February 1945...Outskirts of Koenisberg...
The days of the Nazis were numbered. On the East Front, the Red Army was advancing everywhere. On the West Front, the Allies were about to cross the Rhine. Each day that passed, there was a new disaster ; a city stormed, a division smashed, a devastating bombing raid...After six long years, the New Order was about to collapse...And the ones that had brought it to Europe were terrorrized at the idea that the time for paying up was imminent...
In Berlin, the political and military leaders deluded themselves by hopes that the Great Alliance between the Soviet Union and the Allies proper was bound to collapse any day, that they would be able to turn theirs coats, to play the West against the East,...But themselves were not believing it ; any "political solution" (get a cease fire to one side, to concentrate forces against the other one, in the hopes of getting a better peace agreement) was impossible-with what the Nazis had done, no one was going to show them mercy when they were losing...
Still, the same leaders still found the time for petty disputes, for the fragments of power left. Borman, the current leader of the party, was making factionnal skirmish against Himmler and Goering, to secure the precious nomination as the official heir of the Leader. (any one with a working brain would have realized that this job was likely to be a very short one...)
Himmler had thought that he was winning this battle for the post of the favorite of the Leader...After the July Plot, the eleventh hour (but nonetheless courageous) attempt by an handful of Wermacht officers to assassinate the Leader, the SS had been basically give all power in Germany proper. With his rather dismal battle performance against the Allies and the Soviets (the SS were more used to fire on civilians or badly armed partisans than against regulars troops…) Himmler's favor had considerably waned in the recent weeks, however...
It was because of those events that Himmler had gave orders to assure that the project of Major Kakuzawa could be evacuated to Berlin. A little demonstration in front of the Leader was going to impress him a lot. With all the funds that had gone on very peculiar things (including the counter to Operation Zohar...Saying in front of the Leader or Himmler the two words Operation Zohar was death sentence), they were having a result that could be usable on the battlefield...(The said "result" had not been obtained, at all, beccause of the various "ressearchs" sponsored by the SS and the Leader...) It was because of this that the SS organization was doing everything to assure that the project arrived in Berlin,
Rail and road communication could be cut by the Red Army at any moment. By sea, it was risky too-Soviet aircrafts and submarines could intercept shipping in the Baltic. The safer possibility was an air evacuation, as Soviet airbases were now a little too far from the front to grant absolute air superiority ; the risk of a fighter interception was then limited...
Kakuzawa and some of his assistants (men from Unit 731 that could be trusted) had promptly fled the facility when they had realized that Sarah was free. The Nazis were never going to be able to stop her, and he did not wanted to be in her reach until he had gathered reinforcements for capture her. They had fled, on foot, as far as they could, until they had found an second Wermacht detachement sent as reinforcement for the fortress, that had picked them and brought them back to Koenisberg. There, after receiving a second time the instructions for the air evacuation, Kakuzawa and his assistants, had been placed into a very heavily armored convoy, headed for the chosen airbase, which was at some distance of the city, for avoid raising attention. They carried with them what was left of the project ; not much...
.A good part of the data produced by those two years of ressearch on the test subject had been destroyed in the fires that had followed the bombing of the fortress-everything was put on paper, and paper burned quite easily. There was however some copies back at the rear base of Koenisberg...and Kakuzawa had managed to save the most important thing-the various samples he had obtained from this very interesting specimen. The key to replication...
He had not mentionned, however, to the SS officials that the test subject, the most important thing of the project was...temporary away. He would explain to them the situation at Berlin...They were going to attempt to capture her back ;it was exactly his intention...
Kakuzawa was in an halftrack, with the major in charge of the convoy, who had been told only the strict minimum about his mission...and that he had to succeed...Right now, success was almost assured. There had been no attacks thus far, significative Red Army units were not bound to arrive in less than 24 hours. And they were now in the last leg of their trip...
The major contacted the last settlement between them and the airbase, which was less than two hours away (the presence of tanks in the convoy limited the top speed they could attain...)
Some dozens of kilometers away, in a traditionnal Prussian junker manor dominating an small hamlet, a very nervous SS lieutenant answered to the radio communication...
"...No, no, Major. No Ivans sighted in the area...Perfect calm...Everything is very fine..."
The SS lieutenant voice was a little strained. Maybe he needed a little stimulation for continuing ? Fortunately, there was, in a quit convenient manner, a stimulus nearby...
Accordingly, someone sat on one of the ends of his desk pointed an handgun at him, in an almost playful manner.The barrel was just touching his head... His voice somehow reaffirmed itself, and the guys at the other end of the line probably found everything fine, indeed. .
The man tried to play smart, trying to insinuate something that could make the major realize that the situation was not what he thought. He asked them for their position-the kind of request that was a little strange to ask while on non-encrypted radio channels...
The person in front of him sighed, and made a little gesture resulting into a click. She was removing the safety of her weapon. The message was very clear. The lieutenant did not insisted with his very peculiar request, and quickly concluded the communication...
"See ?...It was not so hard, helping us to deal with this little manner. Thank you..."
Annah Sovorov removed her pistol from the lieutenant's forehead. This action was immediatly followed by Vassili and the others Soviet soldiers in the room pointing their machine guns toward him, to convince him to not try anything foolish against her.
Annah had been very cautious. One of her hand was on her weapon, the other on the switch of the receptor, ready to press it at the split second the other would have attempted something...The quality of this gear was too low, especially with the current weather (that was having a distorting effect on radio-waves) for the guy at the other hand of the communication, to really recognize the the voice of the lieutenant...however, the major would have realized that something was suspect when a Soviet soldier impersonating the lieutenant would have been unable to answer to the most basic questions about the situation.. And of course, if there was no answer, the Nazis would have cancelled the evac operation.
The radio call had occured as the lieutenant, the lone survivor of the SS garrison of the place, was pleading frantically for his life. He was lost-everything had happend much too quickly...
The unit under Annah's command had stormed the hamlet by surprise. Honestly, it was not much of a feat, since the garrison was mostly made of a platoon of SS, commanded by this lieutenant and some badly armed ederly men from the Volkstrum, the latest «total war» gimmick of the Nazis. Generally speaking, units of the Volkstrum were made of the last scraps of manpower avaiable (which was in the best cases veterans of the First World War...) and had almost no weapons. What the lucky ones that received a riffle and some bullets were supposed to do against tanks and artillery was not very clear...(Unlike the SS troops, those men, after a good amount of insults and looting of watches and other small personal possessions, had been made prisonners and locked up in the caves of the manor house...)
In any case, the attack against the village had been without any casualty on the Soviet side. (quite surprising for an Red Army unit, but Annah was a very cautious commander). The whole position was now occupied by the Russians, who were hastily removing all traces of battle, for giving a nice surprise to the armoured column coming there...
