"The Fuehrer has decided to wipe the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth"; that it is...
КАТЮШA: BRAVE PATRIOTIC SOVIET MAGICAL GIRL QUEST
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Arc 1: Rise
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
"The Fuehrer has decided to wipe the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth"; that it is planned to blockade the city securely, to subject it to artillery bombardment of all calibres and by means of constant bombing from the air to raze the city to the ground. It is also decreed in the order that should there be a request for capitulation, such a request should be turned down by the Germans. Finally, it is stated in this document that this directive emanates not only from the Naval Staff, but also from the O.K.W."
- "The Future of the City of Petersburg"
"Therefore, no German soldier is to enter these cities. By our fire we must force all who try to leave the city through our lines to turn back. The exodus of the population through the smaller, unguarded gaps toward the interior of Russia is only to be welcomed. Before the cities are taken, they are to be weakened by artillery fire and air attacks, and their population should be caused to flee.
We cannot take the responsibility of endangering our soldiers' lives in order to save Russian cities from fire, nor that of feeding the population of these cities at the expense of the German homeland....
All commanding officers shall be informed of this will of the Fuehrer."
- Alfred Jodl
"St. Petersburg must be erased from the face of the Earth. [...] We have no interest in saving lives of civilian population."
- Directive No. 1601
"The city has enough food for two days. After that, nothing. The ice is still thin, and not very strong. But we cannot wait."
- Unknown NKVD officer on the Road of Life
- "The Future of the City of Petersburg"
"Therefore, no German soldier is to enter these cities. By our fire we must force all who try to leave the city through our lines to turn back. The exodus of the population through the smaller, unguarded gaps toward the interior of Russia is only to be welcomed. Before the cities are taken, they are to be weakened by artillery fire and air attacks, and their population should be caused to flee.
We cannot take the responsibility of endangering our soldiers' lives in order to save Russian cities from fire, nor that of feeding the population of these cities at the expense of the German homeland....
All commanding officers shall be informed of this will of the Fuehrer."
- Alfred Jodl
"St. Petersburg must be erased from the face of the Earth. [...] We have no interest in saving lives of civilian population."
- Directive No. 1601
"The city has enough food for two days. After that, nothing. The ice is still thin, and not very strong. But we cannot wait."
- Unknown NKVD officer on the Road of Life
[Arc 1: начало]
The year is 1942. The date, February 3. The place, Leningrad. The crisis?
Siege.
Siege and starvation are the two words that describe the sorry state of affairs of the historic city once upon a time known as Saint Petersburg. For almost half a year now, Leningrad has been put under the gun and siege. The Wehrmacht have shelled relentlessly, the Luftwaffe bombed relentless, and the... well, the Italians have sent a naval detachment to harass the only thin supply line snaking its way across Lake Ladoga, the road of life.
The conditions in Leningrad are some of the worst ever before seen in the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. For this time, there would be none of the blitzkrieg or fast maneuver warfare that had crushed the defenses at the western border so quickly. No. This time, Hitler meant to starve Leningrad.
To death or destruction, whichever came first. (Not that there was a difference, really.)
The woman and children felt the bulk of the starvation, though all those at Leningrad starved. Rations were cut down to half a slice of bread per per day- the wheat cut with sawdust. And these rations were for the workers who built the trenches and the soldiers who manned them. The civilians, had even less, and sometimes even had to fend for themselves.
People died of hunger. People died of the cold. People died of pure tiredness. Death became a common sight on the streets of Leningrad. Bodies were buried under the snow and forgotten usually, but in the worst cases, dug up and eaten by those desperate for any type of food- even it be human meat.
To put it short, conditions were terrible. Yet people survived. People like Tanya Fyodorova, one of the many civilians trapped in the siege.
Tanya Fyodorova was a girl on the cusp of adulthood. A girl nearly a woman she was around fourteen years of age. This year would see her fifteenth birthday, if she lived long enough. Her family had been trapped in Leningrad since the siege begun, with only one of her older brothers, Mikhail, escaping the siege for dint of having gone to the countryside to obtain work before the war started. Thus, the whole family contributed to the war effort.
Her mother worked as a tailor for the soldiers- sewing together the uniforms needed to clothe them and patching together the worn-out coats they wore to keep the heavy winter cold away. Her eldest sister, Mariya, had worked at the munitions factory to assemble weapons before she was rendered bedridden and on the brink of death from the effort of her labors. (She had never been particularly strong to begin with and the conditions of the siege had only exacerbated the problems of her frail body.) Her older brother, Nikolai worked as a naval architect in one of Leningrad's many Baltic shipyards. Her two younger sisters, Lydia and Svetlana, dug trenches and served in the firewatch. And Tanya?
Tanya worked as a runner in the trenches. She brought the soldiers in the trenches whatever they needed from the main supply dump, mostly ammunition, and carried messages from trench to trench. It was there, when her life changed.
"Tanya!" Fyodor Nikolaich called. He waved a hand clad in a threadbare rags at her as she scrambled into the trench under the impacts of another German artillery bombardment. "What have you brought for us this time? Is it news? Ammunition? Orders?"
Tanya spent a few moments gasping for breath before she answered. "Nikolay sent me to tell you the Germans are massing in this sector. He thinks they mean to seize this position to direct artillery on the Road of Life."
This was serious news indeed. The Road of Life was the only supply line in and out of besieged Leningrad, a dangerous supply route over frozen Lake Ladoga. Many civilians owed an escape from the city thanks to the road, and thousands more owed their lives to the precious food it brought in. It could not be allowed to be compromised.
Fyodor spit a globule which instantly froze before it even hit the floor. "Damn fascisti. Always up to something." He glared out balefully across the no-man's-land before he turned to Tanya against with a softer tone. "Are you cold? Let's get you something hot."
"Yes," Tanya accepted the offer with a grateful sniffle. "That would be much appreciated Fyodor Nikolaich."
They adjourned to a small slightly more dug out part of the trench, where Fyodor's compatriots were sitting around a small kettle stove trying to warm their hands. They looked up Tanya approached, hunched down in her thick coat trying to keep warm in the cold Leningrad winter.
"You fools, look alive, we have a pretty rosey-cheeked maiden with us," shouted Fyodor. Tanya appreciated the comment but she didn't feel very pretty or rosey-cheeked at the moment. She just felt tired, mostly. Tired and cold.
"Ho, Tanya." Pyotr Ivanovich waved at Tanya and held out a small tin cup of a boiling hot beverage, which Tanya took gratefully. It couldn't be quite called tea- the leaves were of too poor quality to be called that, but it certainly was some sort of boiled plant soup. "What news?"
"Pyotr give her time to finish the drink at least," Fyodor scowled at the man while pulling up a seat for the young girl. "There's no need to go rushing her for news."
"No, no, it's fine," Tanya protested weakly. She was a bit uncomfortable with all the attention to be placed on her to be honest. "I should give the news, anyway."
"Ha!" Ivan Sergeyevich let out a short dry barking laugh. "You treat the girl with too much care, Fyodor. She is not your daughter, and she is not made of porcelain. Russian girls are built tough."
His comment found fertile ground in the men besides him, and soon Fyodor's busybody nature was drawing laughter from all around. Tanya sat in the midst of the heckling and joking and sipped at her hot drink watching the others rib Fyodor.
"So, how are things in the city?" Pyotr asked under the crowd of the noise. "I had heard they stopped distributing food to the people."
Tanya's eyes dipped as she remembered the start of the year. "...the start of the year was bad. A lot of people couldn't even get their bread rations... there were a lot bodies in the streets..."
That single moment drew out into a small lull as Tanya's memories drew her away from the present. But, it didn't last too long before Tanya shook them away with a brush of her head. "But, they started handing out bread around halfway last month again, so it didn't last for that long. The situation is still.... bad, but it's not as bad as before."
"...I see," Pytor said, letting the words trail off at the end. He seemed like he didn't know how to respond to that. "Then they have started giving the bread again, so it is not as bad anymore, right?"
Tanya looked away again. "People started murdering each other in the streets for ration cards when the year started, and it hasn't stopped yet...."
Dmitri Ilyich, who had been sitting to Tanya's other side, snarled. "Idiots. Instead of killing each other, if they want to take lives, they should be taking the lives of the fascisti. Then, they might be doing something worthwhile with their killing."
Tanya clutched her cup tighter, and was about to respond before a heavy concussive thud knocked the words out of her mouth. Out of everyone's mouth. The tiny dug out not-quite-big-enough-to-be-called-a-bunker trembled, and some of the men inside were even knocked to the ground.
Fyodor was the first to regain his wits. "It's an artillery barrage! The fascisti are attacking!"
"Then let's not sit around here like fools!" Second Lieutenant Pyotr Ivanovich Sidorov started kicking his squad into action. "Stepan Nikiforovich, get the anti tank rifle and take Ivan Petrovich with you. I want you to find somewhere to set it up because the fascisti definitely have armor rolling if they're attacking. Dmitri Ilyich, take your team and set up the Degtyaryov. Nikolai Petrovich, you too. The rest of you, get to your foxholes, this instant!"
The clatter of boots on dirt resounded as men rushed to augmented the threadbare early warning watch. Fyodor snatched his Mosin-Nagant and made to join them, but Pyotr pulled him back by his shoulder. "Not you, Pyotr. You and Tanya come with me."
The trenches were filled with the crack-crack sound of rifle fire downrange as Pyotr led Fyodor and Tanya off to find a better vantage position. "Fyodor what message did Tanya bring?" Pyotr asked the soldier quickly as a mortar round streaked over their heads.
"The fascisti are coming to try to take this position to direct artillery," Fyodor relayed hurriedly. "On the road of life."
Pytor growled. "We cannot let them. Fyodor, establish a line of connection to our flanks, they cannot be caught off guard. Tanya, you must run back to company headquarters to report-"
There was the sudden concussive blast of a mortar shot and then Tanya slammed into the side of a trench, ear ringing. She looked drowsily from side to side, vision blurred.
Through the haze she could vaguely see Pyotr howling out orders. She heard the boom-boom of the Dashka heavy machine gun, and the rapid chattering of the two Degtyaryov light machine guns, along with the intermittent crack-boom of the PTRD. There were the screams of men as they fell in their places, trying desperately to hold the Germans off.
Gradually, the ringing in her ears cleared enough and she regained enough sense to force herself back onto her feet, crawling off the floor to cling onto the parapet next to Pytor.
She looked up, and was not pleased by what she saw. Rather than just a small detachment of probing troops, it looked instead like they were being assaulted by multiple companies worth of tanks and men. She watched the PTRD barely miss the vulnerable track of a Panzer IV, right before its 75mm gun rotated, depressed, and blew Dmitri and his weapon team to bloody chunks, with its infantry advancing behind the tank firing away with their smallarms all the while.
"Tanya!" She felt someone grab a hold of both her shoulders, and looked up to see Pytor there with a frantic expression. "Run to headquarters, tell them that we have a major force set to punch through and that they must deploy the reserves immediately. This is not-"
Whatever he was going to say next, he didn't quite finish, because a line of 7.92 Mauser stitched a line of holes up from his chest to the top of his head, and he fell backwards, choking on blood in his death throes.
Tanya fell backwards, shocked. She felt something wet and warm dripping down her head, and reached up to realize that it was her own blood that was dripping down.
...she was going to die here, wasn't she? Trapped by unlucky timing, doomed to die in a battle that she couldn't affect in any way whatsoever. Another civilian casualty to add to the innumerable amount already generated by this war. Another one to be recorded in the ones that would.
No. Tanya shook her head as she felt her resolve steel. She wasn't going to die here. She wasn't going to die to these damn fascisti who encroached and despoiled her motherland. At least, not without a fight.
If she was going to die, she was going to go out swinging. She'd make her sacrifice count for something.
Now... all she had to do was figure out how to accomplish that.
Primary method of killing fascisti?
[ ] Tanya's eyes fell upon a rifle. Mosin-Nagant. Bolt action, five shot magazine, reliable if not advanced.
[ ] Mosin-Nagant. No bullets. Tanya snarled. No ammunition.... but there was still a bayonet.
[ ] The men were faltering. Crumbling. They needed someone to rally them. Tanya sung to the air. "Za Rodina!"
[ ] Her eyes swung to the tank. Panzer IVD. 75mm gun, terrible German design. But usable. She just had to get in it.
Jemnite Says: Never play Red Orchestra 2 and watch Madoka at the same time. It does weird stuff to your brain.
Siege.
Siege and starvation are the two words that describe the sorry state of affairs of the historic city once upon a time known as Saint Petersburg. For almost half a year now, Leningrad has been put under the gun and siege. The Wehrmacht have shelled relentlessly, the Luftwaffe bombed relentless, and the... well, the Italians have sent a naval detachment to harass the only thin supply line snaking its way across Lake Ladoga, the road of life.
The conditions in Leningrad are some of the worst ever before seen in the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War. For this time, there would be none of the blitzkrieg or fast maneuver warfare that had crushed the defenses at the western border so quickly. No. This time, Hitler meant to starve Leningrad.
To death or destruction, whichever came first. (Not that there was a difference, really.)
The woman and children felt the bulk of the starvation, though all those at Leningrad starved. Rations were cut down to half a slice of bread per per day- the wheat cut with sawdust. And these rations were for the workers who built the trenches and the soldiers who manned them. The civilians, had even less, and sometimes even had to fend for themselves.
People died of hunger. People died of the cold. People died of pure tiredness. Death became a common sight on the streets of Leningrad. Bodies were buried under the snow and forgotten usually, but in the worst cases, dug up and eaten by those desperate for any type of food- even it be human meat.
To put it short, conditions were terrible. Yet people survived. People like Tanya Fyodorova, one of the many civilians trapped in the siege.
Tanya Fyodorova was a girl on the cusp of adulthood. A girl nearly a woman she was around fourteen years of age. This year would see her fifteenth birthday, if she lived long enough. Her family had been trapped in Leningrad since the siege begun, with only one of her older brothers, Mikhail, escaping the siege for dint of having gone to the countryside to obtain work before the war started. Thus, the whole family contributed to the war effort.
Her mother worked as a tailor for the soldiers- sewing together the uniforms needed to clothe them and patching together the worn-out coats they wore to keep the heavy winter cold away. Her eldest sister, Mariya, had worked at the munitions factory to assemble weapons before she was rendered bedridden and on the brink of death from the effort of her labors. (She had never been particularly strong to begin with and the conditions of the siege had only exacerbated the problems of her frail body.) Her older brother, Nikolai worked as a naval architect in one of Leningrad's many Baltic shipyards. Her two younger sisters, Lydia and Svetlana, dug trenches and served in the firewatch. And Tanya?
Tanya worked as a runner in the trenches. She brought the soldiers in the trenches whatever they needed from the main supply dump, mostly ammunition, and carried messages from trench to trench. It was there, when her life changed.
"Tanya!" Fyodor Nikolaich called. He waved a hand clad in a threadbare rags at her as she scrambled into the trench under the impacts of another German artillery bombardment. "What have you brought for us this time? Is it news? Ammunition? Orders?"
Tanya spent a few moments gasping for breath before she answered. "Nikolay sent me to tell you the Germans are massing in this sector. He thinks they mean to seize this position to direct artillery on the Road of Life."
This was serious news indeed. The Road of Life was the only supply line in and out of besieged Leningrad, a dangerous supply route over frozen Lake Ladoga. Many civilians owed an escape from the city thanks to the road, and thousands more owed their lives to the precious food it brought in. It could not be allowed to be compromised.
Fyodor spit a globule which instantly froze before it even hit the floor. "Damn fascisti. Always up to something." He glared out balefully across the no-man's-land before he turned to Tanya against with a softer tone. "Are you cold? Let's get you something hot."
"Yes," Tanya accepted the offer with a grateful sniffle. "That would be much appreciated Fyodor Nikolaich."
They adjourned to a small slightly more dug out part of the trench, where Fyodor's compatriots were sitting around a small kettle stove trying to warm their hands. They looked up Tanya approached, hunched down in her thick coat trying to keep warm in the cold Leningrad winter.
"You fools, look alive, we have a pretty rosey-cheeked maiden with us," shouted Fyodor. Tanya appreciated the comment but she didn't feel very pretty or rosey-cheeked at the moment. She just felt tired, mostly. Tired and cold.
"Ho, Tanya." Pyotr Ivanovich waved at Tanya and held out a small tin cup of a boiling hot beverage, which Tanya took gratefully. It couldn't be quite called tea- the leaves were of too poor quality to be called that, but it certainly was some sort of boiled plant soup. "What news?"
"Pyotr give her time to finish the drink at least," Fyodor scowled at the man while pulling up a seat for the young girl. "There's no need to go rushing her for news."
"No, no, it's fine," Tanya protested weakly. She was a bit uncomfortable with all the attention to be placed on her to be honest. "I should give the news, anyway."
