The pre-dawn air was thick with moisture.
Outside the window, the sun had yet to break the horizon, yet the lights within the annex of the UTSSR People's Commissariat Central Government Building were already fully ablaze.
In every corridor, electric lamps flickered with a sterile, white light.
Ashtrays stood in ranks along the hallway leading to the conference chamber, overflowing with ash. The officials slumped over their folders exuded a stagnant scent of stale coffee and tobacco smoke.
Their faces bore the gaunt, hollow expression of those who had forgotten the meaning of sleep for days on end.
I walked past these numerous offices in silence.
Finally, I stopped before a single door.
The conference room.
I pushed the door open gently. If I allowed myself to rely on a secretary for even such trivial tasks, it would only breed sloth.
With a low creak, light spilled from the room. Inside, the collective was already assembled.
Faces I saw daily, and others I rarely encountered.
Wrangel was there. So too were Ivanov, the People's Commissar of Defense; the Vice-Commissar of Planning; James, the People's Commissar of Finance; the representative of the Audit Group; and Feliksa.
I was the last to enter.
After surveying their faces one by one, I closed the door behind me.
The sound of the door latching shut echoed with the sharp, metallic resonance of a guillotine blade.
The eyes of everyone in the room converged on me simultaneously.
To a man, they rose.
"Comrades, be seated."
The screech of chairs dragging against the floor filled the room. To my ears, the sound was uncharacteristically loud today, piercing through me with a needless, grating edge.
Wrangel caught my eye briefly before crossing his arms and leaning back into his chair. That specific, deep-seated fatigue he carried whenever tension peaked was etched into the lines of his face. He likely sensed that this gathering was far from a standard administrative briefing.
Ivanov, the People's Commissar of Defense, sat with a heavy overcoat draped over his military tunic. His tie was crooked, his chin shadowed by a coarse, unshaven beard. His eyes were shot through with angry red veins. It was the look of a man dragged from his bed by an emergency summons in the dead of night—or perhaps one who hadn't seen a bed at all.
The Vice-Commissar of Planning clutched a stack of documents and three pens. His lips were trembling, tinged with a sickly blue. He looked like a man who instinctively realized that a single misplaced decimal point today might cost him his head.
Feliksa sat with her legs crossed. A single button on her uniform jacket was undone, and she had tossed her gloves onto the table. While she too suffered from heavy dark circles, her eyes remained remarkably keen. She was awake. She was observing. She was more lucid than any other person in the room. I found that somewhat reassuring.
And then there was the People's Commissar of Finance, James.
His hands would not stop shaking. His cigarette had burned more than halfway down, but he hadn't thought to flick it, leaving a heavy column of ash to collapse onto the floor. He had brought two folders, but both were crumpled at the edges—the physical manifestation of a man gripping, flattening, folding, and unfolding them in a frantic cycle. To put it bluntly... he looked as though he were facing his own execution.
"Very well," Wrangel began.
"I declare this emergency budget session open. The agenda is singular: Can we secure the wartime contingency budget following the Yorkshire Incident? Is it possible, or is it impossible? We are here only to confirm that fact."
At my nod, Wrangel made a curt gesture.
"Comrade Commissar of Finance. Present your report."
James rose slowly, swaying on his feet.
"Yes... Yes, I will... I will report."
He cleared his throat first, then lifted a sheet of paper. It vibrated violently in his grasp.
"The Comprehensive Report on Union Economic Indicators, based on the latter half of the Second Five-Year Plan. I shall present this first."
He recited the opening lines by rote, as if the propaganda was programmed into his marrow.
"Our Union is currently stable."
The air in the room shifted, if only slightly.
"Over the past three years, the Second Five-Year Plan has achieved an average annual growth rate of 12%. Steel production has increased sixfold, Originium mining has doubled, and coal and oil production have tripled. Power generation has seen a 90% increase. Four nomadic city platforms have completed construction, with one more awaiting approval for its keel-laying. Industrial infrastructure expansion is at 136% of our projected targets."
