Path book 1 Igor

"Igor, calm down. Distance: half a thousand and thirty. Wind: five, headwind. Drop: twelve down," Grandpa mumbled.

I am calm, emotions are suppressed. I put the risks in the crosshair, and there's an animal in the crosshair, and I clearly realized: I'm going to miss, 530 meters is almost the maximum distance for the praying mantis. Fuck you, bitch, fuck you! goosebumps crawl down my spine. What should I do?! What if... I turn on the combat mode and spread my wings. Emotions turned off, the picture slowed down, the chirping of pseudo-grasshoppers turned into a mournful rasp, you can hear the rustle of a pencil on a pipe, Nasar's heavy breathing and grandfather's voice, as if from a pipe, low, low.

— Wind: three sideways oncoming, on the right.

It seems that my grandfather uttered this phrase for half an hour. I aim the scope, muklik stands, the ears turn slowly, the crosshair is slightly to the left and higher. Words cannot convey my state — my head is like a calculator, the equations are solved by themselves, it is only necessary to pay attention to a particular problem. I pull the bracket -BOOM! — the butt pushes into the shoulder, I see a bullet flying, hitting muklik in the neck, just below the head, piercing through, throwing out a reddish cloud at the exit. The animal falls, its hind legs twitch. There are zero emotions of my own, only the joy of my grandfather and sister is felt nearby. I close my eyes, take off my shield. Oh-h! Rollback started!.. I want to jump and jump, yell and fool around! With an incredible effort, I hold myself in place. Nasar whispers fervently in my ear from an excess of feelings:

"Well, what a good fellow you are!"

Grandfather's voice:

"Clever boy, Igor!" and there is love and pride in feelings.

We switch places with Nasar: a friend lies down in my place and looks at the scope, and I pick up binoculars.

This army binoculars is a good thing: comfortable, in a soft plastic case, non-breakable, with a built-in rangefinder, as well as wind, humidity and temperature sensors. It's both day and night, and it also has a thermal imager.

"Nasar, my boy, breathe! Breath control, inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale! Clever boy! Imagine that you are a holly bush. Standing here, rustling the leaves, you're calm and unperturbed," Grandfather says slowly. You don't care about the mukliks, let them run. Under the recitation of his grandfather, Nasar calmed down, serenity crept into his feelings.

"Distance: five thousand forty. Wind: two, sideways, on the left. Drop: eleven down.

The sound of sight rollers is heard. Nasar is calm, his breathing is even. I look through binoculars — not far from the lying one, another muklik sticks out, anxiously looks around and, shuddering, pulls: "Kli-kli-mukli, kli-kli-mukli!". Silence, the soft whistling of the wind in the grass, even Azanti is sitting, not drawing. DAMM! I'm startled. Muklik is thrown back, he shudders a couple of times and falls silent.

"Ah, I got it, I got it!" Nasar shouts. We jump up, hug, laugh, shout and jump at the same time.

"Ah, well done! Oh, my beauty!" Grandfather shouts, laughing. "Come here, my hunters, my grandfather's delight! — and hugs us both.

Azanti looks at us, feeling a little envy and, for some reason, regret. Grandfather turns around, looks at her, smiles, lets us go and sits down next to her. Hugs her and speaks softly:

"Hunting can be taught. Yes, it's long and tedious, but you can make a hunter out of anyone! And you can't teach how to draw like you, granddaughter. So you're a hundred times more expensive than any hunter!"

Azanti clings to her grandfather's side and looks at him with love and adoration. And you magpies, what are you waiting for? Now Nazumi will appear — you will only say goodbye to the loot! Come on, get after the shot!"

And we are skipping, shouting and hooting, rushing towards the hill, followed by the glances of grandfather and girlfriend.

A month later

Somehow, unnoticed, the old admiral gathered all the youth of the town around him, organized several interest groups and sections. He smacked the headmaster, the huntsmen, and the mayor. Our director was so enthusiastic about my grandfather that he used him as an example whenever he could. At the initiative of my grandfather, all responsible colony workers, heads of services and the colony's leadership were gathered. At the meeting, my grandfather demolished the civil defense system, saying that the measures taken were criminally insufficient for a rich colony in the border region. The population is not trained and is not learning, reasonable people do not know how to behave in certain situations. A third of the colonists are former military personnel, but their experience is ignored. He gave his speech for about forty minutes, and the whole colony listened to him on the broadcast. The management got into it, realized it, and immediately, without departing, as they say, from the cash register, appointed grandfather the senior civil defense officer of the entire colony and obliged him to provide all possible assistance.

