30 Kilometers from Zuwarah, Araby, Festtag, 16. Nachthexen

The night sky above the legionary was clear and displayed a million stars and two moons. The moons illuminated the rugged hills of the desert below them. In the distance a sea of lights denoted the Harbor of Zuwarah, but here only a small fire light the darkness. Around it sat a number of cloth-swaddled nomads and their mounts, observed from nearly half a kilometer away by a camouflaged soldier. The picture in his Night Vision Device still gave James Corradi the willies. Anything that moved on two or four legs should radiate some heat-and these guys did not. His squad kept tabs on the strange nomads while command was taking their sweet time to make up their minds about them. A couple of hours ago these musings had finally yielded something and now the Foreign Legion Sergeant just had to make sure that the strangers were still in place when the results came due.
He heard the movements of the sand behind him like a snake would produce shortly before he felt the pat on his shoulders. The barely seen hand signals sent him downslope where two newcomers had joined the squad. One was a corporal James knew, the other an elderly Imperial with an impressive beard.
Even here all conversation could only be whispered as the cold night air would carry any sound for miles.

"I am Meister Faust. Are you Sergeant Corradi young man?"
"Good evening Meister Faust and yes I am him."
"So you think you can recognize undead from 500 meters without being an initiate into the arts."
"I make no such claim-I just have a couple of things that look like men and have the same temperature than the air around them. They cannot live but they move."
"Hmm-interesting. I need to see them, then I can say of you are right and maybe sense who made them and who controls them."
"Then we need to go up that incline Meister, they are visible from there. Juan, Torben-with me."
Meister Hebst handled the steep hillside better than Corradi had expected him to and managed to worm the last meters to the crest on his stomach. The Sergeant had heard before that the Legion`s mage had seen more than one battlefield before and just hoped he had not taken the wrong lessons.

The mage and the soldier went still for several minutes before Faust put his mouth very close to Corradi`s ear.
"You were right, these are the undead-very impressive creations. I would say these could eve hold a conversation with you and would leave you no wiser. Now let`s see who pulls their strings."
The mage shuffled back a bit and the noncom went back to watch the would-be nomads through his NVG. All of a sudden he heard a croaking sound from his side and the nomads all turned, all seemed to face him and charged.
"Merda-get them. Juan-from the left."
The nomads were never many, they had quite a distance to cross and were going up against modern weapons. They should not have made more than a few meters, but they soaked up bullets as if they were shot by nerf guns. In the end they went down long before the Legion squad, but they had come close enough to constrict the Sergeants throat.
When he checked the mage he found no pulse, but lots of blood from the ears and eyes.

University of Technology of Compigne, 25. January, 2016

Pierre had never been a poster boy for neat clothing or personal hygiene-but today he exceeded his usual standards. He had come into Yvette`s lab unannounced and had asked her for more of the "green stuff" while wearing a frock that had probably been white once and an expression that combined excitement with bewilderment.
"Yes mon Pierre, you can have an additional gram-but why? Didn`t you say you had enough."
"Ha-had enough. I nearly have enough of this stuff, it is driving me crazy. This stuff wants to mock me, show me I know nothing and our gear is worthless."
"Hu-how so?"
"Remember you told me the mass spectrometer gives off funny numbers? Not only the one you use-every one I try gives "funny numbers". Yvette-I cannot give you a mass for this stuff-it fluctuates randomly. It gets less over time if a heat or irradiate it-but then it really is gone. No byproducts, no gas NOTHING. And besides some heat I do not know where the energy goes-and there should be a bleeding lots of it.
So first off it has no mass I can pin down. But it gets better than that-look at this.

