+++A memory, two years ago+++
Alexander Folke was just sitting down to dinner in the small, three room apartment he shared with his sister and their mother in Hablock 11276 the Ironworker's Section of Stockarta Hive, when his sister came through the door. Even though he'd been working for a year in the same forge his father Tyr had worked in before his untimely death, Alex still hadn't developed the hugely muscled arms and strong, broad back of his father. Granted, Alex thought ruefully, Pappa had spent thirty years on the forge floor from the time he turned sixteen, turning raw ore into huge slabs of iron for transshipment to the closest proper Forge World. The iron forges of Skania were fed by the huge forests that called the planet home, tended by various clannish tribes that made their homes deep inside the hills and valleys, and Alex took a quiet pride in knowing that he helped fuel the Imperium's vast warmachine as it defended the worlds of humanity.
"How was the Ironworker's local meeting?" Mamma had always liked to hear about his and Elise's days, ever since he could remember attending the rudimentary grade schools paid for and provided by the dues paid to the Local. Dinner appeared to be a standard grain ration, supplemented with a little bit of bacon, likely earned by Mamma sewing a neighbor's torn shirt or trousers. A skill she had learned as a young girl on her family's stead, that and cooking were something that their mother put to good use to help support the family.
"Not bad," he said, and sniffed at the bacon. There were seven slices on the table, with three on the plate placed for him and two on the plates for Mamma and Elise. While Mamma glanced at the apartment door to see if Elise was back yet, he placed the third piece of bacon onto Elise's plate. "We talked about the regiments being Founded for offworld service with the Guard." He took a sip of the tea.
"You're not thinking of going, are you?" Alex shook his head, then took another sip of tea. "Well, good," Mamma said. Alex thought that he would have liked to have enlisted and done his part for the Imperium and Emperor, but he was almost at the point where he would make line supervisor. He had a couple of ideas that might help improve safety numbers for the factory, and improved safety numbers meant more Ironworkers going home to their families at the end of the month, which meant more metal for the Imperium's war machine.
"Scrumball's going fine," he said, before Mamma could start questioning him about that. "We've raised enough money to pay the memorial costs for Torstigg's cousin, and we'll be hosting it at the arena."
"Were you friends with him?" Alex shrugged, but was interrupted by the door opening before he could say anything. Hoping it was Elise, he turned to look.
She came through the door to the rest of the tenement slowly, pale as a ghost, and silent as the grave. Alex shot to his feet, knocking the lovingly carved chair he'd been sitting in over to the floor. It clattered once, and Alex felt his heart stop. Her dress was tattered and torn, held up by one of her hands, and her face was covered in blood.
"No," he snarled. He gripped the edge of the table, and Mamma stood up slowly, hands shaking. She went to Elise while Alex stood there and watched, and it was Mamma that guided her gently to the small bathroom that they shared, where Elise and Alex had liked to watch Pappa shave. The light in the bathroom turned on, flickered once, twice, and Alex smelled the sugarloaf in the oven burning. He thought that he should get it out, perhaps salvage the middle, but all he could do was stand there in the kitchen-dining room, one hand gripping the edge of the table like he was an old man and needed the support it offered.
Finally, finally, he came to his senses. Mamma would find out what had happened. And then Alex would do what Folke men had been doing best for hundreds of years. He would solve the problem.
If it was just a group of toughs from another Hab Block, maybe some rich-kids looking to slum it and all they'd done was harass his sister, well, Alex was still kompis with his scrumball pals from secondary school, they met up for pints at The Standing Boar every Marketday.
If it had been something infinitesimally worse, then Alex was a decent hand at knife-fighting in the close confines of a hive's alley, and an even better one at brawls, thanks to scrumball taking up three of his evenings every week. So Alex stopped standing and went to the oven, where he pulled out the sugarloaf that Mamma had saved their sugar rations for a month for, and upended it onto a loaf platter. He carved, very carefully, with as much care as he might very carefully finish a piece of art he was making for Elise or Mamma, the burned pieces off. He heard the water of the shower turn off-had it turned on? He hadn't even noticed. He turned, stuck a darker piece in his mouth, burned his tongue, and watched his mother take Elise to the small bedroom that he and Elise had once shared.
