“That’ll do.”
Bolt slowed down and hovered in emptiness, on the far side of the factory from the Black Swan. The signals came one by one in succession.
“Petrov, pick up the phone!” Olga groaned.
A second’s pause and then:
“Hello.”
“Late August is the best time of the year to vacation at Baikal.”
“I prefer to vacation in the highlands.”
Olga and Mikhail had devised this short password and confirmation right after Arina’s death to be able to identify themselves in the event of an emergency. The event had arrived.
“What’s the matter, Raven? They’ve sent me on an unscheduled leave!”
“Uncle Misha, there’s no time for explanations. You’ll receive a video file.” Olga sent a compressed video file made by the manned compartment flight recorder. It contained everything: the docking, the shot in the head, the jamming, and her clinical death.
“Those bastards! Hold on, Raven. I’ll try to contact headquarters—”
“You won’t have time for that. They’ll burn down the House and me with it. Bring up our last month’s correspondence. It contains classified file thirteen fifteen, voice code Unicorn Nine.”
Somewhere far below Petrov extracted the required file from his computer and seeing what Olga had put there, lost for a second the gift of speech.
“Raven, you hacked the orbital electromagnetic gun control system?”
“Reprimand me later. You have our coordinates. The Swan is attached to the docking unit with the bulk of their crew on it … and jamming generator. You know what to do …” Olga slumped face-first against the floor.
Petrov didn’t hesitate for a second. He knew that this action could be the end of his career, and, most likely, his life. But it would be worth it.
“My girl, get in your suit and evacuate. Wait for my signal!”
“Understood. Bring me down, Doc.”
The orbital cannon, flying five hundred kilometers over the High House, readily obeyed the code introduced by Petrov, coming under his command in manual mode. He didn’t have to switch on the long-range radars since the House’s path was fixed and the curator only needed to introduce the station’s coordinates. Then he watched as the thirty-meter barrel turned on its electric drives.
He switched on the precise guidance telescope. What was left now was to aim at the ship moored to the axis. The cannon’s guidance system would independently calculate the required lead. Now the thin red lines were coming together on the Swan’s bow where Petrov hoped the control post was. He didn’t want to hit the reactor compartment.
The cannon accumulators fully charged; the fragmentary round was in the barrel. The target was attached to the High House and therefore couldn’t evade, and it wasn’t protected by jamming. Everything promised an ideal shot.
“Well, dear citizens engaged in alcoholism, hooliganism, and parasitism!” Petrov announced with unconcealed relish. “Time for the fate you so richly deserve!”
A space artillery gun is an inconspicuous thing. It fires without a bright flash or deafening sound of a shot. But the shell, boosted by the pulse-driven electrode accelerator, rushed to the target at a speed of eighty kilometers per second.
“Ensign Voronov is calling Electra Donovan. Over.” Olga’s voice was even as usual, showing no emotions.
“Wha-a-a-t? You’re still alive?”
Olga smiled wryly and looked out the porthole.
“Alive, my friend. And now I’ll show you my funny trick!”
“Beautiful!” Olga exclaimed, watching with admiration as a bow of the Black Swan shattered to hundreds of glittering fragments. The shell that hit the yacht exploded inside it, producing thousands of splinters in the shape of a curved saber. They cut through everything on their way—partitions, equipment, spacesuits, human bodies … The maneuvering engines and oxygen tanks exploded. The controls inside the ship threw off showers of sparks. The dazzling flame flared up and died out. The metal and ceramite bulged outward, then came apart in a donut-shaped ring of shrapnel. Only the reactor compartment, protected by armor, survived. The High House’s docking unit was damaged, but it was of no significance now.
With the destruction of the generator, the pain vanished like a nightmare. Olga regained control of the station and immediately introduced new security codes that would make any further hacking impossible. Simultaneously, an SOS signal and a short encoded message detailing the attack on the station left for Earth.
