Dark Tales From the Secret War

by John Houlihan

  “I saw,” Klampt confirmed. “Funny that it affected him and not you, Professor. Tell me, how is it that this is the case? Perhaps you’ve encountered this technology before?” The Hauptsturmführer grinned knowingly. He turned to Calvert. “Your man here has done some other explorations himself, Lieutenant. Has he told you about the other surveys of these islands that have been popping up?”

  “This is the first island we’ve explored,” Calvert said.

  “True for you,” Klampt replied. “But not for him. Tell me, Professor, what else can the sphere do?”

  “I’ve not seen its like before, Hauptsturmführer,” the professor answered. “Release the Doctor.”

  Klampt ignored his demand. “A lie, Professor. Even if you haven’t seen anything exactly like it, I know for a fact you’ve seen similar items. Don’t you remember that ruined temple in Malaya? Hand over the sphere.”

  Calvert glared at the professor. “Malaya?” he demanded.

  The professor pointedly ignored him.

  “It seems we’re at an impasse, as I stated before,” the professor said.

  “Indeed it does,” answered Klampt “Let’s change that.” Klampt suddenly raised his pistol and aimed it at Lieutenant Calvert. Seeing her chance, van Garret dug her feet into the ground and flung herself sideways, pushing Klampt’s gun arm wide. The Luger boomed, the shot ricocheting off a nearby boulder. Austen immediately shot the stormtrooper his weapon was trained on, dropping him in a heap on the stony shore. The other stormtrooper hesitated, unsure on his choice of target, and Rapata was on him with his short, brutal spear. The German batted at the spear with his rifle, but Rapata had the physical advantage and soon had him on his knees, yielding.

  Meanwhile, Klampt struggled with van Garrett, his greater strength quickly granting him the edge. She was still struggling as he dragged her backwards, determined not to let anyone at his exposed back.

  Austen aimed his weapon at Klampt.

  “Hold fire! We don’t have a clear shot!” Calvert called.

  Klampt spun the doctor around, securing her neck in a strong choke hold. Still pulling her backward, he again trained his pistol on the advancing men. He steadied himself and adjusted his grip on van Garrett so she could not throw off his aim. Calvert and Austen moved behind the cover of the rocks and took aim, waiting for a clear shot.

  The professor stood holding the sphere with both hands in front of him. He closed the distance between himself and Klampt, his features pinched in intense concentration. The sphere pulsed and shot forth a stream of water, which struck both Klampt and the doctor, pushing them back. Klampt quickly regained his balance, aimed and snapped two quick shots at the professor. The few metres between them made it hard to miss. The shots struck the sphere, which flashed an angry red before splitting apart and dropping from the professor’s hands. Hammered by the force of the shot, the professor fell heavily onto his back.

  “The sphere!” Klampt cried and pushed the doctor forward, sending her sprawling on the ground. He knelt down and scooped up one piece of the sphere that lay gleaming on the ground, all the while keeping his pistol trained on the commandos. He rose and snapped off several shots at Calvert, forcing him back behind cover. Continuing to fire evenly spaced shots, he kept Calvert and Austen pinned and moved back methodically, putting cover between himself and the commandos.

  The commandos ran to the professor, who lay on his back, groaning in pain and struggling to sit up.

  Van Garrett looked at him, quickly surveying him for gunshot wounds. “Are you hurt, Professor?”

  He shook his head. “No, just had the wind knocked out of me. The bullets were stopped.”

  Sitting up, the professor heard rifle shots ring out as Japanese sailors from the shore party drove the commandos back amongst the boulders. He watched helplessly as Hauptsturmführer Klampt boarded the craft, which withdrew to the newly-arrived cruiser.

  “Professor,” said the doctor. “You should take a look at this.”

