Eugenia Averina's Story

Caves of Germany, shores of France. They all sounded like this man was a hound for the old and valued that all sat beyond the cordons of the Reich- and so, game. She watched him light up and reckoned then he wouldn’t mind if she had another herself- while she had smoked regularly in the army before, chainsmoking had come to her naturally after a long night flying without a copilot in the dead altitudes over that dreaded German land. After her dishonorable discharge, she’d fled almost immediately with the Patriot, stopping only to see her father. In his office in downtown Moscow, Captain Averin was shaking from the cold and the waste of age alike, fire in his eyes as he told her, “Zhenya, do not come back until you’ve killed a thousand Nazis.”

She strode into the room and sidled into the seat as soon as she saw him do the same- to do so any earlier would betray her military instincts, which currently put this man, diminutive as he was, in the position of a superior. He went on to speak in English, leaving Averina’s brain to regear and catch up as he poured the drink and she took it, grateful for something stiffer to sip while the man talked. She rarely got this far in interviews, took it as a good sign. The drink burned a strong, robust and sweet burn all the way down, more flavor than she was used to. “This agreement sounds...” Damn, what was the word? And was he always going to switch out? “Favorable,” she said. There it was. “I ask you fuel Patriot, also. If we use it. And keep it in air... service. Is strong ship, but needs maintenance. I see it fair if you take portion of my stipend for this, say, £100.” She coughed a bit, drinking a bit more. “Was shot at when I leave motherland.”

He took a couple long puffs on his pipe in thought. "That's fine lass, though you'd know more about the damn thing than me. I'm better with the small personal equipment. I'm no fucking use with a goddamned airship. You point me at the fuel and parts and I'll see to them out of your stipend." He was curious however about why she was shot at. He took a long pull from the drink, hardly feeling it slide down his throat; it was so much smoother than the rot gut and rye he usually drank. "By the by why were you shot at leaving the motherland. I know the red army has a habit of executing those who run from a battle but those running towards the enemy border with a loaded airship?" He let the question hang there in the air and pipe smoke.

She shifted uncomfortably in the chair, feeling the lush surface accommodate her size and discomfort. A long pull of her cigarette put a temporary smokescreen between her and the archaeologist, enough to put her thoughts together. "Patriot is semi-rigid airship made to patrol border at Volga. Volga is border, then..." she felt her thoughts darken with that preternatural anger of the thought. "Stalingrad, run by fascist pigs. I maybe let go of steering wheel and let Patriot drift by wind over border a few times, see how they live. And I maybe open fire on team on Nazi cars." She finished her drink then. "Red Army was not happy in break of 'peace', and discharge me. With gunfire." She shrugged and put the glass down, drumming her fingers on the table in feigned composure. It still kept her up at night- they'd shown her how to live like a civilized human, and did better for her father: they'd sobered him up. And here she was, still in their coat and still with their ship. She wasn't comfortable revealing all this, in the end. "You, why do you seek artifacts? Is old things, and you risk your life. This isn't about money."

He took a few long puffs on his pipe, letting the smoke hang in his lungs for a moment before blowing it through his nose like an ancient dragon. "You're right lass, it's not about the money. It's about the thrill. I'm what some would call an adrenaline junkie. The thrill of the hunt and the excitement of the discovery. Rappelling down a rock face into an unknown abyss. Diving into a frigid lake after a 'magical' dagger with only a rudimentary rebreather strapped to my back." He shudders and smiles broadly, smoke still curling from the corners of his mouth. "The more crude among our profession could say I get off on the danger, but I call it addiction. Plain and simple. And of course the money is spectacular for the right artifacts. Some people will pay anything for any old crap I pull out of some rock."

She rolls the word around in her mouth a little bit, figuring it out. Adrenaline junkie. It's a term unique to the language, but adrenaline is a word that translates easily. This man likes war and adventure? She wonders at it. Well, he is older than she and still alive; if he has made it so far and is not a liar, then she will respect him. 'Get off' is a term she isn't familiar with but she comprehends quickly enough. Foul mouthed, small archaeologist will either be a very good beneficiary or a ruinous wretch. She shall see. "There are worse things to be a junkie for," she admits. "Tell me when we leave."

His eyes flashed behind the glasses briefly, it looked as if he’d finally found someone worthwhile. Then again, the last worthwhile person he’d found had left with half his shit, so he wasn’t putting much stock in that judgement. At least there wasn’t a ring sealing this deal. He stood and tapped the pipe out in the ashtray, dumping the ashtray into the fire before he spoke. “Tomorrow at noon, theres an artifact I’ve come across in northern Scotland. Now I know that’s not Nazi killing territory but it is being searched for by a not very friendly clan of local bumpkins.” He tucked the pipe back into its place, and cracked his knuckles again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run and you have an airship to prepare. Here, an advance on this months stipend.” He produced a wad of bills from an old cracked leather wallet and handed them to her. Tipping his head to her he left the room, assuming she could find the door herself. He slid back into his chair and continued with what he was doing before the Russian entered. Which was brooding, drinking, and looking at a fairly worthless crystal that he was going to sell to American tourists for a ridiculously marked up price.

