Unexpected meeting. Chapter 6
The dimly lit hangar unpleasantly met Lex. On this type of ships, there were two takeoff decks — one from each side.
Strictly speaking, the concept of "type", to such models of ships, was applied poorly. The ship belonged to the times when the transition to a modular layout began in shipbuilding - only a universal “base” was assembled, which was subsequently completed depending on the tasks and the ship was already targeting its application. This ship contained the best and proven solutions of the old school of shipbuilding, which at that time were traditionally used, but already had the advantages of the modular construction principle. The ships of these series turned out to be reliable and enduring, therefore they were used until now, despite their rather archaic control system. During its long life, the ship was modernized several times, as a result of which it lost the shape of a clear specialization.
The decks had numbers — first and second — but, on double-deck ships, nobody used these signs and called the decks left or right according to where they were located along the ship. The hangar on the right deck was a large and spacious room. Part of the hangar served as the lock sections - when receiving or sending ships, during the locking period, these sections were cut off by powerful bulkheads from the rest of the hangar. At the top of the hangar with chaotic cobwebs were various superstructures made of iron beams and rods, rails for lifts and other metal structures.
The predatory body of the small ship was located not far from the blocked gateway and was oriented towards it with its nose. By a weak pattern, a train of garbage and various small objects from the whole hangar stretched towards the airlock. On the wall opposite to the gateway, a big hole gaped, the wall above it was dotted with holes practically up to the hangar ceiling. At one of the entrances to the hangar, the panels were crumpled, several technical rooms had traces of internal explosions and had a blackish tint. In conditions of poor lighting with its emptiness, the hangar brought abandonment and despondency.
Lex, glancing at the hangar, headed for the ship. In his hands he held a pulse pistol, which was ready for battle from the moment he left the control center. He moved quietly and carefully and was constantly ready for possible surprises. After a course of two-hour intensive recovery and deep sleep, the coordination of the body’s work and its reaction was enjoyable. This somehow brightened up the psychologically broken state, which always comes after taking shock doses of combat medications. Hard and two-hour therapy affected. All these effects were quickly eliminated by the use of relaxing and soothing regenerating agents, but in the current situation it was an unaffordable luxury.
Lex, with his yaw, had already walked half the distance to the courier, as if with peripheral vision, almost intuitively, caught some change in the hangar. Turning around, he saw, next to the opposite wall, the silhouette of a man in a black cloak with a hood thrown over. The weapon was aimed at the human figure even earlier than Lex had finished his sharp turn. The trigger button of his impulse was recessed by two-thirds of its turn, before the first barely audible click, the gun was ready to fire at any moment, obeying further slight pressure on the button or the neural network command of its owner. Lex was ready to swear that there was no one in the hangar when he entered it. Moreover, on the open place where the figure stood, she could not appear just like that. She was simply nowhere to appear so that Lex would not notice it clearly - there were no doors or bulkheads behind which one could hide. The open space of the hangar made Lex's position unprofitable. However, the stranger was in the same situation.
- Lex Orton? What an unexpected meeting! Nice to meet you.
“Yes ... today is some kind of holiday? I didn’t have enough of a church militant here! ”Thought Lex, intently watching the man standing quietly in a spacious robe.
***
The church was one of the oldest organizations in the SCS. The history of its emergence and development has long been forgotten, and few people were interested in - no one could imagine the times when fathers did not yet exist. It seemed how much time there is humanity and the same Church.
SCM was a multi-religious education and, formally, did not have any state religion. However, the relationship between the Church and the government, in its essence, differed little from the relationship between the authorities and the NBS. According to the unspoken rules of the game, the NBS practically did not interfere in the foreign or domestic policies pursued by the SPM government. But the political relationship with the Church was much more complicated and more complicated. In the central regions of the CMS, the clergy practically did not intervene in politics. With an increase in the distance from the center, their background influence increased quite strongly. Sometimes the Church appealed for help to the government and received it, as the controlled buffer zone between the calm and comfortable center and the motley periphery was beneficial to the authorities. Often, the clergymen received help without any requests — powerful analytics departments of the CMS, having calculated the probabilities of situations in a given area, often made the decision to directly or indirectly involve representatives of the Church. It happened and vice versa. Officials of various levels, whose analytics departments did not have the resources to calculate difficult situations or ran into systemic restrictions, turned to fathers for advice and usually received very well-calculated analytical calculations that took into account the interests of the region, neighboring territories, the personal interests of clan officials and, of course, the interests the Church itself and its individual representatives. It might have seemed from the outside that the relationship between the SPM administration and the Church was built exclusively on self-serving, mutually beneficial principles, but in reality this was not quite the case - both sides understood that the stability, prosperity and development of the society in which they exist depends on their well-coordinated interaction and they do not pose a real threat to each other.
Like other religious organizations, the Church constantly and vigilantly took care of the salvation of the souls of people, helped her to figure out how insecure she was, and guided the true people on the path. Anyone could come to the temple and talk about their problem, often receiving some vague advice and instruction that could be interpreted as you please. But it worked - people got a feeling of external support and participation and made decisions more confidently. This was the main meaning of the filigree work of the clergy - the decisions were in fact made by the people themselves, but, with a successful resolution of the problem, the respect and reputation of the Church increased. And if a person did not succeed or the problem worsened, then during the next visit to the temple with a detailed account of the events that took place, it was always easy for fathers to find the cause of failure. The government determined the legal correctness of certain actions of people. Fathers urged to listen to their feelings of justice, conscience, compassion, love, unequivocally divided the actions into good and bad. The church, in fact, set criteria in society for the concepts of good and evil. The tandem of the SPC government and the Church has been balanced by time, allowing the authorities to effectively concentrate on the tasks of management, distracting from the issues of social education of their citizens, without any particular damage. The importance of this tandem for the future was understood at the high levels of the leadership of the SPC and the Church.
One of the ideological directions of the Church was the concept of complete control of scientific and technological progress and its smooth and progressive development. Progressists and many scientists were against this approach, and many, frankly, did not like fathers for sometimes excessive zeal in promoting such ideas, indicating that with such a conservative approach there would be neither neural networks, nor hyperdrives and mankind would hardly ever go into deep space . But the Church was able to speak beautifully and argue its position. She offered the authorities low social tensions due to the smoothing of the sudden introduction of the latest technology. Citizens were guaranteed peace of mind and confidence in life, the absence of unnecessary drastic changes in the future as a result of the mass introduction of new technologies and devices that are able to level out their importance at workplaces or deprive them of work. Peripheral worlds were offered the preservation of ecology, closeness to nature, unity with it and a sense of harmony and happiness of a measured life. And it should be noted that such ideas found a considerable response in the widest strata of society. The positions of the Church were very strong in some peripheral worlds, the ecological balance, which was already broken by the uncontrolled use of technology and the launch of poorly developed production cycles. In such worlds, the authority of the government was low and often the real authorities were precisely the clergy who always said the right things in clear words to people.
Despite all public statements, the Church did not stay far away from technical progress. The churchmen had strong ties with government and private organizations. The security service and the operatives of the Church were armed with modern weapons and technical means of their own development or seriously modernized the equipment obtained. The Church owned more than one modern laboratory, as well as closed production and research centers. From the NBS, the Church received custom neural networks, which were further developed for its use. It was said that in separate, very narrow areas, the clergymen in no way inferior to the NBS, and even ahead of it. The church had no resemblance to the regular army or the fleet of the SPC, but the fighting units of the Church were a very serious opponent, comparing training with army special units. Had the Church and analogues of universals or agents of the NBS - aridans.
***
Lex didn't take his eyes off the man. Typical clothing and the manner of starting a conversation allowed us to make a preliminary conclusion about a person’s membership in the Church. Given the current situation, somehow I could not believe that he was in front of an ordinary father. And if we take into account that he addressed Lex by name and proceed from the worst, then it can be completely assumed that he is aridan, and this is a very serious opponent.
