Ramstein AFB, Germany
"Ramstein Tower, this is Bald Eage 1 and 2. Request permission to runway and takeoff"
"Bald Eage, this is Rammstein Tower. You have permission to runway and takeoff"
Mike Koslowski pushed four throttle levers forward which irked him despite the concentration necessary for the takeoff. To both sides in his back engines spooled up from idle to full thrust. Each of the four produced the equivalent of 230.000 horsepower and he had to release the brakes immediately. The B1 bomber accelerated in a way reminiscent of his beloved Grey Lady, even when noise and vibrations were at least an order of magnitude below his old steed. He wanted to take her on this mission but had been denied. There was a decided dearth of spare parts for the eight TF33 engines under the Grey Lady`s wings and that meant he would have to fly the mission in a "B1".
The bomber had started to grow on him and the crew during last year`s test flying. It could do the job, no doubt but it would never replace the B52 that had a legendary status with the Reiksbund now. Instead for the first time he was leading a group of four bombers into the longest range mission ever undertaken by German forces.
All bombers managed their takeoffs fine and the climb to nearly 10000 meters was without any problem. The planes had already crossed the border to the Empire when they met their tankers. While they could make the mission without an aerial refueling it would reduce their payload as the huge planes had burned nearly a third of their fuel just climbing to attitude.
The A330 Tankers had flown a racetrack course till they had received their signal, now the two flew a straight course and slowed down so they could Mike could catch up. He had to fight a bit when he brought his plane through the turbulence left by the plane above him and the bomber steadied down just when he reached position. One of his MFDs displayed the tanker above him and he used the picture with the data shown below to bring his plane to within less than 20 meters to the other.
His Bomber was by far too big to chase behind a drogue probe and when he had achieved position a probe detached itself from its position under the tanker`s tail. It was guided by a set of small wings and flown by a member of the tankers crew. He nervously watched the approach of the probe as it neared his plane, the receptacle was very close to the cockpit and a mishap might very well punch the probe through him.
It worked on the first try for a change and when the green light appeared on the MFD he pushed the to-talk button.
"Esso 2 this is Bald Eagle 1. Good connection, I have green light."
"Bald Eagle 1 this is Esso 2, acknowledge green light, good connection. Ready to pump."
"Esso 2, anytime."
During the next terse minutes he just had to keep his plane steady relative to the tanker while thousands of liters of Kerosene were pumped into several tanks.
"Esso 2, this is Bald Eagle 1, I read 20K, we are up full."
"Bald Eagle 1, this is Esso 2, concur. We will disconnect. Godspeed Colonel."
"Esso 2, thanks for the service."
The two planes separated in attitude before Mike took the bomber a couple of hundred meters to the side and watched the next B1 approach the tanker in the dying light of the evening. This time it did not work so well with the German pilot overshooting his target, necessitating a second approach which went better.
When the refueling was complete the small group accelerated to cruise speed again and slowly gained additional attitude as they burned fuel. Koslowski checked the INS and the position given by the Navigator all the while, he had an appointment to keep.
The sun disappeared below the horizon behind the speeding planes and Mike watched the very few lights below pass under his plane. He had flown lots of exercises above the comparatively empty US Midwest, but even that had been a well-lit landscape compared to the Empire. There were lights for sure but so very few and except for Nuln and Altdorf lighting the strteets as night had yet to catch on.
The World`s Edge Mountains could just be discerned by Night Vision and radar but to his surprise the Dark Lands beyond them held more than a few bright spots.
"Not such Dark Lands after all, hu?"
"Lots of volcanic activity skipper."
"Not all of it."
"What then Mage?"
Felix Berggarten was the "B1´s" MWO, the Magic Weapons Officer, the first specialist of his kind in any bomber and the man who had literally written the book used by the initiates who followed in his steps to keep the planes safe from magic attacks.
He was the only member of the crew who did not originate with SAC or even Earth and to this very day he was not totally a part of the team. Both sides tried very hard but they were not there yet.
