Chapter Seven: The Battle for Weilheim in Oberbeyern - Part Two

It was early morning before Joachim Hoch and a thousand men from his Battalion made it through the woods, over the river, and through more woods, swamps and fields until they had reached the outskirts of Weilheim in Oberbeyern. Although only about thirty kilometres, they had to move swiftly and silently, no one had been certain what was happening there.

All they knew for certain, was that the gunfire and artillery shells exploding was getting closer and closer. It was clear to everyone that the Heer units stationed with the SS had indeed grown some sort of morality and tried their hardest to do something to stop the madness. Even if from where they were they could see that nearly the entirety of the town was on fire. The SS may have prevailed in their mission, but Joachim was going to make sure that they would not taste victory for long...

Unfortunately this delay meant he would be late in picking up his rearmament delivery, he had to call Claus von Stauffenberg to explain the delay, and the quarians to hold his order. Both of them seemed to understand and wished him and the men good luck in the coming battle he had stumbled into by accident.

As they reached the outskirts of the town, the men fell to their stomachs and crawled the last of the way until they same within a hundred metres of the source of the artillery rounds. Two mobile artillery pieces mounted on what appeared to have been mounted on Panzer II Chassis'. It was quite the clever usage of the obsolete model version of Panzerkampfwagen II, really.

Waste nothing in this environment of total war was a good policy to have. They were not Americans, who could waste everything they saw as their populace hid across oceans.

Joachim looked back and gestured to Helmut Mann and his Company to move up to join him. He turned back, pulling his binoculars off his belt.

Coming out of the city was three trucks and a hanomag. They came to a full stop as they reached the mobile artillery battery. The backs of the vehicles opened and out jumped troops, some of them ushering one civilian after another. Joachim stared in silent horror as he counted them. Forty three in total marched in a line as prisoners towards what appeared to be an Obersturmführer, his hands on his hips as he greeted his victims with an unnaturally bright smile.

"-The town of Weilheim in Oberbeyern has been found guilty of sympathizing with the treacherous division of the Wehrmacht. By order of Heinrich Himmler, in the Führer's name, you have all been hereby sentenced to death… Line them up!"

Himmler. Only he would do something as disgusting as this. Joachim's mouth curled in disgust as he watched the so called 'soldiers' line moved in to the civilians up against the fence posts. These bastards were dead, they were all dead.

Next to him, a hand grabbed him by his jacket. It Mann, who looked beyond disturbed as he set Joachim's binoculars back by the Oberst.

"Joachim, we have to stop this," he breathed shallowly as the execution team went about setting up the MG-42.

Watching as the civilians were guided to their execution grounds, Joachim nodded. He could not have agreed more. He turned back to Mann's company, each face that saw this was itching to fight. The company machine gun crews and the several men armed with captured American anti-tank rocket propelled grenade launchers pushed forward to get their firing positions set up.

"Yes we'll stop it, Mann," he agreed with his subordinate. "Prepare your company to fire on my order. Nothing is held back. Spare the artillery and the trucks if you can."

The colour drained out of Mann's face. His mouth opened up slightly as he tried to digest what Joachim had decided. Joachim turned away, his attention back on the many faces that would be all dead in a matter of minutes, or potentially wounded and killed in seconds.

"Joachim, we cannot possibly do that!" Helmut protested in a harsh whisper. "There are too many civilians in the way. What if we get them all killed?!"

Joachim narrowed his eyes at the display of hesitation. Now was not a moment to get ethical about where, when and who they put in their crosshairs. Mann should have known better than this. He should have understood that basic lesson the moment he first hit combat in urban areas.

"A minute or two after that MG is set up, all those people will die. If we fire first, only some of them will die. Those are the only options that you have, Hauptmann," Joachim tersely informed Mann, his words quivering with suppressed annoyance. "It's your company. Fire now, or fire later, it's your decision now."

Joachim looked away from the Hauptmann, and raised his binoculars back to his eyes. His focus trained on the men and women standing on the firing line, some crying, others praying… all of them on the verge of death, their fates to be decided by a Mann who thought he could fight clea-.

"COMPANY, OPEN FIRE!"

The line exploded around Joachim, as Mann's company opened fired on the platoon supporting the mobile artillery and the execution squad. He smiled slightly, satisfied that a lesson was being learned. His first Battalion was beginning to understand the scope of what they had to do to save the country. After months in North Africa, they now had to get used to an entirely new enemy: their fellow countrymen.

He glanced over to Mann, who looked utterly disgusted by issuing the order.

Well… at least most of his men were beginning to understand…


Stepping out of her shower after her daily work out, Hanala yawned, her arms high above her head as she stretched out her lithe body as she used to do all those years ago when she dreamed of being a dancer.

She had the next two or so days off to herself, having spent the past five days in conferences with ship captains and youth educators about the knowledge of the planet they would soon be settling onto. With her teaching these men and women, her knowledge would quickly be passing on to their crew members and students. It was tediously, boring work talking about the same thing over and over again. She would be glad when once the major captains in the Conclave knew; they would spread the knowledge on her behalf.

In the meantime she had some time off to do whatever she could do while confined to a fleet that had cut of the extranet connection to the rest of the civilized galaxy. It was official, they were about to become pioneers. As she towelled herself off, thousands of men and women were building prefabricated residences for planetary deployment, or working the thousand or so biosphere's on Mars. Quietly and secretly, several hundred were busy operating the platforms, working the war manufacturing plants on Luna, rearming a severely depleted and over-extended fighting force they would soon be aligned with.

The civil war had stalled the fight for the Wehrmacht, force yet, it had set back Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guardians' fortunes in North Africa. It appeared that the Anglo/American invasion had finally relieved the surrounded and utterly savaged Western Taskforce in Algiers. For the moment, the lines had stabilized. That could change any day.

Realistically speaking, Rommel, Guderian and their colleagues had no reason to be in most of the continent. There was talk to pulling out of Algeria and Tunisia and holding the Libyan border. Any further and the settlement of Maur'Sata was at risk of discovery. They had already had to shoot down a full flight of American bombers with UA-976 Anti-Aircraft magnetic grenades

The UA-976 was a three stage fragmentation grenade: first the initial explosion of the shell, not dissimilar to that of flak, the shell, contained several dozen ball bearing sized charges coated in magnetic paste. The shell exploded, the magnetized spheres latched onto planes, and were detonated shortly afterwards.

It was a terrible thing to use, and more unfortunately, it had been quite some time since the military since they fired weapons in anger against live people. It was an ability they would need to remember quickly. The humans were likely going to be extremely aggressive. To show anything other than superiority would inspire weakness as they stepped out onto the world stage.

All that aside, this was her time off. She would think about absolutely nothing other than providing Saleb a wonderful day together. Getting dressed into some casual relaxed wear, she figured she knew what to do once that little girl woke up. She would see if Saleb was open to inviting over the Goebbels children.

Now… it seemed like an awful idea on paper. Magda Goebbels abhorred a lot of contact with the quarian hosts she was held by. But at the same time, she was quite often open to visits with Hanala. It was as though she was the best of a bad situation for the woman. For Hanala at least, Magda had been sort of a pet project lately. She wanted to understand what drove a sane, intelligent woman into the arms of someone as ambitious and ruthless as Adolf Hitler, who was languishing in a cell under strict orders not to speak to anyone other than her Father and Zorah.

With any luck, Magda would accept the invitation, if only for the sake of the children, who were cooped up by themselves with her. She would have to reassure her that it would only be her and Saleb, and none of the other women that both of them detested.

Stepping out of the bathroom she wandered down the empty ship deck and paused as she glanced into Saleb's room. She was still fast asleep. Smiling slightly she pulled herself away and continued on to the deck kitchen to make herself something to snack on.

At least that had been the plan once Hanala entered the kitchen area and found a woman with her back turned, preparing something to snack. She could hear sniffling, as though she had been crying.

"Mother?"

Sure enough, Mother turned around, drying her eyes.

Hanala squinted as she looked over her Mother. She stood there with a watery expression, her eyes puffed as though she had been crying for the past several days. Hanala softened her expression. She was still grieving for Rael and Veyare. Mother had odd cycles, her grief visual or hidden in cycles. Today must have been a bad day for her. Perhaps she saw a young mother and reminded her of Veyare, or perhaps she had seen an inanimate carbon rod and was instantly reminded of Rael.