He did not stop, yet his voice grew increasingly brittle.
"These results indicate that the Union's economy has decisively entered the stage of heavy industrialization. It suggests that a transition to a wartime mobilization footing is economically sustainable. That is to say, even under the current budget framework, military expansion—yes, an expansion within reasonable bounds—is fiscally... manageable."
The final word withered into a faint, wretched mumble.
Silence followed.
No one applauded. No one nodded. The only sound was the clock on the wall, marking time with bureaucratic indifference.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Wrangel asked, his voice deceptively smooth, "I must ask for clarification, Comrade. What specifically do you mean by 'reasonable bounds'? Am I to understand that we may double the defense budget immediately?"
James's lips quivered. He closed his eyes once, then opened them.
"Yes... even that, yes. Based on these figures... yes. It is possible."
Silence returned. But there was one man who would not let it persist.
"It is not."
From the back of the room, a man stood up. It was the representative of the Special Audit Group.
He did not bow his head, nor did he hesitate. He spoke with the clarity of a public proclamation.
"Doubling the defense budget now? Preposterous. It is impossible. If we enter a state of war, our finances won't survive a single month."
James's head snapped toward him, a spasmodic jerk.
"You... on what grounds do you say such—"
"The ledgers."
The Audit representative held up a thick sheaf of papers. The sheer weight of the stack was palpable. He slammed them onto the center of the table so we could all see. The sound alone changed the temperature of the room.
"This," he said, pointing to the left pile, "is the official ledger submitted by the People's Commissariat of Finance to the Supreme Soviet Economic Committee."
He then tapped the right pile.
"And this is the Central Bank's actual expenditure record. The money actually printed, the subsidies actually distributed, the rations actually issued, the grain reserves actually procured, the ammunition actually released. I have compiled this based purely on 'records.'"
He took a deep breath.
"The numbers in these two ledgers are entirely different."
I stroked my chin thoughtfully. Was the Audit Group suggesting the books had been falsified?
"How different?" I asked.
The Audit representative replied, "Items reported as being in surplus are, in reality, in deficit. Grain reserves reported as ample are, in truth, down to three weeks' supply. What was recorded as a cumulative increase in net assets is actually the Finance Commissariat borrowing Rubles printed by the Central Bank under the guise of national bonds. This is not fiscal health. This is simply burning money to maintain a facade."
The Vice-Commissar of Planning gasped. James's face turned ashen. His hand groped blindly across the table.
"...That, that was merely a measure to secure short-term liquidity," he stammered. "It was meant to... to plug a gap temporarily! Just to buy a little time...! If we only maintain stable industrial growth, the production tax revenue would—"
The Audit representative cut him off mercilessly. "There is no tax revenue."
James fell silent.
The representative continued, his words like a bite. "The increase in revenue is not an increase in physical production. The figures reported as 'Total Production' include military matériel. The steel used to manufacture rifles is being double-counted as 'civilian intermediate goods.' Ammunition production is being categorized as 'industrial growth.' A portion of the increase in power generation allocated to nomadic city construction was simply relabeled as 'civilian power infrastructure growth.'"
The room began to simmer. This wasn't merely a case of being short on funds.
The Audit representative tapped the ledger. "This is accounting fraud, Comrade Commissar of Finance. Are you telling us that our daily boasts—that this Revolution is the most efficient system in history, that we do not waste the people's blood—were all thanks to this window dressing?"
James's ears turned a vivid, angry red.
"I—that—I was trying to save the nation! We are on the brink of war! I had to prevent a panic! If I had officially announced that the treasury was empty, what do you think would have happened to the markets? The price of wheat would have tripled instantly, coal would have been hoarded, and the distribution centers would have been looted! Would that be patriotism? Would that be responsibility?!"
His voice cracked into a near-shriek.
