Capítulo 8: Chapter 3. It's time to hit the road. sub-chapter 2.
- How do thou like cosmionics? Paul asked. – Not too different from the one in our training bolides from the club?
- All indicators are quite classic, as in the briefing, - Vladik replied. The dashboard was not reflected in the frosted glass of his helmet. – Only here they are not in the form of separate replaceable blocks, as we have, they are projected onto the entire front hemisphere in front of me, along with the projection of the exterior view, from the survey scanners. There is no glazing at all. A little unusual, but quite convenient. Control through manipulators and through a neuro module, by the power of thought. I'm not going to take risks with neurocontrol yet - manipulators are more familiar to me. And in general - a great machine. It's a little hard to maneuver, but it's not a combat bolid. Ari, thine creators are geniuses!
- I'll tell them so! Ariadne joked.
Vladik made several accelerating and expanding orbits over our small planet each time, reached the speed and position necessary to go beyond the main gravitational cocoon of the planet, turned the thrust of the engines to almost full power and with acceleration, starting from the hundred-kilometer length of the plasma tail of the EPE, in five minutes he reached the zone of the outer cloud of the satellite-comet Partizan. The preparation took much longer than the key stage of the flight. On the approach on a catch-up course with an angle of twenty-two degrees to the satellite's motion vector, Vladik synchronized the speed of the ship with the speed of rotation of the comet around the planet. Now a huge spherical lump of a comet and a small, shining in the rays of a star for millions of kilometers with a bright asterisk, Vladik's spaceship are rushing together at breakneck speed around the planet, and with even greater speed, they rotate around the star together with the planet. But relative to each other, due to the same speed and direction, they froze almost motionless. From the survey cameras of the prospector ship, the tamed Partisan comet looks like a huge, wrinkled, rounded block of a hundred kilometers, wrapped in an almost impenetrable, vast multicolored and multi-dense plume illuminated by a Lotus. Up close, it looked very much like the aurora borealis. and the planet Bryanskaya from here looks like a small, pea-like, blue-green glowing circle. Not far from the planet, its bright satellite Peresvet shines with a white star, which with its white glow slightly illuminates the planetary disk. Around- large, bright stars of the Ariadne Ring sector against the background of a giant shining strip of the Milky Way. Nicely. But it is dangerous - not only clouds of gas and dust are knocked out of the dark body of the comet, eaten by cavities, but also small meteors, which at cosmic speed are quite capable of damaging the ship with the destructiveness of a cannon shell. At a synchronized speed, this is unlikely - the bulk of the debris material is trailing a long tail behind the comet, lagging further behind the mother body due to lack of mass and exposure to the stellar wind - in fact, the Guerrilla with its gas-dust tail and meteors forms a very sparse, extensive ring system around Bryansk, it is almost invisible to the naked eye, but it it is quite real physically and even taken into account in the maps of the system.
Vladik turned on the search radar, checked the cannon- the beam hits properly- invisible in space with the naked eye, if necessary, it will transmit to any small stone such a powerful pulse of radio emission that it will fly into dust from overheating and resonating vibration in a fraction of a second. Guided by the spectrograph, Vladik steered the ship sideways into the cloud, maintaining the heading orientation to the comet's motion vector. He activated the gravpolar dust collector, which immediately began to devour the energy of the batteries and attract clouds of dust mixed with small meteors from all sides. There was no need to be afraid of very small stones - the rate of ejection of comet cryo-geysers is not too great, and the ship's hull is very strong, larger stones, measuring from ten centimeters, Vladik accurately sprayed with a course gun, focusing on the radar readings. Radar in pure space is an extremely useless thing when there are billions of kilometers of transparent emptiness around you, a telescope and a radar can do a much better job of viewing. Radar is needed only when approaching orbital stations and working at close distances in poor visibility conditions. And right now there is such a rare situation in which the good old radiolocator is indispensable. Dust is collected, the separator, tuned only to certain substances, drives the necessary into the storage tanks and filters out the unnecessary with another, narrow and dense dust tail. Basically, heavy metals and halogens remain on the ship, and some gases and carbon fly back into space, we have already collected them up to the very lid on the planet. In a little over an hour, a powerful gravity collector filled all the expanding inflatable tanks to the calculated limit, and Vladik took the flight path back to the planet. Again, at high speed in an arc, he took a low-orbit position, slowed down the speed in a stationary orbit, turned on the brakes over the coordinates of the Photon space base. Almost next to it, by the standards of a huge cosmic height, the city of Sovetsky shines in the sunrise with a handful of golden stars on a dark green background of the surface, a little further away from it, near the shore of a large river - a barely visible bright point of our native small town Seltso… Vladik began to lower the ship to the surface of the planet on the reverse pulse of the gravpolar, which reduced the mass of the ship by almost three times, and finally settled into the dense layers of the atmosphere on a small plasma exhaust. The wind was slightly blowing the small spaceship aside and it was necessary to adjust the descent into the mine with maneuvering exhausts. The snow-white triple hitch descended into its burrow on the rays of the heavenly fire with jeweler's precision. Ariadna uncoupled the compartments and sent them for diagnostics.
