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THE RUSSIAN WINTER |
| Written by Timmy Dee | |
| Wednesday, 04 July 2007 | |
“Hey Anton. Turn that **** down.” It wasn’t a request; it was a command. Anton took his earphones out of his ears and wrapped them around his neck. Baba Sehgal kept rapping on around his neck. “Why man? It’s not hurting anyone.” Tyoma rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know why you listen to that old ****; Baba Sehgal died like 10 years ago.” The carrier hit another bump. All the men who were sitting in the back seemed tense. “Tyoma, I listen to them because he's a good rapper. It doesn’t matter if Anthony died.” Tyoma laughed. “What I don’t get is you’re about to go into battle, and you're listening to music.” Anton thought about it. “Guess it just relaxes me.” Tyoma laughed again, but not because anything was funny; he was laughing to relieve pressure. Anton put the earphones back in his ears; he was in no rush. He looked up and closed his eyes, letting the music absorb him. Anton wondered why he was here, here being Tver, in a large armoured carrier, and in the 4th guards sapper division. When he was in school, Anton loved to learn about WWII. In high school, while prepping for the army, Anton took a theory course. His last paper was entitled, “What if Overlord Succeeded?” In Anton’s paper, he asked the question. What if the Normandy landings were a success? What if, by some miracle, the boys at Omaha managed to land successfully? Anton went in-depth in his paper. He suggested that America would still be a country, not just a smoldering wreck. Anton shuddered. He always felt sick when he learned that several million people were wiped off of the planet in just a few hours. Anton’s paper was so controversial and thoughtful that his teacher had used it as an example of what she wanted in future classes. Anton made sure his Chronus’s safety was on before he set it in his lap. Don’t wanna blow someone’s head off before the battle, Anton thought. He looked around; Anatolli was playing with a strap of Kevlar on his suit. Simeon was staring at his hand, as if he was having a conversation with it. Anton glanced at Ivan. Ivan was looking up front, where the driver was cursing about the road being bumpy. Anton didn’t even have to look to know that; it was a fact that the 4th always got the worst drivers. Anton looked at Andryusha. He too was looking up front. In fact, everyone was looking up front. While he was thinking he was missing something, Tyoma kicked Anton in the shin. Anton, in a mix of anger and pain, looked at Tyoma, preparing to scream at him, when a drum magazine came flying from the front. When the stars finally disappeared from his eyes, Anton looked up so see Captain Senenov looking at him sternly. “Glad to see you want to pay attention, Junior Sergeant.” Anton took the earphones out again. “I’m sorry sir, I was-“ Senenov cut him off. “You were just screwing off. You listening now?” Anton, gritting his teeth, nodded. “Good, now throw me back my magazine.” “Yes, sir.” The Captain looked at everyone else. “O.K. Delta. We’re five minutes away. Once we get into the city, this carrier is going to be under heavy fire. Once we stop, the doors are gunna open. You get your ass out of here once that happens. Confirm?” Everyone chimed, “Yes sir!” The Captain looked conflicted, as if he wanted to say something. He put his helmet on, and the blast screen jumped on. The Captain was reading something on the screen. He sighed and added, “Causalities are in… right now, we have 10,000 soldiers, inside of the city.” Every soldier jumped. In the beginning, 2,000,000 soldiers, over 20 divisions, were ordered to retake and defend the city. That means that, after the siege of Tver, over 1,990,000 men died. Died trying to take a city. Anton let out a low whistle. The Captain started again. “More good news: only 10 carriers have successfully made it into the city.” At this, Anton got up. “What the hell are we doing here then! This is bullshit!” The Captain calmly said, “Yes Anton, I see you can do math. Ten out of 500 carriers made it into the city.” Everyone seemed as angry as Anton. “This is crap, Sir!” “What the hell!” “Jesus…” The Captain angrily shouted, “Shut the hell up! We’re almost there.” The Captain looked behind him. “Forty seconds. Everyone, up!” Everyone stood up with their guns in their hands, all clearly pissed by