Asymmetry Read online

  ASYMMETRY

  Published by A.G. Claymore

  Edited by B.H. MacFadyen

  Copyright 2019 A.G. Claymore

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and brands are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of any products referenced in this work of fiction which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Teambuilding Exercises

  Welcome to Easy Street…

  From a welcome to new inductees from fleet

  “Many of you have experienced asymmetrical warfare, whether it be against the Krypteia, the Oudstoners or the various insurgent factions on Alliance worlds. You have experienced the frustration of never knowing when they might strike, never knowing if you’ve succeeded against them.

  I hate to tell you, folks, but you haven’t.

  A conventional force is expected to eradicate or neutralize their enemy in order to win, a nearly impossible task in asymmetrical conflict. All the enemy has to do is not lose.

  Now that’s your objective. I don’t expect you to wipe out their fleets; I expect you to not lose.

  Welcome to the LRG.

  Commander J Gabiola, LRG founder.

  Talent Scout

  Lychensee, Weirfall

  A flight of birds erupted from nearby trees, startled by the sudden roar of acclaim. They swirled in a dense cloud, coalescing near the peak of the large glazed space before flowing out through one of the enclosed bridges to another, quieter roof-top space.

  The Midgaard warriors assembled for this week’s Althing had sat through three hours of boring disputation but now they were being rewarded. An argument between two minor haulds had come down to ritual combat.

  The Midgaard loved a good fight.

  With lifespans spanning several millennia, anything that brought on an adrenaline rush, anything that made them feel alive, was something to savor.

  Two combatants strutted out into the speaking circle at the center of the Althing’s seating tiers. The larger sauntered casually over to the heavy long-handled hammer at his side of the circle. He overflowed with confidence but that was fine.

  He had more than enough to spare.

  Freya swiped a betting screen from her vision and turned her gaze on the second warrior.

  He was half his opponent’s weight. He walked lightly, on the balls of his feet, knees slightly flexed, eyes riveted on his opponent. He stopped near the circle’s edge and shrugged, starting the sequence that would open his armor.

  The crowd fell into a speculative buzz of surprise as he stepped out of his protective shell wearing only a light under-armor suit. He kept his eyes on his opponent as he gave his muscles a quick stretch.

  The larger man reached down to collect his hammer and he gave his opponent an evil grin as he hefted it. The lighter man offered a polite nod then turned to his armor, sliding a long knife out of a sheath on the suit’s left arm.

  “I’m willing to let the matter drop,” the big man said, his scorn clear, “if you withdraw your claim.”

  The unarmored man laughed. “Come now, Eirar,” he chided gently. “There’s no shame in your fear. It’s how you use it that counts!”

  The chuckles from the tiers showed the smaller of the two combatants had won the first round. Ritual insult was clearly not the big man’s strong suit.

  Freya took a closer look at the one called Eirar. His knuckles were white where he held the hammer’s haft. No finesse, she thought, only a mad fighting rage.

  She re-opened the betting window and put a large sum on the smaller man, Ingolf.

  The air of the large atrium reverberated with the striking of the lawgiver’s spear shaft against the large, hollow flagstones of the dais. All eyes turned to Odin, standing with his right hand on Gungnir’s haft.

  “Warriors,” he called, “can you not resolve this peaceably?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “Then hold fast to your hilts and let no man disgrace himself in my court.” Odin brought Gungnir’s spiked butt down on the flagstones again and the fight was on.

  Eirar brought his hammer to the shoulder-guard position, raising one eyebrow at his opponent but the other man was already moving, running straight at him.

  Eyes wide, the big man began a swing that should have taken his opponent’s head clean off but the unarmored man dropped to the smooth stones and slid beneath the arc of the hammer. He reached out, jamming his knife under the plate where foot meets shin and he sliced under it, tearing a shower of small plates away from the outside of the joint.

  It hadn’t drawn blood but the knife had weakened the armor’s ability to support its own weight on the right side. Eirar would have a hard time wielding his heavy weapon with an unbalanced suit.

  Ingolf levered himself back onto his feet at the end of his slide and launched himself at his foe again. Eirar turned to him awkwardly hammer at the low-guard and Ingolf flew into a high jump, his blade coming forward to strike but the angles were all wrong.

  He wasn’t close enough to make contact but he’d barely escaped Eirar’s wild upward swing so perhaps it was for the best. Freya frowned, wondering why such an ineffective attack had followed an opening move of such strategic subtlety.

  Then she saw Eirar’s grimace, the sudden change in posture. Ingolf had forced the sudden, desperate upswing of the heavy hammer and now Eirar’s back was paying the price. He was trying to hide it but every single movement was hurting like the corpse-ripper’s teeth.

  He had to know he was going to be carved down to nothing and then dispatched but he snarled his defiance, bringing his hammer slowly back to the high guard so as to give himself the most options for quick response.

  Ingolf raced in toward the injured foot a second time but jammed his right foot hard against the stones and committed himself to a slide across his opponent’s front, ready to slice into the other ankle joint.

