200 Kilometers from ZharrNaggrund
The Zeppelin hovered silently 20 meters above ground when several cables dropped from it, quickly followed by black-clad figures that fanned out to form a perimeter. Major Ernst Herrmann watched them through his NVG`s. Nothing should be here, both the sensors on the airship and the drones deployed last night said so.
The Warhammer World had taught him that such things meant nothing when Chaos was involved, that the enemies could employ powers that literally bended reality. The lives of his men depended on their wits, their training, their equipment and a bit of luck.
As a soldier he knew all about luck, it came in three kinds: blind, dumb and bad so he did his level best not to rely on it.
So far that had worked out and when the all-clears came it he contacted the Zeppelin`s loadmaster. Things got a bit hectic after that, a hose was placed into a nearby puddle to compensate for the offloaded weight and a platform was lowered to the ground containing equipment by the ton. He left the airship 10 minutes later and resolved himself not to look at the Zeppelin that left his team nearly 5000 kilometer from the next German.
Doing so attracted the wrong kind of luck and he needed all of it that he could. His team were far from any ally, they would probably fail their mission if they had to use any of the many weapons they had brought and had to collect intelligence about a potential enemy about whom next to nothing was known.
His team spend the rest of the night camouflaging their current position and assembling a great lot of equipment, much of it new and not fully tested. And Ernst Herrmann hoped that he had brought enough spares when the wrong kinds of luck would catch up with the KSK troopers.
Orbit around Verda
The reds and browns of Verda rotated away under Nathan Alpers as they had done for over a month. The time had been busy with all kinds of scientific missions. Nordstern had deployed no less than three satellites which would remain in orbit. A lander had made two successful descends before something broke on the way up and made an impressive crater in the side of a mountain. While the scientific community hated to lose the samples on board the two rovers that went around the surface would provide data for years to come.
And then there had been the missions that were not meant for public consumption. The Old Ones had left several satellites of their own in Verda orbit and they had offered a different set of data samples and samples. Several holds scattered around "Nordstern" held well-preserved samples of Old One technology to analyze and if necessary copy with the nanites in the Citadel of Lead.
By now the German spaceship held an extraordinary mind and four more mundane ones. The extraordinary mind was currently at rest and so had no part in the busy preparations, in the lengthy countdown and the long acceleration that sped Nordstern back to the Warhammer World.
Red River Valley
Bignose wondered if this would be the day when he would die. Whatever the stumpies fed them, and he forced himself not to care, was never enough. He had been pretty hungry even before the strange Dwarfs caught up with him, he had been starved when they started to feed him again and been forced to work hard every day since then. There had been days when he had been given nearly enough food, those were the days when so many Goblins had died that the stumpies had brought what they thought as too much food.
Otherwise there was not enough and hunger caused exhaustion and weakness that became worse every day. The small injuries from tools not meant for Greenskin limbs, the welts from the overseers whips and the overtaxed muscles just added up with each day and each morning he awoke more tired than before.
He found he no longer cared what the strange meat inside their food was, he no longer cared if the overseers targeted him or somebody else, whether he lived or died as living was too exhausting and painful.
He still got to his feet, more by habit than decision and started to walk towards the newest set of holes his chaingang was sent to dig when the stumpies started to scream and whip.
He tried to blink the green dots and the tears that appeared in his eyes when he stumbled into sunlight and so he did not see what caused the first rumble and crash. He did see that the strongpoint he had started to build last week tear itself from the ground in a fountain of smoke, fire, dirt and stumpie parts. Only then he heard something make a sound like an unending scream or a giant cloth been torn apart.
Fast shapes could hardly be seen, strangely disconnected from the noise when they flew past the carnage they had just wrought.
Shrill pipes could be heard, the clanging of makeshift gongs and screaming galore. His chaingang was pulled aside and watched that the stumpies ran from here to there, screamed at each other, carried things here and there and were still in the middle of things when more tearing sounds could be heard and more explosions walked over the entry of the valley. In the background the big shadows of the Golems could be seen as they walked towards the bunkers.
Bignose was suddenly very sure he would not survive the day which was a shame given that he found something he enjoyed in life, watching stumpies die.
