03.05.2020

Sergey TarmashevAncient. Book three. Ancient. Background. Book three Tarmashev ancient prehistory part 3

Sergey Tarmashev

Ancient. Background. Book three

“There is enough light for those who want to see, and enough darkness for those who don’t.”

Pascal

Chapter first

957600 years ago, four-dimensional layer of the Universe, high-energy space, boundary spiral arm of the Borderline galaxy, Yarn star system, 12 hours 70 parts according to the time system of the Radiant civilization

The first echelon of the enemy fleet fired a salvo, and the consciousness dispersed by the Tracking Crystal automatically made a calculation. Four million homing torpedoes. It’s rather weak for such a fleet, which means the Dark Ones have something else in store. Hovering in the glow of the Svetochka combat post, Torbrand contacted the unified circuit of the Guardians:

– Look for hidden enemy forces. I feel the presence of more low energy Entities than we observe. “Daaria” and “Ariste” do not leave the invisibility mode. Destroy the battleships with a torpedo salvo. Strike groups prepare for attack. Reserve wait for my command.

The single command contour was colored with short impulses from the commanders confirming receipt of the order, and the squadron of battleships, spread out in the cosmic night like a gigantic shining necklace, fired a response salvo. The torpedo ocean, rushing at near-light speed, was crushed by a region of extreme gravity that suddenly appeared on the way, and the approaching wave of bursting snake-like silhouettes was replaced by a gigantic flash of many explosions, merging together. Thorbrand sent out a short pulse on the fleet's command frequency, and the strike groups began their attack, instantly taking off at an acceleration thirty times the photon's current speed. The first echelon of the enemy did not have the technological capabilities to prevent the approach and a moment later found itself in the clinch zone. The Shining strike cruisers, using their superior speed, quickly mixed with the enemy's battle formations, and a hot glow of explosions flared up in the middle of the icy vacuum. Streams of antimatter overwhelmed the enemy flotillas, turning multi-deck monsters studded with guns into blinding photon flares, and the number of the first echelon of the enemy fleet began to gradually decline. The second and third echelons of the Dark Ones began to retreat at full speed, demonstrating their intention to find the boundary of the area of \u200b\u200bspace within which the Shining Ones had blocked the possibility of hyperjumping. On the surface this seemed reasonable. The Dark Ones' fleet outnumbered the Shining Ones twenty-fold, which actually meant a complete victory for the Shining Ones, and the enemy admiral saw no point in losing his forces in vain. The first echelon of the Dark, as usual, consisted of representatives of the Black race, the rest of the enemy units belonged to the Grays, so the admiral’s decision to sacrifice Aliens to save his own at first glance looked quite expected.

“The dark ones are planning to lure us into a trap,” Thorbrand’s energy flow carried no emotions. - Let's play along with them. The reserves should begin a flanking maneuver. The task is to bypass the battle, start a pursuit and pin down the enemy’s second echelon in battle. Do not go into a region of space that allows the launch of a quark reaction. Attack!

The reserve strike groups instantly picked up speed and rushed after the retreating enemy. As a result of both attacks, the network of Fleet Guardians merged together spread far beyond the sector, and reports followed almost immediately:

– I see the radiation of a quark charge! One low-power charge installed on a second-tier flagship battleship!

- I confirm! The spectral response is clear. Imitation is excluded.

– Another quark charge on the third-tier flagship! This is a Gray dreadnought, I'll give you the backlight.

– I confirm the compliance of the emissions. The flagship dreadnought has a high-power charge.

– I see the radiation of the Immortal! The Avatar is located on the third-tier dreadnought along with a quark landmine. It is moving at full speed towards the region of free launch of the quark reaction.

“You can’t pursue an immortal,” Thorbrand merged with the general energy flow of the solar system and listened to the radiation emanating from the avatar. – Until a special command, do not pay attention to the third echelon of the enemy. Guardians, is there new data on the hidden forces of the Dark Ones?

“Not yet,” the Guardian from “Daaria”, who heads the general network, answered for everyone. - Are looking for.

The reserve strike groups overtook the second echelon of the Dark Ones, and deep space The second center of battle broke out. There the overall balance of forces was equal, and the Grays fought fiercely, probably counting on the help of the third echelon. But the third echelon was in no hurry to help and continued its retreat, maintaining a tight battle formation.

– I feel the radio communications of the Dark Ones! “The general network of Guardians sent a report from one of the reserve strike cruisers. – Admirals of the first and second echelons do not ask for support from their naval commander. I don’t see any panic among the Dark Ones.

- I confirm. – In the general network of the Guardians, an impulse arose from a cruiser fighting with the first echelon of the enemy. – Blacks have strong emotional imprints. They are waiting for some event and hoping for victory.

“The strike groups continue to fight in their previous positions,” Thorbrand ordered. - Let's wait.

There was no doubt from the very beginning that the Immortal had planned a trap. The Dark fleet moving in hyperspace towards the Yarna system was spotted at the moment it crossed the conventional front line. Suspecting a diversionary maneuver, Thorbrand took with him only a couple of aircraft carriers and the Arctida covering squadron, leaving the combined group in the far orbit of Arkoln in full combat readiness. The enemy was knocked out of hyper in the distant orbit of Yarna, and Thorbrand instantly felt the radiation of the Immortal, whom he had been trying to find for so long. Over the past centuries, he had encountered this Ruler of the Grays only twice, and both times he had failed to reach the enemy. The immortal exploded the avatar as soon as Torbrand's Torch rushed into attack acceleration, and was no longer interested in the fate of his troops. Now he encountered his sworn enemy for the third time, and the mighty will of the Shining One suppressed an attack of transcendental rage. It's not difficult to scare off Gray. It is more important to unravel his plan and destroy the enemy operation.

Only this time the enemy was planning something different from the usual attempts to break through the defenses of the Radiants. The forces in the Immortal's fleet were insufficient for such a strike from the very beginning. Two more fleets are moving here through hyperspace, but even with them the Dark Ones will not make their way to Arctida. As soon as they land large forces here, the entire combined group will arrive here, and no one will allow them to approach the living Earth anyway. Judging by the habits of the Dark Ones, this is a regular diversionary strike, and the main attack should be expected in another direction, where the enemy has sent super-large forces in the most covert hyperjump mode. It was not for nothing that the Immortal, having studied the quantitative composition of the Shining Ones squadron, began to retreat. And this is what gave Thorbrand the confidence that the Immortal was planning something else. For the sake of such a primitive operation, he would not have landed in the Yarna system personally; he would have sent one of his admirals. However, the Ruler of the Grays arrived here in person. Moreover, he put on a whole show: his fleet spilled out into real space in an almost disorderly heap, but before starting the retreat, the Immortal was not too lazy to line it up in battle formations. He managed to hide part of his forces immediately at the moment the fleet left hyperspace, therefore, he expected something like this in advance and prepared for it. This means that the Immortal is not going to just run away, he really wants to be noticed. They noticed and were distracted from something important, as happened once before.

- King Thorbrand! – The Communication Crystal formed a separate image of the Guardian from “Daariya”. – Civil Ace asks for communication. This is Guardian Radomir from the Arctida Caste Council. Miss a signal?

- Skip it. – The powerful Suppression Crystals of “Daariya” unlocked the possibility of long-distance communication for the signal coming from the living Earth, and the image of a gray-haired, harrier-like, two-thousand-year-old man flashed in Thorbrand’s mind. – Tender Sun to you, wise Radomir.

– Eternally shining stars, mighty Thorbrand! - Ace Guardian felt the flow of the ongoing battle and immediately got down to business: - Do you need the help of warriors? Raise a militia? I feel bad. Is Arctida in danger?

- We'll manage. – Thorbrand listened to the flow of energy flowing through space. “Moreover, it is necessary to ensure that not the slightest alarm arises on Arctida.” This is an unusual attack, and we need the enemy to be confident in complete security in orbit and on the surface of Arctida. Arctida is not in any danger in this battle. But your premonitions are not in vain. After the battle, I would like to speak with the Council.

“We will fulfill your request, valiant king,” the old man’s face, furrowed with deep wrinkles, darkened. – I feel the approach of a great disaster... The Council of Castes will be waiting for you in the central estate of the Life of the Crying from the Clan of Heavenly Azure. I'll send you the coordinates.

Ace Guardian switched off, and at that moment the third echelon of enemy forces changed the direction of movement. The enemy squadrons made maximum acceleration towards the second focus of the battle, and in their place only the flagship dreadnought of the Immortal remained, surrounded by a dozen guard cruisers. The overall energy balance at its location corresponded to a region of space in which nothing prevented the occurrence of a quark reaction. Thorbrand listened to the distant, rough imprint of man-made energy and again suppressed a flash of rage. Not now. The immortal knows that he will again escape unpunished, and therefore boldly provokes an attack. His third echelon will soon join the second, and their combined forces will increase. The reserve of the Shining Ones will begin to suffer losses, and this, according to the Immortal’s plan, should drive the commander of the Shining Ones crazy. And then the Shining One will send a melee Torch to destroy the Immortal’s flagship in order to deprive his troops of control. And the fire support battleships will remain unguarded. This means that the hidden forces of the Dark Ones must already be somewhere nearby. They will launch a surprise attack on the battleships, and if you're lucky, the Light will be destroyed by a quark explosion. But all this is just a cover. The ruler of the Grays has conceived another meanness.

Eirik, lying in the opposite part of the central compartment, felt an impulse of rage coming from his owner and jumped to his paws. The mighty griffin listened to the Search Crystal, but did not find an enemy nearby and lay down in place. Thorbrand lit the glow of the Pet Crystal for the pet and said quietly:

- Prepare to accelerate.

Hearing the familiar command, Eirik climbed into the interweaving of energies and curled up into a ball as usual. War animals are not able to merge with the ship's contours and prefer to sleep once inside the landing glow. But Eirik had an increased attachment to the energy flow of his owner and often felt the flow of the cosmic battle. In order not to disturb the beast, I had to put it to sleep myself. Thorbrand poured a small stream of energy into the pet’s energy circuit, putting the griffin to sleep, and again listened to the flow of cosmic energies. The thoughts of the Immortal cannot be listened to, his avatar is controlled by the technologies of the higher Dark Worlds, but the shadow of their energies can be seen and followed by it to his planetoid of Immortality. But to detect a shadow, you must have time to get close to the Immortal, and the Rulers of the Grays know about this. Therefore, they destroy their avatar at the slightest sign of a threat. Until now it has not been possible to take them by surprise; there are still too few Aces in the military caste.

– I feel the work of the refractive fields of the Dark Ones! – The general network of Guardians brought a report from one of the battleships. – At least seven hundred prints. ...

Help for the Dark Ones came at the end of the day, when not even a quarter of the payroll remained of their first fleet. The Second Fleet planned to exit hyperspace much closer to Arctida, and Thorbrand was forced to split his forces. He left strike groups to finish off the remnants of the enemy, took the aircraft carriers out of the battle, and with the combined impulse of the super-powerful Crystals of three ships of the White Death class, knocked out the approaching enemy fleet from hyperspace in the distant orbit of Yarna. The enemy's fresh forces consisted entirely of Blacks who went to fight on their own ships, which only confirmed previous assumptions. The Immortal diverts the attention of the Shining Ones from some secret operation. The black fleet did not pose a serious threat, but its numbers were large, and the battle dragged on. By noon of the next day, the third fleet of the Immortal arrived at Yarna, and had to be met from the opposite side of the system. The Immortal himself, contrary to expectations, was not among the military leaders of the third fleet, and this was even more alarming. All fleets went into hyper until the Immortal lost his avatar. Since the third fleet arrived without him, it means that the Ruler of the Grays was sending fleets to their death from the very beginning.

The anthracite-black spot of the Light pierced a bunch of enemy squadrons forcibly falling out into real space, and the Distorters struck. A dozen and a half multi-deck monsters studded with gun ports froze motionless against the background of the rest of the steel giants and began to slowly crumble into dust. The torch with a high-speed jerk moved to the left, occupying the center of the enemy formation, and the Distorters worked again. This time, three times as many enemy ships came under attack, and Thorbrand, with afterburner acceleration, brought Svetoch out of the retaliatory strike zone. The mighty combat Ace made a combat turn and rushed into the next attack, activating the ship's Long-Range Communication Crystal. Thorbrand sent a call to the operational duty officer for the combined group awaiting orders in the Arkoln system, and the Distorters disintegrated the next group target into atoms.

- Operational in touch.

– Roda Fornar squadron – combat alert. Objective: arrive in the Yarna system to destroy the enemy. – Thorbrand smashed to pieces a couple of dreadnoughts that were on the afterburner line with a ramming blow. – We need to finish here as quickly as possible, I will open a zero transition through four parts. This attack by the Immortal is a diversionary maneuver. The rest of the group should continuously monitor hyperspace. Maintain constant contact with patrol groups. If the Dark Ones are planning to strike the main blow, then now is the time for this.

Svetoch carried out two more attacks and left the battle with superluminal acceleration. The admiral of the enemy's third fleet, which had completed entering real space, received information about the losses already suffered and made a predictable decision - to make his way to join the rest of the Dark forces. Given the high numbers, he will succeed, and the combined remnants of the three fleets with the forces of one squadron will have to be destroyed for too long. Thorbrand brought the Light out of the “battle to the death” mode, and the ball, flashing with a dazzling starlight, rushed towards the sun. The light reached the photosphere of the star and stopped, accelerating its own glow to an exorbitant value. For several moments, a single whole, consisting of a powerful warship and a mighty combat Ace, absorbed generous streams of solar radiation, overflowing with energy. The energy circuit of the Shining One recorded a state of complete rest, and Thorbrand directed his personal flow to the Zero Transition Crystal. The most powerful equipment boiled with tight entanglements of energies, the super complex atomic structure vibrated, increasing resonant vibrations, and after an elusively short time it formed a peak impact. At the point in outer space indicated by the consciousness of the combat Ace, ripples of dark matter turned inside out trembled, and in the middle of the icy void a vertical mirror of the zero transition appeared.

A moment later, a flight of interceptors burst out of it, conducting reconnaissance of the arrival point, and after them the shining spheres of the battleships of the family squadron poured out. The Dark Ones noticed the new forces of the Shining Ones and rushed to break through, trying to make a hyperjump before this became completely impossible. Few succeeded in their plan; the majority of enemy combat units did not have time to overcome the blockade of the jump established by a single network of Guardians. After two parts, the network grew tenfold, and the enemy fleet finally lost its organization. The Dark Ones' ships rushed in all directions, trying to escape somehow, and their search and destruction dragged on until midnight. But during all this time the main attack of the Dark Ones never came.

“The raid groups carrying out patrols are in constant contact,” the Operations reported, “two full circles of strike groups went on a free search six hours ago, every sixteen units we contact the allies whose Lands are in our zone of responsibility.” Everywhere is quiet. For the fifth day everything is calm. Contact Fleet Headquarters? Maybe the Dark Ones struck far from us?

- Doesn't make sense. – Thorbrand, who had merged with the Light, thoughtfully looked at the snow-covered surface of Arctida, whitening in the distance straight ahead. – Why launch a diversionary strike here in order to attack where it won’t even be noticed? If the Immortal did not intend to disperse the forces of our group, it means that he carried out the operation specifically in the Yarna system. Another circle of Hunters came here to strengthen those already there. Let them search the system twice. Deliver all units of combat pards and griffins to Arctida by morning. At dawn we begin searching for saboteurs on the surface of the Earth. For the combined group, the combat alert is cleared. Return the strike groups from the search, and the raid groups continue patrolling according to the combat schedule.

The operative confirmed the reception and disconnected. Thorbrand listened to the overall energy flow of the solar system. The squadrons regrouped, taking up positions in the Yarna system, and a stream of ships in need of repair was heading towards Arctida. Several medical evacuation complexes with wounded on board left orbit and began to descend, and high activity was observed on the frequencies of the Healer caste. The Communication Crystal accepted the incoming impulse, and the image of Guardian Radomir flashed in the mind.

– For the glory of the Race! – The gray-haired old man gave a short salute. - Congratulations on your victory, mighty king! The Healer caste has already distributed the wounded to hospitals; the Masters will begin repairing the ships as soon as the damaged equipment reaches orbit. From all over Arctida the same question comes from the Shining Ones: “How many warriors died?” You didn't broadcast the fight.

- For glory! - Thorbrand answered. “Half a circle of warriors died; in the first phase of the battle they had to take the blow of an enemy who was significantly superior in strength. We have many wounded, more than two hundred.

“Two hundred and thirty-six,” the Guardian Ace clarified. – We contacted the crews of the sanitary evacuation complexes. The Healer Caste of Arctida will get everyone back on their feet, you can leave the wounded here if their transportation to the fleet base is not necessary.

