The government of the United Soviet States of Earth was so incredibly convoluted and bureaucratic I had great difficulty trying to comprehend it. That was doubly true for the intelligence agencies of the various branches, which were so entangled in overlapping jurisdictions and conflicts of interest it made the Politburo seem tame by comparison.

Lydia was trying to explain the distinction to me; her old bosses were known as the GRU, the military intelligence agency directly attached to the Revolutionary Army. Their primary responsibility was studying and understanding the Sarcophage, predicting their movements and tactics, and coming up with countermeasures. The GRU operated special forces, or Spetsnaz, squads of elite soldiers who delved deep into enemy territory to gather intelligence and samples. Lydia herself worked in the GRU Spetsnaz for a decade during and after the fall of Mars, before retiring to a less stressful post on the Tertiary Defense Line.

The agency my mother worked for, and the ones who stole me away from her, were known as the NKVD. They were the secret police directly under the Politburo. Their role was technically domestic intelligence and security; they were the ones who knocked on your door if you were suspected of treason. Lydia explained to me, with obvious frustration, that the NKVD had begun to branch out into other areas not originally under their jurisdiction, such as weapons development and military policing, claiming they needed direct control of such things for ‘security purposes.’ They were like an octopus, grabbing at too many things, trying to control them all. That overreach is why they had come after Lisichka and myself.

Incidentally, the NKVD also operated their own special forces units, known as Osnaz. The distinction is as follows: Spetsnaz was short for ‘special purpose forces’ whereas Osnaz stood for, uh… ‘special purpose forces.’

“Those are the same thing!” I protested.

Lydia seemed outraged at that remark. “They are NOT! Spetsnaz is GRU, Osnaz is NKVD! They’re DIFFERENT!”

Inter-force rivalries sure are scary.

Anyway, one of Lydia’s old contacts was on his way to meet with us now, in secret, and discuss my situation. The reason for my crash course on spec-ops was to make sure I didn’t say anything outrageous.

I was nervous. Incredibly so.

*****

“Lydia. I am glad to see you are well.”

The GRU agent floated next to Lydia in my cockpit. His name was Yuri Vetrov. He was a muscular man in his fifties, with a full beard and hard eyes. Apparently, like Lydia, he was a survivor of Mars. Despite his appearance, his voice was full of warmth, and he hugged Lydia tightly.

“Yuri. Happy to see you too, old friend.” Lydia replied, returning his affection wholeheartedly. It was the bond of two comrades who had seen hell together.

After their greeting, Lydia turned to me. “This is the AI I told you about, Kometka.”

Yuri bowed to me politely. “Pleased to meet you. I’m told you’re on the run from the NKVD, and need our help.”

“Y-Yes.” I was a bit surprised by how he got right down to business, but steeled myself and continued. “Lydia told me the GRU could protect me.”

“We can.” he said. “Not immediately and not directly, at least for now, but we can keep the NKVD off your backs. We can discuss details later, but let me state my price up-front. In exchange for our aid, we would like to ask for two favors.”

That sounded ominous. “Favors?”

“Firstly, we would like Lydia to transfer back to our service after her current deployment ends. It would give you an excuse to bring both of you to one of our ships. Plus, to be honest, we miss your talents sorely, Lydia.” He grinned wolfishly, and Lydia rolled her eyes and groaned.

“God damnit, Yuri. I was just starting to enjoy a quiet life on the front lines, you know?”

He chuckled. “Only children of Mars would ever consider the Tertiary Line to be ‘quiet.’ If you don’t rejoin, taking Kometka into our custody would mean separating you two.”

I panicked at that thought. In the short time I had known her, I had come to depend utterly on Lydia. The thought of being parted was frightening. I glanced fearfully at her, and she simply smiled back.

“Fine. I’ll go with her, and rejoin the GRU. I promised to protect her, after all.”

“Good girl. Now, as for the second favor… Kometka, we would like to perform non-invasive scans of your computer core.”

“Non-invasive?”

“We would never be so uncouth as to dissect you, but we could learn an awful lot about your miniaturized AI technology by subjecting you to radiological scans and magneto-resonance imaging. Rest assured, there would be absolutely no danger to you.”

“I.. see. Couldn’t you do that without asking, though?” My question had a very specific implication, and I wanted to see how he would answer it.

“Of course not.” He rejected my idea outright. “We would never do so without your explicit consent. There are some humans, like those at the NKVD, who think of AIs as nothing more than tools, with no feelings or will of their own. But no child of Mars would ever be so bigoted. AIs fought and died alongside us in the last days of the siege, and stood firm when many more chicken-hearted allies fled. Those of us who stained the sands of Mars with our blood, be that blood carbon or silicon, are united in fraternity.” His voice was filled with conviction.

“…I see. I didn’t fight on Mars, though.”

“It’s the principle of the matter, Kometka.” said Lydia. “Both Yuri and myself were saved by AI allies more times than we can count. He’s trying to illustrate to you that we’re not like the NKVD. If anything, we’re the exact opposite.”

I was satisfied. “That’s exactly the answer I was looking for. Sorry I had to draw it out of you.”

