“Ohgodfuckingwhat-?”

  I jerk my head, finding myself standing once more,

  But not at those damn docks.

  Thank God in heaven.

  Instead, I’m surrounded by, again, more furries of various species. I will say, none of them are bright or pastel colored, so I suppose these guys are more ‘naturalist’ or whatever.

  Anyways, once more, I’m standing in a small rail station with trucks and a collection of conscripts and shock troops around me, all facing the main platform. A few of the trucks are being loaded up with crates and barrels, some are being driven out and onto a dirt road full of civilians, both human and anthropomorphic, running off. Presumably, away from where the Germans are.

  Speaking of which, we’re not in Stalingrad anymore. Not even a city, there’s just the rail station, a couple of houses, and whatever else makes up this…village? Whatever.

  “I am Colonel Churkin of the NKVD.” A nasally, deep, masculine voice from behind says aloud. I turn back and see another commissar-like dipshit standing on a few crates atop the rail platform. He’s about what one would expect from a guy at the time: stubble, short and slick hair, a few wrinkles, but without that malicious intent behind the eyes. “Major Borodin has been relieved for incompetence, and I have assumed command!”

  Well, I’m not sure who this Borodin fellow was, but based on the mindset of the Red Army, I’m pretty sure ‘incompetence’ means ‘actually tried to be smart and reasonable’.

  “Comrades! The Fascists are almost upon us. Our front line is contracting…again!”

  Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.

  “We no longer have the resources to hold the Germans here.”

  I peer around him. Literally, just behind him, is a train loaded with ammo and weapon crates, along with a few conscripts guarding the flatcars. Bullshit, they’ve easily got a metric shit ton of resources right fucking there.

  “Sir, what about the civilians?” I look to my left, where a brown-coated human medic, based on the satchel, has his hand raised. “There are still some in the town.”

  “Oh? And who suggested that idea, comrade?”

  Having the attention of an officer on him, the medic panics, looks around, spots me, and points at me. “H-Him, Sir!”

  Oh, that son of a bitch. Can’t be too mad, though, I’d have done the same thing back in the USAF.

  “Ah, Lieutenant…?”

  “Tidman. Alex…Alexi Tidman, Sir.”

  Alexi? Really? God, the E4 mafia would be so disappointed in my Shamming.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” He steps down from the platform and puts his hand on my shoulder, giving me a great whiff of his stank-ass old man breath. “We must buy time…not only for the civilians here, but for Moscow!”

  He steps back and turns to the crowd of soldiers. “We must also prevent the German bastards from capturing our supplies—anything we can’t load onto that train must be destroyed!”

  His order is punctuated oh so conveniently by the sound of paper ripping in the distance, no doubt from- “German forces have been spotted on the edge of town! Leave your belongings! Evacuate immediately!”

  Well, that’s our cue, I suppose. Colonel Churkin produces a map case from…yeah. He holds it up for me to see and moves to my side. “Comrade Lieutenant Tidman, while our men continue to load the train, your unit will be tasked with evacuating or destroying any remaining military assets.”

  The map shows the town and rail station, with what appears to be a large bridge and river to our rear, which I assume we plan to blow after the evacuation. The Colonel draws a white line along the top of the map, just before a large set of fields. “First, hold the enemy at the outskirts while our supply trucks are evacuated. Once they depart, lead the Fascists into the town where our Engineers have rigged explosives.” He draws a wide circle around the center of the village, followed by a few X’s to mark the ordinance. “Destroy anything you think might be of use to the Germans and then fall back to the rail yard, where you must protect the train until it departs.” He draws a small arrow to a red star on the map, followed by yet another circle.

  “When the train leaves, evacuate to the rally point on the other side of the bridge.” He draws one large, final arrow across the river and to the opposite shore.

  My attention is broken by his hand suddenly shaking my shoulder, making me face him. Unlike the commissar, his face is not one of ‘I don’t give a fuck about you, just do what I say’ and more of ‘You better nut the fuck up and do this right’.

  “Are you prepared to execute your orders, Lieutenant Tidman? Or are you going to have another incident?”

  Incident? Is he talking about the commissar I punched?

  He spins me around toward the crowd of soldiers awaiting and raises his hand. “For the Rodina! For the Motherland!”

  With that, he slaps my back and pushes me into the crowd of conscripts to the sound of encroaching gunfire.

