Аннотация: Relaxing on the beach and gathering clouds over Mendoir.
Chapter 10. The clouds are gathering.
Igor (Mendoir, June-July 2366)
Holidays, vacations... Just as I was happy about this time in my previous life, now everything has faded away, there is no joy at all. There is a movement at school, there are comrades and mentors, there is new knowledge and friends with common interests. On vacation, there is silence and emptiness, only hunting, fishing, open-air performances with Excitement and an album, and exhausting morning workouts with my grandfather and like-minded people.
Five years have passed since I performed my stupid feat at the ferry. I doubt that this can be attributed to my achievements, but I became the star of the school. A difficult, exhausting role... for six months, for some reason, the whole school considered it normal to come up and ask: "Hey, Shepard, what does it feel like to be a hero?" We calmed down only after I had to loudly promise trouble to my fans, and then deliver a few harmless but painful blows with water spheres to the fastest ones.
That year Denis flew to Earth. To the Zhukovsky cadet school. Then, in the summer, the exam tests came, and my brother, in the presence of the governor of the colony, as a guarantor of the honesty of the exam, solved them all, and perfectly. How Bina roared when we saw him off - that's when it became clear that she wasn't at all indifferent to Denis, and azari, it turns out, are able to hide their emotions from empaths! Although I didn't really read it as empathy. I only use empathy when working when the patient's psyche needs to be restored. But the further you go, the more interesting it gets - blue ladies are not very simple... And they know how to use pheromones, and they treat you so that you get pumped.
And so, for five years now, my brother has been gnawing at the granite of naval science. He's coming back for the holidays soon. Cadet or not- it's already Second Lieutenant Denis Shepard. Alexey followed him the following year, so both of my older brothers are future officers of the Alliance Air Force. Denis has a year of combat training ahead of him, and at the end of it he will receive an appointment. Although he is the second best student in the course, he has every chance of receiving the shoulder straps of the first lieutenant after graduation. There is a good chance that by the time of the invasion, he may well reach the rank of rear admiral. There are many events ahead - one Skillian blitz is worth it. His grandfather told him to apply to join the Fifth Fleet, which is the most belligerent fleet in the Alliance, which means that both experience and ranks are there in the first place. However, you can easily lay down your head...my brother asked if the cadet's opinion was taken into account during the distribution? My grandfather replied that for the top ten in academic performance, they take it into account. Although many blockheads are asking to join the Second Fleet. We had a good conversation last year, and my grandfather told us a lot of interesting things back then....
"Those cretins from the Second Fleet!" He was saying. "Who needs these parquet soldiers? Why, the metropolitan Defense Fleet, the best ships, the best crews... blah blah blah! Yeah, now!"
"What are you doing, Arthur?" Grandma answered. "You were the commander of this fleet yourself...."
"Yes... and I remember that time with a shudder - I killed two years trying to make soldiers out of this meat, and I didn't achieve anything! During the naval exercises, they were unable to withstand even the Fourth Fleet, Liv. Patrol officers on frigates and corvettes smashed the heavy cruisers to smithereens. They took out the decks to the carriers and left without losing a single ship conditionally destroyed. What if the Second Fleet runs into someone stronger than the Batarian pirates? With the same Turians, for example! Yes, the Seventh Fleet of the Hierarchy will pass through our Second Fleet and will not notice!"
Denis sat in silence and, I felt, was very surprised. The beauty and pride of the Terran MSF turned out to be complete bullshit.... Then I remembered the beginning of the third game-how the Reapers went through the metropolitan defense fleet as if it didn't exist. A short contact, and only a pile of burning debris falls to Earth from orbit.
"Grandfather, what about the border guards? The Eighth and Ninth fleets of the Alliance have good performance," Alexey asked.
"The good ones are good! But you won't get used to it, with your attitude towards the xenos, and especially with your friendship with the Turians."
"But why?"
"Border guards are still xenophobes. A forge of personnel for Cerberus. Damn fascists, it's not nighttime to remember them! Don't ask to go there, or you'll get there."
"Well, they're dealing with Batarian pirates and other galactic trash." Denis tried to intercede for the border guards.
"Are the Fifth and Fourth Fleets polishing space? Do you know, my grandchildren, that the pirate clans of Terminus are already almost half human? And how many people among the mercenaries are of the same Eclipse? Almost a third already! And how the loyalty test goes in the Eclipse is generally a byword!"
