by FX Holden
Avramenko was going to speak, but Lapikov saw his chance and took it. He stood and held up the papers he had been carrying. “I do not hold Bondarev alone accountable for the attack on the USA, Comrade President.” He placed the first few sheets of paper in front of Avramenko. “Your signature, Kelnikov, on the order to deploy Groza, appointing Bondarev as commander. Your decision not to have the same sort of controls on Groza as we have on our nuclear arsenal… and this, your signature on the order to bombard the Chinese oilfields.”
“Stop your petty theatrics,” Kelnikov said.
Lapikov continued, putting a further piece of paper down in front of Avramenko. “Your signature on the order authorizing the repositioning of two Groza satellites over the USA, one of which was used in the attack on Cape Canaveral.”
“On Popovkin and Bondarev’s advice!” Kelnikov said.
But Lapikov was not finished. He waved a final piece of paper in the air. “And this. A record of your personal bank transactions in advance of the attacks on Abqaiq and Korla. Your purchase of shares and futures in resource companies in Russia and abroad; foreign exchange, gold and platinum bullion trading!” Lapikov threw the page down in front of Avramenko. “He has been growing rich off the back of his Groza attacks. How many shares have you purchased in advance of the attacks you are suggesting now, Kelnikov?”
Lapikov was not so naïve as to expect an accusation of corruption would cause even a ripple around the table. There was not a man there who had not profited handsomely from his position of power in one way or another. But Kelnikov had played the Groza strikes close to his chest, kept other cabinet ministers out of the loop. He may have profited, but none of the others in the room, save perhaps the President, had been let in on the opportunity. A quick glance around the table and Lapikov saw he now had most of the room with him. And he had given the President the leverage he needed to shut the bellowing Kelnikov down if he wanted to.
“Enough!” Avramenko said. “Sit down, Lapikov. This is not a time for petty squabbles but … I do have to consider this disturbing information.”
“You bloody hypocrite!” Kelnikov spat at Avramenko. “Tell me you didn’t profit from the forewarning I gave you about those Groza strikes.”
A shocked silence followed. Lapikov looked down at the floor and smiled to himself. Ah, Comrade Kelnikov. You are tap-dancing in a minefield now.
Avramenko took a moment to let the silence in the room settle. “The Comrade Minister is clearly overcome with the stress of the moment,” he said, his voice dangerously flat. “He will remove himself from this meeting, and from his duties.” The President nodded to the Interior Minister. “Dzubya, you will isolate Minister Kelnikov pending investigation for corrupt dealing. Prime Minister Shabaev, you will assume interim responsibility for Defense. Please organize for the General Staff to conference in immediately. I will not authorize a nuclear or conventional military response to the US action, but Dzubya, I want to urgently see a plan for full scale cyber warfare targeting US and Chinese economic interests globally.”
He looked down at some notes in front of him as the room waited. There must be more, Lapikov thought. There was.
“I want to increase our support to Iran,” Avramenko said. “They have requested upgraded S-400 anti-air defense systems to help them avoid a repeat of attacks like the one on their nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz. They have requested aerospace engineering assistance in improving the survivability of their ballistic missiles and enabling them to mount … new ordnance types. See that they get it.” He paused to see if any protests were being raised, but heard none. It was all his ministers could do to keep up, let alone think ahead. “And I want more boots on the ground in Iran and Egypt. At least one Okhotnik unmanned fighter squadron in each country and an armored Spetsnaz brigade deployed with our amphibious landing ship the Azov.” He pushed his notes away. “Move a second Landing Ship with a detachment of Mi-24K Kuryer gunships to Bandar Abbas. We will scale back our current level of intervention in the Persian Gulf until the increased troop and materiel levels are in place, but when they are, I expect to see a plan for continued pressure on Saudi oil exports out of the Gulf.”
The Prime Minister, Shabaev, nodded. “Yes, Comrade Supreme Commander.” Kelnikov could do no more than fume.
Avramenko turned to Denis Lapikov. “Lapikov, you are also relieved of your duties as Minister of Energy.”
