Katya's War (Russalka Chronicles) by Jonathan L. Howard Page B

stooped that low.”
    “The Leviathan ,” said Katya with pointed emphasis.
    Kane winced. “Yes. That’s true. The Leviathan . But something went wrong with it. It wasn’t supposed to kill everyone. Just destroy any military capability. What the Feds are planning is genocide. Cold-blooded mass murder. Slavery or extermination. This is your government planning this, Katya. This is happening in your name.”
    Katya turned to Tasya. “What are you doing about it, your government?”
    Tasya pointed at the intelligence report. “We have warning. The Feds may have the numbers, but we’ve always had the technological edge. We’ll have fusion warheads by the time they do. If they attack the Enclaves with these weapons, we will destroy their settlements. If they want total war, they can have it.”
    Katya shook her head. “This is crazy. This is all crazy. Are you seriously saying this war has to end with us all killing one another? I can’t… Over a century we’ve fought the planet just to survive, we fought the Grubbers when they tried to take it away from us, and you’re saying it’s all as good as over? We were our own worst enemies the whole time? No. No, I can’t accept that. We’re not that stupid.” The others were just looking at her. “We are not that stupid!”
    She was angry now. Angry with them, angry with all this secret agent rubbish, but most of all she was angry because she had an ugly feeling gnawing away inside her that the Russalkin were more than capable of cutting their own throats rather than back down over a matter of pride.
    Of course, all this still left one very large question.
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    Kane and Tasya exchanged glances. Katya realised that this was not a courtesy visit to tell her all this, or just to say hello and chat.
    “We think we have a solution.” Katya looked at him suspiciously. Considering he was claiming to have found a way to prevent humans becoming nearly extinct on the planet, he didn’t seem very happy about it. “But, you’re not going to like it.”
    “Try me.”
    So Kane told her.
     
    An hour later Katya was back at the pens. Sergei was relieved to see her, but wisely decided not to say anything when he saw her face. She was clearly furious, fighting furious. Deadly pale and fists clenched, she had shot him a glance that would blister anti-fouling paint and said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Instead she entered the Lukyan , and sat down in the left hand seat, the pilot’s seat, her uncle’s seat. Sergei looked at her back, her shoulders heaving with heavy breaths. “I’ll be in the dock cafe, OK?” he said cautiously. She said nothing. With misgivings, Sergei left.
    Katya sat at the helm and looked at the darkness of the Lukyan ’s pen. She was glad of the observation bubble’s anti-reflective coating; she had no great desire to see her face there, illuminated by the glow from the screens, appearing to float like a drowned phantom in the water. She especially had no desire to see how she felt – angry, depressed, and terribly, terribly confused. She felt ugly inside her head, and it would just make her day if she looked it, too.
    How could this war, this stupid little war, actually be even more dangerous than that against the Terrans? How could some silly homespun conflict fuelled by self-righteousness and point scoring have turned more deadly than a bona fide invasion from space?
    The war against Earth had been intense, furious, a new turning point every day, whereas this spat with the Yagizba Enclaves was only slightly more interesting than the fish prices. Specific incidents were barely reported, just the steady drumbeat of “We’re at war and we’ll win after a while” in the news reports. Either the news was deliberately skipping many stories, or the figures Kane had showed her was a lie. She frowned hard enough to close her eyes. They were all such liars. Who could tell?
    The yoke felt reassuring under her