“Shit, you stay with me you old prick… Medic, Medic!” Miller screamed.
Miller rolled to engage a couple of Germans who had sprinted from the cover of the trench; he pumped them full of lead, greeting them with the whole clip of his Tommy gun.
Jim Parker led there in amongst the death cries of the battlefield. He did not hear it though; he did not feel the medic push morphine into his veins or start to perform chest compressions on him. Jim thought of his three children for the first time in a long time, he smiled as he knew they were strong and his wife Margret would nurture and protect them in the coming years; she was more than capable of raising them in his absence. Tears formed in the corners of the tank commander’s eyes and he let his final breath leave his body. He had been calm until the end and he felt no pain.
The medic tapped Miller on his shoulder.
“He’s gone sir. We have to get out of here and find some cover.”
Miller’s shoulders dropped but they had to go on, Parker’s sacrifice gave new energy to the American soldiers. They were going to avenge their fallen friend and ally by killing every single one of these fucking SS men if they had to.
The Kugelblitz that had taken the life of the legendary tank Commander and his crew was quickly destroyed by the vengeful fire of five Sherman’s. The German vehicle went up in a plume of dark black smoke and as the crew tried to escape they were quickly put down with machine gun fire.
The infantrymen of the 7th Ranger Battalion raced towards the final trench still occupied by the Germans. Their guns blazed and they shouted a battle cry as the flowed over the top of the trench braving death and a hail of bullets.
The Nazi Bell
Joseph had finished burning all of the top secret documents. He stood got up and nudged his father out of the way.
“I’ll try and keep the atmosphere as electrically charged as possible, but I have to be honest, I am surprised that it has lasted at one hundred percent power for this long.”
Walther Gerlach just nodded but he did not respond; it was like he was no longer in the room.
The Bell shaped device was still pulsing from a deep dark blue to a light purple. The ball of lightning raced across its surface with increasing intensity it to changed color from blue to a threatening red.
The Xerum 525 had stopped oozing out into the rotating tubes, they were full but now the Xerum started to radiate a menacing red-violet that bathed the room in an energetic glow. The vortex around the device was now at a dangerous level; it threatened to destroy the electric transformers in the room.
Sporrenberg paced up and down outside of the room.
He gesticulated aggressively. “What the fuck is the holdup soldier? And why the fuck aren’t you clearing the rubble as I ordered you to!” His face started to contort as his anger levels raised.
“My apologies, Sir, but we have placed a few of our grenades into the gap here and we are just wiring up the tiny bit of TNT we have left over so that we can blow a hole wide enough for us to get through. It will be quicker Sir.”
Sporrenberg relaxed a tiny bit. “Ok Oberschutze Brown, you have my full confidence.”
He then went back to pacing impatiently.
Berndt Krause was only about halfway across the ice cold water, he was starting to struggle with the cold, he was shaking but he knew he had to get to the other side; Sporrenberg needed him and he was not going to let him down. Krause carried on with renewed vigor as he blocked out his current predicament with a happier childhood memory of swimming in the warm Mediterranean Sea with his dad and his younger brother.
The lightning struck the top of the bell causing two large ceramic slaps to disintegrate completely. The bare steel rods were exposed like the skeleton of a dead animal. The device let out a high pitched melancholic whine as the vortex surrounded it reached a fever pitch. The electrical storm smashed into the device as it spun wildly.
Walther and Joseph watched the power levels holding steady but the needle indicator vibrated heavily in the red danger zone.
“I’m surprised it has held steady this long father, it won’t be long until we lose her.”
“Doesn’t matter son let’s just see what happens, if she destroys herself then she will have finished our task for us.”
The device started to shake violently as a powerful whine emanated from deep within, seconds later a huge shockwave burst out turbulently washing the electrical storm over the thickened glass viewpoint. The glass started to crack in a beautiful spider web pattern then shattered completely. The two scientists dived to the floor as a hail of glass and electricity funneled through the vacuum left from the glassless window.
Glass exploded from the various dials and readouts on the workstation but the power to the device somehow managed to stay at a constant level. Joseph struggled to help his dad to his feet. They were glad to have the welding masks to protect their eyes as a brilliant bright purple dowsed the room in a pleasant glow.
The device rocked once more and the ceramic tiles seemed to melt away in the powerful vortex. It then pulsed once completely blinding the two scientists for a brief second. When their vision returned they could hardly believe their eyes.
“We… We we’ve done it father… I can’t believe it!”
Walther was speechless.
Before them, the device levitated six feet in the air and hung there with a bright purple fluorescent glow emanating from the center of the steel skeletal structure. The counter-rotating tubes filled with Xerum-525 were now completely stationary.
An explosion rocked the door behind the two scientists that sent rubble and dust flying into the room. The concrete beside the twisted metal door had fallen through, leaving a gap where a single dark menacing silhouette appeared.
Sporrenberg, who had not noticed the levitating device raised his pistol and fired three shots that hit their mark and sliced through the base of the neck and top of the chest. Walther let out a cry and fell to the floor; he cradled his lifeless son’s head in his arms and began to weep.
“What have you done you fool…” He wailed.
Sporrenberg took a step farther and aimed his sidearm at the older man.
“Shut up…”
Sporrenberg was cut off as the luminescent purple light momentarily blinded him. He unconsciously took a step back as he shielded his eyes. Sporrenberg narrowed his vision as he tried to see where the light was coming from.
The bell hung in the air, slowly rotating horizontally.
“How the hell is that thing doing that?” Sporrenberg said in disbelief.
Walther did not have time to answer as the device let out a deafening blast and a pulse of light raced across the room, consuming the two men. The electricity that had built up in the room instantly dissipated. Where the two men had stood just seconds before, now only a dark purple dust remained. The skeletal structure surrounding the device crashed to the floor. Joseph Gerlach’s lifeless body was pushed to the door by the shockwave produced by the device.
The two guards had been instructed to wait outside but when the explosion went off they rushed in to investigate. The Laboratory was a mess; the whole area was covered in a dark purple dust. The workstations were all but destroyed and a single body was left crumpled up beside the iron doors.
Jakob Sporrenberg was gone, all evidence of the device housed in the laboratory was gone and all was left was a horrid dust and a human corpse. The two men looked at each other and without saying a word decided not to snoop around anymore; they did not understand what had been going on in the laboratory and they did not want to.
Berndt Krause struggled out of the icy cold water and made his way down the dark corridor. The corridor was full of dust, debris and a spent detonator. ‘This doesn’t look good.’ Krause thought to himself. ‘Sporrenberg will not be pleased.’