23 August, 1939 ( newspaper headline )

In a movement that has shocked the political world at declamatory ; the governments of Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist republic have concluded and signed a treaty of mutual non-aggression. The released instruction of many domain leaders has ranged across the spectrum, from one of rejoicing that the prospects of another great war in European Economic Community has been avoided, to others who unofficially are seeking more information or are involved in a series of ‘ vivid treatment'with confederative governments.


1 Sep, 1939 ( Headlines )

gentlewoman and gentlemen today it is my sad duty to herald that war has returned to the Continent of Europe as on this day the armed forces of Germany have invaded westerly Republic of Poland. Heavy fighting is reported by all sides, with Germany announcing ‘ deep, massive and sweeping insight'by its armed forces. Allegedly the refine army is already collapsing ; surrendering in ever growing numbers and the regime has fled the state for asylum in Roumania. Unofficial accounts from receiving set operators in Poland speak of continued resistance that is ‘ stout, unattackable and determined'in the nerve of the wanton hostility of Germany.

Many earth leaders have strongly denounced this hostility on the parting of the government of Germany, with France, U.K. and the United States of the States demanding that the armies of Federal Republic of Germany cease all hostilities at once. This is to be followed by climb-down to the original perimeter, while an international mediation via the League of Nations occurs to finalize the matter of enmity between the respective governments.

No scuttlebutt has been relayed from the German government.


3 Sept, 1939 ( headline )

On this day the crisis in Europe has grown exponentially, with the politics of France and U.K. officially declaring war upon the governing of FRG for the invasion of Polska. Contacts within the respective military and governance section tell that armed treatment in Poland, and the direct territorial intrusion of FRG ‘ shall occur within a mitt count of daytime, or at almost, before the adjacent two workweek are over.'

The scrap continues on, with the governance of Federal Republic of Germany reporting more and more territory gained with each passing hr, while Polish beginning report the chief thrust of the German blitzkrieg has been blunted, but that the nations fatal accident have been gamy. The proclamation of the proclamation of war by France and Britain has brought renewed hope for the beleaguered nation.


17 September, 1939 ( Headlines )

In a movement of blatant opportunism and aggressiveness the United States Army of the trades union of Soviet Socialist republic have invaded eastern Polska. The instance of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics declared that the move is to ensure that law and fiat and stability are maintained in the face of the discharge collapse of the Polish governing. Within minute the move had been condemned by most extremity of the League of Nations…


5 Oct, 1939 ( newspaper headline )

Poland has officially ceased to exist according to the regime of Germany and the USSR. The small Carry Amelia Moore Nation of Republic of Latvia, Republic of Lithuania and Estonia have been annexed by the Russia after being coerced into signing one sided ‘ reciprocal defense force pacts'with the exchange communist government activity of Russia….

Unconfirmed reputation mention that officials from Finland have been invited to Russian capital for ‘ discussions of a most specific nature concerning the reciprocal defense mechanism of both countries.'One former high-ranking military officer explained that usually means ‘ Moscow makes the threats and Suomi will piddle yielding, or there shall be war in the end…'


â‚°â‚°

Deep in the dormitory of STAVKA, Supreme headquarters for the arm force out of the USSR, the foregather leaders stand at attending as the lone man walked calmly in the door and silently proceeded to the head teacher of the long, map-covered table.

His every footstep echoed like thunder across the room, and heightened the thick tension that was further magnified by his aura of top executive, assurance, ruthlessness and determination. He reveled in the fear that radiated from all of those pose, for all knew with a simple gesture, a nod, or one spoken word, he could make or break-dance any or all of their careers, transmit them to the gulag for animation, or have them summarily executed.

Taking his seat he motioned for all to sit and began to explain the matters at hand."comrade, the conquest of Poland and the annexation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are nearing mop up. The ancient district of our great Rodinia are nearly accomplished, with one vexing exception. Despite our most generous offer to them, the lackeys of the Imperialist West, especially those of Britain, who ‘ order'in Suomi, have slapped aside the hand of communist generosity."

"Comrades, as of now I am instructing all of you to enact the plans we have prepared for such an contingency,"the man stated, hammering away on the table with his fist as his eye, cold and gray, blazed with rage and rage at the governance who has defied him since he was forced to sign on the 1921 treaty of Tartu forced upon the peaceful people of the Russia by the decrepit and Imperialist-led conference of Nations.

"fellow, explain to me again every item of the programme as they exist at this clock time, do not leave out one detail,"he declared as he motioned for the NKVD guards, penis of the feared State Security apparatus, to keep an eye on for the number one wind of defeatism, hesitation or anything that may be construed as treason. For those so suspected the final result would be publically declared ‘ a quiet and well realise retreat'…

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

For that lone man, Prime Minister Joseph Stalin, he wanted it no other way. He and he alone ruled in the Soviet Union, and he held the fate of all in his hands alone.

For nearly 20 yr he had fumed over the humiliation Suomi and her Imperialist backers had inflicted upon him in 1921. So now he will have his revenge and have the proper lands of the Old Russian czar's restored to the motherland, under proper communist direction of course.

He listened as the details were explained over respective hours, with only one small accession proposed to assure there will be no question as to ‘ Finnish aggressiveness'being the grounds of the coming invasion."Make it so,"said Stalin.


31 October, 1939 ( newspaper headline )

Today before the assembly of the Supreme Soviet, Foreign Minister Molotov, for the inaugural time in world announced the terms ‘ requested'of the government of Republic of Finland to ‘ control the defenses of the peaceable multitude of the wedlock of Soviet Socialist Republics.'

The ‘ requests,'a polite terminal figure for what most mass in the popular nations of the world will send for ‘ requirement at the point of a gun'were for land to be leased for thirty eld, or transferred directly into the hired man of the Soviet Union while the government of Finland would pick up in paying back Edwin Herbert Land that is waste and worthless. German language chancellor Adolph Hitler has called upon the citizenry of Finland and their leaders to accept the terms peacefully while time remains for them to do so…

needle to say, the subject matter of ‘ while time remains for them to do so…'has dramatically increased stress in a continent already at war between the friend and the axis of rotation powers.


â‚°â‚°

Sir Leslie Stephen half-listened to the news coming from the daily radio broadcast that detailed the current build up of tension between Finland and Russian Federation. Day by day the negotiations had been summarized in the typical way of Stalin and his cohorts…

"Agree to our terms with no compromise or face the fist of sword from our armies."That is the substance they have sent before, when Finland finally won its Independence at the end of the Great War.

Memories of that cutthroat sentence played across his mind as he examined the masterly-crafted rifle that he held ; its perfect design and balance, custom-made as a birthday present to one especial to him, will make her one of the greatest of huntsman ever to haunt game in the woods. The new setting mounted to it was commissioned by a supporter of his, whose excogitation were a contemporaries or more ahead of their time.

Stephen twirled and tossed the rifle ; rapidly worked the bolt-action to gain the final feel of how smooth it will play when time was of the nub - as he learned recently with a bear that almost had him for dinner. No flaw could be found, no mar, no mistake in his greatest introduction of all the firearms he has handcrafted in his life as an armorer, soldier, Orion and…dealer in goods and stuff best left field unexplained and preferably never found by agents of the law.

He and his friends had prepared to the intimately 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 work to absolute perfection.

"She will love this rifle,"Stephen said as he mulled over the coming event,"her birthday is on the 30th of Nov. I will be there and shew 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 tonicity of his words. For that rifle will be wielded by one to become a legend…


24 November, 1939 ( Headlines )

Tensions continue to build between the governing of Finland and the Soviet Union as two counter proposals were made to recover an honorable solution to the need of Moscow. Both proposals were summarily rejected as being completely insufferable on the premise they would leave the USSR completely vulnerable in the region of Leningrad.

All diplomatic ties between Suomi and the USSR have been severed by the expiration of the Finnish party after being ordered home to Helsinki for ‘ consultations.'


26 November, 1939 ( headline )

Unconfirmed reports coming from the company tidings services of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have declared a ‘ surprise and dastardly attack on Russian territory has occurred by units of the Fascist government of Finland upon instructions by their masters, the Imperialist Industrialists of the West.'

Foreign Minister Molotov has condemned this ‘ butchery of Russian youth and destruction of often Russian history in the border village of Mainila…

â‚°â‚°

"My feller comrades,"declared the legendary ‘ man of brand,'PM Joseph Stalin to the Soviet senior high school Command who stood at attention before the board where he sat."Negotiations have fallen through with the fascist authorities of Finland, and now we have this unprovoked assault upon our native land. As per plans already prepared for such an occurrence, the gild are henceforth given to you and your troops…just before dayspring on 30 Nov the great army of the labor union of Soviet Socialist Republics shall invade Finland and emancipate her oppressed peck who cry for freedom under a proper Communist government."

His anger flared hot in his eyes and iron-cold in his words as he slammed his hired hand on the hard board,"I will be very clear in this matter. Failure will not be tolerated ; the tenuous sign of incompetency, cowardly action and treachery against the party or the res publica will think of succinct execution by the NKVD. All gild and programme made will be approved by them before any are carried out. Remember, they answer to me alone…"

Needless to say everyone got the message.

Stalin grinned and reveled in the absolute fear the men around him displayed. HE was in control, the superior of all in Russia to do with as he pleased.

Soon enough the disgrace inflicted upon him by Republic of Finland so long ago will be avenged, a dark spot on his fierce report. Everyone present knew that the words he spoke of failed negotiations were mere windowpane binding, for the might of four Russian army corps was in office at key crossing points along the Finland - Russian border.

Invasion had been inevitable for some fourth dimension, and the Fin's would pay for their stubbornness in fire and stemma.



30 November 1939 rear-area of Russian Ninth Army corporation

Major-General Yuri Bogdan watched the molding region from the wooded ridge just shy of the Finnish-Russian delimitation. The pocket-sized village, little more than a crossroads not even worthy of a mark on any official map, showed at the limits of his binoculars, just one Sir Thomas More nipper obstruction for the deluxe dismission 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 educational activity in the with child crusade that is to commence. Each order was repeated back in precise item to him and to the section's chief commissar, Major-General Vitaly of the NKVD ( res publica protection ). All of the officers knew that one misstep, one unsuccessful person, one infraction, or the appearance of any of the aforementioned, can suit solid ground for summary writ of execution by the NKVD.

Anyone doubting that only had to glance at the freshly turned earth that marked 30 Graf of blighter officers who were shot an hour ago for ‘ inappropriate want of fighting spirit for the movement of the state.'

"Comrades,"Major-General Bogdan spoke to the forgather policeman,"our partition has been granted the honor of spearheading the crusade in the sack of our commie pal from the fascists who currently rule Finland. As you know, to a lesser extent than 72 60 minutes ago, our crowned head filth was violated in a border clash designed to chevy the existence's sympathy for the brigand leaders of Suomi and thus turn them against our estimable loss leader Comrade Stalin."

He watched Major-General Vitaly casually stroll back and forth around the policeman, as one would expect of a rancher or granger inspecting his lever collection of cows and steers before sending them to securities industry. He went on with his words,"fellow, each of us will execute our parts to paragon, and we will keep up radio secrecy as per army Headquarters society until instructed otherwise. Use the motorbike couriers you have well and with due diligence, no opportunity to crush the foe must be wasted."

He hammered his clinched fist into his gloved hand,"fastness, jounce and unrelenting press, this is how we shall split this section of the strawman business line all-inclusive out-of-doors and get on ever onward. All prisoner taken are to be sent to our fellow of body politic Security unless directed, as per orders signed by Premier comrade Stalin, otherwise by each regiments commissar or by orderliness of Major-General commissar Vitaly."

He pointed to the recently filled graves to one side of the gain military officer,"Understand, there is to be no retreat or surrender,"his interpreter deepened as his rage mounted,"those who do so are guilty of treason and shall be dealt with swiftly as these traitors to the state of matter have been parcel out with."

"Now return to your regiments and get ready to crossbreed the border as per plans,"he watched the police officer salute and flee for their staff vehicles like a panic-struck gathering of cony in the slew of a band of hawks on the hunt.

â‚°â‚°

Stephen had just crested the small James Jerome Hill meridian when he heard the starting time thundering of artillery unleashed from across the margin. He watched in horror as blast after crushing blast of cannon casing and rocket salad landed around the hamlet of Summers Mist, where his granddaughter Nikkei's birthday political party is taking place, a day of joy and happiness as his mother country neared war that no one wanted to deliver happen.

Sadly, as the cloud of smoke and churned Earth merged with the cry and screams of his folk and admirer, he knew the war no one wanted had begun. He shouldered the cloth-wrapped present he had spent so many calendar month crafting for Nikkei's natal day, and felt the teardrop flow down his nerve as he watched his worldly concern taken from him for the second time in his animation by warfare.


â‚°â‚°

Her cosmos spun in a fog of pain and vertigo as she struggled to spread her center. The gentle crackling of a fervour flooded her auricle and the mixture of cooking meat, burning forest and other olfactory property assaulted her sense of look with deluge military unit. She struggled to develop, slowly lifting herself onto her elbow joint and then falling back to the priming still enshrouded by the thick blanket someone had put over her while she was unconscious mind.

A figure leaned down next to her and handed her a cup of cold urine that she guzzled down, all but choking upon its cool down descent into her parched sass and throat.

"Easy Nikkei, easy there take your fourth dimension,"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 dapple after another."You will be alright Nikkei ; at the least I still have my granddaughter with me."

"granddad what happened,"Nikkei asked, not comprehending his last words he had said to her,"Where are all the others, mama and dada and my brothers…"She stopped upon seeing the reflection that showed upon his face, understanding at last what had happened to everyone else.

"No grandpa, no not that, please not that,"she said, collapsing into his arms as he drew her close. She broke down completely, the shit coming hard and fast for the exit of her entire fellowship."Why gramps, why did this ingest to fall out ?"

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

Actually he did know, having followed the intense negotiations between the Finnish-Soviet authorities. Each day the USSR had become more and more demanding in the grant it sought, making it clear with none-too-subtle terror and motion that war would be the result hold open for complete and unconditional surrender of all territorial requirement made…a chain of demands that Sir Leslie Stephen knew could not be accepted by Finland.

Yet he, like most in the hamlet, had hoped for commons sense and public security to come about. So it was that Nikkei's eighteenth birthday offered a time to celebrate and for the biotic community to forget about the outside globe for a short time…then the onslaught 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. Stephen had found her one-half frozen and brought her to one of the small cabins in the wooded hills he called home, hoping to picture out how to get her to safety when she could locomote again.

Nikkei pointed to the leaping bundle side by side to Stephen and asked,"grandfather, what is that you have there ?"

He looked into her pain-filled eyes, glad for something to distract her even for a short time from the crushing loss of all that she had known."This is my birthday gift for you Nikkei, just as I promised to make last twelvemonth, one all of your own."

Nikkei watched as Stephen untied the big bucks and removed a rifle scabbard from beneath the canvas tent. He turned and presented it to her as if she were a queen of some block kingdom worthy of a uncommon and precious gift from her people.


She took the rifle scabbard in her script and laid it across her lap, stroking the sonant leather covered in Edward D. White fur. The rifles stock certificate, made of finely lacquered Ellen Price Wood carved in detail images of her hunting in the deep woodwind instrument spoke of Stephen's acquirement as a master gun maker and armorer.

Gently Nikkei pulled it free of the scabbard and examined it for some time, feeling the precise equalizer and form that already felt a raw extension of her. The telescopic sight glistened in the sonant firelight, and she spotted the key signature of an old friend of her grandfathers, a man who made masterwork optics superior to flush the ok made in Germany.

Two wonderful gem for her natal day ; such a plunder of riches she felt unworthy of possessing let alone being able to hold in her hands.

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

"You saved me from that bear last year Nikkei,"he said with a smile. He had made one error on the hunt he had taken her on, one moment of carelessness in which the bear reared up and threatened his life. Nikkei proved the quicker though, as she placed three slug into the bears heart and head and thus mortally wounded the brute. It still fought on for some time before it succumbed, but in return for saving him, Stephen promised Nikkei he would craft a rifle worthy of her phenomenal skills.

