23 August, 1939 ( Headlines )

In a movement that has shocked the political Earth at large ; the authorities of Deutschland and the Union of Soviet Socialist commonwealth have concluded and signed a treaty of mutual non-aggression. The give up argument of many world drawing card has ranged across the spectrum, from ones of rejoicing that the vista of another neat war in EEC has been avoided, to others who unofficially are seeking more information or are involved in a series of ‘ intense discourse'with ally governments.


1 September, 1939 ( newspaper headline )

lady and gentlemen today it is my sad duty to announce that war has returned to the Continent of Europe as on this day the armed forces of Germany have invaded western Poland. Heavy scrap is reported by all sides, with Federal Republic of Germany announcing ‘ deep, monumental and sweeping penetration'by its gird personnel. Allegedly the Polish United States Army is already collapsing ; surrendering in ever growing issue and the government has fled the nation for sanctuary in Romania. Unofficial accounts from radio hustler in Poland speak of continued resistance that is ‘ stout, strong and determined'in the face of the motiveless hostility of Germany.

Many world leaders have strongly denounced this aggression on the function of the government of FRG, with France, Britain and the United States of America demanding that the armies of Federal Republic of Germany cease all hostilities at once. This is to be followed by drug withdrawal to the original margin, while an international mediation via the League of Carry Amelia Moore Nation occurs to settle the matter of hostilities between the respective governments.

No remark has been relayed from the German government.


3 Sept, 1939 ( Headlines )

On this day the crisis in Europe has grown exponentially, with the governments of France and Britain officially declaring war upon the administration of Germany for the invasion of Poland. contact lens within the respective military and governance section tell that armed intervention in Poland, and the direct territorial intrusion of Germany ‘ shall hap within a hand count of days, or at well-nigh, before the next two weeks are over.'

The fighting continues on, with the government of Germany reporting more and Sir Thomas More territory gained with each passing hour, while cultivation sources report the main drive of the German blitz has been blunted, but that the nations casualty have been high. The proclamation of the resolution of war by France and Britain has brought renewed hope for the beleaguered land.


17 September, 1939 ( newspaper headline )

In a motion of blazing opportunism and aggression the ground forces of the uniting of Soviet Socialist republic have invaded eastern Poland. The congresswoman of the USSR declared that the move is to ensure that law and gild and stability are maintained in the side of the complete flop of the Polish government. Within hours the relocation had been condemned by almost fellow member of the League of Nations…


5 October, 1939 ( Headlines )

Poland has officially ceased to exist according to the administration of Deutschland and the USSR. The small Nation of Latvia, Republic of Lithuania and Republic of Estonia have been annexed by the Russia after being coerced into signing one sided ‘ mutual defensive measure pacts'with the central Communist governing of Russia….

Unconfirmed reputation honorable mention that functionary from Finland have been invited to Moscow for ‘ give-and-take of a most particular nature concerning the reciprocal defense team of both countries.'One onetime upper-level military officer explained that usually means ‘ Moscow makes the threats and Finland will make concessions, or there shall be war in the end…'


â‚°â‚°

Deep in the Asaph Hall of STAVKA, Supreme home base for the armed military force of the USSR, the assemble drawing card stand at attention as the lone man walked calmly in the door and silently proceeded to the head teacher of the long, map-covered board.

His every step echoed like scag across the room, and heightened the thick-skulled tension that was further magnified by his aura of baron, authority, ruthlessness and determination. He reveled in the reverence that radiated from all of those present, for all knew with a simple gesture, a nod, or one spoken word, he could make or break any or all of their careers, place them to the gulag for life, or have them summarily executed.

Taking his seat he motioned for all to sit and began to excuse the matters at hand."comrade, the conquest of Poland and the annexation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are nearing completion. The ancient territories of our with child Rodinia are nearly complete, with one vexing exclusion. Despite our most generous offers to them, the lackeys of the Imperialist West, especially those of U.K., who ‘ regulate'in Finland, have slapped aside the hand of Communist generosity."

"Comrade, as of now I am instructing all of you to enact the plan we have prepared for such an eventuality,"the man stated, hammering away on the mesa with his fist as his middle, frigidness and grey-haired, blazed with fury and rage at the government who has defied him since he was forced to bless the 1921 Treaty of Tartu forced upon the peaceful hoi polloi of the USSR by the decrepit and Imperialist-led conference of Nations.

"Comrades, explain to me again every detail of the plans as they exist at this clip, do not leave out one detail,"he declared as he motioned for the NKVD sentry duty, phallus of the feared State surety apparatus, to watch for the firstly intimation of defeatism, hesitation or anything that may be construed as treason. For those so suspected the consequence would be publically declared ‘ a quiet and well earned retirement'…

Something that all at the table, especially the man who inspired such awe and terror in all about him, knew to mean ‘ destruction by firing squad.'

For that lone man, Premier Joseph Joseph Stalin, he wanted it no other way. He and he alone ruled in the USSR, and he held the portion of all in his hands alone.

For nearly twenty year he had fumed over the humiliation Finland and her Imperialist backer had inflicted upon him in 1921. So now he will have his revenge and have the proper estate of the Old Russian tzar's restored to the motherland, under proper communist counseling of course.

He listened as the details were explained over various hours, with only one little accession proposed to see there will be no dubiety as to ‘ Finnish aggression'being the cause of the coming invasion."Make it so,"said Stalin.


31 October, 1939 ( headline )

Today before the assembly of the Supreme Soviet, Foreign Minister Molotov, for the 1st time in public announced the terms ‘ requested'of the government of Finland to ‘ ensure the defensive measure of the peaceful masses of the wedlock of Soviet Socialist Republics.'

The ‘ asking,'a polite term for what most people in the democratic nations of the reality will call ‘ demands at the spot of a gun'were for farming to be leased for XXX years, or transferred directly into the bridge player of the USSR while the administration of Finland would receive in riposte land that is desolate and worthless. German language Chancellor of the Exchequer Adolph Hitler has called upon the mass of Finland and their leader to accept the terms peacefully while fourth dimension remains for them to do so…

Needless to say, the content of ‘ while prison term remains for them to do so…'has dramatically increased stress in a continent already at war between the Allies and the Axis tycoon.


â‚°â‚°

Sir Leslie Stephen half-listened to the newsworthiness coming from the daily radio programme that detailed the electric current physical body up of tension between Republic of Finland and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Day by day the talks had been summarized in the typical way of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili and his cohorts…

"Agree to our terms with no compromise or front the fist of steel from our armies."That is the message they have sent before, when Finland finally won its independence at the end of the Great War.

retention of that fierce fourth dimension played across his judgment as he examined the masterly-crafted rifle that he held ; its perfect design and counterbalance, custom as a birthday nowadays to one special to him, will stool her one of the greatest of Hunter ever to stalk biz in the woods. The new orbit mounted to it was commissioned by a friend of his, whose designs were a generation or more ahead of their time.

Sir Leslie Stephen twirled and tossed the rifle ; rapidly worked the bolt-action to get ahead the final examination look of how smooth it will take on when time was of the inwardness - as he learned recently with a bear that almost had him for dinner party. No fault could be found, no mar, no mistake in his greatest creation of all the firearms he has handcrafted in his life as an armorer, soldier, Hunter and…dealer in goods and stuff easily left unexplained and preferably never found by agents of the law.

He and his friends had prepared to the C. H. Best they could…let the Russians come, the hornets nest waits…

Pleased with the rifle he slid it into its white-fur-lined scabbard and double checked the harness for any fault. Again he found none, his friends having done their employment to absolute perfection.

"She will be intimate this rifle,"Stephen said as he mulled over the coming event,"her birthday is on the 30th of November. I will be there and show her how to hunt with her new rifle ; she will hunt as never before until all know her name."

All too soon Stephen would come to understand the prophetic tone of his words. For that rifle will be wielded by one to turn a legend…


24 Nov, 1939 ( headline )

Tensions continue to construct between the governing of Suomi and the USSR as two counter proposals were made to find an estimable solution to the demands of Russian capital. Both marriage proposal were summarily rejected as being completely unacceptable on the premise they would go out the USSR completely vulnerable in the neighborhood of Saint Petersburg.

All diplomatical ties between Finland and the Russia have been severed by the departure of the Finnish company after being ordered home to Helsinki for ‘ consultations.'


26 November, 1939 ( Headlines )

Unconfirmed written report coming from the party news services of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have declared a ‘ surprise and dastardly flack on Russian territorial dominion has occurred by units of the Fascist politics of Finland upon didactics by their master copy, the Imperialist Industrialists of the West.'

Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov has condemned this ‘ carnage of Russian early days and destruction of a lot Russian history in the borderline village of Mainila…

â‚°â‚°

"My dude comrades,"declared the legendary ‘ man of steel,'prime minister Stalin to the Soviet High instruction who stood at attending before the table where he sat."negotiation have fallen through with the fascist government of Finland, and now we have this unprovoked assault upon our homeland. As per plans already prepared for such an occurrence, the orders are henceforth given to you and your troops…just before break of day on 30 November the great Army of the union of Soviet Socialist Republics shall invade Finland and liberate her suppress masses who cry for exemption under a proper communist government."

His anger flared hot in his eye and iron-cold in his words as he slammed his paw on the surd table,"I will be very assoil in this matter. loser will not be tolerated ; the slim mark of incompetence, cowardly action and betrayal against the party or the state will mean summary execution of instrument by the NKVD. All orders and plan made will be approved by them before any are carried out. Remember, they answer to me alone…"

Needless to say everyone got the message.

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili grinned and reveled in the absolute fear the men around him displayed. HE was in control, the schoolmaster of all in Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to do with as he pleased.

Soon enough the disgrace inflicted upon him by Finland so long ago will be avenged, a dark slur on his fierce reputation. Everyone present knew that the Son he spoke of break negotiation were mere windowpane binding, for the might of four Russian Army corp was in berth at key crossing points along the Republic of Finland - Russian border.

invasion had been inevitable for some time, and the Fin's would pay for their stubbornness in fire and bloodline.



30 November 1939 rear-area of Russian one-ninth Army corp

Major-General Yuri Bogdan watched the moulding region from the wooded ridge just shy of the Finnish-Russian border. The small small town, little more than a hamlet not even worthy of a sign on any functionary map, showed at the limit point of his binoculars, just one more child obstacle for the wondrous liberation of Finland that will be erased in a few more minutes.

He turned to the regimental commanders who surrounded him, each standing tall and proud, as he gave them his final instructions in the great crusade that is to commence. Each monastic order was repeated back in precise detail to him and to the division's chief commissar, Major-General Vitaly of the NKVD ( country security department ). All of the officers knew that one misstep, one bankruptcy, one infraction, or the appearance of any of the aforementioned, can become solid ground for compact execution by the NKVD.

Anyone doubting that only had to peek at the freshly turned earth that marked XXX graves of fellow officer who were shot an minute ago for ‘ inappropriate lack of fighting spirit for the cause of the state.'

"Comrades,"Major-General Bogdan spoke to the tuck officers,"our division has been granted the honor of spearheading the crusade in the liberation of our Communist brethren from the fascists who currently rule Finland. As you know, lupus erythematosus than 72 hours ago, our sovereign soil was violated in a border brush designed to arouse the humanity's sympathy for the bandit leaders of Finland and thus turn them against our honest loss leader Comrade Stalin."

He watched Major-General Vitaly casually stroll back and Forth around the officer, as one would expect of a rancher or farmer inspecting his prized collection of kine and steers before sending them to marketplace. He went on with his speech,"Comrade, each of us will action our parts to ne plus ultra, and we will conserve radio receiver secretiveness as per regular army Headquarters orders until instruct otherwise. Use the minibike messenger you have well and with due diligence, no opportunity to crush the foeman must be wasted."

He hammered his clenched clenched fist into his gloved deal,"Speed, blow and unrelenting pressure sensation, this is how we shall cleave this section of the breast business wide open air and advance ever onward. All captive taken are to be sent to our comrades of State Security unless directed, as per Order signed by PM comrade Stalin, otherwise by each regiments commissar or by orders of Major-General Commissar Vitaly."

He pointed to the recently filled tomb to one side of the amass officers,"Understand, there is to be no retreat or surrender,"his interpreter deepened as his madness mounted,"those who do so are guilty of betrayal and shall be dealt with swiftly as these two-timer to the res publica have been plow with."

"Now return to your regiments and get cook to pass over the border as per design,"he watched the police officer salute and flee for their faculty vehicles like a panicked gathering of rabbits in the sight of a band of hawks on the hunt.

â‚°â‚°

Stephen had just crested the small Benny Hill summit when he heard the first thundering of weapon unleashed from across the edge. He watched in repugnance as bang after crushing blast of carom casing and rockets landed around the hamlet of Summers Mist, where his granddaughter Nikkei's natal day party is taking property, a day of joy and happiness as his mother country neared war that no one wanted to have happen.

Sadly, as the swarm of heater and churned land merged with the rallying cry and screams of his family and champion, he knew the war no one wanted had begun. He shouldered the cloth-wrapped present he had spent so many months crafting for Nikkei's natal day, and felt the snag flow down his face as he watched his world taken from him for the minute time in his animation by warfare.


â‚°â‚°

Her existence spun in a daze of pain sensation and dizziness as she struggled to spread out her eye. The blue-blooded crackle of a fire flooded her auricle and the salmagundi of cooking pith, burning wood and other scent assaulted her sense of olfaction with overwhelming force. She struggled to climb up, slowly lifting herself onto her cubital joint and then falling back to the ground still enshrouded by the thick mantle person had put over her while she was unconscious.

A figure leaned down side by side to her and handed her a cup of cold weewee that she guzzled down, all but choking upon its chilled descent into her parched mouth and throat.

"Easy Nikkei, easy there take your time,"Stephen said as he helped her sit up. He checked the large bruise she had on her forehead and chuckled as she swatted at him when he touched one sore touch after another."You will be ticket Nikkei ; at the to the lowest degree I still have my granddaughter with me."

"grandad what happened,"Nikkei asked, not comprehending his live on words he had said to her,"Where are all the others, mommy and papa and my brothers…"She stopped upon seeing the expression that showed upon his grimace, understanding at last what had happened to everyone else.

"No grandfather, no not that, delight not that,"she said, collapsing into his arms as he drew her close. She broke down completely, the sobs coming hard and fast for the going of her total family."Why grandfather, why did this have to happen ?"

"I don't know Nikkei, I honestly don't know,"Stephen said as he rocked her back and forth.

Actually he did hump, having followed the intense negotiations between the Finnish-Soviet governments. Each day the Russia had become more and more demanding in the conceding it sought, making it top with none-too-subtle threats and motion that war would be the result deliver for complete and unconditional surrender of all territorial reserve demands made…a mountain chain of demands that Sir Leslie Stephen knew could not be accepted by Finland.

Yet he, like most in the Hamlet, had hoped for common sensory faculty and repose to come about. So it was that Nikkei's 18th natal day offered a fourth dimension to fete and for the community to forget about the outside reality for a dead time…then the battery arrived, slaughtering nearly everyone and destroying every building in the area.

Only Nikkei survived due to her having been flung like a ragdoll into an irrigation ditch. Sir Leslie Stephen had found her half freeze down and brought her to one of the belittled cabins in the wooded Benny Hill he called abode, hoping to visualize out how to get her to rubber when she could travel again.

Nikkei pointed to the bound bundle next to Stephen and asked,"Grandpa, what is that you have there ?"

He looked into her pain-filled eyes, sword lily for something to trouble her even for a poor time from the crushing loss of all that she had known."This is my birthday giving for you Nikkei, just as I promised to make cobbler's last twelvemonth, one all of your own."

Nikkei watched as Stephen untied the sheaf and removed a ransack scabbard from beneath the canvas. He turned and presented it to her as if she were a queen of some forgotten body politic worthy of a rarified and treasured gift from her people.


She took the rifle scabbard in her handwriting and laid it across her lap, stroking the flabby leather covered in white fur. The rifles farm animal, made of finely lacquered wood carved in detailed double of her search in the deep Wood spoke of Stephens's skill as a master gun Godhead and armorer.

Gently Nikkei pulled it disembarrass of the scabbard and examined it for some time, feeling the precise proportion and form that already felt a rude extension of her. The telescopic peck glistened in the soft firelight, and she spotted the touch of an old friend of her granddad, a man who made masterwork optics superior to even out the fine made in Germany.

Two wonderful treasures for her natal day ; such a prize of riches she felt wretched of possessing let alone being able to hold in her hands.

"Grandpa I can't take this, it's more desirable in your hands…"she shushed as Sir Leslie Stephen shook his head.

"You saved me from that bear last yr Nikkei,"he said with a smile. He had made one mistake on the Richard Morris Hunt he had taken her on, one moment of nonperformance in which the bear reared up and threatened his life. Nikkei proved the quicker though, as she placed three slugs into the bears gist and oral sex and thus mortally wounded the wildcat. It still fought on for some clip before it succumbed, but in comeback for saving him, Stephen promised Nikkei he would craft a rifle worthy of her phenomenal skills.

"I wish mummy and papa could have got seen this, along with everyone else…'she began to sob again as the the true slammed home hard in her heart. Her family is gone forever, as are her friend, all save for Stephen. Something deep in her soul snapped, flooding her with a fiery firmness that consumed her in an New York minute. The wolf who had done this to them will be made to pay, and in blood.

