Chapter 12
Sr. Lt. Vladimir Anikeyev awoke early, went to the kitchen to eat breakfast before anyone else, and then found paper and an envelope in the small study that had been used as an office. He wrote a short letter.
Cousin Anya,
I hope this letter finds its way to you, although I do not have a high level of confidence that may occur. I’m writing this on paper as all forms of electronic communication have been unavailable to me this past week. I am not a prisoner, but I am going away and do not expect to see any family or friends in the future. So this written note is probably more for my mental health, hoping I can close a few open gaps in my recent family history.
I was one of the pilots that attacked the alien site in Kremenchuk, Ukraine on 25 April. I can’t imagine you haven’t seen a cast about it, so I won’t revisit those details. Suffice it to say that I survived the attack, unlike many of my less fortunate colleagues.
We are now being given a mission to attempt to infiltrate the alien ship directly, as part of the initial group of volunteers to go to the new planet. As mentioned before, I have many reasons I do not expect to return from that mission. As you are the only family I am aware of, I want to let someone know that I will do my best to honor the Anikeyev name. I hope the uncertainty of this moment will pass and that you may find a future of safety and purpose.
Respectfully yours,
Cousin Vladimir Nikolaevich Anikeyev
Vladimir wrote his cousin’s name and what he recalled as her last residence on the front of the envelope, with the message “Please help this message find its way to the person named on the front of this envelope” written in Ukrainian on the back. He then folded the letter, placed it in the envelope and returned to his room, where put the sealed envelope in his knapsack and packed some clothes and toiletries on top of it.
By the time he emerged from his room, the other two temporary occupants of the house were in the kitchen having their own breakfast. Vladimir walked past the entry to the kitchen and stepped outside the side door of the house to watch the sunrise on this brisk, early May morning.
After a minute, the side door opened and one of the two people that Vladimir passed in the kitchen poked his head outside.
“Don’t worry, Kryuchkov,” Lt. Anikeyev said, not even looking at the other man. “I’m not running away. I decided to enjoy what I imagine will be my final view of a sunrise. I’ll be waiting here for you and Captain Litvak to come outside so you can see us both off on our journey.”
The other man didn’t respond. He simply watched the Air Force pilot for a moment, then leaned back inside the house and closed the door.
Twenty minutes passed while Vladimir saw the sun come fully into view over the horizon, and listened to the birdsong increase in volume while the parents were busy collecting insects and feeding their hatchlings.
The side door to the house opened again. This time a woman stepped out.
“Dobroye utro,” she said to Vladimir.
“Good morning to you as well, Captain Litvak,” Lt. Anikeyev said.
“Please… Katya,” Yekaterina Litvak said in a slightly resigned voice. “And what are your thoughts this morning?” she then asked her fellow pilot.
“That I didn’t spend enough time appreciating the natural world during my time on this planet,” Vladimir said, continuing to look to the east and trying to locate the birds in their nests.
Katya also turned her gaze to the east. “I may not agree with everything you say, Vladimir, but I will definitely agree with you on that point.”
They both stood in silence, watching the dawn turn into day.
After a few minutes, the third person that had been staying with them the past few days came out again.
“So I believe now is a good time to depart, if you please,” said Oleg Kryuchkov.
Neither Vladimir nor Katya responded to the man, continuing to look at the early morning sky instead.
“Did I see you both had a bag ready inside the door?” the handler asked.
After a brief pause, Vladimir sighed, walked past the man and stepped inside the house. He came back out with two backpacks, handing one to his companion.
“Thank you, Vladimir,” Katya said, taking the bag and slinging it over her shoulder.
“Very good,” Kryuchkov said. “I’ll lead the way.”
The three left the yard of the small house and began walking down the gravel road. The two pilots walked slowly at first, letting the third man get some distance ahead which would allow them some moderate privacy in their conversation as they walked, not that they were talking at this point.
They continued ahead, with Kryuchkov glancing back every now and then to confirm his companions were still following.
After about a half-kilometer, the female pilot spoke up. “I still have a hard time dealing with what happened and how we got here. I don’t know why everything we tried was so unsuccessful.”
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Vladimir replied. “And we encountered a powerful magic seven days ago.”
“So now you are quoting American writers from the last century to be philosophical?” Katya commented. “We both know magic is nothing more than tricks played on the unsuspecting minds. I know what I saw and was simply trying to get you to open up a bit more before we, …, well, … before we arrive at our next destination.”
“The slave stockade? The slaughter house? The specimen collection site?” Vladimir offered. “or are you thinking they’ve changed their minds and Kryuchkov is going to turn around and give us tickets to the next transbus leaving for Moscow?”
“Does nothing about what happened last week make you sad or angry about the loss of our compatriots?” Cap. Litvak asked sharply.
