Laying Clark on the blanket, Olga buttons up his English suit and straightens his tie. She found a suit among the things in his apartment; Clark wore this suit when Papa Johnson introduced them to each other. In the crowded morgue, she changed his clothes, covering the wound on his breast with a snow-white shirt, cleaned his black leather shoes to a shine, and put a scarlet poppy in his buttonhole. Now everything is ready.
A few minutes before sunset, the girl sits down in front of the pyre, takes Clark's hand in her hands, and starts talking, remembering everything that somehow concerns the two of them. When she first saw him, long before their meeting on Mars, she was nine; she bet against him in the finale of the Coliseum and lost. Then she recalls the meeting in the office of the First Chief, followed by several days of intense teamwork at the command post. Their wonderful day off, a long separation, another emergency meeting, and then the joint battle in the warehouse. They had very little time together, but it was their time.
Climbing to her feet, Olga puts on Clark's chest the photo taken at the water park—he stands in the middle of the pool; she sits on his shoulders. Both laugh contagiously.
“Clark, do you mind if I take your Stechkin? No? Well, then we’re agreed. Thank you.”
Olga brings a fuse to a thin strip of thermite.
“Goodbye, comrade …”
The last ray of the sun reflects off Olga's helmet the moment she sets the fire. A bright white-yellow flame covers the sand and stones; another second, and they burn. Olga silently stares at the pyre, waiting for her rare tears to pass, and then raises her right hand and presses the trigger until the Stechkin throws all its bullets into the black sky.
* * *
The funeral pyre already burned out, but Olga still sits motionless, gazing at the smoldering stones. Only a call from the Bolshevik makes her get up from the cold sand—her leave is coming to an end, and the Red Star is waiting at the cosmodrome. Leaving the car at the edge of the take-off area, Olga looks back one last time and then rises up when Antonina calls her.
“While you're flying, look at this file. I think you'll be interested in its contents. Good luck, my friend.”
“Good luck.”
After taking her usual place and quickly fastening herself, Olga begins watching. The file opens with an unusual erotic photo shoot: a tall nude brunette standing motionless against a white wall with a black scale, frame, and profile. The girl looks distantly at the lenses, with neither a hint of a smile on her face or a deliberately sexual posture. It’s clear why—this tape was not made for the next porn site but was rather the documentation of the acceptance of a new prisoner in one of the women's prisons.
Where was it shot, on Earth? No, this seems to be the Oven, and the missing eye confirms Olga's assumption—the girl just got out of the hibernation capsule; she still doesn’t understand what's going on around her. In the next set of images, the newcomer is dressed in a blue robe and black boots, and only now Olga realizes that the black-haired beauty standing in front of her is the same charred paratrooper whose spacesuit remains she cut with a scalpel.
The photographs are supplemented with a line of personal files: Her name is Malena Madrigal, age twenty and ten months. Before she went to the Oven, she lived in Memphis, Republic of Texas, earning her living by prostitution and porn filming. She had several arrests for minor offenses, spent three months in jail, and soon after her release, Malena cut the throat of her pimp, who had hammered her girlfriend to death with a golf club. The police didn’t believe in that version of self-defense, and neither did the court, and the girl received a free ticket to Venus until the end of her life.
“Antonina, the sad memories of this orphan are very melodramatic and touching, but why give them to me? I know without them that life isn’t so sweet in the Oven.”
“Olga, don't compare your suite with the apartments of ordinary prisoners; you better look further. These memories here refer to the transit point: from here, the arrivals go to their places of permanent residence, to mines or factories. You saw her go through the registration and primary processing; now, she and other prisoners will be led to the train. Look carefully, then you will see the scenes from her eyes, at least, as Malena remembered it. Look.”
The image isn’t of the best quality. It spreads out at the edges, plus it moves very fast—the girl finally came to her senses after the frost, and now she looks around, trying to see and remember as much as possible. A long column of unevenly aged women in identical blue robes stretches through a narrow tunnel. Before Olga's eyes, a five-digit number looms in front, then suddenly becomes lighter—the stone vaults end, giving way to thick armored glass.