"Maybe you're praising the Fifth Fleet because you spent most of your service there yourself? Yes, and Uncle Steve is the chief of staff there, and in general, they openly call him Russian, and we are Russians!"
"Maybe that's why... or maybe it's because I've never seen such a mess as on the Second One, not even in the largest free state, the First Fleet. And that, in comparison with the Second One, is an exemplary order. Although the fleet of long-range reconnaissance and covert operations, with a long separation from the bases, there is no way without freedom. You'll go crazy with fatigue if you spend six months in a tin can side by side. You, Leshka, will be quite appropriate there, with your adventurous nature - so you can ask to go there, just not to the border guards!
"But there is no faith in Cerberus and its leader. You know, this asshole doesn't care about humanity - he's only interested in power. Personal unlimited power - and he goes to it, not disdaining any methods. grandma inserted a monologue into the grandfathers. - You're kind of upset, Arthur. Sit down and have a cup of tea, otherwise you're blushing all over.
"Ah, ah!" grandfather waved his hand. "The "Exo-Geni" have moved, this "nursing mother" and "drinking father" for Cerberus." They're having a row with RM and promising problems. Recently, their representatives stated at the Alliance Congress that RM's international programs endanger the interests of humanity. They're probably passing off their own or Cerberus' interests as the interests of humanity.... What do you say, Liv? What does your hacker support service say?"
"In the winter, Mendoir flashed on pirate and mercenary forums, but now it's gone. It's strange... they talk about any colonies, but not about us. It's very similar to a distraction operation."
"I agree, Liv. Something began to smell rotten. Did you warn the governor?"
"Of course, he knocked out another corvette from the corporation, so we have three of them now."
"We could use a couple of Turian corvettes, and then any pirate would wash up. And the guys will have a hard time on our shells, although Vitya is an intelligent group commander and knows his job perfectly well. Eh..." the grandfather sighed. "They know how to build warships with scallops, not like our blue ladies... don't be offended, Azat!"
"Come on, Grandpa! That's what the whole galaxy calls us.... We've already gotten used to it."
"What about us?" Bina squeaked from Denis's armpit.
"And you girls know how to build beautiful, huge, unwieldy flying coffins."
"But what about the cruise ships of the Belaya Zvezda class?"
"Vasenka, honey, don't confuse civilian and military products! These are, without a doubt, completely different things. There are no complaints about your civilian equipment at all, except for the price! And your race can't build warships... and you're not much of a fighter, if you'll excuse my bluntness."
"But, Admiral Arthur, sir! But what about the landing?"
"Bina, my child, you can't win a war by amphibious assault, especially since how many troops do you have? According to the latest data, there are eleven divisions. That's just over 120,000 paratroopers-on 56 worlds and 42 billion people! Yes, we only have about one and a half million troops... and the infantry units of the planetary defense, and the colonial militia, and there are also special police units. To put it all together, there are more than 20 million fighters for a total of 19 billion people in all the worlds. I'm not talking about Turians at all - they have a tenth of the population in the army, and the rest have received good training in it. Even the girls, although they are not accepted into the army units to serve. If there is a big fight in the galaxy, who will fight for your Republic? Cabaret dancers or demimonde ladies? Or maybe T'Loak's Aria with Eclipse? They say she's the former lover of Councilor Tevos, so it's possible."
"But, Admiral..."
"Oh, Binochka, Binochka... People have a good proverb: "A nation that doesn't want to feed its army will either feed someone else's or feed worms!" Your biotics mentor, whatever her name is.... Noirin Haren, it seems, complained that the recruitment was bad - the Azari did not join the army. Those who are poorer prefer to become either a dancer or a gang, and those who are richer prefer to go anywhere but to the army. Just imagine - a mighty enemy will come into our space, whatever that archaeologist of yours called them... Dr. T'Soni, I think... The Reapers. Who will the Republic meet them with? There was a heavy silence. And my grandfather remembers that show, it turns out!
By the way, Dr. Seleznev flew to our village from the Soviet Union for permanent residence and his daughter's name is Alice. Awesome. But like me, she lathered up not to the medical institute, but to the Zhukovsky cadet school.
It's late morning. I'm sitting with my group with fishing rods on the shore, it's already hot, the fish won't bite. A crowd of elementary school students stomps by, singing our guerrilla song.