Closing time came and he deposited the days earnings into the floor safe. As he stood his back made a rippling series of cracks, signaling the end of the day. “Lock up if you would Walter, I’m going home to prepare for tomorrow. Thanks for the help.”

“Of course sir.”

“STOP CALLING ME SIR YOU LIMEY FUCK,” Geoff roared in exasperation. Walter just smiled wryly and bustled Geoff out of the store. Rubbing his temples the Irishman didn’t stop grumbling until he reached his home. His house was across town on the edge of London. It was a slightly sprawling estate he’d taken over after the previous owner had disappeared during the blitz. Since the war he’d filled it with relics of bygone ages. The entrance was lined with floor length mirrors and ancient suits of armor. As he passed the mirrors he took a moment to look at himself, again thinking of who he’d become. He’d gone from a lanky freckle faced bundle of hair and fire into the image he saw before him. Standing at 5’6” he was wiry with tightly corded runners and climbers muscle in place of the usual lifting muscle or paunch his compatriots seemed to sport. His fiery red hair was kept cropped short on the sides and only slightly longer on top and combed back and to the left. He kept a perpetual three day beard, somewhere between full and scraggly. He was still freckled but because of how much time he spent outdoors they’d faded as he’d, unlike others of his bloodline, tanned. His chiseled angled features gave him his well-earned stubborn look, his jaw perpetually set in slightly forward position. As if he was jutting his chin out in defiance, which he usually was but that’s beside the point. But he noticed none of these features. What he did notice were the deep bags under his eyes from countless sleepless nights. The slightly bloodshot eyes from days spent drinking and staring at minute details of ancient objects. But what stood out most was a flaring red scar that ran along the underside of the right side of his jaw, to the center of his chin then across his neck towards his shoulder, disappearing under his cardigan. The scar ran all the way to just below his armpit, a souvenir of the last man who’d ditched him.
Snorting derisively he sped through the foyer into his study. Plopping down into his desk he poured himself a measure of rye. Taking a sip he started to pour over the collected documents on the artifact they would be searching for the following day. He’s already prepared his equipment, he was just making sure of the location now. Before long though he had slipped from the realm of the living into the land of dreams. Though his were conspicuously absent.

Impatience had curdled in her chest at hearing they were heading not south to the land of Averina’s favorite guiltless living bullet practice targets, but north to Shotlandiya. But any protest was silenced by the money he shoved on her before dismissing her, sending her reeling off back onto those sprawling London streets with more cash than she’d had her hands on in her life. Snorting to herself at the man’s dismissiveness- he could never see her again if only she didn’t believe in honor- Averina made her way back to the shipyard commons on the East End.

A miserable stretch of land bridged to the rest of the city by roads and little else, pockmarked by craters and the occasional war souvenir sleeper bomb burrowed in the ground, much of the Isle of Dogs was a wasteland hijacked for use by commercial and recreational ships like her own, setting up a veritable community of its own, if not a very reputable one. Set paths designated safe walking in mud-soaked wood pallets, merchant stands bravely sidled everywhere else, and dozens of dirigibles littered the sky at various altitudes, tethered to either the ground by concrete moorings or the dock-like metal frame they’d set for larger high-flyers. The Patriot was tied down to one of these such moorings, a rope ladder fluttering despondently in the wind as she approached home.

It was a shanty, to say the least, but Averina had the build, the gun and the walk to navigate it. The only thing that ever got hurt walking here was her sense of civilization; drunkard sailors and blackguard mercenaries hovered at every corner.

She spent the rest of the day dealing out the cash and making the necessary repairs to put Patriot in semi-shipshape condition. The artillery pieces she pawned off, three tonnes of payload made free off the ship, and from there she worked to get a fellow up on the hull of the ship to weld shut the bulletholes that had just barely missed the hydrogen cells. She eyed the plans with a squint as he worked, uncomfortable at the lack of proper materials she had at hand and suspicious at every turn.

The Patriot was a newer model in the line of experimental patrol ships built by the Red Army under commission of Josef Stalin, with inflammable compounds alloyed into the regular aluminum sheeting to contain the explosion to mostly within the frame and keep it separate from the engine itself, keeping the bridge and engine room safe, but a burst in the cell could still easily mean putting it out of the air as it would attack all the other cells and burn out the entire frame’s contents. A massive winglike sail rig had been built into the vessel’s sides at the bridge to extend, direct the ship swiftly away from a threat and then blow out to parachutes for situations like that, turning the Patriot into one wickedly fast suicide ship, but Averina had never tested the structures personally- had never had to. Hoped she never would have to.

