Bethany Anne answered, with a stern expression on her face, “Yes, I am. There isn’t enough of it happening!” Janna’s shock showed clearly, and Bethany Anne’s expression relaxed.
“Have fun, TOM will tell me when you are finished. I’ll come back to take you to the Pod Doc. I have no possible objections to anything in that direction that could happen between you and Boris. If they seem to be heading the other way… give me some warning.” A small smile graced her face as she waved and headed out the mess door.
Dan made his excuses to Janna and left her to face Boris alone, in a room full of strangers, and with no place to hide.
Boris walked back to the table with the tray and carefully slid it in front of her. He put a cup of water next to it. Meanwhile, she was thinking about what Bethany Anne had said.
She had effectively been told that whatever happened with Boris, as long as it didn’t upset what needed to happen, was allowed. It was a paradigm shift for someone who had faced rigid military rules from the age of sixteen.
Janna had faked her age to sign up after passing the aptitude tests. She still struggled to admit that she was twenty-five, not twenty-seven at times. Even though the initial success of that deception had gained her admittance to both officer and intelligence training.
She wondered how young, how immature she must seem to Boris. Bethany Anne had only told her that he was over four hundred years old. Then she had casually, but painfully, admitted that her love had been over a thousand, while she was in her thirties.
Once Janna had taken a few bites, she paused to find Boris staring at her. “What is it?”
“Your hair, Janna. It has taken on a hint of red. I was just admiring the color,” he replied calmly. The calm was fractured by a sudden and bright blush, kicking off an eruption of embarrassed laughter from him. The sound of his amusement boomed through the mess hall causing many to turn and stare.
“You actually must be recovering. You blush easily,” he said with what she thought was a twinkle in his eye.
Janna returned that look with a challenging expression. “Since we have some luxury of time at this moment, how about we share stories of our pasts, Old Bear.”
“As you wish, Cub. What do you want to know?” She winced slightly, not wishing him to think of her as a child.
“How old are you?”she soldiered on through her concerns.
Boris stroked his beard, thoughtfully. “I honestly am not sure. The earliest date I clearly know is the year I challenged Michael. That makes me more than four hundred. Before he exiled me to Siberia, I had jobs, service in the Cossack hosts and other places, but no real interest in the year. I wanted to be doing things, active things. I didn’t even learn to read until my exile because it was so sedentary. Now, of course, I am literate in at least eight languages. My turn. What was your life like before you joined the army?”
Her eyes went hooded as if some dark memory clouded them. “I do not talk of my life with family. They abandoned me to the streets when I was eight. I saw much suffering, but was a great reader, even back then, and the librarians took care of me when they were able. I was always in the library, learning, safe and warm. I suspect that they felt pity. It was not until I applied to join the army that I sat for my first test. I have a great memory, so I found it easy. My turn. How many wars have you been in?”
It was time for Boris’s face to darken. “Too many. So many of the wars, when I was younger, had no real purpose. Sometimes to the aggrandizement of one man or another. Others were squabbles over who controlled this section or that of land. Perhaps over who’s invisible friend was real. There were few wars I fought in, looking back, that truly had a justification. The Great Patriotic War. Driving Napoleon back. Fighting the Reds and the Blacks. They were all good wars and battles. Fighting for a cause worth all the loss, even if we failed. The rest…” he just shook his head in sorrow. “How did you end up in intelligence?”
“When I enlisted I had lied about my age. I made it through all the training, wanting to serve as a soldier. It was a better life than on the streets. Then I was assigned to a unit that my uncle commanded. He was suspicious that we might be related and ordered a private DNA test, not wanting to compromise either his group or his career. This showed that we were close relatives, and he knew of only one missing female relative within five years of my claimed age. He was aware that my age was younger than I had told them.”
She shrugged, remembering the time, “He reported it, and the GRU gave me a choice. Take officer training and transfer to where I obviously had skills or be court marshaled and end up destitute. I had lived destitute before, I told them. Growing up on the streets, learning what I could from the library. That floored them. My test results were extraordinary. My uncle confirmed that I had been missing from the age of eight as did many records. At that point, they stopped using threats to make me join. I had skills that could aid the country better than as a common soldier, they said. I eventually accepted.”
“Let this be enough questions for now, Janna. Come now, you must eat.” Smiling inside, Janna dutifully obeyed. After all, she was famished.
And she had finally started to learn more about his past.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Command Container, Russia.
Janna had gone from her previous condition to still slightly underweight, but far healthier in the last three days. The biggest improvement had come from her time in the pod after she had eaten three heaped trays of food. Boris had continued to regale her with stories from his past while she ate.
