Chapter Text
"The oldest and strongest human emotion is fear. The oldest and strongest kind of fear is that of the unknown."
- H.P. Lovecraft
Chapter One; the Little Chicken
December 22, dawn.
“The Russy Federation is going to attack us on Christmas morning. They are going to hit us with everything they have.”
I allowed myself to be distracted by the Unified States, how many other people are looking the wrong way?
Visha was ready to do just what she had been warned about; to talk Tanya out of this. “You can’t base your whole argument on that report about recon flights!”
Grandfather nodded at the radio. “You have not heard? Yesterday the Russy Army had to apologize for a mortar barrage that fell on Empire territory. It was a persistent barrage on an empty part of the frontier, no Imperial persons were harmed, but when a patrol went out they found bodies…. Russy bodies. A clever girl like you knows what that means, don’t you?”
Tanya had heard about it the day before, and done her best to put it out of her mind so that she could enjoy her leave. She watched as Visha worked it out in her mind, aloud. “Deserters. No…. dissidents? No! They were in uniform, weren’t they? Somebody over there knew what was about to happen, and they tried to warn us.” Then Visha shook her head hard enough to make her auburn hair fly like a little tornado around her head. “This can’t be happening. Their army is not that much larger than ours is. Our Army alone has more than two million, and the Russy Army is only about two and a half-“
“Shows what you know!” Grandfather was still dreamy-eyed. “Even in my day, they never threw anything away. All the old or redundant equipment is still there, stored away in basements in every fortress and base. The men who finished with their conscriptions last year or the year before are still out there, too. All they have to do is call them back up, and presto, the Army doubles in size! And then you have the militia, that’s another TEN million. Militia is useless for anything but local defense, but that means the entire regular Army can go anywhere they like!”
“Like here, for example?” Tanya’s comment was as dry as the Sahara.
“Here?” The old man thought about it for a moment. “I suppose they could...” As he thought about it, the pride left his voice, and his face fell. It was as if he was only now leaving the theoretical behind, and remembering that this was now a Communard Army he was talking about, not the beloved Russy Legions of the Czar. “Oh dear god in heaven… they just might!”
“Welcome to the present year.” Visha rolled her eyes and then held out a hand to Tanya, making a halt motion. “This does not work. Even if they have total surprise on their side, they still can’t do this with logistics. Russy roads are terrible because they rely on rivers, canals and railroads. When the rivers freeze, that leaves just the railroad, and their tracks are a different gauge! There is no spell that can solve that problem quickly enough.”
“Then they will go after a big marshaling yard to snatch our rolling stock, probably with their mages.” Tanya nodded, looking at the Atlas. “That’s what I would do.”
“Stop!” Lydia had entered the room in time to hear what was going on, and she had heard enough. “What makes you think that someone else has not already figured this out?”
“Because this is what I do. Because none of those others are on leave in a Russy immigrant household, which is the only reason I figured this out! Because it is illogical and only makes sense if you are looking at it from the other side and let your imagination run wild. And how many members of the General Staff have a spooky old man barking in their ear right now?”
“You know, I’m still right here.”
“Why do you think I said it like that?”
Visha shrugged at Konstantin. “I told you she could handle him.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll be going with you.” Gramps straightened up, reaching for his cane.
This time it was Visha that cursed as she rounded on her Grandfather. “Not only no, but HELL no!”
“I know the borderlands, and I know what you need.”
Visha could not stand the idea of dragging her Grandfather along on a trip that would surely be the death of him. “I’ve been there too-“
“Oh no you have not! You were born in a refugee camp less than a hundred miles from here, and that would have been as far from here as you ever would have gone from this house, if it were not for the Army!”
“What?” Visha shook her head, both to deny her Grandfather and to clear her head. “I remember… things.”
Her Father stepped between Visha and her Grandfather. “You are not going. I forbid it.”
