The morning sky was covered with low, leaden clouds. The rain that had fallen during the night brought with it a coolness that manifested in the morning as a ragged fog, lurking in the lowlands. It swirled in clumps in the hollows of explosions, worn down by time, as if clinging to the rusty skeletons of technology. Among the metal, bleached bones protruded, even appearing not to belong to ordinary living creatures.
Lyra, far from military craft, could easily imagine the battle frozen in eternity. Her imagination effortlessly painted roaring tanks and Union infantry, bravely advancing across a field flattened by artillery. She saw their fury in the twisted metal and shattered bones.
Even through the years, the anger that made soldiers literally continue fighting after death could be felt in the air of this patch of land. The Quarian had seen archaic black-and-white photographs in an old album, printed on special paper, from which looked warriors who had scorned the peace of death for their comrades.
The legionary of the Hierarchy standing next to her could literally feel the breath of the past memory of the earth on his rough skin. Its groan and the smell of grass mown by explosions. In his soul, the soul of a warrior, echoed the battle. He imagined spirits still moving forward, for the light of distant cities, and for friends, and for love, to prevent the terrible. Not for landing parties, special forces, or sonorous orders, for which ordinary sentient beings in uniform usually fight, but for freedom and the future, if not for themselves, then for those behind them, as true warriors do.
And above all this field, enveloped by the whisper of the bone-chilling quiet wind, loomed a solitary figure, kneeling for a new charge against the enemy...
"Not a shrine, but a sacred place for all of the USSR," Sergey Nechaev broke the sticky silence. "A visible manifestation of the collective mind. The statue of the Motherland. At its foot lie those who gave the 'Collective' activation by giving their lives. Even so, they wished to accompany Her..."
"We miraculously didn't end up in this mass grave," Ekaterina Nechaeva picked up from her husband. "And this miracle that melted our tired brains was a moving statue, assembled from polymer fragments, cutting mutants with a sword... If I hadn't known that it moved thanks to polymer and Soviet science, I would have believed in mysticism then."
"But even so, it got to us pretty badly," her husband added. "We were already prepared to die. We went into battle to die... We messed up badly. Years have passed, but I'm still ashamed that soldiers, scientists, and others were saved by a little girl, sacrificing the most precious thing. Such things are simply not forgotten."
Katya sighed, taking Sergey's hand and hugging him, adding, "It's not just you who's ashamed, Sergey... It's not just you who can't forget. To forget such things is simply criminal."
The Turian brought his mandibles together. He had read about the history of this place, but he was not prepared for the echo of the past still lingering here. The path, made of rough stones, stretching from the very edge of the ancient battlefield, which had raged seventy-seven years ago, to the foot of the frozen monument, was in stark contrast. Its roughness and coarseness reminded of the years gone by. The boulders laid into the ground bore the traces of millions, if not billions, of feet, but had not lost their roughness, emphasizing the lesson learned here.
"Such things are truly... criminal to forget," the warrior nodded to himself mentally, not uttering a word so as not to break the moment with his voice. Ferrion was grateful to his friends for bringing them here. And Lyra only now understood what Rannoch meant to her people. It was not just a planet, but a place like this, breathing with unshakeable history.
"I hope that when you return home, you will tell about the price of victory you have seen and why the citizens of the Union became what they are," Nechaev broke the silence again. "Perhaps your words will one day preserve peace in the galaxy."
He walked towards the monument with his wife, not waiting for the Quarian and the Turian, and the guests had no choice but to follow them. Now they felt the weight of every shot fired here, and every death. The overheated sword loomed over them, as if asking the obvious: "Is it worth it for you?"
Thanks to the spacesuit's systems, Lyra saw that palm first. A small imprint that had dented the super-strong alloy. She could even see the fingerprints of a tiny child's palm, which had once turned the history of an entire people in a different direction.
She was also the first to hear a song, echoing the cold wind of that day. The melody was lost in it, but the words, spoken in a near whisper by hidden speakers of the memorial complex, could be heard.
"Motherland... Remember me... Return my lost name... Forgotten in that war... Motherland..." sang a choir of voices.
