“It won’t be an FMA vessel?”
Petrov shook his head, frowning slightly. “There are no FMA facilities in the Conclaves. They refuse to have them, regard the Federal administration as an obstruction to their work. Given that they’re so important to the planet’s defence if and when Earth ever try again, it was decided to cut them a little slack. That’s not something we’re inclined to advertise, though,” he added with a conspiratorial look.
“How long to the rendezvous?”
Another glance at the chronometer. “Not long. About another ten minutes now.” He looked at her again. “You know, Ms Kuriakova, you hold a very privileged position in this company.”
She looked at him with blank surprise. “I do?”
He nodded. “You do. Everybody seems to trust you with their confidence. Your uncle, obviously, but also the pirates. The Chertovka is remarkably tolerant of you. You’re aware of her reputation?”
Katya felt awkward discussing Tasya behind her back. “She says that reputation isn’t deserved.”
“Reputations rarely are, whether they’re good or bad. As for Kane, he treats you like a daughter. Ms Kuriakova,” he leaned towards her and spoke quietly, “I would be very careful of trusting him in any respect. Few people are quite what they appear, but he seems to make a hobby of being utterly unexpected. We just thought he was another lowlife at first, and then he turns out to be Terran and a failed component in a plan to commit genocide against us.”
“Genocide?” Katya started to grow angry, but then paused. Only she and probably the Chertovka knew of Kane’s sacrifice and his enforced addiction to that filthy Sin stuff. She longed to tell Petrov just how wrong he was, but didn’t feel the secret was hers to impart. Perhaps this was why she was trusted with so many confidences; she kept them even when she burned to tell. Unaware of her inner confusion, Petrov was talking.
“He knows so much about the Leviathan. He’s obviously only telling us what we need to know from minute to minute, never anything like the whole picture. For all we know, he has the secret of how to destroy it and is keeping it back for some reason. We cannot trust him.”
Katya shook her head firmly. “If he could destroy it, it would be in pieces right now.” She would have said more, but the bulkhead hatch opened and Tasya came in, graciously ushered through by Kane who followed her.
“About time, isn’t it?” said Kane, full of the heartiness and cheer that Katya now knew meant that he’d used Sin recently to stop the sickness of its addiction crushing him. The knowledge made her feel sick herself.
Petrov, pointedly staying in the command chair, nodded. “Another couple of minutes and then we’ll start the ascent. I hope we can convince the commander of whatever ship we’re meeting with of the urgency of the situation. With every wasted minute, the Leviathan is closing on their homes.”
“We’ll convince them,” said Tasya with a certainty that intrigued Katya. She could see Petrov had noticed it too, but — as with so much — he didn’t comment, just filed it away in the grey perfection of his memory.
As good as his word, two minutes after Kane and Tasya had entered the bridge, Petrov ordered the ascent by the book so exactly that Kane pronounced it drill perfect and as good as any he’d ever seen aboard a Terran boat. If it was meant as a compliment, it didn’t work.
The Vodyanoi surged up from the depths and hit the surface exactly on location and on schedule. A visual scan of the open sea only confirmed what their sensors had already told them; there was no boat to greet them.
Petrov settled back into the captain’s chair and smiled a little smugly. “So much for Yagizban efficiency.”
The Chertovka fumed, and Kane added warningly, “Give them a moment, lieutenant. We don’t know what they may have encountered en route.”
Suddenly, the pirate sweeping the horizon with the external cameras spoke up. “Visual contact! Bearing 12 degrees absolute!”
The FMA ensign at the sensors console was stunned. “Nothing on sonar, sir,” he reported in disbelief. “Nothing on hydrophones. Not a whisper.”
Katya saw the frown that passed over Petrov’s face and knew he was thinking the same as her. Did the Yagizban have stealth technology like the Leviathan’s on their boats? And, if so, why hadn’t they shared it with the FMA? Any such conjecture was blown away the very next second by what the ensign had to add.
“Speed estimated at two hundred klicks pee-aitch, altitude…”
Katya was thunderstruck. Altitude?
“…one thousand metres. Decelerating and descending. Three thousand metres and closing.”
She couldn’t believe it. The Yagizba Conclaves had sent an anti-gravity car out to meet them? At this range? They must be crazy; the elements would rip it to pieces if it had to fly more than a short distance. Perhaps it had been launched from a Yagizban ship to make the rendezvous in time. It is a poor habit to theorise without data and, when Petrov ordered the images from the camera relayed to the main screen, she saw she had been profoundly wrong in a very unexpected way.
“What,” said Petrov in clipped tones that somehow served to make him seem angrier than if he’d jumped to his feet and started swearing, “is that?”
It was no little AG car coming towards them. Flying close to the tops of the storm-tossed sea, the always furious sky of Russalka boiling and spitting lightning behind it, came a huge aircraft kept aloft by AG pods but propelled forward by the hideous blue light of quantum drives, as blue as cobalt, yet still flickering on the edge of perception. These were the manoeuvre drives of starships; she’d never dreamt she’d see a craft use them in atmosphere. And it was a big craft, at least half as long again as the Vodyanoi and noticeably wider.
“Incoming message,” reported the signals officer. “Requests we order all stop to engines and batten down.”
Petrov was glaring at the image of the closing aircraft as if it were a personal insult. Katya guessed that the Yagizban had been keeping the development of a new air fleet to themselves. She could see why the FMA would not regard this as a pleasant surprise. “Tell them…”
“That we are complying,” interrupted Tasya. “All engines stop. Batten down and brace.”
Petrov shot her a look but did not countermand her order. They might have reached an agreement to share command, but the Vodyanoi was still a pirate vessel and Petrov would never feel he had the last word aboard.
The aircraft was close now, spinning about to approach the last few hundred metres backwards. As it made its final approach, a great seam in its belly opened and the fuselage skin slid back, revealing a great empty cavity within. Katya looked around at the others: Petrov and Lukyan were watching the spectacle grimly; Tasya’s expression was content; Kane seemed faintly bored. Was she the only one who was amazed by this? The craft was some sort of extraordinary transporter, but she’d never heard of the like. What other wonders would the Yagizban have back at the Conclaves?
“Brace!” ordered Tasya over the Vodyanoi’s public address speakers. Katya found an empty seat and strapped herself in. Barely had she done so when the transporter settled over them. The screen went dark and the boat lurched. Hollow metallic clangs sounded through her hull as grapnels secured her into the transport’s cavernous belly. Then the boat pitched back to about thirty degrees. As the realisation that the Vodyanoi had been picked up and was airborne hit home, lights flickered on outside and the camera revealed the inside of the transport aircraft around them, its girders and catwalks. They could see a hatch open and people in the distinctive yellow buff uniforms of the Conclaves enter. A minute later, there was a clanging on the metal of the Vodyanoi’s squat conning tower. The deck angle had returned more or less to the horizontal so Tasya unstrapped herself and climbed quickly up the ladder into the tower. They heard her open the hatch and a voice ask permission to come aboard. Moments later, the bridge was full of Yagizban troops.