Hanala grinned internally as she tried not to cry, her beyond the grave teasing of her sibling made things easier to deal with. It reminded her not to imbue her Brother with any special traits simply because he was gone. His faults, no matter how petty they were, were what made Rael, Rael.

Yawning, she was about to make her way over to welcome her Mother, but Mother was too quick. Before Hanala realized it, Mother had swallowed her up into a heavy froze in place or several seconds before slumping in and accepting her Mother's odd display of affection. If this was a means to help her with her grief, then it was the least she could do.

At least that was what she thought was the case, until one of Mother's hands slipped and touched Hanala's stomach. She pulled back, looking down slightly on her daughter.

"I'm so sorry, Hanala my love. I was so young and stupid… I…" she breathed, her words pathetically sappy as the look in her eyes gave away what the hell this had been about.

Hanala recoiled in sheer disgust, wrenching her Mother's hand away from her stomach and stepping back three paces. From her devastated Mother, Her eyes were filled with red hot rage. How dare she bring this up!?

"Father just could not keep his mouth shut about our talk, now could he?" Hanala muttered mutinously as she turned away to find herself a drink of water. She could not believe she was going to have to listen to her Mother start a conversation with her about fertility and Hanala's lack of it.

"Your Father cannot keep a secret from me if he tried, and trust me, daughter, he tried to keep this a secret," Mother snapped right back as she followed Hanala to the sink. She latched her hands onto her daughter's arm. "Oh Hanala, why didn't you tell me sooner… I-I could have come to help you through the various options. Being a Mother is such an experience. To- to think I robbed you of that…"

Without warning, Mother's hand pressed against Hanala forehead. Her other hand was covering her mouth.

"Oh Keelah," she moaned as though Hanala was on her death bed. "Come on, lay down, I think you have a fever."

Hanala did her best not to scream in frustration, she smacked her Mother's hand off her head, her hands gripping her Mother's shoulders, shaking her slightly to make her focus. Why, WHY did this have to happen to her! Sometimes she thought that Joachim was so lucky not to have parents.

"I just exercised and got out of the shower," She stated the best she could without exploding and killing the woman who gave birth to her. "I do not have a fever and I do not need to run through the options. Mother, please stop this, I am not sick, I am not dying. I'm infertile. That's all that is wrong with me. It wasn't your fault you were exposed to element zero while you were pregnant; it wasn't your fault that it affected me like this. Okay?"

Hanala waited for a good minute and a half as she waited for her Mother to calm down. As soon as she seemed to find some sense of reason in her self-perpetuated guilt, Hanala let go of her Mother and turned away to pour herself a glass of water.

If she had thought that was the end of the conversation, she was surely mistaken.

"Is this why you're dating that psychotic ape, because you cannot easily reproduce like… like Rael?" Hanala heard uttered behind her. "We're not going to be on this fleet for much longer. The resources can be provided soon. You don't have to settle for him."

Hanala rounded back on her Mother, who there not in the slightest mortified by her statement. Without so much as a warning, Hanala's hand snapped out and slapped her Mother hard across the cheek. Galina'Jarva was woman renown for speaking her mind, no matter how uncomfortable the truth was, but this time she had gone too far.

Hanala took no pleasure in hitting her, but she thoroughly earned it. She remained silent as she watched Mother rub her cheek tenderly.

"I'm dating Joachim because I like him, because I love him, not because I can't have kids on a whim," she told her Mother, leaving no debate for argument. "If you were paying attention to anything that Father told you, other then what involved you, you would know that I can have children should I plan ahead. Now kindly, and with all respect owed to you: Leave me the fuck alone."

Mother looked ready to spit something else to continue the fight. Hanala however held up her hand.

If you want to make breakfast for Saleb, by all means," Hanala added on. "But any further discussion about my health or Joachim is not a part of this."

Knowing full well that her Mother needed to be reaffirmed that everything was alright between them before she assumed that her daughter was going to never speak to her again, Hanala leaned in and kissed her Mother's discoloured cheek, then leaned back, smiling to her even though she was still furious with her.

"I mean it, Mother," Hanala restated once again, just in case. "One more thing from you and I'm kicking off my ship."

Before Mother could say another, there was a tug on the bottom of her blouse which caught Hanala's attention. Sure enough it was Saleb, tired eyed, still in her sleepwear, she looked extremely anxious. She looked at Hanala almost fearfully.

"Are you dying, Auntie Hana?"

Hanala's heart nearly broke at the question. How long had she been listening? Apparently long enough for Saleb to hear her sarcastic barb, but too young to process it as anything other than the truth. Hanala glanced back to her Mother, who was dumbstruck and appeared rather ashamed of herself for her behaviour at the moment.

Hanala, sitting down onto her knees, took the child's hands into hers and offered the largest, most reassuring smile she could possibly produce as she shook her head.

"No I'm not, Saleb," Hanala softly reassured the girl. "Grandmother gets pretty crazy when she is kept in the dark. She's both extremely spoiled and self-absorbed, but she disguises it as a genuine concern others well-being. Isn't that right, Grandmother?"

With her child and grandchild staring at her for an answer, Galina turned away back to her meal preparation. Satisfied, Mother had been shamed to a satisfactory level for the time being; Hanala sighed and turned back to her niece, who still appeared very doubtful. Considering the loss she endured, it was expected that she would react like this.

"Everything is absolutely fine with me; you shouldn't have to worry for me as well, as sweet as it may be," she added. "I'm going to be right here, bothering you for a good long time."

Without warning, Hanala blew Saleb's bangs everywhere into her face, and then tapped her nose as though she too was just a child. Saleb squealed out a laugh as she tried to escape her Aunt's sudden annoyance, then warm embrace. Satisfied the topic was dropped, Hanala let go of the child and stood up, ushering her to the table where Mother was setting up her breakfast.

"So I was thinking… Would you be up for some visitors?" Hanala spoke to Saleb as she took a seat and watched as the girl ate. "I was thinking about inviting Hedda and her siblings over for a couple hours. They don't exactly have many friends in the fleet… Would be nice if they got to see a familiar face, right?"

Saleb looked up, her expression somewhat conflicted by what Hanala was suggesting. Slowly, however, she nodded her head.

"Okay… but do you have to invite their mother?" Saleb asked her Auntie, a note of nervousness in her tone. "She's so mean and scary. She hurt Hedda."

Looking to her Mother, who had heard the incident a week or so ago with Magda exploded at all of those mother's that she was friends with. Hanala turned back to the child and smiled in sympathy.

"Her Mother has to come, I'm sorry," Hanala replied. Pausing for a moment, she added. "Just… remember that children are guests this time? They're not very interested in holo-games and all that. They like to play games with one another… all sorts of fun human games. Do you think you could keep up?"

Saleb nodded enthusiastically as she returned to her meal. Hanala smiled privately, just like her Father, she was always up for a challenge.


How in the hell they had survived the better part of thirteen hours of sustained battle against an enemy many times superior in numbers, Hauptmann Gerhard Feyerabend did not know. All that he did know was that his Company was now down to half strength and on the verge of collapse.

The Heer detachment to this SS mission had been two companies, one belonging to him and the other belonging to Hauptmann Kurt Schumacher. Almost as soon as the two men realized that there was no rebellion targets in the town, and that the SS had come here to simply burn down the town and distract the encroaching Wehrmacht rebels from reaching the Ruhr, Schumacher, always the hot head, had ordered his men to attack. Outnumbered and outgunned, Schumacher told Feyerabend to save as many civilians as he could while his company covered Feyerabend's men.

That was the last time he heard from Schumacher, as far as he knew, the Schumacher's men were overwhelmed by the 4:1 ratio against him. By then the SS Battalion had surrounded Feyerabend and his Company, cutting off the civilian escape routes. The last of the civilians they had with them, three hundred or so, were now taking shelter in what was the last safe place in Weilheim –the town hall.

As they were pushed back to the hall, Feyerabend pulled the last of his company and set up a perimeter. All of them preparing to make a final stand as attack after attack hit their line. They were doomed, but they would not go down without making the traitorous murderers pay dearly for their willingness to destroy Germany in order to root out the rebellion.

Next to Feyerabend, an NCO collapsed behind the rubble he was in. He scrambled up and fired his MP-40 on the assaulting SS attack.

