Second Civilized Region. Territorial Waters of the Occupied Imperia of Leifor.Western Sea (Operational Zone "Baulos").

  A cold, piercing wind tore at the crests of the gray waves, but the roar of the storm was drowned out by a low-frequency, vibrating hum that made the very air tremble.

  The Holy Mirishial Empire and the Superpower Mu, having united the remnants of their fleets in a desperate attempt to save civilization, moved out to intercept. But they did not yet know exactly what awaited them beyond the horizon.

  The Gra-Valkas Empire did not wait for a strike against its supply lines. Having received radio intercepts and aerial reconnaissance data regarding the approach of the "Combined Fleet," the Imperial Headquarters decided not to play cat and mouse. Leifor was not merely a trophy; it was a critically important logistical hub through which the blood of war flowed—fuel and ammunition for the eastward offensive. Losing it was not an option.

  And Gra-Valkas responded with a hammer blow.

  On the bridge of the superdreadnought Atlastar, now officially leading the combined strike group, Captain Luxstal stood with his legs wide apart to compensate for the roll. His white service cap with the gold Imperial cockade was the only bright spot in a kingdom of gray metal.

  He raised heavy binoculars to his eyes, peering into the horizon line obscured by haze. There, far to the east, the fate of this planet was being decided.

  "Air Group is assembled. Formation complete," reported the CIC officer, pressing a headset to his ear.

  The sky above the fleet suddenly darkened, but not from clouds.

  Over the steel masts of the battleships, with the roar of hundreds of radial engines, swept orderly rows of Antares carrier-based fighters and Sirius dive bombers. The machines flew wingtip to wingtip, demonstrating a frightening, mechanical synchronicity. The air filled with the smell of high-octane gasoline and burnt oil—the aroma of industrial war.

  Luxstal followed the predatory silhouettes departing on patrol with his gaze.

  "Magnificent," he uttered quietly, with almost tender affection for this deadly machinery.

  Behind his back unfolded a scene that would have stopped the heart of any admiral from the previous century.

  The Eastern Fleet and the expeditionary Forces of Justice had merged into a single steel fist. If an ordinary citizen from Maikal or Runepolis could see this now, they would understand the futility of resistance before the first shot was fired.

  The ocean churned from propellers.

  Ten battleships—floating fortresses spewing clouds of black anthracite smoke that blanketed the sky.

  Nine aircraft carriers—flat decks packed to capacity with planes, ready to unleash a swarm of steel hornets.

  Eighteen heavy cruisers—hounds of war, bristling with the barrels of 203-millimeter guns.

  Twenty light cruisers, one hundred and twelve destroyers cutting through the waves in defensive order. And an unseen but deadly pack of sixty submarines moving in the depths.

  A total of two hundred and twenty-nine combat pennants. Not counting the endless line of tankers and supply transports. It was a floating city of death. An Industrial Leviathan that had come into a world of magic.

  "Captain," the voice of the executive officer sounded slightly shaken, though he tried to maintain his composure. The officer swept his hand toward the horizon, clogged with steel. "It seems to me... merging two fleets into one armada is overkill. We are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Even if we want to stomp these idiots into the mud, half would have sufficed."

  Luxstal slowly lowered his binoculars. He turned to his aide, and a cold light of reason, devoid of pity, flashed in his eyes.

  "You are thinking in categories of tactics, Lieutenant. But this is strategy and politics," he replied, clasping his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels.

  He looked at his gargantuan main caliber guns.

  "Command in Ragna made the only correct decision. We cannot afford a protracted struggle in the skerries. We must close the 'Eastern Question' with one blow. This is not just a battle for the sea. This is a demonstration." Luxstal lowered his voice. "We must show the locals that any resistance to Gra-Valkas is not just dangerous. It is meaningless. We will crush their psyche with tonnage."

  The ship's bell struck the time. The era of diplomacy and doubt had expired.

  The massive fleet, obeying a single order, lay on a combat course.

  The decisive battle, which would go down in history as the "Meat Grinder in the Sea of Baulos," was inevitable.

  Holy Mirishial Empire.Secret Facility of the Department for Countering the Ancient Magic Empire No. 48 ("The Cradle").Rocky plateau, 100 km from Runepolis.

  The giant underground hangar, hewn into the granite bedrock, was flooded with the cold, unnatural light of thousands of magic lamps. The air here was sterile, dry, and crackling with static electricity. In the center of this colossal hall, entangled in scaffolding and mana-supply cables, slept two monsters.

  Celestial ships of the Pal Chimera class. The legacy of Ravernal.

  These were not clumsy attempts by Mirishial to copy ancient technologies. These were the originals. Predatory, streamlined hulls made of black matte metal that absorbed light; levitation rings glowing dimly in the dark. They looked not like machines made by hands, but like grown organisms created for one purpose—domination.

  Bustle reigned around them, uncharacteristic for this temple of science. Technicians in white coats and mage-engineers in protective robes ran along the gantries, checking circuits. The hum of mana superchargers was rising.

  Director Hyrkan Parpe stood on the command tower, gripping the railing with whitened knuckles. Next to him, shaking with indignation and fear, stood the Facility's Chief Engineer, Archmage Vernus.

  "Director! This is madness!" the scientist broke into a scream, pointing at the monitor readings. "Using strategic platforms of the 'World Conqueror' class against... against whom? Against savages with iron boats?! We don't know their resource limit! Every launch of a Chimera drains the ancient anti-gravity crystals! We cannot replace them! If they burn out, we lose our main deterrent weapon against the true enemy!"

  Parpe did not look at him. He looked at the black flank of Chimera-01, on which activation runes were flaring up.

  "This is not my whim, Vernus," he hissed through his teeth, and his voice was cold as a glacier. "This is a direct, personal sanction of His Holy Majesty. An ultimatum order from the The Imperial Council. We must wipe this fleet from the face of the earth, and we must do it so that the world shudders. Execute the order, or I will find an engineer who does not ask questions."

  Vernus fell silent, turning pale. He lowered his head, admitting defeat before the bureaucratic machine ready to burn the future to save the present.

  At that moment, the sirens wailed. The shutters of the giant dome above their heads began to slowly part, letting in sunlight.

  "Initiation of Gravity Cores! Disconnection of supply lines! Takeoff mode!"

  The ships came alive. It began with infrasound—a vibration that hit not the ears, but the solar plexus.

  Two giants, each the size of an aircraft carrier, began to rise. Without the roar of turbines, without smoke. Only the deep, pulsating hum of shifting space.

  VOOM-VOOM-VOOM...

  The sound grew, turning into a song of power.

  The Pal Chimeras exited the shaft and froze, hovering in the sky above the plateau like two black gods of war. Around their hulls shone a semi-transparent, light-distorting sphere—the Magic Conversion Armor.

  This was what the best minds of the Holy Empire had tried to copy for two centuries but failed. Armor that was not matter, but a field. It could reflect any known magical strike, scatter a beam of light or plasma, and ordinary artillery shells (as the engineers hoped) should bounce off it like pebbles off a wall, losing all kinetic energy in the viscous field.

  Even Hyrkan Parpe, who had spent half his life beside these machines, felt a holy reverence every time he saw them in the sky. They were perfect.

  If all the nations of the world challenged the Empire at once right now—Mu with their industry, Parpaldia with their numbers, Leifor with their wyverns—just these two ships would decide the outcome of the war in a couple of hours.