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

"Grandpa, where are the monsters who did this, where are they ?"she demanded, her voice filled with ira and rage none could own dreamed existed. None save for Stephen who had long recognized the same traits in her that he had, and understood nothing will hold her back from having her retaliation on the Russians, no topic if in the end it cost her own life.

He shook his caput, recalling the time back in the struggle of 1918 when Finland won its independence from the tzar's of USSR, and the metre of trouble which followed. He had been a colonel then, and for a time he fought as a partisan behind the lines, becoming such a scourge on his enemies that they called him ‘ Ghost Bear.'

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

"Nikkei we are going to get you to safety and then I and some friends will start out to contend these goliath, I will not lose…oh why I even bother…'He snorted and rolled his eyes to the vault of heaven as she struggled to stomach up and force out of the minuscule cabin to go it alone."God above, she is more like me than even her mama could have figured…"

"Nikkei hold on there,"he grabbed her as she began to collapse to the floor, still woozy from the blow to her head."fine then, I have a few things to get ready for our hunt, we will be partisans then here in our domain of the Wood and James Jerome Hill ; one affair emphatically, I call the shots and we do this my way until we have driven those monsters out of our homeland."

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


â‚°

As Nikkei slumbered away the day, Stephen headed off into the Wood, making impinging 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 weaponry and former gearing around the sphere for a band of enthusiast to use if they needed it…and now they will, for once again ‘ Ghost Bear'will enter into war and make his enemies pay for their offence in blood.

He continued on into the Natalie Wood, seeking a property where his personal cache of ‘ particular commodity'waited retrieval.

As the name and address came into plenty, little more than a cluster of rock music and shrubs covering a minor cavern in their profoundness he reached into his coat and rested his hand upon the hilt of his hunting knife. The feeble smell of cigar tobacco filtered through the air, coming closer with each passing endorse, soon to be joined with the subdued compaction - crunching of various pair of snowshoes coming towards him.

He edged into the nearby bush and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, concealing himself so as to appear as little more than another low clump of rock 'n' roll at the infrastructure of a mighty northerly pine as the people who followed him closed in, step by step, and into salient aloofness of his ambush…

Lightning fast he slammed his cubital joint into the gut of the man who had snuck up behind him, following up with a fist to his enemy throat, as he grabbed the man by his coat and dragged him to the ground. Sir Leslie Stephen pulled out his knife to deliver the end blow and suddenly stopped as the man beneath him gently chuckled.

Captain Ray Robinson of the Finnish Army grinned and looked at Stephen,"You have not lost any of the attainment you taught all of us those days ago Colonel Stephen. Now if you don't intellect, let me up and I will signal my men not to try and shoot you…"

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

"Stephen is it then,"began Robinson,"we're here to scout and harass the advancing soviet US Army as it heads up the road. Someone has to stay behind and become partisans, though from the grinning on your face I assume you already let begun that task ?"

"In a fashion of speaking,"Stephen filled in his old scholarly person and friend in on his plans."Right now I am off to contact others in the area who will watch and strike as they can. Even in our independent style, we can figure out together and make the Russians life a life hell."

Robinson nodded as he caught the subtle usance of ‘ we'in his hold up sentence, relation of another who will hunt the Russians with Stephen.

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

Stephen grinned, knowing then and there Robinson will go along with anything he asked or needed done,"The nose candy Fox, for we will prove the true craftiness us V have when on our home ground. Now I have to get a few other things done and ‘ acquired'then the hunt will begin."

So it was, after a quick handshake, the men departed.


3 Dec 1939 near front rail line of Russian 163rd infantry section


Major Chief Joseph stood by the armored staff car with his sub-machine gun clenched tight in his grasp. His superiors in the NKVD ( state security system ) had made his instructions painfully bring in ; continue a close eye on the natural process of Major-General Bogdan as he served as his driver, courier and personal bodyguard out in the area. bankruptcy in any way will result in succinct execution.

Over a dozen more soldiers, Whitney Young lieutenants and captains, stood around or waited in their own staff gondola for instructions from the general. Almost all of them gazed from time to time to the advancing line of motortruck, tanks and tank-riding infantry that snaked its way along the single route ever deeper into Finland. The distant ground-shaking roar of the artillery no longer registered with them, having become little more than background randomness in the one-fourth day of their lightning fast ( sorting of ) pace of the attack.

Major-General Bogdan stood high upon the hood of his car as he scanned the horizon with his fine binoculars, a gift from his grandfather many long years past. His frustration mounted by the mo at the pigheadedness of the Finnish guardian who have defied his ability to ruin through them for the last three days. Three sidereal day and his division were barely twenty geographical mile across the border.

"upper, focal ratio and ever Sir Thomas More speed. That is how we win this war, speed, shock and uncompromising aggression against any who stand against us,"he muttered to himself."headwaiter Craigson, insure that all regimental and lower commanders understand the orders. Unrelenting pressure, there will be no more withdrawing or moving early than at the enemy ahead. Any failures and I will personally fritter the officeholder myself if need be."

The captain repeated back his book of instructions, saluted and retreated to his staff car, which tore off down the road with due hurriedness to ensure the substance was received and duly carried out.

Major-General Bogdan growled as he watched his division slowly crawl down the road."The Finnish lackey's of the Imperialist West and Capitalists will learn what it means to defy the Soviet Union. We will conduct back what is rightfully ours since long before the Revolution began. They wanted war, so now they shall have it and we will reconstruct their order into a avowedly Communist nation as it should be."

His mood suddenly brightened at the sight of a of a battery of truck-mounted rocket launchers and two bombardment of artillery moved off the road and began to set up for firing at targets located by his pathfinder. So often firepower being prepared meant that at least a multitude or two of enemy soldiers had gathered to make a desperate last stand against his armor and infantry tearing ever deeper into their homeland.

The sound of a minibike informed him that a courier had arrived, and he nodded in expiation as the man stopped his cycle, handed his note to police chief Dima who double-timed it to the general. When he read the note, Major-General Bogdan felt his blood boil as he shouted, raged and cursed while directing another motorbike mounted messenger to impress forward and tell his divisional headquarters to labor his three Pb regiments forward with all speed or face execution at his own hands.

He cursed the fiat of ‘ absolute radio receiver silence'that came from his superiors at US Army HQ's 50 or more Roman mile behind his division."darn them for their defiance to the needs of the motherland !"he shouted while shaking his clenched fist in the focussing of the Finnish defenders.

Nearby another older officer smiled at the absolute craze of Major-General Bogdan. Of class when this policeman smiled, all the resultant officers of the universal cringed, instantly coming to attention and saluting, if only to save their own spirit, not knowing death stalked all of them from another position…



â‚°

"Say what you will that one has a bit of a temperament job,"Stephen said as he eased the binoculars down from his oculus. Clad in solid-white winter clothing his eyes shifted across the horizon and then across the realm before him. Even the little effort drew his tending as he quickly dismissed it as the wind, an animal or a Russian Soldier moving around on some mission or another.

He watched a second officer, probably the NKVD similitude of the policeman who stood atop his machine hood, stroll with saturated arrogance and cheekiness becoming of a Commissar of high rank over to the vehicle and climb upon the hood as well. The remaining officers stood at a honorable distance, all save for the officer's driver who looked and moved like a small terrier determined to protect its passkey from a plurality of ravenous wolves.


â‚°

"Yes associate they do have it coming for their defiance to the motive of the country of origin,"said John Major full general Vitaly, Political political commissar for the division of Major-General Bogdan."It appears you are ahead of agenda by a bit, despite Christian Bible approaching of some resistance run into by your lead elements."

"Comrade political commissar it is good to see you up and about."Major-General Bogdan said as he gave his comrade the best salute he could manage."We are pushing hard for our days objective and I have ordered the men to push all the harder. There is some report ohmic resistance, yet we shall push firmly than before and shatter them completely. In short order any prisoner will be in your hands, as they should be, and we shall be one step closer to flying the flag of International Communism high over this land of noncompliant banditti."


â‚°

To Stephens left, slightly in high spirits up upon the craggy heap of stone and shrubs among the great true pine woodland a pair of bluish center stared at the police officer through the scope of her rifle. She slowly brought her helping hand up to the scope and made some minute adjustment, allowing her to deal with the range, wind and other variable to range her stroke right on target when the moment arrived.

Both ship's officer on the cars hood turned to watching the horizon through their binoculars.

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

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

One final calculation of the image and all variables flowed through her creative thinker as she squeezed the trigger…


â‚°

Major-General Bogdan smiled as the heavy artillery sounded off, the gaudy roaring of the trench mortar merging with the screaming cry of Katyusha rockets tearing off from their truck-mounted launchers. He shook his fist in delectation, imagining the carnage beginning to decrease on the hapless Finland Army regulars'just kilometers ahead when he felt something wet spatter across the side of his read/write head, left arm and chest.


He turned in time to see the consistency of Major-General Vitaly collapse to the ground with all of the grace of a butchered wild boar. The view of the gaping wound left from the heater his foreland had intercepted caused Bogdan to freeze, unable to move, speak, or even think. He knew then and there that death was only moments away from claiming him in its icy hands.

Major Joseph leapt upon the automobile hood and tackled Major-General Bogdan. The fastball meant for the universal took the man in the backbone, severed his spine and ruptured his heart, absolutely before he and the worldwide plummeted to the ground, sheltered by the armored car from the snipers fire.

chaos reigned in the superior general unit as some of the men ran to help Major-General Bogdan and the fallen commissar and Major Joseph. The rest dove for the nearest cover they could find and devolve fervour with pistol, rifle or sub-machinegun at suspected sniper positioning as the field of battle artillery continued to thunder away and have it nearly impossible for one man to pick up another even close up.

With mechanically skillful efficiency, one officeholder after another flopped to the ground, a bingle red combat injury found in their pull throats or skulls. In lupus erythematosus than two minute of arc, as the weapon fell mute once again and their crews commenced prep to move on down the route, thirteen men lay dead on ground, while the survivor 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 unknown foes in such a short brace of time. It was over a half-hour before he regained his calmness and shouted out orders to move the social unit to his divisions HQ and even longer to notify Army home base of the expiration of Major-General Vitaly.

â‚°

"ejaculate Nikkei its time to provide and quickly,"Stephen said to her as he finished wiring the last-place of many ‘ gifts'he had set out earlier to further penalise the Russians when they came to enquire the area. As he considered the carnage to make out from his ‘ natural endowment,'Sir Leslie Stephen and Nikkei donned their skis and disappeared into the woods little more than twin ghosts headed to one of many temporary tax shelter they will hail to use in the weeks and months ahead.


â‚°â‚°â‚°

The sight of the snaking trail of cooler, trucks, artillery and infantry which pushed ever recondite into his mother country sickened senior pilot Robert Robinson. He wondered how much of a chance his land honestly had to kibosh this dogged mass of metal and men bent upon the double-dyed subjugation of Finland.

One of his men tapped him on his shoulder joint and pointed down to the wayside where a force of infantry began to pile up under the enraged orders of officers watched by stern-eyed NKVD Commissars. Some of the officers, led by a commissar John R. Major, examined one area of soil and the bodies left behind after some kind of lying in wait had occurred.

A flying counting of the infantry told him that he and his men faced a reenforce fellowship of Russian soldiers, who began to diffuse out. Some marched unto a pocket-size crag of stone and shrub while the oddment headed towards Robinson and his men at a brisk walk. He could see that the appendage of this back circle were hesitant and on edge, though their fears of the commissar outweighed any danger from the woodland ahead of them.


Captain Ray Robinson and his handful of men dropped down under cover as a minuscule explosion erupted from that jolty crag, felling over a dozen Russian soldiers. chaos erupted as a second blast erupted, unleashing a wave of metal scraps, nails, and other projectile that wounded a mark and five of men. The surviving infantry began to fire at random into the forest with rifles and sub-machineguns as fast as they could while yelling at the top of their lungs.

They charged at the Ellen Price Wood border, only to let their ragged establishment shattered by a range of mountains of blasts triggered by hidden tripwires. pillar of heater and tossed soil rose as men fell to the ground seeking top, beat or dying.

"Now men, now, take them down while we can !"police chief Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson shouted to his men as the perfective tense time for a improvise ambush had arrived. Rifles merged with the tap-tapping of four scant machine hired gun which scythed across the Russian infantry, felling them one after another after another.

In lupus erythematosus than a mo the conflict was over and his men swarmed among the dead Russians to gather rifles, ammo and anything of worth in the way of military intelligence agency they could find. Two arcminute after they began, he and his men disappeared back into the forest, where two 60 minutes and seven kilometers away the sea captain examined a set of orders to the NKVD Commissar Major to ‘ breakthrough and knock off the bandit who slew Major-General Vitaly and 14 other officers.'

"XV officers and they left behind a range of booby bunker for their chaser ?"Sergeant Jermaine, the aide of Captain Jack Roosevelt Robinson, whistled softly and stir his principal in mental rejection."Who could possibly have done that ?"

"I'll tell you who did this,"Captain Edwin Arlington Robinson said with a look of amazement on his fount,"It was the employment of the C Fox. I need a smuggler to get the info we have back to our side of the blood line, and get it there on the double."

Captain Robinson watched the messenger 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 miserable for them as possible.


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

Swedish efflorescence Minister Hansson looked out the library window upon a land covered in Baron Snow of Leicester and for a minute dreamed that the Earth was still at peace. He sighed, knowing that such a dream is finished for many a twelvemonth to come since another great war has erupted.

Turning back to his two other invitee he looked upon his old acquaintance Ryti, Prime Minister of Suomi and here on ‘ private matters'for his state."Will the terms be acceptable in the end ?"he asked of Ryti.

bloom parson Ryti looked at the third gentleman's gentleman in the elbow room, a man of ruthless ambition and ill-concealed greed. No matter the absolute contempt he held for this man, Finland needed the weapons and supplies even more ; so he has dealt with the lesser of two evils to save his place."It will be satisfactory, as per the terminus we have agreed upon."

"Very good then,"the tertiary man declared as he stood and adjusted his coat,"have the money transferred into my Swiss accounts by the usual means ; just to be clear, this coming together never happened and I will deny any and all honorable mention of it in public. I am helping you due to the fact I hate the Russians more than anything else."

With that the man, High German George Marshall Herman Hermann Wilhelm Goring departed for his flight home.



7-8 December, 1939 rear-area Russian Ninth Army Corp

In the old prospector's cabin, little more than a renovated hutch, Nikkei watched as the sun cast its final rays of igniter before departing below the horizon and allowing the night to cover the land in its grip. She put the blanket back into piazza, to keep even the slight firelight from escaping into the outside humans. She looked to the cabin door and wondered when Sir Leslie Stephen would be back from ‘ meeting with some friends nearby.'

She returned to cleaning her rifle with keen concern, determined to ensure that the arm of her revenge was kept in perfect precondition for the future ambush set by Stephen and her. footprint by footmark as she had been taught so long ago she cleaned and oiled each part in turn, ensuring that not one speck of dirt, grit, or anything could jam or plug it up at the moment when she would necessitate it most.

The lowly radio Stephen had somehow gotten his deal upon whispered news of the alfresco world between the static-filled outcry of the daybreak borealis dancing overhead. What news came from functionary sources among the Northern and European station painted a black future for her country of origin, as four massive ground forces chemical group have crossed the border from north to south, seeking to conquer the entire nation.

To the south, on the Karelian Isthmus the Russians have pushed the Finnish army back to the Mannerheim line. A monumental artillery bombardment, nearly two days in length if the account are to be believed, preceded a massed infantry assault in the part of Taipale supported with regimental potency artillery, rocket-fire, aerial bombing and loudspeakers used to broadcast call for resignation of the Suomi army until they were shot apart by Finnish snipers.

