Command & Conquer: Red Alert - The Second Great War

[Semi-Autogyro]

---

A weary Cate Archer slumped down into the park bench that sat facing the wide, slow moving river that emptied into the bay. A light sea breeze ruffled her hair as she used what little time she had open in her schedule to slip away and get a some time to herself to relax. Especially after that last meeting. She was positive it would take hours for a response to what she put on the table with the backing of the Crown. That is until the Scottish brogue of one Captain John Patrick Mason intruded on her calm.

"Ah, there you are, lass."

Reining in the urge to curse, she looked over her shoulder to see the former SAS man ambling up the footpath toward her.

"Congratulations, Captain, you found me. Even after I informed both our hosts and Mr. Mundy that I was going out for a bit, and to not follow me." She arched an eyebrow at the man, demanding an explanation on this intrusion of her privacy.

The Scotsman had the good graces to look chagrined, at the very least as he came to a stop next to his fellow countrywoman. "Aye, you did. But the lads and I are concerned. Ever since we've gotten here, you've been running yourself ragged."

Cate let loose a sarcastic bark of laughter. "Ha. You do know there is a war on, John? I'm grasping at every piece of bloody straw I can get ahold of in order to shove them down Stalin's throat. Honestly, the Soviets have made me desperate. Which they shouldn't be glad that they did, if everything goes to plan while we're here."

Captain Mason frowned, clearly recalling a meeting that everyone who attended would never forget as one Dr. Goodspeed broke down the barbaric nature of the Soviet nerve agent to a quietly horrified audience. Thousands of dead brothers in arms consigned to a gruesome fate as their muscles froze and their lungs failed, spasming so hard they broke their own backs, before eventually choking to death on their own saliva. The lucky ones were comatose when this happened; the unlucky ones would be lucid till they lost consciousness from asphyxiation. The silence afterwards lasted until one of the general officers sitting in, Hummel, had asked if there were any countermeasures. To which Agent Archer had responded that their was none, other than avoiding exposure...which had not gone over well.

Mason scratched at his non-regulation beard before asking the operative, "Did you know about the Sarin before Narvik?"

Cate gave him a look that would have sent lesser men running, before grounding out. "Not in any way that would have helped them."

"There you go." The infuriating man said, as if it was that simple. Which, to a trigger puller like him usually was that simple.

The SIS operative sighed and tucked a strand of hair that had worked loose back behind her ear. "I'll try to keep that in mind. How did you think the last meeting went?"

"You had their interest before, now you have their undivided attention. Especially the brass." Mason shot her a rakish grin. "Arnold looked like he wanted to vault the table and hug you."

Cate laughed at the mental image of the silver haired general officer doing so. "Well, at least that means we have some of them on our side then. Now all that's left to do is hurry up and wait. At least the view is rather pretty from here."

The good captain nodded in assent as he took in the blooming cherry trees that lined the opposite bank. "It is indeed."

---

 

[Nemesis_Scar]

So that he would prevail to the last drop of blood, even unto death, in the struggle…

Oberstabsfeldwebel Willie Cohen settled into the line of men feeling somewhat ill at ease. The Sturmtruppen - Schmidt was nostalgic if anything - were meant to be the picked men, the veterans of the Polish campaign. Yet he had barely survived Königsberg, by the skin of his teeth. The regiment had been savaged there, savaged by the reds. Here he was.

"G-g-gentlemen," Willie hadn't thought it possible to roll one's Gs, but Schmidt managed it. The steady click-clack of oil-black boots sounded off in the little forward base. A thin man, with greying blonde hair, stepped by their line. "You have an opportunity so rare, so valuable, that it must be impressed upon you. Yes, you can make sure that we stop Zhukov's drive to the West in its tracks. All you have to do is teach your replacements."

The next few weeks were a frenzied, blitzing rush of preparation and training the next units to be raised in the Fatherland. Mock city-fights, trench raids, and battles consumed their waking hours. Sleep was short, as a rule. Yet Willie felt that doubt melt away with each passing day, vanish like it had never been there.

 

[Terrafirma]

Dead of winter


​

vendredi, 27 février 1948
Vidin, Bulgaria
Baba Vida Fortress


Smoke billowed on the horizon, the distant sounds of rolling thunder were heard by all those present. France's makeshift base of operations stood stoically covered in a thick layer of snow, its guards silently looking northwards. The French tricolor snapped defiantly against icy winds that cut to the bone. The wounded kept streaming in: Romanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, and even Frenchmen were among the casualties. Those booms were not of mother nature but of man-man horrors. Of war.

Commandant Jean Baptiste was talking to a small gathering of soldiers when the Fortress was approached by a damaged Renault Medium Tank. Adorned with several scorch marks on its right side, the armored vehicle's tracks appeared to be in need of repair. Guards approached the metal behemoth. Coming to a full stop the hatch popped open revealing General Réne Lyon. Wearing his lucky goggles, Lyon's face was covered in soot.

