“It is good to see you, too, Sato,” Grishin said warmly. “I also appreciate your...quiet support in there,” he nodded back toward the briefing room, “for lack of a better term. It seems that former residents of Saint Petersburg are not in the running to win today’s popularity contest.”
“I know, sir, and I apologize for that,” Sato replied, rather embarrassed. He had felt extremely uncomfortable at the way Grishin had been treated. Sato could sympathize: most of the other ship captains did not want to have anything to do with him, either, “ship thief” that he was in the eyes of some. “Sir,” he went on tentatively, “may I ask you something?”
“Of course, Ichiro,” Grishin said, smiling. “Asking is always free, but I may not give you an answer.”
Sato grinned, but it quickly faded from his face. “Sir, how well do you know First Sergeant Mills?”
“Roland Mills?” Grishin asked. Sato nodded. “I knew of him when we served in the Legion, but he never served under me, and you know of our time on Keran. But I got to know him quite well when the Legion was being merged into the Marine Corps: he was one of the senior transition NCOs and worked for me until you stole him away.” He nudged Sato good-naturedly. “He is a good man, and an outstanding legionnaire...and Marine. Why do you ask?”
“Well, sir...” Sato began, then hesitated. He did not want to inadvertently put Mills in a bad light with a senior Marine officer, but he had to ask. “Sir, do you know if Mills ever suffered from chronic nightmares after Keran?”
“We all suffered nightmares after Keran, Ichiro,” Grishin said quietly as he came to a stop, turning to face Sato. “I would be concerned about anyone who did not.”
“Yes, sir, I agree,” Sato told him. “But his nightmares, I believe, are different. They are not just of what happened on Keran, but dreams of him being killed by the big warrior who let us go, of something that did not happen. And with a more...spiritual meaning: in the dream she is taking his soul, and it has deeply disturbed him. He was having them with increasing frequency until he finally saw the ship’s surgeon because he was on the verge of stim addiction. She prescribed a series of sedatives that initially knocked him out and allowed him to sleep and get some rest.” He frowned. “But in the last two days, the nightmares have returned, even through the sedatives, and appear to be even more intense. He woke up screaming before the morning watch. He woke up half the Marine company, sleeping in their bunks. I’m very worried about him.” And I can’t have a senior NCO who doesn’t have all his wits about him taking men and women into combat, he didn’t add.
Grishin thought a moment. “I cannot recall that he had dreams, exactly, Ichiro,” he said slowly. “I know there were times when he clearly had not slept well, but that is not necessarily unusual for soldiers, especially veterans, and I thought nothing of it.”
“Do you dream, sir, of her? The big warrior? Or any of the other Kreelans?”
Shaking his head, Grishin answered darkly, “I dream of electric fire, Ichiro, and the smell of burning flesh.” He shivered inwardly, remembering how one of the Kreelan warriors had flung a grenade at his command vehicle. The alien grenades did not explode, exactly: they seemed to spawn a confined electric storm that could destroy a heavily armored battle tank, lacing it with electric bolts that were like lightning, and that could burn right through armor plate. His command vehicle was hit by one, and he could clearly recall the screaming of his crew as they were simultaneously burned and electrocuted to death. Grishin only survived because the vehicle hit the edge of a weapon emplacement and flipped over after the driver lost control, sending Grishin flying from his hatch in the top of the vehicle. He had survived, but had been grievously injured. “I do not remember much after that until Africa Station. Why, do you think his dreams are significant, something more than a stress disorder?”
Sato shrugged in frustration. “I don’t know, sir. I don’t want to make it sound mystical, but...there is just something strange about it, and I wish I understood what it was, what it means.”
Grishin snorted, then put a hand on Sato’s shoulder. “It means nothing, Ichiro,” he told him. “The human mind is a complex thing that often plays tricks on itself. We are victims of our own cruel nature and God’s poor sense of humor. And this is made worse by our desire to understand everything, even though some things were made to never be understood. Do not worry yourself about Mills, my friend. He is a tough bastard, as tough as they come. He will be all right, and will do whatever needs to be done.”
* * *
At that moment First Sergeant Roland Mills was inspecting every one of his company’s Marines to make sure they were ready for combat, before the detachment commander’s formal inspection. He hoped they would be called upon to help the battalions that would be deploying to the surface, because he didn’t want to sit out a battle up here in a ship the Saint Petes would want to use for target practice when he could be getting his hands dirty planetside.
He was doubly glad they were so busy now, because the dreams had come back. Even through the knockout drugs the surgeon had given him, the huge warrior had reached through his subconscious to tear out his heart and reach for his soul. Now the dreams were even more real, if that was possible, as if they were a mental signal whose strength was rapidly increasing. He didn’t need the stims yet, but had asked the ship’s surgeon for some extras, anyway. With her usual warnings of gloom and doom about the risks of addiction, she gave them to him. He was far more terrified of what lay waiting for him when he slept than becoming addicted to stims.
