[b]Omsk, Russia[/b]

Through the tinted dusty windshield Tsung watched as the nature of the city changed over. The overbearing gray and the ruin of conflict was laid over with bolts of victorious red. Fiery streamers hung haphazardly off the face of the buildings and decorated the streets with a strong revolutionary light. It was nothing planned over weeks or months, had was clearly thrown up in hours. The chaos and peculiarity of the decoration was random and order less. And on closer inspection much of the banners and flags were re-purposed. Hanging from broken windows on wires or cables flew bed sheets and curtains. Anything that happened to be deep fiery red or bloody maroon waved in the warm breeze alongside war-shredded, battle torn flags.

The knotted and twisting rags hung draped across the streets as they passed through.

“Fuck them all, did those Siberian fucks really have so little to do?” Hala Khan groaned from the front seat.

The armored transport had no side windows to speak of. Tsung's only window to the outside was the windshield. And in that he could only make out so little. There was celebration by appearance, though he couldn't tell for sure. Civilian? Soldier? He craned his neck to peer past the soldiers with him. He tried to shut out the injured man at his feet.

“Hala Khan this is communications.” the radio sparked, “We have the location of the officer you requests.”

Khan lifted the receiver up to his lips. “Copy that.” he replied, “Where is he?”

“Sun Song. He just arrived at Dormition Cathedral.” buzzed the radio, “On a crew of two others in his tank and down one in his squadron.”

“Got it.” Hala Khan nodded. He turned back in his chair, lowering the talk box to his lap. “This man is your commander?” he asked in a low voice.

“Y-yes. I'm his driver...” nodded Tsung nervously. His head fluttered and danced. They had gotten out.

“We got his driver, did he make a missing report?”

“He did. For a Li Tsung. Driver.” the radio droned, pausing briefly, “We'll write him off the list then.”

“Thank you. Hala Khan out.”

Tsung breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone was fine, for the most part he hoped. His head was inundated with relief. He lay back against the rattling walls of the armored carrier as they drove through the streets. Even the knocking of his skull against the cold hard steel disturbed that flow of tensity and fear. If having to feel concern on whether or not he'll end up in a worse place than Russia.

“Dormition Cathedral happens to be where we're going too.” Hala said in a droning voice, “Non essential forward units were asked to report to the city center to receive commander Huei Wen.

“And we're almost there.”

Tsun could feel a smile cross his face. There was an odd comfort in knowing they were alive still. He yet knew little about them. But in the face of conflict he felt as if they were more important to him than any other individual. It was a eerie sensation. Made all the more nauseating at the blood at his feet.

He grimaced, thinking about it. Did the soldier here feel the same about his men? He had been told many did, it was a given. But was laying on the floor in his own blood a respect? Or a necessity he understood in some fashion? In the end, there was things he didn't know.

He felt the transport shake as they drove over a road bump. The injured soldier cried out in pain. Someone mumbled down to him as they went. “Fucking road bumps, they had to shell here so hard?” Hala Khan complained.

“It was this bad when we came through.” Tsun said quietly.

“Well lucky you.” Hala Khan replied groaning, “The sooner we move out the better.

“And the church's square is up ahead. I can see where they're paraded all us lucky fucks.” he gestured to the growing mass of soldiers. Black arm-banded military police stood along the roads, gesturing men in, checking the vehicles.

“I think you can walk from here.” Khan said in a low voice, “It'll be a while for us, comrade. Go ahead, get out.” he grunted. His men by the door obliged by silent instinct to open the rear hatch. Carefully, Tsun scrambled out into the dusty gray light of a city conquered.

His boots hit the ground and the door shut fast. Clamping shut before driving away leaving him with no ceremony. For Hala Khan, he left that to the rally before he and Tsun. The disconnected carnival atmosphere of Chinese self-salute fumed into the air about him. Detached from reality, it seemed almost foreign. Just hours ago Tsun had been shelled by a distant enemy. Hours ago he felt he was the only one left in a gray abysmal city alone. But now he was among a sea of ceremonious red and crimson, at the edge of a great sea orbiting about a Russian church.

