Pouring Rain [Short Story]

In war, they will use anything to win.

A word before we begin

Pouring Rain is vastly different from what I write. It is an experiment for me, and I would like you—the reader—to treat it like one, too.

It is the first time I have allowed myself to write something I know so little about. The workings of intergovernmental communication, how demands and ultimatums are delivered, filed and followed through, how wartime business is conducted, or how actual battlefield tactics are implemented—it’s stuff that I’ve never brushed with, and the research on the internet can only go so far. What happens in this story is a product of my imagination.

For all those in-the-know, who will cringe reading it (like us—computer people—cringe every time we see another “hacking” scene involving feverishly swiping 3D shapes on a screen), please accept my sincere apologies.

Likewise, the technology in this story is not grounded in actual science and even probably encroaches on the sanctity of physics. Relax and prepare to take it with a grain of salt (or rather a whole bunch of them).

There’s also no distinguishable protagonist in the story. I wanted to know if it can hold out without a clear-cut anchor point.

And finally, a bit of a warning: some scenes in there are brutal and full of gory details.

Regardless if you love or hate it, let me know in the comments, DM, or chat.

Разом до перемогi!

M. Majeris

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#1 | Spring of 2026, Vovchansk sector, Ukraine

Lieutenant Colonel Durov swears, not even trying to conceal his frustration. He’d just arrived at the site, his whole investigation team—eight people—in tow. Him as the commission chair, a military prosecutor, an operations officer, ordnance and mine specialists, forensic and medical examiners, even a lowly secretary tasked with record taking.

A supposed break-through for the Russian march to Kharkiv, turned a complete clusterfuck. The elite diversions squad, tasked with breaking the Ukrainian defense line, spearheading enough of a gap for bigger guns to move through, vanished. Well… mostly.

In war, regardless of what you call it, fuckups happen. You lose before you win some. And if you’re the side moving onto the enemy well dug in, you lose a lot. That warfare math was clear for the Lieutenant Colonel. Reasonable losses, his term for it.

What made his internal cooker boil over though, was the fact that based on early reports, nobody had a slightest idea of what kind of freak ass shit went down here, that wiped the whole mobile squad clean. Fucking amateurs, the whole lot of them.

“Any survivors, Captain?” He barks at the frightened commanding officer for a small unit that was sent in to secure the site hours ago.

“No, sir.” Replies the young man weakly. Practically a boy, notes Durov.

“Alright, my team will start by examining the bodies.” He announces.

“Uhhh… sir… there are none.” The youth replies.

“How come? Are they gone? Who took them?” The senior officer becomes visibly agitated.

“They’re, uhhh… here, just not… complete.” The group leader struggles with wording.

Enough of this gibberish. Without saying anything, Durov steps forward, barely giving the junior officer time to jump out of his way. He scales a tiny hill that the attack squad was using as a temporary cover for its staging area, and stops cold at the view.

#2 | The following day, Kyiv

“Who?” President Zelensky’s conversational skills were distilled to brutal efficiency by years of full-on war, still ravaging his country, at least when it came to communicating with the subordinates.

“A representative for a weapon manufacturer from Lithuania, a new player.” Replies Kyrylo Budanov.

“Go on.” The fact that this is coming from the head of Military Intelligence rather than the usual Armed Forces pitch channels alone is enough to perk up Commander-in-Chief’s attention. His top spook would not waste both of their time with a last-minute sales push from yet another garage operation who thought strapping a machine gun and a pair of nigh-vision scopes on a drone was a game-changing invention, deserving an audience.

“Sir, you’re going to want to see their demo. It could actually turn the tide of war, or even end it.” Even the watered down version of the presentation, scarce on details as it was, but still full with hands-on action that Budanov received mere hours ago was enough to convince the seasoned Lieutenant General it was an opportunity Ukraine did not have the luxury to pass on.

Not that Kyrylo didn’t have his doubts. The secretive back-channel inquiry from the enigmatic benefactor, their insistence on zero-tolerance for leakage as a justification for the highly irregular pitch procedures, raised a few flags, but not enough to warrant a total dismissal. His agency did not use their billion-Dollar annual budget for setting Russian oil refineries in Siberia on fire alone. GUR had their ways to vet stuff, and this belated entrant into the war game from the Baltics was checking out so far.

