Leviathan Bridge

Raimund Scheer found that following this part of the battle was the bigger challenge. The Flugscheiben had shown up well enough on radar and he had an idea about their number and approach. Some of the demons inbound were large enough to do the same, many were probably not. The Druchii gunners could see pretty well at night and there were NVG's for those crews who did not. What was undeniable was that the heavy shells explosions were coming ever closer and that the light guns lifted their barrels higher and higher. Whatever wanted his ass so badly was coming closer by the minute. And like any other sailor since about forever Raimund Scheer had to trust in his crew to save them all.

There was a divine moment when the tracer lines crossed before the ship and he briefly saw one demon after the other fall from the sky. It could not last and several of them managed to slip through everything the mercenaries could throw at them. Behind a swarm of smaller beings, often not much taller than a human, a few giants set down. Even at this distance there was something about them that caught Scheer's gaze and riveted it when so many different things needed his attention. The sudden silence that was nearly as overwhelming as the gun's clamor before went unnoticed when he was taken by the eldritch beauty of the huge demon that had landed in the landing field's midst.

The hammering that reached his ears was an annoyance at first, the rattle of a heavy machine gun rose him from the stupor. The Wild Geese had mounted a couple of these things at various places. Leviathan's captain gained a new appreciation of the wisdom "There is never enough firepower" when they opened fire on the demons that had landed. At the same time he saw the crew of a light AA emplacement desperately trying to remove the interlock plate that normally kept them from shooting up their own ship. Now it kept them from killing those demons. Scheer suspected that they would have ended that battle then and there, but before the crew received a sledgehammer or a cutting torch they were unlikely to succeed any time soon.

He had to watch helplessly when the demons overran two 105 mm emplacements in a wave of corpses. He was more than happy that he was so far away that he could not make out details of what Shaanesh's creatures did to the gun crews. Even more worryingly a group them, including the largest of them, made for the large ramp that connected Leviathan's hangar to the landing deck. If these things got inside his ship they could do untold damage.

He picked the phone handle before him up and turned the crank a couple of times to ring the operator.
"Switchboard, this is the Captain. Give me General Böhler, now."
"General Böhler Captain, right away."

After a silence that lasted a few seconds and felt much longer the phone crackled again.

"Böhler here."
"General, this is the captain. We have boarders on the flight deck, about to gain entrance into the hangar. I suggest you stop that nonsense right away."
"Working on it Captain. Have your men don the smoke hoods now."
"What…."

Leviathan, landing deck

The Bronze King's landed with a crash and his claws ripped into the ice below. There was something frozen into it that made the ice less slippery and provided sensations that he had not sampled before. A mild pleasure, but for somebody who resided in the Empyrean rare enough to be savored. The new sensations, the blessed absence of the guns and the promise of the feast to come masked the horror of having lost so many members of his warband.

He saw some of his flock exact their revenge on the crews of the nearby guns, saw others run across the ice field. Many of the latter came under fire of something else, something that made muzzle flashes, but left no glowing trail. Nevertheless, it ejected its victims into the warp and not in a good way. This was not where salvation lay, it was in the large, dark opening that was at the edge of the deck, not so far from where he stood. For mortals this might be an ominously dark opening, ready to swallow him whole. For a favored of Slaanesh it might have been bright daylight and he saw a wooden door divided into segments. His minions would break that open in a moment and if they could not do so, he certainly would have no problems.

His shout was loud and musical, showed no strain and inspired his flock.
"Into the shaft my Children. Go below and feast on those inside. Your desires be your only guide."

He saw most of his warband follow his orders and suspected that those who did not would not be long for the world. Following his own advice his powerful legs propelled him towards the weak spot in the enemy's defenses. His warband had been much reduced, still lots and lots of beings flocked to the beckoning safety of the ship's interior. The Prince of Pleasure himself had promised him that the long-range weapons of the crew would not count for much and he would have free reign to use the mortals as he saw fit. At short range many mortals were actually unable to fight him and his minions at all, being in thrall of their beauty. The many bodies that ran, slithered or danced towards the ramp were certainly enough to take the target.

Something caught his eye, a widening gap of light that appeared in the door's middle. It was the first warning that the mortals were not passively waiting for Slaanesh's chosen to attack. Or were they already succumbing to the Prince's allure? The light that shined through the quickly widening gap revealed some dark shapes backlit by whatever illuminated the space behind that door. One of those shapes was huge and moving sinuously. His mind was still trying to parse what he saw when the door was finally open and the shadow stormed up the ramp. A deafening, evil hiss heralded the dragon's charge and the poisonous cloud swallowed a clutch of his minions whole.

Leviathan Bridge

Leviathan's captain could but watch in awe when the Wild Geese's lone dragon emerged from the hangar. He had heard it had been with the mercenaries nearly since their founding. It had been an important asset back then, providing reconnaissance and air support. The mad arms race that held this world hostage ever since the Germans had entered it had relegated it to rear echelon duties like artillery spotting and aerial taxi. Against any enemy armed with rifles and machine guns it was far too vulnerable. The thought of sending it to attack DawiZharr dreadnoughts or Flugscheiben was ludicrous.

There was nothing quaint or antiquated about the beast that emerged from Leviathan's hangar. It was huge, clad in hard scale, and possessed claws as long as a sword and teeth the size of daggers. It breathed a deadly poison on its victims and ripped any who survived that apart like they were made from paper. Scheer spotted two beings on the dragon's back. One was probably its rider, Yerena something, the other might well be that witch Hellebane. Whoever it was, he or she flung black lighting about as an angry god. The demons who had been about to overrun the landing deck and gain entrance into his ship fled like frightened children.

