Livada black moon read online. Andrey Livadny: "Black Moon"
Livadny Andrey
BLACK MOON
MOSAIC PIECES
Year 2717 of the galactic calendar. Orbital base of the Confederacy of Suns Navy, code name "Black Moon"The watch officer, seated inside the small observation sphere, turned to his commander, who was pacing the narrow space of the blister dome, waiting for the spacecraft to enter the station's airlock.
Sir, they're landing!
Looking through the convex armored glass of the observation post, from where he could see the panorama of the mooring docks and the internal landing pads of the huge hangar, he nodded silently.
General Dmitry Alekseevich Dorokhov, former commander of the Second Shock Fleet of the Confederation of Suns, was an extraordinary man. Despite his disgrace, which resulted in exile to a secret base located in deep space, he retained all the features of a career, combat officer. Regardless of the political winds that blew in the Galaxy, his role remained unchanged: this strong, wiry, fit old man, whose head was adorned with a short crew cut of gray hair, served not political parties, but freedom. That freedom for which he began to shed blood half a century ago, when the flames of the Second Galactic War devoured planetary systems one after another, calling into question the very term “humanity.”
Having heard the report, he turned off his mobile communicator and walked with long strides to the pre-airlock platform, where, in addition to two space infantrymen who froze like statues near the inner hatch, two platoons of honor guards were lined up.
The lights on the instrument panel flashed wildly, the air bleed from the pneumatic seal system hissed sharply, and the inner hatch began to slowly slide to the side.
Dorokhov expected that Admiral Vorontsov himself would appear on the threshold of the gateway.
This man occupied a special place both in the hierarchy of the relatively young Galactic community of planets, and in the hearts of those who walked the terrible roads of confrontation between Earth and the Colonies.
Commander-in-Chief of the First Strike Fleet, founder of Fort Stellar and author of the Military Doctrine of the Confederacy of Suns, lived two hundred and one years. No one knew what was more in this man’s body - cybernetic circuits connected to servomotor prostheses, or living flesh. This was a state secret of the Confederacy.
As usual, he wore the black uniform of a space fleet officer, under which life support systems and parts of a special corset were skillfully hidden. Dorokhov, who was a good hundred years younger than Vorontsov, nevertheless perfectly understood the reason for such constancy. He also preferred the old uniform of combat units. As Vorontsov himself once admitted, in addition to his personal love for this color, so similar to the inky darkness of outer space, the uniform constantly reminded him of the time when, as a young lieutenant, he led the remnants of the defeated Colonial fleet and led the surviving ships against the squadrons of the Earth Alliance . According to the commander himself, this made it possible to forget about the inexorable passage of years.
However, despite the years, Vorontsov’s gaze always remained as cold and calm as on the day when, having eliminated his commander, he took upon himself the full burden of responsibility for the fate of the Free Colonies... They were in awe of him, they were afraid of him, many outright hated him, but he stood outside of idle gossip, like a monument, a living monument of his era.
...The hatch opened, and the general, who was already preparing to walk towards the commander, striding along the echoing slabs of the airlock platform, was literally dumbfounded.
Instead of Vorontsov, the figure of a middle-aged man appeared in the oval opening of the hatch. He was dressed in the ceremonial uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Confederacy, and the old general, shocked to the core, suddenly thought that this was some kind of mockery, a gilded clown, it was unclear by whom and why he had been sent to the “Black Moon.” Behind the newcomer, two youthful adjutants in the uniform of colonels appeared.
Dorokhov swallowed, trying to normalize his nerves. He could not understand what was happening and get rid of the reprehensible feeling that, together with these three buffoons in gilded uniforms, the airlock area of the military base was filled with a subtle sweetish smell of perfume from the social salons of Fort Stellar...
General confusion became apparent. Even the sentries at the hatch tensed and turned pale.
The commander-in-chief of the military space forces of the Confederation of Suns stopped in front of the petrified space infantrymen from the honor guard and, raising a thin, well-groomed eyebrow, looked questioningly at the general.
At that moment, Dorokhov finally recognized the arrival, and a terrible premonition spread in the old man’s chest like a grave cold.
Jedian Lange... Great-nephew of Admiral Vorontsov... Heir to the Rory system and Fort Stellar... The sprout of the generation that rose in the richly fertilized field of war...
Overcoming the growing cold inside and the disgusting senile trembling that treacherously settled in his legs, Dorokhov made an effort over himself and went to meet the newly-minted commander.
He turned and calmly waited while the general walked towards him through a kind of tunnel formed by two ranks of the honor guard.
Finally, having thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of general confusion, he himself, as if having mercy, took a step towards the base commander.
Mister Admiral!.. - Dorokhov began, but Lange stopped the report with a gracious gesture, from which Dmitry Alekseevich almost shuddered.
“I’m sorry, general,” Jedian said calmly, even with a hint of contemptuous condescension in his voice, “but I have arrived with sad news. My uncle, Admiral Vorontsov, died.
At these words, a light sigh ran through the ranks of those present at the meeting, only the lips of the two adjutant colonels remained tightly compressed.
This is a huge loss for the Confederacy of Suns,” Jedian continued. -But we can't stop the flow of time, right? - he asked, looking at Dorokhov, who had aged a good two decades before his eyes. - The situation in the Galaxy is such that we have no time to grieve, General... I, as the heir to Fort Stellar, which is the main support base of the Confederation fleet, continue the mission of Admiral Vorontsov. The Supreme Council of the Union of the Central Worlds correctly assessed the existing situation and confirmed my authority as the successor to the position of fleet commander. I think that the necessary package of messages has already been transmitted through the Hypersphere Frequency stations, and you, General, will be able to familiarize yourself with the documents at any time.
His speech was smooth and correct. If Dorokhov's memory served him correctly, Jedian Lange held the position of chief of staff of the fleet and specialized, in addition to his nominal functions at headquarters, in neurosurgery, psychology and deep brain probing. In particular, the infamous brain scanner was his brainchild.
The pause was unjustifiably prolonged, and the general, shuddering, looked up.
Unlike Vorontsov, who, evoking horror, always remained military, his great-nephew gave the impression policy. These were two very different concepts, and Jedian Lange, apparently, was well aware of the difference. It was easy to understand from his face that he, in particular, was making a comparison in his favor. However, as Dorokhov was later able to verify, he had the right to such self-confidence. If Lange, in comparison with Vorontsov, looked like a gilded clown, then he was the most dangerous clown of those whom the old general had to meet. Just like the admiral, there was strength in him, but it was of a completely different kind...
Mister Commander! No incidents have been registered at the space fleet base entrusted to me! - Having made an effort, the general finally reported. He had no doubt that Lange had indeed been approved for the position of commander.
That’s good, General,” Jedian stopped him gently, thus ending the official part of the meeting. A look of boredom suddenly appeared on his face. “Set aside separate cabins for my adjutants and order lunch to be served in a room equipped with video equipment,” he ordered.
Dorokhov had only one thing left to do - straighten his back and give a military salute.
***So? - Jedian Lange took a napkin and dabbed his lips with it. Then he crumpled it up, threw it into a plate and turned to the viewing screen, onto which an image of three dark, as if covered with soot, planetoids was projected.
The heir of the famous Admiral Vorontsov, Jedian Lange, a scientist and politician, taking advantage of the acquired power, begins a large-scale experiment to study relict life forms found during excavations at the Black Moon base. This experiment quickly crosses not only the ethical line, but also the concept of common sense. However, Jedian cares little about the fate of millions of people who have barely begun to build a new life after the end of the Galactic War.
The work is part of the cycle “Expansion. History of the Galaxy"
MOSAIC PIECES
Year 2717 of the galactic calendar. Orbital base of the Confederacy of Suns Navy, code name “Black Moon”The watch officer, seated inside the small observation sphere, turned to his commander, who was pacing the narrow space of the blister dome, waiting for the spacecraft to enter the station's airlock.
Sir, they're landing!
Looking through the convex armored glass of the observation post, from where he could see the panorama of the mooring docks and the internal landing pads of the huge hangar, he nodded silently.
General Dmitry Alekseevich Dorokhov, former commander of the Second Shock Fleet of the Confederation of Suns, was an extraordinary man. Despite his disgrace, which resulted in exile to a secret base located in deep space, he retained all the features of a career, combat officer. Regardless of the political winds that blew in the Galaxy, his role remained unchanged: this strong, wiry, fit old man, whose head was adorned with a short crew cut of gray hair, served not political parties, but freedom. That freedom for which he began to shed blood half a century ago, when the flames of the Second Galactic War devoured planetary systems one after another, calling into question the very term “humanity.”
Having heard the report, he turned off his mobile communicator and walked with long strides to the pre-airlock platform, where, in addition to two space infantrymen who froze like statues near the inner hatch, two platoons of honor guards were lined up.
The lights on the instrument panel flashed wildly, the air bleed from the pneumatic seal system hissed sharply, and the inner hatch began to slowly slide to the side.
Dorokhov expected that Admiral Vorontsov himself would appear on the threshold of the gateway.
This man occupied a special place both in the hierarchy of the relatively young Galactic community of planets, and in the hearts of those who walked the terrible roads of confrontation between Earth and the Colonies.
Commander-in-Chief of the First Strike Fleet, founder of Fort Stellar and author of the Military Doctrine of the Confederacy of Suns, lived two hundred and one years. No one knew what was more in this man’s body - cybernetic circuits connected to servomotor prostheses, or living flesh. This was a state secret of the Confederacy.
As usual, he wore the black uniform of a space fleet officer, under which life support systems and parts of a special corset were skillfully hidden. Dorokhov, who was a good hundred years younger than Vorontsov, nevertheless perfectly understood the reason for such constancy. He also preferred the old uniform of combat units. As Vorontsov himself once admitted, in addition to his personal love for this color, so similar to the inky darkness of outer space, the uniform constantly reminded him of the time when, as a young lieutenant, he led the remnants of the defeated Colonial fleet and led the surviving ships against the squadrons of the Earth Alliance . According to the commander himself, this made it possible to forget about the inexorable passage of years.
However, despite the years, Vorontsov’s gaze always remained as cold and calm as on the day when, having eliminated his commander, he took upon himself the full burden of responsibility for the fate of the Free Colonies... They were in awe of him, they were afraid of him, many outright hated him, but he stood outside of idle gossip, like a monument, a living monument of his era.
...The hatch opened, and the general, who was already preparing to walk towards the commander, striding along the echoing slabs of the airlock platform, was literally dumbfounded.
Instead of Vorontsov, the figure of a middle-aged man appeared in the oval opening of the hatch. He was dressed in the dress uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Confederacy, and the old general, shocked to the core, suddenly thought that this was some kind of mockery, a gilded clown, it was unclear by whom and why he had been sent to the “Black Moon.” Behind the newcomer, two youthful adjutants in the uniform of colonels appeared.
Dorokhov swallowed, trying to normalize his nerves. He could not understand what was happening and get rid of the reprehensible feeling that, together with these three buffoons in gilded uniforms, the airlock area of the military base was filled with a subtle sweetish smell of perfume from the social salons of Fort Stellar...
General confusion became apparent. Even the sentries at the hatch tensed and turned pale.
The commander-in-chief of the military space forces of the Confederation of Suns stopped in front of the petrified space infantrymen from the honor guard and, raising a thin, well-groomed eyebrow, looked questioningly at the general.
At that moment, Dorokhov finally recognized the arrival, and a terrible premonition spread in the old man’s chest like a grave cold.
Jedian Lange... Great-nephew of Admiral Vorontsov... Heir to the Rory system and Fort Stellar... The sprout of the generation that rose in the richly fertilized field of war...
Overcoming the growing cold inside and the disgusting senile trembling that treacherously settled in his legs, Dorokhov made an effort over himself and went to meet the newly-minted commander.
