THE LAST NIGHT
Laika was laying restless on her bed, while the ticking of the clock on the wall seemed to be echoing, almost booming in the empty room.
That day, November the 2nd 1957, was the last one before the launch: General Tuskenko had insisted that she spent it alone, without distractions, focusing on rest. But she only kept shifting her position on the bed, unable to sleep. Laika was way too nervous doing so. Doubts and questions kept crossing her mind: "Why haven't I seen the spacecraft yet? What if something goes wrong? I wish I could see my family once more before the launch…"
Her thoughts were interrupted by someone knocking on the door.
"Come in." The wolf said, and doctor Yazdogsky opened the door but stopped in the doorframe.
"Doc, what are you doing here? Do I need to do another medical check?"
"No, don't worry." He looked around in the hallway outside the door, to make sure no one was in sight, "I'm here to get you out of this place."
"What? Why?" Laika asked confused, not sure if the Dhole was joking or not.
"Well, spending your last night before the mission trapped in this hole sounds boring as hell, and you must be building up a lot of tension in here alone. Overthinking about tomorrow and such things...so I'm making sure you have some fun tonight." Vladimir said with a wink. Laika felt that he wasn't telling her everything, but the idea of getting out of that room was way too compelling for her to refuse the kind offer.
"Lead the way, Doc." Laika said, jumping out of bed and following the other canid without a second thought.
They needed about an hour to get to the rear exit of the Z.A.C.; Vladimir took an extremely long route to get there, mostly to avoid any surveillance.
Laika kinda enjoyed the thrill of the whole thing.
When they finally got to their destination, Albina and Mushka were already waiting for them, the first holding a coat in her arms.
"You two are involved in this too?" Laika asked, surprised and slightly amused.
"Yes. Doctor Yazdogsky needed snitches on the inside." The hedgehog explained with a smirk.
"Have fun, Laika. We'll cover for you." The arctic vixen said with a wink, as she passed the coat to the wolf.
"I will. Bye girls, see you tomorrow." Laika said, as she and Vladimir walked out of the door and into the cold. She inhaled deeply, letting the chilling air fill her lungs: it felt good to be walking in the outside after months spent inside the building.
They had been driving in silence for about fifteen minutes when Laika could no longer hold back.
"So… you kept avoiding the question… but I can clearly tell that something worries you." Laika said to Vladimir, "Is it about tomorrow? Something's wrong that I should know?"
"I… I always get anxious before a mission. Many factors are beyond our control and the more factors, the more anxious I get. That's all."
"I know what you mean. I willingly accepted all the risk the day I walked in here." Laika replied but continued after she flashed him a smile, "I think it would be stupid to say that I'm not scared."
"I am too." He admitted with a sigh and replied to her smile.
"But for tonight, let's put those fears and worries away, shall we?"
Laika nodded in agreement and smiled, wondering what he had prepared for them.
After a few more minutes they arrived in the nearby town, and the Dhole pulled over in front of a house made of bricks, that was about two stories tall. The lights were on, and smoke was coming out of the chimney. Laika felt that someone was waiting for them inside.
The two canids got out of the car and walked up to the front door; the Dhole pulled out a key from a pocket of his coat and opened the door, letting Laika in, following her right after.
"I'm home!" Vladimir announced, and immediately excited screams and giggles echoed from a nearby room. In a matter of seconds, three dhole kits came running into the hallway, and the doctor knelt down to hug them.
"Hello, kits! How are you?" The Dhole chuckled as he kissed them on the forehead, while Laika stood behind him and smiled at the reunion of the father and his children.
"Laika, let me introduces you to my kits: Sasha, Luka and Grigory." He introduced them, from the oldest to the youngest, "Kits, this is Laika, a dear friend of mine who is staying with us for dinner."
"Hi!" The three cubs shouted as one, before leaving their father and giving Laika a hug. She embraced the cubs without hesitation and was more than happy about the welcoming gesture. It reminded her of Polina and all her other siblings back at the orphanage, something that felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. With the kits in her arms and the memories in her mind, her eyes began to become watery.