Not all of them did though. Some seemed to scrape by on the Dragon's flanks, the bigger ones turned towards the magnificent beast and charged.

Leviathan, landing deck

The Bronze King rejoiced in the scene before him. Such a delightful challenge by a beautiful Dragon. The rider fitted the image, as dangerously beautiful as only a Druchii could be. The witch behind her had to go, she spoiled the picture. And the Black Dragon was such an enticing sight, all scales and claws, all sinuous body and graceful movements. As all of its kind it was imbued in magic and that made its attacks all the more dangerous to creatures of the Empyrean such as the Bronze King.

The beast was in motion, any part of it dangerous, ruling the battle as it should. Its tail crushed a demon in a single stroke, its forelimb hammered against the chest of another, driving four claws through the mighty chest. The witch screamed something that went through bodies and mind, it killed at least two spells at the same time before they could harm the Dragon. Most of his warband attacked the beast from all sides. They were crushed under the heavy feet, pierced by claws or ended in a mouth that would swallow the largest parts of them before biting the rest off. They did not go down without a struggle though, managed to stab or slash their weapons at the Dragon at least once. Some weapons did not pierce the hard scales, but he had chosen and trained his people well. A sabre slid between two scales and cut into a muscle here. A spear went into a haunch and stuck fast, just to be ignored. A masterful sword strike severed a blood vessel, causing steaming black blood to spurt forward from the cut.

The Bronze King stood back and watched. A mortal would not have been able to perceive what he easily saw, would not have been able to parse the information he gathered at the cost of his people. The King was a chosen of the Prince of Pleasure, perceiving things was at the very core of his being. He saw where the great muscles started and ended, he saw the gaps between the armored scales that opened when the Dragon moved here and there. He saw where the leg with the spear in it moved slower than its counterpart and where the Dragon's eyes would not reach. He meditated for an eternal second before moving far faster than anything as huge as he was should be capable of.

His whip struck the huge head on the one side, slashing a cruel metal end right at the Dragon's eye. It brought a shriek that stopped anything and everybody but for the beast and the demon. And while the head moved away from the terrible pain and the loss of vision the Bronze King lunged forward on the other side and struck at the leg before him. No mortal could have gotten his sword into the exact spot on a fast moving target, he bypassed the beast's armor with ease and severed a tendon before pulling his sword out.

He had jumped back before the Dragon could even feel the pain of the wound. That was a good thing as the beast nearly fell on its side when it put its weight on it and the clawed foot would no longer move as intended. The Dragon did not fall, it and its rider were too good for that. That was all right with the Bronze King, the kill would have been too fast. His whip went out again, going for that witch, but a wing was in the way before it could connect.

The Bronze King jumped forward and landed in a roll that made him face the other side of the Dragon. The beast's sinuous neck coiled to the other side, ready to poison the place where the demon had been a second before. The King pushed his sword into the other forelimb, but had to jump when the claws of the hind legs came close to him. He somersaulted up, landing on the Dragon's back and looked for the witch to kill. He did not find her, but the Dragon's rider shot him with a huge handgun. It should not have hurt that much, this was a mundane weapon and he a Duke of the Empyrean, but it did. He had to move again, and quickly, to avoid the tail that nearly got him. He went down on the flank that he had just vacated and stepped under the beast's belly. He slashed upwards and then jumped before steaming entails could bury him. Now he had really hurt that Dragon, now he could decide how much pain he wanted to dispense before finishing it off.

A fast roll forward led to a jump that brought him half way up the beast and allowed him to stick his sword between armored scales so that it pierced a nerve bundle that served the left wing. The appendage started to spasm violently and desperation mingled with the Dragon's scream of pain. Something thundered close to his ears and something else whistled by far too close for comfort. Aesthetically pleasing violence was close to the King's heart, but he had to lead the remains of his warband to victory. Ducking under the beast's belly again he used the paralyzed leg to propel himself up. The desperation on the Dragon rider's face was so delicious. He used the momentum of the jump to drive his sword through the beast's upper flank right into the heart. No mortal was able to perceive it, but he could feel the organ stopping after centuries of service. Combined with the rider's horror and the witch's attempts to escape his wrath it was an incredible sensation, one he would cherish as long as he lived.

It was such an intense moment that he stood still and missed the Dragon's last act of defiance. The muscular tail whipped around with incredible speed and hit the Bronze King right in his huge chest. Several spikes pierced him deep, but not so deep as to kill him instantly. The momentum carried him from the dead beast's back and hammered him against the ship's huge bridge.
He was too stunned to free himself instantly and from the look of things this might take a minute. And so the demon had to watch as the Dragon's rider undid her straps and walked across the corpse's back towards him. She did not stumble, walked as if she had no hurry, and her face could have been carved from ice. She stopped a few meters before the Bronze King and lifted a handgun till it aimed right at the Slaaneshi demon's perfect face.

She did not even speak when she pulled the trigger and the muzzle flash and blast was the last sensation the Bronze King had in this world. Since his mind had anchored itself in the mundane body's brain that was destroyed rather thoroughly the emergence in the warp was neither an easy nor happy one. Laesydra's fall had been earlier and her mind had been whole when she made it back into the Empyrean. She recovered far faster and better than the Bronze King and took full advantage of it. The King had long been close to the top of the Warp's food chain and might have forgotten how the horrors he regularly inflicted on his underlings felt on the receiving side. Oh how Laesydra relished reminding him.

Leviathan, corridor B14, leading to the officer's living quarters

Areta Bane raced down the corridor at breakneck speed. Tactically speaking this was a fool's move, something she was painfully aware of. Dangerous or no, Hua was in the quarters at the end of that corridor. She had heard that some of the smaller demons made their way down there. The guard's bodies at its entrance bore mute testimony to the veracity of those reports. She did her level best to keep the desperation from overwhelming her and managed to keep her new weapon before her. She raced around the next bend and promptly collided with the first demon. It was strangely beautiful, despite being made up from what should be disparate parts. An androgynous body would entice all genders and tastes, the face promising pleasures of all kind. A pincer that replaced the left hand an indication of the not so petit mort at the end of any encounter.

The frightening beauty was enhanced in strange ways by the thin cover of hoarfrost. Areta could study the demon's beauty at leisure as it was frozen in place, as were its companions. She walked down the long row of murderous beauties, frozen in place and stared with an open mouth and a heart that was on its way of beating normally. She found the Ice Witch sitting on the ground at the entrance to the living quarters. Valera looked as pale as her victims and breathed hard.
She looked up when Areta approached her. Her voice was hoarse and close to a whisper.
"You can tell Jacub that Meissen's potion has its uses, will ya?"

Areta was still searching for an answer when the witch quietly dropped on her side, breathing shallowly.

Leviathan, Hartmut Klawitter's office, half an hour later

Yerena's words were clear even when her voice was slightly too shrill.
"What a way to go, could not wish for a better one. That bloody Dragon gave a good fight, didn't he? Saved quite a few of us I wager. Good for it, it started getting useless in this bright new world. Would not have killed it myself and it was too dangerous to sell, but now I can learn to fly like you do Hartmut. The new way, the powerful way, the way that counts. You will accept me into that flying school Hartmut? I can still learn how to fly your way, I promise I can…"

Hartmut Klawitter made sure that the door to his office was indeed closed before he embraced Yerena without saying a word. She went stiff for the briefest of moments before her body shuddered with the sobs. The pilot held her for a long time.

120 Kilometers before Naggarond, 4 AM. Markttag 3. Nachhexen

Mordred no longer chipper and fresh, he showed the signs of being abused to his very limits and beyond. He would use his powers to heal himself up, but there was a lot to be done inside and out. He just could not bring the will to spend the effort, not right now. Several of his liege's subordinates had lent him considerable resources. They expected returns on them, either in favors with the Prince of Pleasure or souls that screamed their name. Mordred's plan had failed, and so they received neither while losing what had been theirs. They found that Slaanesh withdrew his protection from his Avatar for a limited time and they had taken their frustrations out on Mordred.

He would remember that time for all time, painful memories, a couple tattoos and piercings that had glowed when they had been set made sure of that. The Prince expected him to do better and he was more than motivated to do so. Unfortunately that had just gotten a lot more difficult. He had hatched a plan in case the direct assault on the enemy failed. It was intricate and relied on manipulating the enemy into doing what needed to be done. Only the fools and the desperate relied on such plans. The last hours showed him that failure was not an option.

Biontech Facility, Mainz, Germany

Özlem Türeci's car slowed by itself to a stop before the rising bollard, which was a good thing. It was rated to stop a fully loaded 40-ton truck, let alone a 2.5 ton Mercedes EQS, even the armored version she drove. She pointedly ignored the twin 20 mm gun mount that aimed a meter before her car and tried her best not to think of the flame thrower that was not visible, but part of the armored cabin to the left of the parking garage's entrance. She rolled down the driver's side window when a robot arm approached her and aimed a camera inside her car. Özlem extended her hand without prompting and flinched only minimally when it extracted a drop of blood. It took the machine only a few seconds to decide it was really her, seconds she used to remind herself of today's password. She thought twice about it as there was a very similar one she could use if threatened. She would still be allowed to enter the garage, but what would have followed would at the very least be embarrassing and expensive if she chose the wrong one.

Finally the bollard lowered itself and her car would drive her to her parking space. Before she entered the building proper Türeci made sure that her wards were inside their waterproof sheaths. One was directly from Shallya's temple in Couronne, one given to her by Teclis himself. It would be a shame if the disinfection would damage them. She made it through two airtight locks before entering her own office space and started her computer terminal. Things were looking good with the tests for the 2536 second quarter inoculation. The mRNA vaccines BinoNtech specialized in were wonderfully adaptable to any new virus Nurgle could cook up. There were lots of teams about who tried to catch the Plague Lord's newest creations before they could infect too many. That his creations were always at least slightly magical helped immensely. Her company's job was to identify parts of their protein sheath that were unique and modify the mRNA so that they were produced by the patient's own cells. The immune system would then be able to fight them much, much better than without such a prompter. As the general vaccine was accepted, certifying this half-year's variant was far faster than doing it for a completely new one.

Nurgle hated this place with a vengeance and tried his best to eradicate it. He had sent demons and tried humans who worshipped him on a regular basis. So far the security measures the government had insisted on had prevented all of these. Türeci could just hope this would remain so. Having earned the personal enmity of the oldest Chaos god was a frightening concept and a badge of high honor at the same time.

Bessemer Str. Berlin, Bäckertag 5. Nachhexen

The brick building hinted at a Gründerzeit industrial past, the graffiti at its status in a low-rent industrial zone. Nothing had been produced inside these rooms for quite some time, but that had not meant they had not been busy. The last owner of the rooms had quite an active club in there before moving to new premises. Andrea Hermanns could just hope that nobody would connect these premises with what she and her people tried to achieve, it might give the wrong message. Still, she could not say no to facilities offered free of charge, especially when they came with first rate internet access.

The motto of the place was still to be found in the lobby.
"Do what you want, but communicate."
It had been meant for very different circumstances, but it fit what she and her team tried to do.

