by David Adams
Fucking lunatics. Pavlov snatched a grenade off his hip, pulled the pin awkwardly with his little finger, waited for the timer to count down, and then tossed it. The thing burst in the air, spraying its deadly load of shrapnel everywhere. Lethal in close quarters to any of the scientists, if they were there, but armoured spetsnaz could survive a grenade that wasn’t right next to them.
“That isn’t going to kill me,” said Marchenko. “A little explosive and some shrapnel. I’m beyond such mortal frailties.”
“You’re not protected by your crazy theory of unity,” spat Pavlov, “you’re protected by layers of composite armour and bulletproof microfibers.”
Marchenko raised his fingertips above the lip of the box. “I’m going to come out now, okay?”
“So I can shoot you?”
“No,” said Marchenko. “I want to show you something.”
“How about you show me how well you can die?” said Pavlov. He could easily take off a finger with a shot, but…
Slowly, Marchenko stood up and removed his visor. Pavlov got ready to shoot him, lining up the crosshairs to his face.
But froze.
Marchenko had bleached his hair and cut it with a knife, shortening the sides, making it a thin puff of blond hair on the top.
Just like Minsky.
CHAPTER 43
Roof
Hammerfall
PAVLOV COULD NOT BRING HIMSELF to do it.
The crosshairs of the BD-140 lined up perfectly with the centre of Marchenko’s chest. At that range, it was completely impossible to miss. The round would strike his heart, killing him instantly…
Killing him…
“I know you miss Anton Minsky,” said Marchenko. “I read the mission reports. I applied for a transfer to your squad because of them…” His voice softened, so perfectly like his. “Because of your compassion, Petya. Your love. Someone like you who could feel like that and keep going…” He stepped out from behind the box. “But you couldn’t keep going, could you? You’re suffering because you’ve felt loss, but you haven’t really had the time to grieve. You haven’t given yourself time to cry, not properly, and you’re keeping yourself bottled up.” Marchenko smiled warmly. “We can help you.”
“You can fuck off!” said Pavlov, but the words barely got out. His throat closed up, his chest crushing against itself. Just the way Marchenko called him Anton, using a voice that was so close to his, hair so close to his, face…face just a perfect mirror of his dead boyfriend.
Pain. Pain so deep and raw it must have been physical; he hunched over, the air rushing out of his lungs.
No alcohol. The flask was empty.
All his injuries from the fall hit him at once. Suddenly he felt weak. Pained. Empty. He needed to rest, to just lie down for a moment…that would ease the pain. That would make him feel better.
“We can help you,” said Marchenko. “We can help all of you. Come with us to Vitaly Three. You’ll see how we do things in the Khorsky system. You’ll see our better life.”
Breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move or act or think; he could only watch, his limbs locked in place as Marchenko reached out and touched Ilyukhina, sliding his bare finger into one of the holes of her armour.
No.
Ilyukhina met his gaze. The panic in her eyes was palpable, the flash of understanding as she realized what was happening.
“Stop.” Pavlov’s voice found itself, finally. “Stop. Stop!”
Ilyukhina whimpered in pain, her back arching weirdly. She twisted, thrashing, fighting some great internal battle.
You promised, said his conscience. You promised her. You promised her you wouldn’t let her become one of them. You said it to her face.
Pavlov lined up the sniper rifle to Ilyukhina’s heart.
Shit. No. There had to be a better way. “C’mon, Ilyukhina, you can do this. Fight it. Fight it!” Pavlov’s shoulders shook, sending his aim everywhere. He should have shot Marchenko. He let this happen. “Do it. Do it. You can do it. You can do it!”
“Petya,” said Marchenko, “she’s one of us now.”
She wasn’t. Not Ilyukhina, too. She was too brave to be crazy. Too smart. Too strong.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Marchenko. “There doesn’t have to be any more killing. I’ve saved her—I’ve saved her like Apalkov could have saved Jakov. Joining us gives strength, comrade. A strength that you can’t possibly imagine.”