The girl again starts to turn her head, looking from side to side. Olga sees that the glass corridor is laid on the bottom of a large hangar, and on both sides are various types of caterpillars and wheeled vehicles, designed to work on the surface. Passing the giant cylindrical carcass of a tunneling combine, the prisoner sees a series of closed roof hatches leading to lock chambers. One of the hatches opens, and from there, an open cargo platform descends, on which there are three men in unusually massive suits, reminiscent of heavy diving suits with transparent helmets. Here the picture freezes; Antonina's voice is heard again.
“That guy on the right side—do you recognize him?”
“Michael—it’s Mikhail Petrov!”
More than a year has passed since Olga last saw her curator, but she unmistakably recognizes him. Never personally having met Mikhail Petrov, she spent all her childhood in his company and can recognize him in any situation. Yes, she only sees his head through the helmet glass, but that's enough.
Stop, look at him, and remember carefully—involuntarily, Olga wants to shout, but she understands perfectly well that this is pointless. This isn’t a live broadcast; these are memories almost six months old and completely fleeting, Malena just walked along the corridor and briefly looked in his direction and then almost immediately looked at something else.
“You've been buzzing all over my ears about Comrade Petrov, so I recognized him: I have his photos from his navy service. The probability is almost ninety-seven percent, but I wanted you to personally confirm.”
“I confirm.”
Olga doesn’t want this at all, but she has to admit the obvious fact that Mikhail Petrov was very costly in helping his beloved ward: in reward for saving her life, he landed in penal servitude. But on what charge? Were the deaths of Elektra and her accomplices hanged on him? No, this seems unlikely. The Black Swan disaster was declared an accident; no official charges were brought against anyone. Maybe there was no court above him, as well as above her—her employers could arrange such a trick. Officially, he was listed as missing, but now she knows that Mikhail is alive and can be saved.
“When did you say she saw him?”
“This ‘record’ was made one hundred and sixty-nine days ago. According to her recollections, this girl spent about eighty days in the Oven, and then she and many other women in her block were offered partial amnesty for a certain work of a military nature. You've seen this work recently.”
Olga once again remembers the charred body in a fused spacesuit. Interestingly, agreeing to the Supernova proposal, had Malena guessed about the possible risks? Although, Olga admitted to herself, if I was in her situation, I probably would have agreed too.
“Antonina, do you think that Mikhail could have been enlisted in this operation?”
“I can’t give you a one hundred percent guarantee, but I'm pretty sure that he's still in the Oven. As you can see from this picture, Petrov isn’t a simple prisoner here; he is used for work on the surface, and this is the most dangerous and difficult work in Oven. You can’t put an untrained person there. You said that your curator has experience in flying to Venus and operations on its surface, and now this circumstance works in his favor. Valuable people aren’t used as cannon fodder. In addition, none of the more or less identified paratroopers look like him. Petrov is still in the
Oven, don’t worry.”
“I need to get him out of there,” Olga says in an unchallengeable tone. “I don’t know how, but it must be done. I owe him my life.”
“If you succeed, tell me later how you do it. Supernova has almost a quarter of a billion personnel in the Oven; it isn’t easy to find the right man there.”
“I'll think of something. In any case, thanks. This prisoner, Malena, is she already dead?”
“No, I managed to reanimate her. Soon she’ll be transferred from the hospital to a prison camp; we’ll adapt her for some work. Let just work and every day rejoice that she remains alive.”
“Attention, get ready for docking!”
“Antonina, interrogate Malena as you like; torture her with electricity and ultrasound, if necessary, but learn from her absolutely everything about this prison. Coordinates, personnel, security systems, the scheme of the quarries and factory—everything. And again, thanks!”
“You're welcome. Do me a favor, and try not to die.”
“I'll try.”
