Apparatus 33: Dead Man Switch

by Lawston Pettymore

  As a result of the compounding failures of the Wehrmacht during this war, the list of inferior races was no longer constrained to just Washington D.C., New York, London, or Moscow, but was extended to include anywhere on Earth, including Berlin.

  The Amerika Rakete built on the success of the infamous V2, known as Aggregat 4, or A4, to the von Braun circle of rocket elites, modified with some weight savings innovations, such as the walls of the propellant tanks also serving as the fuselage, replacing the kerosene with liquid methane for increase weight to thrust performance, gimbaled engines to stabilize the 50-meter-tall cluster of rockets, eliminating the sinister looking but needlessly weighty aerodynamic fins. Four of these upgraded A4s, their characteristic fins removed, were strapped together in a cluster around a central, also finless, A4 core. Stacked on the central A4 was a sixth A4, and on top of this was the orbital warhead. To the astonishment and dismay of the Reich Ministry of Armaments, an extravagance of six A4s was required to make a single Amerika Rakete.

  In German engineering tradition, each major subsystem of the Amerika Rakete was referred to as an apparatus and assigned a specific number. Apparatus 14, for example, contained the hydraulic fixtures to gimble the engines. Apparatus 11 was responsible for opening valves to adjust the rocket’s attitude. All apparatuses have been designed, flight proven, and adopted to the Amerika Rakete, with one important exception.

  The apparatus assigned to controlling flight mechanisms was designated Apparatus 33. Other than the turbo-pumps of the rocket motors, Apparatus 33 was perhaps the most important system of the entire project. For example, Apparatus 33 was responsible for instructing the other Apparatuses to tilt the rocket stack at the right point of its trajectory to achieve orbit. It would command a rotation of the stack as align its telemetry antennas with ground controllers at Die Kuppel, or perhaps even U-boats at sea. When the rocket approached the maximum dynamic air pressure on its ascent, it would command the other apparatuses to throttle back the engines as necessary to prevent the rocket from slamming too hard into the still thick atmosphere.

  Apparatus 33 would command the four strap-on A4s to be jettisoned when their fuel was spent, which occurred just before leaving Earth’s atmosphere, at the so-called Karman Line, to reduce mass and keep the center of mass behind the center of pressure or thrust during the boost phase and after launching.

  Apparatus 33 was the brains of the rocket, and the one system for which no working solution had been conceived.

  The stack that passes beyond the Karman Line, according to the flight plan, was now the remaining fifth and sixth A4s topped by the arrowhead-shaped warhead. This configuration would finish the assigned journey into a permanent orbit, or at least that was the story told by an orchestra of German scientists playing with their slide rules like magical slip whistles.

  Flight planners were aware that the A4 side boosters, each the size of a train locomotive and weighing not much less, would be jettisoned at an altitude of fifty kilometers, huffing toxic gases at elevated temperatures, falling upon the local population like harpies at four hundred kilometers per hour. And as parachutes were deemed too weighty and expensive, the spent side boosters would explode and spill what remained of the highly toxic hypergolic fuels onto the erstwhile verdant forests and farmlands. Those unfortunate enough to be underneath were, by design, Poles and their livestock, and therefore of no consequence.

  The possibility that more Poles would likely be killed by this rocket offal than anyone under the warhead occasionally crossed the scientific minds within Die Kuppel briefly, but was remarked upon only in hushed whispers, as such talk was considered defeatist and quickly punished by the SS guards posted there with orders to listen.

  The original plan anticipated that when the warhead was commanded to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, most of the final stage would disintegrate into meteoric fireball as it streaked towards the intended impact point. The Reich had not been able to develop or weaponize nuclear fission, but it was understood that the radioactive materials cesium and cobalt could be compressed to near criticality, and the resulting explosion would write a “love letter” from Germany to the enemy below that would be impossible to ignore for generations.

  The technical hurdle confronting the delivery of Apparatus 33 was the challenge to make it small and yet perform the mental feats of interpretation, reasoning, and recollection of a human pilot. Prototypes that were small and light, were not smart enough to mimic a human pilot. Prototypes smart enough to function as a rocket autopilot, were too heavy and large to fit into the available confines of the warhead.

