Готовый перевод Navygaming / Translation Service: Пролог к "Фениксу"

Prologue

Sunset Ocean. Tekho island

19th day of Spring, Year 1914 of the Beginning of the Chronicles

- Lieutenant Commander! Skipper!

The voice of an approaching person drew Lieutenant Commander Isu Tagachi from his reflections. But it was for the better as his thoughs were not very pleasant. And there was no reason for them to be. Standing at the edge of a low cliff Isu Tagachi was looking at the bay formed by two rocky ledges, which pierced the sea like predator’s jaws. They created a rather good natural shelter, protecting the bay both from the tide and hunter-killer ships. Each day Captain was looking at the horizon expecting to spot their smoke in the distance. Amidst the bay one could see a dark long narrow low submarine silhouette. Here she was to some degree secure. And it was all Isu Tagachi could do for his ship.

He managed to lead his damaged submarine away from pursuers and get her there, to the only piece of land within his boat’s range. But that was the last of good news. Tekho island was just an unpopulated and unexplored cold rock with some stunted trees, situated in the middle of nowhere. Nobody lived here but for seabirds and sigilands. Tekho became for Isu Tagachi’s submarine both a shelter and a trap. The damaged submarine managed to reach the island with the last drops of her fuel. And now Tenko-22 couldn’t leave her new refuge.

The radiostation was intact, so they could still call for help. Some of the crew including officers spoke for this variant but Tagachi hesitated. There was no guarantee that it would help them to escape the trap - rather, to the contrary. After Aghinarra's defeat in the Battle of Tivarna, the Imperians and their allies from the Eastern Coalition dominated local waters. It was doubtful that the Shogunate's Fleet Command would risk the few warships, they still had after that damned battle to save a single submarine. Rather The Kzal-rhiumians would intercept the signal. So Tenko-22 kept radio silence. Isu Tagachi prefered not to give away his submarine's location.

"Inviting Kzal-rhiumians to visit us and wasting so much effort to loose them?" - Lieutenant Commander thought ironically, - "Well, not on my watch."

They had enough supplies, there also was a source of fresh water; but tension was growing among the crew - noone wanted to get stuck on that cursed island. And Tekho was considered to be cursed, for years sailors told each other dark rumors about the island. It was even said that somebody saw ghosts there and that the northern lights sometimes appeared above the island though it was too far from the polar circle. That was one of the reasons why ships rarely appeared in the local waters. But Isu Tagachi didn't believe in curses or ghosts. Most of such stories were just sailor's fables concoted to make an impression on wenches and credulous simpletons in port taverns. The Kzal-rhiumian warships were a much more serious threat than ghosts and curses all together, and, above all, a real one. One of them could appear at the horizon at any moment.

Tagachi sighed and teared himself away from watching the bay, turning to meet a person hastening to him. That was a young shortish man in Lieutenant uniform, some twenty five-years old - three years younger than the Lieutenant Commander himself. He almost ran stumbling from time to time on numerous slippery stones covering the ground.

- Yes, Yuko? - asked captain of Tenko-22 dryly - What's the matter?

His second-in-command caught his breath loudly and stopped three steps away from Tagachi.

- Captain, we climbed the mountain as you ordered and... - he stopped short.

- And what? - asked Tagachi sharply - Is there a ship on the horizon?

Lieutenant Tetsu shook his head.

- No, skipper, it's ... it's different. In the crater we saw... - and he stopped again.

- In the crater? - Isu Tagachi had to prod his second-in-command, - Yuko, speak up. What did you see there? Ghosts? - and he laughted dryly.

Tetsu didn't share his irony. Young lieutenant nodded slowly.

I don't know... - he said uncertainly. - It could be ghosts. It.. it's difficult to describe it. You'd better see it yourself.

- Well, - agreed astonished Tagachi not prodding further. - But it'd better be something really important, Yuko.

A massive mountain dominanted Tekho island. Basically the island was one big mountain. It wasn't the highest of those Isu Tagachi happened to see, but nevertheless it made an impression. Once the rock was breathing flame and scorching ashes; but that was far in the past. The volcano fell asleep - either forever, or just went quiet only to remind everybody about its existence by a new outburst. Sprouts of some exceptionally tenacious and spiny bush with tight lovat leaves thickly covered volcano's slopes making climbing it a long and unpleasant procedure.

