With the morning light banishing the darkness, the crew woke cold and hungry. Yakov quickly prepared an unexciting breakfast of rye porridge with a side of rye bread. They greedily wolfed down their meals, as they waited for Zhukov to explain their next move. Sadly for them, Zhukov had prepared himself some tea and was taking his time to enjoy their predicament.

Without any orders, the crews busied themselves with other tasks. Sergei went off to perform maintenance on the tank and weapons. Yakov continued to prepare the bear meat for long term storage, mainly salting and smoking the meat that had been left out to freeze overnight. Igor managed to grab Vasily before the latter could grab a drink, and drug him off to help collect firewood. Zhukov was left to ponder by himself.

After about an hour Zhukov assembled the crew and finally began to tell them of his plans.

“Well, I’m sure by now you all know that we are, to put it simply, fucked.”

The other crew members nodded at the insightful words of their dear leader.

“Last thing I remember we were in the middle of Kursk, and there definitely wasn’t any goddamn snow for miles. As such, I have no explanation for our situation. I do, however, know one thing. If we don’t leave here soon, we'll end up living on bear meat for the next month.”

The crew was undaunted by this sudden declaration, much to Zhukov’s dismay as he raised his index finger, continuing his speech.”

“Oh, and at this rate we'll run out of vodka in five days.”

Vasily fell to the ground and began sobbing uncontrollably, drawing a revolver from his waist and pointing it to his head. Yakov punched Vasily in the face, taking the revolver and shoving it into his own mouth. Sergei began to wrestle with Yakov for control of the gun. In the ensuring brawl, the revolver was discharged straight into the ceiling. The deafening roar of the firearm going off in an enclosed space left everyone stunned and silent, until a chunk of rock fell from the cavern’s ceiling and crashed into Igor’s head. Roaring in pain, Igor grabbed Yakov and Sergei, smashing their heads together, and letting their limp bodies fall to the ground.

Zhukov was left speechless, his mouth open and index finger still raised. Ignoring the unconscious bodies on the ground and Vasily, who was still sobbing, Zhukov coughed and continued rambling on.

“Though if we can reunited with the main force, or even find a village nearby, we should be able to scrounge up some more alcohol.”

Vasily jolted himself back on two feet and started to salute, while Yakov and Sergei also rose up, massaging their sore heads. Igor was cursing while tending to his head, that was once again injured.

“Anyways, right now we need to urgently search our surroundings, as such, I plan to leave the injured here and send out a scouting party consisting of me and one other.”

Yakov looked at the revolver in his hands and, with a sudden revelation, placed it in Sergei’s hands while smiling. Sergei was left dazed as Yakov collected Vasily and Igor, ushering them away from their little conference. Zhukov placed his hand on Sergei’s shoulder while smiling.

“Well I guess yer the lucky son of a bitch.”

Sergei sighed with resignation and went off to gather his gear.

………….

After gathering enough supplies to last a few days, Zhukov and Sergei went off into the snowy tundra. The two wore very crude rain capes, along with scarves and gloves. Which provided some resistance against the cold. Sergei carried his AVT-40 and M1911, while Zhukov had his Mosin Nagant and Nagant M1985.

Zhukov had out a compass and was using it to head east from the cave.

Not long after leaving Sergei turned to Zhukov with a worried look and began to speak.

“He’s...acting up again.”

“I know.”

Zhukov looked up at the blue cloudless sky.

“Vasily...he...lost everything in Stalingrad.”

Sergei could only nod at Zhukov’s words.

“For us it was just another battlefield, but for him it was his home.”

Snow began to fall, softly landing around them. They continued their journey into the unknown as the snowfall slowly became heavier and heavier.

“A blizzard is coming, stay close.”

“Aye.”

The gentle snowfall had turned into an angry whirlwind of snow and ice, which shrouded their vision. Zhukov chose to press on with Sergei trailing him. They traveled a few more kilometers without any dangers other than the blizzard, until Zhukov walked up a small hill and tripped over something. Quickly recovering from the unexpected incident, he peered a bit closer at the snow covered object. Buried under the snow was some sort of white painted metal. Zhukov called Sergei over, and two pulled out entrenching shovels. They began to dig into the side of the hill.

