Ian Hocking - Red Star Falling

The next instant was lost in a deafening chaos of shots and ricochets. Soso crouched against the rail. He fired at the gendarme, who sheltered behind the explosives while his colleague returned fire from the tunnel entrance. Soso growled and pointed his gun at the sky.

‘I surrender!’ he shouted in German. The echo was sharp. ‘If you shoot the dynamite, you will kill us!’

Saskia swung her axe through the bars, hooking Soso’s gun arm. Her feet slipped and her full weight came down on the axe. Soso screamed.

Saskia was dangling over the exposure. She had both hands on the axe. Her grip weakened as her energy diminished to the last.

In Russian, she shouted, ‘Pasha! Are you there?’

There was a pause. Then Pasha’s voice shouted back, ‘Yes, I’m here! What is our plan?’

Soso’s humerus bone cracked. He moaned and fought to maintain his grip on the gun. His weakened left arm swung across to help, but the angle was too much; his hand made only spastic movements.

‘You, Count Nakhimov, are going to call everyone back into the tunnel.’

‘I’m still in cuffs! They’re giving the orders.’

‘They believed you well enough to come up here, didn’t they?’ she said. The chrysanthemums were losing their redness. The world darkened for her. ‘They’ll believe you now.’

Saskia considered reaching for her second axe, but she could not risk lessening her grip. She tried to adjust her stance but the strength had left her legs. She could hardly feel her feet.

‘You failed again,’ Soso whispered. ‘You failed in the house on Chemin de la Pie and you’ve failed here.’

With a growl, Saskia released her left hand and plunged it through the bars. She gripped Soso’s gun. Slowly, she brought it to bear on the dynamite.

‘My name is Saskia Maria Brandt. I am the mud beneath the felt boots.’

She focused the last of her strength on pressing the trigger. Soso roared.

‘You, behind the crates!’ she screamed. ‘Take cover!’

The gendarme fled from the crates to the tunnel.

Saskia looked at Soso. There was a rage on his face greater than any she had ever seen.

She squeezed the trigger. The crates disintegrated. There was a feeling of wind blowing through her hair, and of tumbling, and then the world was only sound. Immense pain bloomed within this. In time, this became perfect numbness. There were iron bars spinning. A rain of roubles. Rock shards. Red, red chrysanthemums falling.

And then the last of her energy was spent.

Falling.

She saw, or remembered, the chrysanthemums. In the straightness of the stems, and slowness of the flowers as they turned against the wintering sky, Saskia Brandt saw a fissure in her faith.

Agent Singular. Particular, special–one shot.

She remembered the lost photograph. It showed a woman lying on a greyish background. She knew, now, that the background was a gravelly ledge near the foot of the Eiger.

The face of the woman in the photograph was incomplete, but enough remained to be recognisable as Saskia Brandt. It had been taken, said her Major, by a photographer from the Grindelwald Echo as one of several that might accompany an article on the death of a Russian revolutionary known as The Georgian Highlander. The woman had been found late in the morning of the day that the Highlander was killed.

Saskia had been given that photograph on the day she became an Agent Candidate. It had served to remind her through her training and the slow years of her mission that it would end in this fall to her death, and in success.

On the back of the photograph, her Major–a man whose name she had never known–had written:

Remember that you, too, must die.

Gaus spoke to her from memory. ‘ Where do you find meaning, Agent Singular? Where does your mission end, and where does it begin?’

What happens next? Well, something must happen, because I’m currently writing Assignment 2. I can’t say much about it yet other than it’ll be set on a Royal Navy submarine in 1982 somewhere around the Kola Penninsula. A Sony Walkman will feature. And Saskia? Not saying. However, this is science fiction…

I hope you liked this story. I know it’s not as long as my novels–this novella is about a fifth the size–but when a story is this length, I’m able to publish more quickly. The average turnaround for one of my novels is about five years. I turned this story around–from initial idea, to drafting, hiring an editor, making changes, knocking up a cover in Pixelmator, and hiring a proofreader–all in six months. And I’m happy with the result.

One of the difficulties with long time scales is that the writer changes. So you might have read Déjà Vu, Flashback and The Amber Rooms within two weeks, but you’ve covered rather more than ten years of my writing career. It’s difficult to keep the books consistent in tone and ambition. Given some of the feedback I’ve received for The Amber Rooms, it’s clear that some readers think the tone and genre are changing. They may be right. All I’ve tried to do, each time, is produce the best book I can. Part of the challenge is that I didn’t set out to write a series.

So: I’m writing The Agents Temporal Series with an eye to keep the tone and pace consistent. Each novella will be about 20,000 words (the length of this work). Each will follow the previous one chronologically. The focus will be action (with a sneaky dose of the usual philosophical stuff that preoccupies me). I’m writing each story as though it’s the third act (i.e. the bit where everything kicks off, like the attack on the Death Star). Ideally, then, if ‘Red Star Falling’ floats your boat, then it will be plain sailing for the rest of the series.

I won’t pretend that I can put out a book a month. Not with my day job. But they will appear regularly. If you’d like to be informed when the next one is released, feel free to sign up to my mailing list.

As ever, if you’ve enjoyed this book, the very best way to help me out is write a review on Amazon/Goodreads/wherever, or perhaps introduce it to a friend.

My thanks to the guys and girls over at UK Climbing, who helped me out with lots of questions about climbing, and to the Canterbury Christ Church TrySport Climbing initiative, where I learned to shout, ‘I’m going to fall!’ a great deal. Alex Roddie, writer of mountain fiction and the excellent The Only Genuine Jones, was a great help.

My editor for this story was Marcus Gipps. My proofreader (and fairy-dust sprinkler) was Olivia Woods. My muse: Britta.

See you for Assignment Two.

Déjà Vu: A Technothriller (Book 1)

Flashback (Book 2)

The Amber Rooms (Book 3)

Red Star Falling

Proper Job: A Romantic Comedy

A Moment in Berlin and Other Stories

Copyright (c) 2013 by Ian Hocking

http://ianhocking.com

http://twitter.com/ian_hocking

Unless otherwise stated, this story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.