DrakaFic: The Great Patriotic War : Beginnings

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Reminds me a bit of Rourke's Drift, with two rather marginal officers succeeding in holding because they followed the book that their superiours ignored earlier in the day. Good NCOs always mean the difference, too; I'd say the Sargeant had the most to do with their not breaking.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Ha, damn snakes won't be winning anything if two dozen troops and teenagers can inflict 80 or 100 casualties. Can't just through bodies at machine guns to overrun them if the enemy has more men.

[Norseman]

Ha, damn snakes won't be winning anything if two dozen troops and teenagers can inflict 80 or 100 casualties. Can't just through bodies at machine guns to overrun them if the enemy has more men.

I think that the casualties were a bit higher actually, but mind you only nine citizens were permanents, whereas around 120 Janissaries were, permanently knocked out (E.g. crippled or dead).

However the Draka had to advance up hill, on bad ground, with poor cover, against an entrenched enemy who had prepared charges burried in the ground. They wouldn't be suffering nearly as big losses in other situations. That said for propaganda purposes this is brilliant, especially as the Soviets got decent footage of the whole event (they even got footage of the statue being exploded)

[The Yosemite Bear]

And figure how high the causalty rates will go up before this is over, I mean the greeks turned thempyle from several thousand persians to millions..

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And figure how high the causalty rates will go up before this is over, I mean the greeks turned thempyle from several thousand persians to millions..

Millions of casualties were never claimed at Thermopylae. The size of the Persian Army was, however, exagerrated by about a factor of ten. OTOH, sending lightly armoured troops against heavy armoured troops who are in a fortified and narrow pass is dumb (though the Persians didn't have any other choice until they got intel for that traitor) and bound to result in severe casualties for the attacking force; the idea of thousands of Persian troops being killed is not farfetched.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

What are the stats on the various weapons the Draka use (tanks, rifles, etc)? And what are the differences between OTL Russian equipment and this fics?

[MKSheppard]

Chapter Nine - Part C

[Checkpoint One - Tbilisi - June 18th, 1940 - 0530 hours]

Slowly, dawn came to Soviet Georgia; the rays of the sun creeping up the mountains and
the valleys, and as if awakening from a deep slumber, the sounds of battle from Tbilisi
began to pick up again; rather than the scattered pop-pop-pop of individual shots or an
occasional braaaaaap of a submachine gun that had continued all through the night,
they rose in number and pitch until they merged into a devil's symphony of carnage.

On the horizon, the plumes of smoke continued to rise from the city; some fires had gone
out during the night, starved to death after they had burned everything there was to burn,
but there were always more fires to take their place.

All around the southern sector of the city, at the Checkpoints which had been established
by the Draka, thousands of fresh troops of all types woke up, and began mentally preparing
for the Hell they were about to be sent into.

Yawning, Monitor Harrison woke up in the cramped compartment of his Hoplite and scowled.
Fucking Hell, some fat fuck has been eating the bean stew again. Gagging, he reached out
to undog the rear egress hatch, opened it and stepped out into the fresh air; leaving behind
the filthy stench of whoever had farted during the night.

Walking around, he saw the Security Directorate officer who had stopped them sleeping in his
guard post. Fucking lazy fuck, he'll get us all killed sleeping on duty like that, thought Harrison.

"Wake tha' fuc' up, yo' son of a bitch!" he shouted as he unbuttoned his fly and took a long piss
onto the side of the Hoplite. Damn, that felt good.

Buttoning his fly back up, he stole a glance at the guard shack, and saw that the guard was still
sleeping. Fucking hell, it's a wonder we're still alive with his sense of duty.

"Wake up, you goddam' moron!" he shouted again, causing the others who were awakening
also to turn their heads towards him.

No response. Harrison could feel the rage in him beginning to burn. Fucking lazy ass
SecDirectorates, think they can sleep while we do all the hard work. Reaching the guard
shack, he kicked the door in, and was about to bean the idiot in the head when the stench
hit him.

The sweet stench of blood. Lots of it. Looking closely at the Directorate officer, he saw that
the man's entire uniform was drenched in dried blood. With an uneasy feeling gathering in
the pit of his stomach, he grabbed the man's head and pulled it back, revealing the gruesome
second grin of a man who'd had his throat cut from ear to ear.

With disgust, he noted that the man's tongue had been pulled out through his sliced-open
throat. Fucking Georgians, he thought. That was real popular with the bandits here,
giving someone a 'Georgian Necktie'.

Behind him, he heard the sounds of others coming up behind him. "What the fuc' is goin' on
here?" came Decurion DiFierno's voice from behind him.

Turning around, Harrison came face to face with a clearly displeased DiFierno. "Our
Directorate guard's dead sir, throat's cut, looks like it happened las' nigh' too."

Suddenly, the phone in the guard shack began to ring, it's shrill tones causing everyone to
turn their heads. Without prompting, Harrison picked the phone up.

"Yes?"

"Goldberg! What the fuc' is the meaning of this! We've been trying to reach you since 0100
hours! Don't tell me you've been fuckin' the goddamned local whores again!"

"Yo' man is dead, this is the 763th Chillarchy, wondering why the fuc' you didn't send someon'
to check on yo' man durin' the nigt'."

Sharp cursing on the other end of the phone. "We thought that Goldberg had gon' out wit'
the loc'l whores, it's alway' been a problem wit' the man."

"Well shit, get someon' down heah before everythin' goes to hell." replied Harrison right
before he hung the phone up, cutting off the stream of curses he could hear the dead
man's supervisor yelling to others over the phone.

"They'll be sendin' someon' down heah to replace this moron, if'n they know what's good
fer them."

DiFierno simply grunted. It wasn't his problem, it was the Security Directorate's problem.

As he walked back towards the platoon he commanded, he could see the turrets of the
Hoplites rotating to a dead zone and letting loose with a short burst of 20mm, the sound
of so many cannons firing hammering away at his ears; causing him to yawn to equalize
the pressure.

Good, good, they were firing their test rounds for the day; It had always been a problem
getting Citizen troops to clean out the barrels of the cannon on their IFVs, to the point
that entire units would refuse to fire their cannons just to avoid the hard work at the end
of each day involved in cleaning out the bores; well, now everyone would have to clean
theirs out; so there was no reason not to fire now.

[763rd Infantry Chilliarchy HQ]

Chilliarch Manfred von Falkenburg coughed as he sipped his coffee in the armored
compartment of his Hoplite command vehicle. It was a normal Hoplite; but with the
gun turret removed and the ring plated over; the extra space used for radios and
seats for the chilliarchy command staff, allowing them to set up a HQ within minutes
of the chilliarch pulling to a stop at any point in a march.

A radioman whose name Falkenburg couldn't remember at the moment turned around
in his chair and handed a piece of paper over to Falkenburg. "Latest fro' Legion headquarters."

Nodding, Falkenburg began to read today's orders from Legion HQ. Hmm...Apparently
they wanted him and his men to push towards the Mtkvari river, there was a factory of
some sorts that was holding out against an entire Janissary Legion, and the higher-ups
thought that the Janissaries needed some 'stiffening'.

Falkenburg curled his lip when he read that; most often the 'stiffening' referred to was
when a Citizen unit went in behind a Janissary unit and fired machineguns at their backs
to keep them moving forward.

Taking a look at the map of Tbilisi, he noted that they could be there in an hour's time. "Send
a dispatch to Legion Headquarters." As the signals officer took out a scratchpad and a pencil,
Falkenburg began dictating.

"763rd Chilliarchy will move out now, to reinforce the 875th Janissary Legion at the
Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory. Estimated arrival, 0640 hours. Request to
be reassigned to real fighting once Janissarries overrun the Factory."

[On the Main Highway into Tbilisi - 0700 Hours]

Harrison grumbled as his head hit the thinly padded hatch edges once again. Pain is good,
pain reminds you that you're alive. he recited mentally, the old song from his boarding
school days always revelant.

He'd been assigned as the gunner for his Hoplite, probably because DiFierno was still pissed
about having to explain the dead Security Directorate guard to his replacement, so here he was,
sticking his head out of the little hatch on the roof of the tiny turret, because the optical sights
were broken because the serf auxillaries couldn't de-train the vehicles properly. So someone
had to stick their head out so they could fire the gun with any accuracy at all. And it had been
him who drew the short straw.