His stories only increased her respect for him.
After Janna’s time in the pod was done, Boris had been put in to reduce the risk to others from his blood. While he was in the medipod, John ran her through a testing regimen, to make sure that she was fit, despite TOM and ADAM’s assurances. Most of that had been simple sparring, but at the end of the session he finally convinced her to spar as hard as she was capable. John was pleased to confirm her strength was back.
Janna still wasn’t actually convinced she had been changed since there was no difference in the way she felt. Perhaps her emotions tilted towards annoyance and frustration more quickly, but that could be because she was not used to inactivity. She realized she did not feel any weaker than before the incident, but also didn’t feel like an animal or anything unusual. No longer looking like a starveling, there did not seem any reason that she should be prevented from at least participating in the ambushes with the rest of her team.
“Why can’t I come with you on this assault? TOM, ADAM, and John all declared me fit. I mean John took me out in training, but he does that to everyone except Gabrielle and Bethany Anne.” Janna was furious. It seemed that her hair color wasn’t all that had changed. Her temper had as well. Rather than the pale platinum blonde she had been born with her hair was now a deep strawberry blonde.
“And would you say this outburst is like you?” Boris asked. “According to your file, which ADAM forwarded to me, you were one of the calmest, most level-headed, most calculating soldiers or junior officers any of your COs had ever had. Weres are more aggressive. Until you get used to it and learn to harness it, you are no good on the battlefield. Consider it a form of rehabilitation. You don’t send a soldier straight back out after recovery.”
Janna’s irritation was evident in her voice, “Then why haven’t you been training me! It’s been three days since I got back. More than one and a half since you finished interrogating those scum.”
All the Weres had been criminals who had joined the NVG after Konrad had arranged for their release from prison. Although Boris was somewhat ambivalent about the executions of two of them, he was pleased overall. Those two had been petty crooks before joining Konrad. The human captive was still in their custody for now. Boris honestly did not care if the prisoner lived or died, but there was more information in his head to be extracted, so his usefulness had not come to an end. Frank, Akio, and Dan were taking care of the extraction of informa
tion, so Boris could keep his attention elsewhere.
Barnabas had judged them all. The stay of execution for the remaining prisoner was temporary.
Danislav cautiously interrupted. “And when has he had time, young Bear? When have I had time? When have you had time? I had to reorganize the group I was supposed to lead because of all this. It has been decided that someone needs to stay with the command center for the first few ops. We have all been organizing the plan for the disruption of the three convoys. We have a twelve-hour window for all three operations. Paul is the only one who has slept. He is also the only normal human. He even offered to stay with you.”
Janna’s eyes flashed, and she let off a string of insults in mixed Russian, English, French, and German. Paul corrected her German, which was not particularly helpful but amused him and infuriated her. At one point it looked like Boris would have to step in. Danislav was convinced that Paul was completely mad at this point. He certainly wouldn’t have corrected her.
Boris hid his grin when it happened. They had been serving together for a long time.
“I will start training you tomorrow Janna. If we have prisoners, I will let Danislav and Paul interrogate them. We even have permission from Barnabas to execute future prisoners. They aren’t soldiers. They are an illegal military force that has committed crimes against humanity. Walking down a street and just killing people. Being willing to wipe out an entire town.” Boris said, the anger boiling in his tone.
“We need to get going to the first rendezvous. We will be back.” Boris’s nose was not as sensitive as Danislav’s so he could not understand the underlying fear beneath her frustration. She was afraid Boris was not going to come back. Danislav turned slightly away from Boris and signaled to her that he would keep an eye on Boris.
He hadn’t seen the old bear this happy in years. He didn’t want it to fuck up on him now.
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“One weapons convoy. It was supposed to be vital supplies headed for a base near China. Hmm. I guess that close to the border weapons could be considered as such.” Paul spoke into the air
Boris and the others had returned with one captive from the three raids. Apparently, everyone had been a bit over-enthusiastic. But now three of the six groups had a distribution of silver ammo, just in case. Some of the wolves had been unhappy about it, but common sense had, in the end, overcome their hesitation. Only a small fraction of the groups consisted of Weres after all.
The captured heavy weapons had been carried to their vehicles and were being hidden at various locations in the different areas of operations. Some of the supplies and most of the ammunition had been taken, while the rest had been burned.
As a further strategy, they were using the same camouflage that the Chechens used and were careful to leave a torn piece of cloth near each raid. Those bastards had been more active lately, and the deception seemed to be working. Investigators had concluded that Chechen rebels were attacking ‘road convoys’ and the pressure on the government to do something about it was rising from the public and the military. Reserve units had been called up, and that would restrict the NVG as much or more than Boris and his group. All of Boris’ forces came from Siberia, a region with a reputation for staunch Christianity. None were suspected of being Islamists.