He turned and calmly waited while the general walked towards him through a kind of tunnel formed by two ranks of the honor guard.
Finally, having thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of general confusion, he himself, as if having mercy, took a step towards the base commander.
Mister Admiral!.. - Dorokhov began, but Lange stopped the report with a gracious gesture, from which Dmitry Alekseevich almost shuddered.
“I’m sorry, general,” Jedian said calmly, even with a hint of contemptuous condescension in his voice, “but I have arrived with sad news. My uncle, Admiral Vorontsov, died.
At these words, a light sigh ran through the ranks of those present at the meeting, only the lips of the two adjutant colonels remained tightly compressed.
This is a huge loss for the Confederacy of Suns,” Jedian continued. -But we can't stop the flow of time, right? - he asked, looking at Dorokhov, who had aged a good two decades before his eyes. - The situation in the Galaxy is such that we have no time to grieve, General... I, as the heir to Fort Stellar, which is the main support base of the Confederation fleet, continue the mission of Admiral Vorontsov. The Supreme Council of the Union of the Central Worlds correctly assessed the existing situation and confirmed my authority as the successor to the position of fleet commander. I think that the necessary package of messages has already been transmitted through the Hypersphere Frequency stations, and you, General, will be able to familiarize yourself with the documents at any time.
His speech was smooth and correct. If Dorokhov's memory served him correctly, Jedian Lange held the position of chief of staff of the fleet and specialized, in addition to his nominal functions at headquarters, in neurosurgery, psychology and deep brain probing. In particular, the infamous brain scanner was his brainchild.
The pause was unjustifiably prolonged, and the general, shuddering, looked up.
Unlike Vorontsov, who, while evoking horror, always remained a military man, his great-nephew gave the impression of a politician. These were two very different concepts, and Jedian Lange, apparently, was well aware of the difference. It was easy to understand from his face that he, in particular, was making a comparison in his favor. However, as Dorokhov was later able to verify, he had the right to such self-confidence. If Lange, in comparison with Vorontsov, looked like a gilded clown, then he was the most dangerous clown of those whom the old general had to meet. Just like the admiral, there was strength in him, but it was of a completely different kind...
Mister Commander! No incidents have been registered at the space fleet base entrusted to me! - Having made an effort, the general finally reported. He had no doubt that Lange had indeed been approved for the position of commander.
That’s good, General,” Jedian stopped him gently, thus ending the official part of the meeting. A look of boredom suddenly appeared on his face. “Set aside separate cabins for my adjutants and order lunch to be served in a room equipped with video equipment,” he ordered.
Dorokhov had only one thing left to do - straighten his back and give a military salute.
***So? - Jedian Lange took a napkin and dabbed his lips with it. Then he crumpled it up, threw it into a plate and turned to the viewing screen, onto which an image of three dark, as if covered with soot, planetoids was projected.
Nothing illuminated their gloomy, airless surface. The system was missing a star, and three planetoids, each the size of a small moon, orbited a single center of mass.
How such a cosmic system came about was anyone's guess.
Between three planets located close to each other at the Lagrange points of the system, several space stations hung. From them stretched power tunnels invisible to the eye, which ended in power spheres indicated by tiny sparks from the parking lights.
Inside these invisible spheres, the diameter of which was hundreds of kilometers, there was something incomprehensible and completely unusual for the human eye. In the computer files of the Black Moon station, which exercised general control over power structures, the spheres were called “incubators.”
Inside the cyclopean energy structures, among the equipment floating in a vacuum, the complexes of which extended in kilometer-long sections, mysterious and incomprehensible processes were taking place.
It must be said that Jedian Lange witnessed first-hand the operation of such production.
A block of ice and stone, taken from the surface of one of the planets of this mysterious system, silently slipped through the power tunnels into one of the incubators. Having flown along a strictly calculated trajectory, the kilometer-long piece of debris fell into a powerful gravitational loop and was fixed under the gun of laser systems.
A few minutes passed, and the lasers began to cut the block with their beams, carefully melting the ice. A cloud of steam, dust and microscopic particles swirled inside the power sphere. Automatic probes scurried about in the dense primeval soup. They took samples and dumped them into express analyzer chambers.
All processes were vigilantly monitored by computers.
The secret complex “Black Moon” conducted research into life alien to humans, which was carried out here since, during the construction of a strategic spaceport on the surface of one of the planets, which, like the base, was called the Black Moon, pioneer builders discovered the ruins of an unimaginably ancient building.
Is this a recording? - Jedian asked, watching as the lasers cut the block delivered from the surface of the planetoid.
Yes, Mr. Admiral,” Dorokhov answered him. - Recording of the main event.
Stop it. I want to hear the whole backstory. I was not satisfied with the technical information from the computer database.
Dmitry Alekseevich nodded. He was depressed, but kept his emotions in check. Obeying his sign, the adjutant stood up and approached the huge screen divided into sectors. Having made the switch, he turned to Jedian Lange.
Now one of the sections of the composite screen showed a computer model of the system. The planets looked like soccer balls covered in a green web of coordinate grids. The threads of trajectories pulsated between them, and the active orbital complexes burned with scarlet contours. Many objects in the general scheme were painted in purple and blue colors - these were the places where construction was still underway.
May I allow you, Mr. Admiral?
Yes, officer, please begin. - Jedian leaned back in his chair, ready to listen. The rest of the officers at the large oval table did not change their positions; it seemed uninteresting to them to look at the screen, because the pictures of the surrounding space and the computer model of the system were extremely boring to them. And even the fact of direct involvement in certain historical events has long been no longer a reason for any inspiration for the overwhelming majority of these people. For them, it seemed, first of all, a boring and gray service - like the routine of everyday life in the cramped compartments of a secret space base surrounded by spatial minefields. The officer at the screen cleared his throat tactfully.
Initially, the “Black Moon” complex was designed as a strategic secret spaceport,” he began to explain, moving the beam of a laser pointer across the dark surface of the screen, causing the scarlet cursor to run from one section of the diagram to another.
Jedian, who had been staring at the image of the three dark planetoids, raised an eyebrow. These moons were clearly once satellites of a much larger celestial body, but now it had disappeared, and three dark balls were circling around some invisible point, like the booths of a children's carousel around a pillar...
Wait, officer, but it seems to me that there is something missing in the system, right? - Jedian expressed his doubts out loud. “I’m far from deep knowledge of astronomy,” he spread his hands, “but, in my opinion, there should be a sun here... well, I mean, some kind of star, right?” Or I'm wrong? - He turned his gaze to the officer, who hesitated for a second, apparently wondering how best to formulate his answer.
No, Mr. Admiral, your conclusion is absolutely fair,” he finally answered in an even, neutral tone. General Dorokhov specifically kept with him several of these literalists, who by nature, of course, were bastards and bureaucrats to the core, but in such situations, these wonderful specimens of staff rats, capable of driving any combat officer of the fleet into rage, turned out to be simply irreplaceable.
The black moon was chosen for the construction of the cosmodrome precisely because of the absence of the sun here - As if trying to confirm his own reputation, the officer called to the screen launched into lengthy and monotonous explanations. - Such planets cannot be detected visually, and they, in turn, are sources of unlimited material resources for the construction of the necessary communications. Significant benefits are achieved due to the presence of natural gravity on the surface of the planets...
Get to the point,” Jedian stopped him, no longer hiding the hint of irritation in his voice. - Has there ever been sun here or not?
The officer at the screen cast a confused glance at Dorokhov.
The general nodded slightly; Lange frowned, noticing this exchange of facial expressions.
Yes, Mister Commander. There was a star,” the officer reported hastily, as if apologizing for the delay.
And where did she go? - Jedian's eyes narrowed, betraying irritation that he did not consider necessary to hide.
She was annihilated, sir... - the officer said not very confidently. - According to isotope analysis, this happened about three million years ago.
That is, when our ancestors ran around the Earth on all fours? - Lange clarified, grinning at some of his thoughts.
Yes, sir! Layers of vitrified basalt and cinder-like regolith on the surface of the three planetoids indicate that the star burned out in a catastrophic flare... However, this does not in any way affect the location of the launch pads, and the absence of the sun, as I already reported, is...
This time Jedian Lange turned directly to Dorokhov, obviously not trusting the competence and knowledge of the staff officer. He knew the headquarters kitchen very well and understood that they had not yet taken him seriously and were trying to fool him with second-rate information, like an ordinary inspector.
General... - he suppressed his irritation and said reproachfully.
Dorokhov understood.
Everyone is free... - Dmitry Alekseevich said dully, mechanically clasping his hands. - Adjutants and secretaries too.
A minute later the conference room was empty. Only Dorokhov and Jedian remained at the huge oval table.
General... - the new commander said rather softly, looking intently at Dorokhov, who was sitting at the opposite end of the table, his hands still clasped. - You are dejected by the death of Vorontsov. I sincerely share your grief. - Lange took the glass and took a sip. - Would you like me to tell you what you are thinking about now? - he asked, looking at the ruby-red liquid in the light.
“No, general,” Jedian interrupted his apology. - You think that with the death of Vorontsov an entire era is passing into the past. The era of the First and Second Galactic Wars. The era of heroism. You look into the future and see nothing there except an honorable farewell to retirement, because power, in your opinion, has passed into the hands of politicians - people with many faces, deceitful and unscrupulous. You’re partly right... - he suddenly grinned. - But only partly, believe me.
Mr. Commander... - Dorokhov tried to object again, but Lange silenced him with an imperious gesture.
No. No need for fake apologies. I want you to understand, no matter how regrettable it is for your way of thinking, that I,” he emphasized the last word with intonation, “is not a temporary worker. “I am the one who replaced Admiral Vorontsov... I am a man of the new generation,” Lange formulated after a little hesitation. “Those methods that were suitable in the difficult days of the destruction of the planets are now being transformed into something softer and intangible,” he explained. - One war is over, but another, no less terrible, is coming. It is already underway, but no one noticed its beginning, because at this stage it is a war of minds. And only when minds capitulate will battle cruisers rush into battle.
Dorokhov nodded, but it was more a gesture of doom than understanding. Jedian really knew how to persuade, but the general also went through a harsh school of life and had his own view on many of its aspects.
“I don’t understand,” he said dully. “Hasn’t humanity experienced this before?” Doesn't history repeat itself, but only on a larger scale? - Dorokhov raised a heavy glance at his new boss, and it seemed to him that the question had burst out of Dmitry Alekseevich against his will.
What do you mean, General? - Lange asked carefully.
This complex,” Dorokhov answered. - “Black Moon”... We are delving into the past, but I can still understand and appreciate this, but for what? Is it for history, in the name of knowledge about the Forerunners of humanity?! - A tired expression appeared on the general’s face, as if he had already asked himself this question more than once. “Look,” he switched the image, “samples from cometary nuclei, particles of asteroids wandering in space, samples of cosmic dust flock here... We collect and accumulate here not just fragments of the past that are interesting for science. Dozens of lower forms of ancient life have already been found. These microscopic creatures are so alien to modern metabolism that if they were given free rein, they would wipe out humanity in one year. Everyone. And the right, and the guilty, and scoundrels, and saints. We have neither immunity nor means of fighting. In my opinion, star squadrons are a more honest and bloodless path. Jedian winced. Internally, of course, he was preparing for such a conversation, but he did not think that everything would happen so quickly and unambiguously. At Fort Stellar, from where he had just arrived, different methods of constructing political dialogues were in use.
You're exaggerating, General. You confuse the policy of containment with a global war... - nevertheless, he answered, trying to make his voice sound as honest and trusting as possible. - It will not happen only because millions of people imagine the fatal consequences of such actions no worse than you. Fear,” he grinned as he uttered this word and put down his glass, as if to assure his thought. - Fear, Mr. Dorokhov, is the tool that will lead to peace! - he concluded.