"I was only trying to buy time!"
So... that was it. This son of a bitch had falsified the books. And at the most critical transition point? On the eve of war?
I felt the heat rising in my own face, but before I could react, Wrangel gripped my arm. He was restraining me.
He looked at James, a slight curl to his lip. It was a smile too dry to be positive and too weary to be mocking.
"You bought time?"
"I did! If we just hold on a bit longer, things will improve! If the growth of the Second Plan is maintained, if power supplies are secured, if heavy industrial production stabilizes—"
The Audit representative slammed his palm onto the desk.
"It won't!"
—SLAM!
That single explosion of sound drew every eye to him. His voice was low and hard, like a blade speaking in place of his mouth.
"Comrade Chairman." He looked me straight in the eye. "Given our current fiscal state, if we mobilize our forces, we will be unable to feed our soldiers by next month."
In the room, breaths were held. For that moment, the air in the conference room seemed to freeze. Even the ticking of the wall clock went unheard.
I spoke softly. "...Repeat that. More clearly."
To say it was to cross an irrevocable line. I knew this, yet I asked.
The Audit representative didn't miss a beat. He repeated it, hammering every word home. "Our military food reserves are currently at approximately three weeks. That is based on the standing strength of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants currently under mobilization, whether on the front or in the rear. From the fourth week, there is nothing. Nothing. We cannot print more. There is no grain left to skim from civilian rations."
He inhaled sharply, closed his eyes, then reopened them. "Comrade Chairman, if we issue anything resembling a 'General Mobilization Order' in this state, by the fourth week, the army will have to loot civilian emergency grain stores in the cities. There is no more food that can be provided through official supply chains."
Ivanov, the Commissar of Defense, shouted almost instinctively, "Don't talk such nonsense! The military would never do such a thing! We are the People's Army!"
The Audit representative turned to him, his face no longer masking its disdain. "Even the People's Army, once they start starving, will have no choice but to raid the people's granaries. Thousands of years of history have proven it so. The numbers don't lie. Some of the sub-battalions we investigated are already secretly dipping into local garrison reserves. This is not a hypothesis; it is an active reality."
Ivanov's lips trembled. He found no words to retort.
Wrangel clasped his hands and rested his chin upon them. His eyes were hauntingly calm. "Then..." he said in a low tone, "it means our 'Wartime Mobilization Plan' was not a plan for waging war, but a three-day theater performance. Not a march on the enemy capital, but a series of poses struck before journalists to say 'we are ready.'"
No one could refute him. No one could say "No." And that meant everyone already knew. Even I. I simply hadn't had the opportunity to speak it aloud.
James wiped his brow with a trembling hand, sweat glistening on his knuckles. "I... I didn't intend to betray the Revolution... I just... we couldn't give the citizens cause for fear. If word spread that 'the Union is collapsing,' our base of support would vanish. The markets would descend into madness... If Gaul pushed in at that moment? We'd be slaughtered before we could even deploy a defensive line. That could not happen. It could never happen. So... so I refined the reports a little... I gathered the numbers into a more favorable light. Is... is that truly such a grave crime?"
In a corner of the room, the sound of a chair leg scraping against the floor was barely audible. Feliksa had moved. She had sat through the entire session without a word, like a court stenographer—or a person waiting to see only how I would react.
She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward slightly. Her uniform rustled with a slow, smooth sound. Her eyes were devoid of any trace of a smile.
"It is a very grave crime." Her voice was low. Based on tone alone, one might mistake it for kindness. "You see, Comrade Commissar of Finance..."
She placed a thin envelope she had brought on the table.
Tap.
The envelope wasn't thick. Just a few sheets of paper. But every eye was transfixed by it.
"This wasn't just accounting fraud born of simple patriotic fervor, was it?"
James's shoulders flinched.
