The Holy Mirishial Empire. Port City of Cartalpas.

  Imperial Embassy Complex (Diplomatic Quarter).

  Instead of the familiar sound of the surf and the cries of seagulls, the morning in Cartalpas was torn apart by a sound not heard here for two hundred years.

  It wasn't just the wail of a siren. The "Eye of God" magical alert system, the crystals of which were embedded in the spires of every tower in the city, emitted a low-frequency, vibrating pulsation. This sound penetrated not through the ears, but straight into the bones, causing an instinctive, nauseating sense of anxiety. The trill grew louder, becoming higher and more piercing, signaling the transition from "Yellow" level (threat) to "Red" level (immediate invasion).

  In the vast, marble-and-gold-finished atrium of the Imperial Embassy, where just a couple of days ago the fates of the world were decided to the clinking of glasses, a highborn but no less disgusting chaos now reigned.

  "Please! Remain calm and maintain order in the columns! Follow the Guard officers! You are in no danger! The Empire has the situation under control!" screamed the young Mirishial Protocol Attaché, Viscount Elmund, tearing his vocal cords.

  He stood on the marble staircase, trying to shout over the clamor of hundreds of voices, the crash of hastily moved trunks, and the hysterical cries of servants. His dress white uniform was unbuttoned at the collar, and sweat rolled down his face, which was pale to the point of turning blue.

  A sea of frightened faces swayed before him. Ambassadors from Magikareich, in disheveled robes, demanded that "sky ships" be provided to them immediately. Representatives of the Torquia trade guilds tried to fight their way to the exit, shoving one another. Only the Mu delegation stood apart, checking their revolvers with grim determination and exchanging glances—as pragmatists, they understood that "organized evacuation" was a polite name for flight.

  "Do not panic!" Elmund continued, feeling like the captain of a sinking ship. "You will be sent to the fortress city of Can-Brown! The trains have already arrived! The air corridor is covered!"

  Suddenly, the tone of the magic siren changed. The volume of the trill became unbearable, and the pulsation frequency doubled. This meant one thing: the magical detection radius had been breached.

  Enemy at one hundred fifty kilometers. Closing speed maximum, the thought flashed through the attaché's mind. The mathematics of war was ruthless. If the Gra-Valkas battleships were steaming at full speed, they had at most three hours until the first salvos.

  "Where is our fleet?!" squealed someone from the crowd, grabbing Elmund by the sleeve. It was an envoy from a small principality of the Third Zone, whose face was twisted with horror. "You promised protection! You are a Superpower! Where is the Zero Fleet?!"

  Elmund rudely yanked his arm away. He, an aristocrat, wanted to strike this coward, but even more, he wanted to curl up into a ball himself.

  "The fleet is... regrouping," he lied, looking into the envoy's mad eyes. "Our safety is currently being ensured by the Air Forces!"

  As if in confirmation of his words, the Embassy building shuddered from a powerful, whistling roar. But this was not an attack.

  "Look! 'Sky Knights'!" a cry rang out.

  The crowd rushed to the huge stained-glass windows overlooking the coastal base airfield.

  Fighters lifted heavily into the sky from the coastal airfield, leaving trails of bluish exhaust and shimmering mana-particles behind them. These were no simple machines, but the technological pride of Mirishial—the magic jet interceptors Alpha-3.

  Unlike living wyverns or the angular, rattling biplanes of Mu, these machines looked deceptively futuristic, resembling Earth experiments of the 1940s. A smooth, oval-section fuselage, a straight wing creating excess drag, and a characteristic air intake under the belly. Their light-compression engines emitted not the steady hum of a turbine, but a sharp, pulsating screech that made the glass vibrate. These machines seemed like predators, but their four nose-mounted magic autocannons, though capable of tearing a dragon to shreds, were useless if you couldn't catch the enemy.

  "Forty-two machines! The entire 7th Coastal Squadron!" one of Agartha's military attachés counted enthusiastically, head craned back. "The Empire is raising its shield! Gra-Valkas will wash in blood!"

  Elmund watched the climbing flights with a heavy heart, feeling a cold pit in his stomach. Unlike the crowd, he knew the true tactical and technical characteristics of these machines. Their absolute limit was 510 km/h on magical afterburner, and only for a short time before the crystals overheated. This made them equal in speed to the legendary Wind Dragons of Eimor, and for the locals, this seemed like the ultimate dream.

  But Elmund had also read secret reports. Gra-Valkas's primitive-looking propeller fighters, judging by the dry numbers in the reports, reached speeds of over 550 km/h in normal mode and were armed with ruthless rapid-fire autocannons. In the dry mathematics of aerial combat, the pride of Mirishial was already dead—they were simply too slow to survive.

  "Please proceed to the evacuation mana-buses!" his voice turned to steel. Pity vanished. "We have no time to admire the parade! Move! Anyone who misses the train stays to meet the barbarians in person!"

  This worked better than any persuasion. The crowd of diplomats, realizing the reality of the threat, poured toward the exit, crushing each other in the doorways, while the last line of defense of the old magical world deployed in the sky over Cartalpas.

  The Holy Mirishial Empire. Port of Cartalpas. Harbor Command Control Center.

  Time: 10:45 (two hours before first contact).

  A blue-gray haze hung in the office of the Port Authority Chief, retired Admiral Bronze. The massive crystal ashtray on the mahogany desk was overflowing. Bronze, a heavy-set man with a weather-beaten face, tapped his fingers nervously on the polished tabletop as he lit his sixth cigar of the morning. The bitter, heavy smoke of elite tobacco from the Mu plantations soothed his frayed nerves a little, but it couldn't drown out the growing chill in his soul.

  Reports flowed in a continuous stream over the tactical Manacomm network, the speaker of which was set to broadcast. Dispatchers' voices cracked into screams, captains cursed in various dialects demanding tugboats, and sensor mages reported a "massive iron wall" advancing from the west. The situation was not just bad—it was catastrophic. The Empire's flagships were at the bottom of the sea, and the enemy was at the gates.

  However, Bronze, an old sea wolf, was surprised to discover a strange duality within himself. His mind, accustomed to logic and order, screamed in fear of the inevitable chaos. But his heart... it pounded with grim, adrenaline-fueled excitement. Decades of boredom, filling out invoices and customs declarations, were over. History was being made right now, just outside his window.

  He rose abruptly and walked to the panoramic windows overlooking the outer harbor and the airfield.

  "They are starting..." he whispered, exhaling a stream of smoke.

  The control building vibrated slightly. From the coastal airfield, leaving trails of ionized bluish air behind them, flights of Alpha-3 interceptors lifted into the sky.

  Forty-two machines formed a flawless combat wedge and departed to the southwest, dissolving into the leaden clouds.

  Bronze returned to his desk and put on heavy, magically reinforced tactical control headphones. The airwaves were filled with cacophony.

  "Alliance-1, this is Tower! Exit from harbor authorized! Maintain formation!"

  "Attention, Mu vessel! Get your smoking tubs off the Flagship Torquia's course!"

  "All ships! Prepare weapons for battle! Shields to maximum!"

  The powers of the so-called "Conference of the Eleven Elite"—except for the Russians and the indifferent Annonrials—had accepted the challenge. They were leading their ships out to meet death.

  "The beginning of a great battle?" Bronze asked himself, taking a folder marked "Secret" from his desk drawer—a consolidated invoice for the accommodation of delegations and their escorts. Now, this document had turned into the fleet's order of battle.

  He scanned the list, mechanically assessing the total power:

  "Second Civilization (Mu):" Two pre-dreadnought battleships, four heavy armored cruisers, eight light cruisers. Their smokestacks belched black coal smoke, shrouding half the harbor.

  "Kingdom of Torquia:" Seven ships of the line.

  "Principality of Agartha:" Six magical ironclad frigates.

  "Federation of Magicreach:" Seven heavy ships.

  "Union of Nigrat:" Four old battleships and four dragon carriers.

  "Duchy of Pandora:" Eight magical battleships.

  "Total: fifty allied units, plus our Eighth Cruiser Squadron... Sixty pennants," Bronze concluded, closing the folder. He reached for his seventh cigar. "Add to that the Eimor Dragon Knights in the sky... On paper, this looks like an invincible armada. A fleet capable of conquering a continent."

  He struck a match. The flame illuminated his gloomy face.

  "But the Russians left. They took a look at Gra-Valkas and decided not to get involved. And those people do not make mistakes."

  Bronze took a deep drag.

  "Gods help us. We are sending a museum fleet against murderers from the west."

  The Holy Mirishial Empire. Imperial Capital — Runepolis.

  Imperial Palace. Throne Room. "Castle Albion."

  In the vast hall, where the architecture seemed to defy gravity, a dead silence reigned. The vaulted ceiling, made of enchanted sapphire glass, let in the cold light of day, which fell upon rows of high officials and generals. All of them, dressed in white uniforms embroidered with gold and orichalcum, stood frozen like statues in a crypt.

  At the center of this frozen scene, on a dais led to by a staircase of thirty steps of pure light, sat Emperor Mirishial VIII. His face was immobile, but his fingers, gripping the armrests of the throne, were white with tension. He could feel the mana background of the capital trembling—echoes of panic, still hidden but ready to burst onto the streets.

  "Let us begin the emergency meeting," the Emperor's voice sounded quiet, but the hall's acoustics carried it to the furthest corners. There was no anger in it, only an infinite, age-old fatigue. "Sir Arneus, you have the floor. Report to us... the truth."

  Arneus Freeman, Director of the Imperial Intelligence and Defense Bureau, stepped into the center of the circle. He looked a decade older. His uniform was impeccable, but his eyes burned with the grim fire of a man who had looked into the abyss.

  "Thank you, Your Sacred Majesty," he bowed low, then straightened, sweeping the hall with a hard gaze. "The report will be difficult. Just the other day, during the diplomatic session of the Conference of the Eleven Elite in Cartalpas, one of the invited powers 'from outside'—the Gra-Valkas Empire—committed an act of unprecedented aggression. They proclaimed an ultimatum of submission and de facto declared war on all civilized regions..."

