by William Lee
A neat and trim officer approached Dale from around the corner. He was young but clearly professional and every bit of his uniform was pressed and perfect, not something Dale was accustomed to seeing among the officers to whom he reported. Dale stood at attention and saluted the dapper officer. By his insignia, he could see the officer was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Air Corp.
“At ease, Sergeant,” the colonel said, in a gentle but professional tone. Dale relaxed his stance but was anything but ‘at ease.’
“Come with me, Sergeant.” the Colonel said.
“Yes, Sir,” Matthews had given up on asking why, what and how; he simply followed the Colonel. They walked down several long, open, spacious corridors. Massive doors opened into vast ball rooms, that now served as makeshift offices for secretarial staff. They came to a conference room, that was insignificant compared to the others, and the Colonel opened the door and gesticulated for Dale to follow.
The small conference room was no less lavish than the rest of the hotel, with painted, wood panel walls and heavy crown molding. The ceiling had a circular recessed section that was painted a golden color. In the center of the room, stood a single table covered by a white tablecloth and surrounded by six high-back wooden chairs.
“May I get you something: coffee; tea; water?” the Colonel offered.
“Water, please,” Dale replied. He was not thirsty, but based on how long previous meetings had taken, he figured after a few hours of repeating himself to some pretentious Colonel, his mouth would be dry.
“Have a seat. I will be right back,” the Colonel politely, nodded toward the table and walked away.
“Thank you,” Dale said, keeping up the charade of politeness, even though both men knew it was an order, and compliance was expected. Dale took the chair on the other side of the table, so he could face the door from which they had entered.
A few minutes after the Colonel brought back the glass of water another officer walked into the room. Dale could see from the three stars pinned on the collar of his khaki uniform that he was a General. Dale stood to attention and saluted.
“Good morning, Sergeant Matthews. At ease, take a seat,” the General said, with a hand flourish toward the seat. The General appeared to be in his early fifties, with a touch gray creeping out, above his ears.
“I have already told the other officers everything I know,” Dale insisted, in a respectful but defensive tone.
“I’m not here to interrogate you, Matthews. I have read the reports submitted by the previous interviewers, and I believe you. I’m General Ryan Bartlett with the Army Air Corps.”
Dale nodded his head and decided to not speak, other than to answer direct questions.
General Bartlett pulled a folder from his brief case and placed it on the white tablecloth between the two men. Dale glanced at it, assuming it was transcripts of his previous interviews.
“The report says you killed three of these creatures.” The General stated, leaning back in his chair.
“Not exactly. I assisted with killing two of the beasts. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I landed the death blow on either one them. I shot one with my Trench Broom. I mean Thompson machine gun, but it did not go down until it was hit with an M-9 bazooka. The other one I stabbed in the neck, but it did not die until it was shot in the head with an M-2 carbine.”
General Bartlett nodded his head as if to agree with Matthews. “So, I read your description of the flying machine. Did you ever see it fly?”
“As I told the others, I never saw it fly. It was sitting on a concrete platform the entire time.”
“What made you believe it was a flying machine, Matthews?” the General demanded as he was looking down his arrowhead-shaped nose at Matthews.
“I just assumed. It had no tires or tracks. It was made from a metallic substance and sat on the concrete pillars like a ship sits in dry dock.” Dale thought for a moment. “There was also the opening at the top of the chamber directly above the flying machine. It looked to me like that opening was the only way for it to come into or go out of the underground chamber.”
The General cradled his chin between his index finger and thumb, as if in deep thought, never taking his eyes off Matthews. Dale thought this seemed a lot like an interrogation. The General took his hand from his chin and pushed the folder on the table toward Dale, “Look at these.”
Dale reached for the manila folder and opened it, to reveal dozens of photographs of disc-like flying objects. The pictures were all taken from different perspectives and positions.
“I see why you believe me now,” Dale muttered. All the pictures were of metallic objects flying. None of the flying machines had wings, and they were all generally disc-like or cylindrical in shape.
“What you saw, did it look like any of the pictures,” The General asked, pointing at the folder and pictures spread across the table.
Dale nodded his head and quietly responded, “Yes Sir.”
“Matthews, what you saw, it is highly classified, and you cannot discuss it with anyone,” the General warned, in a stern voice.
“Yes sir, I mean, no Sir, I won’t tell anyone what I saw. I won’t even discuss it with the men in my battalion.” Dale knew by the three days of interrogations, that the three-star general was not going to tolerate the slightest breach of confidence.
“I know you will not discuss it with your friends in the battalion,” the General replied, sitting up in his chair, he leaned forward on the white tablecloth and said, “I know, because you are not going back to your battalion. You are being reassigned.”
O God what are they going to do to me?”
“Where to?” he stammered.
“You are being reassigned to the Army Air Corps. To the Alamogordo Army Air Base in New Mexico.”
Dale took the first sip of his water. “I don’t know anything about air planes,” he said weakly.
“Upon arrival, your skills will be assessed. Then, we will decide what to do with you. By the way, you and your entire squad’s history with the Army division will be permanently redacted from the records. You and your men were never on that ridge, never in that battalion, and never sent on that night mission. Do you understand?” It was clear from his facial expression that the General expected understanding.
