Page 3 of Alien Viking's Passion

“Chloe says that the whole thing about the space-going Viking longships being broken is a load of bullshit and just an excuse to keep us here,” Chen said. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s real enough. They seem pretty distraught abou—shit!”

Chen bounced to her feet, her head whipping around to stare up at the mountains. “What?”

Aretha focused her vision, zooming in to the very top of the mountain behind them. “There was something moving up there. A shadow against the sky.”

“A bird, maybe?” Chen suggested, her voice tense. “There’s a lot of wildlife up here.”

Aretha stared hard, but nothing else moved against the red sky. “Yeah, probably just a bird.”

“Actually, there was a lot of chirping just a minute ago,” Chen said softly. “But now… nothing.”

They stood there for a while, listening and scanning the hillside. But there was only the soft rustling in the nearby bushes and the small, crooked trees, deformed by the constant wind blowing in from the ocean. The distant clangs of a Viking smith hammering on iron in a village far below was the only sound of any activity.

Chen stirred. “I have a weird feeling of being watched. I’ve had it all day, since we started walking up here.”

Aretha turned to look down the hill, suspiciously focusing on each bush a person could hide behind. “Think they’re spying on us?”

“Honestly, I’d be surprised if they were. The Vikings are too direct, aren’t they? They’re boisterous and loud. It’s not like they do things secretly. That wouldn’t agree with their sense of honor.”

“They may be more complicated than that,” Aretha said carefully, seeing no sign of anyone watching them. “But if we’re being watched, it may not be the Vikings.”

“Now you’re being spooky just to scare me.” Chen looked up. “The Sun has to be visible, right?”

The sky had darkened enough to reveal the stars. They seemed much closer and brighter, and there were many times more of them than seen from Earth. Aretha immediately found a few constellations that she knew, and mentally tried to make a picture of where the Sun would fit.

And there it was, right where she would expect it. A tiny pinprick, white with a tinge of yellow, one among thousands. It was so far away that the distance could not be grasped by any human mind, not even when helped by a neural lace.

That was the Sun. That was home. The light she saw had been traveling through space for a thousand years, starting out five hundred years before Columbus. The actual Vikings would have been active on Earth when those photons were sent from the Sun towards Gardr.

Or maybe these guys were right, and Earth’s Vikings had only been wannabes, pale copies of the Gardr ones, the originals who had come to Earth and left a huge impression on society beforethey left again.

Aretha clenched her teeth and fought back tears. Whatever had happened back then, that was home. And right now, it didn’t look like she’d ever get back there.

The Sun twinkled coldly, as if it didn’t even know her. It looked like any star seen across vast distances of empty space.

No, not quite like any star.

Aretha frowned and tried to zoom in more, but she was already at the limit of what her lace and her eyes could do. Somehow the Sun looked different from the other stars around it. There was another light between her and it, one that was moving…

Losing herself in the deep concentration that the neural lace allowed, she missed the first movements in the air above and only snapped out of it when Chen screamed.

“Look out!”

A chilling screech pierced the air. Something dived down on Aretha, grabbing her hair and pulling at it. She screamed and ducked instinctively. There was a beating of wings and another screech that carried a Viking word in it: “Meat!”

“Come on!” Aretha fumbled feverishly for Chen to drag her along. They found each other and scrambled wildly down the hill.

“What the hellisthat?!” Chen asked tightly as they ran, crashing through bushes and jumping down boulders. The terrain was getting difficult.

“Nothing good,” Aretha panted. It was a long way down to the tree line.

Another screech came from above. “Kill!”

“Murder!”said another, cold and harsh.

Many wings flapped above them, and suddenly they were in the middle of a chaos of wings, talons, sharp beaks and pale eyes. “Kill! Murder! Flesh! Meat!”

---