Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "No more dead," he instructed Aurillac. "We hunt only the living."

  As more teams encountered dead towermen, the company channel grew louder until it reached a fever pitch of disturbing reports. The fear spread, and the first team to be attacked by hostiles lost two men immediately. Decades of experience and training, superior fire power and armour – none of it could save a man once fear had him in its grips.

  Across the company channel, another commander gave a speech. Something about demons knowing the darkness of the void but not the light of the sun, and how they would burn in the purity of a Primaterre mind. Lies, told to keep them from fearing another lie, and Cassimer had to mute the channel before it made him want to scream. His own team looked to him, he knew, wanted him to reassure them, perhaps throw them a small crumb of hope in the form of a Primaterre protects us all, but he wouldn't lie, not when truth was staring him in the face.

  "We'll reach the prison soon," he said, thinking VERY soon, hoping VERY soon.

  Then the dogs stopped again, their teeth bared in soundless growls. Something lurked between their position and the prison block.

  "Alive," Aurillac whispered.

  "Not for long." Hopewell took position at the door, Rearcross at her side. The two gunners made a wall of grey armour and flaring APF, and readied their weapons. On Cassimer's mark, Lucklaw opened the door.

  A moment of silence followed as HUDs confirmed targets, and then the darkness came alive with searing light and sound. The Morrigan's orange muzzle flash reflected in blood-streaked faces, and Cassimer saw just enough for his stomach to churn, just enough to want to run. Just enough to want to keep firing until his Morrigan was empty and his mind blank.

  25.

  CASSIMER

  "Earth have mercy," Rearcross mumbled, shining his rifle's mounted light across the prison's sealed door. "Something's wrong, Commander, and you can make all the jokes you want, Hopewell. Something's wrong. I can feel it."

  So could Cassimer, in the fading pulse of the dying man he held. A dozen intruders had been attempting to breach the prison vault, using arc welders and explosives so weak they hadn't so much as scratched the metal. Their weapons were of better quality, but without sensors and without dogs, they hadn't been ready. A few had turned heel and run, disappearing into the labyrinthine corridors, but the dogs were hunting them. They were as dead as the ones who had stood their ground.

  The one Cassimer held – a slippery one, who'd tried and failed to hide – did not wear the red-and-black, nor any phoenix ink on his skin. His face was painted, tacky with dark red pigment. Not blood. More theatre, more tricks. Hostiles disguising themselves as demons was a kind of clever that Cassimer had never seen before. Skald's idea, no doubt.

  The man's real blood dripped onto Cassimer's boots, his sensors reporting deficiencies in vitamin D, zinc and selenium; so irradiated that if Cassimer hadn't killed him, the radiation poisoning would have finished the job within the month. His skin was pale behind his respirator mask, his hair dry and brittle, his accent so thick that his final curses had been nigh-unintelligible. The man was a spacer, and the black spot tattooed on his palm told the rest of the story.

  "Black Nine." Rearcross gave the dead a scornful look. "It's strange to see them working with RebEarth. They hate them too, you know, calling their space-faring lives a rejection of Earth and soil. They say a Black Niner's soul is empty. My old commander used to take a lot of assignments in systems neighbouring the Black Nine. Our missions hardly ever concerned Black Niners, but somehow, he always found a way of working them in. Good work, he said, pure work, and I reckon he was right, but it's also why I'm here with a brand new partner and a brand new commander. Lost my old ones on a twilit moon thanks to this filth. The only thing that made them less trouble than RebEarth was the lack of a cause, but here they are, flying the banner of a demon."

  "It's using them," Hopewell said. "Promised them something, whatever gets Black Niners going, but it's not interested in them. Just look at their armour, their equipment – whoever sent them didn't give a damn whether they make it out alive. They'll figure that out soon enough, and then they'll crawl back inside whatever black hole they came out of, and I'm more than happy to give them a helpful kick along."

  The company channel was alive with chatter. The teams heading towards the station's engine core were facing enough resistance to request backup, and another team reported seeing escape pods launching. But the prison hadn't been breached, so why had RebEarth ships left the station in a hurry? Why had escape pods launched?

