An IS-3 Heavy tank zooms through a path in the trees.
It had a far lower stance than the Löwe or T29.
"Alright Dimitri! Targets on your right!" Nikolai said.
Dimitri turned the turret to the right,
The low ceiling of the turret moved,
The "Targets" were cut outs of Monopoly man, from the board game of the same name.
"Commander, why are the targets of the guy from that one board game?" Dimitri said.
"They're capitalists!" Nikolai said.
"But isn't our commander in chief a Capitalist?" Dimitri asked.
"Hey! I'm supposed to be your Commissar!" Nikolai said.
It was part of Nikolai trying to act like he was a tank commander (And Commissar of his crew) for the Soviet Union, like his father, who commanded a T-62 in the 1980's Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Dimitri sighed,
"Fair enough" he said
*KABOOM!
The D-25T breech flew back and ejected the shell casing.
Nikolai looked in at the target with his binoculars.
The part of the tree the target was on was completely evaporated, including the Monopoly man.
"Hahahaha! No more target left!" Nikolai said.
*bang!
"Owh!"
Nikolai looked back inside.
"My head!" Oleg, the loader said, beginning to curse in Russian.
"Oh, man up. You haven't had much inside of there to begin with." Nikolai said.
The two others jeered with laughter.
Oleg cursed to himself, before joining in on the laughter.
"Maybe I don't have much in my head!" Oleg said
"But let's see them try to outthink THIS!" He said with a BR-471D shell in his hands, patting it affectionately.
Oleg was practically in love with tank guns and shells, he also wasn't the brightest Kalashnikov in the factory, but definitely the strongest, and he knew it.
Viktor, the driver, was far more into games like call of duty, especially world at war, which was his favorite.
Dimitri never played call of duty in his life, instead opting for more obscure titles like Red Orchestra, Hell let loose, and Command and Conquer, the third of which you normally see him playing.
Viktor NEVER let Dimitri hear the end of it, and Dimitri always wondered why Viktor always changed his last name to Reznov. And always yelled his name out loud.
Viktor on the other hand, didn't understand why Dimitri always tried to escape capitalism by going to space,
Nikolai would play any game that had the Soviet Union in it, period.
Also, Dimitri always played this one song from his game a whole lot, and Nikolai really liked it.
The song is "Soviet March" from Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
The IS-3 thundered forwards, smashing through a hedgerow.
Nikolai was in charge of the radio, getting rid of the need for a radio operator.
He usually controlled any music that played.
And today, he was playing as the Soviet Union in Hoi4, so he decided to play a song from the Soviet DLC that recently dropped for it.
Katyusha was nicely fast paced, working well when the tank was going at full speed ahead.
Viktor, liked songs from Call of Duty
Dimitri and Viktor then got into an argument on what to play.
"Play my music! It sounds so much better!" Dimitri said
"Yours?! The lyrics are gibberish!" Viktor said
"Well mine doesn't take hours to get to the best part!" Dimitri snapped back.
Nikolai always got very annoyed when arguments like this happened, but luckily, he found the cure a while back, so he tried it again now.
"Hey, hey, guys, remember this is OUR music, it all represents OUR country." Nikolai said.
Dimitri and Viktor nodded, this was a ridiculous argument.
—————————
The IS-3 rolled back into the hangar after another long day of practice.
Viktor immediately parked the tank and ran out, holding rolls of paper,
Ah, old Soviet propaganda posters, sure to help the nostalgia.
They'd already decorated their place in the hangar with red paint, propaganda posters, and Soviet flags.
Nikolai dragged his top half out of the commander's hatch,
There was some whitish-blonde haired girl staring at the posters that Viktor already set up.
The words were in Russian, so no one could understand it.
"Long live the Red Army of workers and peasants, the true guard of the Soviet borders...." The white haired girl said in Russian.
She knew Russian?!
Now Nikolai was interested, he hadn't seen anyone speak Russian over here other then his crew and the Russian Army representative that brought him over here.
Was she from Russia too perhaps?
—————————
Klara studied the posters, ever since she got selected to come to Ōarai to play on their Sensha-dō team against the All-Stars, no one except her friend Nonna spoke any Russian, period, she felt like an outcast because of it.
But, from her time she spent learning about the "Great Patriotic War" she only saw these posters in her history books.
Even if the they were copies, it was strange to see them for real.
Then, she got the icy feeling of being watched.
Klara looked behind her for a split second,
The commander of the IS-3 that just parked was staring at her like she was crazy.
"Oh! I'm sorry! I Uh...!" Klara immediately started
"Ты говоришь по-русски? (You Speak Russian?)" the IS-3 commander said.
He spoke Russian too!
"Y-Yes, I d-do," she said in Russian , shaking a little, still startled.
He looked relived more than anything.
————————
Nikolai sighed in relief,
This girl didn't have a Red Star on her outfit,
She must be one of those exchange students from that one Soviet pretender school, Pravda, by the looks of it.
She had a native Russian accent, despite her school's origin from Japan?
Perhaps it would be nice if he introduced himself.
"My name is Nikolai Berezin," he sat while straightening his Hammer-and-Sickle clad hat.
She seemed very interested in the Soviet apparel had had on.
"I'm the commander of the Russian foreign student team." He said.
"You're from Russia as well?" She said
"Yes I am! Glad to meet another fellow Russian!" He said.