Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "Sad thing what happened to her. Not my preferred solution, but men like your guards... men like Commander Cassimer here, they will never barter like civilised people. They want blood – nothing else will satisfy them." Kivik approached, dragging Kiruna along. A trail of blood followed. "But if you want a deal, I will honour it. Your people and the shuttle for the primer samples. Seems fair to me."

  Southgate nodded and began to lower his hands.

  "Hostages first," Cassimer said. Southgate gave him a nervous glance, clutching the samples close to his chest. A rabbit, caught between two predators. Scared, and he should be – whichever way this went, it wasn't going to end well for Southgate.

  "See what I mean? No sense of honour; no flexibility. The commander will have it his way or he will have death, and that's the way he likes it." Kivik pulled the knife from Kiruna's back and shoved her to her knees. Kiruna's gauntleted fingers scratched the ground. "Go on then, little hostages – run."

  "Commander, ask him if I can aid our wounded?" Tallinn, at the airlock still, looked out apprehensively.

  Ask. No; Kivik had the right of it. Cassimer asked nothing of filth like him.

  "Our medic's coming out to collect our wounded."

  "Fine," Kivik said. "If it'll speed things along, I'm all for it."

  Baltimore went with Tallinn first, but she soon returned for a flight officer who had been winged in the firefight. And lastly, Kiruna. Aided by Daneborg, Tallinn lifted the downed sniper off the ground and began to haul her towards the ship. As they passed Cassimer, Kiruna looked up, giving him a bloody smile.

  "Could've let me go. Didn't. Thanks."

  "Hush, Kiroo." Daneborg shook his head. "You've lost enough blood as it is."

  "No worries," said Tallinn, a little too cheerfully. "I'll sort you out as soon as we get on the ship."

  And then there was no one between Cassimer and the RebEarthers except for Southgate. Not a vessel, but filth nonetheless. Everything they'd done on Velloa, every injury suffered, every effort made – all of it wasted.

  And unless he wanted every RebEarther in range to unload on him the second Southgate handed over the samples, he had no choice but to retreat. He collected his Hyrrokkin and backed up towards the ship.

  Kivik took the samples, passed them off to another RebEarther and calmly raised his rifle.

  Two triggers pulled. Cassimer's faster than Kivik's.

  Two targets hit. Kivik's softer than Cassimer's.

  The Morrigan's burst of orange fire shattered Kivik's cuirass, knocking the Shipwrecker flat on the ground. A hard and loud impact; a sound like shattering glass.

  Yet not nearly as terrifying as the sound of bone shattering and the wet patter of blood. Not nearly as terrifying as the short intakes of breath, or Tallinn's shocked cry.

  Cassimer turned, his APF flaring as RebEarth opened up. Tallinn stood in the airlock, holding onto Kiruna, not letting go of the sniper's twitching arms even as the back of her skull slipped off. Daneborg, showered in the blood of his partner, grabbed Tallinn, pulling both her and Kiruna backwards into the ship to clear the way for Cassimer.

  "Told you I'd let your people go," Kivik called. "But Primos aren't people. They're abominations!"

  Cassimer climbed inside, his boots slipping on blood. He reached for the panel to shut the airlock – and then Southgate was there, eyes wide and pleading.

  "Please!"

  And because Cassimer's boots were spattered with the blood of a comrade, he pulled Southgate to safety. Because shards of Kiruna's bone needled the floor, he didn't want RebEarth to have the satisfaction of ending Southgate. That would be his alone.

  * * *

  Baltimore sat in the pilot's seat, bloodstained fingers running across the instrument panel.

  "You sure you're good to fly?" Lucklaw, hovering behind him, asked.

  "This is the ship that destroyed my girl. Guess that makes her my new girl." He pressed a button and the cockpit lit up, bright and garishly crimson. "See? She likes me."

  "We good to go?" Cassimer stood in the cockpit doorway. Behind him, Tallinn wept as she tried to put back together what couldn't be. Daneborg cradled what was left of his partner. The Kalevalans watched in silence.

  "The ship is under our control," Lucklaw said. "As long as Baltimore doesn't pass out and crash us, we're good."

