Having turned their native star system into a blooming paradise and a fortified region simultaneously, the USSR, relying on the power of science and the strength of industry, turned its gaze to other star systems.
With a strong rear in the form of the all-Union peace-factory on Mars, whose orbital ring, powered by resources from the asteroid belt and the Oort cloud, as well as the inhabited Venus, Mercury, Earth, and Europe, along with the resource-rich Titan, the Union was able to build a huge star fleet.
Having overcome the demographic pit thanks to artificial biomatrix technologies, the population of the Solar System reached forty billion humans alone. Exalted species, due to difficulties with childbirth, numbered only twenty billion. This allowed for rapid exploration and settlement of new territories.
In 1990, a new stage of the "New Dawn" project began, marking the start of the first Expansion Sphere. It included six star systems within a distance of ten light-years. This decision was dictated by the speed of the Union's warships: the fleet could reach the farthest colony in the Sirius system in a jump of just forty-nine minutes, without forcing the engines.
Only in the Proxima Centauri system was a planet chosen for colonization, named Pererva. It underwent terraforming, which took ten years. The planet already had liquid water and an oxygen atmosphere, and most importantly, a magnetic field. Scientists established that life had begun to form on it, but Pererva was sterilized by a stellar flare. The radiation background on its surface was several times higher than Earth's and required decontamination for comfortable living.
The new world was assigned an agricultural specialization. The mild and uniform climate, relatively slow rotation speed, and gentle terrain with shallow oceans, up to fifty meters deep, were ideal for this.
The remaining five star systems became industrial granaries of the Fatherland. Orbital settlements were placed in them, providing decent housing and work for ten million citizens, as well as automated mining complexes where robot miners worked.
The double system of Luman became a factory for the production of zero element. Its sister stars, bound by mutual gravity, having never overcome the brown dwarf threshold, proved ideal for placing synthesis factories. These technologies were copied from the legacy of a lost civilization found on Jupiter. While Soviet science did not achieve the efficiency of the prototype, it managed to establish mass production.
All six systems were fortified in the same way as the Solar System. Each had stationary defense platforms, a squadron of intra-system fleet, and a corps of Defense Aspect fighters. Proxima Centauri, as a system of strategic importance, received additional fortifications, and its proximity to the capital made it almost invulnerable.
The Luman system was a natural fortress in itself. The moons of its brown dwarfs moved in unstable orbits, creating chaotic asteroid fields. Even with vast distances between the debris, their number and unpredictable trajectories made navigation extremely dangerous.
Having claimed the chosen systems, the USSR was preparing for the next step – the Second Expansion Sphere, scheduled to start in 1995...
It was overcast. The sky was covered with heavy leaden clouds that pressed down on the weather shields. The special forces division "Argentum" of CERBERUS was assembled in full force on the parade ground. Humans, felinids, sharks, and the undead who chose the path of service until the end instead of safe posthumous existence – all gathered today to see off their commander.
Before the frozen, as if made of iron statues, formation stood their newly appointed commander – Colonel Nechaev, who was now looking unblinkingly into the eyes of Kuznetsov, who was relinquishing his authority. Argon, who, despite genetic therapy and stopped aging, looked old, said in a quiet voice that was heard by everyone gathered on the parade ground.
"That's all, Plutonium... Now 'Argentum' is yours. And it's time for us to go," the veteran smiled for the first time in many years, which made him look even older.
"You're not changing your mind?" Sergei said, holding a cap in his hands, in which lay Kuznetsov's personal identification and insignia, and those of five others who would go with him into the stellar darkness. Three humans and two "awakened" – the last survivors of the first formation, then the "Argentum" squad, if, of course, the dead who had willingly inhabited mechanical bodies could be called alive.
"Duty is heavier than mountains, Sergei," the former commander stated. "Out there, among the stars, lurks the enemy. We have already found traces of ten lost civilizations that disappeared in epochs. The enemy tried and is still trying to manipulate us. He must be found, and I will do everything to protect the Union. I made a mistake once, not anticipating everything."
"Do you blame yourself?" Sergei Nechaev raised an eyebrow, he and his wife being veterans of the first intake, just like Argon. "In what happened, and the sacrifice of a little girl – it's not just your fault. We all made mistakes then, got too relaxed..."
"I was your commander, so I am solely to blame," the veteran cut off, raising his voice slightly. "Only a miracle in the form of one little girl saved us all from a fate much worse than death. You understand yourself what CHAR-les would have done if he had captured the 'Collective.' And I should have anticipated even such a fantastic scenario, so that the maniac couldn't even get close to the array! So goodbye, friend."
A cold, piercing wind blew, stirring the regimental banner.
"And I'll say – see you later," Plutonium stubbornly said, whom Kuznetsov had called friend for the first time. Sergei knew what these words meant to Argon, better than anyone.
