by David Adams
She went to touch his arm.
There was a significance to it that he didn’t understand. A moment where, briefly, Chuchnova’s whole face lit up as though experiencing some kind of release, the culmination of some kind of great excitement, executed in a single moment.
Pavlov pulled away just in time, staring banefully at her.
She stared back. This result was clearly not what she had anticipated.
“Look,” he said, “that was completely inappropriate.”
For a moment, he thought she might try again—she was leaning forward ever so slightly, eyes focused on his bare skin—but then she stiffened slightly and seemed to get a hold of herself. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re damn right you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and this time, he almost believed she meant it. “It’s just…oh, God.” Her voice cracked. “It’s just, I’ve been here so long, and I’ve never shot a person before coming here—now I’ve shot two! And I was just starting to get used to it, starting to feel like it might be okay, and then—I just wanted something normal, something—”
“Stop,” said Pavlov, holding up his hands and taking another step backward. “Stop, stop. You don’t have to explain yourself, Doctor. Just…don’t try to touch me anymore.”
She was being weird. Beyond any kind of weird he’d ever experienced.
Chuchnova went to talk again, but Pavlov hushed her and, stepping back out of her room, could barely leave fast enough.
CHAPTER 11
Hammerfall
PAVLOV WALKED ALL THE WAY back to the kennel as fast as he could, his legs moving quickly, mind wandering far, far away from the little research station in the middle of the jungle.
Why was everyone so fucking weird all of a sudden?
Minsky was the last guy to show any interest in him. The Ukrainian bumpkin had been adorable in the way his words had all stumbled past his lips, barely able to get a properly formed sentence out.
Suddenly, much more than ever, Pavlov missed him.
He arrived at the kennel. The smell of the cow shit was gone—someone had sprayed some light scent into the area. A kindness he appreciated, but most importantly, everyone else was gone. Doing their duties. Cleaning up bodies. Checking weapons. Doing patrols.
The surge of emotions, the weirdness of Chuchnova, it all hit him like a brick. They’d been woken up from sleep, running on adrenaline…then the thing with Minsky, and…
He needed to rest.
Pavlov pulled up the thin blanket over his chin, wiggled around until he was lying on his side, and didn’t masturbate at all.
* * *
Pavlov’s Cell
“You’re disgusting,” said Yanovna, her face scrunching up.
“Hey,” said Pavlov, the throbbing pain in his head mercifully receding a little bit. “I said I didn’t do it.”
“Implying that…” She put her finger to her temple. “Ugh. Doesn’t matter. What was all that stuff about…live without human greed, human weakness, human selfishness anyway?”
He wasn’t ready to tell her that. “You’ll find out,” he said. “I just…you won’t believe me. Not yet.”
“So far everything seems to be going okay,” said Yanovna. “I mean, it’s a shit show full of insane weirdoes, but what deployment isn’t? That doesn’t justify killing them all.”
Pavlov said nothing, resting his chin in his hands.
“Okay,” she said, a mildly soothing edge to her tone. “Sorry. I know you’re getting to that part. What happened next?”
“Well,” said Pavlov, taking in a deep breath, “as is usual for Russian history, things got worse.”
* * *
The Kennel
Hammerfall
By morning the dropship was gone.
The whine of its engines, straining to break orbit, reverberated throughout Hammerfall. Pavlov patched his visor into one of the outside cameras. He could see the dropship pushing through the upper atmosphere, shooting flares out in every direction.
Paranoia. Although, technically, paranoia was the delusional fear that someone was out to get you. If they really were out to get you, your fears were merely prudence.
Ilyukhina was still asleep. She had been sharing the same shift as him, so that was understandable. Might as well let her have a little more. No harm in it.
He pulled up his visor to rub his face, then put it back down and flicked through his incoming messages. Most of them were quick, one-line status reports automatically generated by the station’s computers. His squad was healthy, everyone was at their post, and the facility’s security system was in place and working. There was, however, one communiqué that stood out.