Isu Tagachi stopped to catch his breath, turned back again and reached for the binoculars hanging from his neck in a shabby hard black leather case. The movement was subconscious - Lieutenant Commander just wanted to make sure there were no enemy ships at the horizon and the top of the mountain offered an excellent view. That's why he ordered a small group of sailors to make there an observation post. If ships appeared at the horizon, they were to give the alarm. Besides, such a task carried crewmembers away from thinking about their hopeless situation.

But the horizon remained clear, there were neither ships nor smoke. Shifting his gaze lower, Isu Tagachi found the bay where his submarine was hidden. From such a distance, even through the powerful naval binoculars, Tenko-22 seemed to be tiny like a miniature model sold in gift shops. A small temporary camp set up at the bay's bank was out of sight as it was hidden from the view by some small sharp rocks. At the very shoreline near the camp one could spot an ugly construction - an unfinished raft made of wood and empty barrels - in fact, of everything found on board of the submarine or on the island. It was the only way to save the crew Tagachi could think of. Fortunately, the seasonal stormes had already passed, and the nearest inhabited island was not too far.

Skipper smiled gloomily, thinking about the last patrol which became an excess reminder for Tenko-22's crew that Lady Fortune is a very inconsistent mistress. Submarines were a new means of naval warfare - no more than five years passed since the first combat-ready ship of this type was commissioned. Among most of military theoreticians and even some battle admirals the attitude towards them remained skeptic - the general belief was that a powerful surface fleet consisting of dreadnoughts and cruisers guaranteed the sea domination. Alas about six months ago the Shogunate's Fleet fell into an ambush and lost most of its heavy ships. That costed enemy a lot, the Aghinarrian sailors fought to the last striking the fear of God in their victors. But... the defeat was still the defeat. Having lost all the battleships, the Aghinarrians unintentionally had to shift to unconventional methods of warfare and submarines played an important role in that new strategy. A pity there were just a few of them, but submarine crews did their best to "sting" enemy as painfully as they could.

By this time the high command had lost any dreams of victory. Of course, no one talked about it aloud, but Isu Tagachi was clever enough to see the evident. The new objective of the war was to maul enemy as much as possible and to make them sign a peace treaty on terms more or less acceptable for the Shogunate.

And the latest mission of Isu Tagachi and his Tenko-22 served the same purpose. That was far from the first Tagachi's patrol and up to now he was lucky, but Tagachi had to admit that the Imperians were quick learners. In an attempt to attack a Kzal-rhiumian cruiser Tagachi's submarine was almost sunk; the heavily damaged boat had to disappear in the depths of the sea and run away. And now the escape led them to the island of ghosts. Such a disgraceful end.

- Lieutenant Commander? - Tetsu hailed from above. While Tagachi was looking at the empty sea through his binoculars, his second-in-command had time to go far ahead.

- Yes, yes, - responded Tagachi. - I am rising.

He made the last effort to get over a steep zone came up to the Lieutenant. Tetsu was pensively looking at the sea, and Tagachi automatically reached for the binoculars again.

- What's there? - he asked.

- Skipper?.. - Tetsu turned away from the distant horizon. - No... nothing. I just thought of Mirio.

Shortly before Tanko-22 sailed away on her last patrol, lieutenant received news from home about his wife being ill. It was a severe stress for Yuko, especially lately though he tried to conceal his feelings.

- I havn't seen her for a year, - he said, clenching his fists, - My son was born and I haven't seen him yet. Maybe I won't see him at all... - lieutenants scowled at the horizon and Tagachi understood that they were thinking about the same thing.

He kept from saying something like "We will certainly get out of here". They might not get out, or even get captured - and it was still a question what' would be worse. The Aghinarrian submarines did a lot of damage to Kzal-rhiumians and their allies, and the Imperial sailors in return showed fierce hatred to enemy submariners. The fear of a sudden attack was terrible. The southerners looked at submarines' crew as if they were pirates but not Navy sailors. And if any submainers were captured, Kzal-rhiumians could lynch them on spot. So to fall into Imperial hands was even worse than stay at Tekho and starve to death when supplies came to an end.

- Captain Tagachi, does anybody wait for you at home? - Yuko asked suddenly.

- No, - answered Tagachi and for the first time in several years remembered his former fiancee Satzume. She was a real beauty, but, unfortunately for Isu Tagachi, was very ambitious. Manufacturer's son seemed to her a more suitable pair than a Navy Lieutenant.