Noticing that, Vladimir turned to his kits.
"I think you hugged Laika long enough. Now, up with you three little bandits to the bathroom and wash your little paws for dinner, okay?" Giggling, the three Dholes separated from Laika and started a short race who would be the first at the sink.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just a moment of homesickness, but it's gone now," Laika assured him. Both turned to the kitchen door when a female dhole walked in wearing a white apron above a plain brown dress.
"Hello. You must be Laika," She greeted the wolf with a warm smile, "I'm Anna. My husband talked about you a lot."
"Nice to meet you." Laika said, blushing.
"You've arrived just in time, the dinner is ready." Anna said, before quickly turning around and calling out for the kits, who followed her into the dining room.
"You didn't tell me we were going to your home." Laika whispered to Vladimir.
"Well, you know what they say: no place is like home. And for tonight, my home is your home. Now come, my wife has made her famous perch ukha." He said licking his lips.
In the following hours, Laika completely forgot about the launch. Distracted by the delicious food, the antics of the kits and the stories Vladimir told them from his youth. It was half-past ten, and the kits had just been put to bed when someone knocked at the door.
"Can you go to see who it is? I'll go help Anna with the dishes." Vladimir asked with a smirk which left Laika a bit confused, but she followed his request.
"Uh… sure." She shrugged and got up from her chair, walking to the front door. When she saw who was standing on the other side, she almost fainted.
"Hello, Laika."
"Alexei!" Laika shouted, her heart swelling up with joy.
Without thinking, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him boldly. "What…How…?"
For a moment, Laika just stood there in the door frame and looked at the mammal she thought she would never meet again.
He hadn't changed much in the time she was gone, but just now she recognized how much she had missed him.
"You have to thank your Doctor Yazdogsky, he was the one who invited me here." Alexei explained with a smile. Laika turned around and saw Vladimir and Anna looking at them with warm smiles.
"You're welcome." The Dhole said to greet him, while his wife, Anna, pulled them into the house, adding, "Now, come inside you two. It's cold out there!"
Laika quickly crossed the hallway and hugged Vladimir, "Thank you."
"Don't even mention it." The Doctor replied, ending the hug.
"Now, Anna and I are going to bed, leaving you two alone. There's a guest bedroom at the end of the hallway, next to the kitchen. You can… 'sleep' there." The Doctor added with a smirk before Anna gently elbowed him in the ribs.
"Ouch." Vladimir protested playfully, before starting to climb the stairs right after his wife.
The snow leopard and the wolf chuckled at the married couple and, when they were gone, silence fell upon them.
"So… how is everyone doing back at home?" Laika asked.
"We are doing good, thanks to you. We could even afford to take in two more kits. You are amazing, you know that, right?" Alexei replied.
Laika blushed hard, looking away from him before she spoke
"I ran away following a dream… that's what I really did…" She felt ashamed to admit that.
"Maybe… but you did so only when you knew it could save Kira and the orphanage. You could have left whenever you wanted… and yet you stayed with us. And you left for us." Alexei said and put a finger under her chin, gently lifting her face up to his, so that he could look into her eyes.
"You are the bravest mammal I know, and I love you for that." Alexei gently whispered, before kissing her.
Instinctively knowing what she wanted, Laika grabbed for his checks and kissed him back. It didn't take long, and Alexei lifted the young wolf up, wrapping her in his arms as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Without parting, Alexei walked them into the guest's bedroom, while Laika began slowly to undress him.
"I'm sorry for all this," Vladimir said, as he closed the last luggage and continued, "You and the kits have done nothing to deserve this."
Anna gently stroke his cheek.
"Don't worry. You are doing the right thing." She reassured him.
"And the kits will understand, when they'll grow older, they'll understand that their father acted as a hero. Laika… she deserves to live."
Anna then took his paws and walked the exhausted Dhole to bed.
"Sleep now. A long day awaits us tomorrow."
BRAVE MAMMALS
"Laika, wake up!"
