In Another Place

by K. E. Holden

Even Ludwig is not immune to the terrors of war; he may train constantly, but there's nothing like the real thing. ((This will change, I just wrote the first chapter, and have no idea where this will be going. Gerita though. And I'll probably mention Spamano and Usuk and maybe Pruhun on the side.)) Rated T for safety right now.

1. Chapter 1

Ludwig closed his eyes; letting the roar of the plane engines block out everything around him. He tried to forget where he was, what he was doing; if only for a moment. He thought about home, his brother, his dogs, anything but the living hell this war really was. He was good at training, and good at war you might even say, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He kept trying to get away from it all, thinking until his ears rang, but nothing worked.

"Hey Lutz," one of his fellow fallschirmjager said, "got your head in the clouds again?"

Opening his eyes and shaking his head a bit to clear his mind, he looked over at his comrade; he was a man of about 24 years old, by the name of Ewald Zellweger, from a small rural town, carried a picture of his sweetheart on the inside of his helmet, and was still too innocent for war. He still believed in good people, and luck, and miracles, but Ludwig was sure that after this raid he would have his allusions shattered.

"Ja, ja, thinking again." He responded after a long silence.

"About home?" Ewald asked looking back down at his feet and clasping his hands together in his lap.

"Ja, what else do we ever think of?" He responded. It was true. In training he was all business; focused completely on training for their upcoming mission, memorizing attack routes, planning out strategies; but the minute training was over his mind was clouded over again by visions of home. He longed for Feliciano's cooking; hell, he even missed pasta. He missed all the little things: Feliciano sneaking table scraps to the dogs when he thought Ludwig wasn't looking; the feeling of waking up in a real bed, along with Feliciano's arms wrapped around him; the monotonous, gloriously monotonous, dregs of everyday life.

Ludwig was snapped back to reality again when, before Ewald could make another comment, their commander began shouting orders.

"Attention!" He shouted, "We'll be directly over the drop site in about one minute; time to line up!" And so all the men in the back of the plane un-latched their seat belts, swung on their parachutes, and got into position in front of the door they would soon be jumping out of.

It was about thirty seconds of dead silence until they heard their commander speak again, "You boys know the plan; do good out there, and I might see some of you for our next mission." And the door slid open with a crash and row by row they all jumped into battle.