  Eirar’s hammer hit the floor and he dropped like a three-hundred-kilo armored sack.

  Straight onto Ingolf’s sliding, unarmored form.

  The smaller man’s thrust never found its target. There was a crack of ribs as Eirar’s deliberate fall brought his shoulder down onto his foe’s chest. Both men grunted in pain, Eirar in response to his lower back muscles and Ingolf likely due to a rib or two in his lungs. The knife clattered to the stones.

  There was a bubbling gasp of pain and a sickening crunch as Eirar grabbed Ingolf’s left foot and twisted it savagely around. Freya nodded to herself. Definitely a punctured lung.

  The bigger man rolled over to grasp the long handle of his hammer, using it to lever himself back to his feet. He turned back to see Ingolf’s right hand searching for his dropped knife. He braced himself against the handle of his weapon and used his right foot to slide the knife over to his foe.

  Ingolf’s fingers closed around the hilt with a sigh and the crowd, silent since the fall, now murmured in sentimental approval.

  Eirar slowly worked the hammer back up to sit over his shoulder, gritting his teeth against the pain. He looked down at his foe. “You want an open helm at your funeral?”

  A nod. “Chest is already a mess anyway,” Ingolf wheezed. He closed his fingers tight on the hilt of his knife, knuckles white.

  Eirar pressed his left foot down on those fingers, holding them on the hilt, and gave a roar of pain as he lifted the hammer higher
then brought it smashing down over the smaller man’s heart.

  Freya shuddered as the weapon crashed through flesh and bone, crushing the heart. She didn’t turn away until Ingolf’s body stopped twitching, until the binders came to make sure the knife stayed in Ingolf’s hand when Eirar removed his. They chanted as they applied the bandages that would secure his hand to the weapon he’d held in his final moments.

  The crowd dispersed quickly. The fight had been exciting but it was hardly an unusual event in Midgaard society. They left in small groups, some quietly discussing the fight, others re-litigating cases from earlier in the day.

  Freya got up and walked over to the dais, a small Dactari following her nervously. As she approached, Odin gave her a cursory glance.

  “Session’s over,” he grunted, retracting the shaft of his spear from an eight-foot length down into a two handed grip. He slid Gungnir into a sheath at his hip.

  “So you might have a little time on your hands?” she asked him.

  He turned back, running a more thorough gaze over her.

  She smiled. “That’s not the kind of excitement I’m offering, you old goat!”

  He laughed. “Not so old I can’t bend you over my knee for your insolence!”

  She frowned. “My great grandmother used the same phrase when I was little.”

  Odin stopped laughing. He peered closely at her. “She would have lived on Earth, then?”

  She nodded. “Born and raised there. Erin Shelby.”

  His eyes widened, just a little. “Then that would make you Fenris’ descendant? You’re one of those Long-Range Group captains?”

  “That’s right. Name’s Freya.”

  “So tell me, Freya, why a captain from the LRG is here, offering me excitement.” He nodded toward the south pedway. “I’m in desperate need of coffee, so why don’t you explain along the way?”

  She fell in next to him, passing through a small stand of trees between the dais and the soft-surfaced pathway. “I’m putting together a team for a rescue mission.” she began, waving away a large insect much like an Earth mosquito but twenty times larger.

  The wildlife of Weirfall existed only inside the glass-enclosed tops of the buildings. Birds, insects, fish, animals… even small rivers… all moved freely about the pedway-connected upper-most levels of the city.

  The amphitheater used by the Midgaard for their Althings – their regular gathering where justice was presided over by the law-giver – was in one such space. It was surrounded by so many trees, the only way to remember they were still indoors was to look straight up and see the framework of metal, carbon and glazing that enclosed it.

  It was alright if you didn’t mind random, simulated rain, or insects whose bites required generous amounts of wound adhesive.

  “Who’s getting rescued?”

  She walked on in silence for a few moments. “It’s time we got Gabs back,” she said, her voice defiant.

  “Commander Gabiola?” he darted a glance at her as they passed into the pedway. “You’d be what… sixty years old at the most? Have you even served with her?”

  “I’m sixty-five,” she said. “I spent six years under her. Long enough to know she’s a valuable asset worth a little risk.”

  “There’s also the small problem of her having been reported as killed in action,” Odin added helpfully. “What makes you think there’s anything left to rescue?”

  “Marin!” Freya waved the Dactari up from where he’d been trailing her. “Tell the law-giver about your favorite tunes.”

  “My favorite…” He gulped. “Right, who am I to question insanity? Umm… Well, there’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ which is pretty cool. Anything by Arcade Hooligans is awesome…”

  “Why is that Dactari with you and why should I give a bent shit over his taste in music?” Odin growled, effectively ending Marin’s recital.

  “We took him off a merc ship, back when we seized Chaco Benthic.” Freya waved Marin back. “He’s telling you about his taste in music because it represents a key bit of intel.”

  She glanced at Odin as they approached a MoonSilver franchise in the middle of the pedway. “Anyone who knows Gabs can tell you the Dactari Republic has her taste in music.”

