Flames of Revenge
The team, minus Oskar, thundered up the steps to the front door of the Reichstag, the once-majestic Roman columns cracked and decaying. Besides the door, as if standing guard, were twins of the Dienstflagge der Bundesbehörden, their black-red-and-gold colors faded from the years. The eagle still stood proud, the shield at its back held before the colors, declaring itself to Germany and all the world that it was the guardian of democracy. Of the republic.
Hans hardly paid the flags any attention as Erich ran up to the doors and rammed them off their hinges with a kick of his armored boot. The heavy and beautiful oak doors, having stood on their hinges since the reunification, skated across the floor, shedding their handles and hinges, pieces of brass and wood flying off. The doors came to rest at the foot of a plinth, bearing statues of both Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm I, each facing the other, one bearing a sword and shield, the other a book and quill.
The plinth and the statues made excellent cover for the squad of Vengeance Troopers crouched behind it, who opened fire as the Panzertroopers entered the room. One of the VTs had set up an MG-34, the machine gun barking harshly in the domed lobby. Its roar was silenced by the ripping staccato of Irmina's PG-60, the gun and its operators simmering. To the left a Vengeance Trooper shouldered an FG-42, quickly released from his mortal coil by the immortal coils of Erich's M72 Gauss Rifle, half his head missing.
Hans and Friedrich moved in a moment after, keeping low. Hans didn't recognize the large, round room, but he was sure that the entrance to the basement was around somewhere. They'd just have to find it, and slaughter every gray-skin dumb enough to stand in their way.
"LEFT!" Hans shouted, and then the team was moving to the double doors on the left. Erich removed them from their hinges as well, a squad of Sturmutants and Rotters on the other side. They opened fire, their bullets bouncing off the plates of the SPAS suits. Erich's M72 thundered again and again, the hall awash in the blue glow of Irmina's PG-60. They moved into the hall and Hans and Friedrich followed, stepping over the devastated corpses. The hall ran along the outside wall of the building, the left side dominated windows that looked out on der Platz der Republik, its once lush lawn a desolate brown, littered with sandbags and rusting barbed wire.
The right side of the hall had two doors, the rooms beyond both empty, and another set of double doors at the end. Hans and Friedrich went prone before them, the Panzertroopers standing on either side. They rammed the doors open with their shoulders, the Sturmutants opening fire. Erich tossed in an M71 stielplazmagranate, a thundering *FWWAAAANNGG!* filling the room as it went off in a flash of blue, the air stinking with ozone. Erich and Irmina moved into the room beyond, weapons raised. A Sturmutant, sans waist and left arm, clawed at a G11. Hans put a 12-gauge slug through his head and put an end to that.
"Where to?" Erich asked. They'd ended up in a library, most of the books missing, the shelves burning with blue flames. Part of Hans hoped the books had been moved into a vault when The Bomb came, safely preserved for future generations.
"I don't know," Hans said. "We're going the right way, though. The stairs to the prison cells had been in the Northwest corner. When that mutant had marched Hilda and I outside we'd come out on the side closest to the park. We'll just keep going this way."
The four of them got moving again, heading through the L-shaped library and out the door at the other end. They emerged in a hallway, stretching on both left and right. Per Hans' vague directions they headed left, down the marble-and-linoleum hall to the door at the end. A Sturmutant popped out of a door on the left, holding an MG-42 as if it was a rifle. Erich yanked the weapon forward, out of the mutant's grasp, and rammed the stock into his face, shattering his orbital sockets, crushing his nasal cavity, and dislocating his jaw. The mutant collapsed to the floor, being suffocated by his broken face.
The door at the end of the hall was unlocked, and the Panzertroopers kicked it open. A squad of Vengeance Troopers lied in wait on the other side, their black armor bathed in the glow of their energy guns. Blue plasma and yellow lasers flashed through the open threshold and hit the walls of the hall, scorching the marble. Erich and Irmina pulled back, pulling plasma grenades from their belts. They each lobbed one in, the grenades detonating in sync. Irmina moved in low, her PG-60 flashing. Erich looked at Hans and Friedrich and handed each of them three plasma grenades. "They work just like an M24," he said. "Unscrew the end cap, yank on the cord, and throw."