The stranger, after what was said, no longer uttered a word, and Lex decided to continue the conversation in the same style.
- And to you all the best and prosperity. What attracted a passing truck to God forsaken?
The stranger stood for a while, then slowly began to raise his hands to his head.
- I'll fold the hood.
- Only without tricks. Weapons on edge. At least one sudden movement, a wrong look, and I guarantee you to be sent to another world. Look straight at me, Lex warned.
The man opened the hood with a slow and blurred movement. Lex’s gaze opened to a young, emaciated male face with a slight stubble. Thin nose, deep-set eyes, neat hair. A person could be given an appearance of thirty or forty years, but the tenacious and, at the same time, slightly tired look of olive eyes seemed to hint that their owner is much older. The cloak made shapeless the shape of a figure, but, judging by the face, it is unlikely that a person would “sharpen” under the action movie. However, from his own experience, Lex knew how wrong the first impression might be, so he did not relax.
The stranger slowly lowered his hands.
- Lex, I do not wish you evil. And I have no weapons. I need to talk to you before you leave this ship.
- Who are you?
“You only need to know that I am the keeper.”
Lex, who did not expect such a turn of events, was surprised for the second time since his appearance on this ship: “Keepers? .. Here?” But then it explained a lot. He slowly pressed the shutter button and lowered the weapon.
***
Certainly there was little known about the guardians. At least Lex. The Order of the Guardians was a very closed organization. The guardians had good relations with individual members of the Church. Some have suggested that the Order is a well-concealed part of the Church. This would logically explain the information that the Order had the largest archives and data banks and, as a result, great knowledge about artifacts. But, for certain, this was not known. There was practically no contact between the guardians and the government. The church about its relationship with the Order has never spread. What was known for sure is the Order’s interest in artifacts and history. And everyone guessed that the keepers have very specific technologies.
Once upon a time, even before the start of the first large-scale war between the center and the federation of the united worlds of the periphery, the SCM government, which had grown stronger and felt its power, attempted to bring the Order under its control. Among the famous experts on artifacts, there were quite a few adherents of the Order, and this fact led some government officials to reflect on the fact that the Order itself should have many of these valuable things and, possibly, developed technologies based on them. They began to collect any available information on the guardians, to try to bribe or put pressure on well-known representatives of the Order and, often by force, to try to take possession of their property. However, the guardians turned out to be extremely "hard" people - not a single successful fact of voluntary or involuntary cooperation with them was known. The guardians were also "tough". Raiders' seizure of property by the guardians did little - they managed to capture only meaningless objects. But something meaningful keepers from their hands never let out.
On one peripheral planet during the defense, presumably of their data warehouse, the guardians almost completely destroyed two airborne groups. The exact picture of the incident remained unexplained, but the delivery ships were found destroyed on the surface of the planet, and three escort and cover ships were dangling holed in different orbits around the planet. And none of the survivors. The attack was carried out by mercenaries, the raid was classified as "activity of pirates" and no one presented any official complaints to anyone. A week later, the guardians disappeared forever from this planet with the fact that they were guarding. This event opened the eyes of the officials and it became obvious to everyone that the creation of such a powerful and autonomous education, the security service of the CMS, despite its budget, state-of-the-art equipment and broad powers, corny. There was a scandal, heads flew and there were shifts in power. The government did not want to have an independent strong incomprehensible organization at hand and it was decided to deal with the guardians.
After the Order showed that he frankly did not care about all the previous attempts of the authorities, an information company began, which lasted almost seven years. When public opinion reached the desired condition, methodical injections of frankly unproven compromising information about the Order began. In the public mind, the labels were attached to the keepers of extremists, sectarians, terrorists from the periphery. The order began persecution and persecution. Activists, fueled by subsidies, staged demonstrations and demanded to remove the guardians from their home planets. On distant from the center of the planets, where order was maintained less strictly, the guardians were attacked, they tried to penetrate the objects belonging to them, they destroyed property. The results of all these actions always ended the same way - after penetrating the territory under the control of the Order, people quickly turned into corpses. And although the keepers clearly complied with the law under which they were always the victims in such situations, the media distorted the facts, and even openly lied, and replicated similar information across all worlds, which only worsened people's attitude to the Order. The tension was increasing. According to supporters of forceful coercion of the Order to cooperate, there are still a couple of strokes and the guardians will bend.
In one of the distant systems, on patrol, the Order ship was attacked, which, according to the patrol readings, did not respond to the call signs and was identified as a pirate ship. After this event, rushed with crazy speed. Immediately, a small escort group was assembled to transport the damaged ship, which left for a given sector and stopped communicating as soon as it reached him. The warships of the fleet, which discovered fragments from a group of ships sent earlier, urgently advanced into the sector. Ship guardians were not. A few days later, in the second meeting room, half an hour before the urgent meeting opened on the problem of the attacked ship guardians, the ceiling plates and part of the walls collapsed in the second meeting room, filling the entire hall with massive debris. There were no casualties. Signs of the attack was not found. Engineers recorded an anomalous loss of strength of some supporting structures. With some non-public politicians who particularly zealously insisted on putting pressure on the Order, strange things happened in a rather short period of time. All traces led away to the competitors of these people. Some were squeezed out of business, successfully and on time having conducted a number of their transactions in the market. On others, an unknowable compromising material has surfaced, which not only closed the doors to power, but also gave rise to dangerous enemies in it. Some, for unknown reasons, were forced to leave the center at all.The security service closely followed the events and made an obvious conclusion - those who had a real influence were correctly removed, skillfully manipulating information. Such operations could be performed by the Security Council itself. But even a shallow statistical analysis clearly indicated the beneficiary of such events — an organization that is clearly inferior to the Security Council both in number and information penetration.
Dedicated to the events it was obvious that the guardians showed their power and capabilities. Everything that happened was a signal. An indication of the inadmissibility of the further development of the situation in a similar vein. However, the authorities ignored the explicit warnings, giving a go-ahead to their most beloved toy - the bored fleet. The military got down to business and everything ended unexpectedly quickly. After several visits of warships to the void bases of the Order ended with the conversion of these ships into flying scrap metal, the military leadership quickly assembled a strike team, attacking modern raiders from all fleets. In its first task, the group entered the sector on the periphery in which the well-known stationary base of the guardians was located. Two intelligence raiders set off to “touch” the defenses, but were quickly destroyed by unidentified weapons from the Order’s base,after which the guardians expressed a desire to personally communicate with the top management of the fleet. What they said there was not known for certain, but the fighters returned to the bases. The naval leadership argued that if modern raiders were the guardians, they could destroy a maximum of half an hour from a distance, three times the effective radius of the raider itself, then the war is more like beating up babies rather than the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.but the warriors returned to the base. The naval leadership argued that if modern raiders were the guardians, they could destroy a maximum of half an hour from a distance, three times the effective radius of the raider itself, then the war is more like beating up babies rather than the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.but the warriors returned to the base. The naval leadership argued that if modern raiders were the guardians, they could destroy a maximum of half an hour from a distance, three times the effective radius of the raider itself, then the war is more like beating up babies rather than the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.not the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.not the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.
It has slowly begun to reach politicians that it is better to abandon their desires than to aggravate the situation further and push themselves into a corner, bringing everything to an incomprehensible war with a high probability, according to the military, to lose it. The passions in relation to the Order began to subside. After some time, contact groups met with representatives of the Order. It is said that the keepers at the first meetings frankly verbally kicked their opponents, recalling to them a lot of what was done in relation to the Order. They recalled in detail, with so detailed facts and analytical calculations that it was difficult to object and justify even the most quirky diplomats. After several such meetings, when the government finally plunged into serious thoughts about the beneficial resolution of the current situation,Ultimate conditions for reconciliation were received from the guardians.
