Backyard Starship: Origins 2 Read online

  “You rang?”

  RED AGENT

  As a boy, Petyr had always known the smells of his home. Woodsmoke and cabbage, pipe tobacco, the occasional perfume his mother wore on nights at Party functions—

  —and gunpowder. The scent of power. The scent of authority.

  His father never missed when they hunted near the dacha he’d been given as a reward for obedience, drive, and the ability to find crime where there was none. Despite their family’s position in the Party, the stew pot was too Russian to be forgotten as a source of food, and family, and the grim national pastime that lurked outside every home. The stew pot was a subtle wink toward a true Russian’s constant companion—death.

  Petyr hunted with his father now but not in the birch forests of his childhood. They were more than two thousand kilometers away in a Soviet Union that creaked like a storm-wracked tree, lunging forward to a death that seemed inevitable and unknown.

  Again, death. Always at the door. Or peeping fretfully through the memory of family tales from before the October Revolution when the White Army had held bitterly to a life that was rotting from the head down. Now, Petyr and his papa stalked the forest in Poland, a vassal state that was no longer cowed by the tanks and bribes and promises of a Global Soviet.

  Who is the enemy after all, Petyr thought, his teenaged mind sharp and curious. He knew his papa was not a good man. When the Party told his father to go to Poland and correct a local trade board for corruption and democratic thoughts, there had been no question—only obedience. Then, the family spent two days on a wheezing train as they moved inexorably west to the place where names changed, the food was almost the same, and hatred of his father—and, by extension, Petyr—ran deeper than the swift spring floods.

  Petyr had watched, impassively, as the Polish family of means was moved from their house—Petyr’s house, now—by force, their daughter staring at Petyr with hollow, accusatory eyes as a Cheka agent cuffed her across the face.

  For good measure, you see. There must be obedience. There must be fear.

  There must always be the specter of death. After all, they were Russians.

  And now, here they were, hunting as usual, whiling away an afternoon for pleasure, not survival, their very movements almost lazy. They were, like all party members, well fed. They could afford leisure.

  “Papa, a bouncer?” Petyr whispered, using a word from their odd little family language. His father knew he meant hare. The Groshenko family, long servants of the elite, had a language of code words, both spoken and written, that had accumulated over decades. When you lived and died by secrets—as all agents of the State understood—a childlike family code could mean the difference between survival or torture. The Groshenko family took their secrets seriously, to the point that they had a private family language, known only to them.

  It was no surprise that the Groshenkos made excellent spies.

  Papa looked around, then cocked his head in the pose of a natural hunter. He saw no hare. He did, however, hear something and lifted his head to sniff the wind with a feral echo of his wild youth. Papa gave Petyr a nod of thanks.

  “A bouncer, indeed. You’ve young ears, son.”

  Petyr’s father never heard the bullet that killed him. In truth, it was no bullet, and it was fired by no man. The sizzling round of energy splattered Aleksey Petrovych Groshenko’s skull like it was an overripe fruit, hollowing his brain pan out in a flash of heat and light that scalded Petyr’s eyes, leaving him blinded, howling, and terrified.

  The wet thump of Papa’s body was followed by…

  Nothing.

  When his eyes cleared, a being, not a man, stood staring down at him, two meters of arrogant indifference, a rifle cocked lazily on one hip. The uniform was black with no name or rank visible.

  Looking up, paralyzed with fear, Petyr saw no ordinary person. The face was too narrow and predatory. The creature’s skin was a dull gray with streaks of icy blue, hair cropped short under goggles that gave off soft green light.

  Blinking slowly, the being extended a hand, its eyes flat black with red pupils that were wholly inhuman.

  When it spoke, the voice came from a small box, scuffed and raw from use in the field, on its shoulder.

  A translator, Petyr knew, just as he knew he would not die this day. But he also knew that he was in danger of a kind that did not come from the Soviets.

  Or anyone else on Earth, for that matter.

