Hearts of Iron

by TheEmperorofNothing

I'm just throwing this little bit of crazy out into the wild for everyone to enjoy.

3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is finally out, sorry it took so long… but to make it up to you guys this one is longer than the last two combined, let the celebrations begin!

In a "completely"unrelated note, I have found an incredibly fun Star Wars mod for Homeworld 2 called Star Wars: Warlords. Then the Galaxy at War mod came out for Men of War: Assault Squad 2 and I've been fiddling around with the map editor for way too long.

Also, I saw the GUP movie and it was hilarious.

On another hand I have mostly finished writing up a little document analyzing the various vehicles and tactics used in the Clone Wars, mostly from the movie's and recent TV show, just for reference. Mostly to help me get a handle on the vehicles and tactics used by the Republic.

I might post it somewhere later.

But enough of the excess nonsense, you're all here for the story.

Hearts of Iron: Chapter III – Of Acid Dreams and the Evils of Architecture …

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Time: Unknown, Location: Unknown

Miho peered through the slits in the little Panzer III's cupola. The three dozen tanks in her advanced force, Twenty four Panzer II Ausf. F's, and twelve Panzer II Ausf. L's splayed out on either side of her vision. Her command tank rocked hard as the unit struggled together slowly across the unusually rough Asian landscape. A place that the little voice in the back of her head said was unnatural.

'Unnatural' the word echoed through her head as she took in the view outside her little metal box, the world was as it had always been. Chocolate soil, the plants leaves spun from colored sugar and the multi-colored rock-candy mountains loomed vast in the distance, shrouded with their strangely geometric red clouds. There was even a river of fizzy blue tonic, which had cut the valley through the caramelized foothills their unit, was passing through.

It was a literal wonderland of sweets.

And it was apparently wrong.

Her infantry dismounted from the sides of the tanks as her forward units broke through the dense foliage of the mountain pass. Her troop, a multitude of faceless mannequins dressed in tattered Volkssturm uniforms, twitched as they hopped down and swung their MP 308's to bear.

A gingerbread village lay in the distance, veiled by the shapely reddish fog. Around two dozen prefabricated huts, in classical Asian style stood there, built nestled up against the mountainside. Shadow figures in rice hats rushed around the little outpost, running to prebuilt barricades in the streets at the sight of her armor.

Miho set down her map and tilted her head as a few little chirps echoed off her tank's hull. She bent down and asked Schultz, who was her acting loader and radio operator to signal their trailing artillery.

Not five seconds later, ten booms echoed from wherever her unit's Wespe's had hidden themselves behind her main force.

The artillery shells whistled through the air, and the gingerbread village rippled under the barrage. Chunks of the chocolate earth mixed with pieces of frosted buildings and exploded into the sky, silhouette figures in the village were torn apart or went flying.

Another quiet command and Max had the twenty-four Ausf. F's in her forward force sprayed the freshly made rubble with their turrets machine-guns and 2cm cannons.

Then her toy Volksstrum surged forward, speaking with each other in their rapid whistling, they rushed through ruined facsimile of a village with an almost desperate speed. The sight made her sigh to herself quietly in her cupola, knowing why they didn't want to be where they were, doing what they were doing.

They wanted to be back in the relative safety of the candied jungles, beneath the canopies of spun sugar and behind dense foliage they were somewhat safe.

Out here in the open valley they were painfully exposed…

All it would take would be one spotter aircraft to catch sight of them, and the ground attackers would zero in, and that would end her little spree of luck real quick.

She frowned to herself at the dark thought, as the troops in the village finished off the few survivors and gave the all clear. She nodded down to Max, giving the signal for the tanks to advance past the village and her armor surged into the maze of fields beyond it, grinding the candy canes growing in the knee deep tonic water beneath their treads.

Somewhere deep inside, another Miho cried out in frustration.

She could see as they approached that they were not the first unit to arrive at the stricken SS unit. The gigantic KönigsLuthar walker rested belly down in the muck, crippled in the field. What remained of an obliterated Stummel transport lay upside own nearby and bodies of at least a two dozen Waffen SS lay dead around it and the larger walker, floating in the shallow greenish liquid around them. A squad of Fallschirmjager had arrived before her unit and they surrounded the crippled KönigsLuthar, and their leader was actually shouting at the captain of the SS unit.

And the familiar, steel haired officer was of course screaming back, as her crew tried in vain to get the hundred ton vehicle to pull itself from the muck.

'Yukari and Erika…' The thought pressed into the forefront of her mind from somewhere deep inside her subconscious.

She unbuttoned her hatch as her thirty-six vehicle tank platoon rolled into the field, an action that sent the little voice inside her screaming.

'Get back inside, you are not safe!' Inner Miho cried out. But she ignored the little voice, as she had been trained to. Fear was a useful tool, but it was never good to let it control oneself.

'After all', she let herself think grimly, 'we each have our own duties to attend to.'

Her tank rolled up to within ten yards of the struggling walker and she pulled herself from the cupola and dismounted, shouldering her own MP 308. As she walked up to the two arguing officers, her infantry fanning out in the field with her, their faceless heads' scanning the nearby forest of spun sugar trees with suspicion.

In contrast to the faceless goons under her command and theirs, the SS captain and the paratrooper squad leader had faces, though older than what would have fit their bodies, but she paid that detail no mind as she stood ankle deep in fizzing tonic.

After all, there were obviously more important things to attend to.

So she asked what was going on, and when they explained the situation to her, with as much sniping at each other as possible, they did so in an alien language, a wordless, tuneless speech, wholly devoid of any natural lip movements.

But she understood it anyway, the Fallschirmjager unit, and Yukari in specific, wanted to blow the remaining walker to pieces and escape the area. She was sure that Allied forces that had obliterated the Stummel would be mustering to the position.

Erika and the rest of her crew were obviously refusing, not wanting to loose such a valuable and powerful piece of equipment.

And as the highest ranking officer present, the decision now fell to her.

As she contemplated the decision, the voice inside began screaming in fear, slamming against the mental cage she had locked it behind. 'It's too late, get down… you need to get down.'

And from high above them, as quiet as a passing breeze, came a low hiss.

Then there was an audible crack that echoed across the field, as the hiss grew a little louder. Miho felt her body jerk violently but not under her control, and she felt herself fall back in slow motion. Watching the shock explode in Erika and Yukari's faces, seeing the Volkssturm behind them drop his gun in shock, a dozen piping voices called out for her in the alien tongue as she hit the water. Acidic pain blossomed in her shoulder and Yukari rushed over, and pulled her head back above the greenish tonic.

Then the world sped up again and the hiss became the roar of a Japanese 200mm rocket mortar bearing down on the field.

The world exploded.

A smoking Panzer II floated casually above her head as the paratrooper hugged her down into the tonic, with the broken candy canes digging into her back, like shards of glass.

When her senses returned Yukari was screaming, for covering fire, for a medic, for her orders, as Japanese and Chinses rifle fire poured from the trees.

Miho pulled herself up on Yukari with her good arm, ignoring the pain in her profusely bleeding shoulder. The sight of her infantry returning fire, using the tanks as cover gave her strength, and the tanks weren't slouching either, they ravaged the trees with explosive shells and machinegun fire.

Miho surveyed the field and inhaled, reading herself to take command.

Then Yukari's head burst with the sound of children's laughter, showering her with colorful confetti as the girl's body limply slackened, and dropped into the foamy tonic.

A dozen more of the oversized rocket-mortars fell screaming from the sky, tearing her forces to shreds, ruined tanks and pieces of faceless men flew through the air.

And the voice in her head raged. 'This isn't how this happened!' It slammed and screamed, while the shockwave of a mortar threw her across the field through the air.

She struggled up again, ignoring her pain, as the fire from the trees intensified and the scream of Japanese dive-bombers echoed from on high. The mighty KönigsLuthar exploded seconds later, throwing Erika against her with the terrible force of the explosion. The bleeding SS officer grabbed her from the mud by her collar and screamed at her. "Where is the juice?"

3/15/95, Berlin – Block O27, Officers Quarters, beneath the Reichstag

Miho jerked upright in her bunk, nightshirt sticking wetly to her with cold sweat, as her shoulder throbbed with phantom pain. She turned to stare at the trio of SS troops that had kicked the door to her room in, demanding her to show them where her Jew was.

And somewhere deep inside her, a tiny voice bemoaned the fact that this wasn't even the first time something like this had happened this week.

The fact that two of the three were now alternating in staring in horror between the third, a pillow and hat on the ground and the bunk above her didn't do anything to make her less worried. Their horror didn't do anything to cool Erika's enraged glare either.

Nor did it do anything to assuage Erwin, who clearly didn't give a damn about whatever SS happened to want, and from the sounds of it was burrowing back into her covers as she devolved into colorful swearing. Presumably after throwing the pillow into Erika's face and knocking her black reserve hat, clean off her head.

Miho, being the more responsible of the two, took a deep breath and got up, tossing her covers off her as she reached for her shirt and jacket on her nightstand.

Erika, to her credit did no more than grit her teeth at the sight of the scar on Miho's shoulder.

Though it wasn't like she had really been expecting anything else; it had been years since the sight of the scar had filled the other girl's face with any palpable emotion, nothing like the fury and shame that it had once inspired.

She almost missed it.

But by now that time had long passed, the other girl did nothing more than glare at her, ignoring the discolored flesh as Miho hid it beneath her shirt.

Her two compatriots on the other hand were certainly less apathetic than she was, visibly flinching as she pulled her jacket over the shirt, letting the medals on its breast jingle.

Miho sat back down on her bedside and pulled her slacks on as the trio stared. "Look Erika, I've never asked you to get along with her. You're from the Schutzstaffel and she's a Fallschirmjager. Inter-service rivalry is something you guys do…" She left unsaid that the SS spent a significant amount of time actively antagonizing other service branches.

