The Blitzkrieg

by Yuri Hamaganov

  The hatch disappears into the bulkhead, Boris dives in, and in minutes tears pictures of naked girls off the walls and ceiling.

  “So, babes, it's time for you to retire. Well, here's your personal kingdom. Get comfortable.”

  The operator compartment is two and a half by one and a half meters, with no portholes. No equipment or instruments, only a powerful anti-overload chair with a complex seatbelt and oxygen supply system; the operator is reclining. A pleasant yellow light like the morning sun radiates from the walls, similar to yellow volcanic glass. It is clear why there are no devices here—the compartment itself is one large neural interface that leads directly to the Matrix.

  “I like it.”

  “Good. We’re leaving you alone with our boss; he doesn’t like strangers here. Have a nice day.”

  Boris leaves, the hatch closes, and the girl fastens herself to the chair.

  “Rawhide!”

  The cruiser electronics far exceed the old equipment in High House—never before has the work in the Matrix been so easy and pleasant. The mind expansion didn’t cause any inconvenience. Her thoughts are unprecedentedly clear, with no interference. The Bolshevik suddenly becomes transparent, made of colored glass, and she sees it in its entirety and at the same time part by part. Her mind, divided into billions of copies, senses every detail and mechanism of the cruiser. Time doesn’t slow down—it simply stops, giving her the opportunity to respond adequately to any, even the most fleeting change in the space-time continuum.

  “So, Olga, now you see the whole ship, except for some compartments, which are temporarily inaccessible. These restrictions will be soon removed. Don’t be offended, for as Comrade Stalin said, healthy mistrust is a good basis for joint work. Now proceed to the first practical task. Show me a control system.”

  “Roger!”

  The colored glass is rapidly dimming, giving way to bright red lines piercing all the decks and compartments—this is the Bolshevik’s nervous system.

  “Pay attention—your task is to eliminate the damage to the communication line in the section I indicated.”

  The general scheme of the cruiser disappears; Olga sees one section on the starboard side. Here it is—the superconductivity of the auxiliary bus is broken by microscopic particles of dust, creating weak but sensitive interference.

  “You see the breach of a small line like a pebble in your shoe—it’s not fatal, but it is uncomfortable. I can eliminate it myself, but I want to give this opportunity to you.”

  “Roger!”

  Olga, who has missed her favorite work for long months of imprisonment, with an undisguised pleasure falls upon the necessary sector, eliminating the damage in a short time, erasing the molecules of dust and updating the conductor.

  “Execution accuracy is high. Thank you, comrade.”

  “Pleased to try, Uncle Joe.”

  Uncle Joe drums Olga for the next six hours, and then he stops the first lesson and sends her to get acquainted with her comrades-in-arms at their workplaces.

  The girl descends to the fourth deck, where she is met by another Lieutenant Commander—Wolff Peters, a stocky, bald-headed man with quick eyes. The scope of his duties is extremely wide. He holds a diploma in life support engineering and calls himself a boatswain, who keeps all their institutions in order. Comrade Peters arranges a tour on his departmental territory, showing Olga holds, workshops, and storehouses, not forgetting to dilute the excursion with sarcastic comments and obscene naval jokes. Among other things, Wolff sometimes manages the galley, treating the crew with the creations of his culinary genius—he has thoroughly mastered the complex science of space cooking.

  The second officer on the fourth deck is Lieutenant Veniamin Domcheev. Olga has seen him before, during her unexpected escape. Like Comrade Peters, Veniamin is a professional generalist—a certified space builder, a master of emergency repairs. He also leads a platoon of Marines during boarding attacks as senior officer. As Uncle Joe says, Wolff and Veniamin watch to ensure that the Bolshevik doesn’t fall apart on the run. Wolff watches from the inside, and Veniamin is outside. They are both hilarious people, who take great pleasure in their complex and dangerous work.

