Heroes: A Raconteur House Anthology

by Honor Raconteur

  “We need more power channeled through the umbilical,” Vladimir stated calmly. “We need more power.”

  “That’s crazy!” exclaimed the woman. “It’s on the verge of melting now! It won’t take the extra current! And more acceleration will break the stays on the solar arrays!”

  “Would you rather let one of those nuclear tipped missiles out there catch us?” Vladimir asked, eyebrows raised.

  Leaning forward, Manami began furiously typing at a keyboard. “Safety interlocks released! More power available whenever you want it!”

  “Thank you very much,” Vladimir responded quickly in Japanese, before closing the channel.

  “Tango 3B destroyed!” he heard Opinchuk loudly announce.

  “Lt. Balakirev!” Vladimir commanded. “Emergency flank acceleration! Immediately!”

  “But….” Balakirev’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Sir!!”

  “Just do it, Lieutenant! Give it all you’ve got!” Vladimir ordered. “Or we’re all dead!”

  The lieutenant gulped and then unenthusiastically nodded. “At once, sir!”

  “Tango 3C, missed!” Opinchuk shouted, his voice edged with panic. “AMM 6 missed Tango 3C! Retargeting AMM 6 to Tango 4! Anti-missile laser now targeting Tango 3C! Kill probability is only 40%!”

  A new and stronger vibrational mode swept through the control center, consoles rattling. A glance at a monitor showed that hull stress levels at several locations were beyond critical. Once any one spot yielded, the whole structure could let loose. Hull disintegration and ship destruction was imminent, even without the missiles.

  “Colonel!” yelled Opinchuk through the link. “Sir, hull stress levels on the Savitskaya are nearing the critical level! Sir, one of the solar arrays has parted from the Pawa Maru! We need to reduce power!”

  “Engine temperatures nearing critical levels!” shouted Istomin. “Coolant pumps 2 and 8 beyond design limits, bearing failures and pump seizure any second now! Gen-jector #1 stress levels are dangerously high! Field stress imbalance beyond redline limits! I don’t know which one will kill us first! Sir, we simply MUST reduce power. We’ll come apart any moment now!”

  “Sir!! IT’S WORKING!” Balakirev screamed. “Delta-vee is increasing rapidly! Angle on Tango 3C is rising fast! Repeat, Warhead 3C will be a clean miss!”

  “Warhead separation on Tango 4!” shouted Opinchuk. “Retargeting anti-missile laser on Tango 4A!”

  “Sir!!” shouted Istomin. “We must reduce power NOW! The umbilical cord is starting to melt!”

  Vladimir held his breath. Just a few seconds more. It was the biggest gamble of his whole life. Which would happen first? Escape? Or would the ship just vaporize into a trillion microscopic fragments? A glance at the monitor showed the ship’s acceleration was at 123.4% of rated capability. Amazing! Simply amazing!

  “Lt. Istomin!” Vladimir shouted. “In fifteen seconds! Go to 90% power!”

  “Tango 4A is veering off course, probable laser damage!” Opinchuk yelled. “AMM 6 has destroyed Tango 4B! Re-targeting laser to Tango 4C!”

  “In ten seconds!” Istomin cried in panic. “Hull damage in compartment 49! Hatch seal failure in corridor 37! Frame member 432 failure! Now frame members 431 and 433 are gone! Estimate fatalities in compartment 18!”

  “Sir, Tango 4C bearings are increasing!” Balakirev screeched.

  “90% power! NOW!” roared Vladimir.

  “Power cut!” screamed Istomin. “Frame members 430 and 434 are gone, compartments 17 and 19 now open to space! Stress levels have peaked…and are decreasing! Sir, we’ve done it! WE’VE DONE IT!!”

  The control center crew whooped and hollered loudly with joy, their faces beaming wildly. Muscles trembling in relief, Vladimir slapped the console of his workstation hard while grinning at his crew. Then, sinking back in his seat, he briefly closed his eyes in fatigue. They had made it, but there had been fatalities. He grieved for them.