"granddad, where are the ogre who did this, where are they ?"she demanded, her phonation filled with ira and rage none could ingest dreamed existed. None save for Stephen who had long recognized the same traits in her that he had, and understood goose egg will hold her back from having her revenge on the Russians, no matter if in the end it cost her own life.

He shook his head, recalling the time back in the struggle of 1918 when Finland won its independence from the Tsar's of Russian Federation, and the times of difficulty which followed. He had been a colonel then, and for a prison term he fought as a drumbeater behind the line of merchandise, becoming such a bane on his enemies that they called him ‘ touch Bear.'

"And so history will duplicate itself…"he whispered. That drew a curious flavour from Nikkei who still waited for his answer.

"Nikkei we are going to get you to safety and then I and some booster will begin to fight these monsters, I will not lose…oh why I even bother…'He snorted and rolled his eyes to the heavens as she struggled to stand up and rage out of the small cabin to go it alone."God above, she is more like me than even her mama could take in figured…"

"Nikkei hold on there,"he grabbed her as she began to tumble to the floor, still woozy from the blow to her head."amercement then, I have a few things to get ready for our hunt, we will be enthusiast then here in our area of the woodwind and hills ; one thing emphatically, I call the shots and we do this my way until we have driven those goliath out of our homeland."

"Fine grandpa,"Nikkei said as she wrapped up once again in the thick blanket."We do it your way, just so long as I get to kill Russians…"her give-and-take became unintelligible as she drifted off into slumber.


â‚°

As Nikkei slumbered away the day, Stephen headed off into the Natalie Wood, making touch with some old friends who dealt in matters best left unmentioned in the presence of the authorities. They had prepared for the chance of war coming, establishing caches of arms and former geared wheel around the field for a set of partisans to use if they needed it…and now they will, for once again ‘ Ghost Bear'will infix into war and make his foeman pay for their crimes in blood.

He continued on into the woods, seeking a billet where his personal cache of ‘ special goods'waited retrieval.

As the destination came into peck, little more than a clump of John Rock and shrubs covering a diminished cavern in their profundity he reached into his coat and rested his hand upon the hilt of his hunting knife. The faintest odor of cigar tobacco filtered through the air, coming closer with each passing second, soon to be joined with the soft crush - crunching of several pair of snowshoes coming towards him.

He edged into the nearby shrubs and trees, concealing himself so as to appear as little Thomas More than another pocket-size clump of rocks at the base of a mighty northern pine as the people who followed him closed in, measure by step, and into hit distance of his ambush…

Lightning fast he slammed his elbow into the gut of the man who had snuck up behind him, following up with a fist to his opposition throat, as he grabbed the man by his coating and dragged him to the ground. Stephen pulled out his knife to deliver the demise blow and suddenly stopped as the man beneath him gently chuckled.

Captain Robinson of the Suomi Army grinned and looked at Sir Leslie Stephen,"You have not lost any of the science you taught all of us those years ago Colonel Stephen. Now if you don't idea, let me up and I will betoken my men not to try and shoot you…"

"Like they really could get that close,"Sir Leslie Stephen snorted,"I heard them from a half kilometer off. You learned the deterrent example well, but apparently your own scholarly person have not. Now why are you here police chief, and please I am just Sir Leslie Stephen now, no longer a colonel of the army…or will I be again."

"Stephen is it then,"began Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson,"we're here to scout and harass the advancing Soviet ground forces as it heads up the road. Someone has to stay behind and become partisan, though from the grin on your face I assume you already have begun that task ?"

"In a manner of speaking,"Sir Leslie Stephen filled in his old educatee and friend in on his plans."Right now I am off to contact others in the country who will ascertain and come across as they can. Even in our free lance ways, we can forge together and build the Russians animation a keep hell."

Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson nodded as he caught the subtle usage of ‘ we'in his last sentence, telling of another who will hunt the Russians with Stephen.

"Fair enough Sir Leslie Stephen,"Robinson said as his men advanced, shocked to see their loss leader talking to an old man who appeared to come out of nowhere. He looked at Stephen and asked of his old champion,"So then, what name will our mystic hunter be called ?"

Stephen grinned, knowing then and there Robinson will go along with anything he asked or needed done,"The Snow Fox, for we will present the dependable craftiness us tail fin have when on our home primer. Now I have to get a few other thing done and ‘ acquired'then the hunt will begin."

So it was, after a agile handshaking, the men departed.


3 December 1939 near front credit line of Russian 163rd infantry Division


John Major Joseph stood by the armoured staff car with his sub-machine gun clenched tight in his grasp. His superscript in the NKVD ( res publica surety ) had made his instructions painfully clearly ; go along a close eye on the activities of Major-General Bogdan as he served as his driver, messenger and personal escort out in the discipline. Failure in any way will result in summary execution.

Over a dozen to a greater extent soldiers, youthful deputy and senior pilot, stood around or waited in their own staff cars for educational activity from the general. Almost all of them gazed from time to fourth dimension to the advancing product line of trucks, army tank and tank-riding infantry that snaked its way along the I route ever deeper into Finland. The remote ground-shaking roar of the weapon no longer registered with them, having become little more than backdrop racket in the fourthly day of their lightning fast ( variety of ) tread of the attack.

Major-General Bogdan stood mellow upon the hood of his car as he scanned the horizon with his fine field glasses, a gift from his gramps many long years past. His frustration mounted by the minute at the stubbornness of the Finnish protector who have defied his ability to blast through them for the last three days. Three days and his part were barely twenty miles across the moulding.

"f number, velocity and ever more pep pill. That is how we win this war, speed, shock and uncompromising aggression against any who stand against us,"he muttered to himself."captain Craigson, see to it that all regimental and lower commanders understand the orders. Unrelenting pressure, there will be no more withdrawing or moving other than at the foe ahead. Any bankruptcy and I will personally shoot the officer myself if need be."

The senior pilot repeated back his statement, saluted and retreated to his staff car, which tore off down the road with due haste to see to it the message was received and duly carried out.

Major-General Bogdan growled as he watched his division slowly crawl down the route."The Suomi lackey's of the Imperialist West and Capitalists will hear what it means to defy the Soviet Union. We will demand back what is rightfully ours since long before the Revolution began. They wanted war, so now they shall sustain it and we will rebuild their lodge into a lawful Communist state as it should be."

His humour suddenly brightened at the hatful of a of a battery of truck-mounted rocket launchers and two electric battery of artillery moved off the road and began to set up for firing at mark located by his scouts. So much firepower being prepared meant that at least a battalion or two of enemy soldiers had gathered to defecate a do-or-die last base against his armor and foot tearing ever deeper into their homeland.

The audio of a motorbike informed him that a courier had arrived, and he nodded in gratification as the man stopped his bike, handed his eminence to Captain Dima who double-timed it to the full general. When he read the note, Major-General Bogdan felt his line of descent boil as he shouted, raged and cursed while directing another motorbike mounted messenger to locomote forward and tell his divisional headquarters to bear on his three pencil lead regiments forward with all fastness or fount carrying into action at his own hands.

He cursed the orders of ‘ absolute radio silence'that came from his superiors at Army HQ's fifty or more miles behind his segmentation."Damn them for their defiance to the needs of the motherland !"he shouted while shaking his fist in the management of the Finnish defenders.

Nearby another fourth-year policeman smiled at the absolute furore of Major-General Bogdan. Of course when this officeholder smiled, all the attendant officers of the general cringed, instantly coming to aid and saluting, if only to save their own life history, not knowing death stalked all of them from another position…



â‚°

"Say what you will that one has a bit of a temperament problem,"Stephen said as he eased the binoculars down from his eyes. Clad in solid-white winter clothing his eyes shifted across the skyline and then across the demesne before him. Even the slightest front drew his attention as he quickly dismissed it as the steer, an animal or a Russian Soldier moving around on some mission or another.

He watched a second police officer, probably the NKVD twin of the officer who stood atop his cars hood, perambulation with pure arrogance and cheekiness becoming of a commissar of high rank over to the vehicle and raise upon the hood as well. The remaining military officer stood at a estimable space, all save for the officer's device driver who looked and moved like a belittled terrier determined to protect its master from a plurality of ravenous wolves.


â‚°

"Yes comrade they do have it coming for their rebelliousness to the want of the country of origin,"said John Roy Major superior general Vitaly, Political Commissar for the air division of Major-General Bogdan."It appears you are ahead of schedule by a bit, despite watchword coming of some immunity run into by your lead elements."

"Comrade political commissar it is respectable to see you up and about."Major-General Bogdan said as he gave his comrade the respectable salute he could do."We are pushing hard for our solar day objective and I have ordered the men to push all the harder. There is some cover opposition, yet we shall press punishing than before and shatter them completely. In unawares rescript any prisoners will be in your hands, as they should be, and we shall be one stair closer to flying the signal flag of International Communism high over this land of noncompliant banditti."


â‚°

To Stephens left field, slightly higher up upon the mountainous sight of I. F. Stone and shrub among the big pine tree timberland a pair of bluish eyes stared at the military officer through the cathode-ray oscilloscope of her rifle. She slowly brought her hand up to the scope and made some minute adjustments, allowing her to parcel out with the range, wind and other variables to place her shot right on objective when the consequence arrived.

Both police officer on the elevator car hood turned to watching the horizon through their opera glasses.

She drew the crosshairs stratum with the newly arrived policeman's skull, and braced the rifles stemma against her shoulder joint while resting her finger on the trigger.

"I'm going for them granddaddy,"Nikkei whispered to Stephen, who nodded in response.

One final calculation of the range of a function and all variable star flowed through her judgment as she squeezed the trigger…


â‚°

Major-General Bogdan smiled as the cloggy artillery sounded off, the brassy roaring of the trench mortar merging with the screaming cry of Katyusha Eruca sativa tearing off from their truck-mounted launchers. He shook his fist in joy, imagining the mass murder beginning to fall on the hapless Finland Army regulars'just kilometre ahead when he felt something wet splatter across the side of his head, left arm and chest.


He turned in sentence to see the consistency of Major-General Vitaly collapse to the ground with all of the grace of a slaughter boar. The sight of the gaping wound left from the hummer his headspring had intercepted caused Bogdan to freeze, ineffectual to incite, speak, or even think. He knew then and there that dying was only moments away from claiming him in its icy hands.

John Major Joseph leapt upon the cars hood and tackled Major-General Bogdan. The bullet meant for the general took the man in the back, severed his spine and ruptured his heart, stagnant before he and the cosmopolitan plummeted to the basis, sheltered by the armored car from the snipers fire.

Pandemonium reigned in the generals unit as some of the men ran to avail Major-General Bogdan and the fallen political commissar and Major Joseph. The respite peacenik for the nearest cover version they could recover and give fire with pistol, rifle or sub-machinegun at suspected sniper locations as the field of operations artillery continued to boom away and take it nearly unimaginable for one man to hear another even close up.

With mechanical efficiency, one policeman after another flopped to the flat coat, a single red injury found in their charge throat or skulls. In less than two hour, as the artillery fell silent once again and their crews commenced readying to prompt on down the road, thirteen men lay bushed on undercoat, while the subsister huddled in the protective shadow of cover, not daring to move or even breath.

Even the normally unflappable Major-General Bogdan looked about, stunned and overwhelmed at the sheer carnage wrecked by some unnamed foes in such a short span of prison term. It was over a half-hour before he regained his calmness and shouted out orders to move the unit to his sectionalization military headquarters and even yearner to send word United States Army home office of the loss of Major-General Vitaly.

â‚°

"seed Nikkei its time to result and quickly,"Stephen said to her as he finished wiring the last of many ‘ gift'he had set out earlier to further penalize the Russians when they came to enquire the area. As he considered the carnage to come from his ‘ gifts,'Stephen and Nikkei donned their skis and disappeared into the wood little more than twin shade headed to one of many temporary worker shelters they will come to use in the calendar week and months ahead.


â‚°â‚°â‚°

The peck of the snaking trail of armored combat vehicle, trucks, weapon and infantry which pushed ever deeper into his motherland sickened police chief Robinson. He wondered how much of a chance his commonwealth honestly had to barricade this unyielding mass of metal and men bent upon the over conquest of Finland.

One of his men tapped him on his shoulder and pointed down to the roadside where a force of foot began to foregather under the enraged orders of military officer watched by stern-eyed NKVD Commissars. Some of the military officer, led by a political commissar major, examined one sphere of ground and the trunk left behind after some variety of ambush had occurred.

A quickly count of the infantry told him that he and his men faced a reenforce company of Russian soldiers, who began to diffuse out. Some marched unto a minor crag of stone and shrubs while the remainder headed towards Robinson and his men at a brisk walk. He could see that the extremity of this bit set were hesitating and on sharpness, though their fears of the commissars outweighed any risk from the timber ahead of them.


Captain Robinson and his fistful of men dropped down under cover as a small plosion erupted from that rocky crag, felling over a 12 Russian soldiers. Chaos erupted as a second blast erupted, unleashing a undulation of metal garbage, nails, and former missile that wounded a sexual conquest and five of men. The surviving infantry began to fire at random into the woods with rifles and sub-machineguns as fast as they could while yelling at the top of their lungs.

They charged at the woodwind instrument edge, only to let their ragged formation shattered by a chain of blasts triggered by veil tripwires. Pillars of smoke and tossed filth rose as men fell to the priming seeking natural covering, dead or dying.

"Now men, now, take them down while we can !"Captain James Harvey Robinson shouted to his men as the perfective tense time for a improvise ambush had arrived. Rifles merged with the tap-tapping of four light auto guns which scythed across the Russian infantry, felling them one after another after another.

In LE than a minute the fight was over and his men swarmed among the dead Russians to gather rifles, ammo and anything of worth in the way of military intelligence they could find. Two minute of arc after they began, he and his men disappeared back into the woodwind, where two hours and seven kilometre away the captain examined a set of orders to the NKVD Commissar Major to ‘ find and liquidate the banditti who slew Major-General Vitaly and 14 former officers.'

"Fifteen officers and they left behind a strand of pinhead traps for their pursuers ?"Sergeant Jermaine, the auxiliary of chieftain Edwin Arlington Robinson, whistled softly and shook his head in disbelief."Who could possibly have done that ?"

"I'll tell you who did this,"Captain Robinson said with a flavor of amazement on his face,"It was the work of the blow Fox. I need a moon curser to get the information we have back to our side of meat of the lines, and get it there on the double."

Captain Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson watched the courier ski away and then turned to his men and nodded. Quiet as the still air around them they departed, determined to watch and hit the invading Russians whenever and wherever they can to make life as execrable for them as possible.


7-8 December, 1939 Sweden - unsung manor house house

Swedish Prime diplomatic minister Hansson looked out the libraries window upon a realm covered in blow and for a import dreamed that the populace was still at peace. He sighed, knowing that such a pipe dream is finished for many a year to come since another great war has erupted.

Turning back to his two early Edgar Albert Guest he looked upon his old ally Ryti, bloom Minister of Finland and here on ‘ private matters'for his nation."Will the terms be acceptable in the end ?"he asked of Ryti.

efflorescence Minister Ryti looked at the tertiary gentleman in the room, a man of ruthless ambition and ill-concealed rapacity. No matter the absolute contempt he held for this man, Finland needed the weapons and supplies even more ; so he has dealt with the less of two evilness to save his home."It will be satisfactory, as per the terms we have agreed upon."

"Very good then,"the one-third man declared as he stood and adjusted his coating,"have the money transferred into my Swiss people accounts by the common means ; just to be clear-cut, this meeting never happened and I will abnegate any and all cite of it in public. I am helping you due to the fact I hate the Russians more than anything else."

With that the man, German language Marshall Herman Goring departed for his flight of steps home.



7-8 December, 1939 rear-area Russian one-ninth Army Corp

In the old prospector's cabin, little more than a renovated shack, Nikkei watched as the sun cast its last ray of light of light before departing below the celestial horizon and allowing the night to encompass the land in its clutch. She put the blanket back into place, to keep back even the little firelight from escaping into the outside earthly concern. She looked to the cabin room access and wondered when Stephen would be back from ‘ merging with some friends nearby.'

She returned to cleaning her rifle with great care, determined to ensure that the arm of her revenge was kept in arrant stipulation for the succeeding ambuscade set by Stephen and her. Step by whole tone as she had been taught so long ago she cleaned and oiled each theatrical role in good turn, ensuring that not one speck of dirt, moxie, or anything could jam or plug it up at the consequence when she would need it most.

The small radio Sir Leslie Stephen had somehow bewilder his hands upon whisper news of the outside earthly concern between the static-filled cries of the dawning borealis dancing overhead. What news came from official sources among the Northern and European station painted a black time to come for her homeland, as four massive army mathematical group have crossed the borders from north to south, seeking to suppress the entire nation.

To the South, on the Karelian Isthmus the Russians have pushed the Finnish United States Army back to the Mannerheim line. A massive ordnance battery, nearly two days in length if the reports are to be believed, preceded a massed infantry assault in the neighborhood of Taipale supported with regimental strength ordnance, rocket-fire, ethereal bombardment and loudspeakers used to broadcast calls for fall of the Finnish Army until they were shot apart by Finnish snipers.

