Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  And there the word was: enemy. Well, that was the truth of it, wasn't it? The demons had been his enemies for twenty years and learning their true nature didn't change that. Someone, something, some force beyond his understanding, had murdered four hundred and ninety-six people on the Hecate and left him cold and naked and shivering in inch-deep blood. Alive, only because by the time he'd had no one left to kill but himself, he'd been out of bullets.

  "But there are other victories to be had. We've found the Andromache. We have found a new enemy that we're going to make damn sure will never become an old enemy." The puzzle pieces were all there. The corners were set and he was beginning to see the image. The whole wasn't yet clear, and wouldn't be, until he cleared one particular obstacle. "Lucklaw, these h-chips. Can they be disabled?"

  "Oh, here we go." Florey laughed. "Commander, you've lost your damned mind if you think we're going to listen to another word coming out of your mouth."

  "Lieutenant -"

  "Don't you fucking lieutenant me. Until you do your duty, your command carries no weight. If it were me or Hopewell, you know you would've kill switched us by now."

  Kill switch you right now if you don't shut up. A deep breath. Contain and control. "Florey, sit down."

  "No, Commander. You sit down. Pass me her code and the authority, and I'll do it. I'll give us half a chance of surviving this."

  "Forget about Joy." As if that were possible. "Focus on the mission -"

  "The mission?" Florey laughed again, incredulous. "You mean the mission as it was, before everything became about her? Inviting her to the habitat instead of saying thanks and goodbye like you should have; fine. But next thing Hopewell and I know, we're sidelined while you go to her ship. When you come back, you barely even bother acknowledging our existence because everything is still all about her. I think, okay, whatever - whether she dies or recovers, we'll be done with her and get back on track. How fucking stupid was I, huh?"

  Hopewell hissed the gunner's name, tugging at his arm, but he shrugged her off.

  "And what irks me - no, what really annoys the shit out of me - is this: You've been with our company three years, Commander. Three years of speaking to nobody unless you have to; three years of hardly even looking at anybody. He's a hero, people say; acts like he's better than the rest of us because he is. He's an ex-cataphract, people say; better if he doesn't talk. So nobody minds, not even the other commanders even though you treat them with the same disdain. But then Joy Somerset comes bouncing along, and the only conclusion I can draw is that unless it's a pretty redhead throwing herself at you, you don't really give a shit about anybody."

  "You're out of line, Florey." And wrong, but how could he not be? All they had to go on was the surface; the dark-glass reflection of who he was.

  "You don't even know where the line is anymore." Something like reluctance flickered across Florey's face, but then he sighed - a great heave expelling doubt and fear - and set his jaw. "Cassimer of Scathach Banneret Company, I hereby relieve you of your command."

  ◆◆◆

  Anyone of you bastards as much as think about questioning my command, the medics will still be picking up pieces of you come this time next week.

  The memory of Commander Ullapool's voice came interwoven with images. Reedmace swaying in the downwash of hovering shuttles. Cottony bursts of seeds that made the air soft and white and momentarily obscured the dreadful things that had landed in the once-quiet marshland. The electric hum of a tightly-packed squad of Helreginn-armoured cataphracts. The squelching of their commander's boots, as he paced through sucking mud. His words hadn't made much sense at the time - Commander Ullapool had been ten foot of pure belligerence and stim-jacked intensity. To Cassimer's eyes - so young then, with so much yet to see - Ullapool had been terrifying and the idea of challenging him, madness.

  Later - on a much more inhospitable world - when they'd been knee-deep in rad sludge for a month and could no longer remember what air felt like against unarmoured skin - it had started to make sense. What good was strength if you couldn't read a damn sat-map properly? What difference did rank and merit make when you'd made your men go down a tunnel they'd all had a bad feeling about, and a dozen of them died screaming in an enemy trap? When rations became a distant memory and in-suit supplies had run dry, not even reminders of purity helped. Ullapool's hard-headedness had become a weakness, and disgruntled whispers had soon turned into desperate action.

