Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  A submerged grocery store's front windows had shattered, littering the street with foil-wrapped food. An ambulance lay on its side, doors wide open. The strapped-in patient's hair moved like seaweed.

  The flood must have hit the colony faster than anyone could've predicted, because many vehicles contained passengers. The too-young, the too-old and the injured, all those unable to escape, stared straight ahead, their limbs floating elegantly. A woman's fingertips drew patterns on her car window. The metal girder that had skewered her car had ensured that she hadn't suffered long, but such scenes were more difficult to look at now. It was all too easy for Cassimer's imagination to turn her dark hair red, her pale eyes honey brown. All too easy to think about the people who might have loved this woman – who might love her still – and what it would be like to be one of them.

  A tremor shook the ground as another building collapsed. A rush of grey water surged forward, slamming Cassimer into rusting coachwork, his leg catching between two vehicles. Debris pattered against his visor, water steaming as his reactive armour plates worked to mitigate the damage.

  He took a deep breath, anchoring himself in the moment. The team's vitals were good. His armour was sealed; no breaches. The sensation of weightlessness was almost like being in space, and yet nothing like it at all. The black void was hostile and alien, a barrier to be defied. Water was real and physical, as undeniable as iron. Water was truth, and space was nothing.

  Except there's no such thing as nothing.

  Joy had told him this, attempting to explain what the red demon was and where its roots grew. Lucklaw had found it interesting, Oriel and Tower even more so, but without hard evidence – a young private's word did not suffice – it was not yet doctrine.

  Cassimer needed neither doctrine nor evidence to know that it was true. He had always sensed corruption in the void, and though he had been wrong, he'd also been right.

  Hopewell reached his position, bounding across engine blocks, and gave him a quick little smile before kicking a dent in one of the vehicles to free his leg.

  He nodded a thanks and continued through the snarl of metal and bricks until the water became shallow enough to stand. A highway ramp became a reef, and they climbed upwards until all around them was sky; the groaning, creaking city far below.

  Plumes of snow rolled in from a mountain range to the east, tumbling down the levees into the colony. The meltwater rivers misted and frothed under the onslaught. Tuonela's rage was as destructive as the war.

  Three of the recon units were already at the LZ, and in a park where frost-curled branches scraped the banneret men's armour, and flocks of white-speckled birds waxed and waned to the rhythm of distant gunfire, the fourth and final recon unit joined Cassimer's team. Kiruna and her partner wasted no time on greetings or idle chatter, appearing from shadow to become the team's own shadows, tailing them through the devastated colony. Two blocks later, it was Kiruna who spotted the man.

  Wet, bleeding, and bright as a beacon in his blue jumpsuit, the sole survivor from the Kalevala gunship was making his way across a stream on a bridge of toppled brick walls. Staggering, clutching at his shoulder, coughing and weeping.

  "Lucky bastard to have survived," Hopewell said. "Lucky bastard to have made it this far."

  Very lucky, but as the man stumbled, so did his luck. He shot a glance over his shoulder as he was getting back up – and froze.

  "He's spotted us," Kiruna said, her rifle painting the back of the man's head a brilliant red.

  An easy shot. A quick fix. But was it necessary?

  Cassimer laid his hand on the barrel of Kiruna's rifle and shook his head.

  "Keep going. I'll handle this."

  * * *

  Brick shuddered underneath Cassimer's boots as he dashed across the makeshift bridge. The Kalevala crewman cried out, leaping onto the bank on the other side. He ran, zigzagging across a schoolyard where swing-sets rose from asphalt that, melted by firebombing, had solidified into a rippling lava landscape.

  A highway bridge cut across the schoolyard, snow drizzling down as a convoy of Gustavia vehicles roared westwards. Caught between two enemies, the man stopped in the bridge's shadow. His eyes were wide and dark, his skin glittering with snowflakes as he raised his arms defensively, crying: "Mercy!"

  Yes; mercy. That was the idea, and Cassimer delivered it with a swift and measured blow to the Kalevala man's head. He hoisted the unconscious man's body over his shoulder and ran for LZ5.

