Katya's War (Russalka Chronicles) (28 page)

“Insane,” said Tasya.

Katya was watching Dr Durova. She was looking at the back of the governor’s head as if she could see within, to where twisting worms of madness were eating the governor’s mind. Katya knew the doctor was thinking of the Secor reports of clinical paranoia. Durova looked sideways at the security chief, but he was looking straight ahead, his astonishment at his senior officer’s speech apparent in his eyes.

“You corrupt others.” The governor seemed to be talking to every one of the inmates. “Did you know that? Your sins have put you not only beyond correction, but you are causing others – good, decent people – to become monsters too. I know, I know. I couldn’t believe it at first, either, but then I started to look, to
really
look, and what I found horrified me.

“It humbled me, too. I am only human, and I know I am no stronger than those around me. I am contaminated by your evil. I am corrupted by your sin. There is no hope for me, but by my actions, perhaps there is still hope for Russalka.”

“Oh, no,” breathed Katya. “Oh, no!” She could almost sense Senyavin’s madness, and worse yet, she knew how it would find expression. “Tasya! He means…”

Senyavin rose from his chair, and all the inmates and the guards saw the heavy maser pistol in his hand. The doctor and the major were the only people in the Deeps who, standing behind the governor, could not.

Senyavin turned to the major. “Thief,” he said simply, and shot the man in the head before he could react.

Doctor Durova cried out in surprise and backed away. Senyavin brought the gun to bear on her calmly, almost leisurely. “Traitor,” he said, and shot her.

There were shouts and gasps of disbelief from the inmates. On the screens, Senyavin sat down again, placed the pistol on the desk top, and looked into the camera. “Two good, reliable, honest people, turned to scum by contact with you. As for the guards, they are in contact with you every day. They are all compromised. We all are. We are all inmates. We are all beyond redemption.” He turned to his desk console and tapped in a few commands.

“Warning. All secure bulkheads are opening,” said the automated voice of the central computer in the slightly testy tone computers the planet over always took when issuing a warning. The bulkhead doors that had closed off the areas the guards had withdrawn to less than half an hour earlier started to slide back.

“The inmates outnumber the guards five to one,” said Tasya. “This is going to turn into a massacre.”

“But the guards are armed,” said Katya, watching in growing anxiety as the two formerly opposed gangs started to move together towards an opened door. By it a sign read “No Inmates Beyond This Point.”

“I’m not saying it’s the guards who’ll be massacred. Some of these scum are wily, though. If there’s a way to get their hands on guns, they’ll find it. This is going to get messy really quickly.” Tasya took Katya’s wrist. “We’re going to have to get moving.”

“Where to?”

“We’ll find an escape pod and a guard or somebody else with clearance to open it for us.”

“What? Why do we need clearance?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, this is a prison. You can’t have the escape pods being easy to get into. The late Dr Durova was supposed to be doing the honours for us, but I think we can say that whole plan is in ashes now. We’re just going to have to make this up as we go along.”

Tasya pulled Katya along, heading for the door the gang of men had just gone through. As she was dragged along in the Chertovka’s wake, Katya was muttering balefully.

“It’s a simple plan. Nothing can possibly go wrong.”

By the time they reached the door, there was shouting beyond it. The male inmates were challenging and swearing at the guards, invisible beyond the wall of yellow convicts’ uniforms. The guards were telling the inmates to return to the hall immediately or suffer the consequences. The guards sounded young and frightened. Katya recognised them.

“That’s Oksana and Alina!” she said. Tasya looked at her questioningly. “The guards who brought me from Atlantis.”

“The guards who…? And you’re on first name terms? You really do know how to make friends and influence people, don’t you, Kuriakova?”

Through the crowded corridor, Katya caught a glimpse of them and realised that Oksana and Alina were alone, backing away from the advancing inmates, masers drawn and levelled, but looking terrified all the same.

“Those are the sorts of friends we could do with at the moment,” said Tasya, a calculating look in her eye. “Stay right behind me. Don’t stop for anything.”

Without waiting for Katya to say anything Tasya strode forward. When she reached the men, she started shoving them aside. “Stand aside. Coming through. Make a hole there.”

