Max Glebow
Prohibition of Interference. Book 6
Samurai Code

Chapter 1

“The small reconnaissance ship started transmitting a coded signal,” Letra reported when I got out of the cabin of the IL plane, “Perhaps I was very much mistaken about its affiliation with the rebels.”

“What does it communicate?”

“It appears to be a pre-recorded distress message. Automated reconnaissance ships are not designed for manned flight, but this ship seems to have passengers. If the report is to be believed, there are two medical pods with people in the cargo bay, immersed in a state of low-temperature sleep. I don't understand how they crammed such bulky equipment in there, the hold in this ship is very small.”

“Where did the recon ship get damaged?”

“This drone is assigned to the destroyer Consul Pran. The Metropolis lost control of it at the very beginning of the rebellion. The report says that the crew members who were not affected by the virtual psychosis and did not die during the hijacking of the ship, were isolated by the rebels in the medical bay and the hangar adjacent to it. For almost a year they were subjected to various experiments and just plain torture. After a while, however, the rebels partially lost their guard, and the two prisoners managed to recover a small recon ship that had been damaged in one of the skirmishes and to somehow escape from the destroyer. There are no details, but there is a request for urgent help.”

“Who are they?”

“A man and a woman. Civilian professionals. I forwarded you the decoded message. It repeats cyclically, but other than the names, which are not in my databases, it doesn't say anything else about these people.”

“How did they get on the destroyer?”

“No data.”

“Can the reconnaissance ship's instruments detect satellites in orbit?”

“No, they can't. From this distance its scanners will not penetrate the camouflage fields of the satellites. Also, this scout ship is damaged and may not be able to use active scanning systems, but I wouldn't count on that.”

“Do you have strict program directives for such cases? Are you obligated to respond to a distress call?”

“There are directives,” Letra answered after a moment's hesitation, “I must render all possible assistance to a ship in distress, regardless of its affiliation. I think you realize that these directives were drawn up long before the mutiny.”

“Have you answered the call?”

“No.”

“But…”

“It is highly probable that this is a provocation. If I make contact, I will inevitably be detected. Do we need a destroyer here, or even a whole fleet of rebels?”

“What about the unconditional directive?”

“It doesn't really matter. I can't help them actually, even if I wanted to. I have no ships, the entrances to the upper levels of the base are destroyed and littered with tons of debris. All base personnel except you are dead, and you are on Earth and unable to leave it. My making contact with the ship won't make them any better, but it will give us away completely.”

“So if there really are people there, they will inevitably die?”

“The resources of the medical pods and the ship itself will last for some time, but it's very difficult to determine exactly for how long. Maybe for a few weeks, maybe for a year. The small reconnaissance craft is not designed to fly in the atmosphere, so the most it can do is get close to Earth or land on the surface of the Moon. Neither of these would help its passengers.”

“But why did they come here? It only makes sense if the fugitives knew about the Moonbase and hoped it had survived.”

“There is logic in what you say, but don't forget that it could all be a provocation.”

“Don't you think such a scenario is too difficult for a provocation? Damaged scout ship, strange distress signal… Wouldn't it have been easier for the destroyer to just show up here?”

“I don't have ehough data to analyze,” Letra replied with a note of regret, “Don't forget that it's been over a year since the mutiny began. Perhaps the Consul Pran has lost its bases and is operating autonomously. In this case, his commander is unlikely to want to waste fuel on blind jumps. Besides, an entire rebel cruiser disappeared here without a trace a year ago, and the destroyer is not likely to come here without reconnaissance.”

“It's all guesswork…”

“That's what I'm saying,” Letra said. “It's dangerous to make contact. So for the time being, all we can do is wait. We'll have to see what our guest will do, if it does anything at all.”

* * *

“That is very impressive, Comrade Nagulin,” Stalin was obviously in a very good mood. “Even Churchill grudgingly acknowledged our success, and American journalists spare no epithets to describe the results of the "Russian Polar Campaign," not forgetting, of course, the outstanding contribution of their volunteers to this victory.”

“The press, of course, is always prone to exaggeration, but they certainly played their part,” I tried to gently temper the Chief's sarcasm. “To underestimate the Americans is dangerous. They know how to fight, although they take any losses very painfully.”

“I see that you are imbued with respect for potential allies,” grinned Stalin, “and they have not neglected you. The Medal of Honor looks good on your uniform. It was presented to you personally by President Roosevelt, wasn't it?”

“That's right, Comrade Commander-in-Chief. That is the tradition.”

Stalin nodded silently and looked around the members of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command.

“There is an opinion that Comrade Nagulin deserved more than an American award for his actions,” he said after a short pause without the shadow of a smile. “He received the overseas medal for shielding the President of the United States from a sniper's bullet, seriously wounding him, and then continuing to fight in spite of his wounds. I think Comrade Nagulin has honestly earned the highest award of the United States and has done our country a great service. But the other thing is more important to us. He led a nearly lossless convoy that delivered seven hundred thousand tons of military supplies to the USSR, and in addition our fleet was joined by two heavy cruisers and a modern battleship. How do you think, comrades, how should the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command assess Comrade Nagulin's contribution to our victory?”

Molotov, from whom, frankly, I did not expect such a thing, suddenly took the floor. “The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command should appreciate this exceptionally highly.”

“At the suggestion of Vice-Admiral Golovko, supported by the higher command staff of the fleet, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet approved a new award for outstanding achievements in the organization and conduct of major naval operations,” said Marshal Shaposhnikov. “At the moment it is the highest naval order of the USSR. I think Comrade Nagulin deserves the honor of becoming the first Knight of the Order of Nakhimov in the Soviet Union.”

“Does anyone have any objections, comrades?” Stalin grinned slightly again. “No? Well, then the holder of the USSR's first highest naval order will not be an admiral at all, but a land general. I don't remember similar precedents in world history, but there is a first time for everything.”

“The order is a good thing,” Marshal Zhukov, who received the new rank for breaking the siege of Leningrad, joined the discussion, “but no end to the war is in sight, and a new position is needed for Lieutenant General Nagulin. I believe that he can be trusted with the newly formed tank army, especially since he himself delivered the materiel for it from the United States.”

“Let's not be in a hurry, Comrade Zhukov,” Stalin shook his head negatively, “we'll find someone to put in command of the tank army, and for Comrade Nagulin there are more important tasks right now. Agreements reached with the United States oblige us to send advisers and volunteers to China to provide military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek's army. Not only will it be necessary to organize combat work there, but also to actively interact with representatives of the United States and the Chinese government. The more damage we inflict on the Japanese, the greater will be the shipments of military supplies from overseas. This is the task we will assign to Colonel General Nagulin. I think the new title will add to his importance in the eyes of our Chinese allies.”

* * *

Lena and I spent three days of vacation time, generously allocated to me by personal order of the Chief, in the vicinities of Moscow. We didn't want to waste time going anywhere else.

I listened with interest to her story about how, when she learned that I had been appointed head of the Soviet military mission in China, she went first to Sudoplatov, and then, together with him, to Beria. She didn't say a word to me about it at the time. Lena would not tell me the details of her conversation with the Commissar, but apparently she had said many kind words to Lavrentiy Pavlovich about how she had been used during my trip to America. I don't know what was going on in Beria's head during this conversation, but, to Lena's surprise, he quite easily agreed to send her to China with me, and Sudoplatov supported this decision just as unexpectedly.

Naturally, I was pleased. It meant that in addition to all the pleasures of being near the woman I loved, I got a proven and reliable employee at my disposal. My wife had already demonstrated her organizational skills more than once, and I was not going to let her sit idly by on this trip, nor would she want to stand back to enjoy the Asian exoticism herself.

Lena never ceased to amaze me. Walking along the well-groomed paths around the forest lake, enjoying the fishing, bathing, birdsong and the silence of the night, I tried not to mention the war and work issues in my conversations with my wife, but she would sometimes go over them herself. As it turned out, while I was traveling around America, periodically getting involved in shooting stories, she wasn't wasting time here, either.

I have long wanted to bring together the people with whom I have fought shoulder to shoulder on this planet. I once told Lena that I had plans for them, but nothing concrete was said at the time. And now I was surprised to learn that my wife had managed to persuade Sudoplatov to find these fighters and commanders and combine them into a detachment of unclear purpose, but with versatile and very high quality reconnaissance and sabotage training.

When I returned to Moscow, I immediately went to Lubyanka, where Sudoplatov, with a satisfied grin, introduced me to my new subordinates who were ready to go with me to China through the NKVD. In the last six to eight months, some of my comrades in combat have risen through the ranks quite a bit.

Pluzhnikov, who had been a sergeant and was now a lieutenant of state security, shook my hand firmly. He recovered for a long time from the wounds he received during the breakthrough of General Muzychenko's headquarters column from the encirclement, but he returned to the ranks as a full-fledged fighter and received a new rank after taking an accelerated course in the NKVD School of Special Purpose.

Ignatov and Nikiforov, who had been wounded in the attack on von Kleist's column near Rzhev, recovered much more quickly. I kept an eye on their fate myself. In fact, it didn't require much effort from me. They had been subordinates of Sudoplatov before, so after their recovery they simply returned to one of the NKVD bases near Moscow, only with new Orders of the Red Star and new insignia in their buttonholes. Like Pluzhnikov, they became lieutenants of state security.

As for Major Shcheglov, he returned to front-line reconnaissance. He managed to avoid being wounded, but it appeared he woud no longer have to continue to lead reconnaissance teams behind German lines. At Sudoplatov's initiative, based on a tip from Lena, Beria summoned the Major to Moscow, and now Shcheglov was to come with me to China.

And, well, this "support group" was led by Lieutenant Colonel Lebedev, who remembered to include in it saboteurs, with whom we had barely escaped the trap near Kremenchuk.

My mood improved noticeably. I knew that these people would not let me down under any circumstances. In general, a trip to China did not seem too difficult to me. In addition to the NKVD detachment, Major General Kudryavtsev and his reinforced air regiment, fully equipped with new IL-8r planes, and a number of other detachments and support units went with me.

At that time I sincerely believed that the Japanese could not oppose us, I feared not their opposition, but rather the problems that might come from outer space. As it turned out, I was only partially right – the problems came from everywhere at once.

* * *

The Eye of the Void-class small automatic reconnaissance ship was not the Sixth Republic's latest generation of military space technology, but it could handle low- to medium-complexity reconnaissance missions. The destroyer Consul Pran had two of them on board, and Lieutenant Commander Hirch decided to risk these ships.

The small yellow star of the G2V spectral class didn't appeal to him for many reasons, but the destroyer crew had little choice. The fleet's heavy ships died more than a year ago when they stormed the orbital fortresses of the capital planet of the infected humans. They accomplished their task and burned the snake's nest to the ground, but it was impossible to call the result of the battle a victory. Four badly battered destroyers, a dozen nearly empty support transports, and a few more small ships of various purposes were all what remained of the powerful fleet engaged in a decisive battle with the enemy.

The planets of the central star system of the infected humans turned into black charred orbs, but the remnants of the fleet immediately received a new task to find and destroy the surviving enemy colonies. Hirch didn't understand what was happening. Retaliatory strikes by the infected humans deprived the fleet of supply bases and repair facilities. His ship had essentially nowhere to go back to, but the new order didn't imply a return. He was leading his damaged destroyer into a remote sector of space of which there was only sketchy information.

The consciousness of the Lieutenant Commander, afflicted by virtual psychosis, could not critically comprehend the received order. The conviction that this was not real life, but only a high-quality virtual reality, allowed him to look at everything that was going on, as the whims of his commanders, who for some reason decided to drive him and the entire crew of the Consul Pran into a completely impossible scenario, where the majority of the population of the Sixth Republic turned into dangerous infected people who took over the planets and ships. Hirsch firmly believed that sooner or later this nonsense would end, he would get out of the virtual simulator capsule and return to normal life, but now he needed to solve the task as efficiently as possible, because all his future fate would depend on it.

However, this training task dragged on too long, smoothly passing from one task to another, but the virtual psychosis forced the officer to ignore all inconsistencies and discrepancies, ruthlessly severing "unnecessary" neural connections and burning out memory areas that could plant the slightest doubt in the mind of the Lieutenant Commander that his actions are the only right ones.

The destroyer Consul Pran, escorted by a supply transport, roamed from star to star, somewhere it clashed with the surviving patrol corvettes of the infected humans, somewhere it finished off the already damaged space stations, and somewhere it ignominiously ran away when it encountered a couple of destroyers or a light cruiser of the enemy. Infected people repeatedly tried to negotiate with him, but Hirch knew very well how dangerous it was to communicate with the carriers of the infection. In the beginning, when little was known about the disease, he tried to talk to captured infected people. They were rambling on about how everything around them was the real world, and the crews of the ships that had come to destroy the outbreak of the contagion were exposed to neurostimulation equipment that had not been fully tested, and plunged into a pseudo-reality, mistaking the real world for a digital simulation. Hirch knew it was morbid nonsense, but oddly enough, it worked on some of the crew, eating away at their brains and planting doubt in them. After two of his officers went insane after contracting the contagion themselves, the Lieutenant Commander stopped all contact with the infected people and ignored any their attempts to contact the Consul Pran.