They look at us, smile, wave, and we wave back. At the head of the column is their classmate, a cheerful blonde girl, Svetlana Tkachuk, our school entertainer, the head of the amateur theater group and a teacher of rhetoric. Al Hartman walks beside her, full of importance. Joseph sent him to look after the youngsters, he has two younger twin sisters in the column. His face, however, is sour, and his feelings are melancholy. He looked at us, smiled weakly, and we showed him clenched fists - be strong, muchachos! (guys) He just rolled his eyes in response. Two weeks with a little bit, br-r-r!
I remember last year, when we were invited to the same event. Well, the class leader, the best magician of the school, an excellent student and blah blah blah, should show the younger ones by his own example what a real colonist should be. Igor, we hope for you, show class! I was outraged by this assignment to the limit - I thought I would start breathing fire. It's good that Sayomha noticed, came up, hugged, and reassured. As a result, I took Azanti and Nasar, Al Hartman and his girlfriend Aliska, two of our Turians, and Feron, and went on a guerrilla mission. Everything went well, in general. Instead of two ropes, there is now a normal suspension bridge on metal cables at the ferry. So it's difficult to fly away from it.
There were guys in the column a year younger than us, their faces are serious, Ivan leads the column. He struts with such an important air that don't come near - of course, mentors, instructors, don't fuck around! The blue-skinned Noirin closes the column, her protruding tummy is already clearly visible, our magic instructor will become a mom very soon - what a guerrilla she just went! That's responsible, of course, the kids are in the wilderness, without proper supervision, with a very kind Svetlana, there's no order!
Noirin came to replace her former mentor, who had problems in her family and urgently needed to leave for Tassia. The whole clan seemed to be going to bury her sister. Noirin, a blue-skinned former paratrooper who has a bioprosthesis instead of her right leg, with her cheerful and easy character, instantly fit into the school team, becoming a universal favorite. She quickly became friends with the entertainer Sveta and became a real mascot of the school's magic team.
She was an excellent coach, even if she was harsh and demanding, but I really liked her approach and methods - a kind of mother commander: I'd tear anyone's mouth off for my own, but I wouldn't let myself down. It's a pity, but I took everything she could give me from her a year ago. I still remembered a lot from my past lives. With my engineering education, trained spatial thinking, and years of working with drawings of varying degrees of complexity, it turned out to be easier to memorize linear force constructs. Of course, this is true only with my combat mode - other girls puff for a long time and will puff for a long time. As it turned out, all these gestures are absolutely unnecessary... except as an auxiliary tool. What is important is to accurately determine the distance to the target. But visors do a great job with this. And snipers like Garrus like to carry visors on themselves. Look out, determine the distance, form an impact, fill it with power - and now the singularity is hanging over the enemy's head, and he is being dragged there with terrible force. However, as the distance increases, the degree of control of the structures decreases, so far I have a radius of only 300-350 meters, when the Noirin is up to one and a half kilometers.
It is very important in biotics to correctly and quickly solve spatial equations in your mind in order to form and fill with power - that's brain-bending mathematics. This is exactly what most biotics need implants for. Well, an ordinary person doesn't have a computer in their brain to solve double integrals in their mind, and they don't have the time, like azari, to learn! So they put dangerous gadgets in their heads to make life easier for biotics. The same controversial L2 is a great chip ... only it doesn't have a limiter for work, and it's just hard for a child to stop, and instead of winning, it turns out to be a sensitive and mental overload, a terrible migraine, or even a catatonic stupor. Instead of a fighter, the army and the family get a semi-paralyzed disabled person - a tragedy for everyone! It is good that, under public pressure, the implant was modified by installing a limiter and getting a less powerful, but safe L2n carrier. Yes, now I understand why Alenko was such a bore and a pedant. With L2, it's only with this mindset that you can work normally. Oh, it's a good thing I don't need an implant!..
In the process of learning, I learned that kinetic barriers do not save from magical influences. Therefore, biotic fighters are a huge advantage if you have a biotic in your team, but the opponent does not. If it's the other way around, then you know. After all, all magicians wear armor with powerful kinetic shields, and it's difficult for a sniper to kill them on the first hit. My grandfather once told me about a case from his service.