The picture in Pierre`s I-Pad showed a murky screen with lines in it. Some lines were just straight, some had a corner in them-and some of them were intermittent, like a series of hyphens.
"What is that for God´s sake."
"That is a picture of the cloud chamber I use. It shows the paths left by alpha and beta particles-in fact all charged particles. I have seen lots of such paths ever since high school physics. But what nobody ever saw is that" and put his index finger right upon one of the intermittent lines."
"What is that?"
"I do not know. Either this shows a particle that changes from charged state to neutral and back in nanoseconds-or it leaves our universe for short periods."
"Don`t be silly Pierre, nothing leaves our universe."
"Except for Germany, didn`t it?"
"And this stuff came from the place that replaced Germany."
"Yes."
"Merde."
"Merde indeed"
"Well either this will be a trip to Stockholm or the laughingstock of the century-let`s make very sure Pierre."
"Oh oui."

Plaine of Axe, Nagaroth, Bäckertag 20. Jahrdrang

The tower was of obvious Druchii construction. Slender if seen from a distance, made from obsidian fitted so tightly that it seemed seamless and all about sharp edges it dominated the plain around it. The plain was windswept and would show its sparse vegetation only in far-off spring, the sky a featureless light grey that did not even hint at the existence of a sun.
The plain would normally be covered in snow given the season, but currently bodies took a far greater part of that. Fur-clad bodies, armored bodies, bodies clad in colorful robes or weeping pustules. Bodies that were charging towards the tower to drown its defenders with numbers, bodies twisting themselves in the dance of strange rituals and unmoving bodies bleeding themselves out in many colors.
Of the tower`s defenders not much could be seen, hidden by crenellations and narrow windows they displayed only their weapons and their lethal intent. The green-tined fire that appeared at the bottom of the tower whenever the attackers ventured too close was the most impressive, the occasional drop of a ladder brought a smile on the face of a true Elf but the small flames were the most lethal.
The small flames that flickered again and again followed by their flat "cracks" and the Chaos warriors that dropped many meters away in scores.

Malus Darkblade watched the spectacle from the edge of forest a few kilometers away and looked at his savior and the symbol of his near-demise at the same time.
The Chaos army, led by that Valkia had invaded Naggaroth from the Chaos wastes with a primal fury that rolled over all defenses. When he brought his army back from Ulthuan intact he led the most powerful force that Malekith could employ and even in his fury the Witch King knew better than to change command immediately before sending them into combat.
The rifles that had kept the watch tower from being overrun so far reminded Malus why this invasion had saved his life. How could he have known that Malekith needed the Germans in that group as that idiot Bloodcrest had killed off nearly all the others. And Malus was equally sure that the Auxilia would have deserted whatever he had done and that the Witch King could care no less. He needed those Germans to follow his dream of Druchii killing machines, and they had absconded when under Malus command. Currently the best the few survivors in Naggaroth could do was keep up the production of these rifles and their munitions. They could no longer provide training and the marvels they had promised were now in the far-off future. Darkblade got the shivers whenever he envisioned that Malekith would ever discover the deal he had struck with Tyrion. If that got out then a quick death would be a vast blessing.

Malus found that the best use for the rifleelfs was to put them on the most exposed watch towers. Their lack of training did not hinder them so much there and they kept the Chaos army to destroy them with less than a major campaign. That had brought such a force here and it was nice and truly invested in their assault. Malus was pretty sure that his force had not been noticed yet and they could attack an army that was oriented to the wrong front and in disarray. Even if he could not kill all outright, and Valkya had brought quite a few of her warriors he could still destroy a lot of the siege train. The latter was in the back of the lines and enticingly undefended..
Making his way back to his command Malus thought about any changes he needed to make in the plan based on what he had seen. He decided against it before he hit the bubble. A witch had thrown up a shield that kept any sound from getting out and that would direct the will-weaked elsewhere when they walked this way. Between the bare trees that struck darkly from the dirty white snow a huge mass of cavalry waited for their leader. Cold Ones presented teeth long enough to serve as daggers, dark horses strained at their bits and their riders brandished weapons that were made to hurt as much as to kill.
Climbing Spite, his Cold One he stood up in his stirrups and brandished his sword. Trusting the bubble he addressed his troops.

