A Young Girl's Outer Heaven
15
Commissioned by anonymous user.
I frowned as I shifted slightly in my uniform pants, looking at myself in the mirror. Looking up at Visha as she got dressed, I asked, "Did these shrink in the wash?"
"Hm?" she hummed, looking up. I gestured down to where they were at least an inch short and I was having difficulty squeezing into them. They were uncomfortably tight in the thigh and posterior region.
Visha took one look and snorted quietly, hiding her smile behind her hand. When I glared, she rolled her eyes. " It's a growth spurt."
I blinked, looking down at the pants again. "But… I thought I'd be stuck like this. Malnourishment and being a soldier…"
My adjutant came over and quickly began stuffing me into my uniform shirt, shaking her head. "And that body was vaporized according to Dr. Schugel, wasn't it? This one's mostly mana, right?"
It seemed obvious when she put it like that. I sighed and tried smacking her hands away, only to find my own hands smacked away as she began buttoning my shirt. The sleeves were just a little short as well when I shifted my arms. "I suppose you're right."
"Mhmm!" Visha grinned. "We'll get you measured and some new uniforms made, with some room to grow. Until then, you'll be fine. No one will even notice."
" I'll notice," I grumbled as she finished and I began pulling on my socks, then boots. Thankfully, the boots were long enough to cover the gap so it didn't look like my pants were too short. "Going to just use the summer uniform for a while instead."
"It'll be easier to hide that way, yes," Visha agreed. "Now, come on. We don't want to miss this!"
Shaking my head, I followed Visha outside where a vehicle was parked for us. She settled into the driver's seat as I climbed into the other side, and a moment later we were riding across the island towards the air field. There, near the end of the field, we found most of the officers standing under an open tent for shade as Schugel's assistants sat in front of a group of instrument panels. Standing on the end of the runway were—I took a quick count, my eyes growing wide as the number grew— one hundred of what looked like pretty standard rockets, at least as far as I could tell. It had only been a month since the attack on the senate and the good doctor had been a very busy man since then, it seemed.
Visha parked us beside the other vehicles and we climbed out, making our way inside where we were flagged over by Weiss, standing beside a cooler. "Colonel, Captain," he smiled and sent me a salute, before taking a sip from his cup of juice. Visha and I quickly collected our own cups of ice and poured ourselves some juice as well. "The good doctor is making a few last minute checks. He said something about a surprise second demonstration."
Schugel and surprises? I winced. "That's never good."
"You're sure? He seemed to think you especially would enjoy the show, colonel," Weiss raised an eyebrow and I frowned at that.
Soon enough, a vehicle came flying up with one of the doctor's assistants driving him. The doctor leapt out of the passenger seat the moment it was stopped, walking straight for me with a mad grin on his face. At the other end of the runway, I caught a flash of sunlight gleaming off of aluminum and raised an eyebrow, spotting a tractor hauling a plane of some sort—I couldn't make out what it was exactly from here.
"Thank you for coming, everyone!" Schugel grinned as he made his way past us to the equipment set up to the side of the tent.
"What's this 'surprise' you have for us, Herr Doktor?" I asked, and he waved me off.
"All in good time, colonel! Let's not spoil the fun, hm?" He gestured out towards the rockets standing on the end of the runway. "We have learned much over the last month's many tests and failures. And we had much to learn! After all, we are the first people to put an object into space! And today, we will be the first to keep one there indefinitely! Ah, I wish I could be there to see their faces when the Americans and Russy spot them flying over their skies!"
"Why so many?" I asked, and the mad scientist grinned.
"Why not?!" he countered, and I sent him an unamused look. "I thought it should be obvious, colonel. You said you wanted to see everything. To have, what was it again? Ah yes, total information awareness. This is how we do it! A network of satellites overhead, all talking to each other and beaming that information down to us here in Brasa!"
He tapped away at one of the screens and a map of the world came up with a bunch of dots and lines moving across it. "As you know, we can't have a single satellite running full time, otherwise it will run out of power—especially at lower altitudes. But if we push them into a higher orbit, the sweet spot we discovered they will stay there with minimal use of maneuvering thrusters. Less use of the thrusters means less power consumption, which means more up time. So this is what we will do," he gestured at the map.
