The beam of Ivanov’s flashlight could only ward away so much gloom from the corridor leading away from the airlock. He paused in the mouth of it, shadows dancing on the edge of his vision. Anyone he encountered inside this Western platform would know immediately he wasn’t a NATO pig. And worse yet, the clunky atmospheric suit that would betray him also made for terrible armor. A new strain of worry plucked at the frayed nerves behind Ivanov’s eyes as mysterious assailants began to lurk behind each dark shape.
He took an unsteady step into the hall. His metallic bootstep echoed an immediate rebuke up and down the length of the corridor. Ivanov cringed, looked up from his boot, watched for any movement, and only after moments of held breath did he continue forward. This time, Ivanov gingerly stepped forward one second at a time.
A square room waited on the other side. As his eyes adjusted to the inside, Ivanov could make out barely-functional emergency lights. A grayish, oily haze sat in the air. Ivanov’s movements through it barely disturbed its thick layers.
Somewhere else within the structure, a shrill chirp of an alarm echoed. Ivanov’s eyes struggled with the dingy interior. They flitted this way and that as he searched for the alarm source. Three hallways branched off from the chamber he stood in. Something flashed from around the corner in one direction. Ivanov froze, his eyes locked towards the errant flash.
It happened again. A few seconds passed. And then again.
An alarm light. At least it’s not the glow of a fire. Ivanov grimaced. He knew finding an intact spacecraft after so many weeks of fighting would have been a miracle, but a damaged one was better than nothing. Wherever this smoke is from, hopefully it’s far.
Ivanov’s light fell upon a plexiglass closet in the corner as he searched around him. Its door hung open. Next to it, a placard with the symbol of a cosmonaut was riveted. Someone went for a walk. He looked back down the corridor arm to the airlock. Inside the dark tunnel, the exterior hatch stood impassive and impenetrable. On the other side, Ivanov knew his pod precariously clung to the airlock entrance. Blocking out any pig looking to come back inside. Better you than me, I guess.
Next to the first, another suit compartment sat empty. A soft cap with a distressed brim sat on the shelf where a helmet could rest. Engine grease marred the symbol embroidered on it, but Ivanov recognized the symbol of the Americans’ space agency. Not a NATO cap? Maybe they’ve finally given up the ghost of pretending the two were different operations.
Ivanov reached out and took up the hat. It betrayed no further secrets. Something in English, probably a name, was scrawled inside the brim. Nothing else. Nothing of interest was to be found.
Nothing interesting like the photo of that woman. It fell out of the white helmet when I lifted it off the man.
Watching smoky fog gently drift around him spawned another thought for Ivanov. Air. Six hours. Longer, if I can save it. Ivanov drew in a slow breath and held it, just as he learned in training.
He unholstered the Moskvich detector from his suit’s lifepack. The blocky tool came to life with a low boop. He aimed towards the beam of his flashlight. A moment of nothing passed. Ivanov impatiently glared at the small CRT screen. The pixelated caricature of a flag waved back and forth with each second. “Damn thing.” Ivanov grumbled. He shook it a little and inspected the case for any damage. Shadow puppets danced ahead of him as he turned the Moskvich over in the light. Eventually, text scrolled across the computer screen.
Ivanov muttered as he read through each line. “Thin atmosphere, fire detected. Big surprise.” Ivanov glanced up from the Moskvich and waved a hand through the thin smoke. Wisps of gray swirled around his fingers. “Oxygen is safe. For now. Low gravity?” Ivanov’s brow furrowed as he tried to think of Earth. He looked down at his boots and lifted one up as if to test the gravity plating. I’ve been up here too long. I’m forgetting home.
Ivanov’s eyes went back to the oxygen reading. Safe enough. He twisted the lock on his helmet’s visor, and it rose open with a hiss. The harsh smell of burnt plastic rose up to scratch at Ivanov’s nostrils. As he wrinkled his nose, he turned the Moskvich’s passive scanner on. It made a low noise obediently. And as it did, that chirping alarm echoed from somewhere within the platform again.
Cautiously, Ivanov made his way down the corridor towards the noise. In his head, he began planning a return to the planet’s surface. I’ll need a radio. Let others know I’m coming down. A NATO pod will survive the atmosphere, so I don’t need a shuttle. And-
Ivanov turned the corridor to find a closed hatch. It wasn't one of those thin, side-sliding doors that the Americans liked to show off so much on television, whenever the Gosteleradio decided to allow some sanitized broadcast onto the People's airwaves.
The hospital sheets were rough against my skin. On the television, some blonde American woman showed off a newly minted orbital hotel to a camera . The sheets chaffed against my arms when I pulled the photo out, comparing it to her compatriot on the screen in my room. The photo was crinkled from my grip and its ink smeared slightly from my sweat. They didn't look the same, though. I quickly hid the photo when the nurse entered my room.
No, this hatch was far more formidable, with a wheel lock and a bulbous metal liner around its edges. There wasn't even a window to look through. A small bulb above the door flash yellow every few seconds with a loud chirp.
"So, you are the noisemaker." Ivanov said to the little alarm light as he walked up to the door. He put both hands on the wheel and put his whole weight into twisting it open. "I beg your pardon, I'll only be a moment." The hatch relented with a hiss of air, and metal screeched upon metal as it swung open on its heavy hinges.
