OUTCAST

11

The local spirit was somewhat reminiscent of Homland, it was cozy here, and it was nice to indulge in memories of youth and study. The Jedi liked to hang out at these stations. Since there was nothing left of Homland, and everyone had their own ideas on the planets, we only crossed paths in such neutral territories as the 45th station.

On the ground, among the heaps of objects that surround you, it is easy to navigate and understand whether the rangefinder or speedometer is lying or not. You yourself see and understand the distance. Here, in an unorientated void, your pituitary gland is in anguish, it has nothing to compare with, you do not feel where everything is. If the rangefinder says that the object is 700 meters away, then 700, it’s better not to bathe. Most disasters occur precisely because of errors in spatial orientation programs. But now my flight calculates both my ship and the controller, reducing the chance of the same error.

I was dragged to the end of one of the panels, the docking blocks were already visible in it - round disks with large burning numbers. I was turned around with my muzzle in a circle "76" and quietly pulled closer and closer to the red numbers on the metal disk. Once 30 meters away from him, my board froze, evenly stretched along the axis to the disk. The disk parted, several petals to the sides, hiding in the wings. Ahead, the airlock expanse opened in bright white light. With a jerk, like a cartridge in a chamber, they sent me inside - my side was inside, and the petals behind my stern gathered in a solid disk, isolating me inside the airlock. A grappling hook extended forward and snapped into place on my docking port. Ahead, the next disc parted with petals and I was pulled inside the deck by a hook, inserted into the cell - parking. They blocked the door behind me, I'll have to wait thirty minutes, as long as the correct atmospheric pressure and air composition are pumped into the cell. So far, I have set all my instruments to local time, disconnected my ship from the dispatcher. Turned on external communication, found local chats, searched for Joy.

Red was already here, and quickly responded. "Come on bro, at 7:00 p.m., get down to Camelot, the right Jedi place." I OKnul in response and saw a green signal on the monitor - you can go outside. Turned off everything except for the duty systems, unlocked his own entrance gateway and went "outside" pleasantly springing his feet on other people's pieces of iron. As usual, he slapped the ship's plating with his palm in a friendly way, and went to the exit from the cell.

Behind the doors was a narrow longitudinal corridor along which I went towards the hotel. I met a worker in overalls, an administrator in a suit with a badge, and a group of some hurrying passengers with suitcases. It was possible to pass on the conveyor, but I decided to walk along the gallery - 500 meters with huge windows with the most beautiful imitation of space, flying and flying ships. Between the windows along the walls there were ATMs, shops, sofas on which people sat (now and in the future we call all sentient beings regardless of race and social status. I am not a communist and not a democrat by conviction, but I just feel more comfortable that way). There were some groups of people chatting merrily and giggling. I would have stopped and just stood there, but somehow uncomfortable. In general, I have been in outer space for more than a year, and live voices, laughter, seem to be something so fucking ... At the exit from the gallery above the archway leading to the hotel, there was a "Welcome!" and ahead was a noisy, cheerful, seething life.

There were live girls at the reception, not robots. They smiled at me, greeted me and kindly asked how I flew. In moments like these, you're thrilled like a Pleishner and swear like Bruce Willis. Looking into these playful eyes, you won’t become goofy, but with a broad gesture, smiling, you will order a better room - with amenities, on the business class floor ...

Having received a key card from my lovely hand, I smiled again, winked, and went to anchor in the room. I rode in an elevator with some hucksters discussing the prices of bread and beer. On the floor, I went out into the common room - green carpets, leather sofas and armchairs around, murmuring fountains, stones, flowers, a large TV screen and huge slots of portholes. A bar that smelled of coffee. Everything just smelled of prestige and goodwill.

I went down the corridor past the smiling maid and got to my room. Normal bed, TV, refrigerator, table. Looking around him with a quick glance, he fixed the idea that you can sleep here, work, drink with your buddies, you can bring a girl here.

There was still an hour left before the meeting in Camelot, I plopped down on the bed over the red bedspread and turned on the local TV. Outside news on the local channel was not broadcast, so as not to cause controversy. There were mainly music programs and series. I haven’t watched MuzTV for a long time, so I started doing this, for one thing I learned that even now people are listening. Some guys from the Gorgon waggled their tails and claws, splashed with hormones and young maximalism, boyish aggression and teenage infantilism, hacked bass and wheezing - rock and roll. Then the charmer from the Swan gave out penetratingly about love. In general, everything is fine. The year that I was gone passed without revolutions in art. It's time for Camelot.

