Storm Front (Twilight of the Gods Book 1)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Hans tapped the table. “We can cancel some of our long-term procurement,” he said. “The planned sixth carrier can be placed on hold, if necessary” - he ignored the squawk from Grossadmiral Cajus Bekker - “and we can scrap the planned development and purchase of a replacement main battle tank. We already have more than enough nuclear missiles to give the American ABM system a very hard time indeed, if it comes down to total war, and the Americans are unlikely to launch an invasion of the continent. Our security is unlikely to be put at risk.

  “The problem, however, is that this will have dangerous knock-on effects,” he added, wondering just how many of them would understand. “If we stop paying for new tanks...”

  “We would have more money,” Holliston snapped.

  “Yes, and the corporations we would be paying wouldn’t,” Hans said. “They would wind up with a cash shortfall, so they would either have to cut wages - again - or sack hundreds of trained workers. And that will cause more social unrest at the worst possible time.”

  “They could go east,” Holliston offered. “We need more farmers...”

  “There’s no shortage of farmers,” Hans snapped. “They’re trained and experienced industrial workers. We cannot afford to lose them.”

  He looked down at the table. “But even if we do, it will not fix the hole in our budget,” he warned. “The really big expenses are the ones we don’t dare risk cutting. Keeping the garrisons in position to monitor the French alone is quite costly; keeping Germany South a going concern is staggeringly expensive. And the support payments may be the single worst item on the list. We have got to stop handing out money to every woman who has more a child!”

  “But we need to keep our population from decaying,” Holliston insisted. “How will the women have children if they cannot afford to keep them?”

  “Our population is not in danger of falling,” Hans said.

  It wasn't entirely true, he knew. Industrial societies - and Germany Prime was an industrial society - had significantly lower birth-rates than farming societies. America had had a baby boom after the war with Japan, then the birth-rate had dropped sharply over the following decades. The Reich had escaped the same fate through passing laws that made it easier to afford more children, both through support payments and public honours for women with many children. But now, simply paying the women their monthly allowance was a major strain on the public purse. Who knew what would happen, apart from massive civil unrest, if the payments were ever cut?

  “The Untermenschen breed like rabbits,” Holliston said. “We have to keep up with them.”

  “The Untermenschen are unlikely to pose a major danger, at least for the foreseeable future,” Hans countered. “Our current problems lie with the so-called Valkyries.”

  “The corporations will not allow any independent trade unions,” Friedrich Leopoldsberger said, coldly. The Industries Minister was their creature, Hans knew; the Ministry of Industry was, perhaps, the most deeply corrupt ministry in the Reich. “There are corporate-sponsored unions to handle the workers and their concerns.”

  “Unions which do nothing more than identify and marginalise troublemakers,” Hans pointed out. “Can the corporations afford to lose half of their workforce?”

  “They will come crawling back after a couple of weeks of unemployment,” Leopoldsberger said. “Let them experience life without a regular salary. Let them see what it is like to be without money, without hope of employment. Where else can they go?”

  “That would work,” Holliston said.

  “And how long would it be,” Hans asked, “before the entire workforce goes on strike?”

  He scowled at Leopoldsberger, who scowled back. “You’re thinking in terms of a handful of little men,” he said. “And yes, a handful of bad apples can be isolated and kicked out of the bunch. But thousands of workers, all of whom are already feeling the pinch? You might just start a whole series of strikes if you sacked them... and if that happens, you will find it impossible not to surrender. There are no replacements for trained workers.”

  “We could train others,” Leopoldsberger pointed out.

  “In time?” Hans asked. “God knows our training system has been having problems too. Or are you planning to bring in the military to run the plants?”

  “We couldn't,” Voss said.

  “We could at least try to break their morale,” Holliston said. “If they resist... we’re no worse off than we already are.”

  “We’d have allowed them to see their strength,” Hans said, exasperated. “And that will undermine us more than the financial crisis.”

  He gave Holliston a long considering look. “It may be time to start considering other ways to save money and put the Reich on a firmer footing,” he added. “Perhaps it is time to bring the war in South Africa to an end.”

  “Out of the question,” Holliston thundered. “If we leave, Pretoria will go under and the niggers will rule South Africa. And then Germany South will fall. And then the French, Italian and Spanish empires will fall. And then there will be a black tide washing at the southern coastline of Europe!”

  “It’s rather more likely that they’ll have a civil war,” Stresemann said. “The blacks are split into multiple different factions. Several of them are centred around tribes that are only working together because they see the Afrikaners as a worse threat. If the war comes to an end, if they win their freedom, they might start killing each other instead of threatening our borders.”

  “The black population of Germany South will take heart from our surrender,” Holliston insisted. “And it will be a surrender! Adolf Hitler himself insisted that not one jot of German land was to be surrendered to the barbarians.”

