THE TRIAL
Laika was pedaling as fast as she could, barely able to keep her eyes open due to the snowstorm currently raging around her.
It had been two days since she had left her home, travelling night and day on buses and trains to manage to get the Zooviet Aerospace Centre, but she had missed the connection with the last shuttle by minutes.
Desperate, she had used her last remaining money to buy a rusty bike, with which she had headed for the Z.A.C.
Halfway through, though, she had been engulfed by the blizzard, and more than once powerful gusts of wind had almost thrown her on the ground.
But she had persisted: today was the last day to enlist for the program, that's why she had had to go without further discussion with her family. She couldn't waste that chance.
The front wheel encountered a patch of ice and Laika lost control of the bike, tumbling in the snow.
She quickly shook as much snow from her fur as she could, since she wasn't a fan of hypothermia, then recovered her bike: she immediately noticed that the chain had broke in the fall.
"Oh, come on!" She shouted out in exasperation, throwing the broken vehicle away.
She turned in the direction she thought, or better she hoped, the Z.A.C. was, since she hadn't seen even one indication for about one hour due to the reduced visibility, and began walking, struggling against the cold and the wind.
An eternity passed before the shape of a building began to emerge from the whiteness surrounding the wolf.
With her last strength, Laika reached the wall of the facility and began walking near it, in an attempt to find an entrance or at least something to be saved from the storm.
She finally found a metal double door, but when she pushed the crash bar to open it, it turned out to be locked from the inside.
"Please, open up!" She cried out, trying to tower over the howling of the wind, and banging on the door. "Please, can anyone hear me?!"
Her wet clothes were starting to freeze against her fur, and the cold was starting to get to her bones.
"P-P-Please, I b-b-beg you!" She weakly said, her teeth rattling out of her control.
She leaned against the door with her back, curling up to try to warm herself a bit; keeping her eyes open was becoming harder with each passing seconds.
"Please..." She murmured, but the howl of the wind was so loud that not even she heard that.
She fought the urge to sleep, while her body shook madly in a desperate attempt to save itself from freezing to death.
She began to bang the back of her head against to metallic door since she hadn't the strength to get back to her feet.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Her eyes closed, her will defeated by the fatigue permeating her flesh.
BANG!...BANG!...BANG!
Moving had become an almost unbearable effort.
BANG!...Bang!...
She stopped, too tired and exhausted to keep it up.
In her numbness, she barely registered her body falling backward as the door opened.
She felt paws grabbing her and lifting her, before passing out.
Laika woke up to a pleasant sensation she had feared she would have never felt again: warmth.
She blinked a couple of times, shielding her eyes with a paw from the bright neon lamp right above her: in doing so, she realized she had a needle stuck in her forearm, connected to an infusion bag.
Her old clothes were gone, and a hospital gown had taken their place; that, and a duvet, where the only things covering her.
"Finally, you are awake."
Laika rapidly turned her head toward the voice, only then realizing she wasn't alone in the room, but she immediately regretted as her head began to spin.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." The voice chuckled.
The young wolf kept her eyes closed until her nausea was gone; when she opened them again, she was staring at a canid with reddish fur, slightly shorter than her, wearing a lab coat.
"Who are you?" She asked warily while trying to figure out what he was: he almost looked like a cross between a fox and a wolf, but Laika knew full well that such a thing was impossible.
"I'm Doctor Vladimir Yazdogsky, head of the scientific division of the Z.A.C," he replied with a smile " and I'm a dhole if that's what you were trying to figure out."
Laika realized she had been caught staring, and quickly moved her gaze away from him.
"I'm sorry, I've never seen your species before."
"Well, there aren't many of us left, unfortunately." He smiled sadly.
"BUT let's talk about you." Vladimir quickly added a spark of curiosity lighting in his eyes. "Your clothes were in pretty bad shape, and one could think you are some kind of hobo."
Laika lowered her head in shame at those words.
"But appearances can be misleading." The dhole added, smirking. "Because I wonder, what would a homeless do here, in the middle of nowhere, with astronomy books in her backpack? So, my young, mysterious friend, what's your story?"
The wolf couldn't help but smile herself: the doctor seemed a really jolly and kind mammal.
"My name's Laika. I'm here to enlist for the space mission." She said.
