Forest 2

For Political Commissar Valentin, every meeting with Major Mashkov was an ordeal. The man, bloated in rank and belly, was a bureaucratic parasite—no one knew how he had climbed so high, but everyone guessed it had little to do with competence.

That night, Valentin entered Mashkov's office with a sense of foreboding. The major greeted him with a smile stretched unnaturally across his fleshy face. His uniform strained at the buttons, as if his body were trying to escape the facade of command.

"Comrade Political Commissar, please, have a seat," Mashkov said, gesturing with exaggerated courtesy.

Valentin remained standing. "Out with it, Comrade Major. What do you want?"

Mashkov's smile twitched. "It's simple. I need you to oversee the base tonight. I've been ordered to check on the status of reinforcements at the rear."

Valentin's expression hardened. "You're deserting."

Mashkov's nostrils flared. "No, no—you misunderstand—"

"Save it." Valentin's voice was ice. "You're abandoning your post in the middle of a war. Don't bother with lies."

Caught, Mashkov dropped the act. He threw up his hands. "Fine! I am leaving. Do you blame me? Moscow says reinforcements are 'coming soon'—what does that even mean? Hours? Days? We'll be dead before they arrive, butchered and strung up by those Chechen fanatics. You saw what happened in Grozny!"

Valentin stepped closer. "And you're a soldier. We follow orders. We don't run."

Mashkov scoffed. "Soldiers? Orders? Comrade, you're still dreaming the communist dream. That's dead, just like the Soviet economy. You want to die for a slogan? Be my guest. I prefer to live."

He spat on the floor, grinding it in with his heel. "Your ideals mean nothing in a mass grave."

Valentin's eyes narrowed. He took a long breath, as if tasting Mashkov's betrayal on the air.

"Do you know the chief duty of a political commissar during the Great Patriotic War?" he asked quietly.

Mashkov rolled his eyes and reached for his coat. "I don't care."

Bang.

The gunshot shattered the stillness. Mashkov crumpled like a sack of potatoes, a neat hole in the back of his head. His blood sprayed across the portrait of Lenin on the wall, painting the revolutionary's face in crimson.

Valentin lowered his pistol. "The duty," he said coldly, "is to shoot cowards."

The door burst open. Mashkov's guards rushed in, wide-eyed at the sight of their fallen commander and the smoke curling from Valentin's pistol.

"Major Mashkov attempted to desert. He has been executed." Valentin's voice was iron. "Does anyone else wish to join him?"

No one spoke. A few backed away.

"Good. Get back to your posts. And clean up this filth before I return."

"Yes, Comrade Political Commissar," one guard stammered.

Valentin turned and marched toward the exit. He'd barely reached the door when a soldier burst in, pale and panting.

"Commissar—bad news. The Chechens have launched a full assault. They're hitting us hard."

Before the words fully registered, an explosion rocked the base. Glass shattered. Dust and plaster rained from the ceiling. The men ducked instinctively as the shockwave tore through the hallway.

Valentin slapped the dazed soldier's cheek gently. "Pull yourself together. Back to your position."

He grabbed a Kalashnikov from the nearest rack and turned to the others. "Let's go, comrades. We hold this base tonight. The reinforcements will arrive in the morning—and when they do, we'll meet them still standing."

As they filed out into the howling night, the landscape was a hellscape of fire and snow. Flashes of light cut the sky; smoke choked the cold air. The birch trees, ghostly in the darkness, were silhouettes against the flames.

The trenches were full of young soldiers, many barely shaving. They wore white camouflage, pressed into the snow, rifles clutched in trembling hands. They had no artillery. No air cover. Just iron will and bayonets.

Valentin climbed up the parapet and crouched beside them, scanning the tree line. The militants were there—he could feel them, sense them. Dozens. Hundreds. Creeping through the darkness.

He turned to the men and said, "The Soviets will never give up."

The words passed like electricity through the trench. The men gripped their rifles tighter. Breaths were held.

Then came the command.

"Open fire!"

From behind the birches, Chechen fighters surged forward—then chaos. Muzzle flashes ripped open the night. Kalashnikovs spat fire, tracers tore across the snow, and the sharp, terrible rattle of war began again.

"Hurrah!" the Soviet soldiers cried, rising from the trenches like ghosts from the snowdrifts.

It was no longer a defense—it was defiance.

Blood soaked into the snow.

But not one of them turned back.

The Chechen militants came like waves, their bodies strapped with explosives, charging forward with cries of "Long live freedom!" In the first tentative assault, over a dozen were gunned down before they could reach Soviet lines—but they had learned something. There was a way through: a human bomb could do what a hundred rifles could not.

It was crude, horrifying, but effective. Their numbers vastly outmatched the defenders, and in their warped calculus, a martyr's life was a small price to crack the Soviet front.

The southeast flank bore the brunt. Heavily fortified, it became a slaughterhouse. But the militants had studied the field. The birch forest to the southwest—sparser, less defended—held promise.

The main wave ran southeast, shouting, shooting, dying. It was a diversion. Under cover of the chaos, the real force crept through the birch woods.

But Comrade Valentin had seen it coming.

After the first failed attack, he ordered MON-50 directional mines laid in a staggered fan across the forest floor—cold, silent steel waiting for flesh and bone. Snipers nestled behind frozen trunks, scopes steady, breaths held.

"No matter what happens on the southeast front," Valentin had warned, "no one leaves this line unless I give the order."

The first suicide bomber exploded in front of a Soviet bunker, his scream echoing in the white dark like something biblical. Then another. And another.

It was like the ghost of Nomonhan in 1939 all over again: waves of flesh against fortified fire.

Machine guns rattled. AKs flashed. Men screamed. And still they came.

In the birch forest, the mines finally came to life. One false step, one kicked wire, and an inferno of steel erupted—more than 4,000 steel balls flying outward in a sixty-degree arc. The trees became death traps. Chechen fighters screamed as they were torn apart mid-stride.

Ivanov, his face flecked with mud and blood, reloaded frantically. Beside him, a comrade fumbled for a fresh magazine—then a stray bullet caught him through the cheek. He collapsed silently, still clutching the magazine in his hand.

"Medic! Medic!" Ivanov cried. But there were no medics left—at least none who weren't already firing rifles of their own.

Everyone was a fighter now. Everyone was bleeding. And still, they believed: Hold until dawn, and reinforcements will come.

None of them knew the truth—that there were no reinforcements, only Valentin's desperate white lie to keep them standing.

Ivanov wiped blood from his friend's face and covered him with a cap. Then, wordless, he rose again, raised his rifle, and continued to fire.

Something had changed. They no longer flinched. No longer hesitated. Death no longer frightened them. These boys were soldiers now.

And then—a breach.

One explosion, louder than all the rest, sent a shudder through the trenches. A suicide bomber had found his mark. Soviet machine gun nests and armored vehicles were obliterated. A hole had been punched through the line, and militants flooded in like a black tide.

The trenches became an abattoir. Rifles gave way to bayonets, fists, grenades. A young soldier, mortally wounded, drove a blade into a Chechen's gut and fell with him. Another clutched his own grenade, pulling a militant close before detonating—taking five with him in a final, flaming embrace.

"Long live the Soviets!" he screamed as the night erupted around him.

It was blood for blood, man for man. But their sacrifice bought time.

The second line of defense—reinforced concrete, interlocking bunkers—held firm. The militants, exhausted and reduced, struck and struck again, only to be repelled. The ground was littered with bodies, and still they came, but eventually, even zeal has limits.

By dawn, they retreated—angry, beaten, and limping into the dark.

Inside the bunker, Comrade Valentin finally allowed himself to exhale. But it was shallow relief. He knew this wasn't over.

He leaned over the map of the base, fingers tracing the breach. His voice barely above a whisper. "The next assault will be the last. If we don't hold—" He didn't finish the thought.

He closed the map. There was no point in planning further.

"To the front," he ordered the guards. "Burn the documents. This place won't stand much longer. We fight from the line now."

Valentin looked around the office—his home for half a year. Then he picked up his rifle, slung the ammo bag across his shoulder, and stepped into the fading dark.

The bunker trembled beneath his feet. Dust rained from cracked walls. But his steps were firm. His hands steady.

"I am a Party member," he whispered. "I am ready to sacrifice at any time."

Outside, the black sky was lit by flares. Tracers stitched arcs through the night like vengeful fireflies. The earth groaned under the weight of war.

He reached the gate, raised his rifle, and shouted to the weary soldiers still manning their positions.

"Comrades! The Soviet Army does not retreat! We do not surrender—not while one of us still stands!"

Their answer came not in words, but in movement.

Magazines clicked into place. Bayonets fixed.

They turned toward the black horizon—toward the final assault.

And they waited.