"We will have several satellites in geostationary orbit over Brasa, cycling between active and low power modes at regular intervals to recharge. So while one satellite is listening for transmissions and sending the data it receives down to us, another is taking photographs, and another is doing a radar scan, while still another scans for mana signatures. Then, they shut off and recharge while a second set takes up their work. That is why each and every one of those rockets carries five satellites which it will deploy before falling back down and burning up."
I nodded. "What are you using to charge them?"
"A combination of ambient mana absorption and converting solar and other radiation into mana! We've had a breakthrough on that front! You see, without the atmosphere to protect them, they are absolutely bombarded with radiation up there. It's free energy, really! Of course, that energy is more abundant when they're in direct sunlight, so at night, or when they are on the dark side of the planet, they won't be able to charge as quickly, but we've adjusted the activity intervals to make sure that they always stay charged and continuously build a store of mana. That way, if we ever need to use them for a prolonged time, we can tap into that reserve."
"How efficient is it down here, to convert that into electricity directly?" I asked, and Schugel paused, before grinning and taking out his notepad.
"I don't know, fraulein. But we can find out! Later," he snapped the notepad shut. "As for the other satellites, we intend to put several into stationary orbit above America, more above the Federation, and a smattering over the other major European nations. These will work in shifts so that we have continuous surveillance of the surface. Still others will be put into an orbit that will see them circling the globe. These, we will launch over the northern and southern hemispheres so that every hour, a different satellite can pass over the same area of interest and take readings. We can adjust the timing so that it takes readings of an area, sends off a transmission, powers down to charge, then when it reaches the edge of its observable area power back up and take another set of readings—repeating this as it flies around the globe. That way, there is not an area on the globe hidden from our sight!"
Weiss hummed. "We're going to need an entire new division just to man the equipment and another to analyze the data we're getting from it. It'll probably be best to construct a new building to house all of the equipment, too."
"I leave that in your capable hands, Weiss," I chuckled. "You can probably lower the standards there. No need to recruit and train more people capable of combat for those positions. We can use civilians and just give them a security clearance. Swear them to secrecy. Probably need another division actually, an internal security division, to make sure none of them are leaking information."
"Yes ma'am. I'll get started on it right away," my second in command nodded. "As soon as we're done here."
Checking his watch, Schugel nodded and gestured me forward. "If you would like to do the honors, colonel? The launch sequence is tied to this button."
"Well, it's not every day you make history and simultaneously get one up on the entire rest of the world," I mused, walking up and looking over the keyboard for a moment. Schugel pointed to the return key and I stabbed it with a finger. A moment later, a rush of air sounded from the field and I looked over to see one of the rockets lift off, accelerating upwards quickly. Then another, and another—all of them with barely a whisper of sound, as opposed to the roar of a traditional rocket as it rode a sustained explosion upwards. No, there were very obviously magically powered, running off of flight formulas.
I turned a look on Schugel and he grinned. "To answer your question, yes! As soon as we have the satellites up to guide them in, we will be able to make a missile that uses a mana based propellant and strike as far as the Russy Federation from here! We just send them up above the atmosphere, let them fly for a while, then send them back down. It will use much less fuel that way."
And so begins the age of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, I grinned so hard my face hurt. "Let's keep that one under our hats for now, hm?"
"Of course!" Schugel agreed with a chuckle.
We watched and waited as the rockets shot off one after another, until there were none left. The doctor moved over to begin checking the readouts on the instruments. "It will be a few hours before they're where they need to be and we start receiving telemetry. I will let you know when there's something to see. Until then, we have a second demonstration planned."
"You ready for me to do up, doc?"
I turned to find Edwina had snuck up behind us at some point. I raised an eyebrow at what I saw. Instead of her usual shorts and loose shirt, she wore a set of denim jeans and a leather jacket, with a leather and wool aviator's hat and goggles on her head. "What are you doing here?"
Our pilot gave me a bright smile as Schugel nodded. "Yes! Begin the demonstration!"
"You got it, papi~!" she giggled and I blinked as she rushed off onto the runway, where a shiny aluminum aircraft had been parked, with a tractor parked off to the side which had clearly pulled it into place.
Studying the plane, I raised an eyebrow as I took in the design. It reminded me a bit of the Messerschmitt, save that it had no visible jet intake or engines. I glanced between the plane and where the rockets had launched from and realized where this was going. I turned to Schugel as Edwina began climbing in and the man grinned.
