Two kilometers from the Citadel of Lead, Albion

The edifice that filled Corporal Walter`s binox field of view even at this distance was unlike any building the Scothad ever seen before in two worlds. It was nearly featureless except for a few huge dark rectangles that were probably entrances, some smaller ones higher up that might be windows or not and some crenellations at the roof which were probably recent construction. Apart from that the building was of a charcoal grey, without any visible seams or ornamentation and huge. If the Citadel of Lead had been erected as a fortress or not, it lacked most of the features that Bran associated with them, especially those used by the major Warhammer Powers. There was no moat, no high walls, no towers-nothing but impossibly smooth walls.

"Aren`t ye bonny?" was in the Corporal`s mind but long training had made sure the words never left his lips. To anybody who did not stand on top of the soldier he and his comrades were practically invisible as they were clad in ghillie suits which they had festooned generously with ferns and grasses from the fen around them. He was in this position for a couple of hours already and looked forward to another hour of boredom before he would be relived. Till then he watched the few comings and goings from the Citadel and noted them diligently.

He nearly missed the contrail that marred the otherwise spotlessly blue heavens and ignored the plane so he could watch the entrance again when the whole fortress was suddenly obscured by something which looked like a heat wave. The beam was there and gone so quickly that he mostly saw it as a green afterimage and a sound like thunder filled his ears a few seconds later. The explosion in the sky was too far off to make any details, but the lack of parachutes was telling even so.

And that was when the biggest rectangle in the Citadel changed color, moved aside and a wave of men and beasts emerged to make a beeline to his position.

Close to the Citadel of Lead, Albion 15 Nachgeheim

Bran Walters should have snapped more pictures of the weapon that had just shot down the German reece plane, capture the flash that lit the landscape when some parts impacted the dome above the Citadel or look for parachutes again. He could be excused for failing in that as he was watching the mass of hate that emerged from the fortress entrance. Ugly hounds the size of wolves were at the vanguard, sniffing the air, straining their lashes, barking, howling and looking for something to rend. Behind them came a huge thong of naked warriors, using utter disregard for their lives and madness where soldiers might substitute training, formation and armor. The noncom`s binox brought the woad lines painted on the naked body all to clearly into focus and looking at them for any length of time made for a queasy stomach and a dizzy head.
Yet the last threat emerging from the Citadel was what caught the noncom`s attention. Clad in heavy armor adorned with spikes and sharp ridges, festooned with chains holding skulls and other memorabilia of battles won and foes vanquished the Chaos Knights should have looked ridiculous but did not.

The huge knights were the survivors of centuries of warfare and mayhem, the recipients of gifts granted by the Dark Gods which had utterly destroyed lesser beings who had moved past human bounds long ago. The light that emerged from the joins in some of the armors spoke of bodies that were no longer solely ruled by the laws of physics and biology. Having exchanged compassion for strength, rational minds for limitless stamina, humanity for huge bodies and their souls for a long life filled with violence they were the ultimate warriors in an environment steeped in warfare.
As individuals the Chaos Knights were so much more capable warriors than the Highlanders who spied on them. The Germans and their allies more than leveled the playing field by superior weapons, teamwork, numbers and communication. Yet besides Bran there were seven other Highlanders close by, any more help was probably hours away and his Mauser assault rifle seemed a very thin cloak against the chill of the grave.
The leader of the Chaos Knights was a giant even among them, riding a horse out of a nightmare. He stopped his mount when the last knight had left the Citadel and his gaze fell upon the brushes that hid Bran. The noncom was as well camouflaged as any human could be, yet he at the first glace of the glowing eye slits he was dead sure that he was spotted, weighted and judged unworthy.
Well, time to kick things upstairs.

