Your name is Starshi-Leytenant Valentina Mikhailova, and you have spent the last six weeks in hospital recovering from a gunshot wound gifted to you by an assassin from the revolutionaries you had betrayed to state security services. Christmas and New Year have both passed you by in isolating boredom despite the visits from Nikita, Yakatarina and your saviour of a neighbour with fresh bread and sweet treats and promises that they were taking good care of your animals. Her name was Sasha and she'd served with the Fourth Kevian Lancers. She was, in your opinion, one of the best people you'd ever met who'd joined the Army.
Slipping your uniform back on for the first time in nearly two months was the strangest experience you'd had since, well, since you'd been shot. It was the longest you'd gone without wearing it since you'd joined up and suddenly it felt stiff and uncomfortable rather than like a second skin.
But perhaps the biggest surprise of the whole experience was what waited for you when you finally returned to your little office. Sadly it was not your long missed Bo'sun, but there was a bowl of fruit and traditional Kevian cakes and a warm welcome from some people you'd never expected to give you the time of day after your foray into providing the Zaschita with intelligence. Unteroffizier Nikolaev, Cox'sun Vorlov, Gardemarin Alexeev, all gave you their respect for the first time in months. It was strange, but gratifying in a way. Even better but one morning you came in to find Marina curled up in your seat and desperate for a scratch under the chin.
You expected the newfound acceptance would disappear in a few days but a month passed and they were still saying good morning, offering assistance, being a pleasure to work with. Even the terribly stressful paperwork slows down as the military is stood down when it becomes clear that Caspia isn't about to declare upon everyone they share a border with. The war with Akitsukini rages across the winter period but from everything you hear (and from the few reports sent back by observers on the front) little progress is being made. The reports of somewhat decisive naval engagements are a little more worrying, if only for the balance of power in Europa.
The balance of life in Europa was not the only thing that was shifting. Sasha had started knocking on your door most afternoons you were in, bringing seed for the bird or treats for the cats or Knish for you to share. Apparently she had decided that she was going to take you under her wing as your recovered and that meant you were spending a hell of a lot more time together than you'd ever expected.
You weren't complaining. She was a rough-hewn slab of firm muscle with the scars to match and a voice that spoke of too many cigarettes smoked on cold front lines even though she had yet to reach forty years of age. She was popular with the cats, who liked to lie in her lap and make you wish you could do the same. Which was very unfair. You were glad of the company but frustrated at the same time.
Once, and only once, you'd fallen asleep talking to her in your living room and woken up to her carrying you to your bed. It was a very good memory.
It was an afternoon like many others when everything changed. You were sitting reading a newspaper, revelling in the silence as Sasha gently scratched Maria under the chin next to you. It was idyllic in a peculiarly personal way.
There is a faint pop, distant and quiet, followed by a rattle. Another and then, sporadically, it becomes constant. You barely notice but Sasha goes stiff, head up with eyes closed to listen better. You're quiet for a long minute until you just have to ask.
"What-"
"Shh," She says, finger on her lips, listening for another moment, "That's gunfire."
"It must be the port." You're worried. If someone has launched a surprise attack, then you're in absolutely the least useful place you could be.
"It's closer. Much closer."
What are we thinking?
[ ] It must be an attack. I best stay put to be safe.
[ ] It must be an attack. I have to get to the port.
[ ] If it's an attack then the safest place is out of the city.
[ ] Write in.
We love comments on the writing as well as the vote! I love hearing what people think of my story!
The confusion that has washed across your mind since the rough veteran said it was gunfire suddenly clears and you face down the prospect that those supplies that had spent so long going missing were seeing use in the city you call home. But the Zaschita had arrested everyone involved, hadn't they?
Apparently not, you realise as another louder ragged ripple of gunfire echoes down your street. Sasha stands, going to the corner and retrieving the heavy looking carbine and belt of ammunition she'd hidden behind a small bookshelf.
"It's going to be different, using this without Alestry between my legs." She says, sliding the bolt open with a loud clack. Alestry, she'd told you once in her thick rural accent that you found so comfortingly warm, was the horse she'd ridden into battle more than once.
"I don't know what's happening." You say, seeking something you're not sure of. You're still confused, worried, scared in some ways.
"I doubt anyone does, Koshka, that's why I never handed this back in." She loads a round at a time, pushing shining brass down into the magazine.
"I think I need to go to the port." That is your duty station after all. Whether this is invasion or revolution, that's where you are supposed to be whenever there is an emergency even in the simplest of cases.
"Then I'm going with you." Sasha doesn't even look up from her weapon as she speaks, just makes the statement with the utmost confidence.
"You don't need to do that." You say and she fixes you with a look and a small sad smile and your heart is melting and you're not even sure entirely why that is but it is.
"I'm aware of what I do and do not need to do. I do not need to feed your cats, or bring you Knish or do anything. But if it keeps you happy, so I do." The bolt of her carbine slides home with a sharp clack, a perfect end to her sentence. "If you need to be at the port, I will make sure you are safe."
"I can look after myself."
"Oh you've surely proven that, Koshka, but a pistol is no match to a machine-gun."
She isn't going to let up and, in fact, you doubt she'll let you leave the building without her there to watch your back. So relenting seems to be your only option.
"Okay, okay. Let me sort a few things out and we'll go."
Sorting a few things out took far longer than you had thought for very little actual progress. Struggling into your uniform with a still stiff shoulder, putting down extra food for the cats in case you had to stay overnight (and saying goodbye to them each in turn of course), and making sure you had everything you could possibly need in a small pack and your pistol on your hip.
The sound only grew as your boots touched pavement and your breath started coming as white mist. Sasha, her hand on your back, had you crouch in your doorway for a moment as she peered around to get an idea of what was happening. The street was deserted, people either hiding in their homes or already out in the city somewhere. It's ominous to see it so empty when you know it should be bustling, with the rattle of distant fighting. Smoke rises into the sky from somewhere hidden behind a building. Finally Sasha taps your shoulder and you begin to walk.
You make it some two kilometres without impediment, only taking shelter twice. Once from a truck that roars past filled with volunteer firefighters and once from a gang of armed men and women heading towards the loudest fighting. Sasha took you on a circuitous route so you never saw anyone actually fighting, but more than once you came across shattered storefronts, spent bullet casings and a body or two. You admired the way she moved past without a murmur, sticking to the walls even when it meant crouching over the dead. You couldn't help but look, to consider the young (for they were invariably young) man or woman who was lying in a pool of their own blood. Being in the Navy had not exactly prepared you for gaping wounds or missing limbs. You were proud of you for keeping your lunch down though.
Your luck held almost all the way to the port until it ran out all at once. You turn a corner and step headlong into the path of a group of well dressed middle-aged men, all of them with pistols or rifles or long, wicked looking knives in hand. You stare at them and they stare at you, waiting for everything to break until one of them finally steps forwards.
"Kevia or the King?" he says, quietly.
"What?" you ask, confused again.
"Kevia," he raises a pistol into view, Sasha pulling her carbine into her shoulder in turn, "or the King?"
Well?
[ ] Kevia (Declare for the Revolution. There is no going back from this option.)
[ ] The King (Declare for Varnmark. There is no going back from this option.)
