The Serpents and the Skulls, Chapter 2.4
03 Apr 2017Michael Wolfe
“Well?”
“Seventeen bounties awarded across Black Omega space. Of those, eight were found to be fraudulent.”
Not enough. Not by a blasted sight. And what’s this about fraud?
I narrow my eyes. “And how exactly does one cash in a fraudulent bounty?”
Apollonia’s eyes widen in imagination. “Very easily, ma cheri. Kidnap a man or woman and force a cheap snake tattoo onto their arms. Drag them to the nearest Black Omega office, point an accusing finger, and claim the credits.”
I look away from my minion and take a long sip of wine. “And our field people fall for that?”
“Some.”
I seethe, angry that anyone could be so careless in a time of crisis. “Find out who they were,” I say. “And send that brute Stryker after them. They won't make the same mistake twice.”
“Oui.”
“Is there anything else?”
A hopeful look crossed the waif’s face. “All the galleys and food stores on Clair Dock have been inspected. We can return to regular meals.”
I exhale, trying to not let my relief show. Thank all the gods for small favors.
For three days, the entire population of Clair Dock- including High Council members- had been living on pre-packaged ship rations. Degginal had ordered all foodstuffs to be inspected for tampering, a process that took time. In addition, all kitchens were kept under constant surveillance. Azalea’s wine incident had left Deggie paranoid and in the mood to leave nothing to chance.
The conflict was the Gold Crew is on everyone’s minds, too. It isn’t a war so much as a mass gang-level knife fight. Omega and Serpent ships would find each other, have a short, brutal engagement, and withdraw. Sometimes we would win. Other times, the Serpents did. It was the kind of unfocused, random situation that was driving Deggie and Victor to sleepless nights. In any other conflict, we would simply destroy their main force, occupy their settlements, and impose our terms upon them.
But this is different. There are no population centers to capture, nor any set-piece battles to be won. There are no politicians to be bribed or intimidated, no concrete resources to be denied and leveraged. We were fighting a shadow, unseen and untouchable until it lashed out like, well-
I look away from my companion to stare out of my suite’s observation glass. Like a snake.
Another sip of wine is warming my belly when Apollonia steps beside me. Her eyes are downcast as she continues.
“There is another council meeting?”
“Yes. The third one in as many days. All of our systems have been raided by the Gold Crew in some way or another, and all are demanding extra protection. We’re hemorrhaging credits to snap up every merc crew in the sector, but-”
I shrug. “-but there aren’t enough. They make for poor garrisons, anyway. No discipline, and no concept of how to keep order other than roughing up the locals. We want them to fear us, not hate us.”
My companion looks up, hesitation in her eyes. She purses her lips and stares, as though summoning some measure of bravery. It’s also her way of signaling that she has something to say without saying it. I glance at her and nod.
“What is it?”
She exhales, trembling slightly. “We will need all the help we can get, oui?”
I looked hard at Apollonia for a moment before taking another sip of wine and turning back to the picture window. In the distance, a black-painted Corvette with an escort of Vipers moved slowly across the starry horizon.
“It’s looking like we might.”
My companion swallows and takes a step closer. “Suppose that we- I- track down your warrior mate again? He proved useful last time, non?”
Useful. Now there’s a novel way to describe him.
I stare at the dark liquid in my glass and consider Apollonia’s idea. She isn’t wrong, but he had only agreed to help because I had leverage on him. And now?
Now, things are different. Before, you had pictures of that purple-haired tart to shove in his face. But you can only threaten him so many times before he defies you. And if he takes it to heart that you need him…
I shake my head. “No. We parted with the understanding that I would call upon him for something specific, and this isn’t it. We handle the snakes ourselves.”
She nods in acquiescence, eyes returning to the floor. “What, then?”
I turn to leave, allowing her to help a slim-fitting leather business jacket over my shoulders. “I attend the meeting and hope that there’s been a breakthrough. You keep telling your people to keep their eyes open.”