Everything went well. Our, so to speak, great cosmonaut returned almost from a combat mission unharmed and with a valuable cargo. (after all, meteors and flying in a comet cloud are not a joke, and none of us have done this in a real flight yet). Glory to the daredevil and all that. The daredevil himself, however, after less than three hours of flight was pretty exhausted - even with a compensator, active manual maneuvering in space is a tedious and nervous occupation. And because, without listening to the praises, our hero of the day undressed from the suit, took a shower and went to bed. But he kind of liked it. This means that we should also like it. On the other hand, he often likes such hobbies, from which we cautiously pull our heads into our shoulders - this is not an indicator.
It's done! Ariadne sent the cargo extracted from space along the usual path- preliminary decay in the coronizer, and from there - immediately to the storage. Since the brought "ore" was already in the form of dust, explosive disintegration was not required. The indicators of storage systems slowly but surely filled up almost to the top. It's enough for us to finally be able to go on a full-fledged interstellar flight.
It's the middle of the night outside. But it doesn't concern us. We are sitting in a bright cabin, at a round white table covered with various delicacies from the local cyber cuisine. Now that we have all the necessary substances, a bread and candy diet does not threaten us. There are fragrant smells in the air. Vladik, who has retired from a difficult flight, plays something light and melodic on his electronic guitar. Rather, in length and shape, his instrument more resembles a long rounded curved tablet with an extension at the end and a lot of small touch keys, but Vladik does not call it anything else - a guitar and nothing else. Paul buried himself in a new tablet, probably found something super important in it for himself, however, he did not forget to eat his reading cookies. Leo was writing to someone on another tablet ordered from Ariadna (his wrist intercom has now switched to auxiliary devices), his fingers beat the rhythm with wild speed, almost to the beat of Vladik's melody. Leo's probably saying goodbye to all the girls he knows. If so, he will definitely break the tablet one day - it looks so fragile and thin, as if it was made somewhere in Three Empires. Oleg just sat and thought about something of his own. I was also thinking about the upcoming cases. We managed to change into the flight suits offered by Ariadna - very comfortable and cute, and what I especially liked was that they were not tight, as the pilots of bolides and pretty girls like, but more spacious and more like ordinary tracksuits. Instead of an unloading vest, these suits have built-in pockets that do not stand out for the fabric, and an integrated belt with useful small things hidden under the underside of the suit. However, fasteners for unloading and belts are present. One thing we didn't like- like everything, in general, everything on this base by default, these clothes were brilliantly white. In order not to get lost against the background of the walls, and just for a change, we used templates and universal paint to change some of the details of clothing to your taste. Vladik added bright red inserts to the surface of the costumes, in the color of his guitar, Leo - emerald green, Oleg- steel gray, Paul- the color of the sea wave. I thought for a long time which ones to stick to myself, but, alas, I didn't come up with anything and left the color white as it is. I like all colors to one degree or another, and white is a mixture of them.