"I cannot say for all of the hot spots below, but a great lot of them radiate a lot of magical energies. I have never felt anything like this before, it is a lot like warpstone but not exactly the same."
"So there is warpstone in the ground below?"
"Probably, but that is not all of it. Remember that Hashut is called the God of Fire? That he is supposedly below ZharrNaggrund and therefore the Dark Lands?"
"MWO, are you saying you are sensing a...demon below?"
"If it is indeed what I sense then it is far too big for an ordinary demon, but yes, very likely."
"You shall have no god.."
The intercom cut off abruptly as the speaker had realized he could be heard by everybody. It just underlined the real reason why Felix was not fully accepted as a member of the crew. All three other members had been brought up with the rather muscular kind of Christianity that was favored by the US Air Force.
Berggarten did not believed in God, he knew that there were far more than one and prayed to several, with measurable results at times.
"MWO, keep us informed if anything threatens us."
"As always Skipper."
An uncomfortable silence settled in the huge plane for the next 30 minutes.
Far above the planes their appointment was making good progress, not that it had any chance to do otherwise. A lot heavier than their counterparts left in orbit around old Earth, powered by stainless-steel blocks inscribed with the Rune of Fire instead of RTGs and working with electronics that were mostly off-the-shelf Germany`s first GPS satellites orbited around the Warhammer World. The system would need 32 satellites before it was complete due to the larger size of this world and it would take some more years before the last would be in place.
Yet at certain times nearly any place on this world had the three satellites above the horizon that were needed for an exact position fix.
The ground below the warplanes changed rapidly when they neared their targets. The lakes of fire and rivers of lava were replaced by hulking structures lit from many windows, roads that carried busy traffic and busy factories were probably in full production.
Around many of the settlements glass houses seemed out of place and a few locomotives made their way on gleaming rails.
More ominously a flying disk could be seen making its patrol at the targets periphery.
"Captain, MWO here. I sense numerous sources of magical energy below. There are two concentrations, one at 92 degree and one at 105. There is something strange about the one at 105, a very different but strong source among many different weaker ones. All Chaos Magic as far as I can sense but most of a slightly different kind.
So far nobody seems to have noticed us."
"MWO, Skipper here. Acknowledged and keep monitoring."
"Captain, Nav. I have good signal from four satellites, all systems green."
"Captain, Co here. All systems nominal."
"Captain, Radar here. IP in five, course 91. All bombs have powered up and receive updated positions."
"Captain, guns here. No bogey anywhere near our attitude, all systems nominal."
"Bald Eagle 1, this is Bald Eagle 2, we have green board all across."
"Bald Eagle 1, this is Bald Eagle 3, all systems nominal."
"Bald Eagle 1, this is Bald Eagle 4, Ready to Roll."
The small group was still 20 kilometers from ZharrNaggrund when the huge bomb bays opened and two rotary launchers each full of bombs were exposed to the roaring slipstream.
"All Bald Eagle, this is One. Drop starts on my mark. Mark Mark"
The launchers dropped the first bombs, turned a few degrees and released the next ones. The weapons wobbled a bit when they passed through the turbulence and then stabilized. All of them received the time signals of several satellites and calculated their exact position from it. Nearly all saw where they were, derived where they should be from silicon memory and moved fins to bring the two together.
All but two of the bombs. One never got a good signal and simply followed its ballistic path, the other could not move one actuator and dived directly into the Dark Lands below.
The bombs were unpowered but possessed great inertia, they had no wings but derived lift from their shape and the fast slipstream that sped over their bodies. They dropped towards their target but in such a long arc that the four bombers never flew over ZharrNaggrund.
The planes turned in a wide circle getting back to their base while behind them all hell broke loose.
The stone bridge spanned the River Ruin since nearly a millenia, having been build from well-hewn granite. So broad that 4 horse-drawn carts could dive side-by-side it rose to a height that allowed ships to pass below. It served as one of the few crossing points of the river and mainly carried the produce from ZharrNaggrund`s fields.
