Catastrophe Jones

This is Issue #46 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

Happy Reading!

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* * *

“You’ve got gravispherae,” Nixus laughed aloud, rolling her eyes. “Coryfrater, you’re in for a world of adventure, with this one. You think I’m going to believe anything you see in your visions? They don’t mean anything. You believed I would have killed my own brother?”

You’re in for a world of adventure.

Jules stopped in her tracks, staring at Nixus. She pointed a finger at her, saying, “Your Legatus. Sollerti. He’s your lover.”

You’re in for a world of adventure.

Nixus snorted, shaking her head. “Common enough knowledge.”

You’re in for a world of adventure. Jules shook her head, wiping her eyes.

“Damnit, Jules,” Cory hissed, reaching to pull her over to a chair. “Why would you do this? I thought it was going to kill you last time!” he sighed, walking to get her a glass of aetheris, frustrated.

You’re in for a world of adventure. Jules wiped her eyes, hissing, “His last thought, every time he died, was fury that he did not demand your father’s blessing.”

Nixus leaned in, growling, “He’s not dead.”

“Yet,” said Jules.

The punch was loud; Jules falling right off the chair was louder.

* * *

“To me!” Jules screamed. She kneed the horse in its ribs and commanded what was left of the cavalry to crest the hill. The world around her was grass and blood; the sky was fire and grey, smoke and lightning, smaller airships, missiles of varying strengths. “ILONA, TO ME!”

Cresting the hill, Jules saw the field of green studded with the husks of ships, Krieg and Ilonan alike.

Something fell out of the sky and crushed both her and her steed, and the eight mounted soldiers who were with her, rendering them into red mud against the once-green ground.

* * *

She hit the floor, wobbling, and blinked up at Nixus, trying to focus.

You’re in for a world of adventure.

“Soror!” Coryphaeus cried at Nixus, going for Jules.

* * *

The body was familiar; she realized it was Coryphaeus. She let herself get out of the way, let the body do the work, let it dance with its swords, let it carve through the flesh of the soldiers that struggled to bring it down — until she was suddenly face to face with a man who towered above her, bloody from beard to boots, but there was something about his face, something unfamiliar to the body she wore, but disastrously familiar to her.

Coryphaeus brought up his swords to block the strike, but the Kriegsman shattered them with his own blade. It looked down on Coryphaeus, on Jules, with determined hunger. “Allt mun falla aur moshchyu av Krieg,” the man growled, swinging once more.

Jules felt the blade carve into her ribs, dig sharply into the vital parts of her. She dropped her sword and stumbled forward, blood already at her lips as she grabbed at the man’s armor, holding herself up, desperate for one last breath, to say one last thing, forcing it past the body that died and took a piece of her with it.

“…Danival?”

* * *

Coryphaeus curled Jules into his arms, protective, looking at Nixus, frustrated. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Your brain’s as addled as hers if you think I’m going to listen to this idiocy disguised as prophecy!” Nixus shouted. “She nearly got you killed by the Prince! Look at yourself! She’s made you weak! You’re so caught up in having this woman — what, do you think somehow this will finally make you a real –”

* * *

Death. Blood. Fire. Fear. Soldiers and children. Ships. Horses.

The world was on fire.

She stood amidst a field of dead soldiers, and watched Kriegsmen bearing down on her.

She put her pistol in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Coryphaeus’s head snapped up. He cocked his head to the side, and Nixus realized her error a moment too late to do anything but feel embarrassed and guilty.

“A real what?” he said softly, brushing Jules hair out of her face, holding the woman who seized in his arms. He watched Nixus, rage and pain and disbelief on his face. “Go ahead, Nix. Finish the thought.”

Nixus stared down her brother, furious with the situation, even more furious with herself. “I didn’t–”

“You didn’t what? Realize just how much you sound like him?” Coryphaeus wondered, narrowing his eyes.

It was Nixus’s turn to flinch. She swallowed roughly, shaking her head. She couldn’t meet his eyes for a moment; a sick sort of shame welling up within her. “Forgive me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Coryfrater, please. I have never wished to take back my own words so fiercely.”

“You words matter little, soror,” Coryphaeus said, his jaw still set in rage. “If your thoughts matched them, perhaps you should simply say them, rather than hold them in.”

“No,” Nixus said, her eyes widening, her expression wounded, worried. “No! Cory, I–”

Just then, there was a great banging at the door of Coryphaeus’s front hall. “Legatus! Legatus, are you in?” Someone tried the door, found it open, and came in running. Coryphaeus tensed, staring, but ended up simply looking baffled as he looked upon someone wearing the servant livery of his father’s house.

“Legatus. Sumus,” the servant gasped, doubling over, panting. He stood up, looking at them both. “I’m afraid I have terrible news,” he said, his expression worried.

“Out with it, man!” Nixus snapped.

“It’s your father, he — I’m so sorry. Exosus Aecus has passed,” he said.

Coryphaeus stared at the servant, his jaw dropping. “Passed? You mean… you mean he’s dead? My father? My father is dead?”

Nixus’s brows shot up. “How?” she wondered, looking suspicious. “Was he ill?”

“No, Sumus. I’m so sorry to deliver such news.”

“Was it an accident?” Nixus barked, gripping the edge of the table, staring down the servant.

“Your mother has sent me to make certain you come to the house now,” the servant blurted, looking at Jules awkwardly.

“Now?” Coryphaeus said, still looking shocked.

“Inutilis fragmen stercore! How did my father die?” Nixus shouted.

The servant stuttered and stammered, struggling to get the words out, watching Nixus as though she might blame him for the whole situation. “He… he was… He was found in his offices. Dead by his own hand.”

