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Chapter 18
Highway Road, near the Russo-Finnish Border
Outside Vyborg, Russian Federation
Baltic District, United Nations Occupation Zone
19 February 2016 S.E.C.
9 December 3058 I.S.C.
The sky was clear for the first time in weeks. There was still some snow on the ground, which prompted children in the neighboring regions to come out and play while there were no storms. But there would be a storm today.
The sound of gunfire echoed through the air along the highway road linking Vyborg and Russia to Finland. A convoy of UN trucks from Polyarnyy was passing through, bound for the United Nations' Human Behavioral Research Center at Lauritsala in Finland to deliver suspected Resistance members and civilians having been found guilty of "disloyalty" to the Giuseppian regime.
But that convoy was now under fire. From all sides, Resistance fighters were closing in. The way forward was blocked by the flaming hulk of a destroyed BTR-70, the victim of an anti-armor mine planted on the road. From behind, a second BTR-70 had been destroyed by a second mine remotely detonated. The company of UN Army soldiers assigned to protect the convey met assault rifle fire with some of their own. Frantic calls for support were made, but the nearest armored unit was at least thirty minutes away. Soldiers tried to rally around their lone remaining APC, a German-built Fuchs. The 7.62 millimeter machine gun mount was facing forward, trying to clear the road of Russian Resistance fighters flattened on the ground. A group of fighters behind them jumped up to move forward, their comrades on the ground giving them cover fire. The gunner riddled one of the fighters with bullets, killing the young man instantly.
In turn, a bullet smacked against his kevlar helmet, stunning the gunner for a fatal few seconds. In that time, the other Russians lifted a stolen UN anti-armor missile launcher and fired a single round, the one missile they had managed to find. It raced through the air and slammed into the APC, blowing it apart.
The explosion killed and severely wounded a great many soldiers. The others gathered round to fight to the death, but one could not bring herself to do so. Private Stefania Jankowska was a seventeen year old girl, a Warsaw native conscripted into the UN Army, and she had never been in a gun battle before. With her commander dead by a hail of bullets, she scrambled under one of the trucks and stayed there. The snow mingled in with her dark hair and the white battle uniform she had been wearing and chilled her. There was wetness in her trousers from where she urinated on herself in fear. Stefania began praying to God to save her, to help her. She didn't want to die. She didn't want to fight, she had not been given a choice in serving in the military. She gripped a rosary she kept inside her uniform jacket and kept praying and weeping hysterically, ignoring the sounds of battle and their decrease in volume. All became quiet except for her frantic praying.
A hand gripped her foot and pulled. Stefania screamed and brought her hands over her face, scared of being shot. Sunlight covered her face and a boot kicked her weapon away. She was staring at another woman, not much older than her, clad in knee-length dark shorts and a dirty white tank top that left her solid arms and shoulders bare and a portion of her belly, with her navel, visible. A Russian AK-74 was hanging from the woman's left shoulder. Light shined off of the dark brown hair bound behind the woman's head in a ponytail. She looked down at Stefania with cold grayish eyes. The woman spoke in Russian to others. Stefania remained on the ground, frozen in fear, doing nothing as two Russian men came to either side of her and took her arms, forcing her to her feet. A trickle of yellow came down the insides of her legs. The woman noticed. She briefly smirked before hiding the very appearance of any emotion on her face. Stefania was too busy weeping and begging God to help her to see it.
A strong impact slammed against the back of Stefania's skull, and she lost consciousness.
Vyborg was a city of respectable size, and had a port in it's own right because of it's position off the Gulf of Finland into the Baltic Sea. Vyborg was the city's Russian name, the Finns knew it as Viipuri, and some Finns were still petitioning Giuseppe's government to revoke the territorial gains of Russia over Finland that had been made over seventy years ago, during the first year of the Second World War when Stalin's hordes marched into Finland. But for now, Vyborg remained Russian on the political maps, a part of the UN's "Baltics District".
The Russian Resistance's local cell was small, only numbering thirty after a VdO mole compromised almost half of the cell and caused it's near-destruction. The majority of the cell was now back in their safehouse, a port warehouse that, outside the winter months, brought in goods from around the world that could not be offloaded in Saint Petersburg. Vyborg's port was also the favored place for corrupt UN officials in Russia to offload or load crates of goods, property, and anything else they could steal or take from the local populace, usually by promising good treatment in exchange for money or by using outright force. Deportation of property-owners for "disloyalty" was a favorite among some UN regional administrators and their Russian collaborators.