"Ha!" Ivan Sergeyevich let out a short dry barking laugh. "You treat the girl with too much care, Fyodor. She is not your daughter, and she is not made of porcelain. Russian girls are built tough."
His comment found fertile ground in the men besides him, and soon Fyodor's busybody nature was drawing laughter from all around. Tanya sat in the midst of the heckling and joking and sipped at her hot drink watching the others rib Fyodor.
"So, how are things in the city?" Pyotr asked under the crowd of the noise. "I had heard they stopped distributing food to the people."
Tanya's eyes dipped as she remembered the start of the year. "...the start of the year was bad. A lot of people couldn't even get their bread rations... there were a lot bodies in the streets..."
That single moment drew out into a small lull as Tanya's memories drew her away from the present. But, it didn't last too long before Tanya shook them away with a brush of her head. "But, they started handing out bread around halfway last month again, so it didn't last for that long. The situation is still.... bad, but it's not as bad as before."
"...I see," Pytor said, letting the words trail off at the end. He seemed like he didn't know how to respond to that. "Then they have started giving the bread again, so it is not as bad anymore, right?"
Tanya looked away again. "People started murdering each other in the streets for ration cards when the year started, and it hasn't stopped yet...."
Dmitri Ilyich, who had been sitting to Tanya's other side, snarled. "Idiots. Instead of killing each other, if they want to take lives, they should be taking the lives of the fascisti. Then, they might be doing something worthwhile with their killing."
Tanya clutched her cup tighter, and was about to respond before a heavy concussive thud knocked the words out of her mouth. Out of everyone's mouth. The tiny dug out not-quite-big-enough-to-be-called-a-bunker trembled, and some of the men inside were even knocked to the ground.
Fyodor was the first to regain his wits. "It's an artillery barrage! The fascisti are attacking!"
"Then let's not sit around here like fools!" Second Lieutenant Pyotr Ivanovich Sidorov started kicking his squad into action. "Stepan Nikiforovich, get the anti tank rifle and take Ivan Petrovich with you. I want you to find somewhere to set it up because the fascisti definitely have armor rolling if they're attacking. Dmitri Ilyich, take your team and set up the Degtyaryov. Nikolai Petrovich, you too. The rest of you, get to your foxholes, this instant!"
The clatter of boots on dirt resounded as men rushed to augmented the threadbare early warning watch. Fyodor snatched his Mosin-Nagant and made to join them, but Pyotr pulled him back by his shoulder. "Not you, Pyotr. You and Tanya come with me."
The trenches were filled with the crack-crack sound of rifle fire downrange as Pyotr led Fyodor and Tanya off to find a better vantage position. "Fyodor what message did Tanya bring?" Pyotr asked the soldier quickly as a mortar round streaked over their heads.
"The fascisti are coming to try to take this position to direct artillery," Fyodor relayed hurriedly. "On the road of life."
Pytor growled. "We cannot let them. Fyodor, establish a line of connection to our flanks, they cannot be caught off guard. Tanya, you must run back to company headquarters to report-"
There was the sudden concussive blast of a mortar shot and then Tanya slammed into the side of a trench, ear ringing. She looked drowsily from side to side, vision blurred.
Through the haze she could vaguely see Pyotr howling out orders. She heard the boom-boom of the Dashka heavy machine gun, and the rapid chattering of the two Degtyaryov light machine guns, along with the intermittent crack-boom of the PTRD. There were the screams of men as they fell in their places, trying desperately to hold the Germans off.
Gradually, the ringing in her ears cleared enough and she regained enough sense to force herself back onto her feet, crawling off the floor to cling onto the parapet next to Pytor.
She looked up, and was not pleased by what she saw. Rather than just a small detachment of probing troops, it looked instead like they were being assaulted by multiple companies worth of tanks and men. She watched the PTRD barely miss the vulnerable track of a Panzer IV, right before its 75mm gun rotated, depressed, and blew Dmitri and his weapon team to bloody chunks, with its infantry advancing behind the tank firing away with their smallarms all the while.
"Tanya!" She felt someone grab a hold of both her shoulders, and looked up to see Pytor there with a frantic expression. "Run to headquarters, tell them that we have a major force set to punch through and that they must deploy the reserves immediately. This is not-"
Whatever he was going to say next, he didn't quite finish, because a line of 7.92 Mauser stitched a line of holes up from his chest to the top of his head, and he fell backwards, choking on blood in his death throes.
Tanya fell backwards, shocked. She felt something wet and warm dripping down her head, and reached up to realize that it was her own blood that was dripping down.
...she was going to die here, wasn't she? Trapped by unlucky timing, doomed to die in a battle that she couldn't affect in any way whatsoever. Another civilian casualty to add to the innumerable amount already generated by this war. Another one to be recorded in the ones that would.
No. Tanya shook her head as she felt her resolve steel. She wasn't going to die here. She wasn't going to die to these damn fascisti who encroached and despoiled her motherland. At least, not without a fight.
If she was going to die, she was going to go out swinging. She'd make her sacrifice count for something.
Now... all she had to do was figure out how to accomplish that.
Primary method of killing fascisti?
[ ] Tanya's eyes fell upon a rifle. Mosin-Nagant. Bolt action, five shot magazine, reliable if not advanced.
[ ] Mosin-Nagant. No bullets. Tanya snarled. No ammunition.... but there was still a bayonet.
[ ] The men were faltering. Crumbling. They needed someone to rally them. Tanya sung to the air. "Za Rodina!"
[ ] Her eyes swung to the tank. Panzer IVD. 75mm gun, terrible German design. But usable. She just had to get in it.
Jemnite Says: Never play Red Orchestra 2 and watch Madoka at the same time. It does weird stuff to your brain.
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List of Characters
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
персонажu
русские
=>Magical Girls
Tanya Nikolayevna Fyodorova (Protagonist)
Olga (Precog)
Anna (Power)
Sofie (Speed)
Natasha (Elemental)
=>Soldiers
Jr. Sgt. Fyodor Nikolaich Savichev
Sn. Sgt. Dmitri Ilyich Belkin
Pvt. Sergei Mikhailovich
Pvt. Ivan Sergeyevich Arseniev
Pvt. Aleksandr Kostantinovich
Deutsche
American
-
Name: Tanya Nikolayevna Fyodorova
Age: 14
Family:Nikolai Nikolaich Fyodorov (Father), Yevdokia Ignatievna Fyodorova née Arsenieva (Mother),Mariya Nikolayevna Fyodorova (Elder Sister), Nikolai Nikolaich Fyodorov (Older Brother), Mikhail Nikolaich Fyodorov (Older Brother), Lydia Nikolayevna Fyodorova (Younger Sister), Svetlana Nikolayevna Fyodorova (Younger Sister)
Personality: Bitter
Magic:
Attribute Divine Power Special Knacks Body ★ Mind ★★ More Dakka; Charisma ★★★ Return Beyond the Grave; -
Name: Olga
Age: 12
Family:
Personality: Shy
Magic:
Attribute Divine Power Special Knacks Body Mind ★★★ Sight Beyond Sight; Charisma -
Name: Natasha
Age: 14
Family:
Personality:
Magic:
Attribute Divine Power Special Knacks Body ★ The Cold Can't Bother Me Anyways; Mind Charisma ★★★ Let the Storm Rage On; -
Name: Sofie
Age: 14
Family: Anna (Older Sister)
Personality:
Magic:
Attribute Divine Power Special Knacks Body ★★★ Ride the Lightning; Mind ★ Hyperactive; Charisma -
Name: Anna
Age: 15
Family: Sofie (Younger Sister)
Personality:
Magic:
Attribute Divine Power Special Knacks Body ★★★ Might Beyond Might; Mind Charisma ★ Fear Thy Wrath;
Last edited:
Rally
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
восстановление
Tanya crawled up from her knees and onto her feet, peeking out slightly over the lip of the trench to catch sight of the advancing Germans. She counted them. Three Panzer IVs, armed with a short stubby 75mm and about 50mm of frontal armor on the hull and turret. There were two MG34s in the tank, one mounted co-axial in the turret, and one mounted in the hull. Essentially impervious to all the anti-tank armaments the men had here, these three Panzer IVs formed the spearhead of a company sized detachment about to overrun this small entrenchment. Behind them were shock troops armed with MP40s, Gewehr 41s, and Karabiner 98Ks, who every so often snap off a burst of fire to suppress those in the trenches.
Tanya quickly ducked down again, just in time to avoid a scattering of bullets across her former position as a hull gunner in one of the tanks noticed a pair of eyes peeking out over the edge of the trench. Tanya clutched her chest as she tried to calm her breathing down from the rapid jack hammering it was doing in her chest- a side effect of a near death experience.
She'd seen what she needed to. There was no way she was going to make a difference by going over the top. There was no way she could make a difference like that.
Instead she moved towards where she remembered where one of the heavy machine gun emplacements had been, hugging the wall to make sure she wouldn't get caught by a stray burst of fire across the edge of the trench.
It was a bit of a surprise to her when she found no one manning it. The weapon emplacement had long gone silent in a burst of fury and flame as a 75mm HE round had destroyed the gun and its entire crew.
...no, that wasn't quite right. Not its entire crew. Tanya found someone shivering in the corner, huddled up into a ball.
Tanya crawled over to him and pushed him, knocking him momentarily out of his catatonic state. "What are you doing Sergei Mikhailovich? Why are you just hiding here?"
He murmured something Tanya couldn't quite hear. She shook him again. "Sergei Mikhailovich, get up! The facists are about to overrun us!"
For a second, it seemed like this time he would get up, but the thunderous thud of some mortar rounds falling from the heaven like lightning broke through the silence, and the moment of action sparking in his eyes went out as he huddled up even tighter than before.
Tanya gave him a sigh of disgusted, and instead crawled to the lip of the machine gun emplacement. She carefully crept up the side once more. This time being up on a hill, she had a much better view of the battle unfolding below.
None of it was good.
To her left, she could see vicious hand to hand combat as the German shock troops leapt into the trenches and began clearing them out of any remaining beleaguered Russian defenders. To the right, she watched men actually get out of the trenches and flee, only to be cut down by machine gun fire.
They were being overrun. They were being overrun, and there was nothing that Tanya could do.
An image appeared in her mind, faint and wavering. Of a woman, a mother dressed in tattered working clothes, with a red flag draped over her shoulders like a shawl. In one of her eyes a faded doubled-headed eagle, slowly being chipped away by hammer and sickle. She was beaten bruised and bloody. But... she was alive. And there is fight left in her eyes.
...no. There had to be something she could do. Had to be. Her eyes swept across the running troops. The battle wasn't lost yet. If they only turned back... turned back to fight!
She stretched out a hand, glowing with power. 'Take it,' the woman whispered. 'Take it and become my champion.'
If Pytor was here, he could have rallied him. They would have listened to their commander, his strong voice and brave heart. He had kept their spirits up all throughout the cold siege, despite lack of food and proper equipment. He had kept their faith despite all that the Germans had thrown at them. He could have rallied them.
Tanya stretched out a hand, tentative and questing. Her fingers fumbled with the other woman's grasp before she managed to clutch her hand. Their eyes met. And the woman smiled.
But he was dead. So in his stead, a malnourished, undereducated, scared and shaken Russian fourteen year old girl would have to do.
'Go. Save me.'
Tanya took in a single deep breath, and them she screamed. "Stop running! Stand...
...and...
...fight!"
Her voice ripped throughout the battlefield in an almost hypnotic fashion which captured the hearts and minds of almost ever soldier present. Laced with a thread of courage, it wove its way into every Russian soldier's heart and stiffened their own wills. Images flashed through their minds, and they began to remember what they were fighting for.
And suddenly, they turned back, running and crouching under streaks of green tracer to once again man their positions. The men in the trenches drove back the Germans they were fighting with renewed vigor. A warcry rose out from the soldiers on the ground.
"Za Rodinu!"
Tanya stood, not quite able to believe what her voice had wrought. She looked disbelieving at the changes across the battlefield, and then at down at her hands. For some reason, they were illuminated in a somewhat red glow. Why was that, she wondered. How strange. Then she looked up and saw the reason why.
Behind her, stretching wide, was a banner stretching out behind, deep crimson red and bright like the sun. Within that wide stretching banner was a woman, with wide hips and a voluptuous figure, bundled in thick warm clothing fit for working in. In one hand, she carried a basket of beets, in the other a toolbox. But her eyes, her eyes were the most striking. In one eye was a golden double-headed eagle. In the other, a hammer and sickle.
Tanya started up at the woman, spellbound. Her lips opened unconsciously and without thinking she whispered. "Mother..."
"Get down!" Suddenly, there was a weight around her shoulders, and she toppled to the ground. there was a ripple in the air behind her, and she felt some of the burst of a 75mm shell behind her. She looked back alarmed, to find Sergei Mikhailovich there, covering her with his own body.
He grunted, with the force of the explosions, having take most of it, and then grabbed her shoulders, looking straight into her face. "The Fascisti are targeting you! Don't stop!"
"...don't stop?" Tanya asked in a befuddled tone. What was going on? A second ago, she was sure she was going to die, but now suddenly there was a giant woman behind her and she was glowing with a red light and there was seriously something strange going on.
"Don't stop whatever you were doing!" Sergei told her while grabbing his own rifle off the ground and raising it up to join in the attack. "The men need you!"
Oh. Right.
Tanya readied her voice once more. "Get up! Get up and drive back the Germans!"
"Get up!"
This time, instead of the clear resonating there had been last time, there was a rumbling. Tremors snaked their way across the ground. The ground soaked with blood shook, and then more bodies rose to join the fight.
Dead bodies.
Dead bodies that spoke. "Za Stalina!" They cried.
Tanya watched from her perch as the dead attacked. There, was the body of Pytor Ivanovich sprinted towards an enemy Panzer IV at full speed, ignoring bullets that ripped its way through its corpse. There was Dmitri Ilyich firing his light machine gun from his hip, full auto. A horde of dead clambered onto a tank to immobilize it, while one primed a grenade, clawing off the cupola hatch with a surge of unnatural strength.
Tanya slumped against the ground, a strange mix of exhilaration and terror filling her. She had just brought the dead back to life.
What was she?
How did she react?
[ ] With horror
[ ] With caution
[ ] With conviction
[ ] With regret
Jemnite Says: I uh, was going to put an informational A/N at the bottom about WW2, but the dead didn't actually rise up to fight the germans no matter what soviet propaganda might or might not have said so... uh, next part!
Tanya crawled up from her knees and onto her feet, peeking out slightly over the lip of the trench to catch sight of the advancing Germans. She counted them. Three Panzer IVs, armed with a short stubby 75mm and about 50mm of frontal armor on the hull and turret. There were two MG34s in the tank, one mounted co-axial in the turret, and one mounted in the hull. Essentially impervious to all the anti-tank armaments the men had here, these three Panzer IVs formed the spearhead of a company sized detachment about to overrun this small entrenchment. Behind them were shock troops armed with MP40s, Gewehr 41s, and Karabiner 98Ks, who every so often snap off a burst of fire to suppress those in the trenches.
Tanya quickly ducked down again, just in time to avoid a scattering of bullets across her former position as a hull gunner in one of the tanks noticed a pair of eyes peeking out over the edge of the trench. Tanya clutched her chest as she tried to calm her breathing down from the rapid jack hammering it was doing in her chest- a side effect of a near death experience.
She'd seen what she needed to. There was no way she was going to make a difference by going over the top. There was no way she could make a difference like that.
Instead she moved towards where she remembered where one of the heavy machine gun emplacements had been, hugging the wall to make sure she wouldn't get caught by a stray burst of fire across the edge of the trench.
It was a bit of a surprise to her when she found no one manning it. The weapon emplacement had long gone silent in a burst of fury and flame as a 75mm HE round had destroyed the gun and its entire crew.
...no, that wasn't quite right. Not its entire crew. Tanya found someone shivering in the corner, huddled up into a ball.
Tanya crawled over to him and pushed him, knocking him momentarily out of his catatonic state. "What are you doing Sergei Mikhailovich? Why are you just hiding here?"
He murmured something Tanya couldn't quite hear. She shook him again. "Sergei Mikhailovich, get up! The facists are about to overrun us!"
For a second, it seemed like this time he would get up, but the thunderous thud of some mortar rounds falling from the heaven like lightning broke through the silence, and the moment of action sparking in his eyes went out as he huddled up even tighter than before.
Tanya gave him a sigh of disgusted, and instead crawled to the lip of the machine gun emplacement. She carefully crept up the side once more. This time being up on a hill, she had a much better view of the battle unfolding below.
None of it was good.
To her left, she could see vicious hand to hand combat as the German shock troops leapt into the trenches and began clearing them out of any remaining beleaguered Russian defenders. To the right, she watched men actually get out of the trenches and flee, only to be cut down by machine gun fire.