They had avoided using shells, and they were sure that both the column and the airbase had not heard anything. The lieutenant had been surprisingly cooperative with them.
It was because the SS had heard veterans talk about the Red Valkyrie (the red part being a reference to both the allegiance and Annah's hair color. In both case, very unsubtle)...and what they had told about her was very dispiriting...she was a living legend on the front...
Annah spoke an almost perfect, accent-less German (she really had a skill for languages) and she was very, very calm with the lieutenant, who was (rightly) finding it worse than if she was screaming insults at him...He tried to impress her by what he thought would be a bold phrase.
"SS never surrender, Soviet...I'm not afraid of death, if this is for the Reich !
(He did not thought, apparently, that this could be the kind of sentences that could be replied by something like "Never surrender ? Great, let's assure that this rule remains true !" Annah actually found his reaction somewhat amusing, and said something in those lines...)
"One, I'm sorry to say that you pretty much surrendered to us. Two, I don't think it's such a big deal that you usually never surrender ; no one want you alive (quite true : Russia had suffered enough from SS exactions that it was hardly surprising that there was almost none prisonners taken from this corps. The Allies had not, by far, been affected to the same level, but they had seen their share of burned villages in France and Italy...It was rumored that their troops had been instructed, at least verbally to not take SS prisonners) Third, I must say that, unfortunately, I never accepted your surrender...So, don't worry. You will die..."
"You are bluffing...I'm much too useful-without me, how do you plan to ambush them ?"
"Your loyalty looks pretty variable...And I'm not sure that we need you to kill the...Not sure at all...But...if you pass a little test, I may think about sparing your life...We may transfer you to one of our rear units of the NVKD in Poland...(the Nazi lifted his eyes…could he save his life ? The important thing was to say alive, after all…But Annah was not saying this without an intention) It's would be near a small town in the south of Polan, in the area of Katowice… (At this time, the SS began to have an idea of where this conversation was going….This was very likely to result into his death) Annah now had a really predatory smile. She pretended to search in her mind…) Ah, recall the name, now ..it's Auschwitz. Heard about it ?"
The SS would have pretended, in normal time, to never have heard about this place. But the way he paled when hearing the word was as clear as a very explicit answer...
"The Red Army entered there days ago, you know", continued Annah in a conversation tone. "And you know like me what we found there. (she raised from the desk, and came just in front of him)...The absolute abomination...I'm sickened at the idea that you and me are both Humans...But, as I said, it's the result of the test that will determine your fate..."
The Nazi, his mind disrupted by fear, excepted a lot of thing...Not that the test was going to be a Russian girl that seemed very out of place here, escorted by two soldiers in afterAnnah had called them...She looked to be pretty unsecure in this unfamiliar securing...Despite the Red Army uniform, the way she grasped Annah's arm showed that she was not a soldier...
The test was pretty simple. Annah spoke to Natalya in her most friendly voice...
"Natalya, I'm sorry to disturb you, but this is very important...Do you recognize him ?"
Natalya, upon seeing the SS, grasped even tigher Annah's arm. Her reaction was clear enough. Her eyes widened with fear...Annah was sorry to expose Natalya to this, but she thought that she could be helpful to show her that SS were now powerless against her...
"It's all right, Natalya", Annah said to try to calm her. "He will do nothing to you...You are safe... It's over...for him..." (she made an evasive gesture toward her soldiers...)
Two Soviet privates began to drag the SS from the room. Quite clear. He panicked...
"Hey ! HEY ! You are not going to kill me because of this...of this nutcase ? "
The lieutenant realized immediatly after he had said that whatever was the role of the younger Russian girl in this unit, saying that she was a "nutcase" was not bound to convince the Soviets to spare his life...In fact, it enraged Annah even more against him.
"This nutcase as you said is, in this state because of you..." said very quietly Annah. Honestly, she had never really planned to let the SS alive, but his last sentence had removed the last moral doubts that she had about killing him (doubts that were quite limited, to be honest)...Did Natalya had realized that this man had insulted her ? Annah hoped that not...
The SS lose all control of over himself-he vaguely recalled, again from conversations with veterans, that someone in the unit of the Red Valkyrie unit (propaganda had said, which was both untrue and unsurprising, that she was the...lover...of Annah...) had been captured-and her fate afterward had been seen with an horrible glee by many...He was going to die, anyway, so…The reaction of Vassili and Annah when he began to scream about what his friends had done to Natalya was a clear sign that he had indeed find the right point...
The Soviet privates were quite ill-at-ease-most of them had a basic knowledge of German, and understood more or less what the SS was saying...It was not really a surprise-almost everyone in the unit was more or less aware of the situation of Natalya...But still...
Annah would have killed the bastard herself, and slowly, if she had not been occupied at blocking the ears of Natalya with her hands-if she heard this, it would trigger a new crisis.
He was finally dragged out of the room. Soon after, a detonation was heard...
A few minutes later, as she was trying to make Natalya eat something in the kitchen of the manor, before returning outside, Vassili came see her...the ennemy was coming...
"...And, Capitain, I still think that she just recognize the uniform patches, and not the guys..."
"It's an interpretation, Vassili...an interpretation that it's likely to be close to the truth...I don't think she is even recalling me, or you and Pietr. But I'm not very picky. It was members of the SS that captured her, destroyed her ? It's all I need to know...They are the praetorians of the Reich-I honestly think that death is a very easy exit compared to what they done..."
Annah thought of this poor girl they had found...She should have kept her in the unit, after all...What if she had indeed tried to go to Praha and been recaptured by the Nazis ?
She would have to worry about this later. A battle was about to start...She quickly walked to her command post, set in the woods ahead of the hamlet, next to her personnal tank...
To allow secure communications without risk of interception, a field telephone line had been settled between the various elements of the ambush. This place was dangerously close of the airbase, but the ground was ideal for a trap. Moreover...the ennemy would not except them here...Natalya was with the defense group, in the safest place avaiable : the manor. Annah had entrusted Olga to watch for her...Despite her...well, her «hobby», Olga was a likable person, and Natalya seemed to not feel too much unsecure with her. Deep down, Annah knew that if Natalya felt a little less afraid (or at least, looked to be less afraid...) when she was with her, Olga, Helene or Valentine, the four females in the group, it was probably because of...
Some minutes passed...Then, Vassili received the critical communication
"Capitain ! Kovolenko is reporting in. His group is spotting the ennemy on approach. He spot..two...three...four...Tigers Mark II and six Panthers (Vassili sighed) This is going to be tough...The rest of the convoy is mostly made of halftracks, and some trucks at the rear"
T-34s (especially the new 85 version, the one they had in their squad) were overall better tanks than anything the Nazis had in their arsenal ; easier to maintain, much better speed, great combat performance, but they were medium tanks, not heavy like that type of panzers. On the other hand, Tigers were not exactly nimble vehicles-they were good, very good for defense, not attack. Still, just two T-34/85 against four Tigerswould mean, in a normal situation, certain defeat for the Soviets. And there were the Panthers, and the infantry...
