Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

September 19, 1983.

Far amongst the stars, across the vast expanse of space, Earth’s Moon was becoming its next battlefield. At Jamestown, the first permanent Lunar settlement established by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration almost 10 years earlier, the symbol of American strength in the cold war had been besieged by the very forces that the base stood to oppose. Soviet cosmonauts, acting on behalf of their Communist government, had seized control of the colony in order to recapture a comrade who had recently defected to the Americans following emergency treatment at Jamestown. This man, Rolan Baranov, was in the end merely a pawn in a larger political game that now spanned a quarter of a million miles, stretching all the way back to mother Earth. A recent change of government in the nation of Panama had placed a Communist leader in charge, and American forces had moved into the region to secure their investment in the Panama canal, one of the most valuable sources of trade in the world. Several months of skirmishes, proxy fights and war mongering had stretched the cold war over three fronts. In Panama, US and Soviet troops watched each other closely from their respective battleships as tensions continued to rise. On the Moon, a group of marines were attempting to take back Jamestown by force from their Russian occupiers. In Lunar orbit, a resupply ship carrying nuclear armaments to Jamestown was being harassed by the Soviet Buran shuttle enforcing a blockade, and hassling a group of NASA astronauts piloting an experimental shuttle tasked with protecting the resupply at all costs. Meanwhile in Earth orbit, somewhat oblivious to how close the world was to nuclear war, the joint crews of a seemingly hopeless US-USSR mission were moving to dock with each other, and commander Danielle Poole had finally been given the go-ahead after refusing orders to return to Earth. In another universe, it’s possible that the meeting of an American Apollo and Russian Soyuz ship could show that peace between the two nations was possible after all, but not in this universe.

After a brief scuffle with his crew on the far side of the Moon, commander Ed Baldwin of Pathfinder, the escort vehicle safeguarding the resupply ship Sea Dragon, decided to save the lives of both his crew and Buran’s. In an unexpected and bold move, he shot down Sea Dragon instead, putting peace above the mission he had sworn to carry out. With one front of the ongoing crisis resolved, a small ray of hope emerged for the conflict to end. But they were on the far side of the Moon, and only the crews of Pathfinder and Buran knew of what commander Baldwin had done, although the Russians piloting Buran could hardly believe it themselves. Back on Jamestown, two astronauts, Gordo and Tracy Stevens, isolated from the conflict unfolding in the rest of the base, were about to risk their lives in a suicidal venture to save the base from nuclear meltdown, caused by an earlier firefight that had damaged the base’s fission reactor. Gordo and Tracy were the only contact that Earth had with Jamestown, and when the pair stepped outside with an improvised pressure suit, the only way that NASA’s mission control in Houston, Texas knew was because of the raw data still being transmitted from the base. Just as the screens in mission control registered that the airlock was depressurised and the door was open, warning sirens began blaring once again and a cacophony of noise filled the tense room. Unbeknownst to the people in that room, the situation in the Panama canal had finally reached a fever pitch. Someone, American, Russian or otherwise, the nationality didn’t matter, fired a first shot. A first shot that cut through history like a knife and divided it into two definite eras: the time before the world ended, and the time after.

Within seconds of the confusion that crept up in mission control from the sirens, acting administrator Ellen Wilson and DoD liaison General Bradford stepped out of the room to get information. A few moments later they re-entered, this time making a beeline for director Margo Madison.

“Has it gotten worse?” Madison queried.

General Bradford answered before Ellen could, “We’re at DEFCON 1, NORAD confirmed launches from the Soviet Pacific fleet. We could have twenty minutes, if we’re lucky.”

All the blood seemed to pool out of the faces of everyone in that room. This was it, the moment they had feared for decades had come, and it was during the most chaotic day in NASA’s history.

Without hesitation, Margo leapt into action, “Ok people, we’re going to the shelters right now, this is an order, leave everything you have behind, don’t try to bring anything with you.” She grabbed Aleida, her young protégé and fellow engineer, but she remained in place.

“What about Poole and Morrison?” Aleida asked about the American crew of Apollo-Soyuz, at that moment about to dock with their Soviet counterparts.

“There’s nothing we can do for them now,” Molly Cobb said, putting on her jacket as she prepared to leave with them, “Consider them lucky to escape all this bullshit.”