200 Kilometers from Weijin
Zehmin had climbed 113 steps upwards with a sack full of rice on his shoulder and then back down without it. He had been working in the docks two months ago loading the huge junks that carried the rice elsewhere. If he made the trip 100 times he had about earned the rice he could eat throughout that day, besides a set of legs that burned from exhaustion.
If Zehmin made the trip another hundred times he could pay for a rice straw mat in a room full of people to sleep and a heart that hammered so hard that it hurt. On the good days that he made the trip the next hundred times, on the days that his overseer indeed counted honorably, on the rare days he earned enough money to buy a bit of rice wine to forget the hurts so he could face another day of the same.
He could stand that no longer and so he had leaped at the chance to join the new model army that was recruited by the wuguoji waiguoren, the foreigners without a country. That would make him yangnu, a foreigners` lackey, but it was far preferable to any other fate that he might pursue. He was Uigua, from the most northeastern corner of the Dragon`s realm. His people were not of the Dan and their Gods forbid worshiping the Heavenly Throne so they were forever distrusted in the Kingdom. The Dragon`s army would rather hire a Goblin than him. He could not go back to his home, not only as this would be a long and perilous journey but also because what had happened to Alina and their would-be child.
His one chance to live like a human and not a beast of burden was with the foreigners, the ones that did not care which kind of human they hired as long as they could be trained as soldiers. Given the many ways one could run afoul of the Celestial Dragon`s many laws and customs there was no end to the candidates who wanted to join the Ever Victorious Army.
Too many candidates of course so the shou-ren had taken to trials to select the worthy. He had proven that his eyesight was good, that he could hear well and his mind was reasonably sound. He had been able to do push-ups, sit ups and whatnot and had been pretty sure he would easily master what tests the foreigners might cook up until the marches began.
The marches with a full backpack that chafed on the shoulders, in barely broken-in boots that gave blisters. The marches in the full heat and dust of northern Cathay`s roads and through her broken hills. The marches that left a trail of exhausted bodies and broken dreams.
At the start of today's march things were fine and his legs had only started to burn through the third hour of it. His heart had started to beat so hard that it hurt when they had reached the hills and had not slowed down with the inclines.
That had been the point when the stragglers had started to fall out of the column for real and the point where he had thrown up for the first time.
He had been about to join the stragglers, even 300 ascents to the junk a day could not be that bad. He was about to step out when he saw the shenpo`s face, the visage of the witch.
The oh-so-slender witch with the near-white skin, the pointy ears and the contempt that displayed her feelings towards the weak all too clearly. That was when he straightened his back and had forced the legs that seemed to be made from lead to move again.
He had loaded the junks with rice for months on end, he would not be bested by a pasty-face shou-ren woman, he would walk her into the ground.
That had been some time ago. By now he was walking through a fugue, hardly aware of where he was or whether he would collapse soon or not. Whenever he was about to falter the leering face of the witch appeared in his vision again and his feet continued the march.
Breda Ironridge was the survivor of the Auxilia`s basic training that had broken Druchii`s habits to nothing, had been on the march to the battle against Dechella and the Black Company`s retreat from Ulthuan. Today was a nice way to stretch her legs and get rid of some of the fat she had acquired in garrison. That she could watch a couple of recruit-hopefuls squirm was an added bonus.
So far the march had weeded out about 20 out of a hundred aspirants, a bit below target. On the other hand there were a few more kilometers to go and hills to climb. If she pushed the speed a bit she should make her goal easily.
Red River Valley
"Gunner, target Battlemech at 11`o`clock, W-Sap."
Even in the well-armored crew capsule of Wolf One a deep clunk could be heard when the autoloader rammed a 140 mm round into the waiting breech. A prompt on both Ulrich Stoiber and his gunner`s screen was accompanied by a synthetic "up" provided by their computer.
"On the way."
The recoil shook the 60-ton tank, the muzzle flame obscured the cameras that provided the view to the tankers for a brief moment. Thankfully the soggy ground did not give itself to dust clouds so the view restored itself after less than a second.
It had still changed considerably as the slim arrow that had emerged from its sabot closed the distance to its target during that time. The projectiles stainless steel sleeve barely penetrated the Mech`s center torso armor before peeling away and revealing its warpstone core. The latter was converted back into magical energies right then and there, filling the interior of the Golem with fires both mundane and ethereal. The ready ammunition on board exploded spectacularly while a pillar of flame that looked decidedly unnatural devoured the Mech.
