The Only Gods We Know, Ch 4: The Verdant Prize

The smell hit them first—a thick, cloying stench of damp rot and alien pollen so potent it pushed past the Vindbitr's high-grade atmospheric filters and made Brynja's teeth ache.

After the clean, recycled air of the fleet and the cold nothingness of the Drifts, it was a full-body assault, a raw, unwelcome message that they were out of their element.

"Command, Stormbringer Lead. Be advised, we're hitting unexpected particles in the air, don't know the makeup. Recommend all incoming ships check their environmental seals," Brynja reported. Her voice was a flat monotone that didn't show the disgust she felt.

The descent was a rough, high-G burn through an atmosphere as thick as honey. Her Vindbitr bucked and shook, fighting wild shear winds that threw them around like a practice drone in a storm. Alarms, loud and sharp, screamed on her console. ATMOSPHERIC DENSITY HIGHER THAN EXPECTED. UNKNOWN GAS COMPOSITION DETECTED. The descent was a bar fight with the planet's laws of physics, and the planet was winning.

"All Stormbringers, report status," Brynja ordered, her hands moving smoothly over the controls, fighting the turbulence.

"Two is green, but this ride is rougher than a night in a Jotunheim bar," Astrid's voice crackled, with a bit of grudging respect for the planet's aggression.

"Three is green. Shields are taking a beating from the air friction," Sigrun added, her voice a low rumble.

"Four is green! Wild ride, Lead!" Hrist's youthful excitement was, for once, a nice distraction.

"Five is green. Lead, be advised, my sensor suite is full of ghost contacts. Can't distinguish individual threats from the background biomass," Mist reported. Her voice was calm but had a note of professional worry. "We're flying blind into this soup."

Brynja grunted to show she heard. A sensor white-out. Perfect. Just perfect. "Copy that, Mist. All ships, switch to short-range active scan only. Eyes out of the canopy. Trust your gut more than the gear."

They broke through the lower cloud layer, and the "green prize" spread out below them. Brynja's eyes scanned the land below. Endless canopy. A sea of hostile green. No clear lines of sight. A million places to hide. A tactical nightmare. Trees, hundreds of meters tall, had pulsating, glowing caps that would mess with their heat sensors. Vines as thick as a cruiser's mooring cables were strong enough to mess up landing gear or worse. And everywhere, there were shadows.

"A defender's paradise," she muttered to herself, the flight stick groaning in her grip.

"By the Allfather's eye," Astrid breathed over the comms, a hungry, predatory tone creeping into her voice. "Look at the size of it. A slaughter, Brynja. Nothing less."

Brynja didn't reply. She just noted Sigrun's silence on the net, a quiet that said a lot. The old war-horse was deeply, truly uneasy. And when Sigrun was uneasy, Brynja paid attention.

The planet didn't wait for them to land before sending out its welcome party.

"Hunters up! Multiple unidentified flying creatures, coming out of the canopy, Sector Tvö! Fast movers!" Hrist's voice, sharp with adrenaline, snapped across the comms. Brynja's HUD immediately highlighted the contacts. It was a massive swarm, boiling up from the green canopy like hornets from a kicked-over nest. The contacts were creatures, a nightmarish hybrid of pterodactyl and raptor, born from some twisted nightmare of evolution. They had shimmering wings and claws that looked like they could tear through ship plating.

"Hostiles confirmed," Brynja said, her voice dropping into the cold, flat tone of command. "All Stormbringers, weapons hot. Engage at will. Prioritize targets based on threat level. Don't let them swarm you."

The furball was instant and chaotic. This wasn't a clean space dogfight with clear paths and missile locks. The "Bandit-Bios" flocked and dived, their movements random and instinctual, using their huge numbers to overwhelm. Brynja's Gungnir-Lite lances stabbed out, vaporizing one of the creatures in a flash of steam and blood. "Splash one bio," she called out calmly, even as three more took its place, screeching a high-pitched shriek that messed with their comms.

