Chapter 14

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As the bots broke out of the atmosphere and the sky on the viewscreens filled with darkness and the pearly glitter of stars, the deafening roar in the cabin subsided to just a loud howl. This already allowed for communication, but still not very comfortable. Fortunately, the guests weren't really looking for communication: Baroness Tayor fell out of reality with an absent-minded smile on her lips as soon as she sat in the chair, and Nadina only looked around uncomfortably, occasionally squinting at his personal escort guards, who was sitting at the end of the cabin.

I must give them credit. None of them got hysterical about being taken in an inappropriate vehicle, unlike that Count. And he calls himself a veteran.

Alex signaled to Taer to turn on her intercom headset and switch to their special closed channel. For the first time in a long time, they had the opportunity to talk privately, and it was foolish not to take advantage of it:

"Sir Ulter from the House Representation literally flooded my infoblock with messages begging me to persuade you not to revoke their notice. I realize, of course, that the Count, the head of the House representation, is an asshole. But he's not the entire House of Fyron, so would you show mercy? If it's really important."

"I don't care about the Count," Taer snorted defiantly, but Alex could have sworn there were notes of gloating in her voice through the headphones. "They made a mistake in the paperwork, hence the rejection. I can't have my lord presenting a document to the Emperor with errors, can I?"

"Olter cried that the delay would be a decade, if not more. So many mistakes?"

"No." Taer shrugged. "By and large, just one. The notice is signed by the signatures of the Council of Sixteen and dated after my appointment, and in place of the signature of Cassard's first blade, there is the signature of the Head of the Council - Lord Tsorto."

"Oh..." Alex stretched out sympathetically. He now understood what the matter was. "So what do we do now? Collect signatures all over again?"

"Yes." Nodded Taer. "Resubmit the draft to the First Blades, and get their signatures."

"What's the story there anyway?" Alex inquired as if in between, trying to assess the possible damage to the defense capability. "Something important?"

"Involvement of House-owned civilian yachts in fleet exercises." Taer wrinkled her nose. "Evacuating the wounded and assisting in natural disasters. Something like that."

"Well, it doesn't sound very important." Alex made a cautious assumption.

Taer shrugged again:

"If it had been important, they might well have let me know and gotten me to sign in the decade and a half that passed between my appointment and my flight to the Capital."

It was hard to argue with that, and Alex sincerely thought that he should support Taer in this situation:

They must not ignore my First Blades.

Soon the bots re-entered the dense layers, covering the view screens with the red glow of the plaza and filling the cabin with the roar of the burning atmosphere. Fortunately, it didn't last long - two minutes, and then the volume dropped to more than bearable, leaving only the rustle of the incoming stream.

"They won't let us anywhere near the base without your Seal, so let me escort you to the cabin," Taer murmured in his ear, tickling his neck with her breath.

This maneuver from the first blade gave Alex goosebumps from surprise. Nice kind of goosebumps. And while they were making their way down the narrow passage to the cabin, Alex was looking at Taer, not really trying to hide his interest and surprise: Flirting, not flirting? What was that all about? But Taer didn't look like she was flirting with him. More like she was playing with excitement and malevolent anticipation. But... It's still strange.

In fact, even on the sudden night walk, he'd noticed that Taer was kind of strange. Strange in a good way - that is, he liked her, but at the same time, there was a sense that "something wasn't right." Somehow he could not describe his feelings on the matter more accurately yet:

Or maybe you don't have to. When everything is good.

In the cockpit, everything was solved quickly, literally with a few touches of the ring to the control panel, and they were back in their seats.

The bots continued their descent, and on the overview screens, the map, garnished with a few touches of puffy clouds, began to approach rapidly, turning into terrain, soft hills covered with red grass among which here and there like fancy metal mushrooms stuck out shiny circles of radio telescopes, or radars, at least they looked very similar, and straight white rectangles of buildings.

The base was on another continent, and here the sun was sinking toward sunset, the long, thick shadows making it easier to distinguish the structures. As they descended rapidly, more and more details became visible: next to the "radio telescopes" appeared numerous rows of small squares with a shiny black covering, on which some sharp-nosed machines could be seen. Clearly, landing pads. The paths between the landing pads were the color of burnt clay. Soon it was possible to distinguish people, and it became clear that "radio telescopes" sticking out in the territory of the base were simply gigantic. Each disk about fifty meters in diameter, stood on a delicate metal leg of comparable height.

The picture in the viewscreen rumbled, groping around the base. If Alex would have loved to see his first space fighter base, it was no surprise, and the camera, under her direction, flitted around the base, periodically taking close-ups of objects - buildings, platforms, strange droids with wide black paws, people in uniform. He didn't know what exactly Taer was looking for, probably "something egregious," but it looked pretty ordinary for a military space base, of course.

Soon this yawing stopped, and the viewscreen camera froze on one of the "radio telescopes" closer to the edge of the base:

"Fly to the focus," Taer commanded the pilots over the intercom. "And give it a half-circle over it so we can get a good look at it."

Now it was clear what caught Taer's attention - a huge disc of this "radio telescope" looking directly into the zenith was almost filled to the brim with water, the camera took a larger view, and it became quite interesting.

In the improvised lake, there were clearly people splashing around, and a lot of them, a dozen or two. The camera zoomed in even closer, the resolution allowed, and the boat flew swiftly in that direction, and it became even more interesting. Near the edge of the disс of the radio telescope hovered two rectangular platforms covered with some black, soft material. One had a full-fledged bar, and the second served as an improvised beach area - there were several sun loungers, now empty, all in the water. Guys, girls in brightly colored bathing suits, and even obviously without. One person was sunbathing topless at the very edge of the "radio telescope" plate.

Near the bar area, there was a table floating in the water with glasses on it, and right in the center, there was an uneven semicircle of cards framed by a fat pile of craps, where several people were clearly playing cards for money.

And I'm not a military expert, of course, but the whole thing is exactly like "something egregious." Alex thought, watching with admiration what was happening on the screen.

"Interesting." He could hear Taer's voice oozing with a sneer, but the machines had turned the engines down a lot, and it was quiet in the cabin. "The heat reflector mirror of the planetary shield as a pool, that's a witty solution. And to the question of uniforms, have thought, easy, comfortable, and does not cramp the movements. I do not remember, however, in what statute such described, but it must be just affected by my lack of competence."

The camera wandered around swimmers and froze on the hickey-kissing couple not far from the bar. The guy was so active with his hands under the girl's swimsuit that she, in principle, could also be classified as a topless sunbather:

"Most importantly, the personnel are cohesive." Taer finished with a comment.

"The mirrors are designed to be flooded with water to accelerate the release of residual heat." Baroness Tayor pronounced, watching the couple on the screen, who seemed ready to devour each other with perfect equanimity. "There is a stock of specially prepared water for this, and by regulation, it must be changed periodically, so why not use it for bathing the personnel? Very nice on the skin, by the way - it is soft. So, in principle, nothing serious."

"Please, Lady Iolaya, don't defend me." Pathetically, Nadine squeezed out, clearly not knowing where to put her eyes. "You're only making it worse."

I wish we could do this more often. Alex thought to himself, looking at Nadine, almost crimson with embarrassment. I like her this way better, and it's different, too. The perpetually arrogant and self-righteous Lady Pell was already boring him. He would have to do something to thank Taer for such a rare sight.