"Teuchter one, this is Mukker. The Citadel has just shot down a plane, looks like some kind of beam weapon. There is a sally, looks like a couple of hundred warriors and a troop of Chaos Knights. They use the paths into the fen."
"Mukker, this is Teuchter one-are you sure about the plane?"
"Yes, I am. Contrail one second, then some sort of beam, explosion and debris falling close to the Citadel. Something in there can shoot down the fliers."
"Understood. Pull back to the rally point now."
Taking a last look at the warriors that spilled into the many paths into the fen Bran pushed himself backwards till he was out of sight and met up with Ian and Ailish.
"We need to go back to the rally point-now."
Ailish took the point as she knew the labyrinth of paths through the fens best. After a few meters the trio was swallowed by the Moorish landscape that was dominated by lots of small ponds, stagnant streams, brushes and trees. They had to pay attention while running as a single misstep could land them in the muck. While both Highlanders were in good shape they had their work cut out following the clanswoman as they carried far more weight. While Bran`s ears were mostly filled with labored breathing and the thunder of his beating heart the sounds of barks, screams and orders that had been behind them at first reached their flanks with every passing minute.

All three of them hurried as much as their path, stamina and tactical sanity allowed, yet their enemies were not bound by such constraints. All three stopped when shots erupted somewhere in front of them.
"Bugger this bonnie, get behind us."
Bran and Ian went further along the path for a few meters before entering the brushwork for the last meters that lay between them and the clearing that held the rest of the team. They arrived at the edge on their stomachs and found madness. On one side of the clearing were the clanspeople and the other Highlanders that tried to keep hounds and warriors at bay, the other was filled by a thong of naked warriors who pushed each other aside for a chance to get at the allies. Hounds were tearing into two bodies on the damp floor and spears struck in two of the defenders.
Both Highlanders fired at the warriors and dropped several in the first few seconds. While this took pressure from their comrades it signaled their position all too well and for every warrior they killed two entered the clearing through a path at the far end of it.
Bran changed magazines when something punched his helmet with such force that it was nearly ripped off. For a few seconds he could neither see nor move any limb while shots, screams and dying went on all around him. When he came to he found himself being turned on his back by a huge hound that wanted to bite his face off and barely managed to get his rifle between them.
The next seconds were filled with a struggle from hell with the dog`s mouth just centimeters away from the noncom`s face. The chops so full of teeth, threat and bad breath suddenly filled with blood that ran over the Highlander`s face. It took all of his power as well as Ailish`s to pull the dog off him and he needed her hand to get on his feet again.

The situation on the clearing had not gotten any better with more clansmen dead on the ground and less shots fired but more warriors on the scene. Bran`s head hurt, he felt dizzy and the next warriors were just scant meters away. He could see the many scars, tattoos and piercings, the filed teeth and the faces pulled into a rictus of the killing frenzy. He was about five meters and a few seconds away from death. He barely felt his face contort into a mask not too unlike that of the warriors before him.
"Sloch jobby 'n' die" managed to drown out most of the din before him before it was swallowed by a long salvo from his Mauser. Normally firing a full magazine would be wasteful but as his enemies were packed so close together the salvo had horrifying effects. Bodies were punched through, limbs nearly detached from their bodies and head exploded. The sheer volume of sound that broke over the survivors stopped them in their tracks and the grenade that went from Bran`s underbarrel launcher temporarily sealed the path into the clearing with bodies. Bran charged the survivors with the others in a madness that easily matched the warrior`s yet entangled his legs in a corpse and fell.
When he was up again he was surrounded by Highlanders and allies only. A god thing if there would have been more of them, but there were not. And the survivors all looked to him. He saw the body of Sergeant Wallace under the dogs and knew that the survivors of the two Highlander teams and the clanspeople depended on him.
There was a moment when responsibility pressed down on him like a mountain, when it seemed hard to get enough air and wanted to give. It lasted for a few seconds till he heard more shouting, saw people standing doing nothing and training kicked in.