Lapikov gasped. Kelnikov’s face went from one of outrage to a broad vindictive smirk. But it quickly disappeared as Avramenko continued. “I am appointing you Presidential Secretary for the National Emergency. You will coordinate closely with Prime Minister Shabaev and his ministers, and with our Joint Chiefs. You will manage all press and social media communications about the current situation in cooperation with my office. You will reassure our nation, and our allies, that Russia, and importantly our economy, is untroubled by the current dispute with the USA. But your priority is the restoration or relocation of our space launch capabilities at Plesetsk and Baikonur. We cannot be left without the ability to put satellites in space.” Avramenko looked around the table. “You are all busy men – if there is nothing else, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you for your service, Comrade Kelnikov. You may remain, Lapikov.”
Kelnikov scowled as he left the room, and shrugged off Dzubya as the man took his arm. Lapikov was still getting to terms with the idea of his new and unexpected portfolio. As the door closed behind the others, he realized the surprise must be showing in his face when Avramenko clasped him by the forearm. “Chin up, Denis. You will get all the resources you need. I will place my Executive Office at your disposal, and my Chief of Staff will set you up and smooth the way with Shabaev. Plus, I will take Space Command out of the Aerospace Forces and make it a separate command, under your authority for the duration of the Emergency.”
“Thank you, Comrade President.”
“I know you want Defense,” Avramenko said, “and I had strongly considered it, even before that idiot Kelnikov started yelling at people. But I need someone to focus on rebuilding our space launch capability and that will not be an easy task. I suggest immediately opening a channel to a non-aligned space-faring nation such as India…”
“Finance will be the biggest challenge, Comrade President,” Lapikov pointed out. “With UN sanctions…”
Avramenko smiled. “Do not worry too much. I received an interesting telephone call last night. From a contact close to the Chinese Premier, no less. He called the Korla attack ‘unwise’ but also said he felt the American attacks on our satellite systems were ‘regrettable.’ He did not seem to feel bound by UN sanctions China did not vote to support, and offered to continue to respect our current commercial arrangements on oil and gas, on the condition that we provide the necessary turbine parts and expertise to repair the Tarim Basin compressor station. We may not be as inconvenienced by these sanctions as the US would have the world believe.”
“That will certainly help,” Lapikov agreed.
“Now, back to you. I will persuade Shabaev not to fill the Defense Ministry immediately. But give it six months, get the reconstruction underway, and you can have Defense.” He held out his hand. “Your priority now is rebuilding our capabilities in space. Deal?”
Lapikov shook. “Deal, Comrade President.”
Lapikov walked out and signaled to his aide to wait a moment longer before he started to give him a download. He walked past him and into an executive bathroom. Threw water on his face and took a deep breath. A job like the one the President had just given him, he could really have used the services of a formidable woman like Roberta D’Antonia. A networker. A fixer. Damn her, her indiscretion had resulted in an uncomfortable discussion with a GRU Colonel and had nearly cost him his own Ministry, but he had survived that little hiccup and he was still here, still in the game.
She had done him one last small favor, though. It had come in the post with an unsigned note, but he recognized her handwriting.
Dear Minister,
Sorry I had to leave without saying farewell but I am sure you understand. I hope you also understand that I am concerned for the welfare of my family now, so that is my priority. I attach some information you may find interesting and hope in some small way that it makes up for any inconvenience I may have caused.
He liked that she had not specifically asked him for a favor in return. And he had no idea how she had obtained Kelnikov’s private financial records, but yes, she had more than made up for the inconvenience she had caused him.
Captain Amir Alakeel was at a meeting of a different sort. Only one of the two participants was alive.