They were being overrun. They were being overrun, and there was nothing that Tanya could do.
An image appeared in her mind, faint and wavering. Of a woman, a mother dressed in tattered working clothes, with a red flag draped over her shoulders like a shawl. In one of her eyes a faded doubled-headed eagle, slowly being chipped away by hammer and sickle. She was beaten bruised and bloody. But... she was alive. And there is fight left in her eyes.
...no. There had to be something she could do. Had to be. Her eyes swept across the running troops. The battle wasn't lost yet. If they only turned back... turned back to fight!
She stretched out a hand, glowing with power. 'Take it,' the woman whispered. 'Take it and become my champion.'
If Pytor was here, he could have rallied him. They would have listened to their commander, his strong voice and brave heart. He had kept their spirits up all throughout the cold siege, despite lack of food and proper equipment. He had kept their faith despite all that the Germans had thrown at them. He could have rallied them.
Tanya stretched out a hand, tentative and questing. Her fingers fumbled with the other woman's grasp before she managed to clutch her hand. Their eyes met. And the woman smiled.
But he was dead. So in his stead, a malnourished, undereducated, scared and shaken Russian fourteen year old girl would have to do.
'Go. Save me.'
Tanya took in a single deep breath, and them she screamed. "Stop running! Stand...
...and...
...fight!"
Her voice ripped throughout the battlefield in an almost hypnotic fashion which captured the hearts and minds of almost ever soldier present. Laced with a thread of courage, it wove its way into every Russian soldier's heart and stiffened their own wills. Images flashed through their minds, and they began to remember what they were fighting for.
And suddenly, they turned back, running and crouching under streaks of green tracer to once again man their positions. The men in the trenches drove back the Germans they were fighting with renewed vigor. A warcry rose out from the soldiers on the ground.
"Za Rodinu!"
Tanya stood, not quite able to believe what her voice had wrought. She looked disbelieving at the changes across the battlefield, and then at down at her hands. For some reason, they were illuminated in a somewhat red glow. Why was that, she wondered. How strange. Then she looked up and saw the reason why.
Behind her, stretching wide, was a banner stretching out behind, deep crimson red and bright like the sun. Within that wide stretching banner was a woman, with wide hips and a voluptuous figure, bundled in thick warm clothing fit for working in. In one hand, she carried a basket of beets, in the other a toolbox. But her eyes, her eyes were the most striking. In one eye was a golden double-headed eagle. In the other, a hammer and sickle.
Tanya started up at the woman, spellbound. Her lips opened unconsciously and without thinking she whispered. "Mother..."
"Get down!" Suddenly, there was a weight around her shoulders, and she toppled to the ground. there was a ripple in the air behind her, and she felt some of the burst of a 75mm shell behind her. She looked back alarmed, to find Sergei Mikhailovich there, covering her with his own body.
He grunted, with the force of the explosions, having take most of it, and then grabbed her shoulders, looking straight into her face. "The Fascisti are targeting you! Don't stop!"
"...don't stop?" Tanya asked in a befuddled tone. What was going on? A second ago, she was sure she was going to die, but now suddenly there was a giant woman behind her and she was glowing with a red light and there was seriously something strange going on.
"Don't stop whatever you were doing!" Sergei told her while grabbing his own rifle off the ground and raising it up to join in the attack. "The men need you!"
Oh. Right.
Tanya readied her voice once more. "Get up! Get up and drive back the Germans!"
"Get up!"
This time, instead of the clear resonating there had been last time, there was a rumbling. Tremors snaked their way across the ground. The ground soaked with blood shook, and then more bodies rose to join the fight.
Dead bodies.
Dead bodies that spoke. "Za Stalina!" They cried.
Tanya watched from her perch as the dead attacked. There, was the body of Pytor Ivanovich sprinted towards an enemy Panzer IV at full speed, ignoring bullets that ripped its way through its corpse. There was Dmitri Ilyich firing his light machine gun from his hip, full auto. A horde of dead clambered onto a tank to immobilize it, while one primed a grenade, clawing off the cupola hatch with a surge of unnatural strength.
Tanya slumped against the ground, a strange mix of exhilaration and terror filling her. She had just brought the dead back to life.
What was she?
How did she react?
[ ] With horror
[ ] With caution
[ ] With conviction
[ ] With regret
Jemnite Says: I uh, was going to put an informational A/N at the bottom about WW2, but the dead didn't actually rise up to fight the germans no matter what soviet propaganda might or might not have said so... uh, next part!
Zealotry
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
фанатизм
What was she?
What had she just done?
She had raised the dead from their eternal slumber and roused men to fight with just her voice. She had disturbed the sanctity of the dead and chained men to the yoke of her voice. Either way Tanya took it, there were clearly abnormal actions only fit by someone who wasn't normal.
Wasn't entirely human.
And if she wasn't entirely human what was she? Tanya hugged herself, huddled in the ice cold snow, a cold she could no longer feel, and began to approach her breaking point.
Meanwhile topside, the horde of zombies still fought alongside their still living brethren in a undead mockery of the lives they had led as soldiers before. The corpse of Pytor Ivanovich watched with unblinking eyes as the interior of one of the three Panzer IVs leading the attack suffered an an internal fragmentation grenade explosions with a muffled thompf, surely splattering all crewmembers on the inside to a fine mist.
There was still a pale shade of intelligence behind those undead, unblinking eyes. A facsimile of the man Pytor had been watched his undead troop clamber off the tank, wading into machine fire without a care as they charged another platoon of terrified fleeing Germans.
He knew why he had been sent to fight. The mother land needed him, so much that it had torn him away from the slumber of the dead. Little Tanya's voice had reached to him, across across the shroud.
He also knew the price he had to pay. Every second he spent in the world of the living, every movement he took, more and more of his soul was burned away. There would be nothing left of him to return to the grave, perhaps. His self would be spent along with his body on this field of battle.
But he would pay that price. Whether it was an compulsion placed upon him by the magic that had called him back, or his own mind that thought that, it didn't matter. Either way it would be done.
A squad of his living dead stomped up to him, broken and ragged in places, and waited for orders. They were a ragged bunch, quite literally, some missing limbs, some with large gaping holes punched through them. The corpse of Stepan Nikiforovich led them, the remains of light in his eyes dim and fading already. He had spent too much of himself already, failed to conserve his motions. He would gone in a moment, his hollow husk collapsed.
The same would soon happen to Pytor. But he had things to do first. He gave Stepan and the corpses behind him orders first, though.
They were to continue onwards, to try and eliminate as many Germans possible before they could make it back to their lines. Crippling Panzer IVs would be their priority, left behind there would be no way the Germans could repair it or even take it apart for parts. After that would be...
...would be...
...Pytor couldn't remember. He felt a dim sense of alarm. That was worrisome. He still had things he needed to get done. He couldn't let himself fadeaway here.
Stepan prompted him once more with a moan, and Pytor sent him on his way with the orders he had been given, irritated. He didn't have time for that. He started trudging back to the trenches. There were things he needed to get done.
There were things he needed to get done.
In the trenches towards which Pytor was trudging, was Tanya, nearing the end of her self-existential crisis. She had noticed an almost stop to the constant machine gun and tank fire, as well as the mortar barrages. The battle was almost over, then. The battle which she had either cursed or the one where she had saved the day.
She felt like a witch, an old crone from one of the tales that her mother used to tell her. But was she the good witch who aided despite her unsightly powers, of the old hag twisted and corrupted the world with her magic? Tanya hoped it was the former, but worried it was the latter.
She heard a noise, a scrabbling of dirt and rocks from the lip of the trench, and stumbled backwards, worried it was a German come to kill her. It was not, though, perhaps in some ways it was worse. It was the corpse of Pytor lurching towards her.
Tanya's limbs seized up in terror. Was he here to rebuke her for disturbing his death? Or using his corpse as a puppet to save herself? Her mind flashed in terror as her imagination drove it one with nightmarish scenarios, each more frightening than the last.
But instead of any of that, he simply lurched up to her, and placed his rifle in her hands. His jaw opened and closed- like he was trying to say something. Nothing came out at first. But after a few haltering noises where he tried to relearned how to use is vocal cords he finally spoke.
"G-g-good job."
And then he was silent and moved no more.
Tanya held his rifle in her hands, and started down at it, marveling at his words. They had perhaps arrived at the right time to tip her vacillation between self flagellation and amazement at her power.
His approval cemented her conviction that she had done not wrong bring him back. He himself, had thanked her, congratulated her. She had been guided by the spirit of the Motherland, made a living embodiment of her will.
By Tanya's reckoning, that meant she could do no wrong. She was akin to a Saint, perhaps she even was a Saint. Her every action would be holy, true, and righteous.
Her laughter began small, down deep in her throat. A burbling of chuckles at her realization of this self-evident truth and logical conclusion. But it quickly grew, and grew, and grew, until it was big and booming, emanating from the depths of her lungs as she flung her arms out to the side.
She tore off the heavy coat off Pytor's dead body, and with a golden and red flash, shoved his rifle's bayonet through it so that it hung off like a tattered banner, waving in the wind. He would need it no more, and besides, he had given his everything to her. It was all hers do with as she pleased, anyway. The coat rippled and began to change in color, shifting to red, with a tiny golden hammer and sickle bubbling up in the upper left corner. The wooden stock warped and twisted itself, until it resembled rifle stock no more, looking longer and straighter. By the time it was done reshaping itself, the entire thing looked more like a battle flag on a flagpole than a coat stabbed through with rifle bayonet.
Perfect for her needs.
"Sergei Mikhailovich!" she screamed into the air, demanding his presence. It was a few moments before he arrived, breathing heavily from his frantic sprint back to obey her demands. Tanya shoved the makeshift standard into his hands without looking back, striding away with the unspoken demand that he follower her.
"You must collect the men, Sergei Mikhailovich," she ordered. "I have been blessed with by the spirit of our rodina, and given power to carry her will. But I will need men to carry out her wishes. Men, soldiers."
"Yes!" Sergei barked, his voice full of fervor and fanaticism in her cause, and ran off immediately to fulfill her orders.
It was not soon before the men were assembled before her. Tanya set them at first to gathering any heavy weapons left upon the field, and then to scavenging ammunition off corpses.
Tanya had been supervising them before a rifleman who she had sent to keep watch ran up to her with an urgent message. His name was Aleksandr Kostantinovich, a grand name somewhat unsuited for the weedy looking youth who bore it. "Fyodor has returned with reinforcements! They bring machine guns, anti-tank guns, and ammunition and grenades."
Tanya set off immediately to meet the men sent to reinforce her. They were seven score and ten and number, almost half a company sent to reinforce a position thought to be in danger of falling. Instead, they found the battered remnants of Pytor's command with no Germans in sight.
"Tanya!" Fyodor greeted her with a wave. "Where is Pytor? I have brought the reinforcements he needed."
"Dead," Tanya replied curtly.
"....ah," Fyodor replied, mood dampened. It seemed he had been aware and prepared for the possibility, but to receive such news would ruin anyone's mood, no matter how prepared they were for it. "Then, who do the men answer to, now?"
"Me."
Fyodor did not believe her. Tanya could see it in his voice and his attitude. It infuriated her slightly, to have someone doubt that she was carrying out the divine will of Mother Russia. "Surely, you jest Tanya. The men follow you, a girl of only four and ten?"
He looked like he expected a punchline to this joke, but there was none because it was not a joke in the first place. After a few awkward moments, he cleared his throat.
"Anyway, the Germans will come again soon, I have never known them to give up easily. You should go back to the battalion headquarters, it would not do to have you caught in the middle of an attack again."
Tanya replied.
[ ] No. She would stay with her men. Her purpose was here, fighting. That was what the spirit had told her.
[ ] Yes. It rankled her to leave the front, but she needed to speak with the command anyway.
[ ] (рвение) ...he dared dictate to her? No, he would be following her commands, not the other way around.
[ ] Write in?????
Jemnite Says: Sorry I meant to update like the day before yesterday, but I came down with a rather bad one day stomach bug and spent my time in stomach pain either trying to drown it out with trivial pursuits or in the bathroom. And then I had some things to do yesterday. That said, the update's done now, so enjoy.
Also! Jemnite's factoid corner! In relation to the Panzer IV disabled and left behind, did you know that Germans did not count tank losses unless the chassis was totally totaled? If they could drag back the hull and repair it, even it it took weeks or even months, they didn't count that tank off as a loss. This is of course in comparison to allied definitions of tank losses. For Americans, if a tank took more than a day for it to be mobile and capable of combat once more it was a loss. For the British, it was two. And for the Russians, as soon as a T-34 was knocked out and incapable of fighting, it was written off as a loss.
Thus we can see that German kill-loss ratios, even if we could have trusted the tankers not to inflate their own kill counts, which even Wehrmacht high command could not, are not quite exactly accurate because of this strange definition of 'lost tank' in comparison to allied forces.
What was she?
What had she just done?
She had raised the dead from their eternal slumber and roused men to fight with just her voice. She had disturbed the sanctity of the dead and chained men to the yoke of her voice. Either way Tanya took it, there were clearly abnormal actions only fit by someone who wasn't normal.
Wasn't entirely human.
And if she wasn't entirely human what was she? Tanya hugged herself, huddled in the ice cold snow, a cold she could no longer feel, and began to approach her breaking point.
Meanwhile topside, the horde of zombies still fought alongside their still living brethren in a undead mockery of the lives they had led as soldiers before. The corpse of Pytor Ivanovich watched with unblinking eyes as the interior of one of the three Panzer IVs leading the attack suffered an an internal fragmentation grenade explosions with a muffled thompf, surely splattering all crewmembers on the inside to a fine mist.
There was still a pale shade of intelligence behind those undead, unblinking eyes. A facsimile of the man Pytor had been watched his undead troop clamber off the tank, wading into machine fire without a care as they charged another platoon of terrified fleeing Germans.
He knew why he had been sent to fight. The mother land needed him, so much that it had torn him away from the slumber of the dead. Little Tanya's voice had reached to him, across across the shroud.
He also knew the price he had to pay. Every second he spent in the world of the living, every movement he took, more and more of his soul was burned away. There would be nothing left of him to return to the grave, perhaps. His self would be spent along with his body on this field of battle.
But he would pay that price. Whether it was an compulsion placed upon him by the magic that had called him back, or his own mind that thought that, it didn't matter. Either way it would be done.
A squad of his living dead stomped up to him, broken and ragged in places, and waited for orders. They were a ragged bunch, quite literally, some missing limbs, some with large gaping holes punched through them. The corpse of Stepan Nikiforovich led them, the remains of light in his eyes dim and fading already. He had spent too much of himself already, failed to conserve his motions. He would gone in a moment, his hollow husk collapsed.
The same would soon happen to Pytor. But he had things to do first. He gave Stepan and the corpses behind him orders first, though.
They were to continue onwards, to try and eliminate as many Germans possible before they could make it back to their lines. Crippling Panzer IVs would be their priority, left behind there would be no way the Germans could repair it or even take it apart for parts. After that would be...
...would be...
...Pytor couldn't remember. He felt a dim sense of alarm. That was worrisome. He still had things he needed to get done. He couldn't let himself fadeaway here.
Stepan prompted him once more with a moan, and Pytor sent him on his way with the orders he had been given, irritated. He didn't have time for that. He started trudging back to the trenches. There were things he needed to get done.
There were things he needed to get done.
In the trenches towards which Pytor was trudging, was Tanya, nearing the end of her self-existential crisis. She had noticed an almost stop to the constant machine gun and tank fire, as well as the mortar barrages. The battle was almost over, then. The battle which she had either cursed or the one where she had saved the day.
She felt like a witch, an old crone from one of the tales that her mother used to tell her. But was she the good witch who aided despite her unsightly powers, of the old hag twisted and corrupted the world with her magic? Tanya hoped it was the former, but worried it was the latter.
She heard a noise, a scrabbling of dirt and rocks from the lip of the trench, and stumbled backwards, worried it was a German come to kill her. It was not, though, perhaps in some ways it was worse. It was the corpse of Pytor lurching towards her.
Tanya's limbs seized up in terror. Was he here to rebuke her for disturbing his death? Or using his corpse as a puppet to save herself? Her mind flashed in terror as her imagination drove it one with nightmarish scenarios, each more frightening than the last.
But instead of any of that, he simply lurched up to her, and placed his rifle in her hands. His jaw opened and closed- like he was trying to say something. Nothing came out at first. But after a few haltering noises where he tried to relearned how to use is vocal cords he finally spoke.
"G-g-good job."
And then he was silent and moved no more.
Tanya held his rifle in her hands, and started down at it, marveling at his words. They had perhaps arrived at the right time to tip her vacillation between self flagellation and amazement at her power.
His approval cemented her conviction that she had done not wrong bring him back. He himself, had thanked her, congratulated her. She had been guided by the spirit of the Motherland, made a living embodiment of her will.
