Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  Wherever they were, it was a place to which Joy didn't have the roadmap.

  Golden glow gave way to white-washed walls splashed bright with abstract art. In sunken alcoves, striped-leafed dracaena and pale-splotched arrowhead vines jostled for space between peace lilies. A hermit crab moved down a miniature beach set behind glass, waving its claws at the passers-by. The Andromache was beautiful, and that made the horror so much worse.

  The demon took a new tack and began to detail the torture, explaining over the announcement system what it was doing and why - that hurts, doesn't it? Now, when I remove the other one - yes, I'm afraid that's happening whether you like it or not - I want you to know that it's happening because your own people abandoned you - and forced its victims to beg for mercy.

  The world turned sort of shaky. Like Meeks had, Joy turned toward the wall, as though it might share some of its solidity with her. When Cassimer noticed, he came back for her, and she straightened, expecting him to tell her to pick up the pace.

  Instead, he slipped his hands through her hair and pulled her close, his palms cupping her ears. It lasted less than a minute, but during that time, the sounds of pain and death were drowned out by the rush of his blood and hers. She held onto that, the song of him, and made it a whole two more decks before she had to stop again - this time to throw up.

  "His name was Reawick," Meeks said, momentarily returning from that distant realm. "He was my commanding officer. A good man, I'd like to say, but in truth, he was one of those scary bogeymen the demon was talking about. Tower down to his very bones, and stubborn too. No wonder he made the demon work for it. Probably had it throwing up just like you towards the end."

  "Were you close?"

  "Not as close as..." She made a wavy hand-gesture, gaze darting between Joy and Cassimer. "...whatever this is."

  "It's none of your business, Meeks."

  "Of course, Commander. Pardon the impertinence. Hard to keep a straight head with everything that's going on. Especially poor old Reawick the Reaver - in a way, it was most inconsiderate of him to refrain from using his kill switch."

  "Bastion has little use for quitters. I assume Tower is no different."

  "Indeed. To the bitter end, Commander - at last we find some common ground - and speaking of which..." Meeks stopped by a door, underneath a sign displaying a green circle. In the neon light, her smile looked ghoulish. "Here we are."

  To Joy's dismay, the Towerman pointed not to the door - but to a maintenance duct.

  "We're inside the Cascade proper, but this'll take us directly to the core. The safest route, I think. Give me a boost, Commander, and I'll get us a better look." Meeks pointed towards a camera in the ceiling.

  Cassimer picked her up, but staggered under her weight, a grimace of discomfort turning his face. It vanished when he noticed Joy looking - but she'd seen enough to remember the spinal radiograph; enough to twist her heart.

  Though Meeks loudly and repeatedly proclaimed her hatred of working with hardware, it didn't take her long to access the surveillance feed. She shared it directly to their primers, and Joy bit her lip as images began to bombard her brain.

  If the silver fortress had been the hollow heart of Cato, then the core was the golden heart of the Andromache. The Cascade particle collider ran a wide circle around humming engines and rare-metal pylons arching high in the air, thin silver filaments suspended between them in an intricate web. Radiant plasma lapped against the bases of the pylons, creating an azure moat around the central hub; a massive array of computing equipment capable of the calculations required of a Cascade.

  And inside the cavernous chamber, at least a hundred armed hostiles waited.

  Joy switched off the feed and pulled out the bottle of pills to stave off her impending migraine. It seemed silly, all things considered, to worry about a headache - but it's what the doctor had ordered.

  "What's the plan, Meeks?" Cassimer dropped his duffel bag and shrugged his Hyrrokkin from his shoulder.

  "Easiest way is to remove a couple of the power cores. One or two will do - the ship's programming obliges a full shutdown for even minor core glitches. Safety protocols are more stringent than typical, because nobody wants to risk a catastrophic Cascade failure." Meeks was preparing too, smoothing out her suit and pulling the ribbon veil over her face. "The power core locks have to be released via the main terminal. Normally, technicians would link up with the system remotely, but today..."