  Their transport shuttle took off as soon as he made it inside, the ramp throwing him forwards as it slammed shut. The pilot apologised over the speaker system, but Cassimer didn't mind. It was good that they were moving. Had to keep moving, or else he'd sink.

  2.

  CASSIMER

  Scathach Station smelled of cedar and of fear. Quiet music played in corridors aglow with insistent reminders of purity. Scour your mind, the scrolling text implored; leave no corner in shadow, no feeling in doubt. The intent was to calm the personnel, but in the light of the reminders, faces turned hard and drawn. Eyes flickered between the mantras and fellow soldiers, searching, wondering. The reminders to stay safe served instead as reminders that none of them were safe.

  Scathach Station, shining and proud, had become home to fear. Cassimer couldn't help but wonder what the mood was like on Primaterre worlds. How was the civilian population reacting to the news of the red demon? How did they take the public safety announcements to watch out for lichen? He didn't know – he hadn't set foot on Primaterre soil in quite some time.

  More than quite some time, come to think of it. He did the math and found to his surprise that it had been over a year, nearly two; so long that the Primaterre Protectorate had started to take on an abstract shape in his mind. How did Mars' air smell? Not of cedar. What was the texture of Kepler sand? What were the sounds of Vainamoinen's busy streets? He could barely remember a single real sensation of home, but thought that he should. Ideas and words were ephemeral, but a beating heart, that was real. Soft skin against his, or grass underneath his feet. Smiling honey-brown eyes, or the sun rising and catching in the crystal towers of Kirkclair.

  Those things he'd kill and die for. Those things he'd live for.

  But Scathach Station smelled of cedar and of fear, and as Cassimer walked its corridors, he wondered how long an empire could last when its protectors regarded each other with mistrust.

  The atmosphere was no better inside Station Chief Amager's office. The door slid open to a rolling wave of oakmoss air freshener and a temperature ten degrees warmer than the rest of the station. The walls were waving light and water, each a floor-to-ceiling fish tank where crowntail bettas darted between seaweed and gnarled driftwood. Shoals of fluorescent zebrafish made rainbows over coral fingers, and in the darker corners, ghost shrimp and algae eaters nibbled at red-speckled pebbles.

  It was colour and movement and endless churning, and though Cassimer had found a semblance of peace in the frigid waters of Tuonela, he saw no such thing here.

  "Commander." Station Chief Amager beckoned for him to enter. Behind Amager's head, an angelfish bobbed upside down, its belly bloated. "No need to stand on ceremony. Come in; take a seat."

  A seat. So this was going to take awhile. Cassimer checked the time on his HUD – 17:34 Bastion Time – and hoped that the meeting would be wrapped up in fifteen minutes or less.

  His hope was dashed when Amager set out four glasses and a bottle of caffeinated cranberry juice on his desk. Disappointed, but resigned, Cassimer took a seat in the central of three chairs in front of Amager's desk.

  The chair to his left was occupied by Company Commander Vysoke-Myto, on whose command Cassimer was attending the meeting. The big man looked uncomfortable on this side of the desk; a boy called to his headmaster's office.

  The woman on Cassimer's right, eyeing him with a great deal of curiosity, was unfamiliar.

  "Commander Cassimer, Major Juneau." Amager kept the introduction brief, spending mo
re time on pouring their drinks. His hand trembled, the bottle playing a rapid beat against the rims of the glasses. He was part of Scathach's problem. Fear that spread from the bottom up could be quashed by firm leadership and relentless work details. Fear that trickled down from the very top of the hierarchy was immune to such remedies. It sat, untouchable and festering, protected by rank and regulation. Amager needed something – manual labour until sweat and aching muscles made him forget the black churn inside his head, or a sharp slap to the face – but nobody was going to give it to him, no matter how much they might want to.

  Cassimer folded his hands in his lap, interlacing his fingers tightly, and nodded at Juneau.

