Shuffle off to Buffalo - 2. Prompt 2 - The Motherland Calls

The Motherland Calls

Jesse looked through his bags once again, making sure he had all the items he’d need. It was a long flight to Russia and from there it was onto the space terminal in central Russia, just west of the Ural Mountains. The base, its name unpronounceable in English, could be roughly translated to Anya’s Keep. The mission was top secret and while he would be the only American on the team, his role was even more vital than some of his superiors knew.

“Are you ready?” a young woman standing at his open door asked.

“Almost,” he said, patting the last of his belongings in the bag. He zipped up one, quickly closed and latched another, and finally gathered his coat and stood. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Sedgewick, his colleague and fellow communications specialist, watched him carefully with cold, grey-green eyes. She was the perfect co-worker in the field; professional, objective, dependable, and dull. The aerospace communications field was a highly competitive area where rivalries ran deep and wide. In Jesse’s experience, most of those in his line of work were cut-throat competitors.

Sedgewick, as brilliant as she was and probably better connected, had always been a neutral and supportive voice in his corner. When the subject of a personnel exchange with the Russian aerospace group had been discussed, it was the tall, lanky, cool and calculated Sedgewick who had been his most vocal ally.

Jesse greeted her with a smile, and she returned it briefly, almost ghostly, and then nodded toward the hallway.

“We should make our way to the plane,” she said, a little crack in her voice.

“Yeah, I don’t want to miss that flight,” he answered, grinning.

“They won’t go without you,” Sedgewick said.

Startled by her literal response, Jesse touched her shoulder as they walked down the hallway. “Sedgie, is everything okay? You seem a little off this morning.”

“I’m fine,” she said, chewing her lip as they continued toward the elevator doors. “I’m excited for you.”

Jesse analyzed her tone. She didn’t sound enthused or anxious. He’d worked with Sedgie for over three years now and they both knew each other’s moods intimately. The sound in her voice was strained, concise, and sharp.

Sedgewick was scared.

After using the biometric iris scan to enter the secure elevator, they began to descend quickly.

“Are you sure everything is cool?”

His colleague flinched, her eyes flickered at him, and then her head drooped, only slightly, but he knew her. Something was amiss.

“Superstition,” she finally uttered. “There was a lightning strike in Russia.” The grey-green eyes once again flittered over his face. “It’s nothing really.”

Jesse thought about letting it go. After all, Sedgewick’s Russian mother was a ball of superstitious fears and rituals. But, in all this time Sedgie had reflexively laughed them off. Not this time. She was worried about something.

“Just tell me what’s bothering you. If you say it, it loses power, right?” That’s what they always told each other when things weren’t working out.

Sedgewick brushed her hair, looked around the elevator car, and then back at him. Her gaze rested on his face for a moment, gauging his intent, as it always did. She was measuring his attitude, the curve of his lips and color of his cheeks.

Finally, she spoke, “Reports out of Russia are saying The Motherland Calls statue in Volgograd was struck by lightning.”

Jesse waited for the punchline. Volgograd was just south of the aerospace base where he and his Russian, Chinese, German, and English team were supposed to fly out of. This manned mission to Mars was top secret, but more because of the danger and risks involved than the objective. This flight would be announced when its success was assured.

But, of what significance was a lightning strike? Weather phenomena in central Russia wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. It certainly wouldn’t endanger a mission that was inherently riskier than a random storm front. Sedgewick knew that as well as he did.

“So, a statue got hit by a bolt of lightning in a city close to the base. Is there something else?”

Sedgie shook her head, her mousey-colored prematurely graying hair flicked wildly. “I never should have said--“

Jesse touched her shoulder again, and she paused, looking intently at him.

“Tell me,” Jesse pleaded, in his softest, most vulnerable tone.

Anna Sedgewick’s eyes widened and she said quietly, “The report said it was a lightning bolt, but the statue, The Motherland Calls figure is constructed with cement. The Russian command has confidentially confirmed it wasn’t a weather event at all.”

Jesse asked, without thinking, “What else could it be?”

Sedgie leaned in and kissed Jesse, her soft, dry lips caressing his own. He instinctively opened them, and they briefly moved closer together. He could feel their heat rising, but she wasn’t moving in for passion. Anna was acting out of fear and desperation.

Sedgie pulled away, smoothed her uniform and continued, “It appears to have been a high energy explosion. There are satellite pictures and radar images that show it as electro-magnetic in nature, but there’s something else. They are concentrated in a way that doesn’t appear natural.”

Jesse blinked and leaned closer. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Anna answered, her cheeks flushed. “But this energy explosion, or whatever it is, struck out parts of the statue’s face.”

“What do you mean?” Jesse asked dumbfounded by her reaction.

“It blunted her eyes. It blinded the damned statue.”

“Whaaa-tttt?” Jesse stammered. “How do you blind a statue?”

“You blast away its eyes and nothing else,” Anna said matter-of-factly, and as cool and calm as he’d heard her this morning.

The elevator doors beeped and slid open. Two uniformed officers awaited them.