  God damn it…

  Here we go again.

  ===

  “Alright, everyone, on me!” I wave my hand around and gather my two squads, which, unfortunately, are just rifle-armed conscripts and not the shock troops from earlier.

  “Fresh Conscript Squad, Red Army”

  “Basic troops with little combat training or experience. The backbone and bulk of the Soviet Army. Often lost in large numbers, they can be truly effective with good support or the right motivation.”

  Neat.

  Collecting my twelve furred soldiers, I run us past what looks like a…bunker or dugout with a radio mast? Some signal post, I suppose. In anycase, we run by and onto the main road, and already I can see figures in the distance, both brown and grey.

  “German forces are approaching, reinforce the front line!” The familiar crackle of a radio from my left sounds off. Looking over, I see the same shy doe girl from Stalingrad, clutching her reciever like a teddy bear.

  “Hey, uhh…nice to see you,” I say offhandedly. She nods to me, readjusting her field cap.

  “T-Thank you, Comrade Lieutenant…”

  God, she’s awkward.

  As we run past the various structures and houses, I notice quite a few cannons and trucks around, as well as a few flag posts littered with boxes and oil drums. No wonder that Colonel wants us to delay the Germans so bad, there’s a shit ton of crap just lying around!

  “Use your conscripts to reinforce our shock troops on the front line!” I must say, Colonel Churkin is at least giving out decent orders. He’s actually quite competent compared to what I would expect from an NKVD officer.

  We reach a set of road barriers where the fighting is taking place, with squads of shock troops to our right and left. Seems simple enough. “You six, off to the right, the rest, follow me to the left!”

  We split up, my group heading off to find two groups of three shock troops taking cover behind sandbags while no less than 25 Germans, Osttruppen and Grenadiers, are lighting up our forces, and no doubt, it’s similar off to the right.

  “GO! Get on up there and lay down fire!” I run and slide next to the first group of shock troops, startling one of them, only for the shocked Malamute to regain her composure and start lighting up the Germans with renewed vigor.

  To my surprise, the conscripts split, with three going to one group and the other going to the one I’m with. Reaching us, the conscripts drop their rifles and pick up SMGs that were apparently just sitting in the dirt? In anycase, the conscripts make good work loading and joining the firing line, and based on the sound of automatic fire to the right, the other six conscripts are doing the same.

  Good on them, I suppose.

  The Fascists, faced with double the firepower, start to get picked off, with me even managing to pick off a Grenadier with my pistol. Then again, they’re less than 30 yards away, so what kind of man would I be if I couldn’t hit them from this distance?

  The doe girl suddenly appears, crouched down to my right, her ears pinned back and radio receiver held close as she tunes the pack on her back. “Those shock troops have invaluable equipment and training. Keep them safe!”

  Oh, yeah, cause crude SMGs, plate armor, and some grenades are the pinnacle of Soviet expertise. I grab the radio and hold it to my head. “Copy, we’re holding good here.”

  Yet, as I say that, I peer over and spot a few squads of Osttruppen arriving from over the tall foliage of the fields, some already popping off rounds at us. One round nearly catches the Malamute girl, who ducks and reloads with shaky paws. “We won’t last long; we need reinforcements!”

  “Noted,” I reply. Something you learn is that subordinates appreciate being acknowledged in a way that makes them feel heard, even something as small as that. Of course, I’m not sure she heard me, but still.

  “Commander, you must hold the line! Call in more conscripts if you have to.”

  “Thank fuck.” I crouch down again. “Colonel, I’m requesting another squad of conscripts to the front. Please.”

  I don’t receive a reply, but something in my gut feels off, like…I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the floating text or the floating star in the sky earlier.

  Speaking of, are those…colored lines in the dirt?

  I don’t have long to look, as a waiting Grenadier spots my capped visor and fires, putting a Mauser round right into my eye.

  -/-/-/-/-

  OW! Fuck!

  I rub my eye as the Colonel slaps my back and pushes me forward into my conscripts.

  God damn it…good to know I’m still immortal.

  Repeating our run to the front, I do confirm the presence of ethereal glowing blue lines in the dirt, not just along the road, but also around the flag posts. Weird.

  Arriving at the front, I split the squads up, but head right instead. The only difference being logs for cover instead of sandbags. Fun.