Coryphaeus and Nixus were both about to speak, but then suddenly Jules woke, gagging. She laughed again, almost drunkenly, and said, “I’m not sorry.”

* * *

NEXT

This is Issue #45 of DeathWatch, Book II: tentatively called Heart Of Ilona, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find DeathWatch, the first in the series, or start from the beginning of Book II!

Happy Reading!

PREVIOUS

* * *

“Brody, I do not understand how you can struggle so much while bleeding out,” Sha snarled. “CADET! BE STILL, THIS IS AN ORDER FROM YOUR CAPTAIN!”

Kieron exhaled, going still, and then just laid there, blinking glassy eyes at Sha, quietly murmuring nonsense.

Danival paused, blinking, and looked at Sha, impressed.

The chiurgeon looked at the tourniquet, looked at the wound, and began barking orders to his assistants. He personally shooed Sha out of the room, and when Garrett came in, he was summarily ejected as well. Danival left once a nurse was able to take over the pressure on the injury.

Sha stood right outside the door while Alec paced back and forth, while Danival sat quietly, all three of them waiting, wondering.

* * *

It had been over an hour; the curtains had been closed — Sha could not see into the area where they treated Kieron. “I need something to do,” she said, looking to Danival. “How long until we can extract Jules?”

“Reports have coming in of another ships and outlying border area trading fire. We increasing speed. I wanting to speak to you about safe drop zones,” Danival replied.

“Can you drop some bikes?” Alec wondered. “We could do what I did, and drive in. If we don’t think we can make it through the gates, you can drop us near the cliffs. We can go back up over the wall, into the hunting grounds. I can get us back into the city from there. If you don’t slow and don’t decrease our altitude–”

“You will be making small inkblots on ground, when landing?” Danival said dryly.

“You know damn well we can HALO drop equipment. You know I’ve done it,” Alec said. “If we’re doing this, we need to get in. We need to hurry. If the Kriegs are going to set fire to Ilona, we don’t want to be there when it happens. We want the package, and we want to–”

“Jules,” Sha said, staring at the curtains once more.

“Sorry?” Alec said, looking baffled.

“She’s not a package. Well, she’s a whole motherfucking package,” Sha said, laughing briefly. “But her name is Juliana Vernon O’Malley. Jules. Commander O’Malley. And she’s family, Professor,” She explained. “I don’t know how it worked for you in the armed forces. I don’t know if you had to keep people at a distance. When you’re on a ship? Your crew’s all you’ve got. There is no distance. She’s not a package. I need you to be on board for this. I need you to need her safe like I need her safe,” Sha said, looking at Garrett pointedly. “You get me?”

“I get you,” Alec said quietly, glancing away. In truth, he’d understood that already, much earlier. He’d known what it was like to need that safety of another — he’d been hoping for it, with Jet and Kieron. To have lost one, to know that he literally drove a boy to his own death, that he was responsible for such a thing, even after leaving the Allied Forces? He pushed it out of his mind as best he could, and turned back to the window, to look at the curtain, with Sha. “You know, he was one of my best students,” Alec noted. “I wanted to fail him. Keep him out of this life.”

“We don’t get to pick that for anyone but ourselves,” Sha said.

* * *

He woke in a dim room, monitors strapped to him. He felt cold as ice, and so damn heavy. “H-hello?” he croaked, struggling to sit up. He looked down, and realized that he was strapped to the bed, wrists and ankles and torso, and all he could remember was the institute. The Laughing Academy. The place his mother and father had put him, after Hoyt had beaten him into oblivion. He fell still, wondering for a long, excruciating moment, if the last almost-two years had been real at all. He felt a strange relief as he decided that he would rather have truly lost his mind if it meant Jet was still alive, and on that thought, he sank back into sleep.

* * *

He woke again, still alone, and looked around at the spare, sterile room. The idea that he had spent so much time locked away in his own mind was growing almost comfortable. He knew there was some niggling thing he should be wary of, but instead, he laid back on his pillows and wondered if he would be allowed to write a letter to Jet, if it would get sent. He was imagining a convoluted way of getting the letter posted to the academy, and picturing the look of delight on Jet’s face when the door opened, and Sha walked in, hesitant.

“Hey there,” she said, “We’re getting close. We’ve worked out a way to get back into the city, and a rendezvous point with another ship. We’re doing this. We’re saving Jules, and maybe this offensive will be a turning point. Are you–”

Kieron lay still beneath the sheets, his face gone white, his eyes focusing on her in recognition. “No,” he whispered. “You can’t be here. No, it’s — none of that was real. None of it’s real. I’m safe. I’m safe, and he’s safe. He’s safe,” he told her. “He has to be safe,” he pled, closing his eyes. He wept for the knowing that though he was no doubt perfectly sane, his closest friend and confidant of seven years was lost, dead, gone forever, that nearly every friend he’d made since then was also dead, that his father was likely dead, and his mother as well, and he simply let the tears come, feeling them spill over his cheeks.

Sha let him cry, let him break, and let him finally come back to himself. When he finally opened his eyes, she said, “I’m real. You’re safe. We’ve got Alec and Dani, and a ship’s worth of Kriegs. We’re going back for Jules. Nate is gone. Djara’s gone. Penny and Hana, and everyone. Everyone else is gone. I’m not gonna lie to you. It was probably nicer wherever you were in your head.”

Kieron whispered miserably, “It’s all my fault.”

Sha snorted, saying, “What, you think none of the rest of us had any choice but to do what you said? We all made the choices that led us here. Don’t go feeling too sorry for yourself. Jules’ll punch you.”

* * *

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