The single galactic hypernet was rapidly disintegrating. Communication with the command was cut off, and no new orders had been received, but the instructions received earlier had not been cancelled, and Hirch was plotting all new routes based on the last database update he had received almost a year earlier.

Any raid comes to an end sooner or later. The supply transport fuel tanks have shown their bottom. The ammunition was also nearly exhausted, but the organizers of the "exercise" still did not give the signal to quit, which meant that the command was waiting for new accomplishments from Hirch and his crew. However, the commander of the Consul Pran had little or no choice. The destroyer could only afford a couple of standard jumps, after which they could forget about traveling in hyperspace. On the other hand, the Lieutenant Commander hoped that the complete exhaustion of the ship's resources would finally force his superiors in the real world to stop this endless ordeal, which both Hirch and his men had already become accustomed to, but, apparently, it could only be counted on after the last mission.

The yellow dwarf, which the Consul Pran could still reach, had a rather strange status. One of his planets was populated by wild infected humans. However, the order received did not specify whether the infected necessarily had to be former citizens of the Sixth Republic, which meant that the destruction of their civilization was as obligatory as the sterilization of any republican colony affected by the contagion.

Information about this planet entered the fleet database from the report of the commander of the cruiser Admiral Kuhn. He was lucky enough to intercept an infected transport ship coming out of hyperspace at a standard surfacing point equipped with a subspace beacon. After hacking into the central computer of this transport ship, it became clear that just three jumps away from the interception point was an entire planet of infected people, virtually unprotected by an orbital defense system. The cruiser commander made a decision not to miss such a chance… But no one ever heard of him or his ship again. The cruiser disappeared without a trace, as if vanishing into space. And now the only target available to the Hirch destroyer was this planet.

The destroyer commander did not risk approaching the yellow dwarf without reconnaissance, but at the same time he saw no point in simply sending a drone there to collect data. Something that managed to destroy a cruiser was unlikely to approve of an automatic reconnaissance ship, not the most advanced one, appearing in its star system. Most likely, the ship will be shot down before it can transmit any meaningful information to the destroyer.

Having consulted with technical specialists and analyzed on the ship's computer several scenarios for the upcoming operation, Hirch settled on a rather complicated and cunning variant. One of the unmanned reconnaissance drones was not fully operational. During the Consul Pran's last skirmish with an infected frigate, the drone sustained damage and its systems could not be fully restored. The camouflage field generator was losing power at the most unpredictable moments, and the active scanning systems were working at 30 percent of their normal capabilities. In general, this machine was no good, unless you use it as bait.

Hirch assumed that it was unlikely that they would start firing at a small and unarmed ship, which, moreover, was clearly damaged. If this ship tries to accelerate to jump, then, of course, yes, but otherwise… If the drone behaves peacefully, and even gives a distress signal, claiming to have passengers in medical pods on board, the infected humans might fall for this nonsense. While the enemy is figuring out who it is that has come to his system, the scout ship will begin collecting data without using active scanning; it will transmit information via short-range communications to the second drone, fully operational and covered by a camouflage field, which will not go close to the planet, but will come out of the jump at the borders of the star system and hang there quietly, receiving narrowly focused data packets.

But if a serious defense is waiting for them in the system, both drones will be burned immediately, but that would also be the result, which would clearly show that the Consul Pran has nothing to do near this yellow dwarf. Well, if it all works out, then Hirch will be able to make a more conscious decision.

The idea worked, though not completely. It was not to say that Hirch counted so much on the fact that the infected people naively rushed to rescue the fugitives he had invented, fully disclosing themselves, but the lack of any reaction on their part was somewhat disappointing to him. The only habitable planet in the star system looked wild. No orbital infrastructure, no terminals, factories, shipyards and docks… But there was something here all the same. The Admiral Kuhn didn't come back from here…

“The first passive scan data packet from the Eye-1 ship has been received,” the space control operator reported. “The reconnaissance ship discovered a number of debris indicative of a fairly long-standing space battle in high orbits of the natural satellite of the third planet. Accurate identification without active scanning is difficult, but there is a high probability that these are fragments of the hull internal structure of the Bear-class cruiser. Explosion craters and fragments of destroyed buildings can be seen on the surface of the satellite. Judging by their shape and location, there is a tiered base under the surface. This is not a purely military facility – there are too few defensive structures and too many buildings of unclear purpose.”

“Admiral Kuhn should have been able to handle them without too much trouble,” Hirch said thoughtfully, “But I have no doubt that this space debris orbiting the satellite is what's left of it. Something happened here that decided the fate of the battle not in favor of the cruiser. Judging by the condition of the structures on the surface, the base is badly destroyed. Can you determine what remained after the battle?”

“Only approximately,” the operator answered after a short pause, “The lower levels of the base and some of the peripheral defense systems may have survived. They destroyed the cruiser with something… If the camouflage field generators work, we won't see anything from this distance.”

“Is the drone broadcasting a distress signal?”

“It's been almost ten minutes. No reaction.”

“Either our trick has been figured out, or they simply have nothing to answer with,” grinned Hirch, “And how is this to be understood?”

“Something must have survived, commander,” replied Hirch's deputy in charge of weapons. “It's a pretty big objective. The cruiser couldn't have destroyed everything and then crumbled to pieces. Unless the base was later evacuated….”

“I don't think so. Hardly anyone could have come to their aid, judging by what was going on in the central worlds. Let's not guess. Launch a flock of local probes. Have them orbit the planet and take a closer look at the remains of the base on the satellite. Their camouflage fields work fine, so hopefully the enemy won't detect them.”

“Too much distance, Commander. They will take two weeks to get from Eye-1 to the planet in camouflage mode.”

“We're not in any hurry,” said Hirch. “I'm not going to expose my ship to anti-space defense fire. The hull is barely hanging on as it is. All we needed was more holes in the sheath.”

In fact, Hirch was indifferent to the fact that his decision would greatly delay the mission. Completing the task and entering the "real world" became for him an increasingly abstract goal that existed only somewhere on the fringes of consciousness. Subconsciously, he did not want to leave "virtuality" and wished that he had never had to do so. Mental illness was too deeply rooted in his brain, having long ago passed into an irreversible stage.

“Local drones are activated.”

“That's better,” Hirch nodded. “Lieutenant Crate, you're in charge on the bridge. If there's any news, I'm in my quarters.”

Twelve million kilometers from Earth, the cargo bay hatch opened in the hull of the automatic reconnaissance ship, and nine small cylindrical vehicles floated out one by one. Turning on their weak engines, which left almost no emission trace, they began a leisurely acceleration toward the third planet of the system. Minidrons covered by camouflage fields could remain undetected for a very long time and were able to sneak up close to reconnaissance targets. Lieutenant Commander Hirch was not going to take any chances and preferred to trade time for information.

* * *

“Drones are in orbit, Lieutenant Commander, Sir,” the reconnaisance drones operator reported. “Now we have more information.”

“Report.”

“There is a constellation of scientific satellites orbiting the third planet. They have good camouflage fields, so the drones probably didn't pick up everyone, but some satellites are damaged and therefore easier to detect. Apparently, this is a consequence of the arrival of the cruiser Admiral Kuhn in the system. It probably just didn't have time to destroy the entire network, or it was distracted by another enemy.”

“Do the satellites have weapons?”

“The drones were unable to penetrate the camouflage fields of the active satellites, but judging by the wreckage of the destroyed satellites, they are unarmed. Apparently, the base on the natural satellite was designed to study the civilization inhabiting the planet. The drone managed to download some information from one of the almost dead satellites. It couldn't access the shared network, but it broke into the local data storage, and now we know a lot about about what was happening on the planet before Admiral Kuhn arrived here.”

“It can wait,” Hirch brushed him off. “What is known about the base itself?”

“All exterior structures are destroyed. There is no sign of the camouflage field generators, but scanners have not been able to penetrate deep below the surface. The lower levels of the base could have survived, with a fairly high probability of doing so.”

“Could anti-space defense assets have been preserved there?”

“They could, especially if they were located at some distance from the base itself and were used only at the very end of the battle. It is possible that hangars with fighters or in-system transport ships have also survived.”

“Is the enemy showing any activity?”

“There is no absolute certainty, but drones are picking up signs of short-range communication systems. The orbital constellation seems to be exchanging data with someone on the planet's surface and with the base on the natural satellite.”

“What's going on down there?”

“There's a big war going on over there, Commander,” replied the ship's deputy commander for armament, “The Aborigines enthusiastically destroy each other, using primitive technology that is two hundred years, maybe two hundred and fifty years, behind ours. The only problem is that there are a lot of these wild people out there. The resources of the Consul Pran are not enough to destroy them all. Besides, it's not certain that we'll be allowed to do it in peace. Going to the planet with an incomprehensible object on the satellite behind us…”

“Don't take me for an idiot, Korff,” Hirch grimaced. “Forward me all the data delivered by the intelligence. War on the planet is good for us. If we can't kill the natives on our own without undue risk, why not help them do our job for us? I think covert support for the losing side would be a good solution. Senior Analyst, in eight hours I want to see a preliminary computer analysis of the main scenarios of our intervention in the course of combat operations on the planet. The goal is to expand the scope and intensity of the conflict as much as possible. There must be no winners in this war.”

Chapter 2

Vice Admiral Gun'ichi Mikawa stared intently into the night sea. Today his luck had smiled on him. In the difficult battle just ended, his squadron defeated U.S. and Australian allied forces covering the landing of the American troops on the island of Guadalcanal.

The Solomon Islands were one of the most important points in the Pacific Ocean. With the airfield already nearly completed on this strategically important island, Japanese aviation would be able to control considerable water space and operate on convoy routes connecting the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

The Americans also understood the importance of Guadalcanal and were not going to let the Japanese gain a foothold on the island and build an air base there. The Allied amphibious landing began on August 7, and attempts to prevent it with air strikes had only limited success. As darkness fell, however, the Imperial Navy entered the fray.

Allied ships covering the landing fell into the trap set by Mikawa off Savo Island. Their four heavy cruisers went down. Another cruiser and two destroyers sustained serious damage, while not a single ship in the Imperial Navy even lost combat effectiveness[1]. It was an undoubted victory, but it was no less important to make the next decision. It was now, after the destruction of the cover ships, that the way to the American landing zone was open, Mikawa's cruisers could reach the defenseless American transports unloading equipment and ammunition on the island shore. However, somewhere in the darkness of night the American aircraft carriers were hiding, and if morning caught the Japanese ships in range of their planes, this victory could turn into a catastrophe.

It was a difficult decision. Vice Admiral Mikawa understood that his ships would need time to regroup, eliminate the effects of enemy shells and to reload torpedo tubes, which was a laborious and time-consuming procedure. The Japanese ships had few shells left, and there was no air cover. The few seaplanes based on the cruisers don't count – they're just scouts. A brief meeting with members of the staff only confirmed Mikawa's near decision not to risk the squadron, and at two hours and twenty minutes he ordered his ships to begin withdrawal.

Suppressing a heavy sigh, the Vice Admiral temporarily turned over command of the squadron to the commander of the cruiser Chōkai and headed for his quarters. The victory warmed his soul, but the decision made did not give the squadron commander peace of mind and brought unpleasant thoughts.

The first months of the war brought a number of resounding victories for the Land of the Rising Sun. After the tremendous success in attacking the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, the destruction of two British battleships in the South China Sea, the capture of Burma, Malaysia and the Philippines, the successful landing of General Yamashita's army at Singapore followed, as did the landing at Bali and the capture of the islands of Sumatra and Timor.

In the battle in the Java Sea, Rear Admiral Takagi's squadron sank five enemy cruisers and five destroyers, almost completely destroying the Anglo-American squadron that was trying to prevent the Japanese from taking over Java Island. As early as the eighth of March the garrison of Java surrendered and thereafter the entire Dutch East Indies were seized by Japanese troops almost without resistance. Then, in March, they occupied the Andaman Islands.

Japanese-controlled territory moved close to the shores of Australia. On the nineteenth of February their aircraft bombed Darwin, and on the third of May the island of Tulagi was occupied without a fight, and a major battle for New Guinea and the Solomon Islands unfolded.

Nevertheless, the first failures appeared in the victorious expansion of the Empire of Japan. On May 3 a battle took place off the coast of Australia in the Coral Sea in which the Japanese failed to achieve a decisive victory, and in early June the Imperial Navy lost four aircraft carriers in a battle off Midway Atoll, which was a real disaster. Naval aviation suffered irreparable losses, losing its most experienced and trained pilots.

And now the Americans and their allies became so bold that they decided to launch a counteroffensive by landing on Guadalcanal Island. And he, Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, had a real opportunity to disrupt this enemy operation, but he limited himself to winning the sea battle, and, with his tail between his legs, turned his ships around, afraid of aircraft attacks from American aircraft carriers.

