Chapter 2: Silence after the storm
Thor woke up with a strange sensation bringing him back to his childhood when he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night having wetted his bed. He didn´t wake up all at once, but slowly travelled from a dreamlike state and gaining more and more consciousness. It wasn´t before he noticed the sound of rippling water he realized where he was. He squeezed his eyes tight in the bright sun and looked around. Loki was nowhere in sight, but then again Thor´s eyes had yet to get used to the bright light. His head pounded painfully beating simultaneously with his heart and his hand touched his hair as if it had a will of its own. Oh, no! His hair was wet, but not from water and when he brought down his hand to look, it was dark red. He had had to have hit his head hard on the console aboard Svalinn - or was it aboard the escape pod when they broke the water surface close to the coast? He didn´t remember.
He sat up straight. The heat from the sun fell on him like a thick, heavy blanket as if he was sitting inside a baking oven and as his eyes got used to its light, everything around him was increasingly in focus. With his hand held over his eyes like a shade, he noticed an inroad at the edge of the forest, where a group of trees were toppled. He had a pretty good idea why they´d been turned over. The escape pod had all sorts of safety measures and his guess was that it had skipped a few times on the water and then released their seats just before ramming into those trees and plowing a path through them.
A couple of hundred meters down the beach, at the edge of the water, there was a burthen of some kind. Loki, maybe? Thor got to his feet as quickly as he could with the intent of rushing toward his friend, but apparently his body wasn´t quite ready for it. He barely got up, before dizziness overcame him and he tumbled onto the hot sand again. He wasn´t sure for how long he rested there, but it couldn´t have been more than a few minutes. Then he tried again. This time he had learned his lesson, though, so instead of rushing to it, he got up slowly, letting his body set the pace. As he came closer to the burthen, there wasn´t any doubt. It was Loki. He didn´t move at all. Just lay there lifeless as a rag doll. Please let him be okay, Thor thought to himself as he crouched beside Loki and poked him in the side.
“Loki? Loki!”
No response...
He poked a bit harder.
“Loki! Wake up!”
Loki´s head shook. Phew! At least he wasn´t too badly hurt. Thor noticed that he didn´t even seem to have any visible wounds either and shook his head in disbelief. How typical... Even in the most dangerous situations, Loki always managed to get out of it without a scratch, while everyone else looked like they had been through a meat grinder.
“Thor?”
Loki sat up and looked around. He was clearly confused and had a hard time just figuring out where he was. Thor recognized the look on Loki´s face. It was the look he himself had had a few moments ago, but he sure wasn´t going to tell Loki about it.
“What happened?” Loki asked.
“I´m not sure. I think the escape pod had some kind of malfunction, though” Thor said moving his hand through his hair. He found the wound and jerked in pain. Then he pulled himself together and continued.
“We were ejected from Svalinn in the nick of time, but I think we hit the surface pretty hard.”
Loki bent down and put his head between his thighs, just as he had been taught many years ago at the academy.
“Oh, my poor head” he moaned, “I think it took quite a beating.”
“Same here, “ Thor answered, still with his hand on his wound, “the last thing I remember, is the water rushing toward us and BLAM! Next thing is I´m stranded here on the beach with you.” He paused for a moment trying to find a way to ease up the whole situation a bit.
“Loki, you look like crap!” He said with a wry smile on his face.
“Thank you very much!” Loki said back, “Honestly, you don´t exactly look like a homecoming queen either, if you don´t mind me saying...”
They both smiled and sat there for a while. Loki opened a pocket in his jacket and pulled out a navigator. He tapped it a few times and shook it hoping it would at least give him something.
“Nope,” he said shaking his head, “nothing. Not a blip.” He threw it in the sand beside him. For a while he just sat there, but then his face changed. He looked puzzled.
“Where is the pod?”
“I think it´s in there somewhere,” Thor said pointing a finger to the inroad in the forest, “but I seriously doubt it will do us any good. The engine died when we entered the atmosphere and the panel was flickering red and yellow all the way down. It´s got to be dead.”
Loki quickly got to his feet and brushed off some sand from his legs. “Well, at least we should figure out where we are,” he said and began walking down the beach without even noticing Thor didn´t follow.
“Where was the pod again? Somewhere over...”
He paused in the middle of the sentence and turned around; only do see his friend was hurt much worse than he had noticed before.
“Thor!” he yelled and rushed back to help him up, “you´re hurt - badly!” He reached out and grabbed Thor´s arm and pulled. His face froze in a painful expression as a sensation of being pinched with a thousand needles went from his hip and spread out through his legs, torso and arms.
