting masked ingress." The goddamn quiet was officially over.
***
The K'tharr's answer to Loki's "offer" was short, sharp, and entirely predictable to anyone who'd spent more than five minutes outside Asgard's gilded halls. No flowery speeches, no white flags. Just a sudden, violent eruption from the black.
From the gaping maws of what Brynja's Auspex had initially tagged as inert, oversized space-rocks and the shadowed bellies of seemingly derelict asteroid husks, a massive swarm of bogies materialized. Small, angular airframes, just like Astrid had sneered - patchwork nightmares of mismatched plating, exposed conduits sealed with what looked like hardened tree sap, and a bewildering array of jury-rigged weapon systems that immediately spat a ragged, unaimed volley of kinetic slugs, superheated plasma gobs, and fizzing, unstable energy packets. A real goddamn meatgrinder waiting to happen.
"Contacts, multiple, bearing zero-niner-zero through one-eight-zero! They're coming out of the goddamn rocks!" Geirskögul's voice, Sky-Reaver Actual, cut through the command net, sharp as shattered plasteel. "All Valkyrie elements, engage at will! Weapons free! Prioritize carrier defense!"
"Stormbringers, break and evade! Defensive spread, pattern Sjau-Alpha!" Brynja snapped, her Vindbitr already yanking hard to port as a string of angry red plasma bolts stitched the void where her canopy had been milliseconds before. The K'tharr fighters, for all their junkyard aesthetics, were squirrelly little bastards. Their pilots, clearly born and bred in this navigational clusterfuck, used the larger asteroids like their own personal playgrounds, popping out for quick, dirty shots before ducking back into cover.
The void around them exploded into a strobing nightmare of light and lethal trajectories. Asgardian energy lances, tight, golden beams of focused destruction, punched out from the Valkyrie airframes, often turning the poorly shielded K'tharr craft into expanding fireballs of superheated gas and shredded metal. But for every K'tharr bandit splashed, two more seemed to boil out of the black. Their sheer numbers and erratic, uncoordinated attack vectors made it a high-pucker-factor furball, even with superior Asgardian tech and Valkyrie reflexes.
"They fight like rabid space-ferrets!" Astrid yelled over the comms, her Sólarljómi a golden pinball caroming through the incoming Kentucky windage, her own lances scything through K'tharr formations with lethal precision. There was a manic edge to her voice, the kind of high that came from dancing on the razor's edge. She was eating this deluge up.
"Maintain discipline, Two! Don't get suckered into the belt!" Brynja warned, even as she threw her Vindbitr into a gut-wrenching high-G barrel roll to dodge a K'tharr fighter attempting a kamikaze run. Her spear, Storm-Singer, hummed with latent power, its tip designed to discharge focused particle bursts. She thumbed the actuator now, a tight beam of energy gutting the suicidal bandit before it could turn her into a rapidly expanding cloud of expensive confetti.
Sigrun, solid as a Jotunheim mountain range, slid her Skjaldmær into Brynja's six o'clock, her heavier shield array soaking up a volley of kinetic slugs that would have cored out a lesser airframe. "Significant numbers, Lead. Classic swarm tactics. They're going for attrition."
"Hrist, Mist, BDA on the carrier group, now!" Brynja demanded, jinking through a fresh wave of bandits.
"Multiple bandits have penetrated the outer screen, Lead!" Hrist's voice was tight, the initial combat high clearly wearing off as the reality of a peer-on-peer (sort of) engagement set in. "CIWS on the Yggdrasil's Heart is active, but she's taking hits on her aft quarter!"
"Damn their feathered balls!" Brynja swore under her breath. The assault carriers, the fat cows of the fleet, were slow, lumbering targets. "All Stormbringers, shift priority to targets engaging the troop transports! Burn a clear path for the ground-pounders, now!"