  “Take my hand, and I’ll explain everything. Or stay here and die when the”—there was a hiss of static—“squad comes to clean up the rest of you. Your father’s been a busy lad.”

  Petyr asked the only thing that came to mind as the creature lifted him from the ground with ease. “Busy doing what?”

  A tinny laugh came from the translator. “Selling secrets, of course. But not to humans. Your late father chose to sell secrets to the worst people in the stars.”

  “Who… who are they?”

  Another laugh. “My enemies, of course. And now, they are yours as well.”

  Petyr retched for the sixth time in as many minutes, his stomach in full revolt as the stunning vista of Earth—blue, green, brown, and white—whirled away underneath him, a silent partner in his unending misery.

  “What do you Reds eat?” his captor asked, tapping a screen with a look of disgust. Petyr’s lunch and dinner and every other meal floated through the air in a noisome parade and was whisked away by a hidden filter and fan.

  Looking up, bleary-eyed and weak, Petyr could only manage a shrug, then thought better of it. “Please. Shoot me.”

  “Over this? A little stomach tumble from losing your groundlegs? Don’t be ridiculous. Here.” The alien reached forward and jabbed Petyr with something that stung like a hornet, but, in seconds, his roiling gut began to calm, and a sense of lassitude spread through his aching body. “Not poison, so don’t worry. I need you alive, not with some kind of rupture because your primitive brain says you’re falling forever.”

  Petyr drifted back until he tapped a bulkhead, then he wiped his mouth with distaste. “Thank you. I think.”

  “I’m not without some altruistic traits. Now, look at me. My name is Darghis, and, as far as you’re concerned, I’m the only thing keeping you alive.”

  “A-alive?” Petyr stammered. “From what, vomiting myself to a coma?” Some of his natural state of being was returning, that of the arrogant twenty-three-year-old son of a party official.

  And a recent inductee into the Cheka. They were now the KGB, but, to the unfortunate souls who dealt with them, they were always the Cheka.

  That status began to suffuse Petyr’s senses again, and he lifted his head with as much pride as he could, given the smeared sick down his shirt.

  Darghis responded by pushing across the gap between them—the ship cabin was fifteen meters long, at least—and placing a bony finger against Petyr’s pale cheek. The digit felt colder than space itself. Up close, Petyr could see just how inhuman Darghis really was, right down the odd row of secondary round teeth that peeked from back in his cheeks.

  When the alien spoke, it was in a tone so idle that Petyr knew it was the stone truth because he understood how to threaten. Real danger is rarely loud. It was even, at times, a pleasant discussion of facts and reason and inevitability. Petyr sat forward, drifting a bit.

  “I see you’re paying attention. That’s excellent. This is a starship. You’re not the first human to ride in one, or even own one, and you won’t be the last. I didn’t murder your father. I stopped him from doing something that would change your planet forever and could not be allowed to happen.”

  Petyr said nothing.

  “Thirteen years ago, your father was assigned to a closed city named Mirny in the Archangel Oblast. You know of this place?”

  “I do.”

  “Not offering much, are you? I don’t have time for this. Let’s get past your training and move on. What do you consider the most closely guarded secret of the Soviet Union?” Darghis asked.

  Petyr managed a wintry grin. “I confirm nothing.”

  “I’ll speak for you then. I will begin with two that are likely above your clearance, but we shall see.” A silver steak bored across the screen, eliciting a small response from Darghis. “Satellite. I’ll remove it as I can’t have images of my ship in your national services. At this time.” Again, he feathered a space on the screen, and a distant flare came to life, vanished, and was gone. “Now, where was I—oh, of course. Your captive doctors are working on a bioweapon in Africa. Six locations, actually, and thousands already dead. What they don’t know is that the Americans and British know, have produced the weapon, and have it poised in NATO bases close enough to strike the heart of your empire. Ah, I see you’re surprised. Don’t be. Honeypots work both ways, you know. As to the second, that’s a bit… bigger. You have a mole, as you call it, in both MI5 and the American technology firm Elemental Ore. He’s quite good, almost to the top, and soon he’ll steer every strategic ore to a Soviet ally through an elegant system of shell companies, bribery, and two murders. Quite a natural, that one, but his days are short. I can’t have him torching my years of groundwork with varying agencies.”

