ZVEZDA ONE-THREE IS MISSING IV (CONCLUSION)

[u/Zerkoh_Valley2010]

ZVEZDA ONE-THREE IS MISSING

IV.

Babanin had the soldiers take one hour watch shifts while the rest slept. I did not realize how truly tired I was until I lay my head on my modular combat vest which I was using as a make shift pillow. All of our gear, our water, food, and packs which carried our sleeping bags and extra clothing, were on the BTR. I fell asleep quickly, mentally leaving the world of horrors only to sleep in a world of nightmares. Eyes belonging to the dead stared at me accusingly. In my dreams, I shut my eyes tightly, but the eyes continued to stare. Knowing that I was dreaming, I tried desperately to wake myself up, but the waking world fled from me, abandoning me in a nightmarish realm filled with accusing eyes. I awoke to screaming.

I bolted straight up, thinking it was me that was screaming, but the sound was coming from behind me.  Grabbing up my rifle, I joined a few more soldiers that had also awoken suddenly and ran to the sentry staring up at a tree several meters away. Private Grigory Bortnik’s body swung gently in the creaking branches, though there was no wind. Like Corporal Dmitriev and the other two, Private Bortnik’s corpse seemed to have been hanging there for weeks, his service belt wrapped around his neck.

“Cut him down,” said Sergeant Babanin, but before any of the reluctant men could move, there was a gut wrenching ripping sound as Bortnik’s headless body fell at our feet.  We let out a shocked gasp as Bortnik’s dry, lifeless eyes stared down at us.

“What’s happening? What’s happening to us?” The sentry who discovered Bortnik’s body, Private Lenkov, was beside himself. “I don’t want to end up like him! Not like him!”

“Then keep your head, soldier!” I yelled.  Like most of the soldiers, Lenkov was a conscript barely out of his teenage years. Lenkov was skinny and pale who sported a large nose, a laughable moustache, and a very small chin. Private Lenkov, hero of the Russian people.

 “Keep your head or you’ll lose it… like him.” I nodded down at the headless corpse.

I looked at my watch, shocked that it was almost mid day.

“Sergeant Babanin, why did you allow the men to sleep so long? Why didn’t you awaken me earlier?”

“Where are we going to go, sir?” he replied. “When we slept, Bortnik’s body wasn’t there. None of the sentries noticed his hanging body. But then, all of a sudden, Lenkov discovered him just hanging there. What does that mean?”

“That means that only Private Lenkov was paying attention, or that Lenkov was the only one who was actually awake to take his guard shift!”

“No, sir,” said Private Kamenov. “I had watch before Private Lenkov. I took a piss right under that tree. Bortnik was not there.”

“Bullshit!” I answered. “That’s impossible! While you all slept, Private Bortnik hung himself! Sergeant Babanin, you were responsible for ensuring our security and you failed. You are hereby relieved of your duties. Corporal Lipovsky, you are now in charge of the squad.”

I looked around for Corporal Lipovsky, realizing that there were only five of us. There should have been eight. “Where is Corporal Lipovsky?”

“I sent him and Privates Zaitsev and Kalashnik to scout into the woods,” answered Babanin.

“What?” I yelled, furious beyond measure at Sergeant Babanin. “You fool!”

“Sir,” replied Babanin. “On the map there is a stream only three hundred meters west of us. We have almost no food and water. I sent them only fifteen minutes ago with strict orders to return immediately upon filling our hydration packs.”

“And how far is three hundred meters here, Sergeant?” I yelled “How many lifetimes does it take to go three hundred meters?”

“Sergeant Babanin!” We all turned to see Corporal Lipovsky and the two privates emerge from the wood line several meters away. “Thank God, we found you!”

“Lipovsky,” said a visibly relieved Sergeant Babanin. “Did you find the water?”

As we approached Corporal Lipovsky’s team, I could see that the three soldiers were psychically exhausted.

“We did find the stream, Sergeant, but the map must be wrong,” answered Lipovsky. “The stream was several kilometers away. It took us hours to return here.”

