THE IRON LEGIONS
By Michael G. Thomas & Nick S. Thomas
Part of the SOLDIERS OF TOMORROW universe
First Edition
Copyright © 2017 Michael G. Thomas & Nick S. Thomas
Published by Swordworks Books
The official www.soldiers-of-tomorrow.com website
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
London, 31st March 1997
Last day of the British Mutiny
“Get this beast fired up, move it!” yelled a Britisher in a grease and oil stained tanker’s boiler suit.
The vast reading room of the British Museum was a hive of activity as armed men and women rushed back and forth. Many wore old military webbing, a few with olive drab button up jackets so threadbare and faded they were almost white in places. Some wore the old turtle pattern helmets with fragments of torn netting barely clinging to the rim. Every one of them had a piece of blue cloth tied around their left arm with a white five-pointed star at its centre, the symbol of the uprising movement.
“What are you waiting for, a miracle?” asked the filthy soldier, as he stopped in front of a man idly sitting on a collapsed stone pillar, puffing on a cigarette. The man who’d spoken to wore a mid-blue baseball jacket with white sleeves. Though the colours were so dirty they’d started to blend together. A bandolier of magazines was slung across his chest, and under the jacket a boiler suit much like the others wore, except the upper part had ripped open and hung down to his waist. He cradled a compact submachine gun in his lap, a 9mm Sterling; once the pinnacle of British arms manufacture, but now a beaten-up relic, and long past its glory days.
“I guess I’m waiting for you to get started,” he replied in a thick New York accent. His face was streaked with dirt and oil from what may have been from a weeks’ worth of fighting, or one hell of a dirty job working on oily machinery. Perhaps it was both. He was in his early twenties, and no way would you describe him as fresh faced. The jet-black hair was slicked back, probably with oil rather than gel. His face stubbly, and yet his crystal-clear blue eyes were sharp and clear, a strong contrast to every other part of his dishevelled appearance. The face belonged to Sergeant Raymond ‘Ray’ Barnes, one of the few Americans serving with the British freedom fighter movement.
“You could at least have had a shave,” the Britisher pointed out as he towered over him.
The Brit was also of filthy appearance, yet his face was clean-shaven, except for his perfectly shaped pencil moustache. Lieutenant Gerry Baker was a stiff upper-lipped traditionalist. Even standing in the ruins while the end drew near, preparing for their final stand, he stayed calm and confident, displaying a semblance of his accustomed neat grooming. Ray puffed on his cigarette as he stared at him in disbelief.
“I don’t know how you do it.” He regarded Baker’s smooth chin, and his erect, soldier’s stance. His own shoulders were slumped, an unconscious sign he had all but accepted defeat.
The Brit ignored the comment. “However this goes, it has been an honour to fight alongside you. For an American, you sure put on one hell of a show.”
“I can’t say I came here to lose.”
“Then don’t.”
“Attention!” a soldier roared.
General Sir Thomas Jackson strode into the room. He wore OD fatigues and carried the same Sterling submachine gun as Ray. His uniform consisted of service dress with a crusher cap on his head. Jackson was young to carry the rank and title, but he had a lot to live up to, his renowned father having given exemplary service in the war. A few years older than Ray and Gerry, Jackson gestured for them to carry on as he approached. He stopped before them, took a deep breath, and asked the question he’d come to ask. He looked like he didn’t expect to get the answer he wanted. The answer he desperately needed.
“Is it ready?”
“Well...you know…” began Ray.
Baker cut in.
“She’s all good and ready to go at ‘em, Sir.” His voice was upbeat and enthusiastic.
Jackson’s glance travelled beyond them, toward a huge sheet like a curtain hanging between the tower and opposite wall. Where they’d drawn a piece of the sheet back, he could just make out a large plate of armour with hydraulic equipment attached to it. A number of men and women swarmed over the machine, working to finish.
“Final checks or problems?” asked the General.
“That remains to be seen,” whispered Ray, his voice cynical.
“She is ready to raise hell, Sir,” said Baker, as if hoping the General hadn’t heard the Sergeant.
A petrol engine fired up from inside the curtain and roared at high revs for a few moments. None of them commented, waiting and hoping for the next stage to work. Next they heard a whirring sound as the engine began to crank several larger diesel motors, and then everything roared into life. Smoke belched all around them, and Ray coughed to catch his breath. Over the clatter of the heavy diesel engines they heard gunfire and grenades exploding in the distance. Ray and Gerry glanced across the huge space. Almost two hundred resistance fighters had gathered. Some were former soldiers, some police officers still wearing parts of their uniform, and others civilians who had probably never held a weapon before the start of the resistance movement. They noticed even a few recognisable political figures dotted among the fighters. Many were busy building sandbag emplacements, anticipating the worst.
