… Февраль … 1949 года …
… Новая Земля…
… Метеостанция СССР…
Маленькая керосиновая лампа слабо освещала своим тусклым пламенем крошечное пространство темного блиндажа. Его света едва хватало, чтобы осветить стол, на котором вперемешку лежали несколько карт. Одна была явно военного образца, словно только что вырванная из офицерского планшета. Вторая была куда более странной, с множеством точек и тире, которые обычный человек не мог разобрать, по крайней мере, в первые секунды. Третья была выцветшей. Во многих местах бумага проступала сквозь чернила от многократно сложенной карты. По краям едва различимы, особенно в полумраке блиндажа, карандашные пометки, сделанные довольно красивым, хотя и неряшливым почерком.
Над картами на столе склонились трое: двое мужчин и одна женщина. Настроение у них было крайне скверное. Наступившую тишину нарушил сухой, слегка хриплый голос:
«Товарищ капитан, что вы можете нам рассказать?» — произнёс мужчина, которому уже разменял пятый десяток. Его обветренное, морщинистое лицо слегка покраснело от холода, а из-под густой, седой, аккуратно подстриженной бороды, закрывавшей почти всё лицо, по левой щеке тянулись продолговатые шрамы от когтей какого-то крупного зверя. Волосы у него всё ещё сохраняли свой родной каштановый цвет. Глаза были голубыми, но почти не видны за большими тёмными кругами, образовавшимися то ли от возраста, то ли от ветра, то ли от усталости.
Он с тревогой посмотрел на второго мужчину в комнате, ожидая ответа. Тот тихо стиснул зубы и сжал кулаки.
«Что я могу сказать, товарищ Малин… ситуация очень серьёзная. Мои солдаты продолжают удерживать второй и третий форты, где противник сосредоточил свой главный удар, но их там гораздо больше, чем нас…»
«Сколько ещё ваши люди смогут продержаться?» — спросил Фёдор Малин, тот самый седовласый, который задал первый вопрос, изучая карты. Однако прошло несколько секунд, а ответа так и не последовало. «Капитан?»
«Какой ещё «капитан»?!» — резко спросил мужчина лет тридцати, светло-русый, с серо-зелёными глазами. Он был одет в довольно потрёпанную военную форму, и лишь сохранившиеся погоны на плечах выдавали его статус. Лицо было чисто выбрито, а губы напряженно сжаты.
Поджав губы, капитан продолжил:
«У меня было всего двести человек, когда всё это началось. Теперь — семьдесят, из них два десятка раненых, а этих тварей там не меньше пятисот! Мы продолжаем держать оборону только потому, что у них нет артиллерии, а единственная дорога к нам — через ущелье, которое можно перекрыть тремя пулемётами…»
«Григорий Петрович, долго ли вы сможете сдерживать врага?» — прервал женский голос тираду капитана.
The girl leaned in a little closer, and now the kerosene lamp illuminated her face.
She was quite beautiful, with skin of a slightly swarthy, greyish hue and dull purple eyes. Her pale, dark chestnut hair was gathered at the top of her head into two strands that first went up and then cascaded down onto her shoulders.
The captain, Grigory Petrovich Orlin, raised his eyes to the girl.
"If nothing extraordinary happens, another ten days," he said, shifting uncomfortably for a moment before adding, "Fyodor Artemich, tell me… what's going on with you?"
"My people continue to gather data from the weather balloons, but now it's… let's say, difficult for them to do so," he said, averting his gaze.
"Ten days, huh?" the girl muttered under her breath, trying not to attract the others' attention. "Ten days, and then what?" she asked, now looking directly at Captain Orlin. "Then you'll let everyone here die?"
The unexpected question stunned everyone. Orlin stood silent, trying several times to say something, opening his mouth, but no sound came out. Finally, he spoke:
"I have orders from command. We are to defend this outpost and will do so until we receive orders to retreat," the captain stated displeasedly, leaning his hands on the table and lowering his head.
"Ahem… comrade," Malin began, clearing his throat into his fist, "We haven't received a new radiogram in… when was it that the *Sibiryakov* visited us? A little less than a month ago."
The instant the old polar explorer and meteorologist said this, the girl's eyes seemed to flash.
