When you want to avenge a loss and feel that the hour of the decisive battle is approaching, you gather all your will into a fist, fully concentrate on achieving your goal. The path is not easy, but it's a price I'm willing to pay main character novel by Sergei Tarmashev "Ancient. Background. Book Three. This series of books ties into the Ancient series, and readers have more and more questions. I would like to understand how the Thirteenth and Torbrand are connected. There are assumptions, but I want to know everything for sure. The writer does not forget to pay attention to the main war, the struggle of two forces, the experiences of the characters and their relationship with each other, giving only part of the information. But there is a premonition that the end of this story is already very close.

The war has been going on for four hundred and thirty years. The desire to destroy enemies. Large-scale and brutal battles. A whole divided into two parts. And only in the beginning it was something painful and scary. The farther, the more accustomed to seeing this war, less and less emotions, more and more losses. But his life is subordinated to only one goal - he wants revenge. He will punish those who are guilty of losing the most precious thing he had. He is Thorbrand, True Ace and King. And the Dark Ones are afraid of him. No one else in the galaxy has the strength he has. Thorbrand feels that the decisive battle will soon come.

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"There is enough light for those who want to see, and enough darkness for those who don't."

Chapter first

957,600 years ago, four-dimensional layer of the universe, high-energy space, frontier spiral arm of the Pogranichnaya galaxy, Yarn star system, 12 hours 70 parts according to the time system of the Shining civilization

The first echelon of the enemy fleet fired a volley, and the consciousness dispersed by the Tracking Crystal automatically made a calculation. Four million homing torpedoes. Weak for such a fleet, it means that the Dark Ones have something else in store. Torbrand, hovering in the glow of the Luminary’s combat post, got in touch with a single circuit of the Guardians:

- Look for hidden enemy forces. I feel the presence of more low energy Beings than we see. "Daaria" and "Ariste" do not leave the invisibility mode. Destroy a torpedo salvo to battleships. Strike groups prepare for the attack. Reserve to wait for my command.

The unified command circuit was colored with short pulses of commanders, confirming the receipt of the order, and the squadron of battleships, spread out in the cosmic night like a gigantic shining necklace, fired a return volley. The torpedo ocean rushing at near-light speed was crushed by an area of ​​transcendental gravity that suddenly appeared on the way, and the approaching shaft of bursting snake-like silhouettes was replaced by a giant flash of many explosions that merged together. Torbrand sent out a brief pulse on the fleet command frequency, and the strike teams launched their attack, instantly breaking away at thirty times the photon's current speed. The first echelon of the enemy did not have the technological capabilities to prevent rapprochement and a moment later found itself in the clinch zone. The Radiant strike cruisers used their superior speed to rapidly blend into the enemy battle formations, and a hot glow of explosions erupted in the midst of the icy vacuum. Streams of antimatter overwhelmed the enemy fleets, turning the multi-deck monsters studded with guns into blinding photon flashes, and the number of the first echelon of the enemy fleet began to gradually decrease. The second and third echelons of the Dark Ones began to retreat at full speed, demonstrating their intent to find the edge of the region of space within which the Radiants had blocked the possibility of a hyperjump. On the surface, this seemed reasonable. The Dark One fleet outnumbered the Shining Ones by twenty to one, which effectively meant a complete victory for the Shining Ones, and the enemy admiral saw no point in wasting his forces in vain. The first echelon of the Dark Ones, as usual, consisted of representatives of the Black race, the rest of the enemy units belonged to the Grays, so the admiral's decision to sacrifice Aliens to save his own at first glance looked quite expected.

“The dark ones planned to lure us into a trap,” Torbrand's energy flow did not carry emotions. - Let's play them. Reserve to start a detour. The task is to bypass the battle, start the chase and forge the second echelon of the enemy in battle. Do not go into a region of space that allows the launch of a quark reaction. Attack!

Reserve strike groups instantly picked up speed and sped off after the retreating enemy. The network of Fleet Guardians merged together as a result of both attacks spread far beyond the sector, and reports followed almost immediately:

- I see the radiation of a quark charge! One charge of low power is installed on the flagship battleship of the second tier!

- I confirm! The spectral response is distinct. Imitation is excluded.

– Another quark charge on the flagship of the third echelon! This is a dreadnought of the Grays, I give a backlight.

– I confirm compliance of radiations. On the flagship dreadnought, a high-capacity charge.

