“There now,” said Tasya, thumbing her cutter’s power off and sticking it into her equipment belt, “that wasn’t so difficult.”
“We just need an infinite supply of large machines with liquid nitrogen tanks,” said Suhkalev as Katya helped him to his feet.
“How many more of those do you think we need to worry about?” said Katya.
Tasya shrugged. “Don’t know. But I know a man who might. Let’s find Havilland and ask him, shall we?”
CHAPTER 9
Friendly Foe
Uncle Lukyan had often spoken of the comradeship of combat. It was a universal truth, he said, that when men and women are in the thick of the fighting, it is not love of their country, their political beliefs or even of their families that drives them on. “Nothing makes a better cement to hold together a fighting force than looking out for your comrades. Shoulder to shoulder or back to back. You keep them alive, they keep you alive. That is what welds an army together and makes soldiers commit great acts of bravery — fear of letting your unit down. Ah, my little Katya, you look at me as if I’m sullying some great romantic ideal, but it is true. Perhaps one day, although I pray not, you will have reason to understand what I say.”
Now she did have cause to understand him and he’d been right. He’d also been right to pray that it wouldn’t happen. But, here she was, running through tunnels trusting her life to, and willing to risk her life for, an arrogant Fed and a war criminal. It was, as her Grandfather Vanya would tell anybody who stopped near his chair for more than a few seconds, a funny life.
They were passing signs for the secondary docking area more frequently now and Katya was relieved that they had seen no sign of any further drones. It was impossible that something as large as the Leviathan only carried the one. It was more of a mystery why the corridors weren’t full of hovering cigar-shapes eager to evaporate any human that crossed their laser sights. The Leviathan was being very careful with its resources it seemed, but why? She knew they were relying on Kane having the answers. Tasya seemed confident that his knowledge was available simply for the asking, but Katya had her doubts; he’d been very cagey about everything up until now. Sometimes he behaved as if the Leviathan would simply go back to sleep if nobody spoke about it. Katya, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that ignorance was not safety.
They arrived at the docking area to find it apparently deserted. “Get up!” barked Tasya at the old crates lying around the staging area. “Do we look like a combat drone?”
There was no reply, and then Lukyan stood up from behind a tarpaulin covered stack of cargo pallets. His face lit up when he saw Katya and he rushed over and gave her the second painful bear hug of the day. As she wriggled her way loose, other faces were appearing from behind cover.
“Where’s Kane?” demanded Tasya.
“Behind you.” They spun around to find Kane standing there with a metal cylinder in his hand. “I’ve been behind you for a while, in fact.”
“You’ve been following us?” said Katya.
“In effect, but I wasn’t shadowing you, I was trying to catch up. Previous to that, I had been shadowing, but that was when I was following the drone. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see you kill it. Very good work, incidentally.”
“Don’t patronise me, Kane,” said Tasya. She pointed at the cylinder. “What’s that?”
“What is it? It’s ant pheromone… a password… our golden key to the kingdom of wonders. This is why it took me so long to catch up with you. Fancy killing something like that drone and not taking a trophy. I stayed a minute to get this little beauty.”
“Did a rock fall on your head when you were in the mine workings?” asked Katya, losing patience.
Kane looked at her, disappointment on his face. “Oh, Katya. I thought you had a poetic heart. Very well, if you want to reduce everything to the bare bones, it’s the drone’s IFF unit.”
Katya thought she had a vague memory of the letters from her uncle’s war stories. “Identify Friend or Foe?” she hazarded on the faint recollection.
“Exactly. This is the best bit of luck we’ve had since that monstrosity woke up.”
It bothered Katya when he spoke like that. She wanted some definite information. Apparently Tasya felt the same. “For God’s sake, Havilland, what exactly is the Leviathan? You talk about it as if it’s a machine one minute and a living creature the next. Which is it?”
Kane’s expression sobered. “From one minute to the next, I’m not sure.”
The docks on this side of the complex were more conventional docking bays then the extravagant moon pool on the far side. Tasya led the way to the one they’d used to dock the Vodyanoi and opened it. Inside the otherwise empty bay sat a small forlorn form.
“The Baby!” cried Katya, almost as pleased to see the redoubtable vessel as she’d been to see her own uncle. Lieutenant Petrov went over to inspect the damage while Tokarov crossed his arms and looked at the little sub with a jaundiced eye.
“This plan is insane. The Leviathan will sink you the instant it sees you.”
“Not so,” replied Kane, patting the IFF cylinder. “It will send an interrogation signal, this splendid device will reply with the correct response and the Leviathan will welcome home its drone with open docking hatches.”
“Even if we do get inside,” said Petrov, “what do we hope to accomplish? We do not know what the vessel, if it is a vessel in any conventional sense, contains. How can we formulate a plan when we are entering entirely into the unknown?”
“Or you could just tell us what to expect, Captain Kane,” said Katya. Kane looked sharply at her. “You’ve been hinting and dancing around the point ever since you saw that thing on the Novgorod’s screens. All our lives are in danger now and I’m getting sick of it. Just tell us what you know and we might stand a chance of getting out of here alive.”
There was a short, awkward pause. Her uncle was having trouble repressing a smile at Kane’s evident discomfort, while Petrov merely raised an eyebrow. Unexpectedly, it was Tasya who nodded slightly at Katya, her approval for Katya’s outspokenness evident.
“It’s not that easy,” said Kane.
“Yes, it is! You just say what it is; and how we can sink it or cripple it or just put it off the idea that sinking boats is fun. It is that easy! It is that simple!”
Kane’s eyes were flicking back and forth as he looked around him at the surviving members of the Novgorod and Vodyanoi crews. He suddenly looked very uneasy. “Very well,” he said finally. “You want to know what the Leviathan really is?” He walked to the Baby and sat on her starboard ballast tank housing. The crews silently formed a semi-circle around him. He sighed, and said, “It’s a warship. It’s a Terran warship. It was sent here as a last resort during your war of independence. If all else failed, the Leviathan was to engage and destroy the entire Russalkin fleet. It could do it, too.”
“Why wasn’t it used then?” rumbled Lukyan. “Why did the Terrans die in battle when they had this thing all along?”