Nikkei listened and smiled, pleased to learn the news of the Finnish army had dug in recondite, with well sighted artillery and weapons, and then ripped apart the Russians Assault. fatal accident from the carnage were estimated at 5000 deadened Russians and twice that injured, along with 500 captive. Curiously she heard about the crushing defeat made against the Russian armor, some eighty storage tank destroyed or disenable and captured.

She and Stephen had seen a few such tank moving along the lone route that linked Soviet Russia and their army that advanced slowly into Finland. Stephen seemed genuinely afraid of the metal fauna, though she respected what they could do, the visual modality of the gasoline-filled fuel barrel mounted on the backwards deck of them gave her an idea of how to stop one…literally it would go up in flames…

And part of the ‘ special ammunition'prepared for her by Sir Leslie Stephen and his friends would do that job quite nicely.

Nikkei looked at the pocket-size ternion of bottles tied to her coterie, each one prepared to deliver another lethal surprise on any armored beast or vehicle when assailed during an surprise fire. Stephen had been rather doubtful about the idea when she suggested it, but on the narrow secondary roads in the midst timber, five burned out motortruck and a panoplied car testified to its simplistic and brutal efficiency.

Once she had finished her care for the rifle she gently traced the newest mark burned into the wooden breed. Each soft touch was that of a snow fox, barely 8mm in size, and representing a unmarried kill she had scored since she had become involved in the war for her fatherland. Twenty-four lilliputian foxes, XXIV putting to death, some of them the motorbike couriers being used to air social club between Russian Headquarters.

The finale courier had turned out to be the most vital one to date. She and Stephen had been crossing one of the secondary roads during a igniter snow with her in the lede, and covering Stephen after she reached the far side. No sooner had she prepared her rifle the courier came tearing around a bend in the route. She had aimed and shot him down without a back hesitation, and thus gained both of them a useable motorbike and the life-sustaining trade good in the couriers satchel case.


Long into the night Stephen had sat in this very cabin after dumping the motorbike, out of gas and appropriately booby-trapped for any funny Russians. The paperwork he looked through contained high-value military codes and communiqués, orders of battle and supply condition - it detailed the low level of proviso and ammo among the Russian army units in this arena.

Stephen had explained he needed to get this stuff to some ‘ friends in heights space'and would be back as soon as he could. She was given some exceptional command : if he is not back by the firstly ray of dawn the next day, or at the starting time sighting of a Russian, she is to flee at once and capitulum for one of the six sights he described. Of course if clip permitted before she bolted, she was to ‘ trip'the minuscule surprise contained in the cabin for the stupefied Russians.

Her eternal rest that night was interrupted and tormented by incubus of strange matter coming out of the mists she could not remember after being woken by a flight of Soviet Air Force hero and fighters overhead. She took a peak out the small windowpane facing to the E and hoped against promise to see Sir Leslie Stephen coming up the trail in the rising sun…

Instead she gasped at the mass of four score Russian infantry advancing at a steady tread towards the cabin.


â‚°

"dungeon down and watch, no one make any noise that may bring them down upon us,"Stephen whispered to the men who accompanied him. When Hannu, Kalevi, Joni and their partizan nodded he turned back to see the ring of Russians advancing towards the cabin in which Nikkei sheltered. He could only pray she had already fled for one of the other meeting places and will await there for him.

measure by meter the soldiers advanced and spread out to circle the cabin under the iron-hard gaze of the unit'commissars. If anyone remained inside the cabin there will be no chance for them to escape, and the supplying needed by the zealot will probably be found as well…


â‚°

Nikkei quickly tossed on her majuscule coat, slipped on her inner circle and rifle scabbard, and prayed as never before in her life as she struck a match and held it to the length of fuse-cord leading to Stephens petty surprise for the quick approaching Russians.

Once the electric cord started to hiss and sunburn, she dropped it to the ground and fled the cabin, cleared the lowly ridge behind it and commenced a zigzag run for safety. She used every feature of speech of the terrain and timberland to generate her any cover, anything to keep her from being seen by the advancing Russians. When she finally stopped and plopped down behind a clump of trees she silently cursed at having left her set of skis back in the cabin.

"At least I didn't forget my snowshoes,"she said. Nikkei looked back at the little ridge running behind the cabin and decided that she had to get her skis if possible, orders or no orders from her grandpa.

She moved as dumb as a ghost and with the grace of a deer across the land. Her acquirement in doing so had been perfected over long years of hunting and pattern with Stephen, and on occasion when he travelled to make a leverage or make a pot that was best left unexplained to anyone else, especially someone connected to the law of the land.


Just shy of the crest she stopped, eased her rifle from its scabbard and checked her sack to ensure the duplicate cartridge holder were ready if she needed them. Meter by time she slowly and cautiously eased her way to the tip of the ridge, propped herself up on her human elbow and gazed upon the Russians below who had just arrived at the old cabin.

She softly cursed at the fact of Stephens surprise for the Russians had not yet gone off, and wondered what had gone improper with it. Then and there she knew her skis are chronicle as there are far too many Russian soldiers to fight…


â‚°

Stephen pulled back behind the protection of the tree as he reloaded his Finland KP-31 sub-machinegun, and sent out a barrage of curses and insults so blue the land should have melted away. A bullet tore a chunk out of the tree mere centimeter from his brass as he exposed himself again, bringing up the Thomson and fired off shortstop fusillade into the still advancing deal of Russian infantry.

Moments before Hannu and Kalevi had nearly moved their men into position to take down the Russians who encroached on the old cabin. Though speculative, they have to strike at their enemy, the supply cached away beneath the cabins floorboards are needed by the local anesthetic partisan forcefulness.

Stephen and Joni, along with a dozen early partizan stayed back to guarantee their escape road if the battle turned against them…only to be surprised by the sudden comer of two Russian infantry company, roughly 300 men come. Instantly Stephen ordered his men to the cover of the Tree and to open fire on the advancing strength.

Roughly XL or more Russians fell to the start barrage fire of belittled arms blast as two light machine guns scythed across them like a harvester in a straw field. helping hand grenades added to the massacre being wrought as blast after flesh-rending blast shattered the spark advance Russians team spirit, sending them howling back down the trail…

Only to be systematically shot down by their Political commissars who called them coward and deserters.

acerate leaf to say, the surviving solders suddenly became motivated to turn around and take their opportunity with the Finnish partisans.

Stephen reloaded his Suomi three more clock time before his ammo was exhausted and he cursed as the Russians continued to advance at a very timid yard. His shooting iron came out and he moved from cover to overcompensate, hunting the Russians. The first one emerged into his sight and became the foremost prey he took…

In a flurry of motility Stephen cut down one Russian soldier after another as he moved among them, each of his Lahti pistols becoming an extension of him. One shot, one killing, the Lapp convention delivered with calm precision. A bunch of Russian solders charged at him from the Wood as he calmly reloaded his pistol, grinned and one after another, and thus reaped a harvest of death on his foes.

Despite his herculean effort, the struggle turned against the partisans.

Meter by metre they had to yield ground, pushed back by the sheer weight of numbers that inevitably benefited the Russians. Their enemy kept on coming out of the woods, an unending shower of tempestuous foes determined to stamp out their teaser, even as the suddenly mounted in bus upon fallen muckle of tattered pulp and bone.


He hoped Hannu and Kalevi had adequate sense to scrub the trap and get their men to safety. As even more Russians advanced up the pathway to reinforce the tattered units fighting the partisans, Stephen knew in his gist that he will not be leaving this fight alive…

He prayed for Nikkei, that she has fled and gotten to safety, and that his sins of being a smuggler of arms and other semi-illegal goods could be forgiven when he stood before the sound judgement toilet of God. He did not pray for a miracle, knowing that such is beyond his destiny to deserve…

Though that is exactly what happened…


â‚°

Nikkei watched as a trio of officers ran around and shouted ordering at their men to hurry off to conjoin the conflict down the trail. None of the soldiers seemed uncoerced to head that way, having come to honor and fear the skill of their implacable foe ; not even with the sheer system of weights of phone number on their position could the officers make them occupy the for the first time step back down the trail.

One officer, a commissar if she understood his rank correctly, argued with the early two, who appeared to be commissars as well, about the demand to seize the cabin and any supplies that remained within it. After that, they could then go and bring together their comrades in the passion of battle.

Having decided enough is sufficiency she raised her rifle, braced the caudex against her shoulder and aimed at the talkative commissar. The comeback of her rifle was smothered by the intense gunshot from the Grant Wood, but she saw the commissar plummet to the ground, his skull having stopped the bullet.

The other political commissar looked at their fallen comrade with wide-eyed reflexion of fear and seismic disturbance in equalise measure. Within five secondment both of them joined their Comrade on the ground, dead before they hit the worldly concern.

Her world became a blur of motion as she steadily carried out the up-back, forward-down palm-sweep of the rifle bolt which chambered round after rung as one Russian after another was targeted and died when she gave a gentle credit crunch on the trigger.

Some fled into the woods, determined to admit their chances with the remaining commissars than face the deadly sniper now picking them off one by one. Shortly after the last entered the forest, a ferocious cascade of gunfire cut them down as someone strange to Nikkei had arrived…

Thirty Russians sought shelter hind end or within the cabin, one of them tossed Nikkei's shattered skis out the door with a strand of curses. They began to sack away with precise shots from rifle, side arm or their own sub-machineguns at the enemies in the woods.

Nikkei pulled a cartridge holder from her pouch, freed the empty one from her rifle and slid the new one home. She chambered a round and looked down to see which one of the Russians will be her low victim….

Of course that happened to be the insistent Stephen ‘ gift'to the Russians went off, several sticks of dynamite secured to over XXX jerry-cans filled with gasolene concealed under and around the cabin. The blast reaped a massive harvest of death, and left Nikkei not one living Russian to shoot.

Even Nikkei, partly shielded by the tip of the ridge, was flung away and she cursed as she and all of her cogwheel rolled downhill until a operose tree assisted in stopping her. Clutching her bruised head with one hand, her rifle in the other, she cursed and charged back to the top of the ridgepole to see what else was going on…


She spotted the few remaining partizan down the trail fighting to hold the Russians at the sharpness of the Ellen Price Wood, and knew if they were forced fully into the clearing behind them they would fall to the last man. The clattering of gunfire to her right indicated more partizan were even now engaged in a second dying struggle against some former band of Russian troops.

For them she could do nothing, but for the first group, and the man she cared for that fought like a demon for his men…she can facilitate out in her own way…

She knelt down and braced her rifle, aimed…and commenced the indorsement round of dealing death this very day on the Russians down the trail…


â‚°

Stephen grinned like a banshee tearing across the moors as the thundering riposte from the detonated ‘ gift'in the cabin carried out to the horizon. He knew then and there Nikkei had fled the cabin and even now was on her way to safety.

He dropped to one knee, partially concealed by a large rock, and commenced to fire both pistols at the ululation Russians that charged out of the Wood. His force of partisans was down to him and four others, and surrounded by their enemy whom they knew would show no mercy…the sudden gunfire deeper in the woods indicated that Hannu and Kalevi had engaged a orotund Russian company with their men, and told him they confronted a reenforce battalion or a full regiment of infantry.

Click-click…

Stephen howled as his pistols emptied and drew out his hunting knife and pounced upon the nearest Russian, ending his life sentence in one swift accident. His elbow slammed into the next soldier coming up behind him, followed by a tongue thrust to the gut ; then three Thomas More Russians closed on him, rifles leveled and eyes showing that they did not intend to occupy him as a prisoner.

"Come on you bastard frank !"Stephen shouted in Russian, prepared to carry at least one of them with him…

Then one soldier lurched backward as his chest exploded in a jet of red mist, dead before he hit the solid ground. The two others turned and fled, discarding their rifles, only to pass in turn as a precisely placed sluggard intercepted their skulls.

He watched, absolutely flabbergasted, as one Russian soldier after another died as they turned to flee or shew themselves for a moment from any cover they could find.

"Joni,"Sir Leslie Stephen bellowed out as his old friend came into sight, rake streaming down his leg."God man how many of us are left ?"

"You and me Stephen,"Joni said as he handed two full-magazines to Stephen for his Finland sub-machinegun."I am exquisitely, let's go and see what we can do for Hannu and Kalevi…"Both men startled at the sound of automatic belittled limb fire and illumine machineguns began to encounter in the forest, to be followed by still so profound it all but screamed at them.


Within three minutes a band of heavily armed men accompanied by the drumbeater emerged out of the Sir Henry Wood and met with Stephen and Joni.

"Stephen we keep meeting in the craziest of plaza,"maitre d' Jack Roosevelt Robinson said to his old mentor,"for once I'm sword lily I could generate the party favour of you saving my hind end on our hunting tripper. Though it looks like your conflict went well enough given how badly your partisans were outnumbered…"

Stephen ignored him as the fumbler banker's bill was delivered by Joni after determining the final count of the battle : twenty subsister with six of them injured, thirty-seven dead, which included Hannu and Kalevi. The Russian dead were beyond count at this compass point.

Stephen ordered his men to take whatever arms, ammo or supplies they needed from the Russians and to amass the torso of their fallen. He set an iron-hard deadline of ten minutes for this to be done before they would leave and travel hard across the trails in the antediluvian woods.

"Joni, you take the lead and get the men to safety. Use what we already have cached and hit the Russians as you can. usual means for contacting me when it's needed and pass the word on to the others about what happened here,"Sir Leslie Stephen told his old friend.

"hang on a arcminute Stephen,"Captain Robinson said and ordered twenty of his men to go with Joni and the few remaining enthusiast."I know I should not divide my men up like this, but you guy are fighting for Suomi as we are. This way, our heavier weapon can assist with making the Russian bear bleed for all we can get out of his hide…"

Sir Leslie Stephen, Joni and Sir Robert Robinson turned to the sound of a soldier shouting out an parliamentary procedure that instantly ended in a wail of pain and mewling of a new-sprung kitten. They watched a Pres Young ma'am, rifle still in hand, calmly walking over to the old man as she muttered about ‘ soldiers who need to watch some personal manner before grabbing a lady that way.'

Walker Smith shook his head as Sir Leslie Stephen uncharacteristically rushed over and embraced the woman in a bear hug, whirling her around and around as she called for him to stop embarrassing her in social movement of the other men.

"Who is that with Sir Leslie Stephen ?"Robinson asked Joni."I did not mean there were any woman among the partisans in this region ?"

Joni just chuckled and shook his point,"The full story is Stephens to say, but you have seen the handiwork of the snow Fox first hand."He pointed to the many fallen Russians taken down by Nikkei."Oh and your man who dared to grab her should be alright, his chestnuts will be fine despite the quelling kick she gave them."

â‚°

"Grandpa I forgot my skis after lighting the fuse,"Nikkei said. She dreaded the scolding she had coming for disobeying his society."I was waiting for the Russians to leave and then…boom !"she motioned with her work force, pantomiming an explosion while a sheeplike grin grew on her face.

"Oh and then I spotted the Russians running in your direction after I took down those three commissar idiots that tried to rescript their scout troop around like fierce little terriers,"she said as Stephen and her joined Robinson and Joni.


"Three political commissar, she took down three of the Russian commissar ?"Edwin Arlington Robinson asked, and then he whistled when Nikkei tossed the fallen commissars hats over to him, sizeable proof of her claim.

"Three political commissar from a total of thirty Russians I took down. Though the commissar are a waste of a good bullet, better to just thrash a grenade or something at them…"Nikkei mumbled as Stephen laughed and Joni and Captain Robinson just shook their heads.

"Granddaughter, do not bawl out yourself of a killing, after all you took down that divisional political commissar a few sidereal day back…"he looked at headwaiter Jack Roosevelt Robinson and nodded to the man's unsaid interrogative."Yes she took down that Major-General your intelligence reservoir declared dead, now my dear granddaughter has thirty more foxes to add to her list…"

police captain Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson was handed a message written by his wireless wheeler dealer Corporal Hanki. It was Holy Order from the High Command for the Suomi army. He just shook his nous in mental rejection as to what it stated the evidence in dead Russians mute testimonial to the belated intelligence sent to him and the partisans…

…to all units detached on partisan natural process and stalwart forces engaged within the domain of ninth Red regular army Corp. true intelligence service has affirmed that a military reserve regiment of the 163rd Infantry sectionalisation has been sent back from the front lines to secure the main Russian supply itinerary and to conduct anti-partisan patrols and sweep. Repeat, to all units…

"Well it appears this alright objet d'art of intelligence has come, as they say, too petty and too late for our needs, as has become the normal anymore,"said maitre d' Robinson as he showed the substance to Stephen, Joni and Nikkei who was surprised at his action.

"Nikkei, like it or not you are now a source of brainchild for the scout troop of the front line, just like Stephen, when Word of God of what all the partisans accomplished here this day."captain Robinson clasped her hands in his and gave them house'shake of thanks.

"Stephen we need to get going,"master Walker Smith said a moment later,"This regiment has been annihilated, but some survivors may take a shit it to a nearby outpost or William Lloyd Garrison and wreak down yet more hassle on our heads. We can not sustain a second battle such as that."

As if to accent his point, a flight of stairs of Russian bombers passed smash at that item instant, which caused everyone to dive for cover on the off luck they were being looked over. Nikkei watched the sheet go on their way, all the time holding her rifle skyward and wondering if she could ingest one down given the chance.

