Chosen of the Valkyries

Chapter Twelve

Near Warsaw, Germany Prime

13 September 1985

Obergefreiter Hugo Stellmann hated to admit it, but he was bored. He’d hoped for an exciting assignment when he’d joined the Heer, yet so far the only real excitement had come from marching up and down in front of Hamburg’s Town Hall. Even the uprising hadn’t brought him any excitement, save for an assignment to the border and orders to guard one of the autobahn bridges over a river. He’d found himself checking refugees as they headed west, ordering them to wait until they could be processed and entered into the system, but it hadn’t been particularly exciting. And even the trickle of refugees had dried up, over the last four days.

He scowled as he glared eastwards. He’d never liked the SS, although – if he were being honest with himself – it had more to do with their success with women than any moral objections. There wasn’t a blonde-haired girl his own age or near it who hadn’t done her duty with one of the black-shirted men, marrying him and bearing his children while Hugo himself remained without a wife or a girlfriend. They were overrated, he felt; they had hundreds of little blessings from the government while men like Hugo, the ones who did all the work, had nothing. Surely, a wife wasn’t too much to ask.

At least the bastards won’t be chasing women over here any longer, he thought, as he peered into the darkness. The first hints of sunrise were slowly rising above the horizon. They can ravish their way through Germany East for all I care.

He lit a cigarette, shaking his head slowly. His father had died when he was very young, leaving his mother struggling to bring up four children on their father’s pension. She didn’t have the connections to organise marriages for her children, even if she’d wanted to. It was yet another reason to hate the SS. Everyone knew that SS dependents not only received bigger pensions, they were regularly introduced to prospective partners as soon as they reached marriageable age. And the SS made sure that their men were rewarded for marrying and bringing more black-shirted brats into the world.

And they blew up the economy while they were doing it, he thought. They just couldn’t pay for all their children.

He snorted to himself. It would have been funny, if he hadn’t been so sure that men like him were going to get the shaft as a result of their gross carelessness. He didn’t pretend to understand basic economics – he’d never done very well at school – but it was evident, to him, that one couldn’t spend more money than one earned. God knew the bank managers had laughed at him when he’d gone, cap in hand, for a loan. They knew better than to loan money that probably couldn’t be repaid.

The sound of engines echoed in the air. He glanced up, one hand reaching for the pistol at his belt, then relaxed as he realised they came from the west. Their relief was due early in the morning, thankfully. They’d be rotated back to the inner defence lines, where they’d probably wind up digging more trenches… it was unlikely they’d have any hope of actual leave. But who knew? Perhaps some enterprising bastard had set up a brothel near the front lines and started charging soldiers for entry. Hugo didn’t like the idea of dipping his wick in some Untermensch bitch on a work-contract, but it was better than nothing. And there was no hope of a little Hugo popping out, nine months later. The bitches in the brothels were always sterile.

He turned as the truck approached, a simple troop transport. There were literally hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of them in the Reich. Many were sold to civilians, allowing the factories to make a profit while keeping careful track of where the transports could be found, if there was a sudden demand for additional logistic support. The driver waved cheerfully to Hugo as he parked on one end of the bridge, then beckoned him forward. Hugo nodded and walked over to the cab…

…And found himself staring straight into the barrel of a gun.

“Shout and you’re dead,” a voice hissed. He looked up into a pair of merciless eyes. “Do as I tell you and you will live this day.”

Hugo swallowed, hard. He felt liquid trickling down his legs as his bladder gave way. He was dead. He was so dead. He’d been watching for trouble from the east, but it had never occurred to him that he should be wary of anyone approaching the bridge. The man covering him had to be a commando. He would shoot Hugo down without hesitation if Hugo gave him the slightest excuse. And there was nothing he could do.

The back of the lorry opened, revealing a dozen men wearing standard grey urban combat uniforms. They moved like trained professionals, their eyes scanning the bridge for signs of trouble while holding their weapons at the ready. None of them paid much attention to Hugo save for brief glances to confirm he was no threat. For once, Hugo was almost grateful. The SS would kill him in a moment if they believed otherwise.

“Call your men,” his captor ordered. “Now!”

Hugo wanted to refuse, but he knew it would be pointless. His men were already trapped within the guardhouse. Resistance would last as long as it took the commandos to roll a grenade into the tiny room… he’d been a fool, allowing them to remain in the concrete guardhouse. It would have been smarter to have an Observation Post established near the bridge.