- I wasn't that lucky, - he said curtly.

- I don't even know if it should be considered luck or not, - sighted Lieutenant.

- Aren't we there yet? - Tagachi asked again, - What did you want to show me, Tetsu?

- Five more minutes, skip.

At last they reached the crater rim. There Tagachi saw two of his subordinates sitting on hard stones and smoking. When the officers appeared, they leaped to feet in a hurry.

- Lieutenant Commander Tagachi. Lieutenant Tetsu.

- At ease, - Isu Tagachi waved his hand, - So?

Yuko Tetsu carefully, keeping balance with his hands made few steps down a steep slope.

- Here it is, Lieutenant Commander. Have a look!

Tagachi followed his second-in-command and looked down. At first, he didn't understand what Yuko was pointing at. But then he saw something dark among conglomeration of grey stones. The sunlight reverberated from a glossy-black surface resembling mica; but that could not be mica. With growing bewilderment Isu Tagachi was tracing smooth lines of a long... hull? Exactly hull! Looking at the strange object half-buried under rockslide, the Aghinarrian realized that it was without doubt an artificial structure. But, in the name of the great Dragon-God, who made it? And how did it get to Tekho?

Not waiting for Yuko, Tagachi hastened down the slope. Almost breaking his legs on descend he came down and joined a pair of sailors from Tenko-22 crew who stayed looking up in the shade of the mysterious... object - Tagachi didn't simply know how to call it. From that spot it seemed immense, and true it wasn't exactly small - no smaller than a cruiser.

- Daemons of the Deep, what could that be? - murmured Tetsu, following his captain, who had already descended.

Tagachi chuckled dryly.

- Are you asking me, Lieutenant? I'm afraid I can't answer your question.

He made a few more steps.

- Though...

The strange object half-buried under stones had streamline cigar shape. Its dimensions were really close to cruiser's - about a hundred and fifty meters long and from twelve to fifteen meters wide. Huge holes gaped in its boards, and the hull's material resembled dragon's scales: black overlapping diamond-shaped plates shone like mica. In some places those strange scales were dimmed and cracked. Isu Tagachi shook his head. He was still unsure that he wasn't dreaming.

"It must be photographed!" - a thought flashed. Huh, if the jureys didn't have shadow and reflect in mirrors, then probably they would not leave a trace in photoplates. To be frank, no one had an opportunity to make such an experiment till now, and the strange object didn't look ghastly. No matter how mysterious it was, no doubt, it was exactly material.

- It's a ship, - Tagachi said confidently.

- A ship, skipper? - asked with doubt Petty Officer Agari, - But how could a ship get on the top of the mountain?

- It flew here, - explained Tagachi dryly, - It's a flying ship. I don't have any other explanation.

- Do you mean it's a dirigible, skipper? - asked Tetsu, - Indeed it looks like one of them...

- No, - interrupted him Tagachi, - it's not a dirigible. It's a flying ship.

Now all three his companions were looking at him as if he were a madman, but Tagachi paid no heed. His guess seemed so obvious.

- And she's been lying here for a very long time. Maybe even for centuries. It's obvious that it stayed buried under the stones for ages and then landslide freed her.

- A flying ship? - Tetsu didn't even conceal his skepticism. - I don't understand, skipper.

- Neither do I, - replied Tagachi.

Staying in the shade of a long hull, Lieutenant-Commander kept looking at the half-destroyed object. He really didn't understand. Nobody had ever find anything similar - Tagachi was sure about that. Even in the oldest chronicles there were no reminders about such findings

Lieutenant-Commander Isu Tagachi wasn't keen on history, but as everybody else, knew that first humans appeared on the islands of Dagerion a bit more than two thousand years ago. In those days they were far from becoming rulers of the land and seas. They were just fugitives, wanderers, thrown from a world with another sun to a new one by some strange cataclysm. But nobody exactly knew from where, how or why. The old legends and first chronicles of course blamed magic, dominant religions of Dagerion spoke about gods-creators bringing humans to their new home, contemporary scientists devised more and more intricate theories, which in truth didn't explain anything.

Someone said the first humans had come from other planets, or even stars, but the way they'd come was either closed or forgotten. Others liked the ideo of ultramundane and absolutely incomprehensible "parallel" worlds, or some "coelosphere coupling" (it's unlikely that the author of this theory understood what this meant). The secret was still the secret because in the beginning no one was interested by such things. At first the settlers set out to supply as many comforts in the new world as they were able to. History, chronicles, secrets and wars - all of these appeared later...