  Cassimer had been too young and fresh for the inner circle to include him, but his gun would've made no difference. Ullapool - outgunned and outmanned - had made good on his promise and showed his squad why he wore the rank of cataphract commander. He could've used their kill switches, but he'd chosen brutality instead. After that, nobody had challenged his leadership again. Nobody had as much as looked at him funny. But when, six months later, Ullapool had found himself on the receiving end of a warhead, nobody had mourned him either.

  Still, Cassimer remembered Ullapool's lesson, and the stims in his veins latched onto the recollection of violence. Defend what's yours, they sang. Kill the usurper, they urged, and his muscles tensed with want and anticipation. But he wasn't Ullapool, and this was Florey, not half a squad of faceless cataphracts - and more importantly, he didn't have time for this.

  "Only Rhys has the authority to make me step down." And Rhys wouldn't, not anymore. Not while he and Cassimer shared the same goal.

  "Rhys is out of it, which makes me the next highest-ranking officer. That, and this..." Florey gestured towards his rifle. "...is all the authority I need."

  Only as long as the mutiny was successful. Only as long as the usurped commander didn't live long enough to report back to Bastion.

  "Florey..." Hopewell all but whimpered his name. Lucklaw had withdrawn into the shadows, visor closed.

  "He's unfit, Hopewell. You know it as well as I do." Florey's gaze was fixed on Cassimer. Wary, anxious, but his hands kept well away from his weapons, as if he were afraid that the slightest twitch might set off a catastrophic chain of events.

  "You're right." It had taken Cassimer a while to work up the courage to say those words, and he'd expected them to taste as bitter as I surrender. Instead, he felt like laughing. Relieved of his command? Yes, relief was the word. As though he could finally take off a pair of shoes that had never fit in the first place. No more chafing, no more pretending that everything was fine. That he was fine.

  "Which is why I've resigned my commission." The letter, worded with curt anger, sat in a queue of reports waiting to be sent to Scathach as soon as a secure connection to the Cascade could be established. He shared it with the team, and that felt good, made the notion that he could walk away feel real.

  "But until Bastion has reviewed and approved my resignation, this is still my mission. This is still my team. If you want to do something about that, Florey, you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way."

  Knives or fists. That's how it would have to be settled to not alert the entirety of Nexus to their position. Florey's fingertips grazed the pommel of the thermal knife strapped to his thigh. The gunner had lost his bearings, lost his sense of self. The only decision he had left was whether or not he wanted to recover through violence or peace.

  "Commander - Lieutenant - have the two of you gone completely insane?" Hopewell wrenched Florey's knife from its sheath and threw it into a corner.

  The answer to her question seemed obvious to Cassimer - yes, they had. How could they not? How could any of them remain sane while the truth haunted them?

  "We've got enough enemies as it is. Turning on each other is suicide - and not what the banneretcy is about."

  "Purity is a lie, Hopey. The whole damn Primaterre is a lie. We fight and bleed for a fiction. The banneretcy? No more true than the lies it was built on. We're not comrades, we're fools, bound by meaningless oaths." Florey clenched his fists. "If any of you even are who you say you are."

  "And what's that supposed to mean?"


  "The first wave."

  Elkhart's first wave. Yes. A concern Cassimer had tried to ignore for the time being. Unnecessary to borrow trouble when they already were to their necks in it. But while everything he cared about was on Cato, Florey had a wife and children. To him, Protectorate space was more than an ideal. It was home and it was love, and Cassimer cursed himself for not seeing that sooner and thanked the stars that he saw it now, before going down Ullapool's path.

  "That's how they seized the Andromache. They must've had people onboard, perhaps even on the flight crew. It's the only way any of this makes sense. And when he described Amager's office on Scathach - you heard him. They're there, damn it, they're on our station right now." Florey wiped a trembling hand across his brow. "And they could be right here in this room."

  The whispering thing. The lying devouring thing. The thing that had taken Joy. It needed a name, and Cassimer knew of only one that fit. The very word he'd just convinced himself to reject; the very thing he'd told his team didn't exist.