"They're like armored bats!" Hrist yelled, her fighter swerving wildly to dodge a diving attacker.

"Less chatter, more shooting, Four," Brynja commanded, her own fingers dancing across her weapons console, switching from single shots to a wider spray to break up a dense group of the creatures.

As they fought, a section of the forest below seemed to ripple, to breathe in, before breathing out a vast, shimmering cloud of golden spores that drifted up into their fight. Her cockpit alarms screamed again. WARNING: AIRBORNE BIOLOGICAL AGENT DETECTED. HULL CORROSION IMMINENT.

"All ships, divert power to defensive shields, maximum!" Brynja ordered, watching her sensor display fill with static as the spores hit her sensor array. The stuff was corrosive, eating away at the outer layers of her fighter's armor.

"Lead, they're ignoring us!" Sigrun reported, her tone grim. "The big ones… they're making a run on the ducks!"

Brynja swore, her eyes snapping towards the heavy infantry transports, now descending towards the designated LZ. The largest of the bio-creatures, truly giant flying beasts, were indeed flying past the quicker Valkyrie fighters, heading straight for the slower, more helpless troop-haulers.

"Stormbringers, new priority! Provide close escort for the transport ships! Danger close, people, watch your fire!" Brynja commanded, pushing her Vindbitr's engines to their limit. She swooped in, her lances firing just meters from the hull of a transport, blowing up a bio-creature that was about to sink its massive claws into the ship's cockpit. This was no longer a clean fight; it was a desperate, ugly defense, trying to keep their infantry from being killed before they even touched the ground.

The first wave of infantry landers touched down on LZ Vanaheim – a relatively clear plateau designated "Freya's Clearing" by some optimistic staffer – with bone-jarring force. Ramps slammed down, and Einherjar in full battle-rattle poured out, their storm-bolters already roaring as they established a hasty defensive perimeter with heavy energy weapons and prefabricated barricades.

Brynja's comms immediately flooded with the frantic, terrified chatter of the ground-pounders. It was Gunnr's voice, strained and laced with disbelief, that cut through the noise. "Valkyrie Actual, this is Ground-Pounder Six! Be advised, LZ Vanaheim is hot, repeat, LZ is HOT! We're taking effective fire from hostile flora! The roots are mobile, repeat, mobile and hostile! Need immediate fire mission on grid 47-Niner-Epsilon! Danger close!"

Brynja banked her fighter hard, the G-forces pressing her into her seat. Looking down, she saw what Gunnr was screaming about. The ground itself was alive. Massive, python-like roots were erupting from the earth, snaking around the legs of Einherjar and dragging them screaming into the undergrowth. Whip-like vines, thick as her arm and tipped with razor-sharp thorns, lashed out from the jungle's edge. Strange, camouflaged ground predators, looking like a cross between a wolf and a pile of moss, darted from the shadows.

"Solid copy, Ground-Pounder Six! Fire mission incoming! All friendlies, keep your heads down!" Brynja radioed back, her voice a mask of professional calm. "Stormbringers, commence CAS runs, suppress perimeter, grid 47-Niner-Epsilon. Watch for friendlies."

She led her squadron on a series of low, terrifying strafing runs, a frantic pulse hammered at the base of her throat as she laid down pinpoint fire with her Gungnir-lances just meters from the desperate Asgardian defensive line. Golden energy incinerated the grasping roots and drove back the moss-wolves, but more seemed to sprout from the ground to take their place. She could see flashes of arcane energy from the ground as the attached Combat Mages deployed crackling defensive wards and hurled bolts of raw, elemental power.

"Cryo-blasts are most effective against the regenerative flora!" a mage's voice reported over the command net. "Thermal energy seems to… agitate them."

Good to know. But it was the sheer, unrelenting hostility of the entire environment that sent a cold that had nothing to do with the cockpit's temperature settling deep in her marrow. They were fighting a world. One that wanted them dead.

