The Empire of the Volga – VII
The weather is both wet and cold, the only downside to studying in Petrograd.
Augh!
Maybe that is what saved the city? The Spanish certainly didn't stick around very long, they landed on the beaches near the coves, the city was seized by panic, I was even given a gun!
I don't have that gun anymore though, not even a service pistol. I'm just a lieutenant in the officer reserve, oh sure I have training but what can I really do with it? I have no stomach for this sort of thing.
But that's just crazy Izaak Ozimov talking, please move along, absolutely nothing to see here.
Sigh.
Irina went to Ryzaran for a while, some business I don't know too much about. She had left before the Big Switch occurred, I hope she's alright. Her family are Latvian Russians of German ancestry who knows what would happen if some crazy policeman or intelligence officer tried to grab her?
The whole thing is just so frustrating, being alone without her, in the cold Petrograd winter.
Today is a physics lecture, tomorrow is another chemistry lecture and then a military drill after that.
The class room is so very empty...
Many students volunteered to join the military, I hope they are alright, I can't say how many will make good officers, I cannot begin to know if they will do well... But...
While I may not care about this war, I very much don't want people who I know around me to get hurt fighting some politicians war.
I am only half listening to the professor, I should be giving him more of my attention he's due but what can I say? I've already understood this material earlier...
But my fullest attention... Had to be the notes I was writing down.
Much of the news from the front, while filling me with a great deal of trepidation did however strike me with inspiration.
To me it seems likely that war will only continue to become more violent, the stories I hear about the successes of 'barrels' in front line use against infantry and hard targets suggests to me a major paradigm shift towards 'mobility' where large masses of soldiers will become obsolete favoring more mechanization.
I scratch my brow, I'm surprised at myself, putting so much effort into this. There is however a point to this, I do not wish to be some General Staff officer in STAVKA imagining more gruesome means of killing and injuring people.
No...
I want to save people.
People should not be fighting wars.
Given that people should not be fighting, we can infer that people should also not do other dangerous or difficult activities.
Likewise Infantry should not be bearing the brunt of the horrors of war, but armored, capable of resisting fire from above and ahead.
But barrels are too slow, too bulky, vulnerable and unarmored infantry will always be needed to support them.
What's the solution?
I think it obvious, that barrels should become smaller, lighter and faster! More like body armor for infantry but with the same firepower and protection.
However if the eventual fate of barrels is to enclose and protect the human, and we presume that humans should not be fighting; we can conclude that the answer lies in removing humans entirely from the equation and having the barrels drive themselves, and fight the wars in humanity's stead.
Clearly robots are the future, to fight for us, to work for us. I think that to be most effective they must be sentient, but without the disadvantages of an organisms lifespans, with their memories capable of being stored somehow and then transferred to a new body to enter the trench yet again for our sakes.
However.
I do not think I can abide by this conclusion, it would make the robots our slaves, would they knowingly if sentient volunteer for this task? To protect us? Or would we need to enslave them and insure they could never rise against us by fashioning some sort of rules, unbreakable laws in which to guide their actions?
There are times I worry that the face of humanity will always be that of an army boot stomping down somewhere on something beautiful, such seems to be our way of things.
I put down the pen and gather up my things, class is now over and I just realized that I am the only person in the room.
How embarrassing.
-***-
Paperwork! Wunderbar the Germans we're fighting so hard against might be inclined to say.
Too much paperwork in this ministry.
Promotion! No one ever tells you how terrible promotions are! The pay isn't much better, this isn't like the army where you can boss around potatos... No no no... It is much worse.
Your burden of procedural bullshit goes up fucking exponentially.
Don't they know I have studies? Linguistics doesn't study itself you know.
Oh, I was wrong.
That's not the worst of it, the worst of it is that some idiot... No sorry let me correct myself. This is far too stupid for a single person to accomplish, nope. Something this special clearly requires a group effort, one little budding bureaucrat after another desperate to prove how momumentally stupid you are and so everyone else decides to lend a helping hand.
I am not allowed to smoke in my 'office', it's against the rules.
My 'office' or more accurate some janitorial closet that was cleared for me and my work as a encryption specialist and so I can do my studies is far too small. I have piles of books living the walls, I don't have a desk, it is just books and paper!
Someone shoot me.
