A Deep Sleep (Valhalla Book 1) (37 page)

Athena watched him go and finished stripping out of her uniform. Knowing it would be more difficult, if not impossible, to take care of her uniform after in her suit she folded and stowed it before stepping into the suit. She realized, as she hit the button, that she probably wouldn’t be taking anything with her.

Old habits die hard.
She mentally shrugged.

As the suit closed around her she felt the various connections and interfaces engage. Some were less comfortable than others she noted with a small grimace. The digital and virtual displays came up next, displaying the passive sensor results for the compartment and connecting to the other two unoccupied suits automatically. She waited another minute or two, not daring to move, for the Petty Officer to return. He and the pilot came in together and quickly stripped and stepped into their suits. The Petty Officer stepped out of his box, moving around in the compartment to put his suit directly in front of her own.

“Now sir,” He began. “we’re going to be exiting the shuttle at a precise time. For that, we all link our suits together and let the computer jump us, understand?”

“Yes.” She answered. She watched the pilot move after and unlock the cargo hatch. “What’s going to happen?”

“We’re going to be jumping as the shuttle self-destructs, but it’ll look like a drive failure and disintegration. We can’t jump until the shuttle is starting to come apart.”

“If we jump too early someone might notice.”

“Exactly, sir.” The pilot gave a thumbs up to the Petty. “Okay sir, just walk back here, nice and slow. Remember, you’re a lot stronger than normal so, slow, careful steps.”

“Okay.” Athena gingerly stepped forward, focusing hard on moving slowly and deliberately. Even still, she could feel that she was moving further and more jerkily than she felt she should have for her inputs. “Harder than it looks.” She murmured.

“Yes sir.”

Guess the intercom is still on and quite sensitive.
She thought. She made it to the hatch, standing where the pilot directed her to. They stood there, clustered by the door for several minutes. It was then that she noticed the small countdown clock in the upper left corner of her HUD. As she focused on it, the clock moved to dominate the top of her field of view. She almost jumped in place, but focused on not doing so with great effort. She knew enough to know that such an action would likely damage her suit or the shuttle, or more likely both. The clock’s numbers turned red as they reached less than a minute.

“Here we go sir.” The pilot informed her as the clock dropped to ten seconds.

Athena could hear several noises behind her. The shuttle vibrated harshly and several small objects in the compartment fell over or slid. She noticed both men had grabbed ahold of her suit with one hand and handholds in the shuttle with the other. Next, the shuttle lurched violently, first left and then right. Athena knew that if the two men hadn’t been holding on she would have toppled over. Seconds later, as the suit registered an increased temperature behind her, the shuttle hatch blew away. No, she realized, not the hatch but the hatch and portions of the bulkhead it was set in. Small charges had torn the hatch section free. With a clear view into the stratosphere, Athena could see smoke and shuttle pieces falling around them. She only had a second to process this before her suit locked up on her and she looked around her displays frantically. Then, as one, the three suits jumped from the shuttle.

Though Athena didn’t notice, smoke grenades affixed to her suit ignited and began adding smoke to the confused mess. Various points, extra flaps and inflatable bags began their work of inducing an uncontrolled looking descent, as well as helping to hide the fact that it was actually three people in armored suits falling, not just shuttle parts. Athena did notice, however, the shuttle exploding as her suit spun her around to face it briefly. While many large pieces of the drive section had already come apart, the resulting explosion vaporized much of the cargo compartment and sent the rest flying away in thousands of pieces. Athena blinked at the bright light, even with the autodarkening visor. A dull rumble transferred through the suit and then the sky was nothing but falling debris. Her suit spun more and more and she had to close her eyes against the nausea.

As she spun to face the ground she opened her eyes, trying to get her bearings. She realized with a start that they were over the arctic. She smiled to herself, seeing the large sheet of ice fill more and more of her view. There was little in the arctic, certainly very few orbiting satellites watched here with any great detail. Once they dropped below the horizon of the nearest station, the suit would be able to pop a chute and slow her down safely.
Clever
. She also noticed that the shuttle pieces were falling away from them now, the suits carefully angling away from the debris. The effort began in earnest as the ice pack covered the entire visible surface.

Minutes later, a parachute erupted from her back. Her suit stabilized, ceasing it rolls. The parachute jerked her as it filled with air and began to rapidly slow her descent. A few minutes later, she touched the snowy surface. The other two landed on either side and made their way to her quickly. The Petty Officer disconnected her and piled it with his own, the pilot followed suit. The pilot dumped a dry powder all over the chutes and they began to chemically dissolve. After three minutes, there was little left and the pilot kicked snow over what there was.

“Time to go sir.” The Petty Officer informed her.

“Go where?” Athena turned and answered her own question. From the ice, a sail had risen. She smiled again, Aegis still operated submarines. She shook her head, these people seemed to have just about everything. She followed the shuttle crew to the submarine, climbing the sail. At the top they entered the submarine down a hatch that had clearly been designed to allow for an armored individual to climb down. Even before she reached the bottom, the submarine began to slip down beneath the ice.

Sol System: Ceres

Virtual Training Facility Seven

Captain Kim emerged from the simulator, dripping in sweat and shaking slightly. She’d just been through a grueling twelve hour combat simulator. She’d been in virtual training programs before, but never like this. The system did a remarkable job of simulating the full combat environment. Of course, being in a suit of armor helped immensely, she suspected. They could control everything she interfaced with. There was very little for her to react to that wasn’t there as part of the simulation. She stumbled her way into the waiting showers, conveniently located a few steps away from the simulator exit. She wasn’t the only one, as ten naked men and women all stumbled the same direction. They were too tired to even banter with each other, another thing Ava wasn’t used to with normal simulators. As she showered off the sweat and dead skin cells of the last day she did notice, with some degree of satisfaction, that the Agema seemed to be just as tired as she was.