By Tanya's reckoning, that meant she could do no wrong. She was akin to a Saint, perhaps she even was a Saint. Her every action would be holy, true, and righteous.
Her laughter began small, down deep in her throat. A burbling of chuckles at her realization of this self-evident truth and logical conclusion. But it quickly grew, and grew, and grew, until it was big and booming, emanating from the depths of her lungs as she flung her arms out to the side.
She tore off the heavy coat off Pytor's dead body, and with a golden and red flash, shoved his rifle's bayonet through it so that it hung off like a tattered banner, waving in the wind. He would need it no more, and besides, he had given his everything to her. It was all hers do with as she pleased, anyway. The coat rippled and began to change in color, shifting to red, with a tiny golden hammer and sickle bubbling up in the upper left corner. The wooden stock warped and twisted itself, until it resembled rifle stock no more, looking longer and straighter. By the time it was done reshaping itself, the entire thing looked more like a battle flag on a flagpole than a coat stabbed through with rifle bayonet.
Perfect for her needs.
"Sergei Mikhailovich!" she screamed into the air, demanding his presence. It was a few moments before he arrived, breathing heavily from his frantic sprint back to obey her demands. Tanya shoved the makeshift standard into his hands without looking back, striding away with the unspoken demand that he follower her.
"You must collect the men, Sergei Mikhailovich," she ordered. "I have been blessed with by the spirit of our rodina, and given power to carry her will. But I will need men to carry out her wishes. Men, soldiers."
"Yes!" Sergei barked, his voice full of fervor and fanaticism in her cause, and ran off immediately to fulfill her orders.
It was not soon before the men were assembled before her. Tanya set them at first to gathering any heavy weapons left upon the field, and then to scavenging ammunition off corpses.
Tanya had been supervising them before a rifleman who she had sent to keep watch ran up to her with an urgent message. His name was Aleksandr Kostantinovich, a grand name somewhat unsuited for the weedy looking youth who bore it. "Fyodor has returned with reinforcements! They bring machine guns, anti-tank guns, and ammunition and grenades."
Tanya set off immediately to meet the men sent to reinforce her. They were seven score and ten and number, almost half a company sent to reinforce a position thought to be in danger of falling. Instead, they found the battered remnants of Pytor's command with no Germans in sight.
"Tanya!" Fyodor greeted her with a wave. "Where is Pytor? I have brought the reinforcements he needed."
"Dead," Tanya replied curtly.
"....ah," Fyodor replied, mood dampened. It seemed he had been aware and prepared for the possibility, but to receive such news would ruin anyone's mood, no matter how prepared they were for it. "Then, who do the men answer to, now?"
"Me."
Fyodor did not believe her. Tanya could see it in his voice and his attitude. It infuriated her slightly, to have someone doubt that she was carrying out the divine will of Mother Russia. "Surely, you jest Tanya. The men follow you, a girl of only four and ten?"
He looked like he expected a punchline to this joke, but there was none because it was not a joke in the first place. After a few awkward moments, he cleared his throat.
"Anyway, the Germans will come again soon, I have never known them to give up easily. You should go back to the battalion headquarters, it would not do to have you caught in the middle of an attack again."
Tanya replied.
[ ] No. She would stay with her men. Her purpose was here, fighting. That was what the spirit had told her.
[ ] Yes. It rankled her to leave the front, but she needed to speak with the command anyway.
[ ] (рвение) ...he dared dictate to her? No, he would be following her commands, not the other way around.
[ ] Write in?????
Jemnite Says: Sorry I meant to update like the day before yesterday, but I came down with a rather bad one day stomach bug and spent my time in stomach pain either trying to drown it out with trivial pursuits or in the bathroom. And then I had some things to do yesterday. That said, the update's done now, so enjoy.
Also! Jemnite's factoid corner! In relation to the Panzer IV disabled and left behind, did you know that Germans did not count tank losses unless the chassis was totally totaled? If they could drag back the hull and repair it, even it it took weeks or even months, they didn't count that tank off as a loss. This is of course in comparison to allied definitions of tank losses. For Americans, if a tank took more than a day for it to be mobile and capable of combat once more it was a loss. For the British, it was two. And for the Russians, as soon as a T-34 was knocked out and incapable of fighting, it was written off as a loss.
Thus we can see that German kill-loss ratios, even if we could have trusted the tankers not to inflate their own kill counts, which even Wehrmacht high command could not, are not quite exactly accurate because of this strange definition of 'lost tank' in comparison to allied forces.
Stalwart
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
непоколебимый
Tanya considered his plea, looked at the men behind her, the bedraggled remnants of the unit Pytor had left behind, the blasted out trenches of ice and frost crusted dirt, the two ruined wrecks of the panzers which stood alone amidst the fallen bodies like monuments to the dead. And she shook her head and refused it.
"No," she said adamantly. "My place is here- in the trenches. If the Germans come again, I must be here to face them."
"...Tanya, this is foolishness," Fyodor said, in a much sharper tone now. Perhaps he had patience for her when he thought she was fooling around, btu he had none when she obstructed military matters. "The men will not be able to fight if they know you are in danger. Young girls should not be in the trenches."
"I am no mere young girl," Tanya contested. "You-"
"Even if you rallied the men, that does not mean you need to be here," Fyodor continued through her response. The interruption was infuriating and Tanya steamed as he continued. "The reinforcements have arrived, there are more officers now. The battlefield is not your place. It is too dangerous and too deadly."
"And Leningrad isn't?" Tanya returned in an outburst of anger. Her eyes were gleaming gold now, as she began to rant. "The city is dying by inches. It is no better to be cooped up in a prison made of concrete and steel and starve slowly to death than it is to be here in the trenches, fighting. At least here, I may have a hand in the decision of my fate."
"That decision must be paid with lives-"
"Then I shall pay it if it comes to that!" Tanya declared, slamming the butt of her battle standard into the hard dirt. Her eyes were in full glow, golden rings shining with unnatural light as she looked upon Fyodor. Her appearance should have been nothing more than a half starved girl with dirt and blood in her hair and wearing tattered and ragged, but it was something more. Something grander. Fyodor's breath caught in his throat, and he could not muster up the words to oppose her. "I am Russian, too, just like every other soldier here, and if it is my blood that must feed the dirt to drive the Germans from our land, I shed it. You will have to send me to drag me back if you think otherwise."
There was a choked silence. Tanya's glared defiantly at anyone who would dare challenge her statement. Her faith was strong. Unbreakable. She would keep to her threat.
Fyodor gave in, with a sigh. "Then, follow the Captain's orders and don't get underfoot."
Tanya grinned. She had stolen the reigns of her destiny from soldiers who had thought her just another princess in a castle and proven herself to be soldier just as much as them. Now she was the arbiter of her own destiny.
Under someone else's command, of course though. A hand clamped down on Tanya's shoulder and she turned around and looked up.
And up.
And up.
Into the face of the largest man that she had seen yet. He had a large mustache and bright eyes. "Ho, child!"
"H-ho!" Tanya waved back, a little intimidated in spite of herself by his sheer massive height. "Are you the Captain?"
The man laughed. "No, I'm just the political officer. Nikolai Nikolavich. The captain is waiting for you."
He led Tanya over to a small gathering of men and pushed his way through. The soldiers parted easily for him, both because of his tall height and possibly his rank. The same could not be said of Tanya. She felt a bit crushed trying to weave her way behind Nikolai and was a bit relieved to have reached the center.
"Vasily Aleksandrovich!" Nikolai Nikolavich called out. "I've brought the girl over to you."
Captain Vasily Aleksandrovich looked up. He was a pale sunken fellow, who looked a bit dark and gloomy. "Fyodor Nikolaich did not take her back with him? I thought she was to be taken back to battalion headquarters."
"She has refused, and is determined to remain at the front." Nikolai shrugged. "And I think you would be loathe to have the men drag her back."
Captain Vasily sighed. "You're right, it would be a waste of manpower. But I am too busy to deal with her at the moment. Do you have duties that need taking care of right now?"
"You with for me to take her off your hands?"
"If you would be so kind." Vasily inclined his head slightly.
"Very well." Nikolai led Tanya away once more. They headed up, towards the top of a small hill where there had once rested a machine gun emplacement before a 75mm shell had blown it away. "Then, child, I find myself in much interest about your role in this recent battle. I'd like to ask you some questions."
Tanya nodded.
"What did you do during the battle, such that all the men followed you?" Nikolai asked. "Fyodor took it as jest, but you were being serious, were you not? Then, why would the men follow a girl of fourteen years of age?"
"I rallied them," Tanya answered simply. "Pytor had fallen in battle. The men were on the verge of routing. And so I called out to them, and they did not. They fought back."
"I see." Nikolai Nikolaivich nodded. "Then you hold that flag of yours not simply for show, but as a standard. To remind the men what they are fighting for."
"Yes."
"Then that is good," Nikolai said with a sense of finality.
They found a spot where they could observe the men laboring below. Captain Vasily Aleksandrovich's men labored below along with the remnants of the original garrison, quickly fixing up old fortifications and building new ones. Tanya watched as they hauled 45mm anti-tank guns into dugout entrenchments, clearly prepping the anti-tank artillery for use against large amounts of armor. They set up DShKs on tripods and bipods, spaced at at regular intervals and began refilling ammo dumps as well as setting up new ones.
They were not about to get run over by another German assault. At least, not without a fight.
It wasn't long before the first artillery came streaking in again. It landed short, a few hundred meters so. Even so, Tanya and Nikolai began heading back into the trenches straight away. They met Captain Vasily there, peering out over the direction the Germans were bound to attack from.
"They've begun shelling," Nikolai observed. Vasily grunted.
"The tubes haven't been pre-sighted so most will land far or short, but they'll begin zeroing in soon as their forward observers correct," he noted, probably to Tanya who had the least experience with these sort of things. "Last time they ran into unexpectedly heavy resistance, so they'll shell for a while first, with howitzer as well as mortar. Hopefully we've dug in well enough that we can present that resistance that they expect when they finally launch their assault."
True to his words, the artillery began creeping in, closer and closer. Soon, cries began to ring out from outlying foxholes as men collapsed with wounds from shrapnel or worse.
"Vasily, the girl says during the last assault she rallied the men to fight back," Nikolai informed the captain. "She seems to stiffen them with her presence. Perhaps she could do so again."
Vasily nodded, taking the new information in stride. Surprisingly instead of then barking out an order, he turned to Tanya. "Then, where do you think you are most needed?"
Tanya thought
[ ] Here, with the command. If the time comes, I will help you rally the men.
[ ] With the anti-tank guns. The most pivotal moment with be there.
[ ] Attach me to a PTRD squad. Mobility will win the day.
[ ] I will go to the high ground with the machine gunners and kill the fascists.
[ ] Write in????
Jemnite Says: There isn't much this time to talk about, so we can just go directly to the factoid corner!
Okay, this one's about the Soviet Commissariat, otherwise known as the political officer branch! Political officers, as understood in Western fiction were usually obtrusive individuals who worked as the totalitarian enforcers of the Communist Party, keeping everyone down and frequently hated by military officers for their obtrusive interference. This was.... true a few times during the history of the Red Army but untrue for most of it. Especially not by early 1942, from which this quest starts.
The truth is that commissars did not actually exist outside 1918-24, 1937-40, and 1941-42. What existed were pompolits/помполит (assistant political officers) and after August 1942 (OTL), zampolits/замполит (deputy political officers), which were basically what we think of when we say commissars, though they were not called that. They were usually actually subordinated to the military officer (below army level) under the edinonachlie/единоначалие system which began to be phased in in 1925. This was halted during the Great Purge, but reinstated following August 1940. Political officer roles were mostly morale, discipline, and ideological indoctrination related. They did not interfere in actual military matters and often times had a good working relationship with the army officers, since most senior officers divisional level and up got to choose their own zampolit. Political officers existed at the company level and upwards.
Basically the depiction of political officers seen in works such as Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October is probably inaccurate for most political officers in their relationship with actual military officers. There might have been some friction but most got along well with their respective military officer and did not actively interfere with the running of military affairs.
Tanya considered his plea, looked at the men behind her, the bedraggled remnants of the unit Pytor had left behind, the blasted out trenches of ice and frost crusted dirt, the two ruined wrecks of the panzers which stood alone amidst the fallen bodies like monuments to the dead. And she shook her head and refused it.
"No," she said adamantly. "My place is here- in the trenches. If the Germans come again, I must be here to face them."
"...Tanya, this is foolishness," Fyodor said, in a much sharper tone now. Perhaps he had patience for her when he thought she was fooling around, btu he had none when she obstructed military matters. "The men will not be able to fight if they know you are in danger. Young girls should not be in the trenches."
"I am no mere young girl," Tanya contested. "You-"
"Even if you rallied the men, that does not mean you need to be here," Fyodor continued through her response. The interruption was infuriating and Tanya steamed as he continued. "The reinforcements have arrived, there are more officers now. The battlefield is not your place. It is too dangerous and too deadly."
"And Leningrad isn't?" Tanya returned in an outburst of anger. Her eyes were gleaming gold now, as she began to rant. "The city is dying by inches. It is no better to be cooped up in a prison made of concrete and steel and starve slowly to death than it is to be here in the trenches, fighting. At least here, I may have a hand in the decision of my fate."
"That decision must be paid with lives-"
"Then I shall pay it if it comes to that!" Tanya declared, slamming the butt of her battle standard into the hard dirt. Her eyes were in full glow, golden rings shining with unnatural light as she looked upon Fyodor. Her appearance should have been nothing more than a half starved girl with dirt and blood in her hair and wearing tattered and ragged, but it was something more. Something grander. Fyodor's breath caught in his throat, and he could not muster up the words to oppose her. "I am Russian, too, just like every other soldier here, and if it is my blood that must feed the dirt to drive the Germans from our land, I shed it. You will have to send me to drag me back if you think otherwise."
There was a choked silence. Tanya's glared defiantly at anyone who would dare challenge her statement. Her faith was strong. Unbreakable. She would keep to her threat.
Fyodor gave in, with a sigh. "Then, follow the Captain's orders and don't get underfoot."
Tanya grinned. She had stolen the reigns of her destiny from soldiers who had thought her just another princess in a castle and proven herself to be soldier just as much as them. Now she was the arbiter of her own destiny.
Under someone else's command, of course though. A hand clamped down on Tanya's shoulder and she turned around and looked up.
And up.
And up.
Into the face of the largest man that she had seen yet. He had a large mustache and bright eyes. "Ho, child!"
"H-ho!" Tanya waved back, a little intimidated in spite of herself by his sheer massive height. "Are you the Captain?"
The man laughed. "No, I'm just the political officer. Nikolai Nikolavich. The captain is waiting for you."
He led Tanya over to a small gathering of men and pushed his way through. The soldiers parted easily for him, both because of his tall height and possibly his rank. The same could not be said of Tanya. She felt a bit crushed trying to weave her way behind Nikolai and was a bit relieved to have reached the center.
"Vasily Aleksandrovich!" Nikolai Nikolavich called out. "I've brought the girl over to you."
Captain Vasily Aleksandrovich looked up. He was a pale sunken fellow, who looked a bit dark and gloomy. "Fyodor Nikolaich did not take her back with him? I thought she was to be taken back to battalion headquarters."
"She has refused, and is determined to remain at the front." Nikolai shrugged. "And I think you would be loathe to have the men drag her back."
Captain Vasily sighed. "You're right, it would be a waste of manpower. But I am too busy to deal with her at the moment. Do you have duties that need taking care of right now?"
"You with for me to take her off your hands?"
"If you would be so kind." Vasily inclined his head slightly.
"Very well." Nikolai led Tanya away once more. They headed up, towards the top of a small hill where there had once rested a machine gun emplacement before a 75mm shell had blown it away. "Then, child, I find myself in much interest about your role in this recent battle. I'd like to ask you some questions."
Tanya nodded.
"What did you do during the battle, such that all the men followed you?" Nikolai asked. "Fyodor took it as jest, but you were being serious, were you not? Then, why would the men follow a girl of fourteen years of age?"
"I rallied them," Tanya answered simply. "Pytor had fallen in battle. The men were on the verge of routing. And so I called out to them, and they did not. They fought back."
"I see." Nikolai Nikolaivich nodded. "Then you hold that flag of yours not simply for show, but as a standard. To remind the men what they are fighting for."
"Yes."
"Then that is good," Nikolai said with a sense of finality.
They found a spot where they could observe the men laboring below. Captain Vasily Aleksandrovich's men labored below along with the remnants of the original garrison, quickly fixing up old fortifications and building new ones. Tanya watched as they hauled 45mm anti-tank guns into dugout entrenchments, clearly prepping the anti-tank artillery for use against large amounts of armor. They set up DShKs on tripods and bipods, spaced at at regular intervals and began refilling ammo dumps as well as setting up new ones.