The legionary, also hearing this, felt goosebumps crawl up his spine. It was so different from what he had at home. There was no mention of strength and pride in the song, no glorious singing of the horn. Instead, there were words spoken by decaying lips, thundering with their silence like a mountain storm.
"I remember every son who remained on foreign fields," a female voice clearly answered the call of the dead. "His name has not decayed in the archives, has not disappeared on faded pages! So that he may take his place in the ranks with the heroes of glorious victories!!! So that he may stand among grandfathers and grandsons, like all who died in battle... I will quietly call him by name, he will return to his homeland."
The air of the summer morning became even a few degrees colder for the two aliens. Even the Quarian in her spacesuit, despite the climate control, shivered from its cold fingers that touched her soul.
And the path continued to stretch and stretch, spiraling up to the top of the mound. On the sides of the road, special niches of black stone, polished to a shine, began to appear. In them, safely protected from the rain, lay figures folded from paper sheets by children's hands. Some were soldiers, others depicted scientists, and still others looked like workers.
The figures were interspersed with portraits, drawn by different hands. Faces gazed from them. Tens and thousands of faces.
"They died in the battle for Unity, but the majority, still, those who died fulfilling their duty after..." Katya said, answering the guests' unspoken question.
The higher they climbed, the more these niches there were. Gradually, their contents began to change. Awards and orders, epaulets with stars, medals were added to the figures and portraits. The Turian even saw a medal for the All-Union Olympiad, which took place in the USSR this year.
"And here they leave either posthumous awards, or those that were received... but the recipients could not accept them due to the death of comrades," Sergey stated.
And then they came to the foot of a statue assembled from pieces. Heavy scarlet banners barely stirred. The wind could not unfurl the heavy fabric. Only the flame of the Eternal Fire flared up, greeting those who arrived.
Humans and aliens stared at the single imprint of a small palm on the overheated blade of a sword.
First Sergey, and then Katya, approached the colossal weapon, touching the mark, holding their hands there for a second.
"You can touch it if you want," Katerina said.
"The sword is covered with a neuropolymer... It's intricate here. Any polymer is neuroactive, but this one, if you touch it, can let you hear what was once here," Sergey added.
"Even if it's not connected to the 'Collective'," his wife confirmed.
Ferrion was the first to decide. His palm cautiously touched the imprint. Even before his fingers felt the coolness of the sword, the polymer reached out from its surface to him, sensing the close activity of someone's nervous system. The jelly-like composition released tentacles, gently touching the Turian's hand.
The legionary flinched, hearing the sounds of past battles. For him, the place changed for a moment. As if he himself had been there years ago.
Lyra hesitated, but curiosity overcame apprehension. Hoping for nothing, she placed her hand there. To her surprise, a whisper of almost indistinguishable voices sounded in her head.
"A thin spacesuit is no obstacle for him," Sergey replied to the unspoken question, shrugging his shoulders. "He establishes contact with the nervous system through resonance with its electromagnetic oscillations."
His wife turned to the guests, saying, "Well, you have seen a place significant for every citizen of the Union. I hope you have learned the lesson we learned. This evening, everything given to this place will be burned, as it has been every year. From this flame, new Eternal Fires and candles will be lit, with which we will commemorate all those who have departed in the night... But that will be in the evening. Now, you will have an excursion to Enterprise '3826', where the foundations of our present were once forged..."
"So, what? Impressed?" I ask, trying to make my voice sound more carefree and uninterested.
I can see that these two were deeply moved, but I want them to tell me about it.
"Killa... I still feel like I'm trying to tighten a shrapnel wound with a belt, but my hands aren't mine," the unfinished 'Mata Hari' said in a dazed, lost voice, so much so that I barely suppressed a smug smile. The main thing now is not to scare away the baited fish, or it'll swim away to hell.
"Sent shivers down my spine," the Turian was more reserved, but the eyes of this cunning bug gave him away completely. "Your 'better to show' has now revealed itself to me from a new perspective."
