The lumbering transport took to the skies with a groan betraying its age and many miles. Despite the many hours at sea, Akula still had to steady himself on the nearby crates as Arkady pulled the beast into a steep ascent. The rattle of chains and grunts of effort could be heard as their prisoners also tried to keep themselves upright. One of Orchid’s team forgot to steady themselves and fell into his comrade, earning a bark of Ukrainian laughter from across the hold.
Despite the rough ascent, the Il-76 soon settled into its stride, letting those who could move about do so. Akula watched his team settle themselves for the long trip, keeping his own sentry spot by the crate of vodka. Nosorog stayed close to him, slowly draining the pilfered bottle and occasionally spinning it as if reading invisible text. Volk and Grizli had pulled up smaller tool-chests and settled into a game of durak while also keeping their attention on Captain Sum directly. Every time they looked at the Korean officer, the bloodied man would raise his jaw in defiance. And everytime he did, the Ukrainian would grab his crotch and flip Sum off.
“Stupid bastard…” Nosorog uttered below his breath after one instance, surprisingly clear despite the nearly-empty bottle in his hands.
Akula followed the Chechen’s eyes through the bottle’s reflection to the defiant Captain Sum. “He’s the second Korean Grizli has pointed toward his cock. Maybe he has a type?”
“Not that fucker, you dumb fucker. I mean you. You, Solomon, Lisus, everyone in this flying prison. We’re handing them right back to where they want to be.” Nosorog stated with a whispered roar of frustration.
“You’d rather we leave them to rot underground, like they did Sova?” Akula countered. Or like how many of our shared brothers and sisters during the Wars?
Nosorog had to chew on that response for a moment, which caused the larger man to retreat inward and step away from Akula. Wondering if it was the alcohol or the claustrophobia, Akula let the matter go for now, Because the last thing that bastard needs to do is get black-out drunk before we even start working…
After a few hours, or possibly days, given the windowless airborne tomb they were confined to, the world around them lurched suddenly to the right. Akula instinctively grabbed the nearest secured object to keep upright. Several small items clattered from the front of the line, and Akula heard the nurse attending Il-Sung Ri swear.
Orchid remained in her nest in the cockpit, forced to stay near the old pilot instead of staying in the hold with the grunts in order to conduct whatever business she was doing. Akula cared little for that, though kept his suspicions high.
Orchid’s personal team had congregated at the aft end of the transport, keeping their distance from Akula’s team. The tell-tale aroma of cheap carcinogens told Akula one of them kept their cigarettes, and Akula could see Volk staring hard at them in desire. How else does one stay warm in the Motherland’s eastern bosom?
Only when something hit his foot did Akula break his concentration. Looking down, he saw an ophthalmoscope and picked it up. On its heels came the attending nurse, a woman easily a decade his senior and with the ashen eyes of someone who’s seen more blood than sunlight. Combined with their distinctively not-Slavic shape, Akula had to guess where her family line came from.
“How’s he holding up?” Akula queried. If I’m being sent to the ass-end of nowhere because of him, I need to know it’s worth it.
“Stable enough. Not that it’ll matter. They’ll probably kill him for getting caught.” She replied with a shrug. “Those damn Koreans still use leeches and old folk horseshit.”
“Experience?”
She nodded. “Not my first time there. Mother’s Korean, made it easy for the company to recruit me, since I speak Munhwao better than the bitch running this mission.”
He snorted a laugh at that. “So why go back? Do you miss it?”
Her eyes hardened. “She does, keeps asking me for anything I get from her homeland. A picture, a dammed blade of grass. Fuck, I could bring her a bag of air and she’d be happy if I said the Dear Leader shit near it.”
“But you don’t want to?” Akula retorted, picking up the anger in her words.
“I don’t understand it. That place traded her to Khrushchev for weapons, so all the brass took their turns on her…” she growled, then looked surprised at her own tone.
You didn’t expect to share that with a complete stranger, did you? How long has it been since you’ve talked to a conscious person? Akula surmised, deciding not to press that issue further. “Must be good money to put you here with us.”