As they drew closer to Tbilisi, Harrison began to see the debris of war; a dead body along the road
here and there; burned out Ivan T-34s, LT-1s, and an odd KS-1 here and there. Bullet holes covered
the buildings, and many of them were missing their entire facades, others were just piles of rubble
from which the stench of rotting flesh enamated from.

From buildings which had the Domination's medical corps flag, a reversed color form of the normal
flag, hanging, he could hear screams and moaning as limbs were undoubtly amputated, bullets dug
out without anathesia, and other horrid things. At least once you got to the rear-line stations, you'd
get a comfortable bed to sit on; the front line stations were sheer carnage.

Harrison didn't dwell on the fact that the aid stations were for Citizens only; Janissaries, well there
were always more of them where they came from, and the best they could hope for was a merciful
bullet if they got severely wounded. That was just the way things had always been, and should be.
No need to waste scarce medical resources on the gutter trash of the world.

As the convoy of twenty Hoplites made it's way through the rubble-filled outskirts of Tbilisi, Harrison
could hear the firing growing in intensity as they got closer; along with the buildings lining the street
becoming progressively more battle damaged in some kind of malicious demonstration of entropy.

"Okay boys!" came the shout from inside the fighting compartment as DiFierno began to speak. "Get
frosty an' ready! This is wheah the shi' starts happ'ning! We took the outskirts of this heah city easy-like
a few weeks ago, the Ivans weren't expecting us, no they weren't, so we managed to grab it fast, befo'
they wised up."

Harrison listened with detached interest as he heard DiFierno run down the drill for unassing the Hoplite
if they came under fire, they'd all heard this a hundred times before; his mind was wandering back
to the plantation when he saw it, an unnatural movement where there shouldn't be movement. He
swung the turret around, and was about to squeeze the firing trigger when he saw the mottled
camouflage of the Domination on the vehicle.

Letting his finger off the trigger, he saw that it was their Hoplites! The fuckin' bastards hadn't even
bothered to repaint the unit numbers at all! "Those bastards ove' there hav' got our Hoplites!" he
shouted, causing an immediate ruckus as DiFierno stuck his head out of the small hatch in the rear
ramp to take a look.

"Freya's cunt! Those ARE our Hoplites!" came the voice a moment later, as DiFierno saw the unit
numbers painted boldly on the sides. "What the fuc' are those morons doing?" came the second
shout.

Harrison saw that the Citizens who had stole their rides weren't riding in the Hoplites, like they were
supposed to, but instead were lounging on sandbags spread all over the roof of the Hoplite. "Dam'
morons, they'll all get shot up like that," muttered DiFierno. Stupidity was tolerated in the Citizen Forces
with the tactit understanding that if someone wanted to be an idiot, let him be an idiot, he'll get his
ass shot off soon enough.

Leaving behind their Hoplites, the convoy made it's way up Karl Marx Avenue, towards the center
of the fighting in the city. Harrison was the first one to have a close call, a sniper's bullet spanging
off the turret uncomfortably close to his head. Swinging the turret around as fast as it's electric drives
could allow, he brought the cannon to bear on where he thought the sniper was hiding, and let loose
a short burst of forty rounds into the facade of the building, which crumbled under the impact of 20mm
HE.

Behind him, the three other Hoplites in line saw their leader's turret swing around wildly, and they followed
suit, adding their own destructive energies to bear. By the time sanity had been restored, some three
hundred rounds of 20mm had been fired at a building which may or may not have had a sniper in it.

"Dam'it, Harrison!" shouted DiFierno as he kicked Harrison in the legs. "What the fuc' was the meaning
of that?"

"Some Ivan asshole tried to take my head off, so I took his head off!"

"Way to fuckin' waste ammo, yo' fool!"

Harrison groaned, one of the big drawbacks of having to fit a full twelve man squad into a Hoplite,
was having to put up with a small ammo load for the main cannon; only three hundred rounds or so.

"Well, fuc' yo, it aint yo ass being shot at!"

With a squeal of tracks, the Hoplites turned off Karl Marx Avenue, and onto Dzugashvilli Avenue, where
the factory itself was on; only a few more minutes, and then they'd be done with this candy-ass shit, thought
DiFierno, and then they'd have a real enemy to fight, instead of backing up worthless Janissaries.

Looking down the avenue, Harrison noted that this was the worker's settlement area, the Ivans were big on
this, building four-story concrete buildings, like from a cookie cutter, and then painting them in garish pastel
colors, so the factory workers could have places of their own to live.

Then he saw the murals, and felt his bile rise. It was a good thing someone else had already chewed
them up with an autocannon, else he'd have to do it himself; damned Ivan propaganda of the Socialist
Revolution liberating the worker's chains or some crap.

Fuckin' worthless waste of resources, this crap would never stand at Kurenwohr, thought Harrison.

[Worker's Settlement Building 'Pushkin' - Second Floor]

"No, don't fire yet," muttered Leitenant Bolgorov. "Let them get into the Raketniy sack,
and then fire."

Bolgorov watched as the youth, little more than nineteen years old, lifted the Raketniy Protivotankoviy
Granatomet to his shoulder and took aim.

Already, the snakes had learned to fear the deadly things, and a new term had sprung up
amongst the Caucasus Army Group, 'RPGitis', where one thought there was a Russian
with a RPG in every house. Which wasn't too far from the truth, really.

Bolgorov glanced back to make sure nothing was in the way of the backblast from the RPG, and
slapped the young Ryadovoy on the shoulder. That meant it was safe to fire.

A low whistle sounded in the hallway; that was Serzhant Kalatidze there, signalling that the
last snake tank had passed them. Nodding to himself, Bolgorov couldn't resist grinning ferally
as he gave the yell

Za rodinu! Za Krasnova!

as the signal to start firing from the top of his lungs.

[Lead Vehicle - 763rd Chilliarchy]

Harrison heard the Russian cry shouted over the din of battle and saw dozens of tubes extending from
holes in seemingly-abandoned buildings.

Oh shit!, was all his brain managed to get out before all Hell broke loose.

The first RPG-1 round impacted on the ground in front of Harrison's Hoplite, spending it's warhead
on the roadway; the second slammed into the top of the Hoplite, just aft of the turret, right where the
fighting compartment was. The HEAT jet cut through the thin top armor like it wasn't there, and the
molten droplets of armor and superheated gasses burst into the compartment, burning men alive
and setting their uniforms on fire.

Oh shit, oh shit, was Harrison's only conscious thought as he struggled to lift himself through
the tiny hatch in the turret, flames licking at his feet and the horrid screams of DiFierno and the
others burning their way into his brain for all eternity.

Somehow, he didn't know exactly how, Harrison managed to extract himself from the turret, and rolled
down the hull of the burning Hoplite, landing on the street with a painful grunt. He could hear the sounds
of the infernal Ivan launchers firing their deadly cargoes from all down the street; could hear the screams
as Citizens were burned alive inside their Hoplites, which hadn't proven to be so safe.

Now, he understood why the others had been riding on top of sandbags; being shot was a sight better
than burning to death inside a locked metal box.

Grunting, he picked himself up, and ran towards the nearest building, bullets pinging all around him
as the Ivans began cutting down the few survivors of the 763rd Chilliarchy who had survived the infernos
their vehicles had become, the meaty thuds of bullets striking flesh audible over the sounds of battle. There
were pitifully few screams, as the Draka barely had time to scream before their bodies were torn nearly in
half from the massed fire of Pepeshikas firing from the rooftops.

Kicking in the door to the building he'd chosen, Harrison saw a surprised Ivan wrestling with the magazine on
his PPSh-39, and before the Ivan could respond, Harrison drew his bushknife and leapt, catching the Ivan
with even more surprise as he drove it deep into the Ivan's gut, the man's breath coming in ragged gasps,
as Harrison jerked the bushknife up, towards the Ivan's heart, letting it tear itself to pieces on the blade.

As the Ivan took his last breaths, Harrison grabbed the submachine gun from his grubby hands and pushed
the body onto the ground, with his bushknife still embedded in the man's chest. Shame about the knife, leaving
it for the Ivans to find, but a PPSh-39 was more important than the knife.