I allow myself a slight smile, recalling memories while still driving the car. The territory of the Enterprise is quite large, too large to walk around. You'd wear your legs down to your balls.
"It's like that for everyone the first time. But it's very clear," I say, waving my hand as carelessly as possible. "Like watching a movie."
"Only with full immersion..." the Quarian shivered all over. "But thank you. Now I understand my people better, surprisingly. Thank you."
She clicked something on her helmet, and the polarization of her helmet disappeared. Through the pinkish glass, perfectly human eyes looked out from a perfectly human face, only large with astonishment.
"And I understood our elders. For them, our striving for all this... is ridiculous," the legionary waved vaguely, clenching his mandibles and tilting his head. "For them, we are like... children?"
"Striving for glory is not a vice. But for foolish glory..." Katya replied concisely, riding in the front passenger seat, sending me a satisfied image that replaced several minutes of conversation.
"But you didn't show us this place for no reason, did you?" our Sharp Eye noted, as if there wasn't a fourth wall in the camera... On the fifth day of detention. Sometimes Turians are as dense as my forehead. Fifah understood long ago, if not everything, then a lot, even though she didn't show it. What a sly one.
I send my wife an image of a chest with a false bottom, with Lyra's face on it, to which I receive almost the same image, but a distinct knock comes from the false bottom. And you can't argue with that. This alien has a certain amount of cunning and recklessness. I don't envy her husband. His balls will be under her heel, and he'll just blink, dancing to the tune of this cunning bitch.
"Naturally," it's foolish to deny the obvious, and it would be a pure lie. And we haven't lied here for a long time, which doesn't prevent us from masterfully not saying everything if not asked, or twisting the emphasis in another direction, making the meaning go ass-backwards.
I take a deep breath. The wounds have long since healed, but they still make themselves known. After all, a long time ago, my brain was stitched together from pieces, part of it replaced by a prosthesis. Flashes of aggression and torrents of curses are not such terrible negative side effects after all that.
The former VDNKh square pierces us to the coccyx, no matter how many years have passed.
"So you'll understand when you find out," Katya added after a mutual exchange of mental images. She was also moved, but she held herself better.
"And it's simply not a sin to show such a place to friends," I finish for her.
"Don't you know how much your habit of finishing each other's sentences irritates sentient beings?" the Turian asked resignedly. "Even for me, who has seen a lot, it looks creepy. And for others, especially if you remember the Rachni, it's just awful."
"We know. And about the Rachni too," we reply in unison, grinning as obnoxiously as possible, practically asking for a brick.
The car bounced on a bump, causing Ferrion to grab the handle above his head. Even Soviet science couldn't overcome the phenomenon of rural roads. Apparently, because fools haven't died out.
"How do you know about them?!" the Quarian exclaimed in surprise. "Don't tell me you think they're cute and fluffy!"
"And I wouldn't be surprised if they think so," the legionary remarked dryly. His expression was as if he had eaten a box of lemons, having salted it beforehand.
"Protian archives. They existed in their time," I reply.
"If they existed, why weren't they exterminated?" Lyra asked, a reasonable question for her.
"And why?" I shrug, emphasizing what I need.
"They used them. As a weapon," Katya added.
Meanwhile, we quietly drove onto the territory of the Vavilov complex, which was evident from the strange plants brought here from all corners of the Union's controlled space. The zoo, broken nearby, was closed today due to planned festive events.
The animals had been preemptively fed sedatives. The talking bird is known for its intelligence and ingenuity, but if it gets angry, it can start shitting. And it seems to me that no one wants to get a shit flying at the speed of sound in the eye, capable of eating through tank armor. It's even used in special munitions.
It seems scary, but this bird is a trifle compared to some specimens. The same mammoth, a perfectly ordinary one, can cause a commotion. And there's a herd of them in this zoo. That's not to mention more exotic animals from other planets. With some of them, I wouldn't stand a chance. I'd chicken out and I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not a coward, but I am afraid. Therefore, there's no point in scaring them with fireworks.
"And the Asari consider them saints," Lyra said after some time.
The view outside the window was impressive.