To distract himself, Mikawa sat down in a chair at his desk and turned on the radio, trying to tune in to the Tokyo radio wave. Soon he heard the familiar callsigns of "Kyokai Hoso" of the NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Through the usual rustle of interference the announcer was talking about the weather, and the Vice Admiral grimaced, realizing that in the next few minutes he would not hear anything important. At that moment, Mikawa didn't yet know how badly he was wrong.

The slight crackling of the air suddenly turned into an unpleasant screech, which was almost immediately replaced by an unfamiliar silence, and then it was cut through by a distinct and somewhat lifeless voice, speaking Japanese clearly, but with a strange, unnatural accent.

“Vice Admiral Mikawa, if you would be so kind as to give me a few minutes of your time…”

Mikawa twitched with his whole body, staring at the radio receiver like it was a poisonous snake.

“Don't worry, Vice Admiral. Unfortunately, our communication is one-way, so just listen to me. If you want details about who I am, I will explain, but not now, because it is not so important at the moment.

What is important is that the enemy aircraft carriers that you feared when you decided to abort the operation had, the night before, withdrawn from Guadalcanal and have left the Solomon Islands area. Yesterday your aircraft attacking the U.S. landing zone inflicted serious casualties on their deck fighters, and Admiral Fletcher decided that if your planes from Rabaul base attacked his ships, the deck aircraft would not be able to repel them effectively. As a result, he gave the order to withdraw the aircraft carriers from the possible strike zone. I understand that you have no reason to believe me, but you have seaplanes, and you can at least partially verify my words, and so that you do not doubt, I will first give you the exact coordinates of the point where the American destroyer is drifting, which has become dead in the water as a result of damage, and also indicate the anchorage of the unloading transport ships. The decision is yours, Vice Admiral, but if I were you, I wouldn't pass up the chance. One more thing. The situation, as you can imagine, is constantly changing, and if you want to keep up with these changes, don't forget to turn on your radio regularly.”

* * *

On August 7, the weather was inclement, and Japanese patrol planes were unable to fly a reconnaissance flight over the waters of the Solomon Islands, which played a key role in the initial phase of the battle. Guadalcanal and several smaller islands nearby were the target of the U.S. landing party. If the slow transport ships had been detected on approach to the landing point, the chances of the landing party reaching the islands would have been reduced to a minimum. However, it happened as it happened, and eleven thousand Marines under Brigadier General Alexander Vandergrift landed almost unhindered. Their main objective was to take over the unfinished airfield at Cape Lunga.

Japanese units, taken by surprise, came under fire from the ship's guns and bombing strikes by aircraft from U.S. aircraft carriers. Panicked, they offered little resistance and the next day, after an arduous march through the tropical jungle, Vandergrift’s paratroopers took control of the airfield. The Japanese withdrew in disarray, abandoning construction equipment, vehicles and food supplies.

The General was pleased with the start of the operation. He accomplished the task with minimal casualties, something he had not expected at all. Nevertheless, the situation in which the Marines found themselves could not be called simple. The enemy quickly recovered, and numerous Japanese aircraft appeared in the sky, but the real problems began on the night of August 9.

The lightnings of gun salvos blazed into the sea, and the rumble of distant explosions rolled on shore. The Imperial Navy was unwilling to tolerate the Allied landing on Guadalcanal. Vandergrift could only guess at the course of the naval battle, but all his previous experience told him to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

The transport ships were still unloading, and the landing site had to be covered from land. At the same time, the perimeter around the seized airfield had to be reinforced as much as possible. Vandergrift had to stretch his forces, and this caused him serious anxiety. Heavy weapons were still in the holds of the transport ships or, at best, just now being unloaded on the beaches, and a Japanese attack could follow at any moment. By midnight the roar of the guns had died down for a while, and there was a tense silence that could have meant anything.

An hour later a confused message came from the fleet, which indicated that the squadron covering the landing party suffered heavy losses, but the Japanese ships did not continue the attack and, having made a turn, went to the northeast, rounding the island of Savo.

“Speed up the unloading as much as possible,” Vandergrift muttered through his teeth as he read the radiogram. He was well aware of the value of such statements by sailors and knew how to put two and two together. The General was well aware that even if the aircraft carriers that had recently departed the Solomon Islands tried to return, they would not be able to stop Japanese heavy cruisers at night. Of course, the report of the departure of the Japanese squadron could be true, and then they could consider themselves very lucky, but for some reason the General did not believe it, and the next few hours confirmed that his pessimism had more than good reason.

First there was a short fight somewhere not too far out to sea. Several volleys of heavy guns were heard, followed by a powerful explosion that brightly illuminated the horizon for a few seconds. About twenty minutes after it was quiet, the engines of Japanese seaplanes sounded in the sky, and flare bombs flashed over the beaches and the anchored transport ships, turning the landing site, which looked like a bustling anthill, into a perfect target.

A scattering of bright flashes appeared in the relative silence near the horizon. There was no need to explain to Vandergrift what it was.

“Everybody take cover!”

There was no need for this command. His soldiers and sailors from the transport ships knew very well what the night volley of a squadron of heavy cruisers looked like. Twenty seconds of tense waiting and the landing zone turned into a sea of fire. The transport ships were the first to be hit. They each carried a 102 millimeter cannon to defend against submarines that had surfaced above the water, but their occasional shots could do nothing to change the picture of the merciless beating of the landing force.

Howitzers, tanks, and, most importantly, shells for the most part were still unloaded, and the transports, which had no armor, exploded from the first or second shell hit; the Japanese gunners knew how to shoot, and in literally ten minutes the American ships were finished. Vice Admiral Mikawa's squadron, which had come closer to shore, shifted the fire to the beach, and turned the unloaded equipment and the paratroopers' property into piles of burning rubble.

There was nothing more to do here, and Vandergrift ordered his men to withdraw to the captured airfield. However, the Japanese squadron did not limit itself to destroying transports and bombarding the landing site. Its commander was well aware of the aim of the landing, and in a few minutes the cruisers' guns shifted their fire to the positions of the Marines at Cape Lunga. The Japanese were careful not to shell the unfinished runway itself – they obviously hoped to use it in the future, but the whole area around the airfield was hit by heavy shells. Seaplanes circled over the Marines' heads, periodically dropping flare bombs and correcting their ships' fire.

Taking cover in a shallow trench, Vandergrift clenched his fists to the point of pain. In his imagination, he could clearly see that a few kilometers from the airfield Japanese soldiers, encouraged by the actions of their fleet, were preparing for a night attack. An attack that he would have nothing to repel with.

* * *

“Irs, they're not fugitives,” Letra's voice sounded worried and… indignant. “In the cargo compartment they had not medical capsules, but minidrons for in-system reconnaissance. Lieutenant, forty hours ago they hacked into our satellite!”

“Did the network defense hold? And why are you only telling me this now?”

“It was a damaged satellite that had no direct access to the network, but it still had a lot of information in its storage devices. The good news is that all this information belongs to the period before the attack on the Moonbase, which means that the rebels know nothing about your actions on the planet. After being damaged by rocket shrapnel, the satellite went into a passive mode, waiting for the arrival of a repair drone, which, as you understand, never arrived. We don't have a military network, as you remember. The security protocols are completely different. The machine was not online and was monitored sporadically. Another test revealed the fact of a third-party connection. You know the rest.”

“Why aren't they attacking?”

“They fear a stab in the back from our base. Put yourself in their shoes. The wreckage of the cruiser that tried to destroy the base in a frontal attack is dangling in lunar orbit, and all they have appears to be a destroyer, and it's not the fact that it is fully combat-ready.”

“I like this less and less by the minute. Apart from assumptions, we have nothing.”

“It's not all bad news, Lieutenant. Satellites have detected activity in orbit. Eight hours ago, someone was using short-range communications systems around the Solomon Islands, making a transmission over a narrow radio beam, just as I do, simulating local radio communications.

It was not possible to intercept the message, but it is clear what happened. Immediately after that, Japanese Admiral Mikawa abruptly changed his plans and turned his squadron, which was already leaving the combat area, in the opposite direction. As a result, the tactical defeat of the Allied fleet turned into a real disaster. They lost all their transport ships off the coast of Guadalcanal. The Marines who managed to disembark suffered heavy casualties, having been knocked out of the unfinished airfield at Cape Lunga by the Japanese and were now driven into the rainforest with no heavy weapons and almost no ammunition. Irs, there can be no other option here than for the rebels to intervene in the war on Japan's side. So far their actions are limited to the transmission of information, but you know as well as I do that it can be a very effective weapon.”

“How many drones do they have? Can they build a network of satellites like ours over the planet?”

“I don't think so. The destroyer is a warship, and reconnaissance is only an auxiliary function for it, and the drones themselves are not designed for such tasks, so we were able to detect the fact of the transmission from orbit, even though we weren't able to intercept or jam it.”

“And now what? That way, the Japanese can find out about all my actions at any time.”

“Lieutenant, do you really think the rebels will limit themselves to leaking information to the Japanese?” There was a sound of incomprehension in Letra's voice. “I have to disappoint you. A few minutes ago a similar transmission from orbit was noted in the vicinity of Berlin. Forget everything that came before. I'm afraid the game you started a year ago has gone to an absolutely other level.”

Chapter 3

After the new force intervened in the course of events, the situation on the fronts became completely unpredictable. Neither I nor Letra could foresee where and how the rebels would influence the decisions and actions of the enemy. Nevertheless, my plan was approved by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and I had no opportunity to deviate from it – no one would have understood me. And since that was the case, I should have started to act, especially since the pilots and equipment had already arrived from the Union, and now Moscow and Washington were waiting with great interest for me to begin active operations against the Japanese.

The Chinese met us with great enthusiasm. Their generals still tried somehow to contain their emotions, but the middle-ranking officers made no secret of their enthusiasm for the new Soviet equipment; they believed that now that the Russian pilots had returned to their country, everything would finally change, and their army will cease to be a side that is perpetually defensive and constantly defeated.

The Chinese provided us with an airfield to base the Kudryavtsev’s regiment near the city of Chongqing, which became the temporary capital of China after the Japanese occupation of Nanjing. Chiang Kai-shek refused to place us closer to the front line. Apparently, he had no confidence in the resilience of his soldiers, which was understandable. We arrived in his country in the midst of another Japanese offensive. The enemy was advancing through Jiangxi Province toward the city of Changsha. The Chinese divisions were retreating, losing badly to the Japanese in technical equipment, mobility, and the organization of troop control.

Part of the coast of the South China Sea and East China Sea was still under the control of Chiang Kai-shek's army, but it was sandwiched between Indochina, occupied by the Japanese, to the south and Shanghai, lost back in 1937, to the north. In addition, it was torn in two by Hong Kong, which had been invaded by Japan.

The Imperial Army sought to establish a land link between the territories under its control, at the same time completely cutting off the Chinese forces from the sea, and Chiang Kai-shek naturally tried to prevent such a development by all possible means. Naturally, he immediately decided to use me to stop the enemy's advance with air strikes.

In principle, I was not at all against helping the Chinese generalissimo with his problems, but only as a side task. That was not why I came to China. I needed to organize a painful demoralizing blow to the Japanese forces that would make a proper impression on Roosevelt and Stalin, and I think I knew exactly where I was going to do it.

Fighting in the Pacific was growing in scope, and the Imperial Navy had to constantly move its ships from one region to another in order to respond to the Allies, who sought to seize the initiative. Now, as a major battle unfolded in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, the Japanese urgently redeployed the aircraft carrier group that had taken part in the Aleutian Islands operation in July.

The heavy aircraft carrier Zuikaku, which had just been repaired at the metropolitan docks, left the Kure District shipyards and put to sea to join the rest of her battalion. On the way, the aircraft carrier made a stop in Okinawa to replenish the air group and refuel. At my direction, Letra carefully monitored the movements of all the big ships of the Imperial Navy, carefully choosing the moment when one of them would be in a vulnerable position and at the same time be in the range of my planes, that was, within a thousand kilometers from the coast of the South China Sea.

Of course, I'd like to catch some iconic battleship like the Yamato at the crossing. The destruction of the world's largest battleship would undoubtedly have impressed the leaders of the USSR and the United States, but the Imperial Navy's line forces were based on Truk Island, more than three thousand kilometers southeast of our airfield, so it could only be dreamed of. Nevertheless, Zuikaku was not a bad target either. After the battle in the Coral Sea and off Midway Atoll, it became clear to all sensible admirals of the world, that it was now the aircraft carriers that played the major role in the ocean.

“The target is leaving port,” Letra reported succinctly.

Well, it's about time. The Japanese decided to be on the safe side and put to sea in the evening to be able to get out of range of the Allied planes during the night. Apparently, they were not expecting an attack, but obviously the commander of the Zuikaku thought that extra caution in war was never a bad thing.

The dark time of day was only to my advantage. I took my time getting out of the HQ dugout and, with the help of the liaison officer, who spoke a little Russian, I warned the Chinese airfield commander that we were getting ready to take off.

I didn't have to look for Kudryavtsev. The Major-General, seeing from afar how the Chinese officer rushed to carry out the order, immediately understood, what was going on and hurried over to me himself.

“As you may recall, this is not my first time in China,” grinned the regimental commander, “I remember that if the Chinese start making such a fuss, it means something serious is going on. Shall I prepare the regiment for a combat flight?”