  A system that could think and reason like a human was the last technological breakthrough not yet summited, even by the combined brain power assembled under Die Kuppel; or at the sister facility to the south known in hushed whispers as the Eispalast13. To hasten the development of a working system, Die Kuppel management had decided to form two competing teams. One team was led by Berlin bred and educated Herr Ingenieruin Raynor Zerrissen, who demonstrated ingenuity in compelling vacuum tubes, selenium diodes, and electromagnetic relays to perform complex mathematics. These devices, so believed his circle of scientists, would surely be the ingredients of a machine that could think like a human.

  The other team was led by the bioengineer, surgeon, and student of the esteemed Herr Doktor Joseph Mengle, called Herr Doktor Procrustes Todtenhausen, known for his pursuit of understanding human intelligence, reducing it to three essential atomic components: self-control, memory, and self-awareness. He used this rubric to classify the animal kingdom into levels of intelligence, reaching the conclusion that Apparatus 33 need only achieve a capability no more advanced than that of a rather dull Aryan child, or, equivalently, an especially bright Jewish one.

  Though admired for his discoveries in animal cognition, Todtenhausen was regarded as a bit of an odd pony, extreme in his fervent hatred of anything not Aryan. His time in the operating theater supported his hobby of taxidermy or vice versa, and in any event, he often crossed the boundaries of decency, even by the new Nazi standards of deviance. His mounted animals were often fashioned in salacious poses, and usually employed vivisections that observers thought were unnecessary and insensitive, but which he always found amusing.

  Even if Team Todtenhausen could not produce a practical Apparatus 33 prototype, eccentricities such as these were tolerated everywhere in the Reich realm now, and his pediatric medical credentials supported the polio cover story should the Red Cross ever saunter into the bars and restaurants of Debica. When news that the Allies had landed in Normandy arrived at Die Kuppel, enthusiasm for the cover story compounded. A protective cover for the pediatric ward could do no worse to ward off Allied bombers than Göring’s feckless Luftwaffe. Any means to mitigate the risk of the Soviet gulags would be welcome should Comrade Zhukov appear at their doorstep with Field Marshal Paulus in one hip pocket, and orders to prosecute war criminals in the other.

  Zerrissen’s and Todtenhausen faced the same challenge - to package a calculating and sequencing apparatus into a footprint smaller and lighter than an lawn mower engine, consume no more power than was available in a standard lead-acid Volkswagen automobile battery, and yet fit within the angular nooks and random crevices of the conic nosecone where the size and aerodynamic shape of the warhead took priority.

  A small mockup of the Amerika Rakete was mounted on a platform at the front of one of the Bunker’s conference rooms, placed there so that everyone with proper credentials to enter the room could visualize what they were all there to accomplish, to take measurements, and discuss design issues. The model had movable engine bells and vanes to confirm that the guidance systems were working correctly. Lights illuminated when commands were received to jettison the spent stages.

  Upon the news that Stalingrad had returned to the Soviets, and Paris to the Parisians, the Reich Ministry of Armaments stepped up the urgency to see this bird fly. Demonstrations of the current state of the two prototypes were demanded, with Team
Zerrissen going first. Zerrissen’s prototype, the bulk of which was too large to move from its lab, was connected to the demonstrator with cables snaking through the corridors, and to the central component on display in the conference room, which, he explained, performed the actual decision making that would replicate those of a rocket pilot.

  Those who might have been convinced that the decision maker was less a rocket pilot than it was a 35 mm film projector could be forgiven, inasmuch as the device was in fact liberated from the projection room of the movie theater reserved for screening the latest films from Goebbels or Riefenstahl for the entertainment of officers and executive visitors.

  The lens of the projector had been replaced with a tubular collection of photo receptors that, as Zerrissen explained, would respond to rows of dots exposed into each frame of the 35 mm film as it fed from the top reel to the bottom. These dots, to the delight of witnesses, informed the electronic section of the values that needed to be measured, what responses were needed, when they were needed, and for how long. Setting the projector in motion, the assembly of scientists, including the bemused Todtenhausen, observed servos rotating, valves opening or closing, pressures regulating as needed, vanes and engine bells gimballing, correctly compensated for simulated winds and Coriolis forces, and stages separating correctly as indicated by fuel and inertial sensors. Those who wanted Zerrissen’s projector system to perform as an automatic rocket pilot were not disappointed. Those who needed the apparatus to fit in something the size of the console radio over which Die Kuppel personnel heard their daily bad war news, were.