After they had debriefed with Frank and ADAM they had breakfast. Paul begged off the interrogation, wanting to sleep but Danislav was more than happy to do it. So Janna insisted on Boris starting her training.
Boris spoke, “The first thing you need to learn now is, even in your human form, you will be stronger.” He pulled out one of the captured weapons he had returned from the raid with. Grabbing the barrel with one hand, he casually bent it. “You will need to be lighter on the trigger of any gun, or you will damage it. They are designed for humans, except my custom AA-12.”
“That’s one thing I am confused by. I have been trying to figure out how a bear could fire a shotgun for the last couple of days. It’s been driving me nuts, to be honest. I can’t see a way.”
“No, in bear form I cannot use it. I have an... in-between shape. I can use it while in that form, but only with drum magazines and only that weapon.“
“Will you show me how to change to that shape?”
Boris raised his hand, quieting her questions. “I cannot show you. I only found the first path to that form when my mother was raped and killed by bandits. It is not something that can be taught. It is something I would not wish on my best friend or worst enemy. It is dangerous, see? In a thousand years, I am the only Were that has been able to take the form and not succumb to the consequences. The anger and frustration you feel? That is nothing compared to what you feel in that shape. It is also addictive.” He closed his eyes. “The power you feel, it is indescribable.” He paused, taking deep breaths. He needed to stay away from such thoughts for now. He needed to avoid that form for a time.
After the pause, he continued. “There are other ways, maybe. But I have no idea how to teach them to you at this time. I would not be willing to take that shape for some time. I have used it perhaps too often recently.”
“You are just trying to hold me back!” she yelled at him. He had, however, prepared for this. He did, after all, know a female Pricolici.
He responded. “Ecaterina will be happy to talk to you about it if you wish. She gave me her contact details if you do not have them already. You can speak to her after we train.” He continued “Your life was turned upside down before you were changed. You need to move past the anger you feel at that. The frustration of the situation you find yourself in. You also need to learn to fight like a bear.”
He raised an eyebrow and turned, starting to remove his clothes, continuing to talk. “Remember three main things. First, unlike an ordinary bear, for whatever reason, I have never found it hard to balance on my hind paws. Use that. It is an advantage. You have claws, use them. You can bite hard, it is a potent weapon, but doing so can expose yourself. Be observant of your situation before you use it.”
He shifted into his bear form. This was one of the few times he’d shifted around another werebear. He had done it before, but it was like there was static in his head. It was perhaps a side effect of the changes that had gotten rid of the headaches, he supposed.
He turned and looked at Janna. She looked a bit freaked out. Shifting from foot to foot she asked “How do you do that? How do you shift like that?” Boris rolled his eyes lifted a paw and pointed it in the direction of the bunker. To be honest, he didn’t remember how. He’d been doing it for so long he just did it. He ambled down to the container and rapped his claws on the open door to get Danislav’s attention. Janna followed him closely.
Danislav looked pissed when he answered but saw that Janna was looking confused, and Boris had chosen to remain a bear. He had some idea of why. Boris had been born and raised a Were - he just changed, he didn’t think about it. Danislav may have been born a Were, but it had taken him years to figure out how to turn, to the frustration of both himself and Boris.
“Watch this guy while I’m gone. If he moves, eat him.” He said to Boris, as much as for the intimidation effect as anything else. Boris was by far the largest bear anyone had seen, easily more than eight hundred kilograms, about twenty percent bigger than the maximum Siberian bears were considered to reach. The only natural bears that might close in on his size were the largest Californian grizzlies or the occasional Kodiak.
He walked off a short distance and said “I can guess the problem. You don’t know how to change, right?” Janna nodded mutely. “One of the things Boris doesn’t really understand is the mechanics of it. Once I figured out how to transform I tried explaining it to him, but he’s done it for so long that he can just do it when he wants. For him, it is all instinctual. He knew I was a Were when he adopted me from the orphanage decades ago. Probably born that way. When I was a teenager, and he was trying to teach me to change, he was stumped
too. It has been centuries since he first did it and the first time is always the hardest. Oh, and before you start sparring with him, go for a run.”
He rubbed his ribs “It won’t take you long, but your first half hour or so you’ll be clumsy as hell. So don’t try to spar with him then. You will get hurt if you do, and he’ll blame himself. Neither of you would be to blame of course, but he still will blame himself.”
Retaliation (The Boris Chronicles Book 2) Page 5