The wolf let out an annoyed groan and blinked a couple of times. The first thing she realized was that she was naked in a bed. Someone had their paw on her shoulder and was shaking her. Laika's eyes quickly adapted to the dim light in the room, but she instantly remembered where she was and who that voice belonged to.
"DOC!" Laika shouted, sitting up and covering her body with the blankets, "What the heck?!"
Alexei, who was next to her in the same situation, clearly embarrassed, but without any option to cover himself.
"Oh, come on, don't act as I've never seen you naked. Quick, get dressed, we must go. Now!" Vladimir replied with urgency in his voice.
"Are we late for the launch?" Laika asked worried and rubbed her eyes.
"We are not going back to that place." The Dhole replied.
"What? Why?" The wolf was even more confused now.
"We don't have time, I'll explain to you later when we are far from-"
Doctor Yazdogsky couldn't finish his sentence, as a loud crash could be heard and shouting voices filled the house. In a matter of seconds, several mammals wearing the Zooviet Union army uniforms flooded the room.
Strong paws grabbed Laika, Alexei, and Vladimir. In seconds they were dragged outside in the cold, forced to kneel down in the middle of the street. Waiting for them was General Tuskenko, his face contorted in an expression of anger.
"So, you really thought you could run away just like that, without consequences." The boar said with a sneer.
"G-General, it's a big m-misunderstanding." Laika said, still naked and shivering from the cold.
"D-Doctor Yazdogsky just wanted to help-p me g-g-get a bit distracted b-before the launch."
Right then, one of the soldiers came out from the front door and threw two luggage on the ground, causing them to open and pour their contents onto the street: mainly clothes, both for adults and kits.
"Is that so? Then what were these for?" The General asked. Laika turned to the Dhole with wide eyes. The doctor had been clearly planning to run away, bringing his family and her with him.
"I wanted to save you! This mission is suicide, and he knows that!" The Dhole accused the boar.
"W-What? What does this m-mean?" Laika asked to General Tuskenko, and she felt how fear began to rise up in her.
"Why don't you tell her how you rushed the creation of the Furtnik II? How it isn't remotely equipped to adequately protect a living mammal? You are-"
"ENOUGH!" The boar shouted, extracting his gun from the holster and pointing it at the Dhole's head.
"One more word and your species will be a step closer to extinction, Vladimir."
The doctor gulped nervously. He looked over his shoulder and saw Anna and the kits looking at the scene from the doorstep. He took a deep breath, then made up his mind.
"No. I won't shut up. I won't let you sacrifice a young, brilliant wolf to your insane nationalistic ideals." He said, slowly standing up. The doctor was scared, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from defending Laika.
"Please Oleg. It's not worth it. Be patient for just a few more months, and we'll be ready for a mission with a proper spacecraft. It's all I ask for. Two months, maybe three...nothing more."
The General mused on Vladimir's words for some time but he finally turned away from him.
"Stand up." He finally said to Laika and Alexei, "And bring them something to cover themselves with." He ordered two soldiers and a relieved smile crossed the muzzles of Laika, Alexei, and Vladimir.
"Tell me, who are you?" Oleg asked the snow leopard.
"I-I'm a friend of Laika's." Alexei replied.
"Well, judging by the fact that you were both naked in the same bed, I'd say you two are more than friends." The boar chuckled.
Alexei looked at Laika, the wolf and the leopard both blushing.
"Well, I-I guess you're n-not wrong…"
"Good." The General replied and smirked.
BANG!
Alexei fell to the ground yelling in pain, a bleeding wound in his right knee. Laika shouted in shock and Vladimir was about to rush next to the leopard to treat his injury, but Oleg lifted his hoof to stop him.
"I'll put the next bullet in his head, so be careful on what your next move will be." The boar threatened.
"Oleg, you are a monster." Vladimir growled, but the General replied just with a tired gaze at the Dhole.
"Maybe I am. But I am also the kind of mammal that this country needs to save it. Nowadays, mammals have lost faith in our state. The Zooviet Union is on the brink of collapsing, and there are forces in this world, who want to see us fall into the pieces we once were. We need to show them that we are still strong. That we are still powerful. We can't afford that THEY see that we're weak." The General said, and to Laika's surprise, she saw real fear in his eyes. Whatever nonsense he was talking, he believed it.
