Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "You'd do that?"

  She nodded.

  "Stars. I'm going to have to clean my quarters now. With no visitors, I've kind of let things slide."

  "As long as there are no cracks in the bulkhead, I don't mind."

  "But what if you find the shows boring?"

  "Then you can tell Grace about your new colleague's terrible taste." She handed him his tablet back. "Here. I've made my womanly purchases, with 225 merits to spare."

  "Hammersmith will be pleased."

  "By the way, I wanted to ask..." What's a subdermal worm? No, bad question with likely a very bad answer. "...is there a reason you have no other female operatives?"

  "Hammersmith." Elsinore shrugged. "Whatever your questions about 36B, the answer is always Hammersmith."

  As if the Cascade agreed with him, the PA system suddenly crackled, Hammersmith's voice echoing throughout the structure.

  "Elsinore and Somerset, report to the hangar."

  * * *

  The new uniform fit her perfectly, but inside the Cascade, she was the only bright thing. She felt exposed, a beacon in snug white fabric. Hammersmith's metallic gaze drifted up and down the length of her.

  "Straighten your collar."

  She did, although it was already ruler-straight. His look remained disapproving. Her shoes were polished, her hair worn in a neat bun, the uniform spotless – she hadn't forgot to button her jacket, had she? No, all buttons were neatly fastened and gleaming silver. As far as she knew, she was perfect. But maybe that wasn't good enough. Maybe perfect was the wrong thing altogether, Hammersmith expecting something completely different from his operatives, but how would she ever know? Beyond anger and dissatisfaction, the man seemed unknowable.

  "Elsinore, we need a location on our target. Show Somerset how it's done."

  "Target?" Joy wondered nervously.

  "Our analysts detected unusual activity from an Oriel officer sent to investigate Cato. He appears agitated, making tentative plans to flee the Protectorate."

  "You think he's found out about the priming?"

  "I think we need to investigate. It'll make a fine first mission for you, Somerset. It's time we find out what you are willing to do; how far you will go for the cause."

  The target's name was Henry Bytheway, and Joy knew the instant she saw his face that she wouldn't go near far enough for Hammersmith's liking. Lieutenant Bytheway had a kind face and thoughtful eyes the colour of spring leaves, and his records showed the military career of a man who worked hard and fastidiously, but very far from the battlefield. A botanist, just like Joy, who had spent years of his life regenerating conquered and purged worlds.

  A good man, who deserved neither space-venting nor subdermal worms.

  Unless of course Hammersmith meant for her to go all the way in a completely different direction. Liz Meeks, the towerman Joy had met onboard the Andromache, had been neither killer nor torturer, but seductress, coaxing and cajoling her targets.

  Well. That was definitely not happening. If Hammersmith wanted Bytheway to part with information in exchange for sweet kisses, he'd have to do it himself.

  "What's so funny?" Elsinore asked.

  "Nothing," she said, biting her lip to stop herself from laughing when Hammersmith shot her another disapproving look. "So, how do we locate this Bytheway?" She couldn't bring herself to use the word 'target'.

  "We send him a message. The trick is to phrase it so that the target can't resist opening it. With civilians, you've got to think about it, do some research to find out what'll get their attention. THE MERIT LOTTERY HAS GOOD NEWS FOR YOU, CITIZEN usually works if you can't think of anything better. HI THERE HANDSOME works embarrassingly well, and I CAN SEE YOU is a good trick too, if you don't mind the civvy shitting themselves a bit. For military personnel, it's a lot simpler. Spoof their commanding officer's address – they'll have to open it immediately; it's protocol. Then put some Health and Safety reminder inside the message; something generic that won't ring any alarm bells. The important thing is that they opened it and triggered the embedded ping worm."

  "Ping worm?"

  "It pings the location of the recipient back to the sender. Very basic tech. The difficult part is designing a worm that won't be detected or destroyed by the recipient's automatic defences. Military personnel have nigh-impenetrable shields – absolutely impenetrable, if you ask Bastion or Oriel, but we towermen don't tell them all our secrets."

  It took less than thirty minutes for Bytheway to open, skim and discard the message. The location came back as a set of coordinates that were unfamiliar to Joy, but for the Cascade number.

  Cascade 72. She'd seen that number in comms and reports, and stencilled in faded white across a shedding hull. It was the 72nd Cascade ever constructed, and it served a small system, home to two colonised worlds – Beatrix and Cato.

  19.

  JOY

  Cato looked deformed, its surface sunken where the Dozen Daughters had punched deep craters into dust and bedrock. The impacts had sent brittle glass into the atmosphere, and whenever the glass caught the light of the system's sun, it sparkled. A spiky, gleaming halo for Cato.

  One Daughter had folded into Cato approximately thirty feet below the ground. That collision had done more than a simple dent. As the brane had opened to unfold the ship, it had folded in some of the planet. A long tug, pulling matter from matter, twisting rock like taffy. The sky had burned then, and the planet too. Joy remembered sitting on the floor of a fleeing shuttle, holding onto Constant as flames danced on the viewport and shrapnel battered the hull. It had felt like escaping hell.

  "They say that, for weeks, Cascades all across the galaxy spat out bits of Cato with every fold. A Rampart captain told me his frigate folded from Dunscaith to Sol, and when they made it through, a village floated in front of his viewscreens. Sheds of corrugated steel, tires, what looked like a couple of goats. Warped, he said; stretched – far beyond any natural shape."

  It was the first time Hammersmith had spoken since he and Joy had departed 36B. The silence had been uncomfortable, but if this was what his conversation was like, she rather wished he'd kept quiet.

  Their shuttle was a sleek white skimmer emblazoned with the Primaterre sun. The name on its side was the Imago, and so was the name that it had reported to the Cascade, but from her seat, Joy could see the instrument board and at its top, the embossed name Minuet. Tower's ships, it seemed, sloughed their skins as easily as its operatives did.

  Rossetti was no longer an abandoned system. Dozens of ships lingered within Cascade range, and the signal traffic was heavy. Oriel ships were making for Cato, Primaterre aid ships travelling to the nearby Beatrix. That was the one silver lining to all the destruction, Joy supposed. The people of Rossetti had lived in lawless poverty for too long, and the Primaterre could help. For all their sakes, she hoped that the assistance was accepted.

  But no amount of newcomers could hide the fact that Cato was dead, broken beyond repair, its bone dust spread across the galaxy. It was dead, and she had killed it

  "Don't look like much," Hammersmith said.

  "Cato?"

  "You." He glanced at her, the golden rings in his irises turning. "Not how I'd expect a worldbreaker to look."

  "With all due respect, sir, I'd rather you didn't call me that."

  "I can censor myself, but that won't make it untrue. And no need for the sir. When we reach our destination, I am Colonel Hammersmith. Among ourselves, Hammersmith will do. My name doesn't offend me." He tapped the instrument board, and the viewscreen shifted from external to display, showing an enhanced view of several Primaterre ships stationed outside Cato's debris field. "There. The Cleo Selene. According to Elsinore, the current location of our target."

  "And when we get there, who will I be?"

  "Joy Somerset, Tower Liaison Officer. In this instance, my aide. You will be expected to speak to others in my stead. Formalities, mainly."

  "I'm supposed to spy using my real ident
ity?"

  Hammersmith smiled then. "Spy? You thought we were going to turn you into one of our shape-changers; our infiltrators and social engineers? No, Somerset. You are singularly unsuited for such work, becoming more so with each passing day."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You'll see."

  * * *

  The instant she and Hammersmith stepped from the docked Imago into the Cleo Selene, she saw herself.

  Black glass twisted towards a smoky sky. Red lichen welled in from every side, feathery tendrils reaching for the poster's two central figures. Constant, visor uncharacteristically open, fired his Morrigan into the lichen. In his shadow, Joy held a rifle in her hands, steadier than her hands had possibly ever been. Her hair was a splash of sun-gold in a dreary world, her face flawless but for a dramatic smear of mud across her nose.

