That Morning
Vadim, a soldier of the R-Forces, shouted urgently at Maxim’s back as his comrade strode ahead.
“Maxim, drone!”
It happened the moment they rounded the corner of a ruined, massive building. They spotted the enemy drone looking down with an omniscient gaze. Beneath the leaden grey sky, the machine hovered in eerie silence, like a cold eye watching over the city.
The mission assigned to Vadim today was simple yet perilous: scout the city that had been scorched by the R-side’s massive morning bombardment and identify any remaining points where defensive positions could be established. The operation was being carried out by ten two-man teams. Each pair was responsible for searching and reconnoitering a designated sector.
Intelligence suggested that some U-Forces had retreated following the heavy shelling that had lasted since dawn. The firepower had been immense. The rhythm of the war was straightforward: R would sweep the city with shells, and U would withdraw to hide in nearby entrenchments. Then, the moment the R-Forces pushed deep into the city, U would launch a counterattack with suicide drones. The R-Forces had already suffered heavy casualties this way on several occasions.
The objective of this operation was clear: seize complete control of the city and securely install electronic jamming equipment to neutralize the drones. Only after that could they finally utter the word 'occupation.'
The platoon-sized force had traveled to the city's outskirts in specialized armored vehicles. Though the clock had just ticked past 9:00 AM, there was no sun to be seen. A thick, fog-like haze clung to everything, as if the dust rising from the freshly shelled ruins refused to settle. The city lay submerged in a stifling, breathless silence.
Maxim was Vadim’s senior. Vadim was a green recruit, having been deployed to the front lines barely three months ago. They held different ranks but were the same age—both twenty-three. Yet, Maxim was a survivor who had been weathered by the front for over a year. He knew instinctively how to move in a real firefight: when to take cover and when to bolt. It was that hard-earned intuition that had kept him whole and scarless until now.
For Vadim, those three months had been anything but short. Three months on the front line changes a man at a rate incomparable to peacetime service. His movements were already sharp, stripped of the clumsiness of a rookie.
Upon reaching the outskirts, the teams fanned out toward their assigned sectors. Vadim and Maxim’s objective was to locate and sweep a government building in the city center, then determine if the rooftop could be secured as a drone defense outpost.
They moved light. Even with their rifles, portable jammers, extra ammo, and rucksacks, their pace was a rhythmic, rapid stride rather than a full run. The morning temperature seemed to have risen slightly, but the sun remained choked behind the clouds. The streets were dim, cast in a gloom that felt more like early twilight than mid-morning. The wind-chill was still biting, well below freezing.
Their breath escaped from behind their masks, scattering like wisps of smoke. Vadim caught a metallic, nauseating scent in the air—the acrid tang of charred concrete mixed with damp, unsettled dust.
As they reached the front of a small shopping mall, Maxim spoke in a low, clipped tone.
“Vadim. The entrance. Check the rear first.”
Maxim often boasted of his war stories back at the unit. He bragged about his kill count and exactly how many U-Forces he had neutralized with suicide drones. His tales always began with pride and ended with unwavering conviction. At the end of every story, the name Kerensky always surfaced. He called Kerensky a fool, spitting curses and labeling him a Nazi. He claimed Kerensky had oppressed and ruthlessly slaughtered "our people" living in U.
That was why, Maxim insisted, this war had to be won. To him, this wasn't an occupation—it was a liberation.
Maxim possessed a clear, ironclad conviction. Such belief is more vital to a soldier than anything else; a soldier who fights without conviction eventually breaks. In that regard, Maxim was a fine soldier.
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But sometimes, Vadim wondered. Was Maxim actually enjoying this war? A year on the front line—that amount of time can harden a man, but it can also wear something away inside him, grinding down his humanity.
Vadim checked the left side of the building and then rounded the rear. No movement. No sound.
“Maxim, all clear.”
Maxim approached the front of the building to inspect the entrance. However, likely due to the shelling, the doorway was choked with rubble and mounds of debris. It was impossible to open.
“Vadim, I see a side emergency door on the right. Let's go through there.”
Vadim nodded. Keeping his rifle tight against his body and gripping the drone jammer, he followed Maxim. They maintained a distance of about three meters—neither too far nor too close.
It happened the moment Maxim rounded the corner of the building.
In Vadim’s field of vision, forty-five degrees ahead in the sky, something was hovering.
“Maxim, drone!”
The thought that he had to raise the jammer flashed through his mind. But Maxim’s voice exploded first.
“Too fast! Just run!”
Not even a minute had passed.
The suicide drone dived like a lightning bolt over Maxim’s head and detonated with a sharp, hollow thud.
The shockwave sent shrapnel screaming through the air. Something slammed into Vadim’s right thigh. He was thrown back as if kicked by a giant, collapsing onto the ground.
It was over. Everything ended in an instant.
Lying there, Vadim looked toward Maxim.
Maxim’s head was gone. His upper body was torn beyond recognition, a mess of shredded flesh. His head and arms had been scattered somewhere out of sight. Yet, it looked as though the fist of his left hand was slowly, softly unfurling.
“Ah...”
Vadim’s gaze shifted to the mangled chest. Inside, a red heart was still beating.
He couldn't think. Only the raw instinct that he couldn't linger there moved his body. He stood up. His leg throbbed with agony, but he could walk. The drone hadn't just seen Maxim; its camera must have caught him clearly as well. He had to get out of here. More drones could be on the way.
He grabbed his rifle and the jammer. Blood was streaming down his right thigh. Scanning the area, the entrance to an apartment complex across the street caught his eye. It was about twenty meters away.
Vadim ran.
He spotted a set of stairs leading down below the apartment entrance. Limping down, he found a semi-basement shop that had once been an optician's. The windows were boarded up, and the door hung open, ripped from its hinges.
A drone could fly in here. Vadim hid in the corner of the shop, clutching the jammer with white-knuckled intensity.
Silence fell. He even swallowed his own breath.
After about ten minutes, the pain in his thigh surged. He loosened his belt and tied it tightly around the wound as a tourniquet. More time passed. Another ten minutes.
Only then did his thoughts begin to return.
Maxim is dead. I ran. And now, I am here.
But why, when he saw Maxim’s heart pulsing outside his body, did Natasha from high school flash into his mind? Even as he sprinted toward the apartment, her face had flickered before him. They had been in the same class, though they had hardly ever spoken.
It wasn't just her face that returned to him. It was the poem by Blok, "The Twelve," that Natasha used to read during literature class.
Vadim had been a child of a poor family. He had no interest in studies and was a ghost in the classroom. A greeting was the extent of his interaction with Natasha. But inwardly, he had adored her. Pretty, lovely Natasha.
That day, he had loved the scene of her reading the poem so much that he had copied the verses onto a piece of paper and carried them with him. He had hoped that if they ever became close, he could tell her that he knew Blok, too.
After graduation, however, Natasha went off to university, and Vadim became an excavator operator.
Vadim loved the final part of that poem.
“… So they march with sovereign tread…
Behind them limps the hungry dog,
and wrapped in wild snow at their head
carrying a blood-red flag
soft-footed where the blizzard swirls,
invulnerable where bullets crossed
crowned with a crown of snowflake pearls,
a flowery diadem of frost,
ahead of them goes Jesus Christ.”
Vadim thought: God guided me. He let me live.