Two Dragonovs walk into a bar….
The two newly recruited Dragonovs swaggered into the bar as if they owned the place. They were the defenders of collectivism, the heart of the revolution. They looked around at the admiring faces of the others in the bar. Someone offered to buy them a drink; another gave up his seat to them. Of course, the ladies were falling over themselves to attract their joint attention. Then they noticed the old man in the corner.
He wasn’t impressed at all; in fact he didn’t even acknowledge their presence. "Hey, Uncle!” one of the soldiers shouted. "Hey, look at me.” The old man raised his head slowly. He looked the two up and down and shook his head,
"The arrogance of youth” he muttered to himself.
"What do you mean, Uncle?”
The two kommandos advanced menacingly towards him.
"Do you not know what this uniform represents?”
"Of course I do, I once wore it, many years ago. And I earned it. I didn’t fight in simulated battles and training exercises, I fought in real wars with real bullets. You don’t know you’re born in these peaceful times. I fought in the Elysee Campaigns you know. Ice Floe Oscar was my first engagement. I got a medal for that, me and everyone else in the unit.”
"Tell us more.”
The two new recruits sat at the old man’s table and listened as he recounted his tale.
The Old Man’s Story
Imagine a giant glass of vodka, comrade, a giant glass of vodka with lots of ice. That is what Ice Floe Oscar looks like. Now, think of trying to walk over this giant glass of vodka with everyone around you sliding into you and all the while bullets are whizzing past your ears. It’s no fun being on Elysee I can tell you. Yes, I was in the Black Fortresses campaign and fought in Timofiyeva Company and I did some things I’m ashamed to admit. I served in Colonel Kilumorlov’s HQ unit. He was a hard man I can tell you, but he was a good commander. He had to make some pretty tough decisions. We were facing the ONI mercenaries and their zombie horrors. It made your stomach churn just looking at them and it took effort just to shoot at them from a distance let alone go into close combat with them.
Our armour went in first followed by the assault troops and they quickly secured a bridgehead and we followed in the second wave. It was a bumpy start. The guys in front of us were sliding all over the place, into containers, each other and then we turned up an slid into the back of them. Then more slid into our backs; total chaos. Two Sierps followed in support.
We could see the enemy coming at us from two directions. One thrust came over the ice floe on our right and another cut across our front, landed on the hard ground ahead of us and advanced. I’m not sure, but guys in the front line said they saw some of the mercenaries slip into the water, but I didn’t see that. All I could see was a transport heading towards us. The Hetman on the front line almost destroyed it but the zombies inside managed to debus and the transport cut our frontline to ribbons with its machine guns. We managed to hold on, though. The two support striders mortared the enemy and held the zombies up long enough for us to hold the position.
On our right things were sometimes going our way and at others not. The mercs’ tank had kept the Hetman under constant attack, raining shells down on it at every opportunity. Miraculously, they either missed or bounced off the strider’s armour. Whoever was in command of that vehicle was a damned lucky sonovakulak!
The mercs also had a transport which turned out to be carrying Tacarms with Zombie Guns which they used to good effect. We managed to get one but the others were a constant pain in the gulag for us. This is where the tough decisions came in. When the Zombie Guns caused a casualty the men hit were killed but were resurrected as zombies. Don’t ask me how that works, I’m only a grunt. Gencol could probably explain. Anyway, you’ll get used to the sound of a Zombie Gun and live to fear it.
Back to my reminiscing. I’m not boring you am I? Another vodka would be good, thanks. The units that got hit were not having great success dealing with all the zombies that were springing up so the colonel ordered us and an RPG unit to open fire. We got the zombies but we also got our own men too. I think we shot more of our men than the enemy did. We won the day but it wasn’t easy. So, where’s that vodka?
"So comrades come rally
and the last fight let us face.
The intersiderial unites the human race."
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