  Having perused the hold, Olga climbs up to the central post. Getting into the control room of the warship was an old childhood dream, and now the girl can’t suppress awe, although she calls on herself to take things in calmly—she's not a tourist here; she's a Bolshevik like everyone else, and now this is her ship too.

  The central post is a narrow compartment, stretching up above the armored disk, like a multi-story apartment with a transparent wall, which provides a breathtaking view of the abyss. There are only a few devices—the crew manages the cruiser through the Matrix, where each officer becomes one with the main computer without the need for auxiliary tools.

  On the first level is the pilot's seat—a powerful anti-overload system designed for an operator in a heavy fighting suit. Above and slightly behind the navigator's workplace, both chairs are empty—Yuri and Natalia are currently free from their watch.

  Even higher is the fire control post of Commander Igor Severov, one of the five senior officers of the Bolshevik—it is he who manages all the cruiser weapons.

  “Olga, come here.”

  Klimov hails her from the captain's chair, installed above the fire control post. At the moment, he carries the watch alone.

  “Uncle Joe praises your work, which rarely happens. He is pleased with your enrollment, which means I'm happy. In five hours, we’ll land in Freeport, where part of the crew will go ashore for rest. However, you aren’t allowed to go outside until we make you new documents. In addition, Elena wants to work on you—you still don’t meet our physical standards. Do you have any business on the moon?”

  Olga decides not to hide anything.

  “Yes, I would like to take money from my account in Lunograd, but for this I have to visit the bank personally. Can this be arranged?”

  “Yes, after we make the papers, we'll give you leave. You are free.”

  Olga once again glances around, looking in the direction of the closed roof hatch, which leads to the radar post where Anastasia reigns; she hasn’t the slightest desire to go up there. She leaves the central post and goes down to the third deck, spending the next hour in the gym. For dinner, Wolff makes, especially for her, a portion of branded Navy-style spaghetti. Olga enjoys the fine dish and watching the play of her comrades in an unknown version of space poker.

  “How was your day?”

  Comrade Frunze still shares her tiny cabin. For most of the day, the old man slept, recovering after the resonator, but now he is awake and doesn’t mind talking, so Olga decides not to miss the opportunity.

  “Everything is fine; I'm already working. Excuse me, Comrade Frunze, can I ask you a question? Forgive me for being indiscreet, but why did the Bolsheviks risk so much to save you? They came to a private jail for you, releasing me by chance. But you were never on their team and, apparently, never served in the Navy. Was it a private order?”

  “Yes, they released me because they were well paid by my colleagues. And I also knew Fedor before. Without having that personal acquaintance, he wouldn’t have agreed to this contract; such things aren’t done otherwise.”

  “Then who are you? I was looking for information about you in the Matrix, and although I know how to do it, I didn’t find anything.”

  “As it should be. There is no personal information about me in the Matrix. But you probably know about the financial organization Ararat?”

  Olga has more than once used the services of the Ararat private financial network in order to hide her illegal income from the corporation. She isn’t aware of a better financial system if you need to secretly transfer money or launder illegal capital.

  “Now I understand. Are you one of the Ararat presidents?”

  “Actually, I'm the sole auctioneer. Ararat—my brainchild—brought me so much money and so many problems in my old age.”<
br />
  Frunze Anastasovich was born more than a hundred years ago, in the Soviet Union, in the capital of one of the Union’s republics.

  “It was a good time. Childhood in the Union was happy. There were no problems, and it was a sea of adventure,” the old man says slowly. Then the peace vanished, and Frunze was sent to the front lines in a fierce conflict between the Union’s former neighbors. War brought him several awards and invaluable experience, taking in return his left hand above the elbow.

  “Now it's a real hand, but I used prostheses for more than thirty years. After the war, I was luckier than many others—my family was rich; I had my own business, though there were often violations of the law. I feel ashamed about many things to this day. That period of time was nasty, and the people were the same. I'm no exception. Anyway, at the beginning of the first wave of space expansion, my finances exceeded one billion, and then the American government turned against me. I needed to urgently save the capital, and I didn’t think of anything better than investing in the emerging space industry.

