Eye of the Storm lota-11

by John Ringo

  “Anything that’s going to really hurt Fleet Strike politically?” Mike asked. He didn’t really care a lot. Despite the off-putting uniform he found himself warming to the German officer.

  “I think not,” Muehlenkampf replied. “We will have control of who joins our unit. Understand, we will accept any race or religion or ethnicity. We are very open about that.”

  “Even, sorry for asking, Jews?” Mike asked.

  The Generalfeldmarschall actually smiled at that.

  “Herr General, over thirty percent of my people are Jewish.”

  “What?” Mike asked. “Really?”

  “When Israel fell, the survivors were… still effectively pariah. There were few countries that could or would accept them. Deutschland still had open ports and was willing, for the guilt if nothing else. Portions of the Israeli Defense Force were evacuated with them. We were the only group willing to integrate them intact.”

  “That must have been really interesting,” Mike said.

  “I will not say that there were not, to an extent are not, anti-Semites in our ranks,” the Generalfeldmarschall replied. “We do after all still have some rejuvs. But the core of our unit, our officers assuredly, are not… at least since that weenie, von Ribbentrop, was killed. Even in our darkest days, the Waffen SS was not a purely political unit. Ours was the only unit that promoted for merit in those days. In the Wehrmacht you could only be an officer if you were from the officer class. Thus we attracted many soldaten, including myself, who were simply interested in advancement. They were soldaten first, political a distant second. Not all of course, but many. After the war, this last one that is, many of the survivors who went into Deutschland were Jewish, the remnants of Israel. Others, of course, returned there but with the radioactive wasteland the IDF made of it at the end… It is much easier to survive in Germany.

  “We still maintain separate units but that is more of tradition than necessity. This is, however, one of the requirements that is non-negotiable. We must retain our unit traditions, uniforms, medals and leadership. And we must be paid at Fleet Strike rates. Lifting our fighting force will require that those left behind have sufficient funds to continue to survive. Prosperity is far too much to ask.”

  “Security?” Mike asked. “You’re still in a reclamation zone.”

  “There are young and old to maintain that,” the Generalfeldmarschall replied. “But they will be stretched controlling the perimeter. They cannot defend and do all the work at the same time.”

  “If there’s sufficient additional manpower, I can probably do you a favor in regards to production,” Mike said, his eyes on the far wall. “We’re activating quite a few Posleen forges. I can probably move some of those to your colony. That would not only mean you could produce weapons and ammunition locally, the excess would be bought by Fleet Strike and Fleet to supply the war effort. And there would be excess.”

  “That would be welcome,” Muehlenkampf said, nodding sharply. “As to the rest?”

  “The only question I have is military law,” Mike said. “In the end, who calls the shots if one of your soldiers breaks the law?”

  “The details can be worked out by lawyers, yes?” the Generalfeldmarschall said. “But we would require much control over that. We have a long history of being on the wrong end of legal issues. Especially those that are politically driven. I’m sure you can understand.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mike said. “Been there, done that.”

  “That being said, we are quite brutal in our discipline and follow the laws of war at penalty of death,” Muehlenkampf said. “One aspect of being under our own jurisdiction is that our discipline is considered quite… old-fashioned by many other forces. It is, however, our way.”

  “Flogging?” Mike asked, fascinated.

  “Rarely,” the Generalfeldmarschall said with a shrug. “There are few offenses that are so minor as to require flogging but more major than those that give the penalty of hard labor. Generally it jumps from labor straight to hanging. If we flog someone it is only as a send-off. These days, we don’t even give them a lift to the safe areas. We just throw them out of the colony with their personal weapons. If they make it to the Alps, more power to them. I have heard of few that did.”

  “Okay,” Mike said, his eyes wide. “One last thing. I don’t have a position available for a ‘Generalfeldmarschall.’ You can anticipate that I’ll be pulling you along when the time comes. I need competent generals nearly as much as I need soldiers. But for right now, I don’t have a slot. What do you want to do about that?”

