Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  2300 kilometres of hostile territory between them and base. A long way to carry a burden. No distance at all to carry Joy.

  "Yes, I do."

  "Commander..." Rhys shook his head, and there was a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes that wormed its way under Cassimer's skin. The medic thought he knew something, that he had some sort of understanding of the situation - and maybe he did, but Cassimer didn't care for the reminder of his slipping shields. "And what will you do when Scarsdale catches up with us? Can't fight him with a girl in your arms."

  "Then I'll carry her," Lucklaw said, blinking silver from his eyes.

  "Mad," Rhys said, though the skin around his eyes crinkled with a smile. "Both of you, gone crazy."

  Interesting choice of words, considering that the medic hadn't even heard the exit strategy yet.

  ◆◆◆

  The elevator disappeared down the dark shaft. Cassimer's HUD showed the faint outlines of RebEarthers a floor below. A dozen contacts, with more approaching, but they'd be able to fit no more than half on the elevator at a time. Scarsdale would have to climb. Problematic, for RebEarth and Primaterre alike.

  He glanced over his shoulder towards the bridge. Consoles and furniture blocked the door in a makeshift barricade, behind which thin lines of smoke rose into the air. His visor was shut, but he instinctively knew what the smoke smelled like. Oil and garlic, the kind of smell that stuck to skin and armour for days.

  Through Lucklaw's visual augments, he could see a thick-lined circle of cutting gel eating through the bridge floor. Rhys had warned the corporal to be careful three times before letting him even unscrew the tube's cap, and with good cause. The wounds left by cutting gel were not a pretty sight.

  "Through in less than thirty, Commander."

  "Good. Link to navigation established?"

  A floor below, the elevator doors hissed open and three men entered. None of them Scarsdale, and it seemed augments weren't the only thing separating RebEarther from cataphract. An Ereshkigal suit might confer strength and speed, but courage wasn't so easily equipped.

  "Yes, Commander. I'm good to go, but..." Lucklaw's voice wavered. "...it's a big ask."

  "Ten seconds and twenty metres is all we need." 21.9m his suit informed him, having finished the requested calculations. The cool white numbers and graphs displayed on his visor supported his idea, but having them on his side was little comfort. Numbers were exact creatures, existing in clinical worlds. The real world was dirty and unpredictable, its parameters in constant flux.

  And the numbers didn't know that of the three soldiers present, Lucklaw was the only one with a pilot's license. Recreational pilot's licence, his personnel file stated, likely attained to pilot the luxury sports skipper registered to Lucklaw's name. Not ideal, certainly not up to the standards that the numbers were expecting, but it would have to do.

  "It'll be just like slalom racing through Augusta Rings," Rhys said.

  "I crashed my first ship in Augusta Rings - broke my spine in three places," Lucklaw said.

  "Exactly."

  "Rhys," Cassimer said, low and warning. "Prep to move."

  The elevator began to ascend. The RebEarthers had taken their time, maybe to work up the nerve. No issues with their courage; they had to know that their chances of survival were slim.

  Non-existent, in fact.

  The grenade in Cassimer's hand flashed green, and he let it drop into the shaft. Three seconds to make it back over the barricade. More than enough.

  The explosion rumbled through the shaft. He'd deliberately used minimal force, but it'd be enough to kill the men in the elevator - if not in the blast, then certainly in the landing. The lowest deck was nearly a kilometre below.

  And it was certainly enough to mask the noise of the metal floor inside the gel circle coming loose and clattering into the hangar bay below.

  Lucklaw rappelled down first, ready to tackle his task, and then Rhys, with a tight hold on Joy. Cassimer would follow them, but first, he had to make sure the RebEarthers didn't give up on their assault. First, he had to be bait.

  ◆◆◆

  It took them longer than expected to regroup, but the RebEarthers came now, climbing up the elevator shaft. Two of them reached the top at the same time, both wearing white helmets splashed with the Hierochloe logo. It hadn't taken them long to make use of their scavenged treasure. Hierochloe was a mark of quality, Rhys had said, and Cassimer hoped he was right - their very survival hinged on it - but how would these helmets stand up against his Morrigan?