A pair of Golems behind the first one started to accelerate towards the German tank. The first round Ulrich`s gunner sent on the way ripped of an arm, slowed the Golem down for a second and achieved few else. The second shot was better as it penetrated the side of a torso and set off a chain of explosions that ripped the Mech to the side, dropping it to the ground. Its mate managed to crash into the Golem and avoided Ulrich`s next shot by doing so. It went out of sight behind a pillar of rock for a second and when Wolf One cleared it sufficiently for a shot the Golem disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire, at least its upper torso did.
None of that was the German tankers doing, the effects had come from the boxy structures on both shoulders. Dozens of unguided missiles arched up into the cloudy sky and came down quickly enough, converting the grass below the prototype tank into craters. Shockwaves and fragments washed over the German tank and a single missile managed to land directly on it. Its high-explosive warhead was simply insufficient to penetrate any facing of Wolf one but it did remove a camera.
Swearing Ulrich took turret controls to bring the Mech into focus when four fiery streaks connected with it, piercing the rocket launchers. A series of explosions removed the upper half of the Mech, dropping a pile of junk to the ground.
Eberhard von Roon allowed himself a whoop when his missiles struck the Mech while he pulled his "Falke" into a steep curve. It seemed too easy with the laser-guided missiles but the tracers that chased his plane reminded him why flying in a straight line towards the enemy while the missiles were underway might be a tad dangerous, even when shooting from a far greater distance. He went around in a parabolic arc and found the purple smoke that he had been told about a bit further back into the valley.
"Eagle eight on me, we take the bombing run" brought his wingman closer in. Wernher von Weiss was an unknown, having joined the Eagles only after their first battle. He descended from one of the most noble families the Empires had to offer, they could show documents that their ancestors had fought with Sigmar. Before completing his pilot`s training he had been a renown cavalryman. Eberhard still would have preferred Heinrich Klement as his wingman who had proven to be dependable and levelheaded, not to mention rather courageous.
Both pilots pushed the noses of their planes downwards, changed settings of their weapon`s selectors and deployed flaps to keep speed within limits.
The lasers that had just guided Eberhard`s missiles was now employed to give precise distance to target and a computer calculated from that data. The HUD in front of Eberhard projected an oval that walked over the ground to the broken terrain below him. When the circle overed the rocks he pushed the button on his joystick.
A cylinder dropped from the shackles under each wing and started its descend downward. It never completed the arc, instead it broke up and released 150 smaller containers that deployed stabilizers and dropped into a roughly oval area. When they reached the ground they exploded like a string of firecrackers on steroids, releasing fragments that tore through anything exposed like a scythe through wheat. By that time Eberhard and his wingman had retracted their flaps and firewalled the engines to gain attitude and speed. Another Mech stepped from the valley`s side, raised his arms and let fly. The glowing balls that came from the autocannons seemed to fly slowly towards the wooden combat planes till they zipped by at terrible speed. Eberhard had no doubts at all that a single ill-placed bullet could claw him from the sky.
"Eagle eight, evasive"
He started pushing on the rudder paddles, sending his plane into am series of turns that threw off the questing tracers but prevented him from building up much speed as he was in a climb. At first the new stream of tracer did not alarm him till he realized that it came from above, not below. The same second that his brain parsed that an urgent "Eagle four, this is four. Scheibe at 1 o`clock"
By that time his hands and feet were already in motion and while the dis centered in his HUD quickly enough his left hand barely made it to the selector in time. Only a few 30 mm rounds went out in retaliation, mostly missing or vanishing inside the disk without visible result before his craft passed it low on speed and hopes for survival. His back tensed from the anticipated hits and he could hear the jackhammer sound of the disks autocannon for a brief moment before an almighty crash ended it.
To his surprise he was still flying and so was Eagle eight. Where the disk had been a pillar of smoke indicated where the enemy had gone down in flames. He was still wondering whether one of his bullets had done the job when the earphones started to crackle.
"Eagle flight, this is Typhoon two, thanks for the assist."
"Anytime Typhoon two."
