Katya's World (29 page)

Lukyan gently took the gun from her.
“
I know, Katinka. I know. There was no choice. We all saw.
”
He passed the gun to Petrov and shooed him off with a nod.

Katya wanted to speak but the words bubbled without meaning in her throat. She wanted to cry but her eyes burned dry. When Lukyan hugged her, she clung to him, wanting to roll back time, wanting to be a child again, a little girl who wouldn’t be in this insane mess.

“
Lukyan…
”
It was Petrov. His crew had formed up and were ready to go. The guard’s body had miraculously gone, efficiently and quietly bundled up and hidden in one of the toilet cubicles. Now the only sign he’d been there was his maser carbine in the hands of one of the ratings regarded as the best shot amongst the survivors. Katya’s maser pistol, stripped of the last vestiges of tape, was in Petrov’s hand.
“
Lukyan, they’re going to start looking for that guard soon…
”

Lukyan nodded curtly and turned back to look sadly at Katya. Innocence is chipped away at slowly, he thought. To see it torn away like this from his own niece was almost as painful for him as for her.
“
Katinka, always remember this. You saved a life.
”

“
I
took
a life!
”

“
If you’d done nothing, that boy would be dead and we’d all still be prisoners.
”

“
I could have warned him, told him to drop the gun…
”

“
He’d have ignored you, like he ignored Petrov. Or he would have shot you. Did you see the look in his face when he was about to shoot Suhkalev? He was enjoying it. You did the best thing any of us could have done.
”
He took her shoulder in one great hand and gently tilted her chin up with the other until she was looking him in the eye.
“
You’ve given us a chance, but we don’t have much time. We have to move, Katinka. Can you do it?
”

She looked past him at the
Novgorod
’s crew arrayed around the door, some looking at her anxiously, some impatiently, some with pity. Something hardened inside her and she realised with regret that it was her heart.

I will not be pitied, she thought.

She shook herself loose from Lukyan and nodded.
“
I’m ready.
”

“
You’re sure?
”

“
Positive.
”
She walked to Petrov leaving her uncle looking at her back with an uncertain dismay.
“
I know where we can get Yagizban uniforms,
”
she told the lieutenant.

They worked the theft in two stages; most of the FMA crew hid in another unfinished room on the next level down while Katya, Petrov and the armed rating, a woman called Olya who seemed indecently happy to have a gun, took a lift car down to the lower levels. The area was as quiet as during Katya’s first visit, the code on the clothing store’s door hadn’t been updated, and they changed into Yagizban worker’s uniforms in frantic silence. Once disguised, they loaded up a trolley with more than enough uniforms for everyone else and took it back as if on an errand. If anybody challenged them and proved difficult to satisfy, Petrov had the pistol in his pocket and the carbine lay under the topmost clothing packet on the trolley, ready for a rapid draw.

They needn’t have worried; they passed almost nobody and the few people they did see seemed utterly uninterested in a pile of uniforms being moved around the complex. They reached the rest of the crew still without the alarm being sounded.
“
So much for the legendary Yagizban efficiency,
”
commented Petrov as he helped hand out the clothes,
“
they haven’t even noticed we’re gone yet.
”

“
What’s the plan, lieutenant?
”
Lukyan was trying to find overalls big enough for him and was having little luck.

“
Two possibilities. We grab a boat and get out of here, try and warn the FMA. I don’t like that one. If the
Leviathan
is going to be friends with the Conclaves, we’re just giving them the chance to cement that.
”

“
It could be hostile,
”
said Katya.
“
Kane said…
”

“
Whatever the estimable Kane said, the
Leviathan
is making its way here with its stealth switched off. That doesn’t sound like an attack to me. I think Tokarov is still in control. But, as Kane suggested, that control might be weak. It might not take much to push the artificial part of the synthetic intelligence into the dominant role.
”

“
That’s Plan B?
”

“
Yes, Ms Kuriakova, that’s Plan B. The
Leviathan
is going to be attacked by the Conclaves. We’ll see what happens then.
”

Lukyan grimaced.
“
This is too subtle for me. How are you going to make the Yagizban attack their own boat?
”

“
They’re not, uncle,
”
answered Katya.
“
We are, using FP-1’s defensive systems.
”

Petrov laughed humourlessly.
“
Plan B in all its glory.
”
His smile vanished.
“
We’re going to take the bridge long enough to launch weapons against the
Leviathan
. Then we wreck the place and get out of there like our lives depended on it.
”
A shadow of his smile returned.
“
Actually, now I think about it…
”

“
What do we use for weapons, sir?
”
asked Olya.