The men parted, the conditioned reflex of any Russalkin to step aside at the sound of the magical phrase “Make a hole” too deeply ingrained to be resisted. Tasya cleared the front rank of the men and walked steadily towards Oksana and Alina. Both of them swung their guns to aim at her.

“No! Don’t shoot!” said Katya, running to catch up. “It’s OK, Tasya’s OK!”

The young guards saw her and wavered. In that moment, Tasya reached them. “Do as I tell you and we will live through this,” she said to Alina while simultaneously and in a single smooth motion putting Oksana’s gun arm into a lock hold and taking the maser from her momentarily paralysed hand. Tasya released Oksana, who sank to her knees, clutching her wrist.

The men shouted their approval at seeing a gun in the hands of a fellow inmate and started to surge forward. They got less than two steps before the leaders realised that the fellow inmate in question was pointing the maser at them. In the sudden quiet, the sound of Tasya thumbing the maser’s safety catch to the “off” position seemed very loud. Alina started to point her gun at Tasya but Katya quickly stepped between them, shaking her head and mouthing “No!” urgently.

“What these girls wanted you to do still stands. Back the way you came, and don’t come back through here if you value your lives.”

One of the men’s leaders was a massively built specimen, whose uniform predictably bore the crime
MURDERER
. The sleeves of his coveralls were rolled up to reveal densely muscled forearms, covered in gang scars. He laughed at Tasya. “Is that so, bitch?” he said, took a mocking step forward, grinning malevolently as he did so.

He died instantly, a maser wound appearing exactly at the top of his nose, between his eyes.

The men shuffled a horrified half step backwards as they looked at the dead man and then at Tasya.

“I am Colonel Tasya Morevna of the Yagizban Special Forces Executive,” she said in loud, clear tones. “Sometimes called the Chertovka. I have killed many, many times. If I kill every one of you, it won’t even come close to doubling the number of lives I have taken.” The group of about thirty men stood indecisive. “I will start shooting at the count of three. I rarely miss. One…”

The men ran.

Tasya watched them go with evident distaste. “
Such
children. Playing in gangs at their age.”

Oksana had climbed back to her feet and was looking at Tasya with wide eyes. “You’re… not
really
the She-Devil… are you?”

“I am Tasya Morevna. I’m not much concerned with what people choose to call me. Keep rubbing your wrist. The sensation will return soon.” She nodded at the corridor through to the wing, now populated only by the corpse of an over-confident man. “Can you seal that door?”

“No,” said Alina, her gun now down by her side. “The governor’s overridden all the lock codes. We can’t do a thing with them. We were trying when the inmates came through.”

“Never mind,” said Tasya. “Where’s the nearest escape pod?”

“What?”

“We’re escaping. There are pods for that. Where’s the nearest one?”

“We can’t…”

“We’re coming with you,” said Oksana. They all looked at her, Alina with her jaw dropping open. “The Deeps is screwed, Alina. If we can’t keep the inmates back, we’re worse than dead.”

“We’ve got the guns!”

“Alina! Don’t you get it? The governor has unlocked
all
the doors. All of them!”

Alina suddenly understood. “Oh, gods. The weapon lockers.”

“Weapon lockers?” said Tasya. “We have to get moving right away.”

“The nearest escape pod is this way,” said Oksana. She ran off up the corridor.

It was close, no more than fifty metres away, but even before they reached it, the red lights on the status board next to the pod’s entrance hatch did not bode well.

“Has somebody already taken it?” said Katya.

Alina looked at the board while Oksana ran her identity card through the hatch control reader to no effect. “It’s locked,” Alina said. “The governor’s ahead of us. He’s locked down all the escape pods.”

“Then I shall just have to persuade him to unlock them. The security systems, I see they use retinal scanners. Do they check whether the eye is in a living body?”

Oksana looked sick. Alina said, “Yes, they check whether there’s a pulse in the eye’s blood vessels.”

Tasya was disgruntled. “Damn,” she said. “There goes my first plan. OK, lead us to the governor’s office. We’ll have to take him alive.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

RETINAL IDENTIFICATION

All of the lifts had been immobilised, so the party took to the stairwell to get to the command level of the administration sector.