  Strangely enough, my idea worked, although I myself didn’t believe in space. As a result, I became even richer. My property in orbit was steadily growing, and in 2048, I finally had the courage to personally visit my domain. I observed the creation of an industrial belt, the construction of private colonies, and the beginning of emigration—I observed it and actively participated in it. I saw a war, during which I almost lost everything. And after the war, I finally moved to high orbits—Earth gravity and ecology are bad for the health when combined with old age, but here, I expected to live for a long time. And I lived, quite successfully, before I was thrown into prison for all my sins. Funny biography, isn’t it?”

  Olga can’t immediately find a response.

  “In any case, thank you, for having so much money and friends—otherwise I would still be in that cell. I'm lucky that you and I have a common enemy, whoever he is.”

  “Always glad to help.”

  “Crew—attention! Prepare for a braking maneuver!”

  “Well, we are driving up to the home,” mutters the old man, fastening himself. In thirty-five minutes, the Bolshevik would land on the moon, in one of the private docks on the outskirts of Freeport.

  CHAPTER FOUR: BUSINESS ABOVE ALL

  “Your breathing, pulse, and blood pressure are stabilized; your temperature is 36.9, which is reduced. How are you feeling?”

  “OK!”

  Olga listens to Elena while looking over the hold through a thin layer of pickle, which doesn’t interfere with the survey and which, it seems, doesn’t touch the skin at all. “If I stop thinking about it, I’ll soon forget that my suit is completely filled with a liquid stabilizer and I’ll swim in it like a sardine in oil,” she says to herself.

  For most people, twenty times overload is deadly, although sometimes trained pilots have sustained much higher short-term accelerations. Space flights, especially on a warship, require not only survival but also the continuing work of the crew under the most severe overloads, so a liquid stabilizer comes to the rescue. The technique is simple, developed by Tsiolkovsky—the stabilizer fills the whole suit, allowing the pilot to significantly increase the allowable overload.

  The stabilizer, aka pickle, contains a sufficient amount of oxygen, allowing the pilot to breathe, completely filling the lungs, and not interfering in any way with work. The most unpleasant aspect is the moment of filling the spacesuit with pickle, but Chernova solved this problem with a short hypnotherapy session.

  “I had to correct your reflexes and instinct of self-preservation, so now, when the pickle fills the spacesuit with you, you won’t feel any discomfort. In combat mission, you often have to stay in spacesuits for days and weeks, so you can forget about normal nutrition—you’ll receive everything you need through a dropper directly into your blood. I personally prepare the nutritional formula.”

  “I’ll miss pemmican.”

  Hypnosis helps, as promised. "Pickling" is successful—the spacesuit is filled in less than a third of a second. Olga don’t even feel her lungs filling with liquid; only small bubbles come out her nose for five seconds then stop. Her blood pressure jumps and her temperature rises, but, having calmed her breathing, Olga is able to restore her natural parameters, and her first pickling is successful.

  “So, girl, stop idling and start the morning exercises!”

  “Joseph, don’t rush a student!”

  After waiting a minute, Olga starts a series of gymnastic exercises for the speedy adaptation to a heavy fighting suit. In the High House, she didn’t have such a suit, and now Olga must get used to an unfamiliar combat machine with every muscle, every nerve ending.

  Having finished her exercises, Olga drains the pickle and throws back her helmet. The suit opens, releasing her. As she expected, her training overalls are completely dry—the pickle doesn’t stick to the fabric.

  The girl goes to breakfast, gently climbing through the tunnel—she isn’t yet become accustomed to the amusing lunar gravity, which is six times less than Earth's gravity. After training in a spacesuit, you always want to eat, so the omelet and crab salad come in very handy. Olga lunches in splendid isolation, looking through the panoramic window onto the stepped walls of dock №53 and the surrounding gray plain. The Bolshevik remains in this stepped pit on the outskirts of Freeport for one hundred hours. The cruiser has been seized by the landing masts, connected with the main gateway by a long, flexible tunnel. If she turns on the upper cameras, she can see dozens of parking lots, some are empty and some are full of ships.

