Ragnarok (The Echo Case Files)

By C.S. Stinton

The six star systems of the Orion Confederacy are under attack from an enemy humanity never expected and cannot understand. And the crime rate’s through the roof.

While the Null War rages on border worlds, the average citizen is more likely to be murdered by their neighbour than killed by the enemy. This is true most of all on the planet Thor, in the grips of the violent terrorists denouncing the government who call themselves 'Ragnarok' - for now is the end of all worlds. Police are targeted, peaceful protests turn to gun battles, civilians are shot in the streets, and they’re using stolen military weapons to do it all.

Into this chaos are sent Commander Sara Ramirez and Lieutenant Maggie Tycho, Marshals with the mandate to hunt criminals across the Confederacy. Their only guide is John Harrigan, a disgraced Marine whose freedom depends on his helping them - and who seems to know more than he’s letting on. But Thor is a hot-bed of corruption and as humanity fights a war for its survival, Ramirez and Tycho find themselves fighting for a whole world - and, while society burns, the humanity in themselves.

Ragnarok is a science fiction thriller, and the first book of the Echo Case Files.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.S. Stinton
• Release date: Jan 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311043139

C.S. Stinton

CS Stinton was born in London, grew up in Hertfordshire and Paris, went to university in Lancaster, and drifted about until the churning words that demanded writing eventually turned into a coherent book.Growing up, reading was something to do even sneakily after bed-time, and she went on to be a lover of Nicholas Evans, Louis de Bernières, Terry Pratchett, and many more. Inspirations for science fiction came from another source, her brother inflicting Star Wars and Star Trek on her at a young age until she realised she actually liked it.Writing her own stories became inevitable, though they've taken many forms. The unspoken tales in her head, the adventures explored and told through role-playing games, a vast array of fiction (even, shockingly, fanfiction) which made its way to the internet over the years. Some of this she'll even own to writing, but 'Ragnarok' is the first story she'll call an actual book and send out to public eyes under her own name.

Book preview

Ragnarok

The Echo Case Files

Copyright 2013 C.S. Stinton

Published by C.S. Stinton at Smashwords

Cover by Lisa Falzon (http://www.lisa-falzon.com)

Graphic Design by Double Marvellous (http://www.doublemarvellous.com)

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Author

For Dan and Alex,

Without whom there’d have been no rabbit hole to fall down,

And thus no story

Acknowledgements

I could not thank those who have helped with all my writing, let alone the writing of this book, without starting with Mike Kilburn. To him go the first ideas and the last ideas, the long hours spent chewing over plot points, the unravelling of knotty problems, and the reassurance that this is all worth pursuing. That, and reassurance that using a fast food finder app at the height of a tense climax is not, in fact, too stupid for publication.

To Lucie Elliott I owe thanks for editing, for support, and for the many long hours we spent together writing our respective pieces, breaking the silence only to ask for advice on a name or line of dialogue completely without context. I’m sure no ill will come of this. I also owe her thanks, in a very real way, for my sanity over the year in which I wrote this book.

Many thanks are owed to Mew for her advice on medical matters; for all the journals she pored through, for all the thoughts about spinal injuries and space-age medicine, and for affirming that my initial Google Fu when it comes to research isn’t actually all that bad.

This book could not have been written without the many people I wrote and worked with at the Futility’s End project. This story’s come a long, long way from that trip we embarked upon ten years ago, but if anything is the primordial ooze from which it slithered, it’s FE.

It’s cheesy, but I do need to thank my family – my parents for always being calmly and practically supportive of this venture, with level-headed advice when I needed a dose of reality, rather than how to fix this imaginary problem in an imaginary world. And it would be utterly remiss of me to not thank my brother – I may have surpassed him in geek power, but I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t exposed me to Science Fiction in the first place.

Last, and most of all, thanks are due to Luke. Not just for putting up with me over the years, keeping me fed and watered when I’ve been in the depths of my writing, and all the emotional support that has been given along the way, though this has been immeasurably important. But above all others, when there has been a problem in world-building, in technology, in development of higher concepts, he’s the one who gives me a funny look and produces the most astonishingly useful answers without needing to even think. Many help me with my ideas, and he not only helps me with their development, but in ensuring I make it to the end of the road as well.