"The King." You say with all the confidence you can muster. Even if you believe in a free Kevia, you believe even more so in the rightful rule of the king and that was the reason you had first walked into the stronghold of the Zaschita. An answer of Kevia was surely an answer for the revolutionaries and you could not stand by that even if it led to another bullet even if it promised to be fatal this time. "Always the King."
There is a tense moment, a held breath as guns are held and bodies shift ever so slightly as if waiting for a string to break and for everything to turn to mad violence. Then the man who spoke before, surely their leader, lowers his pistol and grins a grim smile.
"Thank you Leytenant, for standing by your oaths." A few of the men behind him sketch vague salutes, eyes on your cap and epaulettes as much as your face.
You touch Sasha's arm gently, enough to bring her back from the precipice of adrenaline and aggression.
"Do you know what's happening? We haven't met anyone but you." you ask, aware that information is the key to achieving your objective without coming into conflict with any of the mystery parties.
"We're not sure. We heard fighting and decided we couldn't stand idly by. We've had a few gunfights with strangers shouting about Kevian independence but that's the closest we've had to an explanation."
"A revolution then?" you frown as he nods, "I thought that had been crushed. So who are you?"
"Sergeant Alexander Petrov, 8th Kevian Infantry." The man - Alexander, apparently - chuckles at your confused expression, "Or I was a long time ago. We're all veterans of one stripe or another."
"Hello Sasha," One of the men behind Alexander touches the brim of his hat in your accomplices direction.
"Vasily. I thought you were dead." She murmurs just loud enough for him to hear.
"And I you."
"I need to get to the port and find out what's happening. I'm useless out here."
Alexander nods and turns to one of his men, muttering something which you don't catch. An exchange of affirmatives goes around the little squad before he turns back to you.
"We've no officer, and I'm long since out of practice with this sort of thing. Can we help?"
What can they do?
[ ] Take the fight to the enemy, kill the traitors (test)
[ ] Come with me, it's imperative I make it safe (test)
[ ] Seek safety as best you can. The battlefield is no place for old men. (test)
[ ] Write in.
"I'm sure the marines have not turned against the King, but the armoury at the port will be a prime target for any revolutionaries." Indeed the Polyapavlosk Armoury was the largest arms depot in South Kevia and held everything from 50 year old needle rifles to the most modern of field guns, shells for the ships and so on. Even if all those shipments you had discovered were in enemy hands, that didn't mean they wouldn't be hunting for more weaponry.
"I think we'd be better suited picking off rebel stragglers, I'm afraid." Alexander says with an almost apologetic tone. "Old men like us are hardly suited to a rifle line anymore."
You understand but it is still frustrating. You could have done with more guns at your back than just Sasha, as much as you trusted in her.
"I can give you an escort though, if you like?" He offers by way of reconciliation. You nod, grateful for any help at all. "Vasily, you go with them."
The man who had spoken to Sasha before stepped forward and you felt her stiffen imperceptibly next to you. His rifle was as old as hers, worn but well maintained and he looked like he had that air of vicious competency about him. But for some reason you didn't feel entirely safe.
The other men say their goodbyes and headed off in the other direction to hunt more revolutionaries out in the city. You, Sasha and Vasily head for the port, more direct this time, hoping to reach it before anything can go wrong.
Halfway there, you hear the first boom of heavy gunfire echoing across the town. Whether naval or land based, it was a sign of escalation far beyond what you had heard and seen already. If it is field guns, that is bad enough as it means somebody has decided they are threatened enough to fire heavy artillery within the city itself. If it is naval… you decide not to think about that prospect. Instead you speed up, almost running down side streets and through back alleys towards the high-walled port.
When you arrive it quickly becomes apparent that you are not getting through the gate. A vicious gunfight is going on, with marines on one side and various different groups on the other. You were right, the port is apparently a major target. That is going to make things more difficult.
How are you going to get in?
[ ] Through the front door - Kill who you must, your objective is near (test, +1 stress)
[ ] Over the wall - There will be another way in, there always is (test)
[ ] Find a new objective - this isn't going to work, but there's plenty to do (test)
[ ] Write in.
There's no way you're going to get in the front way. That nut is tougher than diamond and much more likely to get you killed. Instead, your little group runs recon back along the West wall that surrounds the port until you find exactly what you'd set out in search of; a pile of rubble in a back street where the houses are built up almost to the brickwork, just high enough that you will be able to shimmy over.
Vasily goes first, hauling himself up and reaching a hand down for you. You unthinkingly reach with your still weak arm and winced as he hauls you over, dropping with you the short distance the other side. You watch as Sasha swings a leg over, then gasp as a rapid report of gunfire stitches holes along the top of the wall. She disappears from view but before you can shout, before you can find out if she's okay, there are shouts and the hammer of boots and arrested group of civilian clothed ruffians are bearing down on you.
+1 stress
They could just be marines caught in mufti. They could be loyalists. They could be, but there's no way you can take the chance that they'll just gun you down before you have an opportunity to explain yourself.
Instead you're running down between warehouses, feeling lucky that you know the port like the back of your hand and especially the warehouse district. You lead Vasily, relying on your memory and a solid sense of direction to guide you to where you want to be - the armouries. If anywhere is going to be held by the right sort of people, that's the place.
It quickly becomes apparent that the fighting in the port is as, if not more, intense as it is in the surrounding city. You keep your distance, seeing groups of soldiers, marines, sailors, civilians, even officers engaged in tense firefights with unknown opponents. You can't work out what's going on. Hopefully someone else has an idea and you can find them and finally get your bearings. The interminable confusion is starting to become unbearable and you wish you could just find a small, dark hold and crawl into it until everything is over. But you have a duty, and you might have already lost someone trying to achieve it. So achieve it you must.
+1 stress
Finally you reach the armoury and, thank heavens, it is relatively peaceful. There are a few watchful armed men on the roof, a few more near the main doors, but there is no shooting and only a few bodies scattered around the square in front of it. Seeing those gives you pause, but you can't come so far and give up.
"I need your rifle." You say to Vasily firmly, mustering all the courage you can.
"What. Why."
"To surrender." A decisive nod makes you seem much more confident in your idea than your hindbrain actually is.
"Surrender! What sort of idiocy-"
"If I'm right, those are our forces. If I'm wrong, we might as well be dead anyway. Will you hand me your damn rifle."
Without another word, sharp or otherwise, he does and then gawps and turns his back as you strip off your jacket and tear a long strip off of your white blouse. At least he has manners, if nothing else.
You wrap the shirt around the rifle butt and extend it around the corner, waving it firmly to make sure it is noticed. You squeal in surprise as a bullet crashes into the brickwork beside your head but it is only one and it is followed by furious shouts of 'Cease fire!' and then 'Come out, if you're surrendering'.
You and Vasily, hands raised, slowly emerge into the open and stare down what seems like a thousand dark carbine muzzles but can't be more than ten arrayed at you across the square. A marine sergeant runs over and, at the end of a pistol, makes the same demand that was made of you earlier, 'Kevia, or the King'.
"The King, of course." You answer, praying it's the right one for the second time in an hour.
