Khar'shan was burning. The USSR fleet had long since completed its pinpoint bombardment, leaving behind ruins of military and industrial enterprises surrounded by relatively intact residential areas.
In the deserted slave quarters, only the wind now reigned, howling in the empty barracks. It seemed to mock, imitating angry screams, emphasizing the grim triumph of the slaves' liberation.
Soot and smoke covered the sky, hiding the light of the parent star. The planet had already cooled by five degrees. Twilight descended upon this world for many months, if not years. Due to the soot particles, colossal thunderstorms were born, preventing silence from settling on the ruins.
The Batarians were returning to the deserted cities. Hundreds and thousands walked through the ashes covering the streets, trying to believe what had happened.
Once majestic palaces were either plundered or destroyed. Luxury and wealth had dissipated like a fleeting morning mist. The communists who came to punish and exact retribution did not carry away looted treasures or strip the gilding from the roofs. Instead, chemistry was used. Ingots of precious metals and tasteless jewelry were doused with chemicals, turning them into useless oxide compounds.
But objects of genuine art, once stolen by the inhabitants of the Hegemony, were treated much better. Paintings, statues, and other spiritual wealth were loaded onto ships and taken off the planet. Soon they were destined to return home, along with billions of slaves. Laborers had no need for what belonged to others.
But the contents of secret servers and institute computers were another matter! Any data carrier was subject to seizure. The volume of technical and industrial documentation was measured in terabytes. For the children of scientific progress, scientific works were the true value, not bloody gold. Besides, leaving dangerous knowledge behind was simply dangerous, primarily for the local inhabitants themselves…
And now the USSR was leaving, taking the last slaves, leaving the capital world of the Hegemony in desolation, dooming it to decline. Hunger did not threaten the Batarians. The Union did not touch food and medical production, but it almost completely destroyed industry, turning factories into craters, with no possibility of recovery…
We have pulled out their poisonous teeth once and for all! Now they won't be able to do anything more complex than a hoe for a long time. They have no valuables to exchange for machines. Their virtual shields are empty. The remaining crumbs of resources will be enough for survival and life in the world. Only now it is clear that this will not happen.
The beginning of what was now a civil war on the corpse of the dead Hegemony was already visible. As soon as our forces began to withdraw, the first skirmishes for resources began. Instead of uniting and surviving the hardships, they decided to drink their fill of blood, snatching a fatter piece at the last moment.
Do I feel sorry for them? Only slightly. If history had turned out differently, they would have feasted on our corpses, and our children would have served them in slave chains. Pompous? Does it sound like political propaganda? Facts are stubborn things, I tell you. Having such a neighbor nearby is simply dangerous.
Are we proud of what we have created? No. I remember many wars, so I can say that violence is not a solution to problems, but sometimes there is no choice.
After all, they attacked us first. Pirates who attacked the expedition, thinking we were weak, did not even hesitate. For them, robbing and killing was natural. They were under the protection of their state, which decided their future.
However difficult it may be, we have learned a lesson, ceasing to be hypocrites. We were not going to pretend to be decent. To tolerate. To persuade. Did you come to us with a sword? Great, you'll be thinking with a bullet!
I'm tired as a dog after a week of fighting! My ultimate dream is to sleep for a day. But first, a shower! To wash away the physical and spiritual dirt. Although… the spiritual – probably not. It, like an old trauma, aches with changes in the weather, and no water can save it. Even if medicine removes the scars, it will continue to remind somewhere deep inside, in thoughts that cannot be healed.
Now – only basic needs, like any animal. And I know that this is normal – such fatigue, such reactions. I know how it works, why emptiness comes after adrenaline.
Though… somewhere deep down, the one who could have clothed this hell in elegant metaphors still lives. But not now. A tired brain generates only unvarnished truth. Therefore, sleep, shower, food, and the embrace of a loving man…
Only when I look human again, warm up and thaw out, will I call the children. Sashenka is all grown up now. He commands a destroyer. And it seems like just yesterday I was rocking him in my arms. Children grow fast with a lifespan of six hundred years, give or take.