Neither earthquakes nor internecine warfare could bring the massive edifice down and it looked like it would be used in a thousand year hence. Looks can be deceiving and without any warning four huge explosions dropped two spans into the river below when the first bombs hit.
The Greenskin and DawiZharr who had been spared the destruction watched in awe when the mass of stone settled in the aptly-named River Ruin. Only the rumbles settled they found that the disaster before them was by far not the only one that had befallen the DawiZharr.
Jasla`s mind was far from the grand view that could be seen from her balcony. There were so many things vying for her attention, the news from the World`s Edge Mountain or the absence of them, the increased demands placed on her and her group by the DawiZharr who want more weapons, better weapons and they wanted them now, the instability of Manfred One-Eye, so much to think, so much to do.
Yet none of this was on top of her mind now, that honor went to her son Mordred. He had grow fast in body and mind the last years, far too fast to be natural. Given the boy`s father and the sponsor of the union "natural" was not to be expected.
She had worked hard on the boy, using her gift and whatever other means she could get her slender hands on to shape Mordred. He was to be her sword and her shield, her tool of revenge and the base of her power.
Jasla had made ten times sure that the boy would receive love and validation, praise and punishment, ideas and goals just from her and nobody else.
Mordred`s accelerated growth in body and mind brought up another problem or was it an opportunity? She had seen him looking after her better-looking slaves, after Petra Heim and others. It was more than obvious that he had become of age when he should not have and that she had to provide a target for the urges that would run through him.
Yet there was a terrible danger-anybody she sent to Mordred`s bed had the potential to usurp some of the affection that could only belong to her.
The obvious solution to that was out, even she could not bring herself to that place, no matter how attractive the boy had become. Rotating or simply killing the partners might work, but there were so few slaves. In the end it was probably the best to use Petra, her German pet. Even if Mordred would transfer affection to the blonde she was so deeply in thrall to Jasla that it would make no…
KRUMPF
The explosions walked over ZharrNaggrund before her very eyes, the shockwaves needed a bit longer to reach her. The shattering of glass brought her from her reverie and made her take cover behind the stone ballustrade. Oh Khaine, the Germans had the reach to exact their revenge. What would happen now?
At first she did not understand what she saw until the object in her view resolved itself into a silken trouser tucked into an immaculate boot. Looking upwards she saw her sons face lit by the many fires that had been ignited below her.
"Mordred, what are you doing here, get down immediately."
"They are gone Mom, they are already gone. I can still feel them, but they are far away already."
"Who do you feel."
"The Germans who did this of course, just as you feared. Mom, Lord Astragoth will order you to advise him soon, you should gather your pet Germans. Please take me with you to that meeting Mom, will you?"
"Don`t be silly Mordred, this is not for the likes of you, not now and not for the next couple of..."
She was stopped by the slender, strong hand that gripped her forearm and by the pain.
The pain that stopped her in her tracks was quite exquisite, she had never experienced anything like that before. Actually she would have always believed that one would faint in the face of such torture and the very small part of her mind that was still able to think likened it to being skinned alive.
To her very horror she felt the raw lust that coursed through her at the same time and feared that her mind would link the two in future.
The thought was instantly banished when the oh-so-beautiful face of Mordred appeared before her treacherous eyes which opened without her conscious thought.
"It is time to stop the games Mom, it really is."
ZharrNaggrund
The room was done in well-hewn beige stone and dark iron riveted into shapes needed to hold where stone could not. Eagles, Lions and Taurochs were made into pillars which kept up a ceiling at several meters of height. The middle of the room was taken by a huge table made from a single piece of cast iron, something considered a marvel before the Germans came. The ceiling still held the soot of oil lamps and torches while bright bulbs now took their place. The light shone on a very mixed group. One was the DawiZharr, low built, broad and brooding with high hat and kinky beards. Several had mutations and one was actually the hulking shape of a Bull Centaur.
The second group consisted of several Germans who all looked rather uncomfortable. They wore varied clothing, with some remnants of their old German-made gear mixed with recent addition ranging from silken tunics to leather vests. Two beings stood out from the group, slender, elegant with porcelain-white skin and delicate features.
