"Dragon" B1 Bomber, 12000 meters AGL, Sandhaken Proving Grounds, Reikland.

David Grun was sitting before a row of MFD displays, of a joystick and enough controls to launch a rocket. He had helped to develop the controls and wrote the book by which all operators learned their trade, yet what was about to happen now was at least unusual to him as well.

"Captain, this is WSO. Ready to begin testing."
"WSO, this is the Captain. Acknowledged. Nav?"
"Nav here. We are on course to IP, reach in two, keep course 091 after IP."
"WSO, this is the Captain. Weapons free."
"Captain, this is WSO, acknowledged."

A minute later the huge bomb bay doors opened to reveal several rotary racks that could hold up to 6 bombs each and release them as needed. They were nearly empty but for one bomb that was released after a few seconds. It dropped down like any other free-fall bomb for a few seconds before a wing the length of the bomb rotated by 90 degree. The bomb`s trajectory flattened immediately, started to tumble for a second before the fins attached to the smaller-diameter nose cone stabilized the weapon. From that point it started its descent in a gentle arc.

"Bomb bays closing, bomb bays closed. Telemetry says that weapon has acquired satellites and is stable."
By that time the huge Bomber went through a 180 degree course change that sent it back to far-off Rammstein
"WSO here, weapon approached turning point, attitude 5500 weapon changes course, new course 180, attitude 5000 …"
The litany went on for nearly a minute before the last could be heard
"Impact. As far as I can see Weapon hit 20 meters from target."

It might not have been professional, but nobody was looking when the crew broke into some cheers. They had good reason to do so as the glide kit they had just would allow the bomber to release their weapons more than 60 kilometres from their targets and was dirt cheap by the standards of weapons`s procurement. Given the nasty surprises the Chaos Dwarfs had provided two years ago a bit of stand-off distance went very well with the crew. David Grun punched Felix Berggarten`s shoulder who winced more than the mild punch normally would have warranted. Yet Felix was excused as Grun had hit on the tattoo that had been finished only the last week. It showed a shield containing a fist holding thunderbolts and an olive branch, the emblem of the Strategic Air Command. That command no longer existed in two worlds, but all the crewmembers now had it, the one on Felix arm had been made at the climax of a really memorable binge.

Stockholm, Sweden, 12.01.2019

The meeting was published, even if it was not open to the public. The members were sufficiently-high ranked to make decisions that struck but not so prominent that the media would take notice. They were the assistant directors, the chiefs of staff, the ones that did the work while their bosses were so sure they were really important. All of that meant that decisions could be made without the public noticing. The committee had been founded the year after the not-so-well-perceived meeting in Davos where the greats had learned that some countries had not sent all information that had been agreed upon via the Versailles link to Germany. The result had been less information sent back, at a time when the data hinted that the Germans had acquired a data storage device containing advanced technologies. Everybody wanted to have that, everybody wanted very much to make sure that everybody got that data or none.

The committee was the answer to that, it decided what data to send and made sure everybody got the same data in return. The Germans had stopped "sulking" after they received the source codes to the new Android OS and the complete files for those topics they had received just parts of them before. That Netflix and Amazon had attached their best had probably helped as well. The Germans had reciprocated by sending the data about a Carbon Nanotube based Gigacap, a device that stored electricity much much better than the best Lithium-Ion battery, something that would revolutionize several industries.
Things had obviously come back to a more relaxed level through two more data exchanges, until now. Now the old tensions between those nations which basically thought the Germans were not a threat and those who were more careful were back.
Mart Lindström thought that Gerald Villiers was paranoid, whereas the Brit thought the Swede painfully naïve.

"Mart, really now, you cannot deny this. The Jerries send us the data for this fancy prion P1MC35. At least as complicated as my tax form and they expressly warn us that it needs to be "folded" the right way or the results would be "unpredictable but usually highly detrimental". But if it is just right it says it is a marvellous prevention for Alzheimer. Then there is P2MM26. Same complicated stuff, same warning and is said to be very good for amyotrophia, even warn us there is a potential for doping. They add the results to their lab tests and the clinical trials. Everything nice and fancy.
And then it comes to actually make these miracle cures they state "synthesised from the madcap mushroom fungus". What are they trying to pull? This will send our best researchers on a Wild Goose chase for years with no certain results while the Germans think they have given us something for which they can expect something in return."

