Chapter 1
Highway E38 west of Saratov, Russia
6:30 p.m. (1430 Zulu), 22 December 2065
Twenty minutes until we arrive, then thirteen hours of waiting until launch. Then thirty-three hours of flight time to the station, and thirty minutes to complete my part of the mission. Total hours left to live: forty-seven.
Aydin Demirci made the same shrinking calculation hundreds of times over the past few months. Now, the final number was under two days. He focused on keeping his face impassive.
He sat inside the tank of the container truck, shoulder-to-shoulder with a dozen other men. There was nothing for him to do but glance at the time, or rather try not to glance at it. Just act as they do, he told himself. You’ve done well so far. Mind your bearing, and you’ll succeed. The others were all MAK troops, men hand-picked from Turkey’s special forces to be part of the elite. All were experienced operators, all thoroughly vetted for their loyalty to the state, and all had trained nonstop for two months for this mission. They spent their time readying their weapons and equipment, or reviewing the steps and contingencies of their plan. During prayer times they all prayed together – for success, or for a safe return home, or in gratitude for this glorious opportunity that God had given them.
Poor brainwashed fools, Demirci thought, even when he imitated their prayers to preserve his façade. It wasn’t a higher power who gave you this opportunity. He knew that every one of the soldiers riding with him would not hesitate to die for his country. They don’t know it, but it two days they’ll do just that.
The truck coasted over highways through southern Russia, a ten-hour route from where they came ashore at a marina in the Black Sea resort town of Gelendzhik. The small yacht which delivered them was a signals intelligence ship disguised as a Russian pleasure craft. It was driven by a Turkish intelligence agent, and as far as the MAK commandos knew, his agency was part of the mission. From there, another of Demirci’s contacts met the team with a liquid helium transport truck, the tank of which had been emptied and modified to conceal a dozen men. This was the vehicle that would take them fourteen hundred kilometers into Russia, to Engels Spaceport.
Though the vehicle drove on autopilot, there were still two men up front manning the cab, dressed as drivers employed by Roscosmos. They were fluent in Russian and held transit paperwork for the truck’s cargo, along with encrypted credentials for themselves. The authentic credentials had cost Demirci’s organization a small fortune in bribes, not to mention the time and risk it took to find the right spaceport employee who could be bought.
Don’t think about what happened to the truck’s original driver, he told himself. There will be plenty more innocent lives lost before this is all over. If only the mission didn’t involve so much waiting time, with nothing to do but think. God, the misery of waiting may be worse than the moments of violence.
Demirci was tall and wiry, with piercing blue eyes that stood out against his olive complexion. His hair had much more gray than its original brown, but he was otherwise as fit as men half his age. A lifetime of science and academia, and here I am with a bunch of trigger-happy thugs. A quick flight from Ankara to Saratov would’ve been preferable, but that couldn’t be done. Not for what we’re planning.
The men in the truck’s cab used a makeshift intercom to announce to the others riding in the tank. “Ten minutes to the spaceport.”
The others in the back nodded to each other, preparing themselves. Demirci stroked his beard and glanced at the time again.
“Are you nervous, Doctor?” asked Terzi.
“Trying not to be, Colonel,” Demirci said with half a grin. “I’m sure it’s more impatience than nerves.”
“Well, it’s been a long ride in this thing.”
“It’s not the ride. This isn’t a normal day for me, of course. I’ve spent the last thirty years in physics labs.”
“You’ll do fine. This part of the mission is in our hands. Just stay with Sergeant Kervan. Run right behind him. Your part in all this doesn’t begin for another two days.”
Demirci nodded. “I know you’ll all do your jobs well. And I’ll do mine when it’s time. The mission will succeed.”
“I have no doubt!” said Terzi, energetic and smiling wide. “We’ve all reviewed the plan through and through. I have great confidence in it. My men and I have run difficult operations in many places, and God made sure that all those missions succeeded, praise be unto Him. He will make sure of this as well. In all the missions I’ve run, this is surely the most significant. It is too important for any outcome other than success.”
Demirci smirked at Terzi’s last sentence. The colonel has no idea how ironic that was. “I’m sure it will succeed. It must.” He paused, running through his mental list of concerns. “There are some parts of it that are out of our hands, though. I keep worrying that we’ve been double-crossed about those credentials, the ones that’ll get us through the two gates.”
“Don’t worry yourself with such things, Doctor. Their identity cards were checked and rechecked by your intelligence friends in the MGT. And they say their source at Engels is reliable, yes? I’m sure he will be. Russians are greedy bastards. He’ll enjoy his precious money tomorrow, and by the time we arrive at the station the next day, the MGT’s man in Saratov will make sure that he’s safely in Hell. For a mission like this, there can be no loose ends.”