  Bold text across the poster proclaimed the slogan SOLIDARITY IS STRENGTH, and down the bottom, in smaller font: PRIMATERRE PROTECTS US ALL.

  "None of that's true," Joy said. "That's not what happened."

  "Isn't it?"

  "It was dirty and muddy and horrible. We thought we were going to die. We almost did. Cassimer wasn't in armour and I didn't even have proper clothes. The air was so hot we could hardly breathe. Cassimer's spine was broken. It was broken and I stabbed Skald in the face, but he didn't die, and Cassimer's spine was broken, but he came to save me, and then he... and then..." She had to stop. She hadn't thought about any of this since it happened, not in detail, all too happy to let the memories fade to become a single mass of horror instead of a thousand needle-sharp events.

  "Perhaps it'll come across better in the movie."

  "Movie? I didn't agree to that. I didn't agree to this." She gestured towards the poster, the enormity of it hitting her in waves. Her face. Her name. Her life, used as what, propaganda? Plastered all over a world she'd only just started to get to know? Everyone from Kirkclair to Kepler would know her name.

  "The contract you signed when you enlisted gives Bastion the rights to your image, and the rights to use any and all of your achievements for promotional purposes. Though you are Tower now, you are also still Bastion. If we no longer require your services, you will be transferred back to Bastion. Rank and merit intact, of course."

  "But that's... nobody even asked. Nobody even told me. Did they tell Cassimer? Does he know?"

  "What do you think?"

  As soon as the Imago had folded from Room 36B to the Rossetti system, Joy's primer had been able to access comms again. An inbox check had netted only a few messages: a note from Rhys asking her to please give me a call when you get this (Hammersmith had nixed that), and the usual crop of random pictures and videos shared by Hopewell. Not many though, and none in the past week – the gunner had to be out on assignment. And if she was, so was Constant.

  Not a single message from him. Not unusual, but if he'd known that she was about to become a celebrity, she was sure he would have said something.

  "He won't like it," she said.

  "Who cares?" sneered Hammersmith.

  "Well, I do."

  "Bad idea. In this line of work, it's best to stop caring before something forces you to. Want my advice? You should cut all contact."

  "I'll stop caring when you do," she said, and his reaction almost made her smile. Shock on a face hard enough to look bullet-proof. Suspicion, too, in his glinting metallic eyes. She'd caught a glimpse of the man behind the facade; the man who walked the surface of a dead planet making up stories about the long-forgotten. The man who did care, even if anger was the only way he knew how to express himself.

  * * *

  Hammersmith left her outside the Cleo Selene's busy crew quarters with no explanation as to where he was going or what they were doing. Her only instruction was to go see the ship's master and liaise, whatever that meant.

  "Your newfound fame is good for us. Tower operatives are not always welcomed with open arms by our military brethren, but you – they'll assume you were a prestige hire. They'll think that Tower wouldn't use a heroine like you for any real shadow work. They'll see your smile and earnest eyes and they'll believe that you are exactly what you seem: a figurehead. Safe to be around. Safe to speak to. So you just do your thing, Somerset."

  "My thing?"

  "The innocent looks. The wide-eyed awe. The sweet smiles," Hammersmith said, positively grimacing with disgust. "For a while, we thought it might be an act. Den Haag's assessment of you was our first hint that it's actually genuine."

  "Sorry. I guess I'm not Tower material."

  "The best deceptions have a healthy underpinning of truth. And you, you're bright enough that no one will see the darkness in your wake. It's good."

  For him, maybe, but to Joy, it sounded an awful lot like being used. On Cato, she'd been horrified by Constant's capacity for violence, but how quickly she'd grown accustomed to it. What might Room 36B make her accustomed to? What horrors would become her new normal? Every day, she was drifting a little farther away from the girl who'd left Kirkclair to travel the stars.

  She knocked on the ship master's office door, waited a few minutes and then knocked again. Grey-uniformed crew strode up and down the corridor, all of them staring at her, or at least that's how it felt. A third knock. Nothing, and in desperation, she wondered if she should just open the door.

