Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  He had tried. It hadn't been easy, and many, many times, his efforts had seemed in vain. Many more times, he'd wanted to give up, to sink into the ash.

  Joy had changed everything. In her light, he could see how far he'd come. The cataphract would have loved her too, but he would never have allowed himself to feel it. He would never have allowed her to touch him, no matter how much he wanted her. He would have made himself feel nothing, be nothing, because he'd have thought himself safer that way.

  Stupid.

  The Hecate's walls closed around him, and in the memory, he was alone, and thrashing in the sea beside him, Skald was alone. The demon experienced the Hecate for the first time, raw and unfiltered, but Cassimer had lived it a thousand times or more. It couldn't be undone, and time couldn't be regained, but he could move forward.

  As Skald fell to his knees in ashen water and the sky turned charcoal black, Cassimer imagined Joy's hand in his own and knew that she wouldn't let go, not when the boy found the gun and the killing started, or even when the killing ended, and all he heard was the clicking of a trigger, and all he felt was the heat of a muzzle pressed to his temple.

  The boy had wanted to die, and the sea rose, dark and wild, swallowing both him and the demon. Skald twisted and turned, caught in the undertow of a sea that was no longer his.

  It sank into Cassimer's memories. It drowned, in what felt like water but was not.

  * * *

  He woke to brilliant light, frost on his eyelashes and on his breath. Metal floor chilled his skin, the hissing white mist of a cryo pod settling around him.

  Skald's vessel lay curled up nearby, howling, weeping, retching. The Hecate had left a mark, although the effect would undoubtedly be temporary. The memory would be boxed up and stored in the network of moonbeam roots, untouched unless the entity wanted to relive it. It could pick and choose its past, build its personality from select memories and traits. Humans couldn't do that. Humans had to endure, had to struggle, had to make themselves strong enough to carry truth, yet vulnerable enough to remain open to more truth, more pain, more love.

  And so, though Cassimer still felt the dark throb of the Hecate, he did not envy the demon.

  "What do we do with him?" A boot prodded his side.

  Memory, kneeling by the vessel, looked up. She'd brushed its hair from its face, whispering to it, trying to calm it. It didn't hear her, shivering on the floor, sobbing wildly. She looked flustered, worried, even, but when her gaze fell on Cassimer, it hardened.

  "Take him back to his cell."

  Cassimer didn't resist the guards this time, because his own heart still beat rapidly against his ribs, and the sounds of the Hecate played on a loop in his mind (I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry). But as they threw him into the cell and inch-deep water that really was water, the counter on his HUD ticked over, and 1017 became 1016.

  One more day. One more mathematical construct closer to the horizon. One more chance.

  44.

  JOY

  If space had back-alleys, Joy imagined they'd look much like the region where the RebEarth ship was hiding. Mobile mining platforms had left behind bands of debris chewed from strip-mined asteroids. In the light of the system's two stars – the red supergiant dominating its smaller, hotter companion – the chunks of ore had an iron gleam. Her primer registered occasional incoming signals, but Captain Baltimore told her that they were ghosts. Old emergency broadcasts and maintenance requests from abandoned mining equipment, along with errant Cascade streams of entertainment from distant worlds.

  The RebEarth ship was docked to an old mining station that barely looked fit for habitation. Plates were missing from its hull, some breaches exposing the interior. There was no sign of a force field. Only rusting metal held the structure together.

  "No matches in my database." Commander Polmak leaned heavily on the headrest of the pilot's seat. When Joy had taken Meeks's intel to Company Chief Vysoke-Myto, Cassimer's superior hadn't hesitated to put together a rescue mission. He'd called back Polmak and his team from someplace classified that had to have been hot, because several of the banneret men wore badly burnt suits, their reactive plates warped and bubbly. Polmak had spent most of their journey from Scathach attaching a new visor to his helmet, and his left cheek had the plastic sheen of fresh skin.

  "It's a refitted mid-century Antares Class battle cruiser. She's had extensive work done, but I'd recognise those lines anywhere," the navigator said. "I'll add the standard schematics to the team share, but don't expect an exact match, not after what these butchers have done to her. No respect for the classics."