The air above Heinrich Hemmler was full of things that moved very fast and wanted to kill him. Currently he was face-down inside a crater some hundred meters from the Chaos Dwarf`s strongpoints. They should have been suppressed by the artillery that had left the crater he currently occupied, but too many of them had survived Uli Hemnir`s loving attention. There were impressive craters on top of the strongpoints, some of them in front of them, but most had survived the onslaught. Also a number of craters were now occupied by Chaos Dwarfs with rifles and machine guns. Assaulting this mess was a recipe for disaster, but staying here would allow the enemy`s mortars to do the job. Fortunately there were alternatives and Hemmler waited for one of them to make its move.
The diesel engine was as quiet as its origins from Mercedes-Benz allowed for so he barely heard the increasing grumble. The neighboring crater just started to sport a low-slung turret and he barely managed to drop deeper into the crater when an almighty "boom" indicated that the first 105 mm round was speeding at its target.
The fire on the Wolves` commanding officer slacked considerably within moments when the slits in several strongpoints were pierced by the artillery shells and the enemy concentrated their fire on the small armored car. The Gunslinger dropped below out of sight several times and emerged at other parts of the battlefield, especially when an enemy autocannon came uncomfortably close several times. Looking at his watch Heinrich could see that it was nearly time and he crawled closer to his RT operator. He did not have to wait for long.
"Wolf actual, this is Widow one. Ready on your mark."
"Widow one this is Wolf actual. Mark, Mark."
The small turret rose again past the craters lip, but this time the complete combat car became visible and it started to trundle towards the enemy. Both the main gun and the coax fired and it was not alone. Three more cars formed into a rough line and drove towards the enemy at barely above a walking pace. All along the craters around Hemmler shrill whistles managed to cut through the battle`s din and hundreds of Dragoons climbed from cover and formed up behind their armored support. The cars started to speed up a bit and another sound managed to be heard even in all the chaos: a howl. Wolf`s Dragoons had been mauled badly a month before and they wanted payback. Like their namesakes their shouts rose to the heavens like a Wolfpack that was on a prowl.
Heinrich Hemmler knew that he was far too closely to the front, that he should not be here and at the same time knew that he had to. He climbed to the rim of the crater and charged after the Gunslinger that did his level best to suppress the enemy strongpoints. He had advanced by 50 meters when his radio operator dropped to the ground, missing most of his head and another 100 saw his replacement killed.
Heinrich Hemmler hardly realized that and it made few difference for the moment. He should take stock in the situation, he should assign priorities, he should make decisions and he should lead. He did none of these things for the moment as he wanted to fight, needed to take his hate to the enemy lest it devour him.
The Gunslinger before him had silenced two strong points already and was about to take on a third when something exploded under his right front wheel which was ripped to pieces, letting the combat car settle at an angle.
An autocannon that had been silent so far started to work the armored vehicle over with explosions wrapping themselves around the car.
"Dragoons on me" was about as far as he was about to issue orders. He never looked back when he sprinted towards the strongpoint. There was so many muzzle flames before him that even in his befuddled state he knew he would not be going to survive this. He half-tripped, half dropped into the cover of another crater.
He crawled to its rim, trying not to expose himself too much. Looking through a small peep sight he aimed for a slot that held at least a machine gun and pulled the second trigger. The grenade that shot from the underbarrel launcher had barely time to arm itself and actually managed to go through the slot into the bunker itself. Fire and smoke shot from the aperture and enemy fire slackened for a moment.
Putting in another burst of speed Hemmler dropped low below the slot of the strongpoint. Putting his rifle to the ground he took two grenades from his webbing. He pressed both levers before ripping the rings out and letting the levers fly.
"Sigmar protect me" was all the timer he needed for cooking the grenades. Both went through the aperture and one exploded when his hand was just out of the way, reminding him why cooking was rarely a good idea.
He repeated the process, albeit with a much shorter "Sigmar" at the next slot before firing a 30-round magazine directly into the interior. He was about to go for the next one when his color Sergeant pulled on his webbing.
"Second troop needs some advice Ser."
He snarled wordlessly into the face of the man who was an important part of the Dragoons` success, found the face before him unyielding and forced himself to breathe slowly.
A few minutes later he was inside the stongpoint he had just cleared and started to do his real job. For now the demons were banished.