"Well, there was a perfectly fine shuttle to get here for the volunteers, why didn't you take that?"
"I missed it by minutes," she explained, "so I bought a bike but it broke in the middle of the storm, and I had to walk the rest of the road."
Vladimir let out an impressed whistle.
"Damn, you must really want to get a job in this mission!"
"I do." She confirmed with a nod.
The dhole walked close to her bed, studying her.
"This is a dangerous job, you realized that?" Vladimir told her, his jovial mood shifting to a deadly serious one.
"Yes, I know what I'm walking into," Laika replied.
"Are you sure? Because once you start, there's no going back."
Once again, Laika nodded his head with firm determination.
The doctor smiled once again.
"Then come, we are about to start."
The dhole helped Laika to get up and removed the needle from her arm, then pointed at some folded clothes on a nearby chair.
"I hope they'll fit you, I'll wait outside." He added, before leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
Laika quickly got rid of her gown and put on the clothes: they were a janitor uniform, but she didn't care, as they were newer than any other item of clothing the wolf had ever owned.
She then got out of the door and found the other canid waiting for her right outside the door, leaning against the wall of the hallway.
He gestured for her to follow him, and Vladimir led Laika through the facility until they reached a wide room, where a dozen mammals had already taken a seat.
When they noticed her entrance, they all turned to look at her, murmuring.
"W-Why they are all looking at me?" She nervously asked towards Vladimir.
"Well, your arrival wasn't exactly unnoticed, and we delayed the start of the recruitment of several hours because of you." The dhole explained. "Now, you should take a seat as well, you don't want to make them wait any longer, right?"
The wolf did as the doctor had suggested, and rapidly sat down in the closest chair.
She nervously waved at the others mammals, but all she got back were glares and raised brows; only a small hedgehog on the other side of the room waved back and smiled at her.
She decided not to give too much weight to the hostility of the other mammals in the room, instead Laika followed Vladimir with her gaze: the dhole walked to a small stage in front of the chair, stopping beside a boar wearing a military uniform, whispering something into his ear.
"Okay, we can finally begin." The boar said, speaking into a microphone. "I am Lieutenant General Oleg Georgievich Tuskenko, and this is Doctor Vladimir Yazdogsky; we are the supervisors of the current space program here at Z.A.C."
"You are here for one purpose: to make us take a step further into the future of mammalkind, and to show to the world the greatness of the Zooviet Union!" He declared with pride.
"Out of all of you, only two will pass to the next stage of the training."
"Wait, two? The banners said three!" A lynx protested.
"That's true," Doctor Yazdogsky intervened "but we already have selected one candidate for the mission."
"That's not fair!" A deer argued.
"It is when said candidate is Albina Zima, the mammal who still retains the record for the highest height reached in sub-orbital flight!" The Lieutenant replied curtly.
At the mention of that name, the whole room was filled with excited murmurs and whispers, and Laika had to gather all her will in order not to squeal in excitement: if she managed to pass the selection, she would meet her hero!
"CUT IT!" The boar roared, and the quiet fell into the room.
"Now, follow us."
He and Vladimir got down from the stage and led Laika and the other candidates into another room, even wider than the one they were in before: in it, several metallic cubes, the biggest one of which were barely taller than Laika, each one with a small door on one side, were lined on the walls.
"For your first trial, you'll have to stay inside these capsule for five days: the cramped space will simulate the one inside the satellite. This we'll help us evaluate your physical and psychological response to live in such a small environment." Oleg explained.
"You'll also have to wear these," Vladimir added, handing them what looked like a diaper made of reptile leather with various metal buckle to adjust it.
"You are kidding, right?" Asked a cow.
"Absolutely no." The doctor replied. "It's a sanitation device: in the real space pod there won't be a toilet, so this is what you'll use instead."
"I think you gave me the female version, doc." The Lynx said, handing out his diaper.
"They are unisex." The dhole said back.
"WHAT?! And where am I supposed to put this?!" The feline asked, showing to the canid a small, plastic tube situated inside the sanitation device on the front side.
"That catheter must be inserted in the urethra, and it will be connected to a sack inside the device which will contain the urine. As for the feces, well, for that, it works just like a regular diaper." Doctor Yazdogsky explained.
