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The aircraft flew over the sea and the small islands in the bay, rapidly approaching the jagged shoreline. The fuel tanks were nearly empty, but there should have been enough for the entire planned route. Through gaps in the clouds, dark water and gray land could be seen, divided into squares of roads and dotted with the specks of buildings.

The shadow of the winged machine startled the seagulls. With piercing cries, they took flight from the rocks and began circling over the motorboats washed up by the wharf.

A storm had raged in the morning, but the water had calmed now. The birds continued to circle the harbor cranes and the pier long after the plane’s grim silhouette had disappeared behind the line of hills. Then they flew off in search of food.

This was no ordinary aircraft. Built on the basis of a serial liner and modernized several times for a specific task—far removed from carrying passengers—it was one of two harbingers of Armageddon belonging to a country that, among others, used to play at geopolitics. This summer, such games had reached their climax.

Directly ahead, heavy, dense clouds blackened the sky, with flashes of lightning flickering within. The storm front promised severe turbulence, but the pilot made no attempt to change course or altitude to bypass the danger zone and avoid the shaking.

As the plane pierced the wall of clouds, its hull—damaged in several places—shuddered and rattled as if in protest. The winged machine was protected to some degree from the destructive effects of a nuclear explosion, but not from the whims of blind nature. And not from a surface-to-air missile.

The aircraft had been in flight for many hours. The navigation lights and all external lighting were turned off, so from the ground, it could only be detected by the roar of its engines—though not at such an altitude.

Twilight reigned in the cabin. Apparently, something had also happened to the internal lighting. Only icons on the instrument panel flickered nervously, and several indicators persistently warned of cabin depressurization, low fuel in the tanks, and five other parameters approaching critical levels.

The audio signals were still functioning. But the one they were addressed to could no longer pay attention: his glassy eyes reflected only the flickering of instruments and the lights of the city below—those that had not yet gone out and were still smoldering like the embers of a dying fire.

The co-pilot and third pilot were also unavailable. They lay in blood, pierced through by metal fragments flying at the speed of a bullet. No one could help the deceased crew anymore. The captain’s cramped fingers hung in the air, never reaching the oxygen mask. The plane’s fuselage had been pierced like paper, and at such an altitude, death from hypoxia and cold occurs faster than for climbers on Everest.

Four hours had passed since the automation had taken control of the machine from the hands of the dead military pilot, who had survived his wife and children by only a few minutes.

The aircraft possessed no weapon systems of its own—it was not created for that. All usable space on board was dedicated to complex electronics designed to trigger the mechanism of war—command posts, units, and divisions scattered across thousands of kilometers.

Furthermore, the plane carried electronic countermeasures and warfare equipment—its only defense and weapon, which had blinded the enemy ship’s radar. The enemy’s anti-aircraft missile had exploded at the edge of its range, so the cloud of shrapnel only grazed the plane, not killing but merely wounding the steel bird.

But even that was enough for those it carried within.

On the command deck in the central part of the fuselage, everyone had died five minutes earlier than the crew in the cockpit. One of the bodies, in a green camouflage uniform with stars on the epaulettes, leaned over maps as if, even in death, he were staring at the theater of operations. This man was buckled in, and with every jolt, he bobbed like a puppet.

The second man, who had one more star on his epaulettes, was less fortunate. He wasn’t buckled in; his corpse had rolled into a corner and struck the hull with every shudder.

The complex computer terminal, which until recently had moved the intercontinental giants slumbering in concrete silos, had already switched to power-saving mode. The screens went dark; the system, receiving no external power, was consuming the last of its battery charge. The only functioning instrument traced complex graphs understandable only to itself, unaware that all its observers had already departed for the “happy hunting grounds.”

But the necessary commands and orders had been issued before the fatal missile reached the deck.

Suddenly, a faint voice broke through the static in the speakers: “Command post on board No. 12-A4… Confirm readiness for…” And again: “Command post… No. 12-A4… Confirm readiness for…” After a minute, it cut off. In the heavy silence, only the vibration of the floor and the quiet clink of a glass sitting in a table recess could be heard.

Beyond the portholes stretched scorched fields and the broken, jagged edges of ruins.

When the fuel level dropped below critical, the engines began to cough and fell silent almost simultaneously. The plane entered an uncontrolled tailspin, as if performing a complex display maneuver at an air show.

At the lowest point of its trajectory, it struck the skeleton of a residential block—just a few kilometers from the airport that had evaporated hours earlier. The remaining aviation fuel vapors in the tanks were enough for a small explosion. For the structures of the pre-fab panel building, it was enough. It collapsed, burying the remains of the harbinger of the apocalypse and its final crew in a mass grave.

Under the beginning downpour, the flames died out within seconds. The clouds thickened. Darkness was descending upon the earth.