Retaliation

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mess Hall, TQB Base, Australia

Dan had gone off to report to the base guards and make sure that their prisoners were secure. Boris was hungry.

He always was after being shot.

Dan gave him directions to the mess area on the upper levels, so Boris found the room and served himself a large tray to start. There were some sidelong glances from the Were Guardians in the area at the large serving of vegetables.

None of them commented, however. He neither knew nor cared if it was due to comments about his sparring, or his allegiance to Bethany Anne. Right now, with his hunger he was just happy to have the food without any smirks to irritate him from the normally protein heavy group.

There was no-one he really knew in the mess. He sat down and started eating, enjoying the food. It was better than he had expected from a mass production-style setting like this.

The Stroganoff was excellent, although it could have done with some smoked paprika for his taste. Most of the conversation that he could overhear was centered around the recent unpleasantness in China. Boris had nothing to add, so he sat by himself at a table in the corner.

After about ten minutes Dan walked in with a small computer with speakers. He placed it on the table and went to get a tray of food for himself. When he sat down, he said “We need to talk, Boris. Janna is fine but what happened to her was unexpected and… unpleasant. How many times have you tried to heal or change someone with your blood before?”

Boris blinked, confusion clear on his face, stress in his voice. His accent thickened as he said. “Vat do you mean? I have neever tried to change anyvone. My mother taught me that unlike other Veres, ve had to be born. And no-vone ever told me that Veres could change another by blood. I assumed it vas by bite, vampires by blood, like de myths, da?”

Then a look of guilt formed on his face and his voice became filled with pain and guilt-ridden. “Do you mean dat vhat she did to save me, the blood she vas covered in, nearly killed her?”

Dan winced. If he had realized that Boris didn’t know these things he would have approached the entire topic differently. Cursing himself, he put a hand on Boris’s shoulder. “Look, Boris. If you didn’t know. It. Was. Not. Your. Fault. You couldn’t have even warned her. But TOM needs to explain the details to you.”

Dan’s explanation didn’t seem to help Boris. He sat in a miserable crouch, the food he had been enjoying were now ashes in his mouth. When he talked about his past love he looked like someone was poking a bruise.

Now he had the posture of someone with a dull spoon sawing through his guts.

TOM’s voice came through the speaker. “I am far more at fault than you are Boris. ADAM and I did a quick and dirty analysis of the nanites in your blood when we put you in the medipod for the first time. We missed critical details in the differences in both the nature and programming of your nanites that would have become evident in a more detailed analysis. We assigned that project a low priority until Janna came into our care. We missed many details, like how aggressively your nanites would hook into and transform a new host.”

“However, even if you had the standard Wechselbalg nanites, it has become evident to me that not all Weres understand the danger of trying to change someone. Unlike with vampires, an unsuccessful termination does not create an unintelligent walking… appetite.” TOM’s voice took on clear discomfort talking about the unintended consequences of his transformation of Michael. “However, they will kill the new host if they are not genetically compatible with their programming.”

By this point, the room had gone quiet as the dining Weres listened to this revelation. They knew that many didn’t survive an attempted change, but the ‘why’ was new to them. Tom continued, “As those nanites were not initially keyed as precisely as Michael’s, they have a wider tolerance, but a significant majority of the population cannot tolerate them. All Weres need to be careful — or very desperate — when they try and change someone.”

Unnoticed to Boris, Bethany Anne and Janna had entered the room. Boris turned when Janna laid a gentle hand on his cheek.

Janna spoke softly from behind him, “Boris, it is not your fault. Besides, the operation in Russia needs you. I would gladly have died to save you if that is the price for taking out the NVG root and branch. I did not pay that price. Do not have guilt for might have been. It is a waste of time and effort.” His guilt lessened at her words. Then he noticed the looks of concern on many of the faces in the mess. He turned and viewed her and all his guilt returned.

The only people he had seen that were definitively in worse shape than her had been those who had barely survived the concentration camps and gulags of World War Two.

“Moya prekrasnaya odna, what have I done…” He whispered so softly that most likely only Janna and Bethany Anne heard.

She put a finger against his mouth, smelling him with her enhanced senses for the first time. He smelled wonderful. A mix of forests and damp earth filled her senses. “Not your fault. It is no-one’s fault, Boris. It is over. I survived. I will be better soon.” She tilted her head and gave him a slight smile “Although I am famished.”

TOM interjected from the computer speakers, “I would like to have you in the medipod after Janna has been put through the second round in the medipod to finish fixing her nanites programing. We can modify the programming in your nanites to make them less dangerous. They are overly aggressive in how they change a new host. We can make them less so.”

Janna turned to move toward the food line. Boris stood and touched her wrist. She turned and looked at him quizzically. With a gesture, he indicated she was to sit. Anger flashed in her eyes, but Bethany Anne shook her head minutely from behind Boris.