“Well we can’t just leave them in the dark!” Aleida protested.

Margo looked around the room frantically, then at Aleida with calm eyes, “It’s time to go, Aleida.”

Ellen and Bradford were already proceeding out the doors to the shelters. Margo, Molly, Aleida and CAPCOM Frank Sedgewick began to follow them hurriedly. Flight controller Bill Strausser got up from his console and was about to join them, but then turned towards his monitors.

“Wait,” he called out. The group stopped.

“Bill, forget it, we need to leave.” Margo said.

Bill sighed, shook his head, then turned back towards his station, “I need to tell them.”

“Bill, the Soviets are probably already jamming our TDRS network-”

“I can send an encrypted message through a ground station, they should pass over Madrid soon and receive it through them, if they reach the station before…” Bill dared not to continue, the words stuck in his throat.

Margo hesitated, then went towards Bill. She thought for a moment of what to say to her friend and colleague of almost twenty years, knowing that he probably wouldn’t make it to safety before the missiles reached them. With time running out, she put her hand on his shoulder, squeezed it tightly, “Goodbye, Bill.”

He put his hand up to meet hers. Without responding, and with tears in his eyes, he nodded in acknowledgement.

Molly finally broke the silence, “Let’s get going, people.”

“Contact and capture, Houston,” Danielle Poole said, oblivious that no one on the other line was there to hear her. Not knowing fully what was unfolding on Earth, she beamed with pride as she radioed her compatriots aboard Soyuz. “Soyuz, Apollo. We have confirmed soft capture, moving to hard capture and vestibule pressurisation.”

A few seconds of static was all that greeted her. She made the call again, “Soyuz, Apollo, come in. We have soft capture and are ready to proceed to hard docking.”

She looked over at her junior pilot, Nate Morrison, puzzled.

“Well don’t tell me they got cold feet now.” He said.

“I don't think so.” Dani replied.

Just then, a series of strange transmissions came through on the ground frequency, which Dani realised was their first communication from Earth in several minutes. She recognised the familiar pattern of dots and dashes as morse code, but couldn’t quite decipher its exact meaning.

“Morse code?” Nate thought at the same time she did.

“Yeah,” Dani confirmed, “That’s strange. Can you translate?”

“I took a course at the academy.” Morrison replied.

Dani let him focus on the repeating message for a few seconds as she worked the VHF controls to clean up the transmission a little. Nate began mouthing words as he understood what they were.

“Emergency…..terminated…off. S-Something to do with the situation in Panama i think” Morrison speculated, “Emergency transmission, Panama situation gone to shit. Communication unable and will be terminated. MOCR signing off.” After relaying the full message, it left the pair more confused than they already were.

“What exactly do they mean by ‘Communication unable’?” Danielle asked, but Nate was unable to answer.

Just then, as they flew over west Germany, the blue marble below them erupted into flames. Dani was facing away from the port observation window, but turned as soon as she saw the bright light out of the corner of her eye. Several more bright flashes followed, blinding and disorientating her temporarily. As she covered her eyes, Morrison floated over to see what she was looking at. What they both saw was unimaginable. Western Europe as far as they could see was enveloped in nuclear fireballs. If they looked hard enough, they could see the contrails from ICBMs that flew just outside of the atmosphere and then back down towards their targets. From their small viewport they could see Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels, Prague, Munich and a network of small towns and communities between them, all disappearing into an atomic haze.

“Raise Soyuz,” Dani insisted, “Keep calling until they answer, Stepan might know more than we do.”

Nate Morrison got back to work calling Stepan Alexseev, the commander of the Soyuz craft. This time, the crew of Apollo got an answer quite quickly.

“Apollo, this is Soyuz, do you read?” The heavy accented Stepan’s voice came over the radio.

“Yes, this is Apollo” Dani responded, “Do you see what’s happening down there?”

“I do,” Stepan replied, “I-I can’t believe it myself.” his heavily accented English strained under the emotion of his voice.

Dani sighed in amazement, “Neither can we. Did you hear anything from Star City?”

There was a brief pause, “Very briefly, before the line was cut off. Not a lot of instructions. You?”

