Outside of Volgograd, Western Front, 1948

Word reached them after having traveled many miles, over the western front, and right through the German lines. The helicopter had taken a tremendous amount of flak and had crashed 50 or so kilometers from their position near the Volgograd after finally running out of fuel.  Only two of the soldiers managed to survive the entire journey, both injured, one missing a boot, and badly frostbitten. They stood tall none the less, charred and bloodied, and handed the documents to Junior Lieutenant Kazan, the platoon commander, who immediately relieved them and called for medics.

With the light from the Mao’s floodlight behind him, he read the dispatch from Senior Sergeant Pyotr Yegorov.

“Axis plans to flood the streets of Zverograd with the undead. Contact with Totenmeister. This must reach Polkovnik Vasiliev.”

Without skipping a beat, Kazan gave the orders to wake the men and saddle up. They’d be heading out, using the storm for cover. They’d follow the Volga to Zverograd and deliver the message personally. He, along with the rest of his command team, boarded the Mao and secured their gear. The other two teams of Red Guard were doing the same, some of them handing their PTRSs-47s to troops already up on the Mao’s back. They had enough time to get comfortable and throw the Mao into gear before the first sounds of a skirmish could be heard, even over the wind. A patrol came running through the rubble, a few of them firing blindly into the storm. They had made contact with the enemy, and in their retreat encountered what they described as an allied walker to the south, blocking the road that would lead them to Zverograd.

“Like the much maligned Odysseus,” mused Kazan, “Fucked, are we.”

The Mao surged forward into the blizzard and the rubble surrounding their camp, right up against the mine fields which boxed them in on their eastern border. With confident gestures and curt orders, Kazan’s men fanned out down the line and followed the Mao like ducks in a row, keeping eyes out for the mentioned patrols.  They were heading towards a dummy mine field they had placed near the southern road, an emergency exit they had set up when first digging in, when they spotted the aforementioned Allied walker. It had hidden itself in a building, the wily thing capable of leaping into the air like some giant armored toad. It almost certainly had support nearby, but they had made themselves scarce. The Mao’s radio crackled to life along with the command team’s own coms. One of the anti-tank teams had spotted infantry moving in the distance. Axis this time to the east on the other side of the ruins, accompanied by something matching the description of the Totenmeister, which meant the troops skulking about in the blinding snow were likely not of the living and breathing variety. This posed some real problems. The Axis already knew where they were going; anyone would have done the same, making a b-line for the closest stronghold. The allies, however, were likely here on reconnaissance. Denying them any information of the axis push could be incredibly useful as the Axis forces would catch them unawares and weaken their holdings in Zverograd, and they had unfortunately placed themselves directly in the path of the SSU retreat. The plan came together quickly, their options limited and their choices obvious; crush the Allied command team, scatter their recon force, and get the hell out of here.

“Tell them to take up positions until we clear the way.” Kazan told the radioman. “Lead the walking corpses into the mines and then retreat while covering one another.” The radioman nodded and immediately complied. Kazan motioned to one of his troopers who banged on the side of the Mao’s turret with his PTRS-47. The hatch opened and the tank commander poked his head out and recoiled from the frozen air. He frowned almost immediately and turned to Kazan.

“Yes, Junior Lieutenant.”

He pointed to the walker and the building behind where it hid. “Do you see those buildings?”

The tanker turned and nodded, taking a second glance over his shoulder to spot the allied walker. “Yes, I see them.”

“I want you to pull up there and open fire on that walker and see what responds. I want to flush its friends out of this storm. Once you kill it, listen to the radio for instructions,” Said Kazan, pulling back the bolt on his submachine gun. “And whatever you do, don’t stop. Keep moving forward.”

After a moment the tanker nodded. “Understood,” he said, putting the pieces together.

Kazan looked him in the eyes, searching them for a moment as if trying to ascertain whether his orders would be followed. When he was satisfied, he hefted the leather satchel containing the Axis dispatch and pushed it into the tank commander’s arms. “If that doesn’t get to the polkovnik, many more will die. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Junior Lieutenant.” He responded, nodding once and disappearing into the tank.

Kazan flinched when the hatch clanged shut. When the muffled groan of metal on metal ended with a final loud ‘clack’, he lept off the tank and ordered his men to follow. The Mao lurched forward again, spewing black smoke from its exhaust, its engines rumbling.  In one practiced maneuver, it strode forward, turned its turret, raised its guns and with a sound like the war drums of the gods it began to tear huge chunks of material off the face of the building, peppering the walker inside with fire. Almost immediately it replied firing a shell at the tank which bounced off the sloped armor of the Mao. Kazan and his team huddled behind the tank as the Red Guard squad accompanying them surged over the small hill they were coming upon and fired their PTRS-47s into the mine field blocking their way, their comrades unloading with their SMGs as well. The world was nothing but explosions for a few moments but when it ended, there was no time to take a breath.