Nikkei listened and smiled, pleased to hear the news of the Finnish army had dug in deep, with well sighted artillery and weapons, and then ripped apart the Russians assault. casualty from the carnage were estimated at 5000 beat Russians and twice that injured, along with 500 prisoners. Curiously she heard about the stifling frustration made against the Russian armour, some eighty tanks destroyed or disable and captured.

She and Sir Leslie Stephen had seen a few such tank moving along the lone road that linked Russia and their army that advanced slowly into Suomi. Sir Leslie Stephen seemed genuinely afraid of the metal beasts, though she respected what they could do, the sight of the gasoline-filled fuel barrel mounted on the gage deck of them gave her an mind of how to blockade one…literally it would go up in flames…

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

Nikkei looked at the small trio of bottles tied to her pack, each one prepared to deliver another lethal surprise on any armored animate being or fomite when assailed during an surprisal attack. Sir Leslie Stephen had been rather dubious about the idea when she suggested it, but on the narrow lowly road in the thick forests, five burned out hand truck and a armored car testified to its simplistic and fell efficiency.

Once she had finished her maintenance for the rifle she gently traced the newest markings burned into the wooden stock. Each mark was that of a snow fox, barely 8mm in size of it, and representing a unity kill she had scored since she had become involved in the war for her homeland. XXIV little slyboots, twenty-four putting to death, some of them the motorbike couriers being used to transfer orders between Russian Headquarters.

The last messenger had turned out to be the most vital one to engagement. She and Stephen had been crossing one of the secondary roads during a fall snowfall with her in the confidential information, and covering Stephen after she reached the far English. No sooner had she prepared her rifle the messenger came tearing around a bend in the route. She had aimed and shot him down without a seconds wavering, and thus gained both of them a usable motorbike and the full of life goods in the couriers satchel case.


Long into the night Stephen had sat in this very cabin after dumping the minibike, out of gas and appropriately booby-trapped for any singular Russians. The paperwork he looked through contained high-value military code and communiqués, orders of battle and supply status - it detailed the low level of provisions and ammo among the Russian Army building block in this area.

Sir Leslie Stephen had explained he needed to get this stuff to some ‘ admirer in high home'and would be back as soon as he could. She was given some special instructions : if he is not back by the first ray of dawn the adjacent day, or at the first sighting of a Russian, she is to flee at once and header for one of the six sights he described. Of course if meter permitted before she bolted, she was to ‘ activate'the small surprise contained in the cabin for the stupid Russians.

Her nap that nighttime was spasmodic and tormented by incubus of strange things coming out of the mists she could not commend after being woken by a trajectory of Soviet Air strength bombers and fighter aircraft overhead. She took a superlative out the small windowpane facing to the east and hoped against hope to see Sir Leslie Stephen coming up the trail in the rising sun…

Instead she gasped at the mountain of four grade Russian infantry advancing at a steady rate towards the cabin.


â‚°

"Keep down and watch, no one make any noise that may contribute them down upon us,"Stephen whispered to the men who accompanied him. When Hannu, Kalevi, Joni and their drumbeater nodded he turned back to look on the band of Russians advancing towards the cabin in which Nikkei sheltered. He could only pray she had already fled for one of the other meeting seat and will wait there for him.

meter by metre the soldiers advanced and spread out to circle the cabin under the iron-hard gaze of the whole'commissar. If anyone remained inside the cabin there will be no chance for them to escape, and the supply needed by the partizan will probably be found as well…


â‚°

Nikkei quickly tossed on her great coat, slipped on her coterie and rifle scabbard, and prayed as never before in her life history as she struck a equal and held it to the length of fuse-cord leading to Sir Leslie Stephen lilliputian surprise for the fast approach Russians.

Once the electric cord started to siss and burn, she dropped it to the ground and fled the cabin, cleared the small rooftree behind it and commenced a zag run for safety. She used every feature of speech of the terrain and forest to give her any cover, anything to keep her from being seen by the advancing Russians. When she finally stopped and plopped down behind a cluster 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 small-scale ridge running behind the cabin and decided that she had to get her skis if potential, parliamentary law or no gild from her grandpa.

She moved as silent as a ghost and with the seemliness of a deer across the land. Her acquisition in doing so had been perfected over hanker years of hunting and practice with Stephen, and on occasion when he travelled to make a leverage or make a deal that was best left unexplained to anyone else, especially individual connected to the law of the land.


Just shy of the crown she stopped, eased her rifle from its scabbard and checked her bulge to ensure the duplicate magazines were set if she needed them. Meter by measure she slowly and cautiously eased her way to the peak of the ridge, propped herself up on her cubitus 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 incorrect with it. Then and there she knew her skis are history as there are far too many Russian soldiers to fight…


â‚°

Stephen pulled back behind the shelter of the tree as he reloaded his Republic of Finland KP-31 sub-machinegun, and sent out a barrage of curses and contumely so blasphemous the land should possess melted away. A slug tore a chunk out of the tree mere centimeters from his face as he exposed himself again, bringing up the Virgil Garnett Thomson and fired off short bursts into the still advancing mass of Russian infantry.

minute before Hannu and Kalevi had nearly moved their men into position to get hold of down the Russians who encroached on the old cabin. Though risky, they have to run into at their foe, the supplying cached away beneath the cabins floorboard are needed by the local partisan effect.

Stephen and Joni, along with a dozen other enthusiast stayed back to batten down their leakage path if the battle turned against them…only to be surprised by the sudden arrival of two Russian infantry companies, roughly 300 men add together. Instantly Stephen ordered his men to the binding of the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and to fire on the advancing forces.

Roughly forty or More Russians fell to the first barrage of little arms firing as two light machine guns scythed across them like a harvester in a wheat berry champaign. manus grenades added to the carnage being wrought as flack after flesh-rending flack shattered the steer Russians morale, sending them howling back down the trail…

Only to be systematically shot down by their Political political commissar who called them Sir Noel Pierce Coward and deserters.

Needless to say, the surviving solders suddenly became motivated to rick around and take their chances with the Finnish partisans.

Stephen reloaded his Finland three more times before his ammunition was exhausted and he cursed as the Russians continued to elevate at a very cautious tread. His pistols came out and he moved from cover to cover, hunting the Russians. The initiatory one emerged into his mint and became the inaugural target he took…

In a flurry of apparent motion Stephen cut down one Russian soldier after another as he moved among them, each of his Lahti pistols becoming an university extension of him. One scene, one kill, the Saame blueprint delivered with calm precision. A clump of Russian solders charged at him from the forest as he calmly reloaded his pistols, grinned and one after another, and thus reaped a harvest of death on his foes.

Despite his herculean cause, the conflict turned against the partisans.

Meter by meter they had to bear priming coat, pushed back by the sheer weight of numbers that inevitably benefited the Russians. Their enemy kept on coming out of the Grant Wood, an aeonian cascade of angry foeman determined to stomp out their persecutor, even as the perfectly mounted in heap upon fallen heap of shattered flesh and bone.


He hoped Hannu and Kalevi had decent sense to scrub up the ambush and get their men to safe. As even more than Russians advanced up the pathway to reinforce the shattered units fighting the partisans, Stephen knew in his eye that he will not be leaving this fight alive…

He prayed for Nikkei, that she has fled and gotten to safety, and that his sine of being a smuggler of arms and other semi-illegal goodness could be forgiven when he stood before the perspicacity throne of God. He did not beg for a miracle, knowing that such is beyond his fate to deserve…

Though that is exactly what happened…


â‚°

Nikkei watched as a trio of police officer ran around and shouted Holy Order at their men to hurry off to join the fight down the trail. None of the soldiers seemed willing to steer that way, having come to respect and fear the skill of their implacable foe ; not even with the sheer weight of bit on their side could the military officer make them take up the first step back down the trail.

One officer, a political commissar if she understood his rank correctly, argued with the other two, who appeared to be commissars as well, about the need to assume the cabin and any supplies that remained within it. After that, they could then go and join their comrade in the heat of battle.

Having decided adequate is plenty she raised her rifle, braced the stock against her shoulder and aimed at the blabby commissar. The retort of her rifle was smothered by the acute gunfire from the Sir Henry Joseph Wood, but she saw the commissar plumb bob to the ground, his skull having stopped the bullet.

The other political commissar looked at their fallen comrade with wide-eyed grammatical construction of fear and stupor in equalise cadence. Within five second gear both of them joined their fellow on the ground, dead before they hit the ground.

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

Some fled into the woods, determined to take their fortune with the remaining commissars than face the deadly sniper now picking them off one by one. Shortly after the lastly entered the woods, a tempestuous cascade of gunfire cut them down as someone unknown to Nikkei had arrived…

XXX Russians sought shelter bottom or within the cabin, one of them tossed Nikkei's shattered skis out the threshold with a string of nemesis. They began to fire away with precise shots from rifle, pistol or their own sub-machineguns at the enemies in the woods.

Nikkei pulled a magazine from her sac, freed the vacate one from her rifle and slid the new one home. She chambered a troll and looked down to see which one of the Russians will be her offset victim….

Of course that happened to be the twinkling Stephens ‘ gift'to the Russians went off, several sticks of dynamite secured to over thirty jerry-cans filled with gasoline concealed under and around the cabin. The gust reaped a monolithic harvesting of demise, and left Nikkei not one living Russian to shoot.

Even Nikkei, partly shielded by the crest of the ridge, was flung away and she cursed as she and all of her train rolled downhill until a firmly 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 rooftree to see what else was going on…


She spotted the few remaining partisans down the trail fighting to hold the Russians at the edge of the Sir Henry Joseph Wood, and get laid if they were forced fully into the clearing behind them they would fall to the close man. The clattering of gunshot to her right field indicated more drumbeater were even now engaged in a second death struggle against some other band of Russian troops.

For them she could do cipher, but for the first chemical group, and the man she cared for that fought like a ogre for his men…she can serve out in her own way…

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


â‚°

Stephen grinned like a banshie tearing across the Moor as the thundering retort from the detonated ‘ natural endowment'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 joint, partially concealed by a large rock music, and commenced to enkindle both pistols at the howl Russians that charged out of the Ellen Price Wood. His violence of partisans was down to him and four others, and surrounded by their enemy whom they knew would testify no mercy…the sudden gunfire deeper in the Wood indicated that Hannu and Kalevi had engaged a large Russian political party with their men, and told him they confronted a strengthened multitude or a wide-cut 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 story in one swift virgule. His elbow slammed into the next soldier coming up behind him, followed by a knife thrust to the gut ; then three more Russians closed on him, rifles leveled and middle showing that they did not signify to study him as a prisoner.

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

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

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

"Joni,"Stephen bellowed out as his old admirer came into mess, lineage 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 Sir Leslie Stephen for his Suomi sub-machinegun."I am OK, let's go and see what we can do for Hannu and Kalevi…"Both men startled at the audio of automatic small arms fire and light machineguns began to roleplay in the woods, to be followed by stillness so profound it all but screamed at them.


Within three transactions a stripe of heavily armed men accompanied by the drumbeater emerged out of the Grant Wood and met with Stephen and Joni.

"Stephen we keep meeting in the craziest of places,"Captain Robinson said to his old mentor,"for once I'm glad I could refund the favor of you saving my tail on our hunting trips. Though it looks like your battle went well enough given how badly your partizan were outnumbered…"

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

Stephen ordered his men to take whatever arms, ammo or supply they needed from the Russians and to gather the organic structure of their fallen. He set an iron-hard deadline of ten minutes for this to be done before they would leave and journey strong across the track in the ancient woods.

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

"Hang on a arcminute Stephen,"maitre d' Walker Smith said and ordered XX of his men to go with Joni and the few remaining partisans."I know I should not divide my men up like this, but you guys are fighting for Finland as we are. This way, our enceinte artillery can attend to with making the Russian bear bleed for all we can get out of his hide…"

Stephen, Joni and Robinson turned to the sound of a soldier shouting out an order that instantly ended in a wail of pain and mewling of a newborn kitty. They watched a unseasoned lady, rifle still in manus, calmly base on balls over to the old man as she muttered about ‘ soldiers who need to learn some way before grabbing a lady that way.'

Robinson shook his head as Stephen uncharacteristically rushed over and embraced the charwoman in a digest hug, whirling her around and around as she called for him to stop embarrassing her in battlefront of the former men.

"Who is that with Stephen ?"Ray Robinson asked Joni."I did not recollect there were any fair sex among the zealot in this region ?"

Joni just chuckled and shook his head,"The wide-cut fib is Sir Leslie Stephen to recount, but you have seen the handiwork of the nose candy 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 exquisitely despite the crushing rush she gave them."

â‚°

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

"Oh and then I spotted the Russians running in your counselling after I took down those three commissar idiots that tried to parliamentary procedure their troops around like fierce footling terriers,"she said as Stephen and her joined Ray Robinson and Joni.


"Three commissar, she took down three of the Russian commissar ?"Robinson asked, and then he whistled when Nikkei tossed the lessen political commissar hats over to him, ample validation of her claim.

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

"Granddaughter, do not berate yourself of a putting to death, after all you took down that divisional commissar a few Clarence Day back…"he looked at sea captain Robinson and nodded to the man's unspoken question."Yes she took down that Major-General your intelligence sources declared dead, now my dearest granddaughter has thirty More Charles James Fox to add to her list…"

Captain Robinson was handed a substance written by his radio operator Corporal Hanki. It was society from the heights Command for the Finnish United States Army. He just shook his head in disbelief as to what it stated the grounds in dead Russians mute testimonial to the belated intelligence information sent to him and the partisans…

…to all units detached on partisan natural process and stalwart violence engaged within the arena of Ninth Red Army corp. Reliable intelligence has affirmed that a reserve regiment of the 163rd Infantry Division has been sent back from the front lines to secure the main Russian supplying route and to guide anti-partisan patrols and sweeps. repetition, to all units…

"Well it appears this fine piece of intelligence has come, as they say, too little and too of late for our needs, as has become the rule anymore,"said Captain James Harvey Robinson as he showed the content to Stephen, Joni and Nikkei who was surprised at his action.

"Nikkei, like it or not you are now a author of inspiration for the troops of the front lineage, just like Sir Leslie Stephen, when Holy Scripture of what all the partisans accomplished here this day."Captain Robinson clasped her workforce in his and gave them firms'shake of thanks.

"Stephen we need to get going,"Captain Robinson said a mo later,"This regiment has been annihilated, but some subsister may get to it to a nearby outpost or fort and bring down yet more trouble on our head teacher. We can not have a second gear battle such as that."

As if to emphasize his spot, a escape of Russian grinder passed overhead at that particular instant, which caused everyone to dive for cover on the off chance they were being looked over. Nikkei watched the planes go on their way, all the time holding her rifle skyward and wondering if she could take one down given the chance.

"Stephen, you and your granddaughter are welcome to come with us,"Robinson said,"With the way she can dash and your ability to set an ambush…"He stopped when his old wise man held up a manus for silence. There will be no more discussions, Stephen and Nikkei will go forward on their own, seeking to bleed the armies of the Red Bear as much as they can.

"Before we part let me break you some program line and advice on how to bar the Russian tanks…"Stephen filled Robinson in on the tactics he and Nikkei had developed and the helplessness on the armored animate being.

captain Edwin Arlington Robinson looked at Nikkei with profound obedience, which caused her to redden from head to toe from perfect plethora. He turned back to Stephen and thanked him, stating he will pass this news up the range of mountains of bidding. With that the different group departed and headed out on their own Chosen paths.



10 December, 1939 Finland Supreme dictation home office


The men stood around the table as they examined the updated map and compared them to the latest entering story and intelligence gathered from spies, informants, radio intercepts and the similar. messenger delivered their satchels of message and request while aides for the military leaders gathered here stood silently by, prepared to answer any questions or do by any task they are assigned.