His eyes grew wider as he looked over the scene that opened up before him. It was some form of commons module. Benches lined tight paths with thin, manicured trees curling up from grassy squares laid between the promenade’s deck panels. Vines looped from pole to pole, dangling down from an upper walkway that ran around the perimeter.
Still figures of uniformed bodies lay strewn about intermittently. One dangled over the railing of the walkway above. Others were slumped on, against, or broke through the park benches in suspended chaos. A larger, boxier shape sat beside a broken tree. Ivanov cast his flashlight upon it.
The shape formed into the nightmarish form of a NATO automaton. Its squarish legs splayed out in either direction. Missing an arm, it sat leaned forward in deathly repose. Those eyes in its squat head were hollow and shadowy. A living automaton would have neon blue rays shining from those oblong indents. Over one knee of the automaton lay a broken body.
Ivanov’s flashlight painted color over the various shapes of carnage inside. It revealed swathes of blood drying to a rotten black splashed across every surface. The twisted bodies obscured in darkness lit into wretched, tortured corpses with mouths wrenched open and vacant stares.
And the stench. A musky, deep-rooted fetor of rot staggered each breath into broken sips of air. He raised one hand to his nostrils. He was a moment too late as his flashlight fell upon the bloated mass of a disembowelment. A few meandering flies hovered in the light, casting distended forms behind them in the light.
A green flight suit lay there in the mud. It had clearly crawled some distance across the jungle floor.
Nausea gurgled and climbed. From within, it clawed up Ivanov’s throat. Reflex overtook him. He doubled over. Vomit splattered across the metal deck around his boots. The foul odor of bile curled up and joined the air’s concoction.
Involuntary heaves racked Ivanov’s body and forced him to a knee. His eyes rolled slightly as he tried to stay upright. Weeks upon weeks of LUNAR combat surged out with each stomach cramp. Ivanov retched until his throat ground sore, and then he coughed with just as much vigor. Each missile dodged, each railgun shot missed, each time he’d watched the radar contact for a friendly vessel blink out of existence, it all flowed out of him. A few tears came to brim along his eyelids, but Ivanov ignored them. He had to.
Finally, Ivanov’s body relented. A strand of spew caught the lip of his helmet and dangled over the edge. Ivanov wiped it away with one glove. He rose to his feet cautiously. Flipping his helmet visor back down and securing it, Ivanov allowed himself a few breaths of the rebreather’s stale air. At least it doesn’t smell.
His freshly-emptied stomach ached ever so slightly as he entered the ransacked promenade. But, Ivanov didn’t let himself slow. He continued past body after body. It wasn’t until he reached the damaged automaton that he stopped.
Posters always warned Soviet sailors of the Americans’ favorite boarding party tactic. Whether back home, aboard the Gagarin Shipyards, or even in the Goto Predestinazia’s mess, silhouettes of the combat machines sulked over cartoons of innocent workers and their beautiful children. His brothers had written home from the Caribbean frontlines about metallic demons leaping across tank ditches and shrugging off rocket-propelled grenades. Some fielded machine guns and flamethrowers on their arms; others cut through defensive bulwarks with just claws. But, this one didn’t look like the automatons Ivanov had been warned of.
Instead of the olive drab paint he expected, this machine was coated in white. On its shallow forehead, the automaton bore a red cross. A sanitar. Trying to help them? Did it fall during the fighting? Ivanov moved his light beam from the automaton’s head to the body in its lap. The corpse, a young man in fatigues, looked almost as if he were asleep.
Sleep. Ivanov took a step back. That’d be nice. I’m bound to collapse here eventually. Unless… He looked over the automaton again. Its broad chest bore a canvas harness dotted with pockets. One pocket was left open, with a tongue of white gauze hanging from it. Where did you come from?
A medical bay would have a short term solution to Ivanov’s exhaustion. Just long enough to get me to safety, right? He went through the various pockets on the medical automaton, until he could scrounge up just enough supplies for any light wounds that could occur. The spacesuit only had an emergency patch. Judging by this place, I might need a little more than that in here. His eyes flitted around as he tried to keep watch while searching. Wrapping the various implements in one band of gauze, Ivanov slipped the improvised first aid kit into a pant pocket.
Ivanov stood up, took in his surroundings, and headed for the doorway closest to the dead automaton. As good a start as any, I suppose. He squinted at the stenciled signs on the walls as he entered the next hall. Ivanov took a step towards one, as if that would magically help him understand the foreign language all of a sudden. As he did so, the entire corridor seized with a violent start.
An explosion from the promenade behind him illuminated everything as if by sunlight. Shrapnel and debris peppered out from the instant fireball. The sudden brightness stabbed against Ivanov’s eyes, and he raised a shielding hand with a curse. Something caught him, pulled against him, forced him towards the opening. Vacuum. A hull breach!
The thought barely formed in his mind before an emergency shutter fell in place over the mouth of the hallway. Ivanov flailed for a handhold as he flew against the shutter, a yell escaping his lips. Impacting on the shutter threw Ivanov’s head against the inside of his helmet. Pain arced throughout his skull. Ivanov fell back onto his haunches helplessly as a wave of unconsciousness washed up behind the pain and overtook him.