Shep didn't have to wait long for Ferrion. The Turian's travel bag remained unpacked for obvious reasons. He simply changed from his hospital pajamas into something resembling the Hierarchy's uniform, sewn in the same color, but according to Soviet patterns, with all his insignia. Making sure he left no mess behind, he left the room.
Reaching the checkpoint, he handed his key card to the guard, and the Hierarchy fighter quickly walked to the special transport pad.
"Ready?" Artyom asked him dryly, which was unlike him. After receiving his nod, the man extinguished his half-smoked cigarette and gestured for him to board the parked "Comet."
The light magnetic levitation aircraft soared into the air as soon as they plopped into the pilot seats. Flashing its gray hull the color of the civilian fleet, the machine began to gain altitude.
After exchanging a couple of phrases with the dispatcher, Shep piloted the machine according to the announced course, maintaining the designated altitude. His face was half-hidden by the pilot's helmet. The visible part was illuminated by the green light emitted by the augmented reality glasses, making the man's features sharper.
"Did something happen?" Ferrion asked, feeling awkward and slightly uncomfortable being in the cockpit of the aircraft while doing nothing.
The man, whose hands were literally immersed in the controls of the "Comet," allowing him to feel the machine as an extension of himself, twitched the corner of his lips, and then, sighing, said, "For us, the activation day of the 'Collective' is a holiday with tears in our eyes. Our liberation from our own shackles was very difficult and came at the cost of many lives. For me, this holiday is a day when I want to get drunk as hell... As for the entire 'Argentum,' but my case is special."
The captain frowned even more under his helmet. His features sharpened further. After hesitating, he decided to finish speaking. It was not in his nature to back down.
"I knew the girl who sacrificed herself so that the AI of the collective mind would awaken. She died before my eyes during the celebrations... And then the spark of hope that she awakened in the 'Collective,' her sacrifice... Then I understood everything. Who she was to me. As someone later said, a boy who understood this life."
Silence fell in the cabin. Only the beeping and rustling of instruments broke the silence.
"I thought your flights..." the Turian parted his mandibles, trying to find a word, while simultaneously changing the subject. "...are regulated."
To put it mildly, he was uncomfortable. He still wasn't used to the fact that citizens of the Union, if they consider someone their own, become very emotional. They weren't Asari, but for a Turian who kept everything to himself, this was enough. Therefore, Ferrion changed the subject as directly as possible.
"Not exactly. Light aircraft can take off without dispatcher control. You just need to state your destination, and you'll be assigned an altitude. Otherwise, it would be difficult to even call a flip," Artyom explained.
The captain himself was glad to change the subject, so he grabbed the offered straw.
"A third of our population lives in flying cities, and they need to descend to the ground somehow. Citizens with a social rating of 'seven' and above can freely rent or purchase a flying vehicle. This rating is also required for settling on a flying platform."
"So, even if you accumulate the required number of points, but have a low rating, you can't buy a flying vehicle?" Ferrion clarified.
"Most likely, you'll have time to raise your rating and get points by then. The system is flexible and absolutely transparent, taking into account your every action. By the way, you have a social rating of 'five' for completing the treatment, with a limit of seven hundred social points."
"So, I was paid for my own treatment?" the Turian was surprised.
Chuckling, Shep gave a slightly crooked smile.
"Naturally. Any positive activity is valued by society. Studying, treatment, playing sports. Even helping grandmothers cross the road. You can live here on just fifty points, but as you understand... you can live, and even normally, but if you want more comfortable furniture, work and be useful."
"Something like... 'he who does not work, neither shall he eat'?" the legionary asked. He was more of a pragmatist, like all Turians. It was easier for him to understand by doing, but some points needed clarification...
To Ferrion's surprise, the man laughed upon hearing his words.
"Not at all. We're not capitalists to starve sentient beings for no reason," the captain said a little sharply. "The limit of fifty is given to everyone from birth, you know. I was recognized as an adult early, earning a limit of five hundred through studies and pioneer activities. The AI takes everything into account, it also awards points. That's why we don't coddle children. They are prepared for responsibility without extremes. The merits of a sentient being are taken into account even from a young age."