“I’m not sad or angry about what happened to them,” Lt. Anikeyev answered. “Our fellow pilots had a more honorable outcome than we did. I’m angry we didn’t follow their examples.”
“They are dead! And we are alive!” Katya nearly spat out. “Did you not see what happened to them?”
“Of course I saw what happened to them! Do you think I am blind?” Vladimir replied loudly.
Their watcher for the past five days paused and turned around to look at them. The two pilots stopped walking as well when they saw this. After a moment, Kryuchkov turned back around and began down the road again.
“My apologies, Captain,” Lt. Anikeyev said. “I am angry and I’m letting the anger infect my body more than any virus the aliens are preparing for us. I replay the attack over in my head a dozen times each day.
“Every missile we launched landed well short of their target once their guidance and propulsion systems had been disabled. I watched my friend Aleks as his plane spiraled out of control and crashed when it also was affected. And of the other three pilots that lost control of their craft, two were able to eject. Senior Lieutenant Raspopova died when her parachute didn’t deploy, and Captain Gastello wasn’t able to leave the scene due to the injury he received upon landing.
“I’m glad the jets in Wave Two had been recalled once it was clear what was happening to our first wave. I just wish the missile launch order had not been given to the TU-240s when they were still ten kilometers distance from their target. I saw the nuclear-tipped missiles speeding towards us as I was coming down in my parachute, and I was convinced that the mushroom cloud would do to me what the aliens didn’t. However, at two kilometers from their target, the same occurrence happened to the missiles as happened to the jets. Propulsion stopped, the missles began wobbling a bit, but then something different occurred. After a couple of seconds of free-fall, the missles seemed to collapse in on themselves, with the shell casing and internal materials seemingly disappearing and – thankfully for all involved – no fallout from the nuclear materials.
“The missiles were ineffective and the jets all crashed to the ground except for two. I actually saw what happened to one of those planes. I saw the leader of my Red Group, Captain Abramovich, flying his jet on a glide pattern despite all of the electronics and computer controls being disabled. I wasn’t surprised, since I had heard of the Captain’s legendary ‘stick’ skills at flying by manual control. I recognized the path the plane was taking, and it gave me a momentary surge of pride knowing my Captain was staying true to his target. Still, I was filled with deep sadness that this great pilot was ending his career and his life on a suicide path into the alien craft. But both emotions were shortly overcome by shock as the jet collapsed like a thin aluminum can. That is seared into my brain – the image of Abramovich’s jet imploding as it approached the spacecraft.
“The one thing I took solace from was the final craft I hadn’t accounted for. I saw the path of the last pilot in Wave One. You, Captain Litvak. I’m told you were actually able to glide your jet to an old, unused airstrip north of the city and once your wheels hit the pavement, the jet skidded and broke a wing as it came to a stop, but you were able to get away from the plane and detonate the self-destruct explosives to attempt to ‘hide’ any directly incriminating evidence. I wasn’t close enough to see the explosion up close, but I heard it from a distance and imagine the blast was pretty spectacular when the missiles remaining in the jet’s payload also exploded.”
“And that entire sequence repeats in my head nearly every hour,” Sr. Lt. Anikeyev finished, turning to look at his walking companion. “Isn’t it the same for you, Yekaterina?”
She looked at him with sadness in her eyes, turned her gaze to the ground in front of them, and took a deep breath.
“I recall some of it,” the Captain said. “But once my aircraft stopped responding and all my controls and monitors went dark, I focused on trying to control my plane. I only partially saw what happened to the other aircraft, and did not see what became of the nuclear missiles whatsoever. Like Captain Abromovich I was focused on directing my plane into the alien craft on the ground. But when his aircraft imploded, I became fearful and decided to protect my own skin rather than be crushed like Abromovich.”
Vladimir responded reassuringly, “You made a wise choice, Katya. You most certainly would have ended up like poor Abromovich, and then who would I have to accompany me on my final walk?”
“You are resourceful, Vladimir,” Katya replied. “You made it to the safehouse in disguise.”
“And you, again, are being needlessly polite,” Vladimir stated. “It took me an entire day to make my way to the safe house. Most of that time was spent the first day finding a place to hide out and then staying out of sight. The things a person thinks are so important in times of stress! I remembered reading a book where the hero stole an outfit from a farm house so he could ‘blend in’ with the locals. I left my flight suit next to the parachute and scrambled as fast as I could to get far away before people started showing up. I took too many risks that afternoon, thinking back on it. Sure I hid in the woods, but after I saw some people leaving a house a few hours later, I went inside, found some men’s clothing to change into, and then ran back into the woods. It was overnight by the time I made it to the drop spot, which was three hours after you arrived, I’m told.”
“It doesn’t matter when you arrived,” Captain Litvak said. “All that was a week ago. We made it here to the safehouse, we have new identification papers, and we passed ourselves as part of a local construction crew all week.”
