To Geft: No arguments there. Night Bat is definitely the number one remaining villain. Though where he is… who knows?
"Man, I knew the Nazis were bad news," began Marc, "but then they go and do things like this."
"Really?" Nath raised an eyebrow at him, and he flushed. "After reading about the Holocaust, you're shocked by their treatment of prisoners of war?"
"Fair," Marc conceded. "If the concentration camps are the alternative, this almost feels like a mercy. Still, it seems like every time I think they can't sink any lower, they somehow find a way to do even worse. It's like finding out Jack the Ripper also liked to kick puppies."
Nath hummed humorlessly. "It's somewhat telling that he would object to this, when he never went anywhere near the camps." With a heavy sigh, he added, "Although I guess the Holocaust might just have been 'out of sight, out of mind'; this was happening right in front of him."
"'For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing'."
Stavropol, USSR, July 1942
The soft fluttering on the breeze filtering through the trees, a creak little different from clothing drying on a line, was the only warning Sigmund had before the whine of falling bombs filled the air around him. The earth shook around him – a tent collapsed on top of the men who had been sleeping inside, and the man standing at the entrance was sprayed with dirt and gravel. Fires erupted on all sides of the river crossing where his unit had been stationed for their part in Operation Barbarossa. A bomb landed directly on a bridge, which burst apart in a shower of wood and stone. A tank that had been parked on the edge of the bridge tipped forward and careened down into the ravine, crashing to the bottom with a thundering boom.
"Helfen, Wehren, Heilen!" Sigmund bellowed, swinging his knife around as it lengthened, and dropping to one knee as the mystical aura formed around him and cleared to leave behind his armor. Even before it had fully formed, he had already risen to his feet, searching for the source of the attack.
"Nachthexen!" bellowed a soldier not far from der Ritter, pointing up in terror moments before another bomb fell a couple meters from him and exploded. ["Night Witches"]
Der Ritter turned his head to one side as pieces of the young private splattered over him. He flinched in spite of himself, wiping his helmet off with one gauntlet. Three men stumbled past der Ritter in the direction of one of their anti-aircraft guns, opening fire wildly the moment one of them managed to get into the gunner's seat. Red-orange flashes illuminated the gun, and moments later another bomb landed on top of the it, blowing it to pieces in a massive fireball that consumed all the ammunition around it in a concussive secondary explosion. Der Ritter took a single step backward, bracing himself against the rumble that rippled through the ground. Beside him, another soldier wasn't so lucky; falling backward, the boy hit his head on the ground and rolled onto his side, groaning.
A whine of engines turning over echoed through the stillness overhead, barely audible over the explosions in and around the camp. An engine suddenly roared to life, followed by another one, further away over the trees. Illuminated in the flickering fires ignited in the camp, der Ritter glanced up to spot the tail of a biplane, slowly banking around, turning back toward the east. From the direction of the airfield near the headquarters encampment to the north, a pair of Fw 190s roared down toward them, spitting fire from their machine guns that raked across the biplane, at least six meters above it. The biplane dove lower, weaving between the trees, and wheeled around in a tight turn just below der Ritter's line of sight. The 190s blew straight past the biplane, before banking around in another strafing run. Two more of the biplanes suddenly climbed out of the tree cover on the other side of the river, releasing their payloads as they did so. Behind der Ritter, two more anti-aircraft batteries erupted in flames as the bombers turned around and dove back toward the ground, their engines roaring to life as they did so. Scanning the sky above, barely visible against the darkness, der Ritter could just make out the shapes of a dozen or so biplanes, all turning back to race east. The 190s blew past the camp overhead with a roar, and one of the biplanes juked, twisting nearly entirely upside down as one of its wings sheared entirely off. Spinning around in a tight corkscrew, the bomber careened down below the tops of the trees and out of view. Moments later came a sound like a small explosion. The 190s whipped over the biplanes' heads and away into the distance, toward the Soviet lines.
Der Ritter's eyes narrowed. "See to the camp, Leutnant!" he ordered, not taking his eyes off the receding forms of the bombers. "I expect an inventory and rollcall the moment I return!"
The lieutenant snapped to attention. "Jawohl–" ["Yes, sir!"]
"Helfen!" Surging up into the air, der Ritter turned and raced after the biplanes as they slowly motored east toward the distant airfields, barely visible as faint outlines against the stars, blending into the tree cover below and the clouds above. A soft hum of motors trailed back to him, so different from the roar to which he had grown accustomed while serving alongside the Luftwaffe in France. Below him, he could see the forward elements of the German Army in the distance ahead, bivouacked for the night a couple kilometers from the Russian defensive line. Flashes of light danced through the trees from the direction of the German camp – clearly the forward camp had been attacked, as well. The familiar sound of the Fw 190s' engines echoed down the line from somewhere closer to the Russian lines, punctuated by automatic weapon fire.
