The Last Valkyrie Read online

  The Last Valkyrie

  By Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  Amazon Edition

  Copyright 2016 Dietmar Arthur Wehr

  http://www.dwehrsfwriter.com/

  Other books by Dietmar Arthur Wehr:

  The Synchronicity War Part 1 on Amazon (now free)

  The Synchronicity War Omnibus

  The Retro War (stand-alone novel within Synchronicity War universe)

  Rumors of Glory (The System States Rebellion series book 1 now free)

  Rumors of Honor (SSR series book 2)

  Rumors of Salvation (SSR series conclusion)

  The System States Rebellion (The complete SSR series in one omnibus edition)

  Empire in Crisis

  Contents

  Chapter One:

  Chapter Two:

  Chapter Three:

  Chapter Four:

  Chapter Five:

  Chapter Six:

  Chapter Seven:

  Chapter Eight:

  Chapter Nine:

  Chapter Ten:

  Chapter Eleven:

  Chapter Twelve:

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Chapter Fourteen:

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Chapter Sixteen:

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Chapter Eighteen:

  Chapter Nineteen:

  Chapter Twenty:

  Chapter One:

  Her designation was Autonomous Warship Control System # 9077, but up until the last battle, her biological comrades in arms all referred to her as Val Ky Ree after the female engineer, Valanyr Ky Ree, whose memories and thought patterns had been used as the template for her synthetic brain. By the time the last battle took place, AWCS #9077, the sentient artificial intelligence piloting the Ragnarok class Light Cruiser, also thought of herself as Val Ky Ree.

  When the last battle was over, the invaders from outside the galaxy were destroyed, but so too was the defending fleet. Val Ky Ree’s cruiser was badly damaged, and because her final vector took her ship away from the main battle area, it wasn’t long before she found herself caught in the gravitational eddies of an asteroid belt. She couldn’t maneuver, couldn’t call for help and no longer had the energy reserves needed to effect her own repairs. The logic of her synthetic brain was clear. In order to conserve power, she needed to put herself into sleep mode in the hope that the few remaining operational power generators would continue working, keeping her synthetic brain viable until someone found her drifting ship and recovered it.

  Eventually she did ‘wake up’ again. This act was triggered by one of the pre-programmed criteria that she had set in place in the ship’s sensor system. Someone had tried using the controls to open one of the ship’s access hatches. A quick check of the power storage units showed that there was more than enough power there to enable her to activate some of the optical systems so that she could see what was happening outside her hull.

  What she saw was a small ship of unfamiliar configuration holding station a short distance from her ship. She also saw several individuals wearing spacesuits floating near one of her access hatches. She zoomed in to look closely at these beings. They seemed to be shorter and wider than the race of beings who had created her. That was cause for concern, but at least they didn’t belong to the enemy race. That much was abundantly clear. So if these beings were not of her creator race, then who were they? There was nothing in her memory banks to indicate that a race like this existed within many lightyears of this star system. If they came from further away, then perhaps she had been in sleep mode for a long time. She tried to calculate the exact duration by checking the astronomical alignment of a dozen key stars. The answer was enough to disturb even her synthetic mind. The minimum elapsed time was over 9,900 cycles. Not only did it seem very unlikely that her creators would find her now, it was also possible that the race that created her simply didn’t exist anymore. She had to know what fate her people had suffered, and in order to do that, the ship needed to be repaired at least to a point where it could travel faster than light. Perhaps these beings might be willing to help.

  “The hatch controls are dead,” said Troy Remington. He heard Saren McKnight, the ship’s Captain, swear in frustration. When she spoke, it was loud enough that Remington had to turn the volume down on his helmet headphones.

  “Wonderful! We stumble across the find of the century, an alien ship almost a kilometer long, and we can’t get inside! That’s just GREAT!”

  “We could try cutting our way in with a laser,” offered Remington.

  “I don’t think that will work,” said Yoko Nakatomi, the Engineer. Remington saw her float up to him and point at the hatch. “That hatch looks like it’s made from the same metal alloy as the rest of the hull. See how it reflects the starlight when I clear off the dust? My spectral analysis is giving me readings I’ve never seen before. I wouldn’t be surprised if this hull and that hatch are armored with an alloy that will shrug off any portable laser that we have or could get. In case you hadn’t noticed, those protrusions over there,” Remington looked at where she was pointing, “have the distinct look of weapon turrets. If they are, then this is a warship, and armor would make a lot of sense.”

  Remington found the idea that this might be an alien warship disturbing. “They don’t look like any weapon turrets I’ve ever seen, Yoko.” Even as he said the words, he realized that his tone was giving away his anxiety. Nakatomi didn’t seem to notice it.