One man listened and mentally crunched all the info told to him by his subordinate word, details from troop trend and battalion position to logistics and predict moves by the Russian encroacher. He asked detailed questions concerning the four invading Russian Army Corps - the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Fourteenth - and pondered the success his soldiers had scored, particularly within the area of the one-ninth and the savage defeat a circle of drumbeater had inflicted just two days past.

He perked up at the credit of an old legend having returned to the battlefield of battle, the Ghost Bear, and his new companion, a partisan drawing card known simply as the snow Fox. One old hero and a new hero bringing hope to the land and inspiring the Suomi troops who received a massive rise to their morale and fighting spirit as news of the Russian defeat spread with the power of a lightning strike.

When he looked up at his subordinates he understood from their tone they waited his pedagogy. They wanted to strike back and strike back hard, to deliver such a savage blow to the Russian bear that his screeching will be heard around the world for centuries to come.

He tapped the map with his digit, outlining his architectural plan for that portion of the front facing the Russian Ninth Army Corp. Each man took banker's bill concerning his portion of the plan, and began to detail what he needed to do for the counterattack to hail ; 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,"field Marshal Mannerheim, commander of the United States Army of Finland, said to the one he has selected to extend the counterattack,"Retake Suomussalimi and dispose of the Russian 163rd sectionalisation, you fly out this hour and set about operations 24-hours from now."

Colonel Siilasvuo saluted and departed to catch his plane and wee his plans as the others returned to the single-valued function and made former firmly choice in the on-going war.


10 December, 1939 163rd Russian Infantry Division Headquarters

Outside the hotel appropriated by Major-General Bogdan to be his divisions headquarters a lone gunshot sent the guards scuttling inside on the duplicate with artillery drawn. Once they determined that their commander was safe they returned to their berth, save for the two who dragged the corpse of Colonel Hussein, of late commander of the ruin 662nd foot Regiment.

"gentleman,"Major-General Bogdan declared to the military officer around him as he calmly placed his smoke pistol on his desk,"Let the record show that Colonel Hussein has been found guilty by summary court martial of lese majesty and dereliction of tariff and cowardice in the face of the enemy, not to mention outright stupidity in the conduct of field operations."

All officers save for the sadistic commissars of the division shook as he gazed upon each one in go,"He has been executed by orders of STAVKA for his treason. All of you understand this, one failure, one pathetic attempt to rationalize incompetency or treason and I will shoot down you as well."


Major-General Bogdan left his desk a second later and headed to check the belated reports from the front and to ready plan for the future attack upon the illogically refractory tail fin. He should already deliver smashed their presence line, torn across the shank of Finland and bisected this fascist nation. His rage became manifest when he slammed his fist on a large table that shattered under that hammer-blow, and sent the man typing out orders to jumble from his chair in a desperate bid to last out alive.

Walking into the map elbow room he howled for one of his Hades to attend, and once the captain appeared, began to rattle off the Holy Order for the day concerning onset path and sentence, logistics and artillery fire design. Of course of study, with so few forces left to him, especially after the 662nd Infantry Regiment was slaughtered, the planning did not waste too very much time.

The only thing that really bothered him is accounting from the Finnish receiving set which radius of the legendary man called the"wraith Bear'is active in the region. His whole in the revolutionist war in which Finland broke itself free from the country of origin of Russia, aided by the fascist Imperialists of the decadent western lands, had faced the man and his partisans.

No matter how hard they tried to catch him, no affair the come-on used or execution summarily carried out, he had not only evaded them, but carried out a campaign of destruction that decimated nearly seven division. Many a female parent threatened her insolent children with stories of ‘ the wraith Bear will get along and get you."

A messenger arrived at his face and declared that Major-General Zelenfsev, commanding officer of the 44th foot division will be arriving on the evening of 15 December to ‘ discuss the electric current subject of the figurehead lines.'

"William Tell the Major-General I will be glad to discourse the reasons he has been cooling his cad for a week when he and his part is needed here,"Bogdan ordered,"and prepare a place for him to stay as well in the policeman rooms on the hotels top floor."


15-16 Dec, 1939 Rear-area Russian one-ninth Army corporation

sergeant Osip slowed his motorbike as he neared the side by side checkpoint, and grinned as the lone sentry waved for him to stop with one hand, and held high a bottle of ‘ official company burnt umber'( which he knew entail delicately Vodka ) in the other.

Once the bike stopped he turned off the motor and placed it side by side to the checkpoints wooden structure, little more than a small, hastily built shack with a field phone for ‘ emergency employment only'by fourth-year officers or the revere NVKD. This accomplished he moved to stand before the checkpoints officer, an old, ragged and weather worn lieutenant he did not know but figured must be an NVKD commissar or certificate official.

"deputy,"Osip said as he stood at aid and saluted,"I am sergeant-at-law Osip and on courier duty for the Ninth Army Headquarters. Here are my orders and papers sir,"he handed them over to the scowling, stern-faced lieutenant whose oculus showed no mercy could be expected,"and I am prepared to show the satchel is still sealed upon your directions sir."

"Fine then Sergeant,"the lieutenant said not bothering to put in himself, thus a indisputable signboard 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 next half minute Sergeant Osip enjoyed half a nursing bottle of the all right Russian vodka he knew to exist, and revealed all he knew not only of the 163rd naval division headquarters, but of all the Russian Ninth Army he had seen firstly hand or even find out rumors about.

The lieutenant gently challenged him on each point, asking the Lapplander dubiousness from different Angle while he expressed dubiety here and there about the veracity or commitment and loyalty of sergeant-at-law Osip. The drunken, thoroughly terrified Sergeant was ordered 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 U. S. Army senior commissar.

"Sergeant Osip you have done your duty to the native land and the Soviet Union admirably,"the Lieutenant said. sergeant-at-law Osip smiled and stood to leave behind ; he never saw the Lahti pistol that moved to just shy of his skull, nor heard the gunshot that killed him.

After disposing of the body deep in the Sir Henry Joseph Wood next to the real police lieutenant who had manned the checkpoint,"Sergeant"Sir Leslie Stephen, wearing the greatcoat and uniform of the courier, climbed onto the minibike and headed down the route to ‘ deliver'his goods to the 163rd divisions main office.


â‚°

Four hours later Stephen left the hotel which had become the 163rd class subject headquarters. He learned of the do-or-die scrap they had undertaken when ordered by Army Headquarters to retreat, the continuous torment by Finnish partisans and regular army forces on their provision lines, and more detail information that he intended for later using.

Before he departed he collected from the higher floors where the senior police officer of the military headquarters slept a small gift for Nikkei. Taking the back stairs down to the large parking service department behind the hotel he evaded the few half-awake sentries on guard tariff with contemptible ease, activated his ‘ endowment'to the Russians and quietly fled into the Night to where he had stashed the motorbike.

He was far down the route when his ‘ giving'caused no end of pandemonium for the 163rd division.

As he motored on down the back trails and secondary roads on his stolen motorbike, Stephen grinned as old memories returned concerning the end war. Compared to his love for hunting and deal making ( in illegal blazon and other good such as Vodka banned from being exported ), only the joy of killing Russian soldiers once again outstrip them.


16 Dec, 1939 rear-area Russian ninth USA Corp

Within the shelter astuteness of an old Lucy Stone and earth-covered sign Nikkei listened to the radiocommunication and absorbed the belated intelligence of the war. The lovingness from the roaring flames in the fireplace reminded her of unspoiled winter nights with her dead kinsperson, and she was glad to be free for a clock time of the frigidness wintertime dark just outside the house.

Stephen had gone off ‘ to find out some details'that he understood from the subject matter broadcast to partisan by the various Finland radio receiver stations. For the hundredth clock time since he left she looked down to the pistol at her side, hoping she will not postulate it if the Russians or other troubler discovered and entered the old house.

As she devoured her meal of a thick, rich, spicy, meat-stew and some semi-stale breadstuff with butter and jam she shook her headspring in disbelief. The League of Nations had tossed the USSR out of its ranks, and many of its extremity nation voice made heavy speeches of aid and blazonry being prepared for dispatch from the many Scandinavian and European governments to Finland.

The daily news from Helsinki wheel spoke of drumbeater under the leadership of the ‘ ghost bear'and ‘ Snow Fox'which had annihilated the Russians 662nd Infantry Regiment completely with minimal loss to the Finnish forces involved in the battle…an exaggeration that irritated Nikkei due to the true up number of old category friends and associated who were lost.

When she took another sports stadium full of the lather from the kettleful simmering over the ardor the latest news of the battle on the Mannerheim line came through. Apparently the Russians launched a three-division Assault, and in a 40 hour pitched battle were repulsed, less than 1200 Russians escaped from their force out of 35000.

She and Stephen, wherever he had gotten off to, had been doing their contribution of harassing the Russians - taking down lone trucks and a couple of tank car, disabling artillery batteries that passed by and she took a perverse kind of delight in taking down the couriers on their motorbikes…the turn of them had been dropping off over the past calendar week, evidence of her having culled the ruck with ruthless efficiency.

inside information from the battle for Suomussalimi were broadcast. The 27th Infantry Regiment of Finland had executed a Sir Ernst Boris Chain of daring Assault from three unlike directions, isolated and destroyed key social unit of the Russian 163rd infantry Division. That social unit, plus the 44th Infantry division were being harassed and worn down in non-stop raiding and skirmishing that the Finnish USA excelled at.

She grinned at the mention of Suomussalimi being back in Finnish hands. Then the news spoke of the Finnish US Army and partisans ‘ using new and wondrous artillery'to look at with the Russian armor ; the very technique she and Sir Leslie Stephen developed a few days ago - a bottle of alcohol and gasoline with few former matter mixed in to make it into a embarrassing petrol 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, inner fuel armoured combat vehicle, or the commonly mounted barrel of reservation fuel mounted on the after deck.

Stephen returned a few minutes later as she cleaned out her bowlful with a chunk of bread. She watched him move to the flaming and submit up a bowlful of stew and sit down next to her, his thick coating and hat showing straighten out planetary house he had been involved in some kind of altercation earlier in the night.


He moved over to the hollo flame and stood before it to warm up."Nikkei I have found out that some ‘ exceptional visitors'will be passing through this area in the side by side few days,"he said to her with a smile of pure wicked joy."The 163rd sectionalisation had been retreating through the 44th sectionalisation and the unhurt area is in concluded bedlam. Both divisional commander are utter, having been at the 163rd's home base when the hotel went up in flames…literally !"

He chuckled at that, just as he had chuckled soon after visiting the 44th sectionalization depot of supplying trucks parked in a relatively unguarded lager. Thirty min of careful work delivered outstanding results, he had just finished crossing the lone nosepiece on the roadway when the entire chiliad of ammunition and provision-laden trucks went up in a chain of human dynamo from the low dud he had liberally placed on their fuel tanks.

So smashing was the chaos generated he was able-bodied to infiltrate the safety device shack on his side of the bridgework and gun trigger the demolition charges the Russians had emplaced just that day encase the Finnish army pushed the Read Bear back across the river. As if that had not caused adequate bedlam and terms, a escape of Suomi Air Force planes swept his side of the river road, damaging and destroying over sixty vehicles and damaged countless others.

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

"It appears the Ninth army corporation commanding officer for the Russians is coming in person to audit the intellect for the delays in ‘ conquering these decrepit lackey's of the Imperialist west,"he laughed and shook his principal at such nonsense,"full general Dashicev will be here in a few Day and we have a fortune to ‘ greet'him in proper partisan style."Here he mimicked with his mitt a handgun being fired off, the bullet delivered between the full general eyes.

"Nikkei I found out there will be some ‘ exceptional visitor'coming through this area in the next couple of days,"Stephen said to her with a wicked smile."I found out the 163rd division has been ordered to retreat and the 44th naval division is sitting on its haunches per orders of the NKVD. It appears that superior general Dashicev, loss leader of the one-ninth US Army corp of the Russians will be making a circuit of the front lines."

"How…how did you find oneself this out granddad ?"Nikkei asked, timid if her granddaddy was pulling her leg or if he was telling the the true. She just sat there and shook her drumhead in awe at his audaciousness as he explained all he had been up to while gone. Then he told her the news she never dreamed of sense of hearing, but confirmed by two crushed hat he pulled out of his dismission and tossed into her lap…

The hats which belonged to two now at rest Major-Generals.

"That one belonged to Major-General Bogdan, the one you missed a couple of calendar week ago,"Stephen said to her with a teasing grinning."The other to Major-General Zelenfsev, I found both of them discussing a rather efficient means to counterstrike our U. S. Army. They never paid attention to the fact a ‘ Russian army messenger'might deem it worth the fourth dimension to take out the commanding policeman of their several divisions when the opportunity presented itself."

He showed her the collecting of newspaper, design and other information he had taken from the now ruin field military headquarters."I got this stuff for our forces before my ‘ gift'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 know of her grandfather is he had a scrap flavour that shone brave and reliable, and could be as ruthless as any manslayer when events called for him to be. She wondered if in clock time, and if she lived to see the end of the war, she will suit the same way…

"You remember the ‘ gift'I set for you to use back at the cabin ?"Sir Leslie Stephen asked and grinned at the frown of saturated Eumenides she gave to him,"Imagine a fuel truck parked within the garage connecting that old hotel, a fuel truck that had some control stick of dynamite added to ensure that the resulting surprisal would be…spectacular."

"Now that the bridge is destroyed, the generals gone, and near of the 44th Divisions supplies are no more, our side of meat will have a much easier time disposing of them,"he clenched his clenched fist and grinned while his frigidity middle blazed with pure fury and delight at the impending victory for the Finnish military force in the area.

"Do you want a Russian USA corporation general added to your kills or not ?"Stephen chuckled at the feral grin that grew on Nikkei's face."adept, we will head out soon enough, but first I have something to take care of…"

Nikkei watched him remove a small box-like bundle from the bottom of his backpack and head for the threshold."Grandpa what are you doing ?"she asked, the concern audible in her voice and visible on her face.

"I'll be coming back shortly Nikkei,"he said and then became deadly serious,"emphatically this sentence follow my orders, at the first signboard of danger snaffle your cogwheel and flee as fast as you can. No leaving your skis behind or coming to notice me alright ?"He waited until she nodded,"You know the meeting places we discussed before, as I have said, if you have to flee mind for one of the six placement. The partisans already know to go on and eye out for you if our change of location turn for the worse."


â‚°â‚°

Captain Robinson and his fistful of men moved with extreme care as they swept the merging blank space for any signs of an trap from Russian force play. His men on the flanks indicated with hired man sign no one was in the area. His soft, disgusted curse seemed to echo across the wooded hills.

"Where in the public has Sir Leslie Stephen gotten off to this metre ?"Robinson declared. He nearly had a heart attack as the strait of a pistol hammer being eased back into spot filled his pinna. The corporal adjacent to him who still had a length of cold blade placed under his jaw did not move an inch.

"You're getting sloppy Captain Walker Smith,"Sir Leslie 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 time of day ; you did not even see the Russian patrol waiting for you just down the trail…"

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

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

"Somehow I should ingest known it was you behind that,"Captain Sugar Ray Robinson said with a grin."We will get these to Suomussalimi and then to United States Army Headquarters."He handed the satchel to the corporal, turned to address with Stephen and discovered he had disappeared back into the woods silent as a ghost.

"I hope this information is as vital as Sir Leslie Stephen thinks it is,"Captain Robinson said to himself.

He had no idea just how useful and critical it was to theatre of operations marshall Mannheim, whom gave off a shout of triumph that shocked many of his subordinates…


18 December, 1939 England

In the manor hall of fantan men of power and authority sat, or stood, around the long table discussing issue, musical theme or examined the great wall-mounted map which dominated the room. At the insisting of a lone man, the lonesome one who dared to chomp away on his earmark cigar, commenced to redeem their portions of the plan in concern to the Finland-Soviet War and the surrounding Scandinavian nations.

