Katya’s World
Jonathan L. Howard
The Russalka Chronicles: 1
I am Leviathan.
I come to you in blood
And lie in shadows.
My heart is a sun,
And my nerves sing with lightning.
I have come to kill you.
All of you. Each and every one.
Every man,
And every woman,
And every child.
As you huddle in families,
Or hide alone.
I shall not let any of you live.
For I am Leviathan.
I come to you in blood
And sleep in shadows.
My heart is a sun,
And my mind…
My mind…
Contents
Title
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Prologue
Russalka
One hundred and fourteen years ago, humanity first touched Russalka. It was a cold, machine touch, a robot probe that had arrived in orbit and observed the tempestuous surface of that storm-wracked world. The robot and its siblings had been sent out in a great wave of expansionist hope. Earth was past the point of saturated population growth. The solar system had been explored and exploited, offering almost everything but what the humans really wanted – a new world to call home.
The robot deployed its faster-than-light communications array and relayed the data it was gathering about the world, then known only as RIC-23. Yes, its atmosphere was breathable. Yes, its temperature was bearable. Yes, its gravity was acceptable. What it couldn’t offer was the simplest thing. RIC-23 was an ocean world. But for its polar ice caps, there was not even a square meter of dry land on the whole planet. Disappointed, the humans left the robot to continue its survey while they turned their attention upon other less problematical worlds in the sector.
The robot dropped a lander from orbit that fell on gossamer drogue chutes through the angry storming skies and fell into the ocean, communicating its discoveries back to Earth via the robot above. Earth looked at the analysis with growing astonishment. RIC-23 was rich in rare minerals dissolved into the oceans. Perhaps it was not the most glamorous planet they had discovered, but it was certainly one of the most useful. If a colony was founded there, it could supply the other colonies in the sector.
A colonisation project was mounted. In common with all such projects, the colonists were all taken from a single ethnicity. Previous experience had shown that, in the stressful environment of a new world where disasters may occur at any time, people look for others to blame and ethnic differences were frequently where fracture lines formed. The RIC-23 project drew its personnel purely from an area spanning Moscow to New Petrograd. The first act of the thousands selected was to name their new home. They looked to folklore and chose the name Russalka, after a race of mermaids, beautiful and mysterious. If they had looked deeper into the myth, they might have changed their minds – a Russalka was a predator that would use her charms to draw men to the water, where they would be drowned and fed upon.
The humans found Russalka a difficult world to love. The storms that scoured the surface rarely quietened, the seas rarely grew peaceful. Still, it had never been the plan to live on the surface. The ocean depths were where the minerals were, and the storms could not touch them down there. Using their advanced technologies the colonists located submarine mountains and ridges, and melted tunnels and caves into them with fusion cutters that burnt as hot as a star. They sealed and drained these new cave systems, covered the bare rock with corridor walls and floor gratings, installed lighting and heating. The settlements started to spread, named for countries and cities lost to the sea on distant Earth.
On the surface, the technicians built floating platforms for the handful of aircraft they maintained, and the shuttles needed to reach the few short range starships parked in orbit they would use to maintain trading contacts with the other nearby colonies, close neighbours only a few light years away.
The first phases of the colonisation effort were not without their difficulties and setbacks, but they passed as planned, and the Russalkin – as they now called themselves – waited for further supplies and colonists to arrive from Earth. They waited, and they waited, and they waited in vain.
There had been tensions on Earth when they left, and even rumours of war, but the Russalkin found it hard to believe that it could ever really come to that. They listened for any FTL signals from Earth, but heard nothing, only from the other colonies saying that they too had heard no news.
Years passed, decades, generations, and Earth remained silent. The ships the colonies had were incapable of travelling the vast distance to Earth to investigate, and they lacked the technologies and knowledge to build such a ship. They could only guess at what had happened, that war had indeed broken out, and that terrible weapons whose very threat had always proved sufficient before had finally been armed and sent to evaporate cities, countries, whole civilisations. Earth was dead and gone.
A century passed, and the colonies had become well established. They felt at home on their worlds, and none still considered themselves Terran. Life was hard, more so on Russalka than most, but the Russalkin developed a deserved reputation for toughness and pragmatism, and that pleased them. It was dangerous living in purely manmade environments with a hostile ocean on the other side of every airlock, it was hard sometimes going years without even seeing the sky, travelling between the settlements in submarines. Of course, there were always the crews of the surface platforms who weathered the storms with a coolness that perturbed even the hardy submariners. The platforms travelled together in a fleet, and the crews came to call themselves the Yagizban, a private joke they didn’t care to share with those who lived in the depths. The Russalkin shrugged and ignored such Yagizban eccentricities. After all, the fleet – the Yagizban Enclaves, they called it – was where most of the planet’s cutting edge technologies were developed. If anybody could rediscover the secrets of long range star travel, it would be they.
