This was small comfort. The re-entry into the atmosphere was still sure to kill him.
He heard Katya’s voice penetrate and grow in clarity as the radiation died away. “Kane? Are you there? Did you say something?”
“I just said that today has just been one long round of jumping out of frying pans into successively larger fires.”
“What? I don’t understand you.”
“I’ll explain later.” The Baby was starting to shudder as they entered the thickening atmosphere. Should there be a later, he thought. “Activate the drones, Katya.”
“I already have. We need to get you in quickly. You won’t be able to hang on during the turbulence.”
Feeling the strain on his arm, Kane strongly doubted he would even last until the turbulence. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’ve heard your brave farewell speech once, Kane. You’re not dying today.”
Kane’s heart froze as he realised what was going through her mind. “Do not open the hatch, Katya! You will die!”
“What kind of idiot do you take me for?” He was never so glad to have somebody talk to him so contemptuously. “I’ve got an idea, but you’ll have to be strong and hang on just for a minute. Can you do that?”
“A minute? I think so.”
His arm burned with exhaustion. Even a minute seemed an eternity. He counted slowly to sixty to take his mind off the pain of the tortured muscles, deliberately losing count a couple of times and starting back a few numbers. He wondered what her plan was. He assumed the Baby might have a manipulator arm folded away somewhere that could hold onto him, but he couldn’t see such an arm and, anyway, what would it be doing at the back of the minisub?
He was just about to ask Katya what the plan really was when he discovered it for himself. The aft hatch unsealed and started to open before him. His eyes widened; Katya was going to get herself killed to save him.
He knew it was already too late to try and stop her – the compartment would already have lost its air – now he had to think of some way to get inside and repressurise the Baby rapidly. A couple of plans flitted through his mind, but they foundered on the immediate fact that he was trailing from a plummeting minisub several kilometres in the air by the fingertips of one hand. Then the hatch finished opening and there was Katya, as grim as death.
As grim as death, but very much alive. Strapped over her face was an emergency respirator pack. She’d punched a small hole at the base from which the green oxygen-rich fluid was fountaining across her clothes. Through the transparent mouth piece of the LoxPak, he could see the stuff foaming violently as the oxygen boiled out of it in the very low pressure. She’d known enough not to try and use the breather as a simple life-support unit – the pressure difference between her lungs and outside could have been fatal. Instead she was letting it make a breathable atmosphere inside the mask, the gases making their way into her lungs under their own pressure while she just kept her mouth open. It would be like breathing at the top of a mountain, but it was breathing. Not for the first time, Kane was astonished by her ability to think clearly when danger threatened and time was short. He would have hugged her but for that small detail of trailing behind a plummeting minisub by the fingertips of one hand.
She reached out and snapped a lanyard loop around his wrist, drawing it tight with a reflexive tug. Then she braced herself against the hatchway and started to pull him in on the line, hand over hand. The flow of fluid stuttered and stopped. She was running only on the oxygen in her bloodstream now. Summoning up his every reserve, Kane reached forward with his free hand and managed to grab hers. She placed one foot on either side of the hatch so she was horizontal to the Baby’s floor and, screaming silently with a desperate rage, she straightened her legs. Kane was half through the hatch now. He used the hand with the line wrapped around it to grab the internal stanchion rail above the door and heaved himself in. It took achingly long seconds to clamber around so he could close the hatch without falling out again, seconds in which he knew Katya was suffocating. Finally, the hatch slammed shut and he released the automatic pressure valves Katya had disabled to prevent the minisub venting all its air in a vain attempt to repressurise a compartment open to space.
Air flooded in. Katya lay on her back hyperventilating, her colour an ugly blue. Kane cursed the slowness of the pressure gauge, tore open the medical kit and gave her oxygen directly from its emergency cylinder.
With a rapidity that surprised and relieved him, her colour and breathing returned to normal.
“Katya? Katya?”
Her eyes flickered open, but she could say nothing more cogent than “Nnnh?”