Once we went to Bekenstein, I was a drop then, and we had a couple of wizards in our landing team. He told us. They were having an affair. But, in general, this did not affect the discipline, although it seems to be prohibited in the charter. The guys were golden - the landing party was ready to carry them on their hands. Thanks to these two, in a year, after thirty amphibious operations against pirates, not a single dead paratrooper. And so, our witch went to a restaurant at the spaceport, and there the local majors were hanging out - what they forgot there, the devil knows. They rolled up to her, but the girl was like a doll, just a pretty girl. She sent them far and for a long time. The vile ones were offended, they scared the bartender, and this bitch added tavlon (1) to our witch's cocktail. (Tavlon is a drug, a psychocorrector-suppressant, reduces the critical assessment of a person's actions to an almost complete minimum, causing irresistible trust in others. Under the influence of tawlon, a person can spill everything he knows, can kill on order. It was used during the fighting between people, for emergency interrogations of prisoners. During the validity period, the fiction is prohibited, distribution is punishable.)
She stuck together, the vile ones took her away with them and mocked her, thinking that she was a simple Marine LT. And as soon as they realized who it was, they took a shit, and they killed her. The case immediately began to be hushed up - the sons turned out to be some local bosses. And the guy waited and waited, couldn't wait, lost his temper, went off on his own, took the bartender from the restaurant by the ass. He surrendered the entire Camarilla out of fear. The sorcerer, without thinking twice, came to the local club, where the whole gang was drinking that day, and this club was the father of one of the majors. Well, he pressed the group. He was a master of air and fire, beyond biotic techniques. And the dad who was in the club, that dumb deer, tried to bribe and intimidate the guy at the same time, and he lost his mind. And since there was no one else in the club at that time except these clowns, he took them all down: merzyukov, daddy, and daddy's guards. The locals heard these freaks screaming as they died, the cops were called, they cordoned off the club, and let's offer the guy change. Anyway, the rope was already shining on him, and he sent them. They came running to us, Cap went and talked to him, and sent all these freaks to such and such a mother. You've started this mess, he says, and you're clearing it up. And the guy wasn't going to give up. The cops refused to storm the building. And one of the bastards' dads hired mercenaries. Two platoons entered the club, two platoons... The fight went on for four hours - and back, out of fifty people, five came out, the rest stayed in the club forever! For the company of our boyfriend. Eh... what a guy he was! Our landing party commemorated them both every year....
Because of their power and rather cold nature, as a result of working with the implant, ordinary soldiers call biotics sorcerers, witchers - and they don't really like them. Biotics, in return, pay everyone else in the same coin. In addition, very often biotic people are elemental magicians and possess at least the rudiments of the gift of foresight. This makes them a very dangerous opponent at the level of the Asari paratroopers.
Four years ago, as soon as she arrived and looked around, Noirin laid eyes on our city sheriff. William Grayson, a lone former high-security investigator from the Ohio State Police. While working on a case, he managed to cross the path of someone from the powerful of this world. They staged a real hunt for the law enforcement officer: they killed the bride, made false accusations of all mortal sins. When the cop was completely desperate, he accidentally came to the attention of one of RM's human resources agents - God only knows how he got to the States. The corporation helped William fight off the charges and took him to Mendoir, out of harm's way. Here he was put in charge of public safety in Leonov, and he quietly moved away from what had happened in his life. Local unmarried gossips made eyes at the gloomy handsome sheriff with terrible force, but for several years he remained cold to their advances, apparently mourning the bride who died on Earth. Ноирин liked Bill very much right away, and she, in the best traditions of the landing, staged a real assault - as a result, six months later, after a sluggish flutter, our sheriff, to the universal grief of the gossips, was dragged down the aisle, and now sparkles with a gold bracelet on his right hand. And the coach has found a little feminine happiness, and she is already pregnant. Gossips, of course, sometimes hiss about a blue, lame witch who brazenly stole "such a guy"... and azari just laughs. Good girl! Ha, those fools would have been snapping their beaks even longer! Our coach is a real paratrooper. "Where we are, there is victory!" is about her.
Last year, I mastered the entire range of biotic effects of the Asari landing with her, and even those techniques that Noirin herself cannot use due to restrictions on the capacity of the biotic channel. But she was able to remember them and showed them to me. These are mainly effects of mass application, such as a deformation field or a detonation wave. So far, I've only used them on the training ground. Delight! The impressions are the strongest, the Azari girls were also impressed. Especially from the wave of detonations: a solid wall of explosions, fifteen meters wide, and pieces of plastic target containers flying in different directions, and dust clouds. I hear someone whispering behind me: "Strong red! They're like weapons of mass destruction!" Otherwise, we Shepards are like that!
