Forward to Marvel Cinematic Universe

Full story at:

patreon.com/FanFictionPremium

***

The war between Xandar and the Kree has reached a turning point. The disruption of Kree industry had evened the playing field, offsetting the loss of the Xandar colonies. The Xandar fleet had time to fully prepare for war and meet the enemy in full force. The Kree chose to retreat as their original plan was thwarted. The admirals in charge of the military operation against Xandar were killed and the supply system was destroyed. There was nothing left but to retreat. The Xandarians cheered, and there was a cap-and-tie atmosphere that the Kree would have been wise to take advantage of, but not this time. Hjarti's corvette arrived on Xandar, very quickly. Gamora had gone to the oblivion from which Hyarty had abducted her, and the newly minted hero of the Republic was afraid to fly back. However, it was necessary, after all, he was not a free man. Hyarti's corvette passed a dozen checks before entering the planet's atmosphere.

The captain of the ship himself pulled the stasis capsule with the scientist out of the dimension and woke him up shortly before landing. However, the scientist didn't even notice and continued to sleep sweetly.

* * *

- Welcome back! - The first military officer he met called out the proper salute. Hjarti replied without enthusiasm:

- Where can I dump Jose?

- A scientist?

He was met by a not young officer, who obviously felt a little uncomfortable because of the dual status of a space trooper. On the one hand a private and a rookie, on the other a war hero. The officer thought.

- He is.

- You can leave him with us, or you can take him to the capital yourself. It doesn't make any difference somehow.

Hjarti shrugged his shoulders:

- I'd rather leave him to you. Let him clean himself up before he goes out in public.

* * *

There were no crowds to greet them. No reporters were allowed into the military base, though there were a lot of people who wanted to look at me, and the stares made me uncomfortable. They stared at me as if I were a celebrity who had decided to visit the world of mere mortals. However, I was not given any legal indulgence - I had to run around the headquarters, which would visit all the right people. I met with Malkiss, who by my efforts is now a general, met with the Minister of Defence, who gave me seventeen awards, for each sabotage separately. And they gave me a small, government bonus. I pretended that it was a huge amount of money for me and waited for a short period of officiousness. It was over very quickly - the commander of the space troop quickly moved from officiousness to a more decent form of communication.

The elderly general sat down at his desk, waving me to the chair next to him. His office was like any other general's - clerical, office style and a minimum of unnecessary things. Paper documents were scattered on the desk - a rare, endangered species, but paper documents are the hardest to steal or snoop on remotely. All major documents are kept in paper form and never digitised, it's too dangerous to be caught by some computer virus.

- You've already done more than the entire Xandar army," he sighed, "you realise we can't just let you go, don't you?

- Why would we? - I wondered.

- You're a celebrity.

- I'm not going to tour military units, - I cut off the general's attempts, - I'm being hunted by the whole Kree Empire, even here I don't feel safe, let alone flying somewhere and staying in plain sight for more than a day..." he said.

The General shrugged:

- That's true, too. And what are we supposed to do with you, being so blessed? You've already won more awards than anyone. But you don't look like someone to whom these hangings mean much. Money... you know, we're an army, not a private company.

- I understand," I assured the general, "I just need to lay low for the next couple of years until the hysteria passes and things settle down. And then maybe I'll be forgotten enough not to be pointed at in the streets.

The General grinned:

- Good. Consider yourself on leave from now until demobilisation. Where will you hide?

- I don't know myself, - I waved my hands, - the main thing for me for now is to keep a low profile.

The general got to his feet with a groan. So did I.

- All right, go, soldier. If the Kree find you, you can count on the help of the Space Troopers. You've brought our branch of the military to the forefront quite spectacularly.

I saluted and left the general's office. That was it, the meeting with the Xandarians had taken place! In my hands was a bag with a lot of boxes with awards, and at the same time a hundred thousand units. Life, as they say, was just beginning. And I had to move on - I couldn't stay here. I left the headquarters building in a good mood - I even smiled at the people I met, which can be called unprecedented generosity.

* * *

And yet, this fame came at a high price. The price of enmity with the Kree emperor, who is not the last intelligent in the galaxy. It was a price worth paying, but if I had my choice, I would have done the same thing without contact, just pretending to be dead on the colony. We're all strong in hindsight. Yeah, that would have been perfect - they wouldn't have suspected me if I'd started the sabotage on my own, without coordinating with VKS HQ. I would have known where to lay my straw...

