This is Sfiery 2487. Here, the Slavic nations are a superpower.
Ah, the deep black something...better known as outer space. For cubic clicks, it expands. And in the coldest reaches of it, only the starlight is there to act as a beacon. The stars' locations are a map of sorts...even way out here. Alas, few ever come so far out here, that they ever have anything to gain from learning the stars' great map.
This is a quasar. Specifically, it's QSO-1225. It's a massive wreath of light that's powered by one of the greatest black holes in the universe. It's millions of times bigger than Belarus's sun.
Many planets, major and minor, orbit this quasar. Most of them are uninhabited. Even so, satellites orbit some of them. Many of these satellites bear the roundel of Minsk.
Some of these satellites bear safes. Treasures, it seems, are buried in this solar system, far from the Slavic Oblasts.
Around from the other side of a major planet, an android levitates. Or rather, it's an exosuit. There's a man inside it. His suit's nano-thrusters generate sparks, propelling him in whichever direction he pleases.
Up ahead, there's a satellite. Or rather, it's more of a space station; a space castle, specifically. Its biggest side is branded with a "XXX" symbol.
This is the Castle Knyazev. It's a royal remnant of an intergalactic confederacy; one that literally crashed and burned on takeoff. Once, a brotherhood of elected tsars lived here. As much as they all hated money and wealth, rumor has it that they left some of their legacies' treasures in this space castle's cellars.
The space castle is accessible via many points. It has to be; gravity is never anywhere around to guide visitors to the entry points. Alas, there also aren't too many entry points. This castle, after all, was a bank as well as a...short-term residence.
Thrusters well-lighting, the man in the exosuit glides up to an entry point. He shoots out a cable from his gauntlet, and latches himself to the side of the Castle Knyazev. He reels himself in.
Remotely, he picks the keypad that keeps this air lock sealed. It doesn't take him long to hack the keypad. The air lock opens, paving a way for him. Thrusters still lighting, he glides his way inside. Behind him, the sliding hatch seals itself.
Gradually, the sealed entry hall aerates itself. Once it's aerated, another sliding hatch opens...into the interior of the Castle Knyazev.
Here, the exosuit-wearer's suit takes itself apart. Each piece of armor shapeshifts into a certain nanite, and glides about the castle, in its wearer's trusting blindness. Soon, this includes the exosuit's shaded visor.
Meet Svyatopolk Omelchenko. He's a Belarusian Sherlock Holmes; or rather, a Belorussian one. He's certainly not a White Russian one. He's more of a talker than an observer, though. And at times, he can be a fool; just ask his physician...or better yet, his landlady.
Someone wants the tsars' treasure. Whoever they are, they've hired Svyatopolk to burglarize the Castle Knyazev, and take it. A thief by birth, Svyatopolk is up for the job...as much as he'd rather solve murders. But then, there's a very good reason for Svyatopolk taking this case: wherever treasure is hunted, murder is inevitable.
If Svyatopolk is unlucky, the only murder he'll be solving, while out here, is his own.
One by one, the gadgetry of the castle powers on. The artificial gravity does, too. There's a lever to activate it. Svyatopolk doesn't; he's the kind of man who prefers flight over feet.
Like a ghost, he glides through the corridors of the space castle. All around him, pieces of his exosuit follow him.
To his right, he passes a stove fire. His suit pieces shapeshift into fire extinguishers, and extinguish it, before it consumes all the castle's oxygen.
A TV has also powered itself. On it, a kaiju monster attacks Buskerville, a city on another planet. It looks like a borzoi with ram's horns. Each time he howls, windows shatter, for blocks. They call him the Hančak. Svyatopolk pejoratively calls him the Hancock.
Up ahead, there's a chapel. There's a Belarusian Orthodox cross motif, just above its main archway.
Svyatopolk stops gliding, and surveys it. (Don't get excited; he's hardly "surveying the wonderous cross." He's a nihilist, and proud of it.) Hence, Svyatopolk scoffs, and glides past it.