As the colonists went into their second and third generations, it became apparent that some sort of unifying organisation would be necessary to keep all the settlements working in harmony and to deal with disagreements and even the occasional crime. The Federal Maritime Authority had been founded early on to handle submarine traffic control and, as it had a presence in every settlement, its officers were given a broader remit, to act as peacekeepers and police when necessary. It was never envisioned that the FMA would ever become military in nature, but then, nobody can tell what the future will bring.
One day, without warning or fanfare, the Terrans returned.
A great, hulking Terran warship entered the atmosphere and settled into the angry sea, the waves crashing against its hull. FMA vessels surfaced and hailed the ship, identifying themselves as representatives of the people of Russalka and welcoming the Terrans as long-lost relatives. The Terrans were in no mood for speeches and celebrations. Bluntly, they demanded that the FMA be dissolved and control of Russalka be given immediately to Terran governors. Earth had suffered a century of troubles, but those days had passed, Earth was under a ne
w unified government, and now they were reasserting their grip upon the colonies. They didn’t care to hear about Russalka’s claim to independence, based on a hundred years of hard fought building, all done without aid from Earth. The FMA commander told them that Earth was no longer home to him and his people, that Earth had no claim on Russalka.
The Earth ship considered this for a moment.
Then it opened fire.
Two FMA subs were lost in the first salvo before they even had a chance to dive. The rest, ill-equipped to engage such a foe, launched torpedoes more in desperation than expectation. Their luck was good, however. One struck a killing blow, and the Terran ship was badly holed. Amid fire and explosion, it sank. Any sense of jubilation on the part of the Russalka was lost in the astonishment of such unjust demands from the home of their ancestors, and in the sure knowledge that there would be retaliation for their defiance.
The Russalkin worked desperately for a year, building new ships, preparing orbital defences, conscripting as many as they could into the FMA to be trained, drilled, prepared to fight to the death to protect their world against the invaders from Earth they knew were coming.
The war, when it came, was short, brutal, and inconclusive. The Terrans arrived, and attacked immediately.
First they destroyed everything the Russalkin had in space – their starships, defence satellites, and the irreplaceable FTL communications array that had been the world’s only link with its fellow colonies. Then the war moved from space into the seas. The Yagizban floating aerospace platforms were hunted down and destroyed within hours, and the Yagizban Enclaves were forced to flood their emergency ballast tanks and hide beneath the waves.
The FMA fought hard against a foe they barely understood. They outnumbered the Terrans, but the Terrans had brought with them advanced technologies that made up for their lack of troops. Settlements were destroyed with horrific losses of life. The Russalkin had prepared evacuation shelters where their children were to wait out the war; the truth of how many of their parents and older brothers and sisters were dying in the battles and massacres was kept from them. To the Russalkin the Terrans ceased to be human at all. They were merciless, degenerate killers. Dirty landgrubbers, come to wipe out the colony and take their world, grubbers who murdered and wrecked without hesitation or pity.
Then, after a little over a year, the war simply petered to a halt. The Terrans had given up, seemingly unable to maintain such a ferocious campaign over such a vast distance from their homeworld. The Russalkin watched the skies fearfully for months, and then they started to rebuild.
War leaves scars, though, and even ten years after the last shots were exchanged, the scars remain obvious. Almost a whole generation was lost, and the next generation found its childhood cut short as they were trained to take the places of their dead or missing parents, brothers, and sisters. The fear of a new attack runs deep, and the FMA has never stepped down from a war footing. New warboats were built, drowned settlements resealed and pumped out, martial law maintained. In the chaos of the aftermath, criminality broke out here and there, culminating in pirate attacks on civilian transports. It seemed that Russalka had fought off an enemy from without, only to find a new one within.
This is Russalka now.
Wounded. Isolated. Proud.
This is Katya’s world.
Chapter 1
Judas Box
The locksman took Katya’s identity card, looked at it briefly, and handed it back. The whole time, he never stopped chatting with her uncle.
She took it back feeling slightly cheated. She must have looked at that card a hundred times since it had arrived from the Department of Matriculation, reading and rereading the fine print. Her family had been so happy for her, Uncle Lukyan especially. “Now you’re an adult, Katya!” he’d said, picking her up under the armpits like he’d been doing since she’d been born. “Being an adult isn’t a matter of age. It’s a matter of responsibility. And this card shows you’re ready for that!” There had been a little impromptu party and everything.
And now nobody seemed to care. She hadn’t been expecting fireworks, but she’d hoped for a friendly nod from the locksman, an acknowledgment that she was entering a great fellowship. Instead she was being ignored, standing to one side as the locksman and Uncle Lukyan – she mentally pulled herself up – Captain Pushkin were gossiping like old women while they went through the boat’s documentation and journey plan.