- Is not. The squadrons will remain in the Yarna system for some time. - Thorbrand bowed his head in a short bow: - The combined group is grateful to the infinitely wise civilian castes of Arctida for their prompt assistance. This will seriously speed up our preparation for subsequent battles.

“This is the least we could do in the name of the Motherland and the Race,” Radomir answered. – Is there anything else we can do to help the warrior caste?

– We did not broadcast because this attack was led by the Immortal. – The torch reached the orbit of Arctida and slowly ran around the snow-covered Earth. “We suspected a secret plan on his part.” The attack was repulsed, the enemy was destroyed, but the Immortal's plan was not revealed. In the morning we begin the search for saboteurs in Arctida; units of combat animals are already on their way. Let the Caste Council warn the population about this.

– Did the Dark Ones land saboteurs on Arctida? – The gray-haired Ace frowned anxiously. – None of the Life Riverers felt the appearance of low-energy Entities. This means that the Dark Ones sent robots. The Creator caste will help organize the search.

Sergey Sergeevich Tarmashev

AncientAncient. Backstory #3

Four hundred and thirty years dedicated to the destruction of the enemies of the Race. Thousands of brutal battles with no chance of survival.

The gloomy loneliness of half of a whole broken in two, which brings neither grief nor joy, only colorless monotony. A life subordinated to a single and all-consuming goal: retribution for those who took away what was most precious from him.

His name is Thorbrand. The legendary True Ace, a being of gigantic power, without equal in the Galaxy. And now he feels that the hour of the decisive battle is approaching.

LET THOSE WHO COME FOR OUR LAND AND OUR LIVES LOSE THEIR OWN!

Sergey Tarmashev

Ancient. Background. Book three

“There is enough light for those who want to see, and enough darkness for those who don’t.”

Chapter first

– I see the radiation of a quark charge! One low-power charge installed on a second-tier flagship battleship!

- I confirm! The spectral response is clear. Imitation is excluded.

– Another quark charge on the third-tier flagship! This is a Gray dreadnought, I'll give you the backlight.

– I confirm the compliance of the emissions. The flagship dreadnought has a high-power charge.

“Not yet,” the Guardian from “Daaria”, who heads the general network, answered for everyone. - Are looking for.

The reserve strike groups overtook the second echelon of the Dark Ones, and a second center of battle broke out in deep space. There the overall balance of forces was equal, and the Grays fought fiercely, probably counting on the help of the third echelon. But the third echelon was in no hurry to help and continued its retreat, maintaining a tight battle formation.

“The strike groups continue to fight in their previous positions,” Thorbrand ordered. - Let's wait.

Only this time the enemy was planning something different from the usual attempts to break through the defenses of the Radiants. Strength in the Immortal fleet for such a strike

Page 2 of 21

not enough from the start. Two more fleets are moving here through hyperspace, but even with them the Dark Ones will not make their way to Arctida. As soon as they land large forces here, the entire combined group will arrive here, and no one will allow them to approach the living Earth anyway. Judging by the habits of the Dark Ones, this is a regular diversionary strike, and the main attack should be expected in another direction, where the enemy has sent super-large forces in the most covert hyperjump mode. It was not for nothing that the Immortal, having studied the quantitative composition of the Shining Ones squadron, began to retreat. And this is what gave Thorbrand the confidence that the Immortal was planning something else. For the sake of such a primitive operation, he would not have landed in the Yarna system personally; he would have sent one of his admirals. However, the Ruler of the Grays arrived here in person. Moreover, he put on a whole show: his fleet spilled out into real space in an almost disorderly heap, but before starting the retreat, the Immortal was not too lazy to line it up in battle formations. He managed to hide part of his forces immediately at the moment the fleet left hyperspace, therefore, he expected something like this in advance and prepared for it. This means that the Immortal is not going to just run away, he really wants to be noticed. They noticed and were distracted from something important, as happened once before.

- Prepare to accelerate.

– I feel the work of the refractive fields of the Dark Ones! – The general network of Guardians brought a report from one of the battleships. – At least seven hundred prints. Slowly approaching.

“I confirm,” picked up the next Guardian, also from the battleship squadron. – The dark ones are somewhere nearby, trying to get to our rear.

“I detect a slowdown in the movement of prints,” followed another report. – The enemy’s hidden fleet stops.

– They are frightened by the presence of the Light. – Thorbrand listened to the imprints of alien energy collected by the Guardian’s network. Covered by refraction fields, the Dark fleet stopped moving and raised the camouflage mode to maximum. Usually in such cases, the troops of the Immortals become almost undetectable, and they can be found not so much by the traces of the work of the refractive fields, but by the energy imprints of man-made devices in the general flow of the surrounding space. However, now the Guardians clearly saw frequency sweeps of the refractive fields, which indicated that the enemy’s camouflage equipment was not of the highest quality. The Dark Ones have more serious technologies. This means that Immortal saved money on this fleet as well. Well, it's time to find out what he's up to.

“Commander Askjold,” Thorbrand called the reserve commander, “report the situation.”

“The enemy carried out an encirclement maneuver and cut us off from the main forces of the squadron. – The Communication Crystal lit the image of a relative. - We're holding on for now. Four dead, many wounded, half of the interceptors were badly damaged and returned on board. Three cruisers are on the verge of losing steam, one is shot down.

- We're starting a counterattack. – Thorbrand switched the Light to the “battle to the death” mode. – Battleships to transfer fire to the enemy’s second echelon. “Daaria” and “Ariste” do not leave the invisibility mode until contact with the enemy. “Daaria”, your target is the Dark Ones’ saboteurs. "Arista", help Askjold. I will take care of the Immortal and join the main forces. We are working

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when ready!

A clot of inky-black radiant energy with a Light inside instantly gained thirty times the speed of a photon and pierced the boundless infinity of space. The sectors engulfed in seething battle were left behind, and the marks of the Immortal's dreadnought and his bodyguards loomed ahead. Thorbrand felt the emanations of panic horror emanating from the Grays, and the single energy flow of the solar system trembled, feeling the launch of a quark reaction. The Light, blazing with bottomless blackness, instantly changed direction to the opposite, and a huge piece of space boiled with the unbridled rage of enraged elementary particles. Everything around was covered with a gray haze of crumbling space, and an all-consuming stream of destructive energy crashed into the Light. But endlessly swipe collided with the infinite power of the combat Ace, dispersed by the mighty Crystals, and the gigantic all-crushing ram admitted defeat before its brother, the same Son of the Great Flash. The equipment driven by the energy of Asa, created by the wisdom of millions of generations of the Shining Ones, redirected the incoming destructive force to the revival of the matter it had devoured, and the space around the Light began to restore stability.

The ink spot of the Light left the zone of quark destruction, and the combat Ace, blazing with anthracite radiation, winced with displeasure. The Immortal detonated a landmine too early; he didn’t even dare to let the Svetoch come closer so that the blow would land for sure. In this case, they would have an equal chance of winning. If the combat Ace manages to annihilate the enemy starship along with the quark charge before it explodes, victory will go to him. And if he doesn’t have time, then at the epicenter of a quark explosion there may not be enough strength to survive. Nevertheless, the Ruler of the Grays did not test his luck. Therefore, he is too frightened, which means that the Immortal is aware of the hunt being waged against him. But no matter how many centuries it takes, he will not escape retribution. For this is the only thing that keeps the gloomy combat Ace in the dreary loneliness of the current layer of the Universe.

The general energy flow of the battle vibrated with new impulses, and the Light, shining with radiant darkness, rushed to the third center of the battle that had just flared up. As expected, the sabotage forces of the Dark Ones, hidden under the refraction fields, attacked the battleships of the Shining Ones, as soon as the Light went to approach the Immortal. Seven hundred heavy cruisers of the Gray race, according to the good tradition of the Dark ones, stuffed with black crews, rushed to attack the star-fire spheres that were left without cover. The enemy attack served as a signal for the start of counteraction, and the Daaria aircraft carrier, hiding in stealth mode among the firing battleships, released its assault cruisers. At the same time, the second aircraft carrier began to accelerate towards the reserve fighting in complete encirclement, and after half a part in the battle-torn space, the forces of the Radiants increased by three hundred combat units. The Dark Ones, seeing three White Death class ships on their radars at once, quickly calculated their chances and tried to gather all their forces into one fist. This maneuver cost them a tenth of the fleet, and the battle began to boil with renewed vigor. The Dark Admiral, who took command after the Immortal's departure, ordered his subordinates to hold out until the last, promising a generous reward, and was scattered into atoms under the ramming blow of the Light. The remaining enemy officers did not dare to take his place, but the usual panic for such circumstances did not arise among the Dark Ones. The electronic warfare systems of their fleet were unable to push through the hyperjump blockade established by a single network of Guardians, but the enemy continued to strike, desperately trying to maintain battle formations. It became clear that the enemies hoped to hold out until reinforcements arrived.

- Operational in touch.

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the whole, consisting of a powerful warship and a mighty combat Ace, absorbed generous streams of solar radiation, overflowing with energy. The energy circuit of the Shining One recorded a state of complete rest, and Thorbrand directed his personal flow to the Zero Transition Crystal. The most powerful equipment boiled with tight entanglements of energies, the super complex atomic structure vibrated, increasing resonant vibrations, and after an elusively short time it formed a peak impact. At the point in outer space indicated by the consciousness of the combat Ace, ripples of dark matter turned inside out trembled, and in the middle of the icy void a vertical mirror of the zero transition appeared.

“This is the least we could do in the name of the Motherland and the Race,” Radomir answered. – Is there anything else we can do to help the warrior caste?

“It would be useful,” Thorbrand agreed. “But the landing of saboteurs has not been confirmed by anything. This is just a guess and that is why it needs to be verified. But I feel that you want to make a request, wise Radomir. Ask.

“At your request, the Council of Castes did not raise the alarm on Arctida,” began the Guardian Ace. “And it turned out to be the right decision.” Once again the enemy was defeated in distant orbit, and again the population of Arctida slept peacefully every night while the battle lasted. For the children, this attack went completely unnoticed. Over the past four hundred years, an orbital alert has never been declared on Arctida, and in conditions of a brutal war this is worth a lot. There is no warrior caste on our Earth, and many Shining Ones express a request to organize meetings for children with the Warrior caste, so that the younger generation can see with their own eyes those who, without sparing themselves, block the path of the enemy hordes. In this regard, the Council of Castes decided to ask representatives of the military command to send military specialists to Arctida to conduct classes with young students. Lessons on the topic of gravitational circuits will be very appropriate. There is no one better than warriors at working with gravitational balance, and besides, this skill will soon become very relevant for the inhabitants of Arctida... - The look of the gray-haired old man became sad. “You want to talk to the Arctida Caste Council about this, mighty king?”

“You were not mistaken, wise Guardian,” Thorbrand looked into Radomir’s eyes, “we will talk about the complete evacuation of the Shining Ones from this Earth.” I foresee trouble and I know that you also feel it approaching. I have no other reasons, but it is so. Let the Arctida Aces express their opinion. As for the request of the Caste Council to conduct classes for children, we will fulfill it.

“So be it,” summed up the gray-haired old man.

The interlocutors said goodbye, and Radomir passed out. Thorbrand sent a general call to the command staff of the units located in the Yarna system and opened a direct passage to the Daariya's advisory compartment. It was necessary to analyze the past battle. Feeling a surge of energy from the displacement point, Eirik began to move in his glow. Sleeping griffin

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woke up and looked questioningly at the owner.

“Sleep, my friend,” replied Thorbrand. “In four hours you have a lot of work to do.”

The mighty combat Ace disappeared in the area of direct transition, and Eirik curled up into a ball again.

The snow-covered taiga, flooded with bright sunlight, sparkled in the midday rays, and the snow-white blanket covering the earth was reflected in the windows of a luxurious estate, rising high in the middle of a taiga clearing of considerable size. A forty-meter-long carved mansion made of adaptive biocomposite, topped with a sixteen-sided phased antenna of the broadband Long-Range Communication Crystal, sparkling in the rays of the sun, at its highest point was below the tops taiga trees a good fifteen meters away, as a result of which the estate could only be seen from the air. The sixteen different buildings that made up the estate were scattered around the tower in a strictly measured circle and connected to the main building with straight, arrow-like transitions made of transparent vibroquartzite, which is why the estate from a bird's eye view looked like the sun, emitting sixteen sparkling rays around itself. However, from the surface of the ground, the architectural ensemble covered with openwork stucco looked different. The multi-meter buildings built along the perimeter of the circle extended ornate connecting corridors at different heights to the central tower, and from the outside it seemed as if the massive colonnades of corridors formed waves frozen in the midst of an endless running in a circle. The spacious wide windows of the buildings, framed by the patterned ligature of the Life Crying caste, were shrouded in a barely noticeable haze of energy protection, and apart from its ghostly glow, nothing around reminded of the martial law and the brutal war that had been raging in the four-dimensional layer of the Universe for four hundred and forty years.

There was complete calm in the air, and the rustle of the snow caps falling from the branches of the mighty spruce trees was intertwined with a quiet rustle among the trills of birds that were sensing the onset of a thaw, sounding among the coniferous giants. Feathered red-breasted babies busily scurried between the spreading branches in search of cones and did not pay any attention to the shining drops of civilian ships, silently cutting through the crystal clear ocean of air stretching over the taiga at great speed. The flattened balls of passenger airliners and the pot-bellied disks of trucks, barely perceptible to the eye, streaked high in the sky, the main echelons for boats and small boats were located much lower, and from time to time one or another teardrop-shaped vehicle separated from the main flow and quickly maneuvered down in the direction to the estate. The shining drop deftly landed, clinging to one of the transparent passages between the buildings, which also served as seats, and after a couple of moments, silhouettes of the Shining Ones appeared in the transparent corridor, returning home or arriving to visit the inhabitants of the estate. Their three-meter figures, dressed in white clothes emitting a light glow, sedately walked along the passages filled with flowers blooming in the depths of winter towards their waiting fellow tribesmen, and the long white-golden hair of the Shining Ones simultaneously made a burst of luminosity, accompanying their hands raised to the stars, performing the welcoming gesture of the Celestial Race of Radiance Sveta.

The entire snow-covered space inside the estate was occupied by frolicking children in white winter clothes, intensifying the glow under the bright rays of the sun. At least two hundred young Shining Ones, aged from four to eleven years old, under the guidance of their Mentors, were fiddling around in the snow, busy with all sorts of children's activities: the little ones were sliding down low snow slides, with enviable tenacity climbing to their tops along the snowy steps, older children were making snow figures, older ones built from snow ancient fortress almost life-size, and on its northern side a real snow battle was already flaring up. On the southern side of the growing fortress, several serious strong men, in collaboration with a couple of very young sisters, clearly set out to sculpt an exact copy of a fighting griffin, leisurely circling over the estate. The Young Masters cast attentive glances into the sky, assessing the proportions of the soaring animal, and drew the outline of the future sculpture on the virgin snow, marking the boundaries of the snow sculpture.

- How big he is! – the youngest of the sisters exhaled enthusiastically. The eight-year-old blue-eyed baby put her palm to her forehead with her visor and studied the winged silhouette frozen in the azure infinity. – I’ve never seen anything like this before! Look, his Communication Crystal is blinking!

“This is Eirik,” the older brother answered importantly. The two-meter tall, golden-haired man was a couple of years older than his sister and therefore surpassed her in height by a whole head. - Asa Thorbrand's griffin! He was born on Asgard, this is the largest assault breed! My father said that when Eirik is in the skies, he maintains contact with the fighting pards who guard the skufs. Our estate is also guarded by pards; they walk around the forest and are constantly on the alert. If the Dark Ones want to send their spies here, the pards will immediately catch them!

– Can I look at the purdah? – The blue-eyed baby turned her gaze to her brother.

“When you grow up, you’ll see,” he answered sedately. “It’s too early for you to look at the pards, you’re still little, you’ll get scared.” Let's better measure twenty steps from here exactly to the north, that's where the right wing will end.

- And I won’t be afraid of anything! - said the little sister and began to walk in the indicated direction, counting her steps with concentration.

A hundred meters from the young sculptors, not far from the forest edge, the gray-haired Teacher looked around at the circle of pupils whirling in the dance. Here, outside the perimeter of the estate, far from the bustle of children boiling in the snow, ringing with laughter and joyful exclamations, nothing interfered with the conduct of classes with student circles who came from childhood. At the moment, the thirty-two daughters of the glorious Family of Heavenly Azure, who had reached their thirteenth year, were merrily spinning around their axis, at the same time describing a circle around the three-hundred-year-old life of the Mentor. The dance path trodden by their white boots was a perfect circle, testifying to the excellent sense of space and excellent quality of the vestibular apparatus of its creators. The Mentor's fingers slid along the strings of the hand harp that hovered under her hands in the force field of the Anti-Gravity Crystal, and the perky melody accelerated the tempo. Strengthened by the oscillatory circuit of the vibrocomposite that makes up the body of the hand harp, the iridescent sound of music filled the entire space of the student circle, and the young sisters increased the speed of rotation, ringing melodic

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- Let's spin and spin, beautiful stars! – The mentor’s gentle voice sounded soft, but loud and clear. – You will give this dance to your other half on the second wedding day! The dance symbolizes the eternal strength of your marital union, as indestructible as the union of the Sun and the living Earth revolving around it! Therefore, you, like the Earth, rotate around your axis and at the same time around your other half! And your other half, like the Sun, will be delighted by your grace and refinement of movements! From now on, the glorious husband will not take his happy gaze off his wife and will begin to bestow her with generous streams of masculine energy, just as the Sun does not take his affectionate gaze off the living Earth and never tires of bestowing her with life-giving warmth!

