America 2040 - Golden World Part 8

"Then you are not with us," Pavel Simonov said. "Can we at least have your neutrality? We would dislike having to hold you incommunicado or to harm you."

"You? Harm me?" She laughed. "Step back, you two. Pavel Simonov, you stand here."

Puzzled, they obeyed.

"Now, Pavel," she continued, "I want you to harm me."

Pavel laughed uneasily.

"I want you to hit me," she insisted. He made a feeble motion toward her face with one hand, which she avoided easily, hitting him in the stomach as she twisted away with her right foot, just hard enough to bend him double.

"So you are going to take over the ship?" she asked.

"d.a.m.n you," Pavel said, panting. "I won't hit a woman."

"There are women in the security force," she said. "And I a.s.sure you that they are just as deadly as the men." She leaned close, thrusting her face into Pavel's. "Can you kill a woman to save your life, and the life of the ship?"

"We won't have to kill them," Pavel said. "Ilya and I will break into the armory. We will use stun guns."

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Theresita said. "If you start this thing, you had better be prepared to finish it, to kill. You had better be prepared to kill the security force, because if you try to stand up to them, they will take a terrible toll. You will have to kill the captain and Boris Bely and many others. If you leave them alive, they will kill you without hesitation."

Emin's face was white. "If that is what we must do, we will kill them."

She sighed, sat down. "Tell me about the others you mentioned."

Yes, treason came hard-even to a Pole. She listened, spoke, doubted, hoped. It would be untrained idealists-a few of the scientists, another young engineering officer, and one woman marshal-against men and women trained to kill. But she remembered Pavel Simonov's words: "We are dead either way."

If she had to die, she preferred to die trying. She had no desire to die in her quarters, gasping for breath, after theKarl Marx was holed by an American missile.

If there were to be any chance of successful mutiny, it would have to be done quickly, before the ship complied with orders and became yet another weapon in the Soviet a.r.s.enal. Theresita's first step was to confer privately with the young engineering officer, Ilya Salkov. He had a.s.sured her that he was expert enough to operate the Shaw Drive, with some a.s.sistance from knowledgeable scientists.

She had to a.s.sume that the crew would be loyal to Captain Novikov, and so she had to be sure thatthere'd be enough skilled manpower left after the necessary killings to navigate, operate the computers, rockets, the Drive, all the complicated multiplicity of systems that made up the ship. Most of the scientists who had designed and built theKarl Marx were aboard, and she was a.s.sured that the ship could continue to function without any of her crew.

The security force would be the greatest danger. Personnel would be on duty at a.s.signed posts throughout the ship, and there were, at all times, two-person security teams roving at random.

In organizing her strike forces, she a.s.signed the engineering areas to Lieutenant Salkov, since he was the one most familiar with that part of the ship, and he had hopes of convincing at least two of the engineering junior officers to join him.

Theresita felt that she would need to be in a dozen places at once, which was impossible, of course. Her most important point of attack was the bridge, where duty and honor would force Captain Novikov to resist if he had half a chance. She had the feeling that Fedor Novikov had almost invited her to take over the ship, and she was sure in her own mind that, given an out with which his precious honor could live, the captain would be useful alive. His knowledge and his leadership ability would be great losses.

During a sleepless twenty-four hour period she selected her strike teams, gave them brief instructions in the handling of weapons, and told them over and over, "Do not hesitate, comrades. To succeed, you must be totally merciless. No pity. No warning. No hesitation."

Only in engineering would two officers be given a choice, and only because Lieutenant Salkov a.s.sured her that heknew the two men,knew they would elect to join the mutiny and send the ship outward toward the stars and her rightful destiny.

When Theresita and two others accompanied Ilya into a restricted area to perform the first overt act of insurrection against the government she had sworn to uphold and defend, she actually felt ill. A lifetime of training told her, "Fool! You are wrong!"

There were always two security guards on duty at the armory. Theresita knew them by name. They were young, sunny Russian lads who, while on duty, were all business.

She left her team behind, hidden by the bend of a corridor, and approached the guard post. Her weapon, a small but deadly automatic, was in her skirt pocket. The two young men snapped to attention as she said good morning.

"Good morning, Comrade Marshal," said the ranking man. "Are you lost?"

They were not at full alert, she saw, but they were suspicious because the armory was in a deliberately isolated part of the ship near the engineering areas. One didn't just happen to pa.s.s by the armory; one had to be headed for the armory to get there.

She continued to walk toward them, and just as she was near enough to be sure that her tiny weapon would be effective, the ranking man put one hand on his weapon and said, "What can we do for the marshal?"

She smiled. Both men were now very alert. Neither, however, had unslung his weapon. Theresita's hand moved as fast as she could make it move, and even then she almost m.u.f.fed it because, as she saw the handsome young eyes widen in surprise, she hesitated. The corporal, the second to die, had his weapon off his shoulder and was swinging it around when, after the quick burst of the first shot and the instantdeath of the first man, she aimed the weapon at his forehead.

"No," he whispered, even as her weapon flashed.

