The halftrack noticed him, and the machine gunner opened fire. Steve ducked down and held his shield up as the bullets bounced off it, making loud noises but not a single penetration nor recoil for Steve. The fire stopped for a second as Steve glanced above, seeing the machine gunner hitting his gun.
"Verdammte Waffe verklemmt!". Must have jammed on him. Steve aimed his pistol and three shots he fired off; the gunner dropped off the gun. Steve used the rest of the clip on his pistol to pick off two more men nearby before the tank turned its aim on him.
The cannon fired as Steve held up his shield again before a loud bang was heard and a moment later, the tank shell dropped to his feet. If Steve was stunned by just how his Vibranium shield could shrug off a tank shell; the tank commander was completely flabbergasted.
Steve made sure not to give the tank another chance to fire as he tossed his shield and sliced right into the tank cannon. Steve then ran to avoid the machine gun the tank had in its hull as the vehicle tried to move. Steve ran up to two troops and punched them both hard in quick succession as the tank slowly began to back up, trying to bug out of the fight while still using its machine gun to cover it.
The Maquis, at the same time, started their charge towards the halftrack and the few remaining troops now that most of their heavy firepower was crippled.
"Steve!", Jacques' voice called out as he ran towards him. "Get on the tank! Pry the hatch, gonna drop a few grenades down their throat!". Steve nodded as he made sure to run in the tank's blind spot where the machine gun couldn't get a sight before he hoped on the tank and started going for the hatch.
Jacques got on as Steve started to twist it open, "Pierre's got our luggage. Now then, hurry it up, these things are already cooking!". Steve then got the hatch opened before Jacques was quick with dropping the grenades and Steve closed the hatch.
"NEIN!". He could hear the commander inside scream out at the grenades that probably landed in his lap before Steve yanked out his shield and he and Jacques got off and ran as far as they could away from the tank before the grenades went off. There was no real explosion, but the shrapnel killed the crew inside. Either way, the tank was now dead.
"Well, not what we expected but at least we took care of them quick. Now come on, before the entire garrison of Paris starts rolling up the road!", Jacques said as the Maquis melted back into the countryside, leaving an unforgettable calling card to the Nazi occupiers.
"Seems that way... I honestly was running on instinct there for a little bit. Still can't believe my shield took that tank shell...", Steve remarked.
"And not even a scratch... That was quite a gift that Abraham gave you...", Jacques chuckled as Steve nodded, "Amongst other things...".
Jacques replied, "I'd have to talk with the other factions of the Maquis as this is going to help us out...From what it looks like, there's Jewish prison camps with the Nazis hovering, some factory camps where other prisoners are forced to work under the Nazis, building guns and such, some scattered Nazi-occupied towns, and a couple of Nazi bases where there's planes and tanks.", as Steve opened up the briefcase of the Hydra papers, starting to read, so glad that he can understand German on all angles.
"Here in France or in Germany?", Steve asked as Jacques sighed, "Seems mostly back in Germany and the east... looking through a lot of these papers, a bunch of them are all bureaucratic junk; requisition forms for supplies, request to Berlin for transferring of troops... but they're through in terms of those they deem necessary to round up.".
"Can't say I blame them truly for being so detailed with that last part; probably half the reason Oberg was sent to Paris in the first place.", Steve said as he looked over the HYDRA stuff.
"What's that you have, Steve?", Jacques asked as he sent everyone but Mole out of the room for the minute.
Steve replied, "Hydra...I think either Oberg or one of the others in that meeting was a Hydra leader as well under Schmidt...This gun looks like it would shoot 12 bullets in one round, but the design is strange, almost like a Colt, but more stronger...I guess the man was hoping to sway Oberg or the others that Hydra is their best option for building better weaponry...And the papers, there are definitely a few hidden Hydra bases, one in Albania, one here in France, and one back in Germany.".
"Wait, did the zeppelin come from France?!", Mole gasped in horror, and Steve nodded, "Afraid so, Mole. And worst of all, they forced the French prisoners to build it. Turns out that Hydra got prisoners too from several captive squadrons and looks like some of the prisoners are from Dieppe.".
"They're working fast with those Canadians then...", Jacques bit his lip. "Does it say exactly where those HYDRA projects in France?", he asked as Steve was looking through.
"Maybe... I'll need a little bit to read all of these though... one thing is for sure; we can't let Schmidt to continue work here in France without at least trying to derail whatever he's got planned... Jeez, the ambition HYDRA has, one would think Schmidt might be trying to make a power play amongst Hitler's inner circle.", Steve looked over the papers.
