Jormungandr's Venom Read online

  Jormungandr’s Venom

  by

  Kal Spriggs

  Edited by Leo Champion

  Cover by Cedar Sanderson

  Published by Henchman Press

  ISBN 978-1-941620-21-2

  Copyright 2015 Jacob ‘Kal’ Spriggs

  Books by Kal Spriggs

  Kal’s Amazon Page

  The Shadow Space Chronicles

  The Fallen Race

  The Shattered Empire

  The Prodigal Emperor

  The Sacred Stars

  The Temple of Light

  Ghost Star

  The Star Engine*

  The Renegades

  Renegades: Origins

  Renegades: Out of the Cold

  Renegades: Out of Time

  Renegades: Royal Pains*

  The Star Portal Universe

  Valor’s Child

  Valor’s Calling

  Valor’s Duty

  Valor's Cost

  Valor's Stand*

  Lost Valor

  Fenris Unchained

  Odin’s Eye

  Jormungandr’s Venom

  The Eoriel Saga

  Echo of the High Kings

  Wrath of the Usurper

  Fate of the Tyrant

  Heir to the Fallen Duke*

  The Project Archon Files

  Prisoner of the Mind

  Prisoner of Fate*

  *Forthcoming

  Prologue

  Time: 0730 Zulu, 25 December 291 G.D.

  Location: Skynner System

  Three hundred megatons of matter-antimatter warheads detonated in sequence at less than a thousand kilometers from Fenris's warp field. The massive warship shuddered and the drive field flickered for an imperceptible moment. The humans aboard would not have been able to even sense it, but Fenris could feel the agonizing instant that the destabilizing jolt of energy exceeded the safety margins of the drive by over three hundred percent.

  “I don't think they like us,” Mel commented.

  “As always, you have a penchant for stating the obvious,” Fenris growled. After all, it was his hull at which they were throwing their warheads. The fact that Mel shared in his personal risk made her humor tolerable... but Fenris wasn't given to humor.

  After all, he was an artificial intelligence housed inside the hull of a battlecruiser. He wasn't human, he was a machine. As a machine, he was able to sense the pirate warships as they swept around, their warp drives allowing them to execute maneuvers that completely defied Newtonian physics. Their intent to retreat was obvious, as was the fact that Fenris could follow them easily, especially since they'd just volleyed the entire contents of their magazines to no effect.

  “Shall we kill them?” Brian asked with a predatory smile. Fenris liked Brian Liu's attitude. In fact, the two of them shared the most in common of their crew. They were both artificial creations, Brian manufactured in a genetic engineering lab and Fenris assembled in a shipyard. They were both designed for war. They were both relics of earlier times... and they were both predators.

  And both of them listened to Mel. She gave them a sort of moral compass that helped them to determine what was right and wrong... and more importantly, who it was okay to hunt and kill.

  “Kill them all,” she snapped.

  Fenris went to full acceleration without hesitation. The three pirate corvettes had military-grade drives, which meant they were deeper and stronger than civilian vessels, but they were nowhere near as powerful or deep as Fenris's drive. Larger ships had deeper drives and were able to reach faster sub-light warp velocities... and Fenris was a battlecruiser. More than that, even for a battlecruiser, Fenris had an exceptionally powerful and deep drive.

  After all, the warship was fully automated. It had far less space wasted on things like living quarters, radiation shielding, and frivolities like food storage. Even Fenris's environmental system was mostly an afterthought, included to make construction more convenient in the beginning and never stripped out afterward.

  All three pirate vessels scattered as Fenris went into pursuit. They darted off in opposite directions, on radically changing vectors. To Fenris's artificial mind, their maneuvers were predictable and their movements arthritic.

  Against equally slow patrol craft or possibly even a destroyer, as many as two of the small pirate vessels might have managed an escape. Against Fenris, they would have been better off to remain together and unify their fire.