And I know and love that they will all be there with me at the start of the next road.

1

The Fortune’s Favour fell through the sky at a speed to make clouds twirl and brush around the freighter’s hull, like over-eager dancing partners she escaped with a teasing wink.

Motion sickness was an embarrassing affliction for any naval officer. It struck only when a ship passed through a planetary atmosphere or stellar phenomenon, but both happened often enough in the line of duty. Picking the best seat on a shuttlecraft, sucking a boiled sweet, or reciting poetry in her head were impractical solutions to an impractical problem. Sara Ramirez had only suffered this for the last eighteen months of her decade of military service, so today was confirmation of what she’d long suspected: the cause was psychological, not physical. Because the ship was in a spinning drop towards the surface of Manat and she felt fine.

Apart from being shot at.

Sparks flew from the metal-plated doorway she took cover behind as a bullet winged it, and she flinched. The doors to the cockpit weren’t going to close; she’d hot-wired them open in the first place but that didn’t mean getting inside was going to be easy. Not while the freighter pilot was taking pot-shots every time she so much as blinked around the corner.

Then the Fortune’s Favour bucked as it hit another air pocket on its free-fall towards the surface. The deck plating rose under her in a gut-wrenching lurch, and she heard a grunt of surprise and protest from the pilot. Snatching the hand-rail next to the doorway, she let the momentum of the lurch carry her into the cockpit without sending her sprawling to the deck. She had only a split second to take stock of the situation inside: the pilot stumbling back, gun pointed away from her as he fought to keep his footing; the Manat horizon spinning through the canopy with the surface distressingly close below; a control bank between her and the pilot a mere metre’s lunge away.

By the time the pilot had recovered his balance, she had dived behind the control bank. When the next gunshot sounded she felt the bullet thud harmlessly into solid metal. She might have worried what it would do to the ship to have its controls shot out like that, but the Fortune’s Favour’s condition was unlikely to get worse.

The pilot’s footsteps sounded out on the decking as he scrabbled to keep upright while his ship bucked under him, or tried to get a line of sight on her. She took advantage of his distraction to aim her sidearm over the control bank and fire. The gunshot from her more powerful handgun was deafening in the confined space, as was the sound of the ricochet that told her she’d missed and hit a bulkhead.

Her breath caught as she heard the crackling and sparks of another control panel shot out. Good work, Ramirez chided herself. It doesn’t matter if he shoots out the environmental controls trying to hit you. It might matter if you shoot out the damn flight controls!

‘Mercer!’ she called out, not expecting much of a response. Her voice sounded tinny and small against the echo of her gunshot and the rattling of the Favour’s hull plating as the freighter took a hammering from the winds of Manat. ‘You can stand down! How do you think this is going to end?’

‘I shoot you,’ came the calm voice of Russell Mercer. ‘Then I get the ship under control. Then I vent the cargo bay and your partner can consider her bad career choices on the long fall down to Manat!’

Good plan. ‘Not that long a fall any more!’ Ramirez said instead. ‘Do you really want to take your chances, spending this time shooting at me and gambling we don’t all end up a crater?’

‘I reckon I stand a better chance of killing you and flying out of here than you do of taking me out!’

Ramirez gritted her teeth. So do I. She was inside the cockpit but she still didn’t have a precise pin on Mercer, while he knew exactly where she was and would shoot her head off the moment she poked it out from behind cover.

‘And if you don’t?’ she asked, though she was stalling for time and knew it. ‘Is a shipment of lachryma worth dying for?’

‘Is arresting a drug smuggler worth dying for, Commander? I didn’t think the Confederate Marshals hired them suicidal.’

‘We don’t. But apparently we do hunt the stupid.’ She chanced a glance around the end of the control bank, Hauer 55 model sidearm solid and comforting in her hand. A shot rang out and thudded into the decking inches away, and with a scowl she withdrew.