“GO!” shouted Kazan, following the ant-tank team. “Get to the building. I want that walker dead.” His orders were followed without a second thought. The men reloaded their rocket launchers and picked their way through the now pocked field where once there had been mines in an attempt to get a bead on the walker. As they leveled their launchers they came under fire from an alleyway where a ranger team had appeared, their dual machineguns throwing streaks of tracers from seemingly out of nowhere, the white-out of the falling snow obscuring them from any form of reprisal. Two men fell to fire, one of them dragged backward by a teammate and back up onto the hill and into cover where a medic began tending to his wounds. Somewhere in the distance there was a chorus of explosions. Panzerfausts. The second Red Thunder team was no longer responding on the radio, either due to sudden departure from this world or because they were running in an attempt to stay a little longer. Either way, the door was closing and more time could not be spared.

Snatching the hand piece for the radio from his operator, Kazan shouted, “DRIVE FORWARD!” The tank did as commanded, providing a nice, mobile wall of cover. Its turret tracked the entire way, following the allied walker which obliged by leaping up to one of the upper floors in an effort to fire down on the Mao. Seizing the opportunity, the Mao opened fire on the temporarily airborne Pounder, shredding its legs from beneath it and ripping chunks out of its belly. When it finally landed, it couldn’t support itself and topped backward into the ruined building, vomiting smoke from a ruptured fuel line. It struck the third floor which held for a moment and then crumbled as well, sending up a great cloud of grey dust and snow.  Shouts came from the building adjacent to it as the Allied commander hollered into his own radio, giving away their position.

“Do you see them?” Kazan shouted into his own radio, but the turret on the Mao was already turning as the tank continued to advance, sprayed by machinegun fire. One of Kazan’s men leapt up on top of the Mao and grabbed the machine gun on its turret and the other men followed, grabbing onto the rungs bolted to the side of the behemoth. As soon as the tank was in range it rolled to a stop. There was silence for a brief moment, save for the sounds of the wind blowing and the tank idling. Kazan raised his hand and kept it there, watching the building across from them and waiting. Whether rising to the challenge or simply accepting their fate, the Allied commander and his gunners stood up, leveled their guns and opened fire on the Mao. Kazan wasted no time and dropped his hand. Three rockets each leapt into the air, their jets igniting with their characteristic ‘POOM’ before they screeched off on trails of smoke and fire. The dull explosions tore great chunks from the side of the building, and on cue, the guns of the Mao Zedong belched fire. “FORWARD!” ordered Kazan.  “KEEP FIRING!”

Moments later the Mao stopped shooting and rounded the corner between the buildings.  If anything was still alive beyond the huge multi-story hole in the side of the building, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Somewhere behind them in the snow they heard the unmistakable crunching of snow under jackboots and the low groans of Axis untertoten. The Mao’s engine switched gears and began to climb over a mound of rubble in the road. The command team helped the rest of the troops who had made it on to the back of the tank, each man being grabbed by a sea of arms and hauled upward. The radioman made three transmissions to the missing team which had never made it back through the blizzard but nobody offered any optimism where their fate was concerned.

The Mao cleared the rubble and began its decent down the other side and it’s first steps toward Zverograd to deliver its cursed message.

Burning Like Wildfire

                Lieutenant Ellison gave two curt knocks on the door. When the reply came from inside, he entered the room. He saw the usual staff of adjutants, clerks, and other logistical workers bringing together various bits of information.  Standing over a map, he saw Captain Marsh, of Tango Company, and Master Sergeant Springfield. Something had gone wrong.

                “Lieutenant, come in.  There’s a situation, arising from a recon mission into the Axis flank. A Wildfire has become disabled in the ruins of a building near Central Park. This Wildfire is carrying sensitive information, vital to our operations in that region. We need you to retrieve the information and, if possible, get the Wildfire and its pilot to safety.” Captain Marsh looked up from the map. “You’ll be behind enemy lines on this one, Lieutenant. We are expecting casualties. Do you have any questions?”

                Lieutenant Ellison looked back down at the map. He had been in Zverograd for a few weeks now, and it has been a hard fight for every inch of ground. The men were stretched as thin as their lines, but they knew their jobs. “No, sir. When do we go?”

                “04:00 hours. You should be able to reach the Wildfire and be out of there right as the Sun is rising. You’ll be entering from the East, and will have the morning light to provide a measure of cover.”

