Struggle: The Path to Power - Владимир Андерсон

Zhivenko

Wide fields of Ukraine. The same forests and rivers. The city of Kharkiv in the middle of everything.

Misha Zhivenko, who had recently become a penalty officer, used to have lunch at Natasha's. Now every time only at her place — no one knows when they will be able to see each other or if they will be able to see each other at all. And it didn't matter what he had, as long as she was near. There was a light in her eyes that was brighter than that of the sun, a light that could not be seen anywhere else.

After he finished, they somehow naturally stopped in front of each other. She was mine, he was mine. And then they sat hugging, stroking and kissing each other for probably more than an hour, oblivious to time and anything that might keep them from being together, until the door creaked open.

It seems like nothing special: the usual sounds, and everything is familiar… But it's actually someone coming, and no mistake about the house.

Mishcha reluctantly turned back to the entrance — Bolotnikov. Everything came back: both reality and the sadness in his soul. Somehow it was not the way I wanted it to be.

But Natasha had nothing to do with it. She doesn't need to know the details: let her think that her beloved is the same warrior as before, only not quite legal and on an equal footing with the others. Let her think the same as before.

Ruchyov had told Misha long ago about what it meant to be a penal officer, what sometimes you had to do, not because there was an "unwritten code" or something like that, not because Khmelnitsky had made a mistake just once and initiated the creation of a penalty battalion, but because it was always, first of all, about you: "Don't be softer than the enemy. Be as hard as the enemy. And in time, become ruthless. To break the enemy. Because you will only think about getting ahead of him, and you will do therefore everything times more than him… It doesn't matter how much time the enemy spends on preparation, it only matters if you spend 8 hours or 14 hours on your preparation…"

— To become a good warrior, Sasha said. — all you have to do to become a good warrior is to give up thinking during the battle. In order to become just the right penalty killer, you have to become a beast before the battle. Not just to clear the brain, but to forget about its existence as a control center. Feel the instinct and clamp down on it. To make your instinct into your own willful steel sword, moving towards the goal.

Misha didn't want all this for Natasha. She's smart: she hears two or three words and understands everything at once. But he wanted her to love just a man who wanted to stay alive because he had her.

— Major, let's go outside — asked Misha.

Sergei nodded understandingly. Natasha exhaled a little and, reaching out gently, fixed his collar, which already looked normal. That's a very interesting trait in women. They always need to correct something on the ones they love: clothes, hairstyle, anything, but make sure to correct it. And you can include all kinds of ways of thinking, but you will not understand why this something became different after her touch, even though you are 100 percent sure that it did not become different.

And it is not that something looks different, but that she has touched it; that she looks at what may be wrong with her beloved and fixes it. And this is somehow expressed in the same way towards both husband and child. The movements are different, of course, but they are the same in essence, they are equally tender and affectionate.

Maybe it's because the wife watches her husband as well as her child, maybe not, but you can always sense what it means to her to love them both.

— I'll be right back, Natasha. A couple minutes. — Misha promised.

The wind was blowing outside, but it wasn't cold. And a few clouds peeked out from behind the horizon, not scaring the rain, but slightly obscuring the sun. It was evening, but not dark. — Tonight. — Bolotnikov started. — you're going out. There are six more with you. — Have they been assigned yet?

Just two. The others, you pick the rest. The mission is to intercept an important plague. He's from the SCK. His name is Tanhrom. He's being transported from Chuguev to Kochenok early in the morning. — Sergei held out a map. — We know only one section of the route, so we will not have to choose the place of attack. The scheme of departure is given there.

— What do you mean he's being transported? Is he in custody?

— Yeah. (chuckles)

— He just needs to be delivered alive. — sounded like a statement, but was a question.

— Yeah. (chuckles)

— Maybe we should ask him something on the way.

— No. Just deliver it.

— What if they are mortally wounded or killed?

— A wounded man is the same as a living man to us. But if they kill you. That depends on who. If it's his plague, we might get lucky… But if it's us, we can consider our game over. On the other hand, how will you prove that he was killed by your own… No. In any case, if you bring back a corpse, our game is over.

— Just like that?

Sergei laughed. It was obvious that he was in a completely different mood and was very skeptical about everything.

— They probably just didn't kill us because they were too hungry for bullets. You can't take us with your bare hands.

— Why is it so bad?

— Fuck, Zubkov got his hands on everything that was