That said, with a tank commander like Annah Sovorov, things could turn very differently.
"Ah, don't worry, it's a joke compared to Stalingrad, Kursk and Korsun…." said Annah, while making heliographic signals (light obscured according to a code), aiming at a point on the other side of the road, in a wood that was facing her command post...
There was an heliographic answer in the woods...Helene and her tank crew were ready too.
The tactics employed by the armies of Russia were never renowned for their subtility...Which does not mean that they were not working. One tactic used since Ivan the Terrrible was to mass cannons, and to use relentless barrage fire. A little crude, but terribly efficient...The Red Army had employed this tactic against the Wermacht, with astonishing gun concentrations since Stalingrad. Before major operations, such as the current offensive, it was not rare to see that on some sectors of the front, there was a gun every five meters...Annah had not at her disposition such firepower, far from it, but she used what she had in a similar way...
The heavy weapons avaiable for her group were some mortars, some infantry AT guns, and two Katioushas-type weapon systems, towed by trucks. Annah had put them all together...they were making up the heavy support group. Those weapons were under heavy wood cover, almost next to her command post. When Vassili gave them the order, after hearing the first tanks coming, they began firing...Targeting moving targets in the middle of the night was not exactly easy. It did not matter ;the Soviets gunners did not even had to target : all they had was to fire everything on the killing zone, on pre-calculated firing vectors. On a fairly innacurate way, an hailstorm of mortar shells and Katioushas, fired from less than a kilometer away,fell on the path of the Nazi armored group...And it took at good an half minute for the crews to realize what was happening, the column moved upward into the killing zone...Despite the innacuracy, this volley had devastating effects on the convoy-it did not disabled many vehicles-it destroyed, however, two halftracks, that blew up-but it damaged many...But the most important effect was the small firestorm started by the Katioushas rockets and the hulks of the vehicles...it provided a nice illumination for the tanks guns, who were even closer to the road. At an almost optimal range, the shells bursted throught the armor of a Tiger and a Panther. Two kills in the first minutes of the battle. Pretty good !
The Katioushas and the mortars fired a last salvo, whose effect was much more limited, as the Nazis had began to disperse. They began to pack up, to withdrawn...The flash of the muzzles of the AT guns that were continuing to fire, killing another Panther, were indicating the positions of the guns to the Nazis remaining armor, who moved to silence them...It was now the time for Annah's own act, for providing the time required for the AT guns to pull out.
Annah's personnal tank opened fire on the ennemy armoured detachement, helped for the targeting by the firestorm...The gunners of her group were quite good ; the second shell impacted on the tracks of one Tiger that had began to shell the AT position, paralyzing it. On the other side of the road, Helene's tank exploited the situation, targeting the Tiger, blowing it out...In enthousiasm, Annah made a victory sign, at the attention of the other crew, that would have been hard to spot in broad daylight (so, in the darkness they were in...)
The two T-34s started to move immediatly after...With something that was beyond audacity (seriously bordering to madness...) the Soviet tanks moved in the armoured column, firing on every target that presented itself. The crew of the panzers, dazzled by the surprise attack, did not reacted in time, when the Russians were moving toward them. Once the tanks were in the column, firing on them risked to hit their own vehicles much more than the Russians...
In tank warfare, mobility was the essence. The tanks did not stopped, did not made another attack run-they made a ninety degrees turn, and continued in front of the tank group...This manoeuver was, technically speaking, insane, at it was exposing the vulnerable rear areas of the T-34s to the Nazis guns, without allowing the Russians to counter-fire. This was deliberate, to push the Nazis to give pursuit to the handful of tanks that had dared to attack them...Now, it was the time to finish to push them in the trap-the hamlet..As planned, there was several explosions southward. The foward element, the tanks of Kovolenko and Nikolai, had let themselves been bypassed by the convoy...Now, they were moving to the attack, firing on the unarmored trucks that were making the second part of the convoy...As no one could believe that a commander could be insane enough to fight against ten panzers with only two T-34s, the Nazis had the impression that a much larger force was behind...
The final touch was when the Russians in the village started to fire infantry weapons-in the air...But for the Nazi commander, if there was guns firings in the hamlet, that it's meant that there was still places holding there. Maybe the convoy could break throught the Russians lines, and with the support of the garrison, resist long enough for reinforcement of arrive (The overuse by the Nazis of imaginary units was playing against them...On paper, the garrison of the hamlet was made by a SS company and a whole batallion of the Volkstrum !)
On the command halftrack, hit a couple of time but still more or less working, the major was trying to reorganize it's group, that had stopped. He sent the remaining tanks against the Russian, while keeping command of the halftacks. One of the assistants of Kakuzawa asked what was happening, especially concerned about the data...who was in one of the destroyed vehicles ! The files were now burning, and there was nothing they could do about it. The assistants were very nervous ; the Professor had kill many people for much less.
"Those f... Ivans are attacking us", replied a NCO from one of the destroyed vehicles, who was nearby, trying desperatly to secure a ride onboard one of the remaining vehicles...
The tanks sent foward were not encountering resistance, and the Soviet artillery had stopped to fire...What had attacked them was probably, thought the major, a meager group, badly supplied...The group that was on their rear, that had already destroyed most of their trucks, was a much more serious threat. The reorganization of the group achieved, he ordered to move foward. The vehicles had taken up as many passengers as they could, but it was obvious that many would be left behind...including the NCO that had talked to the assistant.
"Oh, thank you, I could not have guessed it alone", said sarcastically Kakuzawa at the attention of the man...He was thinking that his decision to go work in Germany was maybe bad idea-of course, because it was dangerous now...He needed to pass his rage on someone...
He had an idea, about this...He made a gesture at the intention of the NCO, and said to his assistants to make some place for him, as the vehicles were restarting. The man eagerly accepted the offer, knowing that his chances of survival had just risen-up...
"Thanks for the lift ! "he said in a very bad German...This raised-briefly-Kakuzawa's interest.
"You are one of those foreign volonteers the convoy picked up, I think..."