Jasla looked very much calm and controlled while Mordred looked around him with unadulterated joy and curiosity while totally lacking any sign of being cowed by the presence of so many Chaos Dwarfs who hated and despised anything not of their race.
The head of the table was taken by a DawiZharr who towered above them all as he had to replace large parts of his limbs with artificial, mechanically driven ones. What little could be seen of his face was clouded with rage and anger, something that did not bode well to anybody else at the table. Lord Astragoth`s features had already shown these emotions at the beginning of the meeting and had become every fiercer since the start of the briefing that was a litany of destruction that had befallen the DawiZharr in their very seat of power.
"Two Spans of the Bridge of Fire have been totally destroyed. To repair it we need to erect at least a cofferdam around the foundations and rebuild foundations, pillars and crown. Currently the Bridge of Iron and the Lamasu`s bridge are intact and under heavy use currently. They are already clogged and will be unable to cope with additional traffic when construction starts.
The coal silo next to the Irrum coke plant burns and will probably do so for the next 2 months. The heat and smoke makes the plant itself unusable. Without it we cannot operate two new model steel plants at least. The locomotive depot at the Hashut-2 mine has been hit hard and three engines are totally destroyed while 2 others may be restored to working order..."
"Enough, enough for now Gorshnid. Leave the written report to me. Now, my oh-so-valuable advisers tell me what happened, why we had no warning and how we can defend ourselves."
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments as nobody wanted to be the first to talk and gain dangerous attention.
It fell to Jasla to break the impasse.
"Herr Prossy, you said you could contribute something?"
"Yes, Mistress, I did. We do not know very much about the attacks, but a couple of things can be deducted. First off the only weapon that the Germans could use to hit us like this are long-range bombers, nothing else has the range to do so. Before we left Germany there were reports that at least one B-52 bomber made the Weltensprung with us, maybe some others. It is also possible that they have constructed new planes like this. We did not see them coming as they fly so high, probably at least 10 kilometres. All eyewitnesses agree that there was no noise but for a quiet whistling before the bombs exploded and that there were to trails of flame. This means unpowered bombs, but even so they can fly quite a distance when dropped from such height and speed. Given that all bombs that we know of hit something important the weapons must have been guided in some way, but I do not know how. Could be Laser, could be TV, it does not matter much to us as we can detect none of it."
"You say all bombs hit something important but all I see are hits on bridges and depots. They could hit our smelters, our manufactories and our temples. You have an answer for that Prossy?"
"I have to speculate, but this is very close what has been done to Germany at the end of the last great war they were part of. During the last year of the war the enemy shifted the attacks to the roads, railways and channels and that worked far better than attacking the factories before. No manufactory produces all parts it needs, they always need materials and things from elsewhere. And when you cut the flow of this between manufactories, mines and smelters productions nothing gets produced. That such attacks will also kill the fewest slaves and other civilians will also be a consideration to the Germans. All in I think this attack is a message."
Lord Astragoth`s voice was always deep and full of the pain that only a body that slowly turned to stone could provide. It went down to an even deeper brass and was barely audible.
"A…message? What kind of message would you Germans want to send."
"Highness please remember that I am no longer a German. The message would have several meanings: That we are vulnerable even here, that they are unhappy with our campaign in the World`s Edge mountains, that we cannot stop these attacks, that we cannot strike back, that we should negotiate."
"So you think I am going to use one of these "wireless sets" that were dropped with the bombs? Do you believe that I am weak and without honour, that I would speak to ferals?"
"At least it would give us time, the Germans are unlikely to attack us while we talk."
"And use the time for what-flee from here and leave me to the mercy of you countrymen?"
"Sir we have two proposals for our defence. One is a project of mine I have been working on for a while now, the other should be explained by Mistress Jasla."
"So?"
"Highness, my son is a powerful mage."
"Is he now, how interesting."
"And he has seen the attackers through the Empyrean. He can provide warning the next time and maybe more."
Altdorf
"Much obliged, Ser, that is very generous."