"U-Urethra?" A deer asked, incredulous.
"You mean... that hole on the..." The buck trailed off, simply pointing to his groin.
"Yep." He nodded with an amused smile. "I'll help you out to insert it if you need it."
"No, thanks. I'm out." The Lynx said, dropping the sanitation device with a disgusted look on his face, followed by the deer.
The others, instead, accepted the help of the doctor.
When Laika's turn to put the device on came, she couldn't help but feel not at ease: a stranger was about to see her completely naked, and he would also put his paws inside her...
"Remember why you are doing this. Granny needs you. She has endured much worse than this for you, so you can do it for her!"
She entered the small room, where Vladimir was waiting for her, sitting on a stool.
"Ah, Laika. Please, remove your clothes and sit here." He said, patting over a hospital bed next to him.
Before putting on the device, the dhole did a complete check-up of her physical condition, checking her blood pressure, auscultating to her heartbeat, even checking for ticks and fleas.
"Okay, you look pretty healthy, maybe a little underweight, nothing too concerning." He told her. "So now, I'll have to ask you to spread your legs."
Laika took a deep breath to calm herself, took a deep breath, and did as the dhole asked.
When she got out from the room, Laika's walk was visibly stiff, like the ones of the mammals that had gone in before her, the sanitation device provoking a really uncomfortable sensation.
When all the mammals had undergone through the procedure, they were all assigned to a different cube, depending on the size of the mammal: each candidate wore only the sanitation device and a tank top with the Z.A.C. logo on it.
"Okay, inside your capsule you'll find all the instructions you'll need. If any of you wishes to end the simulation before the fifth day, just press the red button on the door and we'll come to get you out. Any questions?" General Tuskenko barked out. Seeing that there were none, he gave the order to step inside the capsule.
Well, more like crawl: to pass through the small opening that served as a door to her cube, Laika had to walk on all four.
The inside wasn't much bigger, giving the wolf enough space to sit up with her back straight, and was large about from one elbow to another. On the left, there was a small hatch with 'FOOD' written on it, and one on the right with a red cross on it, which contained medical supplies.
A few minutes after she had settled in the capsule, which had no windows and was lit by a small lightbulb placed above the door, next to the red button mention by the General, she heard the door being locked from the outside.
'Here we go.' She mentally said to herself.
The next couple of days were a torture. At least, Laika thought that some days had passed: with no way to see the outside and the lamp which was always turned on, she could only guess how much time had passed.
Once she had opened the food hatch, she had discovered that said food consisted only in bars made of some sort of semi-solid jelly, with an awful taste. She didn't even have a way to wash away that taste from her mouth since the bars replaced the water as well.
The cramped space allowed her only so much freedom of movement, but she had to change her position as often as she could, in order to avoid terrible aches.
But that wasn't even the worst thing: during the whole time she had been in the capsule so far, she hadn't yet relieved herself, thus causing her tremendous stomach cramp.
No matter how hard she had tried, her body seemed to refuse to "evacuate" its wastes; not even some laxatives she had found in the small infirmary helped her condition.
More than a few times Laika had contemplated pressing the red button and giving up: it would have been so simple to put an end to all this.
But the memories of her family always gave her the strength to not give up.
It was the third night, or to put it better, the third time she had fallen asleep, when her whole capsule was shaken by an ear-splitting sound, which made her wake up in panic, banging her head on the low ceiling of the box.
The noise was like the roar of a steam locomotive, only ten times louder; covering her ears with her paws did little to muffle the sound, which echoed in the cavities of her skull, causing to the wolf an almost physical pain.
When the roar finally ended, tears were rolling down Laika's cheeks.
"This was a simulation of what taking off will sound like." General Tuskenko voice came out from a small speaker on the side of the box, that Laika had failed to notice before. Next to it, an equally small camera could be seen. "We needed to test your tolerance to loud noises. More might come in the future."
When Laika finally recovered from the shock and managed to take in what the boar had told through the comm, she also realized that something good had come from the whole ordeal: the scare had been so sudden and huge, that she no longer needed to relieve herself.
From then on, Laika's stay in the capsule had become a little more pleasant: she got used to the taste of the bars and her body got accustomed to the cramped space and probably to the sanitation device as well since she had had no longer problem expelling her bodily waste.