“Only confirming what we’re seeing right now,” Dani said, “I think-”

Dani hesitated, Morrison looked over at her and saw her leaning forward against the instrument panel, eyes closed like she was holding back tears, her legs were dangling free in the zero-g and her only support was a handhold above her head. “I think we’re on our own now.” She said finally.

“So what do we do?” Stepan asked.

Dani paused to consider her options, then finally spoke, “First, lets get these hatches open.”

Chapter Text

250,000 miles away, on the far side of the Moon, Pathfinder’s crew of Ed Baldwin, Gary Piscotty and Sally Ride were still completely unaware of the devastation unfolding on mother Earth. Ed initially had worried about his crew’s response to his downing of Sea Dragon, and whether he had made the right choice. Ten minutes earlier, Sally had pointed a gun to his head and told him not to shoot down Buran, which led him to make the choice he did. Now with her having relinquished her firearm, she floated in the space behind him on the flight deck, while Gary sat in the pilot's seat to his right. After they had passed Buran and seen the dumbfounded looks of its crew through the window, they were now anticipating re-acquisition of signal with Houston any moment. Pathfinder’s flight deck had been silent, save for the faint hum of environmental and electrical systems. Although Ed would never tell anyone, he genuinely did wonder if Sea Dragon’s cargo was the battery of nuclear weapons bound for Jamestown that the Soviets feared. His superiors at the Pentagon only alluded to nuclear cargo, and it could just as easily have been plutonium for the colony’s nuclear reactor. Whatever his personal opinions on Sea Dragon, however, the Soviets would never relent on their beliefs that Sea Dragon’s cargo posed a direct threat. Nuclear armaments or not, Sea Dragon’s manifest did not matter anymore, as the remains of the vehicle fell towards the Moon to crash upon its surface. After several minutes of silence, Gary finally broke it with a pat on Ed’s shoulder.

“Straight shooting, skipper.” he said with a smile.

“Damn right.” Sally Ride remarked, still stunned by the actions of a man she previously regarded as too stubborn to listen to her.

Ed’s expression didn’t change, at least not as far as Gary noticed. This whole voyage he seemed even more distant than usual, during training he was always one tough S.O.B, but his rapport with his crew seemed to almost vanish except for small moments during the actual mission. Gary knew the stakes had been high, and they were all feeling the stress, but Gary felt a particular disconnect with Ed. It didn’t matter, Gary knew the admiral well enough by this point that he didn’t bother asking. Pathfinder emerged from behind the Moon, sunlight filling the dark cabin as the three astronauts struggled to adjust their eyes.

Without turning his head, Ed spoke, “Mr. Piscotty, start trying to raise Houston, I think it’s time we all go home.”

“Copy that skipper.” Gary replied, and opened the voice comm channel on an encrypted frequency to Earth to begin hailing.

“Houston, this is Pathfinder, come in.” He waited the 2.6 seconds for his response to cross the quarter of a million mile journey across deep space back to earth, and the time for Houston’s expected response to trace the same path back to them. But after 10 seconds of static and no response, Gary tried again. “Houston, this is Pathfinder, come in.”

Still nothing, this time he listened to the static a little bit longer before making another call.

“Houston, Pathfinder, comm check. Come in Houston.”

This time after about 30 seconds with no response, he looked around dazed to the equally confused looks of his crewmates, who could offer no explanation, until finally Sally spoke up.

“Maybe they’re busy dealing with the situation at Jamestown.” She wondered.

“They’re expecting us to come into re-acquisition now, no way they just forgot about us." Gary said.

Ed suddenly had a sinking feeling in his gut, “Try the emergency band,” He suggested.

Gary pulled out his Quick Reference Handbook, located the frequency for the emergency band, and tuned the radio panel accordingly. Before he could even open communications, an automated voice came over the speakers.

“THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM THE EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM, THIS IS NOT A TEST. IN THE WAKE OF EVENTS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO, THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE HAS RAISED THE ALERT LEVEL TO DEFCON ONE. ALL RESIDENTS SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. LEAVE ALL BELONGINGS BEHIND. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. MESSAGE REPEATS. THIS IS A MESSAG-”

Ed turned the emergency band off, Pathfinder’s flight deck returned once again to complete silence and disbelief. Just then, Earth rose above the Moon’s horizon. It was impossible from this distance to see, much less gauge the devastation that must be taking place on that blue ball so far away. But Ed Baldwin knew very well the chaos unfolding on mother Earth. The words of the emergency alert rang in his ears. ‘DEFCON ONE’, ‘Cocked Pistol’, these were all words that he had learned to fear and prepare for during his later years as an active member of the US Navy before becoming an astronaut in 1962. He remembered that year, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, preparing with his wife Karen for the seemingly imminent nuclear war that loomed over them. Karen was pregnant with their son Shane at the time, who had passed away in 1974 while he was on the Moon, helpless to do anything but lie in his bunk and scream. Now here he was again, thousands of miles away from Karen and their adopted daughter Kelly, once again helpless to do anything. Now both of them were probably dead, and once again all he wanted to do was curl into a ball and scream.

In all the time they had trained together over those long past months, all Gary had seen of Ed’s face was a brick wall. A stoic, concentrated man whose mind could not be penetrated. Now Gary saw, for the first time, the facade began to collapse. He didn’t have much family to hold on to on Earth, unlike Ed. His best friend was on the Moon, probably dead from an AK-47 bullet or a reactor meltdown, but at least they were both spared the atomic fires ravaging terra firma. Gary’s parents were probably somewhere in a fallout shelter, he didn’t particularly care to imagine. They were both anti-war protestors during the Vietnam War and practically disowned him when he joined the Air Force. Now they were all victims of war alike. All this considered, he couldn’t quite comprehend what Ed was going through, knowing his wife and daughter were probably ash skeletons joined in arms. As for Sally, he didn’t know what kind of family she left behind, she didn’t talk about it much. But everyone had someone back home. Everyone except him.

“What is Buran doing?” Sally’s voice cut through the mournful silence.

Gary and Ed glanced over at the radar screen. Buran was gone. All that remained was the ghostly returns of Sea Dragon, now in thousands of pieces, hurtling down towards the surface.

“We’ve lost them.” Gary said.

“They were in a retrograde orbit to intercept us head-on,” Ed explained, “By now, they’ll be on the opposite side of the Moon to us, so the Moon must be blocking them from our scopes.”

“It will probably take a while for us to see them again,” Gary realised, “If they were in an elliptical orbit with the apolune on the farside, they’ll take a lot longer to come around to the nearside.”

“Fucking orbital mechanics.” Sally sighed.

“Buran is the least of our problems right now,” Ed pointed out, “Mr. Piscotty, what are our options for the TEI window?”

Gary furrowed his brow, then looked to Sally, meeting her surprised gaze, “Admiral, I don’t know if we have any.”

“What does that mean?” Ed asked.

“Well…” Gary trailed off, not knowing quite how to explain the obvious.

Sally filled in the blanks for him, “I don’t think a return to Earth is our best option, for the moment.”

Ed spun around in his chair, “Well what the hell do you expect us to do, Sal’? Stay up here forever?”

“It might be better than facing nuclear winter down there.” Gary muttered under his breath.

Sally continued, “Ed, if the worst has truly happened down there, we’re returning to a warzone at best, and an irradiated wasteland at worst.”

“If there is a war down there, we have a duty to help our guys fight it.” Ed said, “Pathfinder is a warship now, and they’re going to need all the help they can get.”

“Pull your head out of your ass, Ed.” Gary snapped, a move that shook both Ed and Sally, “This is not a war, this is annihilation. If we go down there, we join them. The best thing we can do for everyone down there, is to keep the good fight going up here.” When he said it, he stuck a bony finger at Earth, then at the Moon.

No one talked for a moment. Gary was scared to move, even he was surprised by what he’d had the courage to say. Ed, though he wanted to punch Gary in the teeth, had to admit that he felt respect for the first time towards the young redhead.

Sally was begrudgingly enjoying the show, but even she couldn’t take the tension for long, “Admiral,” she started, “We all have… someone we love, down there. I know it isn’t easy to leave them behind, but they are probably gone, and us going down there to join them is not the way we honour their memory.” As she said it, tears collected in her eyes, with no gravity to drain them.

Ed opened his mouth and was about to speak, but he was interrupted by a tone from the radar screen. He leaned in, and saw the faint return of Buran re-appearing in the far corner.

Gary tensed up, “Should we prep for an engagement?”

