Red Banner / White Star: A nBSG continuation fic. Chpt. 4.0

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Red Banner / White Star.

- A continuation of Battlestar Galactica.
by Marina

Prologue

Kolonija Kondrashka
18 Jan. 2104 CE.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.


They had attacked continuously throughout the night and well into the morning, relentlessly driving back the outposts, overruning the kolkhoz that had spread outwards, claiming the alien land in the decades since colonization, and steadily driving 17 Diviziya Guards Motor Rifle back toward Vladimirovka. All of the modern technology that The Discovery had provided proved sufficient only to hold the line, for their enemies, robotic, relentless, knew no fear and continued to attack regardless of casualties. Already General Pavel Arkadievich Radimov estimated that he’d lost twenty percent of his men combat ineffective in action, and the damned things had only landed three days prior.

Well, not all men. Major Svetlana Borisovna Lukachenko reminded him of that much as she turned with a crisply grim expression set on a gray-eyed face that otherwise charitably reflected her Estonian mother. The cool delivery belied the seriousness of the news. “Comrade General, the enemy has detonated nuclear weapon about Kolkhoz-1449…. ComBat for 2nd motorized battalion is still intact, but he estimates at least fourty percent casualties. They didn’t get any tanks, but the high radiation levels are masking what doubtless must be a high concentration of enemy troops and they’re requesting immediate dispatch of both reinforcements and decontamination gear.”

Even in the bunker dug three thousand meters beneath a rolling ridgeline to the north of Vladimirovka, the news was utterly chilling, and the young major’s words all the more impressive for how coolly she had delivered news of the major escalation. The rest of the staff exchanged very grim glances indeed and Colonel Fyodr Ivanovich Bakin was the first to speak. “Comrade General, I recommend we immediately withdraw the 2nd Motorized to Stop Line Belaia and prepare to shift 1st Battalion Armoured from the divisional reserve to reinforce Belaia. The contamination units can also be positioned there to the immediate rear,” he gestured to the main plotting map with an ornate old pointer, “Where the terrain will cover them while they work. Also we should now authorize the use of our own tactical nuclear weapons to show the enemy that we do not lack their power and immediately break up the troop concentration that’s obviously being effected about Kolkhoz-1149.”

“Comrade,” General Radimov addressed the young Svetlana instead, as he leaned over the plotting board to muse, “Contact Air Defense Regimental headquarters and tell them that if the enemy attempts to overfly Vladimirovka it should be assumed that a nuclear attack on the civilian centers and reserve depots is underway and immediate use of nuclear anti-air missiles should be undertaken.”

“Yes Comrade General!”

He glanced upward toward his Chief of Staff, Colonel Stepan Igorovich Baryshnikov. “I am concerned about a marked escalation in the use of tactical nuclear weapons as long as they resort to the high orbitals. Until the population has fully been evacuated to the deep shelters we could lose a hundred thousand or more, and most of the material we’re need from the reserve depots to fight underground if they try to dig us out. I want you to find out from the militsa exactly how long it will take for the evacuation to be completed.”

“Yes, Comrade General.”

Radimov looked back to Colonel Bakin next. “Comrade, we will horde the rest of the armoured reserve for a counterattack with our full tactical nuclear arsenal, in an effort to reverse the advances of these… Monstrous machines. We must hold out without nuclear weapons until we can be sure of the safety of the citizenry. Nonetheless—the new TH-101s can retreat across Lake Chalypin—we will adopt your proposals and fall back to Stop Line Belaia. Make the necessary orders immediately!”

Behind General Radimov’s back, nobody noticed the faint stiffening of Major Lukachenko. She just brushed a lock of red hair from her face as she waited for a reply from the Voyska PVO headquarters on the planet to report to the General, a brain working far faster than that of anyone else in the bunker wondering on the implications for the Project that the mysterious hostile machine army would have. A part of her gamed all the possible scenarios, including that, should her consciousness be the only surviving sapience from Kolonija Kondrashka, that she not explain the nature of their enemies lest primitivist backlash prevent the technological triumph of the Marxist ideal. But that idea was dismissed as quickly as it had come.

She was as loyal as any other daughter of the Soviet Union, and was the future and the promise, the culmination of the heritage of every human in this facility. Giving the Union the chance to react quickly and efficiently to this new threat was a moral imperative of the highest order, even if it meant delays to the Project to explain the differences between the two forces. Blood, after all, still flowed in her veins as it did those of all her clone sisters. And the deeply classified foldtech transceiver layered into her body had already alerted Sixth Banner Fleet headquarters, anyway. Relief would come to brave Vladimirovka long before the General could have hoped.