the news they heard. “Helmets on! Check your weapons!” There was a bustle to put on the helmets, and the metallic chinks signaled everyone was checking their weapons. “Everyone, good luck. If you get lost, look for a familiar face. Delta, let’s go!” The artillery was getting louder now. Anton could feel the carrier rocking, trying to withstand the rocks and dirt hitting it. Anton’s focus turned to Fedya and the 50-kilogram Sarissa on his shoulder. It bounced along with the carrier. All of the sudden, the carrier slowed. “Get ready!” The doors opened. And everything went black for Anton. “…ton. …ton. ANTON!” Anton opened his eyes to see Lev’s face only inches away from his. Lev laughed. “HAHAHA! We thought you were dead!” Anton crawled to his ass, looking at his surroundings. It was an irony, calling Tver a city. Cities usually imply big buildings, cars all around and people bumping into others on the sidewalks. What Anton saw was similar to what he saw during the battle of Prague: black skies exploding with mortar shells, skyscrapers ripped in two, and the deafening sounds of gunshots. Anton struggled to cover, picked up his Chronus, and started shooting in the same direction as everyone else. Anton looked around for someone else who was part of Delta. After seeing a friendly face, his Senior Sergeant, he made the long haul over to the Company sergeant. He tapped his sergeant on the shoulder. “Sarge, what the hell happened?” The sergeant, who was still firing his weapon, shouted (which was still only barely audible over the gunshots), “A damn mortar blew us to ****. We’re scattered all around. You’ve been out for about two hours. We dragged you to cover. Thought you were dead.” Anton stopped to think. “And the Captain?” The sergeant said nothing. ****, Anton thought. The Sergeant continued. “Gamma Company made in cleanly though. We're trying to reconnect with Beta; when we deployed, Beta led a charge. Casualties heavy. They made a nice hole for us though. The problem is,” Sergeant stood up and emptied his clip. “The problem is, the Tiamats closed off their opening before we could follow Beta. They’re completely surrounded.” Anton thought about it. “When did that happen?” “As soon as our carrier was destroyed.” “Did we send a rescue team?” Sarge grimaced. “3rd platoon went in an hour ago. Anton, Sergeant, see to your men. You are leader of 4th platoon. Get going!” If it were any other day, Anton would have been happy to learn that he had a battlefield commission to Sergeant. But today, that meant he had to lead his men, his friends, his brothers, into a blood bath. “Sergeant, what are you still doing here? 4th platoon is over there.” Anton patted the Sergeant on his back and sprinted over to his right. After racing around for a while, Anton could see about 14 disorganized troops just sitting, trying to not die - 4th platoon. Anton made a dash over to his men, bullets whizzing over his helmet. “Hey there, Anton!” yelled Anatolli. Anton disregarded the kind greeting. “O.K. guys! I’m in command! Don’t ask questions, don’t argue, nothing. Just listen to me.” All the men gazed at Anton, all with the same confused look. “We have to connect with Beta.” Anton looked around. He spotted Fedya. “Fedya, give us suppressing fire as we advance. Keep your distance from each other until we get into enemy range." Anton turned to the rest of the men. "We have to cross the no man’s land. No matter what, as long as you have a breath of air in your body, don’t stop advancing. Once you see the Tiamats, find cover and lay down fire on them. I want fire superiority. Got me?” Everyone nodded. Anton got right up to the Jersey barrier that Fedya was resting his gun on and aimed into the smoke. “Fedya, now!” At first, the Chronus and Sarrias fired in unison, but the .50 caliber Sarrias was soon out fired by the 1400 round per minute Chronus. Once all 400 bullets of the Chronus were fired (which only took about 10 seconds), the magazine automatically ejected. “Go, go, go!” Anton commanded. A wave of five men sprinted into the dust. Anton saw two men fall before they made it into the cover of the smoke and debris-filled air. “Shit…” Anton said as he loaded another 400 round drum magazine into his gun. Fedya kept firing into the fray. “Next five, get over here.” Anatolli, Gena, Rodya, Tima, and Vitya lined up. Anton stood up and unloaded another magazine at the smoke, and as soon as he was