The result of a decade of confrontation between the SCM and the Order of the Guardians was depressing. The order was compensated for all the damage and paid a very expensive contribution. The keepers demanded that some of the government-owned SPM artifacts be transferred. Several dozens of modern raiders were handed over to them, which immediately disappeared - after the transfer, their identifiers were never and never intersected, and the installed newest informational bugs capable of creating an autonomous hyperlink channel remained silent. The custodians received complete sets of up-to-date documentation from system-forming organizations, such as NBS, HyperTech, Energon, the central shipyard of the VKS, the archive of STSM. But worse was that the Order became much more closed. The guardians left and destroyed all known stationary bases, and nothing was known about the new ones.Mobile bases and guardianship ships were intercepted periodically, but the authorities did not allow tracking them, at least explicitly. It was a sick and humiliating capitulation. Which, nevertheless, allowed to restore all the necessary balance. The Order guaranteed non-interference in politics. The keepers clearly identified their interest - independent observation of the development of civilization, its analysis and balancing, through direct cooperation with the governments of the populated worlds in the case of extraordinary situations. For centuries, this promise has never been broken, the guardians did not intervene, even during the bloody wars of the center with the periphery.allowed to restore all the necessary balance. The Order guaranteed non-interference in politics. The keepers clearly identified their interest - independent observation of the development of civilization, its analysis and balancing, through direct cooperation with the governments of the populated worlds in the case of extraordinary situations. For centuries, this promise has never been broken, the guardians did not intervene, even during the bloody wars of the center with the periphery.allowed to restore all the necessary balance. The Order guaranteed non-interference in politics. The keepers clearly identified their interest - independent observation of the development of civilization, its analysis and balancing, through direct cooperation with the governments of the populated worlds in the case of extraordinary situations. For centuries, this promise has never been broken, the guardians did not intervene, even during the bloody wars of the center with the periphery.
The Church has benefited from all this. She initially was very cautious about the Order, as if intuitively felt his capabilities. The political culture of the Church evolved for a much longer time, in contrast to the young and sometimes stupid structure of the management staff of the CMS. Fathers rarely chopped off their shoulders, preferring diplomatic means of resolving conflicts. The Church, as skillfully as the government, knew how to manipulate public consciousness, but did so implicitly, much more jeweler, with the possibility of obtaining acceptable benefits for all participants in the process of information influence. Therefore, she did not take an active part in the unfolding rough information war. The church pointed to quite a blatant lie that appeared in the media. And sometimes she helped the Order in defiance of the authorities. In those worldswhere the Church was strongest, the Order experienced much less public pressure than in the center of the SPM. And the keepers remembered it. Therefore, the Order with the Church was warmer than with the rest of society.
Since then, much time has passed.Generations of people have changed. Many events and their origins are forgotten. Modern SCM has become much more powerful and influential than before. New officials of the CMS treated the Order neutrally: they did not feel much trepidation before the guardians. But the lesson of the past did not pass in vain: no one allowed himself arrogance or arrogance; with the representatives of the Order, top officials always behaved with caution. Society just forgot everything. It is easy to forget what no one ever remembers. Especially if the authorities contribute to the forgetting of such information.
***
Collecting information about the custodians was a priority when performing the vast majority of tasks. The current situation fell under such instructions. Lex activated neural network recording. Maybe it was right now that his real task began, and before that everything was a banal cover? Could it be that Laer is here and now? What to expect from the guardians Lex had no idea and the presence of Laer in the allies is now regarded as a good plus.
Lex stood with his arms lowered and stared hard at the human figure. The man looked at him carefully.
- Lex, will I come? Believe me, if I wanted to kill you, you would have done it for a long time and you would not even understand anything. And maybe he didn’t even notice, ”the stranger smiled indulgently.
The stranger moved smoothly toward Lex. He walked several tens of meters and found himself in front of the technical premises that had been blasted by the explosions. The very ones where Laera arranged the tricks that helped Lex to leave the hangar without any problems last time. The keeper practically passed the premises, when suddenly there was a loud explosion inside the last compartment, the walls of which were holed in several places. Lex reflexively fell to the floor, aiming at a flight and shooting at a stranger who darted away from his motion vector with a shadow, turning it at lightning speed and dropping his cloak towards Lex. The keeper was very fast. His shot cloak still fell to the floor of the hangar, and he was already far away from him. By the edge of his mind, Lex noted that the acceleration of the guardian’s movements was several times higher than his. But he, Lexa, was probablyThe best preparation in VKS plus individual body modifiers and implants. The cape that fell to the floor was ripped off by a fizzy bright explosion and Lex's neural network went out, leaving him in the hangar as a target. Suddenly, having lost the combat interface and support of the neural network, Lex leaped toward the twisted compartments at random, shooting on the move in the direction the keeper had gone.
Lex burst into the compartment and immediately saw a block-simulator standing in the center of the technical room. “There was no explosion,” he realized, “it was Laer’s unused or repetitive snag.” A minute later, near the room, a muffled explosion was heard and the panels separating the room from the hangar evaporated, opening the compartment. But Lexa was no longer in the room.
In the technical room, Lex instantly went into the ventilation. The passage was narrow and it hardly penetrated the tunnel. In the current situation, it didn’t cause much inconvenience, and Lex would rather quickly crawl through the tunnel, the dimensions of which would have spat at other times. When the explosion came from behind, Lex hid in the hope that he would be lost. For a few minutes nothing really happened, but then, along the ventilation tunnel, explosions began to be heard. The keeper fired from some weapon that created small volumetric explosions in space. The effect was similar to plasma grenades, only realized much more jeweler. Lex rushed down the tunnel, realizing that sooner or later it would be his turn.
Lex nearly fell out of the tunnel into the dimly familiar ventilation shaft, at the bottom of which was an exit to the hangar. Podgadav under the sound of another explosion, Lex jumped to the other side of the mine, almost broke, and disappeared at the level from where he and Fink went to Laeru. It was more free here, but Lex remembered that at the level of fragile ceilings, he tried to crawl more carefully. The keeper apparently noticed movement and an explosion was heard in the mine. The next one is even closer to Lex. Lex realized that the tunnel time was over.
He knocked out the nearest grid and fell out into a technical compartment, the wall of which immediately evaporated from the next explosion. Lex landed unsuccessfully, as the unexpectedly turning on neural network disoriented him for a moment. Lex darted outward, firing in the direction of the guardian’s intended finding, and ran along the compartments on the move, counting down the time before reloading the guardian’s weapons, which he had already managed to calculate by moving through the tunnels. In the last five seconds, the calculated he fell into the first compartment. The wall of the compartment evaporated, but Lex managed to notice from which edge it began to melt and figured out the direction of the shelling. Leaping over the remains of the wall, Lex ran to an open place, orienting himself and saw a human figure. Lex quickly threw up his weapon and, almost without aiming, made a series of shots in the direction of the keeper,then ran to the nearest airlock bulkhead. With a clear view of the goal, the neural network made its adjustments to the shooting and the impulses settled in space rather crowded. The keeper, apparently, did not expect such a frank arrogance, so the evasion began too late and he was no longer up to the fleeing Lex. Lex noticed out of the corner of his eye as the keeper tilted back. “Got it. Well, he is also quick, ”thought Lex, immediately changing direction towards the custodian - the situation change had to be maximally used in its favor.Lex noticed out of the corner of his eye as the keeper tilted back. “Got it. Well, he is also quick, ”thought Lex, immediately changing direction towards the custodian - the situation change had to be maximally used in its favor.Lex noticed out of the corner of his eye as the keeper tilted back. “Got it. Well, he is also quick, ”thought Lex, immediately changing direction towards the custodian - the situation change had to be maximally used in its favor.