Demirci nodded along, the icy ball in his stomach refusing to melt. “Does the body count ever bother you, Colonel? The lives lost before a mission is over?”
“Not to me, and not to my men. It is all for the greater good. I know you understand this as well, or you wouldn’t be part of this mission.” Terzi looked into the doctor’s eyes. “Although, I doubt the violence will be easy for you while it is happening. But I promise it will be easier in retrospect. We are doing a great and noble thing.”
Demirci kept nodding, contemplating the details of the plan, the real plan, of which Terzi and his men knew nothing. Demirci’s organization considered the mission inside and out for months, and it would not be bloodless. It couldn’t be. But his group’s leadership didn’t deem any of the peaceful alternatives to be viable. This was the appalling plan his organization had chosen, his idea no less, and it meant many people would die. Tens of thousands, most likely, he reminded himself. All for a greater good, of course, though the thought still didn’t sit well with a middle-aged academic.
“The flight out is another concern,” Demirci thought aloud. “We’re not certain that the Kostroma’s computer will accept our control of the craft instead of the registered crew. The programming data that our source in Engels gave us seems acceptable, but–”
“You worry so much, Doctor!” Terzi laughed. “We’ve evaluated all these things, run the mission through the simulations, and the quality of our information has been judged to be worth the risk. In our business,” –he motioned around to his men– “there’s no such thing as totally certain. We go when things look good enough. And that decision is never even ours, it comes from our chain of command. In this case, it comes all the way from the top.”
“Yes, I know. Forgive me, Colonel. My profession is science. ‘Certainty’ is an important word for me. Anything less than one hundred percent means I’ll question it.” He paused. “Answer questions and then question the answers. That’s a rule I live by.”
It was a favorite quote of Demirci’s father, himself a chemist employed by the national research center. “Answer your questions and question the answers” was what Yalçin Demirci liked to tell his son before school. He said it every morning until the day when Aydin was sixteen, only four months into the Reawakening, when the elder Demirci and three of his colleagues disappeared.
“I understand, Doctor. Before any mission, we get caught up in all the details ourselves. It drives our intelligence officers crazy, all the answers we demand. But once we go, we know that the outcome will be as God desires. I doubt He will necessitate the use of these.” The colonel tapped on the case containing two chemical bombs.
Demirci nodded. “I certainly hope not. Your confidence is reassuring. You’re sure our helmets will filter out the gas?”
“Completely. We spent a lot of time planning for contingencies like that. Just keep your mask in working condition and you’ll be safe.”
“You don’t have any concerns left?”
“Oh, I’ll always have them, right until the moment we’re back home. Concerns keep me sharp. My biggest is that we’re a small team, and there are a few single points of failure possible. Toprak’s breaching equipment, for example, or your own safety, since you’re the only technical specialist with us. I doubt we’d succeed without you. But in the end I know when we’re faced with challenges, answers will be provided.”
The men in the cab called back to the tank, “Approaching spaceport outer gates.”
The MAKs finished strapping their equipment to themselves. Demirci donned his helmet and switched on its headset. Even with its wide view faceplate, he found the helmet stifling. The doctor allowed himself a deep breath through the mask. For a moment, an image of his family appeared in his mind. He forced himself to ignore it.
Now it begins.
* * *
The tanker truck approached the west access gate. It was a bit odd for deliveries to arrive so late in the evening, the guard thought, but he knew there was another supply launch scheduled for the next morning. And there had been a launch only a day before. Engels Spaceport kept getting busier and busier. Officer Ivchenko stepped outside the guard shack into the cold December air.
The two men in the truck’s cab readied their weapons, holding them below window level. As the truck stopped, the driver handed the guard his and his passenger’s identity cards and their manifest: thirty-two thousand litres of liquid helium.
“How are the roads out there?” the guard asked. “It’s freezing tonight.”
“Not so bad. At least there’s no snow yet,” the driver replied, smiling. His voice tinged with a slight accent that was hard for the Russian guard to place. “We used to do some delivery runs up in the Urals. Those were scary roads in the winter.”
Ivchenko held the ID cards and manifest under his scanner. Its screen showed all clear.
“Good thing you’re here now,” the guard said as he handed the cards and documents back. “We’re not supposed to let in deliveries after seven pm.”
Ivchenko returned to the warm guard shack as the truck drove on. Officer Dubinin was still watching the game. St. Petersburg had just scored on a power play and was now tied at three with Rostov.
* * *
Sitting atop a massive booster engine at one of the spaceport’s six launch pads, its nose pointed towards the sky, was the supply craft Kostroma. The ship was over two hundred meters long and fully loaded, the cargo being a third of its fifty thousand tons. Four aneutronic fusion engines lined in a quad parallel around the hull of the ship, the thrusters which would propel the Kostroma over three hundred million kilometers in thirty-three hours. Its destination was Dirac Station, one of the largest facilities ever constructed in space. Liftoff was scheduled for 7:43 the next morning.