– I see the radiation of the Immortal! The avatar is located on the dreadnought of the third echelon, along with a quark bomb. Goes at full speed to the region of free triggering of the quark reaction.

- Do not pursue the Immortal - Torbrand merged with the general energy flow solar system and listened to the radiation emanating from the avatar. - Before a special command, do not pay attention to the third echelon of the enemy. Guardians, is there any new data on the hidden powers of the Dark Ones?

“Not yet,” the Guardian from the Daaria, who heads the general network, answered for everyone. - Are looking for.

Reserve strike groups overtook the second echelon of the Dark Ones, and a second battlefield broke out in deep space. There, the overall balance of power was equal, and the Grays fought fiercely, probably counting on the help of the third echelon. But the third echelon was in no hurry to help and continued to retreat, maintaining a tight battle formation.

“I feel the radio communications of the Dark Ones!” “The general network of Guardians has sent a report from one of the reserve's strike cruisers. - Admirals of the first and second echelons do not ask for support from their naval commander. I don't see any panic among the Dark Ones.

- I confirm. - In the general network of the Guardians, an impulse has arisen from a cruiser that is fighting with the first echelon of the enemy. – Strong emotional imprints come from Blacks. They are waiting for some event and hope to win.

Bright thin lines connected both fleets, bringing unrelenting death to the waterfowl in concentrated streams of radiant energies. The march formations of the Delphi transport convoy flared up like many small suns, obscuring the clouds of steam swelling in the place of the destroyed ships, mediocrely lagging behind the covering warships.

O Owner! - puffing up with happiness, the Follower reported. - Transport ships of the Delphic Empire are completely destroyed! The escort ships mixed up their battle formations and began a disorderly retreat!

Shshekh puffed out his mandibles contentedly. The waterfowl panic. Excellent, just what you wanted. Demoralized warriors will not show miracles of courage and perseverance. That's what one, but carefully calculated blow means.

The Delphi fleet fired a missile salvo! - continued Follower. "They're trying to get out of range of our weapons!"

The owner chuckled. Apparently, the commander of the waterfowl completely lost his head from confusion. Only the war lasers of the great Insectorate can deliver an effective salvo at such a distance. Not a single rocket will reach the battle formations of the Inses, at such a distance they will be shot halfway. The Delven warlord just doesn't know what to do. Shshekh himself, in his situation, would try to hide behind the star, leaving it between himself and the enemy, thereby gaining time for a hyperjump. A speedy flight is the only thing that would now make it possible to save at least some part of the fleet.

The enemy ships began to move towards the sun. Computer analysis shows that they are trying to get out of the line of fire, hiding behind the star! - announced the Watcher gloatingly.

Shshekh felt bored.

Fleet to start pursuit. Fire on readiness.

He stretched lazily in the Guiding Web, wondering if it would be wise to give permission for sleep to the left half of his brain.

The trap was successful, and the outcome of the battle was already a foregone conclusion. His fleet was in close proximity to the star's photosphere, Delphi's fleet was much further away. Movement on a small radius will be faster and more economical than on a large one. Waterfowl will never hide behind the sun. They will lose several small ships before they realize it. Then their commander will sacrifice the remaining small ships by placing them in a screen to save the large ones, which will withdraw from the battle to go into hyperjump. In fact, the victory has already been won. The owner looked at the picture of the battle. The ships of the Insectorate pursued and bombarded the waterfowl, gradually skirting the sun, Delfi lost two destroyers and retreated, stupidly snarling missile salvos, meaningless at such a distance. What was happening was no longer of any interest to Shshekh. He sank into himself and began to think. After destroying the remnants of the waterfowl fleet, he simulates the departure of his fleet from the system. In fact, he will again hide under the fields of refraction, but only away from the star, and wait for the Commonwealth rescue squadron. He will destroy people completely, cutting off their escape routes. Then it will poison the planets and leave the system.

To heighten the effect of his triumph, it would be wise to appear before the Queen Mother as quickly as possible, for rumors travel in space at a rate far greater than that of a ship. As you know, the new Queen Mother is emotional, she is most generous in the first days after receiving good news, this circumstance should not be neglected. Perhaps he will be granted the right to climb one more strand to the center of the Throne Weave...

Oh Owner!!! - Half dead from panic horror The follower snapped him out of his thoughts. - People!!! Here People!!!

