Jupiter Time: 00:25, February 15, 2284

  Bay 47, Himalia Port, Europa, Nordic Commonwealth territory

  The wall exploded, sending twisted metal and ice fragments everywhere. Through the massive hole stepped something that made every Radi-Mon they'd faced look like house pets.

  Skarn.

  He was five meters of grotesque fusion between man and monster, his brown mottled flesh writhing. The monster that had once been Sven Solheim retained just enough human features to make him horrifying—she could still see the ghost of the idealistic classmate in the bone structure. Glowing red eyes locked onto them from a skull that had elongated into a maw filled with rows of teeth. Thick cables and organic tendrils writhed from his head and neck, pulsing.

  But it was his lower body that made Sigrun's stomach turn—five writhing tentacles where his genitals should be, each thick as her arm and dripping with viscous fluid.

  [SKARN - Elder Draug, Primarch]

  [WARNING: Extreme Threat - Evacuation Mandatory]

  "The princess and her loyal dog," Skarn's voice was layered, as if multiple throats were speaking in harmony. "But Queen Maren has promised: Sigrun shall bear the Fenris Primarch's children."

  The Draug focused on Sigrun. She could feel her stomach turning at his disgusting remark.

  Ivar stepped forward, Baldr raised defensively. "Sven. This isn't you. Don't listen—"

  "That name is dead!" Skarn's tentacles lashed out faster than thought. Ivar barely deflected two of them, but a third caught him in the ribs, sending him crashing into the wall. "There is only Skarn now. Only the Fenris Horde's will!"

  "Fuck you!" Sigrun emptied her magazine into Skarn's center mass. Every bullet hit. None of them mattered. They barely dimpled his hide before the wounds sealed themselves.

  "Ah, sweet Sigrun." Skarn's attention turned to her, and she felt his gaze like a violation. "Your mother speaks so highly of you. Her third daughter. Our perfect breeding specimen."

  "Frost, bylgja!" She poured everything into the spell.

  The frost bolt struck Skarn's chest and...simply dispersed. Like throwing a snowball at a furnace.

  He laughed. "Lunar spells? Against me? I was created in this little moon's core, princess. I AM winter's fury!"

  Ivar was back on his feet, blood trickling from his mouth. He caught Sigrun's eye as his hand squeezed hers briefly.

  Then he moved.

  Not toward Skarn's body, but low, Baldr carving through the air in an arc aimed at the joint where Skarn's left leg met his torso. It was an all-or-nothing strike that left him exposed.

  The blade bit deep, quantum energy destabilizing the alien muscle. Black blood sprayed, and for the first time, Skarn screamed—a sound that shattered a nearby piece of glass in the corridor. His leg didn't sever, but the wound forced him to shift weight to his other limbs.

  "RUN!" Ivar powered down Baldr with a touch, grabbed Sigrun's wrist, and yanked her toward the emergency exit.

  Sigrun's 10mm Magnum clattered to the ground, lost in their desperate flight.

  They ran through smoke, footsteps echoing off metal floors slick with ice and Radi-Mon blood. Behind them, Skarn's roar shook the station.

  "I shouldn't have dropped my gun, It..." Sigrun scolded herself between gasps, feeling the warmth of Ivar's hand wrapped around hers. "…must've cost a 1,000 Atomic Dollars or so."

  "A 10mm is nothing compared to your life." Ivar's voice was steady despite their sprint. "Depending on the circumstances, you'll have something more powerful soon."

  "W-what do you mean?" An ominous chill ran through her as they burst into the shuttle bay.

  Her heart sank.

  The bay was filled with abandoned equipment and signs of hasty departure. Three of the four shuttle berths were empty, doors hanging open. The fourth held a small shuttle, barely more than an engine, with just a single cryo-pod attached.

  "Dritt! The deserters must have taken the others." Ivar moved to the shuttle's control panel, his fingers flying over the interface. He then pulled a credit chip from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. "I saved these up for you. 50,000 Atomic Dollars. Enough to start over anywhere in the Inner Sol."

  The credit chip felt impossibly heavy. "Ivar, we can both fit if we—"

  "No." His voice turned hard, the commanding tone he'd used when leading the Nordg?rds—before he'd walked away for her. "The cryo-pod is made for one. The oxygen reserves, the power consumption, all calculated for a single occupant. Two people, and we both die halfway to Mars."

  "Then you take it!"

  "I must stay on this moon. Our people's future depends on it." He was already setting up the autopilot. "The coordinates are set. Xing Hong, Mars. Biggest human settlement on the red planet, true neutral ground. No one will ask questions."

  The floor shook. Skarn was coming, dragging his wounded leg but advancing nonetheless. They could hear the scrape of his bulk through the station's dying corridors. "Sigrun! I should feed Ivar to the Fiends before carrying you to the hive."

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  "It's time!" Ivar urged as he pushed her further.

  "Ivar, I'm not leaving you!"

  The sounds of Skarn's approach grew louder—metal tearing, support beams groaning.

  "You are." Ivar pulled Baldr from his belt, the cylinder cold and inert. For a moment, he just held it, thumb running along the interface line that still pulsed with residual energy. Then he pressed it into Sigrun's hands like it was a religious relic.

  "The Psytum Sword, Baldr. Passed down through my family since the Nucleus Age began." His voice was calm despite the doom approaching. "My great-grandfather earned it in the Mars Unification Wars. My grandfather used it to defend Reykjavik during the Second Digital Collapse. My father..."

  He swallowed. "My father died holding it, protecting refugees during the Europa colonization."

  Sigrun's hands shook as she took the weapon. "Ivar…don't…"

  "The first time activating might hurt a little. More than a little, actually. Baldr needs to synchronize with your Aether, to know you. Don't let go, no matter how much it hurts. The pain means it's working."

  "Don't..." Her voice broke. "Don't make this a goodbye gift."

  "I'm afraid I must." His thumb brushed away a tear she hadn't realized had fallen. "I love you, Sigrun. I always will."

  The words hung between them, three years of careful dancing around the truth finally spoken in their last moments together.

  "Loved you since that first ethics class when you argued with Professor H?gberg about what it means to be human. You said..." He smiled, that crooked smile that had first caught her attention. "You said life is about choice. The choice to be more than our base nature." His forehead touched hers. "You made me believe I could choose to be better than what the Sons wanted me to be."

  Another crash. Closer. Skarn's voice echoed through the station: "Sigrun! Meiya Ji has shown me: you will birth the future of our race!"

  "Whatever happens," Ivar continued, pulling back to look into her eyes one last time, "never let Baldr go. It's more than a weapon. It's..." He struggled for words. "It's every wielder choosing to protect what matters. And now it's yours."

  "Ivar—"

  "Live. Get strong." He turned toward the bay doors where Skarn's bulk was beginning to appear. "And when you're ready... maybe find out what really happened to your father. What your mother doesn't want you to know."

  "What do you mean?"

  The bay doors exploded inward.

  "GO!" Ivar shoved her toward the shuttle, already moving to intercept Skarn. "NOW!"

  Sigrun ran. Behind her, she heard Ivar's battle cry—not in English, but in J?turmál, the words of their ancestors: "Fyrir Noreurland og frelsi! FYRIR SIGRUN PRINSESSU! [For Nordland's freedom! FOR PRINCESS SIGRUN!]"

  The shuttle's ramp was rising as she reached it. She turned back one last time to see Ivar—her Ivar—standing alone against a monster five times his size.

  "Insolent commoner," Skarn's voice boomed across the bay. His red eyes moved from Ivar to spy Sigrun through the closing gap. "Remember that you shall all belong to me! Every man and woman of Nordic blood!"

  "Aye. We Nordlings all belong." Ivar declared as he raised both hands, palms glowing with blue Lunar psionic energies. "But not to you!"

  The ramp sealed shut.

  Sigrun stumbled toward the cryo-pod, but movement through the small porthole caught her eye. Four Bone Fiends had circled around, drawn by the shuttle's warming engines. They were inside the launch bay, between her and escape.

  Her hands found Baldr's cylinder, still warm from Ivar's grip. "It will hurt..."

  The shuttle's automated systems were already engaging. In sixty seconds, it would launch regardless of the threats outside. She had to clear them now.