"Forces? What are you talking about? The Zooviet Union is the only country in the world... besides us only towns and huge cities exist in this world. That's it. No one could fight us...All of this is just madness." The doctor was out of breath when he stopped speaking.
"You have no idea what's out there, Vladimir. I saw it, and I promised our president results, and you know what? I will deliver these results, for the sake of our country." Oleg said in a stoic voice.
"Are you really willing to sacrifice her life for a delusion? For a paranoia you and the president share?" Vladimir asked, disgusted and not sure if the mammal he once knew was still sane.
"This question doesn't matter right now. Only one question matters: how many lives is she willing to sacrifice to save her own?" Oleg replied with a sickening devious smile pressing his gun against Alexei's head. Just for a second, Laika's eyes went wide before she decided what she had to do.
"NO! Please, I'll come with you but don't hurt him." Laika gave in, much to the boar's pleasure.
"Laika…"
"You should take care of Alexei's wound, Doc." She said, looking at the Dhole, who saw in her eyes a scared young girl, but with the strong will to protect those close to her. The doctor nodded, and they all got on board the truck that was waiting for them.
The rest of the journey was spent in silence, except for Alexei's whines of pain. They gave him and Laika some clothes to put on, but the wolf couldn't shake off the cold: it didn't come from the outside, but rather from inside her. It was the feeling of knowing that she was nearing to her end and that she couldn't do a thing to stop; Death had taken her paw and was walking by her side.
When they arrived back to the Z.A.C. building, a group of paramedics was already waiting for them with a stretcher for Alexei.
"Please, let me go with him to say goodbye. Grant me this only request." The wolf begged Oleg.
"Fine. But I'll come with you, so no funny ideas."
The group of mammals moved to the infirmary, only to discover that two beds were already occupied, much to Laika and Vladimir's horror. Mushka and Albina were covered in bruises and cuts, and the hedgehog was even unconscious.
"Albina! What happened?" Laika asked, running at her bedside.
"He… wanted to know where you were… we told him to go fuck himself…," The vixen replied with a weak smile and a sad look.
"Apparently, it was pointless… if you are here."
"Son of a whore! This wasn't necessary!" Laika growled at Oleg.
"Please general… send me in her place…," Albina said.
"Oh, miss Zima… you are but the ghost of the proud mammal you used to be… I can't say that I've sent a weak, pathetic mammal in space " Oleg replied, giving a look of disgust to the vixen, who lowered her eyes ashamed.
That was when Laika snapped and swept his claws across the boar's face. With a roar of anger the boar stumbled backward until he slammed against one of the beds. Through his hooves, with which he tried to cover his wounded face, blood dripped slowly down on the white linoleum floor and gathered to a little puddle. The attack of Laika had opened three deep cuts on his muzzle. Three cuts everyone would clearly see for the rest of his life.
"Albina is a much better mammal than you disgusting shit will ever be," Laika shouted at the growling boar.
"Be thankful that I need you, or I would have already shot you! Damn bitch." Oleg growled and commanded some more soldiers to him, who helped him get up.
"I want you out of this room in five minutes, or I'll put an end to the suffering of all your friends." He added while he left the room.
"I'm sorry… Laika," Albina told her after a few moments. The white vixen was almost crying.
It hurt Laika to see the proud mammal like this.
"Don't be. Just… just promise me one thing: don't waste your life. You can do so many things, don't give up on them just because some idiots say you're not up to it."
Albina nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"You are an amazing mammal, Laika. I will never forget you."
"Please, don't talk to me like that, like I was already dead. I… I think I'm not strong enough to accept it just yet." Laika said with a trembling voice.
"Okay. Then see you later, Laika," Albina smiled halfheartedly. Laika knew that the vixen did her best.
"Bye, Albina." The wolf gave her a kiss on the forehead and left her with the others. Laika then turned to Alexei, whose knee had been stitched up by Vladimir.
