Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "That's our cue. Go time, kid."

  The airlock opened into the interior of a cutter ship where a dozen banneret men were already strapped in. Flashing lights indicated an alarm going off, but Lucklaw didn't have time to wonder how badly damaged the ship was before he was inside.

  "Should've known something like this would happen," joked the banneret man in the seat next to his. "No way was the universe going to let the commander actually enjoy his vacation."

  "Bring us back any presents, Commander?" another said.

  "After I got us this little suicide mission? Wouldn't want to spoil you," the commander said, Lucklaw's HUD helpfully identifying him as Commander Brightlingsea of Hela Banneret Company. He had been on leave in Kirkclair until about an hour ago, but his team had been collected by the cutter from Hela, the Bastion station guarding the system. "Got my gear?"

  One of his men kicked a suit crate across the floor. As Brightlingsea stopped it with his boot, something struck the ship. It shuddered, lights flickering off and on.

  "That one's for you," the banneret man next to Lucklaw said, indicating a crate under his seat. "It's my spare, so try to make it back in one piece."

  The cutter shook as it returned fire. Its crew remained silent, but Lucklaw saw intense streams of data pass between them. If he wanted to, he could probably slip into the ship's systems and see what was going on, but his memories of Vadgelmir were still too fresh. Drifting in the void, unable to do a thing to save himself, had been terrifying. When the oxygen had begun to drop, when he had felt his lungs ache, his instinct had been to open his visor. He'd have died, yes, but he'd have regained some control over his fate. Without the commander by his side, he was sure he would've gone mad.

  But Commander Cassimer was far away and all he had were strangers.

  "Hey, kid." One of the cutter's mechanics, strapped in near the cockpit, looked at Lucklaw. "Captain says you're Lady Luck's boy."

  "Baby Luck," said one of the banneret men, and the others laughed.

  "Lieutenant Aubrey Lucklaw of Scathach Banneret Company," Lucklaw protested, but he could tell by how the laughter had spread to the cockpit that it was too late. At least Hopewell wasn't there to hear it, thank the stars.

  "Well, the captain would rather kill switch himself than be responsible for so much as a scratch on your pretty little head, so take a deep breath and wipe that sweat from your face. Our job is to get you inside the Cascade, and that's exactly what we're going to do."

  The mechanic's words were more humiliating than encouraging, but Lucklaw bit down his nausea and put on his borrowed suit of armour. It smelled weird, fit strange, but as soon as the visor sealed shut, he felt a lot better. It was home, in a way that his old room in Kirkclair had ceased to be.

  "Scathach, huh?" The banneret man whose suit he wore glanced at him. "Under whose banner?"

  "The only commander who you're interested in hearing about."

  The banneret man laughed. "Oh, snippy. I take it that means you're not interested in sharing?"

  "Correct."

  "Oh, come on. We're a team now, right? Just tell me one thing: does the man live up to the legend?"

  The man in question had sent Lucklaw a message three hours ago; two short lines that still glowed on his HUD.

  Disable blocker.

  Thank you.

  The message did little to explain the situation. RebEarth were attacking Sol. Their ships had made it to Earth and Rampart had lost contact with the pursuing fleet. That bit Lucklaw understood; that bit made him sick to his stomach. He had pleaded, demanded, begged for his mother to give the order to destroy the Luna Belt, but she hadn't listened. Hadn't been able to listen, and that had made him sicker still. Victorie Lucklaw, who took such pride in her independence – what would she think if she knew that, all along, something else whispered inside her head?

  She would be devastated. She would be furious. She'd be vengeful.

  The commander had an even greater claim to those emotions, but he had taken his anger and turned it cold, fashioning it into a shield to protect Somerset and the team. He had put their safety before all else. Despite everything that had been done to him, despite the utter betrayal, he had chosen to endure rather than endanger.

  Lucklaw didn't have nearly the same fortitude. After the towermen had caught him trying to investigate Project Harmony, he had been so ashamed that he'd barely been able to look the commander in the eye. He'd hoped that confronting and assassinating Keiss would've gone some way towards making things right, but it hadn't. Not right afterwards, and certainly not during the awkward car ride with his mother. Not until he'd got the message from the commander.