The Turian tilted his head to the side in a very thoughtful state. Recalling some facts, he said the following:
"Isn't that a bit too harsh? Even the Quarians on their Fleet have more... childhood for their children."
"We are certainly stern, we smile on holidays and blink our eyes at our own expense, but not that much!" Artyom exclaimed jokingly. "Children have childhood, and they know their parents love them. Empathy in this regard is a lifesaver. And you'll see for yourself soon when you visit the commander. I can see from your face that it's easier for you to show..."
"Just not like with your medicine, if possible," the Turian shuddered.
"You shouldn't have ticked the boxes thoughtlessly," the captain reminded him, now openly amused. "Remind me, who lived their whole life under capitalism, me or you?"
Ferrion had nothing to say to that...
They flew to the homeland of the Soviet peaceful atom – Obninsk quickly, engaging in casual conversation. The legionary secretly hoped the flight would be longer. If it were up to him, he would stay as far away from that Quarian as possible. Lyra masterfully got on his nerves, even by doing nothing.
Landing near the hospital, they began to wait. The capricious diva, while in slavery, managed to get a good dose of radiation – not enough for radiation sickness, but it was still a lot. Pirates treated technician slaves as expendable.
Even Lyra didn't complain here, knowing the alternative outcome of slavery. It was better for her to get a suit than to die after group rape. True, this didn't stop her from pouring bile on all males at every convenient and inconvenient opportunity.
As soon as she boarded, the atmosphere instantly heated up, foreshadowing a storm. Artyom just chuckled at how a nimble figure in a spacesuit with an impenetrable visor could project irritation over one square meter, but remained silent, keeping his barbs to himself.
"Well, you took your time..." she began. The girl stumbled over her words, staring at the Turian with wide eyes, expressing complete disbelief with her whole being. "Ferrion? Kill'a! You've gotten twenty years younger! How is that possible?!"
Shep, who knew the background of the legionary's "rejuvenation" process well, barely suppressed his laughter.
"You can try it yourself, little suit," the Hierarchy native said venomously. "Maybe you'll even like the process..."
"No..." the captain stated authoritatively. "You'll die in the process. Not only is your body weaker than ours, but you won't survive the bacterial therapy. I won't even mention the 'flushing'."
The operative was already barely holding back his laughter, watching the Turian become completely sour.
"Unlike you, penis-bearers, I haven't reached the age where I need to think about such things," Lyra snapped back. "And anyway, women of all species age slower than you useless males. I can't understand what it's like to become an old man at just over thirty!"
"Did the cashier uncle not sell you beer, little one?" Artyom asked, enjoying the process of playing on her nerves. His mood was balanced on the verge of "everything sucks" and "kill all living things." And here was an overly impudent brat at hand. Why not play a light melody, pouring his heart out, sharing his bad mood?
Ferrion just sighed. Did he want the journey to be as long as possible? He got it...
They had been flying for over two hours, during which much happened. Somewhere in the middle of the flight, when the degree of poison in the cabin reached its peak, and the Quarian got carried away with her speech, Shep, tired of poking her with a stick and getting the same reaction, sighed and said only one phrase:
"You're masterfully playing your role, Lyra, but you're overdoing it a bit now, and for an agent, that's deadly."
Ferrion, who was mentally humming all the military marches he knew to avoid hearing her, choked as if he had swallowed something from surprise.
Lyra herself looked as if she had been hit over the head with a dusty sack, even despite the impenetrable visor of her spacesuit. Her entire posture was imbued with extreme surprise, panic, and despair.
"And how long have you known?" the girl asked calmly, without any poison in her voice or bitchy undertones. Her voice was so unlike her usual one that the Turian's mandibles dropped. "What did I slip up on?"
She suddenly relaxed, as if deliberately showing that she didn't care, although the girl was ready to bolt at any second.