She took a calming breath before finishing. "And I know that her hair is really fluffy, abnormally fluffy but Yukari, as her name should well imply, is not even slightly Jewish." She waved her hand flippantly, and they eyes of the two flanking Erika followed it. "She's Germanized, not Semitic"

The trio blinked, almost in unison, before the trooper on Erika's right. Grubber something, if she was remembering properly, sought to correct her. "Not your Captain, Kommandant." He adjusted his hold on his MP-40 and pulled his glasses up. "Sergeant Goldstein, we caught him red-handed this time, he was stealing cigarettes from our supplies again."

"Then tell the Gestapo you idiots!" Rommel supplied helpfully from her bunk.

Miho shot a slightly irritated glance back at Erwin, before replying in agreement. "It is their job Erika, not yours." She tried to smile, in what she hoped was a calming manner, as she pulled on her slacks and straightened out the last of her uniform. "And besides that, chasing someone through Berlin without a warrant or police issue weapons, is probably going to cause you more trouble than it's worth." Miho shrugged. "You never know who you'll run into." She hadn't meant to come out like a threat but Erika visibly tightened, and her companion's eyes snapped to the rank insignia on her newly donned dress uniform.

Now Miho had known Erika for years, and she knew her moods well enough to know that that had obviously been the wrong thing to say. The other girl had grown to resent her in recent years, and had obviously interpreted the advice as a threat to pull rank on her and her lackeys.

The grey-haired girl hissed beneath her breath, eyes narrowing. "The Gestapo answers to us, not the other way around." She replied in a venomous tone.

Rommel, maybe finally realizing that she wasn't getting anymore sleep interjected. "Last time I checked Blackshirt," She let the insult ooze off her tongue. "The Gestapo answered to the Führer." A shirtless Erwin hopped down and delivered a tired, but cocky smile. "And I can assure you, that neither of us have any idea where my idiot sergeant went."

Miho could almost hear Erika's teeth cracking, as she ground them in mute rage. But for once the lieutenant seemed to realize that the battle was not one she could win, at least not without making an absolute mess.

"Just make sure not to accidently overlook his violation this time, Kommandant Rommel." She practically spat the parting shot at Erwin.

She snapped around and glared at the pair behind her as her patience finally broke down. "Raus! Schnell! Schnell!" Erika shouted at her compatriots, and the pair hopped to attention, swiftly saluting and departing the room. Erika stayed only long enough to cast a hateful, glaring salute at the pair before slinking after her squad mates.

Erwin shot Miho a frustrated look as the SS slunk away. "What an ungrateful cunt." She said, as she suddenly seemed to snap awake. "And we outrank her! Why the hell do we have to put up with her bullshit?"

Miho sighed, and decided to ignore her comment. "You'd better deal with this this time Erwin, or your sergeant is liable to find himself locked inside a working furnace."

Erwin snorted, and ran a hand through her messy hair. "He's just looking out for the Korps." She scoffed and fumbled around the room for her shirt. "God knows the SS get enough favoritism around here." She turned to Miho. "Is your shoulder bothering you today?" She asked in a more caring tone.

Miho stood and pulled the shirt from between Erwin's blankets and handed it to her. "Not much," she rolled her arm experimentally, and hid a wince as it throbbed in sympathy with her fading dream, "maybe a little tight."

"Miho, we're in Berlin, not some Chinese shit-hole, morphine doesn't need to be rationed here." The blonde girl chided her, sighing to herself as she finished dressing. "But I suppose I should track down my Sergeant before the SS catch up to him. You want to help?"

Miho nodded slowly. "I suppose I've got nothing better to do today… besides paperwork."

"Not like those forms are going to go running off any time soon…" Erwin replied with a sly grin. "Besides, neither of our units has seen a proper deployment in weeks. Not too much paperwork on my end."

Miho gave a helpless little groan. "I've been trying to requisition some paint. Someone apparently thought it would be a good idea to paint one of my unit's 38(t) platoons gold."

Erwin frowned in indignation. "What' wrong with that?"

"Not desert cameo Erwin, metallic gold."

The blond flipped on her officer's cap. "Where would you even find that much paint around here?" She queried, gingerly pushed the bedroom door open and it literally fell off its hinges, making her wince. "So… hopefully the front door is in better shape than this one." She growled.

"Erika wouldn't destroy our quarters Erwin; she was angry, not suicidal." Miho said quietly as she moved into the little office they had made their living room into, ignoring the little piles of paperwork on the desks with only a slight pause. "See, the door is fine." Passing into the hall revealed that, indeed the front door was noticeably less kicked-in than the bedroom door had been.

Erwin face-palmed, "Great so they only broke the bedroom door…" she trailed off, "then where the fuck did they get the keys to our apartment?" She shouted at no one in particular.

"The Requisition's Department, they are SS" Miho shrugged, "or maybe Yukari forgot to lock the door?"

Erwin's eye twitched and her indignation intensified. "Don't even remind me." She shot a suddenly exhausted look at Miho as she locked their apartment door behind them. "Look, I know you like her, and she's pants-on-head obsessed with you. But for god's sake woman, my bed is less than four feet above yours."

Miho's face shot red from embarrassment, and she anxiously glanced down the hall at all the other apartment doors. "Erwin, not in public, I could get reprimanded!"

Her friend closed the distance between them with a single step, clasping both arms on her shoulders and staring her dead in the eyes. "Miho, I need sleep, and there are plenty of forgotten quarters and storage rooms in Berlin, it's a big city, and I don't even think anyone around here knows even half the layout." She let go of Miho's shoulders, and lit a cigarette, as Miho stood blushing. "What I'm saying is have your little rendezvous somewhere else," she waved her hand dismissively as she took a drag, and they started down the hallway, "for my sanity if nothing else."

Thankfully, in Miho's opinion at least, that particular conversation trailed off rather soon, as they reached a checkpoint. The pair of bored, blatantly slacking Kriegsmarine Corporal's manning the checkpoint snapped to attention as the pair approached. "Achtung!" The first shouted at his friend as Erwin started grinning. "Good morning gentlemen… you two slackers wouldn't have happened to have seen my Sergeant Goldstein recently, would you?" She finished with a tip of her cap.

Miho gave a small smile as the pair proceeded to tell them exactly where the other woman's wayward Sergeant had run off to. While there were plenty of the upper echelons in the Wehrmacht who preferred to teach how to rule thought fear and iron discipline, Miho had always felt that respect and admiration generally got better results. Case in point, they had learned exactly where Goldstein was currently… 'Well hiding probably isn't really the best term.' She thought to herself, but he was likely trying to avoid the SS regardless.

But while her opinion on management might not have been what her progenitor would have approved of, that wasn't to say that she wasn't going to help Erwin put the fear of god back into him when they finally caught up to him, if her friend actually needed help in that department.

But they weren't going to have him shot, like Erika would likely have wanted.

Getting to the Mess hall Goldstein had sequestered himself away in, took more than thirty-five minutes of brisk walking from the little checkpoint they had started at, Erwin had used the extra time to stew herself into a properly righteous fury.

Miho on the other hand felt her mind drifting back to figuring out who would be in charge of paint allocation in Berlin. It wasn't exactly something she had to check up on all that often. Seeing as she was usually stationed in Munich or Pravda anyway.

She smiled slightly at that thought; she would have to write Katyusha a letter of congratulations. The diminutive Russian had ribbed her often enough about getting her promotion for getting shot.

Now the shoe was on the other foot.

That smile slipped as Erwin continued to stew, she almost felt sorry for the other woman's unsuspecting sergeant. Various soldiers and engineers practically threw themselves out of there way as Rommel stormed down the halls with her greatcoat billowing.

Miho opened big wooden doors to the mess quietly with no more than a flicker of will. 'After all,' she concluded to herself, 'letting Erwin blasting down the door would send the wrong message.' While her friend was probably going to beat the poor boy senseless, there was no reason to panic the whole room out, or to let him know they were coming for that matter.

But the pall of smoke and glowing embers that poured from the opened doors nearly made her choke, it reminded her of sitting in one of the underground terminals, while several of the old coal driven locomotives pulled up.

She was actually impressed by it. It seemed that the sergeant had stolen more than just a few packs of cigarettes.

Erwin's rage doubled as she slid into the smog. And Miho could feel her wrath manifest as psychic energy, brushing against her mind as she set about filling the smoky, dimly lit room with a paralyzing power. Miho sighed as the other girl's influence purposely avoided a single figure sitting in the back of the hall, obviously her wayward sergeant.

She very much doubted the show of force was necessary, even with the unease that had permeated the city since the ceasefire had been called. It wasn't likely that anyone in the room was going to make a move against a pair of Generalleutnants, regardless of the Sergeants ability to acquire a ridiculous amount of illicit goods.

But she braced herself and followed dutifully in her friends footsteps, watching in mild embarrassment as hundreds of conversations died quiet, simultaneous deaths. Eyes flickered to the medals and emblems of rank on their uniforms and deft hands slid lit cigarettes beneath tables. No one snapped to attention, the entire room sat paralyzed at the direction of Erwin's power or in fear of reprimand.

Goldstein himself was seated casually at a table in the middle of the room, laughing amicably with a pair of Czech engineers, his back to the room's entrance.

The young man had no idea the fury that was coming for him.

His compatriots however saw his death approaching a mile away, and their eyes widened as they goggled at the two approaching generals, as she and Erwin walked up behind him. Miho stopped herself slightly behind Erwin, not wanting to get caught in the violence that she was doubtless about to lay into her sergeant.

He realized something was wrong a moment too late. "Hey guys, what the matt…?" In a smooth motion, Erwin' hand rose from the at rest position behind her back and into the air, cutting his voice away. The sergeant grabbed for his throat as he spun around in the air before Erwin dropped him on the floor.

He jumped up, snapping to attention with a sharp click of his boot heels, which made Miho wonder if getting hauled from his chair in such a manner was her friends' usual way of greeting him. "General Rommel," coughed into the smog quietly, "I certainly didn't expect to see you so soon, is our unit being deployed?" He asked in what he probably thought was an innocent manner.

Erwin was having none of it, as fast as a whip she drew her pistol, and for a tiny instant Miho genuinely believed her friend was going to shoot him in the face, in the middle of the crowded bar.

Fortunately for her sergeant, Erwin failed to meet that expectation, as she seemed bent on bludgeoning him to death slowly instead. Shouting as she began clubbing his arms with the butt of her Luger as he attempted to shield himself.

"You stupid bastard!" She hissed over snickers from other people in the room as the new dinner show started up. "How many times do I have to tell you not to get caught stealing!" Her tone of voice made clear what Miho had already suspected during their walk. Erwin didn't really care that he had been stealing from the SS; only that he had been caught doing it.

While Erwin continued bludgeoning her subordinate senseless, uncaring of his halfhearted attempts to explain his actions. Miho felt a familiar presence flicker beyond the now closed doors, an aural rage she had already felt today, strong enough that several of those assembled in the room broke free from their own amusement to glance back to the doors.

Miho spun to look at the entrance as Erwin finished wearing herself out on her subordinate, and he took the opportunity to speak. "Come on sir, they only caught a glimpse of me." She heard him say.

Erwin's response came in the form of another round of clubbing's. "The Waffen SS broke into my apartment looking for you, you ass-candle! They are going to shoo-!" Her dispensing of retribution was interrupted mid-sentence, as the great wooden doors to the hall slammed into the walls with so much force that Miho had first thought that they had exploded.

Then two dozen, MP-40 toting, Waffen SS barreled into the room with Erika at their head, and every single person in the room besides herself reached for a gun.

'I knew I should have just stayed in bed today.' Miho thought glumly. 'Dreaming of Henan was safer by far.'

And just like that, she had to suppress a smile, as the solution to all her issues became obvious.

Miho reached out, plucking one of the contraband cigarettes from the lips of a paralyzed Pole. Bringing it to her lips and drawing in the psychic aftershock from Erwin's earlier outburst. That irritation and frustration, focusing on the earlier memory, letting the boiling energy draw back what she had been attempting to bury earlier.

She watched Erika's eyes, as they scanned the room to land on Goldstein, and the girl gave a bloodthirsty grin. That triumphant look that was cut short by a pale little Pole in a ruffled Gestapo uniform that seemed to have taken exception to her and the other SS goons attempting to do his job.

Not that he was even trying to do his job, but Miho figured that was neither here nor there.

And she didn't really care about the lines Erika was willing to cross for revenge either. She barely even noticed as the heat of the memory and of that place, seeped into her flesh. That she could walk over to a furious Erika just like she had all those years ago, without any hesitation at all.

It was like she was watching a stranger pilot her body, there was a sense of disconnect. The feeling brought back memories of one of her first lesson, back when she had only been a junior officer. She had been only a small child, when her instructor had taken her and her siblings to a special room and had a Psycher who specialized in control of the mind, puppet them one at a time.

The point of those lessons, or so they had been told, was to help them to recognize if they were being controlled or subverted mentally, then to teach them to fight against such things, and afterward how to use that same power on weak minded subordinates placed under their command.

After all, "Domination is the dominion of the officer." Or so Shiho had often told them after they had finished, usually while making a point to ignore her.

But many years had passed since then, and she was a Generalleutnant now, in the direct service of the Führer himself. And the man had made his opinion to her progenitor quite clear on matters concerning the so called Shadow of the East. That in Miho's case, his word was first and final.

That was a directive that extended to all of those currently beneath the woman in command as well, which actually included Erika, which was one of the reasons she felt so confidant letting go and doing what she had earned her title for.

As one of her tactical instructors had once told her, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then you must blind them with bullshit." The memory put a small smile on her face as she walked up behind the Polack. She didn't technically have any authority over Erika right now, or any of the SS for that matter, but if she played her cards right, it would be hours before Erika even remembered that.

"-not allowed to have those he…" Miho let herself feel nothing as she cut the little Pole off, grabbing him with one arm, and casually tossing him into the hands of a grizzled old Czech mechanic with a nearly robotic motion. Erika's eyes widened in fury and Miho emptied her mind and took a defiant drag from the stolen cigarette as she let out old memories that washed over the other girl. Then Erika visibly swallowed, trying to fortify herself and she knew the battle was all but won.

She could smell blood again; taste her own blood in her mouth over the potent flavor of ash and nicotine.

And just like that the illusion took hold, they weren't arguing in the middle of a mess hall over a bunch of goddamned cigarettes. They were back in the thick of the jungle, in Henan all those years ago, in the troop compartment of that godforsaken Sturmluther, slipping in blood and guts as it sloshed through the tangled mangroves as fast as its legs could carry it.

Her body ached and her shoulder burned, in synch with the memories, and she gave the other girl her best dead-eyed glare. "Untersturmführer… SSUSF-EI443, you are out of line." With one sentence Erika visibly deflated, looking younger in her eyes than she had in years, and the girl seemed to fall back fully into the mirage herself. Beckoned to the memory of the last time she had said the other girls name like that. "Your unit will report to your assembly area immediately while I locate your commanding officer." She hissed out the command, praying internally that they would fall for the mirage induced misdirection.

The rest of the SS didn't even wait for the Lieutenant's answer. Young enough to still have the discipline of their training or experienced enough to know that they would be better off arguing their case with their own commanding officer. The rest of the troop bolted from the room without even saluting.

Erika didn't run, but stood trembling in place. And a dark little place deep inside Miho couldn't help but smile; it seemed she hadn't forgotten that last little lesson after all. "You are dismissed EI443, go and gather your troop." She finished quietly.

With that she seemed to snap awake from the little nightmare she had been sucked back into, her eyes widened and she immediately snapped to a heel-clicking salute and with a piped, "Jawohl!" she literally ran from the room.

Miho exhaled slowly as the illusion began breaking, consciously relaxing and letting go all of the old emotions and reasserting proper control over her body and its emotional state.

She strolled over to the halls bar slightly giddy at the successful misdirection and laughed nervously, realizing that the entire room was staring at her. "Bartender, how about another round. The SS can pay for this one." The little brunette bartender twitched at her suggestion, seemingly content to stare at her like she was insane. But then the girl seemed to remember the events of the last minute and gave her a rapid intimidated nod, and immediately went about filling beer steins for the entire room.

As the temperature in the room normalized again and people relaxed at the mention of free booze, Miho turned back to Erwin and Goldstein. Both gave her stares remarkably similar to the barkeeps. "Well, they did break our door down. I figured this would be a suitable punishment." She shrugged and Goldstein shrugged back, before flopping into a nearby stool to nurse his wounded pride and bludgeoned head with free alcohol.

Erwin on the other hand, was less indifferent. "Hitler's whiskers Miho, what the hell was that all about?"

Miho blushed awkwardly. "I thought we could let Erika sweat it out for a bit before tracking down my sister." She replied, while ignoring the real question.

Then a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders and she felt herself stiffen in panic. "Oh, I'm impressed. I don't think I've ever seen her so responsive before." An amused and unfortunately familiar voice dripped into her ear.

Miho mechanically removed the touchy boy's hands from her shoulders. "Schrödinger, from where exactly did you come from?" She turned to the Führer's most flamboyant, and obnoxious errand boy.

The boy chuckled gaily at her questions wording, and swung around so he was facing the room in general before replying dramatically. "Going to and fro upon the earth, and walking up and down upon it." His grin widened, to an unnatural degree at his own joke. "You'll have to tell me what exactly you did to get that bothersome girl to act like that." His grin slipped slightly in some parody of seriousness. And he oozed back at her to give a lazy salute.

"But we'll have to save the recollections for another time perhaps. Seeing as I've been ordered to gather the Politick of Berlin to the Grand Auditorium." He gave her a knowing look. "The Führer himself is calling an assembly. So I'm afraid your disciplining of the 556th will have to wait." He sighed quietly to himself, and actually did look slightly disappointed at that, which Miho figured didn't bode well for Erika.

"That message applies to you as well Generalleutnant Rommel." He snapped around and bowed to the still frozen Erwin, then suddenly started smiling brilliantly again, while looking at the ceiling, "Well isn't that new?" he said. Then the lights went out, and when the rooms flashing red klaxon started wailing a second later, he had vanished.

3/15/95, Berlin – Block C5, Strategic Air-Command Center A, Inside the Reichstag

Minna glanced at the radar screen, as alarm klaxons blared for the first time in months, and panicked ensigns at their desks tried to answer dozens of phone calls at once. The room was total chaos as every command station in the city wanted to know what was happening… all at the same time.

She pitied the on-duty switchboard operators.

But she knew exactly what was happening. After all, she had been the one to press the button for the air-raid sirens. Several objects were approaching Berlin, the largest of which with a wingspan of nearly three hundred feet.

Though according to the screen they were actually over the outermost outskirts of the city already, only the cloud cover and its distance from the taller buildings were preventing direct visuals.

On the other hand of course, she had to handle a creepy R&D director from some godforsaken SS division normally stationed in the bowls of the city, leering at the screen over her shoulder; she doubted the switchboard operators had to deal with that.

And as though he could read her mind, the man did an about-face from pestering one of her NCO's and walked over to her, a pleased grin splitting his face. "Are they American, or perhaps Allied aircraft?"

A little chill slid down her back, Minna already knew from her earlier glance that it wasn't anything in the arsenals of any of the familiar political blocks. "Negative, the outlines do not match anything that I've seen or read of. It's possible that they are Experimentals that became lost, but I find that possibility unlikely." The 'don't question me, I've spend more time staring at the damned screens than any reasonable human has any right to,' Went without her saying.

If it was even possible his grin grew even larger and his glasses flicked to their higher focus lenses all by themselves. "Excellent, the Führer will be most pleased with this development." He turned back and stole a phone from an aid, idly playing with the buttons. "Call off your fighters Wilcke; they will be unnecessary for this experiment." He said, waving at her dismissively.

Minna sputtered. "Sir, are you sure…"

The six lenses on his glasses clicked and whirred as his gaze bored into the screen, and he held the phone to his ear with a smile. "Do not fret Kommandant; I have a special surprise in store for our… visitors." He gave her an amused look at some unsaid joke.