  “Colonel, I’d appreciate a squad of conscripts to the right flank.” I pop off a few rounds at some exposed Osttruppen. “Hey, someone! Throw a grenade at that tractor!”

  A grey-wolf woman sets her SMG aside and lobs a frag over and onto the seat of a wrecked farm tractor, which blows up and kills half a squad of Krauts.

  The conscripts arrive, and one of them replaces a shock troop, dead from a bullet to the heart, from what I can see.

  If I had my goddamn kit, I could do something. But even then, this is the early 40’s, there ain’t shit I can do for something like that.

  Wait, that whistlin—BOOOOOOM.

  The world disappears in a thunder of smoke, vapor, and dirt as an artillery shell lands right between our two squads. The familiar pain of a shockwave hits and knocks me against the wooden timber I’m using for cover, causing me to cough and hack.

  Fuck, they have artillery! We ain’t got shit for that, not unless one of our squads knows how to use a cannon and initiate counter battery fire.

  I pick myself and a shaken shock troop back up and reorganize as another set of German squads rushes forward, thinking us dead from artillery. But, with the combined efforts of rifle, SMG, and a few ‘nades, we manage to end another set of Fascists.

  Seeing as how we keep, you know, fucking killing them, the Grenadiers turn and run, which causes the Osttruppen to break as well. Despite my ringing ears, I can also sense a lack of gunfire from the left flank, meaning a general retreat for the moment.

  “We did it! Look at the cowards run!” A very zealous…otter? Maybe? Some kind of weasel lookin’ thing says.

  However, that cheering is short-lived as I regain my hearing fully, something not even the VA can manage on 100% disability, and the sound of a falling flare and plane engines reaches my ears.

  I look up and easily spot the fixed gear of Stukas above, as well as the trumpets signaling their dive.

  “Sukin sin! Stukas! TAKE COVER!” Someone beats me to the punch right as the wailing reaches its climax.

  “PULL BACK!” I yell out, hopefully loud enough for the other squads to hear, as I grab the Doe girl by the collar and yank her up, pulling her along as the sound gets louder and louder.

  I watch as a single Stuka pulls up, dropping a single bomb right into the roof of a house on the left flank, obliterating the wooden building and sending a few of my soldiers to the ground, but not dead…I think.

  And, of course, right as the Stuka pulls away, I hear the crack of Kar98s from the front. A squad of Grenadiers is already pushing down the main road with more god damn Osttruppen on the left and right. I pull the Doe down into a ditch with me, avoiding their sight.

  “RIGHT SIDE, LEFT SIDE, GET COVER AND RETURN FIRE,” I yell as loudly as my vocal cords will let me, no doubt opening up old scars inside my throat.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I pop my head up and rest my hand on the dirt, firing at the four-person squad of Grenadiers, taking out two before one of my squads picks off the rest.

  Standing, I’m met with a total god damn clusterfuck of biblical proportions.

  A squad of shock troops is lying dead on a berm of sandbags while another is trying to fight out in the open. A squad of conscripts is inside a house, actually trying to make a position, and that’s just the right side. The left side lost their conscripts, but their shock troops are repelling the Germans with grenades, thank fuck.

  I call up another squad of conscripts to the right to replenish the shock troops, hoping we can kill enough Germans to cause another retreat, when I see a rifle round hit the bed of one of the supply trucks.

  That ain’t good.

  “Right side! Grenades, for the love of God, USE GRENADES!”

  Shortly after a few explosions, the sound of gunfire dies both on the right AND the left. Like clockwork, the trucks take off, leaving only dust in their wake, and of course, the bodies of the dead.

  “Commander, there are military assets that could not be evacuated in time. Order our engineers to wire them with explosives and destroy them before the Germans push us back.”

  I stand up and out of the ditch, Doe (I don’t know her damn name yet, ok?), following me to keep the radio in my hand. “Colonel, we have,” I look at a pair of artillery pieces sitting on the left side of the road, a pair of shock troops resting on the gun’s arms, one of them nursing a wounded hand. “Two whole cannons right here that we could use, not to mention more supplies. I’m sure we could use these—”

  “We cannot risk those assets falling into German hands! Destroy them at once!”

  I drop the receiver, cursing. “That fucking prick…”

  “Commander?”

  “What is i-”

  I turn and come face to face with a wall of Soviet uniform, with two very big mounds of it being in my face. Leaning my head back, I look up and see a wolverine woman, easily eight to nine feet tall, and arms (as well as something else) wider than my head.

