This is a fan translation of The Last of the Immortals (Последний из Бессмертных) by Andrei Livadny. The novel is a part of the Expansion: The History of the Galaxy (Эспансия: История Галактики) series. Several of the novels of the series are available in official English editions on Amazon.
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Note: I changed the name of the main character from Ivan Tamantsev to John Taman to seem less unusual to English-speakers. Something like that was done in an official translation of a book from the same series.
Prologue
A slow dance of shadows filled the room.
On the vaulted ceiling of the majestic hall, against the backdrop of swirling clouds, laser beams traced the pale, voluminous, but still ghostly figures of people and vehicles.
The girls, sliding in graceful movements of the dance, kept disappearing and reappearing to match the ephemeral figures slowly plodding down the ancient road, overgrown with moss.
The music sounded ominous and grandiose, but shrill sounds, making hearts contract, burst into its dull rumbling as sharp notes.
Fear and hope.
Fear and hope.
The two words that formed life.
Flora stood by the wall, and her gaze kept switching between her shadow friends and the historically accurate picture appearing on the ceiling.
Usually, the scenes of the past, after being watched for hundreds of times, stopped causing reciprocal feelings, but today, something happened in her soul, and she, once again, as if back in her childhood, empathized with them, the ghosts, many of whom were still alive.
Then, on the hall's ceiling, a fragment of the black abyss appeared, stars scattered in bright, unblinking dots, and, eclipsing the pattern of the constellations, a massive spaceship suddenly appeared: a sphere, sparingly marked with navigation lights, with six bulges, embracing it like arms, and clearly visible writing on the hull: "Earth. Colony Transport Hope".
Her heart ached, and Flora did not understand why.
Everything seemed as usual, and she had not been a little girl in a long time to empathize with the laser show for the thousandth time, but something was still happening, yet she could not understand exactly what, she only felt the star abyss once again attain meaningful importance, turning into a path.
But who could come from out there, the treacherous space, hiding only cold and death?
None of those present in the hall had maintained any illusions regarding the distant, almost forgotten, unreachable homeworld; Earth remained there, beyond the alien constellation patterns and no longer made itself felt.
What is wrong with me today?
It would be even worse to cry upon seeing the other images, which would definitely be drawn by the lasers, after which the colony transport Hope, enveloped in flames of the landing thrusters, touched its supports to the new home planet, which the survivors would dub Doom.
No, I can't.
She didn't want any of the Emglans (there were plenty of them in the hall) to sense her condition.
It was better to go outside, take a walk, and get a breath of fresh air. The roses were in bloom, her favorite time of the year, not the time for melancholy.
"Already leaving?" A familiar, slightly derisive voice reached her.
She turned around at the hall's threshold.
The shadow dance ended, the final majestic chords echoed from the ceiling, and a Metamorph was walking to her, cutting through the crowd.
"Hello, Reiben." Flora managed to force a pretty and carefree smile.
"You handle yourself well. A minute ago, I thought you were ready to burst into tears."
"You're right. What's in your soul?"
Reiben thought for a moment.
"You think Metamorphs have a soul, Shodan?"
"You're incorrigible," Flora chided. "Everyone has a soul."
"Except some people's soul is frozen, like a fish saved for later," Reiben snorted and offered his hand to Flora. "Come on, let's take a walk. I'm also feeling stuffy today, for some reason."
They came out under the real stars, ones not as bright or picturesque, slightly flickering in the night sky.
"Do you think we can sense anything beyond Doom?"
"Beyond? What do you mean?"
"I mean there, in space?"
"I don't understand," Reiben frowned. "Space is cold and distant, there is no life in it, which means there is nothing to sense, right? Then again, you should ask the Emglans; they can probably give you a better explanation of the limits of possible perception."
"For some reason, it seems to me today that space is not really that empty and hostile as is commonly believed."
"Well, so what if it isn't? What does that have to do with us?"
"It seems to me something is coming," Flora said mysteriously. "And I'm restless from the forebodings."
"You're just a bit down today. Could you be in love?" Reiben face expressed sympathetic concern. "Well, tell me, who's the lucky guy?"
"Quit laughing at me." Flora frowned suddenly. "I have a strange feeling, as if out there, in the abyss, a person is dying. And I… I can't do anything about it. I can't help them."
"You're just moping. Listen, why don't we go for a drive? Let's race. Through the city!"
"Are you crazy? It's almost servo hour."
"So what? Big deal, servos. We're operatives, after all. Why can't we exercise our official position for personal use at least once?"
"All right," Flora agreed half-heartedly.
The kick of the ejection system, instant g-forces, almost to the loss of consciousness, then a bright scattering of stars slowly appearing against the backdrop of space.
Now, after the exhausting fight, he wanted to close his eyes and not see anything.
He'd done everything humanly possible, but…
The convoy was escaping into hypersphere, and the pattern of the stars was suddenly eclipsed by the swiftly moving outlines of the pirate fighters.
One of them suddenly glowed like a sun, engaging braking thrusters, and, several seconds later, holding electromagnets picked up the pod with the ejected pilot.
He was unable to do anything, even though he understood that captivity could end up being a worse outcome than death in battle.