"Ian, Logan, get to that path and make sure nobody comes in. Myrrdin, can you do something for these two please, Alan will help. Ailish-we need some two meter poles."
He went for Sergeant Wallace and pulled the hound`s remains aside. The Sergeant was so badly mauled that even his mother would no longer have recognized him, yet he was mostly interested in something that was attached to the side of the Sergeant`s backpack. Pulling the short-wave radio from its straps he switched the set to on and waited till he had a lamp told him it was time.
"Gaffer actual, this is Mukker."
"Mukker, this is Gaffer actual, we read you."
"Gaffer actual, we urgently need evac at Rally Point Bravo Niner."
"Mukker, sorry not possible at the moment. You need to go to Ingress one. The Citadel had downed a recon plane and a drone so far. You need to get out of line-of-sight"
"Gaffer, we are surrounded by multiple hostiles, we have 2 KIA and 2 WIA, one critical. We cannot make it to Ingress one."
"Mukker, either you make it out of there or you hunker down till we can get at you on the ground. That will take a couple of days."
"Gaffer, we do not have a couple of days."
"Mukker, sorry-we cannot fly close to the fortress, it is impossible."
"Gaffer, we will try to reach Ingress one."
"Mukker-do your best. We will contact you once we have ground assets available."
"Awa' an' bile yer heid"
"Mukker-sorry we did not understand."
"Gaffer actual-Mukker out."

While the clanspeople took his announcement in stride the soldiers did not take it well at all. They had not seen the downed plane and like all Earthers had taken air support for granted. When all was said and done "Thare is na choice". The Highlanders combined the poles, the turned tunics of the dead and some ponchos into makeshift stretchers and strapped the wounded on them. Bran made sure that ammo was redistributed and got a couple of the clanspeople to carry the Bergen backpacks. By that time they had to repulse two more warrior groups and it was high time to go. The noncom faced just one problem-in this world it was not just a question of etiquette not to leave the dead behind, yet he could neither carry nor burn them.
"Let me do this soldier."
Bran turned to face the muscular frame of Myrrdin.
"What can you do?"
"Watch."
Tendrils started to move, twigs lengthened themselves and the ground under the dead gave way. Within a minute small green mounds indicated where the dead found their final rest.
"What did you do."
"The fen has consumed their bodies so that nothing was left behind for the enemy, their souls are wherever their fates take them."
"Thank you."
"They fought well, they are entitled to the embrace of the fen. I hear that we have to march a long way?"
"You heard right. The Citadel somehow shoots down planes-so our ride home is canceled."
"That is unfortunate, very much so. Corporal, I may know a path that might be safer than making our way through the fens."
"What is that."
"A secret Corporal shared only with a few. Trust me."
"You sure it is better?"
"Anything would be better than this..."
"Then lead on."
Folks, time to get going. Ailish, Myrrdin, Ian-you have point. Stretcher bearers and the carriers in the middle, rest follows."

The small column made their way into the fens, past more ponds, through small meadows, over paths that seemed to go nowhere, disappeared and reappeared after a a few dozen meters. The screams, the orders and barks were all around them and several times it seemed that the enemy would reach them the very moment only to have the sounds recede once more.
The ever-present tension was as exhausting as the march through a fen that seemed to suck in boots and only released them after offering resistance. None of this lifted the mood and the clammy cold seeped through clothes and souls alike.
Bran was treated to another strange sight when Myrrdin planted his staff several times in the ground and the brushwork to the left and right of their path closed the gap in seconds. It was nice to think that this would fend off pursuit but they had learned already that the fens were a place of many paths.