The merrily laughing sisters continued to spin in the dance, and the tails of their white fur coats covering their slender golden-haired figures fluttered like the snow-white wings of a huge snowflake. One of the sisters, without stopping the dance, looked away from earth's surface and continued to rotate at a height of four meters, doubling the speed of its orbit around the Mentor.

- Alice! – The gray-haired Teacher integrated herself into the energy flow of the young dancer and unobtrusively landed her back, unmistakably integrating her into the student circle. – Be careful with the Flight Crystal, you are still too small for independent flights! Even though the flow of the Harmonious Daughter allows you to gain height without difficulty. We agreed, remember?

– Yes, Mentor Stoyan, I remember! – The blue eyes of Rod’s young daughter shone with excess energy. – I didn’t do it on purpose, it somehow happened that way! Sorry, wise Teacher, I got carried away with dancing! I will be more careful in future!

“Okay, naughty little star,” the Mentor smiled, “but I still have to keep an eye on you!” And if you start playing pranks in the sky again, I will ask the toothiest griffin to take care of your upbringing!

- Oh! – Alice fearfully put her palm to her lips, stopping in surprise.

Several sisters circling in a dance immediately bumped into her, and they all flew into a snowdrift, forming a cheerfully squealing heap in the deep snow. The rest of the dancers stopped and with cheerful laughter began to pull the sisters out of the one and a half meter layer of snow. The rescue operation immediately turned into an all-out snowy fuss, and for a dozen parts the Mentor watched the snowy bedlam ringing with cheerful laughter while listening warily to the vibration of Alice’s energy circuit with a smile on her lips. Judging by his print, Alice received an extremely painful blow to the forehead as a result of the collision and got a significant bump with a hematoma. But the young Harmonious daughter of the Clan of Heavenly Azure, as always, did not show it and did not seem to notice the painful sensations at all. Alice has already stabilized her personal circuit, without being distracted from childish snow fun, and by the time classes are over, the soft tissue bruise will only leave a trace in her precociously capacious energy flow.

The gray-haired Teacher hid a sad sigh. Alice is a very independent daughter, which is great, but her independence did not develop from a good life. Alice’s father died when the Harmonious baby was six years old, and since then the wisest Mentors of the Clan of Heavenly Azure, living on Arctida, have been raising her. Alice has two older brothers and a younger sister, and none of them is deprived of Rod’s attention even by a millimeter, but the Harmonious Daughter herself turned out to be too strongly attached to her father and suffered his death hard. The information available in the ancestral archives only confirmed this circumstance: the powerful energy flows of Harmonious children, before reaching adulthood, are very tightly closed to the ancestral energy, and their connection with the father is especially strong. Alice's father belonged to the Life Crying caste and died in space when he was in the system of one of the light allied races. The Dark Ones struck the allied Mother Earth, relying on orbital bombardment, and Alice’s father, along with his three comrades who made up the diplomatic delegation, took the fatal blow. Their ship covered the hospital complex with its shields and hung over it until the last while the Shields held out. Allied combat units made it in time at the last moment, and the hospital complex was saved, but the ship Life of the Crying Ones perished with its entire crew. Later, the allies gave Alice's mother the melted Crystal of Flight - all that was left of her husband. Little Alice took her father’s Crystal for herself and since then has never parted with it, and no one began to take away the memory of her father from the child.

From that moment on, Alice grew up as a reserved and very reserved child, and listened more to her gray-haired Mentors and older brothers than to her mother. Summer ago, Alice met her twelfth spring, and her growing Harmonious energy flow began to gradually stabilize. The number and frequency of chaotic surges and dips decreased noticeably, and Alice suddenly developed a thirst for flight. She almost raved about spaceships, and it soon became clear that her father’s Flight Crystal was not out of order, and Alice was quite capable of activating it. And the fact that male equipment is too heavy for female energy flow did not bother the young Harmonious daughter at all. Alice began to fly, despite her mother's protests, and this very soon ended with a couple of very unpleasant fractures. The energy flow of the Harmonious One was still far from stable, but depriving Alice of her father’s Crystal was not an acceptable decision. The Mentors spoke out against this unanimously. Therefore, the young Harmonious daughter promised not to carry out risky experiments with flights, but a child is a child, and it was worth keeping an eye on her with double attention.

Moreover, the situation was aggravated by the position of her mother. The craftswoman Zhdana categorically opposed her daughter’s passion for flying, and with each month Alice’s growing interest in the Arganaut caste. Zhdana protected her in every possible way from everything related to space work, citing the fact that she had already lost her soul mate and did not want to lose Alice too, because four children were all that was left to her from her lover. The mother directly stated that she would not allow Alice to fly on anything before reaching adulthood and would do everything so that after reaching adulthood, her daughter could make the right choice, which is not associated with an increased risk of death. Because of this prohibition, little Alice was noticed several times flying at night, and in order to somehow shift the child’s interest from flying to something less risky, she was assigned to introductory vocational training with a Mentor at a production plant spaceships. The Young Masters began by studying very simple means of transportation, such as small boats; there was no talk about space itself, and during the production process, performing some operations required the use of the Flight Crystal. All this was carried out under the strict control of the Mentors, was part of the educational process and was supposed to distract Alice from dangerous amateur activities. The calculation was justified, the young Harmonious daughter became interested in the destiny of the Master Shipbuilder, but sometimes involuntarily

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I was still trying to rise into the air.

- Time for business, time for fun! – proclaimed the gray-haired Teacher. - The break is over! Stars, gather in a circle! It's time to continue the lesson!

She made sure that the student circle was completely restored, and fixed her gaze on Alice:

– Before starting the next lesson, let’s review what we’ve covered! Alice, briefly describe to us the structure of the tower and explain its similarity to the structure of the Shining One! – The mentor imperceptibly touched the personal contour of the Harmonious Daughter with a thin ray of her own energy. The hematoma received by Alice disappeared, leaving behind a barely noticeable bruise on her forehead, quickly turning into a yellow spot. No complaints, no lamentations, no just reports of a bruise. None of the sisters even understood how much pain she was in. The young Harmonious daughter is persistent, like a warrior, and yet she is only thirteen. Someday she will become a glorious Ace and glorify the Heavenly Azure Family, famous throughout the Galaxy, even more powerfully...

– The structure of the chamber of the Shining Ones is similar to the structure of the Shining Ones themselves! – Meanwhile, the young Harmonious daughter began to answer. – The shining one is swastika and consists of four rays of energy of different nature: Body, Soul, Spirit and Conscience. The single point from which these rays flow is the Essence of the Shining One. The body is an anchor holding the Essence inside the current layer of the Universe. In our case, this is a four-dimensional layer. The body is a product of high density raw energy. The Soul is a higher-energy component; it serves as a tool for the Essence to interact with its immediate environment: relatives, pets and friends. That's why kind person often called soulful. The Healer caste is especially strong in Soul. The Spirit is an even more complex energy potential; it is intended for the interaction of the Essence with the macrocosm: the Motherland, the Race, the inhabitants of different Earths, including Aliens. The Shining Ones, strong in Spirit, are capable of leading many people and dedicating their entire lives for the benefit of an infinite number of Rasichs, even if they do not know any of them. The Warrior caste is especially strong in spirit!

Alice, who was leading the story, flashed her star-colored eyes, and her long, tight straw braid lightened to a snow-white state. The gray-haired Mentor realized that the young narrator’s outburst of emotion at the mention of the military caste was so strong that the Harmonious Daughter involuntarily changed her colors to match Daariyka. Strange reaction. Previously, Alice had not noticed any increased interest in the military caste. The mentor made a note in her deep memory and continued listening to the answer of her Harmonious student.

“The fourth element of the structure of the Shining One is Conscience,” continued Alice, shining with a snow-white glow in her eyes and hair. – Conscience is an abbreviation for SOVOETNYE VESTI, meaning a system of interpenetrating physical fields, both informational and all others. This is the totality of energies that make up the Universe in all its diversity of spaces, layers and dimensions. Therefore, all rational beings are a small part of Conscience, and, in turn, a small part of Conscience is present in every rational being. But the connection with this totality of universal energies varies intelligent beings not the same. For the Light Ones it is greater, for the Dark Ones it is less, and the poorer the energy structure of the mind, the less this connection.

“We’ll talk about the features of various intelligent forms later,” the gray-haired Mentor smiled and pointed to Alice at the façades of the estate, glittering with the Life of the River caste pattern: “Now let’s return to the structure of the tower.” Alice, go on.

“The tower is built in accordance with the structure of the Shining One,” the young Harmonious daughter looked at the dazzlingly bright spark of the interceptor burning high in the skies, descending at great speed along a synergetic vertical trajectory. Alice fell silent, following with her gaze a shining drop falling exactly on the estate, but the interceptor pilot expertly reduced the speed from enormous to zero right at the point of contact with one of the transitions of the estate. It was impossible to see the guest arriving at the estate from here, but the young narrator froze, as if trying to hear the voice of a stranger.

“That’s right, Alice, continue,” the Mentor gently urged her.

- Oh! - The young Harmonious daughter became embarrassed, realizing that she was silent under the expectant gazes of the others, and hastily continued: - Just as the Essence enclosed in the body forms the basis of the Shining One, so the Shining Ones themselves, living in the mansion, form the basis of the dwelling. Their energy flows are absorbed into its walls and create a single bioenergy field inside the house, which helps restore strength to a tired person, speed up treatment for a sick person, lift the spirits of a sad person, and does many other good and useful things! Therefore, the volume of living quarters must be significant in order for the strength of the bioenergy field to be greater. Since the main source of the Shining One’s energy flow is his brain, the main requirement for living quarters is the height of the ceilings. The Shining One must have free space above his head no less than his maximum height. More is possible. This is how the required volume of the room is achieved; the floor area does not have to be infinite.

“That’s right,” the gray-haired Mentor slowly nodded and smiled encouragingly: “Some rooms, due to their purpose, can or should have a small area.” But the requirements for ceiling heights are always the same when it comes to a full-fledged family estate. Continue.

– The tower consists of four floors. “Alice’s gaze slid again to where the interceptor was stuck to the transparent wall of the passage, but she couldn’t see it. The combat vehicle, like all ships of the warrior caste, took the form of the object with which it came into contact and mimicked its surroundings. This time the young narrator was silent for no more than a moment: –?The first floor is created for the first ray of the Shining One, that is, for his Body. On the ground floor there are kitchens, dining rooms, dressing rooms outerwear and caste equipment, storerooms, technical rooms, etc. Hygienic rooms are also always built on the ground floor, but they are necessarily moved outside the tower and connected to it by passages or not connected at all, as you like. The main thing is that the energy of hygienic premises does not merge with the general bioenergy field. As a result, the first floor is always the largest.

The second floor of the tower is created for the benefit of the second ray of the Shining One - his Soul. There are bedrooms, children's rooms, playrooms, guest rooms, meeting rooms, conversations and gatherings of relatives and other similar rooms. Usually the second floor is equal in area to the first.

The third floor was created for the good of the Spirit. It is usually not as extensive as the first two, and contains workrooms, archival storage facilities, a family museum, and caste premises such as laboratories and small workshops that do not require massive equipment. Therefore, if representatives of many castes live in the mansion, then the third floor can be no less than the lower ones.

The fourth floor is dedicated to Conscience and all manifestations of the energy of the Universe. There are observatories, a small center of Truth, navigational Crystals,

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powerful ultra-long-range communication equipment, if, of course, the estate needs it, and in general everything related to the atmosphere, orbit and space. Usually the fourth floor is the smallest. “Alice thought for a moment and added: “This is where the rope is attached, on which the brothers climb from the first floor to the roof during physical training classes.”

“This is not included in the list of required premises,” the Mentor smiled, “but young men love this fun, therefore a rope and a gravitational safety cushion have long become an integral part of a full-fledged tower. The sons of the Family must grow up strong and dexterous in order to become a reliable support for their halves in the future. What about the hallways, Alice? On what floor is it customary to arrange a hall for guests and relatives?

– Hallways are located on any floor! – she giggled cheerfully, pointing to the transparent passages of the estate covered with all kinds of small aircraft. – Wherever there are quay walls or landing areas! They say that some estates even have a hall on the roof!

“More precisely, under the power dome covering the roof,” the gray-haired Teacher smiled again, “who arranges a hallway in the rain or snow?” But on the roof of our estate there is an antenna for ultra-long-range broadband communications, and we do not have such hallways.

She looked around kind look listening students attentively and asked:

– Who can explain why the central tower of our estate is forty meters high? After all, we are Svaga, and the height of our tallest husbands rarely reaches the mark of three meters.

The whole circle unanimously showed her their palms clad in white gloves, and the Teacher chose a student, along whose snow-white fur coat curled the purple pattern of the Life Crying caste, complemented by a homemade, but already very skillful crystal weaving:

- Laughing?

– Because in this estate there live many representatives of the Life Crying caste! To be more precise, a very large number! – the student said cheerfully to the quiet laughter of the student circle, of all the participants of which only Alice did not carry the symbolism of the Life of the Crying on her clothes. The young Harmonious daughter, despite all the efforts of her mother, had not yet made her choice and therefore did not have a caste pattern. For the rest, the question asked was purely symbolic. – And since our caste often holds meetings with representatives of other Shining Clans, and among them there are very tall Rasichs, for example, the Daarians are four meters tall, and their ancient military Clans are five meters tall, the height of the ceilings of the central tower is selected to the maximum! Four floors of ten meters each - a total of forty meters!

“That’s right,” the gray-haired Teacher maintained the general smile. – However, it must be emphasized that our Clan, the Celestial Azure Clan, is most famous for the talents of the Masters and Veneds. Their rare skill is valued not only throughout the Border Galaxy, but also in the Svaga Galaxy, the ancestral home of the Great Svaga Family, in honor of which we all got our name. Our glorious relatives have been living there since the time of the first colonialists for almost a billion years. And when twenty million years ago the first representatives of the Svag Clans began to populate the Hall of the Swan in the Border World, our many-wise Ancestors were among them. After all, SVA is Space, the heavens strewn with stars, and GA is a path, a trajectory of movement. Therefore, the World of Svaga is the Star Trek, and the Rod of Svaga is those who follow the Star Path. We roam the cosmic expanses in search of unoccupied living Earths, which, as a result of our labors, become new diamonds in the diamond mine of the Shining Worlds. Could Svaga have remained on the sidelines when the Heavenly Race of Radiance of Light decided to create a network of outposts in the Border Galaxy? We came to this World among the first! Both then and now, the great and glorious Masters and Veneds of the Celestial Azure Family worked for the benefit of the Race of Shining Ones, for which they earned universal respect. But the Life Crying caste appeared in our Clan much later, at the time when the first representatives of the Celestial Azure Clan flew from the Land of Ruta here to the Land of Arctida. Alice, tell us when was this? Alice?

The teacher turned to Alice. The look of the young Harmonious daughter was again directed towards the estate, Alice seemed to be looking there and nowhere at the same time. She took a step towards the tower, leaving the circle, and fell out of the general energy circuit.

- Alice? – The gray-haired Mentor immediately integrated into her personal flow, but did not detect any deviations from the norm. - Alice? Can you hear me? What happened to you?

– What?.. – The young Harmonious daughter blinked her eyes shining with star fire, as if waking up from a light slumber, and her eyes changed color to sky blue. – Sorry, Mentor Stoyana, I seem to be lost in thought... The first representatives of the Celestial Azure Family arrived on Arctida ten and a half million years ago. With them, the Caste of Life of the Recreants began in our Family.

“To be precise, at the request of the Life of the Crying caste from the Great Family of Thule, Masters and Veneds, some of our best specialists, arrived on Arctida,” the Mentor corrected her. – Subsequently, Life About a quarter of their descendants became Rippers. – Stoyana listened carefully to the energy flow of the Harmonious Student, fearing teenage surges or dips, but her personal energy circuit was still absolutely stable. - Alice, is something bothering you?

“No...” The young beauty frowned her snow-white eyebrows thoughtfully, as if she was trying in vain to remember something important, but long forgotten. – Tell me, many-wise Mentor, why did the Daari warriors come to visit us? Has the Dark Ones attacked our system again?

