Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  Hold his breath until the emergency strips flared xenon white.

  Exhale as a fire alarm went off in the cockpit.

  Breath by breath, he achieved purity as he had once been taught. He held on to the moment, focused on what was in front of him. Tallinn's face, her cat-eyes wide. The green glow signalling the nearest escape hatch. The initials H.T. scratched into the ship's bulkhead.

  And pinned to the upper left of his HUD, the message that had changed the trajectory of his day.

  I miss you SO MUCH, but I will see you very, VERY soon!

  VERY soon. Yes. He checked his Morrigan, ran diagnostics on his suit, and breathed. He listened to the other banneret commanders speaking across the command channel and gave his input when required, and breathed, and monitored the Rampart channel because knowing what they were flying into was better than not knowing.

  "...taking heavy fire..."

  "...hangar bay's blown, prep repair crews and expect rough landings..."

  "...two RebEarth ships leaving the station, in pursuit..."

  "...Clarion down, repeat, Clarion down..."

  "...evacuating ship–"

  "...shit, the Herald's hit too..."

  "...going in to scoop survivors..."

  The ship rocked as a shower of shrapnel struck. The emergency lights blew, smoke pouring from overhead. Hopewell's fingers scratched against her armoured knees and Lucklaw looked up at the ceiling towards a heavy tearing sound as though trying to will the ship to remain intact.

  The Herald's remains had become a debris field of sheared metal, glowing engines, dead flight crew and fifty banneret men slowly floating in their suits. Commander Rexby reported what he saw, tumbling in the void: "Enemy fleet's made an iron ring about the station, but Rampart's frigates are hitting them hard. Won't last long, I reckon, especially considering the state they're in."

  He shared an image over the command channel, and Cassimer and the other commanders who had the luxury of sitting inside ships saw what Rexby's terrorised mind could not. Some enemy ships were RebEarth, red-and-black and proud, but most were not. They were old merchant junkers, groaning under missile batteries of a calibre they'd never been meant to carry, and decommissioned military vessels stolen from scrapyards, pieced together from derelicts, or sold on the black market.

  "Earth have mercy," someone muttered over the command channel, but if Rexby heard, he didn't ask for clarification.

  "There's a... there's a big damn hole ripped open in the side of the station. I'm going to make for it. Meet you there–"

  And there Rexby's transmissions ended, and there his vitals disappeared from Cassimer's HUD, and there his connection to the command channel shut down permanently. Nobody said anything, because there was nothing to say, but after a minute of silence, Commander Johansen asked: "When do we tell the company about the Black Nine ships?"

  A brief argument ensued among the commanders. Cassimer didn't listen. He knew what they'd be saying, and understood their concerns, but he also understood what it was to be a soldier kept in the dark. Clarity could only be achieved through illumination, and no matter how bitter the truth, it was better to accept it.

  "The demon has found allies in the Black Nine," he said across the open banneretcy channel.

  Of the one hundred and ten systems explored by humanity, nine had gone dark. Their Cascades still functioned, but every colony or station within had been abandoned, the systems deemed too inhospitable. Ruined cities festered on worlds that had rejected their incomplete terraforming. Earthquakes swallowed homes and factories, toxic gas erupting through crevasses to kill the introduced flora, clouds of radiation swallowing entire sections of space.

  Joy had told Cassimer that in her day, it had been the Black Three, and in primary school, he had once been taught about the Black Seven. Civilisations that had taken generations to build had crumbled in less than a quarter of a century. Once decay set in, destruction soon followed. Every last trace of humanity had been erased from the Black Nine, except for the most stubborn trace of all – humans.

  They claimed no nationality and no loyalties – not even to each other – and claimed no home but for the void. They lived onboard ships, making their living through piracy and raiding. They were the scourge of weak colonies and unprotected worlds. They disguised themselves as traders to make folds, or travelled in the margins, making the journeys between systems through space, appearing without forewarning to strike at those systems unfortunate enough to neighbour the Black Nine.

  They were outcasts, enemies of all, and as the void was their home, they were in the eyes of the Primaterre Protectorate as good as willing vessels to demons, their minds perpetually laid bare to the corruption.