You can’t grow anything but hatred from fear,” Dmitry Alekseevich shook his head. - Already tried.
This time Jedian almost lost his temper.
Do you consider yourself clean? - He kicked his leg over his knee and leaned forward. - Or Vorontsov?
He saved the Colonies. He created the Confederacy. He gave us a chance to live... Lange's eyes narrowed:
You reason like a dogmatist! Vorontsov is a figure, I don’t deny it, but he was just as vile, cruel and unscrupulous as any of us! - Jedian suddenly became openly wound up. - The Confederation was built on bones, but who remembers this?! Nobody! No one remembers what my great-uncle did in the name of peace and victory over the forces of the Alliance! But he killed, executed, betrayed his own son, betrayed his oath, he destroyed entire planets! But now everything is overgrown with reality... It suddenly became an AGE that people regret. It does not hurt anymore. Those who lost relatives died. There were no living witnesses left. And our memory always suffers from selectivity! We remember one thing and forget another. But life goes on. And our enemies, both on Earth and in other galactic alliances, are developing and living. Moving forward. And you propose that the Confederation freeze at the level of chivalry. - Having cooled down a little, Jedian leaned back into the soft embrace of the chair. - The time when one cruiser could decide the fate of civilization, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, has already passed... - Lange was a born speaker. A few seconds passed, and he was already speaking calmly, deliberately and with conviction: “It’s gone irrevocably, General.” There are too many of us, we are complex... every year several planets are being explored, humanity is swelling, and while you are reproaching one for violating the ethical standards of the Confederacy, another will stab you in the back!
So this is the end? All over again? - Dorokhov asked with some kind of brokenness in his voice, who was still sitting with his fingers clasped and not raising his eyes to the new commander.
Not again, Dmitry Alekseevich,” Lange answered him softly, almost insinuatingly. - This is progress. Another level of development. History does not stand still and does not tolerate emptiness. Years will pass, some nations will die out, others will develop, and I and you - we will all turn into symbols, and our human fears, doubts, beliefs will no longer touch anyone. All that remains is the main assessment of the actions: I was able to do it or not. He kept the peace or stopped an avalanche of war... And here, believe me, any means become good. Because no personal tragedy can compare with the tragedy of a nation or planet. A single fate, even if broken and crippled in the name of a great goal, will never outweigh the scales of history!
Jedian knew how to persuade. Dorokhov felt that in his heart he did not agree with him, but he could not find anything to object to. He was simply cut from a different cloth.
Why are you talking to me in such detail, Mr. Commander? - he asked again dully. “We are thinking in different directions, so isn’t it easier for me to leave, since my century has died, and the ethical laws of honor have been trampled into the dirt in the name of a policy of general containment?!”
No,” Jedian shook his head, filling his glass. “Your resignation will not be a solution either for me personally or for the Confederacy, because everything must be in moderation,” he said edifyingly, “honor and dishonor, open war and secret strikes.” We are not Pithecanthropus with clubs... And the Confederation is no longer the patrimony of Vorontsov, not Rory, and not even Stellar, where several spaceships held the defense... our world is becoming too complex. There is room in it equally for me and for you. It is only necessary to touch at certain points for unity to arise. But you are right, I don’t need people who see me as a greedy, power-hungry successor to Admiral Vorontsov and who palm me off with staff demagogues in the hope that I’ll get bored and fly away. No, general. This will not happen. Because I have a better idea of the value of the “Black Moon”, and especially of the latest find.
In those moments, Jedian Lange changed dramatically. His arrogant apathy disappeared, the tinsel shine seemed to have flown off his gold-embroidered uniform, lifting the mysterious mantle of self-control, from under which the real face of the heir of Fort Stellar suddenly appeared... Dmitry Alekseevich Dorokhov, sitting on the other side of the table, even shuddered, shaking his head to regain sharpness vision...
“They burned their star, and with it some enemy unknown to us,” Lange said in the meantime. - I am equally interested in both sides of that confrontation. The scale is terrible, but it is the information on the “Black Moon”, coupled with technologies capable of burning out stars like candles, that will perhaps become a guarantee of peace and the integrity of the Confederation of Suns. And I’m ready to break more than one fate for this, you can believe me.
“I believe...” Dorokhov answered dully.
For some reason, he suddenly felt scared and uncomfortable at the huge oval table alone with this man, whom, not an hour ago, he had mistaken for a clown.
Noticing his condition, Jedian frowned.
Okay, General, let's be honest. Even with my superficial knowledge, I was able to appreciate the significance of “Black Moon” for the future of the Confederacy. I flew here not with an inspection, but with the intention of figuring it out myself. And I don't want you or your staff officers to interfere with my work, okay?
Dorokhov nodded. What's so unclear about this?
Great. This means that from this moment I am establishing the following regulations: you remain the commander of the base and guard it very well, and I and my people will deal with the “Black Moon”.
Now he was no longer a clown, not a politician, not a skilled speaker; it was as if Vorontsov’s shadow rose before Dorokhov in the ghostly shine of the late admiral’s iron will...
In half an hour, I should have access to all databases, code keys and identifiers for all laboratories and prepared premises for the personnel who came with me,” Jedian concluded in a tone that does not tolerate objections.
Dorokhov stood up. He had nothing to object or answer. Dmitry Alekseevich felt that half an hour of conversation with Lange exhausted him, like a day of intense military operations.
Do you have permission to go, Mr. Commander? Jedian graciously bowed his head, not taking his penetrating gaze off him.
Go ahead, general,” he allowed. - And remember, I hope that you and I will work together.
***The secret base, codenamed “Black Moon,” was indeed intended to be a strategic spaceport. Initially, no one planned to conduct research and excavations here; at the height of the First Galactic War there was no time for scientific research.
Three dark planets, not marked on any star map due to the absence of the star itself, were indeed an ideal place for the secret deployment of strike squadrons of the space fleet. This sector of space was considered empty. The presence of planets, as the staff officer had already noted, made it possible to build landing sites and repair docks with a natural source of gravity, which was very important for the normal and effective repair of warships.
Jedian ran his eyes through all this data, only briefly stopping his gaze on some phrases. He was not interested in the history of the “Black Moon”, which, in fact, was a mirror image of the history of the emergence of Fort Stellar, but something else...
Yeah, here...
Jedian's eyes flashed with a dark, greedy fire.
Report of the senior construction team... So... When digging a pit... Depth - minus thirty-two meters from the zero level... Remains of a reinforced concrete wall that retained weak relict radiation... Damage and the structure of internal deformations are characteristic of a close thermonuclear explosion... In the regolith, gray in color, reminiscent of drop-shaped particles slag, metal ingots were found, presumably some objects of an unknown civilization.
Jedian leaned back in his chair and thought.
This find was more than forty years old, but even then his uncle, Admiral Vorontsov, correctly assessed its significance and ordered the beginning of targeted studies of the soil on the surface of three moons scorched by hellfire... or planets?
“Moon sooner…” Jedian decided to himself. - For full-fledged planets on which intelligent life could develop, they are too small. Weak gravity, and in general, the conditions are not right for evolution, such as on the vast majority of oxygen worlds. No... Their home planet is somewhere else... - he thought, in no hurry to move on to considering the main event. - Three burnt moons... Stronghold? Outpost?.. Base?..”
In any case, only one term came to mind - war. The war that took place three million years ago, but between whom?! Two prehistoric intelligent races? Or a civil split within a once united civilization? Jedian did not know this, but he was seriously going to find out, and the latest discovery, extracted from the slag-like regolith of Black Moon 1, the same planetoid where the remains of inhuman structures were first discovered, allowed him to harbor similar hopes.
Jedian was indeed the man who created the brain scanner and developed a new field of science. And he quite sincerely believed that he was not to blame for the military use of these discoveries. This is how their cruel time decreed.
Whether Jedian Lange was mistaken or not, time had to judge. But, be that as it may, he was an extraordinary person and a talented scientist, whom nature awarded with intelligence, and fate and kinship elevated to the very top of the hierarchical ladder of the Confederation of Suns.
Lighting a cigarette, he turned on the playback of the video recording, which he himself had interrupted in the meeting room...
Taking a deep breath, Jedian missed the beginning and fixed his eyes on the monitor screen only when he saw that very frame...
...The power sphere, into which a piece of rock cut from the surface of the Black Moon entered through an electromagnetic tunnel, swirled with steam.
The multi-kilometer block that arrived at the “cutting” site slowly rotated in the sights of the video cameras monitoring the process.
Anticipating the development of events, Jedian moved towards the monitor. He suddenly noticed that a nervous tremor was born somewhere in the area of the spine.
This turned out to be a very interesting specimen. It was half freshwater ice. The first unique find of its kind, discovered at a depth of two hundred meters under the ash surface. The first evidence that there was once an atmosphere and even water here...
Suddenly, amidst the swirling steam, something inappropriate happened.
The laser beam, like a thin fiery cord, passed exactly through the center of a one and a half kilometer block of ice, breaking it into two shapeless halves. The ice on the cut of the huge planes emitted steam and in its transparency resembled glass.
Tiny spider-like mechanisms scurried around in the swirling dust, amid the evaporating gas and laser flashes. Only they were able to look inside the cut block of fossil ice through the transparent window that opened at the cut, but idle curiosity was not part of the programming responsibilities of primitive automata. However, they were equipped with video cameras, the images from which were transmitted to hundreds of monitors at the tracking station, and at the same time all video signals from the mechanisms were analyzed by a special computer. It was he who displayed an emergency signal on the display of one of the people on duty at the station.
The duty officer at the base looked at the monitor. His face first turned pale, and then became covered with uneven spots of blush.
Obviously, in those seconds the officer experienced a shock much stronger than the excitement that Jedian felt from watching the recording. He now already knows WHAT this officer saw on the monitor.
Not daring to take his eyes off the image, he found the intercom key by touch, responsible for the general connection, and said in a voice that had shrunk from excitement:
To all base personnel. Combat alert. Code red in sector four!
The computer-processed image continued to be displayed on the monitor. A small spider-like robot crawled along a smooth section of ice. His video camera, on orders from the central computer, was aimed inside the ice block.
The officer wanted to say something, but only a strangled, wheezing sigh escaped from his throat; people were imprisoned inside the gigantic block of ice... but, great God, their skin shone with a delicate blue, and their facial features did not in any way resemble human ones... Pointed ears, like vile characters from low-quality cartoons, devoid of lips, slit-like mouth, small, wide-spaced eyes - all together it looked simply disgusting. The robot's camera jumped, showing twisted, unnaturally arched arms and legs, flat chests, bald egg-shaped skulls...
The complete absence of sexual characteristics caused even greater disgust. It’s as if someone froze dozens of dolls or naked mannequins in ice...
Behind the dumbfounded officer, the sirens of the alarm he raised were howling. People ran into the hall one after another.
Further actions of the personnel were clear and military-coordinated. These people specially prepared for such surprises.
Huge pumps located along the perimeter of the invisible power sphere quickly pumped out the entire gaseous mixture located in the cutting sector of the delivered samples. Dozens of ultraviolet spotlights flooded the space inside the sphere with blue light, designed to, if not kill, then significantly weaken foreign microorganisms.
Automatic lasers switched to wide-aperture mode, now their scattered energy did not cut two blocks of ice, but caused them to melt intensively. The pumps continued to pump out evaporation products, maintaining a relative vacuum inside the sphere.
Gradually the work became more difficult. The bodies melted onto the surface of the blocks; they were carefully cut out with a laser, taking care not to touch the outstretched limbs. Two hours later, nothing remained of the one and a half kilometer block except humanoid bodies floating in the vacuum, enclosed inside transparent ice parallelepipeds. The scanners showed two hundred and thirteen creatures, among whose frozen bodies several devices of a strange appearance and unknown purpose were floating in weightlessness.
...The recording has ended. There were no further finds, and no one touched the bodies themselves. They still floated, sealed in coffins of ice, inside the invisible boundaries of the force ball.
“We were waiting in the wings. They were waiting for me…” Jedian thought excitedly, suddenly feeling how, after a break, he was again plunging into his native element.
He couldn't hold on any longer... It was THE WORK... THE WORK OF A WHOLE LIFE.
At this moment, Jedian Lange forgot about the Confederation and his high position. The same scientist who invented ten years ago the correct way to read information directly from the human brain and visually decipher it woke up in him.
“This is the real job for my scanner! - he thought excitedly. - These creatures are sealed in ice. Apparently their death was instantaneous. This means that there is a real chance of resuscitation... Nothing... These are not the ones who were returned from the other world. - Jedian’s thoughts suddenly took on a purposeful character. He was already making plans, mentally calculating the chances of success. “Let...” he thought, “let two hundred and twelve creatures be spent on autopsies, studying the structure of organs, experiments with the biochemistry of metabolism, unsuccessful attempts at resuscitation, but the last one will definitely come to life, at least for a minute, for a few moments, and then all the information will be ripped out of him.” , which will become available to deep brain scanners!”
It was like an obsession. Jedian has transformed, and if not for the solitude, the sight of the commander-in-chief of the Confederate space forces might have shocked many of his subordinates...
He sat in a deep chair, clutching the soft armrests with white fingers, his face flushed with excitement, and his lips moving silently at the moment when Lange's gaze wandered across the screen, where icy rectangular blocks floating in a vacuum, colliding with each other, containing the greatest and perhaps most terrifying discovery of modern times.
Jedian couldn't wait any longer. He wanted one thing - to act
Underground levels of Fort Stellar. Two months after the events describedOne of the dozen offices of Jedian Lange, scattered throughout all levels of Fort Stellar, differed from the other workrooms of the uncrowned ruler of the system, Rory, not only in its impressive size and elegance of decoration, but above all in its set of unique electronic equipment, the analogues of which could easily be counted on one hand.
In the center of the oval office stood something similar to an ancient Egyptian pyramid. The matte black surface of the panels, under which the unique processors were hidden, snaked with oblique glare of light, reflecting the radiance of the dot lamps mounted in the ceiling. The pyramid of processor units narrowed at the top and was hollow from the inside.
Thus, another square room was hidden inside the study, the sloping walls of which breathed, removing heat from the working processors with the quiet, monotonous noise of cooling fans; chains of control lights quickly scurried along the inner walls of the pyramid, reflecting in their intricate patterns certain stages of the complex’s operation, several monitors glowed dimly, and all of this came closer, hung, surrounded on all sides by a single chair with thick armrests, above which the statistic stood in a violet trembling - several helmets hung in the field for neurosensory contact.
Now Jedian sat in this very chair, completely immersed in virtual reality.
There was a secret meeting with the participation of the heads of government of those planets that were part of the Confederation of Suns.
Whether Jedian wanted it or not, he had to devote most of his time to politics, and therefore work on the Black Moon project progressed frustratingly slowly.
The project itself captivated him deeper and deeper.
Jedian could not lie to himself; big politics fascinated him much less than research in the field of the human brain. And therefore he seriously thought about resigning as commander of the Fleet and nominal head of the Confederacy. Daily problems, political squabbles, ambitions - all this extremely tired him, scattered his attention and took up a lot of time.
And now, when the virtual meeting was in full swing, he, listening to the speaker, could not get rid of thoughts about the Black Moon.
President Elio Anton Verbitsky spoke.
Everyone, with the exception of Jedian, listened attentively to the tall, gray-haired military man, in the past, like Vorontsov, the admiral of his planet.
However, thoughtfulness did not in any way affect Jedian Lange’s characteristic ability to follow the speaker’s speech without missing the main thread of his reasoning.
The issue of revising the Military Doctrine of the Confederacy of Suns was on the agenda, and Jedian, no matter how much he wanted, simply could not ignore such an important report.
Verbitsky spoke quietly.
-...Now the time has come for a radical revision of the position of the Central Worlds in relation to the Earth Alliance and other formations that appear here and there in space, like mushrooms after a warm rain.
President Elio's face exuded calm and full awareness of the justice of his words.
In general, Verbitsky gave the impression of a person who passes every word through the prism of personal life experience, and President Elio’s experience was both bitter and varied...
“Gentlemen, we have already gone through the stage of a defensive alliance,” he said with conviction, but without unnecessary pomp. - The military power of the Earth has been broken, and the time has come to think about the further structure of the world, which is still balancing on a precarious edge. It seems that the Second Galactic War ended almost ten years ago, but privateers continue to commit atrocities on the hypersphere routes, many worlds are thrown back into the abyss of regression. And how many more new colonies will be opened in the coming years, which, like our planets, were developed by “defectors” of the First Spurt of the Great Expansion? - Verbitsky looked around at the phantom images of his interlocutors, who were currently sitting in neurosensory helmets at a distance of many light years from each other. “In the Erigon sector, the alliance of the Space Caliphate is growing stronger,” President Elio continued. - Every month we receive information about newly discovered planets, which, for the most part, unknowingly, were involved in the First or Second Galactic Wars. They need, first of all, protection, a guarantee that orbital bombings, planetary genocide and the arbitrary placement of military bases “by the right of might” will not happen again. We are now sending humanitarian aid whenever possible to particularly hard-hit worlds, but this is a fraction of the amount required.
At these words, an interested expression appeared on the faces of those present at the virtual meeting. Not everyone understood in which direction Verbitsky was pushing, and some heads of the planets tried to ask questions, but the speaker only raised his voice, covering the noise running through the rows. Obviously, he believed that the answers to all questions would be given to him during the speech.
The second point I would like to focus on is interplanetary trade and the security of hypersphere routes,” he said. - At the moment, such concepts as “common market” or “common economic space” simply do not exist. The old ties that existed between the colonies have been broken, and new ones will take decades, if not centuries, to establish. The war has pushed humanity back too far. Nowhere, except on the worlds of the Confederation, are any rights guaranteed to Intelligent Beings...
Jedian shuddered.
Sorry, Mr. Verbitsky,” he considered it necessary to intervene. - You meant people's rights.
“I meant the rights of Intelligent Beings,” Anton Eduardovich calmly answered.
But I must note, we are alone in the Galaxy! - Jedian reminded him.
“This is temporary, Mr. Lange,” Verbitsky calmly retorted, as if he was convinced of the existence of another mind. “In addition, the biospheres of some colonized planets are so inconsistent with the original human metabolism that the descendants of the surviving colonists on worlds such as Erigon, Zoroasta, Omicron-5 are already considered by some almost as xenomorphic life forms,” he recalled. - And this attitude towards them as “younger brothers in mind” creates a dangerous precedent. Experience shows that civilization is growing, expanding exponentially, and the consequences of our penetration into deep space are growing just as rapidly. We must not only help this expansive desire, but also regulate it.
How, Anton Eduardovich? - President Quig asked.
Through the creation of an institute of interplanetary security,” Verbitsky answered. - The Galaxy needs a single law, a common economic space, equal rights and guarantees for all worlds without exception, but not through dictatorship, as the Earth wanted to do.
“How the Earth wanted to do this...” These words echoed in the minds of those present. Even Jedian, who, as it turned out, was no longer thinking about the Black Moon, felt a certain ominous chill that, like a spark of a static discharge, ran between those gathered in the field of virtual space.
“I propose to create on the basis of the Confederation of Suns some kind of international organization,” President Elio continued after a short pause, “which would unite representatives of all planets explored by people. The prototype of such a Security Council of the Worlds, as I would conditionally call this organization, already existed once within the framework of the Earth. This institution was called the UN - the United Nations, which had its own armed forces, not controlled by any government.
That is, you want to create a third force in space, in addition to the Confederation of Suns and the Earth Alliance?! - exclaimed the president of the planet, Rory. - And you seriously hope for her neutrality?!
Gentlemen, we have a common space, a common history, common interests, such as, for example, effective survival in the future! - Verbitsky explained more sharply. - If we limit ourselves to a strictly defensive alliance of a dozen developed worlds, then we will thereby doom the entire inhabited Galaxy to further bloodshed! The tragedy of two galactic wars must not be repeated, otherwise we are worthless as intelligent beings! - he concluded. “The radioactive ashes of that crater that turned into a grave for hundreds of thousands of Elio residents, among whom were my parents, have not yet cooled down in my chest!” And to me, as a person who perfectly understands what DEATH is, who has experienced its horror on my own skin, the hopes, fears and aspirations of those communities that are not part of the defensive alliance of the Confederation are close and understandable. They are afraid to join us, because they reasonably believe that at best they will receive the status of a “secondary colony” and will be exploited in terms of resources... but at the same time, without joining the strong one, they risk being trampled by an aggressor, who could at any moment appear in their orbits. An example of this is the raid of pirate cruisers on Gisborne - one of the remote, outlying worlds. I believe that in this situation, if anarchy is not stopped, guaranteed freedoms are not declared and GENERAL SECURITY is not ensured, sooner or later a power similar to Earth will grow in the Galaxy, and it will crush any defensive alliance of several planet-states. Including the Confederacy. And only real interplanetary laws and an equally real international force capable of putting them into practice will provide humanity with the prospect of development, and not slow death and regression! After Verbitsky’s words there was deathly silence. Then, to Jedian's surprise, a smile appeared on President Dion's face.
“I believe that Mr. Verbitsky is basically right,” he suddenly said, and his hand appeared in virtual space. - Congratulations, Anton Eduardovich! You were the first to express what should rightfully soon become the history of the Galaxy!
Jedian did not expect such a turn of events.
Wait, gentlemen!.. - he began, but Lange’s voice was suddenly drowned in the noise of general exclamations.
Yielding to a sudden impulse of rage, he suddenly tore the virtual helmet from his head.
Jedian's heart beat loudly and unevenly in his chest. He realized what a mistake he had made, but was it too late?
Two months!.. They ripened quickly...
Jedian rose heavily from his chair and walked around the office, stretching his legs.
The black pyramid of the virtual interstellar communications complex hummed quietly behind him, continuing its work.
Security Council... Bullshit! The Confederation bore on its shoulders all the hardships of the war for the independence of the Colonies, and now Verbitsky proposes to simply take and distribute this victory in the form of equal rights and freedoms to everyone who, with their tails between their legs, sat under the atmospheric caps of their planets, while...
“ Damn!
Whatever one may say, he couldn’t, like his grandfather, sit with one butt on several chairs and at the same time be one hundred percent in control of the situation!
Jedian grew gloomy. Approaching the table with drinks, he took a sip of tonic and again began to pace the space free of equipment along the curved, oval walls of the office.
No, he definitely didn’t like the trend that Verbitsky had so clearly substantiated at today’s meeting. This threatened, if not the collapse of the Confederation of Suns, then its transformation, and neither one nor the other suited the owner of Fort Stellar. It’s not that he really longed for personal power, no, it’s just that, raised by Vorontsov, born in a situation of war and at the same time not having seen the war, without experiencing its horror, Jedian, no matter how gifted he was, could not feel that reasonable necessity that sounded in Verbitsky’s words. For him, the concept of “war” was primarily synonymous with words such as “profit” and “well-being,” and not vice versa.
Threat... This is the magic term that has been latently ripening in Jedian’s head all this time. A real, tangible threat from the outside will return the policy of the Confederation to its previous course, forcing the worlds that have tasted peace to once again rally around Stellar and Rory.