  Thank you.

  In reference to Keiss; it had to be. Somerset had blabbed, because of course she had, and the commander approved. The commander was grateful, and that meant more than merits, kisses from Atalanta Braeburn, or even Kirkclair's glittering horizon ever could.

  "Well?" the banneret man said. "Does the man match the legend?"

  "Legends are false. The commander is my truth and my clarity."

  * * *

  A silence existed in the space between Mars and the Cascade. No fighting, no traffic, no local signals to latch onto. The banneret men were left alone with their thoughts, though it hardly seemed they had any. They joked and bantered as though they were an entire team of Hopewells. To Lucklaw, it seemed disrespectful, and for a while he resented the sound of their voices. But then, mid-snarky-comment, one of the banneret men wrenched his helmet off and pressed a hand to his face. He was sweating worse than Lucklaw. When he spoke again, his voice was strained and he wouldn't look up from his feet.

  "My family's at our farm outside Torthorwald. RebEarth want to burn the area, turn it into ash. You heard what they said; we all did–"

  "We heard the last words of a bunch of idiots splatting like flies on a windscreen against Mars's defences," Brightlingsea said.

  "It's not supposed to happen here. Sol is supposed to be safe. Earth have mercy, you know RebEarth would never get under my skin normally, but it's different here, Commander. It's different when it's home."

  "Yeah?" The banneret man next to Lucklaw gave his teammate a sharp look. "I wish my family were on Mars. But they're in a different system entirely, a hundred light-years away. If whatever RebEarth's done to the Cascade is permanent, I've already lost them. I'm already as good as dead."

  "You'll all wish you were dead if you don't cut it out," Brightlingsea said. "Stars, Monterrey, if I'd known what a baby you were going to be, maybe I would've bought you a present."

  "A pacifier to shut him up," one banneret man said.

  "Judging by the way he's shaking, maybe a pack of diapers," another one added.

  They all laughed, including Monterrey, even though it wasn't all that funny, and just like that the tension vanished, the laughter almost as effective as one of Commander Cassimer's reminders of purity. Hela Banneret Company might have a language of their own, but perhaps they weren't so different.

  "Commander Brightlingsea, Lieutenant Lucklaw." One of the cutter's crewmen stood in the doorway to the cockpit. "The captain wants you up front."

  * * *

  The Primaterre Cascade fleet had turned back too late. Enough RebEarth ships had folded through to make an iron ring about the structure. The Primaterre fleet had engaged but, though their ships were superior in every way, the enemy forces were receiving reinforcements by the minute. The Cascade crackled with silver fire so bright Lucklaw's visual augments had to adjust for him to be able to stand to look at it. The light reflected in the wreckage of civilian and commercial vessels. Those who had been able to flee were heading for Mars or other colonies, but Lucklaw's HUD detected trace trajectories that led nowhere at all. Panicked pilots, heading deep into nothingness.

  "Well, that looks like a right mess," Brightlingsea said.

  "Not necessarily a bad thing." The ship's captain's eyes were solid silver as he stared ahead through the viewport. "
RebEarth have landed troops inside the Cascade."

  "That's supposed to be good news?"

  "It means that they've taken out its defences, which means we won't need to. Another silver lining is that they are careless. Look."

  A digital overlay on the viewport showed a greatly enhanced view of the Cascade. A section of the core chamber's glass walls had been destroyed. A single Cascade engineer remained, pinned to his workstation by rubble. Once, it might've been a comfort to think that he had died quickly, but Lucklaw knew that there would've been time to feel the air leave his lungs, to realise that his last breath had been stolen and that the cold wracking his skin was the last touch he'd ever feel.

  "At this rate, they're going to destroy the Cascade whether they mean to or not," Brightlingsea said, scowling behind his visor.

  "Yes. Which is why we're going to do this fast and dirty. Lieutenant Lucklaw, I'm told you have a way of restoring Cascade functions?"