As Taer had asked, the pilots circled the artificial lake plate, giving them a better view, and the swimmers, having noticed their bot, waved and saluted with their glasses:

Oh yeah, the superiors don't usually fly that kind of thing. But we have a landing bot, albeit with heraldry on it, and they take us for some fellow warriors.

After completing the flight, their bot, along with the escort vehicles, landed gently away from the "pool," and the wide landing doors opened to let in the hot air, full of spicy scents of dried herbs.

A few steps along the landing ramp and the red carpet of brittle, dry grass rustled underfoot, the huge sunset was pleasantly warm and flooded the horizon with gold and purple. The improvised pool was a long way away, three hundred yards at least, but there was still rhythmic music coming to the landing spot:

/People live. Alex was jealous of all this splendor. Space fighters, sun, pool, beach, beautiful girls.

"So, what do you plan to do next with this visit?" Baroness Tayor looked around with the disgruntled look of someone who was clearly not in the mood for the whole affair. "You are the First Lord, after all. If you need a formal reason for reprimands or other means of expressing displeasure, you already have one. Unless, of course, that was your sole purpose." She added with a condemning shake of her head.

The Baroness was clearly not thrilled about using her subordinates in personal squabbles of command.

And that's exactly what we're doing here. On the other hand... The situation with discipline here is indeed egregious. We can't ignore it.

Alex, furtively, glanced at Nadine, who was standing nearby, but she noticed it:

"And so it is quite obvious that the first incompetent person to hold that office was me." The initial crimson of shame had faded, and now Lady Pell possessed the pallid face of someone who had given up on herself. "I will appeal to His Majesty to replace me with a more worthy assistant for you, Lord Cassard."

It was obvious that it was not easy for her to say such things, but she forced herself. It was such a contrast to the usual Nadine that Alex even felt a little sorry for her:

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Lady Pell, you really are helping me quite a lot." Alex objected condescendingly, taking the rare opportunity to be condescending to Nadine. And the local guys should probably be given a chance to justify themselves somehow, too.

"I think it would be unfair to draw any conclusions so immediately." He turned to the baroness. "We should at least do a readiness check, some sort of alert rise or something like that. But I can't do without your help here, Lady Iolaya. I'm sure your experience will allow you to pick one that will fairly show the level of combat readiness."

"As you wish." The baroness rolled her eyes, but it seemed to Alex much less disgruntled. She turned to the guards and pointed a finger at the nearest one. "Turn on your stopwatch and time it. First, let's see how quickly the head of the unit arrives. He should have been notified a few minutes ago."

After that, it was left to wait, and that was what they did: the Baroness, completely unperturbed, Taer, quite squinting in the sun with the look of a cat that had had its fill of sour cream and was anticipating the next portion of a feast, and Nadine - with the indifference of the doomed.

And only Alex, squinting from the bright sun, was looking at everything with genuine curiosity - too bad there wasn't much to see. They landed quite far from the landing sites, not half a kilometer away. So the fighters standing there looked like little black spots with sharp corners. To the "radio telescope" or as Taer called it: "the heat reflector of the planetary shield" was also quite decent, three hundred meters, but given the cyclopean size of the building - such a distance was rather a plus, allowing to see it in all the details.

From here, from the ground, the rays of the setting sun glittered with bright yellow highlights over the central part of the "saucer," where something like a tall thin sheaf of differently-sized chrome needles was sticking out. The reflections, however, were so bright that it was impossible to see any details. The "plate" was held in place by an intricate, openwork metal ligature and was porcelain-white, which reinforced the association with fanciful crockery. And also, above the edge of the "plate" appeared the heads of swimmers, who must also be trying to see who had come to them, but because of the distance, the faces were no more than specks above the white edge. Everything below was drowning in the wavering heat, turning into indistinguishable, metal-like shapes.

It's a little hot in here, to say the least. The setting sun was shining quite gently, but the dry earth was so hot, mixed with the stifling smell of dry grass, that Alex could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead, though it must not have been a minute before they got out of the boat. It was like being in a hay dryer. It must have been forty degrees.

Under such conditions, the idea of "Screw it all, and also go to them in the pool" began to gain more and more weight.

Fortunately, he wasn't seduced by the thought for too long as an aerocar approached from the central part of the base. It was not a tall, very angular car, something resembling a huge metal suitcase carried over the very ground, with a specific purring of engines.

"Time?" The baroness asked the guards as she looked at the aircar turning around for landing.

"Three minutes and forty-three seconds."

"Acceptable." She wrinkled.

The aerocar crashed nearby with a thud that resonated in his legs, plowing the dry ground and raising a cloud of fine reddish dust in the air. A side door swung open, and a blond man in his forties with a lush hussar mustache, wearing a turquoise guard uniform with rich gold embroidery on the shoulders and the right side of the collar, hurriedly jumped out holding a large infoblock to his chest:

"Imperial Guard Stack Major Alet Kunali," he blurted, running up and saluting as he went. "Deputy Base Commander. Glad to greet Your Lordship... Your Ladyships." He corrected himself and stood at attention, trying to eat all the arrivals at once with his eyes.

"An operative tablet and a command key." The baroness demanded, showing the major her ring with the seal instead of a greeting.

"A drill, Lady Iolaya?" He asked uncertainly, handing the baroness his infoblock and pulling a chain with a small metal cylinder from his neck. "Or is it just a transfer of parts from Princess Pell to Prince Cassard?" At the mention of princely names, the Major nodded courteously and even bowed slightly to those mentioned.

Not so bad, Stack Major. Alex remarked mentally. He recognized the whole superior staff at once, even though we'd only been assigned for twenty-four hours.

"Yes, Stack Major, you guessed right." The baroness answered, absorbed in working with the infoblock, or tablet as they called it. She put a cylinder in it which must have been the "command key"-and was typing something in it quickly. Details were not visible, and to peep over his shoulder, despite his curiosity, Alex did not dare: It's not decent.

In just a few seconds, the air around them was filled with a hum, and Lady Iolaya spoke:

"Training drill. Combat exercise - placing shields on the combat and high-speed lift of the duty wing to intercept. Time's up." Her words amplified a thousandfold, rumbled from somewhere in the sky like the voice of an angry goddess.

As soon as the Baroness had finished speaking, there was a howl of sirens accompanied by a dull repetition of "drill alarm" and the sound was coming from literally everywhere. It seemed that the air itself was howling around, resounding somewhere in the depths of his chest.

There was a piercing, ringing screech from the nearby landing sites, like the spinning of a very fast circular saw, and Alex saw the black, sharp noses of two fighters slowly rise out of the sea of fluctuating heat, scudding into the sky. The metallic screeching grew, and in a few seconds, the two fighters shot into the sky, splitting the air with white flashes of compaction, leaving behind only rapidly scattering clouds of dust.

Alex turned to ask, "What was that ringing before takeoff," when a wave of sound reached them. The deafening rumble of a supersonic clap hit a tight wave of air, hurling dust and scraps of dry grass in their faces. Alex staggered, reflexively covering his eyes with his hand from the flying debris, but he stayed on his feet, at the same time taking Lady Pell under her elbow, who stumbled and almost fell in surprise.

Nadine clearly pulled her hand away sharply in embarrassment, but still, she added. "Thank you."

"Nevermind," Alex brushed it off, trying, despite the slight ringing in his ears, to spot the black dots of the fighters taking off in the bright sky.

Are they really firing them? Or did they go straight to supersonic? The skies were rolling with thunder like there was a thunderstorm. It was clear where the sound was coming from, but he couldn't see the machines.