  "Clear your minds to our purpose," he said, and maybe he should have added something about purity, or given them the false comfort of Primaterre protects us all, but Joy's message glowed on his HUD and all that found its way across his lips was sincerity: "Kill them all."

  * * *

  Vadgelmir's hangar bay lay in ruins. The wreckage of a Primaterre shuttle was embedded in the bulkhead, grinding as Rampart transport ships pushed through to dock. Broken pipes spewed steady streams of water that instantly evaporated into a fine mist. Space had entered the station through the breach and made the hangar a dark and soundless room. Banneret men filed out on tiered gantries, cautious but ready for a battle where they could take active part.

  Charred glass crunched under Cassimer's boots, metal scraping his visor as he cleared the narrow space between wreckage and ship. The pinpricks of stars glimmered between cracks in the station hull. One star, surrounded by a spiralling red halo, was so close it appeared the size of his fist. A wild system, this, of a kind that humanity had steered clear of colonising. Gas clouds and black holes and twin suns in all their glory; in the end, a single G-type star and a world capable of supporting green grass and blue water was what humanity prized most, and had sought to recreate across the galaxy.

  "A supply ship, according to its logs," Lucklaw said, running a hand across the destroyed shuttle's comms console. Though torn from its cockpit, it responded to the touch of his lightweave gauntlets, leeching energy from his power cells. "It must've been hijacked. A Primaterre ship and a Primaterre crew for RebEarth to get close enough to the station to breach. Vadgelmir's systems are locked down tight, but I can get enough of a read on the environmental to tell that the structural damage is limited to the hangar. The gravity generators are online and life support is still active."

  "Clear the ships," a Rampart captain called via his ship's announcement system. "Can't raise our force fields with you lot standing around!"

  They'd need those force fields. Vadgelmir wasn't anybody's target, but the crossfire was dangerous enough. Muted explosions popped across the station's black hull, a pearl band of impacts flaring against a docked Rampart ship. A laser cut a gouge across the hangar, and for a moment the world was brilliant colour.

  Shrapnel melted against Cassimer's armour, the plasma evaporating in the vacuum. The gantry shook, its railing thrashing underneath his hands. His visual augments adjusted, med-augments repairing the flash damage done to his retinas in time for him to see part of the gantry collapse. Lucklaw fell, sliding down the sloping mess of twisting metal, flailing for a hold. Tallinn, already supporting Juneau, grabbed his arm, pulled him up and steadied him. The comms specialist was silently mouthing something; Cassimer couldn't be sure, but he thought it was don't look down.

  Hopewell had stumbled too, but Rearcross had her, both hands tight around her arm. Her mouth was moving, spitting silence curses, and she trained her assault rifle towards the space battle, as though her gun might make a difference. The Rampart ships' hulls coalesced briefly, and then their force fields came online, stretching to shield both them and the men inside the hangar. A couple of banneret men who hadn't moved quick enough complained across the open channel about fried power cells, but when a Black Nine ship darted past the breach, strafing the crackl
ing force fields with artillery, the complaints died down.

  "Black Nine." Rearcross scowled behind his brightly-lit visor. "That explains how the demon could have got a fleet here without detection. They disguise their ships to pass through Cascades, entering the system as innocent travellers, only to slough their disguises once out of sensor range. Then they fly their true colour proudly, and that colour is as black as space."

  "Stars," Hopewell said, shooting her partner a look. "Do you have any settings other than dramatic? Because if you do, maybe turn that dial just a little towards relaxed."

  "Couldn't relax the first time we were here. Doubt I'll like the place better now."

  Over the command channel, banneret commanders adjusted to the situation. They each had their missions and their assigned teams, but the devastation had cut troops off from each other. Cassimer split his thirty-two banneret men into five units, linking into each team leader's visual to command remotely. Larger teams would only be a hindrance in the station's maze of narrow corridors, and given the size of Vadgelmir, they needed to cover as much ground as possible as quickly as possible. Two of Commander Ilminster's men were stuck on the same level as Cassimer, and he accepted their temporary transfer to his banner.

