A King Word And a Gun

by Yuri Hamaganov

  “Sector 91, compartment 5B, fragmentation! Sector 176, compartments 82 and 13M, armor-piercing! Sector . . .”

  The Bolshevik hides behind a cloud of false targets, then makes jerks in a different direction to fire at New Louisiana from another angle. Olga, immersed in the Buran and engaged in confrontation with enemy operators, only occasionally takes the time to glimpse the huge colony right on the course.

  She has never participated in a battle against such a large space station before—the capture and pogrom of several small pirate outposts in the past six months doesn’t count. New Louisiana is twenty times larger than all of them. Only now does she have the opportunity to really appreciate the scale of this structure.

  The ten-kilometer main cylinder rotates slowly, supporting a gravity of three times less than the earth's. The small rings have stopped moving, and numerous berths and docks are empty. The position lights are off, the blackout is complete, and only the glass vault of the central deck glows golden and crimson in the sun's rays. From a distance of 390 kilometers, the dark colossus seems like a dead piece of metal and ceramics, abandoned and unable to resist an attack, but Olga is well aware of how illusory this defenselessness is. Again and again, the lasers hit point-blank, and again the heavy burden of overload falls upon her when the Bolshevik performs another maneuver, moving away from the enemy shells.

  In addition to artillery guns and lasers, the electronic warfare systems, installed in New Louisiana in large numbers, are no less a threat. The enemy operators know their business—Olga immediately understands this. They not only endure her attacks but also continuously counterattack. She has not been in such a hot fight since the battle in the Belt.

  The radar screens are drowned in impenetrable electronic snow, and the giant station becomes invisible for a short time; the shells go into emptiness. The ether is broken by a deafening crash; strobe flashes strive to burn the sensitive optical sights. The on-board electronics are subjected to hard radiation, the diagnostics warn of new damages, and the engineering section restores burnt areas and creates new lines—the radars must see. The engine must works, and guns shoot at all costs.

  In a sheaf of bright sparks, one of the New Louisiana radars burns. Olga defends from a retaliatory strike, catching herself thinking that just a month ago, the defensive system of the colony had to beat the pirates. All this power should be involved in fighting against the pirates. But several traitors killed the defense of Louisiana, along with thousands of its inhabitants. And the pirates who came to power appreciated this arsenal—appreciated it and are now successfully using it.

  “OMG, we’re boarding a pirate station! We should raise the black flag!”

  A fierce exchange of fire continues. Granddad again gives full speed, and Tokarev throws the cruiser to the left, enabling Severov to fire at the end of the main building, where the laser shield is slightly weaker than in the center. Olga manages to cover the shells with interference, and two armor-piercing shots hit New Louisiana on the board, breaking through a dozen decks and exploding deep inside.

  “Bull’s-eye!”

  The enemy fire immediately weakens; a third of the arsenal of New Louisiana is out of order. Even the most accurate shot wouldn’t bring such a result if Severov didn’t know where to shoot. But he knows, because Borgnine provided the Bolsheviks with secret information about New Louisiana’s structure, having outlined the most vulnerable points in advance.

  Exploding deep inside the main building, the shells destroy one of the three automatic fire control posts, simultaneously launching several hundred atomic invaders into the cable networks. Moving deep into the station with enormous speed, nanomachines cause extensive damage to the defensive system, primarily to the optical sights and radars. They can’t seize the whole network; powerful emitters and interceptors stop the further spread of the invisible boarding crew, but until their complete destruction, the nanomachines deal New Louisiana's defense considerable damage, as if breaking a hole in a fortress wall.

  The battle tactics change; the cruiser reduces speed, maneuvering in the dead zone. It will take many hours to repair the collapsed defensive sector, and the Bolsheviks aren’t going to allow them this time. Severov continues to methodically and accurately bombard, trying to save ammunition. Olga helps the commander with blows at ultrahigh frequencies; she also uses the temporary weakness of the enemy, suppressing the surviving electronics.

