The shattered edge

[arvg]

It was dark on Volgograd.

The Kremlin dome, a shining crystalline mound of steel and glass rising from the blasted surface of the desolate world was testament to the perseverance of the Coalition. Long the masters of dome life having pioneered the technology on the Martian colonies, and the inner ring worlds back in Sol.

The art of making habitation where none thought possible had given them an edge in remaining hidden. First converting mining tunnels under the surface of the planet, and then turning to the great feats of construction that had seen the rise of the Arcologies that now housed the majority of the Coalition's population.

Arcology-One, the Mocoba Dome was by far the largest, dominating a significant area and home to a massive population. Connected to the fabrication and construction heartland of Volgograd, which was, for practicalities sake, also constructed beneath the surface. Beside it, almost in its lee, was the Kremlin Dome.

It was as if someone had taken an old Earth trinket, a snow-globe of the old Earth Kremlin, and had gone to such painstaking lengths to recreate it. Red Square, the GYM, and of course the Kremlin itself. Housed here were the government buildings, the state Duma, the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Plenty, and the Ministry of Peace. But overshadowing them all was the immense Palace of the Soviets. With the great McIntosh statue towering into the sky in defiance.

Sitting alone, late, in his office, the Premier of the Coalition, Alvin Katz, attended to matters of state that demanded his constant attention.

The recent dismantling of McIntosh's hard-line government, as well as the purge of the Commissariat and the removal of His Watchful Eye from his shadowy position of power, had left a starkly different Coalition behind it. One that was coming to grips with what it had been through under the totalitarian era.

Like waking from a nightmare.

His computer detailed the constant pressures of the JiangXi reconstruction project, the completion of the planetary shields on both worlds that meant that the disaster that befell the world would never happen again. Then, of course, were the reports from the Omega-50 front, and the dark tidings of the ever present war. The situation of L'acadie and the Gaulic refugees. The list seemed endless.

The trilling of the incoming message via Neural Net had him sit back, and stare at the large flat screen that hung on the far wall. He reached out a hand to activate it.

"We're getting a direct report from Commissar Santorini on the situation with the alien derelict." One of his many aides reported from the communications center deep below the dome.

"I will hear it directly," Katz said, turning to the screen as it lit up with the Commissar's face.

"Dobre Deen, Commissar," he greeted, inclining his head a fraction. "Please go ahead."

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