In the meantime, I have to endure the shuttle, reeking of sweat, blood, and other "pleasant" things, feeling my body slowly stiffen in battered armor. I'm no suicidal maniac to take it off before ascending to orbit!
After all, the rocket won't care, and neither will the vacuum, how the whole body itches under the spacesuit after a cultural swim through the sewers. The coolant in the sewage was malfunctioning, raising the temperature inside…
Oh, this itch! A real torture for those who feel every muscle, every ligament… Many experienced fighters burned out on this, lost in thought, allowing their bodies to scratch themselves on autopilot. And a sniper, as you know, is no theater critic — he won't sleep!
No time for political science or philosophical depths when sweat runs down your back and you're being shot at, let alone for courtesy. Everything in its own time, especially when you're being shot at. You can't even scratch yourself whenever you want. Not on a stroll… My morning promenade turned out to be damn dangerous and fatal for the enemy headquarters…
But how everything itches!!! Especially under the chest, where everything is sweaty, even despite the armor's air conditioning. And the H-gear absorbed everything, remaining damp, sticking to the skin.
In short, we tumbled out of our "galosh" tired, bruised, hungry in places, and ready to tear the enemy apart with our bare teeth. That's roughly how exhausted we were. A vague satisfaction from a job well done is only for recruits after their first dozen battles. After that — only emptiness and a ton of dirt with a sense of necessity.
Oh! Here comes the welcoming committee!
As soon as we shook ourselves off, medics and the engineering service took us in hand. It suddenly became crowded with all these wonderful intelligent beings. And they would have been beaten if not for the ubiquitous robot stewards with loaded trays full of food. The urge to grumble and complain immediately subsided. To the approving song of my stomach. Our people are like that; most of them get ravenous after a battle.
Psychology. A banal survival mechanism. But for some reason, it seems so… sad right now?
And it's safer for the technicians too! It's hard to complain when your mouth is full. Otherwise, there have been cases when adrenaline was still in the blood. And it's good if you manage to bless them with the buttstock…
Having shed the armor, and just from that alone breathing easier, life somehow became more cheerful. If only because now I can move smoothly again, not like a robot on broken hinges. You immediately remember that you are a woman, and the stench of a week's sweat hits your nose.
It was only then that I noticed Seryozha, leaning against one of the cargo crates in the hangar. That's good…
***
Ferrion turned off the holo-projector. The Turian was in a very pensive state, causing his mandibles to click.
"It's not that I wasn't expecting something like this, but it's still surprising…," he could only say, staring with his amber eyes into one spot.
A low, gurgling growl, full of anger, erupted from the next table. A regular legionary couldn't stand it, almost shouting:
"They smeared us with the shit of a wompa in all the media just because the Hierarchy is simply fulfilling its obligations!!!"
His compatriot turned to him, tilting his head.
He could only meet his gaze, stating what was obvious to him:
"There's nothing surprising about that, soldier. If I weren't a guest of the USSR right now, I wouldn't be clicking my mandibles either. Formally, it doesn't fit within the agreements and our powers. The Primarch's orders are not discussed, but executed. In fact, we did nothing when the Hegemony began to fall apart into four parts. And here I understand why we adhere to the letter of the agreement, not its spirit, as the Asari would like. Therefore, there is a grain of truth in the sewage pouring from all channels."
"Tesserarius, but why about these…," the legionary gestured with his head around the cabin, which the locals modestly called a fleet base, indicating whom he meant.
"First they almost equated them to Rachni, and now everything is quiet, and if anything is said, it's cautiously positive?"
An awkward silence hung in the room. Ferrion just thought, "If I had a legionary like that under my command, he wouldn't be a private for long," before explaining:
"Politics…," the tesserarius said, as if indifferently, but emphasizing his disgust for the word with a second tone of voice.
"They understand better on the Citadel that the Hegemony, in the form it existed, has come to an end. I can't say exactly why, but the Asari simply found it unprofitable to support it anymore. Besides, soldier, what would other legionaries have answered if the order to restore order had come?"