Still they marched and endured, even when muscles protested and lungs burned with effort, still they watched the green around them for enemies even when the foliage became a featureless green carpet in their minds.
The party had entered another clearing that was nearly dry and Bran was about to call for a halt when it happened. One minute there was nobody but the allies visible, the next one huge figures strode from the mists. Bigger than any human had a right to be, clad in heavy plate and powered by hate and an appetite for destruction the Chaos Knights proved their willingness to fight without their horses. The first of them wielded a hammer at one of the Clan warriors that tried attack him with a sword. Disregarding the attack completely the giant smashed his hammer directly into the shield and caved in the chest behind it. Others used their swords to literally bisect another clansman and one of the stretcher bearers.
Bran saw the red dot of his reflex sight settle on a huge chest and pulled the trigger. Three rounds left the barrel before recoil could spoil his aim and connected with the Knight. Two of the rounds bounced off as if they were mere nerf darts, the third punched through the primitive-looking plate. The Knight staggered back a pace before righting himself again. By that time Bran had pulled the trigger again, twice and this time the Knight went down and stayed there.
"Use AP, use AP."
Bran managed to shout loud enough that the Highlanders would hear him above the din of the battle. He downed another Knight before he had to step back before one who wanted to maim him with a huge mace. Both knew that they would have to kill their opponent immediately or they would die. The noncom`s salvo went a bit to the side and left three glowing furrows in the Knights side. Bran dropped under the swinging weapon and rolled in the muddy ground just to be stopped by something huge and moving.
He looked up and saw death.

A huge, somewhat humanoid construct seemingly made of rotting vegetation, skeletons buried in the fen for too long and other bits and pieces he could not identify loomed high above him and the next step forward of its feet would crush the life from Bran Walters.
Death did not come, at least not to him. Instead the monster swung an enormous arm in a slow-seeming punch that propelled the Chaos Knight right into the next pool. Weighted down by more than a hundredweight of armor and arms the Knight sunk in seconds, never to be seen again. The Monster charged the Chaos Knights like an adult that wanted to shoo away small children. Spears from the Clanspeople and rifle fire took some down, the rest went into a lethal fight with the huge figure. Like many rats on a terrier they looked ridiculous but might bring it down anyway. Bran aimed for one of them when a drawn-looking Merlin held on to his shoulder.
"My fen beast will hold them for as long as needed, we have to escape. Nobody can be allowed to see where we are going."
It took Bran a few seconds to hear the sounds of more enemies and see the monster being destroyed bit by bit while it killed the Chaos Knights one by one.
"Lead on then."

His survivors left the fighting behind and the path closed in their wake as if it had never existed. The exhausted allies managed to keep marching into the evening and followed the path till it finally ended in a small copse of trees that grew around a huge menhir that emerged from the ground. No way seemed to go from this place and Walters asked himself why Myrrdin had brought them to this place when the Truthsayer stepped in front of the Menhir and was gone.
Bran felt lost, tried bewildered and at the end of his facilities when the voice of the mage could be heard. "What are you waiting for soldier. Step forward, we don`t have all day."
And so the soldier did and he walked directly through something he would have called solid stone but was not into a small cave. Myrrdin looked at him with a tired smile.
"Welcome to the Path of the Ancients Bran Walters. Be aware that you will be the first to walk this path who is not a Truthsayer in many millennia."

The cave ended in a huge stone that pulled whatever lay behind it securely. Myrrdin went before it, pushed at hard-to see discoloration and then wedged his staff behind one corner and pushed mightily.
At his second attempt he turned to the thing of watchers.
"You might very well lend a hand people, it is struck again."
It took a lot of sweat and swearing before the rock moved along to reveal a dark, smooth tunnel opening that led into the unknown. The allies never hesitated and plunged into the underworld. Nearly everybody felt uneasy when the Truthsayer removed his wand and the stone closed the entrance again. That the Highlanders brought modern lights was a great relief and so the party stepped up under Myrrdin`s lead. They did not get very far, not as any obstacle or foe stopped them, yet simple exhaustion and the need to care for the wounded brought them to a halt when the tunnel emerged into a bigger cave.