"You are the man of the house now," Mamma had told him when Pappa had died, "and so the man of the house gets the master of the home's bedroom." He hadn't wanted it, not really, but Mamma was from one of the distant rural-district tribes or clans, where they did things differently, and Alex hadn't wanted to argue with her. So he slept in his parents' old bed, made obeisance every morning and evening to the shrine of the Emperor and the Blessed Saint Langley in the main living area, and went to work at the iron foundry his father had worked in. The foreman had wanted to give Alex his father's position, that of line supervisor, but he couldn't, not until Alex had a couple years of decent line experience under his belt.
Bitterly, a small part of Alex wondered if he'd finish those two years now, or if he might not be finishing his life quite sooner than that. He dry swallowed, and went to rummage in the 'fridge unit for a beer. All they had was mead, sent from one of Mamma's brothers, so he poured a glass of that and drank it in one go. He placed the bottle back in the 'fridge unit, and listened for a moment. There was no sound coming from the smaller bedroom, so he went into the master bedroom and pulled from below the pillow on the bed the long dagger that marked him as a man of Skania and a member of a tradesmen's Local.
He drew it from the plain brown leather covered metal sheath, then shoved the sheath through his belt. He poked his thumb with the point, decided that it was sharp enough for his business tonight, and rammed it back home into the sheath. He took one last look around the bedroom, hoped Elise and Mamma would be able to keep it, and rolled his sleeves up. There were light patches on his arms without his dark hair, where he'd been burned by splashing sparks over the past year and a half. If Mamma had a name, then Alex would know who to go to and find out where they were at this time of night.
He stepped out of the room gently, and closed the door without making a sound. He looked up to see his mother standing there, watching him. Her eyes took in the dagger, and then the set of his shoulders and the forced calmness of his face.
"You're going to do something stupid, aren't you?" He nodded, and she sighed. "You always got that from my side of the family. My brothers were always slow to anger, but when they did, it would burn and burn until they were burned out with it, or whatever had happened had been made right, whether by fist or by a house-burning." She stepped close to embrace him and he stooped so that she could. Mamma wrapped her arms around him, dagger and all. She pressed a kiss against his forehead, and then whispered the name of the man that'd taken Elise into his ear.
His fist tightened, and Folke nodded, then pressed a kiss of his own against her forehead. "I probably won't be back," he said. "But if I am, it won't be for long. Maybe only to pack a set of clothing. It'd be best if you went back to your family." Mamma gave him a sad smile, but nodded her agreement.
"Be safe, Alex," she said, and then she went back into the smaller bedroom. He walked out the door without a glance behind, hardening his heart for what was to come.
Midnight found Folke waiting at Kjell's, a bar that his target frequented after his patrol shifts with his partner. Folke was nursing an akvavit, distilled grain liquor, doing his best not to look particularly brooding. Instead, he thought about what he would do after he put his target down. With his badge protecting him, with a reputation for peddling girls and drugs on the side, Folke knew even if the other law officials didn't come after him, his target's friends on the wrong side of the law would.
That was a battle he was willing to fight. He'd never knifed a man in cold blood, but Folke was absolutely certain he could handle a fistfight. Scrumball and his job at the iron foundry served him well. He might not be the tallest man or the strongest, but he could punch well above his weight, and take a hit, too. He finished the akvavit, then gestured for another. The tasteless liquor burned going down, but Folke didn't care. The dagger, gifted to him by his father on the day Folke had become a man, was hidden beneath his pantsleg, trapped between the barstool and leg.
His target came in the bar's door with a gust of laughter, and Folke's eyes narrowed. He smiled into his drink, slugging it back in one go. In the blue tunic and gray pants of the Stockarta Hive Law Enforcement Patrol, his target cut a dashing figure, and Folke wondered if the man had charmed his sister before forcing her or just pulled her aside from her business and then done it.
It doesn't matter, Folke told himself. What matters is that you're going to gut him. His target took a corner booth, and Folke switched from akvavit to a sweet cider made from a planetary fruit. In the dim mirror behind the wood bar, Folke watched a woman sway and gyrate in time to the music on a stage in the middle of the room, and watched his target watch her.