  "Today we have to do it the old-fashioned way. Our enemy fears pain, Meeks, and its suffering is shared between vessels. Hurt one and you hurt all. Use that to our advantage."

  "Maim, don't kill." Meeks nodded, adapting to the weird with chameleon ease. "Got it, Commander. Mind if I borrow your knife?"

  Cassimer gave it to her without hesitation. "You deal with the terminal. I'll sort out the power cores."

  "Commander." Joy had listened with mounting disbelief. "There's a small army in there waiting for us. You can't -"

  "I can," he said, with a smile that was far too handsome, far too earnest - far too damn heroic. "And they're not waiting for us. Do you see the sign over there, the green circle?"

  She nodded.

  "That means escape pods. Your task is to secure one. No matter how this turns out, we're going to want an exit strategy in place."

  We, he said, but meant you. Objections stuck in her throat like a log jam, but she wasn't just Joy; she was Private Somerset, and she had no doubt he'd turn his request into an order. But it wasn't fair, it wasn't right, and she didn't want to lose him like she had Finn.

  And then, though Meeks was watching and time was running out, he leaned in close and kissed her. Stubble scratched her skin, but his lips were soft and his fingers in her hair even more so.

  "One thing, Joy," he whispered. "One thing that I do, not because it's necessary, but because I want to. That's all I ask."

  Not an order after all, but no less persuasive.

  He gave her his tablet and linked his visual to it. Reluctantly, as though he didn't really want her to watch. As though he didn't want her to see him die. The thought made her clutch the tablet harder to her chest, a stubborn act of defiance. She refused to let him go to the lonely sort of end Rhys - and Cassimer himself, she was sure - envisioned.

  "I'll be with you," she said, "every step of the way."

  He smiled and shrugged the Hyrrokkin's strap over his shoulder. Then he was gone, vanished into darkness, and she realised too late that she should've been memorising his face. Not just the sharp angles and the dark eyes, but all the flawed and handsome things in between. More than his face - his touch, his smell, the way he moved - and she wanted to call him back, wanted to make him stay long enough for every detail to become etched with permanence. But it was too late, far too late - her window of opportunity slammed shut with the cold finality of a cryo pod panel.

  "It's better this way, darling." Meeks smiled behind her prismatic veil. "You haven't even got any trousers."

  ◆◆◆

  She counted a dozen escape pods, each with a load capacity of twenty-five personnel.

  But we only need three seats, Joy thought and clung to that number. Three, not one. Please, not one.

  And then the first gunshot blazed across the screen of her tablet, unmistakably fired by the Hyrrokkin.

  Cassimer had scaled the tubular casing of the particle collider. His vantage point, high above the floor of the core chamber, provided a clear view of the demon's defence forces. It had divided its vessels into four wedges, each positioned behind cover. A good idea, perhaps, but not one that accounted for death from above - or within.

  Meeks was a distant shimmer on the screen. Like a spectre, she glided past the back row of one wedge, low, slicing her borrowed blade across heel tendons. Less than a dozen cut - but more screamed and more stumbled to their knees. The wedges fell into disarray as vessels scattered, but the Hyrrokkin had painted her targets ruby red and with each squeeze of the trigger, Cassimer del
ivered unfailing mercy.

  But they were two against a hundred, and soon the demon rallied and reformed its troops. One caught sight of Cassimer, and the tablet flashed bright white with gunfire. He rolled for cover behind a strut, but the vessels were coming for him, dozens climbing up the side of the collider.

  "Get up," Joy whispered, clutching the tablet so hard the plastic groaned. "Get up and run!"

  A burst of bullets from an assault rifle halted the attack. Meeks, invisible but for the blooming muzzle, had opened fire. Cassimer scrambled to his knees, and then he was up and running, staying low, Morrigan now in his hand, spitting orange fire. Glimpses of the room showed part of the demon horde turning from him, searching for Meeks.

  The towerman had nearly made it to her destination when a bullet found its mark. She fell hard and took another bullet before crawling into cover behind a bank of terminals.

