by David Adams
“Okay,” said Pavlov. “Do it quickly.”
Dmitriev strung out a wire from the communications system. “Put this into your visor,” he said. “You have to make the call.”
Pavlov handed his gun to Dmitriev and plugged the cable into the side of his head. Text flashed on his visor.
HAMMERFALL COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY
CHANNEL: OPEN
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Lieutenant Petya Pavlov of Hammerfall station calling anyone who can receive this message. Priority alert. We are under attack and require immediate extraction. Be advised: units previously identified as friendly have switched allegiance. Respond for further information.”
Nobody responded. Pavlov repeated his message. Again. And again.
“Don’t think anyone is coming,” said Dmitriev.
“Keep trying,” said Ilyukhina. “Damn it, keep trying.”
Pavlov said it six more times. Then, right as he was about to yank out the cable in frustration, a signal flashed on his visor. The Varyag was opening a secure, encrypted channel. Pavlov completed the connection.
“This is Colonel Yuri Volodin. Do you recognise the sound of my voice?”
It was him. The head of Spetsnaz GRU. Pavlov spoke as fast as he could. “Aye aye, Colonel. Listen, there’s something truly evil happening in this station. It’s complicated—I can’t explain it to you except in person. But it is critical you get us out of here right now. The future of the Confederation could be at stake.”
“Lieutenant,” said Volodin, “we’re receiving a lot of conflicting reports coming out of that facility. Including one that you defected to the Separatists. Our agents within the Separatist movement confirm you were seen with a company of Separatist soldiers, and involved in the destruction of a Confederate bomber.”
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Dmitriev raised an outraged eyebrow at the mention of agents within the Separatists, but Pavlov couldn’t think about that right now.
“Sir,” he said, speaking slowly, trying to get his words out carefully and clearly. “I understand. Things are not what they appear—there’s something far more insidious here. Far more dangerous. This goes beyond the Confederation and the Separatists—this is a full-on biological pathogen. Some kind of physical effect, some kind of third player in this war.”
Volodin’s tone shifted. “Lieutenant,” he said, darkness growing around the edges of his words, “you’re not well. This is a Combat Stress Reaction. This war has been hard on us all. It might seem difficult for you to understand, but it’s you who is…afflicted.”
He thought they might say that. “Sir, no, it’s not like that—”
“We spoke to those you left behind at Hammerfall. Son, this isn’t going to bring Minsky back.”
A huge hand seized his chest and squeezed. Pavlov muted the communication with one hand and snatched the flask off his hip with the other. He flipped up his visor and drank heartily. The burn eased the pain, but he could feel it getting to him. He felt like he was in freefall off the roof. Plunging to his death…
Focus. He had no time for this. He couldn’t…Pavlov drank again, emptying the flask completely and throwing it off the roof.
Focus…
He could do this. Pavlov unmuted the channel with a shaking hand.
“I-I understand how this must sound,” said Pavlov. “Believe me, sir, it is complicated, but I promise you, if we talk in person, I can explain everything.” He couldn’t keep a crack out of his voice. “Please, Viper.”
Volodin said nothing for a moment. “Lieutenant Pavlov,” he said finally, “my direct orders from me to you are as follows…” He sighed into the microphone.
“Sir—”
“You are relived of command. Anyone under your command is to lay down arms. Private First Class Nessa Stolina will process your arrest. Surrender your weapons and prepare for transportation as soon as the storm lifts.”
“Colonel,” said Pavlov, taking a deep breath. “You know I cannot follow that command. I want to speak to the captain. I have Private Ilyukhina here with me, who can vouch for me, along with Captain Dmitriev—”
“The military is not a democracy,” said Volodin, his voice hardening. “I do not care who you have convinced of your delusions. Give your rifle to Private First Class Nessa Stolina and this will all end. You are spetsnaz. You have your orders. Execute them. ”
Execute being the operative word. Pavlov went to protest, but the channel went dead.
“Well,” said Dmitriev, reaching up and brushing back his sopping wet hair. “How did it go?”