03:48

                The elements of 2^nd Platoon came around a corner and spotted the hulk of a Wildfire light walker in the ruins of a building. “There it is, gentlemen.  Stay sharp, this is Gerry’s back yard.” They had been moving from building to building, staying in the shadows as they made their way up. They had met with little resistance until now. As they started to close in on the Wildfire, the buildings around them opened up and fire spewed out. It was a textbook ambush, and they were all sorts of screwed.

                Master Sergeant Springfield’s Heavy Ranger Attack Squad took some of the first hits, with only minor wounds. Rockets and shrapnel exploded all around them and drove them out of their ruins, now flanked on two sides by Heavy Flak and Laser Grenadiers, and force them to make a fast jump towards the Wildfire. The rapid pounding of machine guns and the measured pops of a sniper rifle started to tear into the Heavy Rangers. Pinned down in the building, it was all they could do to keep the incoming fire from hitting them. The Wildfire’s pilot pulled up hard on his immobilized walker, and sent some suppressing fire into the upper floors of a building, having seen a muzzle flash from a sniper rifle, but he was unable to do much as beams of like flashed out of yet another building and exploded the walker’s power cells. Lieutenant Ellison’s units made it into the ruins as the walker lit up the night sky. Their entire purpose for being here just went up in a cloud of greasy smoke. 

                An Axis light walker, Heinrich class, had moved in to flank the forces that had made it to the Wildfire. In an effort to bring their bazooka into the fight, Sergeant Jacob Thornton’s Combat Ranger squad was moving to support them. They were trailing right behind Lieutenant Ellison’s Attack Squad when hot metal exploded out of the building to their right. In a volley of fire, his entire squad was cut down. Caught out in the open, there was little Thornton could do but hit the dirt. The only problem was that the dirt was flat and in the open. He heard a fallback order given and saw Master Sergeant Springfield start to clear a way open to the south.  Lieutenant Ellison and his squad ran interference against whoever was in the building that had shredded his squad. He started to shout for them to stop, but it was too late. As they ran into the building, ready with their flamethrowers, tracers rushed out to meet them. At least they had expected them and it seemed that their injuries were mostly minimal.

                The orders had been issued, 2^nd Platoon was falling back. The Heavy Ranger Assault Squad came to pick up Sergeant Thornton and give him some cover on his way out, but the losses were heavy. The Wildfire was lost, whatever information it carried was lost, Sergeant Thornton’s squad was lost, and Master Sergeant Springfield’s Heavy Ranger Attack Squad was lost. Ultimately, the information the Wildfire pilot was carrying would have allowed the Allies to hold on to Market Square, but with Foxtrot Company’s 2^nd Platoon broken, there was little the Allies could do to hold it. But it was not the heavy casualties, or even the loss of ground so hard-fought to win that broke the spirit of the 2^nd Platoon; it was the knowledge that they were ambushed so soundly, and had not even wounded a single Axis soldier in the fight.

                That hurt.

Battle Stats:

Scenario: Symbolic Victory

Deployment: FUBAR

Conditions: None

Winner: Axis

Axis losses: None

Allied losses: Gunners Squad, Grim Reapers Squad, Hell Boys Squad, Wildfire Walker

Allies repurchased Hell Boys Squad.

Somewhere in France, Western Front, 1948

Excerpt from the journal of Bratislav Golubtsov, estimated date of March 30th, 1948

01:32H
Only God and SMERSH know why we are trudging through city. Nothing is left in peace, but many things left in many pieces. We are meeting another platoon. Orders are to convene on two buildings, no reason yet as to why. I may be in same squad with Pyotr, but he has not said word to any of us why we do this, childhood friend or no. We are Red Guard. Is not necessary to ask us twice, job is to be done and the why is not important, but Pyotr, he seems nervous. Something about this does not sit well with him. He is putting on brave face as all Red Guard do, but we notice. I notice..

There is 15 men, all red guard. We have taken shelter in apartment buildings at end of street. We have 'sleeping' Babushka down street, hidden in building as well. When other platoon arrives, we will make way to other side of street. For now, sniper fire and a need to sleep has us from moving any time soon. Somewhere out in dark of night, crazy veteran turtles are lurking. If they are scariest thing in shadows, what is to be afraid of this night?


03:02H
Other platoon arrived. Scared piss from most of us. Steel Guard appeared from nowhere. Crazy turtles. Lead a tank into city along with second platoon. Not quiet at all, but now we have IS-5B to keep us warm. Pyotr said we will sleep for 1 more hour while he goes over charts with turtles who are in communication with defense platoon who are at location near Babushka. They are to cover our advance. Prospects seem better now.

