Katya's World (25 page)

Katya looked at the smiling faces of the Yagizban troops and saw them harden whenever they looked at anybody from the FMA. She suddenly felt afraid.
“
What will they do to you?
”

Petrov looked at her with mild, tired surprise. Seeing him weary just compounded her sense of dismay.
“
Do to me? Do to
us
, Ms Kuriakova. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re wearing an FMA uniform. I think you may already have been earmarked for disposal just like the rest of us.
”

It seemed Petrov had a point. When Katya went down on deck, she found herself being treated with the same coolness as the real FMA personnel. She was relieved when Kane took her by the arm and made a point of introducing her to Major Moltsyn.
“
This is Ms Katya Kuriakova. She was aboard the minisub th
at the
Leviathan
first attacked.
”
S
he was grateful that he didn’t mention that they’d also been the ones who had unwittingly reactivated it in the first p
lace.
“
She
has been a great help since.
”

Moltsyn regarded her with hooded eyes.
“
And how long have you been in the Federal forces, Ms Kuriakova?
”

Kane laughed.
“
She’s not with the FMA, major. She’s a civilian. Her clothes were ruined by seawater so she was given these aboard the
Novgorod
.
”

Katya felt pathetically thankful as the major’s slightly threatening expression abruptly lightened, but there was also a spasm of guilt that she was escaping whatever fate the Yagizban had lined up for the FMA people. She felt like she was abandoning Petrov and the rest, and yet she still felt relief. She simmered at her own cowardice. The major didn’t help when he said,
“
Well, we’ll have to get you some proper clothes, Ms Kuriakova,
”
as if she was wearing filthy rags.

“
No,
”
she said, with a little iron in her voice,
“
I’m fine with these. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.
”

“
Nonsense,
”
laughed Kane, even as he flashed her a
don’t be stupid
look.
“
I’m sure the major can find you something better than an old and, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so, very ill-fitting uniform.
”

“
Yes, we can find you some civilian clothing when we reach the Conclaves.
”

Katya pricked up her ears.
“
When will that be?
”

The major checked his watch.
“
In about an hour, Ms Kuriakova.
”
He chuckled.
“
Can’t wait to be in some proper clothes, eh?
”

She’d actually wanted to know so she could make a swift calculation as to how quickly the transport was flying – she estimated 600kph, perhaps a little more – but the major’s comment was revealing. He seemed to regard the FMA uniform as about as pleasant as a skin disease. She’d never been to the Yagizba Conclaves – very few had – and had never met anybody from there either but, even so, the difference in mindset, mores, and behaviour was surprising. She’d thought all Russalkin were as one; united by the war and unified in their hatred of Earth and trust in the Federal authorities.
Yes, everybody grumbled about them, but there was no doubt that Federal leadership had brought the Terran invasion to a standstill and that the authorities did a good job in these difficult times. T
o meet somebody who regarded the FMA and its sister organisations
with utter contempt
was outside her experience and expectations.

The hour passed slowly. Katya felt uncomfortable around the Yagizban and the pirates, and felt like a traitor to the FMA sailors. The two groups quickly gravitated away from one another and it pained her to see men and women who’d been working so easily and efficiently together only hours ag
o starting to regard each other
as enemies again.
She found her uncle standing on the
Vodyanoi
’s prow, looking down at the closed bay doors below with a thunderous frown.

“
You look how I feel, uncle,
”
she said as she joined him.

“
If you feel suspicious and uncomfortable, then you’re exactly right,
”
he growled, the closest he could usually manage to a whisper.
“
Always knew the Yags were a weird bunch, never realised how little I understood them. Look at ‘em, thick as thieves.
”

Tasya and the major were still making some small effort to carry on the pretence that they were strangers, but it was cosmetic and everybody knew it.

“
That Moltsyn,
”
muttered Lukyan,
“
he’s all pose. An administrator playing at soldiers. Yags… creepy bastards, all of ‘em.
”

The tension in the bay was palpable and Katya was glad when the transporter nosed down and started its descent. The major asked everybody to sit down or otherwise brace themselves for a few shocks during the landing, but the pilot made such a good job of it that there
was
only the slightest lurch as the landing pylons touched down.

As everybody formed up to leave by the side ramp, Major Moltsyn raised his voice.
“
The ramp is facing the platform’s entrance, so head straight for it. There’s a storm blowing outside so expect to get wet, but keep your head down, don’t stop to sightsee, and you’ll be fine. Okay,
”
he nodded to the sergeant at the door controls.
“
Let ‘em out.
”

When Katya reached the head of the queue and walked out of the side of the transport aircraft, she couldn’t help but pause for a moment. She’d expected the landing area to be like one of the small pads that some of the submersible settlements had on top of their domes, designed for little more than small AG craft to alight. What she found as she stepped through the doorframe and onto the ramp in the lashing rain was something else again.