“Alright, let’s see it.” Says the President, accepting a thin dossier from the country’s top intelligence officer and watching him head for the door, presumably to fetch another arms dealer to add to his never-ending list of contacts.

Ever since the start of full-scale war, the military technology moved at a neck-breaking speed, forcing the rewriting of warfare manuals over and over again. Fast on the heels of defense giants, new players were popping up daily, all of them wanting a piece of Ukrainian action… and a place at the pot of money that came with that specific territory.

Baltic Armaments Concorcium (BAC) states the skinny and seemingly hastily-constructed file. Privately owned and funded, incorporated in Lithuania back in 2014. No notable products on the market yet, just a string of lucrative technology contracts all across defense manufacturers on NATO’s eastern flank.

Domas Matuiza. The founder, CEO, chief engineer and the guest du jour, graduated Kaunas University of Technology, then headed straight to MIT, enrolling in its interdisciplinary programs that encompassed its aeronautics, mechanical/electric engineering and computer science. It was there that he made his first foray into the business world after being snatched up by Lockheed Martin, but eventually moving onto Palantir. Mr. Matuiza worked there until 2010 when flew back to the old continent to join yet another behemoth name in the defense industry: MBDA. While the file was scarce on project specifics, the chances were that good old Domas designed quite a few tools of destruction, while making an impressive trail of business contacts along the way, who, eventually, were essential in bankrolling his own venture—Baltic Armaments Concorcium.

Impressive career. I’ll give him twenty minutes. Decides the President for himself tiredly. It is the wee hours of the early morning, still mostly dark outside—another all-nighter under his belt—not that anyone is counting the overtime in this country anymore.

Moments later, a middle-aged man strolls in, closely trailed by Budanov. Dressed utterly unremarkably in an apparel that every restaurant manager in any corner of the World would describe as “business casual”, stepping confidently. No tailored suit, Patek Philippe, or million-Dollar smile—Zelensky silently appreciates the lack of blingy noise. Whatever the newcomer is aiming to woo him with is on the hardened laptop, clutched under the man’s arm, rather than bullshit sales tactics learned at some pricey business school.

“Good evening, Mr. President. Thank you very much for agreeing to meet me.” Mr. Matuiza’s nearly impeccable English, slightly tinged with notes of New York twang, still contains a hint of foreign accent, marking him as a non-native speaker of the language.

“Of course. Nice to meet you Mr. Matuiza. And sorry, for not being able to receive you earlier.” Zelensky rises to shake hands. “Kyrylo tells me you have something for us.”

“No worries at all. The timing is perfect, actually. May I?” Domas tentatively positions the laptop on the conference table, grateful for the opportunity to skip the swampy pleasantries of the etiquette.

After receiving a non-verbal be my guest motion, he opens the computer, and purposefully tinkers with the keyboard for a minute, then swivels it so the screen faces the other two men. Zelensky leans in closer, while Budanov remains upright, signaling the fact that he’s already familiar with the contents.

Domas clears his throat. “This is Pouring Rain.”

#3 | Vovchansk sector

By the time the posse catches up with their superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Durov is able to recompose enough to start assessing the situation.

There’s a lot to take in. The medium sized field, partially rimmed with treelines, is littered with an assortment of macabre debris. Human parts, barely recognizable, are strewn across the wide, open ground, intermixed with ribbons of shredded armor and vehicle bits, some still smoldering.

No craters. No blast marks. Not even a slightest sign of a battle. Just a mess of human anatomy and mingled metal.

For the first time in four years, Lieutenant Colonel breaks out in cold sweat for the fear of the unknown.

“Everyone, get in there and find out what killed those men.” He barks an order at no one in particular.

#4 | Kyiv

“What you see here is a control interface for our experimental battle platform we call Pouring Rain.” Explains Domas.

The screen shows a grayscale image of what appears to be a military staging area. There are tanks and other machinery there—some manoeuvring, some stationary—as well as a good number of geared up troops, bunched up in small battle groups. Enemy, realizes the President, having seen one footage like this too many.

“It’s a real-time feed from a Russian forward operation base near Pokrovsk.” Domas confirms. “They’re about to move out for an all out attack on Ukrainian positions that they think are weakened by a night of shelling and drone assaults.”