"Thank the stars for that. We've shot enough of the poor bastards for one day, and that's the truth." He says, holstering his pistol and grinning. His teeth are yellowed from tobacco and his hands are lined and grimy. "C'mon, I'll introduce you to the Major."
The Major, it turns out, was a marine officer with little time for a Navy Leytenant and her tag-along veteran. He listens to your story, only demanding twice that you hurry up, and only asks one question.
"Can you fight?"
"Aye, Sir, but-"
"No buts. The bastards are all over the port and the few recce patrols I've sent out have reported fighting along the walls and outside them as well. We need every fighting hand we've got. Go and get some of the sailors and make yourself useful."
"Sir!" You almost shout as he turns his back, "Sir, I don't know what's happening. Why is there fighting? Who are we fighting?"
"You haven't heard, girl? Long live the Queen. The King is dead."
Make yourself useful:
[ ] Gather up some itinerant sailors and;
[ ] Construct some barricades with anything you can find.
[ ] Arm them for battle.
[ ] Send out more reconnaissance, freeing up marines.
[ ] Begin preparing for a siege - food, medical supplies and so on.
[ ] Write in
The personal union is broken and the nations divided. However he had died, that's exactly what these rebels are fighting for, exactly what the men and women you serve alongside are probably dying for out there on the streets of Polyapavlosk. You might be fighting for the King and a united Varnmark, but that's about to get a whole lot harder if word spreads of his death.
Better get to work then. Your first action is to send Vasily out in search of Sasha, trusting him to be able to look after himself and find out what happened on the other side of that wall. If she's been hurt… If she's been hurt, you emphasise to yourself, you wouldn't be able to forgive yourself for leaving her to lie there in the street, injured and bleeding. If you could go yourself, you would without a moment's hesitation, but you have other duties.
Deep in the armoury are fifteen or so sailors in various states of dress, readiness and confidence. You gather them up with a few stern words and the tone of command you'd learned from superior officers when they shouted at you because their ship hadn't been coaled fast enough. Never mind that coaling wasn't your department and they should have been shouting at some other poor Leytenant about it.
Ensuring they are armed and equipped in some sort of reasonable fashion takes an hour, and explaining to them that they are going to be operating as an infantry unit another still. There is much resistance, especially from some of the older 'swains and mates, but eventually they give when they are reminded of their duty to crown and country. You split them into two groups, one of ten and one of five, and send them off on their respective missions. To the first you point out nearby warehouses and demand supplies - food, medical equipment, anything they can lay their hands on that will prove useful if the rebels manage to lay siege to the armoury The second will reconnoitre the docks and the slipways to find out who controls the ships. They will be vital in the coming days.
Waiting is worse than anything else. It has one lesson though, and that's that you would have never succeeded in the traditionally male dominated Army. Not only would you have faced being a minority, but you would have had to wait for news so many more times. No, your little office was seeming more and more attractive, however much you wished to be out of it when you are working.
Over the course of hours the news starts rolling in. Food and medical supplies are easy to find and soon there are stacks and stacks of crates inside the armouries thick walls to go with the guns and ammunition. Any siege will be survivable for at least a few weeks, if not longer. Then a few new marines and sailors arrive, bringing news that the fighting in the port is beginning to settle into grim stalemate in all the places they have heard it but that the gate guards are low on ammunition. The marines leave with packs full of rifle rounds. The sailors stay to bolster your numbers.
As the sun goes down the men you had sent to the docks return. Or at least, two of them do, one carrying the other. He's badly wounded and your first urge is to get him stabilised before you can even take a report. When the report comes it is even worse news. The Docks and the ships which remain in port are held by forces loyal not the Varnmark or the King but to Kevia and some of them are already flying the traditional Kevian jack's rather than the newer ones that had been issued after the union was formed. At least half of the ships were missing, however, including three of the huge battleships. Not sunk, but not in port. You hope they have chosen the right side.
Finally, Vasily returns just as you are beginning to fear that he may not return and, even better, he has Sasha in tow. Without thinking you leap up from your position and run into her arms, wrapping your own around her waist and burying your head in her chest in full view of the door guards.
You don't particularly care what they think.You wouldn't know what you would do if she had been seriously injured, or been killed.
"Hey, Koshka, I'm safe." She whispers before letting go, the only words you care to hear.
The night passes uneventfully. When the sun rises, everyone is tired, but there has been little gunfire overnight. It is time to make new plans and coordinate with the Major of the Marines. It is no good to be reactive. The only way to push is to be proactive.
The young man you sent to the docks died in the night.
You have some forces and enough supplies to survive a siege, but you can do more:
[ ] Push towards the gates to relieve the marines there.
[ ] Push towards the docks to recapture the ships.
[ ] The armoury is the key to victory. We must reserve our strength.
[ ] Write-in
Known Rebel positions are shown in Blue.
Known Loyalist positions are shown in Red.
This update contains Deadnaming, Misgendering and general Transphobia. Treat with caution.
No-one had ever thought to teach the young officers who had gone to school to command the Kevian Navy about ground combat, about the pressure and the silence, about the tense moments as dawn broke, and about the waiting. You are discovering it all first hand as your city, your home, burns around you. Sporadic gunfire echoes off the walls and down the streets every few minutes and makes the idea of taking any rest difficult. At least it is just rifle fire.
In the afternoon of the second day, the Major calls you into a storeroom he has turned into an ad-hoc command post. There is another junior officer there, another marine with a rifle slung over his back and a sour look on his face.
"-If they're going to hit the armoury, they'll come up these two roads." The younger man is saying as you walk in, pointing to a map dotted with red and blue. Polyapavlosk looks stark outlined in black and grey with a troubling amount of what can only be known rebel positions.
"Leytenant Mikhailova, meet Leytenant Medyedev. We were just going over the situation as it stands." The Major gestures first to his colleague and then the map.
"As I was saying, these two roads will be where they'll come from if they're coming from the docks. Unless they just sit there and hold fast."
"Then what do we do?" you ask, ready to trust in the men who have experience in this sort of thing.
"We have to hold the armouries." The Major replies, firm.
"Aye Sir, we do," Medyedev is thoughtful, fingers tugging at his thin beard, "But this place might as well be a fortress. If we barricade the doors you could hold it with five men against five hundred."
"And we have almost fifty." You'd become acutely aware of how many men and women were crammed into this small space over the last twenty-four hours. "We could fight back with numbers like that."
"Not the docks though. Even if they're just keeping our boys holed up they'll still have the numbers over us even if we took every man-jack. But we could punch out towards the gate here and reconnect with the marines we know are there." the Leytenant traces a line from the armoury to the gate you had made an attempt on the day before. "Plus it would mean a route of communication and egress out of the port if we need it." The Major makes a harrumphing noise, "Like it or not, Sir, we might not be able to hold forever. We have to be realistic."
You stopped thinking about anything to do with the fight. The idea that you might have to abandon your positions that you might not win here, hadn't even crossed your mind. But now it had.
"We'll just have to fight to make sure that doesn't happen." You are trying to put on a brave face for the two other officers. They don't seem convinced.
"We will." The Major agrees. "I'll give you ten marines and fifteen sailors, both of you, but not today. We wait two days to see if they come to us, then I'll give you your head. Agree'd?"