Panic struck the surviving members of Electra’s gang as Olga watched, wishing the anti-meteor lasers had safeguards that prevented them from firing on humans. Electra was shouting blue murder, trying to put things right and call the roll of who was left. But, suddenly, the entire chorus of voices went silent giving way to Olga’s loud and ragged laugh.
“You messed the wrong High House today! Suckers!”
Electra halted for a second. She sucked in a small gasp, trying to regain her self-control. Then she attempted to encode the communication between her crew but failed because Olga had easily hacked into their system through the factory’s main computer.
“You … you’ve just killed nine of my friends, you …” Her genuine wrath cheered Olga still more.
“That means the score is nine to zero in my favor. Don’t mess with the Changed! And now listen, you idiot brat! You failed. Half your people are dead. Your ship is destroyed as is your jamming generator. Most importantly, headquarters knows about your stupid assassination attempt now. So float there and wait patiently for the military ship that will pick up you and your ill-fated pirates. Then you’ll make up for a lifetime of pampered sloth with twenty years’ labor in the Oven’s mines! Yippee-ki-yay, Electra!”
Olga put a mockingly merry version of Chopin’s “Funeral March” and called Petrov again.
“Did you see that shot? I’ve still to it!” the curator exulted.
“Bull’s eye, Uncle Misha! I’ll be thankful to you to my dying day!”
“How are you? Not wounded?”
“Doc dragged me out. I’ll just turn over those—”
“Captain, look!” the android interrupted.
One of Electra’s gang was slowly rising over the factory holding a short-range space assault gun. As the fighter raised his weapon, Olga threw herself to the floor. But he wasn’t aiming at the manned compartment. A short burst and Mikhail broke off. Electra broke into the air again.
“This isn’t over yet! I killed your stupid robot, and your factory is next! Mike! Mine the manned compartment and blow it to hell. There’s only one exit—a hatch on the roof. If she tries to get out, shoot her in the head!”
“You got it!” the fighter with the gun replied.
“The rest of you follow me!” Electra shouted. “We’ll penetrate the factory through the axial portal!”
Olga deactivated the portal hatch, knowing that it wouldn’t stop them for long since there were no locks and the hatches could be opened manually. In any case, she had more important matters to attend to. Mike was approaching fast, pointing the barrel of his automatic gun at the brightly lit portholes.
“Shut the windows, Doc!”
“The shutters won’t resist those bullets.”
“I know!”
“Captain, I see no other way out but the rescue capsule. If he fires at the capsule, I’ll cover you.”
The capsule wouldn’t do, Olga thought. It moved far too slowly, and they could simply cut her down as she tried to flee.
“No, we must attack. Sunrise is in ten minutes. Come to me, Nut! Doc, you bring the explosive charges!”
Olga snatched a red backpack from the rescue capsule’s emergency kit.
“Nut, connect to the main control panel; I’ll tell you what to do. Doc, fit in the charges here and here!”
Mike’s jet-powered backpack reversed course too late, and her would-be murderer slammed against the compartment with a hefty thud. He clumsily tried to brace himself
with his hands. He obviously was unpracticed with his spacesuit. Nevertheless, Olga heard a loud metallic click. That was the first mine attaching to the manned compartment wall. Then another mine click home and then still another.
“Nut, wait for the signal. Aim via the optic sight. Intervals of one-twentieth of a second!”
A ninth mine was attached somewhere beneath her living quarters; a tenth attached to the outside wall of the sluice chamber.
“Hey, you, inside!” Mike called. “Want to come out to stretch legs? I’m waiting. Another ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven …”
“Get ready!” Olga commanded, her body compressed in a tight spring.
“Five, four …”
At the count of three, the booster ejected the rescue capsule. Mike turned around, firing at the departing capsule as Olga set off the detonators.
The explosive charges split the ceiling porthole, sucking Olga and Doc outside. Mike belatedly turned, trying to set his sight on them. And that was when the searchlights on the axial mast struck him with dazzling beams. Nut was controlling the searchlight unit from within the manned compartment, staying faithful to his duty to the very end. The unbearably bright light winked out for a second, then flared up again, dazzling the enemy.