They were not about to get run over by another German assault. At least, not without a fight.
It wasn't long before the first artillery came streaking in again. It landed short, a few hundred meters so. Even so, Tanya and Nikolai began heading back into the trenches straight away. They met Captain Vasily there, peering out over the direction the Germans were bound to attack from.
"They've begun shelling," Nikolai observed. Vasily grunted.
"The tubes haven't been pre-sighted so most will land far or short, but they'll begin zeroing in soon as their forward observers correct," he noted, probably to Tanya who had the least experience with these sort of things. "Last time they ran into unexpectedly heavy resistance, so they'll shell for a while first, with howitzer as well as mortar. Hopefully we've dug in well enough that we can present that resistance that they expect when they finally launch their assault."
True to his words, the artillery began creeping in, closer and closer. Soon, cries began to ring out from outlying foxholes as men collapsed with wounds from shrapnel or worse.
"Vasily, the girl says during the last assault she rallied the men to fight back," Nikolai informed the captain. "She seems to stiffen them with her presence. Perhaps she could do so again."
Vasily nodded, taking the new information in stride. Surprisingly instead of then barking out an order, he turned to Tanya. "Then, where do you think you are most needed?"
Tanya thought
[ ] Here, with the command. If the time comes, I will help you rally the men.
[ ] With the anti-tank guns. The most pivotal moment with be there.
[ ] Attach me to a PTRD squad. Mobility will win the day.
[ ] I will go to the high ground with the machine gunners and kill the fascists.
[ ] Write in????
Jemnite Says: There isn't much this time to talk about, so we can just go directly to the factoid corner!
Okay, this one's about the Soviet Commissariat, otherwise known as the political officer branch! Political officers, as understood in Western fiction were usually obtrusive individuals who worked as the totalitarian enforcers of the Communist Party, keeping everyone down and frequently hated by military officers for their obtrusive interference. This was.... true a few times during the history of the Red Army but untrue for most of it. Especially not by early 1942, from which this quest starts.
The truth is that commissars did not actually exist outside 1918-24, 1937-40, and 1941-42. What existed were pompolits/помполит (assistant political officers) and after August 1942 (OTL), zampolits/замполит (deputy political officers), which were basically what we think of when we say commissars, though they were not called that. They were usually actually subordinated to the military officer (below army level) under the edinonachlie/единоначалие system which began to be phased in in 1925. This was halted during the Great Purge, but reinstated following August 1940. Political officer roles were mostly morale, discipline, and ideological indoctrination related. They did not interfere in actual military matters and often times had a good working relationship with the army officers, since most senior officers divisional level and up got to choose their own zampolit. Political officers existed at the company level and upwards.
Basically the depiction of political officers seen in works such as Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October is probably inaccurate for most political officers in their relationship with actual military officers. There might have been some friction but most got along well with their respective military officer and did not actively interfere with the running of military affairs.
PTRD
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
ПТРД
Tanya looked over the men for a second. Her eyes swept upwards, from the bottom. Dug in, deep within their weapon pits were 4 AT-guns, carefully camoflauged under netting and debris. They were the best the Red Army had yet still insufficient. Their stubby 45mm rounds could barely penetrate.
There, farther up the lines were groups of huddled rifleman taking cover in the trenches. They were spread out into small little fireteams of four or five men- grenades parceled out between them. In all honestly, they most likely wouldn't be any of any use once the Germans started laying heavy firepower down, they just didn't have enough weight of fire to be as effective as a man with a machine gun. However, they would be quite useful for maintaining communications through the trenches, replacing fallen weapon crew, and honestly, just the number of people was a good deterrent to a german attack. One DshK crew of three people might put out more fire than half a platoon of rifleman, but the rifleman would have the advantage when it came to maneuver and close quarters combat.
In smaller parcels were the Degtyarov light machine gun teams and the PTRD teams. The light machine gun teams would add a bit of backbone to the riflemen in the trenches. The PTRDs were for another purpose. To kill tanks. Or rather, to try to kill tanks. But the PTRD had even worse penetration than the 45mm, the only way to successfully get through that frontal armor was with an amazing lower glacis shot, or a shot to the sides, and that required the PTRD teams get around to the tank's flank, which the infantry accompaniment would certainly object to.
Behind the trenches was a somewhat high hill, the 'high ground', so to speak. If the Germans managed to capture that, it would be over. There are many heavy machine gun foxholes dug into there, to use the high angle and the good lines of sight to sweep deadly machine gun fire over the Germans once their infantry started their attack. If the tanks weren't disabled, or at least occupied before the DhsK opened up fire and revealed their position, the 75mm tank cannons would surely blast away at their positions with HE shells, leaving nothing but sunken craters where they had once been.
Tanya looked it all over, this dug in, heavily fortified position with its gun emplacement and it soldiers and made her decision. She turned to Captain Vasily Aleksandrovich. "The PTRDs have the best chance of killing enemy tanks. And we need to kill them if we are not to be overwhelmed by the Germans."
Captain Vasily nodded. "Then go. Make sure my PTRD crews do not falter."
Tanya shook her head in agreement and was about to exit the command post when Vasily called her back to add one more detail. "And child, do not have them take unnecessary risks, either. Brigade command has promised me they're deploying the reserves soon, and that means tanks. Big heavy ones. We do not have to break the Germans, just hold them off."
Tanks. Tanya's heart lifted as she heard the news. If there was going to be armor arriving soon, perhaps they might even launch a counteroffensive. Either way, they'd be able to finally counter the German armor with some of their own. She nodded, for the last time this time and then slipped out from under the hardened command post and broke out into a spring.
Mortar rounds were falling like rain around her, accompanied by the occasional howitzer, and she could feel the vibrations of the massive explosions through the air. Some unlucky foxholes had been collapsed entirely, sprawled out bodies buried under a thin layer of frozen dirt. There wasn't much a foxhole could do against heavy artillery, no matter how sturdy it was. Tanya scrambled over hurriedly, trying to keep her exposure outside of the trenches to a minimum before she dropped into one of the dugouts right next a PTRD crew.
The man holding the giant anti-tank rifle lurched forward, surprised. "Wha-"
"Captain Vasily has sent me to augment your unit," Tanya reported, briskly, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she had literally run through an artillery barrage. "My purpose is to support your morale."
"Support our morale, my ass," the gunner muttered under his breath. Tanya bristled, but he didn't seem like he noticed. "If he really wanted to help us out he'd have you stay back where we could protect you."
"I can protect myself fine," Tanya snapped. "I am the equal-"
"If you can protect yourself fine, then take this ammunition." The man shoved a box of PTRD ammunition cartridges into her arms, and Tanya hastily grabbed them all before they fall to the ground. "And follow me. I might need those later."
Tanya bit back a rebuttal. It would do no good to argue fruitlessly with this soldier, especially since he was the one who knew how to operate the anti-tank rifle. "Fine then. What's your name?"
"Sergeant Igor Artemovich," he responded once before he fell silent again, checking over his rifle again. From then, it was just tense waiting, until the Germans came once more.
It was not long to wait. The Germans did not take very long before they attack. One second, there was just still silence as the artillery hauled. Even the mortars fell quiet. A few men dared to seize the opportunity to pull the wounded back to where they could be treated.
Then, a boxy metallic image came into view. It was soon followed by more, and more, and infantry and halftracks started showing up behind them. No one spoke a word. No one fired a single bullet. The lead tank rumbled closer and closer. Tanya looked at the guns, wondering why they did not fire, but Igor held her shoulder.
"They are waiting," he explained in a whisper that Tanya felt was a bit annoying. It had a patronizing tone. "Waiting until the tanks come closer enough that they can penetrate."
The waiting was taking a pretty long time, Tanya felt. The seconds ticked by- and then the first 45mm gun discharged, to no effect, bouncing right off the side of a Panzer IV turret.
As if the shot had been the trigger to some sort of amazing magic trick, a fusillade of fire suddenly sprang out from the trenches as almost every solder within opened up fire. Bullets streamed across the air as the enemy soldiers began firing back too, and Tanya felt a tug across her shoulder as someone pulled her up and out of the trench.
"Come!" Igor demanded her in a terse voice, and Tanya rose as the four of them, Igor, her, and his other two crewmates, sprinted across the frozen dirt. A bullet shrieked by Tanya's ear and a man behind her tumbled to the ground- three then. They leapt into a half caved in foxhole, and Igor fell to the ground, bracing his rifle as the other remaining man raised his bolt action and began firing away at more oncoming soldiers.
There was a sudden crack boom, and then Igor was shaking Tanya's shoulder for another cartridge. She handed ammunition cartridges to him one by one,a little bit distracted, her a mind still trying to process the rapid changes that were happening around her.
She watched a squad of Russian soldiers charge across a field of machine gun fire before they leaped into a trench, bayonets first, to reseize it from a German fireteam that had killed its previous inhabitants. She saw one of the Panzer IVs roll to a stop, release a huge gout of fire out the top, and suddenly explode, probably from a lucky 45mm shell which had wedged itself straight into its fuel tank or ammunition storage. Her eye caught the individual parts of the battlefield, and her mind assembled the puzzle.
The Germans were being oddly reticent, she realized. Almost timid. They were keeping their distance- screening their tanks heavily, and waiting back to direct mortar fire when usually they would have just launched an infantry assault supported by a few machine guns and seized the position themselves.
It was almost like.... they were expecting the dead to rise again, just like the last battle. Tanya frowned. They were already expecting countermeasures for them.
She turned back to Igor, to watch him struggle to reload the anti-tank rifle as mortar shells rained down around them. He was muttering to the other member of the crew in a harsh voice. "Fuck bitch! Kirill Victorovich's crew has stopped firing. He's either dea- hey what are you doing?"
He was staring straight at Tanya who had suddenly risen up to shove the remaining cartridges into crew member three's arms, trading them for the bolt action in hims arms.
"I'm going to check on Kirill's gun," Tanya snapped back. She slung the rifle across her back and began to climb out of their foxhole. "Keep firing."
"The fuck you are. You can't just-"
"Keep. Firing." Tanya replied in a voice filled with power. Her eyes glowed golden red, and Igor's hands dropped back to his PTRD.
"As you command," he intoned gravely. Tanya left her gaze upon him for an additional second, and then took off, sprinting for the location of Kirill's gun. Bullets dogged her feet, the crack crack of rifle fire snapping divots ridges out of the dirt underneath her feet. She threw herself into an empty fighting hole, tumbling across the ground.
"Wha-" blurted out a voice Tanya didn't recognize, and she immediately swung around, rifle at the ready to shoot whoever it.... was a Russian soldier. She lowered the mosan-nagant a bit uncertainly.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"Y-Y-Yuri Dmytrovych," he answered in a faltering tone. "Wh-"
"Is this Kirill Victorovich's position?" Tanya cut him off. She saw a PTRD lying on the floor of the trench next to some bodies, and grabbed it. It was out of ammunition.
"H-he's dead." The poor boy looked a bit lost and battered by the death of everyone who had been in the pit with him. "He-"
"Then help me man his gun," Tanya continued without missing a beat. She peered at the weapon, trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. It's too bad Mother Russia hadn't given her knowledge of how to use gun in addition to her ability to stiffen the spines of mortal men.
"Wha-"
She was getting real tired of his 'wha-' shtick. "Didn't you hear me? Help me man hi-"
"He's dead!" Yuri suddenly screamed. He looked incensed at her callous attitude for the death of practically everyone in the trench. But for what reason Tanya couldn't exactly understand why. "Everyone here is dead, and the Germans are-"
"Going to kill you too, if you don't follow my orders." Tanya put a bit of power into her voice. There was a bit of resistance, the boy was bit cracked. From the stress probably. "Now, help me man this gun."
Yuri snarled at her, but crawled over to help her out. "You're not going to get anywhere with that- the gun's not loaded. Single shot, Kirill spent the round. Here." He handed her another cartridge. "Just load it like a bolt action."
Simple enough in theory. Tanya struggled a bit with the larger boxy round, for some damned reason her fingers were shaking, before she shoved it in. Traitorous fingers. She raised the gun up to her shoulder, aimed carefully at the nearest tank, and fired. The kick back into her shoulder was strong, but the round struck straight and true.
And.... bounced.
Oh.
That on its own was pretty bad, but the worse news was that the smoke raised by the PTRD had revealed their position for all to see. The turret of the tank rotated around with a sort of agonizing slowness, and then the gun fired. Tanya screamed "Get down!" And dropped to the floor, hands over her head.
There was a large boom, and then a ringing in her ears. Tanya turned back to Yuri. "The distance is too farr- the round didn't...."
....and where had Yuri's face gone? It took a second before Tanya realized that he had been killed by the explosion.
....oh.
A line of machine gun fire stitched its way across the lip of the foxhole, and Tanya fell back to the floor, ducking away from it. Yuri, who she had just met, was dead now. And if she didn't do something about the tank, she was going to be dead soon, too.
How did she deal with the tank problem?
[ ] She charged it to get all close up and personal with it.
[ ] She hefted up the anti-tank rifle and fought on the move.
[ ] She took the gun and made it... better.
All three options lead to new powers.
Jemnite Says: Hi sorry for the delay, I've been being lazy for the last couple of days and going to sleep early because jetlag hit me hard after I flew back from China. Special thanks to @anon_user, whose actual concern about this quest greatly encouraged me to get off my lazy ass.
Now that I've done that, let's head straight to the factoid corner! Keeping with the update name, this datacorner is about the PTRD-41! The PTRD-41 was a Red Army antitank rifle based off the Polish Model 35 anti-tank rifle which the USSR captured large amounts of when it invaded Poland in 1939, and some parts stolen from the design of the german Panzerbuchse 38. It was a single shot rifle- the semi-automatic version which can be found in many video games such as Red Orchestra is in fact its cousin, the PTRS-41. With the loss of large amounts of anti-tank artillery during the initial phases of Germany's invasion of Russia, the PTRD became very heavily used to combat tanks as a stopgap weapon despite the fact that it was generally inadequate as an anti-tank weapon. After 1943, the PTRD was generally relegated to anti-material duty rather than anti-armor duty following its poor performance in the field. It was supposed to be able to penetrate up to 40mm of armor at 100m, but in the field often failed due to the round shattering or just failure to penetrate.
Tanya looked over the men for a second. Her eyes swept upwards, from the bottom. Dug in, deep within their weapon pits were 4 AT-guns, carefully camoflauged under netting and debris. They were the best the Red Army had yet still insufficient. Their stubby 45mm rounds could barely penetrate.
There, farther up the lines were groups of huddled rifleman taking cover in the trenches. They were spread out into small little fireteams of four or five men- grenades parceled out between them. In all honestly, they most likely wouldn't be any of any use once the Germans started laying heavy firepower down, they just didn't have enough weight of fire to be as effective as a man with a machine gun. However, they would be quite useful for maintaining communications through the trenches, replacing fallen weapon crew, and honestly, just the number of people was a good deterrent to a german attack. One DshK crew of three people might put out more fire than half a platoon of rifleman, but the rifleman would have the advantage when it came to maneuver and close quarters combat.
In smaller parcels were the Degtyarov light machine gun teams and the PTRD teams. The light machine gun teams would add a bit of backbone to the riflemen in the trenches. The PTRDs were for another purpose. To kill tanks. Or rather, to try to kill tanks. But the PTRD had even worse penetration than the 45mm, the only way to successfully get through that frontal armor was with an amazing lower glacis shot, or a shot to the sides, and that required the PTRD teams get around to the tank's flank, which the infantry accompaniment would certainly object to.
Behind the trenches was a somewhat high hill, the 'high ground', so to speak. If the Germans managed to capture that, it would be over. There are many heavy machine gun foxholes dug into there, to use the high angle and the good lines of sight to sweep deadly machine gun fire over the Germans once their infantry started their attack. If the tanks weren't disabled, or at least occupied before the DhsK opened up fire and revealed their position, the 75mm tank cannons would surely blast away at their positions with HE shells, leaving nothing but sunken craters where they had once been.
Tanya looked it all over, this dug in, heavily fortified position with its gun emplacement and it soldiers and made her decision. She turned to Captain Vasily Aleksandrovich. "The PTRDs have the best chance of killing enemy tanks. And we need to kill them if we are not to be overwhelmed by the Germans."
Captain Vasily nodded. "Then go. Make sure my PTRD crews do not falter."
Tanya shook her head in agreement and was about to exit the command post when Vasily called her back to add one more detail. "And child, do not have them take unnecessary risks, either. Brigade command has promised me they're deploying the reserves soon, and that means tanks. Big heavy ones. We do not have to break the Germans, just hold them off."
Tanks. Tanya's heart lifted as she heard the news. If there was going to be armor arriving soon, perhaps they might even launch a counteroffensive. Either way, they'd be able to finally counter the German armor with some of their own. She nodded, for the last time this time and then slipped out from under the hardened command post and broke out into a spring.
