Jormungandr's Venom

by Kal Spriggs

  “I’ll give them to you,” Rao said, “but they weren’t stored in the lab. The transmitters for those kill codes and the codes themselves were stored in a secure facility on the planet. The men and women behind this weapon wanted them close at hand in case there were any issues.”

  “Smart,” Frost acknowledged. “How do you intend to get them.”

  “In a few minutes, Nashim Rao will be elected president. After that, he’ll be able to get into any facility on the planet,” Rao answered. There was something odd about his emphasis as he said that, though. He said “Nashim” Rao, like that was an important distinction.

  Colonel Frost felt a tingle of suspicion, but he wasn’t sure where it came in. He toggled a switch and pulled up a broadcast of the planet. “…believe that Garina Argun will give her official concession speech in only few minutes. Many are wondering when Admiral Rao will give his acceptance speech.”

  Colonel Frost snorted at that, it would probably be a little while. Still, he’s given me everything I asked for, so far, I might as well let him go back to his planet, at this point. With this weapon, he could afford to be somewhat magnanimous.

  Sure enough, after some inane discussion by people who didn’t matter, Garina Argun, head of the HIPPIE party, gave her official concession. Useless woman, Colonel Frost thought to himself, good riddance.

  “And now we go live, to Admiral Rao,” one of the talking heads announced.

  Colonel Frost’s head snapped around and he stared at Rao, then back to the screen where his doppelganger appeared.

  “My fellow citizens of Harmony,” Admiral Rao, now President Rao, spoke. “These past few months have been difficult for all of us. We’ve seen a near civil war, seen fire in the skies as Admiral Mizra attacked, trying to prevent an election that he knew his corrupt backers couldn’t win.”

  He looked straight into the camera as he spoke, “These past few months have been hard, but the next few years will be harder still. Fixing our system, fixing our nation, is not something that one man can do. All of us have responsibilities, all of us will need to work towards it. We’ve seen corruption by our Guard occupiers. We’ve seen corruption by the families which ran our nation like their own private fiefdom. We can’t allow Harmony to fall into such disarray again. Each of us have to work diligently, to expose corruption where we see it, to make our system, our government, our nation function properly once more. I accept this office only because I know that you all have chosen me to do it. I accept it in the names of the men and women who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. Thank you for this honor, for trusting me with this responsibility, and I give my oath to you all that I will do my best to fulfill it.”

  The transmission cut out and went back to the unimportant people, but Frost cut it off, not even hearing their inane babble. “How?” He demanded of Rao. “You’re standing right here. That speech referenced the fight here in the system, you couldn’t have had time to record it!”

  Rao coughed slightly, a smirk on his face, “No, you’re right, I didn’t. But you see, I’m not Admiral Nashim Rao, I’m Colonel Nikhil Rao, of the Harmony Military Medical Corps.” He coughed again, as if trying to choke back laughter at Colonel Frost’s expression. “Sorry, it’s a game my twin brother and I used to play as children.”

  “You’re dead, though,” Colonel Frost snapped. “The records… you died in the coup!”

  “My brother and I thought it wiser if it seemed I’d been killed,” Rao nodded. He rubbed at his throat, as if it bothered him. “That way fewer people would try to get the secrets of this hell-weapon out of me. Then there was the attempt on my brother’s life, so I came out of hiding, to serve as his decoy.” Rao’s face hardened, “I took his place during the shell-game, you understand, to buy him some breathing room. Of course, neither of us expected, well, all of this,” he waved his hand around and Colonel Frost noted the man swayed a bit, almost as if he were drunk, drugged… or sick.

  Sick… Colonel Frost felt a tickle at the back of his throat. No… “What did you do?!” He demanded, fighting the urge to cough.

  “I went to the station, as I said,” Rao smiled, even as he swayed a bit. “Then I went aboard, in this suit, and also as I told you, I retrieved those four samples.” He took a swaying step over and rested a hand on the edge of the computer display. “Then I got aboard the shuttle, which docked but didn’t open on the ship. In isolation, I came here, where I opened my suit, as directed.”