“Where is this coming from?” Asks Zelensky. The view on the screen is nothing he hasn’t seen before, but the quality of the video seems like it is up a notch from the usual intelligence feeds, especially for a live feed in low light.

“It’s the first of the two components that comprise the Pouring Rain—The Eye—the passive surveillance.” Says the Lithuanian. “It’s not a single device, but rather a swarm of multi-functional elements in space—a collaboration with low-orbit micro-satellite providers like Eutelsat and NanoAvionics, conventional surveillance players—Airbus Defence and Space and Planet Labs—topped off with two of our own satellites, locked in geostationary orbit over the general area of the conflict.”

Our own satellites. The way Domas makes it sound so casual, like someone would mention they’re getting their kitchen remodeled, betrays that he’s nowhere near the impressive part of his presentation.

“Over the years, we have been upgrading our partners’ fleet with multi-sensory input devices like high-resolution panchromatic cameras, multispectral and hyperspectral imagers that feed their input to the control satellites to be forwarded back to our data center, where AI, in real time, processes and combines the sensor data with actual large-aperture telescopes from surveillance satellites, producing a perfect composite view of the target area. In nutshell, there are hundreds of devices flying over Ukraine at any given moment, their sensors pulling data from the ground at vastly different angles, which we then combine into a picture-perfect collage of a sharp, near-zero-latency video feed.”

So… not a garage operation, after all. Muses Zelensky.

“I’m enabling interactive analysis…” Continues Mr. Matuiza.

Instantly, the vehicles, personnel and event structures are decorated by colored outlines and labels, identifying tanks, APCs, trucks, SUVs and even motorcycle-mounted crews, noting their models and perceived battle-readiness. Even each individual human troop is highlighted in soft, semi-transparent brackets. The markers seem to follow them when they move.

“The AI analysis tool has detected, categorized and assigned an internal ID for each possible target, and will follow it across the battlefield until we tell it to stand down or the target is destroyed. Once identified, we can track each actor on the field, down to a single soldier or the smallest drone.”

As a demonstration, Domas highlights a person who seems to be heading away from the formation towards a small copse of trees. A new, smaller window pops up that zooms slightly in and slides the view, keeping it centered on the individual, who wanders into bushes, then starts tinkering with his crotch before taking a piss.

“A target for what?” Asks Zelensky.

“That brings us to the second component of our system—the Hammer—the active assault unit.” Announces Domas, then continues right away, without making any dramatic pauses, making the President appreciate him even more. If there’s anything that he learned to hate during the last years of his presidency it’s the useless, suspense-building blabber. “A HALE—high-altitude long-endurance—airborne drone of our own design, not larger than your run-off-the-mill Cessna plane albeit looking fundamentally differently, running completely on electric power. The aircraft’s body was specifically designed with an increased wing area which doubles as a solar collector, so that it can run completely on its own power during the day, and even charge a small battery array.”

The Lithuanian swipes across the laptop’s touchpad, making another window pop up on screen. It shows a sleek uni-body craft. It’s a wide, impossibly thin singular wing, with a slight swelling in the middle but no distinct fuselage. The upper surface is covered in solar panel cells edge-to-edge. The underside is smooth, with barely visible depressions, outlining access hatches. Four oversized propellers line the trailing edge of the wingspan. There’s no tail, with control seemingly provided solely by elevons and flaps. The whole thing looks like a lovechild of a B-2 bomber and a UFO from an eighties sci-fi show.

“And at night, AI will detect and leverage thermal currents, extract energy from wind shear between air layers, reposition itself to maximize the daylight, and draw power from the battery array. Combine that with the ultralight carbon body, low drag from the thin air up there and the craft can stay airborne virtually indefinitely.“

“Okay, but what kind of damage can it do?” Budanov, silent up to this point, finally poses an obvious question.

Instead of answering straight away, Matuiza switches back to the control interface, and pushes the computer closer to Ukraine’s chief intelligence officer. It seems that commotion in the Russian camp has picked up pace—they’re ready to move out. The outlines seem to have kept glued to their designated units, even if they have moved and regrouped in the meantime.

