Part 8 (1/2)
”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 s.h.i.+p?” 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 s.h.i.+p?”
”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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p. Most of the scientists who had designed and built theKarl Marx were aboard, and she was a.s.sured that the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p'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.