“It would have happened whether you were there or not, Katya,” he said gently. “This was Senyavin’s doing.”
“Can’t I just weep for the dead, Kane? There were a lot of scum in there, but there were good people, too. Political prisoners, dissidents. People whose faces just didn’t fit.” She looked at him, furious. “Tell me they died for something, Kane. Tell me they’ll be the last.”
Kane looked at her, rocked his head from side to side as if considering. “Let’s go for a cruise,” he said finally. He pulled a communicator from his pocket and said, “Ms Ocello, make for the rendezvous, would you, please?”
Katya heard the first officer reply. “Aye, captain. If you’ll come below, we’ll secure for diving.”
“No,” said Kane, drawling the word out. “It’s such a nice day. Let’s stay on the surface.”
“Captain?”
“Seriously, Genevra. We’re staying on the surface. Que será, será as they say.” To Katya he said, “On Earth. Somewhere. I forget where. Oh, and, Genevra, start transmitting a truce signal.” He put away the communicator. He smiled at Katya, but she could see the nervousness under the surface. “Que será, será. It means ‘Whatever will be, will be.’ We’ve done all we can. You, far more than most.”
“Did it work?”
“I hope so.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Desperate Times
The Vodyanoi moved away from the group of escape pods at surface cruise speed, which was only two thirds of the maximum. Slowly the pods dwindled into the distance. With Katya on the conning tower, Kane watched them go through his binoculars, impatience making him fractious.
“Oh, come on. Where are you? There’s a whole high security facility been destroyed and you can’t…”
Sudden rapid boot falls on the ladder made him pause. A moment later, Tasya emerged from the hatch. She’d changed into her trademark Terran trooper’s partial armour, Yagizban combat fatigues visible beneath it. “It’s the Feds.”
“Oh, super,” said Kane with unfeigned pleasure. “I was getting worried.”
“It’s the Novgorod. They’re in our baffles, communicating through the hydrophones.”
Kane produced his communicator again. “Hello, Number One,” he said into it. “Could you relay comms through my handset, please? Thanks. Thanks ever so.”
There was a pause and then, loud enough for them to all hear, “…ovgorod to hostile vessel. You are to surrender immediately. Failure to comply will result in…”
“Hello!” said Kane brightly. “Hello, is Petrov there? Captain Petrov, that is? This is Havilland Kane. Hello?” He waited, but there was near silence, only moderated by the artefacts of normal oceanic sounds that were being filtered out by the communications system. The two submarines were talking using the sea itself as the connecting medium, transmitting sound through their sonar grids and receiving it through their hydrophones.
“You’ve gone all quiet,” persisted Kane. “Hello? Anyone there?”
“This is Petrov. Surrender the Vodyanoi immediately, Kane, and prepare for boarding.”
“Yes, and lovely to hear from you, too. How are things?”
“I’m not playing games, Kane. Heave to, or we will launch torpedoes.”
“That would be rude of you. I’m transmitting a truce signal and everything.”
“You’re asking for a truce?”
“Mmhm. As is every Yagizban vessel and floating facility. In fact…” Kane looked ahead through his binoculars, “in fact, I can see FP-1 ahead. I know you didn’t have a very good experience there last time, but if you listen, you’ll find they’re transmitting for a truce, too.”
“What are you playing at, Kane?”
“Captain, I have a great deal of respect for you. You are an honourable and intelligent man. I will not lie to you. We have done a very desperate thing. If it comes off, the war will be over and there will still be Russalkin alive at the end of it. If it doesn’t, the two sides will just keep on hitting one another until there’s no one left. The truce is entirely sincere. Our tubes are closed and loaded only with noisemakers. You are in our baffles. We are at your mercy. Please, surface. We will not engage. You can keep your tubes open and blow us out of the water if we try anything.”
“Your reputation for cunning makes me distrust you.”
Katya gestured to Kane to hand her the communicator. He nodded and gave it to her without hesitation. “Petrov? Captain Petrov?”
“Who is this?”
“Katya, sir. Katya Kuriakova. Please, Kane’s telling the truth. If you don’t trust him, maybe you can trust me.”
“Ms Kuriakova.” Petrov seemed unsettled. “I thought you must have died in the Deeps.”
“I nearly did. But even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered, not to Russalka. Please, this is bigger than the war. This is about everything.” She tried to think of something to convince him, something she would never offer up under duress. When she thought of it, she had to take a second to steel herself to say it in an even voice. “I swear it on my love for my uncle, Lukyan Pushkin.”
“I see.” Petrov was silent for a moment, then said, “Kane? Are you there?”
“Yes, captain.”
“If I get even the ghost of a bad feeling about this, I will engage you without a second thought. Do you understand?”
“The truce is genuine, captain.”
“If you’ve made a liar of Ms Kuriakova,” said Petrov evenly, “I will kill you myself. Petrov out.”
Kane pulled a face. “He sounded quite impassioned there, didn’t he? By his standards, anyway.” He lifted the communicator to his mouth. “Ms Ocello. The Novgorod will be surfacing off our stern in a moment. Please don’t do anything to make them more excited than they already are. They’re on a bit of a hair-trigger.”
“Aye, captain.”
Two minutes later, the waters three hundred metres aft of the Vodyanoi heaved and split, cascading from the Novgorod’s conning tower as she rose, huge and ominous. Almost twice the length of the Vodyanoi, she was as capable and as deadly as she looked. Formerly she’d been called a “shipping protection vessel,” but that had just been a polite name for a warboat built in peacetime. Her bow torpedo tubes were open, their threat explicit.
Kane gave them enough time for the water to clear her hull cameras, and for the forward facing lenses to find him. Then he smiled and waved.
“Provocative as always,” said Tasya.
“Just being friendly,” said Kane. “You can’t launch torpedoes at someone who’s waving at you. It’d be inhuman.” He noticed Katya wince. “Just trying to lighten the mood,” he apologised. “I… oh. It’s your ribs, isn’t it?”
The Vodyanoi’s medic had checked Katya over and told her that she’d cracked three ribs and would be in “some discomfort” for the month or so it would take for the bones to set. She’d been given some pain medication and told to come back the next day. Oksana’s breaks were far more severe, one rib threatening to puncture a lung. The medic assured Katya that he’d dealt with much worse, and shooed her out of the sickbay so that he could get on with his job.
“Yes, it’s my ribs.” She felt very tired, and the thought of having trouble lying on her left side whilst trying to sleep didn’t appeal to her at all. Yes, she had sedatives to help with that, but she didn’t enjoy the prospect of swallowing so many drugs. The Russalkin distrust of drugs ran deep, even medicinal ones. “There’s somebody over there!”