He had even convinced TOM, after much discussion, to teach him the Kurtherian language, so there was more than one person to interpret the data.
That was a long, slow process, though.
Meanwhile, Boris and Paul were outside finding easily defensible positions for both railguns and bunkers to be put in. Places to put up railgun positions were the easy part. Boris was certain they could disguise them as pillars of rock.
Paul was a little less sanguine about that proposal, but such formations did appear naturally in the area so he wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t work, either.
Their biggest problem, especially close to the cave mouth, was that the entire area for at least 500 meters around that cave mouth was bare rock. Any bunker directly covering that cave mouth would be completely obvious.
In the end, Boris decided to build a town for the people who chose to remain on Earth rather than follow Bethany Anne into space. He would move their current base of operations to this new location. Spreading the town away from the cave mouth and then digging a tunnel into the cave was the best option. They would also have to tunnel and create hidden bunkers on the edge of the forest. If they put them in with no underground entry, travel to and from them would inevitably reveal their locations.
It was not a perfect solution. Bethany Anne was not enamored of pissing the Russian government off simply for the sake of it. It seemed that the Russians were happy enough playing a wait and see game, as opposed to all too many of the rest of the world’s governments.
She was just as happy to keep them ‘Gott verdammt fucking Switzerland’ for the purposes of the remainder of the time she was in near proximity to Earth. If they weren’t going to piss in her backyard, she would do her best to avoid pissing in theirs. Although there was a small feeling that they owed her for cleaning up the mess that Konrad had created right under their noses.
Recovering from such a massive internal security threat had thrown the Kremlin into a mild panic. The investigations into how it had happened were progressing slowly, although finding suborned officers that had been involved, even peripherally had helped — until it became clear no amount of political backing or information provided would save them from, at best, life imprisonment in Siberia.
That didn’t mean she’d leave people in her service uncovered. There were already plans to place a puck defense system, similar to the one she was leaving in Japan, in the valley and covering the mountain. Boris was already planning on making contact with nearby farms for supplies of fresh produce, and several Black Eagles under ADAM’s control were far overhead in case the Russian government decided to play hardball.
Once the Pucks were in, Boris and a handful of people he designated would be put in control of them.
Boris still wanted a MotherPucker, just in case he had a large target to take out, like, say the entire Russian Government and senior military structure. For the time being Bethany Anne was saying ‘no’ still.
In fact, the conversation had gone like this:
“Bethany Anne, I NEED it for my ‘it all goes to hell’ plan. I’d rather kill thousands of politicians and bureaucrats than thousands of soldiers just following orders!” Boris had almost yelled at her over the phone line.
Janna, who had been in the room, winced. It didn’t fit her definition of a respectful request. Boris had promised her it would be a respectful request.
“If it needs doing, just call me. You have a direct line to me, ADAM, TOM and the Admiral. If we agree it’s appropriate, it will be done.” Bethany Anne had answered calmly. She knew Boris was still upset with the government’s failure to act when the NVG had moved against Romanovka.
“But…”
“Boris, do I need to come down there and claim a damned bear rug from your fucking hide? No. The Russians are quiet, they are one of the few countries actually supporting the effective embargo on alien tech I’ve put up in the UN. They haven’t even commented on the fact that I obviously have at least an allied force that is more effective at rooting out their own problems internally than they are.”
Boris jumped back in, “And that force is mine! I need a big stick for when the svoltsky politicians get brave enough to think that they can roll us over. I don’t like killing people just following orders. I’d rather kill the people GIVING the orders.”
“Then keep in contact with Yuko. I am sure she will be willing to aid you if you need to go in. If you go after the government with a MotherPucker, the number of civilian deaths could be more than would be good for either of our consciences. This discussion is over Boris. But I will throw you a bone. I’ll send down a bunch of armor penetrating tranquilizer darts so you don’t have to kill any small force the Russians might send to investigate. Then you can send them back, gift wrapped, as a cute little reminder that the government had better not think about fucking with the agreement between them and us.”
Boris grunted. He had hoped that a ‘gloves were off’ ruling was over Russia, but they were too nice to her at the moment. From a strategic perspective, she was right. And she had the waste material from the asteroid mining being converted into prefabricated housing. It was being sent straight to the proposed town. Since it was actually slag turned into walls, there wouldn’t be much for them to pull out of it, so Boris had permission to trade samples of it for favors as needed. Who knew, maybe they’d ask if they could buy some for military housing or something. There was insulation between the slag outer and inner walls, so they would be cheaper than most buildings to heat or cool.
Wilderness near Archangelsk, Russia.
Gyada was comfortable for the first time in centuries. She was being fed regularly by those who had captured her, and interesting things were going on around her. The biggest problem she had with the time she’d been trapped by the man and put in this cave was simple boredom.
The next biggest problem was figuring out what the hell the voice in her head had been.
She’d been so enraged when the alien creature had changed, or as he put it, ‘improved’ her and her children, that she had ignored his threats that he would trap her in this animal’s form if she acted against him.
Gyada did not regret helping her children escape. Nor did she regret killing the alien. At the time she had thought it must have been something from Nifelheim or Svatalfhiem. She now honestly didn’t know. After all, if it had been from one of the other realms, could she have killed it? The rampage she had gone on before that man had trapped her back in her lair, had been because she was trying to escape the voices in the den.
Unable to think of any other options after she killed the one who changed her and her children, she had gone back to her home village, only to have the hunters from the village try and track her down. In her anger at being attacked by her own people, she had struck out.
She regretted that now. After all, if a strange beast that couldn’t talk had entered the village while she had been human, she would have reacted exactly the same way.
The people from her original home had hunted and chained her, but the chains couldn’t hold her, and in her anger, she had destroyed the village. She had then gone around destroying the communities of any who tried to hunt her, until that man, the one who had been stronger than her, had trapped her in this lair, in her new home.
Gyada tried to ignore the voices, the ones that spoke to her whenever she was there. But in the enforced boredom of Gods knew how long trapped in these caves, Gyada had eventually turned to the voices.