Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  Unless of course they had been allies for some time already.

  Unless of course one of them had been Skald.

  He looked at the sixty-three contacts on his HUD and had to steady himself against the wall. Brightlingsea gave him a funny look.

  "You all right?"

  "I think the red demon is behind this," he said, because he wouldn't lie to a fellow banneret man more than absolutely necessary. "I think it may be inside the Cascade."

  * * *

  The team split in two and breached via different levels. The layout offered no other tactic than brute force, because the terrain was a latticework of gantries running above the glow of the heat sinks. Tight formation, APF on full and no mercy was the only option, and for a while it worked. Sixty-three RebEarthers became thirty-seven, and soon Lucklaw could see the access port where the blocker was installed.

  And then something happened. He couldn't explain it, but it felt like dying. He fell to his knees on steel mesh and dug his fingers in deep. A wild surge of panic gripped his body, but the strange thing was, it wasn't his panic. It was somebody else's – something else's – a fear transmitted through fine tendrils reaching into his mind. So cold, so dry, so alone.

  Brightlingsea and his men felt it too. They stopped in their tracks, and RebEarth seized the opportunity. One gunner died to a close-range heavy cal shot through his visor. Monterrey took a barrage of bullets to his cuirass – not enough to kill, but enough to send him stumbling backwards over the gantry's railing. The heat sinks did the rest.

  "Get out of my head," Lucklaw whispered. "Get out. My mind belongs to me. My mind is pure. My mind is clear. I perceive the moment. I am aware. I am aware, and you can fuck off."

  The RebEarther with the heavy cal rifle had switched targets to the Hela comms specialist. Lucklaw saw the target system lock, felt the electronic signals as the trigger was pulled, and he took the fear that belonged to another and shoved it right out of his mind, along with a batch of target scrambling data. The RebEarther missed his shot, reloaded, but Lucklaw was faster and his Morrigan did not miss.

  He took out two more RebEarthers before the other banneret men snapped out of it and regrouped.

  "Demons," the Hela comms specialist said, suddenly pale. "I could feel the corruption inside of me, oh Earth have mercy!"

  "But you fought it off," Lucklaw said. "I've faced demons before, and trust me, they can't breach a banneret man's mind."

  "Yeah, but you were with Commander Cassimer."

  "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Commander Brightlingsea said, loading a fresh ammo block into his assault rifle. "But if you never see another promotion again, you'll know why." He stopped to collect the tags from his dead man, a flicker of fury in his eyes. "In any case, Baby Luck's got it right. Truth be my sword and clarity my shield – let's light these demon-worshipping bastards up."

  * * *

  Thirty-seven RebEarthers became eighteen, and now the blocker was immediately below Lucklaw's position. A five-metre drop over the railing and he'd be there.

  "Go," Brightlingsea said. "Do your thing. We'll keep the hostiles off your back."

  He climbed onto the railing and looked down into the heat sinks. Banneretcy armour could withstand extreme temperatures. It was probable that Monterrey had survived long enough to be sucked in between the heat sink blades, maybe even long enough to feel the crush. Oh stars, he'd–

  "Go," Brightlingsea repeated and shoved him over the edge.

  He landed on his feet on a gantry that shook a little too much for comfort. A fine spatter of dark stains discoloured the railing. Blood? He ran his lightweave gauntlets over the stains, and the analysis confirmed it, matching it to a CPT SOMERSET, JOY. And though she might not deserve her rank – not so soon and certainly not before him – neither had she deserved her towerman partner's betrayal. Lucklaw was glad he'd been able to be there for her then, proud that it was he she had reached for across the span of space. Not the man she loved, nor her tower superiors, but the man she knew could get the job done.

  He knelt by the access port and pried off the cover. The physical removal would be easy, but he wanted to see what the signal blocker was doing first. It had... he frowned, trying to make sense of the code. It had dug deep into the Cascade's systems. He could fix it, but he'd need to go back up to the core chamber, maybe even involve the Cascade engineers. He'd–

  "The Bright-Winged One says hi."