The subjects of Palaven gathered in the cabin seemed to straighten their backs as if on command, causing the soft chairs to creak simultaneously.
"They would have carried it out, but most would have had questions," his interlocutor answered without hesitation, with the approving support of all his compatriots present, who were carefully listening to the explanation of the higher-ranking officer.
"And they would have voiced them after completing the task."
A small echo spread through the spacious room, as if agreeing with the legionary. There weren't many former prisoners of the Hegemony to make enough noise. The Batarians preferred not to take Hierarchy warriors prisoner, but demand creates supply.
Therefore, the Turians who had experienced the joys of captivity did not wish to cause problems for their liberators, behaving with extreme discipline. In return, they were allocated a separate space from the other freed individuals, with a promise that the legionaries would help maintain order as much as possible.
The tesserarius sharply closed his mandibles, as if biting off an invisible thread of argument, before saying:
"As discipline and the charter require of a soldier," Ferrion agreed.
"If you look a little wider, at the moment when unity is needed, doubts are useless…"
"After all, even if the councils are generally good and intelligent, if an order came, they would carry it out exactly as we would. Only the methods would be… much more instructive," the tesserarius kept this thought to himself. And so he had to talk too much. Especially since privates shouldn't think about it. Their job is to fight until they are promoted for merit.
Suddenly, the cabin door opened. The Turians turned as one towards the source of the noise.
"Oh," the Quarian recoiled as if she had run into a wall, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under so many targeted gazes.
"I've got the wrong cabin…"
"Halt," Ferrion stated, pinning her to the spot with a single word, wishing the hastily retreating suit to stop.
The Quarian, who had already taken a couple of steps, slowly turned, her entire posture showing her defenselessness, as only those from the Fleet could.
"I recognize the color of your suit from a thousand," the tesserarius said, shaking his head from top to bottom.
"And because of you, I ended up a prisoner, and our ship's crew perished."
The room suddenly grew cold, and the suit wearer frantically looked around, seeking an escape route.
"Well, daughter of the Admiral of the Civil Fleet? Satisfied with your prank? Is it funny to you now?" Ferrion slowly stood up, his gaze promising nothing good.
Following him, the rest of the legionaries slowly stood up, unconsciously forming a wedge behind the higher-ranking officer, like warriors of old…
***
"...just out of surgery," Seryozha finished his story, slumping tiredly on the bench.
"And there's still a long way to go… crawling."
"I even believed you when you said you wanted to say 'crawling'," I inserted another barb.
After a contrast shower and a hearty meal, I started to feel almost human again. Sleep, as it turned out, wasn't in the cards for a long time. For all the operatives of "Argentum," for that matter.
"The brain is too complex a thing to simply fix," my husband remarked philosophically, not offended by my usual crude joke for two.
"Years have passed, and I still have to filter my speech. I'm not a major anymore to talk like that… but sometimes I snap."
He exuded a purple weariness, and images flashed between his words, completing the picture. What was important was not what he said, but what he showed between the lines.
With a sigh, I leaned against his shoulder, perfectly understanding what he meant. My fingers clenched involuntarily. I knew it wasn't so, but my ears heard the barely perceptible whine of servo motors. Some phobias stay with us forever, like traumas.
As best I can, I try to warm him with my warmth, both physical and spiritual, knowing that he freezes in such moments.
"Back then, in Bulgaria, we both racked our brains. I still have nightmares that everything after is just the dream of a dying brain," I said as if into the void.
"And it surfaces when you get particularly worn out. Much like now."
My husband just nodded. He remembered too. Decades had passed, but neither of us likes to recall that terrorist attack and the events leading up to it.
A reciprocal wave of warmth came from him, and it felt like it took my hand. Somewhere at the edge of our perception, our children embraced us.
"We barely made it… The saddest thing is the realization — I was an idiot," he said quietly, shivering as if from the cold, looking at the park greenery.