Ed thought sternly for a moment, “Negative on that, Mr. Piscotty. We have no weapons left anyway. Only thing we can do is hope they break orbit and head for home.”

Sally floated out of her chair and towards the forward console to watch Buran on the radar screen. The trio waited anxiously as she got closer and closer to Pathfinder. Although there was no visual sighting of the Russian shuttle, they could sneak up at any moment, and no one knew what they would do to the now-defenseless Pathfinder. Suddenly, the radar return of Buran, which had been moving rapidly towards the centre of their screen, seemed to come almost to a stop, now moving almost imperceptively relative to Pathfinder.

“They’re moving away from us?” Gary wondered, “I don’t think that’s even possible.”

“They’re not moving away,” Sally realised, “They’re slowing down. Circularising their orbit to match perilune.”

“Ok, so they’re staying in Lunar orbit.” Gary said, “To what end?”

Ed’s mouth dropped open. All at once, he saw what they had all failed to consider before, “They’re going to Zvezda.”

“Ho-ly shit.” Sally gasped.

“Mr. Piscotty,” Ed began, “Start trying to raise Jamestown.”

Chapter Text

At the lunar south pole, the last surviving frontier of human conflict was deciding, without anyone there knowing it, the ultimate fate of human civilisation. Russian forces from the Soviet base Zvezda had besieged and occupied part of the American Jamestown base, taking its commander hostage as they began to squeeze the remaining US astronauts and marines holding the line.

Following an unsuccessful effort from the Moon Marines to take back the Soviet occupied base modules, a firefight inside the central node and reactor module had pushed the bulk of the American forces back to crew quarters B and C, using the central node as a front line against any potential Soviet advances. Crew quarters A and its adjoining corridors were a depressurised no man’s land, with the Soviets holding up inside Operations & Command (Ops-Comm). The firefight near the reactor had left one on each side dead, and a second marine injured. The stalemate that followed lasted almost two hours, and would’ve lasted longer, but for an alert that rang out through Ops-Comm.

Colonel Viktor Tsukanov, Zvezda commander and acting leader of the invading Russian forces, shoved the barrel of his AK-47 into the back of his American counterpart, Jamestown commander Alex Rossi, “Tell me what that is,” he demanded.

Alex put his hands up, and moved to the source of the alarm; a monitor in the corner of the room, “Looks like another depressurisation.”

“The reactor room?” Tsukanov insisted to know.

“No,” Rossi was confused. He knew no one could be in that module, unless some of his crew was unaccounted for, “It’s the galley, the airlock is depressurising.”

“They’re trying to break our flank!” Tsukanov exclaimed.

“There are no suits in the galley!” Rossi yelled, “And you have the other modules under observation. Even if there were people hiding in the galley, they couldn’t get out through the airlock, it would be suicide.”

“You are trying to deceive us.”

“No, I am not!” Rossi shouted, in defiance of the rifle in his back, “It has to be a faulty sensor. If you don’t believe me, get some of your people to check.”

“And let your marines ambush us?” Tsukanov said, “I do not think so.” He called over the radio to begin directing his men.

On the other side of the base, in crew quarters B, Dr. Kouri was applying a bandage to marine Steve Lopez, who had been injured in the firefight. Helena Webster stood in the central node, flicking her rifle back and forth between crew quarters A and the lab. At any moment, the Soviets could force their way through, and Webster was the only marine still standing in their way. Helena hadn’t slept in two days, not since she had shot a Russian cosmonaut in the chest for what ended up being the crime of holding a piece of paper. The cosmonaut was reaching for a translation card to end the confrontation peacefully, and Helena had responded with force. She knew she’d face hell for it when she’d go back to Earth. At best, she’d never fly in space again.

She heard the people behind her discussing their next moves. “Maybe we should move Baranov out of here, smuggle him out in one of our suits.” Nick Corrado said. Helena winced at the fact that she knew the cosmonaut’s name. It would be easier if she didn’t know the man she shot in cold blood was named Rolan Baranov, that he was born April 28th, 1941 in Kyiv, Ukraine; that he had a PhD in geology, that he had a pregnant wife back home.

Lopez grunted in the other room, “If we move him out of here, we lose our bargaining chip. The Soviets would have no reason not to come in here and kill us all.”