  * * *

  Clearing his head, Blackburn looked around and saw a dull fragment of the sphere that had flown aside. It had been violently torn apart, leaving a ragged centre that contrasted with the smooth outer surface. Its deep blue colour had gone, and grains of sand stuck to it, making it look more like a beached jellyfish than the vibrant living organism it had recently been. The professor quickly scooped it up, and ran down to the beach, plunging it into the water. It shimmered, and the healthy whole parts of it rolled over the ragged tears. It slowly knit itself back together, forming a sphere that was much smaller than before. Its blue colour began to return, though not as dark or rich as it had been previously.

  The professor sighed in relief. “It survived! I didn’t think it would, but we have enough to —” his speech was cut off as a heavy fist cracked across his jaw, knocking him into the surf.

  “What did I tell you, Professor?” Calvert roared, grabbing the man and pulling him from the water. “I told you I needed to know everything that was going on, and you lied to me. You lied about what you knew about this mission!”

  He punched the professor again as he tried to rise.

  “What you knew about the enemy!”

  A third blow drew blood from Blackburn’s nose.

  “What you knew about what we were looking for, and I’m pretty damn sure you lied about where you got your intel from. You were on those surveys you were talking about, weren’t you?”

  “No, you don’t understand! It —” the professor gurgled as Calvert thrust his head under the water.

  Pulling him back up, Calvert snarled. “You put me at risk. And my men. And the Doctor. You killed the sailors on the Copperhead. How can you justify that?”

  The professor coughed and sputtered, but answered evenly. “Mission first, Lieutenant. You know that. Logic dictates gaining this prize was worth your lives.”

  “You should have come clean. Told us the risks. We had no choice in the matter, anyway.”

  “You’ve ordered men to their deaths before, Lieutenant, and you’ve done it when you knew the reasons and they didn’t. I did no different.”

  “We’re not your men! You’re not in my chain of command!” Calvert yelled.

  “I am today. The Old Bird said so himself.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Mine, I assure you.”

  That admission earned the professor another punch. He groaned, and thankfully the lieutenant held his head above the water, though his grip made it clear he was ready to push Blackburn’s head under again at any moment.

  “You actively lied, Professor,” said Calvert. “What about the runways? You were hunting for those doodads all along, right? I don’t like being played like that.”

  “Then you picked the wrong profession, Lieutenant.”

  Calvert bristled. “True enough, Professor. But when I get played, I find out why.”

  “That’s not how it works. And you —” Blackburn was unceremoniously dunked again. He pushed and kicked, trying to break the lieutenant’s grip, but with his relative lack of strength and Calvert’s weight pushing down, there was no escape for the professor. However, he did succeed in churning up sand from the sea floor as he thrashed. After a few seconds, he was pulled back up.

  Calvert leaned close. “If you drown here, it’ll be reported as a casualty. And my people will back me up when asked about it. I’ll just take this —”

  He reached for the sphere, and the professor lunged away from him, keeping it as far away from the lieutenant as possible.

  “Fool! Don’t touch it! It’ll suck all the water from your body if you’re not careful.”

  “More lies. You’re fine.”

  “I’m protected,” the professor said, gasping. The lieutenant allowed him to struggle to his knees. From under his sodden shirt Blackburn drew out a necklace with a pendant on it. Strange curves and wavy lines covered it on the front and the back.

  “We found these at some of the sites,” he explaine
d.

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  The professor licked his lips nervously before speaking.

  “We’ve been watching, with growing concern, as groups amongst the Nazis, and others, have sought certain knowledge to help their war effort. Before things exploded between our nations, I worked with them on some of these expeditions. I was able to acquire some smaller artefacts, like this pendant, and my notes. They’ve sent parties to all corners of the world seeking out this forbidden knowledge. We’ve been trying to match them, but we’re behind and playing catch up.

  “None of what I told you was an outright lie. They’re out there looking for these technologies, or magicks, or whatever you want to call them, and they’re ahead of us. And they’re trying to use these new islands for strategic purposes. I’m trying to even the score.”