A Elder came into the mess. He also changed into a new one, and he originally painted his flight suit completely in matte black, but with blue stripes and ornaments that go like a ribbon and lampas. His costume came out as a slight reference to old military uniforms, but in the style of a kind of cyber fantasy. Anyway, it looks good.
- Is everyone here?- Sit down.- We need to discuss a couple of details.
We stopped what we were doing and turned to hearing. The elder took one of the chairs at the round table, and continued:
- The situation is as follows. On the one hand, I have something to congratulate us on! A unique creation of the human mind has fallen into our hands. And we, it seems, did not dispose of it in the stupidest way - we are going to help Ariadna use the space station for its intended purpose - to explore remote corners of space, we ourselves have a chance to prove ourselves wonderfully by devoting our lives to a serious, great cause. Moreover, we have full autonomy. We do not depend on anyone - neither in resources, nor in people, nor in competencies. No one is our boss. Everything depends solely on how correctly and correctly we will dispose of our... so strengthened position. In addition, our base is very well armed. Despite the volume of a typical destroyer, or, at most, a universal corvette, our firepower is comparable to ships of the cruiser class ... aircraft carrier of the cruiser class, please note. From a technical point of view, we can easily defeat any weak fleet - for example, our MSF patrol ships from orbit on their file-modified space freighters - they are not our rivals. The Defense Council's sector fleet in Ariadna's Ring-well, maybe it will be equal to us in strength. And if we take care in advance and build a large stock of unmanned combat vehicles… Calm down, I have no plans to harm our MSF or sector fleets. And it never will be. I hope you will not have such intentions either. But they may, and most likely will, have illusions about our hostile intentions towards them. It's a matter of time.
- Nonsense! I couldn't stand it. - Why should our militia of the star system and the military of the space fleet be afraid of us? We're on the same side! We will explain to them who we are, that we are not going to attack anyone. On the contrary, we can help them if necessary…
- I would like that too, - the Elder continued. – But, everything is a little more complicated. As the ancient wise men said, "I am interested in your capabilities, not desires." You see, young people, any state considers any armed force beyond its control primarily a threat to itself - regardless of whether it is friendly to it initially, hostile or neutral. Regardless of her verbal statements. And the state, if such a force arises, seeks to put this force at its service, in a dependent position. And if it does not work out, it seeks to destroy it. The mentors from the Defense Council, who prepared our anti-raider squad, explained all this well to us. As well as many other things. This is not good or evil, just a defensive reaction developed by States over centuries and millennia. Even for many xenos it happens the same way- Paul will confirm.
Paul spread his hands and only nodded in agreement. He had studied, albeit not from personal experience, the structure of many xenos societies. Meanwhile, the Elder continued:
- There are no exceptions here. Even such an unobtrusive and complacent state as our native Novorossiya will not take its eyes off us and will plunge us into shit up to our ears, if we slip up on something seriously only once. And, believe me, this is the very thing that the specialists from the Defense Council or the Order will arrange for us on purpose, so that they have a reason to find fault with us. I won't even talk about the Three Empires in the Old Area - there the states through their corporations (or vice versa, not the point) own everything, and if we were residents of the Old Area and found a "Photon" on one of their planets, we wouldn't even be able to take off from the planet. And therefore, we cannot visit their space in any case - we will be instantly discovered. Do not forget about the Order of the Renaissance - it is undoubtedly the most useful organization for the country, but for us in our current situation, they pose the greatest threat. This space base was created by "Phoenix-Svarog". The Order directly grew out of this "company". This is, in fact, a state within a state with signs of a religious order. And it is much more active than the Defense Council, and they have much wider opportunities. It is more than possible that they will want their own back... lost property. Especially considering that this base is not just a lost ship - it is a lost treasure of ancient breakthrough technologies, many of which were then abandoned with the degradation of the SICF and have not been recreated until now, neither here nor in the Three Empires. And it is unlikely that Ariadne's release from the instructions and her choice in favor of a free search with us will be a strong argument for the Order. And even more so it will mean nothing to the Empires…
Oleg raised his hand, attracting attention:
- As soon as everyone understands what we are, they will stop taking us seriously, but they will want to take away the base?- he suggested.