Luckily the cold environment kept the snow light and fluffy, so digging wasn’t too much of a hassle. After a few minutes of easy excavation, they uncovered a long cylinder. After more shoveling, they were able to make out the number 100 on the side of the object. Next the upper portion of the object was unveiled, from its shape the two immediately realized it was the turret of a tank. Zhukov began shoveling towards the bottom of the hill, revealing a symbol he knew all too well.

“An iron cross…”

“Zhukov, look up here.”

Following Sergei’s voice, Zhukov climbed back up the hill, finding Sergei poking at something with his shovel.

“I think I found the commander’s hatch.”

“Good, we might be able to wait out the storm inside.”

The two jammed their shovels into the hatch, using them to to force it open. Zhukov dropped down first, flashlight in hand. Sergei followed shortly after, closing the hatch as he entered.

Unexpectedly, the inside was dark. Sergei was confused, as he’d remembered his companion having a flashlight. His questions were soon answered as a light flashed on in front of him, revealing a pale corpse. Sergei started swinging his fists, while unleashing a stream of verbal insults. However, he reeled in pain after finding out the corpse he was punching had been preserved by the cold, making it a much tougher opponent than he had first thought. Off to the side Zhukov’s maniacal laughter could be heard.

“Haha, careful Sergei. If you piss your pants, you may end up with frostbite.”

“Fuck you Zhukov!”

Zhukov continued to laugh as he scanned the inside of the tank with the flashlight.

“It is strange though, I had expected more corpses.”

Zhukov shined the light back on the only corpse. One that Sergei was currently shuffling through the pockets of.

“Aye, from the look of the tank outside it would seem we are in one of the fascist tanks, their Tiger model. Which normally has a crew of five, much like our own KV-1S.”

Zhukov nodded at Sergei’s words and continued to ponder, but before he could think too deeply, something about the body caught his attention.

“Hey, take a look at his head”

Sergei obeyed, bringing the side of the corpse's head into the light, revealing a hole a bit bigger than a thumb. Sergei turned the head to the other side, finding a bigger hole with a mess of red flesh and blood around it.

“Bullet hole?”

Zhukov moved the light away from the corpse, shining it down towards where the driver and radio operator would have been sitting. A dull gleam had caught his eye. He moved closer, dropping down past the gunner and loader seats. At the very front of the tank he’d found a pistol. He released the magazine, finding 6 rounds in it along with the one still in the chamber.

“Hey Sergei, looky here.”

Zhukov brought the pistol into the light.

“Oh a Luger, nice find!”

After searching a bit more he had also found that the MG 34, the tanks secondary armament, had been left behind along with around ten ammo cans with 250 round belts inside. Finding nothing else of interest, Zhukov moved back to Sergei.

“You find anything on the corpse?”

“Got three 8 round magazines for that Luger, other than that he had some personal notes on him. I can’t read German though.”

“I’ll take those mags. Just leave the other junk here.”

“So what do ya think?”

“About what?”

“The death of our friend here. Do you think it was suicide, treason, or maybe…”

“Look, I don’t really care about this corpse’s back story....and I know what you’re thinking. But that corpse could’ve been here for months.”

“But...if the enemy is here, then the front lines can’t be too far away.”

“They why did the commander choose to shoot himself when he could’ve escaped with the others?”

“Maybe they were captured?”

“Sergei you saw the outside the tank. There wasn't a single sign that this thing had ever been in combat.”

“Then why was it abandoned here? The tracks seemed to be in working condition outside.”

“I don’t know, maybe the engine broke down, or perhaps they ran out of fuel.”

Sergei fell silent clearly demoralized.

“Listen...I know you want to reunite with our main forces, but we just don’t know enough about what's going on right now. With our sudden displacement and this change in weather...something is just...wrong. And if we just charge off and die, then we will end up dooming the others who are waiting for us.”

“So what are we going to do then?”

“We continue heading east, back into the Motherland, or at least where it should be.”

Sergei nodded, seemingly calmed by Zhukov’s words.

“All right then, I’m gonna take a look outside to see if that storm died down.”

Sergei forced the tank's hatch open and was greeted by the warm rays of the sun. He climbed out after seeing the blizzard had been reduced to a light flurry. Zhukov followed out shortly, after having been beckoned to by his comrade.

“Alright then, east we go!”

The two set off again into the tundra, the uncovered tank become flush with the snow and disappearing from their sight.

“So, what do you think?”

“You know what Sergei...I bet the Kraut realized he’d run out of cabbage and shot himself.”

Sergei could only sigh deeply at his statement.