"Ursula, it has been confirmed." He spoke into the receiver with a crisp tone. "Take your squadron and bring our guests in for a landing." He chucked to himself, "And don't worry, I'll have them turn all the lights on for you. After all, we wouldn't want you to pancake your shiny new toys into the side of a skyscraper, now would we?"

III

Couruscant Orbit – Venator-class Star DestroyerRNS Resolute,Main Hanger

Anakin was pouting…

As unbelievable as it would have sounded to the public, and even though the man wasn't visibly sulking at the moment, Obi-Wan could tell.

Anakin was fiddling with his Delta-7, not his own starfighter, but with Obi-Wan's. He had already tinkered with his own fighter long enough for the excuse of its maintenance to run long dry.

Which meant he had switched to Obi-Wan's, and while his justification that his former master didn't maintain it as well as he should of, though technically true, still wasn't appreciated.

Obi-Wan was certainly willing to let him be irritated to a point, however, this was getting childish.

"Anakin, as much as I know you like helping Senator Amidala. Master Unduli was chosen for this mission, and you know she has a much greater stake in this mission than either of us." His opening salvo was one he had spent several minutes mulling over, something that would push exactly the right buttons.

He had intended to be calming but he could feel Anakin sink further into his funk at the statement. The younger man sighed, and turned from the newly eviscerated starfighter engine to look past him.

Obi-Wan felt Ahsoka's presence flicker through the force behind him. Rex and Cody were with her too, presenting a pair of calm, professional auras in contrast to the adolescent Togruta's fluttering light.

"Sir, I thought you would like to be informed that General Unduli's task-force has arrived in the Aldebaran system and will be making a landing soon." Rex supplied, probably directed at Anakin.

Obi-Wan felt Anakin's presence brighten a little as he stood from under the Starfighter. "Will they be broadcasting?"

Kenobi turned in time to see Ahsoka nod, looking pleased at her master's reaction. "Over the military channels, the Chancellor requested it himself. He says he hopes it will be a historic moment." She answered.

"And he sent you to tell us?" Obi-Wan queried, slightly amused at the notion.

"The Chancellor actually ordered Fox to inform you General, but some rioting on the lower levels held him up, so I volunteered to do it his place." Cody added respectfully. "I ran into Rex and Ahsoka on the way over."

Anakin breathed and seemed come back to himself, in their presence. "That's good news." He stood up. "What do you guys think about taking a listen?" He grinned at them, giving Ahsoka a pat on the back, as he led the five of them briskly to the bridge.

III

J-type Custom-built Diplomatic Barge "Conciliation" – On final approach to Aldebaran 3

Luminara Unduli stood calmly behind senator Amidala as the younger woman went through the motions of dropping the ship out of Hyperspace near newly dubbed Aldebaran 3.

As Padme moved to finger the comm button on the console, she placed her hand on the younger woman's shoulder to signal her to wait while she performed, what was in the Jedi council's opinion, the most important part of the mission.

Confirming something they had already inferred, but were unsure about.

She stretched herself out in the Force, enough to clearly feel the presence of the crews and troops on the escort cruisers as they dropped out of hyperspace nearby, she reached outwards away from the system.

She tried to feel the other Jedi, to feel the galaxy teeming with life beyond the chaos of the Unknown Regions. A trillion voices echoed through the immensity of space, rolling through the Force all around her. Luminara pressed forward, trying to contact the other Jedi, and though she could feel them clear as day, they did not respond. It was as though her very presence was being muffled.

It was as they had guessed then; the system was in a vortex in the Force.

It was a phenomena that was not completely unheard of, several worlds including the Sith home-world of Korabaan were believed by many to have existed in a similar state. The Force could enter in to the system, but it would not escape it.

Like a whirlpool in the very fabric of the Force itself.

More importantly, it explained why they had been unable to get a feel for anyone from the first contact team.

She squeezed the younger woman's shoulder and Padme nodded dutifully, flicking the comms channel on. The younger woman surmising that whatever Luminara had been doing was Jedi business and that it probably didn't involve her. As the hologram fizzled for a moment she felt a familiar presence spring forth from the planet below, in reaction to her own outreaching, and she couldn't help but feel her spirits lifting.

It seemed that Barriss, her padawan, was still alive.

She allowed herself a small smile at the victory while the hologram sprang to life, to show where the Chancellor stood, surrounded by various officials, senators, and Jedi.

Then the hologram from the Hopeful floated into existence a second later, Chuchi stood flanked by Ozzel who nodded at her and the Chancellor. "It seems our guess as to the nature of at least one issues was correct, and it seems I now owe you some tea master Kenobi." She started the conversation off straight to the point.

Obi-Wan gave a pleased smile from his smaller holo, and several of the non-Jedi in the hologram gave them both odd looks. "So I assume you have a plan of attack." Ion questioned her, impatiently.

Palpatine cut him off with a genial gesture. "In due time Ion; first we must assess the situation. I assume you can feel the children's presence on the planet master Jedi."

Luminara gave him a slightly apologetic look. "I'm afraid my thoughts were occupied, and I have not checked. But I did feel Barriss's presence the moment I entered the system. She is alive and does not seem overly distressed, though I have yet to actually try and contact her directly."

Palpatine nodded and gave her a small smile. "You don't imagine how relieved the people here are," He didn't need to add that her padawan being alive meant that there was a good chance of the other cadets being alive as well. "I think it would be best for everyone's nerves if you attempted that now." He spread his hands to indicate the crowd. "I believe we are at your leave master Jedi."

Luminara nodded, and steadied her breathing as she tried to strengthen her connection to her apprentice. But it wouldn't come. She could feel Barriss's presence; she could even feel where it was on the world nearby, but it was like her apprentice was being muted.

She allowed herself a small frown. "I am having trouble connecting with her Chancellor." She could see the discontent in the holograms, feel it in the bridge of the nearby warships. Only Amidala seemed to retain her unique brand of everlasting hope. "Perhaps it would be best to attempt a landing?" Padme asked her.

She nodded at the woman and flicked the map of the planet on, selecting where she had felt Barriss's presence earlier.

Luminara glanced at the map hologram again and flipped on her commlink. "Pilots, undock your fighters and follow us down." A mechanical sound echoed through the cockpit as the N-1 starfighters released from their charging ports and Padme pressed forward on the control stick. She could feel the troopers in the crew compartment tense as the ship surged towards the planet.

"Ozzel, if your ships would remain on standby for the moment?" Amidala turned, smiling towards the man's fuzzy blue image.

He sniffed and tensed slightly, then turned to regard Palpatine for a moment before replying. "We shall do what we can to assist from here." He nodded back to her politely, gesturing to himself and Chuchi.

The younger woman smiled assuredly at the holograms from the pilot's seat. "Don't worry about it. This isn't anything I haven't done before."

"That's exactly why we're worried." Skywalker gave her knowing look and Luminaria could see the tension on the faces in the room on the other end of the transmission relax slightly at his joke, a few of the senators even lightening enough to begin cracking smiles.

The Chancellor nodded to her as the ship rocked gently, upon hitting the atmosphere. "Hopefully we can keep the level of shenanigans to a minimum this time." He gave her a secretive look. "I don't think a failure at this point would go over well." He spoke into the transmission quietly.

"I think you're all taking this too seriously, they're probably just frightened and confused. Many worlds are during their first contacts." Amidala chided the holograms.

Luminara was about to reply to her statement when it hit her, like a whirlwind of raw strength in the force. An almost physical wall of emotion, hatred and love, lust and revulsion, rage and peace, pain and pleasure, determination and despair, and underlying it all was an all-powerful embodiment of mortality.

It was death congealed unlike anything she had ever felt before, a literal gestalt of trapped souls.

She could feel that power, as it turned its attention onto her in response to her probing. As she fell to her knees on the bridge, the copilot rushing to assist her as Amidala snapped the ships onto autopilot, that gestalt and those behind it knew where she was, where they were.

And they would crush her if they could.

It was unlike anything she had ever experienced, like a billion thoughts all turned on her at once in anticipation, trying to grind her to dust with the force of endless emotions. In the background she could hear Skywalker, Ozzel, and the Senators shouting over the transmission. It was like background static, she couldn't feel the copilot trying to lift her, and she felt nothing as Padme placed a palm on her forehead in concern.

None of it registered past the wave of excitement that was shredding her through the force.

Then something in the cockpit began beeping.

She clawed her way against that abyss, through the storm of passion with nothing but decades of experience and her own sheer willpower. And in an instant everything snapped back into focus again… the concern from Amidala and the copilot, the agitation of the soldiers in the ships belly, a jet of fear that passed into the pilots of the fighter escorts, and a group of minds approaching. Two were calm almost clinical, and the other pair excited, and irrational.

And they were all closing rapidly.

3/15/95, Berlin – 6 miles above sea level, Odin 42N "Biterolf"

Ursula Hartmann was ignoring her siblings, and Erica in particular, as the other girl dutifully abused experimental military hardware. Putting her saucer through a series of rolling spins that Ursula was sure would have given her endless nausea had she been copiloting.

Thankfully a single pilot cockpit was one thing the Odin's had over the older and even more experimental Sleipnirs, which meant that she didn't have to deal with the spinning.

However, she had no way to escape the singing…

"Mien das lich, mien das Reich!" Erich chirped alongside his sister in some nonsensical parody of the sacred tongue.

But Ursula ignored them, as she usually did when one of her siblings was in a mood, instead focusing on the tiny radar screen glowing between her knees. The plan, she had decided on was for the four of them to simply fly above the intruders using the cover of the dense clouds, then they would snipe out the escorts and push the larger ship into the deck, where their maneuverable saucers would hopefully have the advantage.

And seeing as the unidentified ships hadn't deviated course in the ten minutes it took them to get to their position above them, she didn't think this was going to be too much of a challenge.

And even if it was, and the unidentified aircraft pulled some trick, Ursula decided it would be all for the better. She suppressed a small grin, that couldn't be dampened by Erich and Erica's terrible warbling, as she slammed the throttle down and the Odin's hybrid engine roared in power. The saucers handled oddly, like something out of some strange dream, as they went slipping and sliding across the vault of the sky, but it could turn on a dime and was very, very fast.