  His head was pushed forward as a shotgun barrel was pressed to his neck. He could see the tips of a RebEarther's red-and-black boots. The hexagonal pattern of a rudimentary chaff camouflage shimmered on them, but that was no excuse, he should have seen the man coming, he should have–

  "He says hi, murderer."

  The shotgun's trigger began to move with an oily sound.

  And then it stopped.

  And then the shotgun clattered to the mesh floor behind him.

  Lucklaw turned, his heart pounding. There was no sign of the RebEarther. For a moment, he wondered if he'd imagined it, but the shotgun was right there. He prodded it to make sure that it was real. It was.

  Maybe the RebEarther had fallen over the railing like Monterrey? If he'd taken fire, Lucklaw would've noticed, but... maybe he'd just tripped? Like, accidentally?

  Stupid. Ridiculous. But the man was definitely gone, and Lucklaw had no choice but to accept the weird.

  He pried the blocker from the access port, cut loose the bloodied portion of railing, and threw both items into the heat sinks. He watched them fall, whirling into the churning fires, and then he ran a quick scan of the immediate area to make absolutely sure that no RebEarther was there.

  He saw nothing. Too much nothing.

  74.

  CASSIMER

  Searchlights illuminated the early morning mists. A ship, its belly laced with red light strips, flew so close overhead that the heat wave sparked embers in the undergrowth. Another ship gave chase. Moment later, an explosion rolled along the treetops.

  "One of Kivik's," Hammersmith said. In the fog-swept forest, his armour had taken on a phantom pallor. His eyes were solid silver. "He's faring better in orbit, making short work of the entity's allies even though he only brought three warships – Kivik might have gambled on your word, Commander, but he made sure the stakes weren't too high. That said, the Victual Brothers didn't earn their reputation for nothing."

  "Infamy, not reputation. A scavenger with a bite is still a scavenger."

  "I suppose you ought to know. The Host Fetter is one of the ships up there. I recognise her, though she's been replated in chrome. Few of her captives have ever lived to tell the tale."

  "There is no tale to tell." Because a tale was what Kivik would want; what all RebEarthers craved. Red-and-black armour, gaudy phoenixes and fearsome monikers all amounted to the same: a desperate cry for attention. As though making a name meant anything. A name had no weight when spoken in fear. The sound of it was hollow unless spoken with love.

  "I doubt that." Hammersmith stopped, peering between the tree trunks ahead. "There – the Hesperia. See her?"

  A glimpse of sleek, camouflaged hull, all but invisible. The surrounding forest was as still and peaceful as when they'd landed.

  "Except there are no birds," Joy said. "Listen. No bird song at all."

  "They might not sing at dawn," Cassimer said.

  "They might have been scared off by the fighting," Hammersmith suggested.

  But deep down, they all knew the reason.

  "Sensors show no readings, no signals at all."

  "They may be naked."

  "Naked?" Joy gave Cassimer a wide-eyed look.

  "Or as near as. I've seen it before." On worlds whose names nobody spoke at all anymore, where there had been no forests and no birds, only icy crevasses or domed habitats on rocky plains – oh, he remembered those all too well. His unit had smashed their way through the vitro-plastic panes, dropping eight hundred metres into a city of precariously stacked modu
lar housing and bedrock tunnels.

  It had been dark in the tunnels and the sewage-dripping alleys. Steam had hissed through grates in the streets as mining machinery chugged on. Civilians had watched from behind barred windows. Some with relief, happy to see RebEarth – as much invaders as the Primaterre – ousted from their city; others with intent.

  RebEarth had taken advantage of that. They had hidden among the civilian population, forcing the cataphracts to take an indiscriminate approach. An unfortunate necessity, yet Cassimer had been relieved when he had been ordered to go deeper rather than to sweep the city. The mines had offered harder fighting, but simpler choices.

  And there, where grinders crushed rock on motorway-sized conveyor belts and smelters made the walls bubble with heat, the RebEarthers had removed their armour and laid down their weapons. Most had worn coveralls, but some had indeed faced the cataphracts naked. Their reasoning was, Cassimer had discovered later, that since no amount of armour could save you from a cataphract, it was better to go without. Disguise your body heat, lose the sound of your beating heart in the din of machinery, and become as good as invisible. Traps had been their choice of weaponry, made from tripwires and rocks and gallons of molten metal.