The Unimog truck had legendary off-road abilities, yet even these had to drive carefully through the devastation left by the battle. Huge craters threatened to swallow even them, wreckage had not been cleared yet and unexploded ammo was still a risk. Inside the slow trucks that meandered their way through the few possible paths the passengers in the truck`s bed were tossed about mercilessly. Thorgim Steinier had experienced such rides before, had made sure that a piece of armor was between him and any pipe or sharp protrusion and tried his best to listen to the wireless traffic in case any surprises lifted their ugly head. He watched the remains of the Mechs with interest, the many bodies with pity, disdain and empathy and the tunnel entrances with unease. The Reiksbund knew that there was an extensive system of tunnels and caves in both sides and under the valley and the enemy had retreated there. The Chaos Dwarfs had shown a remarkably potent arsenal, several nasty surprises among them, were very likely experienced tunnel fighters and fought in a terrain of their choosing.
The Cave Raiders were the go-to unit for such mission, had equipment, doctrine and experience at match yet exactly that experience warned Thorgrim that things would likely become very nasty indeed rather soon.
German Opera, Berlin, Germany
Florian Soyka bowed deep to the thunderous applause his performance gathered. What a rise it had been. Florian once started as a musical performer with a great voice, but still "just" a musical actor. He had a good start with good roles, but nothing overly special. Then came the Welten-sprung.
At that time, Florian had several roles in the musical "Tanz der Vampire/Dance of the Vampires" and was the second choice for Graf (Count) Krolock, the star role of the musical. One evening shortly after the Weltensprung, when all of Germany held tight to the things from Earth and the theatres were really full, another actor had his send-off performance. As always on such special evenings, the singers and actors had a lot of leeway and allowance to improvise the general performance.
Florian Soyka played Graf Krolock that evening and what he did not know, he gained a patron that night. Florian had a top form that evening and by the time of his grandiose performance of the closing song of the first Act, a Warhammer presence among the visitors had taken notice of him.
The Cape he got one evening later from a mysterious fan was of exquisite make and very fitting his role as Graf Krolock. Not only that, Florian was convinced he performed even better with this cape. Soon he became the first choice for Krolock and the major opera houses in Germany began to take note of the young Bariton singer.
Four years after the Weltensprung he was invited to sing at the Wagner festival in Bayreuth and this opened the doors wide for him. Roles in Munich, Dresden or Berlin followed. Florian Soyka still gave guest appearences as the Count, but normally he had engagements at the major opera houses. He sang Lohengrin or in Turandot now, musicals were more or less a hobby and acknowledgement of his singing routes than
Concerning his life, Florian could be satisfied. He had a good job he loved, good friends and family and some goodies which counted as luxury in Germany´s situation. But on the work side of his life, Florian was not as pleased as he could be. Yes, he was now cited as one of Germany´s greatest voices since Fritz Wunderlich, but there was an unease he could not shake. He regularly got mysteriously arriving presents and if he was true to himself he just knew that some of his singing engagements were too lucky to be luck. But never a "culprit" could be made out. There was a spectre in the shadows and Florian waited for the day he would come forward for doing whatever. Being now living on Warhammer, that solution of this enigma could be far worse than a typical stalker on Earth.
Zugspitze, Germany
The mountaintop offered a breath-taking view of the Alps on the one side and the mountains that had replaced them on the other one. Berlit, Priestess of Valaya had taken her time watching the scenery which was beautiful in its own way. Yet for somebody who had lived underground for centuries it was as disconcerting as it was stunning and so she had gladly taken shelter inside the tent the Germans had thoughtfully provided. They had made something she had expected to be an ordeal into a challenging but invigorating experience. The travel to a country so far away had been a matter of days and even the ascent to the mountaintop had been spend enjoying the view and wondering if German engineers were really good enough to build a cable car to their highest mountain. Given that it was close to their border and yet routed in the very core of their bedrock it made a good start to the task her goddess had given her after the battle before Valaya`s Gate.
She took up the hammer and chisel and set her mind in the state needed to do Valaya`s bidding. Her hands started to move as by themselves and she continued to cut the rune into the stone before her.
Valaya`s Master Rune.
The Rune that protected the Dawi and their dwellings from Chaos.
The Dawi and those Valaya considered their friends. And the Reiksbund had been added to that group recently.
