A/N: Hey guys, just in case you didn't know this is going to be more of a mini Turtledove style story, Just enough characters, but not to many as to make it true Turtledove. Please comment review, any problems let me know.
Albert was hurting everywhere. Due to this new threat from a land beyond, he had to go back into service. Which meant he needed to get his pacemaker put back in him. What's so bad about a pacemaker you may ask? Well the fact that it prevented his heart from exploding. The nerves that told his heart how to beat now run through the pacemaker, preventing it to beat above one hundred and ten beats per minute. No not because he had a bad heart, but so the combat stimulant wouldn't kill him.
Not only did he have to deal with the pacemaker implant, but the artificial lungs they gave him hurt as well. They can't have him over exerting himself to death before his mission is done, can they? This seems a little excessive just for a small little combat stimulant, but only if that were true. The stimulant is a cocktail full of nasty chemicals and drugs. The list includes meth, cocaine, adrenaline, adderall, glucose, and heroine. A combination that without his pacemaker would cause his heart to explode within less than a minute.
The waiting room is the worst part for Albert, mainly because he has to sit with a bunch of other stormtroopers complaining about the same thing he is. The worst part about his job is how he will only know what he was did after the drugs were off, only then does he realize the horror that was done. The death was extraordinarily horrifying. Albert shook the thought out of his head, not wanting to think about it until it was impossible not to.
Albert knew exactly what he was going to be doing. Charging down the enemy and causing as much chaos as humanly possible. He also knew the men around him would most likely die in the drug filled haze that was the combat stimulants. Nothing could be done about it though, for this was just the average life of a stormtrooper.
After the implants were done, the stormtroopers were geared up and waiting to charge through the gate. All they were waiting for was the nurse to come around and inject the combat stims into all of them. Albert was clutching one of his glucose shots waiting for the uncontrollable drug fueled murder spree about to happen on the other side of the gate.
"Alright open up your injection patch." A man in a dull monotone voice spoke to Albert. He wore a white jacket covered in blood, of only what he could assume to be those who moved during the injection.
"Here you are sir." Albert reaches up to his forearm, and undoes a velcro strap revealing a small hole just the right size for the syringe. Within a second of opening the strap the nurse shot Albert full of stimulants. If it wasn't for the skull shaped gasmask he was wearing everyone could see just how dilated his pupils were. Time seemed so much more fluid for Albert, seeming to suddenly speed up or slow down without cause.
" Alright the second I blow this whistle you are all to charge through this here gate, and kill every living being on the other side. No survivors!" The amount of people who even listened to him were minimal, and even then they didn't care. It was already drilled into their head that the whistle meant it was time. The stormtroopers didn't really know how long they had been sitting there, with all the drugs in them they didn't know a lot of things. Just when the waiting became impossible, or just started for some the whistle blew, an inhuman shriek filled the air, and soon reverberated throughout the tunnel when they entered the gate, the enemy would have no idea what hit them.
The camp at Alnus was in a stir. The wounded from the other side were taken to Italica with some of the best mages for treatment. All of the loot and slaves were brought back to the Imperial Capital city. Even though the haul was good the point was they lost! The mighty Saderan Empire lost an incursion against the natives. Word of this could not get back to the vassals or a civil war could, and most likely would break out.
Loud, thundering sounds. They rang out repeatedly, and they came from the gate. Before the commanding officer could turn he was dead as well. The men from the other side have come!
"Attackers! Ring the bell!" Shouted a man on a watch tower, before immediately being shot in the heart. The alarm bell rings, and as many men as possible come to the forefront, only to be shot dead. The stormtroopers, reduced to nothing more than drug induced killing machines. Albert being no exception. Hyped up on enough chemicals to literally blow up a man's heart. The fighting ended as fast as it began, with losses on both sides. For however deadly the troops were, they were still drug addled. Meaning, they rarely reloaded weapons often going into a bloody CQC battle. Stormtroops grabbing swords by the blade, and ripping in out of enemy hands. Beating soldiers with fists, knives, or even using their rifles as a club. The brutality of these men terrified the Empire's soldiers. Ignoring, or even straight up dodging fireballs from mages.
"By the gods… send word to the emperor, send word to the senate. If we are to come out of this war alive… All available men must be put to combat. Even the vassals."
Albert came out of his high, to a gory display. Bodies strewn across the ground, some charred, others cut, some even look like they had been beaten to death. How much of this he may have done, was unknown, and he hoped he never would need to know. The men around him seemed to come too as well, some still in the process of dismembering a corpse. All of them covered in blood, and that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was when the men came too, only to realize they lost body parts. The screams, no longer ones of death and anger, now ones of grief and sorrow.
Those who were still capable of fighting had to push on, their job wasn't take and hold, but to push as far as they could, and disrupt the enemy. Those who were unable to push on, due to injury, got a bullet hole to add to their injury list. The others, pulled out a capped syringe with a clear liquid. Glucose, refilled the energy they spent in the killing spree.
The stormtrooper has changed much throughout history, the modern stormtrooper is so much worse. Being used as mindless fodder to break enemy morale through sheer brutality, life expectancy wasn't very long. For that reason they got no extra salary from a standard infantryman, but a good chunk of cash was sent to the families. Albert didn't have a family, and nor shall he ever, for he shall die in the troop.
