“You corrupt others.” The governor seemed to be talking to every one of the inmates. “Did you know that? Your sins have put you not only beyond correction, but you are causing others – good, decent people – to become monsters too. I know, I know. I couldn’t believe it at first, either, but then I started to look, to really look, and what I found horrified me.
“It humbled me, too. I am only human, and I know I am no stronger than those around me. I am contaminated by your evil. I am corrupted by your sin. There is no hope for me, but by my actions, perhaps there is still hope for Russalka.”
“Oh, no,” breathed Katya. “Oh, no!” She could almost sense Senyavin’s madness, and worse yet, she knew how it would find expression. “Tasya! He means…”
Senyavin rose from his chair, and all the inmates and the guards saw the heavy maser pistol in his hand. The doctor and the major were the only people in the Deeps who, standing behind the governor, could not.
Senyavin turned to the major. “Thief,” he said simply, and shot the man in the head before he could react.
Doctor Durova cried out in surprise and backed away. Senyavin brought the gun to bear on her calmly, almost leisurely. “Traitor,” he said, and shot her.
There were shouts and gasps of disbelief from the inmates. On the screens, Senyavin sat down again, placed the pistol on the desk top, and looked into the camera. “Two good, reliable, honest people, turned to scum by contact with you. As for the guards, they are in contact with you every day. They are all compromised. We all are. We are all inmates. We are all beyond redemption.” He turned to his desk console and tapped in a few commands.
“Warning. All secure bulkheads are opening,” said the automated voice of the central computer in the slightly testy tone computers the planet over always took when issuing a warning. The bulkhead doors that had closed off the areas the guards had withdrawn to less than half an hour earlier started to slide back.
“The inmates outnumber the guards five to one,” said Tasya. “This is going to turn into a massacre.”
“But the guards are armed,” said Katya, watching in growing anxiety as the two formerly opposed gangs started to move together towards an opened door. By it a sign read “No Inmates Beyond This Point.”
“I’m not saying it’s the guards who’ll be massacred. Some of these scum are wily, though. If there’s a way to get their hands on guns, they’ll find it. This is going to get messy really quickly.” Tasya took Katya’s wrist. “We’re going to have to get moving.”
“Where to?”
“We’ll find an escape pod and a guard or somebody else with clearance to open it for us.”
“What? Why do we need clearance?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, this is a prison. You can’t have the escape pods being easy to get into. The late Dr Durova was supposed to be doing the honours for us, but I think we can say that whole plan is in ashes now. We’re just going to have to make this up as we go along.”
Tasya pulled Katya along, heading for the door the gang of men had just gone through. As she was dragged along in the Chertovka’s wake, Katya was muttering balefully.
“It’s a simple plan. Nothing can possibly go wrong.”
By the time they reached the door, there was shouting beyond it. The male inmates were challenging and swearing at the guards, invisible beyond the wall of yellow convicts’ uniforms. The guards were telling the inmates to return to the hall immediately or suffer the consequences. The guards sounded young and frightened. Katya recognised them.
“That’s Oksana and Alina!” she said. Tasya looked at her questioningly. “The guards who brought me from Atlantis.”
“The guards who…? And you’re on first name terms? You really do know how to make friends and influence people, don’t you, Kuriakova?”
Through the crowded corridor, Katya caught a glimpse of them and realised that Oksana and Alina were alone, backing away from the advancing inmates, masers drawn and levelled, but looking terrified all the same.
“Those are the sorts of friends we could do with at the moment,” said Tasya, a calculating look in her eye. “Stay right behind me. Don’t stop for anything.”
Without waiting for Katya to say anything Tasya strode forward. When she reached the men, she started shoving them aside. “Stand aside. Coming through. Make a hole there.”
The men parted, the conditioned reflex of any Russalkin to step aside at the sound of the magical phrase “Make a hole” too deeply ingrained to be resisted. Tasya cleared the front rank of the men and walked steadily towards Oksana and Alina. Both of them swung their guns to aim at her.