  "What vainglorious bastards!" one of the high dignitaries of the Council of Elders, a portly man wearing an order sash, could not contain himself. "Barbarians with iron toys dare to threaten us? Us, the heirs of the Ancients?!"

  The hall buzzed approvingly. The habit of considering themselves gods among mortals was too strong.

  Arneus slowly turned his head toward the shouter.

  "Vainglorious? Perhaps, my lord. But their vanity is backed by steel and blood."

  He snapped his fingers, and ghostly illusions of a map of the western continent appeared in the air.

  "These 'bastards' landed troops in the Leifor Empire. It wasn't a war; it was an execution. They took the capital in three days. Within a month, the entire territory of the superpower, including the impregnable fortresses of the mountain belt, was occupied. Resistance was crushed by methods that would horrify even demons. They have tanks, aviation, and a fleet whose tactical doctrine we still cannot fully decipher. They lack neither self-confidence nor combat training."

  Arneus paused, allowing the meaning of his words to settle in the minds of those present. The buzzing subsided.

  "Therefore, I ask you to shut up and not interrupt me during the report," he cut off in an icy tone. The dignitary, turning purple, opened his mouth, but the Emperor nodded barely noticeably to Arneus, giving him carte blanche.

  The intelligence director took a deep breath. The worst was ahead.

  "Regarding the current situation. Immediately after the announcement of the ultimatum, our Zero Magic Fleet—the guarantor of world security, conducting exercises west of the Magdola archipelago, was attacked by the vanguard strike group of Gra-Valkas."

  He projected an image: burning, sinking white ships.

  "The fleet... is lost. As a combat unit, it has ceased to exist."

  Someone in the hall gasped.

  "One surviving ship—the flagship 'Colebrand,' with critical hull damage and completely burned-out mana accumulators, managed to break away from pursuit and transmit a message of defeat. The remaining battleships and aircraft carriers are destroyed or scuttled."

  "Impossible..." whispered the Chief Court Mage.

  "The facts are before you," Arneus handed a stack of parchments to the Emperor's secretary. "I ask you to carefully review Admiral Battista's report. His analysis is brutal but honest. The enemy battleships—'Atlastar' and 'Betelgeuse' class—are technologically not inferior, and in some aspects surpass our newest 'Mithril' class ships."

  Arneus approached the schematic depiction of the battle hovering in the air.

  "The key problem is the conflict of defensive and offensive concepts. Our ships are protected by multilayered 'Water Aegis' barriers. They are designed to counter explosion magic. But the enemy uses projectiles of monstrous mass, flying at supersonic speeds. This is pure kinetic energy."

  He punched his fist into his palm.

  "Upon direct impact of a 46-centimeter shell weighing over a ton, our shields simply do not have time to dissipate the momentum. They overload and collapse almost instantly. We tried to parry this with earth magic, densifying the armor, but then we lose the ability to return fire."

  "Only the flagship was able to emerge from that hell relatively intact. Its shields withstood a series of near-miss aerial bombs, but a torpedo attack destroyed its escort. We faced an enemy who has turned war into a factory assembly line of death. And if we do not adapt right now—Runepolis will become the next Leifor."

  Twenty minutes passed since Arneus Freeman finished reading the report and placed the folder on the table. The Privy Council hall plunged into a deafening, cottony silence. No one—neither the wise magisters nor the gray-haired generals—could believe what they heard. It seemed reality itself in this room was cracking. One of the Empire's most elite units, the Zero Fleet, the symbol of their power, was destroyed in a matter of hours. And by whom? Barbarians without magic.

  "That cannot be! It is a lie!" the Head of the Council of Nobility broke first. His face turned purple, veins bulging on his neck. He jumped up, knocking over a goblet of water. "This is sabotage! Diversion! Our shields are impenetrable to primitive iron! It is treason within the ranks of command! Did Admiral Battista sell out to the enemy?!"

  The hall exploded with a roar. Cries of "Treason!" and "Disgrace!" echoed from the vaults.

  "I ask you to calm down!" Arneus's icy voice drowned out the hysteria. "For me, this report is as much a gut punch as it is for you. But shouting will not resurrect the dead. The naked, confirmed facts are before you. This is not sabotage. This is a technological defeat."

  He activated the magic map again. The red line marking the Gra-Valkas fleet crawled inexorably eastward.

  "The enemy has not stopped. Right now, their strike group is steaming at full speed toward Cartalpas. Analysts have calculated their route. They want to strike where the entire world elite is gathered. It is a demonstrative execution."

  Arneus scanned the quieted dignitaries.

  "We are at a strategic dead end. The First, Second, and Third fleets, deployed on the eastern borders to contain... other threats, have already received the order and are steaming toward Cartalpas at the limit of their boilers. But the math is merciless: the distance is too great. They won't make it in time. The enemy will be there in five hours. We—in twelve."

  He sighed heavily.

  "The only forces physically located between Gra-Valkas and the port are the 8th Patrol Squadron: eight 'Guardian'-type light cruisers and a coastal air wing. They are suicide troops."

  "And what about the evacuation?" asked the Emperor. "Are the diplomats safe?"

  "Sir Liage is personally directing the operation at the embassies," answered Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sivalph, standing up.

  "Since the engagement zone of Gra-Valkas naval artillery will cover the port, we strongly recommended that the conference delegations immediately depart for the rear fortress city of Can-Brown."

  Sivalph paused, his face expressing a mixture of irritation and admiration for others' stupidity.

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  "However... they refused. The delegations of Mu, Torquia, Agartha, and the rest stated that flight would damage their honor. They decided to stay, combine their escort fleets with our 8th Squadron, and give battle to the aggressor. They believe in the 'strength of unity.'"

  "Idiots..." whispered one of the generals quietly. "They will just increase the list of casualties."

  "Furthermore," Sivalph added, "two states did leave the danger zone before the crisis began. The Russian Federation and the Annonrial Empire. The Russians led their squadron east, declaring neutrality. The Annonrials... simply vanished. As always."

  Emperor Mirishial VIII nodded slowly. "The Russians knew. They calculated this in advance. And we—did not," he thought bitterly.

  "What are the real capabilities of Gra-Valkas? Will the combined allied forces be able to delay them at all?" asked the Emperor, looking at the head analyst.

  "Capabilities... Average, if compared with the theoretical potential of our main forces, Your Sacred Majesty. But here and now..." Intelligence officer Lidolka, standing behind Agra, stepped forward and bowed low. "Taking into account the analysis of the Zero Fleet's destruction, there is no point in harboring illusions. Gra-Valkas possesses an advantage in detection range and first strike. The allies, except for Mu, have ships even more backward than ours. Their tactic is a dogpile. And the enemy fights like a machine. I fear the combined allied fleet will delay the inevitable by only an hour."

  Silence hung in the hall. It was a sentence. Cartalpas, the second city of the Empire, was doomed.

  The Emperor closed his eyes. He had to make a decision that would either save the Empire or destroy it completely. The old world had collapsed. It was time to retrieve weapons from legends.

  "Thank you for your honesty, Sir Lidolka," the Emperor opened his eyes. There was no more fatigue in them, only the cold, hard glint of absolute power. "Arneus and Agra have already notified me of the risks. But we have no choice."

  He stood up. Everyone present in the hall immediately bowed their heads.

  "I give my Highest Consent to unseal Vault Zero. Activate the Ancient Weapon 'Pal Chimera'!"

  A gasp of horror and reverence swept through the hall.

  "Next," the Emperor's voice changed from calm to an authoritative, thunderous roar that made the glass tremble. "I declare a state of Total War! Transfer all magical capacities, including civilian reactors, to military needs. In frontline cities, including Runepolis and Cartalpas, introduce a curfew and martial law according to the laws of siege time. Youths and men from seventeen to forty-five years old—mobilize immediately to central and eastern barracks to form new legions. Agra, Schmill, you answer for execution with your heads."

  "Yes, Your Sacred Majesty!" the General of Imperial Defense and the Minister of the Armed Forces answered synchronously, clicking their heels.

  "Excellent," the Emperor clenched his fist as if breaking the neck of an invisible enemy. "Coordinate actions with those suicide squads from the delegations. Let them buy us time. And then—throw these insolent savages back into the ocean from whence they crawled!"

  The Holy Mirishial Empire. Port City of Cartalpas.

  Gentlemen's and Officers' Club "The Golden Griffin."

  Time: 11:15 (30 minutes before the Gra-Valkas strike).

  Inside the "Golden Griffin," time flowed according to its own laws. Here, behind thick white marble walls, the wail of harbor sirens and the bustle of the "small fry" evacuation couldn't be heard. An atmosphere of expensive decadence reigned here, typical of the twilight era of great empires. The soft light of magic sconces, stylized like electric Art Deco lamps, reflected in snifters of aged forty-year-old brandy. A blue-gray, fragrant haze of cigar smoke with spicy notes from the southern colonies hung in the air. Quiet, lazy jazz, performed by a live orchestra on a small stage, lulled vigilance to sleep.

  Two men sat at a corner table by a panoramic window offering a view of the steel hulks of cruisers at the pier. The first—a portly, imposing gentleman in an expensive silk suit, the industrialist Garmis, whose manufactories supplied crystals for the fleet. The second—retired Commander Zoras, whose chest was decorated with medals for pacifying barbarians in past campaigns.

  "I heard those upstarts from the Wild West have completely lost their minds," Garmis lazily stroked his groomed, pomaded beard, flicking cigar ash into a crystal ashtray. "Declaring an ultimatum to the entire conference? To the Empire? Did they breathe in poison?"

  "They are just barbarians who got their hands on iron, my friend," Zoras chuckled condescendingly, taking a sip of the amber liquid. "Have you seen their ships? Dirty, smoking stacks, riveted armor... Against our magic shells and barriers, they have no chance. This will not be a war, but a punitive expedition."