  The airlock cycled. The Bone Fiends' heads snapped toward her.

  "Baldr, VIRK-yah-duh!"

  The pain hit her like diving into arctic water while on fire. Every nerve screamed as the weapon tried to sync with her untrained Aether. Her vision went white, then red, then blazed with cerulean blue. She could feel her heartbeat accelerating, stuttering—then suddenly syncing with something else: the weapon's quantum resonance.

  She screamed, falling to her knees, but her hands wouldn't—couldn't—let go of the hilt. Her Nucleus Watch beeped, holographic texts above its azure dial.

  [Aether reserved for Psytum Sword: Baldr] [Synchronization: 47%... 73%... 92%...]

  [Warning: Extreme physiological stress detected] [Synchronization: 100% - Weapon Bonded]

  The pain vanished like a switch being thrown. Her breathing steadied, white puffs in the freezing air as her body temperature normalized. The interface along Baldr's hilt pulsed in perfect time with her heartbeat.

  She stood, and the Bone Fiends took an instinctive step back. Her Nordic blue eyes were glowing—she could see the blue light reflected in their hungry amber gazes.

  "You..." Fear and rage warred in her voice, but rage was winning. "You will all DIE!"

  With a gesture, quantum energy erupted from the cylinder: a torrent of barely contained stellar fury. The blue light was so intense it left afterimages.

  The first Bone Fiend leaped.

  Time slowed.

  Sigrun could see every detail: the way its muscles bunched, the trajectory of its jump, the strings of saliva between its needle teeth. Baldr moved like an extension of her arm, the blade sweeping up to split the creature in half before it could scream. Its bisected body dissolved into ash before the pieces hit the ground.

  The second came low while the third went high. Pack tactics.

  She spun, Baldr leaving a spiral of blue light in the air, and the low attacker's head separated from its body. Her momentum carried her into a leap over the third, the blade punching down through its skull and spine in one motion. She landed in a crouch as it crumbled to nothing.

  The fourth, the last, tried to flee.

  "You won’t." The words she spoke was verdict and execution.

  She gathered her Aether, feeling Ivar's lessons crystallizing in her mind, and spoke in J?turmál:

  "Tungl, slá!"

  Silver lightning erupted from her free hand, arcing across the space to catch the fleeing creature. It convulsed, collapsed, and she was there in three strides to drive Baldr through its heart.

  Then, silence.

  She stood there, panting, tears streaming down her face as she powered down Baldr. The cylinder was warm in her hand, comforting. She slipped it into her coat's inner pocket, close to her heart.

  The shuttle's engines roared, and she rushed up the ramp, making it to the cryo-pod just before launch.

  As the acceleration pressed her into the cushions, she twisted in the cryo-pod's restraints, desperate for one last glimpse through the shuttle's rear porthole.

  There—through the reinforced glass, across the expanse of Bay 47—Ivar and Skarn.

  Ivar moved like lightning given form, a backup Psytum Sword's blue arc painting desperation in the smoke-choked air. But Skarn was a mountain that wouldn't fall. One of his tentacles caught Ivar across the chest, and even from this distance she saw him stagger, saw the dark spray that could only be blood.

  He recovered. Drove in again, his Psytum blade finding flesh between armored plates. Skarn roared—she couldn't hear it through the hull, but she felt it in her bones.

  Another tentacle strike. Ivar went down on one knee.

  Got up. Slower this time.

  The shuttle was pulling away now, acceleration building, the porthole view shrinking. She could still see Ivar's form—so small against Skarn's bulk—still fighting, still defiant. Blue light flashed once, twice, three times as he struck with everything he had left.

  Then Skarn's massive arm came down like a hammer.

  The cryo-pod's lid sealed with a hiss of pressurizing gel. Frost crystallized across the inside of the glass, obscuring her vision. The last thing she saw before the cold took her was that distant bay, wreathed in smoke and fire, two figures locked in a battle that could only end one way.

  But she didn't see the end.

  She would never know for certain.

  Then darkness, cold, the long sleep toward Mars—

  And the desperate hope that somehow, impossibly, Ivar would survive.