Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "So that they may never walk upon Earth again," Rearcross said, looking sickly behind his visor. "We need to cut them down and slag them."

  Cassimer had seen this before, this and far worse, but he had never bothered asking why RebEarth did what they did. They were impure and they were the enemy, and that was all that mattered. Rearcross had asked these questions, but what good had the answers done him? They'd made a soldier quake when he should be as firm as a mountain.

  "Impure superstition," he said. "Let our enemy waste their time on the irrational. We see with clarity. We act with reason. The dead are dead, and our time is best spent serving the living."

  "Got a traffic cam," Lucklaw announced. "Sharing footage."

  The low-quality feed showed the surviving Rampart men holed up inside a hardware store. The shutters were down, and from the second storey windows, they were holding RebEarthers at bay. The men in red-and-black weren't soldiers, but the kind of armed thugs that patrolled Hereward's streets, enforcing whatever passed for the law in RebEarth territory. Thirsty for Primaterre blood, hoping to prove themselves.

  Another cam showed a bulldozer rumbling down a nearby street, heading inexorably for the store.

  "Hopewell, Rearcross – intercept that bulldozer."

  * * *

  The alley behind the hardware store was a narrow space between brick buildings, clogged with overflowing dumpsters. A steady runnel of brown liquid ran down a gutter, gurgling into a drain at the bottom of a fire escape.

  Two Primaterre contacts were on the second floor, at windows overlooking the alley. One of them was firing blindly, desperately trying to hold back the dozen hostiles out there, but several RebEarthers had reached the store's backdoor, out of line of sight and working to breach. The other contact was immobile, her vitals dropped to dangerous levels.

  "She's not got long." Tallinn peeked down the alley, rifle at the ready. She was no Rhys, and far too nervous for Cassimer's liking, but that nervousness had a way of evaporating when someone needed her help. A very pleasing quality.

  A quick broadcast to let the Rampart men know what was coming, and then Cassimer opened fire on the alley.

  It was over in seconds. Three hostiles had been unable to return fire, their targeting software not sufficiently secure to keep Lucklaw out. One still lived, crawling from the backdoor towards a dumpster. Tallinn finished him with a shot to the back of his head. Juneau arched her eyebrows.

  "And you call me a murderer?"

  "I save lives," Tallinn said flatly, grabbing the fire escape's rungs and climbing upwards in a hurry.

  Screams came from the other side of the building as the hijacked bulldozer ignored the shutters, instead ploughing into the waiting RebEarthers. Hopewell and Rearcross knew what they were doing, and Lucklaw was already assisting, laying down fire and exploiting every unsecured targeting system or armour setting he could find. Cassimer should be there too – but first he needed to address Juneau.

  "This mission does not allow for prisoners." In the plastic sheen of her hazmat helmet, he could see his own reflection. Visor opaque and black, showing nothing, revealing nothing. "My men act on my orders. You want to criticise? Speak your mind, but address me, not them."

  "I have no criticism of you. Except, perhaps, that you always side with your team against me." Her perfect composure wobbled slightly, eyes momentarily shiny. "I'm used to being valued, Commander Cassimer. I am not used to impertinence from subordinates, or indifference from superiors."

  "Take a good look around. This is not a lab or an officers' club. Here, you either hunt or you are hunted, and this is where banneret men spend their lives. I am not on their side. I am their side, their sword of truth and their shield of clarity. You're not a banneret man, Major, but don't mistake different treatment for indifference. If I didn't value you, you wouldn't be here."

  * * *

  Eighteen Rampart men had survived, one of them only thanks to Tallinn's efforts. None of them wore sealed suits and their skin and hair were dappled with spores. Their fear dissipated somewhat when they saw Cassimer, and they listened to him when he told them that a quick decontamination treatment would cleanse them of corruption.

  "But we've seen the footage," said the young woman whose life Tallinn had saved. She kept one hand pressed to her side, where a disabling gut shot no longer bled. There would be no pain, but Cassimer knew well the strange, tugging feeling of internal injuries being stitched whole. "Earth have mercy, when we realised we were going to land in the city... Vichy killed himself before the pod even touched down. Didn't even use his kill switch, just..." She mimicked placing a gun under her chin and pulling the trigger.

