CHAPTER SEVEN: LEGEND
“The death sentence!”
Olga adds her electronic signature, thereby completing a short session of the military court. In principle, it was possible to do everything without litigation, but Riley insisted on compliance with all formalities; computers have their own principles. The five seriously wounded captive pirates were convicted of numerous war crimes against the people of New Louisiana, convicted, sentenced, and immediately executed; everything took about a minute and a half.
The shots rattle off, robot-cleaners begin to recycle the bodies, and Olga continues to patch the software of the hydroponic greenhouses, while simultaneously viewing the protocols of interrogation. Uncle Joe personally interrogated the prisoners, not trusting this case to Riley, and Voronov assisted him, like a nurse in a complex operation. The girl found the job very interesting, not to compare with the setting of the cabbage irrigation system—before that, she had practiced electronic methods of inquiry only on the simulator, not having the opportunity to apply torture in practice.
Six seriously wounded pirates, none of them older than twenty, four guys and two girls, were all, naturally, Changed. In the pirate army, there are no ordinary people; that would contradict Boddicker's philosophy and the Reich's ideology. It is generally accepted that Tartar pirates don’t possess the latest biotechnologies and are modestly modernizing their fighters in clandestine workshops. But Olga just needs one glance at the captive enemies to understand the depth of this delusion—their bodies weren’t created by handicraftsmen; the Changing was done with a high degree of quality and must have cost a lot.
Engineers and biologists worked hard, turning once-ordinary people into killing machines, ideally suited for boarding combat. All six were rank-and-file infantrymen of assault groups, poorly trained in space flights or the use of complex weapons systems, and Olga is confident that in a long-distance battle, she would have dealt with them easily. But with close fire contact, during a boarding fight or in hand-to-hand combat, they would take her scalp in one second—the girl has no doubts about this.
The usual methods of interrogation aren’t suitable here; pirates are completely insensitive to pain, so it’s necessary to break their brains with electronics, just as Antonina once interrogated Malena, then a simple criminal and not a Gauleiter. Of course, Olga would get much more pleasure torturing her again, but the Gauleiter managed to escape, and she would have to work with her assistants.
The pirates also must be tough nuts, and Joseph had to work hard, with the utmost care, to crack their brains. In the Space Reich, captivity is considered shameful, and pirates are insured in advance against this shame by numerous protective mechanisms that threaten to instantly kill them in case of interrogation. Olga managed to block the neuro detonators with great difficulty before Uncle Joe neutralizes them, and yet a tiny error she made instantly burned the brain of one of the prisoners.
“Fraulein, I would ask you to be a little more cautious . . .”
“I beg your pardon, Chief, it won’t happen again!”
The last detonator is rendered harmless; the main computer starts the interrogation, breaking the enemy's resistance to a series of carefully selected virtual tortures. They withstand it well, standing under pressure from Joseph for thirty minutes, stretched out for several centuries of pain, fear, and despair. It is interesting, Olga thinks, contemplating the virtual hell they created. How much would I have survived in there? Thirty minutes, forty, maybe an hour?
The interrogation is over; data processing can begin. Uncle Joe is looking for everything valuable that could be preserved in the memory of the pirates, knowing in advance that he won’t find much. Ordinary pirates are kept in a state of information vacuum, reliably cutting off important information and actively filling the voids with high-quality propaganda.
“So, they don’t know anything about Boddicker’s plans, except for a few slogans about the coming Great War. The last order is to stand to death in New Louisiana. Let’s see if they have something new for their enemies, that is, for us . . .”
The captured pirates know little about the Red Dawn—they know the Wasp Queen and a couple of her closest associates and they have some idea of the structure of the Dawn and the potential of enemy soldiers, but in general, they know nothing of interest. Their data about the Bolsheviks turned out to be more complete, however; Boddicker and his people know the entire crew of the cruiser, except for Olga, about whom exact data hasn’t yet been available, although the pirates are aware of the presence on the cruiser of a new specialist in electronic warfare. Now she is glad that she doesn’t have any relatives left.
“So, we must once again strengthen the security measures for the relatives of our valiant crew. And we really need to talk to someone from the Reich's officers. Maybe Elizabeth will throw us some prisoners,” Uncle Joe summarizes the results of the interrogation. “Okay, give these hooligans to a tribunal.”
Next comes the swift trial, the verdict, and the public execution displayed by Riley for all the new inhabitants of New Louisiana, whose number is constantly growing. The station itself is changing rapidly; engineering teams are dismantling entire sections in the main cylinder, replacing the destroyed areas with hydroponic farms and production lines brought from somewhere. It seems suspicious to Olga, and she calls Elena on the most secure line.
“Less than a day after we freed Louisiana, and ships with spare parts are already going to rebuild the station into a giant factory. Elizabeth couldn’t have organized everything during the war that just started, so was this logistics operation planned in advance?”
“Naturally, New Louisiana initially had an important role in the coming war between the Dawn and Boddicker; the colony was intended to become the largest logistics point in this area. Do you see how many people need to be provided?”
