The Atlantropa Articles

by Cody Franklin

  Ulric is lying face down across the room. His helmet…where is his helmet? I pull myself up and stumble around to look for it. I see it tossed near a knocked-over shelf.

  I take Ulric’s helmet and quickly place it onto his body. His eyes open.

  “I think the blast made me black out for a sec…” he groans, stretching his arms. “Did it work? Did the Aegir Drop do the job?”

  I put out my hand and pull him up. We look at the crumpled-up heap of metal, now consumed by a mountain of sand. There is now a deep crater in the flat landscape.

  “Yeah…it did the job…” I reply in a soft, gasping tone.

  Walking over to Volker, I pick him up. He extends a weak knee to prop himself up, clutching at a bleeding wound on his face.

  “I took glass to the face,” he sputters, coughing up a glob of blood.

  “We’ll get you a Med-Kit,” I comfort, “Ulric, how is Witzel?”

  “Ansel, I…” Ulric says, standing over the collapsed body of a kid his age. “It’s not good.”

  I prop Volker onto a chair and give him one of my cloths to stop the bleeding, then make my way to the still unconscious Witzel, face down in a pool of crimson. With a gloved hand I turn the kid over and close my eyes slowly in disappointment. Disappointment at myself for letting this happen.

  When I open them I see Witzel, his blue pupils clashing with bloodshot irises. A large shard of glass had lodged itself directly into his neck. The blood is pouring like thick syrup out of his half-open mouth and punctured windpipe. He looks at me wide-eyed, gargles a few words, then stares upward unmoving.

  Honor in Death

  The ship is damaged. We patched it up the best we could, but there wasn’t much we could do with the resources we have out here. We’ll need to get to an Eagle Nest for repairs, and it’s at least thirty kilometers away. The Howling Dark is limping its way to safety.

  We lost nine men. Two to gunshots. Six to cannon fire. One to broken glass. Ulric, Volker, and I stand in the empty husk of the Bridge. The day is clear, so only a little bit of sand comes through—even so, we still need to wear our armor and helmets to stay safe. Volker was able to get patched up. We buried the dead, including Witzel, in the desert, placing tokens with swastikas on top of the graves. From the environment of the crew, none of them blamed me for what happened.

  It was just the nature of the Kiln, and the nature of the Scavengers. Our friends died serving the Reich, and as the Eternal Führer preached, that is the most noble death any of us could hope for. They all died heroes—but deep down, I know they didn’t need to die like that.

  I’ve done that same maneuver dozens of times. Sure, it is risky, but it always came with a big reward as well. The shots from the main cannons were missing. They have a narrower range than the side cannons. It was meant to be one decisive blow, and it has worked before. Yet instead of celebrating victoriously while sailing away from the wreckage of our enemies, I watched over my men’s burials in this land of salt and sand.

  With the tread damaged, nobody knows how long we have until it gives in. For now, we simply take it slowly and delicately. It may give out at any second, or it may not. For now, I stand here on the Bridge, in my armor, staring out through an open window, anticipating the clunk of the tread’s final rotation.

  I pick up the radio to prepare for emergency pick-up from the nearest Nest in case our ship is stranded. I click the button, but there is no soft white noise. I click it again, and then again. Then I try my helmet. Nothing.

  “I’m not getting any signal from outside the ship,” I tell Volker.

  “What do you mean? I can hear you fine through the helmet intercom,” Volker replies.

  “Yeah, but the helmets work on a limited range, I’m trying to use long range and it isn’t working. I think our long range communications are damaged.”

  “Fuck. I’ll send somebody down on the deck to check,” Volker replies. He turns around and says through the short-range radio, “Hey, go check the long range communication rod see if it’s there, we can’t get signal outside the ship.”

  We stand in silence awaiting a response.

  “They knew what they signed up for,” Volker responds in a reassuring tone. “This is the Kiln. Fuck, every boy in the Reich dreams of fighting against the Scavengers. When we get back, they will be remembered for what they did today. We stopped two ships from getting further north…that’s something…”

  “I suppose.”

  “Witzel was a good officer.”

  “He was. The last thing I said to him was I was going to throw him overboard…all because he wanted me to call in the Drop.”

  “I didn’t want the Drop called in either,” Volker admits, “it feels…so against…what Hitler stood for. About a noble battle. Feels like it robs something from defending the race…you know.”

  “I never once had an Aegir Drop called in, not once…we always found a way to get out of tough situations…”

  “I wonder why this time was different.”

  “When you do something so much you eventually stop seeing the danger in it I suppose.”

  “You forget how dangerous the Kiln really is. I get that.”

  “You do?”

  “Well…not personally. But I’m not Captain. Captains need to have that personality—First Officers don’t. We’re the ones that keep that stupidity in check.”

  I chuckle, “I suppose you’re right. Where were you two hours ago?”

  “Following orders the best I could.”

  It’s noon by now. The sun is at its highest and strongest. This metal cabin is becoming a furnace without the safety of the windows. Even under my armor, I can still feel the creeping kiss of the smoldering desert air. Volker excuses himself and retreats underneath the deck to tend to his wounds again, and probably to escape the heat too, leaving just Ulric and I alone overlooking a white and orange plain.

