Vor: The Playback War

by Lisa Smedman

  “The tattoos,” she said in a sharp voice. “Tell me about them.”

  Alexi recognized an order when he heard one. He sighed. Just when Soldatenkof was finally dead and gone, here Alexi was, taking orders from another officer who commanded out of the barrel of a pistol.

  “All I can tell you,” he said carefully, “is that they don’t work if you can’t see them. When I lost my glasses, I was the only member of our squad who wasn’t affected by them. All I could see was a blur.”

  The barrel’s cold metal moved away from his side as she digested that information.

  “I regret having killed the alien,” Alexi said. “I get a sense that, had the Zykhee landed on a planet that wasn’t at war with its own kind, they might have been our friends. Think of it: an alien race, with completely different technologies. Even magic. Who knows what secrets they could have shared with us. And maybe it’s not too late. Perhaps—”

  “You’re a dreamer,” she cut in. “The Zykhee are as hostile as the growlers. I don’t trust Raheek any further than I trust you, Sov. But I want to see the meteorite.”

  Alexi sighed. “I don’t care about the meteorite,” he said in a tired voice. “I just want to go . . .”

  He chuckled softly to himself. To go home? That was what he’d been about to say. But he didn’t have a home. Not any more. The school where he’d taught was closed, they’d given his government-issue apartment away to someone else after he joined the military, his parents had died years ago, before the Change, and his sister had been reported missing in action, presumed dead, one year ago, after the Battle of Petrograd. Her husband hadn’t given up hope that she would somehow turn up alive, but Alexi knew it wasn’t going to happen. Petrograd had been left a smoking ruin after the tactical nukes fell. Tatyana wasn’t going to rise from its ashes.

  Alexi himself had never married. He’d hoped to find a family among the soldiers of the military’s space arm and a new home for himself among the stars. When that dream had been grounded, he hadn’t bothered making any close friendships among the grunts in the rad squad. He’d chosen to remain an orphan, instead.

  And to stay in the military, rather than deserting, as so many of the other soldiers had. It had simply been the path of least resistance.

  Alexi tugged the blankets up closer to his chin. His teeth were beginning to chatter. Beside him, he could feel the Union officer shivering. He wondered if anyone would mourn her if she froze to death.

  “Do you ever wish you could turn back time?” he asked the darkness.

  “What?”

  “If I could go back in time, I’d go back to my childhood and stay there,” Alexi said. “To the summer when I was twelve years old, the last summer I stayed at my grandfather’s house on the shore of Lake Baikal. It was the last truly happy time in my life. Later that same year, my parents died. And my grandfather, too. Somehow I knew I had to make the most of that summer, that their deaths were just on the horizon, rushing toward me across the vast expanse of the lake. And at the end of the summer, when I was playing on the beach with my sister, my father . . .”

  A lump rose in his throat. No. He wasn’t going to tell her about that.

  Alexi blinked, but his eyes were dry. Somewhere over the three years since signing up for the military, he’d forgotten how to cry.

  Except that he had shed tears when Juliana was killed. But that hadn’t happened . . . had it?

  No, Juliana was very much alive.

  Alexi hadn’t ever been much of a crier. Even when he was a boy, when they’d told him about the deaths of his mother and father. Unlike his sister Tatyana, he’d already known that his parents were dead. In the moment that his father’s ghost had appeared to him on the lakeshore, Alexi had come to truly understand what death meant, and with it came the realization that memory—and history—were the only things that kept the dead alive. Later that same day, he had decided to study history when he grew up and went on to university. It had been a defining moment in his life.

  And a useless one. If only he’d chosen to study mathematics, like his father, he might have been accepted into the space arm of the military, back when he’d volunteered.

  The Union officer seemed lost in her own thoughts. It was a moment or two before she spoke. “I wish I’d had a premonition of Tom’s death,” she said in a whisper. “I’d go back to the day the bombs fell. This time, I’d stay in Seattle.”

  Alexi turned toward her in the darkness. “You have nothing to live for, either,” he said. “Do you?”