“Sebastian Konstantinovich?” The Chief, Brother Lt. Colonel Natalia Nina Volkova asked me, poking her head into the 'room'. I don't get a secretary per se, but Natalia kinda acts like one working as both our leader and organizer, she's also pretty and gets the job done; she helps all of us in this wing with little things and gets us our coffee and alchohol when we need it... Which is most of the time. What amazes me she finds the time to attend to us and do her own work as our chief of staff.
“Da?” I replied curtly. Rigid formalism died a cruel sad death at the hands of our soul crushing workload.
“You have a visitor.” And with that she was off, her toned implied a “Maybe you should take care of it before he or she distracts someone?”.
I get up, carefully maneuvering around my desk and paperwork, careful not to spill any of my carefully organized and lovingly crafted mounds of papers, computational problems and encoded missives of no military importance.
In the hall way as expected I see a number of others here in our section scurrying from one room to the next, usually to the copy room is a primary destination. Who would have thought major military operations would require such a huge bureaucratic overdrive?
I didn't have to go far before seeing him, a man I didn't see for years and hadn't expected to ever see again, our careers were just so different, why here?
Why me?
“Aaaaah! My favorite little Armenian umnik! How's life in the Directorate keeping you?” He said with a big grin, it took all of my dexterity to avoid he, Vassili “Zev” Chomski's bear hug.
“And you are still the loudest Ukrainian of an asshole I have ever seen.”
“Bwhahaha!” He laughed, finally catching me.
Fuck. There goes a rib.
Coughing and wheezing I recover after a few moments.
“How's temple?” Zev I understood, was a Hebrew scholar before he was taken in by GRU.
“Elsie and I would love nothing more than to settle down somewhere and just teach.” He said solemnly, puffing on a cigar.
I can see why, every inch of him screamed school teacher, I could never understand how he could tolerate having to take up the more typical Russian attitudes and mannerisms, it didn't suit him.
But it was a mask he had to wear, I wore a similar mask.
It's what it meant to serve your country, and what it meant to be in GRU.
“But enough talk! Pack your bags everything essential, I got people who know people who can get the rest to you later, but you need to come with me!”
What the fuck?
He laughed at me, taking another puff, my shock and consternation must have shown.
“You have done fantastic work here for the Directorate and pursuing your studies, but your country needs you to do a different task, most importantly GRU needs you for that task, and even more importantly than that, I Brother Colonel Vassili Chomski need one Brother Captain Sebastian Konstantinovich.” He took another puff, grinning at own gusto.
Volkova was furious, how dare this unknown GRU agent come take a precious member of her team away for some unknown obviously frivolous reason. Out came some sort of badge, I couldn't see it from where I was positioned in my office but she shut up just got to work helping me.
What did she see? Just what rank is he? Natalia was at least a Lt. Colonel by our reckoning...
Mysteries best left unpoked for now.
-***-
“FIRING!” I yelled as I fired the main gun of my barrel.
The gun from the barrel spat flame from its barrel, squinting through my optics I saw a Spanish barrel stop moving in a controlled fashion, coming to a stop as its crew bailed out.
I had us squeeze a burst from our machine guns at them, raking them with bullets, a skilled barrel crew is worth a regiment.
Best to deny the fuckers who dare invade my country each and every crew.
“Load armored piercing!” I yelled again, I had to yell, the engines were much to loud and a second Spanish barrel had appeared out of the smoke behind the first. At the same time I kicked Anastasia in the left shoulder to let her know I want her to move the barrel forward and to the left.
Hey! If she didn't want my boots kicking her from behind she should have learned to anticipate my every command, and also not have such an attractive backside for kicking you know?
“Firing!” Pulling the trigger.
Fuck this barrel, fuck Russian barrel designers, they don't know shit. Have they ever driven a barrel? I don't fucking think so.
What I would give for one of these barrels those Ethiopians are driving, they were beasts, imagine the industry they must have, I bet they have a fucking city hidden away up the Nile somewhere in Sudan where all they do is make huge barrels to fuck up the enemy with, fuck me, why can't we have our own Barrel'grad?
“Forward!” I saw the enemy barrel start smoking so I am not wasting time to keep moving, we're attacking constantly, that's what barrels are for. If I were a fancy General with a bunch of fancy stars on his shoulder straps you can bet my ass I would blow my top if I heard my barrel drivers saying they were holding their positions! Holding!? Ridiculous! Cowardice! They should all be shot. They should be holding onto the enemy not their “positions”, I want blood damnit, lots of blood, don't know what to do with it, maybe I can get Anna to grease our treads with it.