The launch pad’s dockmaster spent the afternoon supervising the final deliveries, trucks coming and going, freight loading up and down the retractable cargo scaffolds and into the ship’s holds. It was finally quiet now, and Oleg sat in his office in a mobile trailer next to the pad, looking forward to going home. He was just waiting on his assistant Yuri to arrive, to take the night shift and babysit the loaded ship until its crew boarded before dawn the next morning.
A spoiled kid, he thought of young Yuri. Not even three years out of university and already griping about his working hours, griping about taxes and money. Oleg shook his head thinking about the state of Russian culture, though it was usually just his wife who endured his opinions about it. So old these days, he’d tell her, the young think they’re entitled to whatever they want just for the asking. He often talked about the hardships he dealt with when he was around Yuri’s age, in the years after Putin when the motherland all but fell to pieces, and wondered if Yuri’s generation even deserved to call themselves Russians.
Oleg noticed the truck coming down the road, half a kilometer away and approaching the access gate to the spaceport’s launching section. He squinted past the glare of the headlights. It appeared to be a container truck of some kind. And it was manned, which usually meant a hazmat delivery. Liquid helium, perhaps? He glanced at his computer screens. The Kostroma was definitely full. There weren’t supposed to be any more deliveries. The truck drove past the inner gate and on towards his trailer next to the launch pad.
He stepped outside as the truck approached, holding up his hand to keep the headlights out of his eyes. The driver parked and opened the door to step out of the truck, and for a second Oleg could see the passenger pointing an unfamiliar electronic device out his open window. He didn’t realize it was pointed in the direction of one of the pad’s lighting towers, which held the lone security camera fixed on that spot.
“Excuse me,” Oleg called out to the driver. “Is your–”
The driver drew a sidearm and shot the dockmaster twice in the chest, dropping him to the ground.
Oleg lay on the cold pavement and gasped for air through the blood in his lungs, a piercing pain radiating from his chest. As he looked up, Oleg saw the man who shot him spin around and tap the truck’s container twice with the butt of his weapon. The back end of the container detached from the rest of the tank and swung upwards on a hinge, and out of the tank came more men, at least a dozen of them. They sprinted towards the cargo lift on Kostroma’s support scaffold. They wore black body armor and tactical gear, from boots up to helmets, and they were armed. The dockmaster struggled to crawl toward his trailer, wanting to call the launch operations watch, but the man who shot him was walking toward him. As the man pointed the gun towards his heart, Oleg only managed a weak “Nyet…!”
* * *
Colonel Terzi smiled as he and his men entered the lift. There were no problems with either of the spaceport access gates, and the evening dockmaster was alone at the launch pad as expected. Sergeant Sahin shot the man before he could sound an alarm, then threw the body into the back of the tanker truck and closed its hatch again. Within seconds Sahin was driving the truck again, heading the three kilometers towards the south gate and out of the spaceport. Sergeant Uysal in the cab neutralized the security camera, and now Lieutenant Erkan took over that duty as Uysal prepared to drive the dockmaster’s car out of the spaceport. Uysal first emptied a canteen of water to dilute the small splash of blood on the pavement. The little patch of red would be scorched away when the spacecraft launched before dawn the next morning.
The rest of Terzi’s men, along with Dr. Demirci, hurried away from the security camera’s sight and were now ready to enter the ship. Lieutenant Erkan switched off his electronic dampening device as he joined the other twelve men in the cargo lift. There would only be sixty seconds of a frozen camera image for the Russians to analyze, and if all went well they wouldn’t think to do that until at least two days later, after the Kostroma reached its destination. By then it would be much too late. All Terzi needed now was young Yuri to arrive, to begin his night shift on time.
* * *
Down the road, as Sergeant Sahin drove out past the inner access gate in the tanker truck, Yuri approached in his own vehicle.
He parked next to Oleg’s car by the trailer and looked over at the man sitting behind the wheel. Yuri motioned to him, and the two men stepped out of their cars.
“That’s foolish. You’re supposed to be impersonating Oleg Ivanovich? With the gray wig and clothes you sort of look like him, but he doesn’t drive off as soon as I park. We turn over our watch inside the trailer.”
“Yes, I know,” Sergeant Uysal replied. “Besides that camera on the tower, are there any security systems inside? Anything that someone else in the complex could see my face with?”
“Not unless someone calls and I answer while you’re standing in front of the screen. Come inside, please. It’s freezing out here.”
The two men entered the dockmaster trailer, and the young Russian spoke first.
