Valkyrie Hunter

Two shocked faces stared at me both Valkyrie frozen by my sudden appearance. Neither reached for the weapons they had slung on their backs. Slowly they unbuckled the slings to their coil assault guns and let them drop to the floor. I had expected them to try something but I think they were too surprised to do anything but follow my orders. Both raised their hands in surrender much like Sylgard’s pose but at least fully clothed.

“Good now move away.” I kept my pistol trained on them. They were standing by the gap. I slid into room keeping some distance between the Valkyrie and myself.

“You’ll not get away with this human. We’ll rid our world of your filthy sink!” One of the Valkyrie growled at me. I recognised her voice as the one that was disparaging her teammates.

“Then you are stupider than you look!” I snapped back. “The TCA are already here.”

“TCA? The Rhosani hunters,” The other Valkyrie looked ashen. “The Rhosani are gone?”

“Wrong deadly wrong. The Rhosani are here or their puppets are.”

“Puppets?” the calmer Valkyrie asked.

“Liar!” the first Valkyrie snarled dropping her arms and leaping for the gun on the floor.

I had no choice I had to shoot. “No!” ripped from my throat and fired two shots on target. The Valkyrie staggered precariously close to the edge of the gap. She roared and tried to charge. I fired again the force of bullet had her flailing and with a despairing scream she fell backwards out of the gap. The other Valkyrie stared at the gap her face white and shivering.

“Please don’t kill me?” she squealed “I surrender, I surrender I don’t want to die. I’m not like her!” she pleaded.

I felt heartsick I’d killed in cold blood. As much as I wanted to puke I couldn’t. “Then go otherwise I will kill you!” I know I sounded harsh I hadn’t wanted to kill anyone but the other Valkyrie hadn’t given me that chance. “If I see you again you will die!” Again I was being harsh. It was pretence of course but I had to do it.

“Thank you!” The Valkyrie said her limbs still shaking.

She walked slowly to the door her arms outstretched. Somehow she manoeuvred herself out in that position and walked crabwise towards the stairs at the back. I followed her out to make sure she didn’t go back on her word. She descended the stairs picking up the Valkyrie I’d jumped on and the two of them walked down. Or in the case of the one I‘d stomped all over limped leaning heavily on her companion.

The sound of someone coming up the stairs had me on alert. I wished I’d picked up a coil assault gun before exiting the room. I relaxed on seeing Sylgard walking up the stairs.

“It’s over?” she asked.

“For now,” I replied.

I noticed that she had two coil assault guns. One strapped to her chest the other held in her hands. She tapped the gun on her chest. “I think you dropped this?”

She unclipped it and handed it to me.

I felt better. “Thanks,” I told her.

She merely nodded.

“This way,” I said to her with one last glance down the back stairs. The two canisters were still there.

I led her back to the room with the rocket launcher. “We need to destroy this?” I gestured to the launcher.

“No!” Sylgard barked.

“No? Why ever not?”

“We need it we can’t do without. We can take it with us. I’ll get it loaded onto the MRECV.”

“Well it’s no good without its rockets?”

“We’ll find them they must have stocks close at hand?”

I remembered the two canisters on the back stairs. “There are two canisters on the back stairs. I think they’re what you are looking for?”

She looked at me puzzled. Why are there two canisters on the back stairs I can’t see why they haven’t moved them closer?”

I told her about my encounter with the one on the stairs and the one I had let go. I deeply regretted the death of the other Valkyrie but she hadn’t given me a chance.

Sylgard scowled. “You should have killed the traitors I would have.”

I winced at the bluntness in her voice. I countered it with my own. “I don’t kill those who have surrendered. Nor do the Elders!” I wasn’t so sure about that, the Elders had strange rules even for Valkyrie.

Sylgard had the grace to look chastened. “Sorry Silver.” She glanced down then up again. “I have my orders about traitors. I would have executed them anyway. But I can’t gainsay yours Silver.”

I had to step away from her as my anger surged. Weren’t these people listening? Violence always brought more violence. I walked across to the gap and looked out being careful not to expose myself as a target. I couldn’t hear any sounds of a fight. Either the rebels had withdrawn or they were all dead. I couldn’t see why Sylgard would leave her command and come up here to me they were still fighting. I stared into the distance seeing the road stretching out to the horizon. Something was moving down the road.

“I see your other vehicle is returning?” I said to Sylgard. But something was off I don’t know how I could tell. Instinctively I raised my gun and sighted down the scope. A vehicle zoomed into view.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I uttered under my breath I hadn’t expected to see what I was seeing then I hadn’t expected to see Interceptors either. The shape was too ground hugging for a MRECV it was a Prowler an Imperial AFV or tank in the old parlance. Even though the MRECV sported a turret it didn’t have one the supported a one-twenty millimetre railgun, quite capable of destroying any vehicle the Confeds had. Any doubts I had about the Empire not being involved died on seeing that beast. Tanks like the Prowler were expensive and stuff like that would be on a very tight leash. The Empire didn’t give out Prowlers they kept them tight to Imperial Territory. I felt sick my loyalties torn. I couldn’t believe the Empire was involved Constantina wouldn’t allow it. She was all about co-operation she started the TCA I couldn’t believe she sanctioned this. But this speculation would have to wait we had more closer problems.

I dropped my gaze and turned to Sylgard.

“What’s wrong?”

“Get your people to safety there’s a Prowler out there.”

“Prowler?”

“ A deadly weapon. Just get your people away from their vehicles and make sure the run and hide we don’t have anything to stop it!” I shouted at her instantly regretting taking that tone but we didn’t have time to debate issues. “Just do it!”

“The MAR can!” Sylgard stated.

I realised she was right even if it couldn’t it would divert attention away from Sylgard’s people. I felt sick inside but I couldn’t allow that to affect me I had to be decisive. “Good!” Adding. “Do you know how to use it?”

“No but it is a good time to learn.”

“Grab the canisters from the back stairs and get you people off the streets!”

“Aye!” Sylgard replied crushing her hand to chest in that peculiar Valkyrie fashion and swiftly turned and ran out cursing loudly into her comms.

I wished mine worked. Damn the Elders and their inflexible rules I could even comm Xenai. The Valorous Star could deal with anything that threatened us. I wondered if our signal had been seen otherwise we were going to be in a world of hurt.

Sylgard appeared dragging the two canisters and laid them on the floor giving me a better look at them. They were longer than a Valkyrie was tall and as wide as my head. Red arrows dotted the top, well what I assumed was the top, all pointing away from the rest of the canister. There seemed to be a series of slots on one side of the canister, which corresponded to the pins on the launcher cradle. A set of instructions in USE were on the side. I gave them a quick glance it seemed I had to remove the cap off the canister before loading into the cradle. Working quickly with the help of Sylgard I removed the cap and slid it onto the cradle sticking out the side of the launcher. As it clicked into place several lights on the launcher panel lit up and what looked like a trigger mechanism popped out under launcher. I peered into the scope screen seeing a red box form on the screen. Again I assumed it was to help with aiming. I gripped the trigger finding you could adjust the vertical and horizontal. I pressed my eye to the scope and after a few tries I managed to zoom in on the Prowler. It was time.