This is a fan translation of Dark Skies (Тёмныенебеса) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the fourth book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 8
The Ensign
"You call that standing at attention, maggot? Pick up your ass and suck in your gut! Stick out your chest and keep your feet together, not apart! And click your heels!"
Ensign Olaf Peter Carlos Trevelyan-Krasnogortsev clicked his heels. He had been taught to do that in his first year at the Academy, and now this skill turned out to be useful.
"Not bad," Commander Stepan "Atigem" Rakov, the head of the weapons section of the Ural, noted. "That you do all right, boy. But your belt is not done regulation-style. The buckle needs to be exactly at your center of mass, and it's about a finger higher. A whole finger, I tell you! Fix it!" the Commander barked, continuing to bore into the Ensign with his fierce gaze. His eyes were tiny, and his beard, a little unkempt but long, reaching to the Commander's belly, started immediately below them.
The Ensign lowered his belt.
"Now it's a finger too low," the Commander noted grimly. "Don't you know where your center of mass is?.. What kind of an idiot did they send me!?" Turning his head, he looked at the watch officers of his section, who had gathered to watch the spectacle. His overbearing gaze instantly wiped the grins off their faces. Nodding in approval, Rakov asked, "Well, boys, where do people have their center of mass?"
"Near the bellybutton for men and a palm's width lower for women!" the watch officers shouted loudly. There were twenty-six of them, but the answer came as one. They had to be getting schooled constantly, the Ensign thought and shifted his belt to where it was supposed to be.
"Riiight…" The Commander gave him another look-over, trying to find fault with something, and grunted happily, "The collar, your collar! Is there's something unbuttoned there?"
The Commander's own jumpsuit was open, and his shaggy beard was freely flowing down his chest, overgrown with thick hair. He scratched himself and roared, "I asked you a question, is it unbuttoned?"
"No, sir!" The Ensign reported and clicked his heels again, just in case. His request to be transferred to the weapons section had been approved, but now the Ensign thought he may have moved too fast. At least, his training stints in the communication and waste reclamation sections now seemed like a pleasant dream.
"Come closer! I'll check."
The Commander beckoned him with a thick finger. The Ensign approached with a precise marching step, and Rakov's finger dove under his collar. The finger was also hairy. It seemed to the Ensign that the Commander had more hair than the Dromi had scales.
"Buttoned," his new boss told him with a disappointed look. "It's your chicken neck, dangling like shit in an ice-hole."
The watch officers burst into laughter. The Ensign was offended. He was a stout guy, a head taller than the Commander and broad-shouldered.
"With all due respect, Commander… You are mistaken!" he barked, imitating his superior's voice.
"What do you mean, mistaken?"
"Not chicken. I have a bull's neck."
"Are you going to argue with me, Ensign?" the Commander asked in a sinister whisper and suddenly yelled, his beady eyes bulging, "You lousy bastard! Only a month in the Fleet, and you're already talking back to your superiors! What else are you going to do, snot-nose? Do you want breakfast in bed or your mommy to wipe your ass? I'm going to pull out your guts! I'll make you pee ammonia! Christ be my witness and all the Buddhas and Mohammeds!"
Again with the breakfast and mommy, the Ensign thought wistfully. All right, screw the breakfast… What did they have against his mother?
He swallowed convulsively, and this did not escape the Commander's notice.
"Don't move, asshole! And you, sons of bitches, too!" Rakov turned to his watch officers, "Stand at attention! Look at me, not at this bastard!"
After making sure that his order had been carried out, the Commander calmed down, stuck a finger in his mouth, and started picking at his teeth. He continued to speak, but his speech became completely incomprehensible. The Ensign couldn't understand a word.
"Excuse me, Commander… Could you please repeat?"
Rakov took his finger out of his mouth, looked it over, and wiped it on his beard.
"All right, Ensign. What I said was, if your superior tells you that you have horns growing out of your head, don't feel for them yourself to make sure. You need to trust your commanding officer! Any doubt in his words leads to doubt in his orders, and that means a lost battle. A tiny event can cause huge and usually lethal consequences… Like in that old proverb, where a nail was missing. Do you remember how it goes?"
"The shoe was lost, the horse was lost, the rider was lost, the message was lost, the battle was lost, the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail," the Ensign snapped out.
"That's right!" Stepan Rakov raised the finger with the gnawed nail. "Exactly! The kingdom was lost… Lots of wisdom in that proverb! Why? Come on, Ensign, tell me! Show me your… what do you call it… intelligence! You went to all the academies, right!"
