Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "No guns, either," Keiss said, and he was correct. "And there's only one of you. Oh, I understand that you are a soldier, but you're also as fresh as they come. Henderson here spent two decades as a margrave, and McKenzie... well, best not to mention what he used to do."

  McKenzie gave a wolfish grin.

  "Lieutenant Eric McKenzie of Skadi Banneret Company. Fought on Matisse and Vainamoinen. Lost his entire unit on Hypatia when the valleys burned," Lucklaw said, and McKenzie's grin faltered. "Sergeant Henderson spent most of his career raiding along the borders of the Protectorate, before earning himself a dishonourable discharge."

  "You've done your homework," Keiss said coolly.

  "You were Bastion, too, once. Just long enough to make yourself electable."

  "Guilty as charged." Keiss's smiles were starting to get annoying, as though the man still wasn't taking this seriously.

  "Lance corporals don't usually get many augments – not because they don't need them, but because they can't afford them. But I know what it's like, being a rich kid let loose in Bastion's candy store. If my mother hadn't set a strict budget..." Lucklaw paused as one of the guards sniggered. Damn it, he could feel himself blushing again, and the hotter his face burned, the louder the guard laughed. "I would've gone on a shopping spree on day one. Like you did."

  "I must've forgotten to ask for my mother's permission," Keiss said.

  "Bone, muscle, even neural augments. Enough to make you an AC-5. Henderson and McKenzie here, I'm guessing a 6 and 7, maybe an 8, which means that just like me, you had to hand over your kill switch codes to the officer in charge of this zone. No getting around that, no matter how rich or powerful you are. But see, I have a friend in Tower who let me borrow a few tools. Have you heard of mind-worms? Probably not. You're not supposed to have, because they're not supposed to be real. But they are."

  Sweat dripped down his back now, soaking the fabric of his shirt. His mouth felt dry, his tongue on fire, but his mind was here and travelling rivers of light, and he could do this. "They're real, Keiss, and Rescobie is more than just mayor. He's a family friend, and he's the officer in charge of this restricted zone, and most importantly, he's real talkative when he's drunk. The mind-worms didn't have to burrow very deep."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Keiss's smile had begun to falter.

  "Justice," Lucklaw said.

  Henderson took a step towards him, and Lucklaw activated his kill switch first.

  "For Earth," he said as the big man fell, and then it was McKenzie's turn. "For Xanthe."

  Keiss's smile died along with his guards. He picked up the paperweight from the desk and swung it at Lucklaw.

  "For the commander."

  The paperweight hit the floor with a deep, bell-like sound.

  Keiss was dead.

  Oh Earth have mercy, Keiss was dead.

  Lucklaw steadied himself against the wall. Panic chased satisfaction through his body, his stomach a tumbling churn of unexpected emotion. He had wanted to do this for so long. Ever since Cato, since the second he found out about Project Harmony, he'd burned to see justice done.

  Keiss was dead, and he deserved to be. But this was different from the lives Lucklaw had taken before. This time, there had been no orders, no commander's sanction. He had acted alone, and it felt like falling into a void without a safety line.

  He slid to the floor, his back against the wall, and stared at the three dead men. Would the commander approve? He thought so. He hoped so. Somerset had, with some reservations. They hadn't discussed it much – couldn't risk it – but she had worried for his safety. Had asked him if the risk was really worth it, as killing Keiss wouldn't undo any of the evil the man had done.

  But the last time he'd seen her, she'd hugged him and whispered: "I'd wish you luck, Aubrey, but I know you don't need it."

  True. He didn't need luck, and he didn't need a safety line either. He had himself and everything the commander had taught him, and that was more than good enough.

  First, he had to clean the room of biological traces. When he'd planned this, it had seemed so easy. He'd gone over it a million times – spray down the room with the bottle Somerset had pilfered from Room 36B's stores – but in his imagination, his fingers had never trembled and he had never dropped the cap twice, or been forced to search for it underneath furniture.