As he struggled with the PPSh-39, a voice came from the stairwell; "eto ti, Georgiy?", followed by another
Ivan, armed with a PPSh as well. The man did a double take and then smartly raised his gun and squeezed
the trigger, causing the room to fill with cordite and an earth shattering roar.

As Harrison was leaping for cover, he felt a hammer strike his head, and then...nothing.

[10 minutes later]

Slowly, with the practiced ease of fighting men whose instincts have been honed by battle, the Russian
tommygunners slowly worked their way down the line of burnt out snake tanks, stopping at each one to
toss a grenade inside to make sure everyone inside was dead, before moving on to the next one. In this
manner, they worked their way down the column, clearing each vehicle, until they came to one that had
no turret, but instead sprouted a veritable forest of radio aerials.

Motioning to his companions, Bolgorov reached around the side of the command vehicle and wrenched
open the rear hatch and peered into the interior. It was a charnel house; carbonized lumps that were only
vaguely human looking were bent over their radio sets, while closer to the hatch, a lone snake officer,
seemingly unaffected by the fire, stood staring at the wall sightlessly, his brains dripping off the roof of the
vehicle, and a still-warm pistol in his hand.

By the ranks on the deceased officer's shoulders, it was the snake equivalent to a General-Major they'd
found. Rifling through the man's pockets, Bolgorov found several official looking documents, along with
a pack of 'Alexandria' cigarettes. Looking around to make sure none of his men were watching, Bolgorov
pocketed the cigarettes. A sudden squeal from one of the radios brought his attention, and as he listened,
a voice began speaking in a tone of voice that from Bolgorov's extensive leadership experience, was
demanding to know where the fuck the listener was.

Climbing into the vehicle, Bolgorov found the radio set that the voice was coming from, and picking up a
spare headset that was lying around, he replied to the voice in Russian.

"Where they are depends on your definition of being; according to materialists, they are in a compost heap,
but according to certain metaphysical beliefs, they are in Hell."

A stream of what he knew from experience to be Draka curses sounded over the radio before it shut off
abruptly.

[53rd Infantry Legion HQ]

The young Centurion walked up to the Strategos in charge of the 53rd. "I regret to report that signals finally
managed to regain contact with the 634th Chilliarchy."

"Regret to report? What the hell is that idiot Von Falkenberg up to now?" grumbled Strategos Benedict Johnson
as he looked at the latest casualty reports coming in; the 875th Janissary Legion was now all but annihilated,
some 14,000 troops gone, in the inferno of the Factory, as everyone else had taken to calling it.

"It wasn't Chilliarch von Falkenburg, who replied, Strategos, it was some Russian."

"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! shouted Johnson, causing the young Centurion
to back away uncertainly.

"Two hundred twenty men and twenty-eight armored vehicles, gone...all GONE in less
time than it takes me to take a shit! Let's hear it, Centurion, for Castle Tarleton, who in their infinite
wisdom, have gotten us into this fucking mess!"

[Dzugashvilli Avenue - 0720 hours]

"No no, you stand on top of the snake!" shouted the Pravda combat photographer as he tried to
get that perfect pose from Serzhant Kalatidze. Finally, after five minutes of struggling with the
Georgian, he had the right pose, one that emphazised how the Workers of the Socialist Motherland
would Triumph Over the Vile Snakes, with Kalatidze standing next to a burned out snake tank, toting
his RPG-1, a big peasant grin on his face, and his booted foot on the corpse of some snake soldier.

"Good, good," shouted Kazimir Semyonich Drevnerussky, who had once been one of Pravda's rising stars
covering the Moscow beat. But that was before he'd been caught with another man's wife. A high ranking
Party member's wife. He counted his lucky stars that he hadn't been shot outright, but instead sent to cover
the Caucasus.

Well now, all of those assholes back home were covering Ivan Krasnov making speeches, and here he was
getting great combat photos. Wasn't it great the way life worked out in the end? He couldn't help but cackle
outloud at that thought, drawing strange stares from the soldiers surrounding him, watching him do his
business and hoping that they would end up in a photo that would be printed all over the Soviet Union.

Pushing those thoughts away, Kazimir started to take photographs of Kalatidze from every possible angle,
always taking two shots from the same angle, after all, a processing error could happen, and ruin a photo or
two; and that would be a damn shame after all the danger he'd put himself into to get these shots.

Finishing up the job, he lowered his Leica, one of the fine German-made ones that only official Pravda or
TASS photographers got, not the cheap garbage produced in the People's Factories. "Okay, that's it.
You're going to be famous, Serzhant."

This drew a even wider grin from Kalatidze, along with even more ribbing from his comrades in arms,
who teased the stocky Serzhant about being a movie star, and not to forget his old friends.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Leitenant Bolgorov appeared, and the men were all business again.
"Comrades, due to our excellent success in destroying this snake armored column, STAVKA (well, it
wasn't really STAVKA, but divisional HQ, but the name had stuck when talking about higher ups) wants
us to get over to the Dzugashvilli Prospects Factory; the Workers' Milita there is taking heavy casualties,
and they want our Raketniy platoon to head over there, and give them some support."

Turning to Drevnerussky, Bolgorov barely missed a beat in continuing. "Comrade Photographer,
we would be honored if you'd accompany us to the Factory, you'd get some excellent photographs
there."

Never mind increasing our chances of appearing on the front page of Pravada too.

[Under Dzugashvilli Avenue - 0735 hours]

Drevnerussky cursed softly as the floating corpse brushed into him, it's eyes long since eaten
out by the rats which inhabited the sewers; he couldn't tell whether it was snake or soviet, the
uniform had been torn to shreds by the decomposition of the flesh long ago.

Over their heads, the relentless noises of a city under siege could be heard, the chatter of
machine guns, the dull booms of cannons, the sharp shrieks of wounded men, but here,
in the sewers, there was none of that; just the sound of water rushing past and the chittering
of rats as they gorged themselves on the corpses that were flooding down the sewers.

Suddenly, a large explosion shook the sewers, causing pieces of dust and bricks to fall
from the ceiling, causing Drevnerussky to almost drop his Leica; he'd been carrying it over
his head, some parts of the sewers were flooded up to neck level, and it wasn't a pleasant
task; wading through a river of shit flavored with random body parts.

"Hundred kilogram bomb," came a voice from ahead, followed by "Enough chatter! Past this point,
I want dead silence!"

Everyone complied as they struggled through the half-flooded sewer system towards the factory.
After several minutes of walking through the pitch-blackness, lit only by odd shafts of light from
manholes and the flickering illumination from their hand-held torches, they could see the faint
glow of the exit to the factory sluice chamber, their destination.

Suddenly, a short snarling burst of tommygun fire ripped through the silence of the tunnel,
followed by a bloodcurdling scream that cut off abruptly. "CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE!"
shouted a voice from ahead.

As Drevnerussky moved forward, he saw one of the men in the squad floating face down in
the grimy water, a ragged line of holes stretching across his back, oozing blood. Moving past
the slowly-cooling corpse, he saw a young Ryadovoy standing on a landing in the sluice
chamber, sobbing dejectedly.

"He was my best friend! I killed him! I don't deserve to live!", sobbed the young man, before
a sharp slap by an older officer, a grizzled Serzhant, put an end to it. "Shaddup! It happens in
close combat! I've killed friends myself!" snarled the older man.

As he climbed up the ladder that would get them inside the factory proper, Drevnerussky thought
about how scenes like that one would never be printed in Pravda or Red Star; no it would
always be about brave young Komsolets charging snake tanks with molotov cocktails for the glory
of the Motherland, and of course, they would always make it, and the tanks would always catch fire.

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Basement - 0750 hours]

"Comrade Leitenant, we're glad that you and your men have arrived; our reconnaisance units show
that the snakes are massing large numbers of men for an all-out push on the factory. We need your
platoon and it's flame-rockets; I hope they made the journey through the sewers unharmed?"

"Yes, Comrade General, the rockets are unharmed; my platoon has thirty-five anti-tank rockets, twenty-five
shrapnel rockets, and thirty flame rockets in our inventory." replied Bolgorov.

General-Leitenant Aleksandr Illich Rodimtsev looked carefully at the fresh-faced young Leiutenant;
did he have what it took to command men in battle? Much less the Hell just a few feet above their heads?