“We shan't all go, there's no point. I need ten planes with outboard fuel tanks.”

“Is the target at sea?”

“Yes. The heavy aircraft carrier Zuikaku, escorted by two destroyers, is scheduled to leave port on Okinawa Island this evening in a southeasterly direction.”

“This is a serious ship,” Kudryavtsev nodded, “We hang two ABOV-1000 bombs each?”

“Only on a couple of ILs. Let the pilots of the other planes take armor-piercing bombs, the Zuikaku has an armor deck seventeen centimeters thick.”

“Why don't we take at least twenty planes? Ten with bombs, and the rest as fighters. It's not a battleship, it's an aircraft carrier. Her fighters could meet us before we even get there.”

“At night? I doubt it, and besides, it's unlikely they'll be able to intercept us, given their speed.”

I answered with full confidence in my voice, but something in my own words seemed wrong. It was not easy for me to give up the stereotypes I had formed, but I reminded myself that it was time to get used to the new realities, in which the opponent's capabilities would not always meet my expectations.

“Permission to perform?” Kudryavtsev interrupted the pause.

“Just a minute, General. I guess you're right. Get twenty ILs ready to take off. After all, this is our first operation in China, so we need to take some precautions, and I think we need to think about the types of bombs.”

* * *

We flew over the coastline at an altitude of eleven kilometers. Despite the very small reserve of fuel, I still led the group not straight to the target. I decided to take it as an axiom that the enemy knew about our operation, and I thought it right not to reveal our plans ahead of time. Now our course clearly indicated that we were going to Taiwan. There, too, were many attractive targets for an attack, and the Japanese must have remembered the relatively recent history of such a raid. In 1938 Soviet pilots attacked their airbase on this island. The SB bombers then dropped nearly three hundred bombs on the Japanese airfield and destroyed forty naval aircraft, so I hoped that the enemy would focus on preventing a repeat of that scenario.

“Satellites detected that the rebel drone's short-range communications system in orbit started transmitting,” Letra reported. “The signal is directed to the center of Tokyo. I'm afraid the enemy will know about your group's departure. I can't intercept or jam the signal.”

All I had to do was wait for the reaction of the Japanese. I did not know which of Japan's top military leaders the rebels had chosen to contact, but he did not seem to be able to believe the information obtained in such an unusual way.

Twenty minutes passed in anticipation. Nothing changed in the darkness around us, and only on the virtual map the marks of the group's planes were moving farther and farther southeast, approaching the island of Taiwan.

“Fixing the radio exchange between the General Headquarters of the Japanese Navy in Tokyo and the fleet base in Taiwan,” Letra reported, and after a pause of about a minute, she continued, “The island's military facilities are on alert.”

“When will we be in range of the Japanese radars?”

“In ten minutes. Their radars are bad – they're way behind the leading countries in the world.”

I turned on the radio to transmit the order to change course. Our appearance over Taiwan would be a direct confirmation of the information, obtained by one of the Japanese staff officers from the rebels. And I wanted the Japanese to believe their new allies as late as possible. However, instead of the usual rustle of the air, a squeal of interference burst into my headphones.

“Letra, get in touch!”

“I'm in touch,” the artificial intelligence immediately responded, “that’s an attempt to suppress radio signals.”

“It is quite a successful attempt, by the way. I can't radio the other planes in the group.”

“I turn on rebroadcasting via satellites.”

The howls in the headphones subsided.

“Thirty degrees to the right. Do not change the height.”

The group skirted the island in a great arc. As tempting as it was to drop a couple of fuel-air bombs on the Japanese airbase, we shouldn't have done it. My target was the heavy aircraft carrier, and anything that could prevent its destruction was to be put aside until better times.

We went around Taiwan from the north. The Zuikaku and her escort destroyers had already gone almost two hundred miles off the island. I had no doubt that our goal was now crystal clear to the rebels, but whether the Japanese would believe them after the information about the coming attack on Taiwan had not been confirmed, was a very interesting question.

“Fifteen minutes to target,” Kudryavtsev reported, and almost immediately there was a message from Letra.

“Captain First Rank Yokogawa received a radiogram from Tokyo… The Zuikaku turns her nose against the wind… The aircraft carrier raises her fighters.”

The Japanese believed the rebels, and now our task was dramatically complicated. It is one thing to destroy enemy ships on a steady course by a surprise night attack from a high altitude, and quite another to bomb targets that are actively maneuvering, and with the opposition of fighters.

I had originally intended to drop bombs on the Japanese ships without descending, that is, from an altitude of about eleven kilometers, where the on-deck Zero fighters and anti-aircraft artillery posed no danger to us, but this plan could only work if our attack was totally unexpected. Even with perfect aiming, an unguided bomb from this height can only hit a ship going at a constant speed and not trying to evade. Naturally, we had a backup plan, though I hoped we wouldn't have to resort to it. I hoped, as it turned out, in vain.

“Group, initiate descent. "Seventh" and "Twelfth," illuminate the targets!”

We were already practically over the Japanese ships. Naturally, nothing was visible below, and without the illumination no one but me could attack the targets. Letra's help here wasn't very effective either. Pointing aircraft at maneuvering targets by radio is extremely difficult because of the too rapid change of their coordinates and the quite natural lag in the reaction of pilots to commands.

A scattering of bright lights flashed below – the "chandeliers" of flare bombs hung over the enemy's ships. Realizing they were detected, the Japanese turned on their searchlights, trying to help their pilots and anti-aircraft gunners see the targets.

“Fighters, clear the sky!”

The Japanese planes that took off from the deck of the Zuikaku did not go far from their ships, patrolling the sky at an altitude of about a thousand meters. They didn't see us, but they hoped to intercept the bombers as they came in to attack the aircraft carrier. But the first to appear over the Japanese ships were the IL fighters. A brief skirmish in which both sides feverishly tried to see each other in the wrong and too contrasting light of the "chandeliers," created chaos in the sky. Eighteen Zero planes were chasing eight twin-engine IL planes, guided by the bright cones of the exhausts of their turbojet engines, but the Japanese found it unexpectedly difficult to catch up with these rather large planes.

Traces of fire crisscrossed the sky. One of the Japanese planes erupted and crashed into the dark waves, disintegrating into pieces. The searchlight beam mounted on the bow of the destroyer hit one IL, and chains of shells stretched from the ships to the plane. However, this target was too fast for the Japanese anti-aircraft gunners, and it almost immediately left the firing zone.

“The fighters are taking the Japanese with them,” Kudryavtsev reported, “Permission to begin the attack on the main target?”

In fact, not all the Zeros rushed after our fighter cover. Seven Japanese remained to cover the aircraft carrier, but it was unlikely that they could have seriously interfered with us.

“Beginning approach to targets. "Nineteenth" and "Twentieth", you attack the destroyers. "Seventh" and "Twelfth," you will provide illumination and photo-fixation of the impact results. For the rest of the planes, the target is the aircraft carrier.”

Even though they had been warned in advance of our attack, the Japanese could only make it difficult for us to complete our mission, but with their countermeasures the aircraft carrier had no chance of fighting back. But the commander of the Zuikaku didn't know that, and in any case it wouldn't have occurred to him to surrender.

* * *

Captain First Rank Yokogawa realized almost immediately that his ship was being attacked by an unusual enemy. This was evidenced, in particular, by the fact that he had been warned of the danger by a radiogram from Tokyo. How could they have known about the impending attack on the Zuikaku? Information supplied by agents? But it doesn't come that quickly. And that warning came just in time – he barely had time to raise his fighters from the deck.

The radiogram did not say whose planes were approaching Yokogawa's ships from the northwest. Clearly, it was probably the Americans or the British, but the pilots from Zuikaku had never seen such planes before. At the beginning of the attack, radio communication was lost. For about a minute the air was thick with interference, but then it suddenly disappeared and the Zero pilots were able to report back to the ship that they were dealing with very fast twin-engine fighters, armed with powerful cannons and leaving short but brightly glowing trails behind them while flying.

The searchlight beam caught the silhouette of an enemy plane out of the darkness for a few seconds, and Yokogawa was convinced that he had really never seen anything like it before. And yet they were only fighters. They didn't try to attack the ships and didn't seem to have any bombs. Yokogawa did not believe that the enemy had found them in the night sea solely to play catch-up with the Zero planes of his air group, which meant that it was only a diversion and that somewhere in the darkness enemy bombers were preparing to attack. They were not visible and, by all appearances, the anti-aircraft crews would only notice the enemy planes when they are already over the ship.

The aircraft carrier commander was unpleasantly surprised how easily enemy pilots navigated the night sky, but there was nothing he could do about it, and he simply had to accept that fact and move on, based on the new realities. From which direction would he attack his own ships? Part of the Zuikaku air group is pulled west in an attempt to catch up and destroy enemy fighters. The destroyers and aircraft carrier are maneuvering, but maintain a general vector to the southeast. The wind is moderate and can't play much of a role…

Yokogawa closed his eyes, trying to distract himself from the sounds of battle and listen to his intuition. This war taught him a lot, and, above all, the experience told the commander of the Zuikaku that in the absence of information about the enemy he should not disregard his own premonitions, because they are not based on mysticism, but on the subconscious generalization of all available information by the brain.

“Bombers' attack from the northwest!” The subordinates heard not a shadow of doubt in Yokogawa's voice, which rang like a steel string in the Zuikaku's cockpit. “The altitude is 1,500 meters. Fighters, intercept the enemy! All air defenses open a barrage!”

* * *

The ILs, armed with armor-piercing bombs, lay down on a combat course. Below us we could see a scattering of bright spots of "chandeliers" slowly descending on parachutes, in the light of which the winding keel trails left by the Japanese ships, which were maneuvering desperately, were well visible.

On the virtual map, Letra highlighted for me the optimal attack trajectory. The wingmen were guided by the exhaust of my plane's engines, trying to repeat all my actions. The enemy haphazardly scanned the sky with searchlights. The anti-aircraft guns were silent – their crews could not see any targets. The Zero planes that were trying to cover the aircraft carrier were also operating on their own, searching blindly for the enemy in the dark skies. I didn't see any reason to be particularly worried… And suddenly everything changed.

“Danger!” The artificial intelligence shrieked in Letra's voice!

The Japanese ships exhaled fire at once. Dozens of barrels pulsed with bursts of gunfire, and fiery dotted lines of tracers streaked toward us. For the first time in this war, I saw Letra confused. On the virtual map, several possible evasive courses were displayed at once, but with each passing second hundreds more bullets and shells flew toward us, and trajectories that had just seemed safe, turned into death traps.

How did the Japanese know about us? They just couldn't see us, but the barrage fire was opened at exactly the moment when our planes were at their most vulnerable. I threw my IL down-right, already realizing that I had no time to dodge enemy fire. The plane shuddered twice. A hole formed in the side window of the cabin and at the same time something hit me hard on the head. I didn't lose consciousness, even though everything around me blurred, as if I suddenly looked at the world around me through a layer of flowing water. A hot trickle of blood ran down my forehead, but my vision gradually returned to normal.

“The right engine is damaged!” There were panic notes in Letra's voice. “In one minute it will start overheating, in three minutes it will start a fire. You're badly concussed. Pull yourself together, Lieutenant, or everything will be for nothing!”

Somewhere behind me, a ball of fire erupted in the sky. One of our planes got hit by a shell that made the bombs detonate, but that was the end of the Japanese anti-aircraft gunners' luck. We skipped through the barrage zone, and with an effort that caused a flash of headache, I got the plane back on course. Here it was, the aircraft carrier Zuikaku, not inferior in armor to a heavy cruiser, but not as maneuverable as the destroyers because of its enormous mass.

I corrected my course a little, following Letra's clues. Just a few more seconds… Bombs away!

A bright flash ripped through the darkness of the night below and slightly ahead. One of Kudryavtsev's pilots dropped a fuel-air bomb on a Japanese destroyer. He did not manage to get an accurate hit, but the close explosion of the ABOV-1000 was fatal for the light ship. A fire broke out on the destroyer and almost immediately something exploded in the internal compartments, jets of fire and a fan of incandescent debris flew into the sky.

Seconds later, my bombs struck the unarmored flight deck of the Zuikaku twenty meters apart, they breached it and penetrated into the two tiered aircraft hangars below. Half a minute later, three more explosions shook the ship – Kudryavtsev and two of his pilots didn't miss either. A shortcoming of the Zuikaku design was the lack of armor protection for the fuel tanks and gas lines, and this omission proved fatal for the ship. Only two bombs penetrated the armored deck separating the aircraft hangars from the ship's inner compartments, but the burning fuel that rushed into the breaches made it impossible to continue fighting for the survivability of the heavily damaged aircraft carrier.

The carbon dioxide fire suppression systems were not designed for a fire of this magnitude, and the flames quickly engulfed the entire ship. Air bombs and torpedoes prepared for the planes standing in the hangars began to explode in the burning jet fuel. I didn't get a good look at all of this until later, in the recording that Letra made. At that moment I had completely different problems.

