Mitchell's Revenge

Yuri Orlov could feel the fury rising in his throat as he read the dispatch from his agent at Standing Point refuelling hub.

The ship that his youngest daughter was working on had vanished from its dock for no apparent reason. The ships’ manifest indicated that Tatiana was one of only three crew on board at the time of the disappearance. Yuri was not an even tempered man at the best of times, and he was now badly agitated. Based on the report in front of him, he could only assume that his daughter was dead.

“Aargh!” He yelled at the walls of his office. “This was no accident. I know it. I need more information.”

He got up from his desk and stalked across the room to the window. He stood there, rubbing the back of his neck and gazing down at the steaming waters of Lake Ladogat in the distance. The steam created a grey pall over the deep violet waters of the lake.

“The springs must be active today,” he thought as he stared at the lake. It was fed by intensely hot thermal springs that made swimming impossible. Early colonists of the planet Tarasov learned the hard way to stay clear of the steaming waters. And the threat of a swim in Lake Ladogat meant that Yuri usually got what he wanted from the people around him.

Yuri Orlov was the head of the Intergalactic Mafia, or IGM as it was more commonly known. His home base was here at Noo, an obscure small town many kilometres from Tarasov’s largest city of Achernar. The large country style homestead was positioned at the top of a gentle hill with panoramic views across the undulating auburn coloured fields that rippled towards Lake Ladogat. He could see for kilometres around from here and felt quite safe from unexpected visitors. There was no creeping up on the Orlov household.

The perimeter of the property was secured by long range cameras and an EM field that prevented people from getting in and out. This protected the homestead from unauthorised landings on the roof or in the fields around it. It also protected them from other dangers that lurked on the planet. The whole family understood the security arrangements, and even though it was a nuisance most of the time, they accepted Yuri’s paranoia as normal.

An assassin would have to travel a very long way to try to kill the mafia boss. Despite this, three attempts had been made on Yuri’s life in recent years. Each had occurred when he was travelling from one of his enterprises to another. He had survived all of them.

His darkly handsome face was ruined by a badly healed scar that ran from his right temple, past his ear and down to the shoulder. That one nearly killed him, largely due to the fact that he’d had to wait some days for medical attention. He could have the scar repaired if he really wanted to, but he wore it like a badge of honour, a warning to the next would be assassin that he was hard to kill.

His dark hair was thick and wavy, and hung to his shoulders. His keenly observant brown eyes missed nothing. His daughters, Tatiana and Natasha, had inherited his dark good looks and tall slim build. But his son, Anton, had inherited his mother’s white blond hair and blue eyes, and looked nothing like his father. He was tall and fine boned, and highly intelligent, like his two older sisters. His son’s appearance was a matter of great disappointment to Yuri. He thought a son should always look like his father.

He heard the door to the office open and turned to see his wife Daria standing silently in the doorway, tears trickling down her cheeks. Her short blond hair was standing on end and her eye makeup was smudged. She looked at Yuri, her blue eyes failing to conceal the pain she felt at the news she had just received.

“You got it too, then,” he said, walking towards her. She nodded and stepped, sobbing, into his arms. He hugged her close and stroked her hair trying to push the blond ends back into place around her face.

“We don’t know for sure yet,” he said, soothingly. Daria continued to sob, her slight frame shuddering as she drew breath.

“Whoever did this has to pay,” she said so quietly that Yuri almost didn’t hear her. He looked down at her in surprise.

“What did you say?” he asked, still stroking her hair. She pushed away from him and looked directly up into his face.

“Whoever did this has to pay,” she said flatly. Yuri was shocked. With the exception of his daughter Natasha, the women in his life were not violent or cruel. That was his prerogative. He knew he would make whoever was responsible accountable for his daughter’s life once he was sure of the facts and not before.

“Not until we know for sure,” he reiterated, looking down at Daria. “I’ll get in touch with Natasha. She may have heard something where she is. Or she can at least find out for us. You get Anton to scan the police frequencies, see what information we can pick up from them.”

He grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and dabbed at his wife’s cheeks. Daria took it from him and rubbed more vigorously at her face than he was prepared to do. The lines of mascara faded. She sniffed loudly and looked back at him.

“I know,” she said quietly. “A mother knows these things. Tatiana is dead. I can feel it. But I will do as you ask. I’ll speak to Anton now.” She moved back the way she had come. She paused at the door.

“Then we will make a plan,” she said, and headed towards Anton’s office.

Yuri turned back to the window as she left. As he looked across the fields he thought about their first meeting nearly thirty years ago. He knew of Daria Safronov through the ballroom dancing fraternity their families were part of, but they hadn’t met until they were nearly twenty.