Of course, they aren’t the veteran Agema. Those are the bastards running this whole tortuous op.
Ava thought. She had been training here for three months with the Agema, alternating her time between working in the simulators with other newer Agema and running training ops with the veteran formations. Some of those took place in Ceres, others in orbit or among the other rocky objects scattered around Ceres that Aegis owned to one degree or another. She had been amazed at the size and scope of the facilities available to these people. She knew from her own training days that the American Special Forces units didn’t have any better facilities. American facilities tended to be somewhat larger in scale, but only because they serviced more numbers. The quality of the training wasn’t any better. She was actually starting to think the training she had received was somewhat lacking by comparison to the Agema.

“Captain Kim.” Called a voice, one she recognized immediately.

“Here, sir.” She moved past several others who were finishing their own showers and stepped out into the area just outside of the shower. She pulled a towel from the rack, wrapped it around herself, and snapped to attention in a smooth series of motions.

“You are ordered to report to briefing room six in ten minutes.” Major Brett Simms informed her.

“Aye, aye, sir.” She responded automatically, keeping her face impassive. Inside she was wondering why she was being pulled from training to go to a briefing room. It didn’t make any sense.

Nine minutes later she approached the door to the indicated room and proceeded inside. As soon as she stepped in, she saw that the only other individual in the room and snapped to attention as the door slid closed behind her.

“Colonel Martin, sir.” She said formally.

“At ease, Captain.” Colonel Zoe Martin responded. “Good to see you again.”

“And you as well sir.” Ava had

“I’ve been reviewing your performance in the training operations.” She said. Ava tensed. “I must say, you’re everything we hoped you’d be. A little rough on some skills, but then again, they aren’t really the type of skills that your RASAT training would have emphasized.”

Ava wasn’t quite sur how to respond, so she went with what stood out the most. “Everything you’d hoped, sir?”

“Yes. You see, Captain Kim, we are putting together something of an insurance policy. We call it the Valhalla Project.”

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Ava’s head was spinning. Colonel Martin had just explained the entire Valhalla Project to her and it was a lot to take in all at once.

Heck, it’s a lot to take in at all!
She thought. She still had her reservations, particularly about the Agema process that she would have to undergo. Even with all that, however, she knew that she had already decided. She wanted to do this, she was going to do this. The hell of it was, she wasn’t completely certain of why.

LHS 465: Kuiper Belt

Object 45-16A-01

The object did not belong, but it was no accident that it was there. Carefully maneuvered over many months, the inner asteroid belt object had been coaxed out past the sixth planet and into the Kuiper belt. There had been a few small collisions, but otherwise the orbit was stable. The asteroid was largely composed of nickel-iron, with a dark surface that made it seem as if it was trying to be stealthy.

Within the asteroid, activity was everywhere. Tunnel boring machines worked on, workers installed electrical and piping, and systems were brought online and tested. The Valhalla Project was nearly ready to accept its first long-term inhabitants.

A small stealthy shuttle approached, exchanging a terse series of laser pulse transmissions with the asteroid’s own communication system. After receiving the correct codes a door opened deep inside one of the ravines on the surface. The shuttle dove into the ravine, corkscrewing downward and coming to a halt just outside to opening tunnel. Once it was fully open, the shuttle flew into the maw and disappeared.

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“So this is it then?” Athena couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. It had been nearly a year since she had ‘died’, but she’d been quite busy in that time. She had been whisked away from Sol and transported out to the Chi Draconis system. Aegis had a collection of facilities there, including a medical clinic that was equipped to perform the Agema operations. After some familiarization training and other lessons on just what had been done to her and how to use it, she’d mostly been idle. There was endless training but her body, even newly enhanced, could only take so much in a day. Now, finally, she was here.

“Yes. Welcome to your new home, sir.”

Athena glanced around the cavernous shuttle bay, trying to get an idea of the scale. As she thought it, dimensioning leapt into her field of vision and numbers pulsed along them. Other readings and calculations flashed by making her dizzy. She blinked rapidly and willed them away. The modifications to her body were still taking some getting used to. She constantly called up answers to questions she had in her head. She had been told that control took time, but it was starting to get on her nerves, the amount of focus it seemed to take to control her implants.

“So what’s the plan?” Athena turned to face her new aide of sorts.

“Well sir, I’m sure we can find your quarters and then some chow. After that I imagine you’ll want to meet with the other members of the program that have been recruited?” Lieutenant Bill Rhodes suggested. The young Agema lieutenant had certainly moved up in the world from a lowly private, but then a war could do that. Even the vaunted Agema, with lower casualty rates than most Special Forces contingents hadn’t been immune to high body counts on some of their more risky operations. Even still, Athena figured his promotion was done such that it would facilitate a strong officer base to go along with the sizeable contingent of noncoms that were being recruited. Athena was no expert in the workings of ground pounders, but if their noncoms worked like they did in the Navy, she’d be glad for every single one of them.

“Excellent. Let’s do just that.” Athena said, gesturing for him to lead the way.

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An hour later, Athena had eaten and, more importantly, she had received a download of Valhalla. She now had the entire computer generated map of the facility in her head. She could even connect to the network and ‘see’ activity all across the massive base. Of course, she kept inadvertently triggering the overlays and had already stumbled twice from the sudden influx. She had also managed to give herself a headache. Just as she was thinking she should take something, the pain began to dissipate and a soothing sensation replaced the pounding headache.