Khmelnitsky stood silent, unblinking. It was unclear whether he liked such words or not.
The major continued:
Remember that girl. Maria. The one who escaped from the mine six months ago, and they asked us to find her. We didn't. That's what we told them. But that doesn't mean she's dead. And her father, by the way, is a deputy foreman We have another candidate who escaped from the mine, leaving her family alive. I'm not saying anything about her, but Gora said clearly he has no other options but Ranierov for the role of a snitch How can you be so unambiguous?
Sergei, you know you're fucking with me. Khmelnitsky said calmly. I'm sick of defending this asshole. Tell me straight, do you think that Ranierov does not deserve the death penalty for what he did?
What does that have to do with it? If he deserved to be punished for his past, then he should have been executed.
I should have. But they didn't. And then they regretted it, but it was too late.
So now we're supposed to execute him for something he didn't do? And let the real informant walk free? And snitch on us all he wants?
One. Raniere deserved it a long time ago. Two. A real informant, if there is one, will only relax if we catch him. And then he'll be easier to catch. Three. If you want to do your lawyering, you and Zhivenko should do it together. He fucks me up as much as you do. And fourth and finally. I'm no longer the commander in chief here, I'm just the commander of a punishment unit. If I wanted to do something, I don't have the authority to do it. Zubkov got his way, so he's the one who's gonna have to deal with this shit.
All short and to the point. Yes, possessing exactly these qualities Khmelnitsky once became the leader of "Detachment 14", and then also absorbed the surrounding independent units, making "Detachment 14" the largest among all the Maquis of the Slavic Column.
Dima, Misha Zhivenko's new deputy, rumbled into the house. Since the recent shooting and the capture of the prisoner from the Khivi, he had only become more active in moving his legs and moving his brain more actively, as if he had been given a second life to make things right. Now he wasn't even out of breath, though it was obvious that he had been running from afar:
There was an ambush. Near the Deese sector.
An ambush? Khmelnitsky waggled his eyebrow in surprise. They were preparing an ambush, counting on the fact that the plagues would begin to repair the recently blown up roads, and thus it would be possible not only to postpone the repair work, but also to inflict new damage in manpower.
Hiwi. They discovered our positions, and attacked at the same time Only nothing came back, ten men.
Ancient Roman military rule "If an ambush is detected in time, you can do more damage than what those who were preparing the ambush were going to do. And so it was. Two companies were lost almost entirely. And where the Maquis positions were particularly strong. This goddamn Deez sector is a tricky one.
Prefect
There's no such thing as too much power. No, there's no such thing as too much. And you especially realize that when you get more. Gora had thought about these things a long time ago, when he had been pondering the structure of the Chum Empire. It seemed to him that everyone there reveled in power and had no conscious ability to stop. Back then, he had considered that a weakness. Now he considered it a weakness that they couldn't hold power properly, especially in one hand.
That's the most important thing. One goal, one head, one leader. There was something about that slogan. Something long forgotten, but eerily similar. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that he's got it all now. And he knows how to handle it.
Gora walked along his office. It was now much richer than it had been before: a cabinet at the entrance with machine guns, ammunition, and grenades, a second cabinet in the corner with documents and clothing, a nightstand near the desk where he kept his current necessities, a large flag with a crossed axe and pickaxe under a large white fang on a black background-the new symbol of the Prefectorate. On top of that, he had another room cut into the depths, where he now slept. Three of Tikhomirov's security detail were always on duty near the entrance.
Tikhomirov already had three subdivisions: a "security" unit for the safety of individuals, a GRB (rapid response group) to prevent possible riots or attacks from outside, and an "assault" unit for possible future occupation of new positions. How to use the assault team hasn't even crossed my mind yet the plague will give as much as they give. But still I wanted more and wanted to take it by force. It was only important to wait for the time to do it.
Yeah, none of that existed just three months ago. And now there are seven mines in subordination, and the paths between them, and the infrastructure on the surface, and even has its own army, although very hidden from prying eyes.