  The painkiller has worn off, and Olga again begins to feel an extremely rare feeling for her—an aching pain in her bones, from which she has been unable to escape for four days already. Her body is continuing to transform. The pain should pass by this evening, and she can’t is counting down the hours.

  Immediately after landing, Elena assigned her a series of operations to increase her endurance and reconfigure her reflexes, in alignment with the requirements of the warship. Olga's objection, insisting that she had already undergone such operations in early childhood didn’t help.

  “This stupid girl needs to understand that a warship isn’t her cozy near-Earth house. You were trained according to the weak requirements of the civilian orbital stations, with a maximum overload not greater than ten. And the old Bolo in combat can maneuver short-term accelerations of up to three hundred G, during which your body weighs twenty-four tons. And, if you don’t go through the combat transformation, during such a maneuver, your bones will disintegrate into a powder, along with guaranteed blindness, aortic rupture, and cerebral hemorrhage. How would you like that?”

  “What about the suit and the pickle?”

  “They will help only for Changed pilot. In addition to increasing your endurance and modifying your reflexes, there is still much work for us to do; in fact, I’ll have to rebuild you. Right now, you aren’t suitable for our work; only your brain meets the requirements. You are surprisingly weak and slow and regenerating at a low level, the potential of your nervous system are unsatisfactory, and so on. But even from this inexperienced girl, I’ll be able to make a real Bolshevik. Enough wrangling; time is money.”

  Olga seized her last opportunity.

  “But this operation requires a lot of time, plus a preparatory period.”

  “In the usual version, yes. But for a long time I have been developing an accelerated modernization program, and now I need to test it on someone. I need a suitable guinea pig. I have no guinea pig, but I have you, so climb on the table!”

  The operation took ten hours, which Olga spent in deep anesthesia, and was very happy about it. Elena and Uncle Joe literally gutted her, rebuilt her insides, and sewed her up again. Her heart is now much more powerful. It can still pump blood to her brain at the most severe overloads, and her arteries are strengthened. Most of her nerve tissue has been replaced by a synthetic analog. Her former reinforced bones seemed to Elena to be ridiculously fragi
le, so surgical nanorobots were introduced into her skeleton, to transform her bone tissue into a much stronger material. It is this process that provides her with a dull pain that the medicines can’t kill, along with many other changes that are turning her into an ideal astronaut.

  After breakfast, Olga has a couple of simple equipment checks, then the girl rests, suffering pain and killing time, throwing knives into a target. Elena is watching the latest issue of Space Surgery in her compartment; all the others have gone to the city. David Bowie calls on Major Tom when the red lights of the combat mode flash.

  “Alarm! Shooting on dock №28!”

  “Elena!”

  “Don’t panic, it's not our business. Stay at the saloon and wait for Joseph's directions. The crew already knows.”

  The upper cameras show a concrete ring of the twenty-eighth dock, located five kilometers to the south.

  “Tenfold zoom!”

  The same dock appears in a closer view, searchlights are dimly lit, air etching through the broken pipe. At the overpass lies an overturned all-terrain vehicle, and next to it, a body in a spacesuit. For half a minute, nothing happens, then there is a bright flash, and the orange hemisphere of a medium-sized transport rises majestically.

  “Broad daylight robbing,” suggests Elena.

  “No chance," Uncle Joe replies with a sly grin.

  The transport climbs fifteen kilometers when a silent flame burns through its body twice—an X-ray laser. The fugitive’s engines die out, the ship freezes in the void for a few second, and then it begins to fall, first slowly, then rapidly gaining speed. The third battery rises to the zenith; the main computer is preparing to destroy the ship if it starts to fall on the city. Shooting isn’t necessary though—the transport collapses fifty kilometers to the north, in the mountains.

  “What the hell was that?” Olga asks, examining the crash site from the nearest satellite.

  “A hijacking attempt. Welcome to Freeport!”