The computer console in front of her politely pinged and she returned her attention to it, noting the message in an eidetic memory and rising at once to address the General. And outside and above, the hovertanks of the 1st Battalion Armoured rushed toward Stop Line Belaia at 300km/h, loading high explosive rounds into bustles of the autoloaders serving their gauss-cannon. Even without authorization to use tacnukes the 175 tonne hovertanks that had until now been held in reserve would come as a nasty surprise, and Svetlana felt the same flush of hope and pride in that as everyone else did, three klicks below the surface of an alien world. We’ll show those bastards how we defend our homes…


Union Cosmos Ship Dmitry Pozharski,
In transit through deep space;
14 lightyears from Kolonija Kondrashka.


Captain First Rank Elena Pyotrovna Markova felt like the acceleration couch was an infinite foam cushion from hell which kept giving and giving without ever stopping. It should hurt but it didn’t and it should provide support—and it was—but the material didn’t seem like it did. It was, in short, driving her insane, and the prospect of military action against an unknown alien race occurring within minutes seemed joyful in comparison to the continuation of the exquisite torture. The best designed acceleration couches in existence combined with the best designed G-suits in existence, and the entire ship had been designed not in the stereotypical sky-scraper arrangement of decks which uneducated simpletons who’d never been in space thought was ideal for acceleration, so that the gravity pushed you down into the deck and made it like you were standing on Earth… No, no, that was the work of fools. At least when imagining military ships. There, the decks were laid out just like on a ship on Earth, structurally. The difference is that each deck’s rooms were subdivided to be just a couple of meters in length, but very broad, covering almost all of the hull.

Consoles in front and banks of acceleration couches directly connected to the walls in command spaces was perfect, because the actual fact of physical response to high accelerations (derived in tests in the mid-20th century no less!) was that eye-balls in horizontal acceleration was the best resisted by human beings. That was the kind of acceleration they were presently experiencing, and in combination with their G-suits and acceleration couches they were remaining functional through direct neural interfaces with the ship’s computers even as they pushed thirty gravities of continuous acceleration. Behind the ship a continuous stream of small four-ton cylinders were being ejected, and in a steady drumbeat a few atoms of anti-matter were released from containment into the dense metallic hydrogen that comprised the rest of the cylinder’s internal volume and tearing into the polyethylene coating, creating energy densities sufficient for a multi-gigaton fusion detonation against the massively shock-absorbed graphite-ablative pusher plate.

They had been accelerating for more than four hours from the moment the highly classified and urgent orders had come in and progressively between each jump. Now their velocity on entering the Kondrashka system would be peaking at excess of 4,350 km/s, more than 20% of their max delta-v. The Dmitry Pozharski was a rather short-legged fuel hog of a Large Rocket Cruiser, but beautiful to the crew. Her four spherical pressure hulls were contained in an outer vacuum-open hull reaching nearly two kilometers long and collectively massing thirty-six million metric tonnes at full load displacement, slightly flattened at the top and bottom and broader along the beam to accommodate the independent manoeuvring missile buses and radar buses which were the primary armament. Her outer hull was painted in antiflash white with only intentionally dulled Red Stars on raised ablative blisters to mark her nationality, and coated in graphite.

“Comrade Captain! The jump drive has spun up and is stable. Onboard astrogational computers stand ready for transpositional fold operation,” Bridge Flight Engineer Mariya Sergeyevna Filonova reported with a dull professionalism which probably epitomized the best coping mechanism possible for sustained high-g accelerations.

“Spherical Error Probable into the Kondrashka system is estimated with plus/minus four percent confidence to be nine hundred and twenty kilometers, Comrade Captain.” That voice, which was not spoken aloud but in her mind only through the direct neural interface, was marked by the computer signature which showed it was her astrogator, Captain 3rd Rank Yevgeniya Mikhailovna Gregorova. That was one point in which the Cosmos Fleet Command was ruthlessly practical. To squeeze every ounce of capability out of their ships, the crews were entirely female and with it gained a further, statistically significant resistance to high-g forces.

“Central point: Planet Kondrashka. Jump Coordinates: Anteterra; twenty thousand klicks x. Voidward; One hundred thousand klicks y. Ten thousand klicks positive z. Stand by to jump.” Elena activated the necessary computer warning systems to alert the crew that they were now immediately entering a nuclear combat environment.

“Jump coordinates established, Comrade Captain. Jump on your command.”

“Jump the ship, Astrogator!”

