Arc of Fire

Several minutes later.

Captain Hans looked at the company commander, "Where’s Rocossov?"

The company commander shook his head, "We didn’t catch him; the enemy scattered all at once, but we found the body of a high-ranking officer."

As he spoke, he stepped back, and two soldiers carried the stretcher bearing the badly mangled corpse.

Looking at the rank, it was a Lieutenant Colonel, his map case still hanging intact on his body, but the document case was nowhere to be found.

Hans asked, "What happened? Where’s the document case? That’s the most important thing!"

The company commander turned his head and shouted, and soon someone brought over the document case, which appeared to have its strap cut by shrapnel or something similar.

Hans snatched the document case, opened it, and quickly flipped through it, finding many messy documents.

Hans didn’t understand Antenese and couldn’t make out what was written.

At that moment, the communications platoon leader ran over, stood at attention, and saluted, "Communications are through!"

Hans immediately handed the items in his hands to the company commander, "Package all of these, including the documents and the map. Assign your most trusted person to transport them in an armored vehicle—no, in a tank to Division Headquarters! Wait, don’t go yet, take this body as well!"

The company commander turned and left, and Hans picked up the phone which hadn’t been working just moments ago, "Connect me to Division Headquarters! Yes, Division Headquarters! Forget the regiment, I need to speak directly with the Division Commander, there’s an emergency!" Enjoy more content from empire

An hour later.

Division Commander Schultz of the 16th Armored Grenadiers looked on as a staff officer who understood Antenese unpacked the document case and reviewed the documents inside.

He watched the staff officer pick out a document, his eyebrows twisting into knots.

Schultz hurriedly asked, "Is that a very important document?"

"No," the staff officer shook his head, "This is a list of gifts Rocossov, the General, bought this month for the ladies of the Ekaterinburg high society, addressed to... the Equipment Committee’s office supply procurement department. It seems General Rocossov has been quite greedy."

Schultz scoffed, "Isn’t that just like the generals of the Empire, like Duke Meyer?"

In the Prosen Army, it was common to discuss the lavish lifestyle of Duke Meyer, especially among officers from the Junker Nobility, who even secretly encouraged their subordinates to discuss these matters.

Clearly, this procurement list further detailed Rocossov’s personal character.

Schultz said, "Let the Empire’s intelligence department handle these matters related to Rocossov’s lifestyle. Let’s look at something else."

Meanwhile, at the First Mobile Group Army Headquarters, Vasily whispered to Sergeant Grigori, the General’s personal guard, "I made up a lot of details to make it seem more real. But I dare not tell the General; I didn’t include them in the files when the General checked."

Grigori frowned, "You with your stories again. Don’t do that; you previously boasted that the General shot down a plane with his pistol, and now everyone firmly believes the General has taken down four planes with his pistol.

"But... what did you concoct this time?"

Vasily gave a sly smile, "It’ll definitely make the Prosens believe that the guy who died was the General’s confidant! Don’t worry, this time our deception will definitely succeed!"

At the headquarters of the 16th Armored Grenadiers of the Prosen Army, the staff officer unfolded a thrice-folded letter, furrowing his brows as he read the contents.

Schultz: "What’s this now?"

"Sonnet," the staff officer answered, "It’s quite well-written, I just don’t know who this Susanna mentioned in the poem is."

Schultz: "Who wrote the poem?"

"General Rocossov... at least that’s who signed it, whether he wrote it himself or had a staff ghostwrite it, I don’t know."

Schultz: "Alright, alright, I’m not interested in how Rocossov makes money or plays the field, find the critical documents!"

The staff officer set down the poem and said, "I’ll go through the map case first then, maybe there’s important intelligence on it."

"You should have started with the map case!" Schultz said.

The staff officer: "I thought it was better to check the documents first to ascertain this man’s identity and the authenticity of his intelligence. If it’s false information, we could be misled just by looking at the maps."

Saying so, he opened the map case, pulled out a map and unfolded it, his mouth instantly forming an O.

Schultz took a few steps closer, standing beside the staff officer and looked closely at the map.

He could vaguely see the direction of arrows on the map and thought it was a retreat plan, so he asked, "What, is Rocossov running away?"

"No," the staff officer shook his head, "At first glance, I thought so too, but this map has many issues upon closer inspection. For instance, there are too few supply points set up, such small stations can’t sustain the retreat of a large army. Moreover, there are many blacked-out spots on the map, look here, and here, these black bars likely cover some critical text."

Schultz stepped forward, standing beside the staff officer, peering closely at the map.

"There are indeed many blacked out sections," he muttered.