"Beyond this woods are those who think they can attack us and take what is ours. They thing we are few and weak, that we have to hide behind walls like little children. They believe we have no stomach to fight and no ability to wage battle.
To that I say kill them all.
Kill them with the points of your weapons,
kill them with the claws of your Cold Ones,
kill them with magic.
But above all that kill them with pleasure."

The cheers strained the bubble but did not break it. The massacre that followed would grant the Druchii time. Whether it was enough time was to be seen.

Peenemünde Nord, Markttag 25. Pflugzeit

The tension inside the control center was there for to see who had the necessary experience. On the surface all spoken words were from the book, all commands and acknowledgements precise and on time. Only those who knew this place and its normal operations would notice the absence of the small talk, the harsh tones in some orders or the hammer strokes with which some keyboards were used.
Nathan Alpers monitored the life support system in "Merkur 2" the spacecraft on top of the "Greif" rocket. So far all was fine and every system was working as intended. He had done this job before on the first trial of the spacecraft, but then the life support was only used by dummies and no lives had been on the line. This time was different.

Eberhard Rees
Kurt Blohme
Frauke Brandner

Would be the first humans in space around the Warhammer World and the first Germans to go into space in a spacecraft of their own design. Nathan was not among them, and while he wished them well his competitive self thought he could replace any of them-and he was right.
Even from more than a kilometer away and through thick concrete walls the sheer power of the takeoff managed to shake everybody. The rocket performed admirably and the spacecraft did exhibit only very few glitches, none of them in the life support system. The two men and the woman were seen by more than 90 million beings on live TV and their deeds discussed in countless newspaper articles and the songs of bards.
The crew took the spacecraft through several evolutions that tested its capabilities-changing orbit several times, deploying the solar panels and various instrumentation and docking their craft against a docking adapter that was fixed against the second stage of the Greif Rocket that had taken them into orbit.

The tension inside the control center was even higher seven days later when the spacecraft came in for a landing, yet proper preparation and a gazillion prayers managed to put the capsule squarely and softly into the marshland intended. The crew was highly feted when the doctors had declared them healthy.
By that time Nathan was back in the pool. The pool which was used to teach his crew Extra Vehicular Activities-getting out of the spacecraft and doing things.
Nathans crew had an appointment with Sage 17, a satellite left by the Old Ones and intended to take a long look and a ton of samples.

Karak Eight Peaks, same time

Kargan Ironbeard manouvered himself through the hall. Despite being hundreds of meters below ground it was not quiet, instead the sounds of hundreds of voices, of eating utensils and kitchenware filled it, as well as the smoke of a hundred pipes. He managed to find a place next to his Thunderers and placed his bowl and bread on the stone surface of a long table serving more than 50 dwarven warriors.

A table that had served this purpose for hundreds of years before it and the hall around it had fallen to the Goblins more than 50 years ago. Last month it had been taken from their grubby little fingers, cleaned and sanctified and was now used again to feed the warriors that defended Karak Eight peaks.
Actually these Warriors were doing much better than just defending it-they took it back, meter by bloody meter. The automatic shotgun that hung across Kargan`s back was a sign why the Dawi could take back what had been denied to them for such a long time. A weapon of German manufacture and great power it was just one of many that were now available to King Belegar. The Germans had gifted the old King hundreds of them and Thorgim Grudgebearer, the High King had decided that the efforts to reclaim the lost Karaks would start at Eight Peaks.

The Karak was at least partially in Dwarven hands which eased logistics and entry. The Germans had already sent weapons there and had even airlifted most of the Dwarfs that had survived Skavenblight to the old fortress city. These warriors knew how to make the most of the new weapons and so far the results were telling. The part of the tunnels that the Skaven once held was close to being reclaimed as most of the rats in there seemed to have killed themselves in some manner and the survivors had often lost their mental faculties. The goblins were a different proposition-numerous and well versed to subterranean warfare they were masters of traps and the use of fungus poisons. Which was why two of the things Kargan hated most was back in his life-a protective mask and Vaseline to make his beard accept the mask.

The other side of the table was taken by a number of older Dawi, their age and elevated status shown by long beards, numerous scars and an assortment of beautifully crafted axes and hammers.
Longbeards had survived the hardships of Dawi life for centuries and their wisdom was usually sought after. Their ability to steady their younger brothers in battle was legendary and so was their grumbling. If the hall were not so full Kargan would have taken another spot, but this was no longer possible.

"Say youngling, is that kink in your beard natural?"
"No honored elder, this is what happens when I wear that bloody mask too often."
"So you cannot take a few fungus spores? Let me tell you in my time we inhaled that stuff for fun."
"Yes Elder, but I fight better without the hallucinations."
"Yes Elder."
"And what about the rest of your gear-Human gun, Human harness, Human Mask, Human Boots-are you not able to make your own gear youngling?"
" I have received that gear as a reward for my part in the battle of Skavenblight. I keep it up in the memory of the comrades who stayed there, Dawi and Human both."
"Is it true that you asked for a grudge to be put into the book for a human?"
"Yes, for Gerd Meins, who went into combat with us together. We collected that several times over."
"You younglings go into combat with humans, you use human gear, human tools and human ways. You have any excuse for yourself youngling?"
"No excuse needed honored elder."
"What-why?"
"Because we get shit done."
The brawl that followed was a notable one.

Vatican, 25. March 2016

Franziskus`office was a simple one. Compared to his predecessors he preferred not to flaunt his office with adornments and art, but kept things simple. Many of his subordinates had far more spectacular premises both for work and residence, yet he believed that this was not what Christ or the Apostles would have done.
The office and premises he was entitled to would also reminded him too much of his predecessor who had done something that no pope before had done-vanished together with his whole country of birth. What God`s plan in that was Franziskus asked himself at least once a day, but not now. He read a letter by the head of the french assembly of bishops, one Andre Vingt-Trois.

He stated that an assembly of pious men had applied to the church to reinstate a religious order. The letter spoke of deeds done and appeals made, which to Franziskus meant a lot of donations, and asked for Papal approval as well as a new trial to rid this order from the wrong accusations leveled against them in the past. The pope knew very well that the trial back then had been a sham for political ends, so that was not the problem. The problem was what would these worthies do once they were an order?
In the end he could not see more harm than good come from this and started to dictate his approval.
The Catholic Church would reinstate the Holy Order of the Knights Templar.

Karak Eight Peaks, Angertag 29. Pflugzeit

Kargan Ironbeard was doing something he really hated, running with a mask and trying to coax a little more air through that filter. The only good news was that he did not have to do it in the protective suit, but when the field of vision became narrower by the second and the only sound left was the labored breathing and the rush of blood through the ears that was not something but about much.
Despite the urgency, despite the calls for help Ironbeard had no choice but to slow his unit for the last meters so they had enough "air" to do what needed to be done. The situation was, as always below the surface, confusing. He went by a number of Hammerers and Thunderers that supported each other on the way out, all of them with injuries of some sort. Too many of them had the weeping lesions and milky eyes left by fungus spores and the froth in front of many mouths told a sad story of many deaths before the next morning. In the corridor and hall behind them screams, yelps shouts and the sound of steel against flesh and armor could be heard, but nothing seen.

For about the hundredth time since he had arrived at Eight Peaks Kargan wished for the German medics and doctors. Not only had these been able to work miracles on anybody who arrived at their stations drawing breath by their own, but they kept soldiers from leaving the battle line-and some of these medics had been crazy brave by their own.
One Dawi rested his back at a wall; his markings denoted him as an elder. The Thunderer approached him and had to shake the Dawi`s shoulders to get his attention.