“Yuri Alexeyivich Vedenin,” he said, smiling wide and shaking Uysal’s hand. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”
“You’ve already received the money, then?”
“Yes, I have. I saw the transfer to my new account a few minutes ago. I must say I was pretty nervous up until then.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Vedenin. Your involvement in all this will be well concealed. My colleagues will be on their way with the ship tomorrow, and Oleg Kozlov will disappear. Any suspicions anyone might have about the ship will fall on him. It is good doing business with you as well.”
“Here’s his keycard, to start his car,” Yuri said, taking it off the desk. “What did you do with the old crank, if I may ask?”
“You may not. Have a good shift, Yuri. And try not to quit your job too soon. You must maintain appearances.”
With that, Sergeant Uysal shut the trailer door behind him and drove off in Oleg Kozlov’s car. Yuri watched him drive past the inner gate and out of sight, and then he accessed the cargo lift controls on the trailer’s computer. He sent the lift up the scaffold to the outer access hatch on Kostroma’s cargo hold number six. Section four of that hold was in fact empty, but Yuri had already seen to it that the manifest showed it full of foodstuffs. As the lift reached the hold he opened the access hatch, making sure the indicator alarm was deactivated so the watchstanders at the spaceport’s launch operations center would not pick up the disturbance.
The cargo lift lights were off, but on his screens in the haze of moonlight he could see the silhouettes of men entering the ship, ten of them at least, maybe twelve or more. There were enough to pack themselves tight inside the lone empty section of the cargo hold. He didn’t care if it was a dozen or a hundred. Yuri sealed the access hatch, and his displays showed no change to the spacecraft. He returned the cargo lift to ground level.
Then he sat back and laughed. Unrolling his tablet, he again stared at the account balance. Fortune without fame had landed in his lap, and that miserable old shit Kozlov was even gone as a bonus. Yuri had a suspicion that he wouldn’t feel any guilt about it, and he was right. Maybe, he wondered, guilt would set in after some time passes? Maybe, but for now, all he would have to do in a day or two is tell the police looking for Oleg that he turned over his shift with him on time and said good-night. The cameras recording Kozlov’s car leaving the spaceport would cover the next few minutes. It was all too easy.
* * *
By 6:00 a.m. the Kostroma’s six-person flight crew were aboard their vessel. They spent the next ninety minutes reviewing the final pre-flight checklist. The cargo lifts retracted away from the ship and Yuri moved the dockmaster trailer from the area, clearing the launch pad for liftoff.
At 7:43 a.m. the detachable booster engine beneath Kostroma came to life and let loose a torrent of fire underneath the thrusters, and the ship rose into the sky. The acceleration wasn’t as fast as the old rockets launched by Roscosmos’s predecessors at Baikonur, but the magnetized target fusion engine meant that liftoff did not need to be so stressful on the ship. Only three hundred tons of fuel was burned by the detachable booster, and it thrust plenty of weight up with it, nice and slow. The crew only needed to deal with up to two g, double Earth’s gravity. Elevators in tall buildings produced one-point-two. Cosmonauts in the old days felt three g during liftoff, and up to five during a typical re-entry.
The booster detached fifteen minutes later, once Kostroma was out of the atmosphere. The ship soon rendezvoused with an orbiting supply probe carrying the Rydberg exotic matter pellets it would need during its voyage. It was always a delicate maneuver to retrieve them, but necessary since their contents were not allowed on Earth. Once the fusion engines had their key fuel ingredient, the ship’s fore and aft grav plates would sync their power output to the engines and create a “gravity bubble” to counter the g-forces inside the ship. Kostroma would then spend the next sixteen hours accelerating to fifty-six hundred kilometers per second, nearly two percent of light speed. After it passed its closest approach to the Sun, the ship would spin around and adjust course for an equally long deceleration.
At the end of its transit was the Paul A. M. Dirac Quantum Chemistry Research and Development Facility. Dirac Station was the Democratic Alliance’s premier physics laboratory and the source of the exomatter fuel pellets used by interplanetary ships like the Kostroma and by the DA’s small fleet of warships. It was also the only facility allowed to legally manufacture antimatter and the more dangerous forms of exotic matter in quantity. That was thanks to its location: Dirac Station was at the L3 Lagrange point on the far side of the Sun, holding position in an orbit exactly opposite from Earth.
Yuri Vedenin didn’t stay to watch the launch. Before the Kostroma even lifted off, he ended his shift and headed for downtown. It was a long night of waiting, but he decided that he was now too rich to bother going to sleep. He reserved a luxury suite at the Mirazh Hotel, and as his car sped across Saratov Bridge he browsed the websites of the city’s escort agencies, looking for the best two girls available to meet him there.