The Asgardian assault carriers, massive, rune-etched behemoths that looked like spacefaring Viking longships on steroids, had begun to vomit their deadly cargo. Main hatches yawned open, and streams of heavily armored landers, escorted by flights of beefier Valkyrie gunships, punched atmosphere-ward towards the larger K'tharr "nest" asteroids. Their mission: internal pacification, a polite term for kicking in doors and shooting anything that squawked. The carriers' own formidable point-defense batteries, arrays of rapid-fire Gungnir cannons, laid down a continuous, thundering barrage, trying to thin out the K'tharr swarm.
Mist's calm, almost detached voice cut through the comms chatter. "Lead, analyzing bandit attack vectors. Individually, they're FUBAR. No tactical cohesion. But their swarm behavior shows a rudimentary targeting priority: they're attempting focused fire on single Valkyrie elements after an initial feint. Recommend dynamic element separation and utilizing asteroid clutter for temporary sensor baffling to disrupt their kill chains."
"Copy that, Mist. Good SA," Brynja acknowledged, a flicker of appreciation for the younger Valkyrie's cool head under fire. "Stormbringers, execute 'Shadow Weave' maneuver. Exploit local terrain for cover and concealment. Let's show these goddamn scavengers what happens when they poke a Valkyrie nest!"
The furball raged, a lethal, three-dimensional dance of light and shadow played out against the indifferent backdrop of cold stars and silent asteroids. Brynja fought with a detached, cold fury, her every maneuver economical, her every shot calculated to cripple or kill. The initial adrenaline spike had plateaued into the grim focus of a seasoned trigger-puller. This was a brutal, messy business conducted in flashes of plasma fire and the shriek of tearing metal. And it was, she knew with a sinking certainty, just the goddamn overture.
***
The K'tharr furball had mostly attrited under sustained Valkyrie fires and heavy particle beams from the capital ships. The void around the Jörmungandr Drifts was now a goddamn junkyard - cherry-red hulks venting atmosphere in ghostly plumes, shattered airframes tumbling end over end. Mop-up was ongoing, but the primary threat to the troop transports was decisively neutralized.
Tyr's voice, cold as a Fimbulwinter night, crackled over the command net. "Valkyrie Actual, good work. Phase Two is now effective. Designated K'tharr C2 nodes are primary targets for takedown and neutralization. Commander Geirskögul, disseminate target packages. We need their command decapitated, yesterday."
Geirskögul's acknowledgment was instantaneous. "Sky-Reavers, new OPORDs uploading. Stormbringer Lead, your element is tasked with the primary K'tharr flotilla anchor - designated 'Objective Skraeling.' ISR indicates a hollowed-out asteroid serving as their flagship and primary hive. Your mission: hard-kill its primary sublight drives. Prepare for follow-on boarding action. You will lead the initial breach element with Einherjar attachments."
"Solid copy, Commander," Brynja acknowledged, her gaze already locked on the massive, ugly son-of-a-bitch asteroid highlighted on her tactical overlay. It bristled with crude, jury-rigged weapon emplacements and a patchwork of scavenged ship hulls fused to its surface - a testament to K'tharr ingenuity, however desperate and aesthetically offensive.
"Astrid, you're on my wing for the engine-kill run," Brynja ordered. "Sigrun, Hrist, Mist, establish overwatch, suppress any remaining orbital hardpoints on Objective Skraeling. We need a clean insertion window for the boarding pods."
"Wilco, Lead. Sounds like a party," Astrid's voice purred, her Sólarljómi already peeling off for an attack vector.
Brynja's Vindbitr and Astrid's Sólarljómi broke formation, two silver darts streaking towards Objective Skraeling. The asteroid's remaining point-defense batteries, likely older, less accurate systems, spat sporadic, unaimed bursts of energy. Weaving through the incoming, mostly ineffective fire, the two Valkyries lined up their targets: the massive, cobbled-together engine nacelles clinging precariously to the asteroid's ass-end.
"Mark, mark, mark… Weapons free, Astrid!" Brynja called. Twin lances of Gungnir-Lite energy, impossibly bright and focused, slammed into the K'tharr engines. One nacelle vaporized in a spectacular gout of molten slag and superheated plasma. The other, heavily damaged, sputtered and died, its internal workings glowing like a forge. Objective Skraeling began a slow, uncontrolled tumble.
