Within the belly of the ocean-launched heavy-lift cargo vehicle, battalion commander Colonel Pavel Mirsky listened to the technicians of Orbital Sentry Platform Three refueling the tanks surrounding and below the cramped aft compartment, preparing them for the next step of the journey.
Mirsky had learned to enjoy weightlessness; it reminded him of skydiving. He had spent so much time falling from airplanes (and floating in the bellies of falling airplanes) in Mongolia and near Tyuratam—and experiencing the real thing during his training in orbit—that weightlessness seemed only natural. The same could not be said for many of his men. Fully a third were in the throes of desperate space sickness. The three tight, stuffy compartments, stacked atop one another along the heavy-lifter’s centerline, had not been designed for comfort.
The orange bulkheads and dark green quilted pads snapped over most surfaces did little to make anyone feel secure.
The troops had already spent twenty hours in confinement.
In that time they had been subjected to the stress of lift-off and now weightlessness. The motion sickness medicines had turned out to be long passed their shelf life, pharmaceutical antiques in plastic bottles.
Mirsky took such things in stride and offered what support to his men that he could.
“What do you think of history now, eh, Viktor?” he asked his deputy commander, Major Viktor Garabedian.
“Fuck history,” Garabedian said, waving his hand listlessly. “Shoot me now and get it over with.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Fuck health.”
“Drink some water. Yes, and fuck it, too, if you wish.”
They hung in their slings in the forward compartment, surrounded by the smells of sickness and tension and the sounds of men trying to be quiet, lying in their slings, some eating out of ration pouches and tubes, most not.
When they had launched out of the Indian Ocean, just over the southern extremity of the Carpenter Ridge, they had used a slot scheduled for resupply of a near-earth Sentry platform.
They were the fourth of seven heavy-lifters, one launched from the Moon. The seven bore the code names Zil, Chalka, Zhiguli, Volga, Rolls-Royce, Chevy and Cadillac. Three of the heavy-lifters, including Volga, their own, carried generals code-named Zev, Lev, and Nev, after a popular comedy dance troup. Six of the ships carried two hundred men and the small arms and contingency supplies they would need if they succeeded in the first part of their mission. The seventh Zhiguli—carried heavy artillery, extra supplies and fifty technicians.
If they did not succeed, there would be no need for more supplies.
If they did, they would be able to live for years without support from Earth or Moon. So the tacticians had claimed, based on their intelligence.
Mirsky wondered about details that had not been included in his briefings. The method of entry seemed logical enough; there was only one way in, and one way out, both the same.
The heavy-lifters were masked, supposedly difficult to detect—great dark bloated cones topped by three blisters containing the cockpit and weapons. Leading surfaces of the vehicles were armored beneath their disposable heat-diffusing panels. The armor had been covered with reflective anti-laser shields. How much that would help them as they entered the very throat of the beast best not to think about that.
He shut his eyes to review their actions once they had entered.
Each of them carried a lightweight spacesuit in a plastic bag; bulky helmet strapped to one side with coiled and tied connectors; backpack with two hours’ oxygen and battery power; and in another bag, a parachute and a folded aerodynamic shield. Each also had a kit containing small vapor propellant rocket. The rockets had three nozzles only a few centimeters across, aimed radially outward when attached to the bottom of the backpacks. They were controlled by buttons on flexible cords that laced through loops and fit into pockets just below the gloves. The nozzles in their plastic packages were folded inward and the propellant sloshed gently when moved.
So equipped, clutching their laser dries and Kalashnikov AKV-297 vacuum projectile weapons (just machine guns with bigger clips and folding stocks, modified not to jam in airless condition) they proposed to win back the honor and historical place of the Soviet Union and its concerned allies. Not that their briefings had included such phrases—no leader would ever admit that honor and place had been lost.
Mirsky was a practical man, however.
In the half-darkness, another man began retching miserably.
Perhaps they would be over it in a day or so. That is what the medical experts had told them; no worse than the first few days on a troop ship. Russians had spent enough time in space that what the experts said had to be based in fact.
He tugged on his sling. When the time came, it would convert into a harness. They would all be hitched to the dispersal trolley and pushed, one by one, out of the ship. From that point on, they would be free agents until they gathered within the Potato—the Stone.
Mirsky wondered how the bore hole was defended, and what lay beyond.
Details were tantalizingly specific while the overview remained sketchy; they had been told the absolute minimum necessary to let them do their work.
No objective in orbit had ever been assaulted by troops before.
There was no way of knowing or even guessing everything that could go wrong.
Not that any soldier had ever expected to live through a battle.
In the Great War, his grandfather had died along the river Bug when Hitler’s troops had made their first crossing, and of course there was Kiev ...
Russians knew how to die.