It took four ciders, an uncomfortable bladder, nine songs, and two changes in girls on stage before his target got up to go to the restroom. Folke finished his cider, left enough hard coin on the bar to pay his tab plus a tip, and stood. He took a bit slower walking to the restroom than he otherwise might have, and gave his eyes time to adjust to the harsh light in the bathroom. Folke saw his target's shoes in a stall, and heard a flush. He walked past the line of urinals and stalls to the emergency exit door. He lifted the locking bar and turned, readying a blow.
"What the fu-" the man started, and then Folke slammed the bar into the man's head, sending him reeling. He tossed the locking bar aside, where it clattered against the line of sinks.
"This is for my sister, you piece of trash," Folke said, and drove his knee into the man's groin. His target wasn't a patrol officer for nothing, though, and responded by sending his forearm across Folke's face. Folke was thrown against the line of sinks, but came back up swinging.
"What sister," the target sneered, and Folke growled. He dove into a tackle, leading with his left shoulder, and drove the man back against a stall wall. The man went back, and then brought his clenched fists down against Folke's back.
"You know," Folke panted, his heart racing and blood pounding in his ears. "Elise Folke. Dark hair, about sixteen," he said. "I'm going to fucking gut you." He scrambled to his feet, backed up from his target.
"Her? I remember her. By the end she was moaning for me, like the little whore she is," the target sneered, and Folke merely drew his dagger in response. The man's eyes widened, and he went for his standard issue side-arm, but it wasn't there. It was across the room, against the wall where the door to the rest of the bar stood, where Folke had tossed it while the man had been hammering at his back. Folke grinned, because he was between the man and his laspistol.
"Not so tough without that, are you now, Vidkunsen?" Folke took a step forward, the man took a step back, and the song changed. They closed once more, this time for the last time, and Folke used his greater strength to drive Vidkunsen out through the emergency exit, sending an alarm ringing through the bar. They emerged into the neon-lit rain coming down hard through the random openings of the Stockarta sky-line. Folke drove his dagger through Vidkunsen's flak vest, and then again. Vidkunsen snarled and managed to get a hand on his baton as they fell, which he brought around against Folke's face, across one eye and breaking his nose. Folke jerked his dagger free and then stabbed it down again, this time getting a glancing blow in the chest, where it bounced off a rib. Vidkunsen flopped once, and then Folke seized his head and drove it against the rock-crete, and then again and again and again.
Folke panted the whole while, and he didn't stop until Vidkunsen's skull was soft and pulpy and leaking matter beneath them both. Folke rolled over and puked, then tugged his dagger free. He spat to clear the taste of vomit from his mouth, then cleaned the dagger on Vidkunsen's tunic. He turned, startled, when a voice broke the sounds of his panting and rain and the alarm in the bar.
"There's a place for men that can fight like you," it said. It was clearly educated, bearing the tell-tale signs of an upper-class accent. The figure that had spoken wore a peaked cap and long greatcoat, with a sheathed sword at one hip. The greatcoat was tucked behind the laspistol holster and sword, and Folke felt a quickening of fear. This was an Imperial Guard officer, then, come to dispense the Emperor's vengeance. Folke rose to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster, because he would rather die on his feet like a man than kneeling like a beast.
"I heard everything," the officer said. He paced forward, one hand propped on the hilt of his sword. "As I say. There is a place for men like you," he continued. Folke rubbed his face clear of rain and blood with his arm, staining the material of his shirt. "Come with me to the Guard," he said, "and the Emperor will forgive you all your sins. Enlist in the Guard, and I can make this," here the officer tilted his head at the slowly cooling corpse of Vidkunsen, "disappear."
Folke glanced at the officer, then at the body. He could probably hide Vidkunsen's corpse himself, with help from his scrumball friends, but there would always be the niggling doubt that they would betray him to Vidkunsen's associates. He jammed his dagger back home into its sheath, and watched as the figure took another step closer. Now Folke could see the color of his eyes, and the man's tawny eyes examined Folke with the patience of a night-hunting bird.
And then the man said what would seal Folke's fate. "You can bring your sister and keep her safe," he told Folke, and Folke knew he would sell his soul to keep her safe.
"Okay," Alex said, and in that moment, he felt like what he really was, a scared seventeen year old that had just killed a law enforcement officer in cold blood.
"Welcome to the Guard, recruit," the officer said, and Alex felt a chill go down his back.