AN: And I'm back from my trip. A question on formatting, I usually name a chapter, then have decimals of that chapter, for example, Chapter 6: Battle of the Beasts, followed by 6.1, and so on, does anyone actually care about this? Is it a useful thing to do? Otherwise I could just call them 7.0, 7.1 etc.
Regarding some of the details in this chapter and the last, the tank stories, both the Italians and the refuelling, and Ivan are true, at least according to some guy who witnessed them on the site iremember, which seems to provide excellent Russian propaganda. The biplane and the demolition are my own inventions, but I think reasonably plausible ones.
Lastly, Vozchik means Carter in Russian.
Igor was sitting on the back of an American jeep, contentedly munching on a sandwich he'd managed to scrounge from the remains of their breakfast. He had heard from some of the men that warfare consisted of a great deal of sitting around, but hadn't really understood the statement till now.
After Durov had seen the Roman command, he'd brought them back to the Russian side of the camp, giving orders as they went to any officer in sight. The whole force, by then standing ready, and by rapid evolutions, had deployed itself behind the ridge, with some soldiers going out to a distance to see whether the tanks were visible from the other side. There were at least twenty armoured vehicles, of a variety of shapes and sizes, though Igor could of course pick out the familiar T-34s. Apart from that however they were indistinguishable in the archaeologist's eyes, except for one monster that Durov had taken for his command vehicle.
The infantry had been rushing to and fro, practicing their manoeuvres before the battle, and were acting now in almost seamless cooperation with the Roman centuries. The Romans would make ready, as if to receive a charge, then kneel, keeping their shields standing before them. Two ranks of riflemen would leap up from their own kneeling positions and make to fire, and then the whole unit would split apart, with the riflemen advancing in volleys.
It felt to Igor almost as if he was watching Mikhail Kutuzov and Pyotr Bagration fight at Borodino, with the lines and blocks of men marching in all their panoply of war, the Syrians with their stripped trousers, the Romans and their red crests, and the Hammer and Sycle on massive flags mounted on the tanks waving over it all.
No doubt though if they'd had tanks in 1812 Napoleon would have never taken Moscow.
He saw Ilya and Dimitri crawling back down the slope, the two men had been monitoring the enemy advance on the orders of Vladimir, who wanted Ilya's keen eyes ahead and Igor's insight into ancient warfare. Igor however had gotten bored with watching a cloud of dust and had gone to have lunch, confident that his teammates would inform him of any developments.
"Anything?" he called out as they got closer.
"No." replied Ilya, "What about the radio?"
"Quiet, that plane officer sent back some reports."
"Mikhailov? He used to breed horses you know." Said Dimitri, passing a water bottle to Ilya after a few swigs.
"I didn't know, but then again I don't care." Said Igor, taking another bite of his sandwich. Ilya started coughing, having been drinking himself.
Dimitri smiled and clapped his friend on the back. "We should be heading back." He said, glancing at his watch, "It's almost time for the artillery to start."
Ilya too looked at his wrist, "You're 10 minutes fast my friend, we've got another hour and a half yet."
"Yes, but we've got to swing round past the ridge still." Dimitri countered, "And I don't want to be caught out here with only a rifle when the Beasts get here."
Neither Ilya nor Igor had any objection, and they soon packed up, informing command of their return. The drive was quick, but despite Dimitri's skill, rather bumpy. Igor supposed he should be grateful no one was shooting at them, an experience no doubt many other passengers of similar vehicles a few years ago had gone though.
"Over there Dimitri!" Ilya shouted as they came through a gap between two hills, "I need to get my guns. You take the car. Come on Doctor!" and they climbed out, with Dimitri driving off to park.
Igor felt a nervous energy as they walked. He patted his holster to make sure he still had his pistol. Since he'd shot the Beastman during the night attack he'd been much less reluctant to routinely carry a weapon, and indeed, took Ilya's rifle as they neared the supply vehicles.
"You can take that." Ilya said as he handed the weapon over, "Feel free to drop it if you need to run away.
