"One two Three."

"Uane, Tvo, Free."

"Eh... this will take a long time."

"Hm?"

"Watch my fingers again. That's three fingers. Further. Four, five."

"For, feef."

,"Fine."

"Finy?"

"Yes. There is progress."

Itami began teaching Alza English, starting with simple words, be it «hello» or «bye.» Ripun, Zaden and Niana are trying to learn English together with Alza. They sat not far from the couple and also tried to repeat the words and they did it well.

Meanwhile, I talked with Fred from whom I learned good news.

"I developed a simple drug to adapt to the local ecosystem."

Fred said, handing me a flask with a clear liquid.

"After taking the drug, you can eat dried meat after ten or twelve hours."

"Fine."

I nodded and immediately asked.

"Wait, what dose is needed for adaptation and will there be symptoms?"

"Even I don't know that."

"Eh? Are you serious?"

"Developing a normal chemical agent to adapt the body to new conditions takes years and at the same time months of testing. We, as you know, don't have that much time, so we will test the drug on the wounded."

"They won't turn into some kind of mutants, will they?"

At my question, Fred snatched the flask from my hands and tutted displeasedly.

"Tch! Another anti-scientific nonsense is spinning in your head, which is filled with all sorts of nonsense. Modern methods of manufacturing adaptive drugs have been brought to perfection and the likelihood that negative side effects will begin to appear after use is zero point eight ten hun...."

"Okay-okay, you don't have to talk."

I sighed and asked for the last time.

"So you propose to test the drug on the wounded? And they won't mind?"

"They don't mind anymore. I'm waiting for the drug to work on the first test subject, and I just came to tell you about it. Uwon knows this too."

"Understood. Thank you."

"Yes. Bon appetit."

Fred went into the cargo bay he had captured to continue doing his business while we sat around waiting for the worst. Uwon, meanwhile, ordered his soldiers to collect supplies from the corpses of the natives, leaving one section of the compartment with a considerable pile of alien food.

All the same dried meat, however, the inhabitants of this planet clearly have no alternatives. For long journeys, only dried meat is suitable for consumption. It is unlikely that at the current level of development they could create at least tin cans, not to mention basic portable refrigerators, although who knows, maybe they will surprise us.

Lieutenant John and Private Riedl were buried in bags and left in the landing compartment of the shuttle. If we are lucky, we will be able to repair the shuttle and return the bodies of our fighters to the planets of the Republic, but for now they are all stored in one place and are gradually beginning to rot.

At this time, Sigrun found something to do in the form of checking our equipment for damage after the battle with the natives, although to be honest this battle could be called a beating of babies and, unfortunately, we had a problem in the form of a certain Empire in which we were apparently located.

Platoon C1-2-2D1 will take a week to get to the second shuttle and will have to return on foot for another month, all of which time they will spend on potentially hostile lands inhabited by natives.

You can already forget about the legality of the first contact. We killed a lot of natives for the purposes of self-defense and maintaining the secrecy of our stay, but the second one should also be forgotten now. In fact, we have already been discovered and it won't be long before the natives send an entire army here and find us.

«There are so many problems on our minds. Shit! Now I can imagine how hard it was for John. He served in the RAFOM, moving up the military career ladder, hoping to reach at least the rank of Supgeneral. I shouldn't even think about that. I'm absolutely no leader.»

At that moment, the earphone squeaked in my ear, and I immediately realized that someone was calling me.

"Boris, come here. We need to talk."

"I'm coming."

Uwon called me into the shuttle cabin, where there was a hole and where the wounded Yasmi, the same native who could somehow speak to us in English, lay leaning with her back against the wall. They covered her with a jacket and left her lying at a decent distance from the machine gun crew while she was unconscious.

This girl survived the explosion of a creeping mine and not an atom should have been left of her, but she survived, even though she apparently lost a considerable amount of blood. Moreover, her wounds healed very quickly, which told us about her high regenerative abilities.

Fred simply refused to comment on the recovery abilities of her body, but we have already begun to get used to the oddities on this planet. I approached Uwon, who was looking at the awakening girl, and I immediately asked him:

"I'm here. What did you want to talk about?"

"Don't you think she knows English too well?"

I nodded in agreement. It is true that her pronunciation of English was as if she had been speaking it all her life, which is why the version that once upon a time people arrived on this planet and retained their language disappeared.