“
My pistol, your carbine, surprise, and animal ferocity. Battles have been won with less.
”

“
The lift opens directly onto the command deck. It’s big so don’t let that surprise you. There are guards posted on either side of the door as you go in and there must be at least another four or five scattered around the place.
”

“
Thank you, Ms Kuriakova,
”
said Petrov. They were already in the lift and on their way to the bridge. The cars, although large, could only hold ten people fairly close together and Petrov had said it would be better to take in ten people who had enough room to get out quickly than sixteen and be packed in there like krill on a manta whale’s baleen. Lukyan had argued against Katya going in, but she had insisted on going as the only one amongst them who had been to the command deck and knew how it was set out. Petrov had agreed and taken the furious Lukyan aside, talking quietly to him for a few minutes until Lukyan’s rage subsided.
“
You can’t protect her forever,
”
she’d overheard.
“
It’s what she wants to do.
”
Lukyan had come back and stared at her for
t
he longest time before saying she could go. Then he added that he was coming too and he’d tear the head off anybody who said otherwise.

“
The plan is simple,
”
Petrov told the present crew.
“
We go in, deal with the guards, take their weapons and then it will probably turn into a fire fight with the remaining troopers. An alert will almost certainly be called. When that happens, the other half of our number will make their way to the docks and secure a boat. We target the
Leviathan
, launch everything we can and then destroy the command stations so they cannot issue destruct orders to the torpedoes after we leave. We head straight for the decks in time to board the boat that has been commandeered for us. Any questions?
”

There were none. Even to Katya, the plan seemed childishly simple. The best plans were always the simple ones, she’d heard. This was her chance to find out.

“
Ready?
”
Petrov asked Olya. She nodded and hefted the carbine.
“
Good. You go right, I’ll go left.
”
The lift door opened.

The size of the FP-1’s bridge awed Katya a little even now, but her attention was drawn to something else. Or rather the lack of something else. The bridge was deserted. The idea slithered through her mind like mercury on steel and came out of her mouth before the doors had even finished opening.
“
It’s a trap!
”

Petrov slapped the door close control but it didn’t respond, overridden by the main computer.
“
Down!
”
he shouted. Olya wasn’t listening; she was still following Plan B, unaware that they were being forced to come up with a Plan C. She stepped out of the lift and headed right. There was no guard there and she stood uncertainly for a moment, looking for a target. Somewhere over by the starboard hologram projector, there was a crack of a maser, and she sprawled onto the deck.

“
Novgorods!
”
Lukyan roared the battlecry, and surged out of the lift like a torpedo from its tube.

“
Pushkin!
”
shouted Petrov after him.
“
Don’t be a fool, man!
”
Then he looked around at his huddled crew and realised that the only choice left to them might be whether to die fighting or trapped in that lift.
“
Novgorods!
”
he bellowed, running forward, the tiny maser pistol in his hand cracking repeatedly.

It seemed that the Yagizban had been expecting the escaped prisoners to behave rationally and surrender. There was a stunned silence that lasted the few seconds before a lucky shot from Petrov’s maser caught a poorly concealed trooper in the arm and he fell screaming. Then the shooting really started.

Lukyan snatched up Olya’s carbine and swung himself up against a wall behind a support stanchion. Using the small rifle as a large pistol he started laying down suppressing fire, giving the rest of the Novgorods a chance to scuttle out of the lift and to the cover of the nearest console stations.

Katya slid frantically across the floor until she reached cover. Petrov ducked down beside her, checking the charge left in the pistol.

“
Not going quite to plan, lieutenant,
”
said Katya as maser bolts cracked overhead. She wondered at her own apparent unconcern, as if they were playing a game. Maybe she couldn’t take this seriously because she still wasn’t quite used to the idea of people trying to kill her. It was a good state of mind, she decided. If she really accepted the danger she was in, she might never move again.

“
No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, Ms Kuriakova,
”
he replied, ejecting the pistol’s depleted cell and replacing it with a new one, fresh from the manufacturer’s wrapper. Katya was going to ask him where he’d got it and the decided that she didn’t care very much under the circumstances.

She looked over at Lukyan who was pushing himself as small as he could go behind the stanchion as a hail of maser bolts cracked and hissed off the metal. He saw her and shrugged, out of ideas himself. Katya smiled as bravely as she could manage and looked around. This was crazy, she concluded. There were nine of them altogether with only two guns between them. They should have had a contingency plan, but who could have guessed that they were heading into a trap? They weren’t going to be able to shoot their way out of this. Either they surrendered or… what?

Katya wished that Kane was there with them; they could definitely have done with his
infuriating habit of thinking off at tangents
, seeing possibilities beyond the obvious. She made a mental effort and
imagined him there, pinned down with the rest of them, and
then she
imagined what he might do,
what
ideas
he might have
.

He’d say that not only their plan, but their plan’s objectives were no longer possible. Specifically the secondary objective of taking the bridge. That simply was not going to happen with them pinned down by any number of troopers…

“
Give it up, Petrov!
”
shouted a familiar voice.
“
Don’t get anybody else killed for no reason!
”

…and the Chertovka. They were caught between the She-Devil and the deep black sea. But the primary aim had always been launching the attack on the
Leviathan
and perhaps
that
, at least, was still possible. Whatever they did, they had better do it quickly; the alarms had been blaring for the last minute and the rest of the Novgorods would already be on the way to capture a boat. They’d fight to the last ensign to hold it in the hope that Petrov’s party would be joining them. For their sakes as much as their own, they had to get out of there.