SAM site moved overnight. Looks like you’re out of its range now—but it might be back. Returned to the Fat Lady. Almost out of ammunition anyway. Have a good time down in the mud! I’ll buy you a drink when you get back to the Varyag.
— Chainsaw
Well, that was a blow. The dropship had been their trump card, but without any ammunition, the miniguns were useless, and the ship itself an expensive liability. It was a miracle it hadn’t been hit during the mortar bombardment. It was good that it was gone.
So he told himself.
Pavlov shoved a processed protein bar into his face with all the enthusiasm of an underpaid prostitute, then rummaged through his rucksack for his canteen. He drank, then strapped his pistol to his side, knife to his ankle, and clipped on his armour. Dressed and ready, he slung his rifle over his chest and wandered out into the hallway, rubbing the encrusted sleep from his eyes.
And walked right into a total stranger with a plasma thrower.
For the briefest second, they both stood there in stunned silence, taking in each other’s appearance. The stranger was a man—brown hair, dark, almost black skin, and he had the sun-weathered face of a farmer. Short. Skinny, but carrying a big gun that a man like him shouldn’t have been able to lift. It was typically mounted on vehicles.
Pavlov drew his pistol in one smooth motion. The farmer swung the barrel of his plasma thrower toward him, the tip ominously glowing as it powered up. But Pavlov was faster; his pistol met the guy’s chin, knocking him back. Pavlov stepped into his space, driving his knee into the man’s gut. The guy slumped over, weapon clattering to the deck.
In training, Pavlov and the other spetsnaz had been regularly given an exercise. Computer projections would pop up on their visor: green for shoot, red for not. Training them to take action quickly.
In that brief moment, he’d reacted almost on instinct. Pavlov was grateful for that training.
The guy rolled around on the ground, groaning pitifully. He really didn’t seem like a soldier, despite his impressive gun, and he’d gone down like a sack of potatoes. Pavlov pointed his pistol at the stranger’s face, then took a hand off to touch his radio. “Intruder alert, intruder alert. Lock down the facility.” He shouted into the doorway, “Ilyukhina, wake the fuck up!”
Hammerfall’s alarms started ringing out, flooding the corridor with red light. Now the computer decided to do something; its cameras, its sensors, should have identified this person long before Pavlov was literally running into him. What had gone wrong?
Someone had dropped the ball. He would find out exactly who in time, and their lives would become shit, but that was a job for later. For now…
Pavlov grabbed the stranger by his collar, pulling him up to his feet. “Who the fuck are you? How did you enter this facility?”
The guy, seemingly, recovered his wits almost immediately. He grabbed Pavlov’s armoured shoulder pad, the one to his left, and pulled with a force that seemed impossible for one of his small stature. It strained and broke off.
The force wrenched his arm, pulling it out of his socket. Pavlov felt, rather than heard, the click as it dislocated. Then he was flying, spinning through the air, before the steel of the bulkhead stopped him.
Everything went kind of fuzzy. Pavlov�
��s helmet and its Mark VII steel composite plates absorbed much of the impact, but the skull beneath was Mark I human. He landed on his back, staring up at the ceiling, and at the blurry form of the intruder he thought he’d dispatched stepping over toward him, hand reaching for the gap in his armour. For his…shoulder?
There was something in the man’s eyes. Pavlov had seen plenty of men try to kill him. Growing up in rough neighbourhoods. Separatists. Even a junkie with voices in her head, once.
This guy didn’t have that look. He wasn’t trying to kill him.
He was trying to save him.
Pavlov wiggled like a worm, kicking back, trying to get away, but the man stepped after him, grabbing Pavlov’s left wrist. The armoured sleeve groaned and bent as the man, with impossible strength, crushed it with his bare fingers.
Warning, said his visor. Structural integrity failure.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” said the man. “Just relax.” He held him tight, pinned to the deck with a single hand, his other reaching for the gap in Pavlov’s armour.