"Yes, sir ! My name is Valot...I'm from France-ex-LVF, and I fight with my SS comrades for the European New-Order ! (traduction : I'm an extremist and a traitor to my own country, who found normal to fight alongside the former occupants of the said country)
Kakuzawa smirked. He did not know much about the Wermacht and the SS units, but was well aware that the LVF combat record was not exactly outstanding. Even by Nazis standards, they had conducted themselves in a monstruous manner against Russian civilians. This point alone would not have been seen too badly, but the "soldiers" of the LVF had performed in a rather abysmal way against partisans...(There was even a tragi-comedic thing about a very botched operation in the area of Briansk...) And for leader, those "vanguards of the New Order", who were a mix of criminals, hotheads, bigots and extremists, had a somewhat fitting figure : General de Bourmont. Many French nobles pretended, more or less seriously, to have family ties up to Charlemagne, or more modestly to people that had gone crusading. A running joke about Bourmont was that he had probably a much older family, and that he had almost certainly in his ancestors Judas...as there was in his family almost pathological traitors...The most known of his ancestors had started his career as counter-revolutionner in France, then betrayed and switched side to Napoleon. After, he betrayed Napoleon in favor of the Restauration...a move that was followed less than a year after by a return to the side of Napoléon...And finally, he betrayed Napoleon one more time on the eve of Waterloo...Frankly, a fitting family for the current Bourmont, an impressive traitor...
Valot continued his tirade, in the hopes of impressing the SS major with his Nazi zeal...
"We must continue the fight until, thanks to the Leader genius, we will emerge victorious ! We will at least purge Europe from all those Slavs, all those who are inferior to us !
This phrase was sickeningly racist, but also sickeningly stupid. It was not exactly the kind of thing to say in front of a Japanese officer (or rather appearing to be Japanese...)
"Err, sorry, sir, I hope you did not take it personnal", the NCO said rather ackwardly...
"No, do not worry...it did not changed, at all, the opinion I had on you..."
The professor was sincere...he did not cared. Japanese, Germans, French, Russians...for him, it was pretty much the same...Primates bound for destruction. It was so easy to play with them...This was making the whole business with the test subject so...ironical...
Kakuzawa waited until the halftrack was moving at a sufficient speed to made his move...
The NCO was "mysteriously" pushed away from the halftrack, falling on the ground. This little distraction was greeted with joy by the assistants. He would not pass his rage on them...
"Professor," said one of them..,"you knew that the Soviets were bound to attack us ?"
The assistant was speaking in Japanese, knowing very well that no Nazi her could understand him...To spy on them, the SS had sent at the fortress various officers that could speak Japanese, but "strangely", all of them had little accidents with the test subject...
"Of course" lied without shame Kakuzawa...The best way to assure the loyalty of his assitants was to show them the "Gift" he had received, as often as he could...For instance, like he had done minutes ago with the NCO. Kakuzawa invented ont the spot a story about how this done on purpose, to reduce the number of their escort, in case they needed to flee...
The major, meanwhile, did not say a word of protest about Kakuzawa's amusement-he was a VIP, after all...And those French fascists they had picked up at Koenisberg were not exactly a prime fighting force-they had been took only to "plug" some holes in the manpower of the armoured unit...So, to lose a soldier this way or to the ennemy, it was pretty much the same.
He had much more to worry. Unsurprisingly, the two T-34s had not been hit a single time ; they were raising behind them a real snowstorm, that was making hard to target them...And as it had been showed a lot of time on the East Front, T-34s were able to handle difficult terrain like snow quite willl...As a result, the T-34 s had take quite a lead on the tanks...
As the Russians had destroyed another Panther during their mad charge, the armour of the group was now down to two Tigers and three Panthers...More than enough to succeed. Unless...unless the worst case confirmed. A tank driver had reported that one of the tanks had on it's turret the number 241 sketched by the crew...Of course, it could be a tentative of the Russians to impress the ennemy. It's could be also that they were faced by the 241...And the way that the Soviets were fighting up to this point was quite in the style of the Red Valkyrie.
The major heard a report from the tanks. Damn. They could no longer move foward, and the ennemy was heavily pressing on the rear...This could lead to major trouble.
"Hmm...there is some problem ahead", he said at the attention of Kakuzawa. "The Soviets tanks have met up with some of their infantry on a wooden hill...we will need an infantry assault to clear them up. Do not worry...It's a question of minutes before we reach the hamlet, when the garrison will be going to help us...And the airbase garrison is coming..."
The said hill had rather gentle slopes, but it was nonetheless a very good position to defend. It was heavily wooded, however. Good thing ; the trees were going to provide cover,
When the tanks had arrived, a section of Russian infantry was doing something in the snow...There was badly buried mines plainly visible-probably the best the Russians could have done with the ground deeply frozen, hard as a rock. There could be others mines, however...this was why an infantry assault was going to be needed...The tanks, at maximum range, were exchanging shells, without results...SS soldiers carrying those damned panzerfausts jumped from the halftracks, ready to engage the T-34s with their anti-tank weapons. They met some return fire, fairly innacurate because of the range, and the fact that they were not very obvious targets. The Russian infantry that was with the tanks fired some flares, but that was all...The SS deployed themselves for an overwhelming assault on the tanks. A single, well-placed, panzerfaust round could kill a T-34, and the SS were fourty...
Annah, who had jumped out of her tank, was surveying the situation with Pietr, who was in charge of the infantry. Things were proceeding as she had planned...She sighted. What was going to follow...would not be exactly pretty. It would be awful, even...Like all warfare...
Her opinion change, however, when she spotted a soldier, under the flash of a flare...
"They have some patches on their uniforms..They are...Waffen SS ! NO MERCY ! "
Annah shouted, as loud as she could, something in Russian at the attention of the Nazis...
"SMERT FASCHISKOI GADINE ! DEATH TO THE FASCIST BEAST ! "
As every soldier on the hill repeated it, it had a certain psychological effect on the Nazis...
"Capitain, just a word...There is maybe some...some Vlassovs among them...And...we are going to need, sooner or later, to interrogate one of them, to know...where he could be...
"Shut up, Pietr...this is a subject I don't want to talk about...It's...it's too...
"Capitain...what are we going to do if we meet him ?This could happen, you know..."
Only Vassili and Pietr knew the truth about what had happened in Briansk...about the traitor...This subject was very touchy with Annah. But they neeed to talk over the question...
"What would you think, Pietr, if you were in front of traitors from of the Vichy regime ?"
"Pietr" was only a warname-Annah knew his real name, but prefered to use Pietr, as this was for her a sign of affection...(friendly affection). He was not native of Soviet Union-he was rather from France...He had been fighting with the Republicans in Spain. Initially, he had no great love for the Soviet Union, who had furnished war material to the Republic in a very limited way...but his hate for Nazi Germany was much greater. Like many foreign soldiers that had assisted the Republicans, he had to go in France when Barcelone had fall. Ater the Battle of France, in which the unit he was in had been rather mauled then engaged (the French High Command had blamed the troops for their defeat...but the problem was also with the leadership. "Incompetence" was an euphemism), he had been taken as a POW in Germany (to be honest, the detentions conditions were not too bad-Nazis tried to maintain a decency look when dealing with prisonners from western Europe...) "Pietr" had evaded, toward the closest border : the Soviet one. Usually, the NKVD disliked a lot such initiatives, but Pietr had rather well chosen his moment ; two months after his arrival, the Nazis launched their attack...As he volonteered to fight against them, "Pietr" had been incorporated in the Red Army. (It was likely that, after the war, the NKVD would resume it's questionning. But Annah, aware of the situation, had assured him that with her connectons, he would avoid trouble...)
