Андрей Демидов - Natotevaal. War Chronicle

The wind became stronger and assertive.

Now it was blowing from the depths of the desert.

It was getting cold.

Myriads of grains moved along the crests of dunes, getting into the nostrils, eyes and ears; streamed into the collars, penetrated the tightly laced hiking boots, pockets, seams, hatchet sheath.

But Whitehouse was not paying any attention to it, he was falling asleep.

The desert drank all the strength of his powerful inexhaustible body, coupled by a handful of tonic pills.

The effect of anabolic steroids and acclimatization drugs taken after landing; was also over, and the invisible pressure of the Earth's gravity came over every cell of his body, which after three months of flight has become unaccustomed to gravity.

All at once the body was in agony, bruises and abrasions received in orbital collisions burned like fire, the sun burnt skin was stinging, and his head was aching.

Woozy from nonhuman overloads his brain filled with blurred colored pictures of the past: he is going to see "Star Boy" with his first girlfriend at 24th Avenue, then he is taking a test at the Academy and does not know how to calculate the RC characteristics, then he is playing tennis with Mackliff, ten dollars a game…

The wind force increased.

Heavy flies crawling on the face of a man as if he was already dead have been carried away by its blow; large grains of sand rattled like rain on the cloth of the overalls and the dunes started their invisible movement.

Whitehouse did not feel any heat or pain, or sandy rain on his skin, only the whistling and howling of a storm still penetrated his consciousness.

But something has subtly changed in a voice of the Great Desert, a faint vibrating sound, approaching and then moving away, mingled with the roar of the wind.

No, the desert could not make such sounds.

There, in a snowstorm, something was moving, and this something was mechanical.

Could that be people?

The SAU commandos might have finally tracked them down.

Whitehouse slowly pulled up a worn "Viking Combat" Colt to his chest, the only thing he had not thrown out on the road.

The sound was nearing.

An engine.

It was a sound of a car engine, strenuously wailing on the rise.

So be it – two clips of exploding 38 caliber bullets – it is all that was left for a dying crew of "Independence."

So be it, let them come…

An antique "Jeep" with faded canvas top came out of the dusty mist. It was gnashing, jarring and dangling.

Battered hood jumped at every road-bump. A broken wiper was hanging at the windshield, clearing the view for a driver, the right wing was aloof, the left wing was missing; the shabby sides were painted with intricate ornament.

Whitehouse thought that this monster was a plot of his imagination; and that it was actually a patrol vehicle of the SAU commandos.

He pulled the gun from the sand installed the handle by the cheek and then realized that he could not even push the fuse.

His fingers did not move.

Meanwhile the jeep stopped not turning off the engine, but it did not hold on the crest of the dunes and slid down.

Two stocky men fell out of it: both wore wide-brimmed straw hats, shapeless shirts and pants of indefinite color and sandals without socks.

– There are just the two of them – the astronaut tried to get the fuse with his teeth.

His turban fell from his head and rolled, unfolding in the wind.

The teeth clenched the icy metal of barrel housing.

It was useless.

The strange people stopped holding their hats, which immediately flew over and hung on the back straps, and began loading the still astronauts in the car.

When it came to Whitehouse, they effortlessly tried to take the gun from his hand, but they did not succeed.

The astronaut was holding it tightly.

Muttering some curses they took out the clip, and dragged Whitehouse to the car…

He tried to oppose them, but it was a pathetic attempt. Astronaut found himself on a pile of smelly, oily rags, lying near von Conrad and Dybal.

A minute later Mackliff and Aydem were laid over them.

They covered the astronauts with pieces of parachute fabric, slammed the flimsy doors and the "Jeep" disappeared in the dark.

Digital coded telegram VHN 43

Confidential level: A

Yagd colonel!

I bring to your notice that on 28th Marr a.c., in the sector A17N44 a patrol boat discovered an enemy raider type "Tsvohgum" at high speed leaving the place of a crash of YAG-42.

Cruisers "Kang" and "Medel" caught up with it in the sector 033N09 and, after a brief fire contact, disabled it. The crew of the raider, however, managed to evacuate on the rescue bots, went through mine fields and hid in the Sixth belt of asteroids.

Before the raider collapsed in the process of self-destruction, an external examination has been done by the automated intelligence.

Here is an excerpt from the experts’ conclusion:

– This battle ship was made in 4700, at the Dyulta dockyards;

– The quantity and quality of weapons: corresponds with the "Tsvohgum" class;

– The number and power of propulsion: matches

– Quality of armor plating and the structure of the protective field: matches;

– The amount of external communication energy, sustainability of a central computer: matches;

– The configuration of the body: does not match; 4 powerful claws located along the aft, which were open at the time of inspection.

Presumably, the raider was used as a scanner cover for a ship of unknown functions and configuration. Based on the claws location, an unknown ship can be the size of 4.5 – 5 Ker, and have a shape of a flat, saucer-like aircraft.

– Residual megrazine fields: match;

– Other fields: anomalous perturbation of the gravitational field, laminar nature of disturbances.

Type of perturbations is linear in the direction of the "Terhoma” Swerts base.