- Very aptly,- the Elder confirmed. – They have plenty of means, tactics, and people for this. Sooner or later, we'll slip up somewhere. And if forces from Empires join the process, then such a bacchanal will begin that I don't even want to think about it once again. But it is necessary to think about it.
- Just a second,- Paul interjected. – Many xenocivilizations have a good tradition - when meeting with another peaceful species of intelligent - to transfer part of their technologies to both sides. And it often works for the benefit. Maybe we should just hand over to the Order all the documentation for the Photon, with all the technological technosystems, descriptions and so on? The Order will receive these technologies, and we will no longer be a threat to them, even in theory?
The elder smiled sadly. Yes, that's right- he grinned, but without mirth in his eyes:
- A wonderful, wonderful idea. But, Paul, don't imagine people are better than they really are. And about the xenos, by the way, too. All xenos are different, but all humans are even more different than all xenos combined.
- Is it also ancient wisdom? Paul asked.
- No, this is my experience of communicating with a couple of хenos races during the service. So, about the Order- they will be completely sure that we gave them everything and didn't hide anything, only if they personally turn the base upside down, take it apart for study, and throw us into a fresh vacuum... well, or, if we're lucky, they'll just send us home. And most importantly. You can call me a genius if none of you thought about it, but it's obvious. As soon as we prove ourselves, the main threat to the Order will not even be us, but the possibility that we will fall into the hands of the special services of the Empires. They will not allow this under any pretext. Even if we are generous and give them all the technology and documents and even a second copy of Ariadna… And the specialists from the Empires, on the contrary, as soon as they realize that we fly by ourselves, and have nothing to do with the Order or the Defense Council, they will try to capture us for the same reason- so that we do not fall into the hands of the Order and the Defense Council, yes. Well, the technologies of Ariadna Belikova and her group that created "Photon", I think they will also be interested. We may find ourselves in the situation of a person who has fallen on a monorail, to which two trains are rushing from both sides - his fate will not be rosy, regardless of which train will crush him first… Yes, I say right away - to leave everything as it is and pretend that we have never found anything is also not a way out. We and our find are already known all over the planet. We are very lucky that we live on the farthest fringe of the New Area, far from everything. We have to get this ship out of here. Only when there is a huge perfectly round cavern in place of the "Photon", visible from space, and the whole Area will also know about it, our loved ones in the town will be safe, and the whole planet as a whole. The Bryanskaya planet will again become uninteresting to anyone and it will be wonderful. While the information about us will be accepted by the powerful of this world, considered by analytical services and transferred from the category of "fairy tales" to the category of "need to check"- it will take some time. When we leave, and this will also be known- it will take a little more time. And there is nothing and no one will have anything to catch.
-Thou described a pretty awful situation,- I said. – And what to do? It's like in chess, a stalemate in any direction.
- There is a way. There are double chess, and there are... triple. Our key to success is to earn boundless respect and trust in the eyes of the people, ordinary communards like me, you, us. Who live in thousands of star systems throughout Novorossiya. Yes, we need to connect a third force. So that, in order not to incur the wrath of the people, any, even the most powerful organization, would be afraid to touch us. So that everyone understands that if we are captured by the Order, then thousands of militia ships, patrols and sectorals will all rush into RT331 as one and knock out all this dusty bag with fur until we are given back. And if the Imperials try to do the same, then all the same wonderful people will fly with the same goals, but in the opposite direction - to the new colonies of the Old Area - to demand historical justice and our extradition with missiles at the ready. If ordinary people of all Novorossia will be for us, we can not be afraid of anyone and calmly do what we were going to do. But... to do this, we have to do something from which everyone should just fall. In a good way. It is on our first projects that we should think.