Pietr was not bloodthirsty..Except against for one kind of opponents : some of his compatriots...the French facists. Those traitors had tried to destroy the French Republic before the war, had sabotaged (politically) the help to the Republicans...They were already crawling at the feet of the Nazis before the war...To take the words of one of their leaders, Déat, "they did not wanted to die for Dantzig"-the Polish city that had been pretext to the Nazis agression.
It was very ironic that some of those Fascists were going to actually die for Dantzig...
Anyway, Annah's choice of sentence was not very lucky, as there was among the Nazis some of those traitors : Pietr heard some words in French...And his reply was quite energetic. French was an awesome language for insults, and Pietr showcased it perfectly...
"Pietr ! I...I did not know...I just that...I just don't know what to do ! For what happened to Natalya, he should have an horrible death...but...I can't...I just can't do that to...
Pietr and Vassili had basically reached the following conclusion : the best was to kill this bastard on the spot. This would spare the capitain an agonzing moral dilemna...
But this question would be settled later...The ennemy was here. Time to thin their ranks.
The T-34s stopped to fire at the tanks, to began to fire in the direction of the soldiers encircling the hill. Their shells were way too high to hit the soldiers ; they impacted a good ten meters above the ground, in the pines trees..The little problem was that fragments from pines trees were as deadly for soldiers on foot than shell fragments, especially on soldiers that hwere crawling on the ground, which augmented a lot the exposed surface...
This gruesome tactic (that had been discovered by several Red Army units in the course of the war...for her part, Annah had thought of that in relation to some of her experience at Stalingrad and as a partisan) worked quite well : it forced the infantry to withdraw, with a lot of casualties and fatalities. After this, however, the tanks resumed their withdrawal toward the hamlet, the infantry scattering in the woods. Surprised, the Nazis hesitated for a moment...and decided that the Soviets must had been scared by the attacks. They continued the pursuit, forgeting caution ; if they proceed too slowly, the Soviet would have time to lay another trap.
This assured that they did not take precautions when they entering the hamlet-no scouting party...The Soviet T-34s arrived in the village, were greeted by the firing of them of several machine-guns (one more time, just a deception...) The panzers followed, and...
There was several huge detonations. Annah had placed a large stack of antitank mines next to the first house of the village , both Soviet and ones that had been "liberated" in the supplies of the Wermacht after battles. A speciality of the Red Army was it's skill with dissimulation/camouflage, and the way the mines had been placed showcased it : dropped on the ground, the snow covering them had been meticously put back...As Annah had deliberatly passed almost over them with the two T-34s, but not on them thanks to some disguised marks, the Nazis following her in hot pursuit had rolled right on them. The first Tiger made explode two mines at the same time, which reduced him to a burning hulk. The second one promptly veered away from this path...only to hit another mine in the tracks. The crew was about to use it as a fixed turret, when AT grenades, fired from a nearby house (the defense element) pierced it's armor Now, there was "just" three Panthers left. Afraid of mines, they were no longer pursuing the two Russian tanks...which gave far enough time for the T-34s to turn, and engage them in conventional tank-battle. What was left of the support infantry of the panzers, tried to support them-but they met heavy fire from the Soviet solders garrisoning the houses. In desperation, the major ressorted to a last ditch tactic : avoiding the village, despite the horrible roads, and try to link up with the airbase reinforcement. But before doing that,they had to neutralize those two T-34s, that risked to destroy the halftracks...The Nazis moved east, the three Panthers acting as a shield for what was left of the convoy. This was the only other path avaible, passing next to the manor...the Russians were prepared here too. Trees had been chopped down, to slow down movement. With the necessity to check for mines (some had been put there, just to keep Nazis nervous) the progression of the convoy was heavily impaired...Fortunately, the Soviets probably did not had garrisoned the manor itself-when the convoy passed next to it, there was no return fire at all...It was then that the killing blow was landed...The two T-34s came back, circling about the almost immobile column, forcing the Panthers to always fend out their attack-firing most of their ammo, that was in more and more short supply (the shells were carried into the trucks that had been blown up !) Finally, as one T-34 was "amusing" them in the front, the other attacked from behind, destroying another tank, met only by inneffective machine gun-fire from the halftracks. This was enough ; keeping the two remaining tanks for it's protection, the major ordered to break the convoy formation. As the convoy was bound to be destroyed anyway, it was better to try something.
The Russians tanks, now reinforced by the two T-34s that had been deceiving the Nazis on the rear, moved for the kill : they were like sharks against fishes compared to halftrack-the only risk was to be hit from panzerfausts rounds, and Olga was there to care for that. Most of the surviving halftracks were destroyed rather quickly, but the infantry onboard them had jumped, and had took cover in the park...It was then that the Russians in the manor revaled themselves, with devastating results for the ennemy, who took the manor undefended...As usual, the one that distinguished herself the most was Olga, who was on the roof of the manor...As a sniper, she was really deadly...and, as she was enjoying to make her ennemies see death coming, she was not above deliberatly missing a foe to make him turn, and see the flash from her riffle. Annah could hardly blame her for that ; Olga was from Leningrad...
The city had been bessieged 900 days by the Wermacht...and Olga, who was young when it had began (was young ? She had barely nineteen right now, still quick young. Annah was almost the oldest one in the whole group...)...it had really traumatized her deeply...
The infantry being mowed down, what was left was the moping up. Annah took care personally of the last tanks, and the halftrack they were covering. The Panthers put out some fight, but as they were almost out ammo, they did not lasted very long...The last halftrack could now be attacked without trouble...but this would be useless, as it had been abandonned by it's crew...Olga and the troops in the manor could not track everything ; many Nazis had managed to take shelter...And now, time was really running out.
The battle was calming down. Vassili, who had fought with the troops in the hamlet, came to report the overall situation to Annah, whose was breathing heavily, leaned on the hull of her T-34...this had been a victory, but a pretty close one, and rather exhausting too...
"Capitain, we have casualties, but no fatalities. Some battle damage on the vehicles, but nothing serious. Short of individual weapons, I don't think we are going to salvage much from the ennemy-we have been quite throughout with the destruction of their gear...We thinned their ranks a lot...but Valentine's group is reporting that another force is moving toward us : the garrison from the airbase. They have ten Panthers, AT guns, and they know we are here."