“The right engine is on fire!” The panic was gone from Letra's voice, but it sounded grim and worried. “The engine is out… The fire is out. Lieutenant, you won't make it to the airfield on one engine.”

“And as far as the Chinese coast?”

“Maybe. With local machinery, especially damaged machinery, predictions are not reliable.”

I made contact on the common wave.

“Group, this is "Cruiser," heading northwest! Congratulations on a successful combat mission! "Second", take roll call and report casualties and damage.”

On the virtual map, I saw that we lost two planes and three more planes took shrapnel hits that had almost no effect on their speed. Kudryavtsev's report, which sounded five minutes later, naturally coincided with these data.

Unlike the other planes in the group, my IL was a single-seater. On my order, it was redesigned back in the Soviet Union, so now no one but me knew about the condition of my plane. The group was gradually moving forward toward the Chinese shore, and I, with my only engine, was falling further and further behind. It was time to make Kudryavtsev aware of my problems.

“"Second", this is "Cruiser". Take command of the group. I've got a busted right engine. I can't go faster than 500. I'll try to make it to the shore and jump. Your job is to bring our planes home. Before I jump, I'll give you my coordinates so you can find me, but first I need everyone to land in one piece. You are personally responsible for this. Is the task clear?”

Kudryavtsev replied after a few seconds. “ "Cruiser", this is "Second", the sun will soon rise and you will be intercepted by Japanese fighters from Taiwan. You won't make it to the Chinese coast.”

“Execute the order, General!”

Kudryavtsev, ignoring my words, began to give orders.

“"Seventh", "Fourteenth", and "Fifteenth", continue on your previous course. "Third" and "Nineteenth", escort the damaged planes to the airfield. The rest of the group, keep the speed of four hundred and fifty. Secure the commander's damaged plane.”

“This is disobeying an order in a combat situation, Comrade Kudryavtsev. Do you want to be court-martialed?”

“I can be court-martialed, Comrade Colonel General. But only on your written order.”

I grinned silently. I will only be able to give the order in writing if I get to ours, which, in fact, the "Second" is trying to do. Well, let it be so, especially since Kudryavtsev is right – I could really run into the Japanese on my way to the Chinese coast.

My head was hurting more and more.

“Letra, what hit me so hard?”

“A shard of armored glass. The close explosion of an anti-aircraft shell. You're still lucky.”

“I understand that myself,” I tried to nod, which made me dizzy. And that's how bad I feel, even under the influence of the "battle cocktail". Without it, I would have passed out a long time ago.

Letra found no damage to my IL's control system, but the further I flew, the more it seemed that the plane was not obeying me well. I had to forget everything else and concentrate solely on piloting.

“Commander, how's your plane?” Kudryavtsev's question sounded in my headphones, and it echoed in my head in a strange way. The blows to the skull are fraught with consequences. Either something shifted there, or it was a side effect of the chemicals injected into my bloodstream.

“It's flying so far…” I struggled to answer.

“You sound strange. Are you hurt?”

“I got hit in the head with a piece of glass, but I'm in control for now.”

“So… Hold on and don't get distracted by anything. The main thing for you is to make it to the shore, to jump properly, and to land without breaking your neck. We'll do the rest.”

Kudryavtsev was no longer in contact with me, but Letra was broadcasting his talks and commands to me. To begin with, the Major-General alerted the entire regiment. It was probably wise, especially since there was an unhealthy commotion at the Taiwanese airbase of the Japanese. At an airfield south of Hong Kong, Zero squadrons were also preparing for takeoff. The Samurai didn't seem to like what we did to the Zuikaku very much. They were thirsty for revenge, and someone was not averse to helping them in that endeavor.

* * *

Lieutenant of State Security Ignatov never got to sleep that night, and, to all appearances, he was not the only one like that at the Chongqing airbase. The Lieutenant came out of the officers' dugout to get a breath of fresh air, which, to tell you the truth, wasn't much outside either. The stuffy, windless night pressed on his psyche, a scattering of stars twinkled in the dark sky. The Lieutenant did not immediately notice a lone female figure against the background of the planes covered by camouflage nets – Lena also decided to go outside.

“They should be back at dawn,” she said as Ignatov came and stood beside her. “I'm uneasy, I feel that something is wrong.”

“This always happens when you're really looking forward to the return of a loved one,” Ignatov tried to reassure her. “Nerves…”

“It has nothing to do with nerves,” she shook her head negatively. “This time, as he was leaving, I didn't feel him to be confident. Pyotr didn't like something, but he didn't say what it was. And Kudryavtsev acted strangely, too. I heard him tell the regiment chief of staff that Nagulin had never changed his mind before, but this time he almost immediately agreed to double the number of planes assigned to the operation.”

Ignatov was silent, pondering what he had heard, and Lena spoke again:

“There's nothing worse than standing and waiting like this…”

The alarm squealed, breaking the silence of the night. That sound did not mean an attack on the base, but undoubtedly something important happened. Lena and Ignatov ran to the dugout of Colonel Lebedev, to whom they both now reported.

In a minute their entire combined team was already gathered in the dugout. Lebedev had just finished talking to the Air Regiment Chief of Staff. The officer ran upstairs as if someone was chasing him. Ignatov had never before noticed this elderly Lieutenant Colonel running so fast, and this stressed him even more than the alarm that had just stopped howling.

Lebedev looked around his subordinates with a heavy gaze, and held it on Lena for a split second.

“Colonel General Nagulin's air group completed its combat mission,” the Colonel said in a strained voice, “The aircraft carrier Zuikaku is destroyed. The group lost two planes and is now approaching the Chinese coast. The commander's IL sustained combat damage. Nagulin himself is wounded and is trying to reach the shore, where he can leave the plane with a parachute. The air group is covering him, but at dawn the Japanese can attack them with superior forces. Lieutenant General Kudryavtsev radioed an order to raise the regiment in the air and suppress the enemy's attempts to destroy the planes returning from the mission.”

“How bad was his injury?” Lena interrupted the commander, unable to stand it.

“Severe concussion. There is no more exact information,” Lebedev pretended not to notice the insubordination. “Squad, listen to the mission. Now we'll load up on the transport plane and fly right behind the air regiment's planes. Colonel General Nagulin will give us the exact coordinates of the place where he will leave the damaged plane. We immediately fly to this point and perform the landing. Kudryavtsev's pilots will cover us. Our goal is to find Comrade Nagulin, help him, and ensure that he gets to our units. Any questions?”

* * *

I was getting worse and worse. My headache was getting stronger, and my hands on the wheel were trembling sensibly.

“You have a severe concussion,” Letra commented on my condition. “It would be fatal for any local, but your body should be able to handle it. You need peace and deep medicated sleep with forced regeneration.”

“Are you kidding me? What kind of peace is there? Unless it's eternal… The Japanese are just getting ready to give it to me.”

The Japanese were really getting ready. And they've even begun to do it. Six dozen fighters took off in two waves from Taiwan. Normally they wouldn't have caught up with us, but now… By our standards, the group was barely moving. The altitude was two thousand, the speed was four hundred. My only engine couldn't provide more speed – it was starting to overheat. According to Letra's calculations, the enemy would catch up with us just over the coast, and the Zero planes, which took off from the outskirts of Hong Kong, would arrive there even earlier. True, by that time the main forces of Kudryavtsev's regiment should arrive to help us and give the Japanese a heated encounter, but all this air slaughter would begin exactly where I would have to leave the plane, if I was still conscious of course, which, given the dynamics of my well-being, was not at all guaranteed.

I underestimated the fury of the enemy. Taiwan and Hong Kong were just the beginning. Another large group of Japanese fighters took off from airfields around Shanghai, and they clearly knew our course and speed, as well as the fact that we could not turn sideways anywhere. The Japanese clamped us on three sides, slamming the trap tightly, and by their calculations we had no way to break out of it.

“I analyzed the condition of the disabled engine,” Letra seemed to be trying to find a way out of the situation the whole time, too, “It's cooled down, and if you get hard pressed, you can try to get it running again. There's a good chance it will work, but it won't last more than three or four minutes, the damage is still there. Then the fire will start again, and it will be impossible to put it out.”

“My side window is damaged. I can't reach top speed anyway.”

“No one says anything about top speed, but you'll get up to six hundred, and that should be enough to get away from the Zero planes a little or get out of the dogfighting zone.”

“I got it,” I had neither the energy nor the will to argue with Letra – I felt like my head was splitting in pain.

* * *

“Our Asians have shitty planes, Commander,” said the deputy armament chief contemptuously, looking skeptically at the holographic projection of the battle area. “They have no speed, no armor, no normal weapons.”

“What did you want from the savages?” Hirch sniggered. “It's all primitive on this planet.”

“No, it isn't. The aircraft carrier was destroyed by superior machines.”

“They're not a masterpiece either,” the Lieutenant Commander shrugged, “though compared to everything we've seen here before, their characteristics are impressive. It was not for nothing that the computer immediately singled out this air force unit, as something that required our attention. In addition, the scientific satellites in orbit are also clearly playing on their side – our drones could not block their communications for a reason.”

“And yet, they have already lost two planes and one more plane will definitely not make it to the base.”

“None of them will make it. We gave the Japanese information about the course of their retreat. From here on, I hope our wards will do everything themselves. You better tell me this, Korff,” the destroyer commander looked intently at his subordinate. “Where did these planes come from in this out-of-the-way hole called China? None of the parties to the conflict have anything like that, but the Chinese do.”

“The Chinese probably had nothing to do with it. After all, you can draw any identification marks on the wings, so the Chinese origin of these planes is most likely a fiction,” the head of the engineering service joined in the discussion. “Unfortunately, the satellite database we hacked contains only information up to the beginning of 1941. At that time, no nation on this planet was at all ready to mass-produce something like this.”

“Wherever those planes came from, they could interfere with our plans, especially if there are many of them,” Hirch replied, continuing to watch as more and more marks of Japanese fighters taking off to intercept the Chinese planes lit up on the virtual map. “We need to stop their production, and first we need to at least understand where they are made.”

“Probably in the U.S. or Great Britain. Germany would not supply weapons to China, and everyone else is certainly not up to to this kind of technology,” the engineer suggested.

A scattering of red dots flashed on the hologram.

“Observing Chinese fighter-bombers taking off from a base near Chongqing,” the space control operator reported, “These are the same type of planes as the ones that sank the Japanese aircraft carrier. Fifteen machines are already in the air, forty-three more are preparing for takeoff.”

“Well, we've already seen them in the night fight,” grinned Hirch, “let's see what they're capable of during the day. How many planes will the Japanese have time to pull in to the battle site?”

“One hundred and thirty Marine Zero planes and about a hundred Army I-1 Falcon planes. Almost a threefold preponderance.”

“Computer, give me a prediction of the results of the fight.”

“There is little data on the capabilities of Chinese aircraft,” the artificial intelligence replied in a colorless voice. “In combat with Japanese ships they carried different types of weapons. There may be a high margin of error in this estimate.”

“Report the most likely scenario.”

“Losses on both sides of up to 70 percent of the machines with an overall uncertain outcome. Combat will stop on its own due to the exhaustion of ammunition and fuel by the surviving enemies.”

“That suits us,” the destroyer commander's lips curved into a satisfied chuckle.

* * *

I seemed to have passed out or fallen into a semi-conscious state for a while, but I nevertheless didn't let go of the control column. When I was able to perceive my surroundings again, there was a mountainous coastline ahead, riddled with coves and bays.

“Come to your senses, Lieutenant! You're about to be shot down!” Letra's voice is screaming in my head.

The dawn sky blazes with thousands of lights. Tracer bullets and shells tear up the air. Flashes, plumes of smoke, and burning debris falling into the water and onto the rocks. In front of me I see the silhouette of a Zero plane trying to approach an IL from behind. My hands pull the control column to the left, adjusting the course. Burst! Flash! Some debris flies from the tail of the Japanese plane…

“Irs, what are you doing?!” It's Letra.

“Commander, can you hear me?!” it's Kudryavtsev. “Get out of the fight! You can't fight in this damaged plane! They'll meet you on shore. Lebedev and his men are already in the air. Stay out of this fight!”

“Lieutenant, you're only preventing your pilots from fighting!” Letra throws in a new argument, “They are covering your plane and are forced to fight at low speeds. Fly to the shore!”

Yes, this is serious. Letra is undoubtedly right, and so is Kudryavtsev, and I'm not thinking clearly right now, and I'm acting on reflexes. What did my girl-friend say about the right engine? Perhaps it's about time. My IL twitches and spits out a long and uneven stream of fire from the nozzle of the damaged engine, but I am noticeably pressed into the seat. The air roars into the hole in the glazing. Good thing the shrapnel didn't hit the front of the cockpit.

I'm heading toward shore with a descent, breaking out of the "dogfight." A Japanese Falcon is coming after me, but one of ours immediately cuts it down with a burst of his cannon. I see an IL burning ahead-right. Its engine, engulfed in flames, is enveloped in smoke and steam – the automatic fire suppression system is triggered, but the damage is too extensive. The airplane's wing bends at an unnatural angle and fractures, and the plane plummets into a disorderly fall.