"Good, you're assigned to the machine tool hall; that's where we think the fiercest fighting will take
place. I hope you don't let down the men of the 87th Rifle, we have yet to take a step back while we
still breathe."

Bolgorov saluted immediately, "Comrade, we won't let you down."

[5th Army Headquarters - 10 kilometers away - 0820 Hours]

The hotel had seen better days, back when it had been a popular vacation spot for young Soviet
couples who had taken the opportunity to see the Soviet Union through the State-run tourist agency,
Intourist. Now, it was the 5th Army headquarters, and the halls no longer heard the sounds of
joyous couples on their honeymoons, but instead the sharp booted footsteps of grim faced
Centurions and Tetrarchs with the red staff officer stripes on their uniforms as they went about
the business of running an army of some quarter-million men.

Behind one of the innumerable staff officers, the tall man known by the name of Old Timer by
everyone followed. Reaching the former honeymoon suite, the Staff officer knocked on the
door and without missing a beat, announced the visitor's name.

"Cohortarch LeBrun is here to see you, like you requested, Senior Strategos."

"Good, Good, Send him in."

Nodding, the staff officer opened the door and let in Old Timer.

Old Timer looked around the former honeymoon suite, taking in what remained of the trappings;
most had been torn away and looted by Citizens and Janissaries, but enough remained to give
him an idea of what it had been before the war.

"If I were thirty years younger, this venue might give me uncomfortable ideas, Strategos."

"Good thing you're not thirty years younger, eh?" replied Senior Strategos James Barron,
as he picked up a drink of cold water. "Good work on the statue business. I'll be sure to
recommend you highly over that one. Your reputation is well deserved."

LeBrun's face reddened slightly. "Jim, there's no reason to reward me, all I did was fix
the fuckin' mess that those idiots made a simple assault on a prepared position into."

"Well, you did a dam' fine job there. Which is why I want you to oversee the reduction
of the Dzugashvilli Factory. It's in a nasty area, we lost an entire Chilliarchy of Citizens
there just an hour ago."

"I heard about that one as I was coming up here," remarked LeBrun, a tone of disbelief
in his voice. "Who thought of sending troops through an unsecured area without heavy
sniper support?"

Draining his glass, Barron turned to look out the window. "Can't say exactly, as the
senior officer of the Chilliarchy died with his men. I can tell you this, the Domination
hasn't had a good stand-up, smash-em fight since your time, Old Timer. Twenty years
smashing Arabs, Turkomen, and Bulgarians down is nothing against a first rate country
like the Soviets."

"Institutional memory has faded, the hard lessons of Ankara and Constantinople have been
forgotten by the younger generation, who are so fixtated on these shiny aeroplanes and
armoured vehicles, that's what. We're re-learning all the lessons we forgot over the last
twenty years."

Nodding, Old Timer looked out the window, at the smoking hell of Tbilisi. "What kind
of support will I have for the assault?"

"A full corps of Janissaries, a chilliarchy of citizens, every single gun in the army firing support,
and the entire 1st Air Corps providing support."

Old Timer's eyebrows rose slightly. "All that for a single factory?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Yes. That factory is the linchpin of the Russian defensive line in that whole sector; every day
it remains untaken is another day our advance is stalled. Take it, and we can cut the Russians
off in an encirclement and simply wait them out instead of sending our troops headlong into
their machine guns. Janissaries don't come in unlimited amounts, especially when we're fighting
in Russia."

[95th Ground Attack Merarchy - an airfield 100 km south of Tbilisi - 0835 Hours]

Pilot Officer Johanna von Shrakenberg looked at her new mount and sighed sadly; from a sleek
interceptor unit with the latest aircraft, if a bit tempermental, to the massive brute force of the
Rhino. Two inline KW-121 engines, each producing 900 horsepower, married to an ugly frame
bristling with cannon and weapon hardpoints. Top speed, just four hundred km/h.

As she strapped into the tiny cockpit, she remembered what the Merarch had said, their mission
was to attack some factory in Tbilisi, and that every bomb had to be on target. And also to
stay out of the airspace over Tbilisi until 0930 Hours, to avoid getting shot down by their own
artillery.

The engines started with a roar, and slowly the Rhino began to bump down the grass strip that doubled
as an airfield; the Russians had long since dynamited what few airfields there were in Georgia before
they'd retreated. As the wings began to generate lift and claw at the air, Johanna thanked Freya that
her armorers had removed that 50mm anti-tank cannon from the nose; it was just so much weight
in the nose when all they were doing was shooting up soft targets.

As the wheels lifted from the soft earth, Johanna noticed that she was pulling almost all the way back
on the stick; she'd never had to do that with her old Eagle, it was so light and nimble that it flew into
the air at the lightest touch; this beast, you had to manhandle it into the air; it didn't want to fly.

Falling in line behind her squadron leader, Johanna began the long climb to 3,000 meters for the
trip to Tbilisi.

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Machine Tool Hall - 0900 hours]

Drevnerussky watched with a sick feeling in his stomach as he watched the grimy frontoviki,
their eyes shot through with red, and grimy stubble on their faces, used their bayonets to cut
the thumbs off the Draka Citizen corpses that lay amongst the carnage on the floor of the hall.

A shout came from one of the frontoviki as he held up a massive gold ring inlaid with diamonds
and emeralds, followed by a redoubled scavenger hunt for the precious Citizen corpses by the
others.

"Take a picture, Comrade photographer, of the brave workers reclaiming the hard labor
that the zmeii have torn from the hands of their serfs. I gurantee you it will be in
Pravda." came Bolgorov's voice as he stacked round after round of RPG-1 ammunition
in a sandbagged position where one of his RPG teams would be during the battle.

As Drevnerussky raised his Leica, he heard a low whining noise. "HIT THE DECK!" shouted
someone, and he followed without thinking, moments before the heavy 203mm rounds slammed
into the factory hall, fuzed to detonate after passing through the roof, spraying the hall with lethal
shrapnel.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM went the infernal racket as round after round slammed into the
factory and it's surroundings, the explosions drowning out even the shrieks of wounded men, a
continuous roar that went on and on for minute after agonizing minute.

[XI Corps HQ - 0915 Hours]

Cohortarch Fredericus LeBrun watched through the field periscope as the heavy rounds impacted
in a ceaseless rain onto the factory complex, and his trained ear noted the slight difference that
155s had compared to the 203s. The Army level guys must be done now, we're onto corps level
arty. The plan called for a full fifteen minutes of shelling by each of the various levels of artillery,
Army, with their 203s, Corps with the 155s, and finally Divisional with the 105s. And then the flyboys
would get their fun. And after that, at 1030 hours, the ground assault would be on after well over
an entire hour's worth of preparation.

"Has the liquor been distributed to the Janissaries in preparation for the assault?"

"The trucks arrived fifteen minutes ago, Cohortarch, they've been handing out the liquor
to them since." replied a young tetrarch who had been assigned as Old Timer's aide.

"Double their rations; they'll need all the liquid courage they've got to charge that factory."

Nodding, the aide went off to inform the supply troops to do so while Old Timer watched
the barriage fall.

[Rhino I Reaper - 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) over Tbilisi - 0930 Hours]

As her flight of Rhinos orbited over the city, waiting for the artillery barriage to end, the pilots
watched as the barriage exploded on the factory, which was wreathed in the smoke and flame
of near-continuous explosions.

Sure glad I ain't down there, thought Johanna.

"IVANS, ONE O'CLOCK!" came the shout over the earphones. Straining her head, she
saw the black dots on the horizon, closing at an incredible rate; impossible, they couldn't be
going that fast; hell not even her old Eagle II had been that fast!

[MiG-3 No. 75 "For Murman Choloqashvili" - 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) over Tbilisi]

Leitenant Ivan Kozhedub of the 240th Istrebitelsky Aviatsy Polk (Fighter Air Regiment)
looked out over the smoking hell of Tbilisi, and shook his head. It was criminal what the zmeii
were doing to that fine city below; his crew chief and a lot of the other men in the 240th IAP were
Georgians, and before the brand new MiG-3s had been sent on their first combat mission, they'd
pleaded with the pilots to have their aircraft named after their relatives who were missing following
the invasion of Georgia.

The pilots had been more than happy to oblige, and now they were flying for those who hadn't
made it out. Now it was time to return the debt the zmeii owed Russia, one round at a time.

"Zmeya Shturmoviks below us!" shouted one of the newer pilots, a fresh faced boy just out of
flight school whose name Ivan couldn't remember at the moment.

"Engage."

"Da." with that, Kozhedub firewalled his throttle, and sent his MiG into a steep dive towards
the lead flight of zmeii Shturmoviks.

[Rhino I Reaper - 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) over Tbilisi - 0934 Hours]

Johanna grunted as she manhandled the thick, heavy controls of the Rhino around, trying her best
to evade the damned Ivans, they'd cut through the formation like a scythe, guns blazing; her wingmate
had gone down from a cockpit shot, and her port engine was making very, very, bad noises.

Suddenly, heavy thumping noises rocked the airframe of her craft, and moments later, one of those
damnably fast Ivan fighters rocketed past her nose, turning away to avoid her nosefull of four twenties.

Looking over her instruments, she saw that she was losing fuel at an appreciable rate; damnit.

"This is Red Five, a hit must have holed my fuel tank, I'm losing fuel at a fast rate, aborting for
base now."

With that announcement made, she pulled the bomb release lever, and felt her Rhino shudder as
the four 250 kilogram bombs tumbled away, to explode somewhere in the burning city below.

[MiG-3 No. 75 "For Murman Choloqashvili" - 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) over Tbilisi]

"Chiort," muttered Kozhedub as he watched the Zmeya attacker turn away, smoking
heavily. His mount's armament of a single 12.7mm and two 7.62mms just wasn't enough
when dealing with these shturmoviks.

[XI Corps HQ - 0940 Hours]

"Damn," muttered Old Timer as he watched the Ivans tangling with their air support over their heads;
already several Rhinos had been shot down, with many more driven home, leaking fluids or smoke
of some sort. "Where are our damned fighters?" he muttered to no one in particular.

"They're on their way, should be here in twenty minutes; they were dealing with a Ivan bomber raid on
our railheads." remarked his aide.

"Doesn't matter; twenty minutes is too long; send a message to Army HQ; cancel the planned bombardment
now; and switch to the alternate plan. We're assaulting anyway; can't wait for our air support to unfuck it's
mess; damned flyboys."

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Machine Tool Hall - 1015 hours]

Drevnerussky rose from the floor and stared at the shattered wreckage of the Tool Hall, and noticed a warm
wetness running down both sides of his face. Raising his hands to his ears and then looking at them, he saw
blood. Now why everything seemed so silent was clear now. He was deaf, his eardrums blown out by the
enormous barriage.

Turning his head, he saw men's mouth open in screams, clutching at their chests, while others were missing
heads after steel beams from the roof had fallen and splattered their heads. Then he heard a low noise,
despite his deafness, that rose until it was the level of a man talking.

"BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala!"

"They're coming!" yelled Bolgorov in an exaggerated expression as he grabbed Drevnerussky by the
shoulder and threw him towards a pile of plamya warheads. "Feed me!" shouted Bolgorov
as he shouldered a RPG-1 he'd taken moments before from the body of one of his Raketniynas.

[XI Corps HQ - 1018 Hours]

Old Timer watched as the Janissaries swarmed towards the factory complex, an endless wave of black,
despite the bursts of Ivan mortar fire that cut down dozens of men at once, while hidden Maxim nests
opened up, scything down entire lines of men. There were simply too many Janissaries to stop, a veritable
human tidal wave that continued on, despite enormous casualties.

Behind the Janissaries were the Citizens, their Hoplite IFVs moving well behind the tidal wave of the Janissaries
and with reduced troop loads of just six men each, the empty space being filled with more HE ammuntion to
feed the deadly autocannons which were pouring 20mm fire into the Maxim nests, and also into groups of
Janissaries that were wavering on the edge of breaking.

Hmm. He'd have to suggest that to the Security Directorate people; Hoplite IFVs for Janissary corseting,
the 20mm had a much more salutatory effect than the .30 cal machine guns the Security Directorate
normally used for such operations.

Ahead of the tidal wave, the shell bursts of the Divisional artillery, the 105s, continued to support the advance,
walking ahead of the advance by several hundred feet; despite the occasional shell that landed short amongst
the men, causing horrific casualties.

"Is it wise, Cohortarch, to be using artillery that close to an advance?" asked his aide.

"Son, we used walking fire to break the Ankara line, it's actually safer, you're keeping the enemy down, and
you lose less people from your own side than you would if the enemy was unsuppressed. Didn't they teach
you this in school?" replied Old Timer in a derisive tone.

"No, it was all mobile warfare, using Fuller's and Tukhachevsky's doctrines."

"There's your problem there, no training at all in the school of smashing fortified defensive positions;
after all, wasn't the airborne developed to help us encircle them?"

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Machine Tool Hall - 1020 hours]

"BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala!"

The Janissaries poured onwards, their ranks greatly reduced since the beginning of their charge
twenty minutes ago, thousands of them lying dead or crippled in the dust behind them, their screams
drowned out by the Draka battle-cry and the carnage of war.

"They're in range now!" yelled Bolgorov as he took aim with his RPG-1. Pulling the firing trigger, he
closed the circuit from the battery in the pistol grip to the rocket motor of the grenade. A sheet of
flame shot out from the back of his launcher, and a line of smoke reached out towards the lead
ranks of the Janissaries before a small explosion thudded through the air as the small fragmentation
charge in the plamya rocket spread over a liter of burning napalm onto the onrushing Janissaries.

Dozens of Janissaries fell to the ground, wreathed in flame, screaming as their eyes burst under the
heat, and their lungs were seared to a crisp by the napalm.

"LOAD!"

Nodding, Drevnerussky slammed another one of the red tipped rockets into the back of the RPG-1
and connected the firing wire to the motor before moving out of the way and slapping Bolgorov on
the back of the head.

WHOOOSH went the RPG-1 and another cargo of napalm went on it's way towards the Janissaries,
who were starting to waver.

[XI Corps HQ - 1025 Hours]

"Damn," went Old Timer as he watched the Janissary tidal wave begin to falter and then break
at the very steps of the factory. "Send in the Aardvarks. No mercy for those who broke. Begin
sending in the Citizens, in tetrarchy strength only, also."

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Machine Tool Hall - 1030 hours]

WHABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. The entire world shook under the impact of the 155mm Spigot
mortar fired moments ago by the Aardvark II Combat Engineer Vehicle, which detonated just behind
the Janissaries who were cowering behind whatever cover they could find, sending dozens of them
flying through the air screaming.

Some Janissaries started moving forward towards the factory, while others didn't. Those who
didn't soon learned what else the Aardvark II carried; a coaxial flamethrower.

Finally, a full half an hour after the assault began, the first enemy troops began to reach the factory
itself; only to fall under the massed fire of Pepeshikas and SVTs. But there were more, far more,
where they came from.

The Factory hall soon dissolved into a hell of wild submachinegun fire, screams, grenade explosions,
and body parts flying through the air as the Janissaries slammed into the battlehardened frontoviki
of Rodimtsev's 87th Rifle.

Bolgorov heard someone shouting at the top of his lungs "Shtob vi vse zdohli, zmeii trizhdi yebnutiye,
snaryad vam z zhopu! Shtob u vas vseh hui otsoh, pidori gnoyniye!" over the din of battle while the
Pravda cameraman reloaded his RPG-1 for him.

Feeling the slap on his head again; he took careful aim and fired the RPG-1 towards a wall just next
to where the snakes were pouring in and grinned with glee as the pre-fragmented wire wrapped around
the shrapnel warhead tore the snakes into bloody bits.

"Take that, you sons of whores!" he shouted.

[XI Corps HQ - 1045 Hours]

"Not good, not good," muttered Old Timer as he watched the explosions and gunfire rock the factory
through his trench periscope. "Send in the citizens. The Janissaries are breaking again, they've got us
this far, and cleared out the initial nest of defenders. It's time for the real workers to take over."

Turning to the Security Directorate man who was lying in the trench next to him, Old Timer barely missed
a breath, "and have the entire XIX Janissary Corps decimated for their pitiful show of fighting spirit." he
added.

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Machine Tool Hall - 1050 hours]

They'd run out of ammo for the RPG-1, rather fast, firing as fast as you could into the swarming mass of
snakes tended to do that to you. Now, Bolgorov and Drevnerussky were pulling back into the corridors
connecting the Machine Tool Hall with the rest of the factory, crawling over the wreckage while bullets
whined bare centimeters over their heads.

Reaching the corridor, they paused to catch their breath, the sweat soaking their clothes through, when
a grizzled Starshina saw them and threw a Pepeshika at each of them. "C'mon you bastards! Get
up! The damn zmeii are trying to push through these corridors to flank us!"

Bolgorov paused only to see the look of pure terror on the cameraman's face before he leapt to his
feet, to follow the Starshina. You're getting some real great photo opportunities here, lets hope
you're remembering to take pictures.

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Entrance Hall - 1100 hours]

The first Janissary through the door died in a hail of Pepeshika fire, his body literally shredded by
hundreds of 7.62mm rounds from the platoon that had been assigned to hold the entrance hall;
the next one through met the same fate, and the one after that did so too.

Then the Janissaries got smart, and started throwing grenades in; which exploded amongst the
defenders, wreaking bloody carnage, and in this chaos, they assaulted the hall once more.

"BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala BuLala!"

Holding the trigger on his Pepeshika as far down as he could, Drevnerussky poured a storm
of lead into the onrushing human wall; his heart feeling like it was about to tear out of his chest,
it was beating so fast.

The corridor vanished in smoke and flame as a second round of grenades were thrown, this time
by the Russians, the fragments chewing into friend and foe alike.

Suddenly, his Pepeshika stopped it's unearthly chattering, and Devenrussky wasted no time in
dropping it and grabbing a SVT from one of the fallen frontoviki in the corridor. The Tokarev
was much different than the Pepeshika, no hammering vibration, but instead a slow steady
thumpa thumpa thumpa, as he fired it as fast as he could pull the trigger.

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Entrance Hall - 1230 hours]

"Fow'ard for'ward!" shouted the lead trooper in the Citizen platoon as they moved through the hall
that had taken over an entire hour to clear, the floor was choked with bodies of both sides as
well as thousands, perhaps millions of shell casings.

Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he saw a heavy shape falling from the stairwell, and barely
had time to recognize it for what it was - one of those infernal Flame Rockets, before it struck
a solid object and detonated, filling the hallway with napalm and screams.

Up on the landing above, Bolgorov and Drevnerussky grinned as they pulled the fuze pins from
a cache of RPG-1 rounds they'd found and tossed them over the side, into the Draka scum below.

[XI Corps HQ - 1400 Hours]

"Cohortarch, we've definitely cleared the entrance hall," announced one of the Tetrarchs who ran up
to him clutching a copy of the latest radio transmission from the platoons inside the factory.

Grabbing it, LeBrun stared at the report; a sick feeling growing in his stomach. Three whole hours
of non-stop fighting, a hundred plus citizen casualties, and well over two thousand Janissaries to
clear one cursed entrance hall!

Crumpling the paper in his fist, he turned to the Tetrarch. "Keep pouring the men in, we must
take that factory!"

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Machine Tool Hall - 1500 hours]

Despite being cut off from the rest of the Factory by the seizure of the Entrance hall, the Soviets
inside the Tool Hall continued to resist bitterly to the very last man and bullet; making the Draka
pay in buckets of blood for each and every step forward. When bullets ran out, teeth, boots, nails,
and shovels came into play, and many a Janissary or Citizen died due to sharpened Russian
steel separating their head from their body.

[XI Corps HQ - 1800 hours]

As twilight fell over the tortured city, LeBrun began to read the reports from the Tool Hall, that's
what they were calling it now; like it was an individual battlefield greater than all of Tbilisi. The
Janissaries had hit it at ten thirty in the morning, and even now, at six o clock at night, the
battle for the Tool Hall continued apace; well over four hundred citizens and 8,000 Janissaries
by last count had fallen to take that damned hall; and still the Ivans kept resisting.

Those weren't men in there, they were monsters. No that was too nice. Demons was
more appropriate. Inwardly, Old Timer wept; not even Ankara had been as bloody as this; this
was like all of Ankara compressed into a single building.

[Dzugashvilli Prospects Machine Tools Factory - Basement - 2030 hours]

Even now, at eight thirty at night, the gunfire continued in the corridors and hallways above
where the 87th Rifle had it's headquarters and medical stations. In the small room in
the basement that served as his private office, A.I. Rodimtsev wept as he read the latest
casualty reports from the day's fighting. He'd started with just nine thousand men, out of an
original strength of 16,500 when they'd marched into Tbilisi, and now at the end of the day,
only six thousand were left.

His contemplation was broken by the sound of his aide rushing in. "Comrade General, you
have to hear this!"

"What?"

"It's the latest news from Moscow!"

Rodimtsev walked out of his office, and heard Ivan Krasnov's voice booming out from
loudspeakers all over the factory complex that still worked.

"Brothers and Sisters of the Great Socialist Motherland!

In the weeks since the Drakan slavers began their latest offensives against us, an offensive
motivated purely by their self acclaimed urge to conquer and enslave, the people of the Soviet Union
have shown them what valour and honour truly means. They continue their advance now, into
Georgia, into Tbilisi, but for every step forward they pay a butchers bill in blood, I tell you the truth
when I say that the snakes that oppose us shall drown in their own blood. They are already paying,
paying a dear debt for the blood spilled and innocence despoiled, they sought to capture Baku
but gained nothing but a burned out corpse and a thousand oil fires spilling black smoke into the
air, they shall receive no more than this from us: Burned lands, rivers of blood, and the eternal
promise of ruthless vengeance!

I tell you this that whatever devil or witch should peer out from the pits of hell and gaze upon the
vengeance of the Soviet State, they shall tremble and cry 'WOE for the world of men has outdone
us', so terrible shall the price be that the blood of the Draka and their Janissary vermin shall freeze
to ice for a thousand years!

Who are our enemies then, that they think they can conquer us? I shall tell you who they are, they come
from three classes, the decadent and wicked aristocrat convinced that his birth grants him superiority
over all other men, and that his rank and family history somehow entitles him to more than what is the
due of other men! These so called gentlemen in their gaudy uniforms, how long did we not suffer under
their ilk? It is not long since we were sold into serfdom, staut workers and comely women made to stand
upon the Blue Bridge with placquards around their neck announcing their price and their virtues for
passersby, this too they would bring back! They ruled too with the whip and the rifle and the countless
petty traitors of oppression, and yet when the time came we rose and scraped them off, like the great
bear scraping off fleas against the stem of a tree. So too we shall throw off these vermin that invade
us now, and far easier now than then, for then we were divided into a dozen quarreling factions, yet now
we are welded together by one common will! More, for we shall end their rule wherever situated.

Second class is that of the bourgeouise, for nowhere else has the petty bourgeoisie established itself
in all of it's natural tyranny, they call themselves aristocrats! What a joke, the Drakan master class are
ostentatious middle-class fools, tear away the middle-classes attempts at morality and then give them
wealth, what you have is not aristocracy but the Draka, men with the taste of brothelkeepers, trying to
compete like peacocks for the attentions of others as deprived as they. They are nothing more than
white skinned savages given the baubles of civilization to adorn them!

Third class of the Drakan society are the masses groaning under oppression, so broken to the yoke
that they will not rise but must be freed, but here among this class we have an abundance of traitors!
Petty informants, straw bosses, and house serfs that adore their chains and sell out their brothers and
sisters for the smallest trinket of approval. From these classes come the dull, drilled, brutish masses
of Janissary infantry, motivated by drink and by rape and by loot.

What of us? What are we? We are nothing more than free men and free women, and that is enough,
for before freedom the Draka tremble! While there is a single man and a single woman that are still truly
free, while that is so the Draka cannot rest, while that is so they quiver with fear. We are FREE!

What do I mean when I speak of freedom?

Freedom is when you can tell your manager "I don't like this work, I shall find some other job," and leave
your work and find another job that suits you better!

Freedom is when you have been paid your wage, and with your own money which you EARNED with the
sweat of your brow you buy food, clothes, and pretty baubles for your family.

