Howling Dark

by Christopher Ruocchio

  Tugging the deep hood further down, it said, “Oreto yagiara. Raka hassu-iuna.”

  “What’s it saying?” Crim hissed, pressing himself against the wall before Switch moved round the corner.

  “It can’t see,” I said.

  “Cryoburn?” the Norman asked over his shoulder as we moved quickly down the hall.

  Shaking my head, I said, “Not sure. The Cielcin aren’t fond of light to begin with.” The tall xenobite shrugged its gray mantle about itself, and were it not for the hands—too white and with too-long fingers—one might have thought the creature the specter of some itinerant, bent by time and toil. It slumped against the wall, bent so that its head was almost at a level with my own. Remembering well the struggles of waking from fugue, I caught it. “Not far now. Not far.” Helping the creature to stand, I looked up at the ceiling, at the hemispheres of black glass studding the dark roof at intervals, each housing a camera. They must be quiescent, depowered by Valka’s will, but still I felt the weight of them, the lidless eye of the Imperial conscience. “Come now.”

  We’d not gone three paces when Crim cried out in Jaddian and fired his stunner. I left Tanaran leaning on the wall and hurried forward. I had seen no one, but had been distracted helping the hulking alien to walk. Without having to be asked, Switch said, “Technician saw us. Don’t know which one.”

  “Black planet!” I swore, grinding my teeth. “To the lift, then. Double quick.” I turned back and snatched Tanaran by the wrist. Switching tongues, I said, “Liara doh!” Quickly now!

  Only the Pale’s silver-glass teeth were visible beneath its cowl. “What is happening?”

  “We have to hurry,” was all I said. “Liara!”

  It didn’t move, save to straighten as much as the hall would allow. Its mouth hung open for a moment, and it said, “You are fighting your own people. For me? Why?”

  “Liara!” I said again, tugging its arm.

  “You are a fool,” Tanaran said.

  “Granted,” I said, “but if you want to see your people again, you’ll come with this fool now.”

  Have you ever walked by night for the first time in a place too familiar to you by day? Have you felt the darkness and the light of stars and moons transmute that comfortable place into somewhere threatening and strange? Thus it was for that hallway. It was as if I had never walked that way before, who had walked it a thousand times. The ribbed walls and trapezoidal profile and the winking camera blisters felt as if they contained some unspoken threat.

  We piled into the lift, Crim and Switch coming up last to take a position nearest the door. Tanaran had to lean, lest its head scrape the roof of the carriage. The door sealed, and we seven plunged back down several floors.

  “Odds on there being a party waiting for us at the bottom?” Siran asked, triple checking her own disruptor was set to stun.

  “Too soon,” Crim said. “But it won’t be long.”

  The doors cycled open with a hiss, revealing a pair of haggard-looking fugue techs—bald-pated and pale in their gray-striped blacks. Crim didn’t hesitate, and so they had only the barest instant to register confusion before the stunner bolts felled them. They collapsed like a stack of wet rags.

  “Don’t seem right,” Switch said, lingering by the nearest of the stunned men. “They’re our people.”

  Tanaran’s distended form drew my attention as it emerged from the lift behind me, and I said, “Our Cielcin friend would agree with you.” Switch made a face, eyed Tanaran with a look of mingled horror and disgust, and when the xenobite had passed, the myrmidon made the sign of the sun disc, thrust it toward Tanaran as if the creature were a hedge witch Switch meant to ward against. I squinted at him, but was glad he did not see me shake my head as I added, “Leave them. They’ll be all right.”

  All the same, Switch stooped and untwisted the man’s leg out from under him and moved off with a punctilious little nod. I smiled after him. What was it I’d said to Jinan—it felt like years ago? That it was intolerable such good men should spend their lives in battle? I felt that sense again, and with it the sense—too common in me—that I deserved neither their loyalty nor their friendship. I confess I tarried there a step, watching Switch and Crim and Siran fan out, the latter dragging Tanaran behind her, moving from support strut to support strut. I did not stand there long—just a moment—and despite the urgency of our moment I smiled.