"Aye, Sir." Medyedev says. All you can do is nod. You're going to be commanding troops in battle, for your nation and your home. You couldn't be more terrified.
On day three the shelling started. It was neither sustained nor accurate, but shells began falling around the armouries and beyond. The Major suggested it was simply harassing fire from small guns hidden out in the city, not from the ships in port. It could still be the prelude to an attack though, and you spent four hours stood to in readiness as the fire slowly diminished until it was just the occasional random shot.
You sought out Sasha as soon as you could, seeking comfort in what was perhaps the only shred of normality in this whole mess.
She was smoking in a back corner, arms folded across her chest as Vasily gesticulates sharply at her. It isn't until you get closer that you can hear what he's saying.
"What is this? This mockery of god, this cheap imitation of a woman." His voice is sharp, the anger layered in every word.
"I am who I have to be." She fires back, voice leaden, dull. It is not the first time she has heard these sort of things.
"Have to? You choose your own blasphemy. It is distasteful to the extreme. And you still think you can stand by our sides? These men and women should not be forced to suffer your presence."
"They do not suffer my skill with a rifle nor my talent for the battlefield."
"You're a disgrace, Alexander. I can't believe I called you comrade." He spits at her feet. A moment later her hand hits his face in a resounding slap, the noise making more than one prurient onlooker who had been attracted by the argument look away.
"I make my own choices, Vasily Petrov, and they are mine alone. If you wish to forget me, do so. I already thought you were dead." She pushes past him and stalks off. For a moment you have the urge to confront him despite your uncertainty as to the reason for her upset, to punish and embarrass him further, but there's no way you can leave Sasha on her own. You chase after her without hesitation.
Her turn catches you by surprise and you stumble into her, unable to stop in time. She catches you by the shoulder and backs you against the wall. The space between you in this dark stone corridor is so little that you can feel the heat of her and see the tears on her face in obscene detail.
"Do you want to hurt me too, little Valya?" She asks, the venom she is trying to put in her voice overwhelmed by the pain. It is enough to break your heart. You reach for her and she bats your hands away. "You can call me a monster. An Invert. Everyone else does."
"Sasha, I wouldn't."
"Then what is it, huh? Am I fascinating? A curiosity, a freak? None of these words hurt anymore." The magnitude of the agony behind her eyes says otherwise.
"None of these things." You had figured things out before Vasily's vicious words. It was difficult not to notice the cut of her jaw, the growl of her voice. Such things were as well regarded in Europa as your love of a woman's beauty and for the longest time you were ashamed to admit you had fallen into that mode of thinking. And yet Sasha had shown you simply by her presence that not only was she woman, but more so than many you have met.
So you understand the anger, and the pain, in some ways. It is fear.
"I cannot understand you. You noble, pretty fool, you understand so little and yet you stand." She says and for the first time her words find purchase. Their bite is sharp.
"Of course I stand," You bite back, "This world does not welcome me either, Sasha, but I walk it by God's will."
"You'll spend a long time walking alone."
"If I must, then I must. But I'd be happier if I was able to walk it with you."
She goes silent, looking into your eyes as you looks into hers. Her hand comes up to cup your face, the difference in height between you made more apparent by proximity. Suddenly her lips skim yours in the most chaste of kisses.
"For some reason, Koshka, I believe you." She whispers in your ear.
The push for the gate is well planned, well thought out, and terribly executed. You led the sailors up one street, the marines moving up another with Sasha by your side. Each group had a machine-gun, rifles, grenades, and a clearly defined mission.
None of that helps when you walk straight into an ambush.
You were forced to watch as men and women who had placed their trust and faith in you were cut down in seconds, their lives snuffed out by hot lead and cruel steel. The rest dive for cover and the screams of the dying undercut the sudden excruciating sound of fighting. Rebel soldiers in windows, behind walls, around corners put down an absolute fusillade of fire which overwhelms every notion of training you have had and kicks in your basest instincts.
If your academy days had failed to prepare you for the interminable boredom of soldiery, then they had certainly not given you the slightest insight into what actual combat is like. You cower in a doorway with your rifle clutched to your chest like a child's toy. You dimly remember thinking that this was no example to set the men and women under your command and yet what else can you do.
Time passes. The battle rages. You hide. People die. Blood spills. You hide. Eyes sting. Lips crack. You hide.
A hand on your shoulder. Dragging you upright. Voice in your ear, screaming, screaming something, something important.
"Shoot! Shoot or die, you fucking fool." Sasha shakes you into reality and pushes you out and into the firing line. Your rifle comes up to your shoulder just as you practiced, the trigger pull difficult but smooth and the crack loud enough you can hear it even over all the other sound.
The shooting only slows when the rebels pull back, not repulsed but withdrawing without a sound. Suddenly you are alone amongst the wounded and bleeding soldiery, amongst expended brass and broken brick, amongst the detritus of war. It is a very different experience than you had expected. Sasha, somehow unharmed, says something. You can't hear her so you gesture vaguely at your ears.
"We need to find cover before nightfall!" She shouts. You nod and she shakes her head. Instead of waiting for the order, she grabs your arm and gathers the others, some carrying the seriously injured on their shoulders, and leads you all into a nearby house. She props you upright in the corner and you are asleep before her hands are off you.
The morning will bring new challenges. How do you face them?
[ ] The only options is stealth. We cannot be drawn into more fighting.
[ ] Speed is essential. We push the gate as soon as we are ready.
[ ] Caution is key. If we must fight, we will do so on our terms.
[ ] Write in (subject to GM approval)
Waking up is less a case of slipping out of a dreamlike fugue and more being dragged kicking and screaming from nightmare to waking nightmare. You're in the living room of an officer's house, the bodies of men and women scattered around you in various states of undress, various states of animation. Sasha stands over you, a hand on your shoulder to shake you awake, and she shoves a cracked mug of thick black coffee into your hand before disappearing back into the kitchen without a word.
There are nine bodies, which makes ten including you, eleven with Sasha. Eleven left out of the seventeen that left the armoury the day before. That made for six dead men and women who might as well have been dead by your hand for all that you did. A flash of memory of hiding with eyes squeezed shut burns itself into your mind. It hurts.
Sasha reappears after a minute or two, silently dropping into a chair with her own mug. It's cold in this house, abandoned presumably since the conflict started. She goes to say something when a ripple of distant gunfire cuts her off. You decide to pre-empt her.
"We should get moving." You say. You still have an objective to achieve, even if you're a day late.
Slowly you wake the others, the sailors who are now combat veterans. One won't stir, a woman who had barely spoken the day before. She seems to have died in her sleep from what had presumably seemed like minor injuries, leaving you with only ten. Her papers say her name is Lily. You put them in a pocket and hope you live to deliver them where they're needed.
"Listen up." You say to them when they're all standing, Sasha standing by your shoulder and giving you strength with her very presence, "We still have an objective, and we're going to achieve it."
"H-how?" One of the sailors stutters. They are not the only ones who are scared. They are not the only ones who have faced a bullet for the first time.
"We're going to move quietly and carefully. We'll skirt around the enemy instead of pushing through them. If we are reinforcing, we must conserve our numbers, not waste lives in ambushes we could avoid if we were more careful. Aye?"
