November 9th, 1989
"Nnneeeeiiiiinnnnnn!" An anguished, sorrowful cry ripped through the evening air of Brazil, audible to almost every being in Jaburo, secret base of the Millennium organization. Considering that most members of Millennium had superhuman senses, this was not saying much, but still it was rare to hear screams of such a volume in Jaburo* (except those coming from Dok's lab or the mess hall, both of which were heavily soundproofed). For a moment, every creature within the hidden Nazi facility was still.
Then, the singing began again.
"Zum letzten Mal wird nun Appell geblasen," Rip van Winkle's voice rang out as she twirled and danced atop the massive metal skeleton which lay in Millennium's largest hangar. For the moment, the unfinished Deus Ex Machina served as the Obersturmführer's personal stage while she belted out the "Horst Wessel Lied," song of the Third Reich, wearing her finest suit for the occasion. Her voice was clear and joyful as she sang, flipping and spinning her musket about her like the world's deadliest conductor baton.
"Zum Kampfe steh'n wir alle schon bereit! Bald flattern Hitlerfahnen über Barrikaden..." Her glasses and teeth gleamed in the powerful floodlights which were trained upon her. They flashed as she spun on her perch near the zeppelin's nose, her long dark hair flowing and shimmering behind her head. "Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit!"
Clustered about the airship's enormous frame, hundreds of soldiers of the Last Battalion cheered and stamped their feet and sang along. Their fangs were bared in their smiles, their voices raised in joy as swastika flags fluttered in their hands. Rarely in their long, dark exile had any of the members of Millennium been so happy. Today was a great day, and not just because Lieutenant van Winkle was giving one of the best performances of her unlife. Someone had set up a small television set in the hangar, and it was showing the news: the crowds streaming across the border, the celebrations, the end of an era and the reunification of what had once been Millennium's Fatherland.
Suddenly, the hangar's Public Address system crackled to life. "Obersturmführer Rip van Winkle! You are ordered to cease this nonsense at once!" The Major's voice barked. "All soldiers disperse immediately! Resume your duties this instant! This is the order of the Battalion Commander! Disperse! " In a flash the joyful audience was scattering, vampires dashing away from the zeppelin's frame and back to their tasks. "First Lieutenant van Winkle! You will report to my office straight away!" The PA shut off with an angry electronic scratching, leaving the hangar silent except for frightened, scrambling soldiers.
Flabbergasted, Rip stared at the speaker for several seconds, half-expecting it to speak again and reveal the whole thing as a joke. When did the Major ever get angry? Even when he was disappointed, his unsettling smile only grew wider before he meted out his punishments. His grin might shrink to a smug, sometimes almost imperceptible smirk, or vanish for a moment during the bellowing of a stern order, yet for a man devoted so utterly to the cause of human suffering, the Major was downright jolly. When in all the decades of Millennium's waiting and planning did he ever rage and yell?
To her surprise, the speaker did activate again. "Oh Lieutenant… You are not going to keep me waiting, are you?" The Major's voice was now calmer and more familiar, although there was a touch of hoarseness to it. Eyes widening, Rip realized that it had been he who had cried out in despair during her performance. Sighing, she shouldered her musket and saluted in the general direction of the speaker before starting the climb down from the zeppelin's frame. Although her commander was not physically present, as long as she had Dok's chip in her he could always be watching, and therefore merit a salute. Privacy was one of the things they'd all given up long ago, along with their humanity.
***
The Major's office was exactly what anyone with even a passing familiarity of the Millennium commander would expect: large, sumptuously luxurious, close to the kitchen, and absolutely stuffed with things of war. The few spaces on the walls which were not dominated by maps were occupied by photographs and paintings of past wars. Rip knew that most of the many drawers and chests in the room contained some sort of antique weapon or battle souvenir, ranging from beautifully crafted swords to the more macabre: chunks of charred rubble, pieces of razor-sharp shrapnel, preserved bits of flesh bearing particularly interesting war wounds. There were also a few reels of the more entertaining war footage Millennium possessed, just a small part of a collection any museum in the world would beg and grovel to see. There was a theatre on the base for the viewing of films ranging from romanticized Hollywood war epics to grainy images of carnage from the earliest beginnings of moving pictures; however sometimes the Major preferred to see something right in his office or even in his own bedroom, and had his own screen and projector for that purpose. Books and manuscripts bulged from every shelf and were piled upon almost every surface. Whether they dealt with history or theory or memoir or entered the realm of fiction, each and every one of them was devoted to the same subject.