Zharr Naggrund
There was night in ZharrNaggrund, no star and no moon could be seen but there was no darkness except for that which resided in its inhabitant`s souls. A city of Ziggurats steeped in heavy industry and temples that worshipped Hashut knew many fires, from small ones warming the hearth to huge conflagrations that burned things and beings as sacrifices there were enough sources of light. They found reflection in the low-hanging clouds and the eternal smog produced by ZharrNaggrunds many factories. A yellow light, barely enough for a human to navigate by and allowing the DawiZharr to read suffused the city. A light that changed all colours into ones that could be expected from a vision about hell, an impression that was far from wrong.
It was a city that did not sleep. The Chaos Dwarfs had always been busy, had always amassed more raw materials, had built the engines of war and the means to make and store more of it, yet these days were remembered fondly only by a few. New knowledge had reached ZHarrNaggrund, new needs had arisen from old mistakes and so new tools had to be forged so the DawiZharr could survive in a changed world where the landscape they had made tried to kill them.
The huge stockpiles of raw materials that had been amassed in centuries past were converted into new factories, new machines, new railways and strangely new glasshouses. At every given hour DawiZHarr and slaves hustled to and fro, carried, worked maintained built, supervised and punished harshly. There was no way an outsider could sneak into the city no way, no spy who could worm his way into the Ziggurats and fathom their purpose and no black-clad shadow warrior assassinate any leaders.
Ernst Hermann knew all that very well and had no intention of doing so. Still he had orders to gather intelligence about the DawiZharr and his team would do just that. And while on the streets, corridors and passageways thousands bustled, guards watched and mages plied their trade the spies went to work. The diffuse light did not lend itself to shadows and so the suitcase sized flier went about unobserved. It hovered silently above a roof before descending.
The quadcopter`s belly released four small vehicles which cleared the miniature landing zone on small wheels or legs. A toy-car like box on wheels drove a few meters till it was close to a chimney, disappeared in its shadow and erected a small parabolic antenna that oriented itself into the murk above while aiming generally south. It established contact with a Warhammer stationary satellite within minutes and promptly used the power stored in its brick-sized gigacap as a relay. It did not take very long for a couple of operators, some with Hermann, some in far-off Germany to take control of the smaller drones which started to make their way through the nooks and crannies that went through the Ziggurat.
Some of them found interesting spots and relayed video, others dropped listening devices as they went.
Ehra-Lessien
Erendiel of the House of Ethelorne was as excited as he had rarely been during the last 100 years or so, and that was after two of the most interesting years of his life. He was on a journey of discovery that changed the way he saw the world in so many ways. Like so many Asur his basic assumption about the mundane world around him had been "all what is important is known". Oh how wrong he had been. The Germans might be as children where the empyrean might be concerned but their knowledge about the physical world was without peer. He agreed with his uncle Aurelius that the conditions on their old world had forced them to concentrate on the physical world as solutions driven by the Winds of Magic would not work for them. And what creations they had wrought.
The first weeks and months working for VW had been some of the harshest in his life as he had to learn that about half of his ideas flaunted the laws of physics and mechanics. He had been about to give up when things started to go "click" in his head and he had gained a very different view of the world around him ever since. Words like "Nachlauf" (off-carriage) "Abtrieb" (Downforce) and "Wendekreis" (turn radius) were added to his vocabulary.
Of course it had bitten into his aesthetics. He still remembered how an engineer had calmly calculated that the shape he had drawn for their project would make the car take off at 180 kilometres per hour and even arranged time in Wolfburg`s busy wind tunnel for him to prove the point. At first he had been angry, then he had switched to admiration for the humans who had built cars as beautiful as the Porsche 911 with these limitations. When he meditated about shapes now he made sure to read up on such things before so they were in his mind when it formed the right curves. Erendiel found that what he had learned were no limitations at all, they were inspiration. A shape that would pass through the air easily was also pleasing to the eye, a wheel well that would allow the wheels to turn and would not spoil aerodynamics was a beauty to behold. He had been an important factor in shaping VAG`s new flagship car and one of the rewards of these efforts was due now.
The reward was delivered by a legend, Walter Röhrl. For a human he had aged well and Erendiel had been told that he had been a very accomplished rally driver in his day. These days he advised, helped with advertising and even test drove the new creation. Volkswagen had decided they needed a new halo car to introduce their new line of cars that could be made now that the new Gigacaps were available. As the general public was still sceptical about electric cars the board thought Tesla might know what they were doing and started on a luxury car that would be sold under the Bugatti brand.