  "Tallinn, get up here and see to the captain." He allowed her one beat of silent sobbing before shaking her shoulder. "Tallinn."

  "Yes, Commander." She'd removed her blood-smeared helmet and wiped her tearful face with her hand as she entered the cockpit. One more sob, and then no more. When she spoke to Baltimore, she was almost back to her cheerful self, though slightly dreamy – slightly dulled by chems.

  "Engines engaged, Commander. Weapons systems hot. Take the shot?"

  The landing pad area had cleared. No trace of Kivik; no trace of the primer samples. Only the dark windows of the residential complex glared at them now, and though Cassimer knew that there was nothing in those shadows, knowing wasn't the same as accepting. Corruption crept all over Velloa, a thick film of wrongness, and this time, the corruption had won. This time, the laughing shadows had cause to laugh.

  "Raze it," he said. "Burn it all down."

  * * *

  The King's Ransom skimmed Velloa's waves. Smoke rose from the tower island, reaching towards a sky streaked by the shooting stars of railgun fire. Wreckage plummeted from above, splashing into the deep brown sea. RebEarth ships had descended from orbit into Velloa's atmosphere, racing to escape their pursuers. White-gold Europa Heptarchy ships stretched their wings to follow, and darting between them were smaller hunters painted black and green and festooned with lights of every colour imaginable. Rusalki freelancers – mercenaries without home or loyalty.

  "Earth have mercy." Rearcross stood between Baltimore and the navigator, leaning forward to get a good look at the sky. "You need to get us out of here, Captain."

  "Out of here and into that?" Baltimore shook his head. "This is a RebEarth vessel – Kivik's own ship. You think we'll last two seconds if we hit orbit? No. We must stay low, stay hidden."

  "How long?"

  "As long as the battle lasts. As long as a piece of string. Sit down, Lieutenant, and strap in – when we do go, we'll go fast and we'll go hard."

  Speaking of which. Cassimer stood, drawing his Morrigan.

  "On your knees." At the sound of his voice, the civilians scattered, leaving only a frightened Southgate.

  "Commander, please–"

  The Morrigan's cold muzzle against his forehead interrupted his sentence.

  "On your knees."

  Southgate, trembling, obeyed.

  "But Commander, please..." The Morrigan pressed a little harder, and Southgate's eyes widened, tears swelling over his eyelashes. His next words – his last words – came out as a panicked howl. "I only did what she told me!"

  Perhaps not his last words after all. Cassimer lowered his Morrigan. "She?"

  "The one with the dark hair. The.. the major!"

  * * *

  Major Juneau confirmed the accusation with a curt nod. No regret on her sharp features, not even when Daneborg looked up from his partner's corpse to glare at her.

  "The situation looked hopeless, and I saw a way to help. I would've made the trade myself, but coming from a Primaterre, Kivik would've suspected a trick. I really rather needed him not to do that, because, well, there is a trick."

  "Better be a damn good one," Daneborg muttered.

  "I added an organic tracer to the samples. Oriel tech, based on jellyfish DNA, originally commissioned by Tower. Used for their wetwork, I take it. It will–"

  "Transmit its location by pinging the nearest Cascade every few hours. I know," Cassimer said.

  Cataphracts, too, had found uses for tracers. Tag one hostile and let him go. Find the enemy's food supply and lace it with tracers, and allow the enemy to come collect it. Wait for the location to come through and then hit those co
ordinates. Flatten the mountain, raze the city, burn the forest.

  "So we might not have the primer samples now, but we can retrieve them. As an added bonus, we'll have the location of a RebEarth base where the red demon will likely be holed up, along with Kivik and whatever other scum has gathered around him. One strike and we can take them all out. Clean and simple."

  It was never clean and simple, but there was no point in telling Juneau that. There was only one way to learn that lesson, and he meant to make sure that she would.

  "Act without my permission again, and you're going home stripped of rank and merit. If you go home at all."

  Juneau's gaze fell away from his, but found nowhere else to land, sliding across the team's unforgiving faces to finally find refuge examining the floor.

  "Sit down and strap in. Baltimore says to expect a rough ride."

  "What about Kiroo?" Daneborg asked.

