As my wing swept forward, I took the lead... we were dispersed in a diamond shape, with about 100 yards between each of us. Sigmund’s team gave us covering fire – and we opened fire with our weapons as well. The Einherjar under my command had a collection of heavy weapons – Gatling lasers, missile launchers, and other harder to define weapons – as well as an array of heavy combat weapons, from firearms to melee weapons. I think Midgarder soldiers would have called them heavy cavalry, for their speed and effectiveness.

I raised my spear, sending a lance of lucent light towards the Krell ship, and grinned with satisfaction as my beam destroyed a turret that was firing back at my troops; it exploded with a puff of frozen vapour as short-lived bloom of fire as raw atmosphere boiled off from the Krell ship. Yes! Take that, assholes!

We swept in closer and closer – and now the enemy counter-fire was taking a toll... many of Sigmund’s team took hits – and for most, their armor protected them from the brunt of it, but a few screams came over my magical comm. Brothers that fell in battle too soon... Gods willing, we could rescue their symbiote and get them to a new host in time! My team was beginning to draw heavy fire too – and both lasers and some sort of auto-cannons were targeting us. For the most part, the slugs were bouncing off my armor’s new shields – but the lasers were still a danger, and I started evasive maneuvers, sweeping left and right, up and down erratically to avoid being targettted by their ships computers. One of my team got hit dead on by a ship’s laser... His abrupt scream cut off so quickly, I wasn’t sure if even his symbiote survived. I blinked back a tear. One more life to pay for.

I opened fire again – blasting another laser turret, and dodging two shots in return. We were close! More screams – to my left and my upper right... damn! We flew through one last hair-raising hail of auto-cannon fire, and we were through their point defence shell, and then on the hull of their ship. Only seventeen Einherjar landed with me, and we spent a moment taking out two more auto-cannon turrets to clear the area. We were approximately amidships, on the dorsal side (near the ships belly, on the side facing away from the Moon).

“Soldiers! Breaching charges!” I called out – and two Einherjar – one I didn’t know, and one Siri remembered as Osvig ran up, their armor’s boots keeping them attached to the hull, and sprayed a circle of foam about 10 feet wide on the hull, while the rest of the men backed off. A few seconds later, the goo sizzled, glowed red hot, and just melted a hole into the side of the ship, like thermite paste through plastic wrap. It was amazing.

As soon as the breach was clear, I gave the command and four Einherjar charged inside, blasting anything that moved with their Gatling lasers. I followed, with the rest of the unit behind me. Inside, I could see three dead Krell warriors, and the hallway was clear. The Krell ship must have had self-sealing hulls, because a thin sheet of metal sealed the breach behind us a moment later, and the ship stopped bleeding atmo – not that we could breath what passed for atmosphere for the Krell anyway. Their ‘air’ had far too much nitrogen, and too large an amount of exotic gasses in it for our people. At best it would seem to us like a mildly toxic version of thin atmosphere like you’d find at the heights of Mount Everest. Thank the gods for our suits life support function!

One of the Einherjar had patched a wrist comp into a wall terminal and was running a hack, while the rest of the unit prepared covering fire. “Ma’am?” He began. “The Science lab is towards the aft, just outside engineering. Weapons and the bridge are near the fore of the ship, on the Ventral side. I also read a large force converging on us – we need to ready for a fight, or move, ma’am.”

“Understood. We go to the science lab, now. Patch the floorplan to everyone’s wrist comp, soldier!”

“Yes, ma’am. My name is Ingvar, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Ingvar. I’ve got it – anyone who doesn’t chime off now!” I called out. No one replied. “Set a charge, then move – we set charges every 200 yards, or at any critical junction. Save as many as we can for their science lab and engineering. Move!”