Jedian's next thought, quite logically, was about the Black Moon.
Freig... But it seems that his entire future lay in her!
Filled with impatience, as he had been a few months ago at the Black Moon base, Jedian sat down at the computer terminal and called up the research department of his personal scientific complex, located right there in the bowels of Stellar.
Henri, come to me! - he ordered as soon as the dark face of the head of the main laboratory appeared on the screen. “With all the materials on Black Moon,” he added before disconnecting. Then he thought a little, finished his tonic and repeated the challenge: “I changed my mind.” I'll go down myself now.
A light blinked pleadingly on the virtual communications panel.
The heads of planetary governments wondered where the chairman had disappeared so suddenly.
“Let them look…” he thought irritably, remembering how he was not heard behind the excited congratulations addressed to Verbitsky.
***Everything in the laboratory complexes shone with sterile whiteness.
Personnel in protective suits with transparent helmets and masks were engaged in ordinary, routine work. The computer terminals shone cheerfully with lights, and the air pumps rustled barely audibly, refreshing the air in the rooms every second.
Henri Baker was waiting for Jedian at the door of the hall, where access to ordinary employees was not only prohibited, but physically impossible. The strict observance of this rule was ensured by the same automation, which, thanks to the natural suspicion of Admiral Vorontsov, was sufficient in all levels of Fort Stellar, starting from open-access external settlements located under power bubbles, on the surface of the atmosphereless satellite of the planet Rory, and ending with the gloomy underground casemates of a special naval prison, where more than one hundred people disliked by the admiral perished without a trace.
All this was inherited by Jedian Lange. Admiral Vorontsov came to the system of the planet Rory practically destitute, except for the property of a dozen battle-worn ships, which at that time made up the entire fleet of the Free Colonies.
From here Vorontsov launched a daring strike on Earth, from here the revival of the fleet began, but the admiral never forgot about himself during the fighting for independence, and when the war ended, it turned out that, according to existing documents, almost the entire surface of Rory and the only satellite of the planet Stellar, on which the fleet of the newborn Confederacy of Suns was based became his private property,
While Vorontsov, whose supremacy in the space fleet no one would dare to challenge, was alive, the question of Stellar’s private status simply did not arise, because Vorontsov, Stellar and the Confederation were unshakable and indivisible concepts.
Now, after the death of the admiral, the young community of planets suddenly realized that the entire power of its battle fleet, that is, the gigantic material base, without which the existence of not a single space formation is unthinkable, belongs to the heir of Fort Stellar, that is, to him, Jedian Lange.
That is why no one objected to his approval for the post of acting admiral of the fleet, but this position remained very precarious, and today’s speech by Verbitsky served as a clear example of this.
“A few more years will pass, and new strongholds will be created for basing the fleet... - Jedian thought so, following his assistant to the thick armored doors. “And when the urgent need for Fort Stellar disappears, all these Verbitskys, advocating universal democracy and independence, will simply leave me out of work...”
Perhaps a few months ago Jedian would have simply given up on this. The income from the export of mirror wood from the surface of Rory was calculated in fabulous figures, and, thus, nothing threatened his well-being, but now that he had tasted Real Power, that incomparable intoxicating, downright narcotic feeling, the thought of losing significance Stellara became unbearable for him, like a toothache.
Jedian liked power. An indescribable feeling when billions of people on dozens of planets suddenly find themselves tied to you by a thousand invisible threads. One wave of the hand could radically change their destinies. As soon as he wished, the puppets began to writhe, either from grief or from immeasurable happiness, as he pleased...
He remembered those days when one call to Vorontsov’s office made him turn pale and tremble, although he was his great-uncle!.. So what can we say about the others, power over which has now passed to him? People are beginning to hate him as much as Vorontsov, but are they afraid of him?
“Most likely not...” Lange realized with sudden bitterness.
The buzzer of the scanning device squeaked subtly above the pensive Jedian's ear, and a green signal for authorized access flashed on the remote control near the armored slab. The laser turrets that had come out of the wall, reluctantly buzzing with servos, retracted back behind the curtains of the safety diaphragms, and the multi-ton door itself shuddered and began to open.
“Yes... The pressure from the allied planets has begun...” thought Lange, watching the door slowly crawl into the wall. “They are unhappy with the hereditary succession of power over the space fleet, and it is clear that they will put pressure on him, trying to achieve voluntary resignation.”
Suddenly Jedian realized that the bitterness in his soul was growing, like a black tidal wave, sweeping away all other feelings, and for several seconds he had been standing, looking at one point, on the threshold of the opening.
His assistant, Henri Baker, shifted hesitantly from foot to foot behind Jedian.
Lange made an effort and, suppressing his growing irritation, stepped forward, at the same time thinking that if he gave up his position, his access to many things would simply be blocked. Such as, for example, information on the “Black Moon”... Having crossed the threshold of the hall, he looked around. The double armored gates behind him fell into place.
There was not a soul in the huge room, flooded with bright light - only instruments and machines.
This way, sir... - Baker said respectfully, pointing to a narrow passage illuminated by ultraviolet light between two rows of vertical pillars illuminated from the inside, in which humanoid bodies delivered here from the “Black Moon” floated in lazy streams of physiological solution.
Any positive experiences? - Jedian inquired, looking at the nearest body.
Yes, sir. Sample number one hundred forty-seven. He lived for a minute and twenty seconds, and during this time we managed to scan the entire brain, with a scanner step interval of ten microns. It turned out to be a pretty decent recording.
Yeah... - Jedian entered the passage between the cylinders and headed towards the computer complex shining at the end of the hall. - And the rest?
Unfortunately, they are hopeless, sir,” Henri shook his head. - They weren’t immersed in cryogenic sleep, they were just frozen. We had great luck working with the sample, which we managed to revive. The rest are only suitable for pathologists, but we have already studied their bodies in sufficient detail.
I see... - Jedian stopped near the last hollow pipe made of thick glass. - And what did you manage to find out during the autopsies?
“These creatures lived in an aquatic environment,” Henri answered readily. - Their home world must have been entirely covered by ocean, as certain features of their structure suggest with great certainty that they never set foot on land... until they became so advanced as to deliberately colonize it, and then move out onto space.
Baker walked closer and pulled out a laser pointer. A small red cursor danced across the body trapped inside the pillar.
You see, Mr. Lange, that they have fingers only on the upper limbs, which we conventionally call hands, according to the usual analogy. They were clearly once flippers, and the appearance of fingers on them is due to evolutionary development. The legs, or hind limbs, remained in their original form.
Why two legs? - Jedian asked thoughtfully. - Logically, the body should end in a thickening in the form of a tail with a fin... right?
No, sir, there is an analogy with earthly evolution. The limbs of this creature developed from fins located in pairs and symmetrically on both sides of the body. The caudal fin has been preserved, but in the form of a rudiment, just as the coccyx in humans is a rudiment of a monkey's tail.
“Okay, Henri, you did a great job,” Jedian praised him. “And the fact that you managed to revive one of them and scan the brain is beyond all praise.”
Henri Baker stopped and turned around to look at his boss.
Thank you sir. It was not just interesting, it was great... It's a pity that you don't want to publish the results of your research. This would be a real explosion in xenobiology...
It’s not time yet...” Jedian said dryly. “But there will definitely be a publication,” he immediately reassured the young scientist. “You will still receive your degree, Henri, and the glory of the first researcher of brothers in mind, but...” he made a significant pause. “Only at the moment that I indicate,” he concluded. - Only then. Otherwise, if you break secrecy, you risk losing a lot, if not everything! - This time there was an undisguised threat in his voice.
“I understand, sir,” Baker answered, lowering his head.
Excellent,” Jedian praised him again. - And now I would like to familiarize myself with the materials on deciphering the brain scanner records.
A shadow came over the young scientist's face. This time he had absolutely nothing to boast about.
There is no decryption, Mr. Lange... - he said guiltily.
Brain! Human brain!..
Jedian almost burst out laughing. Well, of course, it’s obvious, the solution was floating on the surface!
The human brain... This is the environment where you need to throw, record information that is static for now... And then wait...
Wait until it manifests itself, runs through the synapses in waves of excitement, and then... A crazy expression appeared on Jedian’s face, such that Baker, standing next to the chair, instinctively took a step back, not understanding what was happening to Mr. Lange, whose eyes suddenly flashed with that brilliance , what happens to an animal that has already hunted down its prey and is anticipating the sweet moment of the last fatal blow...
“...Then the mind, unable to evaluate the information received, will begin to look for the key to it, trying to digest what is handed to it instead of normal human memory...”
Jedian felt he was right. A thousand, a million times right!
And then he asked himself a new question: what should the experimental subject be like?
Some criteria suggested themselves: he should be a man, healthy, well-developed, no older than forty years old, with a balanced psyche, resistant to stress...
It is desirable that he be an orphan. After reflecting on the points listed in his mind, Jedian cooled down a little. Finding a suitable candidate will be difficult. It is very difficult, although there are thousands of male orphans living around and of the right physique... but in the end it was not physical characteristics that were decisive for what Lange had in mind.
He understood very well what kind of stress would befall the experimental subject... At one time, he tried to rehabilitate the mentally ill and criminals by implanting someone else’s memory in them, but his own was never completely destroyed, and very quickly a catastrophic split of personality and consciousness occurred with the most unseemly consequences for others and the test subjects themselves.
Only in one case did he manage to cope with the problem. That unique person was, oddly enough, the fresh corpse of a criminal executed for numerous brutal murders. In his case, the death shock turned out to be so strongly fixed in the consciousness that after resuscitation the second, implanted personality did not come to the fore, but remained in the shadows, gradually revealing itself. Only this experiment was successful, this method of “treatment by firing squad,” as Vorontsov dubbed it, seemed so cruel and inhuman that the admiral, who at that time was busy building the Confederation, forbade his nephew to mention this experience even in narrow circles.
So... he needs a corpse!
Henri,” he looked up at the scientist, who understood absolutely nothing about the sudden changes in his boss’s mood. - Tell me, Henri, where are the most strong, healthy, stress-resistant, strong-willed individuals?
In the army, sir,” Baker answered without hesitation.
Right! - Jedian slammed his hand on his own knee. - In the army... But I know... I know where there are a lot of people we need... Who don’t have relatives, who don’t care anymore... whom no one will look for and whose memory is very easy to replace with experimental information!
Where, sir?! - the young scientist asked dumbfoundedly, to whom the essence of Jedian Lange’s idea slowly began to dawn.
In ship graveyards! Where the debris from galactic wars floats in space. Do you know how many perfectly preserved corpses, instantly frozen by vacuum, are floating in the space between the wreckage of battle cruisers?!
No, sir... - Baker admitted.
Very bad! You need to know your history, Henri. I'm afraid that you will have to fly to one of these cemeteries and see for yourself whether there are good strong guys there who died an instant death, whom you will undertake to resuscitate using modern equipment. Understood?
That's good. I will give orders for the ship, and in the meantime, think about what equipment it should be equipped with. And don’t forget - in any experiment you need to go to the end.
Henri, shocked and confused, could only nod.
Twelve light years from the Rory system. Aboard the Confederate cruiser of the Suns…The Confederacy of Suns cruiser was approaching a ship graveyard located in the middle of nowhere.
What's your name, Lieutenant? - Henri Baker stood near the viewing screen and looked at the thousands of gray dots that circled in space, occasionally glistening with steel edges in the spotlights.
“Nelson, sir,” the officer replied, without taking his eyes off the shapeless debris that drifted in the darkness of space.
About a hundred years ago, one of the space battles took place here between the Third Strike Fleet of the Earth Alliance and the combined formations of ships of the Free Colonies.
More precisely, here the regular fleet of the Earth met a hastily formed barrier of militias. Basically, the cruisers of the ancestral home were opposed by old cargo ships, converted for space combat.