  "What footage?" Rearcross, who'd just killed half a RebEarth unit without so much as a twitch, suddenly looked nervous – the very reason that Cassimer had blocked the footage in question from his team. Other commanders had made the same decision, but little snippets of video kept creeping out from the battlefield.

  "Of the demonic outbreak in the city," the young woman whispered.

  "It's deception; a virus that mimics the effects of possession," Cassimer said. "The enemy wants you scared. Don't give them what they want. Perceive with clarity. Be aware of the moment."

  RebEarth hadn't used the Caldean fever on their troops as the Black Nine had. Instead, they'd unleashed it on civilians. Selected targets, no doubt, perhaps even prisoners. An evil trick, and one that had successfully stalled the Primaterre invasion. Troops waited at the city limits, their commanders wary of sending soldiers into the spore-coated urban terrain where civilians wandered aimlessly, spattering the streets with blood from their eyes and mouths and ears. No commander wanted to risk a single soldier becoming possessed, fearing that one weak link might turn the entire chain. And so they waited for Sanctum to send their exorcists and chaplains, and they reminded their men of purity.

  Once, Cassimer would've thought it a wise strategy.

  Once, he would have drowned in ash at the thought of entering the city. He would have done it in spite of his fear, of course, but he wondered how he would have coped. Hereward might have become his grave, his bones left by RebEarth to forever curse the ground.

  He assured the Rampart men that Primaterre protects us all and for their sake tried to be the man in Bastion's posters, and he ordered Rearcross to lead the way to the hospital to keep the man's thoughts too focused to scratch.

  "Do you suppose they'll be all right, Commander?" Hopewell looked over her shoulder at the Rampart men, who'd been given a detailed map of the city and instructions on how to best make it to the nearest checkpoint. "They look so frightened. I know they have plenty of reason to be, but I honestly can't remember the last time I was scared like that. Yeah, sure, a RebEarther had a gun pressed to my face a couple of months back, and I'm not going to lie, I was pissing myself – but only for the few seconds that it lasted. As soon as Florey took the RebEarther out, I snapped back into action."

  "Training and experience will do that."

  "Thing is, though, last time I was on Kepler, I could really tell the difference. I always felt a bit weird going back home to civilian life, but that's only natural, yeah? At least that's what the station psychiatrist says." She smiled wryly. "But in the past year or so, it's like I'm not even the same species anymore. I wasn't going to buy Florey's suit back... he all but ordered me not to... but when I went to finalise the purchase of my beach house in this shiny real estate agent's office, surrounded by these smiling people, looking at the amazing view out the window, I just didn't feel right. I mean, I bought the house anyway – got a massive mortgage now, so there's something to fight for – but it was like everyone else was down there and I was up here, all alone, and I'm not saying that I'm better than them in any way, not even a bit. In fact, maybe it's the opposite. That maybe this life has done something to my brain, a permanent shift from Innocent to Lieutenant Hopewell, and now I'm incapable of doing anything other than this sort of shit – pardon my language."

&
nbsp; "I understand," he said, and because he did, he forced his thoughts into words for her. "But between Innocent and the lieutenant, there's still Hopey. And she, I think, will never change."

  "Earth have mercy, Commander. Never thought I'd hear you call me that."

  "Apologies if it's inappropriate."

  "No, not at all. I'm... you know, I've used the phrase I'm honoured a thousand times in my life, but this time's the first that I've actually felt honoured." A bit over the top for his liking, and maybe she could tell, because her sincere smile curved into wicked. "Maybe one day I'll get to call you something other than Commander."

  "I am open to sir."

  She laughed, her blue eyes bright and amazed. "Was that a joke? I'm pretty sure it was. Mercy, Commander, if this new you is courtesy of Somerset – can't be our surroundings, that's for sure – then I'm more glad than ever that we plucked her off that ugly old dustbowl of a planet."

  Joy. He hadn't thought of her since they'd entered the city; a deliberate mental block to separate her from the ugliness. Skald was a thin film on his suit, and though he knew the entity couldn't sense him that way, he hadn't wanted to risk a single thought of her being stolen.