I took the lead with six of the ultra-heavily armed Einherjar, who looked like they were wearing power armor on top of their normal magical armor – heavily laden with missiles, slug throwers, lasers and explosive charges. They looked like human tanks – and I was glad to have them at my side. I could only wonder what I looked like – a sexy ethereal warrior woman wearing hardly any armor, surrounded by giants? Maybe, but I guess appearances are deceiving, because I felt like I could take all six of my comrades on any day of the week with the recent upgrades and improvements I’d been given. I was a freaking Asynjur, even if no one here knew it!

We hustled down the corridor about twenty yards, and glanced the edge of a T-shaped intersection we had reached... I quickly pulled my head back as two energy blasts sizzled with a ‘zorch’ sound down the hallway towards where my head had been. We could hear the garbled voices of the Krell soldiers calling for aid – but help would come too late.

Two of the Einherjar grabbed some devices that looked a lot like grenades, and lobbed them down the corridor – and then two more jumped out and fired gatling lasers in a flurry down the hallway... The four Krell soldiers saw the grenades – and dove for cover – but the grenades didn’t explode – they imploded, and two Krell caught in the blast area were flung into the event horizon of the implosion grenades, crushed to infinitismal size, and extruded into another universe as something resembling biological spaghetti. The other two ducked down under the hail of laser fire from the other two Einherjar.

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I motioned for the two unengaged soldiers to hustle across the hallway, and get ready to storm the Krell with me – and on three, we moved... The Einherjar’s heavy armor made them powerful and deadly – but it also made them slow. In a flash I was down the hallway before the Krell could react, leaving the two Einherjar behind. One of the Krell raised his weapon – but a spear thrust ended his life before he could get a bead on me – and the other drew a knife that whined and shrieked like all hell – a vibro blade – a sonic weapon, much like my thundersword, but less efficient.

He moved towards me and lunged, and I danced to the side... I realized that fighting like this – fully female, fully bonded with Siri was nothing like when I was struggling still as Jason... My reactions were faster, more sure – and my aim better. My speed was up at least by 20% and it literally felt like the Krell was moving in slow motion. I easily dodged his blade, and tripped him prone with my spear – and then gutted him like a salmon on a trident. I didn’t have time to gloat over my victory – the rest of the Einherjar had reached me, and we moved forward, heading towards the science labs where our wounded kin might still be alive.

We managed to bypass two more bulkhead doors and another hallway – maybe another 250 yards down towards the aft secion - and then things got hairy. As we rounded a corner the hallway exploded in a hail of energy bolts aimed at us, as well as two more common explosive grenades. One of the Einherjar was hit twice, but his hard suit warded off most of the effects – and another planted himself in the hallway, activating an energy shield made of golden light that gave the rest of us some cover. Before I could react and add the strength of my shield to his, the grenades went off, and the hallway was filled with fire and shrapnel, and the Einherjar with the shield was flung back and stunned.

I leapt out into the hallway, and braced myself, calling upon my Valkyrie shield and activating the protective barrier on my armor at the same time – and levelled my spear at the Krell troops... and realized there were an awful lot of Krell down the hallway. The Krell were wearing heavy battle armor, and armed with energy shields similar to our Einherjar’s. This wasn’t going to be easy. I gritted my teeth. Time to nut up or shut up, I thought.

I levelled my spear at the Krell and let loose, and a lambent beam of energy streaked out, striking a Krell warrior, wounding him before his comrades could raise a shield to block my attack. The Krell nested their shields, sharing the load of stopping my spear’s beam of destructive power – but their shields were also blocking any of their counterattacks – for the moment. It was enough for my troops to get the injured man out of the line of fire, and ready our own shields – and we advanced slowly down the hallway towards them, taking only light fire.

As we advanced, my spear chimed a warning – it was running low on energy, so I nodded to my two bodyguards, and turned the spears’ energy beam off – and as expected, the Krell instantly dropped shields and opened fire! We were so close, there was no chance of avoiding the attacks – my shield deflected at least 6 blaster bolts, and my armor’s force field absorbed the rest, but one or two got through, scorching my shoulder and my leg – and my armor was buzzing a warning that the force field would take 10 seconds to start regenerating.