Running up to the keeper Lex kept his body lying on the sight and, as it turned out, not in vain. When the guardian was about twenty meters away, he jumped up, rather high above the floor. Lex made a couple of shots. On the guardian's clothing, multicolored circles spread. Some kind of defense, Lex thought and tried to aim at his head. The keeper threw in his direction a hand with an open palm and widely spread fingers. The palm was turned to Lex. The guardian's hand bent slightly, as if holding back some kind of strong pressure, and then sharply straightened out, momentarily ahead of Lex's shot. Lexa overturned and threw ten meters. As if he had crashed into the wall of the hangar from the entire run, and then, like a ball, it flew away from it. In the head of the guardian, he did not hit - the impulse passed above due to the factthat Lex’s body abruptly reversed its trajectory. Lex's head rang from the blow, and a wave of pain passed through his body. The neural network injected anesthetic and combat accelerator into the body. The impulse pistol was unknown where, and the enemy was across from him about twenty meters away.
Suddenly, the keeper jerked and ran to the airlock, to which Lex had originally fled. After a few seconds the trajectory of his movement penetrated the hail of bullets. Lex heard the whistling sound of the KIRPs from somewhere above the hangar ceiling. The keeper managed to hide behind the bulkhead. The shooter made a pause, which was used by the keeper. Lex heard a crash and a small glowing white ball carried away towards the shooter. A little cloud of explosion exploded and Lex, who had already fully awakened, rushed to the keeper, trying to take advantage of the pause in reloading the keeper's weapon. He came close to the bulkhead as a keeper appeared because of her, and rather non-technologically he smashed a clenched fist across his face and did the hooking. Lex rolled across the hangar floor. The keeper stepped a few steps behind him. Re-earned KIRP, but several levels below. The keeper was forced to retreat again.Lex quickly rolled back from the line of sight of a possible keeper review. There was nowhere to hide. If only some boxes had been placed somewhere, Lex thought evilly. Suddenly KIRPa was silenced and silence fell in the hangar.
The silence did not last long. The shooter put a convincing number of small steel blanks into the lock bulkhead to try the keeper to lean out, but he missed the moment when the keeper literally rolled out, huddling up as a result of the bulkhead, straightened up and fired. This time, Lex noticed the keeper's weapon. Two inconspicuous bracelets were put on his left hand - one at the wrist, the other - closer to the elbow. At first, the elbow bracelet appeared, then the bracelet at the wrist, the keeper stretched out his hand, folded his outstretched fingers together, twisting his thumb under his palm, and after a second at a distance of half a meter the moving white ball appeared. Immediately earned KIRP and the keeper ran from her on the hangar. Lex did not understand this maneuver - the keeper was running into open space! Lex followed him.The explosion flourished not far from the working TRADE and Lex had already thought that the keeper had missed as a piece of the upper technical level collapsed. KIRPa was silent. Together with a broken iron along the wall a figurine fell, in which Lex recognized Laerou.
The guardian stopped running, turned to Lex and made an inviting gesture: come on, they say, here. Lex went right on the right, immediately giving a crushing left blow, but the keeper managed to dodge. Further fight, as such, was not. The keeper was much faster than Lex, who could only spin around him and try to push the blocks that he very skillfully exposed. Rarely enough, but very effectively, the keeper counterattacked Lex. After Lex was able to deliver a powerful blow to the guardian’s jaw, the latter’s patience apparently dried up and Lex was simply discarded during the next attack. One meter up and five meters back. The body ached and refused to rise.
Lex remembered Fink's body flying past, the figure of a falling Laer. And now everything depended on him. From him, who could practically oppose nothing to the person who just played with him. “Laera, I only found her today,” thought flashed through Lex’s head. Strange, but it gave new strength. Logic prompted that it was necessary to stop the resistance and try to take advantage of the situation in some other way - because the keeper wanted to talk about something? But the sudden anger that settled in Lex, leveled the arguments of reason, forcing him to desire only one thing - to kill the guardian somehow. Do not eliminate, destroy or neutralize, namely kill. Lex jumped abruptly, turning to attack. Half a minute later he was again dropped. Then again. Once again.The blood anesthetic allowed Lex to quickly come to his senses, crush the pain, get up and try to continue the fight. This lasted until the keeper struck a blow, from which all Lex's muscles contracted with wild pain, and he could no longer physically stand up after him. Lex curled up in a ball that rolled on the floor of the hangar, making inarticulate sounds. This lump was stopped and strongly pressed to the floor by the keeper, who chose an open part of Lex's body, aimed, lightning-fast leaning the autoinjector to him and jumped sharply to one side.
***
Lex was lying against the wall of the hangar just opposite his ship. I didn't have the strength to move, my whole body ached unbearably. The neural network, reporting numerous sprains and external injuries, noted that the internal organs did not suffer much, there were no fractures and concussions of the brain. The integrity of the neural network structure was at 99.92%.
Lex saw someone's boots approaching from a distance. They were approaching, but Lex could not hear the clicking sound on the steel floor of the hangar. And this was incomprehensible, since they had a hard form - Lex knew that for sure. Lex's right eye was open and he was too lazy to close. Finally the boots stopped right in front of him.
- Well, what, wagon, calmed down? - A voice came from above.
That's the fun day finale, Lex thought dully. After what happened to him, Lex didn’t understand why he was practically not injured. If you believe the testimony of the neural network, he had to just relax. Take a nap, for example. But for some reason, Lex did not see with his left eye, and any movement was given with monstrous pain. And it was more like the truth. Such different assessments of the neural network and its sensations would be easily explained by fairly strong brain damage and, as a result, the neural network, but with such damages Lex would not be conscious in his mind. Therefore, he was inclined to believe the figure 99.92.
To believe is really simple - they tell you and you believe. Nothing complicated.You can critically accept the information received, subject it to a logical analysis, check for compliance with information from other sources, and make a conclusion about the degree of reliability of part or all of the information. But for this you need to think. Spend your strength. And I did not want to think. Better to lie down just like that. Not moving. And if you do not think - then why not believe it? Good, soothing numbers, saying that everything will be fine with him. Then Lex remembered the sector number that Daona 37 had reported. "So I am in this sector number," Lex decided. Why not?The integrity of the ship's AI structure is certainly no less than at the moment in its neural network. Then why not believe this information?
Lex's thoughts were interrupted by an injection, after which the consciousness slowly began to fade. “Laera,” Lex suddenly remembered, “how did that happen to her? .. She tried to cover me. She needs to try to help - she can be alive! ”. Consciousness made the last breakthrough, but could not cope with the drug introduced into the body, which methodically turned off mental centers in Lex's brain. "Although what's the point of deceiving yourself will not be able to survive if you unconsciously fall in a pile of debris from half the height of the hangar," thought Lex, relaxed. “Sorry, Laera,” Lex mentally turned to her. “Soon I will join you.” More Lex could not think about anything and his consciousness plunged into saving darkness.
Unexpected meeting.Chapter 6.
Text version: 1.0.0.
Date of first publication: 02.22.2017.
Last edited on February 22, 2017.
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 5 is the previous chapter.
Chapter 6 is the current chapter.
Chapter 7 is the next chapter.
Strictly speaking, the concept of "type", to such models of ships, was applied poorly. The ship belonged to the times when the transition to a modular layout began in shipbuilding - only a universal “base” was assembled, which was subsequently completed depending on the tasks and the ship was already targeting its application. This ship contained the best and proven solutions of the old school of shipbuilding, which at that time were traditionally used, but already had the advantages of the modular construction principle. The ships of these series turned out to be reliable and enduring, therefore they were used until now, despite their rather archaic control system. During its long life, the ship was modernized several times, as a result of which it lost the shape of a clear specialization.