  As it turned out, not well. The first man fell silently, a smouldering hole where his right eye should be. Professional curiosity satisfied, Cassimer shot the other RebEarther in the leg. Best to let one of them live, if only for a little while.

  Grenade, his HUD warned, and three black objects came whirling from the elevator shaft. He rolled away from the barricade, momentarily blind and deaf as the suit's sensory input shut down to protect him. Shrapnel sizzled harmlessly against his armour, but something heavy and blunt struck his shoulder and he could feel bone fracture. No pain - the suit deployed anaesthetics quicker than his adrenaline-soaked nerves could react.

  Five RebEarthers cast long shadows through smoke and fire-suppressant foam. Behind them, rising like a beast from the abyss, Scarsdale's stolen form heaved over the edge of the elevator shaft.

  In the hangar below, Rhys and Lucklaw had reached their target. Cassimer's HUD, still linked to Lucklaw's visual augments, showed flashes of silver and copper hull. Agility and speed were of vital importance, disqualifying M-44s and NGNEER ships no matter how badly he'd have liked to set foot inside them. The ship whose ramp lowered to let his team aboard was a Karon, designed to ferry staff between the different sections of a Cascade, and across the galaxy, hundreds of ships just like it still performed the same duty. It was nothing special, but it might just save their lives.

  Scarsdale was a darkness at the end of the corridor. Smoke wreathed his pauldrons, his visor a sliver of oscillating crimson. The other RebEarthers cowered behind him, pointless in the presence of the Ereshkigal suit, the dead man's sacrifice a wasteful act.

  Unless, of course, they'd been doing exactly what Cassimer was doing: stalling for time.

  Scarsdale turned to hoist a large, tubular item from the elevator shaft. It was white, but for the red Hierochloe logo painted on its side.

  Missile detected, Cassimer's HUD informed him, but his body responded quicker, a burst of phantom pain triggered in his sternum. A direct hit would do more than sting, but damage to him was irrelevant. Damage to the bridge was not.

  He pulled out his smoke grenades, distributing them across the bridge. Once the fog was nigh impenetrable, he stood, towering over the barricade.

  "Scarsdale."

  A couple of the RebEarthers took the opportunity to fire. Bullets evaporated against his armour, and his HUD warned that the reactive plates were in danger of overheating. He ducked down, taking deep breaths of hot, ozone-rich air.

  "Scarsdale," he said again. "Let's talk."

  "Talk? What would I have to say to men who speak in the tongues of the dead? What words would reach the hearts of men who spread their black terror across the universe? What is there to say to those who have taken the Earth from her children?"

  Seems you've got plenty to say, Cassimer thought, but bit back the urge to respond. These men were misguided, the unwitting servants of chaos and decay, and there could be no debate; no resolution but a cleansing fire.

  "You did not wish to talk when you butchered my men at the train station. You said nothing as you carved a path through this ship. Why speak now?"

  This was the hard part, the part that hurt. Remembering that Scarsdale would have no victory but a hollow one helped; seeing Lucklaw's hands dart across the control panel of the Karon helped more. The thought of Joy helped the most, of starlight the colour of honey.

  But not even the thought of her - not so much a thought as it was a warmth - could wash t
he bitter taste from what he had to say next.

  "I surrender."

  A few of the RebEarthers laughed, but Scarsdale took his time in responding. Good. Keep the RebEarthers talking, keep them in baffled silence - as long as the bridge's systems remained operational, nothing else mattered.

  "You surrender? What about your brothers-in-arms?"

  "Dead," Cassimer said and that lie felt transparent as glass on his tongue. If the RebEarthers believed it, it'd be because they hoped it was the truth.

  "What of the red-haired girl?"

  "Also dead."

  "Shame. I had some interesting plans for her. Funny how many creative ideas comes to a man when he's hit by a tractor. Say, Primo, how about you cut off her head and toss it out here? As a token of trust, yes?"

  "That's not happening."

  "No? Why not? You had no qualms about decapitating poor old Lockwood. Or cutting all those pieces from Feehan. This girl, she's dead, her spirit fled back to Earth. Her head for your life. A good trade, yes?"

  "Told you," he said, pausing for a deep breath. "It's not happening."

  "Since when do Primos care about non-citizens?"

  "He's obviously fucking her," a RebEarther interjected.

  "Not anymore he's not," another replied and was rewarded with the laughter of his comrades.

  "Oh, I don't know about that," Scarsdale said. "Wouldn't put it past a Primo. There is nothing they love more than death."

  Cassimer loved a great many things more than he loved death. Duty, honour, service, purity. Hiking mountain trails and listening to music, old movies and books on history. Weapons, ships, and retriever dogs; pine forests and the ocean he had once seen. The stars and their atoms, and the quirk of fate that had arranged those atoms to create Joy.

  He loved all of these things, but in that moment death did leap to the top of his list, and he wanted very badly to share that love with the RebEarthers. Couldn't get Scarsdale, not in these circumstances, not with a shattered shoulder, but he'd get a few of the others. Maybe he'd even give Scarsdale another headache.

  Worth it, whispered the part of his brain that also tightened his grip around the Morrigan. Make the universe that little bit purer.

  But on the other side of the bridge lay long-dead Donegal, and his hollow eye sockets stared straight at Cassimer. A good reminder of what happened when emotion overruled clarity, when rage was allowed to flow unchecked.

  "So you will not make me a gift of her head. Why should I accept your surrender, why risk this Primo trap, when I could just kill you?"

  "Because my name is Cassimer," he replied.

  29. Cassimer

  They made him kneel in the corridor, hands behind his head. His Morrigan was in the hands of a RebEarther, and the rest of his gear was being passed around like toys. Not the grenades - they'd dropped them down the elevator shaft as quick as they'd seen them. His primer database hadn't provided matches to any of their faces, but it was clear they were veterans of one Primaterre-scorched battlefield or another.

  "Open your visor," Scarsdale commanded.

  No chance of that, not while guns were trained on his face and demons darkened the shadows. The withered echo of corruption was all around, reaching from dead men's empty eye sockets. Shadowy tendrils wrapped around his armour, licking the skin and flesh of the unaware RebEarthers.

  Instead, he raised his visor's transparency. The RebEarther who had his impure hands on the Morrigan leaned in for a close look.

  "Is it him?" another asked. "The Cassimer who burned Galatea?"

  "I was on Galatea. Hypatia. Matisse." And dozens of other worlds that they wouldn't know. Go far back enough and his own memories took on a smoke-like appearance, and he was sure there were places he'd been that even he could not recall; places whose names had been reduced to black bars, redacted and classified.

  "And the Hecate," said the man with the Morrigan. "Don't look much like him. He had blue eyes; this one's got brown."

  "That was an actor, you idiot. Forget the name, but my daughter used to like him. Had a picture of him on every screen in her bedroom. Of course, we lived on Galatea, Minty and I. Nothing lives there no more. Isn't that right, Primo?"

  Nothing human. Galatea had been marked for development as a Class One seedworld and would remain untouched until her soil was fully purified. After the purge had been declared a success, his unit had trudged through waist-high ash to reach their extraction ship. The winds had still blown hot with embers. Galatea had looked as dead as Cato was, but he knew the miracles the Primaterre cultivator crews had worked on the scorched world since. She bloomed now, lush and verdant. Willow trees shaded mossy ground that had once been landfills; rivers, glittering with fish, trailed the curves of former highways. Meadows grew wild and thick where a girl's bedroom might once have been.

  "Not much of a talker," commented the man with the Morrigan. He wore equipment scavenged from the Ever Onward's security armoury, complete with riot shield. He leaned on that shield, a little too much. An injured leg? Bad knee? Exploitable, whatever it was. "Nothing like the one in the movie."

  "Do you hear that, Primo? How famous you are?" Scarsdale spoke, and the others shrank back. "Maybe we'll get your autograph before we kill you. Sign my armour, yes? Now wouldn't that be something."

  The others laughed and Scarsdale seemed to feed on this. Attention was fuel to this tattooed rebel.