  "And what about the Russians?" the industrialist lowered his voice. "They are the only ones who give me pause. Those predatory steel birds that swept over our city... I still feel uneasy from their roar."

  "The Russians are smart pragmatists," the officer waved his hand dismissively. "They saw a scuffle brewing and prudently departed for the East three days ago. Armed neutrality, is that what they said? A convenient position for those who don't want their 'new toys' scratched. Let them stay home. Our new 'Alpha-3' fighters and our coastal fleet will deal with Gra-Valkas."

  He leaned back in his chair, savoring the moment of superiority.

  "Ah, I feel the smell of big money in the air... Military contracts, supplies..." Garmis drawled dreamily.

  Suddenly, the music cut off in the middle of a measure. The light in the hall flickered and shifted from warm yellow to an alarming, pulsating crimson.

  The huge mana-visor hanging over the bar, which had previously been broadcasting stock quotes, rippled with static.

  "What the hell? A broadcast glitch?" someone grumbled discontentedly at a neighboring table.

  But the image cleared. Instead of charts, the Empire's crest appeared on a blue background on the screen, followed by the face of the Minister of Internal Security. He was pale and tense.

  "ATTENTION! CITIZENS OF THE EMPIRE! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST!"

  The voice from the speakers did not sound as usual—solemn and smooth—but sharp, dry, with metallic notes of concealed panic. Dead silence reigned in the bar. The glass froze halfway to the industrialist's lips.

  "We interrupt this broadcast due to a critical threat to national security. Today, by Decree of His Sacred Imperial Majesty Mirishial VIII No. 44-A, MARTIAL LAW is declared throughout the entire Western Coast territory, including the port city of Cartalpas and the capital region!"

  The words fell into the silence like stones.

  "General mobilization of the first wave is declared. All male citizens aged seventeen to forty-five are ordered to report within two hours to the nearest Imperial Defense Administration offices for registration and assignment. Regular troops and fleet reserves—combat alert level 'Red.' The civilian population is to prepare for evacuation to bomb shelters. This is not a drill. The enemy is at our shores."

  The screen went dark, leaving only the ominous crest and the inscription: "WAR."

  The glass fell from Garmis's weakened hand, hit the edge of the table, and shattered into fragments, splattering the expensive carpet with stains that looked like blood.

  No one paid attention to it. The illusion of safety, the "Golden Age," the grandeur—all of it collapsed in thirty seconds.

  "Yeah..." Zoras squeezed out hoarsely. His face, red from cognac a minute ago, turned gray as ash. The animal terror of a man who realizes his former world has ended splashed in his eyes. "Well then... It seems the Russians knew more than we did."

  Outside the walls of the elite club, on the streets of the city, the air raid siren began to howl.

  Sea West of Cartalpas.

  "Allied Fleet."

  Flagship of the 1st Fleet of the Superpower Mu — Battleship La Kasami.

  Time: 11:50.

  The horizon was obscured by smoke. But this was not the smoke of fires; it was the coal soot belched by the ships of Mu. Fifty pennants—the best squadron the powers of the Central World could assemble in such a short time—steamed in cruising formation.

  It was a majestic and simultaneously surreal spectacle, like an illustration from a textbook on alternative naval history come to life.

  On the flanks, glittering with snow-white hulls and golden runic script, sailed the magic battleships of Torquia and the frigates of Agartha. Their sails, filled with artificial wind from "Tears of the Wind God" magic crystals, were taut as drums. The air around them trembled from the concentration of ether.

  And in the center, puffing and clanking with machinery, moved the steel leviathans of Mu. The flagship La Kasami was a squat, broad pre-dreadnought painted dark gray. Its casemate guns and two massive main caliber turrets looked formidable... for an era that had ended on Earth a hundred years ago. Rivets, coal bunkers, open bridges, rangefinders on tripods. This was the pinnacle of the Second Civilization's technology, their "modern" answer to magic.

  The Commander of the Mu 1st Fleet, Admiral Brendas, stood on the wing of the open bridge. The wind ruffled his austere blue tunic, tailored in the European style (looking very much like a British uniform of the 19th century).

  Outwardly, Brendas radiated icy calm—exactly what was expected from a representative of the Superpower that had nearly caught up with Mirishial. But his eyes, hidden under the visor of his peaked cap, did not leave the gray horizon to the west.

  Deep down, Brendas, a man of science and calculation, felt a gnawing anxiety.

  The Russians left, he thought, listening to the rhythmic clatter of steam engines in the bowels of the ship. Their twenty-ship armada, those floating fortresses without smokestacks or sails, simply turned around and left. Why? Are they cowards? No. They are pragmatists. That means they calculated the odds and realized: there will be a slaughter here in which it is not worth participating for free.

  He looked at the two Mu aircraft carriers steaming in his wake. Vessels converted from colliers with a flight deck added. The pride of the fleet.

