Mitchell's Revenge

Anja woke up with a splitting headache. She raised her hands and rubbed her throbbing temples, then pushed her fingers through her long blond hair. She stretched where she lay and then sat up. She was surprised to find herself in a cabin and wondered how long she had been there.

“Ah, you’re awake,” came Nadezhda’s voice through the coms. “Are you all right kid?”

Anja looked around searching for the source of the voice.

“Look up,” suggested Nadezhda. She did, and saw Nadezhda grinning at her from the vid screen above the end of her cot.

“You passed out when we jumped,” she explained. “That happens sometimes, usually to inexperienced spacers. We thought it best that you sleep it off. How do you feel?”

“I’ve got a bad headache,” Anja replied.

“That’s a normal reaction,” said Nadezhda. “I’ll get Elena to come down with some meds and let you out. Some food and drink should help too.”

“Where are we?” Anja asked, rubbing at her temple again.

“Oh no, you’re not getting an answer to that one!” said Nadezhda, as she disappeared from the screen.

Anja sat on the edge of the cot, absorbing every small detail of the cabin she was in. There was nothing to indicate that it was occupied by any of the crew. No reading material, nothing to write with, nothing to do.

She popped open the san unit and washed her face and hands. She brushed her hair as best she could with her fingers and retied it into a ponytail. She peered at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, there were creases on her cheek from the bed linen and the bruise on her temple, although subsiding, was now turning yellow. She decided she looked like a mess.

She opened the robing unit. Her jacket had been hung neatly alongside a change of clothes. She suddenly remembered the weapon Elena had given her and fumbled inside the pocket. It was no longer there. Anja shrugged, causing her head to throb even more than when she woke up.

The shipsuit was far too big but it was clean. She rolled the sleeves and trouser legs up until she could move freely in it. She was relieved to get out of the gear she had been wearing since the day Elena snatched her off the street in Covington. She found clean socks and put her school shoes back on. She sat on the cot and waited.

A short while later the door slid open, and Elena stepped into the cabin with a glass of juice and some headache meds. She handed them to Anja and watched as she swallowed them down. Anja suddenly realised how thirsty she was and drank the juice quickly. The sugar helped to revive her, and her stomach began to rumble. Elena chuckled.

“Some food for you, I think,” she said cheerfully. “Come with me.” She led Anja to the galley and dialled up a hot and filling stew. She sat opposite Anja as she quickly ate the food.

“What happened?” Anja asked. “Are we safe?” Elena nodded.

“Yes, as far as we can be,” she replied. “We jumped away as soon as Pavel identified the warship. It got distracted by all the mess in the shipping lane and didn’t try to follow us. You passed out so I carried you to the cabin and locked you in. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. How’s your head feeling now?”

“Better,” Anja smiled. “I think the food’s helping too. I can’t remember when I last ate. Where are we?”

“You know full well I can’t tell you that,” said Elena. “But what I can tell you is that we are at the edge of an asteroid belt that we have to travel through to get to where we are going. Pavel thought you might like to come and sit with him while he navigates it. Maxim has agreed that you can. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

Anja nodded enthusiastically. Anything was better than being locked in a cabin with nothing to do but wait. She finished her food and followed Elena back to the bridge. Pavel, Maxim and Nadezhda were studying the configuration of the asteroid belt and plotting the best route through it. Maxim looked up as they came onto the bridge.

“How’re you doing kid?” he asked Anja, examining her adapted shipsuit. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“All right, thank you,” she said. “I still have a headache, but it’s getting better. Can I watch?”

“Yes, you can,” he replied. “Come and sit up here next to Pavel so you can see what he’s doing.”

She was fascinated by the simulations Pavel was running on his control board, figuring out the safest and most direct route through the belt. He created a 3D model that floated before them and prepared to practice flying the Zond through it.

“We have to do this gently,” he explained to her, as he concentrated on the simulation. “The repair we made to the hull after the aliens attacked us is now the weakest point on the ship. We can’t afford to take a knock or a bump on it, or anywhere near it. The jump we’ve just made weakened it and we need it to hold for the next one. Then we can get to a repair yard and refit the hull.”