"What is up?"
"Goblins came through a false wall in the Cavern behind that tunnel. Dropped Fungus on us and there were some fanatics."
"Fuck."
"Snorri`s Hammerers are still in there-we need to get them out."
"We do that-you get better."
The Longbeard in front of him straightened up to his none-so-considerable height. "You think that I am not up to it? In my time we wheeze-cough"
Kargan`s armored vest and load bearing harness got their share of the red specks that came from the Longbeard`s mouth. He managed not to flinch and patted him wordlessly on the shoulder before assembling his warriors.

They got through the tunnel without a hitch, but as soon as they cleared that they entered chaos. On the sides of the of the huge cave groups of Dawi and Goblins were caught in melee combat or tried to avoid either clouds of fungus spores or the threat in the middle. The middle of the cavern was taken by a couple of Goblins that were nearly as much of a threat to their own as to the Dwarves. Doped up past their gills on mushrooms and magic their strength had been increased to the point where they could whirl a huge iron ball on a chain around them at great speed. Anything touched by that ball disintegrated into bits, bloody or not. When they had started their mad assault they had probably taken a course towards their enemies, but now they were just random circles of destruction that threatened everybody.
Looking for a suitable position for his platoon he found a stone counter of some sort that currently harbored some Greenskins. Signaling his squad closer he managed to shout above the din.

"Three grenades, then charge left to that wall, form line of fire there."
Kargan did not have to watch the Grenades sail behind the cover-he tried to make sure the squad was not attacked while getting ready to charge. When the distinctive detonations ripped through his hard-tested eardrums he turned like a top and charged with the rest. He put a shot into one of the Goblins that was still moving, but given the carnage the fragments had done bouncing between the caves wall and the stone counter this was probably superfluous. Having cover and some orientation for the firing line his Thunderers started to take out any Greenskin that was not too close to a Dawi.

"Björn, Hangulf, get those Fanatics now" brought his two machine gunners to bear on the madly gyrating Goblins. A remarkable number of shots were deflected by the swirling balls of iron, yet the machine guns put out more rounds and one by one the pairs of ball and greenskin flew apart. That was not about its own dangers when the balls caromed through the cave but that could hardly be helped. The last ball nearly collapsed the counter in front of Kargan who`s shot went wide. The next round was more decisive though as he managed to cover a group of Goblins in phosphor and sent them burning and screaming. It collapsed the attacker`s morale enough that the rest of the fight was mostly mop-up.

They got most of the Hammerers out in one piece, something even the Longbeards could respect and getting ale paid by the grumbling elders was a welcome novelty. Kargan`s Thunderers also learned that the Longbeards could drink at least as heavily as they could, if not better, despite their age.
The next morning Kargan remembered that he had promised them something-but what? When memory returned he groaned even more than his headache demanded-this was not going to be fun.

Charite, Berlin, Markttag 33. Pflugzeit

Pretty much nothing that Pheredas, Scion of the house of Ethelorne experienced these days matched his expectations. And how the Germans could live in a world with such contrasts he could not understand. Yes, Berlin was an overcrowded human city exceeding his imagination and some it its places were dirty, but there were also architectural masterpieces like the "Reichstag." Yes, German television was full of things that would kill the mind if one watched it for too long-but there were things in Berlin museums that took his breath away. The German students were immature-and handled more information in one morning than Pheredas in one week.

His uncle Aurelius had warned him about preconceptions and every hour demonstrated the value of this advice again.
The Asur was one of the first High Elven students who had taken advantage of the "Erasmus" program which gave a stipend to non-German students who studied in German universities. Uncle Aurelius had managed to get him a place at the "School of the Reik" and now he studied medicine. To say the German medicine was an eye-opener was too tame. He had heard before that they had to treat their patients without magic and had imagined that they would be unable to intervene in most cases-just to learn that this was simply not true.