There were even a few books of entomology and animal behaviorism: the Major delighted in battle among all creatures. According to Schrodinger, he sometimes kept pets in his personal bedroom- terrariums, ant farms, vicious dogs, once even a wasp's nest procured by the Captain and contained in the room by a device of Dok's making. The Major liked to amuse himself by fomenting conflict amongst his little toys, none of which ever lived very long.
The Major himself was seated behind an ornate desk of enormous proportions, almost every inch of which was occupied with paperwork, except for a corner which was set aside for a saucer of tea and biscuits. The Millennium Group might have been a collection of freaks and lunatics, refugees of a long-dead regime, an army without a country or a cause aside from chaos and suffering, but they were still National Socialists, and they were still going to keep their records straight even when the world burned around them. Every bullet fired, every uniform repaired, every 'ration' drained of their blood, and every body disposed of- it all had to be accounted for, and these tasks occupied much of the time of Millennium's senior officers when they weren't busy planning eternal war.
Rip approached the desk cautiously. Her hand tightened nervously around the butt of her musket when she saw her superior. The Major… did not look like himself. His clothing was rumpled, his hair a mess, and his smile was forced and twitching in a way Rip had never seen in over half a century of serving him. He did not look up as she approached, instead concentrating on signing a sheet, slashing his signature onto the paper with such clumsy ferocity that the page tore. He looks… he looks as though he's gone mad, Rip thought. That was a concept which sent a shiver of terror down her spine, since it implied that, for this grinning maniac who loved war as though it was his wife, there was some depth of insanity yet to be plumbed. The Captain stood behind his master, as always looking as though he was carved of stone. Rip cast a look at him, pleading for some hint as to what had come over their commander, but of course there was no response. The Major looked up, fixed her in his gold eyes, reached for his teacup, and spoke.
"Ah, our most beloved performer graces us with her presence at last. Did you stop to write out a few autographs for your adoringly unproductive audience, hmm Obersturmführer? Oh, I certainly hope not. I would hate to think that any more of my troops, the proud, disciplined, vicious soldiers of the Waffen-SS's last and greatest battalion, had wasted any more of their valuable time with your idiotic childish prancing!" Suddenly the Major's hand tightened around his teacup and the ceramic cracked and broke, shards sprinkling the thick carpet below the desk. Silently and smoothly, the Captain bent down and began sweeping the pieces into one of his hands. Rip van Winkle stared at her Major, openmouthed.
The Major grinned like a shark. "Oh, now what is this, Rip van Winkle? Your lovely voice fails you? Only now do you remember the virtue of silence! What a pity you did not do so earlier, instead of making such an absolute fool of yourself atop of my flagship!" His face contorted into a scowl bordering on the childish. Beside him, the Captain deposited the remains of the teacup into the wastebasket beside the desk and then straightened up, resuming his usual looming.
That did it. Whether it was possession, brainwashing, or some new and terrifying form of madness, as far as Rip was concerned the being in front of her was not her commander. This was not the Major who had taken them all from the burning wreck of their homeland and given them a new life in the world's shadows. This was not the Major who, after decades of his long and frequent speeches, could still send her into paroxysms of bloody nostalgia when he spoke of the familiar battlefields, of the times when they were part of an empire, and who could still make her giddy with anticipation when he described their grand and terrible return, their long-awaited vengeance. This was not the Major who gleefully applauded her singing, who was the only one she could really talk about Der Freischutz and other operas with. This wasn't her commander, and she wanted to know why.
Rip's heels clicked together audibly as she shot up ramrod-straight, coming to full attention, and saluted, arm snapping out and up. "Herr Major!" she said. "Humbly requesting permission to speak freely!"