"Uh... your Illustrious Lordship." The Major was trying hard to be polite, but he was obviously confused about the title. "It's better not to look up."

The warning, however, was somewhat belated; two new suns had already flashed in the sky, turning the pale purple sky into a painfully white one for a few moments with their blinding light.

Alex looked down, trying to blink. Black iridescent circles of illumination flashed before his eyes, and the grass beneath his feet glowed neon yellow, so bright was the light:

"What was that?" He asked, after a few seconds, as the sky faded back to its natural brightness.

"Heat dump." The baroness answered, who, by the way, prudently did not raise her eyes, staring at the ground, as did Taer and the Major, and only Nadina, too, blinked confusedly.

"Major, what are you standing around for?! Detain all the maidens for identification!" The baroness showed a surprisingly commanding voice, pointing her finger demandingly toward the "radio telescope" with the bathers. She said all this without raising her eyes and quite correctly. From somewhere in the distance, perhaps from the grounds deep within the base, distant claps of takeoffs could be heard, and the grass beneath his feet shone again for a few seconds in the reflected light of the new suns.

The swimmers, by this point, were already surprisingly organized and loaded onto platforms hovering near the edge of the plate. The platforms turned out to be quite agile when required - it was hard to estimate the speed from such a distance, but at least 30-40 kilometers per hour. One of them was already near the landing pads, and the second was flying somewhere away.

The major scurried back to his aerocar, encouraged by Lady Iolaya's commanding voice in the back:

"And Shadows Forbid you to miss a single one! The bot has a record, and I'm not too lazy to count them by heads."

The platform that had previously served as an improvised bar landed near the landing platforms, and in the wavering haze coming from the ground you could make out the silhouettes of people running toward the machines. Soon the familiar metallic screech that heralded new takeoffs was heard from the platforms, and from somewhere above came a wave of low sound, not loud but pervasive and all-encompassing, as if the whole sky had sighed or a huge subwoofer had gone off.

"Is that the sound of the first flashes coming through?" Alex asked, burning with curiosity. He squinted one eye to see what was going on up there, but all he could see were rapidly melting ring clouds. Very high up in the sky, like small uneven bagels - when another flash made him squint again.

"Yes." Lady Iolaya nodded, heading back toward the boat. "We'd better fly closer to the airfields, Lord Cassard. They'll be back soon, and I'd like to meet all the swimmers on the landing. And I don't want to splash my dress when the shield starts to work," she added, nodding toward the "radio telescope" where the pool was.

From the edges of the huge plate, for some reason, water was gushing out intensely, creating an improvised circular waterfall, which because of the huge height closer to the ground, beat into fine water dust, surrounding the foot of the telescope trembling in the rays of the setting sun rainbow.

Alex looked at Taer, who, judging by her face, was enjoying the event beyond compare, and was clearly ready to support any idea of the baroness:

"As you say, Lady Iolaya, let's fly to the sites." Alex nodded, exulting inwardly. Now I'll get to the fighter, and no formalities will stop me!

The landing doors of the boat closed, cutting off the sultry air that smelled of dry grass and the deafening clap of fighter planes taking off - there was a pleasant coolness in the cabin and the silence that was not yet broken by the sound of the engines.

The sound of the engines turning on went from a melodic purr to a steady, powerful hum, and the bots soared into the air, easily lifted off the ground. The viewscreen camera, which must have been programmed by Taer to monitor the "radio telescope," again in focus as soon as the altitude allowed.

The water in the "plate" which had previously been a calm, smooth lake, was spinning furiously in a giant whirlpool, not just flowing off the edges but naturally whipping in all directions, and in place of the central sheaf of needles, a huge shiny drop of mercury was slowly growing up.

"It's a shield, isn't it?" Asked Alex on the intercom. "I thought they were transparent.

"Usually, yes, it depends on the characteristics required," Taer answered. "But when they're first formed, they're always like this, mirror-like. I don't know why," she added with a little shrug, "something to do with light refraction in the altered structure of space. I guess you'd better ask Rima about that. That's her job."

As they flew, the mercury drop in the center grew larger and larger. It began to show that it was spinning very rapidly and spinning faster and faster. At some point, this rotation simply tossed the entire mass of water out of the reflector plate, splashing it over a huge area in one powerful motion. So far away that it might as well have reached where they had originally landed.

The large mercury droplet began to grow rapidly upwards, going higher and higher, until suddenly it stopped, and the droplet began to spread out as if it had hit an invisible wall and settled down, forming a dome of the shield. When their boat was about to land, the edges of the dome, being almost transparent, almost reached the ground and covered the black squares of the fighters' landing pads.

They landed on a brick-colored path that ran along the landing pads, or rather it seemed like a path only on the approach. When Alex and the others descended to it under the lowered ramp of the boat, it turned out to be a full-fledged road, two lanes.

The material does look like brick or something ceramic, Alex cautiously tried to push the coating through with his foot, You really can't see any joints.

There wasn't much to see on the landing. The fighters had already taken off, and the platforms were empty, except, of course, for the large droids. High five meters, with a flattened disc-shaped central part, around the perimeter of which hung down a variety of manipulators and rested on four tall, widely spaced "legs"-walkers. Droids stood one beside each pad, and, as one might assume, were supposed to service the fighters.

"Maybe we should get closer," Alex suggested as if casually, nodding toward the black squares of landing sites. They were about thirty or forty meters from where the boat had landed, and he wanted to see the fighters up close.

"Better later, it will be, to put it mildly - unpleasant," Baroness grimaced, not raising her eyes from the infoblock. "Immediately after landing, "prisms" continue to dump residual heat."

It remained only a heavy sigh. In such matters, it is better not to argue with professionals.

"How much longer until the landing?" He asked aloud.

"Three or four minutes." The baroness answered, and she stepped closer to him, showing him the screen of the infoblock taken from the Major. "They've all made it to intercept altitude and are on their way back now."

On the screen of the infoblock, a thick rough tablet of unpainted gray metal, which by the way, was noticeably larger than usual in width, on top there was some mind-breaking scheme with orbits and vectors, but below was a table quite understandable even to him, with a list of numbers of machines with call signs of pilots, the points scored for the exercise, and the final grade, both of a wing in general and of each pilot in particular. And if the criteria of scoring ranged from quite understandable: "Accumulated speed at the point of interception" to not so understandable: "Available capacity at the exit", then with the final grade everything was quite clear. The best pair should be the first ones to start, get "Excellent ++",

the worst got just "Perfect", and the wing as a whole for all eight machines got "Excellent".

"I take it they did a great job?" Just in case, Alex clarified.

"Better than great, excellent," Lady Iolaya corrected him and added, turning to Nadine, who was standing in the distance. "So don't be so dramatic."

"Why, Lady Iolaya?" replied Nadine tiredly, "What we have seen in this 'pool' is enough to draw all the necessary conclusions about the condition of the unit."

Lady Iolaya did not answer, only snorted defiantly, rolling her eyes.

"You might just consider that your talents lie in the field of combat training." Taer offered with a smirk, making herself look like a cat full of sour cream.

But it's hard to blame her, Nadina really managed to bore us with her comments.

"Entered the dense layers." The baroness reported after a few seconds and looked up to find something in the sky. "There they are," she pointed a finger.