Henri shuddered internally, watching how the fragments grew larger, and now it was no longer a field of shapeless lumps of metal sparkling in the rays of powerful searchlights, but the entire space around flaring up and going out, flaring up and going out...
Despite Jedian Lange's cynical remark, Henri knew his own history. The Earth's third strike fleet was developing an attack on Elio, one of the five planets that flatly refused to recognize themselves as colonies of Terra...
In the history textbook, barely a couple of paragraphs of text were devoted to this, and how could the young scientist think that such a thing was actually hidden behind the dry lines...
Looking at the wreckage, between which various debris and dead bodies floated, Henri shuddered, but did not suspect that this was where his fall would begin...
Now the thoughts of the young scientist were occupied with something completely different.
He thought about how a handful of people on fragile ships, intended at best for coastal intra-system flights, took the blow of a mighty fleet and stopped it.
Looking at the thousands of fragments slowly and tragically floating in space, forming an endless field, Henri began to realize with horror that these people did not have a single chance to survive. To stop the Earth fleet, they had to become suicide bombers, hardly old ships. The colonies were equipped with weapons capable of penetrating the power defenses and armor of Alliance cruisers.
Henri's thoughts were interrupted by Lieutenant Nelson, who stood nearby and silently watched as the ship entered the field of twisted debris, pushing it apart with its force shields.
Look, sir,” he attracted Baker’s attention, pointing to one of the blocks disfigured by explosions, which seemed several times larger than the others and retained the outline of a spaceship. - This is the flagship of the colonies, the passenger ship “Europe”. I read about him in books... - The lieutenant’s voice suddenly trembled. - He was carrying the last batch of refugees from Dabog...
Henri nodded, unable to find words to answer. Everyone knew about the history of Dabog. This world could compete with Elio and Cuig in terms of its level of development, but, by an evil irony of fate, it became the first point near which, after four hundred years of oblivion, Earth ships appeared.
Like other colonies, Dabog refused to recognize itself as a satellite of Earth.
“And for what? - Henri suddenly thought angrily, feeling the hitherto dormant feelings awakening in him. - The Earth did not help the colonies in any way, it simply threw part of its population into deep space, through an open and completely unexplored hypersphere, and, as a result, the vast majority of colonial transports simply disappeared into nowhere, and those few who managed to eventually find oxygen planet and unload, I had to fight for life on my own!..”
That was the truth.
On the pages of textbooks it looked very interesting. And only now, looking at these fragments, between which various garbage mixed with human bodies floated in a vacuum, Henri was able to feel, realize a small part of that immense tragedy of entire generations that lay behind the dry presentation of facts.
He experienced complicity, and this suddenly made him feel bad.
Did you want to say something, Lieutenant? - he asked, forcing himself to turn away and not look...
Nelson looked up from the screen and looked at Henri seriously.
I think we should moor to “Europe”. You will probably find what you are looking for there.
Yes sir. - The lieutenant's gaze became a little less harsh. “I’m going to the control room and will give the necessary orders.”
“I’ll be ready as soon as you dock,” Henri promised, turning back to the screen. - My people are already equipped and waiting.
***At first, Henri Baker’s plans did not include personal presence during the landing of search groups on the territory of the ship cemetery. Starting from the Stellar system on a specially prepared fleet cruiser, he did not attach much importance to this flight, although the task of finding a body suitable for resuscitation among the wreckage of a space battle was in itself very unusual. Henri, who had been working under Jedian for the second year, had already become accustomed to his boss’s quirks.
Until recently, it did not matter to the young scientist what consequences his experiments would lead to. The main thing is that he was engaged in science, while many of his former classmates were unloading transport ships at the Fort Stellar spaceports or, at best, occupied operator chairs in some robotic production.
Henri greatly valued the very opportunity to conduct scientific research. The world in which he lived turned out to be quite cruel and uncompromising, the young scientist understood this no worse than others and therefore simply did his favorite work, rejoicing that a person like Jedian Lange paid attention to him and, moreover, did head of a secret laboratory.
This is how he thought just yesterday, but now, standing at the airlock of the landing module in a heavy and uncomfortable high-protection suit, equipped with pseudo-muscles and an exoskeleton, Henri suddenly thought that something had gone wrong in his life. For some reason, the delight from new scientific discoveries began to degenerate into vague anxiety. Something unconscious was stirring in his chest. And for the first time he felt it right here, in the very center of the ship cemetery.
War itself was a monstrous perversion of human relationships, but do you really think about it until the ominous shadow of an orbital bomber covers the sky above your head?
Of course not.
Local conflicts between individual planets and small alliances still arose. Anri, like any normal person, regularly watched galactic news reports. And only yesterday, having visited the ship graveyard for the first time, he began to realize what each such report, which he had previously listened to with half an ear, actually meant:
“On planet such and such, as a result of an attack by a pirate fleet, five settlements were completely destroyed... Victims... Communications and power supplies were interrupted... Attackers... In an unknown direction...”.
“We demand the withdrawal of space forces from our sector, otherwise the population reserves the right to expel the illegally invading formations of the Confederation of Suns themselves...”
Murders, terrorist attacks, corrupt governments, privateer fleets... Tragedies... Broken destinies...
Is this why the young guys died, whose bodies floated around, frozen by the cold of space?
Why were they forgotten? Where will the world go that left them floating in a vacuum, like the last homeless tramps? Do people really have no memory, no conscience, nothing?! Just today, momentary joys and grievances? What about the past? Future? The continuity of generations?
Such thoughts, although they brought confusion into Baker’s soul, nevertheless did not prevent him from doing the business for which he had arrived. He could be indignant at the callousness and cynicism of his contemporaries in his heart, but in reality everything was somewhat different. Henri continued his blasphemous raid. Among those who had once saved him, who directly or indirectly contributed to his being born, raised, educated and employed, among these people he looked for a suitable body, but not so that, having revived it, he would bow his head before a soldier who gave their lives for today. No. He was going, at the direction of Jedian Lange, to zombify him, deprive him of his memory, turn him into a guinea pig.
On the one hand, it all looked terrible, cruel and inhuman, but on the other, what could he do? Revolt against such experiences?
The only thing this young scientist would achieve was deportation to the lower levels of Fort Stellar, where the prison casemates were located:
Henri suddenly realized that the door to the big world had slammed behind him at the very moment he first crossed the threshold of secret laboratory number one.
This could not be changed. All that was left was to come to terms with the existing state of affairs.
And he put up with it as best he could, hoping that the memory of visiting the cemetery of the lost fleet would soon become dull, erased, and those calm, working days that brought him so much creative joy would return,
Henri was wrong. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that he had made a good, but fundamentally wrong, bet in life. He had a conscience, and, oddly enough, it tormented him...
On this memorable day, after three hours of climbing among the ugly wreckage, he drank almost to the point of unconsciousness for the first time in the company of the no less depressed and twilight Lieutenant Nelson...
...By the end of the third day that Baker’s search group spent among the wreckage of spaceships, they examined about two hundred dead bodies. These were mostly crew members of cargo starships, which did not even have enough basic spacesuits for everyone.
Pictures of agony no longer cut into the soul, people became dumb among the corpses floating in weightlessness, their perception became foggy and indifferent.
Baker rejected dozens of examined bodies one by one. All of them, as a rule, died as a result of instant decompression, and the blood from the exploding lungs hovered like icy clots right there, around the faces distorted by the death spasm.
There were, of course, several people who fit Jedian's requirements, but they did not suit Baker. He did not want to experiment on the soldiers of the colonies, hoping to find a suitable candidate from among those killed by the Earth Alliance. Henri naively believed that this way his conscience would torment him less. Vain dreams.
At that time, the Earth Alliance possessed the most advanced technology, and the equipment of the space infantrymen, who made up the main striking force of the fleet, was simply excellent for its era.
One of the distinctive features of the life support systems of the Alliance combat suits was the so-called “combat capability control”. Essentially, it was a built-in reanimation machine that was capable of squeezing every last drop of life out of a contained soldier. As soon as the fighter lost consciousness, the corresponding equipment was turned on, which stimulated the body, injecting horse doses of drugs into the blood.
Yes, Henri saw them. Withered bodies with deeply sunken eye sockets in intact spacesuits. Soldiers who died from physical exhaustion under repeated exposure to stimulant drugs.
It seemed to him that he would simply go crazy and would never leave this terrible place. There was to be no return from here...
Tossing and turning sleeplessly on the narrow and hard folding bunk of the battle cruiser, he relived the nightmare he had seen again and again...
No... I no longer had the strength to endure all this, to hover among the corpses and feel like the last bastard desecrating graves, and then regularly drink to the point of complete stupor. But even then, in the feverish, heavy half-forgetfulness of sleep, they did not let him go, the phantoms hovered in delirium generated by alcohol and constant stress, and there was no salvation or antidote from them...
In the end, exhausted, Henri came to the inevitable conclusion: you need to take what you have and fly away as quickly and as far as possible.
Thus, he settled on one corpse, which a search party led by Nelson discovered among the wreckage of the Europa on their first day in the ship graveyard.
More precisely, there were three bodies, but one of them belonged to a young woman, the other to an android robot of an incredibly ancient model, and they, of course, could not be regarded as candidates suitable for the requirements of Jedian Lange, but Baker could not separate the man he was interested in from them - all three found themselves tightly sealed into one block of muddy ice. Obviously, at the time of the death of “Europe” they were in a hydroponics room, where simple organisms lived in special containers, supplying the ship with clean air and protein mass.
At the moment the compartments depressurized, the hydroponic tank burst and a mass of water fell on these three, instantly turning into ice as soon as the cosmic cold rushed into the room.
Baker had no doubt that the man and woman could be revived, their lungs were not touched by the decompression explosion, they simply died instantly from hypothermia.
A block of ice containing three bodies was carefully cut from the crumpled bulkheads and placed in a special compartment with a negative temperature.
Now the cruiser could finally leave the ship graveyard, but Henri, no matter how hard he tried, was unable to share the joy of Lieutenant Nelson.
He felt that everything was just beginning and the main horror awaited him ahead, within the sterile walls of secret laboratory number one. The fact that the desired body turned out to be sealed in ice, like the bodies of alien humanoids, played into the hands of the experiment conceived by Jedian, but to Baker such a coincidence also seemed symbolic... At times, thinking about what he had to do, Henri was seized by some kind of semi-mystical horror .
He hardly slept, drank a lot, but it didn’t help, and in the end, exhausted, he began to take so many sleeping pills that the journey back to Stellar completely fell out of his mind.
Year 2717 of the galactic calendar.
Orbital base of the Confederacy of Suns Navy, code name "Black Moon"
The watch officer, seated inside the small observation sphere, turned to his commander, who was pacing the narrow space of the blister dome, waiting for the spacecraft to enter the station's airlock.
Sir, they're landing!
Looking through the convex armored glass of the observation post, from where he could see the panorama of the mooring docks and the internal landing pads of the huge hangar, he nodded silently.
General Dmitry Alekseevich Dorokhov, former commander of the Second Shock Fleet of the Confederation of Suns, was an extraordinary man. Despite his disgrace, which resulted in exile to a secret base located in deep space, he retained all the features of a career, combat officer. Regardless of the political winds that blew in the Galaxy, his role remained unchanged: this strong, wiry, fit old man, whose head was adorned with a short crew cut of gray hair, served not political parties, but freedom. That freedom for which he began to shed blood half a century ago, when the flames of the Second Galactic War devoured planetary systems one after another, calling into question the very term “humanity.”
Having heard the report, he turned off his mobile communicator and walked with long strides to the pre-airlock platform, where, in addition to two space infantrymen who froze like statues near the inner hatch, two platoons of honor guards were lined up.
