The railway line was crowded with trains transporting military supplies and newly mobilized reserve troops. If it hadn't been for the order signed by the Supreme Command, I might not have been able to report to the Northern Red Flagship until the end of the year.
I arrived in Murmansk on a morning that was warm but still cold in early April. When I got off the bus, there happened to be about a group of piston fighter jets crossing the sky above the station. The low sound caused by dozens of piston engines accentuated the atmosphere on the station.
Busyness and hustle and bustle.
I went to the station headquarters and made a call to the Northern Red Flag Fleet headquarters. After that, I waited at the station headquarters for more than an hour, during which more than 500 fighter jets flew over my head. Judging from this number alone, the Northern Red Flag
The scale of the war operations being carried out by the fleet is much larger than that of the Eastern Fleet to which I originally belonged, and it is also naturally much more tragic.
At about ten o'clock, an unmarked black car stopped in front of the station headquarters. The colonel who got out of the car became my immediate boss two hours later. The colonel's first words to me were:
"Be careful what you say after you get in the car. The lieutenant driving the car is an intelligence agent of Cheka."
It is often said that the first impression of someone you meet for the first time is often inaccurate. This does not apply to Colonel Punchuk. The first words of the first meeting clearly revealed the personality of the colonel. He is a straightforward person.
For those who have gone too far, except when facing Cheka personnel, this colonel always likes to get to the core. This makes me like it very much.
He has a mustache that is very common among naval officers, and his military cap is stylishly tilted on his head. His woolen military coat is spotlessly clean, and every button is polished as smooth as a mirror. I can even see the coppery color.
see my own face on the surface.
Overall, I had a good impression of the colonel, and the first thing I said to him was: "Comrade Colonel, are you a naval officer?"
Although the order I received was signed by the headquarters, the Confederate army is different from the Western Alliance and the Axis Powers. The headquarters is the headquarters, regardless of sea, land and air. However, the units I reported were indeed affiliated with
The Northern Red Flagship Headquarters of the Air Force. No matter how you think about it, it is completely against common sense for this naval officer to appear here. So I think there is nothing wrong with asking this.
After listening to my question, Peng Chuk smiled. His smile made me think that he must be thinking, "You really asked that."
"Because," the colonel lowered his head, took out a pack of cigarettes from his arms, pulled out one and handed it to me, and continued, "the bird is a seabird!"
Peng Chuk is outspoken and outspoken. He never talks nonsense indiscriminately, and he will never say things he shouldn't say. I have been with him for about a month, and this aspect of his personality has been fully demonstrated, but this is all
That’s another story.
In Murmansk, what awaited me was one surprise after another.
After being welcomed by a naval officer, I was taken directly to the commander-in-chief of the Northern Red Flagship, Air Marshal Yereomenko. Although when I received the transfer order, I had a vague feeling that this was not as simple as an ordinary personnel transfer.
, but I never expected that I would meet such a high-ranking person.
The marshal and I talked for more than five minutes, and then I signed a confidential document witnessed by the marshal and Cheka personnel, and I officially became a member of the Bird Fleet directly under the headquarters.
I have no idea what this fleet does, and what considerations led to my being transferred to this fleet. I only know that this is a special team formed for a top-secret mission that is vital to my motherland. Task force.
I was placed on Enthusiast Street near the headquarters. It is said that before the war, this was an ordinary residential street. When I moved in, it had become an "officer's dormitory" filled with air force officers...
Colonel Punchuk sent me downstairs to the house where I was staying, where a goblin I didn't recognize was leaning against the pillar at the staircase of the house, looking like he had been waiting for a long time.
"This is your new partner. I won't introduce him. Interfering in the internal affairs of the Air Force is not what I, a sailor, should do." After saying that, the colonel saluted me and got into the black car before I could return the salute. .
Among the first impressions Aksinya gave me, the most vivid one was her pair of emerald eyes that were almost the same as Natalia's. Unfortunately, those eyes were shrouded in a thick layer of haze. It always reminds me of the long night on the westerly tundra, and the black night that is so dark that even the stars are afraid of radiating their own light.
I am not a person who is very sensitive to things like emotions, but at that time, I did feel that this fairy girl had some kind of heavy and insurmountable emotion. This emotion blocked us, dooming us to be unable to Become a true partner.
Facing the darkness in the girl's eyes and the invisible barrier of heart that stood between us, I hesitated. I stood there, turned my head and looked at the uniformed brigade marching on the street, and said with With my right hand I was stroking my beard that I had no time to shave because of the long train ride, thinking about how I should speak to this girl.
But the girl spoke before me: "Don't worry, I will do my duty."
Aksinya's appearance is a bit different from other goblin girls. Her figure does not have the slenderness common among goblins. Instead, she looks more like a working woman who often works. She has a healthy beauty that comes from plumpness - or rather , rugged and beautiful. But the voice she spoke to me was lighter than other fairy girls, with a floating sense of nothingness. The presence-filled figure and floating voice, this contrast coupled with the emerald-colored pair of Her eyes formed my first impression of the girl Aksiniya.