The Major sighed. "So quickly forgotten silence is, like all virtues. Clearly the lesson has yet to be learned! But by all means, indulge yourself my dear Huntress. I do believe your education in this matter has only begun."
She opened her mouth, took a breath, and looked at the Captain for some sort of encouragement, some sign that he was as bothered by his master's behaviour as she was. The Captain only stared blankly into space, and Rip could find no words. Instead, she stormed over to the small television perched on a cabinet near the desk and flipped it on. It showed what almost every television in the world was showing, what almost every radio was broadcasting, what almost every newspaper was printing. As some enterprising individual took a sledgehammer to concrete on the screen, the Major began to tremble slightly. "Obersturmfuhrer," he said softly, "shut that off immediately."
Rip obeyed, then spun about, teeth bared. "So, mein fuhrer," she said, "you are not pleased to see the Fatherland being reunited? To see the Wall which has disgraced our beloved capital for so long finally being brought to ruin?"
"As a matter of fact, no, no I am not pleased. I am not the least bit pleased by these unfortunate developments, Rip van Winkle, not at all." The Major was wearing the tiny smirk he displayed whenever he was humouring the Opera House Division, the useless old humans who, even after all these years, still fancied themselves the true superiors of the Last Battalion and the eventual wielders of immortality. It was never an expression he displayed at his happiest, but at least it was familiar, and so Rip was encouraged.
"However, political developments are not the issue here, are they?" The Major continued. "It's this stupid spirit of celebration! We grim undead soldiers, we monsters of blood and iron- we should never find joy in anything except the rapture of war. If our jackboots tramped upon Europe's soil once again, if our long-famished troops could have their well-deserved feast while I had the pleasure of watching and appreciating the symphony of the slaughter- oh yes, that would be a time for celebration! That would be a time for joy! But this- this-" He broke off, fuming. "This is… bad for discipline."
"I see…" Rip's eyes narrowed. One of her hands began to stroke the musket thoughtfully. "I would have thought that you of all people would be overjoyed to see our land being purged of the Bolshevik filth, Major. Don't you know that this is only the beginning of their end? Their hateful, vile empire is starting to come apart." She clapped her hands together at the thought of it, musket momentarily held between arm and body. "It's all coming down like a house of cards!"
"Do not presume to lecture me on what I already know!" Major's fist slammed onto his desk. "Oh yes, it's coming apart, all right- all of it! Goodbye Lenin, goodbye Stalin, goodbye Khrushchev. Goodbye KGB and Lubyanka, goodbye NKVD and Stasi, goodbye arms race and space race. Farewell to the revolution, farewell to the eternal struggle of proletariat against bourgeoisie, farewell to East versus West." Major's smirk had taken on a decidedly bitter edge. "I have had Dok conduct the analysis three times. It is inevitable. Our great and hated enemy of so many years is dying- not on the battlefield, but of 'natural causes.' And my troops celebrate! Ha!"
"Oh, Major." Understanding and relief flooded through Rip's mind, accompanied by embarrassment at not realizing sooner what was happening. It was so simple. "You are worried about what this means for our campaign, aren't you?"
"Campaign?" The Major spun around in his chair and sat silently for a moment, leaving his subordinate to fidget as she stared at his back. "There is no more campaign."
Rip gasped and clutched her musket more tightly to her. "What? Sir, you can't be serious!"
"Oh, I'm sure I'll come up with something else eventually," he said, tossing a hand up offhandedly. "I'll start some lesser conflict to content myself with, in a feeble attempt to forget the marvels that might have been. But the plan we have been working towards all along shall now never come to fruition. All our effort and preparation has been wasted." He stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the motionless Captain. "You know how it was supposed to happen, the intricate performance I intended to play out!" She did, she had it memorized almost as well as she did Wagner's works, but she never tired of hearing of it. It wasn't as though there was any force on Earth which could have stopped the Major from making his speeches anyway.