  “Okay, everyone! Great job!” he shouted over the bedlam. “Istomin, reduce power to 20% and organize a rescue and search party for compartments 17, 18 and 19!” he ordered firmly. “Lt. Balakirev, plot us a course back over Hawaii. We’ve got a promise to keep, to return one slightly damaged powersat to its proper orbit.” He unbuckled himself and made it out of his seat. “Col. Opinchuk, as per my instructions, you are to arrest me immediately. I request not to be thrown in the brig but simply confined to quarters. I suggest you put your executive officer in command of the Savitskaya in the meantime. As soon as you can arrange it, I request a memorial service for those that have died since the start of our little adventure, including the Japanese. Oh, and Opinchuk? Thanks.”

  With that, Vladimir powered off his PHUD and pulled it from his head, slowly propelling himself past a very surprised Lt. Balakirev in the direction of his cabin and a much needed rest. Every muscle in his body felt like it was encapsulated in lead. Indeed, some of those muscles were quivering in exhaustion and threatening to fold up on him.

  But more than anything else at this moment, he felt the need to escape, to get away from the crew so that he could deal with the mental conflicts of emotions he was suddenly inundated with. Yes, they had succeeded. But the cost had been very high. It would take time for him to deal with the emotional repercussions, time to heal from the physical and emotional strains.

  For the rest of his life, he knew he would regret the laws he had broken, the deaths he had caused. But he could and would deal with that. And he knew too, that even after all the decisions he had made, he could still look himself in the mirror.

  EPILOGUE

  Major General Mikhail Istomin pulled himself along the handrail of the dimly lit and rocky corridor, away from the shuttle’s airlock and from the other two disembarking passengers. The air here at Kruzhka’s Wharf was cold and musty with a faint tinge of mechanical smells. Istomin could see his breath when he exhaled, it was that cold.

  A mental command from him solicited the current local time from his PHUD. If Istomin went straight to the funeral home, there would be time for a viewing before the service, but just barely.

  As a general rule, Mikhail avoided funerals whenever possible. They were depressing and served as too much of a reminder of every human’s mortality, especially his own. One day—hopefully somewhere in the distant future—it would be his funeral. When that day came, he seriously hoped it would be in a far better place and with greater attendance than this one. In truth, the only reason he was here was at the personal invitation of a longtime acquaintance. Well, okay, perhaps there was a second reason as well—a general feeling of the guilt he would have if he avoided this particular funeral, even if it had cost him four days in a shuttle to reach this god-forsaken outpost of humanity and would cost him another four days for the return trip back to Gagarin II Station in Earth’s orbit.

  Another mental command produced a PHUD-generated holographic map of the corridors and by-ways of Kruzhka’s Wharf, a half-asteroid/half-metal constructed space station on the inner edge of the asteroid belt beyond the orbit of Mars. Mikhail had to admit that the new PHUD he been issued by the Russian Federation Military Command was considerably more capable than the PHUDs manufactured only a few short years ago, let alone the PHUD he had worn on the old Johann Kruzenshtern so many years back. Where would the technology stop, he wondered. And what would the PHUDs look like in another ten years? He dismissed the thought as unproductive and instead hurried on, heading outward from the docking center at the axis of the station towards the outer decks, where the centrifugal force of the station’s spin simulated the effect of gravity.

  A short distance onward, the increasing effect of such force required him to use his feet again, though each step easily propelled him a couple of meters forward. At the end of the corridor, he took a drop tube downward thirty-five decks, where he strode briskly along in half-gee down a main thoroughfare for several hundred meters before turning left for another hundred or so. Along the way, he passed a variety of other people—e
veryone from obvious Belt prospectors, to maintenance workers, to shoppers and a variety of other types. He passed by a number of small businesses too, ranging from grocery outlets to clothing concerns to sporting shops and two churches. There was even one kosher delicatessen!

  The last corridor he entered was darker and even colder than the others, and Istomin shuddered as he made his way to the doorway of the Ahren & Kheruvim Funeral Home. With a mental sigh, he triggered his PHUD to activate the motorized door.

  It slid open to reveal a traditional and clean, if somewhat threadbare, funeral parlor. The room was heavily accented in wood trim (what had that cost?) and was furnished with thick cream-colored pile carpeting, several heavily framed arm chairs, and even a fire-place complete with a marble mantel (though there was no fire, thank heavens!)