“In the event of a threat of attack, the covering fleet announces the alarm in advance and throughout Arctida,” answered the Mentor. – All Communication Crystals would report this. No, everything is calm in our system, there is nothing to worry about. A representative of the warrior caste came to visit us at our request. Today we are starting a series of classes on working with the gravity circuit. Who wants to explain what the gravity loop is for? – Stoyana looked at the row of raised palms and chose a student: – Iria! Tell us!

– A gravity circuit is necessary to visit Lands where gravity is greater than on your native Earth! “The blue-eyed defendant mechanically checked the position of the sun and moved her thick, tight braid from behind her back to her chest. The white-gold glow of the hair, when exposed to direct sunlight, intensified the shine. – This is especially important for us, because in comparison with the rest of the Lands of Shining Ones, the gravity on Arctida is very small. Without a gravitational circuit, we will not be able to take a step on the giant Earths. Over millions of years, the bones of the Radiants inhabiting Arctida have adapted to low gravity and become too fragile.

“That’s right,” agreed the gray-haired Teacher. – But why did the Shining Ones populate Arctida and live on it for twenty million years, if it is so irregular?

– Because for the Shining Ones there are no right and wrong Lands! – Young Iria did not hesitate even for a moment, convincingly proving that the ability of her deep memory to assimilate and store information received in lessons is

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at an excellent level, as befits a bearer of high-quality Blood Images of the Life Crying caste. – Our Arctida is located at the intersection of cosmic paths leading to fourteen different Light races. They are all long-time friends and allies of the Radiants, and creating a diplomatic center that can interact with them without delay was necessary! And Arctida, in terms of its geographical location, was the best of all the other Lands! In addition, she was the only living Earth in the Yarna system. Therefore, our Race settled Arctida without a doubt, and since then we have been living here! Arctida, although small, is very beautiful, and rarely does any of her relatives decide to leave her, because we all love her very much! But if the needs of a caste or Clan require visiting other Earths of the Race, then the Shining Arctids use the gravitational circuit!

“That’s right, Iria,” the teacher praised the student and clarified: “Arctida is truly the lightest Earth of all that belongs to the Shining Ones in the Border World.” In the caste Tablets you can find information about Arctida-like Earths located in other border galaxies, but all of them are located quite far from the Border. However, as you well know, even giant Earths do not always have the same gravity. Therefore, the ability to create and effectively maintain a gravitational circuit is necessary for any Shining One whose activities involve visiting various Lands of the Race. The more powerful the personal flow of the Shining One, the greater the gravity he is able to curb. The best specialists in the gravitational circuit are the warrior caste, especially those of their Clans that have developed genetic adaptation to actions on Earths, whose gravitational force can be prohibitive. Therefore, the first lesson on this topic will be taught to you by a representative of the Warrior caste. Let's meet!

The teacher turned towards the estate, and the young pupils followed her gaze. In the sky, at a height of thirty meters, a chiseled female figure, shining with star fire, was rushing towards them. The warrior with ideal proportions instantly reached the student circle, and behind her, powerful energy wings of distance protection flared up in a host of iridescent power streams. The four-meter High Valkyrie made a short loop around the landing area, after which it assumed a vertical position and, with a slight movement, landed next to the Mentor. Valkyrie's energy protection force fields came out of combat mode, and her luxurious two-meter long train of slightly glowing snow-white hair gathered into a stream and moved to her chest. The charming Daari beauty raised her hand to the stars, and her star-fiery gaze flashed with a pulse of energy:

– For the glory of the Race!

- For glory! – The student circle raised their hands to the luminary in a united movement and flashed a burst of radiance from bright blue eyes and white-gold hair.

– Daughters of the Clan of Heavenly Azure, meet! – proclaimed the gray-haired Teacher. – Valkyrie Reginleif from the legendary Fornar Family, one of the First Fifteen Hundred!

“Commander Reginleif,” the High Valkyrie introduced herself, “the thirteenth assault detachment of the fortieth strike group of Commander Askjold, the squadron of Roda Fornar, the Daari group.” “She smiled cheerfully, turning gracefully around her axis to see everyone: “What’s your name, sisters?”

The acquaintance went on for several parts, then the beautiful Valkyrie took a place in the general circle so that each of the students could see her, and the lesson began.

– General principle“You already know the effects of the gravitational circuit,” the Daari beauty began to explain. – The gravity of the Earth pulls you down towards the surface. The gravity of the star pulls the Earth towards itself. These are multidirectional flows of force, and the gravity of the star is many times more powerful. If you integrate yourself into the gravitational field of a star, then bring your own energy flow into line with its indicators and equalize multidirectional gravity vectors, you can reduce your weight to zero or neutralize the effects of gravity that is not typical for you. The Flight Crystal is based on the same principle, but this equipment is much more complex, you will learn it later when you reach adulthood. Now let's move on to the practical part: let's look at how all this is done. To begin with, I will help you equalize the gravitational balance; later, once you get comfortable with the technique, you will try to create a gravitational circuit using the forces of your own flow. For wives, this task is more difficult than for husbands, so you will have to show diligence and patience. Let's start with the smallest things. Let's try to reduce our own weight by ten kilograms, then step into the snow and compare the depth of the footprint left with a regular print. Sisters, narrow the circle and go into the untrodden snow. Otherwise, behind your backs, someone has made a snow porridge out of the snowdrifts. For now, I’ll join your circle.

The circle, quietly giggling, followed her instructions, and the High Valkyrie covered the general energy circuit with a short impulse of personal flow. The four-meter beauty's gaze immediately settled on Alice.

– I see that you are Harmonious, little sister! - The charming Daari warrior narrowed her eyes conspiratorially: - Daari hair color and sky blue eye color suit you! It's good to be Harmonious!

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Alice was embarrassed, returning the white-golden glow to her hair. – Sometimes it somehow happens on its own, when my flow jumps up on its own. I usually wear my birth color. – She sighed. “But this doesn’t make it any easier.” The stream still jumps when it wants, I take off, and my mother is very unhappy.

- Don't worry, little sister! – the beautiful warrior waved her hand cheerfully. “In three summers you will come of age and you will fly better than many husbands!” The high energy intensity of the Harmonious allows for exceptional maneuverability. For now, try not to resist my flow. I was born in the Holy Summer, but if you had turned out to be one more summer older, then I would not have been able to keep all of you in my stream. Agreed?

- I will try. – Alice concentrated on her personal outline, but instead of concentrating, she froze for a moment and slowly turned towards the estate.

- Alice? – Mentor Stoyan felt another instability in the fragile flow of the young Harmonious. -Are you having a splash? Don't worry, I'll help you stabilize. Focus...

“More warriors are flying towards us,” instead of answering, Alice said quietly and immediately looked in the other direction, where a silvery droplet of a civilian small boat glowed above the tops of the snow-covered trees: “And mom.”

The air above the clearing was pierced by a streak of flaming star fire, and a mighty five-meter giant landed near the High Valkyrie. His battle armor glowed with a dazzling starlight, testifying to the warrior’s most powerful energy flow, and the student circle involuntarily held its breath at the sight of the infinitely powerful giant.

- King Thorbrand! - The High Valkyrie instantly approached: - For the glory of the Race!

- For glory! - the giant intertwined with muscles answered briefly and glanced around the circle: - Tender Sun to you, daughters of the Clan of Heavenly Azure.

– Eternally shining stars for you, mighty Ace. – Mentor

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Stoyana performed a prostration.

“I’ll take the Valkyrie from you in a couple of parts,” the stern voice of the combat Ace emphasized the harshness of the emanations of destructive energy densely emanating from him. – So that the wait will not be a burden for you, she will be replaced by another flight specialist. Reginleive, let's move away.

The mighty giant, accompanied by the beautiful Valkyrie, left the student circle, and in his place, with a short warning cry, a hefty griffin of powerful physique, wrapped in combat gear, descended from the sky.

- This is Eirik. – The Battle Ace turned around. “He’s half a lifetime older than you, so don’t do any harm.” Don't touch the tail. Don't put your fingers in the mouth. Do not pluck feathers from the wings as a souvenir. If you show respect, he will let you sit on his back. It's too early for you to fly.

The giant shining with armor turned away and began to quietly talk about something with the High Valkyrie. The griffin, lying on its paws in the middle of the circle, instantly became the center of attention. The student circle disintegrated, turning from a gathering of diligent students into a bedlam shimmering with dozens of delighted children's voices. The gray-haired Mentor good-naturedly watched as the young daughters of Rod besieged the winged beast from all sides and hastily turned off their gloves to stroke the griffin’s back. The griffin himself was a match for his Master: huge, entwined with powerful muscles, with powerful limbs and imperturbable, like a rock. The winged warrior of heaven did not pay the slightest attention to the dozens of children's palms stroking him. He yawned leisurely, revealing a huge mouth dotted with huge teeth in four rows, put his muzzle on his paws and closed his eyes, clearly intending to take a nap. But right in front of his shiny black nose, Smeyana and Iria immediately appeared. The mentor rushed towards them, wanting to save the unfortunate griffin from the omnipresent fidgets, but it was too late.

– Mighty Eirik, kind sun to you! – Smeyana and Iria simultaneously bowed to the griffin. - My name is Smeyana!

- And I am Iria! – a friend immediately picked up. -Can we ride on your back?

Both stared pleadingly at the griffin, and the Tracking Crystal on his armor flickered slightly with a soft glow. The griffin considered the questioning image, tilted its head to the side and whined reluctantly. It was clear in his gaze that the mighty beast was frankly too lazy to bother with the kids.

- Please, we ask you very much! – Both daughters bowed again, as if they were the embodiment of meekness. - Very very! Take us for a ride, Eirik, just a little bit! “They devotedly stroked the griffin’s face with four hands. - We'll scratch behind your ear!

- Laughed, Iria! – The teacher reached the restless students. - Don't pester the griffin! He is tired and wants to rest. Can't you see?

– Ace Thorbrand has given permission to ask Eirik! – both fidgets answered in one voice, combing the griffin’s ears covered with thick short hair. – He has such hard fur! That's why his ears are constantly itching! Eirik, take us for a ride! You are the most beautiful griffin in the world!

- Slickers! – declared the Mentor, watching how the mighty winged beast reluctantly raised its head lying on its paws. The griffin sneezed briefly, causing a burst of delight among everyone, and offered his paw to the young daughters.

They immediately climbed onto his back, the powerful three-meter beast stood up and moved at a leisurely pace in a circle, bypassing the enthusiastically noisy crowd of children. Teacher Stoyan, hiding a smile, looked around at her pupils. The impressions from today’s lesson will last them a long time. My peripheral vision caught the reflection of a boat landing nearby, and the gray-haired Mentor turned to meet the golden-haired woman leaving her side.

– Kind sun to you, Mentor Stoyana! “The energy flow of the arriving woman showed that its owner had not yet met her forty-fifth spring, but the long absence of childbirth made her older than her years. – Are the warriors already here?

A woman who regularly gives birth to children can be distinguished from a radiant fifty-year-old woman from a twenty-year-old woman only by listening to the vibrations of her personal energy circuit; it is impossible to find external differences, but Alice’s father died, and the next pregnancy did not occur at the appropriate time. Since then, the lack of regular hormonal rejuvenation inherent in a woman in labor has slowly but steadily made itself felt. Zhdana is still slender and beautiful, but her attractiveness is inherent in the adult wives of the Shining Ones, who long ago gave birth to all their children.

“And the Tender Sun to you, Master Zhdana,” the Mentor greeted the guest. – I feel your desire to take Alice away from class. Something happened?

“Everything is fine, wise Mentor,” Zhdana’s voice sounded calm, but the vibrations of her energy circuit betrayed excitement. “I’m flying to a factory on caste business and would like to take my daughter with me.” This will be good for her, the skin synthesis is currently underway there... - Zhdana looked around at the noisy crowd of children accompanying the griffin riding the students, and her eyes widened in fear: - Alice?! Where are you going? Come here, we urgently need to go to the factory!

The gray-haired Teacher instantly caught her gaze, about to stop some childish prank, but stopped thoughtfully. Young Alice appeared at a distance from the students pestering the griffin. She did not pay any attention to her friends and slowly approached Asa and Valkyrie, who were almost silently talking. She was four steps away from them, when suddenly the combat Ace, standing with his back to her, fell silent for a moment, and, without turning around, said:

- Adelheid?

The mighty giant turned around sharply, his gaze fell on the young daughter of the Clan of Heavenly Azure, and the star-fiery radiance of his eyes almost completely faded away, and his gaze acquired its inherent harshness.

“Yes...” Alice was embarrassed. – My dad named me that, in honor of the legendary Harmonious Valkyrie Adelheid. She was born into our Family four hundred and fifty years ago... it seems. Only this was on Ruth. But usually everyone calls me Alisa, it’s shorter.

“Four hundred and forty-nine,” Ace corrected her in an expressionless tone. – Your father gave you a beautiful and noble name. Don't disgrace him.

“Thank you, mighty Ace...” Alice became even more embarrassed, and at that moment her mother hurriedly approached her.

– Eternally shining stars to you, mighty warriors. – Zhdana made a lot of efforts to hide her awkwardness and excitement. – We apologize for distracting you from important deeds for the benefit of the Race. It's time for us to go to the factory, the synthesis of ship plating will begin soon, it's better not to miss this activity!

The warriors briefly saluted the Craftswoman and returned to their conversation. Zhdana grabbed Alisa by the hand and hurriedly led her to the boat, talking as she went about the upcoming work at the factory:

“Let’s go quickly, daughter, our mentors are expecting our arrival in twenty units, we need to get to the city without delay!” Why did you distract the soldiers? They have a lot of very important things to do!

“I don’t know...” there was confusion in young Alice’s voice. “It somehow happened on its own... I looked at the griffin, then I really needed to ask the mighty Ace something... but for some reason I don’t remember what exactly...” She looked around uncertainly. – The wings of the High Valkyrie are so beautiful... Mom, is this the same warrior Thorbrand, whose half was the Harmonious Valkyrie Adelheid?

- No, my star, this is

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another mighty warrior. – Craftswoman Zhdana squeezed her daughter’s palm tighter and quickened her pace. “I don’t know anything about those events, they happened a long time ago, more than four hundred years ago, your grandparents weren’t even born at that time.” And you know what? Let's fly to the boat! Who's ahead?

- Can i? – Alice flushed with childish delight, instantly forgetting about her questions.

“It’s okay once,” Zhdana answered, hiding a strong surge of excitement under a mask of feigned severity. “Besides, we’re late.” But only under my supervision! Let's fly!

The figures of Zhdana and Alice took off from the path trodden in the snow, gained a little height and rushed towards the boat. The young Harmonious daughter easily outstripped her mother and with a cheerful laugh circled over the boat slowly opening the entrance hatch.

“Alice, get into the boat, we’re in a hurry.” – Zhdana landed near the side and hurried inside. – Master Mentor Gorazd will not send us a special invitation! By the way, he mentioned that today’s skin synthesis is being carried out for a very large space vessel, and during the work it is impossible to do without the Flight Crystal.

- Hooray! – Alice squealed with quiet delight, deftly flying into the open hatch after her mother. - It will be possible to fly! Mom, did Master Gorazd say how tall the ship will be?

The boat overgrown the entrance hatch, muffling the sound of the conversation between mother and daughter, and the gray-haired Mentor hid a sad sigh. In her desire to protect Alisa from the military caste, Zhdana again committed a lie. This is a very bad sign. Moreover, young Alice is becoming stronger and older every summer. Soon she will be able to easily notice the trembling in the maternal energy circuit that accompanies insincerity in words. And this will make her distrust her mother. The mentor lightly touched the ornate frame of the personal Crystal of Communication with the tip of her nail, made in the form of a carved silver-crystal rim crowning thick hair, and called upon the ancestral center of Truth.

“Tender Sun to you, Stoyan,” the image of the gray-bearded Guardian of Truth flashed in my mind. – Your flow carries vibrations of sadness. - The Guardian of Truth frowned: - You have a lesson on the gravitational circuit. We asked the warrior caste to conduct it. I see the image of Zhdana in your stream. Did she attend the class? Has there been a conflict?

- No, wise Rodgord, there was no conflict. – Stoyana turned her head towards the students riding on the griffin and the talking warriors, so that the Guardian could better see what was happening. – Zhdana very politely took Alisa, and they left the lesson before it started. But Zhdana lied to her daughter.

“For the second time,” the Guardian darkened. - How did this happen?

– Young Alice asked her if the mighty Ace Thorbrand was the warrior Thorbrand, in honor of whose fallen half she received her name. – The gray-haired Teacher spoke very quietly so as not to disturb those around her. – In response, Zhdana lied, saying that she did not.

“The death of her husband turned out to be an disproportionately heavy blow for Zhdana,” Rodgord’s voice acquired sad intonations. “She couldn’t recover from it and she never will.” I will contact the Healers, they will give her an emergency medical examination and stabilizing procedures. Did Alice sense the lie?