I rub my eyes and take a deep breath, wishing mightily for sleep. “And brew a cup of Tanmark tea for me, too. Something tells me that there won’t be any good news.”
By all the gods, he looks like hell.
Deggie’s face is pale and drawn, bags under his eyes and his wrinkles seeming even more pronounced than normal. So, too, does Victor look like death. The events of the last seventy-two hours have kept them from their beds even more then they have me. Azalea was seated with red, unstable eyes, shifting nervously in her chair. Her and I nod at each other as I sit down, my tea held in both hands.
Hitting the blow just to stay on your feet, dear?
The loss of her newest pet has set Azalea on edge. If anything, she’s gotten even less sleep than Deggie, posting guards outside her door and then ordering that those guards be kept under surveillance as well. Degginal watches wearily as the two enforcers salute and exit the boardroom, closing the double doors behind them as they do so. He waits for the click of the lock before taking a deep breath and turning to us.
“The Gold Crew,” he begins. “Is nowhere to be found. And yet they are everywhere.”
He presses a button on his dataslate, and a starry holomap of Black Omega space shimmers above the polished black table. The familiar constellation of our owned systems are highlighted.
“Over the past seventy-two hours, convoys in every single one of our systems have been hit. No piracy, no ransom demands- nothing. Just hit-and-run slaughter. The escorts are overpowered and the freighters can’t get away in time. By the time reinforcements arrive, it’s all over. Same with our ground forces. Bombings, assassinated officials, sniped enforcers- we’re facing an all-out guerilla war. All we can do is count our dead and salvage leftover cargo, and the outlying systems are beginning to notice. ”
The room is silent. There’s nothing to say. No one, including myself, has any ideas that would be well-received. All of us have been doing our utmost, sending feelers into the dark corners of all our systems and coming up with nothing. Bounties aren’t helping, nor is the increased security. Victor Laius is the most mobile of us all, travelling from system to system to shore up support and deploy his enforcers as needed.
Deggie holds out his arms and gestures around the room.
“Locke- what is standard military doctrine for dealing with an insurgency?”
The man across from me clears his throat. “Establish strong relations with the locals, and maximise intelligence-gathering efforts. Eliminate as many resistance cells as possible in one coordinated operation rather than piecemeal raids. It’s more of a surprise, and it sets an example.”
Deggie nods, and presses the man. “But?”
“But we don’t have sufficient intel for such a strike at this time.”
Degginal’s face twisted into a sneer. “Meaning you don’t have any. I read the reports, too. And you-”
I snap to attention now that he’s turned to me. “-what would that father of yours had done in this situation?”
My face hardens despite the gravity of his question. What would my father have done, and not “what would Marrakech Morgan do”? Careful, old man…
“He would have taken hostages from the families of the enemy leadership. Then he would have sent them back a body part at a time until they ordered the resistance to stand down.”
A sarcastic look crosses his face, which is unusual for him. The strain must be harder than I had thought. “But we don’t have any hostages, do we?”
I press my lips together in an effort to force my answer to be simple. “No.”
Finally, he turns to Azalea. “And you- what have you done other than hide in your suite?”
Trembling, my associate blinks hard to clear her eyes. “All of Mukusubii is at your disposal. We await any orders that the council-”
Degginal cuts her off, pounding the table. “Enough!”
The feeling of his blow against the wood shocks us into attention. It’s unlike Deggie to yell or be physical, but the Gold Crew situation clearly had him on edge. He leans over the table and gestures to the holomap of Black Omega’s systems.
“You’re supposed to be leaders! Where’s the initiative? Where’s the fight in your eyes? We're paying double bounties for live snakes. Where is the intel?”
He pauses to glare hard at us. Locke hardens his lips and answers. “Don DeVerre, none of the captured had anything useful to say. Even when we-”
Again, Degginal interrupts his subordinate. “Extract that information, capo. Use a neural shunt if you have to. The Crew didn’t just disappear. Someone knows where they are.”