The platform was immense, perhaps three hundred metres in radius and a good hundred and fifty metres above the waves. The flat circle was black, marked out with landing stripes and lights, the circumference dotted with meteorological units, sensor cowlings and an observation deck beneath which she could see a cave-like entrance into which those preceding her were scurrying. She could have gawped at it all for another minute at least but an impatient push in her back reminded her of the major’s words, and she dogtrotted down the ramp and across the rain-slicked surface of the platform for what seemed like a very long time until she reached the entrance beneath the observation deck. There, she waited with the surviving crews of the
Novgorod
and
Vodyanoi
until they had all made the journey. Then the great doors slid quickly and almost silently shut, clipping the sound of the storm off as neatly as flicking a switch.

The two groups did not have to wait long standing sullenly looking at each other while dripping on the deck plates, before they were joined by a red-headed woman in Yagizban yellow clothing that clearly was not military uniform.
“
Bur
eaucrat,
”
murmured Petrov to Katya
.
“
Almost every job has a recognisable uniform. The Conclaves are run like machines and every citizen had better fit.
”

“
Your attention,
”
said the women in a clear, penetrating voice. The chatter died down.
“
Welcome to station FP-1. I only wish you were here under happier circumstances.
”
Katya could have been wrong, but the comment seemed to be levelled more at the Vodyanois than the FMA people.
“
Quarters have been prepared for you and you will be taken to them now.
”
She gestured to another two Yagizban who had appeared by the access lifts and stepped smartly back herself.

After a moment’s indecision, the crews made their way to the lifts and started to percolate down into the depths of the platform. Katya was heading towards the lifts when the woman stepped out and took her by the arm.
“
Katya Kuriakova?
”
She didn’t wait for a reply.
“
You are to come with me.
”
Katya found herself taken at a brisk walk around the corner from the staging area and into a smaller personnel lift.
As she was led away, she looked back for Lukyan, but only caught a glimpse of the back of his head as he turned this way and that, apparently trying to find her. Then the lift’s door closed and he was gone.
She tried to protest, explain that she didn’t want to be separated from her uncle, but she might as well have been talking to a robot.

The woman refused to talk beyond polite generalities and Katya spent a frustrating couple of minutes boiling with curiosity as to why she had been separated out as the lift descended deep through the levels. The lift arrived at a floor that surely must have been deep below sea level and Katya was ushered out into a comfortably appointed area of the station. The woman, who finally identified herself as Mila Vetskya, led Katya to a storeroom, tapped out an entrance code on the door’s numerical pad and led her in. Inside were racks and stacks of clothing, uniforms as well as more casual wear. Mila cast an apprising eye over Katya and took down a selection of clothes and a pair of boots for her.

“
Blues,
”
she said,
“
they should match your colouring better than those black FMA rags.
”

Katya bit back a comment about even sea-stained black being a substantial improvement over the unpleasant dull yellow of Yagizban uniforms and took the clothes with polite thanks. Mila took her to a stateroom and left her with a warning about wandering the corridors, telling her to wait until she was called for. Katya agreed without complaint and smiled pleasantly as Mila left, closing the door behind her.

The instant the door clicked, the smile left Katya’s face.

She’d had enough of this, the lies and deceptions. That the Yagizban were apparently
working with the pirates
was
very bad news
. If the planet was going to defend itself against a foe like the
Leviathan
, everyone needed to be on the same side. Somehow, the government needed to know what was happening here and, as she was the only one not under constant supervision, the responsibility fell to her. The Russalkin were bred to shoulder responsibilities from an early age, but the urgency and importance of this one weighed upon Katya
almost more
than she could bear.
It spoke much of her character and upbringing that she did not think of denying that responsibility for more than the briefest moment.

It was her or nobody; she had no choice.

She took a few moments to breathe deeply, to calm herself, and to focus on what needed to be done. She had no clear idea how she could communicate with the FMA, but that was the second thing on her list, anyway. She would worry about it once she had completed the first task – discovering what exactly the Yagizban were up to, and why they were conspiring with the likes of Captain Kane and his Vodyanois.

She quickly changed –
the
FMA uniform would draw attention like iron filings to a magnet – but she had no intention of staying in her quarters. As she shrugged off the distinctive black coverall, she felt something small but heavy in her pocket. She slowly took it out and sat on the edge of the bed looking at it but not seeing it, thinking fast. The small maser she’d recovered from Kane’s cabin. What to do with it? If she was found sneaking around the corridors carrying a gun, she could forget about them treating her like a civilian. Then again, if they found her sneaking around the corridors, they’d think that anyway. In the small bathroom attached to the room, she found a medical kit and took the stitch-tape dispenser. She turned it down to the bandage level of adhesion – she had no desire to use it at suture level and have to wait for it to metabolise away – and taped the gun to the back of her left calf. She could forget about making rapid draws with it, but at least it wouldn’t show up on a casual frisk.