The convoy operation had been done with the aid of the larger parent cell in Saint Petersburg. Fake travel papers provided by an unnamed source in the UN government had been issued for the prisoners, who were spirited away to Sweden and Norway, where the VdO had minimal presence and no resources to track down the escapees. It had been further aided by two people from Polyjarnyy, who had the local UN commander under their control and were able to give themselves neuro tests to see who, if any, had any possible proficiency for the new "BattleMech" weapons coming in. One of them was laying in the small ceramic bathtub kept in the warehouse. Soap was a luxury that was rarely afforded, but the Vyborg cell was better funded and supplied than her distant Polyarnyy cell, and so Kristina Ivanova was quite capable of finally cleaning off weeks of grime and sweat. The journey from Polyarnyy was not easy even in the summer, as there were UN checkpoints that had to be bypassed, and in the cold Russian winter it was quite the ordeal.
She and her companion Pavel Sukhov had arrived just in time to save nearly a hundred of their countrymen from what would have been a terrible fate. Nobody knew exactly what happened in the UN HBRCs, but even the handful of rumors made it clear that it was terrifying and evil.
The UN unit had been wiped out, most of the soldiers being executed on the spot by the Resistance. It was the way this guerrila war was fought. Neither side accepted or requested mercy. It was that simple. Well, sometimes. Kristina had been a little amused to find the Polish girl hiding under the truck, wetting and defecating on herself out of fear. The girl was a conscript. She probably spoke no Russian at all, she had merely been sent because all of the good troops were in North America. That was what all Russians were noticing; the UN occupation troops were increasingly becoming men and women in their thirties and forties or teenage kids, backed up by barely-organized troops from national groups like the Chechnyans that were not very predisposed to being nice to Russians.
That Kristina had not killed the girl had upset the locals. Which was no surprise to Kristina. She fought for the Rodina like the others, but she did not fight like a butcher either. The Vyborg cell, on the other hand, were part of the Socialist Workers' Party of Eastern Europe, a neo-Stalinist organization that wanted to use the war to install a new Soviet Union and a new Communist Europe and eventually a Communist world. That they cooperated with Kristina, the Jewish daughter of a small-time bourgeoisie construction company operator, was merely an act of wartime pragmatism, and to get her out of Russia. She would be shot with the rest of the bourgeoisie when the Second Revolution began. Of course, Kristina did not worry about this, since she would stake her life on being a faster shot than the Stalinists anyway. Some among the Russian Resistance called her "the Cyclone" with good reason, after all.
The Cyclone. What a silly name. Kristina giggled for a moment and laid her head back against the cold ceramic surface of the tub. The water was starting to get cold, but she didn't want to get out yet. She didn't feel like it.
But she had to. Kristina sighed and lifted herself out. Stepping onto a waiting mat, she found the white towel left for her and began to dry herself off. A fresh shirt, a sleeveless blue polyester blouse that was a size too large, and some green thigh-length shorts were waiting for her. The rest of her clothes were off being washed, and Kristina did not want to wear the filthy things after being clean for the first time in nearly a month. These new clothes were donated by locals who did not want to do any more for the Resistance for fear of being caught. The Stalinists called them weaklings and considered them enemies too. Sometimes Kristina felt the Stalinists were going to paint themselves into a corner by being so demanding of complete support.
As for why she had to get out of the tub, for one thing, Kristina had to check on the prisoner. She pulled her clothes on, slipped a loaded semi-automatic gun into her waist, and stepped out of the small secondary storeroom used for bathing into the main portion of the warehouse. It was then that a scream reached her ears. It was a female voice, and Kristina realized just how foolish she'd been to leave the girl for even a moment. Marching between rows of boxes, she encountered Pavel first. "Why didn't you stop them?!", she demanded to know.
"They say that it's their city, so she's their prisoner," Pavel protested. "I tried, Kristina, but they threatened to shoot me to get to her."