  Their firepower could burn out cities.

  Their cruising speed was three hundred kilometers per hour—incredible for an object of such mass, independent of the wind.

  "Course—intercept the Combined Fleet!" the command rang out.

  The black giants began to accelerate, instantly gathering speed inaccessible to naval vessels.

  Parpe watched them go with grim hope.

  "With their speed, they will catch up to the allied fleet in half a day. They will lead the attack. They will bring down upon the barbarians of Gra-Valkas all the fury of ancient technologies. These savages will crawl into their holes in terror when they see what true magic means, and the allies... Oh yes, the allies will fall prostrate and sing odes to our greatness."

  He very much wanted to believe this. But a worm of doubt, which had settled in his soul after reading reports about "steel slugs," gnawed at him from the inside. Will the legacy of the Ancients be enough to stop the Future?

  Russian Federation. Moscow. Frunzenskaya Embankment.National Defense Control Center (NDCC). 5th Department of Aerospace Intelligence Data Processing, GRU General Staff.Time: 03:45 Moscow Standard Time.

  In the huge hall, submerged in semi-darkness, reigned an unnatural, cotton-like silence, broken only by the steady hum of cooling server racks and the dry rustle of keyboards. Here, no one slept. The war on the other side of the planet was in full swing, and although Russia was officially "neutral," its eyes were wide open.

  However, the geophysics of the New World played against the intelligence officers. The planet was monstrously huge—its equator and surface area exceeded Earth's metrics many times over. Even the Bars-M and Lotos satellite constellation launched into orbit was working at the limit of its capabilities. The orbit time was significantly longer, and the "spot" of camera coverage, flying over the surface, left giant blind zones. Conducting continuous "24/7" surveillance of all sectors of the TO (Theater of Operations) was physically impossible. The analysts worked in "slices"—receiving data packets per pass, which happened once every few hours.

  Nikolai Vasilievich Bronev, a junior analyst with eyes red from burst blood vessels, had been sitting at his terminal for the third day straight. A pyramid of empty energy drink cans towered on his desk.

  The Monolith system beeped, signaling the upload of a new telemetry packet from Oka-2, which was passing over mountain ranges deep within the territory of the Holy Mirishial Empire. This was the rear, a zone considered quiet. Bronev lazily opened the file, expecting to see the usual clouds or boring proving grounds.

  A mosaic of high-resolution images unfolded on the monitor.

  Nikolai blinked. Rubbed his eyes. And stared at the screen again.

  "Optical glitch? Dead pixel?" he mumbled, running the image cleanup algorithm.

  The algorithm finished its work. The objects remained.

  There were two of them. Black, matte cigars hanging over a mountain plateau. But the scariest part wasn't their presence, but the shadows.

  In images taken at twenty-second intervals, it was visible how giant shadows from these objects shifted across the rocks below.

  This meant two things.

  First: they are material.

  Second: they are flying.

  Nikolai pulled up the scaling grid on the screen. The cursor ran from the nose to the stern of the object. The numbers in the corner of the screen froze at the mark: 270 meters.

  Kolya felt a trickle of icy sweat run down his spine, right under his uniform shirt. A chill pierced him. Sleep vanished as if swept away by a hand.

  He grabbed the internal comms handset. His fingers slipped on the first try.

  "C-Comrade Major!" his voice trembled treacherously. "This is Sector Five, Junior Lieutenant Bronev disturbing you. Request permission to enter? Urgent. Category 'Unconventional Situation'."

  "Come in," the Department Chief replied briefly.

  Bronev grabbed the printed "hot" images, still warm from the printer, and, almost knocking over his chair, rushed across the corridor to the glass "aquarium" of the Chief.

  Major Solomensky, an old "bison" of military intelligence, sat at his desk massaging his temples. He silently took the images that Bronev fanned out before him.

  A second. Two. Five.

  The Major lifted the photo to the light of the desk lamp. Squinted.

  "...Son of a bitch," the Major was concise and unmilitary in his phrasing. "What the hell kind of contraption is this, Lieutenant? Airships?"

  "Negative, Comrade Major. The fuselage aerodynamics do not correspond to a Zeppelin. Rigid construction. Spectral analysis shows no thermal exhaust from jet streams like an airplane. But they are hovering. And they are moving." Bronev swallowed hard. "The images were taken in Sector 48, a restricted zone of the Holy Mirishial Empire."

  "This damn thing is enormous, too," Solomensky uttered, taking an old officer's ruler from his drawer and applying it to the photo, as if distrusting the computer's numbers. "Two hundred and seventy meters... That's the size of an Orlan-class atomic cruiser. Only in the air."

  The Major slowly lowered the image. His face hardened. He understood what this meant. The "natives" had their own "nuclear club" they had kept silent about. A flying fortress of such size with unknown weaponry changed all calculations for the upcoming battle. It was a Joker.

  Solomensky abruptly picked up the general comms selector handset.

  "Duty officer! All personnel of the Fifth Department—to the briefing room. Immediately. Wake up the night shift."

  Satisfied with the answer, he pressed the red button for the direct line to the Directorate.

  "Greetings, Comrade General. Fifth Department disturbing you. Major Solomensky. We have an emergency. Strategic delivery systems of an unidentified type detected in the deep rear of Mirishial... That is correct. Size confirmed. Threat analysis will be ready in three hours. Yes. Executing."

  Hanging up the phone, Solomensky looked at the pale analyst. Something resembling fatherly approval appeared in his gaze.

  "Good job, Kolya. Sharp eyes. You can go. Leave the images, sign me up on the original." He chuckled. "Go drink some tea. When everyone arrives, we'll start a 'brainstorming session.' It's going to be a long night."

  Leaving the command office, Bronev wandered to his workstation on jelly legs. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by leaden fatigue. Twenty-four hours without sleep had paid off with this one find.

  Sprawled in his chair, Nikolai wrapped his palms around a hot mug of mint tea from the vending machine and took the first sip, squinting blissfully.

  The world was rolling into the abyss of a great war, ancient monsters were waking in the skies, but right now, in these five minutes of silence, he felt good. He had done his job.

  Central World. Waters of the Baulos Sea.Northwest of the Mu Continent.Gra-Valkas Operational Task Force.

  The ocean was no longer empty. It was heavy with steel.

  Truly, this sight could stop the heart of anyone accustomed to sails and magic. A gigantic armada, stretching from horizon to horizon, facing prow-first toward the East, resembled a moving metallic continent.

  Powerful twin and triple main caliber turrets of battleships and heavy cruisers, looking like impregnable bastions, proudly and predatorily stared into the sky. A forest of antennas, rangefinders, and smokestacks created an artificial horizon.

  Above the gray leviathans, like a swarm of deadly hornets or mechanical guardian angels, circled multiple flights of Antares carrier fighters and Sirius dive bombers. The roar of their engines, mixing with the hum of the ships' turbines, created a low-frequency vibration felt not by ears, but by bones. The morale of twenty thousand sailors and pilots, intoxicated by the easy victory over Leifor and the propaganda of their invincible Emperor, was at its peak. They were not going to die. They were going to take what was theirs.

  And only in one place was this euphoria not shared.

  On the armored bridge of the Empire's most efficient and deadly superdreadnought—Atlastar—situated at the height of a fifteen-story building, reigned an atmosphere of tense thoughtfulness.