We warmly supported the idea, and began vying to discuss what we could do so great that any person would be ready to tear anyone up for us. So that we become the perfect role model? A flight to the Andromeda Galaxy? This is for a long time. And several expeditions flew there at different times - none returned. Hunt down and trash a couple of powerful pirate gangs, to which all the guns from the eternally busy military space fleets will not reach? It's already more real, but it requires careful study, otherwise we ourselves will be blown apart like a target in a shooting gallery. We think, we think, we think…
But they didn't give us time to think. Ariadna interrupted us:
- Commander, one bolid is approaching us from the southeast. Looks like he's going to sit down.
We rushed into the control room without saying a word. A schematic map of the next fifty kilometers appeared before us. Even the town on the edge is marked… Yes, a certain point is flying towards us. Who is so curious?
- Is there no more picture? I asked.
- Now, I'm sending ror- Ariadna brought a panorama from a miniature flying robot scout to the empty place of the projector. His scanners in light-amplification mode highlighted a small, lightweight single-seat bolid on low-power plasma engines. The arriving car, meanwhile, smoothly descended on maneuvering engines to the ground near the former shore of the lake.
Yesterday, after Vladik's return from space, Ariadne turned the space station back, and the dried-up lake is again decorated with an extended shaft and four ladders laid out to the shores… The glazing of the car moved back, a small girlish figure got out of it. Who's that?..
The unknown woman armed herself with a flashlight and confidently approached the stairs leading to the elevator shaft… We carefully watched the video with the guest. Dark red curly hair, bright green eyes, upturned nose, freckles, half of the upper lip is always bitten on one side or the other. Sharp, fussy movements… The media scanner fastens with a zipper on the shoulder. Yes, ror scanners transmit the image perfectly - we examined the arriving lady in detail. There's something familiar about her, and it's clear from the faces of my friends that they've seen her somewhere, just like me, but we can't remember exactly where. And only the Floor shone as if the grace of cosmic nymphs had descended on it:
- My eyes! Why, it's Janna!
- Who? we asked almost in unison.
-Paul, my friend, did you really leave your xenos alone, and still found yourself a girlfriend from your native race? Leo added. – I'm finally happy for you. Call a guest, or something! We'll treat her to tea.
- Oh, if only… Don 't you recognize her ? It's Janna Neumann herself!
- What?- the missing elements formed in my head and I remembered everything. – That nasty crazy presenter from the channel "Riddles of the Universe"?!
Palm to face, a crooked grin, a heavy sigh - everyone expressed their crown version of displeasure. Personally, my right eye twitched slightly. Of course! "Riddles of the Universe" is a very controversial company... There are no bigger liars and alarmists than them in the whole New Area! If we let her on board, then tomorrow there will be everything about us in galaseti, except the truth. However, if we don't let her in, it will be the same. The only thing that still saves them from armed visitors with bad intentions is broadcasting from orbit (everyone is too lazy to get there, it's easier just not to watch their broadcasts), and yet, we must admit that despite the very frivolous handling of facts, they are able to give viewers and readers their nonsense in a very in an interesting and exciting way.
- You're nasty yourself! Paul snapped without much confidence. – Yes, she is a goddess! Her broadcasts are something!
That's for sure. Something. Here I agree.
- Yes, I've been dreaming of meeting her for several years!- Paul almost nodded his nose at the projection with the curly-haired object of adoration, who right at that moment was shamelessly banging a lamp on the side of the shaft and shouting something.
- Invite her! Please! I'll get into her broadcast! We will get into her broadcast!..
After looking at our sour faces, he came from a different angle:
- Well, if you don't want to talk to her, then fine, I'll take her on. And you just stand next to the smart view…
While we were deciding whether to let the press in or not, the press decided everything for us. Seeing that the percussive actions and shouts did not give results, the girl dived inside like a fish without any fuss, and, after a few seconds, drove into our large hall in a quite familiar way, braking on the invisible barrier carefully set up by Ariadna. The AI itself, by the way, disappeared from sight.
The reporter shook her curly head, spreading the smell of perfume, dusted herself off and, leaning on the hand carefully offered by Paul, stood up and looked around:
- However… After all, it's true!