Igor did not take offence; the importance of the scientific staff had been emphasised rather early in the Program as a condition of their journeys through the Stargate. There was however great reluctance to retreat when the soldiers didn't, and as such Dr. Polunin had gotten badly mauled by a bear-like creature a few weeks ago. Igor thought it a good trade, the sooner the soldiers began to think of the scientists as comrades, rather than useless intelligentsia the better. Happily, due to the efforts of Abramovich and Durov they were distained rather than despised, but that wasn't quite good enough.
Ilya was striding around the motor pool, muttering angrily to himself, seemingly having misplaced the truck he was looking for. However, after a few more tries he opened the doors of one and hopped up.
"Take these Doctor." He said, passing down two small ammunition boxes. "And this."
The sniper then lowered down a massive rifle, at least two metres long, which Igor took with great difficulty. "What on earth is this?" he asked, as Ilya climbed down from the truck bed with another box.
"It's the Simonov anti-tank rifle." Explained Ilya, "Here, look, I'll carry it, you get those two boxes."
Igor had been trying to arrange his equipment so that he could actually walk with all of it. He put the boxes down and hung his own rifle over diagonally over his shoulder, then picked up the boxes. They weren't that heavy, just rather awkward.
Ilya went in front, carrying another box in one hand and the larger gun in his other by its handle.
"What do you need it for?" asked Igor, "I haven't seen any enemy tanks."
"This will go through 30mm of steel, I'm going to use it for hunting."
Igor was going to reply, but was interrupted.
"Ilya!" exclaimed a woman's voice, and Igor turned to see an attractive blonde in fatigues pushing her way between two tents.
"Chaya?" Ilya exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"I work here Ilya."
"Yes but- wait, for a start you can take this." Ilya said and handed over his ammunition box. "I thought you were in Moscow? And why are you in uniform?"
"I finished my course, I actually have a degree now." The woman laughed, "Then a couple of years ago Vlad- I mean the Colonel, sent me a letter saying I should join up for something, turns out this is it. But please, nothing formal, I'm still not used to it all."
"Well I'm glad you're here in any case. It's good to have you. We're going to pack, are you coming with?"
"In the advance party? Yes, Major Chernov is coming along later once everything is secure."
Chernov, Igor knew, was the head of the Program's engineering section. He had joined early, and had supervised the construction of the base, and the early examination of various artefacts after they'd been recovered, but before the scientific staff like Markov had become involved. This woman was presumably therefore part of that division.
"And you would be Doctor Diakonoff?" asked Chaya, turning to him.
"I am, but please let us get these down first before introductions."
The others agreed and after a few more minutes in which Ilya and Chaya talked as they walked they made it to the armoured cars and trucks which would take them onward to Vulcan's domain.
Dimitri was already there when they got there, and exclaimed on seeing them, greeting Chaya enthusiastically but swiftly pulling himself up and saluting. "I'm sorry Comrade-CaptainVozchik, I didn't see your rank!"
"Dimitri, unless you've got a general hidden behind you don't worry about it." Chaya said, returning the salute in what Igor thought was a less than formal manner. "As I was saying, you'd be Igor Diakonoff?"
"Yes." Said Igor, "You're with the engineers?"
"Chemistry actually, but I hear you got the Gate working? Well done. I saw the analysis of its material, very interesting."
"Oh Ilya," interjected Dimitri, "I saw they moved the trucks around and got your rifle." He said, pulling out Ilya's usual sniper's rifle with the scope. Ilya took it gratefully, "Thanks I was looking for that, but come now!" said Ilya, "This deserves a story!"
They looked at him.
"I've got this big bastard," continued Ilya, patting his new rifle, "because the Colonel was worried about the machine guns not stopping the enemy cavalry, specifically about the possibility of large things dropping on top of the tanks." He said, and glanced with a grin at the Captain who blushed.
Dimitri laughed, "Of course you don't know Comrade-Doctor, Captain Vozchik destroyed a whole column of Hitlerite tanks, she has an Order of Lenin." He said proudly, as if it had been him who'd gotten it.
"It should have been the Vladamir's, it was his idea." Said Captain Vozchik.
"Wait I think I have heard about this actually." Said Igor, "Something about dropping a building on them?"