The staff officer said, "Not just blacked out, but according to Antenese grammar, they seem to be either predicates or subjects. Erasing them renders the entire sentence unclear.

"Our Security Department treats classified documents in a similar manner. This certainly isn’t a retreat plan, definitely not!"

Schultz stroked his chin, "Rocossov is cunning and adept at tactical deception. But now he has amassed so many tanks, it’s impossible to deceive—"

Suddenly, Schultz felt a numbness in the back of his head, "I’ve got it, this is Rocossov’s tactical deception! He uses a small unit to retreat, fooling our aerial surveillance into thinking he’s running away! But in reality, he’s preparing to attack!

"According to the files from High Command on Rocossov, he likes to personally scout the breakthrough direction before an attack, which is why our Armored Grenadiers seized the opportunity to strike him!"

"Quick, check the map case, there should be an attack plan!"

The staff officer put down the retreat plan, shuffled through the map case, but failed to find an attack map. He looked up at Schultz, hands spread, "There’s no attack map!"

"How is that possible?" Schultz personally came over to search, and indeed there was no attack map in the entire map case.

"No!" he slapped his thigh, "How could this map case possibly contain only a fake retreat map? There’s definitely a problem—"

Schultz suddenly remembered something and yelled, "Quick, bring that corpse in here! Hurry!"

Soon, the corpse of "Rocossov’s confidant" was brought in, and his personal belongings, including the pistol he wore, were all laid out beside in a frame.

Schultz searched and found a box of matches.

The matchbox was crushed, many matches already fallen out through the torn opening, almost empty.

Schultz said, "Look at this matchbox! The man was severely injured, no longer able to open the matchbox, so he crushed it to get the matches out!"

The Antenese-speaking staff officer had an idea, he picked up the map case and saw, "There are bloody handprints! He had opened the map case! And the bloodstains inside can also be explained!"

Schultz grabbed the corpse’s hand, "Look! His fingernails are charred black! He burned the map that recorded Rocossov’s real plans!"

In that moment, everyone in the room felt a deep respect for this fallen enemy officer.

Schultz released the man’s hand and gently removed his own hat, "Rocossov’s confidants are all such people, no wonder he keeps winning."

The Chief of Staff asked, "Should we give him a proper burial? That might also inspire our soldiers’ morale, stirring up their spirits to compete with the enemy."

"No!" Schultz shook his head, "We’ll only put the speculation in the report, the higher-ups might not believe it. Send this body back along with everything else, let the Corps Command send it to the rear by plane! That way, the intelligence department will agree with our judgment too! Find the craziest driver to transport all this back!"

At the First Mobile Army Headquarters, everyone was preparing for the retreat, while Vasily, having just completed the deception by creating a basket of fake documents, was temporarily on leave.

He leaned against the wall watching the bustling officers in Headquarters and suddenly laughed.

Grigori asked, "Laughing at what?"

"I tell you, this deception is my masterpiece, several magnitudes more deceptive than before! The enemy will surely be fooled. I even want to suggest to the general not to set up a rear guard unit, just to bolt!"

As Vasily spoke, his face was filled with pride.

Grigori shook his head, "The general wouldn’t do that, our general is peculiar, appearing reckless in battle, but he’s actually quite conservative in many aspects, always ready with many plans. He would not leave without rear guards."

Vasily said, "Yes, he won’t. And he’ll even stay personally at the very back, do you believe that?"

"I do," Grigori laughed, "Then, it’ll be me and Bucephalus protecting the general’s safety."

Vasily said, "I thought it was the loyal Tank 422."

"It’s the Prosen who sing ’Only the loyal war chariot will grant us a steel tomb,’ the general wouldn’t. I’ve been with the general through life and death so many times, I tell you, not once did he plan to die in a charge, not once! He always believed he would return alive, that’s why he made those desperate attacks."

Grigori watched Rocossov being held down by Pavlov in his position, approving plans related to the retreat.

"After returning from Hell many times, you can tell which men are resolved to die," said Grigori, "Like Argesukov, I figured out the Crown Prince had no intention of living, I think the general saw that too. And the general’s father, that old man also had a strong sense of it. But Aleksei Konstantinovich Rocossov never had that same aura of intending to die."

Vasily marveled, "That sentence needs to be written down, when someone writes the general’s biography, I’ll provide it, it must appear in the general’s biography."

Grigori shook his head, "Maybe not, I’m just a simple man."

"I know, just now you even spelled ’atmosphere’ wrong."

"What? Did I spell it wrong?"

"Yeah, and ’going to die’ too."

Grigori cursed, then laughed, "Then please make the revision a bit more literary."

"I will."

(The lines spoken by Grigori in this chapter were all edited versions by Vasily.)

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