  Cassimer's own unit would head straight for the heart of Vadgelmir to secure the demon vessels. A frightening place, he'd thought once, but now he knew that finding the black cells empty would be worse. How many RebEarth ships had already departed the station, and what had they carried in their bellies? Rampart gave chase, but space was big and gave no guarantees.

  Please let them still be there, he thought, immediately chastising himself for such a nonsensical request. Who was listening? Nobody; nobody at all. Space was big, but it did not listen and it did not care.

  Ilminster's men waited at an airlock, each carrying a large metal cage. One of them patted her cage's side as she knelt by the body of Commander Rexby. His visor had been smashed open, his life torn from him.

  Cassimer collected the commander's tags and ran his gauntlet across frozen eyelids. Meet you there. The commander had fulfilled his promise, had done his duty until the end and beyond.

  "Commander." Ilminster's men – now his – stood at attention. He didn't know them, but his HUD identified them as Captains Aurillac and Hester, and scratching around inside the metal cages, Runner Bean and Butcher.

  "Pleased to be in your company," said Captain Aurillac, the senior of the duo, with more than a hint of relief. His partner all but beamed behind her spider-web fractured visor. "In a place as dark as this, we need a beacon. Solidarity is strength!"

  "Solidarity is strength," echoed Hester; Tallinn; Juneau; Rearcross, each of them with a sudden smile; Lucklaw, who looked sick behind his visor as soon as he realised what he'd said. A new phrase worked into their minds, a new slogan to trigger their sense of purity and belonging, that sweet sense of everything being all right that Cassimer could no longer feel. It was a horrible thing to see done to his fellow Primaterre, but worse to realise that he missed the feeling. Missed it, like a slave missing his chains.

  * * *

  The airlock opened to a curving, non-descript corridor. Tower's defences scrambled sensor readings, and though comms worked, they'd had no contact with the station's crew. Disconcerting. No matter how hard they'd been hit, there should be survivors. But Lucklaw found nothing, Vadgelmir's systems unyielding to his probing, and on the company-wide channel, other units reported the same unnerving silence.

  "Deploy the dogs."

  "Yes, Commander," Aurillac said, Hester already dropping to her knees to release the seal on Butcher's cage. Her heavily muscled canis pugnax bounded out, its eyes burning like corpuscant fire to Cassimer's night vision. It stood at Hester's side, alert and obedient.

  Runner Bean, a sable schaeferhund, was slightly less disciplined, running a circle about Aurillac before leaping at Hopewell.

  "Hey Bean," the gunner said, smiling as she ruffled its fur. "And hey to you too, Butcher, even though you're giving me the cold shoulder."

  "They don't socialise on duty," Aurillac said, clicking his tongue at his dog to remind it. Runner Bean calmed and sat, his wagging tail incongruous with the surroundings. "So don't encourage them, please."

  "Apologies. I haven't actually worked with our canine units before. Have any of you?" Hopewell looked over her shoulder at the team, who all shook their heads.

  "Underrated and underpaid, that's us," Hester said, one gauntleted hand resting on her dog's head, one finger absently scratching his ear.

  "Pointless more like." Lucklaw stood as far away from the animals as possible. "Sensors make dogs obsolete ninety-nine percent of the time."

  "Never seen a sensor yet that could tear the enemy's throat out."

  Cassimer blinked, slowly getting used to being visually linked with dogs. Low down, rapid eye movements. Different, but not altogether bad. "Send them ahead."

  * * *

  Vadgelmir remained oppressively silent though two hundred and eleven banneret men and their seven commanders had breached. Whatever waited within, they would have to face alone. Until Rampart had dealt with the Black Nine fleet, no other units would be thrown into chaos.

  "Better that way," Hopewell whispered. "Don't want a bunch of skittish sentinels in here. The dark alone would have them sweating bullets."

  Not so much the dark as the lurking corruption. Cassimer understood, and so did his pounding pulse that neither sedatives or nor suit lights could slow. He saw claws in the shadows, and in the light he saw a moonbeam network of roots stretching to choke the Primaterre Protectorate. The demon had found willing ears to whisper in, nudging aggressors to violence. Soon, they'd be at war, and once the fighting started, other factions would smell blood in the water. Anyone with a grudge against the Primaterre would come, and if it were only about him, Cassimer would have said let them try.