Climbing out slowly the men offered their assistance. The rest of the crew soon followed looking visibly haggard.

"Lyon!" Jean Baptiste called out. "What is the news on the front?"

Removing his goggles the man shook his head.

"Could be worse, but still bad."

The pair retreated back into the fortress. Once in the great hall, Réne cleaned his face with a wet towel before downing a tall glass of water. The fighting had been fierce with little respite. By the time the French army arrived, they were met with a Romanian defense on the brink of collapse. Nearly all defensive schemes were rendered void with the swift advance of the Soviets. Other fronts fared little better. After reading the reports General Lyon considered himself fortunate. The Reds unleashed a terrible chemical weapon on the Allies devastating defending forces.

"We are still holding the Danube. However, the local units have been mauled." The French general took a seat putting up his boots on a nearby desk. They were covered in melting snow with noticeable tinges of crimson. Baptiste fetched him another glass.

"Do you believe we can hold Réne?"

His superior just stared. Those eyes betrayed violent scenes on the battlefield. The armor proved instrumental incurring losses on the Soviets helping to stabilize the flagging lines. Despite their skills, the crew ran into several close calls. Images of burning twisted metal were seared into his mind. Former vehicles turned into wreckage. Those poor bastards.

"We should have arrived sooner. Much sooner. Perhaps if the fleet was more aggressive in transporting us Romania could have been saved," Lyon said.

Jean Baptiste shook his head.

"Respectfully sir, you did not know. We did not know the situation on the ground. Our intelligence counted on much more Soviet resistance in the Black Sea. We did what we could with what was known at the time."

The reports from both the Baltic States and Finland were nothing short of harrowing. Helsinki's fall was particularly tough on the commanding officer inducing nightmarish thoughts of his hometown. According to the information, people were just dropping to the ground convulsing as they coughed and vomited dying within seconds to an unseen force. Had it been another era this seemed like the wrath of god meting out punishment on his children.

"We cannot falter Jean. The line must hold. The collapse of the Balkan Front would be disastrous."

The Commandant nodded.

"The Allies will recover. These motherless reds will pay for what they've done to all those innocent people. Both the League of Nations and the Americans are backing the cause. Europe stands united against the threat."

Réne sighed.

"Seeing all these men. Many will never leave this place. Am I in over my head?"

His friend grunted.

"You have been underestimated before, sir. When the higher-ups doubted you, it did not stop your conviction. Your will. In the end they were proven wrong. Do the same to the Soviets."

The general slowly got up placing a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I must go. No rest for the weary. Take care of things here."

Venturing out of the great hall the emerging tank ace planned to rejoin his team for debriefing before beginning repairs. With so much carnage experienced during the opening weeks of the war, one prayed this was the peak of the brutality. It's only the beginning.

"May God watch over you Réne."

 

[Happerry]

"I've spent my entire career trying to avoid anything like this, you know?" Bösch asks his empty office with a wave of his glass, several empty bottles resting on his desk. "Anything but another Great War. Anything but another generation lost to pointless butchery, to mud and blood and glory that no one will remember because no one will survive to carry the tale."

"We had peace. Prosperity. Even the French weren't causing to much trouble." Bösch shakes his head. "All that work, all those trade meetings, all that time not protesting Versailles because it was useful enough in assuring no one got stupid dreams even if people kept complaining about it, and then Stalin just... just does this? Why? Why a war? Why open it with the mass murder of entire civilian populations, sent choking to the afterlife?"

There's a gentle clink as he places the empty glass down on his desk. "I would have given almost anything to avoid another Great War. Even surrendered, maybe. But the Soviets have shown how much they actually care about the people, what we can actually expect if we surrender. Work camps, death squads, burned villages, empty gaping cities turned into tombs..."

"I would have given almost anything to avoid another great war." Bösch repeats quietly to himself. "But if that bastard thinks he can come into my country and kill my people, he's got another thing coming. It's time to remind people why it took the entire rest of the continent to drag us down."

"We didn't ask for this war, but we're going to win it."

 

[Darkeva]

Undisclosed location, England

They had dug in, hidden by other such sites littered across the countryside. Hidden away, shielded from bombs and gas. The smartest minds in engineering from across the commonwealth. Buried now, ever deeper as they worked around the clock. No resource denied. No request too much.

Every day the men and women who worked there were greeted by the clock. The Doomsday clock. The Ministry of Defence's best guess to the death of London. Ever closer the envelope of Soviet air power crept. To the deaths of millions of innocent souls to gas attacks, trying to gasp for breath in an unresponsive shell of a body.