  “Because they recovered her iPlant intact and converted the music files to their own format.” Odin said, coming to stare up at the menu board. “Four thousand years old and I still never bother to think my order through ahead of time,” he muttered.

  “Three large coffees,” Freya ordered. “Black.”

  “You researched my preferences?” Odin watched her pay.

  “You like black coffee?” she asked, taking two cups and handing one of them to the Dactari. “We don’t have room for frills like whitener or sugar on an LRG ship.”

  Odin raised an eyebrow at her but she was already moving across a small bridge to a seating area by the narrow river running through the pedway. He hid his amused smile, grabbed the third coffee and walked across. The river below chortled as if at some hidden joke.

  She had music playing. He was able to hear the localized sound-field when he reached their table. It was a medley of several Human songs – a weave.

  “Weaves of our music are pretty common among the Dactari,” Freya said. “This is a newer one, just recently showing up on frontier worlds. I’ve run it through the ‘Who Made That’ app and it lists a ninety-five percent chance of being Gabiola.”

  “And it’s new?” Odin masked his dubious expression by taking a drink.

  “In this region, yes.” She nodded at Marin. “But not where he’s from. This file is from his personal collection and it dates back fifteen years. Four years after Commander Gabiola was listed as KIA.”

  “I’m from Purgatorium,” Marin told him. “We have few claims to fame. We’re known in the Republic as the source of music implants but chiefly…”

  “A system of prison worlds,” Odin finished the sentence quietly.

  “She’s there,” Freya insisted.

  “And what if she is?’ Odin demanded. “Are you going to rampage through Dactari space to reach the damned place? It’s deep in their territory, almost entirely surrounded by the Great Bled. The only way to get there involves a pretty definitive act of open war!”

  “That’s certainly the conventional opinion,” she said mildly. She took a sip. “Which is why they’d never expect a daring raid through the heart of the Bled. Quick, surgical, not nearly enough provocation to start a war, especially if we prove they’ve been lying about what prisoners of war they’ve been holding.”

  Odin sat with his cup in one hand, blowing on the surface of the drink, holding the lid idly in his other. He glanced up at her. “Through the Bled?”

  The Great Bled was a mind-numbingly vast region separating parts of the Dactari Republic from the Alliance territories. It was a region of myth and darkness.

  There were no reference points to navigate by. Even stars on the far side that should have been visible were occluded in the Bled. Few went into the Bled.

  Even fewer came back out.

  Her defiant manner melted away. Her eyes took on a nearly feral gleam of anticipation. “Through the Bled,” she confirmed. “This is what the LRG was founded for. We’re the scouts, the path-finders.” She leaned in toward Odin.

  “Just imagine the songs they’ll be making over this!” she said. “Would you prefer to sit here, judging border disputes, or will you come with us and hit the Dactari in a place they’d never expect?”

  Odin laughed. He was hooked but he had to make one last, half-hearted riposte, just for form’s sake if nothing else. He was too curious not to probe this further. “Nobody comes back from the Bled.”

  She tilted her head a fraction, looking down at her coffee. She raised her eyebrows. “That’s not entirely true…”

  Shock Therapy

  Lychensee, Weirfall

  “No, I get it,” Thorstein assured the man. He leaned on the handrails and nodded down at his companion
’s prosthetic leg. “You get one of your pins shot out from under you and they put your account on ‘hold’ while they bring on some temporary crewman, right?”

  Ranulf, red-faced from the effort of standing, darted a surprised look over at Thorstein before losing his white-knuckled grip on the railing and tumbling to the floor with a grunt.

  A Weiran medi-tech looked over in alarm at the string of angry curses that followed.

  Thorstein knew he’d struck a nerve. “They cashed out your account?”

  Ranulf slapped a hand onto the rail and hauled himself back up. “Said I’d need access to my prize-money while I’m getting back on my feet,” he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  It was a thin defense. “The fornicating bastards!” Thorstein nodded. “Be glad you’re rid of them! No gods-cursed loyalty at all! Just because you’re annoying as hells is no reason to turn on you the minute you get shot up!”

  Ranulf stared in shock. “Hey!” he exclaimed, the very soul of the snappy comeback…

  Thorstein raised an eyebrow. “This can’t be the first time you’ve heard this. I just got here and I already want to carve out your eyeballs with a shoe.”

  “Why are you here anyway?”

  “Back when we were fighting the Dactari, the LRG made good use of the Bled,” Thorstein said. “We’d dip into the fringes, rely on inertial nav only, and pop out behind the monkeys in a place no sane opponent would ever think to look for an attack.”

  “Yeah,” Ranulf cut in, “you can skip the history lesson, seeing as I was one of them.”

  Thorstein waggled a finger at the man. “Acceptance. That’s good progress, Ran.”

  A frown. “Acceptance? What the hells…”

  “You just said was one of them. Means you’re ready to move on from getting shafted and dirt-sided by that rat-bastard crew of yours.” He pressed on before Ranulf could work out whether that was the case or not.

  “Word was going round that you boys had set up some supply dumps in the Bled – deep, deep inside the vasty nothingness.”