  A quick scan showed no trace of his DNA in the room. He considered arranging the bodies somehow, but decided against it. The records would show that they had activated their own kill switches. Their deaths would be weird and shocking, talked about for months to come, but soon enough, they'd be relegated to the dusty archives where all weird and shocking things ended up. Unexplained suicides just weren't that interesting in comparison to demonic outbreaks or, hell, even Somerset's stupid lake monster.

  All right. Another deep breath, but it didn't really help. The floor felt wobbly, the walls claustrophobically close. That was okay, because it was time to get out. He'd go back up to the party, mingle for a bit, have a few proper drinks and go home once his mother got bored. Easy.

  He unlocked the blast door and pushed it open.

  A man stood on the other side, back-stepping elegantly to avoid the door.

  "Mister Keiss, I couldn't reach you over the comms..." Andrews, Keiss's driver, trailed off. He looked over Lucklaw's shoulder, then into Lucklaw's eyes, and opened his mouth to scream.

  And then one of his mother's bodyguards was there, smiling politely as he grabbed Andrews's head with gloved hands and snapped the man's neck. Two more guards appeared from around the corner, accompanied by – Earth have mercy – Admiral Victorie Lucklaw herself.

  Lucklaw didn't know what to say. All he could do was stand there like an idiot as his mother peered into the room behind him.

  "Smith, Greene – clean this up."

  "Creatively or subtly, ma'am?" asked Smith, holding the dead Andrews by the armpits.

  "Aim for discreet. Dorn, bring the car around. My son and I will be leaving in twenty."

  She took Lucklaw by the arm, and he, unable to think of anything to say – unable to think at all – meekly followed her upstairs. They had proper drinks that didn't taste of anything and the hors d'oeuvres that Keiss had wanted to try. They were like papier-mâché in Lucklaw's mouth, but that was okay, because as long as he was busy chewing, he couldn't be expected to take part in small talk. His mother had no problems with that, chit-chatting, laughing, and introducing her son to a parade of people whose faces were blurs. There were fireworks at some point, and stars, he thought that Atalanta might actually have kissed him, a big, wet kiss that tasted of cinnamon and too much champagne.

  They were the slowest twenty minutes of his life. And then he was back in the car, the door hissing shut, and Kirkclair was gone, the universe reduced to him and his mother in the seat opposite.

  "I can explain," he said, with no real idea of how to continue the sentence.

  "A year ago, I would've been very interested in hearing that explanation." His mother gave him a strange smile and snapped her seat belt into place.

  He waited, but she said nothing else. The fasten your seatbelt sign blinked in the corner of his vision. He obeyed, and it felt good to have an instruction to follow. Light blinks, seat belt is fastened, light stops blinking – simple and sensible and all he had to hold onto as the world spun around him.

  The car pulled away from the mayor's estate. Dust pattered against the windows. The wind had picked up, and lanterns suspended from lamp posts swayed, casting an erratic pattern of light and shadow across the road.

  When the driver pulled onto Cathroe Bridge, Lucklaw's mother spoke again.

  "You were born with our family's expectation that one day, you would run this city. Now..." Her fingers traced the trajectory of a droplet on the window. Flurries of snow danced across the bridge ahead, reflections whirling in the impact glass of the crater below. "Now I doubt the planet will be enough."

  "What?"

>   "I don't know why you did what you did, Aubrey, but I do know that you did it for a reason. My little boy, who I sent away and cried over, for so many nights, has come home a banneret man. You have the purity of purpose in your eyes, my darling. It's all I ever wanted for you. It's all I..." She turned her gaze from him to the window. "Whatever your purpose was tonight, imagine how much more you could achieve with real power. Imagine running Mars. Imagine running the Protectorate."

  "I don't want that," he protested, cutting her off before she got a chance to say imagine running the galaxy.

  "You will," she said.

  He looked out the window across the city. Data streamed from it like rivers of light, brushing his primer. The tourmaline towers glowed like beacons. On a Martian winter's night, Kirkclair's horizon glittered with temptation and promise. It'd be easy to reach for, and just as easy to get lost on the way.

