New Orders - Read 'em and weep

Posted on Sat Nov 8th, 2025 @ 5:19pm by Major (майо́р) Lyudmila "Mila" Sorokova & Colonel (полко́вник) Irina Zaitseva

Mission: Echoes of the Fallen
Location: SKB "Voron" - somewhere on the Kola Peninsula / Russia
Timeline: Prior to transfer to Antarctica
1741 words - 3.5 OF Standard Post Measure

[Special Design Bureau “Raven” (СКБ «Ворон») — SKB-Voron]

[ON]

The lab was quiet in the early hours—almost reverent in its stillness—as Major Lyudmila Sorokova slid into her chair, the soft clink of ceramic mug being placed against metal desktop breaking the sterile silence. Her fingers steepled briefly around the mug, eyes closing just long enough for the heat of the tea to pull her fully into the waking world. Black, unsweetened, strong enough to peel paint. Just the way she liked it.

She logged in to the system with practiced ease, tapping her wrist-mounted secure fob to the console’s reader before entering her biometric key. The screen came to life under her touch, and lines of code and charts began to cascade in real-time. The overnight extrapolations were already flagged in amber:

Localized Energy Flux Anomaly — Pending Review.

Her brows lifted. The overnight extrapolations displayed their autonomous graphing results on a separate screen: energy convergence probabilities. Hyperspatial shear predictions. So many impossibilities, made brutally elegant—and more than possible--by the right math. She was reaching for the latest differential data when the lab comms chimed, slicing through the quiet.

“Major Sorokova,” came a voice from the doorway—male. “Colonel Zaitseva requests your presence in Briefing Room Echo-Six. Immediate.”
Sorokova blinked, tea paused halfway to her lips.

Zaitseva.

A name she knew. Not from combat reports or weapons manifests, but from academic circles, policy reviews, and interdepartmental memos stamped classified. A woman who had risen not through brash force of arms, but through strategic brilliance—through knowing which battle to pick and which to win without ever leaving the room.

Sorokova set the mug down with scientific precision, tugged down the hem of her duty blouse, and stood. She glanced once around her lab—machines humming, server stacks blinking—and exhaled before leaving the sanctuary of equations behind.

----

The door to Echo-Six opened with a whisper. No guards. No theatrics.

Colonel Irina Zaitseva sat at the far end of the table, posture straight but relaxed, her tablet and files laid neatly before her. Her hair was ash brown, just beginning to silver at her ears, smoothed back into an immaculate twist. No decorative medals adorned her jacket—just a single breast badge and her colonel’s rank tabs, sharp and immaculate.

A woman of calculated intent. Not the field-hardened operator some assumed—but every bit as dangerous in the halls of power. She glanced up as Sorokova entered, her eyes quick in assessment. A small nod followed.

“Major Sorokova,” she said, her voice smooth—velvet over steel. “Thank you for coming on short notice.”

Sorokova inclined her head, then took the seat across from her—straight-backed, composed. “Colonel,” she replied evenly. “You requested me.”

“Yes,” Zaitseva said, sliding a data-slate across the table. “You have new orders. You’ll be transferred to McMurdo - Antarctica, to Stargate Command under a joint-support directive. An off-world mission needs a physicist with your blend of precision and survivability.” There was no condescension in her tone—only efficient, distilled assessment.

“I imagine you have questions,” the colonel continued, folding her hands. “I’ll answer what I can. But you should know—this mission has unusual political and scientific implications. And you’ll be working with personnel outside traditional Russian command lines.”
Zaitseva’s gaze sharpened, softer but inescapably testing. “That’s why I chose you.”

Zaitseva didn’t wait for Sorokova to speak. She slid a leather folio across the table with a soft, deliberate motion; the corners were crisp, the tab colors precise. Three dossiers sat inside, orderly as a drill formation.

“I’ve pre-cleared three personnel to accompany you,” the colonel said. “Hand-picked. You’ll have field command of the element once you’re off-world. Consider this both support and a test.”

Sorokova flipped the first file open with a practiced thumb.

Starshina Leonid Gusev.

Her mouth softened for the briefest fraction—this name was not new. GRU. Spetsnaz. A man built by cold, silence, and very hard places. Multiple high-risk deployments. Quiet, lethal, and the sort of operator who didn’t need to be told twice what to do. She’d worked with him before—there are people you trust because they’ve already taken the same bullets you might. Gusev was one of those people.
The second file slid by.

Sergeant Nikolai Voroshin.

A logistics and weapons tech, adaptable, by-the-book, competent. Sorokova had heard his name in the grapevine—good reviews in training, reliable in garrison work—but never shared a rooftop with the man. He was a safe bet, the kind of soldier whose value shows up in sustained operations rather than headlines.

She let the third folder open slow.

Junior Lieutenant Sergei Durov.