"Engine kill confirmed, Commander," Brynja reported, her voice flat. "Executing boarding op."
From the nearby assault carrier Gungnir's Reach, several heavily armored boarding pods - "space coffins," as the infantry sometimes called them - detached, their maneuvering thrusters firing erratically to match Skraeling Rock's wild spin. Brynja's pod, packed with herself, Sigrun (who'd joined after her CAS mission concluded), and a ten-man stick of Einherjar commandos - hulking Asgardian grunts in ornate power armor, loaded for bear with crackling energy axes and drum-fed storm-bolters - impacted the asteroid's pockmarked surface with a bone-jarring whump. The breaching charges on the pod's nose cooked off, blasting a jagged, smoking hole through the asteroid's thin crust and into the warren of tunnels beyond.
The second the ramp slammed down, Brynja was out, Storm-Singer leading, shield up, shouting, "Breach, breach, breach!" The air inside was thin, stale, thick with the stink of ozone, unidentifiable alien spices, and the sharp, metallic tang of raw fear. Emergency strobes flickered erratically, casting long, dancing shadows down a crudely carved passage that looked like it had been melted through the rock with some kind of industrial torch.
"Einherjar, establish foothold, secure the breach point!" Brynja commanded, her voice amplified by her helmet's external speaker. The power-armored grunts fanned out, their storm-bolters already chattering, spitting explosive rounds at shadowy, flitting targets in the gloom ahead.
The K'tharr, avian bastards with sharp beaks and wicked talons, their feathers a dull, utilitarian brown or grey, screeched a cacophony of defiance and terror. They were armed with scavenged slug-throwers that pinged harmlessly off Einherjar plate, and crude energy blades that hissed and spat as they met Asgardian energy shields.
The fight was immediate, up close and personal, and fucking brutal. Brynja moved with the deadly, economical grace of a seasoned Valkyrie, Storm-Singer a blur of silver light. She parried a screeching K'tharr's lunge, its energy blade scraping her shield with a high-pitched shriek that set her teeth on edge, then executed a textbook thrust, the rune-etched point of her spear finding a soft spot under its crude breastplate. Another K'tharr, bigger and meaner, decorated with scraps of brightly colored metal, charged from a side tunnel, squawking like a banshee. Sigrun met it head-on, her massive Ægis shield absorbing the impact like it was nothing, her own energy axe cleaving downward in a devastating, almost casual arc that nearly bisected the creature.
As they pushed deeper into the asteroid's guts, Brynja caught a glimpse through a partially collapsed bulkhead into what must have been living quarters. Crude hammocks woven from salvaged cable hung from the low ceiling, and carved into the rock wall was a series of intricate symbols surrounding what looked like a family grouping - adult K'tharr figures with wings spread protectively over smaller ones, their beaks touching in what might have been affection. The delicate scratch-work was stained with fresh blood now, and a small, feathered form lay crumpled beneath it.
Astrid, having docked her bird and linked up with another breach team, could be heard on the command net, her battle cries sharp and clear amidst the crackle of her energy whip and the high-pitched screams of dying K'tharr. Even in this grim, close-quarters clusterfuck, she fought with a terrifying, almost balletic lethality, her movements a blur of deadly skill. Brynja caught a glimpse of her through a connecting passage - a golden Valkyrie wreathed in the smoke and chaos of battle, a whirlwind of destruction amidst the panicked K'tharr. A shiver traced a line down Brynja's spine.
The push through Objective Skraeling was a slow, grinding, room-to-room nightmare. Every cramped passage, every jury-rigged bulkhead, was contested by pockets of K'tharr warriors fighting with the suicidal ferocity of insurgents who knew they were already dead. One of them, after dropping its weapon and raising its claws in a clear gesture of surrender, was immediately shot in the back by another K'tharr further down the corridor.
"No quarter! No surrender!" a K'tharr officer screeched, its voice distorted by a failing comm unit, before an Einherjar's bolter round turned its head into red mist. So much for winning hearts and minds.