He levelled a finger at her. “Don’t you ever save my life again.” He didn’t know whether his anger was mock or real.
Katya nodded slightly. “’Kay.”
Chapter 20
Vengeance
He had the ugly sense he had overslept, but it felt so nice to lie there in his bunk. Maybe just another minute, then he’d get up. Just another minute. Maybe five.
“Lieutenant?” The voice was tentative, respectful.
“What is it, ensign?” he said. He didn’t want to open his eyes, he had a feeling it would be too bright on the other side of his eyelids, and would give him a headache. Perhaps he already had a headache, he mused. His mouth felt dry, too.
“You’re awake!” The relief in the voice was unmistakable.
Oh, dear. Was he meant to be on duty? That would explain why he felt so guilty for oversleeping. But why couldn’t he remember going to bed in the first place?
He took a deep breath. “Tell Captain Zagadko that Lieutenant Petrov sends his apologies, and will be on bridge presently.” Oh, he was in trouble now.
“Sir? Sir… Captain Zagadko is dead.”
Petrov’s eyes snapped open and he instantly regretted it. He’d been right; it was far too bright outside his skull. He tried to sit up but whoever had been talking to him took a gentle but firm grip of his shoulders and forced him back supine. “You shouldn’t get up too quickly, sir. You took quite a knock.”
It certainly felt like it. How could he have forgotten the captain was dead?
He looked around the room. He was lying in a sickbay, but of no boat or class he recognised. “What happened?” He looked up and recognised Officer Suhkalev. “I remember lifting from the Yagizban place – what was it? FP-1 – and then… not much. We were hit, weren’t we?” Try as he might, the events in his memory just came to a ragged end and no amount of clawing after details seemed to help fill the blank. “Were we?”
Suhkalev nodded. “One engine took a missile. I lost control for a minute. You were hanging on behind me and, the next time I looked, you weren’t there. You must have been thrown around in the manoeuvres and kissed a bulkhead. You were hurt. Hurt badly.” Petrov reached up and found his head was bandaged. “We thought we might lose you for a while. I patched you up as best I could and…”
“You did?”
Suhkalev nodded again, slightly embarrassed. “The Novgorod’s medic was lost during the escape. I did a paramedic course. It didn’t really cover severe head trauma, but luckily this place,” he indicated the sickbay with a jerk of his thumb, “is well equipped. Lots of automated stuff.”
“Where is ‘this place’ anyway? We’re not still on the transporter, are we?”
“No, sir. We had to ditch in the ocean. I had to ditch in the ocean. We’d already detected the FP-1 launching pursuit craft and, if we didn’t sink and drown, they’d have blown us out of the water anyway. The thing is, the transporter handling so badly even under one engine surprised me. It made me think.” That slightly embarrassed smile again. “It made me think maybe the reason she handled like a manta whale in calf was maybe she was carrying something big and heavy in her hold.”
The surroundings suddenly made perfect sense to Petrov and he settled back into his sick bed with a pleased smile. “This is a Yagizban boat? One of those Vodyanoi copies?”
/> “It was just sitting there in the belly. So we all got aboard, opened the transporter’s ventral doors and swam out in this thing. The transporter sank like a stone after the hold flooded. The Yagizban interceptors must have thought we’d died in the crash or drowned in the sinking. They didn’t drop depth charges or torpedoes or even sonar buoys. They just went home.”
It didn’t surprise Petrov. “They may have the toys, but they don’t know how to play with them.”
“We’re making best speed towards FMA waters, but being quiet about it. There’s always the chance they might send in search boats to look for wreckage and Mr Retsky thinks running into them at full speed or trying to get a message out could bring this trip to a sudden end. Another day and it should be safe to hail for FMA vessels.”
“Mr Retsky is very prudent. Send him my compliments and… No, I’ll tell him myself.” He started to get up to Suhkalev’s alarm.