"Aye, Sir." The chorus is ragged, but it is positive. That's something at least. You close your eyes and try to block out the faces of the dead.
A group of people, even just ten, cannot possibly move silently through the streets of Polyapavlosk, but then can be quiet. You barely whisper when you have to talk, using basic hand signals that Sasha has shown you all when you have to communicate instead. Progress is slow, and it's midday before you're anywhere close to your destination, but at least in those few hours nobody has shot at you and nobody has died.
And then you reach the gate. An open promenade leads from it into the Port, the great gates shut and barred beyond. On the inwards facing side (and presumably the outer too) and in the watchtowers on either side stand marines in miniature keeping a constant watch. There are bodies in the road and buildings burned out. The gates themselves show signs of shellfire.
You and your group retreat slowly, aware that you could be being watched, backing away until you find an alley that runs parallel to it. You move slowly, leading the way, ducked behind a low wall.
It quickly becomes apparent from the noises emanating from some of the houses that they are occupied, and not by your forces. As you reach the closest building to the gate, the back door slams open. You hit the floor, praying that your sailors have the same thought and that they keep their mouths shut. Footsteps on the path. A wooden door creaks open. A stream of liquid splashing against metal and a whistled, jaunty little tune. You rise, hand out behind you to keep your men silent and down.
The knife slips from your belt easily. Climbing over the wall takes but a moment. Stealing up to the pissing man in the outhouse a moment longer. You take a deep breath as silently as possible. When you strike, it is with a hand on his shoulder and the blade thrust through his spine and up. He drops to the floor like his strings have been cut in but a second. But a second is long enough for him to issue a keening scream, long and loud.
Everything after that happens very quickly. Sasha shouts "Up and into them, lads! Bayonets and blades!". Your sailors race past you as you pull the knife slick with blood from the dead man's back. You join them, charging into the building. The enemy inside, sailors in soiled uniforms, fight with clubs and carbines which they can barely bring to bare on their unexpected enemies. At some point you are sprayed with arterial blood and the stink of copper is so strong it almost has you retching. You kill two, at least, perhaps three, knife in flesh and hands on throat.
It is butchery, though even such a one sided fight is not without its victims. When the last of them is dead, when you gather your sailors, two of them lie in pools of their own blood. You are reduced to eight.
It matters little with the gate and your objective so close at hand. Making contact is not difficult, though crossing the space is a little more dangerous. But finally you arrive.
Thirty marines, most of a platoon, hold the gate and it's blockhouses already reinforced by Leytenant Medyedev and his twelve survivors. He welcomes you warmly, informing you with no hesitation that he had expected you to already be dead. You teased him that he should have more faith in the skills of the Navy. He is also kind enough to introduce Leytenant Pedersen, an officer from across the Dakazyn Sea who has commanded the gate's company for almost a week with neither rest nor respite. Nonetheless she has held.
She explains of the near constant fighting, of the long watches deep into the night, and of the semi-constant bombardment which they have had to face without relief. But now with your arrival and with Medyedev's you number over fifty and have half a company to plan with even despite the losses incurred on the way here.
You spend three days in place while planning your next move. You fight, you kill, you shoot men and women who charge the gate with futile intent. You spend two hours helping to feed ammunition on a machine-gun in an action where at least a dozen are killed. It is apparent that the rebels either consider this gate a strategic target or have simply thrown so many lives at it that at this point it seems foolish not to keep pushing.
You also receive news from outside the city for the first time since the rebellion started. Somehow neither the telephone line nor telegram cable have been cut and this Northern gate is one of the only points of contact with the world beyond Polyapavlosk.
Much of the news is bad. The rebellion is not contained to this one city and the entirety of Kevia burns, as do some of the cities across the border in Stolrussia. The army on the border with Caspia is greatly weakened by internal strife and the capital of Gelsingfors is the site of intense fighting. The King, it is said, died at the hand of a traitor in his own guard and his wife almost died alongside him. But she survives and so does his infant son. Varnmark will endure.
Much of the news is bad. But not all of it. Other gates, smaller than this one but no less important, are still held by their marine contingents. The rebel numbers seem less than was initially feared. And last, but by no means least, a regiment of Stolrussian infantry have arrived by train in the North-East and are even now fighting their way south into the city in an attempt to relieve the port.
The fighting is still hard and will continue to be so. But it seems like loyal forces are beginning to turn the tide of the enemies surprise.
Three Leytenants and fifty men can change the world. But how will you change it?
[ ] Push North-East to link up with the infantry.
[ ] Push South-West to link up with the other gate garrisons.
[ ] Push back into the port-proper to clear out rebels.
[ ] Return to the Armoury with news.
Nights at the gate were never truly dark. Fires burned on all sides both close to your position and far away across the city. It gave the usually pitch black hours a nasty glow, the sort that promised hellish days to come as you had already experienced so many of.
The blood from the house to house fighting had washed off of your hands, but it was still smeared across your by now filthy uniform. You've been wearing it for almost two weeks without changing, you realise. For some reason that doesn't disgust you in the way it would have used to. Everyone and everything is filthy. Why should you be any different?
Even if it had been dark, sleep was becoming hard to come by. Every time you close your eyes you see the dead, hear their moans and their screams. You still have Lily's papers in your pocket. Still have a mans blood on your knife. He had to die for you and your squad to survive, but that didn't make you rest any easier. Every night you would slip off to sleep before waking with a start ten, fifteen, sometimes as many as twenty minutes later. It was always bloody hands and empty eyes that dragged you almost screaming from your slumber.
You are not the only one struggling to sleep.
One night as the echo of distant shelling ripples across Polyapavlosk, Sasha's hand finds yours almost as you stir awake, troubled by a memory of the fighting.
It was a lie but somehow she made you feel it, even despite the nightmares. You lever yourself up on your elbows from the cold floor. A bedroll is not enough to make it comfortable. Pulling a cigarette from a pouch on your pack, you light up and take a long drag. It's a bad habit you've picked up in the last few days. It helps, a little.
"Can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" She hauls herself up and plucks the cigarette from between your fingers, taking a drag for herself. She offers it back with a tired smile.
"The nightmares. Do they ever stop?" It is the first time you have acknowledged them. You can't imagine she hasn't noticed though. You only hope she understands.
She sighs, taking a cigarette for herself from the pack, apparently deciding that she needed an entire one for herself.
"They don't stop. The things you see when you're fighting, those stay with you for the rest of your life." She moves to put an arm around you, pulling you in close to her chest. "War is not pretty, little Koshka. But you will get used to it."
"I don't want to get used to it."
"None of us do. But we do, and then we can sleep through the nightmares." Her arm is tight around your shoulders. "If I had my way, you would never fight again."
"Yet you would?" The unspoken implication of her words were unmissable.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I am good at it. It's the only thing I've ever been good at."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?"
You stub your cigarette out on the floor and throw the butt into the corner, Sasha following suit. You lie down and she wraps her arm around you. In a matter of moments she is asleep and snoring softly.
"No, it's not." you say, knowing she can't hear.
"If we hold the gates, we hold the Port." Leytenant Pedersen insists. The argument over how to use your fighting strength has been going in circles for an hour with you, Pedersen and Medyedev all having distinctly different ideas while none of you are willing to compromise.
