Jonathan Howard - Katya's War

“Hello, Genevra,” said Kane, blithely using her first name and breaking the Vodyanoi ’s paramilitary disciplinary protocols at the same time, a privilege of rank. “No, the communications blackout was simply because the facility is shielded.”

“We were concerned…”

“I know, I know. It hasn’t all been clear sailing, though. I regret to say we’ve lost Bruno.”

There was a beat of silence. “How?” said Ocello, her previous excitement gone.

“The Federals mined the place. I’ll brief you when we get back. Please tell Mr Sahlberg to bring in Bruno’s suit on drone channel Epsilon. Ms Kuriakova will pilot herself back.”

“Kane?” said Katya.

Kane continued to speak to the Vodyanoi , but his next question showed he knew exactly what was on Katya’s mind. “Speaking of Ms Kuriakova, I suspect she’s feeling a little anxious that we’re not picking up her boat’s comms channel. What’s the Lukyan ’s status, please?”

“Sir,” said Ocello, “I regret to say that we’ve lost contact with the Lukyan . We picked up some noise on the comms channel, sounded like shouting. Then she went silent, and headed away at best speed.”

“Didn’t you go after her?” demanded Katya, her impatience making her cut in.

“We couldn’t, Ms Kuriakova. Our orders were to stay on station in case you needed us.”

“Don’t worry,” said Kane. He seemed to be reaching for a sympathetic and encouraging tone, but he just sounded tired. “It will just be something silly. We’ll get back to the boat and then we’ll look for the Lukyan . Vodyanoi , we’re coming over now. Let us get clear and then bring in Mr Giroux’s suit last, please.”

“Going to neutral buoyancy,” reported Tasya. Katya put her worries about Sergei and the Lukyan to one side for a moment, and adjusted her suit’s buoyancy. The controls were simple and unambiguous, the MMU’s computer doing all the physics for her. She simply set the suit’s desired buoyancy level, and the MMU emptied its ballast tanks to exactly the right level to comply.

Tasya was first out of the lock, heading off into the gloom directly for the glowing marker on her HUD that told her the location and orientation of the Vodyanoi ’s waiting salvage maw. Katya found the MMU controls mounted high on the “podium” front of the MMU at stomach height. The left control was a simple throttle, the right a twistable force stick. She had piloted utility pods to get her crew licence, and a pod’s simple controls were almost identical to this.

“It’s pretty straightforward, Katya,” said Kane. “The right hand control…”

Without answering, Katya gently opened the throttle, directed the manoeuvre jets with the force stick, and lifted her suit from the airlock floor. She moved out into the ocean with as much grace and assurance as Tasya had before her, and set course for the Vodyanoi .

“Oh,” said Kane, doing a poor job of hiding his surprise. “Well… I’m sure you’ll pick it up… as you go along.” A few seconds later, he announced that he, too, was seaborne.

“This is sensors,” called Sahlberg. “I’m bringing in the fourth suit now.”

Not “Giroux’s suit,” Katya noticed. There would be quiet commemorations for Bruno Giroux among the Vodyanois soon enough, but right now his fate was not something they could focus upon.

In silence, three survivors and a dead man’s suit were coming home.

The recording didn’t tell them anything at all. There was an incoherent shout which didn’t sound like Sergei, then a cry that might have been him, some tumbled ambient sound of a microphone being buffeted and then the transmission cut off. Since their return, Katya had listened to it through headphones five times, her eyes shut, trying to imagine what had occurred aboard the Lukyan . Nothing would form in her imagination that might explain it.

It sounded like a fight, but Sergei wasn’t the kind of man who looked for fights. Yes, he was surly, sarcastic, and opinionated, but on the occasions he had pushed someone too far, he’d backed down and apologised before it came to blows. At first she’d thought he did that just because he didn’t see the point of taking some bruises for the sake of a smart comment. More recently, however, now she was spending more time with him, with Uncle Lukyan dead and the war colouring every aspect of life, she’d realised Sergei didn’t just want to avoid unnecessary violence; he wanted to avoid it always, in any form, for any reason. Only an idiot went looking for trouble, but a refusal to deal with it in kind when the only alternative was to let trouble have its way? There was a word for that, and it was an ugly one.

Katya liked Sergei for all his faults, even that one, but it did make her fear for what might have happened to him. An indiscrete comment about pirates, raised tempers, an apology that was too little or too late — that would be all it would take.

“The man you put aboard the Lukyan ,” demanded Katya of Kane, “who is he?”

Kane seemed nonplussed, and looked at Ocello questioningly.

“Vetsch,” said Ocello, pulling up a personnel file on the console in the Vodyanoi ’s officers’ mess. “Laurent Vetsch, engineer, second class.”

“Vetsch?” Kane frowned. “But… he’s the most inoffensive man on the boat. Katya, I can’t believe Laurent Vetsch would start a fight, no matter how much Sergei pushed him.”

“Sergei’s not the fighting sort either.”

She was slightly distracted by noticing how much livelier Kane seemed since they’d got back. Of course, she realised, he hadn’t been tired at all. His Sin addiction had been making itself felt. He must have gone straight to his cabin to dose himself as soon as he was out of his suit. It was a terrible burden he would carry until he died, and Katya always felt ashamed by how she had reacted when she first found out about it.

She had been educated at school to believe that all drug addicts were victims of their own selfish weakness. That a totally addictive drug with fatal withdrawal effects had been developed purely as a method of enslavement was part of a further education she would rather have lived without. That Kane had deliberately addicted himself to it in a vain attempt to prevent an apocalypse — an apocalypse that almost came anyway — only served to impress upon her that life has too many random factors for comfort.

“Well, something happened.” Kane ran the sound file again. A shout of anger? Rage? Pain? Followed by Sergei — probably Sergei — crying out. “That doesn’t sound very friendly.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s only been just over an hour. They can’t have got far. Set a pursuit course, Number One. Fifty percent faster than the Lukyan ’s rated top speed, and broad passive scan in progress.”

“Aye, captain. We’ll pay special attention to the sea bed. There’s a lot of clutter that a little bug like that could hide amongst.” Ocello rose and left.

“That wasn’t very kind, calling your boat a ‘bug,’” said Kane when Ocello was safely out of earshot.

“I’ve heard her called worse,” said Katya.

She looked at the console display that Ocello had been examining and quickly skim read Vetsch’s profile before Kane could object. He didn’t, but just watched. Vetsch seemed exemplary. Apart for a couple of trifling offences that anyone would pick up out of sheer bad luck over a long period, he was entirely clean. Ocello had noted that it was unfortunate that, since the Vodyanoi ’s crew had barely changed in the last ten years, there had been no opportunity to promote Vetsch. In the usual run of things, he would have made Chief years ago. That he was stuck as a second engineer was no reflection on his abilities or attitude. Words like “patient,” “tenacious,” “gregarious” did little to suggest Vetsch might suddenly turn into a raging…