‘You stay right there, Ramirez,’ came Mercer’s level voice. ‘I’ll just be getting to the flight controls so we’re not plummeting to our deaths, and then we can get right back to killing one another.’

‘Can’t let you do that, Mercer. You’ll vent the cargo bay.’

‘Or we could come to some arrangement. You slide your gun over here, I level the ship out, you two come quietly and I dump you at the next semi-hospitable rock I come by. I’d rather not kill two Marshals but, hey, rather you than me.’

The deck lurched under them again, and a part of Ramirez’s mind screamed that she was supposed to be vomiting at this. Adrenaline told that part to sit down and shut up. By now the pale blue of the upper atmosphere of the Manat sky was becoming a mix of brighter blue and white clouds, and with the next twirl she could make out the wandering sprawl of a river on the surface below, details clearer by the second.

Time was running out.

‘You take a step and I’ll blow your head off, Mercer,’ she said, and peeked up not over the control bank, but at it. Several of the displays were dead, stray bullets putting an end to their function, but others remained lit, giving her more information than she ever wanted about the environmental conditions of an Olympus-class freighter.

‘You move half an inch and I’ll blow yours off, Commander.’ Mercer’s footsteps sounded out on the deck plating, slow and cautious as the smuggler approached the precious flight control panel. He had taken cover in the small navigation compartment, and would need to cross a broad line of her fire to get to the pilot’s controls.

And a glance at the ceiling along that way gave her the answer.

‘Look,’ Ramirez said, one hand gripping her Hauer, the other running across the environmental controls and praying she remembered how these freighters worked, ‘you can get a good deal if you come quietly. A guilty plea and information on your suppliers and you can be free in three years - five, tops.’

‘I like the idea of being free tomorrow, thank you,’ said Mercer. ‘But it’s generous of you, Commander, and once the Favour’s mine again I’ll be sure to remember -’

Then he stepped under the fire safety system and she smacked the activation button.

Foam sprayed from the vent above him, and Mercer gave a gurgle of surprise as he was engulfed. It was just one spurt but it was enough to stagger him, and she stepped out from behind the environmental controls, Hauer 55 raised.

‘Drop the gun, and freeze.’

His pistol was pointing at the ceiling as he’d lifted his hands against whatever was spraying into his back. Mercer took one look at it, one look at her, spat out a curse - then let his gun clatter onto the deck plating. ‘God damn it...’

‘Russell Mercer, by the authority vested in me by the Orion Confederacy Marshals Service you are under arrest for the trafficking of Grade 1 narcotics.’ Ramirez stepped forward, reaching to her belt for the restraining cuffs. Mercer’s shoulders had already sagged with defeat and he was planting his hands on the back of his head. ‘You may remain silent; any statement you make may be used as evidence. You have the right to retain and instruct -’

Then the Fortune’s Favour hit another air pocket and the entire freighter bucked like someone had yanked the prow back with a tritanium cable.

Intentionally or not, Mercer’s bulk slammed into her with an impact to send them both sprawling. He had a good four inches on her in height and almost half her weight again, and so her shoulder hit the metal deck plating hard. Then Mercer’s hand clamped around her gun, and he slammed her wrist into a control panel to make her drop it.

She was trained, but he was on top of her and bigger and heavier enough for that to matter. Her head smacked into the deck, her jaw snapped shut, and the cockpit of the Fortune’s Favour was spinning around her just as much as the skies of Manat outside were spinning around the freighter.

And Russell Mercer was stood over her with her gun.

‘Nice try, Commander,’ he said, chest heaving. ‘You almost had me there. But did you really think you were going to overpower me alone?’

Then a panel over his shoulder came to life with a bleep, and Ramirez smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I did think I could distract you long enough for Tycho to hack into flight control from the main computer core.’

And all of a sudden the Fortune’s Favour wasn’t in the spinning free-fall that had started when Mercer’s shipmate blew out the port impulse engine. The backup was powering up and the ship was levelling out. To Ramirez, flat on the deck, everything became calm and still. To Mercer, the deck jerked underneath him and his aim went wild as he flailed for balance.

