Jonathan Howard - Katya's World

She busied herself with the drone before the thought that the Baby might also be her last command had time to crystallise.

The Baby ’s hull was pocked at frequent intervals with socket covers, each covering two sockets that allowed her to interface with equipment attached to her hull. A standard minisub would never be the master of any trade, so it had to content itself being a jack of many. The Baby had, at various times, mounted manipulator waldo arms, extra light banks, cable laying gear, a specialised magnetometer array and a thermic lance. It was unlikely the manufacturers had ever imagined her with two combat drones strapped to her hull. Katya had been counting on the drones complying with the same interface standards as the Vodyanoi , which she had noticed used the types of plugs and sockets that were Russalka standard. It made sense; Russalka may have won its independence from Earth, but the Terran technical conventions they’d inherited were well tried and tested. There was little point in changing things simply for a misguided show of independence from the old world. Even so, she gave an audible sigh of relief when the connector cables snapped home at both ends and the communication lights glowed, showing that the Baby had successfully detected the drone’s anti-gravity units and could control them.

Kane looked at the web of metal tape that Katya had created to clamp the drones in position to make sure the aft hatch and the dorsal airlock were clear and accessible. Satisfied, he hurried back to the console and checked the state of the Leviathan . “How are we doing?” called Katya as she stowed Kane’s coat and boots into a locker.

“Just barely in time. Two minutes, I think. Get that hatch sealed, we’re doing it now.”

Katya slammed that aft hatch and locked it shut, made her way forward to the plot’s seat and strapped herself in. She checked the Judas box — all lights were green. “Just you stay that way,” she muttered.

Outside, Kane sealed his suit’s helmet, made a quick check that its life-support systems were working correctly, and turned his attention to the active console. The antimatter containment was in a bad way. He guessed it would fail in ninety seconds, perhaps even less. He pulled up the ship’s operations controls and ordered the docking bay’s hatch to open. The control flashed green and the hatch started to dilate. Somewhere a decompression warning sounded.

“Category one,” said a voice in Kane’s ear, so close he turned expecting somebody to be standing by him. It took him a moment to realise it was coming through his suit’s communicator. A sense of great and immediate peril, even beyond the Leviathan ’s imminent death, overtook him and he started to run for the Baby . He was a metre away when the grappling cable snaked down from the chamber’s roof and grabbed his leg. Suddenly he was dangling upside down over the Baby . He could see how wide the hatch had opened beneath the minisub and knew it must start falling slowly through in any moment. He reached and his hand barely touched the rail beside the dorsal lock before he was pulled still higher.

“Kane?” Katya’s voice was loud inside the suit’s helmet. “What was that? What’s happening?”

Kane swung up and grabbed the tentacle-like cable. He tugged frantically, but it didn’t budge a centimetre. “I… Unh! The Leviathan . It won’t let me go!” He felt utterly helpless and allowed himself to flop limply like a rag doll in the cable’s grip. “Sorry, Katya. You’re going to have to make the descent yourself.”

“No! No! I will not…”

“Out of our hands, Katya. For what it’s worth, I’m glad I met you.”

“Shut up ! I’m not letting that thing have you!”

“Look after yourself, Katya. Don’t think about me. You need to…”

The tentacle dropped him. He fell slowly; the chambers artificial gravity had been deactivated when the hatch started to open. Even with only Russalka’s gravity, weakened by their distance above it, he still hit the top of the Baby hard and rolled off it. As he lay stunned, he heard the Leviathan speak to him for the last time.

“Go.”

Beside him, the Baby fell through the hatch, but all he could do was gaze up at the cable retracting lazily into the ceiling. Its voice… there had been something about its voice…

Suddenly, he realised his ride was leaving without him. He rolled over and pushed himself out after the Baby , shunting himself off from the hatch edge. It was little enough impetus, but just barely enough to catch up with the minisub. He grabbed one of the metal strips that secured the drones and then quickly transferred his grip to a stanchion rail running down beside the aft hatch before the sharp-edged tape had a chance to cut his glove.

“Kane! Speak to me! I can’t see you!”

“I’m clear of the Leviathan . I’m hanging onto the Baby .”

“You’re clear? How?”

“I don’t know.” He looked upwards to where he could see the diminishing shape of the Leviathan between his feet, accelerating hard away from Russalka, away from them. In a moment, it was almost too small to see “It just… let me go.”

“Can you reach the dorsal hatch?”

He laughed. “No. Not a chance. I’m only holding on with one hand. I can’t move anywhere.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Katya said, “Kane, even with the drones, the passage through the atmos…”

Behind them, the Leviathan exploded. For a moment, it glowed brighter than any sun as matter and antimatter combined in its heart and eliminated one another, changing directly to energy in the process. In an instant, the vessel, its huge but corrupt artificial mind and the bodies of two brave men were turned to plasma.

Kane was looking away and that saved his sight as the flash enveloped them, and made the cloud tops so far below turn to a rolling sea of white fire for achingly long seconds. Kane’s helmet filled with interference as the communication frequencies were jammed by the brief burst of radiation generated by the explosion. Kane knew his suit would absorb it and that the minisub’s hull would protect Katya. What he was more worried about was the possibility of debris raining across them and puncturing his suit.

Long seconds passed, but he was not perforated by a storm of metal particles travelling at hyperkinetic speeds.

This was small comfort. The re-entry into the atmosphere was still sure to kill him.

He heard Katya’s voice penetrate and grow in clarity as the radiation died away. “Kane? Are you there? Did you say something?”

“I just said that today has just been one long round of jumping out of frying pans into successively larger fires.”

“What? I don’t understand you.”

“I’ll explain later.” The Baby was starting to shudder as they entered the thickening atmosphere. Should there be a later, he thought. “Activate the drones, Katya.”

“I already have. We need to get you in quickly. You won’t be able to hang on during the turbulence.”

Feeling the strain on his arm, Kane strongly doubted he would even last until the turbulence. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’ve heard your brave farewell speech once, Kane. You’re not dying today.”

Kane’s heart froze as he realised what was going through her mind. “ Do not open the hatch , Katya! You will die!”

“What kind of idiot do you take me for?” He was never so glad to have somebody talk to him so contemptuously. “I’ve got an idea, but you’ll have to be strong and hang on just for a minute. Can you do that?”