Annah hesitated...a lot. She had no proofs that Kakuzawa was there...could she risk the life of one of her subordinate for a personnal matter ? (this train of thought was quite unusual for an officer, even more for a Soviet officer...) Asked in those terms, the answer was quite clear...
"...Well, do as planned...Evacuate. We cannot prepare a second ambush-we are dispersed, we could be defeated. Valentine's group will delay them a little, without taking risks. We will regroup and attack them later...this airbase could be stormable, after all...(A pause) I'm worried that Valentine will do to much...I'll go with her group, and withdraw with them.
The evacuation proceeded rather nicely. A little time later, the Soviet detachement was leaving the village southward, two T-34s closing the march, to pick up Valentine and the capitain-as they were the delaying element, the ennemy was bound to be close to them...
Finally, they arrived, running. Valentine and the little group of volonteers she had under her command had successfully delayed for several minutes the second Nazi force. Damage had been pretty light (two or three Wermacht soldiers killed, maybe ?) but the Nazis were now sure that a large Russian force was about to ambush them-they had then slowed...
Vassili saw at once that there was a serious problem-the capitain was not with them...
Valentine said that Annah had helped them, then said that she was returning with Vassili.
Both Russians said, almost at the same time, almost identical sentences...
"Oh, damn, she did it again..." (presentable version of the sentences, without profanities...)
Kakuzawa had bunkered down in a building in the large park of the manor...The old stables, distant from the main building from around two three kilometers. Rather strange configuration, probably related to the prior existence of a smaller manor house (whose fundations were the basis of the stables), built before the current one. Those stables had been partly reconverted in the last decades. It was a decent position ; the ground was relatively cleared around it ; the armoured vehicles from the airbase could approach this position and evacuate Kakuzawa without fearing an ambush...The reconversion had been rather interesting Part of the place was now a sort of greenhouse ; the roof had been partly replaced with glass panels. The walls, however, were made in an extremly sturdy stone masonry, that was likely to resist to anything short of siege artillery shells. As this was a greenhouse, there was windows, of course, and rather large ones...that had been covered with planks for the winter. This was just a matter of holding out...The major had managed to gather around him about ten soldiers, with panzerfausts and infantry weapons. It was certainly possible to hold the building long enough for the reinforcements to arrive, especially considering that the Russians were slowly pulling out. At least, the major thought, the VIPs were still alive...
The only Soviet that was still in the hamlet was watching with attention the building, after having followed the footsteps in the snow...She was glad that she had ordered the rest of her group to pull out...This kind of attack on last-ditch positions could turn ugly. Now, well, it was just her life that was at risk. The attention of the ennemy was turned to the withdrawing of the Soviets...perfect. There was not outdoor sentinels-this would have pinpointed the building to the Red Army...The Nazis were not enough to cover all angles, and they were not excepting a single ennemy to attack them. Annah managed to climb on the roof without trouble...To have a minimal light, from the moon and the stars, the ennemy were mostly located in a area just below one of the glass panels-Annah could see them clearly, between the wooden planks. They were quite close. The basic idea would be to drop grenades at them, but they would heard hear breaking the glass and removing the wood...and they would take cover. No, better find something else...and quick, as time was running out. The second Nazi group would not advance so slowly forever...If Annah did not hurry, she would be trapped...
And then, she saw him...Kakuzawa. He was a little appart. He looked even more...disturbed...than six years ago. This vision boosted the speed Annah's brain was working-now that had seen him with her own eyes, she was not going to let him flee, and restart his little business somewhere else...like, in fact, he had done the last time...
A little time later, the ennemy heard noise on the roof...Someone was trying to remove the wood panels. The reaction was immediate. The major screamed to Kakuzawa to take cover, while everyone raised his weapon to fire in the area, to kill the Soviet before he/she could throw grenades in the room. They did not killed the lone assaliants, but their weapons litteraly chewed appart in the wood and the glass-a good part of the roof collapsed...They realized, of course, but too late, that among what fell (almost harmlessly on them, there was two AP grenades. Armed. Annah had placed them before running away...and it was the Nazis that had assured that those grenades would fall on them, by destroying the roof...Ouch.
The following explosions killed the major and most of the SS. Only three, more or less wounded, remained. The assistants, that had been handed weapons to help with the defense, were dead to...While the SS were climbing back to their feet, Annah, who had took cover previously, made her entry, thanks to the "door" that had been opened by the Nazis. The fall was a little too high-she heard her ankles "snap" when she hit the ground. But short of that...
She noticed with interest that, after all, the major was not dead...yet. She could not resist.
"This is coming from the 241...(The informal name of Annah's group was just "the 241", in hommage to the ill-fated 241th Brigade she had founded, at Briansk...Ill fated ? 60 of the members-granted, it was meaning three persons...were still fighting in the Red Army, which was awesome compared to the fate of many partisans groups) You heard about us ?"
Judging by his face...he had. Annah finished him with a shot from her pistol. Now, she was faced with "just" three SS with automatic weapons, while equipeed with a pistol...doable.
Then, to the astonishement of Kakuzawa and the SS, Annah started to speak in Chinese, a language that Kakuzawa knew, but none of the SS...Her Chinese was as good as her Russian ; after all, she had knew the two languages from her youngest age (altought, ahem, her Chinese was kinda…not literary. After all, her education had been rather...peculiar)
As she was speaking with Kakuzawa, the SS, always following orders, did not fire. And Kauzawa, surprised, did not thought that he could end the matter with her quickly...
"I knew it was you in this convoy, but I never hoped to met you face to face, Kakuzawa"...
"You are very, very annoying, Ivan...You had been sent to secure my ressearch ? (always the paranoia...Of course, like all others officers, Annah had orders to secure technology-including some kind of mineral, the saturnium, jupiterium...something like that, a planet name, anyway-usable by the Soviet Union, but not the demential projects of Kakuzawa...) You will not find anything...until it's too late...What you have was not really of critical importance (Kakuzawa was clutching in his hands a couple of vial filled with blood samples)
"Your ressarch disgust me, you sicko, it's does not interest me...I have seen enough...Because, we found stuff about your work...Very important stuff. Quite alive and sane, unfortunately for you...She survived to whatever you unleashed back at the fortress..."
Kakuzawa was so startled by the statement of Annah-that her group had met Sarah and were still alive to tell the tale-that he never realized a fact that was quite puzzling :
How the hell Annah was knowing his name and could associate it with him (granted, he was the only Japanese alive. But this was not explaining why she was knowing him...)
"Ah...so, she is alive", bluffed Kakuzawa. "I knew it...You taken her prisonner ?"
Kakuzawa was not very good at bluffing. Annah had, by this time, realized that she had made a mistake, and a critical one, by mentionning the fact that Sarah was still alive...She promised to herself to try to help the girl-the Nazis would maybe attempt to recapture her...
