A New Development

The O-279 rolled back to safety more than a hour late, but when Commander Karkovich saw who opened the hatch, he swallowed hard and grumbled to himself. The mechanics quickly ran to the precious armored machine, began detaching the twisted front armor plate as a team of donkeys dragged its replacement foreward. Sophia smiled coldly as she swung her legs over side before walking confidently along the treads. One of the mechanics offered her a hand to assist in her descent. She accepted it, and soon her combat heels were again on her beloved Soviet soil.

"Comrade Commander." she greeted the gruff looking man. He nodded smartly and winced at the damage done to the tank. She saw his shifting gaze. "See to it the men get an extra ration of Vodka and horse meat tonight. They performed their duties admirably." she said with a faint smile on her luscious lips. The grizzled man glanced down to see the "seeds of revolution" slowly dripping down her thighs.

"Of course, Comrade Commissar. So then, what happened?" he asked, matching her steps with her own as Mikail's head popped up from the turret, stealing one last glance at the "Terror of Moscow". Sophia chuckled.

"They found the last of the Stadti tank hunters, in the fog no less." He arched his eyebrows and had to concede that were it true that it was no small feat, but he suspected that they had probably been the one's who'd been spotted. The thunderous roar of the new rotating-barrel Red Bloc artillery erupted from somewhere deep in Moscow, piercing the magnesium red clouds that hung over the city with 200 kg shells. They paid them no attention. Even if they hit their targets, there would always be more Fascists to replace them.

They passed a grease-smeared Lithuanian girl who heavy with child and hauling machine gun ammunition as they ducked into a narrow stone paved alley. She dared not make eye contact with the fierce Commissar and the scarred commander for fear of interrogation as to why she wasn't with the supply line. Sophia pitied the girl, no doubt completely unsure of who the father of her child was; and destined to give whatever fruit she bore to be a child of the Motherland.

The armed guards outside of the basement bunker that served as a temporary base of operations snapped a salute while the commander lazily returned it. Sophia stepped in first, the checkered rubber of her combat heels gripping the wet grated plating of the stairs as they descended. The stairwell was lit with a single bare red wall light before giving way to candles and the odd battery powered lamp. Officers and messengers scuttled about in the cramped hallway as they pushed through until the reached the swollen wooden door of the signals room, its green lead paint faded and flaking.

As the commander opened the door, he was met with more quickly snapped salutes and the sound of telegraphs, radar blips, and the constant chatter of men fighting and dying on the front lines. "Any news, Yuri?" he asked. Yuri Melchek, the signals director, shook his head as he thumbed through a stack of orders that come across the wire.

"Nyet." he said, tossing the papers onto the desk. "Nothing we can work with. The Stadt lost ground around Minsk, got it back. We lost thousands, as did they." The commander nodded. No news worth noting. Sophia picked up the papers and thumbed through them. She was silently impressed with how well the censors had done.

None of these men knew that the Stadt had just taken Sevastopol, or what that meant for all of them. Within a month, Moscow would almost certainly be reduced to ashes, whether by the Stadt's weapons or by the Scorched Earth directive from the Premier.

That is, unless they were properly motivated to fight. She sat the papers down, pulled out a small flask of Vodka from her side pocket, and sat on the edge of the table next to Yuri. He glanced down at her pale legs, and then into her eyes. Slowly, she extended the flask. Tepidly, he took it, his heart pounding. Had he failed her? Was her Tokarev pistol loaded with a bullet with his name on it? She reached into her corseted jacket and retrieved a a narrow strip of paper with only two encoded sentences written on it.

"Send the following message at once." she said, handing it to him. Yuri's eyes went wide, and he gulped the vodka with shaking hands.

"At...At once Comrade Commissar!" Sophia slid off the desk and brushed her fingers across the commander's chest as she stepped passed him, which meant that he was to follow. That she felt the need to motivate him for whatever was about to happen terrified him to his core.