Comment from the author and abstract
Comment on the author.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my reflections on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some reflections on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications for the development of human civilization. The idea of the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
')
Annotation.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the almost completed regular inspection of the ship and the cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my reflections on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some reflections on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications for the development of human civilization. The idea of the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
')
Annotation.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the almost completed regular inspection of the ship and the cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
For those who read for the first time or read a long time ago: decoding used abbreviations
VKF - Military Space Fleet
ZKP - Spare Command Point
AI - Artificial Intelligence
KIRP - Kinetic Induction Rotary Gun
NBS - NeuroBiosystem (corporation in SPM)
Security Center of CMS - Security Service of CMS
SCM - Union of Central Worlds
FIPI - Physio-Intellectual-Psychological Index (person)
CCTS - Central Command Telemetry System
TSUK - Ship Control Center
EMIG - Electromagnetic Pulsed Grenade
ZKP - Spare Command Point
AI - Artificial Intelligence
KIRP - Kinetic Induction Rotary Gun
NBS - NeuroBiosystem (corporation in SPM)
Security Center of CMS - Security Service of CMS
SCM - Union of Central Worlds
FIPI - Physio-Intellectual-Psychological Index (person)
CCTS - Central Command Telemetry System
TSUK - Ship Control Center
EMIG - Electromagnetic Pulsed Grenade
The decks had numbers — first and second — but, on double-deck ships, nobody used these signs and called the decks left or right according to where they were located along the ship. The hangar on the right deck was a large and spacious room. Part of the hangar served as the lock sections - when receiving or sending ships, during the locking period, these sections were cut off by powerful bulkheads from the rest of the hangar. At the top of the hangar with chaotic cobwebs were various superstructures made of iron beams and rods, rails for lifts and other metal structures.
The predatory body of the small ship was located not far from the blocked gateway and was oriented towards it with its nose. By a weak pattern, a train of garbage and various small objects from the whole hangar stretched towards the airlock. On the wall opposite to the gateway, a big hole gaped, the wall above it was dotted with holes practically up to the hangar ceiling. At one of the entrances to the hangar, the panels were crumpled, several technical rooms had traces of internal explosions and had a blackish tint. In conditions of poor lighting with its emptiness, the hangar brought abandonment and despondency.
Lex, glancing at the hangar, headed for the ship. In his hands he held a pulse pistol, which was ready for battle from the moment he left the control center. He moved quietly and carefully and was constantly ready for possible surprises. After a course of two-hour intensive recovery and deep sleep, the coordination of the body’s work and its reaction was enjoyable. This somehow brightened up the psychologically broken state, which always comes after taking shock doses of combat medications. Hard and two-hour therapy affected. All these effects were quickly eliminated by the use of relaxing and soothing regenerating agents, but in the current situation it was an unaffordable luxury.
Lex, with his yaw, had already walked half the distance to the courier, as if with peripheral vision, almost intuitively, caught some change in the hangar. Turning around, he saw, next to the opposite wall, the silhouette of a man in a black cloak with a hood thrown over. The weapon was aimed at the human figure even earlier than Lex had finished his sharp turn. The trigger button of his impulse was recessed by two-thirds of its turn, before the first barely audible click, the gun was ready to fire at any moment, obeying further slight pressure on the button or the neural network command of its owner. Lex was ready to swear that there was no one in the hangar when he entered it. Moreover, on the open place where the figure stood, she could not appear just like that. She was simply nowhere to appear so that Lex would not notice it clearly - there were no doors or bulkheads behind which one could hide. The open space of the hangar made Lex's position unprofitable. However, the stranger was in the same situation.
- Lex Orton? What an unexpected meeting! Nice to meet you.
“Yes ... today is some kind of holiday? I didn’t have enough of a church militant here! ”Thought Lex, intently watching the man standing quietly in a spacious robe.
***
The church was one of the oldest organizations in the SCS. The history of its emergence and development has long been forgotten, and few people were interested in - no one could imagine the times when fathers did not yet exist. It seemed how much time there is humanity and the same Church.
SCM was a multi-religious education and, formally, did not have any state religion. However, the relationship between the Church and the government, in its essence, differed little from the relationship between the authorities and the NBS. According to the unspoken rules of the game, the NBS practically did not interfere in the foreign or domestic policies pursued by the SPM government. But the political relationship with the Church was much more complicated and more complicated. In the central regions of the CMS, the clergy practically did not intervene in politics. With an increase in the distance from the center, their background influence increased quite strongly. Sometimes the Church appealed for help to the government and received it, as the controlled buffer zone between the calm and comfortable center and the motley periphery was beneficial to the authorities. Often, the clergymen received help without any requests — powerful analytics departments of the CMS, having calculated the probabilities of situations in a given area, often made the decision to directly or indirectly involve representatives of the Church. It happened and vice versa. Officials of various levels, whose analytics departments did not have the resources to calculate difficult situations or ran into systemic restrictions, turned to fathers for advice and usually received very well-calculated analytical calculations that took into account the interests of the region, neighboring territories, the personal interests of clan officials and, of course, the interests the Church itself and its individual representatives. It might have seemed from the outside that the relationship between the SPM administration and the Church was built exclusively on self-serving, mutually beneficial principles, but in reality this was not quite the case - both sides understood that the stability, prosperity and development of the society in which they exist depends on their well-coordinated interaction and they do not pose a real threat to each other.
Like other religious organizations, the Church constantly and vigilantly took care of the salvation of the souls of people, helped her to figure out how insecure she was, and guided the true people on the path. Anyone could come to the temple and talk about their problem, often receiving some vague advice and instruction that could be interpreted as you please. But it worked - people got a feeling of external support and participation and made decisions more confidently. This was the main meaning of the filigree work of the clergy - the decisions were in fact made by the people themselves, but, with a successful resolution of the problem, the respect and reputation of the Church increased. And if a person did not succeed or the problem worsened, then during the next visit to the temple with a detailed account of the events that took place, it was always easy for fathers to find the cause of failure. The government determined the legal correctness of certain actions of people. Fathers urged to listen to their feelings of justice, conscience, compassion, love, unequivocally divided the actions into good and bad. The church, in fact, set criteria in society for the concepts of good and evil. The tandem of the SPC government and the Church has been balanced by time, allowing the authorities to effectively concentrate on the tasks of management, distracting from the issues of social education of their citizens, without any particular damage. The importance of this tandem for the future was understood at the high levels of the leadership of the SPC and the Church.
One of the ideological directions of the Church was the concept of complete control of scientific and technological progress and its smooth and progressive development. Progressists and many scientists were against this approach, and many, frankly, did not like fathers for sometimes excessive zeal in promoting such ideas, indicating that with such a conservative approach there would be neither neural networks, nor hyperdrives and mankind would hardly ever go into deep space . But the Church was able to speak beautifully and argue its position. She offered the authorities low social tensions due to the smoothing of the sudden introduction of the latest technology. Citizens were guaranteed peace of mind and confidence in life, the absence of unnecessary drastic changes in the future as a result of the mass introduction of new technologies and devices that are able to level out their importance at workplaces or deprive them of work. Peripheral worlds were offered the preservation of ecology, closeness to nature, unity with it and a sense of harmony and happiness of a measured life. And it should be noted that such ideas found a considerable response in the widest strata of society. The positions of the Church were very strong in some peripheral worlds, the ecological balance, which was already broken by the uncontrolled use of technology and the launch of poorly developed production cycles. In such worlds, the authority of the government was low and often the real authorities were precisely the clergy who always said the right things in clear words to people.
Despite all public statements, the Church did not stay far away from technical progress. The churchmen had strong ties with government and private organizations. The security service and the operatives of the Church were armed with modern weapons and technical means of their own development or seriously modernized the equipment obtained. The Church owned more than one modern laboratory, as well as closed production and research centers. From the NBS, the Church received custom neural networks, which were further developed for its use. It was said that in separate, very narrow areas, the clergymen in no way inferior to the NBS, and even ahead of it. The church had no resemblance to the regular army or the fleet of the SPC, but the fighting units of the Church were a very serious opponent, comparing training with army special units. Had the Church and analogues of universals or agents of the NBS - aridans.