Hans nodded and clipped the grenades to the back of his belt, noticing that Friedrich did the same. The room beyond had fallen silent, and the three boys followed Irmina in. The room was a junction, four doors in each cardinal direction. Hans looked left, feeling like the room was vaguely familiar.
"This way..." he said, approaching the Western door. He pulled it open for the Panzertroopers, but there was no one inside. As they entered the hall Hans recognized it, meaning they were on the right course. He was right behind Erich as he went down the hall, checking the few doors. At the end, on the left side, was an alcove. Inside was a spiral staircase.
The team went down the stairs, the Panzertroopers in the lead. They emerged in the dungeon, passing by the holding cells. Hans stopped outside the one he and Hilda had been held in, wondering and hoping, but there was nothing there. Just two benches. At most he'd find one of her hairs, but there was no time to look.
At the end of the dungeon, to the right, was another spiral staircase. The one the mutant had taken them up. To the left was a corridor, leading down to the high-tech door guarded by the Vengeance Troopers. They saw the Panzertroopers as they rounded the corner but had nowhere to go and no cover to take, and ended up lying dead on the floor. Hans stepped over their bodies and approached the door, looking it over. It was stainless steel, spotless, and split in the middle. To the right was the card reader. He crouched down, searched the mutants' corpses, and produced the card, which he handed to Erich.
Erich swiped the card and the doors opened like a pair of scissors, sliding into the walls. Beyond the doors was an elevator car, readying and waiting, and big enough for all four of them. They stepped inside and Hans punched the single button. The doors slid shut and the elevator began to descend.
"Where do you suppose this leads?" Friedrich asked, standing in the back left corner, behind Erich. Hans looked at him.
"A lab, I'm guessing. Operating rooms, freezers. You know, for all the fucked up shit our government was doing before The Bomb came," Hans said. Friedrich nodded, looking grim. It wasn't long before the elevator reached the bottom, arriving without any kind of chime or bell. The doors opened on a white hallway, brightly lit. A Vengeance Trooper stood guard by the elevator, his back to them. Erich swung his M72 like a bat, caving in the back of the mutant's skull. The team proceeded down the hall, lined with both doors and windows.
Hans peered through one of the windows, an x-ray machine and a table lined with tools inside. As they passed another he looked inside and saw a waiting room, complete with magazine rack. At the end of the hall was a staircase on either side, both going down and both turning in the same direction. The team split up, two to a staircase, and ended up in the same hall. It was darker, painted in gray instead of white, and seemingly clear. They moved slowly down it, watching the doors as they approached each one. Each room was clear of threats.
At the end of the gray hall was a single staircase, leading down to two switchbacks, both going down. The hall at the bottom of those stairs was maroon, and much wider. There were no windows in this hall, just doors, all unlocked. Most were storage rooms, home to countless numbers of wood crates containing endless amounts of files, documents, and papers, if the labels could be believed. At the end of this hall were two doors, one at the end and one on the right. The one at the end was locked from the other side, but the one on the right was unlocked. The team opened it and moved in.
Inside was another storage room, but much larger. Much larger, in fact. Practically a warehouse, and home to numerous artifacts. There were statues, busts, and paintings on the right side. Pallets of gold and silver bars inside cells, ancient tablets, vases and other kinds of pottery.
On the left were old cars, perfectly preserved. A blue Mercedes 770, a DMG A7V tank, even a gigantic bell-shaped object with a swastika on it. Whatever the Hell it was, Hans couldn't say. He followed the rest of the team as they proceeded down the warehouse, marveling at the treasures and artifacts inside.
Near the end, next to a gap in the racks leading to a door, there was a large metal briefcase on a desk. Hans approached it and looked it over, wondering what was so special about it that it needed its own spot. He popped the latches, opened the top, and laughed bitterly.
It was a GECK.