  “Comrade Lieutenant, Combat Engineer, Ivana Ivanovna reporting for duty.” She offers a quick salute with a massive paw.

  “…At ease.” I proffer. “We’re supposed to wire these guns and the trucks we couldn’t get moving with explosives. Can you and,” I lean around her and see another two four-wolverine squads, along with her own, arriving with rifles and satchels of god-knows-what.

  “No problem. Ladies! Toropit'sya!”

  With the break in the fighting, the massive engineers get to work, producing bundles of TNT from their bags and wiring them to the barrels and engines of the leftover equipment.

  “Comrade Lieutenant! Look!” I about-face to see a wolf conscript…hey! I know her! She was the gal who used the MG42 back in Stalingrad!

  As uplifting as seeing her is, it’s smashed apart by the presence of a few more enemy squads moving into the town.

  “Shit, OK! Shock troops, lay out some grenades, Ivana, get those explosives rigged right now!” I snap my gun up and pull the hammer back, shooting a hasty Grenadier as she tries to hop a fence.

  “Sir! The guns are set to blow!” I hear the deep voice of one of the engineers yell as I put down another Grenadier, too focused on the shock troops to worry about a pistol-armed officer. “Hit it!” I yell back.

  A massive bang rings out behind me. Looking back, I see the two giant guns, their barrels split open like the monster from Stranger Things. Hell yeah.

  “Sir!” I hear a similar yell. I look over to the right and see the third combat engineer squad, three of them still fiddling with their explosives. “We’re almost finished over he—” BOOOOM.

  In a flash, the third engineer squad is swallowed in a fiery explosion, with dirt, viscera, and shrapnel flying too and fro, showering the right flank and its occupants, Wehrmacht and Red Army alike.

  “God damn it, that tupaya suka!” Ivana snarls. “I told her to check her fucking fuses!”

  Holy god damn shit. That was metal as fuck, and not in the ‘hell yeah’ way. “Fuck, how much…?”

  “At least 100 kilos of TNT.” She answers my silence, racking her rifle and joining me in cover.

  “God damn…” How can this shit get worse?

  “Sir! They’re bringing in a vehicle!”

  I look down the main road and see another one of those armored cars, the one that looks like a rhombus, and watch it roll to a stop and aim at the still-stunned right flank, before opening fire with an MG turret.

  “Good, we have a special surprise for them…” I hear over the radio. Ivana’s eyes widen. “Der'mo, Lieutenant, we need to pull back, NOW!”

  Before I can ask, she grabs me by the collar and LIFTS me off my feet before breaking into a run. My vision shakes, and I can just barely make out the sight of Doe running after us, along with the rest of the left flank, and some of the right.

  We pass by the flag posts right as the forwardmost house on the left flank DETONATES, the shockwave flipping the armored car and ragdolling two squads worth of enemy rifles.

  Ivana turns around and covers me as the debris rains, some of it solid, some of it not.

  “…Ivana, how much was in that house?”

  She uncovers me and sets me back on my feet. “Around 500 kilos. And the munitions for the artillery we destroyed.”

  “That…that would do it alright,” I say, wiping the dirt off my hat and shoulders.

  The Germans, having lost their support, turn around once more and run for the fields. Using the break in the action, I reload my revolver, having been given a bag full of bullets on my hip at some point.

  “That will hold them off for now, but they won’t give up that easily.” The crackly voice of my superior echoes from Doe’s back. I take back what I said, the Colonel is just as fucked in the head as the commissar in Stalingrad, just less emotional about it.

  “This town may fall to the Fascists, but it will fall as nothing more than smoking ruins. Fall back towards the trainyard and requisition flamethrowers for your engineers! I will have this town burned to the ground before I see it in the hands of the invaders…”

  Another god damn day, another set of war crimes.

  I give a glance at the sky and see…

  Is that a god damn timer?

  4:49

  Great, an actual break.

  “OK! LISTEN UP, EVERYONE!” I bellow, cupping my hands. “WE HAVE 3 MINUTES UNTIL THE GERMANS COME BACK! ENGINEERS, GET BACK TO THE TRAINS AND GET FLAMETHROWERS, THE REST OF YOU WILL STAY HERE AND REARM AND DIG IN!”