Only a couple weeks on the Eastern Front, and already der Ritter was sick of Russia.
After his failure to stop the British at Caen, he had been recalled to Berlin the next day. Even though there was no concrete evidence that the Allied agent had arrived – he had said nothing about his encounter with Davidstern or its aftermath – Himmler had been livid. Rather than return him to the occupation force in France, he had instead transferred him to Russia, along with a portion of his Iron Cross Tank Battalion, and order him to seize the Caucasus and their oilfields. He had at first wanted to protest the injustice of the decision – after so long on the Western Front, it seemed somehow wrong to leave it half-finished. But on reflection, however, he had realized that this might be a better place to serve. Back in France, he had been fighting women, children, civilians who were untrained and inexperienced in warfare. Here, at least, he was fighting against trained, uniformed soldiers who were part of the regular Soviet military.
Putting on a burst of speed, der Ritter rocketed across the sky, pushing himself faster and faster to narrow the distance between himself and the slow-moving biplanes. As the countryside rushed past below him, he watched the formation carefully, the planes coming into clearer and clearer focus as he slowly caught up to them. A ball of fire in the distance signaled the location of a Russian anti-aircraft battery's score against one of the two Fw 190s that had whipped past him minutes earlier. With a roar, the surviving Fw 190 raced past him in the opposite direction, rushing for friendly airspace. Gritting his teeth, his grip tightening on his sword, der Ritter continued to follow his quarry, to finally come within arm's reach of the closest biplane. Brandishing his sword in one hand, he lunged forward and grabbed for the last plane's tail. His fingers nearly slipped off of it, but his grip held and he tugged on it as hard as he possibly could. The thin fabric and wood ripped apart beneath his hand, throwing the plane's balance off and tipping it suddenly downwards. Der Ritter's eyes widened in surprise – what kind of plane could this be, that it would come apart so easily? But he didn't have more than a moment to ponder that question, as the pilot fought for control of the plane, moments before it smashed into the ground, half a kilometer behind the German line. Tossing away the ripped-off tail, der Ritter dropped to land by the crashed plane, holding his sword tightly in both hands. "Sdavat'sya!" he barked in Russian. ["Surrender!"]
A moan came from the plane, followed by hurried Russian that he couldn't understand. The voices – higher-pitched than he had expected – cut out suddenly as he edged forward and pointed the tip of his sword at the pilot, just as he raised an old single-shot pistol. Der Ritter batted the pistol out of the limp grip, and the pilot glared at him, lip curled in a snarl. "Do your worst, German."
Der Ritter cocked his head in confusion. The tip of his sword wavered. "You are… women." He looked back and forth between the pilot and navigator. "I… had not believed the stories."
The pilot pulled off her flight helmet and glared at him in a rage. "If you wouldn't mind, I prefer death here and now to capture."
"Kill a woman, even an enemy?" Der Ritter scoffed, sheathing his sword. "There is no honor in that."
"That is what you do to captured soldiers," retorted the navigator, wincing, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. She drew in a sharp breath. "I have heard the stories." Her words came out slurred.
Der Ritter's jaw set in a thin line behind his helmet. "No," he insisted. "My people would never–"
"They have," retorted the pilot, frowning severely. "One of my wingmen was shot down behind your lines – I passed the spot moments later." Her jaw opened and closed. "The things they were doing to her when I passed, after they had dragged her out of the cockpit…"
Der Ritter shook his head adamantly. "Not me. I will hand you over as prisoners of war."
The pilot scowled. "Then we will be dead by morning. That is the fate of captured Russian women."
"So you might as well kill us now," the navigator slurred, groaning. "I… might be dead either way…"
Der Ritter sighed heavily and climbed up on the wing of the plane. The pilot fumbled to pull out a small pistol, only succeeding in nearly dropping the gun for her troubles. Giving her a frustrated look, der Ritter raised an eyebrow under his helmet. The navigator flinched as he neared her, but he held his hand up in a gesture of peace. "If I may?" She shrugged noncommittally, closing her eyes. Carefully, he placed his hand over her gut, searching for the injury. Pulling out a piece of metal that had become lodged in her stomach, he pressed his hand to the spot as blood began oozing out and murmured, "Heilen."
The navigator cocked her head, looking up at him in confusion. "What–"
"That only delays the inevitable," the pilot informed him curtly, folding her arms.
Der Ritter shook his head. "Not if I can help it. I will look into this treatment of prisoners," he told them. "But in the meantime… Helfen." Rising into the air, he turned away from the crashed plane, flying back toward his own encampment.