"Herr Hauptmann, the mobile artillery has been silent for a while!" he shouted as he ducked back behind cover, reaching into his ammunition belt to find a fresh magazine for his submachine gun.

Feyerabend did not reply as he leaned around the corner, expending round after round from his Walther, before pulling back to reload. Perhaps the SS ran out of shells. They had been indiscriminately shelling the town as a part of their terror campaign.

Feyerabend's company suddenly had to duck for cover as the fire on them picked up. This was it. The SS were launching their final assault on the position. It would all be over soon. He and the last of his men geared up, ready for the final wave to crash against them.

It was a wave that did not come.

Bullets flew at the SS men from their rear at every one of Feyerabend's flank, cutting down dozens of the advance attack on them. Caught in a sudden and unexpected crossfire, the SS ducked into whatever cover they could find, relieving fire from off Feyerabend and his tired men and onto the as yet unseen newcomers. It bought them enough time for the last of the civilians to take cover in the city hall and for the company to stretch out, thinning their line but providing more vantage points to shoot from.

Feyerabend watched as three more of his MG-42 crews set up their positions closer to the front line and begin firing bursts at the bastards, finally properly suppressing them and forcing the SS to turn their attention to the newcomers, who by the sound of it were confined to small arms fire. The SS's response was chaotic, panicked. Something huge had kicked them in their collective ass and now they were the ones who were in a world of shit.

Feyerabend nearly laughed. From being surrounded by a superior enemy, to the superior numbers of the SS being surrounded by an even larger enemy. It was Darwin extracting some sort of karmic revenge on the SS-

Suddenly the SS position in front of him was hit by a volley of explosions that turned the pocket of SS into a smoking crater, ending the fighting right there and then. The only left was the occasional rifle shots in the distance and the screams from the nearby wounded SS men. The fighting continued around the lines, but the front line was cleared. Around him, Feyerabend's men cheered as more and more volleys hit the SS encirclement, thinning them out until their guns at long last silenced.

Breathing hard, Feyerabend stood up from his place. His action imitated by the rest of his men. Quietly, he and his men moved towards the wounded and dead former compatriots. They paid no attention to their cries. Instead, the Hauptmann led his men to the corner of the three way street.

He was not willing to expose himself just yet to the newcomers. For all he knew they would fight him as well for being involved with what happened here today, whether he defended the civilians the best he could or not. Realizing the risks, Gerhard took a deep breath.

"We're coming out! We want to talk to you!" he shouted around the corner.

There was no answer at first. Then, after several moments, a voice shouted back.

"Only your Commandant!"

Glancing back to his men, Feyerabend gestured to them to return to their positions as he holstered his pistol. After a good long moment to gather his courage, Feyerabend closed his eyes, held hands up high and stepped around the corner.

The Hauptmann opened his eyes as he realized he was not dead. Standing there with his hands up, he found himself looking at a company behind cover. Rumbling with the new Heer men was one of the six Wespe Self Propelled Guns that the SS brought with them, stained with the blood of its former crew. Standing on the top of the Wespe was what appeared to be a Panzer commander screaming at the crater and the many corpses he had just made, he was jumping up and down like it had been a football match.

One by one, the new arrivals stood up, all of them peculiar to him. They wore Afrika Theatre desert uniforms, all of them appearing utterly exhausted. Some slumped to the ground; others marched forward, scrounging off the dead SS men and his unlucky boys. Had they not have come just in time, he would have complained. Any protest vanished when he noticed they were only interested in taking ammunition pouches, clips and magazines from weapons.

Looking at his own boys, they knew his silent order to stand down. Like the new comers, they came out of their positions or laid down to rest. Snapping off his Stahlhelm and placing it under his arm, his hand touching his sweat stained baling head. Steadying himself as the adrenaline continued to flow though him, Gerhard went to join the first man of his equal standing he saw.

The man he spotted had been turned away; he was speaking quickly and quietly to three men and what appeared to have been a female. The female looked away and caught notice of him approaching, she nudged the man next to her, and then the Hauptmann in question turned around, his face grimy. But still he offered Gerhard a mild smile. The others he was with backed off, but remained watching. It was clear that they weren't so quick to accept him, even though they risked their lives to save him and his men. Understandable, considering they were opposing each other.

Stopping before the Hauptmann, Feyerabend came to a halt and saluted, the other Hauptmann doing the same as he.

"Hauptmann Gerhard Feyerabend..." Gerhard introduced himself to the fellow Hauptmann. "I am unsure who we're apart of anymore, but we're sure as hell happy to have you here."

The younger Hauptmann smiled and offered his hand to Gerhard, who took it gratefully.

"Helmut Mann, 438th Regiment, attached to the 86th Infantry Division," the young man named Mann spoke to him. "We found some civilians you sent away from here and thought you guys were alright by the sounds of it."

"Attached?" Feyerabend inquired. "To who?"

The smile on Mann's face grew wider. He shrugged causally as he turned back to look at his boys.

"Technically to Helmuth Weidling, but we're very independent," He informed Gerhard. "We're a rather mixed unit of Afrika Korps vets, half mad Sixth Army survivors and Waffen-SS. They don't call us 'The Scraps' for nothing-"

"Waffen-SS?" Gerhard repeated, cutting him off.

This unit filled with rebels against the SS was actually taking in Waffen-SS men into their ranks? What in the hell was going on here! After today he had wanted absolutely nothing to do with the political army of the National Socialist Party.

"Yes, they're apart of the regiment," Helmut Mann spoke, breaking the fifty year old captain from his angered state. "Their whole branch of the SS are in sort of a state of limbo at the moment, the heads of the Waffen-SS branch are deciding who to support and the Wehrmacht chiefs are trying to figure out what to do with several hundred thousand men they can't exactly throw into a jail right now as most of them are filling the holes in our Eastern Front. Anyways, all these scraps are thrown together and held together by our Oberst."

At the mention of the Oberst, Feyerabend stood up straighter and attempted to dust himself off.

"I should like to thank him," he requested as pulled his field cap out of his pocket and pulled it over his head.

The statement made Mann appear suddenly uncomfortable. He glanced to his men, who looked just as uncomfortable at the mention of the Oberst. Looking past Gerhard, he pointed off in the direction of the torn apart SS position.

"Well, he's over there…" Mann spoke slowly. "...dealing with wounded..."

Sure enough there was a relatively huge man standing by himself, dressed in Oberst colours, his pistol drawn on one of the SS wounded, who was trying to crawl away. A shot rang out from his pistol, putting the wounded man out of his misery and making the Hauptmann jump.

Never before had he seen an execution, not in this war, not in the 1914 war, and here this Oberst was, executing the wounded as though it had been a common practice; as though he had done it many times before.

The Hauptmann named Mann flinched as well. He was just as disturbed by it as Gerhard had been.

"You'll get used to him… eventually…" Mann explained to Feyerabend. "Whatever you do, be honest and forthright about your allegiances and do not under any circumstances, shirk your responsibilities. He will shoot you dead right where you stand. He's done it before; he'll be likely doing it again. Make sure it's not you."

Underneath the two Hauptmann's, an NCO laughed out loud as he was ammunition bags off a dead SS rifleman.

"Good old faithful Joachim Hoch!" he exclaimed grimly. "He kills more of our countrymen then the enemy! Not only is he not punished, he makes friends with the General staff!"

Feyerabend looked back to Mann, who nodded grimly. Clenching his mouth, he turned to face the Oberst, whose pistol just went off again. With all his squirming pushed down, he walked towards the Oberst, his appearance becoming clearer and clearer to him. He was young, extremely young, as in barely midway out his twenties and commanding a six thousand man regiment young.

Whatever the hell this kid had done to get to this point; it had to have been significant. Joachim Hoch was a somewhat familiar name. He could not quite place it.

"Herr Hoch?" Gerhard called out as he stood at attention behind the giant, whose back was turned. "Hauptmann Feyerabend. My men and I are at your disposal."

The Oberst did not reply, instead he shot the man sprawled on the ground, making the Hauptmann jump again and go faint. This was wrong on so many levels. None of these men weren't masterminds behind Operation Hyena – the planned underground offensive meant to destabilize the foot hold the Wehrmacht had in the south. They were following orders… orders that apparently included organizing mass murder against their own countrymen…

Okay, he was wrong so perhaps they had it coming to them.