***
Lex didn't take his eyes off the man. Typical clothing and the manner of starting a conversation allowed us to make a preliminary conclusion about a person’s membership in the Church. Given the current situation, somehow I could not believe that he was in front of an ordinary father. And if we take into account that he addressed Lex by name and proceed from the worst, then it can be completely assumed that he is aridan, and this is a very serious opponent.
The stranger, after what was said, no longer uttered a word, and Lex decided to continue the conversation in the same style.
- And to you all the best and prosperity. What attracted a passing truck to God forsaken?
The stranger stood for a while, then slowly began to raise his hands to his head.
- I'll fold the hood.
- Only without tricks. Weapons on edge. At least one sudden movement, a wrong look, and I guarantee you to be sent to another world. Look straight at me, Lex warned.
The man opened the hood with a slow and blurred movement. Lex’s gaze opened to a young, emaciated male face with a slight stubble. Thin nose, deep-set eyes, neat hair. A person could be given an appearance of thirty or forty years, but the tenacious and, at the same time, slightly tired look of olive eyes seemed to hint that their owner is much older. The cloak made shapeless the shape of a figure, but, judging by the face, it is unlikely that a person would “sharpen” under the action movie. However, from his own experience, Lex knew how wrong the first impression might be, so he did not relax.
The stranger slowly lowered his hands.
- Lex, I do not wish you evil. And I have no weapons. I need to talk to you before you leave this ship.
- Who are you?
“You only need to know that I am the keeper.”
Lex, who did not expect such a turn of events, was surprised for the second time since his appearance on this ship: “Keepers? .. Here?” But then it explained a lot. He slowly pressed the shutter button and lowered the weapon.
***
Certainly there was little known about the guardians. At least Lex. The Order of the Guardians was a very closed organization. The guardians had good relations with individual members of the Church. Some have suggested that the Order is a well-concealed part of the Church. This would logically explain the information that the Order had the largest archives and data banks and, as a result, great knowledge about artifacts. But, for certain, this was not known. There was practically no contact between the guardians and the government. The church about its relationship with the Order has never spread. What was known for sure is the Order’s interest in artifacts and history. And everyone guessed that the keepers have very specific technologies.
Once upon a time, even before the start of the first large-scale war between the center and the federation of the united worlds of the periphery, the SCM government, which had grown stronger and felt its power, attempted to bring the Order under its control. Among the famous experts on artifacts, there were quite a few adherents of the Order, and this fact led some government officials to reflect on the fact that the Order itself should have many of these valuable things and, possibly, developed technologies based on them. They began to collect any available information on the guardians, to try to bribe or put pressure on well-known representatives of the Order and, often by force, to try to take possession of their property. However, the guardians turned out to be extremely "hard" people - not a single successful fact of voluntary or involuntary cooperation with them was known. The guardians were also "tough". Raiders' seizure of property by the guardians did little - they managed to capture only meaningless objects. But something meaningful keepers from their hands never let out.
On one peripheral planet during the defense, presumably of their data warehouse, the guardians almost completely destroyed two airborne groups. The exact picture of the incident remained unexplained, but the delivery ships were found destroyed on the surface of the planet, and three escort and cover ships were dangling holed in different orbits around the planet. And none of the survivors. The attack was carried out by mercenaries, the raid was classified as "activity of pirates" and no one presented any official complaints to anyone. A week later, the guardians disappeared forever from this planet with the fact that they were guarding. This event opened the eyes of the officials and it became obvious to everyone that the creation of such a powerful and autonomous education, the security service of the CMS, despite its budget, state-of-the-art equipment and broad powers, corny. There was a scandal, heads flew and there were shifts in power. The government did not want to have an independent strong incomprehensible organization at hand and it was decided to deal with the guardians.
After the Order showed that he frankly did not care about all the previous attempts of the authorities, an information company began, which lasted almost seven years. When public opinion reached the desired condition, methodical injections of frankly unproven compromising information about the Order began. In the public mind, the labels were attached to the keepers of extremists, sectarians, terrorists from the periphery. The order began persecution and persecution. Activists, fueled by subsidies, staged demonstrations and demanded to remove the guardians from their home planets. On distant from the center of the planets, where order was maintained less strictly, the guardians were attacked, they tried to penetrate the objects belonging to them, they destroyed property. The results of all these actions always ended the same way - after penetrating the territory under the control of the Order, people quickly turned into corpses. And although the keepers clearly complied with the law under which they were always the victims in such situations, the media distorted the facts, and even openly lied, and replicated similar information across all worlds, which only worsened people's attitude to the Order. The tension was increasing. According to supporters of forceful coercion of the Order to cooperate, there are still a couple of strokes and the guardians will bend.
In one of the distant systems, on patrol, the Order ship was attacked, which, according to the patrol readings, did not respond to the call signs and was identified as a pirate ship. After this event, rushed with crazy speed. Immediately, a small escort group was assembled to transport the damaged ship, which left for a given sector and stopped communicating as soon as it reached him. The warships of the fleet, which discovered fragments from a group of ships sent earlier, urgently advanced into the sector. Ship guardians were not. A few days later, in the second meeting room, half an hour before the urgent meeting opened on the problem of the attacked ship guardians, the ceiling plates and part of the walls collapsed in the second meeting room, filling the entire hall with massive debris. There were no casualties. Signs of the attack was not found. Engineers recorded an anomalous loss of strength of some supporting structures. With some non-public politicians who particularly zealously insisted on putting pressure on the Order, strange things happened in a rather short period of time. All traces led away to the competitors of these people. Some were squeezed out of business, successfully and on time having conducted a number of their transactions in the market. On others, an unknowable compromising material has surfaced, which not only closed the doors to power, but also gave rise to dangerous enemies in it. Some, for unknown reasons, were forced to leave the center at all.The security service closely followed the events and made an obvious conclusion - those who had a real influence were correctly removed, skillfully manipulating information. Such operations could be performed by the Security Council itself. But even a shallow statistical analysis clearly indicated the beneficiary of such events — an organization that is clearly inferior to the Security Council both in number and information penetration.
Dedicated to the events it was obvious that the guardians showed their power and capabilities. Everything that happened was a signal. An indication of the inadmissibility of the further development of the situation in a similar vein. However, the authorities ignored the explicit warnings, giving a go-ahead to their most beloved toy - the bored fleet. The military got down to business and everything ended unexpectedly quickly. After several visits of warships to the void bases of the Order ended with the conversion of these ships into flying scrap metal, the military leadership quickly assembled a strike team, attacking modern raiders from all fleets. In its first task, the group entered the sector on the periphery in which the well-known stationary base of the guardians was located. Two intelligence raiders set off to “touch” the defenses, but were quickly destroyed by unidentified weapons from the Order’s base,after which the guardians expressed a desire to personally communicate with the top management of the fleet. What they said there was not known for certain, but the fighters returned to the bases. The naval leadership argued that if modern raiders were the guardians, they could destroy a maximum of half an hour from a distance, three times the effective radius of the raider itself, then the war is more like beating up babies rather than the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.but the warriors returned to the base. The naval leadership argued that if modern raiders were the guardians, they could destroy a maximum of half an hour from a distance, three times the effective radius of the raider itself, then the war is more like beating up babies rather than the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.but the warriors returned to the base. The naval leadership argued that if modern raiders were the guardians, they could destroy a maximum of half an hour from a distance, three times the effective radius of the raider itself, then the war is more like beating up babies rather than the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.not the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.not the work of real men. And the fleet categorically does not want to act as a baby. Moreover, the military was confident that the guardians were not the enemy. Neither internal nor external. And, in support of their point of view, they brought some arguments that were not open to the public.
