1961, the Imperial Army garrison in Manchuria
The area around the fort was the colorless, boring and monotonous battlefield of the continent.
Even though ten years had passed since the War, it still wasn't much compared to the sixty years it had lasted. All eastern and southern Eurasia still it was lying in ruins, there was no sign that anything would change any time soon.
The Chinese should be glad that his Imperial Majesty was not stricter during the nuclear bombing, without which the war would still probably go on, thought generalleutnant Karl Garibaldii. Despite the fact that no bomb had been dropped on the region, the surrounding villagers were still evident of emaciation. To this day Karl remembered the image of the dying person to the radiation sickness of the last emperor of China, who signed unconditional surrender with the remnants of his strength.
Now, years later, when the senators began to appear supporters of loosening the policy towards countries newly joined the Reich, more and more often Karl had heard what a crime it was to win, how many millions of potential emperor's subjects had perished unnecessarily.
He had that lamentation fondly somewhere. He was promoted from an ordinary schutze to an officer with a noble title in the trenches, killing enemy after enemy, far from not their neighbors in them.
Commanding the largest military outpost in the region, he once again felt like he was at the front, surrounded by the enemy on all sides.
He was at his headquarters as usual, reviewing reports of patrol clashes with units of the Chinese Liberation Front. Cursed nidobitki of the Chinese army, go on they did not give up. He couldn't prove it to the popes, but deep down he knew that the rebels must have a high-ranking spy in the Chinese collaborationist government.
However, until he had clear traces, the only thing he could do was to further strengthen the emperor's authority over this sad land with blood and iron.
At the same time, one of the lower subordinates of the generalleutnant, an ordinary soldier from a mass march, sat by the radar installation, trying to intercept unauthorized radio messages from the supervised area. Imagine his surprise when, instead of the resistance movement's messages, he intercepted signals sent by the unidentified a flying object, apparently entering their airspace at suspiciously slow speed.
- Aaron, come here!
- What happened? a colleague from the ward approached him, with a mug of coffee and a kosher dinner in hand.
-look at this. It looks as if some plane was entering our airspace.
- Then just check the flight schedule? Aaron replied unconvincingly, sitting next to him on the chair. - Maybe they just screwed up something.
- But watch it move!
Aaron tapped the radar screen with his finger.
- Impossible, the radar must have broken. the plane cannot fly so slowly at that altitude. The radar must have screwed up.
- And if not?
Unconvincingly, Aaron pressed the button, sounding the combat alarm throughout the base.
- If it turns out that this shit, you will be poured out on a broken face.
Karl Garibaldi couldn't have felt better. For him, every combat alert was a nice change from going through the reports and playing politics with local suckers.
Despite his considerable weight, he quickly reached the command center, where a group of officers was already getting ready for action.
At the sight of him, everyone stood up and held a Roman-style ball, with the obligatory:
- For the Kaiser!
- Report.
One of his aides in impeccable black uniform approached the radar and pointed to the pulsating dot.
- An unidentified object hangs in our space, it is slowly moving from south to north.
- How does it hang?
- It is flying too slowly for me to call it flying, mein Kommendant.
- How is this possible? A helicopter can't fly that high.
- We don't know that. So far, nothing indicates any hostile intentions.
- The narrative movement can't have good intentions.
- Mein Kommandantan, I see no reason to consider this as the actions of the Chinese Liberation Front, they have not had any air force for years.
"If it's not our plane, then only the rebels can do it."
Then two other officers, who had so far been talking quietly on the phone, hung up.
- One of the satellites is just above us, we will have a picture soon.
- Mein Kommendant, the base in Nanjing sees the object but they say he appeared out of nowhere in their zone.
- So, he came from space? Garibaldi joked.
Karl receives the news and communicated his guidelines.
- Fly two fighters, shoot it down, whatever it is.
The soldiers quickly completed the task. Through the window, he watched as two Jeager-15 jets with homing missiles were led out of the hangar. When the machines took off the satellite transmitted pictures of what appeared to be an oval black dot against a background of white clouds.
- It's just not possible. the generalleutnant muttered under his breath, leaning over the comupter's screen.
- This is Spider One, the object is in sight. - the fighters have established a connection with the base. - To the base, the facility does not respond to radio messages.
Gariabldi took over the radio, gave the orders via the microphone.
- Base here, shoot down the object.
- Accepted, I'm going to attack.
The flying saucer shuddered as rockets flew and hit him from both planes overtaking him.
- To the base, the object is still flying, I renew the attack.
It was only after the third shot that the saucer started to smoke and then soared to the surface.
- Base, Spider One here, job done.
- Understood. And now - Garibaldi took off the headphones - Now let's see what in God's name is going on here.
Whatever it was, it fell almost a kilometer long crater into the ground, and the heat created set it on fire so that the Reich soldiers could not come closer until after a few hours and assess the situation.
Garibaldi arrived when the research began, and the entire area was surrounded by soldiers in jeeps. There was no need to scare the local residents twice from the occupation, memories of the first days after the capitulation were still alive.
-What do we have here?
The science officer who approached him had a lethal expression on his face, speaking clearly so that the privates nearby would not hear them.
- They're not Chinese, Mein Kommandantan.
The disk did not suffer any serious injuries, at least on the outside. Someone on the crew must have tried to get out of the wreckage because something like a door was open. Inside was found four bodies of low, humanodial creatures with disproportionately large heads and uniformly black eyes.
The whole area was fenced off by the army, people were displaced. Scientists disassembled the vehicle into parts, trying to recreate the principles of operation of alien technology.
Karl Garibaldi made a political career after many years based on the legend of a war hero. However, he never told anyone, under the threat of a quick and brutal death about what fell to the ground in Manchuria in 1961.
While dying, he did not even guess that the events that he accidentally had been architect were to change the fate of the galaxy.