"I wanted to thank you for coming to Weilheim's rescue," he started again. "You didn't have to do it-"

The Hauptmann was cut off as a pistol round shot through the back of Hoch's newest victim. The body lurked up and down and went still. Hoch stepped over it, his eyes turned onto the next nearest wounded soldier. Gerhard looked at the body he had shot and stepped over it, following the Oberst as he looked for wounded to put down.

"When I agreed to serve with the interest of the Party in mind, I was under the belief that the Wehrmacht was small minority rebels undermining the country and the war," He informed the silent Oberst. "I never intended on coming here to burn this place down as the SS apparently were."

Hoch stopped before another wounded man, sprawled on his back, moaning incoherently. Drawing his Walther back up and aiming it at the head of the wounded rifleman, Joachim Hoch pulled the trigger, only to realize that the slide was thrown back, the sidearm out of ammunition. Patting his pistol belt for another magazine and finding nothing there, Hoch finally turned back to Feyerabend, his eyes as lifeless as the dead.

"Hand over your spare magazines," he requested.

Gerhard locked his eyes at the Oberst who stared dispassionately back at him. Slowly, the Hauptmann shook his head.

"Herr Hoch, I cannot in good conscious hand you any of my ammunition," Feyerabend spoke firmly, as though he were the one who held the superior rank. "I do not condone what the SS have done here, but I also cannot condone your blatant murder of the wounded."

Joachim Hoch was not moved, nor was he amused.

"Noted," he responded simply. "Hand over your ammunition."

Before Gerhard could tell the young Oberst what he should go do to himself for placing the Hauptmann in the position of an executioners assistant, he was spared the escalation by Helmut Mann who, refusing to look the Oberst in the eye, handed the man a stack of about five magazines before pulling Feyerabend away.

"I'm glad you're here…" Mann muttered as they were out of ear shot. "I could always use another voice of reason. Come, we'll clean the rest of the town out."

Like clockwork, another pistol round rang out.


"Can I tempt you with another drink, Magda?"

Looking away from supervising her children as they played with Saleb, Magda Goebbels focused onto Hanala, who held a bottle of human gin, one of many bottles which Joachim had left behind. Magda nodded, and allowed Hanala to take her glass. This wasn't an activity she would have done with other quarian mothers, but Magda was quick to tell her that this was the sort of thing German women did when they got together with their children – allow the kids to wind themselves down, while the women had a chance to relieve themselves of their pressures by having a few drinks.

If this was standard motherhood for Germans, it was little wonder why Joachim was so fucked up. He had only once mentioned how heavily he remembered his mother drank heavily, but self-deprecatingly mentioned it was probably because how terrible he was. Hanala torn in her opinion on human mother, on one hand they were doting, dedicated to their children, on the other she had heard that they drank and smoke during pregnancy every so often. That as sheer insanity Sis they not understand the damaging effects their vices could do to the child?

Other than those issues, Hanala was quite surprised at how quickly Magda Goebbels had latched herself onto her. Whether it was out of a true sense of friendship, or that it was because Hanala was the only quarian woman on the fleet who could seem to empathize with her was still up in the air. Although her reputation was marred by her unwavering allegiance to Hitler, and a seemingly unperturbed attitude towards the horrors she was being taught by others about the regime she supported, Hanala had to admit that she kind of liked her. She reminded her of a much more reserved Lene Langer.

As it also turned out, Magda was significantly less vapid as she thought she would be. It was the opposite, really. Sharp and quick with her tongue, she was abnormally able to absorb into her new surroundings, more so then Joachim at least. It took ages to teach him to use quarian technology and it took fighting him at every turn not to act like a dork around the new tools she gave him. Magda, on the other hand, was absorbing her new resources like they had been a second nature. She attributed to her genuine interest in electronics stemming from her volunteer factory work in a radio manufacturing plant.

"What happened to her parents?"

Hanala's musings about the woman were erased from her focus. The question, although should have been expected, had still caught Hanala off guard. Magda's curiosity was unending. Hanala should have known better then to have not anticipated it.

"She's clearly not yours," Magda spoke as she looked into the gin she was sipping. "You don't give the vibe of a Mother just yet, more along the lines of an older sister, which I might add, isn't wise."

Hanala stared at her hands resting onto her knees. Exhaling slowly, Hanala found her words.

"My Brother and his wife were killed by the SS on the day you were brought here," Hanala explained, her voice strained as she forced it to remain neutral. "They were not alone. A lot of good men, women… children… they lost their lives in the immediate aftermath."

Deciding not to press her grievances as it was not in everyone's best interest to state the obvious difference in political opinion between Hanala and Magda Goebbels, who was considered by many to be the First Lady of the Third Reich. Hanala looked up to Magda, who was still impassively staring at her. She was analyzing Hanala.

"I… I don't know how I can explain all of what happened to her," Hanala spoke her greatest fear aloud to the human. "I mean, she understands that her parents are gone, but she's not going to be a little girl for long. She's going to want to know what happened," One day… one day she's going to find out that I left her Mother with her executioner, or that I didn't move fast enough to pull everyone out, getting her Father killed. She will hate me when she realizes that they are dead because of me."

Hanala's eyes wandered towards Saleb, who was sitting on the floor of the living area, looking up as she spoke to Holdine. Hanala sighed and turned away.

"I… I am not sure if I can do this. I need to do it… but I don't think I'm capable…" Hanala admitted out loud, in barely more than a whisper.

As she fell silent, she looked up to Magda who was sitting there in silence. The human mother was staring hard into her eyes, unblinking. It made Hanala uncomfortable, and Hanala had killed people before.

"I won't pretend that I understand everything you are going through, or that I can find a lot of sympathy for what happened," Magda spoke, breaking their shared silence. "Retribution for what your people have done to mine should have been expected… If you knock the support beams of a building down while you're still inside, then you should expect not to escape the collapse unscathed."

Hanala looked up furiously; about to violently react to the casual justification of the murder of nearly two hundred quarians, including Rael, Veyare and the entire Langer family, she noticed Magda was not done yet.

"That said, I can tell you one thing for certain: You are that girl's Mother now. It does not matter if she finds out and hates you for it ten years down the road, what matters now is today," Magda continued on, leaving Hanala defusing her temper. Her parents are dead, and they are not coming back for their child. A daughter needs to have that special bond between Mother and Daughter, someone they can confide in, someone they can learn from. Whether you are ready or not is irrelevant when that little girl needs you."

Magda huffed as she turned away, allowing Hanala a moment of privacy to blink the water out of her eyes. Magda's words scratched along a nerve that had made her bottom lip tremble. She would not break down in tears in front of easily one of the most influential human women in the world. Magda was right… she never thought she would say such a thing, but she was right about this.

"My Mother had me out of wedlock, you see; this in a time when such things were utterly, utterly taboo," Magda admitted suddenly, as Hanala controlled her breathing. "She resented me for all sorts of things and in so many ways; for being a burden during a tough time for her, being adored by my Father and my Step-Father more than she ever was… even for being more attractive and educated than she was. I know what having an emotionally distant and bitter mother does… and I have tried every day not to be like her with my children."

Hanala's eyes darted across Magda's face, looking to see if what she had said was true. She saw no deception in her feature. The story sounded somewhat familiar. A distant, bitter mother, a child who did not get the love she should have received. Keelah, Magda Goebbels was an older, female Joachim Hoch. What the hell as with National Socialists and having terrible childhood?

Magda crossed one leg over the other, her hand brushing off her long skirt. Talking about her past beyond her National Socialist years was extremely rare by all accounts. She came off as an intensely private when it came to her origins. All that Hanala really knew was that Magda had been married before at a really young age.

"For Saleb's sake… do not dwell on what might go wrong years from now, or what you cannot change in the past, or you could end up like… her," Magda pressed, barely able to hide her malice at the mention of her Mother. "Dwell on today, plan for tomorrow, but always make sure she understands that she is unconditionally loved by you…"

Magda fell silent as she went to get her drink off the table, leaving Hanala alone to stew in what the Mother of seven was telling her. It all made sense. The only one that could control Sale's reaction to how everything happened was the girl. Hanala had no control over that. It was time to step up as Magda, and more subtly, her Father had told her. She was Saleb's Mother now and her few connections to her past. She would do all in her power to make that girl understand that.