Mortar rounds were falling like rain around her, accompanied by the occasional howitzer, and she could feel the vibrations of the massive explosions through the air. Some unlucky foxholes had been collapsed entirely, sprawled out bodies buried under a thin layer of frozen dirt. There wasn't much a foxhole could do against heavy artillery, no matter how sturdy it was. Tanya scrambled over hurriedly, trying to keep her exposure outside of the trenches to a minimum before she dropped into one of the dugouts right next a PTRD crew.
The man holding the giant anti-tank rifle lurched forward, surprised. "Wha-"
"Captain Vasily has sent me to augment your unit," Tanya reported, briskly, seemingly unbothered by the fact that she had literally run through an artillery barrage. "My purpose is to support your morale."
"Support our morale, my ass," the gunner muttered under his breath. Tanya bristled, but he didn't seem like he noticed. "If he really wanted to help us out he'd have you stay back where we could protect you."
"I can protect myself fine," Tanya snapped. "I am the equal-"
"If you can protect yourself fine, then take this ammunition." The man shoved a box of PTRD ammunition cartridges into her arms, and Tanya hastily grabbed them all before they fall to the ground. "And follow me. I might need those later."
Tanya bit back a rebuttal. It would do no good to argue fruitlessly with this soldier, especially since he was the one who knew how to operate the anti-tank rifle. "Fine then. What's your name?"
"Sergeant Igor Artemovich," he responded once before he fell silent again, checking over his rifle again. From then, it was just tense waiting, until the Germans came once more.
It was not long to wait. The Germans did not take very long before they attack. One second, there was just still silence as the artillery hauled. Even the mortars fell quiet. A few men dared to seize the opportunity to pull the wounded back to where they could be treated.
Then, a boxy metallic image came into view. It was soon followed by more, and more, and infantry and halftracks started showing up behind them. No one spoke a word. No one fired a single bullet. The lead tank rumbled closer and closer. Tanya looked at the guns, wondering why they did not fire, but Igor held her shoulder.
"They are waiting," he explained in a whisper that Tanya felt was a bit annoying. It had a patronizing tone. "Waiting until the tanks come closer enough that they can penetrate."
The waiting was taking a pretty long time, Tanya felt. The seconds ticked by- and then the first 45mm gun discharged, to no effect, bouncing right off the side of a Panzer IV turret.
As if the shot had been the trigger to some sort of amazing magic trick, a fusillade of fire suddenly sprang out from the trenches as almost every solder within opened up fire. Bullets streamed across the air as the enemy soldiers began firing back too, and Tanya felt a tug across her shoulder as someone pulled her up and out of the trench.
"Come!" Igor demanded her in a terse voice, and Tanya rose as the four of them, Igor, her, and his other two crewmates, sprinted across the frozen dirt. A bullet shrieked by Tanya's ear and a man behind her tumbled to the ground- three then. They leapt into a half caved in foxhole, and Igor fell to the ground, bracing his rifle as the other remaining man raised his bolt action and began firing away at more oncoming soldiers.
There was a sudden crack boom, and then Igor was shaking Tanya's shoulder for another cartridge. She handed ammunition cartridges to him one by one,a little bit distracted, her a mind still trying to process the rapid changes that were happening around her.
She watched a squad of Russian soldiers charge across a field of machine gun fire before they leaped into a trench, bayonets first, to reseize it from a German fireteam that had killed its previous inhabitants. She saw one of the Panzer IVs roll to a stop, release a huge gout of fire out the top, and suddenly explode, probably from a lucky 45mm shell which had wedged itself straight into its fuel tank or ammunition storage. Her eye caught the individual parts of the battlefield, and her mind assembled the puzzle.
The Germans were being oddly reticent, she realized. Almost timid. They were keeping their distance- screening their tanks heavily, and waiting back to direct mortar fire when usually they would have just launched an infantry assault supported by a few machine guns and seized the position themselves.
It was almost like.... they were expecting the dead to rise again, just like the last battle. Tanya frowned. They were already expecting countermeasures for them.
She turned back to Igor, to watch him struggle to reload the anti-tank rifle as mortar shells rained down around them. He was muttering to the other member of the crew in a harsh voice. "Fuck bitch! Kirill Victorovich's crew has stopped firing. He's either dea- hey what are you doing?"
He was staring straight at Tanya who had suddenly risen up to shove the remaining cartridges into crew member three's arms, trading them for the bolt action in hims arms.
"I'm going to check on Kirill's gun," Tanya snapped back. She slung the rifle across her back and began to climb out of their foxhole. "Keep firing."
"The fuck you are. You can't just-"
"Keep. Firing." Tanya replied in a voice filled with power. Her eyes glowed golden red, and Igor's hands dropped back to his PTRD.
"As you command," he intoned gravely. Tanya left her gaze upon him for an additional second, and then took off, sprinting for the location of Kirill's gun. Bullets dogged her feet, the crack crack of rifle fire snapping divots ridges out of the dirt underneath her feet. She threw herself into an empty fighting hole, tumbling across the ground.
"Wha-" blurted out a voice Tanya didn't recognize, and she immediately swung around, rifle at the ready to shoot whoever it.... was a Russian soldier. She lowered the mosan-nagant a bit uncertainly.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"Y-Y-Yuri Dmytrovych," he answered in a faltering tone. "Wh-"
"Is this Kirill Victorovich's position?" Tanya cut him off. She saw a PTRD lying on the floor of the trench next to some bodies, and grabbed it. It was out of ammunition.
"H-he's dead." The poor boy looked a bit lost and battered by the death of everyone who had been in the pit with him. "He-"
"Then help me man his gun," Tanya continued without missing a beat. She peered at the weapon, trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. It's too bad Mother Russia hadn't given her knowledge of how to use gun in addition to her ability to stiffen the spines of mortal men.
"Wha-"
She was getting real tired of his 'wha-' shtick. "Didn't you hear me? Help me man hi-"
"He's dead!" Yuri suddenly screamed. He looked incensed at her callous attitude for the death of practically everyone in the trench. But for what reason Tanya couldn't exactly understand why. "Everyone here is dead, and the Germans are-"
"Going to kill you too, if you don't follow my orders." Tanya put a bit of power into her voice. There was a bit of resistance, the boy was bit cracked. From the stress probably. "Now, help me man this gun."
Yuri snarled at her, but crawled over to help her out. "You're not going to get anywhere with that- the gun's not loaded. Single shot, Kirill spent the round. Here." He handed her another cartridge. "Just load it like a bolt action."
Simple enough in theory. Tanya struggled a bit with the larger boxy round, for some damned reason her fingers were shaking, before she shoved it in. Traitorous fingers. She raised the gun up to her shoulder, aimed carefully at the nearest tank, and fired. The kick back into her shoulder was strong, but the round struck straight and true.
And.... bounced.
Oh.
That on its own was pretty bad, but the worse news was that the smoke raised by the PTRD had revealed their position for all to see. The turret of the tank rotated around with a sort of agonizing slowness, and then the gun fired. Tanya screamed "Get down!" And dropped to the floor, hands over her head.
There was a large boom, and then a ringing in her ears. Tanya turned back to Yuri. "The distance is too farr- the round didn't...."
....and where had Yuri's face gone? It took a second before Tanya realized that he had been killed by the explosion.
....oh.
A line of machine gun fire stitched its way across the lip of the foxhole, and Tanya fell back to the floor, ducking away from it. Yuri, who she had just met, was dead now. And if she didn't do something about the tank, she was going to be dead soon, too.
How did she deal with the tank problem?
[ ] She charged it to get all close up and personal with it.
[ ] She hefted up the anti-tank rifle and fought on the move.
[ ] She took the gun and made it... better.
All three options lead to new powers.
Jemnite Says: Hi sorry for the delay, I've been being lazy for the last couple of days and going to sleep early because jetlag hit me hard after I flew back from China. Special thanks to @anon_user, whose actual concern about this quest greatly encouraged me to get off my lazy ass.
Now that I've done that, let's head straight to the factoid corner! Keeping with the update name, this datacorner is about the PTRD-41! The PTRD-41 was a Red Army antitank rifle based off the Polish Model 35 anti-tank rifle which the USSR captured large amounts of when it invaded Poland in 1939, and some parts stolen from the design of the german Panzerbuchse 38. It was a single shot rifle- the semi-automatic version which can be found in many video games such as Red Orchestra is in fact its cousin, the PTRS-41. With the loss of large amounts of anti-tank artillery during the initial phases of Germany's invasion of Russia, the PTRD became very heavily used to combat tanks as a stopgap weapon despite the fact that it was generally inadequate as an anti-tank weapon. After 1943, the PTRD was generally relegated to anti-material duty rather than anti-armor duty following its poor performance in the field. It was supposed to be able to penetrate up to 40mm of armor at 100m, but in the field often failed due to the round shattering or just failure to penetrate.
Enhance
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
усилить
Well, the first thing she needed to do Tanya decided was to get out of this fighting hole. There was no way she'd be able to fire the PTRD without bracing herself for the kickback, but they had already pinned her down- and once that 75mm reloaded, she'd be gone with the next shot.
Now the question was how she was going to do that without getting herself perforated by that MG34 suppressing her position.
She slung the PTRD back over her back and immediately started rifling through the dead bodies strewn across the bottom of her foxhole. She went through pockets, shirts, pants jackets, searching for ammunition, grenades, anything that would help her.
She exactly what she needed. A single smoke grenade, latched onto a dead soldier's waistband.
Tanya grinned. That would do. She unscrewed the cap, quickly, and with a burst of effort, hurled it off towards where the Germans were firing at her from. It took a couple of seconds to start, but soon, a cloud of white smoke filled the air, billowing every which way. The machine gun fire began to slacken and die down.
Tanya gave it another half second and them clambered out of the fighting hole, sprinting towards where she thought she had remembered where the trenches were. It was difficult to see through the billowing smoke- it obscured her own vision as well, but she pushed through it until it started to fade away.
Right into two soldiers of a startled German machine gun crew. They were firing away at some target over the horizon from behind a small defilade- and were just as startled to see Tanya as Tanya was to see them. Both Russian girl with PTRD and looted Red Army jacket and German soldiers stared at each other for a moment. Two moments. Three-
Tanya ducked right back into the smoke as the MG34 crew regained their wits and started shooting at her. She felt a stone snap up almost into her face as a bullet struck it. Rude! She unlocked a RGD-33, crewed the handle to cock it, flipped the switch to arm it, and then tossed it at where she remembered the machine gun crew to be before sprinting away. She didn't bothered to wait for the explosion, but she heard a somewhat satisfying kaboom behind her which she hoped would shut the machine gun crew up.
The smoke from the grenade had billowed downwind, towards the trenches, so when she cleared it at last, she found she was only a few short meters away. She dove into one of the outlying foxholes, right into the midst of a Russian fireteam.
"Who-" one of the men started to say, raising his rifle before he shook his head. "...you're not a fascist so it doesn't matter. Are you from one of the PTRD crews?"
Tanya nodded. "Yeah."
"Then comrade, put some iron downrange and kill one of those damn tanks, would you?" He asked, before raising his rifle again and resuming his fire on the advancing Germans.
Tanya raised the PTRD, sighted one of the Panzer IVs in the ironsights... and frowned. There was no way she was going to penetrate, she realized suddenly. Not with the PTRD at least. But one look across the battlefield told her that the tanks had to go.
The tanks were destroying them. Kicking their butts. Their close range fire support and mass of machine guns made them essentially invulnerable battering rams, set to tear down the network of tiny fortified positions that the Soviets had constructed. Tanya watched the men, screaming, running, dying and made up her mind.
She had to kill one of those tanks. There was no other choice. Even if the hardware she was given wasn't up to the task. If it wasn't good enough....
...she'd just have to make it better.
A dim glow started in her hands. It was faint, and not very powerful. A vague image unraveled itself behind her. It was out of focus and not very vibrant. But with every second, they grew. The glow of her hands became ever brighter and brighter, spreading itself across the frame of her rifle, like a creeper along the trunk of a free. The anima banner behind her grew more defined, more vibrant, spreadig across the sky.
Tanya brought that wellspring of power within her to bear on the gun. Around her, soldiers stopped firing as they stared at this miracle happening their midst. The German infantry turned their eyes away at the bright new star beginning to glow on the field of battle. One of the Panzer IV tanks, rotated its gun around, knowing that what she was trying to do would not end well for it. It leveled its cannon, putting Tanya into its sights.
It was too late. Tanya gave a single cry, and with the press of the trigger, the PTRD unleashed a streak of light which sliced right through the Panzer IV, through its frontal armor.
It cut across the battlefield, through the noise and the din and the sounds of battle, sliced straight through that too. It fell to the wayside, sliced in twain, so that only silence remained. Both sides of the battlefield stared at the golden light in amazement.
Then the Russians gave a great cry, and charged.
Tanya, however, didn't see any of that. The moment she had let loose that bolt of energy, she felt all that power she had been building up within herself release itself into the gun. The space it left behind was not filled by more. Instead, she just felt the emptiness stay, as if her wellspring had drained itself. Her strength gave away. Without the golden power that had been bolstering her beyond her limits, she felt her exhaustion come crashing back all of a sudden.
She felt her eyelids grow heavy, like mighty weights. She struggled to keep them open for a second later, but it was too much of an effort. They gave way.
And so did she.
Into darkness.
Darkness....
Darkness....
'Hello?'
Tanya blinked, and then was surprised at her ability to blink in the darkness. She... had eyes in the dark! She felt around some more and found she had arms, too! How peculiar!
Wait.... if she had eyes, and she had arms, then.... she must have a voice too. She thought about it and decided to try it out. "Hello?" she managed to call out in a somewhat croaky voice. "Who is this?"
'Who am I?' the voice questioned back. 'Who are you?'
That was Tanya's question! "I am Tanya Nikolayevna Fyodorova. My father is Nikolai Nikolaich Fyodorov, my mother is Yevdokia Ignatievna Fyodorova. I have five siblings, and I am a runner for the Red Army."
She took a deep breath of the pure inky black darkness. "Now, who are you?"
'I suppose...' the owner of the mysterious voice began, stepping forwards. As she did, Tanya felt shock run through her. The figure she saw was shaped like her, had a face like hers, except it was as if her features had all been carved onto a statue made of golden light. Except for her eyes, those were burning red. In her burning red eyes Tanya saw in one, a hammer and sickle, and in the other a two headed eagle, faint, as if fading away. On her shoulders was draped a flag of the Soviet Union, its corners dyed red in soldiers blood. She opened her mouth and finished her response. 'I suppose I'm you.'
Tanya's response was like... what?
[ ] Write
[ ] In
Jemnite Says: @Kornet has volunteered to help me out with details involving Russian names and addresses as an actual Russian! Say thanks to him, everyone. Also, no factoid corner this time, feeling a bit lazy and not really in the mood to type about how stupid RGD-33's arming sequence was.
Well, the first thing she needed to do Tanya decided was to get out of this fighting hole. There was no way she'd be able to fire the PTRD without bracing herself for the kickback, but they had already pinned her down- and once that 75mm reloaded, she'd be gone with the next shot.
Now the question was how she was going to do that without getting herself perforated by that MG34 suppressing her position.
She slung the PTRD back over her back and immediately started rifling through the dead bodies strewn across the bottom of her foxhole. She went through pockets, shirts, pants jackets, searching for ammunition, grenades, anything that would help her.
She exactly what she needed. A single smoke grenade, latched onto a dead soldier's waistband.
Tanya grinned. That would do. She unscrewed the cap, quickly, and with a burst of effort, hurled it off towards where the Germans were firing at her from. It took a couple of seconds to start, but soon, a cloud of white smoke filled the air, billowing every which way. The machine gun fire began to slacken and die down.
Tanya gave it another half second and them clambered out of the fighting hole, sprinting towards where she thought she had remembered where the trenches were. It was difficult to see through the billowing smoke- it obscured her own vision as well, but she pushed through it until it started to fade away.
Right into two soldiers of a startled German machine gun crew. They were firing away at some target over the horizon from behind a small defilade- and were just as startled to see Tanya as Tanya was to see them. Both Russian girl with PTRD and looted Red Army jacket and German soldiers stared at each other for a moment. Two moments. Three-
Tanya ducked right back into the smoke as the MG34 crew regained their wits and started shooting at her. She felt a stone snap up almost into her face as a bullet struck it. Rude! She unlocked a RGD-33, crewed the handle to cock it, flipped the switch to arm it, and then tossed it at where she remembered the machine gun crew to be before sprinting away. She didn't bothered to wait for the explosion, but she heard a somewhat satisfying kaboom behind her which she hoped would shut the machine gun crew up.