“No! Sir! You’re not fit to command yet! You’ll…”
“My mother’s not dead, Suhkalev. You can’t have her job. Anyway, relax. I’m just going to show my face and then come straight back here. I want to congratulate the crew on a job well done. You, too. Now help me up.” As he got slowly to his feet, he rested his hand against the bulkhead for support. He looked at the metal, patted it gently. “What’s she called?”
“The boat? She doesn’t have a name, sir. You know what they’re like in the Conclaves; she’s got a number. YCV-K2301, I think. Something like that anyway”
Petrov curled his lip. “YCV-K2301?” he said, disgusted. “What goes through their minds? How can anybody develop a sense of belonging to something called the YCV-K2301? No sense of esprit de corps, the Yagizban. Is she a good boat?”
“Your crew seem to like her. The general opinion is that she’s not quite as nice as the Vodyanoi because she doesn’t have Terran equipment aboard, but she’s a good copy. Oh, the big difference is she doesn’t have a salvage maw like the Vodyanoi. The bow’s taken up with an extended weapons room. More fish, more tubes.”
Petrov smiled a predatory smile. “I like her already. But that name’s got to go.”
“As senior officer it’s your privilege to rename the prize, sir.”
Petrov nodded slowly to avoid provoking his headache. If the Yagizba Conclaves thought they were going to have their surprise attack against the Federal settlements as planned, they were going to be bitterly disappointed. The counterstrike started now.
“Then take a note, Officer Suhkalev. As of this moment, the vessel formerly known as the YCV-K2301, taken in combat by the surviving crew of the RMV Novgorod and an element of the Federal law-enforcement fraternity on behalf of the Federal Maritime Authority, will now and henceforth be known as the RMV…”
He paused. He didn’t even have to wait for inspiration; a name had already offered itself. The pause was his doubt about its suitability. Was it really an appropriate name for an FMA boat? A warboat should have a noble name, not what he had in mind. Then he thought of what the Yagizban had planned, their lying and treason and he knew it was perfect. There would be no nobility in the next war fought in the seas of Russalka.
“…the RMV Vengeance.”
Chapter 21
Everything Changes
The Vodyanoi had drifted at a depth of two hundred metres, watching, waiting and doing very little else while the Leviathan mauled the FP-1. The crew had spent ten years learning pragmatism and they practised it now, ignoring the desperate distress signals from their sister vessels as the hulking killer-ship slid unheard and unseen through their midst, seeding death among the Yagizban boats with its combat drones. They listened as the battlefield grew quieter and quieter and they wondered how long it would be before the Leviathan sighted and destroyed them. Instead, the carnage halted abruptly. The Yagizban recalled their remaining forces and the great floating station had moved slowly away, listing badly in the water.
The Vodyanoi had started to cautiously follow, assuming that the Leviathan, invisible to their sensors, would be doing the same. Instead they had detected a massive disturbance behind them; almost seven million displacement tonnes of vessel surfacing at speed and tearing itself from the ocean top. They had released a camera buoy to the surface and watched the Leviathan fly upwards, upwards until it was lost in the boiling clouds.
For lack of anything else that they could do, they waited. Thirty minutes later, the clouds glowed white above them and the communication channels filled with random noise.
For lack of anything else it could be, they knew the Leviathan was destroyed, and that their captain was dead.
They were debating what to do next when, through the slowly clearing channels, they detected the transponder signal of the Baby. Triangulation showed it was not in the sea, but in the air. A long way up in the air. The most likely explanation was it had been blown free in the blast and was falling back to Russalka like an artificial meteorite. But it fell, and it fell and it fell and it took its own sweet time doing it. The camera buoy, coming back online after the radiation wave had temporarily silenced it, showed them the truth. The Baby, lightened to the point of almost no effective weight by the combat drones strapped to it, floating slowly towards the ocean, as slow as a soap bubble.
Finally, it touched down. The Vodyanoi was waiting for it.