The lights on the instrument panel flashed wildly, the air bleed from the pneumatic seal system hissed sharply, and the inner hatch began to slowly slide to the side.
Dorokhov expected that Admiral Vorontsov himself would appear on the threshold of the gateway.
This man occupied a special place both in the hierarchy of the relatively young Galactic community of planets, and in the hearts of those who walked the terrible roads of confrontation between Earth and the Colonies.
Commander-in-Chief of the First Strike Fleet, founder of Fort Stellar and author of the Military Doctrine of the Confederacy of Suns, lived two hundred and one years. No one knew what was more in this man’s body - cybernetic circuits connected to servomotor prostheses, or living flesh. This was a state secret of the Confederacy.
As usual, he wore the black uniform of a space fleet officer, under which life support systems and parts of a special corset were skillfully hidden. Dorokhov, who was a good hundred years younger than Vorontsov, nevertheless perfectly understood the reason for such constancy. He also preferred the old uniform of combat units. As Vorontsov himself once admitted, in addition to his personal love for this color, so similar to the inky darkness of outer space, the uniform constantly reminded him of the time when, as a young lieutenant, he led the remnants of the defeated Colonial fleet and led the surviving ships against the squadrons of the Earth Alliance . According to the commander himself, this made it possible to forget about the inexorable passage of years.
However, despite the years, Vorontsov’s gaze always remained as cold and calm as on the day when, having eliminated his commander, he took upon himself the full burden of responsibility for the fate of the Free Colonies... They were in awe of him, they were afraid of him, many outright hated him, but he stood outside of idle gossip, like a monument, a living monument of his era.
...The hatch opened, and the general, who was already preparing to walk towards the commander, striding along the echoing slabs of the airlock platform, was literally dumbfounded.
Instead of Vorontsov, the figure of a middle-aged man appeared in the oval opening of the hatch. He was dressed in the ceremonial uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Confederacy, and the old general, shocked to the core, suddenly thought that this was some kind of mockery, a gilded clown, it was unclear by whom and why he had been sent to the “Black Moon.” Behind the newcomer, two youthful adjutants in the uniform of colonels appeared.
Dorokhov swallowed, trying to normalize his nerves. He could not understand what was happening and get rid of the reprehensible feeling that, together with these three buffoons in gilded uniforms, the airlock area of the military base was filled with a subtle sweetish smell of perfume from the social salons of Fort Stellar...
General confusion became apparent. Even the sentries at the hatch tensed and turned pale.
The commander-in-chief of the military space forces of the Confederation of Suns stopped in front of the petrified space infantrymen from the honor guard and, raising a thin, well-groomed eyebrow, looked questioningly at the general.
At that moment, Dorokhov finally recognized the arrival, and a terrible premonition spread in the old man’s chest like a grave cold.
Jedian Lange... Great-nephew of Admiral Vorontsov... Heir to the Rory system and Fort Stellar... The sprout of the generation that rose in the richly fertilized field of war...
Overcoming the growing cold inside and the disgusting senile trembling that treacherously settled in his legs, Dorokhov made an effort over himself and went to meet the newly-minted commander.
He turned and calmly waited while the general walked towards him through a kind of tunnel formed by two ranks of the honor guard.
Finally, having thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of general confusion, he himself, as if having mercy, took a step towards the base commander.
Mister Admiral!.. - Dorokhov began, but Lange stopped the report with a gracious gesture, from which Dmitry Alekseevich almost shuddered.
“I’m sorry, general,” Jedian said calmly, even with a hint of contemptuous condescension in his voice, “but I have arrived with sad news. My uncle, Admiral Vorontsov, died.
At these words, a light sigh ran through the ranks of those present at the meeting, only the lips of the two adjutant colonels remained tightly compressed.
This is a huge loss for the Confederacy of Suns,” Jedian continued. -But we can't stop the flow of time, right? - he asked, looking at Dorokhov, who had aged a good two decades before his eyes. - The situation in the Galaxy is such that we have no time to grieve, General... I, as the heir to Fort Stellar, which is the main support base of the Confederation fleet, continue the mission of Admiral Vorontsov. The Supreme Council of the Union of the Central Worlds correctly assessed the existing situation and confirmed my authority as the successor to the position of fleet commander. I think that the necessary package of messages has already been transmitted through the Hypersphere Frequency stations, and you, General, will be able to familiarize yourself with the documents at any time.
His speech was smooth and correct. If Dorokhov's memory served him correctly, Jedian Lange held the position of chief of staff of the fleet and specialized, in addition to his nominal functions at headquarters, in neurosurgery, psychology and deep brain probing. In particular, the infamous brain scanner was his brainchild.
Board 618Livadny Andrey
An unexpected battle on a distant planet. Fatal wound. The last thing Lieutenant Lisa Strimmer's fading gaze caught was the hand of the disgusting creature reaching for her face. And then there was a memory loss that lasted two decades. She is alive. But who resurrected her? And why did this unknown “well-wisher” suddenly start a formal hunt for her? What kind of force has settled on distant Worgaze, trying to interfere in the fate of entire planets? All these questions will have to be answered by her....
Orion Nebula
Livadny Andrey
Vadim Poluektov, captain of the Earth's foreign intelligence service, was prepared for any surprises as part of his duty. However, he did not even suspect what trouble he would get into while carrying out his superiors’ assignment to study ancient colonial transport. Poluektov finds himself drawn into an incredible story, the participants of which are not only greedy and bloodthirsty fanatics from the planet Ganio, but also an ancient mind that once gave birth to the Forerunners, and with them, our biological life form...
Living space
Livadny Andrey
There are always scumbags ready to sell their homeland for thirty pieces of silver. But this time, an unexpected invasion from the depths of the Universe has called into question the very existence of humanity. A bunch of blue-skinned maniacs, maddened by the immortality they had stolen, have already doomed the conquered ancient races to slavery and degeneration. Scorched by the flames of atomic carnage, living space, so necessary for the survival of any species, can easily become lifeless. But at any time there will be people who can resist...
Dawn over the Araks
Livadny Andrey
3830 Humanity is reaching for the stars. Systems of robotic complexes are becoming more and more perfect; many planets are already being developed with virtually no human participation. We move forward, almost without looking back, not noticing that behind our backs remain real artifacts, created not by a mythical ancient mind, but by us......
Omicron
Livadny Andrey
Three decades of Galactic War claimed many millions of lives and turned the Earth into a technocratic desert, where there were up to a hundred cybernetic systems per living person. The commander of the combined forces of the military space fleet of the Earth Alliance, Admiral Tabanov, on the eve of a decisive battle with the Free Colonies, is faced with a choice: to win the war, relying on artificial intelligence, and turn the remnants of humanity into slaves of machines, or to equalize the odds with the enemy by abandoning...
Sleep of the mind
Livadny Andrey
The tragic death of Professor Krechetov, the author of the theory of the structure of the hypersphere, unexpectedly and incredibly affects the fate of his nephew. The vacation of space fleet lieutenant Andrei Krechetov turns first into an investigation, and then into an expedition to the center of a mysterious space anomaly, where no reconnaissance ship has ever reached. However, the lieutenant's point of arrival turned out to be completely different from what he expected - eight planets, later called the “Necklace”, were orbiting around an energy...
Cyberhag
Livadny Andrey
The Cyberhag project was the latest development of the Earth Alliance. Designed as a time bomb that would hit the Free Colonies if Earth lost the war, it absorbed all the experience and all the cruelty of that confrontation. Will the planned retribution be accomplished three centuries after the signing of the Elian Protocols?..
In the printed edition the novel was titled “Special Assignment.” ...
Natalie
Livadny Andrey
Before the war he had a girlfriend. She died during the bombing of Ravorgrad. Then Andrei could still experience pain. Not now. The server hangar was drowning in crimson darkness. He sat on the bottom step of the retractable ladder and, closing his eyes, tried to remember her image, but it faded, moved away, leaving only the name - Natalie. Gigantic outlines of serv machines towered around. And the deceptive silence of the hangar could explode at any second with the howl of alarm signals. He was waiting for this. I was waiting for relief from the gnawing melancholy.....
Bridge over the Abyss
Livadny Andrey
...A Logrian stood in front of Yana. His two snake-like heads stared at her silently. Hyperspace, which has become the only reality for those who know how to manipulate it, brought two inhabitants of Space together, and the three million years that separated them meant nothing at that moment. Somewhere far away, on one of the Verticals of the mysterious Anomaly, thousands of people were now dying. And this meeting with the xenomorph will help Yana and John Mitchell St. Ivo save them. They will build a bridge across the Abyss and walk across it, paving the way...
Galactic Vortex
Livadny Andrey
The Confederation of Suns, which has united most of the worlds of the Inhabited Galaxy for a millennium, is experiencing a crisis. It is at this difficult moment for humanity that a shadow from the past suddenly appears on the historical stage - artificial intelligence, created three million years ago by a race of insect-like creatures, awakens from oblivion as a result of military operations on the ice-bound satellite of the planet Erigon...
Part 1.
MOSAIC PIECES
Chapter 1.
Year 2717 of the Galactic calendar. Orbital base of the Confederation of Suns naval fleet, code name "Black Moon"...
The watch officer, seated inside the small observation sphere, turned to his commander, who was pacing the narrow space of the blister dome, waiting for the spacecraft to enter the station's airlock.
- Sir, they are landing!
Looking through the convex armored glass of the observation post, from where he could see the panorama of the mooring docks and the internal landing pads of the huge hangar, he nodded silently.
General Dmitry Alekseevich Dorokhov, former commander of the strike fleet of the Free Colonies, was an extraordinary person. Despite his disgrace, which resulted in exile to a secret base located in deep space, he retained all the features of a career, combat officer. Regardless of the political winds that blew in the Inhabited Galaxy, his role remained unchanged: this strong, wiry, fit old man, whose head was adorned with a short crew cut of gray hair, served not political parties, but freedom. That freedom for which he began to shed blood, when the flames of the Galactic War devoured planetary systems one after another, calling into question the very term “humanity.”
Having heard the report, he turned off his mobile communicator and walked with long strides to the pre-airlock platform, where, in addition to two space infantrymen who froze like statues near the inner hatch, two platoons of honor guards were lined up.
The lights on the instrument panel flashed, then suddenly the air bleed from the pneumatic seal system hissed sharply, and the inner hatch began to slowly slide to the side.
Dorokhov expected that Admiral Vorontsov himself would appear on the threshold of the gateway.
This man occupied a special place both in the hierarchy of the relatively young Galactic community of planets, and in the hearts of those who walked the terrible roads of confrontation between Earth and the Colonies.
Commander-in-Chief of the Free Colonies fleet, founder of Fort Stellar and author of the Military Doctrine of the Confederate Suns lived two hundred and one years. No one knew what was more in this man’s body - cybernetic circuits connected to servomotor prostheses, or living flesh. This was a state secret of the Confederacy.
As usual, he wore the black uniform of a space fleet officer, under which life support systems and parts of a special corset were skillfully hidden. Dorokhov understood perfectly the reason for such constancy. He also preferred the old uniform of combat units. As Vorontsov himself once admitted, in addition to his personal love for this color, so similar to the inky darkness of outer space, the uniform constantly reminded him of the time when, as a young lieutenant, he led the remnants of the defeated Colonial fleet and led the surviving ships against the squadrons of the Earth Alliance . According to the commander himself, this made it possible to forget about the inexorable passage of years.
However, despite the years, Vorontsov’s gaze always remained as cold and calm as on the day when, having eliminated his commander, he took upon himself the full burden of responsibility for the fate of the Free Colonies... They were in awe of him, they were afraid of him, many outright hated him, but he stood outside of idle gossip, like a monument, a living monument of his era.