"It was surprisingly easy to find a few men and women among the German immigrants who had worked on aircraft in the fatherland," he explained. "They had their doubts at first, but I managed to convince them to give it a try. From there, we began stuffing it with all of the newest toys we've been working on. As you may have guessed, the aircraft is powered by a mana battery and flight formula, in much the same way the rockets were. However! This is not just a test of a purely magically powered aircraft, but also of several other things you wanted. You will want to take to the air for this, I believe. So you can see just how effective it is."
I turned as Edwina shot by, rolling down the runway and picking up speed. "Weiss, Visha, with me," I called and we took off out of the tent, heading up as we watched her take off and climb. I spun up a radar formula and felt Visha and Weiss do similar, running other detection formulas to get her flight speed, altitude, and record the entire test.
"She's fast, ma'am. She's already gone supersonic," Weiss murmured as we watched.
"In a climb, even," Visha added, sounding impressed. "That's much faster than anything anyone else had during the war."
Eventually, Edwina leveled off at 50000 feet and we clocked her at just shy of 2000 mph, or Mach 2.6 as she circled the city. After about half an hour, she turned back and began descending, eventually settling at 1000 feet above the airfield as she began doing maneuvers—tight turns, rolls, and loops as she showed off.
"I believe it's time for the weapons test, my dear!" Schugel broadcast over the radio, and the aircraft turned towards the river. "Colonel, if you'll turn your attention to the river, we've cleared it for this demonstration and set up several floating targets."
We moved closer to the river as Edwina lined up for a strafing run. A moment later, machine guns on the wings began to belch out rounds. There was just one problem with that…
"Those are mage bullets!" Visha yelped as we watched a burst of tracers tear into one target, then another, and another.
Edwina pulled up and circled back around and as I watched, my heart hammered in my chest as excitement filled me, and once again my face hurt from smiling. "He got it working," I murmured as Edwina completed circling around and attacked from the other direction. This time, the water exploded as multiple explosive formulas struck their targets.
Weiss turned a concerned look on me. "This is something you asked for?"
"Of course. What did you think that little weapon design session was for?" I sent him an amused look.
"For designing a weapon and gear for the regular troops to carry! Not this!" he gestured at where Edwina had switched to formula lasers, which were punching holes in and burning more targets. "This is…"
"Typical of Herr Doktor Schugel, yes," I nodded. "Give him a small little idea and he just," I gestured at the plane, "takes off with it, sometimes in unexpected directions. Other times, in entirely expected directions. What did you think would be the next logical step from a man-portable weapon, Weiss? Of course it would be to mount it on a vehicle! Either a jeep, or a tank, or in this case, an aircraft. And it's wonderful~! Just think of how useful this will be for us!"
Weiss sighed, nodding. "Yes, colonel. I'm also thinking of how 'wonderful' it will be when the Americans and Federation figure it out and start producing the same type of equipment."
I waved him off. "It was bound to happen eventually."
"That's all of the river targets. The bomb next?" Edwina asked over the radio.
"Yes! Colonel, you'll want to turn your attention out to sea for this next one. I recommend not looking directly into the blast!"
Edwina turned for the ocean and quickly accelerated back up to Mach 1 as she began to climb. We climbed a bit higher and watched as bomb bay doors opened on the bottom of the plane and a singular, dark shape dropped out of it. Below, a boat had been anchored a few miles out from the harbor, with all other sea traffic cleared for the time being.
The bomb fell, adjusting course midair as it locked onto the boat and drove itself down. There was a sudden, bright flash and Visha and Weiss both winced, shielding their eyes. I stared straight into it as I watched the mana bomb go off, a formula measuring the yield at just over a kiloton as a mushroom cloud formed over the water. The boat, of course, was completely gone—annihilated in magical fire.
Edwina passed by overhead and turned for the runway as she came in for a landing. Seeing the demonstration was done, the three of us flew back to the tent. As we went, Visha quietly asked, "Colonel?"
"Yes?"
"…What does this mean for us?"
"Hm?" I asked, sending her a confused look.
"When aircraft, tanks, and even normal troops can carry magical armaments… what use will an aerial mage be on the battlefield?"
I sent her a smile. "What use are regular troops when aircraft and tanks exist? It's the same situation, with the same answer. An aircraft or a tank can't occupy a street corner. They can't kick in a door. They can't carry out a precision strike, or carry out a stealth mission. There will always be a place for regular troops and aerial mages. That's not to say that this doesn't change the battles to come. It absolutely does. We'll need to start drilling stealth, illusion, speed, and shield training. When the other nations catch up, everyone is going to have magical armaments and equipment—which means that the tools that were so convenient at detecting enemy mages will be rendered mostly useless, when they start getting returns off their own equipment, the enemy's equipment, and can't differentiate equipment from a mage. We will stay ahead of the curve."
"Going to need another division, to detect spies and disseminate false information," Weiss muttered, shaking his head as we landed.
"Well?! What did you think?" Schugel demanded as he approached, a mad grin on his face.
My smile must have matched his own, given the way several of those around us shivered. "Herr Doktor, it was marvelous! Am I to assume you have a working design for out magical equipment, then?"
"I do! It's already been programmed into the fabrication machines and I've given the factory a list of the materials needed to produce each unit. You should be ready to equip a division by the end of the month."
"And the plane?" I asked, and he grinned.
"We're calling it the Sturmvogel! The Storm Bird! It is ready to go into production immediately," he nodded enthusiastically. "Well, assuming you can get the materials. The governor—sorry, the president—informed me, indirectly of course, that the aluminum needed to make more is somewhat scarce here. The country has mines, but they are slow and inefficient. That is why I will be working on a tool to begin digging up and processing more of everything soon! If you could sign the requisition forms I've submitted for those tanks, it would help."
I raised an eyebrow, curious. "You're going to use tanks?"
"Just the bottom! We will rip out the engine and other unimportant parts, replace the engine with a mana battery, and then build on top using the tracks as a platform. It's just a temporary solution. A testbed for the mining technology."
"I'll sign it," I agreed. Looking back towards the runway as Edwina came in for a landing, I shook my head. "How long can it stay airborn?"
Schugel grinned. "It depends on the charge, of course. But we've calculated that a day's worth of charge time should last days of operation time! We haven't actually tested it that long," he admitted. Looking towards Edwina as she approached, he called, "What did the readout for the fuel reserve say?"
"Ninety-eight percent, after shooting the guns," she answered with a wide grin.
"That's mildly terrifying," Visha murmured, earning a nod from Weiss.
"So papi~, how soon can we convert my planes from props to mana driven?" the pilot asked, and I saw her angle now. She was buttering the doctor up to get herself some upgrades.
Devious. I like it.
Schugel waved a hand dismissively. "I can have mana batteries and fuel sensors made by the end of the day. It's up to your mechanics to convert the aircraft and add the new sensors. New engines would need to be fabricated to have somewhere to use to produce thrust, obviously, but there isn't much to those. It mostly depends on your people."
Edwina nodded and sent us a wave as she hurried away. "I need to go light a fire under some people." She paused only long enough to turn and demand, "I'm going to do a complete refit! I want a second battery and some of those spell guns to stick in them!"
"Yes, yes, I'll have them done by the time you're finished pulling out the old ones," Schugel nodded.
"Wasted money, but the upgrade looks worth it," Edwina groused as she climbed up onto the tractor to move it into position and get the plane moved into a hangar.
I made my way back to our jeep, where Weiss had taken the driver's seat and Visha now sat in the back. I sent him a questioning look as he started driving us back. Weiss answered the unspoken question. "We've gotten all we can out of our guest. Intelligence has compiled a report and a copy should be on your desk by now. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything particularly useful about their operation going on in Sao Paolo. Just the name of the man running it and those closest to him in the chain of command. One Captain Serge Gorbachev."
Humming, I considered that and nodded. "Think our assets in Sao Paolo can identify comrade Gorbachev?"
"That shouldn't be an issue," Weiss nodded.
"Alright. I want him identified and his schedule." Grinning up at Weiss, I added, "I'd like to have a friendly, quiet chat with the captain in private later this week."
"Should we invite him to visit us, or will you be going yourself?"
"I'll go myself," I confirmed. "We'll need to work around Edwina's upgrades, however."
"I'll speak with her and convince her to get our VIP transport retrofitted first. We'll have it ready by the time we have the information we need."
"Good. Good. Also, Weiss, I want to look into putting together a larger flight crew. More pilots, copilots, mechanics, gunners. Everything we need to run those four aircraft and more at the same time. Let Edwina know."
