Millennium Part 4
After a month of planning Obersturmfuhrer Friedrich Wilhelm Craebel had his plan for the Major. One part he hated about planning was that sometimes others would come up with excellent ideas which he himself would never have been able to do himself. For example, Luke Valentine had made him look like a fool by suggesting that they undertake some of the conversions of vulnerable humans by deceiving them as to just how they came to obtain their powers. That is some would get them after 'waking up' from a dream, others through the occult, others could just be turned. That last part Friedrich had successfully argued was too risky. Still he looked like a fool for not having thought of it. Jan Valentine and Zorin Blitz were delighted at him being shown up.
He sighed at the memory as he put all the papers and notes into a leather folder and brought it for the Major. It covered three hundred different ways in which they could instigate incidents, and at the same time recommended that at most there should be thirty incidents over one year, at minimum five. He had then had to listen for four hours to the Gentlemen of the Opera House whine about their lost youth, and the fact that the Major would not turn them into vampires. Friedrich had wanted to kill them, or scream and run out of the room rather than listen, but it was his duty to pretend to be a fellow murderer and gangster.
He had rested a day as the Major had read his reports. He had hunted again, and this time had killed more snakes, as well piranhas. Feeling refreshed he had woken up a seven AM on November 22nd 1998, and had received a written note from the Major, delivered to him by the Captain. With trembling hands, he had taken the note, and read it, still only in his underwear, and Feldgrau t-shirt. It said simply I am hungry, come for lunch and let us discuss your plan. I approve of its framework and have made only minor alterations, and one major addition which we shall discuss. Very well done, come and see me at Midday. With kind regards, your commander and friend. "Thank you sir" Friedrich had stuttered to the Hauptsturmfuhrer and shut the door. He sank down, and had to collect himself before he could get dressed.
He was terrified of the tall, handsome, and gray haired Hauptsturmfuhrer, who had been silent since September 1945. Before then he had not spoken much, and he did not seem to have any emotions. He had only seen him display emotion when he had kissed Blitz at Kharkov and even then he was not sure if it was genuine. The Hauptsturmfuhrer only scared him less than two other monsters and those were first Alucard, and second Alexander Anderson. He had had the misfortune of meeting Alucard in Warsaw in September 1944.
At the time he was already a vampire. He had been turned by the Doc, the first subject on which the surgery to become a vampire was performed. He had been turned on December 15th 1943, and Friedrich Craebel had had no choice. That had been the only time the Major had used the secret he knew about Friedrich against him. In fairness to the Major, it was his way of trying to save him. A snooping and ambitious SD agent was close to discovering just what Friedrich Wilhelm Craebel truly was beneath his mask of smug Aryan superiority, German Nationalism, and extremely awkward and unconvincing chauvinism.
Even then he knew the Major would have had Friedrich as a test subject one way or another. Friedrich had felt betrayed at the time despite the fact that what was happening with the SD was in no sense the fault of the Major. His commander and friend had betrayed him and was willing to kill him to pursue fantasy, occult rubbish that could not possibly be true. He had said as much when they had been hunting for anything to do with vampires in Romania from November 1941-March 1942. The fact that they had done this had probably saved them from freezing to death before Moscow, but Friedrich still thought it was a waste of time and said so. The Major, waving around his special order from the Fuhrer said otherwise, and never once reprimanded his subordinate.
He redirected his thoughts from that sidetrack to the memory of Alucard. The Major was in charge of all paranormal projects. The ideas that had been floating around had all been crazy, but the Major had chosen the one which, as by September 1944 Friedrich knew all too well, was no myth. Since being director did not require too much paperwork, the Major's main job was in effect to be Head of Security of the project. When he was not around, Friedrich was acting Head of Security, with three platoons of handpicked SS troops at his disposal. He had wondered why Warsaw. He understood why the experiments should not be in Germany, but why Warsaw? The Soviet Army was only three miles away and the city was in the midst of an Uprising that Friedrich had been enlisted to help crush as the second demonstration of the incredible combat capabilities of a vampire. It was not the first Uprising Friedrich Wilhelm Craebel had helped put down. He and Warsaw had a bad history.
When they had arrived in Warsaw in March 1943, the Major had been puzzled as to where they could set up an appropriate base of operations, but after a good lunch, he had figured it out. Right in the middle of the Warsaw Ghetto, amongst the starving wretches, the remnants of the Ghetto community. They would set themselves up below the uniform factory, and work from there. From the Major's perspective it was perfect, and he had turned a blind eye to Friedrich helping one hundred Jews escape death, not that he cared anyway. The Major was too smart to believe that the Jews were enemies, and deplored the waste involved in the Holocaust.
At first Friedrich had thought it was only the waste of labor power that caused him to tut with disapproval about the whole affair. The Major would smirk and shake his head somewhat sadly "Such a waste" he would say, as if looking at spilled milk instead of skeletal people deliberately starved to death. At first Friedrich had been outraged that the Major seemed so devoid of human compassion as to even be sad, he still seemed to revel in the death of the Holocaust.
But one day, as preparations for the facility to be built were finalized, Friedrich noticed one of the few hints of decency and compassion in the Major. He had said to Friedrich and the Foremen working on the project. "All these people will have to be killed as soon as we are done with them." He laughed and smiled as he normally did when talking about killing. Friedrich had stared at the Major, stony faced on hearing this. These people had suffered so much? Now we have to compound their misery and exploit them one last time? He began weeping with rage.
Suddenly Friedrich noticed a subtle detail. The glow and delight had vanished from the Major's eyes to be replace by something...empty, something sad. His eyes had watered, but his facial expression remained the same, even the light chuckle, as a tear trickled down his cheek "Work will start in a week, make sure they get three good meals and nice clean beds." He had turned and walked away. It was one of the very few indications Friedrich had gotten that some part of the Major regretted what he had become.
No sooner had operations been set up, than the Ghetto had risen up.
One of the first things the insurgents had targeted was the uniform factory. Friedrich realizing what was happening, and knowing that no one who lived in the Ghetto knew, and certainly none of the guards knew or could know of the good deeds he had done. He had ordered the gates downstairs locked and had listened apathetically as the Ukrainian SS upstairs were brutally massacred as revenge for the suffering they had caused. As far as Friedrich was concerned, they deserved it for betraying their country to people who thought of them as sub-human. What had worried him was that, the insurgents would find the secret entrance, since they were bound to be looking for storage and hiding places and storm it. The other worry was the five hundred workers still building the facility. It was true they were being fattened up, but given all the Germans had done to them, this hardly would prevent them from using their new found strength to kill their tormentors. After all, they knew the Germans too well to know that their well fed state was simply to fatten them up for the slaughter. Either way, if either threat spilled out of control, they could not possibly hold them off. When this had happened, it had been him the Major, the Doc, one hundred and twenty Waffen SS, and one hundred terrified support staff cut off. The Major, feeling safe around Friedrich and three platoons of SS had sent the Captain on a mission. He would never make that mistake again.
He realized once again his mind had been drifting. He decided to stop remembering and just go see the Major. He wondered what was for Lunch. He discovered it was something special again. This time it was Duck in plum sauce with asparagus and small boiled potatoes. He sat down on his side of the small table. He noticed that his glass was full of wine, and the Major was grinning expectantly at his food. "You have done well Obersturmfuhrer, and as I hear arguments were kept to a minimum." The Major then laughed at his recent remark.
Friedrich could not help but smile. He and Zorin had not actually hit each other, which was good, but there were plenty of insults flying around. Hers were "Faggot" "Defeatist" "Army scum" "Schwarz Kappell" as well as other comments which questioned his masculinity. He however had endured all these insults until he could bear them no more with his trump insult. "How did you even get into the Waffen SS?" he had exclaimed in exasperation one day. "It does not make any sense!" She had been unable to answer that one, and Friedrich had actually seen the beginnings of a smile of the Hauptsturmfuhrer's face. The black haired Valentine brother had burst out laughing, and was repaid by Zorin's fist going straight through his stomach.
The Major was laughing "Oh my, you two are so amusing." He then resumed "As for the matter at hand I think it is excellent, and your idea of using the expendables in the attack on Hellsing Manor. There are only two things I have to add to it." The Major smirked "The first is the Valentine brothers can do all of the foot work, and the process of installing the chip can be done by our source. All they need to do is bring these Vampires, which you will randomly select to an appropriate rendez-vous point, which our source will choose."
"Who is this source Major?" Friedrich asked.
The Major chuckled "He is an extremely important person, one you have met already. When our preliminary campaign starts I will tell you who, for now be satisfied." Friedrich was not but he accepted this by nodding. The Major continued "The other major change of plan is you are rather vague as to how we will attack Hellsing manor. You just say we will use the Valentine brothers. You and I both know that whatever happens, this attack has less than a one percent chance in succeeding. Therefore we might as well boost the odds in whatever way we can."
"By doing what sir?" Friedrich asked somewhat distractedly as he ineptly cut a piece of duck.
"We will use one hundred armed and armoured ghouls" the Major said brightly.
Friedrich stopped cutting and looked up an astonished look on his face "What sir? Ghouls, they will be slaughtered, we'd just be wasting money" he could hear the rant Zeitzler the accountant would probably go into once he learned this.