  "I saw the movie, once. I'd stowed away on a ship and ended up stuck in orbit around Kepler for a few days due to a trading embargo. Delays are always unpleasant, but never more so than when you're hiding out in a ship's septic tank. To stop myself from going completely insane, I jacked into an illegal stream coming from Kepler. Turned out to be The Hero of the Hecate. Almost didn't watch it at first - Primo propaganda, I thought, and it wasn't like shit was something I was in short supply of at the time."

  Another burst of laughter and Scarsdale squared his shoulders.

  "But then I thought, know your enemy, right? I'd heard about you, the kitty-cat who got his start killing demons. Word was you were something special. But you know what I saw when I watched Hecate?" Scarsdale paused for effect. "A scared little boy. And I bet that underneath that armour, you're still scared."

  "Not of you." Best to give Scarsdale something. As long as Cassimer provided entertainment, he'd live. And considering Lucklaw wasn't yet ready to execute, every second mattered.

  "No, you're scared of shadows. Tell me, what really happened onboard the Hecate?"

  That he would not do.

  "Come now. Tell us, what did they do? Where did the nasty demons touch you?"

  Static blurred the edges of his focus, heat once more swelling inside his suit. Scarsdale had no business talking about the Hecate. Nobody did, and yet so many had; so many poking and prying at his mind until he'd slammed it shut in response.

  "Don't," he said and it was difficult, because this was all truth; the kind of truth that ran like razor wire through the ash. "They may be listening. And if they come for you, no armour is protection enough."

  "They won't come for us. Only for the Primaterre. Do you know why?"

  "Because the Primaterre guard the Earth. Because we are her shields of truth and swords of clarity."

  Scarsdale shook his head. "Because you're wrong. The demons aren't born of shadow, but of nature. The Primaterre wanted the Earth and all her treasures. They wanted to take the mother from her children. A sin; a wound to scar all humanity. Our forebears knew and fought until they could no longer. With the last of their strength, they united in prayer - and the universe listened. What burst from Xanthe's core was not a corruption, but a cleansing wave. Bright-winged spirits, riding the light of stars to strike at the dark hearts of the Primaterre."

  "You're mad. All of you, mad." He looked at the men who surrounded him, tattooed and devoted, filled with impure zeal. No room for clear thought in such clouded minds. He almost pitied them.

  Commander, we're ready to launch, Lucklaw text
ed.

  Praise the Earth and thank the fucking stars. He wasted no time, instantly sending the go-ahead.

  "So, before we kill you - slowly, yes?" Scarsdale turned to his men for that last part, and a few of them cheered. "Very slowly?" More cheers this time. "How about you tell us what you were doing here?"

  "My duty." And that was all they would ever get.

  Scarsdale pressed his gun to Cassimer's visor, filling his vision with still-hot steel, and it was all right, it didn't feel so bad. He thought of the train, of sleeping with his head against a rattling window, with Joy resting on his arm, and maybe death would be like that.

  Then the ship shuddered, and the roar of engines rushed through her hollow corridors.

  ◆◆◆

  From birth to death and to rebirth as Cascades, architect ships spent their entire existence in space. They were the beacons in the void, shining high above the worlds of their creators, as beautiful and remote as the stars. But the Ever Onward, wing-clipped and betrayed, had lain entombed for over a century. Trapped, chafing and groaning, underneath dust and rock.

  If ships could dream, Cassimer imagined she'd dreamed of the sky. If ships could dream, he hoped that dream would sustain her for ten seconds and twenty-one-point-nine metres.

  "What the hell is going on?" The RebEarther with the Morrigan brushed dust from his shoulder. With every tremor of the ship, more fell from the ceiling.

  "The ship is taking off," said a RebEarther who'd remained silent until now. A timorous man around Cassimer's age, on whose meek face the rising phoenix looked an awkward addition. He was slowly backing up towards the elevator shaft.

  "Taking off? It's crashed into the mountain, half-buried by landslides. It's not going anywhere."

  Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't - either way, the energy would have to go somewhere. Cassimer knew this and so did the mild-mannered man who was preparing to descend, to escape - only, it was far too late for that. There was no outrunning what was coming.