  After a quick check, it turns out I have two squads of shock troops, each with six members (albeit some of those are just conscripts wearing the armor and wielding the guns of the dead), three squads of conscripts at full strength, that being six, and two squads of engineers at full strength, that being four.

  Arriving back at the station, it’s considerably emptier, with a majority of the crates now being on the train, with only a few either in use or being carried on by other engineers. Ivana doesn’t wait and finds two fuel tanks and their accessories for the flamethrower and assigns them accordingly. Must be a Sergeant.

  “Commander! Sir!” A pair of human men at the signal post-slash-HQ bunker-thingy salute. “We’re medics, and we still have some medical supplies left over!”

  Like a god damn ray of sunshine in a storm. “Gimme a bag of supplies, I’ll tend to the wounded on the front, you guys stay here.” The man nods and hands over his satchel, which, upon further examination…

  …

  A few bandages, a pair of scissors, an empty metal case that might’ve had drugs in it a one point, and a few packages of gauze or bandages…in German writing. Excellent. Prime stuff right here.

  “Thank you, comrade.” The medic nods, and he and his buddy run off into the bunker to do… something useful, who knows.

  “Comrade Lieutenant, we’re ready to go.” Ivana’s squad and the second group of engineers all form up, and we trek back to the front quickly.

  I return to find a few overturned wagons, some boxes stacked up, and even a shock troop using the corpse of two Germans as cover.

  0:33

  Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.

  “Comrade, order your men to burn the houses. Then, torch the fields. Leave nothing for the Germans!”

  I’ve heard of scorched earth, and I remember reading about it during a history class a few times. Napoleon, the Germans, all of them fucked over by destroyed infrastructure.

  “OK! Light this shit up!” I yell out. One engineer squad starts torching the left side houses, while the right, Ivana’s, starts burning their field.

  And, of course, the Germans decide to show up.

  The left side is holding well, but the right side is actually repelling them, which I’m sure is due to Ivana literally burning the fields and denying entry.

  Actually, the fields are burning really quickly.

  “We torched the fields with gasoline!” I look over and see a conscript, a grave look on her face. “We still have men in them!”

  “It doesn’t matter! We need to slow the Germans!”

  Oh…Oh shit. Fuck…Ok, that doesn’t mean they’re dead. They can outrun the flames. We only set our side on fire…

  Fuck…

  Fuck.

  Ok.

  I’m fine.

  “You have done well holding off the Fascisti, but we still need more time. Fritz will undoubtedly try to push through with armored vehicles. Place mines and demolition charges along the roads to stop them.”

  1:15

  Shit, that’s less than half of what we had!

  “Ok…Ivana, I’m sure you heard the Colonel. Place any mines you have along the main road, the tracks, and on the outside of the rail station, but ONLY anti-vehicle mines. I don’t want any friendly fire.”

  Ivana gives me a curt nod and produces a handful of square metal plates, big to me, but plate-sized to her, and runs off with her two squads, splitting and heading down different sections of the town.

  The Germans have retreated mostly, but a few squads are still harassing us.

  “Comrade Colonel, we have T-34s sitting at the rail station. The mines won’t be enough, but if we use those tanks-” “Negative. Those tanks are needed elsewhere! We will make do with what we have.”

  The radio buzzes with the argument, leaving me wondering just how much like the commissar the Colonel is when the timer in the sky strikes zero, followed by Ivana’s engineers running around the corner of the road.

  “Scout car! Right behind us!”

  BANG

  I look up and over the head of the engineers and see a suspiciously armored-car-turret-shaped piece of metal go flying up and back down again.

  “Talk about ‘nick of time’, huh?”

  My joke is met by puzzled faces, but no matter; that’s one less vehicle to deal with.

  BANG

  “Sir! An armored car just hit the mines on the left!” The voice of a shock troop yells from that respective flank.

  “Alright, you guys, with me!” I take Ivana’s squad and run us up to a bundle of sandbags with a squad of conscripts overlooking the main road…

  Just in time for an APC to come rolling down. “HALF TRACK!”

  “Sd.Kfz. 251, Wehrmacht”

  “The Sd.Kfz. 251 Half-track is a robust and reliable MG-armed vehicle that offers good protection against small-arms fire and provides a stable firing platform for troops inside. Can be loaded with up to 2 squads of infantry, or a selection of HMG/Mortar teams. The standard model comes equipped with a shielded MG42, but can be upgraded with flame projectors, at the cost of space for transport.”