The track of disturbances lies in two Tohs -back course of the captured raider.

All things mentioned above suggest that "Tsvohgum" came from the place of the YAG-42 crash, in which he was involved in some way, covering a new ship of the Swerts.

Being discovered by our ships, the raider tried to escape but failed. However, the craft it had been covering effortlessly teleported to the area of its bases.

We continue scanning the areas adjacent to A16N44.

Natote!

22-00. 28 Marr 4725.

From the beginnings of Natotevaal.

Executive Captain of the “Capture” operation,

Yagd Audun Eydlah.

***

Digital coded telegram AHO 101

Confidential level: A

To all military vessels of the 156 squadron of 1U Fleet.

I order:

– stop carrying out the "Capture" operation.

-set the minefields in the area limited by the navigational buoys VA333 and VA105.

-all ships must immediately return to the Stigmarkont Base.

-set analyzers of gravitational perturbations GA-22 at the escape route with compilers tuned to CP fleet.

– degree of alertness: 1A.

23-15. 28 Marr 4725.

From the beginnings of Natotevaal.

Commander of the 156th squadron,

Colonel Yagd Kokum Yohoud.

***

Digital coded telegram 00A

Confidential level: A

The Metropolis.

29 Marr 4725 f.b.N

The SS Coordinator of Natotevaal.

To: the Special Department Coordinator

Foreign Intelligence Board

Of Natotevaal Security Service.

An order:

– cancel the arrest of Colonel yagd Kahum Yohoud.

– stop the internal investigation regarding the third scan watch of Stigmarkont FB, return personal weapons and military awards to the personnel and restore their posts.

-create a special group for the collection and analysis of all the information regarding the YAG-42, endow the commander of the crew with the authorities of the second Commander of the 1U Fleet.

The Natotevaal SS Coordinator

Marshall commander

Yagd Tote Yashemgart

***

Digital Coded telegram VHV50

Confidential level: 3

To: Commander of the 156th squadron, 1U Fleet

Colonel Yagd Kokum Yohoud.

Yagd Colonel!

I bring to your notice that at 16-13 A-time the 211 patrol boat of patrol division, in sphere– sector V13N40, has detected a rescue boat from the transport ship "Loerda-44", with part of the crew on board.

Those who were alive have been sent to the "Tetvut Noor" raider hospital, the dead were buried according to the Fleet Charter.

The place of destruction of "Loerda-44" vehicle has significant gravitational perturbations of laminar character.

Natote!

33 Marr 4725.

From the beginnings of Natotevaal.

Commander of the patrol boat ‘Ropin-33’

211 PSD,

Lieutenant Okt Arber.

8.

Whitehouse did not know how much time he spent lying on a hard straw mat, he could not remember.

He lay there, staring at the intersection of crooked roof rafters: cracked, of dark wood, with constantly steaming smoke near the fire.

But he remembered well those horrible moments when his mouth was filled with mixtures of some bitter herbs, powdered muck, with a smell of rotten eggs, pieces of bark, plant stems, and even objects in a form of buttons. And he could not even move his arm.

He just lay there and cursed that ceiling of guava leaves, the acrid smoke, thin dry hands that smelled of the sun and treated him with nauseous drugs, took out pots of his plentiful shit, where the potions went right after he took them…

But one day he got up.

At once.

One morning he just jumped to his feet, like in ancient times, in the Boy Scout camp at the sound of a wake-up.

He was healthy.

He was ready to run a marathon, climb without hooks and anchors on the steep cliff, bent nails, dive without a scuba in underground lakes.

He stood there, smiling from ear to ear, looking around.

In a mud hut with narrow unglazed windows and low entrance, curtained with a motley cloth, he noticed the presence of another person – an old woman: gray-haired, wrinkled, but agile and quick in her movements with a weathered bony face.

For a while she studied the smiling giant, whose head reached the roof beams, with quiet, intelligent eyes, and then took from the shabby shelves, the only furniture in the room – a light gray suit with traces of coarse darning, hiking boots of the twenty-ninth size and threw it at the feet of Whitehouse.

– Who are you? Where am I? – The astronaut hesitantly stepped forward, but the old woman shook her head and pointed to the exit. Whitehouse picked up his things and climbed out, covering up the loins with his hand.

The first thing he saw was the navigator Alexander Dybal all covered with exotic trinkets, in short shorts made of overalls and a stunning straw hat. A thick cigar in his mouth, he was squinting from the smoke and lively chatting in Spanish with a boy of seven years, who like Whitehouse had totally no clothes on.

A cliff with several shades of rock caves hang over to their right; dense swaying jungle tangled with vines stretched ahead to the left, and behind a dozen huts, was a steep slope, that turned into a rocky plateau, which abruptly ended behind the stone pillars.

These basalt stelae resembled petrified giants, deformed by time.

The desert stretched behind them.

Dybal turned and the cigar nearly fell out from his mouth:

-Ronald damn it are you crawling about on your own?

They clapped their hands, and having walked around a rusty skeleton of a Ford truck, sat on a crumpled barrel of gasoline.

Dybal joyfully patted Whitehouse on the strong shoulder: