Page 80 of Ascendent
He remembered the peace he’d felt, the quiet in his mind. The way the world sounded once his soul stopped wailing. How the bones sounded like music, like bells. Like joy.
“He saved my life.”
Sergey was quiet. His cheek pressed against Sasha’s chest, and one hand trailed over his abdomen. It slid over to his hip, covered his bear tattoo. “I’m glad.” Sergey’s roughened voice quivered. “I don’t want to be without you. I know, it hasn’t been that long—”
Sasha kissed him deeply. “I did this so I could be with you forever,” he whispered against Sergey’s lips. “I want that. I want you. Forever.”
Until the sun swallows the planet, and their long-dead particles were absorbed into the nuclear furnace of the star. Until they were spat back out, remade as elements. Until they found each other in another life, on another planet. Until they fell in love again, and again, and again. Until time stopped, and their elements came together in perfect union. And he was never parted from Sergey ever again.
Sergey rolled on top of Sasha, straddled his hips and sprawled across his chest. He smiled, running his fingers through Sasha’s blond strands. “Forever. I like the sound of that.”
* * *
When Sergey openedhis eyes in the morning, Sasha’s arms were wrapped around him, holding him tightly. Their legs were twined together, and Sasha’s nose was pressed into his hair. Soft snores rumbled into his ear.
He rested his cheek on Sasha’s shoulder.
Perfection.
Forever.
Chapter Fourteen
Nothing could dampenSergey’s spirits. Not even talking over breakfast with Ilya and Sasha about the weapons moving through Siberia and Grisha Utkin’s admission that there were more followers of Moroshkin. That the supporters of Moroshkin’s coup were still out there, still angry, still furious. Still working against Sergey.
“I’ll have my officers scour Krasnoyarsk immediately,” Ilya had said. “And inspect the military bases in Siberia and Far East districts.”
“Can Anton and Aleksey help out? Maybe even use some of their deputized squads?” Several of the former prisoners had taken to their new life as deputized lawmen with gleeful abandon. They were better than the local police forces in many areas.
“I’ll get with them.” Ilya, always furiously busy, had sent an email from one phone and a text from another as he ate. He’d glared at Sasha, too. “You had to run off to join NASA,hmm? Couldn’t come back to your old job? Had to take a promotion?” He grumbled, shovelingbliniinto his mouth as he waited for a return text. “Not like I couldn’t use a good deputy.”
Sasha had grinned and kept reading “Navigating NASA’s Entry Procedures”, the last of his binders. He had one of Sergey’s feet in his lap and had been sipping a cup of coffee.
For Sergey, it was perfection. Pure and simple.
Perfection dwindled as the day ground on, and as he faced the daily financial reports from his Cabinet.
Russia was bankrupt. He couldn’t hide from it, cover it up, or scramble away from the facts any longer. Russia could no longer pay her debts to everyone. She was going to default.
He had to call the IMF. Start working on debt restructuring. Somehow make sure his people didn’t suffer the one-two devastation of a country wracked by a coup and a civil war, and then the devastation of reconstruction and a bankrupt central government. Foreign investors fleeing the market. Nothing would make him unpopular faster, or usher him out of office, than instability, riots, food shortages.
The economy had started to pick back up. Refining was back online, exports were starting to churn. He was going to devalue the ruble, send it plummeting around the world, but boost the value of Russian exports. Russian oil and gas would be the cheapest on the market. Ores and minerals, too. He was going to undercut China, India, Brazil. Russian industry would flood the world, and keep her going inside her borders. Industry, not nationalism, not conquest, would bring his country back up, and then after, the brightest minds at the universities would take over, turn Russia into a service and knowledge economy. He’d had a plan.
If only they’d had a little more time.
He’d sent his staff away and asked for privacy in his office. No interruptions. He needed a moment, or ten, to sit in the silence. Once he made the call, and officially declared Russia bankrupt, everything would change.
He would be a failure.
The truth sat heavy in his gut, a rancid ball of ‘buts’ and ‘if onlys’. Frustration clawed at his bones.
He’d wanted, so much, to be the one to guide Russia forward. To bring her back out of authoritarianism, out of the Putin decades, and into the modern world. He’d wanted to be proud of his career, his work.
Public opinion was fickle, flights of fancy the people projected on their leaders. He was the polar-bear-riding, shotgun-wielding action hero today.
Tomorrow, he’d be hated.
Maybe he should resign. Maybe he should just pack it in, hand over everything to someone else. Let another man or woman try and right this sinking ship. He could follow Sasha. Head to Texas, live with him while he worked at NASA. He would kiss Sasha every morning and every night, welcome him home, listen to his stories about training and spaceflight. Maybe he’d do political commentary, or lobbying work. Wasn’t that what old politicians did? Lobbying? Consulting?
