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ACT III: XXXVI
The plan was to break through the ice and fish themselves dinner, it wasn't going well as they hoped. Sally sat there with her crude fishing rod and waited for something to catch the line in the modest size hole through the frozen lake. Jammy must be finishing up the shelter now and Lori must be taking care of the other things. With her butt close to frostbite, Sally considered cutting their losses and returning back to camp when she felt a tug on the line.
Her spirits rose as the tugging became harder, Sally stood firmly on her feet and pulled hard on the line. Whoever was caught down below was trying its best to get away, Sally grunt as she tried to reel in her catch.
"Come on you son of a-"
She was interrupted when her prey gave one hard pull on the line and Sally found herself being pulled into the frozen lake. Sally eventually let's go of the fishing pole and swam her way back to the surface, but when she reached the ice layer the hole she fell through was gone. Sally panicked as she began to pound her way through the ice, each blow draining her strength. The world slowly turned blue, then black.
. . .
Sally woke up gasping for air, she found herself on her makeshift cot all dry and well. It was just a dream, how did it happen? She turned and saw all the bones of a fish Jammy managed to catch laying right next to her, that was a lot of bones. The big meal must had gotten to her head. Sally rubbed her eyes and sat up, the crude shelter made days earlier was quite warm inside, not to mention huge. All that work putting packed snow and tree branches together had paid off.
Jammy and Lori's cots were empty, they must be getting some chores done. Sally stumbled out of the cot and sunlight nearly blinded her, when her eyes adjusted to the ambient light she saw Jammy sitting near the campfire with Lori no where to be seen, "Morning Jammy." said Sally.
"Morning Sal," said Jammy, "You sure slept in sissy, we thought you'll never wake up."
"I was tired."
"After eating all that fish."
Sally shoved Jammy in the shoulder as he laughed, then sat down next to him, "Where's Lori?"
"She's using the bathroom, Lori had been gone for five minutes now, must be one of those days again."
"Did you find the direction home bro?"
"After that chaos we went through, I lost all sense of direction. Damn colony is so well hidden, there might be no chance we would ever find it."
Lori came stumbling out of the woods exhausted, she walked up to the campfire and slumped onto her rear, "How was it?" asked Jammy.
"Relieving," she simply say, "I hadn't taken a dump in ages."
She laid down onto her back and looked straight up at the sky, "Oh I'm never going to get used to this."
"What did you use for toilet paper?" asked Sally.
Lori shot a look at her and simply say, "Snow."
Without warning two planes flew overhead, seemingly too close for comfort. Sally jumped as she watch them vanish as fast as they came, "Auroras!" cried Jammy, "Those are our planes, we must be near home!"
"Too bad they didn't see us," said Lori, "So much for help from home."
"I wonder if we ever get back home at all," said Sally, "So we won't miss all the action."
"If only we salvaged the radio back at the crash site," said Jammy, "Maybe that would have helped us."
The trio sat there in silence for a few minutes before Lori sat up, "Where's the fish we caught yesterday?"
"I think we ate it all," said Sally, "Let's go catch some more."
"Okay then Sal, lead the way."
. . .
Antosha waited in his tent for news from his field supervisor, before leaving he sent in a red smurf to watch over the cleanup operation at the human homestead. He had his feet propped on top of his desk as he laid back, interestingly the colonel enjoyed not being under the watchful eye of the general for once. He can imagine the red smurfs ousting him from power when they realized everything was his fault. Who knows, maybe Antosha would be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and make his small band of red smurfs an official regiment.
The red smurf he'd been waiting for hours had finally arrived, he could see the distinct shadow of his figure approach, "Permission to enter."
"Permission granted."
The red smurf entered the tent as the colonel sat up straight, "Did you find him," he asked, "Did you find the Wunderwaffe?"
"We stripped the house to it's frames and took everything apart," said the field supervisor, "No sign of him anywhere."
"Then we're wasting our time, he might not even be there in the first place."
"We did, however, found three of the conscripts shot dead. Ballistic analysis on the bullets recovered from their bodies said they came from their own guns, there's no evidence showing them that they committed suicide or turned on each other in anyway. It was sporadic and quick thinking, no red smurf can pull something like this off unless they have professional skills."
"Who does have such skills?"
"Spetsnaz, but there are no Spetsnaz soldiers in your army at this time."
Colonel Antosha thought for a moment, "If he could be there, how did the Wunderwaffe got out? We had that place surrounded."
"The tank division that was suppose to cover the northern part of the house had somehow delayed their approach, the red smurfs found dead were assumingly caught in the consequences of leaping before looking."
"Not surprising there."
"Even though we found no evidence of the Wunderwaffe, we did found signs of green smurf activity. Their was a cage designed for smurfs in one of the bedrooms along with a dresser full of M81 camouflage dresses."
"A green smurfette, they must had kept one as a pet."
"Yes, and due to the size of the dresses this green smurfette was pretty comfortable. Though it is unlikely that she would have military training, since green smurfs under human captivity are quite safe and is unnecessary."
"No way would that green smurfette killed the conscripts?"
"No way, she's a pacifist. All green smurfs in captivity are."
Antosha grunted, "Maybe red smurfs are to."
The colonel laid out the regional map on his desk and examined it, "Interesting, we're near the Smurf Village. I wonder what Oleg had done to the place that started this entire mess."
"Is there a chance for it to be occupied?" asked the field supervisor.
"Not very likely, the green smurfs must had taken the blue smurfs shelter inside their colony. It's too risky to send them back home at this time, and since it isn't strategically built for war it may be useless to the green smurfs. For that matter, it's open for the taking."
"May I ask what you're planning sir?"
Antosha turned towards the field supervisor, "We're going to move our camp to the Smurf Village," he traced his finger north of the colony then west of it, "Dragovich is around here, and we are around here. With a partial control of the Smurf River, we'll be able to cut off any trade the green smurfs might have with other civilizations from this direction of the river."
"You think they have some boats we can use at the colony?"
"The S.S. Smurf II is docked at there port, recon planes suggest it's still there. I wonder if it can hold some of our artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Since it's made out of wood, I don't think it will support the weight. It's made for reconnaissance after all."
"And not for war."
"Well then, go back to the human homestead and burned all evidence of what happened there. Humans may be the smartest species on the planet but they fool themselves too easily."
"Da Comrade Colonel, I'll have it done as you ordered."
. . .
The red smurf transport truck lumbered down the road at a steady paste so it doesn't attract too much attention. It failed when Cherskey and Nelly poke their little heads out of the bushes and saw it drove by, it must be the last truck leaving what's left of Fort Romanov. It may be heading to the main force, or to a smaller branch separated during the battle. With nowhere else to go, the twins decided to follow it.
"Take point," said Cherskey, "Stay low, stay quiet. Let's move out."
"Roger." said Nelly.
The Wunderwaffe Twins ran with haste down the road in an effort to catch up to the truck, after a few minutes they resume walking and ultimately stopped to rest. But only for a moment, Cherskey knew they were deep in enemy territory even when the forest became more familiar. The twins had been following the road for quite awhile now, they hope that it would lead to a green smurf outpost or to the colony directly. With the sun high up in the sky, it was too soon to check their direction. With the road their only guide, it was better than nothing.
Cherskey and Nelly made the plan as simple as possible: Break into an enemy outpost, steal a map and ride, then get the hell out of there. With the main red smurf base destroyed, the outposts in question will find themselves with a choice. Either leave and go find the main battle force of their faction, or hold onto their position and await for orders from high command. Based off of research from their father's work, the twins theorized that when red smurfs abandon an outpost they leave what they have there and take what they can carry. A gold mine of crap worth playing around with, even better when there's navigation supplies and some firepower in store.
They got back up and continued walking, just skimming the edge of the road and keeping their senses on high alert. They found what they're looking for, a red smurf outpost. Cherskey saw how small it was, the truck that had past them earlier had stopped in front of the outpost gate and red smurfs were loading supplies in the back. The twins jumped into the vegetation and got down onto their bellies, they watched as the red smurfs load up the last of many crates into the back of the truck.
"Send her away," said a red smurf in Russian, "Don't keep Dragovich waiting."
Cherskey saw the rank on his arm, the red smurf must be a sergeant or sergeant major. He tried to recall some of Chernov's homeschool lessons. What did he use to say, look before you leap? Maybe something similar.
"What are they doing Cherskey?" whispered Nelly.
"Looks like they're clearing house," said Cherskey, "And they appear to be doing a half-ass job at it."
"I don't see any jeeps to commandeer."
"We won't need them, we just need a compass, a map, and a radio. They don't seem to be carrying any guns, they may be too confident in their own security."
Nelly snorted, "Overconfidence makes you careless."
"Or they don't have ammunition to begin with, those crates say they're SK-47s and Smurfsterners. That could be their weapons they're loading up."
"Not many red smurfs to deal with- Wait, what's that?"
"What sis?"
"That, you see it?"
Cherskey saw where Nelly's pointing, at the side of the outpost walls were small logs that had been chopped. Embedded into the top of a lonely stump was a tomahawk, it appeared to be freshly used, "Goodie," he said, "Let's wait till the place clears out."
"Got it."
They sat and waited for the red smurfs to finish up loading the truck, the engine soon started up and drove off without making much noise. The red smurfs soon walked back into the outpost but left the gates wide open. When the last conscript was out of site, the twins rushed across the road and approached the tomahawk. Cherskey grabbed the handle and pulled it out of the frozen wood, it felt cold yet comfortable in his hand, "Now we're talking." he commented.
"Is there a back door?" asked Nelly.
"There's never a back door with red smurf outposts, we'll just have to use the front door and risk grabbing attention."
"Or why not-"
Cherskey heard footsteps approaching, he covered his sister's mouth and thrown her against the wall. He held onto her and shushed into her ear, "Red incoming." he whispered.
Within seconds, a red smurf strolled in lazily from around the corner. Cherskey let's go of Nelly and made quick work with the red smurf. He jumped onto the red smurf's back and plunged the tomahawk's blade deep into his throat. The conscript gurgled and choke as blood rushed his airways, Cherskey tore the tomahawk out of the red smurf's neck and he dropped like a load of bricks, "Christ," said Cherskey as he got off the red smurf's back, "They're making this too easy."
"I guess those many hours of training are really paying off." said Nelly.
"Yeah... You want the pistol?"
"Sure."
Cherskey pulled the red smurf's pistol out of it's holster and handed it to Nelly, then pulled out some of its ammunition and handed that too her as well, "Where you store ammunition?"
"Undies."
Cherskey chuckled, "Good girl, just like Mama use to say."
He searched the body and pulled out some stick grenades, he stuffed them inside his pants and wiped the tomahawk's blade on the red smurf's trenchcoat, "Help me move this fella, will you?"
Nelly grabbed the dead red smurf's feet as Cherskey grabbed the hands. They dragged the body over to the forest with a good distance away from the outpost and dumped it into a trench. After covering up their tracks, they head back across the road and situated themselves in a new spot on a hill. The hill wasn't that high and was barely noticeable, it was when they got onto the top when they could see the outpost from a safe distance with a good view.
"We wait till night," said Cherskey, "Huddle up, it's going to get cold once the sun goes down."
Nelly pressed herself against him and looked back down at the outpost, Maybe they'll up the alert level when they find the body. Cherskey thought.
. . .
After a long day on the job, Rick was very tired. He wound up emptying a bottle of beer into his stomach before slumping back onto the cot. He lay there sleeping off a good part of the day, snoring slightly, and even muttered out a few words unconsciously. What seemed to be a short while was interrupted by a blast of cold water to the face. Rick's eyes shot open and he saw Chad and Lizzy above him, "That woke him up." said Lizzy.
"What the f#ck you guys doing!" Rick muttered with utter confusion.
"We saw you past out, so we pour water on you to refresh you."
Rick sat up and rubbed his eyes, "Whatever, go away."
"Okay then," said Chad as he tossed the bucket over his shoulder, it clattered across the room and stopped right up against the wall, "See you in a bit."
Chad casually walked out and shut the door behind him, Rick got onto his feet and took off his soaked camouflaged smurf hat, "Great," he said to himself, "Now I need to dry this before I sleep on it."
"It has been awhile since you washed it," said Lizzy, "Why not now?"
Rick gave her a grumpy look, "I suppose so. You know what, let's get rid of the entire sleeping mat altogether and put in a cot. I'm tired of sleeping on bare concrete."
"Not the same with Dashie not here, huh?"
"Yeah, it feels more hard and more cold."
"Why not get a mattress instead of a cot, it's a lot better and more soft."
"Making a mattress is expensive Liz, there's a waiting list for those wanting one. Besides, it's the wrong season to get one. I'll take my chances with a cot."
Rick pulled up the mat and grabbed the file that revealed Dashie's betrayal, "The next time I see her, I'm going to have her arrested on the spot."
"You need to relax Rick," insisted Lizzy, "You have a lot of help here, you don't need to be overworked about this."
Rick walked over to his HAM radio and set a hand on it, "It's not even my first day at being Supreme Commander, and already I beginning to understand Chernov's feelings."
"You can sleep at my place tonight," said Lizzy, "I have the stove heating up the place already."
"Thanks Liz, I knew I can count on you."
TO BE CONTINUED...