“The light filter!” Electra shouted. “Put down your light filter, you idiot! They’re escaping!”
Mike was firing indiscriminate bursts in all directions. Olga and Doc dashed to the mast as the mines detonated simultaneously and the manned compartment exploded.
Olga had almost reached the mast when she shuddered from a shattering blow to her back. Her and Doc’s engines ran for another second and a half and gave out. But that final pulse was enough to deliver them to the transportation tunnel.
Her headlamp went out, flared up again and then died completely. The temperature in her suit was plummeting. The attempt to launch the repair software failed. But the malfunction in the suit was a trifle compared to the grave wound. Olga felt an armor-piercing round stuck in her back just centimeters from her spinal column. A high-powered bullet developed expressly for killing the Changed. It killed a target not only by the kinetic impact and fragments but also with a highly toxic compound. The medical kit worked automatically, stopping the bleeding and giving Olga a painkiller combined with an antidote. But it would be impossible to fully neutralize the aftereffects of the hit. The poison was beginning to operate, invading her nervous system. Olga weakened rapidly, losing the capability to control the station via the neuro-interface.
“You’re wounded, Captain! Your heat insulation has ruptured!” the first mate reported.
“I know. I must get to the central post. There’s a spare spacesuit and a medical kit there. Quick! He’s coming. Get us inside!”
Doc adroitly moved his hands, clinging to the rail on the tunnel floor as he progressed toward the entry to the landing stage. Olga jolted against his back, trying again and again to start her suit’s standby heating system. The temperature in her suit was plummeting, and her breath was fogging the inside of her helmet. As one of the Changed she could withstand intense cold, but the toxin is spreading through her body made her far more susceptible to hypothermia and the resulting brain death.
Light flashed out behind. Mike was approaching.
“Faster!”
Doc reached the landing stage and forcefully pushed himself from the rail. They flew up a couple of meters and disappeared behind a stack of containers containing finished water purifier. Mike fired round after round into the containers, emptying the magazine. He reloaded the gun, turning his head from side to side, trying to catch them with the beam of his headlight. The Earth below was still blocking the sunrise, and it was too cold in the tunnel for the infrared sight to operate. Mike ignited his suit engine, rose a meter from the floor and slowly flew forward, holding his gun at the ready.
“The trolley on the rail,” Olga commanded in a low voice.
Doc disconnected the trolley and put it on the rails while Olga, her teeth chattering with cold, manipulated the instruments under the manual control panel.
“Set the containers.”
The trolley had a governor that limited it to twenty-five kilometers per hour. With the governor removed—and that was precisely what Olga was doing—it could accelerate to a hundred provided the rail is long enough.
“Ready!” Doc reported.
Mike was ten meters from the landing stage when Olga stood up at the control panel.
“Hit the road!”
The state of weightlessness that exterior of the High House permanently experienced did not protect its inhabitants from the force of collisions. Just as on Earth the higher the speed of the object and its mass, the more the destructive the impact will be. A loaded trolley weighing one ton and moving at a speed of one hundred kilometers per hour was lethal.
Mike was seven meters away from the edge of the tunnel when Olga drove the trolley toward him. The electric motor accelerated the trolley almost instantly to its maximum speed before crashing into the attacker. Hit! Mike spun in a circle and drifted up to the tunnel wall as Olga rolled back the trolley. As he bounced off the wall and floated back toward the rail, she hurled the trolley into battle again.
“This is what you get for shooting me in the back!”
On the third impact, the engines on Mike’s suit spontaneously switched on, spinning him toward the tunnel exit and jolting his body against the gray walls, a jet of air erupting from his broken helmet. Olga’s only regret was the loss of the gun that had flown overboard along with the dead body.
“Captain, we must go to the central post or you’ll freeze to death!”