  “I will take command of my people, of course,” Muehlenkampf said. “I will accept a reduction to Generalmajor as a temporary rank. My permanent rank remains, of course.”

  “Of course,” Mike said. “With that settled, Generalmajor, you can consider this a warning order for activation of your unit. How are you fixed for weapons and equipment?”

  “Poorly,” the officer admitted. “Most of our weapons are left over from the War and very worn. Equipment is what we can buy when necessary but more usually make or scrounge.”

  “We’re short at the moment, too,” Mike said. “On everything. But I’ve got a guy working on rectifying that and what we’ve got will go to you as a priority. But some of it’s going to require training.”

  “As long as it is hard training, that will be fine with us,” Generalfeldmarschall Muehlenkampf said with a thin smile.

  “Oh, it will be hard,” Mike said, looking at the wall. “But it’s not going to be a patch on what I’m going to have you do… ”

  * * *

  “Frederick,” Dieter Schultz said, shaking the young man’s hand. “A happy day, yes?”

  Dieter Schultz was light. Light of body, light of hair, light of eye. He also looked quite young, until you looked at his light-gray eyes which were older than night.

  Dieter was a rejuv and had been rejuvenated quite young, the by-result of a long time spent in the regeneration tanks after a particularly horrific battle. He had been drafted into the German army and then transferred to the SS, a choice he’d been more than a bit doubtful about at first. But, later, he came to understand the esprit of that most reviled of units and fully accept it.

  He had been young in spirit in those days, convinced that the mighty SS could, singlehandedly if necessary, defend the Fatherland. Young enough in spirit to fall in love.

  Which was why he carried the flowers. Always. Everywhere.

  “Yes, Herr Oberstleutnant,” Frederick said, shaking the Bruderschaft commander’s hand nervously. The colonel, as always, had the helmet with flowers in it. Frederick had finally gained enough time in the battalion that the flowers were explained. He, therefore, gulped slightly. A happy day for him might not be so for the colonel.

  Frederick Erdmann was tall, nearly two meters, with a slender but muscular body. With handsome features, ice blue eyes and short-clipped blond hair he had been more than popular in gymnasium. Then he’d turned eighteen and been ceremoniously dumped out of gymnasium and into the arms of the Bruederschaft Michael Wittmann.

  That was the pattern of Freiland. With work for so many hands the old and a few of the younger women, those out of gymnasium, what Americans called ‘high school,’ but not yet bearing, took care of the children during the day until they, too, could enter school. Then the school system raised them until it was time for them to be chosen by a Bruederschaft. The English term would be ‘Brotherhood’ but it was much more than that. The Bruederschaft was a social service organization, a guild in many cases, the way you advanced in society in most cases and, most important, your reserve unit. The initial testing for the Bruederschaft was tough and demanding but without a membership there was little chance of making anything of yourself in Freiland. Virtually everyone was a member, the males in combat positions, the females in many of the support positions.

  The initial term of service was five years but it didn’t mean you were out on patrol all the time. The Bruederschafts ran t
he farms and factories, taught skills, chose who would go to the local, foreign or even off-planet universities and generally ran the economy of Freiland.

  At that, he had been lucky to get into his father’s Bruederschaft. Bruederschaft Michael Wittmann had managed, recently, to scratch up the money for a new forge. The forge was already producing useful items, repair parts for tractors and trucks, tools and all the other necessary bits of metal that made up civilization. As soon as he had been accepted as a full member of the Bruderschaft, he intended to apply for a machinist trainee position. Then he and Marta would be sitting on easy street.

  “I have only one suggestion for you, Frederick,” the Oberstleutnant said. “Take what happiness you can find when it is given to you. Life is short. Live it.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Oberstleutnant,” Frederick said.

  “I will leave you to your celebration.”

  And quite a celebration it was. It seemed that the entire Brotherhood had turned out for his betrothal celebration. It was less the truth that both he and Marta were popular in the Bruederschaft than that any chance for celebration was taken.