  “It’s not far,” Crim said, unhelpfully. I repeated the words to Tanaran. “Going to get more crowded the closer we get to the bay.”

  He could not have said it at a worse time.

  “Lord Marlowe!”

  There was the knife I’d been waiting for, plunged right between the shoulder blades, just east of the heart. My name seemed pulled from me like a shard of ice extracted from my back, and turning I saw Lieutenant Alessandro Hanas standing with six Jaddian aljanhi in their striped blue and orange tabards.

  They had phase disruptors trained on us.

  Even as I turned, I thumbed the catch on my shield-belt and felt the energy curtain collapse around me, skin tightening as the static charge forced hairs to stand on end. Trying to speak casually, I slid my arms into the sleeves of my coat. “Lieutenant, hello.”

  “I’m not sure what it is you think you’re doing, sir.”

  “Sir,” I said, checking that Tanaran was still standing there, “I’m taking this Cielcin to its leader.” No sooner had the words left my mouth then I realized the cliché they contained, but I set my jaw all the same. I did not draw my stunner. Hanas was shielded himself, and though the aljanhi were not, I did not want to provoke them, for my companions’ sake. Solutions began to spin off in my mind, ways to get my people safely down that hall and out. It was a straight shot to the bay a couple hundred meters away, and turning our backs would only expose them to fire.

  The Jaddian lieutenant scratched his beard. “Surrender, and I’m certain the captain will treat you fairly.” He shut his eyes, and for a moment the man spoke and not the officer. “After all she did for you.”

  “Don’t talk about her, Hanas,” I snapped. “I know what I’m doing.”

  The officer did not raise his hands, but his jaw worked as he glanced at the soldiers at his either side. He seemed to chew on some sour gristle, as if some foul taste had poisoned him. “I hope for your sake that you don’t.” The muzzles of six stunners glowed blue like the slitted eyes of a half dozen jeweled serpents. Crim had a shield. And Siran. And Switch. But the doctor, the other soldier, and Tanaran were not so fortunate. Tanaran might take a stunner bolt or two before it fell—I had seen its kind endure thus on Emesh—but I didn’t like the risk. And Tanaran would draw fire. There wasn’t an eight-foot-tall xenobite in the galaxy that wouldn’t draw fire from a cluster of human troopers in a narrow hallway. No matter how I turned it over in my head, I didn’t like our odds. I toyed with the idea of drawing my sword, but these men were—had been—my comrades. My friends. And they were Jinan’s people, and despite all that I was doing and had to do I could not bring myself to cross that line. Attacking those soldiers seemed too much like attacking her.

  “Surrender!” Hanas said, placing his own hand on the stock of his phase disruptor where it remained slung on his hip. “For the last time! Throw down your arms and kneel!”

  As he finished his demand, a stunner bolt from behind felled one of the aljanhi to his right, then another. A third. The lieutenant turned, drawing his weapon as two of the soldiers fired. One of their shots went wide, striking the ceiling, while the other struck me full in the chest and dissipated against my shield curtain. I moved forward, shouting at Tanaran to get down and out of danger.

  The shielded lieutenant lurched sideways, staggering for the wall. I drew my own stunner and fired uselessly at him, watching the energy curtain coruscate as the field exchanged with my weapon’s discharge. The lieutenant’s square shoulders hid what he wa
s doing, but I knew well enough.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  The standard Imperial alarm blasted through that corridor, urging the ship’s response division to our location. Red lights flashed. I heard a coarse oath from Switch behind me, and another set of stunner bolts whistled from a side passage behind Hanas’s men. Catching on, Crim fired at the remaining aljanhi, catching one full in the face.

  “What the hell is going on?” Siran shouted, words half-drowned by the alarms.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  I had much the same question.

  I did not have it long.