“Lieutenant, with respect, I can’t help you if you don’t shut up,” Dr. Kouri told him, with only the slightest hint of a bedside manner.

“He’s right.” Helena said, glancing away from her position for the shortest possible moment, “If Baranov leaves, they’ll-” she looked back towards the lab, and saw the red depressurisation light was gone.

“Major?” Nick asked.

“They’re coming through,” she whispered to herself, then repeated in a shout, “They’re coming through! Fall back!”

Rossi had been tied to a chair in Ops-Comm. All around him, Soviet soldiers were checking their weapons as Colonel Tsukanov barked orders at them in Russian.

“You don’t need to do this.” Rossi shouted at him, “All you’re doing is starting a war down there and up here.” Tsukanov continued to ignore him, “Send a messenger to negotiate for Baranov’s release. Hell, send me!”

Tsukanov turned around, “There is no negotiation. Your government has stated that they will not give up Rolan Baranov willingly, that he is to be granted… asylum.” The fierce red colonel grimaced, “We can take him back only with force, your marines have made that clear.”

“At least talk to your people first. Don’t go charging in there.” Rossi pleaded.

“Do not tell us how to conduct our business,” Tsukanov snarled, then turned to a young man next to him, “Sasha! Stay behind and guard our prisoner.” He ordered. Rossi noted that it was said in English.

“Есть!” the young man — Sasha — replied, and moved to guard Rossi.

Tsukanov checked his ammunition and cocked his weapon, moving towards Rossi, “Tune into the Houston frequency. If you hear any transmission, you tell us,” he turned towards Sasha, “If he tries anything, shoot him.” Without waiting for a response, he turned away and joined the others at the door to the lab.

Rossi began to tune the comms panel, “You understand English,” he began without turning his head, “What do you need me for?”

“You changed your codes,” Sasha responded, untying one of his hands from the chair to let him tune the radio panel, “If your Houston attempts to use encryption, you translate for us. If you attempt to deceive us, I will shoot you.”

“Yep. Heard that the first time, loud and clear.” Rossi muttered. Sasha didn’t respond.

Rossi tuned the radio to 2287.5 MHz, the frequency used by Houston to communicate with Jamestown. There had been complete radio silence since the Soviet takeover, and he assumed that Moscow had been doing the same. As far as he knew, no one on the ground in the US knew that the Soviets had occupied the base, and they were probably wondering why no one had called in for the morning shift change yet. If there was only some way he could transmit a message to them. That is, without his chaperone noticing. Once the frequency was patched through to his comms station and the channel was open, his mind began working through ways to get a message out. Then, through the crackling silence, there was a pop. Then another, then three more. Each one was at a different amplitude, with some sounding like they were closer to the transmission source than others.

“What the fuck?” Rossi said to himself.

Sasha grabbed the stock of his rifle and prepared to lift it, “What is it?” he demanded to know.

Rossi held up the headset near Sasha’s head. Even without pressing it to his ear, the Russian could hear it. Through the headset, two more loud pops burst through the abyss.

“What is that?” he repeated.

“It’s radio interference,” Rossi replied, “It came out of nowhere, there was static and then-” he motioned an explosion with his free hand.

“Is it an encrypted message?”

“Our encryption isn’t remotely like this,” Rossi said, “There’s no data in it, it’s just raw radio waves.”

“It came from Houston.”

“No, it came from Goldstone. That’s our deep space network antenna in California.”

Sasha seemed non-plussed. Rossi couldn’t blame him, he was trained to think the Americans would try something cunning, and he wasn’t buying Rossi’s answer.

“Look,” Rossi tried to explain, “Whatever is causing those sounds isn’t coming from Goldstone, but it also isn’t natural. Something external is creating it and it’s interfering with the carrier wave. Likely electromagnetic radiation of some sort. Something like…” He suddenly thought he knew, but feared saying it out loud. He had to know for sure first. He began changing the comms frequency, but Sasha suddenly turned and raised his rifle at him.

“Стой! Stop!” he shouted.

Rossi threw his free hand up in the air. “Calm down! I’m checking the emergency frequency!”

“To tell Houston about us?” Sasha accused.

“The emergency band is an automated alert in case of, well, emergencies. I can’t transmit on it. I only want to confirm something.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, try it yourself.” Rossi said, moving his chair back from the comm console, “You people must have your own emergency comm band, tune into it.”