Having returned to the Bolshevik, Olga receives an order to take her post, although no combat alarm has been announced yet. Apparently, general training will begin soon, after which she will receive personal assignments from Uncle Joe, but for now, Voronov decides to restore her strength. The feeding needle enters the catheter on her right hand, and the nourishing mixture is injected into her blood. Her pupils narrow so sharply that they become almost invisible on the gray background of the iris. Apparently, Chernova has mixed in something very powerful this time, which will allow the crew to act at the limit of opportunities and beyond. Waiting for further instructions, Olga connects the receptor simulator and makes an order, after which it seems to her that she chews small toasts with butter and black caviar. Roasted brown bread, impregnated with melted Vologda butter, and ideally salted caviar—it’s an illusion, of course, but a very pleasant illusion, and it helps to relax her and relieve the tension. Now she’s ready for battle.
“Crew—attention!”
Klimov briefly explains to the Bolsheviks what they already know: they’ll have to attack in Supernova’s territory. Rather, not them, but the Republic paratroopers, and the cruiser will cover their landing.
“Our Republican friends have gone on this suicidal mission, and we can do nothing but honestly fulfill our allied duty. We’ll cover the landing, and then we will leave; for us, the war is over.”
A small detachment goes in a wedge shape, ahead of the cruiser and behind four small shuttles. Usually, such transports are used for cabotage traffic between the cosmodrome and orbital stations, but they can also serve as landing barges and bombers if necessary. Two shuttles carry sixty troopers in the landing capsule, and the other two are loaded with bombs and ammo containers. These small forces are in no way comparable to the army of interventionists who have recently struck the Alamo, but the target of this attack isn’t a fortified city, just an old, rarely used cosmodrome.
The spy’s satellites that have passed over the cosmodrome transfer the already familiar, boring picture—Olga sees empty parking lots, a single repair dock with a partially dismantled ship of an unknown type, hangars, fuel tanks, and other structures. That's their target—a parabolic antenna forty meters high. About a mile away is the dome of the observatory. Everything is quiet; the road leading to the nearest town is deserted, and at the cosmodrome, there is no movement except for a light shadow flying over the antenna—the air space above the cosmodrome is patrolled by a single robot helicopter, and the other guard isn’t seen.
“The preliminary guidance!”
Uncle Joe outlines the targets that Olga will have to cover with the first bomb wave—a dozen or so objects that present a potential threat to the paratroopers. Olga focuses on the calculation of the bombs’ trajectories, and along the edge of consciousness passes orders to other Bolsheviks and handles their communication with the central computer. Accustomed during the previous battles to tough electronic warfare, the girl notes an unusually clear air—the enemy’s jamming stations are silent. But the long-range detection radars were all ready to detect their ships approaching the protected object; no one did anything about this. The Supernova ships aren’t anywhere to be seen in the vicinity, and Olga's suspicions grow with every second. The captain was definitely right when talking about the planned suicide.
"Two hundred seconds to the drop zone!”
Olga categorically doesn’t like the peace that reigns on the cosmodrome, and she asks Severov about pictures from his telescopes. The viewing angle doesn’t satisfy her, so she turns to the ship's brain for advice.
“Do we have a reconnaissance plane nearby?”
“The answer is negative. Drop a spy satellite there with an entry angle between thirty and thirty-eight degrees.”
A perfect idea. Olga takes control of one of the spies, ending its next revolution around the planet. A series of commands and the satellite's engines change the configuration. After three-tenths of a second, ignition occurs, and the satellite abruptly changes course, diving down. Olga drops the spacecraft down to Mars at an angle of thirty-five degrees, trying to see the cosmodrome from the side instead of vertically from above, having at her disposal as much time as will pass before the inevitable collision.
Here it is—traces of cars, a lot of traces. Numerous, slightly sanded tracks of wheels and caterpillars, plus wide furrows left by the air-cushioned machines. They are almost impossible to see from orbit.