  Polmak frowned, his dark eyes turning darker. "Are you sure? That'd make her an Andromeda Conglomerate ship. Not so much a classic as a relic."

  "Nobody knows ships better than Steadfast." Captain Baltimore smiled at his navigator. "You can trust her, Commander."

  Polmak muttered something non-committal and turned to leave the cockpit. Joy braced against the wall to let him pass, but he was as much a giant as Cassimer. His armour scraped sparks against the prismatic scales of her suit.

  "Apologies." He tapped the ceiling. To her, it seemed plenty high, but even though he hunched, his helmet grazed it. "Rampart build their ships too small–"

  "Bastion build their men too big," Baltimore called over his shoulder.

  "–and their pilots too mouthy." Polmak rolled his r's in a familiar way, his accent a heavier version of Constant's hints of foreign sing-songiness."I'll be briefing the team in five, Somerset. You should come back and strap in."

  "I'll be right there, Commander."

  The RebEarth ship didn't look like much. Clumsy, almost, and a dull beige colour. Nothing like Rampart's sleek grey ships, or the usual gaudy ships of RebEarth. This one seemed built to go unnoticed – not stealthy, but boring. It was the type of ship she might expect to see trucking bales of tissue paper or ball-point pens; products so common-place that even pirates wouldn't go after them.

  Maybe that was the point. Even so, it was hard to picture Constant onboard that ship, and even harder to consider that he might not be there at all. Meeks's intel was days old, its source a RebEarth connection of hers ("His name's Gary. Short, fat, no phoenix tats – because he's not a complete idiot – walks kind of funny. If you see him, try not to shoot him. He's a bad man, but he's good intel.").

  Good intel. That remained to be seen.

  "Don't worry, ma'am." The navigator looked up at her and smiled. "We've flown dozens of missions like this. A big old lady like that battle cruiser isn't going to notice a thing until it's too late. Besides, we owe Commander Cassimer a favour."

  "Him and the medic," Captain Baltimore said, patting his thigh. "We won't let them down."

  * * *

  Joy slipped into her seat, sandwiched between Lucklaw and Hopewell's new partner. The big man still wore a plastic brace around his leg, thin filaments running from it through his suit. He'd taken a gunshot to the knee a few weeks ago, Hopewell had explained, and it didn't seem like he should be up and about yet – let alone back in action – but here he was.

  His visor was open, and he smiled at Joy as she fumbled with her flight harness. He had a nice freckled face, very earnest, and it was hard to understand why Hopewell complained so much about him in all her messages.

  "Mint?" He held out a box of pastilles. "Never struggle with focus once I'm on mission, but sitting around waiting for the action to start... makes me kind of nauseous. Maybe it's just motion sickness. Either way, the mints help."

  "Thanks," she said, taking one. It could hardly hurt. "Lieutenant Rearcross, right?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Kyle Rearcross, at your service." He beamed at her, and in the seat opposite, Hopewell rolled her eyes.

  "Give it a rest, would you, Kyle? He's only sucking up to you because he thinks having the Earthborn on his side will keep the demons away. Like you're a magic charm."

  "You want a mint too?" Rearcross offered her the box. Hopewell made a face, but took one an
yway. He smiled and whispered – loud enough to ensure Hopewell would hear – to Joy: "Might shut her up for a minute or two, if we're lucky."

  Hopewell raised her hand to flip him off, but Polmak stood, and she quickly changed her mind.

  "Listen up. Baltimore just alerted me that we've got two RebEarth cruisers en route. We've got less than forty-five minutes before we need to be gone, so we go in as four teams. I'll lead the bridge team, consisting of the usual suspects plus Lucklaw. Macon, your team will head for engineering. You know the drill. Clemency, your boys and Daneborg are on harassment duty. Give the RebEarthers something to cry about, yeah? Our rescue team will be Somerset, Rearcross and Rhys, with Hopewell as Team Leader Four."

  "Me? I..." Hopewell straightened her back. "Yes, Commander."

