Revelations

CHAPTER NINE

New Romanovka, Archangelsk, Russia.

Boris dreaded the day that Frank turned up. He would be obsessed with getting the details of her life before Gyada had been trapped in the cave, although she would be reticent about it from what he had seen. Boris wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t remember it, or if it was because it was painful for her to remember.

To say Bethany Anne was frustrated with Boris’ slow progress in both deciphering the Beast, and extracting information from the computer would be an understatement. Every report he’d sent her for months had said, “We need more time” and Bethany Anne was not a patient person. After the first month, Boris had handed the task of daily reporting to Janna, because Boris was sick of hearing frustration in his Tsarina’s voice that he fully understood and could not fault.

But he could also do nothing about.

Finally, after she had felt confident enough in her Russian to fully explain her story, Boris had sent a report which had taken some of the stress from both Janna and himself. Boris even suggested that Marcus and TOM question her knowledge to see if she might be able to aid them. Both with insights about the unknown alien and to test what knowledge the AI had taught her in its boredom. She had already shown a quick adaptation to several items that were far beyond the era she was from as if something was finally clicking in her mind.

TOM had been enthusiastic about the idea, Marcus less so. He grumbled about damned theoreticians not having enough real-world knowledge to understand the problems. Bethany Anne had slowly worn him down on the issue. After all, what was the harm in having another person who understood the theories in detail to bounce ideas off of?

Gyada expressed some concerns about being shifted off to passive work. She had been confined for so long she wanted to get out of there. See what the world was now like. Go further, see the stars if she could. She had slowly come to understand the possibilities of her acquired knowledge as she had been taught the last century’s history. More so once she had talked to Marcus and Team BMW.

Gyada’s restlessness and impatience hindered her integration into the modern world and the town. People found it uncomfortable to work with her for any length of time due to the constant fidgeting and obvious desire to be doing something more active or outdoorsy.

None of the command group were comfortable with throwing her straight into the militia training programs. They had no idea how controlled she was, and any Were who lacked iron control was a risk to those they trained with, especially humans.

So Boris set aside a part of every morning for her to train with him and either Janna or Danislav and three of the wolves. At least it started out as three of the wolves.

Training one-on-one with her in human form, she was an even match with Danislav although she could sometimes manage to take down two of his friends. The form her hand-to-hand fighting took involved getting in close. She was a small woman, so focused on throwing and grappling them. All in all, it was a wise choice for a smaller opponent against a larger. With everyone involved being Were, there was no way she could have taken them punch for punch. After a few days, male competitors started wearing cups regularly. She had no qualms about going for vulnerable places.

When one of them complained about it to Boris, he’d raised an eyebrow at her, getting her to answer. “Stop whining like a baby. If you are unprepared by training for what might happen in combat, you won’t be ready for it when it occurs.”

And they looked at Boris with slightly pleading expression, he’d shrugged and told them, “What she said. There is nothing wrong with her using such moves. As long as she doesn’t try to break a neck or back, I’m a happy man.”

Fighting in their other forms, however, was a different matter.

Gyada stood inside a circle of the wolves the first day. They snarled and snapped in an attempt to unnerve her. Her form was much smaller than most of the werebears the Weres had encountered. Their overconfidence showed when the first one charged in only to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck by Gyada’s mouth and thrown across the room with a yelp. There was a solid cracking sound when one of its legs hit the wall. Even with the Weres ability to heal fast, that Wolf would be out of this fight.

The three remaining wolves started circling back and forth. Their goal was to make her lose track of one of them so that one could dart in and hamstring her. To say it was a spectacular failure was an understatement. She managed to toss the one that tried to hamstring her against a wall with a remarkably dexterous twist of her back paw. Gyada then grabbed the one that had feinted to distract her by the scruff of the neck and threw him into the third.

She moved that little bit faster than they were expecting, catching them off guard. She wasn’t quite as fast as Boris and Janna, but she was faster than the average werewolf. Once they changed back, she scolded them for hesitating. For thinking too much before attacking.

She still didn’t seem to recognize how much the world has changed. Her companion, a lithe Mongolian female Were called Nergui, was the one who suggested they run her through rifle and pistol training with a group of normal humans. Paul had been reluctant to allow it, but eventually caved in when it was pointed out to him that she was no more a danger to the other human trainees than they were to each other.

Paul ripped a gun from the hands of one of the other trainees within a couple of minutes of handing them out, for failure to follow the order to keep the muzzle pointed away from everyone, preferably towards the ground. He raised the gun and it barked as a shot fired from it.

“First thing when you get a gun, check the damned thing doesn’t have a bullet in the chamber before you do anything. When it is first handed to you, check that it is unloaded. Even once you’ve checked don’t point towards something you don’t wanna destroy. Got it kiddies? “Murmurs of agreement had followed. Considering some in the group were definitely older than Paul, Gyada found this amusing, but she made sure that she followed his instructions. It was evident he’d trained people with these weapons before.

When she saw how much destruction even the smaller ‘pistol’ did she was significantly more cautious about everything around her. She also stopped being so focused on being allowed to roam. It was clear that they were worried about her being injured by something she simply hadn’t seen as a threat.

She is also unsure why those guns that had fired at her earlier hadn’t done more damage to her. After all, Boris and Janna had no problems tearing her flesh with their claws when they trained with her. It was a question, but not one that needed a quick answer. Despite everything, she felt the guns were an inappropriate tool of war.

They offended her sensibilities.

Philosophically, she seemed to consider guns cheating. War was brutal, and she’d let slip that she had been a shield maiden amongst the Rus. In her opinion, they were items for pure destruction, not suitable for honorable warfare. She had no objections to archery, and even crossbows were grudgingly acceptable as real weapons of war, but on some level, guns were killing machines used by the masses.

Perhaps it was the relative lack of skill required to become proficient with them. Gyada had spent years learning how to use a sword, axe, and shield properly in warfare. The basics of learning how to use a gun took minutes. And in some ways she was correct. The weapons massively increased the number of people able to be put on a frontline, as soldiers no longer had to be trained for years on end and supported by a large population base. They could be conscripted and given a few weeks training, then sent to the battlefront.

Gyada’s considered opinion appeared to be that the clashing of the massive armies of the twentieth century in World War I and World War II were simply a crude attempt at population control. She could respect the skill of individual generals in outmaneuvering and outthinking their enemies. All she saw in such massive forces was the pointless sacrifices of many lives. From a certain point of view, Boris could see her point. It wasn’t unlike Bethany Anne’s methods. Bethany Anne didn’t focus on using large forces. She focused on training the best small forces she could.

With the speed, strength, and skill that a Were or a vampire could bring to bear, each individual of her rather smaller forces could probably take on a company of ordinary soldiers. They were trained to the level of special forces and had additional enhancements that were force multipliers beyond that.

Something didn’t quite mesh here for either Janna or Shen.

Yes, Gyada had literally centuries to consider consequences, but why would a late Dark Age person consider such things? How would she have thought about the concept of it initially? They wondered what was in the Kurtherian computer’s database and what it had taught her beyond her understanding of the Etheric. Marcus had described her theoretical understanding of Gravitics as exceptional.

What else, they wondered, had she learned?