“No! Don’t shoot!” said Katya, running to catch up. “It’s OK, Tasya’s OK!”
The young guards saw her and wavered. In that moment, Tasya reached them. “Do as I tell you and we will live through this,” she said to Alina while simultaneously and in a single smooth motion putting Oksana’s gun arm into a lock hold and taking the maser from her momentarily paralysed hand. Tasya released Oksana, who sank to her knees, clutching her wrist.
The men shouted their approval at seeing a gun in the hands of a fellow inmate and started to surge forward. They got less than two steps before the leaders realised that the fellow inmate in question was pointing the maser at them. In the sudden quiet, the sound of Tasya thumbing the maser’s safety catch to the “off” position seemed very loud. Alina started to point her gun at Tasya but Katya quickly stepped between them, shaking her head and mouthing “No!” urgently.
“What these girls wanted you to do still stands. Back the way you came, and don’t come back through here if you value your lives.”
One of the men’s leaders was a massively built specimen, whose uniform predictably bore the crime MURDERER. The sleeves of his coveralls were rolled up to reveal densely muscled forearms, covered in gang scars. He laughed at Tasya. “Is that so, bitch?” he said, took a mocking step forward, grinning malevolently as he did so.
He died instantly, a maser wound appearing exactly at the top of his nose, between his eyes.
The men shuffled a horrified half step backwards as they looked at the dead man and then at Tasya.
“I am Colonel Tasya Morevna of the Yagizban Special Forces Executive,” she said in loud, clear tones. “Sometimes called the Chertovka. I have killed many, many times. If I kill every one of you, it won’t even come close to doubling the number of lives I have taken.” The group of about thirty men stood indecisive. “I will start shooting at the count of three. I rarely miss. One…”
The men ran.
Tasya watched them go with evident distaste. “Such children. Playing in gangs at their age.”
Oksana had climbed back to her feet and was looking at Tasya with wide eyes. “You’re… not really the She-Devil… are you?”
“I am Tasya Morevna. I’m not much concerned with what people choose to call me. Keep rubbing your wrist. The sensation will return soon.” She nodded at the corridor through to the wing, now populated only by the corpse of an over-confident man. “Can you seal that door?”
“No,” said Alina, her gun now down by her side. “The governor’s overridden all the lock codes. We can’t do a thing with them. We were trying when the inmates came through.”
“Never mind,” said Tasya. “Where’s the nearest escape pod?”
“What?”
“We’re escaping. There are pods for that. Where’s the nearest one?”
“We can’t…”
“We’re coming with you,” said Oksana. They all looked at her, Alina with her jaw dropping open. “The Deeps is screwed, Alina. If we can’t keep the inmates back, we’re worse than dead.”
“We’ve got the guns!”
“Alina! Don’t you get it? The governor has unlocked all the doors. All of them!”
Alina suddenly understood. “Oh, gods. The weapon lockers.”
“Weapon lockers?” said Tasya. “We have to get moving right away.”
“The nearest es
cape pod is this way,” said Oksana. She ran off up the corridor.
It was close, no more than fifty metres away, but even before they reached it, the red lights on the status board next to the pod’s entrance hatch did not bode well.
“Has somebody already taken it?” said Katya.
Alina looked at the board while Oksana ran her identity card through the hatch control reader to no effect. “It’s locked,” Alina said. “The governor’s ahead of us. He’s locked down all the escape pods.”
“Then I shall just have to persuade him to unlock them. The security systems, I see they use retinal scanners. Do they check whether the eye is in a living body?”
Oksana looked sick. Alina said, “Yes, they check whether there’s a pulse in the eye’s blood vessels.”
Tasya was disgruntled. “Damn,” she said. “There goes my first plan. OK, lead us to the governor’s office. We’ll have to take him alive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
RETINAL IDENTIFICATION
All of the lifts had been immobilised, so the party took to the stairwell to get to the command level of the administration sector.