Cold food was eaten, loads redistributed and treatments handed out for the many small injuries incurred even by the lucky ones. Bran made his rounds, talking to everybody and assigning watches before trying to sleep.
A sleep that eluded him even when he was tired and exhausted. He wanted to sleep very much, yet the small pains from the battles and the hard ground, the many doubts that more would be alive if he would have been better and the clammy cold of the tunnels combined to keep him awake.
When he decided that sleep was not an option he got up and walked a few meters to ease the pain in his lower back. He ended up at the far wall of the cave. Unlike the tunnel walls which were something like fine-grained concrete this was sheer slate. In the dim light cast by the lamp back at the allies he could see lines on the surface that were not formed by nature. He was about to take the flashlight from his belt when a deep voice rumbled rather close to him.

"You should think if you really want to do that courageous Bran."
"Why should I do that Myrrdin?"
"Because you are about to see things that rest uneasy on the minds of mortals."
"Is this a secret I am not to know?"
"No, you earned the right to learn about them today. It is just that it is much easier to learn about some things than to forget them, no matter how much one would like to do so."
"Is this about the Old Ones Myrrdin?"
"No, this is about those who came before them, the ancient ones."
"What could disturb me so much if it happened so long ago?"
"That you will only learn if you look."
"Right you are."
And then he played his light about the surface. The lines were clear in some places and nearly worn away in others. Given that the tunnels did not show any sign of being submerged for any length of time the noncom wondered what might have caused that.
The longer it looked, the more sense the lines made. They showed humanoid figures doing something he could not understand. He saw a group of these coming under something that might be rays, be it from the sun or something else. The next groups were different, there were more of them for starters. There were slender ones, stubby ones and the ones in between. It took him a moment to see the pointy ears on the lean figures and the beard on the short ones.
Could it be that the rays had somehow transformed the humanoids in humans, dawi and elves?
His light followed the rays upwards to their meeting point where much bigger figures where depicted by the lines carved into stone. His mind needed a moment to make anything from the lines and when it did primeval ice ran down his spine.

"Maybe you should keep this from the others soldier."
"You advice is wise, as always Myrrdin."
"And it is rarely heeded Bran."

There was few sleep for Bran on that night, but two days later the allies emerged remarkably close to the German beachhead.

Japanese Garden Kaiserslautern, Germany, 16. Nachgeheim 2528

Bärbel Meisenheimer, registrar for marriages with at least one foreign partner, relished the chance to officiate her next marriage not in her rather sterile office in the City Hall, but here in one of the nicest places in Kaiserslautern.
The Japanese Garden was once Europe´s largest, after the Weltensprung it became the largest in the Old World. One feature of this oasis of quiet was the original Japanese pavilion, already over a century old, which was used for many events.
Actually it was not the first marriage Bärbel officiated here. Before the Weltensprung, she had been here two times for her work and in the last few years this had even increased.
It was just roughly 60 kilometers to the Nipponese splinter Nanseitoshi and marriages between Nipponese and people from the Saarland, the Palatinate and Baden became more common. Not standard, but more common.

For Erika Tetsumori, these rather familiar surroundings eased the pre-marriage anxiousness a bit.
The time had been a comparatively wild ride for the Nipponese woman. As the eldest daughter, two things were rather clear to her from early on. She would be trained to conduct for the money-transactions of her family and would marry for dynastic reasons.
But since the Tetsumori family was one of the most powerful in all of Nippon, passable candidates for marriage were few and her father not a person just looking for profit. So the years went by and Erika remained unmarried even beyond the normal age. She herself had already made peace with her fate, seeing her sisters getting married.

Then the Germans, the Doitsu, came. At the beginning the looming repercussion had not been on the horizon. Nippon was happy that the Nonara Province, which had been ripped away during a magical storm, now nearly a decade ago, had survived and made contact with the strange newcomers from another world.
With time, it became clear what changes came with the Germans. They might look like a different kind of Imperial citizens, but the differences became more obvious with each passing day. Gendo Tetsumori and his daughter Erika were among those Nipponese who recognized the wind of change.
The Tetsumori were traders and makers of many things, from everyday stuff to weapons. You do not stay in business for long if you do not have a nose for chances.