"A month?!" she cried, her rounded gaze shifting from one man to the other. "You haven't received any transmissions from the mainland for a whole month?! Then why did we… oh no."
"Comrade Krasin, is something wrong?" Malin asked in a slightly trembling voice, turning his gaze to the Kansen icebreaker.
"We were steadily receiving messages from you," said a surprised Krasin, "that's why no one tried to do anything."
She licked her lips, then grabbed a pencil from the table and bent over the map.
"From here, approximately, to here, are the anomalies command calls 'Mirror Seas'."
The pencil outlined a grim picture. The Pechora Sea was almost completely clogged with Mirror Seas, and near Kolguyev Island they stretched north, forming an arc around Novaya Zemlya.
Krasin continued:
"These 'seas'," she said with clear mockery in her voice, "they've cut off communication with Novaya Zemlya for ordinary ships and Kansen, which is why for the last six months we, the icebreaker fleet, have been supplying you. But we thought everything was normal with you." She raised her eyes from the maps to the others present. "Before, they didn't jam communications, but now… that's a different matter. We need to evacuate the town."
"What?!" exclaimed Orlin. "How dare you?!.." He cut himself off, realizing Krasin held a higher rank than he did. "You suggest we cowardly run away? Disobey orders and surrender this post to the enemy? To these traitors?"
"And you suggest letting everyone die when your defense collapses?" asked Malin, earning a piercing look from the captain. "If you please, comrade, but when the enemy first appeared, there were almost three hundred and fifty people here, along with Major Arfeev and his pilots," he sighed. "Now, as you said, seventy of your soldiers remain, three pilots—though they have no planes—and with them six mechanics. And there are also seventy civilians, almost half of whom are women and children, and the others, like me, are scientists, meteorologists, and so on… And even they are on the front lines with your people right now." The old polar explorer raised his eyes to the captain. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to sacrifice all these people' lives."
"You suggest surrendering the post to the enemy, to these creatures?" Orlin snapped. "You old fool!"
"I'm also in favor of evacuating the people," Krasin added calmly, interrupting the captain. "We can't risk the lives of those who remain—too many have already fallen here."
"We have orders to hold this post," the captain objected, "we cannot abandon this territory."
"What orders?" Krasin was surprised, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Are you talking about Order No. 227? But it was canceled about five years ago."
"I have not been given orders to retreat, Comrade Krasin!" Grigory Petrovich barked.
"What damn orders?! You haven't had contact with the mainland for a month!" she shouted, slamming her fists on the table. "Or do you think sacrificing another hundred people here will change anything, Captain?!"
Orlin stopped for a moment, clearly struck by Krasin's sudden furious speech, and thought about something. After a few moments of silence, he spoke:
"Alright, I understand you," he said, sighing heavily and pulling a cigarette case from inside his coat. The captain extracted the second-to-last cigarette and took a long drag. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Grigory Petrovich said:
"Well, how do we conduct the evacuation?"
Blinking several times and staring at him, Krasin spoke:
"Yes, right," she said, before turning her head to Malin. "Fyodor Artemovich, how much time will we need to move all your equipment and records onto my ship?" she asked.
******
What Orlin called "Forts" were, in fact, just several field fortifications they had managed to hastily erect around the small town. They had built five strongpoints in total, encircling the settlement in a semicircle, protecting it from all sides, and abutting the cold waters of the ocean.
The most fortified were the second and third forts. They were located farthest from the shore and covered the only proper passage from the rocky gorge—the only passage connecting the coast to the interior of the island. It was from there that the last three attacks had come.
Both forts were quite close to each other, allowing them to provide crossfire. Thanks to this, the exit from the gorge was littered with many spots that, upon closer inspection or through binoculars, revealed themselves to be the corpses of the attackers.
There were always several men on constant watch at the posts, as besides the enemy there were other problems—polar bears, drawn from the surrounding area by the smell of meat.
"Oh," a man drawled, looking through binoculars, "there they are," he said, lowering the binoculars from his eyes. "Gosh, look, the bears are back. Seems they're very hungry, not running away even from gunfire."