  "Admiral, sir!" A communications officer with headphones around his neck ran up the metal ladder onto the bridge, his boots clattering.

  "Urgent message from Runepolis. The mana-comms relay is transmitting a tactical summary!"

  Brendas turned sharply.

  "Report."

  "Mirishial long-range magic radars have detected an aerial armada. Two hundred units. Identification: Gra-Valkas Empire aviation. Current coordinates: one hundred thirty kilometers southwest. They are coming straight for us. Vector—Cartalpas."

  The officer swallowed.

  " The Mirishial Air Force has already responded. Their 7th Coastal Squadron on Alpha-3 fighters has been scrambled to intercept and is entering the contact zone."

  Brendas frowned. One hundred thirty kilometers.

  "Where are their aircraft carriers?" he asked. "Planes do not fly across the ocean by themselves. Where is the enemy fleet?"

  "Negative, Admiral," the communications officer replied in confusion. "No coordinates for surface targets have been received from the Holy Mirishial Empire Air Force. They only see the air."

  "Bad. They see what they are meant to see. The carriers are surely hidden over the horizon," Brendas muttered. "Dismissed!"

  He walked over to the speaking tube leading to the flight control post of the carriers.

  "Captain Minilar!"

  "Online, Commander!" the tube responded with a metallic echo.

  "Launch the air wing immediately. All combat-ready machines. Fighters and torpedo bombers."

  Brendas paused, assessing the risks. His Marin biplanes (an analogue to the Blackburn Shark) were reliable machines. Speed—up to 200 km/h. Two machine guns. A torpedo. But what could they do against those monoplanes the scouts whispered about?

  The Gra-Valkan ones, rumor had it, were faster than 500 km/h. Against that backdrop, the Marins were kites.

  "Listen to my order: no heroics. Do not go on long-range search. Mission: air umbrella over the squadron. Priority—intercepting bombers that break through the Mirishial screen. Stay in a tight group to cover each other with fire. You are the fleet's last line of defense, Captain. If they bomb us, we won't have anything to swim home on."

  "Understood, sir! Air defense and escort grouping! Launching the 'birds'!"

  Feverish activity began on the decks of the Mu carriers. Mechanics in grease-stained coveralls spun the propellers of the Marin biplanes. The motors sneezed blue smoke and caught with a characteristic crackling roar.

  One by one, heavily gathering speed against the wind, the clumsy-looking biplanes lifted off the wooden decking and disappeared into the gray sky. Their canvas wings trembled in the wind, and pilots in leather helmets and goggles peered into the horizon, hoping to see an enemy there that they could actually defeat.

  At the same time, far ahead and higher up, the shiny, streamlined Alpha-3 interceptors, with the roar of their light-compression engines, were already rushing to meet death, believing themselves to be the pinnacle of aviation. Two eras were about to meet. And one of them had to die.

  Central World. Airspace south of Cartalpas.

  7th Fighter Squadron of the Holy Mirishial Empire Air Force.

  The sky was flawlessly blue, but this peace was torn apart by a sound that was impossible to confuse with anything else. It was not the noble roar of a dragon and not the clean whistle of the wind. It was a crude, rhythmic clatter that pressed on the eardrums.

  Forty-two state-of-the-art Alpha-3 fighters, the pride of the imperial aviation industry, flew in a combat wedge to the south. Their elongated fuselages and straight wings sparkled with white lacquer in the sun. In the tail nacelles of each machine, inside the combustion chambers, magic crystals pulsed. The light-compression engines worked on the principle of explosive expansion of mana: they sucked in air, mixed it with the energy of "Crimson Gems," and expelled it backward in series of micro-explosions.

  TRRR-R-R-R-R-T!

  The entire fuselage of the fighter vibrated finely. Squadron Commander, Sky Knight Silvesta, gripped the control stick tighter, trying to quell the trembling in his hands. This was his first real combat sortie. He believed in his machine, in this technological miracle that possessed no barbaric propellers.

  Look at us, he thought, gazing at the orderly ranks of his wingmen. We fly by the power of pure magic. We are faster than the wind. Those savages from Gra-Valkas with their "fans" on their noses will look pathetic.

  He glanced at the instrument panel. Magic energy indicators glowed with an even green light. Speed—470 kilometers per hour. Silvesta felt how reluctantly the machine responded to the controls. The thick wings created enormous drag, and the Alpha flew fast but maneuvered heavily, like a loaded cart.

  "Attention all flights!" Silvesta's voice, amplified by the mana-comm microphone, sounded tense, overpowering the engine's clatter. "Assume attack echelon. Altitude... two thousand meters. Climbing."

  The machine responded with strain. Silvesta pulled the stick back, and the vibration intensified. The engine, choking on the climb, lost thrust.

  Damn it, why so slow? The manual says we are the kings of altitude... an anxious thought flashed through his mind. Reality diverged from theory.

  "Commander, horizon clear," responded a wingman. "No sign of the enemy. Maybe they got scared seeing our contrails?"