Hora realized that if he had not once surrendered the Bulgarians before their revolt, if he had not come with a bow to the plagues, and nothing like this would have happened. But even that was not enough. It was necessary not only to prove his loyalty to the plague empire, it was also necessary that it was convincing.
There it is. Power. And it must be held not with strong hands, but with a far-sighted mind. That's the only way it can be solid and lead to something. When it's done strategically. Then you can be sure that it won't evaporate the next day or slip through your fingers like sand. You're only sure when it's strategically calibrated. And those fools who once held it by brute force didn't realize one simple thing they could quietly succeed in front of ordinary people, but inside the system it doesn't work. Only calculation works within the system.
So far, only Tikhomirov understands that. This is what his son Rafael should have been. Intelligent, calculating, restrained. And not a stupid strong-willed romantic who wants a better life for his family and rushes headlong into new obstacles. How did it end? There is no Raphael now
And there is power. And there will be more. You just have to get the math right.
This morning he received a letter. A very strange and equally interesting letter. It was from a plague, apparently a priest of the Church, who introduced himself as a faithful adherent of the Zhakh faith, as he called himself:
"To Mr. Prefect.
I am writing in your Russian language so as not to waste your time on translations.
Congratulations on your new acquisitions. The six new mines are very valuable and will do you good service, I'm sure. And for my part, as a staunch adherent of the Jah faith, I have nothing against it.
Moreover, I am even ready to support this decision. And in the future, if we succeed, I am ready to give you disproportionately greater influence and territories under your control. You understand the territory I'm talking about.
As my contribution to our long term relationship and first step, I will give you a small gift.
I'll help you keep your place and your current, I'm not afraid of the word, gains. With a kind word.
Which you won't be without in the next few days.
The good word is in the information you will receive in this letter.
Metropolitan Samoh will be raiding one of your subordinate sectors the other day. Not the one you've settled in personally. But a neighboring sector. He's trying out his forces, so to speak.
Neither the imperial army nor the SCIU will offer him any resistance.
But his ultimate goal is right next to you. And a week or two later, he'll show up with a raid on you. Believe me, he's not interested in you personally. He's after the high-ranking plagues of the CCC. But when he deals with them, you can be sure that your achievements will be nullified soon and everything will go back to the way it was before.
Now you are aware of the danger ahead of you. I have no doubt that you will find the right solution and come out of all this victorious.
Upon reading it, burn this letter. And I hope that my help will make you from a human prefect to a Mr. Prefect respecting the holy faith of Jah."
He didn't burn the letter, of course. How could such a thing be burned. It might still be useful, and there were a thousand ways of doing it The person who wrote it was evidently very much afraid that it might fall into the wrong hands. So much so that he didn't even write it in the plague language. That nice remark that he didn't want to waste a person's time translating is nothing more than a basic digression to confuse.
And it is particularly interesting that it seems to be, indeed, someone from the highest circles of the plague Church. The confrontation between the Church and the CCC was no longer a white spot in the architecture of the plague empire. It permeated all areas of the plagues and over time became an increasing problem in maintaining stability.
From the material received from Shinhra, Gora saw several denunciations within the structure of the SCF on the activities of individual members reproached for collaboration with the Inquisition. This was all the more significant because the nature of such denunciation contained as high a degree of disgust at what had been done as the importance of stopping it. The SCF must have been very wary of the Inquisition, and apparently lacked a full-fledged plan of action.
As for the humans, the people of the Church, much less the Inquisition, were understandably not accountable at all, which was most likely why the Mountain Prefecture had expanded so much in the past few months. The CCC feared the Inquisition more than they feared the people.
At the same time, the priest who leaked such valuable information to the Mountain with this letter is obviously playing for the SCK in this case. It's still hard to understand his motives, but it's certain that the current Samoh raid won't play into his hands. Maybe it's a matter of personal animosity, maybe it's some far-reaching plans, but one thing is clear the information about the Inquisition's swift act against SCK in the Diza sector is reliable.