"Don't go, please, I'm begging you! My life isn't worth yours! I… I can't lose you knowing it's because of me!"
"You know I can't say no. That mad mammal would not stop killing until I sat in that spacecraft. It's not your fault, it's mine." She said with a gentle, soothing tone, while tears dampened the fur around her eyes and cheeks.
"But know that now you live for both you and me, so enjoy every single moment you'll have to its fullest, have I been clear?"
Between sobs, Alexei only managed a nod. Laika leaned forward and kissed him deeply, for what seemed like ages, until they finally parted. It took all her remaining strength to leave that room with Vladimir, knowing where her destination would be.
"I'm sorry, Laika. I've tried my best…," the doctor said but could just look to the ground, unable to facing Laika.
"Doc, I'm sick of mammals apologizing to me. You've all been the best parts of my life, and my only regret is that I won't be able to spend more time with all of you. You've been in these few months like the father I never had, and for that, I owe you a big thank you." She said with her voice cracking, hugging him tightly. Vladimir hugged her back, tears flowing from his eyes as well.
"I'll be with you until the end of the line, I swear."
Laika let out a trembling exhale. She had put on her spacesuit, only the helmet was missing; the wolf was holding it in her paws, looking at her reflection on its glass.
Her whole body was shaking: all of her instincts were screaming
"RUN!"
But she couldn't do that, she knew how much lives depended on her.
"Less than ten minutes until the launch. Are you ready, Laika?" the General's impatient voice came from a speaker in the room. A last deep exhale escaped her before she put on the helmet and fixated it. Just as planned, the oxygen supply in the tanks on her back kicked in.
"Yes, I'm coming out now." She replied through the microphone built in the helmet.
Laika opened the doors and found herself outside on the runway: a long, narrow road of concrete. On the other end, her spacecraft was waiting for her. The Furtnik II was a silver cone of metal, mounted on top of a huge rocket which would make possible for the satellite to leave the orbit. It resembled a huge obelisk: her own monumental funerary monument.
She walked straight toward it. On either side of the concrete road were journalist and photographers. All of them just here to immortalize the historic moment. Laika wondered if some of them knew that they were looking at a mammal walking toward their death. Probably not.
Laika arrived in front of the metal ladder on the side of the rocket and began to climb it, peg after peg. Her fear was growing, but so was another feeling: excitement.
She couldn't help but feel excited about what she was about to do, although it would cost her everything.
Laika reached the top and opened the airlock on the side of the Furtnik, entered it and closed it behind her. The inside was pretty similar to the cubes she had trained in, except it had a padded seat and a circular porthole on one side.
Laika sat herself in, fastened the seatbelts and pressed a few buttons and switches, which turned on the communication devices and a monitor on her left.
"Laika to mission control, do you read me?"
"Here mission control, we can hear you loud and clear. Your suit is also transmitting all your vitals. Everything is okay, so far." replied the familiar voice of doctor Yazdogsky.
"We are about to begin the launch, in less than five minutes."
Without lying, Laika was sure that this would be the five longest minutes in her whole life. Right then, she wanted to either run away or be over with it quickly.
"One minute until the launch," Victor said into the comm, his voice cracking, "All systems are working. Starting the countdown. 59… 58… 57…"
Each number felt like a punch in her gut: silent tears began to ran down her cheeks.
10..
9…
8…
7…
6…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
Her whole world began to rumble, and her ears were filled with the deafening roar of the rocket's engine coming alive. When the rocket started to rise, she was flattened against the seat by the crushing force of the acceleration.
Outside the small window, everything was a blur, but that didn't matter, as she couldn't keep her eyes open.
But the worst came a few seconds later: an alarm went off, but Laika barely noticed it. The blaring sound was covered by the terrible screams of pain as the wolf felt as if her body was set on fire.
"What's going on?!" Victor asked, his voice was filled with terror.
"SOMEBODY TALK TO ME!" He demanded, towering above the agonizing cries of the wolf that echoed through the mission control room. The Dhole was staring at a monitor in front of him, showing the vitals of Laika: her heartbeat was off the charts.