  Fenris bracketed the nearest vessel and fired with his secondary battery, even as he moved into pursuit of the second ship. Before his first shots had even landed, he opened up with his primary battery. The third ship had time to see him coming and it volleyed a trio of warp-missiles. Fenris had expected that. He went evasive, even as he sensed Mel firing the interceptor weapons against the fast but relatively unmaneuverable warp missiles.

  Two of the three detonated in matter-antimatter explosions and Fenris successfully dodged the third, Mel picking it off as it fell astern of them. Fenris sensed the third pirate craft spooling up its strategic warp drive and he opened fire with primary and secondary weapons batteries at the same time.

  Those batteries would have been a credible threat against a dreadnought, much less a corvette. The pirate's drive field vanished and the ship disappeared against the massive power of the antimatter projectors and his primary Mark Twenty-Five disruptor cannons. “Targets destroyed,” Fenris growled in satisfaction.

  “Damn,” Marcus muttered from communications, “they didn't even have a chance to signal that they surrendered.” No one suggested looking for survivors. The scale of the weapons that they mounted meant that once a warp field went down, most small ships were rendered to their constituent atoms instantly.

  “Our contract specifies shoot-on-sight for all confirmed pirates,” Fenris grated. He didn't much like pirates. His makers had created him to protect humanity, and the fact that some of their kind preyed upon their own left him with a hollow, uncertain feeling. To be able to erase such things from the galaxy left him feeling better.

  Plus, the opportunity to test out his new armament made him feel better. The new secondary armaments, their antimatter projectors, had performed excellently. His new Mark Twenty Five heavy disruptors had also been effective, though he'd relied upon the secondary batteries for the kills. He was glad they'd been able to purchase them. They far outstripped his previous mass drivers, which was saying quite a bit, considering the fact that he'd taken on an entire Culmor convoy and won. Normally heavy disruptors were only carried by dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts. Battlecruisers and battleships mounted normal disruptor cannons, either mark thirteens like his old primary armament, Mark fifteens, which was what the higher end mercenaries used, or mark seventeens, which was the latest generation only available for Guard Fleet vessels.

  Most smaller ships relied on mass drivers with antimatter warheads or antimatter projectors. The intent of both was to cause a massive enough energy release in proximity to a drive field to knock it out, which was effective enough against ships up to cruiser size. But larger ships, capital ships, had too great of tactical warp speed for those types of weapons to be entirely effective, especially not in a battle of maneuver. That was where disruptor and heavy disruptor cannons came in. They utilized the same exotic particles used in creating warp drives and caused massive destabilization in warp fields on impact. They also tended to severely damage hull if they managed to penetrate a warp field and hit the ship beneath, so having a good disruptor armament was particularly nice. Fenris wanted a bit more practice with his before he was willing to admit they were superior to his previous armament, but he was happy enough with them for now.

  “We confirmed that all three vessels were on th
e known wanted lists,” Mel noted. “We gave them an initial opportunity to surrender, they chose to attack us and then flee.”

  “Not like we have a prize crew aboard anyway,” Brian Liu snorted. “Though I wish I'd had a chance to kill a few of them in hand-to-hand, this trip has been boring for me. At least we get the kill bonus as specified in our contracts.”

  “Only once we fill out the paperwork,” Mel reminded him. Fenris could have volunteered to do that, but there was being helpful and there was being too helpful. Just because he could do it quickly didn't mean he wanted to do it. Fenris was an artificial intelligence, but that didn't mean he enjoyed the reams of official documents that would go into proving their kills for the Guard Fleet contract bonus. There would be a sensor addendum, signed and witnessed documents, official statements, all of it in the archaic legally-required formats designated centuries earlier at the founding of the Mercenary Guild.

  Fenris could have done all of it in only minutes, but those minutes would feel like years. Besides, he'd made certain that their mercenary charter put the onus of the paperwork on someone else. Fenris stuck to what he did best.