He screamed as Ramirez’s booted foot slammed into his knee. She didn’t stop even when it locked, and there was a sickening crunch of broken bone. She rose as the big man fell, grabbed him by his shirt - and slammed him into the deck on his front.

She snatched her restraining cuffs even as he swore and whimpered on the floor. ‘- counsel. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you.’

By the time her partner made it to the cockpit, Mercer was secured and cuffed and had been sat down on the seat next to the environmental control panel, pale and sweating from his broken leg.

‘Course is set in, Chief,’ said Maggie Tycho with a cheer that made it hard to believe they’d just been locked in a plummet to their deaths. ‘The Favour’s coming back around to land at Dahr Spaceport and we should be there in, oh, ten minutes?’

Ramirez was sat facing Mercer in the co-pilot’s chair, her Hauer in her lap. She gave her partner a wan smile at the news. ‘Good work. Get on the comm to local law enforcement and have them waiting to receive us the moment we land. What took you so long?’

‘Sorry,’ said Tycho as she sauntered to the communication panel, sparing Mercer a clip around the ear as she passed. He swore. ‘I know I said I’d bypass hardwired security protocols specifically designed to stop someone from taking control of a ship from outside the cockpit, but he had about twelve movies loaded up on his ultranet account that I wanted to watch and I got distracted browsing...’

Ramirez chuckled as Tycho leaned over the comm panel and punched the information through to Dahr flight control. ‘Rosales is still out?’

‘Out like a light, cuffed, and locked in the cleaning cupboard. I could have brought him up here, Chief, but seriously, he’s not going anywhere and he’s huge,’ said Tycho once she’d finished, turning around. ‘What did you do to Mercer?’

‘Broke his leg.’ Ramirez took a deep breath and risked a glance out the cockpit viewport. They were coming in lower now, the high buildings of the city of Dahr rising like needles poking out of the dusty plains of the surface of Manat. It wasn’t as comforting a sight as it should have been. ‘The landing protocol’s automated?’

‘Once we’re in range of the spaceport their computers’ll pick us up and bring us in,’ Tycho confirmed, frowning at her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Just watch Mercer while we land,’ said Ramirez, and holstered her Hauer.

‘And what are you going to do?’

Ramirez bent over, burying her face in her hands. ‘Try to not vomit all over you.’

‘You’re kidding.’ But Tycho drew her sidearm anyway, turning to scowl at the pallid Mercer. He looked more bothered by his broken leg than by the five and a half feet of diminutive Confederate Marshal glaring at him. ‘You just had a gunfight on a free-falling ship and were all right, but now we’re coming in fine and smooth you’re back to no stomach for flying?’

‘What can I say?’ mused Ramirez, eyes shut as she tried to not think about how little it would take for enemy gunfire to peel off the hull plating of a light Olympus-class freighter like the Fortune’s Favour and burn them up in the atmosphere. ‘I was distracted.’

* *

Grey skies ruled the rocky moon of Forseti. When colonists had come to the Altair system a century and a half ago, the planets in the Goldilocks Zone - not too hot, not too cold, but just right - had been the first to be terraformed and settled, and the moons of Baldr, the system’s most prominent gas giant, were no different. But other moons like the verdant Nanna and rich Hringhorni had received the lion’s share of attention, settlement, and funding.

Forseti had once been the mid-system home for the Confederate Fleet. Military ships travelling from the system core to the rim, or to make a FTL jump to another star, would stop off there for refuelling of ship, crew, and morale. The leaps and bounds made in impulse engine technology over the past fifty years, cutting that travel time from two weeks to mere days, had brought this era of military funding, rambunctious crews on shore leave, and fleet personnel and their families living and spending money there to a dreary halt.

Some enterprising architect long ago decided to design the city in a Gothic splendour to hark back to the grandeur of the eastern European origins of many of the colonists of Altair. Once, that had made Forseti seem imposing, full of military dignity and tradition, as grey skies fell over grey stone and brought reality into sombre, thoughtful focus.