Her team

This was something that still gave Andrea pause when she thought about it. How could a couple of passionate posts in StudiVZ and her twitter account which hardly had a few hundred followers last year cause such a stir? Well, they had, and so she had very little time to consider the why and had to concentrate on the "what now."

She made her way past the bouncer that had shown up one morning to keep the door and entered the main room. If there were any remnants of the club's past they were now hidden behind a ton of monitors, server racks, posters, desks and whatnot. There were people in there, of all genders, most walks of life and all busy. And while the old hall contained a multitude, these were the visible part of the iceberg.

The other part, the one that would make or break Andrea's campaign was at home or in an office, using a smartphone, a laptop, or was simply talking to friends and colleagues. They were the ones that reached out and tried to convince their fellow Germans that their blood and coin should be spent to rescue strangers in a far-away land. The part of the team that was in this room made sure that they had a message to spread, posted on DeinVideo and reigned those in who wanted to spread something very different in their name.

Andrea Hermanns had started something huge and it started making waves, so much that the political part of Berlin Berlin sat up and took notice. So far not even the SPD had officially taken up her cause, but smiled on it. Olaf Scholz's reptile fund had provided some seed money, the cause ran on donations by now.

She was on her way to her desk when Heiko Back intercepted her. Heiko was a bit younger than Andrea and looked ridiculous, at least by her standards. Given the reactions of other volunteers and some of their comments she was obviously behind the curve on the most recent fashion and trends. His hair was long, combed to one side and bleached white which could not do it any favors in the long run. Heiko's skin was rather pale and any imperfections hidden under a layer of discrete makeup. His clothes were deceptively casual and had, like the rest of him, a hint of elven inspiration. There was a slight reek of a weed imported from Athel Loren that was all the rage and presumably improved inspiration.

It was easy to dismiss Back as a fop, if not for the fact that he earned quite the salary at "Zum goldenen Hirschen". Despite its name the latter was a top-notch promotions agency and Heiko one of their leading social media experts. What he was doing here was anybody's best guess, but he surely was effective.
His voice was held his native Ruhr Valley accent, and did not try to have an elaborate timbre, something that indicated how deeply he was in thought.

"Hi Andrea, good thing that I caught you now. You have to explain something to Anja, I cannot sell this right. Maybe it is a woman thing or I did get off the wrong foot when I mentioned target demographics. No matter, I need a face."
Andrea Hermanns shook her head as if trying to clear water from her ears.
"You need a what?"
"See, it is like this: Right now, we have the attention, we have so many clicks, so many likes that it is ridiculous. But we have that for only a few days if we do not deliver something to hold that attention. We need to get some action, yes, but that is not in short supply in this world. We need a figure for the viewers to identify themselves with, someone they commiserate with. Someone they care for."

Andrea's answer showed that she also did not understand what Heiko needed.
"Err isn't Anja right for that?"
"Oh she is a looker and she has a good voice. But she is very, very intense, and you can feel she is strong. She gives off these Joan of Arc on steroids vibes, the saint without the naivety. I have her role pegged, but I need a small sister to protect from the evil Spitzohren. People cannot identify with Anja, she is beautiful, brilliant and strong, and most people are not. We need something fluffier than that."
"Sure about that?"
"On old Earth, which animal protection movement got more attention: Tigers or seal cubs? A tigress we have, now we need a seal cub. So can you please ask Neustadt for a couple of those? Your next VC is in 30 minutes if I remember correctly."
Andrea Hermanns straightened up and gave a mock bow
"A couple of seal cubs coming up, extra fluffy, oh great wizard of the likes."

Ice Carrier Leviathan, 20 kilometers before Karond Kar, midnight

The great ship was just making headway against a moderate wind, a brilliant field of stars and a huge Mannslieb illuminating the black vastness of the ocean. Leviathan's deck showed patches where the resident ice mage had smoothed over the damage of the last battle. The huge deck was empty save for a single plane and the crew needed to launch it. They seemed inconsequential and lost against such a vast background, they were not. For a moment the crew stopped fussing about the plane and stood still, then the carrier's lights went out, save for a very, very few ones.

Xune Deathstroke's eyes adapted quickly to the increased darkness. A human would have had problems making out the ramp needed forthe launch. And if he had managed to launch, he would quickly lose his bearings in the darkness. Xune was Druchii and far superior in that regard. He could use the little light there was to navigate the darkness, with or without the "blind flying" instruments that the humans insisted were necessary to fly at night. Some of them might be willing to try, but a few clouds at an inopportune time or some fog would undo them.

The crewman with the paddles lifted both straight up to gain his attention and Xune saluted to confirm. He revved the engine up high and increased the pressure on the brakes. When the paddles dropped for the third time he released them and changed the propeller pitch. The plane was lightly loaded and accelerated towards the dim light at the other end of the carrier like a sports car. The Druchii pilot barely looked at the pitot, speed would definitively be enough and it was far more important to hit the ramp head-on. He managed that well enough and the ramp pushed him towards the beckoning stars. Xune pushed the plane down a bit to gain speed and turned to right as soon as the plane would not stall from the maneuver. Not doing so temped the gods to drop the plane right in front of the carrier which would certainly not stop in time.

The Druchii pilot circled the carrier a couple of times, gaining altitude all the time, till his instruments told him he was high enough. Only then did he turn towards Karond Kar. He had to trust his instruments and the newly-mounted camera to show him the way. Ever since the carrier had arrived in the city's waters all lights had been extinguished, probably to deny the mercenaries easy navigation. Looking at his GPS receiver Xune smiled at that notion.