"Let them try something," she thought to herself, pleased at the very notion, "it's been to long since my last dogfight anyway."

Then the feeling tapered out, to be replaced by a sense of anticipation as she realized they had driven themselves almost a kilometer above the altitude of their target.

Then it happened…

The moonless night, as cloudy as she could ever remember suddenly exploded into milky iridescence, as every single light in all of Berlin… in all of Germany turned on at once. And as she flipped her saucer inverted, Ursula could see below them five outlines, illuminated by ten-thousand spotlights and framed by the glow of the city proper. One large broad winged silhouette framed by four smaller T shaped craft.

The singing died and her siblings pulled back on their throttles in unison, and their four saucers slowed to a crawl high above the city, held there by no more than their inherent momentum.

"Alright, we all know the drill, Erich you're with me, Erica with Ursula. We Boom-&-Zoom and we come around to clean up that fat bastard in the middle." Ulrich's voice came clear though her headset as the four saucers gave up the last of the momentum, at the apex of their climb. Ursula smirked at her brother's almost world-weary tone, and nudged her stick slightly as her fighter started its descent, aligning with her sisters aircraft as they started there dive.

She flicked some of the new switches and felt her skin tingling, as the Tesla projectors warmed up to the clacking of the six machine-cannons. "You heard him," Erica's voice chirped eagerly though the radio, "weapons free!"

3/15/95, Somewhere beneath Berlin

Barkhorn glared at his compatriot, dutifully ignoring the low sound of faraway klaxons.

If looks could kill, his friend would be nothing but a pile of sizzling ash.

Erich was still smirking at the door, which he had swung open to reveal a wall of solid bricks. Almost like it hadn't reached his brain that beyond the door was not in fact, whatever secret he had felt the need to drag Gerhard down into the bowels of the earth to show him.

Then the moment passed and Erich's face flipped to shock. "Hey, this wasn't here last time?" He exclaimed, in an almost questioning manner. It made Gerhard wonder if he could, in fact murder his friend, and then hide the body before anyone came along looking for them… That was if anyone would actually come looking for them this deep into the city.

He took a deep, calming breath to banish both thoughts before speaking. "Hartmann, where exactly are we?"

Erich took a moment to reply, still staring in confusion at the door. "Oh, I remember now," he snapped his fingers and spun around, grabbing Gerhard's arm and dragging him back down the damp, dark corridor, "it was the other turn at the stairway."

"And we've gone down how many stairways in the last half hour?" He thought to himself aloud.

If Erich had heard his question he didn't show it, but continued dragging them both through several passageways that Barkhorn could have sworn hadn't been there on their way down.

And that wasn't exactly a good sign.

It was very easy to get lost in any major city, even in the skyscrapers above ground. That was something that had been repeated to him constantly when he had been in very small. Then it was drilled into him every day when he had been initiated into the Volkssturm.

'You don't wander off your patrol." It was such a simple instruction, and a very practical one, considering the sheer size, complexity and substantial age of Berlin itself.

And they had ignored that advice, and wandered down into the forgotten blocks of the great metropolis, and apparently they were now lost.

And along that line of thought, he felt the need to ask. "So Erich… do you actually know where we are, or are we going to die down here like I think we are?" He beckoned to the unfurnished tunnel they were descending thought.

Erich spun around so he was walking down the decrepit hallway backwards, and waved his concern away with a casual gesture. "I know exactly where we are!" He exclaimed. "And besides, have I ever led you wrong?"

"Yes." He replied automatically.

"Come on Gerhard, we'll be fine." Erich whined, as he stopped and swung open the most recent rusty door.

Barkhorn thought that the mummified cadaver in a tattered yellow volksstrum uniform, which flopped on to the smaller boy from behind the steel door when he opened it, seemed to imply differently.

Although he supposed the look on Hartmann's face when he was surprise hugged by a corpse was maybe worth dying for.

While his friend was twitching on the floor, he leaned over to examine the stiff's uniform. "Hey Erich, when you're done flashing back to basic training, you might want to look at this."

The patch on the uniform was faded, and the fabric itself was beginning to rot, but he could still make out the unit number. "The 657th" He looked down at the blonde, who was sitting back up and trying to look like he wasn't just having a bout of shellshock. "Didn't' they get wiped out in forty-seven?"

Erich turned to look beyond the threshold. The door he had opened was at the top of a rusted metal stairway at least five floors tall, and it opened to a long but thin room, cut from the solid stone.

A single light shone at the rooms ceiling, throwing the level several floors below them into a strange gloom.

Erich dusted his black uniform off and leaned past the door-frame, looking down into the abyss where shadows and the mists from the bowels of the earth cast strange shapes on the area below. "I didn't pay any attention in history, you know that…" The blonde muttered quietly. He crouched gingerly onto the grated catwalk, and leaned up to the guardrail. "Do you hear that Gerhard?" Erich asked him while fingering his holstered pistol, a habit Barkhorn knew he only did when he was nervous.

So he ignored all of his reason and sensibility, and he stepped out onto the rusted walkway and listened. The sirens from far above them had stopped a few minutes ago, and the room seemed dead quiet… but then he heard something.

A tiny sound that must have come from far away, an almost musical piping that echoed from the bottom of the room before them.

"Maybe it's an Ahnenerbe lab." He whispered down to Erich.

His friend gave him a dubious look. "Oh lovely, do you think the spooks will be willing to share some snapps?" Erich hissed back in amused sarcasm, he drew his sidearm and began moving gingerly down the catwalk to the spiraling metal staircase.

Barkhorn knew this was a bad idea, that they should close the door and try to navigate their way back up to a more inhabited block.

But he knew Erich would here none of it. That his friend was in the mood to do something stupid and probably suicidal, that if they were really lucky, then the sound would just be a gaggle of Ahnenerbe necromancers that would try to dissect them.

But he wasn't Erich's friend for nothing, and he wouldn't even kid himself that he would leave the other boy alone to face whatever horrors lurked in the blackened depths.

J-type Custom-built Diplomatic Barge "Conciliation" – somewhere above Aldebaran 3

Padme had felt perfectly calm when they dropped into the system. And though the subject of the Jedi's byplay had left her feeling confused, but she didn't let it bother her.

When Luminara had pointed out a mountain range as the most probable location for the cadets, she had been only curious.

She didn't feel afraid when Luminara suddenly collapsed in the cockpit. She didn't give in to her panic, not when the woman's eyes rolled back into her head in apparent agony, or when the numerous people on the holo started shouting at her all at once.

After all she was a senator, and an experienced diplomat at that. And really, when dealing with the Jedi, things like that seemed to happen every so often.

But when the woman seemed to come back into herself, Padme felt fear.

Because there was a look of genuine horror on the older woman's face, one that she had never actually seen on a Jedi before.

Then it seemed like every alarm in the cockpit had gone off simultaneously, as a blindingly brilliant light illuminated the clouds outside, and all four of her escorting N-1's seemed to just dissolve in that same instant. They seemed to have been simply ripped to shreds, as the sensor screen started screaming about four objects dropping down from the heavens, upon them like lightning from whatever vengeful gods the natives of this world might have worshiped.

Then Luminara reached out, and her stomach lunged for its escape, as the ships controls slammed forwards, and they were all thrown bodily from their feet and slammed against the back of the cockpit while the ship made a mad dash from the sky.

And they were still being followed. She could see the screen from the corner of her reddening vision, as the four blips on the radar swung around for another pass

Then Luminara leveled out the ship, hard enough to slam them all against the deck, and she could see the massive bulk of one of the peaks loom out from the clouds. Glowing luminous like no mountain she had ever seen.

"Get your crash-webbing on now!" Unduli shouted, seemingly directly into her mind, and suddenly her seat rushed up to meet her as the older woman used the force to push them all into their chairs.

Then they dropped below the cloud layer, and the peak outside the window fully materialized, and in an instant everything suddenly made sense. Not a mountain but a tremendous monolithic building, swathed in greenery and hundreds of now brilliant lights.

Now that she could see it clearly she felt like a fool. In orbit, when Luminara had pointed to the storm smothered continent, she had noticed the oddness of many of the shapes on the screen, but had ignored it as a trick of the mist in her ships sensors.

She had expected to find some quaint village, nestled in the foothills of a verdant mountain range.

But up close, all she could see was a series of massive concrete buildings, of a design she had never seen before. It was simultaneously brutal, gothic and imperialistic, built like a mountain from a fever dream, with unashamed concrete surfaces fashioned into harsh geometric shapes that vines clung to.

And that uncompromising city was all she could see.

That they had dropped down into a city build like a mountain range, two miles of air still below them and with many of the skyscrapers extending up into the cloudy sky above them. She could only guess their weight, duly impressed at the monumental determination and ingenuity that had to have been necessary to raise such monolithic bulks into the sky.

But despite her wonder, they were still being pursued. Those four circular shapes that had shredded her escort had come back around on the radar, tailing them avidly. But now they were shooting at them.

Crackling beads of lightning flew past the cockpit windows from their pursuers firing their alien weapons, as the Jedi drove their ship to dive beneath one of the many immense suspensions bridges that spanned the gaps between buildings, each large enough to be clustered with their own orchards and parks, held aloft more than a mile above the ground. But the saucers still pursued them, matching the clumsy wallowing of her larger ship easily.

She could feel sweat on her brow. As the chill of panic setting in as she slammed the comms unit back on open frequency, hoping against odds that they would be willing to talk. "This is Padme Amidala, of the Galactic Republic! Please cease fire! This vessel is on a diplomatic missi-" She was cut off by a deafening bang, which rattled the ship hard enough that the mesh of her seats crash-webbing dug painfully into her shoulders

The hologram of the ship started flashing, and she could see a damage marker on their underside. She opened her mouth to warn Luminara, but the other women slammed the ship into a roll as the air beyond them filled with little black clouds, and their ship slid vertically into a cavernous hanger cutting through of one of the skyscrapers.

It was a heart-stopping experience, as they dodged huge airships and massive sections of crowded scaffolding. She could see smaller aircraft taxiing out by the dozens across the deck below them and the tiny figures of hundreds of people running in all directions as the Jedi spun her ship through a complete barrel roll to dodge a huge section of catwalk.

Then they hit the walkway immediately behind the one she had been attempting to dodge, dead center.

The sight would have been laughable, if she hadn't been so horrified. The three young figures, dressed in what she assumed were maintenance uniforms, that she could see on the scaffolding in that instant had such comically surprised looks on their faces, as if her ship had simply materialized from thin air.

Luminara had screamed for them to brace, and she didn't know if it was at her or the figures on the catwalk.

Then every window on the bridge shattered, and she found herself ducking shards of jagged glass, as the thin metal scaffolding dragged across the front of the ship to shatter the viewport with an earsplitting screech.

And a terrifying instant later, her battered cruiser shot free of the hanger. She gambled a glance at the ships gauges, and what she saw did not fill her with hope.

Whatever had struck them from below had impacted just behind the handmaidens' chamber; she could see that the hit must to have cut one of the power feeds, as the port-side engines were seconds from failing.

The Jedi, either sensing her worry or having glanced at the screen herself, took the moment to level the battered ship back out. Then Luminara switched her comms on. "Is everyone alright in the hold?" The Jedi asked, and she felt a moment of shame for not thinking to do the same.

"A little bruised, but we'll make it." Was the crisp reply from the captain of the squad of senate troopers, who had camped out in the ships conference room. "What's the deal General?"

Padme glanced out the shattered window then back as Luminara started speaking. "That hit seems to have fried our engines. I'm going to try and glide us down as gentle as I can but…"

"At the rate this is going we can expect hostiles." The trooper guessed frankly.

The copilot snorted at that. "I'd say that's a strong possibility captain." The young man answered, and then he scanned back at the radar screen. "At least those bogies from earlier seem gone."

Padme sighed, and flicked the comms channel back to the original frequency, and then she balked at the stream of shouting that poured from the speakers.

She raised her hand to stem the tide of questions, and opened her mouth to speak, but the Chancellor cut her off. "If everyone is alright, I've already dispatched reinforcements; just transmit your location when you…'land'." He smirked cleverly. "I'll have Ozzel bring the ships to your position when they arrive." He gestured to Luminara. "Try to keep everyone alive in the meantime, would you master Jedi?"

Luminara nodded absently, focused on finding them someplace to land. "You seem awfully prepared for this." Padme commented, mildly trying to sort out whether to feel annoyed or relieved.

Palpatine gave her an amused look. "In my defense, this does happen to you quite often." He waved to Anakin's hologram. "I believe Skywalker would agree with me."

And speaking of her husband, Anakin was looking very anxious. "Hey, just try not to get into too much trouble before we get there alright?"

"I very much hope that this will not escalate that far-" Obi-Wan was cut off as the ships engines chose that moment to shut down.

"Alright, I'm going to try to glide us down into one of the buildings." Luminara interrupted, and then she started and turned back to the holograms with an almost haunted look. "Kenobi, Skywalker I want you two to inform the council that there is something deeply wrong going on with this planet."

The Jedi present gave Luminara an uncertain look, but Obi-Wan nodded. "I will pass that on; hopefully you can give us some more details when after you've been secured."

And at that Padme found herself pulled away from the hologram and the Jedi's discussion, to marvel again at the clever illusion that many of the buildings created.

The building Unduli was gliding them towards was a steep cone of concrete, like many of the others in the city, and from above it would look completely solid. Nothing more than a peak wreathed in foliage. But from the side the illusion was now made obvious. The tower was clearly divided into many even levels, a solid overhang several stories tall would be punctuated by a section cut deep enough onto the structure to shelter elaborate gardens and what looked like small towns, if her eyes did not deceive her, nestled away safely between the folds of the gigantic structure. And the entire building seemed to be patterned in this manner.

And there were people in the little towns watching them, she could see them now that they had closed the distance and slowed down, the battered ship unable to continue its glide for much longer.

She had just enough time to double-check her crash-webbing before the ship slipped in between the buildings levels and came down for a bone jarring landing.

After the ship slid to a stop, she couldn't help but think that it wasn't the worst landing she had ever had.

Luminara didn't give her much time to reminisce, the Mirialan Jedi unstrapped herself immediately and shepherded them all down into the conference room, where the six-man squad of senate troopers waited anxiously.

Strange voices could be heard from outside the ship as Unduli addressed the men. "Captain is your squad ready." asked curtly, drawing her lightsaber in response to the increase in sounds coming from outside.

The purple armored trooper said nothing, but nodded and he and the other troopers flicked the safeties off on their force-pikes.

Padme drew her own blaster absently, as the Jedi briskly motioned for them to follow her back up to the cockpit. "So do we have a plan?" She queried.

The green-skinned Mirialan nodded. "I think we'll have the best chance of escape if we use the cockpit windows rather than the boarding ramp." She motioned to the shattered glass. "They might not expect it if we go this way."

Padme nodded and crawled out the window after her, mindful of the windows jagged edges. "And then what?" She whispered quietly.

The woman's lips thinned in displeasure. "We'll think about that if we get that far." She spoke as she stood, her lightsaber snapping on with a hiss and a flash of brilliant emerald light.

And when she stood up next to her Padme understood why.

They seemed to have crashed into some sort of open-air restaurant. Framed by the eerie illumination from outside, and by several caged lights embedded in the concrete of the ceiling, was a mess of flipped tables and several hundred figures in a variety of uniforms.

And every single one of them was pointing some sort of small-arm at them.

'This happens every single time…" Padme thought to herself, while the squad of senate troopers moved cautiously up to join them on the top of the ship, followed closely by her copilot. 'Maybe I am cursed.'

Two of the figures stood out in the crowd below them, a darkly dressed older man and a younger man in a crisp yellow uniform, who seemed to be having an argument of some kind. The younger of the two seemingly intent on trying to stop the older man, who might have been his superior if the metals on the old man's uniform meant anything, from approaching them.

"Plan?" She hissed to Luminara quietly.

The Jedi grimaced and deactivated her lightsaber, making the troopers behind her startle, and turned back to her. "We're going to surrender to them."

The captain started at that. "Sir you can't be serious!" He whispered heatedly, gesturing his stave at the crowd. "Weren't we supposed to hold out until reinforcements arrived?"

Unduli gave them a strange look. "There are more options available to us than just fighting captain." She walked to the edge of the ship's hull. "And besides, we might be able to learn more this way."

"Hände hoch!" The older man called up to them calmly, waving his hand in a casual motion, and every gun in the crowd clicked cocked simultaneously. Padme didn't know whether to be more surprised that they were surrendering or that they were surrendering to a crowed armed with what appeared to be slugthrowers.

The troops behind her seemed to be just as shocked as she was, and growled traitorously down at the assembly. "Come on, half of em don't even look like they even got hair on their chests, we could totally take them." One of the men behind her commented.

Luminara actually rolled her eyes at that. "Lock it down private." She tossed her now deactivated lightsaber to the younger of the two men, who squawked in surprise and fumbled with his catch. She waved for the rest of them to toss down the weapons, and Padme tossed her blaster down to the boy.

The troopers around her snorted as the blond dropped her pistol and it clattered on the concrete. They tossed their pikes down on top of him while he scrambled, cursing loudly, and several people in the crowed snorted audibly in response.

Luminara looked back to all of them, raising her hand. "Alright, on three."

"One"

"Two"

"Drei." Her heart jumped into her throat as Padme felt the familiar feeling of weightlessness, and they were lifted into the air, and set down before the older man.

His mustache bristled as he turned and began speaking rapidly in an annoyed tone, to a very tall and very thin, elderly woman who had stepped out from behind a large steel doorway. While Luminara simply stared at the woman in horror, either at the cartoonish skull painted over the brow of her black habit, or at the woman's apparent command of the force, Padme did not know.

The grey-haired woman either didn't notice the Jedi's apparent shock, or simply didn't care. Walking up to the older man at a completely relaxed pace, unconcerned when the people in the crowd scrambled out of her way.

She gave him a smirk, and then directed an almost patronizing glance to herself and Luminara. Not even seeming to see the growling troopers, and her cowering copilot who stood behind them.

What followed was a somewhat heated conversation in their guttural native language. Padme found the dialog utterly incomprehensible, and she found herself wishing she had brought along C3P0, as no one else in their party seemed to understand the dialog any better than her. And if any of the natives, many of which seemed to be settling casually back into their meals despite the massive ship that had slewed itself into restaurant, understood Galactic Basic they didn't feel the need to translate.

And while she found the sudden lack of firearms pointing in her direction to be slightly reassuring, the sheer incomprehensibility of the native tongue left her with a helpless feeling. She didn't know if they were discussing taking them to their leader, or if they were deciding whether or not to execute them on the spot.

But finally, after several minutes of argument, the pair seemed to reach an agreement. With the older man stroking his mustache in a pleased manner, before sharply gesturing to his younger assistant, who had finished handing their weapons off to a trio of children in similarly crisp tan uniforms, before presumably telling the boy to get them an escort.

The younger man straightened his hat, and ran off, returning not five minutes later with a dozen gas-masked soldiers in tough looking black uniforms.

The elderly woman gave then a genial look, and wordlessly gestured at them to follow her, as she walked back towards the steel door.

Padme gave Luminara a glance, trying to determine the woman's plan, but her tattooed face remained completely passive in that infuriating Jedi way as they turned to follow, with the black uniformed soldiers falling crisply in line on either side of their group, apparently escorting them deeper into the building.

And so she did as she always did in these kinds of situations, she took a deep breath and braced herself for whatever would come next.

3/15/95, Berlin – Block O25, Mess Hall B1, beneath the Reichstag

Miho glanced at the place Schrödinger had been standing only a moment before, trying to untangle her thoughts. The day had gone on long enough already, and her emotions still wanted to tie themselves in knots.