He began to train elemental spells of mass destruction at the training ground. And an air spear. It's a powerful thing.
I'm twelve. The body is slowly changing, and I feel that the rate of change is increasing. Nasar and Azanti are growing and changing, only Azanti is changing more slowly, she is, in fact, still a child. Batarians grow up a little slower, but at this age it is very noticeable, especially in contrast to Nasar - Turians grow up faster than humans. A friend already quite resembles a guy and no, no, and casts glances at the girls.
Yes, the guys and Aliska Selezneva joined our company. The guys, as you might guess, are Alex Hartmann and Feron Tanris. Hartman, Nasar whispered to me, had a crush on Aliska. Too bad, the Citadel has opened ... otherwise I do not know! How we giggled when we overheard Joseph talking to his neighbor at the Galamarket, a fellow farmer, but a Turian named Mashkur Jarvis, the father of my twin classmates, which is incredibly rare among Turians. They stood at the counter of a small cafe in a megamarket and looked into the hall. Azanti, Nasar, and Aliska, I were sitting at a table eating ice cream, and they didn't see us.
"Listen, Joe, your youngest son has been visiting the Seleznevs a lot, but he's hanging out with their girl and her friends all the time. Have you fallen in love?"
"Don't tell me, Mashkur, you've fallen in love... He follows the redhead around like a chick on a string, looking into her mouth. I just don't know what to do with it."
Aliska was red-haired like me, but the shade of her hair was more orange. And the eyes are blue.
"Have you tried to talk? It's kind of early, they're only nine years old yet.... What about Aliska? How does she feel about you?"
"She needs him like muklik needs a brake light! She's an army bone - all the relatives are in uniform! Vaughn's father is a military surgeon. If the girl goes to the corps in five years, they only saw her. If he does, that's at least thirty years in the Navy! What kind of daughter-in-law is this? So I think it's nothing! Her character is like steel! Take one into the house, and in a month my whole farm will be marching and saluting. Well, fuck it! I've had my fill of all this stuff in the Navy... even at home, like in a barracks! A wife should obey her husband, not the other way around. And this one will obey, wait!"
"Do you think it will pass by itself?"
"It will pass. As soon as the sweetheart leaves for Earth, he will forget about her. Not right away, but he'll forget. And that's good. I'm a farmer, Mashkur, just like you, my job is to plow the land and feed the people. And theirs is to protect us all. And my awesome wife needs a farmer to know and love this life. And which of the soldiers is a farmer? You gave it away, Joe! Do you think I'm a bad farmer? Mashkur, what kind of soldier are you? He served the mandatory ten years and then moved here, bought a farm. You say yourself, I grew up on a farm, your father and grandfather are farmers. After all, I also gave ten years of my life to the Navy - my father sent me to the Space Marines at the age of 17. "Go," he said, "and repay your debt to your country, or are you not a man?" And while I was paying back my debt to the motherland, the corporations squeezed the farm from us. I came home and my friend, Liz, the neighbor's daughter, was sitting on our porch and crying. Their farm had been taken away the year before, and the whole family moved in with us. Her father didn't survive it, he died. And mine is really bad too. I came and sat next to her, and she told me everything, and she buried her face in my chest, and she cried even louder. I'm sitting next to her, and I'm so sad, Mashkur... This farm belonged to us, the Hartmans, for 300 years, there's a whole cemetery of my ancestors nearby... and now it's been taken away. Apparently, this is how the motherland needs us.... I've been under bullets for ten years, I came home, and the house was taken away! It's good that I accidentally saw a note about the recruitment of colonists to Mendoir. He married Liz, took her, his mother-in-law, his mother and father, his sister and her husband, and left here. And you know, I've never regretted it! Let's say that Russians have a bad democracy... do you know what, Mashkur? Fuck her, this democracy! Here in the States, it's also strange - whoever has more money is a fucking Democrat... and the Indians still live on reservations, just like three hundred years ago."
"Maybe you're right. My younger brother is going to join us too. He says he'll serve a year and quit. When he arrives, will we help him, neighbor?"