As Hanala thought about this, Magda's head tilted to the side as she turned her focus back to her pondering host.

"You know, not all members of the National Socialists are the blood suckers and monster's, as I imagine you may justifiably think that they are," Magda spoke again as she set down her glass. "Most are ordinary men and women who feared the surge in Bolshevik activity in Germany shortly after the last war. Bavaria was briefly controlled by Jewish Bolshevists until the Freikorps marched in and dealt with them properly. The National Socialist Party was the natural evolution, the legal means to defend the country from this threat."

Hanala ignored the sickening sensation building up in the pit of her stomach. Just as Magda seemed to offer Hanala a genuinely thoughtful reminder of her duties for Saleb, she retreated back into the shroud of National Socialist justifications and blaming her countries ills on scapegoats. Had she no shame? Hanala would never, ever find anything admirable in National Socialism.

"Jewish Bolsheviks?" Hanala repeated, not bothering to hide her malice at the observation.

The violent rejection of Magda's words made the woman frown, as though Hanala was supposed to have agreed with her sentiment.

"I am so sorry the truth is so hard to hear, Hanala," Magda replied in a simper as she went for her cigarettes. "The leaders of the instigators in the revolt were Jewish or foreign born radicals in Bolshevik Russia's pocket. Much of the initial Bolshevik government in Russia were Jews. It's these people that lead to the Führer's stance against the whole race. It's why the rest of us rallied around him."

It was Hanala's turn to frown.

"Is this you talking, or is this your husband?" Hanala found herself needing to know.

Through her glass of gin, Magda smirked, her shoulders shrugging casually.

"A little of both, Joseph was a real bastard, but rarely was he wrong in his observations," Magda pressed on. "Sometimes I think about what he said and wonder if he was really that wrong."

Hanala stared at Magda disbelievingly. She was half tempted to drag Magda back down to Earth in order to visit one or two of the Concentration Camp's that Joachim had to liberate. She made it a mental note if Magda's stance remained the same in the near future when Europe was stable again.

"You are a very bright woman, Magda. You don't seem to be particularly filled with hatred. I don't understand why you would allow him a moment of your praise," Hanala had to question the woman. "He wasn't some misguided man. He spent years, decades filling unassuming Germans heads with lies and half-truths that he would spin into a quasi-reality. Men like him and that Julius Streicher were the ones who dehumanized the enemies of the Reich to the point that not only was it permissible to kill in large numbers, but expected. Defending a liar's legacy… it's unbecoming of you. So why-"

"Because I have to believe that the Father of my children had some good in him!" Magda nearly shrieked back at Hanala, catching the quarian off guard.

The laughter echoing through the ship fell silent as Magda's shout caught the attention of the children.

In a matter of seconds, Magda's son, Helmut entered the lounge, and like a little soldier, came to the aid of his Mother. Usually shy, he stared at Hanala, until Magda side hugged her son and kissed his cheek, silently dismissing the boy with the words 'you go on and play'.

Helmut lingered for another moment, before leaving the room. Hanala thought it was sweet. Magda, on the other hand, reverted back into her state of apathy as she inhaled the last mouthful of cigarette smoke before placing it in an improvised plate ashtray and reached for another one.

"I apologize for my temper… but tell me are you so deluded enough to think that I like him still? That I love him?" Magda hissed as soon as Helmut was out of range. "I know he said awful things, put awful ideas into the Führer's head, I know because I was there. He was a terrible man to me; indifferent to my feelings, was unfaithful to me whenever he could be…"

Magda trailed off, swallowing a mouthful of her gin.

"Despite these flaws, he was a still a loving, doting Father, who would do anything for them… and even me," she admitted. "He was murdered in front of two of his daughters. If my children are to survive the coming years, they need the illusion that he was simply their loving Father… They will understand the truth, the truth about him soon enough..."

Magda reverted back to silence as she leaned over to help herself to another drink. Her words had left Hanala absolutely stunned by her honestly. This was Magda Goebbels, the woman who had refused to speak to anyone other than her children for a month and a half after she was tricked into leaving Earth for the fleet. She was not a woman who admitted weakness; she was certainly not one to admit that her husband had been having an affair.

"Why would he be unfaithful to you?" Hanala questioned aloud, shuffling in her seat. "You're quite beautiful. It just seems so… off."

Magda turned back to Hanala, her lips quirked into a rare smile. She appeared to be rather pleased by Hanala's observations. It was not flattery. It was the truth. For a woman reaching her forties and having had seven children, one of them old enough to serve in the Luftwaffe, she was impressed by how well she held herself together.

The conversation was cut off as screams of children flew by them. Poor Saleb blew by them with three girls hot on her tail. Their hands extended like they were playing the game of tag. Her eyes wide open as she screamed in terror. Hanala chuckled and watched as Magda lit up a cigarette.

"The answer is simple… I got older," She spoke again as the laughter vanished from the room, exhaling her cigarette. "At first it hurt. I went to the Führer and my knees and in tears, begging him to permit a divorce after I caught Joseph and… and that hussy, Czech actress whore... the Führer, though… he could not abide a sudden divorce, but he was not unfeeling to my situation either."

She trailed off. It was clear that although this was still bothering her, she was unwilling to admit it aloud. Hanala would not prod, not when this was something extremely personal she was sharing.

"The Führer told Joseph to end his relationship with the actress; he then kicked the whore out of the country, nearly expelled Joseph from his Ministry position and would have gave me our property if I so asked," Magda said finally, finding her voice. "He decided what for the time being, Joseph was only permitted near the children at my leisure. The Führer, in his own wisdom asked me to hold off on continuing the divorce for a year to see if we could save it. If we couldn't save our marriage, then he would draw up an extremely generous divorce terms."

Magda closed her eyes as she inhaled sharply.

"I hated him. Oh, how I hated him, Hanala," She admitted, her words filled a quiet malicious by the remembrance of her own humiliation. "However I could not place my hate before my children and neither could I abandon the ideal of Party purity by painting that son-of-a-bitch as an adulterer in the public's eye. Instead I gave them their Father back."

All of Hanala's annoyances at Magda's display of loyalty were vanishing once again. She thought that she understood her better now. The only person that appeared to be loyal to her was Hitler. Much of her recent life had been so focused on such a powerful person, that she would cling onto the delusion that Hitler had done know wrong. This didn't excuse her, Hitler was not a mind controller, but it helped Hanala make some sense out of her.

"Well, did he remain faithful to you after that?" Hanala inquired as Magda smoked. "I imagine being shouted down by Adolf Hitler isn't pleasant."

Magda did not look to Hanala as she huffed in apparent amusement.

"No, he did not heed such conventional wisdom. You would think he would know better, but no. If anything Joseph's affairs picked up speed as his power grew," Magda said idly, almost sounding like she was dazed. "By then I was too terribly tired from the children. I had a comfortable life; I was at the Führer's side… I did not care anymore. He had for the most part stopped touching me unless he wanted another child… Hedda and Heidrun for example…"

Hanala blinked. Keelah, and her parents wondered why she didn't want a child herself. Thought a concept of not having a control over her life was impossibly cruel to her sensibilities. Perhaps that was why Magda seemed so cold with her children. She loved them, but it was a burdened love from what she saw.

"So he held onto his mistresses, but after a while it was mutual. He slept around, I found my own… companions…" Magda spoke delicately… coyly. "All those good looking young men in their pretty uniforms and stern demeanour, they are very hard to ignore. They started relatively my age, and my interest grew younger." Magda huffed, and a small laugh as she shook her head.

"After what that silver tongued monster did to bring me here, I'll never go that young again, I swear that much to you," she confided to Hanala, who sat there dumbly.

The colour vanished in Hanala's cheeks as she deducted what Magda quickly. She did what with… him?

"Wait a moment… you mean that you… you and Joachim Hoch?" Hanala breathed, her eyes searching Magda's for the truth.

Magda could only smile deviously at first. She was extremely proud of what she did by the looks of it. Hunting younger game was apparently her favourite sport.

"I will admit I was rather proud of it myself," she elaborated to the stunned quarian. "I had not thought I would do it, but armless or not, he was rather… interesting to say the least."

Hanala barely registered Magda's self-congratulatory statement. She was not a child; she was not one to get jealous or possessive. If anything she was impressed. She could hardly believe Joachim used seduction to get himself better situated. Perhaps he was cleverer then she gave him credit for. Considering the chaos that resulted in response to his duties, the last thing on his mind to her was that he locked lips with the First Lady of the Third Reich.

Hanala looked over Magda, she was still smirking. She was likely thinking about the thrill of hooking up with someone two decades her junior. Yet again Hanala told herself to calm down.

"Hanala?"

The call back to reality came from Magda. Hanala focused once again and controlled her temper. She recollected herself and offered a faint smile in return.

"A word of advice, Magda," Hanala found her words as she looked to the older woman. "Joachim Hoch is… well… I'm seeing him. So the next time you see him, kindly keep yourself off of him? For my sake?"

It took a moment for what Hanala had said to register in Magda's comprehension. She sat there, stunned for a good moment as she realized the implication of Joachim having apparently hooked up with both of them: One on purpose, the other as a part of his cover.

Magda, to her credit, placed her hands over her mouth as she realized what she had done. She appeared completely ashamed as Hanala held her eyes on the older woman. Hanala didn't know what to do. She wanted to be angry, but she didn't want to stoop into a stereotype, at the same time she found this absolutely hilarious, but did not want to laugh in the face of the utterly embarrassed Mother of seven.

After a moment, Magda pulled her hand from her mouth. It was clear now just how mortified she was.

"I am sorry for my past behaviour, then," Magda spoke wistfully as she slid closer to lay her hand onto Hanala's. "Before you get any ideas… Joachim told me several times that he was married… or was it engaged. Anyways, he was not exactly afforded an opportunity to say no to me. When I see someone I like, I follow Joseph's example and just sort of take it…"

Hanala could only really shrug.

"You couldn't have known," Hanala murmured to herself moodily, as she looked down to her hands buried in her lap. "Perhaps I'll tease him about it… if I ever see him again, that is…"

Ashing her cigarette, Magda leaned against the side of the couch, silent as she looked over Hanala, she was in the state of debate. Downing the last of her gin, Magda set the glass down and turned back to her host.

"When was the last time that you saw him?" She inquired softly.

Hanala ignored the dull pain in her chest as the question resonated in her. She leaned over to sip her own drink as she thought about Joachim out there, apparently now back in Germany, fighting everything that stood in his way, all the while never properly saying good bye to her at least. The thought of him… well…perishing without understanding that there was still one person out there that wanted him was eating away at her conscious.

"Several months…" was all she could say without choking up.

As Hanala fell into a bitter, suppressed state of silence, there was a soft pat on her knee, bringing her focus back to Magda once again.

"You have my sympathy, but that's… not exactly, what I was asking," Magda spoke plainly, her lips curved as coyly as she had been earlier. "When was the last time he… you know…"

It took a moment to understand what Magda was hinting at. Hanala could not help but chuckle.

"Had sex? It was Mid-January, the night before we went to Aguni Lahwa to battle the Americans. After everything that happened, being wounded, losing so much together, he hasn't touched me since," She admitted, unashamedly candid about what was happening in their quasi-hiatus. "I would be lying if I said it wasn't driving me insane. Not so much about the sex… which is… well… Oh Keelah, I cannot describe it… but it's more than that. Just being in his presence the way… the way we use to be together..."

She trailed off as she rubbed her neck. She was rambling on about the details that Magda had no need to know. She watched uncomfortably as Magda's eyes travelled over Hanala, her face filled with a grimace, like she was struggling to find something remotely feminine about her.

"I imagine cutting your hair like a boy hasn't exactly helped your prospects with him," Magda spoke briskly. "You have next to no breasts. The only thing that keeps you from being a boy is genitals and curves…"

Recoiling in shock, Hanala touched her hair with one hand, and then her right breast with her other hand self-consciously. Where in the hell did that come from? Joachim liked her body… didn't he? Before she could put a lot of thought into it, Magda had stood up and grabbed the smaller woman by the wrist, pulling her to her seat. She let go to flatten the hem of her long skirt.

"If getting you some private time with Joachim Hoch is what I need to do in order to pay you back for my actions, then it is the least I can do," the human said, offering her arm. "Now come along, show me your wardrobe. I hope to God that you have things I can work with."


It took another two hours before Weilheim's south side was pacified.

It was not that there was a lot of resistance. Token mostly before the last SS men gave up. Whatever the hell Schumacher and his Company had done, it was enough to tear apart the SS companies they were stationed with at a great personal sacrifice. Of the 243 men of the Heer Company, only about 40 of them had survived, half of them too injured to be moved from the town they sought to defend. Joachim had to admit, the sacrifice had impressed him

With the prisoners secured, the officers executed, the wounded being treated and the vehicles and ammunition being salvaged before the fires of Weilheim took them, Joachim left the company of his men to inspect the burning city on his own. The smoke and ash was billowing into the sky and raining over them, the sounds of screaming from the civilians as they cried for their dead over the cries of the wounded. The town was as haunted as any Yugoslavian, Ukrainian or Russian city he marched into. The war in the east was being brought home. These people, living in relative peace and quiet was getting a taste of what the war was like.

He paused for a moment as he noticed one of his men, the one who picked up the stray. He and his Ukrainian pet were helping an elderly woman out of her broken home, blood running down the side of her face, which the Ukrainian woman placed her hand over. She locked eyes briefly with Joachim before turning back to the woman.

He continued down the ruined streets, stepping over the bodies of the SS, Heer and civilians. He ignored, with great contempt, the crying of a mother cradling what appeared to have been half of her son. He had been likely blown apart during the Wespe shelling.

His hatred for the civilians grew exponentially. This could all have been avoided; all of it avoided had they not been swallowed up by the charms of Adolf Hitler. He did not force a revolution, he threw no coup and he killed none of his rivals. He was elected by people like this woman. Too blind to see what the long term intentions the man had. Her son was dead before he actually died. Whether by the coup or fighting the Russians, it did not matter.

Stopping his musings and his body, Joachim's eyes noticed something strange. There before him was a pool of blood with no body covering it. Instead, there were bloodied track marks… like someone had tried to drag themselves away. Following the trail for a bit, his detective work heard the sound of moaning and scraping.

Joachim looked up to the source of the scraping; sure enough one of the wounded SS men was attempting to crawl out of the street to hide. Judging from how murky the blood trail he was leaving behind, it was clear the man was delusional enough to think he'd survive, or like an old dog, he simply wanted to find a quiet place to curl up and die on his own.

Frowning, Joachim stepped over the bodies of two women clutching reach other in death and drew his pistol as he moved through the rubble to deal with the son of a bitch. Hearing the boots behind him, the crawling man emitted a whimper and tried to speed up.

Not allowing him an ounce of sympathy, Joachim rolled the man onto his back so that the bastard could look into Joachim's eyes as he put a round through his forehead. The face of the SS man was covered in blood and tears, his hands gnarled up into tight balls as he covered his face from Joachim

"P-lease, I-I need your help," he sobbed out loud to the Oberst.

Joachim clicked back the hammer. Shooting him would be doing the dumb shit a favour now. His stomach was almost split open by what appeared to have been a grenade landing in his lap. Still, there was no way in hell that Joachim could do anything other than put this man down.

Still, Joachim wavered, his Walther still hovering over the man. Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, Joachim's conscious if there was still one, told him to hesitate. The face of the dying man looked familiar… sometime in his old life this man had prominence in it.

Joachim tilted his head. Though the lower part of his face was stained with blood, he could faintly recognize him. It took him bending over to wipe the blood off his mouth that he recognized the face. On his chin, a small scar left by a fencing duel. Not a Mensur scar as impressive as Otto Skorzeny, but an accident on this man's part.

"Uhlmann?" he questioned the mortally wounded creature. "Ernest Uhlmann?"

The fear in his expression vanished slightly as he realized he was not alone, that he would die with someone who at least knew him. Squinting his eyes, the dying man forced to focus on Joachim. Joachim lowered the pistol slightly so that he could give the man an unrestricted view.

"H-Hoch? Joachim Hoch?" He breathed excitedly. "O-oh my G-god, I am so happy to see your face. They… they shot me, I hurt… I need your help."

Staring at his dying former schoolmate carefully, Joachim exhaled and tucked his pistol back into his holster. He would not shoot this one.