“
How do you think they knew we were coming here, Petrov?
”
Katya asked.

He took a moment to fire a couple of blind shots over the edge of the console they were cowering behind before replying.
“
Monitoring the lift system, they must have been. Looks like they did find we’d gone after all, but just played it quiet.
”

“
So when they realised the lift was coming here, they just grabbed what troopers they could? That’s what I thought, too.
”

Petrov nodded.
“
If they’d had more warning they’d have set up a crossfire across the lift door. We’d all be dead or recaptured by now.
”
He looked at her seriously.
“
What’s your point?
”

“
My point,
”
she swivelled onto her knees and slowly poked her head up as far as she dared. The rake of the console’s controls and the bulk of its monitor bank hid her from the trooper’s guns but allowed her to examine what was there. Typical Conclave interface and, as the Conclave’s supplied everybody else, that meant she was very familiar with the console’s operation.
“
My point is that we don’t need to take the bridge to open fire on the
Leviathan
.
”

She accessed the console and reconfigured it to the targeting protocols. The fire controls were locked, but only at a low level to prevent accidental launch. It took her less than a minute to bypass them.

The firing had trickled to a halt for lack of targets.
“
Petrov!
”
called Tasya again.
“
You’re just delaying the inevitable. Your situation is hopeless. Sur
render now
and we’ll go easy on you and your people.
”

Petrov was watching Katya with open admiration, not so much for her ability with the controls as thinking of doing this in the middle of a fire fight in the first place.
“
Yes, okay,
”
he called back vaguely,
“
I’ll think about it. Give us a minute.
”

On the main holographic display, the
Leviathan
still surged through the waves towards FP-1. Suddenly a large red targeting reticle appeared framing the
Leviathan
.
“
Target acquired,
”
a computer announced.

Immediately there was pandemonium amongst the Yagizban.
“
What is going on?
”
demanded a voice Katya recognised as Major Moltsyn.
“
What the thunder is
going on
?
”

“
They’ve accessed the weapons systems, you idiot!
”
That was Tasya.
“
You! Lock them out!
”

I don’t think so
, thought Katya. She’d already prioritised her console and forced a system lockdown across the weapons multi-user protocols.

“
I… I can’t, colonel,
”
she heard.
“
They’ve locked
us
out!
”

Tasya again. Cold and very sincere.
“
If they fire, I will kill you.
”
Suddenly Katya understood why they called her the She-Devil. On her console, a series of options she didn’t understand came up.
“
What are
lanterns
?
”
she hissed at Petrov.
“
It says ‘Lanterns – 10%’ here.
”

“
Torpedoes set to constant active sonar. They don’t tend to last long but they light the target up like a phosphor worm for the rest of the torpedo spread. Set it to 20% of the spread – we want the
Leviathan
to know it’s being attacked.
”

Katya quickly upped the ratio to twenty, clicked through the next couple of screens and was met with ‘Ready to fire – enter authorisation code.’

“
Uh-oh.
”

“
What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?
”
asked Petrov. He raised his head far enough to look at the screen.
“
Ah.
Uh-oh
.
”
He ducked back down again.
“
Listen to me, we’re not sunk yet. That’s not a security measure, it’s just another failsafe to make sure weapons aren’t fired accidentally. Go around it, through the system maintenance screens. Do you know how to get to those?
”

“
Are you kidding me?
”
said Katya, putting the request on hold and accessing th
e system maintenance screens.
“
Front end interfaces are for corridor rats
. I can get around it.
”

I think I can get around it
, she added to herself. It didn’t appear that the Yagizban wanted to give her the chance. She was half aware of Petrov going flat on his belly and slithering off between the consoles before more of her attention was claimed by a new wave of maser bolts sizzling past her, cracking off bulkheads and supports. The attack came a moment later, troopers threading their way through the maze of consoles and abandoned seats at a run. Lukyan fired a scatter of shots into the middle of the Yagizban line causing a few troopers to dive for cover, but the ones close to the walls kept coming on. Then one right at the limit of the flank fell with a cry. Hardly had he vanished from sight behind a work station, than Petrov reared up, the fallen trooper’s assault maser blazing off shots in a wild suppression pattern. Caught unawares from the side, a couple of troopers were hit and fell wounded. The others took cover and returned fire, but Petrov had already vanished.

“
Damn you snivelling cowards!
”
It was Tasya, her fury almost
incandescent
as she swept through the clutter of stations and consoles, indomitable and unstoppable. Lukyan fired on her but her return fire was so accurate that he was forced to break the partial cover of the stanchion and seek more complete protection behind a processor bank.