Jormungandr's Venom

by Kal Spriggs

  Mel’s eyes narrowed, “Does that mean Century is going to be acquiring larger ships?”

  “If there’s time,” the Admiral nodded. “Does that fit?”

  Mel glanced at her crew. They all stared back, the implication clear. Whatever she decided, they’d accept. “Yeah,” Mel said softly, thinking of the chance to return home, to defend her world. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  “Excellent,” Admiral Armstrong turned to look at Rawn, “as for you…” She shook her head, “You’ve certainly gotten into quite the mess.”

  Rawn straightened up, “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’d like to formally surrender. I think I should face a trial—”

  “Don’t be absurd,” The Admiral waved a hand. “There’s no way you’d get a fair trial. In Guard space they’d use you as a reason to invade Century, talking up your connections to me and your presence in the late Colonel Frost’s organization in a way to make it seem that Century had been backing his actions.” She shook her head, “On Century, based off of some of the recent events, you’d probably be exonerated of all charges.” She closed her eyes, “I’ve read through reports. You are, directly or not, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. In helping Frost to modify those freighters, you nearly killed billions.”

  “I know,” Rawn looked down at the deck.

  “There’s not an easy answer. I know you hate the Guard and part of me wants to enroll you in the Academy, give you a chance to turn your skills into something our Militia could use… but I think we both know that you can’t put your past behind you that easily, don’t we?”

  Rawn gave a nod.

  “Agent Walker’s organization is doing some restructuring. If you’re interested, I can put in a word for you. You can go to work doing something very, very important,” The Admiral peered at him as she said that, as if she were searching his features for something. “It’s a good cause, and I won’t lie, they hate the Guard almost as much as they hate the Chandral.”

  Rawn gave a snort, “You think they’d actually take me?”

  “Think about it. The other option I have for you is working for our intelligence service back on Century. It’s small, but we’re rebuilding after some… incidents.” She said the word with an expression of severe distaste. “Our intelligence assets were compromised by Drakkus, it’s almost a complete overhaul, but they can use people with experience. Either way, I’d like to send you and the capture Guard Free Now personnel back to Century.”

  “The prisoners?” Mel asked in surprise.

  “They need to disappear. Most of them are unrepentant, I’m sure, and all of them know too much. We’ll offer them choices of working in one of our prison work camps or execution. After a few years, what they know won’t matter as much and any that can be rehabilitated, we will.” The Admiral went on, “We’re rotating some personnel back to Century, I have a vessel ready to leave in the next few hours.”

  “The fast transport that just arrived?” Mel asked suspiciously.

  The Admiral gave a smile of approval, “I see you’re keeping an eye on things. Good. Yes, the same one that just arrived. Jiden will be going back as well, she’ll act as my representative to make certain my orders are carried out aboard the transport.”

  “I’m sorry,” Johnny Woodard paused, “but a cadet?”

  Jiden straightened up, “I’ve seen plenty of combat, and I’m a cadet first class.”

  “Besides that,” The Admiral snorted, “She’s an Armstrong. She’ll make certain my orders are followed out and the only people who might gainsay her are the ones we’re going to slip past by keeping this all very quiet, right at first.” She took a deep breath. “I think we have a year, maybe even two years before this war starts in earnest. We need every second of that to get ready, to marshal our forces. What do you say?”

  Mel looked at Rawn, who nodded. She looked back at her grandmother. “Well, ma’am, Captain Melanie Armstrong, Commanding officer of the Fenris, reporting for duty.”

  It was the proudest moment of her life when her grandmother saluted her back.

  ###

  And now check out Cry Wolf by Christopher Nuttall:

  They say democracy dies in darkness ...

  Earth has fallen. The Empire is no more. Old certainties are collapsing everywhere. Chaos is spreading across the stars, with war following in its wake ...

  Tarsus, a world too close to Earth for comfort, is far from immune.

  Clarence Esperanza, a reporter on Tarsus, thought he had the story of the century. But, when he took the story to his bosses, he was unceremoniously fired. Cut off from his former friends, abandoned by his wife isolated from the world around him, he thought all he could do was stagger onto the streets and wait to die. But when an old friend offers him a job, with a new news outlet challenging the dominance of the planetary media networks, he finds himself on the front lines of a struggle for control of the planet ...

  ... And fighting for the freedom of an entire world.

  https://www.amazon.com/Cry-Wolf-Empires-Corps-Book-ebook/dp/B07NBR44N7/

  Chapter One

  It will come as no surprise that the single most distrusted entity within the Empire, from the moment the decline began to Earth’s final collapse into madness, was the media. It is difficult to say for sure, but it seems unlikely that many people believed what they were being told.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. Crying Wolf: The Media and the Fall of the Empire.

  It was a dark and stormy night, Clarence Esperanza narrated to himself, as he surveyed the chain-link fence between him and the dark industrial estate. It was a dark and stormy night, damn it!