  “Isolation?” Colonel Frost stared at him in horror. “Why!?” He was terribly certain that he already knew why.

  “Because of why my brother launched his coup,” Rao answered, his voice dry. He paused to cough again, and this time as his hand came away, Colonel Frost saw blood on his hand. “President Mombara wanted a test of his weapon and he activated it on the research station, killing the entirety of his research staff in the process. All but me, since I was the leading expert and he wanted at least one survivor to carry on the research as necessary. The entirety of the station was contaminated. There were nanites all over my suit from the moment I boarded the research station, to the time that your people so thoroughly searched me for weapons.” He paused, gasping, then bending over to begin coughing. This time, blood and chunks of something splattered out as he coughed and Rao fell back, his back to the console. “And it spread through your station while your people searched me. It spread to your modified freighters when they came aboard. Jormungandr’s Venom poisoned your ships, your people, your station, and you and every moment that I waited…” He started coughing and this time there was a great gout of black-stained blood. To Colonel Frost’s horror, Rao never finished. He simply slumped dead on the deck.

  Colonel Frost’s throat seemed to constrict. He turned to his technician, about to give the order for his freighters to undock, but the words caught in his mouth. Frost bent over in a coughing fit, barely able to breathe. Around him, he heard others of his people doing the same. Someone tried to move to the control console, perhaps to sound the alarm, but he fell to the deck, curling up as he began coughing black-stained blood.

  Frost leaned over his console, his hands going to his controls. He brought up feeds from his ships, his hands trembling as he fought to breathe, taking wheezing breaths. Ship after ship showed the crews gasping, bending over, trying to take action. It was everywhere. His whole station, everything he had left, every ship, every man and woman.

  He still had the override software. He could set the ships to follow their designated courses. They’d be easier to hit, but there was a chance that at least one would get through, to kill Harmony just as certainly as Rao had killed him.

  He brought up the override and as he clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to cough his lungs out, he hesitated, his hands resting on the keys. His gaze went to where Nikhil Rao lay, a strangely serene expression on his face. He’d sacrificed himself to save his planet. In the end, did Frost deserve to take that away from him? This had been about the Guard, it had always been about them. Harmony didn’t matter, it’s fate, didn’t matter.

  Colonel Michael Frost realized that he couldn’t doom billions of people to death out of spite. He sat back, realizing that he’d been well and truly outplayed. He let out one last breath, feeling his lungs turning to jelly, and then he never breathed again.

  ***

  Epilogue

  Mel had briefed Commodore Creed when they’d arrived in the system and, after the Guard Free Now station had gone silent, she’d requested and received permission to destroy it. Fenris had done so with extreme predjudice, using his full battery to destroy any possible remnants, bracketing the station and ships in overlapping detonations that nothing should have survived.

  Returning to the planet, the mercenaries there had been too busy in cleanup after Admiral Mizra’s attack to really give her much acknowledgement. She felt like a failure. Colonel Rao had explained his plan, just before doing it. She hadn’t been able to protect him, in the end. She’d been surprised to l
earn he’d been a decoy, but she had been heartbroken at his decision to expose himself to the weapon he’d created in order to prevent Frost from using it.

  President Rao had asked them to destroy the research station, as well. Mel had done that with relish, Fenris plotting its destruction with every bit of precision that he could muster. No one would ever need to worry about Jormungandr’s Venom ever again.

  But after that, it was almost as if the crew and ship had been forgotten. The other mercenary companies were too busy doing recovery operations. The planetary government was trying to figure things out. Bob and Yewell were waiting on their superiors to arrive or make contact. They were all waiting, on edge, and as Fenris announced they had an inbound shuttle, it finally came as a relief.

  “The shuttle pilot sent a contact code on a tight transmission,” Fenris growled, “Bob Walker, it checks out against the code that you and Miss Yewell gave me.”

  “Who’s aboard?” Mel asked.

  “I’m not certain,” Fenris admitted. “The shuttle itself came from the Centurions formation of ships, but there were numerous transfers before that and its original arrival matches up with a fast transport that arrived a few hours ago. It could be almost anyone from the planet, from this new ship, or any of the mercenaries.”