For today's moment Dagerion and its huge seas with amounts of islands were thoroughly explored. It was just so: seas and islands scattered over their vast smooth. Dagerion was rather a sea world than a land one. There wasn't a shortage of land, but it was divided into an immense number of islands - large, big, intermediate, small and tiny ones. It looked as if an unknown catastrophe had split a single continent into myriads of pieces in incredibly far times. And these islands-pieces slowly crawled away in every direction encircled the only piece of land which was large enough to be called a continent.

The map of Dagerion looked exactly so - like irregularly scaterred blot-islands on the blue ocean smooth. The biggest of them are concentrated to the north from the continent situated a bit southward of equator. This group of northern islands was named as Dragon's Ridge, and actually it resembled a dragon stretched from east to west, and a small retinue gather around it. Those were the lands of Aghinarra - last eighty years, i.e. from the date of its foundation, the Shogunate constantly waged aggressive campaigns enlarged greatly its sphere of influence. Today the Aghinarrians ruled all the north and a part of the north-east.

There was few land in the north-west, there were just groups of tiny, absolutely inhospitable islands, and the Aynelin archipelago which was a long-standing point of conflict of interests among Aghinarra and her southern enemies, first of all, - the Kzal-Rhiumian Empire. The Empire herself was situated a lot southward and covered the single piece of land which was somehow like a continent, and many islands gathered round it. The northen imperial possessions were like blades aimed at the Shogunate's territories. To the south-west of the continent there were islands under control of Ivir - in former times it was a powerful state which was absolutely depauperate one nowadays. Other big island states of Dagerion were situated eastward or southward of the Imperial continent, and they always competed with each other, with Aghinarra, and Kzal-Rhium.

The last, but not the least, the southern pole was occupied by mysterious island of Arkanna, which was the only one left unexplored and uncharted. There was very few information about Arkanna and local denizens did nothing to maintain any relation with the rest of the world. For some reasons they preferred voluntary isolation. All the attempts to establish some trade or diplomatic connections failed and the southern pole remained the only white spot on the map of Dagerion.

That was more or less the extent of what Isu Tagachi knew and nothing of that could help him. What he saw couldn't have been build either by aghinarrians, or kzal-rhiumians or... by the name of Dragon-God and his Dark Sister, nobody could ever have built such a machine! It couldn't be a human-built ship. But in that case, who did?

"One thing is absolutely clear, - thought Tagachi with some gloomy irony, - We won't be able to fly home on board this ship. But we have to return, especially now!

Zamu

Zamu

Zamu

- Tetsu, tell me what are you willing to do to see your wife and child?

- Do you want me to sail away for help? - Lieutenant demonstrated a honed intuitivness.

- Yes. As soon as we complete the raft, you are to take a couple of the most trustworthy sailors and as much supplies as you can. It's risky, but those who stay here, risk no less.

- I'm ready, Captain Tagachi.

- Well, Yuko. You will also take the photographs with you. Cherish them as the apple of your eye, and in cause of danger - wipe out. When you depart, we will sink Tenko-22. No vestige must be left, and you must narrate about what we'd found there when you get to the Shogunate's islands. I want someone fron the high command to arrive there. They must see it themselves, or they will never believe in it. I'm sure the peace treaty between Kzal-Rhium and our state will be signed soon. And it's necessary that Tekho must remain with us. We can endow with anything if only Tekho was ours, and they must understand it.

- Captain?

- Don't you understand? - Tagachi sighed and turned to the sailors following them. - We have lost this war, Yuko.

- Captain Tagachi, sir?

- There's no need in pompous phrases, Lieutenant, - Isu Tagachi said dryly. - We are defeated. Our chances were not big event until Tivarna, and after it... we have no chance. All we could do now is to sting them counting on the Imperians will be afraid of greater loss and agree with negotiations. And there we have chances - luckily for us, the relations between the Kzal-rhiumians and the Eastern Coalition are very strained. They are allies, but they don't like and, of course, don't trust each other. This strengthens our positions. But if the peace treaty was signed, it would not be signed forever. Sooner or later we will fight with the southerners again, so, Tetsu... something lying in that damned volcano... - Isu Tagachi turned back, - is our true way to the final victory!

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