  Kirkclair's horizon disappeared behind a bright red notification in all-caps: REPORT FOR DUTY. His Bastion HUD overlay had been activated, and outside, a mournful siren wailed.

  Lucklaw, who had thought he'd heard all the sounds the city had to offer, recognised it instantly. It was the sound of war.

  72.

  CASSIMER

  Six contacts spread out through the woods to the east. Another moved to the west, but the thermal signal didn't look human. An animal, perhaps.

  Perhaps wasn't good enough. Cassimer sank to his knees, finding cover between a pair of ash trees that had grown so close that they'd become intertwined. When Joy came down the hill behind him, half-sliding down the mulchy ground, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shadows beneath the knotted trees. Her armour was the colour of dead leaves and dark soil, and it hummed with electricity against his own suit.

  They'd run from the submarine pen doors into the woods. A slow run by his standards, but fast for her. Too fast considering that she was still recovering from traumatic injuries. She breathed rapidly, the mesh camail that obscured her face lifting slightly with every breath, giving him a glimpse of lips soft enough to distract even now.

  He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to tear the camail from her face and ask her how she could have been so stupid, curse her for doing this to him.

  He wanted to do a lot of things, and he had made his peace with the fact that he would never have the chance to. But for her to squander her own chances to follow him down that path, that he couldn't accept.

  A deer, she texted as a long-legged creature came into view from the west, and though he couldn't see her face, he knew she was smiling.

  Come on. Not far now.

  He took point once more, moving silently through the dense woodland.

  Two hostiles twelve o' clock, Hammersmith texted.

  I see them. As thermal contacts on his HUD and, through his connection with Hammersmith's rifle, as red-painted targets. The towerman had taken up position in a narrow crevice at the top of the hill. RebEarthers swarmed the lighthouse ruins no more than a hundred metres from his position. As Cassimer and Joy had made their way along the beach and into the woods, he had been their eyes. His vantage point provided a view of the forest and the seaside town, and his rifle provided Cassimer with targeting data. It was a good arrangement, soured by their lack of trust.

  Here. He stepped into the shadow of a great oak at the edge of a clearing. Its trunk was partially rotted, and when Joy joined him, he firmly pushed her into its hollow. Even if he were spotted, she wouldn't be. Quiet. Let them pass.

  A RebEarther entered the clearing. Nice quality armour. Expensive, like their ammunition. Another followed, bright wings on his cuirass and a red veil covering his face.

  "Primos went this way," the veiled man said.

  "How do you know?"

  "How do I know? Look at the damn ground. Primos aren't delicate creatures. You see the leaves? The kicked-up dirt?"

  Inside the hollow tree, Joy shifted slightly. I tried to be careful.

  Wasn't you, Cassimer replied. Old tracks. They're trying to trace our route from the restaurant to find the station's secondary entrance.

  She relaxed, but when the RebEarthers came closer, her hand found his arm.

  "Could be animal tracks."

  "Don't know no god-damned animal that wears boots."

  "You should watch your mouth. Show a bit of respect."

  "You want respect, you got to earn it first."

  "Not for me." The first RebEarther stepped even closer to Cassimer. He bent, scooping up a handful of leaves. "For Earth."

  The veiled man softened. "All right. Yeah. Sorry."

  "I'm sorry too. When you started wearing that veil, I thought you looked like a fuck..." He cleared his throat."...like an effing idiot."

  "You didn't think it, you said it to my face. Multiple times."

  "Yeah, well, I was wrong."

  "Oh, wow. Setting foot on Earth and hearing you admit fault in the same day? Do miracles come in twos or something?"

  "Shut up," the RebEarther said, chuckling as he elbowed the veiled man's side. "All I'm saying is, you were right to believe in the Bright-Winged One."

  "I know. Now let's find this Primo so we can gut him. Maybe miracles will turn out to come in threes, and it'll be the Hellfire of Hypatia himself. The Bright-Winged One says we can do whatever we want with that one."

  "That's going to be a problem."

  "How so?"

  "Well, if we do everything we want, we're going to be here all week."