  There ought to be a word, I think, for the opposite of a catastrophe, though such moments are rare. Two figures emerged from the side passage, still in their Company reds. Elara caught one of the remaining soldiers full in the face with her stunner and Pallino followed, weapon at his side. The lieutenant was still on his feet, and whirling to face the newcomers, he tugged his disruptor free from its holster. The silver stock gleamed in the harsh light. Knowing the officer was shielded, Pallino threw his stunner square at Hanas’s face. The lieutenant’s shot went wide, and Pallino dove in past Elara before I could so much as adjust to the myrmidons’ surprise appearance. He threw a vicious hook—following through fist-to-elbow—that clipped the square Jaddian’s temple and snuffed him out like a candle.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  It happened so fast you could be forgiven for thinking it hadn’t happened at all, or for disbelieving that the aged and wiry old man had done it. Pallino looked at me with his one blue eye and through clenched teeth said, “I should have guessed you’d try something like this, boy.”

  “Guessed?” Clearly he had guessed; he was there, after all. “What do you mean?”

  “I told him, obviously,” said the voice, and it was only then that Valka appeared in the doorway, carrying a stunner herself. She looked a little gray, as if she’d somehow gone days without sleep in the hour or so since we’d parted ways in the hangar. “Once I had the security under control, I thought I’d fetch them.”

  Pallino’s one eye narrowed at me. “Going off on your own, is it?” He seemed not to notice the tall Cielcin standing right behind me, or else Tanaran was just another part of the furniture in its graying robe.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  “It is,” I said shortly.

  “Not without us, you’re not.”

  I swallowed, and we teetered there a full moment before I nodded and gestured on ahead. “We can fight about it later.”

  “You’re damn right we will,” Elara said, brushing past. “Leaving us like that.”

  “Save it!” I snapped, a little too palatine in that instant. “Let’s move it, people!”

  They hurried past me—all except for Valka, who stood still framed in the door from the side passage. For a moment I thought she was staring past me, watching Tanaran. It was only after a pregnant instant that I realized she was looking at me. The red light of the alarms flushed her pale face, and she offered a curt little nod. I mouthed a silent “thank you” to her, and together we turned and followed the others down the hall.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE BREAKING OF THE COMPANY

  WE’D GONE MAYBE A hundred paces when the others found us. Security was still disabled, per Valka’s interference, so the men and women who came hurrying around corners were not all spoiling for a fight. The technician we’d seen upstairs must have alerted Hanas, but word had clearly not spread to everyone on the ship. We ran directly past them, not firing. Most were unarmed. Not security at all. Shouts followed us up the hall, followed by a deep human silence when they realized just what was moving under that heavy mantle. Twice Siran fired on an armed legionnaire, reducing them to a ragdolled puddle of limbs dribbling sleepily down the walls. She led the way now, her long legs carrying her ahead of the shorter Crim, and she offered little quarter. I kept my eyes on the side passage, ready for proper security to arrive.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  “Can you do anything about that alarm?” Switch called to Valka. “I can’t hear myself think!”

  “In a minute!” the doctor shot back, waving him to silence.

  “We’re nearly there!” Pallino interjected. “Nearly!”

  The door to the bay was closed—though whether by alarm protocol or some will set against us I did not dare guess. I had reviewed the design schemata for the Balmung years and years ago, and knew those bulkheads were more than a foot thick and solid titanium. The walls were worse: a honeycomb of titanium and carbon fiber threaded with all manner of wiring and fluid conduits. I might cut through it with Sir Olorin’s sword, but sharp as the highmatter edge was, that would take time.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  “Forget the alarm,” I said, touching Valka’s arm and pointing. “Can you work that terminal?” To my surprise, she said nothing, but turned toward it just as a stunner bolt crackled past me. I went with her, moving in front of the Tavrosi scholar to cover her with my shield. “Take cover!” I shouted, and aimed at the nearest of the black-clad men emerging round a corner midway down the hall. The blast caught him full in the chest, and his feet skidded out from under him, prompting his neighbor to dive sideways for the shelter of a support column. I clenched my teeth.

  Behind me, Valka stooped over the security panel, tapping her way through the user interface. She grunted, brushing a fall of hair from her eyes, and drew back.

  “Did you get it?” I asked.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  She shook her head, stunner fire burned past us—one shot clipped my shield. I heard Pallino swear and Crim call, “You all right?”