CHAPTER 37
Cockpit
Dropship Anarchy
Druzhba City
Several days after landing
CHAINSAW FELT UNEASY FOR SOME reason she couldn’t quite place.
There wasn’t any evidence anything was wrong. Apart from the bombing on the Varyag. She’d spent the passing nights in the ship, sleeping in the pilot’s seat. She gave the passenger compartment to, well, her passenger. Jason Truby. The kid had been very quiet and didn’t seem to sleep. Chainsaw barely saw him except when he went to use the lavatory. And even then, the kid seemed to shy away from her.
Fear could do that. Paranoia, too.
“I’m starting to think I won’t ever go home,” she said, rolling around and trying, in vain, to get comfortable. She’d been wearing the same flight suit for what seemed like a lifetime. “Starting to get pretty bored in here.”
“You will,” said Anne. “Don’t worry. And why don’t you read some more?”
She felt like she’d read all there was to read. It was kind of weird. A modern ship was designed to be modular to facilitate easy repairs. “What’s taking them so long?” she asked, probably for the four hundredth time.
“The dockmaster says that the ship should be ready to go in a few hours,” said Anne. “Just be patient.”
“Patience is for doctors,” said Chainsaw.
A tap on the hatchway to the passenger compartment made her jump.
“Hey,” said Truby, his voice muffled by the thick metal. “Lieutenant Lukina. You in there?”
Finally. Chainsaw squirmed out of her seat, stretched her cramped legs, and turned the lever that opened the hatch. “Like I said,” she said, “call me Chainsaw.”
“Okay,” said Truby. He looked like crap: bags under his eyes, hair a chaotic mop, skin oily and grimy. They didn’t have a shower onboard, just a tiny sink with a limited supply of water they needed for drinking. “Sorry. When are we getting out of here again?”
“Hopefully soon,” said Chainsaw. “Sorry the accommodations aren’t to your liking.”
“It’s not that. It’s…” His voice faltered. “I just want to get offworld, okay?”
So he kept saying. “I know,” said Chainsaw. “Why don’t I come in there and we can have a chat, yeah?”
Truby shook his head, no, but then seemed to change his mind. “Okay.”
Cautiously, not wanting to startle him, Chainsaw stepped into the main compartment. “Okay,” she said. Progress.
The kid dug around in a pocket. “Here,” he said. “I want to show you something.” Truby withdrew a tiny glass vial, only a few centimetres long, capped with a plastic lid and filled with some kind of strange grey goo. “I found this in my dad’s office. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
Chainsaw took the small thing. The fluid inside was a vaguely disgusting, viscous fluid that slurped as she tilted it. It seemed to cling to the walls of the vial as though trying to climb up, unscrew the top, and escape. “No,” said Chainsaw. “Is it a drug?” She grimaced. “Kid, believe me, you don’t want to get into chems—”
“It’s not a chem! Not like anything I’ve seen.” The kid closed his eyes for a moment. “My dad had it. He said it was fluid extracted from a device they confiscated from some space vagabond the Varyag picked up, right before their garbage heap of a ship exploded. He mentioned the name…some piece of junk called the Nahta
. He called it the ‘scientific discovery of the century’.”
Chainsaw’s eyes narrowed. “And how did you come to get it?”
“My…dad smuggled it off the Varyag. He wanted to turn it over to the UE government, but he…opened it to make sure it was the real deal. That’s when he went crazy.”
Suddenly Chainsaw was significantly less interested in holding the thing. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Truby shrank away from her. “I just…I just know it’s dangerous.”
There needed to be someone sane around to fly this bucket—Anne notwithstanding—and the kid couldn’t fly this thing, so Chainsaw offered the tiny vial back.
Truby seemed glad to be rid of it, refusing with his eyes. With some trepidation, Chainsaw put it in her breast pocket.
“You did well to get this far,” said Chainsaw, giving him her best smile. “Really. I mean that, kid.”
That seemed to help. Truby almost smiled. Almost. “Thanks,” he said. “My dad always said…I’m stronger than guys half my age.”