"Of course, we will help! The more farmers, the better! You and I, neighbor, are plowing-plowing, and other farmers are also busy, but everyone is the same - we have to bring a third of the food to the colony. This is not the case! So the society will only be "for" and will be glad to have a new owner on the land, there it is, how much land is empty - it's bad, it needs to be mastered... How about a drink, buddy?"
"Come on! While our wives are shopping and don't see us. Girl, pour us two two hundred vodka bottles, and a couple of pickled cucumbers," Jarvis replied, making a characteristic gesture with his fingers. After all, farmers don't recognize containers smaller than a glass, then or now, and it doesn't matter that it's not Land, and one of them is an American and the other is a Turian. The interlocutors clinked glasses, exhaled, drank and crunched cucumbers.
The heat becomes unbearable, and Nasar suggests going to the backwater to swim, maybe catch crayfish, if the fish are such a bummer. We roll up and stomp to the pool, and in the meantime I remember a conversation two years ago with my grandfather - I was lying at home on the bed, quietly whimpering from the cramping pain in my muscles. Nasar was sitting next to me and stroking my head, flooding everything with sincere sympathy and pity. Over the past five years, pain has been my constant companion. As Uncle Dahi says, "Your body is more flexible, faster, lighter, and stronger than an ordinary person's, and it's already very noticeable, and the pain is the price to pay for such opportunities. Be patient, Igor - by the age of seventeen it should be over." By this time, human boys are ending their period of intense growth and maturation. Until the age of 22, the body will still be forming, but there will be no such pain. Oh, Uncle Dahi made me happy, he really encouraged me...
Grandfather came into my room. He sat on the edge of the bed and asked:
"Tell me, Igor, where are you going? Why do you need all this? Is it related to your dreams? Did you see something there? Answer me, please - I want to understand the reason for this obsession, grandson."
"I won't tell you, Grandpa, this knowledge won't change anything - it will only poison your life. You, Grandma, parents, all of you."
"Are we able to change something?"
"No, Grandpa, nothing depends on us."
"Something can be done anyway. Tell me what?"
"Train us, Grandpa, as much as you can, and we will train with all our might. That's all we can do. We can't do anything else."
"Tomorrow morning at the intersection, both of them. Let's start studying - I'll make up a schedule for both of you, I'll arrange with Tanris. We will teach you seriously, don't you agree? We nodded. Igor, no more amateur activities - you will strictly follow my recommendations, just like the recommendations of Dahi and Ratneitan. Agree?
"Yes, Grandfather."
And then all Hell broke loose. And it continues to this day. Running, knife fighting, shooting with all kinds of weapons, including heavy sniper rifles, unarmed fighting and biotic firing range. Aegich teaches me how to hack all kinds of electronic systems, conduct a proper associative extranet search, and crack data protection systems and locks. Granny - works with reasonable people, conducts a conversation correctly, imperceptibly extracting the necessary information from the speaker, teaches rhetoric and the ability to influence the interlocutor. I just made some adjustments, remembering that my original character couldn't sing or dance in the game. In previous lives, I was able to play the guitar and the flute, plus a completed musical education. But, as they say, that was when it was... and I couldn't dance there either. I signed up for a ballroom dancing class with our Sveta. Nasar and Azanti followed me, only Azanti plays the violin, and my friend plays the kattor, it's such a Turian accordion, with a bunch of small buttons under the claws, it sounds just like an ordinary one.