All Ramirez saw now was a ghost town. Rain pattered down upon the slate rooftops of the city of Glitnir and drummed against the window inches away from her face, a steady rhythm that distracted from the newsfeed blaring from the corner of the empty cantine.

‘...but military officials continue to have no comment regarding rumours that the Confederate Fleet are considering a campaign to retake the planet Thoth, lost eighteen months ago to Null forces. The most shocking defeat since the full withdrawal from the Kruger System, the loss of Thoth confirmed the Null have no intention of stopping their onslaught, and established the Vega System as the new front line in the war...’

Ramirez turned to pick up the abandoned control pad on the nearest table. The screen the size of her palm showed a miniaturised duplicate of what was on the screen, and with a swipe across the face of the news presenter she changed the feed.

‘...on Thor protesting against the enforcement of martial law across the Confederacy have been turning violent, forcing the authorities to clamp down on mass gatherings -’

A different feed.

‘...President Okoye stands by his judgement that if Providence continues to refuse to send a delegate to the Senate, a military representative will be selected for them and the Confederate Fleet will assume full control of the planet...’

Ramirez tossed the control pad back on the table with a grimace and let the news presenter drone on, the animated but silent face of President Okoye issuing his declaration from Rome in a smaller window in the corner.

She was still staring at the screen when the double doors to the stark, bare cantine swung open and in stepped Tycho, pad under one arm. She was in her uniform, the high-necked, double-breasted, dark grey jacket of an officer of the Confederate Fleet, though the top two buttons were undone with a laxness that had become more common since the grind of war had set in. The colour of their duty uniforms identified them as officers on surface assignment, distinct from the deep maroon of those on ships or the forest green of the Confederate Fleet Marine Corps. After years in the burgundy, the grey felt and looked odd.

‘Have you seen this?’ said Ramirez, nodding at the newsfeed.

‘I’ve seen it,’ said Tycho, and perched on the nearest table. ‘I just came -’

‘I don’t see how they can appoint Providence’s delegate for them. Surely the senator’s seat should remain empty?’

‘I guess? Does it really matter?’

‘It’s one thing for Providence to refuse to send someone to the Senate. They’re choosing to not have their voice heard. But for someone else to speak for them, vote on their behalf? That’s not democratic.’

‘I don’t think it’s democratic for Providence to not send a senator because they think God told them not to, but -’ Tycho drew a sharp breath. ‘Why do you even care about this?’

Ramirez gestured at the screen. ‘It’s on the ultranet.’

‘We get, what, fifteen thousand feeds; you couldn’t find a kid’s cartoon?’

‘I think sometimes the activities of the Palace of Sixtus bear an uncanny resemblance to children’s entertainment?’

‘Ooh, unpatriotic, Chief, what’s getting up your nose today?’

Ramirez waved a dismissive hand and turned to Tycho, gaze at last torn from the screen. ‘What did you want?’

‘To find you and get a coffee.’ Tycho looked around the cantine. ‘Seriously, is this place haunted and nobody told us? It’s like a graveyard in here.’

‘The distributor’s broken. No coffee.’

‘No kidding? And I was really in the mood for a cardboard cup of black slop to brighten my day. I thought they said HQ would be finished by now?’

‘It’s finished in that the Marshals can operate out of here. The fact that half the sleeping quarters are still waterlogged and the cantine doesn’t serve any food is considered a low priority issue for the maintenance staff.’

‘I’m shocked - just shocked – that spaceport security moved out of here to a brand-new building instead of trying to salvage this slag-hole.’ Tycho scowled. Hers was not a face which suited frowns; more common were cheery smiles which bunched up the freckles on her dimples. And within a few seconds one of those grins crossed her face. ‘That reminds me, I’ve got news.’

‘Mercer confessed his guilt, sold out all of his contacts, and is still going to rot in jail for another ten years?’

‘Better. Delta Team moved out on assignment and I’ve wrangled us their quarters. If they come back before we go, it’s their turn to stay in a leaky hotel in the middle of Glitnir.’

