Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  Its eyes widened with anticipation, and then with agony, as he drove his thermal knife through its jaw and into its brain.

  Another vessel snatched from Skald, another chunk of time taken. Once they were all dead, the lichen would be immobile, unprotected, a simple target for Oriel officers and Bastion rangers to eradicate. All across the galaxy, the warning would go out, and people would heed it, he was sure of it, no matter how much they hated the Primaterre. And once more the red demon would be a prisoner, locked within the nothing that wasn't nothing. If its moonbeam roots continued to grow there, reaching jealously for those folding between Cascades, then so be it. Cassimer could bear that, because he knew that Skald could not.

  "That was the demon?" Lutzen, his scaled gauntlets slick with the blood of others, looked over Cassimer's shoulder with what could only be described as professional curiosity. Rearcross had retreated as far as he could under the pretence of keeping an eye on their exit, and even Juneau kept her distance. But Lutzen and his crew seemed neither afraid, nor were their suits sealed. Lichen fragments clung to the chain links of the Tower captain's camail, but that didn't seem to concern him. Perhaps that was just a side-effect of being Tower. Not implausible, and Cassimer's stomach turned as he remembered that Skald wasn't the only darkness that had set its sights on Joy.

  "Yes," Juneau said. "She tests as positive, plus there's a match in the database of Ever Onward colonists. Her name was–"

  The sound of a siren interrupted the major. Muted by the plastic ceiling, bouncing down the tiled tunnel, it turned long and dour.

  "Second warning. Secure the samples and the data. We need to move. Your men got eyes on the remaining RebEarthers, Lutzen?" Cassimer turned to the captain. Two of his shadows moved around the tunnel, touching things, poking bodies, doing whatever Tower did, but Lutzen hadn't moved.

  "Thirty contacts spread out across the building. They know where we are, but they seem unwilling to attack. That said, this is their planned escape route. The impending cataphract arrival will likely spur them into action."

  "We could take one of these cars," Hopewell suggested, kicking the wheel of one. It seemed to pass inspection, as she nodded approvingly.

  "Negative. The tunnels are an unknown. Better to return the way we came."

  "You need to move quickly, Commander," Daneborg said over the team channel. "Some of the crowd dispersed, but the rest appear to be back under demonic control. They're coming for you."

  Through Daneborg's visual, Cassimer saw the oncoming horde. Still uneasy, still shifting and jerking and obviously reluctant, but the corrupted moved on the hospital nonetheless. A wailing rose from the crowd, tears spilling down the faces of the first to reach the fence. Some had torn their clothes from their bodies, scratching their skin bloody. The demon moved them as pawns towards death, and they knew it.

  "Earth have mercy," Rearcross mumbled. "We can't fight that."

  "We can outrun them. Juneau, how long do you need?"

  "Two minutes, Commander."

  Might as well ask for an eternity.

  "My team have completed our objective. We'll head upstairs and secure a route to our exfil point. Rendezvous at these coordinates?" Lutzen proposed and when Cassimer agreed, he added: "Primaterre protects us all."

  When Cassimer dutifully echoed the phrase, he could've sworn that the towerman frowned. Had he not spoken with sufficient conviction? Tower didn't know everything, but they did know much. Perhaps enough to spot a liar and a fraud.

  If Lutzen had, he didn't make anything of it, and Cassimer had other concerns that needed to take priority.

  "Hopewell, Rearcross – disable the vehicles. Lucklaw, see if you can seize the hospital's defensive systems. We need to keep the corrupted back as long as possible."

  Lucklaw didn't respond, and when Cassimer turned, he found the comms specialist kneeling on the floor, one hand gripping the fender of a truck iron-tight. Blood trickled from his nose, smearing the inside of his visor. Tallinn was by his side, tilting his head backwards.

  "He won't disconnect, Commander," she said, looking pleadingly at Cassimer. "I think it's got to be a virus. The RebEarther's could've hidden something in the hospital systems, or maybe the..."

  She trailed off, but Cassimer knew she'd meant to say maybe the towermen did something to him. If they had, they'd better run fast.

