Lost Vikings, JJ Wolficus [best books to read for beginners .txt] 📗

but it had also taken out most of his sensors. He couldn't pinpoint where he

was, much less where the rest of the pilots were trapped.

"I can't see you," he said. "Can you—I don't know—send up a flare or something?"

An instant later, the snow about ten meters in front of him began to glow from some

light source far below the surface.

"Does that help?" Olaf said.

"Nice headlights," Erik said. "I'm coming over." 26

He moved his craft to the spot where the freshly turned snow glowed, and then he

lowered his legs again. He fired the VTOL jets straight down and peered over to see the ice

melt away beneath them. But it was hard for him to look in that direction, and the buried

viking remained hidden.

Erik didn't want to just melt anything he stood over until the others appeared. For one,

he'd soon run out of fuel or time. For another, he had to be careful not to melt them as well

as the snow. The viking's shell would protect them from some of the heat, but it wouldn't

shield them from a sustained burn.

"If you could bring yourself back about two meters," Olaf said, "that might do the trick."

Olaf wasn't shining his headlights straight up but at an angle, Erik realized. He moved

away from the surface of the avalanche's ruin and gunned his jets hard. As they lifted him

into the air, he saw the top of Olaf's viking appear, and the big man whooped with joy.

Erik moved to the side fast, and a moment later Olaf's craft rose from its frozen grave to

hover beside him.

"How about the rest of you?" Erik said. "Where are you?"

"Get the hel out of here!" Varg said. "Those mutalisks have to be coming back by now."

Erik glanced up, which he had been too busy to do before, and saw how right Varg was.

High above, a huge number of flying zerg, more than he cared to count, were diving toward

him. He didn't know when they'd spotted him—if it was when he'd burst out of the ice or

when he'd fired his VTOL jets to free Olaf. Either way, his time was running out.

"We got a minute." Erik wasn't sure whether he was lying, but he wasn't about to give

up. "Show me a signal—something—and we'l get you loose."

"I'm stuck face down," said Varg. "Headlights might not do much good." He hesitated for a moment. "See anything?" 27

Erik scanned the churned-up ice and snow. He thought he saw something glowing, but

when he moved his viking forward, it turned out to be just a trick of the sunlight. If it were

darker, he might be able to see the lights from Varg's viking, but he couldn't sit there and

wait for the sun to set.

"Guns?" Erik suggested. It was dangerous for the major to fire blind, but at this point

they were running out of options.

"Damn things are frozen solid."

"Same problem here," Baleog said, "but I think I got my jets working. Give me a second."

"Argh! Dammit!" Varg said. "I can hear them! They're tearing against my armor!"

"Where are you?" Erik said. "Show me something! Anything!"

"Get clear! I'm a dead man, but I'm going to take as many of these bastards as I can with

me!"

"Hold on!" Baleog said. "Give me five more seconds!"

"I don't think I can—gah! They breached my cockpit!"

Erik studied the snow below him, but the avalanche had stripped it of any features.

Other than the holes that he and Olaf had made, he couldn't see any difference between one

part of the ice slide and another. Al he knew was that the major was down there, dying.

The sound of gunshots cracked over the comm, mingled with Varg's bellows of anger,

frustration, and rage. The major fired round after round into the creatures, determined to

kil as many zerg as he could. Erik could tel he wasn't going to bother saving a bullet for

himself.28

Erik wanted to melt every bit of snow until he found the man and rescued him, but he

knew there wasn't time. The only thing he and Olaf could do now was get themselves into

the air as fast as they could.

He looked up and saw a mutalisk right on top of them. The great bat-winged creature

glared with its deep-set red eyes as it angled its massive tail toward him, the fanged and

gaping maw on the tip reaching for him with ravenous intent.

Olaf was already transforming his viking into its airborne mode. As the mutalisk got

nearer to him, he gunned his jets and was gone.

Erik tried to do the same, but he could see that he would never make the transformation

in time. Instead, he did his best to backpedal from the creature. His only hope was that the

bug had misjudged the distance to the ground and would smack into it before it could

correct its course.

But the mutalisk hauled up at the last instant, the bottom of its thrashing tail hanging

over the top of the snow. The creature had come so close to crashing, though, that it had to

wind up its tail tight to cushion its partial landing on the ice.

The zerg bounced as if it were hopping on the curl of its backside, flapping its wings

wide and hard. Then the ground beneath the mutalisk exploded. The blast tore it to shreds

and sent Erik's viking skidding backward.

When he managed to get the viking's legs back underneath it, Erik wanted to stare into

the smoking crater that had appeared, but he knew that indulgence might cost him his life.

Having been granted another chance to survive, he wasn't inclined to waste it.

He punched the controls that would launch his viking into the air, and he shoved

himself back into his harness, preparing himself for the impending tug of inertia. He

glanced up and saw that the gathering of zerg coming his way had spread out to become a

blanket. If he didn't move fast, it would close over him like a net. 29

The viking rocketed forward. If the transport he had driven for a living was a lumbering

beast, the viking was a speedy jungle predator: quick, nimble, and almost impossible to

control. He