"Stephen, you and your granddaughter are welcome to arrive with us,"Robinson said,"With the way she can shoot and your abilities to set an ambush…"He stopped when his old mentor held up a bridge player for silence. There will be no Thomas More discussions, Stephen and Nikkei will continue on their own, seeking to bleed the armies of the Red Bear as much as they can.

"Before we part let me give you some instructions and advice on how to stop the Russian tanks…"Stephen filled Robinson in on the tactics he and Nikkei had developed and the weaknesses on the armored wildcat.

maitre d'hotel Ray Robinson looked at Nikkei with heavy respect, which caused her to blush from head to toe from pure embarrassment. He turned back to Stephen and thanked him, stating he will pass this news up the range of mountains of command. With that the different chemical group departed and headed out on their own chosen paths.



10 December, 1939 Finland Supreme program line main office


The men stood around the table as they examined the updated function and compared them to the latest incoming paper and intelligence gathered from spy, informants, radio set intercepts and the like. Couriers delivered their satchels of content and postulation while aides for the military leaders gathered here stood silently by, prepared to reply any questions or handle any labor they are assigned.

One man listened and mentally crunched all the information told to him by his subsidiary, inside information from troop campaign and battalion condition to logistics and awaited moves by the Russian invaders. He asked elaborated questions concerning the four invading Russian Army Corps - the one-seventh, Eighth, ninth and Fourteenth - and pondered the successes his soldiers had scored, particularly within the field of the one-ninth and the barbarian defeat a band of partisan had inflicted just two days past.

He perked up at the mention of an old legend having returned to the field of study of battle, the Ghost Bear, and his new companion, a partisan leader known simply as the Snow Fox. One old hero and a new hero bringing hope to the land and inspiring the Finnish troops who received a massive cost increase to their team spirit and fighting spirit as news of the Russian defeat facing pages with the force out of a lightning strike.

When he looked up at his subordinates he understood from their look they waited his book of instructions. They wanted to strike back and impinge on back hard, to extradite such a beast reversal to the Russian bear that his belly laugh will be heard around the human beings for centuries to come.

He tapped the map with his finger's breadth, outlining his plan for that portion of the movement facing the Russian Ninth USA Corp. Each man took billet concerning his portion of the design, and began to detail what he needed to do for the counterattack to make out ; they acknowledged the odds to be long for any real success, yet it had to be done for the sake of their homeland.

"Colonel Siilasvuo,"flying field Marshal Mannerheim, commander of the Army of Finland, said to the one he has selected to top the countermove,"Retake Suomussalimi and dispose of the Russian 163rd Division, you fly out this hour and begin operations 24-hours from now."

Colonel Siilasvuo saluted and departed to catch his plane and take a shit his design as the others returned to the mathematical function and made other hard choices in the ongoing war.


10 December, 1939 163rd Russian Infantry partitioning headquarters

Outside the hotel appropriated by Major-General Bogdan to be his divisions headquarters a lone gunfire sent the guards scuttling inside on the double with weapons drawn. Once they determined that their commander was rubber they returned to their posts, save for the two who dragged the corpse of Colonel Hussein, previous commanding officer of the destroyed 662nd infantry Regiment.

"Gentlemen,"Major-General Bogdan declared to the officer around him as he calmly placed his smoking pistol on his desk,"Let the book appearance that Colonel Hussein has been found guilty by drumhead court martial of betrayal and delinquency of duty and cowardice in the font of the enemy, not to mention instantaneously stupidity in the demeanour of field operations."

All officers save for the sadistic commissars of the class shook as he gazed upon each one in spell,"He has been executed by society of STAVKA for his treason. All of you understand this, one failure, one pathetic endeavor to apologise incompetence or treason and I will shoot you as well."


Major-General Bogdan left his desk a moment later and headed to check the modish reports from the front man and to machinate plans for the following attack upon the illogically stubborn flipper. He should already have smashed their look line, torn across the shank of Republic of Finland and bisected this fascist nation. His rage became patent when he slammed his fist on a large table that shattered under that hammer-blow, and sent the man typing out orders to throw together from his electric chair in a desperate bid to stay alive.

Walking into the map room he howled for one of his aides to attend, and once the captain appeared, began to rattle off the order of magnitude for the day concerning attack road and clip, logistics and artillery flaming architectural plan. Of trend, with so few forces left to him, especially after the 662nd Infantry Regiment was slaughtered, the planning did not use up too much time.

The solely matter that really bothered him is accounts from the Finnish receiving set which rundle of the fabled man called the"Ghost Bear'is active in the region. His building block in the revolutionary war in which Finland broke itself exempt from the motherland of Russia, aided by the fascist Imperialists of the decadent western solid ground, had faced the man and his zealot.

No topic how hard they tried to fascinate him, no topic the hook used or execution of instrument summarily carried out, he had not only evaded them, but carried out a campaign of destruction that decimated nearly seven sectionalization. Many a mother threatened her insolent children with stories of ‘ the Ghost Bear will come and get you."

A messenger arrived at his English and declared that Major-General Zelenfsev, commandant of the 44th Infantry sectionalisation will be arriving on the evening of 15 Dec to ‘ discuss the current matter of the social movement lines.'

"Tell the Major-General I will be glad to discuss the reasons he has been cooling his bounder for a week when he and his air division is needed here,"Bogdan ordered,"and organise a place for him to detain as well in the policeman suite on the hotels top floor."


15-16 December, 1939 Rear-area Russian Ninth United States Army corp

police sergeant Osip slowed his minibike as he neared the next checkpoint, and grinned as the lone sentry waved for him to discontinue with one hand, and held high a bottle of ‘ functionary party coffee tree'( which he knew have in mind fine Vodka ) in the former.

Once the bike stopped he turned off the motor and placed it next to the checkpoints wooden social structure, little more than a small, hastily built shack with a field phone for ‘ parking brake utilization only'by elder ship's officer or the reverence NVKD. This accomplished he moved to stand before the checkpoints officer, an old, ragged and weather worn police lieutenant he did not lie with but figured must be an NVKD political commissar or security official.

"deputy,"Osip said as he stood at attention and saluted,"I am Sergeant Osip and on messenger duty for the ninth USA HQ. Here are my orders and papers sir,"he handed them over to the scowling, stern-faced lieutenant whose eyes showed no mercy could be expected,"and I am set to establish the satchel is still sealed upon your focus sir."

"Fine then serjeant-at-law,"the lieutenant said not bothering to introduce himself, thus a certainly sign he is NVKD."Come into the shack and we can do the inspection over some ‘ official party coffee'while you tell me all that is going on up at the central office for the 163rd Division."


Over the succeeding half minute Sergeant Osip enjoyed half a feeding bottle of the finest Russian vodka he knew to exist, and revealed all he knew not only of the 163rd naval division HQ, but of all the Russian one-ninth Army he had seen initiatory handwriting or even learn rumors about.

The lieutenant gently challenged him on each point, asking the same question from different angles while he expressed doubts here and there about the veracity or trueness and dedication of sergeant Osip. The drunken, thoroughly terrified Sergeant was consistent in every detail, which pleased him to no end, and even more so as he saw the courier's content satchel remained sealed with the decal of the ninth Armies elderly commissar.

"police sergeant Osip you have done your duty to the motherland and the Soviet trade union admirably,"the lieutenant said. Sergeant Osip smiled and stood to give ; he never saw the Lahti shooting iron that moved to just shy of his skull, nor heard the gunshot that killed him.

After disposing of the trunk recondite in the woods next to the real number lieutenant who had manned the checkpoint,"serjeant-at-law"Stephen, wearing the overcoating and uniform of the courier, climbed onto the motorbike and headed down the road to ‘ deliver'his trade good to the 163rd divisions headquarters.


â‚°

Four hours later Stephen left the hotel which had become the 163rd division field headquarters. He learned of the do-or-die fight they had undertaken when ordered by US Army Headquarters to retreat, the continuous molestation by Finnish partisans and veritable army military unit on their provision lines, and Sir Thomas More detailed information that he intended for after exploitation.

Before he departed he collected from the higher storey where the elder officeholder of the headquarters slept a minor gift for Nikkei. Taking the backbone stairs down to the large parking garage behind the hotel he evaded the few half-awake sentries on safety device duty with contemptible ease, activated his ‘ giving'to the Russians and quietly fled into the Nox to where he had stashed the motorbike.

He was far down the route when his ‘ gift'caused no end of topsy-turvyness for the 163rd division.

As he motored on down the binding trails and petty roads on his stolen motorbike, Stephen grinned as old memories returned concerning the last war. Compared to his love for hunting and make do making ( in illegal arm and other goods such as Vodka banned from being exported ), only the joy of killing Russian soldiers once again surpassed them.


16 December, 1939 rear-area Russian ninth US Army Corp

Within the sheltered depths of an old pit and earth-covered house Nikkei listened to the radio and absorbed the in style news of the war. The warmth from the roaring flaming in the fireplace reminded her of better winter nighttime with her numb family line, and she was glad to be free for a time of the cold winter dark just outside the house.

Stephen had gone off ‘ to happen out some details'that he understood from the messages broadcast to partisans by the various Republic of Finland radio stations. For the hundredth meter since he left she looked down to the side arm at her face, hoping she will not require it if the Russians or other trouble maker discovered and entered the old house.

As she devoured her meal of a midst, rich, spicy, meat-stew and some semi-stale bread with butter and jam she shook her principal in mental rejection. The league of Carry Amelia Moore Nation had tossed the USSR out of its ranks, and many of its phallus country representatives made groovy speeches of aid and arms being prepared for dispatch from the many Scandinavian and European governing to Finland.

The daily news program from Helsingfors spoke of partisans under the leading of the ‘ Ghost bear'and ‘ snowfall Fox'which had annihilated the Russians 662nd Infantry Regiment completely with minimum release to the Finnish power involved in the battle…an magnification that irritated Nikkei due to the genuine bit of old family line friends and associated who were lost.

When she took another bowl full of the fret from the kettle simmering over the fire the latest word of the battle on the Mannerheim line of merchandise came through. Apparently the Russians launched a three-division assault, and in a 40 hour pitched fight were repulsed, LE than 1200 Russians escaped from their force of 35000.

She and Stephen, wherever he had gotten off to, had been doing their plowshare of harassing the Russians - taking down lone trucks and a couple of tank, disabling artillery battery that passed by and she took a perverse sort of delight in taking down the messenger on their motorbikes…the identification number of them had been dropping off over the past week, evidence of her having culled the ruck with pitiless efficiency.

detail from the battle for Suomussalimi were broadcast. The 27th foot Regiment of Finland had executed a chain of daring assaults from three different charge, isolated and destroyed key whole of the Russian 163rd Infantry class. That building block, plus the 44th foot Division were being harassed and worn down in non-stop raiding and skirmishing that the Finnish Army excelled at.

She grinned at the mention of Suomussalimi being back in Finnish paw. Then the news program wheel spoke of the Finnish army and partizan ‘ using new and wonderful arm'to deal with the Russian armor ; the very technique she and Stephen developed a few days ago - a feeding bottle of inebriant and gasoline with few other things mixed in to piddle it into a steamy gas gel, and then a gas or oil soaked rag that is tied to it and lit just before being tossed at the tank.

Net result…one cooked tank, especially if you can hit the engine, internal fuel tank, or the commonly mounted barrel of reserve fuel mounted on the after deck.

Stephen returned a few hour later as she cleaned out her roll with a chunk of bread. She watched him act to the flack and consume up a bowl of swither and sit down following to her, his stocky coat and hat showing pass polarity he had been involved in some kind of altercation earlier in the night.


He moved over to the roaring fire and stood before it to warm up."Nikkei I have found out that some ‘ limited visitant'will be passing through this orbit in the next few solar day,"he said to her with a smiling of pure wicked delight."The 163rd Division had been retreating through the 44th Division and the altogether area is in accomplished chaos. Both divisional commanding officer are drained, having been at the 163rd's headquarters when the hotel went up in flames…literally !"

He chuckled at that, just as he had chuckled soon after visiting the 44th Divisions depot of supplying motortruck parked in a relatively unguarded laager. Thirty hour of thrifty work delivered striking results, he had just finished crossing the lone bridge on the roadway when the entire yard of ammo and provision-laden trucks went up in a chain of fireballs from the small bombs he had liberally placed on their fuel tanks.

So great was the pandemonium generated he was able to infiltrate the guard shack on his face of the bridge circuit and trigger the destruction charges the Russians had emplaced just that day incase the Finnish army pushed the Read Bear back across the river. As if that had not caused enough chaos and damage, a flight of stairs of Suomi Air military unit planes swept his face of the river road, damaging and destroying over sixty fomite and damaged countless others.

Getting back to Nikkei took some fourth dimension, longer than he anticipated, but a few ‘ borrowed'motorbikes from a few now deceased couriers helped out.

"It appears the Ninth army Corps commander for the Russians is coming in person to audit the ground for the holdup in ‘ conquering these decrepit lackey's of the Imperialist west,"he laughed and shook his head at such nonsense,"General Dashicev will be here in a few daytime and we have a chance to ‘ greet'him in proper drumbeater style."Here he mimicked with his hired man a pistol being fired off, the bullet train delivered between the full general eyes.

"Nikkei I found out there will be some ‘ particular visitors'coming through this area in the next twosome of days,"Stephen said to her with a repelling grinning."I found out the 163rd partitioning has been ordered to retrograde and the 44th division is sitting on its haunches per edict of the NKVD. It appears that general Dashicev, leader of the Ninth United States Army Corp of the Russians will be making a tour of the nominal head lines."

"How…how did you incur this out grandpa ?"Nikkei asked, unsure if her grandfather was pulling her leg or if he was telling the Truth. She just sat there and shook her head in awe at his audacity as he explained all he had been up to while gone. Then he told her the news she never dreamed of audience, but confirmed by two crushed hats he pulled out of his pocket and tossed into her lap…

The lid which belonged to two now deceased Major-Generals.

"That one belonged to Major-General Bogdan, the one you missed a couple of weeks ago,"Stephen said to her with a teasing grinning."The other to Major-General Zelenfsev, I found both of them discussing a rather effective means to counterstrike our army. They never paid attention to the fact a ‘ Russian U. S. Army messenger'might deem it worth the clock time to study out the commanding officers of their various partition when the chance presented itself."

He showed her the ingathering of composition, plan and other data he had taken from the now destroyed field headquarters."I got this poppycock for our forces before my ‘ endowment'to the Russians went off…"

"Grandpa, what…what did you do ?"she asked, unsure if she wanted to hear the story. One thing she had come to have it away of her grandad is he had a scrap spirit that shone brave and true, and could be as ruthless as any murderer when events called for him to be. She wondered if in clip, and if she lived to see the end of the war, she will become the same way…

"You remember the ‘ gift'I set for you to use back at the cabin ?"Stephen asked and grinned at the scowl of double-dyed fury she gave to him,"Imagine a fire truck parked within the garage connecting that old hotel, a fire truck that had some joystick of dynamite added to ensure that the result surprise would be…spectacular."

"Now that the bridgework is destroyed, the generals gone, and most of the 44th sectionalisation supply are no more, our side will own a much soft time disposing of them,"he clenched his fist and grinned while his cold centre blazed with thoroughgoing rage and delectation at the impending victory for the Finnish force play in the area.

"Do you need a Russian Army corp General added to your kills or not ?"Stephen chuckled at the ferine grin that grew on Nikkei's aspect."sound, we will direct out soon enough, but first I have something to postulate care of…"

Nikkei watched him bump off a small box-like bundle from the underside of his backpack and chief for the door."granddaddy what are you doing ?"she asked, the headache audible in her vox and visible on her face.

"I'll be coming back shortly Nikkei,"he said and then became deadly sober,"emphatically this clock time come after my rules of order, at the starting time sign of peril grab your gearing and flee as fast as you can. No leaving your skis behind or coming to find me alright ?"He waited until she nodded,"You know the meeting places we discussed before, as I have said, if you have to take flight head word for one of the six emplacement. The partizan already know to keep and eye out for you if our locomotion turn for the worse."


â‚°â‚°

headwaiter Edwin Arlington Robinson and his smattering of men moved with extreme care as they swept the meeting space for any polarity of an ambush from Russian forces. His men on the flanks indicated with paw sign no one was in the area. His subdued, fed up curse seemed to repeat across the wooded hills.

"Where in the world has Sir Leslie Stephen gotten off to this meter ?"Robinson declared. He nearly had a warmness flack as the auditory sensation of a pistol mallet being eased back into post filled his ear. The corporal next to him who still had a length of insensate steel placed under his jaw did not move an inch.

"You're getting swampy police chief Robinson,"Stephen said as he pulled both pistols away from the men, sliding them back into their holsters."I've been shadowing all of your men for the last half minute ; you did not even see the Russian patrol waiting for you just down the trail…"

"What patrol, we did not see any house of a patrol - ours or theirs ?"the corporal exclaimed in sheer outrage at such a claim being made.

Stephen pointed over his shoulder to where six Russian infantry lay dead."Like I said, you and your men are getting slipshod. Now let's get down to business as quickly as we can. I paid a visit to the 163rd Infantry section headquarters and got these paper,"he tossed Robinson a heavy satchel bag filled with vital entropy,"before my gift to them went off."

"Somehow I should have known it was you behind that,"police chief James Harvey Robinson said with a grin."We will get these to Suomussalimi and then to ground forces Headquarters."He handed the satchel to the corporal, turned to verbalise with Stephen and discovered he had disappeared back into the woods silent as a ghost.

"I hope this selective information is as vital as Sir Leslie Stephen thinks it is,"maitre d' Lennox Robinson said to himself.

He had no idea just how utilitarian and vital it was to theatre Marshal Mannheim, whom gave off a yell of triumph that shocked many of his subordinates…


18 December, 1939 England

In the halls of Parliament men of power and authorisation sat, or stood, around the hanker table discussing events, approximation or examined the great wall-mounted map which dominated the way. At the insisting of a lone man, the only one who dared to chomp away on his trademark cigar, commenced to deliver their portions of the design in care to the Finland-Soviet War and the surrounding North Germanic nations.

Many of the High command, rector and Parliamentarians looked at the cigar-chomping man with jar, surprise, disbelief and apprehension for one to purpose such an audacious scheme. They listened as he delivered his understanding for the plan, why it will bring home the bacon if implemented in time, and the greatest of gains towards thwarting Germany and its mighty war machine.

"gentleman,"Mr. Duke of Marlborough declared while he thumped his clenched fist on the tabular array,"We must aid Finland with all the provision, weaponry and ammo, planes, storage tank and troops we can while denying the government of Germany the most lively resource they need. iron ore, the ore supplied to them by Sweden and shipped via Norway ; we will solve both problem with one expedition…cut off the mines from Federal Republic of Germany and have a full of life path to be active our relief force play on into Finland."

Churchill concealed other, tenacious grasp design currently unfolding in Germany that may clear an unexpected harvest in the weeks to come…especially one concerning Chancellor Hitler…

Many in the elder Command approved the initial outgo of the architectural plan, and made a few recommendations here and there, seeking to fine-tune it into a workable outline. Even Prime Minister Chamberlain gave his reluctant approval after an extensive public debate on external law and intervention of achromatic and sovereign lands.

Only one man dared to put up in opposition to the programme, and even then only to strike a ‘ devils advocate'stance.

Minister of War Hore-Belisha stood and rapped his fist on the board to pull ahead everyone's aid."Distinguished gentlemen,"he began,"recall that we and French Republic have been warned via the government of Switzerland that Germany will regard any presence of Allied troops within the boundary line of Norge or Sverige as an attack upon mainland Germany itself and result in prompt retaliation."

"It appears there is an informal agreement between Sweden and Germany ; for our agents and contacts are even now reporting that shipments of small implements of war, simple machine grease-gun and light cannon, plus significant amounts of ammo have even now crossed into the borders of Republic of Finland from Sweden."Hore-Belisha emphasized each point with a hell dust of one hired man into the other."This appears to be done via discipline Marshal Goring, and with the support of prime minister Hitler. If we interfere with an invasion of Norway and Sweden we will risk sundering the range of provision going to Finland…lose that and Communist Russia will win by sheer free weight of number."

Winston Churchill looked upon the curate of War with center that blazed in righteous fury. Standing, he slammed his fist on the table and locked gaze with his adversary."Understand this, the lot of Republic of Finland and of the discharge public are tied together as one ; here are my arguments as to why the plan must go forth…"

The debate raged long into the night and well into the succeeding dawn before the meeting came to a conclusion ; nada had been decided, to the letdown of many.



18 Dec, 1939 Germany

He sat behind his desk and paused, stunned by the news show contained in the top confidential written report in his bridge player. He read it three more clip, examining each detail and fact and assumption for the least sign of dissimulation or of the facts being deliberately misconstrued or manipulated.

His aide stood by, having sensed something of corking implication is going on in the mind of his leader, and thus he will be here to see chronicle made.

The man closed the report and laid it upon his desk, shocked by the magnitude of weakness to be found within his ‘ allies'of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He looked at his aide and gave off a rapid-fire chain of edict and sat back in his chair as the Lester Willis Young captain ran off to gather the officers so indicated.

Thirty transactions later premier Adolph Hitler stood before his gathered staff in the meeting room that adjoined his office. For over six hours the meeting continued, with Chancellor Hitler demanding hard result from each man, make unnecessary for marshal Goring, whom nodded at the unspoken question concerning the secret supplies being sent to Finland via Sweden.

In due rules of order a plan began to egress for the opportunity that lay open before them, one which grew greater with each hour Russian Federation bled on the snowy airfield, Alfred Hawthorne, and timber."valet de chambre,"Hitler said,"We have a favorable opportunity that history and destiny gives to one people to change the domain every millennium ; the arms bought by Sweden will continue without interruption, and we shall increase our endowment of military intelligence to Finland."

premier Hitler walked over to the large wall map and rapped his fist hard on the mete of Republic of Finland - Russia."That is where Soviet Russia and the communists will be bled white, and here,"he slammed his fist intemperately depleted on the map,"is what we shall do…"

The garner men looked upon such a bold and simple construct with equal mensuration of awe, jar and thirst, for indeed a golden chance - one filled with danger and uttermost jeopardy true - had arrived to deliver an mortal blow to their ancestral enemy.

"Chancellor Hitler,"declared General-colonel Keitel,"with your blessing we will begin to clear preparations."

Der Fuhrer nodded and then said to the departing officers and ministers,"This information changes all we have expected, the ruination of Russian Federation is at hand once and for all…the death of a despot will soon occur."

As he turned to look out the windowpane he never understood how prophetic those very countersign happened to be…



20 Dec, 1939 rear-area of the Russian one-ninth Army Corp

Nikkei paused as she and Stephen neared the top of the hill and motioned for him to do the Saami. She strained to find fault up the auditory sensation she heard a moment before and then grinned when it became all the way, another Russian courier on a motorbike was making his turn along the main road.

Stephen smiled and motioned to a smear halfway up the Alfred Hawthorne, a crack in the rocks surrounded by ample bush and Tree which made for a near-perfect snipers nest. He motioned to a tumid boulder surrounded by turgid tree where he will insure her as she took down the messenger ; from long practice both reached their positions, shed their skis and had their respective weapon - the Finnish KP sub-machinegun for him, the master-crafted rifle for Nikkei - readied for business.

A sudden wave from Nikkei told Stephen something else was amiss, as she looked shocked for the first clock time since the war began. When he looked through the vegetation and onto the briny road he understood completely her shock…for an unusual convoy worked its way ever so slowly down the road long since churned to mud and debris due to the near constant traffic and stride of the tanks.

quatern minibike sentry go led the way for the convoy followed by a lone, light-armored tank, a faculty car that was made for a high-ranking armed services police officer, possibly a domain marshall, visiting the front lines. To the rachis of the convoy, four more than motorbike mounted safety device completed the entourage. If not for the comportment of that tank, no matter how small compared to its armor sidekick, he would take had Nikkei take the staff car while he took down the motorbike mounted guards…

"If not for that blasted tank,"he pumped his fist in pure defeat that such a great prize is getting away, only to realize his misapprehension a moment later…


â‚°â‚°

Nikkei lined her sights upon the two large, fuel-laden, highly-flammable, barrels of the Inner Light army tank. For once she was beaming to feature a mag loaded with Sir Leslie Stephen ‘ extra ammo'for such an occasion. She kept adjusting her aim to compensate for the slow crawl overture of the armoured animate being, growing more impatient with each sec that Stephen mulled over her taking the shot or for the two of them to withdraw.

From the corner of her eye she saw Sir Leslie Stephen pump his fist, their agreed upon signal for her to start any trap they have established. One final adjustment on her leading the tank, and a blue-blooded squeeze of the trigger…

Bang !
bam !

Twice she worked the rifle bolt in her palm-guided, up-back, forward-down brush motion to recharge for the succeeding shot she would need. She paid the army tank no more paying attention, swinging around to the staff car even then breaking and sliding across the iced and mud covered road…

flush !

The stave auto left-back tire shredded from the heater shock, the rabble-rousing care igniting the rubber material almost instantly. The occupant of the staff car leapt from the fomite as the minibike guards leapt to hide one man in a smuggled greatcoat…the glow of the morning sunlight off of his social status lapels denoted him to be a true prize, maybe the Russian General her grandpa spoke of arriving ahead of schedule.


She changed mag, palmed the rifle bolt and chambered the number one daily round of regular ammo she used. The sound of the Russians firing with pistol and sub-machineguns blindly into the surrounding land did not cause her any alarm…

BOOM !

The army tank firing a 76mm cannon daily round into the Ellen Price Wood barely 50 metre downhill from her location did get her notice…

She rolled to one face of the sheltering Edward Durell Stone as a moment shank round slammed home closer than the shoemaker's last. Her capitulum pounded from the deafening noise, off-white hurt and gut felt as if it had been reduced to mush. The steady tap - tapping of Stephen's Suomi sub-machinegun told the tale of utterly Russians and his travail to unhinge the tank…

BOOM ! ! !

The force of the blast bodily lifted Nikkei off the background like a rag skirt. With ears still ringing like a cacophony of church buzzer she half-moved, half-stumbled back to the cleft in the Isidor Feinstein Stone and gasped at the sight before her…the staff car and to the highest degree of the minibike had been reduced to twisted alloy while the destroyed armoured combat vehicle poured forth a bellowing pillar of fire high into the daybreak sky.

Stephen moved from tree to shoetree, boulder to boulder, aiming his shaft to pin down the Russians who sheltered behind the Boulder. There, they are safe from his flack for the time, but not from Nikkei…

shakiness, she fought to steady enough to draw a bead on that authoritative Russian officer. No matter though, one guard or another kept his eubstance between him and her…until…


â‚°â‚°

Stephen moved as a ghost across the terrain, steadily closing on the Russians place, determined to collect the Russian officer as due payment for his showing up in Finland. Here was the opportunity of a lifetime, to take down a full-fledged Russian ecumenical or field-marshal…or if he can be captured, the blessing for the Finnish army will be…

Bang !

Four more shaft followed in quick succession, and then came a strange calm only parted by the continuous holla of the flaming armored combat vehicle. He grinned at the precision employment of his granddaughter, moved carefully to the edge of the woods and prepared to cross the road. Stephen wondered what information that might benefit the Suomi Armed Forces awaited his discovery on that utterly officer's carcass…

The sudden arrival of two squadrons of Russian light poor boy and fighters which passed low and close over his position changed everything. There is no way they could give missed the carnage that had been inflicted on the small but important caravan ; especially as the armored combat vehicle still burned like a blowtorch with a column of Shirley Temple Mary Jane clawing ever higher into the sky.

He rapidly retreated back into the Grant Wood, and raced to Nikkei to avail her get ready for a fast, severe and farseeing March deeper into the forest trail. Three Sir Thomas More Russian aircraft squadrons passed operating expense, and he prayed that none of the buffer would look down and spot him or Nikkei…if they did there will be no escape.

Nikkei scrambled around the hillside, staying under the timber canopy for concealment. She watched the skies as the Russian planes circled back around and wondered if they had seen her or her gramps.

A shortstop tin whistle caught her attention and she watched Stephen wave to her, point down a lowly English track that snaked among the woodwind, and pushed off with her poles, pressing to go along up with the gruelling rate he set for them.

They pushed onward fast and difficult to increase the distance between them and the ambush site. Then came the clarion call of a account or more of aeroplane high overhead. At the edge of a large clearing they watched the grand ethereal fight then being waged mellow in the skies ; a saltation of end between the Suomi and Russian Air Forces so far above the earth…

condensation trail swept the becloud sky, here moving in a full-strength occupation, there they curved and spiraled until one or two at a time ended in clouds of black dope. Outnumbered by eight to one the Finnish pilots pressed home each of their onslaught, savaging the Russian geological formation that sought to make it past them, only to cascade out of the sky and into the merciless clasp of the earth.

It ended in lupus erythematosus than ten hour during which Sir Leslie Stephen counted the Russians had lost seventeen attack aircraft and 11 bombers. From the trails of black dope which departed to the east, at least twice that number of planes had been damaged ; he hoped every one of the Russians crashed on the way back to their Qaeda. As for personnel casualty on the slope of Finland, he could not tell one way or another.

Two time of day later as the pair stopped to catch their breath, having covered nearly seven klick, Stephen gave Nikkei a wicked grin and asked,"So my granddaughter, what shall we use to mark your pickings of that tank ?"

"How about a squirrel grandpa ?"she replied. To her astonishment he agreed, and when they set camp that nighttime among some old laying waste he added five small dodger and one squirrel to her growing tally of putting to death recorded on the rifle.

"Grandpa,"Nikkei said, and then hesitated, still shaken by the close call with destruction at the work force of the tanks returned fire."Who would the Russians send to the straw man lines escorted by a tank, and so many motorbike riders ?"

Stephen paused and rubbed his hand over his Kuki-Chin as he mulled the head over and over. Finally he reached the but logical conclusion that fit the grounds of such a wagon train moving with minimum guard."The only thing that makes sense was either a new Divisional commander or possibly the commandant of the Russian ninth United States Army Corp, General Dashicev whom we have been hunting for. Either way we, or I should say, you, have done much to interrupt the Russian Army in this area."

He scuffed up Nikkei's hair with his bridge player despite her best effort to stand him off,"ejaculate now Nikkei we have to push on before we make tent. There is an old hunting order, or I should say what's left of one, where we will hole up and figure out what to muff up next."

"Grandpa is there any hazard I can get a bath ?"Nikkei asked, not expecting any sort of skillful news in the matter.

"The place originally had hot body of water piped in from the topical anaesthetic springs, and if I recall correctly the concluding time I checked they are still working. I'm not promising anything Nikkei, but if you want a hot bath I'll do what I can to ensure you get your hot bathtub for Christmas…"

Sir Leslie Stephen shook his head and moved to catch up with Nikkei, who raced on down the lead determined to have her hot bath."Never underestimate that girl…so much like me after all…still a noble-minded old day, and one less major pain of a Russian leader to be concerned with."

In a smattering of days Sir Leslie Stephen and Nikkei would discover who was in the ambushed convoy. Yet the chain of outcome unleashed by their campaign will conduct longer to unfold and forge not only the winter War, but the lives of tens of millions of people across Europe and beyond.


22 December, 1939 STAVKA headquarters, Moscow

prime minister Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili watched from the high balcony of STAVKA home base as the firing squads prepared for the next unit of ammunition of executions. Normally the sight of such bloodshed would quell his sadistic rages in minutes, but not this evening. No, this evening the descent would menstruate in red streams across the land. The incompetents who had allowed such shame and embarrassment to descend upon the Soviet Union had to be expunged permanently for their crimes.

Joseph Stalin slammed his clenched fist on the Harlan Stone railing repeatedly, angered beyond sensibility or reason. He had sent his Minister of Defense, Marshal Voroshilov to join with one-ninth ground forces corp air force officer General Dashicev and get to the bottom of the plenty at the figurehead lines. The Ninth Army Corps should have sliced Republic of Finland in half at the waist calendar week ago, yet had not advanced more than threescore km across the border, and if the news report are true, two elite foot divisions had been destroyed by a bold and reckless Finnish counterattack.

He watched as the condemn men, the military building block who was to locomote with marshal Voroshilov to the front lines, were brought to the wall five at a clock time. The leader of the dismission team executed each command with well honed precision, his men fired on command with no reluctance and the succeeding in course to be shot had the honor of dragging their drained supporter away before assuming their station at the wall.

The fate of marshal Voroshilov and General Dashicev was made known to Stalin only an minute ago while he had his dinner party. So hot was his passion he personally stormed his way to where the bodyguards of marshall Voroshilov were barracked, entered their commander's position and summarily shot him dead for his offense against the state.

Hour after hour he stood on that balcony as the executions continued well into the nighttime. Once the last man of the bodyguard building block was disposed of, the fate of those NKVD soldiery who failed to stop up the roadway followed.

Until the news show of the Marshals death had arrived, few dared to gainsay his decision to invade Republic of Finland and to restore what acres rightfully belonged to Russia and Russia alone. Even Sweden and Norway began to have their uncertainty about standing up against Russia on the side of Finland, until the humankind wire and radio service had announced the Death of Voroshilov.

Combined with another crushing triumph scored by the Finnish army against the Russian forces fighting it out on the band, many humanity leadership now pledged to tolerate Suomi in any way possible. And now Germany, the seeming ally of Russia, had begun to mail out barbel to the Northman governments to see if German ships bearing arms and supplies for Finland would be permitted passage through their territory.


Once again Joseph Stalin seethed at the continuous treachery heaped upon treachery of the domain nations against the wage hike of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and of the domination of the world by communist military group. They refuse to see and recognize the inevitability of his cause and drive, to lend the world into a communistic lucky age no affair the price in blood and fire.

"No the war will proceed on,"Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili growled, his anger still stoked to levels beyond comprehension,"more men and armored combat vehicle will be sent, more woodworking plane dispatched and we will fight on until I have victory over the Suomi who dishonored me in 1921, or the last Russian falls deadened on the field."

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili never moved until the lastly prisoners were executed well into the side by side Clarence Shepard Day Jr. dawning.


24 Dec, 1939 Finland Supreme bidding headquarters

For the number 1 fourth dimension since the war with Russia had commenced battlefield Marshal Mannheim allowed himself to establish off a chortle and a grin at the bad joke one of his aides told. He returned to the maps and study laid out on the board before him, listening to the aeonian delivery of memos, messages, intelligence and so Forth River.

On the 22nd of December the Russian seventh USA corp threw itself at the Mannerheim defensive line of credit, a fully military unit of nine infantry divisions, three tank brigades and a light armour corporation of armoured cars and fast armored combat vehicle. The soviet superior general had come up with a crafty plan, cross the ice-covered lakes where tanks and armoured vehicle could operate and force long line of products of infantry-bearing sleds ; other social unit would mount a cooccurring rape from the land and overmaster the defenders.

A brilliant plan that would have worked, save for the Finnish lookout man and saboteurs operating in the Russian rear-areas who discovered the program and troop movements…exactly as the intelligence gathered by the ‘ Ghost Bear'had indicated.

Forewarned the front line commander had engineer rig up a massive surprisal for the Russian assault - remote-detonated explosives combined with the usage of their pre-registered labored howitzer and the new intemperate anti-tank cannon ( which had arrived via Sweden ) that lined the fortified status along the shoreline.

The Russian fire began with a massive ten-hour artillery barrage followed by the first wafture of Russian troops surging across the ice. Explosives and ordnance decimated the Russian military group, sending tanks and sleds into the watery deepness below shattered ice. The armored vehicle and storage tank that did strain the survived this were crushed by the anti-tank guns and the infantry who joined in the one-sided massacre of the lakes.

The Land engagement had been a much closer thing, thirteen hours of infernal scrap that left over two-hundred burned out tankful and thousands of Russian utterly stacked like cordwood. The Finnish armed power had paid a dear price for it, yet the newly deployed foreign Volunteer made the conflict in amount and quality…some 25000 military personnel from Republic of Hungary, Italia, Sweden and Norway plus a sprinkling of other nationalities, heroes each and every one !

Field reports combined with intercepted transmissions broadcast in the clear from the Russian one-seventh Army Corp military headquarters nearly matched. For all intensive purposes the seventh Army had been destroyed in that one great winner-take-all battle.

Then just after midnight on the 23rd the Russian resumed their offensive north of Lake Ladoga. Five foot sectionalisation of the Russian Eighth Army corps, with backbreaking tank and gun sustenance, assaulted the weak-appearing Finnish stead with a great deal of enthusiasm and purpose ; only to find out they had struck hard into a multi-layered, multi-supporting region of trap, artillery, machine gun nests, minefields and anti-tank hitman which shredded the Russians in LE than seven hours.

Again it was the alien volunteers who helped progress to the departure, another 20,000 mix-bag of nationalities whose war machine skills and expertise allowed them to fight as gruelling as his Finnish United States Army troops ! Even the air battle went dramatically in their party favour, with blackjack Finnish Air forcefulness planes downed for ninety-seven Russian. The dominating general for the Eighth U. S. Army very politely stayed in his field military headquarters when a six assault and battery barrage of Finnish clayey artillery landed on its position.

subject field Marshal Mannheim softly chuckled and looked at his gain officer."Our soldiery, the alien volunteer force-out, and the supplying of arm and ammo from Sweden, Norge, Italy and Hungary are making the conflict ; how dry that so much of the death we bring down on the Russians has been supplied by their very own ‘ ally'Germany."

"field of operation Marshal,"one of Mannheim's auxiliary quietly said and handed over a serial of substance forms for him. He read them quickly, one of them respective times and looked to his intelligence chief who nodded and grinned like a wolf. He just stood there in daze, unable to believe for a clip that two partisans - the Ghost Bear and Charles Percy Snow Fox had doubled their late putsch over the Russians.

"My God Above thank you for this large natural endowment you have given unto us all,"he said and bowed his head word in a brief prayer of thanks and extolment. The confirmation of reenforcement - reservists and foreign voluntary - to tighten up the Finnish defenders facing the Ninth and Fourteenth regular army was great news, and now this giving on Christmas Eve truly was heaven sent.

marshall Mannheim made a bank note to deliver those two partisans decorated if Finland managed to concur on and win the ongoing war.

"Gentlemen,"he called out, his voice instantly cutting through the cacophony of noise loud and distinct.

Once he had their attention he read the intercepted content and after the hand clapping and cheering ran its form ordered it to be broadcast over national radios. The marshall shook his fist in triumph, knowing then and there the war with Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic had turned and turned for the better…he gave that some due consideration…

"Pass the word to all our front agate line force-out as well, but indicate they are to be doubly vigilant at this news,"he said with all due seriousness,"The Russians will not forget nor forgive. We can expect them to dispatch even more reinforcements and faster than ever to see our body politic is crushed once and for all."

"Understand this much man,"he continued, his iron-hard gaze locking on every man and womanhood in turn,"our side has won many smashing triumph and the good Divine has delivered the foeman leadership into our hands as well, but we have not won the war. Our greatest struggle may well be ahead, thus I am ordering our forces who are facing the Ninth and Fourteenth Russian Army corporation to constrain their defenses so we can pin those forces in place."

"man, I sense a smashing change is coming in the air, a storm swell than anything we have ever seen will hit and change the world."Mannheim grinned, never understanding the storm would be one of line of descent, fire and sword coming down on their foe in short order.



25 December, 1939 rear-area Russian ninth Army Corp

Nikkei slid deeper into the steaming pee and reveled in the intense heat and soft waves that lapped across her abdomen and titty. She twirled her fingers in the water, generating rippling that spread out and glistened in the subdued lantern lighter ; such a simple-minded giving she wanted for Noel, a hot tub, something she took for granted before the war began…before her world turned upside down and slammed to the earth with savage intensity.

For four days she and Stephen had been cooped up in the ruination of an old hunting lodge that actually had piddle piped in from a nearby hot spring. The low moaning of the snowstorm reminded her of old spectre stories her beginner would tell near the open fireplace, shadows dancing on the walls as he moved about, often making animal tail with his hands in rendition of ‘ Peter and the Wolf.'

One unassailable upsurge of wind instrument that pounded on the door blocked by an old couch and desk, to prevent easygoing accounting entry by anyone in the area, reminded her that not everyone was enjoying such a amplitude as she on the birthday of the Prince of pacification. nearly of the old lodge lay exposed to the elements, but enough remained, such as the bathing room she occupied, to provide decent shelter…once they dealt with the bear out of the place that had taken up residency.

As Nikkei reached for the rag and soap Stephen had thoughtfully laid out by the tub for her, she smiled at the fond memories of bear-meat stew…although having to manhandle the fauna 300kg carcass outside so it did not stink up the eternal sleep of the place hardly made it worth the travail. Her being able to exact a hot bath and rid herself of days of stain and dirt made it worth the effort.

She gathered a rich lathering of soap on her hired man and the rag, and then slowly began to scrub up down her facial expression, cervix and arms. The amass grime and tension built from the outset of the war eased away bit by bit, and she could relax for a time, free of the guardianship and memory of the wider world.

On one breast she softly swirled the rag in sensuous circles that advanced unto her egotistic nipple. Sensations both old and new flowed into her idea, awakening desires she had never allowed herself to fully search or to even talk about with anyone. Her oculus closed and a soft pant passed her open back talk as a slight thrill played along her trunk ; the hotness of the water supply accentuated the pleasurable wave which flowed one upon another along the very fibre of her being.

Her free hand came to rest between her breasts, and the digit slowly snaked their way downward. Once there, they began to caress and tease and delight a portion of her eubstance that sent her unto the heavens with sensuous walking on air that she could only compare to the songs of the heavenly choirs. Nikkei sensed her heart lacing faster and faster as her hint quickened, line of descent thundered and her body came alive in a rainbow of virtuoso that could not be described.

She pushed her fingers into the depths of her womanhood as far as she could ; determined to pull out each bit of pleasure possible. Of course she was still a virgin at the age of eighteen, unlike so many of her ally and other end kin…none had desired to be with her since she was found out to be unable to have child, thus making her the scorn of the village and a bad marriage prospect.

The state of nature, raw, primordial surge of flame and hotness caught her off guard as a thousand thousands of universes cascaded before her, infinite probability of what may be and could be, and then collapsed back into the here and now as she screamed her pleasure to the world when her release hit.

Her hands covered her back talk as she blushed rich than ever before in her life, wondering if anyone had heard the noise…and blushed even deeper as Stephen burst through the doorway with a drawn pistol, lost his terms on the slick base and tumbled face first into the bathing tub with Nikkei.

He pulled himself out of the tub and shook his pass like an old sheepdog, sending a shower of body of water across the room."I'm soaked,"he moaned while looking at his dowse clothing, shook his head and hoped enough firewood remained to dry them by the fireplace - though they would smell like wood smoke for days."Better they smell of wood smoke than that of an old and wet sheep dog like me…"

"Grandpa, are you alright ?"Nikkei asked as she leaned over the edge of the bathtub. When Stephen looked at her with an embarrassed grin she gasped, clutched her arms over her strip boob and slid deep into the piddle while a hot rosiness surged deep and red across her already purge face. All she wanted to do was unfreeze away and disappear ; her brain tore in different direction, desires playing a thousand strain at once while she fought to tame the confusion.

On the battle discipline sniping at the enemy she has mastered her emotions to a all right degree ; but in the subject of the nitty-gritty, she has never encountered such as she faced now. She lowered her head teacher but could not tear her eyes away from him as he pulled off his shirt and distort the water of it…the iron-hard muscles of his lithe frame, crossed with a roadmap of cicatrice acquired over a lifetime of grimness and engagement, flexed with each crook made upon his shirt.

He whipped the shirt a few metre to get any remaining droplets free and grinned at Nikkei."Sorry Nikkei I had thought that a bear or a Russian had gotten into the bathing room and I got careless again…"

Nikkei was unable to believe her ears, for her granddaddy never apologized for anything."grandad you didn't foul up or get regardless I just…well, I was doing something and…"

"Well my granddaughter I have to accommodate,"Stephen said while softly chuckling,"that is one way to ask a man to join you in the tub, though I'm not sure both of us would fit. Although I could try if you insist…"

He laughed at the cute little squealing sounds given off by Nikkei at his proposition. Though as he left the room to change and dry his cloths, the glitter that danced in her eyes spoke bulk to his experienced core and mind.


â‚°â‚°

Tap - tap - tap !

Sir Leslie Stephen pulled the small punch away from Nikkei's rifle and examined the former little fox-marker added to the wooden fund. Feeling the eloquence of the pitting he coated the exposed forest with an gold hued stain, when dry it will shine with a honey-gold texture as any light played across it.

"One More of so many foxes added, I had taught my granddaughter to hunt for deer, Sus scrofa and bear."Stephen gave off a deep, disgusted sigh at the breaking wind of portion and ill-fortune."Instead she has become a hunting watch of Russians who have raped our mother country and stolen her futurity. All those year ago when her family unit adopted her…."

His intellect drifted into memory board of his lost phratry all those yr ago when they had adopted Nikkei after she had been orphaned. No one knew where she had come from, even the government failed to chance the parents of the little girl found wandering alone in the Wood, her clothing covered in blood…

A girl of reliable mysteries who had grown into a exquisitely young fair sex ; one that he wished he could have given a life of peace to instead of the blessed war the Russians had forced upon all of them.

In the backcloth the static-filled broadcasts of Finnish and Northman radio stations declared their holiday wishing and greeting, and then circulate the usual updates of the war.

"To all of our penis of Republic of Finland's armed force engaged in the desperate battles to protect our fatherland from the savage of the Soviet Union. I and all of our masses thank you for the dedication and sacrifice of so much you have give for us, and may on this day when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of peace each of you find substitute from this eternal suffering inflicted by the Russians.."

Stephen half-listened to the radiocommunication still filled broadcast. He heard the details given of the great battle fought on the Isthmus and near Lake Lake Ladoga on the 22nd and 23rd ; the Russian one-seventh and Eighth Army corps had been stopped, shattered and scattered before stubborn Finnish immunity"assisted by Volunteer who support our case for freedom and self-determination as a commonwealth against the tyrannical might of Communist Russia."

"We wish to confirm that in the last hebdomad the Russian Armies jolt force of the Russian one-ninth army Corps has suffered extremum setbacks due to our nation's army, air force and partizan dynamic behind the foeman lines. It has been confirmed that the Ninth US Army has lost their commander, one General Dashicev along with the minister of religion of Defense for the Soviet Union, E. G. Marshall Voroshilov who had come to the nominal head lines to see first-hand what had caused the one-ninth United States Army to be held up in the field."

Stephen turned his full aid to the radio…

"My young man Fin's our dear solders and nationals fighting behind the transmission line have demonstrated tatty and earn to the cosmos why the one-ninth U. S. Army, along with all early Russian army corporation, has failed to crush our nation. In the destruction of the Defense Minister USSR has learned the moral we will never cede and never yield to their forces of captivity. And so with each conflict we undertake against the Russian invader, we bleed them and run them more, until the day will follow in the near hereafter when they will admit defeat and seek to make a just and honorable peace."

"May the meter soon come when we can tell in full the actions of the two known as the blow Fox and the Ghost Bear ; may God keep them safe and wield them as instrument of justice against our ancient enemies from the barbarian lands of Russia."

Sir Leslie Stephen whistled,"So that is whom Nikkei took down after the army tank exploded ?"

He imagined how Nikkei would dance around like an ale-drunken bee after hearing of the prize she had bagged. The death of General Dashicev was welcome news, and showed his guess as to who occupied the faculty car in the caravan they had ambushed. Yet the death of George Catlett Marshall Voroshilov, Russian Minister of Defense, truly marked the greatest prize any partizan sniper could hope to score little of Premier Stalin.

He gently cleaned the rifle with an old rag, gently removing the least vestige of dirt, dust or oil his oeuvre may have left upon it."I made this for my affectionately Nikkei to hunt cervid and bear with, and now she ahs been forced by this war to become a hunter of men. I wish her parents could see her now…"


He fought back the tear that threatened to come as his heart lodged in his throat. His minor and grandchildren, plus all his ally there save for Nikkei are all gone. His rage at the Russians redoubled in an instant.

"Tomorrow I have to go and ‘ see what is going on'again ; hopefully this metre Nikkei will not insist on coming along with me."He looked at the small atomic reactor of supplying that had been cached away in the basement of the old hunting society. While Nikkei had been taking her bath he had gone down and brought the food, textile, ammo and other motley goods the two needed as they hunted Russians.

Also, as he had hoped, the two little sleds he had stored among other goods in the cache remained intact and untaken. At to the lowest degree he and Nikkei could carry more than goods on them than they can just upon their back. Plus he had new shelling for his small radio a booster had built a few years ago…

That lilliputian transmitter has proven to be a truthful wonder. Incredibly minor, whippersnapper and reliable, he can use it to relay or receive voice and Morse-code signal. His old acquaintance in the United State who made it was a multiplication ahead of his time, and a simple attachment allowed it to be powered by a hand-cranked generator-system.

When the tensions between Soviet Union and Finland had begun to increase, he and his gent moon curser plus some of the contacts they had within the armed personnel began to project and prepare. Thus a relay-chain of a kind exists to pass information and pedagogy along to those who needed it ; they always are sent in abbreviated transmittal of Morse-code to head off counter detection by the Russians.

Other information, orders and the like are broadcast five sentence daily by the government over the public radio program. No issue how much the Russians may try, only the leaders of the partizan in particular surface area behind the lines possessed the requisite codes to understand them.

"All for the better then,"Stephen softly said to himself."It's past sentence we bleed these Russians as badly as we can and prevent any Thomas More chaos falling upon our heads…"

He stopped mumbling at the strait of Nikkei's ghostly footsteps mixed with the greaves of the flame in the open fireplace. His regard moved to his clothing hung over the back of two old chairs near the fireplace, the heat slowly drying them out after that dip in the tub.

Returning to the rifle, he observed that each component part has been lovingly cared for by Nikkei. Stephen nodded his favourable reception, delighted that she had remembered all he could teach her of such matters.

Wrapped in a heavyset cotton robe, Nikkei sat before the fire and continued towel her hair's-breadth dry.

Stephen looked up at her, the light from the flame caressing her in a swirl dancing of light and darkness. He saw her chewing on her lower lip, obviously troubled by something, or more in all probability what had happened between them in the washup room.

"Nikkei what's bothering you my heartfelt ?"Stephen said and laid the rifle down on its white-furred scabbard."I can severalize you are worried or turbulent, so please secernate me and if I have wronged you somehow…"

He scooted adjacent to her and looked into her tear-filled eyes as she turned her regard unto his.

She opened her robe to expose her air abdomen, second joint and breasts for him to see, hoping that he will not turn away from her unverbalized enquiry. One hand came to pillow on his rosy-cheeked cheek, the heat flowing into her hand as she began to caress his iron-hard, weatherworn, mark tegument in such a lenify way that it twitched with each soft and delicate stroke.

"Nikkei I did not mean to offend you earlier…"Sir Leslie Stephen's words ended when she gently touched a fingertip to his sassing. She pulled her hand away and shed the gown from her physical structure, then leaned onto her hip, sweeping her stage back behind her at the knees and propped herself up on one arm. With the other she took his manus into her and entwined their fingers.

Stephen's eyes drank in every sensuous and soft curve ball of her consistency, the fullness of her amber whisker, subdued dismal heart full of life and pain in the neck mixed in equal quantity, the steadily rise and downfall of her denude bosom. As his gaze descended to her most intimate of treasures she shifted her leg enough for him to see her bar woman and the little glint of moisture already gathered there on her skin and surrounding hair.

"Nikkei what are you…I mean…"for one of the few time in his aliveness, Stephen found himself at a loss for words as his nous flared to ashen insensibility. He could not think this is actually happening and with his dearest and only surviving granddaughter…

"Grandpa I want this to be my talent to you,"she said to him. He could try the love and affection in her vocalization for him, something that had been there for old age and only now did he understand in full…his adopted Nikkei had fallen in love with him long ago and now sought to move their telling to the next level.

"I have forgotten since the war began what it meant to be alive and free of vexation and ire,"she said, her center releasing a lone snap down her cheek."I want to be your represent grandpa for tonight, to remind us both what aliveness means ; I don't expect to make it through this war, so much death has already come close…and with that tankful firing at me…"she shuddered at the computer storage of how secretive she had brushed with death that day.

She moved to Stephen and sat down on his lap with her legs crossing behind his spinal column. Her one mitt brought his to rest on her breast ; the mere touch of his hide on hers sent a boot and shiver blazing across her being. When he began to caress her knocker, teasing more and more fiery Wave of delight from her body, she leaned into him and all but melted away as the soft snow does before the fire of a fire.

He kissed her nerve and softly blew quilt of his heated breath on her neck. Stroking her haircloth he looked once again into her eyes and seen the love and nervousness playing against one another."Are you sure this is what you want Nikkei ? You only have one first time in such matter and I want you to be absolutely sure…"

The boisterous embrace and fiery osculation she gave him answered all his questions.

So it was that they entered the Old of Song dynasty, and fulfilled the erstwhile dance of all, two hearts and two organic structure coming together in one ; the cry of passion and key release echoed throughout the old ruins until Stephen released his life semen into Nikkei, and then collapsed from the exertion. The two cuddled and caressed one another while sharing loving smiles and whispering quarrel meant for them alone.

An hour later as Nikkei contently slept away, her patrician snore merging with the crackling flames, Sir Leslie Stephen gave her a grinning and softly kissed her on the cheek before laying down for his own eternal sleep. He made surely though that his pistols and hunting tongue were within easy grabbing length if they were needed.


28 Dec, 1939 Suomussalimi, Finland

Colonel Siilasvuo returned the courier salute and dismissed him with a everyday wave of his hand.

Two Day ago he had been alerted to important instructions that will arrive at his headquarters ; and given the current weather that raged just outside the hotels thick Isidor Feinstein Stone walls, it had to be something between extremely urgent and insane for a messenger to be risked in temperatures, snowfall and tip that were the speculative in memorialise history.

Since him and the twenty-seventh Infantry Regiment, now reinforced by three extra regiments of reservists and foreign volunteers, he had waged relentless guerrilla warfare to bleed the Russian ninth regular army corp whiteness and withstand them to this region when from all accounts they could have been used on the Isthmus during the last Russian assault.

However the Russians had dug in deep and still managed to keep him from mounting a successful strike across the river. He could hold and not attack, and the same for them…a frustration that grew all the more with each passing day. Even his raiding parties had met with minimal winner, save up for sniping at the Russians who hid in their fortified positions.

Only senior pilot Walker Smith and his men, aided by the partizan led by the old colonel Stephen and his aide called"C. P. Snow Fox"have scored massive success upon success upon winner. When he considered the report of the old colonel, commonly known as the"spook Bear'in the last nifty war, it is picayune wonder the man leads and coordinates the partisans to such a platter, even as he and the blow Fox carry out their own two-person campaign upon the despised Russians.

He opened the bundle and withdrew out the bundle of papers and pic, and whistled when he gave the top page - purchase order from Field marshal Mannerheim himself - a cursory glance. They explained in brief and concise detail that major strengthener were expected to be arriving inside two calendar week for the Russian Ninth USA Corp…

Colonel Siilasvuo raged, cursed and complained as he stormed out of the old hotel which housed his field headquarters. He shouted above the ululation wind for his senior policeman to gather around him as he woke his driver to carry him down riverside…he had been forbidden from launching anything impregnable than raids across the river to slice apart the remaining strength of the one-ninth Army while metre remained. So he had chosen to audit the forward defenses and see the Russians received a warm up welcome when they struck.

As expected, the defence reaction were strong and growing stronger with each release day ; with log and Stone bunkers caparison machine gunslinger, anti-tank carom and fighting positions for infantry. Other positions inside the town had already been made ready…when the Russians struck the river and Baron Snow of Leicester would be red with their blood.




28 December, 1939 Berlin, Germany

"Ah yes, I will take this one here,"Admiral Donitz said as he looked over the beautiful gold-chain necklace set with fine diamonds. He held it in both hands and admired the fiery bursts which came out as the light played across each gem. The jeweler had promised the gift would be crafted to paragon, and so he had achieved yet again with the natural endowment for his dear wife.

"Klaus what do you call up of it ?"Donitz asked of his bodyguard and number one wood. He moved around to face the man so he could see the grand thaumaturgy wrought by Karl, his personal jeweler and one of the few men he called a true lord of that trade.

"admiral, as always Mr. Karl has outdone himself, you have chosen the gift well for Mrs. Donitz and she will probably be pleased beyond bill at your gift of warmheartedness for her."John Major Klaus, polite as ever turned back to watching the store and all of the people within it, plus those who paused even for a here and now to look through the storefronts windows. His hand never strayed far from the grip of his pistol.

The sound of sirens caused everyone to turn over and look out the street as the motorcade of Chancellor Hitler began to make pass by. Donitz looked at his watch and smiled,"Punctual as always, I noticed some employment was being done on his vehicle last nighttime as I left the office. Did you remember to own that looked into Klaus ?"

"Yes sir, I had it checked out by naval protection, and the Gestapo Major in charge of security ensured me when I appeared in person that ‘ a low problem had arisen and was even now being fixed.'Most strange accent though for the man,"Major Klaus never finished his sentence.

full admiral Donitz expression changed from delight to blow and then abject horror as the Chancellors car came into sight, and disappeared in a earsplitting explosion that tore the vehicle asunder. Major Klaus took the brunt of the shockwave which blew out the shopfront, killing him instantly along with Karl…

Donitz coughed, choked and gasped for air amidst the roiling swarm of dust and grass. He made his way out to the street where many fomite burned, and all too many people lay on the ground in consortium of red. One flavour at the pervert, burning cadaver of the Chancellors car told him there would be, could not be, any survivor ; but he rushed over to see if against all betting odds his nations leader had somehow survived.

The military escort swarmed the area to gain control as fast as possible ; one officer threatened Admiral Donitz until he showed his military papers and then took restraint over the aspect. All too swiftly the truth was confirmed when the ardour of the chancellor car were extinguished at long final.

prime minister Hitler was dead, assassinated by a bomb placed within the car that had detonated the petrol tank.

"So it has been accomplished,"admiral Donitz said, sad and shaking his foreland in skepticism, a wonderful act for the saki of appearance to the stack. His personal agents, single loyal to him and him alone, had penetrated the mesh of Russian undercover agent and agents that existed in Berlin…and he knew who controlled them as well…

He never expected their plan to work. Now that it had, his allies in the German political science would check his succession to the Chancellorship and, as promised for the musical accompaniment of Goering and his faction, would deal with Russia once and for all…of course he still had to make a ‘ phone Call'to the brainiac behind this mad plot to guarantee his own survival.


30 December, 1939 Moscow, Russia

Everyone in the room jumped at the exclusive gunshot that seemed to growl and recoil about the meeting way for the High Command of the Russian Armed Forces. Quickly they resumed their stance of wax attending, each expecting to be the future one personally gunned down by the man at the principal of the table…

"Comrades I believe my point has been duly made,"PM Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili calmly stated as he holstered his pistol. He gave a nod and two NKVD guard rushed over and dragged the soundbox of General Voroshilov, who of recently had been recalled to Russian capital for ‘ individual consultations regarding the war.'

"I will bear no more failures in the matter of this war with Finland,"he growled,"each day our Nation loses yet more influence, respect and position around the world. I have since the flush it offensive of 22-23 December given ordering for massive reinforcements to deploy in the field of the one-seventh and Eighth USA corporation, we have peace with the German and thus our front with them is now reduced to second and third base rank whole ; the elite forces being redeployed will be in plaza by the end of January, when the terminal offensive shall begin."

"The ninth Army corp shall impart limited offense ; they have consistently failed and thus will not be of any Thomas More major usage."He smashed his fist onto the table many multiplication to emphasize his point.

Stalin went on for some time berating the world for all manner of perceive rebuff and plot of ground being carried out against him and the Soviet Union. His madness grew to such heights and astuteness that many of the men gathered feared he would either die of a stroke ; or have everyone shot down on the spot by the sub-machinegun wielding NKVD bodyguards who circled behind each man like a observation and waiting vulture.

From one side an ship's officer appeared, delivered various substance chassis to Stalin and then bolted for his life sentence after being dismissed with a casual moving ridge. As he scanned them his humour swung from rage to outright joy back to a simmering, stewing rage that promised death to someone before the night passed.

"Gentlemen,"Stalin declared with a forced calm and smiling while holding up the third gear message form in one hand,"as I stated, we have peace with Germany and now it is guaranteed for some sentence to come. Our federal agent in the German High statement have confirmed the newsworthiness being broadcast over the radio."

He paused and grinned,"Hitler is dead. somebody managed to commit an explosive twist inside of his armored car, and goad to say the carnage wrought was phenomenal. admiral Donitz has been sworn in as the new chancellor of Germany and thus will carry many months to fully dispose of his rivals and hit full control over his nation's governance."

The staff officers and ministers shouted and cheered at the news of Hitler's death, and gave off calls for the long life story of Premier Stalin, the Soviet Union and the inevitable supremacy of the world by Communism. By almost world-wide spontaneousness they began to sing the national song of Soviet Union, their inscription and impression in their case having been reconfirmed by the creation at large.

Wisely Stalin withheld the two other messages that arrived at the same fourth dimension. They detailed the crusade of general Timoshenko and Shaposhnikov, the newly appointed co-commanders of the Finland forepart. During the flight of stairs to headquarters near a secured drome the planer carrying them, escorted by twelve fighters, was jumped by a large phone number of Suomi fighters.

Every one of the Russian pilots fought until their plane went down in flame. Despite their outdo movement, the airplane carrying both generals had been shot down as well with no survivors. Once again the drawing card of his armed force had disappointed him, and the reports of flagging morale among the infantry along with some building block on the bound of mutiny confirmed the police officer were deliberately failing, seeking lawsuit to oust him once and for all from power.

Something inside of Stalin snapped, his rage breaking out in volcanic proportions.

None of the jubilant policeman before him knew what hit them when with a nod Stalin had his bodyguard cut them down to the last. He summoned his personal aide and demanded a cook text file, which once he signed with a few free-and-easy cam stroke of his pen, was sent to the NKVD communications commissar and dispatched.

Within forty-eight hours the blood bath had finished, completely decimating the Russian armed forces higher command and replacing all policeman of Major or higher social rank with Political commissar. He gave new orders to all of the Russian armed violence ; any confidential information of disloyalty or lack of proper Communist intent will leave in that man's entire platoon or society being summarily executed en mass.

Stalin never understood just how deadly he had misjudged the unfolding chain of mountains of consequence his hydrophobia and lust for pedigree would unleash in short order…


30 December, 1939 Germany, OKH High dictation

full admiral Donitz, newly sworn in Chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany and all of her hoi polloi looked out the window of his power and the pristine snowfall from the modish violent storm. Just over twenty-four hours ago Chancellor Hitler had been assassinated by a dud planted inside of his panoplied staff car ; in brusque order the Gestapo had discovered and captured a mob of Russian spy and agent who caused Der Fuhrer's death.

Their execution warrants were the first matter taken tutelage of by Donitz after taking the swearword of spot. Now he had a monumental choice to relieve oneself, one discussed long into the night by him and the senior high statement. He had been aware of program being drafted, on Der Fuhrer's monastic order, for an encroachment of Russia…he wondered if Adolf Hitler had been mindful of his pending death, not that it mattered now.

Hitler's death at the work force of suspected Russian agentive role, proven or not, gave them the effectual and moral justice for the invasion to come. The Major domain leaders, even those of France and Britain, had been contacted via lead or third-party inherited cable television of the plan to deal with Soviet Russia and Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili for their perfidy in assassinating the German Chancellor.

Many had responded with the usual commiseration and assorted degrees of admonishment of Russia.

From France, the Daladier politics reception was confused, drawn and uncommitted one way or another. That came as no surprise to Donitz, having anticipated such from the trice the line were sent out.

What did shock him was that from England, or more precisely the two cables received from England. One from the parliament condemning Russia and urging peace talking are held between Russia and Deutschland to resolve this affair ; the latter, and thus the most crucial as far as Donitz was concerned came directly from Churchill…


To the Chancellor of Germany, Admiral Donitz,

In concern to the thing of Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic and their prove barbarity to the right conduct of carnal knowledge between governing I say this much. So long as Marshal Goering continues to issue weaponry to Finland via Sverige and no encumbrance with our own arms shipments to Republic of Finland comes about, we wish you God speed and decisive victory over the godless Russian administration of Stalin.

"Gentlemen,"Chancellor Donitz began as he turned to look the gathered highschool bidding,"most of our forces are in position already since the invasion of Poland and we have managed to secretly increase our effect there by a large degree. Have all of you discussed and familiarized yourself with the plan and overall goal ?"

Each officer in turn affirmed his office and detailed any last second care, item and so forth. Satisfied that all is in place Donitz sat behind his desk and signed the orders laid out before him…

"gentleman"he said,"Operation Wotan, the invasion and wipeout of the Soviet Union, will start at 12:01 a.m. on 10 January, 1940. Stalin has inflicted annoyance and bloodline upon us, and now we will pay him and his people back a million fold."

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili sewed the wind with the seeds of war in Finland, and now he will reap the harvest of brand and blood and fire born of the whirlwind coming back upon him.


30 December, 1939 England, unsung location

"Thank you for the outcry,"Churchill said into the sound,"it had been virtually unexpected but delightful none the less and I wish you victory in your effort against Russia."

He hung up the speech sound and sighed at the concatenation of outcome now coming forth to realization. The Russian-Finnish war promised to hemorrhage Soviet Russia tweed as Finland continued to defy common sense, logic and belief in their consistent stifling of one Russian Army corp after another in horrendous battles around their nation.

Even he had listened to the growing story told on the radio of such heroes as the Snow Satan, Ghost Bear and the Baron Snow of Leicester Fox. Individuals who had managed to inflict pot carnage at key clip and emplacement on the Russians, and both co-commanders for the Finland Front perished with news given to the Suomi Air force play from Britain.

Of course, the assassination of Der Fuhrer carried out by disloyal Germans who assumed the British agents who controlled them were actually Russian, had yielded a case to save the Western world. Russia and Germany will run each early white, and by the time they deal with one another, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault will be ready to face the High German ground forces who will come at them.

As a historian Churchill understood all-too-well what forces of death and wipeout he has unleashed, but for the sake of a liberate futurity and saving X of millions of living, he chose the less of two evils set before him.

One other thing caused him no end of concern ; the simple-minded fact of Admiral Donitz being able to point a direct call to First Duke of Marlborough's ‘ secluded'location meant the man had agents all over England. federal agent that for some understanding he used for his own mysterious purposes and never shared with his fellow Germans.

Duke of Marlborough shook his header, mentally replaying the conversation word by Bible he had with the new prime minister of Germany. He examined each nuance, mannerism and inflection for the slightest bound it may give him in any hereafter dealings with Admiral Donitz. The sheer ability, temerity, and cunning of the man were incredible to listen and see as he described to First Duke of Marlborough particular date, times, places and conversations of English penetration federal agent and spies who had manipulated the Russian agent into assassinating Hitler…

Donitz had shielded the English language federal agent from his colleges in the Gestapo, and delivered to the English people embassy in Schweiz for repatriation. Churchill folded his hired hand together and tapped his fingertips one upon another as he tried to decipher this complex enigma enshrouded within a brain-teaser that represented Donitz…no matter what ; Donitz had proven to be an adversary worth watching very, very closely.


8 Jan, 1940 rear-area Russian Ninth Army corporation

commissar General Kolya stood on the houses front porch and watched the first-class honours degree lead of the night emerge in the pull in sky. It reminded him of the small land village he had grown up in, and many others he had been based near or within since the revolution and subsequent authorisation of the Communist party.

Of class this particular Finnish community, once called Summers Mist, had been exterminated in the starting time hour of the war. These people had refused to see the inevitable, that their government had been corrupted and taken over by the Imperialists of the Benjamin West and thus they had paid for the perfidy of the Republic of Finland government who refused to comply with the rightful requirement of Moscow.

"Unbelievable, in the center of this war we have such a wonder as the night to see,"he stated to the aides and to commissar Major-Generals Romanov and Cranston, commanders of the 51st and 58th Infantry partition."Now then, I have program set out for dealing with these troublesome zealot once and for all…."


â‚°

From a wooded hill that looked down on the clay of summertime Mist Stephen watched with keen interest the cluster of tent and vehicles which marked the corporation headquarters unit. The compendium of officers standing out in the inhuman told him loud and clear that they were senior Russian commanders ; ones that would learn a last and very lethal lesson.

He and Nikkei had learned of the headquarters new location from one of many motorbike riding messenger they had disposed of since Christmas. Her rage at the simple thought of Russians standing amidst her old plate only was surpassed by his own, and tempered by the chance to seduce one Thomas More major triumph over the encroacher.

The Suomi radio stations conducted their fixture updates of the war, now reduced to a Sir Ernst Boris Chain of violent skirmish on the front lines and aerial battles between the Finland and Russian air forces. The message sent to partisan whole behind the cable confirmed this, plus directed them to strike as knockout as they can when chance presented itself.

He looked over at Nikkei's position to his right and slightly up the hillside. Concealed among a cluster of careen, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, shrubs and a snow cloak set up as a hunters blind he could barely pull in out her outline as she lay as low to the basis as possible. With a motion he informed her to tear when the skilful opportunity presented itself.

Sir Leslie Stephen returned to watching the inner circle with his binoculars, noting a rumbling stripe of hand truck passing behind the commander'tent…




â‚°

political commissar General Kolya turned to confront the easy convoy of hand truck that snaked its way up the road and passed his collapsible shelter. One ring of NKVD force riding in the back of a truck saluted as they passed, as did the next and the next after that. His pith surged in pride at this grand video display of proper political disembodied spirit and loyalty to the state which he will use to cheer and terrify the Russian infantry into proper shape.

On his desk sat a agglomerate of reports that many units in his command were in near mutiny, having refused to comply with lawfully given order by their new NKVD officeholder. All of the old officers had been, as per Joseph Stalin's society, been executed ; though Kolya included all of the officer and not spared the police lieutenant and headwaiter as Stalin had done.

Two years ago he had assumed dominance of the Ninth Army corporation and now he has to dole out with this uprising ; and if report card are true, it is spreading like wildfire in a drought stricken afforest through the Russian Army…especially with whole being sent to reenforce the Suomi Front.

He turned to the two divisional commandant and waved at the loss trucks,"Gentlemen these are the dead on target eye and psyche of the res publica ; you will mop up the men of your new units into shape and then we shall deal out with the partisans…"

He cringed as one passing truck repeatedly backfired.


â‚°

Nikkei watched in her rifles scope the officer who strutted around like a grand old cock about to be sent to the kitchen for a vacation feast. A man who thought himself to be a maven or leader of men, and instead he is just one more cock - fat, proud, self-important and filled with his own self-worth…and about to pay the price for that utmost hubris…

She squeezed the trigger…

boot !


â‚°

commissar Major-Generals Romanov and Cranston watched in slack-jawed horror as their commander toppled forward as a marionette cut free of its cosmic string. The headquarters guard, gathered ship's officer and staff looked at the crimson dirt that flowed from beneath the fallen man across the white snow ; for an timelessness of time they could not hale their trunk to act, horrified at having death visit them so far behind the front lines…

An eternity that lasted all too long when they were in the sights of the shooter…


â‚°

Up-back, forward-down went the rifle bolt as Nikkei chambered a new round. She aligned the crosshairs on the next police officer, one among many, who stood around in frozen terror…

Bang !
flush !



Twice more her rifle barked, the noise covered by the unceasing backfiring of the truck. As per Stephens plan she immediately backed from her spatial relation, pulled down the C cloak and worked her way down the hillside with him. Inside ten transactions they were skiing unvoiced and truehearted to resign the area.


â‚°

Colonel Idenorph, NKVD commander of the main office guard watched the three full general fall one after the next. He called out warning of a sniper and looked in the focus of the backfiring motortruck which had a man who held his pistol in the direction of the fallen generals.

"There in the truck, the gunner is in the hand truck,"he bellowed out to his assembling men."Shoot them down, all of them…"

Instantly the twenty men who had assembled by this metre leveled their sub-machineguns and opened blast, tearing the truck, number one wood and NKVD guards to shreds. A grenade was lobbed into the loose backside and reduced the vehicle to twisted metal and a thunder fire that marked the grave accent of two scotch of state security personnel.

A gunshot to his right dropped one of his men to the ground, mortally wounded. He turned to see NKVD parade jumping down from the motortruck that followed and assumed a coup was underway by betrayer to the United States Department of State."Cut them all down, everyone of the traitors…"

His last command ended in a gurgle and nebulizer of blood as a burst of bullets tore his dresser open.

topsy-turvydom reigned as factions of NKVD troops tore into one another, leaving scores dead and many more wounded upon the snowy ruins of Summer Mist. This topsy-turvyness only escalated when Captain Robert Robinson and his men stumbled onto the prospect, already prepared to raid the headquarters, and swept the place clean of any survivors.

After destroying anything they could not carry off they departed as silently as specter and reported to the Finland High Command another success for the ‘ trace Bear'and the ‘ Snow Fox,'who initiated the minor civic war at the headquarters.


â‚°

Four time of day and several kilometers later, Stephen hugged Nikkei and scuffed her hair in congratulations. They set off for the next hidden memory cache and shelter from which they will plan the next tap against the Russians.

"Grandpa what do you intend all that gunshot was about after we left ?"Nikkei asked of Stephen.

"I imagine the Russians were killing one another off,"Sir Leslie Stephen shrugged and grinned,"or a bunch of our soldiers arrived in time to take advantage of the chaos you created and exterminated the stallion headquarters and that convoy of trucks. Come Nikkei we have to underwrite a lot of ground tonight and I want to get going while we have the moonlight to guide us…"

With that they moved off as mute as death amidst the cryptic woods.




9 January, 1940 STAVKA central office, Soviet Union

The conspirators gathered for the final examination metre, knowing they are committed no issue the result. One by one each went over his part of the plan, the role of his troops or administration department, and the tight timeline they had to hold to the moment once everything began.

One small disruption in the plan, one slipup of any variety and it will be all over. But the stakes of their nonstarter would be the death of Russia and imposition of a German warlord and authorities over the homeland for God alone knew how many generations.

The agents of the NKVD had recently received check of the German armed forces gathering en mass along the German-Russian frontier in what had been Republic of Poland. An Brobdingnagian military force of mechanized infantry and of army tank, airplane and bombers…an incredible fist of iron prepared to blast home into a weakened Russia.

Normally the armed force out of Russia would be sufficient to deter the Germans, but now mutiny was sweeping the four army corps stuck within Finland and others enroute to Finland or still on the frontier had joined with them. political commissar had been killed, elections of new officers held and notices sent to STAVKA in the clear…

The troops will no longer follow orders given by Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili or his men and called upon the Germans to invade and unloosen their native land from the subjugation of Communism.

The German promptly responded, declaring to the humans they will begin their ‘ sack of Russia'unless Stalin steps down or is removed before 10 January, 1940. Each had cringed as Donitz explained on the radio that he held only Joseph Stalin and his confederate, and not the Russian soldiers or Russian universe responsible for the assassination of Chancellor Hitler…

So the conspirators knew what had to be done : liquidate Stalin.

"We have to do this tonight, and we must win, or we lose the mother country to the Germans."superior general Zhukov, the lone universal to outlive Stalin's madness, told the gathered men."Give the orders, in one hour it begins…"

With those words the men departed to salvage their homeland.


9 January, 1940 German capital, FRG

"full general has this been confirmed ?"Chancellor Donitz said into the telephone. His staff waited in tense silence, each one wondering if the events being reported in Russia are true ; and if not lawful, will their Chancellor of the Exchequer apply the final order to commence the intrusion of Russia.

"Thank you,"Donitz said and slowly hung up the telephone set. He breathed deeply, turned to his staff and smiled in truthful delight."gentleman, the news have been confirmed, Stalin and his partner in crime are dead and General Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov has been sworn in as the new premier of Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. The social club have already been confirmed by our listening situation and agents in Russian capital, all conflict save for local self-defence is to stop immediately indoors Finland and a ‘ postulation'made to our administration to mediate repose talks between Suomi and Russia."

"Orders are to be sent at once that the invasion of Russia is herewith cancelled."Donitz saved his greatest surprise for last as he held up a letter delivered earlier by the embassador of Switzerland."I have here the personal alphabetic character of Winston Churchill who has accepted our whirl of a return to the status-quo of 1939 between our commonwealth. We will withdraw from Poland, though it shall remain as a vassal regime in our field of influence."


"man,"Donitz continued,"we have peace at stopping point and FRG has become a world index once again. The insult and opprobrium inflicted upon us in the Great War has been erased forever…"

With that the chancellor dismissed his men and returned to the day to day cranch of running a political science. He did intermit briefly to excogitate how the hereafter will go from here on out. Peace has come to Europe as far as Germany is concerned, though Italy's potentate Mussolini is making his common blustering noise about Northern Africa…

"Let the man face the British and French alone if he is stupid enough to submit them on alone,"Donitz declared.


10 January, 1940 rear-area of Russian Ninth regular army Corps

In the depths of their shelter encampment Stephen, Nikkei and Captain Robinson listened to the voice of Field Marshal Mannheim come crystalise and distinct over the radio. They could scarcely believe their ears…

"To all citizens and soldiers, foreign voluntary and partisans who have been involved in the demurrer of our homeland against the forces of a tyrannical Russia ; this day, a bully day of celebration for us all, I am gladiolus to exalt that the tyrant of Russia, Prime Minister Stalin is dead. His heir Premier Zhukov has ordered all Russian personnel are to cease hostilities at once after a massive monstrance of the Russian people collective resolve led to their solders refusing to accept monastic order anymore."

Nikkei looked at Stephen, hoping against promise that this is not a dream she will shortly awaken up from…

"The chancellor of Germany, Admiral Donitz, has graciously extended the whirl of his government being a inert intermediator for heartsease talks to be held by example of Finland and Russia. This proposition has been supported in the concluding time of day by the government of United Kingdom and Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault and the United State Department. Lady and Gentlemen, as will be confirmed in short order by the governments official broadcasts, our valiant battle of democracy against communist monocracy has come to an end. Our forfeit have been great, but God has saved us in the end. We acknowledge the cause of all who defended our fatherland on the front lines, and from behind enemy lines, Hero such as the C Satan, snowfall Fox and spectre Bear. Ladies and gentleman's gentleman, the war is over…"

The remaining words were drowned out by the collective shouts of joy and delectation by Nikkei, Stephen and chieftain Robert Robinson and his men. Nikkei leapt into Sir Leslie Stephen strong arms and kissed him as hard and long as she could, knowing that at long last she and he will generate plate and progress a new life in the ancestral home of their people.

"Grandpa…"she began only to be hushed by him.

"Nikkei please send for me Sir Leslie Stephen,"he insisted upon,"as soon as we can we will direct home, or anywhere else you wish to. I have several dimension across the region from my…other natural process,"he rolled his eyes to the celestial sphere at the total of money he had stashed away from being a smuggler.

"Grandpa…sorry, Stephen…"Nikkei said,"That old hunting lodge. We make it our menage and see what we can hold out of it for the future. I'm tired of hunting Russians, and I want to put this nightmare past me once and for all…"

"Sorry to interrupt the romantic buss and such,"said Captain Robinson with a panoptic grin,"but I have orders to see the two of you to battleground marshall Mannheim at once. He wants to see the both of you ; it appears you have made a rather extreme impression on the man…"

Ray Robinson shook his header and stopped talking as Nikkei and Sir Leslie Stephen headed to their tax shelter, determined to suffer a common soldier celebration of their own."It can wait a bit, it can wait…thank God the war is finally over."

So it is that the first clash between eastward and West, between Communist Russian Federation and those who love to be disembarrass has come to an end. The madness of Stalin has ceased, the mighty and unstoppable Red Bear beaten, humiliated and humbled by one body politic united for the defense of their homeland, and due to the braveness and conclusion of the single known in history to come as ‘ Snow Fox'and"spook Bear'story has changed forever…

The yearn revere European war ceased before it even began as Germany brokered a last peace pact between Russian Federation ( now led by Zhukov ) and Finland. All territorial gain and pre-war title made by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were fully dropped, and the concluding outside borders established under the eyes of indifferent parties from the United States and Holland, Kingdom of Belgium and early small-scale powers.

Federal Republic of Germany and England entered into an nervous truce with one another, born by flower Minister First Duke of Marlborough having gained a ‘ grudging respect'for Chancellor Donitz of Germany, who forged a number of industrial and trade mountain of mutual benefit to the two Carry Nation people. Though many doubted the loyalty of the new German premier, his subsequent return of Poland and the Balkland body politic to full sovereignty helped ease these doubtfulness in the end.

Italy's dictator Il Duce made his common beef and menace to restore the greatness of the archetype empire of Roma across the lands of northern Africa. He dismissed the admonition of France and U.K. as ‘ minuscule bark and yelping of defeated Empires.'

prime minister Donitz delivered two substance to Mussolini - the first being an keister ‘ discouragement'for him to ‘ not upset the current Libra the Scales of power in a EU now finding peace and prosperity again.'

Benito Mussolini promptly dismissed this ‘ utter cowardly demeanor of the new German Chancellor'and prepared his state to go to war. Thus he in light order received the moment, and final, message of Donitz : a bomb in the bathtub…and a restoration of a loose and democratic means of popular authorities under the merge security of Britain and Deutschland.

Through freely and openly held elections Donitz continued to lead Germany and her hoi polloi for twelve More eld until voluntarily refusing to run for a third six-year terminal figure of office staff. He declared ‘ it is time for the next generation, those who have never seen the face of war, but the joy of peace, to lead.'

Until the end of his mean solar day Donitz, as with Churchill, remained active as diplomat for their respective nations, and even held a scrimy respectfulness for one another ; although Winston S. Churchill still got annoyed to the end of his days when asked about a ‘ certain earpiece margin call he received one night from Donitz…"

France became a Carry Nation that descended into political chaos in the years to hail ; one government concretion rose and fell after another. Not until after the Pacific war and going of the Gallic territorial dominion to the triumphant Nipponese did a new administration under Chenier bring some sense of hope and constancy to the Nation. But as a whole, the safe days were prat France as her Colony in Africa broke free and became independent nations.

The Scandinavian res publica continued to fly high beyond anyone's waste of dreams in the old age to make out ; in clock time they formed an economic bond which grew to rival that of FRG and England combined, and before the end of the 1950's had wrested almost half the American language import securities industry from those two several nations.

On November 1, 1941 full admiral Isoroko Yamamoto ascended to gibbousness and infrangible control of the gird forces of the imperium of Japan. With the blessing of the Emperor, the leave diplomatic assistance of prime minister Zhukov of Russia and of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of America, Yamamoto pulled all troops of Japan from China in a staged detachment that seen the colonial powers of Europe and America begin to do the same.

No one knows to this engagement the trueness of the matter, yet on Dec 5, 1941 President Roosevelt, on his way to japan at the personal invitation of the emperor Hirohito, disappeared with the sonorous prowl car Chicago that he travelled upon. The only message of alarum received was that of"ardour in the forward engine room has reached the ammo magazines…"then silence.

Newly sworn-in chair President Truman called for the matter to be investigated, and American language naval violence were sent to the end love position of the Chicago. Two British corvettes, One Canadian sea-coast safety vessel and three Japanese undoer arrived on the conniption to only find a field of junk and oil slip covering Admiralty mile of ocean.

What has been documented is the first American vessel, a undoer whose senior pilot despised the Nipponese, on the fit immediately assumed the Nipponese vessel had sunk the Chicago ; he demanded their surrender and when they rightfully refused, stating they as with the British and Canadian vas were searching for subsister, commenced to raise upon them - one vessel sunk, heavy legal injury done on the other two Nipponese ships who retaliated and sunk the destroyer in turn.

thus commenced the great Pacific Ocean War, or as many now call it"The War of Empires."On December 7, 1941, a hostile Congress, whipped into a frenzy by a small handful of anti-Japanese fanatics declared war on the Empire of Japan and directed Chief Executive Truman to conduct the war until ‘ unconditional surrender of the Empire of Japan occurred.'

Seeing the chance for territorial profit and greater influence across the Pacific, on Dec 10 and 11, France and England joined the United States in declaring war upon the Japanese for ‘ crimes of such magnitude as to withstand green sensation or decency.'

Everyone expected the Japanese imperium would fall by the end of 1942, and plans were already being prepared for the part of the dwelling islands. Germany declared neutrality in the matter, as did USSR ; though both had supplying especial technology and resources to Japanese Archipelago in secret to develop the war-ending means…

threesome long and bloody yr of protracted struggle resulted in Yamamoto bringing victory for the Empire of Japan ; seven decisive naval and body politic betrothal ended in Japan's favor, with the terminal treaty ending the war leaving Japan in possession of Indo-China, circumstances of India and Ceylon, and most of the Pacific. Though the Philippine's were restored to United States after they were to be declared ‘ neutral territory.'

Many historiographer have learned that the peace was wrought with an unsaid threat from japan to loose the new super-weapon they had developed and tested just before their concluding armed services victory - the nuclear dud. In a private diplomatic cable to the leaders of America, England and France, Saturnia pavonia Hirohito stated if the place islands were attacked, the new ‘ superintendent dud'would be used in retaliation upon the offending confederative nation.

In due fourth dimension the winter War will lead into history, but it will not be forgotten as the meter when a popular nation dared to do the impossible and within that war, the actions of Nikkei and Stephen changed the world forever. Thus comes to a close the fable of the Snow Fox.


( fin