Its opulent copulas stood in defiance to the violence, still glimmering in the dim over cast sun despite the debris settled on it. The bright blue highlights and clustered towers a decadent swatch of color in their own right. Roaming around its edge men armed with cameras and microphones hastened about, whipping chords and cables frantically. If something was going to happen, it was soon.

And again Tsun felt as lost here as he did when he first arrived to this army. Men of mixed station sat atop the ruin and abandonment of Omsk smoking cigarettes, idly wasting the time. Riflemen, engineers, medium and light infantry. They gave the lost tanker no heed as he wound through the woven crowds. But it all didn't seem as full as it could be. As if those present were plucked at random to simply be here. Were all these men nonessential?

It didn't take him long to locate the tanks. An orbit of the church to its front side wrong him around to a line of tanks stopped in a ceremonial salute to the stage, spaced far enough apart for the crowd to mill into the center of their aim. Tsun's hopes rocketed upwards being so close. He darted between the crews, many taking advantage of their station early and sitting bored atop the turrets. Suited and coated commanding officers and sweaty gunners alike stood in the open air waiting.

“That lucky son of a bitch! He's not dead!” he heard a woman below allowed. Tsun froze, his guts choking up into his throat. “Song, Tsun caught up!” Tse Lin called out, laughing.

“I know.” Song crooned. Tsun turned about to his comrades. He felt a warm smile again come to his face. Sat up mid-way down the row was the tank he was supposed to be driving. Battered, dented, and chipped. By all the same in one place. Long streaks of char ran along its carapace. And large chunks of olive paint had peeled away from the angular shell, leaving behind an exposed warped steel.

“Comrade, come on up here. I think the show's about to start.” Song demanded. He sat on the edge of the turret hatch. Lin further up along the raised barrel as the bald Hui lay himself down on the back. If perhaps eager, Tsun joined them.

“The lucky bastard comes home.” Hui mumbled as the driver climbed aboard, “I didn't think I'd know it.” He sat up and turned towards him, dark rings sagged under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well, and getting out of the fire no doubt made it worse, “Not many can get away from being shelled and live to tell about it.” he grunted.

“I can tell.” Tsun said. Thinking about it made him sore. His arm heart, his shoulder heart. His entire side felt bruised and torn. But he was alive with only a scabbing cut on his forehead.

“I've seen people get peeled apart.” he added dryly before laying back down. The comment dampened Tsung's mood and he felt a cold chill wash down his spine and his stomach churn.

“We know he's staying anyways.” Song added in a definite tone of voice, “It'll only get better from here.” he added, as on stage stepped the general.

Tsung looked up from his mud-caked boots when the microphone whined, heralding the assumption of commander Wen.

“Brothers in arms!” he started, holding out his arms. Wen was a wide man, in no part made easier than the coat that hung off his shoulders. And even at the distance between Tsung and he his age was visible to the driver, “Here on this day I have the privilege and duty to declare the first major victory against our reactionary enemies of the revolution. The first step to a great mission we as a people have embarked upon ten years ago, knowing many of us here did not participate in that early spring. But indeed, a fresh rotation and a fresh command has seen to things furthering beyond what our predecessor sought to achieve!”

On the stage, Wen acted like a politician. Despite his visible age he moved and gestured energetically. Drumming on energy to build his decleration. “And today we have shown our Russian enemies that we are not sheep!” he boomed, “Today we have shown them we are dragons! Strong and fierce, we bring the winds of change. We bring a glorious fire of freedom and magnificent liberation! And we have sent the message here at Omsk that no failed regime shall last, that we will push ahead and bring unity as they have failed. That their status in this world is that of isolation. That there is no other in the world who will come to their aid as the full strength of our people come upon them.

“And comrades, I ask of you: do you know why we succeed where they fail? Why we won today?

“It is not that our enemy is a fool, grasping on a dying order. But it is that we are an army of a hundred banners! There is no greater essence of unity here among us brothers in all of Russia! We have purpose, our enemy has only dire greed to hold onto. We are a million tribes, a thousand villages, a hundred cities, and a dozen nations. And they are none.

