Jonathan Howard - Katya's War

“So,” she heard Alina’s recorded voice say, “just what did you do?”

The interrogator reached out and clicked the recorder off. “And you told her, didn’t you? You told both those poor innocents just what an ugly world they actually live in, and what a foul, evil little empire the Federal Maritime Authority truly is, didn’t you?” Her face hardened. “You’ve doomed them, you realise. The FMA cannot tolerate that sort of information in the hands of a couple of stupid girls like Shepitko and Volkova.”

She glared at Katya’s pallid face. Katya was starting to sweat as shock gave way to fear. The interrogator continued, ruthlessly driving home what was going to happen and that it was all Katya’s fault.

“Secor won’t allow them to return to Atlantis when there is the slightest chance they might tell anyone what you told them. Nor can they stay here. They’ll talk sooner or later, Kuriakova. They’ll hint, to try and seem clever. Somebody will ask them what they mean by that, and they’ll talk just like you did. Some thoughts and ideas are as deadly as any disease. The one you’ve contaminated those women with will kill them just as surely.”

She leaned back and regarded Katya with unconcealed disgust. “What did you hope to accomplish by telling them?”

Katya glared at her, shaking with hatred. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you lay a finger on them, you parasite.”

“Oh,” said the interrogator in very understated mock fear. “Threats now?”

“You’ve got the upper hand for the moment, but that won’t last long. You’d better start making some friends because the day is going to come when you will need them.”

“And it will come soon.” The interrogator had become serious. “I know.”

Katya shut her mouth before she said anything else that might reveal too much. The Secor interrogator didn’t seem to care. She gestured at the cameras mounted in opposite corners of the room.

“They’re switched off. I’m allowed to do that. I pulled a couple of leads to make absolutely sure. They’re all scared of me anyway. They know the kind of things I’ve done to prisoners in here.” She smiled to herself, as if torture and executions were lovable whims. “Apart from the governor. I don’t think he’s scared of anything. He’s a strange man. Fancies himself as a marine biologist, you know. Almost every day he has drones out going down into the valley below to seek out new creatures, some of which he then has cooked and eats. As I say, a strange man.”

Katya could only stare at the interrogator, and strain quietly and uselessly at her restraints. If the interrogator decided to draw a knife and cut Katya’s wrists, there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop her.

“You’re frightened, aren’t you? Me, too. Seven years I’ve been a member of Secor. Before that, I was in Base Security in Lemuria. Ten years… almost eleven now, I suppose… eleven years ago, we fought Terran troopers — commandoes, they were — when they attacked Lemuria. Corridor fighting. We outnumbered them, but they were so well equipped, so well trained. It was a victory every time we managed to bring down even one of them. I thought we were going to lose, then. Not just that battle. The whole war. I was terrified.” She blinked, bringing herself back from the past. “Then the war just faded away. We were default victors, but we pretended we’d earned it. Oh, the celebrations.

“We’re losing this one, too, and so are the Yagizban. I have Alpha clearance. I see the reports. I’ve had Yagizban agents sitting exactly where you’re sitting, and when I’ve peeled away all the training, the lies, all the defences and I’m left with the pure naked truth within, I see the same thing that I see within myself.”

She took Katya’s hands in her own, just as Dominika had. “You shouldn’t say anything. It’s wiser if you don’t. There are two people that you can trust on this station and two only. The Chertovka and me.”

Katya tried not to react, but apparently did a poor job of it as the interrogator laughed.

“You’re not very good at this game, are you? I could have opened you like a clam inside twenty-four hours. Well inside. Don’t trust me until you’ve spoken to her. You would be a fool to believe anything I say before then. Until then, you might want to consider how a war criminal like her managed to get through the Deeps’ induction checks without being identified.”

There was a small amount of pain involved in the interrogation after all. Most of the subsequent hour (“The guards will wonder what’s going on if an interview takes less than an hour.”) was spent with Katya reading a patriotic novel on a memo pad while the interrogator rested her head on the table top and listened to a selection of Poliakov concertos, humming along quietly to them. Then, when the closing chords of his Fifth had died away, she roused herself, looked through her case, and located a small pressure syringe. Before Katya could react, the interrogator injected her through the skin of her wrist.

“It’s nothing much,” she told Katya. “Just a mild debilitant. If you’re not exhibiting any signs of interrogation, it would look odd.”

“I could have pretended!” said Katya, tugging uselessly at the hasp holding down her manacles.

The interrogator grimaced and shook her head. “Not you. You’re a terrible actor.”

By the time Oksana and the other guard arrived a few minutes later at the interrogator’s summons, Katya could barely stand.

“You can put her back into the general population,” the interrogator told them. “I’m done with her for the time being.”

The guards had to half carry Katya back to the lift. “What did they do to you?” asked Oksana.

“Don’t!” snapped the other guard. “Don’t ask. Never ask about Secor business.”

The guards took Katya to the sickbay, where they seemed to be expecting her. An orderly put her on a bed fully clothed and told her to sleep it off. Katya tried to say, “Thank you,” but her tongue just lolled uselessly around in her mouth. The orderly shook his head, rolled her into the recovery position, and left her there.

Prisons breed gangs, factions, and cliques. For her first month, Katya had steered around the edge of them with some help from Dominika. There was always a strong feeling however, that sooner or later, she would run into one or another group. On her return from interrogation, this feeling utterly evaporated. That Secor had its attention on Katya was more than enough reason to give her plenty of space.

It didn’t mean people weren’t curious, though. When Katya was having her first evening meal after her “interrogation,” she was joined at her table by a couple of inmates to whom she’d never spoken before. One had TRAITOR on her uniform and the other had MURDERER . Katya found herself just thinking of them by their crimes. Neither of them looked at all extraordinary; if it wasn’t for the cropped hair and the uniforms, she wouldn’t have looked at them twice had she seen them in a station corridor.

“Been a guest of Maya, have you?” said the Traitor.

Katya looked up from her broth and regarded them suspiciously. “Who?”

“Maya. Maya Durova, the ‘White Death.’”

It was clear from Katya’s expression that none of this meant much to her. While the Traitor slouched with irritation, the Murderer said, “The Secor woman. The redhead. Does the tortures.”

Katya wondered why they were interested. She remembered the interrogator — Maya Durova, apparently — telling her only she and Tasya were trustworthy, and that Katya should check with Tasya before even believing that. Since then, she’d avoided talking to anybody about what had happened during her interrogation. She might say something she shouldn’t, some subtle point that she didn’t even realise was fatal until it was too late. Now here she was, confronted by a couple of utter strangers who seemed far too concerned with her business.