Lost Vikings by JJ Wolficus (good summer reads txt) 📗

sequence, in his head running through the checklist that Varg had gone over with him again

and again on the flight out. When Erik reached the part about making sure his ship wasn't 22

held down or restrained in any way—because that might result in an overload that could

cause the viking's engines to explode—he skipped right over it. He didn't have much choice.

"Fuel rerouted? Check," he said to himself. "Power to legs cut? Check."

He reached out and grabbed the lever that would transform his viking's arms into

wings. He squeezed the green safety trigger on the end of it, then hauled on the lever with

as much muscle as possible.

Nothing happened. Not a damn thing.

He swore and pul ed on the lever again, putting his whole back into it. He could feel the

lever start to give, but he feared it might snap off in his hand. He listened hard and thought

he could hear the viking's servos whining in protest as they tried to dislodge his craft from

what had to be at least a ton of snow on top of it.

"I'm stuck!" he said. "Standard operating procedure not providing results. Any ideas?"

"I am stuck as well," said Olaf.

"Try activating your VTOL jets," Varg said. "Just by themselves. Put as little juice into them as you can."

"How about we disable the auto-shutdown circuit?" Erik said. It made him nervous to

try it; the governor had been installed to keep him from accidental y breaking the ship.

Now, though, he needed every bit of help he could squeeze out of the machine, dangerous

or not.

"Can't hurt," Varg said. "Wel , it could blow you up, but that's the least of our problems."

"Wha's that?" Scorch said. "Wha's that noise?"

"Scorch!" Varg said. "You need to snap out of it." 23

"Somethin'—somethin's out there," Scorch said, concern creeping into her pain-drunk

voice. "Can hear it scratchin' on m'rig."

"That's the zerg!" Varg said. "You got to move, Scorch! Do something now!"

A horrible cracking noise sounded over the comm. Erik had no doubt where it had come

from, but it stil made him jump.

"Dammit," Baleog said, his tone so soft with horror that Erik had to strain to hear him.

"They found her."

A scream leaped out of the comm and pierced the air in Erik's cockpit. "Get off me!"

Scorch said, her voice sharpened by terror.

There was something then that sounded like clicking and gnashing and squishing al

together and al at once. Erik shuddered at it.

"No! NO!" Then there was another horrible gurgling noise—something far too human—

that was cut short.

Erik wanted to bellow in rage at the zerg. He hadn't known Scorch that wel . He'd never

worked with her before today. But he ached to pulverize every last one of those damn

creatures that had kil ed her.

Instead, he cut out the safety protocol that included the auto-shutdown circuit and

gunned his VTOL jets. He felt them thrum to life. He might be too late to save Scorch, butif

he didn't get moving, he'd be too late to save himself as wel .

"Come on," he said. "Come on!"

He tried to move his viking's legs and found that the snow around them had loosened. It

had probably vaporized into scalding steam. He knew that if he stopped his jets now, the ice 24

would re-form around the legs in a matter of seconds and trap him even tighter in Braxis's

frozen shel .

He gave his VTOL jets a bit more gas and felt his armor shake from head to toe.

Something would have to give soon. He just hoped it wouldn't be the viking. If he overdid it

with the jets, they might malfunction, and that would kill him faster than a zerg. At least it

would be over quick.

Stil , dead was dead, and Erik wasn't ready to give up yet. He gunned the VTOL jets

again, and this time, he heard a horrible crack.

Daylight appeared above him, almost blinding him with its brightness.

The snow beneath his VTOL jets had gone from solid to steam, and the pressure from

that had built up around his viking until it had to find some way to escape. Instead of

crushing his craft, the steam had expanded upward until it located a weakness in the layers

of snow under which he was buried, blowing them away.

"You al right, kid?" Varg said.

"That sounded like his craft detonated," said Olaf, his voice filled with awe.

"Better than being eaten by the zerg," said Baleog.

Erik wanted to respond, but he was too busy getting his viking into the air. He was used

to flying something more reasonable. Moving from a stand to zipping through the air was

never easy. Even an expert like Varg would have a hard time getting a viking to pop out of a

deep hole without sending the craft into a spin.

Erik wrestled with the controls, trying to reorder the proper maneuvers that would get

him airborne and stable. He managed to slip from the hole fast enough, but he came out at a

slight angle that sent him sideslipping back toward the ice. He had to swing down the 25

vertical jets hard, and then he fought for balance like a tightrope walker struggling through

a tornado.

But he survived it. A moment later, he punched the control that triggered the rest of the

transformation. The craft's legs folded in, and the wings at his shoulders stretched out,

giving him the kind of lift he needed to stay in the sky.

"I'm out!" he said.

Baleog whooped with delight, and Varg chimed in.

"Excel ent work!" Olaf said. "Is it possible you could give us a hand?"

"Hold on," Erik said. "Let me see what I can do."

He stopped short of kicking in his craft's rear jets. If he gave the engines their head, he'd

be ful y airborne, and the viking's momentum would make it hard for him to come back and

help the others. Of course, landing his viking on the ice would leave him vulnerable to

burrowing zerg, but Erik knew he didn't have a choice. He had to try to dig out his

compatriots.

The only problem was that he had no idea where they were. Not only had the avalanche

spun him dizzy,