And Indeed, though barely discernible, in the pale purple sky appeared tiny sparks of descending fighters. The sparks gradually grew into fiery flecks, which Alex admired for about a minute before they disappeared. But soon after, in the sky above the base, black spots exploded, one by one, and quickly became the elongated silhouettes of razor-sharp fighters, their short wings with a reverse sweep to resemble long, narrow stilettoes. Passing through the dome of the protective field, which at this point became visible, diverging around the fighter like circles on water from a thrown rock. The machines, purring melodiously with their engines, flew over their heads, and the scarlet stripes on their short wings were visible, blazing with heat.

After hovering briefly over the square of the landing pad, the fighters landed gently, and almost immediately the maintenance droid on duty next to them advanced. The disc-shaped carcass of a robot hovered over the landed vehicle, and down went the manipulators, two of them wide apart, attached to the wings of the fighter. And they must have been feeding water, or at least there was a loud hiss of steam pouring from the wings, quickly covering all the landing pads in thick clouds.

"Residual heat discharge." The baroness explained, watching what was going on, and asked, turning to Alex. "Are you decided how to rate them, Lord Cassard?"

"Me?" Alex raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I hadn't thought of that. Excellent, on the one hand, but we can't ignore what happened in that pool, either. And how would you rate Lady Yolaya?"

"Excellent for flying, unsatisfactory for discipline. On average, satisfactory." Shrugged Lady Iolaya. "Unless there are aggravating circumstances."

While they were talking, the fighters lifted their cockpit, and pilots began to run out of clouds of steam. Red and steaming, they ran out into the road and lined them up. Of the eight who ran out, only two wore gray flight suits - the rest were in bathing suits.

"The Third Wing of the Second Unit of the Amber Squadron is built!" The first one reported loudly, holding two fingers to his temple, and was immediately supported by the whole formation with a resounding, "Glad to meet Your Lordship!"

The line of pilots stood only a few paces away, and you could see how wet they were. Maybe the steam was enhancing the effect, but it looked like they, except for the two in their overalls, had just come out of the water.

"The exercise is over." Not the least bit embarrassed by his appearance, he too was in a bathing suit, the first continued. "Ready for instructions and feedback."

The Baroness approached the first formation and shook her head disapprovingly, and measured it with a look of disapproval:

"Just an excellent++ from the commander of the Guards Squadron."

"Guilty as charged." He was demonstratively apologetic. "I'll do my best."

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The Baroness only snorted and walked along the line, shaking her head in judgment and peering into the faces of the lined-up pilots. The pilots tried to look guilty, but they weren't very good at it. They smiled too much.

When she reached the last boy in the row, who was a stubby, curly-haired boy of about seventeen, one of the two in overalls, the baroness, even though she was wearing stiletto shoes, turned on her heels and made a rapid step back, looking somewhere in the vicinity of the swim trunks.

At that moment, Alex noticed that the Baroness was smirking, too, though she was trying not to show it.

Passing the formation in the opposite direction, Lady Iolaya stopped again at the first:

"What were those girls." She inquired. "Outsiders?"

"No." Hurriedly the first one shook his head. "Those are ours, from the base, the flight personnel, and the technicians. The off-duty ones and the reserve ones. Well, mostly." He added with less confidence.

"I see." The baroness snorted and walked over to one of the overalls, a rather large brown-haired man who looked about Alex's age.

"Explain why you look like that." She demanded with a tone that didn't bode well.

"I lost the bet." He confessed embarrassedly. "We had a bet on who had the fewest victories in dueling fights - he doesn't take part. So..."

"I see, I see." Lady Iolaya nodded. "How old?"

"Twenty-six, Your Ladyship!"

"Well, you've got four more years to make a good fighter." The baroness grinned, and it must have been some kind of a corporate joke because the whole formation laughed with glee.

"What about you?" She asked, turning to the kid at the end of the line. "Lost, too?"

"Me? No." The man babbled wildly embarrassed, "Your Ladyship, I just, as if I couldn't..."

"He's just shy, Your ladyship," explained the wing commander, smiling. "And we have girls there, and there's no way he can get over himself, and I'm cant to write him off. In dueling fights, he's good."

"What?" The baroness interrogated indignantly and walked up to the boy, literally hovering over him, despite being half a head shorter. "What's a real fighter like?"

"A real fighter knows no shame or fear." Looking down at the floor and blushing wildly, the boy replied.

"Shame. A Guards fighter and you're embarrassed?! Shame!" Lady Iolaya seemed genuinely outraged.

"Does your unit go to balls at the palace?" She asked, turning to the commander.

"That's right."

"Then I give you an order." She jabbed a finger at the boy's chest. "At the next ball, grab a Soltara maid of honor by the ass, with the code of the Soltara queen, as available. And say to her in public, at the top of your lungs, something slutty. Do you understand my orders?"

"That's right." The guy replied, burning with embarrassment.

"If he's afraid, to all the shadows, write him off as a stormtrooper," added the Baroness, looking at the wing commander.

"Does the Baroness have anything to do with the fighters?" Alex asked in a half voice, turning to Taer. First, he was really curious, and second, it was easier to hide the fact that he was about to laugh like a horse.

"Well, yeah." Nodded Taer. "One of the most famous fighter pilots of the war, there was even an HV Show about her: Ash Wings. She didn't make it to the end of the war, though, because she was discharged in the middle of it."

"Because of age?" Alex assumed the most obvious option.

"No, she's young. She's about fifty, I think; in the war, she was twenty-five or something. It's because of the direct control boosters: The Ashes Wing," she explained, leaning closer to him. "They caused neuro degradation when used frequently. That's why they gave it up after the war - it wasn't worth it. And before the war, it was thought they would be used once or twice when it was a matter of life or death. But it turned out that life and death at war are quite often, and pilots burn out despite all regenerating chemistry. Among those who fought from the beginning, almost all burned out. Lady Iolaya still recovered well."

"So she's a famous ace?" Alex chuckled as he watched the baroness reprimand the shy boy.

"I don't know." Taer shrugged. "Except technically, she has twenty or so personal victories. Aces had over a hundred by the end of the war. But she's got over seventy line-force missions and regular combat missions over a thousand. Fighters kind of have more respect for that. I don't know why. And then," she added in a whisper. "A noble, an entire sovereign countess, and a woman. There were only two of them among the fighters. She and Lady Baala, the current Ruling Lady of House Kilreath, but she had about ten line combat missions in the war. Lady Iolaya had seven times that number, plus she was a squadron commander. Her fame is her destiny, and she has received many rewards, including five personal rings from the Emperor, and the rest could probably be made into beads.

"I see." Alex nodded, thinking to himself. It was to be expected. They put a professional as a deputy to a complete idiot. It makes sense. And it is better for me. But it's better not to join the fighters if you don't want to grow old prematurely.

The Baroness, meanwhile, must be tired of scolding the junior staff for their lack of courage:

"That's it. I don't want to see you." She folded her arms across her chest and defiantly turned away from the formation, standing with her back to them. "Get out of my sight before I take your lofty appearance personally. March to the medical unit to give blood and report to the princes for evaluation with your test results and in the form of a proper guardsman before the illustrious prince and princess! And heaven forbid if anyone turns out to be more than a little drunk!"

The fighters shouted, "Be Fulfilled, Your Grace!" and jogged to the edge of the force shield, where they were soon picked up by an aerocar similar to the one in which the Major had flown.

"I take it that's it?" Alex asked the baroness who approached.

"Why?" She wondered. "Of course not. You're the First Lord. You have to formally evaluate them, and then I thought you wanted to inspect the fighters?" She added without certainty.