As part of strengthening our bond, Aksinya and I lived together from that day on. Before I arrived, Aksinya’s luggage had been moved into the home of the resident we were going to stay in. It was a A small leather suitcase, I was surprised by the amount of Aksinya's luggage. I have always had such a stubborn prejudice against girls: theirs is the kind of person who can't wait to stuff it into the house they are used to living in. Creatures carried away in suitcases.
This prejudice naturally comes from the girl I am most familiar with and closest to: When I first met Natalia, I was amazed by the huge amount of her luggage. I couldn’t figure out why a person needs There are so many clothes, and it is even more incomprehensible to carry around a pillow that I am used to sleeping on. When I was seven years old, I followed my father to hunt snow foxes and direwolves in the vast tundra. In my impression, it was incomprehensible. There were only three pieces of luggage abandoned: a shotgun, a bullet belt, and matches.
Precisely because of this, Aksinya's simple luggage impressed me quite a bit, and I suddenly had the idea of getting to know this girl.
The realization of this idea came after we conducted adaptive training for half a month.
The so-called adaptive training is actually no different from the flight training of ordinary piston-rune composite-powered fighter jets. The newly formed partners gradually get to know each other better by flying together and become familiar with some of each other's habits, such as the movements when the nose of the aircraft is raised. Amplitude and the like, generally speaking, it's not a big deal.
During the adaptive training, Aksinya showed mechanical precision, which was not easy. After all, after the rune power system was activated, the fairies would be mentally oppressed to a certain extent. This is especially true for the rune system of the system, so operational deviations are almost inevitable. It took Natalia a full year to learn to adjust the status of the rune system in conjunction with my movements while she was in an extreme mental state. It only took Aksinya three days to catch up with me...
Of course, this is also related to the personal experience of the goblin. Natalia was only seventeen years old when she first partnered with me. It was the first time for her to independently operate the rune system installed on a human flying machine, and Aksiniya obviously He is already an "old fritter".
Aksinya's silent character and precise operation made me breathe a sigh of relief. She already has a pair of emerald eyes. If she were as lively and clumsy as Natalia, I would probably I live in the memory of my lost partner every day.
During the adaptive flight for more than half a month, I have always had a question, and that is why the headquarters would choose someone like me who killed his partner in the first combat flight to participate in this top-secret mission. ?The superficial reason is that I was the number one ace among the air force deployed in the Eastern Continent at that time. But if you think about it carefully, this reason is untenable: if during the execution of the mission, because the goblin I partnered with - that is, Ah Ksenia - Death from overwork affects the achievement of mission objectives. Isn't it worth the loss?
I am not stupid enough to go to the top management of the Bird Fleet to seek the answer to this question. Anyway, after the mission officially begins, everything will come to light. What I did not expect is that the answer to this question turned out to be my understanding of Aksini. This girl's opportunity.
It was a day in mid-April, an evening fourteen days before the Dubird Fleet officially set sail.
After dinner that day, Aksinya, who had always turned a blind eye to my warm invitation, suddenly came to me and suggested that we go for a walk on the beach together.
Murmansk is the highest latitude ice-free port of the Confederacy in the Eastern Continent. It is still quite cold at this time in May, especially at the seaside. The cold wind blowing from the polar sea ice sheet is literally as described. Sharp as a knife.”
Aksinya and I walked side by side on the seaside promenade in Murmansk. On the left was the most famous group of seaside restaurants in pre-war Murmansk, and on the right, separated by a dike, was the cold, deep black water of the Arctic Ocean.
Although I'm sorry for Natalia, I did have thoughts about the meaning behind Aksinya's invitation to me, but all these thoughts with a slightly youthful flavor soon followed Aksinya, who had been silent. Nia's words disappeared.
"This is for you. Colonel Punchuk asked me to deliver it to you at noon today." As he said that, Aksinya handed over a brown paper envelope with the Cheka's square special seal stamped on it.
After I took the envelope, I looked at Aksinya with confusion, and the girl explained succinctly: "This is your new confidentiality level certificate, Comrade 'Fairy Killer'."
The last phrase Aksinya revealed surprised me more than the new confidentiality level in the envelope. I noticed that when he said this word, Aksinya had a little naughty smile on his lips - it turned out that this Girls also make expressions like this.
Looking back on it afterwards, I can't help but wonder, if that smile was not a sentimental illusion on my part, does it mean that the distance between me and Aksinya has indeed shortened in the past half month? And at that time , all my attention was focused on the nickname that engraved the sadness and pain of my past. I thought about the meaning of Aksinya shaking out the information that she knew my past at this moment, and I felt that this was consistent with the information in my hand. There must be some connection between the kraft envelopes.
Perhaps because of my uncertain expression, Aksinya had a slight smile on her face. She comforted me with a rare gentle tone: "Don't worry, because my mission is to be killed by you." ah."
I couldn’t understand Aksinya’s words for a moment. In my opinion, the goblins are a clan that attaches great importance to life. Natalia once told me: “We goblins, even if we have a little thought of committing suicide in our minds, , are not allowed, and it will be a felony if discovered!”….