Olga once again looks at the arriving refugees—she sees earthmen and residents of the colonies, all from the Free Zone. Judging by their appearance, they had to go through hell in the last days and weeks.
“Elena, where are they all from? These aren’t the Queen's soldiers but ordinary refugees? I thought Elizabeth never takes people from the outside. I thought that we would conduct a quick raid against Tartar, not a rescue operation for tens of thousands of people . . .”
“The plans have changed, Olga. They are changing right now. Fedor will gather the military council today, but to begin with, we are waiting for a meeting with her royal highness. Elizabeth is coming . . .”
***
Elizabeth. The Wasp Queen. She's also known as the Nightmare, as well as the Fighter Angel, the Avenger, the Red Witch, and many other names and nicknames. There are many names, but the same person is behind them all.
Olga Voronov heard of Elizabeth long before she joined the Bolsheviks, long before Electra Donovan came to visit her. She knew this name even when Arina was alive. Most likely, it was the nanny who first told little Olga about this brutal assassin and the leader of the space warriors, and although Arina tried in every possible way to instill in her ward a strong dislike for any outlaw, in this particular case, her efforts led to the opposite result—Olga secretly admired Elizabeth. She admired and gathered all possible information about her heroine, trying with her own meager abilities to separate the truth from fiction. The cosmos are filled with rumors, one lie piled on another, filled with details and penetrating into the mass consciousness to such an extent that they become almost true.
And then the myths and legends of the cosmic era are born from such half-truths, and Elizabeth became one of them during her lifetime. But her legend was real.
Olga doesn’t know exactly where and when Elizabeth was born; no one knows for sure – somewhere in space, about thirty-five to forty years ago, during or after the war, in the ruins of the near-Earth space. Parents? That is unknown as well; there are different versions. Presumably, her parents were Chinese settlers, second-generation colonists who died during the war—this is the most com
mon version, which suits everyone by its plausibility. In the flames of the War, thousands of colonies were burnt. The number of dead civilians exceeded three million, and the missing or maimed nobody considered. It is logical to assume that Elizabeth lost her parents exactly like hundreds of thousands of other children, but Olga adheres to another version, because she found some documentary evidence.
Elizabeth really lost her parents in 2060, but not in the war, and several months after the end of the hostilities. Mikhail once told Olga about that strange incident, which he was a witness to . . .
On the tenth of October in 2060, a private cargo and passenger transport, Columbia, heading for Venus, gave a distress signal, after which the connection was lost. The transport switched off the radio beacons and position lights and then made a sharp turn, getting off the highway. In those days, a similar maneuver for a slow and heavy truck was deadly—the fighting had ceased recently, and the near-Earth space was swarming with mines. During the first peaceful month, minesweepers somehow managed to clear the main roads, but the complete purification took many years, and almost every day, someone flew on the minefield. Naturally, nobody initially paid attention to the SOS signal—the rescue services of both warring parties had suffered huge losses in recent battles, and they barely managed their duties in their own sectors. Nobody was going to help a private ship in such a situation.
Mikhail Petrov, who had left the hospital three days before and had temporarily received under his command an old minesweeper, was watching the leisurely flight of the Columbia from afar. The transport was lucky not to run into mines, and now it slowly moved somewhere toward the Moon. What happened, why the crew gave a distress signal, and why it then changed course—Petrov was lost in conjecture. Unable to leave the patrol zone, he periodically looked at the Columbia through a telescope while trying to figure out what kind of ship it was and to whom it belonged. But the more he learned, the more questions he thought of.
The Columbia belonged to a very peculiar colony, which before the war had been part of the American sector—New Heaven. Petrov knew that wealthy Calvinist fundamentalists settled on New Heaven and decided to build in space a kind of Noah's Ark, in which they were going to survive the inevitable apocalypse. In general, their venture worked; declaring neutrality, New Heaven survived the First Space War, although it was badly damaged during an accidental rocket attack, which led to numerous casualties. It was believed that it would be impossible to completely restore the colony, and the space Christians decided to change their place of residence, for which they acquired the Columbia—the transport had to deliver them all to Venus, where the colonists planned to build a long-term base. But the transport never reached its destination; it sent a distress signal, then changed course and headed back to Earth.
For the first few days, no one paid attention to the descended ship, but then serious activity began around the Columbia. First, an automatic reconnaissance vehicle of the newly formed Supernova Corporation approached the transport and reported that everything was in order with the ship; it simply followed another course without contact. And then the events began to develop; once again, the emergency transmitter was turned on, and someone from the leadership of New Heaven asked for help. According to the speaker, the Columbia, its crew, and its passengers had been captured by several criminals who had secretly boarded and were now trying to hide under the guise of three thousand hostages.
The Supernova warships approached the outgoing transport, and Petrov, continuing to observe their maneuvers, marveled at their haste. After the recent battles, many colonies lay in ruins, transportation was violated, hunger and lack of oxygen raged, and urgent assistance was required everywhere. In this situation, the SOS signal from New Heaven could be ignored for months, but the warships had left for Columbia only a couple of hours after the request for help. What prompted them to do so, Petrov wondered, listening to the broadcast.