"I would ask you to leave financial concerns to untersturmfuhrer Zeitzler. He already expresses enough financial concerns to be the global minister of finance" said the Major, almost with resignation. He brightened up "No I think you underestimate the military potentials of Ghouls Obersturmfuhrer, you remember that conversation we had?" he asked.
"As I recall, it was cut short" said Friedrich bitterly.
The Major was the first to eat, spearing a potato and putting it in his mouth. He laughed and talked as he chewed "Ah yes..." Both their minds wandered off to Warsaw August 1st 1944.
It had been at three o'clock in the afternoon. The sounds of gunfire could be heard across the Vistula as what was left of Army Group Center retreated in the face of the Soviet onslaught. He had learned the Doctor was not sure enough of results to repeat the surgery he had performed on Friedrich. Dok had reported that although the side effects of Friedrich's transformation, the ability to walk in daylight and to consume limited amounts of human food while retaining all the other attributes of a vampire, while desirable would be unlikely to reoccur. The chance of a such a possibility occurring again were less than 1 percent, therefore without time to discover the proper method, the Doctor had tried working on ghoul transformation on captured prisoners. "Ghouls sir? Friedrich had demanded, what use are they?"
The Major himself had not been so sure "I do see your point. The Ghoul is the most double edged weapon we could ever use, a being devoid of conscious, of thought or memory. The ghouls could attack us as easily as they could attack the allies, and I do not desire to have this continent turned into a giant land of the undead." Friedrich had shuddered at the thought, the Major who did not care too much for ordinary people had merely frowned. "We must do it though, Herr Himmler has demanded it and so has the Fuhrer. If we do not, I shall be relieved of my command, and Standartenfuhrer Kressenstein will be placed in charge." That thought was even worse. Kressenstein was now one of the invalided Colonels among the Opera House group, and like most officers who were not Prussians like Friedrich and the Major suffered from an inferiority complex which manifested itself as recklessness. "So I've ordered the Dok to do the best he can, we have one month. I hope of course that we will be able to use a thousand vampires in the counterattack against the Soviets" the Major had smiled at the thought, of a thousand Friedrichs, turning the tide of war "but I doubt it. Ah such a pity! Such a waste, that we shall not be able to see such a battle!"
For some reason the idea of sickle and hammer wielding vampire hunters had manifested itself in Friedrich's mind. He could see a tall Soviet soldiers, replete with an eye patch and the Green trimming of the NKVD, stabbing him in the heart with a sickle, killing him. He shuddered at the thought.
This had led to another thought and he asked "Major, cannot I control the ghouls? Ghouls are supposed to listen to vampires after all."
The Major had nodded, but the smile had not appeared. The Major said "Yes but you are an ersatz vampire Friedrich we don't know if that will work, we can try it of course. It is a shame that you have all those abilities but may not be able to control Ghouls. After all a day walker, one who can eat and drink normal food, and wipe out an entire British infantry company and destroy 4 tanks all by himself is not a failure." The memory of Friedrich singlehandedly killing 200 British soldiers at Anzio in March 1944 as a test of his combat capabilities returned the smile to the Major's face. "Oh that was so much fun, for a moment I actually thought that we could win this war, but I realize that we cannot."
Friedrich like most Germans, feared the Soviet Army and what it would do, they would kill, rape, and pillage Germany, as revenge for the countless unspeakable acts committed against the Soviet Union. Just then there was the sound of glass breaking and a hole appeared in the window of the office. It was unmistakeable. "Indekung!" the Major had shoted, and no sooner had both men begun diving for cover than another bullet came through the window. Then Friedrich began hearing the chatter of automatic weapons, the crack of rifles, and the pop of pistols. "The Poles..." the Major had smiled and retrieved his MP40 from the desk. The Major turned to Friedrich who in turn had grabbed his MP40 from its resting place against the desk, "Come Obersturmfuhrer let's go to war, against our second most hated enemy!" he had declared gleefully.
Back in the present the Major said "Although compared to vampires they are soft opponents Ghouls have the advantage of the fact that Hellsing would not expect them to be used in such as role, no one has ever given them that role. In any case the British soldier, even the SAS, which is what the men guarding Hellsing are, are trained to attack the chest of a target. That is fine for normal enemies but against Ghouls and Vampires utterly useless unless you concentrate so much fire on them that you literally rip apart their bodies. It will be fine. For we will know how to attack and what to do based on the failure of this mission. If one hundred Ghouls can come close to succeeding, then one hundred vampires will be certain to succeed, provided Alucard is removed from the picture." Friedrich had eaten some duck, savouring the blood still in it, as the Major went on. "From now on I shall lead all planning sessions so as to avoid any future problems between you and Obersturmfuhrer Blitz. All officers must be present for this. We are about to go to war, at long, long last."