  "Lucklaw. Can you get the door open?"

  "Negative. The prison is like a station inside the station, air-gapped and isolated from the other systems. It..." Lucklaw grimaced. "I can see it, but when I try to touch it, it fades like a mirage, only to reappear just out of reach. And it... it kind of hurts."

  "It would have killed you if it hadn't sensed your primer."

  The sudden voice was accompanied by clanking and hissing as the great vault door opened to reveal Station Chief Athens.

  * * *

  The prison was more like a state of being than a place. Cassimer's suit was sealed, its internal temperature cool, but clammy sweat settled on his skin. The black walls here looked no different from the rest of the station, yet they seemed almost alive, vibrating with anguish. That might have been fine if he could have convinced himself that Vadgelmir felt like a mad place only because he was mad – but the dogs felt it too.

  They'd refused to cross the vault threshold, no amount of coaxing or treats able to sway them. In the end, Aurillac and Hester had been forced to carry their dogs inside. Runner Bean was at the door still, claws scrabbling away at the unyielding metal, while Aurillac tried to calm him. Butcher padded along next to Hester, just behind Cassimer, tucking into a steady stream of treats from his handler's belt pouch. But even the treats couldn't stop the dog from whimpering, or his black coat from turning shaggy with fear. When Athens turned a corner and disappeared from sight, Butcher growled nervously.

  "Easy." Cassimer placed a hand on the dog's head. It quietened, a wet nose briefly pressing into his palm.

  "You're good with dogs, Commander. Not everyone is," Hester said, glancing at Lucklaw.

  "My family had a dog when I was a boy." Soft-padded paws stirring redwood needles, sharp barks echoing between trees. A strange memory to resurface inside Vadgelmir, and he had to force it down, bury it deep. No room for colour here. No room for anything but the job.

  Athens opened a door to a medical ward. At least a hundred Tower operatives huddled in there, some with eyes of silver and some with eyes of deepest red.

  "Bastion's here," Athens proclaimed. "Commander Cassimer will ensure our safety while Scathach Banneret Company clears the station. It'll all be over soon. Status on the prison security systems, Stormant?"

  "Green, sir," said Stormant, coughing blood.

  "He's infected." Cassimer motioned for Hester to stay back.

  "The auto-purge didn't come quick enough for some of us. Between leaving the sick out there to die, or bringing them in here, I did what I felt was right. No casualties so far, thanks to the prison clinic's supply of meds."

  "One of my men's got a damaged visor. You might have warned us."

  "And the dogs," Hester said, fingers wrapped around Butcher's collar.

  "It's all right." Tallinn pushed through to the front and pulled a jet injector from her med-kit. "The virus is designed to only affect humans. Butcher will be fine. You, on the other hand, need to pop your visor right now – and maybe, once I'm done treating you, I'll have enough antivirals left over for Athens's men, too. Maybe. If they're lucky."

  "Ah." Athens laughed. "I've made your medic angry, Commander."

  "Not just her." Cassimer pointed to a nearby chair. "Sit down. Be quiet."

  Athens sat, but his silence didn't last long. While Cassimer checked in with the other commanders, confirming that the prison was secure and that he had the surviving towerme
n in custody, the station chief turned his attention to Juneau.

  "Must be a strange feeling to have your guinea pigs use your tricks against you, Major. I suppose you didn't expect it of Black Niners."

  "I'd expect them to want to do it. I hadn't expected that they'd actually be capable. Indeed, without the demon's aid, I doubt they would be. Caldean fever is not so easy to come by."

  "I can tell by the look on the commander's face that you didn't tell him. Afraid what he and your teammates might think?"

  Juneau laughed, shaking her head. "Hardly. Yes, Commander, I was worried that the Black Niners might have done something like this, because Oriel has done it to them, many times. We send crews into the Black Nine to track down pirate ships, and when we find them, we disable them and run medical tests. Nothing like running a trial on live humans, after all. Caldean fever, chemical weapons, biological agents... we pump their ships full, and then we observe."