“Yes sir. But what about my squad, they all died on that ridge.”
“They all died heroes. They, and their families, will receive all the honors to which they are entitled, but they did not die on that ridge, on that night, do you understand?”
“Yes Sir.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
April 25, 1945
Hamburg, Germany
Nox Bellator stood on top of the massive, concrete U-Boat base looking out upon the once great City of Hamburg. It was a dark and chilly night, but Bellator did not notice the wind or temperature because his interactive thermal body armor kept him comfortable in any climate. At seven feet tall, Nox Bellator towered over most humans. His size alone would strike fear into most seasoned warriors. Then you add his sophisticated armor and weaponry, he could terrify an entire battalion. His encounter with Sergeant Dale Matthews back in October had taught him a valuable lesson: never take off your armor. He had thought he was safe, well behind German lines, in a secret bunker filled with true believers. Yet, there was Matthews. Three of his most loyal soldiers were killed by Matthews. On that rueful night in the Vosges Mountains, he was wearing a dress uniform. Since then, he always wore his battle armor.
Nox was alone atop the massive edifice that stood in the waters of the Elbe River. The U-boat bunker was built to withstand numerous direct hits from the largest of the Allies’ bombs. Even though the City of Hamburg was reduced to a burned-out rubble, the U-boat base had stood up to thousands of tons of British and American bombs.
The U-boat pen, Germans referred to it as “Fink II,” was an enormous hardened structure and was designed to dock up to 15 submarines within the safety of its thick concrete walls. The structu
re, built right in the water, allowed submarines that had traveled up the Elbe River to the industrial City of Hamburg, to find refuge from Allied bombers.
Nox, a stranger to this planet, had first arrived in Hamburg 10 years earlier, and had overseen the expansion of the Nazi’s U-boat program and the development of their experimental aircraft. Nox did not feel sadness or loss as he surveyed the hundreds of buildings that had been reduced to empty shells and crumbling walls. He was disappointed in himself. He was disappointed that he was not able to raise up the perfect army, and that his best efforts to organize these primitive humans had failed.
He estimated that the British and American’s non-stop bombing of Hamburg had killed over 100,000 civilians. That did not matter to him. He knew the reports showed that one million civilians were left homeless after the endless bombing raids. Still, not his problem. Nox knew the City was about to fall to a British and American tank brigade. In a few days, the war would be over, and he would have almost nothing to show for the last 10 years -almost nothing.
Someday, fools would look back on history and question how Hitler could have lost a war if he had access to advanced alien technology. The answer was simple: a hand full of advanced antigravity fighters can’t defeat over four million soldiers and hundreds of thousands of tanks and aircraft. Against Nox’s advice, Hitler moved too fast. Bellator needed another ten years to get Hitler’s factories to the point where they could mass produce advanced weaponry. Nox could no more mass produce antigravity fighters than an engineer could build an aircraft carrier out of coconuts and palm trees on a deserted island. Nox needed to build and repair his fighters with tools and equipment that the humans had not even discovered, much less, amassed in quantities large enough to supply a world war.
But, Hitler could not wait. Hitler saw Nox’s antigravity fighter and particle beam incinerator, and he thought that alone could win a war against the rest of the world. If only he had tried harder to convince the madman to wait, just long enough to get a production line.
The City of Hamburg was surrounded by Allied troops and tanks. Sixty percent of the city was burned to the ground, and almost all the residents had evacuated. There were a few thousand German troops left, and they would be overrun in a few days. Nox was not worried for his safety; the antigravity fighter behind him could whisk him far away. He had a plan, not a plan to save Hamburg, but a plan to salvage some of his work.
Nox Bellator turned from the crumbling city and entered his antigravity fighter. His fighter craft was advanced far beyond anything the humans had engineered. It did not push through the wind with crude propellers and wings, but rather, it created a force field around the craft that allowed a planet’s gravity to pass around it, like air passes around a wing. Without gravity pulling the craft towards the planet, the antimatter fusion reactors would power the flight system and move the craft at speeds over 5,000 miles per hour.
The flight systems were extraordinarily complex and completely controlled by either his thoughts or voice command. He could control the antigravity fighter from outside the ship, so long as he was wearing his body armor, which would transmit his thought commands to the craft.
Nox navigated the craft off the building and into one of several openings above the water by which the submarines would enter the U-boat base. He landed his antigravity fighter on the dock behind a submarine mooring. This location within the submarine base had been specially designed to ensure Nox’s privacy. Nox knew that his height, dark gray skin, and elongated facial features would draw unneeded attention. So, he intentionally limited his appearances among the rank-and-file German troops.
The antigravity fighter was sitting on the concrete pedestal, held up by three legs that had extended from the belly of the craft. Nox walked down the metal stairway to the submarine dock. A Nazi Admiral and two guards were waiting to greet him.
The admiral stepped forward and saluted as soon as Nox set foot on the base. “We have been expecting you Field Marshall Nox Bellator. Heil Hitler!”