  "Correct," he said, hoping that he wasn't lying. The commander hadn't exactly been forthcoming with details in his message, but if the Cascade wasn't working and that's where the commander wanted him to go, it stood to reason that his task was to fix it. It also stood to reason that the signal blocker Somerset had installed was the cause of the problem. That didn't make much sense, but questions could wait. He had his orders.

  "Then this is the plan: Brightlingsea, you and the banneret men get into our escape pod. We make a run at the Cascade, launch the pod and drop the lot of you straight through that hole in the wall."

  "All right," Brightlingsea said, with all the cool of a banneret commander.

  "This ship only has one escape pod," Lucklaw pointed out, and the captain laughed.

  "A crew that has time to evac is a crew that ought to stay in their seats. We fly or die, Baby Luck."

  * * *

  Die definitely seemed the more likely option as the banneret team strapped into the escape pod. Lucklaw checked his harness twice, for all the good it would do, and then he accessed the external cameras. He had to bypass Rampart security to do so, a guaranteed and severe reprimand if he got caught, but the last time he'd been in one of these things, a chunk of wreckage had sheared it in half. He'd seen a towerman get sliced in two right in front of his eyes, and the thought that it could have been him – just another twenty centimetres to the right – had been an obsession ever since. Twenty centimetres, ten, five. The margin seemed to grow smaller every day.

  This time, he wanted to see it coming so that if there was a margin, he could use it his advantage. Lean to the left. Unclip his harness. Send one last message. It might not be much, but whatever he could do, he would.

  The ship vibrated as it barrelled along the sharp trajectory required. RebEarth targeting systems found it, and Lucklaw stretched his awareness to aid the ship's own scramblers. He threw out digital chaff, overloaded sensors and, in one instance, made it all the way into a RebEarth ship's systems. He observed through the flickering feed of a bridge camera as his hostile scripts ate through the ship. He disabled its weapons, switched off the artificial gravity and watched the RebEarthers float, and then – stars – found that their ship's power core was basically unprotected. He peeled back layers of safety measures, increased power, shut down cooling and then–

  –and then the ship's signals abruptly disappeared, his sensors detecting a surge of radiation and heat emanating from its coordinates.

  "Mercy, kid, you're pretty good," the Hela comms specialist said. "And stone cold."

  "It's not my first time," he replied, but then the ship released the escape pod and they were hurtling through space inside a giant metal bullet, and it wasn't his first time for this either, but stars, that really didn't help at all. The cameras showed a blur of stars and projectiles, spinning, whirling, and right as he thought he was going to be sick, the escape pod tore through the core chamber and, in a flash of azure and silver, impacted against the floor.

  * * *

  The ship's captain had calculated the trajectory perfectly, avoiding damage to the Cascade's essential systems. He had, however, been a little optimistic when it came to velocity.

  The pod had flattened like a real bullet would, violently throwing banneret men against one another. The interior was a tangle of metal and limbs. The reactive plates on Lucklaw's borrowed cuirass had shattered in the impact. He could smell smoke, taste blood, and really really hoped that the leg sprawled across his lap was still attached to its owner. Stars, it wasn't his own, was it?

  Before he had time to check, blue light poured in from above as Brightlingsea punched the escape hatch from its warped frame. The banneret commander turned to Lucklaw and tore his harness loose.

  "Out you go, kid. Duffy, make sure he's okay."

  The team medic helped him to his feet and out through the hatch. Duffy had a nice smile even though there was a foot-long piece of shrapnel piercing her shoulder, and a soft voice that reminded him of Tallinn. She sat him down near the plasma moat and told him that he was fine, just a mild concussion and a few broken ribs, and that the blood he was tasting was from a punctured lung, but that whoever his usual medic was, they'd done a fine job setting up custom repair routines.

  "You'll be good to go in five, Lieutenant."

  "Thanks," he said, and when she smiled he couldn't help but sob. When she asked what was the matter, he lied and told her that his ribs hurt, and she accepted it as truth even though she'd know it wasn't.

  The last time he had seen Tallinn, she had done everything in her power to keep him alive. Him, Valletta, even Somerset – a complete stranger. She had saved them all, and he had never got the chance to thank her. That hurt a lot more than a few broken ribs.