Straightening back to his full height, he rubs his chest with his hand, a pained expression on his face.
“I don’t care what it takes. This is what we do. Find them, destroy them, and make sure that all of Pegasi knows that we did.”
He pauses, breathing heavily. Sweat is starting to glisten on his forehead as he supports himself with the high-backed chair. He looks up again, anger in his eyes.
“I did not build Black Omega into what it is only to have a filthy band of s-”
Deggie stumbles, gripping the table. “S-”
His knees buckle and collapse, his hands clutching the desk for support. Immediately, all three of us spring to our feet and rush to our stricken leader. He’s still hanging onto the table, but slips and falls backwards before we can reach him.
No…
“Deggie!”
I’m the first to reach him, even as Victor yells at Azalea to fetch help. His skin is clammy and pale as I hold his head in my hands. His face is a mixture of anger and panic, his hand clutching his chest. He sees me over him and with a trembling hand holds my hand in his. It’s all I can do to keep a dignified air about me. Like Rabat would have demanded.
“Help is on the way,” I whisper. No, Deggie. Not now. We need you. I need you.
The don ignores my weak reassurance and continues to gasp and struggle. Victor is opening the door to let in a medic, leaving Deggie and I alone on the other end of the boardroom. Then, his hand steadies itself as lucidity returns to his eyes. Blinking a few times, he looks up at me in a way that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Like in the old days, when he’d been more of a father to me than my own father. He pulls me closer and struggles to speak. It strikes me that for the first time, he now sounds like a frail old man.
“Now, girl. Now is your time.”
“You do not celebrate?”
In the facility below, serpent-tattooed clansmen and women were massed, each with a drink in their hand as their bloodlust gave way to raucous celebration of their victories. She was alone, the twin blue moons bathing her skin in a pale, vampiric glow. The area around the facility was barely habitable, the terraformers trying and failing to remake the planet into something hospitable to human life. A chill permeated the night breeze, but she didn’t seem to notice.
She looked over her shoulder, her face expressionless. “Nein. It is not my way. What of our plans?”
The elder took his place by her, surveying the barren horizon and eyeing her warily. The chill and the company sobered him from the venomwine that was carrying away so many others into the carnal frenzy for which the Gold Crew was infamous.
“None of their High Council were eliminated, though we’ve managed to disrupt operations in each of their systems. No reprisals yet. They appear paralyzed, as though bitten by-”
With a twinkle in his eye, he gestured to his wine. The woman glanced at it, unimpressed.
“I was hoping to sever the head immediately. That old man is a crafty one, ja? And his second-”
The elder interrupted. “We all know your history with her father.”
“That’s not the history that should concern you. Her father was a monster. She is turning out to be the same. In fact, if the whispers are true, she already-”
She cut herself off, tightening her lips. The Elder considered pressing for what she knew, but thought better of it.
“It was through the strength of the Great Serpent that you slew that monster,” he said. “It will give you the strength to slay another.”
The woman’s face hardened. It was my multicannons that slew the monster, not your verdammt imaginary snake, she thought- but dared not say.
“It favored me that day. But the Great Serpent must shed the skin of the past, ja? Only then can it continue its cycle of eternal growth.”
A look of contentment brightened the elder's face at hearing the outsider recite the sacred writings perfectly. With a rough finger, he traced along the green serpents coiled around her arm. A look of grim pride lifted his lips into a smile.
“Worry not, young one. An augury was taken, and the priests have determined that the Great Serpent is not the only thing due to shed in these perilous times.”
A bolt of surprise and dread shot through her belly as she fought the impulse to jerk her arm away from the old man’s touch. Her lips twitched as she consciously kept her face impassive.
Nein, she thought. He can’t possibly mean-
“Are you certain?”
The Elder nodded. There was fear in her eyes, as there was in nearly all those who contemplated their first Shedding. But it was the will of a greater power.
“The time has come for the serpent to become a dragon.”