"Give me a fucking break," he whispered. Erich and Friedrich joined him at his side and looked at the complicated supercomputer and terraformer, a frown on Friedrich's face. Hans shut the case and pushed the GECK away. "Unbelievable."
"Stay focused," Erich said as he approached the door between the racks. It opened without effort, a navy-blue hall on the other side, three doors lining its walls: one on the right, the left, and at the end. The team entered the hall, weapons raised.
Where the fuck is she? Hans wondered. They hadn't seen hide nor hair of Queen Ilse yet, and he was beginning to think she was still in the Reichstag, either holed up or preparing to escape. If she got away, he was going to be royally pissed.
They approached the doors in the middle of the hall, both facing each other. The one on the left had a large bay window, like in the white hall, and inside was some kind of tech room. There was a large circular section on the left, an open floor with a ring of blue lights on the floor and ceiling. To the right were rows and rows of servers, still powered up.
The door on the right side opened and the Panzertroopers looked inside. "We'll check this one," Erich said. He and Irmina moved into the room, weapons at the ready. Hans looked at Friedrich, who just shrugged. The door to the server room opened without trouble, and the two of them stepped inside.
It was cool, but not cold. Just enough for Hans to notice the temperature difference. He moved right, keeping close to the wall and away from the open space. The server banks stretched on to the right, into a large square space. He approached the corner and peered around it, the way clear. The servers were separated into three sections, creating a grid-like floorplan.
The perfect place for an ambush.
Even as he thought it a curved section of the wall to the left, by the open space, slid open and out stepped Queen Ilse the Ironheart, clad in her navy-blue armor. Strapped to her back were her zweihanders, a pistol belt on her waist, sans pistol. It was in her hands, a Mars Automatic. His Mars Automatic, he remembered.
She said nothing, just holding the massive handgun on them as she stepped into the room, slowly moving left, towards the server banks. "Herr Eckhart, husband of the Monster of Munich. And a friend," she said, looking at Friedrich. "You made it past all the guards? I'm impressed."
"We had some help," Hans said, and nodded towards the window. The Panzertroopers hadn't returned yet. The door they'd come through automatically slid shut and locked, trapping them inside with Ilse. "Xavier is dead, along with most of your Vengeance Troopers. We freed your prisoners, too."
"Prisoners..." she said, shaking their head. "They wanted to be here, Herr Eckhart. We gave them safety, security, treated them well. In turn they helped us to build our future. A nation free from hatred and bigotry, where a human could look to his side and be proud to call the Sturmutant, the Former Human, his friend and neighbor."
"A future built by taking from others," Hans said. "The raids on caravans, the attacks on the U-Bahn stations. You wanted to build a nation on the fruits of the labor of others."
"And you and the Monster wanted to build a nation on a foundation of corpses," Ilse said. "Still do, if today's actions are any indication. Xavier was a close friend of mine. We served in the Bundeswehr together, in hellholes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. We walked across the Sinai desert, the two of us. When the Arabs siphoned the last drop of oil from their desert the Bundeswehr, and Germany, collapsed. We had to walk home."
"My heart bleeds," Hans said mockingly.
"That isn't the best part, though. The best part was our reward, for being good and loyal soldiers of the republic, corrupt and bastardized though it was by then. Our reward was this," she said, and gestured to herself. "The Genome Modifying Enzyme. Supposed to make us stronger, faster. It did. But you can see the side effects for yourself."
"Just one more thing to add to the pile of fucked up things our government did before America and China put an end to it all, and gave birth to a new breed of fucked," Hans said. "A breed that your kind continues to propagate, at the expense of the rest of us. Rovers, Croakers, and Death's Heads aren't bad enough, apparently."
*THUMP!* *THUMP!*
Hans looked at the window and saw Erich whacking the butt of his Gauss Rifle against the glass, trying to break it. Ilse didn't even glance in their direction, keeping her attention on Hans and Friedrich.