"From the very beginning. The Batarian pirates who captured you rightfully had questions about what such a person was doing on a Pilgrimage. It would have escaped us if you hadn't provoked our mutual friend in the hope that we would immediately return you to the Fleet," the captain said in a mentoring tone. "Then all that remained was to piece together the facts, carefully study your network, examine your personal belongings, and observe. Of course, it would have been possible to shove you into a mind probe or read your memory personally, but why?"
The man shrugged vaguely, continuing without even turning around, "If you didn't reveal yourself, it means you needed something. I'll assume, gathering information about us. The mask of a bitch is just a way to evoke emotions. But even so, I repeat, you got carried away and overplayed a bit. And I had very good teachers. How much easier it would have been to send you a mental symbol... When you start talking too much after mental communication, you start feeling stupid," he complained at the end. "Everything was much simpler and clearer."
For the umpteenth time during the flight, an awkward silence fell in the cabin. The Turian's face, which could not boast of rich mimicry due to his physiology, was now an illustration of complete prostration. Reality had once again presented him with a stunning surprise, turning a seemingly understandable thing upside down.
"I must ask for your forgiveness, Tesseract, for my behavior, but your debt to my people required me to act this way," the Quarian addressed the Hierarchy warrior. "I was supposed to play the role to the end, otherwise the Batarians would have suspected something faster and disrupted the Fleet's special operation to free a group of pilgrims. I couldn't warn you, and only hoped that my behavior would make you wave your hand... Your captivity was not planned by the admirals, and your ship was not supposed to be in that sector."
The Turian blood flared in his veins, demanding that he kill here and now... this one, because of whom several dozen of his kin, including himself, had known the shackles of slavery. With titanic effort of will, he restrained himself, and only his sharply parted mandibles showed his state.
Intellectually, he understood that he would have acted for the good of the Hierarchy in the same way, but his ardent heart craved an answer.
"Why did you continue to adhere to the legend?" his voice sounded unnaturally calm.
"I hoped you would freak out," the girl answered honestly. "And then I would have convinced someone else, and they would have kicked me out towards the Fleet. It's better to pretend to be a stupid bitch than to become a bargaining chip in politics. The admiral's daughter is a very valuable asset for pressure, as well as for recruitment, if she's worth anything, of course..."
"And this leads to why I revealed you now," Artyom's voice was as cold as glacial water. "To show our friend the danger of categorical judgments and, most importantly, to save you from a foolish death... You can joke with me, with other prisoners, even with other operatives. You could even have pulled the wool over my commander's eyes. But only..."
The human activated the autopilot, turning. Now, instead of a familiar, easy-going guy, albeit with a broken spirit, they faced a special forces operative with all the consequences.
"With Zinaida, such a trick wouldn't have worked, and your body would have been found after an accidental death. This woman dislikes hypocrisy, especially in her own home, more than anyone I know. This is not your usual place. No one will smile for no reason. The answer will be immediate. And something tells me that your father needs a living daughter, not her dismembered body in twenty separate graves."
Suddenly, Shep smiled, adding in his usual voice, with a slight weariness: "So, a clear lesson. Even though we haven't even been in space for a century, we've managed to see some shit. You have no idea what world you live in, sitting behind your relay network and sipping juice in your backyard. But others will tell you about it later, other sentient beings. Right now, you simply won't understand... Relax! You're not being taken for execution. You've understood everything, haven't you? You won't do anything stupid?"
A unified nervous nod was his answer.
The Quarian and the Turian stood before the gate of a flower garden with bright and beautiful flowers. Ahead loomed a two-story house, monumental in its simplicity, like everything Soviet.
Behind them, the "Comet" soared upwards from a special platform, cutting off their escape route. Shep had only dropped off his companions and immediately headed back, citing a promise to the doctors to return to the guesthouse by noon.
"What are we going to do?" Lyra asked her fellow sufferer, still impressed by the conversation. "Maybe we should try to escape?"
The Tesserarius clicked his mandibles at the foolishness he had heard.
"It won't work," Ferrion cut in. "Plutonium will find us from underground. His stubbornness borders on madness. Besides, the local population would gladly catch us if they had the chance. They have a different attitude towards laws."
"It would be easier for me to become a slave than to open this flimsy door made of planks," the girl remarked.
Clicking his mandibles again, tilting his head to the side and nodding at something, the legionary decisively pulled the gate. With a creak, the white-painted door, made of rare wooden planks, opened. Decisively, as if stepping into the blackness of open space for the first time, he placed his foot on the gravel path.
Small pebbles creaked softly, shimmering in all shades of white. Nothing happened.
"Fucking comedian," the Turian grumbled to himself, cursing in the common language with a clear accent, adding a few strong words in Russian before resolutely striding down the path. "Fucking bullshit artist."
"Is it me, or did you just swear?" the Quarian asked, catching up to him and trying not to fall behind, which was problematic at her height. "And in the local language..."
The Turian grinned and retorted, "You learn all sorts of things here, especially when they pump forty liters of liquid through you," he gritted out, clenching his mandibles. "Our curses aren't as informative, and with the locals, you can not only indicate direction but also immediately determine where..."
The girl clicked her tongue at that.
"Killa... I never even thought about that," she said, then asked in surprise, thinking she had misheard. "Forty liters?! You must be mistaken, soldier. That's impossible!"
"I'm not mistaken," he grumbled grimly, almost growling, noting the abundance of fruit trees in passing. "As our friend said, you have to see it."
The Quarian, who had been looking around with interest, shivered.
"No, thank you! Hmm... are there a lot of robots here for a large garden, albeit a large one?" she asked, pointing at the machines buzzing in the grass.
The legionary did not answer, only quickening his pace. He realized that Shep had once again taught him a lesson: not to believe what he was told too much.
"He's probably laughing now. He's as much of a comedian as Plutonium," the Turian thought with a mental sigh, freezing at the door, which looked as monumental as the entire sand-colored building. Glancing at the intricate painting, as if trying to find a clue in the pictures that told of the power of science, he knocked on the door in the local custom...
The heavy-looking door on massive hinges opened with no visible effort from a light tap. It opened quietly and silently. The smells of a foreign dwelling with its soft coolness immediately hit the Turian's nose. He even recognized some of them.
The pleasantly warm smell of baking made his stomach respond pleasantly. For what, he was grateful for the opportunity to enjoy the full variety of food. Before tasting it, he hadn't noticed any gourmand habits in himself. It was just that due to the dextro-amino acid proteins in his body, it could have led to poisoning before.
Lyra, cautiously peeking out from behind him, pushed the door open further, revealing it completely.
"Is no one here?" she said slowly, entering first. Curiosity had overcome reasonable fears.
Listening to the suit's sensors, she indeed realized that there was no one within a few meters, which she immediately told Ferrion.
"Strange," he said. "There's really no one here..."
Understanding nothing, the Turian stepped over the threshold to better survey the furnishings in search of a clue, when the door slammed shut behind him, and a cylindrical steel object pressed into his back. And judging by the girl's gasp, she had undergone the same operation.
"Hands up," a grumpy female voice demanded.
Feeling the barrel of the pistol even more clearly between his shoulder blades and how expertly it was aimed, the legionary obeyed the order, and the girl followed suit. Two precise and sensitive blows brought him to his knees. Now the weapon was felt at the back of his head.
"Name, rank, unit," the voice sounded more demanding...
"Mom!" Ekaterina Nechaeva's indignant voice rang out, the wife of Plutonium, whom the Tesserarius instantly recognized with relief. "Again?"
"And why are they acting like that?" the voice sounded, now defensively, as the muzzle disappeared.
"Mom," Katya said again, this time with emphasis, descending the wooden stairs from the second floor. Instead of her usual gray uniform, she wore a simple dress the color of the earthly sky, with the hem slightly above her knee. As the Turian had noted earlier, it was the latest fashion, and quite puritanical compared to Asari fashion.