Nox, who at this point, was no fan of Hitler, shrugged and gave a half-ass salute. “Admiral Armbruster, take me to your office.”
“Yes Sir.” The Admiral, who was acutely aware of the fact that Hamburg was about to be overrun by British forces and that Germany was destined to lose the war, was not terribly concerned with the formality of honoring Hitler.
The Admiral’s office was very nice; the concrete bunker walls had been covered by rich wood paneling, and a dark red rug covered the floor. The Admiral had some personal effects displayed on a hand-carved curio cabinet that matched his ornate desk. Other than that, it was obvious that the Admiral worked at his desk. The large, executive desk was covered with papers, files, reports, memos, and plans. The messy paperwork extended past the fancy desk top and onto the surrounding floor as if the Admiral had them spread out for review.
Nox sat in a low back guest chair in the somewhat dimly lit office before being invited to do so. If the Admiral took offense to his guest sitting without invitation, he did not show it. The Admiral and Nox had been working together since prior to the inception of the war. Nox liked the Admiral, like a human would be fond of a favorite pet that could perform cool tricks. Nox thought the Admiral was intelligent - for a human.
Admiral Armbruster was one of the commanding officers of the U-boat base. He was average build, in his mid-fifties, with jet black hair, the wrinkles on his face, and bags under his eyes made it obvious that the war had taken a toll on him. Admiral Armbruster was proud of his family’s seafaring history. Both his father and grandfather had honorably served as naval officers in the past. Armbruster did not blindly believe the Nazi rhetoric, but he was intelligent enough to play the political game to avoid a firing squad. Armbruster took great pride in his role in developing the cutting-edge underwater boats and in winning navel battles. There was honor in engaging an armed enemy at sea.
“Are the U-boats ready for their long journey?” Nox asked, in his raspy voice.
“Yes, the modifications were just completed this morning. Each of the Type IX U-boats can now carry 100 people, including the crew,” the Admiral said with confidence.
“And the paperwork?” Nox had learned how important paperwork was on this planet.
“All four of the U-boats were reported missing in action, and there is no record that would indicate they are anywhere else but lying on the ocean floor. No one will come looking for these boats.”
“Any weapons?” Nox knew the plan was to eliminate torpedo tubes and storage to make room for more passengers.
“Unfortunately, we had to eliminate all torpedo tubes to make enough room. We were able to leave both cannons on the forward and aft deck,” replied the Admiral.
The Type IX U-Boats typically carried a crew of 53, were 251 feet long and displaced 1,034 long tons. With a maximum range of 15,000 miles and up to 24 torpedoes, they were perfect for attacking and sinking ships along the coast of North America and Africa. The tradeoff for carrying 165 tons of fuel and torpedoes was that it was slow. With a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour, this would be a long trip.
“How many crew are necessary to man the submarine, now that we have no need to man the torpedoes?”
The Admiral paused, and put his hand to his face as if he were thinking. “I could probably operate each boat with as few as 25 men, seeing that the plan is to stay out of shipping channels, and to not engage the enemy. Basically, we are just moving people from here to Antarctica.”
Nox nodded, his pitch-black eyes staring at the Admiral, not that the Admiral could tell as the creature had no eyeballs. “That means I can carry 300 men to Antarctica. One hundred and twenty-seven men are already chosen for the voyage. That means we can take 173 of your people.”
The Admiral sat up in his chair. This was the first he was hearing about the other passengers; “I did not realize you were bringing other passengers?”
“Yes, I was unsure if I could get them here, but I was able to convince some
of the V-2 rocket scientists to defect with us.”
“I thought the V-2 scientists were relocated from Peenemunde Army Research Center after it was bombed by the British? How could you get them here from the Alpine Fortress?” asked the Admiral. If the Admiral was concerned with the word ‘defect,’ he made no mention of it.
Nox nodded. Nodding was a human gesture, but Nox had learned, not only the spoken language of humans, but also their body language. It seemed to put them at ease when he used familiar body language that they understood. He was also teaching himself to learn human facial expressions, not because he cared what they thought of him, but because sometimes he was forced to engage in diplomacy.
“After the scientists were moved from Peenemunde, they were taken to Mittelwerk in the Harz Mountains to work in an underground bunker. Some of my operatives were able to convince them to come with us. We helped them escape the Nazis when they were being transported from the underground base to the Alpine Fortress. Once in our custody, we could bring them here by boat, now on the Elbe River,” Nox said.
Admiral Armbruster understood the importance of having V-2 rocket scientists. German scientists and aeronautical engineers were the most advanced in the world. They were good to have, if only to ensure the Americans did not have access to their knowledge.
“Very well, what shall we do now?” asked the Admiral.
“Is everyone on the list I gave you present?” asked Nox.
“I received your list of 224 names. A few of them had been killed and few transferred, but I was able to ensure that 217 of them were present at the yard today.” Admiral Armbruster knew Nox did not appreciate failure, but, he was reasonably certain that he had come close enough to completing the assignment.
“How many of the persons missing from my list are dead?” Nox asked.
“Three.”
“Four have been transferred?”
