“I haven’t.”
“It’s not the kind of thing the Feds are going to advertise, is it? That they can’t even defend the volume around the capital?” He leaned forward, almost speaking in a whisper. “Things are going really badly for the Feds. Really badly.”
Katya looked at Sergei’s worried expression, but it did not soften her resolve. The truth, as far as the truth can ever really be defined in wartime, seemed very even-handed. Yes, the Feds were having a bad time of it, but the Yagizban were hardly swimming around without a care in the world. They may have had the technological edge, but they lacked numbers, and — since the FMA had captured one of their advanced war boats at the eve of the war — even that edge had been somewhat blunted. Several of its systems had been reverse-engineered, reproduced and incorporated into serving FMA vessels already. As for the captured boat, it was out there right now, fighting for the Federal cause under its new name, the Vengeance.
“The Feds located and destroyed a Yag spy base,” she countered. “It was all over the news just before we left.”
“Yes, but they would say that,” countered Sergei, much more inclined to believe the worst in any given situation.
“There were pictures…”
“You only have the Feds’ word for it that they were new. Could have been taken months ago.”
Katya closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Sergei recognised the gesture and became subdued. It meant she was finding a quiet place in her mind where she could make a decision, a decision that was not long in coming.
“We have to believe in something,” she said, tired and morose. “Right now, I have a strong belief that I need a shower and a night where I can sleep in an actual bed. Be ready to leave at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow morning.” She climbed to her feet and walked aft to the open hatch. Sergei sighed melodramatically, but did not argue. Like her uncle, there was little point in debating with Katya once her mind was made up. “I’ll book the departure with traffic control now,” she said as she climbed out. “Good night, Sergei.”
“‘Night, Katya,” he replied, but the hatchway was already empty.
She was in the traffic control office for fifteen minutes, five of which were spent waiting, four logging the departure, and six creating the course. The desk officer was irritated at first when she told him she didn’t have a course already plotted and would it be alright to use his console? His uniform denoted him as a major of the Federal Marines, and his prosthetic right arm was the likely reason he was now piloting a desk and for his generally spiky demeanour. While his comrades were off engaging the hated foe in battle, he was left ratifying civilian travel arrangements and issuing dockets. His irritation was rapidly soothed, however, by the speed and assurance with which she made the necessary calculations and by the time she had finished, he found it within himself to compliment her.
“My uncle used to say I was a prodigy,” she said with a wan smile.
“Your uncle? Well, he’s…” The officer, a lean man in his early fifties paused, his eyes upon the name of the submarine. “Ah. You’re Lukyan’s girl…?”
She could only nod. It still hurt even to hear his name.
The officer looked at her with a respect she did not feel she had earned. “He was a fine man, captain. Yes, he mentioned you, more than once.” He smiled a little bleakly. “The word prodigy was bandied around. Not just family pride as it turns out.” The console bleeped and showed a green light by the plotted course, indicating that it was acceptable by marine law and sensible within the complex flows of the Russalkin seas. The officer immediately authorised the plot and entered it into the log.
“My co-pilot is concerned about Yag activity near Atlantis,” said Katya. “Anything that we should know about?”
The officer shook his head. “A week ago I would have told you to wait or join a convoy. Nothing’s happened out there for days, though. It’s likely the patrols have driven the Yag out of the volume, but… be careful all the same.”
Katya picked up her identity card and her boat’s clock card and stowed them in her coveralls. “I always am. Good evening, major.”
Something happened on the way to the hotel. The route she used was a supply corridor that would have been off-limits to foot traffic during the day shift while electric tractors pulled cargo to storage areas and industrial sections. Once the lights dimmed, however, the corridors opened to pedestrians on the understanding that the occasional tractor would still be whirring by, so they should get out of the way when they heard one coming. The submariners were the only people to feel comfortable doing that; most stuck to the main corridors no matter what time it was.
Katya was making her way along the side of the long curved tunnel, when she heard footfalls approaching from the other direction. A moment later, two FMA base security officers — police officers in all but title — walked by her. One ignored her entirely, too busy adjusting the baton in his belt, the other stared straight at Katya as they passed, as if daring her to return the look. Katya did not; she had no desire to get into a battle of wills with them. At the very least they’d demand to see her identity card, and she was too tired for those kinds of status games.
They passed her without slowing and she kept walking, grateful that there was nothing between her, the hotel, and sleep. Nothing, that is, until she turned the corner and found the sobbing man.
He was crouched by the wall, his back to her, crying like a child in a pool of his own blood. Katya stopped sharply enough to make her boots squeal on the concrete. The man gasped with terror and looked furtively over his shoulder at her. She saw his nose was broken, and the white of one eye was bloodshot, the pupil blown.
“Oh, gods,” she managed. “What happened? Are you alright?”
The second question was almost as stupid as the first, but she’d had to say something. It was as plain that he’d been badly beaten as it was that, no, he wasn’t alright at all.
The bloodied eye looked past her, and she realised what he was looking for. “No, it’s alright,” she said in a quiet, reassuring tone. “They’ve gone. Why did they do this to you?”
He didn’t answer, but she saw the fear grow in him, and the tears mix with the blood and snot from his ruined nose. She saw the defence injures on the back of his hands as he cowered from her, at least two fingers on his right hand seeming broken; she saw his belt lying by his feet on the concrete floor; she saw the smashed teeth and the straight bruises, as wide as a baton’s contact area, across his brow.
They remained in tableau for long moments, the only sound the man’s miserable soul-deep weeping.
“I’ll take you to the medical centre, OK?” she said finally. She crouched by him. “I’ll take you to the medical centre. You’ll be OK.”
She didn’t ask again why the FMA officers had done this. It could have been something or nothing. She’d heard it didn’t take much to earn a beating these days — a word in the wrong place about rationing, how the war was being handled, how the Feds had their noses into everything — but she’d believed it had been exaggerated in the telling. It seemed she had been the one deluding herself.
The man shook his head, said something like, “I’m fine,” rose and walked painfully away from her, back in the direction of the docks. He leaned against the wall as he went, leaving a trail of bloody handprints, each dimmer than the last.
“That’s the direction they were going in!” she called after him, but he did not respond.
She called it in. She found a communications point a little further up the corridor and asked specifically for the major in traffic control. When she was put through, she explained what had happened, and that there was a man heading in his direction who desperately needed medical attention.