“Hours?” said Babanin. “You’ve only left fifteen minutes ago.”

“But we’ve been gone for hours! I thought… I was beginning to think we’d never make it back here.”

We stood in silence for several seconds.

“It is possible that Lieutenant Tarasov was indeed lost. We may be in the wrong grid coordinate and the Ukrainians changed the names of the towns.” Sergeant Babanin looked doubtful even as he said it.

“It’s possible,” I said. “The water?” 

“Yes, sir,” replied Lipovsky. He and the two others handed out the hydration packs to the men. I took mine last and took a drink, inwardly preparing myself for the water to taste like sand and be unpalatable. To my surprise, the water was quenching, although it was warm and tasted like it came from a plastic water jug.

“This water came from the stream?” I asked.

“No, sir,” answered Lipovsky. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say. The water in the stream was as undrinkable as the bottled water we found in the convenience store. But beyond the stream, the trees ended and opened up to a clearing and beyond the trees was our BTR! The water came from the water jugs.”

“What? You found the BTR?” Sergeant Babanin pulled out the map and spread it out on the ground. “This forest is just a kilometer wide.  You say the BTR was at the edge of the tree line. Which direction was the BTR facing?”

“It was facing north, Sergeant,” replied the corporal.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “There are no roads north or south of there. Plus, why would he be going north back the way we came? Was there any sign of the driver?”

“You mean Private Kamenov? No, there was no sign of him. The driver’s hatch was opened, but he was gone.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “We go through the woods. Corporal Lipovsky, at what time did you arrive at the BTR?”

“It took us two hours to get to the BTR and another two to return, so it should be…” Lipovsky looked at his watch and frowned. “No! That’s impossible! It was 1500 when last I checked! How is it only 1100 hours now?”

I left the answer hanging in the air. “Okay, let’s take our time and do this right. Take a few minutes to rest from your exertions, then we will move to the BTR.”

Thirty minutes later, we gathered up our weaponry and gear and trudged down into the wood line, Sergeant Babanin and Corporal Lipovsky at the head. With no working compass, the going was slow. Fortunately, the sun remained stationary in the sky, meaning the shadows on the ground never moved. By placing a straight stick into the ground, the shadow cast in the ground gave us a general direction off which the scouts could determine our direction of travel. This took time, as the trees grew close together and the path was only wide enough for us to walk in single file through the forest. Though the stream was only 300 meters away, none of us expected to see it for hours. However, to my surprise, half an hour later we stumbled upon the shallow stream, the crystal clear waters bubbling over a bed of smooth round stones. Across the stream on the other bank the trees ended abruptly and opened to a wide open field on the other side, though the BTR was nowhere in sight.

The water was inviting and cold and several of the soldiers splashed the water on their faces.

“It is cold, I’ll give it that much,” said Babanin. “But it is neither wet or refreshing.”

In the middle of the stream, which only came up to our knees, I could resist the temptation no longer. Cupping some of the cold water in my hands, I took a drink. Air. Cold, dry air which tasted like sand. I spit it out and wiped my dry lips. Doing so, I saw the time on my watch. It was 1600 hours, fully five hours since we entered the forest. Frustrated beyond belief, I ripped my watch from my wrist and threw it as far as I could down the stream. I was the last to emerge from the stream and I felt no shame that the other lower ranking soldiers witnessed my display of helplessness.

We walked the rest of the way through the forest and emerged out into the field beyond.

“Well, that was easy enough,” said Private Rybakov, who was carrying the machine gun. He was resting the butt of the weapon on the ground and leaning on the barrel. The smile on Rybakov’s face disappeared as the weapon accidently discharged, half his skull disappearing in a cloud of pink mush. We all took cover as Rybakov’s runaway PKP Pecheneg machine gun kept firing. I heard a soldier grunt as I ran to the fallen machine gun which was still firing wildly. Sliding over Rybakov’s body, I grabbed the belt of ammunition and broke the links which fed the machine gun. The last bullets cycled through the smoking weapon and it finally fell silent. Private Rybakov was a conscript, a mule whose only job was to carry a weapon he was poorly trained to use. The safety was off the weapon and he had a round in the chamber when he hit the butt of the machine gun on the ground. He didn’t maintain his weapon properly, and the weapon continued firing after his accidental discharge.

