The Iron Hand had been waiting for weeks in the bitter cold, their trenches dug deep into the frost-hardened earth north of the Danube.
Snow clung to their boots, ice grew in the barrels of their rifles if they weren't checked hourly, and every night was a fight against the cold as much as against the Turk.
On the morning of January 28th, 1854, the order came.
The Russians were counterattacking.
A thousand men in sheepskin coats rose stiffly from their campfires, stamping life back into their frozen limbs.
In the pale light of dawn, the Iron Hand moved with the same quiet precision they always did—packs buckled, rifles checked, bayonets fixed.
To the regular Russian soldiers who watched, these "volunteers" had become something between men and myth.
They never faltered.
They never wavered.
And they killed with a calm efficiency that left even the hardest sergeant muttering prayers.
~
The Crossing
The Danube was half-frozen, its surface a patchwork of dark water and white crust.
Russian pontoon bridges stretched across it like fragile bones, creaking under the weight of cannon artillery and infantry columns.
The Iron Hand crossed in silence, their boots crunching on frozen planks, the bitter air filling their lungs like knives.
Sergeant Marko Radovic, his cover of being once a fisherman from the Adriatic but now a veteran of dozens of battles, walked at the head of his company.
His men carried their needle rifles cradled close, following the actions of their allies, the cartridge pouches were wrapped in wax paper.
Above them, Russian priests swung censers, incense smoke curling through the icy air, blessing the men most of whom were about to die.
Soldiers muttered prayers beneath their breath.
Marko did not.
He trusted in the system, the rifles, the memories imprinted onto them upon their summoning by the Supreme Commander, a man most of them only knew the voice of, and few had actually met in person.
A man they all viewed as a godly figure, for he brought them into being, and his will was their will.
Via the system the soldiers could speak with one another like breakout rooms from meeting applications of the 21st centuy, this allowed for battle operation command to be more effective, but in times of peace allowed for communication across the planet of the various summoned units about whatever it was they wanted to speak on so long as it didnt contradict the Supreme commanders orders.
~
The Advance
The Ottoman's who'd dug in at Calafat loomed ahead, having reinforced their captured town into a rough fortress of sorts over the last few months, its walls just a grade or two above sandbag walls but enough fortifications to give Infantry pause, but would crumble after even a single artillery barrage.
The Turkish garrison still held fast refusing to retreat after receiving word of the Russian offensive, supplied sparsely due to poor logistical command, and the harshness of this years winter.
The primary defensive measure lay in the series of trenchs dug by the Ottomans, layered to allow for retreat by only a few hundred yards at a time, until the final fell and retreat became imminent.
The Russian plan if you could even call it that was blunt: a hammer blow across the frozen river, smashing the Turks back into their walls before they could regroup.
The Iron Hand was placed in the center.
When the drums rolled and the bugles called, Marko's men advanced in long, dark lines.
The Russians marched to song and shout, but the Iron Hand moved like shadows, each file of riflemen holding their silence until the command was given.
The Turks saw them first and poured fire into the open plain.
Cannonballs ripped the ice, sending up geysers of shattered water.
Musket volleys cracked in ragged waves.
Russian soldiers staggered and fell, their white coats stained with red.
Marko raised his hand.
"Ready rifles!"
Three thousand hands moved in unison.
Rifles leveled.
"Fire!"
The first volley thundered like rolling drums.
Smoke burst across the line, thicker than morning fog.
Needle rifles spoke faster than any Ottoman musket.
Within seconds, the air was filled with the hiss and snap of continuous fire, six to eight rounds loosed in the space of a minute from each man, concentrated in waves, this meant the men behind fortifications kept their heads down, even with the ever encroaching Russians.
Turkish ranks folded but only on one front.
Men crumpled in heaps on all the other approaches, their weapons unable to maintain a steady rate of fire to force the Ottomans to hide in fear for their lives, their officers cut down mid-shout.
The assault itself, was far from successful.
Eventually the call to retreat was made and even with the Iron Hand almost at a breakthrough, with the Russian offensive called off, the Hand needed to retreat as well lest they be eliminated.
Securing what they could of spoils from their surgical incision, before joining the retreat, preparing to setup for a protracted siege of the village in light of the Russian realizing the comprehensive defensive fortifications the Ottomans had created.
~
The creation of camps out in the middle of the field as the village was besieged.
The cold setting in deeper now that the army was forced to take shelter under cloth and leather rather than hardened stone and wood.
Due to their choice of tactics the Iron hand got away without a single casualty however the russians were not an lucky.
The medic group quickly set out to perform their jobs within reason, patching up what wounds they could and making it so that those who would die in the field could be shipped back from the front for proper triage.
Even though the medic if they wanted to could patch up every single wound suffered in the wake of this offensive, they had to refrain.
Sure human life was important, but even more so was keeping their secret just that... secret.
If they went around healing everyone, sooner or later someone would question just where all the medical supplies were coming from, and in that moment the greatest secret Elias ever held would become exposed the powerful would begin the witch hunt to either control that power, or excise it before it could be used against them.