She looked over her shoulder to her charge, then to Volk and Grizli who were standing closest. After a moment’s thought, she sighed. “It’s okay. It’s better to know that once this is done, I’ll not be going back.”
Akula raised an eyebrow to that. “Last mission with the company?”
She nodded, “Last on this side of this earth. Next, I go to Cuba and never leave the shade of my goddamn tropical trees again. Haven’t been there since the Union fell.”
Akula nodded. “My wife has been to Havana, says it’s beautiful beyond compare.”
This time, the nurse raised her eyebrow, “You didn’t like it?”
“Never been. I prefer the warmth of the fire.” Akula admitted.
“Of course you’d be a Northener…fucking yetis.” She grumbled with the hint of a smile. “Marianna Kurnovich Dobrow.”
“Akula”, he replied. He had no doubt Orchid’s men already knew his full name anyway, as did his own team, so the need for discretion with his true name was lessened. He had little doubt others in his place would slip and reveal their real names, but Akula’s hesitance had come honestly through fire and blood.
Marianna reached into her sun-dulled white coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to him. “Not the cheap shit, brought these from Novosibirsk.”
A second hand reached for one as Nosorog injected himself into the conversation. Instinctively, Marianna pulled her hand back, before thinking better of it and handing it back again. “Old habits, Chechen. I did my first tour in Alkhan-Yurt during the wars.”
Nosorog’s eyes widened a little. “I was born in Alkhan-Kala.”
Marianna’s expression darkened. “Were you there for…?”
“The purge operation? No, my mother had taken us to Grozny before that. My father stayed to fight.” Nosorog scowled, his face becoming the hardest mask of stone Akula had ever seen the Chechen wear. “He was a bastard.”
“Everyone was back then.” She replied.
“So why come into this company?” Akula asked directly. Because there’s what your file says, there’s what Pasha’s said, but what do you say, Timur?
Nosrog took a long drag from a freshly-lit cigarette, staring at the embers in the end like he intended to eat them. “Because Chechnya is wrong. What it is now is ugly and rotten.”
The level of contempt and disgust Nosorog spoke with was even beyond how Leonid had spoken of his Ukrainian homeland, which made Akula cautiously curious. “Will you go back?”
Nosorog didn’t answer this, turning his back to Akula and Marianna and going to pick up an empty piss-bag to use. The nurse looked at Akula with a mix of alarm and sympathy. “A lot of them say that, at least the ones in the company. I’ve even heard some under Kadyrov say the same.”
“Another uprising?” Akula said without thinking, partly surprised that such words of rebellion would be spoken aloud.
Marianna looked over her shoulder, to make sure none were close, then leaned into Akula’s ear “Why do you think Lisus takes so many Vagner or Kadyrov don’t?”
Such a thought chilled Akula deeper than any icy riptide ever had. Pasha…do you know?
That thought slashed into his errant train of thought like a dagger, and Akula thought back to what Marianna had said, and how she’d looked at Nosorog. Pasha would never work for Kontrol if she knew…no, this is an old hate. You see the ghost of Chechnya everywhere, don’t you Marianna? What did they do to you?
A low groan resonated through the hold, drawing Akula and Marianna’s attention. Il-Sung Ri had gained some semblance of consciousness, meaning the morphine was beginning to ebb. Now came the pained moans of a broken body, the man long since dead.
As the nurse popped open a small chest at the head of the litter, unfocused Korean eyes stared up at nothing. Or do you see beyond this place? Can you see whatever you call Heaven? Akula wondered.
“Kill…” was the first moaned word Akula caught, though he wasn’t sure he’d heard it right, despite staring right at Ri. The wounded man had spoken in Russian, however weak and accented it had been.
“…me.” Came the finished plea. Akula took a step back, while Marianna moved with oblivious resolve. For a moment, a pang of sympathy washed over Akula in a two-fold thought. “Do you fear your Dear Leader? Or a lifetime of useless infirmary?”
Akula looked over to Captain Sum, who was staring holes through him. Akula nodded down to Ri, yet the defiant prisoner refused to look at the man on the stretcher. Testing his theory, Akula motioned to Grizli, and the Ukrainian placed a pistol-gripped taser at Ri’s temple. Captain Sum simply spat on the floor.