Daria was a champion dancer from eight years of age, and Yuri was pulled into it by his friends when he was seventeen. He initially thought it was good way to meet girls. He didn’t realise it would take control of his life almost completely. He was surprised to find that he enjoyed the dance. He became dedicated to his practice and learned fast. Within a year he was competing in the local events.

He met Daria at a dance in Achernar. It was a fundraiser for a local family that had been attacked by the night creatures that roamed Tarasov. They had lost almost everything they owned. The dance community rallied around them to help them get back on their feet. The dancing families came from far and wide.

It was love at first sight for Yuri. In order to spend more time with Daria he suggested that very night that they compete together. She immediately agreed, even though she knew he was not yet championship material.

Her mother coached them and they soon became a couple to be reckoned with. Before long they were travelling all over the Laika system and winning major championships. Then they began travelling to other systems and larger events. During the four years of their partnership they won every event they participated in. They were widely admired within the ballroom dancing fraternity.

Towards the end of their dancing career Yuri saw an opportunity to make money from betting on the results of the championships. He studied the form of the couples obsessively, and before long was winning big. He also took the opportunity to establish a not quite legal business that revolved around betting and the Intergalactic Mafia was born.

By the time Yuri was twenty four he had made enough money to start his first business, and to ask Daria to marry him. After the years of high level competition she was ready for marriage and children. She agreed straight away. Construction of the homestead at Noo began. Daria insisted it have a ballroom attached to the house. She intended to keep up her involvement in dance by coaching the children of her family and friends.

As soon as the homestead was finished they moved in. Daria was already pregnant with their first daughter, Natasha. Tatiana followed three years later, and then Anton a long seven years after that. Even though Yuri loved his daughters, he was desparate for a son. Daria endured several miscarriages before Anton was born six weeks early. He spent the first two months of his life in the main hospital at Achernar. He began to thrive only when Daria brought him home to be with his family.

When Natasha turned six, Daria began to teach her to dance. Natasha hated it from the start. She threw tantrums and screamed at her mother until Yuri intervened. His method was command and control. He told her to do as her mother said or there would be trouble. Until she reached her teens she was so terrified of him she did as she was told.

Natasha was naturally rebellious. She was brilliant at school. In her spare time she trained in martial arts, expressly against her father’s wishes. When she was old enough she tried a number of times to leave the family compound to pursue her own dream of travelling to new worlds. Each time her father’s minders caught her and brought her home. When she cold bloodedly killed one of the family security personnel she finally got what she wanted. In an attempt to avoid the Tarasov justice system Yuri found her a place with his team on the IGM ship Zond and let her go.

When Tatiana turned six she joined her sister in the dance classes. She hated it too, but hid her feelings from everyone until she was old enough to leave home. Natasha’s behaviour made it much easier for Tatiana to reason with her parents. When she told them she wanted to leave Tarasov, Yuri helped her to find work with Tigerline.

Daria kept her fury to herself. She felt that her valuable time had been completely wasted on her two daughters. They had both shown talent and she believed that with the right partners they could have been champions, just like their parents.

She turned her attention to Anton. He didn’t mind the dancing, but he didn’t want to travel and compete. As he grew older he reached a compromise that kept both parents happy. He danced with his mother in the ballroom every morning for an hour, and then spent the rest of the day on his work for his father.

Now Anton worked from the homestead as well. He lived with his father’s disappointment in his physical appearance every day, but his mother’s nurturing nature had made him feel secure with his own abilities. His slight stature and pretty features served as a disguise for his intelligence. At eighteen years of age he was a coms talent rarely seen in the Laika system.

Anton’s office was packed with the most sophisticated coms equipment money could buy. And some that it couldn’t. He had developed systems for monitoring intergalactic police frequencies, their own shipping line operations and other businesses independently of the official channels. It helped his father maintain his grip on his legitimate operations, and often secured opportunities for the not so legitimate ones. It also enabled the family to stay in touch with Tatiana, working on Ripley’s Revenge, and Natasha, travelling with the team on the Zond.

There mere thought of Natasha made Anton shiver. She was the most ruthless, self centred person he had ever known. She was intelligent, beautiful, and vain. He was relieved when she left the family home.

Anton had no desire to spend his life in space. Shipboard life made him anxious. He loved the freedom that he had on Tarasov. He could walk in the fields in daylight whenever he wanted to, he could travel to Achernar at any time, and best of all, he got to spend time with his mother whom he adored. His coms set up enabled him to stay in touch with what was going on, pretty much anywhere, all the time.

The door to his office clicked open, and Anton looked up into his mother’s tearful face. He too had read the dispatch and he knew full well why she had come to see him.

“Better get started then,” he said as she sat down next to him at the coms console.