Alex wanted to, even too much so:

"I'd love to." He admitted honestly.

"Well, let's go then." She suggested and turned to Nadine. "Lady Pell, will you join us?"

"No, to be honest, I'm not at all interested." She said hastily. "Besides, in this climate, it's already hot here, and I have no desire to make it any hotter."

There were still clouds of steam around the landed fighters, though not as thick as immediately after landing, but still quite visible.

"The climate here is really awful, the heat is terrible." Alex decided to take pity, as Nadine looked tired and exhausted. "Perhaps you would like one of my bots to take you back to your place? After all, we've already done so much today, and it makes no sense for you to just wait here for us."

"I appreciate the offer," Nadine smiled wearily. "But I cannot accept it. It would not be right for me to fly away and Lady Iolaya to remain here to help you. For now, it is my duty too."

"Stop it, Nadina." The baroness rolled her eyes tiredly. "Off you go, and get some rest. His Majesty did not mean to help Lord Cassard by inspecting the bases. I'm perfectly capable of that.

"It's not quite right after all..." Already without any confidence, Nadine objected, and Alex and the Baroness realized she was shaken and quickly convinced her to fly away.

"Well then." Said the Baroness as she looked out at the white landing craft with the scarlet griffins that had carried Lady Pell and Taer, who had volunteered to escort her. "Let's go to the machines. In your position, you should know why fighters are treated with a special measure."

* * *

From up close, the fighters made an even stronger impression - very elongated sharp silhouettes, literally black spikes with short wings flaunted on the platforms, wrapped in lush clouds of steam like divas on a stage. The only thing missing was the light music.

The machines were hovering no more than half a meter above the black pavement, unsupported, either by the paws of the maintenance robot hovering overhead or by themselves. Their wings were still hazy, like mugs of hot tea, but occasionally a tight jet of hissing steam would erupt from somewhere in the center of the wing, covering everything in a hot white mist for a few seconds.

"Don't be shy, Lord Cassard." The baroness encouraged him. "Come closer if you're interested."

There was no need to suggest twice, and Alex stepped without hesitation onto the springy black pavement of the nearest landing pad, approaching the fighter almost point-blank, regardless of the clouds of hot, wet steam.

It's so small! he involuntarily thought, looking at the sharp-nosed machine with all his eyes.

Of course, the fighter was big - ten meters or even more, maybe twelve meters long - but it was still unexpectedly small, long, and narrow. For some reason, it was more associated with a formula one race car than a jet fighter. The effect was only intensified by the low landing of the machine. There was no landing gear, and at its highest point, closer to the back, the fighter was still half a head below Alex. All sleek and smooth, like glass, with almost no protrusions, only in the central part of the spike, the raised cockpit lid gaped open, revealing a view of the soft white gut, contrasting with the dark hull. Now it was clearly visible that the fighter was not really black, as it seemed from a distance - the hull material resembled a dark hardened resin or a matte crystal, like a dark ruby - with a kind of reddish and even slightly yellow play of color in the depths.

Alex reached out to touch the hull, but he willed himself to stop. After all, the equipment in front of him was unfamiliar, literally just flown into space, and touching such can be harmful to health.

"Can I touch it?" He asked hopefully, turning to Lady Iolaya.

"Great shadows! Lord Cassard, it's not someone's thigh," she laughed. "It's only a fighter. Of course, you can. You can do anything you want here."

He gently touched the sharp nose and moved his hand gently, as if stroking a frightened beast. The lining under his hand was velvety, smooth, a little damp to the touch because of the thin water drizzle from the steam, and noticeably warm.

Backing up a couple of steps, Alex walked around the machine from the nose, looking at it:

The long narrow prow was devoid of any details. Only in its lower part near the middle were two oval yawns, either air intakes or some kind of weapon system. Immediately behind them on both sides of the hull were two long narrow hatches, the thick flaps of which were now moved apart like small wings, and under them was the most interesting thing.

Missiles were hanging from the flaps. At least Alex could have sworn they were missiles - two massive black cones with puffy holes around the base, which must have been engine jets, looked eerily like ballistic missile warheads. From their noses hung brightly colored cords in yellow and blue stripes with the sacramental inscription: "Pull out on the firing mode.".

"These are missiles, aren't they?" He couldn't resist asking a question.

"Yes." Nodded the Baroness. "A common Witch. We made so much in the war to shoot before the third coming. But enough of these questions, Lord Cassard, get inside." She added impatiently. "It's too hot there."

"In the cabin? Alone?"

"Of course. You and I are not yet close enough to get into the cockpit together." Lady Iolaya replied with an ambiguous smile and, without waiting for his reaction, walked away from the fighter to the technicians who had recently arrived in the aircar and were now huddled on the edge of the field, not daring to disturb the bosses.

"Isn't it dangerous?" He asked after her, but the baroness's back had already melted behind another cloud of steam. It was a little scary, but it was silly to retreat, and it was eerily interesting to sit in a space fighter, so he plucked up the courage and got into the cabin. The low height from the ground allowed him to do it without any problems or devices.

The main thing is not to press anything. Alex cautiously climbed over the edge and tried to settle into the chair, watching carefully what his hands and feet were touching. I'm not going to fly anywhere.

The seat was moderately soft and very comfortable, with a porous white cushioning very pleasant to the touch, but it implied almost lying down and formed a rather deep bucket - a second person in the cabin could easily fit - there was enough space, but because of the design he could only lie down on top of the one who was in the chair.

This type of seat had a special name. He carefully put his head in the unexpectedly deep header and began to twirl his head all around, burning with an overabundance of childlike delight.

The whole cockpit was white, covered inside with the same soft, porous white upholstery as the pilot's seat. There were pedals under his feet and controls under his left and right hands, except for the added hordes of colorful buttons in various places, very similar to those in the fliers he had already driven. Just above the armrests of the chair, almost along the edge of the cockpit, on both sides were rows of small luminous screens, each about three centimeters across, with some kind of numbers, abbreviations, and even colored graphs and sector diagrams.

There was a suspicion that these screens could also play the role of buttons. There were two groups of four similar screens right in front, on each side of the central "big" screen, the size of a book on which was now flashing in black and yellow: "Not lifting mode! Pumping external coolant! Stop supply before lifting!". Beneath the inscriptions were circular indicators from which it could be deduced that only a third of the working fluid was left and that the storage tanks were a little more than half full.

That was all. Alex turned his head, trying to figure out how the pilots operated the thing. Directly above him looked up into the sky was a raised cockpit cover, but it too was covered in a ubiquitous bright white porous material and was not transparent.

Are they really looking there? He looked doubtfully at the small central screen. I couldn't see a damn thing. Maybe it's got goggles. Like the shooters on the bots?

Before they stripped the weapons from the landing bots they bought, Alex certainly couldn't deny himself the opportunity to dabble a little, and there the aiming was done with something akin to virtual reality goggles.

He looked around again, just in case, even lifting the folds of fabric on the sides of the chair, so they could be covered and even seem to zip up like a sleeping bag. But there was nothing, just a single earpiece hanging from the headrest - perfectly normal, except for the fancy metal rim.

Well, maybe there's not much to look at, all by the devices. Although, there aren't a lot of instruments. Alex thought with mild disappointment. But still, it was great. Especially Baroness Thayor promised to show something else...

So he waited, and even allowed himself to put his hands on the levers.

The Baroness must have finished giving valuable instructions to the technicians by this point, at least two of them running through the clouds of steam toward the fighter Alex was in.