  Captain Luxstal stood at the viewfinder, clutching the rail. His eyes squinted not from the sun, but from an unpleasant, sticky, cold premonition scratching somewhere in his gut. Over thirty years of service, he had learned to trust this feeling—the "itch" that appeared before a storm or an ambush.

  The enemy was broken. The enemy was humiliated. Logic dictated they should have cowered in their holes and begged for mercy. But instead, they came out to sea. Everything they had.

  "Lieutenant," Luxstal said quietly, barely moving his lips.

  The Executive Officer, a young officer with impeccable posture, was instantly at his side.

  "Yes, Captain? Awaiting the order to open fire?" boyish impatience could be heard in his voice.

  Luxstal slowly shook his head, not taking his eyes off the gray strip of the horizon.

  "Be on guard. I have... I have a feeling that this battle will not be as simple as the walkover at Leifor."

  The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow in surprise but immediately composed himself.

  "If you are referring to the possibility of negligence on the part of the crew, sir, I have personally checked the posts. There is no room for laxity in combat. We will crush their magic tubs like walnuts. What is there to worry about? We have numerical and qualitative superiority."

  "It is not about numbers, Lieutenant, and not about laxity," Luxstal answered hollowly. He recalled the calm, evaluating gazes of the Russian officers when their ships passed each other. He remembered Hamidall's report he had read furtively. "It is my intuition. It does not whisper. It screams of danger. A beast driven into a corner can bite so hard that bones crack."

  The tense dialogue was interrupted by the sharp, metallic crackle of the loudspeaker transmitting a report from the radio room.

  "Atlastar, this is 'Falcon-1' (Long-Range Reconnaissance Aircraft). Visual and radar contact! Enemy fleet main order spotted! Bearing zero-nine-zero. Approximate distance—two hundred sixty kilometers. Flight time for strike aviation—about one hour."

  Silence reigned in the wheelhouse. The distance was closing. The enemy wasn't hiding. He was coming head-on.

  Luxstal exhaled, shaking off the stupor. Intuition couldn't be filed in a report. Now, it was time for tactics.

  "To all ships: Battle Stations Number One!" his voice became firm again, like Krupp steel. "To the Air Group Commander: Launch 'First', 'Second', and 'Third' strike waves. Objective—suppression and destruction."

  Engines on the decks of the aircraft carriers roared with new strength, releasing gray clouds of exhaust. Hundreds of propellers blurred into silver discs.

  "So," Luxstal said philosophically, with a note of fatalism, clasping his hands behind his back and watching the planes take off. "It has begun. Let's see what aces they have hidden up their sleeves this time."

  Central Region. Baulos Sea.Southeast of the Mu Continent. Operational Zone of Responsibility of the Combined Great Fleet.

  The sea was boiling. The Combined Great Fleet, assembled under the aegis of two Superpowers—mystical Mirishial and industrial Mu—stretched for miles, covering the horizon. This was a force the sight of which would stop the heart of any pirate or king of "wild" lands. An armada capable of effortlessly grinding any Earth fleet of the Trafalgar era or even early ironclads into dust. Hundreds of pennants cut the waves, full of determination to take revenge on the "Demons from the West" for the humiliation of Cartalpas.

  But for an outside observer with skills in modern tactics, this was a surreal, intricate, and frighteningly vulnerable spectacle. Eras mixed here. Next to the snow-white, rune-shield glowing battleships of Mirishial sailed angular, riveted dreadnoughts of Mu, desperately belching black coal smoke, bristling with forests of pipes. And on the flanks, trying to keep formation, dangled dozens of sailing ships of the line from vassal kingdoms, whose crews prayed to the Wind God, trying to keep up with steam engines. This was not a fleet. It was a museum going to war.

  Mu Aircraft Carrier La Casami-2 (Converted Collier).

  Flight Deck.

  "Launch! Go, go!" shouted the flight deck officer, waving a checkered flag.

  A heavy Marin biplane fighter braced with cables, its motor sputtering, gathered speed and clumsily tore away from the wooden decking, its wheels barely missing the wave crests.

  In the open cockpit, a pilot of the 2nd Fighter Air Corps, Meltima, adjusted his leather helmet and goggles. A stream of cold sea air hit his face, mixed with the smell of gasoline and hot castor oil.

  "Group 'Alpha', climb! Ceiling—two thousand! Hold formation!" the old-style radio wheezed.

  Meltima gripped the control stick tighter. The vibration of the percale wings resonated in his hands. He was an experienced pilot. He believed in his maneuverability.

  "Attention all units! Radar... that is, Mage-Detector fixes an unidentified target!" the anxious voice of the controller from the ship rang out. "Twelve o'clock, high frequency. Incoming!"

  Meltima squinted, scanning the sky through the rotation of the propeller.

  There, high in the clouds, a dot gleamed. It was growing.

  "I see him! Single target!"

  The enemy plane moved confidently, brazenly. It didn't try to hide. When the distance closed, Meltima could make out the silhouette.

  The pilot's heart skipped a beat.

  This was not a stack of slats and canvas like the one he was flying.

  This was a predatory metal needle. One wing below. Retractable landing gear. Smooth, perfect contours, as if cast from mercury.

  "Monoplane..." Meltima whispered in shock. Memory instantly threw up an image he had seen a year ago at the Maikal airfield. The Russian heavy transport Il-76. Enormous, swift, with a single pair of wings. He remembered how the ground shook from the roar of its engines.

  This enemy, a Gra-Valkas scout (analogous to a scout based on the Antares), had the same breed. The breed of speed.

  "Attack!" the flight leader screamed. "Box him in! Approach from the sun! Dive!"

  The Mu biplanes, their motors howling strained, rolled over the wing and went down, trying to accelerate using gravity and intercept the brazen intruder.

  The enemy had speed and lethality. On Meltima's side—only phenomenal horizontal maneuverability. If he could drag him into a turn, into a "dogfight"...

  Just a little more. Distance—800 meters. The gunsight crosshairs trembled on the tail of the metallic predator. His finger rested on the triggers of the forward-firing 8.4mm Vickers machine guns.

  "Got you! Caught..."

  And then the scout pilot simply pushed the throttle forward.

  The monoplane's engine changed its tone from a steady hum to an aggressive roar. Tongues of blue flame burst from the exhaust pipes.

  The plane didn't engage in a maneuvering fight. It simply left. It left in a straight line, in horizontal flight, with such ease as if the Mu biplanes were standing still.

  "WHAT?!" Meltima screamed, jamming the throttle to the stop, risking burning out the engine. "Where?! Stop, coward!"

  The speedometer needle of his Marin trembled at the 200 km/h mark. The structure creaked, threatening to fall apart. And the enemy, without even maneuvering, pulled away at a speed over 500 km/h, rapidly turning into a dot.

  "Bitch!" the pilot spat in disappointment, ripping off his goggles in powerless rage. He was chasing the wind. "Base, contact lost! Target exited engagement zone in ten seconds! He just... flew away from us!"

  Meanwhile, the Gra-Valkas Empire reconnaissance plane, having occupied a safe echelon at four thousand meters—an altitude where biplanes gasped for air—initiated a wide, mocking turn over the enormous but helpless fleet.

  Its radio operator methodically, with a calm voice, tapped out Morse code, transmitting coordinates, course, and composition of the order to Admiral Kaisar and Captain Luxstal. The fleet was in the palm of their hand.