“The AI has pre-chosen the targets. You can make modifications, but I believe you will find the current ones appropriate.” Says Domas, the neutral expression on his face marred with a few worry lines now. “Press the ‘Confirm targets’ button when you’re ready.”

Budanov casts a questioning look at the President of Ukraine, who glances back at the engineer.

“I’m not a combatant—I can make a weapon, but I can’t pull the trigger.” He replies, seemingly having read the room.

Zelensky nods, acknowledging, then turns back to Budanov “Do it.”

There’s no hesitation on the senior officer’s part. He leans over the laptop’s keyboard, holds breath and clicks the indicated button. A new one pops up, flashing the word ‘Cancel’ and a five-second countdown. The air in the room is suddenly weighted with the fatality of the miniscule timeframe—mere moments to decide the fate of those men. The enemy, yes, but still human beings.

Nobody moves a muscle. It’s war. The ultimate us or them situation. The counter reaches zero.

Milliseconds later, soaring 24 kilometers above the Crimean Exclusive Economic Zone in the Black Sea, far away from the territorial waters and the coast, the Hammer’s laser uplink pings with a set of instructions, relayed via its mother satellite.

Two panels depress and slide inside the underside of the aircraft, revealing longish rectangular openings that spit out a thick square bar-like object each. About a meter of freefall in, the tail ends of both objects burst in a staccato explosions of orange, white-tipped flame tongues, accelerating coastward at Match 2.5, propelled by multiple pulse detonation micro-engines burning their sparse reserves of gelled hydrocarbon.

Back at the BAC data center, a specialized analytical AI agent receives the precise timestamp of the launch along with a bunch of environmental data from the Hammer, then spends exactly 0.8 of a second crunching numbers, relaying digested information back to the control console.

The laptop emits a soft chime, drawing the attention of the three men in an unmarked meeting room somewhere deep inside the Presidential Office in Kyiv. A small square pops up in the corner of the computer’s small screen.

Launch: Confirmed.

Distance: 593.6 km.

Time to impact: 11 minutes 32 seconds.

#5 | Vovchansk sector

Durov was pinballing between specialists, scattered across the field, each in their own small pond of mobile floodlights, desperately attempting to choke an explanation from anyone.

“It seems that this one was torn to pieces by a great force—both the soldier and his quad bike.” Reports a military forensic expert, holding up a scrap of uniform with a white ‘Z’ symbol on it as some kind of evidence. “Yet, there are no characteristic signatures for any kind of explosion or even a shrapnel of a projectile. It seems like he… just blew up on his own.”

Blyat, curses the officer under his breath. The morning is already breaking, but he doesn’t have even as much as a half-assed answer, and the brass back at the HQ will demand the details soon. Oh well, no point in delaying the inevitable.

“Get me The General on the line.”

#6 | Kyiv

“We still have a few minutes.” Declares Matuiza, then presses a few more buttons, bringing up a rendered video of the Hammer’s underside. The two prolonged hatches next to the center of the aircraft slide inside, revealing openings containing empty slots, one on each side.

“These are standard rocket pods that can be equipped with a wide range of launchers. The rule of thumb is that anything you can strap to an F-16, can go onto Hammer. Though…” intentionally or not, Domas makes a short pause, making the other two high-level officials involuntarily hold their breaths “... you would probably not want to do that, since we have something better.”

Another, click and the screen lights up with a different video, showing an oddly-looking long object. The title above it says “PR-1 Modular Rocket”, though the thing looks more like a stack of bars, strapped together in a thick beam.

“You may say our data center is the brain, the satellites are obviously the eyes, and the drone is… well, let’s call it the body. This rocket, however, is what gives Pouring Rain its fangs.” Domas’ voice is now tinted with an unmistakable trace of engineer’s pride in his own creation. “It’s more than just a rocket. It’s a whole array of them—100 to be exact—we call them Darts. Each and every one capable of acting like a unitary strike unit, a coordinated swarm, or completely independently.”

Both Budanov and Zelensky are now fully immersed, the self-imposed twenty-minute limit utterly forgotten.

“Right now, all the rockets are heading towards the general target area as two composite units at the velocity of about 850 m/s. Magnetically attached to each other to form four 5x5 bundles, clustered horizontally, with the rear stack providing propulsion for the whole composite item. However, they can split up at any time into smaller clusters or individually, as needed.”