She had killed before. Once, as a young Red Army major, she had led the eradication of a group of two thousand Italian nationalists who, unarmed, had foolishly gathered in secret to plot rebellion. There had been women and children there. Killing the very young ones had bothered her a bit, but nothing in her career, with the possible exception of having to kill Yuri, affected her as did the last, pleading word of that young guard. The word was still ringing in her ears when Lieutenant Salkov dashed down the corridor and burned open the door of the armory with a torch.

Inside she chose for herself one of the same death-spraying automatic rifles that she had used so long ago to slaughter the Italian nationalists.

She was committed now-she'd killed two of her own.

She paused for one look at the young soldiers who lay in their own blood outside the armory door. She shook her head.So , she was thinking wryly, to hide the real pain,after all these years I find that I am not a good communist .

Such a thought. Such a time to think it as she dashed down the metal corridors, intent on delivering more death. So she had ceased to be a good communist loyal to the party find the Soviet Union, but had she betrayed the communist philosophy? No. Because she had killed and would kill, regardless of number, for the greater good of the survivors on board theKarl Marx . Death of the individual was justified by the greater good of the survivors.

The great Lenin himself had taught that it was proper for millions to die to ensure better conditions for the survivors. Salkov and the others were behind her, with electric carts laden with weapons.

"Go, go, go," she urgently whispered to them as she let them pa.s.s.

She had selected the crusty electronics engineer, Pavel Simonov, to be her accomplice on the bridge. He was waiting at the appointed place. Two by two, the teams were hurrying to their appointed places. The hour had been carefully chosen, based on the ship's routine. The late-night watch would be handing over the bridge to the captain's watch, and thus a double crew of officers would be congregated in one small killing area. The commissar Boris Bely would also be there. Bely affected an officer's uniform without insignia of rank and wore a weapon at his side.

She forced herself to walk calmly beside Simonov. "Once more," she said. "What is the first thing you do?"

"I kill the commissar."

"And then?"

"I start to my right and begin to kill the others as quickly as I can move the muzzle of the weapon."

"And the captain?"

"I leave him to you." "Are you all right?" she asked, for his face was pale, and he was perspiring.

"I am not accustomed to this. I will do my job."

"Good."

They had arrived. She halted at the door, took a deep breath, pressed the b.u.t.ton. The door was locked, of course. A voice came from the speaker in the door. "Ident.i.ty and purpose?"

"Marshal Pulaski requests permission to enter the bridge for observation and a cup of the captain's coffee." Her voice was calm, very friendly. The door clicked. She nodded to Simonov and kicked the door open. They rushed through the hatch together.

There were thirteen people on the bridge: the captain, the commissar, and eleven officers. She held a stun gun in her left hand, her automatic rifle in her right. The stun gun was for the captain. She would put him out of action, and harm's way, while Simonov's fire caused a moment of delay on the part of the others.

Captain Novikov was standing in front of the complex control console. The third officer, who was being relieved of the duty, was in the act of rising from the command seat.

Success depended on exact timing, on instant action. Even as she used that fraction of a second required to aim the stun gun at Novikov she knew that it was going wrong, because Simonov's rifle had not yet spoken. It did not surprise her to see that Boris Bely was the first to react. The commissar made a dive for the floor, reaching for his weapon at the same time. When Simonov's weapon began to chatter quietly, it was too late. She discarded the stun gun, and as the officers recovered from their surprise and began to react, death sprayed the bridge, starting from right and left and coming toward the center with men and women being flung backward by the force of the high-velocity bullets.

That familiar thudding, whining sound of a projectile pa.s.sing close by her ear was followed by a small explosion on the hatch behind her. Pavel Simonov had not done his job: He was not moving swiftly enough; he was overkilling, leaving some of his a.s.signed targets free to bring their weapons into action.

Another round clipped a piece from the shoulder of Theresita's uniform.

Fedor Novikov-she'd deliberately lifted her finger from the trigger of her automatic rifle as she'd swept the muzzle past him-was reacting very slowly. The fire was coming from her right. Where was Boris Bely?

What was wrong with Pavel Simonov?

An explosive round missed her, angling upward to blast against the bulkhead near the ceiling. The captain had leaped for cover behind the command chair. Men and women were down, killed instantly or dying. It had all happerited in split seconds. Flesh had been mangled, had blossomed with the impact of the deadly, explosive bullets. And Pavel Simonov was dead, falling even as Theresita began to search desperately for Boris Bely.

It was suddenly quiet.

"Fedor," she said, "I don't want to have to kill you. Throw out your weapon."

A movement to her right triggered her survival instincts, and she fell, rolling, using Simonov's body forcover, sending a burst of fire toward the origin of the shot that had almost killed her. She caught a glimpse of Boris Bely's frightened face as he ducked into the communications room.

"Your weapon, Fedor," she said.

"I cannot," he answered, his voice sad, dull.

"Fedor, come with us to the stars," she implored. "The stars. Come with us. You know as well as I that it means death for all if we go back to Earth. Throw out your weapon. Be with us. Be our leader."

"I am going to stand up, Comrade Pulaski," Novikov said.

His head showed, then he was erect. She got to her feet carefully, holding her weapon at the ready, for his sidearm was still in his hand, muzzle down. He looked around with stunned eyes. "All of them? Did you have to kill all of them?"