Smoke is everywhere from the artillery of both armies, I can see shit.
I peer through the optics again.
I know these hills, I've been here before.
The enemy is camped out on it, must have been probes, scout barrels.
I get on the radio and crank the receiver, its hard work in this cramped space, why can't we have better radios?
“This is Captain Ivanova Isayeva, barrel company still here?”
Static.
“I repeat, this is Captain Ivanova Isayeva, anyone read?”
“Sorry Brother Lieut-Captain... Brother Captain I was on the wrong frequency...”
“You fucking retard. When I get out of this fucking barrel I am smashing your fucking brains all over your god damn turret!”
“Eeeeeh!? Forgive me Brother Lieutenant but the radios... They're...”
“Shut the fuck up and listen, you see those hills? You know there's Spanish and maybe some German barrels up there right?”
Without waiting to answer.
“We're flanking it, see those trees? I bet they don't think you can drive barrels through those trees but fuck it, I've lived around here and I know those trees so we're going, so you have better fucking follow me or I'm cutting off your dick and eating it. Out.”
Oh, I forgot to add something.
“And NOT the good kind of way you perverted asshole, emphasis on the taking a knife to your balls. Out.”
Boys and their dicks, they'll do anything for you if you either threaten to remove it or rub it a bit, just got to know when to use the carrot and when to use the dull knife.
I smack my right boot this time twice. Speed up. I stand up and double check my surroundings, we should be out of range of everything but those monstrous 8.8cm guns the Germans like to use that can reach out and crumple a barrel before you even know its there, as if its nothing.
I shivered, fuck those guns. But out here just outside Novgorod, the Germans are too busy bashing their heads against Odessa to care about what the Spanish are doing.
And the Spanish pushed too far, they got too greedy, and now we're gonna smash through this flank screen and fuck them from behind.
The barrel bounced back and forth as we rush over the still soggy terrain from the rasputitsa, the deep muds that practically bathe Russia during the fall and bog everything down to nothing.
But with barrels as light as this one we can make the push, its just not comfortable for shit.
We make it to the forest, the terrain screening our dash to it. Anastasia maneuvers the barrel for all its worth, branches are scraping up against the armor, logs constantly cause the barrel to lurch as it rather ungainfully climbs over it.
Several minutes go by as we drive down the forest roads, anxiety is growing deeply within me.
What if we're the only barrel? Up against hundreds?
Its a tough battle, panic has seized many commanders early on, ending many possibly promising careers. I was promoted on the spot to Captain when I turned out to be the only barrel driver who knew where her balls were kept.
Keep breathing... Deep breaths almost there, we haven't got stuck...
But what if the barrels who did follow got stuck?
Fuck, I'm doing it again, just keep going...
Bright light. Amazingly bright light as we exited the dense patch of forest and entered the unpaved roads, bursting out behind the defended hills.
Oh look... An encampment...
Spanish soldiers milling around, they didn't notice my barrel just exist the woods.
Heheheh.
Hehehehhehe...
Hehehehehahahahahah..
HWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I pick up the radio receiver during my hysteria.
“Company fire at will!”
Several shots and machine gun fire come out from somewhere behind my barrel, lighting the enemy up.
I get on the gun, grinning.
“Firing.”
I have them over open sights.
[TL 191 reference there, Featherston's name for that timelines "Meinkampf", we also see the return of our linguist and hebrew scholar friend, as well as Ozimov. I'm not going to have Isaac Asimov do any fighting, but I also don't really have what I vaguely have planned for him to start yet, so I needed some stuff for him to talk or think about in the meantime. Irina is elsewhere as I wanted Isaac a chance to monologue in a style similar to his essays. Likely no one is possibly obsessive enough to notice this, but Emilia's tank advance through the woods is meant to both invoke the Ardennes offensive in 1940 and a similar combat maneuver from the novel by Ralph Peters "The Red Army." I included her again here as she's actually in a position to show up a bit of the front against Germany and Spain, but since she's pretty frequent in his occurences I've done my best to space it out here by adding some scenes first before its her turn.
And to clarify there's two Ivanova's. The tank commander and the sniper, they're two different characters.]
