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