As he expected, there were only a few minor things amiss as he went from Marine to Marine with their respective platoon sergeants and squad leaders. The most important things — weapons, ammunition, armor, and communications — were perfect. Those few things that weren’t in order were quickly straightened out. The company had five platoons: four regular platoons and a heavy weapons platoon. Their commander had ordered that they would make ready to support the ground campaign with the four line platoons, while the heavy weapons platoon would remain aboard for ship defense. That had made for some major disappointment among the heavy weapons troops, Mills knew, because everyone doubted that the Saint Petersburg Navy would try any boarding stunts like the Kreelans had. They would likely be stuck in their vacuum combat armor in a battle — if there was one — that would be decided by the guns of heavy cruisers, while their fellow Marines would be down on the surface raising hell. They all hoped.
He grinned inwardly, trying to set aside the dread that had settled over him like a chill mist. Poor left-behind buggers, he thought.
* * *
Sato watched the mission clock steadily wind down toward zero. “Stand by to jump,” he ordered. In a task force jump, it was technically unnecessary for a ship’s captain to give the jump order, for the sequence of events had already been programmed in to the ship’s systems, slaved to the navigation computers aboard the flagship Constellation. But tradition demanded it, and Bogdanova had her hand on the manual override controls just in case.
Sato frowned as he thought of the task force’s composition. The other cruisers and destroyers that were supposed to join them had never arrived, and the mission orders left no discretion as to the mission profile: they had to jump on time, no matter what. He was distinctly uncomfortable about the lack of intelligence information they had on the Saint Petersburg Navy, particularly in light of what Grishin had said, but there was nothing they could do about it, other than to hope for the best.
“Autolock sequence engaged,” the navigation computer announced. “Transpace sequence in five...four...three...two...one...jump initiated.”
In the blink of an eye, the ships of Commodore Hanson’s task force vanished.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The fleet was coming. That was the only thing that Valentina could think about. She didn’t know the details of how many ships would be coming, but she knew when they would jump in-system, and she had to be ready for them: not just for
her own retrieval, but to get them the information she had been sent here for in the first place. She knew that she didn’t have all the information she would have liked, but she had found out the main things the Confederation needed to know. Now she just had to get them the data, and hopefully survive.
That was going to be a bit difficult from where she had been imprisoned in the secret police headquarters.
She and Sikorsky had escaped from the underground club, but it had been a near thing. A very near thing. They had run for their lives through the filthy sewer and utility service tunnels that snaked under the industrial district, finally emerging through a sewer manhole cover behind a grim, gray apartment complex that was at the edge of the adjacent residential district. They had been able to hear people in the tunnels pursuing them, but none of the tracking devices their pursuers had could function through the stench, moisture, and flowing muck in the tunnels and sewers. The secret police had fired random shots and even thrown a few grenades to try and frighten them and draw them out, but after nearly an hour of running through the tunnels, the sounds of pursuit began to fade: the secret police did not have enough men to sweep the entire tunnel network at once, and fortuitously they headed off in the wrong direction.
While Sikorsky was a strong man, he was not used to such running. Nearing exhaustion by the time they exited the sewer tunnel, she had to help him up the ladder to ground level. Once there, they used water from one of the outdoor faucets protruding from a nearby work shed to rinse the muck from their shoes and the cuffs of Sikorsky’s pants.
Then there was the question of what to do next.
“I must return to my wife,” Sikorsky argued quietly but forcefully. “She will be worried, and if what you say is true, I need to get her to safety.”
Valentina shook her head. “They’ll be waiting for you, Dmitri,” she explained. “You’ll be walking right into their arms.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “If Medvedev did not tell them—”
“Dmitri,” she hissed, “he told them everything! They know it was you who was asking about the trains. That’s why they raided the club: to catch us. It wasn’t just a random act. The entire thing was Medvedev’s doing.” Her voice softened slightly. “The best thing you can do for your wife now is to try and distance yourself from her. Perhaps the secret police will believe she had nothing to do with all this.” She couldn’t see his expression in the darkness, but she could tell that he was brooding. “Listen, we only have to stay hidden for another eight hours,” she told him, revealing more operational information in that one brief sentence than she would have liked. “After that...if you want, I’ll try to get you and your wife out.”
“What do you mean, out?” he asked, curious.
“The Confederation will be willing to grant you asylum for what you’ve done here,” she explained. “You can get a new identity, a new life on a different world. Even Earth, if you want.”
“I am a patriot,” he said quietly, “not a traitor. I did what I did to bring about changes here, to my homeland. Why would I want to leave? I—”
“Shh,” Valentina whispered. She had heard something outside. She had already prepared an act in case they were discovered: she was a prostitute with a client, and the work shed had been a convenient spot for their business transaction.
Such was her surprise, then, when the door flew open and half a dozen men holding automatic weapons burst in, shouting, “On the ground, now!”
She had a fraction of a second to decide to fight or surrender. She was confident that she could win a close-in fight with the men who had come into the shed. It was the additional dozen outside that gave her pause.
No way out, she thought. Her first objective had just become survival. Without a word, she got down on the ground, face-down, next to Dmitri. His face was turned to hers as the secret police cuffed their hands and shackled their feet before roughly hauling them out of the shed.
From his expression, he was not at all surprised.