  Tallinn, kneeling at the side of a towerman whose face was slick with blood, shot Juneau a disgusted look. "You murder them?"

  "Oh, please. What do you think your buddy Rearcross here and his old company used to do to the Black Niners they encountered? Where were the judgmental looks when he told his story? A funny sort of morality where it's okay to kill people, but not to try to learn from their deaths."

  "Looks like they learned too. Some of these people are in bad shape, Major. Some of them might die because of Oriel's little experiments."

  "How do you think the antivirals you're injecting were developed? Or the vaccine which is the reason I needn't fear infection? We manufactured them as a result of our little experiments. We didn't create Caldean fever, but we could hardly allow it to exist without a cure. Thanks to us, there's one less weapon capable of wiping out Primaterre worlds."

  "There are other ways," Tallinn said, jaw set. "Purer ways."

  "I don't know," Hopewell said. "I think I'm with the major on this one. There's no system or faction that doesn't shoot Black Niners on sight, and it's not like they're animals, innocent and abused. They're people, and they chose their nasty path."

  "It is better than animal experimentation," Rearcross agreed, and for the first time, Juneau looked offended.

  "That was never an option. Oriel would not stoop to such impurity."

  "Good," Hester said, petting Butcher's flank.

  "What about you, Commander?" Juneau gave him a searching look. "Do you agree with your medic or your gunners?"

  "I don't care," he said. Space was big and space was cold and beyond the walls of the Protectorate, none of it mattered. Those walls contained all that he loved and they had to be guarded at all cost. If that meant Juneau and her Oriel colleagues poisoning outlaws, then so be it. The Black Niners would do worse to the Primaterre given half a chance.

  Except Joy wouldn't agree with him. If she were here, she'd be with Tallinn. If she were here, she'd have heard him say I don't care and she would have given him a look that, stars, she didn't actually need to be here for him to see as clear as day.

  His conviction, once as firm as a mountain, was shaken. Only the faintest of tremors, but enough that he had to consider that perhaps he was both right and wrong. Enough that he wished he could live in the world that Joy believed in – one that had room for universal mercy and compassion – and not the world as he knew it to be.

  But for Joy to be able to keep believing, he had to do whatever it took to protect her. Right now, that meant getting answers.

  "I need to speak to the demon."

  * * *

  They had to walk deep into the prison to reach the cell of a vessel that wasn't currently being worked over, as Athens so delicately put it.

  "Can't believe you're still torturing them," Hopewell said, glancing at the cells they passed. No sound escaped their titanium doors, but there was a sense, a vibration in the air, of pain made tangible. It was for this reason Cassimer had left the rest of the team behind, taking only Hopewell. Vadgelmir seemed to affect her the least, even losing some of its gloom around her.

  "First the medic and now the gunner?" Athens tutted softly. "How soft your soldiers are, Cassimer. Not what I expected of the banneretcy."

  "I'm not objecting. I'm just saying, with a siege at your doors, don't you have anything better to do?"

  "It's more important than ever. The demon seeks to free its vessels, and we must not let it act unimpeded. Every bone broken in here is equal to a hundred RebEarthers killed by your colleagues."

  "Broken bones, huh? I'd have expected more subtle methods from Tower."

  "We have many methods," Athens said, a little snippy. "But sometimes, simple is the best approach."

  "Well, there you go. Finally we agree on something."

  Athens stopped and pressed his palm to the wall. The door slid open, revealing a black cell. When Athens stepped inside, bright white light emanated from the walls and ceiling.

  The prisoner cried out. He strained to shut his eyelids, but recon strips had been applied, affixing his lids open with unnatural bridges of skin and tissue. Manacles secured his hands and feet to the wall. Thin filaments moved underneath his dirty skin like worms, suffusing his system with DNAno and drugs. His ribs shifted jerkily as they were repaired.

  Athens's eyes flashed silver, and the manacles released the prisoner. A half-healed rib snapped as he contorted on the floor, fresh tissue on his face splitting open as he banged his head against floor tiles. The wounds began to heal nearly as soon as they opened. He was kept alive, fixed so that he may once more be broken.