  "Cut the chatter!" Silvesta snapped at him. "We are the shield of Cartalpas. The enemy is cunning. Watch the lower hemisphere! These piston-driven whatnots will surely be hugging the water."

  Silvesta made a fatal error in judgment. He, like all Mirishial officers, believed that a propeller was a sign of primitiveness and weakness. He did not know that the piston engine on the Antares fighter, perfected by Gra-Valkan engineers, put out fifteen hundred horsepower and hauled the plane to an altitude of five kilometers in a matter of minutes.

  Five minutes of monotonous flight later, through the engine clatter and static in the headphones, the panicked voice of the ground-based mana-radar operator broke through:

  "Seventh Squadron! Attention! Acoustic contact! Large cluster of targets dead ahead!"

  Silvesta peered into the blue ahead.

  "Contact!" he exhaled. "Black dots!"

  Five kilometers ahead, but worst of all—one kilometer above their formation, a swarm of black silhouettes appeared. They flew tightly, confidently, and their speed clearly exceeded that of the Alphas crawling in their climb.

  "They... they are above us?!" genuine horror sounded in the wingman's voice. "They have propeller planes! How did they get up there?!"

  "All units, prepare!" Silvesta screamed, feeling cold sweat pouring down his back under his flight jacket. "They are diving to attack! Activate weapons! Break formation! Evasive maneuvers!"

  But the heavy, inert Alpha-3 with its straight wing could not execute an instant turn. And from above, their propeller disks flashing in the sun, the predatory, maneuverable, and merciless Antares were already falling upon them, turning Mirishial's "royal hunt" into a slaughter of innocents.

  "Attention! Contact! Group target, five hundred meters above us! Coming from the sun!" the crackle of the mana-comm was barely distinguishable over the straining, vibrating howl of their own engines.

  Squadron Commander Silvesta yanked the stick back, feeling G-force press him into the hard seat cradle.

  "Flash right! Break low! Don't let them on your tail! Break formation into pairs! Execute 'Scissors'!" he yelled.

  The piercing, high note of the magic pulse engines faltered, turning into an uneven, choking growl. The formation of Alphas, perfect until now, shattered.

  Squinting behind the tinted lenses of his flight goggles, Silvesta looked up, straight at the blinding disk of the sun. And saw death.

  From above, like a hail of black stones, Gra-Valkan fighters fell upon them. Their propellers sparkled like disks of molten silver. The Antares used the classic "hawk hits pigeon" tactic—attacking with an altitude advantage, converting potential energy into monstrous speed.

  "Contact! Fire!"

  The air around Silvesta's cockpit filled with a dry, angry rustling. These were not magical bolts. Tracers of 13mm machine guns and heavy 20mm shells swept past.

  "I'm hit! Armor isn't holding!" a heart-rending scream in the headphones.

  Silvesta managed to turn his head and saw the neighboring Alpha, his wingman, shudder. A burst of lead ripped open the duralumin-wood skin of the wing. The mana fuel line detonated. The elegant white machine turned into a ball of blue fire, which immediately disintegrated into burning debris.

  "Bastards..." Silvesta hissed through his teeth. Engine vibration resonated in the stick, causing numbness in his hands. "Pair Three, cover! Break turn!"

  But then physics took its toll. Straight wings and heavy magic converters made the Alpha-3 fast in a straight line, but sluggish in turns.

  The Antares, shooting past, executed a tight turn impossible for a jet aircraft, pivoted literally "on a dime," and again appeared in the Mirishial's rear hemisphere.

  "He's on my six! I can't shake him! He spins like a demon!"

  "Hold level, I'm coming in!" Silvesta pressed hard on the rudder pedal, trying to bring the nose around.

  The tempered glass of the canopy withstood a grazing bullet hit, leaving an ugly web of cracks. Ignoring the ringing in his ears, Silvesta caught the silhouette of the dark green plane in the crosshairs of his collimator sight.

  He flicked the safety toggle switch. Magic capacitors in the wings howled.

  "Eat this, scum!"

  He squeezed the trigger. Four barrels of 30mm mage-autocannons simultaneously spat clumps of compressed light and plasma. The recoil was such that the Alpha almost dipped its nose. The shaking increased to the limit—the plane was literally trying to fall apart in the air.

  But the firepower was monstrous.

  Blue tracers bit into the fuselage of the Antares. The piston fighter, lacking magic shields, simply burst. The tail section was torn clean off. Wrapped in thick, black smoke of burning gasoline, the Gra-Valkan machine tumbled toward the water.

  "Got him!" Silvesta exhaled, feeling the salty taste of blood on his lips—he had bitten his lip from the tension. "That's for Rin, you filth!"

  The battle turned into a chaotic furball ("dogfight"). The sky was slashed with smoke trails of downed machines and contrails of maneuvers.

  "Report! Status!"

  "We lost twenty-four aircraft, Commander!" the deputy's voice broke. "But we shot down... I think more than thirty of them! They burn like matches!"