  * * *

  None of the core chamber exits were airlocks, so the team gathered close and waited for the Hela comms specialist to open the door. Brightlingsea carried one of his gunners, one hand pressed against a breach in the gunner's suit. It did little good – the crack ran all the way down the backplate – and blood dripped between his gauntleted fingers, trickling along a heavily-augmented exposed spine.

  "Hurry up," Brightlingsea said, because somebody always said something stupid like that, as though comms specialists might be reading their mail or playing games instead of actually working so hard their skulls felt like they were going to explode. Banneret men were by and large more about brawn than brain, and, Lucklaw had found, prone to view non-physical work with scepticism or outright suspicion.

  "Stand back. Opening now." The comms specialist braced against the wall.

  The door hissed open with a rush of air. On the other side, half a dozen men in spacesuits clattered into each other.

  "Friendlies," Brightlingsea shouted. "Get inside."

  Once the door sealed, it only took moments for the Cascade's systems to pressurise the corridor and replenish the oxygen. Brightlingsea eased his injured gunner to the floor. Another man, whose femurs were broken, sank down next to the gunner, groaning with discomfort. Duffy immediately set to work.

  The six men in silvery spacesuits were Cascade crew, all of them Primaterre, but they didn't look so much relieved to see the banneret men as they did annoyed.

  "We need to get into the core chamber," one engineer said.

  "There are RebEarth troops inside the Cascade. We can't guarantee your safety in there," Brightlingsea said. "Better stick with us until–"

  "We don't care who is here or why. Whatever trouble you've brought to our Cascade is yours to handle. We take care of the Cascade."

  "There's a huge hull breach–"

  "Seventeen breaches across the Cascade, three leaking coolant pipes and one rift generator about to fail catastrophically if we don't balance the plasma levels and recalibrate the accelerator." The Cascade mechanic pointed to a small door nearby. "We use that as a break room. You may take your wounded in there before we enter the core chamber. You have thirty seconds."

  Brightlingsea grumbled under his breath as he complied, but once the
wounded had been left in safety with Duffy, he laughed as he took point down the corridor.

  "Crazy bastards. Think they were born that way, or is it Cascade madness?"

  "It's the Cascade," Lucklaw said. "If they'd been born crazy, they'd be banneret men."

  The entire team laughed at that – even the wounded, across the team channel – and it felt kind of good to not be laughed at for once. Maybe that's why Hopewell never shut up. Maybe she craved this feeling the same way he craved to prove himself. Maybe next time she made a joke, he'd laugh, even if it was at his expense.

  Next time. Please, he thought, let there be a next time.

  * * *

  The RebEarth troops hadn't headed for the rift generators or gone to hunt down the Cascade crew. They had amassed on Maintenance Level 28, above the heat sinks.

  "You absolutely sure that's where we need to go?" Brightlingsea asked.

  "Yes. It's where... it's where the access port is."

  "There are other maintenance access ports," the comms specialist said. "Don't see why they wouldn't work."

  "Yeah, and how many Cascades have you been inside before?"

  "None, but–"

  "But nothing. I was sent here, you're just along for the ride, and there's a reason for that."

  "Right, sure. No need to bite my head off."

  "Sounds like Baby Luck's teething," Monterrey said, laughing.

  This time the laughter didn't feel so good, and neither did the glare from the comms specialist. He seemed like a decent enough person, and didn't deserve to be talked to like that, but what choice was there? It was better that he was angry than curious. Lucklaw saw no way of explaining the signal blocker that wouldn't see both him and Somerset marched in front of a tribunal. Vague, hand-wavy mutterings about RebEarth viruses would have to do.

  "All right," said Brightlingsea. "Well, there's sixty-three of them and eleven of us. Whatever they've done to this maintenance port, they're clearly eager to defend it."

  Which was weird, because RebEarth had nothing to do with the blocker. There was no way they'd even know about it, unless... unless somebody had told them. But who? Certainly nobody from Scathach Banneret Company, or Somerset, even if she was crap at keeping secrets. Room 36B – perhaps, but why ally with RebEarth of all factions? That didn't make sense.