Shshekh dashed into the center of the Guiding Web. At first he did not believe his facets. Right in the middle of the battle formations of his fleet, the warships of the Commonwealth of Humans appeared literally out of nowhere. For several moments, the Keeper stared in a daze at the gray orbs of strike cruisers and the bulky cylinders of aircraft carriers emerging around them.

Ambush!!! They are everywhere!!! screeched the Inferior, and the Weave trembled, echoing the horror that gripped the flagship's crew.

Fleet to transfer fire to Human ships! - the Owner came to his senses. - The first salvo on aircraft carriers!

At that moment, the Humans struck. The viewscreens were momentarily illuminated by flashes of explosions blooming perilously close to the flagship. The automation adjusted the brightness, and Shshekh realized that in an instant he had lost a quarter of the fleet. Some of his ships, obeying orders, tried to find Commonwealth aircraft carriers in the confusion of explosions and wreckage and attack them, but time was already lost - everything around was teeming with Human interceptors.

Cancel the attack on enemy aircraft carriers! - The owner this time did without an intermediary, passing his orders directly to the Inferior. Time was now the deciding factor. - Concentrate fire on the Human cruisers!

The men fired a second salvo, and everything around was drowned in a roaring ocean of boiling fire and seething clouds of hot gas, which a second ago were the mighty ships of the Sixth Fleet of the Second Swarm of the Insectorate. The ether was filled with cries of pain and panicked screams. Shshekh turned to the Follower.

Fleet orders! Engines for maximum power! Break the distance immediately and get out of the clinch zone!

The lower one, half-dead with horror, convulsively rushed to fulfill the order. The owner was furious. Commander Delphi has lured his fleet into a trap! Humans had been here before the arrival of the Insectorate ships, and all this time they had been patiently waiting for the right moment. Someone foresaw Shshekkh's train of thought and built a trap. And this someone was not a waterfowl. To uncover such a brilliant plan, you need to have the brain and instinct of a predator, a ruthless killer, and Delphi is not capable of this. So that's why, after the alliance between the Empire and the Commonwealth was concluded, Delphi's military successes skyrocketed! The conclusion was unequivocal: Humans are even more dangerous than he thought. They must be destroyed at any cost and as quickly as possible. Left without the Commonwealth, the Delphic Empire will inevitably fall under the might of the combined blows of the Insectorate and the Hegemony.

The Keeper's flagship emerged from the swirling mess and began to pick up speed. Shshekh again took control of the communications with the fleet and ordered all the Inferior to cover the flagship before going into hyperjump. The Inferior can be sacrificed: the Insectorate is great and mighty, new Inferiors will hatch, new ships will be built. Now it is necessary to deliver to the Queen Mother these findings, containing information that may be invaluable.

Suddenly, from the general chaos of explosions, clouds of debris, boiling fire and hot gas, the matte gray ball of a Commonwealth heavy cruiser emerged. The ball approached swiftly, and Shshekh recognized the identification mark engraved on the upper hemisphere of its hull. An incomprehensible creature consisting of a round, furry body with two black eyes and two large round flat ears that exceed the size of the body. Flagship of the Commonwealth Fleet. Right in front of him was the Martial Leader of the Human race. The wielder clung to the weaving of the Guiding Web and literally fired from himself the command to destroy the enemy. But it was already too late. The matte gray orb blotted out all the viewing screens, growing in size. The last thing Shshekh saw was a sterile cold flash that colored the conning towers of heavy plasma emitters.

Ace Guardian switched off, and at that moment the third echelon of enemy forces changed the direction of movement. The enemy squadrons undertook maximum acceleration towards the second battlefield, and only the flagship dreadnought of the Immortal, surrounded by a dozen guard cruisers, remained in their place. The overall balance of energies at the point of its location corresponded to a region of space in which nothing prevented the occurrence of a quark reaction. Thorbrand listened to the distant rough imprint of technogenic energy and again suppressed a flash of rage. Not now. The immortal knows that he will again go unpunished, and therefore boldly provokes an attack. His third echelon would soon join his second, and their combined strength would increase. The Radiant Reserve will begin to suffer losses, and this, according to the Immortal's plan, should piss off the commander of the Radiant Ones. And then the Shining One will send the Beacon of close combat to destroy the flagship of the Immortal in order to deprive his troops of control. And the battleships of fire support will remain without protection. This means that the hidden forces of the Dark Ones must already be somewhere nearby. They will launch a surprise attack on the battleships, and if you're lucky, the Beacon will be destroyed by a quark explosion. But it's all just a cover. The ruler of the Grays conceived another meanness.