  A tap on her shoulder made her turn.

  A man about Lucklaw's age stood behind her. A corporal, according to his rank insignia, and feeling terribly awkward, judging by his flushed cheeks.

  "You sign in with your primer, ma'am. Here." He pointed to a small display next to the door. "The ship's master will buzz you in when he's available."

  "Oh." She touched the screen and her primer initiated a connection. "Thank you, Corporal."

  "No problem, ma'am. I, uh..." He bit his lip, seemingly in two minds about whether he should continue. "...if I might ask, ma'am, are you Private Somerset?"

  "Lieutenant now, but yes, that's me."

  "It's an honour to meet you," he said and looked like he was on the verge of either hugging her or asking for her autograph or some other expression of awe that she didn't feel at all equipped to handle. Fortunately, the door to the ship's master's office slid open, and the young corporal hurried away.

  An honour to meet her. Lieutenant Somerset, the silly girl who couldn't even figure out how to open a door. Lieutenant Somerset, whose cheeks burned with a blush twice as deep as the corporal's. Perhaps she wasn't so different from the girl from Kirkclair, after all.

  * * *

  "It's an honour to meet you," the ship's master said, and Joy, sitting in front of his desk, wondered how many times she'd have to be told that before she'd start believing it. "If you don't mind my saying so, you're not quite as..."

  He hesitated, and she filled in the blank for him: "Tall as in the posters?"

  Not as tall, and at least two cup sizes smaller. They'd altered her appearance to a greater degree than they had Constant's, which felt vaguely insulting, but Poster Girl Joy also had many more freckles – entire constellations spattered across pale cheeks, as opposed to the faint dusting across the real Joy's nose, and she liked that the current beauty ideal seemed to lean toward the more freckles the better.

  "Yes," he lied, as his gaze reluctantly rose from her chest to her face. "They are quite striking, aren't they?"

  "To be honest, I'm not really very comfortable with them," she said, hoping to God that he was in fact talking about the posters. "It's a bit unsettling seeing myself wherever I go."

  "Of course. I could have them deactivated for the duration of your stay, if you wish."

  "I'd appreciate it," she said, amazed at how easy that had been. Had Cassimer ever tried asking for the same thing on Scathach? No, knowing him, and her heart ached at how willingly he endured.

  "So, Tower onboard the Cleo Selene. The captain was none too pleased about the lack of a heads-up. What's your business here?"

  And now it was her t
urn to lie. The first time that day, but not the last, as she spent the next few hours walking from office to office, liaising. Sometimes Hammersmith was in her ear feeding her lines, and sometimes she had actual business, delivering reports to various officers. She even collected one report, from a sweaty man in the Cleo Selene's machine room who didn't look her in the eye or so much as acknowledge her existence, simply whispering for Hammersmith as he walked past, his primer briefly connecting to hers for a file transfer.

  In spite of the lies, it was the best day she'd had since waving goodbye to Rhys in Kirkclair. A whole ship to explore, a whole crew to meet. So much to do and see, and so many people so eager to show her all sorts of things. The captain gave her a tour of the bridge, the gunners showed her the ship's weapons systems (one even asked if she wanted to fire the railgun – she declined, but watched as he did, obliterating a tumbling shard of Cato). She dined with the captain and the ship's officers, and when she shut the door to her guest quarters that night, her primer's list of social connections had grown exponentially. If this was what it meant to liaise, she thought she might come to like it.

  And then she woke in the middle of the night as Hammersmith clamped a hand firmly over her mouth.

  "Quiet. Dress. Follow."

  * * *

  Lieutenant Henry Bytheway knelt in the Imago's hold, chained to the bulkhead by shackles. A black bag covered his head, the fabric fluttering rapidly as he breathed. His bare knees were reddened with cold, his t-shirt soaked with sweat.

  Is it really necessary to treat him like a prisoner? Joy shot a private text to Hammersmith, accompanied by a sharp glare. They stood together in the hold's doorway, the cockpit lights spilling down the stairs from behind.