The mass driver flinging the fusion cylinders out aft immediately shut down and as the effect in the shock absorbers dissipated the Dmitry Pozharski was given the most fractional of respites from the intensity of sustained acceleration at more than thirty gravities. But then she was twisted and ripped through reality by her jump drive… And unfolded back into it in the Kondrashka system.

“Deploy missile and sensor buses and establish the artificial nebula! Check acceleration! Stand by to manoeuvre.”

Quick-release hatches along the surface of the outer nonpressure hull popped up, dislodging a total of fourty-eight missile buses and a similar number of sensor buses. The moment they cleared the hull, telemetry links were automatically established as backups to the carbon nanotube cables which gave them a direct physical connection. The cables could be dropped entirely at command, as they were useful in certain situations, but a pointless hazard in others, and the buses did have small manoeuvring thrusters. Behind them a powerful magnetic field rapidly engulfed the hull and a cloud of magnetized gas was released between it and a second, inner, containing magnetic field, creating a semisold field to retard, refract and deflect incoming energy weapons fire or nonmagnetized projectiles (magnetized ones could be repulsed by the field itself).

And immediately radar and other sensor data came in, as well as—mercifully!—telemetry from Kondrashka which meant that something was alive on the surface below and recording the enemy for them. Within five seconds they had largely established their combat preparations, and it was good fortune, too, for they had arrived only twenty-nine seconds away from their closest approach to the planet at their present velocity. Now there were twenty-four seconds left.

“Comrade Captain. Telemetry from Voyska PVO headquarters at Vladimirovka indicates three enemy ships are in orbit with a double-sauce hull design. Hull compositions are consistent with Luna 10 Incident materials.”

There was a brief chill that seemed to ghost through the circuitry like a real thing. Are they responsible? The infamous discovery of the year 1966 on the far side of the Moon could never be forgotten by the human race, not ever, and the idea of, no matter how hard they had tried in the past one hundred and thirty-eight years to catch up, now running into those responsible for the wreckage that had been left thousands of years before… And we’re so lucky, for we only started building ships like this fourty years ago…

“…Their robots on the planet have used tactical nuclear weapons…”

“Do we have telemetry on the locations of their ground forces?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain,” Captain-Lieutenant Cecilia Metzner—from the German SSR—eagerly answered. “We have a safety zone around Vladimirovka designated by the Kondrashka Army Headquarters. Permission to flush tubes in ground-engagement regime on buses four, six, and eight? Even if those heavies in orbit get us…”

“We’ll buy them some time. Yes, Comrade! Flush the buses, and then we go weapons free on the invading ships, missiles and particle beams.”

“Yes, Comrade Captain!”

“Comrade Captain, the enemy ships are deploying a swarm of at least three thousand large missiles or payload buses toward us. They are all independently maneouvring. Computer suggests they are probably assault buses with many short-range warheads.” The report from Lieutenant Ng Shi in the scanning department came up tagged through the computers with the highest priority, and Elena took it as such. “Prepare countermissile batteries and roll the ship to present the pusher plate to the enemy and stand by for thrust-cylinder defence.” Their best chance against a missile swarm of that size was to vapourize as many as they could within the energetic detonations of the fusion bombs the Dmitry Pozharski used for propulsion.

Quickly, quickly, the manoeuvring thrusters spun the massive Rocket Cruiser to present her reinforced pusher plate toward the enemy while the countermissile clusters were unveiled and then countered the momentum they’d provided, while the missile and sensor buses released their cables and dispersed into a looser cloud around the ship, still providing and receiving tight-beam laser telemetry. From three, however, salvoes of nuclear tipped missiles had already been launched to the surface, and it seemed that the enemy was so intent on them that they would not be able to intercept the missiles aimed for the surface. It was a great relief to Elena, who was relieved that the first task of giving some greater chance to the civilians on the surface had been accomplished.

“Full acceleration,” she ordered. In this case, it would not only lengthen the engagement envelope, but guarantee that a solid wall of progressive fusion events would stand between them and the enemy attack. And now again they were shoved deep into the acceleration couches as thirty-gravities of acceleration worked to slow their existing velocity, the engines providing all the delta-v they could… And turning space between the Dmitry Pozharski and the enemy into a sleet of hard radiation.

“Enemy manoeuvring buses are entering the killboxes of our countermissiles as they manoeuvre around the drive wash, Comrade Captain,” Captain-Lieutenant Metzner coolly noted. “Countermissiles are now on automatic. I am flushing all buses to side-one with a full magnum strike.” What did not need to be said was that the remaining side-two buses would be in the radiation shadow of the ship and could be used for further strikes or automatically flushed against the enemy if telemetry was lost—if the ship were destroyed.

