The world before dawn was colorless and still. A gray mist hung low over the Galician plains, thick enough to blur the horizon and muffle sound. The air was damp and heavy with the smell of earth, coal smoke, and nervous sweat.
In the forward trench, Koba's ten-man team stood apart — an island of tense focus amid the relaxed chatter of the German troops nearby. Their mismatched Russian coats and scavenged gear marked them as outsiders. Pavel stood beside Koba, motionless, his expression carved from stone. Whatever passed between them the night before had settled into a brittle silence.
A young German lieutenant strolled over, mug of thin coffee in hand. His name was von Preuss, and everything about him — his polished boots, his tidy mustache, the lazy smirk on his face — spoke of inherited confidence.
"Your men look uneasy, Herr Schmidt," he said lightly. "Tell them to breathe. The Russian guns are asleep. We've still an hour before the real show begins."
Koba didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on his watch. The second hand crept forward, marking time not toward the bombardment, but toward an inevitable, unrecorded moment of chance that history would never note — but he knew it was coming.
"Thirty minutes," he said quietly. Then, to Pavel: "In five, get them down. Helmets on. Keep low."
Von Preuss gave a short, dismissive laugh. "You worry too much. This sector is quiet. You'll spook my men."
Koba turned his head, his expression unreadable. "Tell them to take cover," he said. His voice was calm, but the certainty in it carried more weight than any order.
The lieutenant hesitated, uneasy despite himself. Then arrogance won out. "As you like," he said, lifting his mug in mock salute. "We'll be in the command dugout. Don't start your revolution without us."
He rejoined his men, who greeted him with easy laughter.
Koba waited four minutes. Then he nodded once. "Do it."
Pavel moved through the trench, barking orders in Russian. The team huddled low in the mud near the comms line. The Germans watched with amused curiosity. One of them made a whistling sound — the childish imitation of a falling shell — and the others laughed.
Then the real whistle came.
It began as a faint, rising note, slicing through the fog. The sound grew into a scream that filled the sky — one blind Russian shell, fired by chance, its path dictated by luck alone.
It landed squarely on the roof of the command dugout.
The explosion tore the earth apart. A wave of air and dirt slammed through the trench, throwing men to their knees. When the shock passed, only a smoking crater remained where the lieutenant and his staff had stood.
Silence followed. The surviving Germans stared at the crater, then at Koba, who was calmly brushing mud from his sleeve and checking his watch. In five seconds, the stranger in their midst had become something else — a man who could see death before it fell. Their eyes filled with a new kind of fear.
At exactly 06:00, the world split open.
A low roar swelled from behind them, growing until it became a wall of sound that swallowed everything. A thousand guns — German and Austrian — unleashed their fury at once. The ground convulsed. The air turned solid.
Koba's voice cut through the thunder. "Stay calm!" he shouted. "That crack-boom is the 150s — wire cutters! The ripping sound is 210 millimeters — front trench! They're not for us! Listen for the silk!"
His men clung to the mud, shaking, barely hearing him. But the steadiness in his voice anchored them.
Minutes later, a new sound joined the storm — a high, tearing shriek, like fabric being ripped apart.
"That's it!" Koba roared. "Skoda 305s! Heavy siege guns! If one lands close, open your mouth! It will save your lungs!"
A young German nearby had frozen, his eyes wild, hands trembling around his rifle. "Pavel!" Koba snapped. "Shell shock! Take his weapon before he shoots someone." Pavel moved quickly, disarming the man and pushing him down. The diagnosis was clinical; the solution, brutal.
For four hours, the earth shook without pause. Then, at 09:50, it stopped. The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
Some of the German NCOs lifted their heads. "It's over!" one shouted. "Prepare to advance!"
"Stay down!" Koba barked, grabbing a sergeant by the tunic. "It's not over. They're adjusting fire. The barrage will creep forward. Stay down!"
The sergeant hesitated, then bellowed the order. A minute later, the bombardment returned — but this time, it moved. The explosions rolled ahead in a perfect, measured line, devouring what remained of the Russian trenches.
When the final whistle came, the assault began.
They didn't charge. They simply walked forward through a world unmade — a wasteland of smoke and shattered men. The morning light revealed nothing human: only twisted wire, burned trees, and the broken remnants of an army.
Koba's team moved first, leaping from crater to crater with cold precision. Pavel led one half, Koba the other. The Russians they encountered were ghosts — dead, dazed, or too lost to fight.
Koba felt nothing. The man who had planned this — Jake — was buried deep inside, silent. What filled the space was calculation. Every prediction had come true. Every pattern of death had unfolded as he knew it would. His knowledge had spared his team, even as it doomed thousands.
They advanced through the ruins like shades, untouched by pity, walking across the grave of an empire he had helped destroy.
And above it all, the guns kept muttering in the distance, the sound of a god he had taught where to strike.