  “Hitler did understand the value of a tactical withdrawal,” Stoffregen reminded him. “It isn't as if the land won’t be recaptured one day.”

  “This isn't a limited tactical withdrawal to buy time,” Holliston said, coldly. He held up a hand before any of the military officers could correct him. “I know; we often fell back when the Russians lunged at us during the war, just to allow their advance time to stall before we counterattacked and retook the territory, destroying their forces as we advanced. But here, we would be abandoning a government that shares our ideals. Our enemies will not hesitate to take notice.

  “Vichy France is already under pressure from its own people. If we abandon South Africa, the French will assume that we will abandon the Vichy Government and rise up against it, forcing us to intervene. The war in South Africa may be bad, but it will be far worse if we have to fight an insurgency in the south of France. Fighting will spill over into our territories and the results will be disastrous. And Spain, Italy and Greece will go the same way. To surrender South Africa risks surrendering the entire Reich.

  “And the Americans will not hesitate to take advantage of our weakness. They will ship weapons into France, allowing the French to shoot down our aircraft and destroy our tanks; they may even slip weapons into Germany itself, passing them on to the Gastarbeiters in their camps. We cannot give up now or we will lose everything!”

  So we go in a circle, Hans thought. We cannot arrest the rebels, nor can we grant their demands. What the hell do we do?

  “We use pressure to convince the trade unionists to give up,” Holliston said. “And we pull out all the stops in searching for this... this Sigrún! We launch a full-scale propaganda campaign to convince the population that the Valkyries will eventually lead Germany to its doom. We make it damn clear that the war in South Africa is necessary!”

  “That would force us to admit that we underestimated the situation,” Hans pointed out, smoothly.

  “Then let us make that admission,” Holliston snapped. “Let us admit to the mistake, let us put our justification in front of the people and let the true Germans see what has to be done.”

  Hans frowned. “And if they reject the arguments?”

  “We control the mass media,” Holliston said. “The Valkyries have to s
neak around the computer network and leave their damnable leaflets in libraries or hidden under seats on the trains. We’ve even arrested a couple of idiots carting them around the city. They cannot compete with us when it comes to speaking to the people.”

  “And yet the people are more likely to believe them,” Hans said. “We were caught lying, Karl. It's hard to regain trust when you lose it so roughly.”

  “Then we tell them why we lied,” Holliston said. “Because there’s no other way to tackle the problem.”

  Hans sighed, inwardly, as the councillors started to vote. Holliston, damn the man, had offered them an alternative to either making massive budget cuts or surrendering some of their power. They believed him because they wanted to believe him, because they hoped there was a way out of the crisis without tearing the Reich apart. And nothing he could say would make a difference.

  He cursed under his breath as Holliston flashed him a look of triumph, once the voting was over. Who knew? Maybe Holliston was right. But the figures didn't lie. No matter how he looked at it, there was no way to avoid a major budgetary crisis forever. Indeed, he suspected the crisis would be impossible to hide in less than a month...

  ... And who knew what would happen then?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Berlin, Germany

  12 August 1985

  “The manager wants to see you,” the secretary said curtly, as Volker Schulze entered the factory. “You’re to go straight to him. No detours along the way.”

  Volker Schulze nodded. He’d expected to be hauled up in front of the factory’s manager sooner rather than later. Indeed, he was surprised it hadn’t already happened. There was always some ass-licking bastard willing to rat out his fellows for money or a chance at promotion. But, given the sheer number of workers in the new union and the rumours spreading through the grapevine, he suspected that management was passing the buck higher and higher up the chain. The manager of the factory couldn't even muster the initiative to wipe his own ass without orders in triplicate from his superiors.

  “I’ll be along in a moment,” he said. His eyes found Joachim as he entered the factory and gave him a significant look. They’d had a week to come up with contingency plans for when management finally decided to do something about the union and they were, he suspected, about to find out just how good they were. “I’ll have to leave my coat in the cloakroom...”

  “Now,” the secretary said. Someone must have bawled him out for his role in helping to arrange the first union meeting, even though he hadn't had the slightest idea what had actually been going on. Volker Schulze would have felt sorry for him if the secretary hadn't been such a pissy little man. “The manager wants to see you at once.”

  Volker Schulze mouthed orders at Joachim, then turned and allowed the secretary to lead him up the stairs to the management offices. He’d only entered them twice before, back when he’d been a loyal foreman; he’d had to defend two workers who had been on the verge of being fired for problems beyond their control. He couldn’t help feeling a flicker of doubt as he passed through a solid wooden door that was normally locked, even though he’d made his plans and discussed them with his wife. If he’d misjudged the situation - and he knew all too well just how ruthless the government could be - he was in deep trouble.

