Jonathan Howard - Katya's World

“I know. We have to get out of here.” She looked down through the porthole. Russalka looked a long way away. “Any ideas?”

Kane walked over to join her and they watched the clouds become distant. “In a word, no.” He cocked his head and admitted, “Well, one, but it isn’t to get us out of here. Let me show you something.” They walked to the console Kane had been studying. “The Leviathan uses two power sources. When it can get water, it uses simple electrolysis to break it down into oxygen and hydrogen and stores the hydrogen.”

“To use as fuel for a fusion power plant. Any boat much bigger than the Baby does that.”

“True, but fusion doesn’t give the large amounts of quick I need it now power something as big as this needs in, say, combat. Which brings us to the second power source.” He tapped the display where a figure read 5.56Kg.

“So educate me. What masses 5.56 kilograms?”

Kane looked seriously at her. “Antimatter. It certainly didn’t have that much when I left it. It must have been sitting at the bottom of the sea for ten years using fusion energy to make the stuff. Something else it’s not supposed to do. If it had lost power to the antimatter containment field and it had come in contact with the side of its container… Katya, do you have the faintest idea what antimatter is?”

She shook her head. “I was hoping you’d tell me that.”

Kane sighed. “Simply put, it’s matter’s evil twin. When matter and antimatter come in contact, they obliterate each other, right down to the subatomic level. BANG!” Katya jumped. “Total conversion into energy! The amount of the stuff the Leviathan is carrying would produce a staggeringly huge explosion. It would have been suicide to destroy the Leviathan while it was still in the ocean; it would have caused a shockwave that would have travelled around the world wreaking untold damage. At least we can prevent that.”

Katya looked curiously at the console readings. “How?”

“By making it explode up here where it won’t do any harm. I can access the antimatter containment field from here, turn it off. A few minutes later it will decay to the point where the antimatter comes in contact with the matter wall of its container, and that will be that. The jig will be over for the Leviathan .”

“And us.”

“And us. Yes. What can I say? This always had the air of a suicide mission. All we can do is to try and protect Russalka.”

Katya thought about it. Was it really such a loss, to give her life up like this? She had no family left. She had never really had any friends. It was a shame that the people down there would never know the sacrifice she made for them, but that was little enough compared to the lives that would be saved. “Why should you care, anyway? You’re not even Russalkin.”

“We’re all human,” said Kane simply. He gestured at the controls. “What do you say? Shall we?”

Katya nodded quickly, not trusting herself to speak. Kane reached for the controls, his hands hesitated above them momentarily, his fingers twitched once, then he tapped out some instructions. It took him less than five seconds to sign their death warrants. When he was finished, he stepped back.

“It’s done. The Leviathan will try and run auxiliary power to the containment field, but I’ve put other demands on it. It will only delay the inevitable by a little while.”

Somebody once said that the prospect of imminent death concentrates the mind. Katya looked around the chamber with all its exposed workings, units and equipment as a collection of entities for the first time instead of just a setting for her last moments. “What,” she asked slowly, an idea starting to form, “is the pressure in low Russalkin orbit?”

Kane was surprised by the question. “The pressure? So close to zero to make little difference.”

Katya walked over to the Baby and ran her hand over the hull. “The Baby ’s rated down to four kilometres of ocean on her back. If she can stand that number of positive atmospheres, I’m sure she can bear no atmosphere at all.”

Kane stood up very straight. “Are you suggesting we use it as an escape pod?” Katya nodded, but Kane shook his head. “Yes, we’ll get caught in Russalka’s gravity and re-enter the atmosphere, but we’d come down like a meteorite. We’d burn up.”

“We have to be travelling fast to burn on re-entry.” And she pointed at the combat drones.

Kane looked at them, understanding visibly growing in his face. “Use the drone’s antigravity systems to neutralise most of the Baby ’s mass? Like your Novgorod gambit?”

“Like my Novgorod gambit. I’m only ever going to have one bright idea in my life; I’m trying to get as much use out of it as I can.”

“Don’t do yourself down. If the drone’s AG units were activated once we were inside the outer atmosphere, it would be like deploying drogue parachutes. We might just survive it.”

“It’s a plan. Re-energise the antimatter containment while we get this worked out and you can switch it off again when we’re about to leave.”

Kane’s jubilant expression faded. “Ah,” he said quietly.

Katya’s own face fell. “You can’t.”

“If I could, so could the Leviathan . I had to lock out any attempt to re-activate it.” He moved quickly to the console. “The Leviathan ’s doing everything it can to keep the antimatter safe, but it’s losing. We’ve got fifteen minutes at most, probably less.” He gestured hopelessly at the drones. “It would take that long to dismantle a drone to get the antigravity unit out and it would take at least two for us to stand a chance. There’s just no time. I’m sorry, Katya, it was a good idea. Fate doesn’t come much crueller.”

Katya wasn’t listening. She was already at one of the combat drones, opening its inspection hatch. “We’re not finished yet. If we can’t get the unit out in time, the whole damned drone is just going to have to come with us!”

She had the first drone’s contragravitic system’s fired up, before Kane got over his surprise. “I like you, Katya Kuriakova,” he said finally. “You’re mad, but I like that in moderation.”

She was too busy wrestling the great cylinder -- rendered almost weightless but still with all its inertia, out of its cradle and over to the Baby -- to reply. She did notice that he wasn’t helping, though.

She looked up from working on a second drone to see him opening a locker and pulling out a one piece suit, white and helmeted. “What’s that?” She bent back to her work.

“EVA suit. Extra-vehicular activity, that is. A spacesuit.” He pulled off his jacket and boots and started shrugging the suit on over the rest of his clothes. “Pretty good underwater, too.”

“Is there one for me?”

“No, but you won’t need one. You’ll be in the minisub.”

She stopped and looked suspiciously at him. “And where will you be?”

He pointed under the Baby . “Opening that hatch. It has to be done from the console. The chamber will have decompressed before I can get back so I’ll need an air supply. The plan is I open the hatch, run over and come in through your minisub’s dorsal airlock. You, meanwhile, sit tight in the pilot’s seat and bring the drones online slowly as we start to fall through the atmosphere. Like it?”

“Not much, but I don’t have anything better. When you’ve got that thing on, fetch me six connector leads from locker two and the tape gun in locker four.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” replied Kane and hurried himself into the suit.

‘ Aye-aye, captain ,’ thought Katya. ‘ Your minisub’s airlock.’ He’s right; Uncle Lukyan never made a secret of his will. I own the Baby. I am her captain. My first command.