All this I note only at the edge of my consciousness. I'm still very sick, and I can hardly keep my focus on the shoreline, which is doubling and bouncing from side to side. My plane keeps accelerating. Letra is muttering something in my head, and somewhere in the background I hear Kudryavtsev's foul language, and I squeeze the control column and try not to pay attention to the fact that the plane begins to shake and rock more and more.

A sharp pain pierces my neck. It seems that Letra used a last resort, causing the implant to deliver a shock discharge. This brings me to my senses a little and Kudryavtsev's scream bursts into my ears:

“Commander, you're on fire! Jump immediately!”

The right wing is engulfed in flames. The plane vibrates as if struck by dozens of heavy hammers, but the hills, sparsely forested, are already glimpsed below. I fumble for the catapult lever and pull it sharply toward me. The cockpit hood flies up and backwards with a pop, and the mighty kick of the gunpowder charge throws me out of the dying plane along with the seat. It's a good thing I insisted on equipping the new ILs with this device, made for us in the U.S. – I certainly wouldn't have made it on my own.

The canopy of the parachute opens overhead with a pop. Another jerk sends me back into unconsciousness, but it does not last long. Letra makes me come to my senses again in the same disastrous way. A Japanese Zero emerges from somewhere on the side, and begins to turn in my direction. Apparently, these are the last seconds of my life. It seems, I'm finishing badly, and it's a shame, it was going so well.

Why is Letra silent? She probably has nothing to say to me – there's nothing one can do in this situation anyway. A few seconds more and I'll be in the sights of the Japanese pilot… I want to close my eyes, but I force myself to look at the approaching death. The rumble of air cannons bursts into my ears, but for some reason I don't see any flashes. Perhaps my vision is failing me, or I'm just already dead and it's a quirk of my fading consciousness… Several tracer streaks of cannon shells are crossed over the Japanese fighter that is about to attack me. The Zero is literally torn apart. It does not even burst into flames, but rushes to the ground as a pile of shapeless debris. Right above my head, three ILs roar through the air. It seems that a few more lines have been added to my list of debts in this world.

The ground hits my feet. I don't feel pain, it's too weak compared to my head, which feels like it's splitting apart. I look around and sluggishly collapse the parachute. There is no wind. At least I was lucky on this, otherwise I would have had problems landing. The air battle is still raging overhead, but its intensity is clearly diminishing.

I unbuckle the cords and try to get to my feet.

“Lieutenant, you're almost done,” Letra's voice cuts through my head again. “There's not much left. You need to take cover under the trees. Do you see a small grove right in front of you? It's relatively safe there. It's only eighty meters downhill. Come on, you can do it.”

I can't get up, but I can crawl. It's a good thing it's downhill. Everything floats before my eyes. My knees and elbows rake the dry earth, dust and some dry plant chaff are stuffed into my mouth and nose. How long have I been crawling? Five minutes? Ten? It gets noticeably darker around me, and after a few meters I stop, trying to understand what happened.

“All right, Irs, you're here,” Letra's voice sounded distinctly relieved, “The plane with Colonel Lebedev's group is on its way. You can safely pass out.”

I groan and roll over onto my back and close my eyes. The world around me fades away.

Chapter 4

The phone call interrupted Colonel Schliemann who was writing another analytical report, which was suddenly required by the General Staff of the Ground Forces.

“Erich, I need you,” the concentrated voice of Major General Richtengden sounded in the receiver. “Right now.”

“Heinrich, I would need another half hour, I'm almost finished with this reference,” Schliemann asked, brazenly taking advantage of his friendship with his boss.

“You'll finish it later,” Richtengden said. “I'll wait for you downstairs, on the floor minus two, in my back-up office.”

“I'm on my way.”

Schliemann didn't ask any more questions. Floor minus two, that’s serious. There used to be a bomb shelter there, and, in principle, the underground floor still served the same function, but after the liquidation of Hitler, Richtengden, given a new position, equipped a separate office there, which was protected by all possible means against all methods of wiretapping and eavesdropping known at the time. Schliemann did not know all the details, but it seemed that his childhood friend tried to protect himself not only from existing, but also from prospective means of technical intelligence. And this is here in the center of Berlin, behind several security perimeters! A year ago, Schliemann would have considered such actions a waste of resources, but much has changed since then, and now he regarded Richtengden's innovation with complete understanding.

General Richtengden silently pointed Schliemann to a comfortable chair by the wall, came out from behind the table and sat down in a similar chair opposite. They were separated only by a coffee table with a carafe of water and a couple of glasses.

“Something has happened, Erich,” Richtengden said softly as Schliemann settled in his chair and stopped his expectant gaze on him.

“I already figured that out,” Schliemann grinned, “Don't drag it out, even bad news is better than the unknown.”

“I wouldn't call it bad news, but it changes a lot of things. Well, I will not get ahead of myself and start at the beginning. Admiral Canaris came here today.”

“Even so? He didn't summon you to his place, but came himself?” Schliemann slightly arched his eyebrow.

“He knows about this place, and he seems now to be finally convinced that I didn't invest so many reichsmarks in equipping this office for nothing. So he had to come here.”

“Is it something to do with Nagulin again?”

“Yes and no,” Richtengden shook his head vaguely. “The Admiral received very important information, and he received it personally. That's what made him come to me. The way in which the information was transmitted was quite unusual. Canaris was contacted using his home radio. Communication, of course, was one-way, but the invisible interlocutor knew perfectly well what questions the Admiral might have. After this contact, Canaris immediately requested a report from the direction finding service. You know that in Berlin no radio can go on the air, without being instantly detected.”

“And, of course, they didn't hear anything,” Schliemann said affirmatively rather than questioningly.

“Absolutely. None of the direction finders picked up extraneous radio transmitters.”

“Can I get to know what the Admiral has been informed?

“You can. I've been assigned this case, so you're going to be a part of it, too. Canaris was explained in a very detailed and reasoned manner, that the Enigma encryption machine is not at all as good as we imagined it to be, and that the British have been reading our headquarters' correspondence like an open book for a long time. The Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine, the Ground Forces – all the most important things they transmit on the radio are laid on Churchill's desk in decoded form, and it's been on his desk for months.”

“The source did not give his name?”

“No. He said only that he was a German patriot and a couple of other unimportant phrases in the same vein.”

“Is this a provocation?”

“It doesn't look like it. The information is already being verified, but the Admiral has no doubts about its truthfulness. His interlocutor was very convincing.”

“That is, someone unknown simply leaked reliable information of great importance to the Abwehr, and at the same time it is completely unclear, how he got it and for what purpose he passed it on to us. Did I leave anything out?”

“You got it right. Now let me ask you a question. Erich, does this remind you of anything? Who else among the players we know can just as easily obtain any information he needs, regardless of the level of secrecy, and immediately use it for his own purposes?”

“Well, not just any information…”

“Are you sure? However, you are right. We were able to hide something, which is why I'm hoping for this office.”

“The Russian marksman? But why would he help us? He's supposed to be our enemy. Wait a minute, though…” Schliemann leaned forward sharply and gazed into Richtengden's eyes.

“I see that you and I have come to similar conclusions,” the General grinned wearily. “Who told us that the Russian marksman is unique? There could be several like him, and perhaps one of them decided to play on our side. It would be good for us to understand why he needs to do that…”

* * *

“Mr. President, you instructed me to take personal control of General Nagulin's activities in China and report to you immediately of any news related to him.”

“Yes, Harry, I remember my request,” Roosevelt nodded and tore his gaze away from another ministerial report.

“Four hours ago the radio interception stations "Cast" and "Haipo" recorded an intense exchange of messages between the General Headquarters of the Japanese Navy in Tokyo and their base in Taiwan. Within two hours the intensity of the radio exchange was increasing and it successively included the enemy air bases in Hong Kong, Shanghai and northern Indochina. Decoding the messages took some time, but the result was worth it. A group of fighter-bombers bearing the identifying insignia of the Republic of China invaded Japanese-controlled space, from the Chinese coast. They made a diversionary maneuver, simulating a night raid on Taiwan, and then circled around the island and caught up with the heavy aircraft carrier Zuikaku, accompanied by two destroyers, at sea. Their attack resulted in the sinking of the Zuikaku and one of the destroyers.”

“I was expecting something like that,” Roosevelt grinned. “It seemed to me from the beginning that Nagulin would not be willing to indulge in petty local operations, but decided to show us right away that we took his promises seriously for a reason. But a heavy aircraft carrier… Perhaps this young general once again managed to surprise me.”

“Unfortunately, it didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked,” Hopkins replied without a smile. “The Japanese knew of the impending attack, and the aircraft carrier managed to raise its fighters and the destroyers opened barrage fire on the approaching Soviet planes. The Russians suffered casualties. There is no exact information about the number of downed machines.”

“Did General Nagulin take part in the attack?”

“According to the information received by our military advisors from the Chinese allies, Nagulin led the strike group that attacked the Zuikaku.”

“Has he survived?”

“His fate is not entirely clear. It is known that Nagulin did not die in the battle with the Japanese ships, but all further orders came not from him, but from General Kudryavtsev, who also took part in the attack on the aircraft carrier. After the destruction of the Zuikaku, the Russians' problems did not end. The Japanese somehow became aware of their escape route. The group included damaged planes that could not maintain high speed, and over the coast they were intercepted by enemy fighters, but the reinforcements called by Kudryavtsev managed to reach the Russians. More than 200 Japanese planes were involved in the air battle against about 60 Soviet twin-engine fighter-bombers.”

“It's not a good balance of power,” Roosevelt said softly.

“No doubt. But I can't say that the Russians were defeated in this battle. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the Japanese had to retreat. Now the Soviet pilots are returning to their airfield. Nagulin is not among them. Our advisor to Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters tried to find out the details, but the Generalissimo was in no hurry to share information, or perhaps he did not have all of it himself. All we know is that the Chinese sent a special group to the site of the air battle, made up of the best graduates of the "Wampu" military school, with the task of rescuing and evacuating the surviving crew members of the downed Russian planes. The Russians also sent their own group. The Chinese personnel at the airfield near Chongqing, where the Soviet air regiment was stationed, turned out to be quite talkative. They saw a group of heavily armed paratroopers loading into a transport plane that flew out right after the fighters, sent to the aid of Nagulin's air group.”

“So,” Roosevelt stood up with a visible effort and took a few steps around the office. It struck Hopkins that the President's movements had become noticeably more confident since their last meeting. “What do we have in the end? The Russians sank the heavy aircraft carrier Zuikaku, taking casualties and getting into serious withdrawal trouble. In the air battle that followed, they shot down an unknown but apparently very significant number of Japanese aircraft, forcing the enemy's surviving machines to flee the battlefield. As a result of all these events, an unknown number of Russian pilots found themselves in territory loosely controlled by the Chinese, and with a high probability they include General Nagulin, allegedly wounded in the battle with an unclear degree of severity. Chiang Kai-shek immediately took action, to help the Russian pilots by sending his best men to the coast, while we remain on the sidelines. Is this normal?”

“We don't have any formal obligations in this case,” Hopkins' voice didn't sound confident, “but the Russians have acted in our interests, fulfilling and, perhaps, even exceeding the verbal promises made to us…”

“That's my point,” Roosevelt grinned. “ Chiang Kai-shek immediately appreciated the potential of Russian technology and clearly wants to show Stalin that China can become a reliable ally. I don't think we should let the Chinese get ahead in this matter. Besides, we have absolutely no interest in the death of General Nagulin. Zuikaku was just the beginning, but if we don't get Nagulin out of there, that will be the end of it – I'm pretty sure that the entire Chinese mission of the Soviets rests on him.”

“It's hard to argue with that.”

“Harry, what do we have in this region? I'm not talking about General Stillwell's Chinese divisions right now.”

“Only aviation, and not the most modern.”

“The Flying Tigers?”

“Yes. Clare Chennault’s's air group in Kunming. That's about sixty P-40 Warhawk fighters. Until recently they were mainly engaged in covering the Burma Road and Rangoon. This is all we can quickly use to help the Russians evacuate their pilots from coastal southeastern China.”

“Harry, I need the Tigers to get their orders today, and as soon as possible – every hour counts.”

* * *

I came to my senses from the annoying itching of the implant behind my ear. My head continued to hurt, but it wasn't the same pain that made me pass out. I was lying on a stretcher, swinging gently – I was being carried somewhere, obviously over rough terrain. Judging from the fact that Letra hadn't pulled me out of oblivion earlier, there was nothing threatening me right now. Nevertheless, I was in no hurry to open my eyes right away.

Realizing that I had come to my senses, Letra immediately informed me, “Colonel Lebedev's men found you and five other pilots. There is absolutely no place to land a plane, and the nearest Chinese units are almost forty kilometers away, but these are not the biggest problems. There are three large enemy reconnaissance and sabotage units on the coast. Apparently, the Imperial Navy is preparing another landing, and they've been sent here to find out what's going on. The Japanese have contact with their commanders. Two hours ago they got orders to check the area around the recently ended air battle, and then there were several more communications that I couldn't intercept… Anyway, there's a hunt for you, and if you do nothing, in about twenty minutes your squadron will be ambushed.”

