The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [130]
"Father..."
"You have loved our home as I do. Continue showing it that love."
They looked at each other, and I saw a bond between them, a mutual respect, as strong as any I'd ever seen. They weren't just father and son. Not even just clan chief and heir. They were brothers in arms too. And this was their hour, their shining time, when they would prove themselves against the severest odds they had ever faced.
"I shall," said Thor. "And so, always, will you."
In reply, Odin smiled - somewhat sadly, it seemed to me - and then the Chinook came racketing in over the treetops.
We were aboard, a five-strong squad plus Odin, and ascending. We checked our weapons as Sleipnir humped us into the sky. We also checked the abseiling equipment I'd sourced from Skadi's stock of outdoor gear. Anything skiing- or mountaineering-related, you name it, Skadi had it. By the bucketload. I loved that little minx. Not only had she taken a shot meant for me, she was just so insanely fucking focused.
"This is going to be a walk in the park," I reassured everyone. "We lower ourselves down onto the top of the tank, find an access hatch, blow it, get in, plant some high-ex, bundle out, bish-bosh, the job's a good 'un."
Paddy rolled his eyes. "'Walk in the park,' the man says. Suppose it is, if by 'walk' you mean 'suicide mission' and 'park' you mean 'two-hundred-ton armour-plated enemy transport.'"
"You chicken, mick?" Backdoor sneered. "Me, I live for this shit."
"Can the backchat, both of you." I tilted my head towards Odin. Top brass on deck.
They clammed up.
Sleipnir circled, gaining altitude. I'd asked the pilots for a fly-past first so we could all get a squint at the mega-tank and assess the feasibility of my plan, if it had any. The Wokka came over it at five hundred feet, and Flight Lieutenant Jensen banked to starboard. We lined the portholes on that side, peering down.
The mega-tank had left a tremendous swathe of devastation behind it, a clear-felled path through the forest as wide as an A-road. This led the eye straight to the tank itself. Moonlight and its own running lights outlined it amid the trees. In shape, it was basically a rectangle with outcurving flanks. There were projecting structures at each corner - gun turrets, swivel-mounted and fitted with multiple-barrelled rotary cannons. I'd not been able to see those from ground level when Freya and I first encountered the tank. There was also a pod perched at the front like a head on a neck, shape of a flattened sphere. The control cab, if I didn't miss my guess.
A pair of searchlights beamed forward from the cab. On top of it rose a pair of triangular fins. I couldn't figure out what those were there for.
"Are they, like, ears?" Cy wondered.
That was how they looked to me. "Some kind of radar array?" I suggested.
Backdoor agreed. "They're curved. Could well be parabolic antennae."
"No," said Odin. "Purely decorative. Ears."
"How do you know?"
"I know, Gid, because this mechanical beast is a representation of a real, living beast. In much the same way that those so-called tanksuits purported to be jotuns and fire demons, here we have a man-made mimicry of a creature known to all in Asgard. My blood brother has been having fun. What we are looking at is Fenrir."
"Fenrir?"
"Those 'ears' confirm it. It's meant to be Fenrir. The giant wolf. The devourer. One-time scourge of the Aesir. We captured and muzzled him a long time ago. My son Tyr permanently wedged his maw open with a sword - and lost a hand in the process. As far as I know, the real Fenrir is still chained to a rock in far Muspelheim."
"And Loki's come up with his own version."
"Rather than go to the trouble of freeing the original and releasing him upon us, he has manufactured this instead."
"A high-tech stand-in," I said. "Well, nice to know, but it doesn't alter the plan. In fact, I think I'd prefer