Then, right as their skin was about to make contact, the guy’s head burst like a melon hit with a bat.
Gore splattered onto the walls, onto his cheek. Pavlov’s ears rang with the sound.
Ilyukhina fired twice more, blasting the man’s body against the bulkhead, just to make sure he was dead.
“You okay, sir?” she asked, stepping up to him and giving the headless corpse a swift kick in the gut.
His right arm hung limply out of its socket. Pavlov bit his lower lip and, with a firm thud, slammed his shoulder into the deck. It popped back into place. Painful, but he’d had worse. “I will be,” he said.
The broken armour on his left arm, though, was more of a concern. It was crushed in the pattern of a man’s hand. The intruder, whoever he was, had easily crushed metal that could deflect simple automatic weapons fire.
“What the fuck?” asked Ilyukhina, lowering her weapon, staring at the damage in amazement.
CHAPTER 12
Pavlov’s Cell
THE SCEPTICAL CURL OF YANOVNA’S upper lip told him everything he needed to know.
“I told you,” said Pavlov, grinding his teeth. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. And, hah…we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”
She squinted slightly. “The tensile strength of your armour—”
“I know.”
“What you’re telling me is simply not possible, Pavlov. A standard shoulder plate is rated to withstand—”
“I know!” Pavlov stood up and yanked up his shirt. He pointed to an area on his shoulder, a little round dimple about a centimetre in diameter, neatly healed by bioform. “About four months ago, I got shot,” he said. “I’m sure you remember. Straight through the armour, below the shoulder plate, then out the other side. In and out. I know it takes a specialised, high velocity, armour-piercing round to do that—the kind of round that doesn’t tumble or deform when they hit you because they’re too hard and going too fast. I know they have to just punch neat little holes, because they have to, because when it comes to standard rounds, the armour we wear is, in a very literal sense, bulletproof.” He pulled his shirt back down. “So…believe me, I know. And he still did it. Crushed the forearm bracer like it was a can of borscht.”
“Боже мой.” Yanovna tapped the side of her tablet, turning it off. “Listen, Pavlov, you’re on thin ice as it is. You can’t expect me to go to the captain with these fairy tales…stories of strange men who sneak into your base carrying crew-served weapons like they’re sacks of flour.” She leaned forward, the overhead light forming ominous shadows on her face. “You realise that your squadmates are dead, right? A lot of people saw the explosion of Hammerfall. They know you got away. They want answers—and the simplest answer is that the squad’s commanding officer went crazy and blew the place to atoms. What you’re telling me so far only confirms this theory.”
He took a long, lingering breath, trying to steady himself. She was right. He wouldn’t have believed it if she was the one telling it to him.
“I told you,” he said, slumping back down on the cell’s uncomfortable, hard bed. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Yanovna walked away, out of view. For a moment, he thought he was done—but, thank God, she came back, carrying a chair. She put it down, sat in it, and stared at him for some time, her chin in her hands.
Pavlov stared back.
“Fine,” she said at last. “Let’s assume for a moment that I believe you. Let’s say I accept that there was some guy in your base, mysteriously, who was about to enter your domicile and kill you and your sergeant while you slept, and this man possessed super strength—but conveniently died before he could be questioned.” She took a breath. “And, of course, you conveniently returned without the damaged pieces of your armour, so your story could not be verified in any way, nor did you send through any reports that anything was amiss at all.”
“That is pretty crazy,” said Chainsaw from the next cell over. “Sorry, comrade. It just is.”
“Stop calling me comrade,” said Pavlov, and then he turned back to Yanovna. “And I tried to send through a report. It was the first thing I went to do…”
* * *
The Kennel
Hammerfall
“Talk to me, sir,” said Ilyukhina, slowly holstering her pistol. “What’s going on?”
“Everything’s going to shit.”
“Well, that makes a nice change of pace.” Ilyukhina’s breath fogged her visor. “Who was that?”