The tavern was made a la a medieval castle. Subdued reddish light, like from torches, a fireplace in the common room, oak furniture. On the sides are separate niches with tables. In the common room in the middle of the dance floor. The pole in the middle promised a striptease by the evening. Joy knew good places. He smiled in one of the niches with his trademark Gagarin smile from ear to ear and sat at a massive table. I smiled myself, a sincere happy smile, and went to him. He stood up, and we embraced, clapped each other on the hands and, joyfully, sat down on wooden benches.

I have always wondered why we do not age and do not change outwardly at all. He always recognized his “friends” from Homland in a crowd a kilometer away… So Joy, sitting next to him, hasn’t changed a bit over so many eras. You can, of course, find a few wrinkles on the face, you can calculate that the face has become dry and slightly stretched out. But the secret is in the eyes. For most, after thirty, they go out, after forty they harden, after fifty they become cloudy. Joy's eyes still burned with lights, like from semaphores in the night, like from beacons or from docking landmarks. Sometimes tough, sometimes warm, sometimes cunning or… glimmering lights because of which you feel that you are dealing with a living person and you yourself are also alive.

We were already laughing, smoking and sipping whiskey. They remembered school, classmates - who saw whom where. They didn’t mention a common sidekick on Apollo, but Joy, it turns out, knew about my adventures in the Choban Valley. “I thought you really got shot,” he neighed, looking at a waitress in a medieval stylized outfit who brought meat (!). We dug our teeth into steaks made of something similar to pork, and voluptuously bit, chewed, swallowed, tossing vegetables like cucumbers and tomatoes into our mouths.

Joy had a business proposal for me. He was putting together a team of 5-7 good shooters for a new shooter. The game was new, but there were already big stakes on it. It was necessary to covertly shoot the local boss for most of the participants in the game. Joy's customers undertook to deliver to the right level of the game in the right location with all the necessary weapons and options. They promised not only to pay well, but also to get out of there alive. The matter was not going to be easy. Not the fact that it will work the first time. The advance payment already received by the red-haired commander allowed him to make three attempts. “The thing is dumb, silent. It can be easy to screw up. They pay the norm. The team is almost assembled - if you agree, then we can be considered complete.

I said I'd think about it tomorrow and we ordered more whiskey. My head was already buzzing when a stripper appeared at the pole and the appropriate music began to play. Radost said that a female ensemble and a dance group from Lebed were hanging out on the 45th street (“You, Br, you always liked swans”). And he also promised to introduce interesting filmmakers - "youngsters, kick-ass, talented and promising, they can come in handy, you love art."

Finally, it became hot in the head, the shoulders softened, the blood ran like boiling water through the veins, the effects of intoxication played merrily in the eyes - the objects around changed density, brightness and contrast, appearing and disappearing, the stripper seemed right in front of her nose and sweat was visible on her back, when she bent over.

In the opposite niche at the table, three bulls sat down - it is always difficult to make out such bulls, whether they are bandits or cops. Flat square big muzzles, jaws, shoulders are also huge and square. They sat down, not like us, leaning back and spreading their arms wide, but crowded their foreheads to the middle of the table, clenching their fists on the tables in front of them. They ordered, however, like us - meat and whiskey. I already knew what was going to happen next, and I was glad about it. From everything it was clear that Camelot is a place where this is allowed, or at least not forbidden. No sweet couples, intelligentsia, children to be seen. Wooden furniture, metal utensils - everything is unbreakable.

I looked into Joy's eyes and asked when? He dreamily looked at the bar and said: "When the bartender is asked to turn on the thug."

We looked at the dancer at the pole, diligently weathering the excess hops and not renewing it yet with new portions - we were waiting for the bulls to catch up with us. They were seasoned sprinters, knocking over glasses, as if they were scribbling from a machine gun. Concentrated, not smiling and not talking plainly, they drank, as if they were working or fighting. Half an hour later they were already excitedly bullying, hitting the neighbors and, finally, shouted to the bar - Eh, put, in short, Grad, about the third walker!