  The rhomboidal APC opens fire for a brief moment, tracers going high over, only to be stopped by an explosion off its right side, tilting the halftrack before it comes back down, fire erupting from within.

  “Good placement.” I offer to Ivana, who grunts in affirmation.

  There’s a damn big wave of Germans after the vehicle, but due to our hasty fortifications, and no doubt the morale boost from the burning wrecks of steel, we’re able to repel the mix of Osttruppen and Grenadiers, even with a few armed with MG42s.

  Then another halftrack comes, hitting another mine, but only losing a track. The gun opens up, followed by another armored car, and another.

  And then a god damn tank rolls up. Followed by another.

  Me, Doe, and Ivana all duck down

  “Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf. G, Werhmacht.”

  “The versatile Panzer IV has been updated through the war with increasingly powerful guns and more effective armor to maintain its effectiveness as a front-line battle tank. The Panzerkampfwagen IV was the most-produced tank made by Germany during the Second World War. With many variants being produced throughout.”

  Yeah, and there are two headed right at us.

  Thankfully, the Colonel decides we’ve had enough. “There is nothing more we can do here! Grab your soldiers and fall back to the bridge!”

  “Fucking finally, EVERYONE, PULL BACK! WE. ARE. LEAVING!” I yell as loud as I can. We can’t afford an organized retreat, lest we get overrun.

  Ivana and Doe stand and begin sprinting down the main road towards the bridge when I turn back to get a head count. from the two or so dozen we had at the start, only four shock troops, seven conscripts, and all of Ivana’s squad managed to survive.

  And one said the conscript is trying to crawl. The wolf girl from Stalingrad.

  Fuck this.

  I turn back and book it as hard as my shitty boots let me, dropping my revolver and letting it hang off me by the tassel.

  The conscript looks up, shocked to see me, and even more so when I grab her wrist and waist, pulling her up and over onto me—

  HolyfucksheiswaybiggerthanIthought-

  My leg gives one shake before I steady her on me, blood already leaking through her clothes and onto mine.

  “C…Comrade, Lieutenant, please, leave me, you can’t carry me that far!” She says in my ear right as a bullet cracks in the dirt next to me. A shock troop, a unkown canine of some breed, sprints past me at an Olympian rate. Of course, the furries are all heavier and faster, and bigger. Cause even in my dreams I have to suffer. Or, whatever this bullshit is.

  The bridge comes into view, the train already steaming over the right side, along with the remnants of my forces crossing the left side.

  Then, a fucking tank shell goes whistling past me, deflecting off the steel struts of the bridge and going high above the treeline.

  I’m just 50 yards away.

  45

  A stream of tracers cuts the fence next to me.

  40

  I can hear an engine gaining on me.

  35

  There’s yelling, I can almost hear it.

  30

  I see my comrades on the other side of the bridge.

  25

  “Schnapp ihn dir!” There are footsteps behind my own.

  20

  “Gospod’ p-prosveshchenie moye i Spasitel’ m…moy…kogo uboyusya…” She whispers in my ear from my shoulder, some kind of prayer.

  15

  The others are yelling, and some are shooting behind us.

  10

  There are black boxes all over the bridge’s sides.

  5

  ===

  “ALEX! HURRY!”

  I grunt, trying to keep Fandos on my back, ignoring whatever’s been lodged in my side.

  “Just fucking leave me, dude. Go god damn it!” He begs me, slapping my right arm. I ignore him.

  The Blackhawk is still on the ground, but the tail is lifted. The side gunner of the helo sprays with the M163, lighting up the mountainside behind me, but the rifle fire from the insurgents doesn’t stop.

  Another RPG flies over me, missing the tail rotor by a few feet and slamming into a boulder, spraying me with shrapnel.

  Fandos goes quiet, finally giving up and letting me carry him.

  I reach the deck of the helo and dump him in, grabbing Harrison’s hand and pulling myself up and in. Not even before I do, the pilot is already lifting us up and over the side of the rocks, into the valley, and away from the crash site.

  I pull my helmet off and sling my AFAK kit around, ripping open the zipper and dumping the contents onto Fandos’ plate carrier, using my shears to cut apart his straps and underclothes.

  “Alex.”

  His gut is riddled with shrapnel, not to mention pooling with blood. I yank on my gloves as quickly as my shaky hands allow and start pulling bits out, putting a pack of Quik-Clot in my mouth and tearing it open, dumping the powder over his gut.