  Calvert looked at the alien thing in the professor’s hand. “What is that sphere?”

  The professor shrugged. “I have my theories about where it came from, but it’s too early to say exactly. We don’t really have the vocabulary for it. Rapata’s people might say ‘gods’. A Christian might say ‘demons’. Others would say just another race that was here before mankind. Atlantis, maybe, or Hyperborea. In any case, they left behind some other artefacts like this. I don’t know what they used it for, but it appears to be a tool for the manipulation of water. They’re powerful, and dangerous, and the Nazis and the Japanese are working closely together to collect them. We had to beat them to at least one.”

  He held the sphere up, smaller than when they found it, and glowing weakly, but it still appeared to be viable. “And now we have something they don’t.”

  Calvert stared at the sphere. “Klampt grabbed the other piece. How do you know that one isn’t working?”

  The professor frowned. “It may be. In either case, we have to study this to understand it.”

  “You also lied about the Hauptsturmführer,” said the lieutenant. “You’ve met him.” It was a statement, not a question, and brooked no argument.

  “Yes. In the past. When I worked with some of their expeditions before the war broke out. He was along as a military adviser. It seems you have met him, too.”

  Calvert nodded as he prepared to help the professor to the shore. “Like you said, in the past. He’s cunning and resourceful. I had some dealings with an organization he worked with, the Schwarze Sonne.”

  “A dangerous group,” the professor said. “And they’re known to us as pursuers of this type of knowledge. Klampt lied when he said he wasn’t working with them.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Calvert said thoughtfully. He loosened his grip on the professor, who was still contending with the surf batting him. The slight man struggled to his feet and fought through the breakers, trying to keep up with the lieutenant.

  Calvert continued. “It sounds odd, but Klampt never lied before. He sees himself as honourable, which probably explains why they didn’t bombard us once he withdrew. That cruiser’s heavy guns could have sunk this whole island. He wants to defeat us, but fairly, on the field of battle. Or at least, in a way that he perceives as fair.”

  The professor was not convinced. “Moments ago, he was shooting at us, and would have happily killed you and your whole team.”

  “True. But that would have been straight and clean. Man-to-man, and he would have been the one to claim victory personally. Not some naval officer.”

  As the two men reached the shore, Rapata, Austen and Van Garrett regarded the professor darkly. They had heard everything. The lieutenant had the right of it, the professor thought. If he’d drowned me, they would have backed him up.

  He eyed each of them individually, then spoke.

  “I know you feel betrayed because I didn’t tell you everything I knew up front. But with the things we’re dealing with… well, we don’t exactly know what we’re dealing with. All we do know is that the old rules of warfare, anthropology… just don’t apply any more. Not the way they did. Although it appears the enemy escaped with a part of the Heart of the Sea, we have a viable sample of it ourselves. This is what our goal was here.

  “You four have proven extremely resourceful and capable, and I’m looking for people to help me with other missions of this nature in the future. You have experience doing commando work, and I can put those skills to even greater use. It’s not as simple as sinking ships or blowing up bridges, though you may be called upon to do those things, too. We have to look at the world — the whole world, not just the parts where we’re fighting — in a new light, and relearn things we thought we knew before. And we’ll likely have to contend with Germans and Japanese who want to learn the same things, and keep us from learning them. There are other enemies, too, that we don’t understand, and some we don’t yet know about, I’m sure.

  “If you want a job, you have it. All I can promise is you’ll help the war effort, and no two missions will be the same. Help me, and you’ll have an impact that few men can ever fathom.”

  “Why should we join you, Professor?” asked Doctor van Garrett. “You lied to us from the beginning.”

  “This is important,” said Blackburn. “There are much larger forces at work in the world than you know. I’ve learned so much in the last few years, and now know just enough to realise how much there is that we don’t know. And every bit of that knowledge could be dangerous if our enemies get it first. I’m working to prevent that, and to harness those forces for our own defence. You know about the Old Bird. I have his ear, and I have access to other resources as well. Sign on with me, and you’ll help the war far more than if you sank a hundred cruisers.”