  A short thin-framed white-haired man dressed in a black suit (was there any other color in a funeral home?) two sizes too large stood smiling a few meters away. With an outstretched hand, he beckoned Istomin forward.

  “And you must be General Istomin, of the Russian Federation military,” the man said in accented but understandable Russian. “My condolences to you at this time of mourning. My name is Diarmuid Quinn. Your associates have been expecting you. If you will come this way, the visiting room is just down this hallway.”

  Mikhail nodded once and let the man lead him to another room with more cream-colored carpet and wood trim. Inside, there were a few metal chairs for visitors, and beyond that, a small metal casket with the lid propped open.

  “Hello, General. It’s nice to see you again,” a familiar female voice said in greeting.

  Istomin turned and half smiled at Dr. Irina Dubov, now white-haired and thinner. Just behind her was Lt. General Grigory Opinchuk (retired, what, five years ago now?).

  “It’s nice to see you both,” Istomin said politely. “I received your message, Irina. As you can see, I managed to break away, but the Russian President was not very happy about it.”

  “Yes,” nodded Opinchuk in polite agreement. “Terribly inconsiderate of the deceased to pass away almost on the eve of the launch of the Seymon Dezhnyov, the first manned interstellar spacecraft. By the way, congratulations on your assignment as the commanding officer.”

  Dr. Dubov reached out and put a hand on the sleeve of Opinchuk’s jacket. “Please behave, Grigory. He did come. And how many others do you see here?”

  Istomin glanced around the room to see how many others were in attendance. There were two Belt prospectors, a woman in a lab coat who was obviously the undertaker or mortician, and the funeral director, the thin white-haired man Quinn.

  Approaching the casket, Istomin glanced down at the body inside.

  Col. Vladimir Ushakov was pasty white, much older, bald-headed and thinner but still just as short. The smile on his highly wrinkled face appeared unnatural, as if the mortician had been forced to work especially hard to make the face distort in that manner. Dressed totally in white with a wide belt, the corpse actually succeeded in looking uncomfortable.

  “He had a hard life out here, didn’t he?” Istomin asked, half in question and half as an observation of fact. “I mean, I didn’t follow his life after the court-martial. I don’t even know how he made it out here to the Belt or what he died of.”

  “It’s not much of a story,” Opinchuk observed with a shrug. “As you know, the government held that very fast court-martial and then quickly shuffled him off into retirement, rewarding him with a small private dacha in eastern Russia, not far from the Mongolian border. Well, the public can have a really short memory as you well know. Five years later, he applied for an exit visa to Phobos Station and re-instatement of rank. They denied him reinstatement of rank, of course, but frankly, they were just as glad to see him leave Earth.”

  “But he got bored at Phobos,” Irina said, picking up the storyline. “And so he wrangled a trip out here to the Belt. I didn’t hear much from him after that. For a while, I know that he prospected for gold and platinum and made a little money. Then he worked as a mining foreman at 16 Psyche, that M-type asteroid heavy in metals, quit that, ran for mayor here at Kruzhka’s Wharf, but lost. Then he had just been knocking around the Asteroid Belt ever since.”

  Quinn moved toward a small podium to the right of the casket and raised a hand to get everyone’s attention.

  “We welcome everyone here to the funeral services of Vladdy Kosloff, known earlier in his life as Vladimir Ushakov, formerly a full Colonel in the Russian Federation military, back before the consolidation of the military services. Vladdy was an outstanding member of the Belter community, a hero to many for the unstinting and unending services he gave to others while he lived amongst us. If there are any here that wish to express their feelings at this poignant moment, we invite them to step forward and to say a few words.”

  With that, the white-haired funeral director stepped back, hands folded in front of him, a benevolent smile on his face.

  Dr. Dubov moved forward without hesitation, turned and faced the room, a sad smile on her face.

  “My name is Dr. Irina Dubov. I helped design many of the early ships with gravitic drive including the first one, the old Johann Kruzenshtern. I never knew the deceased as Vladdy Kosloff but I knew him well as Vladimir Ushakov. He was my commanding officer on the Vanya, as we called it, the first spatial gravitic spacecraft. He was a brilliant commander, a resourceful commander, a true leader of men and one of the greatest men I have ever known in my life. It was due to his decisions that the ship and the lives of nearly every person on board, including mine, were saved.”

  She paused a moment, a tear at the corner of one eye. “He didn’t deserve what they did to him, afterward. He was a hero, in the true sense of the word. Vladimir…Vladdy saved not only us and the ship, but he saved the future of the spatial gravitic drive. And by saving that future, he saved the future of the Russian Federation. It was he, more than any politician, who has made the Russian Federation the premier superpower of Earth and of the entire Solar System. But instead of showering him with gratitude and medals, the government used him as a scapegoat and punished him for the disaster that was not of his making.”

  With a swipe of the back of her hand, she brushed the tear away. “All of that is long in the past, of course. I understand why they did it but I still won’t forgive them for it. For Vladdy, I know he must be in a better place, a place where he will be recognized, appreciated and loved for the kind of man he is.” Another pause. “Every year that goes by, I light a candle for him, in remembrance of his sacrifice. I miss him.”

  With that, she stepped away. There was a deathly silence in the room now, and Istomin felt thoroughly uncomfortable, struggling inside himself with the decision of offering a few words or not. But he knew not what to say.

  Opinchuk shocked him by stepping forward, turning, and facing the small group.

  “I am Grigory Opinchuk, a former Russian general, now retired,” he said in almost a choking manner. “I also knew Vladdy when he was the commanding officer of the Johann Kruzenshtern. Without a doubt, Vladdy was the most courageous man I have ever known. When the Russian government court-martialed him, Vladdy didn’t raise a hand in his own defense. It was his choice. He knew someone had to pay the price for the disaster and for the deaths of so many. Even though he was a hero, they punished him. Even when the truth came out a few weeks later, when the true cause of the disaster was found, he didn’t protest or point an accusing finger. It was discovered that the scientists had ignored a secondary spatial effect from the gravitic drive, one that stresses crystalline materials such as glass and silicon. This is a well-known effect now but was unknown back then. Little did anyone know that the primary contractor had used a crystalline material in the design of the fusion plant deuterium feed lines. With too much spatial distortion, the feed lines failed and the fusion plant exploded.” Opinchuk paused too as he struggled with his emotions. “Vladdy also didn’t protest when that same contractor was given major space c
onstruction contracts, building fusion plants for ships that are even now still in service.”

  Stiffening his back, Opinchuk looked upward. “I could never have endured what he endured. I could never thank Vladdy enough for his sacrifices. When I was promoted to major general, it was through my efforts that he was allowed to leave Earth, to go first to Phobos and then here to the Belt. It was the least I could do for the service—for the sacrifice—he had given to us. I, too, miss him greatly.”

  And he stepped away, glassy-eyed, swallowing with difficulty. Without a pause, he strode out of the room and out of the funeral home. Istomin never saw him again in person after that.

  The next and last person to speak was one of the Belt prospectors. A tall thin man with unruly salt-and-pepper hair, a long nose and a pronounced chin cleft stepped forward and smiled at Istomin and Irina before speaking in a pronounced French accent.

  “My name is Aurélien Francois Charles André Bonnett, at your service. We all knew Vladdy was ex-Russian military but he never told us more than that, nor his former last name. To us, he was and always will be Vladdy Kosloff.

  “Out here, a man’s past doesn’t mean much. It’s what he does now that counts. Maybe Vladdy wasn’t appreciated on Earth. But he was appreciated here, let me tell you. To many, he is a hero in Belter space. It is a shame that more ships are not in port right now or there would be more people here, to pay him service for all the things he has done. And Vladdy did plenty, I say. Always helping people. Anyone get in trouble, bam! Vladdy was there in his little one-man ship to help. Saved a lot of lives the last few years. Mine too, a couple years back.”

  Bonnet let loose a long sigh and he too wiped a tear from one eye. “He never married, never had any children, he lived and died alone. That’s really sad, you know. But he was a real saint, the man was. We’re going to miss him, miss him real bad, we will. Everyone in the whole sector. It’s like losing a guardian angel, a real hero. Just like that. Losing a hero.”