“I guess we’ll be towing that same line then,” Leo said, disdainfully.
“Of course, if anybody still cares to ask.” Korashev sat back and smoothed his moustache.
“It sure didn’t wait around once the shit hit the fan,” Leo said, looking at the radar screen. The object had long since evaded their short range scanning.
“No and unfortunately I suspect it will be the second objective we fail to fulfil on this mission,” Korashev replied.
The Captain’s dour pessimism did little to dampen the unabated childlike excitement building in Leo. It was a directive that if accomplished promised a modicum of fame and celebrity. But most significantly, the opportunity to witness something truly alien. Something Leo had been fascinated by ever since the original arc was discovered.
For years he dreamt of visiting the site in Eastern Siberia where the Iban arc was being investigated, now he was aboard a Soviet vessel tasked with recovering a second. His mind quickly turned to the circumstances of the arcs apparent escape. The first arc had been found drifting, floating end over end in space by the crew of Salyut-6. The drives and reactor equivalent engines dormant for aeons. Seized.
This new arc was very much operational, but who or what had powered it? Guiding it away from impending disaster. They could be on the verge of contact, or the very least a fully functioning arc, replete with whatever guidance software had assumed control. Suddenly Leo found himself strikingly impatient to be done with the Riyadh, to hell with her crew of saboteurs. Surely the pursuit of the new arc should be of utmost import. It was almost as if the alien vessel were calling to him…
“Leo, you there?” By the harried tone of the Captain’s voice, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to garner his attention. Leo shook his head. “Ah, you are awake. Listen, Leo I know you are here in the capacity of a training second grade, but let me tell you one thing. You are not above getting an old dog like me a cup of coffee and debriefing me on the pursuit.”
Leo smiled and nodded. “Yes, Captain,” he said, his mind unable to snap from the siren pull of the Iban arc.
Murmansk-13 groaned, the spokes and stanchions that once held the outer rings buckled and then parted. What few module districts hadn’t been wrenched away by the colossal gravitational forces were thrown from the Central Command module like a discarded hula hoop, wheeling toward the flaming shell of the red supergiant in their own autonomous death spirals before combusting in the superheated atmosphere.
End over end, the Central Command module twirled toward oblivion. Bathed in sterilizing x-ray and gamma radiation, the aluminium skin of the station began to boil away.
For Oleg, the last moments of his life had surpassed him. At his feet lay Jamal; his trachea torn from his throat, hanging limply from the ragged gash in his neck.
But Oleg didn’t recognized that fact, nor even himself. The electro-chemical impulses that once made him Oleg Goroshko had ceased. As his synapses atrophied and withered, a life of pained memories were erased.
Afghanistan, the herdsman and his family were gone.
What was left was a twisted atavistic id and a senseless need to feed, the single and only desire.
Oleg never even felt pain, when the station burst into flames around him, his body no longer capable of such sensation. He watched as the Red Supergiant consumed his atoms in a cauldron of energy until there was nothing but merciful, eternal darkness.
About the Author
Richard-Steven Williams is an alumni of Bath Spa University where he received a BA Honours degree in Creative Studies in English.
Having realised soon afterwards he wasn’t going to make a living writing, he spent three years working as a binman before selling his drum kit and moving to Canada where he became bankrupt.
Returning to the UK broke, Richard joined the Merchant Navy and splits his years between a flat in Glasgow and a product tanker in the Caribbean.
When he is not writing (which is most of the time), Richard can be found travelling between Extreme Metal festivals across the UK, Europe and North America, drunkenly harassing patrons about this book he once wrote. He is also a keen hill walker, avid ice hockey fan and occasionally competent curler (for a Welsh/Englisher). He also still plays the drums… badly.
A fan of science fiction and horror, Richard drew upon his experience working at sea to write his début novel Murmansk-13 in 2017.
Richard can be contacted via:
Twitter: @RSWMurmansk13
Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/murmansk13
Goodreads: Richard-Steven Williams
Emaiclass="underline" murmansk-13@hotmail.com
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Text copyright©
2017 Richard-Steven Williams
All Rights Reserved
©Richard-Steven Williams 2017
All artwork by Vicky Bawangun
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.