And now I sat on my bed in my cabin and thought. What to do? I'll go to Vigo and the guys at the spaceport, that's for sure. The Blind Maiden's too conspicuous. We should go somewhere else for a couple of years, I mean, go quiet. What's the best place to do that? The best place to go is where no one can find me, on earth. And now I have a reason to return to my small homeland. Earth is not a part of space civilisation, is not connected with it in any way, that is, even if every dog there knows me, this news will not reach Thanos. Which is good.

I decided to postpone the meeting with the hunters' guild indefinitely - I have no good friends there, except for Vigo.

- Virgo, we're going to take LK310.

- Acknowledged.

The ship has begun takeoff. I'm going to the cockpit.

* * *

Thrift stores are a good thing. I used to hang out on flea market sites often and for long periods of time. That's how I learnt the world of things, because, besides photos, there was a volumetric model of equipment, sometimes also drawings, as well as a set of documentation and three-dimensional modelling of its operation. It is really convenient, for a knowledgeable person it is easy to visualise figures in real form. Silly adverts, shouting in general phrases, filtered out by Bersih - I just read and look at the facts. At flea markets you can find sometimes very unusual things.

I decided to fly to Earth, a planet that is quite backward. A number of questions come to mind - for example, where can I get money? Obviously, I will need dollars and roubles, as well as pesos and yen. And where am I going to get them? The answer is technology. However, the galactic level is already too far removed from the Earth level. But no one can prevent me from patenting or using the products of my technology. For example, the technology to grow organs from stem cells and patient dna. A very promising field. Or the technology of a repulsor engine. Or fusion reactor technology... It could bring a lot of money. The same reactor - build a private power station, sell the energy cheaply. And disguised it all as a traditional nuclear power plant, you could even build a nuclear power plant, just keep it idling. Or, for example, repulsor technology - you can use it to transport particularly heavy loads, can't you? Yes. But you'd have to disguise it as a cargo airship. I'm getting a bit carried away.

The galactic flea market was a treasure trove of every imaginable item. Bersie had filtered out the obvious slag and scams by analysing the reviews, and I had the pulp. I ordered ten tonnes of durasteel, scientific and engineering equipment, and decided to build a house on... the moon. Why, it's a no-man's land, even though it's airless, it's within easy reach of the earth. It is possible to overcome the distance to the ground in a few minutes, it will be convenient to descend from the height to any point of the planet. As a lunar rover ordered Howler, like the one that was in the colony, but much larger - with a cargo hold, capable of carrying large cargo in containers. The construction of a transshipment base on the moon is where my Earth journey should begin. Purchasing an entire planetary base cost half my budget, but it was worth it. In addition to the base, I took several hundred droids. Builders and technicians first.

It was a pity to spend money on it, but it was necessary. It would take me several months to build such a large number of droids myself, and this is an unacceptable luxury.

There are many civilisations in the galaxy, each of them developed, each of them passed some technological stages in its time. The Earth is at a certain technical level, which means that an earthling will not be frightened by the sight of a droid, but something quite unbelievable is undesirable. The lunar base arrived a week later, on LC310. I moved it into the cargo bay like everything else. In addition to the drones, I put manipulators - robotic arms for the seeker - stationary and in the form of mobile droids on wheels. Stationary robotic arms had the advantage that they could be placed on any surface - on the walls, on the ceiling, while a flying drone had a much shorter resource, performing the same functions. Repulsors worked for ten or twenty years, depending on the level of gravity, and then it was dead. And they had no payload capacity, and stabilisation in space was a pain.

Thanks to Internet flea markets, I got a full-fledged automated mini-plant, capable of producing any kind of equipment and even simple electronics, roughly of Earth level. All I needed were blanks, resources, and time. There were enough resources in the galaxy that I didn't have to buy anything on Earth, and I was doing pretty well for myself as it was.

* * *

I entered the solar system, immediately activating invisibility. LK had been here before, and now we were on our way back. I was sitting on the bridge, at the helm of the ship's pilot. Next to me was a cube with a silent hologram of the Captain.

- Rom, why did you buy a whole base? - suddenly asked the Captain, - if you have a LC? Landed a ship on this moon, and that's it - a base with all the amenities.