- No. – The gray-haired Mentor watched the firefly of the boat disappearing over the tops of the snowy taiga. – But its capacity is growing. She is already stronger than Zhdana, and only Alisa’s youthful inattention did not allow Zhdana to avoid losing trust in her eyes today own daughter.

– I will notify the Healers immediately. – The Greybeard Guardian said goodbye and passed out.

Stoyana sent an encouraging image to the griffin lazily stomping around in a circle, on whose back there were already four students glowing with delight, and turned her gaze to the warriors. The mighty Ace gave some instructions to his subordinate, and the High Valkyrie entered them into her deep memory with amazing speed. He didn't seem to notice what had happened. It’s difficult to say whether this is good or not... Probably, it’s still good, because during fierce battles for the survival of the Race, the great warrior has many more important concerns than the minor troubles of one of the branches of the Celestial Azure Family. The legendary military Ace Thorbrand is the king leading a military group whose task is to cover the constellation in which Arctida is located. He became an Ace one and a half hundred years ago, the very first in the military caste of the Border World, and from then until now there is no one in the Galaxy who could surpass him in military strength. The aces of the civil castes, who communicate with Thorbrand on various matters of the Race, often say that with each new circle of years, the power of Thorbrand becomes even higher and he became a True Ace much earlier than the age corresponding to this. Thirty-one summers ago, the Masters caste created a unique Light for such a powerful warrior, designed for the owner of a super-huge energy flow. The latest technologies were used for construction, but the mighty Ace refused the gift. He didn’t say anything, just nodded silently and left. But his answer was clear to everyone without explanation. For four hundred years, the only warship of the legendary warrior Arrogant Thor was the Melee Light, listed under the name “Adelheid” in the information Tablets of the Daari group. A silver ball, surrounded by a wedding swastika script, is all that the never-smiling Ace has left of his soul mate.

The new Light was remade for another powerful fighter, but the unique Crystals of the Distorters still lie in the warehouses of the Masters caste, because no one else is capable of pushing through the starting circuit of such super-powerful combat equipment. The masters expect to replace the Adelheid Distorters with them if they fail in a difficult battle, which occurs weekly. Three days ago, the Dark Ones attacked again, this time the attack was aimed at the Yarna system. The warrior caste met them in the distant orbit of the star, and the battle ended only yesterday at midnight. The enemies were destroyed, but the assault troops of the Shining Ones are still conducting a thorough check of Arctida for secretly landed enemy saboteurs. So far there have been no signs that such a landing could take place, but since King Thorbrand personally arrived on Arctida, it means that the warriors have some grounds. It is strange that the Dark Ones chose Arctida for attack, because compared to other Earths, Arctida is practically uninhabited, less than fifty million Shining Ones live on it. And the evacuation of the population to the central systems of the Galaxy is carried out constantly, more and more forest estates are left without owners and starts the process of self-destruction. Many taiga glades have already disappeared, hidden by young forest growth.

“That’s all,” the quiet voice of the combat Ace reached Stoyana. – The combat pard unit will keep in touch with you. Continue with your lesson. - The mighty giant turned to the cheerfully noisy crowd of pupils: - Daughters of the glorious Family of Heavenly Azure, it’s time for the griffin to return to military affairs. Give me back Eirik, you brats!

The pupils immediately left the griffin alone and restored the student circle, freezing with an expression of extreme

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degree of diligence on their faces, which in no way fits with the perky mischievous emanations emanating from the young energy circuits. The Battle Ace smiled almost imperceptibly at the corners of his lips and gave a short salute as a sign of farewell. In response, a forest of children's hands shot up to the stars. Next to the legendary king, a direct transition point flashed with a trembling transparent glow, and the mighty giant disappeared into its depths. His griffin rushed after him, and a moment later the transition died out, leaving behind a chain of traces of hefty clawed paws in the snow, ending in nowhere. The High Valkyrie included the circle of students in her stream and continued the lesson, demonstrating enviable skill in the field of working with the gravitational circuit inherent in the military caste. The skilled warrior quickly attracted the entire attention of the young students, and Teacher Stoyana plunged into thought, taking advantage of the respite that presented itself.

Today's manifestation of lies by Master Zhdana is an extremely alarming signal. Lying is not inherent in the nature of the Shining Ones, it is the destiny of the Dark Ones, and therefore the trembling of the energy flow inherent in the liar catches the eye of any strong representative of the Heavenly Race of Radiance of Light, and the stronger the Shining One, the faster he notices the deception. Although Alice is young, thanks to the high capacity of the Harmonious, she gains strength many times faster. Zhdana’s next lie, if there is one, she will probably notice. And mistrust develops between mother and daughter, which will lead to the fact that the growing Alice will stop listening to her mother’s opinion. This could push the young Harmonious daughter to do what Zhdana is so diligently protecting her from. And it’s not a fact that good things will necessarily come out of all this.

The gray-haired Teacher hid a heavy sigh. Thirteen years ago, when Alice was born, not only the branches of the Celestial Azure Family living on Arctida and Ruta were proud of the birth of the Harmonious Child. The ultra-long-distance connection brought a huge stream of congratulations from relatives from the World of Svag, the mother galaxy of the Great Family of golden-haired, blue-eyed Shining Ones. Alice's father proudly named the newborn Harmonious Valkyrie Adelheid in honor of her famous relative, who over four hundred years ago became the first Harmonious Valkyrie in one and a half billion years and covered herself with unfading glory. The harmonious Valkyrie Adelheid died in a fierce battle, at the cost of her life, foiling the global offensive of the Dark Ones on the galactic ancestral home of the Shining Ones, the Daaria galaxy. By dying, she saved her fellow fighter, the Harmonious veteran Thorbrand, from certain death. Her name is forever included in the Tablet of Valor of the legendary warrior Clan Fornar, one of the First Fifteen Hundreds, and the Celestial Azure Clan preserves the memory of its brave daughter with great pride.

Alice's father was so admired by the famous heroic relative that he did not just give his Harmonious daughter her name. Already on the second day after birth, he turned to specialists from the Healer caste with a request to carefully study the energy flow of the newborn baby and find out whether her genetics contained traits characteristic of the military caste. The baby was examined, but nothing was found, and the parents decided to raise Alice until adulthood according to the canons of the Life of the Crying caste. Everything went as usual, but then Alice’s father died, and a lot changed. Zhdana experienced the death of her husband painfully, and the Healer caste repeatedly prescribed her for treatment in order to maintain her psyche away from the threshold of self-destruction. Little Alice withdrew into herself and often did not let go of her father’s melted Crystal of Flight from her hands, but no one saw her tears, hysterics and nervous breakdowns. This alerted the Mentors, and the Harmonious baby was sent for a full medical examination.

The results of which seriously puzzled everyone. Little Alice’s psyche was not damaged, but her energy flow and biochemistry demonstrated qualities inherent in military genetics to the point of confusion. No one could explain how this was possible, especially since nothing like this was noticed at birth. The Family Council wanted to turn to the military caste for advice, but Zhdana unexpectedly expressed a categorical protest. She stated that she had lost her husband, lost the opportunity to give birth to all her children, and did not want to lose her daughter as well. Therefore, by right of the Mother, she decides to raise her daughter according to the canons of both parental castes, the Masters and the Life Givers, until she comes of age. The matured Alice will make her next choice herself. At first, the Family Council did not come to a consensus on whether to agree with Zhdana’s position or oppose it. But later, the Keepers of the Truth found out that at the moment in the Border military caste there are more Harmonious daughters than Harmonious sons, but in the civilian castes the situation is exactly the opposite. As a result, it was decided not to interfere with Zhdana, because the search for a soul mate for the Harmonious Daughter is a priority task for the Family, and, given the current situation, the chances of finding her will be easier among the civilian castes.

From that moment on, Zhdana did everything so that little Alice would not encounter either the military caste or any other that involved activities related to space. The fear of losing her daughter as a result of a battle or attack by the Dark Ones, as happened with her husband, forced Zhdana to push Alice in every possible way towards the Masters caste, because she considered the Life Crying caste less safe. Zhdana was treated by Healers several times, but each time her fears returned. Once she was even sent to Ruta, to the hospital of one of the best Healers in the constellation, but the medical Ace only returned her back with an extremely strange answer: Zhdana’s anxieties come not from an inflamed psyche, but from the Unified Information Field of the Universe. Therefore, there is nothing to treat it for, but the psyche, tired of experiences, will have to be restored regularly, as oppression accumulates. Rod has done just that ever since. But it seems that something was still going wrong, because one day Zhdana decided to lie. This happened one summer ago, when young Alice turned twelve. According to the Commandments of the Shining Ones, a child, upon reaching the age of twelve, ceases to be a child and begins to independently bear responsibility for his actions and decisions made. At this point the young kinsman has the right to choose or change caste if he so desires, and the Mentors asked Alice this question. The harmonious daughter took time to think, but never came to a definite conclusion, remaining in the training programs of both castes, which took up all her time, and the sisters had not seen her for a long time on joint walks and games.

But after a couple of days it turned out that Alice, consumed by the dream of flying, wanted to choose the Arganaut caste and even asked her mother a question regarding the warrior caste. But Zhdana lied to her daughter, saying that the warriors would not take her in due to a genetic mismatch. And she did everything to make Alice refuse the Arganaut caste, because the Arganauts were often the first to enroll in the ranks of military militia volunteers, because they had high piloting skills. The entire flight crew of the warrior space fleets consisted of the Shining Arganaut caste, and Zhdana experienced panic at the thought that Alice would go to the peaceful

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astronauts, but in the end he will end up in the meat grinder of space battles, because he will want to take revenge on the Dark Ones for the death of his father at the first opportunity. It played into Zhdana’s hands that there were no representatives of the Arganaut caste in the Clan of Heavenly Azure living on Arctida. And her mother advised Alice to stay in the student circle with her friends and sisters, because studying with relatives is more fun than in the student circle of someone other than her own kind, which will inevitably follow if you go to the Arganauts. In addition, all flights of the Arganauts during the war are strictly regulated by the military caste, so there is little interesting there now: there are an order of magnitude more pilots than flights. It’s better to wait a few years, suddenly the situation on the fronts will change for the better. And the mother will also miss her daughter very much, because after the death of the father, their family branch remained very small, and after the grown-up brothers began the standard military training inherent in all young men of the Shining Ones, emptiness and sadness settled at home. Alice, who did not part with her father's Crystal, did not want to leave her mother alone with grief, and left everything as it was. The mentors recognized Zhdana’s lies very quickly, but much of Zhdana’s position could be understood, and therefore it was decided not to change anything. Zhdana was once again sent to the Healers; Alice was decided not to be pestered with offers of choice until she came of age.

And now Zhdana lied for the second time. This means that her psyche is again oppressed beyond the limit specified by the Healers. Tomorrow she will be sent for a medical examination, and we can only be glad that young Alice did not notice the lie today, and the warriors had no time for the conversations of the civilian Shining Ones. Otherwise, the Heavenly Azure Family might become unpleasantly famous. The Battle Ace, if he had paid attention, would have recognized the lie instantly. However, even if he were not here at all, the High Valkyrie would have recognized the lie. Reginleif was born in the Sacred Summer and is very strong, her capabilities exceed the combined strength of everyone present here, including Stoyana herself. To tarnish Rod with lies would be a disgrace to the entire constellation. How then to look into the eyes of relatives from other Lands? Something needs to be done about this, since the lie was repeated twice, it’s time to sound the alarm. Therefore, let the Healers look for how to save Zhdana from the misfortune that has struck her.

The student circle burst into laughter and cheerful exclamations, the gray-haired Teacher came out of her thoughts and carefully examined the training clearing. Her enthusiastic pupils, sharing their impressions with each other, carefully walked across the virgin snow without falling through. The white boots of Rod's daughters left faint traces less than a centimeter deep on the surface of the snowdrift, although without a gravity contour, anyone who stepped into the surrounding snowdrifts would immediately find themselves knee-deep in the snow. Stoyana neatly integrated into the general energy circuit of the student circle. The flows of all the students were closed to the High Valkyrie, and the charming warrior, who spread her flaming energy wings, stabilized the gravitational circuit of each student with her energy. A wise decision. The young daughters of Rod should feel what a correctly formed gravitational balance is, so that in subsequent classes they have something to compare with. The cheerful fidgets will have to hit a lot of bumps before working with the gravitational circuit will be mastered at the proper level, but a start has been made, and the pupils have already believed in their abilities. The rest will come through painstaking training. The natives of the small, light Arctida are simply nowhere without the ability to build a gravitational balance. Any standard Land of the Shining Ones has enormous gravity compared to Arctida, and the growing evacuation will sooner or later lead many of its students to other Earths where the glorious Clan of Heavenly Azure lives. The gray-haired Mentor smiled, stabilized her own gravitational balance and joined the cheerfully noisy pupils, easily walking on the virgin snow that crumbled under her feet.

- Wow! Assault cruiser! – Alice enthusiastically looked at the bulk of the ship, stripped of its hull, towering in the middle of the assembly shop under the powerful prism of the Synthesis Crystal.

- Wow! – Master Mentor Gorazd looked at the young student in surprise. – That’s right, this is an assault cruiser, the standard model is undergoing a planned modernization. How did you find out, and even without covering? We haven't studied warships yet.

– Didn’t you study it? – Young Alice looked at the Master incredulously, suspecting a joke.

“No,” Gorazd confirmed. – Remember when it was?

- I do not remember. - Alice was confused. - How do I know this?

- I assume you study caste in addition to your lessons? – Gorazd looked at Zhdana, and his white-gold hair falling to his shoulders intensified its radiance as a sign of approval. “That’s wise, just don’t push her to the point of exhaustion, she won’t be able to remember when she received the information.” “He turned his gaze to Alice: “Aren’t you tired from too much work?” You have lessons from two castes at once.

“I don’t do overtime training with her.” – Zhdana, frowning, checked her daughter’s personal energy circuit for brain fatigue. “She’s already undergoing training in two castes, she doesn’t have time for additional classes. Alice! Why didn't you tell me you were working overtime?

“Because I don’t do that,” the young daughter was surprised. – I would love to try additional training, I’m Harmonious, it’s not hard for me! Only when? I’m already in class all the time, especially since our circle began studying the destiny of Vesta. If I have an extra hour, I go to bed early so I can be better rested for the next class.

- So you guessed right. – The blue-eyed Master narrowed his eyes slyly: – You probably noticed the Crystals of Power. What if this is an attack cruiser?

- No, the strike cruiser is much larger! – Alice said confidently. – It has a hyperdrive crystal of increased power, a reinforced power plant, a hangar for interceptors, there are landing places and more internal space, because the crew is larger! An assault cruiser is based on an aircraft carrier, it does not need a reinforced hyperdrive, and it does not move between galaxies on its own. And he doesn't have interceptors. But his defense and weapons are much more powerful. “She extended her hand and began pointing to the technical compartments of the ship: “Here is one of the Shield Crystals, you can see from the architecture that it is reinforced, over there are the Battle Crystals of the lower hemisphere, and here are the weapons of the left hemisphere.” And this is the Biological Processing Crystal! The power plant is not visible from here, but it is there, right behind the Hyperdrive Crystal! And from here you can see a little of the central compartment, and just by the location of the combat post crystals, it’s immediately clear that this is an assault cruiser!

- Even so? - Master Gorazd looked dumbfounded at Zhdana and again turned his gaze to the young talent: - What else do you know about ships?

Alice immediately perked up, as if she was about to join her favorite game, and not answer the Mentor’s questions, and began enthusiastically expounding:

– Warships of the Shining Ones are divided into three classes: “Low Energy”, “White Energy” and “White Death”. Each of them has species and subspecies. The White Death class unites

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super-powerful warships capable of traveling between galaxies. In addition to the possibility of an intergalactic jump, the “White Death” class is equipped with Zero Transition Crystals, but only an Ace is capable of activating such a Crystal, therefore the presence of at least one Ace is implied on ships of this class. Nowadays there are fewer Aces in the military caste than there are such ships, and Zero Transition Crystals often activate Aces of civilian castes. But soon everything will change, and the Dark Ones will tremble with horror, as they trembled during the second half of the First Assa, when the “White Death” class became the most numerous in the military caste of the Shining Ones!

Alice's white-gold hair changed color to snow-white, and her blue eyes flashed with star-white fire. Her radiance intensified, but the young daughter did not notice the changes, absorbed in the story:

– The first ship of the “White Death” class is an aircraft carrier, the most big ship Shining, it is even larger than intergalactic transport; as a standard, nine full circles of assault cruisers are placed on board, and sixteen such circles are placed on heavy aircraft carriers. The aircraft carrier is so huge that its construction is carried out in space, and it rarely lands on the surface of the Earth; this is only allowed on large Earths and the Giant Lands. Because the area of just one touching point of the aircraft carrier is three hundred square kilometers, and yet it is round! And its civilian counterpart, intergalactic transport, is only slightly smaller in size. Because it has a minimum of weapon systems installed, but it can accommodate much more cargo. Typically, aircraft carriers and intergalactic transport ships do not approach living Earths closer than orbit.

