The power had a physical weight. It was a curse measured in kilograms, a deadening, soul-crushing burden that ground them down with every agonizing step. They were no longer riding; they were walking, their boots sinking into the half-frozen mush of the forest floor, their shoulders hunched against the biting wind. They led the two miserable draft horses, whose backs were bowed under the impossible load of the rifle crates.
Each crate was a coffin for their speed, a tombstone for their mobility. To ease the strain on the animals, they had fashioned crude sledges from scavenged branches, but this only shifted the burden. Now, every few hundred meters, a sledge would catch on a root or sink into a patch of soft snow, and the entire pathetic convoy would grind to a halt. Pavel, his face a grim mask of exhaustion, would put his immense shoulder into the task, his muscles straining as he helped the horses drag their treasure free. Murat's hands, unaccustomed to such raw, physical labor, were raw and bleeding from hauling on the guide ropes.
Their progress was a crawl, a snail's pace measured in versts per day, not per hour. The audacious vision of sweeping into Vologda like conquering heroes had been replaced by this grim, slogging reality. The rifles, which had promised them a future, now felt like an anchor, dragging them down into a shallow, unmarked grave somewhere in this endless, indifferent forest. The atmosphere in the small group was thick with a quiet, unspoken desperation. The plan had to work. There was no other way.
On the second day of their grueling march north, they heard it. At first, it was a faint, rhythmic sound, almost lost in the sigh of the wind. A steady, percussive thwack… thwack… thwack… It was the sound of axes biting into wood. Then, another sound joined it, a high-pitched, mechanical whine that rose and fell in a steady cadence. A steam-powered saw. It was the sound of industry, of a world functioning with a purpose and power utterly alien to their own desperate struggle. It was the sound of the logging camp.
They had found it.
Koba called a halt. A new energy, sharp and focused, cut through his physical exhaustion. "Ivan," he commanded, "you stay here. Find a deep ravine, get the horses and the crates completely out of sight. You are the rearguard. If you hear shooting, you do not engage. You take one horse, you ride west, and you do not stop. Is that clear?"
The big Chechen gave a curt, solemn nod. He understood. His job was to preserve the asset if the mission failed.
Koba, Pavel, and Murat shed their heaviest gear and moved forward, their exhaustion replaced by the coiled, predatory tension of the hunt. They moved like wraiths through the final kilometer of forest, the sounds of the camp growing louder, a symphony of labor and machinery.
They found a perfect vantage point on a high, wooded ridge that overlooked the entire operation. From their concealed position, they could see everything. It was not just a few log cabins. It was a small, self-contained industrial town, a raw wound of progress carved out of the heart of the ancient wilderness.
A long, low bunkhouse, stained dark with soot and creosote, had a plume of gray smoke rising from a crooked chimney. A separate, larger cookhouse was already bustling with activity, the promise of the evening meal. A small, neat foreman's office stood apart from the other buildings, a clear sign of authority. Further on, a stable, larger and better constructed than any building they had seen since leaving St. Petersburg, stood next to the glowing heart of the camp: a blacksmith's forge, where the rhythmic clang of a hammer on an anvil rang out.
And at the center of it all, the reason for their entire desperate journey, was the railway. A narrow-gauge spur line branched off from the main track, terminating at a long siding. A small, sooty shunting engine, an 0-4-0 tank engine, sat cold and silent, like a sleeping iron beast. Beside it, a row of empty flatcars waited patiently for their cargo of timber.
Pavel and Murat saw a collection of buildings, a score of potential threats, a difficult problem. Koba saw a system. He settled in, pulling out Morozov's binoculars, and began to deconstruct the camp, piece by logical piece. Jake's 21st-century knowledge of systems and logistics provided the framework for Koba's ruthless tactical analysis.
He focused on the bunkhouse. Fifty, maybe sixty men, he calculated, based on its size. He watched as a group of exhausted loggers, covered in sawdust, trudged out of the woods and a fresh crew headed in. Shift work, Koba noted. They maintain operations around the clock. Good. That means fewer men in the bunkhouse at any given time.
His binoculars moved to the cookhouse. This was the social hub, the camp's heart. Maximum concentration of personnel during meal times. Maximum distraction. He noted the sun's position. The evening meal would be in two hours.
