Chapter 1

Two Yuris, One Great Mission...

I had heard a lot about Commander Yuri Gagarin. Yuri Gagarin, hero of the Soviet Union, the pride of the Soviet Space Program, fearless test pilot and rocket pioneer. The first man in space.... almost.

At the eleventh hour, the mission had been withdrawn, the rocket stood down and Yuri Gagarin brought back to barracks. This fatal delay had meant we had lost the initiative to the Germans, of all countries! A German, first man into space! It was a dark day for the Soviet Union. Darker still, for Yuri Gagarin, who now had not only this shame to contend with, but was now not the most well-known Yuri in the world anymore…

Yuri Gagarin was, however, the commander of all Soviet Space forces. His aide ushered my comrade and I into the commander’s office. It looked much like any office belonging to a hero of the Soviet Union - large Red flags on the walls, dozens of pictures of the commander posing with various MiG and Sukhoi fighters, and next to rockets he had ridden into space. There were also dozens of vodka bottles, drunk down to certain levels, all around the room as if the drinker kept getting bored and moving from bottle to bottle.

The commander spun in his huge leather chair to meet us as we came in, he was not an imposing man, though these days he was going to fat. I could smell the vodka on his breath from twenty paces.

“Colonel Mikhail Gorbachev and Captain Boris Yeltsin reporting as ordered, sir!” I saluted crisply, Yeltsin less so. I didn’t like the way he eyed the bottles. If Commander Gagarin was impressed or annoyed by either of us, he didn’t show it. He grunted:

“Sit down.” And we did. He got up and started pacing, slowly. Bozhemoi, he was fat! What had this man who had once been my hero done to himself?

“As you well know,” He began, “You two are to be in command of one of our most important spaceflights. You are to be the first of our great Soviet peoples on the moon.” Boris and I both felt great pride at this, but Gagarin’s attitude worried me. “Needless to say,” He continued, still pacing, “This is a VERY important mission comrades. War is upon us, war that threatens to kill us all. But we must nonetheless push on into the unknown of space. A Capitalist American Pig was the first to the moon. They are in no state to launch rockets now, in the middle of a Soviet invasion. A German was the first into space. They will never go into space again!” He growled furiously. I could see the pain on his face. “The British may well start launching spaceflights, but let them. It will be too little too late. Comrades, the Soviet Union will rule the Solar System!” I felt like cheering, Boris too, but I knew that wasn’t the point of Gagarin’s little speech. He looked sad.

“Comrades, a shadow is falling over the Soviet Union.” He almost whispered. “Certain…malevolent forces are at work. Premier Romanov is not at all well. I know, I have met him. Comrades, I believe the Soviet Union is being steered to it’s own destruction.” I gasped. To speak like this is defeatism! If the NKVD heard Gagarin speaking this way…hero or not. But my loyalty was to my commander. He continued, this time looking us both right in the eyes, one after the other. For a moment, I saw past the fat drunk. I saw the hero of many years ago. “Boys, I want you to promise me.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. Boris was almost crying, and not from Gagarin’s breath either. “Promise me, boys, that you do what you do, for the people…make the Soviet Union great again! For the motherland!” He poured us a drink. We toasted, still unsure what he meant.

“For the motherland!”
“For mother country.” Came a voice from behind me. I recognized it, it sent a chill down my spine. I turned. It was the ‘other’ Yuri, or at least a clone of him.

“Comrades, may I present the latest addition to your crew.” Said Commander Gagarin. All at once, I felt angry that my mission had been jeopardized at the last minute - I had not been told of this! This untrained civilian could be lethal in space, not to mention his psychic tricks, his air of sinister malevolence that made hard men turn to jelly. I wondered what he had done to get put on MY rocket crew, and why? And I understood what Commander Gagarin had meant, now. I only dimly realized that Yuri had probably just read all I had just thought about right off the top of my head. Nichevo. Gagarin must have known he would be virtually signing his own death warrant. I looked at Captain Yeltsin. He had that glazed look in his eyes again, and was dribbling slightly. Yuri would not read anything sensible off his mind!

The rocket was a giant monolith to Soviet Space superiority. Millions of rubles had gone into its construction, and I for one intended that they would not go to waste! My crew would make sure the Soviet Union was great again! There was Lieutenant Natalya Simonova, a beauty from White Russia, and the best sysop I had ever known. Lieutenant Arkady Gorbunova was as stout as an Ox and a mathematical genius. Lieutenant Andrei Kuriakin was good with the propulsion system and Lieutenant Aleksandr Dagteryev, who would be useful putting the base together once we got to the moon.

And there was Boris Yeltsin. Boris was…well, Boris!
“Da, control, we read you.”
“Green light all systems Comrade Colonel.”
“Thank you Natalya. Boris, how’s it going your end?”
“Wake me up when we get there, Comrade Colonel!” He shouted. He always shouted, even when right next to you. The Yuri clone was distinctly uncomfortable in his cosmonaut suit.

“Help me strap myself in Gorbachev.”
I’d be damned if I took orders from a civilian, especially Transylvanian scum like h- before I knew it I had unstrapped myself and went to help him. Damn, I couldn’t help myself. Yuri’s reserves of telepathic will had instantly proved too much for my normal, human mind. My crewmates were staring at me all the way. This was going to be a difficult mission.

“Comrade Gorbachev, we have priority message from mission control.”
“Comrade Gorbachev, blast off in T minus 30 seconds.”
“Da, control. Green light on final checks.”

We all sat attentively, even the Yuri, checking and double-checking our suits, straps, air bottles, instruments…
“3…2…1…FOR THE MOTHER LAND!”

There was a great weight on my chest, like a dozen babushkas crushing me into my acceleration chair. The roaring in my ears was so great it seemed my ears had stopped working, though I could still hear the reports from control. The cabin was shaking rapidly…violently…nothing I, Boris, Natalya, Arkady and the others weren’t used too. All except Yuri. I couldn’t turn to look at him because of G-Force. I looked at him using my crew monitor station. He wasn’t doing too well. Deep down I hoped he choked on his own vomit. I hoped he didn’t hear that.
Boris had fallen asleep...typical.

And then we were in orbit, both suddenly and after what seemed like an age, if that is possible. I thought of my Mother and Wife, back down in Kazakhstan, all the crowds of my fellow comrades gazing up expectantly, of all humanity in a way, glad to see humans conquering space. For a moment - one miniscule instant of calm - I felt I could forget about the war.

“Control, Comrade Gorbachev. It looks like a beautiful day down there.”
From my tinny radio speaker, the Kazakhstan control room erupted into cheering. Someone was singing the Soviet Anthem though Gagarin was off sick. Even my Wife was there with a message for me. She called us all heroes…I had a tear in my eye.

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