The grasping roots, the corrosive spores, the whispers in her skull. One single enemy. They'd landed inside it.

***

The battle for LZ Vanaheim turned from a chaotic landing into a grinding, meat-grinder defense against a planet. Just as Brynja thought they had a stable perimeter, a new, sneaky threat started to appear. It started as a low-level headache behind her eyes, a pressure that wasn't from G-forces. Then came the whispers, a faint, hissing static at the edge of her hearing, like a thousand voices talking just outside her comms frequency. It was confusing, slowly eroding her focus, making it a fraction of a second slower to lock onto targets—a delay that could mean life or death on a CAS run.

"All Stormbringer elements, report," Brynja broadcast, her own voice sounding strange and far away in her ears. "I'm experiencing cognitive and auditory interference. Is this hitting anyone else?"

"Solid copy, Lead," Sigrun's voice was a low growl, clearly strained. "Like a bad hangover without the fun part."

"I hear it too," Hrist admitted, her usual excitement gone, replaced by a note of real fear. "It's… making it hard to think straight."

Even Mist, the always-calm analyst, sounded flustered. "Lead, I agree. My biometrics are showing high stress levels that don't match the current fight. This isn't random noise."

Brynja keyed the command channel, her report short and professional despite the growing pressure in her skull. "Sky-Reaver Actual, this is Stormbringer Lead. Be advised, we are experiencing what I can only call a probable hostile psychic or mental attack coming from the AO. It's causing cognitive degradation among the flight crews. Recommend all deployed troops be warned."

At the same time, the planet's physical attacks became smarter. The "random" attacks by the hostile plants were now clearly coordinated. A spore cloud to force movement. Vines lashing out to meet them. A perfect trap. This wasn't random. Something was thinking. Learning.

The proof came screaming over the infantry net. "CONTACT! CONTACT! NEW HOSTILE TYPE, SECTOR ÞRÍR! They're not going down!"

Brynja banked her Vindbitr hard, her HUD highlighting the new threat icons popping up on the perimeter. From the deep, dark treeline, new figures came out. They looked sort of like people, but that's where the similarity ended. These weren't creatures of flesh and blood. They were made of thick, pulsing fungus strands, armored in what looked like plates of hard, bark-like fungus, and glowing with a creepy, internal light. They moved with an unnatural, smooth grace, their arms and legs stretching and shrinking as they charged forward.

The Einherjar on the line opened up with their storm-bolters, the heavy thud of explosive rounds echoing across the LZ. Brynja watched in disbelief as multiple rounds hit one of the lead creatures, tearing out chunks of its fungus body, only for the wounds to heal right before their eyes, fungus strands weaving back together with scary speed.

"What in the nine hells are those things?" Astrid breathed over the comms, her usual swagger replaced with real shock.

These were the Tier-Two hostiles, Brynja realized. Not the weak swarmers or the environmental dangers, but the real infantry.

"Stormbringers, engage new hostile contacts, designate 'Symbiont'!" Brynja ordered, lining up a strafing run. "Prioritize Symbiont targets threatening friendly positions!"

She swooped low, the ground a blur of hostile green below her. She centered her targeting crosshairs on the main body of a lumbering Symbiont that was about to run over a heavy weapons team. She squeezed the trigger, firing a long burst from her Gungnir-Lite lances. The golden energy tore into the creature, flash-boiling its outer layers and leaving a smoking, gouged-out crater.

It barely slowed down.

The wound began to close, new fungus matter visibly growing over the damage. The thing didn't even seem to notice the attack as it slammed into the Einherjar barricade.

Brynja swore, pulling up hard. She keyed the command net again, her voice tight with urgency. "Sky-Reaver Actual, be advised, Gungnir-Lite standard energy package is proving ineffective against these new regenerative hostiles. Repeat, ineffective. Recommending sustained, high-energy focus fire on the main body, or coordinated strikes from multiple fighters to actually kill them. These things are tough as a troll's hide."