"Rachni?" Was I? It turned out to be so fun to tease her.
Katya gave me a reproachful look, having read my fleeting thought from my emotions.
"Protian," the Quarian corrected me calmly. "Wow!!!"
She said the last word, pressing herself against the window, staring with all her eyes at the view that opened up. Although the Enterprise is now more of a research institute, some things are tested and created here. We test them periodically, though not like before. There's no need to risk our asses anymore.
And although I had seen the layout of the "Living City" project embryos, when a seed the size of a cargo container sprouts, turning into several residential buildings or one large building before your eyes, it's impressive. The scientists have once again created a miracle at the intersection of biology, genetic engineering, materials science, and cybernetics, with the addition of good old polymer.
"The same machine, only instead of mechanisms - organs, and controlled by AI," Katya said.
"Your obsession with AI will end badly someday. Here, with us..." Lyra began. For her, the topic of synthetics was a trigger, as for any Quarian. It's hard to imagine how much effort psychologists had to put in so they wouldn't just attack robots.
"It's not like that here," I don't let her get carried away.
"Our AIs are part of us, or even were us. There's no reason for rebellion," Katya supports me.
"It's as foolish as rebelling against your own hand," we declared in unison this time, speaking in unison.
This time, not only the Turian's eye twitched. Fifah looked as if she had given birth to a mole. Let them get used to it. The adaptation period has already dragged on, and there isn't much time.
"And yet, you haven't answered my question," the legionary said with emphasis. "Why are you showing and explaining all this to us?"
"You are friends," we shrug in unison. "You should know."
"Know what?!" Ferrion's eye twitched again.
"Everything."
If he were a kettle, he would be boiling right now. And that's before the little ones get to him...
"What everything?" he asked, suppressing his irritation.
"The truth."
"What truth?" Lyra stopped the Turian's exclamation with her hand.
"A terrible one," I say seriously. "What lies beyond the mass relay network."
"And anticipating your question," my wife continued, working with me in tandem, "you'll find out on Mars. You can also talk to the AI. It'll be informative."
"We can't just send you a mental image," I add, as if with regret.
"We're not connected to your 'Collective'," the Quarian said too sharply.
"That can be fixed," I say.
"If you want to stay," my wife says.
"We'll make you happy," we say in unison.
"You are unbearable!" they shouted in unison.
"But at least you've agreed on something," I tease them, not holding back, but slightly.
No need to stare at me like that. I had to break the ice between you, and nothing brings two different sentient beings together like the desire to punch someone in the face.
The walk, combined with the excursion, became much livelier after that.
Ferrion lay on his bed in the guest room of his strange friends' house, staring blankly at the wooden ceiling. The day had been extremely rich in impressions, so sleep wouldn't come to the excited legionary's mind, which was trying to process this stream of images.
The memorial complex alone had impressed him, as only the temple on Palaven had in its time, which he had seen at a very young age. Back then, the antiquity of that place had simply crushed the young Turian. Now, a practically alien sanctuary, although in the understanding of the locals it was a place of remembrance, had simply crushed him, and it wasn't about grandeur.
He looked at his people from a different angle, and he didn't like what he saw. The entire memorial was like a mirror for him, reflecting not a defender of the fatherland, but a mercenary warrior, greedy for glory. Ferrion couldn't lie to himself: he served the Hierarchy not only because it was his duty. Any native of Palaven wants to rise higher in the command chain, no matter how they hide it. Healthy ambition was even encouraged.
Today, the legionary saw what this ambition could lead to, through a contrasting example. "These people are bigger Turians than us!" a thought struck him then, simply shocking him. "They could be on a patriotic poster right now."
He wasn't given time to think about it, as another dose of shocking information was dumped on him. Unlike Lyra, who admired technological wonders comparable to magic, the Turian carefully read the information boards.
"They really went into space less than a hundred years ago!" he almost exclaimed. "Their ships are no inferior to ours. They are not bound by the relay network and are not dependent on zero element. Their polymer is something unimaginable! But the most terrible thing is that all this was achieved in less than a century!!! We must praise the spirits, elevating these pirates to the rank of heroes! It was only thanks to their reckless greed that the USSR could no longer sit on its territory and responded blow for blow, discovering itself!"