But Aksinya's expression and tone didn't sound like she was joking. From the girl's figure, I even read an awe-inspiring temperament. This temperament told me that she really planned to die generously for this mission. .
"What do you mean? Is there any other secret that you haven't told me about this mission, right?" As soon as I asked my question, I realized that I had made a mistake: this mission was not about "there" any secret that had not been told to me, but what it was. They didn't even tell me, except the name of the special fleet that carried out the mission.
"On your first cruise, you shot down three Rune aircraft, right? The pilot of one of them was captured by us. He insisted that it was not the Yak 2 that shot him down, but the new model we secretly invested. The reason Even if you overdraw the spirit power of the goblin, the performance is definitely not what Jacques 2 can achieve. Based on his words, coupled with your record of shooting down the enemy's new rune machine with a piston power machine, the headquarters believes that you are overdrawing the spirit power of the goblin. Under certain conditions, the performance of Yak 2 can be maximized. In other words -" Aksinya hurriedly took two steps to get in front of me, then turned to face me, walking backwards with his hands behind his back, I almost mistook her for Natalia more than a year ago. That evening, she was walking backwards facing me like this.
——Now, Grisha, if you compose a poem to praise my eyes, I will tell you a secret...
"——In other words," I took over Aksinya's words in order to get rid of the sudden wave of memories in my mind, "the headquarters originally planned to rely on the Yak 2 operated by me to explode in a short period of time. High performance and high combat effectiveness to achieve a certain goal, is that right?”
"That's right, so when choosing your partner, you pay special attention to physical strength and mental toughness."
"I see, that's why I chose Aksinya who is healthy, calm, and precise like a machine."
"Yes, but there is another reason why I was chosen." As she spoke, Aksinia suddenly stopped. She looked at a convoy leaving the port in the distance and remained silent for a long time.
About a squadron of piston-powered engines carrying night equipment flew over our heads in a herringbone formation. Amidst the roar of the engines, there was faint singing somewhere, the firm and fearless spirit of "Holy War" The melody broke through the mechanical noise and echoed in my ears.
Finally, Aksinya spoke again: "My partner died on the ice sheet of the Arctic Ocean. He lied to me. At that time, he told me that the plane was damaged and had to make an emergency landing, so we made an emergency landing on the ice. On the surface. During the emergency landing, he kept talking about how to distribute the only emergency rations on the plane after landing, how to cut ice and make water, how to call for help, and what to do after being rescued. But as soon as he landed, the in-plane communication There was only silence in the microphone. I opened the canopy and climbed into the front seat, only to find that he had already passed away."
"Actually, the plane was not broken, it was just that he was shot, right?"
Aksinya nodded silently, and then continued after being silent for a while: "Our combat airspace is near Jihai Avenue. The tactical briefing before takeoff said that there is an aircraft carrier of ours on the sea nearby. If I knew that he was injured and would definitely insist on landing on the aircraft carrier. However, you also know how difficult it is for Yak 2 to land on the aircraft carrier. It is impossible to do it without the help of the rune system. He must have been worried that after such a battle, I would die of overwork if he asked me to bear the burden of the ship. But he probably didn't realize how painful it would be to be left alone in the world. matter."….
"That's why you accepted this death-seeking mission?"
"Well, please."
I stared at Aksinya’s side face looking at the sea. When she told all that just now, her tone was quite calm and calm, and her face looked calm and steady as usual. But I think, The emotions hidden under the calm surface must be full of turmoil. For the first time, I felt that this girl and I had some kind of connection. We both lost our partners, and we were all alone tasting the pain and sadness after our partners left.
Driven by this understanding, I suddenly planned to open my heart to her: "My former partner Natalia..."
Unfortunately, I had just started when I was interrupted by Aksinya. She said: "Don't talk, I don't want to hear it. Our relationship should not be any closer. Getting closer will only increase the pain."
At this time, I suddenly understood her purpose in calling me out today and saying this - this was the same reason as her unwillingness to have a deeper bond with me, both of which were to ensure that the mission was over and I was still alive. , just to alleviate my sadness and self-blame. Of course, this may be my own sentimentality, but I have such confidence that I guessed almost exactly. The reason is probably that I was in the flight academy a long time ago. A piece of advice I got.
Those were the words my flight instructor Popov said the night before he introduced me to my future partner Natalia: "Remember, Grisha, goblins have different personalities, some are cunning and some are tricky. , some are cynical, and some are even so bad that people want to strangle her, but this is just because they have lived too long. By nature, fairies are all extremely good girls. "
This sentence allows me to evaluate the actions of goblins from the best perspective.
As for Aksinya, I decided to express my gratitude to her for her concern, so after returning to my residence, I found a note from my luggage and gave it to her.
"What is this?" Aksinya asked with a puzzled look.
"It's a poem that praises your eyes. I wrote it."
Aksinya lowered his head, read the sonnet, and then couldn't help but laugh out loud: "What is this? It's like a children's song..."
I also laughed with her.
But it was this poor children's song-like poem that made Natalia dance with joy, and then she told me the secret as promised.
——Now, I like you very much, Grisha. After retiring, we will get married.