"What haven't I seen there already?" asked a no-longer-young soldier with a Chekhovian beard, which he kept in very good condition despite the surroundings, his voice tinged with a smirk. "There's only them to look at, and I've had my fill," he said in a sour tone before adding, "Ugh… I wish it was time for the shift change already… I wonder what my Verochka is doing now?.." he asked with a smile on his face, staring into emptiness.
"You and your daughter again," his comrade, Nikita Rullev, sighed, rolling his eyes. "She's fine. She's probably sitting there with my Anya and Romka right now. Surely waiting for us at home."
"You're right, Nikit…" the other, Gosha, agreed with a smile, "but I can't help missing her."
"I understand you, Gosha, you can't even imagine how much I understand," Rullev said with a smile.
At that moment, another sentry, standing a couple dozen steps away, shouted loudly.
"Enemy! Coming through the gorge again!" he shouted loudly, immediately grabbing the rifle lying next to him.
The message was instantly relayed to the rear positions, and soldiers from there began arriving at the forward positions, immediately opening fire.
The enemy fighters, clad in white camouflage smocks, were about a kilometer from the second fort. To reach the defenders' positions, they had to traverse the gorge, after which they found themselves on a small hill. From there, they had to descend under continuous rifle fire.
"Nikit, let's go!" shouted Georgy, dropping to his knees behind cover and grabbing the two wooden handles with his gloved hands.
Rullev immediately jumped up with a large box from which a canvas ammunition belt protruded. In a few seconds, he fed the strip of fabric into the mechanism and, a second later, gave a short nod:
"Go!" he said in a hoarse, slightly breathless voice.
The *Maxim* chattered, instantly tearing the air with a hundred bullets. Pillars of snow from the impacting bullets began to rise one after another at the hill's crest, followed by falling bodies. A couple of seconds later, three more machine guns opened fire—two to the left and one to the right.
Enemy bodies began to fall onto the snow and slowly roll down the slope.
"That's for them!" shouted one of the soldiers, continuing to fire his Simonov carbine.
Jubilation swept through the defenders' positions as they continued to fire. But it faded very quickly when the cold air of Novaya Zemlya was pierced by a sharp, whip-crack-like roar. A lone fountain of earth, ice, and smoke erupted on the positions of Orlin's soldiers.
"Oleg's been hit!" someone shouted from the side.
"A gun on the hill!" responded a second, shifting his sights to the new threat.
The light gray splinter shield of a gun, whose outlines suggested the design of the Soviet ZIS-3 gun, appeared from behind the hill. After the first shot, almost all rifle fire was directed at the gun. Bullets struck the gun's shield, sparking, but it stubbornly did its job, continuing to protect its crew.
The second shot was much less effective. The shell exploded twenty meters short of the fortification line, showering the defenders inside with a rain of earth and ice, but this didn't bring much joy to anyone.
"They'll pick us all off like this," Georgy grated through his teeth, continuing to squeeze the Maxim's trigger.
As if confirming his words, the gun barked again, and a new shell tossed earth and ice into the air, but literally a moment later, a muffled pop sounded from somewhere behind the machine gun crew. Then another, and another.
"Timofeev, you red-headed devil," Nikita grinned, glancing back for a moment.
Andrey Timofeev was a meteorologist who lived at this post with his wife, Irina. When the attacks began, he was one of the first to volunteer to take up arms, becoming a mortar crew member, and then, after the death of the crew commander in one of the battles, Andrey replaced him.
The metal projectiles fell from the sky like acorns, and where they landed, pillars of fire and snow formed. The attacking soldiers fell onto the snow, some from mortal wounds, others in an attempt to shelter from the shrapnel.
From the defenders' positions, it was almost impossible to see the enemy soldiers scurrying around the gun, desperately trying to aim it at Timofeev's mortar, when a huge fireball engulfed the gun. The first explosion was followed by a secondary detonation of ammunition, which apparently had been stored behind the hill, next to it.
A man, engulfed in flames, ran out of the fire and, after a few steps, collapsed into the snow. The surviving enemies, who had thrown themselves onto the snow during the mortar barrage, began to get up, and again bullets chattered towards them. Now they were desperately trying to get away from the line of fire, scrambling back over the hill's crest.
"They're retreating!" Lieutenant Mirokhin, commanding the second fort, shouted joyfully.