“You have what sounds like to me to be a perfect Ukrainian accent, Captain,” Lt. Anikeyev said. “I had to pretend to be a Russian immigrant, which wasn’t that much of a challenge. But I’m done pretending. The only time I felt comfortable all week was when they took us to the real construction site to join the work crew for those two days. And that was ruined when we finally received our orders for the next assignment.”
“We should be honored to be considered for this assignment,” Yekaterina said. “This will be the ….”
“… the most important mission we could ever undertake,” Vladimir interrupted.
The Air Force Captain glared at him.
“I’m sorry for interrupting, Captain,” he responded with a slightly apologetic look. “It’s that not having aircraft controls in my hands as part of a mission makes me feel out of control. And all that talk that Kryuchkov has about us infiltrating the initial group of volunteers to board the alien ship in a few days sounds so unbelievable! He can have me review all of the potential layouts of the alien craft, have me study memory aid techniques that will help me remember hundreds of details about an image, dozens of turns along a path, and long numeric sequences I can regurgitate this information to him upon a later debrief, and talk about techniques for identifying other ‘friendly agents’ seems like pretend play. I am who I am, and giving me fake papers and a pretend new name won’t change that.”
“You were selected for multiple reasons for not only the attack and also for whatever would come next,” Katya said. “You are intelligent, cunning, and have had the priority course on espionage this past week. You are ready.”
“I’m ready to be handed over to become a prisoner of war,” Vladimir said.
“So why are you resisting this mission, Vanko?”, she asked him.
“Please do not call me ‘Vanko’,” he quickly replied, staring her straight in the eyes. “It is embarrassing enough that we are being told to be brave spies who will now make things right for Mother Russia by our actions. I refuse to accept this foreign name as part of this pretend act.” And with that, Vladimir picked up his pace to get ahead of his companion.
Katya would not be left behind and quickly caught up and matched his step. “Yes, I agree what they are asking is not what we have been trained for and not where we excel. But you recall what Coronel Gromov said at the briefing, ‘We have a new foe before us, and the procedures we have become accustomed to must be revisited and revised.'”
Vladimir stopped his brisk pace and faced his partner with an annoyed look. “This is not a new procedure, Captain. This is a suicide mission as soon as they find out who we are. At best, this is an excuse to turn us into prisoners of war for the aliens.”
“This is surely not a suicide mission, Vank – sorry – Vladimir,” Katya corrected herself. “Kryuchkov assured us they have contacts who already secured our ability to enter past the perimeter fence around the alien ship. It is up to us to ensure we present ourselves as the proper role models that make us desirable candidates to be selected for the voyage to the new planet.”
“Not a suicide mission!”, Vladimir practically shouted. “You just said we’re to be shipped off to a new planet! How do we live on a new planet? Will there be food we can eat? Water to drink? Even air to breathe?”
Now it was Katya’s turn to pause and look a bit unsure.
Vladimir calmed a bit, “Look, I have always been proud about the role I have in the Russian armed services. I’ve never doubted my purpose, and the place that the Air Force has in protecting – even guiding – the Russian people. Every mission I’ve been given has a purpose that furthers our national goals and helps make our country stronger. But I have never been trained to perform in-person intelligence gathering, I have never participated in any joint-exercises with intelligence officers or operatives, or even flown craft in a real-world intelligence gathering mission. Have you?”
He didn’t wait for her response. “I would not feel comfortable telling this to anyone but my friends, but since you are now my default “best friend”, I guess you should know. I don’t trust the spies. They are a disrespect to the people of our nation. Russia had a long history of self-sufficiency, of innovative ideas, of its ability to thrive, advance and take control where and when needed.”
“Just look at how spies emphasize the weaknesses of other countries.” He was now sounding like a professor from the Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky Military Academy. “The United States and the Western Europeans like to push the idea that their spies were simply a holdover from 100 years past history, but they are scared of their continued decline and want to learn how other countries are overtaking them. The Chinese still follow the path of stealing the ideas, successes and strategies that others developed and then rush out cheaper and inferior versions. The African nations with their own intelligence services? They are simply doing the work for the Chinese, as any of their findings are copied and sent to Beijing from all of the computers and electronics they bought from China.”
Vladimir’s tone turned a bit more sour. “I know Russia needs its own intelligence service to maintain awareness of the global situation. But the idea that it would play such a vital role in this case, and the ease at which the Air Force seemed to hand over control to the spies makes me -“, he paused, turned to the side, and then looked Katya defiantly in her eyes, “It makes me nauseous!” At which point Vladimir turned his head the other direction and spat on the ground.
Katya was unsure what to say, so she simply stared back at Vladimir, not saying anything.
Finally, she asked him “So what will you do now?”
Vladimir replied, “We have a mission to complete.” He turned towards the direction of the alien craft, and continued walking towards it without saying another word.