"Don't 'Mom' me!" the voice grumbled, then immediately added in a demanding tone to the guests. "What are you sitting around for?"
The legionary did not hesitate and stood up, turning around, for which he received an ironic snort. A woman of middle age looked at him with undisguised irony, so much so that it seemed she looked down on him from her not-so-tall height. Her man-tailored clothing further emphasized her inner strength, making the Turian involuntarily want to stand at attention under her gaze, but he restrained himself.
"Good," the woman stated, apparently the mysterious Zinaida herself, Ekaterina's mother.
She walked around the military hierarchy member in a circle, adding, "Yes, he's healthy. Don't be angry with an old woman, the cautious are protected by everyone. Times have become uneasy, and here you are, scratching around. Next time, knock louder, or they'll shoot, reload, and shoot again, and only then ask who it is, darling. And you, little one, should rely less on your electronic rattles. I hacked them while you were shuffling along the path. And gain some weight, you're all skin and bones."
Ignoring the Quarian's indignant exclamation, the woman extended her hand to the Turian for a handshake. The Palaven native cautiously shook it, but was forced to clench his hand. The grip turned out to be excessively strong.
"Zinaida. Be well, darling. And you, what's your name?" she continued, smiling broadly.
"Ferrion," the legionary said calmly, feeling an equal strength. "And her name is Lyra."
"I can speak for myself," the Quarian openly protested.
"Hush!" Zinaida hissed at her. "You're not old enough to butt into adult conversations, you unfinished matahari. Even in my youth, they didn't work so clumsily..."
"What's the commotion, and no corpse?" Sergey, also known as Plutonium, emerged from the depths of the house. Seeing the guests, he smiled sincerely. "Hello, wanderer!"
"What body, son-in-law..." Zinaida waved him away, to the Turian's delight, releasing his hand, ignoring her daughter's angry glare. "Just a small misunderstanding... So, you idiot, did you gather the berries?!"
"In progress," Sergey replied immediately, involuntarily scratching his cheek.
"Then take this oaf," she gestured towards the legionary, "and march to the garden!!!"
"They're all a little crazy, but there's a charm in that..." the Quarian thought, sitting at a large, monumental table made of stained oak, where, in addition to the two guests, almost the entire large and strange family of the hosts had gathered.
"Sasha, our eldest, is currently on sea trials with his frigate," Katerina explained to Lyra's surprised exclamation, who was surprised by the size of the family.
The Nechaev couple themselves had three children. The eldest, Sasha, a ship captain, the middle one, Yuri, who was doing an internship on Mars, having managed to get a short leave, and the youngest, Sveta, graduating from school this year. Katya's husband, Sergey, joked (Lyra hoped so, judging by his wife's reaction) that they hadn't fulfilled the minimum program. "Four sons and a darling daughter! So, two more..." he managed to say before receiving a symbolic tap on the back of the head amidst the indignant exclamations of the present children.
The older generation, represented by Zinaida and her husband, whom the Quarian surprisingly recognized as the chief coordinator of the Union, for a second! And judging by Ferrion's jaw dropping in a completely natural way, she wasn't the only one who recognized this man. They had another son besides Katya, Anton, who was openly dozing off under Sergey's sarcastic comments: "If there's the guts to fool around, then there are the guts to train!"
Such a large family was already unusual for Lyra. Even in space, several generations of a family rarely lived under one roof, but here, as the owners of the house said, it was the norm.
"Many return after their assignment after working the required term if they don't find their calling," Yuri said under the sarcastic whisper of the rest of the family that he had taken after his grandmother, which she heard thanks to the sensitive microphones of the spacesuit. The grandmother herself beamed with pride, muttering to herself, "My brat!" – casting a sideways glance at her son, promising to deal with him after "this oak pillar" was done with him.
The youngest of all present, Sveta, bombarded the Turian first, and then her with questions, more like a psychological interrogation, adding at the end in an innocent voice, "It's a shame you can't perform a skull autopsy to see the work of an alien brain live," which caused not only her but also the legionary to choke on the local food, which had a funny name for the Quarian: "Borshch."