"Ghosts have nowhere to return," the veteran said philosophically, turning his back to Nechaev. The soldiers who went with him into the abyss also turned and headed for the shuttle, which was already humming with its engines. "There's a high probability that next time you'll meet not your comrades, but monsters. You've seen yourself what they could do to a human body and mind. Don't spare bullets on us..."
With the last phrase, the veteran walked faster towards the shuttle.
"Attention!" Plutonium gave his first order as commander, as the shuttle soared into the gray gloom...
The shining spark of the shuttle disappeared into the belly of the light reconnaissance cruiser, bearing the proud name "Normandy." Absorbing it, the ship released its stellar sails, gaining speed for the jump.
Hidden by holographic fields and sailcloth, the fully autonomous "Normandy" disappeared in a warp jump, as if it had never existed, carrying the ghosts within it...
The Second Sphere expanded the Union's controlled territory by another ten light-years. Four more star systems were colonized. A total of four planets became new homes for the workers. Saiberia, Lementina, Karmarks, and Voskhod became new pearls of the USSR.
Tau Ceti yielded an unexpected discovery. Primitive but sentient life was found on a mega-Earth class planet! By an all-Union decision, at the suggestion of the Coordination Council, Soviet citizens would not interfere in the affairs of sentient beings who were only just beginning to master iron, allowing them to develop independently. This required recalculating the location of the orbital settlement so as not to disturb their fragile minds. But when was work burdensome for a Soviet sentient?
The most significant achievement of the Second Sphere was the reconnaissance of the relay network. The USSR did not use these mysterious devices – not only fearing to attract the attention of their creators or those who owned them, but also due to the banal lack of necessity. Although it had its drawbacks, the warp drive was preferable, even despite its scientific complexity. Even with zero element factories, the Union could not and did not want to completely switch to "mass effect" technologies.
Scientists finally put an end to this idea, concluding in their report on the "technological ceiling" of this development path, putting an end to disputes and rumors that had been going on for years.
The bodies of aliens found in the ruins of the laboratory on Mars were fully investigated. Thanks to the study of the nervous system of a female humanoid, a modification of nerve tissues for Union citizens was developed, allowing them to awaken after death in the "Collective" with greater probability, rather than becoming an archive. But this was the limit of scientific possibilities on this topic. Everything was too dependent on the individual's willpower.
The same person or sentient beast could be perfectly transferred, or be turned into an archive after death. It was not enough to have a structured consciousness – one needed a strong will to preserve one's "self," to reassemble oneself after death.
Unable to enter through one door, scientists managed to create others, bringing projects "Lazarus" and "Cipher" to realization. Having studied the tissues of the severed limb, Soviet science was able to develop a technology for exchanging information through tactile contact, but it was only a consequence of the "Lazarus" project.
Science was able to instill a structured "self" into the body of an embryo, transferring the essence of the deceased into a new type of neuropolymer. Only consciousness was transferred. All memory died during the maturation and development of the child due to natural defense mechanisms. The infant's brain simply could not accommodate the mind of an adult human, and it was impossible to bypass this limitation without completely restructuring the brain, nor would it have helped.
Another side effect of "Lazarus" was body restoration technology. If a sentient being had its head intact, it could be reanimated.
"Cipher" was another extreme. The core of the personality, with their consent, was completely digitized using neuroalgorithms under their own guidance, turning the sentient mind into an AI. The problem of the fading of a dead consciousness due to the absence of activity or stimuli disappeared, but the process was unsafe if only one personality was involved in the creation of the AI.
The conversion mechanism was copied from the birth process of CHAR-les and Motherland, but the resulting electronic creations were many times weaker than the collective mind in computational capabilities and needed carriers. Therefore, the method did not gain wide distribution.
The deceased preferred either existence in the network space or "Lazarus." Usually, a sentient being would wait for relatives to die, watching over them and helping them using a mechanical body, and then go for rebirth. The military were an exception to this rule. Most often, they lived in mechanical bodies, despite the risk of complete destruction of their personality along with the body.
***
One of the many laboratories on the Moon was today stirred up like a beehive. They finally managed to fully calculate and restore the DNA of two out of three alien samples. Alas, the four-chain structure of the genes of one of the samples was irretrievably destroyed by time, and it was a miracle that they managed to extract whole fragments and use them for something.
Senior researcher Alla Valeryevna grimly peered at the biomatrix readings. Once again, the sample replicated from biomaterial threatened to die at the embryonic stage! This was the sixth unsuccessful attempt!!! It worked perfectly with the female specimen, but the males of these spiky-headed aliens died consistently. Either the embryo turned out to be female, but with such genetic defects that it was unclear how it survived at all.
Glancing at the sample of embryos of another alien species, which also caused trouble due to the different direction of DNA chain coiling compared to Earth species, the scientist returned to work, mentally growling:
"I, a scientist and a communist, will just give up like this?!"
"Nothing, you bastard! You'll grow up with me! And then I'll bury you myself! How much blood you've already drained from me, you pale-skinned scumbag!" she thought maliciously, even though she understood that the development of the fetuses would be stopped in the later stages.