  He smiled - white teeth flashing in a dark face - as he looked for an easy way to get over the fence. He’d always enjoyed adding little flourishes to his work, even if half of them were gleefully stolen from ancient writers hardly anyone - and certainly none of his readers - had heard of. It wasn’t theft, not really. It was ... all right, maybe it was a kind of theft, but it was in a good cause. Clarence knew, without false modesty, that he was no writer. He lacked the skill to string words together in a manner that would comfort the powerless and afflict the powerful. Whatever skill he’d had in writing, once upon a time, had been ground out of him by a creative writing course and ten years as a reporter. It was no comfort to know that everyone else had the same problem.

  An aircar flew overhead, heading north towards the spaceport. Clarence glanced up at it, then returned his attention to the fence. The estate had been abandoned two years ago, according to the city files, but someone had taken precautions to make sure that no one could get in or out of the massive complex without going through the gates. Clarence had expected to find a whole string of holes in the wire - cut by the homeless, looking desperately for somewhere to sleep that wasn’t damp and cold - but there was nothing. Gritting his teeth, he checked his gloves and started to scramble over the fence. It was harder than it looked and he nearly fell twice before he got over the wire and landed on the far side. The sound of his feet hitting the ground was terrifyingly loud in the silent night air. He ducked down, expecting to see a night-watchman heading towards him. The estate was certainly large enough to merit someone on duty at all times.

  And my press pass probably won’t be enough to spare me a night in jail, Clarence thought, as he listened for the sound of approaching footsteps. The watchman might show him the door or he might call the cops. There was no way to know how the cops would react. They wouldn’t risk abusing a journalist, but a night in the cells was hardly abuse. And the editor will give me hell for being caught.

  He smiled at the thought. The tip-off had been vague, but it had come from a trustworthy source. Something was going to happen tonight, in the vast industrial estate. Clarence would have preferred more details, particularly a clear idea of precisely what was going to happen, but his source had gone silent. That wasn’t uncommon, in a world where talking to the media could get a source fired and blacklisted ... he shook his
head. The risk of getting caught was high - press pass or no press pass - but it had been a long time since he’d done anything worthy of the great reporters of the distant past. He’d spent the last five years taking official statements and trying, desperately, to put his own spin on bland pap. One might as well add spice to fried mush. No matter how much spice one used, it was still mush.

  His smile grew wider as he stood and slipped further into the industrial estate. A chunk of it, according to the files, had been turned into living space for the Forsakers, but the remainder was still empty and cold. He glanced into a giant warehouse as he passed the door, seeing absolutely nothing inside. The building itself was designed to survive everything the planet could throw at it, but the owners had declined to turn it into a homeless shelter. Clarence snorted in disgust as he took a quick snap of the interior, then resumed his walk into the estate. It hadn’t escaped his notice that the number of homeless camps - and beggars on the streets - had been increasing recently. There was probably a good human interest story in there, somewhere. And perhaps a story asking precisely why the estate had been abandoned when it could be turned into a homeless shelter.

  He walked around another warehouse and stopped, dead, as he saw the second fence. The owners might have deeded part of their territory to the Forsakers, willingly or not, but they’d clearly been determined that the Forsakers would not leave the handful of warehouses that had been put aside for them. This fence was even newer than the last one, with barbed wire on the top. Clarence wouldn’t have cared to bet that it hadn’t been electrified, if not alarmed. The owners looked to be selfish bastards. They probably wouldn’t give a damn if some poor hobo touched the fence and got a nasty shock ...

  Wankers, Clarence thought.

  He put the thought aside as he peered into the semi-darkness. Nothing was happening, as far as he could tell. A small fire burned merrily outside one of the closer warehouses - a handful of people clearly visible in the light - but little else. It looked like a homeless camp, not ... he tried to decide what it looked like, then gave up. It didn’t matter. It didn’t look as if anything important was happening within the darkness, certainly nothing demanding his attention. Shaking his head, he walked over to the nearest abandoned warehouse and scrambled up a ladder onto the roof. The air felt colder, somehow, as he lay on the rooftop and looked towards the Forsaker camp. Nothing was happening.

  Waste of time, he thought, as the cold started to seep into his bones. I should have stayed in bed with my wife.

  He allowed himself a moment of irritation, then reminded himself to be patient. The really great reporters didn’t sit in their offices and wait for someone to bring them the news. No, they went out and got the news. Sometimes, it went badly wrong and then they were the news ... Clarence shook his head, again. Nothing was going to go wrong. He was just going to wait a few hours and see what happened, then sneak back over the fence, call a hovercab and go home. His editor would have a few nasty things to say if Clarence turned up at the office without a story - or hopped up on stims - but he’d understand. It wouldn’t be the first time a tip had turned into a giant waste of time. Clarence reached into his pocket, produced his recording spectacles and placed them on his nose. They were a pain in the ass to wear, but their recordings had saved his bacon more than once. If nothing else, they’d prove he hadn’t been doing nothing in the dead of night.

  Although I am doing nothing, he thought, silently starting to compose his latest story for the newspaper. I’m lying on my chest on a freezing cold rooftop when I could be having naked time with my wife.