  A methodical bombardment is doing its job; in the defensive contour of Louisiana, huge holes are gaping now, and more and more shells find their targets, covering artillery guns and radars. Twice, Severov reloads the guns with armor-piercing shells with nanomachines in the core, and twice, Olga repeats devastating raids from within the station. A swarm of false targets in the meantime reduces speed, coming close to the boundaries of the minefields.

  “They are signaling again!”

  Having lost her own fleet and suffering great losses, Malena naturally tries to call for reinforcements. Completely depriving her of communication isn’t possible: even if Olga is able to muffle the radio, the Gauleiter can use signal searchlights.

  In Tartar, of course, they are already aware that the cruiser is attacking New Louisiana, and soon, retaliatory measures will follow. But in the nearest sectors, pirates don’t have large forces. Relying on the chaos and lawlessness, the invaders were confident that the Louisiana garrison was enough to defend the station and keep its surroundings under control. Therefore, there are no real warships on the piers, only light assault boats, which aren’t enough to fight the cruiser.

  Hence, the pirates will bring the reinforcements from the outside, which will take several hours—to fight the Bolshevik, they need to gather a serious squadron. And this squadron won’t go unnoticed; the huge network of Red Dawn informers tracks the movement of the Tartar fleet and will discover the approach of reinforcement long before enemy ships appear on the radars. So, the Bolsheviks have time for careful boarding, and here, the second major mistake of the invaders will play its part—killing some colonists and taking others into slavery, they are deprived of hostages and have no human shield.

  “We are continuing the educational work!”

  The fourth blow into the heart of New Louisiana is fatal—thanks to Borgnine’s drawings, Voronov traces the atomic invaders to the main processor in the shortest possible way. The impact of the boarding team causes the collapse of RAM, and the immediate restart leads to the total collapse of the defense system, which breaks up into isolated, virtually unrelated fragments. The pirates quickly lose control of the station, desperately trying to curb the rebellious main computer. The accuracy of their firing falls sharply, and the jammers disconnect one after another.

  “Reinforcements! They are coming to us on ellipse M-182 through sector RZ-2-70. The speed is thirty-one!”

  Having received a warning from Anastasia, the navigator calculates the approximate route of the pirate squadron. That's right; they are preparing to go across the minefields that they put up around New Louisiana. The mines scattered here and there will hamper the cruiser’s maneuvers, while the pirates will pass to the station through the only known passages. The speed of the detachment isn’t great; most likely, they are waiting for the approach of several more ships to assemble a more powerful squadron. At the distance of a direct shot, the pirates arrive in four, a maximum of six hours; there is time to prepare a committee for the meeting.

  “Torpedoes—fire!”

  Torpedo-crackers smoothly head to Louisiana: Joseph directs them around the few surviving guns, and Severov, with short laser hits, knocks down mines from their path. Four torpedoes hit the main body and the small rings, and two more are knocked down on their way, but those that have reached the target should suffice. The captain relieves Olga of managing the Buran, Chernova finally injects her with a powerful stimulator charge to maximize her mental activity, and Voronov immerses herself in a hacker attack.

  “Go!”

  An unapproachable pr
otective array, which covers the inner network of New Louisiana with an electron glacier a few light years thick, sweeps past her eyes in a millionth of a second. Olga sees herself as an armor-piercing projectile, a thin, heavy needle splitting the armored forehead of the Nazi Tiger, but it's nothing more than a pleasant illusion. She has no opportunity to break through the powerful glacier. No chance—and no need: why should she try to break the ice with her head if she can quietly leak into narrow, barely noticeable cracks?

  Borgnine supplied the Bolsheviks not only with secret station drawings but with a self-made master key that allowed him to intervene in the security system and make changes to the glacier's architecture, creating his own secret trails. It’s forbidden to do so; this is a gross violation of military discipline and the security code, but Borgnine did it, and not only him—all the leadership of New Louisiana put their hands to it, breaking out of the glacier lengthwise, like a chunk of Swiss cheese. Each big boss wanted to get more aces in the struggle for power; each violated the rules in the pursuit of the advantage of creating viruses, making individual edits, and harvesting the master keys; and, all together, with their unethical actions, they undermined the once impregnable defense. As a result, it was at the expense of this Achilles’ heel that Uncle Solomon overturned the boat, giving Louisiana to pirates. But now the malicious violation of the rules will be used for good; it’s Olga's turn to restore order to the facility.