Standing by a plaque in front of a model of this civilization's first artificial satellite, the legionary understood the stagnation that the Citadel had been mired in more than ever. "Some natives, without the help of Protian archives, have gone through the path that we have overcome in millennia!"
And the laboratory complexes... The Salarians would have been surprised with envy if they had seen the capabilities of "ordinary laboratory equipment." Naturally, they weren't allowed into the secret workshops, but what they saw was more than enough.
Rapid terraforming technologies, advanced robotics, automated assembly lines, advanced medicine... a small part of what they saw.
"Is it vacuum tube?!" the shocked Quarian's cry echoed through the laboratory. She tore herself away from the microscope, where a processor lay on the glass, staring hopefully at the octopus-like lab assistant standing a little distance away.
"Naturally," the intelligent cephalopod replied. "And the RAM is magnetic, on a nanogrid!"
Then the shocked girl explained to the Turian what had surprised her, and when he understood... Many things fell into place. The Union's scientists took ideas and optimized them to near-perfect quality, trying various approaches. In the processors, for example, the tubes were grown at the intersection of biology and electronics, with a slight touch of microbiology.
Stunned by the flood of information, which made them feel utterly insignificant, they didn't notice that night had fallen. They came to their senses already in a crowd of these strange sentient beings, when they were handed a raft with a lit candle. It was time for the commemoration of the dead.
"But we..." Lyra began, but Katya simply placed her hand on her shoulder, silencing her.
The woman scrutinized them with a strange gaze, saying, "It doesn't matter if you are citizens of the Union or not. Just, when you launch the raft onto the water, remember those who have departed. They will be pleased that you remember them."
The Turian didn't know about Lyra, but he remembered all his comrades and acquaintances who were no longer alive, launching the raft down the river. Looking at thousands, if not millions, of candles floating on the black surface, Ferrion felt the correctness of this action. As if the spirits themselves were looking at him at that moment, nodding approvingly.
Falling into a stupor once again, he didn't notice how he was led to a bonfire, which was inexplicably called a pioneer bonfire. There were many such bonfires that night, but this one was special. Before him, the operatives of "Argentum" were gathering.
Each person who arrived, before being embraced, was greeted with the phrase: "No ranks or titles!" They came out of the thickening darkness, singly or in groups. There was no sorrow in them, only joy at meeting comrades.
The warriors of the Union did not drink alcohol. The only bottle of something resembling alcohol was poured into shot glasses, each covered with a piece of bread, arranged in an improvised formation.
He never understood when someone took out a local musical instrument, a guitar, and started playing. Again, he was surprised by the inhabitants of the USSR. Instead of songs about glorious victories, the operatives burst into a chorus:
"A warm place, but the streets await the imprints of our feet. Stardust on our boots. A soft armchair, a checkered blanket, a trigger not pulled in time. A sunny day - in dazzling dreams..."
And the chorus erupted in almost a scream:
"Blood type - on the sleeve, my serial number - on the sleeve. Wish me luck in battle, wish me... Not to stay in this grass, not to stay in this grass. Wish me luck, wish me luck!"
Under the guitar strumming, the Turian looked at these sentient beings, simultaneously understanding and not understanding.
"I have something to pay with, but I don't want victory at any cost. I don't want to put my foot on anyone's chest. I would like to stay with you, just stay with you, but the high star in the sky calls me on my way!" And there were so many meanings in these words that the legionary's head began to spin.
He was so taken aback that he didn't notice himself singing the chorus along with everyone else.
"Blood type - on the sleeve, my serial number - on the sleeve. Wish me luck in battle, wish me... Not to stay in this grass, not to stay in this grass. Wish me luck, wish me luck!"
With his gaze, Ferrion found Lyra, who was also singing along, not believing what was happening. There were many more songs that night, but this one, one Turian would remember forever. Especially the exciting question in his head: what were they all being prepared for?