He cleared his throat. “Out, now,” he shouted, hearing fear in his voice. Maybe one of his men would realise that something was wrong and… and do what? There was nothing they could do. “Come out…”

The commandos caught the handful of guards as they came out, searched them roughly and then bound their hands with plastic ties. Hugo’s captor did the same, grunting in distaste as he inspected Hugo’s sodden trousers, then marched Hugo over to the wall and positioned him against it. The charges affixed to the bridge, the charges Hugo was supposed to detonate if it became clear the bridge was about to be lost, were rapidly removed. He watched, helplessly, as the truck moved past them, crossed the bridge and vanished into the east.

He heard the dull rumble of engines and knew, with a sickening certainty that admitted of no doubt, just what was coming his way. Moments later, he recoiled inwardly as the first panzer came into view, a giant tank easily large enough to knock down his house without ever noticing the impact. Its main gun traversed threateningly as it hunted for targets, the smaller machine guns mounted on each side of the turret passing over the helpless captives before ignoring them. Hundreds of other tanks followed, their crews waving cheerfully at the commandoes as they headed westwards. Hugo closed his eyes in bitter pain, unable to shut out either the growing racket or the terrifying awareness that he had failed. The door was open, the SS was on the march…

…And it was all his fault.

His captor leered down at him as another lorry parked near the bridge and unloaded two platoons of heavily-armed soldiers. “I shouldn’t worry, Mein Fraulein,” he said. He patted Hugo on the shoulder, then hauled him to his feet and pushed him towards the lorry. “For you, the war is over.”

Marlene Johan kept her face expressionless as she peered into the squadron ready room, where thirty-two young men were laughing, talking or trying to get some sleep while they waited for the call to action. Four of them were already aloft, flying their ME-347s in Combat Air Patrol over the border between east and west, but the others knew they might have to grab their jackets and rush to their planes at any moment. There should have been four more men in the room, yet they were missing. Marlene had a feeling that they’d successfully managed to seduce some of her staff and talk them into the private bathrooms.

They’ll be in deep trouble if they’re caught, she thought with dark amusement, hearing the noise from one of the closed doors. And they will be caught, if they keep making that racket.

She smirked at the thought as she made her way into her office. The pilots were on duty. They weren’t supposed to be caught diddling the cleaning staff. She might even feel sorry for them, after the base’s commander finished tearing strips off their hides and threatening them with instant dismissal – and perhaps castration – if they allowed themselves to be distracted again. She would have had a word with her staff too, under other circumstances. No one really cared what the pilots did when they were off-duty – their uniforms were enough to attract any number of women from the nearby town – but when they were on-duty they were supposed to remain on-duty. If someone was shot down and killed because one of his comrades was late to his plane, they’d never hear the end of it.

Yes, they will, she thought, as she carefully removed the assault rifle from her locked cupboard and slotted the ammunition into place. None of them will survive this day.

She shook her head as she put the grenades into her pocket, wondering just why the guards hadn’t bothered to search her office. A pistol would have been hard to explain, let alone an assault rifle. But then, she’d been inside the wire – part of the furniture – long before the uprising had cast the shadow of civil war over Germany. Too old and unattractive to interest the pilots, too female to be considered dangerous… she’d kept an eye on the young men for disloyalty, even as she’d cleaned up the mess they left behind. They thought nothing of her, if they bothered to think of her at all. She’d take a certain delight in showing them the error of their ways.

If you survive the day, her own thoughts reminded her. And the odds are not in your favour.

She picked up the rifle, then opened the door and glanced outside. The noise of two bodies slamming together was growing louder, but there was no one in sight. Marlene smirked as she hurried out of the door towards the ready room, one hand taking a grenade from her belt and removing the pin. None of the pilots had bothered to think about the fact – it was hardly a secret – that she’d been born in Germany East. She might be a woman – old and ugly to them – but she’d been using weapons since she was nine. An assault rifle was nothing more than a tool to her.

Opening the door, she tossed the grenade into the room and braced herself. There was a shout – the pilots were sloppy, more used to showing off in the air than fighting for their lives – before the grenade detonated, shaking the building. Everyone would have heard the blast, including the guards. Marlene hefted the rifle and stepped into the room, her eyes scanning for pilots who had survived the blast. She put the handful of lightly-wounded survivors down with single-shots, ignoring the badly-wounded men. They’d be a drain on resources, if they were left alive…

She heard the sound of a door banging open behind her and hurried back out into the corridor. Isabel was standing there, her bare breasts bobbling as she looked from side to side in shock; behind her, one of the more odious pilots was trying to draw his pistol from his belt. Marlene shot him down without hesitation, then aimed at Isabel. The dark-haired girl crumpled to the ground, fainting in shock. Marlene was tempted to put a bullet through her head anyway – Isabel was too stupid to be allowed to breed – but thought better of it as she heard the sound of running footsteps. The guards were finally coming to stop her. No doubt they thought that one of the pilots had turned on his fellows.