  I had never seen Valka work her magic before—save on lighting systems—and had no idea what to expect. Some believe, outside the Empire, that we know nothing of machines, that the Chantry keeps us in embalmed Dark and ignorant. It is so for the plebeians and the serf classes—for whom a groundcar is a great luxury—but we palatines are surrounded by machines. The Chantry only keeps its vigil to ensure that none of those machines betrays a glimmer of self-concept, of intelligence. For even fifteen thousand years dead, the ghosts of the Mericanii haunt human nightmares. In the Imperium, at least. And in Jadd, and in many places among the Normans where the Memory of Earth is sacred. Even among the Lothriad where the minds of men are overthrown. I say this because I knew enough to know that Valka was not like to open a vein and daub runemarks on the console in her life’s blood. Still, I had expected a flash, and the part of me that was my mother’s son hoped for the rattle of offstage thunder.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  The panel just went dark, and Valka’s eyes shut tight. Whatever happened next I missed, because a pair of stunner bolts dug into my shield and I was forced to redirect my attentions. Switch crouched in the shadow of a bulkhead with Tanaran against the wall beside. My lictor’s face had gone white almost as the Cielcin, and he bared his teeth. I squeezed the trigger—there was no recoil—and another of Bassander’s legionnaires fell in a heap.

  “Dex!” Valka said, lapsing back into her native Nordei. The heavy bay doors began grinding open, and Crim barreled across the hall, dropping to his knees to skid across the polished floor beneath the level of the next stunner burst.

  “You go on,” I said, giving Valka a small push, then, “Tanaran-kih, civaqa ti-kousun.” I gestured for the xenobite’s attention, and indicating Valka said, “Go with this human. She can understand you. I’ll follow on behind!”

  Valka caught my wrist as I began to move. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere!” I said. “I’m shielded.”

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  I brushed her hand off and moved to the middle of the hall, my weapon raised. I had a vague notion of drawing any fire while the others crossed the hall, counting on my shields to hold through a round of stunner tag. The weapons were relatively low energy, and someone had to make sure the way across the hall was safe.

 
“Shit,” I heard someone say down the hall, “that’s Lord Marlowe.”

  Had they just noticed? Did they understand what was going on? Or was the speaker only new to the party, so to speak? I stood there, shielded, bathed in the pulsing light of the alarms. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds’ peace. It felt like centuries. I was aware suddenly of the tension in my shoulders, the way I carried myself as if hung by two hooks beneath my arms. I allowed my posture to relax as I cried out in my best palatine sneer, “Let us pass!”

  No one answered. The alarms vwaaed again.

  “Let us pass!” I cried, holstering my stunner. Shielded as I was, there wasn’t a thing they could do about it, not without escalating from non-lethal force. I heard footsteps behind me, my people crossing the hall.

  “Hadrian!”

  Behind me.

  I whirled, the soldiers in the hall forgotten. Stunner fire arced from within the hangar, and rounding the door I found a full complement of thirty soldiers—not proper decades, but the disorganized servicemen who had been in the hangar when the alarm sounded—scattered among the crates and the grounded shuttlecraft.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  And there was our shuttle on the far left end, unmolested during this whole affair. And why should it have been? If the soldiers in the hall had been surprised to see me, then surely the ones in the hangar were as well. Valka, Switch, and Tanaran crouched behind a forklift; Pallino, Elara, and the rest were spread behind crates. I was the last through, and smashed the door controls behind me. The hall door cycled closed with a groan like some chthonic thing.

  Drawing my stunner again, I ducked as I hurried to where Valka waited with our Cielcin prize. “Can you stop them closing the bay doors?” I asked, voice low.

  Vwaa! Vwaa!

  She blinked at me. “Probably, yes.”

  Beyond the line of shuttles was only an empty space of floor leading to the open mouth of the bay. Only a static field sealed the massive opening against the black of space. Impermeable to gas exchange and so strong enough to trap the atmosphere while permitting shuttlecraft to exit unmolested. Beyond that there were only stars. We could not see Rustam from the angle. It must be in the sky above us, I thought, uselessly.