  Because that's what Skald was, a thief. It was evident in the panicked faces of the corrupted, whose free will had been seized. RebEarth believed that Skald was their ally, but they were as wrong as ever. It had come to Hereward to use the planet and its people as a shield. It had made itself an enemy of the Primaterre Protectorate, and now it would make them destroy worlds to get at it.

  * * *

  They breached the backdoor of an abandoned building opposite the hospital. Cassimer joined Rearcross at a fourth storey window to observe the corrupted crowd. Though far from the main crash site of the Rampart ship, debris and fire had thinned the herd somewhat. The surviving corrupted stepped on their dead and on shattered glass, the streets smeared with blood and ash. They muttered and murmured and yelped, and swayed and twitched, and when the gunner suggested that an airstrike would've been a mercy, Cassimer did not disagree.

  And then a siren blared across the city and the forest, a loud and apocalyptic sound. It wailed again and again, and its call sang to Cassimer's blood.

  "They're sending in the cataphracts," he said. "The city's to be razed."

  "I'd say good riddance, but we're still here. They know that, right?" Hopewell looked up at the sky, although there'd be nothing to see yet.

  "That was the first warning. Two more, and then they will come – but Bastion knows our location. Care will be taken."

  "No offence, Commander, but cataphracts aren't exactly known for their delicate touch."

  "Commander, you should see this," Rearcross said, his gaze fixed on the crowd below. "Something's happening. I think the demon's hold is broken."

  The lichen-affected civilians had started to disperse, some sprinting away, some walking, some circling on the spot as though confused.

  "Interesting." Juneau leaned close to the window, her visual augments recording the scene. "The siren? Their subconscious association of the sound with cataphracts could potentially have broken the demon's control. Perhaps a cognitive shock of a significant enough magnitude could–"

  "It's not the siren," Tallinn interrupted. "My sensors show a sudden high concentration of antimicrobials in the air. Their systems have been purged of the lichen."

  "But how?" Juneau frowned at the medic for her interruption – or the correction.

  "Northwest street corner," Lucklaw said.

  "I don't see anything."

  "Yeah, me either. Just a whole lot of deliberate nothing. Check your sensors. They should be showing more than they are. Trust me, I know how too much nothing feels. Keep looking to the northwest. You'll see them."

  Orange streetlight reflected ever so briefly in scaled pauldrons. The oily glint of a rifle. The flutter of fabric so black it might have been the night wind sweeping past. Six long shadows moved through the scattering masses of corrupted. Thin fingers of cutting gel smoke rose from the hospital fence.

  A surveillance camera mounted on a courtyard watchtower panned across the scene. Its dark lens saw nothing, nor did Cassimer's sensors, but he knew the dark arrivals for what they were. A Tower strike team, heading straight for his objective.

  36.

  CASSIMER

  He led his team through fences that smouldered where cutting gel had eaten through. Security cameras and alarms were still active, and he had to pace himself, allowing time for Lucklaw to cover their advance. A searchlight caught Juneau halfway across the inner courtyard. The stained-glass Oriel sun on her light cuirass twinkled like a fisherman's lure. A RebEarther stationed in the nearby watchtower dropped his cigarette, a haze of smoke surrounding him as he raised his rifle.

  And then he fell, landing wetly on the concrete below. Daneborg's shot, and the next one – taking out the RebEarther's partner – came from Valletta. The two recon men were on overwatch, moving from rooftop to rooftop.

  "Somebody will notice eventually," Juneau whispered breathlessly. "They'll know the hospital's been breached."

  "The demon will have noticed already. Tower forced our hand."

  "But what are they doing here?"

  "No idea," said Hopewell, shining her rifle light through an open door, "but I reckon they went this way."

  A body lay near the threshold, another one a dark shadow further down a corridor.

  "Messy," Rearcross said. "They must be in a hurry."

  "Lucklaw, can you track them?"

  "Negative, Commander. They might as well be invisible to me."

  "The trail of bodies it is, then." Hopewell stepped inside and past the corpse, her boots leaving tacky footprints on the floor. Another red path for Cassimer to follow.