“Volodya Ivanovich, do you think I was happy when only child of mine that turned out to be worth a damn told me she was going to marry… a planter?!” The old man drew himself up, the cranky and somewhat pathetic side of him set aside as a man would toss aside a cast on his broken arm. He looked as he must have at the University; a formidable man of the world. “I never gave you or she any grief over your union, and it turned out to be the right thing to do. Now, it is your turn to reward me for that, and for warning you in time to get your family out of that madhouse of a country in time to make it here. It is time for you to step aside and let me do what I must.”
“Just a moment.” Tanya cocked her head a little sideways. “How did you know when it was time to leave the Federation?”
“I was an agent with the Ohkrana.”
“The Czar’s secret police?”
“Oh don’t listen to him!” Lydia was in the denial phase. “Papushka, you were just an informer.”
“There was rather more to it than that… you see, I was-“
“Don’t even get started. You. Are. NOT. Going.” Tanya stood, squaring her officer’s hat on her head and and facing Gramps. The look in her eyes was powerful, and just wicked enough to make everyone in the room silent. “I don’t care what you know or what you can do for us, you are staying right here. No more kindly old men are going to die because they thought they could help me, Do I make myself clear?”
“Well, when you say it like that….”
“So, if anyone here but Captain Serebryakov wants to help me, you are doing it from right here. First of all, I take it you nor anyone else in this village has a telephone, eh?”
Konstantin was looking down at the ground when he muttered to his father; “I knew we should have had them start laying the wire for that before we started ordering things for that Greenhouse.”
“Well of course you should have!” Visha stomped one foot impatiently, and then did an emotional about-face. “Aww… you were going to build a Greenhouse? For me?”
“Yes, we... “ Her father sighed heavily. “ Merry Christmas?”
Grigori cleared his throat. “Colonel? I can be at the Naval base at Pola in half a day, but I need to leave in two hours if I want to make the train.”
“Good, but Visha and I need to get to the nearest phone-“
“That would be foolish.”
“Papushka, that will be enough!” Lydia nodded to Konstantin. “We can make ourselves useful by putting him to bed, come on.”
“Wait." Very reluctantly, Tanya said; "Alright mister spy-master, what is it?”
“Even in my day, not a single phone line was allowed to be built without a government tap being part of it. I know, this isn’t the Federation, but hear me out! The Russy Army has been working on plans to deal with the Empire since the Empire first came to be. You must assume that now, at the penultimate moment, your most important telephone lines have been tapped. Not all of them, or even most of them, but unless you want the Federals to know that you know, you can’t be calling or telegraphing your Generals or the Kaiser! In fact, right before the invasion, those lines of communication will probably be sabotaged anyway.” Knowing that he had just made the biggest contribution to the war effort that he’d be allowed, the old man nodded to Lydia and his youngest Grandson. “I’ll take my bath now.” and stepped out of the room as if he were the lead actor leaving the stage of a play.
Lydia hurried after him, throwing a worried look back over her shoulder at Tanya. Yes, I understand. Tanya thought while their eyes met. Just when you thought your one and only daughter was safe, here we go again. I’ll do what I can to protect her, and that is one hell of a lot, now isn’t it?
“Hold on a moment.” Visha was playing Devil’s Advocate again. “We could be jumping at shadows here, and now we are going to be hobbled by that kind of guesswork?”
Tanya shook her head decisively. “If I’m right, then he is right.”
“And if you are wrong?”
“Then you will be home in time for Christmas dinner, and I’ll be in an insane asylum … a nice, restful white room.” I might even enjoy it. Tanya sighed and sat down. “I know… I can’t turn the whole country upside down based on a hunch. I need to find something that looks like proof.”
“I was afraid of that.” Visha looked at her Father and Brother, warning them to stay quiet with her eyes.
“But if we disppear, what I suspect will remain a secret, unless we warn someone ahead of time. The question is…. who?” Tanya glanced at the atlas again. “Actually, the first question is, where is the nearest Luftwaffe base? We need to get to eastern Dacia as quickly as possible.”