She was in the middle of her favourite activity, listing all the constellation she could remember in reverse alphabetic order when she heard the door being unlocked, and opening.
A wide smile spread on her muzzle and she quickly crawled outside, where General Tuskenko, Doctor Yazdogsky and a bunch of medics and soldiers.
Laika was so happy to finally see someone else besides her reflex on the metallic insides of the capsule; the other mammals, instead, grimaced and covered their nose, a few of them even gagging.
A mammal that hasn't showered or changed their diaper in five day doesn't exactly a smell nice.
"Congratulations!" Vladimir complimented, fanning the air in front of his nose. "You are one of the two mammals who made it through the selections!"
Laika's smile grew even bigger, and her eyes widened as well.
"YES!" She laughed, throwing her fists in the air and jumping around, pure happiness flooding her brain.
She lunged forward and tried to hug the dhole, but he stepped back.
"We can save the celebration for later. Right now, I think you should go take a shower, then I want you to come to the infirmary so I can check you up." Vladimir said, smiling at her.
Laika nodded and followed the direction for the showers: there, she removed her stinking clothes and the diaper and threw herself under the hot stream of water, a moan of pleasure escaping her lips at the invigorating sensation.
"Hi, there!" A high pitched voice squeaked.
Turning around and covering her groin and chest with her arms and tail, she saw that she wasn't alone: with her in the shower room there was also the small hedgehog she had seen when she had first arrived there five days ago.
"My name is Mushka." She introduced herself. "You must be the other candidate who made it through the selection."
The wolf relaxed a bit and, seeing that the other mammal was a female naked as well, returned to scrub her fur, no longer caring to cover her private parts.
"That's right. I'm Laika."
"Nice to meet you, Laika." She said with a kind smile.
"You look pretty young." The hedgehog added. "How old are you?"
"I'm 18," Laika replied.
"Really?!" Mushka exclaimed surprised. "Why are you here, dear?"
The wolf had a moment of hesitation, not wanting to tell everybody her personal story, but there was a kind of motherly caring tone to Mushka voice, that reminded Laika a bit about her grandma.
"Well, it's a long story..."
They stayed under the shower for about two hours, talking and knowing each other better.
Laika told the hedgehog about her family, the orphanage, her passion for astronomy and Kira's illness.
Mushka in return told her about her own life: she had travelled all over the world, taking part to expeditions and many other adventurous journeys.
"I've seen almost every corner of this planet." She explained. "Now, I want to see what's beyond it."
When Laika and Mushka turned off the showers, they had already become friends.
Laika smiled at those memories.
"You were right, Mushka. There's nothing on Earth that can match this view." She thought, peeking outside the window.
"But is it worth the price I'm going to pay?" The wolf mused, the life draining from her body.
HERO
After the selections, they had let Laika and Mushka rest for a few days.
The wolf and her new friend had explored the whole facility, from the canteen to the launch control room.
Vladimir had proved to be a good company as well, spending as much time with them as he could.
It was him who knocked at their door on the dawn of the fourth day.
"General Tuskenko wants to see you in the main hall. Your training starts today." The dhole announced and patiently waited outside the room for them to get dressed.
When the two cadets got out, he walked with them to the main hall.
"By the way, I can confirm you that the first wage has already been sent to the addresses you provided us." The doctor informed them, and they both nodded and thanked.
Once in the main hall, another mammal was waiting for them in the room other than the boar: an arctic vixen in her thirties, with beautiful amber eyes.
"Albina!" Laika thought excited, recognizing her childhood hero.
"Miss Zima, this are the cadets who passed the selection." Oleg introduced Laika and Mushka as soon as he noticed the two of them walking in the room.
"My name is Laika, it's a real honour to meet you!" The wolf extended her paw: everything, from her curly tail, wagging furiously to her ears perked straight up, betrayed her excitement.
The vixen eyed her and raised a brow, clearly unimpressed.
"This was really the best you could find, General?" Albina asked, ignoring completely the paw Laika had offered her.
Laika's eyes widened in surprise at those harsh words, her ears fell flat against her skull and her tail dropped.
She slowly retracted her arm, staring at her feet.
Those words were bad enough on their own, but said from Albina, her hero, hurt even more.