The air grew thick with the stench of burnt feathers, ozone, and spilled fluids - both the dark, ichorous gore of the K'tharr and the brighter crimson of Asgardian grunts who bought it from a lucky shot or a well-placed IED. Brynja moved at point, Storm-Singer an extension of her will, its tip glowing with a faint, internal luminescence that cut through the oppressive darkness. Sigrun was an unbreakable fucking wall beside her, her shield a scarred and dented testament to K'tharr desperation, but her resolve absolute. The Einherjar commandos, their massive power-armored frames barely squeezing through some of the narrower passages, advanced with brutal, methodical efficiency, their storm-bolters thumping out a steady rhythm of death.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of CQB hell, they blew a reinforced hatchway - crude plasteel plates bolted over a natural fissure in the asteroid - and poured onto what was clearly the K'tharr C2 deck. It was a larger cavern, its ceiling a jagged dome of natural rock interspersed with flickering lumens and dangling, sparking power conduits. A crude command throne, fashioned from salvaged starship plating and adorned with tarnished metal trophies, sat on a raised platform at the far end. Consoles, equally haphazard in their construction, lined the walls, manned by frantic K'tharr techs who now scattered like roaches or fumbled for pathetic-looking sidearms.
But it was the hard-targets before the throne that drew Brynja's immediate attention. A dozen or so K'tharr warriors, bigger, meaner, and more heavily armored than the cannon fodder they'd waded through, formed a defiant line. Their plumage was darker, their eyes burning with a desperate, unyielding fire. These were the Warlord's personal meat-shields, his Praetorian guard. And on the throne itself, a towering K'tharr, easily a head taller than the others, rose to its full height. Its feathers were a grizzled grey, its beak scarred, and its single remaining eye - the other lost to some past fuck-up, replaced by a crudely fashioned optical implant that glowed a baleful red - fixed on Brynja. This was Graal-Talon, the K'tharr Warlord, his chest adorned with scavenged unit patches and the polished fangs of alien predators. He clutched a massive, double-barreled projectile weapon that looked like it had been ripped from a derelict gunship.
"Asgardian nest-breakers!" Graal-Talon's voice was a harsh, grating screech, amplified by a crude vocalizer. "You come to steal our roosts, scatter our Clutch! You will find only the void's cold embrace here!"
"Your resistance is futile, Warlord," Brynja called out, her own voice calm and clear through her helmet's external speaker, even as the thudding against her ribs matched the cadence of the alert klaxons. "Surrender now, and your people might see another solar cycle under Asgardian administration." A by-the-book offer. One she knew he wouldn't take.
Graal-Talon let out a harsh bark that might have been K'tharr laughter. "We K'tharr soar free through the star-winds, or we fall fighting! The Clutch remembers! The Drifts are our sacred roosts!" He hefted his weapon. "For the Clutch! For the endless sky!"
The elite guard charged, screeching their defiance like a flock of angry harpies. The Einherjar met them with a disciplined volley of bolter fire, and the cavern erupted into a final, desperate conflagration. Brynja saw Astrid's breach team punch through from another access tunnel, Astrid herself a golden blur, her energy whip cracking like small-arms fire as she dropped two guards in quick succession. Show-off.
Brynja, however, had eyes only for Graal-Talon. The Warlord, ignoring the slaughter of his bodyguards, leveled his massive weapon at her. She lunged, Storm-Singer deflecting the first explosive projectile just as it left the barrel, the force of the near-miss staggering her. He was strong, surprisingly fast for his bulk. They met in the center of the command deck, a maelstrom of Valkyrie precision against raw avian fury. Graal-Talon fought with the desperate strength of a leader cornered in his own domain, his heavy weapon used as much as a club as a firearm. Brynja, agile and economical, danced around his clumsy, telegraphed swings, her spear seeking openings, her shield deflecting his savage talon strikes.