done, the five men dashed into the haze. Anton called out the remaining three men, not including him and Fedya, to get ready. He especially targeted Yegor, who had a medical background. "Yegor, you bring up the rear. See if anyone who fell is still alive. Got me?” “Sir, yes Sir!” Anton turned to Fedya. "Once you see me run, you undeploy your gun and follow. Try to give covering fire as you are running.” Fedya just nodded. Anton, brought up “gauge” on his combat visor. He looked at the bar code on his Chronus, which immediately brought up his kills. He had fired 800 bullets, and so far he had hit enemy flesh 80 times for a total of 17 kills. Hmm. Not bad. “Covering Fire!” Anton unloaded his clip and ran into the eye of the storm. Vitya shouted something over the sound of a mortar and gunshots that was completely impossible to hear. Anton hated his new responsibilities. Baby sit the troops, make sure everything works well. Ugg. “What was that Vitya?” Vitya got up right next to Anton and barked “What the hell do we do now, sir! The Tiamats are right on top of us!” Anton was wondering about that himself. “Gena, how does it look?” Gena stuck his head out of cover and looked around, until a bullet took off his head. “Shit! Sir, we’re screwed!” Tima shouted. “That was a leviathan! We can’t take that thing out!” Everyone was taught at basic what a leviathan was and that they should avoid it. A leviathan was a heavy machinegun manned by two men. It weighed over 150 kilograms, fired at 700 rounds per minute, and fired 176x78R Zu bullets. Zu’s were roughly the size of a water bottle and as thick as your bicep. Anton looked around, looking for some way to take the gun. That’s when he saw his godsend; a partly destroyed building. “O.K., I’m gunna go into that building. I need covering fire.” Everyone stared at Anton like he had 10 heads. “Fedya, on my mark!” Fedya, always quiet, nodded and opened fire over the concrete wall that was saving all of 4th platoon from a painful death. Anton got into a runners stance and ran his ass off to the cover of the building. Before he could make it, the leviathan opened fire on him. “Shit, ****, ****, ****, ****!” Anton shouted. His shouts deafened when one of the Zu’s hit his gut. No, that wasn’t right. If a Zu hit his gut, his top would have been separated from his legs. No, it was just a minor injury. Out of sheer luck, Anton made it to cover. All his men stared at him from about 50 metres away. Anton gave them the thumbs up. “Now to business.” Anton first checked his left side. There was a large bloody spot and half a rock in his side. It was a relief to feel pain. If he couldn’t feel the injury, which meant it was serious. That’s what he was trained to think. Anton scooped the rock out and looked at his gut. The Kevlar served its purpose; it didn’t break, only concaved. Titan Kevlar was an interesting little device; It was originally designed after the now legendary Master Chief. Yes, it was modeled after a videogame character from a series that was created over 50 plus years ago. It was made with flexible titanium, which could withstand over 20 direct shots from the main battle rifle of the Tiamats, the Fafnir 42. However, the sides weren’t reinforced. One good shot with a Fafnir could enter and exit through your body like that. Anton looked around to the stairs. “Jesus, how can it be so hard to find a pair of Goddamn stairs…” Ivan growled. Then he saw something that made his heart stop. Civilians were hiding in a corner. Anton must have looked like a spaceman to them; tall, large, wearing a giant vest of body armor, and wearing a helmet with a tinted visor. Yep, must have looked like a spaceman. Anton was afraid. Imagine, a man wearing 50 pounds of gear, a carbine 3 foot that could cut through a cow but had almost no recoil, and well over 6’5” because of the helmet. Anton was afraid because he had never seen a civilian, in a combat environment. He had no idea how to act. Instead of finding and going up the stairs, he went up to the sullied family (he could tell because the two kids looked a lot like a combination of both adults), took off his helmet, and reproachfully asked them, “Why haven’t you been evacuated?” After a time of about 30 seconds, the father spoke up. “No one ever came. Didn’t you know?” Anton was confused. “What do you mean they never came? There were civilian transports the came… Don’t look at me like I’m friggin’ Frankenstein. I was told by my superiors-” “They never came. The bombs sure did, but the transports never came. They just never came. We went for cover, and survived. I’m not sure about anyone else…” “Well, stay here. Once the fight gets past this point, I want you all to run away.” The father nodded and Anton was on his way. After a small crusade and plenty of cursing, Anton found the stairs, which he promptly sprinted up. “Window, window, no wammies, window, c’mon.” Anton finally found a window overlooking both his men and the dusty, dark Tiamats. Anton was reminded of his school days. “Mrs. Gorendeska, who are the Tiamats?” “We’ll Anton, that’s simple, Tiamats are the enemy soldiers. They are genetically altered, like all of you will be, to survive nuclear attacks. They are trained mostly as shock troopers-taking large amounts of land in short amounts of time. They suffer, however, when are stopped in an attack. That is what the Guards are for. Guards are the elite. They are the frontline to every attack, and are the last to fall back. When they defend, they don’t stop. They fight to the last man. No guard has ever surrendered. And no Tiamat is a match for a guardsman.” Anton looked down his guns telescopic sight, pressing the zoom button once. There. Perfect. Anton opened fire first on the leviathan. That was what was causing the most damage. After about 3 seconds and 100 bullets later, the two leviathan troops were ripped apart. Anton started on the other troops, smiling when he saw; Beta company fighting back at the Tiamats. Once his Chronus ejected its magazine, Anton grabbed a grenade off his belt and heaved it at the enemy. The grenade splattered the surrounding troops. Anton jumped around to get 4th platoons attention. He caught the eye of Anatolli, and signaled Him and the rest of the Guards to move up. Anton literally jumped down the stairs and met up with the family. “Come with me, O.K.? I’m going to run one way, you have to run the opposite way.” The father grabbed his family and moved to the large hole that had been blown in the building. Anton lined up next to them. One of the children, tapped Anton on the leg. “Mister, thank you.” Anton was happy to be wearing a blast shield helmet, because he couldn’t bear looking the family in the Eye. Instead, he sprinted off to his men. “Hey there, Beta,” said a grinning Anton to Lieutenant Konodesky. Konodesky scowled. He didn’t like getting rescued, especially by a newly made Sergeant. “Keep it in your pants, Sergeant.” “Aww, your just angry. Well, shall we? Lets chase these pricks. C and C.” “Well Sergeant, we do think alike. Let’s go!” Anton turned to his men, all kneeling in a giant crater made by an artillery strike. They all were wondering what the Sarge and Lieutenant were talking about. “Guys, lets get going. Were gunna chase these bastards, corner ‘em, and clean ‘em. Saddle up!” Everyone climbed out of the crater and ran to other cover. “O.K., Fedya! Open fire on them!” “Right!” said Fedya and laid down a suppressing fire. “Anatolli, you have a smoke grenade?” “What Anton?” shouted Anatolli over the fire of the Sarissa. “Do you have a smoke grenade?” said Anton as he walked over to Anatolli. “A smoke grenade. A red smoke grenade.” Anatolli got the grenade from his belt and pulled the safety pin. Before he could heave it, he was shot in the leg by a Tiamat. Anton wasn’t so afraid of Anatolli’s life as much as the grenade dropping on the ground. The peltast-33 smoke grenade was activated 3 seconds after it hit ground. Any gun battery in the area that could see the smoke would be ordered to fire on the area. The batteries were told to fire on the area, then fire on the area, plus a half-mile circumference. That would sweep up all of the survivors. By the time Anton had warned everyone to run away from the area, the grenade had already gone off, and smoke was pouring out of the grenade. The artillery was already opening fire; Anton could tell by the vibrations from the Earth. “Run! Get out of here!” Anton looked back; the Taimats were employing the same strategy. Anton whipped around to see Private Tima firing on the retreating Taimats; everyone else was running away. Tima had hit about 5 of the many (at least 70) withdrawing Tiamats. “Let’s go, Tima! Let’s get the **** outta here! Tima?” Tima wasn’t even moving. He was just firing at his enemy. “Tima! Artillery! Incoming!” Tima only shifted his