The smoke from the grenade had billowed downwind, towards the trenches, so when she cleared it at last, she found she was only a few short meters away. She dove into one of the outlying foxholes, right into the midst of a Russian fireteam.
"Who-" one of the men started to say, raising his rifle before he shook his head. "...you're not a fascist so it doesn't matter. Are you from one of the PTRD crews?"
Tanya nodded. "Yeah."
"Then comrade, put some iron downrange and kill one of those damn tanks, would you?" He asked, before raising his rifle again and resuming his fire on the advancing Germans.
Tanya raised the PTRD, sighted one of the Panzer IVs in the ironsights... and frowned. There was no way she was going to penetrate, she realized suddenly. Not with the PTRD at least. But one look across the battlefield told her that the tanks had to go.
The tanks were destroying them. Kicking their butts. Their close range fire support and mass of machine guns made them essentially invulnerable battering rams, set to tear down the network of tiny fortified positions that the Soviets had constructed. Tanya watched the men, screaming, running, dying and made up her mind.
She had to kill one of those tanks. There was no other choice. Even if the hardware she was given wasn't up to the task. If it wasn't good enough....
...she'd just have to make it better.
A dim glow started in her hands. It was faint, and not very powerful. A vague image unraveled itself behind her. It was out of focus and not very vibrant. But with every second, they grew. The glow of her hands became ever brighter and brighter, spreading itself across the frame of her rifle, like a creeper along the trunk of a free. The anima banner behind her grew more defined, more vibrant, spreadig across the sky.
Tanya brought that wellspring of power within her to bear on the gun. Around her, soldiers stopped firing as they stared at this miracle happening their midst. The German infantry turned their eyes away at the bright new star beginning to glow on the field of battle. One of the Panzer IV tanks, rotated its gun around, knowing that what she was trying to do would not end well for it. It leveled its cannon, putting Tanya into its sights.
It was too late. Tanya gave a single cry, and with the press of the trigger, the PTRD unleashed a streak of light which sliced right through the Panzer IV, through its frontal armor.
It cut across the battlefield, through the noise and the din and the sounds of battle, sliced straight through that too. It fell to the wayside, sliced in twain, so that only silence remained. Both sides of the battlefield stared at the golden light in amazement.
Then the Russians gave a great cry, and charged.
Tanya, however, didn't see any of that. The moment she had let loose that bolt of energy, she felt all that power she had been building up within herself release itself into the gun. The space it left behind was not filled by more. Instead, she just felt the emptiness stay, as if her wellspring had drained itself. Her strength gave away. Without the golden power that had been bolstering her beyond her limits, she felt her exhaustion come crashing back all of a sudden.
She felt her eyelids grow heavy, like mighty weights. She struggled to keep them open for a second later, but it was too much of an effort. They gave way.
And so did she.
Into darkness.
Darkness....
Darkness....
'Hello?'
Tanya blinked, and then was surprised at her ability to blink in the darkness. She... had eyes in the dark! She felt around some more and found she had arms, too! How peculiar!
Wait.... if she had eyes, and she had arms, then.... she must have a voice too. She thought about it and decided to try it out. "Hello?" she managed to call out in a somewhat croaky voice. "Who is this?"
'Who am I?' the voice questioned back. 'Who are you?'
That was Tanya's question! "I am Tanya Nikolayevna Fyodorova. My father is Nikolai Nikolaich Fyodorov, my mother is Yevdokia Ignatievna Fyodorova. I have five siblings, and I am a runner for the Red Army."
She took a deep breath of the pure inky black darkness. "Now, who are you?"
'I suppose...' the owner of the mysterious voice began, stepping forwards. As she did, Tanya felt shock run through her. The figure she saw was shaped like her, had a face like hers, except it was as if her features had all been carved onto a statue made of golden light. Except for her eyes, those were burning red. In her burning red eyes Tanya saw in one, a hammer and sickle, and in the other a two headed eagle, faint, as if fading away. On her shoulders was draped a flag of the Soviet Union, its corners dyed red in soldiers blood. She opened her mouth and finished her response. 'I suppose I'm you.'
Tanya's response was like... what?
[ ] Write
[ ] In
Jemnite Says: @Kornet has volunteered to help me out with details involving Russian names and addresses as an actual Russian! Say thanks to him, everyone. Also, no factoid corner this time, feeling a bit lazy and not really in the mood to type about how stupid RGD-33's arming sequence was.
Last edited:
Answers
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
объяснение
That... didn't make much sense. But, few things that had happened within the past day and a half made sense. Tanya had been through many fantastical things- none of which would have happened in a orderly and logical word.
So, instead of arguing, she took the explanation as it was.
"In that case, where are we?" Tanya's gaze flicked around the darkness. "I do not recognize this place."
"You don't?" The other girl- the other Tanya seemed surprised. It was eerie, watching someone with the same exact face make these strange expressions. Tanya, the real Tanya, found it wasn't very enjoyable. "Really?"
"Yes, really," Tanya almost snapped, but held herself back. She had been losing her temper too easily recently. "I wouldn't ask if I knew."
The girl sighed, pivoted on one heel and took two steps outwards to stare into the murky darkness. She seemed to be quite annoyed by Tanya's answer for some strange reason- she certainly wasn't the ony who had been suddenly dropped into an unfamiliar place in the middle of a dangerous battle! What reason did she have to be annoyed?
"This is... you."
"Me?" Was she babbling? Speaking nonsense? "Speak sense, you fool!"
"I am speaking sense!" Then, in the blink of the eye the other girl was right up in Tanya's face. "This blackness is you! It is your soul! It is your self personified!"
What? How did that make a lick of sense! Tanya, proletariat and working class girl that she was couldn't make heads or heels of this girl's strange witch-talk. "That's stupid. I'm me."
The other girl blinked, and leaned back. She stared at Tanya like she was a strange object from a strange foreign land, like Tbilsi or something. "I forgot. You're completely uneducated."
Uneducated? What was that supposed to mean. Was this a reference to Tanya's working class origins? That was a advantage, not a detriment. As such, Tanya puffed her chest out and spoke proudly. "Yes, my family is of the commoners who have seized control of the reigns of their own destiny."
Tanya's family was 100 percent proletariat, no one was kulaks or anything of that sort.
"No, that's not what I- oh!" The other girl stomped her foot and sighed. "Nevermind. Just pretend that we're all in your mind or something."
Tanya nodded. Ah. So then she was insane. "Then, who are you? If this whole thing is me, and I am me, then you cannot be me, correct? Are you the source of my powers, or something?"
"...why do you understand that so easily, but have such a hard time.... nevermind." The golden girl shook her head. "No, not really. I think I am more your power, rather. The form your power takes. A part of you, to be more specific."
"Then you do not know where it comes from either?"
"No." The golden girl- the power girl shook her head. "Sorry. I just know that one moment I did not exist, and the next I did."
In that case, Tanya did not have any more questions to ask. "Then how do I return to the fight? I have comrades to return to, and a fight to continue. The battle isn't over yet?"
"That's it?" Power girl seemed surprised. "No more questions? That's all you have to ask?"
"I have comrades to return to and a fight to continue," Tanya repeated. "How do I return?"
"I can send you back right now-"
"Then please," Tanya interrupted. "Do it."
"...Alright." Power girl nodded, and her surroundings flashed with a bright light that began to burn away the darkness. "Though you might not find the battle that you were-"
And then Tanya woke up. She woke up not on a muddy and bloody battlefield, but on a cot, with clean linen which did not reek of blood and sweat and other excretions and did not smell of cordite and gunpowder. The ceiling was not the blue sky filled with red mortar fire, but a tarpelin tent. The only familiar thing was that she was surrounded by soldiers, by even they were different. Instead of fighting for their lives and screaming as they charged enemy positions with bayonets afixed, they were mostly lying on similar cots and sleeping.
This.... was clearly not the battlefield. It looked more like a medical facility than anything. And as if to confirm Tanya's thoughts, nurse walked in through the open tarpelin and noticed Tanya sitting up.
"Oh, you're up!" the nurse said, surprised. She quickly paced over to Tanya. "How are you? Is there anything you need?"
"I- no, what?" How did Tanya go from on the battlefield to the rear so suddenly. What happened to the hill which they were defending? "How did I get here?"
"I'll explain that." The tent flap lifted open and Comrade Pompolit Nikolai strode in the (comparatively to his massive size) small opening. "Are you alright?"
"Yes. More or less," Tanya nodded her head. "Where is Comrade Captain Vasily? Did we defend the hill?"
"I will tell you, but later." Nikolai opened the flap further and another man stepped in behind him. He had considerably more shiny objects decorating his shoulders and a spiffier uniform. "This is Comrade Colonel Victor Fyodorivich Shkapenyuk. He is commander of the regiment."
"I- hello!" Colonel! That was like... practically a general, right? Tanya immediately stiffened up ramrod straight.
The Colonel gave Tanya a cursory look. He didn't talk to her, however, choosing to speak to Nikolai instead. "This is the girl?"
"Yes," Nikolai nodded. "This is she."
The Colonel gave Tanya a calculating look, that made Tanya feel like she was a rifle which mechanisms he was trying to understand. "Very well. Girl, come. We are going to meet the commander?"
"Commander?" Tanya slid of the side of the cot and hurriedly began picking up a jacket and other clothing fit to wear outside in the cold. "Commander of what?"
"Of the whole Front," Nikolai said in Colonel Victor's place. "I will answer your questions as we walk- we have no time to wait right ow."
Tanya had a lot of questions, though. And not enough time to ask all of them. Pick two.
[ ] Do you know what happened to my PTRD?
[ ] What happened at the hill. Did we fight back the Germans?
[ ] Is everyone from the company alright? What happened to the comrade captain?
[ ] Why are we meeting the commander? How big is a Front, anyway?
[ ] Write in
Jemnite Says: Who's that general????
That... didn't make much sense. But, few things that had happened within the past day and a half made sense. Tanya had been through many fantastical things- none of which would have happened in a orderly and logical word.
So, instead of arguing, she took the explanation as it was.
"In that case, where are we?" Tanya's gaze flicked around the darkness. "I do not recognize this place."
"You don't?" The other girl- the other Tanya seemed surprised. It was eerie, watching someone with the same exact face make these strange expressions. Tanya, the real Tanya, found it wasn't very enjoyable. "Really?"
"Yes, really," Tanya almost snapped, but held herself back. She had been losing her temper too easily recently. "I wouldn't ask if I knew."
The girl sighed, pivoted on one heel and took two steps outwards to stare into the murky darkness. She seemed to be quite annoyed by Tanya's answer for some strange reason- she certainly wasn't the ony who had been suddenly dropped into an unfamiliar place in the middle of a dangerous battle! What reason did she have to be annoyed?
"This is... you."
"Me?" Was she babbling? Speaking nonsense? "Speak sense, you fool!"
"I am speaking sense!" Then, in the blink of the eye the other girl was right up in Tanya's face. "This blackness is you! It is your soul! It is your self personified!"
What? How did that make a lick of sense! Tanya, proletariat and working class girl that she was couldn't make heads or heels of this girl's strange witch-talk. "That's stupid. I'm me."
The other girl blinked, and leaned back. She stared at Tanya like she was a strange object from a strange foreign land, like Tbilsi or something. "I forgot. You're completely uneducated."
Uneducated? What was that supposed to mean. Was this a reference to Tanya's working class origins? That was a advantage, not a detriment. As such, Tanya puffed her chest out and spoke proudly. "Yes, my family is of the commoners who have seized control of the reigns of their own destiny."
Tanya's family was 100 percent proletariat, no one was kulaks or anything of that sort.
"No, that's not what I- oh!" The other girl stomped her foot and sighed. "Nevermind. Just pretend that we're all in your mind or something."
Tanya nodded. Ah. So then she was insane. "Then, who are you? If this whole thing is me, and I am me, then you cannot be me, correct? Are you the source of my powers, or something?"
"...why do you understand that so easily, but have such a hard time.... nevermind." The golden girl shook her head. "No, not really. I think I am more your power, rather. The form your power takes. A part of you, to be more specific."
"Then you do not know where it comes from either?"
"No." The golden girl- the power girl shook her head. "Sorry. I just know that one moment I did not exist, and the next I did."
In that case, Tanya did not have any more questions to ask. "Then how do I return to the fight? I have comrades to return to, and a fight to continue. The battle isn't over yet?"
"That's it?" Power girl seemed surprised. "No more questions? That's all you have to ask?"
"I have comrades to return to and a fight to continue," Tanya repeated. "How do I return?"
"I can send you back right now-"
"Then please," Tanya interrupted. "Do it."
"...Alright." Power girl nodded, and her surroundings flashed with a bright light that began to burn away the darkness. "Though you might not find the battle that you were-"
And then Tanya woke up. She woke up not on a muddy and bloody battlefield, but on a cot, with clean linen which did not reek of blood and sweat and other excretions and did not smell of cordite and gunpowder. The ceiling was not the blue sky filled with red mortar fire, but a tarpelin tent. The only familiar thing was that she was surrounded by soldiers, by even they were different. Instead of fighting for their lives and screaming as they charged enemy positions with bayonets afixed, they were mostly lying on similar cots and sleeping.
This.... was clearly not the battlefield. It looked more like a medical facility than anything. And as if to confirm Tanya's thoughts, nurse walked in through the open tarpelin and noticed Tanya sitting up.
"Oh, you're up!" the nurse said, surprised. She quickly paced over to Tanya. "How are you? Is there anything you need?"
"I- no, what?" How did Tanya go from on the battlefield to the rear so suddenly. What happened to the hill which they were defending? "How did I get here?"
"I'll explain that." The tent flap lifted open and Comrade Pompolit Nikolai strode in the (comparatively to his massive size) small opening. "Are you alright?"
"Yes. More or less," Tanya nodded her head. "Where is Comrade Captain Vasily? Did we defend the hill?"
"I will tell you, but later." Nikolai opened the flap further and another man stepped in behind him. He had considerably more shiny objects decorating his shoulders and a spiffier uniform. "This is Comrade Colonel Victor Fyodorivich Shkapenyuk. He is commander of the regiment."
"I- hello!" Colonel! That was like... practically a general, right? Tanya immediately stiffened up ramrod straight.
The Colonel gave Tanya a cursory look. He didn't talk to her, however, choosing to speak to Nikolai instead. "This is the girl?"
"Yes," Nikolai nodded. "This is she."
The Colonel gave Tanya a calculating look, that made Tanya feel like she was a rifle which mechanisms he was trying to understand. "Very well. Girl, come. We are going to meet the commander?"
"Commander?" Tanya slid of the side of the cot and hurriedly began picking up a jacket and other clothing fit to wear outside in the cold. "Commander of what?"
"Of the whole Front," Nikolai said in Colonel Victor's place. "I will answer your questions as we walk- we have no time to wait right ow."
Tanya had a lot of questions, though. And not enough time to ask all of them. Pick two.
[ ] Do you know what happened to my PTRD?
[ ] What happened at the hill. Did we fight back the Germans?
[ ] Is everyone from the company alright? What happened to the comrade captain?
[ ] Why are we meeting the commander? How big is a Front, anyway?
[ ] Write in
Jemnite Says: Who's that general????
It's not actually Zhukov, he's trying to command the Western Front at the time. It's one of his staff officers he left behind Lieutenant General Mikhail Khozin.
Information
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
сообщение
Tanya struggled to keep up Nikolai's long strides. They had departed the medical tent at a rapid pace, and were moving through the entire camp very quickly. Tanya could see men running all around with bandoliers of ammunition, pulling heavy guns, and all sorts of other things. It was very loud. And busy.
"Comrade Nikolai, where's the rest of the company?" Tanya asked. She didn't recognize any of the men here as people from the company. "Are they alright? Where's the comrade captain?"
"They're in at the front," Nikolai answered. "We're quite a far bit behind lines, near the city proper. As for the comrade captain, he is alright, though his pride wounded."
Where they that near the city? Tanya hadn't noticed at all, but indeed, they were. Apparently they had taken her behind all the defensive belts and Tanya hadn't noticed a bit.
"Is he?" Tanya didn't know the man very well, but she thought he had seemed like a good commander. "That's good. But how did we end up all the way back here comrade?"
"You mean...?"
"What happened at the hill," Tanya clarified. "The comrade captain said that we were to receive tank support. Surely they would have driven the fascists back."
"Ah, yes." Nikolai nodded. "We withdrew in good order."
"...withdrew?" What? Tanya couldn't understand. Weren't they supposed to hold that hill to keep the Road of Life open? If they fell back.... what reason would there be to fall back?
They said the company was still intact and in reasonable fighting condition! There was no reason to give up the position! "Did we fail to destroy enough tanks?"
Maybe the company was really in worse condition than Nikolai was telling her.
"No, none of that." Nikolaid shook his head. "The positions to our right and left flank were dislodged, and we were about to be hit from the flanks. With no way to strengthen the position, the battalion commander ordered us to fall back and abandon the salient."