Ilya nodded, "Yes that's it. You see, we" he indicated those in uniform, "met up at Stalingrad, they folded a few regiments together so they'd be up to strength. We were posted near the tractor factory, and Colonel Durov had set up in a library. We went out behind enemy lines during the night, sabotage, that sort of thing. Generally made the Fascists' have difficulty sleeping safely. Then one day when we'd got back a whole troop of students started coming in. I still have no idea how they got past poor old Petrov."
Captain Vozchik smiled and continued, "I was studying there, and they didn't evacuate anyone, so I thought I might as well keep on studying. A few of us went to get our books, and found a barracks there instead. We got to talking and a few of us joined up with the unit, they would have been conscripted anyway, but I and a couple of others would come every few days to get new books. It was too dangerous to go too often but we got a system working. Then one day the Vladimir found a supply depot and took me along to blow it up."
"Now that went quite well, so the Colonel had the idea to do it more often." Continued Ilya, "Logistics were a mess then, we were breaking apart shells that had been sent to the wrong front even, to get at the explosives, the Captain here made us a load of bombs. We put them under rocks or as mines."
"Where does this column of tanks come in?" asked Igor.
"From the north actually." The Captain said, choosing to answer the question directly, she grinned again and continued, "Vladimir- the Colonel rather, heard about movement of two tank units, German and Romanian, and all their support troops, they were going to try and come along the railway by Rynok and cut us off from the river. The Colonel got a plan together to ambush them, make it look like resistance was stronger in our sector, he'd noticed an apartment block running along one of the roads they would be using, so he decided to blow it up when they were under it. There was a big lean on it you see? Ilya had been using is as an observation point and we always thought his weight would pull it over."
"It had been hit by one of the 1000kg bombs." Said Ilya, "The walls had broken away from the foundations on one side. Anyway, we were hiding in there for a good week, wiring up all the foundations on the good side with explosives, and keeping an eye out for anyone nearby. Eventually the column came through and we blew it. The whole row fell on them. Any of the SPGs or trucks were crushed, because of their open rooves, and the rest of the tanks were buried under the rubble. We went around pouring fuel into their hatches and dropping grenades down." Ilya grinned, "The Colonel only had half a company, but he made it count, and we drove off with half their supplies. After that he got his promotion to Major."
The soldiers chattered on, rearranging equipment in the armoured car they were to travel in after the battle. Meanwhile Igor digested the story, it threw light on several unusual aspects of the Stargate Program he'd begun to noticed so far.
Firstly, most of the soldiers seemed unusually informal. Igor, having no previous experience with the army, hadn't entirely comprehended this so far, but if the core of the Program was composed of the remains of several regiments no doubt there would be problems with bringing together so many different officers and men from so many different places. It seemed that as idealism increased, so did the willingness to fight, which explained the presence of otherwise intellectual men like Durov, mixed in with common soldiers like Ilya and Dimitri. To an extent this also explained the high quality of the officers and men in the Program, and presumably the Regiment. Igor had read some of the service records of the officers, but without the context of Ilya's explanation it had just been a series of unit numbers and place names. Indeed, Durov's record showed that he had been active on several fronts, all in the west, but not the specifics, nor did they seem to reflect the actual activities Durov had been involved in. Perhaps the records had been altered? Or were simply incomplete…
Igor also realised that Durov had been headhunting from the beginning of the Program, if he'd instructed the Captain to join up. He couldn't remember how long soldiers had to serve in between promotions, but it seemed that Vozchik's progression had been sped up. But given the importance of the program it was probably quite easy to intervene.
"Doctor we should probably be getting up to the Colonel." Said Ilya, interrupting his thoughts.
Igor agreed, glancing at his watch, and they all walked up. He remembered something else he'd wanted to ask about: "Ilya, who is Ivan? Vladimir mentioned our captive would be the new one?"
Ilya neither smiled, nor grimaced significantly, he seemed rather neutral about it, whoever it was. "Ivan is a rather strange war story." He began, "So after Stalingrad we went on the offensive, we tended to overrun some enemy positions, or go right past them as the line advanced. This was… confusing… to say the least. Once we went to refuel a tank we were using and found it odd that all the soldiers at the refuelling depot were speaking German. Now we were both using each other's tanks so it turned out we drove into a German camp and out again, we only realised it later. So one day the Colonel goes to see some generals, they'd holed up in some big dacha… Anyway, we get there and there's a guard outside, the Colonel goes up and says to him 'who are you, what are you doing here' and so on, because he had German equipment, uniform and so on. Turns out he's wandered off from his guard post and then had come back, and in the time between the front line had moved. He was just as surprised to see us as we were him."