  “Understood,” Mel said. She didn’t ask if there was any official manifest, she knew that Fenris would have told her if there was.

  “Well, let’s go down at meet our guests, shall we?” She raised an eyebrow at her crew.

  Bob Walker hesitated. He almost looked as if he wanted to tell her not to come, but he closed his mouth on that as she stared at him. She’d let him keep his secrets long enough, she wanted to know who he worked for.

  They made for a strange parade. Bob and Aldera walked hand in hand. Brian and Yewell walked close together, Jeremiah Swaim glaring at Brian’s back just behind them. Then there was her and Johnny. She didn’t, quite, reach out a hand to him, but he stood at her side, his expression calm and confident.

  They arrived at the docking bay, just after Fenris had closed the outer doors but before anyone from the shuttle had disembarked. Mel straightened to her full height, tugging at her uniform to make certain everything was straight. She hated first meetings.

  The shuttle’s ramp dropped and two figures came down it. The lead was tall, blonde, and she wore khaki uniform with three stars on her collar. Oh, no, Mel thought. She recognized her grandmother instantly. The young woman behind her was considerably shorter, but had equally blonde hair and blue eyes, though Mel recognized a bit of the girl’s father in her. My cousin, Jiden.

  Mel didn’t know what else to do, so she snapped out a salute, “Captain Melody Amiss, ma’am.”

  Admiral Victoria Armstrong returned that salute crisply, “It’s alright, dear, we can drop that charade. Even if I hadn’t known you were still alive, I’d have recognized you instantly the first time I saw you here.”

  Mel’s mouth dropped, “Um, you knew I wasn’t dead?”

  The Admiral gave her a stern look, “I found out about your arrest and I’ve been monitoring every record of you since. When the ‘update’ came through changing your DNA in the general database, I suspected it was you… then I just tracked down the corresponding match. Please, dear, I’m not an imbecile. I can think things through.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mel said quickly, “sorry ma’am.”

  “Which is why I arranged for your company’s assignment here,” she went on. “Originally my intention was to meet you in private, but as you can see, things came to a head more rapidly than I would have liked.” She made a face, “And we Armstrongs attract trouble like magnets do iron-filings.”

  “You’re her grandmother and you’re part of our organization?” Bob Walker asked in suspicion.

  “I’m affiliated with your organization,” the Admiral answered, her blue eyes locking on the agent like the primary weapons from a ship. “Which means I’m fully briefed on the threat, though some of that is more recently than I’d like. Your group isn’t much for sharing information.” Her expression softened slightly, “They’ve authorized me to make contact with both you and Miss Yewell, here… and they’ve reassigned you as well.”

  “Reassigned?” Bob and Yewell spoke at the same time.

  “This little war in the shadows you’ve had with the Chandral seems to be winding down. Most of their people are being reassigned while they figure out what the next move is. Agent Walker’s expertise and his relationship to Aldera Kynes makes him useful for some of the joint and applied research we’re doing on Century.”

  “And me?” Yewell asked.

  “Your notoriety might come in useful on Century as well, given some of the moves Drakkus has made there. I gather your organization views Drakkus as a risk more than an opportunity. So, if you’re willing, they want you to assist in your more public role, giving Century a bit of attention and importance to all your subscribers.” The Admiral managed to deliver that in such a tone that left little doubts about her personal opinion of such things.

  Mel shook her head, “I’m sorry, could we get back to this whole thing about you knowing I was still alive?”

  The Admiral looked around at the docking bay, “Perhaps you have a briefing aboard your vessel? In the process, perhaps you could ask your brother to meet us there, I assume he’s hidden away somewhere.”

  Mel flushed, not asking how she knew that Rawn was aboard. She led the way through the corridors, trusting in Fenris to let Rawn know where to meet them.

  “I assume the ship is fully automated still?” The Admiral asked as she fell into step next to Mel. Mel gave a slight nod, wondering how much to reveal, how much she could reveal. The Admiral came from an older era, when the risk of automated warships was very, very real.