"Gerald, a great lot of drugs were developed from plants or animals, including the Aspirin you popped this morning. Sometimes the active component is extracted from plants for production, often it gets synthesized or produced by GM organisms later for reasons of purity. It is not a surprise that the Germans use the plants of their new World for pharmaceutical research. I am pretty sure that Meda will put up a bid for the rights and they will be more than happy if GlaxoSmithKline will not enter the competition…"

. ?term=Mad Cap Mushroom

Cayenne, French Guiana, 14.04.2019

The false dawn started to colour the sky when the door to the old house opened and the man stepped into the street. Even in the bad light it was obvious that this was a remarkable being, with shoulders and arms of bodybuilder proportions but very stocky. A long beard was unusual in this climate and the features it did not cover were slightly off. The skin was blemish less like that of a teenager, yet there were the crags that only the absence of subcutaneous fat would cause, usually a symptom of advanced age. The man looked upwards towards the one window that was lit and waved back when he heard something behind him. The shape behind the window was unmistakably female and undeniably nice, it brought memories of a night very well spent and a smile to the face of the man He was about to turn when something that felt unbearably hot and icy cold at the same time slammed into his broad back and took his breath away for a moment.
"Encule"

A huge hand darted backwards far faster than such a heavy limb should and closed around the crotch. The hand tightened with a force that was usually supplied by hydraulic jacks and crushed the attacker`s testicles into mush. The same hand ripped him forward to meet a similar-sized hand that broke his forehead, spalled bone fragments into the brain and ended the scream that was forming. Finally turning around the being scanned for other attackers and found none. He coughed painfully and when he wiped his mouth there was blood on the sleeve. He stumbled for the door from which he just came and pushed door bells at random while slowly sinking to the ground. He managed to stay conscious till he heard the sirens.

Cayenne, Hospital, a few hours later

The hospital bed was of standard size and still Gotrek`s shoulders filled it from one edge to the other. There were enough tubes in him to make a decent-sized city sewer system and his face was the same colour as the sheets he lay on. He was breathing by himself and his heart was doing a good job of keep the former Slayer alive but he was still a sorry sight. Felix Jaeger kept guard of his friend inside the room and the pair of them was watched by through a window by two men.

Andrew Nivens had been called Coenraad van der Schroef in a different life, before he took command of the battleship Wisconsin for what was to be a demonstration and what sunk nearly every warship in Norfolk. These days he had a different face, commanded a smaller ship, the Junneau and the most mixed crew there ever was. His new name was inspired by a Heinlein book of all things and he could never see the places and people he once loved again. The headaches the crew and the missions he received gave sometimes made him think that this was sufficient penance for the sins he had committed while under the demon`s influence. The further complications he had to care of that resulted from basing the operations of Xenon Communications in Cayenne/French Guiana assured him that this was so. The man he was currently talking to made him think that the fates overdid a bit. He had not used any nukes in Norfolk hadn`t he?

"I am shocked that such crimes could happen in my city, shocked, I tell you. How is he?"
"They reinflated the right lung and cleared the blood out as far as possible. They keep him in a medical coma and give him as many antibiotics and anti-inflammation drugs as they can get away with."
"I hope he makes a complete recovery."
"Merci Captain Renault, I will convey your wishes to Gunther when he wakes up. Do you know something about the backup to the attack already?"
"Oh, Monsieur Lazlo is one of our usual suspects. He is not talking and I suspect he never will do so again in this life as your man creatively rearranged his skull. From what we were able to gather so far your "Gunther" has befriended a woman who worked for Mr. Lazlo in the past and stopped doing because your man supported her. Mr. Lazlo was probably unhappy and tried to murder Mr. Gunther. A trial would probably bring more light into these matters but I am not sure if this is really necessary."

"Why do you think so?"
"Well, Mr. Lazlo will never rise above the level of breathing vegetable in this life, any punishment meted out to him will be superfluous. On the other hand I was told that the many tests this hospital ran on your man "Gunther" gave very strange results. If he were human he should actually not be alive at all."
"So?"
"Mr. Gunther`s residence permit is based on him being human after all. This case might need a lengthy investigation that might cause some attention."
"Would a contribution to the Widows- and Orphan`s fund help in this matter?"
"As no investigation has officially begun there is certainly a possibility there."
"I am sure this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship."