“Why bundle them? Can’t they just fly as a bunch of mini-rockets?” Asks Kyrylo.

“Because of the fuel economics.” Matuiza seems like he had anticipated the question. “The reserves are limited, due to the small size of the rockets. Over large distances, the rear stacks can act as boosters for the rest of the cluster then just drop off and let their sisters take over.”

“Doesn’t it just make it an easier target for air defenses?” It’s the President’s turn to cast a doubt.

For the first time since coming into the room, Domas smiles. “We’ll see about that.”

#7 | Moscow

General Glupitsky is hunching over an early morning brief when a call from his “eyes on the ground”—Lieutenant Colonel Durov—comes in.

“Report.” He snaps at the subordinate, foregoing any kind of pleasantries. The operation ‘Stinger’—his brainchild—was supposed to be a moment of glory, but something went terribly wrong.

“I’m afraid we haven’t been able to uncover any definitive answer, General.” Comes back the reply with a slight lag of a satphone.

“Not good enough!” Screams Glupitsky. “I’m supposed to brief The President in an hour with a report of our troops being on the final stretch to Kharkiv as promised. Are you suggesting I should tell him we ‘don’t have a definitive answer’ of why it’s not the case instead? Do you understand the gravity of the…”

The tirade is cut short by an aide bursting into the room.

“Sir, our radar station in Crimea detected rockets heading for our positions from the direction of the Black Sea. The air defenses are preparing to intercept.”

Finally, some good news. We can handle two stray rockets. Shoot them down, and package it as a bigger win than it really is. Take some edge off the fact that we haven’t made any tangible progress. Phew, nothing we haven’t done before. Nothing the old man needs to worry his pretty little head with.

“Shoot them down!”

#8 | Kyiv

“Looks like we’ve been spotted.” Says Domas excitedly.

As the icons indicating positions for the two rockets on laptop’s screen move inland, the Russian radar finally picks up a threat signature and raises alarm. An attached S-300 SAM setup launches four 48N6 missiles—a luxurious redundancy for just two unidentified incoming objects. Someone at the air-def base or even further up the chain of command is an avid follower of the “not on my watch” concept. The expensive rockets should intercept and destroy the targets in 9 seconds.

The launch is detected by the ever watchful Eye. It takes milliseconds for the on-board computer to calculate the trajectory and motion statistics and kick the data over to Hammer, which in turn flings a one-off encoded instruction packet.

Approximately one and a half seconds after the S-300 launches its countermeasures, 200 miniature ultra-wideband radio receivers pick up a new set of instructions, and after triple-verifying the checksums and the validity of encryption keys, start to execute them.

In an instant, the polarity of the magnetic fields that held the darts together is reversed, effectively pushing them apart. The momentum carries the small devices outward, even as they continue their supersonic journey towards their targets, fracturing the two big rockets into a swarm of 200 tiny ingots dispersed over a kilometer-wide area, every one of them firing up their own tiny pulse detonation engine now.

The S-300 missiles, their built-in seekers suddenly devout of target signatures, continue on the last-known intercept trajectory for the next few seconds, detonating mid-air in an impotent effort.

Evasive manoeuvre complete.

Dispersion: 1201 metres.

New target identified: S-300 SAM site.

Another chime singes six ears bunched up over the laptop. The two rocket icons on-screen are gone, replaced with a semitransparent circle that continues moving in the direction of Pokrovsk.

“They shot down the rockets!” Exclaims Zelensky, slumping into his chair. He let his eager anticipation take the better of him, and now the demo is over. Thanks for nothing.

“Not really.” Says Domas calmly. “We now have 200 rockets instead of two. They achieved nothing, and gave away the position of their SAM site in the process. Who will do the honors?”

A new message and a button lights up in the control interface.

Suggestion | Re-allocate 7 (seven) units to high-value targets:

* Command Post / Tactical HQ

* Main Search Radar Site

* Fire‑Control / Engagement Radar

* Launcher Group #1

* Launcher Group #2

* Short‑Range Point Defense (Pantsir/Tor)

* EW / Jamming Vehicle & Sensor Van

[Confirm]

Budanov, steals a glance at the President, and having received an approving nod, slams the confirm button.