And there can't even be any doubt that the local target of the Deez sector is Anankhr.
Gora has over the past six months well studied and realized how Ananhr is an important bird in the SCK hierarchy. In all likelihood, she is someone's protégé with high hopes for the future. At the same time, it was highly likely that she had family ties somewhere in the highest circles of the imperial administration. This was evidenced by the fact that female chums were simply not assigned to similar positions, and this was an obvious exception. To assume that this exception was born of personal qualities rather than connections was too unrealistic. 1 in 100, if not 1 in 1000 No, it was obviously some kind of connection. And that's also why the Inquisition wants to strike here, getting a valuable hostage.
There was a knock on the door:
May I?
It was Konstantin Bogatyi, now as deputy prefect he was in charge of production in 7 mines, fulfilling the specified norms exactly on time.
Yes, come in, darling.
Rich walked in and stood almost at attention. He had long been uncomfortable when he entered this room. As time went on, his gaze became the same as it had been when he used to look at the plague-wardens.
Gavi, it's done. We met the deadline. Rich was instructed to organize a drilling rig at one more mine, and at two others to prepare them for work in case of need. Now the miners did not work with picks and shovels in the face sector now everything was done by diesel-powered machines. And it was not a problem for all seven mines to submit production figures, and the free hands were used for new repair and construction works or in Tikhomirov's units. Actually, half a thousand of his fighters now seemed not such a luxury it looked like it was time to create local units of territorial defense.
Is the second route holding the load?
Yes. It's even stocked up. There's enough capacity there even if we double the supply.
The second route is the same route that the Mountain once advocated to Cobre. That they had to use it, that it created difficulties, that they should use the outer transportation route and it would save a lot of time and resources. This was not quite true, of course.
All this time, Gora had ample justification for extending the second and even third underground routes as well. It was true that transportation along them was a bit longer and more inconvenient than along the surface routes, but thanks to the latest construction work to expand and optimize the routes, the prefect was able to organize a coherent system of communication between sectors and, most importantly, to fully control the timing of this communication according to the chart of the routes: the travel time from one mine to another was not only prescribed on paper, but also exactly fulfilled.
Let's take a walk. said Gora and left the office.
The people around him tried to hardly look at him as he passed by. They tried to be more on the case, doing good. Some might think it was out of respect for his authority, some might think it was because of the tangible benefits and good that Hora brought to everyone, but in reality it was all about fear. People now feared him more than they feared the plagues, not knowing what to expect next. From the plagues they always knew what could be and in what case the only difference could only be the degree of punishment for provinces. But they had not seen logic in the prefect's behavior for a long time.
He could punish for something that was not done on time, or he could forgive for a gross mistake, and publicly. It was an approach to management that no one could fit in their head. And that was the Gora's intention. After all, in his logic, the reaction to something followed not only on the basis of the deed, but also on the basis of the personalities of the actors, as well as the situation. And the main thing in making the final decision of each individual case lay not in the plane of justice or some rules, but in the area of how his decision would affect the state of others.
Gora knew very well that he was controlling people, not machines. That something verified in the rules does not always work in the human mind. The logic of the mind in reality adjusts to reality, but it is always worth understanding the vector of this reality. And, only by following this vector, it is possible to manage people effectively. Efficiency this is what all the prefect's efforts in management were subordinated to.
They had reached the starting point of the second underground path from the Diza sector. A large tunnel now with two tracks. There were cradles on the sides of the tunnel, which could be closed with a steel plate. Two men from Tikhomirov's security unit were on duty at the very entrance. The tunnel was heading toward the Krito sector, and the travel time was now an hour and a half, instead of the three and a half hours it had taken before. Somewhere along the way was the same "plague cave" in which Raphael had once died. His body still lay buried there, and Hora had not yet dared to go there in person again. Yet then, something in him had twisted or broken. When he saw his dead son. When he had no family left. Though Maybe he'd still have a grandchild The thought made him try to stir something alive in his chest, but no more. There's no life there anymore there's only combinations and decisions.