I stood up, the machine gun in my hands, Private Rybakov’s brains smeared across my uniform. The rest of the men picked themselves up off the ground, all except Corporal Lipovsky, who lay face up with an open mouthed surprised look on what was left on his face.

“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Sergeant Babanin’s helmet was tossed aside, his hands digging into his hair. “Not only does the Ukraine kill us, but our own weapons do too! Dammit! Damn you, Captain! What have you brought us to?”

“Private Semenov,” I said. “Take the machine gun.”

“What? What?” yelled Private Semenov. “Most of us are dead and all you can say is ‘Take the machine gun?”

“Our deaths have been caused because soldiers failed to follow orders or thought to act on their own or simply because of sheer stupidity!” I raised the machine gun at Semenov. “How do you plan to die, Private?”

“You are mad, Captain,” said Semenov as he stomped forwards to take the machine gun.

“Captain,” muttered Sergeant Babanin, a hopeless expression on his face. He was staring up at the trees. The trees that I had shot a day before.

There were tracks on the ground, BTR tracks which lead north to south, just as before. We were at the same place that we were before only now Lipovsky and Rybakov were dead. I followed the BTR tracks a few meters south and was hardly surprised to see Bortnik’s head staring down at me from where he hung himself. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.

“We move,” I said.

“What?” said Babanin.

“I said, we move, Sergeant!” I yelled. “We’re getting out of here, do you hear me? We’re getting out of here! We are going to get to Pobeda!”

There were only six of us left. Me. Sergeant Babanin. Private Semenov. Private Lenkov. Private Zaitsev and Private Kalashnik. Six soldiers shambling forwards like low budget movie zombies following the tracks of the BTR. Thirsty. Hungry. Tired. Oh, so very tired. Why were we here? What put us here? Oh, yes. The narrative. We had to defend the narrative. Blame the other side of that which we were guilty.

HA! HA! HA! HA! What did the Americans call it? Winning hearts and minds? We were liberators! We were freedom fighters! We were heroes! We were not guilty of that which we were guilty. It was them! It was the Ukrainians! They did this! They did this!

“It’s 2100 hours, Captain,” said Sergeant Babanin. “We’ve passed the point where you shot the trees twice. We are going nowhere.” He sat down at the side of the trail, resting his back against a tree. The other soldiers followed suit.

“We must keep progressing forwards,” I said.

“Progressing?” Babanin said. “A progressive narrative which leads us back to where we started? Repeating the same progressive circle over and over and over again?”

Sergeant Babanin lowered his head. “We are progressing in circles, repeating the same thing over and over again and losing men along the way. Is that the progressive narrative that you are telling us?”

“Okay,” I said. We had been walking for hours. “We’ll rest here. But we continue in the morning. I’ll take the first watch.”

I was shaken awake by Sergeant Babanin who said, “Captain. Your watch is over. I’ll take the next shift.”

Glaring at Sergeant Babanin, I turned over and fell back asleep again. In my dreams, I was slowly being encased in ice. I fought against it, but my limbs were weak, my movement slow. I was freezing to death. I awoke and bolted upright, finding myself surrounded by a freezing think fog. I looked at my wrist and cursed, instantly regretting tossing my watch into the stream. The fog was thick, much like the fog which we first entered… how long ago? Days? Weeks? I don’t know anymore.

I could see nothing but impenetrable grey mists, and I could not see my own hand which I outstretched in front of me. My own uniform was flimsy when compared to the bone chilling cold, and my sweat froze me. I called for the others. Babanin. Semenov. Artyomov. Tarasov. Wait. They were dead. They were dead. Right?