Moments pass. Soon, Svyatopolk returns, and surveys the archway again. This time, he's got a hunch. (Don't worry; he's not about to convert.) In warfare, a lot of war criminals use the Red Cross as a Trojan horse. It's just now occurred to our detective that the Belarusian Orthodox cross can be, too.
Not that Svyatopolk would know, but there's a verse in the Bible: "wherever thine treasure hides, thine heart shalt so also." Svyatopolk still can't believe that these villainous tsars would use the Belarusian Orthodox cross as a hiding place for material wealth...or even material power. If they ever revered that power, that would've been a direct violation of the First Commandment. But then, if the power was just material, it would've been a Second Commandment violation.
He glides through the archway. There are no pews; just terraced decks. But of course; at least these elected tsars didn't waste their time developing the chapel, when they had labor to divide among the people. (Or rather, they would've...if they were ever dutiful.)
All chapels are organized to revere whatever's messaging them from the back bulkhead. So naturally, that's the first place that Svyatopolk starts rummaging through.
As Svyatopolk rummages, though, a chess king glides past his face. He stops, and thinks... Sometime later, a chess rook glides past his face...from and into the opposite direction. NOW Svyatopolk thinks he understands...
One of Svyatopolk's armor pieces transforms into a fire ax. It flies across the chapel, and smashes a case in the bulkhead; one that would contain a fire ax itself, if it was actually storing such an ax.
Just as Svyatopolk suspects, though, it's not. He levitates in the wings, as the many pieces of his armor spelunk into the smashed armory, and rummage through the contents deep inside...
Alas, Svyatopolk gets a hunch. Like an octopus, he squeezes into the hole that his exosuit has smashed into the bulkhead armory.
True to his suspicion, the hole is more than just a hole. It's a secret panel. Within, coinage and metalwork that's made of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, nickel, and/or copper glides through the air. Jewels do, too; mostly emeralds, sapphires, and garnets.
It's like an aquarium tank in here. Good thing there aren't any sharks. Svyatopolk remains wary, though; if these tsars were smart, they wouldn't have stopped defending their treasure at three lines of defense...as stable as the number three is, in some religions...including Belarusian Orthodox Christianity...
A bag emerges from a piece of exosuit. Via its higher-tech rim, it glides around the room, collecting coinage. Other bags like it emerge from other exosuit pieces, and do the same thing.
Soon, the air is cleared. And soon, a secret box, hovering in the center of the room, becomes more apparent. On the side, a Cyrillic phrase is branded, in big white letters. They translate to, "SOURCE OF HANČAK'S POWER."
It's got a lock on it; a manual one. An exosuit piece glides up to it, transforms into a key, and opens the box for Svyatopolk.
Svyatopolk glides up to where he can see inside the box, and looks inside. White light streams from inside. At the base, seven nut-shaped nuggets lie. They're power generators; each one has a hole in the top, which acts as an exhaust valve. Otherwise, they all glow different colors from within.
Svyatopolk surveys the nuts for a bit...and gradually grins. By now, bug-bionic nanites from his exosuit have infested the clutch of nuts.
In Buskerville, a helpless little girl catches Hančak's great fiery eye...and his smoking nostril...and his notched ear. She wears a pink dress. Her skirt is caught in a slammed car door.
The girl bears the likeness of Rachel McAdams...from her Mean Girls years.
Hančak, of course, bares his fangs, licks his chops, and slowly approaches the Rachel McAdams doppelganger. He's got a pink panther by the skirt, it's plain to see. And she will NOT be much, let alone anything, by the time this kaiju borzoi gets through with her...
The bug-bionic nanites, from Svyatopolk's exosuit, surround each nut. Wings spread but not flapping, they glide from the box. They line up in a rank.
Other exosuit pieces arrive...and transform into nutcrackers. A total of seven such nutcrackers materialize. They separate their handles, and part their own jaws. The nanite bugs levitate, still surrounding each power-generating nut, and set them into the jaws of each nutcracker. Once that's done, they glide away, so that the seven nutcrackers can do their jobs.