Freedom is the right to choose to see a movie if you want, or spend the night drinking kvas with your
buddies while playing chess.

Freedom is the right to save up your money and get a bicycle or a car, and then ride around in your oblast!

Freedom is the right to travel freely within your country, that you can say 'this province suits me not, I
shall go to another' by your own will.

It's so little, yet it's so much, and all of this will be lost if we lose, and yet this little freedom is so terrible
than the entire Drakan system of oppression would crumble into dust if they should grant it to all of their
people! These freedoms are so terrible that the Drakan system of oppression would crumble if even
they exist among the neighbours of the domination! So they invade to ensure that the dread ghost of
freedom should vanish 'Oh WOE hide us from this terrible light' the snake cries as he scurries into the
tall grass.

What do free men do with snakes? They crush their heads under their boots."

Today I dedicate my address to the brave men of the 87th Rifle Division, they are free men too, fighting in the
Dzugashvilli factory in Tbilisi they stood firm, an entire Corps of Janissaries backed by Citizens tried to storm
this factory, just this one factory, the factory which has become a rallying cry in our struggle. I direct you to
look upon the men of the 87th Rifle Division, pride in their country, hate of the enemy, and in their hearts love
of their comrades and of our precious freedom!

An entire Corps of Janissaries, thirty thousand slave soldiers driven on by the machine-guns of the Krypteria,
thirty thousand Janissaries up against a mere six thousand, and of the Draka? They who brag that one Draka
can slay ten Soviet soldiers, they themselves were forced to send six thousand Citizen Soldiers of their own
to match our brave fighting men! So many men to capture so small an area, but as the flood waves of Janissaries
rushed forward they broke against the firm rock of our brave Red Army, the Entrance Hall, the Machine Hall,
these names are like battlefields of their own, these names are written in blood, the Draka speak of them with horror.

You are our pride men of the 87th Rifles, your names shall live on eternal in the annals of the Soviet Union, you
have willingly given to us the greatest sacrifices and extertions, above and beyond the call of duty, till you have
reached the level of the heroic. Therefore with a proud heart I make these three announcements, first that the
87th Rifle division shall henceforth be known as the 3rd Guards division, second that special benefits shall be
given to the families of the brave men of the 3rd Guards, and third, that their commander, A.I. Rodimtsev, is hereby
bestowed the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Our nation is vast, our resources many and widespread, we shall not be overcome!"

[XI Corps HQ - 2100 Hours]

"Damn those Ivans, Damn them, growled Old Timer as Ivan Krasnov's voice faded from the nighttime
sky, the Ivans had special propaganda units set up just for this purpose; sowing dissent and doubt amongst
the Janissaries.

Turning to his aide, Old Timer sighed. "Contact Fifth Army Headquarters. I need reinforcements, preferably
another Corps of Janissaries for tomorrow. Maintain only the minimum security directorate presence near the front,
and have some urban combat citizen units remain. Give the Janissaries amphetamines and coca-leaves to keep
them going, have the boys egg them on of the next big push tomorrow. I don't want those Russkies to have a
wink of sleep, constant low grade pressure, have the citizens do occasional low level infiltrations, see if they can
capture some prisoners, and have the Janissaries continue firing through the night. Tomorrow we will have fresh
units, but the Russians will be exhausted."

*******************************************

Appendix - Ranks

Domination of Draka Rank System

Citizen Enlisted
E-1: Junior Monitor - Private (just joined)
E-2: Monitor - Corporal (some experience)
E-3: Decurion - Sergeant
E-4: Senior Decurion (no enlisted ranks beyond this because by
this point, you should be an officer or you're a retard, in their view)

Citizen Officers
O-1: Tetrarch (2nd Lt / Ensign)
O-2: Senior Tetrarch (1st Lt / Lieutenant JG)
O-3: Centurion (Captain / Lieutenant)
O-4: Cohortarch (Major / Lt Commander)
O-5: Junior Merarch (LT Colonel / Commander)
O-6: Senior Merarch (Colonel / Captain)
O-7: Junior Chiliarch (Brig. Gen / Rear Adm (Lower) )
O-8: Senior Chilliarch (Major Gen / Rear Adm (Upper)
O-9: Junior Strategos (Lt General/ Vice Admiral)
O-10: Strategos ( General /Admiral )
O-11: Senior Strategos (Colonel General / Marshal )
O-12: Arch Strategos ( Field Marshal / General of the Army )
O-13: Dominarch (Chief of the Supreme General Staff)

Janissary Ground Ranks

E-1: Recruit (first 6 months)
E-2: Trooper
E-3: Senior Trooper
E-4: Corporal (specialist for operating machinery, usually drivers, etc)
E-5: Sergeant
E-6: Color Sergeant
E-7: Master Sergeant

Janissary Naval Ranks

(NOTE: Insert Petty Officer for Sergeant - they can't call a JANISSARY
an OFFICER after all)

E-1: Seaman Recruit (First Six Months)
E-2: Seaman
E-3: Senior Seaman
E-4: Sergeant 3rd Class
E-5: Sergeant 2nd Class
E-6: Sergeant 1st Class
E-7: Chief Sergeant

Soviet Army/VVS Rank System

Officers
O-1: Leitenant (2nd Lieutenant)
O-2: Starshiy leitenant (1st Lieutenant)
O-3: Kapitan (Captain)
O-4: Major
O-5: Podpolkovnik (Lieutenant Colonel)
O-6: Polkovnik (Colonel)
O-7: General-Major (Brigadier General)
O-8: General-Leitenant (Major General)
O-9: General-Polkovnik (Lieutenant General)
O-10: General Armii (General)
O-11: Marshal
O-12: Glavniy Marshal
O-13: Marshal Sovetskogo Souza (Field Marshal / General of the Army)
O-14: Generalissimus (Ivan Krasnov)

Enlisted
E-0: Kursant (Cadet)
E-1: Ryadovoy (Private)
E-2: Efreitor (Corporal)
E-3: Mladshiy serzhant (Sergeant)
E-4: Serzhant (Staff Sergeant)
E-5: Starshiy serzhant (Technical Sergeant)
E-6: Starshina (Master Sergeant)
E-7: Mladshiy Leitenant (Sergeant Major)

Soviet Navy Rank System

Officers
O-1: Mladshiy Leitenant (Ensign)
O-2: Leitenant (Ensign)
O-3: Starshiy Leitenant (Lt JG)
O-4: Kapitan Leitenant (Lieutenant)
O-5: Kapitan III Rang (LT Commander)
O-6: Kapitan II Rang (Commander)
O-7: Kapitan I Rang (Captain)
O-8: Kontraadmiral (Rear Adm (Lower))
O-9: Vitseadmiral (Rear Admiral (Upper))
O-10: Admiral (Vice Admiral)

Enlisted
E-1: Matros (Seaman Recruit)
E-2: Starshiy Matros (Seaman)
E-3: Starshiy II Stepen (PO 3rd/2nd Class)
E-4: Starshiy I Stepen (PO 1st Class / CPO)
E-5: Glavniy Starshiy (Senior CPO)
E-6: Michman (Master CPO)

[Jadeite]

Whee! More crack!

EDIT: Great battle.

[MKSheppard]

Oh yes, forgot:

Thanks to Fgalkin for doing the russian commentary:

chiort = damn

shtob vi vse zdohli, zmeii trizhdi yebnutiye, snaryad vam z zhopu! Shtob u vas vseh hui otsoh, pidori gnoyniye!

roughly translates to 'may you all die a bad death, you triple-fucked snakes, may you all get an artillery shell up your ass. May your dicks shrivel and fall off, you stinking faggots (refering to the things they do to boys, of course)

zmeii = Snakes
zmeya = Snake

Thanks to Valberg for Writing Ivan Krasnov's Speech at the end

[Howedar]

Fucking outstanding.

[MKSheppard]

What is happeing to the civis on the Draka side of the line? Are the Draka leaving them in place until the situation is stablized. Or are they wasting a massive amount of effort, resources and time rounding them up into camps or herding them onto trains inorder to get them into the 'serf' indoctrination/distribution system ASAP?

Well......in Marching through Georgia, it appears that the Draka send
the fighting units through the place, and then the slavers arrive.

[Lonestar]

Great stuff. Keep it up.