Then the enemy’s maneouvring buses entered the standardized killboxes of the countermissiles, and more than two hundred and fifty nitroglycerine-powered rocket missiles leapt out of the cells at the incoming, each tipped with a 20kT neutron warhead and burning with white-hot intensity at 400 gravities of acceleration for six seconds before the engine was exhausted. At the same time, each of the side-one pods flushed its full compliment of fifty-two anti-ship missiles with heavy neutron warheads.

The rest of the battle was conducted within seconds. In four seconds interposition was reached between the countermissiles and the incoming manoeuvring buses of the enemy and the neutron warheads detonated in a slate that wiped out hundreds if not more. At the same time, the heavy armament of more than a thousand anti-ship missiles tore directly for the force of three enemy ships. They replied with a hail of energy batteries as the warheads moved closer, shocking Metzner who had never seen energy weapons with that kind of coherent visible beam structure or rate of fire before. They proved highly effective, too, with the Dmitry Pozharski’s counterstrike dissipated between three hulls which could share in mutual defence. Somehow, they had made it through the engagement unscathed… But so had the enemy.

And they were past the enemy force already, now, despite the full acceleration to slow their velocity relative to the planet, starting to widen the distance again. On the other hand, that meant that without rolling the ship their main particle beam batteries were now cleared from the masking of the drive tail to engage the enemy. Having already been authorized to use them, Cecilia opened fire with a simple thought even as the remaining enemy manoeuvring buses regrouped against them.

Then the missiles which had been heading toward the planet, burning through the atmosphere on their reentry courses, reached suitable altitudes to detonate, both to maximize the damage to the enemy forces on the surface and to minimize damage to Vladimirovsky. And detonate they did, scouring and ripping apart countless formations of the attacking robots, even as on the surface the 17 Diviziya’s tacnukes were being used with wild abandon to support a massed hovertank counterattack.

In the meantime the three enemy ships were firing energy weapons of great power at the Dmitry Pozharski, tearing chunks out of her artificial nebula, with a few shots lancing beyond to rip through the plating of the main hull. Realizing that in energy weapons—their’s were coursing through the armour of the enemy, they had no similar artificial nebula but the hull material was much stronger—were badly outmatched and the Rocket Cruiser could soon be severely damaged, Cecilia went ahead and flushed the remaining missiles, counting on the damage and distraction of the particle beams and a refined knowledge of the enemy’s defences to get a few penetrating hits.

But the enemy had received telemetry of the destruction of its army on the surface, and in some kind of unfathomable decision-making process, concluded that further operations were impracticable due to it. That was all the Dmitry Pozharski’s computer could make of things, anyway, when it had finished analyzing the reason that at that moment the three enemy ships had disappeared, and incredibly with them, the manoeuvring buses as well. Every single one had been fitted with a jump drive, and the sheer luxury and waste of materials it meant was perhaps the most stunning thing of all for the crew of the Rocket Cruiser to consider as they began their leisurely deacceleration and return to Kondrashka to provide what recovery aid as they could. At least the Union would not again be surprised, but complete absence of reasons behind the attack made that seem as little comfort, from the youngest rating on the Dmitry Pozharski straight up to the Politboro itself.

…And what would the Americans make of it?

[Gandalf]

Fascinating read. I quite enjoyed it.

In keeping with the Soviet theme, shouldn't the Astrogator be a Cosmogator, or some such?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Fascinating read. I quite enjoyed it.

In keeping with the Soviet theme, shouldn't the Astrogator be a Cosmogator, or some such?

Probably should be, but I didn't want to provide literal-meaning equivalents where it wasn't necessary, that much, and I wasn't perfectly sure. I am however sure that someone with a better knowledge of Russian on the board than I will make some suggestions there sooner or later.

Anyway, thank you very much. There is, as you can tell, already a bit of a mystery. Sort of in homage to the format of nBSG, with actual episodes and podcasts, I'm going to write this story as chapters interspersed with shorts covering the alternate-history development of Earth from the Luna 10 Incident forward.

[Gandalf]

Fascinating read. I quite enjoyed it.

In keeping with the Soviet theme, shouldn't the Astrogator be a Cosmogator, or some such?

Probably should be, but I didn't want to provide literal-meaning equivalents where it wasn't necessary, that much, and I wasn't perfectly sure. I am however sure that someone with a better knowledge of Russian on the board than I will make some suggestions there sooner or later.

Fair enough.