“Ouch!” he burst while putting a hand to the hip. He stood swaying in a circle motion for a few seconds, but couldn´t keep standing. With his face still showing intense agony he fell, first to his knees, and then his body just tilted, stiff as a board. Had it not been a rather serious situation, Thor would probably have laughed out loud. It really looked funny.
Moaning in pain Loki gathered all possible strength to get up. He knew that if the Yetten had any ships nearby they would most definitely discover two Aseir warriors out in the open and the last thing they needed was to be subdued to a Yetten interrogation. They had to get out of sight.
Mustering everything he had in him, he fought his way to his feet and mutually helping each other they managed to drag themselves to the edge of the forest.
There they dropped to the ground like a couple of sacks full of potatoes, each at the stem of a tree, where they leaned their backs to rest for a moment. They breathed heavily as they were trying to catch their breaths and little by little they regained their strength. Thor grabbed something from his pocket. It was a small piece of equipment that could easily fit in his hands. The device had two legs with a bow like structure between them and the third leg, which was a bit shorter, was connected to the bow, able to slide from side to side. At the point where all three legs met, there was a short looking glass with mirrors and the short leg could be fastened to any point on the bow by twisting a little screw.
Loki shook his head indulgently and turning the white out of his eyes. “I´ll never understand your fascination with Earth toys, Thor. What is that thing?”
At first, Thor didn´t reply, but just twisted the small screw, looked through the looking glass, twisted some more and looked again. After some time, he seemed to be satisfied with the settings and looked at Loki.
“It´s called a sextant,” he said and drew something on a paper map, he had found in one of his pockets.
“A what?”
“A sextant,” Thor repeated still focused on the map and the device, “it can help us figure out where we are.”
Loki stared for a moment, but then decided Thor had to be joking.
“Yeah, right,” he nodded, “and I suppose it can even get us all the way to Asgard by the use of magic?”
Thor finished drawing on the map and pointed toward some unseen point at the other side of the forest. “We need to go that way,” he said, “but it´s going to be a long trip. Even if we could travel in a straight line, it´s about...” He measured a distance on the map and made some calculations inside his head with his eyes looking up and to the right. Then he looked at the map again and drew another line.
“675 kilometers,” he mumbled as if h
e wasn´t really present. Sighing deeply he looked up from the map.
“And as I said: that´s if we could´ve travelled in a straight line...”
A worried silence fell over them both as the reality of the challenge had time to sink in. For a moment Loki considered protesting against relying on the sextant, but he had known Thor for a long time. No matter what Loki thought of earth technology, Thor was usually right about these things. So he kept it to himself and instead decided to back Thor up helping him find a viable solution to the problem.
Thor looked despondently at Loki.
“Maybe we can find a boat somewhere,” he said with a sigh, “but none of the boats on this planet has the necessary speed to get to Fyrkat in time before the place is crawling with Yetten forces - and that´s if they are not there already.”
“What about the escape pod?” Loki suggested.
“Have you even been listening to what I’ve said?” Thor answered fighting to hide his temper, “the pod doesn´t work.”
“The pod won´t fly,” Loki corrected him, “but if we can get the engine running, then maybe we can get it to sail?”
Thor thought about it for a second, but he just couldn´t see it.
“No,” he said and threw both map and sextant to the ground, “the navigation system doesn´t work either.” He sighed.
“There is nothing we can do,” he claimed, “we are stuck here and the Fyrkat device will probably fall into Yetten hands within the next few hours. It´s only a question of time before they get a basic understanding of how it works and then it´s all over. We’ve lost the war.”
But Loki wasn´t about to give up. He was certain his idea would work.
“Look, Thor” he said looking firmly in Thor´s eyes, “We have come this far and we are not going to give up now. Not just yet. I mean... You have the ... Earth thingy to help us hold the course. We just have to make a stop here and there to get our bearings.” He paused a bit and then continued.
“At least we should give it a try, Thor” he insisted.
Thor sat still thinking about it while staring aimlessly at nothing. Suddenly he sat up straight! Of course! Loki was right! The sextant and the map were just as good as the navigation system. The only difference was the lack of automation and the fact that they would be vulnerable at every stop they made. But it should be possible.
“Alright!” he said a bit more optimistic and got to his feet, “it´s better than sitting here doing nothing, anyway. Let´s give it a shot.”
He fastened his eyes on Loki, who was obviously still in great pain.
“Stay here!” he said, “I´ll find the pod and get the medical gear. We´ll get you up and running in no time and then it´s off to Fyrkat!”
Loki nodded and Thor started walking.