...The hatch finally opened, and the general, who was already preparing to walk towards the commander, striding along the echoing slabs of the airlock platform, was literally dumbfounded.
Instead of Vorontsov, the figure of a middle-aged man appeared in the oval opening of the hatch. He was dressed in the ceremonial uniform of the commander-in-chief of the Confederacy, and the old general, shocked to the core, suddenly thought that this was some kind of mockery, a gilded clown, it was unclear by whom and why he had been sent to the “Black Moon.” Behind the newcomer, two youthful adjutants in the uniform of colonels could be seen.
Dorokhov swallowed, trying to normalize his nerves. He could not understand what was happening and get rid of the reprehensible feeling that, together with these three buffoons in gilded uniforms, the airlock area of the military base was filled with a subtle sweetish smell of perfume from the social salons of Fort Stellar...
General confusion became apparent. Even the sentries at the airlock tensed and turned pale.
The commander-in-chief of the military space forces of the Confederation of Suns stopped in front of the petrified space infantrymen from the honor guard and, raising a thin, well-groomed eyebrow, looked questioningly at the general.
At that moment, Dorokhov finally recognized the arrival, and a terrible premonition spread in the old man’s chest like a grave cold.
Jedian Lange... Great-nephew of Admiral Vorontsov... Heir to the Rory system and Fort Stellar... The sprout of the generation that rose in the richly fertilized field of war...
Overcoming the growing cold inside and the disgusting senile trembling that treacherously settled in his legs, Dorokhov made an effort over himself and went to meet the newly-minted commander.
He turned and calmly waited while the general walked towards him through a kind of tunnel formed by two ranks of the honor guard.
Finally, having thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of general confusion, he himself, as if having mercy, took a step towards the base commander.
“Mr. Admiral!..” Dorokhov began, but Lange stopped the report with a gracious gesture, from which Dmitry Alekseevich almost shuddered.
“I’m sorry, General,” Jedian said calmly, even with a hint of contemptuous condescension in his voice, “but I have arrived with sad news.” My uncle, Admiral Vorontsov, died.
At these words, a light sigh ran through the ranks of those present at the meeting, only the lips of the two adjutant colonels remained tightly compressed.
“This is a huge loss for the Confederacy of Suns,” Jedian continued. “But we can’t stop the flow of time, right?” - he asked, looking at Dorokhov, who had aged a good two decades before his eyes. – The situation in the Galaxy is such that we have no time to grieve, General... I, as the heir to Fort Stellar, which is the main support base of the Confederation fleet, continue the mission of Admiral Vorontsov. The Supreme Council of the Union of Central Worlds correctly assessed the existing situation and confirmed my authority as the successor to the position of fleet commander. I think that the necessary package of messages has already been transmitted through the Hypersphere Frequency stations, and you, General, will be able to familiarize yourself with the documents at any time.
His speech was smooth and correct. If Dorokhov's memory served him correctly, Jedian Lange held the position of chief of staff of the fleet and specialized, in addition to the nominal functions at the headquarters, in neurosurgery, psychology and cybernetics. In particular, the infamous “thought scanner” was his brainchild.
The pause was unjustifiably prolonged, and the general, shuddering, looked up.
Unlike Vorontsov, who, evoking horror, always remained military, his great-nephew gave the impression politician A. These were two very different concepts, and Jedian Lange, apparently, was well aware of the difference. It was easy to guess from his face that he, in particular, was making a comparison in his favor. However, as Dorokhov was later able to verify, he had the right to such self-confidence. If Lange, in comparison with Vorontsov, looked like a gilded clown, then he was the most dangerous clown of those whom the old general had to meet. Just like the admiral, there was strength in him, but it was of a completely different kind...
- Mister Commander! No incidents have been registered at the space fleet base entrusted to me! - Having made an effort, the general finally reported. He had no doubt that Lange had indeed been approved for the position of commander.
“That’s good, General,” Jedian stopped him gently, thus ending the official part of the meeting. A look of boredom suddenly appeared on his face. “Set aside separate cabins for my adjutants and order lunch to be served in a room equipped with video equipment,” he ordered.
Dorokhov had only one thing left to do - straighten his back and give a military salute.
* * *
- So? – Jedian Lange took a napkin and dabbed his lips with it. Then he crumpled it up, threw it into a plate and turned to the viewing screen, onto which an image of three dark, as if covered with soot, planetoids was projected.
Nothing illuminated their gloomy, airless surface. The system was missing a star, and three planetoids, each the size of a small moon, orbited a single center of mass.
How such a cosmic system came about was anyone's guess.
Between three planets located close to each other at the Lagrange points of the system, several space stations hung. From them stretched power tunnels invisible to the eye, which ended in power spheres indicated by tiny sparks from the parking lights.
Inside these invisible spheres, the diameter of which was hundreds of kilometers, there was something incomprehensible and completely unusual for the human eye.
In the computer files of the Black Moon station, which exercised general control over power structures, the spheres were called “incubators.”
Inside the cyclopean energy structures, among the equipment floating in a vacuum, the complexes of which extended in kilometer-long sections, mysterious and incomprehensible processes were taking place.
It must be said that Jedian Lange witnessed first-hand the operation of such production.
A block of ice and stone, taken from the surface of one of the planets of this mysterious system, silently slipped through the power tunnels into one of the incubators. Having flown along a strictly calculated trajectory, the kilometer-long fragment fell into a powerful gravitational field and was recorded under the gun of laser systems.
A few minutes passed, and the lasers began to cut the block with their beams, carefully melting the ice. A cloud of steam, dust and microscopic particles swirled inside the power sphere. Automatic probes scurried about in the dense primeval soup. They took samples and dumped them into express analyzer chambers.
All processes were vigilantly monitored by computers.
The secret complex “Black Moon” conducted research into life alien to humans, which was carried out here since, during the construction of a strategic spaceport on the surface of one of the planets, which, like the base, was called the Black Moon, pioneer builders discovered the ruins of an unimaginably ancient structure.
– Is this a recording? – Jedian asked, watching as the lasers cut the block delivered from the surface of the planetoid.
“Yes, Mr. Admiral,” Dorokhov answered him. – Recording of the main event.
- Stop it. I want to hear the whole backstory. I was not satisfied with the technical information from the computer database.
Dmitry Alekseevich nodded. He was depressed, but kept his emotions in check. Obeying his sign, the adjutant stood up and approached the huge screen divided into sectors. Having made the switch, he turned to Jedian Lange.
Now one of the sections of the composite screen showed a computer model of the system. The planets looked like soccer balls covered in a green web of coordinate grids. The threads of trajectories pulsated between them, and the active orbital complexes burned with scarlet contours. Many objects in the general scheme were painted in purple and blue colors - these were the places where construction was still underway.
- May I allow it, Mr. Admiral?
- Yes, officer, please begin. – Jedian leaned back in his chair, ready to listen. The rest of the officers at the large oval table did not change their positions; it seemed uninteresting to them to look at the screen, because the pictures of the surrounding space and the computer model of the system were extremely boring to them. And even the fact of direct involvement in certain historical events has long been no longer a reason for any inspiration for the overwhelming majority of these people. For them, it seemed, first of all, a boring and gray service - like the routine of everyday life in the cramped compartments of a secret space base surrounded by spatial minefields.
The officer at the screen cleared his throat tactfully.
“Initially, the Black Moon complex was designed as a strategic secret spaceport,” he began to explain, moving the beam of a laser pointer across the dark surface of the screen, causing the scarlet cursor to move from one section of the diagram to another.
Jedian, who had been staring at the image of the three dark planetoids, raised an eyebrow. These moons were clearly once satellites of a much larger celestial body, but now it had disappeared, and three dark balls were circling around some invisible point, like the booths of a children's carousel around a pillar...
- Wait, officer, but it seems to me that something is missing in the system, right? – Jedian expressed his doubts out loud. “I’m far from deep knowledge of astronomy,” he spread his hands, “but, in my opinion, there should be a sun here... well, I mean, some kind of star, right?” Or I'm wrong? “He turned his gaze to the officer, who hesitated for a second, apparently wondering how best to formulate his answer.
“No, Mr. Admiral, your conclusion is absolutely fair,” he finally answered in an even, neutral tone. General Dorokhov specifically kept with him several of these literalists, who by nature, of course, were bastards and bureaucrats to the core, but in such situations, these wonderful specimens of staff rats, capable of driving any combat officer of the fleet into rage, turned out to be simply irreplaceable.
– The black moon was chosen for the construction of the cosmodrome precisely because of the absence of the sun here. “As if trying to confirm his own reputation, the officer called to the screen launched into lengthy and monotonous explanations. – Such planets cannot be detected visually, and they, in turn, are sources of unlimited material resources for the construction of the necessary communications. Significant benefits are achieved due to the presence of natural gravity on the surface of the planets...
“Get closer to the point,” Jedian stopped him, no longer hiding the hint of irritation in his voice. – Has there ever been sun here or not?
The officer at the screen cast a confused glance at Dorokhov.
The general nodded slightly. Lange frowned at the exchange of facial expressions.
- Yes, Mister Commander. There was a star,” the officer reported hastily, as if apologizing for the delay.
-Where did she go? – Jedian’s eyes narrowed, betraying irritation that he did not consider necessary to hide.
“She was annihilated, sir...” the officer said not very confidently. – According to isotope analysis, this happened about three million years ago.
– That is, when our ancestors ran around the Earth on all fours? – Lange clarified, grinning at some of his thoughts.
- Yes, sir! Layers of vitrified basalt and cinder-like regolith on the surface of the three planetoids indicate that the star burned out in a catastrophic flare... However, this does not in any way affect the location of the launch pads, and the absence of the sun, as I already reported, is...
This time Jedian Lange turned directly to Dorokhov, obviously not trusting the competence and knowledge of the staff officer. He knew the headquarters kitchen very well and understood that they had not yet taken him seriously and were trying to fool him with second-rate information, like an ordinary inspector.
“General...” he said reproachfully, suppressing his irritation.
Dorokhov understood.
“Everyone is free...” Dmitry Alekseevich said dully, mechanically clasping his hands. - Adjutants and secretaries too.
A minute later the conference room was empty. Only Dorokhov and Jedian remained at the huge oval table.
“General...” the new commander said rather softly, looking intently at Dorokhov, who was sitting at the opposite end of the table, his hands still clasped. – You are dejected by Vorontsov’s death. I sincerely share your grief. – Lange took the glass and took a sip. – Would you like me to tell you what you are thinking about now? – he asked, looking at the ruby-red liquid in the light.
- Sir, I...
“No need, general,” Jedian interrupted his apology. – You think that with the death of Vorontsov an entire era is passing into the past. Age of Galactic War. The era of heroism. You look into the future and see nothing there except an honorable farewell to retirement, because power, in your opinion, has passed into the hands of politicians - people with many faces, deceitful and unscrupulous. “You’re partly right...” he suddenly grinned. – But only partly, believe me.
“Mr. Commander...” Dorokhov tried to object again, but Lange silenced him with an imperious gesture.
- No. No need for fake apologies. I want you to understand, no matter how regrettable it is for your way of thinking, that I,” he emphasized the last word with intonation, “is not a temporary worker. “I am the one who replaced Admiral Vorontsov... I am a man of the new generation,” Lange formulated after a little hesitation. “Those methods that were suitable in the difficult days of the destruction of the planets are now being transformed into something softer and intangible,” he explained. – One war is over, but another, no less terrible, is coming. It is already underway, but no one noticed its beginning, because at this stage it is a war of minds. And only when minds capitulate will battle cruisers rush into battle.
Dorokhov nodded, but it was more a gesture of doom than understanding. Jedian really knew how to persuade, but the general also went through a harsh school of life and had his own view on many of its aspects.
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