  The glacier is left behind, and the inner Matrix appears in front of her like the deserted streets of a dead city in a fantasy film from a hundred years ago. The secret path leads her along the shortest way into the central sectors, accessible only to high-ranking residents of New Louisiana. Once it was crowded there, in those days when thousands of colonists together created their cozy virtual world, a reflection of their common aspirations for a luxurious life in the outer wilderness.

  Completely abandoning the ruined Earth, the colonists began to actively expand and build up the inner Matrix in order to supplement the limited space of New Louisiana with its own virtual infinity.

  This is the way residents of many rich colonies go, and Olga, who has visited tens of millions of virtual worlds, immediately notes the beauty and harmony of this Matrix; in its original state, it was very beautiful. But now, the virtual world is empty, half destroyed, and the girl walks through the streets of the dead city like a cold north wind, waving leaves and blowing off old papers from the sidewalks.

  A cold wind of invasion sweeps everywhere, to gain strength and hit the towers of the CPU. A long, translucent blade of fighter guards blasts the wind, cutting it into hundreds and thousands of fragments, but Olga staunchly endures the damage and suffers the pain, dodging shimmering swords. She increases the speed, increasing the wind and dispersing it with an eternal engine in the heart of Grond, and accelerates to such a degree that the cold stream will bend the swords and tear the roofs off the houses. It is stronger, even stronger, and now the peaks of the towers are rocking under the blows, cracks are crawling along the walls, and the foundation is groaning from an exorbitant load. She stops for a split second in dead silence and then strikes the final blow. Towers crumble, and along with them, the Matrix collapses, the splinters of which are carried away by the cold wind into the void.

  “I’m inside!”

  The cold storm seemed to last forever—a second and a quarter. And at the end of this eternity, liberated from the dictatorship of the invaders, Louisiana's main computer recognizes the Bolsheviks, if not as commanders, then as allies. Uncle Joe, having exchanged a few words with a colleague, gives her the opportunity to talk with Borgnine, while he takes control of the remnants of defensive systems. The surviving guns stop their fire, and the minefields are turned off.

  “Her name is Riley, and she's glad to stand under the old banners; she's ashamed that she was involuntarily on the side of the pirates all this time and caused irreparable harm to the inhabitants of the colony. She also apologizes for the damage done to us.”

  “Uncle Joe, tell the girl that her apology is accepted, and we forgive her for having nearly killed us, and now let her starts her work!” Olga answers irritably. Her mind has just returned from the cold storm back to the Bolshevik, to urgent repairs. Polite Riley fought brilliantly, and they have a lot of work to do. The diagnostics tool finds all the newly damaged areas. Olga is glad that the Bolsheviks found their aces in the sleeve against Riley; otherwise, she wouldn’t venture to assume the outcome of the battle. At the same time, it’s also good that Riley is alive. Now she can help them, because the pirates aren’t going to wave a white flag despite their hard plight.

  “Bandits, attention! Your gang is completely blocked, New Louisiana is surrounded, and you won’t get any help, so I suggest you surrender! Drop your weapons and give up!”

  Klimov repeats the ultimatum several times; Riley carries his words across the huge station, so that everyone sees and hears the captain. But the ultimatum leaves no other option, and everyone understands this perfectly.

  First, Malena and her tugs know that reinforcements are close; a pirate squadron will be here in a few hours.

  Second, Boddicker's pirates don’t surrender, especially to the Bolsheviks. And, thirdly, even though New Louisiana is blocked, it’s impossible to escape from it, and the defensive system has passed under the control of Riley and Joseph, the bandits have not exhausted the possibility of resistance, especially when it comes to close combat. They also have their own trump cards.

  “Listen here, you cops! You have five minutes to get out of here and return the main computer to us; otherwise, we'll start destroying the station. Everything is mined here, and if you risk boarding, your precious colony will come to an end. We’ll destroy the life support systems and blow up the reactor! Time is up!”