Other exosuit pieces enter the room. They transform themselves into boxing gloves. Seven pairs of them assemble themselves, facing each other, on opposite sides of the nutcrackers' handles.
For this, Svyatopolk levitates back, and sprawls out against an overhead. The rest of his exosuit arrives, and assembles to protect its pilot...if the need arises.
Another exosuit piece transforms into a firefly, and heroically flies into the midst of it all. From here, he generates green light.
One by one, the boxing gloves separate slowly, fire big thrusters, and race towards each other. They smash the nutcrackers' handles, from either side, nearly destroying the nutcrackers in the process.
Within their fulcrums, one by one, the seven nuts are destroyed. They all generate small contained explosions, as they are. Special valves within the nutcrackers' fulcrums relieve the destroyed nuts' exhaust energies; there's quite much, in all cases.
In Buskerville, the kaiju borzoi's heart explodes, from within his chest. Fire and smoke belch from the hole.
Hančak roars, and takes several steps back, as he becomes just a hunka-hunka-burnin' rage. From below, the Regina George doppelganger watches in awe. Inadvertently, she frees herself from the car door...as if it were nothing...and was all along... (Funny, how being attacked by a kaiju monster can have that affect on a girl...)
Sequentially, the kaiju borzoi's testicles both explode, from between his legs. He roars again, clutching his groin, while doubling over. He loses his sight, as his eyes explode from within their sockets. Smoke and fire belch from them. He roars again.
Five down; two to go. His hands explode last. He's now a hunk of burning rage with nowhere to go. Without his heart, he won't survive much longer.
So, he falls over. Just below his falling body, there's a neighborhood of terraced homes...on Piekar. One of them has the number "221" branded on its mailbox.
The landlady of that estate, Mrs. Ustinov, comes outside, onto the place's front lawn. Her hair is in a towel turban. She bears the likeness of Geraldine James. (Mrs. Hudson; not Mrs. Mortimer...although it probably doesn't make that much of a difference.)
She slows...as an unusual shadow passes over the neighborhood. She's got a creepy hunch that that's NOT cloud cover...
She looks up...and screams, as the kaiju monster's corpse comes crashing down on top of everything and everyone in the neighborhood. Only Mrs. Ustinov sees it coming...and she gets pancaked, just like everything else up and down the street.
Now, the corpse of the slain kaiju borzoi lies, all over a neighborhood of terraced homes. Never again, will it be the same threat to Buskerville that it's been today. Alas, just as some monsters are known for their creepy regenerative abilities...some, still, are known to be reborn.
Through space, a space yacht flies on her own. Her sides bear no roundel...but do bear the hull number 221. Its captain, and only apparent user, calls her the Irene Goodnight. She's named after three gorgeous ladies; a Moore-era Bond girl/bimbo, some chick from WWII who the Weavers once had a crush on, and sang a song about...and a woman, though thieving and spying, who is VERY close to poor, poor, pitiful Svyat's heart. (And yes, he does have one of those...contrary to what some would think.)
Back in the exosuit, Svyat glides towards his space yacht. Little else but stars and deep black space surround him. Up ahead, he sees his space yacht move into view. Good; it's about damn time.
The bags of specie and jewelry that Svyat's collected are slung to his shoulders, back, and waist. In addition to several big shiny metal disks, they hang from very long tow chains, and stream above, around, and behind Svyat, as he glides back towards the yacht. By doing this, Svyat means to mimic a spinner bait; a kind of fishing lure that's often used in bass fishing. Svyat has programmed the Irene Goodnight to be attracted to these discs, and the general pattern of Svyat's levitation, the same way a bass would take to a spinner bait in a lake.
They glide towards one another...and meet in the middle...of something. An air lock opens into the gangway. Svyat glides through it, and hovers inside. It seals him inside.
Soon, all of the lights aboard the Irene Goodnight flick themselves on. The yacht's AI greets Svyat, as the yacht re-aerates. The yacht's surround-sound activates itself, and starts playing Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)."