Bloodthirsty pigs. Kristina saw the embarrassment on Pavel's rounded face. His blue eyes looked off to the north side of the warehouse. She found the sight she thought she would. The Polish girl had been stripped of her clothing and forced to endure the cold of the winter. Her wrists were bound tightly with rope and her arms pulled tauntly over her head, the rope having been thrown over a rafter and back down as a pulley, one end tied to a ladder to maintain the tightness and keep the girl uncomfortably rigid. Her right eye was now swollen shut. She had bite marks on her chest and neck, including places that Kristina, as a female, knew had to hurt. They weren't just interrogating her, this was sport. Bloody, evil sport. Never before had Kristina felt so ashamed of her Motherland's defenders.
Now, the interrogation had begun. The leader, a large man known only as Nikolai to her, was barking words in Russian. The girl responded with pained whimpers and a few words in Polish, which none of the present understood. Nikolai barked an order, and an angry chill traveled up Kristina's spine when she saw what was beside the girl A medical defibiliator, plugged in. One of Nikolai's men took both paddles and pushed them against the girl's belly. She screamed from the pain and the men laughed. "She's not very strong, is she? She's like a little girl. Stupid bitch Pole!"
"What is the meaning of this?!" Kristina's shout echoed in the warehouse and drew all eyes to her. Pavel tensed, and for good reason; most of them were armed. But Kristina was willing to bet they wouldn't risk the censure of the Resistance at large by killing her, one of the few confirmed potential MechWarriors the Resistance had.
"She is our prisoner, and we," Nikolai looked back at her, "are asking her some very important questions. You see, we have yet to capture a UN soldier. We feel she can give us some very important information."
"How? She is not an officer, she is a conscript, some poor soul the UN yanked off the streets of Warsaw and sent here. She knows nothing of use!"
"That is for us to determine. This is our place, and we will show you how to run a true cell. Boris, again. Put it in her special place."
This time, the Russian went lower. Much lower, between the girl's legs to be exact. Kristina closed her eyes and could only imagine how much it hurt as the girl's howl echoed in her ears. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the girl was beginning to pant terribly. Now Kristina regretted she had not put a bullet in the girl's head immediately. It would have been far more merciful. Seeing how she could not argue possession of the prisoner - since, after all, when did Communists care about "property"? - Kristina instead made the comment, "Can she speak Russian?"
"I'm not sure."
"Then why are you questioning her in Russian and not her own tongue?" Kristina saw the answer in the expressions of the gathered men. "Does she know anything else?" Kristina looked to the girl and asked, in accented English, "Girl, do you know any English?"
"A little," came the meek reply. "Mercy. Please. Mercy."
It was not the best. But it would have to do. In Russian, Kristina asked Nikolai, "What do you wish for her to tell you?"
"About the UN's army bases here. About their security arrangements."
Kristina communicated Nikolai's questions in English to the girl, who replied meekly and in pant-shortened sentences. She was cooperating fully. She just wanted to be spared more torture. And Kristina could not blame her, as her own stomach was still twisting from the poor sight this bright young Polish woman made in her condition.
But the cooperation was not enough. Nikolai nodded to Boris and again the paddles pressed against the girl's chest, directly over her breasts. She screamed. "She is telling you what she knows!", Kristina yelled at him.
"How do I know that? How do I know the little Polish bitch isn't hiding anything? And what do you care anyway?! She is an invader, she and her kind of desecrated the Motherland and they deserve whatever we decide to do to them!" Nikolai pointed an accusing finger at Kristina. "What have you suffered in Polyjarnyy anyway?! Here, we have watched these pigs take our children for slaves, we have watched them rape our women, and send our men off to die in their imperialist wars! We have the right to strike back!"
"And we are striking back, but there is a line between fighting the enemy and being a merciless butcher!"
"Mercy? Enemies of the Rodina and the Revolution deserve no mercy! As for you, I am beginning to wonder if you are a true daughter of the Rodina or if you are in fact a traitor!"
The accusation could have only one response, and Kristina delivered it with pinpoint precision. Her left knee shot up with swiftness and strength and the kneecap smashed directly into Nikolai's testicles before he could react. He squealed and collapsed. As the shock of the blow caused him nausea, among other painful sensations, he began to vomit a little. Kristina loudly declared, "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY LOYALTY TO THE MOTHERLAND?! YOU MOTHER FUCKER!" It had the desired effect. The other cell members nodded and looked at their leader, who was struggling to stand again. Her show of strength had gotten her some grudging respect, if nothing else. "This girl knows nothing else." Kristina walked up to her, looking at her pain-filled eyes, and felt pity. There were fewer hates in the world as strong as the hatred between Poles and Russians, but Kristina was not so base in her heart as to not hold sympathy to someone who had not done her any personal wrong. "You want mercy?"