Gendo Tetsumori began to cooperate with the German contingent in Shirasagi-Onsen early on. He was shocked when he saw the gap not only in technology, but general development. He had been prepared that Nippon would be lagging behind, but by such a margin hit him hard. Gendo actually praised the Tenno for his foresight after meeting the Germans for the first time.

It was during the building of the Doitsu Ikku in Shirasagi, that the daimyo first thought about an arranged marriage of Erika with the administrator of the Germans in Shirasagi-Onsen. He considered Markus Ruhdorfer to be a bit too idealistic or better inexperienced, but a man with great talent for what he was doing. The mission of the German group in Shirasagi was no walk in the park. There was the cultural gap, the development gap, few people for too many tasks, problems with Ultranationalists and Reactionaries, especially from rural areas and the list went on.
Still, Ruhdorfer-san and his men and women coped admirably with all and so Gendo talked with his daughter about his plan. While he knew that Erika would obey him, Gendo was not a man to throw his daughter into the fire without at least talking with her.

As he expected, Erika would marry the German for the best of her Clan and Nippon. So the daimyo began to take his daughter with him to meetings with the Germans even more than before. Not only that, father and daughter became part of the most ardent developers of Shirasagi. Naturally there were the interests of the Tetsumoris in play, sometimes even mainly, but they knew that a new time was beginning. A time Nippon had to be part of and the Germans were enabling this.
So when Erika´s father sprung his trap/help on the unsuspecting German, Markus and Erika were at least acquainted.

One possible problem was solved at that time already. It would not fail because of the looks. Markus Ruhdorfer was tall enough to get entrance into the Club of tall people if he wanted to, a bit on the thin side, but reasonably attractive, looking even a few years younger than his age of 41. Erika liked what she saw when it came to the looks of gaijin.
She herself, actually her two sisters as well, were highly attractive by modern standards, even model material. Comparatively tall, with warm almond eyes and a wonderful smile, they were real Asian beauties.
No, the main problem was the question how compatible their personalities were, something you could not see with just a few small talks. Markus could convince the daimyo that he and Erika would need some time together to get to know each other.

Erika found this a very nice, touching idea of Markus, him being concerned for her, but in the end she would make sure the marriage would happen. This was duty, no matter her personal feelings. The next two years were a roller coaster for Erika. Now living in the German quarter with Markus Ruhdorfer was a crash course in living with and like Germans do or at least this specific German. Cultural clashes, sometimes cultural similarities, making friends, learning more German, teaching Markus about Nipponese customs, the two years were a chapter all for themselves.

In the beginning the two were very formal with each other. Closeness grew slowly. Erika found Markus to be a bit puzzling. For all his formality in public, he was quite the hugger in private. He was earnest in work, but still some joviality shone through. He could be silent for hours, then suddenly becoming a chatterbox.

Both had much fun playing boardgames and the hours spent together led to growing closeness. After the first year together, Erika could tell for herself that she would not mind being married to Markus Ruhdorfer and him being the father of her children.
But did he fell the same or similar? Early in the relationship Erika had tried to hold back some things to avoid putting the partnership in jeopardy. But living together for longer than just a few weeks makes such things not feasible in the long run. And it had been a learning process for Erika that the Germans preferred directness very much.
And so shortly before their 2 year anniversary of living together, they finally confided to each other that they would not mind being married and that they began to fall for the other. The dates for two marriage ceremonies, one in Shirasagi-Onsen, one in Kaiserlautern, were set. And the one in Germany would soon start, snce Bärbel Meisenheimer began to address the audience. "Dear guests, I..."

ELF Aquitaine Research center, Pau, France, 15. September 2018

Tanks, tubes and gantry filled most of the space and the presentation was held in front of an innocent-looking stainless-steel clad reactor. A small woman stood in front of it while a small crowd of people listened attentively.
Yvette Marchant should have been nervous, yet she was as cool as a cucumber. While presenting ones project to the high and mighty of both Elf Aquitaine and la belle France one should feel the jitters. Yet the diminutive doctor of physics had been in the middle of a firefight and a battle, had seen beings quite literally not of this world and so her concept of being under pressure had shifted considerably.
Her slender figure was hidden behind a white lab coat and a yellow helmet, the same model as any visitor to the huge hall wore.