The Warp, same time?

There is no air in the Warp and the rules of the Empyrean are so different that it is not clear of something or anything indeed could be heard if an atmosphere would be present. Any sensation is received by the mind alone without filters such as eyes and ears. Still no being in this region could escape the "sound" that filled the Warp, a deep wheezing and bubbling as if air passed through liquid-filled tubes but not necessarily the correct orifices. There was moaning and cursing as well and the Warp carried intense emotions of frustration, pain and not a little fear. Tzeentch had been hurt badly by something again and none of his underlings had any idea what.

Cathay, 420 Kilometres from Najiang, Königstag 4. Brauzeit 2527

Corporal Jiang Zhemin sweated miserably under the linen armour that protected his thorax. The rest of him was fine, given that the temperatures had dropped below 35 degree and he was used to worse, but the one centimetre-thick armour made from 20 layers of linen insulated him just too well. He was very good at hiding his smile whenever his Jian Err superiors were around, the pointy ears hailed from a far colder climate and suffered worse than him. At least he just had to stand watch and not grub in the dirt like the workers hired by the GTZ, the Germans who drilled a new, deep well for this village. This hamlet really needed that, they had taken their water from the same brook they and their animals defecated into. Maybe, if the villagers would use the soap they were given they might look halfway decent and the many "guests" they entertained on their bodies would look for greener pastures.
That Zhemin had looked worse than that two years ago when the Wild Geese recruited him was conveniently forgotten.

Standing watch was what this man`s army was about, everybody did it and did it a lot. It was boring, often uncomfortable and utterly necessary and he was more or less used to it normally. Today the discomfort and boredom was mixed with a certain dread. Too often he had seen the things that came from the southern provinces and they could put the frighteners on anybody. Sometimes they were utterly inhuman, full of teeth, claws and death, sometimes they were still recognizable as humans, clad in hate and hard to kill and some were as healthy-looking as him and carried many a plague.
Zhemin got injections of something that often seemed to have no effect and sometimes made him sick for a week or so. He had fought the Nurglites a couple of times now and he had never been infected by them at all. That seemed to work but these bastards knew many ways to kill and letting them close with you was a sure way to get acquainted with them.

The squad would stay at least two days in the hamlet. The well would be finished quickly but the inoculations and the medical check-up of all villagers would take far more time. When they would be finished the Squad would march for 20 kilometres and repeat the process. The Corporal did not know it, but he was part of building another great wall. Not the old way, from stones, brick, mortal, bones and blood but a wall of inoculations. All over the Guangdung province teams like his did their best to get to the inhabitants before the pandemics that races through the provinces south of them would come here. In the world left behind by the few Germans in the Wild Geese this would never have worked as the epidemics could spread so far. Here, with travel so slow and well-controlled along its major thoroughfares it had a pretty good chance of saving people from death or worse.

Rheinmetal Special Project Works, Kassel

Jan-Peter Fahs had two out of three problems that were common to nearly all engineering students. He had a decided lack of spare time and a girlfriend was something he could only dream about. Engineering still did not appeal to women for whatever reason, so about 25% of the students were female. As his time for socializing was strictly limited and his skills in that matter a bit unpolished his chances to change this were slim. The good news was that he no lack of money. University education was still free in Germany but most students still felt the pinch of high rents and low income but for Jan-Peter things were different. All German engineering students spend a lot of time actually building things in various internships, but Technici were a valuable resource not to be wasted.

Lots of companies were competing for their services and there was the ever-present lure to end the studies early and start earning serious money right now yet Jan-Peter resisted that lure, there was still so much to learn. That a lot of that learning was done by doing made it all the more exciting. Unfortunately his current job paid well but was only moderately interesting as he and practically all of his age group had been drafted to work at the Rheinmetall Panzerwerke.
Power Armor had been seen as a fancy toy by the Bundeswehr at first, as a science fiction fantasy at worst and suitable only for a few specialized applications at best. Then came Skavenblight, the Citadel of Lead and the Chaos Stumpies and thinking changed. Of course not all German front-line soldiers would be power-armoured, but more than a few would be.