Snoozing in levitation, a bulldog in a space suit revolves around many cabins, aboard the Irene Goodnight. Meet Gladstone. He's so asleep, you'd swear he was dead. In reality, though, he's been given a very potent sedative. (He doesn't mind.)
Once aboard, Svyat keeps the artificial gravity turned off...and sheds his exosuit. One piece at a time, the exosuit stores itself all over a mannequin within a pod. The pod is in a "closet" in which other pods, each with a different exosuit in it, are also kept.
In here, levitating everywhere, Svyat rests, and basks in Peter Schilling's music. He'll probably switch the station to Slavic deep house music, in a bit... But for now, in this situation, some space-themed music is good for the soul.
In the cargo hold, Svyat's bags store all of the specie and jewelry that Svyat's stolen from the space castle. With luck, Svyat won't return to his clients empty-handed...or even empty-gauntleted.
Now, all Svyat wears is a pair of briefs. They're Iron Man-themed, for some reason...
A TV has activated itself. As Svyat's head drifts past it...his eyes crack. When he sees the screen, he opens his eyes all the way.
On TV, footage of the late Hančak's corpse, lying across the terraced housing neighborhood in Buskerville, plays and replays. There are blown holes in his corpse, of course, where his gonads, eyes, hands, and heart once were. Naturally, construction crews and civil engineers plan to go over there ASAP, and collect the remains. From there, it's unclear as to what'll happen to them next. For all Svyat knows, kaiju body parts are valuable.
At least they won't stew the bollocks. Poor Hančak no longer has any.
"Fare thee well in kaiju hell," Svyat speaks, and dryly salutes the fallen monster, "Long John Hancock."
With all in order at long last, the Irene Goodnight activates her tail thrusters. She sets a course for a rendezvous point, which her AI programs into her, thrusts herself into the proper angle, and activates the big stern rockets. At sub-light speed, she shoots through space.
As Svyat levitates, he looks through a porthole. Through it, he can see QSO-1225. It's even bigger than he imagined...and just as gorgeous. Too bad he can't get too close. Again, QSO-1225 is powered by a supermassive black hole.
Away, into the Lučnik galaxy, the Irene Goodnight flies. Ziamliya, by contrast, is in the Anastasiya galaxy. Among Slavs, the Anastasiya galaxy is colloquially known as the "Vodka Pipeline."
Svyat won't be back on Ziamliya for a while. He's got way too much to do, and is in no hurry to return to his home in Minsk. With luck, though, he'll soon have a mystery to solve. And this, he thinks, would certainly add some spice to his space voyage.
Back in Buskerville, the kaiju monster's corpse still lies cold. The local gendarmes are taking down the last of the witnessing neighbors' statements. Soon, they'll all be gone. The neighbors will get whatever sleep they can...but for most, it won't be easy. Monster attacks, after all, have their own ways of breeding PTSD.
That's not the only things they breed. As the night passes, boils begin to form across the corpse's skin. Most of them are brown or red...but some of them are blond or black. Don't let their simple looks fool you; these boils are no passing thing. Or rather, it isn't so much THEM that's not the passing thing...as are what gestate inside of them.
Throughout the night, these boils hatch. Newborn stoats crawl from them. Alas, they're only half-newborn. Their claws and teeth are born sharp.
Most of these stoats are brown or red. They hiss and squeak among themselves, as they're born.
All over the fallen borzoi kaiju's corpse, portals open. Light shines from all of them; hence, it's unclear as to where they lead, based on looking through them. Based on the lights' coloration, though... Well...let's just say that the lights, coming from the portals, are aurora-colored.
One by one, the newborn stoats leap into these portals, and vanish. It takes a while, for all of them to enter. Once they have, the portals close.
If the kaiju borzoi's corpse wasn't a mess before, it sure is now. The holes from his power source are no longer the only holes all over him. It's also unclear, as to whether the corpse's appendages are any less valuable, because of the boils' holes. But then, even if the appendages couldn't be salvaged, a lot of the soils on this planet could use some upgrades to their organic matter content...