Walther was not having a good day. He had to work overtime due to this goddamned gate that came out of nowhere, and now he-
"Walther Lachner come to my office, NOW!" The chief's voice rang out over the intercom, just great Walther thinks, now I have more shit to do.
"Hey Chief, I got here as soon as I could." As Walther walks into the room, the doors locking behind him automatically. He notices someone in one of the chairs in front of the Chief's desk.
"Take a seat Walt, this man here says you're getting promoted." The Chief is pointing towards the man, only now does Walther notice who he is.
"Ah, Walther Lachner, I am agent Skorzeny, grandson of Otto Skorzeny, and agent of the National Information Bureau, now let's talk about your promotion." Skorzeny, a man he had the displeasure of talking to only once. He was a manipulating bastard getting his job done through any means.
"Promotion? What position am I being promoted too?" Walther knew nothing about this, extemporaneous promotion.
"You are being promoted to replace your boss, and as for him, he will be promoted to the highest position we have." Walther was starting to get nervous, Skorzeny's voice sounded so playful, so singsong, yet so threatening.
"What is he being promoted to exactly?" Walther just couldn't believe this, his boss hadn't been there for more than a month.
"Let me show you." Faster than anyone in the room could react, Skorzeny pulled a handgun out of his coat pocket, putting all of the rounds into his boss, former boss.
"Holy shit! You shot him!" Walther couldn't believe what was happening, his boss killed right in front of him!
"Yeah I shot him, good ones too, really nice grouping." How? How could anyone be so nonchalant about shooting a man as to say how good he was at shooting him. "Ah, yes I forgot, I am your new boss. You shall answer to me, and only me. The only thing I need you to do before the job is yours is to tie up some loose ends.
"What kind of loose ends?"
"Well I assume you know where his family lives? I want them all vaporized before tomorrow, this is your first assignment. Once dead clean up the bodies and tell your family you're moving to a Class-4 house." His boss was being vaporized, his family too. They would officially never exist again, any documents of their existence either burned or restricted. Walther couldn't refuse, otherwise they would be vaporizing him as well.
"Wait what did my boss do to be vaporized?" Walther immediately regretted asking a question he honestly didn't want to know the answer too.
"I can't tell you that, unless you want to be vaporized as well?" Walther shot up into a rigid salute.
"No sir! I will get to my duties immediately Agent Skorzeny!" A smug grin appeared on his face.
"Please call me Magnus, Skorzeny was my grandfather." Before Walther got a chance to respond Magnus had run out the door, leaving Walther alone. God how Walther hated that guy.
"Just a minute!" Lisa shouts finishing the dish she was washing before heading to the front door. "Hi what is it?" There stood a man in a patrolman's uniform.
"My name is Walther Lachner, police, may I come inside?"
"Sure, have a seat over in the living room." As soon as Walther and Lisa sit down she begins talking. "What is this all about?"
"I would like to congratulate you, your husband got a promotion. You will now have class-3 housing." All the while Walther kept a straight emotionless face, not a threatening one, but one of unease. Lisa noticed.
"Really what is his new position?" She knew something was up, to bad she would never get to know what.
"He has moved up to the highest position he can, the good news is he won't be alone much longer." Lisa didn't get a moment to process his words, before he drew a gun and shot her. The noise reverberating throughout the house, as red mist came out of her face. A face that didn't even know what had hit it. Walther didn't know how long he sat there, staring at the wife of his former boss, dead on the floor. He was shaken out of it by a sound coming from the stair case, he turned to look.
Ada was awoken from her sleep by a loud sound in the night. Her room illuminated by the nightlight her dad got her for her birthday last week. She immediately got out of bed, and headed towards her mother's room.
"Mommy? Are you here?" Ada mumbles as she opens the door. Realizing her mother wasn't in her room she went to check the bathroom, but it was on her way to check she noticed the downstairs light was on. She saw a man sitting in the living room, with her mother facing away from him on the floor. As she walked down the stairs, them creaking with each step, the man appeared to have heard her. Her fears of him being a burglar vanishing as she noticed he had a police uniform on. It wasn't until she got to the bottom of the stairs she noticed a small glimmer, and as she looked closer then was a red puddle. The red puddle wasn't just there, it was around her mother, Ada wanted to know why her mother was lying in the red wine on the floor.
"Mommy? Why are you lying there?" Her mother wouldn't answer, but the policeman did.
"Don't worry, your mother is just sleeping. She is very deep in sleep." The police man sounded kind of scary, but it was only then did she notice what the glimmer on the floor was, a bullet casing. Ada's eyes widen as she backs up slowly, the policeman walking forward with every step she takes back. His gun in his hand.
"No-no-no, you're not a policeman! You killed mom-" She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence, the false policeman aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. She felt a burning pain in her chest, her ears ringing, and a metallic taste in her mouth. This was the last thing Ada felt before her world faded to black.
A/N: I revised the chapter's ending to fix some grammatical mistakes, and to make it more dramatic. What do you guys thin about the new ending as opposed to the old one?