When the minisub Pushkin’s Baby finally reached Lemuria Station, it was ten days late. There was no fuss, no crowds at the locks when she arrived hungry for news of what had happened to her, not even anybody demanding to know where her cargo was. The official who processed her was new to the station and didn’t know the local boats and masters, so nobody even asked about Lukyan Pushkin.
Katya Kuriakova signed the cargo – newly returned from the Vodyanoi’s stores – into the warehouse to await collection and left the locks for the station’s commercial sector. With her went a passenger, a man travelling under false papers.
Now they sat in a small and almost empty coffee shop in the middle of the shopping area, watching people walk by and drinking real – and therefore expensive – coffee. Kane’s treat.
“What are you thinking, Katya Kuriakova?”
She watched a mother argue with her children for a moment before replying. “Wondering how many of these people will still be alive in a year.”
“Oh,” said Kane. He drank a little of his cup. “You’ve become a fatalist.”
“A realist.”
“No, not necessarily. Things might not come to a full war. There’s always the possibility of a cold war. Both sides bristle at each other, but nobody shoots.” He noticed Katya’s eyes upon him and shook his head in resignation. “No, they’ll shoot. The FMA have been used to getting their own way for too long, and the Yagizban have invested too much to just step back. There’ll be war.” He drank a little more. “Nice coffee.”
“Grown hydroponically. That’s what it says in the menu. What will you do, Kane?”
“Me? Oh, I don’t know. The usual. Make it up as we go along. We can start by selling off those combat drones. They can be reverse-engineered and, anyway, Terran components are always much sought after.”
“Who will you sell them to?”
“Happily, there’s two, so we can sell one to the FMA and flog the other off to the Yagizban. I know what you’re thinking,” he added quickly, “playing both sides off against the middle, but you’re… actually, no, that’s partially true. The idea is that neither side gets an advantage over the other and we get ourselves some leeway, build some bridges. We’d like to stay neutral, but that will be impossible. People get into this ‘if you’re not with us, you’re against us’ mindset. It’s shallow and inflexible, but that’s what happens when people start thinking like a mob, and that’s what happens in war. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
“You won’t live long on the proceeds from two combat drones.”
“No. ‘Honest, mate, lovely combat drone, one careful owner, fell off the back of an artificially intellig
ent battleship.’ No, that won’t set us up for life.” He shrugged. “There’s always piracy, I suppose. But what about you, Katya? What are you going to do? Are you going to sign up for the FMA? They’ll be needing good officers.”
Katya shook her head, smiling at a private joke. “The FMA isn’t for me. I don’t respond well to military discipline. I’ve got the Baby to look after now, anyway. Operating a minisub for conveyance and maybe recovery work will probably get me listed in a reserved occupation. I’ll be more useful to them as a civilian than in uniform. I know that will cheer Sergei up; he hates the Federals.” She closed her eyes and opened them again as a sharp pang of inner misery troubled her. “I have to tell him Lukyan’s dead. They’ve been friends since they were boys.” She steeled herself and put that where it belonged, in the future. “Anyway, yes. I’ve got the sub. I’ve got a business to run.”
“You sound very grown up,” said Kane, sadness in his voice.
“Of course I’m grown up. I’ve got a card somewhere to prove it.” She patted her pocket, but it was empty. She laughed a small, bitter laugh. “I think it’s still on the Novgorod. That’s a point. I’d better tell the FMA where she’s lying. It shouldn’t take long to get her seaworthy again and, the devil knows, they’ll need every boat they can get.”
Kane checked his cup. It was down to the dregs. “There’s an alternative.”
Katya looked up at him, mildly interested.
“We could go back to the locks, take the Baby back to the Vodyanoi and keep our heads down until this is all over. There are plenty of places to hide, plenty of small settlements who won’t want any part of what’s coming. You’d be welcome to join the crew.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“So you don’t die.”
Katya thought about it, but not for long. “No, Kane, I won’t do that. I’ll take my chances here.”
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