Taking down a single Symbiont became a costly, deliberate job. It took two or three Valkyries to coordinate their fire, pouring steady energy into one target until it was completely burned to ash, leaving nothing behind to heal. It was a huge waste of time and, more importantly, power, for each kill. And for every one they managed to burn, two more seemed to shamble out of the endless, whispering jungle. The Asgardian beachhead was bleeding, and the enemy was just starting to show its real teeth.

As the three suns began their slow, confusing descent below the horizon, casting long, twisted shadows across the battlefield, a kind of tense standoff settled over LZ Vanaheim. The constant, open attacks from the jungle quieted down, replaced by a tense, watchful silence that was somehow more nerve-wracking.

The Asgardians had their foothold, but it was a shaky island of scorched earth and metal in a vast, hostile sea of green. The air still buzzed with the low-level psychic static of the Root-Mind, a constant, grinding pressure that wore down nerves and made tempers short.

The butcher's bill for the first day of operations was grim. Brynja watched the casualty reports flowing back to the fleet command ship. Multiple Einherjar KIAs, dozens more WIAs. The medics at the Battalion Aid Station were fighting a losing battle against strange poisons and fungal infections that their advanced medical tech had never seen before. They were making it up as they went, using purification runes and general anti-toxins, but for some of the wounded, it wasn't enough. They were losing ground-pounders not just to the fighting, but to the very air and soil of this planet.

A new FRAGO came down from High Command. Tyr's voice crackled over the command net, his tone hard as forged iron, without any of the earlier heroic bullshit. "All elements, listen up. Our first read on the threat for Objective Iðunn was wrong. New orders are in effect now: Dig in and fortify all positions on LZ Vanaheim. All forward recon patrols are canceled, until we get more intel. Deploying Combat Mage elements from the reserve to study and develop special counters for the local biological and psychic threats. All units will shift to a defensive posture, set up interlocking fields of fire, and prepare for sustained hostile contact. Acknowledge."

A wave of tired "Solid copy" and "Roger that, Command" rippled through the net. The grand conquest had officially turned into a desperate defense of a quickly built fire base.

Brynja's squadron, running dangerously low on fuel and ammo, was finally relieved by another Valkyrie wing, their fighters fresh and fully loaded. But it was a short break. The Stormbringers were scheduled for the third watch, a Combat Air Patrol rotation over the FOB during the deepest, darkest part of the alien night. The thought of flying over that jungle after sundown, when who-the-hell-knows-what came out to play, sent a cold, professional dread down Brynja's spine.

She got her Vindbitr refueled and re-armed on a quickly built landing pad at the edge of the now heavily fortified but still terrifyingly weak perimeter. Searchlights cut through the darkness, lighting up the edge of the jungle, which seemed to press in on them, a living wall of shadows. The night was alive with a mess of alien sounds—clicks, whistles, deep calls—and the eerie, pulsing glow of glowing plants. The entire jungle seemed to be breathing, watching.

Brynja stood by her fighter, helmet off, letting the humid, pollen-thick air wash over her. This was so much worse than the K'tharr. The K'tharr were a known threat—pirates with guns. You could understand why they fought, their tactics, no matter how crude. This… this was something else entirely. This was an uneven, unconventional war against a planet's mind. An enemy that could use its own life as a weapon, that could regrow its soldiers from the very soil, that could whisper madness into your skull from miles away.

The sour heat bloomed in her gut, a familiar phantom from the Jörmungandr Drifts. Here, amidst the grasping flora, the feeling had a shape: a thorny, coiling tightness around her ribs. This wasn't just about winning anymore; it was about figuring out how to even fight a war like this. The question was no longer just a moral one about if their cause was right, but a stark, terrifying tactical one.

Glorious history. Divine power. What was the Asgardian strategy for fighting the dirt beneath their feet? She had no answer.

