Set during the opening days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Its main cast are a group of Soviet teenagers with extraordinary abilities; the teenagers have been drafted to form a special unit to fight the invading German army. They are opposed by a Schutzstaffel officer who is attempting to raise from the dead a supernatural army of crusaders from the 12th-century Order of the Sacred Cross.

Patients of the resuscitator Mikhailov are people who tried to commit suicide. Veronika, a young journalist and sociologist, often visits the hospital where the hero works. Natasha, Mikhailov's wife, guesses that her husband is in love with another woman. She is jealous and increasingly feels her loneliness.