"T-The cooling system failed," Answered a technician, pale and trembling from the shock.
"She is receiving all the heat straight from the rocket."
"Turn off the audio from the Furtnik." General Tuskenko ordered.
"WHAT?!" The Dhole roared.
"Her screams are disturbing the mammals working here. Turn. Off. The Audio." The boar growled menacingly and touched one of the cuts, he had received not long ago from the dying wolf.
Victor walked up to the boar, who was twice his size and stared at him, "No. I won't. I'm going to be with Laika until her last breath, and I don't care if this screams will haunt you for the rest of-ARGH!"
The canid fell to his knees, spitting blood. The General had hit him with his hoof on his face.
"Stay down, dog." The boar spat on the ground, almost as of disgusted by the weakness he saw in the doctor. But Victor stood back up, although on shaking legs.
"N-no."
The boar snarled and was about to hit him again when a gun clicked behind him.
Oleg turned around and saw that one of his soldiers, a raccoon dog, was pointing his weapon against him.
"Sir, I'll have to ask you to step away from doctor Yazdogsky."
"Private Korsakoff, put down your weapon, or I'll have you arrested for insubordination!" General Tuskenko shouted.
"Actually, Sir, you should do what he says." A second soldier replied, pointing his gun too at the boar. It didn't take long, and all the soldiers in the room had joined private Korsakoff.
"She is dying for her country, just like many of our companions did back then in the revolution." The raccoon dog said and made a break before he ended. "She won't die alone."
"You'll all regret this." General Tuskenko said, but he stepped aside, raising his hooves.
Right at that moment, the cries of pain stopped, and silence fell onto the room.
"Is she…?" Private Korsakoff asked in a grave tone.
Vladimir rushed back to the monitor.
"No, she is still alive...barely."
"The rocket detached seconds ago, she is in orbit now," The same technician as before, a bear, explained, "The temperature inside the satellite has dropped a bit... but it's still terribly high."
Laika was wheezing.
The heat… The heat was terrible. With a trembling arm, she opened the small locker with the food supplies: even through the suit, the metal almost burned her paw.
But the jelly bars, the same she had eaten during her trainings in the cubes, were sizzling against the metallic surface.
She couldn't eat those.
But she wanted some water. She NEEDED IT.
She opened the small infirmary and found what she was looking for: a small ice pack.
Grunting, she removed her helmet, which began to float around in the cramped space, and tore the ice pack open with her teeth, causing a few drops of the blue liquid to join her helmet.
The refrigerant within it was disgusting and far from frozen but was still the coldest thing in that ship.
She sucked it eagerly, remembering Victor had told her it was non-toxic, and it gave a small relief from the heat.
"Laika, can you hear me?"
The wolf pressed the red button on the right armrest to activate the satellite communication system since she was no longer wearing the helmet with the mic in it; even that small gesture left her drained.
"Y-yeah, Victor," She weakly replied.
"She's still alive! Let's bring her back home. If we start immediately, then we maybe have the chance…" Victor shouted with joy, as everybody cheered, but he was cut off in the middle of the sentence by Oleg. The boar sat on the ground and held his head with his hooves.
"You can't."
Once more, silence fell over all the mammals in the room, when they heard his words. Everyone stopped working and turned towards the boar. With wide eyes, Yazdogsky stepped in front of the General. His breathing was shallow, and like everyone else in the room, he hoped that the words of the boar were just a mistake.
"What do you mean by that?! She did what you wanted! She's the first mammal who went to space! And even if the re-entry might kill her, it's still a better option than leaving her to die of overheating!"
"The satellite is not equipped with a de-orbit mechanism, it never was… and it was never supposed have one. Not so early in its development." He simply replied.
"W-What?" Victor felt his legs almost give away., "N-No...it's impossible… no one would have allowed it…"
"I compartmentalized the construction of the Furtnik. Each team was working on a different part of the satellite, knowing only the general blueprint of it, but not what the other teams were working on."