"Mercy," the girl pleaded in English.
Kristina nodded. And she pulled out her sidearm from where she had tucked it into her waist. She leveled the gun at the girl's head. The girl whimpered. "Mercy. Please."
She drew close to the girl. "Girl, this is mercy," Kristina replied in near perfect Polish, at a volume that only the girl could hear. She saw a flicker of recognition of her words in the girl's eyes before she pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed through Stefania Jankowska's brain and killed her, exitting out the other side of her skull and splattering blood and brain matter on the wall behind her. Stefania's body began to hang limply from the rafter.
Kristina looked back to Nikolai, who had finally lifted himself off the floor. "Get out of my city," he rasped. "Get out with your boat tonight, because if I ever see you again, I will have you killed."
"And the same goes for you when it comes to Polyarnyy," Kristina said. She walked past Nikolai and toward Pavel. "Let's go Pavel."
The ship on which Kristina and Pavel were intending to leave was starting the loading procedure. They, however, had not gone straight to the pier. A first stop had taken them into a residence about a mile away, the home of a pier foreman who was meant to look the other way, and of a single woman who was now working a job in the city's government. The couple had a pair of children whom they normally trusted to be left home alone, but as repayment for their use of the family's laundry machines and for the board, Kristina had agreed to have the third traveler accompanying them watch their children while they were present. She also intended to leave behind a supply of euros when they left, but had not told the family.
A knock at the door by Pavel, with Kristina watching the street, was answered by the eldest child of the family, a nine year old girl, Marishka. The little brunette eyed Pavel and smiled. "Come in!", she said excitedly.
Pavel stepped in, followed by Kristina. From the doorway they turned right to enter the kitchen. It was seperated from the living room by a counter shaped somewhat like a bar. The home was well-furnished, the former residence of a local apparatchik during the days of the Soviet Union, and the kitchen included a modern electric range and refridgerator imported from the West. At the counter was a young man of about sixteen, the nephew of the foreman and thus Marishka's cousin. He was shirtless and sweaty, a dirty tank top and less-dirty jacket visible in the clothes hamper the family had set aside. Kristina had not seen him often, only knowing that he was staying with the family and working with his uncle at the docks. His eyes were centered lustfully on the couch in the living room, where Marishka's younger brother and sisters were centered around a central figure reading a childrens' book to them and coaxing them to read it aloud as well. A defensive reaction, born of her paranoid protectionism, nearly erupted from Kristina, but she held it back.
Tatyana Ivanova looked up at them, having heard the door open, and she grinned. "Kristina, you are back early!", she said.
"I know."
"Did it go well?"
"I do not want to talk about it." The Polish girl's agonized wails, the marks on her body, still made Kristina tremble. And now, she was looking at her little sister, her precious Tatya, and thinking about what both sides might feel fit to do to her if so-inclined.
The nickname "Tatya" was born from Kristina's speech as a toddler, when her little sister had been born. She had been unable to speak the name fully and had shortened it to "Tatya" on accident. Her parents had found that adorable and had adopted it as their new daughter's nickname. Tatya herself did not mind the nickname, even with the occasional schoolyard tease. Her blue eyes looked at Kristina with concern. "Did something go wrong?"
"Da, yes, my little sister, something went wrong."
Tatya shifted in the couch and lowered her head to begin reading again, knowing not to ask anything more. She had three children ages three to seven on all sides, the three year old boy in her lap with his blond-haired head resting against Tatya's lean left arm and one hand touching a few strands of her rich brown hair. She was not wearing a shirt, just a wireless blue bra, showing the smooth surfaces of her lean body. Her slender legs were visible form the middle of the thigh down, the rest covered by her white shorts. She was dressed lightly for the room temperature, but having grown up north of the Arctic Circle, both sisters were used to the bitter cold and dealt with it better than those from more temperate climates.