  Frederick did not recall the really bad years, having been born since things were more established. But the old people, those old of body and the few remaining rejuvs, were always happy to tell of it. After the Siege was lifted practically the first action of the European Council had been to disband the remaining SS units. They were given their last month’s pay and a bonus amounting to only another month then told, ‘thank you for your service, now take off those uniforms before we spit on them.’

  The Generalfeldmarschall, though, had already planned for the eventuality. First, he gathered the units in their various alpine and arctic sanctuaries then had the personnel pool their money. With that cash they bought minimum necessary equipment. Salvage trucks, used tractors, tools, seeds, machine tools, bare minimum supplies. They had been allowed to keep their personal weapons. The Siege had ended in autumn. Full clearing of all Posleen concentrations took nearly a month. It took the rest of the winter to prepare, a winter of begging for scraps from the people they had saved. In spring, the two separated units had set off into the wilderness of what had once been Central Europe.

  The French units wanted to set up around Paris. However, there were far more surviving Germans. The Generalfeldmarschall had chosen Koblenz as a defensible position, nearly equidistant from both formations, from which they could colonize in both directions.

  Fields were cleared, hovels built for shelter and bunkers for defense. The Posleen bred fast and while they were no longer the technological locusts they had been, they were still numerous. Good people were lost simply sowing, clearing and harvesting. The first crop by the non-farmers was scant. Ammunition was short. And there was no-one on Earth willing to help those pariahs, the SS.

  But they survived. Many died that first winter, from Posleen, from malnutrition, from sickness. But the strong survived. Some groups joined them, scattered nationalist survivors from Eastern Europe. Germans who believed in resurrecting the Fatherland. Frenchmen gathering to the Charlemagnes who still intended to start a new colony in France. Many of the Judas Maccabeans had come with them and the Jews were fine comrades; smart, tough and willing as the day was long. More gathered on them, despite the reputation of the SS. Freiland accepted anyone as long as they lived up to the demanding standards of Herr Generalfeldmarschall. The Maccabeans had even adopted the deathly joking slogan: Arbeit Macht Frei. But they were still the only ones allowed to say it.

  But now was the time for celebration, with burgeoning fields, forges that were approaching the dignity of being called factories. For this special gathering brats were raising a delicious aroma unto heaven, cuts graced the table and spring greens filled locally made plastic bowls. Das Volk were, again, reprising the German Miracle. Slowly, so slowly. But it was being done.

  “Frederick, you have not been drinking enough,” Hagai Goldschmidt said, handing him a tankard of beer. “There are two days when being totally shit-faced is appropriate. This is one of them.”

  He and Hagai had grown up in the same creche and spent much of their time in school together, including being star wings for their gymnasium football team. But since joining the Bruederschaft he had seen little of his childhood friend.

  “Jaeger,” Frederick said, taking the beer then wrapping the lighter man’s head in a lock. The pronunciation of ‘Hagai’ and ‘Jaeger’, Deutsch for ‘hunter’ was close enough that the nickname had been natural to the non-Jews who dealt with the slim, fast young man. “You are a runt and you shall always be a runt.” He took the mug and rubbed it into his friend’s head, hard.

  “And you are a large block of wood, you idiot,” the Jew say, wriggling to get free. “Let me go you big ox!”

  Frederick released him and carefully straightened his friend’s yamuka.

  “So, how is Judas Maccabeus?”

  “What can I say?” Hagai said, shrugging. “Was your first period as bad as mine?”

  “Work the fields all day then train all night?” Frederick asked, chuckling. “One week in three on perimeter? No sleep, bad food and sergeants shouting at you constantly?”

  “And no women,” Hagai said, grinning. “But you didn’t have to do prayers every Sabat. Or not be allowed motor transport on same.”

  “When there is any!” Frederick said.

  “ ‘The trucks will pick us up after the sweep!’ ” they both chorused then chuckled.

  “I have not spoken to you since we left gymnasium,” Frederick said, shaking his head. “I am ashamed. What are your duties, now?”