As a submariner, Katya had already thought of the alternative escape route of taking any boat that happened to be in dock, but Oksana said the docking ports were all unoccupied. Even the shuttle that had brought them had long since departed on other Federal business. There was no alternative but to force the governor into enabling the escape pods. Katya wasn’t looking forward to seeing what sort of force Tasya would bring to bear.
The stairwell was imposing in itself; a great spiral in a steel tube running up the full height of the Deeps. Between every level a horizontal bulkhead ran across the shaft, a wide arced opening in it allowing personnel to climb and descend through it. If the bulkheads were to be closed, a heavy hatch slid across to cover the opening, its leading edge engaging with a step’s riser and then the whole thing locking and sealing. Russalkin tended not to dither in the openings of bulkheads equipped with automated doors – the spectre of being crushed by an emergency closure haunted their nightmares. A doorway can be stepped through in a moment, though; it took several to climb the steps through one of these horizontal guillotines. Even Tasya noticeably sped up as she passed through them, the quicker to be clear.
They reached the door leading out onto the topmost corridor and paused to listen.
“Can I have my gun back?” whispered Oksana.
“No,” said Tasya, and that was that.
Satisfied that there was no sound ahead, Tasya signalled that they should follow and moved forward. The group of them breasted the curve of the corridor together to discover several frustrated looking guards standing outside the governor’s office.
There was an astonished pause, and then Katya and Tasya found themselves looking down the barrels of six pistols, one of them – judging from his uniform – held by a sector leader. Katya froze from fear, Tasya from tactical common sense. She could see the guards were confused rather than aggressive – perhaps they could talk their way out of this. She just needed to come up with a convincing lie…
“Lower your guns, you idiots!” said Oksana. “They’re Secor!” She stepped past Tasya to speak to the guards. “They’re agents!”
The sector leader had a black eye and a bloody nose, apparently having already run into prisoners out of bounds. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, “they’re prisoners!”
“No, the White Death had them in here to spy on the inmates. Why did you think they had her,” she nodded sideways at Katya, “in for interrogation so many times? She was making her reports.”
The other guards looked confused enough to accept anything at this point, but the sector leader wasn’t going to be convinced so easily. “She’s got a gun,” he said, levelling his own at Tasya’s. “How do I know you haven’t been threatened into saying this?”
Oksana let her shoulders droop with visible exasperation. “I gave her my gun,” she said. “She’s a better shot than I am, to be honest. We’re not being held at gunpoint. Look…” She turned to Tasya and held her hand out. Without hesitation Tasya reversed the pistol and placed it in Oksana’s hand grip first. Oksana took it, held it up to show the sector leader that she was in full control of it, then returned it to Tasya in the same way. “She’s Secor. And an amazing shot. She put down Bubnov when he and his gang tried to get us.”
This news did more to convince the sector leader than even the demonstration with the gun. He lowered his own and said, “Bubnov? You killed Bubnov?”
“He was a threat,” said Tasya without emotion.
The sector leader smiled. “Oh, madam, you’re an angel among us all. You killed Bubnov. That’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard today.”
Tasya went to join the group of guards. Katya followed a pace behind, reapplying the mindset she had adopted while pretending to be a Secor operative in Atlantis. She found it in herself quite easily – mild arrogance, some impatience, and a limited sense of humour, all of it acid.
“He’s locked us out of his office,” said the sector head, “as well as the entire security system. There’s only one fully operational console in the whole facility, and it’s on the other side of this door.”
Katya weighed the door up, then looked at the group of guards. She pointed at the maser carbine that hung at the shoulder of one of them. “I’ll take that,” she said, fighting down the urge to say “please.”