Feliksa continued softly. "Our investigation has shown that certain individuals within the People's Commissariat of Finance planned to keep this false reporting going indefinitely under the guise of 'maintaining political stability'... and the Commissariat of Planning has been aware of this fact for at least seven months. Isn't that right, Comrade Vice-Commissar?"
The pen fell from the Vice-Commissar of Planning's hand. It rolled across the floor and stopped. He couldn't speak. His mouth hung open, then shut, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Feliksa noted his reaction and proceeded at the same measured pace. "That isn't all. This morning, immediately following the containment of the Yorkshire Incident, a certain employee of the Finance Commissariat attempted to leak this matter to the outside via telegraph. A summary of the 'true numbers' in these ledgers, accompanied by a footnote stating, 'We are already on the verge of atmospheric disintegration.' The recipient... was Gaul. There seem to be quite a few brave souls among us, don't there?"
Someone in the room audibly swallowed—a sharp, ragged sound caught in the throat.
Ivanov whispered, "...Was the traitor liquidated?"
Feliksa's expression remained unchanged. "Already arrested. Confession secured. It was sheer luck that our timing coincided with their operation; it was intercepted before it could be sent. The telegram never left."
At those words, the room seemed to exhale collectively.
I pressed a hand to my forehead. A profound, bone-deep weariness surged from the back of my skull. And with it, a sense of betrayal.
I opened my mouth very slowly. "Let us summarize."
All eyes returned to me. This was the prelude to an order. Everyone held their breath.
"First. The current ledgers are falsified. Second. Our actual finances are in a deficit that is far from healthy. Third. The military has only three weeks of food. Fourth. If we issue a mobilization order, by the fourth week, we will become an army of looters. Fifth. There have been movements to sell this situation to our enemies."
I tilted my head ever so slightly.
"Sixth." Everyone waited. "Despite all this, we must prepare for war."
The air in the room shuddered. I tapped the table twice with my finger.
Tap. Tap.
"We must fight Gaul. That is unchangeable. Because of the Yorkshire Incident, conflict with them is inevitable. Whether it is today, tomorrow, next month, or even next year. But does that mean we can raise a great host and cross the border right now? No. We cannot. That is bluster. And we cannot feed an army on bluster."
Ivanov gritted his teeth and bowed his head. To a hawk like him, those words must have felt like an insult. But he swallowed the insult. He understood the situation too well to argue.
"Therefore, there is only one thing to be done immediately."
I looked at James. He looked back at me at that exact moment. His face was entirely stripped of its mask. It was the look a human only wears in their final moments.
"As Chairman of the People's Committee, I hereby relieve Comrade James of his duties as People's Commissar of Finance immediately."
Silence followed. He opened his mouth, his voice a pathetic tremor.
"Ch-Chairman... Comrade... I am no traitor. I was trying to protect the country! I was trying to prevent a panic! I... I...!"
"Detain him."
A death sentence in civil service is never a grand affair. Two guards stationed by the door approached. James clung to his chair, shaking, until he was dragged away without ever having stood up on his own. The sound of his shoes scraping the floorboards lingered for a long time in the hall. The door closed.
The room became as silent as a tomb.
I immediately moved to the next proclamation. "All budget execution authority within the People's Commissariat of Finance is frozen effective immediately."
The Vice-Commissar of Planning flinched. I turned my gaze toward him.
"We will establish a 'Temporary Financial Control Committee' today. This committee will report directly to the Supreme Soviet. And, Comrade representative of the Audit Group."
The Audit representative stood straighter by reflex. Though his eyes were hollow with fatigue, at that moment, he stood with the rigidity of a soldier. "What is your name?"
"Frank... Lanster, Comrade Chairman."
"Then I hereby appoint Frank Lanster as the Chairman of the Temporary Financial Control Committee, effective immediately."
As of today, the People's Commissariat of Finance became a hollow shell until the moment of its future restoration. "No budget approval documents will be valid without your seal. If any cadres in the Finance Commissariat disobey your orders, the OGPU will place them in temporary detention. Feliksa, do you understand?"