He was standing by the grave of the young pilot, Hatem Zedan. Though Zedan was but one of the pilots Alakeel had lost in recent weeks, he was the one for whom Alakeel felt most personally responsible. But he was not sad, for the Koran said, “Those who are slain in the cause of God, He will not allow their works to perish.” He was a little sad for the family of the man he had lost over Natanz. He had been paraded in front of Iranian media together with wreckage from his stealth fighter, and Alakeel had heard there were talks underway to swap him for an Iranian pilot shot down off the northern Saudi coast near Khafji. The man returning home would not be the same man who had left it, and the fact he would return home a hero would be little comfort to him and his family in the long dark nights ahead.
The strike on Natanz had not been a significant military victory: bomb damage assessments showed eight of the twelve rocket-boosted bunker busters had penetrated the roof of the complex, but only one third of it was regarded as destroyed. Its impact on Iran’s military ambitions was more political than material. Saudi aircraft had penetrated to the heart of Iran and struck at its most heavily guarded facility. Yes, a number of Saudi aircraft had been shot down, but by Russian fighters, not Iranian air defenses. And Russia had lost aircraft too – its vaunted Mig-41s and Su-57s had proven vulnerable to Saudi 5th-generation fighters and it had lost the Beriev to Alakeel’s impetuous attack. Their much boasted-about arsenal of ballistic missiles had proven incapable of penetrating Riyadh’s Peace Shield, causing many to question the treasury-crippling value of their efforts to arm them with nuclear warheads. And Iran’s Navy had lost a prized frigate.
Though its imams still railed about Saudi perfidy inside their mosques, the Iranian provocations had been paused. Russia too was avoiding directly engaging Saudi forces, though it was moving more assets into the theater – naval, air and ground – so it would surely be just a matter of time before hostilities resumed.
From his jacket pocket, Alakeel pulled a feather. He had visited a friend of his father, who was an alsuqur – a falconer. The man had given Alakeel a tail feather from his most prized bird – a Shaheen, which he claimed was the fastest falcon in the entire country, with the medals to prove it. The feather was long, with gray and brown bands and a white tuft at the tip. Alakeel held it up to the sky a moment to admire it.
As he did so, he saw a flight of three F-35 Lightnings pass overhead. Zedan had been an introvert, a thinker. He’d apparently thought about his own death and told his family that if it should happen, he would like to be buried near an airfield, with his face to the sky so that he might spend eternity gazing up at it in wonder as he had once done as a child.
Alakeel placed the feather on his grave, and covered it in loose soil.
All war ends in defeat, he reflected as he walked away. Only peace can be won.
Epilogue
45th Space Wing, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, July 2034
Bunny O’Hare had tried to avoid the scene of her crime, but it had been calling to her every waking moment of the day and night. Meany Papastopoulos had finally talked her into it, saying it was something he needed to do as well.
Like a trauma victim reliving every moment of an assault, O’Hare couldn’t stop replaying in her head every single minute of their mission over North America, from the time they had been advised that there was a Groza satellite headed for the Cape, to the moment she and Meany brought it down.
She was reliving it again as she stood beside Meany, looking through a fence at the rubble-filled wasteland that had been the Cape Canaveral Industrial Area. The fence was filled with flowers and cards and photographs of the missing and the dead.
“We could have prevented this,” O’Hare said, leaning her forehead against the fence. “We were the only ones on the planet who could, and we didn’t.”
“Yeah, too bloody right,” Meany said. “We killed all these people.” He was getting more than an occasional sideways glance from other people at the fence. Exoskeletons like his were not a common sight yet and there was nothing subtle about its constant whirring every time he shifted his weight or took a sideways step.
O’Hare shot him a look. “You don’t mean it. I do.”
“I’m not being funny. I mean it. You should have anticipated they’d send that Groza at the Cape. Instead of hitting it over Canada, you could have set us up between that Groza and Florida and we could have easily intercepted it.”
“You’re right,” O’Hare said miserably.
“Bloody right I’m right. And I wasted precious seconds powering in the opposite direction when that Shakti launched on us. Running away, when I should have been running toward it.” He gripped the wire of the construction barrier with white knuckles. “I killed these people too. You weren’t the only one up there.”
O’Hare closed her eyes and laid her head against Meany’s shoulder, then sensed someone standing beside her.