As if that wasn't enough, one of them pointed a finger at us and muttered in his comrade's ear - and those faggots are here, skywalkers, nah. His comrade raised his head and with difficulty aimed his gaze at me. “You yourself are a fag,” without complicating it, I told him loudly and distinctly in that look, so that I could definitely hear it through the entire hall.

They, all three of them, got up from the table and, in order of battle, approached us at an angle forward. In order to neutralize their numerical superiority, we decided not to go out into the hall, but to wait for them in our niche, at our table, relying not only on ourselves, but also on bottles, plates and on the table itself, if necessary. They were stupid, climbed into a niche, sat down on our benches and in the cramped space between the table and the walls began to sideways, sliding their seats on the benches, approaching us. The third one did not fit in here at all, and stood in front of the table while not in business.

Then we jumped on the table with our feet and kicked both of them in the head like a football player. Joy stayed with these two, sitting down on the table and poking them in turn with his fists in the snout. I jumped into the hall, landing on the neck of a third and knocking him to the floor. He managed to grab his head and hit him with the back of his head on the floor. Then he dodged, threw me off, and we stood opposite each other. The stripper squealed nearby, clearly enjoying it. I jumped up to half my height and in a turn, putting all my strength into the rotation, kicked him in the temple. He collapsed, swaying. Joy, meanwhile, was dragging the two knocked-out bodies out from behind our table and laying them next to "mine." At that moment, the guards peered into the hall through the door without entering. After exchanging glances with the bartender, they left, deciding that the incident had not happened.

The male waiters took the guys out of the tavern - closer to the elevator stop and left them there. Returning, one of them came up to us at the table and said that those three were normal without serious injuries. We joyfully counted out cash for his trouble and ordered another bottle. Happy, smeared in this muddy evening, digesting steaks, and slurping further whiskey, they sat for about another hour, until they reached the condition to please those around them with “our” Jedi song, one of the Homland barracks, who in their youth yelled at underground drunks. The other guests of the bar, who knew about the cultural peculiarities of the star wolves, wisely endured, hoping that the song was not long. We yelled this to ourselves - loudly, there is no need for beauty and voice, only loudness, when you push the air not only with your throat, but with your whole chest, abs, almost with your feet.

We flew to Aldebaran

For lamb for the Emperor

5 years of flight

Around only Cosmos, hopeless Cosmos, bespontovy Cosmos, fucking Cosmos. ENDLESS COSMAAAAAAS!

There is no food here

no water

no women

only Cosmos, hopeless Cosmos, bespontovy Cosmos, fucking Cosmos.

ENDLESS COSMAAAAAAS!

The chorus had to be yelled so that the words ENDLESS COSMAAAAAS, darkened in the eyes. So we sang, leaving the staff of Camelot in culture shock ..

2.2

We successfully, without noise and without bumping into anyone, passed through the garden and went out to some back doors leading to the outbuildings of the palace. Joy quietly pried open the glazing beads holding the glass in the windows with his bayonet. Carefully removing the panes and placing them side by side, the six of us climbed through the window in turn and ended up inside. No one was supposed to be here at this time, and so it happened. We passed humming large refrigerators, cupboards, transformers, and reached the pantry, where there were sacks of potatoes or something like that. They pushed aside the bags that stood in the middle, freeing the hatch leading to the basement. They removed the hatch, went downstairs, and, shining with flashlights, went to the door. Customers provided us with keys, we opened the door and entered a narrow corridor with pipes. Fifty meters and we'll be in the basement under the boss's palace.

There has been an attempted rebellion on the 4th planet of A Scorpio. The people wanted to overthrow the local dictator, achieve elections and divide up the local energy mining corporation, which made 70% of the budget of this planet. The rebels did not achieve a lightning victory. For a year now, there have been riots on the streets of all cities, sometimes turning into skirmishes, partisans started to appear in the villages, some regions began to detach, the military began to self-determine in places.

Of course, there were a lot of players off the planet who bet on a different outcome of this story. This is a legend for a new mega-shutter, a shooting toy, in which several hundreds of millions of users are now playing all over the galaxies. A thousand levels and locations made it possible to satisfy any of the most sophisticated tastes. At the same time, a series based on this game was on the screens - the series were filmed at the end of each month of the game. Now there were already expensive actors on the screen ... Big advertising budgets, competing script groups ... Huge money was spinning in this game everywhere. Bets were placed on players, on teams, on local currencies, on candidates for future elections, on everything. Corporations lent to local banks and companies against future dividends. Players bought weapons, levels, options, saves ... In short, Joys threw off good money so that he slammed the boss,

We reached the end of the corridor and stood in front of the door, Joy turned on the hint - the guys who hacked the game threw us a picture of what was happening in the vicinity, and we could see that there was no one behind the door now. They opened the door and went to the stairs. Everything went like clockwork, half-squatting, crowding to the railing so that we could not be seen through the windows from the courtyard, they went up to the second floor, past the officer's dining room, where about twenty people were now eating ...