03:22H
We are being shelled indiscriminately. No idea which side. Does it really matter? So much for sleep.

05:58H
ENEMY SPOTTED. Defense platoon and our support element Babushka at north end of city have spotted enemy movement in church not far from our position. Many troops. They are unaffected by shelling, or crazy enough to not care. They bring with them walker. Can not identify. Second platoon's command has begun taking sniper fire. They are reporting injured, but have guided the Vladimir in our care onto the command team of opposing force. They are saying Axis, and from what it sounds, they bring with them the мертвый евреи. Is in my head, but I can smell them on the wind. дерьмо́. It gives me great hope, when wracked the slide of PPSH, I hear many more respond in chorus.  Let this Red Orchestra sing.

---


     Bratislav decided today was not the day to live up to his name, with explosions raining from the sky and what he suspected to be the gut-churning experience of having to mow down men who have already died, he was ready to and waiting for the retreat order. He would take no step back as glorious Stalin instructed, but hoped that sooner rather than later, Peyotr would call to move for their objectives, whatever they were.
     At the end of this block lay two buildings, a converted office building which now served as tenant housing and another building that may have once been a store front and more apartments. Both had been so badly shelled that they didn't even keep out the cold any longer. Glass and dust rained down constantly from the ceiling as the ground trembled with each round of artillery fire. Bratislav wiped his running nose and blew out the tiny flame of the candle he'd been using to update his journal, and just in time.
     Another shot rang out, the sharp crack not quite hidden behind the shelling, and more angry shouts from the radio. The other command team had taken up position on the top floors of yet another ruined building further down the street, feeling protected with the hulking 'Babushka' which took up ambush position in the destroyed lobby. Sadly for them, an axis sniper team had spotted them despite the bombardment and they were now, for the most part, relegated to keeping their heads down and calling targets for the Vladimir which chose now to fire. It blew a hole in the wall of the building they were all standing in, it's cannon a deafening starting bell to the festivities. Bratislav was glad the building did not collapse in on their heads from the shock wave.
     He raised his head enough to see across the street to the cathedral where he could hear German being shouted. Counting in his head, having been an artillery man himself before he was moved to this element, he tried to time the Vladimir's shell. It was fired high at a steep angle, and as his predicted time grew closer he began to grin, the whistling noise apparent to him, but not clear to the Axis troops who likely could not tell between it and the other shells falling around them. He was only a second off when the street exploded into a cloud of rubble and smoke, and took cover behind the wall as the remaining glass in the windows shook loose or was propelled over his head. From his crouched position, he threw a thumbs up to their radio man who didn't bother to look up from his charts. Feeling silly, Bratislav tried to hide it by taking another look. Of the three heavily armored soldiers only one had any injury. The medic was furiously working to bind a wound as the injured man knelt on one knee, gun still raised, as though a torrent of blood were not spurting from his neck and shoulder. One thing about the Axis Pyotr could not deny no matter how much propaganda he read, they were tough as devils.
     As though on cue, carried on the wind and by the hands of some greater evil, Bratislav caught a whiff of something terrible. He, along with everyone else in the company knew precisely what it was before those grotesque abominations ever came around the corner. Their clanging fists dug huge rents and cratered the street as they clawed and capered at high speed for the Red Guard's position, likely betrayed by the tank's gun; blue jumpsuits filled with the rotting flesh of unfortunate souls, the white stripes of their thin garb barely visible beneath the dirt and dried gore clearly identifying who they had been before they became weapons of the Axis powers. In the building across the street, more grenadiers took up position just out of firing range in support, obviously waiting to see what their thralls would do before they bothered to engage. Sending in the hounds. Bratislav couldn't fault their logic, but he despised them for it anyway.