  Their words made no difference to Cassimer. Nothing new, and nothing worth paying attention to. But Joy's hand tightened around his arm, her heart rate increasing. For her, he considered killing the two men. It would be easy. It would be quick. But if their absence was noted, RebEarth would know that there were Primaterre soldiers outside the station. These men weren't worth that risk; not even close.

  * * *

  Thick smoke snaked between the trees. Ash, smouldering with embers, had settled on the mossy ground. Cassimer and Joy followed a trail of destruction through a gauntlet of broken trees. The ground was hot, the air heavily irradiated. But for the crackling of fire and the cawing of circling birds, it was silent.

  In the dying light of the first Earth sunset Cassimer had ever seen, the wreckage of the downed RebEarth gunship looked ghostly. Red diodes, still blinking, cast the rising smoke a crimson hue. Engines leaked plasma onto soil that would never be fertile again. The round fired from his Hyrrokkin had punched through the ship's power cell housing. Electricity arced between the remaining cells, their casings cracking under internal pressure. Before long, they'd burn like miniature super novae.

  He approached the wreckage, keeping a careful eye on his HUD's readings. His suit could handle the radiation, but Joy could only take so much. Cockpit looks mostly intact. One moment.

  He grabbed hold of broken metal and scaled the hull to the cockpit viewport. It had shattered in the impact, showering the interior with shards. A single kick was enough to clear a way in.

  Somerset.

  He held out his hand to her, but she was looking at something on the ground. Charred bones poked out through the melted synthetic material of a flight suit. A helmet lay at one end of the pile. It had protected its wearer enough that her face was still recognisably female. Fire had eaten away at her hair and skin, but had left the wingtips of a phoenix on her cheek.

  "Joy," he said, and his whisper seemed loud in this charcoal cemetery.

  She snapped to, turning and taking his hand. He pulled her up and helped her into the askew cockpit.

  "Sorry."

  "It's all right," he said. "Sometimes I forget that a year ago you were a botanist, not a soldier. Sometimes I expect too much – but you always come through, Joy. You always..." He took a deep breath. "The comms console is over there. Let's get this over with."

  He cleared a path to it, pushing aside rubble. There were more bodies in the cockpit, barely more than smears on the floor. The comms panel was tacky with
blood, but when he linked his suit's power cell to it, it responded.

  As Hammersmith remotely instructed Joy in how to repair torn wires and reconfigure settings, Cassimer kept watch. But eventually, the silent fall of ash piled too high.

  "You shouldn't have done it," he said, and though he'd tried to suppress it, he could feel the fire of anger in his voice. "It wasn't your place. You defied a superior officer. You went against my wishes."

  "Your wishes?" She glanced at him, thermal knife in one hand, a neatly spliced copper wire in the other. Her missing finger slowed her work, but made it no less meticulous. "Let me guess. You wish that the rest of us were safe and sound inside the station so that you could roam the woods by yourself. One banneret man against a RebEarth army; that's how you'd like for this to play out, because you're not really a team player at all. You want your team to follow until the fires burn too hot, and then you want to forge on alone. It's what you've always done. It's what you grew accustomed to inside your cataphract shell. You walk toward death with relief, because part of you hopes the death will be yours."

  The comms console spat sparks as she reconnected the copper wire. Little flashes of electricity hopped harmlessly on her gauntlet and vambrace. The spark in her eyes had far more power.

  "Except that's not true anymore. You want to live, I know you do. It's in your eyes when you look at the world. It's in your hands when you touch me, and in your voice when you speak my name. You want to live, but habit's got you walking down the same old road."

  She stood, shading her eyes from the final glare of the setting sun. The bruising on her face had already begun to fade. Her injured hand was close to her heart.

  "You say I dreamed of you on the Hecate. If I did – if I were there with you – it wasn't just to hold your hand. I would've steadied your aim. I would've helped you pull that trigger as many times as it took. And now I'm walking down the same road as you, but not because I want to die with you. Tell me honestly, if I hadn't spoken to Captain Versailles, would you have considered getting this gunship's comms online?"