Anyway, thank you very much. There is, as you can tell, already a bit of a mystery. Sort of in homage to the format of nBSG, with actual episodes and podcasts, I'm going to write this story as chapters interspersed with shorts covering the alternate-history development of Earth from the Luna 10 Incident forward.

Sounds good. I await more.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Anyway, thank you very much. There is, as you can tell, already a bit of a mystery. Sort of in homage to the format of nBSG, with actual episodes and podcasts, I'm going to write this story as chapters interspersed with shorts covering the alternate-history development of Earth from the Luna 10 Incident forward.

Sounds good. I await more.

Will try to have one of the shorts out this evening!

[Slacker]

Marina, my wife's trying to figure out what the proper transliteration for astrogator would be. She pointed out right away that the -gator ending wouldn't work, give her a bit and I figure she'll come up with something.\


*edit*

Okay so I lied. While *gator isn't automatically natural to my slavic ear it is an appropriate ending in this case. It would be cosmo-navigator - however you want to meld those two words. If I had some better clue of how to search, there is probably already a specific word for it but alas my russian google-fu isn't that strong, for all that my russian is fluent.

-Slacker's wife

*another edit*


I spoke to my mum, whose russian fields are broader and she says it would be 'shturman' of a spaceship.

-Slacker's wife again

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Thank you. Such Russian as I know is not very good, so thank you very kindly indeed and I'll incorporate that suitably.

It's also nice to know I have another fan.

Heh, knew I'd get some help with that..

[Slacker]

Generally speaking, if you need something of that nature and I'm AIM, throw a rock at me and I'll ask Irina, she has similar creative outlets and is generally cool in helping out. She cleaned up my Russian and Ukrainian colonies immensely for Ad Astra.

[fgalkin]

Thank you. Such Russian as I know is not very good, so thank you very kindly indeed and I'll incorporate that suitably.

It's also nice to know I have another fan.

Heh, knew I'd get some help with that..

Cosmogator has been used in some Russian sci-fi, so it's a legitimate term in its own right. Space Shturman or just plain shturman is also acceptable, but has less sci-fi flavor.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Thank you. Such Russian as I know is not very good, so thank you very kindly indeed and I'll incorporate that suitably.

It's also nice to know I have another fan.

Heh, knew I'd get some help with that..

Cosmogator has been used in some Russian sci-fi, so it's a legitimate term in its own right. Space Shturman or just plain shturman is also acceptable, but has less sci-fi flavor.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Heee, Cosmogator it is.

[fgalkin]

Also, with respect to Irina, Russian is known for borrowing technical terms from foreign languages- most of it's naval terms, including shturman (stuurman) are Dutch, for example, because that's where Peter the Great learned his shipbuilding and navigation. All of the computer terms are similarly borrowed from English. And if you go to Russia today, half the store names are not even PRONOUNCIBLE in Cyrilic, because they're essentially transliterations of western words, sometimes with hilarious results (think Engrish).So, don't feel constrained by the "Russianness" of a word. Hell, in 17 Gvardii Motostrelkovaya Diviziya, only one word is actually of Slavic origin. Can you find it?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Slacker]

Hey, if you're able to give her a hand, that's great too. Irina's got a solid command of the language, don't get me wrong-but she left Kiev when she was eight, so it's not like she had much time to pick up the technical lingo. I'm sure she's not offended. As for the Engrishification of Russian...yeah, you see that here in Brooklyn in the Russian-speaking parts of town, more than once we've been bringing her grandparents somewhere and she sorts of stops dead and starts laughing her ass off.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

P.1 Early History Short.


Kremlin, Moskva,
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
8 June, 1966.


Lieutenant General Kerim Kerimov had perhaps never been a more nervous man before in his life—even including during the space launchers he had overseen over the years, leading up to his replacement of Korolev after he had died in January—though his authority as head of TsUKOS was more important here. One did not address the full members of the Politboro lightly—let alone including all of Sovmin--and certainly not with the magnitude of the knowledge he was reporting. They had waited some time, and conferenced with countless researchers, especially those from GSMZ Lavochkin, so that they had made damned sure that they weren’t making things up, weren’t seeing things that actually didn’t exist. But all of the instruments had agreed, and there were no systems failures.

And then he was there with a dozen aides in all, not like that would help. Brezhnev, Voronov, Kirilenko, Kosygin, Mazurov, Pelse, Podgorny, Polyansky, Suslov, Shelepin, Shelest, all waiting for him, and with Sovmin effectively having power to decide all considerations for the state, particularly in Brezhnev’s presence. Really, the only opinions which mattered in the entire Soviet Union and they were waiting on him to explain the urgency of this matter. He was not, at least, going to disappoint in that, and he was as experienced in the Soviet system of governance as anyone could be. Two of his aides began to quietly load the slide projector as he turned to address the assembled men.