That's where he turned around: he requested a list of all the retirees in the colony with their military specialties, distributed them among the colonists, built a mock-up of the town on the outskirts of Leonov, and bought electric markers with his own money (these are automatic machines like paintball machines). And he started training. He was given an assembly hall at the school for lectures. At first, it was difficult, but then the people got involved, and the registration for the grandfathers' training ground was two months in advance. Moreover, not only various combat situations were trained on it, but also emergencies, such as fires, floods, and so on. Doctors, including Ratnait and Dahi, gave lectures on emergency care for any of the races represented in the colony. Grandma, being a naval security officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel by profession, organized an analytical counterintelligence service on an optional basis, mobilizing local hacker youth into it. The whole Strafer gang was on the extranet, in Tael's company, monitoring various mercenary forums and making sure that the name "Mendoire" didn't flash anywhere. The huntsmen, led by their chief, Toliyat Tanris, gave lectures on the flora and fauna of the planet to everyone without exception: what grows and lives where, what of all this can be eaten.

The cunning drell tricked his grandfather and the company back then. The Tyrannodon would never climb into the bushes, and when Grandpa pinned the huntsman with arguments, Drell confessed, laughing. The grandfather appreciated the joke, but warned that he should not do that anymore, but honestly tells what and how in the steppe, and most importantly, how it is possible and necessary to survive there.

The colonists accepted most of the innovations well, and some even enthusiastically. Such, for example, as exits on foot raids. This is when teams of colonists, with minimal equipment and provisions, had to perform certain tasks in the wild part of the colony. They organized a sweepstake on this, and the whole colony was happy to watch the ordeal of the next lucky ones, inventing exit scenarios on the go. These scripts were then sent to my grandfather by mail, and he used them without a twinge of conscience. Such raids, with my easy submission, began to be called partisan, and the raiders, respectively, were called partisans. And all this is for a while and in the spirit of competition.

Of course, the colonists couldn't be compared to the regular army in terms of training, but grandfather trained them not against the army, but against pirates. These brothers were never famous for their preparation, but they took on numbers and bestial cruelty. The five of them suddenly piled on top of one another, robbed, killed, took women and children as slaves, and fled. That's the pirate tactic. The mercenaries, of course, will go through the colonists like a knife through butter, but how many of those mercenaries... The military does not like to become a mercenary, whether among humans or other races. The attitude of the regular army to mercenaries is appropriate, as to the degraded, who betrayed the idea. The attitude of the regular army to mercenaries is appropriate, as to the degraded, who betrayed the idea. That's the way it is with all the Citadel races, and I agree with that.

Together with the brothers, a whole crowd of classmates and friends are currently studying. Even those who had no intention of joining the corps said they wanted to learn how to be strong and skilled. I have to keep an eye on my homeworld while my brothers protect everyone. In general, the youth in the colony maintained an active position. Something like, "We want to fly to the galaxy, see, learn, and definitely return home. The native world deserves to flourish, and for this it needs experienced and skilled residents." Every morning they flock to our village and, after intensive training under the supervision of their grandfather, they run cross-country, every day for a different distance. Oh, the enemies and the various tatis will wash their faces in blood, coming to our colony in three years. I flatter myself that this will be enough to make my dream come true....

Two more weeks have passed

Today we went fishing. There's only a week left from our extra holidays, and somewhere inside I already miss my classmates. The guys called, they were wondering when we would appear — I told them that soon, wait. I'm not much of a fisherman, I don't have what I need for this activity — the silent patience to wait for hours for a bite. I love catching big fish with my hands, but fishing with a fishing rod is not my thing. Come on, whatever, I'd rather sunbathe or read while Grandpa and Azanti are sitting with fishing rods. Our artist turned out to be an excellent fisherman! She has a lot of patience, as well as attentiveness, and the ability to wait for the right moment. So Nasar and I let it down in this regard, well, that's okay, it's not a big deal.