“Ilyukhina,” said Pavlov, forcing out the world’s most insincere smile. “I’m going to have to downgrade our friendship from ‘best friends’ to ‘awkward former co-workers’ if you don’t shake this off.” His tongue felt like it was numb. “I have the best idea for a Christmas card this year. You won’t want to miss it. Believe me.”
She seemed to be winning. For a moment, her sweaty, pale face was her. With what could only have been the last of her strength, she grabbed the pistol on her hip, drew it in one smooth motion, and pressed it to her own temple.
And then she smiled, and the weapon fell away.
No, no, no, no, no…!
Seeing Ilyukhina like this was too much. After everything that had happened, her total change of expression—an instant shift from having a pistol to her head to smiling like she was on vacation was beyond unnerving.
It was death. It was looking at a reanimated corpse.
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at Marchenko.
“You are welcome.”
The air in his lungs seemed thin. Almost gone. Spots swam in front of his vision, anti-fireflies threatening to plunge the world into darkness. “The reactor…”
“The leak can be repaired,” Marchenko said. “Coolant is easily replaced. A reactor coolant meltdown takes almost an hour to cascade from breach to meltdown. We knew we had all the time in the world because the scientists who worked here knew it. And now they live on, in us, as do all the enlightened humans you’ve murdered.”
Ilyukhina smiled playfully. “It’s like you said in the basement, you’re not exactly a tech.”
“Wait,” said Pavlov, the words barely a whisper, forced out of lungs that had no air in them. “Wait. N—…Nobody else has to die. Chainsaw is coming—Anarchy is coming. We can get out of here. We can get her to the Varyag, they have doctors, they might be able to help her—”
“That won’t change a thing,” said Ilyukhina, all trace of the pain and panic gone from her tone. She crouched, taking a knee despite her injuries. Getting stronger as Pavlov was getting weaker. “I don’t want their help. I don’t need their help.”
Shut up! Pavlov wanted to roar at her, scream in her face, but he couldn’t. He could only gasp weakly. “Shut up! You are not Ilyukhina, you are not—”
“I am her and more,” she said, and he could tell she meant every word.
We don’t have time for this. The reactor is burning up underneath us, and she’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. We gotta get out of here. He knew what his conscience was saying was right. He knew it. Just shoot her, man, and let’s get the hell out of here before this almost-suicide mission becomes an actual suicide mission.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “We aren’t about war. We aren’t about suffering. We’re about peace.” She pointed Pavlov’s pistol back at him. “But if you don’t want to be a part of peace, then you’re a part of war.”
Words, words, words. Pavlov honestly didn’t care if she shot him at that point.
“Join us,” she said, with a voice that carried finality, weight to it. “We can still be comrades. We’ll be closer than you could ever know.”
Pavlov slumped to one side, armoured knee slipping on the rain-slick roof, falling on his arse. He looked away. He couldn’t look. He just couldn’t.
Sorry, said his conscience, there’s just no way you can get out of this one. She’s gone rabid. Or whatever is wrong with the others…it’s got her, too. She’s infected. We gotta put her down. It’s simple. They’re just standi
ng there in the rain. Raise your rifle, point it at each of them in turn, kill them, blow the launcher, and go home.
So, so simple.
But he couldn’t. Panic had gripped him tightly, too tightly, choking him…and he had no booze to fight it.
All he had was Dmitriev’s injector.
The memory of it flashed into his head like a beacon. His shaking fingers searched his pockets for it, slapping weakly. Where did he put it, where did he put it…?
“Fortunately,” said Ilyukhina, “your cooperation is not required.”
Marchenko moved over to him with surprising swiftness, and before Pavlov could raise his weapon and pull the trigger, Marchenko’s hand found the broken sleeve of his armour and pushed a finger against the foam.
It cracked, broke, and Pavlov felt the cold, damp finger touch his flesh.
CHAPTER 44
Roof
Hammerfall
WET SKIN MET HIS SKIN, and the moment there was contact, Pavlov felt it like ten thousand volts through his spine.
It felt as though Marchenko’s finger carried with it a great power, an electric current that surged through him, energising him, infusing his body with raw energy. His injuries, his headache, completely vanished, and he felt absolutely, perfectly wonderful. As though he were in a different time and place, watching a recording of his own body from outside, kicking and jerking on the rainy rooftop. Struggling. Fighting. Going limp.
He saw a planet. More than that, he saw a whole star system: Vitaly. A bright star in the the Khorsky system. Home to the new members of his squad, the crazies that had brought such illness, such madness, to them. It had to be Vitaly. He knew it in his bones. More visions flew through his mind. A star, a world, three moons…one planet stuck out, almost glowing in his mind’s eye, a beacon.
Vitaly Three. Vitaly Three, a tiny military outpost attached to a colony, frozen. The wind howled. The sun barely shone through the thick cloud cover. Three moons made night almost as bright as day.
Home.
And for the briefest moment, he felt something else. Something much darker. A mind. A presence he did not, could not, understand.
Then, inexplicably, he was back. Staring up at the clouds. At the rain that fell directly toward his face.
Marchenko shrieked and withdrew his hand as though it had been burned.
The shock and confusion on Ilyukhina and Marchenko’s faces were total.
“H-how could this happen?” asked Marchenko, his voice full of wonder and fear. “You…you had something inside you, in your blood—it poisoned us!”
The only thing Pavlov had in his blood was a third of Apalkov’s flask, whatever extremely high proof alcohol the guy had, all consumed at once.
But he’d never felt more alive.
Pavlov pushed himself up to his feet. “Guess being one with the universe wasn’t for me,” he said, and, swinging the rifle around at his hip, pointed it at Marchenko.
The guy opened his mouth to speak, and Pavlov knew—somehow knew—that the guy was going to try and pull the Minsky thing again. Try to use the memory of a dead guy to hurt him, trick him, confuse him. To use the dark feelings within himself to strangle him.
And yet, when Pavlov squeezed the trigger and blew Marchenko’s chest into bloody hunks, all he felt was recoil.
“This isn’t possible,” said Ilyukhina, her voice carrying the same wonder as Pavlov’s. “It simply isn’t—”
Then she, too, died in a spray of fire and blood.
Neither of them smiled. Their dead faces were empty, frightened, and hollow.
“Pavlov to Chainsaw,” said Pavlov as he moved over to the box, bracing the sniper rifle against it. The distance to the launcher did not seem so far now—his eyesight was improved, dramatically, his fingers and hands steady and responsive. “The launcher’s about to be taken care of.”
“Good,” said Chainsaw. “Let me know when I can move in.”
He felt, rather than saw, the lone missile, large and clear in his mind’s eyes, so far away, yet so close. Such an obvious target. He aimed not just for the missile, but for the missile’s warhead, for the detonator, compensating for the howling wind and the pouring rain completely, instinctively.
“What did you do?” asked Chuchnova, her breath coming in pained gasps. “I felt their pain, I felt their doubt and confusion. Pavlov, by God, what have you—”
He squeezed the trigger, the BD-140 spoke, and far away, in the jungle, the launcher exploded in a faint ball of fire that flared briefly against the curtains of rain, then was smothered by the downpour.
Almost as though on cue, the rain eased, and then ended completely. The clouds broke, and a small column of light shone down from the sky onto Hammerfall station, a beacon for the dropship to follow.
“Come and get me,” he said to Chainsaw, opening his visor and taking a deep, long breath of the cool, moist jungle air. “The sky’s clear.”
Anarchy touched down on the rooftop in less than a minute. He could feel the power within him fading as he climbed aboard. Hammerfall shook below him, each rumble a warning. Pavlov strode up the landing ramp and pulled the medkit off the wall, pried the lid off and grabbed the rubbing alcohol.
He chugged the bottle as the ship’s ramp sealed closed. The stuff burned his mouth as it hit his tongue. He forced the disgusting stuff down. It was foul but it would do the job. It would protect him from the madness and the ache in his chest.
This important task complete, he staggered over to a seat and strapped himself in. The dropship soared skyward, leaving behind the mud, the dirt, the blood, and the death.
Hammerfall’s reactor exploded behind them, a massive white light like a miniature star growing on the surface of Syrene. A shockwave hundreds of metres tall blasted down trees, vaporised the water, and boiled away the mud, the heat igniting the surface for kilometres, instantly turning biomatter into ash. The white light turned yellow, then faded to red as flames consumed everything.
Anarchy soared upward and away, leaving Syrene and all its pain and misery behind.
CHAPTER 45
Pavlov’s Cell
YANOVNA WAS VERY QUIET FOR a very long time.
“The rest of it,” said Pavlov, “you already know. Chainsaw picked me up and flew me back to the Varyag. By the time I got back, I was completely out of it. I’m guessing the kid and his little grey potion got turned over to Military Intelligence, Chainsaw got dragged off to that cell by Volodin’s men, and I… well. I’m guessing from the bruises that whoever carried me here wasn’t gentle.”
“Huh,” said Chainsaw. “Rubbing alcohol is brutal stuff to drink, comrade. I guess that explains the hangover.”
“I’m not even sure it was the alcohol,” said Pavlov, “I did hit my head when I fell onto the landing pad. Although it might have even been a residual effect of the…the touch. But I feel normal now.”
Yanovna tapped out a few more keys on her touchpad, saying nothing. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Awkward silence, save for the muted noise of her fingers hitting the keys.
“Did the clouds really open up like that?” asked Chainsaw, almost whispering, as though to avoid disturbing Yanovna.
They had. “I can’t explain it,” said Pavlov, “except that…sometimes, coincidences like that just happen. So many times, back home, rain would just start and stop, you know? Like someone turned on a tap. Tropical areas can be like that…driving downpour one moment, bright sunny day the next.”
“I guess,” said Chainsaw. “But…I mean…you probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. It doesn’t really help your not crazy defence.”
Also true. Pavlov shrugged. “I guess I was getting carried away…but it really did happen.” He noted that Yanovna had stopped typing. She was instead reading a message on her tablet. “Is something wrong?”
Yanovna continued to read, occasionally scrolling with a finger. It must have been a long message that went on and on.
Pavlov waited.
Yanovna finally
looked up. “Lieutenant Petya Pavlov?”
Pavlov stood up, straightening his back. His hangover was almost completely gone. “Yeah?”
“Honestly,” she said, “I have never heard a bigger pile of shit in my life.” Yanovna’s eyes became angry slits. “You must really think I’m an idiot if you think, seriously think, that I’m going to believe even a single fucking word of that.”
Pavlov’s shoulders slumped. “Ma’am, I swear to you on my life—”
“You seriously expect me to believe that some kind of evil crazy virus gave you super powers, allowing you, and others, to shrug off mortal injuries? And that these super powers just happened to fade away, and every single piece of the evidence that could prove your innocence was also, miraculously, destroyed?”
“It’s true,” said Pavlov. It was all he could say. “It’s all true.”
Yanovna moved over to Chainsaw’s cell. “Lieutenant Borislava Lukina, your story is supported by the evidence. You disobeyed a direct order by approaching Hammerfall, and there will be restitution for this, but for now you’re free to go. The XO wants to see you right away. Report to her immediately.”
Just like that? With the faint hum of electricity, the metal bars of Chainsaw’s cell retracted. Pavlov saw the vague, indistinct shape of her stand, stretch, and then move out of her cell.
“Thank you, Major,” said Chainsaw. As she walked past Pavlov’s cell, she smiled weakly. “Good luck with your troubles, comrade.”
“Thanks,” said Pavlov. “I’m sure the evidence will exonerate me, in time.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Chainsaw. “Right now, I should give my report.”
* * *
XO’s Office
Varyag
