Path book 1 Jane

  "What's wrong, Little Fox?" Deniska asked, sitting down next to him.

  "Did someone hurt you?" that's Ham.

  "I offended myself," I replied, smiling through my tears.

  "Everything is a damn empathy, a damn gift!" My father muttered.

  "It's not about her, Daddy! I just wanted to cry. And there won't be any more problems with empathy. They helped me solve the problem."

  "Who?!" The whole company stared at me in surprise.

  "I was asked not to tell, and I promised to keep quiet!"

  "That's right... you can't leave alone for half an hour, you've already met someone, you've made promises to someone," Leshka rattled.

  "You must keep your word!" raising his finger sententiously, he said.

  "You're just like a Tanris master. Put your hand behind your back, too," and everyone laughed.

Chapter 6-2. Date

  June 10, 2360

  Deniska's voice pulled me out of my memories.

  "Little fox, let's fly up. We're doing everything as agreed. Are you okay?"

  "The best of all!" I get up on the seat and kiss my brother on the cheek. "Don't do anything stupid yourself!"

  "No way!"

  We sit down behind the store, Vaska and I take seats against its wall and wait. About ten minutes later, we hear footsteps and some kind of rattling. I look around the corner and see a young Turian woman dressed in a short jumpsuit skirt and a white T-shirt with a picture of the face of some creepy critter. She walks thoughtfully down the path, wearing sandals, but that doesn't stop her from kicking an empty plastic beer can in front of her. Her gaze is fixed into the distance, detached and thoughtful. Vaska and I hide around the corner and start giggling with our hands over our mouths.

  "Shhh!" Deniska hisses at us. "Be quiet, you'll scare me off!" He comes over and also looks around the corner. A second later, he hides, looks at us, a malicious smile on his lips. "You're as accurate as ever, Foxi! Another lover. She's coming out now, and your party begins. Vasenka, make a serious face! Foxi, I'm counting on you! That's it, let's go."

  The first part of the plan went like clockwork. Under Vasya's and my double pressure, Noverry gave up after two minutes. Our blue one put her on her bike, we all flew together to the Rinaris for a swimsuit for the turianka, and we warned her parents that she would be with us in the Mirror.

  We arrived at the lake. There was already a table, blankets, and a steaming cauldron on the heater. All our noisy crowd of small fry were shouting and chasing a ball through the shallow water. There was no sign of Ham.

  Tamil stood on the shore and looked after the younger ones. Tamil stood on the shore and looked after the younger ones. He turned around, saw us, green eyes flashed, raised his hand. He turned around, saw us, green eyes flashed, raised his hand.

  "Hello everyone again! Hey, Noverry!"

  "Hello, Tam," the Turian replied. There was confusion mixed with curiosity in her feelings. She looked around, looking for someone.

  "Noverry, Noverry! Look at the mud crabs we caught!" The younger ones ran up in a noisy group.

  "Come on, we'll show you," Gina says and takes Noverry's hand.

  "Yes, yes! We'll show you!" Naina takes her other hand.

  "Let's go quickly!" Vanka shouts, jumping up.

  "They're so big, and they have claws — vo!" the younger one shows a fishing gesture.

  Noverry laughs, changes her clothes and goes to watch the catch. He's in shallow water, in a netted dish.

  The bike is humming, Hem is back, a hefty bouquet strapped to the seat behind him. He gets off the bike, unfastens the bouquet and goes to the water. The feelings are confusion, determination, and a little bit of fear.

  Noverry turns around, sees Hem and smiles, he smiles back at her, but inside there is real panic. The girl approaches, without taking her eyes off her brother. He hesitates, standing at the water's edge.

  "Hello, Haymon."

  "Hello, Neverry. I flew to the foothills here.... Well, anyway... you are... here."

  "What's that? Ham?"

  "This is for you!" says the brother and hands her a bouquet.

  "Thank you," the girl replies softly.

  It's getting late. I'm sitting cross-legged on the bedspread, and Vasya is sitting next to me. We look at Hem and Noveri walking along the shore, they are holding hands and talking quietly about something. The Turian has a fluffy wreath on her head, which we wove for her from her own bouquet. Their feelings are like the sea — I'm rocking on them, I'm sitting and enjoying myself with my eyes closed. Deniska sits down between us, hugs Vaska and me, and says softly:

  "We did well! Yes, girls?"

  "Yeah! Well done!" I answer.