The photo paper-clipped to the front of the personnel file was too clean: academy haircut, and a posture like he’d been taught to occupy a dining room rather than a live fire exercise. Stellar academic record. Commendations for simulation performance. No field rotations. No live ops. His file was heavy on theory and light on grit.

Sorokova’s eyes lingered a moment too long on the final dossier. The pristine parchment, the polished accolades, the academy portrait where a young man stood a little too tall, a little too proud, never having dirtied his boots in a place where people bled for their mistakes. Her jaw flexed. She shut the file with a sharp, flat motion.

“You are assigning me a Durov, to the ass end of the planet,” she said, voice low and unamused. “A boy who’s never done anything harder than pass an exam and pose for commendation photos.”

Zaitseva didn’t blink. “He passed more than exams.”

“He hasn’t passed fieldwork,” Sorokova countered. “This…” She gesticulated towards the open personnel files, “Is not a lab rotation or a simulation drill. I won’t be responsible for polishing someone’s inheritance into a posthumous medal.”

Zaitseva's gaze remained steady—sharp enough to cut but tempered by long practice. “I didn’t choose him for his father’s influence,” she said. “I chose him because he has skills our mission needs, and because being comfortable is about to end for him.”

Sorokova leaned forward, hand flat on the folder. “He's untested. No deployments. No frostbitten nights. No wrong turns in the dark when the comms die and your best ally is the bastard you've never liked but trust with your life anyway.”

Her jaw muscles visibly tightened as she grit her teeth. She hadn’t even had a chance to have her tea – taken black, no sugar, and strong enough to peel paint off metal. This was turning into a shit morning.

She continued, knowing she was being petulant. “He’s a kid,” she said bluntly.

Zaitseva’s gaze was level. “He’s exceptional with integrated HUD systems, low-latency encryption, and packet-level tactical mesh. He’s the fastest net-node we have for tying Russian systems into foreign tactical nets.”

“Even better!” Sorokova cut in, “That makes him a console jockey, not a member of a team that will be shot at by God knows what.”

Zaitseva didn’t flinch. This wasn’t the first difficult conversation she had ever engaged in with front-facing personnel. “His father’s position opened the channel. That’s part politics, part opportunity, and Moscow authorized it. You’re not being handed an ideal element—you’re being handed a workable one.”

Sorokova snorted softly—half incredulous, half angered. “There’s a difference between giving ribbons to oligarch sons and putting them where lives depend on split-second choices. If he’s a liability, I will be the one dealing with the consequences. I won’t pretend pedigree equals fieldcraft.”

Zaitseva’s fingers steepled. “You will not need to pretend. You will train him. You will box his privileges into taskable skills. You will manage the risk. That is your order.” Her tone cooled, and her eyes glittered with inner resolve. It would serve no purpose to push the Colonel any further on this.

Sorokova closed the folder with a measured motion, the sound small, but final. She ran a hand along the edge of the table, thinking of Gusev’s steady presence, of Voroshin’s reliable cadence, and of the raw, bright nervousness on the faces she’d seen of academy kids in the past. “If he fails because he was untested and we were forced to cover him,” she said slowly, “the consequences will land on me. I don’t do charity, Colonel. I do results.”

Zaitseva’s expression didn’t change, but there was the faintest acknowledgement in her eyes. “Then make him earn it, Major. Temper him into utility or tell me exactly why you cannot. Either outcome is useful.”

Sorokova gathered the three dossiers, slid them back into the folio, and stood. The files felt heavier now—paper and pedigree and politics pressed together. She tucked the folio under her arm and let the chill of the briefing room follow her back toward the lab and the clock ticking down.

“They’ll be your team, whether it is 'ideal' or not,” Zaitseva replied evenly. “You’ve worked with Gusev. You’ll ground Voroshin. And you’ll either make Durov into something useful — or you'll break him before the universe has a chance to.”

She let that settle. “We do not have the luxury of only training those already forged. Sometimes we must do the forging.”

Sorokova stared at her, breathing once through her nose — frustration inverted neatly into dark resolve. “Fine,” she said at last. “But understand: I am not his bodyguard. Not his nurse. I will push him like a soldier. If he folds, he folds.”

Zaitseva nodded, the faintest glint of approval sliding behind her eyes. "Good. He doesn't need a handler. He needs a spine."

“And if he doesn’t have one?” Sorokova asked.

“Then someone with rank — not pedigree — will be there to tell his father why.”

Sorokova gathered the dossiers under her arm, more certain now of one thing: This wasn’t a mission. This was going to be a proving ground — for all of them.

[END]


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Major Lyudmila Sorovoka
Senior Research Officer, Division of Applied Field Theoretics
Russian Federation Aerospace Forces (VKS) / Special Operations Forces Command (KSSO)

&

Colonel Irina Zaitseva
Deputy Director for Strategic Integration and Special Projects
Russian Federation Aerospace Forces (VKS)