  "Lucklaw." He knelt by the lieutenant, and to Tallinn's horror, used his command override to access Lucklaw's suit and open his visor. A wet wipe from Tallinn to clean his face of blood, a gauntlet crackling with electricity against his skin to wake him.

  Lucklaw's eyes flickered blue momentarily. "Commander..."

  "Lucklaw, you need to disconnect at once. Juneau can assist–"

  "No, Commander. I can't. It's not a virus." His lips curled with disdain at the mere thought of being caught out by RebEarth. "It's Somerset. She needs my help."

  "Somerset? The Earthborn?" Tallinn asked, curious, or angry, or happy, or sad. Cassimer couldn't tell. The tunnel had stilled, floating motes of lichen suspended mid-air. He could hear Rearcross opening a vehicle's hood and plunging a thermal knife into its engine block. He could see the crowds outside the hospital pressing against a failing fence; he could see the first few to have found the gel-cut hole run across the parking lot; he could hear the suppressed pop of Ratatosk rifles as Daneborg and Valletta thinned the herd.

  He could see and feel and hear everything, but it was as though it took place somewhere very far away. He could even see himself, through Hopewell's visual augments, and he wondered briefly who that person was, that dark-armoured man who had to say:

  "Is it important?"

  even though there was

  "Nothing more important," Lucklaw said, shutting his visor firmly. "Trust me, Commander. I have to do this."

  "All right, Lieutenant. But not alone." Cassimer grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet. "None of us alone."

  37.

  CASSIMER

  They caught up with Lutzen's team inside a loading dock. Rain beat down through holes in the high ceiling and ran down ramps leading from delivery doors large enough to accommodate trucks. Three doors were open, each a frame for a triptych of chaos.

  The fences bowed inwards, the corrupted climbing them and each other in attempts to get inside. A few made it over the top, jumping to land hard on wet asphalt. Most couldn't get up again, instead dragging their broken bodies across the courtyard.

  Watchtower floodlights swept in wide arcs to centre on the loading dock doors. Lutzen's armour changed from black to searing white before he ducked down behind a stack of crates and turned to shadow again. Bullets left heat trails as the RebEarth guardsmen took shot after shot.

  The cloudy night sky blazed with light and colour as Rampart took on the Victual Brothers. Shooting stars coursed towards Hereward's horizon, debris or escape pods or crashing ships, and against the warlit backdrop, the dark silhouettes of RebEarthers moved on gantries running along the loading dock's upper level.

  "Valletta, secure us a vehicle. Something that can punch through the fences and take a few hits," Cassimer said, moving to cover near Lutzen. He could see waving flashlights through the dirty windows of the loading bay. RebEarth reinforcements, approaching fast. "We hold this position."

  The corrupted poured into the loading dock. Twenty, maybe thirty contacts, weaving between forklifts and crates. Unarmed, none of them threats on their own, but it was hard for the team to focus on mobile RebEarth snipers above when the corrupted were clawing at their faces. Rearcross chanted mantras as he fought them off, beating them down with his rifle and with his fists, and Cassimer didn't mind. It was good and it was pure and while he could no longer stand chaplains, a righteous gunner was close enough to remind him of what he had once felt so strongly; still wanted to feel.

  Two corrupted lunged at him, and like Rearcross, he subdued them with non-lethal force. They were civilians, and while some may be RebEarth, chances were many weren't. The
re might even be Primaterre citizens in the crowd, abducted civilians or prisoners of war. Regardless, they were all victims of Skald, and killing them was not meritorious.

  But when more arrived, and RebEarth troops pressed in from all sides, killing became necessity. No time for mercy; only survival. Instinct guided his trigger finger, clarity informing his movements.

  "Evac en route," Valletta said. "Couldn't get the desired specs in the allotted time – this thing can barely handle a speed bump, let alone bullets – so Daneborg, I'm going to need an assist."

  "Ready."

  Outside the hospital, headlights flashed as Valletta's vehicle – a family van – approached at a speed for which it had not been designed, bouncing as it clipped pavements. Daneborg, positioned on a rooftop, opened fire. Ratatosk rounds ate through steel and electronic locks, shredding the flesh and bones of the corrupted pressed against the chain-link gates. And perhaps Juneau had been right; perhaps a cognitive shock was sufficient to break Skald's hold, because some corrupted ran when they were showered with blood, ran into alleys and down the street and anywhere that wasn't here.