  "All Team Leaders have access to the ship's schematics and their team's suggested optimal route. As intel is limited, prepare to improvise. Perceive the moment, act with clarity, kill anything that moves." Polmak grinned, and how strange it was to see a man so much like Cassimer and yet so unlike him. Same accent, same suit and rank, same conviction, but none of the sombreness. "Primaterre protects us all."

  The teams echoed the words, Rearcross placing his hand on his cuirass, and then it was time to get ready. Suits sealed, weapons checked and loaded, and it all seemed to be happening terribly fast. Before the mint had even dissolved in Joy's mouth, their ship was sliding under the belly of the RebEarth vessel.

  "Hit them fast and hit them hard," Polmak instructed. "We don't want to give them the chance to think about turning their prisoners into hostages, or executing them, for that matter. No hesitation. No mercy."

  Executing them. Breathing suddenly became very difficult, and things weren't happening too fast, but far too slowly, and she had to get in there now, before it was too late. Before everything was too late. She looked around for Rhys, for Hopewell, but it was Polmak who noticed her anxiety.

  "I'm from Kalix," he said to her, "same as Cassimer. I enlisted shortly after the news of the Hecate, on the next troop transport off-world, in fact. Best choice I ever made. So trust me, ma'am; we'll bring him home. We won't let you down."

  Baltimore's mechanics exited the airlock and clamped a flexible connection tunnel between their ship and the RebEarth cruiser. They pressurised the tunnel and carefully applied cutting gel to breach a maintenance hatch in the RebEarth cruiser's hull. When it was done, the mechanics re-entered their ship and the banneret men entered the tunnel.

  Polmak first, because in this he was just like Cassimer, in this and in the accent that made Joy think of rivers and forests and open fields. His team followed, Lucklaw casting a brief, hesitant look over his shoulder. Then Team Two, Three, and oh, now it was all happening too quickly again.

  She climbed up into the RebEarth cruiser, and it all felt like a very strange dream, and next to her, Team Leader Four seemed to feel the exact same thing.

  "Terracotta," Joy said to Hopewell.

  "What?"

  "The terracotta tiles. The windows are east-facing, so in the morning, when the sun rises over the sea, you'll get this amazing golden glow at the breakfast table."

  "Terracotta." Hopewell's smile washed the nervousness from her face. "Yeah, terracotta. I think you're right, Somerset. All right, then, Team Four – we've got better things to do than standing around. Let's go."

  * * *

  Here. Hopewell gestured towards a door. The schematics had the compartment down as part of the cargo hold, their objective, but the letters stencilled on the door read MED-BAY. Two contacts. Marked your target, Rearcross.

  Joy's augments weren't good enough to see as the gunners did, but her HUD updated continually with data shared by Hopewell. The thermal outlines of the two contacts were like ghosts on the other side of the wall, each painted red by the gunners. She'd drawn her Morrigan, the heavy weight of balance in her hands, but she was glad that she wasn't being asked to use it. Not yet, anyway.

  Rearcross reached out and touched the door sensor. The hiss of opening doors was followed by two suppressed shots. Both found their marks, both instant kills. Two women dressed in surgeon's scrubs fell to the floor. One limp hand dropped a scalpel, the sharp blade glinting under fluorescent light as it skidded across the floor.

  A body lay on a gurney. The two women had been working on it, but not as healers. They'd been taking it apart, bit by bit. It lay face down, its spine exposed where skin and flesh had been peeled from bone. The spinal column had been cracked open, revealing a tight bouquet of thin golden filaments. One of the dead women had been pulling filaments from the spine, gold strands still clutched in her gloved fist.

  Other bones had also been excavated for treasure. The back of the skull was gone, the brain scooped out and sieved for augments. The legs ended in stumps, the feet nowhere to be seen. The skin was mottled grey and black, the body so swollen and battered that its gender wasn't immediately apparent. A pile of shaved-off hair lay on the floor below what had been a face. Though matted and blood-stained, it had once been long and chocolate brown.

  "No." Hopewell stopped halfway through the horrible room. She raised her rifle light towards the body, but changed her mind. "No, please no."

  Rearcross approached, but she pushed him away, turning to Joy.

