Chapter 1
September 2022. Operations room.
Schrodinger stares at the screen where weather reports scroll by. Beside him, Lieutenant Tatiana leans over a map, her fingers sliding nervously across the wet surface. — “The weather is too bad. You’ll have to postpone your mission.” Her fingers brush his arm. Schrodinger lowers his eyes to that hand, placed there—hesitant, insistent. Too present. Why does she keep going on when he already told her he’s busy, that he doesn’t have time? She doesn’t let go. His face closes. With a sharp movement he grabs the phone and dials a number. The colonel’s voice explodes without preamble: — “Negative. If you don’t take off, Schro, I’ll slap you and send you back to the Su-24MR. Is that clear?” Schrodinger exhales, a short sigh. He replaces the phone with composure. Behind him, Tatiana’s hand brushes his shoulder again. She leans toward his ear. — “Are you all right?” He turns slowly. He looks at her and answers plainly, as if to dispel the tension. — “Lieutenant… What is it you don’t understand? My wife is going to give birth in a few hours. I’m the happiest man in the world.” Tatiana does not answer. He looks at her once more, for a final instant, then turns his back and slips away until he disappears into the gray light, leaving her alone.
Schrodinger signals for his flight leaders to join him. Time is short. Their faces are marked by a fatigue that the harsh neon light does not spare. Rain is already drumming against the windows, and the distant rumble of thunder is rising. He looks at them one by one, takes a breath, and speaks in a firm voice, stripped of any hesitation. — “The operation is easier than it looks. We must strike simultaneously.” A silence follows his words
— “We’ll use GPS-guided munitions. You enter the target coordinates before takeoff. In the air, we program and release. It’s simple. With precise data, the strikes are guaranteed.” They nod. There is nothing to add. Orders are orders, and they are clear. The storm rumbles louder.
On the tarmac, sheets of rain fall in torrents, turning the runway into a stretch of opaque puddles. Schrodinger climbs into his aircraft and puts on his helmet. He casts one last look at the squadron lined up in the gloom, their silhouettes barely discernible in the rain. Near the hangar, a figure fixes her gaze on him. Tatiana. A pang in his gut. Guilt. Tatiana is a temptress. Why did he do that? Katharina, unbearable as she may be, is the only one who matters.
The horizon is drowned in the black mist of the storms, occasionally torn by the white glare of lightning. The start signal sounds in his headphones. The engines roar. The planes line up and then launch one by one down the runway, their wheels throwing arcs of water. Schrodinger feels the impact of the drops pounding on the cockpit, tens of thousands of tiny blows. Then, finally, he tears away from the ground. They sink into the sky, into masses of clouds so dense they seem solid. The ground disappears beneath him. Visibility is reduced to almost nothing. The crackle of the radio is constant, a nuisance that claws at the nerves. Schrodinger grips the controls, eyes fixed straight ahead. Cold sweat runs down his back. He climbs back to altitude, turbulence shaking the MiG-29. Only a few meters away he can make out the planes of his comrades.
Minute by minute they plunged deeper into the heart of the storm. Lightning flashed, striking at random and streaking the darkness with blinding brightness. The air thickened with electricity. He glances at his wingman’s aircraft. Its surface is ringed with fine violet flames, an otherworldly light: St. Elmo’s fire. Schrodinger watches them for a moment, fascinated despite himself. The phenomenon is beautiful. A portent from the bowels of the sky? Then, abruptly, a lightning bolt to his left, gigantic, illuminating the plane in a dazzling white light. Thunder explodes immediately. Hailstones then begin to fall, as hard as bullets, hammering the fuselage with violence. An alarm suddenly sounds, shrill and piercing, and pierces his eardrums. It floods the cabin. Schrodinger startles, scans the dashboard. Nothing. No indicator, no anomaly. Once again the failure warning blares in his headset. A shiver runs through him. The plane is thrown in every direction, tossed about. Schrodinger tightens his grip on the controls. The sensation is unbearable: he tips onto his flank with no reference points, no horizon. He is now flying inverted. Everything blurs—the sky and the earth, up and down. Gripped by vertigo, he forces himself away from his sensations to focus on the plane’s instruments. His eyes dart nervously from one dial to another, his hands clutch the controls. His movements are of an almost unreal precision. His hand adjusts the throttle, locks it on cut. He flips the restart switch, engages the backup regulator. Seconds stretch out. He manages to bring it back onto the proper horizon.
Suddenly the cabin goes dark. Everything drops: one system, then another. Alarms follow each other. The dashboard, riddled with blinking lights, becomes the only remaining light in the night with an infernal cacophony. He can hardly believe it—the temperature indicator falls below 400 °C. Engine RPMs collapse. He is short of breath. Behind him, a thin black trail appears in a shredded sky. “Schrodinger to squadron! Mayday, mayday! Engine control computer fried.” Radio messages get lost. In any case, he is no longer listening. The plane pitches up, wobbles, and begins to lose altitude. The MiG-29 is no more than an inert mass, a ten-ton dead weight, sliding blindly through the ink-black clouds. Outside, everything is invisible. Rain hammers the windshield in a dull, continuous noise, like an executioner’s drum. The altimeter spins inexorably. The decision draws near. Schrodinger knows. There is no alternative. The moment when he will have to eject is approaching. A few thousand feet more.