Anja screwed up her nose as she watched. She began to anticipate where Pavel would take the ship next and pointed to where she thought the next move should be. He looked at her in amazement. The kid was quick.

“That’s good,” he said. “Very good. Where do you think next?” She pointed to another spot on the model. And again, and again. Maxim was equally amazed. He sat with his arms folded across his chest and watched as the child and his pilot worked out the safest and most direct path.

“She is going to be wasted on Tarasov,” Maxim thought. “Whatever Yuri has in mind for her is going to be a complete waste of talent. She ought to be in flying school now.”

As soon as they had worked it all out Pavel looked at Anja.

“Are you ready to fly for real?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Alright then,” he said. “I want you to keep a watch for anything we haven’t thought of. Things like comets and rubble we haven’t seen yet. OK? Tell me as soon as you see something I need to know about.”

“Nadezhda, I need you to monitor the hull integrity, especially around the repair,” instructed Maxim.

“On it,” Nadezhda nodded.

“Elena and Sergey, I want you to stand by in case we have to repair that damaged section again,” said Maxim. “Let’s go.”

Pavel began to carefully navigate their way through the asteroid belt. Good as his simulations were, in the real universe things moved at slightly different speeds and comets appeared out of nowhere. Anja watched, focussing on the activity around them.

“There!” she said suddenly, pointing to a location on the ship’s right side. Her headache was forgotten.

“What?” Pavel squinted at the vid screen display, seeing nothing untoward.

“Something small is moving very fast,” Anja pointed again. Now Pavel could see it. It was rapidly approaching the repaired side of the Zond.

“What the hell is that?” he murmured. Nadezhda was running scans as soon as Anja spotted the object.

“It’s a mine!” she shouted. “Move us, now!”

“Hold on everyone,” Pavel said quite calmly. His hands flew across his board as he moved the Zond out of its path. The ship dropped suddenly.

The mine slipped past them and collided with a large asteroid to their left. The subsequent explosion shattered it into fragments of rock and dust, some of which were now heading rapidly towards them.

“Where the hell did that come from?” came Maxim’s voice quietly from behind Pavel. “Keep moving. Shields on full power. See if you can get some other rocks between us and that. It might help lessen any impact on the hull.”

Beads of sweat appeared on Pavel’s forehead as he quickly manoeuvred them away from the site of impact and further into the asteroid belt. Anja leaned into towards him and pointed to the display again.

“There,” she said. “That’s quite a big one we can hide behind.” It was a long potato shaped rock, pockmarked all over from previous collisions.

“Fragments impacting now,” advised Nadezhda. The ship shivered as the first fragments hit the shields. They kept moving forward, keeping ahead of the larger debris which was now dispersing to become part of the asteroid belt itself.

They reached the asteroid Anja had identified and Pavel positioned them alongside it, tucking the ship into the curve of the potato shape away from the site of impact. They floated and waited as dust and smaller fragments hurtled past, some ricocheting from the next rock they hit, others impacting and sticking.

A piece of debris ricocheted back towards them. It flew straight through the gap in the shields and into the repaired hole in the hull. The Zond groaned as the rock struck. Pavel was now struggling to hold the ship steady in its makeshift shelter.

“Damn, how unlucky can we be?” Nadezhda exclaimed. Her fingers moved rapidly across her keys as she shut down the internal ducting and access points to the damaged section of the ship.

“I’ve sealed it off, Captain,” she said. “But someone’s going to have to get in there and repair the hull again. I think we’ll have to leave the rock there and filament it into the hull. Will we be able to jump with it stuck there?”

“Let’s worry about that when we get through the belt,” said Maxim. “We’ve dealt with worse, remember?” He winked at Nadezhda and gestured towards Anja with his head.

The child was glued to Pavel’s side, leaning towards the vid screen display and pointing out an even shorter route through the asteroid belt. She was whispering to him as he maintained the Zond’s position. He nodded as he listened.

“Most of the debris seems to have cleared,” observed Maxim. “Pavel, get us out of here. Nadezhda, see if you can get any idea of where that mine came from. Elena and Sergey, you’re our repair crew soon as we get to the other side. Go and get ready.”