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  From the ships below, fire opened up. "Pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns clattered, multicolored tracers of magic beams struck the sky. But it was the agony of the blind. Shells burst far below, falling a good kilometer and a half short of the silver bird. The Gra-Valkas pilot led them by the nose, correcting his course and mockingly rocking his wings.

  On the bridge of a Mu heavy cruiser, Task Force Commander Rider lowered his binoculars. His fingers dug into the leather case with such force that his nails turned white. With burning, black hatred, he looked into the sky at this unreachable metallic fly that circled with impunity over his head at speeds unthinkable for his aviation.

  He understood: they had been counted. And now all that remained was to wait for the blow from which neither armor nor sail would protect.

  The snow-white cruisers of the Holy Mirishial Empire, sailing in the vanguard of the order, seemed to have been waiting for this moment. Their targeting systems, powered by powerful ship crystals, finally locked onto the brazen, agile "scout" that had previously mocked the Mu biplanes with impunity.

  A command rolled across the decks, amplified by magic.

  "Anti-air batteries type 'Light Spear'—volley on intercept! Intercept vector!"

  Dozens of barrels, decorated with golden rune script, simultaneously spat into the sky. Dazzlingly bright, azure-blue tracer lines streaked the air. These were not projectiles losing speed. This was compressed light magic, traveling almost instantaneously.

  The Atlastar's pilot (a seaplane observer), accustomed to "barbarian" flak not reaching his echelon of four thousand meters, noticed the flash too late.

  CRACK!

  One of the blue beams, corrected by a mage-gunner, grazed the fuselage right behind the cockpit. Magic energy burned through the duralumin like paper and struck the control system. The plane, losing its tail section, jerked, nosed down, and fell into a disorderly spin. Centrifugal force pressed the pilot into the side of the cockpit, breaking ribs.

  "Kha!.." thick blood splashed out of the mouth of the pilot in the brown leather Imperial Navy helmet, flooding the instrument panel. A lung was punctured by a broken rib. Darkness gathered in his eyes, the horizon spun like a top. "Losing altitude... Controls not respond... Glory to the Emper..."

  He didn't finish. The fuel tanks, damaged by the strike, detonated. A fat orange flower of explosion bloomed in the sky, and burning debris rained down into the leaden sea.

  On the bridge of the Mu heavy cruiser, Commander Rider lowered his binoculars. His face elongated.

  "Well now..." he uttered dazedly, for the first time feeling a prick of respect for his arrogant allies. "They got him. From such a height. Magic is good for something against iron after all."

  But there was no time to rejoice.

  "First Squadron, report!" Meltima's headphones crackled with static. "We are entering the estimated intercept zone! Increased vigilance!"

  The fighters of the 2nd Mu Air Corps, motors rattling and bracing wires creaking, continued climbing, piercing the layer of low cloud cover.

  The flight leader, an ace with eyes like an eagle, was the first to break out into the sun.

  And immediately, his voice, usually calm, broke into a screech:

  "CONTACT! DEAD AHEAD! MULTIPLE SILHOUETTES OBSERVED!"

  Meltima and the other pilots instinctively squinted, trying to make out the threat. At first, it looked like gnats on a windshield. Black dots against the pale sky.

  But they were growing. And there were more of them.

  Two dots... Ten... Twenty... Fifty...

  The horizon darkened.

  This was not a flight. And not even a squadron.

  A wall was coming at them.

  Hundreds of predatory, low-wing monoplane Antares, metal gleaming in the sun, flew in tight combat boxes, echelon after echelon. The steady drone of their motors, even at such a distance, created a heavy, crushing vibration in the air.

  "What the... THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THEM!" the scream of one of the young pilots on the radio was full of animal terror. "What the hell is this?! Where did they get so many monoplanes?! That's impossible!"

  "It's an Armada!" another shouted. "We won't break through!"

  A cold, sticky wave of panic covered the Mu squadron. They were brave lads, they were ready to fight one-on-one, even two-on-one. But before them was the industrial might of an entire world, thrown into a single attack.

  It became crystal, piercingly clear: they would die. The difference in speeds and numbers left no chance. You couldn't even out-maneuver such an armada "qualitatively"—the biplanes would simply choke in lead.

  Meltima felt his heart drop to his heels. He bit his lower lip so hard he tasted salty blood. A panic attack constricted his throat with a spasm. The ancient instinct of self-preservation screamed in his ears: "Turn around! Dive! To the water! Run! Save yourself!"

  His hand twitched toward the throttle to cut power.

  But suddenly, the ruins of Cartalpas stood before his eyes. The bodies of children under the rubble he had seen in the newsreels.

  If they ran now, these hundreds of bombers would pass through to the Mu fleet and turn his friends, his brother serving on the cruiser, into bloody mince. And then they would come to his home.

  "To hell with it!" Meltima spat blood and jammed the transmission button, drowning out the panicked screams in the ether.

  "ALL UNITS! BELAY THE PANIC! LISTEN TO ME!" his voice was hoarse but angry. "I'm scared too! I'm terrified, dammit!

  But we are the shield! We are the first and last line of defense of the Combined Fleet! If we falter—the ships below falter!"

  He took a deep breath, looking at the approaching steel cloud.

  "We are the best of the best sons of Mu! The elite! Remember how we looked at the sky as boys and dreamed of flying! We are here! This is our day! Remember what those creatures did to Leifor! What they did to Cartalpas! They aren't flying to war, they are flying to kill our women and children! Are we really going to let them?!"

  "FOR OUR FAMILIES! FOR MU! FOR THE HOMELAND!" he screamed, putting all the malice of a doomed man into the cry. "We won't come back, boys! But our job is to drag as many of these demons to hell with us as we can! Make them regret it! Break their formation! Let them choke on our lead!"

  "Let's show them how the 2nd Air Corps dies!"

  A strange sound swept through the ether—a mixture of a nervous chuckle, a sob, and a growl. Fear burned out, giving way to the fatalism of berserkers.

  "Let's do it, Commander!" the spirited, boyish voice of his wingman rang out. "Let's give 'em hell!"

  The flight of Marins added throttle, engines howling at the limit of revolutions. Tiny, fragile plywood biplanes, looking like gnats, rushed to meet the steel hurricane, to burn, but to buy the fleet at least five minutes of life.

  Inspired by the commander's final shout, the Mu aviators rushed into the attack, squeezing everything possible and more out of the old radial engines. Pistons knocked, threatening to punch through cylinders, propellers chopped the cold sea air.

  Before the eyes of the First Squadron Commander Meltima, the faces of his wife and little daughter, left in Maikal, flashed for a second like a spark. He blinked, chasing away the vision. Now there was no room for love. There was only hatred and geometry.

  The distance to the wall of oncoming monoplanes closed rapidly.

  "Just a little more... Hold formation... Now..." Meltima whispered, squeezing the Vickers triggers until his knuckles were white.

  The swarms clashed.

  The Antares opened fire first. 20-millimeter cannons mounted in the wings spewed streams of death.

  The windshield of the Marin would have withstood a rifle bullet, but against an autocannon, it was useless. The glass sprayed into Meltima's face in a crush of shards, but by some miracle, the shells passed higher, shearing off the upper wing plane of his wingman.

  "I'M BURNING! I'M BURNING, BIT-C-H!" a terrible, gurgling scream from his wingman in the headphones cut off into static. Meltima saw with peripheral vision how the biplane to his right turned into a torch and fell apart in the air.