- The LC is too big. It's uncomfortable, it's a ship, not a house. And I need a home.

- Well, as you like, - even a little offended Captain.

I looked at the rapidly approaching planet. A small blue ball in the middle of space - from the side the earth and the moon seemed so lonely in the whole space... I directed the LC to the moon, leaving the ISKIN to calculate the landing parameters.

The landing was soft. The mix of battleship and cruiser landed softly on the lunar soil, the supports pushed the lunar soil by almost a metre. The great construction had begun! I went from the bridge to the hangar and launched the construction droids. And they started their work - to actively dismantle the equipment - hundreds, thousands of containers and parts of the base. The lunar base had a definite build time of three days. And another two weeks for finishing. The base was metal-framed - piles, crossbars, bulkheads, all pulled out of the hangar via ramps by large droids. Bersi even had the Titans involved, who were busy hauling the multi-tonne structures. It didn't take long to choose a location - the base was built in a large crater, so it was easier to hide it from scanning. There were many craters here. The sunny side of the moon looked like a black and white desert - only a starry sky, the sky was studded with myriads of stars, perfectly visible from here. The atmosphere, which wasn't there, didn't stir like on the planets.

I just floated in my suit around the construction site. Work was non-stop. Four hours later, the droids had already put up the steel piles and started assembling the frame. The steel frame of the building was ready the next day. The work didn't stop during the night. The ship covered the construction site with an invisibility field - otherwise from the ground in any good telescope one could observe a very interesting picture. The first day I just watched the work, and the second day I communicated with Bersi and connected to the Internet. It was the year two thousand five on earth, the month of February. The situation in the world was relatively stable, although some things made me tense. First and foremost was the confrontation between Russia and the US. The USA seems to have gone even further in its propaganda than in my world. One announcer was broadcasting about the imminent start of the Stark Expo exhibition "Technologies of the World". I, a fool, thought that there would be medicine, ecology, transport... but no, Weapons! The Americans in this reality are really not shy to call themselves peacekeepers while bombing anyone who disagrees with their opinion. Anyway, this isn't even the America I left in my reality - it's a complete theatre of absurdity and pseudo-democratic neo-Nazism. Hitler sort of called himself a social democrat too... That's how it is. However, Russia is not the same as in my native reality - here a certain comrade Lazarev, the president and the main ideological opponent of the West, reigns over everything. As it is easy to guess, information about Russia from the American segment of the Internet is more like stories about some other planet that have nothing to do with reality. Russians are lagging behind in this case, however, and among their information there is a lot of twisting and glossing over inconvenient facts.

The Stark thing was a bit infuriating, because "bombs for peace" is almost as brain-dead nonsense as humanitarian bombing. Well, or, that's how they understand the term "Peace" to mean the silence of those who disagree with their position. This is the delusional planet I'm going back to? In principle, nothing unrealistic.

After a brief analysis of the situation from Bersi, the world order became clear. And the causes and effects of the events that were and are taking place. In this reality, apparently, there was some Nazi scientist, Dr Erskine, who created some kind of vaccine that allowed to change the human body. The Nazi supersoldier did see the light of day, only not in Germany, but in America. Having got at their disposal the superiority in this technology, the Americans did not save Erskine and lost the serum, there was nothing left. After that they tried many times to repeat their successful experience, but to no avail. Instead, they started a human modification programme. The technology here is clearly ahead of what was in my reality.

Although I don't remember much about my reality, I do remember that our president was Putin, the master of the Russian land, while the Americans had some negro, and there was no such fierce confrontation. Although, who knows, maybe the Americans still lived behind their information veil, receiving information only through careful filtering in the media, where God forbid Putin would be called good, the presenter would immediately become hysterical. Actually, I found elements of propaganda even in children's cartoons, and I will not even mention films and TV series from Hollywood - these even half of them sometimes consisted of evil Russians and racially loyal Americans, the bearers of good and justice. However, not everything is so sad, although there are some frankly wild moments for me, who grew up on Xandar culture.

I decided to settle down with the Americans. For the simple reason that almost all of their internal documents had been digitised and Bersih could easily manipulate them as he wished - the Russians were still actively using paper, so it was more difficult and troublesome to forge documents about their existence.

The base on the moon was rebuilt as expected. The droids had done everything right. Some complex technical parts of the base were made ready-made, all that was left was to screw them into place and connect them to the computer.