As a submariner, Katya had already thought of the alternative escape route of taking any boat that happened to be in dock, but Oksana said the docking ports were all unoccupied. Even the shuttle that had brought them had long since departed on other Federal business. There was no alternative but to force the governor into enabling the escape pods. Katya wasn’t looking forward to seeing what sort of force Tasya would bring to bear.

The stairwell was imposing in itself; a great spiral in a steel tube running up the full height of the Deeps. Between every level a horizontal bulkhead ran across the shaft, a wide arced opening in it allowing personnel to climb and descend through it. If the bulkheads were to be closed, a heavy hatch slid across to cover the opening, its leading edge engaging with a step’s riser and then the whole thing locking and sealing. Russalkin tended not to dither in the openings of bulkheads equipped with automated doors – the spectre of being crushed by an emergency closure haunted their nightmares. A doorway can be stepped through in a moment, though; it took several to climb the steps through one of these horizontal guillotines. Even Tasya noticeably sped up as she passed through them, the quicker to be clear.

They reached the door leading out onto the topmost corridor and paused to listen.

“Can I have my gun back?” whispered Oksana.

“No,” said Tasya, and that was that.

Satisfied that there was no sound ahead, Tasya signalled that they should follow and moved forward. The group of them breasted the curve of the corridor together to discover several frustrated looking guards standing outside the governor’s office.

There was an astonished pause, and then Katya and Tasya found themselves looking down the barrels of six pistols, one of them – judging from his uniform – held by a sector leader. Katya froze from fear, Tasya from tactical common sense. She could see the guards were confused rather than aggressive – perhaps they could talk their way out of this. She just needed to come up with a convincing lie…

“Lower your guns, you idiots!” said Oksana. “They’re Secor!” She stepped past Tasya to speak to the guards. “They’re agents!”

The sector leader had a black eye and a bloody nose, apparently having already run into prisoners out of bounds. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, “they’re prisoners!”

“No, the White Death had them in here to spy on the inmates. Why did you think they had her,” she nodded sideways at Katya, “in for interrogation so many times? She was making her reports.”

The other guards looked confused enough to accept anything at this point, but the sector leader wasn’t going to be convinced so easily. “She’s got a gun,” he said, levelling his own at Tasya’s. “How do I know you haven’t been threatened into saying this?”

Oksana let her shoulders droop with visible exasperation. “I
gave
her my gun,” she said. “She’s a better shot than I am, to be honest. We’re not being held at gunpoint. Look…” She turned to Tasya and held her hand out. Without hesitation Tasya reversed the pistol and placed it in Oksana’s hand grip first. Oksana took it, held it up to show the sector leader that she was in full control of it, then returned it to Tasya in the same way. “She’s Secor. And an amazing shot. She put down Bubnov when he and his gang tried to get us.”

This news did more to convince the sector leader than even the demonstration with the gun. He lowered his own and said, “Bubnov? You killed Bubnov?”

“He was a threat,” said Tasya without emotion.

The sector leader smiled. “Oh, madam, you’re an angel among us all. You killed Bubnov. That’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard today.”

Tasya went to join the group of guards. Katya followed a pace behind, reapplying the mindset she had adopted while pretending to be a Secor operative in Atlantis. She found it in herself quite easily – mild arrogance, some impatience, and a limited sense of humour, all of it acid.

“He’s locked us out of his office,” said the sector head, “as well as the entire security system. There’s only one fully operational console in the whole facility, and it’s on the other side of this door.”

Katya weighed the door up, then looked at the group of guards. She pointed at the maser carbine that hung at the shoulder of one of them. “I’ll take that,” she said, fighting down the urge to say “please.”

With the reluctance of a child giving up a favourite toy, the guard handed the gun over. “OK,” said Katya, feeling very professional as she put the carbine’s shoulder sling over her head and let the weapon hang by her side. “We’re going to need a perimeter to protect this location while we work. If you could place a fire team one bulkhead down on the stairs, and then station some sentries to keep the other approaches covered, then that would do the job. Can you organise that for us, sir?” She said “sir” in the tone beloved of officials who mean “I am saying this as a courtesy, but we both know I am the more important one here.” Then she looked the sector leader in the eye.