The coachman pulled on a lock on his forehead in gratitude for the tip, flicked his whip above the horses head and his coach departed. When Mathias Gerstmann turned he saw the little smile on Beate`s face which told him he had overtipped again. And yet, unlike his former wife she had not scolded him about this, had just told him once that he tipped higher than he really had to and had certainly not made an issue out of it for the next two hours. Instead she saw it as a part of him that really did not hurt wither of them and as a foible she liked.
He hooked his arm under her`s and both made their way towards the tavern that Beate had picked for the evening. The pair got more than a few looks on their way and Mathias knew that was because of his companion as the sight of a German no longer caused any attention in Altdorf, even if this part of the town was not really frequented by foreigners.
He certainly did not mind the attention they got, what full-blooded male would not relish the chance to show off his beautiful lover for the world to see, and beautiful Beate certainly was. The best part about this was that she enjoyed it as much as he did. She had earned her living as an actress. If she would have worked for the great theatres the liked of Sierk used to lead that would not have been any problem, but if one worked for the smaller troupes that entertained the masses wages were low and infrequent. As the actors had to live somehow they had to supplement these meagre earnings somehow and for that reason "actress" and "harlot" were pretty much exchangeable expressions in Reiksspiel.
When she was regularly seen with an obviously well-off German who took the pains to wine and dine her it denoted her rise in status. But it was not only that any more, Mathias enjoyed her company immensely and not just for the fun in bed. She was witty, told him interesting tales and was a very good listener. Yet the thing that had bonded him more than anything else was the look she gave him when they had awoken after their first meeting in the Tavern and he had asked her how they could meet more often. He had lost himself in her eyes then and there.
Beate was a godsend to his purse as well. She knew Altdorf inside and out and helped him to find much better accommodation and food at lower prices, had hired a really good maid at roughly half the price of the thieving hag provided by the expat agency and arranged for perfect laundry. She was there when he needed her and had no problems to look after herself when he had no time. The thing was that he wanted to spend any spare time he had with her, he felt like a good strong man when she was around. She was also a damn good listener and seemed interested in his daily worries and trials in the Eterna plant. The only downside to this was that he had even less time to meet his German friends.
By now he seemed to have a knack to find the right balance between training his Imperial workers to do better, parcel the work into such small steps that they could do the job well without too much of it, payment and other motivation. He still wrestled a bit with then challenges of operating a plant three days of travel from the next supplier of suitable machinery but he liked to think he was getting there.
Beate had promised him a surprise and he was looking forward to it. The last time she had done so she had hired a bard with an accompanying musician who played for the couple in near-magical ways. When they entered the tavern they were greeted in style and then effectively ushered into a room in the back of the restaurant. There was few light in there, no German-style lamps but many candles tried their best to dispel the darkness. A table was laid for two, but there was a third seat which was already taken. There was no plate before him, just a crystal glass full of a deeply red liquid. None of this really registered with Mathias whose attention was taken by the grey-haired man that sat opposite to the entrance that closed behind him and Beate.
„Mathias, I`d like you to meet a very good and old friend of mine, Hermann. Hermann, this is Mathias, the man we talked about."
Pale grey eyes had a surprising depth when he met his and the voice was deep, cultured and as smooth as an oil stain on water.
„Herr Gerstdorf, it is a pleasure to finally meet you in Person. Your Reputation precedes you."
"What..what is the meaning of this. Beate, is this a setup..."
"By no means Herr Gerstdorf. Please sit down and partake in this meal that should be excellent given the amount of money that I paid for it. Beate does have a good taste, hasn`t she? If we can sit down like the civilized beings that we both are we can solve this to our mutual advantage."
Seeing that he was about to make a fool of himself and Beate`s pleading eyes lead him to take a seat. Before he sat down for real he decided that if he were to embrace madness he could go all the way. Moving back he first pulled the chair on the opposite side.
"Please my dear."
There was astonishment and a smile on Beate`s face before she sat down and the split-second appearance of something that might be respect on "Hermann`s" face before it got affably unreadable again.