  “Grenadier,” Hagai said, shaking his head. “When we have ammo I can even think of firing it. If it does not explode in my hands. You?”

  “Ammo bearer in a machine-gun section,” Frederick said. “But I will never make gunner. My gunner is Gunther Harz.”

  “I know that name,” Hagai said, frowning. “A juv? Yes, he was a tank commander in the War! A gunner? I would have thought Oberfeldwebel at least.”

  “He likes it,” Frederick said, blandly. “And, yes, he is very good.”

  “He should be after doing it for fifty years,” Hagai said, chuckling.

  “But, you want to speak of training?” Frederick said, shuddering. “He is a shrimp like someone else who shall remain nameless. You think I would be able to keep up with him. No! He is like some sort of lightning made flesh. And no matter how fast I get the ammo to him it is always ‘Too slow, Ox! We are all dead by now! You are too slow!’ He had me running up and down the Fort hill with my full combat load for a night! I think I threw up my last meal from gymnasium on that hill.”

  “Work will make us free,” Hagai said, shrugging again. “We make better days.”

  “Let us hope so,” Frederick said. “It was not as hard for us as the oldsters, but I want my children to grow up in a better world. Children. What a thought.”

  “And Marta?” Hagai asked. “Is she wanting to be a good SS mother? You two are, of course, the perfect couple but are you perfect enough,” he added with a wink.

  “She says that she’s going to repopulate the Fatherland on her own,” Frederick said then grinned. “But since I don’t think she can really do it on her own… ”

  “Yes,” Hagai said, smiling faintly. “Let’s hope she doesn’t have to.”

  “What?” Frederick said. “So gloomy suddenly?”

  “You have not heard of the new threat?” Hagai asked.

  “Das Hedren,” Frederick said, shrugging. “I have heard something. I have been busy. They are far away.”

  “Germans,” Hagai said, shaking his head. “They have taken three worlds already, one of them a Darhel core-world. Michael O’Neal, the American David, has been appointed a supreme commander to deal with them. And Herr Generalfeldmarschall has been called away.”

  “Where?” Frederick asked.

  “I do not know,” Hagai said. “Or at least I was not told. But I doubt it was to a tea party.
I see your blushing nearly fiancee looking daggers at me. I suggest you get your large and bony ass over there; the ceremony is about to begin.”

  * * *

  “Takao,” Mike said as the newly minted admiral entered his office. “Thanks for coming. I think that technically you outrank me or something.”

  “Then we need to get you another star,” Admiral Takagi said, taking the indicated chair.

  “Not on your life,” Mike said, tapping down his dip, and pulling out a pinch. “I’m assured by all sorts of people, official and less official, that this room is secure. We’re just going to have to hope. Because this doesn’t leave the room.”

  “Yes, sir,” Takagi said, regarding the smaller man carefully.

  “Been thinking about the strategic situation?” Mike asked.

  “It is… unfortunate,” Takagi said, his face deadpan.

  “You’re here because since we’re pretty much the same rank we can actually discuss stuff,” Mike said, frowning. “I sort of need a more… American answer. Let me tell you what I see… ”

  He brought up a hologram of the local arm then zoomed in on the area around Gratoola.

  “Gratoola system,” Mike said, highlighting it. “Single habitable planet is Darhel owned. Gratoola is an A Class star, the only one sitting in the gap between two local clusters. Since A Class stars have a deeper grav well, they make longer and more useable lines to other stars; lower power use, faster transit times and much longer links. In other words, it’s one hell of a transit point. The inner local cluster has Earth, Diess, Barwhon, Indra, a couple of other Indowy planets and the Blight. The outer cluster has the majority of the rest of the Federation in three clusters. Since all the freighters, at least, use the ley-line form of transport, they can either take a looong route around through secondary clusters, one of which the Hedren now control, or they have to jump through Gratoola. Where they usually fuel up, pick up supplies, get repairs, etc.”