“Comrades, thank you. As you have already been informed our Luna 10 probe discovered something extraordinary near the terminator line—the divisor between night and day—on the moon, on the dark side. It is not merely visible by camera, but also by the most sophisticated instruments in existence to detect it, including a magnetometer, gamma-ray spetrometer, infrared detector and various sensors for radiation, photons, and other worthy scientific measurements. These measurements revealed an area of noticeable radioactive decay of an unusual type on the far eastern edge of the Mare Orientalis.”

The first of the slides came on, showing the surface of the moon there overlaid with the data generated by the sensors on the Luna 10 probe. It showed a distinctly regular object with small stub wings that had an overall length of about nine meters, with a variety of data readouts extrapolated from the various points on the object. Then, they flipped next to a shot from a camera, with the clearly visible fanlike landing trail which indicated the object had scraped its way through the lunar dust to a crash landing of some sort. It was only a pinprick there, but the next picture—which Kerimov did not, of course, mention had been heavily touched up to drive the point home—showed it more clearly, and most importantly both had the faintest glimmer of light from the object.

He stepped back and with a pointer tapped the glimmer in the expanded picture. “That is the refraction of sunlight off of glass, a very distinct characteristic that we have not seen anywhere else before in space. It is, as you see, consistent with the location of a cockpit on a typical terrestrial aircraft of similar size.”

“…Glass, comrade?”

The two words froze him in his tracks, and he looked directly at Brezhnev. “Yes, Comrade Secretary. Refined, artificial glass.”

There was a look of disgust on his face. “Are you trying to tell us, comrade, that the Americans have already landed on a probe on the moon? And one of that size, too? I had thought they were very small things.”

“No, Comrade Secretary. It is not an American probe. It is emitting a radiation signature which we have never seen before…” He delicately repeated. “Which is not of terrestrial origin. It appears to be the decay of exotic matter, by the best analysis of our nuclear and astrophysists. Comrade Secretary, it is the universal concurrence of all analysts involved in the programme that the object is not of terrestrial origin. It is definitely artificial, and the Americans, if they were this advanced, would already have men on the moon, not merely a probe. The radiation signature is impossible to our prior knowledge of physics. Comrade Secretary, this object had to have originated, from alien hands, under an alien star. There is no other possible explanation which matches the corroborated evidence.”

Brezhnev rocked back in his chair, and for a long moment the room was deathly silent. Then, as thought he was, in fact, perfectly calm—and perhaps he was—or simply didn’t care about the implications of the discovery, which was also entirely possible, he answered very simply. “Comrade Kerimov, if that is an alien space ship. Give it to me.”

“I am certain it is, Comrade Secretary,” Kerimov answered with a growing excitement inside, for that was exactly what he had hoped Brezhnev would say.

“Then all necessary resources of the Soviet Union are at your disposal to effect its recovery before the Americans can get to it. There will be consquences, Comrade, if your analysts were wrong.”

“I understand, Comrade Secretary.” But since Kerimov knew he was right, he had just been handed a blank cheque. Let’s see what the Americans can do now, he thrilled, wondering what marvels might yet be beheld by his eyes.

For the prosaic Leonid Brehznev, the matter was already settled, and he went back to other thoughts. It was only later that the true magnitude of what had been discovered, and what he had set in motion, would later trouble the General Secretary.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

P.2 Late History Short.


Vozrozhdeniya Island, Uzbek SSR,
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
17 November, 2076.


Captain Alina Borisovna Lukachenko was at the age of twenty-seven already twice Hero of the Soviet Union. She had from the age of twenty-three been in the KGB’s special combat services, a rare woman in what was still very much a man’s force, and had already seen three years of combat, all of them in Afghanistan and later the Afghan SSR in the Intervention War. Three years of bloody combat against fanatical resistance as the Union had moved to pacify the chaos in Afghanistan following the arrival of close to twenty million Pakistan refugees in the wake of the Indo-Pak Atomic War of 2069. The violence had spilled over into Soviet Central Asia and the Union had been given no choice except to seize control of Afghanistan to stop the assaults and depredations by Islamic jihadis deep into its territory, which had led to the deaths of thousands of citizens, as well as the widespread international condemnation of an initial failure to act as the refugee situation spiralled into mass famine and millions of deaths from fighting, starvation and sickness in Afghanistan.