"Well, I'll wait for you in the training room," Albina added and walked away.
"They say you should never meet your heroes in the flesh." Mushka tried to comfort the wolf, gently patting on her ankle.
General Tuskenko cleared his throat.
"Well, ladies, if you want to follow me, miss Zima had a point: we should start the training. This is your last chance to drop out; since our training is top secret, and we can't afford to let enemy powers know about it, you won't be allowed to leave this facility, nor to receive visits." The boar explained.
"You can write and receive letters, but they'll be checked beforehand to make sure their content won't violate our security protocols. Have I been clear?"
Laika exchange a quick glance with Mushka.
"YES, SIR!" They exclaimed at once, saluting.
"Good." The boar grinned satisfied.
And so, they began training: they spent hours every day with General Tuskenko shaping their bodies with military-style exercises and almost the same amount of time learning the basics of physics, biology, astronomy, and mechanics with Vladimir.
Even if Albina had much more experience, Laika managed to catch up with her in about two weeks. This didn't help much to build a friendship with her: in fact, the more Laika got better, the more the vixen looked at the wolf as she was planning the best way to get rid of her.
Laika simply couldn't understand why, and every she had tried to talk to Albina, the vixen had avoided her.
"I don't understand," Laika said to Mushka once they got back into the room after one of Doctor Yazdogsky classes.
"It's been three weeks! How long can she ignore me?!"
"I'm sorry, darling," Mushka replied. "Some mammals can be really stubborn."
The short hedgehog had been doing good in the training, even if not as good as Laika or Albina.
"Yeah but... I'm worried about her! She looks thinner every passing day! I think she's overdoing just to keep up with me!" The wolf expressed her concern.
"Well, I-"
Their conversation was interrupted by someone knocking at their door.
"It's Vladimir, can I come in?" The muffled voice of the dhole came from behind the door.
"Sure Doc, come in," Laika replied.
"I see you still like to tease me with that nickname... Kudrjavka." Vladimir said, using the same nickname her granny gave her; it meant "curly", and it came from the peculiar shape Laika's tail had.
"H-How do you know that name?!" The wolf stammered, clearly embarrassed.
"Well, you got some mail, and Oleg ordered me to check if it was some phantom foreign spy that wanted to obtain national secrets from you." The dhole explained, rolling his eyes, before handing her two letters.
Laika's muzzle lit up with joy as she excitedly grabbed the envelopes and extracted a sheet from the first one.
"It's from granny!" She exclaimed after scrolling through the first few paragraphs, with tears of joy flowing from her eyes.
"She says she's getting better! And she is also scolding me for doing disobeying her!" She chuckled, before continuing reading the letter.
"...but I'm still proud of what you did. The money is helping a lot of your siblings as well.
Now we don't have to worry that the roof might crash on our heads in any moments.
We all miss you, Kudrjavka, and we think of you every day.
I hope you are doing fine, and to receive soon a reply from you."
She re-read the letter twice, before folding it back and placing it on her bed, where she was sitting.
Then, she moved onto the second envelope: the words "To Laika" on the back were written in an awful calligraphy she didn't recognize.
She opened it, unfolded the letter on the inside and began to the read it, only to almost drop it from the surprise after reading the first few words.
"Hi Laika,
It's Alexei.
You must be really surprised, I suppose. "When did that silly leopard learn to write?"
Well, thanks to the money you sent us, we could reduce the amount of work we had to do, so we had a few more free time.
Me and the others who never got the chance to go to school before decided to hire a tutor to teach us how to read and write, and it was possible thanks to you.
So, even if you never get to go to space (which is highly improbable, I think), you'll still be a hero to me and to all of us.
I miss you and I wish I could hold you in my arms.
Love, Alexei."
"Oh, Alexei..." She fondly murmured between silent sobs.
"Is there something wrong?" Mushka asked, concerned.
"No, everything is fine." Laika replied, wiping her tears; the letter was full of mistakes and the writing was terrible, but that piece of wrinkled paper was the best gift she had ever received.
"What is going on?" Vladimir asked, walking inside the workshop.
Inside the place where all the Zooviet satellite and spacecraft had been built, there was a general unrest: engineers were arguing heatedly around a desk, looking at blueprints, while workers and smiths were busy melting and shaping pieces of metal.