I tuned out the noise, and threw my spear at what looked like their leader – his armor was fancier and had some decorative frills the others didn’t. The Asgardian spear took him in the upper shoulder, and he spun around like a rag doll, collapsing. Before the other Krell could act, I was amongst them, crossing the last 15 yards between us in an instant, slashing with my Thundersword, slicing limbs and shattering armor, screaming a battelcry like a banshee. As their line broke, I could hear and see my troops returning fire, and in a few moments, the battle was over... A dozen or more Krell lay dead dying on the floor – and a half dozen of my men, including myself, bore injuries.

One of the Einherjar – Oleg, I think, from Siri’s whispers – called out. “Comm chatter says we’ve got at least twenty more incoming. ETC three minutes!”

“Understood.” I replied. Not enough time to heal all the men, I thought. We’ll have to tough it out. “Set a charge, and let’s move!” I took a moment to heal the bravely idiotic two Einherjar who gave me a chance to break the Krell’s holdout point.

“You guys should be a bit more careful.” I laughed, as I laid my hand on them to heal their wounds with golden light.

“Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have a reason to touch us, War Leader.” One of them replied with a smirk – and a wink! The nerve!

“I’ll remember that for next time, dumbass.” I replied, smirking. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good. Now.”

“Good.” I clapped his back and motioned for him to ready himself. The other Einherjar took the offered healing with a nod and a “Thanks, boss,” and we readied to move on.

“ETC ninety seconds, War Leader!” Oleg called out.

“Let’s move!” I commanded, and we pushed forward to the science and research labs. You know, when you have almost two dozen professional soldiers with superpowers, and heavily armoured reinforced power suits, plus a super fast, dextrous Valkyrie, you can cover a fair bit of ground quickly when you haul ass. We pushed ahead, blasting Krell guards in ones and twos, and breached an armoured bulkhead that Sigmund couldn’t run a bypass on – and then we were there.

As we burst into the labs, we saw a dozen or more Krell scientists fleeing for their lives, dropping notes and computer tablets, and running for any escape available. Lined up down the gallery we were in were pod after pod of some sort of life support containers – the same kind of containers that Siri was trapped in by the Krell... Two Krell scientists were trying desperately to do something at a large computer workstation instead of fleeing. “Ingvar, Oleg – on me. The rest of you – Get our people out of those pods and get them out of here ASAP!”

The Einherjar didn’t waste any time – each one running to a pod and setting them free, while Oleg, Ingvar and I approached the two Krell scientists – who were trying their best to wipe the computers. I cut them down with my blade. “Ingvar, Oleg – get whatever data you can out of that computer. It may have intel on the Krell weapon, or maybe what they’ve done to our people.”

“Yes ma’am!” They replied, and got to work.

“It doesn’t matter.” One of the dying Krell replied. “You’re too late. Now you and your men will die, and Asgard will fall.”

I turned to see what he meant – and screamed as a bolt of shadow-like energy struck me from across the room, shattering my force field (again) and injured me badly. I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed in pain and nearly blacked out. As I looked up, I felt my blood run cold...

Thirty yards away, wielding a spear of dark shadow, and wearing the skimpiest valkyrie armor I had ever seen was Brunhilde – but it was a dark, twisted version of Siri’s friend and sister. Her eyes seemed to radiate darkness, and her once golden shield and weapons were now shadowy versions of their former selves – but seemed to have lost none of their potency. She looked ready to kill.

As the Krell scientist bubbled blood from his chest, I heard his last words as he died. “Behold, the Krell’s ultimate warrior - The Dark Valkyrie!”

I looked at him – and back at Brunhilde. They had done it... they had figured out how to reprogram the Symbiotes. I picked myself up, and readied myself for combat. Brunhilde was one of the first and most powerful Valkyries, and had been a member of the Twelve since before Great Britain had been a nation - and I had to face her in battle. In a few moments, either Brunhilde or I would be dead – and the fate of the Aesir would hang in the balance.