Everyone had a strong desire to leave the trenches and rush in pursuit of the retreating enemy to finish them off. But the order was immutable, and everyone understood that there were too few men as it was.
"Observer to the eighth post and a trophy team there, quickly!" shouted Mirokhin, stepping onto his subordinates' positions. A couple of fighters began quickly gathering, grabbing sleds that had appeared from nowhere. Mirokhin continued. "You did well, comrades!" he began in a booming voice. "I'll file a report to Comrade Orlin today to get you double rations!"
"Comrade Lieutenant," began one of the riflemen, whom Georgy Alekseev recognized as the loader of the third machine gun crew, "those bastards brought a gun here. That didn't happen before. Maybe they'll bring tanks next."
"Don't talk nonsense," the rifleman next to him from the same machine gun crew sharply cut him off, "you'll jinx it."
"Yes, I saw that," Mirokhin nodded thoughtfully, "and I'm afraid your concerns may not be unfounded, though I can't imagine how they'd drag tanks here…" He sighed heavily, lowered his gaze to the ground, and said quietly, "…but with all this devilry, with the Sirens and all, I no longer know what to believe or what can happen. In any case, that's no reason to lose heart and spread panic here. Is that clear to everyone?"
"Yes, sir!" almost everyone chorused in response.
"Keep it up, eagles!" Mirokhin smiled, clenching his fist in front of him.
A couple of dozen minutes later, the trophy team returned. The soldiers were dragging sleds heavily loaded with loot, mostly weapons and ammunition.
There were two light machine guns of different designs—one a DP and one a German MG—just over a dozen rifles and submachine guns. Along with them were several hundred rounds of ammunition in several bags, some stained with blood. There were also several small infantry shovels, which the defenders badly needed. As it turned out, digging into the frozen ground and permafrost wasn't very good for the tools' integrity.
There was also a little bit of everything—several cans of food that some enemy soldiers had on them, a couple of canteens, and several dozen grenades of all types.
"Good haul today!" the leader of the trophy team grinned, displaying his acquisitions.
The defenders examined the trophies with interest, some even grabbing a few, until Mirokhin stopped them:
"Quiet, everyone!" he barked, pushing through the others and approaching the sled. "Well?" he asked, picking up one of the submachine guns and demonstratively working the bolt. "Not bad! Well done!" he added with a smile again, then put the trophy back. "Distribute the ammo among yourselves, top up to standard issue, and send the rest to the warehouse and the other forts," he threw over his shoulder before turning and heading back to the post.
"Understood," came the reply behind him.
Mirokhin was about to head to the forward command post, hastily built on Orlin's orders to simplify defense command, when a girl with the interesting name Inuk ran up to him.
She was of the Evenki people and, by chance, found herself on Novaya Zemlya with her husband and two children when it was cut off from the mainland. When they first approached the meteorological post, they were almost shot, but on the suggestion of Major Arfeev, now deceased, they were spared, and it paid off.
Under conditions of limited supplies, the natives' hunting skills proved very useful. Aidmar was assigned to a reconnaissance detachment, which, however, very rarely performed its direct duties, spending much more time hunting seals and exterminating polar bears, which posed a significant danger to the surviving defenders of the post.
"Comrade Mirokhin," the Evenki woman addressed him with a noticeable accent, "Captain Orlin ordered me to fetch you."
"Well," the lieutenant sighed, "if he ordered it, then lead the way."
Inuk nodded in response and, turning around, hurriedly led Lieutenant Mirokhin to the makeshift headquarters.
******
The small space of the dugout was filled with seven people: to Orlin, Krasina, and Malin were added Lieutenants Mirokhin and Kopeynikov, as well as Senior Sergeants Brazin and Dzhalipakidze—commanders of the more or less quiet first and fourth forts.
"Evacuation, you say?" Kopeynikov, the senior-most of the junior commanders and the most experienced among his colleagues, drawled skeptically.
"Correct," Orlin nodded, raising his eyes for a moment before staring again at the maps lying before him. "As Comrade Krasin reported, the enemy has been forging our messages and sending them to the mainland for about a month, which is why they don't know about our situation there."
After his words, a heavy silence fell. The four junior officers looked at the floor, occasionally glancing at each other, not knowing what to say. The first to recover was Yakov Dzhalipakidze.