Ramirez wasn’t sure if she should smile or frown at that. ‘The prospect of sleeping in Durand’s old bed isn’t filling me with satisfaction.’

‘It’s a Major’s billeting. Bigger bed.’

‘Sold.’ A thought occurred. ‘Where did Delta Team go?’

Tycho hesitated. ‘They...’

Indignation tugged at Ramirez’s gut. ‘They got the Odin Shipyards case, didn’t they?’

‘Chief...’

‘We’ve cracked every case Tau’s given us! What does she want before she gives us a proper assignment?’

‘We might have cracked every case, and I know you have a personal beef with Mercer on account of that little issue of him trying to murder us both, but he wasn’t exactly a feather in your hat.’

‘Then give me bigger birds.’

‘You don’t have to convince me.’ Tycho’s shoulders sagged. ‘We knew what we were signing up for with this posting.’

‘We signed up to keep people safe; crime is the highest it’s ever been in the Confederacy or the Republic’s history. A citizen is still more likely to be killed by their neighbour than by the Null, while funding and recruitment for law enforcement is at an all-time low -’

‘Because all eyes are on the war, and so nobody’s paying attention to law enforcement, and so while this might be necessary work you know it’s not glamorous, you know it’s not where you’re going to make your name, and why the hell am I the one telling you this?’ Tycho’s brow furrowed with honest confusion. ‘What’s brought on this brooding?’

Ramirez let out a deep breath. ‘You’re right. I’ve been staring at the news too long. It’s getting to me.’ She straightened her uniform, adjusting the buttons to give her something to do with her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just letting the idea of Durand carrying the shipyards case get to me. But we’ve got a meeting with the Director.’

Tycho checked her watch and swore. ‘I lost track of time.’

‘I didn’t. Let’s not keep her waiting.’

The corridors of the old spaceport security headquarters, now the headquarters of the newly-formed Orion Confederacy Marshals Service, were no less cold and unwelcoming than the dreary cantine. But while the cantine had enjoyed the glorious view of the soggy and grey city of Glitnir, the corridors bore nothing but enclosing stone and chilly bare walls.

They passed nobody else on their way to Director Tau’s office, at the top of the building. This wasn’t unusual. The dozen or so investigation teams of the Marshals Service spent more time out and about the planets, moons, and ships of the Confederacy than they did on Forseti, and to say the administrative staff were undermanned was optimistic at best. Even the bullpen for staff outside the director’s office was half empty, naval officers at terminals typing up reports or reading through bulletins posted from across the seven - or, now, six - star systems of humanity.

The figure behind the last desk before Tau’s door sat up as they approached, removing booted feet from the table. ‘Hey, Commander, Lieutenant. I heard you were planet-side.’

‘Petty Officer Weiss.’ Ramirez grinned as she tapped his desk. ‘Is that where your boots live?’

‘I like to keep them clean - do you know how filthy the floors are around here, Commander?’ The yeoman looked bashful as he straightened his uniform. ‘Mercer’s rotting in a Centaurian jail?’

‘Until he arranges a plea-bargain and sells out his contacts. But he should be out of the space lanes for a few years. It’s the price of doing business.’

‘Fortunately that’s not the OCMS’s problem. Let me make sure the Director’s free.’ Petty Officer Weiss swivelled on his chair to the terminal built into his desk, tapping at the screen. ‘Oh, I started reading your book, Commander.’

Tycho rolled her eyes. ‘Now, Kevin, why’d you go do something that boring?’

‘The rain on my window keeps me up at night; I need something to help me sleep.’

Ramirez gave an indulgent smile at the good-natured ribbing. ‘I didn’t think it was your sort of thing.’

‘It’s not, but apparently now I’m assigned to a law enforcement division I’m supposed to, you know, know something about law enforcement. Isn’t it required reading at the Academy these days?’

‘That’s not strictly true,’ said Ramirez. ‘It’s on Professor Delacroix’s recommended list -’

‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Tycho. ‘Anything Old Man Delacroix recommends for Criminology or Politics, anyone who takes those courses will read if they want a half-decent grade. I hear