     Whether they liked it or not, the battle was begun, and Pyotr began furiously shouting orders, attempting to get the men deeper into their own fortifications and off the roof tops in fear of more sniper fire. He needed to consolidate them to move, clearly not interested in sticking around to be torn apart. The two fire teams in the other building were already running. As the undead drew closer at astonishing speed, one of the turtles put a hand on Pyotr's shoulder and nodded. It wasn't entirely clear what they intended, but Pyotr knew better than to argue with a Steel Guardsman. They had earned their position by being in the line of fire, and so they intended to be again. They climbed out the windows, agile in their huge armored suits, and dropped into the streets, taking up a firing position and drawing attention. The undead took the bait and began their advance.
     The fire fight that ensued was shockingly quick; Pyotr instructed them to unleash hell, ignoring standard protocol to conserve ammo and let fly with all they had, his cry proud and loud, echoing through the streets and the response from the turtles equally so. The shotguns belched great clouds of hot lead, and the maxim gun gave off a sound like tearing sail cloth. some of the zombies didn't so much as die but were shredded into pieces which even they were not capable of recovering from, arms and legs torn from bodies and pulped or otherwise rendered down into unidentifiable matter. As if to punctuate the their disdain, the Vladimir spoke up, hurling a shot directly at them and obliterating anything the turtles had left behind. A smoldering crater caked with old, coagulated blood and scraps of tattered, rotting flesh were all that remained.
     The Axis seemed unphased, the grenadiers quickly opening fire on the turtles almost immediately after, peppering them with fire that appeared to not effect them in any way, but that was not the plan. It was to distract them, and it did. The Axis sniper fired and the maxim-toting veteran went down into a slump. Bratislav thought he was ducking but the turtles knew better. He was dead, and even if he wasn't, he'd never get out of the street in time to have a medic save his life. The other two turtles returned fire into the building but it was of no use as a storm of panzerfausts burst through the windows, startling both of them. The unconventionality of it all was enough to cause both to hesitate, and in a fantastic puff of smoke and flashes of light they were dead, their bodies haphazardly scattered along the street, spatters of blood in every direction.
     Bratislav swore, eyes wide, and turned to Pyotr who was watching over his shoulder. Apparently Pyotr had seen all he needed to see. More troops approached from around the corner, also undead, this time the 'saved' lives of the Axis soldiers, armed with explosives. Their objective was clear, they intended to take out the Vladamir. Pyotr resolved to let them if it meant saving the lives of his men. He gave the orders to group behind the building, exiting through the crumbled rear wall. The two anti-tank teams and Pyotr's command retinue made it across the street losing only one man to a barrage from the axis walker. Admittedly, better than any of them had expected.
     As they fled the building, they caught a look at something horrible and realized that they had made the right decision. The Axis 'doctor' who animated their undead was calmly watching from behind the inhuman lenses of his..her? It's gas mask as the rotting bodies of Axis soldiers, also unaffected by the rubble raining down from explosions all around them, took up firing positions and prepared to fill the building they had just occupied. The three Red Guard teams unheroically abandoned their position and ran. Habitually falling into lock-step, they marched the mile or so in stony silence toward the Babushka who was making quick work of a few heavy grenadiers. Once the pilot was satisfied they were dead, it pivoted on it's raptor-like legs, spun up it's guns and began relentlessly pouring fire into the upper floors of a building down the street. Even as it changed course and began walking towards the axis forces, it peppered the upper floor until it collapsed like a barn, eaten by termites.

      Above their heads in the husk of a department store where the Babushka had stood an hour before, they could see their comrades, bodies left in undignified positions, slumped over mid sentence or otherwise frozen in agonized pain, a thin coat of grey dust already covering most of them. If they were aware of being freshly avenged, they made no sign of it. With the stench of the undead still lingering in his nostrils, Bratislav counted this as a good sign.
     They marched a bit further, ducking into the building Pyotr had identified, their medic seeing to a number of injured and likely hopeless men from the combat squad which had engaged the grenadiers before the Babushka. Bratislav, having witnessed the prowess of Axis heavy troopers turned away, knowing the effort, while necessary, was futile. He instead put a hand on Pyotr's shoulder and pointed at the building they had been occupying moments before.
     Down the road but still in view, storm of panzerfausts at close range made quick work of the Vladimir, and shortly after, the Axis force stormed the building eagerly, perhaps after something that the Red Guard had been unaware of. Pyotr sighed, hung his head for just a moment, indulging in a second of self pity before he pulled the beaten, dried remains of what was probably once a fine cigar from the confines of his uniform, lit it with a match, took a few puffs and put on his 'command' face. He tried it on Bratislav, who feigned terror. The two men, smiled at one another, forgetting for just a moment that they were somewhere at the crossroads of hell and damnation, being shelled by who knows which side of this war. Pyotr patted Bratislav on the shoulder, fixed his face back to the 'commander' mask, and then turned to his men and began barking orders to search the place for papers. They had gotten wind of a drop made here by German runners, and damned if the Red Guard were going to leave here without them.
     Bratislav stole one last look out the window, watching the undead and their grim handler hurl items out windows in their own search. He prayed a shell would land on the building, taking it and it's inhabitants out for good, but was sure that if there was a god, he wasn't paying attention to the prayers of a soldier, and so he turned his efforts on searching instead for whatever it is they were looking for, buried somewhere in this blown out building, in a city whose name he had forgotten.