  A pathetic sight. Undignified. Wrong.

  And then the vessel spoke, staring up at them with bulging eyes: "Hello s-s-soldier. Is that you? Is that you, soldier?" And it laughed, and maybe this wasn't wrong at all. Maybe it deserved everything it got, and when Cassimer wrenched it upright, he didn't care that its thin wrist fractured in his grip.

  "It's me."

  "Oh... I am so glad to see you. So glad to see you, soldier." Its free hand scrabbled at his visor, leaving sweaty fingerprints. "Have you enjoyed my letters?"

  "The Black Nine fleet is in tatters. The station is all but retaken."

  "Is that so?" The demon smirked. "Good."

  Good? A distant popping sound distracted him momentarily, deep and metallic like gunfire, but Athens clarified via text. It was the escape pods on the third level, all of them deployed at once. Stupid, the station chief said; at this point it'd be safer for any remaining RebEarthers or Black Niners to surrender and hope for the best. Out there, where the battle still raged, they would be shot down.

  Yes, stupid. Except they hadn't seen any RebEarthers on the station. A few ships, yes, but they'd been the first to retreat. The only one captured had been found empty, drifting like the Mary Celeste. RebEarth were in charge of this operation, no doubt, but they had sent Black Niners to fight in their stead.

  And not just any Black Niners. He checked in with Tallinn, who had examined the bodies of those they'd killed, and when she confirmed his suspicion, he contacted Commander Johansen, who'd led a team to the engine core. They hadn't reached their destination yet, facing fiercer resistance than any other team, but they had left a fine trail of dead bodies behind.

  "If they were sick?" Johansen sounded confused at the question. "Hey, Millican, do a med-scan on this one for us." A beat of gunfire-punctuated silence passed. "Yeah, looks like you're right, Cassimer. Millican says this one had some sort of bone cancer. Terminal, but I suppose he doesn't need to worry about that anymore."

  "So you sent a bunch of sick pirates in here to rescue you?" Hopewell laughed. "Even for a houseplant, that's not very smart. You're never going to be free, you get that, right?"

  "Free." The vessel smiled. "Free to visit Kepler and its sandy beaches. Free to stop by the little pink house that Chastity rents. She is much prettier than her sister Innocent, oh yes, and nothing like her name would have you believe. Three drinks to get her number. Six to get under her skirts. On the beach, with the
waves lapping against our feet, with the sun rising behind us, her hair like gold on the sand. I laughed and she wondered what was funny and I said nothing, because how could I explain that I was laughing because I was inside of her while I was also sitting shackled in a shuttle with her sister hundreds of light-years away? She's called me twice since. I haven't answered, but next time, I think I might. Next time, I think I'll tell her why I'm laughing just before I slit her throat."

  "Bastard!" Hopewell lunged, and Cassimer didn't stop her. He let her fist strike its face, let her boots crack its ribs when it fell. "You're a fucking liar!"

  Yes, but not this time. Its words had the weight of truth, and that was as plain to Hopewell as it was to the rest of them. Even Athens did not object as she trained her gun at the laughing face.

  "Free," it wheezed. "Free to sing. Free to think."

  Somewhere in the distance, more escape pods fled the station, and the final puzzle piece fell into place. This was not a prison break. This was suicide.

  26.

  JOY

  On Scathach Station, night was a scheduled event, commencing at ten o'clock Bastion Time and ending eight hours later. The artificial sunlight in the park followed this artificial circadian rhythm, and so did the station's many displays. Lights dimmed, music faded to a low hum, and soldiers disappeared into their barracks.

  "It's what's natural. Though we're far from Earth, its sunrises and sunsets are still what our bodies crave. We need regulated rest and darkness. We need dreams," Rhys said. "But don't let the quiet fool you, princess – the entire station could be roused at a moment's notice, every soldier pumped full with stims and ready to go. Scathach may sleep, but it does so with one eye open."