"We have the gates and yet the port has already fallen, Pederson! We must push North, link up with the Stolrussians. Otherwise we will starve." Medyedev argues.
"We will not starve, even if we just holed up here." You respond.
"Have I done nothing these last days? The gates will hold without us, the infantry will come regardless. We can be of more use than that."
"What exactly are you suggesting?" Medyedev, at least, seems willing to listen.
"The Armoury," you tap the map, pointing out the place you'd fought so hard to come from just a few days before, "It puts us in the best place to support an attack on the docks when the time comes, and we're going to have to do that at some point."
"Well, they're hardly going to surrender after all this, are they." Pederson chuckles. It seems he's finally starting to relax.
"If we can link up the troops at the armoury with the gate here, we can trap enemy forces here" you point out blue rebel positions to the west, "and have a line that the infantry can push the enemy up against. If the rebels can't retreat, they're done."
"No retreat, no resupply - we'd have the advantage for the first time." Medyedev nods along
"Aye, we'll be seizing the initiative, that's for sure." Pederson agrees.
"So we're agreed then?"
"Aye. I suppose we are."
Two days are spent preparing, making sure that the twenty-five men and women who will be leaving the gates will have enough food, ammunition and firepower to achieve their objective. The rest of the time is spent ensuring that those who are staying behind will be able to hold until the Stolrussian Infantry regiment arrives. Defences were prepared, machine-guns were firmly emplaced and grenades were placed at fighting holes. Leytenant Pederson and his marines would be able to hold against even the stiffest of attacks - or so you hoped.
You move out under the cover of darkness, you, Medyedev, Sasha, Vasily and twenty-one sailors and marines scurrying out of the gate fort and into a building. Backstreets are easy to find, easy to pick your way down even with such numbers.
That morning, as the sun comes up and you creep across the port, you get your first real taste of urban warfare as the marines had expected to be fighting. Neither ambush nor close in brawl, when the fighting starts it is across streets and between buildings, with bullets whickering past your prone position and grenades detonating every few seconds.
You throw your three in the opening moments of the combat, one sailing perfectly through a window that a rebel rifleman is leaning out of. A few seconds later, the grenade 'crumps' in that peculiarly distinctive way and an arm comes spinning out. Your school calisthenics instructor would have been proud, you think grimly.
The battle lasts hours. You have the numbers and the determination to push through, but they have better positions and, you soon come to explicitly understand, artillery support. While the big guns are nowhere near and not useful, the rebels have plenty of lighter pieces and mortars to add to the butchery.
Fortunately, there are buildings a-plenty to find cover in and the worst of the shelling is a few shrapnel wounds and being forced to repel the attacks of some fool-hardy rebels who seem to have yet to learn what charging a rifle line actually did.
You watch people die again, close up and personal. Yours. Theirs. You run dry of ammunition in your belt pouches more than once and have to take a moment to swing your pack off your back and refill them. You realise how dry your mouth is, how covered in dust it is from where bullets have been kicking up great clouds of the stuff. A shell lands nearby and you flinch. You're still not used to the overwhelming sound that comes from being in the middle of it. It's sensory brutality.
It's so intense that it is only after you take a moment to pause, to breath, to reload, that you realise you are bleeding. You touch your forehead and your fingers come away red. Whether bullet or shrapnel, something has nicked you. You thank god it wasn't a few millimetres close or you'd never have felt it at all.
While the fight rages for hours, you manage to come through it with only a few scratches. By the time night is falling, you're long since pushing through the enemies positions. The gun crews have vanished with their guns, leaving behind bodies, supplies and more than one machine-gun.
You can't blame them. Moving in the city means moving fast. You leave behind the three of yours that have fallen. You can always recover them when you win. If you win.
It is day twelve of the battle for Polyapavlosk by the time you reach the armoury once more. The Major is still here - as are many more men and women than you had left originally. Apparently it has become something of a rallying point in the five days since you left and, with the twenty-something you bring, there is a company force here now. Enough to change everything when what you are sure will be the last push comes.
But first, you just need to sleep.
When the push comes, where will you be?
[ ] Leading from the front - The ships must be retaken
[ ] Flanking from the side - The rebels have artillery out there somewhere.
[ ] Crossing the river - Trap the Eastern units between you and the Stolrussians.
The advance units of the Stolrussian infantry, the 9th Vanguard apparently, reach the armouries within twenty-four hours of your arrival. In two days there's two platoons of the rugged looking soldiers reinforcing you positions and taking their turn on the wall. Their commander, a Kapitan Larsen, arrives in a staff car just as soon as a flare goes up declaring the armoury taken.
Taken. You could spit. It wasn't taken, it has been held by the blood and sweat of Kevians. But nonetheless, you appreciate the arrival of the allied infantry. Even if you feel even more grimy standing next to them in their reasonably clean uniforms.
When you go to meet Larsen you find him already in discussion with the Major, the map that was by now becoming torn and frayed and the edges the centre of their conversation. Sasha is with you, rifle slung across her bag, her eyes looking tired from several days of little sleep as you toss and turn beside her. She has refused to find a quiet corner. She refuses to leave your side. Medyedev is the last to the meeting, also looking exhausted. Four of you are filthy from days of sleeping on floors, of rolling in dust, of fighting for your city. One of your number looks like his uniform has just been pressed.
"Leytenants." The Kapitan says with a nod, "I was just informing the Major of our attack plan. H-hour is 1400 tomorrow, at which point the ninth will sweep into the docks across a broad front. First we'll recapture the waterside warehouses and offices here" he slides a finger along the map, "and then the ships will fall next. A simple enough plan, but they locals haven't exactly shown their tactical acumen in the last few days." he laughs, looks around for company, receives only a grim look.
"We've seen effective platoon level tactics across the city, including ambush and fighting withdrawals. I would warn against complacency, Kapitan." Medyedev shakes his head almost imperceptibly.
"And yet we are crushing them. Please Leytenant, have a little perspective. You can be very proud of what you have achieved these past few weeks, but the Army will finish what the Marines could not."
What would usually be simple inter-service ribbing is apparently too much. Medyedev stares the other man square in the eye for a long and silent moment before turning and walking out without a word.
"Oh dear. Did I go too far?" The Kapitan asks, though it is clear he feels no remorse for his words. "Anyway, Major, if you're maintaining a command post here, I imagine my own major will join you forthwith. Can we operate runners from your armoury? It will make a good position for it."
"Of course, Larsen, of course. My marines will be at their disposal as well of course."
The Major is fawning. Perhaps he feels salvation has come. It makes you feel sick.
"What of the artillery?" You ask quietly.
"I'm sorry?"
"The rebels have been operating light and medium artillery pieces across the city, we've certainly suffered enough at their hands, and they'll surely press them into action when you begin your attack. What about them?"
"Well, if they're with the others then we'll smash them all together."
"I don't believe they will be." You shake your head. The overconfidence of this man is astounding.
"Why ever not?"
"Because at no point have we managed to push into the rebels and found their guns. They've always been away from the fighting, well positioned to provide fire support but seemingly never at risk of being overrun."