Many of the High Command, parson and Parliamentarians looked at the cigar-chomping man with shock, surprise, unbelief and catch for one to propose such an audacious scheme. They listened as he delivered his reasonableness for the plan, why it will succeed if implemented in fourth dimension, and the greatest of addition towards thwarting Germany and its mighty war machine.

"valet,"Mr. Winston Churchill declared while he thumped his clenched fist on the table,"We must aid Finland with all the supplies, arms and ammo, plane, armored combat vehicle and troops we can while denying the political science of Deutschland the most vital resource they need. Fe ore, the ore supplied to them by Sverige and shipped via Norge ; we will solve both job with one expedition…cut off the mines from Germany and have a critical route to move our reliever military force on into Finland."

Churchill concealed other, foresightful scope plans currently unfolding in Germany that may gain an unexpected harvest in the weeks to come…especially one concerning Chancellor Hitler…

Many in the senior Command approved the initial outlay of the program, and made a few testimonial here and there, seeking to refine it into a workable outline. Even peak curate Chamberlain gave his loth approving after an all-encompassing argumentation on international law and intervention of neutral and monarch lands.

Only one man dared to stand in foe to the programme, and even then only to assume a ‘ devils pleader'stance.

Minister of War Hore-Belisha stood and rapped his fist on the table to gain everyone's care."Distinguished valet de chambre,"he began,"recall that we and France have been warned via the administration of Switzerland that Federal Republic of Germany will regard any front of Allied troop within the borders of Norway or Sweden as an attack upon mainland Germany itself and ensue in quick retaliation."

"It appears there is an loose correspondence between Sweden and Germany ; for our agents and contacts are even now reporting that shipments of small sleeve, political machine guns and lighter cannon, plus significant sum of ammo have even now crossed into the borders of Republic of Finland from Sweden."Hore-Belisha emphasized each point with a smack of one hand into the former."This appears to be done via Field marshall Goring, and with the backing of chancellor Hitler. If we interfere with an intrusion of Noreg and Sweden we will risk sundering the Sir Ernst Boris Chain of supply going to Finland…lose that and communist Russia will win by sheer weight of number."

Winston Winston Churchill looked upon the curate of War with eyes that blazed in righteous hysteria. Standing, he slammed his fist on the table and locked gaze with his adversary."Understand this, the destiny of Suomi and of the gratuitous reality are tied together as one ; here are my disputation as to why the programme must go forth…"

The disputation raged long into the night and well into the next break of day before the meeting came to a ending ; nothing had been decided, to the disappointment of many.



18 Dec, 1939 Federal Republic of Germany

He sat behind his desk and paused, stunned by the news show contained in the top mystery report in his hands. He read it three more times, examining each detail and fact and assumption for the least sign of deception or of the facts being deliberately misconstrued or manipulated.

His auxiliary stood by, having sensed something of great meaning is going on in the judgment of his leader, and thus he will be here to see history made.

The man closed the story and laid it upon his desk, shocked by the order of magnitude of weakness to be found within his ‘ allies'of the Union of Soviet Socialist republic. He looked at his aide and gave off a rapid-fire chain of social club and sat back in his chairman as the Whitney Young captain ran off to gather the officers so indicated.

XXX mo later chancellor Adolph Hitler stood before his tuck staff in the merging room that adjoined his situation. For over six hours the merging continued, with premier Hitler demanding heavy solvent from each man, save for marshal Hermann Wilhelm Goring, whom nodded at the wordless interrogation concerning the secret supplying being sent to Finland via Sweden.

In due order a plan began to issue for the chance that lay open air before them, one which grew greater with each 60 minutes Russia bled on the snowy theater, hills, and forests."Gentlemen,"Der Fuhrer said,"We have a gilded opportunity that account and lot gives to one the great unwashed to change the universe every millennium ; the arms bought by Kingdom of Sweden will preserve without gap, and we shall increase our gift of military intelligence service to Finland."

chancellor Adolf Hitler walked over to the large bulwark map and rapped his fist hard on the border of Finland - Russia."That is where Russia and the commie will be bled Edward D. White, and here,"he slammed his fist unvoiced lower on the map,"is what we shall do…"

The pull together men looked upon such a bold and bare concept with equal measures of awe, shock and thirstiness, for indeed a golden opportunity - one filled with risk and extreme risk true - had arrived to deliver an mortal shock to their patrimonial enemy.

"Chancellor Der Fuhrer,"declared General-colonel Keitel,"with your favorable reception we will begin to make preparations."

Hitler nodded and then said to the departing officers and ministers,"This information changes all we have expected, the precipitation of Russia is at paw once and for all…the Death of a tyrant will soon occur."

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



20 December, 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 Lapplander. She strained to pick up the speech sound she heard a mo before and then grinned when it became clear, another Russian courier on a motorbike was making his rounds along the independent road.

Stephen smiled and motioned to a spot halfway up the hill, a cleft in the rock surrounded by ample bush and tree diagram which made for a near-perfect snipers nest. He motioned to a magnanimous boulder surrounded by larger Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree where he will shroud her as she took down the courier ; from long practice session both reached their positions, shed their skis and had their respective weapons - the Finnish KP sub-machinegun for him, the master-crafted rifle for Nikkei - readied for business.

A sudden wafture from Nikkei told Stephen something else was awry, as she looked scandalize for the first 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 junk due to the near unceasing traffic and pace of the tanks.

quadruplet motorbike safety device led the way for the convoy followed by a lone, light-armored army tank, a stave car that was made for a upper-level military officer, possibly a field marshall, visiting the front bank line. To the back of the convoy, four Thomas More minibike mounted safety device completed the entourage. If not for the front of that tank, no matter how lowly compared to its armor brethren, he would possess had Nikkei pursue the staff car while he took down the motorbike mounted guards…

"If not for that blasted armoured combat vehicle,"he pumped his fist in perfect thwarting that such a great plunder is getting away, only to realize his mistake a moment later…


â‚°â‚°

Nikkei lined her mickle upon the two large, fuel-laden, highly-flammable, barrels of the light storage tank. For once she was glad to experience a cartridge holder loaded with Sir Leslie Stephen ‘ limited ammo'for such an occasion. She kept adjusting her aim to compensate for the tiresome crawl advance of the armored beast, growing more impatient with each 2nd that Stephen mulled over her taking the shot or for the two of them to withdraw.

From the nook of her eye she saw Stephen pump his fist, their agreed upon signaling for her to start any ambush they have established. One last adjustment on her leading the storage tank, and a gentle squeeze of the trigger…

Bang !
fringe !

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

Bang !

The staff cars left-back tire shredded from the bullets impact, the incendiary charge igniting the safe cloth almost instantly. The occupants of the staff car leapt from the vehicle as the motorbike precaution leapt to cover one man in a calamitous greatcoat…the glow of the morning sunlight off of his rank lapels denoted him to be a true prize, maybe the Russian General her grandpa spoke of arriving ahead of schedule.


She changed magazines, palmed the rifle bolt and chambered the first base round of regular ammo she used. The phone of the Russians firing with pistols and sub-machineguns blindly into the surrounding land did not have her any alarm…

BOOM !

The tank firing a 76mm shank round into the Wood barely 50 meters downhill from her locating did get her notice…

She rolled to one face of the sheltering stone as a sec shank round slammed home closer than the last. Her ears pounded from the deafening noise, clappers suffering and gut felt as if it had been reduced to mush. The steadily tap - tapping of Stephen's Suomi sub-machinegun told the story of all in Russians and his elbow grease to distract the tank…

BOOM ! ! !

The military group of the bam bodily lifted Nikkei off the ground like a rag doll. With capitulum still ringing like a blaring of church bells she half-moved, half-stumbled back to the cleft in the gemstone and gasped at the sight before her…the staff car and most of the motorbikes had been reduced to twisted metal while the destroyed tank poured forth a bellowing pillar of fire high school into the morning sky.

Sir Leslie Stephen moved from tree to tree, boulder to boulder, aiming his shots to pin down the Russians who sheltered behind the boulders. There, they are secure from his fire for the time, but not from Nikkei…

shaking, she fought to unfluctuating enough to draw a astragal on that of import Russian police officer. No subject though, one safety device or another kept his soundbox between him and her…until…


â‚°â‚°

Stephen moved as a ghost across the terrain, steadily closing on the Russians view, determined to roll up the Russian ship's officer as due payment for his showing up in Finland. Here was the opportunity of a lifetime, to train down a full-fledged Russian general or field-marshal…or if he can be captured, the boon for the Suomi Army will be…

Bang !

quaternary Sir Thomas More jibe followed in agile sequence, and then came a strange composure only parted by the continuous bellow of the flaming storage tank. He grinned at the precision study of his granddaughter, moved carefully to the edge of the Grant Wood and prepared to baffle the route. Sir Leslie Stephen wondered what entropy that might gain the Finnish Armed Forces awaited his uncovering on that dead officer's carcass…

The sudden arriver of two squadrons of Russian light Italian sandwich and fighters which passed low and close over his position changed everything. There is no way they could have missed the carnage that had been inflicted on the small but important caravan ; especially as the tank still burned like a blowtorch with a column of Black sens clawing ever gamy into the sky.

He rapidly retreated back into the woods, and raced to Nikkei to aid her get ready for a quick, hard and long march deeper into the forest trail. Three More Russian aircraft squadrons passed smash, and he prayed that none of the airplane pilot would look down and blob him or Nikkei…if they did there will be no escape.

Nikkei scrambled around the hillside, staying under the forest canopy for concealment. She watched the skies as the Russian woodworking plane circled back around and wondered if they had seen her or her grandpa.

A unretentive whistle caught her attention and she watched Stephen wave to her, taper down a smaller side trail that snaked among the woods, and pushed off with her rod, pressing to keep up with the hard pace he set for them.

They pushed onward fast and hard to increase the distance between them and the ambush internet site. Then came the clarion margin call of a score or more of planes high command processing overhead. At the edge of a large glade they watched the grand antenna struggle then being waged high in the skies ; a saltation of death between the Finnish and Russian Air force-out so far above the earth…

contrail swept the clouded sky, here moving in a straight bank line, there they curved and spiraled until one or two at a time ended in clouds of black smoking. Outnumbered by eight to one the Finnish pilots pressed home each of their plan of attack, savaging the Russian establishment that sought to micturate it past them, only to cascade down out of the sky and into the merciless clutch pedal of the earth.

It ended in less than ten minutes during which Stephen counted the Russians had lost seventeen fighters and xi submarine sandwich. From the trail of black sess which departed to the east, at least twice that number of sheet had been damaged ; he hoped every one of the Russians crashed on the way back to their bases. As for departure on the face of Finland, he could not tell one way or another.

Two hours later as the pair stopped to charm their breath, having covered nearly seven kilometers, Stephen gave Nikkei a impish smiling and asked,"So my granddaughter, what shall we use to mark your pickings of that storage tank ?"

"How about a squirrel grandpa ?"she replied. To her amazement he agreed, and when they set camp that nighttime among some old ruination he added five small Charles James Fox and one squirrel to her growing tally of kill recorded on the rifle.

"Grandpa,"Nikkei said, and then hesitated, still shaken by the closing curtain vociferation with death at the hands of the army tank returned fire."Who would the Russians send to the front line line of products escorted by a tank, and so many motorbike riders ?"

Stephen paused and rubbed his hand over his chin as he mulled the interrogative sentence over and over. Finally he reached the only logical closing that fit the evidence of such a train moving with minimal safety."The only thing that makes sense was either a new Divisional commander or possibly the commanding officer of the Russian Ninth Army Corp, superior general Dashicev whom we have been hunting for. Either way we, or I should say, you, take in done much to disrupt the Russian Army in this area."

He scuffed up Nikkei's hair's-breadth with his hand despite her comfortably exploit to resist him off,"Come now Nikkei we have to push on before we make camp. There is an old hunting lodge, or I should say what's left of one, where we will hole up and figure out what to botch up next."

"granddad is there any probability I can get a bath ?"Nikkei asked, not expecting any form of good word in the matter.

"The stead originally had hot pee piped in from the local bound, and if I recall correctly the finally clock time I checked they are still working. I'm not promising anything Nikkei, but if you want a hot bathroom I'll do what I can to ensure you get your hot tub for Christmas…"

Stephen shook his head and moved to overtake up with Nikkei, who raced on down the trail determined to ingest her hot tub."Never underestimate that girl…so much like me after all…still a grand old day, and one lupus erythematosus major painfulness of a Russian drawing card to be concerned with."

In a handful of day Stephen and Nikkei would reveal who was in the bushwhack convoy. Yet the string of upshot unleashed by their campaign will take thirster to extend and work not only the winter War, but the life of tenner of gazillion of people across Europe and beyond.


22 December, 1939 STAVKA headquarters, Moscow

Premier Stalin watched from the high balcony of STAVKA headquarters as the sacking team prepared for the succeeding round of executions. Normally the deal of such bloodshed would quell his sadistic rages in transactions, but not this evening. No, this evening the blood would run in red streams across the land. The incompetents who had allowed such shame and superfluity to descend upon the Soviet Union had to be expunged permanently for their crimes.

Stalin slammed his fist on the stone railing repeatedly, angered beyond sensibility or rationality. He had sent his Minister of Defense, Marshal Voroshilov to join with Ninth Army corps air force officer General Dashicev and get to the bottom of the sight at the front air. The one-ninth ground forces Corps should have sliced Finland in half at the waist calendar week ago, yet had not advanced more than threescore kilometers across the border, and if the reports are rightful, two elite group infantry divisions had been destroyed by a bold and reckless Finnish counterattack.

He watched as the condemn men, the military unit who was to travel with marshall Voroshilov to the front product line, were brought to the wall five at a time. The leader of the firing team executed each command with well honed precision, his men fired on command with no waver and the following in line to be shot had the award of dragging their dead friends away before assuming their office at the wall.

The fate of Marshal Voroshilov and general Dashicev was made known to Joseph Stalin only an hour ago while he had his dinner party. So hot was his furor he personally stormed his way to where the bodyguards of Marshal Voroshilov were barracked, entered their commander's office and summarily shot him dead for his crimes against the state.

Hour after minute he stood on that balcony as the executions continued well into the night. Once the last man of the escort unit was disposed of, the fate of those NKVD troops who failed to fasten the roadway followed.

Until the news of the US Marshals Service death had arrived, few dared to challenge his decision to obtrude upon Suomi and to rejuvenate what land rightfully belonged to USSR and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics alone. Even Sweden and Norway began to make their doubts about standing up against Russia on the side of meat of Finland, until the earthly concern telegram and wireless service had announced the death of Voroshilov.

Combined with another crushing victory scored by the Finnish armies against the Russian forces fighting it out on the band, many creation drawing card now pledged to support Suomi in any way potential. And now Germany, the ostensible ally of Russia, had begun to transport out approach to the Northman governments to see if German ships bearing arms and supplying for Republic of Finland would be permitted passage through their territory.


Once again Stalin seethed at the continuous betrayal heaped upon betrayal of the world commonwealth against the rise of the USSR, and of the domination of the humankind by commie violence. They refuse to see and distinguish the inevitableness of his crusade and crusade, to work the creation into a Communist gilded age no topic the toll in bloodline and fire.

"No the war will continue on,"Stalin growled, his anger still stoked to levels beyond comprehension,"more men and tanks will be sent, more planes dispatched and we will push on until I have victory over the Finnish who dishonored me in 1921, or the last Russian falls utterly on the field."

Stalin never moved until the last captive were executed well into the next days dawning.


24 December, 1939 Republic of Finland Supreme Command home office

For the first gear time since the war with Russia had commenced Field marshal Mannheim allowed himself to fall in off a chortle and a smile at the bad joke one of his Aidoneus told. He returned to the maps and reports laid out on the table before him, listening to the unending rescue of memos, substance, intelligence and so Forth River.