She saw a chieftain, a king of his own broken, scavenged domain, fighting for the survival of his people. There was a desperate, ugly kind of nobility in his defiance, a raw courage that even an Asgardian could acknowledge, if only for a fleeting second before the kill shot. That moment came when Graal-Talon overextended, roaring in fury. Brynja sidestepped, her spear lancing out, a clean, professional thrust that pierced the Warlord's chest through a gap in his scavenged armor. The red light in his optical implant flickered, then died. Graal-Talon sagged, his massive weapon clattering to the deck, a final, choked gurgle escaping his beak before he collapsed in a heap of dirty feathers. Target down.
Silence, punctuated only by the ragged, gasping breaths of the victors and the whimpers of a few surviving, shell-shocked K'tharr, descended upon the command deck. The last of the elite guard were KIA. Objective secured. Einherjar began herding the few trembling K'tharr survivors into a corner, zip-cuffs snapping.
Astrid strode over, her armor spattered with K'tharr gore, a triumphant, almost feral grin on her face. "Well fought, Brynja. Though I daresay my entry had a bit more… panache."
Before Brynja could offer a suitably dry retort, a shimmering distortion appeared near the main K'tharr viewscreen. It resolved into the lean, smirking form of Loki, or rather, his perfect holographic projection, flanked by two Asgardian "Lore-Keepers" - fucking combat journalists with better armor - armed with recording devices.
Loki surveyed the scene - the dead K'tharr, the grim-faced Asgardian warriors, the shattered remnants of the command center - with an air of profound, almost obscene satisfaction. "Ah, splendid," he drawled, his voice echoing slightly in the cavern. "Order restored. Another nest of… spirited resistance brought into the enlightening fold of Asgardian benevolence. Well done, Valkyries. Well done, Einherjar. Truly, these wayward children of the stars will thank us for this liberation from their… rather rustic operational deficiencies."
His gaze lingered on Graal-Talon's corpse for a moment, an unreadable expression flickering in his eyes. "A pity their primary leadership node chose such an… uncooperative termination pathway. He might have made a moderately useful indigenous asset." The Lore-Keepers began meticulously documenting the scene, their devices panning across the carnage, carefully framing shots that would undoubtedly emphasize Asgardian martial prowess and K'tharr "hostile intransigence." Standard PsyOps bullshit.
Brynja felt a familiar, quiet discomfort rise within her. She looked at the dead Warlord, a leader who had fought for his people, however misguidedly, and then at Loki's smooth, smiling fucking face.
***
The RTB to the Hrafnfljúga was a blur of post-combat adrenaline comedown and bone-deep weariness. Brynja's squadron, Stormbringers, had performed per SOP. Minimal airframe damage, zero Valkyrie KIAs in the furball - a testament to their training and superior Gungnir-tech. The boarding action, though… that had been a different kind of bloody. Several Einherjar from their attached assault stick wouldn't be making muster.
In the Valkyrie wing's ready room, Commander Geirskögul conducted a quick and dirty AAR. Her holographic image was as impassive as ever, but Brynja thought she caught a flicker of something grimly satisfied in her eyes as reports confirmed Objective Skraeling and other K'tharr C2 nodes were secure.
"Valkyrie losses across all elements: negligible," Geirskögul stated, her voice flat. "Infantry KIA/WIA: within acceptable parameters for a contested breach of this nature. K'tharr hostile capability in AO Jörmungandr is rated ineffective. Mop-up ops are ongoing. Good work, Sky-Reavers. First blood in this new theater goes to Asgard."
After dismissal, Brynja hit her personal rack. The small compartment was spartan, but it was hers. She carefully cracked her helmet seal, the rush of filtered, familiar air a welcome change from the stale stink of K'tharr guts and fear. With meticulous, ingrained habit, she began field-stripping Storm-Singer, wiping traces of K'tharr ichor from its gleaming haft, checking the intricate runic arrays for any micro-fractures. The spear felt warm in her hands, almost alive, a conduit for Asgardian power and her own warrior programming.
The "glory" Geirskögul spoke of felt… tangible, an objective achieved. They'd engaged the enemy, they'd neutralized the threat. Mission accomplished. Yet, as she worked, the image of that crude family carving kept flashing behind her eyelids - wings spread protectively, beaks touching in what might have been affection. The K'tharr had been out-teched, their tactics FUBAR. But they'd fought with a tenacity that didn't square with their "savage" intel brief. They'd fought for their goddamn nests, their clutch-kin. The metallic taste of a spent power cell lingered in her mouth.