But The United Kingdom would not go quietly. They and their allies would not die in vain. For the crimes committed by the Soviets, there would be no quarter given. No prisoners taken. No survivors. Until Stalin's head sat on a plater on his majesty's desk, the Union would bleed rivers for their crimes.

Mr Attlee passed the fourth airlock with little fanfare. Other than the hum of circulation fans, the tunnels were starkly quiet. Two guards, behind steel and sandbags, carefully pointed their heavy machine gun away from the Prime MInister as he and his personal guard moved into the designated areas. An electric tram passed them all back up the tunnel, loaded with materials and grey silent people.

A sweaty faced gentleman in a serviceable suit, clearly straining a bit under the man's girth, stepped forward.

"Mr Prime Minister, a pleasure to meet you, even under these circumstances."

Mr Attlee turned his gaze from the goolish clock that dominated the entry cavern. "Indeed, Mr Greevy." His eyes passed quickly of the man's little entourage of secretaries and personal assistants. "Time is of the essence, I would think. To your office?"

"Of course, of course." The administrator sputtered, quickly turning down one of the half dozen halls that penetrated deeper into the earth.

Mr. Greevy's office hung over a large open cavern, filled with designers and parts under construction. Vast panes of glass gave a great view over the hive of activity. Out an additional door hung a steel railed balcony, allowing a sufficiently motivated individual to give a speech, or yell for a worker.

One of Mr. Greevy's secretaries busied herself serving tea and biscuits as the two men settled. Mr. Attlee thanked her as he took his cup, taking a drink of the steaming beverage quickly. He closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the first sip.

With a clink he set aside the delightful beverage.

"Mr. Greevy, do you know why I am here?"

"I-i can't say that I do?"

"Hmm. Mr Greevy, you are an excellent administrator. One of the best. Your name fell on a very short list of individuals that could both fill the role and was not already engaged in other critical roles."

Mr. Greevy nodded, pulling out a small handkerchief to dab at his brow.

"As a matter of course, we- And by 'we' I mean the highly trained individuals involved in his majesty's secret and police agencies. We pulled your life apart. We know about your wife, your children, your mistress and her children."

"How-!"

"SIT DOWN!" snapped Clement, in a perfect field officers command.

"We even know about the embezzlement, a bit here and there. Nothing terribly great. Children are expensive. And mistresses like their presents."

"I must pro-" Mr. Greevy snapped his mouth shut as the Prime Minister opened his jacket to reveal a well maintained service pistol.

"We know Mr. Greevy. We do not care. At this time and place these are acceptable, if distasteful, as long as you do your job. Your Duty. Any weaknesses that foreign agents might exploit are irrelevant as you are more closely watched than I am, the few times you leave this facility."

"What can not be abided, at this time, is waste. Waste of resources, of manpower, of time. Money? You are going to get a raise. You will stop the stealing. But more importantly, you will use the people I send you to their fullest extent for the roles they were sent to you for. I do not care about their gender. I do not care about their skin colour. All I care about is results. I asked the Commonwealth for their best and brightest. If I think you have abused or misused a person sent to you in good faith… I will personally take you outside and shoot you for treason. Do I make myself clear?"

Mr. Greevy bobbed his head.

"There is no more time for these petty concerns Mr. Greevy. The Reds will slaughter us all just the same. There are more than enough people in this facility to tell me if you fail to meet these simple instructions Mr. Greevy. They know the difference between being worked hard and abuse of power. Just do your job to the fullest."

"Do not make me come back."

Mr. Attlee straightened his jacket as he stood and strode out of the room.

 

[Skeleton Dandy]

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS

BELORUSSIAN FRONT​

1st January, 1948

Soldiers and Airmen of the Belorussian Front!

You are about to embark upon the Great Liberation, towards which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and wishes of working-class people everywhere march with you. In company with our comrades and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the capitalist machine, the elimination of bourgeois tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a socialist world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained and well-equipped. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1948! Much has happened in the span of only a few years. The socialists of the world have inflicted defeats on capitalism, at the ballot box and at the picket line. The Red Army and Red Air Force is now the strongest in the world, and none can match our capability to wage war. Soviet industry has given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of fighting men. The time has come! The working men of the world are marching towards victory!

Good luck! And let us all work together to achieve the great and noble undertaking laid out for us by the Great Comrade, Stalin.

• Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov​

 

[Nemesis_Scar]

From the Office of the General Der Infanterie​

Soldiers and Sailors of the German Republic!

The god who made iron did not want slaves! What God desires, we Germans desire to maintain! The foul Bolshevik, who has glutted his swelling stomach on the blood and lives of the East, now turns his eyes westward. Rest assured, we will split the skull of his lapdog Zhukov, and all those who fight for tyrant's wages! You are not alone in this deathly struggle, for all the free world stands with us!