  "Break formation!"

  The squadron mixed. Unwieldy, slow biplanes were sitting ducks for GVE pilots. But Meltima had an ace.

  The enemy, attacking from the direction of the sun, calculated to dash through them at huge speed and climb away ("Boom & Zoom"). One of the gray fighters, getting carried away with the attack, kept Meltima in his sights too long, falling into a dive.

  "Gotcha, greedy bastard," the Mu pilot growled.

  He didn't try to run. Instead, he did something a heavy monoplane cannot do at 500 km/h. He violently jerked the control stick back and to the right, simultaneously stomping the rudder pedal.

  The biplane, creaking with its entire wooden frame as if it were about to fall apart, executed a "snap turn" practically on the spot, turning its nose toward the water.

  The GVE fighter flashed past with a howl, barely missing Meltima's keel. The Imperial pilot tried to turn to keep the victim in his sights.

  Mistake.

  At low altitude, at high speed, a heavy monoplane has enormous inertia. But a Mu biplane, possessing the colossal lift of two wings, could dance on a dime.

  Meltima, clenching his teeth from the G-force, pulled the machine to the very water. The Gra-Valkas pilot, seized by the hunter's excitement, tried to repeat the maneuver. But the elevators of the Antares stiffened from the oncoming airflow at that speed.

  "Water is harder than air, scum!" Meltima screamed.

  The monoplane, unable to pull out of the dive, bellied into a wave crest at 500 km/h.

  Hitting water at that speed is equal to hitting concrete.

  The fighter instantly disintegrated, turning into a geyser of water, duralumin debris, and burning gasoline.

  "Phew... take that, filth!" Meltima angrily spat blood from a split lip, pulling his Marin into a climb, catching the airstream with trembling hands.

  The sky was empty. Not in the sense that no one was there—hell reigned there. But he was alone.

  "First Squadron! Report! Who is alive?! Rick! Sato!"

  Silence. Only the indifferent crackle of atmospheric static in the headphones.

  Meltima punched the instrument panel with all his might, smashing the altimeter glass.

  "Answer!"

  No one answered. Nine trails of fire falling into the ocean were the only reply. All his boys. Young, hot-blooded, dreaming of becoming heroes. All dead. In two minutes.

  Unbearable, gut-burning anger eclipsed reason. Tears dried before they could appear. Only the target remained.

  Ahead, exiting a combat turn, flew one of the Antares lazily. It had lost speed after the maneuver, exposing its broad belly.

  Regaining the icy self-control of a berserker, Meltima turned the biplane's nose. The sight felt for the enemy cockpit. Lead... another half-body...

  RAT-TA-TA-TA!

  Heavy caliber 8.4mm machine guns shook in their mounts. Tracers dug into the wing root of the enemy monoplane. These were incendiaries.

  Hit.

  A jet of fuel spurted from the Antares tank (GVE planes had no self-sealing tanks) and instantly ignited. Fire engulfed the cockpit.

  The machine, losing control, fell onto its wing and went down into a final spin with a heartbreaking shriek.

  "Two!" Meltima croaked.

  He pulled the stick back, looking around. The sky around him was black with enemies. Most of the strike wave had already passed him, heading for the ships, ignoring the solitary madman on a kite.But not all.

  DING-CRACK!

  A 7.7mm burst came from below and behind. Meltima felt a blow as if he had been hit with a sledgehammer on his left arm.

  "A-a-gh!" he screamed, looking at his jacket sleeve instantly soaking red. The pain was sharp and hot. The bone was shattered.

  He looked back over his right shoulder as far as the straps allowed.

  The keel was gone. The burst had sheared off the vertical stabilizer and half the elevator. The percale flapped in the wind like old rags.

  The machine lost control. The nose pitched up, then pecked down. The biplane began to fall into an uncontrollable rotation.

  Meltima tried to level the machine with his healthy hand, but the stick simply wobbled listlessly in the socket. The control cables were severed.

  The roar of the wind became deafening. The sea approached, spinning in a mad kaleidoscope.

  "My end has... arrived," Meltima uttered with surprising calm.

  He let go of the chaotically shaking stick, rested his head on the headrest, and closed his eyes, imagining his daughter's face laughing on the Maikal embankment. There was no fear in his last thought. He had done more than he could. He took two.

  A second later, the burning biplane smashed into the surface of the sea and vanished in an explosion, becoming just another nameless monument to this war.

  The result of the first skirmish was cruel and instructive for historians. Ten biplanes of the First Squadron of the Second Mu Naval Air Corps, the elite of the nation, were completely destroyed. The Imperial Gra-Valkas Armada, facing unexpectedly fierce resistance from the suiciders and the magic of the Mirishial allies, irretrievably lost twenty fighters out of the one hundred and eight launched into the air in this raid.

  It was a trade of one to five in favor of technology. But for the Combined Fleet, this was only the beginning of the end.

  Central World. Baulos Sea.Mu Task Force Flagship—Battleship La Erdo.Time: 09:15.

  The mechanical, piercing, soul-chilling wail of the steam siren "Howler," mounted on the flagship's superstructure, drowned out the noise of waves and wind. This sound, coarse and industrial, contrasted sharply with the melodious magical horns of the Mirishial ships sailing in the vanguard.

  The sea around was covered in foam from dozens of propellers.

  From the decks of five Pride of Mu-class aircraft carriers—enormous, clumsy conversions from colliers and liners—fighter biplanes were heavily lifting off one after another, coughing bluish smoke from unheated motors. Mechanics in oily robes dashed between machines, pulling chocks from under wheels. It smelled of burnt oil and aviation gasoline. It was old, good, dirty mechanics.

  A couple of cable lengths away, from four massive "dragon carriers" of the Nigrat Union, resembling floating fortresses, Wyvern Lords rose into the sky with guttural shrieks and the noise of hundreds of powerful wings. Their riders in leather armor checked saddle bindings and manacoms.

  It was a majestic sight—hundreds of pennants covering the horizon. But any competent strategist looking at this from above would see not strength, but chaos.

  Each nation prepared for this battle locked in its paradigm of thinking, ignoring allies. The mages of Mirishial believed in shields. The engineers of Mu—in artillery. Nigrat—in their beasts.

  Their tactics were developed in isolation from one another. Mu radio frequencies did not match the Union's mana-waves. Flag signals were confusing. It was an army assembled from different eras and worlds, a Tower of Babel on water. This fundamental desynchronization was a fatal error that could no longer be corrected, while the enemy moving upon them as a single steel mechanism remained an irresistible, monolithic threat.

  Task Force Commander Rider stood on the wing of the bridge of the battleship La Erdo. The wind flapped the hem of his greatcoat. He was not looking at the formation of his ships, but at the anti-aircraft guns hastily mounted on the spar deck just a week ago.

  These were not the familiar bulky guns of Mu. These were predatory, blued barrels on turrets, created according to blueprints and under the supervision of those very "mercenaries" from private companies.

  "Lieutenant!" Rider turned to the Commander of the AA battery. There was no fear in his voice, only the cold tension of a man betting "all-in." "Status of the installations? When will the autocannons be ready?"

  The officer, whose face was smeared with gun grease, wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He and his men had passed an express course from Russian "consultants," but theory is one thing, and combat is another.

  "Belts loaded, Comrade Commander! Caliber twenty millimeters. Cooling system checked. But... the feed mechanism on the third gun is jamming. The spring is stiff. The mechanics are conjuring over it."