Astrid blew into the compartment, still wired, eyes blazing with combat high. "Did you see that fucking flanking maneuver I pulled around Skraeling's primary comms spire? Fragged three of their hard-suits before they even knew I was on their frequency! They fight like startled groats, Brynja, for all their goddamn squawking!" She launched into a hot-wash of her engagement, every kill embellished, every near-miss a testament to her flawless airmanship. Brynja made a noise deep in her throat and let Astrid's words wash over her.
"What, no war stories from your little tête-à -tête with the head bird?" Astrid asked, finally pausing for breath. "Didn't you see how glorious I was? How many hostiles I put down with a single crack of my whip? No matter. Let me tell you what Sigrun did. She decked three of their heavies like she was playing ninepins. Swear to Odin, one was so terrified, its beak just… fell off! Can you picture that?"
"Astrid, can we just secure from this topic?" Brynja asked, her voice flat. She wanted to strip her armor, hit the sonic cleanser, then rack out, maybe try to meditate. Her head was a goddamn mess.
"Secure? Why?" Astrid looked genuinely baffled, confusion clouding her eyes. "What could possibly be more important than the debrief of a successful op?"
"We have other operational considerations," Brynja said, defaulting to formal language.
"Like what? More K'tharr to smoke, more glory to rack up?" Astrid replied, her tone sharpening.
"No, Astrid. Like maintaining our own operational integrity, and our professional duties."
"Integrity is earned on the objective, Brynja. It's what we do," Astrid insisted, stepping closer. "You're the best damn trigger-puller I know. How can you not see this as anything but a clean win?"
Brynja put down Storm-Singer and rose, facing her friend. "Integrity is also about protecting the non-combatants, about engaging legitimate threats. Not just… liquidating anything that looks different and wants to survive in a harsh universe."
Astrid shook her head, a flicker of something hard in her eyes. "These K'tharr aren't 'people,' Brynja. They're hostiles. Animals. Look at them - all feathers and beaks. And their TTPs. No honor, no doctrine, no fire discipline. Just a desperate, scrabbling will to exist."
"I'm not so sure that makes them automatically expendable, Astrid."
Astrid was quiet for a long moment, her gaze fixed on Brynja. When she spoke, her voice was softer, almost pleading. "Brynja, listen to me. You're talking like someone who's forgotten who she serves. That kind of thinking…" She glanced toward the bulkhead, as if checking for listening devices. "That kind of thinking gets flagged. Gets you pulled for re-education. I've seen it happen to good Valkyries who started questioning orders." Her hand reached out, almost touching Brynja's arm. "I won't let that happen to you. Not to you."
Astrid was quiet for a long moment, her gaze fixed on Brynja. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of someone who had seen too many friends disappear into re-education centers. "Brynja, you're walking a dangerous line. The kind that gets good Valkyries flagged for attitude adjustment." She leaned forward, her tone urgent, almost pleading. "I won't let that happen to you. Not to us."
A cold void opened in Brynja's stomach. The memory of Corporal Ranna flickered through her mind—the young Valkyrie who had questioned orders after the Bifrost Station incident, who had asked too many pointed questions about civilian casualties in the outer colonies. One day she was there, the next she was gone, replaced by someone who looked like Ranna but smiled too much and never questioned anything. "I would never question the Allfather's strategic intent. We have a duty to execute, and we will." The words tasted like ash.
Astrid seemed to relax, the tension in her shoulders easing. "Good. Because it's time for some R&R. We earned it after today's meatgrinder. And you're coming with me."
"I think I'll just—"
"Negative." Astrid's voice was a sudden, cold command, the NCO in her taking over from the friend—from the woman who had traced constellations on Brynja's bare shoulder just that morning, whispering about finding a posting together somewhere quiet after their tour. "That's not a request. That's an order, Brynja. Unit cohesion."