Even on the planets of the Republic, the English language has its own dialects, and some planets still use the old earthly languages of the United Nations. However, according to Fred, she is human and that should say a lot.

At that moment, the girl opened her snow-white eyes and looked around with fear on her face, clearly not understanding her situation. Her hands and feet were pre-cuffed to prevent her from escaping. The machine gunner took aim at her head and was ready to pull the trigger and fire a burst at any moment.

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At that moment, Uwon squatted down and, looking at her angrily, spoke to her:

"You finally woke up. Well, let's talk now."

In response, the girl only looked angrily at him, and at all of us too.

"How dare you! I am Yasmi Ermakrili, saint, messenger of the great Sod! How dare you grab me, you dirty barbarians?! The servants of Sod will punish you all for your atrocities!"

"Shut up."

Uwon said sternly.

"We’ll be spitting tongues here, and you, bitch, shut your mouth, otherwise this gun will leave a bunch of crap and blood on your little soul. You understood me?"

Yasmi just laughed in response.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha~! What? Insignificant barbarians, do you think that since you has dark relics and you know how to use them, you can hurt me with some pieces of iron? How stupid you are. I am the mouth and wisdom of Sod, I am saint. Sod gave me his blessing. I AM IMMORTAL!!!"

"Knee."

Said Uwon.

"Understood."

Answered the shooter.

The machine gunner quickly aimed at the girl's knee and fired a single shot. There is a bright flash and the girl's leg flies off to the side with a bloody splash. A moment later, the native woman begins to scream heartbreakingly from the monstrous pain that washes over her.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~!!!"

Yasmi screamed insanely loudly and twitched from side to side while blood was gushing from her leg. It was a very creepy sight that could scare anyone.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

I became nervous, turning to Uwon, and he looked at me sternly in response.

"What are you doing? She said that she was immortal, so I checked her vile lie. And look, now she's not so strong that she can survive the explosion of a creeping mine. Serves you right bitch."

"Uwon, don't go crazy! I understand that we lost a lieutenant because of her, but you are a soldier."

Uwon looked at me again with a stern look and seemed about to hit me, clenching his fingers into fists and raising his hands to strike, but apparently stopped halfway when my words finally reached him. After which Uwon simply waved his hand and called the medic:

"Fred!"

"Going."

"Hurry up, otherwise she'll die!"

Fred came running with a first aid kit in his hands and, sitting down on his knees, began wrapping the girl's leg with a cold cloth. A couple of fighters held the girl while she kicked and screamed in pain, biting her snow-white hair. She trembled and swayed back and forth, clearly unable to bear the pain.

"She needs rest."

Fred said when he finished treating the wound and throwing her leg through the hole.

"At least a day."

Uwon only snorted when he heard this.

"Fine. Let's give her a day to rest. She will finally come to her senses and know who she is dealing with. Boris, I need her to tell us everything she knows tomorrow. Do you understand me?"

"Yes."

I nodded, accepting the order.

"If she remains silent, just fucking shoot her."

"And then what?"

I turned sternly to Uwon.

"Do you think killing her would be a good decision?"

"Why would she be needed then?"

"Did you hear her? She introduced herself as a saint, that is, she is a high-ranking representative of this certain Empire."

Uwon thought about it and seemed to understand what I was getting at.

"Do you think it can be exchanged later? Did you mean this?"

"And not only. We can use her as a hostage."

"Do you think we are terrorists?"

"We will either wash our hands in blood and not get out of here, or we will wash our hands in blood and get out. Remember what we need to do. We must hold out until Leo and his platoon arrive and then we can repair the shuttle and return to the rest of the army by flying further east. If we kill her, then we will have no reason to negotiate with the natives when they arrive here, and they will not even understand us, and if she is alive, then they will not take a step in our direction until they are convinced of her safety. The most important thing now is time."

Uwon, having heard my words, understood everything that I was trying to convey to him and agreed with me.

"Fine. Then don't kill her. At ease."

"Yes sir."

After that, Uwon went to his soldiers while, against the backdrop of all this, there was a downpour outside and Yasmi was screaming in pain. Looking at all this, you can't help but think:

«Everyone is already starting to go crazy. I don't want to go crazy after all this.»

Soon I returned to my soldiers where I shared with them information about what had happened. Itami was especially outraged by Uwon's actions.

"Has he gone crazy?"

"No."

I shook my head.

"His reaction is completely normal."

"Very funny."

Esko said seriously.