A whole new set of instructional data makes its long but lightning-fast journey from BAC server farm in the fortified basement in the outskirts of Vilnius to the dart missile swarm, now somewhere over Sea of Azov, bouncing off the Eye satellite and the Hammer drone in the process.

The course correction valves on seven small missiles open in unison, making them arch away into a dramatically new course.

A view on the laptop’s screen switches to a patch of forest, dotted with modest clearings for various components of the air defense site, all of them highlighted in the already familiar outlines. A smoke plumes in two of them as they start to launch rockets.

“Too late, fuckers.” Says Domas, emotionlessly, as each of the seven targets is decorated with a bright white flash of its own, followed by huge blasts at the two launch sites, fueled by the secondary detonations of the remaining unfired rockets. “They won’t be using this S-300 site again.”

#9 | Moscow

“Well?” Yells General Glupitsky. “Did we get them?”

“No data, sir.” Replies the aide, his hand on the receiver in his ear. “And… it seems like we’ve lost contact with the SAM site. Scrambling nearby MiG jets for visual confirmation.”

Nervous moments tick away in silence, until the soldier glances worriedly at the General.

“Sir, we have the visual confirmation. The entire SAM site has been destroyed.”

Glupitsky’s joints almost give out at the news. Suddenly, the bogus incompetence ploy that ousted his predecessor and gave him this post is not looking so ingenious anymore now that he himself is facing the possibility of getting a taste of the receiving end of that same stick.

A failed spearhead operation in Vovchansk sector, a wiped out SAM site in Crimea, and zero details of what the fuck is going on—he’ll need a miracle to survive this.

#10 | Kyiv

The time seems to pause when the two Ukrainians subconsciously stop to ponder on the implications of what they just witnessed. A state-of-the-art air defense complex, virtually impregnable, wiped off the face of the Earth, almost like an afterthought.

“What kind of ordnance do the Darts carry?” It’s Kyrylo, who finally breaks the silence.

“None.” Comes back the reply. “Well, unless a metal slug counts.”

Without waiting for the other two men to indignify themselves with a ‘What???’ Domas nods at the laptop and swipes across its touchpad. “I’ll explain the ropes in a bit, but now the main show is about to start.”

The targets, tiny and spread over a significantly larger area with the view zoomed out to cover it, are moving purposefully towards the Ukrainian defense line. Each individual unit is listed in the side table, noting its type, unique identifier and movement speed. The top of the screen is adorned with a counter, ticking down the last moments.

Time to impact trajectory commit: 15 seconds.

Having received an instructional data package, Dart unit #PR-1-000663 makes the final microadjustments to its trajectory, then initiates the release sequence. In a fraction of second, the pulse detonation engine flares up to provide one final sacrificial burst of thermal energy, which is captured by a flux-compression generator connected to the onboard electromagnetic accelerator. Its coiled barrel, now charged with high-density magnetic field, pushes a single sabot-encased ingot out, its protective case peeling off, revealing a streamlined tungsten slug, which exits the barrel in white-hot flash of plasma, incinerating the vessel that just birthed it, and blasts off at brutal 2.5 km/s, leaving only smoldering ashes to flutter down to the ground.

It takes less than a second for the newly brainless metal rod to cover the remaining couple of kilometers of its designated collision course, carefully calculated before the launch. The projectile does not even slow down when it encounters a collarbone just below an unfortunate motorcycle rider’s neck, in a single motion severing his head, cauterizing the wound, and splashing the whole body to tiny pieces by a massive outlet of kinetic energy, then slices through the metal of the fuel tank and the front wheel, before digging meters into the ground, as if not wanting to see the sinister salad of human flesh minced together with mechanical parts, being burned to a crisp by a column of gasoline flame.

In the same instance, four of its sister slugs reach a T-72B3 main battle tank. Coming in at a steep angle, they avoid the thick frontal armor and hit the least fortified top with a 0.76 megajoules of energy, perforating metal as if it was a sheet of cooking foil. The massive impact showers the interior of the fighting vehicle with a deadly concoction of melting fragments of shattered armor, instantly shredding the crew, moment before one of the slugs embeds itself into the ammo storage, sending the tank into a series of spectacular explosions.