We go upstream and there, in a large pool on the river, we catch mud workers. They are bigger in the river than in the Mirror, so you have to fish with gloves. If he grabs it with his claws, it won't seem enough. They were called mud workers because of their gray color and their habit of burying themselves in sand or mud along the armor. The water in the river is cold, twenty-five degrees, despite the heat, and you don't dive for a long time. Nasar generally climbs onto the rocks after a couple of dives, his teeth chattering. At 39.4, it's bitterly cold in this kind of water, but the stones are hot, and he warms up quickly. There were screams downstream, we exchanged glances and ran to look at what was happening. There, grandfather was shaking along the shore, the rod in his hands bent almost into a ring, the line stretched so that the ringing could be heard. Azanti was jumping nearby with a net in her hands.

"Grandpa, grandpa, pull to the shore! I'll take him in a net!"

"I can't, it's too strong, it's coming out!" the grandfather wheezes, but slowly and surely pulls the fish to the shore.

Azanti saw her in the clear water, her eyes became five kopecks, and she felt scared, turning into fear.

"Grandpa, how big he is!" and she froze, clutching the net to herself. Who did they catch? We need to help... I sit cross-legged on the shore, combat mode, mentally reaching out to the stream inside myself. And here it is, my biotics, my nerves are buzzing, I glow with a blue-green dim light, a seething ocean of energy wraps around me like a whirlpool. I really want to spread my wings wide, but it's too early. I look at the water and feel a mighty fish in it, this aquatic creature is one and a half meters long, maybe longer. I wrap her in bundles of power, squeeze her, feel her struggling in the grip of biotics, and slowly begin to pull her out of the water. The main thing now is not to lose concentration, not to let yourself be knocked down, otherwise a fish that has fallen into the water can jerk violently, and even injure grandfather. My head popped out of the water, then my whole body, and I slowly dragged it to the shore and let it go over the pebbly beach. From a height of one and a half meters, the fish flops onto the shore and begins to beat. Grandpa takes a stone, comes up from the side and hits her hard on the head. The creature stretched out and trembled slightly.

"Ugh!" the grandfather says, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "What a hulk! Who is this, my little ones?" Nasar, slowly walking around the fish, answers.

"Leaftooth, Grandpa!" It's never been this big before, you're the first! We need to give the head to Master Gartog, he will process it and hang it over the bar with your name on it. Master Gartog is the same Krogan, the co-owner of our club, a passionate hunter, fisherman and bartender at the same time. The entire bar in the club is covered with the heads of various animals, fish, and birds. All the city hunters, if they shoot something unusual, drag it to him, he embalms it and hangs it on the wall, with a description of whose trophy it is.

Our fish's head will soon decorate the wall in the bar! Snuffling and grunting, the four of us load the fish onto Grandpa's bike. He has a huge one and looks like a flyer, not a bike. One seat behind the driver and two in the fairings on the sides at the back. It immediately subsides, the mass converter changes the tone of the hum.

"Wow! How much weight does it have?" Scratching his head, Grandfather says. "Tell you what, my little ones, I'll take him alone, I'll come for you later, and you'll wait for me here. Ok?"

"All right, Grandpa" I answer. Azanti and Nasar simply nodded in agreement. Grandfather flew away, and we went to the backwater to catch mud workers. Azanti, I know a recipe for fried mud crab legs that you can soak in oil. Let's go cook. The kids are still coming.

November 2360

Early in the morning, I do my morning workout — this is my usual morning activity, for four years in a row. In the window, in the light of the lanterns at the intersection, you can see a large group of boys and girls of all races, who are warming up under the guidance of their grandfather. I would have joined them, but Grandpa told me it was too early. Despite the fine drizzling rain and the cold air, no one stopped classes. The grandfather moves at a distance of five meters from the line of young people, and they synchronously repeat all the movements after him — an absolutely fascinating sight. Somewhere out there, in the ranks, are my brothers and their friends Tanir, except Ivan, as well as Bina and Basma. The predatory plasticity of military gymnastics performed by the order is something I have never seen in my previous life. It seems that this is not an old soldier and a crowd of young people aged 13-14 years, but a pack of some kind of predators or primitive hunters dancing a strange, fascinatingly dangerous dance in absolute silence.