The boar didn't show any trace of remorse as he explained how he had sentenced Laika to her death.
"Why?! WHY?!" Victor cried out, his voice filled with anger. He grabbed a nearby stool and slammed it against the boar's face, and began to hit him over and over again until two soldiers tackle him and dragged him away. The Dhole panted heavily and asked in a defeated tone, "Why?"
"Do you still not understand it, Vladimir? Exploring the space was never our goal. We needed a rocket that was able to reach the orbit." Oleg replied, spitting out one of his teeth, before he continued, "This whole, first mammal in space thing, was just a cover-up for our first intercontinental ballistic missile. The mammals of this world just saw a big historical event. One more step in the great development of mammalkind...but for the Zooviet Union, it was about sending a message. And I'm sure the receiver understood it."
For a brief moment, Yazdogsky didn't know what to say before he began to laugh bitterly, "They, heh? Hahaha...Your and the parties delusion about imaginary enemies that can destroy a country like the Zooviet Union."
Calm and with a knowing smile on his face, the General asked back, "Vladimir, why do you think there are no other countries in this world? Just a lot of cities who live more or less peaceful together? Tell me why?"
"There were other countries...," The doctor began but was interrupted by the General, "Yes! In the past and they all failed! But the Zooviet Union will not fail...not as long as I am alive."
"You sacrificed a young life, just to sending a message? And what should this great message be?"
"No matter where they are or what they do, we can strike back at any point of this planet." The General replied with a determined smile, which crumbled in seconds after he heard the words of the doctor. "So you know where 'they' are?"
"No… but we will," the General replied stoic and looked to the ground. He knew that he had lost the argument to the doctor. Vladimir Yazdogsky had enough of strange conspiracy theories and even stranger plans of mammals who were obviously drunk of their own power and ideology, blinded by enemies who did not exist. But Laika was real and dying, she needed him right now more than anyone else.
"All of this for nothing, Oleg. You sacrificed her just like that...Next time, play with your own life and not the one of an innocent mammal." He bitterly replied, turning back to the screen and pressing the button to activate the microphone.
"Laika, do you copy?"
"Y-Yes."
"We… We can't bring you back home… I… I' m…," the doctor couldn't control himself anymore, and his body began to shake violently when he started to cry.
"It's 'kay, Doc," There was a moment of silence, "You should see it."
"W-What?" Victor asked, sniffing and drying his eyes.
"Our planet. It's beautiful from up here." Her voice was weak, barely audible, but everyone in the room listened carefully to Laika's words. The heartbeat on the monitor was slowly dying down.
"C-Can you tell me what is it like?" Victor replied, tears dampening the fur around his eyes. He wanted to distract her as she drifted off.
"It's green. And blue…. there's so much blue… I see the sun… It's… It's about to rise on you…"
"T-That must be stunning to see," No one dared to speak. No one but the wolf and the dhole.
"Yeah… I'd... I'd like to… to hear a song. That… that would… be great…"
There were several seconds of silence, then Victor began to sing. It was a lullaby, one he used to sang to his kits. His voice was sweet, warm and kind.
When he stopped singing, silence fell once again in the room.
"You… have a beautiful… voice…"
"T-Thank you…"
"Victor… I'm scared… I ca… I can't keep my… eyes open… I… I tried to resist…"
"I know. You are a brave mammal. You can rest now." Victor soothed her.
"Will… you… stay… with… me?"
"Absolutely. I'll be here."
"Than… Thank you…"
Those were Laika's final words. Her heart kept beating for seven more hours, but she never woke up again. But during all that time, Victor remained there. Until her final heartbeat.
"Goodbye, Laika."
NOTES:
Yeah...
Not a happy ending, but you knew it was going to happen, right?
Anyway,sorry for the long wait!
No excuses: it was my fault, I left writing on a pause because I had more pressing thing concerning my life that needed my attention
But you guys deserved my time as well.
So I can only hope that the wait was worth it.
ah, almost forgot, the story has now a cover, drawn by yours truly!
Check it out on my DeviantArt account!
Also, this isn't quite the ending of the journey...