  Silvesta was surprised for a second. The score was almost even. So, their praised "jets" could fight after all! He didn't understand one thing: Gra-Valkas was trading cheap, mass-produced planes and sergeant-pilots. Mirishial was losing hand-crafted, complex magical apparatuses and the elite of the nobility. It was a Pyrrhic draw.

  But there was no time for reflection.

  From below, from the "blind spot," a new pair of Antares emerged. They used their superior thrust-to-weight ratio at low speeds to "out-turn" the heavy Mirishial machines.

  The chattering of 20mm cannons sounded again. The plating behind Silvesta's head burst, instruments flickered.

  "Hard... Six Gs... my eyes are going to pop," the commander wheezed, pulling the stick back with his last strength, going vertical. The only thing the Alpha was better at was climb rate on afterburner.

  He broke away. But when he leveled the machine at altitude and looked down, he went cold. Two were already getting on his tail. And a third was falling from above.

  "They... there are too many of them! And they work together like a swarm!"

  He rolled inverted, opening fire blindly. The fuselage shook so much that the reticle danced. Blue explosions blossomed into clouds around the enemy, but the Antares nimbly dove under the line of fire.

  "Scum!" Silvesta clenched his jaw until it ground, pressing the trigger all the way until the guns overheated. "Die! Die, all of you!"

  A burst from three barrels stitched through Silvesta's canopy, but the magic glass held again, covering itself in a network of cracks.

  "'Two'! Anyone! Get this bastard off my tail! I'm overheating! Mana at zero!" he screamed. Hands went numb, red circles swam before his eyes.

  "Hold on, Commander! Coming in!" the wingman's reply was heard but immediately cut off by a scream and an explosion.

  Silvesta was left alone against a trio of aces. And at that moment he realized: their advanced technology had lost to crude, fine-tuned mechanics. Magic lost to physics.

  Time: 11:50 (One hour into the battle).

  The sky seemed to turn gray from smoke trails and dissipated magic. The roar of engines shifted in pitch—it was no longer the furious snarl of predators, but the labored breathing of wounded beasts.

  "All surviving crews! This is 'Air-Center'!" The controller's voice on the manacomm barely punched through the static and the rushing of blood in his ears. There was no panic in it, only a cold, bitter statement of fact. "Order: Break contact immediately and retreat under the cover of the coastal batteries! You have done all you could. Land your machines. I repeat: withdraw!"

  7th Squadron Commander Silvesta barely found the strength to stomp on the rudder pedal and throw his mutilated machine into a steep dive, escaping a pressing pair of Antares fighters.

  His Alpha-3, once the snow-white pride of the fleet, now resembled a flying heap of scrap metal. The fuselage was a sieve. The left aileron had been torn off by a 20mm cannon burst, constantly pulling the machine to the side. The magic engine, its cooling circuit punctured, pulsed unevenly, spewing jets of unstable plasma and threatening to detonate at any second.

  Silvesta himself had fared no better.

  A fragment of an enemy tracer round, having punched through the allegedly "impenetrable" windscreen, had ripped through his oxygen mask and slashed his cheek deep to the bone. Viscous, hot blood soaked the collar of his flight jacket. His helmet had cracked from striking the instrument panel during a violent maneuver.

  "Still alive... I am still alive..." he whispered through parched lips, leveling the fighter out just above the wave crests.

  Only incredible training had saved him. Years of drills with phantoms simulating the return of the Ancient Ravernal Empire had burned themselves into his reflexes. When the enemy burst raked the air centimeters from his cockpit, his hands reacted faster than thought. He threw the machine into a sideslip that any other pilot would have deemed suicidal.

  But when Silvesta looked around, a horror seized him that was far worse than his wound.

  The sky was empty. Where forty-two magnificent fighters had marched into battle an hour ago, now only the smoky trails of their falls remained.

  "Squadron report..." he wheezed.

  "Ten birds, Commander. Including you," his wingman replied, tears audible in his voice. "Thirty-two of our brothers... they are gone."

  Silvesta ground his teeth. Thirty-two elite machines. The cream of the Empire's aviation. The best pilots of the realm. Destroyed in an hour.

  However, this had not been a slaughter of innocents. It had been a bloodbath for both sides. Below, on the water, the wreckage of dozens of enemy machines was burning out.

  The Mirishials' "teeth" had come as a surprise to Gra-Valkas. The powerful 30mm magical cannons of the Alphas, if they scored a hit, tore the light Antares fighters—lacking armor and self-sealing tanks—to shreds.

  The Gra-Valkas Imperial Air Force paid a terrible price for air superiority. Seventy-two fighters and attack aircraft remained forever in the waters of the Central World. For Admiral Caesar, watching the battle from the bridge, it was a shock. He had counted on a cakewalk and received a level of casualties comparable to the heaviest battles in their home world.

  But the mathematics of war is merciless.

  Of the two hundred aircraft launched, Gra-Valkas had one hundred and twenty-eight combat machines left in formation, ready to continue the attack. Mirishial had ten half-dead cripples limping back to base.

  The sky belonged to the invaders. And now, nothing stood in the way of the bomber armada dropping its payload on the defenseless city.