Struggle: The Path to Power - Владимир Андерсон

It is an amazing and inexplicable thing when you begin to think irrationally in those moments when death is very close. There is a special feeling that does everything, that can do everything, and that must appear right now.

"They'll finish firing in about two minutes. Then they'll wait until we're dead here… and then they'll attack… Of course, they'll take someone wounded, and what will come of it? I don't know who that wounded man will be. We've got 20 minutes left before the deadline, and we can't take it…"

*** 07:31

The shelling is over.

Reconnaissance of the north has shown that the enemy there is as much as you can defeat and even keep someone alive. *** 07:33

Wide open field. Thirty-three survivors. And a column of black smoke rising three kilometers behind me.

The two remaining special forces did not participate in the direct breakthrough. The commander didn't want them involved. They're not going anywhere without their dead comrade. And if he's with them, it's a slower move.

"Comrade Major, are we retreating?" — Seversky and his aide caught up with the group not long after, but somehow not understanding — what was going on.

"Yes," Bolotnikov couldn't walk straight this time, not because of his burned leg, but because he had to carry the wounded man.

— I'm going back. That's where Wet stayed. — Wet's dead.

— It doesn't matter to us. He was killed by a Heavey. It's a matter of honor, Major. I'm going back.

— Leave it, Captain! Follow the group. We need all the forces we can get.

A Seversky warrior. For such a man, honor is incommensurable above life. His own, another's, it doesn't matter. For such a warrior, to die in battle is true happiness.

— Commander, I know. We weren't supposed to leave until ten to eight. You disobeyed orders, not me.

— the SWAT team went backwards to die.

— Halt! — Bolotnikov stopped himself and turned to face Seversky. — I have violated the order. Я! And I will be tried for it. But later. Right now I'm the commander. I give the orders. I'm responsible for everyone. You and everyone else. Including the dead… Wet's dead, and I'm ordering you to leave him there! We didn't wait as long as we should have, and I'm ordering a retreat! And you have two seconds to say "Aye" to all of this.

He had been given an order that didn't fit the situation, and he couldn't disobey it. But not to him… He cared more about the people he could save than about his own head, which he would have to pay for.

Not only that, but many people may not understand him: why he did it, why he, the one who has always been considered a model of discipline and order, suddenly violated the very foundation so rudely.

Right now he didn't care what they thought of him or how he would be punished. He had other things to do now.

And to fulfill them, he needs to accomplish just one thing…..

He knew he wouldn't need to show strength or agility or speed or anything else. The Seversky soldier would not resist even then. Bolotnikov would only have to pull the trigger.

Nothing complicated — a small movement, but then he, the commander, will be looked at as a murderer rather than as someone who has to sacrifice one to save the others….

And it is impossible not to shoot — so he will go away, followed by another, and another, and then everyone who remains will feel weak and afraid of shame less than death, and then there will be no one to save.

Seversky turned around, and a very heavy look lay on everything around him-anything but Bolotnikov.

The Spetsnazov nodded so that the copper mountain fell off his commander's shoulders, "There is a retreat, Comrade Major."

Bolotnikov began to help the wounded again and felt a thin chill begin to leave the index finger of his right hand.

He didn't want to think about why Seversky had done this, he was just glad he didn't have to divide "his" into "his" and "strangers".

Spider

In the morning, as usual, Ivan Tikhomirov set about clearing the corridor leading from the karak's office, where Ananhr now sat, to the main entrance of the building.

Vanya had not slept well, and his movements were sluggish and weak, as if the internal mechanism consisting of ten thousand gears had not been lubricated for ten thousand years. He didn't get enough sleep every day — he couldn't sleep for a long time: he thought that the plagues would come in and take him away for what he was. Although he had not made any mistakes yet, and there was nothing to make them on, he slept badly, and in the morning, when he woke up, he tried to remember the dream, but it had been months since he had been able to do so. It always seemed to him that he had dreamed something terrible and impossible, and his mood was the same.

Then he would come up to the surface and go about his duties, and try to do it in such a way that no one would have any questions, that no one would realize what was on his mind, and it all worked out, every morning.

But not today.

Today, just before the climb, the prefect had told him of something he couldn't imagine that stood so high in front of him that only the sky could be higher.

And the task, which from the mouth of the Mountain, consisted of only two words, pressed on the brain in such a way that it seemed to split into pieces.

"Round up the plague." Here's the assignment. How can a person present this solution? After all, a man will not present himself as an agent of the internal department of the SChK or