  Her gun barrel touched his bare skin with a cold metal kiss.

  “I wish I could kill you,” she said.

  Alexi’s eyes flew open wide.

  “I wish you didn’t look so much like Tom.”

  Then she began to cry.

  Alexi hesitated for only a second. Then he put an arm around her shoulder. She stiffened and stared at him for a long, aching moment, her dark eyes luminous in the faint light. In that instant, a secret knowledge sparked between them, a voice that whispered that neither one had much more to endure. Alexi shivered . . .

  Then, ignoring the press of the barrel of her pistol against his chest, he kissed her.

  24

  A lexi braced himself as the trees rushed up toward them. They’d disposed of the growler that had been clinging to the landing gear, but the helicraft was still sluggish. He looked up, and saw that the mechanism that drove the rotors was coated with ice; the blades must also be iced up.

  Beside him, the Union officer’s lips were set in a grim line. She held the controls in a white-knuckled grip. Alexi felt his own lips moving, and realized that he was praying. He reached down to pull the straps that held him in the copilot’s seat a little tighter. Just a bit farther and they’d be able to set down in the clearing. Just a little farther.

  He couldn’t watch. Instead he glanced behind to see how the alien was faring. But all he could see of Raheek was a cloud of inky darkness in the center of the cargo bay. Then the cloud shrank to a fist-sized hollow of infinite darkness—and disappeared with a loud pop.

  The humans were on their own.

  The helicraft lurched violently to one side as its rear rotor brushed a treetop. Then, before Alexi even had time to gasp, the Union officer jerked the controls. The helicraft plunged down with a sickening crunch into a clear space between the trees that was just big enough for its massive body. The floor underneath crumpled upward as something speared through it.

  Alexi was thrown forward and to the side. His head cracked against the window beside him, and he saw stars. Above the helicraft, the rotors smashed into the branches, chopping into them and sending bits of bark, pine needles, and snow flying. The rich scent of pine sap filled the cockpit, along with the burning smell of engines pushed past their limits and the smell of melting plastic as something inside the control panel sparked. Alexi tried to reach for the fire extinguisher that was strapped down near his feet, but the sudden movement made his head pound. The Union officer slammed her hand against the controls, shutting them down. The burning smell faded away.

  Alexi blinked away the stars that were still floating in front of his eyes and rubbed the side of his head. He winced as his fingers found a sore spot, and wished he’d never taken his helmet off.

  Beside him, the Union officer sighed her relief. “Well,” she said. “We made it. Now what?”

  Alexi heard a clicking noise and glanced down. The radio’s microphone had fallen from its cradle during the crash. It hung from its coiled cord, swinging back and forth against the base of the seat like a metronome. He picked it up.

  “We could radio for help,” he suggested. “But whose army would pick up the signal, yours or mine?”

  “Not an option,” the Union officer said. “Take a closer look.”

  Alexi did—and saw that a piece of the landing gear had broken away in the crash and thrust up through the control panel like a lance—right through the radio. Another meter to the right, and the sharp prong
of metal would have pierced his seat instead.

  “I see,” Alexi said, thanking his luck. He dropped the microphone.

  The Union officer undid her seat belt. She glanced up through the cockpit windows. “It’s almost dark,” she said. Then she glanced back into the cargo bay and looked startled. She turned to Alexi. “Where did the alien go?”

  “I think it—”

  Before Alexi could complete his sentence, the cockpit door beside him opened, nearly making him jump out of his skin. Raheek peered inside. Stupid move, startling a soldier. If Alexi had been holding his AK-51—which was back in the cargo bay—he might have shot the alien.

  He almost had . . .

  Or would . . .

  The thought melted away, like the snow that was sliding off the rapidly cooling cockpit windows. It would be dark, soon. And cold.

  Raheek thumped the butt of the blade-tipped staff in the snow. “We will leave now,” it told Alexi. “I saw the impact site from the air as the craft descended. It is not far. We will continue on foot.”

  Alexi looked up at the sky. The stars—what few of them remained after the Change—were starting to come out. But most of the sky was obscured by cloud. And snow had begun to fall.