He stopped a few steps ahead to consider his options. Walking through the sand would probably take a bit longer, but on the other hand the narrow bit along the edge of the forest looked rather muddy and he was worried that he might get stuck in it somewhere and he couldn´t count on Loki to be able to free him if that happened.
Finally he decided on the beach and went on his way. It proved a bit difficult to keep his balance. His head still hurt and his legs seemed to be almost unwilling to do what he wanted them to, probably because he was exhausted. He almost regretted choosing the beach instead of walking at the edge of the forest, but it was way too late to change his mind.
Half way through the sandy bit of his journey he decided to take of his shoes. The warm sand pushed in between his toes and even if it was a bit too hot for his liking, he rather enjoyed the feeling. Additionally, it felt somewhat easier moving forward having direct touch with the ground beneath him.
Reaching the knobbly forest floor he had to put on his shoes again in order to not lose his balance and hurt himself more than he already had. He walked determinedly up the inroad, which he figured the escape pod had made in between the trees; and sure enough, there it was: the escape pod. Judging on the turned over trees, the pod had most likely entered the forest about two thirds up the height of the closest trees and at the impact made a sort of summersault suddenly decreasing its altitude strongly. The final 100 meters it looked as if it had skid the ground leaving a track of fire and smoke.
Instinctively Thor looked up through the tree tops. Although he was eager to get to the pod, such a crash was a dead give-away for any enemy vessels searching for them. There were no immediate signs of Yetten presence nearby and he sneaked a bit closer while constantly having all antennas out. Even if there was nothing to be seen in the sky, there could still be enemy foot soldiers in the vicinity.
At last he reached the pod. Being the experienced warrior as well as a brilliant scientist, he knew the Yetten had a habit of placing traps in places they had already searched. Using all the techniques to find such traps Thor finally decided there were none and approached the pod door. With a wave of his hand he unlocked the door and it opened with a breezing sound as the pressure equalized to the surroundings. Holding his hand on the wound on his head he entered the pod and looked around. Apart from the red lights still flickering insanely, the pod didn´t look as if it had any additional damage. Most importantly, it didn´t seem to have any visible leaks, which would´ve killed the idea of using it as a boat.
The automated systems immediately recognized the presence of Aseir DNA and the virtual screen appeared at the front in the pod. Thor searched through the logs and found what he already knew: the navigational systems were off line and the pod had no propulsion. No surprises there. At least there was more than enough power to get the pod to sail if only they could figure out a way to get the engine running.
He typed a command on the console and a drawer appeared beneath it. He grabbed a small box from the drawer, opened it and pulled out a canister. Holding the canister close to his head a faint green light healed his wound within seconds. It disappeared and left only dried blood, which he washed off with a cloth. Phew... much better. The pain wasn´t entirely gone, but it would eventually. He put the canister back, closed the box and brought it with him as he left the pod to the sound of the door closing automatically behind him.
He went back the way he came, despite of his training telling him to always use a different path going back. If the enemy had seen him on his way to the pod, the might wait for him to return and follow him back. But he was just too weary to worry about it now. This time it was much easier and it didn´t take nearly as much time to get back as it had getting to the pod.
The look on Loki´s face revealed sincere agony, but as soon as he saw Thor approaching along the edge of the forest he sat up and made an effort to relax his face.
“Glad to see you stop by,” Loki teased him, “are you sure you shouldn´t have packed some lunch before you left? You look kind of hungry.” Thor thought about telling Loki that he had noticed his pain, but finally decided not to. Instead he sat down beside him and opened the medical box. The virtual screen inside the box opened and Thor read the information.
“Well,” he said while typing a few commands, “it says you broke a hip. But it´s not too serious, though. It´ll heal in no time at all. According to this it should about a half hour before you can walk again.”
Loki was vexed. Han wasn´t exactly the patient kind and the thought of all the battles he had left uninjured made him a bit embarrassed that a short journey in an escape pod would force him to do nothing for a whole half hour.
“Oh, No!” Thor said guessing his friend´s thoughts, “we won´t wait with the healing before going to the pod. You will accept staying still for 30 minutes and then we´ll leave. In the meantime you´ll rest here while I go back to the pod and try to get the engine going.” Thor paused a bit trying to determine if Loki´s nodding was sincere.
“Promise me you´ll stay here” Thor demanded and Loki nodded again. He knew Thor was right. Besides, there was something in Thor´s eyes telling him he wouldn´t take no for an answer. He might as well accept the fact that
he had to rest there for a while. As Thor turned around and started walking back to the pod, Loki laid down resting his head on a lump of roots by the tree. He shut his eyes and within just a few seconds, he was overcome by weariness and fell asleep...