It has slowly begun to reach politicians that it is better to abandon their desires than to aggravate the situation further and push themselves into a corner, bringing everything to an incomprehensible war with a high probability, according to the military, to lose it. The passions in relation to the Order began to subside. After some time, contact groups met with representatives of the Order. It is said that the keepers at the first meetings frankly verbally kicked their opponents, recalling to them a lot of what was done in relation to the Order. They recalled in detail, with so detailed facts and analytical calculations that it was difficult to object and justify even the most quirky diplomats. After several such meetings, when the government finally plunged into serious thoughts about the beneficial resolution of the current situation,Ultimate conditions for reconciliation were received from the guardians.
The result of a decade of confrontation between the SCM and the Order of the Guardians was depressing. The order was compensated for all the damage and paid a very expensive contribution. The keepers demanded that some of the government-owned SPM artifacts be transferred. Several dozens of modern raiders were handed over to them, which immediately disappeared - after the transfer, their identifiers were never and never intersected, and the installed newest informational bugs capable of creating an autonomous hyperlink channel remained silent. The custodians received complete sets of up-to-date documentation from system-forming organizations, such as NBS, HyperTech, Energon, the central shipyard of the VKS, the archive of STSM. But worse was that the Order became much more closed. The guardians left and destroyed all known stationary bases, and nothing was known about the new ones.Mobile bases and guardianship ships were intercepted periodically, but the authorities did not allow tracking them, at least explicitly. It was a sick and humiliating capitulation. Which, nevertheless, allowed to restore all the necessary balance. The Order guaranteed non-interference in politics. The keepers clearly identified their interest - independent observation of the development of civilization, its analysis and balancing, through direct cooperation with the governments of the populated worlds in the case of extraordinary situations. For centuries, this promise has never been broken, the guardians did not intervene, even during the bloody wars of the center with the periphery.allowed to restore all the necessary balance. The Order guaranteed non-interference in politics. The keepers clearly identified their interest - independent observation of the development of civilization, its analysis and balancing, through direct cooperation with the governments of the populated worlds in the case of extraordinary situations. For centuries, this promise has never been broken, the guardians did not intervene, even during the bloody wars of the center with the periphery.allowed to restore all the necessary balance. The Order guaranteed non-interference in politics. The keepers clearly identified their interest - independent observation of the development of civilization, its analysis and balancing, through direct cooperation with the governments of the populated worlds in the case of extraordinary situations. For centuries, this promise has never been broken, the guardians did not intervene, even during the bloody wars of the center with the periphery.
The Church has benefited from all this. She initially was very cautious about the Order, as if intuitively felt his capabilities. The political culture of the Church evolved for a much longer time, in contrast to the young and sometimes stupid structure of the management staff of the CMS. Fathers rarely chopped off their shoulders, preferring diplomatic means of resolving conflicts. The Church, as skillfully as the government, knew how to manipulate public consciousness, but did so implicitly, much more jeweler, with the possibility of obtaining acceptable benefits for all participants in the process of information influence. Therefore, she did not take an active part in the unfolding rough information war. The church pointed to quite a blatant lie that appeared in the media. And sometimes she helped the Order in defiance of the authorities. In those worldswhere the Church was strongest, the Order experienced much less public pressure than in the center of the SPM. And the keepers remembered it. Therefore, the Order with the Church was warmer than with the rest of society.
Since then, much time has passed.Generations of people have changed. Many events and their origins are forgotten. Modern SCM has become much more powerful and influential than before. New officials of the CMS treated the Order neutrally: they did not feel much trepidation before the guardians. But the lesson of the past did not pass in vain: no one allowed himself arrogance or arrogance; with the representatives of the Order, top officials always behaved with caution. Society just forgot everything. It is easy to forget what no one ever remembers. Especially if the authorities contribute to the forgetting of such information.
***
Collecting information about the custodians was a priority when performing the vast majority of tasks. The current situation fell under such instructions. Lex activated neural network recording. Maybe it was right now that his real task began, and before that everything was a banal cover? Could it be that Laer is here and now? What to expect from the guardians Lex had no idea and the presence of Laer in the allies is now regarded as a good plus.
Lex stood with his arms lowered and stared hard at the human figure. The man looked at him carefully.
- Lex, will I come? Believe me, if I wanted to kill you, you would have done it for a long time and you would not even understand anything. And maybe he didn’t even notice, ”the stranger smiled indulgently.
The stranger moved smoothly toward Lex. He walked several tens of meters and found himself in front of the technical premises that had been blasted by the explosions. The very ones where Laera arranged the tricks that helped Lex to leave the hangar without any problems last time. The keeper practically passed the premises, when suddenly there was a loud explosion inside the last compartment, the walls of which were holed in several places. Lex reflexively fell to the floor, aiming at a flight and shooting at a stranger who darted away from his motion vector with a shadow, turning it at lightning speed and dropping his cloak towards Lex. The keeper was very fast. His shot cloak still fell to the floor of the hangar, and he was already far away from him. By the edge of his mind, Lex noted that the acceleration of the guardian’s movements was several times higher than his. But he, Lexa, was probablyThe best preparation in VKS plus individual body modifiers and implants. The cape that fell to the floor was ripped off by a fizzy bright explosion and Lex's neural network went out, leaving him in the hangar as a target. Suddenly, having lost the combat interface and support of the neural network, Lex leaped toward the twisted compartments at random, shooting on the move in the direction the keeper had gone.
Lex burst into the compartment and immediately saw a block-simulator standing in the center of the technical room. “There was no explosion,” he realized, “it was Laer’s unused or repetitive snag.” A minute later, near the room, a muffled explosion was heard and the panels separating the room from the hangar evaporated, opening the compartment. But Lexa was no longer in the room.
In the technical room, Lex instantly went into the ventilation. The passage was narrow and it hardly penetrated the tunnel. In the current situation, it didn’t cause much inconvenience, and Lex would rather quickly crawl through the tunnel, the dimensions of which would have spat at other times. When the explosion came from behind, Lex hid in the hope that he would be lost. For a few minutes nothing really happened, but then, along the ventilation tunnel, explosions began to be heard. The keeper fired from some weapon that created small volumetric explosions in space. The effect was similar to plasma grenades, only realized much more jeweler. Lex rushed down the tunnel, realizing that sooner or later it would be his turn.
Lex nearly fell out of the tunnel into the dimly familiar ventilation shaft, at the bottom of which was an exit to the hangar. Podgadav under the sound of another explosion, Lex jumped to the other side of the mine, almost broke, and disappeared at the level from where he and Fink went to Laeru. It was more free here, but Lex remembered that at the level of fragile ceilings, he tried to crawl more carefully. The keeper apparently noticed movement and an explosion was heard in the mine. The next one is even closer to Lex. Lex realized that the tunnel time was over.
He knocked out the nearest grid and fell out into a technical compartment, the wall of which immediately evaporated from the next explosion. Lex landed unsuccessfully, as the unexpectedly turning on neural network disoriented him for a moment. Lex darted outward, firing in the direction of the guardian’s intended finding, and ran along the compartments on the move, counting down the time before reloading the guardian’s weapons, which he had already managed to calculate by moving through the tunnels. In the last five seconds, the calculated he fell into the first compartment. The wall of the compartment evaporated, but Lex managed to notice from which edge it began to melt and figured out the direction of the shelling. Leaping over the remains of the wall, Lex ran to an open place, orienting himself and saw a human figure. Lex quickly threw up his weapon and, almost without aiming, made a series of shots in the direction of the keeper,then ran to the nearest airlock bulkhead. With a clear view of the goal, the neural network made its adjustments to the shooting and the impulses settled in space rather crowded. The keeper, apparently, did not expect such a frank arrogance, so the evasion began too late and he was no longer up to the fleeing Lex. Lex noticed out of the corner of his eye as the keeper tilted back. “Got it. Well, he is also quick, ”thought Lex, immediately changing direction towards the custodian - the situation change had to be maximally used in its favor.Lex noticed out of the corner of his eye as the keeper tilted back. “Got it. Well, he is also quick, ”thought Lex, immediately changing direction towards the custodian - the situation change had to be maximally used in its favor.Lex noticed out of the corner of his eye as the keeper tilted back. “Got it. Well, he is also quick, ”thought Lex, immediately changing direction towards the custodian - the situation change had to be maximally used in its favor.