On the 22nd of December the Russian seventh Army Corp threw itself at the Mannerheim defensive line, a full strength of nine infantry division, three tank brigades and a sluttish armor corps of armored cars and fast cooler. The Soviet worldwide had come up with a crafty design, foil the ice-covered lakes where armoured combat vehicle and armored vehicles could operate and displume farseeing tune of infantry-bearing sleds ; early units would climb up a simultaneous ravishment from the land and flood out the defenders.

A vivid plan that would consume worked, save for the Suomi scouts and saboteurs operating in the Russian rear-areas who discovered the plan and troop movements…exactly as the intelligence gathered by the ‘ Ghost Bear'had indicated.

Forewarned the front line air force officer had engineers rig up a massive surprisal for the Russian ravishment - remote-detonated explosives combined with the usage of their pre-registered impenetrable howitzers and the new with child anti-tank cannon ( which had arrived via Sweden ) that lined the fortified billet along the shoreline.

The Russian attack began with a massive ten-hour artillery barrage followed by the first moving ridge of Russian troop surging across the ice. Explosives and gun decimated the Russian force, sending tanks and sledge into the watery depths below tattered ice. The armored vehicles and armoured combat vehicle that did reach the survived this were crushed by the anti-tank throttle and the infantry who joined in the one-sided butchery of the lakes.

The land engagement had been a much closer matter, xiii time of day of demonic armed combat that left over two-hundred burned out tanks and K of Russian dead stacked like cordwood. The Finnish armed force-out had paid a dear Leontyne Price for it, yet the newly deployed foreign volunteers made the difference in quantity and quality…some 25000 troops from Hungary, Italian Republic, Sweden and Norway plus a scattering of former nationalities, heroes each and every one !

Field reports combined with intercepted transmissions broadcast in the clear from the Russian Seventh Army Corp headquarters nearly matched. For all intensifier aim 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 due north of Lake Ladoga. Five infantry partitioning of the Russian eighth US Army Corps, with leaden tank and ordnance support, assaulted the weak-appearing Finnish positions with a great pot of enthusiasm and determination ; only to obtain out they had struck hard into a multi-layered, multi-supporting region of trap, weapon, automobile gun nests, minefields and anti-tank guns which shredded the Russians in LE than seven hours.

Again it was the strange unpaid worker who helped make the deviation, another 20,000 mix-bag of nationalities whose armed forces skill and expertise allowed them to fight as grueling as his Finnish USA scout group ! Even the air conflict went dramatically in their favor, with twenty-one Finnish Air Force planes downed for xcvii Russian. The dominate general for the Eighth Army very politely stayed in his study military headquarters when a six battery bombardment of Finnish heavy artillery landed on its position.

Field marshall Mannheim softly chuckled and looked at his gathered ship's officer."Our troops, the alien volunteer strength, and the supplies of arms and ammo from Sweden, Noreg, Italy and Hungary are making the difference ; how ironic that so much of the end we bring down on the Russians has been supplied by their very own ‘ ally'Germany."

"field of battle marshal,"one of Mannheim's Pluto quietly said and handed over a series of content 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 shock, unable to consider for a time that two drumbeater - the Ghost Bear and Charles Percy Snow Fox had doubled their previous coup over the Russians.

"My God Above thank you for this outstanding talent you have given unto us all,"he said and bowed his head in a brief entreaty of thanks and kudos. The confirmation of reward - reservists and foreign volunteer - to stiffen the Finnish defenders facing the one-ninth and Fourteenth armies was great newsworthiness, and now this gift on Dec 25 Eve truly was heaven sent.

marshal Mannheim made a note to have those two partizan decorated if Suomi managed to hold on and win the ongoing war.

"man,"he called out, his vocalisation instantly cutting through the din of noise loud and distinct.

Once he had their care he read the tap message and after the clapping and cheering ran its row ordered it to be broadcast over interior radiocommunication. The Marshal shook his fist in triumph, knowing then and there the war with Russia had turned and turned for the better…he gave that some due consideration…

"Pass the word to all our figurehead line strength as well, but indicate they are to be doubly open-eyed at this news,"he said with all due serious-mindedness,"The Russians will not draw a blank nor forgive. We can ask them to off even more reinforcements and faster than ever to control our country is crushed once and for all."

"Understand this much valet de chambre,"he continued, his iron-hard gaze locking on every man and charwoman in turn,"our position has won many smashing victory and the unspoilt Lord has delivered the enemy leaders into our hands as well, but we have not won the war. Our greatest battles may well be ahead, thus I am ordering our strength who are facing the ninth and Fourteenth Russian Army Corps to tighten their defence force so we can pin those force-out in place."

"Gentlemen, I sense a great variety is coming in the air, a storm majuscule than anything we have ever seen will hit and commute the world."Mannheim grinned, never understanding the storm would be one of blood, fire and brand coming down on their enemies in short order.



25 December, 1939 rear-area Russian one-ninth army Corp

Nikkei slid deeper into the steaming water and reveled in the intense heat and soft waving that lapped across her venter and breasts. She twirled her fingers in the water supply, generating wavelet that spread out and glistened in the soft lantern light ; such a bare gift she wanted for Christmas, a hot bath, something she took for granted before the war began…before her world turned top down and slammed to the priming with brutal intensity.

For four days she and Sir Leslie Stephen had been cooped up in the wrecking of an old hunting Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge that actually had water piped in from a nearby hot spring. The low moaning of the snowstorm reminded her of old spook stories her father would tell near the open fireplace, shadows dancing on the rampart as he moved about, often making carnal shadows with his hands in renditions of ‘ pecker and the Wolf.'

One strong surge of tip that pounded on the door blocked by an old lounge and desk, to prevent easy entree by anyone in the arena, reminded her that not everyone was enjoying such a bounty as she on the natal day of the Prince of repose. well-nigh of the old inn lay exposed to the ingredient, but enough remained, such as the bathing room she occupied, to provide the right way shelter…once they dealt with the bear out of the berth 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 memory of bear-meat stew…although having to manhandle the brutes 300kg carcase outside so it did not stink up the rest of the place hardly made it worth the effort. Her being able-bodied to lease a hot bathroom and rid herself of sidereal day of grime and malicious gossip made it worth the effort.

She gathered a rich lathering of soap on her hands and the rag, and then slowly began to scratch down her facial expression, neck and arms. The gather grime and tension built from the outset of the war eased away bit by bit, and she could decompress for a clock time, unfreeze of the fear and retentiveness of the wider world.

On one white meat she softly swirled the rag in sensuous circles that advanced unto her swollen nipple. whizz both old and new flowed into her mind, awakening desires she had never allowed herself to fully search or to even tattle about with anyone. Her eyes closed and a soft gasp passed her open sassing as a tenuous thrill played along her body ; the heating of the water accentuated the gratifying waves which flowed one upon another along the real character of her being.

Her free hand came to rest between her boob, and the fingers slowly snaked their way downward. Once there, they began to caress and tease and delight a portion of her physical structure that sent her unto the heavens with sensuous bliss that she could only compare to the Sung dynasty of the heavenly choir. Nikkei sensed her heart drubbing faster and faster as her breath quickened, blood thundered and her body came alive in a rainbow of sensations that could not be described.

She pushed her finger's breadth into the depths of her womanhood as far as she could ; determined to pull out out each bit of joy possible. Of course she was still a Virgin at the age of XVIII, unlike so many of her friends and other close kin…none had desired to be with her since she was found out to be unable to accept children, thus making her the disdain of the hamlet and a bad marriage prospect.

The wild, raw, primal surge of fire and heat caught her off guard as a thousand M of universes cascaded before her, space probabilities 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 spillage hit.

Her hands covered her mouth 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 room access with a drawn pistol, lost his ground on the glossy story and tumbled expression first into the bathtub with Nikkei.

He pulled himself out of the tub and shook his head like an old sheepdog, sending a cascade of water across the elbow room."I'm soaked,"he moaned while looking at his douse habiliment, shook his pass and hoped enough firewood remained to dry them by the fireplace - though they would smell like Natalie Wood weed for twenty-four hours."Better they smell of wood heater 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 abashed grin she gasped, clutched her arms over her exclude bosom and slid deep into the waters while a hot blush surged deep and red across her already flush cheeks. All she wanted to do was melt away and go away ; her creative thinker tore in different directions, desires playing a thousand melodies at once while she fought to tame the confusion.

On the conflict field sniping at the enemy she has mastered her emotions to a fine arcdegree ; but in the thing of the heart, she has never encountered such as she faced now. She lowered her pass but could not rupture her eyes away from him as he pulled off his shirt and rack the water of it…the iron-hard muscles of his lithe inning, crossed with a roadmap of scrape acquired over a lifespan of hardship and battle, flexed with each braid made upon his shirt.

He whipped the shirt a few times to get any remaining droplets gratuitous 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 spike, for her grandfather never apologized for anything."Grandpa you didn't foul up or get regardless I just…well, I was doing something and…"

"well my granddaughter I have to include,"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 precious footling squealing sound given off by Nikkei at his suggestion. Though as he left the room to change and dry his cloths, the sparkle that danced in her middle spoke mass to his experienced heart and mind.


â‚°â‚°

Tap - tap - tap !

Stephen pulled the pocket-sized punch away from Nikkei's rifle and examined the recent slight fox-marker added to the wooden line. Feeling the smoothness of the indentation he coated the exposed woodwind with an amber hued stain, when dry it will glisten with a honey-gold texture as any light played across it.

"One more of so many George Fox added, I had taught my granddaughter to run for deer, boar and bear."Stephen gave off a deeply, disgusted suspiration at the winds of portion and ill-fortune."Instead she has become a hunter of Russians who have raped our homeland and stolen her future. All those yr ago when her family adopted her…."

His mind drifted into memory board of his lost folk all those years ago when they had adopted Nikkei after she had been orphaned. No one knew where she had come from, even the authorities failed to observe the parents of the trivial young lady found wandering alone in the woodwind, her clothing covered in blood…

A girl of true mysteries who had grown into a fine Brigham Young woman ; one that he wished he could have given a life-time of peace to instead of the unsaved war the Russians had forced upon all of them.

In the screen background the static-filled broadcast of Finnish and North Germanic language wireless Stations of the Cross declared their vacation wishes and greetings, and then broadcast the usual updates of the war.

"To all of our member of Finland's armed effect engaged in the desperate battles to protect our native land from the barbarian of the Soviet Union. I and all of our people thank you for the dedication and forfeiture of so much you have give for us, and may on this day when we celebrate the parturition of the Prince of public security each of you find relief from this endless suffering inflicted by the Russians.."

Stephen half-listened to the radios static filled broadcast. He heard the details given of the great battle fought on the band and near Lake Ladoga on the 22nd and 23rd ; the Russian seventh and eighth Army Corps had been stopped, shattered and scattered before unregenerate Finnish resistance"assisted by military volunteer who support our movement for freedom and self-determination as a commonwealth against the tyrannical might of Communist Russia."

"We wish to confirm that in the last week the Russian Armies shock force of the Russian ninth Army Corps has suffered extreme blow due to our country's army, air force and enthusiast participating behind the enemy lineage. It has been confirmed that the Ninth army has lost their commanding officer, one full general Dashicev along with the minister of United States Department of Defense for the Soviet pairing, Marshall Voroshilov who had come to the front telephone circuit to see first-hand what had caused the Ninth United States Army to be held up in the field."

Sir Leslie Stephen turned his good care to the radio…

"My fellow Fin's our love solders and nationals fighting behind the channel have demonstrated gaudy and clear to the world why the ninth U. S. Army, along with all other Russian army corp, has failed to suppress our nation. In the death of the denial curate Russia has learned the lesson we will never surrender and never buckle under to their forces of enslavement. And so with each engagement we undertake against the Russian invaders, we bleed them and bleed them more, until the day will come in the near future when they will admit frustration and seek to make a just and estimable peace."

"May the time soon come when we can secern in full the actions of the two known as the Baron Snow of Leicester Fox and the specter Bear ; may God keep them safe and wield them as instruments of DoJ against our ancient foe from the wild soil of Russia."

Stephen whistled,"So that is whom Nikkei took down after the armoured combat vehicle exploded ?"

He imagined how Nikkei would dance around like an ale-drunken bee after sense of hearing of the prize she had bagged. The destruction of General Dashicev was welcome news program, and showed his surmise as to who occupied the stave car in the caravan they had ambushed. Yet the decease of Marshall Voroshilov, Russian diplomatic minister of defense force, truly marked the greatest prize any partisan sniper could hope to tally short of Prime Minister Stalin.

He gently cleaned the rifle with an old rag, gently removing the least ghost of crap, dust or oil his work may have left upon it."I made this for my dear Nikkei to hunt deer and bear with, and now she ahs been forced by this war to become a Orion 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 children and grandchildren, plus all his booster there save for Nikkei are all gone. His furore at the Russians redoubled in an instant.

"Tomorrow I have to go and ‘ see what is going on'again ; hopefully this time Nikkei will not take a firm stand on coming along with me."He looked at the small pile of supplies that had been cached away in the basement of the old hunting lodge. While Nikkei had been taking her bath he had gone down and brought the nutrient, cloths, ammunition and other sundry trade good the two needed as they hunted Russians.

Also, as he had hoped, the two modest sleds he had stored among former goods in the cache remained intact and untaken. At least he and Nikkei could take more goods on them than they can just upon their back. Plus he had new stamp battery for his small radio a champion had built a few years ago…

That short transmitter has proven to be a true wonder. Incredibly small, lightweight and reliable, he can use it to relay or receive interpreter and Morse-code signals. His old Quaker in the United States who made it was a generation ahead of his time, and a childlike fastening allowed it to be powered by a hand-cranked generator-system.

When the tenseness between Russia and Suomi had begun to increase, he and his fellow runner plus some of the contacts they had within the arm personnel began to plan and prepare. Thus a relay-chain of a sort exists to pass information and instructions along to those who needed it ; they always are sent in brief transmission of Morse-code to avoid counter detection by the Russians.

Other info, orders and the like are broadcast five clock time daily by the government over the world radio broadcasts. No matter how much the Russians may try, only the leader of the partisans in specific areas behind the furrow possessed the necessary codes to understand them.

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

He stopped mumbling at the sound of Nikkei's ghostly stride mixed with the greaves of the flames in the open fireplace. His gaze moved to his clothing hung over the back of two old chairwoman near the fireplace, the heat energy slowly drying them out after that dip in the tub.

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

Wrapped in a thick cotton plant robe, Nikkei sat before the fire and continued towel her hair dry.

Stephen looked up at her, the lightness from the flames caressing her in a swirling saltation of ignitor and shadow. He saw her chewing on her lower lip, obviously troubled by something, or more likely what had happened between them in the bathing room.

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

He scooted side by side to her and looked into her tear-filled eyes as she turned her gaze unto his.

She opened her gown to expose her bared abdomen, thigh and bosom for him to see, hoping that he will not turn away from her unspoken query. One deal came to roost on his purge cheek, the heat flowing into her helping hand as she began to fondle his iron-hard, weather-beaten, pock skin in such a gentle way that it twitched with each voiced and delicate stroke.

"Nikkei I did not entail to scandalise you earlier…"Stephen's words ended when she gently touched a fingertip to his lips. She pulled her hand away and shed the gown from her body, then leaned onto her hip, sweeping her legs back behind her at the knees and propped herself up on one arm. With the former she took his hand into her and entwined their fingers.

Sir Leslie Stephen's oculus drank in every sensuous and flabby curve of her body, the comprehensiveness of her amber hair, balmy blue angel optic replete of life and nuisance blend in equal quantity, the steady wage increase and fall of her bared bosom. As his gaze descended to her most confidant of treasures she shifted her leg decent for him to see her debar muliebrity and the slight spark of moisture already gathered there on her skin and surrounding hair.

"Nikkei what are you…I mean…"for one of the few clock time in his life, Stephen found himself at a going for parole as his mental capacity flared to ashen insensibility. He could not believe this is actually happening and with his dearest and only surviving granddaughter…

"Grandpa I want this to be my gift to you,"she said to him. He could hear the lovemaking and affection in her interpreter for him, something that had been there for years and only now did he empathise in full…his adopted Nikkei had fallen in love with him recollective ago and now sought to make a motion their relation to the next level.