  “I fought to retake Eagle Nests when I was seventeen,” I reflect. “Didn’t think anything of it. Sure it was dangerous. I lost my arm, shook it off, kept going. This is my element. I command this element. The desert and sand, and facing off any threat that gets in my way. After years…the danger just becomes the average.”

  “Remember the family cottage in Bavaria? We went there every summer,” Ulric remarks, his tone shifting.

  “Yeah, Father wanted me around all the time but I went off sometimes to fuck the local girls,” I say.

  “That’s where you went?” Ulric asks.

  “Oh? Oh yeah, you were too young to know that.”

  “Anyway, there was always this cliffside I would climb, and I never thought it was dangerous…until I slipped. I didn’t fall or anything, but it was that jolt—your heart racing when you realize that you’re not on flat ground. Sometimes we forget and it takes a slip to bring perspective,” he explains.

  “Hell of a slip this was,” I mutter.

  We continue on in silence, watching the distant blurry pillars rising on the horizon. They aren’t ships, they are towers. The first Eagle Nests that we’ve seen on this journey. Eagle Nest #13. It appears so close, yet I don’t know if we will make it.

  “Father always had a good way of putting things in perspective,” I reminisce. “You get that from him. Apologies about the hit earlier.” I point to the part of his helmet that I assume his cheek is under.

  “You get the temper from Mother,” he says. “And the stubbornness.”

  “Oh yeah, she was really stubborn about me going to a good university. ‘Don’t go into the military,’ she said. ‘It won’t do any good for you.’ Silly her though, I got a metallic arm out of it.” I joke, holding up my rusting arm.

  “She forced me to go into university,” Ulric flatly admits. It catches me by surprise.

  “What? I thought you were a scholar and wanted to study the Reich history, and all that.”r />
  “I do. But I kinda wanted to serve first you know? You were already deployed into the Kiln. Kinda looked up to that, wanted to be like that. The Eternal Führer always wrote about fighting for our people.”

  “He also talked about serving the people as well,” I explain. “And you are a Knight, a descendant from his original guard—if that isn’t serving I don’t know what is.”

  “Right,” Ulric agrees. “This should be a dream come true.”

  “And it isn’t?”

  “It’s…it’s not what I thought it’d be like. Maybe I just envisioned the rest of the Reich like Germania. I knew that the Kiln was dangerous, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I guess I just imagined it’d be different.”

  “Different how?”

  “When I first envisioned calling down an Aegir Drop, I thought it would be this glorious moment. The feeling you get when you’ve served, did something. Yet it wasn’t out of glory, it was out of desperation. The blast hurt our own…even if it saved us. Like, the salvation ended up harming everyone on both sides, even if we survived.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “We’ve always been taught the dams are good because they give us endless energy, and stopped us from going to war again. And the dams are good, don’t get me wrong…they saved us. Yet at the same time, it still harms us…you know? The dams drained the sea…it took something away to prevent us from losing everything. Just like the Drop took away so we could be saved.”

  “The dams took away the water?”

  “The water…something…I don’t know if this Reich is what the Eternal Führer would have wanted. For us to still be fighting against Scavengers and defending our borders thousands of years after he is gone.”

  “You are the scholar, you’d know more than anyone here what he would have wanted. But I think he’d be happy to simply see the Aryans alive.”

  “He didn’t just want the Aryans alive. He wanted his people, those that looked like him, with blond hair, blue eyes—this destined strong race—to thrive. This doesn’t feel like thriving. It feels like we’re straggling.”

  “He did say that we would struggle with the Scavengers you know. Plagues can come back occasionally.”

  “I’ve always wondered why we can’t just invade down south. Find the Scavengers and end this once and for all.”

  “You’re asking the wrong person, Ulric. I always figured it was because it’s better to protect our own borders.”

  “If I was Führer we’d do things differently.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  “I’d try to find the lost records before the Reclamation. Imagine seeing the actual faces of the original National Socialist leaders. Hitler, Goebbels, Göring, Himmler, Hess…they must have towered over the lesser Europeans like gods…with true Aryans being so rare. I wonder how out of place they felt.”

  “I would like to see what Germania looked like before it was Germania. I read somewhere it was called Berlo…Barlan…”

  “Berlin.”

  “Ah yes, thank you. See I’m not a historian. Just know enough to get by.”

  There is a crackling on my helmet radio and a wispy voice comes through. It’s Volker.

  “Status on the long range communications, Volker.” I ask urgently.

  “Yes, sir,” he responds, “there is a massive hole where they used to be. The entire relay is gone.”

  “Fuck,” I curse. “Alright, come back up here. We need to get this thing to the Eagle Nest.”

  Volker cuts the radio, and I turn back to Ulric.

  “Long range communication is down,” I announce. “We can’t get through to anybody outside the ship.”

  “So what now?” he asks.

  “Now we’re on our own.”

  I bring my hands to my helmet, and take a deep breath—squinting my eyes, wishing for this situation to end.