“That’s right,” the Master Mentor cautiously supported young Alice, looking at the changes that had happened to her with increasing bewilderment. “They only land on special occasions.” What else is included in this class?

– The second largest ship of the White Death class is the Ranged Light! – Alice’s star-fiery eyes pulsated with a glow, and its flow testified to the extreme passion of its owner. – It is also huge, although much smaller than an aircraft carrier and intergalactic transport. Its main weapon is long-range Matter and Space Distorters; their effective use requires warriors born in the Sacred Summer, and there are many such Distorters on board! Usually sixteen...” Alice sighed sadly: “The architecture of Battle Crystals is constantly being improved and kept secret. Information about this is closed, I once picked up a resonant key to a sealed Tablet... well... by accident... I was just very curious how the weapons had changed... and it came to me from Guardian Rodgord... But I didn’t do that again!

– How did you manage to pick up the key at such a young age? - Master Gorazd smiled in surprise: - Just don’t tell anyone from the Creator caste about this, otherwise they’ll take you away from us! By the way, what does “how the weapons have changed” mean? Compared to what?

“I don’t know...” young Alice was puzzled. “I don’t really remember why I had this idea.” I just suddenly thought that since the beginning of the Second Assa, the weapons should have changed, because almost four hundred and fifty years had passed... And I wanted to see. Only I didn’t know where. I climbed into the information frequencies of the center of Truth and found the Database Tablet. And it turned out to be sealed. Well... - Alice was embarrassed, - I picked up the resonant key for her, and at that moment Guardian Rodgord caught me... He scolded me and took his word that I would not do this again.

– Guardian of rights, breaking sealed Tablets is not good. – There was more and more surprise in the Master’s gaze. – When you grow up, the caste archives will be at your complete disposal. Is that all you know about the White Death class?

- No! – Alice blurted out proudly. – There are two more ships in this class! The third largest is the strike cruiser! It is much smaller than the first two, but also quite big! It is equipped with antimatter emitters of maximum power and a small Distorter! To fight, such a cruiser requires very powerful warriors, Harmonious or even Aces! These cruisers were common before the invention of the Lights, especially many of them were built during the First Assa, when many combat Aces appeared in the warrior caste! These cruisers are now being refitted for crews born in the Holy Summer. Because half a billion years ago, a Melee Light appeared in the “White Death” class, designed for super-powerful warriors – Harmonious Fighters and mighty Aces! It is very small, smaller than a landing ship, but the power of its Shields and short-range Distorters is colossal! Therefore, the Melee Light always fights in the “battle to the death” mode, this allows him to redirect the energy of their own shots to his enemies! Mighty Ases control the Melee Light alone, young Harmonious fighters, if they have an Ideal Merger with their soul mate, usually share the Light with their spouse until she leaves the glow of the combat post for the sake of the Mother’s lot, so in most versions the Light is This is a one-seater ship.

Alice was silent for a moment, remembering whether she had forgotten anything, and summed up:

– In general, that’s all, in short. In the next class - “White Energy” - there are much more ships! This class is the most common; it does not have the ability to move between galaxies, but is perfectly suited for moving within them! This class includes heavy fire support battleships designed for long-range combat; battleships that can withstand enormous damage and cover not only themselves, but also several other ships with their Shields; sanitary evacuation complexes to which soldiers wounded during the battle are delivered; strike cruisers with high hyperspeed and a powerful Guardian combat post; landing ships carrying assault troops for battles on the surface of the Earth or inside space stations! And in the “White Power” class there are scouts and hunters! It's almost the same thing, the only difference is the application. The reconnaissance ship is a small single-seater ship, whose weapons and protection are not particularly powerful, but the camouflage and spy equipment is of the highest class. The Hunter is the same, only instead of spy equipment, it is equipped with search engines and enhanced weapons with protection. Because hunters are hunting enemy spy ships!

The young narrator took a breath and continued:

– The third class is called “Low Energy” because its ships are designed to move within the solar system. They are capable of short-range hyperjumps, but their hyperdrive is very weak, because it is an emergency function in case of the death of the mother ship. The largest ship of this class is an attack cruiser, they are based on aircraft carriers. The dark ones are terribly afraid of them, because assault cruisers have high firepower, reliable protection and increased maneuverability. In major battles, assault cruisers form the main force of the Radiants. And the smallest warship of this class, an interceptor, is somehow

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looks like an assault cruiser. It’s like the same thing, only tiny, and designed for one warrior. The interceptor does not have non-combat equipment; all available space is occupied by Emitters, Shield Crystals and the power plant. Interceptors are placed on strike cruisers, four units each. There is also an armored boat in this class, and it is much larger than an interceptor, it is a small multi-person ship, it can accommodate up to eight Shining Ones, including a crew consisting of a pilot and a gunner. The armored boat is armed with four low-power antimatter emitters, but has good protection. Armored boats are designed for atmospheric battles and operations within the solar system that do not require serious firepower. But usually in the military caste they are flown by mothers with children.

- How do you know all this? – Zhdana frowned, clearly alarmed by her daughter’s words. – This information is not in the student Tablets of your circle of both castes. And you couldn’t see it either, there is no military caste on Arctida! Have you contacted the warriors secretly from me?

- No. “Alice was clearly surprised by her mother’s words. - For what? They won’t take me in anyway because of the genetic mismatch, you told me yourself! “At these words, the Master Mentor’s face darkened, he cast a gloomy look at Zhdana, but said nothing. Young Alice interpreted this in her own way and hastened to add: “I don’t remember how I know this, honestly!” I just know and know... Maybe one of the sisters once told me... Mom, why are you so worried?

– Because I hope that you are not also picking up resonant keys for the military Tablets! – Zhdana said sternly. “All we needed was a note of protest from the soldiers!”

“And I don’t pick up anything,” young Alice was offended. “I said that I did this only once, and since then I haven’t done it again!” I gave my word to Guardian Rodgord!

- That's good. – Master Gorazd threw a significant look at Zhdana, not allowing him to continue the conversation. “You have to keep your word, and we are sure that you will do so.” Let's move on to civilian ships. What can you tell us about the civilian classes?

“Well...” Alice fell silent, puzzled. – There are many different types of them... boats... different boats... passenger liners and trucks... and each caste has many special ships, according to their destiny... We have not yet studied the classes of civil ships. I can only tell you about our boat.

“Then that’s enough theory for today,” Master Gorazd concluded. “It’s time to get down to business; we’ve already delayed the start of synthesis.” Starting next summer, your student circle will begin to study an introductory course in shipbuilding, and you will learn everything there. And you probably learned about warships from the broadcasts of the military caste, everyone receives their frequencies, we live not far from the front line.

– My Personal Crystal does not accept military frequencies. - Alice took the Personal Crystal from her head in the form of an ornate silver-crystalline rim and handed it to the Mentor: - One of the oscillatory circuits is out of order. Since then, I have not heard the frequencies of the warriors and Arganauts, and the frequencies of the Life Recreational are also not accepted by everyone, only local ones. I asked my mother to fix it, but she didn’t succeed, and then somehow there was no time for it. Master Gorazd, could you fix the Crystal for me? Then, when the time comes? I do not hurry!

- Why didn’t you say it before? “The Master Mentor took the headband and mechanically sent an impulse to the Crystals of his equipment, launching a diagnostic vibration. - How did you manage to break it? The structure of the two cascades is completely broken!

“I don’t know,” Alice sighed guiltily. – It was a long time ago... I woke up one morning, and it wasn’t working... Maybe the personal flow experienced a surge in a dream, and the Crystal deteriorated... It was lying not far from me, on the table.

– If you were a Harmonious Son, I would understand. – Gorazd frowned, listening to the vibrations of the atomic lattices of the damaged device. - But to break something like this without equipment, with a female stream...

The Master Mentor fell silent, studying the resonant responses of damaged molecular lattices, then discovered traces of the impact of professional equipment and raised a darkened gaze to Zhdana. She looked at him pleadingly from behind her daughter.

- I'll fix it later, when I have time. – Gorazd, looking at Zhdana, shook his head disapprovingly and returned the Personal Crystal to young Alice. “But you can just get a new one from the warehouse if you want.” You'll deal with this later. It's time to start synthesis, time is running out. Will you participate?

- Can i? – the young Harmonious daughter froze in surprise.

“It’s possible,” the Master Mentor said sedately. “Then they called you.”

- Hooray! – Alice squealed delightedly, changing her hair color to white-gold, her eye color to bottomless blue and immediately flashing with a burst of glow. – What will I do?

“Take a workplace on the small Crystal of Synthesis,” Master Gorazd pointed her to the energy clot flaring up under his impulse. – I will take the main Crystal and synthesize the ship’s plating. Zhdana will monitor the state of the atomic lattices of production equipment and ensure the stability of the energy flow so that the structure of the synthesized substance is perfectly homogeneous. All properties imparted to the ship's hull, including changes in transparency, transformation of contours, the ability to create hatches and re-delineate compartments in the event of severe damage, must be inherent in each molecule of the skin. Therefore, we will work in a single circuit, and you will be in it with us. You will not be able to interfere in the process, I have disabled this opportunity for you, but you must carefully monitor our actions. Pass our every impulse through deep memory and learn. Pay special attention to the process of merging the synthesized skin with the already finished internal frame of the ship. If you don’t waste your time, then after a dozen or two lessons I’ll try to entrust you with the skin of a small boat for training purposes. Our plant just received several of these vessels for recycling.

“The search is over, this is all that the Dark Ones were able to transport to Arctida,” Commander Askjold stood near the autonomous Gray drones thrown into a pile and reported to Thorbrand on the results of the completed search operation. - IN total thirty units, all with enhanced refractive fields and a power supply for a couple of years. Four pieces of iron were discovered by fighting animals: three in the taiga, at a distance of a thousand kilometers from each other, the fourth was in the mountains, trying to bury itself under an avalanche. Eleven more units were calculated by specialists from the Creator caste; within a day, they calculated all the fluctuations in the atmosphere of Arctida that occurred during the battle, and determined the points at which the drones left orbit. The creators gave us the calculations of the trajectories, and we used them to catch this metal muck. The remaining spies were destroyed by Hunters in space. All the drones were launched by the very first Immortal fleet and were sent to bypass the battle in a wide arc. The refractive fields of the Dark Ones disintegrate during a strong energy surge, so the drones moved slowly, and not all of them managed to reach Arctida.

- This one broke at the moment

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passage of the atmosphere. – Valkyrie Reginleif lightly kicked the separately lying dented titanium case, and the dead mechanism of the Dark Ones flew into a common heap, knocking off fresh snowflakes from their fellows pierced by tachyon blades. “Something inside him gave out, and he fell from a height of ten kilometers.” The impact with the ground caused the refraction field generator to fail and become visible. One of the civilians noticed this disgusting thing when flying past and took it to the Creators. The creators say that the technology used in drones for covert penetration into the atmosphere does not correspond to the technological style of the Grays. They believe that the Grays bought it from the Reds recently and have not yet understood it properly. That's why the drone actually broke down. The full report of the Creator caste was sent to the Guardian Tablets, a copy was transferred to Fleet Headquarters.

“The guardians believe that this is a new technology of the Dark Ones,” continued Commander Askjold. – There is no such thing in our Tablets. But there was nothing new in the spy ships that the Immortal left in the system. The hunters found them quickly. In total, seven were burned and three more were captured without damage. All spies were robotic; there were no live pilots. Everyone has a power reserve of two summers plus solar panels. Their radio transmitters are aimed at the Jur Galaxy, at its segment closest to the Borderline, but no specific destination has been specified.

“The Immortal did not exclude the discovery of his spies,” Thorbrand fell silent for a moment. – Or he immediately expected that we would find them. Therefore, he did not leave a trace that would make it possible to track down his lair. In any case, his goal was not simply to land spies on Arctida. He planned something else, and we could not figure out his plan. This is bad. I feel the shadow of great trouble. There is something of the Arrogant Dark Ones in it, and the Immortals are their devoted slaves.

– What did the Arctida Caste Council say? Askjold asked. – Will they speed up the evacuation of the population?

- They'll speed it up. But not in the way we would like. Arctida will be completely empty in twelve years.

– Is it difficult to resettle just fifty million Radiants faster? – Commander Askjold frowned at the snow-covered mountain of spy scrap metal, sticking out like an unnatural ugly blister in the middle of the landing site. Against the background of the high marble pyramid of the scientific complex, covered with the carved patterned script of the Creator caste, the angular technogenic devices looked rough and pitiful, as if emphasizing the alienness of the world in which they found themselves.

“It’s not a matter of quantity,” Thorbrand shook his head. – The evacuation itself has been going on for a long time. But the Shining Ones have lived on Arctida for twenty million years. Many find it difficult to think that they will have to leave the land of their Ancestors. Even taking into account the fact that after graduating from Assa they will return to their homeland. Also, don't forget that every summer many children are born on Arctida. Millions of years of living in conditions of low gravity have made their bones brittle than those of other Radiants, and the baby does not know how to control the gravitational circuit.

“The civil Castes will wait until pregnant women give birth and newborns grow up,” Askjöld nodded understandingly. – In order not to condemn children to existence on heavier Earths in a limited space with altered gravity.

– To one degree or another, this will have to be done in any case, and the Council of Castes seeks to minimize such a heavy burden by resettling young people first. Branches of the Clans living on other Earths happily accept their relatives. But it is impossible to prohibit the entire population of Arctida from conceiving children in the next twelve years. Children are the future of the Race. They grow up more perfect than us,” Thorbrand nodded at Reginleif, who was throwing snowballs at the student circle of young representatives of the Creator caste, who had just left the pyramid of the scientific complex.

Twelve-year-old daredevils wisely used their numerical superiority in the snowy shootout, and Valkyrie had to practice a fair amount of combat acrobatics so as not to lose face in the dirt.

“They will grow up stronger than us, and their children will surpass their fathers.” This is the key to the improvement of the Shining Ones, making our Race more and more powerful from generation to generation. We fight for them, and they grow, striving to be worthy of us. So it was, so it is, and so it will be forever and ever. - Combat Ace slightly raised his voice: - And I see that some are already itching to take care of their own children. Commander Reginlave!

The High Valkyrie made frightened eyes and took off into flight, freezing in front of the high authorities. The student circle, hearing Asa's voice, immediately stopped the snow chaos and hastily disappeared through the gates of the scientific complex.

- When is your wedding? – Torbrand sternly asked the Valkyrie who had been at fault, frozen like a statue.

- In five years! – the beautiful warrior reported.

“Your future husband submitted a report to me a week ago,” Thorbrand continued to glare at Valkyrie. “In it, he outlined a request to conduct an engagement for you. Have you changed your mind?

- No! – The star-fiery eyes and snow-white hair of the High Valkyrie experienced a burst of radiance at the thought of her lover. “We would like to get engaged as soon as the combat situation allows it!”

– Then why the wedding in five years? – the stern voice of the combat Ace sounded even more stern. – Have you decided to take extra time to think? Doubt your choice?

– We have no doubts! – Reginleif was horrified for a moment when she heard such an assumption. “But our circle of Valkyries, after graduation, decided not to declare themselves Vestas for nine years. Five more to go!

“You will become Wests from tomorrow noon,” Thorbrand ordered. - Any questions?

- Yes! – The eyes of the High Valkyrie, shining with star fire, blazed with determination. – This is our decision! We accepted it all around! And we will not cancel it!

“Everyone accepted it, everyone around you will change your mind,” the voice of the combat Ace carried no emotion. “Tomorrow at noon I wish to receive a report from your circle about declaring oneself a Vesta.” If you are late by more than one part, I will correct all of your personal energy circuits and cause hormonal imbalance. You'll be walking around with warts on your faces for the next five years. I will make an agreement with the Healers so that they will not help you. I have reason to believe that they will meet me halfway when they find out what the fuss is about. Is the order clear?

– Are you kidding, mighty Ace? – Reginleif turned slightly pale, losing the shine of her hair. – This is a joke, isn’t it?

“But tomorrow we will see with the whole group,” Thorbrand promised meaningfully. – After all, Rod Fornar sleeps and sees how his Valkyries, and even the Highest ones, die in battle! Why not make a joke here? – The mighty bulk of the combat Ace loomed over the involuntarily cowering Valkyrie. – In four months there will be a new graduation at the Valkyrie Training Center. So that all the sisters in your circle are engaged by this time. I know that each of you has postponed your engagement at least twice. So take your pick. I said. Tomorrow at noon, announce your decision to me. And now she has disappeared!