“Han, Mongolian, Manchu, Hui, Uyghur, and Russian. United in  the common bounds of human brotherliness against an enemy who hopes to be just that. We are the great many faces of the new world. And they are the single dying gray of the old! They bear the sins of the past era while we cast it off. By fire, sweat, blood, and duty.

“Not only to prove to the world China's rightness, but for the honor of our own allies. For their fight is our own. We fight for a people who have a better claim to this state that has died.

“The Republic has no claim to a nation that does not exist. This is our reason. Our goodness is we do a charity. Their sin is they continue to bleed it dry. We bring the salvation of unity and stability. They failed, they broke and left their country to mob rule.

“And so we start, so we will go, so we will come. An army of banners. Of many colors, of many faces, and of many guns. And we shall put down the hammer!”

“I sure hope he doesn't do this again.” Lin cringed.

“I'm sure it's just a show for the press staff.” Song nodded.

[b]Perm, Russia[/b]

“I feel fine.” Jun protested loudly, still laid out on the table. He impatiently rapped his fingers on the wooden surface. The aforementioned doctor brought up earlier in the day standing over him. He was tall, strongly built. Some might call him handsome if it weren't for the tired bags under his eyes and the thin beard growth over his broad chin. He stared down at the agent with an empty contempt in his pale blue eyes.

“That's what scares me.” he said, putting his hands on the table, leaning his weight on them. Behind him several students loitered by the door. Their eyes wide and expressions pale and ghostly, “Obviously you're not feeling any discomfort from your injuries, not in any serious degree. I'm afraid if I do let you out you'll break something worse from moving. I really insist that you stay still for as long as possible. We'll even find a proper be-”

“I don't fucking need to stay put.” Jun sneered. He lifted himself on an arm, “I've had worse.”

“No doubt you have.” the young man nodded dismissively, “But I'm not concerned about those, I'm concerned about the right now. And I can't in good conscious let you go on your current injuries.”

Jun thudded his head against the table surface, staring angrily up at the Russian leaning over him. “I do have some questions of my own.” asked the doctor, “For formality.”

“What are they?” Jun groaned.

“Well for a start, I could use a name.” asked the doctor to the tinging resentment of Jun. The sharp sneer on the agent's face must have bit him, for he stepped back nervously.

“I'm not at liberty.” Jun responded.

“Right, top-secret spy-radio show stuff.” he sighed, “I suppose I could always put you down on paperwork as Mr. Bastard.”

“What this all about then?”

“Formalities.” the doctor said dismissively, “Professional practice all in the all in the end. I probably may not see you again, but I could always pass it off on our own agent friend and he can figure out how to get it back to whoever the fuck the two of you take orders from.

“I'm just doing my part.”

“I'm afraid I still won't give it to you.” Jun sneered. It wasn't long that he was beginning to feel irritable with the plains clothes doctor before him. Even by asking his name, he was going too deep. And laying out in rags and bandages he felt far too naked than he wanted.

“Now, this severe pain insensitivity, are you receiving treatment at all?”

Jun turned his head the other way, facing the wall alongside him as he shifted across the table. He hesitated his response, considering if he should answer at not. Or if this man would persist in his inquiries until he broke. “I was.” he finally answered, “But I lost the medication for it.”

“How do you 'lose' that sort of thing?” interrogated the doctor, shocked and cynical.

“I'm not at liberty to say.”

“Well what are you at liberty to say?”

“I was prescribed Naloxone.” Jun said, “I didn't have much when I came out and I had been rationing it. But I ran out before I got to Perm.”

“Ran out, or lost?”

“They're both the same.”

The doctor impatiently muttered something under his breath, the Russian far too soft for Jun to make out; unlike the conversation they've been having, “We're going to have to keep you here. At least for a few weeks.” he said, “I'll bring it up with our agent we'll need to get you a proper mattress. I can't have you on that wooden table forever. Do you understand?”

Jun didn't answer.