"So now we just drop everything and run away?" he asked with genuine surprise.
"No," Orlin replied, looking up, "we won't leave here just like that. You will allocate about a third of your available soldiers to help Krasina and Malin with the loading. We will take everything that might be useful."
"You heard the captain. All equipment, all possible food, and everything that burns needs to be moved aboard my hull," said Krasina, frowning.
"Excuse me," Brazin, the youngest of those gathered, began cautiously, "what do you mean by 'everything that burns'?"
"Fuel," the Kansen answered immediately. "We only have one chance for evacuation. The journey ahead is not short." She leaned over the maps and began tracing her finger over the map showing the seemingly endless Arctic Ocean. "Here, look," everyone leaned in, bending over the maps. "We must go north to avoid the Mirror Seas. I still have enough fuel for about twenty to twenty-five days, but extra will never be superfluous. Is everything clear to everyone?"
"Yes," the captain's four subordinates answered in unison, like privates on parade.
"If you understand, then quickly, get moving and back to your posts!" Orlin barked.
Nodding their heads, the junior officers began to disperse. But at that moment, when the first of them had already grabbed the door to open it, it swung open sharply, revealing the face of a breathless soldier.
"There's this… our… our observers noticed movement among the bodies… we captured a prisoner…"
"Where is he?!" Orlin shouted.
******
It took them only a few minutes to reach the forward fortifications, where their prisoner was sitting, leaning against a wall. He was clad in a white smock made of an unknown material, worn over a fur coat. On his head was a tight fur hat and a scarf covering his mouth. Though now it was lowered, and the man was desperately gasping for air.
A long bloody trail stretched down one of his trouser legs from the thigh, which he was trying to cover with his hands.
All those gathered looked at him with unconcealed disgust and contempt.
"Has he said anything?" Orlin insistently asked the soldier standing nearby.
"Well, 'sides beggin' for help, this shit said he's from Warsaw, and went to the Sirens of his own free will. And they sent 'im 'ere, as a regular," the soldier answered with a strong Belarusian accent.
"Pathetic traitor," Dzhalipakidze snarled, baring his teeth.
Orlin remained silent and, taking a step forward, bent down, wanting to look into the eyes of this creature he could no longer consider human.
"Tell me," he began, barely restraining himself from hitting or insulting the prisoner, "why did you do this? What did they promise you for it?"
The captured cultist raised his eyes to the captain, and his gaze was full of hatred. He wanted to do something, but couldn't due to the pain. Taking a deep breath, he spoke:
"We… two wars. We have already survived two wars—all because of the creatures that rule us and you…" he spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words. Russian was difficult for him, and he spoke with a strong Polish accent. "The Sirens—they will stop all this! They are the new rulers who will stop all wars! Gods, who have descended to us!" He spoke the last words with unnatural fervor.
"You scum," Mirokhin hissed.
"Pathetic fanatic!" Orlin muttered under his breath, rising to his feet. "They, like the Nazis—it's useless to talk to them. Always devoutly believe in their convictions."
He turned around, facing the others, and took a step forward, standing next to Krasina, who was also there.
"Comrade Captain," the soldier asked, attracting attention, "so this… what should we do with him?"
Orlin turned, throwing another glance at the man sitting against the wall, pondering what to say.
Seeing this, the fanatic spoke again:
"What, Captain, you know I speak the truth, that the Sirens are salvation for us, that…"
He didn't get to finish. Drawing her ice axe, Krasina closed the distance to the prisoner in an instant and delivered a lightning-fast strike. A sickening crunch sounded, and pink-red shreds flew onto the wall behind the fanatic. Following this, the Kansen yanked her arm back, and the lifeless body collapsed into the snow. Blood poured abundantly from its split skull. The soldiers looked on in shock at the scene before them, and Krasina growled quietly:
"Clean this up. Don't bury it. Throw it somewhere. Feed IT to the bears, it deserves no more," she said before turning to face the others.
"What are you standing around for?!" Orlin asked, coming to his senses. "Don't you have work to do?"
As everyone stepped back a little and began to disperse to their units, Krasina called out to them:
"Tell those you send that food supplies need to be moved aboard first. If we have to evacuate emergency, food will be most useful to us."
