Katya's War (Russalka Chronicles) Read Free Page B

stoically.
    But he didn’t. He sat down heavily on the floor – on the floor! – and cried like a child. There was no denial, not a single “Are you sure?” She said she’d been there, told him how Lukyan had died, and that was enough. He’d sobbed and looked ridiculous, his face red and snot running out of his nose, and he hadn’t cared. Finally she’d sat by him, put her arm around him and cried too. Her tears had been silent, though.
    Perhaps Sergei had been wise after all. He had come to terms with his grief quickly and accepted Lukyan was gone forever, his lifelong friend lost for good. She still saw him grow quiet and reflective sometimes, and he might touch the corner of his eye as if dust had got into it, but that was all.
    He didn’t spend his nights crying himself to sleep in a soundproof cell.
    Quarter of an hour later she felt exhausted, puffy-eyed, and again empty of grief and the guilt of the survivor for a while, at least. But, she did not feel sleepy. This seemed very unfair.
    Finally she gave up trying to will herself into unconsciousness. Instead she found the gently illuminated controls for the screen and switched it on – perhaps she could bore herself to sleep.
    The first feed was an old action drama she was sure she’d seen years before and which hadn’t been new even then, made during or just after the war against Earth. It was about an isolated station where a Fed boat has to stop to make repairs and finds itself stuck there with some refugees. Somebody amongst them is a traitor working for the Grubbers and there was a lot of stuff with people accusing one another and then something else happens that means the accused person must be innocent, and so they accuse somebody else.
    That the villain turned out to be a Yag – even though he’s really a Grubber infiltrator – was probably why they were rerunning such a steaming piece of melodrama about the war in the first place.
    The war. Katya realised that nobody had yet got around to coming up with a name for the new conflict. When people said “the war,” they always meant the war against Earth, the war that was eleven, almost twelve years ago now. It was a civil war they were currently fighting, but nobody called it that. Nobody called it anything at all.
    Katya changed the feed and found herself watching a news channel. There was little new here; the Feds were doughty and honourable warriors while the Yag were dirty, sneaky scum who it turned out had been colluding with the Terrans during the war.
    Being caught out as traitors hadn’t really been the declaration of independence the Yags had been planning on, but you can’t always get what you want, can you?
    Katya turned down the sound and dimmed the screen brightness. She lay in the flickering darkness watching earnest newsreaders, pictures of smiling Federal sailors and marines coming back from successful sorties, a few bedraggled and wretched Yagizban prisoners being paraded for the cameras, public information proclamations, some newly decorated hero going back to his old school to give a speech about duty and honour. It was just another man in a dark blue FMA naval uniform until he took his cap off for the cameras and she laughed with delighted surprise.
    Suhkalev! From spotty little thug to a “Knight of the Deep” as the caption proclaimed him, and all in only six months. They’d given him a medal and everything, just like they’d given to her.
    Look at us now, Suhkalev , she thought. Look at us with our medals, heroes all. Knights of the Deep .  
    She finally passed out soon after that, the screen still flickering images of resistance to the enemy and glorious victory above her face. Her mouth moved, and she may have been saying “Knights of the Deep” as she sank into unconsciousness, then she half laughed, and then she was asleep.
     

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    JARILO
     
    Katya awoke in total darkness. Her first thought was a power failure, but then she realised it couldn’t