"We're nothing like them, Herr Eckhart," Ilse said. "Damn it, we all want peace! A life free from struggle! A life where we are all equal and free under the sun. We didn't ask for this, the same way you didn't ask for The Bomb, but we're all just trying to make the best of it! To live with the hand we've been dealt, and cope with the realities of our world!"
"You talk too fucking much," Hans said, and raised his CAWS. Ilse was faster, firing the Mars Automatic. The bullet hit the wall by Hans, his buckshot skating across her armor. He and Friedrich booked it into the maze of servers, splitting up as Queen Ilse gave chase. She followed Hans around and down a bank of servers, firing again. He slid down the row and scurried around the corner, bringing his CAWS up and returning fire. She aimed the pistol and pulled the trigger again, the gun bucking hard. Hans moved around the server bank and was about to go back down the way when Ilse appeared again, holding the gun on him. She fired twice, the .45-caliber slugs hitting the breastplate of the American combat armor. He fell straight back onto his ass and scrambled back around the server bank, unharmed.
When Ilse came back around the corner, he was ready. He fired twice, aiming high. The pellets hit the upper part of her cuirass and helmet, making her flinch. She fired the Mars, the round going wild, and recovered. She aimed the gun at him and pulled the trigger, and the gun failed to respond, a round jammed against the wall of the chamber. She dropped the pistol and drew her swords.
Hans got to his feet and ran across the server bank, catching a glimpse of Friedrich as he moved in the other direction. Ilse gave chase, following him through the maze of servers. He moved around a corner and crouched down, preparing to ambush her. She came around the corner two seconds later and swung the blades, forcing Hans to duck. The sword in her left hand hit a server, crushing the tower at the point of impact. She thrusted the sword in her right hand forward, the blade scraping against Hans' armor.
He pressed the muzzle of the shotgun against Ilse's armor, the buckshot again failing to produce any results. She swung her swords and hit Hans in the head with the pommel of one, sending him stumbling into another server bank.
"Ah, fuck!"
"Give it a rest, Eckhart!" Ilse said, and drew her swords back. She was about to thrust them forward when Friedrich shot her in the side, the 7.62 rounds punching through the thinner armor on their sides. She staggered back, giving Hans a chance to scurry away.
The reprieve gave him a chance to swap the CAWS to slugs, hoping they'd be of some use. Their only hope was flanking her and hitting her in the side. He peeked left a moment later, no sign of Ilse in the corridor. He heard Friedrich's G3 thunder again, on the far right side of the room, and followed the sound. He came up behind Ilse and aimed the shotgun, Friedrich on the other side of her, the perfect shot. He fired and the slug hit Ilse in the back, shattering against her armor. He aimed lower, for one of her legs, and fired again. This time the slug went through, tearing up her thigh. She screamed and stumbled, but was still in the fight. She knocked Friedrich to the ground and turned her attention back on Hans.
She charged straight at him, the floor thumping under her boots, and swung her swords. Hans ducked and fired again, the slug hitting her in the hip. She swung the blades down and Hans jumped back, and she pressed the gap. Hans backed into a server and Ilse swung one of her swords into his midsection, hitting the armor hard enough to make him stagger. She thrust the other sword forward, cutting the left side of Hans' forehead. He aimed the shotgun up and fired, the slug shattering on her cuirass and sending slivers of lead up into her face. She punched Hans in the head, denting his helmet, and shoved him to the ground.
She was about to bring the swords down when Friedrich shot her in the back, two of his rounds ripping her helmet from her head. She ran around another bank of servers and disappeared from sight, and Hans scrambled for the CAWS, finding it jammed. There was no time to clear it, either.
He got back to his feet and drew the P7, figuring the 9mm would be good enough for a headshot. A moment later Friedrich came up, reloading his G3. "You're wounded, Herr Eckhart."
Hans reached up and wiped the blood from his forehead. "A scratch, I'll be fine," he said. Together with Friedrich he went through the maze of servers, gun at the ready. They reached an intersection and Ilse ambushed them, swinging her swords. The two of them opened fire, aiming high, but they both missed. Ilse closed the gap and rammed her shoulder into Friedrich, knocking him into a server bank and winding him, and swung her fist at Hans. He ducked and fired, the 9mm rounds bouncing harmlessly off her armor. He stood upright and aimed high, and she swung for him again. He fired, knocking her head back, blood dripping from the side of her head. A glancing blow.