Running up to the keeper Lex kept his body lying on the sight and, as it turned out, not in vain. When the guardian was about twenty meters away, he jumped up, rather high above the floor. Lex made a couple of shots. On the guardian's clothing, multicolored circles spread. Some kind of defense, Lex thought and tried to aim at his head. The keeper threw in his direction a hand with an open palm and widely spread fingers. The palm was turned to Lex. The guardian's hand bent slightly, as if holding back some kind of strong pressure, and then sharply straightened out, momentarily ahead of Lex's shot. Lexa overturned and threw ten meters. As if he had crashed into the wall of the hangar from the entire run, and then, like a ball, it flew away from it. In the head of the guardian, he did not hit - the impulse passed above due to the factthat Lex’s body abruptly reversed its trajectory. Lex's head rang from the blow, and a wave of pain passed through his body. The neural network injected anesthetic and combat accelerator into the body. The impulse pistol was unknown where, and the enemy was across from him about twenty meters away.
Suddenly, the keeper jerked and ran to the airlock, to which Lex had originally fled. After a few seconds the trajectory of his movement penetrated the hail of bullets. Lex heard the whistling sound of the KIRPs from somewhere above the hangar ceiling. The keeper managed to hide behind the bulkhead. The shooter made a pause, which was used by the keeper. Lex heard a crash and a small glowing white ball carried away towards the shooter. A little cloud of explosion exploded and Lex, who had already fully awakened, rushed to the keeper, trying to take advantage of the pause in reloading the keeper's weapon. He came close to the bulkhead as a keeper appeared because of her, and rather non-technologically he smashed a clenched fist across his face and did the hooking. Lex rolled across the hangar floor. The keeper stepped a few steps behind him. Re-earned KIRP, but several levels below. The keeper was forced to retreat again.Lex quickly rolled back from the line of sight of a possible keeper review. There was nowhere to hide. If only some boxes had been placed somewhere, Lex thought evilly. Suddenly KIRPa was silenced and silence fell in the hangar.
The silence did not last long. The shooter put a convincing number of small steel blanks into the lock bulkhead to try the keeper to lean out, but he missed the moment when the keeper literally rolled out, huddling up as a result of the bulkhead, straightened up and fired. This time, Lex noticed the keeper's weapon. Two inconspicuous bracelets were put on his left hand - one at the wrist, the other - closer to the elbow. At first, the elbow bracelet appeared, then the bracelet at the wrist, the keeper stretched out his hand, folded his outstretched fingers together, twisting his thumb under his palm, and after a second at a distance of half a meter the moving white ball appeared. Immediately earned KIRP and the keeper ran from her on the hangar. Lex did not understand this maneuver - the keeper was running into open space! Lex followed him.The explosion flourished not far from the working TRADE and Lex had already thought that the keeper had missed as a piece of the upper technical level collapsed. KIRPa was silent. Together with a broken iron along the wall a figurine fell, in which Lex recognized Laerou.
The guardian stopped running, turned to Lex and made an inviting gesture: come on, they say, here. Lex went right on the right, immediately giving a crushing left blow, but the keeper managed to dodge. Further fight, as such, was not. The keeper was much faster than Lex, who could only spin around him and try to push the blocks that he very skillfully exposed. Rarely enough, but very effectively, the keeper counterattacked Lex. After Lex was able to deliver a powerful blow to the guardian’s jaw, the latter’s patience apparently dried up and Lex was simply discarded during the next attack. One meter up and five meters back. The body ached and refused to rise.
Lex remembered Fink's body flying past, the figure of a falling Laer. And now everything depended on him. From him, who could practically oppose nothing to the person who just played with him. “Laera, I only found her today,” thought flashed through Lex’s head. Strange, but it gave new strength. Logic prompted that it was necessary to stop the resistance and try to take advantage of the situation in some other way - because the keeper wanted to talk about something? But the sudden anger that settled in Lex, leveled the arguments of reason, forcing him to desire only one thing - to kill the guardian somehow. Do not eliminate, destroy or neutralize, namely kill. Lex jumped abruptly, turning to attack. Half a minute later he was again dropped. Then again. Once again.The blood anesthetic allowed Lex to quickly come to his senses, crush the pain, get up and try to continue the fight. This lasted until the keeper struck a blow, from which all Lex's muscles contracted with wild pain, and he could no longer physically stand up after him. Lex curled up in a ball that rolled on the floor of the hangar, making inarticulate sounds. This lump was stopped and strongly pressed to the floor by the keeper, who chose an open part of Lex's body, aimed, lightning-fast leaning the autoinjector to him and jumped sharply to one side.
***
Lex was lying against the wall of the hangar just opposite his ship. I didn't have the strength to move, my whole body ached unbearably. The neural network, reporting numerous sprains and external injuries, noted that the internal organs did not suffer much, there were no fractures and concussions of the brain. The integrity of the neural network structure was at 99.92%.
Lex saw someone's boots approaching from a distance. They were approaching, but Lex could not hear the clicking sound on the steel floor of the hangar. And this was incomprehensible, since they had a hard form - Lex knew that for sure. Lex's right eye was open and he was too lazy to close. Finally the boots stopped right in front of him.
- Well, what, wagon, calmed down? - A voice came from above.
That's the fun day finale, Lex thought dully. After what happened to him, Lex didn’t understand why he was practically not injured. If you believe the testimony of the neural network, he had to just relax. Take a nap, for example. But for some reason, Lex did not see with his left eye, and any movement was given with monstrous pain. And it was more like the truth. Such different assessments of the neural network and its sensations would be easily explained by fairly strong brain damage and, as a result, the neural network, but with such damages Lex would not be conscious in his mind. Therefore, he was inclined to believe the figure 99.92.
To believe is really simple - they tell you and you believe. Nothing complicated.You can critically accept the information received, subject it to a logical analysis, check for compliance with information from other sources, and make a conclusion about the degree of reliability of part or all of the information. But for this you need to think. Spend your strength. And I did not want to think. Better to lie down just like that. Not moving. And if you do not think - then why not believe it? Good, soothing numbers, saying that everything will be fine with him. Then Lex remembered the sector number that Daona 37 had reported. "So I am in this sector number," Lex decided. Why not?The integrity of the ship's AI structure is certainly no less than at the moment in its neural network. Then why not believe this information?
Lex's thoughts were interrupted by an injection, after which the consciousness slowly began to fade. “Laera,” Lex suddenly remembered, “how did that happen to her? .. She tried to cover me. She needs to try to help - she can be alive! ”. Consciousness made the last breakthrough, but could not cope with the drug introduced into the body, which methodically turned off mental centers in Lex's brain. "Although what's the point of deceiving yourself will not be able to survive if you unconsciously fall in a pile of debris from half the height of the hangar," thought Lex, relaxed. “Sorry, Laera,” Lex mentally turned to her. “Soon I will join you.” More Lex could not think about anything and his consciousness plunged into saving darkness.
Unexpected meeting.Chapter 6.
Text version: 1.0.0.
Date of first publication: 02.22.2017.
Last edited on February 22, 2017.
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 5 is the previous chapter.
Chapter 6 is the current chapter.
Chapter 7 is the next chapter.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/370189/
All Articles