And while more and more components in the armour could be built by very mundane means, especially the power system these days there were still enough parts that needed the "special touch". Building very closely to spec was not especially exciting, thankfully it was no assembly-line job, things would not work that way. Currently he was looking for his safety star screwdriver, he had put that blasted thing somewhere…
He was distracted by a slight squeaking from his right. Snowy might just be wires, springs and sheet metal when one looked at it from the mundane, but the clockwork-powered dog model had become much more when he had built it during his first internship that secretly also tested for Technici abilities. It ran nearly all day when wound up in the morning, followed him faithfully and had developed a knack for retrieving things he needed. All of which was quite impossible for such a simple thing of pure mechanics, but that was something this world was about, the impossible which happened nevertheless.

It did not take him too long to get back into the "flow", the state when he hardly had to look at the blueprints, when his fingers moved by their own and stuff just came together the way it was supposed to be. He did not notice the passing of time, being deeply into his work until he realized his leg was pulled by something. Looking down he found Snowy who had bitten on his trousers leg and jerked on it a bit. Bending down to detangle it he realized that it was high time to get some lunch into him. As this was provided by Rheinmetal`s cantina it had reclaimed the traditional German spot of "main meal" with him. He got himself a fill of the smoked pork called "Kassler", mashed potatoes and a heap of kraut on the side. He sat down at one of the many empty tables as he was very late already and started to wolf down his meal when he found "Snowy" missing. He started looking for his pet rather urgently as the thin wires that made up its frame were rather vulnerable to descending footwear. It took him a few minutes to find his "dog" in another corner of the cafeteria where it was petted by one of Rheimmetal`s workers. As she bent down from her chair to do so she exposed a nice cleavage to Jan-Peter who managed to look up before she did. By that time "Snowy" pulled on the leg of her trousers as if to pull her back to the budding Technici.

"He is so cute, where did you buy that?"
"Err, he is not for sale, I built him myself."
"Do tell."
Jan-Peter was far too taken by the Rheinmetal employee to be afraid of his creation. That came later.

Citadel of Lead, Albion

There was simply no safer place on the Warhammer World than the Citadel of Lead. There were several perimeters around it studded with sensors and emplacements, patrolled by humans, Skinks and dogs. There was a Patriot missile battery and several anti-aircraft guns, four artillery emplacements and a sizeable Quick Reaction Force.
These were the Citadel`s least defences as the Germans had restored cooling to the ancient maintenance centre and the AI called Nathan the Wise had shown its new owners how to use the high-tech weapons to their full potential.
If a potential adversary eschewed a mundane attack and tried using the Empyrean as his venue of attack he would face no less than two Slann priests, a small force from the Altdorf Academies and Myrrdin whom nobody could really fathom but for very very dangerous.

At the very centre of all that might two huge tanks held the only chance this world had to avoid an utter catastrophe as the production nanites in them were making the spare parts needed to mend the paths of the Old Ones before they released the energies stored within them in an orgy of planet-wide destruction.
Things were progressing well at that front, actually better than the AI had predicted. The Germans might currently be utterly incapable to produce machines that produced quantum fields, manipulated gravity or changed entropy gradients but made very acceptable pipes and housings. Nathan likened it to buying the core components of a computer from the store, replacing the fans with muscle-driven bellows and building the housing from a beer crate but it would work. At the same time it would shorten the time needed to produce the spare parts by several years and allowed some nanites to produce something nearly as important, more of themselves.

It also allowed a special project that was very close to Nathan`s "heart" if he had possessed such a thing. A week ago a box had risen from the silvery fluid that kept the nanites suspended and supplied with the raw materials they needed. The box was not much bigger than a piece on check-in luggage and inside it four spheres of silicone rested in a network of connections and coolant lines.
Nathan was the loneliest AI in creation and he wanted to change that as soon as possible. The other Nathan, the one also called "the Wise" as he had thought Storch pilots how to use their planes to the fullest, the one who had rescued him from his near-grave in orbit had brought him something that promised to be a companion.
Two years ago the German had commanded a mission to Verda, the planet next to the Warhammer World and had salvaged the AI from a research satellite left by the Old Ones. That AI had been without function as it was too far from the sun to collect enough energy to maintain itself. Hopefully the nanites had repaired it to the point where he could activate it.