  They can't afford to punish all of us, he reassured himself. A week had given him time to spread the idea of independent unions far and wide. His was still the best-organised, but others were growing in size and power. They need us to man the factories and produce their guns and butter.

  “Wait here,” the secretary said.

  Volker Schulze snorted, rudely, as he leaned against the wall. It was intimidation, childish intimidation. It might work on a young boy who’d been kicked out of class and told to report to the headmaster, but not on a grown man with genuine combat experience. The secretary had none, as far as he knew; he’d been too cowardly to volunteer for military service and lucky enough to escape conscription. And he would be surprised if his managers had any experience themselves. He'd be more worried if he was getting called for an interview with his former CO.

  He was midway through a silent recitation of SS Adolf Hitler’s battle honours when the secretary returned, looking as if someone had crammed a rod up his butt. Volker kept his face under control as the secretary motioned for him to step through the door, into the manager’s office. Not entirely to his surprise, he noticed as he entered, the factory manager was absent, his place taken by two men in fancy suits. He recognised one of them as a senior official within the factory’s parent corporation - there had been an article on him in the corporate newsletter - but the other was a complete stranger.

  “Foreman Volker Schulze,” the official said. Volker had to think hard to recall the man’s name. Leonhard Crosse, if he recalled correctly. “You have formed a union, in defiance of both your contract with the corporation and Reich law. Do you have anything you wish to say in your defence?”

  “Yes, sir,” Volker said. He adjusted his posture, trying hard to present a picture of a man who was both willing to compromise and yet determined to stand his ground. “The current working conditions are appalling and they’re only going to get worse. There have already been a number of deaths over the last two months, caused by increased demand for production combined with poor maintenance. We simply cannot go on like this.”

  It was worse than that, he knew. Four men had died only two months ago, after the piece of machinery they were working on had exploded. That had been bad enough, but their families - unfortunate enough to live on corporate property - had been immediately evicted, on the grounds that their relatives no longer worked at the plant. In hindsight, Volker suspected, they should have taken that incident as an excuse to form an independent union. There had been so much anger on the factory floor that it would have been easy to start a strike.

  “Your conduct is inexcusable,” Crosse said. If he’d heard a single word Volker had said, he didn't give any sign of it. “You are accordingly dismissed from your job. Your appeal has already been reviewed by the labour commission and rejected. You will be escorted to the gates and evicted. As you have admitted to forming an unregulated union, you will not be paid your final paycheck.”

  Volker kept his face expressionless. He hadn't expected anything else. The ‘appeal’ - the appeal he hadn't even made - was nothing more than a mere formality, a meaningless statement designed to suggest that there had been a form of due process. He could have put forward any excuse, he knew, and they would have rejected it. Forming a union, challenging the corporate managers directly... it was an unforgivable sin. But it was far too late for them to crush the union by firing its founder. The union was already out of control.

  He glanced behind him as the door opened, just in time to see two burly men step into the chamber. Corporate security, he noted dispassionately; they carried themselves like thugs, not real soldiers. He offered no resistance as they grabbed his shoulders, spun him around and marched him through the door. The secretary, standing outside, sneered at Volker as he was pushed through the outer office and down the stairs. A number of workers were waiting at the bottom. Volker smiled to himself as the security guards hesitated, suddenly unsure of themselves. They were good at pushing individuals around, but they didn’t have the bravery to face an entire group.

  “Strike,” Volker announced, loudly. “STRIKE!”

  He yanked his hands free as the workers swarmed forwards. Joachim had already briefed them, he knew; the guards had no time to resist before they were grabbed, searched and shoved into an office to wait until they were released. They made no attempt to draw their pistols and fight back before it was too late. Volker took one of the pistols and checked it - he dreaded to think what his training officers would have said if they’d seen the weapon - and then started to bark orders. The unionists took up the cry of strike, sending advance parties running through the factory. Volker himself turned and led another team back up the stairs, int
o the outer office. The secretary, no longer sneering, had scooped up a telephone and was frantically dialling a number. Volker resisted the temptation to shoot the device out of his hand - he honestly wasn't sure if the pistol would fire when he pulled the trigger - and instead motioned for the secretary to put the telephone down.

  “Wimp,” Joachim commented, as Volker motioned for the secretary to stand up and move away from his desk. His trousers were stained with urine. “Honestly. He should try working on the shop floor.”

  Volker wrinkled his nose in disgust. He’d pissed himself too, the first time he’d gone into battle, but he’d been up against a serious enemy. They’d known what would happen if they were captured by the Arabs and every man in the unit had privately resolved to save one bullet for themselves, rather than fall into enemy hands. The secretary, as priggish as he was, had nothing to fear as long as he behaved himself. But then, he probably thought the workers on the factory floor were barbarians. He’d certainly never spent any time with them.