  A wave of tension-release exhaustion swept over Alexi. He was bone-weary. And hungry. And more than a little tired of being ordered about. Especially by enemy officers and aliens.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he told the alien, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not in this weather, and not in the dark. I’d get hypothermia before I’d taken a dozen steps. I’d die.” He stared at Raheek’s bare skin and shivered. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “The eternal flame warms me,” the alien said.

  “Yeah,” Alexi said. “Right. Well, that won’t do me any good.”

  The Union officer rose from her seat. “I’m ready to go,” she said. “The cold doesn’t bother me; I’m protected by my therm suit. Let the Sov stay here. He’d only slow us down.”

  Alexi was startled by the alien’s response. Its blue-black eyes bored into the Union officer’s.

  “You are not required,” it told her. One of its slender blue fingers tapped Alexi’s chest. “This one is.

  “But I do not wish to risk this human’s death,” it continued. “If this one is unable to travel until the light increases and the temperature rises, it will have to be so.” It turned to Alexi. “I will locate the impact site myself, and return to show you the way. And then you will come. Da?”

  “Sure,” Alexi muttered, not really following the conversation, but seeing that he was expected to agree. “Da.”

  The Union officer’s response was to raise a pistol and point it at the alien. “You’re not leaving without me,” she said in a hard, level voice. “Take me to the site. Now.”

  The alien disappeared. Just like that. One moment it was standing in the doorway, and the next it had been swallowed by darkness. The Union officer cursed. She pushed past where Alexi sat and scrambled out of the helicraft. Alexi heard her stamping about in the snow outside, and more muttered curses. After a moment, she climbed back into the helicraft.

  “The alien’s gone,” she said, shaking her head. “Not even a trail in the snow. It seems to be able to teleport. But how is it possible?”

  Alexi shivered in the cold and shut the door. The Union officer settled back in the pilot’s seat and stared at him a long moment. Then she raised one arm and tugged back the sleeve of her silvery body suit to reveal what looked like an oversize wristwatch.

  “What’s that?” Alexi asked.

  “A Global Positioning System,” she said. While he looked at it, she raised the pistol that she still held. She stared at him with cold eyes.

  “I need to know the exact coordinates,” she told him.

  “Of what?” Alexi asked.

  “Of the Tunguska meteorite. You gave the alien only the approximate coordinates, but you can stop playing dumb now. The alien’s gone ahead on its own, and there’s no need to be afraid. You can tell me exactly where the impact site is.”

  Alexi blinked. “But I don’t remember them. I only knew about Tunguska because of a lesson I gave years ago . . .”

  She cocked the pistol. Suddenly, Alexi was very tired.

  “Go ahead,” he told her. “Shoot me if you like. But I can’t answer your question. I don’t—”

  From somewhere back in the cargo bay came a hollow crumping noise, like the dull pop of a rad grenade going off. The Union officer glanced into the cargo bay with a wary expression on her face, the pistol in her hand still trained on Alexi. Perhaps she thought he had caused the sound as some sort of diversion. But Alexi was as baffled by the noise as she was. He peered past her to see what she was looking at.

  One of the metal locker doors had started to glow. A round patch of metal, down near the bottom of the door, had turned a dull red and was beginning to bulge and sag. As the hot smell of molten metal filled the helicraft, the bulge turned into a hole with dripping edges. Something—an incendiary round, perhaps—had burned a hole right through the door. Alexi half rose from his seat, one hand on the handle of the cockpit door beside him. That was the locker he’d been unable to open earlier. If it was filled with incendiary rounds, the helicraft would turn into a fireball in seconds. But fleeing the helicraft for the Siberian night meant a slow, cold death by hypothermia. Alexi stared in horrified fascination, caught between fire and ice . . .

  A hand about the size of a cat’s paw reached through the melted opening at the base of the locker. It was shaped like a human hand, but with long, jagged claws and burnished metallic skin. In the same instant, Alexi and the Union officer realized what they were seeing.

  “Christ!” Alexi shouted. “It’s a growler!”