The sirens might have stopped already, and the flashing red klaxons had flicked off only a few seconds later, but there had already been an explosion of excitement in the room. Everyone had been on edge already; over two months of peace would do that, and every time there was a drill or someone pulled a fire alarm the whole city seemed to lose its collective mind.

Which made the alarm's timing pretty suspect when she gave it some thought.

She knew it wasn't impossible for Schrödinger to do something like that with the lights, and that he certainly enjoyed messing with people enough. Plus he was probably as bored and on edge as everyone else at the unexpected peace. So the idea that he would pull a prank certainly wasn't beyond possibility.

But she also knew that he wouldn't make up a fake summons either, while the boy had little respect for anyone, he did follow the Führer's orders, at least most of the time.

Which meant that she was going to have to drag Rommel all the way to the Volkshalle, a task that was always easier said than done, just to be sure that this wasn't the flamboyant youth's way of blowing off steam.

And her mind put special emphasis on the word 'Drag' because Erwin absolutely despised politics. The other woman could spend literally all of her time in the archives reading up on history, and was always at ease with the lower ranks, but any attempt to get her to interact with the other officers was like pulling teeth.

Not like Miho liked politics any better, but she made a point to at least try to interact with some of the people she was supposed to be working with.

Erwin, on the other hand, had to be forced to care.

She allowed herself a sigh, and swiped a freshly filled stein from the counter before turning to Rommel. "Alright, time to go."

Erwin frowned at her petulantly. "He wouldn't even notice I was gone." She said, probably referring to the Führer.

But Miho was having none of it today. "Erwin, we are not having this conversation again." She grabbed her companion by the sleeve of her greatcoat, and made to pull her from the hall. "You can't just keep ignoring direct orders from the Führer. And besides, if he is ordering everyone to assembly hall this has got to be something big." She stressed the word 'everyone', hoping her friend would see reason. "There will probably be a record of who showed up."

"Or Schrödinger is having one at our expense, which do you think is more likely?" The other girl shot back, glaring at the bartender, who had emerged from beneath the bar to try and listen in on their conversation.

Miho shot the girl an apologetic look. "Sorry, but I think this one is need to know only."

The brunette shrugged and went back to filling her steins, while several of the nearby off duty individuals leaned away from them and went back to their own conversations.

Erwin just groaned at Miho, as she was pulled away from the bar and she guided her down the hall in the direction Miho knew would lead to one of the towers train stations. "I still don't like it, and I don't like them." She lit up another cigarette. "The lot of them are a bunch of stuffy old fu-"

"Rommel, it's good to see you." A crisply bearded man in a white Swedish uniform cut her off, in in passable German, falling into step next to them. "I don't think I've seen you since you were deployed with my boys in Mezen."

Erwin blinked in recognition and nodded respectfully back at the man. "General Welk."

The General gave them both a firm handshake. "Carolus Welk, I met your friend here during the Barent campaign about three years ago." He gave her a closer look, stroking his beard thoughtfully as they walked past an unmanned checkpoint. "I think I recognize you… one of Shiho's aren't you?"

Miho just nodded back politely, and replied automatically. "WMGL-MN44b." She flushed red, realizing the Swedish general was unlikely to recognize the designation code.

But he merely rolled his eyes, good naturedly. "Don't give me that crap kid, I can never remember any of it."

An older woman in a Finnish air command uniform fell into step with them, snorting at his response. "Trust me kid, he wouldn't even remember his own if it wasn't tattooed on his ass." She grinned wolfishly down at Miho. "And believe me it's there, I've checked."

"Give me a break Laura." Welk waved back at the woman.

"It's Miho…" She watched their reactions, as the name hit them.

They both gave Erwin an impressed look. "Well, aren't you rubbing shoulders in high places." Welk ruffled her hat and Erwin frowned, shooting him an annoyed look.

"It's not my fault; everyone else around here is either crazy or an asshole." The blonde shot back.

Laura shrugged. "The SS and the Ahnenerbe Headquarters are in Berlin, did you really expect anything else?"

Miho for her part just followed the conversation while sipping slowly from the stein, just glad that the attention had not immediately gone to her.

"So… would either of you happen to know what all of this is about." The older man asked as they arrived in the tram station along with about fifty other officers and politicians, several of whom leaned in subtly at his question.

Miho smiled a little inside, at the almost childish curiosity pouring off several of the people nearby. "I wouldn't know sir; Schrödinger didn't have time to say much of anything, just told us that Max had ordered an assembly, though he did look up oddly before the air raid klaxons went off." She shrugged and sat down on the officer cars bench, while Erwin flopped herself into a nearby seat, looking visibly displeased as the over-sized train jerked to motion. Even glaring at a Volksstrum attendant offering everyone coffee.

Welk nodded back in understanding, plucking a cup of coffee from an attendant while Miho sipped the cheap beer from her stolen stein. "Didn't say much to me either, just dropped by to tell me I was invited." The bearded man leaned over conspiratorially, mirroring a dozen other conversations occurring in the compartment. "But I've heard we're going back to war." He whispered and every other conversation in the car died instantly.

He gave her a knowing grin. "I mean come on, all of this secrecy," he gestured to an Abwehr officer Miho didn't recognize. "Then there's the fact that all production orders have been tripled, everywhere it seems." Several others in the compartment nodded, while the Swede reveled in his new audience.

"What else could it possibly be?" He asked, looking directly at her with a genial smile, like he was expecting she would have an answer.

Miho kept her face straight at the man's good-natured prodding, carefully polishing downing the rest of the beer in her stein before replying, glad for the effects of the alcohol on her normally jittery nerves as everyone's gaze fell on her. "Well Max hasn't told me anything, if that's what you mean, but you're suspicion does seem pretty reasonable now that I think about it." Light flooded the compartment as they shot out from inside the building they were in onto one of the cities many massive suspension bridges.

But before she could continue, Erwin cut in. "Hey guys, is that building burning?" Rommel, who had been making a point to not be paying attention to their conversation until now, turned back to her. Gesturing to the glass, as every eye in the car locked on her window.

And a building was indeed burning, though she didn't know which building it was at a glance. And after she got over the oddness of seeing all of Berlin's lights on at night through the window Miho could see it quite clearly. The thickening plume of black smoke that was emanating from the space between the levels on a nearby skyscraper, and when she looked closer she could see another, smaller cloud of smoke pouring from an inset hanger in another further away skyscraper.

And then, an instant later they passed fully from the bridge, and plunged back into the relative darkness of another skyscraper. But by then the tension in the car had exploded.

"I think that was probably what the alarm was about earlier." Erwin observed dryly.

Laura, straightened her air force uniform, and gestured to Miho and Welk. "That would have had to have been an aircraft. No bomb could have hit at that angle, and a missile would have struck one of the buildings on the city's outskirts before it would have penetrated this far." The white haired woman nodded to herself.

But something was bothering Miho, about what Carolus had said earlier, it niggled in her mind so she didn't even notice Erwin getting drawn into an argument with a pair of Polish engineering directors about velocities and missile guidance systems.

Then suddenly everything hit her, all at once, and she was leaping up to shake Welk and trying to rip open her jacket at the same time. "Secrets!" She settled for shaking his shoulder with one hand and digging the letter from her jacket with the other. "That's it!" She ripped the tattered letter from her pocket. "Katyusha sent me a letter talking about how she got promoted for getting shot, and about how that made us even now."

Everyone in the compartment was looking even more closely at her as she folded out the letter, running her fingers over the blackened out lines of text. "I figured that it was just the Russians being, well… Russians. But they didn't censor the date… Here January the twenty-eighth, twenty-nine ninety-five. She says that she was writing this the day she woke up, and the ceasefire started on the twenty-seventh. But three days earlier she had sent me a complaining about how she was mad about being sent out to look for a meteor."

The temperature dropped as several people in the compartment inhaled simultaneously, obviously reaching her conclusion. "And everyone has heard by now that something strange fell in Russia, and that an unspecified Russian officer got a medal for killing it."

"Then there was whatever happened in Switzerland." Welk was nodding along with her now, stroking his beard. "I've heard that thousands of troops saw, what was described as a building, fall from the sky, and even that there was a major battle of some sort." He downed the rest of his coffee in a quick gulp, grinning at her wildly. "And there were rumors about a bunch of completely blacked out subway trains were sent to Berlin from Switzerland about a month ago."

Erwin spoke up. "So the Reds started a war with aliens?" She said a little doubtfully.

The bearded Fin shrugged. "Until I hear someone come up with something better…"

"I suppose we'll find out soon enough." Miho said feeling slightly embarrassed by her own outburst as the beer started to catch up to her, and the tram pulled into the Volkshalle's central station.

The first thing she noticed upon exiting the tram was that the station was absolutely crawling with security. Hundreds of gasmask wearing SS from the Elite Security Division idled all across the terminal.

"Oh, that's just what I wanted to see today, even more Blackshirts." Her friend practically spat.

Miho slipped her hand onto Erwin's shoulder. "Erwin, at least try to remain civil, at least until the meeting is over."

Erwin growled in annoyance, but slipped her hands into her pockets and nodded in confirmation before wandering off to find her own siblings, who would be waiting for her on the lower levels.

That left her with the uncomfortable task of going up to the upper levels and finding her own siblings, without the company of her great coat wearing friend.

The SS trooper didn't even ask to check her ID at the entrance to the Grand Auditorium, but simply glanced at her face and saluted. Something that Miho actually found a little depressing, it was just another reminder of everything she wanted to forget.

That she had been born different.

That she was so different from her siblings, that she could be identified at a mere glance.

It was a dark thought, one that made her remember that Shiho was guaranteed to be in the building as well. And she felt herself slouching even further.

She had been avoiding the issue for the better part of her life, and she had no intention of letting it blow over now, during such an obviously crucial moment.

But thankfully, her progenitor was nowhere to be seen among the stream of people passing up the stairways, and everyone else around her seemed too distracted with the impending meeting to pay her any mind.

And in retrospect, it was a good thing everyone was so distracted, as it meant that they didn't see when she was pulled behind one of the alcoves by a black garbed arm.

