Chapter 13: The Legend of Olga
Olga.
To Ivan, she was everything. All of his actions, all the work, all of the payment, and every major success leading to the stories of legend…
Because of Olga.
The woman Ivan described as filled with endless beauty and grace was, like Ivan, born on New Kharkov. Childhood companions, raised in poverty, their friendship blossomed into unyielding love and devotion. Ivan was clever with hands, strong enough to handle any labor task, and swift to judge the encounters of a low-income life. In direct contrast and complement, Olga was a tiny, somewhat clumsy woman with unmatched brilliance.
“I admit,” Ivan said with a sheepish grin, “I sometimes pretend to be a little more ignorant than I truly am. However, her abilities and intellect made me appear as less than the most simple child.”
Her boundless curiosity and ineptitude with most elements of physical requirement left her often in trouble. Tripping, falling, accidentally insulting someone who likely didn’t quite know what she was saying, and other childhood mishaps were often mitigated by the hulking presence of her later-years lover.
Ivan kept her safe in a large number of difficult circumstances. Already with a reputation of brute strength and the ability to use it, those who preyed upon the weak knew very quickly that Olga was not to be bothered.
Though massive, strong, and quick to aggression, Ivan’s temperament softened with Olga’s influence. And so they grew together, fondness forming over the course of many years. Ivan’s aggressive nature all but disappeared by seeing her smile and hearing her endless rationality.
He vowed to keep her safe through everything she did: to provide his life, blood, toil, sweat, and anything else he had to make sure she was happy and satisfied. Driven by ambition, she worked without ceasing at every goal she made. Even so, there never lay a moment she couldn’t spare for her favorite giant.
Olga’s steadfast determination in some ways made her careless. When she entered a university, she conducted research at a blinding pace. An accident took her hand.
“I did everything I could,” Ivan said with a sad smile. “I saved every credit from every job I could find. I remained talented at the less delicate arts, and I was able to get enough together to afford a prosthetic.”
But Olga’s temperament did not soften from the accident. “They were not of the highest quality, but the better ones were a hundred times the cost. She went through one every few months, it seemed.” Ivan threw back his head and laughed. “When I asked what she wanted me to do with the old ones, she said, ‘It makes no difference to me, Ivan. Sell them for scrap metal, decorate your ship,’ but I decided upon something different.”
Ivan had them melted down and used in the materials for his various possessions. He even managed to have some of it added surgically to the augmentations he received. He said it was so, when she was wrapped up in research and he in raising funds for her, they could always be together.
“She said to me, ‘Ivan, you are a hopeless, idiotic, bumbling fool of a romantic, and I would never have you any other way.’”
Out of her ambition-shortened education, she was hired by the research colony at Atropos Garden. The project was veiled in secrecy, a dim hope for the government to find influence in the galaxy which was slipping away from them. It was one of the Galactic Central Government’s many avenues of interest, under-funded with low expectations. Olga’s life’s work became a realm of study Ivan and most everyone else in the galaxy knew next to nothing about.
The two couldn’t have been happier with it.
So they each worked. Olga conducted her research, and Ivan fluttered about the galaxy in various labors. Most of his time was spent in mining and construction, but Ivan relished the occasional prize fight or local bounty. A skilled pilot even before augmentations, he carved a small piece of reputation for valor in a few battles, including the rebellions of Caldonis and New Prague.
Save for base, simple needs, his money went to her requirements and as a meager supplement to her research. They saw each other as often as possible, unable to stay away too long.
“When I was on the station and saved that man, my injuries were severe.” Ivan covered his face with a hand. “She took the first transport to come to me. The ship she used was taken by the slaver people under Mister Hanatar and that bastard Barian Dreger. She was brought to this place, what the freed slaves now call Vapaus Colony.”
Ivan’s procedure took weeks to complete, and some unidentified botch evidently sent him screaming from the operating room. “My strength was increased tenfold, but my memory gives only brief flashes of what happened. Frightened faces, broken equipment. I remember one thing above all, one thought in my mind all those weeks: ‘Olga, where is my Olga?’”
When the horrid feeling of grinding glass in his muscles and bones faded to a dull roar, Ivan set about the seedier end of dealings. His newfound strength and agility made mercenary work all the easier.
Money poured in and disappeared in the search for his stolen wife. He engaged in safari hunts for entitled connoisseurs of large trophies, bigger bounties, and any other contract for skilled muscle which didn’t involve too much illegal activity. During this time, his legend built, but there was nothing yet big enough to catapult everything he was into the limelight.
“My reflexes as a pilot were unmatched, and no task was too difficult,” Ivan said. “I made considerable money, and I refused to believe she was killed.”
News reports of the transport’s disappearance gave no strong indication of whether or not the passengers were captured or dead. The odds were equal, but through money and quiet whisperings, he discovered the mere possibility of Olga being taken to a slave colony. Further yet, the vessel was attacked in an area near to Hanatar’s operations.
Ivan’s reputation exploded within the galaxy’s more sordid population, and he managed to gain the trust of Damien Pintz with skull-cracking and piloting skills. The weasel of a man brought Ivan into the fold, providing all of the information Ivan requested with barely a hint of hesitation. “I liked Damien, but he was a simple-minded man living only for the approval of someone very bad,” Ivan said.
A shipment, Ivan had grit his teeth at the callous reference to kidnapped people, of laborers was indeed gathered from a transport bearing the callsign and signature Ivan provided. Damien was all too happy to track it down. It was confirmed: the vessel from which Olga and the other travelers were taken had been incorporated into Hanatar’s smuggling fleet. This, of course, was after the captives had been taken to the slave colony.
“Still, it was not certain she was still alive. It was possible she died during the capture of the transport. Or,” he winced, “being removed due to lacking productivity. I unfortunately learned of the ways the laborers were treated. I could barely restrain my rage, but I knew Olga. Even with infirmity, she was a survivor, and she knew I would be coming for her.”
As the tale progressed, Ivan’s tone deepened into a mixture of distant happiness and crippling sorrow. His massive form appeared wreathed in a long-set despair, but he still seemed to remember his wife with profound clarity and devotion. “Already three years went by before I started working for Damien. Nearly another year passed before I found out the little bit about the transport. I became frustrated, and I took a risk to speed things along.”
Carefully, in his spare time, he took to sabotaging the business from within. Anonymous tips led the GSA to startling victories over the Hanatar Empire, and this included the capture of Barian Dreger. “I was hiding nearby, my ship powered down to mask my signals. He cut loose the cargo, the people inside, and tried to run.” He clenched a fist. “The authorities chasing him gave no heed to those about to die, and I couldn’t allow it to crash with even the slightest chance my Olga was on board. Even more, I could not allow the deaths of so many innocents. She would not have wanted that.”
One scan of the manifest, its true contents masked by security within Ivan’s authority to bypass, revealed a shipment of miners. Knowing the training regimen and recalling Olga’s small stature and infirmity, he knew she