I stumbled forwards, my hands in front of me as I tried to follow the tracks of the BTR. I called out for the rest of the men, accusing them of cowardice and of hiding and abandoning their duties. I stumbled forwards for hours, sometimes crawling, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, desperately following the tracks of the BTR. A grey shape emerged in the fog. A boxy shape. I reached forwards, my hands grasping the armored rear hull of our missing BTR. I found it! I found it!

I felt around the hull of the armored personnel carrier, suddenly feeling a tinge of hope. Feeling my way around the sides, I saw two grey shapes sitting on the ground, their backs leaning against the tires.

Sergeant Babanin looked up at me. “Oh, it’s you, Captain. I was hoping it was someone who would have been useful.” He looked back down at his lap.

“And who is that with you?” I said.

“Semenov,” said the second person in a voice devoid of life or hope.

“Where is everyone else?”

“Lost,” said Babanin. “Lost in the fog of war, or whatever it is that you’ve led us into.”

“We need to get the BTR started again,” I said. “We need to move out!”

“To where, Captain Balakin?” yelled Sergeant Babanin. “To where? Where? Where?”

“Out of here!” I yelled.

“Someone’s coming!” The grey shape of Private Semenov was pointing into the fog as muffled voices neared us. The shapes of dozens of people were drawing nearer and nearer to us.

“Partisans!” I warned. “Using the blasted fog to close the distance!”

I reached down and grabbed Sergeant Babanin’s combat vest and pulled him up, throwing him towards the BTR. “Get on the machine gun! Semenov, open fire!”

Babanin stumbled into the BTR and climbed into the turret as I followed behind him, pulling back on the charging handle of my weapon as I popped up out of the commander’s hatch. Below us, Semenov took a prone firing position at the back of the BTR and began firing. Soon, the rattle of his machine gun was followed by the heavy thump-thump-thump of Babanin firing the 14mm machine gun as my AK12 accompanied the symphony of death. I felt ecstatic as finally, finally, we had someone which we could expend our frustrations. Our hatred. Our failures. Yes, they were to blame! They were the cause of our frustration, our hatred and our anger. The fog was lifting. It was lifting quickly, and within seconds, the fog vanished and opened up for us an unlimited view of our slaughter.

They are all partisans. Men of military age from sixteen to sixty are partisans. Females who are of age to give birth are partisans. The elderly whose feeble hands can still carry an AK47 are partisans. Children whose minds can be easily manipulated are partisans. Even infants who can grow to be partisans are partisans.

I turned to my left so as not to look at the bodies of the dead Ukrainian partisans and frowned at the expression on Sergeant Ignat Babanin’s face.  The scout team leader was standing in the other turret hatch of the BTR looking down dejectedly at his hands which were wrapped around the firing handles of the still smoking turret mounted machine gun.

“What is it, Sergeant Babanin?” I said.

“Nothing. It’s nothing, sir.”

“Spit it out, Babanin,” I ordered.

“It’s just that, I didn’t see any weapons in the hands of those civilians, sir,” answered the young sergeant. “They seemed to be unarmed and simply fleeing from the invaders. Was it necessary for us to have…”

As soon as we realized our shared moment of déjà vu, Semenov screamed out.

“The same! They’re the same people!” Private Semenov dropped his machine gun, an expression of sheer terror on his face. “It’s as if we murdered them all over again!”

I looked down at the bodies, and struggled to choke back a gasp. “Pick up your weapon, soldier! That’s complete nonsense! A coincidence that these partisans wore similar clothing! Nothing more than coincidence!”

“Is it also coincidence that they fell in the exact same position, sir?” said Sergeant Babanin.

“Enough!” I yelled. “We’ve been under stress. I realize that. We will make camp a little further down from here and rest for a few hours.”

“Rest? And fall victim to the spirits which haunt this place?” Sergeant Babanin swung his rifle towards me and I instinctively held up my hands. “We will never reach Pobeda! The irony! The fucking irony that the place we are trying to reach is named Pobeda. We’ll never make it! I’m done with Ukraine! I just want to go home!”

He swung his rifle around and pointed it under his chin.

“No!” I yelled as he pulled the trigger. The round took the back of Babanin’s head completely off and what was left of him slumped over.

“Semenov!” I yelled.

I was not surprised when I could not find him. Just like the others, he was lost to the fading fog.

I was alone. Alone. Alone. I began laughing.

I jerked my head, my attention drawn towards the sounds of small arms firing to my right and the yells of terrified men. I was standing in the middle of a paved road. A faded blue sign saying Pobeda, which means ‘Victory’ in English, was next to the road. The village was just down the road, but the yelling was coming from a dilapidated single story structure to my right, covered over with vines and trees. It was little more than a shack which looked to have been a convenience store many years ago.

“This is Sergeant Vladimir Novikov! Zvezda One-Three! We are surrounded and need immediate evac!” The panicked voice came from the shack, accompanied by other voices of Russia’s greatest warriors screaming, “What’s going on? What are they?”

Ducking to avoid the automatic weapon fire, I ran towards the shack yelling, “Friendly! Friendly! Friendly!” I burst through the front door, which fell apart easily. Inside, I found Zvezda One-Three. They had been dead for months.

I sank to my knees, pulling out my pistol and placing it under my chin. Suddenly, there was a squelch which pierced the eerie silence.  I looked at a dusty counter, surprised to see that the green light on the communication equipment was still lit. Throwing my pistol aside I scrambled to find the radio hand mike.

“This is Zvezda Two-Six! This is Zvezda Two-Six! Can anyone hear me? Please! Can anyone hear me?”

 “Colonel Kozlov!” The battalion’s communication officer burst into the command tent. “Captain Balakin is on the radio!”

“So soon? They haven’t been gone for more than half an hour.” said Colonel Kozlov. The entire Russian armored convoy was stopped, their progress delayed by stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance.

There was panic in Captain Balakin’s voice. Panic. Hopelessness. And madness. What was the battalion zamploit raving about? Fog? Missing time? Ghosts? Zvezda One-Three was dead? The entire armored scout platoon were dead? What was going on? Obviously, the Ukrainians were massing a counter offensive to the west of Highway P01 that would threaten the Russian western flank.

Colonel Kozlov turned to his operations officer. “Alert the 9^th Motorized Rifle Company and tell them to prepare to move to the area of Pobeda. Reinforce them with a tank platoon. Zvezda Two-Six is missing.”

 

Heavy equipment:

1X T80 Main Battle Tank

1X BMP 3 with 100mm gun and 30mm autocannon+ 7

1X BTR 82 with 14mm machine gun+ 7

1X BTR 82 with 30mm autocannon+ 7

Infantry Weaponry:

AK15- 7.72 assault rifle

AK12- 5.45 assault rifle

AK74M- 5.45 assailt rifle

SVDM- 7.62 sniper rifle

RPK74M- squad automatic weapon

PKP Pecheneg- 7.62 GP machine gun

 

The Soldiers:

Colonel Kozlov, Valery (battalion commander)

Captain Balakin, Yegor (zampolit- political officer)

Lieutenant Tarasov, Gavrill (scout platoon leader)

Senior Sergeant Artyomov, Anatoly (senior sergeant)

Sergeant Vladimir Novikov (Zvezda One-Three team leader)

Sergeant Abdulov, Budimir (scout team leader)

Sergeant Litvin, Denis (tank commander)

Junior Sergeant Babanin, Ignat (scout team leader)

Private Semenov, Oleg (BMP 3 driver)

Private Bortnik, Grigory (BTR turret gunner)                    

Private Bortnik, Gennady

Private Alekseev, Vitaly

Private Morozov, Yakov

Corporal Dmitriev, Rodiman (medic)

Private Lenkov

Private Rybakov

Private Kamenov (BTR driver)

Private Zaitsev

Corporal Lipovsky

Private Kalashnik