The Curious Journey of Mr. Eric Delko or Red Star Galactica

　

An Arkady Renko/CSI Miami/Battlestar Galactica (original)/Chekov’s Journey Fanfic by Paul Robiso

　

Eric Delko (CSI Miami)

Arkady Renko (from the novels of Martin Cruz Smith)

The Galactica (as a Russian spaceship from the year 2064)

　

Spoiler: Chekov’s Journey by Ian Watson ©1983 Carrol and Graff, N.Y., NY.

　

Note:

Battlestar Galactica is now the Red Star Galactica

No Cylons or battles with Cylons as far as I know.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

One

　

　

ERIC HUDDLED in his sheepskin jacket and military-style leather raincoat. As the carriage jolted him along through the Siberian night, numbly he watched last year’s grass burning off the frosted fields.

Tongues of flame laced the Earth while flickering red and gold, which faintly illuminated occasional groves of birch trees. Yet the night immediately stole any warmth away. The Road was frozen and hard as iron. Driving along was more like lurching over and endless series of suits of armor laid side by side.

How long had they been travelling? Five hours? Eight hours? The horses were tramping like brainless machines, and his driver, Sergei, had long since gone into a trance. But Eric hadn’t yet learned the trick of sleeping through this kind of punishment.

Maybe Sergei had died a few hours ago? Imagine being driven for tens of versts by a corpse without even realizing it!

Soon the sun would rise. By the afternoon the Road would become a churned-up swamp. Where it broadened, on its way through villages, it wold be a river of mud with houses on either bank…..

Abruptly, thunder drummed from the darkness ahead. Hooves, wheels!

Within seconds a troika of the Imperial Postal Service came dashing out of the night----three horses abreast, and no intention of yielding to anything on the road.

Even as Eric cried a warning, Sergei was jerking on the reins. The old codger wasn’t dead, after all. He hauled the team and buggy over to the right, just as the troika thundered past, missing them by a hand’s span.

As Sergei and Eric swung round to curse the troika on its way, they sped---bearing down from the darkness behind---a second juggernaut---returning full tilt towards Tomsk. This second troika careened past the first, heading directly towards them. And worse: behind it a third troika charged in hot pursuit.

Sergei lashed his team with the reins. "God save us!" he howled.

With their usual nervy stupidity, the horses swung the buggy the wrong way, thus blocking the road outright.

What had been till a moment earlier an empty void was suddenly filled with a chaos of crashing wood and whinnying, rearing horseflesh. Briefly their own buggy stood up on end. A moment later Sergei found that he was’t sitting in it at all, but was lying spread-eagled on the ground, bombarded by his luggage.