Hastelloy quietly finished his visual inspection and turned his head toward his smiling hostess once more. “Vielen ou, das ist perfekt,” he said thanking her for the perfect accommodations.
“Bitteschön,” came her polite acknowledgement of both the compliment and well-annunciated German. The young woman let him know his server would be along in a moment and left him alone to enjoy the view.
Amid the tranquility of his present surroundings, it was amazing to think that only a few hundred miles to the north an entrenched war continued to rage for three years now with precious little to show for all of the bloodshed. One would think that at some point the leadership from either side would invest in new technologies and military strategies to gain the upper hand. Instead, they persisted in the antiquated tactic of throwing wave after wave of young men into no man’s land to face barbed wire, pre-ranged mortars, machine guns, and pinpoint accurate rifle fire. What a ridiculous waste.
The approach of boots rapping against the hardwood floor planks drew Hastelloy’s gaze toward the door. A man in his mid-twenties wearing common clothes approached, but the military boots on his feet gave him away. “Gallono, I fully expected you to miss this meeting. How on earth did you manage to get away from the front?”
“What good is earning a second Iron Cross medal for valor if I can’t secure a few days leave along with it?” Gallono joked while raising his arms to embrace his friend and commanding officer. “Besides, not much is happening anyway. They’ve finally learned enough not to order frontal assaults across the barriers between trenches.”
“Either that, or they know the men will likely turn around and shoot the officer issuing the ridiculous order rather than follow it,” Hastelloy suggested before accepting Gallono’s embrace.
After a couple of swift pats to the back, Gallono broke away and stood at arm’s length. “There’s more truth to that statement than you know. On many occasions, soldiers up and down the line have outright refused to do it any longer and it’s left the generals dumbfounded about what to do next. That leaves both sides sitting there taking turns testing the air filters on each other’s gas masks, all the while hoping a lucky mortar round will take out something important to provide a break. With every person and bunker buried ten feet underground, there is no chance of that actually happening, which leaves the men sitting, smoking, and pissing the days away playing poker.”
Hastelloy collapsed into one of the chairs with a heavy sigh and gestured for Gallono to join him. “Early on when I arranged the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, things looked so promising. All of the alliances and mutual protection pacts daisy chained into nearly the entire globe going to war with itself, just as I expected. Everything about war history dictates a technological explosion should have occurred in a desperate effort for one side to best the other. How could I have so thoroughly misread the outcome?”
“Because the bravery of common men and the stupidity of an officer corps that attained its position through aristocratic birthrights rather than skill or experience took over,” Gallono grumbled. “There is no innovation or creativity on either side, only the weight of sheer numbers. At this point, the first side to receive an influx of fresh troops will win, and it’ll be about damned time.”
“Speaking of fresh troops, why aren’t your Americans here yet?” Gallono asked. “They finally declared war back in April and it’s now August. Why aren’t the French and British trenches overflowing with new arrivals to put this failed business to an end?”
“It takes time to mobilize an entire nation for war. More so when that nation is half a globe removed from the fighting and therefore unprepared to participate,” Hastelloy answered. “Next spring you’ll see a numerically unstoppable tidal wave of Americans wash over your German lines to finish things.”
“Then what?” asked a youthful voice entering the balcony.
“Tonwen!” Gallono bellowed on the way to his feet with his arms open wide. The science officer was notorious for not liking to be touched; a quirk Gallono took great delight in violating every time they saw one another. Tonwen kept his hands to his sides and stared emotionless at Hastelloy as Gallono wrapped him in a bear hug. His eyes pleaded for release as Gallono hoisted him into the air and gave him a few good bounces before releasing his grip.
All Hastelloy could do was smile, shake his head, and laugh at the sight. It was all in good fun of course, but it was also a microcosm for how the entire crew interacted with one another. After serving with the same five individuals for nearly five thousand years, it was safe to say they were familiar. They all knew each other’s buttons. They knew how to tap them to lighten a mood or mash them down hard to darken a conflict. That kind of familiarity had proven both beneficial and devastating over the years depending upon how it was employed.
Tonwen took it in stride with an emotionless response, “Thank you. My back was in need of chiropractic adjustment.”
“Any time,” Gallono responded with one last cringe-inducing slap to the shoulder before taking his seat again to continue needling his target. “Look at you. You’re barely old enough to grow a beard or mustache. How old are you? Five? Ten?”
“This body is seventeen years of age, thank you. Now, as I was asking before you accosted me, what happens when the Great War ends next year? Do we move on to a second round?”
“Not without each of us assuming a strategic place of influence over the combatant nations,” Hastelloy answered. “We tried it your way by lighting the match of conflict, then stepped back to let humanity resolve it without our undue interference. I think we can all agree that didn’t work.”
“And time is running out,” a fourth voice chimed in from the balcony doorway to finish Hastelloy’s thought. The twenty-year old entered the room with a gait that favored his right leg. The deformed limb announced each step with a metallic clink of a brace holding the foot in position.