Dancing didn't work out for me. Sveta taught me how to dance, but I do it mechanically, automatically. "Igor, you don't have a spark of a real dancer in you - you seem to dance beautifully, but without a soul, it's too mechanical and cold", She told me. Well, okay, I'm dancing ... with a knife, though, I'm better at dancing - Master Toliyat is pleased, even praises sometimes. We are lying on a hot stone with Nasar, looking at the holographs that Azat sends me in my toolbox. They show Palaven, his friends in the training regiment, and himself in training armor. It is easy to distinguish it from the usual one - there are no distinctive part icons on it. There is Ali in some of the photos - he is not so stocky, more graceful, with a narrow waist. Unlike Azat, tattoos have already been applied on his face. In a letter, I asked my brother why he didn't have tattoos, and he replied that he was being trained as an intelligence agent. My brother will be a quiet man in the service of Hierarchy. And they don't get tattoos to make it harder to identify. Only before the task, a tattoo is applied with a special paint, which can then be washed off with a special compound, according to legend. And Tam already has a whole pussy with tattoos on his right arm. The youngest is being trained in the Naval special forces, his grandfather's school has taken its toll. Both of them will arrive soon, but only for a month - an official annual vacation. How I've missed them all! When they arrive, we will prepare for the Young Talents competition. I, as befits a real hitman, spent the whole year doing the favorite thing of all hitmen.... Like what? That's right... plagiarism! I remembered good performers of my time and searched for them on the extranet, and if I didn't find them, I shamelessly used their work. I also remembered my old songs, although they are almost all in Northern Irish. He prepared six songs, wrote the score, and arranged the songs into parts. Denis and Alexey - guitarists and vocals, Azat - bass guitar and vocals, There are vocals, I am a flute and guitar, and backing vocals, Nasar is a kattor and backing vocals, Vasil is drums, Azanti is a violin, Bina is keyboards and backing vocals. That's our whole group, with the poetic name "Berry patch", in honor of our village. Oh, let's light up the competition! Aliska and Al are preparing their performance at his farm.
A bike flashed by in the hot haze at the limit of visibility.
"Does Alice like El at all? - the artist asked."
"Just as a friend, nothing more."
"I like him, he's so cute, his hair is so blond and his eyes are blue, and how he shoots an assault rifle...." Her girlfriend speaks dreamily, and there's something so strange about her feelings....
I got up on my elbows, and Nasar turned around and stared at our artist - Azanti was sitting, staring absently into space. We looked at each other and laughed. Azanti was very embarrassed.
"What are you laughing at?"
She asked, eliciting even more laughter from my frend and me.
"You're a Batarian, Azanti! And Al is human," I said.
"So what?!" my girlfriend replied. "Does it really matter?"
"You're right, Azanti, it doesn't matter at all... except that he's in love with Aliska," Nasar said.
Azanti just sighed heavily. Here's another damn problem....
There has been a shooting competition among schoolchildren for many years. We used to compete wherever we could, but after a large shooting range was built on the initiative of my grandfather, the whole school competed there. Moreover, it was possible to shoot from any weapon of the armies of the Citadel Space in the shooting gallery. I was the king of the ultra-long distance, I shared the long distance with Nasar, and there were Al and Aliska was the best at the middle distance.
This guy with the assault rifles was doing wonders. He managed to shoot 98 out of 100 at 200 meters with an open sight, which, according to his grandfather, was simply a record - none of the intelligent people he knew could do that. In Alex's hands, even a poor M7 turned into a terrible weapon of destruction. Aliska also shot predator and tsunami. On this basis, almost all girls of the same age and even older girls looked at the already handsome Al, and he looked only in her direction. And the girl decided to join the cadet corps only in Britain.
We see a group of "partisans" walking along the path - from our location they look like small dashes against the background of rocks. I take the carbine and look at the people walking through the scope. The first is a tall, blond man with a Mantis-B in his hands, his gaze attentive and wary. Behind him, in a chain, with a slight ledge to the right, is a large group of intelligent people. There, besides humans, Turians, Asari and Batarians, a familiar Batarian closes the group. This is Balkakhar Natol, the uncle of our Azanti.
"Look, Azanty, there's your uncle and, I think, your aunt", I say, peering at the slender Batarian woman with a light carbine in her hands, walking third from the beginning.
"Where?"
"They're coming," I pass the praying mantis to my friend.
"Everyone's been busy lately," Nasar puts in, looking through the scope of his viper. "Something like this has been in the air for six months now...." Dad goes to work with a Razor, and no one is surprised that the city medic comes to the injured and sick with a hefty pistol on his belt.
"Mine goes to work with a praying mantis, and all the colonists are always armed, as if they are waiting for something. And no, no, let them look at the sky with alarm," Azanti supports.
I also feel anxious - it's like before a storm, when the sky is still clear and everything seems calm, but tension is already hanging in the air, and all nature is quieting down, waiting for the worst. It's been like this for about six months in the entire colony. Everyone is tense, everyone is waiting for something, they don't know what exactly. Just an obscure anxiety that is constantly growing.
"I wish the guys would come sooner - at least we'll start rehearsing, maybe the competition will help to dispel anxiety. This year they will be held in our city."
"Oh, let's sing! Besides my parents, no one else has ever heard our songs," Nasar whispers, stretching.