  "Let them conjure in church!" Rider barked. "I need working metal! Time?"

  "Everything will be ready within six minutes, Comrade Commander. We won't let you down."

  Rider nodded silently and turned back to the sea. "Six minutes. Will they make it? If these Russian guns don't work the way they promised us, Gra-Valkas aviation will simply tear us to pieces."

  Altitude 4000 meters.

  At the same time, events in the sky began to develop according to a scenario expected by no one—neither Mu, nor the enemy.

  The Wyvern Lords of the Nigrat Union differed strikingly from their brethren from Parpaldia or Leifor. Through centuries of selection in the highlands, this subspecies had evolved for war in thin air. Their lungs were more voluminous, wings—wider.

  They could rise to an altitude of four thousand two hundred meters—limitless for biological creatures—where ordinary wyverns suffocated and lost consciousness.

  But their main trump card was their scales. Colored by nature itself in complex shades of azure, white, and light gray, it possessed chameleon properties, mimicking clouds and sky. It was perfect, natural camouflage.

  Commander of the Knight-Rider Order, Morenor, hovered in an updraft, feeling the cold of the stratosphere. His beast breathed evenly and powerfully.

  He looked down through gaps in the clouds. There, far below, Mu planes and the approaching enemy swarm glinted like silver sparks.

  "They aren't looking up. No one looks this high. Iron birds are blind," he thought.

  Morenor smiled with the tips of his lips, though no one saw this cold, predatory smile behind the visor of his deep mithril helmet.

  They were the hammer raised over the anvil. With a sudden diving attack, using altitude and the sun, they would have a decisive advantage in the first strike of this battle.

  At Morenor's mental signal transmitted via the helmet's neuro-link, two dozen Wyvern Lords of the Nigrat Union simultaneously folded their wings and fell like stones, punching through the cloud layer. Their scales, mimicking the color of the sky, made them nearly invisible until they opened their jaws.

  The throat sacs of the beasts swelled, glowing crimson from within.

  "DIE!"

  A stream of mana burst out. Fifteen clots of concentrated magical fire, leaving smoky tracers behind them, rushed toward the formation of Antares flying below.

  The attack was perfect. By the standards of their world.

  But the leader of the flank fighter flight, an old wolf who had gone through the war on his home planet, had a habit of swiveling his head even when the radar was silent. A glint of sun on scales. A strange shadow in the clouds.

  "'Dagger-1'—to flight! Attack from zenith! Break! Break left!" he barked into the throat mic, sharply jerking the control stick.

  The duralumin wings of the monoplanes swayed. With a grace inaccessible to living creatures, the mechanical birds, obeying hydraulics and pilot skill, scattered in different directions, breaking formation.

  Fireballs calculated for a dense group swept through emptiness, helplessly fading in the air without finding targets.

  "WHAT?!" Morenor shouted, feeling everything drop inside him. "Impossible! How did they react in time?!"

  His brain refused to accept the reaction speed of these creatures. A wyvern couldn't have changed course so sharply at such speed—it would have been torn apart by G-force. But these iron demons just slid aside like fish in water.

  "Commander! Six o'clock! Behind!" the panicked mental shriek of his wingman, amplified by the crystal, nearly deafened Morenor.

  He yanked the reins, forcing his beast, Mor, to do a barrel roll.

  A tracer burst passed centimeters from his helmet. The characteristic dry crackle of 20-millimeter shells tearing the air made his blood run cold. The Gra-Valkas fighter, using the energy advantage after the turn, was already hanging on his tail.

  The Antares pilot coldly, with short bursts, drove the dragon into his sights.

  "Into the clouds! MOR, UP!" the Commander screamed.

  The wyvern, roaring with effort, surged into the dense, gray cotton of the thundercloud. Visibility dropped to zero. Here, in the damp milk, the advantage of radar and speed vanished. Only instincts remained.

  The roar of the pursuer's motor was heard very close. He was hunting them.

  Morenor felt the vibration of the air.

  "Now!"

  The huge bulk of the Wyvern Lord emerged from the mist right in front of the fighter's nose. Distance—zero.The pilot tried to turn away, but it was too late. Morenor did not use magic. His dragon struck with its tail like a mace and sank its claws not into the cockpit—that would have been suicide on a collision course—but into the wing plane.

  CRUNCH!

  The sound of tearing duralumin and breaking spars was hideous. The wyvern ripped out a chunk of the wing along with the aileron.

  The Gra-Valkas fighter, losing lift, dipped its nose, stalled, and fell like a stone from the cloud, down toward the waves.

  "One got..." Morenor exhaled. His back was covered in sticky sweat. He had just almost been smeared by the propeller. "They are too fast..."

  They fell out of the cloud back into the clear sky—and immediately landed in hell.

  Their tactics had failed. The hunters became the hunted. The Antares swarm had already reorganized and was methodically shooting down the scattered Nigrat flights.

  The blow came from nowhere.

  Two 20-millimeter bursts intersected on his beast's body. Armor, scales, flesh, bone—all of it turned into a bloody mess.

  Morenor screamed. Not from fear—from pain. The telepathic link that made him and Mor a single whole had now become a curse. He felt his own lungs rupturing, his spine shattering.

  "GHA!"

  Darkness fell over his eyes. The wyvern, wheezing blood, lost control. They were falling. But with the edge of his consciousness, with fading vision, Morenor saw him.

  Another Antares, coming in for the kill. The low-wing plane came straight at them, head-on, confident that the wounded beast was not dangerous. The pilot was already aligning the sight.

  The strategist died in Morenor. Only a clump of pure, crystallized hatred and pain remained.

  He shifted the reins to his healthy hand, leaned down to the neck of his dying friend, and whispered, spitting blood onto the blue scales:

  "Just... a little more, Mor... Just a little bit, brother... Let's take him with us. One last time."

  The wyvern heard. With the last of its strength, breaking the remnants of its wings, defying aerodynamics and gravity, it threw its crippled body forward, toward the spinning propeller.

  The Imperial pilot saw in his sight not a target. He saw two eyes burning gold, full of intelligent hatred, rapidly filling all space. He yanked the ejection handle (if it existed, or tried to turn away), but...

  IMPACT!

  The collision of a living being and two tons of duralumin and steel at a combined speed of 700 kilometers per hour birthed a flash resembling a small explosion.

  Morenor did not hear the sound. The shockwave and fuel detonation turned the plane and the wyvern into a single, indivisible fireball, instantly vaporizing them in the sky over Cartalpas.

  Commander Morenor felt neither heat nor pain. His war ended instantly, with the noble death of a warrior trading his life for the enemy's fear.

  Central World. Baulos Sea.Flagship of HME Support Squadron—Magic Battleship Rank 2 Zeitnel ("Bronze" Class).

  There was no bustle on the captain's bridge. Something far more terrible had settled here—a quiet, leaden weight of understanding the end.

  Magic communication crystals, usually pulsing with soft blue light, now flashed an alarming scarlet, spitting reports of catastrophe into the ether.

  "...Second Mu Air Corps destroyed... Repeat, total destruction... Contact with carrier group flagship lost... Order of Nigrat scattered, Commander Morenor killed in collision..." the voice from the manacom speaker broke into a squeal, interrupted by the crackle of static interference from multiple explosions in the sky.