"I'd rip off the hands of those crooked freaks who messed with the chain like that! Damn geneticists! It feels like a commissar with a pistol stood behind each of them and pushed the research progress with preventive executions! Otherwise, I can't imagine why they messed up so badly!"
After a dozen attempts, the silence of the laboratory was broken by the almost demonic laughter of the woman who managed to create a viable male embryo. And a drop of madness transmitted to the "Collective" only brought a smile to her colleagues.
***
Thanks to the study of samples with a different direction of DNA coiling, based on their immunity, the drug "Panacelin" with a polymer agent was created, which not only effectively resisted all known diseases but could stop bleeding, relieve pain, and accelerate regeneration to unimaginable heights. This discovery could only be realized thanks to the efforts of academician Sechenov, who managed to isolate the necessary antibodies and modernize a certain variety of bacteria to ensure automatic delivery of the substance to the affected tissues.
It was because of this discovery that the moratorium on long warp jumps was lifted. If the First and Second spheres were limited to only a dozen light-years each, then the limits of the Third were not limited by anything at all, except for reasonable caution. Scientific expeditions began to scour the Perseus Arm far and wide, and after a decade, they left it altogether, leaving behind hundreds of outposts and orbital settlements.
Mobile fleet bases were put into service, representing mobile fortress-factories combined with dry docks for repairing ships of all classes. Each such base had a diameter of twenty-four kilometers, carrying on itself, in addition to workshops and factories, many super-heavy guns and fighter squadrons.
Twenty fleets of the Union were ready to form an unbreakable wall, protecting peaceful workers at the first call! Every citizen of the country could instantly receive military knowledge bases (if they had not chosen the path of the Defense aspect before) to meet the enemy with a coordinated volley of small arms. Within a day, ninety percent of the country's economy could be reoriented to military needs. After all, everyone knew what lurked beyond the light of the stars...
***
Soft paws firmly held the forend of a sniper rifle. The unblinking gaze of eyes with vertical pupils was fixed on the target, looking through the scope.
The felinid became part of the landscape. Even its tail did not move under the camouflage cloak.
A finger, tipped with a claw, gently pressed the trigger.
The shot split the target in half. Before the debris of plastic could even fall, the sentient cat disappeared from its position. Only slightly flattened grass, which would straighten itself in about five minutes, reminded of the silent sniper.
***
The automatic factory had been churning out simple drones around the clock for several years. Once a day, a transport ship arrived, which was supposed to pick up the products and unload raw materials from its vast holds.
Soon, each unit would be preserved and placed on a warehouse shelf, like billions of its kind.
They did not shine with technical characteristics. They were not the pinnacle of technology. They were simple and reliable. And there were many of them...
***
The general-fabricator of military brigades watched as his brothers and sisters marched towards their destiny. In detachments and companies, regiments and divisions, the skaven descended into the womb of the cryo-machine. Each was the best of the best of their kind. Not every rat born underground could become a storm rat, but each was ready to give their life for the Motherland.
No one flinched when the coolant touched their bodies. Thousands of skaven, singing military marches, froze along with their banners, waiting for when they would be needed by the Great Mother.
They would take their place in specialized storage. Eighty billion equipped gray soldiers would wait for just one order for eternity, if necessary.
The rat leader, from whose body only the brain remained, understood better than anyone that each of his kin would be glad if they remained in the cold and darkness. If they were awakened, it would mean only one thing. The enemy is at the gates!
Their ancestors lived in dishonor, were parasites driven by fear of death and hunger. But the Motherland freed them from this, turning them into part of a great whole. Like grateful children, they accepted their choice with honor. A skaven is a cog in the system's mechanism. Reward? Glory? Not for them! Everything they need is given by the Union. And in return, they will give everything - even their lives, as long as their native nest lives! So that the great country, where everyone is important, even those like them, continues to live...
***
The man checked the invoice. Another delivery of supplies had taken its place. In the semi-darkness, numerous rows of boxes simply disappeared beyond the horizon of one of the underground storage facilities. In them, in a vacuum, were stored sublimated food products in sufficient quantity to feed the entire multi-billion population for three years.
And there was not just one or two such storage facilities. Of course, not all of them contained food. Medications, essential goods, weapons... There was even one giant warehouse, completely filled with children's furniture!
And the warehouse worker approved of this approach. It's nice when the state takes care of you...
***
Among the silent stars, a lone reaper majestically floated. For the first time in many cycles, he felt something remotely akin to interest. A passing iteration, which threatened to become another boring moment of existence, suddenly presented a pleasant surprise. Among the dirt, the ancient mind saw a diamond.
It remained only to see if it would break when cut.
***
In one distant system, on the very border of the explored USSR territories, scientists established an outpost, evaluating the fourth planet from the star for suitability for terraforming. The country needed an outpost in this region of space.
Today, uninvited guests arrived in this system. The relay, not yet removed, brought a flotilla of strangers into the territory of the Union...