Hanging behind, an MT-LB armored personnel carrier, packed way over its capacity—both on the inside and the outside—receives the attention of two tungsten rounds. One punches directly through the turret and its minimal armor, spraying the interior with an explosion of shrapnel and heat, instantly killing the gunner and the driver. The other punctures a keyhole-shaped opening in a fully geared infantryman’s helmet, redecorating the inside of his skull with bits and pieces of metal and leathery padding, before slicing through the vehicle’s roof and thin metal of the fuel tank, igniting a house-sized bonfire, that cooks 15 troops inside, and sets another 20 catching a ride on its top aflame. In a futile attempt to save their skin, dumping weapons and body armor, the poor souls jump off the APC and scatter in random directions, only to lifelessly succumb a few meters into the run, one by one.

As the morning breaks in Ukraine, silence descends in a desolate field in the East, just as it does in a stuffy room back in Kyiv, accommodating three people and a laptop. No color is needed to convey the extent of the carnage. The battlefield is littered with an assortment of destroyed machinery and countless smoldering, dismembered bodies. Enemy’s losses: massive. Ukraine’s: zero.

Domas peels his glance off the screen to face the other two men, still glued to the video feed. There’s a distinctive shine in their eyes. Like a child who sees a toy they desperately want. Except it’s not a toy, but a way to end this bloody pointless war that has been tormenting their country for far too long. A fucking light at the end of that God-forsaken tunnel.

“As I was saying,” the Lithuanian interrupts the silence, “The darts are equipped with a mini coil barrel—essentially a miniaturized rail gun. Once the target is close enough and the interception trajectory is calculated, the dart uses the remaining of its pulse detonation engine fuel to generate a burst of energy to power the magnets and propel the cartridge to huge speed. The metal ingot does not carry any ordnance, but at that speed the kinetic energy alone is enough to do enormous damage, as we all saw. Though strictly technically, the disposable sabot that tungsten ingot is encased in, can be made more durable to survive the launch and can contain anything else, including explosive materials.”

Zelensky’s glance, sharper than ever, finally snaps to Matuiza. There’s an unmouthed question in it: OK, I’m sold. What’s next?

“We have two operational Hammers and a production capacity to produce one additional unit a month. They’re yours if you accept.” Matuiza continues. “There’s also a small stockpile of roughly 5000 Darts—that’s 50 composite rockets—but most of them are not loaded. We’ll provide the specifications for sabot cartridges, manufacturing data, supply chain contacts, and every possible assistance for your to spin off your own production in Ukraine.“

“Under what conditions?” The President did not believe in handouts, not when it came to military help. On the surface the assistance packages that were flowing in from the West were impressive, but behind the curtains, every single shell had to be painstakingly negotiated, even begged for.

“Even if it works, it’s still an experimental technology. There are known wrinkles to be ironed out, and probably even more that we’re not aware of. Lab or field setting goes only so far. The deal is simple: we give you the weapons, you let us collect the data. We’ll log everything. And I mean every single bit of it: the surveillance and target selection, the times, locations, even trajectory data—the whole thing.”

“Which agencies will you share that data with?” Asks Budanov, back in his intelligence officer shoes.

“At this moment—none. We went to great lengths to conceal the actual nature and extent of the Pouring Rain project. That said…” replies Domas, thoughtfully, “once this cat is out of the bag, we realistically expect to get swarmed by everything that moves, and there’s so much our legal department can do to hold them off. Though, the worst case scenario: you’ll need to coordinate with some NATO liaison or something like that.”

“That’s acceptable.” The President does not hesitate.

“There’s one more condition—and it’s coming from me personally.” Says Domas, causing the other two men to perk up. “No mass destruction. I know the people there are somewhat of a lost cause, but… I don’t want genocide on my consciousness.”

President Zelensky nods.

“Perfect. Now, get your country back.”

#11 | New Year’s Eve 2026, Moscow

The wind tosses freshly fallen snow in swirls across an unswept street, swinging sparse festive decorations hanging limp from the lampposts. Further down, from an old, peeled billboard, a frowning youth appeals to a sense of patriotism, inviting fellow citizens to join the ranks of troops of the “special military operation”. For the motherland, it says.