position to fire on the Taimats. He had hit about 10 now. Oddly, the Taimats were advancing now, even though the artillery would crush them. “Shit, they don’t wanna lose their foothold… Tima, we gotta go, everyone else is gone!” It was to late. The artillery had already hit. It hit a good deal of the advancing foe, about 35 of them. The rest ducked for cover, probably praying to live. After the artillery, the Taimats would just rush back into this sector, and the Soviets would have to do the same thing over again, taking this zone. Anton’s sacrifice, corporally and spiritually, watching his friends die, that is, would be useless. Anton and Tima were both flung into the air by the artillery. Friendly fire. Anton would have gladly beaten the **** out of the guy who created that alliteration. He was truly amazed that little pieces of metal shot from a cannon could lift two fully-grown men 20 feet into the air. The artillery stopped, and Anton hit the ground with a hard thud. His combat suit would do its best to keep any bones from breaking, but he still felt the pain of the fall. Following protocol, Anton lifted his arm to his helmet, and keyed in the order to check if the suit was ruptured or destroyed. The helmet would scan down the suit and check for anything that was missing. Anton looked through the visor. The scan started from the torso down, and so far everything was fine. It was when the scan reached the left leg did a problem arise. It said it could scan no further, because the leg was missing. Well, that couldn’t be right. Anton was still on his back, and he hadn’t looked at his body, but he would know if he was missing a leg. Lifting up his left arm, Anton tried feeling his leg. What he felt was a wet spot, but no solid flesh at all. Anton shot into panic mode. Where was his leg? He couldn’t be missing a leg. No. That wasn’t possible. Anton shook his head. A little nagging voice in his mind was telling him he was missing his leg. His pessimistic voice. Anton always tried to be a bit of an optimist. Nothing stupid, mind you, just a little optimism never hurt. The problem was his pessimistic voice was usually right. Anton lifted his head and looked at his leg, or what was left, which wasn’t much. The bleeding stump that remained looked nothing like his old leg. Anton had too much. He passed out. “…This medal of Hero of the Soviet Union is awarded to Sergeant Anton Ignatovich Leonov of the 4th Guards Sapper Division for outstanding prowess on the battlefield, expert leadership ability, and the surrounding and destruction of an entire enemy platoon, knowing full well the risk of his actions. His capability in battle lead to the saving of another company and the capturing of Tver itself. To this, we award him the Hero of the Soviet Union.” Anton opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a stark white room in a comfy bed, what he guessed was a hospital. General Tvominov was sitting on a chair next to the comfy bed. The General looked over to him smiling. Anton couldn’t help but grinning back. “Congratulations Sergeant. You earned this,” said the General as he pinned a tiny gold star onto Anton’s chest. Anton’s pride was washed away by a thought that crossed his mind. “Sir, in the city, civilians were there.” The General, who was all smiles a second ago, became stone-faced. “No, nonsense. They were all evacuated.” Anton could tell he was lying. His eyes were jumping all around, not looking at the newest Hero of the Soviet Union. “I know what I saw, Sir, and I saw a family of four just hiding in the building I used to take out the enemy machinegun.” The General finally looked at Anton, and everything fell into place. “There weren’t any ships sent to evacuate civilians. You never cared. Civilians don’t mean anything to you. They never did. You just want to win this god awful war.” The General stared at Anton for a while, and then nodded. Millions of questions rushed into Anton’s brain. Is winning as important as saving the people you’re fighting for? Do you squander your soldiers on a city like Tver just to be obstinate? One question stood out though. “Sir, how much longer will we be fighting for a giant graveyard?” The General got up and walked towards the door. “Anton, we fight until one of us die.” Copyright 2007 Tommy Dee {moscomment} |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 ) |
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