"Oh, she is completly out of our reach."(Quite untrue : she was probably within twenty kilomters of the fortress...But the Nazis in the area had others thing to do than find her...) But this point is not important...What is important is...you, Kakuzawa...This is very sweet..."
Puzzled, Kakuzawa looked at her. He had seen her probably, but where and how ? Fortunately for him, Annah answered his unformulated question in the following seconds...
"I was at Harbin, in 1939, with the maquisards...I saw everything...I have saw a lot since the Invasion...Nazism is truly the darkest side of Humanity, but you are a very special case..."
Kakuzawa looked at her more closely, and then recognized her. Like Annah had thought, this realization made him lose his temper...What followed was unspeakable insults. Seeing the face of the three SS, who had not the slighest idea of what was going on, was funny...
"Why are you struggling ? It's over...We will replace you, sooner or later...You are all over.
"Oh, oh, oh, I'm scared ! It's a little late to say that, don't you think ? We were not believing you back in '41, we will certainly give up right now, when your f... Reich is a ruin..."
How Annah could have guessed that the we part in Kakuzawa tirade was not including the Nazis, but that the us part included both her and the Nazis ? All Humans in fact ?
"I may consider surrendering to your side...but I need to receive some guaratees..."
Subtility was really not a core trait for Kakuzawa...He was trying to buy time
"Hey, this trick is a little too old...I would have prefered to hand you over to the NVKD, where they would have gladly helped you to remember things you had forgotten, but-"
Annah was not completly sincere with this...she feared that Kakuzawa could find a deal with the NVKD, and save his life. She was going to saver Russia a major moral dilemma...
She stopped mid-sentence, and jumped for cover, startling the three SS...
While jumping, Annah raised her handgun, and fired a single shot...Her chances of survival were quite limited, even if her action somewhat surprised the Nazis-sure, they kinda excepted her to try something, but not to try to take them on such a direct way. Annah had merely thought that she had chances to die, while she was almost assured of killing Kakuzawa.
She had then fired toward the Major. At least than twenty meters away, she did not even wondered if she was going to hit him-she had managed, with pistols, to hit targets at a much greater distances during the War…she was much more worried about finding good cover.
Thus she was rather astonished, as were the SS, when Kakuzawa started to laugh in a way that was not exactly normal...He was unwounded...Well, not exactly. He had a wound that was bleeding a little, on the forehead. And this was complety irrationnal. Either Annah had hit him, which was almost sure, and in this case, he would have been dead or dying-a handgun projectile at such a short distance was certainly lethal ! Or either she had missed him completly, and he would not have been wounded at all...The SS, too, were rather surprised by this, as they had seen Kakuzawa shudder under the impact...they were not firing-not yet-at Annah. The Russian took more carefully aim, and fired a second time. This time, she saw her bullet connect with him...and fall harmlessly after that, like if it had hit a concrete wall...
Annah looked in complete disbelief at Kakuzawa...He had...he had deflected her bullets ? This was already a bad thing, but for her, it was much worse...This was areal nightmare...a nightmare she knew...For one dark corner of her mind, an terrible image crawled..
It was her firing with nothing less than frenesy, in a dark hallway, against a...thing...(she had seen it quite clearly...and hoped to be able to forget it completly one day...It was a twisted thing, that she had overhead Kakuzawa said it was a failure) that was moving toward her, while scything, hacking everything that was on it's path. The worse was her...her...
Thankfully, Annah's mind was bring back to the present by the firing of a machine gun. The SS had just been told that the Japanese scientist was developping a kind of secret weapon...and for them, what Kakuzawa had done was a proof that those ressearchs were working, and that they must escort him back to Berlin. After all, things were not that bad, thought Kakuzawa. Granted, this very precious European specimenwas gone, and the Soviets had jut blewed up years of ressearch...But he was going to get vengeance for Harbin...this girl was the last survivor of the maquisards, after all. They had all pay...except her..Maybe he could use his capacities to teach her a little lesson ? This would be enjoyable.
Kakuzawa's deflection capacity was far inferior to the one of Sarah...it was inferior in fact to the capacities that a very young Diclonius would have. He was barely able to deflect small rounds, that were not fired at him in large quantities...It was because of the centuries that had pass since his family had been Chosen to receive the power to eradicate Humankind-they had not used this power, and in conscequence, it have been slowly removed from them...
This was the theological explanation. The actual explanation, that Kakuzawa was somewhat aware of, was that despite the very strict endogamy that had been the rule in their family since centuries, the Diclonius part of them had slowly waned...(in some decades, he was going to be able to put a scientifical word on that : DNA...) Not to mention a rather annoying detail .; for describing the potential future Diclonius society, Kakuzawa had gone for using Hive-like terms...Queen, Princess, Drones...The killing point was this : there was males for ants or bees, but, ahem, their social fonctions were somewhat reduced. Like it was very likely to be the case for the Diclonius...This was why Kakuzawa was very agressive toward the female Diclonius (either the handful of ones remaining from his family, that had been killed in an horrible way, for a not less horrible goal, Sarah...and in fact, any one he was going to encounter) he was "putting them in their place", one more time according to his madness.
Kakuzawa had been the first of his line and gender in generation from to receive from it's Diclonius side something more than the mental instability (the mental instability...it was not sure that it was really a trait of the Diclonius. After all, Sarah had pretty managed to "hold" without going insane, and have a pretty much Human behaviour-if she had given up this Human side, it was because of what she had to endure...Kakuzawa had saw this just as a weakness, interesting to know for further studies...), the agressivity and the horns...
"What you see...is just a example of the power that have been granted to Us by the Gods ! "
Annah reply, in a mix of Russian, German and Chinese, to be sure that everyone could understood, was mostly about where Kakuzawa could put his divine power...
As Annah was out of his meager range, he screamed to the guards to finish her...
The SS opened fire, but Annah had took cover. Not only she came out unscratched, but her return fire, much more precise, dropped to the ground one of the SS.
This was way too much for Kakuzawa, who never accepted incomptence (except from himself...) Those "allies" had just been a source of trouble up to this point. They had failed him. They need to die...The guard that was next to him was...hacked appart, while Kakuzawa was laughing in an insane manner. Annah took this scene relatively well, for two reasons...She somewhat excepted this...and it was one ennemy down, after all.
"Way to go, fascist ! Thanks for saving me work ! ", she said, while trying to hit the last SS...who, in fact, did not needed, at all, this new source of trouble...
The remaining SS, more than a little shocked by the fate of his colleague (understandable) realized at this point that he was jammed between Kakuzawa and the Soviet...At least, the Soviet was Human, while this Kakuzawa and his strange capacities (it was funny that it took such a situation for a SS to recognize that an Slav was as Human as a German...)