Removing his jacket and cap as he rolled up his sleeves, Joachim bent down onto his knees and carefully sat Uhlmann up with one arm, his human hand falling low to the stomach penetration. Ernest winced and moaned as pain cut through him, but did not complain. Joachim wasn't sure why he was doing this -applying pressure if only to delude the dying man that he was able to be saved.

Ernest coughed violently, blood pooling from his mouth. Wincing at the familiar sight he was witnessing, Joachim silently leaned Uhlmann's head to the side so that he didn't choke and watched as the blood drained from his mouth.

"T-Thank you…" he rasped, his hands falling to his side as he laboured to breath. He turned back, his eyes scanning Joachim for a moment. "W-where's your uniform? You're in the wrong c-c-colours."

Joachim could not help himself; he offered a rare smile to his former compatriot.

"I changed services, Ernest. I'm with the Heer now," he admitted to his former classmate. "I joined the other side long ago."

Like clockwork, Ernest's expression turned into a look of fear. He was laying in the arms of an enemy, not a friend.

"Are… are you going to kill me?"

Joachim remained silent for a good long moment as he pondered Uhlmann's fear.

"No..." he finally replied. "No, I suppose I won't…"

Joachim went dead silent as Ernest cried out in sudden, gut wrenching agony. The shrapnel must have shifted inside of him. Joachim tightened his grip around the room as though he could stop the bleeding that was drowning Ernst from the inside.

As Ernest babbled incoherently, Joachim found himself with so many questions, yet too completely numb to ask them. He wanted to know why someone of his intelligence, someone who had joined the SS under completely different reasons then Joachim had would not have surrendered to the inevitable, but instead took part in this attack, and God knows what out.

Ernest Uhlmann was never a believer as Joachim had been. Unlike Joachim, who had the Langer's, wealthy for several generations, and his own family holdings, Uhlmann's family, as far as he knew, wasn't well off and politically independent as one could get in the Post-Enabling Act Germany. Ernest was in the organization solely for a social and financial means. If anything it should have been opposite –Joachim lying in the pool of blood while Ernest was berating him.

But that wasn't how it was going down. Life was funny like that.

God… life… whoever you wanted to blame for it. Both were clear examples of having a Schadenfreude's sense of humour.

"I miss Kiel…" Ernest whimpered to his friend. "I-I need home. Jo…chim. I need home."

Biting his lip as he fought the inevitable reminders that he was homeless, and the inevitability of what was about to happen next, Joachim did not reply.

"Herr Oberst?"

Joachim looked up and found two Medics standing over him, like Joachim they too were covered in blood. Their expressions were filled with an understanding that there was nothing to be done for Uhlmann, other than provide him with a morphine injection and wait by him until he died.

Not wanting to waste the Medics time nor resources, Joachim shook his head, dismissing the two of them.

The two Medics looked to one another, and then clambered to the side of the source of the closest moaning they could hear; leaving Joachim and Ernest alone with the terrible inevitability.

With great care, the Oberst slid out of where he sat and laid Uhlmann down flat. It would be a matter of time before the shrapnel wounds moved and cut him internal further inside his perforated gut would make the pain that much more unbearable. As much as he ought to have drawn his pistol and finished him, Joachim could not do it.

"What's happening 'chim," He heard below him, Ernest's body trembling. "W-what are you doing to me?"

He did not reply to Ernest, he knew what he had to do.

Steeling himself, Joachim reached down and with one hand, covered Uhlmann's mouth, his other, pinching his nostrils. He watched in silent horror as the Uhlmann's eyes widened and he begun to shake. His body attempted to throw Joachim off him. Hoch pressed his knee into Ernest's chest, keeping him still under him. He winced as he ignored the bite that he was attempting to damage his gloved hands.

Leaning down, Joachim forced the panicked suffocating man to look up into his eyes. With all his effort, he forced himself to lighten his eyes into an expression of calming serenity, his lips breaking into a faint smile for his former comrade. He did not want his old friend to panic in his last moments. If there was one good thing about the SS, they taught you that death was not a scary thing to endure.

It was a lesson that Ernest Uhlmann wasn't expecting to live out.

"This is a good way to die…" Joachim comforted Ernest as he deluded the two of them. "You're going to close your eye and go to sleep…"

Ernest's response was to bite even deeper at Joachim's hand. Ignoring the throbbing starting to overwhelm his senses, he held on tighter.

It wasn't long before the resistance begun to die down in the mortally wounded Obersturmführer. Ernest has used up what precious oxygen he had left fighting the inevitable as he drowned in his own internal bleeding. Joachim leaned closer still as the shaking slowed down, his head touching Uhlmann's forehead as he shushed him softly like a parent did for a child. Ernest looked right back at him, his eyes filled with a fading confusion. It wasn't long before Joachim felt the last moment of Uhlmann's existence leaving his body.

Holding his hands in place for another moment, Joachim pulled them back and pulled himself off the body, sitting there silently as he inspected the man he killed. His bloodied gloved hand reached up and carefully, he slicked back Ernest's hair from out of his eyes.

Quietly he stood up and left the body to go further into the café, where a water pipe had been broken. Standing in front of the spurting water, Joachim washed the blood from his hands. He ignored his shaking as what he did to someone he considered a brother. It was for his own good, so why did it leave him wiping his eyes?

"Herr Oberst?"

Joachim did not turn as he patted for his cigarette case. Finding it, he opened it to find it empty. He turned back to find Helmut Mann standing there sheepishly, a pack of American cigarettes in hand. Staring at Helmut, he took them. To say that Joachim was severely disappointed in him today was an understatement. He expected better from his old school friend. To freeze and question his order like that… he had no fucking clue what he risked.

"We have forty-three dead, eighteen wounded, about ten of them seriously. The mayor and council of Weilheim wanted to express their gratitude for saving the town… what's left of it, anyways," the Hauptmann informed his Commandant, his words carefully guarded. "They said that we should leave the wounded here and they'll send word to the nearest Heer authorities."

Joachim nodded as he inhaled his cigarette. His eyes turned back down to Ernest Uhlmann, his dead eyes half open as he started at the room.

"Recognize him?" Joachim inquired, gesturing to the body.

Helmut frowned and turned back to look at the corpse. He moved closer and inspected Ernest for several moments, as Joachim shakily smoked his American captured 'Lucky Strikes'. Joachim ignored the expression of mild disgust from Mann.

"You brought him around to our parties a few times when you were in town," the Hauptmann replied finally, standing back up properly. "He had a sister, she was very bubbly. I tried to sleep with her, I think."

Joachim bristled at the casually lewd remark about Ursula Uhlmann.

"Ernest Uhlmann, SS-Obersturmführer, he graduated with me in 1938," he spoke softly as he looked down on the dead SS man. "He wasn't just a friend of mine, Helmut. I spent two years of hell with him in Bad Tolz. I did whatever I could to make him the best soldier he could possibly be, even though I knew at the time that he wanted to be a glorified, uniformed pencil pusher. I did it because the SS wasn't a military unit in the traditional Wehrmacht sense before the war."

Taking a seat on a pile of rubble, Joachim smoked his cigarette as he ignored Mann's eyes wandered to inspect Joachim's machine arm.

"Technically speaking there was no difference between the general service SS men like him, and SS-VT men like me until September 1939," Joachim pressed on, ashing his cigarette. "There was no division in branches, nor between officer and men, we ate in the same mess hall, we slept in the same barracks, showered, trained on our pistols and rifles, towed artillery by hand, chased women, drank… It was a family, Mann; a huge family."

He shook his head slowly.

"Joining the Wehrmacht… it's like abandoning your family. Especially to us who joined early," he continued, more to himself than before. "No matter how much I hate them, no matter how much I want their system punished, they are my family. They are me. I'm not a Heer officer… I'm just in disguise…"

Joachim must have been distant or something, because Mann looked at him as though he was having some sort of mental breakdown. Who knows, perhaps he was. He wasn't sure why he was explaining this to Helmut.

"Joachim…" the Hauptmann breathed, using the Oberst's first name in an uncommon reminder of how close they once were. "Joachim, are you alright?"

Joachim looked up from the body and glared at Helmut.

"No Helmut, I am not alright," he retorted sardonically, gesturing to the body beneath them. "Germany goes to shit and this sub-par soldier decides to fight. He comes here and all the dumb bastard does is get his organs rearranged and liquefied by a hand grenade. I put him down… like he was fucking stray, or a sick animal… He was my friend, and I put him down."