Pavlov took a deep breath, eyes drifting down to the body. “I don’t know. Some guy. I just walked right into him, coming out of the kennel. He was heading right for us…coming to get us while we slept.”
Ilyukhina tilted her head as she, too, stared at the dead stranger. “Arf arf. Sounds like he’s the kind of guy who squeezes toothpaste from the middle of the tube.”
An apt description for a skulking murderer. “I have to report this,” said Pavlov. He slid off the broken armour piece, careful not to cut himself on the shards, and fit his hand into the dent, just to be sure it was real. It fit perfectly.
“You definitely should,” said Ilyukhina. “Definitely, sir.”
“Our suit’s radio won’t reach into orbit,” he said. Especially true with the polar orbit that the Varyag had adopted over Syrene. “And the local communications facilities were damaged in the attack.”
“Maybe we should un-damage them,” said Ilyukhina. “This area of Syrene is remote, but if we could snag transportation to Druzhba City, we could get whatever parts we needed and repair it.”
That was actually a solid plan. “Let’s do that,” he said. “I’ll make sure to tell Fleet Command that it was all my idea and take all the credit.”
Ilyukhina smiled. “Isn’t that what officers are for, sir?”
“Something like that.” Pavlov forced himself to look at the headless body sprawled near him. “Hey Apalkov,” he said into his radio. “I got another body for you to dispose of.”
He expected bitching. Complaining. Instead, the medic’s voice was calm and almost bored, as though Pavlov were relaying information about the weather. “Where?”
“Outside the kennel. Plenty of blood everywhere, too. Your favourite.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” said Apalkov, as though Pavlov had asked him to perform the most mundane of tasks.
Pavlov closed the link and consulted the facility’s computer. The medium-range communications equipment was held in the server room in the basement. He waited until Ilyukhina was dressed properly, in her armour too, and then together they walked through the facility toward the stairs leading to the basement.
They passed through the cow level. Big dumb cows stared at them like they were foreign intruders. Perhaps because they were. The whole area reeked of cow shit and sweaty animals.
“How could this happen?” asked Pavlov, trying to keep his mind off the smell. “I fe
el like I’m losing my mind.”
“Maybe you are,” said Ilyukhina.
“Everyone’s acting so weird.”
“You know what they say, sir…if everyone you meet is a total weirdo, maybe you’re the weirdo.”
Maybe that was true. Pavlov let it go, trying to ignore the quiet mooing around him.
“Hey sir,” said Ilyukhina, her rifle pressed snugly to her armoured chest. “Speaking of weirdos…do you think Apalkov has been acting kind of strange recently?”
Oh, thank God. Someone else had noticed. “You mean, like, for most of the deployment? Yeah. I noticed.”
“Kind of worried about him,” said Ilyukhina.
“That’s odd for you,” Pavlov said, but he held up his hand. “I mean…it’s good you noticed. But, you know, worrying about other people isn’t exactly what you’re best known for.”
“Yeah.” Ilyukhina laughed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, sir, I don’t give a shit about him really—but he’s our medic, and our certified Combat Stress Reaction guy to boot. If he goes loopy, we’re supposed to call in the Varyag for support, but if we can’t fix the radio, the Fat Lady can’t help us. What are we supposed to do then?”
“Going to be honest, not sure the Officer’s Field Manual really covers this kind of situation.”
“Guess we shoot him,” said Ilyukhina.
Pavlov stepped past the animal pens and turned toward the stair that led down to the building’s basement. “Yeah. Guess so.”
They walked further. The lighting was poor down here—the illumination must have been damaged by the mortar strikes. Maybe that was what freaked the cows out during the attack. Fortunately, the stairway loomed.
Lighting was completely out in the basement. His visor adjusted, adding in thermal imagery.
His visor flickered briefly between heat and optics, and in that moment, he saw something else. A body, slumped at the base of the stairs.
