Boris, what is it? Do you know this woman? Bethany Anne spoke directly into his mind. She couldn’t hear or feel anything from Boris. It was as if he’d locked down his thoughts and emotions.
Then she heard a soft whisper from his mind. Still like a calm pond. Repeated continuously, a mantra of desperation.
Gott Verdamnt! Boris tell me what the problem is, or I will find myself ripping off your arm. I am not made of glass. I need to know what the problem is so we can solve it! She practically shouted in his head.
Boris glanced at her and sighed. Then, responding with his thoughts, She could be the sister of the woman I loved a century ago. The one that was executed by the Reds. It took me by surprise is all. Especially since she even smells the same.
Bethany Anne felt intrigued by this. Boris’s devotion to his old lover’s memory was apparent in the effort he had taken to keep his oath to her. His reluctance to explain was reasonable. He didn’t want to poke Bethany Anne’s recent wounds and was trying not to be overcome by his older ones.
Luckily, TOM had a handle on her grief, which Boris had no way of knowing. She had too much to do right now, although she still spent at least an hour a day alone in a pod dealing with all of the unfiltered emotions of agony, frustration, and grief.
Forcing Boris to explain caused him to lose the grip he had held his emotions in. Standing motionless next to her, he was a roiling mess behind the stony facade. It even seemed to affect his etheric signature. I’ve got this.
Bethany Anne turned towards the woman and asked, “And you would be?”
Janna’s mouth opened and then quickly shut before she could speak. She felt a need to answer with the truth. Had they somehow injected her with some truth drug while she was on the way here?
Bethany Anne was intrigued. This woman was trying to resist her command, so this person was someone out of the ordinary. Possibly, she supposed, up to no good. Giving the strange woman the benefit of doubt suggested that she simply had no one here known or trusted. Even with that explanation, there was something strange about the resistance to Bethany Anne’s mental pressure. Anti-interrogation training maybe.
Bethany Anne sighed and issued the command harder, “Look, if you don’t answer me, we are in for a very long afternoon. So you may as well answer. My name is Bethany Anne. Who are you and what is your job?” She supplied maybe fifty-percent more force than she used for Silvens-Werner.
Without realizing she would speak, Janna answered, “Janna Dimitrievna. Captain, Russian Military Intelligence. At least until a week ago.” Externally she managed to keep her composure. Internally she was cursing up a storm.
What had she been dosed with? Fuck. She’d scored high in interrogation resistance, even when drugged. But whatever they were using was cutting right through it. Then she thought she saw a slight red glow from the interrogator’s eyes and felt an involuntary shiver go through her spine.
“And what were you doing here?” Bethany Anne continued.
“I was coming to see if there was anything I could do to help the people of the town against the Nashi vooruzhennye gruppy. They were the group I was investigating before my team and I were disavowed. The last piece of information I received from inside the group regarded this attack. And it may have cost as many as fifteen lives to get. I would not want those lives wasted!”
Bethany Anne’s face softened. “Ah. So you aren’t here to support the attack, and you have, effectively, been fired and left to survive or die on your own?”
“Yes,” Jana replied through a grimace, “though I hope to link up with some of my team. I doubt any of us would make it through a regular border crossing, though. I’m sure our faces are now flagged.”
Boris finally spoke. “My name is Boris. I wonder, are you a patriot, Janna?”
She looked over to the man, trying to put the face she saw in front of her, to the face in the folder, “Explain. That’s a question with many meanings.”
Boris glanced at Bethany Anne with a twinkle in his eyes, “Are you loyal to the people of Russia, or the government?”
Janna glanced between the two and settled back to Boris, “People are more important than politics.”
Bethany Anne laughed, “A humanist who worked in intelligence. I would have sworn we would find an alien out here before that would ever happen.”
Bethany Anne asked the Russian intelligence officer, “What if I told you we are facing a bigger problem for the entire human race? That if you were willing, you could help your country and the people of Russia by helping the world? I not expect you to believe my word without proof, I’ll show you.”
At that point, Janna eyes opened, and she started cursing herself again. Damn, she had seen this woman before. Her brain must be sludge for her to have taken so long to put two and two together. This was the CEO of the company that had sent people into space.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Boris was tired. Sleep wasn’t a likely option either. He had five thousand volunteers for the action group. He’d picked a hundred from them easily. They had either served with him or had exceptional service records for their military service. That filled out the officers. He was planning on spreading both officers and operatives in a wide dispersal, using pods if necessary to travel between locations. No more than five hundred agents per area, but only seven proposed areas of operation. It wasn’t like they were expecting to set up bases or open resistance. They were planning to gather intelligence and fight limited actions against the NVG.
Satellites would find it hard to impossible to get an exact count on the refugee column. Once Janna had been vetted by Bethany Anne, and she agreed to help, her current military knowledge was put to use in planning a route to the Mongolian border that kept to the highway as long as possible while avoiding all population centers. His people would be traveling slowly, and it would add several days but within three weeks they would be safe. The first group had gone ahead with half the Tundra pack and a couple of large strings of horses for the cross-country section. Half the column would still have to walk out once they left the highways, though. There were only so many vehicles available that could travel the off-road section. That included the fifty military trucks that they had scrounged and those captured from the NVG.
The tundra pack had, to a wolf, decided to join the Guardians. This would expand the Guardians by two hundred and fifty wolves. Two dozen ‘lones’ that they tolerated in their territory had also decided to join. Some Wechselbalg wolves didn’t like company, much like most of the bears. But the adventure was enough to attract them.
He had the officers and those who had volunteered to stay behind organizing the packing of supplies. Each person could take what they could carry on their back in personal possessions. Any off-road vehicle that had cargo-only space was being loaded to capacity with supplies.
Danislav knocked on the door and entered the room. “Boris, at least half the wolves are leaving for the Guardians. Might be more when word reaches those who didn’t come to the meeting.”
Boris shrugged and said, “Their choice. If I was a century younger and wasn’t the best person to try and keep a lid on Russia, I might choose that too.”