Brynja's shoulders slumped. She didn't have the energy for a confrontation with her friend, her lover. She needed downtime. And she damn well didn't want to give Astrid, or anyone else, a reason to flag her for re-education.
"Fine," she said, her voice flat. "But only for a short while. And no Grog-binging, please. We don't need another 'Hlidskjalf Incident'."
"That was a one-off," Astrid huffed, though a smirk played on her lips. "And I was a boot."
"It was last month, and we had to compensate the mess sergeant for three shattered ale-steins. Teaching the Einherjar 'Sky-Vulture' shots was not tactically sound."
"I was bored," Astrid said, shrugging. "And we won the subsequent dare. That's what matters."
Brynja couldn't suppress a small, tired chuckle. Astrid always had a way of defusing her, even when she was being an infuriating blue-blood. "Very well. But no wagers, no brawls, no unauthorized 'aerial maneuvers' over the outpost, and no drunken comms chatter."
"As you command, Lead," Astrid said, the playful glint back in her eyes. She winked. "Just remember, the party doesn't officially commence until the CO arrives."
Astrid, true to her word, maintained a professional decorum that night, or at least her version of it. Brynja, however, remained by her side, a silent shadow, nursing a single synth-ale, watching her friend drink, sing off-key with other Valkyries, and joke, her own senses on high alert, a quiet sentinel in the midst of forced revelry. She had a lot of goddamn thinking to do.
The image that kept surfacing was from earlier that day, during the boarding action. In the chaos of clearing the K'tharr command center, she had glimpsed something that made her pause—a small carving tucked into an alcove, crude but lovingly detailed. It showed what looked like a family unit: two adult K'tharr with their distinctive chitinous ridges, sheltering three smaller forms beneath outstretched wings.
The carving had been painted in bright blues and greens, the pigments still fresh. Someone had cared enough to make this, to place it where they worked, to remember what they were fighting for. It had taken her precious seconds to process this, seconds that could have cost lives. But she couldn't shake the image of those painted wings, now splattered with the ichor of the K'tharr who had died defending it.
Later, she saw Hrist and Mist. Hrist was still wired, debriefing another FNG Valkyrie with expansive hand gestures, her voice buzzing with a mix of adrenaline and newfound veteran status. The first taste of a real shooting war had clearly forged her youthful eagerness into something harder, sharper. Mist, predictably, was tucked away in a quiet corner, her datapad active. Brynja glimpsed intricate schematics of K'tharr anatomy, their crude but effective projectile weapons, the labyrinthine layout of Skraeling Rock's internal corridors. The analyst, even in "downtime," was still processing, learning, probably already drafting improvements to their current TTPs for CQB in confined, hostile environments.
Sigrun found Brynja by a viewport overlooking the Jörmungandr Drifts, now dotted with the steady, cold running lights of Asgardian patrol craft. The chaotic K'tharr swarm was gone, replaced by an imposed, sterile, Asgardian order.
"Clean op, by most metrics," Brynja said, more to herself than to Sigrun, the official terminology feeling hollow.
Sigrun leaned against the bulkhead beside her, her massive arms crossed. "They fought for their holes, Brynja. Like any cornered animal. Their doctrine was crude, their gear was scrap, but it was theirs." She paused, her gaze lost in the star-dusted void. "Don't expect the rest of the indigenous xenos in this galaxy to be such an easy rollover. Or as poorly equipped. This was just the first feather plucked from a very large, very unknown, and probably very pissed-off bird."
Brynja nodded slowly, Sigrun's blunt, unvarnished wisdom cutting through the lingering echoes of battle-haze and divine pronouncements. From a nearby ship-wide PA system, she could hear the faint, martial strains of an Asgardian victory hymn, overlaid by Loki's voice, now broadcasting a psyops message about "benevolent pacification" and the "dawn of a new era of mandated prosperity" for the "grateful" K'tharr survivors under Asgard's firm, guiding hand.
First KIA confirmed for the enemy. Brynja Vingfalk, Shield-Maiden of Asgard, had executed her orders. But as she looked out at the conquered stars, a cold void opened in Brynja's stomach, colder and more complex than the familiar burden of duty. The metallic aftertaste, like sucking on a misfired round, remained.