"It was necessary," she replied.

"But you have lost, comrade," Novikov said.

"Will you join us? Will you be our leader?"

"You forget that we are a suspicious and cautious race, comrade," he said, and there was a great sadness in his voice. "You have lost. " He was looking toward the communications room. She jerked her head for a quick look at the closed door.

"Tell me quickly what you mean." Her urgency left no doubt in Novikov's mind that he had to speak, and speak quickly.

"Surely, as a marshal of the Red Army, you must know that all sensitive installations, and all such weapons of war as our nuclear submarines and s.p.a.ce stations have self-destruct capability to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy. "

She felt faint for a tiny moment.

"Boris Bely has his finger on the b.u.t.ton." He slowly put his sidearm into its holster, then ran a hand over his lined face. "I m sure, knowing you, that your mutiny was efficient and prepared and that the ship is now in your hands. But with Bely in the communications room, it was all for nothing."

"Why didn't you warn me?" she grated. "You invited me to take over the ship. You didn't have the courage to say it openly or to disobey your precious orders, but you were hoping that I'd do exactly what I've done."

He sat down weakly in the command chair. "But I thought you were different. I thought you would have the leadership and the inspiration to do it without... this." He looked around the blood-splattered bridge, then shrugged. "Well, no matter," he said loudly into the transmitter, so Bely could hear inside the locked communications room. "You have only two choices now: You can lay down your arms, and we will then obey our orders and go back to join our countrymen in their fight." He looked toward the closed door and called out: "Would you care to state her other choice, Comrade Bely?"

Bely's voice was tense, pitched high. It came to her from the speakers of the communications system."The second choice is total destruction of the ship and everyone on it," Bely said. "Give the captain your weapon, traitor."

Theresita knew that Bely was not bluffing. She knew his type. He would be totally loyal, to the point of fanaticism.

"All I have to do," Bely continued, "is move one finger. Small charges will detonate the rocket fuel, causing explosive decompression throughout the ship. You will not be alive when the nuclear warheads detonate. You must call upon your fellow criminals to lay down their arms."

Theresita had made her decision instantly, but she pretended to be indecisive for a few moments before speaking. With a sigh, she bent and put her rifle on the deck. "There is nothing else I can do," she said. "I cannot, however, reach all of my force by ship's communicator. To prevent an early alarm, many areas of the ship have been isolated. I have laid down my weapon. I will go to them and explain the situation.

They will obey me."

The captain moved, somewhat reluctantly, to pick up the rifle. As he straightened, his eyes met hers, and in his there was regret. At that moment she hated him. He didn't want to go back. But he didn't have the courage to do what was right.

"Let her go to talk to the other traitors," Bely said, his voice more confident now.

She found that a few, like Pavel Simonov, had died from indecision and hesitation. But the ship was in her hands. The security forces had been eliminated, along with most of the crew. And Uya Salkov had been correct in thinking that he would find sympathizers in the engineering section-he had five young officers with him when she found him making his way toward the bridge.

"We have won, Comrade Marshal," Salkov said, but there was no joy in his voice. He had blood that was not his own on his tunic.

"Not yet," she said. "Is there, in the ship's armory, a Zhukov?"

Salkov's eyes widened, but he did not question her. "Yes, of course."

"Quickly, then," she said. Salkov departed on the run. She examined the pale, strained faces of the five young officers. "You choose to go with us to the stars?"

"Yes, Comrade Marshal," one said. The others nodded.

"Damage in the engineering section?"

"Nothing serious. The ship is fully operational."

"Who of you is familiar with the communications room?" she asked.

"I, Comrade Marshal," said a young lieutenant with a small cut on his cheek. "I am a.s.signed to electronic maintenance. " He was young, not over twenty-one.

"Tell me the effect on the ship following total destruction of the interior of the communications room."

He thought for a moment. "We would, of course, be cut off from all communications with the Earth. Wewould have to rewire and improvise an in-ship system, using an alternate power supply. If the destruction is confined to the communications room, none of the vital functions of the ship will be affected."

Uya Salkov came pounding up the corridor, the deadly Zhukov slung on his shoulder. The weapon had been named for one of Russia's great military heroes of the mid twentieth century. She took it, and a set of earplugs, from Salkov. She was quite familiar with it-she'd used it against British-built tanks in Kenya. It was a sweetheart of a weapon, no heavier than a standard a.s.sault rifle, and it fired a rocket-propelled, shaped charge, which could pierce the heaviest armor and devastate a confined area.

And Bely had himself locked in a room with a door that was metal, an inch and a half thick, counting a hollow core.

If the junior officers knew of the ship's self-destruct system, they gave no indication of it, and she had no intention of telling them. She was going to take an enormous chance: She had no way of knowing whether or not the destruction of the communications room would automatically set oft the charges of the destruction system.

She had gone too far to stop now and allow the captain and Bely to take the ship back to engage in a mutually destructive war.

She pushed the b.u.t.ton to the door to the bridge. "Pulaski," she said. "It is arranged."

She heard the door click, and for the second time within minutes she burst through.