Feliksa nodded smoothly. "Yes. I shall comply."
After hearing her response, I continued. "Second. People's Commissariat of Defense. Cease all preparations for mobilization for the time being."
Ivanov opened his mouth automatically. "Comrade Chairman, that—"
"Cease them," I repeated. "By ceasing, I do not mean discarding your current operational plans or demobilizing the standing forces you have already called up. Keep the troops you have. But recruit no more. Do not drag any more men from their homes. Continue training, but do not move them. Do you understand?"
Ivanov's lips twitched, but he finally bowed his head. "Understood."
Well, he listened. That was enough. "Third. Food." I turned back to the Audit representative. "You said three weeks."
"Yes."
"Good. Expand the grain storage. Since we are in the grain belt, the food problem will be resolved once agricultural development reaches a certain level of progress. And it would be wise to increase the requisition rates from the collective farms. For now, focus solely on procurement."
The Vice-Commissar of Planning wrote this down with a shaking hand. Each time his nib bit into the paper, it made a sound as if it were about to tear. "To... to increase the requisition rates for collective farms... would require a vote by the Supreme Soviet..."
To which Wrangel murmured, "We have that handled." It was a declaration of support from the Social Revolutionary Workers' League. A short, puffing breath like a chuckle escaped from somewhere in the room.
I spoke again. "Fourth. Any attempt to leak these economic matters to the outside will be treated as collusion with Gaul." I tapped my finger on the table, the wood grain rough against my skin. "This is not a simple budgetary issue. This is a crime by those who would undermine the nation's foundation during a time of total war preparation. Feliksa."
"Yes."
"Since we must rebuild the organization, investigate the corrupt and the incompetent."
Feliksa allowed a subtle curl to the corner of her lips. "That is the field in which I excel most."
Wrangel looked at me. His eyes held a simultaneous flash of momentary relief and deep exhaustion. Having worked together for so long, we could read each other perfectly. He asked quietly, "...And so. What will we do next?"
Everyone in the room looked at me again. I raised my head slowly, meeting each of their gazes in turn. Defense. Planning. Audit. OGPU. And the vacant seat of Finance. With only the people in this room, the Union had to continue spinning. No one would do it for us anymore.
"From now on," I said, "we are abandoning all illusions."
No one spoke. Not a single soul was foolish enough to take it as a joke. "As of today, no one is to utter words like 'abundance' or 'strongest' in this chamber. The phrase 'we have already won' is banned. And never bring that nonsense about 'Gaul being a rotten tree that will fall if we but kick it' before me again. If you speak those words, I will tear the mouth from your face."
Ivanov bowed his head slightly. Having been the superior of the man who said exactly that, he knew precisely what I meant.
No one in the room applauded. Instead, everyone nodded. One by one, in silence. Some gritted their teeth. Some wiped away cold sweat. Some swallowed the relief of being alive and the terror of what it meant to survive simultaneously.
"This meeting is adjourned."
I spoke, and the door opened. Outside in the corridor, the smell of dawn had not yet faded. The scent of damp dust, tobacco burned through the night, cold coffee, and the musty dampness of woolen coats. Everyone left with heavy steps. Feliksa remained in the room until the very last moment, casting a cautious glance my way.
"Comrade Chairman."
"What is it?"
"From this moment on, may I truly begin the cleansing?" She wasn't smiling. She was simply confirming.
I replied, "You must. The gangrenous flesh has to be carved away."
Feliksa bowed. "Understood. For the Union, I shall proceed as commanded." She left the room. The door clicked shut.
I was left alone. And then, for just one moment, I closed my eyes. Blood trickled from my nose. "Hah..." I must have been very tired.
========================
The website for reading paid chapters is available on my Patreon. The number of chapters on Patreon: 107
Link: patreon.com/UltraMagnus_T