She cast a quick eye over
her surroundings
as she pulled on the boots and snapped shut the fastenings; the stateroom was large, the sort of place rich prospectors lived in on the dramas. There, the similarities finished. Like everything else she had seen here, there was little embellishment. Space, comfort and functionalism, and that was enough for the Yagizbans. Katya couldn’t bring h
erself to dislike them for that;
they had similar tastes to herself.

The corridor was empty. She’d seen so few people about she assumed that the station was not fully manned yet. Even if they hadn’t gone out their way to tell the FMA that they had such a facility, they couldn’t have kept it secret for very long. It was likely that it had only gone into operation recently and did not yet have its full c
omple
ment. In which case, her quarters were probably earmarked for some senior officer or functionary at some point. She grinned to herself; she felt like a rat in a palace’s cellar.

She walked as quickly as she
dared
to the clothes store
while still
trying to appear
casual to anybody who might happen upon her. Checking up and down the corridor, she tapped in the code she’d seen Mila use and ducked inside. For the second time in less than five minutes, she quickly changed
,
this time from the clothes that had been picked out for her into the same sort of bureaucrat’s clothes that Mila wore. The Yagizban seemed reliant on administrators and
she hoped that by dressing as
one, she would be invisible in many of station FP-1’s areas. She found a serviceable and efficient-looking carrying-case in the corner that might reasonabl
y be expected to contain record
discs, transcriptors, and the other adjuncts she imagined a serious
young low-level bureaucrat would
carry around. She carefully folded the civilian clothes as tightly as she could and crammed them inside. She might have to dump the disguise at some point and she would prefer to have something to change
in
to rather running around the corridors in her underwear.

She paused in front of the door, straightened her short, blond hair for the third time, tried to think administrative thoughts and went out. She walked to the lift as if she had every right to do so and called it. It arrived after a very long minute and she stepped inside.

This was where her plan became a little vague. The overall scheme was to find out what the Yagizban were up to with their unreported transports and
,
even this, the first replacement for the aircraft platforms destroyed in the war of independence
, and how the pirates were involved
. Where might be a good place to find secrets was not something she had considered in any great detail.

She stood for a moment wracked with indecision. Then, as she had seen Mila do, she pressed a key on the lift’s control panel and said in a clear voice,
“
Command centre.
”
She hoped the system didn’t carry out voice identifications as a matter of routine or her little adventure would be stopping very abruptly.

The lift didn’t electrocute her, gas her or hold her until security arrived. Instead it just said in a bored mechanical voice,
“
Destination unrecognised. Please restate.
”

She tried again and it rejected it again. Perhaps, she wondered, it was a naming issue. In her experience, settlements almost always called their command centres
command centres
, but would the Yagizban? Most of the Conclaves were submersible habitats, capable of moving around the globe if they so desired. In that case,
“
Bridge.
”

“
Complying,
”
replied the lift and moved off.

The lift rose smoothly for a few seconds and Katya belatedly realised that what she had taken for some sort of ceramic finish to the compartment’s wall was actually transparent, the lift shaft beyond being so close and so featureless that she had not noticed until now. She was just wondering why the lift would have a transparent wall when it suddenly stopped, paused for a few moments as if ruminating, and then abruptly headed sideways.

Technologically, it was probably no major feat, but it was unexpected enough to catch her off balance and she leaned against the wall bracing herself for another change in direction. The surprise she got, however, had nothing to do with her vector.

The lift compartment suddenly emerged into a transparent tube running high above the floor of a massive internal section. Katya stepped forward cautiously at first to see what the floor was used for. Then she was up against the wall, eager not to miss a detail.

The area was a large manufacturing facility. Workers moved steadily around the place as robot arms struck and welded, gripped and lifted. As she had come to expect from the Conclaves, the air was of almost i
nhuman
efficiency, but she had no reason to expect what they were actually building, and the realisation made her gasp out loud. Across the shop floor were four cradles in which vessels were being built, submarines. Two were little more than keels, another’s hull was forming, but the forth was nearing completion and its form was very familiar to Katya, from the sleekness of its lines to the rakish slant of the low conning tower. The Yagizban were building a fleet of
Vodyanoi
-class boats. Fast, effective hunter-killers, these
new hybrids presumably combined
Terran design with Russalka technology. She saw now that the flying transport that had picked them up had not been built specifically to carry the
Vodyanoi
, but any of its sisters too. Being able to deliver a wolfpack of such boats anywhere in the world, over the waves, uninterceptable, undetectable.