"Are you comfortable, Your Lordship?" One of the technicians leaned over the niche of the cabin and pressed something behind the chair, and it began to change shape, pulling up slightly.

"Yes, quite." The seat is still semi-reclining, but at least my head has risen, and it's more comfortable to look forward to.

At this time, the second technician, swiftly reaching over the edge of the cockpit, stuck a small rod in a slot near the center screen on the dashboard. On the rod hung a strip of bright yellow and blue with the inscription: "Training."

"We'll help you with the covering now, Your Lordship." The technicians warned him and began to pack his lordship into a cocoon, fastening the long pieces of cloth that were on the sides of the chair, which Alex at first mistook for a sleeping bag.

When they had finished, it was more like an apron, or even a blanket, a solid sheet of the same white porous material covering the body from chest to feet, but it did not fit tightly and did not interfere with his movements, and his hands were completely free.

"Is everything all right, Your Lordship?" The technician inquired. On receiving an affirmative nod, he slapped one of the screen buttons at the edge of the cockpit and stepped back, giving Alex a goodbye two-finger gesture of Victory. The lid of the cockpit hissed loudly and began to descend rapidly downward.

The cockpit slammed shut, merging with the hull with a loud click, and it became dark and quiet. The uneven light of the small screens only barely dispersed the gloom, and the quiet hum of pumping water could be heard behind. Alex looked around curiously - in the half-darkness, with the glowing indicators - the cabin seemed even cooler. It was also noticeably chilly. He could feel a stream of fresh air rushing straight to his face.

On the central screen, the word "Training Mode. Getting Exercise" flashed yellow. which in a few seconds changed to: "Activating holo-cover." Here and there, bright drops of light began to appear on the cockpit plating - glowing spatters that quickly dissipated and literally melted the walls - as if a potion of invisibility had been splashed into the cockpit and made it disappear.

Alex seemed to float a meter above the ground, surrounded by clouds of steam. The entire cockpit and the fighter itself were gone, leaving only the screens that seemed to be just hanging in the air, and all that was left of him were his hands resting on the invisible armrests.

"Can you hear me, Lord Cassard?" The baroness's voice came from behind him, snapping him out of his stupor and making him flinch in surprise.

"Yes." He answered uncertainly into space, still trying to get used to being an almost disembodied observer.

"Can you see me?"

Alex looked around using the new circular view and quickly found the baroness. She was standing in the distance, looking into the infoblock and waving to him with her free hand. Right beside her, playing the role of a mobile air conditioner was the aerocar in which the technicians arrived with the door wide open.

"Yes, I see."

"Then, let's begin. I'm about to start a fire curtain exercise in introductory mode. You won't have to do anything. The droid unit will do it. You just watch."

On the central screen, a new record flashed: "Simulation mode", and the bright world of the landing pad around him disappeared, replaced by the impassable darkness of space, generously sprinkled with star grits and a lot of incomprehensible luminous icons.

Some little white triangles, green triangles, red triangles - complex curving lines connecting them. Many incomprehensible pictograms are in the form of stars, squares, and zigzags. Sector diagrams with "Specific Working Fluid Flow" and "Displacement Capacity" hanging down where the central panel of the cockpit was. All this storm of information shone brightly on the black canvas of space, making the eyes scatter and, unfortunately, was completely incomprehensible.

Except that the convergence speed is sixteen comers per second, and he has only twelve seconds left. That's what the two inscriptions hanging right in front of his eyes reported.

In the absence of clear reference points, it was impossible to assess what that speed was and how great it was, but the countdown was clearer. As the countdown progressed, a yellow sphere grew rapidly ahead. At first, it was as small as a fingernail. In a second, it was the size of an apple, and in a second and a half, it covered three-quarters of the front hemisphere.

It was clearly a virtual object that marked a radius, and this radius was huge, probably hundreds of kilometers, and its boundary was rapidly approaching.

With five seconds left on the timer, a heavy throbbing howl filled the cockpit, and the inscriptions "Forced shield boost" and "Grav-Keel: Full mass compensation" blinked red alarmingly at my face.

The space around him shook like water, and on the sides, where the wingtips of the fighter's wings should have been, two jets of light began to spread out, fluttering leisurely on invisible waves and slowly melting behind him to form something like an inversion trace. It was so beautiful that Alex involuntarily marveled, and while he looked back over his shoulder, he didn't see the fighter pass the boundary of the yellow sphere.

There was a frequent quacking sound of some warning signal. Less than a second, he was tossed into the center of the star: everything around him was unbearably bright - just white - for a split second, and then, as if the brightness was turned up, the light diminished, gaining contrast, and it became clear that he was surrounded only by flame. Thousands of flashes of explosions merged into a sea of pulsating plasma, a storm of fire and light. And most of all, the sound: a low trumpet roar that turned into a howl, the flames roared overboard like a horrible creature hungry for blood, like a dragon. And this roar mingled with the quacking alarm and a dull female voice constantly repeating, "Shield overload. Structural leakage."

Not that it was scary, after all, Alex was quite aware that it was nothing more than a simulation, but it was still a little creepy and a kind of daze at the greatness of the fire abyss, against which the fighter and he seemed like crumbs, gnats, just a speck of dust in a sea of fire.

"This is what a fighter sees when he passes the fire curtain." The Baroness's voice was calm, as befits Virgil giving a tour of the infernal abyss. "Because of the constant ruptures, navigation is done blindly. The veil forms like a truncated cone with its base in the direction of travel. The depth of the veil depends on the available performance of the defender's firepower. On average, it is about fifteen seconds."

At that moment, the roaring sea of flame overboard disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, and the baroness continued her speech in the almost total silence of the black velvet of space, interspersed only by the quiet beep of the indicator that warned that the working body supply was less than half.

"When the effective depth of the curtain reaches more than a minute, it is deemed impassable by fighters. The working body reserves for cooling will run out faster. However, it is very difficult to achieve such depth. The wave stations of the defenders can not select small targets like fighters in the background of bursts. Due to the possibility of full mass compensation, gravity-based detection is just as ineffective, and in case of unpredictable attacker maneuvers, escorting them with fire is impossible. Instead, they prefer to create a series of shallow curtains within which a zone of compacted fire is formed, with a force of fire pressure knowingly exceeding the strength limit of the fighter's shield. The zone is relatively small in terms of space and time of existence because it destroys itself by the "halo" effect - the bursts are so frequent and powerful that they begin to destroy the following pulses ahead of time before they reach a predetermined point. But because the fighters inside the curtain are also blinded, it is impossible to bypass the densification zone with a maneuver.

Lady Iolaya paused for a few seconds and, with a sigh, asked:

"Do you understand what this means to a pilot, Lord Cassard?"

"That he could fly into the death zone and not know about it?" Unsurely he answered.

"Somewhere inside the curtain is guaranteed death. And whether you get there or not is entirely up to chance." The baroness explained. "You can't cheat it. It's deliberately formed at a random point. And the chance of running into it seems not too great, but it is always with you. During the war, it was a little less than five percent statistically. If a squadron goes through the curtain by stretching out along the front, it turns out - on the way out they will be short one. Sometimes they were lucky and got out in one piece, or someone got caught on the edge, their shields would fall, but their hull would hold, their vehicle would pull out despite the ionic damage, and the pilot would get only the radiation sickness. And sometimes, it's bad luck, and two or three people can go to the edge of the flames. But that's not the point. The point is that nothing depends on you..."