"That is much better. Kindly start without me, enjoyable as it might be this food is not for my likes. Would you mind terribly to discuss some business with your dinner?"
"If that discussion starts with an explanation for ..all this then not too much."
"Very well then Herr Gerstorf. I am Herrmann von Carstein and Beate led me to believe that I have need of your services."
It was a good this Mathias had not started to eat yet as otherwise some of the food might have left his open mouth. He closed it quickly enough which was taken as a signal to continue.
"The last years have wrought great changes in the Old World Herr Gerstdorf, in the Empire more than in most parts and no changes in Kaiser Karl Franz realm were greater than those in Slyvania.
We were a realm the Empire put up with as wiping us out would have been a costly undertaking of uncertain end and my kind kept mostly to the confines of our home. When you Germans appeared we had something you needed immensely and you had the means to take if you wanted, whether we wanted to give or not.
We got us a choice: ally ourselves to the Empire and Germany or feel the might of the Bundeswehr. Oh, that was not the line in the official negotiations but it was clear enough. My uncle Manfred was clever enough to agree to the alliance and a good thing that was. Yet it has turned our home on its head in ways nobody would have foreseen a decade ago.
Things that were immensely desirable lost their value while issues that nobody cared about occupy my waking hours these days, one of them being money. For then commodities one could buy there was always enough for my kind and most things we really desired had to be paid in a different coin, this is no longer so. No longer can I pay my dues to my liege with slaves and the pelts of Beastmen, he asks for money.
The craftsman who keep up the ways, my castle and the public works ask for money and if I want the tools and baubles you Germans sell you ask for money too. Even the very blood that sustains is is no longer taken in the hunt, from shivering peasants or the denizens of my dungeons, instead I pay the Red Cross for it."
The oh-so-deep eyes betrayed a hint of amusement when he lifted the glass full of red liquid to his lips.
"Money has become the new yardstick by which the nobles of Sylvania are measured and whether I want it or not I need to make lots of it. And while I am lucky in the way that I have resourceful retainers like Beate here my realm is not gifted with much of the oil that you ask for so much. I have some means, but a finite amount, I have land but no raw materials beyond a few and I have access to a railway but nothing to ship with it.
So I hired expensive consultants from Germany who told me that I need to open factories, that I have to produce things you Germans desire so you will give me the money I need. The same consultants helped me to hire companies which built workshops and even to the first contracts. They totally failed to hire anybody competent to run these workshops.
Either I get incompetent fools, drunkards or people fresh from University who think they know all and actually yet have to learn more than me.
It is not for a lack of money, as I have enough to offer. It is because Leicheberg is so far from anything you call civilization, as we cannot offer restaurants to your taste, no regular weekends home and until very recently no internet. So even the most expensive headhunters have failed to bring anything and so I have to rely on my own faculties. This is where Beate comes in and finally you.
I can offer you a lot of money, more than you make at Eterna now, but we both know that most of that would be sent to your former wife. So what I will offer is 10 percent more than you earn now, an actual castle, with full staff free of charge. I will offer you all the enmities my fiefdom can offer, all goods you can order and ship by rail and this Internet thing. All of this will be free of charge so that you will be able to keep what belongs to you.
For this I would expect you to establish several textile workshops close to Leicheberg and work them with a mixture of my former serfs and the undead."
"So Beate was not interested in me but for my ability as a manager?"
"You should ask her yourself, really now. But the last couple of centuries have left me a pretty decent judge of character and I would wager that Beate would be very unhappy if she were not to accompany you to Sylvania. There is one more thing to sweeten the deal, if you do well for five years I can offer you a bonus few would be able and willing to match."
"Which would be?"
"Immortality of a kind if you want it."
Background of Siegfried Erler
Germany was the pinnacle of law and order.
Every aspect of the normal life went its proper way, every necessity had been considered and prepared for.
It was the equivalent of a perfectly working machine, consisting of millions of gears interacting flawlessly with each other.
Each of them evaluated by its abilities and contribution to the mighty machine that formed the Federal Republic of Germany.