  "Genny Juneau, at your service. It's an honour to meet you, Commander." The major sounded earnest, which was possibly worse than sycophantic. Cassimer didn't care to be idolised, nor to sit wedged between two people, so close that he could see the scattering of blemishes along Juneau's jawline. On the other hand, the fact that she hadn't wasted time applying make-up before the meeting was a good sign, as was the exacting, to-regulation bun in which she wore her jet-black hair. Her dress uniform was spotless, tailor-made with more precision than one could usually expect. A stained-glass Primaterre sun blazed above her heart.

  "Oriel?" Cassimer asked, more for lack of something to say than anything else. They were all looking at him, even though this was Amager's meeting, and the silence seemed tacky with heat.

  "I just transferred here from Miranda Station." Juneau shot a glance at Amager. A meeting in a Station Chief's office didn't normally allow for small-talk.

  And normally, Cassimer would've let the conversation drop at that, but he hadn't forgotten Florey's accusation (you don't talk to anybody because you don't really give a shit, do you?). Trying to do better, to be better, he reached inwards and found only: "I've heard of it."

  Stupid. Of course he had. Miranda Station was Oriel's main base of operations, home to countless laboratories and factories. As the Primaterre military science branch, Oriel researched and produced everything from augments to pharmaceuticals, and of course, weapons. Biological, chemical, psychological and otherwise. They weren't the only supplier – while Cassimer's suit of armour was an Oriel original, his Morrigan sidearm was manufactured by a company in the private sector – but they were the creative brains behind the Primaterre's military might. Miranda Station, antimony-grey and heavily-guarded, was where they did the bulk of their work.

  He shifted in his chair under the scrutiny of Juneau's space-dark eyes, and tried to find comfort in what Joy had once told him:

  "Occasionally feeling stupid is a huge part of being a person. Embarrassment is as normal as breathing."

  The memory of her voice, her smile and the warmth of her skin flooded his senses. For a few seconds, he forgot the office and the awkward silence and the ear-drum scratching sound of Amager screwing the bottle's cap back on. Briefly, his world was copper hair, rippling gold in the artificial sunshine in Scathach's park, and the realisation that weeks had passed and she had still been with him. Every morning, every night, and every achingly fleeting second in between. No longer bound by circumstance or shackles, but free to choose, free to do as she pleased.

  "I already am doing as I please," she'd said, propped up on her elbow, copper hair ringletting around her forearm. And then, with a smile and a look in her eyes that he had come to appreciate very much, she'd kissed him.

  But hot on the heels of pleasant memories came anger and anxiety.

  "Have the Kalevala given us the location of their primer facility yet?"

  "The negotiations are underway, Commander." Amager scratched his flaking nose absently. He was from Polhammar, a Class Three seedworld so close to its system's sun that neither terraforming nor climate control efforts could change the fact that the planet was sizzling hot. Humid jungles grew thick at its poles thanks to extensive and constant tending, but neither nights nor winters offered much respite. Cassimer had visited once – his cataphract company's transport ship stopping to resupply – and he remembered how the air had shimmered, the horizon a sine wave of cobalt dust and sky.

  The architect ship of Amager's ancestors – the Ilulissat – had been financed and crewed by people to whom the cryo pods would've seemed more like home than the boiling sunshine they'd awoken to. Half a millennia had passed since then, but it hadn't been nearly long enough for the descendants of the first settlers to adapt to the environment. Their fair skin still burned in the sun, still flaked and reddened, and yet Cassimer hadn't met a single Polhammar colonist who didn't claim to love the heat. A stubborn kind of love for a home that did not reciprocate.

  "Negotiations. Give me the mandate and I'll–"

  Amager smiled a bit at that, in a way that Cassimer didn't care for at all. "This is a delicate situation, Commander. Politics, not violence, will solve this knot. We are considering sending a representative to apply pressure – but it certainly won't be you."

  "Why not?" Vysoke-Myto emptied his drink. "Delicate situation my arse. The Kalevala have been playing with fire and they know it. We should return fire – they'll be expecting no less."

  "The Primaterre primer is proprietary technology, but there is no legal reason other factions or companies can't manufacture similar products."

  "Unless of course they're trying to copy our primer for infiltration purposes. The Kalevala could be trying to become us."