With the Indians themselves moving further to do something about it and make sure their security was well in hand after annexing the shattered, nuked-over remnants of Pakistan, the effort to pacify Afghanistan had led directly into a vigorous border war between India and the Union and Alina had seen just as much action in it as in the Afghan SSR. The latest republic of the expanding Soviet Union, which had completed the full integration of the WARPAC states into complete members of the USSR in 2058, was still hardly anything other than a warzone, but Alina was no longer there. She had, on finding herself recalled from the front, immediately applied to the new Orbital Drop Commando School but had instead found herself sent to the closed Vozrozhdeniya Island without explanation.

All communication with the outside world was strictly censored and though residents could apply for travel permits to leave the island, nobody could visit it without being assigned to it except those from the very highest echelons of the Union’s leadership. The quiet, paranoid atmosphere the island fostered had seemed like a disturbing throwback to the old, forgotten era of the Terrors, until she had figured out for herself based on the unavoidable signs to one resident there, that the island’s purpose was biological weapons research. Then it all made sense, though the medical procedures, the blood and other tissue samples they took, in that case just made her more than a little frightened. And Alina Lukachenko was a hardened killer bordering on a sociopath.

There were plenty of recreations, though. The sports clubs were active and that let her keep her shooting abilities, and archery hobby, both current. No mountains to climb, but plenty of swimming in areas of the newly fresh and beautiful Aral Sea, which had been refilled and even expanded substantially into the Karakum Desert in the 2030s with a flood of water from the Volga and Ob-Irtysh river canals which had been built for that purpose. Some areas of the sea were apparently still contaminated but the ones safe for swimming and diving had been carefully delineated and she took plenty of advantage of those, as well as the countless hiking trails around the lake-shore. Combined with the lack of infonet access she suspected she was actually in better shape now than she’d been while on active service and would requalify from her four months of inactivity with great ease. Assuming they ever gave her the chance…

It was with that thought nervously in mind that she was both eager and a bit impatient that she’d been dragged out of the water at her favourite swimming spot by a couple of other KGB officers, who coming from a different branch were studiously silent, if respectful. She’d had enough time to get into full dress uniform for the meeting, and was sitting when a white-haired and balding man, clearly an Academician, stepped into the conference room where she’d ended up having been left about an hour later. He looked her over for a long, intense moment in which she knew his eyes were upon her, but not usually as a man’s were. She stood up and faced him levelly.

Then he spoke.

“Comrade Captain, no need, let’s both sit down?”

“Certainly, Comrade Academician.” She noted that he did not further introduce himself, and assumed that meant his name was not intended for her to know.

He continued as soon as they both settled into chairs opposite each other. “Comrade Captain, you have been selected for a prestigeous honour the like of which I find it marvelous to even describe. We must have your consent to proceed, however, before I can explain what it is, and when I have begun to speak… Well, this subject is so highly classified that there will be no going back after you consent, let me put it that way.”

Alina didn’t even hesitate. “You have my full consent,” she answered coolly. “Now, go ahead and explain to me, Comrade Academician, why I’ve been here for four months.”

“We expected as much from you,” he answered with a faint smile. “You are here to be the actual basis for the, ah, New Soviet Man.” He emphasized the last time for wry humour. “Your performance characteristics as a specimen of the human species are such that we believe your genetic material to be most ideal for this programme, which seeks nothing less than to enhance the human genome while combining it with computer technology and cybernetic enhancement which will allow us to triumph over the limits of mortal flesh and biological instinct to implement a truly communist society as it was in the core of Marx’s dialectical programme for the progress of humanity.”

More to his surprise, Alina didn’t even blink. She just listened quietly, and nodded curtly. Her sharp, half-Estonian features with those marvelous gray eyes and dark red hair had been reduced to a certain violent harshness for such a young lady, but then again the programme had not been looking for soft matrons and reproductive instinct. This was the pilot project for the creation of a human future which transcended all of that. “Why not someone else, Comrade Academician? There are many men better than me yet, and some of them are also twice Hero of the Soviet Union. Indeed, if you are to create the New Soviet Man,” she almost softly snorted, “Why choose a woman?”

“Ah, that’s quite simple, Comrade,” he said, relaxed by the relative technical mundaneity of the question. “We will be doing exhaustive genome modification and testing in the form of developing a large clone series based on your genetic material. It was determined that using a woman as the basis of the experimental series made the most sense, on account of the two X chromosomes providing backup. As you perhaps know, males are more susceptible to genetic disorders because sex-chromosome related traits in males only have one expression, from the X chromosome, whereas the second X chromosome in females guarantees a certain immunity to malfunctions of one sex chromosome or the other. Since some of areas of modification are expressed in the sex chromosomes, errors in the genetic manipulation process would be more likely to result in unviable subjects if male DNA was used as the basis of the project. Thus only women were considered.”