Looking at the web of tracks, Olga requests historical data on the weather in this area. The answer confirms her assumptions. The last powerful dust storm passed here forty-five days ago, so the traces have been left relatively recently.
"It's a pity that we didn’t pay attention to this cosmodrome, aiming all our spies at the Supernova’s military bases," Voronov mumbles, realizing the scale of the error. “And nobody looked here, since there wasn’t a single launch or landing during the whole war from this old cosmodrome. There is absolutely no information about what has happened here in the last five months. But something was happening; that's why the control post was placed here. Who made these tracks? They are waiting for us; I feel it in my gut.”
“One hundred twenty seconds.”
Olga reports her assumptions to the captain, knowing in advance that no one will cancel anything. This is an operation of the Republic, and the Bolshevik is nothing more than a means of fire support. All decisions have already been made, and there will be no significant changes. They will only make minor adjustments to the plan. The first wave of bombs will go to the intended targets, but Olga will still leave more charges for the second attack; now she is 100% sure that the landing force will meet resistance on approach and that the paratroopers will need all possible help.
An alarm sounds—Nastya has picked up enemy ships. Olga feels how Granddad accelerates the Bolshevik a little, but the guns are still silent; apparently, the enemy is still far away. The squadron changes the order; the shuttle bombers came ahead, and so far, not a single shot has been heard.
“Thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty!”
The light goes out, and when it flashes again, Olga is alone and quiet, separated from the whole world by impenetrable electronic warfare armor. Somewhere around her, the battle begins, but it doesn’t concern her: now she responsible for one single task—fire support during the landing and escort of the paratroopers on the ground. Everything else, Joseph will take care of, but this work is only for her.
“Twenty-five!”
“Drop!”
She's a bomb. Her ceramic body silently pierces the cold emptiness, traveling twenty kilometers per second. Her electronic brain dispassionately counts the distance and the remaining time before contact, periodically correcting the flight with hardly noticeable impulses of correctional engines. Under its shell, there is no explosive, only pressed sand, more than enough at such a speed; the astronomical kinetic energy will do its job. In front of her, behind her, and around her, other
bombs are flying, and all of them are as she is, divided into parts and at the same time whole, an aspen swarm controlled by one mind.
Thermal sensors confirm entrance in the upper atmosphere; the desert is rapidly approaching. The powerful waves of interference sent from the ground try to blind her, forcing her off the straight path, but they won’t stop her—the target is fixed, the coordinates are well known, and she’ll meet the target, even if her eyes are burned by hard radiation. For a second, the whole space of the cosmodrome becomes clearly visible. The sight marks lights with invocatory blue fire, and bombs diverge in different directions, moving to each target. The takeoff field, the dock with a half-disassembled ship of an unknown type, hangars, fuel tanks, and other structures cover the whole world, and this is the last moment of her life. Contact!
Consciousness returns instantly, as if a bulb has turned on. The first wave has just covered the targets, and now she has a few seconds to test the effectiveness, outlining new targets before the landing capsules start to fall. One of the bombs never reached the ground—it collapsed in the air, freeing dozens of scout robots hovering over the landing zone, and now Olga looks at the spaceport destroyed by their eyes.
The accuracy is good. Uncle Joe estimated it at 86.3 out of a hundred possible. The dust quickly settles down, and she sees a landing field plowed by funnels, fragments of the ship scattered in a radius of two hundred meters, collapsed hangars, overturned portal cranes, and much more. The only defender of the cosmodrome went out—blast waves broke the screws of the patrol helicopter. As she expected, the antenna and the observatory didn’t suffer.
The guitar reef, familiar from infancy, fills the air; the paratroopers go into battle under the old song, ideally suited for such work. Olga sees the landing capsules start, waits for a few seconds, and then sends a second bomb wave. This time, the charges move slowly, at the minimum thrust of the engines.
Living easy, living free. Season ticket on a one-way ride …
The Blitzkrieg Page 27