  The group all returned his gaze, and the professor could tell they were weighing his words.

  “Why us?” Austen asked. “You must have access to plenty of other commandos.”

  “I do,” the professor agreed. “These things we deal with, some of them cause a man to question everything he knows. We saw something like that today, and each of you kept doing your jobs. That’s a rare quality, even among commandos.”

  Calvert spoke first. “If we join you, no more hiding the ball, Professor. If I find out you’ve lied to me about anything again, I’ll drown you for real.”

  The professor smiled. “Join my organization, and that will never be an issue.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  “No hard feelings, and I can get you whatever follow-on assignment you’d like. You’re highly capable and I have no reservations about recommending you for any post. I got the Old Bird to authorize this mission, and I can get him to sign off on whatever you request.”

  “I’ll want to speak to him, to get assurances,” Calvert said. “And if I like what I hear, then I’ll join.”

  Rapata quickly spoke up. “I’m sworn to follow my war chief, and I will do so in this matter as well.”

  “I’ll join, too, on two conditions,” Private Austen put in. “First, I want a promotion.”

  The professor nodded slowly. “I think we can arrange for that …Corporal, rank will look good on you. And the second?”

  “I work for the Lieutenant directly.”

  The professor blinked at that, hesitated, and finally said, “Agreed.”

  The men all turned to look at the doctor.

  “Well, Doctor, we have the brawn,” said the professor. “We could always use more brains. What do you say?”

  An angry look passed over the mens’ faces and van Garrett barely contained a laugh. “I’ve been volunteering. I need a paid position. And I need employment, once the war is over, at a university or major hospital. It’s difficult for a female Doctor to be hired as anything other than a nurse.”

  Blackburn nodded. “Done.”

  He looked at the group. “Right, then. It appears we’re all on board. If I had some champagne, I’d propose a toast. But here’s to our little cell of wonder seekers. Once we return to Australia, I promise you, the world you know now will start to seem very small, and the world I’ll show you will look very
large, very large indeed.”

  DANGER NAZI U.X.O.

  By Will Salmon

  OLD NED

  DAWN rose on the city. A legion of bleary-eyed Londoners made their way out of the shelters, bent-backed and exhausted. Another day began.

  Mothers led their children home, hoping with quiet desperation and muttered prayers that their homes had been spared. Men scrabbled amongst the rubble and detritus of fallen buildings, singing songs and telling jokes, despite the grizzly sights that awaited them.

  There were the bodies, of course — and parts of bodies. The unfortunates who had somehow missed the shelters, or those who had remained in their homes despite everything. That was the grimmest, most painful part of life now, thought Ned as he hobbled slowly through the streets, his thoughts hazy from another sleepless night. Not the brave boys putting their lives on the line overseas, but the grim reality of the war striking at the heart of the nation. The city of his father and his father’s father — East End boys all — reduced to an abattoir. No matter what happened now, even if the war ended tomorrow, he’d never be able to look at London the same way again.

  “Now then Ned,” Mrs Ashton nodded, hurrying by with little Jenny at her side. He nodded sadly, but didn’t say anything. He’d already passed Kingsland Road where they lived. He knew that they were heading home to nothing. They would not be the only ones.

  There was a commotion at the end of the street. Three men in uniform were pushing through the crowd, running towards him. “Look out, granddad!” the youngest shouted, flashing him a grin — all teeth and youthful arrogance. The bloody cheek of it!

  “Oi, what’s the rush?” he yelled after them, in truth more intrigued than angry.

  “Unexploded rocket!” They turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

  Ned sighed and carried on home. The street was still standing, then. He supposed he ought to feel grateful. Instead, he opened the door to his house and plonked himself down painfully in his chair. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.