"Like a snake eating itself...", Jacques huffed. "Everyone serving the leader will backstab and ruin the others just to get a seat at the table with the leader. Pity they couldn't just kill each other quicker and already end this war.".
Mole replied, "Can we pit them into that?", and Jacques replied, "Oh, believe me, Mole, I'd be over the moon if those bastards kill each other out of power and money in a literal pit, but they are scattered...".
Steve replied, "Maybe we might do minor pitting...", and Jacques looked at him, "Explain.", as Steve went to the board of the Gestapo heads, "Okay, we took care of a couple of those Gestapo heads today, along with a lot of Nazis, and that Hydra representative or two..", crossing off a couple of pictures in red 'X', "If we do a ladder climb, we can capture one or two of them, and lure both the Nazis and Hydra, and since they underestimate many of us to understand German, we can force them to call for fake meetings, like to replace the Gestapo heads we got and such..".
"I don't know...", Jacques shook his head. "It would be tricky to lure them into a trap... maybe if we were in Paris but we can't truly work there... too many people around that we don't know who we can trust.".
"Besides, right now we need to quickly focus on figuring out where the Nazis plan to reprise for our attack. They won't let this attack of ours go without extracting a large pound of flesh out of us.", Mole reminded. Steve took a deep breath as Jacques placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Steve, don't feel guilty about what is coming; we knew that they, most likely, will launch a brutal reprisal, but we couldn't let this chance. At least this way we've probably saved quite a number of cells and crippled the Gestapo in the country for a little while. The Nazis will probably turn to Pétain and his traitorous Malice thugs to take up the job for the time being which means it'll be easier for us to work since we have our connections and sympathizers amongst them.", Jacques replied.
Steve nodded, "You're right...Still, I will read more into those Hydra plans here, and we will plan out our attack. May Peggy forgive me if this takes much longer than a couple of weeks...", with a sigh.
Jacques patted his shoulder, "She will understand, and besides, she will get the reports from us via secret radio and all, that way, she will know that you're safe and all.".
Mole nodded, "Oui! And you got us!", with a grin, and Steve chuckled, glad that he got great friends, and so, they went to plan their attack with a few more missions, with the secret messages getting through, with the missions lasting a bit longer than the last one and so on, like lasting a week, two weeks, and so on, with Steve returning between missions like he promised, with more or less crude transportation on weekends, where he reunited with Peggy much to her happiness.
The latest one lasted five weeks, for the mission required two more Maquis factions besides Jacques' faction, and a Ranger squadron that included Bucky, and it was an entire factory Nazi camp, with the hidden Hydra base below it, that the Nazi mostly knew about, but didn't know about the strange weapons they were building.
The Vosges mountains near the German border in the Lorraine region; vast mountains and forests which were the perfect location to basically hide out any sort of military facility regarding special weaponry: especially if one didn't want to be a target in Germany with the bombing raids the British and soon Americans were starting to do.
Of course, the journey there would be difficult: first with the coordination between the three Maquis groups which still had some difficulty getting along. While Jacques' Libération-Nord was prominently formed and run by those seen as Left Wing in France's political circles, the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans were the communists while Combat, which operated more heavily than the others in Lorraine, was more conservative.
All still wanted to see France freed, but worried that whichever group could gain the most from the liberation would be the ones that would be the main driver of France's future once the Nazis were thrown back across the Rhine and beyond.
Then there was also getting the Ranger team into the country as a transport plane was too risky in terms of being intercepted so first, they had to smuggle in through a few fishing trawlers across the channel before heading towards Lorraine.
It would be slower but the surer way they would make it for the mission: and they had with them the heaviest firepower. The brand new M1 Bazookas would hopefully easily crack open and tanks and hard targets they were probably sure to run into.
The missions in total had already started spreading the word amongst those in the Allied camps, giving them some good encouraging moral for the front lines troops in preparation to start taking the fight back to the Nazis back, though of course, rumors were more said often than the truth, like Captain America being more indestructible and that the Nazis run in fear of him, yet Steve has gotten scrapes and such, but managed to heal himself with his crystal just fine, through there are signs of faint scars on him to be seen for the people in the army to be not too suspicious thankfully.
The tide of the war suddenly looked like it might start to shift into the Allies' favor. In the Soviet Union, a stunning turn of events around Stalingrad had led to the destruction of two whole Romanian armies flanking the German's 6th in the city, entrapping them and whatever Axis minor units that were there.
It also suddenly put the whole German's advance into the Caucuses at great risk of being encircled as well and those units were racing all the way back to places like Rostov and the Crimea to avoid sharing the now dire fate of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, at El Alamein, the British 8th Army launched a massive and overwhelming offensive that shattered much of the Africa Korps and was now causing Rommel to once more beat a hasty retreat back into Libya and abandon Egypt once and for all.