Two light machine guns were in process of being set up across the room in an enfilade position. The characteristic top-mounted vertical magazines protruded from the receivers in a way that was so iconically British. Like those weapons used since the earliest days of the war, so many years ago. These short barrel versions with near vertical magazines had been re-chambered to the Allied standard 7.62mm. A reliable workhorse of a weapon, but antiquated compared to the captured Nazi machine gun set up beside them in support. The shouts of German soldiers echoed in the distance, and each man and woman knew it was time.
“Good luck, gentlemen, and God speed,” said Jackson.
* * *
The heavily armoured Kriegsmarine pioneers advanced along the street, their faces wary, searching for signs of the enemy. They carried the standard issue 6mm Mauser G88, a tough assault carbine constructed from the latest polymers. The firearm was loaded with thirty rounds in translucent magazines, and the bulbous tritium telescopic sight provided illumination even in low light. The w
eapon was powerful, yet weighed a scant three kilograms, even with the sighting system attached. The marines checked the shadows for rifle muzzles poking out or hidden traps, and they moved slowly, weighed down by articulated plates of composite plastic and metal. Their heads were shielded by what appeared to be reinforced welding masks, with overhanging sections stretching to the shoulders.
Experience of fighting the British over the past months had demonstrated they needed as much protection as possible. The Kriegsmarine might not be the most prized posting inside the Reich military, but it was without doubt the most imaginative. Field commanders had created the assault armour in the weeks leading up to the invasion, and it had proved so popular even Waffen SS regiments were copying the designs. Mines, explosives, and hidden traps had taken a severe toll of the Reich ground forces, and no man wanted to return home as yet another limbless hero.
Behind the Kriegsmarine pioneers came the lumbering sixteen-metre-tall, eight hundred-tonne bipedal machine, the dreaded Eiserner Gott, or Iron God. The armoured Kriegsmarine landship was as big as a large building, top heavy, of crude appearance, and bristling with weapons. The name was well chosen. The puffing beast crunched on the ground as it walked, its heavy iron feet pounding the road to dust. Smoke bellowed from the exhausts, and the diesel generators roared, making any chance of a stealthy advance impossible. A small armoured car raced across the street towards the behemoth, its improvised turret blazing away defiantly. The Eiserner Gott scarcely broke stride as it tracked the incomer and opened fire. Two of the lighter cannons blasted the vehicle apart, sending its devastated chassis hurtling into a ruined dwelling house.
Another cloud of black smoke enveloped the machine as it revved its engines to generate greater power. It resembled a massive, slow, lumbering iron-plated demon. The machine’s superstructure was weighty around the top, with a pair of motorised armoured limbs hanging to its flanks. More modern landships carried advanced missiles and weapons, but not Eiserner Gott. The old machine was a Series II armoured landship of the Kanonier Class. She’d been designed for fighting in the streets of a ruined Europe a generation earlier. A street brawler plain and simple, and today the machine was proving its worth.
“Hatches closed!” Kapitän Klenner shouted.
The few remaining open hatches slammed shut, and the Kapitän slid into his seat. Vision was severely restricted inside the hull, but the armour plating would keep them safe from incoming fire. Machine gun bullets hammered against the sloped frontal armour, some coming perilously close to the fragile periscope lenses. Most of the bullets glanced off the steel in a shower of sparks, a few leaving a series of small dents to add to the hundreds that already covered the machine's hull.
Emblazoned on the flanks of her armour in faded white paint was the name Eiserner Gott. The name they’d given her when she was built, based on her size and configuration. She towered over the burnt-out column of armoured cars like some great monster of old. The metal beast was ugly, with a hull that appeared to have been hacked from the heart of a Wehrmacht issue super-heavy tank. Its waist was hidden behind layered armour and thick hips that extended to the legs. The legs were short, stocky, and perfectly constructed to hold up the vast weight of the fighting machine.
“Halt!” Klenner snapped, “Gunners, check your sectors.”
The crew obeyed the order and scanned from left to right, searching for signs of the enemy. The noise of battle faded, to be replaced by a gentle breeze drifting through the streets of the British capital. The contrast between the brutal machine and the elegant structure of the old city couldn’t have been greater. London had become a charred carcass, with entire city blocks reduced to rubble. It had taken decades for the Reich to establish its global dominance, yet even now the British fought on as though their mutiny had any chance of success. Kapitän Klenner would enjoy the moment when the violent insurgency ended in the final battle.
While the advanced, high-tech armoured units of the Waffen SS rampaged through the city, he’d been sent to the borough of Camden, away from the main fighting, to escort two regiments of Wehrmacht foot soldiers. They were pinned down a dozen blocks away along the Thames. But not Eiserner Gott. She continued onwards, striking at the heart of the enemy’s defences.
They’re falling back. Good, at last they understand this is the end.