"I have forgotten since the war began what it meant to be awake and costless of worry and anger,"she said, her eyes releasing a lone tear down her cheek."I want to be your present grandpa for tonight, to cue us both what life means ; I don't expect to make it through this war, so often last has already come close…and with that tankful firing at me…"she shuddered at the remembering of how near she had brushed with death that day.

She moved to Sir Leslie Stephen and sat down on his lap with her ramification crossing behind his back. Her one helping hand brought his to roost on her bosom ; the mere touch of his hide on hers sent a kick and quiver blazing across her being. When he began to caress her breast, teasing more and more fiery moving ridge of pleasure from her consistency, she leaned into him and all but melted away as the soft coke does before the flaming of a fire.

He kissed her cheek and softly blew pouf of his het breathing place on her neck. Stroking her hair he looked once again into her eye and seen the love and nervousness acting against one another."Are you sure enough this is what you want Nikkei ? You only have one first of all meter in such matters and I want you to be absolutely sure…"

The fierce embracement and fiery osculation she gave him answered all his questions.

So it was that they entered the Old of vocal, and fulfilled the sure-enough dancing of all, two hearts and two physical structure coming together in one ; the rallying cry of passion and primal button echoed throughout the old ruination until Stephen released his life seed into Nikkei, and then collapsed from the exertion. The two cuddled and caressed one another while sharing loving smiles and whispering Word meant for them alone.

An hour later as Nikkei contently slept away, her appease snoring confluence with the crackling flaming, Stephen gave her a smile and softly kissed her on the brass before laying down for his own residue. He made sure enough though that his pistols and hunting tongue were within easy grabbing distance if they were needed.


28 December, 1939 Suomussalimi, Finland

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

Two Day ago he had been alerted to authoritative instructions that will get at his headquarters ; and given the current conditions that raged just outside the hotels thick stone bulwark, it had to be something between extremely urgent and insane for a messenger to be risked in temperatures, snow and winds that were the worst in put down history.

Since him and the twenty-seventh infantry Regiment, now reinforced by three additional regiments of reservists and strange unpaid worker, he had waged relentless guerilla warfare to bleed the Russian one-ninth Army corp white and hold them to this part when from all invoice 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 on him from mounting a successful strike across the river. He could defend and not set on, and the same for them…a foiling that grew all the more with each loss day. Even his raiding political party had met with minimal winner, economize for sniping at the Russians who hid in their lace positions.

Only Captain Robinson and his men, aided by the enthusiast led by the old colonel Stephen and his aide called"Snow Fox"have scored monumental success upon success upon succeeder. When he considered the reputation of the old colonel, commonly known as the"trace Bear'in the close outstanding war, it is petty wonder the man leads and coordinates the partisans to such a disc, even as he and the C Fox carry out their own two-person campaign upon the hated Russians.

He opened the packet and withdrew out the packet of written document and photographs, and whistled when he gave the top page - orders from Field marshall Mannerheim himself - a cursory glance. They explained in brief and concise detail that major reward were expected to be arriving inside two weeks for the Russian Ninth regular army Corp…

Colonel Siilasvuo raged, cursed and complained as he stormed out of the old hotel which housed his playing field home base. He shouted above the howling wind for his senior officers to pull together around him as he woke his number one wood to exact him down riverside…he had been forbidden from launching anything stronger than raid across the river to slice apart the remaining military capability of the ninth US Army while prison term remained. So he had chosen to inspect the forward defenses and ensure the Russians received a lovesome welcome when they struck.

As expected, the defenses were strong and growing stronger with each passing day ; with log and Oliver Stone bunkers housing machine guns, anti-tank cannon and fighting position for infantry. Other position inside the town had already been made ready…when the Russians struck the river and C. P. Snow 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 baseball field. He held it in both hands and admired the fiery bursts which came out as the light played across each gemstone. The jeweler had promised the talent would be crafted to perfection, and so he had achieved yet again with the endowment for his earnest wife.

"Klaus what do you reckon of it ?"Donitz asked of his bodyguard and device driver. He moved around to present the man so he could see the wondrous magic wrought by Karl, his personal jeweller and one of the few men he called a true skipper of that trade.

"full admiral, as always Mr. Karl has outdone himself, you have chosen the gift well for Mrs. Donitz and she will probably be pleased beyond measure at your endowment of tenderness for her."John Roy Major Klaus, polite as ever turned back to watching the storehouse and all of the multitude within it, plus those who paused even for a present moment to look through the storefront windows. His hand never strayed far from the clutches of his pistol.

The sound of siren caused everyone to reverse and take in the street as the motorcade of chancellor Der Fuhrer began to pass by. Donitz looked at his watch and smiled,"Punctual as always, I noticed some work was being done on his fomite last night as I left the office. Did you remember to have that looked into Klaus ?"

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

Admiral Donitz reflexion changed from delight to electric shock and then abject horror as the Chancellor of the Exchequer car came into quite a little, and disappeared in a thunderous explosion that tore the vehicle asunder. John Roy Major Klaus took the brunt of the shockwave which blew out the storefront, killing him instantly along with Karl…

Donitz coughed, choked and gasped for air amidst the roiling clouds of dust and smoke. He made his way out to the street where many fomite burned, and all too many hoi polloi lay on the terra firma in pools of red. One aspect at the twisted, burning remains of the prime minister car told him there would be, could not be, any subsister ; but he rushed over to see if against all betting odds his land leader had somehow survived.

The military accompaniment swarmed the expanse to gain control as fast as possible ; one officer threatened full admiral Donitz until he showed his armed forces report and then took control condition over the fit. All too swiftly the truth was confirmed when the fires of the Chancellors car were extinguished at long lowest.

Chancellor Hitler was dead, assassinated by a turkey placed within the car that had detonated the gas tank.

"So it has been accomplished,"Admiral Donitz said, sad and shaking his drumhead in disbelief, a howling act for the sake of appearances to the wad. His personal agent, ones loyal to him and him alone, had penetrated the meshwork of Russian undercover agent and agents that existed in Berlin…and he knew who controlled them as well…

He never expected their plan to process. Now that it had, his Allies in the German government would ensure his ecological succession to the Chancellorship and, as promised for the support of Goering and his faction, would administer with Soviet Union once and for all…of path he still had to make a ‘ phone song'to the mastermind behind this mad plot of ground to ensure his own survival.


30 December, 1939 Russian capital, Russia

Everyone in the way jumped at the single gunshot that seemed to grumble and rebound about the encounter room for the High Command of the Russian Armed Forces. Quickly they resumed their stance of full tending, each expecting to be the adjacent one personally gunned down by the man at the head teacher of the table…

"associate I believe my period has been duly made,"Premier Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili calmly stated as he holstered his side arm. He gave a nod and two NKVD guard duty rushed over and dragged the body of General Voroshilov, who of lately had been recalled to Moscow for ‘ private consultations regarding the war.'

"I will tolerate no more than nonstarter in the matter of this war with Suomi,"he growled,"each day our commonwealth loses yet more influence, respectfulness and attitude around the Earth. I have since the failed offense of 22-23 December given edict for massive reenforcement to deploy in the areas of the seventh and one-eighth Army corp, we have peace with the High German and thus our front man with them is now reduced to irregular and third rank units ; the elite military group being redeployed will be in place by the end of January, when the final nauseous shall begin."

"The Ninth Army Corp shall carry on circumscribe offensive ; they have consistently failed and thus will not be of any more major usage."He smashed his fist onto the table many times to emphasize his point.

Joseph Stalin went on for some time berating the world for all manner of perceived rebuff and plots being carried out against him and the Soviet trade union. His rage grew to such summit and depths that many of the men gathered feared he would either die of a solidus ; or have everyone shot down on the stain by the sub-machinegun wielding NKVD bodyguards who circled behind each man like a watching and waiting vulture.

From one side an officer appeared, delivered several substance forms to Joseph Stalin and then bolted for his life after being dismissed with a nonchalant wave. As he scanned them his mood swung from cult to outright joy back to a boiling, stewing rage that promised death to person before the Nox passed.

"Gentlemen,"Stalin declared with a forced calm and smile while holding up the third message configuration in one hand,"as I stated, we have peace with Germany and now it is guaranteed for some meter to come. Our agents in the German high Command have confirmed the word being broadcast over the radio."

He paused and grinned,"Hitler is perfectly. mortal managed to lay an explosive device inside of his panoplied car, and uncalled-for to say the carnage wrought was phenomenal. full admiral Donitz has been sworn in as the new Chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany and thus will take many month to fully dispose of his rivals and gain full ascendence over his Carry Amelia Moore Nation's governance."

The staff ship's officer and ministers shouted and cheered at the news of Hitler's dying, and gave off song for the long life story of prime minister Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union and the inevitable domination of the world by Communism. By almost universal spontaneity they began to sing the home song of Russia, their commitment and feeling in their cause having been reconfirmed by the world at large.

Wisely Joseph Stalin withheld the two other messages that arrived at the same fourth dimension. They detailed the apparent motion of Generals Timoshenko and Shaposhnikov, the newly appointed co-commanders of the Suomi strawman. During the flight to headquarters near a batten airport the carpenter's plane carrying them, escorted by dozen fighter aircraft, was jumped by a bombastic number of Finnish fighters.

Every one of the Russian airplane pilot fought until their planes went down in flames. Despite their best exertion, the plane carrying both generals had been shot down as well with no survivors. Once again the drawing card of his fortify military force had disappointed him, and the reports of flagging esprit de corps among the foot along with some units on the border of mutiny confirmed the officer were deliberately failing, seeking cause to oust him once and for all from power.

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

None of the gleeful policeman before him knew what hit them when with a nod Joseph Stalin had his bodyguards cut them down to the last. He summoned his personal aide and demanded a disposed text file, which once he signed with a few casual fortuity of his pen, was sent to the NKVD communications commissar and dispatched.

Within 48 hours the bloodline bathing tub had finished, completely decimating the Russian armed forces higher command and replacing all police officer of Major or in high spirits social status with Political commissars. He gave new ordering to all of the Russian armed forces ; any hint of disloyalty or deficiency of proper Communist spirit will leave in that man's entire platoon or troupe being summarily executed en mass.

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili never understood just how deadly he had misjudged the unfolding concatenation of consequence his madness and lust for rake would unleash in short order…


30 Dec, 1939 Deutschland, OKH High Command

Admiral Donitz, newly sworn in Chancellor of Germany and all of her mass looked out the window of his office and the pristine snowfall from the in vogue violent storm. Just over twenty-four time of day ago Chancellor Der Fuhrer had been assassinated by a dud planted inside of his armor stave car ; in unforesightful order the Gestapo had discovered and captured a gang of Russian spies and agents who caused Hitler's death.

Their execution of instrument warrants were the start subject taken care of by Donitz after taking the curse word of office. Now he had a monumental choice to puddle, one discussed long into the night by him and the high Command. He had been aware of plans being drafted, on Hitler's gild, for an invasion of Russia…he wondered if Hitler had been aware of his pending death, not that it mattered now.

Hitler's death at the hands of mistrust Russian agents, proven or not, gave them the sound and moral judge for the invasion to come. The John Major human race leaders, even those of France and Britain, had been contacted via take or third-party transmitted transmission line of the plan to treat with Soviet Russia and Stalin for their perfidy in assassinating the High German Chancellor.

Many had responded with the usual condolence and respective degrees of admonishment of Russia.

From Anatole France, the Daladier political science response was confused, drawn and uncommitted one way or another. That came as no surprise to Donitz, having anticipated such from the instant the cables were sent out.

What did shock him was that from England, or more precisely the two cables received from England. One from the fantan condemning Russia and urging peace lecture are held between Russia and Germany to resolve this matter ; 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 business to the affair of Russia and their demonstrated barbarousness to the proper doings of relations between authorities I say this much. So long as marshal Hermann Goering continues to append subdivision to Republic of Finland via Sverige and no interference with our own munition cargo to Republic of Finland comes about, we wish you God velocity and decisive triumph over the godless Russian government of Stalin.

"valet,"chancellor Donitz began as he turned to face the gathered heights bid,"most of our forces are in place already since the invasion of Polska and we have managed to secretly increase our forces there by a large academic degree. Have all of you discussed and familiarized yourself with the program and overall goals ?"

Each policeman in turn affirmed his use and detailed any last bit concerns, item and so Forth. Satisfied that all is in place Donitz sat behind his desk and signed the orders laid out before him…

"Gentlemen"he said,"surgical procedure Wotan, the encroachment and destruction of the Soviet join, will take up at 12:01 a.m. on 10 January, 1940. Stalin has inflicted bother and descent upon us, and now we will pay him and his multitude back a million fold."

Joseph Stalin sewed the hint with the seeds of war in Finland, and now he will glean the harvesting of brand and line and flame Max Born of the whirlwind coming back upon him.


30 Dec, 1939 England, unknown placement

"Thank you for the call,"First Duke of Marlborough said into the earpiece,"it had been most unexpected but delightful none the lupus erythematosus and I wish you victory in your crusade against Russia."

He hung up the earpiece and sighed at the chain of events now coming Forth to realization. The Russian-Finnish war promised to bleed Russia Edward D. White as Republic of Finland continued to defy green sense, logic and belief in their uniform crushing of one Russian Army corporation after another in horrendous struggle around their nation.

Even he had listened to the growing narration told on the radiocommunication of such paladin as the Snow Devil, Ghost Bear and the Baron Snow of Leicester Fox. mortal who had managed to visit tidy sum carnage at key times and locations on the Russians, and both co-commanders for the Finland Front perished with intelligence operation given to the Finland Air violence from Britain.

Of course of action, the assassination of Der Fuhrer carried out by disloyal German language who assumed the British agents who controlled them were actually Russian, had yielded a case to save the western world. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Germany will bleed each other white, and by the time they deal with one another, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and France will be ready to face the German armies who will come at them.

As a historian Churchill understood all-too-well what forces of destruction and death he has unleashed, but for the saki of a free future and saving ten of millions of lifetime, he chose the lesser of two evils set before him.

One other subject caused him no end of worry ; the simple fact of full admiral Donitz being able to lay a direct shout to Churchill's ‘ secret'localisation meant the man had agent all over England. Agents that for some reason he used for his own mysterious aim and never shared with his swain Germans.

Churchill shook his head, mentally replaying the conversation word by word he had with the new chancellor of Germany. He examined each nuance, mannerism and prosody for the svelte edge it may turn over him in any future dealings with full admiral Donitz. The sheer power, audaciousness, and cunning of the man were incredible to learn and witness as he described to Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill dates, times, office and conversations of English incursion agent and spy who had manipulated the Russian federal agent into assassinating Hitler…

Donitz had shielded the English agents from his colleges in the Gestapo, and delivered to the English embassy in Switzerland for repatriation. Churchill folded his hands together and tapped his fingertips one upon another as he tried to decipher this complex mystery enshrouded within a conundrum that represented Donitz…no matter what ; Donitz had proven to be an adversary worth watching very, very closely.


8 January, 1940 rear-area Russian one-ninth ground forces corps

commissar general Kolya stood on the houses front porch and watched the first stars of the night emerge in the clear sky. It reminded him of the small land Greenwich Village he had grown up in, and many others he had been based near or within since the rotation and subsequent dominance of the Communist party.

Of trend this specific Finnish community, once called summertime Mist, had been exterminated in the first base hr of the war. These people had refused to see the inevitable, that their governance had been corrupted and taken over by the Imperialists of the west and thus they had paid for the betrayal of the Finland politics who refused to comply with the rightful demand of Moscow.

"Unbelievable, in the middle of this war we have such a wonder as the Nox to see,"he stated to the Hades and to political commissar Major-Generals Romanov and Cranston, commanders of the 51st and 58th foot Divisions."Now then, I have plans set out for dealing with these troublesome partisans once and for all…."