  “Keep calm, comrades, they're bluffing,” Riley informs the Bolshevik crew through a closed channel. “There are no mines in the reactor compartments; I already neutralized the pirate garrison there. But there are several charges in hydroponic greenhouses and water and air purification stations, as well as in warehouses and fuel tanks. I'm asking for urgent help; the pirates are climbing to the central levels!”

  In advance preparing for possible defense and gradually reconstructing the civil colony into a military base, the Gauleiter and her crew didn’t trust Riley very much, justly fearing that the main computer would turn the weapon against them as soon as possible. So, they brought in several of their own computers, united in an independent Matrix.

  And now, there are two systems of power in New Louisiana: Riley, interrupting the pirates at the central levels, takes control of the most important equipment and disables the main defensive system. But on the outer levels, the pirate computers are in charge, and Malena's thugs hastily mine everything around, trying to regain control of the guns and bursting into the center. According to Riley, the pirates have about 450 fighters and twice as many combat robots, against which she can send no more than a hundred robots of the New Louisiana police guards, as well as mobilized civilian vehicles. Reinforcements are urgently needed by both sides.

  “Full speed ahead!”

  A couple of seconds ago, they were hanging in the void, and now they rush forward, as if intending to ram the station. The shooting continues; Severov thrusts a dozen shots into the main building, directing the shells with guidance from Riley. The shells destroy dozens of pirates, reducing their numerical superiority, but carefully disguised enemy computers survive, despite all the attempts of Olga, Joseph, and Riley to find them. The assault on the central levels continues.

  “Reset!”

  When the collision seems inevitable, Tokarev abruptly changes course, and the cruiser leaves the station like a billiard ball, bouncing off the edge. Guns and laser emitters continue to fire, supporting the boarding troops. Joseph relieves Olga of other tasks and completely switches her to escorting the Marines, sending the girl as a communications officer for Domcheev, who leads the combined boarding team.r />
  “Geronimo!!!”

  For the first time in Olga’s memory, a platoon of Marines in full strength, led by a commander, is going into battle. But for the rapid capture of a large station like New Louisiana, even a full platoon may not be enough, so Red Dawn paratroopers are flying alongside the Marines in their landing capsule. Olga knows few of these guys and girls but is well acquainted with their commander—Andrei leads his comrades.

  “Kamikaze—starts the attack!”

  Hundreds of false targets, which have completed their flight and are about to begin to fall on New Louisiana, are rapidly changing shape. Metallized spheres, prisms, and cubes are transformed into crude similarities of combat suits, imitating a massive boarding attack. Now the traps will fulfill their task to the end and cover the landing, giving the boarding team the opportunity to safely land on the station.

  The pirates already know that the Bolshevik launched an assault, but they can’t use New Louisiana's main defensive system—Riley is keeping them out of the cannons. This doesn’t stop them, though, and dozens of combat robots begin to crawl through the numerous locks and technical ports to the surface, immediately lift short-barreled automatic cannons, and strike out with short bursts at the objects that are headed toward New Louisiana, fake and real.

  With a series of short laser strikes, the Commander quickly stops this disgrace, sweeping away the defenders, after which the Gauleiter no longer sends anyone outside. On the contrary, the locks and technological hatches are immediately closed. Riley reports that the pirates are welding and mining the locks in a hurry—realizing that they won’t be able to stop the landing, they decide to give battle from inside the station, where the Bolshevik's fire will no longer be as effective.

  “We land, we win, and we fly away!”

  Keeping constant contact with the boarding team, Olga watches the assault of New Louisiana through the eyes of Domcheev, Andrei, and Sherhan, sometimes switching to Lobo.

  The gray bulk of the main building slowly floats over her; the girl sees the guns frozen motionless, the dark holes in the windows, and the blocked airlocks. A short inclusion of brake motors, and now the Marines are standing on a slab of mirror-polished lunar concrete; the boarding crew landed in the ninth and tenth sector, the French Quarter. The Marines immediately drop acoustic probes on the smooth surface, and Olga plunges into a chaotic mix of sounds: shots, fires, mechanisms, the whistling of air in the holes, and many other noises that can’t be identified. But right below the landing zone is suspicious silence. The video surveillance system and motion sensors aren’t functioning; Riley is cut off from these sections.