Miho would have screamed, sent the buildings honor guard into a panic, but the moment the hand had clasped hers she felt an affectionate sensation pour at her, like having a bucked of warm water dumped on you on a cold day.

She didn't need to look to know she was back in one of the only places she was ever really felt safe.

Maho tilted her head up anyway, with a finger on her chin so she could plant a kiss on her forehead without knocking Miho's hat off.

Her sister gave her a calm little smile. "I haven't seen you in two months Miho."

She felt herself blush in spite of herself, wiggling in her siblings arms. "But this city is so big, and you would not believe the trouble Erwin has been getting into." She gave up finding excuses almost immediately, choosing instead to give into the impulse to bury her face into the taller girl's neck. "I was actually about to come get you though, Erika kicked my door in."

Maho let out a small snort. "Somehow, I don't find that hard to believe." She replied dryly, running a hand through Miho's hair affectionately.. "You'll have to forgive her. Everyone in my command group going completely stir-crazy, and I'm sure yours is no exception."

Then the taller girl shrugged. "Without the war on, no one knows what they should be doing anymore."

"Could you two love birds hurry it up," echoed a voice almost identical to Maho's but with a slightly more masculine tone, "It's starting soon."

Miho let her sister guide her gently behind the alcove. Fifteen other, identical faces greeted her, and her stomach clenched and her shoulder throbbed, at the potent realization of just how few of them had survived the last fifteen years.

When they had been first born; there had been forty of them, she had twenty brothers and nineteen sisters.

But the years of service in the endless war had slashed their number by more than half, and now she had nine sisters and five brothers, one of whom was giving her a mildly amused grin.

Moho wiggled his eyes at Maho. "You can make kissy faces at her after the assembly Maho." He waved in the direction of the stairway. "Unlike Bubi, we're actually expected to be present when our glorious leader gives a speech." His voice was fairly flat, but Miho could still tell that there was more than a hint of sarcasm in it, which made sense considering that Moho was actually in command of a section of Berlin's security division.

So they made the short jaunt up to their balcony, more than halfway up the Grand Auditorium, and again she couldn't help think that the room certainly deserved the name.

Over twenty stories of huge balconies ringed the central dais, room enough for the thousands of high tanking officers that ran the Reich to be addressed at once.

The room itself was also lavishly decorated, with marble and granite carved into symbols of power and authority decorating every surface all under a central floodlight that was encased behind a water filled dome.

The light itself could change color, depending on the mood that needed to be set. Today it was a deep blue, with droplets falling into the water at the bottom of the glass case causing a relaxing rippling effect in the lights.

And at the center of it all, Maxwell stood on the raised dais, surrounded by eight smoldering braziers aligned in the shape of a Hakenkreuz . The plumes of incensed smoke they threw up were thick enough, that when combined with the rippling effect of the blued lights, the room almost felt as though it was submerged.

Normally an assembly of this nature was something that was steeped deeply in ritual, but today the Führer seemed to have no patience for such frivolity.

The stout man marched up onto the dais, adjusted his white uniform and keyed his microphone. "Greetings, faithful servants of the Reich." The low murmur of the crowed died instantly; as the blonde's forever amused voice echoed though the room. "I feel friends, that today I should begin by thanking you all for holding together for such strenuous times."

His hands swept wide, as he gestured to the entire room. "I know how frustrated you all must be, and how confused and directionless these last few months have been for those beneath you on the chain of command."

He grinned broadly, the gleam in his golden eyes visible even from where Miho was. "I know that the Gestapo has certainly been gnawing my ears off with incident reports." Max chuckled to himself. "And I am well aware that there has been much speculation about the nature of the events over these last few months."

As he spoke, a cloaked figure strode purposefully up to the podium and stood behind him, as he continued. "But fret not my friends, for today the nature of ALL secrets will be revealed." The short blonde grinned viciously, and she felt a shiver run thorough the room.

"Our guest today has the answers you all your questions, and more." And at that the figure doffed his white robes in a single smooth motion, and everyone in the room gasped, either in shock, outrage or terror.

Because behind Max stood one of the most admired and despised men in all of German history.

"Greetings children!" The calm voice of Albert Einstein thundered across the room, his psychic aftershocks literally shaking the walls, and pinning everyone in the entire auditorium in their place.

"I must thank your good Führer, Mr. Maxwell, for having me here today." He inhaled deeply, and Miho had to work to keep her knees from hitting each other, realizing that the only thing keeping her standing was the man's sheer power. "It's good to be back in Berlin." He gave them all a wiry smile. "What's it been Max, a thousand years?"

The Führer merely rolled his eyes, as Einstein released the room from his psychic grip. "And you people have the gall to say I'm over dramatic." He complained, waving the elder man up to the Dais's podium, cutting all manner of protest off with nothing more than a sharp look and a single raised hand. "Yes, fret not, our good friend Albert is here to explain everything from the beginning." He spoke in a tone that left no room for argument.

The sheer insanity of hearing Maxwell refer to Albert Einstein, a man who had deserted the Reich to aid the Americans before the war had even begun and who had been aiding them ever since, as a friend was enough to keep her mind paralyzed in place even after the genius's power had full receded.

It left Miho wondering if the reason for the rooms spinning was due to the alcohol she had consumed earlier, or if the madness had simply infected reality itself.

But if Einstein noticed the wild mix of emotions echoing through the room, he hardly seemed to care. "I suppose that's where I should start my explanation shouldn't I, at the beginning." He cupped his chin in thought for a moment, before smiling. "Many years ago I had a dream."

His smile widened. "I had a dream my friends." His hands flashed out, gesturing to the whole of the room as Maxwell had only minutes earlier. "And I dreamed of a heavens filled with civilizations, of alien worlds and technology that was almost beyond comprehension. I saw battles and wars on a scale that could never have been comprehended at the time."

"And I dreamed of codes children," he wiggled his finger at them, "of a variety of alien languages, which I could understand in this dream." The braziers' vomited a pall of smoke as the light in the ceiling turned a deep red. "But when I awoke I was always doubtful, though I still remembered all of it unlike any dream I had ever had before, and though when I went to sleep the next night I still dreamed of those places again, and in greater detail."

His hands waved, casting patterns through the smoke, and in that instant Miho thought he looked like some mage from a time long since passed, which she supposed he was. "And I kept dreaming, and then several days later I had the fortune to read in a newspaper that my now good friend Tesla had recorded transmissions from the heavens!" He snorted. "Nikola had believed them to be from mars, but when I read the transmissions I was struck dumb. I found that I could translate the signals, and that they were part of a news broadcast in an alien language, one I had dreamed about and could somehow translate."

"It was talking about a great battle that had left an entire world in ruins, and in that moment children, I felt my blood run cold as ice. I couldn't, I wouldn't let that be us." A look of old determination passed across the man's wrinkled brow. "I knew that I would do anything to prevent that from happening here, and so I did. I contacted Tesla, showed him my translations, I convinced him to keep it secret. And then we created the Conclave," He gestured to the room again, "an order which many of those present are a part of."

"We went out and gathered the best and brightest from all corners of the world, and there in the shadows we swore them all to secrecy. The knowledge we had uncovered on the true nature of the heavens shocked and terrified many, but soon a plan was concocted. We infiltrated governments across the planet, steering it cautiously towards the war that has tempered our world for the past thousand years."

The wild-haired old man grinned, good naturedly. "Yes, little ones, it was I who was behind the war. I saw the direction our world was headed, and with the help of the other members of the Conclave, we took hold of the wheel and began steering in another direction."

"Of course there were speed bumps and roadblocks, some of which had to be removed by force." His power passed over the room again, but this time there was an almost fatherly feeling to it, benevolence. "But I cannot tell you how proud I am of all of you…"

Miho felt her knees buckle, sheer confusion making her dizzy, but Einstein held her and a thousand others up without any apparent strain.

His hands swept the room. "For a wise man once told me, that it is easier to build strong children than repair broken men." He chuckled. "And believe me I would know, I invented the ectogenesis pods for exactly that reason." His eyebrows wiggled and he pulled a pipe from his coat. "And to that end I have guided the people of this world."

He chuckled as he lit his pipe. "So in a way, I am not here to tell you a message of armistice, as the nations of this good Earth have never really been at war."

"I am here to tell you that I have done all that was in my power to do. Our cities now scrape the skies and delve the depths, the chains rattle and forges roar as tanks and planes pour from the factories! I have made you strong my children, forged mighty in the heat of a THOUSAND YEARS OF WAR!" His voice boomed like a peal of thunder, and Miho realized she was trembling against Maho. That she had fallen back into her sister in shock.

"And now it is that familiar old war you all desire!" He roared up at the masses. "It is war you shall have!"

The crowd roared back to him, the desire to fulfill their purpose outweighing all else. "Now draws the hour when your strength will be tested. This Galactic Republic," he spat the name, "has been weakened by millennium peace, but they outnumber the stars themselves and they will bring the might of the very heavens down upon us!"

"The battle for the very fate of our Earth draws near! So the time has come for all nations to put aside our differences and unite under the banner of war!"

As he finished Miho felt something, a tingling in her stomach that she recognized, to her own terror, was anticipation. "So that is our mission…" Max said nonchalantly, "we must withstand Armageddon so that we can begin Götterdämmerung."

---

Holy shit did this take a long time to write…

On the plus side, it is more than twice as long as the first two, almost four times as many words. Though I very much doubt later chapters will be this lengthy, because super long chapters like this just take too long to pound out and edit. I just couldn't find a good place to stop with this one.

And as for the whole "psycher" thing. Well most stories I've read that do crossovers with Star Wars usually ignore the force and its possibilities all together, something I find both unrealistic and uninteresting. There is just so much more you can play around with.

I mean just imagine a universe where groups like the Ahnenerbe actually figured out stuff that actually worked, IE the Force, a world where they had an impact on the war.

But I digress, if you liked the story, have any ideas you'd like to share, or have comments or criticism you, feel free to leave a review. Or don't, I really don't mind.

Next Time on Hearts of Iron: It's all about cadets!