******
The news of the impending evacuation spread through the outpost like a ground fire, but there was no particular panic. Of the remaining hundred and fifty people, about a hundred were defending the positions, and the rest were mostly women, children, and the wounded. So everyone understood that without help from the mainland, which was not forthcoming, they had no other choice.
The small pier at the outpost was working at its limit. Krasin had positioned her hull bow-first to the shore, which seemed illogical, as her reverse speed was low, but her most powerful armament was on the bow—three 76mm anti-aircraft guns located on the bow and stern, capable of firing various types of ammunition to engage air, ground, or surface targets.
Three of the four cranes on the port side worked almost non-stop, loading new cargo onto the icebreaker. Krasin, with a team of five sailors, received the cargo on board, moving it to their future storage locations.
For firewood and such, the few remaining houses that hadn't been used for building fortifications were being dismantled. Gradually, the residential area joined them; settlers were moved into the icebreaker's cabins, which worried Krasin considerably. She knew for sure that she could take a maximum of just over a hundred people aboard—at least, that's how it was before. Now the Kansen hoped that the young age of a large number of her passengers would favorably affect their accommodation.
Patients in serious condition had already been transferred aboard from the infirmary, and the lightly wounded helped others with the loading. By the beginning of the second night, all the wounded, sick, children, and almost all women, except those serving in the military unit's medical service, were aboard the icebreaker.
Almost all the meteorological equipment, all records, reports, and observations were already on the ship. Data hadn't been exported for a long time, so nearly five kilograms of paper had accumulated. They were all placed in a waterproof box, which was immediately sealed and then taken to the captain's cabin, where Krasin herself resided.
Pieces of wood, old furniture took their places in the coal bunkers; potbelly stoves from dismantled houses were moved to the ship's storeroom—this was done so that if the outpost was captured, the invaders would only get abandoned dwellings.
Food supplies were transferred to the pantries, meat to the freezers. The supply of drinking water was replenished with ice. According to Krasin's calculations, they had enough food and water for the entire route to the mainland.
"Loading is on schedule," Malin said dryly, watching as a winch lifted another net of cargo aboard and it was received on the deck. "If nothing happens, we'll get out of here calmly."
"You, a polar explorer, should know, Comrade Malin," Krasin uttered gloomily, "that when everything goes according to plan, something is bound to happen."
As if confirming her words, the cold night air of Novaya Zemlya filled with a quiet, barely audible rumble.
"There! You see?" she hissed displeasedly, jumping from her hull onto the pier and heading towards Orlin, who remained in the headquarters.
******
"Daddy, when are we going to sail?" a little girl asked in an innocent, slightly sleepy, ringing voice.
Vera Georgievna Alekseeva, or simply Verochka, was unusually smart and quick-witted for her eight years. She was born at the beginning of 1941, just before the war. Her father went to the front immediately, and she, a baby, stayed with her mother. They lived quite happily in quiet, rear-area Molotov, occasionally receiving news from her father at the front. But, unfortunately, her mother fell ill and soon passed away, and the girl went to live with her grandmother. After the war, her father returned for her. However, he decided not to leave the army and ended up taking his daughter with him from garrison to garrison.
"Soon, Verochka, soon," Georgy answered, gently patting her on the head with a soft smile.
"And where will we go next?" she asked as her father threw a blanket over her.
"Well, when we arrive in Murmansk—we'll see," he said before leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. "Go to sleep, tomorrow is an important day."
The girl nodded, plopping down on a not very comfortable, but seemingly soft pillow.
Alekseev left the cabin, which housed them and two other families, and slowly wandered through the ship's corridors, intending to get to the upper deck. At that moment, red signal lights began flashing, and loud stomping echoed through the corridors. He immediately realized something serious had happened and sped up. Along with him, about a dozen people burst onto the upper deck, buttoning up their coats and greatcoats on the move, and stared warily at the sky. Two bright white signal flare lights shone in it, brightly illuminating the entire outpost. From the high ground, which, like a grotesque canvas, showed bloody traces, three iron boxes were moving towards the positions of the third fort, followed by infantry.
"Damn it," Malin, who was standing on one of the bridge wings with binoculars in his hands, swore. "I jinxed it. We need to manage to evacuate everything we can. This might be the last hour."