  Brian, apparently, agreed with his sentiment, “That's your job, Captain. Have fun with the paperwork, I'm just here to break things and kill people. That's a very merry Christmas to everyone involved.” He smirked, “Well, except for them. I guess they should have been good little boys and girls. Now, since that task is done, I think I'm off duty... Who's up for steak?”

  Fenris didn't miss Mel's glare after the man, but she didn't stop him.

  “Fenris, please transfer the appropriate sensor data to my console,” Mel said after a moment. He noted that she didn't ask him for any help beyond that. He suspected that some part of her relished the tedious work, it gave her some privacy and time to think.

  “Of course, Mel,” Fenris replied, even as he monitored the crew. The bridge crew wasn't large. Brian, Mel, and Marcus Keller filled out the primary bridge crew. The others included Johnny Woodard, the team's medic, Bob Walker, who acted as a contact man and spokesperson, Jeremiah Swaim, who acted as a sort of hacker and general hanger-on, Lace, who acted as a scout and infiltrator, and Aldera Kynes who served as their engineer. It was a small crew, particularly for such a large ship... but Fenris had been designed to be entirely autonomous, it wasn't as if he really needed a crew. Most of their duties were entirely superficial, merely to provide a human interface for their dealings with other ships. Since autonomous warships were illegal and artificial intelligence was expressly forbidden, that interface was a necessary fiction so that Guard Fleet didn't realize the truth and have him hunted down and destroyed. Now that Fenris knew that he was sentient, sapient, and free-willed, he would have to oppose that destruction, but he would rather not have to kill innocent men and women serving in Guard Fleet just to protect himself, at least, not when he could maintain a fiction of having a crew relatively easily.

  Plus it means I have friends... of a sort.

  Fenris watched the humans as they went about their routines inside his hull. They were a strange lot, even for humans. Brian was a fellow predator, arguably as inhuman as Fenris. Marcus was a former Guard Intelligence Agent who'd done terrible things for a cause he no longer believed in. Bob Walker was some kind of agent for a mysterious organization. Lace was a mercenary infiltrator. Woodard was a former Guard Marine Corps medic. Aldera Kynes was an escapee from a secret Guard Intelligence science lab. Swaim was... well, he wasn't sure why they kept the young man around. Probably because he'd get himself into a lot of trouble without some adult supervision.

  Then there was Mel, the glue that held them all together. She was hard enough to order the execution of their pirate attackers and yet soft enough to believe in all of them... even a multimillion ton self-aware battlecruiser.

  In the quiet solitude of his artificial mind, Fenris could admit that he didn't really care all that much about the others or even his risk of discovery by the Guard. He was just glad for Mel's presence.

  ***

  Chapter 1

  Time: 1500 Zulu, 09 January 292 G.D.

  Location: Blisken Station, Hanet System

  “Five pirate vessels destroyed in as many weeks, color me impressed,” Mr Wilson said, though his tone was still harsh and stern. His scarred and seamed face showed little emotion, but then again, he'd seen enough reconstructive surgery that he didn't have much movement left in his face. “You've completed your contract term and earned a nice bonus besides. Your employer released the funds from escrow, they should hit your account in the next few minutes.”

  “That's good news,” Mel said with a sigh. Money was something that they always needed. Money purchased connections, completing contracts kept the Mercenary Guild happy, and the combination of both kept Fenris and his crew's survival a secret. That last was important when merely existing was grounds for destruction.

  “Any new work that you'd care to send our way?” Mel asked. Most mercenary units put out bids for work. Mel's crew was... special enough that they could be a bit more selective about their jobs... plus there was the whole aspect of concealing their identities.

  “Well, Mel, what do you know about Harmony?” Wilson sat back behind his big wooden desk.

  She immediately thought about the three pre-teen singers who'd just released their latest synth-pop album. She hoped that wasn't what he meant. “Uh, peace, love, and understanding?” Mel answered nervously.

