Chapter 19

Sylmar cursed under his breath. The civilian fleet was still forming up, and the Griss and humans had both jumped into the system, with the humans blocking the Burelians’ planned exit path.

To make things worse, the battle with the Griss wasn’t going well. The admiral had pulled all his support military craft and sent them to hold off the hated invaders. He was the last one standing, so to speak. If the humans decided to block their path, he could lose over half the civilian fleet before they jumped.

“Get that human leader and bring him to the bridge,” Sylmar ordered Subcommander Gargi.

“Are you sure?” Gargi asked.

“Do you want to run the human fleet gauntlet with only our one ship to run interference?”

“We handled the human ship without a problem.”

Sylmar shook his head.

“That was only one of them and only a scout ship. We wouldn’t last ten minutes against all those ships,” Sylmar pushed back.

“That would be sufficient time to get most of the civilians past them.”

“And who would protect them when they got to the new system?” Sylmar asked.

Gargi took a moment to think it through. Something Sylmar liked about his subcommander was that he learned instead of being hardheaded like many of his kind.

“I’ll go get him.”

While Gargi was gone, Sylmar had to threaten a captain of one of the transports who was impatient about leaving.

“I understand your frustration, but not all the ships are in space yet. They’re still loading.”

Gathering nearly two million civilians was taking much longer than it should have.

“Leave them. We can’t wait any longer. The Griss will be on us shortly.”

“If they break through our line of defense, I’ll give the order. But I won’t leave anyone behind if I can help it,” Sylmar said.

“But—”

“No buts. Either you follow orders, or I will have you removed from command and executed. Is that understood?” Sylmar asked.

The civilian captain swore but backed down.

Gargi returned with Brodie.

“The Griss have invaded, and our fleet has engaged them in battle. Your fleet has entered the system and is blocking our path of escape. I need you to talk to them and let us through,” Sylmar said.

“Show me,” Brodie said.

Sylmar watched the human quickly grasp the tactical situation. When Brodie was done, he turned to Sylmar and grimly said, “Surrender the Nexfor to me, and I’ll help your people escape.”

“And afterward?” Sylmar asked.

“I keep the Nexfor and will send support ships to protect your people and assist them in resettling.”

“Don’t do it,” Gargi warned.

Sylmar weighed his options. His orders were to do whatever it took to save his people. He knew the admiral would break whatever promise they made in the heat of the moment, but Sylmar could see beyond today and the need for allies.

Sylmar was out of options. He knew Gargi would try to stop him, so he drew his sidearm and shot his second in the head.

“I surrender.”

Brodie was shocked when Sylmar killed his subcommander but shook it off when he saw the rest of the bridge crew bow their heads down in a subservient manner. Sylmar gave him the command codes, which Brodie used to take control of the ship.

“Bring Aurora and my marines to the bridge,” Brodie ordered. “They’ll also need weapons.”

“Yes, sir,” Sylmar said, sending one of his men to do just that.

“I need to talk to my fleet. Open a channel,” Brodie said.

The communications officer said, “I’ve been monitoring communications between your fleet and have you on their main frequency.”

“This is Brodie Erikson, hersir of the Erikson clan, requesting identity verification.”

“Please provide verification,” Loki replied.

“Balder Niner Six Three Óðinn.”

“Identity confirmed.”

“I am declaring war on the aliens attacking the Burel. As hersir, I’m taking command of the fleet. My first order is Ragnarök Alpha One. I repeat, Ragnarök Alpha One,” Brodie said.

Brodie had just declared Ragnarök, which roughly translated into the Twilight of the Gods or Last Battle of the Gods—end-of-the-world stuff. Ragnarök, it was believed, was caused by the escalated enmity between Loki and the other gods. In essence, it declared a life-and-death battle for the Norsemen. As hersir, Brodie was now in charge. Even King Denhardt would have to follow his lead.

“Belay that order,” King Denhardt commanded.

“I’m sorry, sir, but all your AIs will only answer to Hersir Erikson until the threat ends,” Loki said.

“What?!” King Denhardt cried out.

“Sir, our systems are locked out,” could be heard in the background.

“When this is over—” King Denhardt began to rant.

“Cut him off,” Brodie ordered and then asked, “Loki, my mad Yahve military genius, how do we defeat the invaders?”

“We throw rocks at them.”

The glee in his AI’s voice was a bit unnerving. Brodie assumed Loki was calculating how many Griss he would kill so he could post it on his death board.

“Make it so,” Brodie ordered without missing a beat. He then turned to Sylmar. “Get your people off-planet and organized. I’ll have two ships escort them to Norse before they move on to their new homeworld. That’ll get them out of the way while we deal with the Griss.”

“Thank you,” Sylmar said.

“Thank me after we win this by keeping your word,” Brodie said.

Sylmar nodded his agreement before getting onto the comms to get the civilians moving.

Sylmar monitored the battle while tracking the civilian evacuation. The fleet was barely hanging on. He noted that the admiral’s ship and a third of their fighting force had been destroyed. However, nearly a quarter of the remaining vessels were damaged and out of the battle.

The Griss had sustained heavy casualties but still vastly outnumbered them by at least three to one.

Then he noticed something: asteroids were moving out of the belt toward the battle.

“What the...!?” Sylmar exclaimed.

“Order your fleet to disengage and fall back to make a final stand closer to Een. Our fleet will join up and support you,” Brodie said.

“Why are the asteroids moving?” Sylmar asked.

“Didn’t you hear my AI? He said we were going to throw rocks at them,” Brodie said.

“In this day of modern warfare, you would throw rocks?” Sylmar asked in disbelief.

“Large enough rocks moving sufficiently fast can cause a great amount of damage. In our darker days, asteroids were used to destroy entire colonies.”

Then Sylmar understood.

“You planned to use them against us.”

“You started it,” Brodie said with a shrug. “You have to understand that humans are sometimes slow to anger, but once we are, we’ll finish a fight. If we had to flatten your planet to win, we would have.”