Alex was sure that he heard in the voice of the Baroness resentment and bitterness carefully hidden behind a mask of calm.

"...The rookies died on their first line run, and the seasoned veterans who had more than four dozen died. And someone could turn a hundred and never even drop a shield in a curtain. Everyone thought he was a conspirator, but he burned up in the next mission. It takes very specific people to get into cockpits knowing that nothing depends on them. And convincing them to adhere to disciplinary requirements that seem silly or excessive to them is almost impossible. And what you saw today is a reason to dismiss a commander in any unit other than a fighter unit. But this is just a sample of exemplary behavior compared to what was going on in combat units when the missions as part of the line force were going one after another. Just keep that in mind."

The black screen in the center of the cockpit blinked, "Simulation over," and Alex found himself hovering over the landing pad again in the soft rays of the setting sun.

Obeying the baroness's gestures, the technicians surrounded the fighter again. The cockpit lid clicked loudly, and the magic that made it invisible vanished briefly, leaving everything in semi-darkness until the mouth of the cockpit finally opened to the hot, humid air.

"What do you think?" Asked the baroness who came up while the technicians helped Alex uncover and get out of the cabin.

"I don't know." He admitted honestly, still impressed by what he had seen and heard, and after some thought, he added. "Creepy but majestic, I guess. There's a beauty in it."

"Beauty?" Sincerely surprised the Baroness. "In what?"

"Well, in the curtain itself." Explained Alex. "What it looks and feels like from the inside."

Lady Iolaya did not comment on this answer, but her head shook with obvious disapproval.

Seeing that the Baroness was clearly already tired of the heat, Alex suggested that they continue their tour of the unit in some of its climate-controlled areas. And they went to the Headquarters, a faceless administrative building at the edge of the base, where they managed to catch their breath and refresh themselves before they were joined again by the pilots, already dressed, and Stack Major Alet Kunali, who had returned from "catching girls".

With the pilots, it was simple, taking advantage of the experience of the professionals, the "First Lord of the High Side" gave the pilots an Unsatisfactory for discipline and an Excellent for the exercise, which resulted in a Satisfactory overall, just as Baroness Tayor had advised. And judging by the reaction of the flying staff, one hundred percent met the local cultural norm. The staff already in the parade Guards' uniforms, though smirked, demonstratively stupid eyes, promised to make amends and not repeat it in the future. Of course, it was hard to believe, but:

Since it's their way of doing things here, I don't want to pry into their monastery with my own rules.

The Second Lady of the High Side, Baroness Thayor, gave them a little more of a scolding for the fact that their grades could have been higher and for the shyness of some of the pilots, unseemly for an Itori Cadet Guardsman. As it seemed to Alex, her admonitions were listened to with a little more piety by the staff, which was, in fact, quite understandable:

I was only in this position because of the title, and Baroness is a real combat pilot.

Having been reprimanded and even managed, obviously in jest, to complain to Alex - for using someone else's fighter without asking: "It's like asking someone else's girl to dance", the pilots were sent away, without any significant personnel decisions.

In general, the situation with the "swimmers" was defused to the obvious relief of the Stack Major, who had been hanging around the whole time. He had nothing to brag about except that all the girls caught were indeed from the base staff, and most of them were not even on duty. Most, but not all. And with him, the Baroness was much stricter. The Stack Major was saved only by the fact he was still only the deputy chief of the base. The chief himself was on leave - authorization for which was obtained at the end of the previous onstum from Nadina. Well and Stack Major sensing the unfavorable mood of his superiors, very cleverly preempted Lady Iolaya, offering to see the assault part of the squadron as well -Stormers and Arms Warriors. Alex simply couldn't resist such a suggestion.

In half an hour, a very comfortable and air-conditioned observation platform with high guests hovered a few kilometers away from the edge of the firing range, which was a large but low hill, scraped by numerous brown potholes of recent hits. Despite the heat, wisps of thick fog clung to the gentle slopes here and there, playing pearly tints in the rays of the setting sun. Regularly, perhaps once every half a minute, a sound came to the platform from this distance like just a loud click, and a new cloud of pearly mist swelled up on the surface of the hill, to which a group of tiny white cockroaches ran over rather quickly, escaping the cloud that had appeared half a minute earlier. As they ran over, the roaches sent a string of sparks toward the top of the hill. It was almost invisible against the red grass brightly lit by the sunset. They somehow appeared only as crimson and black spots of bursts in the places they struck.

Much more rarely, every two or three minutes, the main act happened. From somewhere over the horizon, a handful of very fast fireflies burst out and smashed into the top of the hill, covering it with a series of bright flashes that instantly turned into gray clouds of smoke rising over the new craters of hits. In a dozen seconds, the sound of the impact would reach the platform, first the rapid, whiplash-like rushes of discharge and then a series of muffled, whooshing blasts from the bursts themselves.

They were assault troops or rather, assault troops were over the horizon, more than a dozen kilometers away, performing the standard exercise - hopping over the horizon line, striking, and leaving back.

Judging by the information on the tactical tablets, they performed well, appearing in the line of sight of the target for less than five seconds. And that, of course, was great, and the explosions were quite impressive, despite the lowered "training" mode of the guns, but that was not what I wanted at all. I wanted to see the machines themselves. We had to wait because it was promised that in the last stage of the exercise, the attack aircraft would pass directly over the conditional target to set up an air minefield.

Similar was the problem with the warriors of the Arm, who turned into white cockroaches on the hillside because of the distance. The observation platform on which all the observers were stationed couldn't get any closer for safety reasons. And what could be seen from a few kilometers away? Of course, there was also an observation screen whose camera had an impressive zoom. A cameraman from among the local officers honestly tried to look for a more interesting picture but was forced to shoot mostly explosions and clouds of the energy-absorbing mixture. Only for a few seconds, the warriors of the Arm themselves appeared in the frame, huge and many-legged, fully encased in snow-white angular armor, which made them look more like robots than living creatures.

"These are members of the same race as Lady Faith's squire, aren't they?" Alex asked in a low voice, turning to Taer.

The oldest member of the nobility in their sector had both squires who were non-human races, one or one of them a swirl, resembling a healthy six-legged raccoon with a tail from a flying squirrel. But the other was a chitin-covered creepy four-legged, four-arms, and four-eyed creature, unlike anything he had ever seen before. At the same time, as Alex later found out from personal experience, it's quite a pleasant and reasonable creature. That's what the "warrior of Arm" resembled, at least in the number of limbs and the way they moved.

"Yes." She nodded. "Some kind of collective warrior variety."

Taer returned from seeing off Lady Pell just before the demonstration began. And if she left as happy as a cat full of sour cream, she came back as a cat who had had enough of the valerian. To outsiders, it might not have been particularly noticeable, but Alex had already studied his "safety specialist" well, and such a gleam in her eyes was not at all peculiar to her. Taer was in a state of unhealthy excitement.

And I don't think she's just drunk. He thought. So while he wondered who the "collective warriors" were and why they had varieties, Taer's condition was clearly more important.

"Are you all right?" Alex asked even more quietly, looking into her eyes with all seriousness.

"Yes, of course," Taer answered hurriedly and looked away, muttering. "Maybe I'm just tired, and the heat..."

Alex kept his gaze on her, letting her know he couldn't be bought with that kind of crap.

Taer, on the other hand, fidgeted like a mischievous student until finally, with some nervousness, she took out a jar of Fenote and, still avoiding meeting Alex's eyes, quickly chewed one capsule:

"Why? Is there something wrong with me?" She asked, still wrinkling from the pungent taste.