The Ensign thought about it and started speaking, "A real battle cannot be theoretically modeled in all details and nuances, and its course and final outcome cannot be predicted. This is not only related the great complexity of the system, including ships, crews, different types of weapons, the pre-battle situation, the conditions in space, and many others. Such factors can be accounted for, and powerful computers can produce a forecast of a particular fight. But the above-mentioned system is not only complex, it's also unstable, according to Lyapunov: small fluctuations in initial data and the real process lead to large and unpredictable deviations in the resulting solution. Which makes the task of forecasting mathematically incorrect. Well, for example…" The Ensign thought for a moment and continued, "Let's say, the Admiral is dizzy from a hangover, and he–"
"Stop," the Commander said. "Our admiral is never dizzy, never suffers from a hangover or diarrhea, if you know what that is. Our admiral… he… Whoa!" Rakov rolled his eyes reverently. "But the rest is correct. A fight is a fight, and any little thing in it leads to that… instability, which is incorrect. Basically, boys," his gaze passed all of them, "when sitting at the annihilator, keep your ears peeled and a knife in your boot. Might come useful! As for you," Rakov turned to the Ensign, "I think I'll take you. Your neck really is like a bull's, your belt is on your bellybutton, and you're an amenable and educated kid. You'll be on the night watch. Start at midnight, report to Lieutenant Commander Ho Wen-yan. Dismissed."
The Ensign saluted, did a sharp about-face, and left the command post of the weapons section. In the enormous tube-like hallway, with hatches leading to gun turrets, Lieutenant Junior Grade Domaratsky caught up to him and, looking around, whispered in his ear, "Don't take it personally, kid, he scrubs and insults everyone like that at first… There's a reason for that! Trust me, there is! Papa Atigem is a clever guy! He wants everyone to obey him in battle unquestioningly… Do you know what he did six months ago during a training exercise?"
The Ensign shook his head. Six months ago, he'd still been busy studying for his final exams.
"He ordered everyone to fire live ammo on one of our own frigates and then kicked out anyone who refused the order. Who knew that the Admiral told him that the frigate had been captured by the enemy! And that the torpedoes were metal duds with no warheads! Would you have fired?"
"Right now, with pleasure," the Ensign said. "Especially if I knew that our commander was on that frigate."
Domaratsky slapped him on the shoulder.
"It's all right… what's your name?.. Peter?.. It's all right, Peter, you'll fall in love with Papa Atigem. You're going to look him in the mouth and inscribe his every word!"
That would indeed happen, but later, and for now, the Ensign, feeling upset, decided to get up to his cabin, drink something invigorating, and get some rest. But when the elevator stopped on deck C, where junior officers lived, he saw the Valkyrie Marina Bryanskaya with three of her female friends outside the transparent door and pressed the "up" button in a panic. Six seconds later, he found himself on command deck A, with the bridge, the flotilla control center, the Admiral's cabin, and other compartments, where he, due to his low rank, would have no access to. Actually, he should not have been there without any business at all, with the exception of a single location, the observation room. That was where he headed. The compartment was enormous, a wide area three hundred meters in length, covered by a transparent dome. The cruiser was docked at the base in the Balder Swarm, and he could enjoy the view of the angular boulders of the asteroids with the scattered spherical structures of the warehouses, arsenals, repair docks, hospitals, and entertainment centers. Other than that, the field of view also included the planetary communication antenna, long-distance radar cylinders, as well as the other ships of the Seventh Flotilla: the cruiser Arzamas, the sixths, seventh, and eighth frigates, and several transport vessels. But the Ensign was not looking at this familiar picture. Tilting his head back, he was staring straight up at three gigantic cruisers, illuminated by floodlights: the Pallas, the Ares, and the Heracles. They had appeared a week ago, along with a group of frigates and corvettes, and, in the first several days, the observation room had been packed; anyone who was not on watch spent hours and days here, examining the reinforcements. The shapes of these new cruisers differed from the familiar ones, their undersides were flat instead of curved, and massive tubes of annihilators stretched for a third of the ships' length along the sides. The sleek-looking turrets, the shield emitters, the belt of UF launch hatches, the communication antennae, and the grav-drive rings, all that was slightly different, providing the obvious proof that engineering thought did not stay in one place. Strangely enough, the crew of the Ural had not discussed these differences or get into technical details; people had simply stood and watched. Earth's might, embodied in these ships, did not require commentary.
But now, the enormous compartment, which was usually the place for general gatherings and admiral inspections, was empty. The crews of the newly-arrived squadron had already been quartered on the base, and the crews of the Seventh Flotilla was heading there, into the crew cabins, mess halls, and entertainment centers: looking for relatives, fellow countrymen, and former comrades-in-arms, meeting new friends, finding out what was new in the Solar System, on Mars, Venus, Earth, and Luna, and, if they were lucky, in their hometown. The Ensign had already visited the base in the last few days, found his fellow classmates-trainees, who were working in the waste reclamation, communication, and food services, and boasted to them that he was already in the weapons section and was going to meet its legendary commanding officer Stepan Rakov the following day. Well, there it was… You call that standing at attention, maggot? Pick up your ass and suck in your gut!