Before Grizli could pull the trigger, Akula stopped and pulled the Ukranian’s hand up a few centimeters. “No, this is what this bastard’s earned. Mercy won’t increase our paycheck.”
Grizli let out a frustrated grunt, but relented. Still, as Marianna went to her work to attach the latest IV bag, the Ukrainian squeezed the empty bag, forcing the pressure to pull Ri’s blood from his savaged body. “For the little girl in Bin Jawad, who died on your wretched cock.”
Marianna was quick to catch the malpractice, yelling at Grizli to step back. But when Akula looked into the larger man’s eyes, he didn’t see the soldier-of-fortune who sought fortune and fucks. Instead, a flash of a wounded man looked back at Akula. This is what you hide, isn’t it Leonid? This is who I saw when the invasion started…
Two of Orchid’s aides came quickly to see what the disturbance was, hands on their rifles. This time, instead of challenging them through jovial defiance, Grizli simply turned his back to them to return to Volk and the card game. Nosorog had sat next to the discard pile, a fresh bottle of illicit vodka now next to the deck.
It was then the stark contrast hit Akula, as he switched his gaze between his own team, unified in their disgruntled distaste for this form of diplomacy, and Orchid’s team that stood isolated and apart from each other. Barely did the blazer-clad quartet look at each other, let alone speak in anything but venomous authority. “They are loyal tools, aren’t they Polina? They don’t think without you, yet with one word, they’d be rabid dogs.”
Akula cast another glare down on Il-Sung Ri, whose cracked lips still murmured his wish for death, even if his words couldn’t carry it. A flash of impulsive rage begged Akula to wrap the fresh IV line around the broken man’s neck and finish the work Solomon had begun, but his own words came back clearly from the depths of his anger. “Let his agony be his own mortal prison, a quick death is more than what he deserves.”
*******
Part 5 of the next contract, where Akula and company find themselves in everyone’s favorite place: stuck in an airplane. But quiet moments can be little treasures all their own, if you get to see who you’re really next to.
I hope you all enjoy.
shadetheraven 
I *really* liked this scene. You did a fantastic job making Marianna’s character fit while still being an outsider. The dialogue is engaging – I want to see more of her! – and there’s a really nice rapport already between her and Akula. Stuff like the cigarette exchange, while small, contributes a *lot* to building character. It’s also very neat to see another woman interact with the team, one who is not a superior or antagonist like Orchid but also more than faraway support like Pasha. She’s also not a sexual distraction…yet. Though, while I wouldn’t put it past Grizli to turn on the charm, Marianna has already shown that she won’t suffer his shit. 😀
Nosorog has some nice little developments, too. We haven’t seen much of him being personal in a while, and it’s a good reminder that each member of the team has their own conflicts.
Akula remains the level head, though he also is very much observer. I’d like to see some of his inner monologue translate to dialogue with his teammates. It could be a good opportunity to show even more how he interacts with and trusts his company. For instance, the line that starts, “They are loyal tools…” is a great observation on Akula’s part. I wonder if it might be more impactful said aloud to one of his squad. It could also let us know if Nosorog, Grizli, or Volk have the same understanding, or if it’s just Akula who’s got their number of being robotic rabid dogs.
So, so good! I hope we get to see more of Marianna along with Akula and his team in more scenes. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much, Mayumi! Sorry I took so long responding
I honestly had I tended originally to just leave Marianna a nameless side character. An apple for Grizli’s eye and someone to watch over her charge until they get to North Korea. But as she evolved, it just became so easy to add more to her in terms of flavor and backstory.
And you’re quite right, our resident Bear may yet have some charms left for our no-nonsense nurse!
Nosorog’s solo chapter is in the works, which definitely helped me feel out his own feelings for his heritage and how he got here. In a different iteration, I could do a whole new story dropping Akula and company into Nosorog’s old stomping grounds and see what they can do
I see what you mean, which is feedback that’s going into my next chapter. The joys of an international flight is there’s lot of time with nowhere to go and nothing to do but chat with your seatmates
I’m so happy to read and assimilate yourfeedback! Thank you again for reading!