Weiss winced. "She's not going to like it."
"Sell it as them being on loan from us if we need to mobilize everything, since she doesn't have enough people for that. Or for rush jobs like this, where we want to do repairs or upgrades on them quickly."
My second in command sighed. "I'll see what I can do."
"If she complains too much, send her to me. I'll talk her around myself."
He nodded and Visha popped up between us from the back seat. "We already have a motor pool. Why not just expand on it with a group of people specifically trained to work on planes? We could cross-train everyone over time, that way everyone in the motor pool knows how to work on them. We don't have to cross-train pilots, obviously, but more mechanics is always good, right?"
Weiss chuckled, sending her a nod. "Yes, we can do that. Split it off between pilots and mechanics. That will be less likely to step on her toes. I'll propose rotating out people to be trained how to repair them in an emergency."
"There you go. Take that to her and see what she says," I chuckled.
"Speaking of the motor pool though," Visha murmured, "we're going to be switching to all mana based vehicles soon, aren't we?"
I shook my head. "Not even remotely. Not until we have a portable power source that can charge them, or the infrastructure to do so." Rolling my eyes, I asked, "What's the use of a car that can only drive four hundred miles, when the place you're going doesn't have the capability to refuel it and you can't bring your own refueling capability? No. For now, gas and diesel are just too convenient, too widely used, not to keep our current fleet of vehicles. One day, perhaps. Until then, we'll stick to specialized units. The planes, for instance, can be charged over time and take on an unlimited amount of 'fuel,' and can fly. They can make it back to be recharged. We can't guarantee that with land vehicles. Besides…" I sighed and gestured at the road we were traveling down—freshly leveled and paved to exacting German standards. "The rest of the country is mostly little dirt roads that barely qualify as a trail. I would rather work on building a fleet of helicopters—"
"Ma'am?" Weiss asked, sending me a look as a thought hit me like a bolt from the blue.
"…I need to speak with Schugel."
"We just left him," Visha sent me a smile. "Did you forget something?"
"No, I realized something. If we're using magic formulas for flight in vehicles now, then there are things we can do that don't rely on conventional aerodynamics or flight mechanics. For instance, a short to medium troop transport that can take off and land vertically, in a tiny space, completely silently, while invisible. Lifting vehicles to move equipment. Individual or two seat motorcycles that fly."
Visha and Weiss exchanged a look at that and I frowned. "What?"
"She sounds more excited about that last one than the others," Visha grinned.
"Colonel, you remember you can fly under your own power?" Weiss teased! Actually teased! Me!
I glowered turning to look outside to hide my rising blush. "Shut up. Weiss, you're a man, aren't you?! Surely you understand! It shouldn't even need to be said!"
Weiss hummed as he considered it, before nodding. "Ah. Yes, I understand now. But colonel, how do you understand?"
Visha giggled. "Well, she's always been a bit more like a boy than the other girls in the service. You should have seen how hard it was to get her into a dress the one time for a photo op—"
" We don't speak of that," I hissed, turning my glare on the both of them. "It. Didn't. Happen. You're mistaken. And if you bring it up again, I will P.T. you until doomsday."
The pair fell silent and just as I turned away, a sly look crossed Visha's face. "But she looked so cute~!"
I unbuckled my seat belt and spun up a flight formula. I did not run away! I was merely… hurrying to my office to write down my ideas to take to Schugel while they were still fresh!
I made a mental note to find a petty way to get back at the both of them for laughing.
First Lieutenant Ivan Rabinovich sobbed silently as his lizard brain frantically sought some way to escape captivity with his miserable life intact. Unfortunately, in his bid to stay alive longer, he had already given the Imperials everything of value he knew. Everything that wasn't of value, too! They were happy to listen to everything he had to say, then cross check it later to make sure he kept his facts straight. It had bought him time—a month, by his count. But now…
A door opened down the hall and the sounds of several sets of heavy boots came stomping down the corridor. Ivan let out a quiet whimper at the sound of his approaching death. "No, no, no," he moaned quietly as they approached.
Three guards stopped in front of his cell and one of them undid the magical security on the cell while the other unlocked the physical lock. "The colonel wants a word with you."