  "Still no contact with Athens or the other Tower operatives. Could be they're being jammed," Lucklaw said, but the way he glanced into dim side corridors made plain his actual thought. Dead, all of them, discarded somewhere; nothing but ghosts.

  "No," Rearcross mumbled. "Something's wrong, I can feel it."

  "Next you'll be telling us it's a bit dark in here," Hopewell said.

  "He might have a point." Tallinn ran her lightweave gauntlet along the wall, scanning the material. "I'm detecting an awful lot of decontamination chemicals. The entire station's essentially sterilised. A contaminant must have triggered its auto-purge systems."

  The next time they passed a vent, Cassimer shone his Morrigan's light at it. No lichen fluttered there, but Rearcross was right. Something was wrong. Vadgelmir was large, but somebody should have encountered resistance by now. Yet not a single bullet had been fired, not a single trap sprung.

  Then the dogs stopped at a door, flanking it with hackles raised.

  "Something in there," Aurillac said, but when Cassimer raised his gun, the captain shook his head. "Nothing living."

  * * *

  The room was an armoury; the dead, towermen. Three bodies, starkly lit by white weapons displays. There were no bullet holes in the walls, no scorch marks, no weapons missing from the racks. Rearcross made to enter, but Cassimer stopped him.

  "Lucklaw – anything on your sensors?"

  "Negative, Commander. No hostiles, no suspicious devices. Looks clear."

  Looked dangerous, more like. Looked wrong.

  "All right. We go in, slowly – only as close as Tallinn needs to tell us how they died."

  Every breath seemed loud, his every nerve on fire. He expanded his APF to cover Tallinn as she knelt, rolling the nearest body over. The dead man's face left a tacky smear of blood on the floor. His eyes were deep pools of red, his face streaked dark.

  "Earth have mercy!" Rearcross touched a hand to the Primaterre sun on his cuirass. "Demons!"

  And though Cassimer knew it couldn't be, the walls bowed inwards, the room shrinking as his suit became uncomfortably ho
t. He should breathe, but the air seemed to have gone. Calming text appeared on his visor as his auto-chaplain reminded him to be aware and perceive, but he focused instead on the other text, making Joy's message his mantra, because it was true and it was real and he did not need air when he had her.

  "Tallinn," he forced himself to say. "Cause of death?"

  The medic wanted to run too, he could tell, but his voice was as good as a hand on her shoulder. She calmly placed a finger on the dead man's bloody face though her every instinct had to be screaming for her not to.

  "He wasn't possessed," she said, faintly wondrous. "I mean, he might have been, but that's not what killed him. It's a weaponised form of haemorrhagic fever. Highly contagious and kills within minutes of infection."

  "My visor." Hester touched the spider-web of fractures that obscured her face. "It's compromised. And, stars, the dogs–"

  "Relax, Lieutenant." Juneau stepped into the room, carrying her lightweight exo-suit's helmet under her arm. She'd been silent since they'd breached, but not out of fear. She'd been thinking, and now those thoughts had manifested in a suspicious furrow in her brow. "The station's defences will have auto-purged the air by now. I was afraid of something like this. The Black Nine... I..." She paused, furrow deepening. "I had a feeling they'd released some sort of contaminant. Lichen, I expected, but this isn't much better."

  "But the auto-purge would have kicked in almost immediately. The fever couldn't have killed all of the station's personnel, and RebEarth must've known that. So why bother?" Tallinn asked, but Cassimer didn't need Juneau to answer this one.

  "To make their deaths look like the result of possession."

  "They mean to unbalance us," Rearcross said, looking nauseous behind his visor. "Open our minds and make us vulnerable to corruption."

  In a manner of speaking, the gunner was right. Demons weren't real, but fear was, very much so. It lived inside of Cassimer still, this worming thing that not even the light of reason could destroy, and it moved now, stirring the ashes.

  But the last time he had seen the bloody mask of possession, it had been on Joy's face, and that memory helped. That memory burned, igniting the ashes, immolating the fear. Because deep inside Vadgelmir Station, the demon that had done that to her waited, laughing inside a thousand ruined human vessels, laughing and thinking it might be free again.