Kakuzawa killed him in a...more conventional way-he had a pistol, too...What was rather unusual was that he emptied his whole magazine into the corpse...lack of self control.
Sweat was beginning to run on Annah's front. She was down to...five bullets, and there was no way to harm. this guy. Things were bleak, very bleak. She considered trying to secure one of the Nazis weapons, but decided to go against it-she was not familiar of them, and many of them were buried under rubble...It was at this time that she found a possibility, judging by were Kakuzawa was standing. Thankfully, he did not rushed to finish her, visibly enjoying to the deepest level the current situation. He did not accorded much attention when Annah emptied her handgun...she was panicked, now, her shots were not even in his general area...
Annah had not targeted him. She had targeteted the weakened wood/glass planels...The panels that were standing just above him. The result of the operation was quite clear...
With a very satisfying noise, the whole huge window collapsed on Kakuzawa...Ah, damn, not directly on him-somehow, he managed to push away. However, when the panels from the greenhouse touched the ground ahead on him, it worked more or less like she had hoped...But what Annah got this night was certainly of the luckiest shot in Human history...
A single, fist-sized but razor sharp, glass fragment nailed Kakuzawa right between the eyes.
The speed of the fragment was sufficient to slightly pierce the bones of his forehead, not to go very deeply...Not even a centimeter deep. But it had an effect on Kakuzawa that she was completly unaware...Annah had severly maimed his epiphyse, the pineal gland.
For Humans, the epiphyse was a rather small gland, the pineal one, that in some decades would be identified as secreting the melatonin, a substance regulating many biological fonctions. So of course, crippling it would have rather bad conscequences on the long term...that were not however not as drastic for Humans as for Diclonius as the epiphyse/pineal gland was the area of the brain that was related to the Vectors !
Annah Sovorov had just "robbed" Kakuzawa of his powers granted by the Heavens...
And judging by his screams, it was affecting him a lot...
"THEY...THEY...ARE GONE ! HOW DID YOU KNOW ! HOW DID YOU KNOW ! GIVE THEM BACK TO ME, F... HUMAN ! GIVE THEM BACK !
It took a lot to scare Annah, but this outburst would have worried anyone-especially combined by the noise of several Nazis tank engines just outside the building...This time, it was really over...she just had the time to flee. After all, the assault on the base was still possible.
The soldiers were too concerned about the VIP they had to secure to actually track Annah...and she decided immediatly to not make a speech about how formal orders had to be obeyed when she saw that Vassili had sent back one T-34 for pick her up, in the hamlet...
About four hours later, with an advance party made out of her, some soldiers and Vassili, Annah was studying with binoculars the airbase. Hmm. It was strange that the transport planes-old Junkers, as classical as it could be-had not taken off during the night, when the risk of interception was low. They were waiting for the escort, probably...day-fighters. The dawn was rising slowly...they were going to arrive probably within the hour. Time was pressing...
"Hmm, we have etablished some foward bases...I think that we are still in the range for Yaks and LaaGs...A flight of them to escort some of our tactical bombers is all we need...
Back at the position were the group was concentrated, Vassili called the High Command, for air support, insisting on the urgenct part. His request was granted. Just in time : the escort was coming. Soviet soliders looked themselves. What kind of airplane could make that noise ?
Annah listened too, with sheer horror, to the screaming-like noise...
"Cancel immediatly the request for air support...THEY HAVE ME-262s FOR COVER !"
February 1945...An Waffen SS position between Dantzig and Koenisberg...
More than six years ago, the Wermacht had crossed the Polish border, officially to take Dantzig and the Corridor...Now, the remnants of the armies of the Fascist Beast were being methodically driven from Poland...several zones in Germany proper had been already been seized. Since 1870, it was the first time that German territory was invaded...the previous wars inspired by the Prussian militarism were lead in foreign countries...It was thus easy to make neat sentences about how "war is the greatest test of civilization" since Germany was never exposed to the nasty side effects of the said test (this lack of empathy before feeling the effects of war on itself was not limited, far from it, to Germans...) The harbours of the Baltic were well on the way of being bessieged by the Red Army-troops were in retreat everywhere.
One group, made of rather exhausted soldiers, who had walked for more than two days and one night in the snow, finally arrived at an army base, that looked abandoned-probably evacuated because of the progression of the Red Army in the area...
This group was made from survivors of a Soviet attack-most of them had basically survived because...because they had fled. Their convoy had been ambushed by at least a full brigade of T-34s, a day ago, as they were esccorting a VIP back to an airbase near Koenisberg (well, that was what they were going to put in the report when they would see an officer...) The VIP had survived but most of the unit had been rather mauled down. They did not know how the whole affair had ended, but it was likely that this would turn bad for them.
Those SS were quite unlucky. They had escaped one kind of danger...only to be exposed to a very different danger, as deadly. They noticed at once that something was wrong-the mutilated corpses was a good clue...There was discarded ammo everywhere-the struggle had been rather ferocious.A single person was still alive...And what she was doing was rather surprising. She was trying to sleep, in a dormitory with three bodies in it. Trying to sleep. Sarah had been unable to do it, her mind being too much tormented. Sarah had not shed a tear when she had maimed, killed the SS that were there-they had said so much time that her kind was a threat to the Reich...Now, she was proving that herself, at the very least, was a critical threat, indeed. Her face and hands were meticously clean (she had cleaned herself the best she could, with snow) but the Red Army uniform, way too large for her, that she had was covered with blood...The SS mostly thought that they were going to have the occasion to "amuse" themselves-until the girl opened wide her bloodred eyes, and looked at them...
What happened was becoming usual to Sarah-she did not even needed to think about it.
The view of one of his comrade being whacked on a wall by an invisible force pushed one SS to say something, while making, one more time, an hasty strategic retreat...
"Oh, no, not AGAIN..." (he was thinking to his expulsion of an halftack..."
Sarah let him fled...If he come back with reinforcement, there was two possible solutions, each as good as the other. If she killed all of them, perfect. It they killed her...it would be over...(Sarah's detention experience had been so traumatic, both for her and the...other...that she refused to even consider the possibility of being captured yet again...)
When the silence had come back, Sarah tried to think about what she was going to do in the next days...The...darkness...within her was truly frightening Sarah. If her whole life was just going to be such killings, from now on...what...what was going to be left of her ?
(I'm becoming like that voice says...And...a part of me is liking it...It's horrible, but I like it... I could have saved Myriam, if I had accepted it earlier...Even if this had been a tiny possibility, one out of a million, I would have done it...I was sincere, when I said to Myriam that nothing mattered out for me more than her...I would have even have gave my soul...
Sarah nervously touched the sides of her head...They...were already coming back...That strange Russian girl, that had wanted to touch them...It's looked like she had see them...
Impossible of course. But the more Sarah was thinking about it, the more it worried her...