  As the Soviets were crossing the German frontier towards Berlin, looting, and collecting trophies along the way, Todtenhausen demonstrated his entry. Remarkably, his prototype Apparatus 33 met the size and weight requirement, having been placed, he claimed into a mock-up of the warhead which was the size of a two-hundred-liter matte black oil drum, bulbous at the top and bottom. It had an instrument panel on the side with the usual knobs, buttons, and meters that allowing observers to watch the thoughts and decisions and thoughts of the mysterious machine inside as soon as the machine thought and made them.

  With a bit of ceremony, Todtenhausen strutted beside the mockup in the conference room as proud as any father whose child made the winning football score. After a few minutes of connecting cables, checking meter readings against a notebook, and whatever mechanism might be inside the enclosure, the machine commenced working and correctly maneuvered the craft through a simulated mission. A meter followed the drainage of the batteries, to prove that they were sufficiently abstemious, and at the conclusion of the demo, there was even some power left unused.

  With no time to discuss or disclose the secrets of the black device, the Reich Ministry of Armaments declared that the peculiar taxidermist had won the race. Todtenhausen’s Apparatus 33 would be installed on every A10 Amerika Rakete built and launched.

  With the selection of the Todtenhausen solution for Apparatus 33 came some additional prestige and authority over other enhancements to the Wermut warhead, one of which was reportedly in collaboration with the Eispalast, the Die Kuppel-like facility in Reich territory to the south, that dramatically increased the duration of the rocket motor burn outside Earth atmosphere, referred to as the specific impulse, or Isp. If the development team at Eispalast could be trusted, a small increase in the hypergolic fuels on board could send the warhead not just to the other side of the planet, but into high orbit, and possibly even beyond, if the mass of Todtenhausen’s Apparatus 33 could somehow be cut by half.

  Though his sequencer was not chosen for the warhead, esteem generally held for Zerrissen was not diminished, nor was his appropriated kinescope returned to its post in the VIP lounge, to the disappointment of its patrons, always ready for more Shirley Temple, if such could be smuggled in, or Leni Riefenstahl, if not. Instead, Zerrissen’s apparatus was elevated with a new moniker, Die Sequenzer, and repurposed for ground operations prior, during, and after each Amerika Rackete launch. These operations included fueling, preheating, precooling, ignition monitoring, timely cycling of the oculus and flame trench doors, and other pre- and post-launch housekeeping.

  As Todtenhausen and Zerrissen repaired to their respective laboratories, word spread from the communication center that Die Kuppel was now completely on its own. The Wehrmacht troops guarding the perimeter had been withdrawn to support the defense of Berlin, as Soviet invaders were found to be only a few kilometers away, ruthlessly raiding farmhouses and shops as they oozed their way to the German capital, and who may or may not be fooled by Die Kuppel’s camouflage, now stripped a bit bare by the record-breaking winter cold on the surface.

  While these messages were exchanged between Berlin and Die Kuppel over the associated antennas disguised as trees and coils within false rocks, the radio finding equipment of the 6th Trophy Battalion NKVD Motor was now within range, sniffing the electromagnetic spectrum as would a bull smelling a cow in heat.

  Sixth Trophy Battalion NKVD Motor abruptly changed their drive off the roads towards Berlin, going off road instead towards the radio signals in middle of the Polish forest. Following their radio sensing equipment, they hacked their way through the dense brush and trees until finding the strange rounded concrete structure rising above the forest floor radiating radio signals on an unrecognized spectrum.

  The curious orifice on top beckoned like spread legs in a German brothel to the sappers and their satchel charges. Comrade Kombrig14 ordered his men to set up a perimeter guard, and the lucky others to immediately “gang bang this bitch.”