Ivan's body sagged as relief flooded him. He let out a hysterical little laugh as two of the guards 'helped' him to his feet and began hauling him out of the prison. The light burned his eyes and he winced as they hauled him outside and into the back of a flatbed truck. Ivan frowned in confusion at the other things in the back with him and his guards: a young tree, perhaps an orange tree, ready to plant and a shovel.
He put it out of his mind as the truck began moving, settling in to enjoy the ride. It was good to be outside after a month in the dark. The heat of the outside was oppressive but he didn't mind one bit as a nice breeze from their movement washed over him. For a time, he could relax and pretend that he was going to be freed—perhaps even exchanged for concessions or another prisoner.
Still, he had to wonder what that tiger in human skin wanted with him. Perhaps another round of questioning? Or confirmation of something I've already said?
His musings eventually came to a stop when the truck did. The guards stood and gestured for him to get out. Then, to his surprise, his chains were undone. One of the guards kept a rifle pointed at him while the other two directed him to heft the tree. It was heavy, but he eventually got a good handhold on the bundled up roots and sort of half waddled along as they directed him, one of them carrying the shovel with them.
"That's good right there," a young girl's familiar voice called in Russy of all things and the guards directed Ivan to drop it.
Ivan straightened up and began dusting himself off as the guards backed up, the one with the shovel stabbing it into the ground beside the tree. To his surprise, they climbed back into the truck and left him there, alone save for one other.
Looking over to that void of mana in his senses, he found the source of the voice. Blue eyes locked with his brown and she grinned. Ivan flinched, cowering away a step, but when nothing happened he eventually straightened back up.
"What," he swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. "What do you want?"
"Ah, comrade Rabinovich. It's so good to see you again," she lied, that terrible smile growing wider. "I have a little task for you. I'm sure you won't mind doing a little gardening. After all, every good communist should be just as willing to pick up a shovel as a rifle, no?"
Ivan nodded jerkily. "C-certainly."
"Good, good. Here's what I want," she moved just a bit beyond the tree and pointed. A mage blade sprang to life on the tips of her fingers and traced a line in the ground as she began to walk it off. Ivan frowned as she sketched out a rectangle much larger than would be needed to plant the tree. Two and a half meters long by three quarters of a meter wide.
"Go ahead and start digging," she instructed as she finished marking it off and moved off to the side, where a wooden reclining chair sat beside a table, with a pitcher of iced orange juice and a single glass. She picked up the glass and took a sip, before nodding pointedly towards the shovel.
Ivan rolled up his sleeves and picked up the shovel. Slowly, he started digging. Perhaps I can drag this out a few days—
"Don't bother dragging your heels. We both know there are ways of encouraging you to work faster. They're ways your people are intimately familiar with, after all," she sounded entirely too smug about that fact and Ivan glared at the ground as he worked faster. "Much better. Now, I had a few questions, if you don't mind?"
"By all means," Ivan panted out of breath already. "How deep should I dig?"
"Just keep going until I tell you to stop," the devil leered. "Now… You told my men something interesting. You said it was too late to stop what was coming. What, exactly, is coming?"
"The Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del."
She blonde she-devil frowned, muttering a quiet, "People's Commissarat for Internal Affairs? Why does that sound familiar?"
"You would know it better as the NKVD," Ivan grunted, tossing another spade full of dirt.
"Ah, right. The predecessor to the KGB," the girl nodded. "Tell me, who is the head of the NKVD?"
Ivan paused in his shoveling to turn a nasty smile on the girl. "That would be Comrade Loria. Perhaps you've heard of him?" He allowed his eyes to roam over her body, taking in her small, trim form. "He has certainly heard of you, and you are just his type."
His brief satisfaction at her look of disgust was wiped off his face as she nodded back to the shovel. "Keep digging. I want that hole six feet deep by sunset."
Six feet? Ivan wondered as he turned back and began shoveling, doing the mental conversion. That's…! "Two meters."
"Roughly."
Ivan trembled, nearly dropping the shovel. "You are making me dig my own grave. What kind of, of monster would do that to a man?!"
"I know! Isn't it wonderful? A little slice of the communist utopia I've brought here just for you!" her voice perked up, sounding positively angelic in her enthusiasm. "Of course, we'll be putting our own twist on it. That tree will be planted over your body as your headstone. That way, even in death, you can continue to provide a valuable service to the people. As fertilizer."
Ivan wept in impotent fury and despair as he stabbed the shovel into the ground.