Finally we are on the floor. Among us is a former paratrooper, (a boxer and a submachine gunner), a former cop (this sambo wrestler assures that he will wring his hands behind the back of a representative of any life form in the universe), a bully-machine gunner from mercenaries, a sniper from some distant colony, I am Joy. In the general's bar, behind the door from us, the boss and the general were sitting at the table, two guards-specialists. Between the entrance and the chiefs was a table, at which five more fighters were sitting. They had weapons in their hands.

Through the door I heard an indistinct conversation from behind the door, the rattling and clinking of dishes, quiet music. Birds could be heard from the window on the stairs. Here, on the landing, the smells of flowers and fresh air from the yard mixed strangely, the smell of a snack from behind the door. They have everything there in a military way, I heard the smell of fragrant soup, buckwheat porridge with meatballs, fruit compote ... And on top of this, from the general's table, a shish kebab fan beat inimitably and unmistakably. Everything spoke about the happiness of these people. Their ancestors, looking down from heaven, were happy for them and proud of themselves. Neither these people nor their ancestors from heaven saw the six of us inserted into their world by skilled hackers. Now they will see.

The landing force hit the door with force, throwing it wide open. The cop tossed a handful of mini-grenades inside. The table with the guards was supposed to be torn to shreds, the sound shock was supposed to deafen everyone who survived, and the dense smoke was to blind. In our program, we could see this room not smoky, that is, without interference. When there gasped so that the glass in the windows crumbled, we stepped into this smoke. I fired a burst into the corner at the bar, where a fighter was squatting, aiming a pistol towards the door. The boxer was hitting someone in the other corner. The sniper and the machine gunner ran to the window to control the yard. Me and Joy jumped to the boss and the general. Joy immediately stabbed the boss with a bayonet-knife with a blow from above in the eye to the very hilt. I jumped on the table from top to bottom and fired a burst into the general's face, spattering the white tablecloth on the table and the white leather sofa with blood, brains and pieces of bones. Joy dragged the boss from the table to the floor and, pulling out a pistol from his belt, concentratedly put the barrel to the boss's chest at the level of the heart and fired. The landing party and the cop killed someone at the door.

The yard stirred and ran. The sniper clicked someone into the flower bed. The machine gunner unleashed fire at the far end of the site, from where a discordant crowd of military men wanted to run out, but under fire lay down behind the trees in the park. Our exit is in the kitchen, through which we must go to the other side of the palace, and jumping out the windows there, run through the tennis courts to the pool. In the pool - exit from the location.

I took out a bomb from a satchel behind my back, the second was taken out by a paratrooper. We explode one bomb below on the platform below us. We put the second one on slowdown and blow it up right here. The landing party gave an explosion below. It crashed and covered the entire area with black acrid smoke, which will give us time to retreat. I set my burst to "in 45 seconds". We have to go, but Joy was all messing around with his boss. All that was required of us was to ensure the broadcast of what happened on closed chat channels, and we did it. The corpse of the boss is large, the face in all details was in the frame and now it was screenshotted by all interested parties. But the redhead was still digging something in the pockets of the dead man, smacking his hands in the blood, undertook to pull off the jacket from the dead boss and climb under his T-shirt. Cursing, he unbuttoned the dead man's pants and reached into his shorts. "Bitch, pervert!" - I barked, looking at the stopwatch of my bomb. Finally, Joy grabbed the sleeve of the boss's jacket and began to tear it. The jacket was strong, but the redhead still tore off the sleeve with a howl, and feeling something under the lining, smiling, dragged the torn sleeve under his jacket. There were 5 seconds left on the stopwatch, we would not have time to leave, and I turned off the timer and fuse. Downstairs they had already come to their senses and, despite the fire of the machine gun, they reached our wall. Directly below us, on the floor below, the officers in the canteen have stepped up, climbed the stairs, and are about to break in here.