"And again all the uniforms were confused?" asked Igor.
Ilya shrugged, "To be fair to him, we were in enemy uniform just as much as our own… Anyway, we took him into custody but he seemed fairly inoffensive so he stayed around, helped out with the cooking and so on. Eventually we left him as we were getting closer to the border."
"We appear to be taking the new Ivan into battle though."
Ilya shrugged again, amusing Igor with how expressive the sniper managed to make the movement. "Well," he said, "I don't really know what the Colonel intends to do with him, it, whatever… Maybe he wants to release him and have him go back or something." He looked up as the drone of an aeroplane came from over the hill.
They walked on, listening to the sound stop, and then a cheer starting up.
"We should probably be up there." Said Igor, turning to Ilya.
"Agreed."
They sped up, coming to the crest and pushing their way through a mixed throng of Roman and Soviet soldiers. Durov was standing in the middle examining the Minotaur's magic staff.
"Ah!" the Colonel said as they came up, "Igor! Check these markings." And he handed the staff over.
The trigger was clear, and Igor avoided placing his hands anywhere near it, and also attempted to avoid pointing either end at anyone. He instead laid it on the ground and knelt down beside it.
The device was worn, very much so, and what seemed like intricate patterns all along the length were mostly destroyed, with the metal taking on a dull green colour, like old bronze. There were a number of markings indecipherable to him on the pointed end, presumably the muzzle, which was split into four sections, while there were several lines of a crystal-like material flowing along the length of the staff.
Abruptly however, the muzzle closed with a small flash.
"What did I do?" Igor muttered.
"Push the trigger, that seems to prime it." Durov offered. "Only once."
Igor did, but nothing happened. He looked up at Durov.
The Colonel frowned, and gestured for the staff, which Igor passed up. Durov took the weapon, keeping it pointed downwards carefully, and flipped the trigger. The staff opened with another flash. Durov looked at Igor.
"What? I pressed it." Igor said, rather annoyed. "Wait a moment, hold it there." And he leant toward the haft, seeing some markings glowing on the crystal. "This is that odd Egyptian dialect I saw in Abydos." He murmured. "'Praise Atok'" he read.
"Atok is an Egyptian god?" asked Durov.
"No, but there's a segment swap in the dialect, I think it's meant to say 'Atum', the father of Ra."
"Ra again." Remarked Durov, rotating the staff to get a better look. He glanced up. "Oh, hello Chaya. Good that you're here, take some samples from this and have them sent back immediately."
After she'd scrapped some metallic dust into a container the Captain retreated, with Durov gesturing for the crowd to part. He held it, left hand forwards on the trigger as if holding a spear. The muzzle flashed again, splitting apart and Durov fired.
A golden bolt of light flew from the end, ploughing into the ground ten metres away, and the crowd swore and cheered.
"How is it sir?" asked Ilya.
"Like holding a canon!" exclaimed Durov, "But without the weight or recoil." He twirled it, "Excellent balance as well, and he made to hit an enemy with the butt. "I think they use them in close combat as well."
That made little sense to Igor, but he'd never claimed to be a military man.
Durov was surrounded by a few of the officers, examining the weapon. They talked for a few minutes till another officer came up an interrupted them, calling that the enemy had passed some marker. Igor stood on his toes and looked over the heads of the crowd. Indeed, while they'd been messing with the staff the army of Beastmen had gotten much closer.
"Thurius!" Durov said, turning to the Roman, "You take this, hide it and reveal it when the enemy are closer."
The Roman eagerly accepted the staff, and even Igor knew the psychological impact the revelation of their god's weapon in the hands of the Romans would have on the enemy.
"Is everything ready?" asked Durov, looking toward the enemy.
"Yes sir," said one officer, "Captain Antipov reports all batteries ready and the plane is finishing refuelling now."
"Good, Mikhailov, get back up there! I will address the men, and then we'll fight!"