With the reluctance of a child giving up a favourite toy, the guard handed the gun over. “OK,” said Katya, feeling very professional as she put the carbine’s shoulder sling over her head and let the weapon hang by her side. “We’re going to need a perimeter to protect this location while we work. If you could place a fire team one bulkhead down on the stairs, and then station some sentries to keep the other approaches covered, then that would do the job. Can you organise that for us, sir?” She said “sir” in the tone beloved of officials who mean “I am saying this as a courtesy, but we both know I am the more important one here.” Then she looked the sector leader in the eye.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said immediately. “Team 2! On the stairs, one bulkhead down. The rest of you, with me!” Four guards headed for the stairs while the rest ran off around the curve of the corridor until they were lost from sight. Katya waited until even the thumping of their boots had faded before sagging with relief.
“Good work, Kuriakova,” said Tasya. She looked at the door. “Now, our next problem. How do…”
She was interrupted by Katya raising her carbine and firing at the wall beside the door at about head height. She aimed down at knee height and fired again. “My mother worked in maintenance,” she explained. She shouldered the carbine again, put the flats of her hands against the metal of the door and started to drag her hands horizontally across it. Remarkably, it started to slide under her grip. “She once showed me that these internal doors are much less secure than they look. Two little metal catches holds them shut. That’s all.” The door was a few centimetres over in its frame by now, almost starting to show an open crack at the frame. “When the lock jams, they drill these catches out. Maser’s faster.”
The edge of the door was far enough clear of the frame to get fingers through. Alina grabbed it and pulled. Inside, Katya saw the large desk so familiar from the weekly “Words from the Governor” broadcasts, Radomir Senyavin himself sitting at it, regarding them with tranquil equanimity. But on the floor behind him, Katya could see the bodies of the security chief and of Dr Durova.
The governor rose from his chair as if to welcome them, and Katya thought this might go easier than she’d been anticipating. Then she saw his right hand rising, the heavy maser gripped in it.
The crack of a maser discharge was shockingly loud, but then, it wasn’t the governor’s that was firing. Tasya’s gun had gone off only a few centimetres from Katya’s ear. It wasn’t a very loud noise, but it was sharp, and would be ringing in her hearing for a few minutes.
&n
bsp; The governor’s gun fell to the floor, and for a moment Katya feared Tasya had killed him. Then she noticed the governor’s middle and ring fingers were lying beside the dropped gun.
Senyavin looked down to examine his maimed hand with utter detachment, as if he had just noticed a hang nail. They were barely bleeding, the maser having cauterised the wounds as it made them. “You blew off my fingers,” he observed. “You’re a very good shot.”
Tasya walked quickly to him, kicked one of his legs out from beneath him and, moving behind him, applied a foot to the back of the other knee to bring him to his knees. “Thank you,” she said. “And just think, you have another six fingers and a couple of thumbs for me to amputate if you don’t do exactly as you’re told. Katya, get his identity card.”
As Katya went through the governor’s jerkin, giving him an apologetic smile as she patted his pockets, he said to Tasya, “So, you’re the Chertovka.”
“I am. How long have you known?”
“I knew they were contaminated,” he said, looking back at the bodies. “I planted surveillance bugs in the interrogation rooms and in the chief’s office. I listened to him making deals, misappropriating supplies. I listened to her making deals too. I knew it was too late for all of us then.” He nodded at Oksana and Alina, standing nervously by the door. “Even the newest guards have been corrupted by this sink of filth. Criminals, and deviants, and perverts. All of you.”
He looked at Katya then, and his eyes narrowed as if seeing something new. “But, what are you? The light burns… I can smell the truth in you…”
Katya had found the card and held it in her fingers. Governor Senyavin’s unblinking stare froze her, though. Froze her with a fear she hadn’t felt for a long time. A squirming in her mind that hinted that somehow she knew exactly what he was talking about.
Then Tasya impatiently snatched the card from her, and the moment was gone. Senyavin was just a raving maniac again, not the holder of some secret reality that Katya could almost, almost see.
Tasya swiped the card through the desk console’s reader. An eye scanner mounted by the display activated, its red targeting beams spiralling across the governor’s face as Tasya pulled him toward it. She noticed he had clamped his eyes tightly shut, a small act of defiance that did nothing for her temper.
Katya's War (Russalka Chronicles) Page 22