She was left with less than half her advance by the end of the day and her ship at about 80% functionality, but it would fly, and it would carry, so she put the rest away in a secret hatch behind a maintenance shaft in the hull of the bridge and settled instead to clearing up the sleeping quarters to make room for the small archaeologist on whichever bunk he pleased to pick (in the tiny cabin there were two) and pawn off any loose content in the back storage cabin. She only made allowances for the ammo storage and ration packets, getting rid of the signal grenades, most of the flares, and the tidy payload of Soviet uniforms she’d been carrying all those weeks ago- a good bonus bit of cash for that, too, that she shucked away partly into a decent dinner and partly into a broad, sawtoothed knife some thief was waring on the walk home.

Averina spent her dinner on the prow of the ship, propped on a folding chair with jerky in one hand and the knife in the other, twirling it to catch the dying light of day as it shuttled past the countless ships in the sky to kiss the blade and make a pretty polished shine. It was not Nazi Germany she was going to, not yet, but now at least she was going to go somewhere.

* * *

It was properly 1100 hours the next day by the look of the cheap pocketwatch she’d bought and calibrated to the ship’s clock, and the sun was beating down mercilessly on the hull of the Patriot to build onto her already steaming impatience. Shedding her coat and resorting to the vest alone, Averina found herself not thinking as she undid the knots of the Patriot’s mooring and climbed the rope helter-skelter, racing to the ship’s bridge to steer it out of the mess of the shipyard.

She still wasn’t thinking when the low-flying vessel homed in on Whitechapel, a sprawling, awesomely filthy-looking stretch even from above. Setting the ship’s engine to neutral to leave it bobbing pointlessly just feet above the nearest roof- some unfortunate civilian looked out their skydoor and paled at the sight of a masssive Russian woman on a brig just a stone’s throw away- Averina kicked down the ladder once more, landing with the rope in hand to tie the Patriot down to the two nearest streetlights before she strode straight into the store.

“You have roof, yes?” she asked, breathless from physical exertion and impatience alike. There were pulleys and the sort for small bags, of course, but... “If luggage not so small, roof might be necessary. So, luggage should be small.”

The Patriot groaned and shuddered a long metallic yowl that worried Averina at every turn and gale (and there were quite a bit of those in Scotland, it seemed), and yet her chest still burst with an inordinate pride as she watched the highlands enter view from the command deck. shifting the direction ever so starboard and pumping the thrust to wrestle the Patriot into the pass and away from the wind’s influence. She was already making a mental note of the money that she would have to equip the ship if she just got this job done right.

As green-soaked mountains engulfed her view on each side, a remarkable tranquility overtook the vessel. The squalls that had been previously ravaging the the windows died down, leaving nothing but the high hum of the engine to fill her ears. Pleased with the hard-won peace, she set the engine to an idle, letting the vessel’s momentum and lift pull it through the pass at an ambling rate. They’d be approaching those coordinates very soon, and she knew she ought to let her foul-mouthed archaeologist employer know.

She stepped into the kitchen cabin, taking glasses and a bottle of gin with her as she went as conciliatory gestures in case she found the man in a foul mood. Patriot ration food and the turbulence they’d been having those couple days were not guaranteed to put anyone in high spirits, and she’d been doing her best to steer clear of him for that exact reason as she tended to her job of navigating and steering. Averina pressed down the passageway to the sleeping quarters, where she popped the door open and supplied him with a quick greeting, “Privyet. Ship is almost at coordinate. You survive, ah, morskaya bolezn’?” she gestured with the loose shaking of her bottle. Whatever the word for motion sickness was in his language. “You want drink?”

Averina barely raised an eyebrow before sloshing the gin on down into both the glasses and setting the bottle into a motion-safe shelf to free her other hand to the task of handing away the glass. The good professor looked slightly green, but maybe she was just doomed to see all civilians and particularly untrained non-pilots this way. Either option, it was good to celebrate a successful voyage, just not too good- she always saved the full salute for after the return, but clinked her glass anyway. These expeditions, she had to remind herself, were all that were funding her personal interests. However pointless they might have been.

“It’s good you deal with the sickness well,” she said in Russian, keying into the man’s cue when he spoke her mother tongue. “Scotland winds are temperamental but we will be forced to take even higher skies and more vicious winds when flying into fascist territory. This will only become more vicious.” The thought made her hairs stand on end, and she quickly downed her drink to douse the remote excitement- no matter how the professor would react to that.

The Patriot gave a harsh, sharp ping that brought Averina’s thoughts front and center. That didn’t sound like a loose rope whipping on the hull, no. She quickly snatched her glass and shoved it in a secure holder by the shelf in the wall (loose glass flying bits in turbulence weren’t her idea of a safe client room) before shoving her way down to the companionway. Just in time for a bullet whistle past her hip and ping straight off the ceiling and spin at her toe.

Averina stared at the finger-sized hole in the floor of her beloved ship. It smelled faintly of gunpowder and matches. She then turned straight around from where she was going, to face the small, angry professor, promptly yank a serviceable revolver from its holster beneath her coat, and say, “You have this. If Patriot starts going down, you kill as many as possible before crash.” They were within a mile of their set coordinates at this point, she thought. “Looks like we’re not landing easy,” she muttered in low, grunting Russian as she rushed on out to the command deck.