“And what are those impulses?” asked Lukyan.
“Destroy the Russalkin resistance, prosecute the war, take targets important to the Terran invasion,” said Petrov, “exactly as they were ten years ago.” He sighed. “You’re thinking that it will attack the Yagizban, aren’t you, and they’d have to fight back, perhaps damage or destroy it? That might not be the case.”
Katya was excited by her idea and his reservations angered her. “Why not?”
“Because…” he looked at both of them uncertainly. Then he came to a conclusion and said, “I might as well tell you. We had evidence — not good evidence, it was weak, circumstantial stuff — that the Yagizba Conclaves were collaborating with the Terran invasion.”
Lukyan and Katya looked at him as if thunderstruck. “They… collaborated?” Lukyan managed to say after a shocked silence.
Katya shook her head. “That can’t be right! The first thing the Terrans did was bombard the Yagizban platforms from orbit. They killed hundreds!”
“The theory goes — and it is only a theory — that the Earth ships attacked before the Yagizban command managed to contact them and offer their services. As for the deaths, they just put them down to the fog of war and forgave the Terrans.” He looked at the floor. “It’s war. Stupid things happen in war and people die for all the wrong reasons.”
“Where’s the evidence?” asked Lukyan.
“There is none, nothing concrete. It’s just guesswork based on the question of how the Terran forces trapped on Russalka managed to fade away. We scoured the seas looking for them. The popular theory was that they’d become pirates. The less popular one was that they’d been given safe haven by the Conclaves. Now, it turns out that both theories might be the same thing. Most of the Vodyanoi’s crew, I haven’t said more than a couple of dozen words to them. They could easily be Terran for all we know. I didn’t know Kane was until he told us, not for certain. When Captain Zagadko had him arrested as a Terran aboard the Novgorod, I wasn’t convinced. There are other colony worlds out there, and some of them must use fixed-wing aircraft. Turned out the captain was right, though. Anyway,” he concluded, “that’s why the Leviathan sticking to its original orders might not help us if it regards the Conclaves as allies.”
Then Lukyan laughed and, knowing why he was laughing, Katya laughed too. Petrov looked at them as if they were mad. “I don’t see much to laugh about in our present predicament,” he snapped.
“I’m sorry,” said Lukyan. “You weren’t aboard the Leviathan. I hadn’t thought about it until now because I’d been thinking like the Yagizban, that Tokarov had total control. If he doesn’t… well!” He laughed again.
The usually cool Petrov looked like he might explode. He turned to Katya. “Your uncle seems to enjoy being obscure, Ms Kuriakova. Perhaps you..?”
Katya fought down her laughter, which she had noticed was becoming a little hysterical and said, “The Leviathan has no allies. Something had gone wrong with it, and it had lost its list of allies. As far as it’s concerned, every Russalkin on the planet — Federal or Yagizban — is a target. They might not know it yet, but the Yagizban are as dead as the rest of us.”
In the silence that followed that comment, even her uncle’s booming laugh dying immediately away, Katya realised that perhaps it wasn’t really that funny after all.
“I could have phrased that better,” she added quickly. “That’s a worst case scenario. That’s if Tokarov, or what’s left of him, has no control at all, that is,” Belatedly, she realised what Petrov already had — that almost every foreseeable scenario was a “worst case.”
Any further morale building was interrupted as the door slid open and a Yagizban trooper stepped in hefting a maser carbine. Letting the weapon’s barrel travel across the Novgorod’s crew, he checked the datapad in his free hand and said, “Petrov! I’m looking for a Lieutenant Petrov! Step forward!”
“The interrogations begin,” muttered Petrov sourly. He climbed to his feet. “Over here.”
The trooper turned to face him, putting the pad back into his belt. “You’re coming with me.”
Petrov crossed his arms and cocked his head. “For what purpose?”
The trooper wasn’t in the mood for backchat, and levelled the gun directly at Petrov. “Move!”
Katya saw movement behind the trooper and realised that one of the crew who had been sitting by the door had risen silently and was silently creeping up on him. No, she saw, not one of the crew. Suhkalev.
He almost made it. Perhaps he made a little noise or the trooper saw Katya looking raptly past him or he simply got the feeling that somebody was sneaking up on him, but the trooper wheeled around. Suhkalev threw himself forward, but the trooper was a big man. Suhkalev was too close to give the trooper time to aim, so instead he stopped Suhkalev’s charge with the body of the carbine and they struggled for a moment.
Too short a moment for the crew to act upon, though, as the trooper smashed Suhkalev in the face with a vicious head butt. The Federal staggered back clutching his broken nose, blood already streaming down his face, stumbled over his own feet and fell backwards. The trooper didn’t hesitate; he raised the carbine and brought it to a firing position aiming at the helpless form of Suhkalev. Everybody in the room heard the click of the weapon’s safety catch being released.
“No!” roared Petrov, but the trooper took no notice. There was the crack of a maser discharge, and it was all over.
The trooper lowered his carbine, stood looking at Suhkalev for a moment. Then he fell to his knees. He stayed there for a long, uncomprehending moment, then pitched forward onto his face.
“Oh,” said Lukyan gently, “my poor Katinka.”
Katya stood, shaking slightly, unable to move voluntarily. The little maser, pieces of surgical tape still dangling from it, shuddered in her two handed grip.
She couldn’t look away from the body of the man she had just killed, couldn’t believe that the silly little device that she’d been carrying around with her like a talisman could do that. A twitch of the finger, and a life evaporated.
“He was, he was going to kill him. I didn’t… he was going to kill him.” The words stumbled out in a welter of disbelief and horror and guilt.
Lukyan gently took the gun from her. “I know, Katinka. I know. There was no choice. We all saw.” He passed the gun to Petrov and shooed him off with a nod.
Katya wanted to speak but the words bubbled without meaning in her throat. She wanted to cry but her eyes burned dry. When Lukyan hugged her, she clung to him, wanting to roll back time, wanting to be a child again, a little girl who wouldn’t be in this insane mess.
“Lukyan…” It was Petrov. His crew had formed up and were ready to go. The guard’s body had miraculously gone, efficiently and quietly bundled up and hidden in one of the toilet cubicles. Now the only sign he’d been there was his maser carbine in the hands of one of the ratings regarded as the best shot amongst the survivors. Katya’s maser pistol, stripped of the last vestiges of tape, was in Petrov’s hand. “Lukyan, they’re going to start looking for that guard soon…”