  “Ha,” Wilson snorted. “No, profit in that kind of crap. I meant the star system.”

  “Oh, thank god,” Mel said after a moment, “I was really hoping you didn't mean the music icons, because if you set us up with another VIP escort I would probably kill them myself.” They'd done two such missions, where wealthy media types had paid big for a discrete and powerful escort for themselves. Both had been obnoxious, always wanting more, insisting that their private yachts had far better quarters and service. Add into that the necessity to keep up the illusion that they had a full crew and it made for a serious headache. Mel would take fighting paramilitary types or vicious pirates over that kind of thing any day.

  “No, the Harmony Protectorate,” Wilson rolled his eyes. “The semi-autonomous cluster of systems near the Periphery. They just had a military coup, then the Guard sent in a Peacekeeper force to oversee a transitional election. The Mercenary Guild has a whole bunch of contracts to help out... and I got your crew a spot there.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Mel replied.

  “Good. There's lots of jostling for jobs, looks like there'll be plenty of opportunities to look good and establish yourselves, and ninety percent of this work is about establishing a reputation.” Wilson pulled a cigar out of his desk. The Centurians are operating there, Admiral Armstrong just took charge.”

  “Wait... what?” Mel asked in shock. Last she'd heard, the Admiral had been in charge of Century's Military Academy. The last thing that she wanted to do was run into one of the few people who might recognize her.

  “I guess she's looking for a bit more of an active role,” Wilson said as he chewed on the end of his cigar. “Anyway, is that going to be a problem for you?”

  “No, no it isn't,” Mel said. Odds were against her encountering the Admiral under any kind of personal meeting. Most communications between mercenaries were held electronically, and Mel could have Fenris run her face through a real-time altering iteration. Not a lot, but just enough so that her grandmother wouldn't recognize her.

  “Good,” Wilson waved a hand, “go out and do good things. I've sent the details to your ship. I'll want the contracts signed by the end of the day.”

  “Thanks,” Mel replied. The informality of his dismissal might have irritated her, but for the fact that this sounded like he'd given her just the kind of job she'd been trying to get for the past couple of months. She stepped briskly out of his office and her mind went two and three steps ahead as she considered what she needed to do.

  If the United Nations Star
Guard had moved in to “restore order” then that meant they'd be running roughshod over what had once been a semi-autonomous nation within the Guard Charter. There weren't many star systems with that kind of legitimate authority and it was a huge violation of the technical terms of the Charter for the Guard to get involved this way.

  Odds were that Guard Free Now would have people on the scene already. The terrorist organization would see plenty of opportunities to make the Guard look bad in general and to further their cause, specifically to gain access to weapons, manpower, and ships.

  That meant they'd have lots of their people on the ground. The more Guard Free Now personnel they had in place, the higher the chances that she'd encounter her brother, Rawn, among them. Mel didn't care about the rest of them, she didn't care about their cause, but she wanted ten minutes to shake some sense into her brother.

  It looked more and more like her little brother had become deeply involved with Guard Free Now. She'd already seen what passed for justice under the Guard, especially when they were pursuing people they saw as threats. Which meant that if the Guard caught him, they were going to kill him.

  That was assuming she didn't strangle him first.

  ***

  “So, we'll be assigned to the peacekeeper task force there in the Harmony system,” Mel finished. She looked around at the group. Some of those faces were relatively new, some had been with the Fenris since the beginning. Brian Liu, a genetically engineered super soldier was a familiar, arrogant presence. Brian didn't seem to really understand the emotion of fear and his levels of confidence were born from his ability to survive just about anything. Bob Walker, the mystery agent from an unknown organization was as cheerful as ever, though he had seemed unduly interested in odd details of the briefing. Mel still didn't know who pulled his strings, but he carried around an oversized hand-cannon and he seemed to be hunting some kind of mutant humans for reasons unknown.