  As the creature burst from its hiding place in the storage locker, the Union officer fired her pistol. The crashing shots of the Pug filled the cockpit with noise as bullets punched holes into the locker and cargo bay floor. A few pinged off the growler’s reddish black hide. The creature was small—no larger than a cat. Apelike in shape and a touch unsteady on its feet. An infant, Alexi decided. Was that why the adult growler had clung to the helicopter for so many long, cold kilometers? Had the infant cried to it in a voice the humans could not hear?

  A jet of steam erupted through holes in the growler’s back, although whether the holes were breathing tubes or bullet holes, Alexi couldn’t say. All he knew was that the firepower of the pistol alone wasn’t enough to take the growler down, tiny though it might be. He had to get to his AK-51.

  Which was in the back of the helicraft, within biting range of the growler.

  The creature blinked beady eyes and opened a mouth as wide as a snake’s and filled with more teeth than an alligator’s. It belched, and a dribble of what looked like molten lava dripped onto the floor and began melting the metal grating on which it stood. Heat radiated from it.

  Alexi had the distinct impression that he’d better think fast—or die. But his mind fastened on a single thought and wouldn’t let go.

  Fire, Alexi thought. The thing’s gut is on fire.

  The tiny growler slapped a humanlike hand against its hide, reacting to the string of the pistol bullets. It blinked stupidly, then realized at last that the humans were the source of this irritation. Baring its fangs in a menacing grimace, the creature began ambling toward the cockpit, its knuckles scraping against the metal floor with screeches that made Alexi wince.

  He did the only thing he could think of—he dived for the fire extinguisher.

  Fumbling out the pin that held the trigger shut, he pointed the nozzle at the advancing growler with trembling hands. Then he pulled the trigger.

  A cloud of white filled the cargo bay. Alexi strode forward, aiming the cone until it was focused on the growler’s ugly, gape-mouthed face. Instead of retreating, the thing actually seized the nozzle of the fire extinguisher and worried it like a terrier shaking a rat. It was all Alexi could do to hang on, to keep sque
ezing the trigger. Then the fire extinguisher was torn from his hands. . . .

  The growler fell over on its side. A single puff of sulfuric air puffed from the holes on its back, and then it lay still.

  The Union officer came up behind Alexi and stared at the creature, her pistol held at the ready. “Nice work,” she said. “I think you’ve killed it.”

  Suddenly the creature belched. White powder from the fire extinguisher bubbled out of its mouth, and its eyes moved.

  Moving cautiously, the Union officer lowered her pistol to the creature’s throat. The skin, which looked tough and shiny as metal everywhere else on the growler’s hide, looked thinnest there.

  “What do you think?” the Union officer asked. “You Sovs have more experience with these things than we do. Will a point-blank shot under the chin be enough to kill it? Or should I be worried about glands in the thing’s throat that could deflate explosively and shower us with that red-hot saliva?”

  A thought flashed through Alexi’s mind: If she shot this infant, the adult growlers would take revenge for the killing of one of their young. The logical part of Alexi knew that mommy growler—or daddy growler, or whatever the thing had been that had clung to the bottom of the helicraft—was dead in a cloud of nerve gas. But there might be others around. In his briefing, Soldatenkof had said that they’d spread from Tomsk 13 across all of Siberia, even into Alaska. It would be a remarkable coincidence if the helicraft had come to rest near one of them, but coincidences had a habit of happening when Alexi was around.

  “Don’t shoot it,” Alexi said.

  The Union officer paused. “Why not? What’s wrong?”

  The infant growler was still motionless, except for its eyes. They flickered to watch Alexi. A faint growl bubbled from its open mouth.

  Alexi had no sympathy for the thing. He knew how dangerous even an infant growler could be; he had watched as four just this size had torn to pieces . . .

  Someone.

  But he had an overwhelming urge to keep it alive, dangerous though that might be. Just like the canister of nerve gas, it could prove useful. For what, Alexi couldn’t say. But then, he hadn’t had any clear ideas in mind when he picked up the canister of Tabun. Just the same, driving need to keep it . . .