  "Oh, what a load of bollocks." Hopewell pulled a disgusted face. "Use your brain, man. Even if Elkhart's telling the truth - which is a big bloody if, I might add - there's no way any of us are part of this first wave of human houseplants. We're friends, Floz - I've been to your home and you've been to mine. We've met each other's families. You went to my nan's 80th birthday party. Pretty safe bet that neither of us is in fact a defrosted would-be colonist from the Ever Onward, right? And the commander..." Her emphasis on his rank was unexpected, but welcome, support. "...well, there's no detail of his life that hasn't been gone over with a fine-tooth comb. Same goes for Lucklaw. These guys are somebodies, Florey. They couldn't have appeared out of nowhere without anyone noticing. And as for Rhys..." She paused, tapping her lip with a finger. "Well, to be honest, he could be space lichen for all I know - but if he is, then he's space lichen that got shot in the face. I say we just agree that he's our Rhys and do our bloody best to get him off this rock alive."

  Florey began to speak, but Hopewell wasn't finished.

  "No, no. I want to address your other point first. The Primaterre is a lie? Now, I understand that recent developments have been traumatic for some of you, but that's because you've forgotten what the Primaterre is." She looked around, as if waiting for someone to chime in. "Anybody? No? Well, let me remind you. The Primaterre isn't a century-old pharmaceutical company. The Primaterre isn't purity, and the Primaterre was certainly never our fear of demons. The Primaterre is people. It's me, it's you and you and you. It's all of us, and all the things we believe in. Florey, you're not with Earth Provides because somebody told you to be. You actually believe that stupid environmentalist shit."

  In spite of himself, Florey smiled, shaking his head.

  "You don't fight for a fiction; you fight for your family. It's for them that you are out here in the ass-end of the galaxy. Every bullet you've ever fired has been in service to them. And they're still out there, you know? They're no lie and neither is your love. You're going to stop sulking about the commander clocking you in the face, and you're going to put on your big boy pants and pull yourself together, and you're going to do it for little baby Innocent and all her brothers and sisters. And as for the kill switch business - if that were me out there, I would like to think you wouldn't give up on me. In fact, I know you wouldn't. You love me too damn much, and don't bother denying it.

  "And that, gentlemen, is what it's all about; love. Love of family, love of home, love of beach houses - it doesn't matter. It's all love, and the Primaterre is just the banner under which we've gathered. So let's be good to one another, yeah? Out here, we're all we've got, and that's what the banneretcy means. It's not oaths and it's not ideals; it's getting punched in the face by the universe, knowing that the guy standing next to you is either going to punch the universe right back - or eat the same dirt as you." She grinned, patting her rifle. "And I've got a feeling the commander's got some real tasty gravel lined up for us."

  Cassimer marvelled at her ability to adapt and accept, and the easy way with which she'd smoothed the waves. A shame that she meant to make this her last tour, especially considering that the banneretcy would soon have a vacancy.

  "Nothing's changed," he said and almost laughed. Nothing's changed? Everything had changed. Not even the shadows were the same. "The Andromache remains our objective."

  "You saw how much manpower Elkhart has. At least a hundred; thousands if he gets those cryo pods open. Between them and the eighty RebEarth hunters in town, I recommend that we return to base and attempt to contact Bastion." There was no defiance in Florey's eyes anymore. A question, perhaps - can we move on and forget about what happened?

  "Return how? The Pony's out of range, if not buried under a hundred tonnes of mud by now." Lucklaw spoke up, but kept his visor shut.

  "We take the train."

  "While Nexus is full of RebEarth?" Hopewell shook her head.

  "It's our best bet," Florey persisted, and Cassimer understood that he was no longer truly there. Part of the gunner had gone, reaching across the galaxy for the family he loved and fought for. The Andromache wasn't worth it, not to him, not anymore. "Commander, I beg of you. We are out of options here."

  "We are, but our enemies have kindly chosen to provide us with several."