  "Somerset. Could you... on her shoulder. Could you check to see if there's a tattoo? A formation of crystals. I mean, that's what it's supposed to be, but I always thought it looked like a pinecone, thought that for a long while until I finally asked, hey, Katy, what's with the pinecone? and she told me no, it's supposed to be crystals, like the towers of Kirkclair. And you, you're from Kirkclair too, right, so you'll be able to tell. That's not it, right? That's not a tattoo?"

  Joy's primer had already identified the remains as CPT KATY TALLINN, and in the corner of her eye, she could see Rhys opening his visor to rub his suddenly very tired face, but she stepped over things she'd rather not think too hard about to gently fold over the flayed skin of the medic who had helped her and Lucklaw.

  The formation of crystals was there, clear in spite of the decay, so clear that Hopewell could no longer refuse to accept what her primer was telling her. Digital verification was one thing, hard evidence quite another.

  "It's my fault."

  "It's not your bloody fault." Rhys ran a hand over the body, his lips pressed together in a thin line. He was collecting Tallinn's tags, but to Joy it looked like more than that. "You did what you could."

  "Spare me the platitudes, Rhys. If you really believed that, then you wouldn't have spent weeks giving me the cold shoulder. Which, fine, I deserve that, but you could at least be honest about being angry with me."

  "Angry with you?" Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "I wasn't, but Earth have mercy, Lieutenant, you keep on saying stupid shit like that, I'll get there."

  "You haven't been to the common room in days. You've not said a damn word to me until just now."

  "I was in the med-wing, getting my augments upgraded before returning to duty. After that... hell, you know that when we lose people, the banneretcy's amateur bootleggers tend to come out of the woodwork. I didn't want to fall off the wagon on top of everything else, and you better believe I would have. Stars, Hopewell." He shut his visor, shaking his head. "I thought you'd be okay. You've got your partner and the entire company behind you. I hardly thought my opinion would matter one way or the other."

  "Well, it does."

  "In that case, I apologise for my neglect. As for my opinion, you already got it: not your bloody fault. Pull yourself together before I have to do it for you."

  "Maybe if Juneau hadn't pushed her stupid chess metaphor, I would have tried harder," Hopewell said, and Joy supposed blaming someone else was a kind of progress. "Would've done better. Maybe we could have saved them and the mission. Maybe we could have had it all. What was it the commander said? The banneretcy doesn't play games? Why did I ever listen to the major when he was right all along?"

  "I
s right," Joy automatically corrected, as though not even her subconscious could bear the thought of Constant in the past tense.

  "Is right. Yes." Hopewell took a deep breath. "Stars, if he could see me now–"

  "He'd be wondering what the hell you're doing standing around."

  "Language, Captain," Hopewell said primly. A moment of silence, and then she and Rhys both laughed. There was more than just humour in her voice; there was acceptance, too, and maybe this was what Hopewell had needed all along. Consolation and motivation were temporary reliefs, laughter her real reset switch.

  "Team Leader Four, be advised, hostiles are aware of our presence. Multiple contacts en route to your target location."

  "Got a lot of trouble coming our way," Rearcross said. "It's going to be messy. Just the way you like it, Team Leader."

  Hopewell smiled at her partner before bending to kiss Tallinn's broken hand.

  "Love you, Katy." She stroked the dead woman's shoulder, and then she shut her visor and raised her rifle. "Can't fight a storm, right? Okay. Then let's be the storm."

  * * *

  The cargo hold wasn't the prison the navigator had thought it might be.

  Among stacked shipping containers bearing the marks of various nations and companies, dark figures slept behind lichen-speckled glass. Cold fog rolled over crates and boxes, swirling where moving cranes disturbed it. A magnetic track ran down the centre of the chamber, carrying platforms large enough to accommodate containers. Cranes picked up cryo pods, lowering them onto the platforms where robotic arms clamped securely closed over the cargo. One by one, the cryo pods rode down the tracks towards an airlock consisting of dual force fields. The interior field dropped, then reactivated before the exterior opened, and the platforms continued out on tracks connecting the ship to the old mining station.