Joachim trailed off, his hand wiping his face as he forced himself not to cry out in public. Sniffling, Joachim exhaled unsteadily.

"This isn't the front, Hauptmann," Joachim found himself having to remind his old friend. "This wasn't some poor bastard serving in a foreign army that's in your iron sights before he got you in theirs. He was a friend. This is what civil war is, you fight against people you are friends with, but they chose the other side. You tear apart your own country, not someone else's. So the next time I give you a fucking order, you follow it to the letter."

Mann nodded, he may have appeared to agree, but not in its entirety as he tensed up into a state of attention.

"Herr Oberst, I recognize that civil war is dirty, but we're putting civilians in deliberate harm's way," Mann stated firmly, as if being inspected. "Thirteen died when we fired through them to get the drop on the platoon!"

Joachim ignored the growing ticking sensation just behind his eye.

"You don't think I know that?" Joachim nearly roared at the Hauptmann. "I don't know where the hell you've been the past three and a half years, but that's the sort of thing that comes with combat. If we let that platoon escape, if we allowed even one of those men a chance to run, how many more bodies would this town have to bury, or in other targeted towns and villages? Thirteen is a good sacrifice; thirteen is number I am comfortable with. Thirteen is a number you should be comfortable as well!"

Joachim went silent and held his heavy gaze on the Hauptmann, who furiously tore his Stahlhelm off his head and threw it at his Oberst's feet. Hoch tilted his head. It wasn't often that he saw Mann so furious.

"There has to be some sort of attempt to be civil, or we'll become as bad as them, or as bad as you!" Helmut shouted his accusations at Joachim. "The ends cannot always justify the means, Hoch. We cannot become as vengeful as you are! We'll lose ourselves in this eye-for-an-eye warfare against the SS just as you already have!"

Mann went as silent as the grave and waited for a rage attack so typical of Joachim these days. It never came. Instead much to his surprise, Joachim broke down into a tremendous laughter directed at the Hauptmann.

"Your delusion is astounding, Mann. If there is one thing Kaltenbrunner taught me in the few conversations we had, and what Heydrich did to everyone I hold most dear, it's that when they fear you, you become stronger... and then you win," Joachim concluded as he took a step away from Mann. "It doesn't matter if I shoot Heydrich dead. He already won against me. All I can do now is cushioning my defeat with as many bodies of Heydrich's colleagues as I can."

Joachim fell silent as he focused on Mann properly as he took several steps back, ending up outside of the café. He looked utterly lost and disgusted. Leaning over, Joachim collected Mann's Stahlhelm and threw it over to the Hauptmann, who caught it and placed it over his head.

"I don't think I know you anymore," was all the Hauptmann could say before retreating out of the building's rubble and headed back out to find his men.

Alone once again with his deceased friend, Joachim turned away and found what was left of a grimy table cloth and pulled it out of the shattered ruins. Wandering back to Ernest, Joachim leaned over the corpse, pulling the identification papers and wallet from Ernest's pocket and the tags around his neck.

Securing them in his pocket, Joachim wrapped the body in the sheet pulled on his jacket once again. Staring at the body for another moment, Joachim stood up and turned away. He had to organize his men, they were behind schedule.


"Requesting your permission to come in and take a seat. I don't think I can stand for much longer. Your boys sure know how to hurt."

Turning away from his hardback copy of 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' that had come to him on recommendation by Jack Churchill during his visits with the prisoner of war. Sturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny looked up to find Adrian von Fölkersam standing in the doorway, his face smashed up terribly. One eye was bruised, his nose bleeding. He was clearly pistol whipped from the mark swelling on his face. Otto could not help but wince at the sight. Not because of the blood, but in admiration in his young friend.

The mission leader leaned back into his seat and offered the interrogator a large smile. He had to admit, he was extremely impressed with the length he went to impress upon his claim to the alien that he too was an innocent party in the interrogation process. The two of them were seemingly forming a brotherhood of mutual suffering. It was an interesting tactic that Adrian heard that the Luftwaffe used on American and English air force prisoners. Pretend to be the prisoner's greatest advocate, defending him from the frightening prospect of having the Gestapo show up and commence their Verschärfte Vernehmung – Sharpened Questioning – which was a kind euphemism for waterboarding and other forms of torture.

"Would you like a towel?" Skorzeny inquired, unable to keep his amusement out of his voice.

Adrian shot Skorzeny a grin as he slumped down into the seat in front of his desk. His hand touched against his eye, making the subordinate wince.

"No, thank you," Adrian declined politely. "I'm going to let the blood dry, give the impression I was locked up here as he was."

Skorzeny nodded, his hand out Adrian returned the smile painfully and reached into his pocket, pulling his wallet out and opening it. He took out the picture of Emmi and Waltraut handed it to the Commando before taking a seat and a cigarette from Skorzeny.

Skorzeny held his eyes on his wife and daughter, he would have to see them soon… in case he never saw them again.

"I think he will crack," Adrian spoke lowly, not wanting to interrupt his superior, but at the same time, needing to tell him what he knew about the quarian Flight Lieutenant. "I got a good reading on who he is, and he has a good reading on who he thinks I am. He seems to have been sold on the idea that his resistance will only make me more and more desperate. If it takes too long, I can always water board him into submission or remove one of his fingers."

Placing the picture back into Adrian's hands for future use, Skorzeny laced his fingers together. Adrian looked at the pictures next before tucking it away in his jacket pocket.

"Perhaps I can take Dalad on a walk one day and you pass by with Waltraut, holding her hand as you stare at us," Adrian spoke with frank humour in his tone. "I can probably elicit a response from him better if I can provide him physical evidence that my 'family' is in trouble and that his stubbornness is risking them."

Otto could not help himself, he laughed at the suggestion. It was not as absurd as it seemed. A good reminder could motivate the quarian father of how dangerous holding out could be. Besides, it was simply him spending time with his daughter. What harm could come?

"I'll see if I can convince Emmi that I should include her and our three year old in the operation," he assured Adrian, still chuckling at the thought. "That aside, Himmler is waiting for us to act soon. We have just less than three weeks to prepare. I'm training my team in their suits and weapons. I need him to teach me how to pilot the shuttle craft back, or at least work whatever technology they have for an automatic I trust you are prepared to up his punishments if he resists much longer."

Adrian von Fölkersam nodded. Skorzeny was satisfied that he was well aware that niceties could not last much longer.

"Does Kaltenbrunner know what we're doing?" Adrian asked his boss.

Skorzeny shook his head. Ernst Kaltenbrunner had taken off, he had to lay low for the time being, setting his family up in Spain. He did not know if the quarians were keeping a tight watch on him, so he was keeping his head down until they didn't expect him. He was busy quietly preparing escape routes. If the Party failed containing the Wehrmacht, the survivors fled out of the country to regroup and plot their next moves.

"Kaltenbrunner is setting shop in Spain as we speak, he'll be back soon enough," he informed Adrian. "Müller and Heydrich are fighting the war in the meantime. Heydrich wants the Führer's position and he's making no attempt at hiding it. Himmler feels it's in the best interest to keep this between the two of us. He does not trust Heydrich anymore, and neither do I."

"Will I be going with you?" Adrian inquired, a little too eagerly. "To the vessel they hold the Führer on. I mean. I would like to help in any way."

Placing as charming a smile on his lips as he could, Otto shook his head. Reaching into his table, he grabbed his bottle of Schnapps and two glasses.

"As much as I'd like another gun watching my back, I have another mission for you to undertake," he told the younger former Brandenburger Abwehr commando as he poured two generous glasses. "I'll need you back at Wilhelm Canaris' side soon. When the time is right, you'll cut that bastard's throat. He's our greatest threat while the quarians refuse to get directly involved."

Otto slid one glass over, buttoned his jacket up and stood from his seat, his drink held out in a toast as he looked on his valuable partner.

"Adrian, thank you for your dedication; I mean that. Your work here will not be unnoticed when the Führer is in my hands," Otto saluted the somewhat befuddled Adrian. "Dalad is the safe standing in the way of this operations success. You, my friend, are the ever patient, ever resourceful safe cracker. Because of you, everything is falling in place."

Adrian smiled slightly and together the two men clinked glasses and drank in his honour.


Changes: Clean up, extreme angst extermination