  "Ah shit. They got me in the damn leg." A brief pause; the sound of laboured breathing all that could be heard over the channel. "Oh mercy. Commander, they're coming. I can hold this position, but no way am I making it to the main terminal."

  Joy let go of the tablet. It fell with dreamlike slowness, cracking against the floor. Her hands closed around Rhys's gun, and all doubt washed away as soon as her thumb felt the inscription JR+CG.

  "Hold on, Meeks. I'm coming."

  "Joy."

  "Commander?" Nothing he could say would change her mind. This was who she was, this was what she needed to do. This was what she wanted to do.

  Perhaps he knew that too, because he didn't speak again until she'd crawled through the duct and was about to jump into the core.

  "On the count of five."

  That was what he said, but it sounded like I love you, and she held onto that as she counted, held onto it as she dashed on bare feet across blood and hot casings, and when the vessels turned their guns on her, the heavy boom of the Hyrrokkin said the same thing. Sang it loud across the chamber and screamed it in the face of demons.

  Then the ground quaked, and she lost her footing. One hard stumble, and she was on the floor, skidding towards the moat where electric blue plasma arced over the edges. Static energy washed over her, little pinpricks of pain dotting her skin. A viscous tendril snaked towards her and her body responded, as though its every molecule wanted to separate and float into the plasma.

  Someone grabbed her wrist and pulled her away and up into a tight embrace. A hand clamped over her mouth, orange-tinted nails digging into her skin.

  "Hush, little sister."

  Callused fingers pinched her nose tight, and a mouth pressed close to her ear, breathing heavy and hard. As her lungs began to burn, he sang a lullaby. As star-burst darkness edged around her vision, his cracked lips - still humming their foreign song - brushed her temple.

  But she was no longer in the sea cave, and she was no longer just Joy. She was Private Somerset and she was not alone.

  Commander, she texted across the open channel, Meeks; requesting backup.

  The string of text glowed bright and proud. She was Private Joy Somerset and she had learnt to type properly, and damn the demon if it thought it could have her like this.

  The demon screamed and jerked backwards, losing its grip on her, clutching at its crotch. She fell to her knees and crawled towards the moat bridge. Rhys's gun lay on the edge, sparks of cyan electricity leaping from the plasma to dance across its grip. She grabbed it and turned.

  The man was still screaming and not just him. They were all screaming, every single vessel, crying out in sudden agony. She should take the shot - it'd be easy enough, in spite of her trembling hands - but they'd once stood inside the same spaceport terminal, this vessel and her, in the soft light of shifting constellations. Two strangers walking the same path; two strangers, lost to the same chaos.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

  "You bloody will be if you don't get your arse over here ASAP!"

  Meeks's voice screeched above the din. A trail of blood led towards a bank of terminals on the other side of the moat. Joy ran, ducking behind the machines just as the bullets began flying again.

  Meeks, prismatic in flashes, sat slumped against a desk in an expanding puddle of blood. She had one arm tightly wrapped around a man's throat. Her other hand, holding Cassimer's white-hot knife, was firmly pressed against the man's crotch which was -

  - oh. Not all of the blood belonged to Meeks.

  "Save the nausea for later," Meeks snapped. "I've been keeping them at bay by getting creative with this son of a bitch, but he's about to bleed out. Get me to that terminal, Private. The Andromache has launched, and we'll reach decoupling altitude in a matter of minutes."

  "Okay." Once more, trying not to sound quite so on-the-verge-of-fainting: "Okay."

  She holstered her gun and hurried, crouching, towards Meeks. Couldn't avoid stepping in blood, and when it squelched between her toes, she had to stop, grabbing the desk for support.

  "Deep breaths. Be aware of your surroundings."

  "I am," Joy said, forcing herself not to look at the things lying in the blood. "That's sort of the problem."

  "Then you're looking at it the wrong way." Meeks winced as Joy began to drag her free of the dying man. "See with reason. Understand that what you see is nature working as intended. This is anatomy, pure and rational."

  "You feel the same way about your own leg?"

  Meeks had caught at least two bullets. One had struck her hip, the entry wound angling into her pelvis. The other had shattered her kneecap.