After leaving the custody of Paul, she walked a circle along the wall, examining with an enthusiastic gaze everything that came across her eyes… She leaned her hands on the table, twisted something on the shoulder scanner, and stared in surprise at the diagram of our cosmobase. Then she turned to us:
- Ahem-ahem! Greetings, brave adventurers! You don't have to introduce yourself, I know you well! I think you've known me for a long time… Yeah, judging by your faces, you've heard a lot of nonsense about me… Nothing, it will pass. A day or two, and you will understand that in life I am a completely different person… So, we'll cut it out later… Tell me, O heroes of the airless elements, lords of the solar wind- You are flying into space! Right?
-Yes!- said Paul. – Maybe tomorrow!- Janna, sit down, help yourself, make yourself at home. We will answer all thine questions. Your film today will be the best of all! The audience will not come off the screens!
- Really?- she asked playfully, frankly appraising us from head to toe. – I see you're good guys. Oh, it's been a long time since I've had a really awesome, impressive shoot!.. So, we'll cut it out ... and what could be better for a new film that will become known throughout the Area than a film ... about a space journey on a found ship of a newly discovered xenorace! Guys, is this a Fakor ship? Or an Arkremer ship?
We began to quietly beastly. My hand involuntarily reached to my belt for a pistol, however, it was not there - we considered it superfluous to carry a weapon on board.
-No, Janna, it's not a xenocship," Paul said. – This is…
- Oh, guys, don't tell me that you built such a huge machine here, in the wilderness, yourself! I won't believe it in my life… In general, so, my dear friends. You have a wonderful, beautiful spaceship. I even like him. And you're great guys, too. Especially this tall handsome guy, I love them. Grandpa is also still wow! So, all of you, listen to me carefully, I'm not asking for it twice: I'm flying. With you. And it's not up for discussion. You're very, very happy, aren't you? Really, really! Consider yourself superstars already! The whole Area will see you! And do not try to say "no", humanity will not forgive us for this!..
We froze in a thoughtful stupor. I wanted to do several mutually exclusive things at once, and while we were calculating the consequences, the girl came to the entrance and asked:
- Okay, don't worry. I won't cause any trouble. Everything will be super-duper! In the meantime... boy, show me my cabin. I was so tired getting here!..
A light projection of Ariadne appeared on the table, in a relaxed sitting position:
- Hee-hee!
Janna immediately turned around and gasped in surprise.
- Oh! And who is it?
-Believe me, it's better for thou not to know,- Ariadna replied. – My girl, the team has been assembled for a long time. And thou here... a little extra. I'll ask thou to leave.
-Who are thou to give me orders, blue something?- Thou don't even have a body!
- There is such a trouble ... - Ariadne agreed half-jokingly, raising her glowing eyes to the ceiling. - But my brain is fine. I have a lot of them.
Ariadna snapped her fingers, and all of us, not excluding Janna, got off the ground. The reporter shrieked and waved her arms comically. Ariadna symbolically blew on her light palm, as if she blew the dust off it, and the inimitable Janna Neumann flew out of the mine like a bullet back into the fresh forest air, and landed exactly on the shock-absorbing seat of her bolid. Quite gently, by the way. Snapping her fingers once more, the AI sealed the hatch of the northern shaft, turned off the graph compensation system and we felt our own weight again and got back on our feet normally.
- Learn, boys! Ariadne purred ironically. - You know, it's time for us to get ready for the road. Otherwise, a little more time will pass, and all the best people of this wonderful planet will be here. How do you see it?
- Extremely positive! The Elder replied with relief. – The devil knows what! It's the first time I've come across such a cheeky girl... even the raiders are more tactful than she is!
-Forget about her,- Ariadne advised. – At the very least, she will tell everyone that we are evil xenos and want to blow up the planet. And no one will believe her again.
- what?- Vladik asked? – Ari, have thou watched this channel?
- I watched it. And I even read articles," the cyber pilot confirmed. – And not only this one, but all open information resources in your cyber networks. I will refrain from comments…
Yes, we all breathed a sigh of relief from such an elegant solution to a delicate problem. Only Paul remained a little sad. Leo began to console him with his not very successful jokes, and we began to make basic preparations. Yes, we need to hurry up. We've been delayed a lot.…
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