His eyes and thoughts were still on the car before him while Röhrl talked about the place and the plan for the day.
"Back in the old days when there were still two Germanys this testing area was very close to the border and therefore nobody could fly over it and make pictures we did not like. It has more than a hundred kilometres of roads and a 25 hectare-sized paved handling field. The most interesting thing for today is the high-speed course which is more than 20 kilometres long, has inclined curves and a straight of eight kilometres. When you are at one end you cannot see the other as the curvature of the Warhammer World means it is below your line of sight. We will take the curve before that at 200 kp/h in second gear and then we`ll accelerate and see what we shall see. Ready?"
"Yes, I am Master Röhrl."
Both went into a car that crouched low on the ground, espoused curves that looked like they had grown that way and seemed to be fast when it was parked. The inside was nice-not overly spacious but it had all the comforts that one could wish for. Erendiel would not miss the conventional instruments, even when the TFT before Röhrl would display them but he was still amazed at the small displays inside the HVAC buttons that have temp and fan speed. There was a top-notch stereo and many other amenities but none of the two occupants of the car would be bothered by them. The instrument panel before them had been planned for the Audi TT for a while, but the market for sports cars was a very small one presently. A lot of the car around them had been used for the old Bugatti Veyron and its planned successor, but the thing that really made the car tick was below Erendiel and Röhrl.
The carbon-nanotube Gigacap had a slightly larger capacity per kilogram than a lithium-ion battery, but it needed no cooling and was not subdivided into thousands of cells. Instead it was a compact "surfboard" under the car that even lent stability to the structure. Its capacity was measured in megawatt hours.
The driver could start the car simply by touching a button as he had the key in his pocket, yet that was not the end of it. He had to go through two menus and had his thumbprint taken by the computer. Suddenly the screens in front of Röhrl chanced colour and content, the car seemed to hunker down on its suspension and the nearly inaudible whine from outside told of the changed settings of several aerodynamic aids. Aurelius had the impression of predator that crouched before it pounced.
"You did not believe that we could start for this kind of run just like that? There are procedures to go through. I like procedures-not."
The car started to move with barely a sound beyond a muted wail that reminded Erendiel of jet engines at a distance. The car accelerated into the track smoothly for about 15 seconds, then the 200 kilometre mark was reached. The car was still quiet enough for decent conversation and the Asur could have sword that he would not spill wine from a glass given how smooth the ride was.
Still he was wearing a helmet and the earphone gave him Walter Röhl`s comment with crystal clarity.
"Funny thing that, power and speed for these cars. For 200 klicks per hour we need 200 horsepower. For the next 200 we need the other 800."
And that was when the sky started to shine through the window at the driver`s side while the one next to Erendiel only revealed concrete and grass. The banked turn kept the two from getting mashed to the left but made for a disconcerting picture and Erendiel`s mouth became dry anticipating what was to come. The car was still in the turn when Röhl depressed the pedal fully and switched from 2nd to 3rd gear. Even at this speed Erendiel was pushed back into his seat and the numbers on the tachometer before him blurred. They rose from 200 to 300 in less than 10 seconds and rose even from there.
It was only at the 350 mark that acceleration started to slow down a bit but with each second the incredible car was charging forward. By now the muted whine of the electro motors had risen to a banshee-like wail, the non-existent wind noise had risen to hurricane levels and the tires made themselves known as well. By now the world around Erendiel had changed to a complete blur except for a very tiny spot in front of him, his heart hammered and breathing seemed hard just from the sheer power of sensations that were flooding him. His driver seemed as unperturbed as if he were sitting in a lawn chair though. The Asur split his attention between the scene outside and the tach which climber to new heights with ever-slowing speed. He asked himself whether the straight would be enough to get to the speed he had been promised when the magical "420" flashed in the instrument cluster.
Walter Röhrl`s voice was still perfectly understandable through the earphones and his voice betrayed even his excitement.
"Now we are driving faster than any Formula One car ever did, and with a bleeding stereo and aircon, incredible. Did you know that the tires will only last for 15 minutes at this speed?"
He could not have seen Erendiel`s face and must have anticipated the reaction though.
"Don`t worry, battery is empty after 5 minutes at this speed."
When they finally reached the starting point the Asur had partaken in one of the most exciting things his long life had offered yet. He would work the experience into the TV Spot he helped making a few weeks later.