Kristina drew in a sigh when she looked at her sister's taunt belly and the growing outline of ribs above it. Tatya had lost some weight after leaving home in Polyjarnyy, having gone hungry for part of the voyage to Vyborg, and it had been quite the ordeal for her, something she had not been used to at all, unlike her physical and fit older sister. Kristina blamed herself for not making sure her sister was ready for the rigors of a multi-week cross-country trek. But that was how it had always been. Kristina was physical, aggressive, and hard around the edges even before circumstances forced her to turn to a life of violence and fear. Tatya was not fit for any of that. She was gentle, very soft-spoken and more than a little shy. While healthy and not lazy, she had none of the physical strength or stamina as her older sister, although Tatya had been endeavoring to make herself stronger since she was little. Her one passion was to be with children, and Kristina knew her little sister wanted to be a mother one day, when her children could actually live comfortably. Kristina held no illusions that she would survive the war, and so she had no expectations of a family, but she would endure suffering and death if it brought Tatya a happy and bright future, with a loving husband to father her many children. It was impossible to make any testament to the strength of Kristina's love for her little sister.
It had been that wish for a future that had finally allowed Kristina to persuade her parents to let her bring Tatya with her to Britain. In Britain she could be protected, and if necessary, shipped on to Miami.
Kristina walked back toward the front door and on to the laundry room. Her clothes had already been cleaned and were waiting. A jacket, several shirts and trousers, and two bras. Kristina pulled the blue blouse off and began putting on some of her own clothes, beginning with a white sleeveless shirt and knee-length white trousers with pockets. A dryer load with Tatya's clothing finished by this time, prompting Kristina to discard the jacket she was about to pull on. Kristina was removing them from the dryer and tossing the warm clothes into a second bag when she looked up at the door and saw her sister standing there. Tatya had a frown on her face as she stepped toward Kristina. "Kristina, why are you upset?"
"It is not important."
"It is important."
"It is not!", Kristina shouted, even though it was a lie. Tatya did not appear upset at Kristina for her tone of voice. Kristina shook her head and admitted defeat. "Tatya, you know how I feel about the war, and about saving our country?"
"Of course."
"Today, something has happened that has made me wonder if there is anybody left in this country that is worth saving." Kristina choked back a sob as she imagined the pain the poor girl had gone through. She had caused it, most ironically, by showing mercy to her and not shooting her dead immediately. She did not want to scare Tatya, always desiring to shield her sister from the savage truth of war, and only told her very briefly that she had taken a prisoner that the locals mistreated. Tatya was naive enough to not fully understand the underlying subtext of Kristina's words. But she understood enough. Tears formed in her eyes and she put her arms around her older sister, weeping. "This is why I'm taking you with me, Tatya, and why Mama and Papa agreed with me to do it," Kristina said to her. She patted her little sister's head, pressing the strands of light brown hair together and against the back of her skull, and let Tatya put her head against Kristina's left shoulder. "I'm taking you away from all of this pain so you can be safe from it."
"But, Kristina, I am not safe anywhere. Not in Britain, and not even in America." Tatya held her sister closer. "I am so scared about what's going to happen to me." She began to weep softly. "I'm scared, Kristina. Please, don't leave me."
"Shh... I will never leave you." Kristina felt her sister's tears on her skin and, with some tears in her own eyes, began to softly sing a lullabye that their mother had taught them when they were young. It did not have the soothing effect Kristina desired. Rather, it reminded them both that they had left their parents, and were now alone, with only each other.
Kristina was reminded that they weren't exactly alone when she looked up and saw Pavel standing in the doorway. He nodded to her. "It's almost time to go, Kristina."
"I know." Kristina released Tatya and pointed her clothes out to her. "Get dressed, Tatya. We must be going."
The younger sister nodded. "Yes, Kristina, I will. But, before we leave, can I say goodbye to the children first?"
"Of course." Kristina moved to the side so Tatya could get to her clothing, and followed Pavel out of the utility room and back to the front door. Standing there, Kristina pulled on the jacket. "You have never been on a ship before, Pavel?"
"Not at all," the young man replied.
"Well, I have never been on anything larger than a trawler." Kristina thought back to one of her father's friends and clients, a fisher, who took them out on a few boat rides when she was younger. "This ship will be large, and we will have to live in the cargo hold because they have no spare quarters."
"Kristina, you are not telling me anything I did not already expect," Pavel said with a grin. "You are worried about something?"
"Only about Tatya. You and I are used to this hardship. She is not."
