Андрей Демидов - Natotevaal. War Chronicle

The other gravely saluted with the expanded palm of his hand.

"– Everything is ready, sir.

– Start without reference. Execute an order. – Whitehouse looked up at the place where on Earth would be the sky. – Let us hope that our people will find those. God bless us!

Cylinders started simultaneously and flew to the Land like an open fan.

The Islamists have not even tried to destroy them.

-It is burning!!! It is burning!!! – Shouted Dybal. – See what a beam can do!

About five miles to the starboard side, one of the enemy ships was burning like a Bengal fire. The emitter continued hitting it.

Germans did not give a chance and just leave it damaged they were finishing it off.

The confident voice that was humming about «The life and dignity, as well as medical care and hot meals», shut up in the middle of a sentence.

– It is burning, you bastard, and it is burning very nicely, – the Navigator was happy as a child, – I hope they do not run out of energy…

At this moment the Shuttle shook as if it hit the rock.

This was followed by a series of aftershocks.

Something exploded and cracked in the engine compartment, you could feel the smell of burning and heated metal. Round bulkhead door to the battery room protruded, but did not open.

The Arabs used non brisant missiles to ‘Independence’, like those that are used to knock out satellites, when you don't want to damage the filling.

Getting out from under a pile of floppy disks and the coils of a collapsed rack of the archive, Whitehouse was anxiously listening to the established silence.

Emitter of «Das Rhein» was silent.

Mackliff was pottering about nearby, "Yes, it has been a long time I was hit in the face like that… "– he said, letting trickles of blood pour into the weightlessness, from his smashed nose.

The speaker of internal communication rustled again:

– ‘Das Rhein’ calls up ‘Independence’, ‘Das Rhein’ calls up ‘Independence’.

Raumwaffe Colonel Manfred von Conrad speaking…As a result of penetration of the cumulative rocket depressurization of all compartments has occurred. I beg permission to move into your Shuttle.

Whitehouse approached the microphone as quickly as possible:

– Yes, hurry up. We will open the lower gateway.

German astronauts appeared in ten painfully long minutes.

Covers of cadmium suits were torn apart; glass of pressure helmets was smoke-stained, identification badges looked faded.

Their eyes were empty, staring at one point. Their faces looked like the astronauts have just returned from the underworld. There were four of them, Colonel von Conrad, Navigator Eichberger and board gunner Hoffman, who was laid next to the fourth, Matthias Leiseheld, whose body was inside a funeral package with a small black-and-red-and-yellow flag pinned to the chest.

He was killed when one of the missiles hit the emitter cupola.

– Well, what do we do now? – Eichberger asked gloomily.

– Allah Akbar. That's what. – Von Conrad looked up at his Navigator with his dull eyes, reddened from the capillary bleeding, and brushed the edge of his hand across his throat.

– There, there! We will show them! – Dybal said, forcing himself to smile and made a hand movement as if he closed the breech of an antique naval gun. – “Our proud ‘Varyag’ does not surrender and nobody asks for mercy…”

At this point from the utilization camera of sanitary block they heard blows of metal upon metal, buzzing of krypton cutter and already stifling air was filled with the smell of welding flux; Board engineer John Mackliff was in the process of making something:

– Hey, anybody! Come here quickly! – His excited voice pierced the silence.

Two German astronauts started moving, but Whitehouse stopped them and began to examine their wounds. Dybal went to see Mackliff, taking first-aid kit with him just in case.

But first-aid kit was not needed; Mackliff sent the navigator back with the task to rip off the heat sealing siding from the cooling compressor of the engine.

Bandaging Eichberger’s hand and watching Dybal flying back and forth with thermal insulation mats, dragging a trail of debris and wiping sweat from his forehead, Whitehouse asked:

– What is going on there, Al?

– He didn't say. Probably afraid of the evil eye, but he looks determined. He is messing with the garbage bins.

Von Conrad caught a receiver with a ‘Jean Dupois’ label, which was hovering nearby and tuned in.

A familiar voice of the CNV commentator could hardly be heard due to constant noise:

-… that has forced the Countries of the Big Three to allocate additional seven billion dollars SGSA to the ‘TRANS-Selva’ state company, formed at a Congress of the South American Union in order to carry out the works on restoring forest belts along the left bank of the Amazon and its tributaries: Rio Negro, Mara;;n and Juru;.

According to the statement of the UN Commission on controlling the spread of Equatorial deserts – CSED, the sands come with the speed of up to three miles per year. The Amazon, which has lost the Northern part of its water basin, is rapidly drying up. For the last six weeks the water level has reduced to two feet… Amazonia, the lungs of our planet, may die within a few years. The world community…– Von Conrad tuned in to another frequency.

– You are listening to the World sports radio… Hugo Stern is at the microphone. Listen to a brief news summary… The Norwegian football team, having defeated the footballers of French Canada, reached the final of the world championship ahead of time…Who will be their rivals in the finals? Is it going to be the National team of Wales or the Italians? Ring bike race in Tampa-Set is still going on.

The unsurpassed Marc van Gal from Belgium has gathered seventy-six points in the standings and is leading… – von Conrad scratched his index finger on his grey temple:

– It is strange how they keep talking about this rubbish, but they do not say a word about the war…

– True – agreed Eichberger– If the Islamists had started another commotion, then all the channels would have been already broadcasting it; caution, nuclear alarm, and so on, without a break.

The Colonel nodded, feeling the bandage on his arm and at the same time squeezing raspberry jam from a tube in his mouth.

His eyes shone with the reflection of emergency lights, over the bridge of the nose deep wrinkles were ingrained, while he was eating, his lower jaw protruded like an excavator bucket.

– Hey, commander! Ronald! – Mackliff emerged from a sanitary unit. Everything is ready.

– What is ready? – Whitehouse had to step aside, and press his wet, sweaty back into a dead power distribution cabinet in order to let Dybal in. – What a crush!

– Well yeah, it is not a stadium, – confirmed Dybal, who was dragging a couple of reserve oxygen regenerators.

Flight engineer gleefully shook the working cutter, from which yellow flames were bursting out:

– I melted thermal insulation from refrigerators on the internal surface of the garbage containers, fit a control panel in the automatic shields of aerodynamic braking and parachutes. I made the locks on the inside. Of course, I understand that sanitary rubbish container is not the most convenient means of transport in the world, but this is still a chance. So, you can put your suits on and occupy the best seats.

– You have gone nuts! What do the trashcans have to do with it? What is the remote control on the braking shields meant for? – Whitehouse could barely restrain himself, not to thrust a bunch of repair keys tucked under his arm at Mackliff. All this sounded too gibberish.

Flight engineer grinned, pulled out a crumpled paper from a pocket of his overalls, and gently tapped the pilot on his broad shoulder: