The Colonel

Blaskowicz held his salute for an uncomfortable few seconds before he realized that the man before him was not planning on returning it. The Colonel was attempting to get to his feet, and despite his stoic demeanor B.J. could see that he was in pain. He reached out his right hand to help him to his feet, and the man accepted the assistance with his left hand- a thick cable was twisted around his bloodied right arm. As he got to his feet, he straitened his hat and looked B. J. directly in the eye.

"I'm on a landtrain filled with Nazis, In the heartland of the Reich, and the goddamn Grim Reaper himself comes to my rescue?" He chuckled. "Bullshit. What the hell is going on here?"

Blaskowicz replied. "Colonel, the resistance needs you. And by the looks of things…" He nodded his head at the corpses surrounding them, "you need the resistance."

The Colonel grunted in acknowledgement, his eyes intently scanning Blaskowicz from head to toe. He appeared to be measuring him, determining if he should be trusted or not. Eventually, he came to a decision. "What's your plan for getting off this train?"

"I would defer to yours."

The man looked back at him, his mouth slightly open in shock- he was not expecting that answer. "You don't have a plan? You are on a rescue mission, deep into enemy territory, with fuck-all in the way of support, and you do not even have a plan for how to get out?"

Blaskowicz shrugged. "It usually works out."

The Colonel sighed and, without another word, turned around and walked toward the barricaded door at the rear of the compartment. He waved his hand. "There's a few vehicles in the caboose designed for high-speed evacuation. Help me clear this mess."

Blaskowicz followed him, and together they began to remove the tables blocking the doorway. "The next two cars should be clear, Colonel. I dropped in on the caboose, and I believe I saw the vehicles you were talking about." He groaned as he lifted a large mahogany dining table, pulling it past his leg and setting it behind him. "Their drivers are dead."

With the table out of the way the door was finally clear. Blaskowicz pulled open the hatch, readied his rifle, and motioned for the Colonel to follow him through. "Don't call me Colonel" he said, as he passed through the doorway behind him. "I'm not a Colonel of anything anymore."

"Understood, Dr. Jones," Blaskowicz replied.

The man sighed. "Call me Indy."

He silently acknowledged the order with a nod as he pulled open the locker bar on the door at the end of the connection tube. He had decided earlier that it would be easier to climb through the vents than to blow the door. They entered the car, and Blaskowicz took another look at his handywork.

The car had been used as a staging area for Übersoldaten, and there were four mounds of metal and flesh scattered about the area. Diagnostic carts, toolboxes, and storage crates were littered throughout the large workshop, and four empty Übersoldaten tubes stood on the wall to his left and right, two on each side. There was a stepladder set in the middle of the room below an opening in the ceiling, the grate placed unceremoniously on the ground beneath the ladder.

The two men weaved their way through the mess, their boots clanking off the ribbed steel plating. The car was quiet, aside from the constant hum of the electrical circuits, and it was making him nervous. He was certain that he had cleared this car, but he was more than capable of dealing with a few injured Nazis- it was the mission itself he was worried about. It can't be that easy. There must be a catch.

They reached the next door, and he reached out his hand for the hatch- and the entire train car lurched beneath his feet with a deafening metallic SCREEEEEEECCCCHHHH, the inertia flinging the men backwards and almost knocking them off their feet. When it ended, Indy gasped, and quickly lunged for the door. He opened it, and a wind suddenly pulled air through the door as the car was filled with the stench of gasoline, diesel, and burning rubber. The caboose had detached from the rest of the train, and a gap of more than ten feet separated them from the disconnected car.

They watched the open road behind them as the caboose, rolling without power at over 200 mph, rapidly lost speed and fell behind the rest of the train. Suddenly, when it was a few dozen meters behind, the front brakes lurched, flinging the massive car head-over-heals like a child striking a rock with his bike. The car lurched through the air, angled towards Blaskowicz' right, and crashed on top of more than a dozen civilian vehicles in the adjoining lane. The men flinched as several diesel fuel tanks exploded, the fireball engulfing the train car as it finally came to a stop, quickly falling away into the distance.

Indy grabbed Blaskowicz' shoulder and let out a single word: "run."

As the older man ran at full speed, Blaskowicz held back as he followed close behind him. Although their only option for escape was a burning pile of steel and rubber, they both reasoned that there would be time to worry about such things when they were no longer in danger of suffering the same fate. They finally reached the doorway, and they both pulled themselves through the doors.

Not a second after they were safe inside the recreation car, the train lurched forwards once more, this time met with an immediate vacuum effect from the opened doorway. Blaskowicz watched as the second car pulled away before the wind pulled the doorway shut. Blaskowicz and Indy turned and ran once more to the end of the dining hall and pulled open the door to a common area.

The common area took up two-thirds of the rec car, with the door on the opposite side leading to the next car. The long room was filled with various amenities- dart boards, a pool table, a poker table, couches around a color television, and even a handful of arcade machines.

Scattered throughout the room, and staring directly and Blaskowicz and Indy, were a dozen soldiers with surprised and panicked looks on their faces. None of them were properly armored, but they were all carrying their rifles and SMG's with the skill expected of Germany's finest.

The Americans acted immediately, raising their weapons and firing into the men. Blaskowicz' sturmgewehr tore two men to pieces in a single second, while Indy expertly placed two pistol rounds into the head of a third.

The two Nazis closest to the pool table combined their strength to flip it on its side as makeshift cover, and the third crouched behind one of the arcade machines. Blaskowicz sprinted towards the table while firing his rifle in a suppressive action, and he rammed his shoulder into the top end of the table. The ramshackles and his bodyweight flipped the table back over and broke the legs, crushing the Nazis.

Blaskowicz stood up to face the third, only to see Indy strangling the man with the cord rapped around his hand. A satisfying crunch, and he dropped the lifeless corpse to the floor. They nodded to each other and continued to run to the end of the car. Indy was only a few feet from the door when the entire train car lurched, knocking both men to their feet. The ground rumbled beneath them, and the lights in the car turned off at it disconnected from the rest of the train.

Blaskowicz deftly pulled himself to his feet, and he grabbed Indy by his collar. He scrambled the last few steps to the door and pulled it open. The train was pulling away from them, but their car was not falling behind as quickly as the other two cars had. He ran through the connecting tube, securing Indy over his right shoulder, and leaped over the gap. He reached his hands for the doorway, and as he slammed onto the back of the train car he grabbed the door handle with his left hand.

He pulled Indy and himself onto the small ledge in front of the door and tried the handle- it was locked. He lowered Indy onto the ledge next to him, his feet steadying themselves precariously on the ledge. Both men watched the car slow down behind them, and they noticed that the train had slowed down considerably without their notice. The civilian vehicles passed in the adjoining lanes as if they were standing in one place, and when the detached car's brakes engaged it merely stopped, rather than flying into traffic.

"We're slowing down so that the train can enter the underground railway system," Indy gasped, catching his breath. "Once we're underground, we won't be out until we reach Wolfenstein."

Blaskowicz leaned over, examining the side of the car. It was bare, solid steel on his left, but on the other side, there was a ladder leading to the roof of the train. Indy followed his gaze, and he saw it as well. He carefully pulled himself from the doorway and began to climb, and Blaskowicz followed him as soon as the way was clear. They pulled themselves on top of the car, ignoring the painful wind, and ran across the train.

As they ran the windspeed steadily decreased, allowing them to run faster than before. They were able to make significant progress without doorways, furniture, and Nazis in their way, and they had passed over three cars by the time the next car detached.

Their fortunes, however, did not last very long. Blaskowicz saw the train engine turn off the Autobahn, each of the cars following slowly behind it, and towards the entrance of a tunnel placed conspicuously on a hill in the countryside. The train was moving more slowly than it had been before, but he estimated that they would be in the tunnel in less than thirty seconds.

Indy suddenly yelled directly into his ear, "Hand onto me." Blaskowicz immediately grabbed him by the chest as Indy swung his cable around his head. He lurched forwards, connecting the cable to a streetlight as the train passed and lifting both men off their feet.

Blaskowicz held on as they swung around the pole, his gut sinking from the gee-forces, as Indie screamed. After a few seconds Blaskowicz heard a gut-wrenching tearing sound as the forces stopped and he soured through the air with the man in his arms.

B.J. Instinctively rolled when he hit the ground, cradling Indy in his arms the best he could. The blow knocked the air out of his lungs, and he let go of the man as to avoid crushing him. When he finally came to a stop, he was lying on his back. He opened his eyes, struggling to take a breath in, and groaned. He saw a black dot int the distance, and when he covered his eyes, he could see a helicopter in the distance. Furgus' voice crackled through the radio.

"God damn it Blasko, did you just jump off a bloody train? Do you have the Colonel?"

Blaskowicz looked around him and saw Indy on the ground roughly twenty feet from him. He was face-down in the dirt, and he was covered in blood from his arm- his hand had been severed. From what Blaskowicz could tell he was unconscious but alive- barely.

"Most of him."