Without opening my eyes, I unfolded the virtual map. Colonel Lebedev's detachment moved among fairly high hills covered with dense southern forest. Sometimes there were terraces of fields right on the steep slopes, but they looked abandoned – the Chinese peasants did not seem to see the point of farming in areas that the Japanese could seize at any moment. We didn't meet any locals themselves either. Rumors of how the Japanese occupiers were treating the population spread quickly, and anyone who could go inland left their homes and became refugees.

Our unit certainly could not be called a walking hospital, but the three wounded, including me, greatly reduced its mobility. I was carried by Ignatov and Nikiforov. The two pilots found by Lebedev's men carried another stretcher. The third wounded man was carried by another pilot, along with the radio operator, who had been relieved of carrying the radio for the occasion.

In the maze of these high hills, the detachment had to move mostly through the winding lowlands, as it was extremely difficult to constantly climb up and down the slopes with the wounded in their arms. Colonel Lebedev had difficulty navigating these places, and if it had not been for the Chinese guide, he would have been able to keep the right direction only by compass. But the Japanese felt much more confident here. Two squads of thirty men each were moving five or six kilometers behind us, surrounding Lebedev's group from left and right, and there was really an ambush ahead of us.

I opened my eyes and met Lena's gaze. She walked beside my stretcher, remembering to look carefully over the lush green slopes for signs of danger in the jumble of branches and leaves of the subtropical forest.

“There's no one there, I would feel it,” I cautiously tried to smile, and I even succeeded. My head didn't respond to my words with a flash of pain, though I didn't hold out much hope for that.

“How are you feeling?” Lena abruptly stepped toward me and leaned over the stretcher.

Ignatov and Nikiforov stopped and a soft report flew down the chain of fighters forward to where Colonel Lebedev was walking: “The Commander’s come to his senses.”

How about that! Lebedev is the commander here, and it wouldn't even occur to me to challenge that.

“Better now,” I took my wife's hand and slightly lifted myself up on the stretcher. My body didn't protest. Even the headache receded a little more, but the head wound under the tight bandage began to itch wildly.

The soldiers gently lowered the stretcher onto the grass. I slowly raised my hand and groped my head. I could feel the big bump even through the bandage, but the shrapnel didn't seem to have broken through the bone. They make tough skulls in the Sixth Republic.

“Comrade Colonel General…” It was Lebedev, who appeared next to us silently as usual.

“Thank you for getting me out of there,” I glanced around the squad. “Did you find anyone else besides me?”

“Five people. Two wounded. Carried on a stretcher,” Lebedev reported clearly, “We have fifty kilometers to go through these hills to the places where we can be evacuated. The last communication with the airfield was an hour ago. Only half of the regiment was left, but we wiped out a lot of Japanese, all the hills near the shore were strewn with the wreckage of their fighters. We wanted to take some of the Japanese pilots prisoner and interrogate them, but there are no survivors – they don't take parachutes with them.”

“They won't let us go quietly,” I sat down slowly, stopping Lebedev, who tried to object, with a hand gesture. “There are a lot of Japanese around here. They are scouting the area before the planned landing. They probably already know about our unit, so we should expect visitors soon.”

I felt a little nauseous, but in general my body was just hinting that I should lie still for another ten hours instead of acting like a mountain goat, no, I don't want to, I'd rather be a panda. Or don't they live in these hills?

I got up slowly. This time no one tried to stop me. If a senior officer thinks he's ready to get in line, that's his decision, and one wouldn't give him advice, unless he's a doctor, of course.

“I need to go up to this peak,” I pointed to the top of the nearest hill ahead. There were no trees growing there, only grass and bushes, and the view from there was clearly better than from the low place.

“Ignatov, Nikiforov, Nagulina, you come under the command of the Colonel-General,” Lebedev ordered without asking any questions. “The rest of you, keep moving.”

If I had relied only on my own hearing, even if it were unique, I would not have been able to make out anything in the cacophony of cries of local animals, who were wildly enjoying life and eating each other in the crown of bushes and trees, but I managed to see something from the top of the hill, even without resorting to Letra.

A fairly wide and calm river with heavily overgrown banks flowed along the bottom of the narrow valley that opened to our eyes. The crowns of the trees almost closed over the water, but in some places there were gaps.

“Left bank, three and a half kilometers, a glade in the bushes.”

The sun was high and shining in our backs, so we could not be afraid of the glare of the optics, and Lena brought binoculars to her eyes.

“Three people. It looks like they are Japanese. They came out to look around, too. Arisaka-38 rifle, Type 99 machine gun… what the hell is that?” Lena held out her binoculars to me, but I just shook my head in the negative.

“Type 100 submachine gun. This is an exotic weapon. Hardly ever used by the regular army, but it has been produced in small batches for over a year.”

“They seem to be serious guys,” said Nikiforov softly.

“There are at least three dozen of them, and this is not the only unit.”

* * *

“Korff, don't you think these Chinese planes turned out to be a little too tough and mean?”

“There aren't many of them left,” his deputy armament officer shrugged.

“But the Japanese lost almost two hundred fighters. Four to one!”

“When machines of different technological generations meet in battle, it can be even worse.”

“The question is, where did they come from?” the destroyer commander asked with irritation. “Something tells me that it was the infected people from the base on the satellite who gave the natives some of our technology. Computer, I need an estimate of the likelihood of interference.”

“My knowledge base does not have an algorithm for analyzing such situations. This requires a specialized neural network package. Only scientific stations in star systems belonging to underdeveloped civilizations are equipped with such a package.”

“So these people, on the satellite, have such a package?”

“It should be there, but only if the base's central computer survived.”

“So you can't tell if they passed on technology to the natives?”

“I can't, but the legal database has a set of instructions for science bases like this one. They are forbidden to interfere with the development of the civilizations they study.”

“Can't you see what's going on? They're infected! They don't give a damn about any instructions!”

“I have no data or algorithms to answer your question and assess the credibility of your claims. This is beyond the scope of my functional purpose.”

“You're just a brainless piece of iron,” said Hirch, cooling down a bit.

“Commander, permission…”

“I'm listening,” the Lieutenant Commander turned his gaze to the chief of engineering.

“It seems to me that it is not only and not so much about the technical characteristics of these planes, it's more about who is directing the pilots' actions and pointing them at the targets. Our computer, of course, cannot answer every question, but if we move sequentially and don't overload it with too complex tasks, that require creativity, it can be very useful.”

“Can you get to the point, Lieutenant?”

“The introductory part is over, Commander. So, I did an analysis of the Chinese pilots' actions in the night battle with Japanese ships, and the result was very interesting. First, these machines are not equipped with radars, which means they simply couldn't find aircraft carriers and destroyers in the night sea. No way! This led me to believe that our opponents were transmitting some kind of information to the wild infected people after all, and that they were supporting Japan's opponents.”

“Let us assume that this is true,” Hirch nodded, “go on.”

“And then I tried to figure out if the textual "advice from orbit" could have helped the Chinese pilots to sink an aircraft carrier and one of the destroyers? And the answer was unequivocal: they could not! In this way it is possible to bring the air group to the target, but how can you help pilots at night to hit a ship that is maneuvering intensely, with active anti-aircraft artillery and aviation opposition, with unguided bombs? The answer is, in fact, very simple. This can only be done by a person who is in the cockpit of the lead bomber and has the ability to use all the scanning, positioning and targeting technology provided by the satellite constellation.”

There was silence in the destroyer's command post. Hirch stared at the chief of engineering for a while in silence, then grinned and rose from his chair.

“Are you saying that some of the science base personnel are operating on the surface of the planet?”

“I have no other explanation for what we saw, and the further behavior of the Chinese pilots speaks in favor of this version.”

Hirch understood from the engineer's voice and facial expression that he was sincerely convinced of the correctness of his conclusions.

“One of their planes, the one leading the night attack, sustained significant damage and could not keep up with the speed of the entire group. Military expediency required them to leave the damaged plane and everyone else to leave at top speed. At the very least, they could provide one or two fighters to escort the comrade in distress to the Chinese coast. What did they do? They did exactly the opposite! They sent only the planes that had minor damage to the airfield, while the rest of the group remained to guard that plane, barely flying. Not only that, but fifty more fighter-bombers soon arrived to help them! Then, without any hesitation, they engaged the Japanese, who outnumbered them three to one and stubbornly defended the stretch of shore over which the pilot of that damaged plane had catapulted. By the way, it was he who dropped the first two bombs on the Zuikaku, directing the rest of the group to the target.”

“It's very interesting…” Hirch put his hands behind his back and took a few steps, looking thoughtfully at the holographic projection of the Pacific region of the planet, “And where is he now?”

“A group of paratroopers, landing from a transport plane, arrived for the pilots shot down in the air combat. They found some surviving pilots and are now moving through the rugged terrain deep into the continent. Their speed is slow as they have three wounded men.”

“Did they find our main man?”

“They probably did, or they'd still be scouring the coast. It's probably one of the wounded they're carrying on a stretcher.”

“I suppose the Japanese will be very interested to know that they still have a chance to get at the culprit of their latest trouble,” grinned Hirch, “and we'll watch. If he really is an infected person from the science base, he won't let them gobble him, but he will be forced to give himself away. Your version seems interesting to me, Lieutenant, except that without checking it out again, I'm not going to risk people; there are too few of us as it is. But if your assumptions are confirmed, we need to bring this infected man to our ship for a visit and talk to him, with all the necessary precautions, about what happened here, and why the cruiser Admiral Kuhn is now sadly circling around the satellite of this wretched planet in the form of space junk. I think he knows a lot about what anti-space defense systems are preserved on the satellite, and whether or not there are any combat-ready ships there.”

“Will there be work for us, too?” said the commander of the landing party nonchalantly. “ And I wondered how it was that the exercise scenario did not include tasks for my men. We ride as passengers and go crazy with boredom in endless training…”

“Prepare the landing craft, Lieutenant Cree. Checking the truth of the assumptions made is necessary, but I'm pretty sure our engineer is right – you do have a job ahead of you, and not an easy one at that. I'm not taking the ship into the system. We will exit the jump outside the outer asteroid belt, and then you'll have to go on your own in maximum camouflage mode.”

“A week in this tin can?” The paratrooper commander grinned, “My guys are stuck on the destroyer and are ready to spend even a month in a dropship, just to get some variety out of it. Permission to begin preparations?”

* * *

“I got the impression that the Japanese decided to show themselves to us. They are the beaters. They want us not to linger here and break forward, trying to get away from them,” I told Lebedev at the end of the story about what we saw from the top of the hill. “There's bound to be an ambush up ahead.”

Lebedev had a map of the area, but its quality, to put it mildly, left much to be desired. To begin with, it was covered in hieroglyphics. As soon as the Colonel opened his clipboard, our shortish Chinese guide emerged from somewhere under his arm, he gazed into a mishmash of isohypses, conventional signs and inscriptions, and jabbed his finger at a certain point.

“We are here!” The Chinaman proudly said in Russian, with a strong Chinese accent, and stretched his lips in a smile.

“Thank you, Comrade Liang,” the Colonel nodded.

Letra immediately superimposed a grid of signs I could understand on the product of Chinese cartographers and marked the location of Japanese detachments with the help of augmented reality mode, and I, of course, immediately put this information into words and reported it to Lebedev, generously enriching my revelations with all kinds of "probably", "according to my estimates" and "if I were the enemy…". The Chinaman, by the way, indicated our location quite accurately.

The situation was changing rapidly, and if until an hour ago I thought that three Japanese detachments were all that threatened us, now it was obvious that the Japanese were determined not to let us leave under any circumstances.

Judging by the presence of three reconnaissance and sabotage groups on the Chinese coast, the Imperial Navy was preparing a large-scale landing operation, and we happened to get right into the area planned by the Japanese for the landing. The story of the sinking of the Zuikaku and the ensuing air battle roused enemy commanders and forced them to speed up preparations for the operation. Ships with marines, of course, could not approach the Chinese coast in such a short time, but the Japanese had an airborne force, some of which was subordinate to the Navy Command and some of which was subordinate to the Army Command. And now the army paratroopers were already loading into transport planes at the Karasehara airfield in the eastern part of Kyushu Island, and marine commandos were preparing to take off from Yokosuga Base on the shore of Tokyo Bay.

“Ivan, get the radio ready,” Lebedev ordered, “We won't last a couple of hours without air support. Group, take up a circular defense on the slopes of the hill, from which the Japanese were spotted. We are not climbing to the top of the hill. If the enemy points aviation at us, it becomes a very convenient reference point.”

The Colonel was doing everything right. I didn't see any other solutions in the current situation either. Breaking through the ambush that waited ahead of us in the narrow gorge, which was squeezed by fairly steep hillsides, was fraught with heavy losses, and an attempt to bypass it would most likely end up fighting in an unprepared position with unpredictable results. The rebels supplied the Japanese with information about our actions, and there was nothing I could do about it, so we could move on only after General Kudryavtsev cleared our way.