"If I didn't know you, I'd think you were a little drunk."

"So noticeable?" She was upset and immediately clarified. "I haven't been drinking, really. It must be the Fenot."

"I didn't even doubt that you were sober. It's just your condition that worries me. What's going on with you, Taer?"

She didn't answer right away. It was obvious she didn't want to discuss it, but after a minute of internal struggle under Alex's gaze, she gave up after all:

"I guess I'm not recovering as well from my injury as I first thought," Taer admitted with a guilty look.

Damn, I knew it. Alex rolled his eyes. She was almost sawed in half. She lost an arm, her lung was caught, and instead of resting, she came looking for me with a limb in a sling that had been hastily sewn back on. No wonder the trouble started.

"Are you getting pains?" He asked in a whisper, leaning closer to her. "Are you taking any strong painkillers? Or are you having trouble breathing? I told you I shouldn't have brought you here." He added grudgingly.

"The problem isn't with the body at all." With a strained smile, Taer whispered.

"What do you mean?" Sincerely, Alex didn't understand. "And with what?"

"Let's talk about it later." Instead of answering, she suggested and added, "Now is not the best place to talk about it."

Their whispering did attract attention, and the platform wasn't big enough for them to step aside and talk quietly.

"Good." He nodded.

So, in spite of all his curiosity, Alex decided to "wrap it up quickly."

About fifteen minutes later, with a characteristic supersonic crackle over the top of the hill, plowing through it with jets of rapid-fire blasters, the stormtroopers, angular machines of the same "dark tar" color as the fighters, raced past. Details were almost indistinguishable from the distance, but the only thing I could tell for certain was that, unlike the Fighters, the Stormtroopers were really big, the size of a bus, if not more. The stormtroopers disappeared from view as suddenly as they had appeared, there was no sign of them dropping anything, but after they flew over the hilltop there was a cloud of glittering sparks, like incessant fireworks.

"Are those mines exploding?" Alex asked the Stack Major, looking at the flaring cloud over the hill that sounded like a huge frying pan of boiling oil.

"No, Your Lordship, that's how they bounce." With a kindly smile, the Stack Major explained. "This model of air mines, the Shine, at a given altitude, gives a small electrical impulse, the resulting plasma throws the mine up, and at the top of its trajectory, it opens the petals to become jellyfish-like, and slowly parachutes down, and then bounces again, and so on. A very effective method," the major assured me as if it were his idea. "Without gravity mirrors or thrust generators, it can stay in the air for three to four hours. Under normal conditions, of course. Nice mine, Your Lordship."

"And when they see a target, they fall on it?" Alex suggested, wondering if the major needed to be corrected in any way. He was hopelessly confused about the titling system.

"Yes, exactly, you're right," the major cheerfully nodded. "If there's not enough charge, they fall on the target, and if there's a lot, they accelerate toward the target. This makes a very characteristic crackling sound. They can accelerate almost to the comer in a second if it isn't set in a non-lethal mode. Then they are limited in speed, and the fighting part is deactivated, but all the same, such a blow would break the bones of anyone."

"I see." With an important look, he nodded to Alex, who was completely incomprehensible but curious as to what non-lethal, bone-breaking air mines might be used for. "Well, tell the stormtroopers my congratulations." He added, peeking at the tactical tablet in the Baroness's hands for a score. "Excellent execution of the exercise. I hope to be able to congratulate them in person some other time."

"What about now?" Unsurely the Stack-Major asked, somewhat bewildered.

"Business." With sincere regret, replied Alex. If he had his way, he would have lived in this base for a week at least, but something incomprehensible was going on with Taer. It was much more important. Lady Iolaya was clearly tired of what was happening, and he did not want to abuse her good attitude.

"But I'll keep checking in on you." He added goodbye.

The departure did not take long. In a few minutes, they were already in the bots, having jumped on them "in the landing style" right from the platform without wasting time on landing it.

"Tell me," Alex demanded of Taer, who sat across from him, as soon as the bots were up to speed and the noise in the cabin made it possible to communicate privately over the intercom.

They could not have a better time to talk anyway. In the tower was almost always someone nearby, and he did not want to put it off. Yes, Baroness Tayor was with them now, but as soon as she sat down in the chair, she immediately disconnected from the world with a characteristic absent-minded smile on her face. And it was impossible to hear anything anyway because of the noise, and he sincerely doubted that she had any advanced spy techniques with her.

"I have a problem with aggression," Taer confessed, avoiding meeting his gaze. "Sometimes I overreact too much. I tried sedatives, but they didn't help at all. Fenote helps, but it makes me, as you put it, weird."

Does she have a post-traumatic syndrome? Alex thought with regret, not knowing how to react to such a confession and how to help. And what exactly are the problems manifested in? For instance? He asked, secretly hoping that he was wrong and it was just stress and accumulated fatigue.

"For example, today, Nadine pissed me off so much. I wanted to kill her."

"Well, you say that." Alex laughed involuntarily. "Nadine would piss anyone off, especially in six hours. You're not the only one..."

"It's not a figure of speech." Taer interrupted him, and it was obvious from her that she wasn't in the mood for jokes. "I actually wanted to kill her, to break her, to destroy her. The emotional outburst is very brief, but it's there. I don't think it's normal." She added, looking down at the floor again.

It was really like post-traumatic syndrome - outbursts of aggression in a stressful situation, stuck in that reaction that was during the traumatic experience. And she was shooting back then, not being polite.

"What about the nightmares?" He asked a leading question, remembering what other symptoms there were.

"Did Rima tell you that?" She asked grudgingly instead of answering but then confessed with a sigh. "It happens."

It all added up, which didn't make it any easier:

"Is there anything I can do?" Alex asked. He didn't have any ideas, and that made it kind of hard. Looking for local psychiatrists and hoping they know what they're doing? Not the most encouraging idea.

Taer hesitated for a while, clearly uncomfortable to talk, but then she decided to do it:

"I would like to ask for a leave of absence. For a decade or two. I hope I can get back to normal during that time, especially if there are fewer people around. And if you need me, you can always call me because it's a forty-minute flight from anywhere on the planet."

"I hoped it wouldn't be necessary." She added in an apologetic tone. "Thought I'd come around as it is. Normally, I don't have any problems, and the Fenote helps. But first Count Barazu, today Nadine. Anyway, I'm afraid of accidentally snapping and ruining everything. Or, if your lordship thinks I can no longer perform my duties, I will resign." Taer finished with a lowered gaze, and Alex thought she was about to cry.

"Taer, what are you talking about? You saved my life at least four times. I would do anything for you, not to mention give you a vacation. You shouldn't have come with me in the first place but to recover from your wounds."

"I should have had everything organized for your arrival," she muttered with a touch of resentment.

"Sure." He nodded and added in a soothing tone. "And you've done splendidly. But I care about what's going on with you, you know, and I'm willing to tolerate all the disorganization temporarily to give you time to come to your senses. So take as much time off as you need."

"What if something happens?" She asked pitifully. "And you'll need my help?"

"What's going to happen here anyway? Will the fighters do something naughty again? That's what Baroness Tayor is for. Besides, you said it was a 40-minute flight, no more. In a pinch, I'll call you."

"Really?" Taer finally looked up, and Alex noticed that there were tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.

"Of course. But nothing will happen anyway." He assured her in all seriousness, and he was right.

Nothing happened for exactly two days.

* * *