The High Valkyrie rushed away, picking up decent speed from the spot, and Askjöld smiled:

- They will accept yours

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ultimatum. All with pleasure. – The five-meter Daari warrior looked after the retreating Reginleif. “Her whole circle is in love, and everyone dreams of keeping their soul mate, born in the Holy Summer, in battle. Did you do this on purpose so that they could save face?

– I conspired with the Guardians in the central ancestral castle and the Asami of the Daari group at the base in the Tara system. This is our common conspiracy. The Circle of Reginleive has not been out of battle for the fifth summer. It's enough. After the engagement, they will fight for two more summers, and after the wedding, not all of them will immediately accept the Mother’s lot. These are the High Valkyries, there will be many more wars in their lifetime... - The gaze of the mighty Ace clouded for a moment, piercing the past, and his facial features returned their former gloominess. “There’s no point in delaying the engagement.”

– What to do with this garbage? – Commander Askjold nodded at the pile of Dark drones, almost completely covered with snow. “We don’t need this anymore, especially civilians.”

– Send to The educational center. The mentors will sort it out. – Thorbrand sent an impulse to the Communication Crystal and called Eirik. The griffin responded immediately; judging by the imprint of its signal, the winged, toothy warrior was chasing some large local bird in the skies. – The first squadron remains here. From now on, Arctida is in a high-threat zone, and we will strengthen precautions. We need to check the solar system again, I will send two more circles of Hunters. Rod Fornar's squadron will be ready to make a zero transition in two hours. We return to base.

Chapter two

Space of low energies, territories of ten Energons, Galaxy Yur, Shiakh star system, 7 hours 40 minutes according to the Gray Race time system

The digital capacity of the planetoid of immortality connected the avatar specified by the owner, and Immortal Mshe opened his eyes. This time he chose not a combat avatar; this medium was an exact copy of his real body, which could only be distinguished from the real one by an in-depth medical examination. Mshe used this avatar on special occasions. For example, if there was a meeting with one of the naive pawns he had placed on the chessboard of his own civilization. The pawns were entirely high-ranking officials, and in front of each other they pompously swelled with importance, demonstrating confidence in their own indispensability. Some, especially stupid ones, truly believed that the shadow owner of civilization could not do without them, and sometimes tried to take liberties. That's what they burned on. Others, those who were smarter, on the contrary, tried in every possible way to please the owner, as a result of which they sometimes gave a rosy picture, behind which they tried to hide their own miscalculations. This is what they signed their own death sentence with. But with both of them you had to keep your eyes open, because you never know who will betray you first. Elu's sworn rival is not asleep, and lately their confrontation has been inflated to the limit. And the avatar, which is an external duplicate of Mshe’s real body, was perfect for that very “keep your eyes open.” Despite the perfect resemblance to the living Mshe, the avatar had several extremely useful gadgets inside it, such as a lie detector, a mobile frequency scanner, and remote network access. During negotiations or private conversations with pawns imagining themselves as queens, this was very useful. The interlocutors saw Mshe in front of them, supposedly without an avatar, and lost their vigilance. Thanks to just one lie detector, Mshe, ten times over the last three hundred years, identified another traitor in the ranks of his high-ranking puppets, who had sold himself to Al or his allies.

And Elu had allies. I had to admit that in the matter of forming a lobby, the sworn competitor was ahead of Mshe, and the situation was increasingly not in his favor. Everything went wrong from that very attack on the Daaria Galaxy, the galactic ancestral home of the Shining Ones. In that battle, Mshe carried out exactly the Emissary’s order and defended the Zero Transition Collector until the death of the last soldier and her own avatar. Elu lost her avatar much earlier, and completely ingloriously, and Msha was assured of the laurels of the heroine. But something terrible happened. In the battle with the Arrogant Shining One, two of the three Emissaries died, and one of the dead was the patron Mshe. The surviving Emissary managed to escape; he later returned to the Yur Galaxy and declared that all the Immortals of the former Emissary now belonged to him and carried out his divine will. Naturally, no one began to argue with the Lord, but the new Emissary relied on the central sectors of the Jur Galaxy and had little interest in the outskirts. He only appeared for the troops or stated orders that must be carried out immediately. As a result, the palm completely left the hands of Mshe in just a hundred years to the Immortals from the center of the Galaxy, and one could only be glad that Mshe did not lose the post of head of the subcommittee of the Immortals of his galactic sector.

At first, this looked like an opportunity to prove himself in a leadership position to the new Emissary, and Mshe zealously set to work, seeking to gather the Immortals into his own team. So that no one would have any doubt about who the leader is here, Mshe used the “Sterilizer” sent to him by his former Emissary. The temptation to hit Nod, the planet Elu, with it was so great that Mshe tried to do it three times. But civil strife among the Immortals was prohibited by the Emissaries, who endlessly demanded troops for the war with the Light Ones, and for this one could easily fall into disgrace, or even lose everything. In addition, Elu at that time had one ally, the Immortal Hwe, who could support Elu if it came to proceedings with the Emissary, and Mshe had no allies at that time. I had to look for another target to strike. And Mshe found her in the Light space of the Border Galaxy. The civilization of some waterfowl was perfectly suited to demonstrate its capabilities. One of their two planets was completely covered by oceans, which made mining difficult, and was at the forefront of a new offensive that the Emissary was preparing. Mshe volunteered to capture the waterfowl system with his own forces and completely clear it of the Light Ones. The emissary agreed and gave him carte blanche, the rest of the Immortals unanimously awaited the result, savoring the inevitable failure.

As soon as the hordes gathered by the Emissaries fell on the space of the Light Ones, Mshe struck with the Sterilizer. The gift of the now deceased Lord worked flawlessly. The key connected the Sterilizer to the fifth-dimensional layer of the Universe, and the guidance system hidden there directed the all-sweeping blow through hyperspace to the exact target. The power of the impact turned out to be even higher than expected, apparently due to the instability of the five-dimensional layer. The planet of the Light waterfowl was burned out in a matter of seconds, along with the oceans and the waterfowl themselves floundering in them. And it turned into a sintered piece of stone, from which streams of water decomposed into atoms flowed in all directions, quickly dissolving in the icy emptiness of space. No problems with the deep sea surface or the natives. At least start developing resources now. The defenders of the solar system who were in space did not expect such a turn that they lost all their bright fighting spirit. Half of them were killed

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Mshe's troops, the other managed to leave the system and escape to a neighboring one, belonging to their own civilization.

Everyone was impressed, even the Emissary expressed condescending praise to Msha and, as a gift from God, generously ordered him to take possession of the captured Light system. Many Immortals correctly interpreted what had happened and expressed their readiness to participate in more substantive negotiations that Mshe proposed. But then everything didn’t go at all as expected. As Mshe suspected, the now deceased Emissary gave a special gift to El. And the hated competitor used it on the third day after Mshe’s triumph. At that moment, the fleets of Elu and several other Immortals were fighting a conquest battle in the second solar system of waterfowl, and the remnants of the defenders were driven out of space to the ocean planet, where they continued fierce resistance. Making sure that all the Immortals would be somehow aware of his actions, Elu activated his secret weapon. The impact it had on the ocean planet was a non-trivial and unpleasant surprise. The irradiated population lost the will to fight. The defenders threw down their weapons and tried to hide, and the civilian waterfowl completely surrendered. Elu's troops captured the ocean planet with minimal losses incurred during the destruction of individual Light individuals who turned out to be resistant to radiation. But there were only a few of them, and very quickly the entire planet found itself in the power of Elu. And the irradiated population began to meekly work for the occupiers, developing for them the resources of their own planet. There was almost no uprising or unrest, and Al could only maintain minimal police units in the occupied territories and drive transport caravans for booty. In other words, the resource base of the entire solar system went to El at an insignificant cost; all the work was done by irradiated natives.

Such a demonstration by a competitor of its capabilities greatly undermined Mshe’s barely strengthened positions. Many Immortals found a coalition with Elu economically more attractive, and Mshe lost most of his potential supporters. Many, if not all, understood perfectly well that in military terms, Mshe’s weapons were undeniably in the lead, but until the end of the holy war against the Light Ones, military operations between the allies were excluded, and time did not stand still. By the time Mshe is able to strike at competitors, competitors may have dozens of planets in their possession, and the loss of one of them will not be fatal. And it is many times more profitable to exploit these dozens of planets at the hands of irradiated natives than to spend considerable funds on organizing resource development in an alien galaxy. And those who are guaranteed an obedient workforce on a captured planet will begin to get rich much earlier and much faster. As a result, by the end of the war with the Light Ones, their leadership may be unattainable.

If not for the timely actions urgently taken by Mshe, he might not have had any supporters left at all. I had to take a risk and organize a leak of information, from which all interested parties found out that the secret weapon donated by the now deceased Lord cannot be used more often than once every few decades. And everyone who expected to quickly receive help from Elu in conquering the Light planets or their own competitors will have to stand in line and stand in it for a hundred or two years, because first of all Elu will take care of himself. This information was a double-edged sword, since it partly lifted the veil of secrecy over the capabilities of Mshe himself, but the news still sobered up some Immortals. Mainly those whose positions in the galactic subcommittee were not strong enough, and Elu was primarily interested in a coalition with the most influential Immortals. The result of all this was the formation of two camps in the subcommittee. The Elu camp had more economic opportunities, and the Mshe camp was in the lead in terms of military strength. But, as was said earlier, it was more expensive to irritate the Emissary by starting an internecine war, and in all other aspects, money solved more problems than fleets.

Mshe's influence was slowly but steadily declining, and the situation, worsening with each passing decade, required rescue measures to be taken. The next century became the most difficult for Mshe; she had to work tirelessly for months on end. The matter moved from a dead point after Mshe developed an effective strategy to combat traitors in the ranks of his pawns, whom Elu bought in batches. Several years of experiments with the capabilities of avatars of immortality bore fruit, and Mshe cleansed the top of his civilization from sold-out puppets with a hot iron. I had to admit with considerable irritation that Elu’s tentacles had reached the highest echelons of power, and the vile competitors were hard at work on a truly monstrous plan: they were going to find and destroy the planetoid of immortality Mshe. So, quietly and with one blow, Elu was going to get rid of his opponent and gain control over his civilization. And the Emissary would not interfere in this, he is only interested in the number of battle fleets deployed to holy war at his command. But it wouldn't change. Moreover, we can safely say that Mshe managed to protect himself almost at the last moment, since by that time the competitors were already not far from their goal.

I had to seriously invest in opposition, to the detriment of my own comfort and personal activity in the Immortals subcommittee. This reduced his importance in the eyes of the Emissary, and made Elu a direct candidate for Mshe's place. One mistake by Mshe and Elu becomes chairman instead of him. We had to put up with this, but a hundred years devoted to the secret war yielded results, and they justified the risks. Firstly, Mshe copied Elu’s tactics of buying everyone and everything and created his own fifth columns in the highest echelons of power of all his competitors. The immortals, of course, eradicated the traitors, but Mshe bought new ones, without particularly paying attention to quality. Because he made his main bet not on the fifth column, it should only distract attention to itself. Planetoid Elu. That's what Msha needed. Find and destroy, repay the competitor with his own coin. And here Msha’s capabilities were higher, he could solve the problem with one blow from the Sterilizer, if only he had the coordinates of the target. Since then, and for two hundred years now, Msha and Elu have been digging the ground with their horns in an attempt to beat each other in this deadly competition. Several times their spies were not far from unraveling the location of the planetoids, but each time both rivals managed to eliminate the threat. Considering the effectiveness of the Sterilizer, Al is much more nervous in this confrontation than Msha. Which is good news.

And although Mshe’s spies have not yet succeeded in their endless attempts to track down their competitor’s planetoid, they were able to find out some details about Elu’s secret weapon. The gift of the deceased Lord was called, according to some sources, “Qi-Ran”, that is, something like a “run of mental energy”, if we consider the name invented by Elu specialists, according to others - “Cir-An”, that is, something like the theme of “imputed calm”, if you count the title

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borrowed from the Yellows. If we consider the last assumption to be more correct, then serious suspicions arise about the Yellows owning a similar or similar device. Which, accordingly, should mean that they have Immortals. The Immortal Galaxies of Yur had no information on either topic, and this caused Mshe to be slightly paranoid. Because the troops arriving from the galaxies of the Gray race occupy a neighboring segment with the troops of the Yellow race in the captured part of the Border. And directly at the junction of the Gray and Yellow troops the Elu fleets are located. It is possible that Elu is trying to establish closer relations with one of the Yellows than just allies in order to use this against Mshe during combat missions. He wants to frame him with someone else's hands! In this regard, recently Mshe has been seriously considering options for concluding a secret alliance with someone from Igigi. It will not be easy to come to an agreement with the reptiles, the old contradictions between the Grays and the Lizards are rooted deep in the past covered with cosmic dust, but the Igo Galaxy is here, right next to Yu. If we manage to set a couple of Igigi civilizations against Elu, this will be a serious bonus. And achieving this is not something absolutely impossible, as it might seem at first glance. According to archival data, somewhere in the Igo Galaxy there is a reptilian civilization that has long and seriously hated Eden, the planet now owned by the Immortal Hwe. And Hwe is Elu's closest ally. Therefore, everything is possible, you just need to be patient and avoid mistakes. Therefore, at the moment Mshe was collecting information on this topic.

But Mshe would not have become Mshe if he had always relied on one or two plans. A true Immortal must be able to achieve multiple goals even as a result of one combination, not to mention several. Therefore, Mshe never tires of causing Al and company constant trouble. He carried out one of these missions quite recently, when his people managed to buy out the director of a planetary intelligence agency from one of Elu’s Immortal partners. The cunning pawn, who once broke through to the kings, took a long time to gain his worth, but in the end he named the amount and other conditions. They, as always, turned out to be predictable: personal security, changes in appearance, a new identity, documents, and so on. Mshe’s people, of course, agreed to everything, and two hours ago the Immortal received a report that the specified subject had been delivered to the planet and was in the depths of a super-secret bunker. And Mshe had the idea to personally talk with the defector. Let him consider himself very significant, since the Immortal speaks to him personally. This lulls the pawns' vigilance and loosens their tongues.

– To Sector-7! - The immortal rose from the intensive care bed, ignoring the medical staff, subservient to the powerful master, and menacingly flashed his black eyes at the bodyguards and assistants who had accumulated behind the doctors: - Complete confidentiality!

The security immediately pushed aside the doctors, who were of no use except for taking care of the avatar during the period of its inactivity, and created a human shield around Mshe. Good work, noted Bessmertny, this way an outside observer will have more reason to believe that Mshe came here in a living body. Meanwhile, the medical staff will sit locked up without means of communication; their trained guards will take care of this. So that no one is tempted to sign their own death warrant by telling someone that an avatar has just risen from the recovery bed.

Caring bodyguards, whose ranks had to be cleaned twice a month so as not to relax and covet the money of competitors, escorted him to Air Force One, and the shadow owner of civilization took to the skies, surrounded by a combat squadron. At the same time, you can check how things are going with the security. Mshe, flawlessly playing the role of a living humanoid, demanded lunch and his favorite elite alcohol and began to savor the exquisite, fabulously expensive drink, simultaneously listening to the conversations of everyone who was within a three-mile radius. This time there were no traitors or criminals who would allow themselves to speak of him with insufficient respect, and Mshe began to ponder the results of the recent mission conducted in the space of the Shining Ones.

From the very beginning, the risk that had to be taken was enormous. Although it was all intended to be quite harmless. Mshe only planned to conduct reconnaissance in the area that he wanted to take ownership of. Mshe's long-standing problem, lack of resources, has not found a fundamental solution. Yes, three hundred years ago he took ownership of the planet of the waterfowl Light Ones, destroyed by the Sterilizer, but this did not change the balance of power, because at the same time Elu took ownership of their second planet, captured with the help of the Qi-Ran. Moreover, Elu's profits over these centuries turned out to be significantly greater, because he gutted his prize with the help of the aborigines, spending money only on transportation. The irradiated waterfowl fed themselves and provided themselves with the minimum necessary for survival, and Mshe could not do anything about this. He desperately needed an additional source of resources that would allow him to win this race. And Mshe found him in the space of the Shining Ones of the Border Galaxy.