"But you've been fighting ad-hoc. They might be able to confuse a piecemeal platoon, especially a green one, but the ninth will deal with it."
Again with the infuriating confidence and dismissal of your experiences. You could feel the tension in Sasha's hand on the small of your back. At least he hadn't called you Leytenantova yet.
A different track was called for.
"Perhaps so. If the ninth are so good we will leave this to them, but I know my squad would regret not being part of the last push." You say, pandering to the man, "Major, if we joined the assault but on the flank, perhaps, where we wouldn't be in the way. It would be important for the men and women to feel they have contributed to the ninth's assured victory."
"Well I don't see any reason not to agree to that. Kapitan?" He looks at your shrewdly, sensing some sort of trickery but not being able to figure it out. If you're right, and the flank is where most of the guns will be sited, then perhaps he will be grateful after the battle even if he isn't before.
"Of course. If the sailors of Polyapavlosk wish to extinguish the subversives themselves then who am I to refuse."
"Thank you, Kapitan, Major. Good day." You leave without a salute, a certain faux pas but you have work to do, sailors to prepare. You are going to war again and hopefully this time you'll save some lives.
In the hours before the attack, you and Leytenant Medyedev lead a combined platoon of forty soldiers and sailors along the reinforced front line towards a flank position which will enable you to sweep into the area you think the enemy has their guns. As you go you pass squad after squad of confident almost jovial Stolrussian troops, many of whom are willing to share a cigarette or some sweets with the 'Brave Defenders of Polyapavlosk'.
You don't feel so brave, you think, as you pick your way through another shattered and burned out husk of a house, nor as you step between the bodies of civilians and soldiers alike. Nobody has cleared away the bodies from any of the fighting. There hasn't been time. The cold has preserved most of them and thus there are a hundred corpses in rictus poses between the armoury and your destination, some still slumped around their weapons or the trinkets they were trying to escape the fighting with.
But it bolsters those under your command and by the time you reach the position that you and Medyedev picked out as your stepping off point most of the forty are in good spirits despite the destruction and the exhaustion. It is strange to have been able to simply walk across the ports streets after two weeks of keeping your head down or risking losing it. But it feels good. It feels like you're winning.
You're disabused of that feeling when the flares go up and the whistles blow and you press your sailors into the attack with shouts of 'Up and at them!' and 'Forward, lads, forward!'. Scattered rifle fire meets you but it is nothing compared to the sheer magnitude of the cacophony further up the line. Buzzsaw machine-guns accompany the deep thump-crump of artillery firing, matched a few seconds later by the snap-boom of explosions when those same shells land amongst the charging infantry or smash into the buildings the defending rebels are occupying. It is only on one side of you and it is already overwhelming - you cannot imagine what it would be like to me in the midst of it. You thought you had come to understand the magnificent horror of battle but just from the sheer noise this, an attack by a full regiment of soldiers, guns, artillery, this is something else entirely.
And under it all is the shouting. The war cries of well trained men and the fearful shouts of angry rebels that stand to meet them. It is like an undercurrent, a pulse, that runs beneath all the shooting and the shelling and brings the battlefield to life. War is a living thing, it's a thousand men and women creating carnage where every life given is a sacrifice for some distant greater good that means nothing to the individual and everything to the state.
Yet you fight on, no time to wax philosophical, bayonet affixed to rifle, plunging between barricade and brick wall with finger on trigger, snap-firing at the first warm body to present itself. That one drops with your bullet in it's chest then you bathe your blade in the hot blood of a second as Sasha drops a third with a shot over your shoulder which threatens to leave you deafened it's so loud. You push through, push on, taking the barricade in the opening minutes before stalling on their second line as a row of buildings presents a barrier impenetrable. Two dead, you count, and another fallen wounded for at least six of theirs.
Momentum, you have learned, is key. Thus you press your sailors forwards, waving Medyedev to do the same, aware that charging entrenched rifles is a way to earn your death but nonetheless it's necessary. Grenades first, overarm throws that plunge into the enemy and shield your advance for the brief moment you need to press the advantage. Some lie bleeding already and you almost join them as a bullet takes the top of your ear but you barely notice the pain and plunge your bayonet into the shooter. You don't even realise you're screaming as you advance until the ringing in your ears clears and Sasha puts her hand on your shoulder to make you breath for the first time in what seems like hours.
The second row of defences is taken, and this time for much greater cost. You have eleven left in fighting order, Medyedev fourteen and almost all of those are bleeding or bruised. You touch your right ear and wince. That will hurt for a long while but you have no time for a medic. You have no time for anything. You order your sailors into a ragged defensive line along the back wall of shattered buildings, the two machine guns you had brought forwards sited carefully to cover the approaches from the docks themselves. The sea is so close now you can taste salt-water in the air. It feels so familiar compared to the cordite and copper-blood that had been your world for two weeks. You stop just long enough for a cigarette and to glance at the map with your fellow Leytenant. It is long enough for the rebels to organise a counter-attack.
Much has been written on the way to attack a machine-gun since their invention. Most recommend smoke shells or artillery bombardment, flanking attacks or night assaults, when the gun cannot be used to its full effect.
It is unbelievable but either the rebels do not know that you have brought up such vicious weapons, or they have not read these theories.
A hundred men, women and even teenagers charge across an open boulevard designed for huge ammunition carriages, each of them armed to the teeth. You do not even have to give the order before your squads machine-gun begins firing with that teeth-rattling chatter they are so famous for. Medyedev's joins a moment later and thick streams of tracer cut across the open ground. Everywhere they point running rebels fall and stumble and lie still, and it only worsens when the survivors of that withering fusillade get close enough for the rifles to join their larger brethrens wicked butchery.
It is not an assault. It is a massacre.
In under a minute, a hundred people lie as a hundred pitiful corpses as the machine-guns smoke gently and not a single one of your sailors has been hurt. You stare dumbfounded at the dead. Not a word is spoken in the silence that follows, not by anyone, not until Sasha comes to put a hand on your back.
"It is the devil's work, this fighting." She says, an acknowledgement more than sympathy.
"Truly it is." you reply, still staring.
You order a pause in the advance and hope the artillery will hold off long enough for you to reach it.
In the moments that follow, rain begins to fall.
The attack on the dock bogs down when the weather turns, cobblestones turned slick by water making soldiers stumble and fall as they try to advance. But it does not stop the artillery. Great guns, howitzers and cannons, are turns on the 9th Vanguards main line of advance the the toll paid is high indeed. Fire and shrapnel cut through men densely packed by the urban environment who have none of the protection that a trench would offer them. Smaller pieces, mortars are pack guns, lay smoke-shells to cover counter-attacks and small bombs to stop assaults. Whenever the 9th try to cross open ground it seems there is artillery ready to fire on them and machine-guns emplaced to meet them.
The death toll is hideous. Soldiers die, pulverised by explosions, shredded by metal shards, torn open by bullets. They die by the squad and by the platoon. In some places, they die to the last of them.
Kapitan Larsen is one of the first to fall.