Then there was the second of the one-two punch as the Americans finally got boots on the ground and landed in Morrocco and Algeria in Operation Torch and were racing for Tunisia to hopefully trap Rommel between the two Allied armies in North Africa and bring an end to the war there. It also had the added benefit of eliminating Vichy France as the Vichy forces in North Africa and pretty much shattering the 'false' government in Vichy.
Now that the whole facade of unoccupied France was mute, the Germans moved to take control of the remaining unoccupied parts of mainland France, forcing them to spread themselves thinner in the country. Now all of France was pretty much united against the Germans, even if the resistance groups were still fairly fractionalized.
And if this big mission worked out successfully, with rescuing the captives, destroying the factory, bombing the Hydra base, and of course, the Nazis and the Hydra troops to be taken care of, it would add a tiny bit more of freedom for France, and of course, keeping Britain and a few other places far safer from whatever Schmidt had planned.
Steve spoke quietly, "Phillips ought to be happy to give us good shore leave after this, because it's almost Christmas...And now I really know how you feel about being away from Sia and the family so long as five weeks seemed so much longer than a meager week or two...I am not gonna care if I make a show of reuniting with Peggy this time...".
"I'll probably outdo you when I see Sia..." Jacques took a deep breath; the past few weeks with Steve's help really had proven to be quite the shot in the arm the Maquis were needing as of late as their efforts were getting stronger and bolder by the week.
Not to mention with the fall of Vichy and the Germans now having trouble on the main fronts in North Africa and the Soviet Union, the divisions in France needed to be spread out further with nothing much being able to be spared as they were mostly needed to quickly salvage the disaster in the USSR.
In a way, practically much of the countryside had now been liberated though the Germans still occupied all the major cities and strategic points and could still use units to sweep through areas, so the effects of the occupation still lingered.
"Contemplating maybe leaving as well for a little while to spend time with them?", Steve asked. He was fairly confident that Whitmore could pull strings with Roosevelt and easily get the submersible transported back towards the 'entrance' of Atlantis. And Sia might be able to tell with the crystals that he was close and have a Ketak sent to pick him up... probably flown by herself.
Jacques exhaled, "I really want to go back, but the way you suggested it, I can't afford to let anyone notice the leader of the Liberation group returning back to France after a vacation, especially Hydra...They'd need to know that I'm dead and all, as I need to keep the city and Sia safe...".
Steve exhaled, "Good point...Well, this mission is high-risk in a way...Maybe in the chaos, we would fake your death...I mean, this is a factory for God's sake. After all, we had people implied as lost in action and all...".
"That...we have no plan for that, but on the fly, some plan can be made...But we don't know what's in there...and I have no idea where Mole is...", Jacques replied, "I mean, sure, we got some idea thanks to the papers from the other camps we liberated and all, but we have to be careful here...And from what it looks like, the other two factions would be here within the night or two...And the Rangers, hard to say, due to their ways of staying low through the roads here in Lorriane...", as they and the rest of Jacques' faction are hiding in a village called Wassy, only a day from the factory.
"Well, the way I see things, Jacques; is that I think now thanks to our efforts, not to mention what's recently happen this past month on the frontlines, that the resistance might be able to carry on without you fairly well. If anything, going out in a blaze of glory will probably galvanize them even further to make sure your sacrifice will lead to final victory.", Steve said as Jacques chuckled.
"Would be slightly interesting to be seen as a martyr without having to die.", Jacques admitted. "Plus; well, things were still looking back when I left the first time and then came back, now... I know it's still a bit of a long road ahead, but I think we might actually win this war."
"Still a way to go, but yeah, I think so too.", Steve commented. Jacques smiled, and then heard a familiar rumbling sound, and they both looked down to see Mole appearing with a wide grin, "Hi, friends! Knew I heard your voices!".
"Hey, Mole, where have you been?", Steve asked, and Mole giggled, "Trailing after the Rangers, and then followed the Moselle, and sneaked under the feet of Nazis and Hydra.".
Jacques widened his eyes, "What?! You were under the factory?", and Mole snorted, "Even better than that. Steve was right. There's a hidden Hydra base below the factory, and I am not a fool, Jacques! I really was quiet, sneaky, and covered my tracks!".
"Okay, okay, I know you can take care of yourself, Mole, but you know you are part of the crew, and the crew is family. What did you see, smell, hear, and such?", Jacques surrendered his hands in a gesture with a nod.