  Banneret soldiers killed in action were usually slagged along with their armour. It was the simplest way to ensure their augments and tech wouldn't fall into enemy hands and prevented the desecration of their bodies. No such measures were necessary in Kiruna's case, but once returned to Scathach, she'd burn all the same. Her body would be transported to the med-wing incinerator, her name added to a wall, and a vial of her blood dispatched to Earth. That was the way of things, but for the lean sniper, whose hair waved across the floor with every toss of the shuttle, it seemed wrong. For her, and for Daneborg, whose fingers trailed his partner's cheek.

  "The sea," Cassimer suggested and knew he was right. Together with Daneborg, he stripped Kiruna's body of anything worth recovering. He collected her digital tag and opened the airlock. Waves sprayed the ship, frothing and foaming, and Daneborg carried his partner to the edge, said a final goodbye, and released her into the deep, dark waters.

  And there was no such thing as ghosts, but if there were, then Velloa's sea was no longer empty. A preying shadow did swim there now, sharp-eyed and hungry; a beautiful monster.

  21.

  CASSIMER

  "War." Station Chief Amager picked up an algae-coated conch shell and began to polish it. His face wrinkled with the disingenuous concern of a man who'd see the entire war from the comfort of his leather office chair. A man who would continue to fuss over the welfare of his fish while casualty reports piled high on his desk. "It's inevitable now. Kivik slipped the net, but Major Juneau's tracer worked wonders. Amazing tech, really. It's allowed us to pinpoint the primer samples' location to not just a world, but a specific building."

  He turned his monitor towards Cassimer and Company Chief Vysoke-Myto. The screen showed fuzzy satellite footage of a sprawling city, a building near its centre highlighted in red.

  "Unremarkable in every way, but unfortunately, the world it's on is not. I assume you're both familiar with Hereward?"

  Hereward, world of outlaws, sanctuary of exiles, and one of the few places in the galaxy that was actual RebEarth territory. The rebels ruled there, using it as a seat of power. During Cassimer's time in the cataphracts, its name had come up frequently, spoken of almost longingly. He had pictured it himself, many times, imagining what it would be like to stride across its impure surface. Purging Hereward was an ambition of many, but until now, an impossibility.

  The system's Cascade had been one of the first, the colonies well-established and of significant pedigree. None were Primaterre, or receptive to the idea of a Primaterre incursion. They'd rather tolerate RebEarth than risk giving even an inch to the Protectorate.

  "Bastion Command calls it an opportunity of a lifetime. Gustavia controls one world, and they're too busy fighting the Kalevala to worry about us. Another colony is a member state of the Europa Heptarchy. We've long avoided unnecessary provocation – the Heptarchy is powerful and has many allies – but now that we have good cause to invade Hereward, well... It looks like you're going to get your wish, Vysoke-Myto. Better prepare your men for war. It's going to be a big one."

  "We're always prepared," Vysoke-Myto said. "But stars, Amager, could you do something about the smell?"

  Station Chief Amager's office stank of death. Fish swam in tubs placed around the room, water splashing over the edges. Station maintenance staff waded inside the open fish tanks, scrubbing them clean.

  "Apologies." Amager set down the cleaned conch shell and picked up a rock. "I've a very busy schedule and the weekly clean can't be skipped. Not good for the fish, you see. They like to stick to the routine. I could've postponed this next bit of unfortunate business, of course, but I thought we'd all rather get it over with as quickly as possible. Wouldn't you agree, Commander?"

  "Yes, Station Chief," Cassimer said. "Quicker than I expected. Tech worked fast."

  "They tell me it was easy. Somebody recognised the background as the barracks on Achall, and they worked backwards from there. It didn't take them long at all to identify the photographer as..." Amager's eyes flickered silver. "As a Private Connor Gogently, who, as luck would have it, was recently stationed here on Scathach. Working BaseSec, apparently – hard to think of a less suitable position. In any case, his commanding officer will bring the young man up here in a moment."

  Longer than a moment. As the minutes ticked away and the algae was scrubbed from fish tank glass, the room seemed to shrink. The heat and the smell of oakmoss desperately trying to compete with aquatic decay felt like a film on Cassimer's skin. Rot, in the heart of Scathach.