  But it hadn't saved those RebEarthers, and it wouldn't save these.

  "It's a primitive attempt at stealth," he said. "But without equipment, they'll have a harder time seeing us coming, too."

  "Let's move closer and see what we're dealing with. I'm scanning for heartbeats; any kind of human noise. One of them is bound to give themselves away."

  "Not too close," Cassimer warned, and Hammersmith nodded.

  "You take point, Commander. Use your discretion."

  Three hundred metres. Two hundred metres, and he still saw no sign of hostiles. One hundred. Nothing, and he made to take another step, when something in his gut told him not to. He stopped, watching, listening. Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  And then, a distant electronic signal too faint for his primer to identify, but his bones knew better; his marrow a wiser judge than any tech. He turned, pulled Joy close and crouched, shielding her with his body.

  The round punched through a tree, coursing through the air where his head had been a second ago. Two more followed in rapid succession. His APF diverted one. The other impacted against his backplate, hard enough that he couldn't breathe, but he didn't need to breathe. He needed to get up and move.

  Follow, he texted Hammersmith and as the electronic signal flared again, he ran towards a root-gnarled hollow in the ground, left by a fallen oak. It was shallow, barely enough to accommodate them, but barely would have to do.

  He coughed, a fine mist of blood spattering the inside of his visor.

  "Commander–"

  "It's all right," he interrupted Joy, letting go of her and rolling onto his stomach. The scope of his Hyrrokkin gave a good idea of where the shots were coming from – the craggy hillside about three kilometres away – but he had no target. "Sniper, hillside. Possibly two."

  "We don't have time for this," Hammersmith said.

  A comment as ridiculous as it was accurate, because Cassimer could hear the forest coming alive around them. A whisper on the wind, a rustling of leaves underneath bare feet. The crackle of snapping branches, and, according to his HUD, traces of propane in the air.

  "Bait target, take shot?" he suggested.

  Hammersmith didn't hesitate. "I'll make a break for the Hesperia. You take out the sniper and whatever else reveals itself. If I make it inside, I'll prep for takeoff."

  "That sounds like a terrible idea," Joy protested, but as much as Cassimer loved her, in this moment, an inexperienced captain had no say.

  "Stay in cover," he told her. "Expect incoming, south and east."

  And north and west and all the intercardinal directions, but he'd have to handle that.

  "Ready." Hammersmith's suit had dropped its camouflage, burning all power to the APF, making him a very bright target indeed.

  "Go."

  In a burst of dirt and pine needles, Hammersmith sprang from the hollow. On the hillside, the electronic signal flared, but the Hyrrokkin caught its source. Cassimer stood, rifle raised to his shoulder, and fired. A few hundred metres west of his target, the bushes swayed, and without even thinking, he chambered a round and fired slightly ahead of the direction of the movement.

  His Hyrrokkin registered a second target hit, the two rounds feeding back biometric data. Kill shots, but instinct told him the hill wasn't clear yet. Hammersmith was halfway to the Hesperia, dashing across the clearing, as open a target as there would ever be.

  And then a surge of panic forced Cassimer to his knees. It was fear, but not as he knew it. It was a fresh fear, a first fear. Hammersmith stumbled and fell into the long meadow grass. An electronic signal came from the hill and Cassimer knew that he should drop into cover, but his limbs wouldn't obey. Fear had paralysed him.

  His suit's defences reacted. His APF flared, diverting the incoming sniper bullet enough that it struck his shoulder instead of his visor. The force of the impact sent him sliding back down into the hollow.

  He breathed deeply. He felt like he was dying, but he had nearly died many times. Whatever this was, he couldn't let it stop him.

  "Joy," he said, but she couldn't hear him, couldn't see him. The fear had her.

  He cycled through the team's visual augments. Hopewell was on all fours near the submarine pen blast doors. Florey was ahead of her, had been setting up mines when he'd been interrupted. Through the gunner's visual augments, Cassimer could see contacts approaching along the rocky shoreline. RebEarth had found them.