  "Perhaps," Amager said, his nose twitching. Flakes of dried skin drizzled down on his desk. "But we have no evidence of that. No evidence at all, but for a DNA sample collected by Captain Tallinn from a dead Kalevala scientist. It showed only traces of what could possibly have been a crude attempt at a basic primer."

  "Because like our primers, it's probably coded to corrupt on death."

  "Conjecture, Vysoke-Myto, not evidence – which is why Oriel has sent Major Juneau here. For the duration of her stay, she'll be under your command, Cassimer, your operation now joint with Oriel. She'll be advising you on all matters biological."

  "That's all well and good," Vysoke-Myto said. "But the Kalevala are weak. Their war with Gustavia has them pressed. We should add to that pressure."

  "There's no nastier bite than that of a cornered animal. Press too hard, and we'll find ourselves at war with them too."

  "So?" Vysoke-Myto tapped the rim of his glass impatiently. "War we can do. We're bloody good at it, in fact."

  Yes, they were. But Cassimer knew how the war would be fought. No cataphracts would be sent to burn Kalevala worlds, nor would Rampart fleets rain down death – the conflict too insignificant for such shows of force. Instead, blockade fleets would choke the Cascades in Kalevala systems while Primaterre transport ships sent ground forces in their tens of thousands to blaze paths through cities and hunker in trenches. The infantry would be young and fresh-faced, sent to fight, win and earn merit. Some would be coming straight from Basic Training, their ears still ringing with the voice of their drill instructor as the first real bullets started to fly.

  Joy had less than a month of Basic left. He'd made her a soldier, but he refused to make her fight a war.

  "Perhaps caution is for the best," he said. "Tower are investigating the Kalevala. If there is a primer facility, we'll know soon enough."

  "I don't know about that." Major Juneau's voice echoed between the aquarium walls. The seaweed seemed to sway to the rhythm of her words. "Tower seem very busy these days. Our ghosts have all but turned invisible, and whenever we do manage to catch one, they barely stay long enough to listen. Always in a hurry; always looking towards the horizon. Like something's coming."

  Vysoke-Myto shrugged dismissively. "Sounds like Tower's standard operating procedure."

  But Amager moved nervously in his chair. Perhaps the stink of fear on the man wasn't without cause. Perhaps he knew things the others didn't, about covert arc ships dressed for war and the voice of invisible masters whispering in the blood of the Primaterre.

  Cassimer knew these thin
gs and he was afraid, and he was angry, and he wanted to be anywhere other than inside the claustrophobic office where fish whirled and snapped. He needed to keep moving, and if Amager wanted to get his act together, that's what he should be doing too.

  "Still," said Vysoke-Myto, "we should do something. If demon-led RebEarth hunt the Kalevala primer, so must we."

  "It's a political matter, Vysoke-Myto, out of our hands." Amager, on his third drink, had regained some of the steel that had earned him his rank. It glinted in his eyes and made his voice cold, and Vysoke-Myto fell silent, once more the school boy in the headmaster's office. "So you will accommodate Major Juneau and manage the logistics of her transfer to your banneret company, and Commander Cassimer will get used to the idea of working together with an Oriel officer. Clear?"

  Cassimer had no objections. While politicians chased shadows, his company would handle the real problems. If Juneau could assist, then all the better.

  "I believe Major Juneau has brought something that will aid your efforts in thwarting the red demon. Major?"

  "While the Pain Exposure test can identify the demon's vessels, it isn't a viable method of testing every citizen, let alone every non-citizen. Oriel has developed a portable scanner that checks for the h-chips implanted in every passenger from the Ever Onward. The scanner provides significantly more secure and convenient results than the PE test."

  "Not all of the demon's vessels came from the Ever Onward," Cassimer said.

  "It's a work in progress, and more data is required. The h-chip scan has proven reliable in the lab, able to pick up even traces of removed chips, but we've yet to test it in the field. Hopefully, working with your company will provide me with many such opportunities."

  "No doubt," Amager said. "The commander's quite the efficient hunter. How many demon vessels have you destroyed in the past few months?"

  "Not enough."

  Amager laughed. "In any case, the quicker we can get this new test approved for wider use, the better. It ought to help cool nerves on Scathach."