The planet, called the Radiant Arctida, was unique in several respects. First of all, because it was outside their living space, which in the Border Galaxy was limited to several constellations, one way or another located inside or in close proximity to the galactic center. The shining ones, as usual, have chosen supergiant stars, and several smaller, but very bright luminaries. The Shining Ones did not carry out further expansion, considering it necessary to leave the Borderland to its natives, of whom there were enough in its spiral arms. And it was precisely this multiplicity of aborigines that led to the fact that the Shining Ones populated Arctida, a planet, by their standards, dwarf and excessively light. The Yarna system, in which it is located, is located extremely conveniently in terms of trade and diplomatic relations. In it, the most economical space paths of more than a dozen different Light races intersect, and this is the second unique feature. No matter who gets the territories of all these civilizations after the Border Coalition captures the Low-Energy Space, the trade routes will not go away. And the one who sits at the point of their intersection will sit on considerable financial flows. Money can be earned literally from the vacuum of space, from trade and transit duties alone. The third unique feature is the position of the Yarna system. It is relatively close to the Frontier and not at all relatively far from the rest of the Radiant systems. Of course, for the Shining Ones themselves, given the capabilities of their technology, this is not a problem, but that is not the point. And the fact is that if Arctida is destroyed, they will not hold on to the Yarna system with their teeth, as they love to do. And they won’t destroy the system along with Mshe’s troops either, because there’s something special

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There won’t be a large concentration of troops there; the “Sterilizer” will do everything.

And the fourth unique feature of Arctida is that the Shining Ones understand perfectly well that their planet, packed to capacity with population, and even located in close proximity to the front line, will be like a red rag for a bull for the Dark Ones who hate them. Everyone will want to take out their evil and resentment on her. This is what happened to Arctida at the very beginning of the Second Universal. Then the Shining Ones managed to defend the system, and they even restored the planet bombarded with nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons, but since then they have kept a minimum population on it, and there are serious cover forces around it. It is difficult to say what makes the Shining Ones still not leave Arctida. Maybe they hope for victory, or maybe they don’t want to lose control over the allies whose space paths intersect in the Yarna system. Be that as it may, their tactics bore fruit: for the sake of destroying four to five tens of millions of civilian Shining Ones living on Arctida, no one wants to lose huge fleets. Especially when there is less toothy prey in the Light Ones’ space. Everyone was able to see this three hundred years ago, during the same offensive when Mshe and Elu first used their secret weapon. Then the Coalition managed to pinch off a sizeable piece from the space of the Light Ones, but failed to capture a single system of the Shining Ones. The Radiants fought for them with their characteristic fanatical, insane fury, and the losses of the Coalition became enormous even before the Arrogant from both sides fought with each other in the middle of the massacre seething in three dozen galaxies.

Arctida was then attacked by reptiles, and the Shining Ones tore off a fair amount of their tails. It was never possible to take Yarna, and subsequently the Light Union recaptured approximately half of what was captured from the Coalition, leveling the front line right in the area of Yarna. It’s not that Yarna was now located directly on the front line, but it was quite possible to reach her. And Mshe understood perfectly well that during the next global offensive many people would try to do this. Moreover, the flanks of the Gray and Yellow segments of responsibility of the Coalition troops converge in that direction. There will be more than enough people willing to put their paw on Yarna’s system. That is why Mshe must not only be the first of the attackers, but completely capture the Yarna system before the rest of the applicants land there. And since the timing of the start of the global offensive is getting closer, it is necessary to prepare for the capture now.

And the recent landing in the Yarna system was aimed at carrying out this preparation. Mshe planned to inspect the system, draw up a fresh and detailed map of it, find out the exact number of Shining Ones on the surface of Arctida, track how long it would take for help to arrive on the planet, and leave the system, simulating a retreat before the superior power of the enemy. At the same time, leaving spy equipment in the system in order to receive information from there in real time in the process of preparing for the capture. But everything went wrong from the very first second. More precisely, even before the first second, because his fleet did not even manage to get out of hyper on its own. These idiotic super-duper technologies of the Radiants knocked his troops out of hyperspace in the distant orbit of Yarna, which made it impossible to approach the inhabited planet even to the minimum functional distance.

Then everything went even worse. There were few shining ones in the system, but they were all a squadron of the military caste. That is, completely frostbitten psychos, devoid of the instinct of self-preservation, who are bursting with an eternal thirst for murder. To top it all off, trained for war from birth. If he, the Immortal Mshe, had at least one such squadron, then not only would there not have been dust left of Elu and her planetoid long ago, he would already have been the uncontested owner of the entire sector of the Jur Galaxy, to which his solar system belongs. In general, the Shining Ones were not impressed by the considerable size of his fleet, which they had to spend a lot of money on, and they rushed to attack. Mshe barely had time to convey the order for the fleet to switch to plan “b”, because plan “a” failed before it could begin. After this, I had to throw two-thirds of the fleet into the meat grinder for my own safety and retreat to a region of space whose physics made it possible to detonate a quark landmine. Because this is the only way to get rid of the fighting Ace of the Shining Ones.

In general, since representatives of the highest subspecies began to appear in the Shining military caste again, it became completely unsafe for the Immortal to be on the battlefield. The Aesir of the Shining Ones, when in contact with an avatar at point-blank range, could calculate the location of the planetoid of immortality, which was all too well known from the sad results of the First Universal. How they sensed a signal that generally came from outside the four-dimensional layer of the Universe is completely incomprehensible. According to some reports, the signal still left some kind of trace here, and the Aesir sensed it. But it didn't make it any easier. The Combat Ace could not only understand where the planetoid was hidden, but also instantly appear directly in its orbit, because the highest subspecies of the Shining Ones, so that they would all burn in agony in their beloved Great Flash, owned zero-transition technology. More precisely, all the Shining Ones owned the zero-transition technology, but only the Ases were able to activate it. Which does not change the essence of the problem.

And, of course, the squadron of the Shining military caste that met the Mshe fleet in the Yarna system was commanded by the combat Ace. And not just one of many, but precisely the one that one hundred and fifty years ago got into the habit of drinking blood from Mshe, pursuing him at every meeting with the tenacity of a maniac. And this time the Shining One did not change his idiotic whim. Most likely, Msha or one of his people once killed one of the Shining One’s relatives, that’s why he got so angry, but Msha didn’t care about the reasons, but their consequences turned out to be very uncomfortable. If not for the latest refractive field technology, purchased by Mshe at an extortionate price from the Reds specifically for this mission, he would have had every chance of losing his avatar before the viewing screens of the flagship knocked out of the hyperjump started working. But the Shining One did not immediately detect the avatar, and Mshe managed to prepare the quark charge for detonation. It would be too naive to count on the fact that the Shining Ones will not detect the spectrum of the quark charge and rush headlong to kill the Immortal with the whole crowd. Only Blacks can think so stupidly, and only because they have nothing special to think about. Therefore, Mshe sent all available forces into battle, and he himself was left almost alone, with a quark charge on board. I really wanted to spoil the Shining Ones one last time, because it was clear that the mission was half a failure.

It will not be possible to approach an inhabited planet, and the second and third waves of invasion going into hyperspace will not change anything. As soon as the Radiants feel that they cannot cope with the superior forces of the enemy, they will call for reinforcements. But Msha had no one else to call, this mission had to be very budgetary, the main forces would be useful to him later. Therefore, he purchased cheap black mercenaries in advance and assembled the remaining units from among the least effective of his troops, amnestied criminals and

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defectors from other planets. Much was not required of them anyway. The main thing was done even at the moment of falling out of the hyperjump: the sabotage fleet, obeying plan “a”, went under the refraction fields and moved around the battle to the planet. The spy equipment went with them. But almost immediately it became clear that the saboteurs would not reach Arctida, there were too many Shining Ones, and they would inevitably discover them much earlier. The more Shining Ones in the system, the less chance there is to hide from them, these are the features of their bioenergy technologies.

Therefore, Mshe redirected the saboteurs to attack the battleships of the Shining Ones, which are not as effective in close combat as in long-range combat. Of course, it would not be possible to destroy all of them, but at least a few would not be offensive. In the meantime, the Shining Ones will cut up the saboteurs and everyone else, the spy equipment and his main secret will have time to pass by. The plan almost collapsed due to the fact that the Ace of the Shining, on his impenetrable Light, did not go into the general battle, but remained next to the battleships, as if mocking Msha. The sabotage fleet had to be stopped so that it would not get too close to the battleships and be detected. Then the Ace of the Shining Ones finally spotted Msha’s avatar and instantly went berserk with anger, apparently remembering past grievances. He charged at the flagship dreadnought with maddened fury, ignoring the presence of the quark mine. Mshe did not take any risks and detonated the charge before the Shining maniac approached within boarding distance. After that, the mission went on by itself, and it was not possible to obtain clear information about what was happening there for a long time, because the Shining Ones blocked long-distance communications and the possibility of hyperjumping in the battle-torn sectors.

How it all ended, Mshe found out only a week later, when at one of the front-line bases of the Gray segment in the captured part of Pogranichnaya, the battered remnants of his fleet emerged from hyperspace. It’s unpleasant, but the Ace of the Shining Ones survived. According to the confused reports of the surviving captains, often contradicting each other, the Shining One's ship emerged from the zone of the quark explosion unharmed and immediately rushed into battle. This, of course, is nonsense, because fear has big eyes. If Ace survived, then he was just lucky, that's for sure. And his Light was probably a millimeter away from destruction. It’s bad that this happened, now the brainless, cowardly soldiers will begin to spread rumors about the invincibility of the Shining Ones with tripled enthusiasm. Even less positive news came the next day, when one after another the connection with the spy equipment that Mshe had left in the Yarna system was lost. The Shining Ones discovered and eliminated all the drones and all the spy ships, although Mshe made sure in advance that there were no biological crews on board the latter, only automation.

For a week Mshe was pretty nervous, fearing the complete failure of his mission, but the machinery of the planetoid of immortality did not fail, and most importantly, the Shining Ones were not found. Namely, the spy avatar Msha has a special design, which turned out to be extremely difficult to make. At first, the planetoid refused to create a non-standard avatar, then it demanded such a quantity of rare resources for this procedure that Mshe weighed for some time whether he even needed this mission at such a cost. In the end, he finally made up his mind and made the right decision. The technologies of the Arrogant Dark Ones produced a spy avatar in the form of a small piece of stone, ordinary space debris, millions of tons of which hang around in different orbits in any solar system. In its inactive state, the avatar did not have any running processes, there was not even a power source in its womb, and the Shining Ones could not detect it. Of course, if the avatar is launched, then activating the equipment will give them the ability to detect. The Shining Ones very quickly detect the operation of man-made equipment, but the bet was made precisely on the absolute inaction of the avatar. For a couple of years it will hang in the asteroid field, and no one will remember that attack. Mshe used this idea more than four hundred years ago, and it justified itself. Therefore, he decided to use it again, especially since enough time had passed since then.

When there is nothing left before the global offensive against the Shining Ones, which the Emissaries are so categorically preparing, Mshe will activate her avatar and conduct radio reconnaissance of the Yarna system. Actually, this avatar consists entirely of various scanning, listening and observation systems, so it won’t take much time. And even if at that moment there is a combat Ace in the Yarna system, Mshe will have time to destroy the avatar before fatal consequences occur. All that is required from the scan is to determine the exact location of Arctida in the solar system in order to strike with the Sterilizer. This is the subtlety of Msha’s carefully thought out plan. If you first invade the Yarna system and target the Sterilizer directly during the battle, then the Shining Ones will defend Arctida, as they always defend their inhabited planets. There may be so many of them in the system that Mshe’s losses will be enormous. And this is extremely undesirable.

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Notes

The Shining Ones civilization does not use the metric system and does not use the concept of “speed of light.” Here and below, these number forms are given for the convenience of the reader.

One part of the Radiants corresponds approximately to 37.5 seconds of Humans.

End of introductory fragment.

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Here is an introductory fragment of the book.

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“There is enough light for those who want to see, and enough darkness for those who don’t.”

Pascal

Chapter first

The single command contour was colored with short impulses from the commanders confirming receipt of the order, and the squadron of battleships, spread out in the cosmic night like a gigantic shining necklace, fired a response salvo. Speeding around the light 1
?The Shining Ones civilization does not use the metric system and does not use the concept of “speed of light”. Here and below, these number forms are given for the convenience of the reader.

The speed of the torpedo ocean was crushed by an area of exorbitant gravity that suddenly appeared on the way, and the approaching wave of bursting snake-like silhouettes was replaced by a gigantic flash of many explosions, merging together. Thorbrand sent out a short pulse on the fleet's command frequency, and the strike groups began their attack, instantly taking off at an acceleration thirty times the photon's current speed. The first echelon of the enemy did not have the technological capabilities to prevent the approach and a moment later found itself in the clinch zone. The Shining strike cruisers, using their superior speed, quickly mixed with the enemy's battle formations, and a hot glow of explosions flared up in the middle of the icy vacuum. Streams of antimatter overwhelmed the enemy flotillas, turning multi-deck monsters studded with guns into blinding photon flares, and the number of the first echelon of the enemy fleet began to gradually decline. The second and third echelons of the Dark Ones began to retreat at full speed, demonstrating their intention to find the boundary of the area of \u200b\u200bspace within which the Shining Ones had blocked the possibility of hyperjumping.

On the surface this seemed reasonable. The Dark Ones' fleet outnumbered the Shining Ones twenty-fold, which actually meant a complete victory for the Shining Ones, and the enemy admiral saw no point in losing his forces in vain. The first echelon of the Dark, as usual, consisted of representatives of the Black race, the rest of the enemy units belonged to the Grays, so the admiral’s decision to sacrifice Aliens to save his own at first glance looked quite expected.

– I see the radiation of a quark charge! One low-power charge installed on a second-tier flagship battleship!

- I confirm! The spectral response is clear. Imitation is excluded.

– Another quark charge on the third-tier flagship! This is a Gray dreadnought, I'll give you the backlight.

– I confirm the compliance of the emissions. The flagship dreadnought has a high-power charge.

“Not yet,” the Guardian from “Daaria”, who heads the general network, answered for everyone. - Are looking for.

“The strike groups continue to fight in their previous positions,” Thorbrand ordered. - Let's wait.

- Prepare to accelerate.

“I confirm,” picked up the next Guardian, also from the battleship squadron. – The dark ones are somewhere nearby, trying to get to our rear.

“I detect a slowdown in the movement of prints,” followed another report. – The enemy’s hidden fleet stops.

“Commander Askjold,” Thorbrand called the reserve commander, “report the situation.”

A clot of inky-black radiant energy with a Light inside instantly gained thirty times the speed of a photon and pierced the boundless infinity of space. The sectors engulfed in seething battle were left behind, and the marks of the Immortal's dreadnought and his bodyguards loomed ahead. Thorbrand felt the emanations of panic horror emanating from the Grays, and the single energy flow of the solar system trembled, feeling the launch of a quark reaction. The Light, blazing with bottomless blackness, instantly changed direction to the opposite, and a huge piece of space boiled with the unbridled rage of enraged elementary particles. Everything around was covered with a gray haze of crumbling space, and an all-consuming stream of destructive energy crashed into the Light. But the infinitely strong blow collided with the infinite power of the combat Ace, dispersed by the mighty Crystals, and the gigantic all-crushing ram admitted defeat in front of its brother, the same Son of the Great Flash. The equipment driven by the energy of Asa, created by the wisdom of millions of generations of the Shining Ones, redirected the incoming destructive force to the revival of the matter it had devoured, and the space around the Light began to restore stability.

In the battle-torn space, the forces of the Radiants increased by three hundred combat units. The Dark Ones, seeing three White Death class ships on their radars at once, quickly calculated their chances and tried to gather all their forces into one fist. This maneuver cost them a tenth of the fleet, and the battle began to boil with renewed vigor. The Dark Admiral, who took command after the Immortal's departure, ordered his subordinates to hold out until the last, promising a generous reward, and was scattered into atoms under the ramming blow of the Light. The remaining enemy officers did not dare to take his place, but the usual panic for such circumstances did not arise among the Dark Ones. The electronic warfare systems of their fleet were unable to push through the hyperjump blockade established by a single network of Guardians, but the enemy continued to strike, desperately trying to maintain battle formations. It became clear that the enemies hoped to hold out until reinforcements arrived.

- Operational in touch.

Four hundred and thirty years dedicated to the destruction of the enemies of the Race. Thousands of brutal battles with no chance of survival.

His name is Thorbrand. The legendary True Ace, a being of gigantic power, without equal in the Galaxy. And now he feels that the hour of the decisive battle is approaching.

LET THOSE WHO COME FOR OUR LAND AND OUR LIVES LOSE THEIR OWN!

Sergey Tarmashev

Ancient. Background. Book three

“There is enough light for those who want to see, and enough darkness for those who don’t.”

Chapter first

– I see the radiation of a quark charge! One low-power charge installed on a second-tier flagship battleship!

- I confirm! The spectral response is clear. Imitation is excluded.

– Another quark charge on the third-tier flagship! This is a Gray dreadnought, I'll give you the backlight.

– I confirm the compliance of the emissions. The flagship dreadnought has a high-power charge.

“Not yet,” the Guardian from “Daaria”, who heads the general network, answered for everyone. - Are looking for.

This book is part of a series of books:

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Sergey TarmashevAncient. Book three. Ancient. Background. Book three Tarmashev ancient prehistory part 3

End of introductory fragment.

Chapter first

Sergey Tarmashev

Ancient. Background. Book three

Chapter first

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