  Vasya is silent, she rests her head on her brother's shoulder and is quietly sad.

  "Let's get ready! It's going to get dark soon, and we haven't even cleaned up the trash yet." This is Deniska speaking. In about fifteen minutes, having collected everything and fixed it on the bikes, we are going home. Noverry gets on the bike to Hem, he will take her himself. Saying goodbye, we fly away.

  It's completely dark, and I'm sitting on the fence outside my house, looking up at the sky. It's bright and starry here. There are two moons, but they are both much smaller than the earth's. One is bluish, the other is bright yellow. A shadow flickers and a growing buzz is heard. Hem has arrived, ahead of him flies a feeling of happiness, joy and some kind of ... inspiration. A real storm! He puts the bike next to me, and I jump off the fence and sit next to him. He turns around.

  "Saw her off?"

  "Yes!"

  "How did everything go?"

  "You know, I told her everything...."

  "Have you confessed?"

  "Yes! And she said that too!.."

  My brother scoops me up in his arms and hugs me to him. I hug him back.

  "Thank you, Little Fox! You're the best I've got!"

  "You're welcome, Hame."

  "I feel like it's going to be an unforgettable summer!" he says and starts laughing.

Chapter 7.1 The grandfather.

  Eugene (Mendoir, August 2360)

  Admirals of the Fleet

  August 4, 6:00 a.m.

  Morning workout is our everything. It's been raining outside for a week now, everything is wet and damp, my father put away his bike, and flies to work on the family flyer. Such weather is rare on Mendoir in summer. It usually rains at night, although it is heavy, but it is short, and by morning it is almost dry. But sometimes a cyclone creeps over a rocky ridge, and then it pours until it all pours out, sometimes for two weeks. This is exactly the case now, and we are all sitting at home together, it's good that we have a big company, we don't get bored. It's quite stuffy at home from the dampness, I opened both vents and the front door, and I'm still sweating mercilessly from the stuffiness. Deniska is panting in the foyer of the second floor, studying in the front garden now is like torture, he almost slurps from the water, like a swamp.

  Polkan came out from under the house, darted like a gray shadow behind the house — there he had a small nook with sand as a toilet — he was gone for a minute, maybe two, and our dog, casting a sad glance around, disappeared back. The impudent red muzzle knows how to use the toilet perfectly well, so he stays at home in bad weather.

  Somehow he decided to take advantage of my personal push, but he's a child, so he's short and small — koteyka got a big bummer. Looking at how the redhead is sitting on the toilet, which is obviously too small for him: once one or the other hind legs fall, there is nowhere to put the front paws, and if you leave them on the floor, it becomes difficult to do the job — I laughed so much that I woke up my older brothers. When they fell out of their room and looked at me, they followed my hand and saw the same picture, where the stubborn muzzle did not give up trying to perch on my potty. A moment later, the three of them were laughing, and they fell to the floor.... The redhead, having failed, made a face with a brick, took offense at us and ran off to the first floor, to the parents' bathroom. And we walked away for another five minutes, periodically breaking down. Now he sleeps on my desk, occupying it entirely — after all, I have a healthy cat. But sleeping with him is awesome!

  I recently learned great news: my Grandparents are coming to visit us, accompanied by Uncle Stephen. He persuaded the old people to come to us. Even before I was born, my parents went to visit them on Earth to show them their grandchildren. But this time the senior Hacketts will come to the viewing. And his father's parents died while Batya was still studying at the academy. Being complete spacemen, they went on an expedition, and their ship made an emergency exit from the relay. That is, he entered the relay as expected, but where did he leave?..

  Ye-e-es, there are two admirals on one small ranch! My uncle was given an admiral without the prefix "counter" and immediately appointed chief of Staff of the Fifth Fleet. Actually, I've already seen Uncle Stephen — he came to visit us on vacation in the fall of '57. I remember perfectly well how my brothers and I returned from school, and a man I didn't know was standing in our yard. For some reason, it's not customary to keep photos and stuff here, so I've only heard of my uncle a couple of times, but I haven't even seen holographs.For some reason, it's not customary to keep photos and stuff here, so I've only heard of my uncle a couple of times, but I haven't even seen holographs. The brothers saw him, flew off their bikes, and yelled,

  "Uncle Steve has arrived!" hang on to him. Laughing, he hugged them both. After that, the guys took him by the hands and led him to me, saying that they were going to introduce him to someone. He came over, and I looked at him carefully. Well, he doesn't look much like a gaming Hackett. A fairly young man, without a beard, with a wheat-colored mustache on a tanned face, eyes light blue like the summer sky, and a deep straight scar running from his right eyebrow down through his cheek, cutting through his upper lip. He was wearing a white turtleneck and jeans, and had Cossacks on his feet.