Suddenly, the locksman turned to her. “Going to Lemuria with your uncle, eh?” he said. He didn’t quite say “little girl” but the sense of it floated around. “Seeing relatives or doing some shopping?”
Katya looked at him blankly. This wasn’t going properly at all. She was just trying to come up with a reply that made her sound grown-up when her uncle cut in. “God’s teeth, Mikhail, didn’t you even look at her card properly? She’s an apprentice. This is her first voyage in a crew chair.”
The locksman had the decency to look abashed. “I’m very sorry,” he said to Katya, “may I trouble you for your card again?”
This time the response was much better. “A navigator?” he read and looked at her. “Difficult discipline.” He was still looking at her but the words were clearly meant for her uncle.
“Not for my niece,” said Uncle Lukyan with visible pride. “She has the brains for it. You should have seen her examination results. I think the examiner thought she’d been cheating. ‘Well, Captain Pushkin,’” he imitated the examiner’s wheedling tone, “’they are remarkably good results. Remarkably good.’”
The locksman laughed. “Durchev thinks people need crib sheets to put on their boots in the morning.”
Katya watched them chat and thought, one day I’ll be able to talk like that, to know everybody. There goes Katya Kuriakova, the best navigator in the water, they’ll say. She concentrated on trying to make her blue eyes steely, her chin determined, her nose… Her damned nose. She was just going to end up looking sweet and, in all likelihood, adorable. It always happened. She could drown a hospital and they’d still let her off for being in possession of a button-nose. She stopped trying to look heroically competent and concentrated on just not looking chronically winsome.
“Straight light haul to Lemuria, two seats full of electronic components,” her uncle was saying, going through the folder containing their itineraries and permissions. “Sergei will ride shotgun in a passenger position while Katya takes the co-pilot’s seat. Show her what it looks like from the sharp end.”
“Is she going to draw your plot?”
“Yes, I am,” said Katya, tired of them talking about her like she wasn’t there.
The locksman looked at her uncle with a question he didn’t want to say out loud. Lukyan laughed again. “Yes, she can do it. I’d trust her to give me a plot through the Consequentials, never mind an easy haul like Lemuria. She’s got talent, real talent.” He ruffled her short blond hair affectionately. “She’s the family genius.” He closed the folder and put it back in his documents case. “We’d better move or we’ll miss our departure slot. Come on, Katya.”
Katya had been aboard the Baby several times, but always back in the passenger seats. “Don’t step over that line,” her father had once warned her, pointing at the yellow line that split off the pilot and co-pilots’ positions from the rest of the cramped interior, “or Lukyan will have you swimming home.” He had only been half joking. Safety aboard was always a primary concern and breaking the concentration of the crew was absolutely taboo while the controls were live. That yellow line might as well be a steel bulkhead.
Now she found she still couldn’t step over it. Lukyan was already in the left-hand seat and strapping himself in when he noticed she hadn’t joined him. He looked at her, his eyes gentle. “I’m sorry. I forget how important this is for you.” He cleared his throat. “Apprentice Kuriakova, please take the co-pilot’s position.”
“Aye-aye, captain,” she said, too nervous to smile. She stepped past him,
over the yellow, and slipped into the co-pilot’s seat. It seemed enormous; all shaped plastic and restraint mountings. As she struggled to get the seat’s safety systems to adjust to her shape and to remember her in future, a dour face appeared around the open lock door.
“Who’s that little snot in my chair?”
“Hi, Sergei,” said Katya. She pressed the memory button on the chair. Instead of remembering her settings, it reset them back to Sergei’s. She swore mildly.
“Cursing already,” said Sergei, stepping forward. “One minute at the con and she’s Captain Ahab. Here,” he pressed the memory button and another unmarked one lurking nearby. The chair finally acknowledged the new settings. “It’s not very intuitive. Just one of those little things you don’t learn from simulators.” He plumped himself in one of the two empty passenger seats, the two opposite him being folded up and the space taken with plastic wrapped boxes, their cargo for Lemuria Station. “Experience. It’s a grand thing. Learning by getting your hands dirty. Loads more fun than the classroom.”
Katya prickled slightly. Was he getting at her? She’d always been good in school. She slid a look at Lukyan but he was checking his wristwatch against the Baby’s chronometer.
“Ten minutes before MTC will let us out. Might as well use the time.” Lukyan waved his big slab of a hand at the three screens ranged in front of her beneath the forward viewport. “How similar is this to your simulator?”
For her answer, Katya reached forward and tapped the screens one after another. They immediately glowed into life. She looked briefly at each and said over her shoulder, “Is this your set-up, Sergei?”
“Yes. Why? Are you going to tell me I’ve been doing it wrong all these years?”
“No,” she said lightly, “I was just going to congratulate you for doing it exactly as per the textbooks.” She heard him grumble under his breath and smiled; he’d probably reprogram it the first chance he got now rather than do it the way the schools did. He was almost pathetically proud of being self-taught.
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