“Anyone?”
“Is there anyone there? Please?”
“Please, this is Engineering Subleader 1st Class Darya. Our escape pod has impacted, but the hatch is jammed. Anyone respond, please.” The radio clicked on and off with a haze of static. Each transmission prodded at Ivanov’s mind within the dark recesses it rested in. Darya… Darya…
The young engineering officer who came aboard shortly before the Goto Predestinazia undertook her maiden voyage. It had been Darya’s maiden voyage as well. Most of ours, actually. The passages were busy with sailors and midshipmen coming aboard with their small bundles, while engineers did their final checks of various systems. Every few minutes, someone reported to their station as the berths filled out and work parties formed. The atmosphere was abuzz with the mixture of nervous excitement that young sailors always exuded. And then, it was only a few quiet weeks of low Earth orbit. But, who knew our next patrol would prove so taxing?
Ivanov opened his eyes. A dull, throbbing pain in his forehead beat along with his heart, and instinctively he went to massage it. His helmet halted his gloved hand before he could. He grimaced at the inconvenience, but then ran his hand over the visor. The vacuum throwing him against the wall had barely even scratched it.
Ivanov shifted around, pushing himself up off the deck plating onto one knee. He began to pat himself down with careful strokes. Every fold and crevice in the suit could hide a breach. As he did so, the radio piece in his ear crackled to life.
“Can anyone hear me? This is… This is Engineering Subleader 1st Class Darya, from the Goto Predestinazia. We had to eject. My pod… we’re stuck somewhere. Can anyone hear me on this channel?” Darya’s voice trembled over the radio waves
A wave of dizziness washed over Ivanov’s unsteady legs as he rose, but a hand on the wall allowed him to take a moment. This is a NATO platform. If they have any sort of sensor suite onboard, it’ll have detected her call. And if you call back, they’ll detect you. Inside. But, she’s scared. And vulnerable, somewhere out there in a defenseless escape pod. Hearing a Russian inside their craft might be higher priority than shooting fish in a barrel. He took a deep breath before keying his suit’s microphone.
“Subleader Darya, this is Lieutenant Maxim Ivanov. What is your position?”
Static filled the air for a few moments before Darya’s voice returned with a mixture of surprise and relief. “Cosmog--”
Ivanov drew in a sharp breath, just as he heard Darya catch herself. Everyone knew they were never to address ship pilots by their title over open channels. The Americans would like nothing more than to get their hands on the technology woven inside Ivanov’s spinal column. Their scientists were decades behind the People’s. No one in the fleet wanted to be the reason the war shifted to an even footing. If that caution even matters anymore.
“Comrade lieutenant. It is good to hear your voice. We weren’t sure how many people made it out.”
“Have you heard from anyone else?”
“No, comrade lieutenant, I have not. We did not have much time after the missiles hit. The machine mind was right to send you off. There was not much we could do.”
Ivanov put his hand on the emergency shutter and tested it with a soft push. As expected, it refused to budge. There was no turning back to the airlock. Her voice is clear enough, she must be somewhere close. And with her, another source of oxygen. He shook his head as if to shake out the cynical thought. The pods that the rest of the crewmembers had access to would have more supplies. They were built to carry two, afterall, not the special coffin that cosmogators were treated to. So, yes, there’d be more oxygen. “The Goto Predestinazia’s IRA panels did nothing?”
Static poured out of the radio as Ivanov waited for Darya’s response. It poured out as if to flood his helmet. Even with just the earpiece, Ivanov wondered if the static could crowd out his air. He imagined the fuzzy, black and white chaos of an unfocused television spouting out like a fountain. Ivanov’s breathing turned shallow and rapid. His heart fluttered with the rise of anxiety as more static filled his world. As he panted, Ivanov’s eyes flitted around in a hectic search for something, anything, to replace his dwindling oxygen before the static did. The auditory torrent swirled around his head while his lips tried to pluck another breath from it. Ivanov shot a hand up to the side of his helmet to raise his visor, allow the static to surge out from his suit.
Darya’s voice broke through the static, and the haze dissipated in a shaky mirage around Ivanov. “The warheads were atomic, comrade lieutenant. The armor merely bought us time to get to the lifeboats. I think I saw our captain by them. The Commissar too. It was…” Darya slowed her words as if she were to trip over one. “It was chaotic, comrade lieutenant.”
Ivanov took a few steps up the hallway from the shuttered hatch. Atomics. They finally broke the final seal. It had been weeks of kinetic weapons, penetrator rounds, depleted uranium. But the Americans launched the bomb. If they see the plumes from-- not if, when they see the plumes from the surface…
He stopped at the first doorway up the hall. Exhaustion bid him to lean on the frame of the hatch and close his eyes. The ache from earlier spread across his forehead, despite a mental plea for his body to ignore it. Ivanov began to count his breaths. Get it together. One, two, three. Ivanov looked out into the dark hallway after another few seconds of breathing exercises. Ivanov stared into the shadows as he clicked his radio back on. “That is quite alright, comrade. You did right. Now, where are you? Can you look out the window?”
“We collided with something. I just see twisted metal outside. It’s not a very big viewport, comrade lieutenant.”
Yes, because orbits forbid anything is easy about this. “That is okay. I am in some sort of station or ship. Give me time. I will find my way to a console and see about finding your transponder signal.”
“A ship, comrade lieutenant?”
Ivanov swung his flashlight beam around the hallway. There was something about its wideness and obtuse corners. And the spacing of the doors is too generous. “More likely a station of some kind. They will still have some means of radar.” Ivanov tried to key the door, but pressing the button on the door frame did nothing. “I must warn you, though, it is a Western construct.”
Darya’s voice answered in a low, cautious tone. As if she can sneak past their listening devices. “Should you be transmitting then? What if… they will hear this, you know.”
Ivanov jabbed his bulky glove at the door’s button a few more times. It all did nothing. He balled up one fist and gave the doorway a soft punch. Still dissatisfied but frustration abated, Ivanov turned back to the mouth of the hallway. “Would you rather be alone, comrade subleader?”
The hallway continued for some way ahead of him on a rising slope. Ivanov frowned and moved his flashlight up and down to be sure. Wagon wheel. They had a few of those on their line, I think. The older design didn’t retrofit easily, but both sides found it a necessity as the war dragged on.
“I only meant it as a caution, comrade lieutenant.”
“Listen, conserve your air. I’m starting to put together an idea of how this place should work, but I’ll let you know.”
“Very well. We should have a few hours in here, anyway. I’ll find some way to pass the time.”
A thought occurred to Ivanov as he began his way up the hallway. “We?”
“There’s another sailor in here. A young woman. She wasn’t able to get fully secured before the pod launched, though, and she hit her head on the wall.”
I stared at the unmoving body in the mud. An American flag patch was sewn onto the shoulder of the green flightsuit. A flag far from home, just like the one on my shoulder. No one around for them. Or me. Trying to make out if its chest rose and fell with subtle breathing, I realized how easy it would be to take a rock and…
“See to her wounds, comrade subleader. I will contact you when I make any progress.”