Olga had stopped thinking of the cold while killing Mike. The medical kit had already given her repeated injections against frostbite, but their effect wouldn’t last for long. The inside of her helmet had almost completely frozen over, limited her senses to the holographic screens. The cold and the multiple drugs encumbered her thinking; the neuro-interface malfunctioned, declining the orders coming from her befuddled mind.
“Doc, drag to the Central Post. I can’t walk by myself. Move to mark South-18 and then turn to West-7.”
She felt the first mate neatly put her on his shoulders and quickly make for the factory center. To resist cold, Olga crushed a tablet of pemmican with her teeth, but it didn’t help much.
“Mike. Mike! Report your status!” Electra called.
“This is Ensign Olga. Mike can’t answer the phone right now because of his sudden death. He was playing on the tracks and was run over by a train.”
Olga turned off her speaker as she listened to Electra’ ceaseless flow of threats and curses. When she had got her convulsions under control, she turned her speaker back on and spoke calmly.
“You decided to keep playing, didn’t you? Now I have one—hide and seek. I gave you an opportunity to give up, which you rejected. So don’t say I didn’t warn you. I will win this game and take your skull as a trophy!”
“I’ll show you, little underage bastard!”
“Show me then!”
Olga concentrated her fading mind and enabled the video monitoring cameras. Electra’s gang was unclasping, with the aid of jacks, the shutters of the axial portal on the starboard side of the factory. Once they had the portal pried open, they fed in long red boxes—containing, Olga surmised, more explosives. She recalled the “subway map” showing the complicated layout of the rails leading to the factory building. Different repair and construction robots used those rails to reach their various posts.
“Path 87-B suits me,” she told herself, putting the right machine—after a fourth attempt—into motion. Now she had to wait for a little till the tool gets there. Electra had chosen the furthermost entry point from her, making her task still more challenging.
The temperature in the suit dropped to negative thirty degrees Celsius. Olga couldn’t feel anything when her arms and legs hit the pipes as Doc carried her forward. She felt sleepy, a sure sign that Petro
v would soon have to spend some money on flowers. Realizing that her death was near, Olga bit her cheek till it bled. The pain restored her senses for a time.
“Doc, move slower! I have to concentrate!”
“Captain, it’s still more than two minutes before we reach the Central Post,” the first mate warned.
“All … er … right …”
Resisting the icy death with her last strength, Olga gave commands, monitoring the approach of the chosen tool to the required point. Electra’s gang was nearly all inside. The vacuum hid the sound of the approaching danger from them. If they didn’t touch the right rail, they wouldn’t hear anything.
“Now let’s choose the required chisel. This one will do.”
Olga watched a multiple purpose tool turn, under her command, into a formidable weapon.
“Stop here, Doc!”
Olga tried to lift her arms and flex her fingers. Her movements were desultory and hesitant. Not a welcome symptom considering her task.
“Just you wait, bastards!”
She switched to manual mode and made a few passes with her right hand, keeping an eye on how the tool repeated her movements. Only two pirates remained at the hatch: one of the men and a girl whom Electra had called Naomi. They were dragging in the last coffins.
“Hey, Naomi!” Olga shouted.
Naomi raised her head, trying to understand where the sound in her helmet was coming from. Olga dealt her a right hook and the twenty-meter construction manipulator precisely repeated her movement, smashing a glowing blue electrode against the assassin’s face. The spacesuit exploded from within as oxygen reacted with plasma. Having destroyed the first assassin, Olga turned the gigantic steel arm toward the second one as he scrambled for the hatch.
“Gotcha!”
A hit in the back and another silent explosion as the fuel tanks in the man’s suit erupted.
“Where did you hide yourselves, my dears?”
Olga carefully inserted the manipulator into the gap and turned it from one side to another. The rest had retreated to the factory interior, shouting on their radios. Olga changed the manipulator nozzle from the electrode back to the paw and swinging her arms pushed the red boxes through the hatch and back out into space.
The Raven High Page 15