"Mesdames, Messieurs, this is the centerpiece of our raw oil treatment plant. It is online for two weeks now and so far it validates the results of the small-scale models we ran at the lab. With a combination of magnetic fields, heat treatment and centrifuges we are able to remove 99.99% of all warpstone from the oil before it is fractured and we "burn up" the rest before it is consumed.
The extracted Warpstone will be transferred to the ASN who will store it with similar methods as nuclear wastes.
While energy intensive this process is easily scaled up and it is possible to add it to our existing refineries. With this we are able to use the oil extracted in the Wasteland again and this process should add roughly five cents to the price of each barrel of oil processed."

There was a moment of silence before the clapping started, and for such an exalted crowd it was enthusiastic and long.
"Mme Marchant, I am more than happy that you justified the trust we placed in you in such spectacular fashion. Given that nobody had an inkling that such a thing as Warpstone existed only two years ago this is spectacular progress and I predict great things for you. How could you present such quick results?"
"Monsieur Jaffre, I discovered this substance two years ago so I have spend a longer time with this than any other scientist on Earth. Yet I also gained the data from..other sources that helped this project along."
She had been warned that even in this refined group not everybody was cleared to hear about the Battle of the Karak or the brief visit of the Germans to Earth, so she had to keep things a bit obscure.
"However you did it Madam, you did great."
There were more speeches by the assembled notables, most of them utterly forgettable given that they mostly wanted to state how important they were and the huge impact they had on the renewed oil extraction in the Wasteland. While she pretended to listen to the prattle she thought again what was inside the reactor and shuddered. The magnets, the electric arcs and heaters inside worked, yet she had no real clue how they did so. Even when build by French engineers the assembly looked like a mad scientists project and studying it would fill the next years of her life.

She had read the data contained in the DVD the Germans had given her after the Battle with the Templars and their Lord. The texts in them had been written in good readable German, French and English. They and the diagrams that accompanied them used the standard connotations and conventions. Yet she was pretty sure that the original text was not written by humans but by minds which were very different. Seeing the universe through the lens provided by them was utterly disturbing. She had found two references to a "Project Büroklammer"-what that meant was just one of many mysteries that kept her awake at night.

Armed Forces Center, Geltow, 20 Nachgeheim

Fritz was General of all German armed forces. He had been at this post through several campaigns and a very nasty war. In the course of his duties he had communicated Dawi, Elves, Vampires and Skaven, yet talking to an AI older than the Pyramids was still an daunting prospect.

The picture that was projected on the wall was divided in two parts-once depicted the Citadel of Lead, the other, much smaller one, the animated caricature of an old man.
The video was not much as it had obviously been taken by an amateur more concerned with camouflage than aesthetics, yet even so the fortress looked imposing. Again and again the same beam went out and the plane exploded, again the debris hit something outside of the fortress and vanished in a flash.

"Yes General Hans-Werner Fritz, I can identify the structure in this video, both from the visuals and the location with a high degree of certainty. This is maintainance depot "Skarrat-hu-"Click"da." I think it is useful to continue to call it the Citadel of Lead."
"So what did we just see?"
"General Hans-Werner Fritz, this depot was build as the main depot and and maintainance center for the region and as such it has been equipped with minimal defenses. I am somewhat surprised that they still work after such a long time, but if any place could maintain itself it is this one."
"The "minimal defenses "took out a Hammer Hawk drone at 20000 meters and a recon Tornado traveling nearly at the speed of sound."
"Yes, there is a gigawatt-class laser and a simple gluon shield, nothing too elaborate. Yet at your current level of technology this might pose difficulties. On the other hand it contains technology for you to study with my aid, so such an effort would be well worth it."