  "Allow me to introduce myself, young lady! Rear Admiral Stephen Hackett, your uncle."

  I got off the bike and tried to curtsy gracefully, as much as possible in a unique way.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir! Eugenia Shepard, your niece."

  In general, I liked him, a real man: honest, direct, with a good sense of humor. There is a real English hardness in him — the hardness with which they conquered half the world and proved that the sun never sets over the British Empire. My uncle and father have been friends since the first year. We sat at the same desk, received praise and punches together. We went on layoffs and went to work. We even sat together in the punishment cell. Steve, after the death of the elder Shepards, brought his father to his home and introduced him to his parents. The elder Hackett accepted my father as his own son, in fact, the Hacketts replaced the father of the parents. At the same time, my father met my mother, but it took thirty-five years before my father proposed to her. And all these years the men have been friends! While making a career, we helped each other in every possible way, sometimes even with weapons! There were even jokes about them in the Fifth Fleet, like: "If you see Shepard, then be careful — Hackett is here somewhere!"

  After another barotrauma, I don't know what kind, as the cosmologists say, "inhaled the vacuum," daddy was completely written off. They said that if he tried to breathe vacuum one more time, then no hospital would help him. As I already know, barotrauma is the most common cause of death in the Cosmo Fleet. Not wounds, not burns, either ordinary, chemical or cryo, but the most common consequences of depressurization. A small hole in a COCOS (COCOS — csuit or Compensation suit (English) — a compensation suit, a lightweight and soft spacesuit with power protection elements worn by ship crews in combat conditions. Amphibious and contraband teams wear armor.) — and now your blood is already boiling, and if you also hesitate, then that's it, you're ready!

  After retiring, my father proposed to my mother, and the old people breathed a sigh of relief, otherwise they had already despaired of waiting for their grandchildren. My parents lived on Earth with my elders for a while, but the realization that there were no real career or professional prospects put a lot of pressure on my father. So Rosenkov Materials' proposal to participate in a joint poly-species colony project for all races of the Citadel (peace is provided by the Republic, scientific support is provided by the Salarians, financing is provided by RM and the Hierarchy) was accepted by my father without hesitation. My grandfather then said that this was complete nonsense, and RM would not succeed. He and his father had a big argument, as Uncle Steve and Mom say, and they got personal. At the end, Grandfather said, they say, words are empty! Prove it by deed!

  "I'll prove it!" dad replied then, and with his whole life he was able to convince his grandfather, and the ritual of brotherhood with the Tanirs completed the picture! I asked Dakar if any other Turians had ever asked any other people to become brothers. Dakar replied that he had not heard anything about such a thing — it seems that we are the first.

  A month and a half ago, my father sent allergo modifiers for the elderly to Earth, they can't live here without them. And so — a month of adaptation of the body under the influence of the modifier, and, voila, you can live on Mendoir. There is food here, drink water... and not only water. In the canon, I've always been amazed at how intelligent people can run around planets with a developed biosphere without fear of anything. Okay, here people have such a wonderful thing as a bioblock, developed at the very dawn of the colonization era. This is a symbiotic virus that makes humans immune to 99.9% of the microflora, both terrestrial and alien! After bioblockade vaccinations, people simply stopped getting sick, and the chance of dying from inflammation caused by wounds is almost zero. However, it will not save you from poisoning with animal and plant waste products. That's why a comprehensive expedition from the Council and the Alliance has been working hard on Mendoir for five years, studying all kinds of fauna and flora here, and their danger to all races. Based on their work, allergo modifiers were created. Without them, I sniffed a flower or ate a berry, or even just drank water from the river — I got an anaphylactic shock, and hello, you're already in paradise. So the landing force on new planets with a developed biosphere runs in tightly sealed armor. And yes, such an expedition is currently sitting on Eden Prime and preparing materials for colonization, has been sitting for three years and will be sitting for at least three more. So colonization is a slow business, which is what surprised me about the canon! In thirty years, and a bunch of colonies! Earth is everywhere, not other worlds... only, it looks like there will be a purely human colony on Eden Prime, it is very far from the Council systems.