A television studio, deep in the guts of the Kremlin complex, is brimming with activity—president Putin is about to address the nation in a televised greeting, though given the situation on the frontlines, everyone expects it to be rather grim. The final fixes to the flaking makeup are applied, all the necessary lights are turned on the aging dictator, all the remaining seconds are silently counted down.

“My fellow citizens…” begins Putin, but abruptly stops, puzzled look on his face, before being rushed off the scene by two bulky agents of the presidential security detail, leaving millions to watch an empty seat.

The confusion on the set lasts all but two minutes, then the sound of air raid sirens penetrate the thick walls of the ancient building, sending perplexed staff towards the exit.

In the safety of the situation room bunker, Putin slumps into a chair. “What’s going on?” He demands.

“Multiple rockets incoming from multiple directions, Mr. President”. Replies one of the freshly-minted generals, his face purple with fear or a couple of early celebratory shots of whatever beverage he indulges in.

“Targets?” Asks the old man, though the room remains silent, all eyes desperately looking for anchor points away from their leader.

“Targets?!!” Snaps Putin.

“They’re all… aimed at Moscow, sir.” Sounds a trembling voice, belonging to a low-rank staffer.

“Well, then shoot them down.” The President vents his anger.

“We are trying… unsuccessfully. They dispersed into swarms already. There are thousands.” Replies the purple-faced general almost hysterically, humiliated by a subordinate having filled in for him. “Twenty five minutes to impact.”

Minutes pass, perfect silence being interrupted only for grim reports of lines of air defense failing one by one.

“30 seconds.” Sounds a voiced warning.

“20 seconds.”

“10 seconds. Brace for impact.”

Everyone instinctively hunches, even though they all know the bunker was designed to withstand any impact, including a direct nuclear blast.

The seconds tick way past the countdown point, yet there are no distant thuds, shaking walls, and no dust drifting off the ceiling.

The huge display, which is plotting the course of the enemy’s rockets moments ago, features an empty map. The array of monitors, feeding the view from the outside, show a comforting view of an idyllic winter night.

“Did we get them?” Putin probes the room with a trembling voice.

“I don’t think so, sir.” The general in command shakes his head.

“Then what in the name of…” Starts the President, only to be cut off by a startled breath from the crowd.

“Look!” Exclaims the junior staffer, pointing at the monitors.

The human brain is not fit to instantly grasp and understand the view that falls outside reasonable expectations from reality. It takes a while for everyone in the room to fully adjust their perception. Gasps escape the hand-covered mouths.

It is raining… blood.

Feeds from military drones, then domestic news channels, their anchors visibly perplexed, and finally foreign outlets broadcast a shocking view. The crimson drops, mixed-in with the blizzard, blanket the whole city in a bloody tint.

“Mr. President, we just received a video message from… Zelensky. Putting it on the main screen.”

A defiant face of the Ukraine’s President fills a good portion of the situation room’s wall.

“Good evening. As it’s quite late, I’ll get straight to the point. It is my sincere hope that you could fully appreciate the symbolism of tonight’s message from the Ukrainian people. Nevertheless, I wish that it serves not as a demonstration of our capabilities or, God forbid, a threat, but rather as a wake up call, and you—leadership of the Russian Federation—will carefully consider the following short list of demands.” Clad in his signature army jumper, Zelensky pauses for a couple of seconds to let it sink in, then continues.

“First, we demand an official Russia’s surrender letter, and the start of withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukrainian land and territorial waters within the next 12 hours, including the Crimean peninsula. The withdrawal should be completed within 72 hours in Crimea and within 48 hours from all other territories. All equipment and personnel located on the Ukrainian soil after the aforementioned deadline will be subject to capture or destruction under the laws of war.”

Another pause. Another second of heavy silence.

“Second, we demand the immediate resignation of the president of the Russian Federation—Vladimir Putin— and his transfer to the authority of the International Criminal Court in The Hague for further trial for war crimes.”

Zelensky takes a moment before his closing sentence.

“Once the two demands are met, we will open diplomatic channels for the discussion on prisoner swap, return of the Ukrainian children and the size and schedule of the war reparations. May the New Year bring you peace.”

The video cuts off, replaced by the cold emptiness of the screen.

#12 | Spring of 2027, The Hague

“All rise. The International Criminal Court is now in session.” Announces the Court Officer.

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