  Captain Lergen, an old sea wolf with deep wrinkles around his eyes, slowly sank into his command chair. The upholstery creaked under the weight of a man who had just had all will to live drained out of him.

  "This is the end..." he whispered with his lips alone, staring at the deck with an unseeing gaze. "Senseless, monstrous losses. We are blind kittens in a cage with wolves."

  through the portholes, he saw the allied armada. Just this morning, this formation of two hundred ships seemed the embodiment of might. Now Lergen saw the truth: it was history's scrapyard. Mu biplanes, burned like moths; noble but slow Nigrat wyverns; sail frigates of vassals... All this was trash. Antiques rolled out against a steel storm. The enemy possessed power before which their magic and steam were children's toys.

  A feeling of his own worthlessness and weakness covered Lergen overhead, like a suffocating blanket woven of sticky, cold gloom. He was an officer of the greatest Empire, but now he felt like a savage with a spear against a machine gun.

  "Executive Officer..." Lergen uttered deadpan, without intonation, not turning his head.

  The officer standing nearby, white as a sheet, started.

  "Yes, sir? Orders to change course?"

  Lergen chuckled bitterly. Where to? The sea was locked.

  "What do you think, XO... will we survive this sunset? Or will our names be carved on the Wall of Weeping by tomorrow morning?"

  The XO didn't have time to answer.

  The ship shuddered not from an impact, but from sound. A piercing, vibrating howl, like the scream of a banshee, tore the air above the squadron.

  Sirens on the wings of Gra-Valkas dive bombers began their song of death. And following them roared the combat "Howler" of the battleship itself.

  "WOOOOOO-OOO-OOP! AIR RAID! MASSIVE ATTACK!"

  Lergen leaped from his seat as if someone had poured a bucket of turpentine into him. Reflexes took over apathy. If dying, then with music.

  He raised binoculars to his eyes. The sky was falling on them. Dozens of black crosses, spewing smoke and fire, raced vertically downward.

  "Merciful Gods... There are clouds of them here! Prepare to repel air attack!" he yelled so that veins bulged on his neck. "All posts—fire at will! Shoot them down on approach!"

  In the ship's hold, work boiled. Mage-technicians in protective suits frantically flipped switches on distribution boards.

  "Increasing power draw from the magic engine!" tense voices came from below, overriding the turbine hum. "Forty-five... fifty! Reactor in afterburner! Redirecting raw mana flows to AA defense nodes!"

  Mana-conduit tubes on the walls glowed bright blue, vibrating with tension. A Bronze-class ship was older than the Mithrils, its channels were not designed for such a load.

  "Connection established! Stabilizers normal! Gun charging complete... eighty... ninety... one hundred! Full charge! Capacitors are whining, sir, they won't hold long!"

  "Screw it!" the Captain roared. "Divert remaining free mana to forced cooling circuits! Don't let the core melt ahead of time!"

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Magic guns ready for combat! Targets locked!"

  Hundreds of Sirius dive bombers, whose pilots were intoxicated by the destruction of the fighters, no longer hid. They came head-on, confident in their impunity. Their "Jericho Trumpets" pressed on the psyche, but this time they ran into an organized volley.

  "FIRE!" Lergen bellowed, chopping his hand down like a sword.

  The deck of the Zeitnel and neighboring ships flashed dazzlingly. Dozens of rapid-fire magic installations, "Light Slings," ejected a solid stream of destructive energy into the zenith.

  Blue tracers of magic shells, saturated with lethal force, humming and crackling, lined the gray sky with a dense net. Unlike gunpowder shells, magic flew in a straight line, almost without lead.

  The lead flight of bombers flew straight into the wall of light.

  Several planes flared up instantly—magic energy burned through fuel tanks. Their wings tore off, fuselages broke apart in the air.

  BA-BOOM!

  One of the bombers, taking a direct hit to a slung bomb, evaporated in an orange sphere of detonation, catching his wingman with shrapnel.

  Every second plane in the first wave smoked, began losing altitude, or fell apart, never reaching the drop point. The sea accepted the burning duralumin.

  But there were too many of them.

  Most machines, piloted by experienced Aces of the Empire, broke through the barrage fire. The pilots coldly, despite losses, leveled their sights, pulled release levers, and, ridding themselves of the deadly load, banked sharply left with a roar of forced engines, escaping the bombardment at wave-top level, leaving whistling bombs behind.

  Flagship of HME Support Squadron Zeitnel.Time: 10:45.

  Magic battleships of the "Bronze" class, forming the backbone of the Empire's fleet, were magnificent in linear combat against sailing ships, but in modern war, they proved to be glass hammers. Their reactors couldn't pull the creation of "Water Aegis" or "Light Bastion." They were naked before physics.

  Captain Lergen barely managed to cover his face with his hands when the world around him exploded.

  A high-explosive aerial bomb of 250 kilograms caliber, dropped from a Sirius with perfect accuracy, smashed through the upper deck right behind the bridge. The fuse triggered in the officer's wardroom.

  The shockwave, compressed in the enclosed space of steel bulkheads, burst outward through hatches and ventilation, carrying a scalding mixture of gases, plating shards, and body fragments.

  The deck of the Zeitnel was turned into a slaughterhouse. Sailors and junior officers manning the AA artifacts had not a single chance. Shrapnel mowed them down like a scythe cuts grass. The shockwave broke bones and threw people overboard into water boiling from explosions. Lergen was saved by the capital wall of the wheelhouse—he was thrown against the instruments, and he slid to the floor, stunned, blood running from his ears, clutching the helm stand like a drowning man a straw.

  But this was only the beginning.

  Following the bombers, like vultures on carrion, dived the Antares fighters. They didn't waste cannon shells—they worked with fuselage machine guns.

  RAT-TA-TA-TA!

  Bursts swept across the smoke-filled deck, finishing off the wounded, punching holes in lifeboats, and turning fragile magic AA installations into junk.

  The crew huddled in terror against the deck, covering their heads with their hands, while a leaden rain struck sparks from the metal around them.

  Bridge of Mu Flagship La Erdo.

  Commander Rider stood by the periscope, and his hands were shaking. This was not fear for himself; it was horror from the realization of the scale of the catastrophe. The manacom was choking on the dying rattles of sinking squadrons.

  "...Kingdom of Torquia... Battleship Thor lost... Cruisers burning..."

  "Fleet of Agartha broken! Dragon carriers sinking!"

  "Nigrat... we are withdrawing! We cannot... A-a-ah!.. (sound of explosion and silence)."

  Allies were dying live on air. The proud fleet of the Magikareich, sparkling with gold and magic, was turning into a pile of floating debris before eyes.

  Primal horror, forgotten over three hundred years of peace, sticky and cold, settled into the hearts of officers. They saw not a war. They saw an execution.

  But in the center of this hell, in a dense ring of explosions, two islands of resistance snapped back.

  Five aircraft carriers of Mu.

  The enemy counted on easy prey—huge, slow targets converted from colliers, ideal targets for dive bombers.

  Gra-Valkas pilots entered the attack self-confidently, by the book, expecting lazy pom-pom fire.

  And they ran into a wall of lead.

  On the sides of the carriers stood not clumsy, slow anti-aircraft guns of the steam era. There, on new, hastily welded steel sponsons, twin barrels of 23-millimeter anti-aircraft autocannons raised predatorily into the sky.