  They didn't get it. Couldn't see the big picture; couldn't even see the puzzle pieces. A lack of purity, perhaps, but he could hardly berate them for that anymore. So he opened the box for them and shook the pieces across the floor. Nothing but shapes at first, made from equal parts inspiration and improvisation, but soon the shapes connected to form a plan. Mad, violent and incredibly dangerous.

  Even Florey couldn't help but love it.

  And then Hopewell noticed the one piece that was conspicuously missing from the puzzle.

  "What about you, Commander?"

  "You know where I'm going."

  Hopewell drew a deep breath. "In that case, we should all go. You can't save her by yourself."

  "I can," he said and smiled, even though his stomach was a tight knot of dread. "I just need a bigger suit of armour."

  49. Joy

  She cowered in a dark corner as a voice that wasn't hers screamed. The fist around her head had tightened its grip, steely fingers digging deep.

  "Ease off before she loses too much blood."

  The fist obeyed the calm voice and loosened slightly. In her dark corner, Joy shuddered. It was a trick, wasn't it? She was going to come out of her hiding place and then the fist would squeeze until she burst. It would; she just knew it.

  Then, slowly, she became aware of her body once more. The bones first; a solid reminder that she was not a floating thing. Her home was not the void, but the earth, and her bones the roots on which her aching flesh grew. Her right hand cramped, and between her fingers, she felt a tacky wetness. It had done something bad. Something terrible, and now that it was her hand again, the truth was that she had done something terrible.

  The dark corner. She had to get back there, had to hide before she remembered - but now her new lungs heaved with air and an arctic chill danced on her skin, each physical response anchoring her mind to her body. Bit by bit, she became whole.

  "She's showing critical levels of rejection."

  "The primer is conflicting with the h-chip."

  "Should I deactivate the signal?"

  Her eyelashes pulled uncomfortably when she tried to open her eyes. A sticky substance had glued her eyelids shut. She knew what it was - could taste it - but didn't want to think about it. Better to focus on what little she could see. Two indistinct figures, white against a golden backdrop, so bright that tears blurred her vision further.

  "No. The transfer is simpler when their minds are laid bare." One of the figures leaned in close, minty breath hot on Joy's skin. She tried to raise her hands to push it away, but plastic straps held her wrists firm.

  A damp cloth rubbed her face clean, scrubbed it raw, so roughly that she made to
whimper - but instead she laughed.

  What? Her mouth opened and she tried to speak, but more laughter came pouring out. Oh no. Oh no. As if to drive the point home, the fist squeezed her brain - only once, but mercilessly. Her body was hers to feel, but not hers to control. Not hers to possess.

  "I don't like to see her suffer." The man was dark of hair and face, and definitely not Finn, but he had Finn's voice. He had Finn's worried squint, and this time the fist let her have her say. She screamed.

  "Hush now." The woman with the cloth stroked her hair gently. "It's a shame, but the sleep will correct any damage. At least she can't communicate with the Primaterre soldiers in this condition."

  "That is good," agreed the man who sounded like Finn. "I'll begin the process then."

  The woman nodded. Her hand slipped down and across bare skin to rest - palm splayed - on Joy's sternum. Long-nailed fingertips tapped her chest hungrily, and there was nothing gentle about the woman's smile anymore. Then her hand began to apply pressure, and Joy sank backwards. Frosted metal walls, a glass lid; familiar, and some part of her laughed for real. Oh silly me. It's a nightmare; just a nightmare. I'm still in cryostasis on the Ever Onward and this is what five years of dreaming is like. It made just enough sense that she began to accept it, though some things were hard to let go of; some people so vividly dreamed, so fully formed in her heart, that their phantasms would linger long after she woke.

  Then brittle tendrils brushed her skin. The glass lid began to close, and reflected in its glossy surface, she saw herself and the thick blanket of lichen that enveloped her.

  ◆◆◆

  Waves, silvery with sunlight, lapped against smooth sandstone rock. Schools of fish moved in perfect unison, weaving and winding between clutches of swaying seaweed. She had been watching them for quite a while -

  - or had it only been seconds? She frowned, uncertain. Seconds, or forever, or somewhere in between; that made sense, but she should know which.