Remember the fate of the Freikorps, who tried to topple our Republic before and failed! Remember the sacrifices of soldiers and sailors in commitment to the fatherland! I believe, that with such commitment, the German army will arise and clear Europe of such unholy beasts - ones who deny god and state!

 

[Bandeirante]

Saturn + some days. Outskirts of Helsinki. Occupied Finland.

General Alexander Kabilov stood silently with his hands clasped behind his back before the open entrance of the impromptu command tent. The smell of death was just starting to waft into the outpost set up in the outskirts of Helsinki. The winter's cold had helped slow down some of the rotting of the dead. But not enough. And now, the Red Army and NKVD occupation units were busying themselves with gathering the survivors for forced labor and getting rid of the dead.

The stench of burnt cadavers was going to cling to his nostrils and clothes for days. Not that he minded, the General thought with some morbid amusement as he watched the burning mass pyres. It was frankly relieving, truth be told. To find that murder in this scale didn't bother him anymore. It would certainly make the rest of the war much easier for him. Kabilov had a feeling things would only go downhill from here on. Once the shock of their opening strike faded, it will be back to the grinding butchery of the Great War.

Not that it mattered in the end. The Vozhd told them to march forth and spread Russia from coast to coast. And the Allied Nations would always remain an existential threat to the Union so long as they stood unbent and unbroken. War was only a question of time. There was no other real option for either side. It was luck, then, that the Red Army struck first. And now they will march to the Atlantic. No matter how many more cities had to be gassed or mass graves filled. The Red God in the Kremlin would extend his hands all over Eurasia. And if that meant several more hundred million more dead...Well, then so be it. If anyone in the upper echelons of the Union still had objections to mass murder in this scale then they better get on with the program and shed any remaining pointless sentimentalism.

The Revolution was fed by oceans of blood. Theirs or the enemy's. And after so long devouring her own children, the Soviet Motherland could use some diversity in her diet.

That to say nothing of the inherent violence, totality and devastation of modern war. Of this clash of civilizations. The winner will inevitably build a new order atop the ashes of the old world. With bodies as bricks and blood as mortar. It's how its supposed to go, after all. Make a desert and call it peace. The USSR must engage in total war against every single aspect of the European states, maybe even European civilization, if is to have any chance of winning. Mercy and moderation died in the trenches of the Great War. Now men must be as cold and unfeeling as the machines that ravage the battlefields.

Surely even the most stubborn within Stavka will accept this reality once they have to bear the full might of the grand old empires of Europe. B

Still, Kabilov wondered idly as his attention shifted to an approaching staff car, if perhaps he would have felt different if the piles of dead innocent weren't made up of faceless Finns. So completely foreign and detached to him that they might as well have been bugs. Perhaps, if he were standing in the outskirts of Uralsk or Almaty and filling mass graves with his fellow Kazakhs. Then maybe he would be finding himself more conflicted. Then again, he stomached the de-cossackization and the purges, if only barely. And those were far more personal, if smaller in scale.

He blinked away the memories that threatened to surface.

These things, wisdom held, got easier with time. And the more you did it. He took a deep breath and decided he might as well keep it up. It was a great opening move. But nothing less than demanded by the Vozhd. No doubt his expectations will be even higher from now on. And the Allies will be fuming and thirsting for blood and payback. And he couldn't find it in himself to blame them. Not even the Great War had atrocities in this scale. Kaiser Willy and Tsar Nicky had nothing on Uncle Joe. And it would get oh so much worse.

"Nothing to be done about it..." He muttered to no one in particular. "Just gotta kill them all before they do the same. Simple as that."

The staff car stopped outside the tent and the aide he had sent into the city emerged. The boy's bearing told Kabilov all he needed to know.

"Comrade Commander!" The Lieutenant saluted sharply, the moment of military professionalism fading as soon as it came. Nerves coming back to the fore as he struggled to report the likely failure of his mission, grasping the manila folder in his hands as if it were a life jacket. "I have returned from the latest sweep of Helsinki and the prisoner groups...but...unfortunately, it seems that..."

"It seems that we accidentally gassed everyone on that list you're holding?" Kabilov prompted with a slight smile. "Don't worry too much about it, Fyodor Vladimirovich. It's not your fault."

"Actually." The Lieutenant started, half stammering. "We found two among the surviving detainees, the NKVD has secured them...but..."

"They're probably not cooperating after this." The General gestured to the scene outside the command tent. "No problem. We can dig up some Finns and Samis from Karelia to rubber stamp whatever the occupation forces need." He patted the Lieutenant on his shoulder. "That said, we have nothing else to do here, Comrade Lieutenant. They need us up north. Its time to give the English monkeys some long deserved payback for the Northern Intervention."