He looked at the short, hand-written checklist affixed to his dashboard and followed the steps one by one. He released the contents of a liquid-nitrogen filled bottle into a compartment that cooled the infrared camera inside markedly. When it had time to do its job, he pushed a couple of buttons and before long the glowing TFT before him ceased to display navigational data. Instead, a black-and-white picture of the ground below Xune appeared on the monitor. Even to his eyes the darkness below was bereft of details and features. Nothing escaped the Pursuit Specials infrared camera though and anything that gave off heat showed up as if lit by torches. And so Xune could watch the enemy make his way here and there, thinking themselves safe when hidden by the shroud of darkness. To the Druchii they were exposed like dancing girls in a tavern. The paths described by the glowing dots, the buildings and bunkers they entered and left would reveal many secrets to the staff on Leviathan. Even more would be revealed by spots were metal gave off heat at a different rate than its surroundings, even when covered by camouflage nets.

Xune would neither kill any foes that night, nor add another Flugscheibe to his trophies. What he did tonight exceeded such deeds by far and would save many Wild Geese lives. The Druchii had learned to appreciate that during the last years with the mercenaries, something he could not have imagined in the centuries he had lived before.

Pursuit Special, above Karond Kar, 3000 Meters AGL, next morning

The sun shone bright about the battlefield to be, there was next to no wind to ruffle the black waters. Hoarfrost and the remains of white snow prepared a shroud to cover the murder that was about to happen inside a city once wholly given to the evils of slavery.
The sky was empty of birds, other predators had taken their place for now. The growl of their engines could be heard and felt for many kilometers, and Karond Kar's defenders ducked deeper into their holes, trying not to be seen.

Hartmut Klawitter had extended his plotting board from the instrument panel, he had taped the recon flight's printouts to it. He tried to match the low-resolution black-and white picture to the landscape below. At first it seemed hopeless and he feared he would have to give his flight a go-around when he spotted the three piers side-by-side. Something clicked in his brain and allowed him to recognize the rectangular warehouses next to them. And to their left were several irregular shapes where nets hung with cloth and scrap tried to mask mortar pits, bingo. And yes, he could correct his course in time to make an attack run.

"Staff flight, this is Shrike actual. Target spotted at 11 o' clock, follow me in."

Klawitter received several "copies" and a "Yehaw" in return and corrected course. When the target nearly disappeared under his spinner, he inverted his plane and then pulled on the stick till the ground was before him. The Pursuit Special's biplane construction might be draggy, heavy and old fashioned, but it allowed for nearly vertical dives without becoming too fast or ripping the wings off when pulling from the attack.

As always, the ground rushed up far faster in his mind that the altimeter showed and he had to watch it closely. Compared to the DawiZharr dreadnaughts the mortar pits did not move and did not try to evade. They were also a lot smaller than the ships, and there was more than a little AA-fire trying to swat him from the sky. There was at least one autocannon that fired what looked like balls of fire that rose to meet him. In other places flickering flames indicated where machine guns tried to match their bigger brothers, but lacked the tracers to walk their fire into him. There was no use in evasion, not with his current load and that deep in the dive. He just had to endure and hope for the best. There were two hammer blows in his right upper wing and a glance showed holes in nothing particularly important.

When the altimeter finally agreed he was at 400 meters and the target filled his windscreen he pulled the lever with a lot of gusto. This time there was no jerk as the bombs hung under the lower wings and cleared the propeller with no help from the shackle. The four bombs had originally been made for the mercenary's 160 mm siege mortars and had received new fuses. They tumbled a bit before their fins stabilized them sufficiently. By that time they had spread out a bit and went into the ground while Klawitter pulled the stick back with all his might and tried to control his breathing. His plane was already nearly vertical when the bombs hit. Each of the 40-kilogram projectiles released a nasty shockwave and copious amounts of fragments. Most of them were wasted into the ground or killed a few members of the DawiZharr crews. Klawitter's achievements meant nothing when the set of bombs released by his wingman dropped directly into the stumpie's ready ammunition. A dirty mushroom cloud interspersed with flames rose from the former mortar pit, mixing parts of the costal defense artillery pieces with smaller parts of their crews.

While Hartmut made for the carrier to rearm and refuel, a few planes stayed behind. High enough that the occasional attempts to shoot them down were mostly hopeless they were far more dangerous than the dive bombers. They were two-seater variants of the Pursuit Special and carried no weapons, but for a flexible machine gun for the observer and a wireless set. By themselves they could not harm the DawiZharr below them. Instead, they were the eyes of those who could.

Leviathan, 15 kilometers before Karond Kar

Raimund Scheer was not sure if his ears would ever be the same again. The bridge gave a marvelous view of both the sea around his ships as well as of the deck. And that meant that his ears were regularly assaulted by the planes taking off at full throttle. ICE engines with better than eight liters of displacement and no muffler at all were very loud indeed and the sound of a dozen or so revving their engines was deafening.

And when there were no planes taking off or landing there were the fire missions for the 105 mm dual-purpose guns. Leviathan's captain was quite sure that the mercs missed the 203s that were still in Germany somehow, their projectiles were nearly ten times the weight of the 105s. On the other hand, the 105 could fire brutal salvos from their revolving magazines that would make their targets rue the day they had somehow raised the attention of the aerial spotters. They would not be able to demolish strongly reinforced positions, so that job fell to the dive bombers that used the very munitions the 203 mm guns were supposed to fire.