The problem was that after the air battle over the Chinese coast, Kudryavtsev had less than two dozen combat-ready planes left. Of course, many more planes returned from the battle, but a lot of them were damaged and could not take part in flights until they were repaired. Theoretically, that might have been enough. After all, burning out a Japanese ambush and pursuing squads with fuel-air bombs is not too difficult a task for pilots who know exactly where the enemy is and when to drop the bombs. Another thing is that the Japanese probably won't sit still and wait for a gift to arrive from heaven. They will begin to move actively, may decide to disperse, or even launch an attack to get as close to our positions as possible, making any air strike an extremely risky undertaking. That is, we need aviation support not in the form of a one-time bombing strike, but on a permanent basis. We can only move forward relatively safely if Kudryavtsev's ILs are hovering over our heads at all times, reacting instantly to any ground or air threats. But the Major-General may not have the forces to provide such support.

“The first five planes will be over us in thirty minutes,” Lebedev reported. “Three with bombs, two fighters. The guys are already taking off. In an hour they'll be replaced by the next five, and then they'll go on in that order. We'll start moving on, as soon as we see our planes.”

Fire contact with the enemy began with a shot by Lena, who gunned down a Japanese who had carelessly stepped onto the riverbank. Realizing they had been spotted, the enemy scouts hid in the bushes. There was no return fire.

The pause lasted ten minutes, after which the marks of the enemy soldiers on the virtual map came into motion, and all three Japanese units moved toward our positions almost simultaneously. I had no doubt before that their actions were coordinated by radio, but now it became a very obvious fact, and Letra was not able to jam the Japanese transmissions. The insurgents used retransmission of signals through their drones in orbit, protecting them with electronic warfare, not inferior in class to the equipment installed on our scientific satellites.

Of all the possible options, the Japanese chose the most unpleasant one for us – an immediate attack with all their forces. In principle, it was quite expected. This was very much in their spirit, in the style of the bushido code in its modern interpretation. But it didn't make us feel any better. If you don't count the wounded, then against almost a hundred samurai, who obviously were not the first time in these places, we had ten Lebedev's saboteurs, not badly trained, but not used to combat operations in the hills, overgrown with subtropical forests, plus three pilots who did not have the necessary skills, and me, who was difficult to qualify in any category. Visibility was poor, the enemy could get fairly close undetected, and in close combat almost everything is decided by numbers and density of fire. So we will prevent the enemy from approaching. Still, I will have to climb to the very top, otherwise it will be very difficult.

“Captain Nagulina, follow me!”

Lena is a sniper, and the best position for her is next to me, since I, too, am going to remember Uman and work again in this military specialty. The top of the hill is full of bumps and overgrown with tall grass, which in some places is very prickly and loves to cling to one’s clothes. There are some bushes, too, so there's more than enough room for a couple of snipers.

Japanese units have met, closed their flanks and are now tightening the ring. The commanders are pushing the soldiers. They obviously know that our planes will be here soon, and they want to at least hook up with us at a distance that will make an air attack impossible. The situation will be further complicated by the fact that the Japanese pilots also received appropriate orders, and the four army I-1 Falcons will be over us even before Kudryavtsev's planes, while the bombers and transports with paratroopers will arrive considerably later. Anyway, we don't have time for them right now.

What did I tell myself about the density of fire? There he is, the Japanese machine gunner. He's puffing his way up the slope through the thorny vegetation. He thinks we can't see him from our position. That's right, except the branches and leaves don't bother the scanners of the orbital satellites much, or my implants…

Shot! The soldier falls and rolls down the slope. The machine gun tumbles after him. I wasn't actually aiming at him, I was aiming at the machine gun, but the bullet must have bristled somewhere on a thick branch and deflected slightly. Shot! The officer bumps his face into the slope. No commander – no enthusiasm from his subordinates. Change of position.

“Lena, put a dozen bullets in there. I don't care if you can't see anything. Just let them slow down.”

A little lower down the slope, Nikiforov's machine gun fires several short bursts. The Lieutenant is saving his ammunition, but the nature of the battle is clear to him – he can't let the Japanese get too close. Shot! This time the officer is only wounded, but it's even better – the Japanese won't leave the commander behind.

The enemy have light mortars. Of course, they won't fire them in the thicket, but they may well try to shoot at us from the riverbank or from a small forest clearing. In fact, not only can they do it, but they are about to do it… Shot!

“Lena! The river bank. At three o'clock the position of mortar men!”

“Working on it.”

Shot! The Japanese are stubborn and almost devoid of any sense of fear. How can people be brainwashed into genuinely wanting to die on the battlefield? More eager to die in battle than to win! The ancient code of the samurai did not seem to require this, but its modern reading, seems to have changed the essence and meaning of the ancient doctrine somewhat.

The ring continues to tighten. This is no ordinary Japanese infantry, capable of confusion at the death of a commander. These are trained saboteurs who know how to act in such situations. Both of our machine guns are firing, no longer sparing ammunition. The Japanese answer mostly with rifles, and I try to keep a close eye on their machine gunners and stop their attempts to pin us to the ground. I don't always manage to do that, though. Shot! The Japanese submachine guns rattle away. The enemy has few of them, but they can be dangerous in close combat. I turn my attention to them, but there's no more time, new targets appear on the horizon.

The signal flares fly into the air – the enemy fighters are already on their way, and the Japanese indicate to the Falcon pilots their positions and the direction of the attack. Airborne targets are far more dangerous than Japanese soldiers with submachine guns, and I decide to take care of them. The familiar tingling in my palms suggests that my bio-implants have successfully taken over some of the work of pointing the weapon at the target. Shot! I wish I had a DShK heavy machine gun with its 12.7 caliber and crazy rate of fire, but I might as well have wished for a quadruple anti-aircraft gun. However, the Tokarev AVT-40 automatic rifle is also a very good piece in capable hands. Japanese fighters have no armor. The protection of the pilot is sacrificed to the speed and maneuverability of the aircraft, which means that my target is the cockpit. Shot! Shot!

Two Falcons lose control and crash into the ground, causing the remaining pair of Japanese planes to turn away from their target in an attempt to figure out where they're being fired from. I immediately shift my attention back to the approaching enemy soldiers. I no longer have to go back to the aerial targets – the swift silhouette of an IL is passing over the top of the hill. Kudryavtsev's pilots arrived on time, but there are very few of them. Wait, what kind of miracle is this?

“Letra, report! Why are there friendly marks in the southwest?”

“Don't get distracted. This is Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers air group. Americans. Mr. Roosevelt sends his regards.”

“Our pilots are about to take them for the Japanese and start tearing them apart!”

“They won't. Chennault coordinated his actions with Kudryavtsev through Chiang Kai-shek headquarters.”

Lebedev's radio operator fell into the grass next to me.

“Comrade Commander! General Kudryavtsev is on the line. Requesting targets for American allies.”

“Give it to me!” My face breaks into a predatory smile. “General, it's Nagulin!”

“Comrade Commander, the Americans are asking for targets.”

“Have them block the approaches from the northeast. I expect transport planes with Japanese paratroopers escorted by fighters from there. Bombers may come from there as well. The Japanese are preparing a big landing operation, and this is the start of it. Let the Allies deal with them. All we need here is paratroopers, we are hardly waving off local enthusiasts.”

“Copy that,” Kudryavtsev answers and hangs up, while I turn my gaze to the radio operator.

“Ivan, can you contact the ILs? We need to aim them at ground targets before the new fighters come in. It seems they've already dispersed the previous ones.”

No matter how strong in spirit the Japanese may be, there is a limit to everyone's toughness. The fuel-air bombs and cannon rounds in the back force them stop their attack and begin a disorderly retreat. The road ahead is clear.

We have five more wounded, three of whom need to be carried. Now we are definitely a walking hospital, but we can't sit still. We descend the hill and walk along the riverbed. The ILs fly off in the direction of Chongqing to refuel and re-supply, but they're immediately replaced by another five. Thirty minutes later, an American P-40 Warhawk, pulling a tail of black smoke, flies low over us. A little to the side we see another damaged plane – the Allies are clearly not bored. I'll be sure to tell Mr. Roosevelt my sincere thanks for his timely assistance and fly to Kunming to visit the Tigers with my pilots. We're going to strengthen our brotherhood in battle.

“You have visitors,” I hear a slight chuckle in Letra's obviously cheerful voice.

I unfold the virtual map before my eyes and see several more friendly markings right along the squad's path. I didn't expect that! We are still walking along the bank of the river, and about seven kilometers upstream four large motorboats of the strangest kind are moving toward us. I don't even know what to call these structures, but apparently here THIS is considered a combat boat. One can even see machine guns on the bow ends.

“It's the Chinese,” Letra explains. “Chiang Kai-shek's Special Forces are rushing to the aid of their allies.”

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Hirch took his eyes off the tactical hologram playing a recording of the recent battle. All nine mini-drones, which the automatic reconnaissance ship had released into orbit on the savage planet, had gathered over the coast of the East China Sea, so the battle could be seen in great detail.

“Does anyone else have doubts?” Hirch looked around at the officers of the destroyer.

“Not in the slightest,” the deputy armament officer said for everyone. “Only a fighter with bio-implants and a direct link to the orbital grouping can fire primitive hand-held weapons so effectively at targets that move quickly and are often completely covered by foliage. It's impossible for wild ones to do that in principle.”

“And he's the only one there, that's obvious too,” the senior engineer added.

“Lieutenant Cree, are your men ready?” Hirsch turned to the landing section commander.

“They're ready, Commander, just waiting for an order.”

“Command, Lieutenant. It is entirely up to you to develop a plan to take over the subject. Drones in orbit will work exclusively for the benefit of your squad. You must leave the destroyer immediately after we exit out of jump at the edge of the outer asteroid belt. The ship, after jettisoning the dropship, will move deeper into space and return to the boundary of the system only to pick you up after completing the mission.”

“Permission to perform!”

“Granted,” Hirch nodded and turned to the first pilot. “Is the jump calculation ready?”

“We can start accelerating, commander.”

“Let's do it. It's time to be clear about what's going on here.”

Chapter 5

“Comrade Stalin, the enemy used new tanks on the Leningrad front,” Marshal Zhukov decided to begin his report with the most alarming news. “The Germans managed to surprise us unpleasantly. These heavy machines didn't go forward. They took up positions on the slopes of the heights about a kilometer from our trenches and supported their lighter tanks and infantry. Neither 45-mm nor 57-mm ZIS-2 or T-34 tank guns could hit them from such a distance, but they would pierce the armor of our tanks without any problems. The enemy attack could only be stopped by massive use of assault aviation, but the Germans still broke through the first line of defense.”

“What else is known about these tanks?” Stalin looked hard at the Marshal.

“At the most approximate estimate, they weigh more than 50 tons. The thickness of the armor in the frontal part of the hull is hardly less than one hundred millimeters, otherwise the Germans would not behave so brazenly. The caliber of the gun is about 90 millimeters. Most likely it is an upgraded version of the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. The running performance is comparable to the Panzer IV, although their maneuverability is probably worse.”

“How many tanks were there?”

“Four tanks. I think that's just the beginning. Comrade Commander-in-Chief, the troops urgently need effective means to combat the enemy's new equipment. We expected the Germans to do something to counterbalance our KVs and T-34s, but we still couldn't assume that. Perhaps the 85mm anti-aircraft guns could handle their armor, but that is a last resort – they are always in short supply for anti-aircraft defense as it is.”

“Comrade Zhukov, brief Comrades Morozov and Ustinov with this information. We'll come back to this matter again tonight, but in the meantime, continue your report. I am interested in the preparations for the attack on Kiev.”

* * *

We moved farther and farther west. For all the questionable combat effectiveness of the Chinese riverboats, the help of Chiang Kai-shek's men came in handy. We were placed on the decks, and the wounded were finally able to rest from the constant jolting. In addition, they were immediately examined by an elderly Chinese man who informed us that he was a field surgeon. This doctor spoke Russian, with a monstrous accent, but at least he was understandable. After giving the necessary care to the most difficult patients, he took over for me.

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Примечания

1

In real history, on the night of August 9, 1942, Vice Admiral Mikawa's squadron of seven cruisers and one destroyer defeated a squadron of cruisers and destroyers of the United States and Australia, which outnumbered the Japanese, in the battle off Savo Island. Not a single Japanese ship was sunk. The Allies lost four heavy cruisers. Another cruiser and two destroyers sustained serious damage. 1,077 Australian and American sailors were killed. Japanese casualties were limited to 58 men. Three cruisers sustained moderate damage. This undoubted and striking victory, however, was not used by Vice-Admiral Mikawa to disrupt the landing of American troops on Guadalcanal Island, although all the conditions were in place to do so. The clearly erroneous decision not to continue the attack and to retreat was influenced by fears of being hit by aircraft from American aircraft carriers after sunrise.

Mikawa did not know that the enemy carrier formation had left the combat zone, having suffered serious losses in deck fighters, and did not take the opportunity to destroy Allied transport ships at anchorages off the coast of Guadalcanal with impunity. As a result, the Japanese missed their chance to fundamentally change the course of the battle for the Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

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