[Sea Skimmer]

Great shit. If you even think about not pursing this story it its thousand-part end, there shall be consequences.

[Vympel]

What's the analog of the RPG-1? I forget. Sounds like Bazooka.

I'd prefer RPG-2 (aka "B-40") but that's fine

Kickass so far.

[MKSheppard]

What's the analog of the RPG-1? I forget. Sounds like Bazooka.

It's a 70mm calibre rocket launcher, very much like OTL bazooka, except
with a variety of different warheads.

BTW, Russians invented the Rocket propelled grenade system in this TL
in response to the 1936-37 clashes with the Domination; they realized
that their troops needed something capabul of knocking out Draka AFVs
without having to drag heavy ATGs around.

In this TL, the RPG-1 is original, the Bazooka is a direct copy of the
RPG-1 in this TL and the Panzershreck is directly inspired by it

I'd prefer RPG-2 (aka "B-40") but that's fine

Wait till 1943 or so

[PeZook]

I particularly liked Krasnov's speech in this one.
The battles go without saying, they've been great every time

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I want an answer...

[MKSheppard]

I want an answer...

One thing at a time, I'll do an appendix for Ch 10 answering your
questions as well as answering the question of WTF is going on
with Germany?

[Augustus]

What is happeing to the civis on the Draka side of the line? Are the Draka leaving them in place until the situation is stablized. Or are they wasting a massive amount of effort, resources and time rounding them up into camps or herding them onto trains inorder to get them into the 'serf' indoctrination/distribution system ASAP?

Well......in Marching through Georgia, it appears that the Draka send
the fighting units through the place, and then the slavers arrive.

Makes you wonder what would happen if the Draka, after being bogged down in a area for a long period of time, decided to "walk and chew gum" at the same time.

The Nazis after all dedicated a large amount of logistics, that could have been used elsewhere to moving people into the camp system because of ideology. The Draka are much more radical, so the internal pressure for them to move in and round up the civis (unclaimed Serfs) on their side of the line must be building up quite a head of steam by now.

Thanks for taking the time to reply Shep. Love the stroy - great stuff Keep it up!

[Norseman]

What is happeing to the civis on the Draka side of the line? Are the Draka leaving them in place until the situation is stablized. Or are they wasting a massive amount of effort, resources and time rounding them up into camps or herding them onto trains inorder to get them into the 'serf' indoctrination/distribution system ASAP?

Well......in Marching through Georgia, it appears that the Draka send
the fighting units through the place, and then the slavers arrive.

Makes you wonder what would happen if the Draka, after being bogged down in a area for a long period of time, decided to "walk and chew gum" at the same time.

The Nazis after all dedicated a large amount of logistics, that could have been used elsewhere to moving people into the camp system because of ideology. The Draka are much more radical, so the internal pressure for them to move in and round up the civis (unclaimed Serfs) on their side of the line must be building up quite a head of steam by now.

Thanks for taking the time to reply Shep. Love the stroy - great stuff Keep it up!

Well in OTL with rather less resources the USSR managed to evacuate
huge amounts of factories, in this TL where they have more time to
prepare and more resources in the first place, they are pulling off a mass
evacuation of civillians instead/as well, this will be surprisingly successful
but of course there are still millions of dead or enslaved civillians...

[Augustus]

Well in OTL with rather less resources the USSR managed to evacuate huge amounts of factories, in this TL where they have more time to prepare and more resources in the first place, they are pulling off a mass evacuation of civillians instead/as well, this will be surprisingly successful but of course there are still millions of dead or enslaved civillians...

What I meant was, that beacuse the Draka are more ideological than the Nazis are they are going to want to pick up every free person in the territory they have occupied and ship them back into Africa. Problem is at the rate they are loosing troops/supplies, moving in more puts a strain on the rail networks they are using. And it's pretty clear the Draka need every bit of the logistics support they can get in this fight.

I just thought it would be a nice angle if say some pompus-bureaucratic Draka (REFM type) decided it was time to herd up all the New Serfs, dispite Tbilisi being a warzone. In the process he has the brillant idea to build camps (in the rear), pull troops off the lines to staff them, and start commendering trains to ship them back to the Domination. This of course begins to tie up the rail lines and slows down Draka supplies/replacements, and drives the field commanders nuts!

Not that the Draka don't have enough handicaps already

[Norseman]

Well in OTL with rather less resources the USSR managed to evacuate huge amounts of factories, in this TL where they have more time to prepare and more resources in the first place, they are pulling off a mass evacuation of civillians instead/as well, this will be surprisingly successful but of course there are still millions of dead or enslaved civillians...

What I meant was, that beacuse the Draka are more ideological than the Nazis are they are going to want to pick up every free person in the territory they have occupied and ship them back into Africa. Problem is at the rate they are loosing troops/supplies, moving in more puts a strain on the rail networks they are using. And it's pretty clear the Draka need every bit of the logistics support they can get in this fight.

Actually they are a lot LESS ideological (think the Confederated States versus the Nazi's), indeed the Draka are most empathically not mystics, they held the Nazi's in disdain because the Nazi's gave up rationalism. Remember just because the Draka have an ideology that is abhorrent doesn't mean that they are stupid, or that they are unable to think clearly. If either were true they would not be nearly so formidable opponents.

I just thought it would be a nice angle if say some pompus-bureaucratic Draka (REFM type) decided it was time to herd up all the New Serfs, dispite Tbilisi being a warzone. In the process he has the brillant idea to build camps (in the rear), pull troops off the lines to staff them, and start commendering trains to ship them back to the Domination. This of course begins to tie up the rail lines and slows down Draka supplies/replacements, and drives the field commanders nuts!

Not that the Draka don't have enough handicaps already

He'd end up dead in a duel within days of trying to pull shit like this, a duel or a fragging to be sure, the military wouldn't stand for it. The Draka don't start rounding people up before they are good and ready, they basically allow routine local activities to go on as they normally have untill THEY are ready to move the locals out.

Remember the Draka are very methodical, first comes the military, then when the area is safe from immediate reconquest there comes the slavers who round everyone up into pens (churches or mosques), and then they decide what to do with them. Most of the villages would find themselves doing pretty much what they normally do, but under higher surveillance, and of course with several villagers being Drakan hostages. There are many ways to prevent escapes, for instance by punishing (not killing, punishing) an entire work gang if one of them escapes (that was very effective in many, many places, it works).

In the case of the USSR the Draka wouldn't bother doing anything in Tbilisi, but they would begin to round up villagers elsewhere and shipping them to Turkey or Persia (not Africa) at their leisure. The main concern is to avoid mass escapes, and big camps would create a very desirable target, whereas doing the round ups village by village would avoid that.

[The Last Rebel]

This has been an awesome story so far...you really capture the feel of war. Close quarters combat can be so cruel and nasty.
Weren't there a few battles on the Eastern Front that took place in a factory such as this? Stalingrad?

Why doesn'[t the Draka commander have the place bombarded til there's nothing left? Not that I would want them to but from a military standpoint it makes more sense.

Can't wait to see chapter 10.

[consequences]

This has been an awesome story so far...you really capture the feel of war. Close quarters combat can be so cruel and nasty.
Weren't there a few battles on the Eastern Front that took place in a factory such as this? Stalingrad?

Why doesn'[t the Draka commander have the place bombarded til there's nothing left? Not that I would want them to but from a military standpoint it makes more sense.

Can't wait to see chapter 10.

As a basic rule, some of the defenders almost always survives any bombardment, exspecially when they have well prepared positions.

Bombardment like that also opens you up to counterbattery fire far more, even at WW2 levels, and would let the Russian air superiority have an easy go at expensive difficult to replace equipment.

More importantly, at this point in the conflict, Janissaries may still be cheaper than artillery shells, and easier to replace in quantity at the front.

[MKSheppard]

Weren't there a few battles on the Eastern Front that took place in a factory such as this? Stalingrad?

Stalingrad mostly, along with Kharkov on a lesser scale, and
finally, BERLIN.

Why doesn'[t the Draka commander have the place bombarded til there's nothing left? Not that I would want them to but from a military standpoint it makes more sense.

They put pretty much everything they had down there, from Army
Level, Corps Level, finally to Divisional level artillery onto that tiny
factory......