"Besides, there was no more point to holding the position."
...no more point? Tanya couldn't understand. She wanted to ask more questions, but before she could think of the right ones to ask...
...they were already there.
Comrade Colonel Victor haulted them outside the tent. He looked them both over with a critical eye. "Comrade Nikolai make sure you keep a firm grasp on the girl. Make sure she doesn't do anything foolish or out of place."
"Yessir," Nikolai said. Tanya was about to respond that she would never do anything foolish or out of place but Nikolai made a motion clearly intending her to be quiet so she did not speak.
"And you, girl, stay quiet and do not speak unless addressed to," the comrade colonel told Tanya dismissively. His words burned her pride, but he was a colonel, not some minor captain or sergeant that she could mouth off to. She recognized that for the time being she would have to follow his orders. So, instead of talking back, she just nodded.
"Now, let us go." And so the comrade colonel stepped into a reinforced hard building which despite its stolid and spartan exterior was actually quite warm in the inside.
As Tanya followed him in, her ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noise. There were men in fancy uniforms arguing over tables with maps strew across them, all of them with shiny brass on their shoulders. High ranking officers. Tanya felt somewhat intimidated by them, but she had expected that there would be very high officers here if a colonel was sent merely to fetch her.
What she didn't expect was the other girl sitting on a high stool next to the most central table. She was hovering over the map, whispering, and occasionally pointing at specific points. Tanya felt like she should know the girl, but she didn't quite. Either way she could sense a bit of power in what the girl was doing.
"Comrade Colonel Victor, is this the girl?" A man with three stars on his collar asked. He had a somewhat round face- ovalish, and large lips. And amazingly, Colonel Victor, the commander of an entire regiment.... saluted the man like a superior officer.
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General, this is the girl," Victor said, nodding at Tanya.
Who in turn...
[ ] Saluted immediately back, reporting to the Lieutenant General.
[ ] Blurted out a question about the young girl sitting at the table.
[ ] Froze in shock at the sudden attention by such a high ranking officer.
[ ] Did something that no one expected (Write in)
Jemnite Says: Mikhail Khozin was Zhukov's Chief of staff until Zhukov left to command the defense of Moscow, thereupon he was commander of the Leningrad front. He was relieved of command in June for failing to relieve Lyuben offensive operation (launched by the Volkhov Front to the Leningrad Front's South) to relieve Leningrad.
Tanya struggled to keep up Nikolai's long strides. They had departed the medical tent at a rapid pace, and were moving through the entire camp very quickly. Tanya could see men running all around with bandoliers of ammunition, pulling heavy guns, and all sorts of other things. It was very loud. And busy.
"Comrade Nikolai, where's the rest of the company?" Tanya asked. She didn't recognize any of the men here as people from the company. "Are they alright? Where's the comrade captain?"
"They're in at the front," Nikolai answered. "We're quite a far bit behind lines, near the city proper. As for the comrade captain, he is alright, though his pride wounded."
Where they that near the city? Tanya hadn't noticed at all, but indeed, they were. Apparently they had taken her behind all the defensive belts and Tanya hadn't noticed a bit.
"Is he?" Tanya didn't know the man very well, but she thought he had seemed like a good commander. "That's good. But how did we end up all the way back here comrade?"
"You mean...?"
"What happened at the hill," Tanya clarified. "The comrade captain said that we were to receive tank support. Surely they would have driven the fascists back."
"Ah, yes." Nikolai nodded. "We withdrew in good order."
"...withdrew?" What? Tanya couldn't understand. Weren't they supposed to hold that hill to keep the Road of Life open? If they fell back.... what reason would there be to fall back?
They said the company was still intact and in reasonable fighting condition! There was no reason to give up the position! "Did we fail to destroy enough tanks?"
Maybe the company was really in worse condition than Nikolai was telling her.
"No, none of that." Nikolaid shook his head. "The positions to our right and left flank were dislodged, and we were about to be hit from the flanks. With no way to strengthen the position, the battalion commander ordered us to fall back and abandon the salient."
"Besides, there was no more point to holding the position."
...no more point? Tanya couldn't understand. She wanted to ask more questions, but before she could think of the right ones to ask...
...they were already there.
Comrade Colonel Victor haulted them outside the tent. He looked them both over with a critical eye. "Comrade Nikolai make sure you keep a firm grasp on the girl. Make sure she doesn't do anything foolish or out of place."
"Yessir," Nikolai said. Tanya was about to respond that she would never do anything foolish or out of place but Nikolai made a motion clearly intending her to be quiet so she did not speak.
"And you, girl, stay quiet and do not speak unless addressed to," the comrade colonel told Tanya dismissively. His words burned her pride, but he was a colonel, not some minor captain or sergeant that she could mouth off to. She recognized that for the time being she would have to follow his orders. So, instead of talking back, she just nodded.
"Now, let us go." And so the comrade colonel stepped into a reinforced hard building which despite its stolid and spartan exterior was actually quite warm in the inside.
As Tanya followed him in, her ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noise. There were men in fancy uniforms arguing over tables with maps strew across them, all of them with shiny brass on their shoulders. High ranking officers. Tanya felt somewhat intimidated by them, but she had expected that there would be very high officers here if a colonel was sent merely to fetch her.
What she didn't expect was the other girl sitting on a high stool next to the most central table. She was hovering over the map, whispering, and occasionally pointing at specific points. Tanya felt like she should know the girl, but she didn't quite. Either way she could sense a bit of power in what the girl was doing.
"Comrade Colonel Victor, is this the girl?" A man with three stars on his collar asked. He had a somewhat round face- ovalish, and large lips. And amazingly, Colonel Victor, the commander of an entire regiment.... saluted the man like a superior officer.
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General, this is the girl," Victor said, nodding at Tanya.
Who in turn...
[ ] Saluted immediately back, reporting to the Lieutenant General.
[ ] Blurted out a question about the young girl sitting at the table.
[ ] Froze in shock at the sudden attention by such a high ranking officer.
[ ] Did something that no one expected (Write in)
Jemnite Says: Mikhail Khozin was Zhukov's Chief of staff until Zhukov left to command the defense of Moscow, thereupon he was commander of the Leningrad front. He was relieved of command in June for failing to relieve Lyuben offensive operation (launched by the Volkhov Front to the Leningrad Front's South) to relieve Leningrad.
Briefing
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
указание
Tanya was vaguely aware that the colonel was referring to her. But only vaguely, because for some strange reason between the colonel pointing at her and the general turning eyes upon her, she had completely disassociated herself from the girl with a Lieutenant General looking at her, and the whole scene in general.
The redhaired young girl who was looking oddly healthy for essentially starving to death within the last couple of hours was very familiar, but Tanya couldn't quite recognize her. Not at all.
Yes indeed, she didn't recognize any of this because none of it was happening to her. Not at all, Tanya was probably just at home with her mama and her sisters and her brothers and-
"Fyodorova, you said her name was?" The general's voice idly crushed her attempt to have an out of body experience to escape reality.
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General." The Colonel placed one hand on Tanya's shoulder and pushed her forward. "She was recently recovering from a battle around three or four days ago."
...wait, three or four days? That meant- the battle Tanya had been in had almost been half a week ago! Then, she had been unconscious all this time? Tanya started to open her mouth to say something-
The general was looking curiously at her.
-and then closed it. Nevermind. She didn't want to say anything after all.
"Then, she does not know anything then." The general shuffled some papers and turned to Tanya. "Comrade Fyodorova, you displayed... superhuman powers in aid of a defense against a German attack, as corroborated by multiple footsoldiers, correct?"
"I-" Tanya's throat was so dry. So choked. She couldn't speak. "I-"
They were all staring at her. Tanya felt her conviction die away. What was she thinking? She wasn't some saint or whatever- she was just a girl who had gotten over her head. Now that her adrenaline had bled out of her system, she could feel the uncertainty and fear creeping back again. She was just a girl over her head.
She wasn't some saint.
"I- yes," Tanya manage to choke out. "Yes."
"Since then, the position has changed quite a bit. Olga!" The general snapped his fingers at the girl sitting next to him. She gave him a quick nod, put pencil to paper and began scribbling. It seemed like it would take a moment, so Tanya spent the time studying this other girl.
She was small, pale, and short, with a headful of strange completely white hair. It was a bit alarming to be quite honest. That sort of hair simply wasn't naturally, an Tanya's peasant's blood instantly took an almost superstitious dislike towards it. Wasn't natural. Wasn't like God intended.
She wrote with half of her tongue sticking out, and with a tightly closed fist. Tanya watched in awe- not because she didn't know how to write, the Soviet Union's literary campaigns were quite impressive- but because she was putting so much effort into it, that it produced an almost mesmerizing effect of its own.
Finally she finished, flipping over the several sheets of paper she had been working on to the Lieutenant General, who scanned an eye over them, and then turned them over the Tanya. Tanya figured she should take a look at them too. What she saw surprised her.
They were draws of German tanks and soldiers crossing a frozen icey lake. That wasn't surprising, given the available choices of reference material, but what was surprising was the amount of detail put in them. It was almost like a photograph, the way the picture was shaded. She could almost imagine the scene.
"Around the same time the attack began on your flank, the Finish and German troops launched a surprise attack across Lake Ladoga," the general explained. "They had been strengthening the ice with salt, however we were unable to anticipate their attack until they launched it due to the failure of intelligence services."
Some officers in the room wearing intelligence uniforms coughed softly and looked away.
"They launched a combined panzer and infantry assault and swept all the way to the docks, where we were able to deploy our reserves to bog them down in as they advanced into urban territory. They won't be going any further. But that's not the main problem."
Tanya looked up from the photo- the drawings. "We're not going to be able to ferry supplies across the Lake anymore!"
The Lieutenant General nodded. "Yes. They've forced our hand, with a complete encirclement. We'll have to attempt to break through to connect with Volkov Front and establish a bridgeway there."
Tanya noticed his hands were clenched very tightly, and he had an almost strained look to his face. But his eyes. His eyes were angry.
"The terrain is bad and poorly fit for tanks and we have little artillery and munitions left in reserve, so this will be a primarily infantry operation. That's why we plan to use you.... witches, to spearhead the breakthrough as a special operations unit. The hope is that your special abilities will allow us to overwhelm the better equipped and dug in 18th army.
"...witches?" Tanya asked. Were there others? Others like her?
"Besides you, we have four other... witches with superhuman powers." Indeed, there were. "Olga, here, is one. The others will be introduced to you shortly. By our estimates, you are the oldest, and are the most combat-experienced. We will be relying on you to lead the unit."
....lead. Oh, wow. This was a lot of pressure being placed upon Tanya all of a sudden.
"The Colonel," the Lieutenant General inclined his head as he spoke, "will be the commanding officer of this new unit. His regiment will be formed into a new shock brigade intended to support your squad and exploit your breakthroughs."
"Do you have any questions?"
Tanya noticed his hands were shaking.
Tanya responded.... (pick 2)
[ ] Um, are we getting any weapons or anything? (Optional: Ask about your PTRD)
[ ] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[ ] If- if they're going to support us... are they going to have some artillery or something?
[ ] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city....
[ ] ...no, sir, no questions. I'm ready.
[ ] ....sir..... are you alright? You seem to be shaking pretty badly.
Jemnite Says: I don't actually know a lot about Khozin's personality- didn't seem to be a lot written about him (he was sacked pretty quickly), so I'm basically making this character up.
Also, there's a new anime coming out that's taking place around ww2, and it has a magical girl with a PTRS! Awesome! Looks hellla baller if you ask me. Check it out, guys.
Tanya was vaguely aware that the colonel was referring to her. But only vaguely, because for some strange reason between the colonel pointing at her and the general turning eyes upon her, she had completely disassociated herself from the girl with a Lieutenant General looking at her, and the whole scene in general.
The redhaired young girl who was looking oddly healthy for essentially starving to death within the last couple of hours was very familiar, but Tanya couldn't quite recognize her. Not at all.
Yes indeed, she didn't recognize any of this because none of it was happening to her. Not at all, Tanya was probably just at home with her mama and her sisters and her brothers and-
"Fyodorova, you said her name was?" The general's voice idly crushed her attempt to have an out of body experience to escape reality.
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General." The Colonel placed one hand on Tanya's shoulder and pushed her forward. "She was recently recovering from a battle around three or four days ago."
...wait, three or four days? That meant- the battle Tanya had been in had almost been half a week ago! Then, she had been unconscious all this time? Tanya started to open her mouth to say something-
The general was looking curiously at her.
-and then closed it. Nevermind. She didn't want to say anything after all.
"Then, she does not know anything then." The general shuffled some papers and turned to Tanya. "Comrade Fyodorova, you displayed... superhuman powers in aid of a defense against a German attack, as corroborated by multiple footsoldiers, correct?"
"I-" Tanya's throat was so dry. So choked. She couldn't speak. "I-"
They were all staring at her. Tanya felt her conviction die away. What was she thinking? She wasn't some saint or whatever- she was just a girl who had gotten over her head. Now that her adrenaline had bled out of her system, she could feel the uncertainty and fear creeping back again. She was just a girl over her head.
She wasn't some saint.
"I- yes," Tanya manage to choke out. "Yes."
"Since then, the position has changed quite a bit. Olga!" The general snapped his fingers at the girl sitting next to him. She gave him a quick nod, put pencil to paper and began scribbling. It seemed like it would take a moment, so Tanya spent the time studying this other girl.
She was small, pale, and short, with a headful of strange completely white hair. It was a bit alarming to be quite honest. That sort of hair simply wasn't naturally, an Tanya's peasant's blood instantly took an almost superstitious dislike towards it. Wasn't natural. Wasn't like God intended.
She wrote with half of her tongue sticking out, and with a tightly closed fist. Tanya watched in awe- not because she didn't know how to write, the Soviet Union's literary campaigns were quite impressive- but because she was putting so much effort into it, that it produced an almost mesmerizing effect of its own.
Finally she finished, flipping over the several sheets of paper she had been working on to the Lieutenant General, who scanned an eye over them, and then turned them over the Tanya. Tanya figured she should take a look at them too. What she saw surprised her.
They were draws of German tanks and soldiers crossing a frozen icey lake. That wasn't surprising, given the available choices of reference material, but what was surprising was the amount of detail put in them. It was almost like a photograph, the way the picture was shaded. She could almost imagine the scene.
"Around the same time the attack began on your flank, the Finish and German troops launched a surprise attack across Lake Ladoga," the general explained. "They had been strengthening the ice with salt, however we were unable to anticipate their attack until they launched it due to the failure of intelligence services."
Some officers in the room wearing intelligence uniforms coughed softly and looked away.
"They launched a combined panzer and infantry assault and swept all the way to the docks, where we were able to deploy our reserves to bog them down in as they advanced into urban territory. They won't be going any further. But that's not the main problem."
Tanya looked up from the photo- the drawings. "We're not going to be able to ferry supplies across the Lake anymore!"
The Lieutenant General nodded. "Yes. They've forced our hand, with a complete encirclement. We'll have to attempt to break through to connect with Volkov Front and establish a bridgeway there."
Tanya noticed his hands were clenched very tightly, and he had an almost strained look to his face. But his eyes. His eyes were angry.
"The terrain is bad and poorly fit for tanks and we have little artillery and munitions left in reserve, so this will be a primarily infantry operation. That's why we plan to use you.... witches, to spearhead the breakthrough as a special operations unit. The hope is that your special abilities will allow us to overwhelm the better equipped and dug in 18th army.
"...witches?" Tanya asked. Were there others? Others like her?
"Besides you, we have four other... witches with superhuman powers." Indeed, there were. "Olga, here, is one. The others will be introduced to you shortly. By our estimates, you are the oldest, and are the most combat-experienced. We will be relying on you to lead the unit."
....lead. Oh, wow. This was a lot of pressure being placed upon Tanya all of a sudden.
"The Colonel," the Lieutenant General inclined his head as he spoke, "will be the commanding officer of this new unit. His regiment will be formed into a new shock brigade intended to support your squad and exploit your breakthroughs."
"Do you have any questions?"
Tanya noticed his hands were shaking.
Tanya responded.... (pick 2)
[ ] Um, are we getting any weapons or anything? (Optional: Ask about your PTRD)
[ ] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[ ] If- if they're going to support us... are they going to have some artillery or something?
[ ] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city....
[ ] ...no, sir, no questions. I'm ready.
[ ] ....sir..... are you alright? You seem to be shaking pretty badly.
Jemnite Says: I don't actually know a lot about Khozin's personality- didn't seem to be a lot written about him (he was sacked pretty quickly), so I'm basically making this character up.
Also, there's a new anime coming out that's taking place around ww2, and it has a magical girl with a PTRS! Awesome! Looks hellla baller if you ask me. Check it out, guys.