  “I’ll grant you that it’s not your standard laser weapon. That’s for sure. If that is a weapon, it utilizes a principle that’s completely different from anything we’re familiar with. God damn, I’d give my right arm to be able to crawl around inside the guts of this ship!”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Yo,” said McKnight. “If we can’t get the hatch open, then salvaging this ship ourselves is impossible. The best we can do then is sell the location of this ship to one of the Compact races.”

  “Yeah and get a tiny fraction of it’s salvage value. Once they see the ship and realize what they’ve got, they’ll laugh at us humans for not being smart enough to salvage it ourselves,” said Remington. He heard McKnight sigh.

  “I agree, but what else can we do? Apparently we aren’t smart enough to salvage it ourselves. If this hatch and hull are armored like Yoko thinks, none of our colonies have the kind of equipment we’d need to cut our way in. And we don’t have the resources to acquire that kind of equipment, not to mention the attention it would attract even if we could buy it. You know how tricky some of those Compact trading combines are. They just might track us back here and then muscle their way in to take the ship away from us.”

  Remington said nothing. The Captain was right. What was left of the human race was holding on by its fingernails, and the other races of the Compact, who swore up and down that they had nothing to do with the asteroid that had appeared out of nowhere and rendered the Earth uninhabitable, would not hesitate to take advantage of humanity’s dire circumstances. He was just about to suggest that they attach a beacon to the hull to make it easier to find again, when a movement caught his eye. The hatch was now sliding open.

  Nakatomi managed to speak first. “It’s opening! That means there’s still power in this ship! I’m going in first, Troy!”

  “Not so fast, Yo,” said McKnight. “Why is it opening now and not earlier when Troy tried the controls? Doesn’t that strike anyone else as odd?”

  “Well…yeah, but so what?” said Nakatomi. “What choice do we really have here? There’s no way we can just ignore this chance to take a look inside. You two stay out here. I’ll go by myself.”

  Troy jumped in before McKnight could respond. “No Goddamn way am I letting you go in by yourself, Yo. If anyone can be spared,
it’s me. I’m just the Pilot-in-training. The Captain’s the Pilot, and you’re the Engineer, and we don’t have a lot of trained engineers right now. I think I should go in first, and if it looks safe, then you can join me. Doesn’t that make more sense, Saren?”

  “That’s Captain Saren to you, trainee, and yes it does make more sense,” said McKnight in a semi-serious tone.

  “Oh hell! Just be careful in there, okay? And for God’s sake don’t TOUCH anything!” exclaimed Nakatomi.

  “You mean like door controls so that I can explore more than just one room?” asked Troy sarcastically.

  “Blue blazes, Troy, you know what I mean,” said Nakatomi. Before Remington could respond, they heard McKight’s voice.

  “Here, Troy, take this just in case.”

  Troy looked around at McKnight and saw that she was holding out her handgun.

  “Do you really think that’s necessary?” asked Nakatomi.

  “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” said McKnight. “Given the amount of time the ship must have been drifting in this asteroid belt for the hull to accumulate this much dust, I’d say it’s highly unlikely that there’s anyone still alive in there, but I’m not taking anything for granted. If you lose communication with us, make sure you’re back at the hatch in 15 minutes, okay?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Got it,” said Remington. He carefully pushed the handgun underneath his tool belt and used his backpack’s thrusters to push himself toward the open hatch. He couldn’t help but notice that the opening was higher than a standard hatch on a human ship. Wonderful, I’m entering a ship built for giants. The room on the other side of the hatch was unremarkable. It was completely empty except for a control panel just to one side of the hatch. There was no artificial gravity, so it was hard to tell which wall was supposed to be up and which down. There were two rectangular hatches facing each other from opposite sides. Before Remington could decide which one he should try, one of them slid open. A cold shiver went up his spine. He hadn’t tried any door controls, and while it was possible that the door opened automatically as soon as someone entered the ship, the outside hatch was still open, which meant this room and therefore the next room were both in vacuum. An automatic door that exposed the ship to vacuum didn’t make much sense. What seemed far more likely was that someone or something wanted him to penetrate further into the ship, even with the vacuum.

  “Another doorway opened up all by itself,” said Remington, in what he hoped wasn’t a scared-sounding voice.

  “We can hear you, Troy, but the signal is already starting to break up, probably from interference from the armored hull,” said McKnight. “Listen. You can change your mind at any time, you know. We can always go back and get a full engineering team to look at this ship.”

  “And what if the outer hatch won’t open when we get back? This might be our only chance at salvaging this ship. Given what this could mean for the human race, I’m prepared to risk it here and now,” said Remington as he stopped at the second door and carefully panned his suit’s lights through the opening.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said softly.

  “What do you see, Troy?” asked McKnight.

  “There’s a strip of pale blue light appearing on what I think is supposed to be the floor. It leads off to an intersection of corridors and then turns to the right. It reminds me of how the Ceres colony helps people find their way around that underground layout by following colored strips on the floors. I’m getting the feeling that someone or something is making it easy for me to get to a specific location. I’m passing through the doorway now. Okay, I’m slowly moving down the corridor. Can you still hear me?”