One of the engineers, a raccoon, moved away from the group and walked to the dhole.
"Sir, we received orders to start immediately to work on building the next spacecraft for orbital flight with mammal on-"
"Who gave you this order?!" Doctor Yazdogsky interrupted the racoon, furious.
"I did."
Vladimir turned around and saw General Tuskenko standing behind him.
"What?! Why?!" The dhole asked incredulously.
"This morning a report arrived on my desk: according to our spies, Zootopia will be ready to launch its first mammal into space in less than one year. We cannot afford to come second: our nation needs this victory. We must bring our mammals together!" The boar explained, his chest swollen with pride.
"And when exactly do you expect them to finish your spacecraft?" Vladimir asked, knowing full well it was pointless to argue against the boar's national pride.
"In four months." He replied.
"FOUR MONTHS?! Oleg, that's insane!" Vladimir shouted, causing everyone to stop and look at them.
"They just need to make a few modifications to the first Furtnik schematics." The boar waved the dhole's worries off.
"That satellite wasn't supposed to carry a living being on it: that task asks for a ton of modifications to protect the mammal travelling in the spacecraft! It can't be done in such a short time!" Vladimir protested.
"Well, I'm sure they'll make it, or they have been warned that they might spend a long time away from their families, maybe never seeing them ever again." The general explained menacingly.
"And that also applies to you as well, if you'll get in my way." Oleg threatened the dhole.
Vladimir gulped nervously as the general walked away without even waiting for his reply, and the workers resumed their jobs.
The weeks kept passing, and the cadets' training became increasingly demanding: every six days, they had to spend a period of time inside of a capsule, like the one of the first trial, only they became progressively smaller.
In the latest one, Laika could only lay down, feeling like she was trapped in a coffin.
Vladimir's classes had become extremely complicated, and the wolf and Mushka had to spend hours awake in the dead of night to study and try to grasp the concepts that would later be the argument of the dhole's exams.
Laika had also noticed something bothering the doctor, but he had always claimed to be fine.
After three months of them being at the Z.A.C. facilities, they were called in a new room: the one dedicated to flight simulation.
"Laika, Mushka, come closer." Vladimir waved at them as they entered the room; Albina was by his side.
Laika and her hedgehog friend looked with amazement in their eyes at the huge machine taking up most of the space in the room.
It consisted of a long mechanic arm, with a pin connecting it to its base while also allowing it a 360 degrees rotation around the support.
On the other side of the arm, there was a small box with wide windows, looking like the cockpit of a plane.
"Is that a flight simulator?!" Mushka asked, excitedly.
"Yes." Replied the dhole with an amused smile. "This will help us verify your response to the huge acceleration you'll be exposed in order to exit the Earth atmosphere."
"Indeed." General Tuskenko walked in the room, and Laika was pretty sure she had heard Vladimir start growling as the boar joined them.
"It is designed to crush your bodies almost to the point of breaking your bones." The boar went on, with a weird smile.
"So... who wants to be the first?"
Needless to say, Laika volunteered to go first. A tall ladder helped her reaching the cockpit, and once inside she strapped on.
Peeking outside the windows, the wolf saw the other four mammals walking to a nearby control panel.
"Are you ready, Laika? Remember, if you want to stop the simulation, just press the red button on the armrest." Vladimir said into a microphone, which transmitted his voice inside the cockpit.
The wolf rose a thumb up and showed it to the dhole, who nodded and pressed a button.
With a sudden jolt, the flight simulator came to life, and began to spin around: at first, the movement was slow, like being on a really boring theme park ride; then, it began to gain more and more speed, and she actually began to feel her body start to sink in the soft cushions of the seat.
When she could no longer do that, her body began to feel like it was being slowly crushed and flattened by a huge weight, to the point where rising her chest to breathe had become almost impossible.
She was about to press the red button when Vladimir's voice filled the cockpit once more: "Escape velocity successfully reached! Initiating deceleration!"
As soon as the pressure on her chest decreased enough to let her, Laika breathed a sigh of relief.
It took a few minutes after the machine had stopped for her head to cease to spin as well.