"If one of us had died… after those words in the heat of the moment…"
In his head, like a filmstrip, images of that argument flashed, with the salty taste of red shame and dark bitterness, creating an echo in my mind with the same tone, mixed with shame.
"I wish I had died on the operating table then," I stated.
"Or that my memory had been erased… Living with that would clearly be impossible."
We haven't needed words for a long time. We can communicate with images alone, but even banal phrases, spoken aloud, gain a different power. That's how he is, a strange man. You can turn your memory inside out, but by speaking the words aloud… it's more significant, isn't it?
We both watched as the trees, slowly and majestically, with a barely audible rustle of their roots, performed their slow movement, following the artificial sun of the fleet base's botanical garden. The greenery and silence, broken only by birdsong, was exactly what our tired minds craved.
"It's good that it ends well," my husband said quietly after a couple of minutes, gently squeezing my palm with his fingers.
He radiated tenderness, conveying too many meanings in one simple phrase.
To others, he's a soldier, a boor, a crybaby, and a law warrior, but to me — he's my tender and vulnerable ship's pine. Because sometimes he's completely wooden!
"Three children, decades of blood without a break, and he's still the same scatterbrain and troublemaker who conquered my heart without a fight," I thought with a smile, settling more comfortably on his shoulder. There is something immutable in this life…
A noise came from the entrance. Someone was yelling furiously, so much so that they startled the birds, who were used to worse, having seen PTSD breakdowns and mournful cries of despair. Soldiers die even in peacetime. And we are all dear to someone, especially in a world where everyone feels emotions.
"It seems we just greeted someone, and their death is perceived as a snapped string, from which black waves emanate."
But the screams weren't of despair, but full of rage and indignation…? And the source was heading directly towards us.
"War, preparation for negotiations, and now this?" I peel away from my husband with a groan, hearing the gravel crunch under someone's determined footsteps.
"Not human. Two meters tall. Too monumental. A Turian." I determined by ear, remembering my husband's acquaintance.
I wasn't mistaken. That legionary strode resolutely towards us… only he wasn't alone!
On his shoulder, kicking and incessantly pounding his back with her fists, lay a Quarian, whose buttocks were pointed skyward.
"This is the daughter of the Admiral of the Civil Fleet," Ferrion said with a completely impassive face, even for his race, dropping the girl to the ground like a sack of rotten potatoes, which caused another stream of indignant squeaks.
"Now she's your problem."
Turning around as if on the heels of army boots, the legionary proudly strode away from us, straightening his back as if on parade. However, after a few steps, he turned back and threw:
"But I would have whipped her first. She behaves like a child, so she should answer like a child," he stunned us.
I would have asked him many things, but… it was as if not a string, but an entire grand piano had snapped in my head, falling from above and shattering into pieces, along with all the instruments in the orchestra pit. The "collective" swayed with a black wave, as if from several million simultaneous deaths. So many connections were severed with the death of just one intelligent being…
My mouth instantly turned sour, as if I had eaten a box of lemons.
"Argon… is dead…," I could only manage to squeeze out, fighting the surge of someone else's death.
Too great a shock.
"No, he wasn't even killed… Something worse was done to him. Not even an archive remained of him, let alone his consciousness!" my husband said through clenched teeth.
His words shone with bitterness, anger, and determination.
"This is not a good omen…," and seeing the bewildered expression in the Turian's eyes, I explained.
"He was a hero of the entire Union. Very many felt…"
***
In the hospital room, in a medical sleep, Artyom flinched, sensing the death of the man who had replaced his father.
Miranda, sitting by his bed, also winced, placing her hand on her chest just below her collarbone. There, as if for a moment, embers flared up, causing the girl bewilderment and more discomfort than the turmoil in her neural network.
"Strange," she thought, adjusting the venous catheter. Her blood was flowing through the tube into Artyom's body.
"At least some use from me," her thought was tinged with bitterness.
"It was based on my plasma that the universal plasma was synthesized. But my blood is better… At least, that's what my father said."