She had heard there were cities abuilding underground, cities safe and warm where a human might hope to live something like a real life. Hackenberg, despite the season, was anything but warm. Indeed, the walls of this underground prison exuded a steady flow of cold wet moisture and sucked away whatever warmth one’s body might produce. No single person, nor all the fifty thousand packed in like sardines with Isabelle and her sons, could warm the place by so much as half a degree.
And though the place was, literally, a fortress, Isabelle knew that this did not add to the safety of herself and hers, but rather detracted from it. A fortress was also a target, thus so were she and her boys.
The boys’ father too, had been a target, so she had to assume. For there had been no word, not since the brief phone call that had announced the invasion, the destruction of her country, and the impending slaughter of its people.
That knowledge, that her beloved husband had almost certainly fallen to the invaders, was like a knife twisted into her innards. That pain made Isabelle pour, more than drink, the wretched reconstituted wine down her throat.
Even as dissidents and derelicts poured into holding pens, so too did information, vital information, flow to every nook and cranny of Germany’s multifaceted war effort.
Did information flow? It was as nothing compared to the flow of refugees. Did refugees flow? Then so too did power, as Germany acquired, unintentionally, a stranglehold over everything needed by the refugees, and by the remnants of their armed forces. Most of these forces were absorbed by the Bundeswehr. Still, Mühlenkampf and his men had done good service and deserved reward. The Kanzler therefore decreed the expansion of 47th Panzer Korps into what was called “Army Group Reserve.” In addition to acquiring another two panzer and four good motorized infantry Korps, as well as the penal division composed of the remnants of the more than decimated 33rd Korps, Mühlenkampf also assumed control of a large number of newly created foreign formations. Division Charlemagne marched again, in lock step with divisions and brigades of Latvians, Estonians, Poles, Spaniards and others.
Of these, Division Charlemagne was an oddity. For it was the only Francophone formation under German control. Unlike the other, overrun, states of Europe, the French resolutely refused to subordinate their interests to anyone else’s command. Their army guarding the much reoriented Maginot line, the four or five million remaining French men, women and children huddled either in camps between the Line and the Rhein, or shivered in dank misery in the bowels of the line itself.
(Magnanimously, the French had offered to integrate their forces, but only if a French commander was named, certain key French interests put in first place. Inexplicably, the Germans had failed to see the advantages to this approach.)
Charlemagne came to be recreated when the commanding general of a French armored division had simply mutinied against what he called the “institutionalized stupidities” of the French High Command, then gathered up his soldiers and their dependants, and reported to the German border seeking employment. Supplemented by numerous individual volunteers, some of those being veterans of the original division who had come to Germany to volunteer anew, Charlemagne was a large division even by the inflated standards of the Posleen War.
Losses, of course, had been staggering. By the time Germany was cleared of Posleen infestations, many divisions that had once boasted strengths as high as twenty-four thousand now contained barely half that. Yet there was a new ruthlessness in Germany, a ruthlessness that cared little for the “rights” of individuals, much for the survival of the Volk.
Student deferments? Gone. Alternative service? Gone. Refusal to serve? Conscientious Objector status claimed? The Penal Formation once known as the 33rd Korps grew to meet and then exceed its former strength. And the hangmen were often kept quite busy.
Nice, safe and comfortable billets in the rear? “No more, my son. You are going to the front. Women can do your job well enough.”
Only workers vital to the war effort were spared the sweep of conscription. Many of these were agricultural. Many others were industrial. Some were scientific and industrial both.
Kraus-Maffei-Wegmann Plant,
Munich, Germany, 15 July 2007
“I could wish our antilander munitions had been even slightly less powerful,” sighed Mueller.
Karl Prael raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“Simplicity,” answered Mueller. “If we hadn’t blasted all of the Posleen’s C- and B-Decs to flinders, there might have been enough of their anti-shipping railguns to retrofit every Tiger in the inventory and the ones that will be rolling off the assembly floor in the near future, and to provide a great number of more or less fixed defense batteries. As it is, we have a few score serviceable guns, no more. Sixty or seventy where we might have had six or seven hundred… maybe even several thousand.”
“You understate things,” Prael observed. “We have recovered sixty or seventy so far, but we have hardly begun to scrap even half of the alien wrecks littering the countryside. It is almost certain that there will be enough railguns for the complete run of Tiger III, Ausführung B. Pessimist,” he finished with a smile.
“Maybe,” conceded Mueller. “Maybe… if we can scrap the wrecks while doing no further damage. If we can modify the railguns to fit our existing carriages… or our carriages to fit the guns. And if we can even get them here for modification and mounting.”
“And if we have time,” muttered Prael, head sinking. “When do you think, really think, we’ll have the B model in hand?”
Mueller bit his lower lip, shaking his head, “We won’t have a prototype for as much as four or five months. I think we have been too ambitious.”
Prael understood, even agreed. The B model Tiger was a leap ahead of the original, mounting not just a railgun capable of striking the enemy even in space, but also nuclear propulsion, much thickened and enhanced armor, a new AI suite. And these were only the major differences. There were numerous minor ones as well.
“It is time,” announced Prael, looking at his watch. Nodding, Mueller agreed and the two walked to a room containing the other members of the core design team.
It was supposed to be a party, a farewell party. The world had seen more joyful occasions. Most funerals were at least equally festive.
Certainly Schlüssel’s face showed unhappiness. Equally so Henschel, the bearded Nielsen, and the usually ebullient Breitenbach wore long faces.
“Must you go, David? Really? Must you?” asked Breitenbach.
Benjamin quietly nodded his head. He had been this way — dour and quiet — ever since the news had come the previous December of the fall of Jerusalem; wife gone, family gone, friends gone. A few hundred thousand Jews had been evacuated, most of them being given shelter by Germany and the United Kingdom. Certainly anti-Semitic France’s strong and vocal Muslim minority had put up vigorous protests towards the notion of sheltering the religious and cultural enemy.
But Germany, long-guilty Germany — ever seeking forgiveness, had opened up. Her strong merchant fleet along with the Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy had braved a gauntlet of Posleen fire (much of it only generally aimed, as the Posleen understood wet water vessels but poorly) to bring out the Jews.