The soldiers quickly grabbed their rifles and descended the gangway to the pier, from where they rushed into the settlement.
******
The enemy's next attack was sudden but not unexpected. As soon as the silhouettes of people and equipment appeared from behind the hill, a barrage of fire was opened on them. However, three steel boxes, whose outlines suggested old German light tanks—Pz.Kpfw. II—pushed through the hail of bullets that bounced helplessly off their armor. The black hulks of metal moved inexorably towards the defenders' positions. They focused their strike on the third fort when a short order from Captain Orlin crackled over the radio:
"Everyone! Fall back!" he hissed in a slightly hoarse voice.
After briefly exchanging glances, the soldiers began to retreat deeper into the settlement, from where everyone else had already been evacuated.
They retreated with losses. Senior Sergeant Brazin, commander of the fourth fort, along with seven soldiers, remained at their positions, covering the retreat of their comrades from the third and fourth forts. The same happened with two machine gunners from the second fort, who continued to return fire until a tank wiped them out with fire from its auto-cannon.
Having crushed the remnants of the defenders, the opponents found themselves in the settlement, slowly moving through the streets between the remaining houses. Street fighting broke out. A bright flash gleamed, and a pillar of fire engulfed one of the tanks. At the same moment, other grenades flew at the infantry following it, shredding the enemy soldiers.
Having defeated one of the enemy columns, Orlin raised the men, loudly ordering:
"Forward! We must make it to the ship!" he shouted, continuing to fire at the enemy with his personal pistol.
Immediately, the men rose and began to slowly but surely make their way to the pier, where loading onto the ship was underway. Constant, hurricane-like fire from both sides forced them to duck, and almost immediately, a burst from several submachine guns flew in response towards the source of the fire.
"Almost…" Orlin exhaled quietly into his mask, already seeing the pier spread out a couple of meters ahead of them.
A quiet engine rumble slowly approached from the side. It was moving parallel to them, and Orlin quietly cursed to himself, just before another tank jumped out in front of them. At first, its turret was pointed in the direction of the tank's movement, but then it began slowly turning towards them.
"Everyone, take cover!" Orlin shouted, immediately grabbing the collar of the soldier in front of him, who was too engrossed in shooting at the enemy somewhere to the side.
Very quickly, the captain's subordinates began retreating towards the shore, but not the one they needed. The enemy continued to press from the shore side, so they couldn't go inland and bypass them. They also couldn't get close enough to the tank to throw a grenade—enemy infantry had pulled up.
В результате, несмотря на уничтожение одного танка, ситуация оставалась тяжелой — сектантам удалось отрезать солдат второго, третьего и четвертого фортов от порта.
Они оказались прижаты к берегу в нескольких сотнях метров от пирса, где солдаты с первого форта, которым удалось отступить к пирсу, уже эвакуировали раненых, неся несколько носилок по трапу на массивный, едва освещенный лунным светом силуэт ледокола.
В этот момент в холодном воздухе раздался протяжный гул, буквально прорвавший кольцо окружения.
Котлы корабля заработали, и из двух дымовых труб повалил чёрный угольный дым; прожекторы вспыхнули на мостике, освещая вражеские фигуры. С носа и левого борта раздался ружейный огонь. Вслед за этим два носовых орудия дали залп. Один из танков остался на месте, выпуская столб дыма от загоревшегося двигателя.
Орлин на мгновение выглянул из укрытия, чтобы оценить обстановку, и увидел троих вражеских солдат, освещённых прожектором. Он уже собирался направить на них винтовку, когда раздался глухой звук пистолетного выстрела — один из врагов тут же обмяк.
Двое других быстро обернулись навстречу новой угрозе, и в тот же миг металлический прут пронзил второго. Закричав от боли, культист рухнул в снег, и почти одновременно рядом с третьим появилась новая фигура. В луче прожектора блеснула сталь, и на голову третьего врага обрушился ледоруб. Тот рухнул замертво с хрустом ломающихся костей. Его убийца сделала ещё несколько шагов, и только тогда Орлин узнал в ней Красину. Кансен выдернул лом из тела противника и поднял окровавленный ледоруб над головой:
«Вперед! В атаку!» — разнесся по земле ее голос, а солдаты позади нее ринулись в атаку.