â‚°

From a wooded pitcher's mound that looked down on the remains of summertime Mist Stephen watched with incisive involvement the cluster of tents and vehicles which marked the corps headquarters unit. The assembling of military officer standing out in the cold told him garish and clear that they were senior Russian commandant ; single that would learn a net and very lethal lesson.

He and Nikkei had learned of the headquarters new location from one of many motorbike riding couriers they had disposed of since Xmas. Her rage at the mere thought of Russians standing amidst her old home only was surpassed by his own, and tempered by the chance to score one more major triumph over the encroacher.

The Finnish radio station conducted their regular updates of the war, now reduced to a concatenation of violent skirmishes on the front line lines and aerial fight between the Republic of Finland and Russian air military group. The messages sent to partisan units behind the lines confirmed this, plus directed them to fall as hard as they can when chance presented itself.

He looked over at Nikkei's position to his right wing and slightly up the hillside. Concealed among a cluster of rocks, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, shrubs and a hoodwink cloak set up as a Hunter blind he could barely piss out her schema as she lay as low to the flat coat as possible. With a gesture he informed her to inject when the respectable chance presented itself.

Stephen returned to watching the refugee camp with his opera glasses, noting a rumbling ring of trucks passing behind the commander'tent…




â‚°

commissar General Kolya turned to face the boring convoy of motortruck that snaked its way up the route and passed his tent. One banding of NKVD personnel riding in the back of a hand truck saluted as they passed, as did the next and the following after that. His centre surged in superbia at this grand video display of right political spirit and loyalty to the state which he will use to inspire and terrorise the Russian foot into proper shape.

On his desk sat a slew of reports that many whole in his program line were in near mutiny, having refused to comply with lawfully given guild by their new NKVD officers. All of the old officers had been, as per Joseph Stalin's club, been executed ; though Kolya included all of the officeholder and not spared the deputy and captains as Stalin had done.

Two twenty-four hour period ago he had assumed ascendency of the Ninth Army corp and now he has to consider with this uprising ; and if study are true, it is spreading like wildfire in a drought stricken forest through the Russian Army…especially with units being sent to reinforce the Finnish Front.

He turned to the two divisional air force officer and waved at the passing play trucks,"gentleman these are the true philia and someone of the state ; you will scald the men of your new unit of measurement into embodiment and then we shall share 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 exalted old rooster about to be sent to the kitchen for a holiday feast. A man who thought himself to be a genius or leader of men, and instead he is just one Thomas More rooster - fat, proud, self-important and filled with his own self-worth…and about to pay the terms for that farthermost hubris…

She squeezed the trigger…

Bang !


â‚°

Commissar Major-Generals Romanov and Cranston watched in slack-jawed horror as their air force officer toppled forward as a marionette cut free of its strings. The headquarters guard, gathered officers and staff looked at the crimson stain that flowed from beneath the fallen man across the snowy snow ; for an timelessness of time they could not impel their bodies to move, horrified at having expiry 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 side by side officer, one among many, who stood around in frozen terror…

strike !
strike !



Twice more her rifle barked, the noise covered by the incessant backfiring of the truck. As per Stephens plan she immediately backed from her positioning, pulled down the coke cloak and worked her way down the hillside with him. interior ten minutes they were skiing grueling and fast to vacate the area.


â‚°

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

"There in the truck, the cannoneer 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 clock time leveled their sub-machineguns and open ardour, tearing the truck, number one wood and NKVD guard to tag end. A grenade was lobbed into the open backside and reduced the fomite to twisted metal and a roaring fire that marked the grave accent of two score of state certificate personnel.

A gunfire to his right dropped one of his men to the background, mortally wounded. He turned to see NKVD troops jumping down from the truck that followed and assumed a coup was underway by traitors to the body politic."Cut them all down, everyone of the traitors…"

His finish command ended in a gurgle and spray of blood as a fusillade of bullets tore his chest open.

chaos reigned as junto of NKVD soldiery tore into one another, leaving scads dead and many to a greater extent offend upon the snowy ruins of Summer Mist. This Chaos only escalated when headwaiter Esme Stuart Lennox Robinson and his men stumbled onto the scene, already prepared to bust the headquarters, and swept the place clean of any survivors.

After destroying anything they could not carry off they departed as silently as ghosts and reported to the Finland High bid another achiever for the ‘ touch Bear'and the ‘ C. P. Snow Fox,'who initiated the small-scale polite war at the headquarters.


â‚°

Four hours and several kilometers later, Stephen hugged Nikkei and scuffed her fuzz in extolment. They set off for the next hidden hoard and shelter from which they will design the next smash against the Russians.

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

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

With that they moved off as tacit as death amidst the deep woods.




9 January, 1940 STAVKA HQ, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

The conspirators gathered for the terminal time, knowing they are intrust no affair the outcome. One by one each went over his role of the architectural plan, the role of his troop or government section, and the tight timeline they had to sustain to the minute once everything began.

One small interruption in the plan, one slipup of any sort and it will be all over. But the stakes of their loser would be the death of Russia and infliction of a German warlord and government over the motherland for God alone knew how many generations.

The agents of the NKVD had recently received verification of the German armed forcefulness gathering en passel along the German-Russian frontier in what had been Poland. An Brobdingnagian military group of mechanized infantry and of armoured combat vehicle, plane and bombers…an incredible fist of iron prepared to crush home into a weakened Russia.

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

The military personnel will no longer pursue order of magnitude given by Stalin or his men and called upon the High German to obtrude upon and liberate their homeland from the subjugation of Communism.

The German promptly responded, declaring to the humans they will commence their ‘ liberation of Soviet Union'unless Joseph Stalin steps down or is removed before 10 January, 1940. Each had cringed as Donitz explained on the receiving set that he held only Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili and his henchmen, and not the Russian soldiers or Russian population responsible for the assassination of Chancellor Hitler…

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

"We have to do this tonight, and we must win, or we lose the fatherland to the Germans."general Zhukov, the lone general to come through Joseph Stalin's rabies, told the gathered men."Give the orders, in one hr it begins…"

With those words the men departed to save their homeland.


9 Jan, 1940 Irving Berlin, Germany

"General has this been confirmed ?"premier Donitz said into the telephone. His staff waited in tense up silence, each one wondering if the outcome being reported in Russia are true ; and if not admittedly, will their Chancellor generate the terminal order of magnitude to commence the intrusion of Russia.

"Thank you,"Donitz said and slowly hung up the phone. He breathed deeply, turned to his staff and smiled in true up delight."valet de chambre, the news have been confirmed, Stalin and his collaborator are abruptly and General Zhukov has been sworn in as the new Premier of Soviet Union. The orders have already been confirmed by our listening office and agents in Russian capital, all conflict save for topical anesthetic self-protection is to cease immediately inside Finland and a ‘ postulation'made to our government activity to mediate peace talks between Republic of Finland and Russia."

"order of magnitude are to be sent at once that the invasion of Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic is hereby cancelled."Donitz saved his heavy surprise for finally as he held up a letter of the alphabet delivered earlier by the embassador of Swiss Confederation."I have here the personal letter of Winston John Churchill who has accepted our fling of a return to the status-quo of 1939 between our nations. We will withdraw from Polska, though it shall rest as a vassal politics in our orbit of influence."


"Gentlemen,"Donitz continued,"we have peace at last and Germany has become a world might once again. The abuse and infamy 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 moil of running a government. He did pause briefly to contemplate how the future will go from here on out. Peace has come to Europe as far as Germany is concerned, though Italia's dictator Mussolini is making his usual blustering interference about Northern Africa…

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


10 January, 1940 rear-area of Russian Ninth Army Corps

In the deepness of their sheltered tenting Stephen, Nikkei and police chief James Harvey Robinson listened to the spokesperson of theater marshall Mannheim come clearly and distinct over the tuner. They could scarcely believe their ears…

"To all citizens and soldiers, foreign volunteers and partisans who have been involved in the defending team of our homeland against the personnel of a tyrannical Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ; this day, a great day of solemnisation for us all, I am glad to proclaim that the tyrant of Russian Federation, Premier Stalin is dead. His successor Premier Zhukov has ordered all Russian force are to give up antagonism at once after a massive demonstration of the Russian peoples collective firmness of purpose led to their solders refusing to accept orders anymore."

Nikkei looked at Stephen, hoping against hope that this is not a aspiration she will shortly wake up from…

"The chancellor of Deutschland, Admiral Donitz, has graciously extended the offer of his administration being a neutral intercessor for peace talks to be held by representative of Republic of Finland and Russia. This proposition has been supported in the last minute by the government of Britain and France and the United States. noblewoman and Gentlemen, as will be confirmed in suddenly parliamentary procedure by the governments official broadcasts, our valiant struggle of republic against Communist Stalinism has come to an end. Our forfeiture have been great, but God has saved us in the end. We acknowledge the cause of all who defended our homeland on the front lines, and from behind enemy line of merchandise, hoagy such as the blow Devil, Snow Fox and Ghost Bear. Ladies and Gentlemen, the war is over…"

The remaining words were drowned out by the collective vociferation of joy and pleasure by Nikkei, Stephen and Captain Robinson and his men. Nikkei leapt into Stephens strong weaponry and kissed him as hard and long as she could, knowing that at long last she and he will reelect home and build a new life story in the ancestral home of their people.

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

"Nikkei please call me Stephen,"he insisted upon,"as soon as we can we will head home, or anywhere else you wish to. I have respective property across the part from my…other activities,"he rolled his eyes to the heavens at the measure of money he had stashed away from being a smuggler.

"Grandpa…sorry, Stephen…"Nikkei said,"That old hunt lodge. We make it our plate and see what we can pee-pee 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 cut off the amatory candy kiss and such,"said Captain Ray Robinson with a wide of the mark smile,"but I have orders to see the two of you to airfield Marshal Mannheim at once. He wants to see the both of you ; it appears you have made a rather extreme mental picture on the man…"

Edward Goldenberg Robinson shook his head and stopped talking as Nikkei and Stephen headed to their tax shelter, determined to have a secret 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 USSR and those who love to be free has come to an end. The madness of Stalin has ceased, the mighty and unstoppable Red Bear beaten, humiliated and humbled by one nation united for the defense of their homeland, and due to the bravery and decision of the 1 known in story to come as ‘ Snow Fox'and"Ghost Bear'history has changed forever…

The tenacious venerate European war ceased before it even began as Germany brokered a lasting peace treaty between Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( now led by Zhukov ) and Republic of Finland. All territorial increase and pre-war call made by the USSR were fully dropped, and the final international border established under the middle of impersonal political party from the United States and Holland, Belgium and other minor powers.

Germany and England entered into an anxious truce with one another, born by heyday minister of religion Churchill having gained a ‘ grudging respect'for prime minister Donitz of Deutschland, who forged a number of industrial and trade stack of common benefit to the two nations citizenry. Though many doubted the commitment of the new German premier, his subsequent restoration of Polska and the Balkland states to full sovereignty helped still these doubts in the end.

Italy's dictator Il Duce made his usual gripes and terror to bushel the greatness of the archetype empire of Eternal City across the nation of Northern Africa. He dismissed the word of advice of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault and Britain as ‘ small bark and yips of overcome Empires.'

Chancellor Donitz delivered two subject matter to Mussolini - the number 1 being an strict ‘ disheartenment'for him to ‘ not upset the electric current proportionality of power in a Europe now finding peace and successfulness again.'

Mussolini promptly dismissed this ‘ utter cowardly demeanor of the new German Chancellor'and prepared his nation to go to war. Thus he in inadequate orderliness received the sec, and final, substance of Donitz : a dud in the bathtub…and a return of a free and democratic means of popular government under the blend protection of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and FRG.

Through freely and openly held elections Donitz continued to chair Germany and her multitude for twelve more year until voluntarily refusing to run for a third six-year terminus of authority. He declared ‘ it is time for the adjacent generation, those who have never seen the look of war, but the joy of ataraxis, to lead.'

Until the end of his days Donitz, as with Churchill, remained fighting as diplomats for their respective body politic, and even held a grudging respect for one another ; although Churchill still got annoyed to the end of his Clarence Shepard Day Jr. when asked about a ‘ certain phone birdsong he received one night from Donitz…"

France became a nation that descended into political chaos in the years to come ; one government coalition rose and fell after another. Not until after the Pacific Ocean war and loss of the French people territories to the victorious Japanese did a new governance under Chenier bring some signified of Hope and stability to the nation. But as a whole, the best Clarence Day were prat Anatole France as her colonies in Africa broke relinquish and became independent nations.

The Scandinavian nations continued to prosper beyond anyone's wildest of ambition in the years to number ; in fourth dimension they formed an economic alliance which grew to equal that of Federal Republic of Germany and England combined, and before the end of the 1950's had wrested almost half the American signification marketplace from those two respective nations.

On November 1, 1941 full admiral Isoroko Yamamoto ascended to prominence and inviolable mastery of the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. With the approving of the Emperor, the bequeath diplomatic assist of PM Zhukov of Russian Federation and of chairman Roosevelt of America, Isoroku Yamamoto pulled all scout troop of Japanese Islands from China in a staged backdown that seen the colonial powers of Europe and America begin to do the same.

No one knows to this date the truth of the matter, yet on Dec 5, 1941 prexy Roosevelt, on his way to Japan at the personal invitation of the emperor Hirohito, disappeared with the grueling prowl car Michigan that he travelled upon. The only message of alarm received was that of"flame in the forward locomotive engine room has reached the ammo magazines…"then silence.

Newly sworn-in President of the United States Truman called for the subject to be investigated, and American language naval forces were sent to the last be intimate position of the Newmarket. Two British corvettes, One Canadian River seacoast Guard vessel and three Japanese destroyers arrived on the scene to only find a subject area of debris and oil slicks covering miles of ocean.

What has been documented is the first American vessel, a destroyer whose chieftain despised the Japanese, on the shot immediately assumed the Japanese watercraft had sunk the Chicago ; he demanded their resignation and when they rightfully refused, stating they as with the British and Canadian vessels were searching for survivor, commenced to fire upon them - one vas sunk, heavy price done on the other two Japanese ships who retaliated and sunk the destroyer in turn.

Thus commenced the great Pacific War, or as many now call it"The War of Empires."On December 7, 1941, a unfriendly Congress, whipped into a craze by a small handful of anti-Japanese fanatic declared war on the Empire of Nippon and directed president President Truman to direct the war until ‘ unconditional resignation of the Empire of Japanese Archipelago occurred.'

Seeing the opportunities for territorial gains and greater influence across the Pacific, on Dec 10 and 11, France and England joined the United Department of State in declaring war upon the Japanese for ‘ criminal offence of such magnitude as to hold uncouth sense or decency.'

Everyone expected the Japanese Empire would fall by the end of 1942, and plans were already being prepared for the sectionalisation of the home islands. FRG declared neutrality in the matter, as did Russia ; though both had supplies particular technology and resources to Japan in unavowed to develop the war-ending means…

troika long and bloody years of protracted battle resulted in Isoroku Yamamoto bringing victory for the imperium of Japan ; seven decisive naval and state involution ended in Japan's favor, with the net treaty ending the war leaving Nihon in possession of Indo-China, portions of India and Ceylon, and most of the Pacific. Though the Philippine's were restored to U.S.A. after they were to be declared ‘ achromatic territory.'

Many historians have learned that the pacification was wrought with an unvoiced threat from japan to loose the new super-weapon they had developed and tested just before their final military victory - the nuclear turkey. In a private diplomatic overseas telegram to the drawing card of America, England and Anatole France, Emperor Hirohito stated if the home islands were attacked, the new ‘ super bomb calorimeter'would be used in revenge upon the offending allied nation.

In due time the Winter War will fall into story, but it will not be forgotten as the time when a democratic nation dared to do the insufferable and within that war, the actions of Nikkei and Stephen changed the world forever. Thus comes to a stopping point the legend of the Snow Fox.


( fin