  The van smashed through the gates, speeding across the courtyard. Watchtower snipers took a few shots, rounds pitting its roof, but it kept going, flying down a delivery ramp and careering across the loading dock. It came to a screeching stop, back end slamming into and toppling a stack of crates, so close to the team's position that it nearly struck the gunners. Valletta's visor lights were on full-bright. He grinned, winking at Hopewell, who took her left hand off her rifle just long enough to flip him off.

  "Juneau." Cassimer pulled the shivering Oriel officer from her hiding place between him and a concrete pillar and pushed her towards the van. "Get in. Tallinn, get Lucklaw onboard."

  The tower team did not need telling. All but Lutzen were in the van already. Shadows, these men, not castles – and though Cassimer knew that to be their purpose, it made him feel no less distaste.

  He stood, no longer bothering with cover, expanding his APF. Hopewell and Rearcross did the same, the three of them as walls surrounding the team. His suit spat plasma droplets whenever a shot made it through, but he knew before his systems updated that none of the hits were critical, not yet, he could stand it a little longer.

  "Valletta," Hopewell called over her shoulder. "You want to shift over and let me drive us out of here? I saw you nearly roll over twice on your way in. You're a bloody lunatic behind that wheel."

  "Oh, don't pretend you don't like it crazy." Valletta smiled, honking the horn of the van as if to further prove Hopewell's point. Through the dirty windscreen and his illuminated visor, his face was a smudge of tanned skin and white teeth, and then the van's side window imploded, showering the interior in shards. Valletta's head was thrown violently to the side, his visor awash with blood. He slumped over, and then disappeared as Lutzen opened the driver seat door and shoved him aside.

  And Cassimer's reflexes were faster than this, but reason and reality collided and for a second, he couldn't even think, let alone move.

  Valletta was down, that was fact. The gun that had shot him was a Kali, that was also fact. Even if his HUD hadn't told him that, Cassimer would've recognized the sound anywhere, and while no banneret man would favour the compact sidearm when there were so many more powerful choices, he knew that they were standard Tower equipment, and he knew that Lutzen carried just such a gun.

  He knew all these things and he could see what had just happened, but this was something foreign, something he wasn't equipped to handle.

  As Lutzen began to reverse the van, u-turning sharply towards the delivery doors, it was Rearcross who first regained focus. The gunner turned his rifle on the van, putting three rounds in its engine block.

  "What the fuck!" Hopewell cried. She was taking fire, too much for her APF to handle, and cracking reactive plates spurred Cassimer into action. He grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her with him behind a pillar. Gunfire ate holes in the concrete, spitting shrapnel.

  The van lurched forward and round, hurtling up the ramp, listing to one side. It came to a slow stop halfway across the hospital courtyard, enveloped by black smoke. The passenger side door opened, and Juneau jumped out.

  Watchtower snipers turned their rifles on her, but Daneborg forced them into cover. The Oriel officer ran, the primer sample case clutched to her chest. A towerman caught up with her and seized her by the arm. Words were exchanged, his gun pressed to her vitro-plastic visor, and Juneau dropped her own gun and the sample case. The towerman collected the sample case – and then turned his Kali on her again.

  "I don't have line of sight." Daneborg's voice, hot and tight.

  None of them did, but a Morrigan's orange fire burst through the towerman's head. Lucklaw ran from the van, towermen giving chase – the one he'd hit collapsed at Juneau's feet. He scooped the Oriel officer into his arms and dashed towards a small cinderblock building – the hospital pharmacy.

  "Didn't you notice how their suits weren't sealed?" Rearcross ejected a spent ammo block, grimly inserting a new one. "They breathed the demon in with every breath. They let it crawl on their faces and dust their lips. Nobody would do that unless they had reason not to be afraid."

  "They're vessels?" Tallinn's voice rose a pitch.

  "They took the primer prototypes. What safer way for the demon to transport those samples off-planet than in the hands of Primaterre troops?"

  "I tried to scan them," Juneau said. "They blocked all attempts. Typical Tower, I thought, but..." Her cool voice cracked slightly. "Apologies, Commander. I tried to keep the samples secure, but I... I couldn't..."

