The Saga of Tanya the Merciless

Measure worth in living hands, 

As efficiency makes its demands. 

Each breath taken, each task done, 

Feeds the whole until we've won.

Tanya frowned at her binoculars, adjusting them with careful precision. The numbers weren't matching her projections. Her soldiers fought with mechanical perfection, yet something in their performance troubled her mathematical sensibilities.

"Processing efficiency shows a concerning trend," she murmured, comparing combat data to her resource management figures. Her soldiers were winning, their shots precise, their movements perfect. But they were winning inefficiently.

Count the cost in measured time, 

As we make their purpose rhyme. 

Every worker serves the flow, 

Until the final balance shows.

She reviewed her workforce calculations. A living soldier could process twelve corpses per hour. A dead soldier equates to approximately 500 grams of phosphate. The mathematics were clear - even a wounded soldier who could only process four corpses per hour provided vastly superior efficiency returns.

"Oh," she said softly, genuine concern in her voice. "They're calculating wrong."

Her soldiers had become too eager to trade their lives for tactical gains. They'd internalized the value of efficiency so completely that they were treating themselves as expendable resources. But their math was fundamentally flawed.

Watch them learn their measured worth, 

As they tend our conquered earth. 

Perfect patterns yet to see, 

In pursuit of efficiency.

"They've inverted the processing ratios," she realized with professional disappointment. The men were sacrificing themselves for minimal tactical advantages, failing to calculate their own worth as processors. A single soldier throwing their life away meant hundreds of corpses would be processed more slowly.

She watched as a machine gun team prepared for a last stand. Their positioning was perfect for maximum enemy casualties, but they had failed to account for their own value as living processors in her system.

"Unacceptable resource mismanagement," she noted, already drafting new training protocols. She grabbed her radio.

Guide them to their greater use, 

Let no value go refuse. 

Living hands must serve their role, 

In this vast efficient whole.

"Fall back to secondary positions," she ordered, warmth and steel in her voice. "Your processing value exceeds your combat value by a factor of twelve. Survival is maximum efficiency."

She began calculating the compounded benefits. Every soldier preserved could process around a hundred more enemy dead. Every position surrendered could be retaken later with minimal losses, their defenders captured and put to work in her system rather than wasted as mere phosphate.

"Remember your mathematics," she told them as they executed a precise withdrawal. "A living processor is worth a hundred dead heroes. Maintain yourselves as the valuable resources you are."

*Count their worth in steady hands, 

As each worker understands. 

Every life preserved with care, 

Serves efficiency's prayer.*

The Americans advanced into empty positions, finding nothing but precisely measured killing grounds. Tanya's soldiers fell back in perfect order, preserving their processing potential for future use.

She started a new column in her ledger, humming contentedly as she calculated the enhanced efficiency of her preserved workforce. They would retake these positions later, after the Americans had helpfully provided more resources to process.

"Much better," she mused, watching her men arrange themselves in optimal survival formations. "They're finally understanding their true worth to the system."

She made a final note: "Workforce preservation protocols achieving optimal efficiency. Combat losses minimized, processing potential maximized. System maintaining peak performance through correct resource valuation."

Below, her soldiers continued their calculated withdrawal, each man finally understanding that their greatest service came through sustained efficiency rather than glorious sacrifice. The mathematics of necessity, it seemed, favored the patient processor over the eager martyr.