"Tatya is a strong girl. She will make it. You really should believe in her a little more, Kristina." Pavel followed Kristina as she walked toward the kitchen. "Seriously, you're so protective of her that you underestimate...."
Kristina was listening to Pavel up until she stepped into the kitchen. There was a lone window looking out at the alley, and she noticed a shadow on it. The silhoutte of someone, and that someone was holding an assault rifle. She froze. "Pavel, stop," she said softly.
"Kristina?"
"Get Tatya," she whispered. "Go now. Get her and get the clothes, then lay on the floor and make sure to check your weapon."
Pavel had long learned to trust Kristina's instincts, as those who did tended to survive more than those who didn't, and he said no more. While he went back to get Tatya, Kristina slipped open a drawer and pulled out the sharpest knife she could find in three seconds. She pressed her back against the wall beside the opening to the front door. "Children, come here please," she said to the four children and their teenage cousin, who had been watching TV. "Get down on the floor and....."
The sound of shattering glass was soon followed by the rythmic firing of assault rifles, judged by Kristina to be Steyr AUG-88s based on the particular firing sound. The oldest girl, Marishka, had been pushing one of her younger sisters to the ground when the rounds came through the window and then the wall. They slammed through her small body without ceasing, splattering her blood across the living room and onto the wall and TV screen. She screamed as her lungs and heart were ripped apart by gunfire, the high-pitched cry cut short from the impact of two rounds to her head that splattered blood and brain matter alike. Kristina could do nothing but watch as she collapsed to the floor in a mess of blood and organs. There was a desire to cry, but Kristina repressed it. She had more important things to do than weep for the poor girl, like saving her siblings, who were now wailing in fright.
The door was smashed in and two men entered, wearing combat uniforms of the VdO. Kristina held the knife in an underhanded fashion and, as one came through the door, she whipped her arm toward the opening. A muffled cry came from the VdO soldier as the stainless steel cut into his throat. A geyser of blood erupted from the wound as Kristina pulled it out and the man crumbled to the floor. The second man brought his gun up to her just as a gunshot sounded and blood erupted from his back. He doubled over long enough for Kristina to push the knife into his throat and pull his Steyr off of his shoulder. From the other room, Pavel crawled out with Tatya beside him, tears of fright in her eyes and a bag of their clothing in her hand. Kristina motioned for him to come closer and shouted, "Children! Stay low and come to me!" The remaining children were too busy crying loudly to move at first, forcing Kristina to shout again. "Now or you will die like Marishka did!" She pulled two spare clips off of the dead soldier's ammo belt. The children began to move into the kitchen when a man came through the window. The youngest, the three year old, refused to move, and his cousin had to pick him up and bowed down. The VdO agent who came through the window raised his gun to fire when a bullet from the Steyr in Kristina's grasp pierced his skull and dropped him. From the path to the back door, a crash could be heard. More were coming. "Children! Out into the street!" Kristina remained in the kitchen long enough for the other children to go by her and follow Pavel out, with Tatya and the teenage boy taking up the rear, followed finally by Kristina, after she emptied half a clip to make the VdO soldiers coming from the back hit the ground.
Once out onto the road, they were confronted with the sight of a VdO APC parked nearby. Kristina quickly directed everyone into the nearest alleyway as the soldiers within reacted to their presence. Every ran as quickly as they could, the younger children being held by Pavel and their cousin. Pavel stopped at the exit to the alleyway and let Tatya and the teen go by with the children in tow, turning around in time to spray lead beside Kristina at her pursuers. Kristina hit the deck as they returned fire, Pavel moving to the side to avoid them. This was an action that saved his life, and a bullet that would have found his lung instead lodged itself into a rib. He screamed from the agony of torn flesh as he came down. Lifting his weapon, he began ignoring the pain and returned fire on the VdO soldiers. Kristina crawled past him. A cry came out, and a shot, as Kristina moved past Pavel's gun and was able to go on her feet again. She saw the fallen form of Tatya and the teenage boy with them beside the screaming children, all facing a single man with a readied Steyr. Kristina howled in anger and opened fire, mowing him down. She ran to her little sister and prayed to all that was holy that Tatya had not been hurt. She found her prayers had been answered when Tatya got up from under the boy. Blood covered her but there was no wound, as it was not her's but his. The boy had thrown himself on top of her to protect her.