Nick Corrado and Natalie Bishop had constructed a rudimentary barricade of the lab door using spare parts from the airlock, and sparks began to fly as Soviets were using an electric saw to cut through it.

“Get him out of here, they’re coming through!” Helena shouted to Dr. Kouri, as everyone retreated to crew quarters C. Everyone except Helena, who stood guard with her rifle squarely on the door. Her training told her that her flank was exposed. If the Soviets decided to come in through the main airlock to her right, or crew quarters A to her left, she was defenceless. Although it was hard to tell, she had previously counted five Russians armed with AK-47’s, and two unarmed cosmonauts inside Ops-Comm. During the previous firefight, one of the armed Russians had shot and killed Vance Paulson, her commander. She had managed to shoot him in response, and considered him down for the count, the same way Lopez was. At present, she could see three Russians through the small hatch window looking into Ops-Comm, and only one of them was visibly holding a weapon. There had to be at least one other armed person directly behind that door, and a third person to cut it open who was likely unarmed. This left two potentially armed cosmonauts unaccounted for, and the feeling made her uneasy.

With a thud, the lock was sliced through and the door slid open just a crack. Immediately, a cosmonaut — the second armed one that she couldn’t see before — emerged from his crouched position to the right of the doorway and fired off several rounds in Helena’s direction. She ducked for cover just in time, then turned and fired off four rounds of her own. This cycle repeated again, as the cosmonaut discharged another round at Helena. This one landed, grazing her right shoulder. Helena yelped in pain, ducking again behind the doorway with her free hand gripping her shoulder as it bled through her suit. No time to think about the pain, she told herself. If she languished on it, the Soviets would have time to push through the lab. One handed, she threw her rifle around the corner and squeezed the trigger, more to lay down suppressive fire than to actually target the Russians. The Soviets fired again, this time opening the door to allow both cosmonauts to shoot through the lab. Helena knew she was out-gunned. Vance was dead, Lopez was too injured to fight, and the other two marines were out at the 357/Bravo mining site that had begun this whole mess, blissfully unaware of anything happening back at camp. She would need to fall back to crew quarters C at any moment, she knew it. If she was lucky, maybe she could dart into the airlock and escape, but that would mean leaving behind everyone else on her side to fend for themselves. She had started this shitshow, she was going to end it.

Right as she was about to retreat back to crew quarters C, the loudspeakers jumped to life with the voice of a woman speaking in Russian.

Внимание! Внимание! Система раннего предупреждения Око обнаружила несколько единиц ядерного оружия, направляющихся к границам Советского Союза. Всем жителям рекомендуется немедленно укрыться. Пожалуйста, пройдите в ближайшее аварийное подземное убежище. Это не учения.

Helena stopped, not knowing what to do. For a moment, she was just happy to have the shooting stop. In the next moment, she began wondering why the shooting had stopped. On the other side of the lab, she could hear the Russians talking amongst themselves in fast, hushed tones. They talked for five minutes, ten, fifteen. All the while, Helena stayed behind the doorway, rifle at the ready, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her shoulder. After several minutes of no shooting, some of her people poked their heads out at the lack of commotion, she motioned them to get back. Eventually, following what felt like a lifetime, she heard a voice from Ops-Comm.

“Americans!” The voice had a heavy Russian accent, “We are coming out! We’re unarmed!”

“How can I believe you?” She shouted back.

“Because what would be the point in fighting? We have nothing to fight for anymore,” The Russian said. There was a twang of mournfulness in his voice, of sorrow.

Helena ducked her head around the corner, ready to snap it back again if the cosmonaut was lying and opened fire. To her surprise, she instead saw three men with their hands in the air. One of them, whom she recognised as Colonel Viktor Tsukanov, was holding an improvised white flag. Keeping both hands on her rifle, she stepped back, and motioned them towards the main airlock. To everyone’s shock the Soviets, who had fought so hard to keep control of Jamestown and retake Rolan Baranov, simply left.

After the last cosmonaut closed the airlock behind him, Alex Rossi emerged from Ops-Comm. His shirt was stained with blood and his face was bruised, crowned with a black eye.

“They’re leaving?” Nick asked, “Just like that?”

“They have bigger problems now,” Alex replied, “We all do.”