Lying in the opposite part of the central compartment, Eirik felt the impulse of rage emanating from the owner and jumped to his paws. The mighty griffin listened to the Crystal of Search, but did not find an enemy nearby and lay down in place. Thorbrand lit the glow of the Pet Crystal for the pet and said softly:

- Prepare to accelerate.

Hearing a familiar command, Eirik climbed into the weave of energies and habitually curled up into a ball. Fighting animals are unable to blend into the ship's outline and prefer to sleep inside the landing glow. But Eirik had an increased attachment to the host's energy flow and often sensed the course of the cosmic battle. In order not to excite the beast, I had to put it to sleep myself. Torbrand poured a small stream of energy into the pet's energy circuit, putting the griffin to sleep, and again listened to the flow of cosmic energies. Thoughts of the Immortal cannot be tapped, his avatar is controlled by the technologies of the higher Dark worlds, but the shadow from their energies can be seen and you can go through it to his planetoid of Immortality. But in order to detect the shadow, one must have time to get close to the Immortal, and the Rulers of the Grays know about it. Therefore, they destroy their avatar at the slightest sign of threat. Until now, it has not been possible to catch them by surprise, there are still too few Ases in the military caste.

– I feel the work of the Dark refraction fields! - The general network of Guardians brought a report from one of the battleships. “At least seven hundred prints. Approaching slowly.

“I confirm,” said the next Guardian, also from the squadron of battleships. “The Dark Ones are somewhere nearby, trying to get to our rear.

“I am detecting a slowdown in the movement of prints,” another report followed. – Hidden enemy fleet stops.

“They are afraid of the presence of the Light. – Thorbrand listened to the imprints of alien energy collected by the Guardian's network. Covered by refraction fields, the Dark One fleet stopped moving and raised the cloaking mode to its maximum. Usually, in such cases, the troops of the Immortals become almost undetectable, and they can be found not so much by the traces of the work of refraction fields, but by the energy imprints of man-made devices in the general flow of the surrounding space. However, now the Guardians could clearly see the frequency sweeps of the refraction fields, which indicated that the enemy’s cloaking equipment was not of the highest quality. The Dark Ones have more serious technologies. It means that the Immortal has saved on this fleet as well. Well, it's time to find out what he's up to.

- Commander Askjold, - Torbrand called the commander of the reserve, - report the situation.

- The enemy carried out an encirclement maneuver and cut us off from the main forces of the squadron. “The Link Crystal ignited the image of the kinsman. - As long as we hold on. Four dead, many wounded, half of the interceptors badly damaged and returned on board. Three cruisers are on the verge of losing speed, one is hit.

We're starting a counterattack. - Torbrand switched the Beacon to deathmatch mode. - Battleships to transfer fire to the second echelon of the enemy. "Daarii" and "Ariste" before contact with the enemy, do not leave the stealth mode. "Daaria", your target is the saboteurs of the Dark Ones. Arista, help Askjold. I'll take care of the Immortals and join the main force. We are working on readiness!

A clot of inky-black radiant energy with a Light inside instantly gained thirty times the speed of a photon and pierced the boundless infinity of space. The sectors engulfed in the simmering battle were left behind, and the marks of the Immortal's dreadnought and his bodyguards loomed ahead. Thorbrand felt the panicked horror emanating from the Grays, and the unified energy flow of the solar system faltered as he felt the start of a quark reaction. The Light, blazing with bottomless blackness, instantly changed direction to the opposite, and a huge piece of space boiled with the unbridled fury of enraged elementary particles. Everything around was covered with a gray haze of crumbling space, and an all-devouring stream of destructive energy crashed into the Light. But an infinitely strong blow collided with the infinite power of the fighting Ace, dispersed by mighty Crystals, and the gigantic all-destroying ram admitted its defeat in front of its brother, the same Son of the Great Flash. Driven by the energy of Asa, the equipment, created by the wisdom of millions of generations of the Shining Ones, redirected the incoming destructive force to the revival of the matter it had devoured, and the space around the Light began to restore stability.

Rated the book

That's what cannot be taken away from Tarmashev, so this is the author's courage. He is not afraid to give free rein to his fantasy, he is not afraid to become a "template" writer, he is not afraid to play with the scale of the plot, he does not run, as I think, for recognition. And the most important thing that cannot be taken away from him already is that, with all the obvious shortcomings and virtues, he writes damn interestingly.
As for this particular book, here, I have to admit, I wanted all this cosmic excess to finally, at least a little closer to some kind of logical conclusion. I love it when cycles that are interesting to me go on and on, new books are written, but here, already in the third part, there is no smell of the final yet, and I really want to understand what the trick is. I want, finally, to understand how Torbrand and the Thirteenth, the one that is earthly, are connected. So far I don’t see the connection, except that they are warriors and that they are clearly the same person, but I haven’t done it yet how to connect all this. Maybe that's why I already want to quickly finish with the backstory. I want the final!!! And he didn’t come again, an infection!
Everything is still incredibly interesting. We immediately get into the thick of things, immediately space massacres, different planets, different races, different heroes and their views on such a long war. But the development of the story of Thorbrand, and in fact it is, in fact, the main storyline, I do not see.
Well, apparently, the only thing left is to wait for the next book of Prehistory. After all, someday it will come to an end. Someday this war will end.

Rated the book

After the sad end of the second book - the mood was only good. I wanted somehow the author to "resolve" the situation with the death of one of the main characters. All the same, not George Martin with his PLIO, where the main characters "die like flies."
I was pleased that Thorbrand is doing well in terms of development and growth of his strength. He became a Fighting Ace and a King. And now the Dark Ones are even more afraid of him. And in general, everything is more or less calm in the Borderlands galaxy. But this calmness is somehow oppressive and it is obvious that soon there will be "tin."
Of the pleasant - new heroes and a storyline with Quohtli. Which in some miraculous way will have to play a significant role in the end of the entire cycle (at least I think so, otherwise why did they appear here at all?!).
From the pleasant - Harmonious Alice. From the obvious - this is the reincarnation of Alina. But with the details - everything is complicated here and I will wait for an explanation.
So I'm happy to read last book. There are many questions that I want answered. And the most important of them is the connection of Torbrand and Alina / Alice with the very Thirteenth and Alina from the main cycle about the Ancient One.

Rated the book

So I finished reading the third book of Tarmashev's cycle "Ancient. Prehistory". After that, I decided to scour the Internet in search of reviews about the work of the author himself. Some say that his works are almost the standard of Russian science fiction, others that Tarmashev does not understand science and therefore his books are complete nonsense. And, purely my opinion, all these reviews are complete nonsense.

The narrative in the novel brings the reader as much as 449 years after the death of Adelheid. The war goes on, and so on and so forth. But this is not the main thing. The main thing is that Torbrand once meets a young and thirteen-year-old Valkyrie (oh, this is the magic number thirteen) who is also called Adelheid. The girl was named so in honor of the great heroine and one does not need to be seven spans in the forehead to predict the "unexpected" turn in subsequent chapters. The legendary Ace at first does not really pay attention to the girl, but later (quite a lot of time later) says that Adelheid has the same glow and energy of his beloved Adelheid. WHAT A TWIST! The warrior does not understand how this is possible, but it just "feels" that he intends to figure everything out.
And the war is also described to us from the point of view of the Dark Ones. Boredom is deadly, to be honest. So everything is dull, but the idea itself is not as bad as it is bold, although beaten to death.

From the side of describing the world of his novel, Sergey Tarmashev did his best. We are told about the training of the Valkyries, and through their training, the reader learns an incredibly huge amount of information about the weapons of the Shining Ones, about the past of the world (this is such a small digression into previous novels), as well as the relationship between Valkyrie-warrior pairs and what happens when one of them dies . This is a big plus for the novel, very much reveals many characters and their attitude to everything that happens in the universe.

Tarmashev is a good writer (probably one of the best in Russian literature), but this book is far from a masterpiece. It is very short and boring. Banal plot twists, the inevitable groundwork for continuation and the simplicity of the characters ruined everything. There is no soul here. When an author wants to say something in a book, it is immediately obvious, but not here. I understand everything, it's simple fighting fiction and there is no need to look for something supernatural and semantic in such books, but, damn it, how you want. It remains only to wait for the finale and hope that it will "take out" the readers' brains (in good sense words).