“Hey you,” a voice said.
She turned, to see the woman and child she had rescued. The child was holding a small bunch of flowers it looked like she’d picked herself from a grass verge somewhere.
“Oh hey … uh …”
“Ambre,” the woman said. She reached out a hand and clasped Bunny’s hands in hers. “You know I tried to find out your name, to thank you. But they wouldn’t tell me. I went through the base personnel list, could probably get busted for that, but there were so many female officers in Space Force could have been you, I gave up.” She let go of Bunny’s hands. “She got me and Soshane out,” Ambre said to Meany. “You know, that day?”
“You got yourself out,” Bunny said gently. “Is how I remember it. I was just the one who found you.”
Ambre smiled and squatted down next to her daughter. “Go ahead sweets, put down your flowers.”
“There’s more than yesterday even,” the girl said, pointing. “And more pictures.”
“Every flower is a thought honey,” Ambre said. “And every thought counts. Right? Miss…” she turned to Bunny.
“O’Hare,” Bunny said. “People call me Bunny.”
“People call her a lot of things,” Meany said, face neutral. They watched as Soshane put her flowers into a gap in the wire mesh security fence. She retreated behind her mother’s legs to stare at Meany.
“I come here most days after work. Thought maybe I’d see you here one day, but I wasn’t really sure I’d recognize you. I was kind of out of it when you found me,” Ambre said. “But I noticed your friend here, and then I saw you.”
“Nick,” Meany said, reaching out his hand. “RAF Space Command. Pleased to meet you ma’am.”
“Are you half robot?” Soshane asked him, sticking her head out.
“Soshane!”
Meany laughed. Crouching wasn’t easily accomplished in his exoskeleton, but he could go down on one knee, so he did. He knocked his knuckles on his articulated shin. “I suppose you could say that young lady.”
Soshane reached out and touched it. “How come you wear it?”
“Soshane, don’t be rude,” Ambre chided.
“That’s fine,” Meany told her. He was still down on one knee and twisted a little so she could see the spinal support column behind him. “I need it because I broke my back jumping out of a fighter plane and before you ask why I jumped out of the fighter plane, it was on fire and before
you ask why it was on fire, that was because a Russian man in his fighter plane got angry I was shooting at him and so he shot at me and what is the lesson there, miss?”
“That Russians are bad people,” Soshane said. “That’s what they say on TV.”
“Well no, they aren’t,” Meany said, straightening up again. “They’ve got bad leaders right now, that’s all. What I meant to say was be careful who you get mad at because they might get mad right back at you.” He looked at Ambre and shrugged. “Sorry, I’m rubbish with kids.”
“You’re doing fine,” Ambre said. “She’s just a busybody.” She gave her daughter a little shove. “Go see if you can find any new pictures Soshane.” The girl gave her a dirty look, but started wandering down the fence line, looking at the photos and drawings that people had pinned on the wire. Ambre looked directly at Bunny again. “I almost didn’t recognize you in … civvies,” she said. She sounded like she was referring to Bunny’s jeans and t-shirt, but she was looking at her tattoos and facial jewelry.
“No, well, I’m not actually with Space Force,” Bunny said. “I was just a contractor. So I haven’t really been around much since … you know.” She punched Meany’s arm. “But the Tin Man was in town for a couple of days so we thought we might come out here and pay our respects, sort of thing.”
Ambre looked at Bunny and then at Meany and crossed her arms. “You both look like you could use a decent home-cooked meal.” Before they could reply, she nodded in the direction of Soshane. “We always eat early so she can do her homework and get to bed so you’ll still have plenty of time to head into Port Canaveral and find a bar. Least I can do to say thank you.”
Bunny didn’t even hesitate. “A home cooked meal would be awesome, Ambre.”
“It’s a third-floor apartment, but we have an elevator,” she said to Meany.
“Why, are you afraid I’ll beat you up the stairs?” he asked.
“Oh, he’s a wiseass,” Ambre said to Bunny. “I like him.”