The unspoken question lingered over the balcony until Hastelloy finally asked, “What happened to your leg, Tomal?”
The limping young man came to a full stop on his trek around the table to look upon his commanding officer in disbelief. It was as if simply bringing up the subject of his foot gave unforgivable offense. “Osteomyelitis I believe is the clinical name, a bacterial infection of the bone marrow that causes deterioration until it is eradicated. The glorified witch doctors on this planet didn’t find the cause early enough and now I am deformed for the rest of my life. I thank you so much for drawing everyone’s attention to my handicap; very polite of you.”
Hastelloy breathed a frustrated sigh through his nostrils. Tomal, what to do with you? At that moment, Gallono chose to push on one of Tomal’s buttons.
“Hmm,” Gallono huffed. “It’s preferable to the agony of a war wound at least. Now tell me, how are things back in Berlin while all the other able-bodied men are fighting to stay alive in the trenches? Do your university studies into the profound subjects of literature and philosophy give you a headache or maybe keep you up past your bedtime? Try sleeping with mortars bursting over your head while attempting to breathe through a gas mask and then tell me you have troubles.”
“I volunteered for service, but the army would not take me on account of this…deformity!” Tomal shouted in his defense.
“I’m sorry to hear about your leg,” Hastelloy interjected before Gallono could get going in earnest, and promptly changed the subject. “To your earlier point, time is running out. Based on last month’s scan results of this solar system, it appears the Alpha base on Mars has regained the technological ability to launch solid fuel rockets into space. What’s more, the readings detected evidence of a thermonuclear detonation.
“Pfft, nothing’s changed,” Gallono vented. “We all knew it was close to happening, that’s why we provoked this Great War; to accelerate the rate of technological advancement for these humans. That way we can take out the Alpha’s Mars base once and for all before they have the ability to attack us.”
&n
bsp; “Are you kidding? It changes everything,” Tomal challenged. “This is a race without a consolation prize, and now we’re behind; very far behind.”
“How much time do you think we have?” Hastelloy asked his science officer.
“They will need to miniaturize such a weapon, marry it to an interplanetary rocket, and devise a way to properly guide it there. It is hard to say, but I would give it perhaps fifty years. Maybe less, but certainly not more,” Tonwen offered.
“Then why are all of you sitting around this blasted table and not out in the world doing something about it?” the fifth and final attendee of the meeting asked in a half joking tone as he stepped onto the balcony.
Hastelloy glanced over to find Valnor looking like a malnourished stick figure wearing a tattered peasant overcoat. He carried a small potato sack over his shoulder with the meager contents of an extra pair of shoes, one change of clothes, and a mostly eaten moldy loaf of bread. Gallono was mired in the active fighting and as such, Hastelloy expected him to look the worst for wear, but Valnor took the prize hands down.
“My God, are things really that bad on the eastern front?” Hastelloy asked as he pointed up and down Valnor’s frail stature as evidence.
“Worse, but I’m not at the front any longer. I’m back in Moscow where there simply isn’t enough of anything to keep people alive,” Valnor reported. “When winter comes this year and there is no fuel oil for warmth or food, I see things ending very badly for the Tsar and his privileged elite.”
“That will shift a lot of German soldiers toward the western front to sandbag against the tidal wave of American’s you promised me earlier,” Gallono warned.
Hastelloy dismissed the notion with a grunt. “The Russians aren’t firing many shots at this point anyway, and besides, it’ll take time and resources the Germans no longer have to move them. No. Barring something profound happening, the Great War will come to an end next year when the American forces arrive and tip the scales to the Allies favor.
“The problem for the five of us, and by default the twenty million Novi soldiers still housed in the Nexus, and every human on this planet for that matter, is that this war will have happened without any significant technological advancement. We need to reach the point where we can launch nuclear or fusion weapons at the Alpha base on Mars before they can visit the mischief upon us first. After three years of global warfare, the only steps toward that goal are open-air bi-planes flying overhead with pilots dropping bombs by hand as a means for targeting. I think the five of us can come up with a plan to do better than that.”
“In essence, we have less than fifty years to guide Sigma species in making a quantum leap forward in flight, rocketry, and physics to suit our needs. I need suggestions on how to accomplish that, and at this point the gloves are completely off. I want any ideas you have, no matter how conflicted they might be with our noninterference directive,” Hastelloy asked.
“We can always provoke another war,” Valnor suggested, which drew a sharp response from Hastelloy.
“No, there’s been enough bloodshed already! I think we can draw countries and regions into a technology race without actual shots fired. It will be a cold war between super powers.”
“The United Kingdom has to be one of them,” Valnor offered. “They control half the planet already; the sun literally never sets on the British Empire. Why don’t we assume power and use their might and resources?”
“They are spread too far, and their colonies are declaring independence by the dozens,” Gallono countered. “They have lost so much in this war that they’ll never be able to hold it all together. I’m afraid the sun has already set on the British Empire.”
“That leaves my Mother Russia,” Valnor suggested. “They have vast amounts of land, people, and resources.