* * *
“The Confederation spy and her accomplice have been captured,” Vasili Morozov, head of the secret police, announced as he put away his secure vidphone. The call had come at a most opportune time: just when the chairman himself was calling into question Morozov’s competence in dealing with the situation that had first been brought to light a few days before by the now-dead informant, Medvedev.
“At last,” Chairman Iosef Korolev said with just a hint of sarcasm as he leaned back in his plush leather chair, glowering at Morozov. Around the polished antique wooden table that was worth more than ten thousand times the average annual income on Saint Petersburg sat the planet’s ruling body, the Supreme Council. It was a loose coalition of vicious predators who ruled a world, and who dreamed of ruling much more. As its leader, and the most powerful man on the planet, Korolev was the most dangerous predator of them all. Yet he only retained his superior position by playing his colleagues and subordinates against one another. It was this skill, more than any other, that had seen him rise from the disgrace of being a “rehabilitated communist” to the position he now held.
Morozov had always been a threat to Korolev, but he was also a key to Korolev’s own power: Morozov and the secret police held the military in check and cowed the populace. In turn, Korolev made sure there was constant friction between the military and the secret police to counter Morozov, using the other ministers as necessary to add the perfect amount of weight to each side of the political equation. It was a balancing act in which only true masters of the art could participate. While Korolev periodically derided Morozov in council, he was acutely aware of the man’s intelligence and political cunning. Were he not so effective at his job, he would have been “retired” some time ago.
“I would have thought that between the information from your informant and that provided by Sikorsky’s wife you would have been able to bring them in far earlier,” Korolev said in a voice that was quiet but far from pleasant. “And without the needless deaths of dozens of citizens. That was sloppy, Vasili. Very sloppy.”
The others around the room fixed their eyes on Morozov. All of them knew that Korolev cared as little about those who had died in the raid as they themselves did. That is to say, not at all. It was merely an easy and effective way to embarrass Morozov before the council. It was a game, albeit with the highest possible stakes.
The chief of the secret police, however, was unfazed. “Regrettable, but let us be honest, comrades,” he said, looking around the table. “Those who died and those who were arrested were clearly engaged in illegal acts. And the shooting only started after a gunman in the crowd opened fire, killing one of my men.” He did not add that the gunman had actually been a secret police operative whose specific job was to provoke violence during the raid. He had succeeded quite well, and his reward had been a bullet to the head once the raid was over. Morozov lived, and others died, by the motto that dead men told no tales. “You will also notice that there were no...potentially embarrassing deaths or arrests.”
Korolev’s expression did not change, but he could feel a rush of heat to his face. His grandson, the only one he had and a young and impudent fool, had been at that underground club. So had the sons and daughters of a number of other powerful Party members. But Korolev was the only member of the council with a family member involved. It was an inexcusable embarrassment, but its resolution would have to wait until later.
Shying away from the bait, he merely grunted. Turning to the defense minister, he said, “And how, comrade, does your expensive space navy fare? Is it ready to protect our world from this so-called Confederation?” He said the word as if it were a particularly vicious expletive.
Marshal Issa Antonov nodded. “Yes, comrade chairman,” he said in a deep baritone voice. “Our navy is not yet ready to meet their entire fleet head-to-head—” Korolev shot him a frigid glare “—but unless they send the majority of their fleet, we will enjoy a significant advantage. Their newest ships are better in
some respects than our own, particularly in targeting and navigation systems, but ours are far more heavily armed.” He paused significantly, glancing around the table, making eye contact with everyone except Morozov, before saying, “And all of our heavy cruisers are armed with torpedoes tipped with special weapons.”
“Do not be ridiculous,” Morozov chided. “Call them what they are: nuclear weapons. Everyone in this room knows about them. Everyone in this room gave up resources to fund the program. Stop playing silly word games.”
Antonov only glared at him, clenching his fists. “You—”
“Enough,” Korolev interjected. “We must assume that there are Confederation forces on the way,” he went on, “coming to protect those spineless traitors on Riga.”
“But when?” Antonov asked. “I do not doubt that we can defeat them, but I cannot keep the fleet at peak readiness indefinitely.”
“It must be soon,” Morozov said quietly as he studiously examined his fingernails. “We know from Sikorsky’s wife that he was very adamant that they should take a holiday by a particular date, something that was very out of character for him. I suspect that may be a clue.”
“And when is that supposed to be?” Antonov asked, his hands clenched into fists on the table.
Morozov looked up and smiled. “Why, today, of course,” he said pleasantly.
Antonov looked about to explode.
“Vasili,” Korolev said carefully, leaning forward, his gaze locked with Morozov’s, “when, exactly, did you discover this insignificant bit of information?”
With a shark’s smile, Morozov told him, “Only this morning before this meeting, comrade. When we brought in the two fugitives, I thought it prudent to bring in Sikorsky’s wife, as well.”
“You interrogated her?” Korolev asked, surprised. While Sikorsky’s wife, Ludmilla, was not a high-ranking member, she had gained a wide circle of supporters. Her rise to a modest level in the Party had been a marvel of social engineering in the wake of her daughter’s arrest and subsequent execution.
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