Rise and Descent
Zofia made her way into the station with slow, determined motions, Erastus ahead of her. Code-scramblers and systems-baffles were deployed to trick the fickle machine-spirits of the doors. Their acquiescence was bought, bribed and otherwise deceived. Even within the re-pressurised passageways of Noatun they kept their helms on, the better to hide their identities. The dirt obscuring their maker’s marks and sigils would suffice for now, but only so long as the enemy did not draw too near.
They did not speak. They moved in utter silence, stopping only to consult the maps that flickered down the faceplates of their helms. Eyes tracing along the glowing patterns of lines and symbols resolving into the station’s upper echelons.
They had supposed that their foe would keep Astrid close. A prize, or a pet. Zofia glanced around as they walked the corridors, free from the debris and detritus of battle that had so stained their way to the ships. These passageways were different. Cleaner. They spoke of the grandeur that had faded elsewhere throughout the station. Another corridor branched off to their left, the doors panelled with crystalflex, revealing a more sizeable airlock platform, capable of moving out into the open void.
Within, set up with cruel care, there was a gallows. It was new, repurposed or moved from elsewhere in the facility, but its function was clear. Once deployed, the platform would display the hanging dead to the vacuum of space, and to any who might dock and dare to consider crossing Noatun’s errant master.
‘I think we’re on the right track,’ Erastus sent over the vox.
‘Throne but he was serious,’ Zofia breathed. Her eyes caught on every sharp edge of it, and the length of cable that hung and swayed. Waiting. Hungry. It exuded menace. Perhaps that was the point of it. The threat more than the actuality. How many had hung beyond those doors, their bones clattering against the hull in cautionary rattle? ‘A gallows. Slow and cruel. No way for a warrior to die.’
‘Keep moving,’ Erastus sent tersely.
She was aware, very suddenly, of how the dynamic had shifted. Where before she had led, the sight of the pending execution seemed to have rallied his focus. His hand moved to his weapons, ready to act at the slightest provocation.
With what lay between them and their prize, Zofia did not think it would be long in coming.
They pressed themselves against a wall as voices echoed from the next corridor along. The moments drew out, broken only by their breathing, by the thud of boots against metal and the inane chatter of voices.
When the guards crossed into the corridor, that was when Erastus and Zofia struck.
Erastus wheeled suddenly out of the shadows, and his blade came up almost instantly. A throat opened, red and rushing with spilled blood. Zofia struck next, her slashing motion coming a second after his lead. The two men stammered, spluttered, but gloved hands quickly covered their mouths as they lowered them to the floor. It was a gesture that struck Erastus as being… gentle, despite the ruin unleashed upon them.
They pushed on, with a sense of quiet purpose. Somehow, knowing that the absence of the guards would be noticed and that their bodies might be found gave Erastus new impetus. He advanced steadily, eye drifting to the map’s pattern before him. Following its glowing lines to their inevitable conclusion. The corridors were no longer the broad thoroughfares for moving men and materiel. They were intimate, the walls close.
He could smell the acrid stench of burning electricals, even through the helmet’s filters. The station was sick. Palsied by battle, but also ill to its core. He reached up, and pulled the helm off his head. He clamped it to his belt and ran a hand through his short hair, feeling it slick with sweat. Zofia shot him a disapproving look.
‘There’s no harm,’ he said. ‘I know the way from here. So do you.’
Zofia reached up and pulled off her own helmet. There was a hiss of venting air, and she shook her hair out. She remained poised, ready to strike – like a serpent in the low grass.
‘We’re close?’ Zofia asked.
‘We are,’ Erastus said with a nod. ‘Let’s hope that our friends are drawing their eye enough.’
‘And what is it you think you can offer me that I do not already possess?’ Nikolai grumbled. The man, such as he was, had leant forward from his throne again. The cables had dug deep into his flesh, leaving dark lines of pressure in his pale skin. His gurgling breathing rose and fell, and his eyes darted from Katla to Gunther and back again. There was a manic, febrile energy in his limited movements. ‘I am lord of Noatun, blessed with the station’s grace. I…’ He trailed off, before he shook himself. ‘I want for nothing.’
‘Everyone wants for something,’ Gunther replied. ‘This place…’ He gestured around the chamber. ‘It has seen better days, has it not?’
Katla was aware that the margins of the room were swiftly filling with guards. The light caught on their tarnished green plate, and glittered on the polished surfaces of their lasweapons. If Gunther noticed them then he gave no sign. He stepped forward, his coat flourishing as he scrutinised their enemy.
‘You wish for riches? We have trinkets and baubles aplenty.’ Gunther raised one hand and prised a ruby-encrusted ring from his finger, tossing it before the assembled figures. ‘You want to walk your station again, or go out into the wildness of these stellar nights? We have practitioners of medicine who could restore sight to the blind!’ He threw back his head and laughed, brayed. Spittle flew from his lips in his manic frenzy. He seemed, in that moment, bestial. Not a man, but a thing aping one. An animal, cloaked in human skin.
He is our friend and our ally, or so he claims, but I have never hated him more. The thought blazed in her mind, shocking her with its intensity. He had stood against her, argued that they should leave Astrid to her fate. What he did now was to serve himself. To regain whatever favour had slipped through his fingers between him and Erastus. He did not serve their king. Perhaps he did not even serve the Emperor. Not when there was the will and whim of Radrexxus to consider.
‘Enough,’ she said.