Currently he was not watching the guns firing but the parade of barges that left Leviathan's well deck. Its exit was between the two rear booms that held the high-sea tugs which powered the ice carrier. Like nearly everything else on this ship the well deck's size put any similar hold in lesser ships to shame. While the well deck was impressive the barges were less so, at least to the German's jaundiced eyes. Barges of this type had been a kind of vessel nearly extinct on old Earth. They had been built to carry cargo from and to freighters anchored at roadstead. The container ships had done away with that and so this kind of vessel and the facilities made to use them had quickly disappeared in the 60's. The realities of the Warhammer World were a fertile ground for their rebirth and so several yards had built these ugly but oh-so-useful ducklings. With all the grace of a seagoing brick they had been welded from steel and were powered by whatever diesel engine was available. They were plying their trade in the second- and third tier harbors on this world, working wherever the quays would not even allow coastal freighters decent anchorage. The new free harbors that sprung up all around the Warhammer World lessened the need for them, and so the Wild Geese had scooped up quite a few of them without raising too many eyebrows.

What would definitively raise them was the modifications the mercenaries had applied to most of them and it were better if these were not seen by too many prying eyes. Armor plating had been added to nearly all of them, especially to the front and the small cubbyholes that that posed as a bridge. Machine gun tubs or pintle mounted weapons were to be found on nearly all of them. But some of the barges were quite a bit more special than that. In about an hour the mercenaries would learn if they were special enough or failures to be paid in blood.

Berlin, former Kit Kat club, evening

Andrea Hermanns had to watch her feet when she made it to the main room of her little social media empire. She was bone tired, but owed it to her team to have a look at their work. She had seen some text messages about the new videos that had come from Neustadt and was curious whether her request for somebody likable had yielded anything.

She found a group of them before the main monitor, discussing something in subdued tones. She found the reserves to force a bit of cheer in her voice.
"Evening folks. Got something new we can use?"
Heiko Back's voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper.
"Oh fucking yes, we have. Care to look for yourself?"

Andrea Hermann's eyebrows rose a bit at that, she had never seen the suave social media expert like this.
"Go ahead, show me."
A few clicks brought the video in the screen back to its start. It depicted a small room with a few wooden chairs. A woman sat on one of the chairs, two children clutching her sides. The woman had an Asian-looking face of undeterminable, but probably young age. She looked like somebody who had been overweight not too long ago, only to lose weight rapidly. She wore no makeup and there were traces of dirt in her clothing that were probably hard to remove in a hurry.

There was something soft about the face and her manners and lines around her eyes that spoke of somebody who loved to laugh and smile. That smile was visible when she pulled one child against her side and the kid clutched her like his life depended on it. It was a smile that was beautiful and sad at the same time.
She started talking in Druchii, a language that most Germans would recognize when they heard it, but very few cared to learn. Her voice was muted after a few words and somebody else provided simultaneous translation.

"I am Kuan Ti, client of the Patron Torsten Breitkopf. These are my children, Bo and Tian. The Dark Elves took them away from me when they were really small so that I might work and they could use the kids for whatever pleased the Spitzohren. The patron bought them, so they could be with me, even when they were far too young to work. He did it because I missed them so and because it is the kind of thing he does. He cares for us and tries his best so that we can good lives, free from the Druchii and their cruelty. Now I work for a fair wage, now my children are safe and learn such things.

But the Druchii decided that such things were too good for us. They want to work us to death, use my children for whatever task they can already perform, if they are lucky. And if I am too tired to work or if my children cannot perform to their liking, they will sacrifice us to their god of murder. It would not be an easy death, but a painful and very long one. By the time it would come to a close I would be so broken that I would beg for them to kill my children or do anything else just to end it."

By now a path of tears ran down Kuan Ti's face, clearing cleaner channels through the grime. Her voice was still firm though and her back straight. Bo and Tian had both buried their faces in her mother's legs and refused to let go.

"I cannot even think of what they would do to my children. I fight with the rest of those the Druchii think as their slaves to keep them safe. I am not a warrior; I make things and still I fight as I have no choice at all. I will defend my children, please help me, because we cannot do it without your aid."

Heiko Back stopped the video which now only displayed a test pattern. Andrea was riveted to the spot. She had thought she knew about the stakes of what she tried to do, now she had gained an insight that choked her.
Before she could say something useless warmth went through her, a fire that straightened her spine and provided energy where none was before.

Heiko's voice had not improved while watching the video.
"So this is it, Andrea? We fuck this up and they die?"
Andrea Hermann's voice mirrored the icy cold outside the building.
"No, if we fuck this up, they will be very lucky if they are just killed quickly. Let us not fuck this up then, because the price for that does not bear thinking about. Can you use this seal cub?"
"Yes, oh yes, I can use that. I am just not sure if I should thank you for it."
"Playtime is over Heiko?"
"Oh yes, this is not saving the three-banded armadillo, this is playing for keeps. I will use it for every bit of attention you can get. And Andrea."
"Yes?"
"I need more. This is good for a week or so, then I need more. More of this Kuan Ti, the viewers will want to get to know her and her kids. If we are to give them a chance then we need more."
"You will have it."
"Thanks. I think."

Landing Craft, Improvised/Mechanized, two kilometres from Karond Kar

The blunt bow did not cut through the waves with any grace, it crashed into each and every one of them, slowing the barge a bit before gaining something in the trough. The back and forth combined itself with a twisted lifting and dropping with neither rhyme nor reason and made the ride a thoroughly unpleasant one. The black water before Karond Kar foamed at the intrusion and threw up splashes into the faces of those who wanted or needed to observe their target.

Areta Bane watched the city before her. She had seen it before, in all its terrible beauty, before the Germans entered this world. Back then the harbour had been backed by imposing walls, topped by slender turrets and tasteful spikes. Now the walls lay in disrepair, with more than a few gaps hewn by combat and new needs. The piers had cranes and pathways that allowed the efficient movement of loads that would not move by themselves when motivated by chain and whip. Wooden warehouses had sprung up to protect those wares from the elements.