The renewed assault on the now woken guns is costly for you and your sailors, as you must cover the ground that before had been your killing field. The rebels do not have the machine-guns or the experience, but they still make it costly for you. You find yourself running between prone forms, kicking them into action and screaming, always screaming for them to charge, to push forwards, to do so or die in the open like a dog. A few shells land amongst your small force, guns turned from the main threat to face this one close at hand and they are deadly indeed. By the time you reach the other side of the boulevard and have the opportunity of cover that a small stone wall provides, your entire force has been reduced to just seventeen.
Leytenant Medyedev is not amongst them. His battered and dirty body, still with the shining pins of a Marine Leytenant, lies alongside another where he fell. From where you are crouched you cannot see the wound that took him but surely there is one. A pang runs through you, the pain settling in your stomach. It is almost enough to make you give, but the day must be seen out you know that much. However much hell you must face, this is the last of it and the worst of it. You wipe your eyes, smearing your face with soot. You barely give it a second thought.
"We need to push on." You say almost absentmindedly but loud enough for Sasha to hear.
"The men are exhausted, Leytenant, they need to rest." She replies, her use of your rank snapping you into reality. You look around and see she is right. Most are slumped against walls out of breath or sitting, eyes down. The feeling of fatigue is palpable. Nonetheless, there is no choice.
"We push on or we die, Sasha." Your voice is far sharper than you'd meant it to be. But you know it is the truth. Adrenaline will get you through, and the sailors too. "We push or those guns wreak havoc." That may have been the more important part. Even if you had to sell your very lives, those guns had to be silenced.
So you push. There is no other option. Stopping now would sentence more men and women to their deaths, more soldiers who would not return home to their loved ones. You haul aching sailors to their feet, feeling your own muscles scream in protest at the exertion. The next hour might decide if you live or die but the opportunity for it to be over is its own attraction.
The next buildings are the last in your path, a row of dockside warehouses with narrow alleys between them. Each one would mean a killing zone if you sent your unit through them. The only option then is through the warehouses and that would surely mean more of the intense, close in, body to body and blade to blade fighting that already kept you up at night. But there is no other option.
You walk the line, giving each man and woman an order, a kind word, an encouragement. They load their rifles, fix their already bloodstained bayonets to them. They prepare for another push. You prepare.
When you crash into the buildings it is like hell itself has risen to the earth and brought its demons with it. The is fire and smoke and the vicious shouts. Screams too. You shoot one, rack the bolt, step over the body, shoot another, rack the bolt, duck behind a crate that spits splinters as the enemy return fire, stand, fire, rack the bolt, fire, rack the bolt, fire.
What cannot be more than a few minutes of hard fighting blends into an hour or more of hallucinogenic madness. You feel men die as much as you see it, bodies dropping from your periphery, disappearing behind the cover that they had taken. At some point you take a scratch from a long, brutally serrated knife, feeling it scrape across the side of your ribs before you plunge your own blade into the wielders neck. For the second time arterial blood soaks your skin.
And then it is over almost as quickly as it started. Bodies are piled on the floor, the cement slick with blood. You're breathing as hard as any of your sailors. Only the marines seem to be holding themselves together, holding themselves apart. They've folded themselves into your unit without complaint after the death of their own Leytenant, but there is distance. But that doesn't matter right now. All that matters is that they fight.
The artillery is just beyond. They're so close you can taste the smoke of their propellant, feel the rumble in your chest whenever they fire. And they are firing often. They must be stopped.
You order another charge. Is it the fifth, you wonder, or the sixth. Six assaults, six sprints into the face of guns in half that many hours. But still your sailors follow as you leap from the warehouses and towards the waterside where heavy guns are interspersed with mortars and light howitzers.
This time though, the enemy is prepared. A few of the guns have been turned on you, accompanied by massed rifle fire. Sailors and marines alike fall to bullets and shrapnel, cut down by death's scythe without warning. The smoke burns lungs that are already screaming for the air they're not getting. Grenades are thrown back and forth, only adding to the carnage. It is frantic and then suddenly the wet ground is all you can see and feel and the cold is seeping into your skin and then everything is darkness and there is nothing else.
The nightmares are the worst they've ever been. Skulls scream from the dark nothingness, begging for your mercy, taunting you of your failings, asking why you let them die. Lily sits across from you at a small cafe and wonders why she didn't get to go home. Leytenant Medyedev - Anton, you remember - sits in a ruined house and talks about the love he'll never see again. And Sasha, through it all, stands by your shoulder and forces you to watch, to listen, to hear.
You try to shout, to scream for yourself, to beg forgiveness. You want to tell all of the fallen that you hated it too. That you did your duty and could have done nothing less. That you would have spared them if you could. That you would have spared yourself if you could have. You want nothing less than to have never learned the heat of blood or the cold of steel.
The dreams turn to your family. Your friends. Nikita and Maximov and others too. The woman in the bar who made you feel so loved. The girl who worked in a cafe across the city. The unseen and unknown who you can only hope aren't lying in a gutter somewhere. That would be enough of a mercy.
Mercy. That's all you ask for. All you hope for.
Mercy.
When you wake up, it is not on the streets of Polyapavlosk but in the warm linen of a hospital bed. It smells of alcohol and piss but it's warm. You stir slowly, feeling nothing but the dull throb of exhaustion. For a moment you wonder if you're in heaven.
"Are you awake?" A small voice asks from behind you. You turn your head slowly, grimacing at the pain, to find Sasha, still filthy from the fighting, sitting in a chair by your bed.
"Just and just." You answer, throat burning and lips cracked. She offers you a cup of water and you drink the tiniest of sips, struggling to raise your head from the pillow.
"I was worried you never would." She says, still unnaturally quiet. Her eyes show fear for the very first time. It is not a look you ever want to see again.
"I'm okay. I promise I'm okay." You try to pull yourself upright but are defeated by a wave of pain. "What happened, I… I don't remember. Did I trip?" You remember hitting the floor, the stumbling plummet to ground level...
"You were hit in that last push. I-" She pauses, biting her lip, "Koshka, I was so scared for you. You were just lying on the ground, and the blood… Lords there was so much blood." Suddenly she doesn't seem so much the hardened warrior as a scared woman.
"Did we win?" You can't think of anything else to say. What else is there to say to reassure her. You're alive and so is she. There can't be anything else.
"We took the guns. We won, sweetheart, we won." She reaches out and places a hand oh so gently on your arm. "The fighting is over."
Over… you'd survived and come through two weeks of utterly brutal house to house fighting and… You don't know what to feel. What to think. It's over. No more gunfire and shells waking you in the middle of the night. No more screams of the dying. It's really, truly over.
"There's something else." She hesitates, but you motion for her to continue, "The shrapnel that hit you. It… Oh darling I'm so sorry. It took your leg."
You go still, breath caught in your throat. You level yourself up, pushing through the pain to look down at your feet. Foot. One is there. The other, a stump beneath the blanket.
Oh.
Oh.
You collapse back onto your pillow and let the pain drag you into darkness.
There is a price to pay for victory
[ ] The rebels must be sought out and made an example of.
[ ] The city needs to be rebuilt. No more death. No more fighting.
[ ] This goes further than just rebellion. Kevia is done for.
Sorry for the length but I didn't feel like there was anywhere to break this down effectively.
I would really appreciate commentary on this one. It took a lot to write.
There will be a brief pause before Chapter Four starts, but there will be intermission writing.