***
A Glossary of Military Terms Used
AAR (After-Action Report): A formal debriefing and review of a military operation to analyze performance and identify lessons learned.
AO (Area of Operations): The specific geographical region assigned to a unit for conducting military operations.
Auspex: The in-universe term for an advanced sensor suite on Asgardian fighters, likely combining radar, gravimetric, and energy-signature detection.
BDA (Battle Damage Assessment): The process of evaluating and reporting the damage inflicted on a target after an attack.
Boarding Action: An offensive operation to forcibly board and seize control of an enemy vessel or installation.
Breach: To create a forcible entry point into a fortified structure. The command "Breach, breach, breach!" signals the moment of entry.
C2 (Command and Control): The systems, facilities, and personnel used by a commander to direct and control military forces.
CIWS (Close-In Weapon System): A short-range, rapid-fire defensive weapon system (often a rotary cannon) designed to destroy incoming threats like missiles or small craft.
Condition One / Weapons Hot: The highest state of weapon readiness. A weapon in Condition One is loaded and ready to be fired instantly.
CQB (Close-Quarters Battle): Combat fought in confined spaces, such as inside a ship's corridor, at extremely short ranges.
Doctrine: The fundamental principles and established beliefs that guide how a military force operates and fights.
Element: A small tactical subdivision of a larger unit. In this context, a flight of two to four fighters within a squadron.
Hard-kill: To physically destroy a target with a projectile or explosion, as opposed to a "soft-kill" (disabling it with electronic warfare).
Hostile: An identified enemy contact.
IED (Improvised Explosive Device): A homemade bomb, often used as a booby trap by insurgent forces.
ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance): A military discipline focused on gathering information about the enemy and the battlefield.
KIA (Killed In Action): A classification for a combatant who has been killed during a military engagement.
Lead / Actual: "Lead" refers to the designated leader of a formation (e.g., "Stormbringer Lead"). "Actual" is used on comms to refer to the unit commander themselves, distinguishing them from a subordinate speaking on their behalf (e.g., "Sky-Reaver Actual").
OPORD (Operations Order): A formal, detailed plan issued by a commander to subordinate units for the execution of an operation.
Psyops (Psychological Operations): Operations designed to influence the emotions, motives, and behavior of enemy forces or civilian populations, often through propaganda or veiled threats.
SA (Situational Awareness): A soldier's or pilot's complete understanding of the tactical environment and situation around them.
SOP (Standard Operating Procedure): The established, routine method for carrying out a specific task or operation.
TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures): The specific methods and practices used by a military unit to accomplish its mission.
WIA (Wounded In Action): A classification for a combatant who has been wounded but not killed during a military engagement.
Slang & Informal Terms
Bogey: An unidentified contact on sensors, presumed to be an enemy until identified otherwise.
FNG (Fing New Guy):* Derogatory but common slang for a new, inexperienced soldier or pilot.
FUBAR (Fed Up Beyond All Recognition/Repair):* An acronym indicating a situation is catastrophically wrong or that a piece of equipment is irreparably damaged.
Furball: Slang for a chaotic, multi-aircraft dogfight at close range.
Ground-pounder: Slang for infantry or other ground-based troops.
Hot-wash: Slang for an immediate, informal debriefing conducted right after a mission while events are still fresh in everyone's mind.
Mop-up: The process of clearing out the last pockets of enemy resistance after the main battle has concluded.
NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer): An enlisted military leader with command authority, such as a sergeant. In this context, Astrid uses her NCO-like authority over Brynja.
Rack: Slang for a soldier's bed or bunk.
RTB (Return To Base): The act of heading back to a carrier or home base after a mission.
Six O'Clock: A position directly behind an aircraft, its primary blind spot and most vulnerable angle.
Splash(ed): Pilot slang for having successfully shot down an enemy aircraft.
Zerg Rush: A term originating from the video game StarCraft, used to describe a tactic that relies on overwhelming an opponent with sheer, often unsophisticated and expendable, numbers.