  Rhys was in the laboratory. The tank had been drained of its blue liquid. The Prime Mover hung suspended, a web of wet tendrils falling to the tank's floor. It no longer seemed to glow, its cortex dull and throbbing, silver flame sparking here and there as its fold rift generator nanites kept its connection to the Primaterre Protectorate open. It looked like it was dying.

  "Juneau, do you read?"

  A frightened murmur was his only response.

  "Juneau, it's the Prime Mover. We're feeling what it's feeling. You need to end it now."

  "Can't kill it," she said. "Think this is bad? It's only lost contact with the water. Imagine its death throes. Imagine what that would do to us; to everyone."

  "Then do something else. Make it feel good as it faces death."

  "How?"

  "Rhys," he said. "You know how. Do to it what you do to your soldiers."

  Rhys grumbled something in response and fired once into the Prime Mover's tank. The glass shattered and Rhys climbed inside. He dropped to the floor below, his boots splashing up blue-tinted water. The Prime Mover's integrated fold rift warped his shape, stretching and elongating him. His APF flared and the rift caught the energy, pulling it into a oscillating aura around the medic.

  "We had to drain the water," Juneau said. "Its sensory functions are so limited that I didn't think it would notice. It must be so sensitive, Commander, I... I didn't realise."

  Rhys reached towards a tangle of tendrils. The reactive plates on his armour began to disintegrate. Particles rose from him like a dark fog, rising towards the Prime Mover. He pulled a jet injector from one of his belt pouches – and then he looked up into the rift.

  "I thought it would be dark," he said, "but it's not. It's bright. It's colours–"

  "The injection, Rhys – now!"

  The medic didn't look like he was listening, but his body responded to orders. He grabbed a thick, squirming tendril and injected the Prime Mover with sweet, cooling sedatives. Within seconds, the fear melted away, but for Cassimer new fears took its place. RebEarth, moving in on the submarine pen blast doors; Rhys, entranced by something no man should ever look into.

  "Rhys, get out of the tank."

  "I can see so far, Commander. Maybe I'll see Cecilia."

  "Don't know who that is, but I have no doubt she'd think you'r
e being a bloody fool. Get out of there, Captain."

  Rhys didn't respond, raising one hand towards the rift.

  "Get the hell out of there, Rhys. We need you out here. I need you. Don't you fucking quit on us!"

  The medic took a step backwards, then another. The Prime Mover's tendrils reached for him, holding onto his armour, but they slid off harmlessly as he climbed upwards. And then he was out, stumbling over broken glass and blood.

  "Apologies. Don't know what came over me. I..." He cleared his throat. "Medical advice: don't stare straight into fold rifts."

  "No shit," Hopewell said over the team channel. "You gonna tell us not to stare at suns next?"

  Rhys's reply was drowned out as Joy fired her Morrigan twice. An oil-slick and half-naked man teetered on the edge of the hollow. His left hand dropped a canister onto the ground, corrosive acid spilling out. The man fell, landing hard on top of Joy. Dead, yes; very dead, but Cassimer hurried to pull the man off her.

  "He didn't even see me," she said. "He's unarmed, Commander, I–"

  He twisted the man's neck around to show her where a phoenix tattoo spread its wings."Not unarmed. See the smoke?"

  It rose over the side of the hollow, thin-fingered and bright white.

  "Corrosives," he said. "Strong enough to eat right through a towerman's camail."

  "Oh God." Joy breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought... for a second I thought he was a survivor. Somebody who had been down here on Earth all along. There could be people here, couldn't there? Underground or in the submerged cities, or maybe even in the forests."

  He hadn't thought of that. It was unlikely, but no, not impossible. But...

  "Doesn't matter. You see anyone who isn't Primaterre, you shoot to kill."

  * * *

  The third sniper on the hill hadn't wasted the opportunity to fire at Hammersmith. One shot had gone wide, but the other had smashed the towerman's cuirass. When he stood, it was with one arm clutched to his chest, the other hanging uselessly by his side. He was fifty metres from the Hesperia, and he was an open target.