That did get her attention, though. “You’re making clones of me,” she repeated, matter-of-factedly. “Genetically augmented and cyberneticized. That, I certainly support wholeheartedly; if my genetic material is useful to the Soviet Union I certainly desire for it to be used in this fashion. But are these clones actually… To be developed into adult, functional humans?”

“After initial embyronic testing, yes, Comrade, they are. And we expect them to develop far faster than any normal human.”

“How much involvement may I be allowed in their development in this project, Comrade Academician?”

“How much do you desire?” He questioned back.

“Every waking moment,” Alina answered almost dreamily. “They are going to be my children, and the birth of a new era, are they not? Not at all like the electronic slaves the capitalists seem to be creating?”

“They are indeed the answer to them, Comrade Captain. Though the capitalists move toward the creation of a false utopia based on the labour of robotic slaves, we will obtain a true one through the melding of flesh and machine into a new, post-human race which will transcend even the biological obsolescence of death. So as the new jump-drive technology as opened the stars to us, with the help of your genetic material we will open new boundaries for the human experience and mind. This project is of such great importance for the entire future of humanity, that it operates not merely in the Soviet Union but in full cooperation with our fraternal socialist comrades in China. They have selected a second subject from their population—a Taikonaut who you should if you remain with us have an opportunity to meet—and we will be sharing your genetic material with them as they share her’s with us. Two clone lines from each of you will thus be created.”

“Oh yes, I’ll stay, Comrade Academician. I am not going to have you take some blood samples and then leave them alone, even if it means the end of my military career…”

“You of course meet the necessary security ratings to be in charge of the guard detachment responsible for overall security of this operation with a promotion to Major, Comrade Captain. I can arrange this. We will make sure that you are involved more thoroughly in later stages of the development.”

“Thank you kindly, Comrade Academician. When do we begin?”

“Why not right now, Comrade?”

“Why not…” Alina shook her head and leapt to her feet. “I can think of no reason at all. Lead on.”

[Gandalf]

Dizzy stuff!

Keep it up.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Dizzy stuff!

Keep it up.

Thank you very kindly! I intend to have the first chapter and the subsequent podshorts up over the next few days.

[Slacker]

Fantastic.

I wonder how much of the rag tag fleet was left on the moon...and if the filthy Commies got all the good stuff...

[phongn]

...seeks nothing less than to enhance the human genome while combining it with computer technology and cybernetic enhancement ...

...the creation of a false utopia based on the labour of robotic slaves

All this has happened before, eh?

EDIT: I also have more thoughts on Western computer development now (especially in the 1980s-1990s timeframe), if you'd like some more feedback there.

[Sea Skimmer]

Communists in space need to come in obese American size servings, I demand more!

[Steve]

Communists in space need to come in obese American size servings, I demand more!

In my frank opinion the only good purpose of Communists in Space is to have them on the receiving end of a Smackdown of Liberty™.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well of course, but communists are not fun to defeat unless them come in category 3 hoards or greater. Ideally with no organic field artillery too, see Korea.

[Steve]

Well of course, but communists are not fun to defeat unless them come in category 3 hoards or greater. Ideally with no organic field artillery too, see Korea.

True, I guess the more of them there are, the wider Shep's smile when he lets loose from his interstellar aerospace strategic bomber....

[JonB]

Thank you Duchess; Your description of the opening space battle made me pull out my copy of Footfall just to reread the Michael kicking ass - just like your Dmitry Pozharski. And I'd thought the Orion Pulse drive had been forgotten.

Who was it that said the best weapon on a hard sci-fi starship was its engines? I can't remember.

[Samuel]

Thank you Duchess; Your description of the opening space battle made me pull out my copy of Footfall just to reread the Michael kicking ass - just like your Dmitry Pozharski. And I'd thought the Orion Pulse drive had been forgotten.

Who was it that said the best weapon on a hard sci-fi starship was its engines? I can't remember.

I believe it was Larry Niven in the first Man-Kzin War novel. others may have said it first though.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well of course, but communists are not fun to defeat unless them come in category 3 hoards or greater. Ideally with no organic field artillery too, see Korea.

True, I guess the more of them there are, the wider Shep's smile when he lets loose from his interstellar aerospace strategic bomber....

Because, of course, the story is conveniently reduceable to a Cold War paradigm...

Ah, alas, but there is more to heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your ideology...