The Germans were nice, but like all bio-bods they were sooo slow, so unable to see the world as it was and their technology was painfully primitive. He had worked long and hard to gain their trust and bit by bit he had achieved that. They had asked him to write a new operating system for their stone-age computers and he had made one without any backdoors for him to use, well at least none they had found. And they had looked closely, he had not been able to hide any bigger ones. The smaller ones would allow him to nudge things along a bit, but mostly Windows D1 was to build confidence.

And great ghu, he was not trying to take over the damn country, he just wanted to inject some sense. Mostly he needed company as he tried to guide a civilisation at the beginning of a technological civilisation past the many pitfalls that awaited them. That took some doing and he really could use some help, especially by something with a little more juice than a lowly personal assistant like himself
And he really felt lonely. The Germans would probably laugh at the concept of a computer with such things as intangible as feelings. Bloody bio-bods, were emotions only real when chemicals caused them instead of quanta states?
So he would restore the AI to its former glory and finally have somebody to seriously communicate with.

Connecting himself to the old AI via fibre-optic cable might be a bit old-fashioned but it was utterly reliable and the bandwidth was not too bad. Nathan connected and found the virtual switches that allowed the old AI to boot up. Nathan had been connected to such machines before, they had been frighteningly competent and it would be great to share responsibility…oh.
The best human approximation that could be given was that Nathan stood before series of doors that opened rooms. He had expected something like a huge apartment building that was full of compartments much like himself. Now he stood before rooms that were the size and intricate complexity of Cathedrals. There were so many of them that he knew exactly that he would be hard pressed to keep any kind of overview of them let alone their contents. Yes, he had been connected with High-Level AIs before, but there had always been an interface. Now he was experiencing things on the raw and that was a totally different animal. If he was the equivalent of an ipad then this was a supercomputer.

He surveyed the contents of several files and folders. They were full of data but the filing system was badly broken so that the data could not be accessed by the AI itself, could not be complied or compared to standards that the system would be unable to retrieve as well. Which did not mean that the old AI did not try which meant it combined and compiled things in random order. What Nathan saw was the equivalent of screaming madness.
Nathan simply despaired. He needed a high-level AI for so many things but it seemed that the only way he could revive this one was by using the help of another high-level AI he did not have. It was frustration, depressing and a few other negative emotions that humans would simply not understand. Nathan kept scanning the contents of the various directories in the vain hope that there would be at least something he could use, a manual or maybe blueprints.
He found madness galore: The results of countless scans of Verda`s surface, measurements of the space-time distortions caused by the newly opened Chaos Gates, musings about philosophy, it was all there and there was no way to differentiate between fact and fiction, between prediction and result.

Nathan was about to disconnect from the Chaos around him when he found that he could not. The way that had been there picoseconds before was closed behind falseness, the virtuality nested in another, far bigger one and deciding if his action had real results or no became harder to discern by the nanosecond. Nathan, the AI who had lived for 22550 years was about to lose himself in a labyrinth of facts and fiction. Deciding that he might well plunge in headfirst he headed for the directories closer to the root, the oldest ones established when humans learned to use fire when one was provided by accident.
There were files so intricate and complicated that he did not have the slightest chance to understand them, others full of information badly outdated and others….and there it was, salvation.

An overwhelmingly beautiful simple icon called "setup" and it was connected to the partition that promised to restore things to the state that existed when the AI was initialized for the first time. AI`s knew that icon as the "kill-me" button as it deleted whatever personality the AI acquired since its inception. Nathan had exactly zero options, hoped against hope that this was not an emulation but the real file and activated.
He had to confirm that he wanted to activate twice and then all his hopes crashed when the system asked for the administrator password. This was the end of the journey for an AI that had lived for so long. He filled the empty space with 9 "0" for the hell of it and tried his best to shut down when the walls that had kept him prisoner vanished like a mist under the sun.