"On the last year of this wonderfully bloody century, on the cusp of the new millennium and its supposedly brighter and happier future, we would arise! First, our grand charge across the Atlantic, the vast bulk of our airships blotting out the moon and stars above London. We would raze that beautiful city to the ground and give its charred corpse to our soldiers for a well-earned sack, a victory feast! And at the same time, we would settle our little feud with Hellsing and Alucard once and for all- or perhaps that mighty line of knights and their fearsome servant would smash us and all we have strived for, grinding us all to dust! Ah, that would be a good end, would it not? A worthy death at the hands of a wonderful enemy!" Rip had her own opinions on being destroyed by Hellsing and Alucard, but said nothing.
"But if we triumphed, then the curtain would go up on the next and more marvellously intricate act. Our network of would-be immortals all over the world would spring into action, by then consisting of dozens or hundreds or even thousands of those seeking eternal life made to do our bidding, pulling strings for us as we pulled theirs. And then what fun we would have! Ah, who needs ninety-nine balloons when we could accomplish just as much with just a few zeppelins, ja?" Rip was gladdened to see the Major grinning with his usual level of bloodlust now. "For what would those people in power, those fearful and eager warriors with their nerves drawn thin over decades of suspicion and intrigue, what would they think when one of the greatest cities on Earth is utterly destroyed by an unknown enemy? Especially when confusion and terror, rumour and misinformation are running rampant across the globe, when they are witnessing horrors in their homes, when their own selves are being destroyed by those they thought they could trust? Would they believe that an army of Nazi vampires had crawled its way out of the past to once again menace the present? Would they believe such obvious nonsense, especially when their old, precious enemies were right there in front of them with weapons drawn?" The Major spread his arms wide. "Or would they embrace the madness and grapple with their foes, toppling together off that glorious precipice they have teetered upon for so long! Starting the greatest, most magnificent war ever conceived, a war without limit or end! "
He was now in his element, his most happy of fantasies, and Rip smiled as she allowed herself to be swept away by the tide of his words, losing herself in visions of missiles flying through the air, tanks crushing city after city, aircraft waltzing overhead. And afterwards the world would truly belong to them! They would stand tall above the ashes, able to do whatever they liked. Would they stay in London and build it into Midian, capital of a new undead Reich? Would they fly to Berlin and have their bloody homecoming, giving their former countrymen a harsh re-education in what it truly meant to be Aryan? Perhaps they would be able to acquire a nuclear device or two and send a little gift off to the so-called 'State of Israel'- see what a sanctuary for the 'Chosen people' it would be then!
It would never end, not ever, the calculations had been run again and again. Between the shock of a new world war and the nightmare unleashed by a vampire army let loose upon the world, civilization would disintegrate into conflict, strife, and more and more war. Many of the upstart young freaks created by Millennium would no doubt find ways of breaking free of the organization's control, would build their own little empires of death with armies of ghouls. So much the better. Vampire against vampire, vampire against human, human against human, it would be a brave new world of boundless chaos and battle. An opera with no final act or closing curtain, in which she and her comrades could sing their deadly songs forever, under the joyful conduction of their commander. Thinking about it almost made her heart beat again.
Suddenly, the Major stopped his monologue, a truly rare sight, and clasped his hands behind his back, bowing his head. "Of course," he said, "now none of that will ever happen."
"Major! Come now, you don't really mean that!" Rip said. "Surely there's something we can do to make things happier for us? Just because things may not go our way doesn't mean that we just have to sit back and do nothing!"
He shook his head. "Regrettably, no Lieutenant. Dok has investigated every possibility. What has begun is occurring on a massive scale, like so many other great changes. There is no nail we may pull, for want of which the future may be altered. Assassinate Gorbachev, slip a freak into the Pentagon, send Schrodinger to plant false data in the Kremlin- none of it will make a bit of difference. I have looked at the Professor's calculations myself. We are faced with an enemy that cannot be fought by conventional means, that final foe to which all must finally fall. Time, my Huntress, inevitable time. My folly was in thinking that just because we were immortal, we would no longer have to factor it into our plans, that we had all the time in the world. The Millennium organization, waiting until the approach of the millennium to strike- what a stupid, indulgent little touch!" He gave a bitter little laugh. "The fact is that just because we have stood still in time, does not mean that the rest of the world could be expected to. History continues on its course, like a great river, smashing all obstacles."