  Petyr abandoned his training because he’d been drugged, and he knew the second asset was a highly guarded prize. “What will you do about these so-called spies?”

  Darghis was cheery. “Oh, they’ll be dead by dawn. As to you, all I ask is that you take a ride, look at something, and give me your honest opinion. That’s all. You will be returned to your life, such as it is, but with some of the benefits of my data. I’ll send you home with active foreign agent lists, a better weapon, and enough money to never live like a pauper again. If you prove truly useful, then you may be given something more valuable than anything on that annoying little planet you call home. Of course, that remains to be seen.”

  Cynical, careful, and trained, Petyr knew he had no choice, and if he wanted anything of the wild technological advances around him, he would have to play the long game. He gave a simple nod, watching Darghis’s hands, but the alien revealed nothing. He was wholly immune to any KGB observation techniques, let alone a physical attack.

  Petyr said the only thing he could. “What am I looking at?”

  The moon was less than three hundred kilometers across but boasted a light atmosphere, ravines filled with life that bridged animals, and plants in various sizes of an enormous “sea fan” that waved with casual purpose.

  And then, in a shadow of stone and light, Petyr saw the ship. Rather, he saw the remains of the ship—a long, narrow craft accordioned into an outcrop of ancient granite. The engine bell was black with age and use, and the hull had been, at one time, crimson with white bands of script.

  Now, it was just dead.

  Petyr felt himself sigh against his better judgement. “A shipwreck. Even a junior officer who grew up on land can see that.”

  “A fair point, but not just any ship. This is one of three Streaker, which were among the fastest ships ever known. One survives in a private collection, and we’re no closer to understanding why it put out so much thrust,” Darghis stated.

  “Is the engine valuable?”

  For the first time, Darghis looked sly. “Among other things.”

  “Contraband? Cargo?”

  “Too small for much, and these have been here for decades. What interested me is how they got here, and more importantly, how I found out?”

  “You didn’t stumble upon this?” Petyr asked.

  Darghis shrugged. “No, I did not.” A screen flared into brilliance, and Darghis made a sound that didn’t translate. “My people, the Bolunvir, are not known for stumbling upon things. We are generally moving quickly.”

  “Not liked, eh? What’s wrong with the ship?”

  Darghis waved a hand in disgust. “Age. A lack of funds. Bad equipment. That all ends when I find the Shiraku’t. No, don’t speak, I need a moment to form my thoughts.” Darghis steeled himself, then fixed his red eyes on Petyr. “In thousands of years of history, only one entity has tracked shipwrecks with any degree of accuracy.”

  “Capitalists, no doubt.”

  “If by that you mean insurers and graves registries, then yes. Millions lost in the depths of space, along with—”

  “Their assets,” Petyr finished, a fevered gleam coming to his eye. He understood now. “But why here? Why this ship?”

  “You will know soon enough. But first, a question, perhaps the most important of your life. What is your purpose?”

  Petyr fought his training to answer slowly and with as much honesty as he could muster. “To do the opposite of what my father does. Did.”

  Darghis smiled, a terrible thing, but it was a smile as Petyr knew it. “I was hoping you would say that. Young Petyr, we are going aboard that wreck. We have things to know.”

  “Two suits, Darghis?” asked a mellow male voice.

  “Who is that?” Petyr asked in alarm.

  “The ship, of course. Don’t be dull.”

  “My name is Calafus. Welcome aboard, Petyr.”

  Groshenko managed a few slow blinks. “Is Calafus a person?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Darghis said. “Are the suits prepped?”

  “They’re ready. Our guest’s airmix had to be tweaked a bit, but it’s set for maximum duration outside,” Calafus said.

  Petyr looked around, naked fear clouding his face. “Ah… outside?”