A glint of the street light revealed a black van turning the corner. It came up to them and the door opened. A coarse voice whispered, "Quickly, in!" The children meekly obeyed. Kristina turned back and toward the alleyway, where Pavel was still on the ground, bleeding as he replaced a clip. "Pavel! Now! I will cover you!" She quickly turned the corner with her Steyr at eye-level and opened fire, emptying her clip. Pavel used the distraction to get closer to her, their opponents now on their bellies in the alley. Kristina moved back around the corner as Pavel crawled close, replacing the clip. From the van, the voice shouted, "Forget him!"
"Nyet!" Kristina slipped the new clip in and turned the corner. As she opened fire, the opponent retorted. A scream erupted from her lungs when a pair of bullets found her left shoulder and upper arm. Blood exploded from the wounds and Kristina let the weapon fall from her grip as she turned the corner again, bringing her right hand up to the wounds and feeling warm blood gush around her fingers. Pavel was now on his feet and out of the line of fire. Both ran for the van, leaving a blood trail as they went, and clambered inside. The man slammed the door close and the van rumbled away. Kristina was seated to the side of the can's open rear. She cursed loudly at the pain that was shooting through her, tears in her eyes. One of the men who helped her eyed Kristina. "Who are you?", she asked.
"Yuri. This," he looked to the driver, 'is Anatoly. That is all you need to know."
"Of course." A pained gasp escaped Kristina's lungs. "Do you have medical supplies?"
"There will be some on the ship. I apologize that we will have to change your accomodations. You will be taking a tanker now, carrying oil to London." Yuri's dark eyes were barely noticable in the darkness. "Nikolai and the local cell betrayed you to the VdO."
"Bastards." Something occurred to Kristina. "The family?"
"The foreman and his wife are in VdO custody."
"Bozhe Moi," Kristina muttered. She could see the look in Pavel's face as he tied his shirt to her wounds. Both knew what this meant. They would pray for their would-be guardians' swift demise to spare them the greater and more terrible fate of the VdO's prisoners. "What will be done to Nikolai?!"
"His treason will be dealt with in due time," Yuri said.
Kristina nodded and turned to her sister. Tatya was crying, having now learned of Marishka's death, and with the boy who had saved her life in her lap. "Yevgeni," she whispered softly, "thank you." Kristina had not known the boy's name until now.
"You are the most beautiful girl," he rasped in return. "I could not let you be killed." He coughed and blood came up from his throat. He was lungshot, not severely enough to have died immediately, but bad enough that Kristina knew he would die soon.
Tatya's tears flowed down from her cheeks over him. Yevgeni put a hand up on her right cheek, smearing his blood onto her face. "Beautiful....", he repeated. He touched his fingers to Tatya's slim lips. "I wanted only to kiss you, and I would be happy." He let Tatya take his hands and put them together. "I..."
Yevgeni spoke no more. Tatya lowered her head and pushed her lips to his, closing her eyes as her tongue slipped into his mouth to meet his. When she pulled back, Yevgeni had stopped breathing. His eyes were lifeless. He had died as she had given him his last desire. Tatya began sniffling, and broke out into crying just as the other children were. Kristina felt her heart ache with stronger agony than that of her butchered arm and shoulder. Her little sister had never seen someone die before. She had never experienced the pain of saying goodbye to someone whom Death had claimed. Kristina almost couldn't breathe. "Tatya..."
At her sister's voice, Tatya crawled over between the children to her sister. She put a hand on Kristina's wounds, now covered by Pavel's shirt, and then buried her face into Kristina's neck and chest and began crying with greater volume. His own wound was being blocked by a shirt he had taken from the clothing bag, which Tatya had held onto the entire time with a death-grip, as could be seen from it's crumpled plastic top. The blood from his wound had mingled with the dark hair that covered his chest. He looked over at Kristina through pain-hazed eyes and briefly smiled. "We survive again," he sighed.
"I know." Kristina let Tatya cry, feeling the warm tears on her chest, flowing down to her cleavage and beginning to soak into her shirt. Silently she swore to avenge Marishka and Yevgeni, and them all.
More than that, she swore that her little sister would never join Marishka's parents, even if Kristina would be forced to do so to prevent it.