  Dead Man Switch, 1945

  By now, even Todtenhausen conceded to himself that Die Kuppel would soon fall to the mongrel Slavs with their satchel charges and continuous detonations above. Such things were never uttered aloud, of course; the few SS guards still at their posts delighted in hanging “defeatists” from the exposed pipes running along the concrete ceilings of the corridors, using piano wire taken from the actual piano that was once used to entertain officers in the executive dining room, now stripped bare. The ivories on which songs of victory filled the corridors and inspired hope in the residents, now chipped, linkages broken, their voices as corrupted as the Nazi vision the melodies bolstered.

  The low clearance of the underground corridors suspended the hanged victims just a centimeter above the concrete flooring. Each of these left for a few days wearing a hand-lettered pasteboard sign summarizing his or her particular offense to the Reich, to edify those whose own loyalty might be weakening. Those arrested and condemned of a more Teutonic stature joined their traitorous brethren only after their toe muscles, flexor, and adductor hallucis, collapsed from exhaustion. Regardless of body type, the abdominal muscles of each hanging victim spasmed at the moment of death, squirting the contents of bowel and bladder that accumulated in stockings, socks, shoes and eventually in puddles beneath their feet, adding to the mélange of unholy aromas already corrupting breathable Die Kuppel air.

  The more chastened workers were forced to pick their way through the muck, they ducked and weaved around the corpses that hung like sides of beef in a cold storage locker, not an inapt comparison as the temperature in Die Kuppel was slowly deprived of body heat as it dropped to meet the sub-freezing temperatures outside.

  Oblivious to the halls bedecked in death, Todtenhausen saw only brilliant invention and innovation to protect. He could not bear the idea of their blubber greased hands pawing superior German technologies. As was required of the research and development facilities of the Reich, an approved and rehearsed self-destruct plan was already in place, a task decidedly and devastatingly effective by the expedience of hypergolic and pyrotechnic materials that were in ample supply. These chemicals would be combined remotely at a moment’s notice and would simply incinerate everything and everyone remaining inside the structure, the concrete of which made an ideal oven. Stalin’s delicious breadfruit within Die Kuppel would thereby turn to ashes in his greedy mouth.

  But irony
alone released no endorphins in Todtenhausen’s brain. Where was the satisfaction in merely denying the Soviets technology that they could not comprehend in the first place? By Todtenhausen’s revenge calculus, luring the Soviets into the rocket’s flame trenches daring them to enter with its overhead doors titillatingly cracked just slightly ajar, then obliterating the Slavic mongrels along with a few Poles within two kilometers by launching the Amerika Rakete was the same revenge dish served much much colder.

  Though it was unlikely the Wermut rocket stack could survive launch, much less the treachery that lurks in the upper atmosphere for all rockets that would dare approach called Max-Q, 15the glory of achieving the halo-shaped high ground, a first for the Reich and all of mankind was too intoxicating to resist. In this alternative ending to Todtenhausen’s Wagnerian opera, Die Kuppel, Wermut, and the Third Reich would not be consigned to the same anonymous grave of history as the Library of Alexandria was by the Romans, but rather, his was going to be played before the public and all the world was literally the stage.

  Todtenhausen appropriated two film canisters from Zerrissen’s lab, each the size and shape of a pizza, and each containing a reel of 35 mm film with 86,400 frames, not of Hollywood glamour or of Goebbels’ propaganda, but of rows of dots that danced from side to side when projected onto a screen. These were the only two 35 mm sequencer reels that Zerrissen’s team had prepared.

  One reel listed the steps to simulate a launch for testing purposes. In this test version, the dots were arranged in codes assigned to open all doors, fuel the tanks to capacity, test fins, engine gimbaling, flight controllers, and everything else needed for flight except for the ignition of engines.

  The second reel was the self-destruct sequence. In this reel, fuel tanks were loaded, and all tests were performed, ending with the ignition of engines, but without opening the doors. The plasma would then fill the launch room before Wermut slammed into the ceiling, spilling all its remaining fuel into the firestorm below, bringing the entire interior of Die Kuppel to sterilization temperatures, breaking all molecular bonds, and ionizing all atoms. Todtenhausen had no intent to be one of the victims of such a dissolution. With the increasingly close reverberations of Soviet munitions, however, Todtenhausen figured that he and Sister Kathe had less than an hour before the Soviets would pour in through whatever ingress they created.