The pursuers ordered the Columbia to immediately stop, turn on the position lights, and prepare to receive the inspection team. This time, an answer came from the transport—its new owners demanded that the warships open their way, threatening to otherwise throw hostages overboard.
The threat worked; the military retreated, and the Columbia continued to fly under the escort of destroyers. They flew for another two days, and all this time, the Columbia was approaching point L2, that zone of near-Earth space where the sun almost never shines, constantly covered by the dark hemisphere of Earth.
The ability of Lagrange points to keep objects inside without any fuel consumption for an infinite amount of time has long been used by mankind to utilize everything unnecessary and dangerous. It was here, one and a half million kilometers away from Earth, the space debris was accumulated for a long time, including radioactive waste—the famous Big Dump, which would later be called Tartar. After the war, broken ships and burned skeletons of colonies were sent to the Big Dump, clearing outer space, and the Columbia was moving here. In the wilds of the huge dump, it was very easy to hide, and Petrov suspected that there was a light ship waiting for the invaders of the Columbia. Their pursuers probably considered this option, and now it remained to be seen whether they would allow the bandits to leave or launch an assault, risking the lives of the hostages.
The denouement came out unexpected and bloody. When it seemed to everyone that the Columbia would be allowed to leave, the military received orders to storm the ship. The attack ended in complete failure; the transport crashed into a garbage asteroid at full speed. Of the three thousand people on board, a little less than a hundred managed to escape. The rest were declared missing, allegedly dead. The military tried for some time to search for them among the wreckage, but having lost one boat on the drifting mine, they abandoned this useless business; the incident was declared exhausted.
And after almost seven months, in a completely different sector, the Union’s passenger ship accidentally picked up a coffin—a single-seat life-saving capsule, in which a barely alive young woman, the former flight attendant of the Columbia, the only surviving parishioner of New Heaven, traveled, who told her rescuers about what had actually happened on board the ill-fated transport. It was then that a name was pronounced for the first time, in those days little known and now horrifying to the entire space—Richard Jones Boddicker.
Once upon a time, Richard Boddicker was an anthropologist and biochemist working in the NASA training center. He was listed among the pioneers of biomechanical reconstruction, which was later called Changing, and sincerely believed that the average human doesn’t fit in space, since only superhumans can survive in the endless void—superhumans, whose dedication Boddicker had been practicing for many years. The technology that provided Olga and her comrades with their perfect, practically invulnerable bodies was in many ways his legacy.
Among his colleagues, Boddicker was known for the strange habit of experimenting with his inventions on himself, repeatedly upgrading his own body. By doing this, he created many detractors among the wealthy patrons of NASA, because among the American capitalists, a serious distrust of the Changed was already growing, which soon turned into contempt. It was said that it was because of this contempt that Boddicker committed the double murder of his superiors, after which the scientist disappeared without a trace, shortly before the war.
Boddicker was declared the subject of an interplanetary search, not only officially but also among the criminals, with a huge reward offered for his death. For no apparent reason, he wasn’t needed alive by his former employers, but nobody received the reward for the scientist, and then the war began. The war began and ended, and the cargo ship Columbia made its unfortunate journey to Venus and then crashed in the Big Dump. And then the surviving flight attendant told that Richard Jones Boddicker was on board. Moreover, it was he who had captured the ship.
The flight attendant's testimony wasn’t made public; Petrov was acquainted with that data privately. The woman reported that Boddicker was hiding in their colony for over
a year, hospitably received by the founder, Father Washington. The high priest of the space Christians had big plans for the runaway scientist, because he intended to actively modernize his people using Boddicker's technologies, making his parishioners much more suitable for space. Unlike most religious leaders of those years, Father Washington wasn’t opposed to the technology of Changing. Moreover, he actively welcomed it, because he intended to live forever, and Boddicker could give him that opportunity.
Richard Boddicker, happy with the opportunity to take up his favorite business again, started to work with redoubled energy, but then faced an unexpected obstacle: not all the residents of New Heaven were delighted with his experiments.
The fact is that according to Father Washington’s plan, Boddicker had to not just modernize the people of New Heaven but also permanently consolidate in their society a rigid social and racial stratification in a biological way. Those who were proud owners of the thoroughbred Anglo-Saxon ancestry and a large block of shares had to take the dominant position in society through the Changing. For all the others, who had the wrong skin color, eye shape, skull shape, or wallet thickness, Father Washington and Richard Boddicker prepared lifelong places as servants and slaves in a rigidly structured hierarchical community that would reign in New Heaven until the end of time.
Realizing that his fascinating idea wouldn’t meet with general approval, Father Washington ordered the scientist to work in secret, but then the truth somehow surfaced at the most inopportune moment. As a result, in those days when near-Earth space burned in the flames of the First Space War, New Heaven’s own small civil war broke out, ending with a revolution, the death of Father Washington, and the imprisonment of Boddicker. And the public was told that an unguided rocket had hit the colony.
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