"She's just like her grandfather," Katya said, shaking her head and looking at it, under her husband's sarcastic snort.
The lunch itself was also unusual for Lyra. "Almost like a feast from history books," was her first association from the number of different dishes, in the preparation of which she was also included, as if undergoing training. Moreover, even for her, as they said, they went to great lengths and prepared it separately, sterilizing and packaging it in special tubes, "like astronauts," with a convenient adapter suitable for her helmet.
And she liked the food. Tastier than what was served in the hospital cafeteria. There, food for her people was also given in similar tubes, which, after the almost tasteless paste they usually ate, was akin to a shock. What could be done, the Nomad Fleet had few resources to diversify their diet, but soon, as the chief coordinator told her, this was supposed to change. The Union had concluded trade agreements with her people, one of which involved the supply of provisions.
Lyra, who knew well from her father how acute the issue of sustenance sometimes was, gladly welcomed this. A reduction in the load on the hydroponic farms would allow them to be better maintained, and an excess of local food would increase the number of these farms.
After the meal, at which she was not, as was usually the case, an observer, swallowing saliva, she was taken to a guest room specially equipped for her and her needs. With surprise, she passed through the airlock, "which the boys had installed," and after waiting for the decontamination procedures to finish, she entered a completely hermetically sealed apartment, which even the admiral, her father, did not have!
Not only was it larger than any cabin in terms of area, but in addition to a workbench for maintaining her spacesuit, it also had her own personal bathroom! The girl looked enraptured at a completely ordinary bathtub, which was separately connected to a separate tank with decontaminated water, and couldn't believe it.
One part of her brain insisted on the waste of such necessary resources for survival, while the other was overcome with complete delight. Like all of her people, for obvious reasons, she could not accept not only a bath but even a regular shower, familiar to other races. The thought of getting into a body of water without a spacesuit was out of the question. There were other ways of suicide that were more humane.
"I wonder how this differs from ultrasonic cleaning or wiping with special wipes?" she thought, leisurely checking the hermetic seal and the presence of pathogenic microorganisms with her sensors.
Only after being convinced of her complete safety did she unlatch her helmet mask. A multitude of smells immediately hit her nose, among which antiseptic predominated. Not without pleasure, she disconnected the connectors, removing her helmet, and with relish scratched her head.
"I'll have to worry about shaving. I don't like hair under my helmet," Lyra decided, feeling the hedgehog of her grown hair. Unhurriedly, she began to undress, carefully folding the elements of the spacesuit onto a special rack.
"Before returning to the Fleet, I need to get more local immunostimulatory drugs. They don't have stoppers, unlike ours, and they act softer and better. Maybe they can replicate them at the Science Fleet? And I can take some food too. It's definitely better than the vegetable slop they make on the farms, or the Turian rations. After decontamination, both our food and theirs lose their taste, but the locals manage to preserve the taste, as they say, almost unchanged."
Left in a light undergarment, the girl stretched, enjoying the freedom, however limited. Of course, her equipment, created at the intersection of cybernetics and biology, was comfortable enough to wear for months or even years without taking it off, but for a Quarian, the greatest happiness was to simply take it off, even if only for a short time.
Her fingers ran over the clasps, and the synthetic fabric literally slid off her. "And we're not so different from humans," she thought, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. She had the same proportions as human women, except that due to a forced almost vegetarian diet, she was more sinewy. With pleasure, she stroked her richly pink skin and stepped with anticipation into the warm water that had been filled in advance.
"Now I understand why the Asari splash around in the bath for so long," she lay in the bathtub, hands behind her head, enjoying the warmth of the heated water. "I wonder what will happen tomorrow. Katya and Sergey promised something special, and I have no idea how it correlates with the almost mournful date for the locals of the 'Collective's' activation... Oh well, I'm too lazy today. We'll see tomorrow..."