She examined him with a critical eye. “No offense to your dad, comrade, but you’re like…twelve.”
“I’m fifteen,” said Truby, a tiny wounded inflection creeping into his words. “Not twelve. I’m not a kid.”
“Fifteen isn’t much better, kid,” said Chainsaw, “especially when it comes to the whole half your age thing. But point taken.”
“Boss,” said Anne, her voice echoing in the passenger compartment. “Sorry to interrupt, but the ground crew advise that the repairs are complete.”
“Okay,” she said to the ceiling. “Prepare for liftoff.”
“Very good,” said Anne. “The loadmaster says she has something you need to see.”
Chainsaw gave a playful salute and then moved back toward the cockpit, sliding into the slightly-too-familiar seat. She flicked a switch, opening the canopy, and then leaned out of the cockpit. Down below, the loadmaster was waving.
“Hi,” said Chainsaw, after a moment’s awkward silence. “Can I help you?”
“Your ship’s all repaired,” said the crewman. “You’re ready to go.”
“Sounds good,” said Chainsaw. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather get going sooner rather than later…”
“Of course,” said the crewman. Still smiling like a—well, like a chainsaw murderer. The irony was not lost on her. “Fancy a drink for the road?”
Drinking? She was about to fly out of the planet’s atmosphere. “Are you fucking insane?”
“I insist,” said the crewman, digging around in her breast pocket and withdrawing a small vial.
It had the same grey fluid in it that Truby had shown her.
“It’s non-alcoholic,” said the crewman. “Just a shot, like an energy drink—”
Chainsaw flicked the same switch and the canopy started to descend. “No.”
The woman seemed, for a moment, as though she was going to toss it into the cockpit, but the canopy sealed before she could. The two exchanged angry glares—the crewman still smiling like a lunatic—and then the ship lifted off.
Chainsaw pulled up and away, getting the hell away from the surface, annoyed and confused.
Then a light flashed on her console.
“Incoming transmission,” said Anne. Her emotionless voice carried no information.
She had no time for that. “Tell the Varyag I’m coming,” she said. “Jeez. Impatience…”
“The transmission’s from the surface,” said Anne. “It’s a mayday call.”
“Not my problem,” said Chainsaw.
“Be that as it may,” said Anne, “given your discussion with Truby, you might want to hear this…”
One damn thing after another after another. Chainsaw almost didn’t—she almost ordered Anne to disregard the call—but she shook her head.
“Yeah, put it through.”
CHAPTER 38
Pavlov’s Cell
“PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE LISTENED,” SAID Chainsaw, grunting quietly from her cell. “Then I wouldn’t be here.”
“I thought it was all my fault,” said Pavlov.
He swore she was glaring at him through the plastic. “It definitely is, but…whatever.”
Pavlov grimaced and tried to refocus his thoughts. “So, yeah. We were on the roof…”
* * *
Top level
Hammerfall
They’d been ordered to surrender.
Damn.
Pavlov slumped on the roof, the alcohol fogging his brain, his breath coming in faint gasps. Rain thumped against his helmet, droplets running down his visor.
“Not good,” he said to Dmitriev. “They aren’t coming. I really tried. I’m sorry.”
Dmitriev nodded. “Right,” he said, over the noise of the rain. “That’s okay. We’ll open another channel, we’ll get the thing sorted. Don’t worry, it’s not over yet.”
They couldn’t. Pavlov knew they couldn’t. No one was listening.
“Hammerfall station,” said a voice in his ear, coming in on the open frequency. “This is the dropship Anarchy. We’re responding to your mayday call.”
The very same dropship that had brought them in? Pavlov hammered the radio. “Affirmative, Anarchy. Please tell me that you’re nearby.”
“I am,” said Chainsaw, “and it’s actually true. Bonus points. Guessing you girls and boys could use a lift.”
“Confirmed,” said Pavlov. “Like, right fucking now.”