***

Glossary

Personnel & Factions

• Einherjar: The elite heavy infantry of the Asgardian military. Named after the legendary fallen warriors of mythology who feast in Valhalla, these soldiers are equipped with heavy armor ("battle-rattle") and expected to fight with near-suicidal bravery on the front lines.

• Ground-Pounder: A common, affectionate, and slightly dismissive slang term used by pilots to refer to the infantry.

• Combat Mages: Specialized support personnel integrated into ground units. They wield arcane and elemental energies as weapons and for defense, providing capabilities that technology cannot.

• Stormbringers: The callsign for Brynja's Valkyrie fighter squadron.

• Valkyrie: The designation for the Asgardian fleet's corps of elite fighter pilots, who fly the Vindbitr-class fighters.

Technology & Equipment

• Gungnir-Lite Lances: The standard energy cannons mounted on a Vindbitr fighter. The name is derived from the Allfather's mythical spear, Gungnir, suggesting these are a smaller, fighter-scale version of a more powerful weapon system.

• Storm-bolter: The standard-issue ballistic weapon of the Einherjar. It is a heavy-caliber rifle firing explosive rounds, designed for maximum stopping power against armored or resilient targets.

• HUD (Heads-Up Display): The transparent data screen integrated into a pilot's helmet canopy, displaying critical flight, tactical, and targeting information.

• Comms / Net: Slang for the secure communications network used by military units.

Tactical & Command Terms

• AO (Area of Operations): A defined geographical area where a military operation is conducted.

• CAS (Close Air Support): Air-to-ground attacks by fighters or gunships in direct support of ground troops who are in close proximity to the enemy.

• Danger Close: A critical warning used during fire missions (like CAS) to indicate that friendly forces are very near the target area. This implies a high risk of friendly fire but is often necessary in desperate situations.

• Ducks: Pilot slang for heavy, slow-moving, and vulnerable transport ships.

• Fire Mission: A formal request for artillery or air support on a specific target, usually identified by grid coordinates.

• FOB (Forward Operating Base): A secured, forward-deployed military encampment used to support tactical operations. LZ Vanaheim is in the process of becoming a FOB.

• FRAGO (Fragmentary Order): An abbreviated command issued to change or update existing orders in response to a rapidly changing tactical situation.

• LZ (Landing Zone): A designated area where aircraft can land, particularly to deploy troops and equipment.

• Splash: Pilot slang for confirming an enemy aircraft (or in this case, a biological creature) has been destroyed. "Splash one bio" means one hostile creature shot down.

Hostile Designations

• Bandit-Bio: The initial Asgardian designation for the hostile flying creatures. "Bandit" is standard pilot jargon for a confirmed enemy contact, with "-Bio" added to classify it as a biological entity rather than a vehicle.

• Root-Mind: The provisional Asgardian designation for the suspected planetary-scale consciousness or hive mind that appears to be intelligently coordinating the planet's hostile flora and fauna.

• Symbiont: The official designation for the regenerative, humanoid fungal soldiers. The name likely reflects their composite biological nature and ability to reform from the surrounding environment. Classified as a "Tier-Two" threat, indicating they are far more dangerous than the initial swarm creatures.

Locations & Call Signs

• Jörmungandr Drifts: A location mentioned in reference to Brynja's past. The name, referencing the World Serpent of Norse myth, suggests a vast, dangerous, and likely chaotic region of space.

• LZ Vanaheim: The designated landing zone for the initial invasion force, named after the mythological realm of the Vanir gods.

• Freya's Clearing: The informal, and overly optimistic, name given to the plateau where LZ Vanaheim is located.

• Sky-Reaver Actual: The callsign for the overall commander of the invasion operation, likely aboard a command ship in orbit. In military jargon, "Actual" refers to the commander themselves, not just their radio operator.

• Sector Tvö / Sector Þrír: Sectors of the battlefield designated using Norse numerals (Tvö = Two, Þrír = Three). This is part of the standard tactical grid system.