Kapitän Klenner glanced to the right, where little remained of the low wall and iron railings marking the boundary between the famous British Museum and the rubble-strewn Great Russell Street. The site had been a Mecca to visitors for generations, although now little different from the other shattered streets in the ruins that had once been the gleaming capital city of London. Large concrete barriers like the teeth of some ancient beast littered the area, making it all but impossible for wheeled vehicles to enter. Rubble lay piled in long sections, creating earthworks to protect the enemy.
“Good, this is it,” said Klenner, “Keep your eyes open. This is the location our intelligence flagged as being a place of importance.”
A flurry of dots flickered in the distance. To anybody else it might be just a glint of light. Kapitän Klenner knew better.
“Incoming!”
He didn’t even flinch this time as rifle fire glanced off the armour. He knew they were safe inside the giant metal behemoth, but he was no fool. He’d seen the carnage of the landing grounds in Hythe, along the coast where the heavy equipment had come ashore. The British had secured the ports in the first few days, but the Kriegsmarine simply diverted to the beaches. Eiserner Gott was tough, but a well-aimed missile or shell could end his war in a single moment.
“There!”
A machine gunner spotted the flash of light, but before he could fire, a rocket hurtled from a hidden position. An old-fashioned wire-guided weapon, so beloved by the British insurgents, it exploded harmlessly against the wire screens hung over the sides of Eiserner Gott. They’d retrofitted armour to the landship, protecting the vulnerable joints from improvised explosive charges and rockets. An unconscious imitation of the chainmail worn by medieval knights. A bank of machine guns rotated to the right and spat bullets, tearing apart those daring enough to defy the presence of the metal machine. Three big guns and batteries of machine guns protruded from armoured cupolas, and bright red Reich war flags fluttered from the tall antennas fitted along the machine’s upper structure.
Eiserner Gott was the perfect fighting machine, or at least, she had been thirty years ago when constructed as the first of the heavy Kriegsmarine Landships, now back from retirement and fighting in Britain. The landships were to have ended the stalemate in less than a month, using superior armour and weaponry to breach the city’s defences, allowing infantry and tanks to continue onwards. Yet even now, after so much devastation and destruction, the final remnants of the enemy continued to fight. Eiserner Gott remained in action, and she would finish what she had begun.
The twenty-eight year-old officer was a veteran of the Afrika War, with experience of fighting rebels in the Ukraine and Vichy France, and now on the hallowed ground of the old enemy. The one nation that refused to accept defeat by the might of the Pan-European Reich. Britain had been defeated militarily years ago, yet its occupation had proved tougher than anyone could have imagined. Even with her air force annihilated, and her once proud navy destroyed or scuttled, the fighting spirit of the long dead Winston Churchill remained.
“The fools, there is no reason to continue fighting. The war is over. Their allies submitted long ago, and all they do is destroy their own cities. This mutiny is insanity.”
He stared at his crew, the small band of exhausted yet eager men from across Europe. There were seven of them, and like him, they wanted nothing more than to see the fighting over.
“We will end this…today. For them, and for us. There can be no peace with the Englanders until London submits.”
“Jawohl!” the chorus of replies came back to him. Klenner smiled and turned to watch the final moments of the battle. The seat f
elt comfortable and familiar, and his hands moved to the viewing controls as though they were an extension to his arms. He’d commanded Eiserner Gott since she’d re-entered service eight years ago, and the two were inseparable. Man and machine functioned as a single unit, with the crew acting as his limbs and muscles. The machine took another step and froze in the street. Tracer fire reached out from the rubble and distant buildings, but the bullets merely glanced off the thick armour.
“Load HE, wait for my command.”
The gunners selected the correct ammunition on their toggle switches, and the motorised loaders inserted the shells into the breeches. In seconds, all three guns were ready to fire. Two squads of heavily armoured marine attack troops waited beneath the legs to continue the advance.
“Keep watching your sectors,” he said calmly, “Take your time, and root them out from their hiding places. Remember, one man in the right place and at the right time can bring down even Eiserner Gott. Ever vigilant!”
One by one the squads of Kriegsmarines went forward, others halting to check for pockets of defenders, and to provide covering fire if needed. Sporadic sniper fire from the nearby rooftops clattered around them, with occasional shots ringing against the hull and impacting the marine’s body armour. Klenner watched the marines moving through the debris, only to run head-on into further hidden infantry positions. Both sides exchanged fire, but the more heavily armoured Kriegsmarines easily brushed them aside.
“Driver, move out, but take it slowly.”
Eiserner Gott lumbered ahead one careful step at a time. The heavy legs and feet crushed the rubble as they moved. Klenner observed the shattered ground carefully, and his eyes found what remained of a motorcade. Several pennants remained, those of the British High Command.
So, the information was correct.
He’d assumed they were looking for a weapons stash or possibly a VIP. Instead, it seemed they’d run into a trapped military convoy, perhaps taking out the last members of the British government and senior military commanders who had stayed behind. It meant he’d potentially located the one group that could end the fighting.
Soldiers of Tomorrow: Iron Legions Page 1