Whatever beauty this place once had, had been defiled by the DawiZharr. Areta Bane would lead the fight to free Karond Kar from its occupiers. She would burn it to the ground before allowing it to resume its former function as the hub of the slave trade.

Trying as she might, with Druchii eyes, German glasses, and a binocular, she was unable to see any stumpies. She was sure they were there, but like her they had learned that incoming fire had the right of way. There might still be some warriors left in this world that would meet their enemies in straight lines, willing to take whatever punishment their foes might dish out so they might do the same. They were the few and the dead.

The harbour had been shelled and bombed for two days straight now. A few years back Areta might have been tempted to think such firepower would simply kill all enemies. She knew better now. The DawiZhar would have prepared bunkers and other fortifications. Where Leviathan and its air wing had destroyed them they would now man the rubble and the craters and think themselves lucky. Wise in the ways of modern warfare Areta Bane waited for the enemy's first move and wondered who would not make it back to the ship. The ruins of Karond Kar grew larger, showed more scars and refused to answer. Until they did.

Yellow light backlit some ruins, smoke rose from the same places and huge waterspouts rose before and between the landing craft. Evil, flickering lights could be seen in empty windows and slightly above rubble and the small impacts of machine guns drew ever closer to Areta's ride.
New impacts were close enough that water splashed inside the landing craft and their crews and embarked soldiers ducked deeper inside. Areta did not and so she saw the mercenary planes dive from the cloudy sky, dropping bombs on the mortar pits. Shells exploded some ten meters above ground, hammering anything below with the iron flail of their fragments. Smoke rose from some landing craft and mortars tried to duel those on land.

Areta did not watch any of these, but a quartet of landing craft slightly to the back. They lined their bows up with Karond Kar's quay and seemed to slow a bit. When they were done they disappeared in fire and smoke. Rockets rose by the dozen from the converted barges, clunky, inelegant and imprecise. Their flights were short and they impacted violently all around the harbour. Most had instant fuses, some buried themselves into the ground before detonating.
All rockets exploded within a few seconds of each other, sending shockwaves and razor-sharp fragments into anything they might reach. The quay disappeared behind a wall of fire and smoke. When it reappeared, there were very few structures still recognizable. It seemed inconceivable that anything had survived this, but Areta knew better. Making her way to the gun Unimog she climbed into the seat behind the gunner.
Less than a minute later the first landing craft forced their reinforced bows up the rubble that had been Karond Kar's quays.

The Wild Geese had returned to Naggaroth.

Reichstag, Berlin

Christian Lindner dropped his keys, the smartphone, and his wallet into the tray provided for that purpose before walking through the metal detector. Happy to hear no alarm he grabbed for his belongings when a guard approached him from the side.
Fuck, not again. And of course, her voice was full of cheer.
"Sorry Herr Minister, you have been randomly selected for the test."

Some of Lindner's frustration crept into his voice.
"You have to be kidding right? I was tested a few weeks ago."
"Yes, two months and three days to be exact. Still, it is a random test, so it could happen next week again."
"Yes ,yes. Would you give me that swab them please."
"Here you go."

It was an innocent swipe, a bit like the one he had cleared his ears with an hour ago. And it decided his future. He allowed the guard to swipe it across the roof of his mouth a couple of times before he was allowed to close it again. He was politely asked to sit on a bench for a moment while the swipe was put in a tube, marked and dropped into an apparatus. That one would have been better at home in a high-tech lab and started to blink and whirr once the tube was inside.

It took just five minutes and Lindner made a show of checking his smartphone while they passed so very slowly. And then, finally it displayed the green light.
"Thank you for your cooperation Herr Lindner. Have a nice day."
"You too."

Making his way into his office Germany's foreign minister mused that anything but the green light would have been a very bad day indeed. The random check looked for genetic mutations connected to the Chaos Gods. Any such mutation would kill his political career better than any scandal. He had, like any other cabinet member, signed a letter of resignation and deposited that with the head of parliament when he started his term as secretary. In case any such mutation would have been proven that letter would immediately be used.

Going through the long corridors of the Reichstag Christian Lindner again checked the amulet under his suit. It had been a gift of Volkmar, Chief Priest of Sigmar and should protect him from corruption, he hoped.

Altenberg Eiskanal, Altenberg, Germany

The sledding sports like Luge, Skeleton or Bobsleigh had always been a staple of the alpine nations, even before these disciplines became regulated into professional sports. While there were multiple events on natural tracks, professional and amateur alike, normally only the events on the artificial tracks were widely televised.
There had been very few top-level tracks on Earth. A bobsleigh or Luge track was not easy to build and expensive to run with artificial cooling. There were only 16 international-level tracks on Earth when the Weltensprung happened, with about the same number of further tracks only used at national level. Germany´s four international level tracks at Altenberg, Königssee, Oberhof and Winterberg were an exception to the norm of one or two top-level tracks per nation.

When Germany found itself on the Warhammer World, the survival of many sports was far from secure, especially sports with such specialisation and high-tech materials as the sledding sports. On the other hand, the population wanted to keep some mementos of life as it was before. The sledding sports had a comparatively small, but fanatical following, good television ratings in Germany and Germany was the leading nation in the sledding sports. Additionally, the races were known for their party atmosphere, especially in the evenings.

So after acclimatising on Warhammer and to the slight surprise of the sledding federations, Germany started to rebuild a World Cup season for the various disciplines and invited teams from the other Warhammer nations. Teams, which did not really exist at all and had to be schooled in the sports. But this was not new, many nations had their athletes training in Germany at least part of the year before the Weltensprung.