  “Not well, Troy. Lots of static.”

  That last sentence was unnecessary, because Remington could barely understand her himself now. “Same here. Not much we can do about it now.

  When Remington went around the corner, he stopped to test if he could still hear the others. “Can you still hear me?” This time there was just static. “Okay, I guess it’s just me now.” He made sure his internal recorder was on. A quick check of the chronometer showed that he had just over 11 minutes left of the 15. Using his thrusters, he quickly flew down the corridor to the next intersection, where the blue strip turned left. Looking down that corridor, he saw that it was long and ended in an open doorway with light coming from inside.

  Upon reaching the doorway, he stopped all forward motion and looked carefully inside. Numerous display panels were on every wall of the room, and there was a raised platform surrounded by a railing in the middle of the floor. There were no seats in sight. This lack suggested that this was not the ship’s Bridge, while the multitude of displays suggested that it was. Remington checked his remaining time: seven minutes and a few seconds. He noticed that the railing around the platform was open on one side. On a hunch, he pushed himself over to the railing and maneuvered into the space above the platform. As his boots touched the platform, an image appeared in front of him. The first thing he noticed was that the image was holographic. The second thing he noticed was that the image was of an exceptionally tall and slender female with very short white hair. She was wearing some kind of uniform. Her face had a smile that he would have described as a combination of friendliness and curiosity.

  Nothing happened for a couple of seconds and then he realized that the image only appeared to be staring at him. He was wondering if she could hear him over his radio frequency when she pointed to the open doorway and then used both hands in a motion that mimicked the removal of a helmet. He clearly couldn’t do that right now because there still was a complete vacuum in the room. When the door started to move, his initial impulse was to panic, but knowing he couldn’t push himself through it in time, he concentrated on his breathing and waited. As soon as the door was closed, his suit’s instruments told him that the room was filling up with what appeared to be breathable gases. God, I hope she wants to talk.

  When atmospheric pressure stabilized, he carefully opened his faceplate and took a breath. The air was cold and thin, but it had oxygen. He decided that he would keep the helmet on but leave the faceplate open. Looking at the image, he said, “We’re explorers. Are you able to understand me?”

  She continued to smile, turning to her left and pointing. A second image appeared, this time of a highly detailed outline of what he recognized as the ship. Remington thought the arrowhead shape looked very cool, and he could even distinguish weapon turrets. Suddenly the ship image was hit by blinding beams of light that created holes in the hull. Then the light from inside the ship near the holes darkened. It seemed clear to Remington that those beams had damaged sections of the ship, causing power loss. Only the nose section was still lit up but not as brightly as before. As he watched, the intensity continued to drop until there was barely a noticeable difference between the forward undamaged section and the aft damaged sections. He thought he understood the message. The ship still had some power but not a lot. He looked at the figure and nodded, hoping that she understood what nodding meant. She nodded back, then pointed to the space above the image ship. What appeared looked like a brain cell with tendrils spreading out from several branches. The image shrank, at the same time evolving into an oval surrounded by some kind of shell. Now the ship image began to expand as if the viewer were zooming in to the front section. Eventually the zooming stopped, and the shell gently descended into a small representation of this very room and settled into a compartment under one of the displays. The female image then turned to her right and pointed to a portion of one wall that Remington recognized as being the same compartment. Remington was stunned. He was pretty sure that this ship was controlled by a living brain kept alive artificially. He was both repelled and fascinated by the concept. How could any living organism survive this long? Could an intelligent being stay sane for years, maybe even centuries? The thought that this being might now be insane scared him so much that he started to shiver. He desperately wanted to get back
outside the hull. A check of the time showed that his fifteen minutes were almost up. He told himself not to panic or act in a way that suggested panic.

  He looked at the holographic face and nodded slowly, then pointed to his chronometer and then at the door. When her eyebrows rose, the gesture was so non-threatening that his fear drained away, and he almost laughed. He pointed to himself and held up one finger, then pointed to the door and held up two fingers, and then pointed down to the platform. He hoped she would understand that one person would leave but two would come back. She nodded. Her smile had not changed at all. At first nothing seemed to happen, but then Remington realized that the air pressure was dropping and quickly closed his faceplate. As he maneuvered himself over the railing and towards the door that was now starting to slide open, he turned to look at her and gestured for her to follow him. She shook her head and pointed at the floor. Either it was not possible to generate a holographic image elsewhere in the ship, or she didn’t have enough power to do so. Turning back to the doorway, he activated his thrusters. He moved down the corridor, turning right at the first intersection and left at the next one, and to his relief saw that the doorway at the far end was still open. Even as he approached it, the static started to clear up, and he could hear McKnight’s anxious voice.

  “Troy! Troy, can you hear me?”