The crew of the tanker that Yuri and Anatoly brought Kristina and the others to were Norwegian, and only their captain and a couple of ship's mates could communicate with Kristina using English. Fortunately the doctor was Russian and could speak Norwegian, and he tended to the bullet wounds that Kristina and Pavel had suffered. Pavel was out like a light under anasthesia, with the doctor now removing the bullet that had lodged into his rib cage. Kristina's left arm was now in a sling, with her shirt removed so that the doctor could work easily on the bullet wounds in her arm and shoulder, wounds that he had sterilized and patched up. She shivered, wearing only her shorts and a bra for her modesty. It was growing colder. A late winter freeze was coming. Kristina braced herself for the chill she knew she would be getting.
Tatya had taken the children to an area they could sleep in. The ship had a number of crew who had been left ashore after they contracted a mutated, non-airborne version of SARS, which still popped up here and there across the world, and that had opened up bunks that, now washed up and cleansed of anything that the sick crew may have left. Kristina had spent an hour refusing to let her take the children into these bunks, but it proved unnecessary, as the other crew agreed to take them and leave their safe bunks for Tatya and the children.
But now Tatya returned, having pulled on a blue shirt and a parka over it, and with full legged trousers on. She had with her several heavy woolen blankets. Her eyes were red with tears from the deaths that had occured this day. Kristina looked up from the bed she occupied in the ship's infirmary and tried to smile at her little sister. "Tatya, how are the little ones?"
"They cried themselves to sleep." Tatya came up to Kristina and unwrapped a pair of the blankets. "I thought for a moment I would be joining them."
"Why are you still awake, little sister? You should be sleeping. You have had a rough day."
"Kristina, I cannot sleep." Tatya brought a pair of blankets over to where Pavel was sleeping. She gently placed them over him before turning back to Kristina. "I see Yevgeni's face in my mind. I feel his heart stopping and no breath coming from him. It... big sister, it scares me." Tatya walked over to her and knelt by the cot that Kristina was laid out on. Tears began flowing from her eyes again as her older sister put her free right hand into Tatya's disheveled hair. "I have never seen anyone die before, Kristina. It is so horrible."
"I know." Kristina swallowed. She didn't know how to tell Tatya how it felt to actually cause the death of other human beings. To destroy them, their dreams, their desires. Killing was something Kristina did well, and she had learned it the hard way, but it never felt better for her. Again, this was why she fought. So that Tatya would never have to kill to protect herself, because Kristina knew in her heart that Tatya would never forgive herself if she were forced to kill. "Little sister, I do not want you to have to see that again. I am going to make you safe."
Tatya nodded and let Kristina wipe a tear from her cheek. But she was not without questions. Including a rather important one. "Kristina, in this world, where can any of us be safe?"
The question struck Kristina in her heart from the cold, brutal truth that would be it's only reply. With these Clans capable of landing troops anywhere in the world now, and the armies of Giuseppe on the advance everywhere.... there was no longer such a thing as safety. "I.... do not know," Kristina admitted to Tatya, trying to make it sound as good as she possibly could. "I do not know where any of us can be safe."
Tatya nodded. "I want Mama and Papa. I should have stayed with them."
"No," Kristina said. "Tatya, I know you wanted to stay with them, and they wanted you to as well, but they sent you with me because they knew you would not be safe with them any longer. They do not want you to be hurt like I was, to be used as a plaything by evil men. That is why you are here. They cannot protect you. I can."
"But if there is nowhere safe in the world, how can you protect me?"
A tear of pain, and of resolve, rolled down Kristina's cheek as she moved her face closer to her sister, putting her right hand under Tatya's chin. "The only way I can, little sister. With my blood."
The answer did not satisfy Tatya. Not entirely. But it was the best she could be given. And with it, she began to drift into sleep beside her sister. The door opened and a couple of crewmembers came in. They found Tatya asleep on her knees, her head hanging on her sister's cot, and brought a spare cot up, gently placing Tatya on it as Kristina watched silently. Ensuring the two sisters were within arm's reach, they left immediately, giving a warm smile to Kristina as they did so.
Kristina reached her hand over, and with her right hand holding Tatya's left, Kristina closed her eyes and let sleep take her.
The nightmares came, as they always did. Nightmares of being raped again, of being tortured again.... but she would endure them. The years had taught her to. And maybe, soon, she would have new experiences to replace the nightmares with better dreams.