  * * *

  One green-painted corridor was much the same as the next. Faded portraits of Markham hung here and there, proclaiming him Hereward's Liberator and a Hero to the People, but most of the newer posters showed his daughter, Justina. She had a blade-taloned phoenix tattooed across her face, and her slogan promised to CRUSH THE PRIMATERRORISTS.

  "Good luck with that," Hopewell whispered and Rearcross laughed softly.

  Much of the building seemed deserted, no lights bar thin strips of emergency lighting running along the floor. But, Lucklaw informed them, appearances deceived.

  "There's a ton of power being used. There's something else, too... vehicles? Maybe. Tower's got a tight grip on the systems, but I'll try to dig deeper, see if I can't get some surveillance on our side. Until then, I suggest we follow the power."

  The suggestion made sense. If the demon was running a primer lab, it would need a lot of power. But Tower did not always make sense, and it ate at Cassimer to have the black-cowled men somewhere ahead, doing something. Bastion had assured him that there were no other operations underway in the area, even going so far as to put him in contact with the towerman in charge of ops on Hereward. No, he'd been told, nothing that I know of – and a towerman admitting ignorance was worrisome.

  "Here." Lucklaw tapped a security door that read PSYCH WARD C.

  On Cassimer's say-so, the comms specialist opened the door, and the gunners rushed in. But instead of a demon's laboratory, they found a... stars, Cassimer wasn't even sure what he was looking at.

  "Earth have mercy," Rearcross mumbled. "What is this place?"

  A transparent habitat took up the centre of the room. Its walls were coated with lichen, its floor and ceiling mottled red. Humming dehumidifiers removed moisture from the habitat but turned the psych ward into a mouldering space. Damp dripped from the ceiling in an arrhythmic beat. Inch-deep water gathered around empty beds, pillows dark with mildew.

  "They're trying to grow the red lichen," Juneau said, "creating a perfect greenhouse environment for it."

  "More than that." Hopewell nudged a drip feed with her rifle. The clear solution inside its plastic chamber was speckled red. "They've been making pets for the houseplant." />
  Until recently, people had been kept in this dismal ward. Kept in their own waste, forced to eat, breathe and drink a thing that might as well be a demon. RebEarth had fed people to a thief, offering their minds up as sacrifices. It was violation and it was ruination.

  Impure. The word pounded in Cassimer's head. Impure, and it didn't matter if purity was a doctrine invented by mind-slavers; in this, they had been right. There were acts too impure to tolerate, people too vile to be allowed to exist.

  "Commander." Hopewell had moved ahead, beckoning for him at a corner. "Looks like our buddy's up to his old tricks again."

  The far end of the psych ward explained the power usage. Cryo pods lined the walls, online and occupied. The front panel of the nearest bore the logo of a Europa Heptarchy corporation, and he wondered if it was stolen goods or traded, or hell, why not an outright gift?

  "Making more vessels." Juneau wiped frost from the pod's porthole. A man's face stared back at her, unseeing and unfeeling. "This demon has a very strong drive to reproduce. For a single mind to control so many bodies... the sheer amount of mental processing power required is astounding. Hypothetically – and I do mean hypothetically, Commander, no need to chastise me – if we could study the lichen in an attempt to understand rather than destroy, there is so much we could learn. The genetic makeup of the lichen could hold the key to unlocking our own minds. Imagine our primers infused with this demon's DNA, connected to a vast Primaterre network. We'd have mortal bodies, but immortal minds – it'd be as close to divinity as humanity will ever reach."

  "Not another word," Cassimer said, because she was wrong, she clearly did need chastising. "You are out of line, Major."

  "Way out of line." Rearcross placed his palm on the sun on his cuirass, muttering mantras under his breath while glowering at Juneau.

  "Apologies," she said, but the tone of her voice wasn't apologetic at all. In fact, she seemed impatient, perhaps irritated at being held back by what she perceived as lesser minds. Juneau was a clever woman, Cassimer didn't doubt it, but once more she was wrong. It was minds like hers that had created the primers in the first place, minds like hers that had committed the genocide of Earth.