Bracing herself, she took another grenade, removed the pin and hurled it down the corridor as the guards came into view. They were on the alert; two of them threw themselves to the ground as the grenade detonated, while another one hurled himself backwards. Marlene fired a long burst of bullets towards them, then turned and ran, using another grenade to cover her tracks. The explosion shook the building, sending pieces of debris crashing towards the floor. There were a handful of shots behind her, but none of them even came close.

No training for an internal assault, Marlene thought, gleefully. The guards had trained hard, she recalled, but all their training had been based around an external assault on the airbase. It hadn’t seemed to occur to them that one of the charwomen might be an SS operative, ready to turn on them when she received the signal. They’re not ready for me.

She ran through the door and onto the tarmac. It was dark – the sun wouldn’t be peeking above the horizon for at least another hour – but it was light enough for her to see the line of aircraft waiting for pilots. The ground crewmen turned to stare at her as she ran out, then ducked for cover as she opened fire, hurling the last of her grenades into the nearest cockpit before it could detonate. She’d hoped for a chain reaction – she’d imagined the line of planes exploding into fireballs, one by one – but only one plane caught fire. Someone was shouting behind her…

A hammer struck her shoulder, sending the assault rifle flying as she fell forward and slammed face-first into the tarmac. The impact dazed her; it took several seconds for her to realise that she’d been shot. She heard the sound of running footsteps as she tried to struggle to her feet, discovering to her horror that her body was no longer working. Blood – her blood – was pouring out of her wound.

“Damn bitch,” someone growled. She gasped in pain as he kicked her in the side, hard, then turned her over. The pain was so agonising that she almost passed out. “Damn you…”

Marlene looked up into the face of one of the guards, a young man she recalled helping to write a letter to his girlfriend after their relationship had hit a nasty bump in the road. It had been easy to slip into the role of mother-substitute, to keep him from thinking of her as a potential threat. And it had worked. He wouldn’t be staring at her with so much hatred if he hadn’t been completely fooled.

She felt blood welling up in her mouth and choked. He made no move to help her, instead just staring down and drinking in the sight as she died. She wasn’t too surprised, she thought, as a dreadful numbness settled over her body. She’d betrayed them all, after all; she’d killed at least thirty men in her brief rampage and sowed the seeds of a distrust that would kill hundreds more.

Heil Holliston, she thought, as she fell into the darkness. And…

The observation post was hidden near the bridge, close enough to keep an eye on what crossed the river, far enough to pass unnoticed if – when – someone decided to search for watching eyes. Both of the soldiers assigned to the post were experienced woodsmen, capable of making sure that neither of them were detected, let alone caught. It wasn’t a job they enjoyed, but it was necessary. The defenders, after all, had known the bridges would be overwhelmed very quickly.

“There wasn’t even a fight,” Ott Wild muttered, as he watched the endless line of panzers crossing the bridge. “They overwhelmed the guards easily.”

“It’s been done before,” Einhart Pusch reminded him. He picked up the phone, knowing it would set off an alarm at the command post. “The guards weren’t expecting an attack from the west.”

Someone picked up the phone. “Report!”

“Bridge Seven has been overwhelmed,” Pusch said. They hadn’t been told who they were calling, let alone where he was. No matter how good they were, they had to admit that capture and interrogation was a realistic possibility. “The bridge remains intact. I say again, the bridge remains intact. The panzers are crossing now.”

“Understood,” the voice said. “How many?”

“At least fifty, so far,” Wild muttered.

“At least fifty, so far,” Pusch repeated. “I imagine it won’t be long before the regular troops start crossing too.”

“Remain in place,” the voice ordered, finally. “Continue to send reports as the situation develops.”

Pusch nodded, coldly, as the connection broke. He hadn’t expected anything else. If they were lucky, there would be some artillery pieces within range to shell the bridge, giving the SS a hot reception. But most of the heavy artillery was in Occupied France. Only a handful of weapons had been moved east before the war finally begun. They’d have to depend on the Luftwaffe.

“They’re sending troop transports across too now,” Wild commented. “And I can see engineers on the far bank. I think there’s some mobile SAM units too.”

“They’ll have pontoons thrown up very quickly,” Pusch agreed. The SS were bastards, but he had to admit they were good engineers. “And then they can double or triple the number of men advancing towards us.”

“And then we’re in trouble,” Wild finished. They’d served together long enough not to need formality. “Let’s hope the artillery or the air force gets up here before it’s too late.”