“Why Dacia? Isn’t the crucial front the one up north?”
“Yes, and no.” She tapped the map along the line that divided Dacia from the Russy Federation. “We are getting most of our oil from Dacia now, and we need more all the time. It would be an easy move for them to snatch that away from us. However… there is no long history of animosity between Dacians and the Russy. So…”
“So any preparations for an invasion would have to be something they threw together just recently!” Visha understood at once. “They won’t have had time to both build things up and conceal everything like they have along the Fatherland’s borders!”
“Yes, things like command posts and logistic depots. It will be like Operation Shock and Awe, but all I want are some documents and a live captive.”
“Yeah, sure… but just the two of us?” Visha gave Grigori a sarcastic look as he tried to step up to volunteer. “We need more MAGES, not a navy cook!”
“My Battle Station is the spotlight platform. If you think thats easy-“
Tanya snapped her fingers.”Grigori, you are headed for Pola? That’s good! Once you get tired of being ignored by the Admirality, see if you can get an outside line and put a call in to Captain Heydrich, tell him I sent you. If anyone can pull a Rabbit out of his hat this late, its him.”
“What about the General Staff?”
“Leave that to us.” Tanya stood up, glad for such a long night of sleep behind her. When would there be another? “Our coded radio transmissions should be good & secure, the enemy never seemed to have penetrated them before. So, where is the nearest one?
“Zagreb.” Konstantin helpfully gave the answer.
Tanya glanced at the Atlas, “Where is…. oh no! No, that is 50 miles the wrong way, what about east?”
“Coepsha Miica.” Konstantin stepped up and pointed to the place on the map.
“In Dacia?!”
“We can be there in less than an hour.” Visha nodded at the Atlas. “That’s a brand-new base, you will probably be the highest-ranking officer there when we arrive.”
It was also twice as far as Zagreb, if not more. Visha was suggesting a long sprint, but Tanya had not questioned her stamina for a very long time. “Very well, let’s get going."
“A moment, if you please?” While Gramps was singing up a storm in the bathroom, Lydia returned with a small duffle bag that she gave to her daughter, along with a solemn hug. “Before you go, lets all join hands, and pray to God that you succeed and come home alive.”
Tanya would have objected, but she realized that this would be a small thing compared to what was not being asked to put up with. There were no histrionics, no demands that she go without Visha, no mockery of her intuition, and no tearful protests or attempts to slow her down. Even Lydia was accepting that this had to be done, and that Christmas without the girls was just another hardship that had to be dealt with. Alright then, I owe them this much.
“I don’t suppose a few minutes will doom us.” Tanya hung her head low while Visha took one of her hands and Grigori took the other. She remained silent during the prayer, but her chin touched her black cross, and she left something strange. Her Type 95 had always felt cold and bright when it accepted her prayers and granted her power. This odd thing was the opposite, showing no light but pulsing with a warm power as the little prayer circle fed it, using words that Tanya barely understood. Well well, that’s something new. What exactly are you, anyway?
Afterwards, Visha took a quick look into the duffle bag. They would have to dump any useless weight, so Visha was checking to see if anything should be left behind here…. perhaps at the risk of insulting her mother. She was also tempted to laugh, Lydia had packed warm clothes for them as if a mage’s flight suit needed any additions. She pulled out a fur hat made in the Russy way, just like the rest of the things, and then stopped as she glanced at the modified pistol strapped to Tanya’s thigh.
Tanya smiled when she saw the look, and what Visha had in her hand. “Great minds think alike, yes?”
Visha had never been accused of having a ‘great’ mind, but she wasn’t smiling. “Oh, damn. Until just now, I wasn’t sure how far you’d go to get your proof.”
"Oh, I think you knew all along. By the way, does your Grandfather have a spare cane?"