  Amager kept giving him nervous glances, and eventually, the station chief couldn't stay quiet any longer.

  "You've seen the new posters, Commander?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  "Somerset gave me a heads-up before I saw them myself." A single message had been waiting for him upon his return from Velloa. Far too short and entirely wasted on unpleasant news. He appreciated Joy's attempt to prepare him, but when he could have so little of her, he'd rather she didn't waste her time worrying about him.

  "Oh, good." Amager smiled. "We were unsure of how to handle it. There were concerns you wouldn't take it well."

  "I didn't." A little terser than intended, but at least it shut Amager up.

  * * *

  Private Connor Gogently entered the Station Chief's office with the cocky spring in his step of someone who'd not yet learned that, for a private, being summoned to such lofty quarters was the worst kind of news. When he saw Vysoke-Myto, his eyes lit up, and when he saw Cassimer standing by Amager's desk, he grinned wide with surprised delight.

  "Is this about my application to the banneretcy? Sirs, let me tell you, you won't regret–"

  "Sit down," Amager interrupted, and Gogently's mortified superior shoved the private onto a chair near the door. "So, Connor Gogently. You trained on Achall?"

  "Yes, Station Chief. Can't say I'm sad to see the back of that place!" Gogently grinned, not even getting the message when none of the men present returned the smile.

  "No filters," Amager said. "During training, did you meet Joy Somerset?"

  "Yes, sir. We're very good friends. I didn't know she was a big deal back then though. Did she recommend me for the banneretcy?"

  "During your time on Achall, did you take pictures of Somerset without her knowledge or permission?"

  Gogently's stunned look was answer enough, the redness creeping across his clean-shaven cheeks all the evidence Cassimer needed. This impertinent, undisciplined bastard had–

  Deep breaths. He clenched his fists, burying the anger deep.

  Amager sighed. "Cuff him."

  "What?" Gogently stood. "You can't–"

  "Don't make the mistake of resisting," his commanding officer advised, and Gogently was unfortunately smart enough to take the advice.

  He held his wrists out, but as the shackles tightened around them, he had the nerve to look indignant. "It was only a couple of pictures! And it's not like they were nudes or anything. Some guy messaged me, said I'd get ten thousand merits per pic, and he wasn't lying, either. Spent the merits on augme
nts, see, muscle and bone, to make myself a better soldier. I mean, what's the big deal? Somerset probably wouldn't even care."

  "I care," Cassimer said, his voice quiet and low. Gogently looked at him, and when something seemed to click in the private's brain, he gawped in horror.

  "And Bastion cares." Amager shook his head with distaste. "A soldier who cannot be trusted is no soldier at all. For ten thousand merits, you sold your honour and your purity. In the eyes of Bastion, you are a traitor."

  "Traitor? But... but it was only a couple of pictures!" Gogently, on the verge of tears, looked to Cassimer. "Commander, I apologise, all right? I didn't know she's your girl. I would never have–"

  "She is a fellow soldier. Nothing else matters. That said, as the pictures in question were used by the enemy to place the commander under duress, I will leave your fate in his hands. Commander?"

  Only a couple of pictures. Only a trust broken. Only a boy, who'd spent three months alongside Joy on Achall, while Cassimer had barely had three weeks with her on Scathach. A boy who'd heard her voice, seen her smile, felt her presence every day. This boy would have held her hands, lifted her, carried her, slept next to her. And since he was the sort of person who'd take pictures of a sleeping woman, who the fuck knew what else he'd helped himself to? Who knew what impure thoughts had crept through his mind–

  Another deep breath, to stop his own hands from creeping towards his holstered Morrigan. The demon wanted to turn Primaterre against Primaterre, and Cassimer would not do its bidding.

  "Connor Gogently. You are stripped of rank and merit. You will be escorted from the station without delay."

  "But..." Gogently's face fell, tears spilling down his cheeks. "But it isn't fair. This is all I ever wanted to do. I just wanted to be a better soldier. I wasn't trying to–"

  "For the crime you've committed – selling secrets to demons – a soldier would be court-martialled," Vysoke-Myto said. "I suggest you accept the commander's mercy, because that's exactly what he's giving you."