  “Alex.”

  I spread the agent over him, grabbing my roll of hemostatic gauze next and balling it into a clump before shoving it as far as I can into his wou-“ALEX!”

  A pair of hands grabs my plate carrier and yanks me away from Fandos and makes me look at Harrison, his grimy face glaring me down.

  “He’s gone.”

  “No, he has shrapnel and a major bleed, but if I-” His left hand grabs my face and forces me to look at Fandos’ helmet.

  There’s a shard sticking out of his temple. Rock, or maybe metal.

  “Alex. Please…Leave him.”

  ===

  “ALEXI!”

  I nearly slam into Colonel Churkin, sliding to a stop right as a shockwave pushes me onto my toes.

  I whirl around and see the bridge I was just standing on collapsing into the water, followed by the struts and rubble.

  Facing him again, I find him scowling. “Had it not been for the delayed fuse, you would be a dead man. Now, get into the trucks…” He nods towards the waiting flatback trucks, already full of the survivors and some supplies.

  Oh shit, the wolf.

  I move past him and toward the emptiest truck bed, only full of crates and some empty seats, and dump the wolf girl onto the floor.

  Before I can even start, the truck bounces and jostles her, causing her to let out a soft yelp.

  “Ok, can you tell me your name?” I ask, digging through my paltry bag.

  “A-Anastasia Gorsky, Sssserzhant, 1045th Rifle Regiment, 284th Rifle Division.” Coherent, good.

  “Okay, Anastasia, I’m gonna have to cut your clothes off. You tell me if you get cold or feel sick.” I produce the metal scissors and grip the edge of her tunic, cutting through the bottom and basically turning the blouse into a crop top.

  “Entry wound to the lower right abdomen,” I grab her side and lift, seeing a splotch of blood on the wooden deck. “Exit on the posterior side.”

  “W…What?” She asks. “Nothing, it’s good to say it outloud.” I set the scissors down. Not a huge amount of blood loss, and no spurting, so non-arterial. Her stomach doesn’t feel rigid either, so no evisceration. “Good news, Anastasia, you’re not gonna die anytime soon.

  “But, this IS gonna hurt, so bite down on this.” I ball up her cut-up clothing and hold it to her muzzle, which she opens and bites on.

  I open my bag and tear open the German packs, which are thankfully at least clean. “Here comes the pain train~.”

  I ball up some bandaging in one hand and use the other to lay her on her left side, before jamming my finger in the exit wound as quickly as I can. Anastasia yelps loudly before letting out a more human scream, mixed with light sobs. “I know, it’s a bitch.”

  Once I can’t get anymore shit in, I fold it against the skin and lay her back down, which she reacts to by arching her back. I put my hands on her stomach, causing more scream/yelp/sobs from the entry wound being touched and the pressure on the exit. “You need to lie flat, Anastasia, or you won’t heal and might die, ok?”

  She groans but nods anyway, slowly lowering herself down on her back.

  Next, I take the second German bandage and begin balling that up, too. She sees me doing it and starts whimpering, but thankfully remains still.

  “I know, more pain in three, two-” I press the ball of bandage in, which elicits another, but smaller scream. I finish packing her and then fold the rest down on the outside.

  “Heeey! We got all the bad stuff over with! Good job.” She opens her eyes and looks at me, wide and glistening. I reach back into my bag and pull out the Soviet bandage, which, unlike the German, is just a bundle of white cloth. I use this one to wrap all the way around her abdomen and back, getting it nice and tight (much to her dismay) before tying it off.

  And…that’s it. That’s all I have. No sulfa, no morphine, no fucking anti-biotics, no nothing.

  I set the bag down on the seat opposite me and gently bend Anastasia’s knees to reduce her abdominal wall’s tension, and make the ride less jostling for her, but just to be safe, I slowly scoot her over and put her next to my legs.

  I wipe the blood on my hands on my pant legs as she takes the clothing out of her mouth, light pink dusting her fur from…blood, I guess, she has pretty light fur.

  “Thank you…Alexi.”

  I shrug. “It’s fine. Rest and try not to talk or do too much. You don’t want to cause any further damage.”

  Her maw opens. Then it shuts. She looks at me, then at my legs, her wound, then up at the sky.

  “…Thank you.”