Janna nodded and sat down in the chair next to where Boris had been seated. Boris walked to the food line to get her a tray as piled with food as his had been. Bethany Anne looked at her and said. “Let him care for you. It will ease his guilt.” With a wry smile, she said, “If he hadn’t offered, I would have been tempted to slap him into next week.”

Janna looked at her curiously. “Are you not worried about inappropriate fraternization amongst your followers?”

Bethany Anne answered, with a stern expression on her face, “Yes, I am. There isn’t enough of it happening!” Janna’s shock showed clearly, and Bethany Anne’s expression relaxed.

“Have fun, TOM will tell me when you are finished. I’ll come back to take you to the Pod Doc. I have no possible objections to anything in that direction that could happen between you and Boris. If they seem to be heading the other way… give me some warning.” A small smile graced her face as she waved and headed out the mess door.

Dan made his excuses to Janna and left her to face Boris alone, in a room full of strangers, and with no place to hide.

Boris walked back to the table with the tray and carefully slid it in front of her. He put a cup of water next to it. Meanwhile, she was thinking about what Bethany Anne had said.

She had effectively been told that whatever happened with Boris, as long as it didn’t upset what needed to happen, was allowed. It was a paradigm shift for someone who had faced rigid military rules from the age of sixteen.

Janna had faked her age to sign up after passing the aptitude tests. She still struggled to admit that she was twenty-five, not twenty-seven at times. Even though the initial success of that deception had gained her admittance to both officer and intelligence training.

She wondered how young, how immature she must seem to Boris. Bethany Anne had only told her that he was over four hundred years old. Then she had casually, but painfully, admitted that her love had been over a thousand, while she was in her thirties.

Once Janna had taken a few bites, she paused to find Boris staring at her. “What is it?”

“Your hair, Janna. It has taken on a hint of red. I was just admiring the color,” he replied calmly. The calm was fractured by a sudden and bright blush, kicking off an eruption of embarrassed laughter from him. The sound of his amusement boomed through the mess hall causing many to turn and stare.

“You actually must be recovering. You blush easily,” he said with what she thought was a twinkle in his eye.

Janna returned that look with a challenging expression. “Since we have some luxury of time at this moment, how about we share stories of our pasts, Old Bear.”

“As you wish, Cub. What do you want to know?” She winced slightly, not wishing him to think of her as a child.

“How old are you?”she soldiered on through her concerns.

Boris stroked his beard, thoughtfully. “I honestly am not sure. The earliest date I clearly know is the year I challenged Michael. That makes me more than four hundred. Before he exiled me to Siberia, I had jobs, service in the Cossack hosts and other places, but no real interest in the year. I wanted to be doing things, active things. I didn’t even learn to read until my exile because it was so sedentary. Now, of course, I am literate in at least eight languages. My turn. What was your life like before you joined the army?”

Her eyes went hooded as if some dark memory clouded them. “I do not talk of my life with family. They abandoned me to the streets when I was eight. I saw much suffering, but was a great reader, even back then, and the librarians took care of me when they were able. I was always in the library, learning, safe and warm. I suspect that they felt pity. It was not until I applied to join the army that I sat for my first test. I have a great memory, so I found it easy. My turn. How many wars have you been in?”

It was time for Boris’s face to darken. “Too many. So many of the wars, when I was younger, had no real purpose. Sometimes to the aggrandizement of one man or another. Others were squabbles over who controlled this section or that of land. Perhaps over who’s invisible friend was real. There were few wars I fought in, looking back, that truly had a justification. The Great Patriotic War. Driving Napoleon back. Fighting the Reds and the Blacks. They were all good wars and battles. Fighting for a cause worth all the loss, even if we failed. The rest…” he just shook his head in sorrow. “How did you end up in intelligence?”

“When I enlisted I had lied about my age. I made it through all the training, wanting to serve as a soldier. It was a better life than on the streets. Then I was assigned to a unit that my uncle commanded. He was suspicious that we might be related and ordered a private DNA test, not wanting to compromise either his group or his career. This showed that we were close relatives, and he knew of only one missing female relative within five years of my claimed age. He was aware that my age was younger than I had told them.”

She shrugged, remembering the time, “He reported it, and the GRU gave me a choice. Take officer training and transfer to where I obviously had skills or be court marshaled and end up destitute. I had lived destitute before, I told them. Growing up on the streets, learning what I could from the library. That floored them. My test results were extraordinary. My uncle confirmed that I had been missing from the age of eight as did many records. At that point, they stopped using threats to make me join. I had skills that could aid the country better than as a common soldier, they said. I eventually accepted.”

“Let this be enough questions for now, Janna. Come now, you must eat.” Smiling inside, Janna dutifully obeyed. After all, she was famished.

And she had finally started to learn more about his past.