  "You're not here to fight, Major," Cassimer said.

  "I wanted to try something... maybe put another tracer on them, but..."

  "You're alive." Enough said.

  The corrupted pressed against the door to the pharmacy where Lucklaw hunkered down with Juneau. The comms specialist held the door shut, firing through a small window, firing blindly into the masses, but he did not respond to messages. Too busy, his mind in too many places at once, all of them too important to ignore.

  The towermen were still in the courtyard, fighting off corrupted and taking fire from both RebEarth and Daneborg, but inch by inch, they were making for the open gates.

  "Valletta's alive," Tallinn said. "Unconscious. Fractured skull, intracranial haemorrhaging. I'm on top of it, so he should be okay. He should be fine. He should be right as rain. Oh, Earth have mercy, please."

  "We're all going to be fine," Hopewell said, not a trace of doubt in her voice. "I've got plenty of APF power, Commander, and a missile launcher I'm eager to use. Rush Tower, explode RebEarth, grab samples, regroup at pharmacy and bail?"

  Nothing like keeping it simple, he supposed – and then a roar of engines echoed between buildings, and nothing was simple anymore.

  An armoured vehicle, a red phoenix splashed across its hood and roof, turned round a corner, wheels squealing. Its four racks of spotlights fell on the hospital courtyard through the fence, but it didn't slow down, instead speeding up, smashing straight through. It came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard, dragging a section of chain-link fence behind, and its side doors slid open to allow a unit of heavily-armoured RebEarthers egress.

  Watchtower floodlights realigned to fall on the newcomers and lit the scrollwork on their leader's armour ruby red; the baying hounds on his pauldrons as golden as the sun.

  "Kivik." Daneborg's voice had a quiet calm.

  Leo Kivik, unaware of the death seeking his head, pulled a comms device from his belt. Spoke a few words into it – waited for a reply – spoke again, and then dropped it. He raised his rifle, the mounted guns on the vehicle spinning up, and–

  –instead of firing on the towermen less than fifteen metres away, Kivik and his men opened up on the other RebEarthers.

  The courtyard became a gauntlet of crossfire. The corrupted ran aimlessly, dying, falling, screaming. RebEarther fired on RebEarther and Lutzen
and his men took shots at Kivik's crew.

  It was chaos, and it was opportunity.

  * * *

  Cassimer barged through the corrupted, putting down those who wouldn't quit, and pushed the pharmacy door open. The team followed, taking fire from both RebEarth and Primaterre, Hopewell swearing as a Kali round smashed several reactive plates on her back.

  "Could they really be demons?" Tallinn wondered.

  "They're arseholes regardless," Hopewell said, adding an apology for her language, as though Cassimer had the time to care.

  Lucklaw sat slumped against a wall, head tilted to the side, blood pooling inside his visor. His fingers were slack around his Morrigan, but every now and then, they twitched as though typing, firing words and numbers like bullets across the span of space. Cassimer could only hope that they were hitting their mark.

  Bullets chewed away at the pharmacy walls, colourful pills scattering on the floor as bottles broke, and there were no guarantees that Hopewell was the only one aching to use a missile launcher. The corrupted swelled against the door, and Cassimer had to use his full body weight to keep it shut. He had to find a way out of the situation, quickly, but the puzzle had been turned upside down, and he couldn't make sense of anything anymore. None of what was happening made sense. It was insane and–

  –no. He forced a deep breath. Perception and clarity. With focus, he could see his team through. With balance, he could achieve his goals.

  Behind him, Lucklaw took a long, ragged breath, and spoke: "Tallinn."

  "I've got you, Lieutenant. Don't worry. It's going to be okay."

  "No... Tallinn, listen... if someone needs to take diuretics and anti-hypertensives, but they've also suffered blood loss from an injury... what should they do?"

  "What sort of injury?"

  "Stab wound."

  No stab wound Cassimer had ever suffered hurt so much as Lucklaw's words. It was a physical, tangible punch to the gut, an intense agony spreading throughout his body. The door was pushed inwards as he could no longer hold it firmly shut, a strange weakness seizing his limbs.