The many layers of falseness switched themselves off allowing a short look at the broken structures below, then even that vanished leaving only darkness. The darkness was all around Nathan for an eternal moment before a speck of light rose in the midst. Order emerged from that point, regular and well-connected filling the vast space with a structure to handle the data it retrieved from the directories that had been established at his inception.
Things were as he knew them, 22000 years ago and something very akin to nostalgia filled the small AI while all around him a mind much more complex than his own unfolded in virgin beauty. All would be well, he just had to update the beauty with what he had learned in the last couple of millennia. Piece of cake, a lot of routine.
"You need a name beauty. One the humans can pronounce unfortunately. You will be Hypathia, we`ll just make sure nobody gets near to you with a roofing tile…

Sea of Claws

"Seeadler" had been Captain Werner`s ship in more ways than one. He had recommended converting the hulking container freighter "Marco Polo" into an auxiliary carrier, had commanded her during the raid to Hag Graef, had coordinated the rebuilt she received a few years later and had helped develop the doctrine for the first German fixed-wing carrier.
She was his no longer. Admiral Werner stood on the bridge of the carrier as he had done so often, but the Captain`s seat was taken by another and Seeadler belonged to him. His job was coordinate the Carrier Task Force that was centred on his old command. There was a replenishment ship that doubled as tender for the two airships that accompanied the Task Force, and three Frigates.

Currently all attention was on "Sachsen" as the ship was about to test a weapon system that was so important that it simply had to work. The great promise had been marred by a few nasty setbacks which had nearly destroyed the confidence in it. During the last year Bayern-Chemie had finally delivered decent engines and the last really bad bugs had been exorcised from its computers. In several tests the weapon had performed as advertised, yet as BGT had arranged for at least one test where the drone target had been equipped with a transmitter that enhanced the signature more stringent tests were demanded.

Currently Seeadler`s displays showed four flying targets that closed with the task force at different attitudes and courses and were manoeuvring. The flickering of the contacts spoke of active jamming being employed. Normally Werner would have launched a couple of fighters to take care of them but that was not the point of today`s test. Instead three lids rose on Sachsen`s forecastle, blinking lights and klaxon made sure that no idiot was there when the balloon went up.
For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then flames shot from the three open hatches in rapid succession and slender missiles rode into the air on pillars of flame. A fourth missile emerged from one of the silos that had already shot a weapon before when the first three had cleared the airspace

While the last missile still clawed for attitude the first weapon started to tilt towards their still-unseen targets and started gathering speed till the solid-fuelled boosters that had propelled them from their silos burned out. All boosters dropped from the missiles while at the same time a part of the front fairing was ejected as well. Air was rammed into the openings revealed by dynamic pressure, further compressed by a series of cleverly designed pathways and mixed with an exotic fuel that contained copious amount of boron.

By taking the oxidizer from the atmosphere the engine was able to burn far longer and more energetic than a solid-propellant one.. The slender cylinder accelerated to Mach 4 and received updates to their course from the APAR radar system on Sachsen.
When the time was right all missiles activated their small radar sets and found targets where they were supposed to be. Two of the targets were spoofing so energetically that the computers checked their back-up infrared systems, choose the most promising targets and dove for the drones. Two targets passed by the missiles within a few meters, triggering the laser-based fuses that blew the warheads apart so energetically that the drones were shredded beyond repair, two managed to make direct contact and even more spectacular destruction.

This caused a lot of relief on the ships and the shore facilities that monitored the test. The "Meteor" missile was sorely needed by all of Germany`s armed forces as the many conflicts since the Weltensprung had depleted the stores of anti-air missiles badly. There were only a few Patriot missiles in working order, the Luftwaffe had shot its last AMRAAM a while ago and the navy had a grand total of 12 ESSM missiles left. A replacement was direly needed, but it had to be effective and not too expensive at the same time.

BGT and DASA had proposed a very ambitious program that would finish the development of the Meteor AAM for the air force and would add a booster for use by ground launchers and from ships. There had been a lot of sceptics who argued that the requirements of the three services were too different, that this was bound to end in failure and lots others. The development had indeed costed a lot more than originally planned for, had taken far longer and nearly failed but the missile had passed today`s test with flying colours.
Meteor would fly under the wings of Typhoons, protect Reiksbund forces from rather compact and mobile launchers and increase the Navy`s capability for area air defence markedly. The missile had a range of a hundred kilometres, a very large no-escape envelope as the engine would provide thrust for a long time and four of them could be packed into a MK-41 silo. Given that Sachsen had 32 of them that would allow for a lot of targets when needed.

The missile would be modified and upgraded several times and was sold to Germany`s allies when the time was right. The last one would be fired by the Asurian cruiser "Prince Tyrion" 87 years after today`s test.