  "As long as the anaesthetics keep flowing." Meeks laughed.

  They reached the main terminal, and Meeks got to work while Joy stood guard. Nobody had shot at them in a while, though gunfire still flashed and roared in Cassimer's direction.

  "I think they're retreating," she said, squinting at the shadows.

  "Probably don't want to end up stuck on the Cascade." Meeks tapped an impatient beat on the terminal. "Commander?"

  "I'm here."

  "I've done my part. You good to go, or should I send backup?"

  "I'm good," came the answer; a little too fast for Joy's liking, but before she could object, Meeks tapped her shoulder.

  "Look sharp, Private. We've got incoming."

  Joy turned, raising her gun - and almost dropped it.

  From other side of the bridge, lit phantom blue by plasma, Finn smiled at her.

  59. Joy

  If only Finn were here.

  She had carried that if only across Cato's dusty surface. She had made it into a nagging migraine, because pain was better than nothing. When weird noises woke her from fitful sleep, the pain was something to hold onto. A thorn to grab and drive deeper into her heart to distract herself from the urge to cough or scream when chilblained feet padded past her hiding place.

  If only Finn were here.

  She'd imagined him in uniform, like the last time she'd seen him. So proud, so professional, with only a smear of lipstick on his collar and a coffee-stain on his sleeve giving away glimpses of his true character. Finn was good at his job, good enough that no drifter would ever have got the better of him, but he also had just the right touch of chaos for Cato. Where she had been relegated to its underworld, he would've walked its surface.

  If only Finn were here.

  And now he was.

  Wide, easy grin; tousled copper hair that defied corporate dress-code; one hand on his hip, index finger drumming a casual beat against the butt of his gun.

  "Hey Joy." The same way he'd greeted her every day outside the gates of Atwood Campus. The same rough voice that had read her a thousand bedtimes stories or more. Cascade light washed his face a shimmering azure, but it couldn't wash away the familiar - the bump on his nose, caused by one too many breaks; the slight dimple underneath his lip, left behind by an ill-advised piercing; the almond eyes that were so much like hers in shape, if not in colour.

  "Finn." His name filled her lungs with air, as though she'
d held her breath for eight long months. She reached towards him, aching for contact. Aching to make the imaginary real.

  He smiled wider and pulled his gun. Cocked it, and pressed it to his own temple. Waves of copper hair draped over the white barrel.

  Time stopped. Joy held her newfound breath, held it until her lungs felt raw. Maybe if she held her breath forever, this moment would freeze. She'd hold her breath and make a new snapshot world like the one Skald had shown her; one where everything she loved was contained with a single room, eternal and unchanging.

  "A9445ezQ12," Finn said, and for a moment, she thought it was working, that time had slowed to a crawl and turned his words to gibberish. Stars speckled her vision, but if she could hold on a little longer, he'd fall silent.

  He repeated himself, and it wasn't gibberish at all. It was a fragment of a longer string, a nonsensical word of death.

  "An easy thing to snatch from you," Finn said. "A dark spill, drifting on the surface with all the other oily things. Speak it, sister, or I pull the trigger."

  "Don't." The word rushed from her lips in a burst of air. The last of her hope, released and vanished. "Please don't make me do this."

  "Kill the soldier or kill the brother. The choice is yours."

  She looked to the west. No gunfire there now, nor any sign of Constant. Nothing but chrome-encased darkness. She focused on that no-man's land between choices, between brother and soldier, where neither existed but nor were they dead. They were the cat in the box, and for the first time in her life, she was left with thoughts not of opening the box and letting the poor cat out, but of sealing it up. Tape it, nail it, chain it and lock it - throw it into the sea and live in blissful ignorance for all eternity.

  But she didn't have eternity. She only had seconds, and she spent those seconds dismantling love into easily memorised chunks. His eyes when he smiled. The kindness underneath the rough exterior. The sense of belonging she felt in his presence. Love, expressed in the abstract; only the broadest of strokes and brightest of colours.