The Ensign sighed and suddenly heard a delicate cough behind him. He turned sharply, and his heart dropped somewhere in his stomach, and maybe even rolled into his heels. He was not alone in the enormous room; Inga Valdez, the woman of his dreams, was standing in front of him.
Rakov's tongue-lashing turned out to be useful: he picked up his butt, sucked in his gut, stuck out his chest, dashingly clicked his heels, and threw up his hand in a salute.
"Ensign Trevelyan-Krasnogortsev, Commander! Permission to be in the compartment!"
"Yes, of course, Ensign. You may look at the ship, like me, if you wish. By the way, what's your name?"
Her facial expression seemed unusual, strange even, to the Ensign. He suddenly noticed that she had freckles scattered under her eyes and on the bridge of her nose and that her pupils were less like gray stone and more like a turbulent sea in the fall. He was peering into her feminine features, trying to understand what had changed in them, suddenly realized that the trace of harsh strictness was gone and her eyes were shining with joy. It was something incredible! He had never seen the Admiral's wife this way before.
He froze with his mouth open.
"Ensign! Do you hear me, Ensign?"
"Yes, Commander. Forgive me, Commander… you reminded me of my dear mother," he lied immediately. "With your permission… my name is Olaf Peter Carlos."
"Such resounding names! They are a perfect fit for your last name." She smiled, and each of her freckles smiled along with her. "So which name do you prefer? Olaf?"
"No. Peter, Pyotr, or Pierre. That was the name of an ancestor on my father's side."
Commander Valdez was looking at him, continuing to smile.
"So I look like your mother? Flattering, very flattering, Pyotr. I have a son too, older than you, and a daughter about your age. Mark and Xenia… Xenia and Mark…" She drawled the names of her children in a singsong voice, as if enjoying the sounds. Her eyes continued to shine happily.
I wonder why…, the Ensign thought. This Xenia was now on T'har, and now one knew whether she was alive or dead, and her son was likely fighting, and his luck was fickle, as it was for everyone in the Fleet. Alive today, dead tomorrow… Why be happy about that?.. Truth be told, the Ensign was gripped by curiosity; he had heard many strange things of the Admiral and his wife.
"Hmm… please accept my sympathies, Commander… If I'm not mistaken, your daughter remained on T'har?"
The question was not very tactful, but his companion did not appear to take offense. On the contrary, a smile once again blossomed on her lips. Apparently, she wanted to share her joy with someone.
"Xenia is on T'har, and Mark is with her. They're alive! I've recently been told this."
Then the Ensign recalled the talk in the wardroom about the squadron sent to Beta and Gamma Malleus. The Farthest Boundary Task Force, a cruiser and auxiliary frigates… The campaign must have been successful, although there had not been any victory communiques yet.
"Has T'har been liberated?" he inquired. "I've heard of the expedition to the Malleus systems, but…"
The Commander put a finger to her lips and grew duller.
"Let's leave this topic, Ensign. I can't discuss the results of the campaign to the Far Worlds. I only know that my children are alive and are located on T'har."
The Ensign's curiosity jumped a few degrees.
"But how, Commander? There is no communication link with T'har!"
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..."
A mysterious woman, who spoke in riddles, he thought. Mysteries enticed him, especially in combination with a pretty face, scarlet lips, and bright eyes. Marina Bryanskaya, for example, had no secrets, only big fists.
Commander Valdez pointed to the three ships hovering over their cruiser with a graceful gesture, "They're beautiful, aren't they, Pyotr? Would you like to fly on one of them?"
The Ensign jerked, sensing an opportunity for patronage. After all, this beautiful lady was the Admiral's wife and could whisper a few right words into his ear… He was proud enough to avoid such methods, but then his imagination painted him Atigem's face with a shaggy beard, and he heard his voice, You call that standing at attention, maggot!?
To transfer to the Pallas! Or the Ares! Or the Heracles! Anywhere, as long as he was rid of Commander Rakov.
Looking at the ships, he said with trepidation, "To serve on one of them! In the marines or the weapons section! As a gunner or an annihilator aimer! It's my dream, Commander!"
His companion nodded, "We'll see what we can do. I've heard Commodore Brana will soon start crew rotations… The Pallas needs young officers with combat experience." Her hand touched the Ensign's shoulder and gently pushed him towards the exit. "Now go, Pyotr. I want to be alone. Thank you."
"For what, Commander?"
"For sharing my joy."
Heading for the arch that led to the hallway of deck A, the Ensign heard her quiet whisper behind him, "How simple the dreams of the young are…"
