Back to the Battle of Shaho

"What do you mean, we're going to the future?" said Sergeant Nadjiuk.

"I know," said Captain Victor Ivanov. "It sounds crazy."

"Crazy?" continued Nadjiuk. "When did it get crazy to say that we're going to the future? We have time machines in the army? This is an actual time machine? I don't remember signing up for this shit." He shook his head and lit a cigarette, looking around the inside of the metal bucket that had transported them to this... place? Time? World? "What about all those equipment checks? The smoke grenades and the food rations? What about our supply lines?"

"I'm not saying it's a good thing," Victor replied, "But what choice do we have? We're here, we're stuck here, and we need to get back before there's trouble on the home front." He looked around at their surroundings. They were in some sort of bunker, surrounded by crates and ammunition boxes with labels written in Japanese. There was only one entrance or exit from this place - a heavy metal door with two small windows on it, where they'd first appeared moments ago. "If you want to go out there..." he said, gesturing towards the door, "...then I won't stop you."

Nadjiuk took another drag off his cigarette, then put it out on one of the crates. "Sir, if I may... I'm not leaving you here alone," he said as he placed his helmet back on his head. "You haven't given me much choice in that either."

Victor walked over to the crates and opened one of them at random. He removed a red box with a white circle in the middle: Japanese dynamite. He tossed it aside and opened another box - bullets for a Lee-Enfield rifle. Four more boxes were opened before he found something worthwhile: Russian cigarettes and vodka bottles.

"Wait a minute," Victor said as he pulled out several of the cigarettes and handed them to Nadjiuk. "This looks like our gear - it's similar enough," he said as he reached into another crate and pulled out a bottle of vodka. "Let's take these back with us... They'll make damn good souvenirs."

Nadjiuk spat on the ground in disgust as he took some of the cigarettes from Victor and put them inside his own breast pocket. "Souvenirs!? Oh boy... how do you think we would carry these things back with us?"

Victor gave him an odd look. "How else could we take them back with us? You want these?" He pointed at all of the strange items surrounding him; some of them had writing on them that didn't make any sense to him at all.

Nadjiuk shook his head again as he walked over towards a window and peered outside through one of the ventilation slats towards their vehicle: a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle that was still sitting where they'd parked it before they'd arrived here. He sighed heavily before turning around and shaking his head at Victor once more while pointing at both himself and the vehicle behind him with his thumb, then putting his hands on top of each other in front of him like he was praying to God or something; like he was hoping that Victor would say yes to whatever question he hadn't asked yet but *he* hoped that they would be able to fix this situation somehow without needing divine intervention.