One of the first things an Asurian surgeon learned was that you cannot cut into the thorax of a patient. If you did they stopped breathing as the lungs would immediately collapse. So in cases involving that, be it major trauma or serious illness either the patient had access to a major mage-or died. The Germans simply inserted a tube into the trachea, inflated the lung and could cut up the upper body to their hearts content. That they kept things clean enough to avoid infection and could combat said infection if it occurred made it far more impressive.
Not to speak of the fact that they were able to anesthetize a patient without magic or drugs that often left the patient bereft of mental faculties. There was obviously a lot to learn and here was a place to do it.

Of all the things he had not expected the most shining example had been a presentation in healing magic-performed in a German hospital. It had been disturbing in a way. So many things were as he had expected them-and so many things were different.
The flow of magic had been there. But the vests worn by the mages, the tubes that entered their arms and the fact that the five combined their minds into a more powerful whole were nothing he had ever seen or heard of. He had many more questions than those answered after the presentation and had managed some time with one of the mages. As the only man in the group he stood out anyway and his speech made him an obvious German. He had been invited into a small office buried in the back parts of the Charite`, which was chock-full of books, some of the pictures the Germans called photos and a desk. Having accepted the invitation for a tea he sat down in front of the desk and tried to formulate his questions in his mind in such a way that he would not offend the German too much.

"Brother Ralf, I have witnessed the procedure you and the four others have performed on your patient last Königstag. I hear that he will regain control over his lower body again which is very impressive-and I understand that you reconnected the nerves in his spine to do so. But what I do not understand how you were able to do it at all. I have seen how much power you out in there and I…I cannot see it."
"You want to say you saw no more power in the ritual than a hedge wizard uses to impress some yahoos, right?"
"Yes, that is it. Do not take me wrong-it was impressive, but I know some very powerful mages in Ulthuan who could not perform that feat-so how?"
"We five together certainly do not come to the level of a really powerful mage, but such power is not needed for what we do. We can put in more power if really needed to speed things up, or keep at it for really long times, but there is a price to pay of course-I puked straight for a day after the Battle of Altdorf. The point is-for what we do we do not need much power, we just need to know where to apply it-and that is what we want to teach."
"I have to admit I do not understand."

"Imagine yourself on top of a hill, on which a heavy stone rests. You have to get the stone to the foot of the hill. Your way means to carry that stone on your shoulder all the way-we give it a kick and let it roll on its own and save some hassle."
"Um, Brother I do not know how to take this-this is the first time ever I hear an Asur being told to use inelegant ways of magic-and that from a human…"
"Stop it there Pheredas-I did not say your magic was lacking-you apply it to the wrong place. I talked to some very powerful mages how they would have performed this ritual-they transmuted the broken nerve cells into healthy ones using brute force-taking warp energy to form matter. Very energy-intensive that way."
"So what do you do-you told us ourselves that it is these cells that transmit feeling and give orders to the muscles."
"Yes, so I did. But we do not form them anew-there is no need for that. They grew once and they can do that again. So what we do is to move some molecular switches in the cells of the epineurium, the outer layer of the nerves, and leave a trail of makers in the scar tissue, then it starts to grow along these markers to their old counterparts. Once the epineurium is reconnected we kick some stem cells from the bone marrow inside and throw some other switches-they start to become nice healthy nerve cells. None of this takes huge amounts of energy-but a ton of knowledge about how the human-or elven body works. They you no longer have to carry that damned rock but you can kick it downslope."

"Sounds much easier Brother Ralf."
"Well, yes and no. Energy-wise it is much better-but I have something for you which will explain the downside."
The former medic pulled four books from a shelf besides him.
"These will be in heavy demand from the library after today`s lecture. You can have mine for the time being."
Pheredas looked at the small books that were so unlike the huge, hand-written tomes used by the Asur. Their soft cover and small size did not hint at great value, but that was probably another expectation he would have to kill here. The topmost of these books was called "The autonomous nervous system" by one Carl-Albrecht Haensch.
"These give you a rather good basic knowledge about the human nervous system. Try to be through them in four weeks, because then a research project on the Asurian nervous system starts and I want you on it."
"That is more than 2000 pages."
"So you better get started…"