All attention shifted to her. Gunther turned, looking as though he had been struck. As though she had robbed him. She brushed past him, glaring up at the totemic form of Noatun’s master.
‘You wish to bargain. I can understand that. You want to bleed us? Perhaps that too is understandable. You have lost much. We have taken much from you.’ Katla sighed. Her hands balled into fists, and she struggled to keep them steady at her side. ‘But Astrid is my daughter. Even your heart must understand a parent’s love for their child.’
Nikolai scoffed, but said nothing. His silence was all the sign she needed to continue.
‘I have been His spear in dark places. I hunted the beasts that others fear to face down.’ She gestured to the ruin of her face and body, the horror obscured by ink and brand. The tattoo was dark in the low light, against the paleness of her skin. ‘For my kin, I would lay down my life. I would kill for her, aye.’ She raised her fists, a pale echo of past triumphs and struggles. ‘And I would die for her.’
Nikolai’s laughter was cold, and his words yet colder. ‘You may yet get your chance to do just that.’
Escaping her bonds had been easy. It was not the first time she had been bound, and far from the only time she had been forced to escape from such captivity.
Astrid gripped the chains, suspending herself in the air even as her movements sent motes of dust spinning. She swayed gently, feeling the rough, rust-caked metal in her hands. She slipped down the length of the chains, till her feet touched the ground with the faintest whisper of contact. She rocked on her heels, becoming familiar with the decking once more.
Even this far removed, she was still a child of Fenris. You did not fight unless you had solid ground beneath your feet. The ice could betray you, and soft land might slip beneath the waves again. As a denizen of the void, she had learned further lessons. Ship and station were as treacherous as the seas.
She surveyed her surroundings, assessing the battlefield as it unfolded before her.
The machinery by which her captor had communicated had fallen silent, the simulacrum of a face idling. Its plates were sharp suggestions in the low light, dripping with kindled menace. She moved past it cautiously, unsure which mechanisms of surveillance were still active. Pressing herself against the wall, she leant her head to the door, and listened. The soft breathing of the guards could be heard, alongside the occasional bursts of muted conversation. Even they were taking no chances in being caught by their masters, in being found idle at their posts. She could hear it in their terse asides. In the way they shifted with subtle agitation. She smiled in the darkness, and drew back towards where she had been hanging.
Astrid braced herself and then leapt into the air, driving her weight down onto the floor with a crash. She heard a curse from beyond the door, and the guards scrambling to open the cell. She was already in motion, hurling herself towards the wall beside the door, even as it swung open and the barrel of a lasgun swept up, round, and into the chamber.
Her hands snapped out and grabbed the gun, yanking it from the man’s poorly disciplined grip. She spun the weapon around, and slammed the stock of it into the exposed lower half of his face, relishing the crack of bone and the spatter of blood. She bared her teeth in a frail grin, and brought the gun around again – barrel trained on the second guard.
He hesitated. He actually faltered before her, his aim going low and wide as he fumbled. She wondered if he had ever had a weapon pointed at him before, or if it was merely the thought of failure. Of losing his friend and comrade. Of being made an example of, by whichever cruel arithmetic animated this place. Often the price of failure could seem far worse than the predations of the enemy.
‘Back,’ she growled, and the man obeyed. He stepped back, his gait unsteady, and she paced forward eagerly. She moved around him, gesturing for him to take her place at the door to the cell. He shook his head, the bulbous lenses of the goggles bobbing in imitation of an insect. She scowled, and cracked him in the side of the head, watching him tumble to the floor alongside his friend. She dipped low, checked them quickly for supplies and ammunition. She took some charge-packs, and a short blade, and then sealed the chamber behind her.
‘There must be a way out of here,’ she breathed.
She checked the gun she had taken. A full charge. There were, at least, some graces left to her. She looked at the sword from one of her victims, and let a smile colour her features once more.
‘With this, I will find a way, or carve one.’
They rounded another corner to the sounds of gunfire and screams.
Instantly they brought their weapons up, the blue glow of Erastus’ pistol a sudden light in the shadows. Men were screaming, and they could hear the sound of armour against decking as they stumbled and fell, or were cut down. A panicked guard almost barrelled into them, babbling incoherently. His gauntleted hands clawed at them as he tried to push past.
‘Save me, please, Throne save me from the beast!’ he wailed and whimpered.
There was a rush of air, the sound of a swooping attack, and the man’s eyes went wide behind the lenses. Blood trickled from his mouth, and he pitched forward onto the decking. A short blade protruded from his spine. It had been thrown, end over end, to bury itself in the man’s back.
Zofia and Erastus looked at each other, and then up to see the perpetrator standing, watching them. Her hand lay nonchalantly on her hip. Her breathing was laboured, and for all her pretence it was clear that her battles had been pitched. She forced a smile.
‘You came, then.’
‘Of course we came!’ Erastus exclaimed. ‘We just expected–’ He paused, considering what to say next.
‘That I would need rescuing?’
‘Something like that,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You’re hurt?’ he asked, noting her bruised and contused face. She simply smiled again, showing blood-slicked teeth.
‘Nothing serious. They tried, Throne love them, but they were not the most practised of interrogators. I have had worse in the lower decks, carousing with the crew.’ She winced slightly, as though putting those words to the test. ‘You have a plan to get us out of here?’
Erastus laughed. ‘Of course we have a plan.’ He looked to Zofia, and she smiled. ‘It is, though, a little more melodramatic than you might be used to.’