5000 Kilometers above the Warhammer World Bäckertag, 4. Erntezeit

Nathan Alpers emerged from the dark confines of Sage 9 into the bright light of open space. He would never, ever tire of the beauty of the million stars and the world that turned below him, yet he was doubly happy to get out of the old weapon system.
The inside had never been designed with humans in mind and he had redecorated the insides personally by the application of 30 mm ammo and laser a few months ago. So the inside was a broken mess full of floating debris, sharp edges and nanites that wanted to use him for raw materials to rebuild their home.
And while his team brought enough light with them the airless interior would only light up where the lamps was pointed as there was no air to diffuse the illumination. The effect was a lot of bright edges in eternal darkness. Things were so dangerous that his crew was testing a new space suit and delegated some of the work to a set of drones.
The latter had removed most of the loose debris from the interior while the new suits were proof against simple cuts and similar-indeed they took the spidersilk outer layer of German body armor to protect them. Movement of the suits was improved immeasurably by adding the motive parts of power armor so they no longer needed to fight every movement against the air pressure inside their suits.
Nathan dropped the overall that covered the suit into a container that would be discarded and his visor darkened itself before harsh UV-light doused him to kill any nanites that might have come with him.
This had been the last haul and like Gold crew before them they had removed whatever working or semi-working pieces of high technology could be salvaged from the satellite. There was a lot for the scientists to study and some of the artifacts might actually find their way into orbit again.
He was back in the control capsule when the termite charges he had placed went off. There was no Hollywood explosion, just a yellow glow from some openings. Sage 9`s insides werer heated to temperatures that would melt steel so no nanites could attempt to rebuild the killer sat.

It was time to get back to Kopernikus, load their salvage on a capsule that would land unmanned and take on their second payload. Nathan Alpers would revisit Sage 17 with an experimental system to extract the water inside the satellite that was also the grave of two Old Ones.
There were several hundred thousands of tons of water there, and any of them he could extract would mean one less would have to be sent into orbit at the price of good champagne.

Otary Base, The Wash, Albion, Sigmarstag, 9 Erntezeit

Bran Walters sat on the reverse slope of the hill that held the OP he had just stood watch in for the last four hours, enjoying German bread rolls, the autumn sun and company. Ailish had brought the rolls from the NAAFI and the two watched the beachhead that was being turned into a serious base through the last weeks. There were some prefabricated buildings, lots of tents, a pier, a helipad with some Apache and two transport helos, a zeppelin tower and two floating piers. Construction noises where everywhere and a very mixed crew of Germans and Highlanders scurried about. Nothing so special for the noncom, still utterly fascinating for the Clanswoman. Currently a small convoys of hovercraft belched diesel and made their way along a stream emerging from the fens, probably making their way towards Phocid base which was as close to the Citadel of Lead as anybody dared.
He would be making that trip too in a couple of days, but for now he relished garrison duty after the misery of his last recon mission. Well, this time he would have serious backup, but the thought of seeing the old Fortress and its denizens again was not a comfortable one.
The Citadel had already shown serious teeth and Bran was not sure if all of them had been at display.

The next hovercraft made its way, this one even larger and louder, which it had to be as it carried a German Self-Propelled Gun and these were rather heavy. A thought struck him unbidden and he went into a silent laugh.
"What amuses you Bran Walters?"
"Ah, I am not sure if that will come across well, but I`ll try. I told that Albion is - had a counterpart in my old world, the United Kingdom, the country where I and the other Highlanders hail from right?"
"Yes, you did."
"Well a long time ago Germany and the United Kingdom were at war and the Germans planned a forced landing to do battle with us. They never did and lost the war. Whenever the war was discussed later most people say that this landing would have taken support by Alien Space Bats, err major magic to work. And here we are, the Germans have their landing and we have major magic support."
"So?"
Sigh "I was afraid it would not come across…."