When she finally made it to the ground, everyone congratulated her, with the exception of Albina: the arctic vixen shoved her sideways and began to climb the ladder; she hopped inside the cockpit and closed the hatch.
"Start this thing." She ordered.
Everyone got in a safe distance and Vladimir started the machine.
At first, everything went fine, with the simulator gaining speed like it had done during the previous test.
But after a few rotations, Laika noticed that something was off: some stains were popping on the windscreen of the cockpit. Red stains.
"Doc, stop the machine!" Laika shouted.
"Albina hasn't pressed the-"
"Do it! Something's wrong!" The wolf cut off General Tuskenko protest.
Vladimir did as Laika told him and initiated the deceleration procedure. When the machine finally shut down, everyone could clearly see the drop of blood on the windows of the cockpit.
"WHY DID YOU STOP IT?!" A furious Albina shouted as she opened the shaft; but nobody answered, too shocked by the sight of her white fur stained by the blood coming out from her nose and mouth.
Even one of her eyes was bleeding.
"I saw the blood on the windshield and I-"
"You!" Albina growled, pointing her finger at Laika. "You wanted to show off how much better you are, didn't you?!"
"What are you-WHOA!" Laika barely managed to catch the dizzy vixen in her arm as she was falling after trying to get out of the simulator.
Albina looked around in confusion, but when she realized what had happened, rage contorted her features once again.
"Get your paws off me!" She shouted, pushing herself away from the wolf and dropping to the ground on all four.
She slowly got up and, waddling, stormed out.
No one said anything for a few moments, then Laika began to growl. "You won't get away with it that easy this time." She snarled, having had enough of the condescending and moody vixen, and set off after Albina.
Following the smell of blood, Laika tracked her down in the locker room.
"Listen here, you..." Laika trailed off as she saw the vixen: she was curled up in a fetal position on the ground, naked.
She was so slender that the wolf could count all of her bones.
"Go. Away." Albina said between sobs.
"This training is killing you," Laika said, walking to the vixen and kneeling beside her.
Albina remained quiet, so Laika went on, "Is this mission really worth more than your life?"
"YES!" Albina cried out, startling the wolf who got up and took a few steps back.
"Why?" Laika asked after a few seconds.
"Because it's all that there is in my life. The only thing I've ever accomplished was that world record flight. If someone else... if you are the first mammal in space, no one will remember me." She weakly said, wiping blood and tears from her muzzle.
"But as you can see, my previous missions took their toll, and so my life will be meaningless."
"That's not true. And it's stupid." Laika said, now back at the vixen's side.
"You know why I'm here?"
Albina looked up at her, anger no longer in her eyes, and shook her head slowly.
"It's because, when I was a little kit, I read an article on a newspaper, about a young vixen who dared to go where no one else had ever been before." The wolf explained with a kind smile.
"What you did was, and still is, absolutely amazing, and so you are. And there's still so much you can do with your life, if only you manage to move on."
"Like what?" Albina asked skeptically.
"You could mentor me, Mushka, and all the other mammals that one day will travel up there."
Albina snorted.
"I'm serious! Vladimir, General Tuskenko... they don't know what it's like to actually be up there, what it feels like. But you do! You could help us!" Laika explained.
"You... You'd really want me to teach you, after all I've done?" The vixen asked, clearly baffled.
"Yes. It would be an honour." She replied, offering her a paw; Albina looked at it, then back to Laika, smiled and grabbed it.
Laika helped her back to her unsteady feet and walked her in the shower to clean herself up.
Not even Albina's training had prepared her for this, though.
To the pain.
To the feeling of the looming death.
Laika wished that someone would hold her paw, and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
But nothing was going to be okay, and she would spend the last moments of her life alone.
Notes:
Hi!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Now, it's time for some trivia: Albina and Mushka were the names of the other two dogs that were selected for the Sputnik II mission, but Laika was the one to eventually be sent to space.
Oleg Gazenko was a real person, who trained the dogs, while Vladimir Yazdogsky waz the one who led the space dogs program.
The test I depicted in this chapter are very similar to the one Laika and the other dogs had to endure, for more infos you can look on the Wikipedia page dedicated to Laika.
With only one more chapter left, time is running out for our poor wolf...
Stay tuned for the ending of the tale of Laika.
until then,
Bye!