  Darghis opened a panel to reveal slim, armored battlesuits. “In style, of course. We’re not amateurs.”

  It was a bit like swimming, Petyr decided, if you were swimming while bathed in fear. The gravity was light, the air in his suit tasted of spring rain, and Petyr fought the urge to hold onto Darghis’s belt. Petyr had known fear—his Cheka training alone had nearly broken him—but this was something entirely new.

  “It’s too much,” Petyr said, staggering slightly, then leaning out to place a hand on the wreck. It was solid and gave him just enough stability to stand taller for a moment. Around him, the bizarre sea fan analogs waved slowly, like beckoning hands in every imaginable color. A deep blue fan brushed against Petyr’s suit and stuck briefly before pulling away, its fronds now bright green where it had touched him. “Too much,” he muttered again at the display of alien life.

  “It usually is for you humans, although the ones who have a taste for travel prove to be quite adept at all manner of things. Killing is certainly one of your pastimes, and, as a species, you’re fair thieves, too. See this door? This surface?”

  “Yes?” Petyr said. They stood before the wreck, guided unerringly to the door by Darghis.

  “We’re going inside. This wreck has been here since your calendar year of 1907, untouched.”

  Without warning, Darghis drew his weapon and fired three times at the left edge of the door. Each impact flashed with a light so bright it hurt Petyr’s eyes, but when his vision cleared, the door simply did not exist. The ship lay open, a dark interior beckoning.

  “Go,” Darghis ordered, waving his weapon casually at Petyr.

  “I understand.” In the event there was something dangerous inside, Petyr would serve as fine cannon fodder. He grabbed the hatch frame and stepped forward into the gloom. Automatic lights on his suit began to brighten, throwing blue-white light over the naked interior of a ship that was almost empty.

  Almost.

  “It’s here,” Darghis said, his tone reverent.

  Petyr turned to look at the alien killer, knowing that his next words might be his last. “I do not know why we are here. I do not know why I am here. There is one thing I know without question.”

  “What is that?”

  “If the reason you are here is important enough, you’ll put a bullet in my head the second we step out of this wreck,” Petyr said in an even tone.

  “Spoken like a true instrument of the State and not entirely untrue. But I need you for something, young Groshenko, and as your father is unavailable for questions, may I suggest you step forward, lift that metal box, and open it?” Darghis’s tone left no doubt as to whether the request was optional, so Petyr obeyed.

  The ship was nearly empty, having been stripped, or perhaps it was of a spartan design that wasted nothing on style or comfort. Petyr moved four steps to the bow, bent at the waist, and lifted a rectangular metal box by its handle. It swung down in his hand, and he turned to face his captor, wondering what came next. Petyr expected a bullet or at least one of those bright flashes of energy that passed for bullets in his current situation.

  He got neither.

  “Open it,” Darghis ordered.

  Petyr balanced the box on his forearm, flipped the latch, and revealed a beautiful leather valise stamped with the Czar’s coat of arms.

  “Oh,” Petyr said, quite unintentionally.

  “Oh indeed. Your people do lovely work with animal skins. Drop the box. Bring the item. And Petyr?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you vary your path to my ship in any way, I’ll use your skin to make my own bag. My people are quite good with leather, too.”

  Darghis and Petyr sat across from each other, the valise between them. The hum of a living ship filled Petyr’s senses—far different than the tomb they’d left behind.

  “Stable orbit, maximum stealth,” Darghis ordered his ship, then turned his blood-red eyes to the leather case. “I think you’ll understand why I didn’t shoot you, although not before you look at what’s inside. Your father was, like many career spies, a careful man with healthy paranoia. His only disadvantage was technological. He simply couldn’t maintain comm security when I decided to intrude in his personal messages. Petyr, are you unwell?”

  Sweat began sluicing down Petyr’s face, his skin pricked with a chill that felt like he was slipping into the grave. He tried to stand but failed and slumped against Darghis, disoriented and weak.