  “Hell of a first journey into the Kiln, isn’t it,” I mutter to Ulric, my mouth contorting into a smile. Sometimes when situation gets bad, I can’t help but find myself laughing at the preposterousness of the problem.

  “If you would have just called in the—”

  “Stop,” I interrupt my brother.

  “These is a tool we have at our disposal, I don’t see how it isn’t honorable,” Ulric says.

  “Do you feel like you really fought against those Scavengers?” I turn around and say, my voice becoming tense.

  Ulric looks at me and pauses for a few seconds stuttering out a response.

  “Well…yes,” he concludes. “My action brought down the steel rod and it struck down our enemies—it saved us.”

  “But you didn’t personally do it yourself.”

  “Yes I did,” he defends, “I pressed the button, my action led to their ship exploding.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “How is it not?!”

  “There is nothing like looking your enemy in the eye when you drive in that knife, or shoot that gun. The people who have ravaged the Aryans since time began. It’s personal. It’s real. It’s how our ancestors did it.”

  “Perhaps I don’t share the same views on protection of the race as you do.”

  “Perhaps you don’t. You’re the more intellectual type anyway.”

  “I told you that we needed to call in the Drop, yet you were too arrogant and wanted to relive some battle fantasy, you didn’t even consider how you were putting us in danger.”

  “I have done that maneuver dozens of times before you even entered school, I don’t need you lecturing me,” I spit.

  “You don’t even feel guilty for what happened?”

  “Of course I do!” I yell.

  There is a pause. Ulric stares at me through his helmet. I slouch myself down onto a chair near the dashboard.

  “Of course I do. I’m the Captain. This is my ship. Every death, I feel. I know…” I collect myself, putting my rusting arm on my knee and looking up at Ulric, “I know that we should have called in the Drop. But you have no idea how hard that was for me. It’s like…like a clash between my survival, and glory…I feel like they are opposites.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps my glory in this desert is not achieved by surviving. Perhaps it’s through death in battle. Like the Eternal Führer wanted.”

  “You aren’t a grunt in the military anymore,” Ulric flatly states. “You can’t just die in combat. You can’t send this ship into the fray like you’re charging enemy guns. It’s your duty to protect everyone on this ship. Protect me.”

  “I know.”

  “And protection means calling in any resources we need to keep the ship safe.”

  “I know,” I repeat again, in a lowered, annoyed tone, “It doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

  A loud crack rings out across the ship. Both of us are launched forward by the Howling Dark. I slam into the dashboard and Ulric topples into a wall. Then, not a second later, the ground slowly begins to tilt to the starboard side. The tread has broken and partially given away.

  Ulric and I slowly lift ourselves to our feet. The wind was knocked out of me and so I struggle to breathe.

  “You alright?” Ulric asks me.

  I hold out a finger to him, while my other arm clutches at my stomach.

  “I’m fine,” I cough. “Just got hit in the chest.”

  We stumble around, attempting to maintain our stance. With the tread having partially given way, the ship is listing a few degrees. The other engine attempts to spin, rotating the vessel before I reach the dash and stop the movement. In a few seconds, the ship comes to a halt.

  We are stuck. I peer out toward the Eagle Nest far away, its large towers sluggishly rising above the white desert. Taunting us.

  Volker opens the door in a slow, deli
cate fashion, trying to maintain his balance. He meets Ulric and me, all of us understanding the dangerous situation we are in. The ship is trapped, and we have no communications with the outside world.

  “We need to send for help,” I tell him.

  “Fantastic, that’s what I was thinking. Because I don’t feel like boiling alive in this sitting oven,” he responds.

  “So what do we do,” Ulric asks me in a flat voice.

  “We can’t walk it’s too far,” I theorize. “We have the Camels, however, and they certainly have enough fuel in them to get us to the Eagle Nest on the horizon.”

  “Does everyone take the Camels out of the ship?” Ulric says.

  “Of course not,” Volker says, “we still have the cargo, what if another Scavenger ship comes by?”

  “It’s just cargo, are you willing to die for that?”

  “There are weapons in those cargo crates as well,” I butt in. “If they get ahold of those guns and ammunition then who knows what damage they could do.”

  “Most of the men will need to stay here to defend it, or in case help comes,” Volker states.

  “Is there supposed to be another ship coming this way?” Ulric says.

  “Not for at least two days,” I state. “We still have the engines and cooling running, but I don’t know if the ship’s power can last that long.”

  “So somebody will have to make the trip. They have those tow ships in the Nest. They could drag the ship to safety,” Volker says. “We can send somebody from the engine room, or maybe a guardsman.”

  My mind races as I think about the predicament we are in. It is a dangerous journey, crossing over in the Camels. Even if they were life rafts, they are still prone to breaking down and are not as sturdy as a full-treaded ship. I don’t want to lose another sailor out here.

  “I’ll do it,” I say. “I have friends at the Eagle Nest anyway who will recognize me and we can get help quicker. I’ll go on the Camel.”

  “You’re the Captain, sir,” Volker insists. “You don’t need to do this.”