She advanced on him and he ducked and tried to scramble past her. She kneed him in the face and kicked him to the ground, aiming her swords at his face. Once again Friedrich shot her in the back, most of his rounds missing. She retreated again, disappearing around another bank of servers. Hans stood on shaking knees, his head pounding. He pressed his palm to the cut in his forehead and growled, trying to ignore the pain.
Friedrich came up to him. "She went this way, come on!" he said, and ducked between a row of servers. Hans followed, gun at his side. The two of them moved up to the end of the servers, the room's wall directly opposite them. When they stopped Hans heard movement to his right, on the other side of the server bank. She was approaching the wall, just seconds from rounding the corner and reaching them.
Hans dropped the hand from his forehead and happened to notice something. Clipped to the back of Friedrich's belt were the plasma grenades Erich had given them. In the fighting Hans had completely forgotten about them. He was about to reach for one of his own when he had an idea. Friedrich crouched a bit, preparing to fire on Ilse when she rounded the corner. Hans waited a moment, tensed, then snatched the cap from one of Friedrich's grenades, yanked the cord, and kicked him square in the ass. He stumbled forward and collided with Queen Ilse just as she came around the corner, dropping his gun. Ilse grabbed him by the shirt and raised her sword, preparing to toss him aside.
"HAN-"
The grenade detonated and Friedrich Ademar and Queen Ilse vanished in a flash of blinding blue light, the explosion melting the paint from the wall and throwing Hans to the ground. Pieces of debris from the servers and ceiling fell down on him, a metal pipe hitting in the head. He writhed around on the ground and put a hand up to hold his helmet in place, gritting his teeth. The last of the debris fell a moment later, hitting the floor next to him, and then the room was silent again, a thin cloud of blue vapor drifting through the air. Hans let his hand drop and he just lied there on his back, staring at the ceiling, blood trickling down the side of his head. He sluggishly rolled over and stood up, clutching the 9mm. He pressed his palm to his head again, stemming the blood flow, and approached the detonation site.
Queen Ilse was lying against the end of a server bank, the lower half of her body on the floor. The upper half of her body was pressed up against the server bank, the side of her face pressed against the side of the bank, her eyes wide and unseeing, staring at Hans. Her left leg and left hip were missing, the flesh from her right leg sloughing off and drooling onto the floor. Her left arm had been cooked so badly that it was curled up like macaroni, stuck in place, the zweihander in her grasp a pool of molten steel on the floor. Hans raised the P7 and shot her through the eye, her head lightly jumping from the hit. She was dead.
He next turned his attention to the pool of simmering blue goo on the floor next to her, a partially-melted right arm draped across a G3 all that remained of Friedrich Ademar. He stared down at the puddle, a casual expression on his face. He took a deep breath and winced, the pounding in his head intensifying. He released the breath, leaned against the server bank, and closed his eyes.
After a moment he pushed off the server bank and walked away, heading back for the door. As he emerged from the maze of the server banks he passed by his Mars Automatic on the floor, a round jammed into the wall of the chamber. He picked the massive gun up, cleared the jam, and returned it to his holster, keeping the 9mm P7 in his hand. Through the window he could see Erich and Irmina still trying to break into the room, the door partially melted. They stopped banging on the window when they saw him approaching, bleeding and limping. He released the door's automatic lock and pulled it open, the door almost hot to the touch. Erich and Irmina dragged the door open, the softened metal squishing as it retracted into the frame, and Hans stepped out into the hall.
"Are you alright?" Erich asked, his tone even.
Hans nodded. "It's over," he said, and cast one last look into the dark and cold server room, wondering why he didn't feel anything. He turned back to look at the Panzertroopers, who just nodded at him, and he gestured down the hall, back the way they'd come.
"Time to go home."
