The Saga of Tanya the Merciless

The morning briefing took place in a concrete bunker three kilometers behind the front. Tanya stood before her remaining officers, her voice mechanical as she leafed through the night's dispatches. Field reports written in shaking hands, observation logs from forward positions, hastily scrawled messages from units under siege. The familiar military paperwork felt alien now, stripped of the poetry that had once given it meaning.

"Implementation of Emergency Protocol Seven has proven ineffective," she stated, studying their faces in the lamplight for any sign of the madness. "Attempts to isolate affected units have only accelerated the spread."

A runner arrived, boots muddy, face pale beneath his helmet. More dispatches. More horror documented in precise military shorthand. Through field glasses, the forward observers had watched her veterans systematically clearing trenches with textbook precision. Each death logged with mechanical efficiency in neat columns of figures.

"Latest observations from Hill 237," her intelligence officer noted, uniform still immaculate despite days without rest. His hand moved across the map with measured strokes, marking positions where entire companies had turned on themselves. "They're using our own signal codes now. Coordinating their sweeps across multiple sectors."

The maps told the story she couldn't bear to face. Her veterans weren't just killing randomly - they were executing perfect search patterns through the trenches. Field telephone reports captured fragments of their methodical advance: precise commands, ammunition counts, casualty figures. All delivered in calm, professional voices that showed no trace of human emotion.

"Interesting tactical evolution in Section 12," someone noted, updating the situation board with careful precision. "They've adapted our own crowd control formations. When ammunition runs low, they're using bayonets in coordinated waves. Maximum efficiency with minimal expenditure."

The rescue attempts had only fed the madness. Each unit sent to contain the situation either joined the spreading horror or was systematically eliminated. Through field glasses, her observers watched entire platoons turn on themselves with mechanical precision, maintaining perfect drill formations even as they tore each other apart.

Telegraph wires brought reports of the horror spreading beyond her sector. Other units adopting her veterans' methods, turning their own trenches into abattoirs of perfect efficiency. The system was replicating itself through military discipline turned cancerous.

"Most fascinating behavioral pattern," her staff surgeon remarked, reviewing medical dispatches from the few aid stations still reporting. "Even with mortal wounds, they maintain absolute tactical discipline. Bodies found in perfect formation, as if they continued to follow protocols until the moment of death."

Tanya stared at the growing pile of reports, her throat too tight for poetry now. The familiar rhythms that had once brought her comfort seemed like blasphemy. Through field telephone came the sounds of her veterans advancing - boots moving in perfect synchronization, orders given in flat, mechanical voices that held no trace of humanity.

Artillery fire walked across the sector - her own guns, firing on her own positions in desperate attempts to contain the spread. Forward observers reported through signal flags: even under bombardment, her veterans maintained formation. They used the shell bursts for cover, timing their advances between salvos with inhuman precision.

"Most efficient use of combat conditions," her psychological warfare expert noted, his pen moving in crisp, measured strokes across the analysis papers. "The artillery actually improves their coordination. They're achieving optimization rates that shouldn't be humanly possible."

The end came with textbook efficiency. During the midnight briefing, illuminated by flickering oil lamps, she watched her command staff transform. It spread through the room with mechanical precision, officers turning on each other while maintaining perfect military bearing. Even as they systematically "optimized" their own command structure, they continued updating their reports with meticulous care.

Tanya's last order was sent by field telephone - seal the bunker. Perhaps some record of what happened here could be preserved. Some warning about the price of pushing human efficiency too far.

But in the end, even that gesture was optimized away. Her veterans breached the bunker using textbook assault protocols, their bootfalls echoing in perfect rhythm through the concrete corridors. They came for her with mechanical precision, eyes empty of everything except absolute purpose.

The last thing she saw was the beautiful efficiency of their formation as they advanced through her office door, bayonets fixed and gleaming in the lamplight. Her perfect soldiers, come to optimize their creator.