  Another aircar flew overhead, lights flickering in the darkness. Clarence did his best to ignore it, telling himself that the aircar wasn’t looking for him. It wouldn’t take military-grade sensors to pick him out on the rooftop, but who would give a damn? He looked like a hobo himself - he’d been careful to dress as a dockyard worker, rather than a flashy reporter - and it was unlikely that anyone would care about a hobo in an abandoned estate. It wasn’t as if there was anything worth stealing ... not really. The only thing of any value within the estate was the buildings themselves. It wasn’t as if a small army of hobos could pick them up and carry them away.

  Which won’t stop the police chasing the hobos out if someone makes a fuss, he thought, grimly. There was another human interest story there, he was sure. The homeless simply want a roof over their heads when they sleep, just like the rest of us.

  It was nearly an hour - and he was on the verge of giving up - when he heard the faint sound of engines. He tensed, peering into the darkness. A small handful of trucks were pulling up at the distant gate. Were they coming for him? He silently calculated a handful of ways to get out of the estate in a hurry, although - as policemen started spilling out of the trucks - he had a nasty feeling that there would be no way out. It looked as if the police had arrived in force, ready for war. He could see men wearing helmets and body armour, carrying shockrods and neural whips in the foreground, while others - armed with real weapons - hung back. They looked ready to intervene at any moment.

  His blood ran cold. This was wrong. The police did not come in the dead of night, certainly not to a harmless estate. It was hard enough to get them to come out when one lived in a middle-class estate in the heart of the city, let alone the homeless camps and ghettos along the edge. But now ... a shiver ran down his spine as the policemen moved forward in eerie silence. He tapped his spectacles, making sure they were recording the scene. The policemen moved through the gates and straight towards the warehouses ...

  Someone shouted. A handful of men appeared, carrying makeshift weapons. Clarence winced, unsure if he should laugh or cry. The Forsakers were carrying baseball bats and iron rods, nothing really dangerous to a man in body armour. They didn’t even have a chance to try before a flurry of stun bolts left them lying on the ground, twitching helplessly. The policemen marched over them, abandoning all pretence at stealth. Clarence covered his eyes as the policemen turned on the lights. The estate was suddenly bathed in brilliant white light.

  “ATTENTION,” a voice boomed. The warehouse seemed to shake with every word. “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

  Clarence covered his ears, a fraction of a second too late. He couldn’t help thinking, as he turned his head to capture as many details as possible, that half the city had been awoken by the racket. The warehouse district was large, but it wasn’t that large. He watched, feeling a twinge of sympathy, as dazed Forsakers stumbled out of the warehouses. The policemen grabbed them, male and female alike, and snapped on the cuffs before forcing them to lie on the ground and wait. Clarence made sure to record it all. The public wouldn’t be sorry for the Forsakers unless they saw the poor bastards being made to suffer.

  And it is so pointless, he thought, as a crying child was made to sit next to her mother. What does it matter?

  He shuddered, helplessly. The Forsakers had a bad reputation. They were lazy and arrogant beggars, walking around in their traditional clothes as if the world owed them a living, utterly unwilling to abandon their primitive culture and join the mainstream. Everyone knew the Forsakers were a drain on the planet’s public funds ... until they actually ran the figures for themselves. Clarence had, more out of curiosity than anything else. The Forsakers weren’t draining the planet dry. They weren’t even claiming a percentage point of a percentage point of the government’s budget. The government spent more on bureaucracy than it did on public aid.

  A scream rent the night air. Clarence scanned the scene before him, then zoomed in on a young girl who was being harassed by two policemen. One of them was holding her, the other had his hand up her dress ... Clarence shuddered again, as a senior officer marched over and rebuked the two coppers, who didn’t look remotely repentant. Clarence wasn’t really surprised. The news file in the office contained lots of stories about policemen who abused their powers, stories that the editor had killed on the grounds they’d incite social unrest. And some of the stories had b
een a little hard to believe ... Clarence swallowed. It was clear, now, that the stories had some basis in truth.

  But that doesn’t mean they’re true, he thought. The poor girl, crying silently, had been dumped with her fellows. Just that they could have happened.

  The dreadful night wore on. Clarence watched, helplessly, as the policemen stripped everything out of the warehouses and piled it up in the trucks, then marched the prisoners to the gate. He filmed everything, from the crying children to the broken spindles and other primitive tools that were part of the Forsaker heritage. The policemen seemed to take an unholy delight in breaking things, although it was nothing but spite. There was certainly nothing to be gained by smashing tools the Forsakers would need ...

  It hit him in a moment of insight. Dear God, he thought. They’re deporting the bastards!

  Clarence swallowed, hard. It couldn’t be true, could it? There was nothing to be gained by shoving the Forsakers on a starship and tell them never to come back. He ran the calculations in his head and scowled. It would probably cost the government more, in the long run, to deport the Forsakers than to keep them. Hell, there was no reason the Forsakers couldn’t be given land and told to farm it if they wanted to stay alive. But they’d already been evicted from lands they’d held for generations. The big farming corporations had wanted the land for themselves and the government hadn’t had the will to say no. Who cared about a bunch of weirdoes in outdated clothes when there was money to be made?