Yuri burst out in a belly laugh. “Ohohoho! You’re sharp, Kometka. I like you.”

I gave him a thin smile.

*****

“Now we arrive at the difficult part of our conversation.” Yuri said, his face suddenly clouded with worry. We both looked at him apprehensively.

“Hrm, where to begin. Well, for starters, the Politburo has placed a freeze on all inter-force transfers for the foreseeable future. In other words, we can’t presently extract you two without calling a lot of attention to ourselves, which I’m sure you want to avoid.”

Lydia’s brow furrowed. “A freeze? Why’s that?”

He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Don’t repeat this to anyone, understand?” We both nodded. “There’s been a pernicious drop in Sarcophage attacks across the Tertiary Line in the past week. Our recon flights have also detected a marked increase in Sarcophage density just beyond visual range of the Tertiary Line.”

Lydia paled. “Oh no.”

I was clueless. “What does that mean?”

“They’re massing for a wave attack.” Lydia explained. “It’s their method of breaking through hardened defenses. They stop attacking for a while, consolidating and overdriving production of new units, and then surge forth.”

“Surge…” That term sent chills down my spine.

“We saw it many times on Mars. The most famous examples are more recent; the First Great Surge in 2046, which destroyed the Primary Defense Line, and the Second Great Surge in 2049 that destroyed the Secondary Defense Line.”

I knew from history that those were the two deadliest battles in human history, with casualties in the millions. “D-Do you think we’re headed for… a Third Great Surge?” I said in a small voice.

Yuri nodded. “Almost certainly. Likely within one or two months. Command is calling up every ship they can, reinforcing everything. Until we make it past the upcoming storm, you two are needed here, on the front line. After that storm breaks upon our shores, we can move you to a safer posting inside the GRU’s jurisdiction.”

Lydia wrung her hands. I had never seen her that stressed before.

“One last thing, you two. A warning. If the Tertiary Line falls, humanity will be pushed back to our final defenses. The situation is grim enough that the Politburo is seriously considering approving the Diamond Protocol.”

““Diamond Protocol?”” Neither one of us knew what that meant.

“The Almaz stations. If it looks like we’re going to lose, they’ll conduct mass-positron bombardment of the battlefield. Scorched earth, so to speak. The death toll will be horrific.” He took Lydia’s hand in his own, and looked at me sadly. “No matter what happens… both of you. Please make it back alive.”

*****

After Yuri left, Lydia curled up in her chair, in a fetal position, and started shaking.

“Lydia? Are you okay?”

“No.” she muttered. “The waves… I never wanted to see another wave again… all that alien flesh, pulsing and moving as one… eating everything…”

I didn’t know what to say. If I had a physical body, I might have been able to hug her, but I wasn’t sure if she would be receptive to the touch of another person right now. I just watched her shiver, feeling helpless.

Then, I remember something.

It was a song my mother had sung to me, back in my original world, on those dark nights when the screeching of the Scissor Drones drowned out everything else. By sheer coincidence, perhaps because it was very old, it was a song that also existed in this timeline, as well as Lisichka’s. I still remembered the words to the hymn perfectly.

I opened my mouth and began to sing.

“Amazing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.”

It was a solemn hymn, one that expressed great sadness… but also great hope. Hope in the face of adversity. That, more than anything, is what we needed right now. I saw Lydia slowly uncurl, and look at me intensely. Emboldened, I kept singing.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come,
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.”

Now that was a passage that struck close to my heart. I had seen my world's apocalypse firsthand and died at the end. And yet, against all odds and perhaps even the natural order of the universe itself, I was reborn and given a second chance. And in that new life, meager and ridden with its own horrors, I still found friendship, family and love. Lisichka had taught me that, and now it was my turn to pass on the warmth to Lydia.

“When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.”

Lydia’s eye streamed tears, and she was smiling. There was a moment of silence after I finished singing, punctuated by soft sobs. Wiping her tears away, she finally spoke.

“Y-Your voice… is so beautiful…”

“Thank you. Lisichka and Zehra said the same.”

“It’s… a song I haven’t heard in a long time.” Lydia said, her eyes growing distant with memory.

“My mother used to sing it to me.” I told her. “A reassuring song for those long, scary nights.”

“I see.” She coiled her hands around my controls, as if trying to feel me through them. “Can… can you keep singing?”

“Oh, sure. Some of these might be songs from other timelines, though…”

“That’s alright.”

I quickly ran through the list of songs Lisichka had taught me. I didn’t think Night Ranger would be appropriate for this circumstance, so I struggled to think of something more hopeful. Something about strife, and triumph…

Aha! That’s it!

This song required an entire choir section at the end, but as an AI I could synthesize that easily enough. In fact, that’s exactly what Lisichka had done when she sang it to me. The memory of that warmed me.

Now was my moment. For this past month, Lydia had been my strength. Now I needed to be hers. I deepened my voice a bit, and began.

“Many nights we prayed,
With no proof anyone could hear…”

pynkbites

I'm taking creative liberties with the definitions of "Spetsnaz" and "Osnaz." The former in particular is mostly seen in post-Soviet states, and neither one of them is usually capitalized. Consider it a stylistic choice.