He scanned over to the foreman's office. It was a simple structure, but one detail snagged his attention. A single, thin black wire, gleaming in the weak sunlight, was strung from a crude pole on its roof and disappeared into the forest, heading south.
[Jake]: That's not a power line. It's too thin. It's a telegraph wire. That's their only link to the outside world. Their nervous system.
[Koba]: Vector of communication identified. Primary target for isolation.
Finally, he spent a long time studying the railway siding, the engine, the flatcars. The shunting engine was a simple, robust machine. An external water tank, a bunker full of coal. He could see the large, simple brake lever on the side of the nearest flatcar.
[Jake]: It's an old Class D locomotive. Low water capacity, very short range. But it's a workhorse, designed for power, not speed. The brakes on those flatcars are manual. A simple hand-lever system. It's all designed to be operated by one or two men with minimal training.
[Koba]: Extraction vehicle analysis complete. Low complexity. High probability of operational success.
As darkness began to fall, they slipped back through the woods to their rendezvous point with Ivan. Koba gathered the three men, who looked at him with a mixture of exhaustion and profound expectation. He did not ask for opinions or suggestions. He issued a series of precise, interlocking orders, conducting the coming chaos like a symphony.
"We move in one hour," he began, his voice low and intense. "Phase one: Isolate. Murat, Ivan. You two will handle the foreman's office. Your first and only objective is the telegraph. Murat, you will climb the pole and cut the line outside. Then, you will neutralize the operator inside. No killing," he added, his eyes locking onto Murat's. "We are thieves tonight, not murderers. A dead telegraph operator brings a full-scale Okhrana investigation. A tied-up one brings the local constabulary, and they are fat and slow."
"Phase two: Distract." He turned to Pavel. "While they are doing that, you and I will move to the woodpiles at the far eastern end of the camp. We saw them earlier—the seasoned timber set for the drying kilns. We will start a fire. A large one. Spectacular. In a place like this, a major fire is not just a problem; it is an existential threat. The foreman will send every available man to fight it. Their attention will be absolute."
"Phase three: Acquire." His gaze swept over all of them. "In the chaos of the fire, we move on the stables. We will need their four strongest draft horses—the big Percherons we saw—and two of their largest timber sledges. We load our crates onto those sledges. The real ones this time."
"Phase four: Extract." This was the final, audacious step. "We take the loaded sledges directly to the railway siding. We transfer the crates from the sledges to a flatcar. I will get the engine moving enough to give us a push onto the main line. Once we're on the main track, it's on a slight downward grade. Gravity and momentum will do the rest for the first few versts, carrying us away silently."
The men were silent, their faces illuminated by the single, hooded lantern, their expressions a mixture of raw terror and breathless awe at the sheer, clockwork audacity of the plan. It was impossibly complex, yet every piece fit together with flawless, deadly logic.
Koba's eyes found Pavel's. He singled him out for the most critical, unpredictable role. "Pavel," he said, his voice dropping even lower, becoming a sharp, pointed instrument. "When the fire starts, the foreman will be the biggest obstacle. He is the camp's brain. He will be the one giving orders, trying to maintain control and organize the men. Your job is to find him and create a secondary problem for him to solve. A fistfight, a brawl over a dropped bucket, an argument—anything you can think of to keep his eyes and his mind away from the stables and the railway siding for the few minutes we will need. You are our other diversion. You are the chaos within the chaos. Do you understand?"
Pavel looked past Koba, his gaze fixed on the distant, faint glow of the logging camp—another community of simple, working men whose lives they were about to shatter in the service of their own mission. He thought of the farm, the terrible price of their survival. This was different, Koba had said. Thieves, not murderers. He gave a slow, grim, deliberate nod.
Koba surveyed his team. His soldiers. Their exhaustion was still there, but it was now overlaid with a sharp, high-strung energy. He had given them a path through the impossible.
"We move in one hour," he said, his voice the quiet promise of the coming storm. "Tonight, we don't just steal from this world." He looked towards the distant railway, the steel track that would carry them south, towards Kato, towards the future. "We steal the world itself."