In the Belly of the Beast

Posted on Wed Oct 29th, 2025 @ 3:06pm by Major (майо́р) Lyudmila "Mila" Sorokova
Edited on on Wed Nov 5th, 2025 @ 3:20pm

Mission: Echoes of the Fallen
Location: C130 - Somewhere over Antarctica
Timeline: current
653 words - 1.3 OF Standard Post Measure

The cargo bay of the C-130 was cold enough that her breath ghosted faintly in the air, but compared to Sakha winters it barely registered as discomfort. Lyudmila sat buckled into the canvas jump seat with her “sea bag” at her feet, engine vibration thrumming through the soles of her boots. The interior lighting was low, red and utilitarian, washing the bundled passengers in a submarine-gloom. She could smell metal, aviation fuel, and cold fabric…and боже мой! (bozhe moy), was that garlic?! She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes down the line at the dedovshchina unwrapping something apparently dead and fermenting from aluminum foil. Well, что упало, то пропало (chto upalo, to propalo), which translates to "what has fallen is lost." Nothing to be done about it now.

She leaned back, considering her next assignment…McMurdo Station. Antarctica. A bunker no one was supposed to admit existed. Mila exhaled and watched her breath dissipate — a communion of frost with frost. She noted the American airman across from her kept sneaking glances at the Russian flag on her shoulder, perhaps trying to work out whether she was here as a scientist or a soldier. He would find out soon enough that the answer was “both,” though she doubted he would like the implications.

The engines deepened pitch as the plane banked southward. She closed her eyes.



FLASHBACK – 10 MONTHS EARLIER

Frunze Military Academy, Moscow – secure wing

A door closed behind her with the heavy finality of state decisions. Her immediate superior slid a folder across the table, its cover marked not with a title, but a single black oblong classification stamp. “Assignment,” he said.

Mila hadn’t volunteered for anything. No briefing, no preamble, no explanation. Just a silent expectation that she would obey. She flipped it open. The first pages were personnel history — hers, clinical and dissected. The second section contained words that should not exist outside conspiracy novels: anomalous artifacts… off-world telemetry… extra-planetary threat classification. The Russian translation for Stargate had been stripped out — only the English word remained.

She glanced upward. “No choice, I assume.”

Her commanding officer gave her the same thin almost-smile all senior officers get when they are not at liberty to say yes. “We are not sending you for them,” he said. “We are sending you to make sure Russia is not an afterthought in the new frontier.”

And that was that. Nation before individual. Duty before curiosity.


BACK IN THE C-130

The straps vibrated against her shoulder as the plane began its final approach. The intercom crackled something indistinct in English; she only caught “McMurdo” and “fifteen minutes.”

Lyudmila flexed her fingers in her gloves, grounding herself in motion and touch. A cigarette would have helped, but Americans had so many rules about enclosed spaces and oxygen systems that she doubted even a Special Operations clearance would override them. She would smoke the instant her boots hit the ice.

Soon…a new environment. New allies. New rules that pretended to be cooperation but could easily become competition. She had left Siberia to avoid a future written in stone. She had walked into Moscow on the theory that there had to be something larger. And now she was flying to the bottom of the world because the universe had confirmed she was right — there was more, and it did not belong to any one nation.
Her internal musings were interrupted as the aircraft thudded as the landing gear deployed and touched down. She inhaled slowly, smelling metal and cold air again…and garlic. Mustn't forget the garlic.

Some people spend their lives trying to be extraordinary. Mila had only ever tried not to die small. The door would open soon. Antarctica. The bunker. The gate.

She would be ready, and for the first time in a long time, the horizon felt wide.

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Major Lyudmila Sorakova
Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) / Special Operations Forces Command (KSSO)