  “I assume then that Fenris is a stable AI?” The Admiral took Mel’s nod of assent. “Interesting.”

  She didn’t say anything else as they came to the briefing room. Rawn was waiting, his expression nervous. The Admiral and Mel’s cousin moved to one side. Before Mel could activate the briefing table, one of them did, remotely. Mel frowned at that, she hadn’t given either of them access rights and neither of them had pulled out datapads. She looked over at Bob and Yewell. But Bob just held up his hands to suggest he had no idea and Yewell merely shrugged.

  “Both of them have implants, Mel,” Fenris growled over the speakers. “Very, very sophisticated implants, in fact…” He trailed off. Mel looked over, noticing a slight smile on Jiden’s face.

  “What’s going on?” Mel demanded. “You’d better not be hurting him.”

  “It’s alright, Mel,” Fenris’s deep voice was… awed? It was hard for Mel to name an emotion she hadn’t heard in his voice. “It’s more than an implant. Your cousin, it’s like she is an artificial intelligence.”

  “My implant has a gestalt consciousness,” Jiden said, looking nervously at their grandmother as she spoke. She wore a cadet’s rank on her collar, Mel noted. The uniform looked good on the girl, especially since the last time she’d seen Jiden, the girl had been best defined as a “spoiled brat.”

  “My implant has an imprint of my consciousness. Together it and I form a sort of team. It allows me to interface pretty much seamlessly with technology and to multitask,” Jiden finished.

  “That’s…” Mel trailed off, frowning, “well, is that legal?”

  “Technically, yes,” the Admiral responded. “It’s not an artificial intelligence, it’s a human intelligence enhanced through artificial means. So, we’re in gray area with our feet fixed on the legal side of the fence. But part of the implications of that are why we’d like to bring Doctor Kynes aboard.”

  Mel glanced at the scientist, who was in turn staring at Jiden. “I have many questions.”

  “We can answer those later,” the Admiral told her. “I’m afraid I really don’t have very long to stay here. Sooner or later people will start asking questions and only the rather confused situation su
rrounding the attack and then the incident with Guard Free Now has given me some time to meet.”

  She let out a tense breath, “Mel, what I’m offering you is a commission in the Century Planetary Militia, as a reserve officer.”

  “Wait… what?” Mel asked in shock. “Uh, we’re a mercenary company. Beyond that, we’re wanted fugitives. I mean, Rawn—"

  “Drakkus is making hostile moves, snapping up worlds throughout the Perephery. The Guard, too, are doing the same. We suspect that Ten Sisters was just the opening move in a campaign. We’re not sure whether they intend to divide the remaining systems between them or if one will attack the other, not yet.” The Admiral brought up a display, shading various systems in different colors: purple for Drakkus and red for the Guard. “Drakkus already sent one fleet to Century. We managed to scare them off, but they may try again. I fully expect that within the next year, Century and our allies will be at a formal state of war with either the Guard, the Drakkus Empire, or both.”

  Mel’s jaw dropped in shock. “You really think—”

  “Part of our presence here at Harmony was to ensure these systems remain either neutral in our favor or became allies,” the Admiral went on, her voice hard. “President Rao saw just how hard we fought to defend his world. He’s not about to forget that. But the Guard aren’t going to forget it either and if we weren’t in their targets before, we certainly are now. Just in the past week I’ve seen reports of dozens of our merchant and missionary ships being harassed by Guard officials, all through the sector.” She cocked her head at Mel, “Tell me, do you think I really care that your ship is a violation of Guard law or that you are wanted fugitives under the same?”

  Mel gestured at her crew, “We’re mercenaries, though, I mean, we can’t just drop everything…”

  “We’d issue you a reserve commission now, secretly. You’d be auxiliaries, from this point onward. Once you finish out this contract, there’ll be another one, back on Century for ‘antipiracy patrols’ or something similar. At that point, we could make things more official. Commisions and ranks for you and your crew. We’d like your team to remain mostly intact, but over time we would like to rotate through some of our other officers, to give them experience with larger ships and the tactics involved.”