Volodin’s voice returned, grave and dark. “Dropship Anarchy, priority alert. You are to abort your rescue attempt. Do not approach Hammerfall station. I say again: do not approach Hammerfall.”
Shit. What little hope Pavlov had dared to cultivate in that moment withered. If command said clusterfuck, they were supposed to ask, how big, sir?
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Chainsaw. “Couldn’t make out that last part. Must be static on the line. Inbound to Hammerfall. ETA: five minutes.”
The channel was squelched.
Pavlov and Dmitriev exchanged a look.
“Ready to do this?” Pavlov asked.
“Contact!” shouted Ilyukhina. She fired off a pair of shots; Pavlov felt the gunfire reverberating through the roof. “Cука блядь! They’re here!”
That didn’t take long. Pavlov stood up and clicked the safety off, dropping the panel. “Let’s do this,” he said. “All we have to do is hold out until Chainsaw gets here.”
Dmitriev unslung his rifle, too. “Right you are,” he said.
Pavlov half walked, half crouched as he moved over to the hatchway that led back into Hammerfall. In the corridor below, he could see Ilyukhina, huddled against the wall for cover, squeezing off shots. A round bounced off her shoulder plate, nearly flying out the hatchway, inches away from his head.
“Any time, boys!” she shouted.
“Covering!” said Pavlov. He swung upside down into the hatchway.
Stolina and Tomlin, and two scientists, were advancing on Ilyukhina with their weapons spitting death. A pink flower blossomed at the back of her chest.
No time for finesse. Pavlov dumped his magazine, spraying wildly. His shots screamed off the walls, ricocheted off the floors, and bounced around the tight corridor. He must have hit them three, four times each, but despite the holes in their armour, they kept coming.
“Frag out,” shouted Dmitriev, tossing a pair of his grenades around the lip.
“Again,” said Pavlov, ejecting his magazine and putting in a fresh one. “They know we’re here anyway. Let’s make some noise!”
Two more grenades went out. Two more explosions. Ilyukhina, her armour blasted and scratched, shielded her face with her hands. Still, that must have hurt. She bled from several wounds, but her face, framed by her blood-spattered blonde hair, was a mask of grim determination.
Ilyukhina raised her rifle again and, with two controlled bursts, blew Stolina and Tomlin back against the floor. She a
nd Pavlov reloaded, then both of them put a handful of shots into the faces of their enemies.
“Come on!” he shouted to Ilyukhina, extending his hand down. “There’s still one out there. Let’s get on the roof!”
She limped up to him, reaching for his arm. She’d been hit in the leg, too. Yet she’d remained standing. Russian tough.
Pavlov grabbed her hand, and with a groan, lifted her up to the lip of the hatchway. Her hands scrambled on the deck, trying to get purchase. Dmitriev grabbed her, too.
“Pull,” said Dmitriev. “Get her up!”
Together, they dragged her onto the roof. She left a pink trail on the wet metal, blood leaking from punctures in her armour.
“How bad?” asked Pavlov, looking over her wounds.
“Eh,” she said, flicking up her visor and spitting out a mouthful of blood. “What doesn’t kill you leaves you bitter and crippled, right?”
He laughed, despite it all. “Something like that,” he said, as the rain poured down all around him.
With nothing more to do, he sat in the rain, letting it wash over his armour.
Then his visor flashed. Someone was opening a communications channel, encrypted. Someone close by. Very close.
Someone from within Hammerfall.
Pavlov, with few options left, opened the channel.
“Thank you,” said Marchenko, the last of the spetsnaz, joy oozing from every word. “I knew you’d come back to us.”
Pavlov ground his teeth. “We’re not here for you,” he said. “You should know that the signal I transmitted was sent on an open frequency. It might reach someone else on the Varyag, might not, but it’s definitely going to reach Druzhba City. Someone will hear it. Confederate forces control all the air and space above Syrene. Your little scam, your little operation, it’s finished.”
He laughed. Marchenko actually laughed. He sounded so much like Minsky. “Good,” he said, “now the whole of Syrene will come.”