It took time and work, but finally a true World Cup season with Championships and something like the Olympics took shape. For this Germany upgraded the older tracks at Friedrichroda, Garmisch and Hahnenklee to top-level status and helped with building tracks outside Germany, even if most of them relied on natural cooling.

While the tracks at Hyttaholm and Ulfsland in Norsca were „special" in many ways, like technical stuff (normal build ice) and the native spectators, having ice during season was never a problem.

The Empire´s „Eiskanäle" at Hovelhof in Hochland, Blutfeste (Bloodkeep) and Kemperbad in Reikland, Rote Abtei (Red Abbey) in Silvania, Ummenbach in Wissenland and Grenzstadt in Averland had artificial cooling and like Germany´s could operate for longer times each year than the natural cooled ones in Norsca. Altdorf had also followed the German example, with the exception of the Kemperbad Channel, of erecting the tracks in regions which could need some development aid.

The sledding tracks were no miracle cure, but especially during winter season a substantial help for the communities, despite the high costs of operation.

In Tilea, after hearing about bob pilots like Eugenio Monti, something like a „Gruppo nationale" started. But with the long-time animosities between the Princes of Tilea, there was still a long way to go for this team. In practise, Miragliano and Tobaro citizens outnumbered everybody else on the Tilean sledding team, with two tracks in operation, One in Ravola, the other in the hills near Tobaro City, with the Princes in Lucchini debating about building one at Terenne.

To the amusement of the German team, since 2529 there was even an equivalent to the Sigulda track in Latvia in operation, the Ice Channel near Erengrad in Kislev. On Earth, Sigulda was an exception, the track being built in rather flat, low terrain, which was matched with the plains outside Erengrad. Unlike some other nations, Kislev never had problems with getting enough ice for their national sledding track.

The two Bretonnias tried, with a lot of teeth-grinding, a similar solution to the one of Tilea, a single national team, centred around the Bretonnian track near Montfort. The level of infighting was still high, but lessening. One thing that the Bretonnians had to learn, like some others, the rivalry in the Ice channel might be hard and fierce, advantages not given away lightly, but the Lugers, Skeletons and Bobsledders were a big family.

The harsh realities of the Warhammer World changed some parts of this concept, but it still held true.
Other Ice tracks were built in Ackendorf in the Borderlands, a small city directly across the Black Mountains, there was a track in Ulthuan for the Asurian team and the two tracks in Nippon at Maigiya and Hotohashi.

Without tracks at home, but among the World cup teams were the crews from Khemri, Cathay, and Estalia.

Altenberg itself was a very famous and immensly difficult track, the crews treated it with respect. The Ice Channel in the eastern Erzgebirge rarely did forgive mistakes. On race weekends Altenberg town was packed and festive.

Laura Nolte was a German Bob pilot for Mono, Two, and Four crew bobs and now one of the veterans, having won everything a bob pilot could over the years. While the string of victories for the German Bobs was not surprising, since Germany had the most experience, the best crews and sleds on Warhammer, you had to first bring it down the track.

Among the women´s team Laura was not the only pilot, Kim Kalicki, Mariama Jamanka, Annika Drazek, Lisa Buckwitz, Karin Schmeißer were only the best known. The women's team had the greatest fluctuations over the years, some coming back, some not, but that was biology at work. Stephanie Schneider or Leonie Fiebig for example were currently out of the Bob, the two being pregnant with their first and second kid respectively.

Pregnancy meant you were out of the Schlitten (Bobsleigh), latest after the first few months, since the Sledding Sports could be dangerous with their high speeds on ice and at times G-forces up to 5-6g.

Serious or deadly accidents in Bobsleigh, Luge or Skeleton were rare in younger times, but still could happen. At the BSD Sport Association HQ and the German Bobsleigh Museum there were pictures for the German athletes who paid with their lives for their sports passion, like Rudi Gerloff, Anton Pensperger, Toni Förster or Yvonne Cernota.

And there where pictures, if available, of the long list of successful German Bob crews since 1901 AD. Carl Benzing, Hanns Kilian, Fritz Gömöri, Sebastian Huber, Andreas Ostler, Pepi Bader, Wolfgang Zimmerer, Meinhard Nehmer, Raimund Bethge, Bernhard Germeshausen, Rudi Lochner, Wolfgang Hoppe, Bogdan Musiol, Christoph Langen, Harald Czudaj, Olaf Hampel, Markus Zimmermann, Dietmar Schauerhammer, Andre Lange, Kevin Kuske, Francesco Friedrich, Rene Spieß, Peter Utzschneider, Johannes Lochner, Nico Walther, Thorsten Florschütz, Hans-Peter Hannighofer, Manuel Machata, Franz Kremser, Hans Rösch, Maximilian Arndt, Thorsten Margis

Gabriele Kohlisch, Susi Erdmann, Sandra Kiriasis, Cathleen Martini, Mariama Jamanka, Anja Schneiderheinze, Laura Nolte, Stephanie Schneider, Kim Kalicki, Lisa Buckwitz, Annika Drazek, Annabel Galander, Deborah Levi, Leonie Fiebig and these were only the more known Pilots and crew members from over 120 years of Bobsleigh.

For Laura, watching the non-human teams was fascinating. The Asur had partly very talented pilots, but for some reason they had massive problems with the mixture of strength and agility that was needed for a perfect start.

In all sledding disciplines, not only bobsleigh, the teams from Khemri were nicknamed Schwerlasttransport (Heavy weight transport), since their undead bodies had more than enough strength, but they were mainly skeletons, so they did not weigh all that much. In a gravity sport a disadvantage, which led to the Khemri taking the maximum allowed extra weight with them, hence their nickname.