"If Uwon is doing such things now, then imagine what it will be like tomorrow with the entire platoon."

"Fuck it. We're all going to go crazy."

Will responded.

"What should we do now?"

"Wait and hide. We now have supplies. Fred made the drug, we can only wait."

"What about the natives?"

"We will teach them English and establish contact with them."

"Are we now enemies with this Empire?"

"Is not a fact. They don't know that we destroyed their squad in these jungles, but if any of them survived, then we have big problems."

"General Zeonid is probably already building a base at the landing site,"

Itami responded.

"And climate change will not manifest itself soon."

Then I decided to ask my guys:

"What do you think will happen to the planet?"

Esko turned out to be more knowledgeable on this issue.

"The very fall of a ship onto water or land will only bring a brief increase in temperature on the entire planet for about ten years. This is minor damage, but our situation is much worse."

All the guys from the platoon turned their faces towards Esko and began to listen to him carefully.

"Fuel from the cruiser's tanks will be released into the atmosphere after the fall. These are the most dangerous pesticides, which can possibly kill all living things on land and then in water through sediment."

"No, this can't be."

Senior Sergeant Anzhey commented on Esko's words.

"The extinction of life on land will last for several months until the whole world turns into a huge wasteland. A habitable planet needs several years for toxic substances to erode from the surface and waters of the planet and return suitable conditions for life. What I told you is not the worst-case scenario."

"And the worst?"

"It didn't happen, judging by the fact that there are no earthquakes."

Then I thought:

«Hmm~... the impact of a two-kilometer ship on the planet's crust could have provoked lithospheric shifts, and the fact that there are no earthquakes on this planet right now suggests that the planet's crust was not greatly damaged after the ship crashed and no sharp deviations in the movement of lithospheric plates are observed. If this happened, then in just a few days literally all the volcanoes would erupt tons of ash and would ensure a volcanic winter for centuries. Fortunately, there is no evidence of such an outcome yet, but the best-case scenario still does not sound very encouraging.»

And while the guys continued to talk to each other, several more people got to their feet, and we, along with the rations, used the same drugs to adapt to the local food, after which we boldly began to finish up our rations and switch to the supplies of the fanatical natives, who fortunately were in excess.

But there was something that haunted me, namely the disappearance of Ashwani. When Yasmi will recover is the first thing I learn from her. If she doesn't know, then it will be difficult to return Ashwani even if he is alive because we will no longer care about him. While we are here, we must return him at any cost, even if most of the regiment even believes in his existence.

The day, meanwhile, ended quite quickly, and we went to bed, simultaneously being on duty at the hole and at the landing compartment, replacing each other, but on the whole the rainy night on this planet went quite smoothly.

In the morning, my guys looked after the wounded and tasted the dried meat from the natives' provisions, and you know what, it would have been better not to have tried it.

"It tastes like crap."

Will commented, slowly swallowing the local food, trying not to spit it out.

"And we have to sit on this for a whole month?"

"Have to."

Sigrun commented, seemingly not paying attention to the disgusting taste of the pieces of dried meat.

"How can you eat this with such a calm face?"

Anzhey asked the girl.

"What are you talking about? It's just food, and food needs to be eaten."

"Stop joking like that. They didn't understand you."

Itami commented.

"You are an Alsian and your taste buds are suppressed so that you can eat army rations and more."

"O! You guessed it."

The black girl smiled.

"On Alsis, we drink a lot and eat little, and this somehow causes an instinctive rejection of other food, and the refore those Alsians who eat non-Alsis food suppress their taste buds in medical centers."

"I heard there is something similar on Mars."

I added and looked at Forn.

"This is true?"

The Martian looked at me for a moment before answering.

"Yes, this is true, but in our case this is caused more by the cybernation of Martian society than due to adaptive evolutionary shifts. On Mars they may well have army rations, which cannot be said about cyborgs. Their entire nervous system is disrupted and they already need to do this so that their brain does not go crazy due to innate nerve cells."

"Marvelous."

Esko commented.

"We may all be human, but the different planets on which we were born, lived and protect have divided us. Only the Republic unites humanity, but only as a civilization, but as forms of life we are no longer similar."

Everyone became thoughtful at Esko's words, and so did I. Another ten thousand years and we will no longer be able to call each other people. The planets on which people settled, whether similar to Earth or with harsh living conditions, will still make us different intelligent species, and only our common home, planet Earth, will be an eternal reminder that we are all one race of people rushing to the stars.