“However, as you pointed out, there is a very unpopular monarchy on the throne,” Hastelloy cautioned. “You sure it can be stabilized?”
“I’m sure it can be overthrown,” Valnor countered. “The Bolshevik Party is poised for a major revolution in the near future, and this concept of theirs, communism, has me intrigued. It’s catching on like wildfire and winning over the hearts and minds of the Russian people.”
“Sharing all national resources among the citizens does indeed sound good in theory, but putting it into practice could be problematic,” Tonwen pondered. “It should be an interesting social experiment to observe.”
Hastelloy stared at his hands resting on the table in silent contemplation. He did not trust this pending change in Russia. A certain portion of the population always wanted more and would do anything to get it. There was also a much larger segment content to do nothing if the bare necessities were provided for them no matter what. He could see the result being a profoundly corrupt and lazy society held under the thumb of a ruthless few. However, they were running out of options.
Finally, Hastelloy nodded his head, “Do it. Help this revolution and the resulting government however you can.”
“It goes without saying that the United States should be another of these superpowers,” Tonwen suggested. “Their resources are almost endless.”
“Agreed. Plus, I just graduated from George Washington University Law School and have been offered a job in the government’s new Bureau of Investigation,” Hastelloy said. “The potential breadth of influence this organization could have will certainly yield opportunities to push that democratic government in the right direction.”
“Why are we debating the virtues of influencing individual nations?” Tomal interjected. “There is a group of people who already more or less control most of the world through their stranglehold on banking, currency exchanges, and international commerce.”
“And who might that be?” Valnor asked in an overly polite tone, which broadcasted that he and everyone else in the room already knew the question’s answer.
“Why don’t you ask the captain?” Tomal volleyed back. “He led them out of the desert and set them up as masters of all things business and currency related. Why not use that to the advantage of our mission now?”
All Hastelloy could do was draw a deep breath and let it out slowly to ease his frustration, but it didn’t help much. “This again? You made your disdain for the Jewish people abundantly clear in your later writings as Martin Luther. I told you back then, and I am telling you now some four hundred years later, there is no Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. Now, I hereby order you once and for all to drop the vile subject. Do I make myself clear?”
“Abundantly so,” Tomal responded and continued after a brief, contemplative pause. “In that case, I submit that Europe is a third option for us. If united in a common goal, it could surpass both the United States and Russia in resources and technical knowhow.”
“It is going to be a war ravaged and fractured place with hard feelings between nations for many generations to come,” Hastelloy cautioned.
“Gallono is already well placed in the German army, and I’m making good contacts with scholars and politicians at the university. Together we can do this,” Tomal declared with unwavering confidence.
Anything to keep Tomal busy and out of the way with Gallono nearby to handle any incidents was fine with Hastelloy. “Agreed.”
“What about me?” Tonwen asked.
“I understand you were recently accepted to study theoretical physics at Cambridge,” Hastelloy pointed out. “Shine. Publish groundbreaking discoveries, develop relationships with the brightest minds and be ready to bring them all over to the nation we move along the quickest.”
“MöchtenSie schon beskellen?” a polite male voice asked from over Hastelloy’s shoulder.
“Yes we’re ready to order,” Hastelloy answered in German. “Let’s start with some wine.”
“You had better enjoy that ‘sinful’ beverage while you still can,” Tomal teased in their native Novi language. “I hear the conservative factions of the American electorate are pushing hard to ban alcohol. It may be a
completely dry nation in the next few years.”
“Law or not, the people will still want their alcohol,” Gallono countered.
“Yes they will,” Hastelloy agreed with a mischievous twinkle touching the corner of his eyes. “They most certainly will, and that presents an intriguing opportunity for us.”
Chapter 5: The Gang’s All Here
Hastelloy watched through a set of prism binoculars as yet another group of men opened the front door to the single story community center and stepped inside. He lowered the lens, moved back into the dark alleyway, and turned to address his men. “That makes over a hundred in there now. You’re going to need to be fast and authoritative. If anyone gets in your way or gives you any lip, you crack him right upside the head and keep moving to your assigned perimeter position.”
“Once we have control of the room, the regular black and whites will handle cuffing and placing them under arrest,” Hastelloy went on. He was about to give the go order when he felt the need to clarify one last point. “No one, and I do mean no one, shoots unless they shoot first. Even in that instance, you will only fire into the air. The last thing we need is the picture of a dead man in cuffs on the front page of tomorrow’s paper.”
“Better dead than red,” one of his men said under his breath to a chorus of chuckles.
“Better arrested and silenced than a propaganda tool for Lenin, Stalin, or any of those other pinko bastards,” Hastelloy responded. “Now load up. We go in one minute.”
The sound of a dozen Thompson machine gun bolts pulled back to chamber a round was music to his ears. A moment later the suspension bars of both model A cars groaned under the weight of three men to a side stepping up onto the running boards while holding on under the open window with their free hand.
Origins: The Reich Page 3