The Major faced her again, smiling sadly. "We could try anyway, I know. It would be hopeless, but still: to take arms against the flow of history itself, what a struggle that would be! Yet to attempt to prolong this charming Cold War which has entertained us for so long would be to neglect our other enemy, who we are promised to first. We must choose between our battle with Hellsing and our old, precious hatred with the Reds."
"But..." Rip scrambled in her mind for something else to say. "Sir, even if it means bad things for our campaign, it is still great for Deutschland, ja? It's still our home!"
"Obersturmführer, sometimes I despair for you." The Major sighed and sat back down, motioning to the Captain, who promptly produced another teacup from somewhere in his long coat and poured his master some more tea. "Do you really imagine that I give a damn about Germany? Or that the country you seek to celebrate bears the slightest resemblance to the one you waste so much time longing for? What do you think you would see if you set foot in Berlin tomorrow? Would it be your home? Would it be the same old culture and pride that you loved so much? Or would you be a stranger in your own land, facing the effects of decades of degeneration at the hands of Bolsheviks on one side and Western decadence on the other? Communism, capitalism, what the hell does it matter- the country I served was the Third Reich! I was proud to do so, to be part of a system which truly understood what it was to be human and struggle in this world of strife, to participate in the greatest of all great wars! But that empire no longer exists! It was dragged down in a cataclysm of fire and blood and steel, its cities ruined, its armies broken, its leaders killed. It was glorious! But it was also all so final, so very thorough in its destruction. We few, we unhappy few, we band of monsters- we are all that is left of that great power." He took a sip of tea. "Perhaps we will be able to rebuild it, but honestly I cannot bring myself to care. It's the struggle along the way that interests me- that terrible pitiless struggle. That struggle which we shall now never experience."
"Major…" Do not start crying, Rip van Winkle, don't you dare start crying! She told herself. But the picture her commander had painted of her beloved Germany as a long-vanished, irrecoverable relic was not a pretty one, and she began to feel tears welling in her eyes. She grasped her musket tighter, trying to maintain control.
The Major raised his hand. "No. No more. I do believe I have indulged you more than long enough, Huntress. This discussion is closed. We may have lost our war, yet we will still have our discipline. We shall carry on shining our buttons, polishing our boots, dressing our ranks, and conducting lots and lots of glorious drills. We shall continue to exist, dwelling here in the darkness, a walking relic from a time of pride and terror, for as long as our antique uniforms hold together. There will be no further unauthorized celebrations within this battalion, especially not to the detriment of our duties. From this point forward you will keep your musical hobbies to yourself, within the confines of your quarters. Oh, and another thing." He cast a critical eye up and down her suit. "From now on I want to see you in a proper uniform, First Lieutenant."
"What? You want me to put away my suits… I-"
"Ah-ah-ah," The Major shook a warning finger at her. "No more insubordination, Obersturmfuhrer. Or else I may have to give serious thought to enforcing regulation haircuts as well." He looked meaningfully at Rip's long, extraordinary hair, particularly the impossible curl in front. "Is that understood, Rip van Winkle?"
Rip swallowed, and tried not to tremble as she saluted. "Jawohl, Sturmbahnfuhrer!"
He made a shooing motion, then looked back down at his papers. "You are dismissed."
She spun on her heel and marched out of the office, risking a look back over her shoulder before she exited. The Major was shrouded in shadow, his head hanging down, staring at his desk without writing anything. The Captain was looking at her, and she thought she could see a hint of sadness in his blank stare. Then she followed her orders, and marched with her back straight and her eyes forward straight to her quarters. She then changed out of her suit and into her uniform, hanging up the civilian clothes carefully.
Only then did she hold her musket tight against her breast and, thinking of her commander, her comrades, her country and her life, allowed herself to weep.
***
*A/N: 'Jaburo' is apparently a reference to a similar secret base in Brazil from the Gundam animes, which Kouta Hirano is a fan of. This is a two-part story, hopefully the second chapter will be done soon!