Tin Universe Monthly #7 Read online

time this icy place will be the scene of bloodshed and the loss of life in warfare.

  A future battle ground that is basically located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean on waters covered with shifting sea ice. A desert in its own way or just the plain definition of what a desert is.

  I always get confused with what the definition of a desert is?

  Setting up permanent human settlements at the North Pole has always been a difficult undertaking unlike what you find with the South Pole.

  Russia though is the one country that has created a number of drifting research military stations at the North Pole. Something the U.S. government claims to have no interest in doing.

  Beat To The Punch is the term which is the actual truth on that subject.

  Due to Arctic shrinkage; which will be happening for years to come, caused by numerous reasons, a few unknown to humanity, many believe the North Pole could become seasonally ice-free. This Arctic shrinkage will become a worry to the world in ways most could never see coming. History will come back to rage against the planet Earth with this place being the site of the first angry moment.

  The Russian drifting stations are under the codename Ice Steps and they are staffed by a lot of science and ordinary military personal but they are also secretly the hiding place for the countries beyond human soldiers. The station functions as a waiting place for a time when their homeland will need them beyond any U.N. treaties that have been signed.

  When the winds are still and the sun shines down hard and clear the ice and snow is a beacon of light and can become a mirage to those not in control fully of their senses. The polar sky dictates how you will survive in this environment, how you will die in this environment.

  As the polar icecaps melt a number of countries claims on the lands are becoming a trigger issue that may cause more than a few wars. And in the coming years more players in these conflicts for land will appear.

  And as we all have seen throughout history wars for wealth and land are the most bloody and violent. Right there with wars over religion and cheese. Isn’t it bloody insane how no one can truly own land or know what truth there is in any dogma but will die for it with their last breath.

  But this very cold environment is not only in the crosshairs of humans but also in the thoughts of much older races looking to reclaim lands that are finally warming up just enough to start being frigid again.

  Most of the old Gods have left for other places. There are still the Left Behind of godly bloodlines but there are also the ones who hid themselves as dead so they could bid their time to be reborn into history. Of these ancient races are the Jotun. You may also know them for a name they have been called in many legends, the Frost Giants.

  The name giants might not be totally accurate but 10ft tall very powerful beings can still be pretty fucking intimidating.

  Though their homeland of Jotunheimr left with the other nine realms from this reality to another, the Jotun who remain among us, hidden for centuries biding their time, are now ready to claim new lands as their own and no longer does Midgard have Thor to protect it from their mighty strength.

  The Jotun wish to proclaim the rise of the New Niflheimr Empire. And they have a plan to make it happen.

  Swimming up from the dark depths of the cold of these ocean waters like a large mass of anger, from hidden caves, is one Jotun advance scout. They may know nothing about the current age of man but they know their muscle and that’s their greatest strength and weakness.

  Mallory of the clan Ansfind, the former protectors of the Royal Niflheimr family, who were killed at the final battle of the Rainbow Bridge, whose once dark blue skin is white from never seeing direct sunlight in centuries is nearing the surface of these freezing waters in search of his providence.

  He is a Jotun who has been sent to die because he is a special sort of scout. An Alisfield Warrior Scout who is not sent out to bring back information but sent into the lands of an foe to bring blood into the lives of his enemies. To kill as many as possible, To show strength, To force into the minds of the enemy what is coming in time to take their lands and kill their families and wipe their essence from their own written histories.

  Pulpy enjoys spending time here within these cold lands while waiting to be called into action. It’s one of his favorite places to be on the planet’s surface and all he does is slowly walk in the snow. He enjoys the fact that for the most part there is nothing within even his sight but himself and white pink eyed bears.

  Today he was doing a flyover the floating stations as the U.S. government has him do from time to time to remind the Russian government of the weapon of mass destruction which America, and only America controls.

  And now after reporting back to his military contact about his latest flyover he’s walking along a large iceberg before he has to head to the opening ceremonies of the new U.S. Air Force base in Germany to shake hands with military brass of nations allied with the U.S.

  Good thing he has a lot of in flight speed to get things like that out of the way as fast as possible and move on to something important.

  His enhanced hearing, enhanced by one of the many discs that he has decorating his uniform and implanted in his body, picks up a sound coming up in the water below the iceberg. He cannot make out the shape when he closes his eyes and focus on hearing using his very good hearing as a sort of radar.

  His only guess is that it must be a small whale but even someone with his lightening fast reflexes doesn’t have time to tell himself he was wrong because a whale could never have moved through the solid ice as if moving through a mountain of soft snow before a two hands grab him by the bottom of his feet and shove him with great strength up into the air above.

  Pulpy takes control of his ascent up into the air and looks down to see what appears to be a very large mass standing on the ice below. He calmly floats down to find himself standing in front of a 10 foot tall ugly as shit male with fanged upper teeth that went down the outside of his bottom lip and braided red hair decorated with tiny bones, some of which were human.

  This would be one of the few times in his life when Pulpy has had to look up to anyone.

  Mallory was looking down with his red laced eyes at what seemed to him to be a somewhat ordinary looking human except for his ability to float within the air. That fact alone has the scout thinking and not attacking for the moment.

  ‘Are you of Odin blood?’ Mallory

  Pulpy was going over his possible moves in this situation as Mallory stared down at him with steam coming from his mouth and nose. The one thing his senses told him right away was that this was not going to be a friendly encounter.

  ‘Under U.N. Charter Phase…’

  This is just what the doctor ordered for the writer, some violence.

  Mallory grabs Pulpy by the arm, digs his claws into the flesh, and throws him into the air across the sky. Pulpy was try to stop his exhilaration through the air but was having a hard time letting his flight discs know what to do because his right arm was in pain from the grip that left a impression on his skin right before he was tossed into the clouds.

  The main reason his discs weren’t working normally was that it had been a long time since he had found himself in a situation like this. The information systems weren’t catching up properly because of lack of keeping them properly practiced to such situations. It wasn’t arrogance but lack of recent events that had trained him not to expect someone to be able to hurt him in any sort of way.

  Before the discs had properly adjusted to his thoughts Pulpy landed somewhere in the Baren Straights. For a few minutes he let himself sink into the water but noticing a crab cage brought him back to what he needed to be thinking about. His job was to protect ordinary humans from threats like this. He told his discs to prepare for extreme one on one combat.

  Ten minutes later Mallory was sitting on some ice praying to The Frigid Cold of Death about the death of his enemy when he looked up because something had suddenly blocked out the sun with a
shadow just in time to see Pulpy flying above him with a crab fishing boat pressed overhead.

  Pulpy tosses the boat down and it impacts the Jotun scout with a deadly collision crashing through the ice and water leaving Pulpy floating in the air with a very angry look on his face talking to his com link, ‘I will report back on the continuing situation. You will also need to pay some fishermen for a year of wages and boat replacement.’

  An explosion from the boats fuel tanks shot up from the water and the impact hole in the iceberg. The smoke has blackened a large part of the ice and the former clean smell of the air is no longer clean. That also adds to Pulpy’s anger.

  ‘I think the situation is at an end. I will see if I can recover anything from the unknown aggressor for the science teams.’

  Pulpy flies down and dives into the waters, through the hole, and pulls out the body of Mallory and places it on the blackened ice. He looks down at his rather large combatant and notices only a few scratches on him but before he can think further on the lack of damage or communicate a pick up for the body a leg goes up and a large boot catches his chin with a kick that sends him into a four flip spin.

  Pulpy lands face first onto the hard surface of the iceberg. That kick was so strong it sent every sensor he was connected to into a mild electrical scramble like someone had shaken their laptop during a