Even if this was only a wishful dream, for Siegfried Erler this idea had been true for most of his life.
As only child of a worker family that had just about made it in the past, he had to overcome many obstacles.
And he had done so.
He had graduated from school as one of the best of his age group, had successfully finished his studies and had found a well-paid and motivating job.
Even as he continued to reach new heights in his life, he still remained modest, remembering only too well his modest family circumstances and the hard work he had to muster to reach his goals.
He firmly believed in the system.
Hard-working people, giving their all, would surely receive adequate compensation for their troubles.
About to reach the age of thirty, Siegfried was sure that his life would continue to be better and better.
That was until his fateful meeting with a female entire story would take not even three months, but would have great influence on his life.
To make it short:
Siegfried received a deep scar on his right arm, a permanent reminder that even the most beautiful faces were capable of evil deeds.
After the attack, his stalker had been hospitalized in a mental institution where she committed suicide two weeks later.
Investigations of the entire case confirmed that Siegfried was not to blame for the attack or suicide.
That was, at least from the point of view of the law.
After he returned to work, he soon noticed the changes.
While he had been entrusted with the most difficult cases in the past, now he received more and more of the annoying cases with only mediocre success probabilities and low gains.
Less capable colleagues received promotions he had to work towards for several years.
It took him quite some time and several hard earned favors, but then he learned the truth.
The manager responsible for all company branches in Lower Saxony—so also the Hanover branch Siegfried worked for—was a relative of his deceased stalker.
A relative that ignored the familiar and psychological problems she had since her childhood and that pushed all of the blame for her death and the following humiliation of her family on Siegfried.
Realizing that he had no future at his current post, Siegfried requested a transfer to a different branch.
With his skills and experiences, he would soon crawl out of any hole he could be thrown into.
All he had to do to succeed once again in his life, was to leave the immediate range of influence of this vengeful relative.
While looking at the heavy wooden door in front of him, Siegfried had to ask himself, what he had done to deserve this all.
On paper, it sounded like a promotion.
Siegfried Erler, former business and liaison consultant specialized in German-Empire cooperation projects, was to become the main contact person of the Reiksbund at the headquarters of the Army of Light.
He was to improve cooperation and coordination between the Army of Light and the Reiksbund in general, with emphasis on economic and public relations aspects.
It had only taken a single week for the normally comfortably slow German bureaucracy to judge him as capable and trustworthy enough, to submit him to a high speed seminar about the guidelines the German government and military expected him to establish in the imperial order, and to bring him to his new post here in Altdorf.
There had been so little time that Siegfried still didn't know if this had been a good or bad chain of events.
At least not until one of his unnamed instructors informed him about the events happening in the background.
The Army of Light had exceeded their authority by handing over a war plan to Kislev while forgetting to mention that this had been formulated without prior consultation of Germany or the Reiksbund.
Kislev seemed interested and had inquired additional information from the Reiksbund which caused a few sleepless nights in certain offices.
Eager to prevent such surprises in the future, the Army of Light was to receive a liaison officer as soon as possible.
Of course, Luthor Huss had been… displeased when he had been informed with the most diplomatically possible words that he was to accept such a liaison officer and that he had to share and discuss with him any information touching interests of the Reiksbund.
So knowing that nothing short of hell itself would await said officer in Altdorf, the government had searched for the right person to act as icebreaker.
And most likely that had been the time when his vengeful superior had heard about everything and began to advertise Siegfried´s past successes as best as he could so that he would be used as a stopgap.
The implications were clear to Siegfried.
He was to act as fall guy, receiving all the hate, reluctance and ignorance the Army of Light could muster.
And as soon as the storm would have weathered, the rightfully hated Siegfried would be replaced by a hand-picked and surely much more accommodating candidate that would take over everything he would have to sweat blood and tears to establish.
And as the heavy wooden door, leading to the headquarters of the Army of Light, was opened from the inside, Siegfried forgot to breath for a moment.
Really, what had he done to deserve all of this?