  The very ZU-23-2s, batches of which were purchased in strictest secrecy from the Russian Federation and mounted on ships in emergency mode under the curse-filled screams of Russian "consultants" from a PMC. It was a gift from the future for which Rider had paid mountains of gold.

  "Target at nine o'clock! Lead two bodies! Long burst!" screamed the gunner on the flagship Toven, squeezing the trigger.

  The installation, which the Russians called the "Slingshot," roared, spewing flame. This was not a magical "spit" and not the lazy boom of old cannons. It was a stream of molten metal flying at a speed of a thousand meters per second.

  The AA gunners, having passed the express course with Russian instructors ("Hit along the tracer! Don't spare the barrels! Barrage fire!"), created a dome of death around the carriers.

  A Gra-Valkas bomber attacking Toven simply exploded in the air, catching five shells in the engine. A second had its wing fly off, sheared by a burst. A third flared up like a torch.

  In fifteen minutes of combat, the "alien" guns, whose technology was half a century ahead of local time, ground up twenty-four enemy monoplanes. The attack choked. Gra-Valkas pulled back in horror, not understanding where these savages got such a monstrous density of fire.

  Rider lowered his binoculars. His face was twisted with rage and bitterness.

  "If I knew the deal, I'd live in Sochi..." he uttered, repeating a strange, incomprehensible phrase his Russian instructor often mumbled when seeing missed opportunities of the fleet.

  Now he understood its meaning. Unthinkable, monstrous difference! Three planes they shot down with all the might of their praised "national" artillery, expending tons of ammunition. And twenty-four machines were torn to shreds by these cursed, ugly, but devilishly effective "zushkas." If they had bought them sooner... If they had listened more closely...

  He squeezed his fist so hard his nails pierced the glove, and warm drops of blood fell onto the leather.

  "Too late for regrets," he growled.

  "Commander! Acoustics! Low tone!" the hysterical shriek of the lookout. "Enemy torpedo bombers! Approaching from under the sun, hugging the water! Four 'Cigars'! Heading straight for Toven!"

  Rider spun toward the tactical map. Rigels, long predatory machines, were already dropping torpedoes, aiming at the undefended side of the carrier.

  "The 'Twenties'! Turn the turrets!" he barked into the voice tube, forgetting regulations. "Don't let those bastards approach! Direct fire on the water! Shoot down the torpedoes! Cover Toven at any cost! FIRE!"

  The barrels of the ZU-23-2 installations turned with a predatory whir. The crews, faces black with soot, stomped the firing pedals.A characteristic, incomparable dry crackle rang out—the sound of tearing thick fabric, amplified hundreds of times.

  TR-R-R-R-R!

  Twin barrels spewed a solid stream of fire and steel. 23-millimeter high-explosive fragmentation shells bit into the low-flying silhouette of the lead Rigel torpedo bomber. The plane, lacking armor, simply disintegrated in the air, turning into a cloud of duralumin debris. Its torpedo, tearing off the pylon, helplessly flopped into the water without arming.

  "Got him! Direct hit! Minus one!" the joyous, verging on breakdown voice of the AA post gunner wheezed in the headphones.

  "Attention! Drop! Drop!" the lookout screamed.

  The remaining three planes of the flight, passing through the wall of tracers, managed to press the levers. Three long, cigar-shaped "fish" fell into the water, raised fountains of spray, and, leveling out, rushed toward the carrier's side, leaving a deadly foam trail behind them. The Gra-Valkas pilots immediately laid a sharp turn, escaping at wave-top level from the fire.

  "Damn... didn't get them! Finish the bastards! Fire in pursuit!" Rider dashed to the voice tube. He grabbed the microphone, connecting directly with Toven's captain. "Misago! Torpedoes on the left beam! Three of them! Coming in a fan! Hard over! Turn nose into them, or you're fish food! Turn!"

  He watched through binoculars, and seconds stretched into eternity.

  Toven, an enormous, lumbering ship, began slowly, painfully slowly to list to starboard, trying to escape the impact. Its stacks belched black smoke, water at the stern boiled.

  Crews on the decks of neighboring ships froze, clutching the railings.

  "Come on... come on, you old galosh..." Rider whispered, knuckles white.

  The first torpedo passed the bow.

  The second passed along the side, mere meters away.

  But the third...

  The GVE pilot knew his business.

  The torpedo struck the most vulnerable part—the stern, in the area of the propeller-rudder group.

  BOOM!

  The explosion was dull, heavy. A column of dirty water rose higher than the flight deck, crashing down on the planes standing there. The ship shuddered through its entire hull, as if hit by a sledgehammer. Speed dropped immediately.

  "Report! Status!" Rider barked into the microphone.

  "Hit in the steering compartment!" Captain Misago's voice was calm, the frighteningly calm voice of a man seeing his death. "Shafts severed. Loss of steering. We are jammed in a turn. Sealing bulkheads, water intake under contr..."

  He didn't finish. Rider saw it before he heard it.

  From the clouds, which no one covered anymore, a pair of Sirius bombers dived on the carrier that had lost way and was circling in place. The AA guns were silent—their crews were knocked off their feet by the first torpedo explosion.

  Two bombs. 500 kilograms each.

  They entered precisely into the center of the deck, smashing through the wooden planking, and went deep—to where hangars full of fueled biplanes and aviation gasoline tanks were located.

  A moment of silence.

  And then the ocean was illuminated by a Supernova flash.

  The insides of Toven detonated. The deafening, combined roar of the ammo dump and fuel tanks rupturing drowned out even the noise of battle. The carrier didn't just catch fire—it was torn apart.

  A gigantic fireball, orange-black, oily, swallowed the ship whole. The middle part of the hull along with the superstructure was thrown into the air. People, planes, steel—all of it turned to ash in a fraction of a second. The shockwave reached La Erdo, knocking sailors on deck off their feet.

  When the fireball rose into the sky, only the floating bow and stern sections remained on the water, rapidly going under, sucked into the vortex. No lifeboats. No survivors. No Captain Misago and his thousand men.

  "Misago... no... no..." Rider uttered detachedly, with a voice from which life had departed.The heavy ebonite handset slipped from his unclenched fingers and hit the deck with a dull thud, hanging by the wire.

  "MISAGO!" he suddenly screamed in a terrible, animal voice.

  Rider spun around and kicked the steel bulkhead of the bridge with all his might, crunching bones. Then again. And again.

  "Bitch! Beasts! Bastards! May you burn in Hell! May your children burn! Fiends of Hell! I will kill you all!" he pounded the metal with his fists, skinning them to blood, pouring curses until a spasm seized his breath.

  A deathly silence reigned on the bridge. Officers and sailors removed their caps and helmets. They stared wordlessly at the smoky spot on the water, supporting their commander's mourning. They understood: just now, before their eyes, the old world had lost definitively. The equipment bought from the Russians was good, but there was too little of it, and the enemy was too smart.

  And meanwhile, high in the sky, having completed the task, the strike squadrons of the Gra-Valkas Empire, forming into even columns, turned west, leaving for regrouping.

  The smoke from Toven became the signal fire of their victory.

  However, the price of this victory made the staff officers in Ragna shudder. Fifty-six newest fighters. Four torpedo bombers. Sixteen bombers. A hundred pilots, the elite of the Empire, did not return to base. They were not shot down by mages. They were shot down by Russian guns in the hands of doomed Mu sailors.

  It was the first blood truly drawn from the Empire.