15 January 1943
…
"This is an automated recording on loop. This is Admiral Alaan'Jarva vas Idenna, Commanding Officer of the Heavy Fleet. Directive Seven has been activated as we have previously warned in the past few weeks. In seventy-two hours of galactic standard time, all quarians citizenry who have not reported back to the fleet as ordered will be automatically charged and filed under fleet exiles. All rights and privileges to the fleet will be immediately and permanently cut off. Family on the fleet will be no longer in contact, no military or civilian aid will be provided to any settlements should conflict arise.
Should you be willing to return, hail the Idenna through the Extranet. They shall provide the rallying point in which the Idenna and the Tonbay are stationed. If transportation is an issue, then special exceptions to the deadline can be made so long as you contact Idenna inside this brief window of opportunity. We do not do this lightly; our actions are to provide a future for our race. I beg of you still out of the fleet to return and join us. Our threats are not to be taken lightly.
We await your decision, Keelah Se'lai. Admiral Jarva signing off."
"Father?"
Balao'Yegar closed the Extranet connection and turned back to the gathering of men, women and children in the crowd. His eyes fell on his wife and son standing out in the crowd gathered around the communication device. They both appeared worried by the message the authoritarian fleet had sent to spread fear and discontent among the Citadel community.
As a voice of reason to a small community divided over their loyalty to the rest of the race, he would not listen to the warnings offered. Not when the track record showed just how expendable the dwindling quarian population was to the Admirals of the past. At least back then they flat out stated they were preparing for an offensive. This time around, nothing short of absolute silence came from the leadership. Whatever they had planned, it was less than ethical.
"Perhaps they are right," A woman spoke out, invisible in the crowd. "Perhaps the fleet will not be so rash this time around. Perhaps we have settled a new world at long last."
"You know that is false. You saw the way the Admiral and the child of the Admiral spoke to us. They sounded like they were planning another damn war. We know that the admiralty has been stockpiling a wide variety of ships and armaments. Are we going to fool with the same lies for a third time? Are we going to sacrifice our children for some ancestor-forsaken scheme they won't even speak publicly about?"
Low murmuring broke out among the gathering. Through it, a friend of his Handar'Gerrel broke through the crowd and stood next to Yegar's wife and son, both of them smiling slightly at his presence.
"Yegar, I'm not so sure about this. They didn't sound like they were lying to us," Gerrel spoke up. "They sent an Admiral and Jarva's daughter to warn us. I remember the last time this happened. They sent captains. Not the high leaders. They conscripted back then, this time they came with words. "
Still, the utterance of the gathered quarians grew louder.
"They seemed different. I remember when the first calls of return were ordered. They were all but militaristic that time."
"The Admiral's daughter was a total bitch. I bet she is always like that."
"The Admiral's daughter wasn't wearing a suit. Don't people on the fleet need suits?"
"The Admiral's daughter was kind of hot. I'd go back if she asked me. I would destroy all her enemies."
The low murmuring broke into fuming and laughter that observation by a somewhat loud-mouthed teenage boy. The only one not humoured was Yegar, who stared at the gathering with hidden contempt. How could they be this forgiven? So many dead, so many lies, yet these people would return to a leadership that didn't care about them.
"So that's it then," Yegar said, his voice low and almost mournful. "Abandon everything we worked for here for the sake of an automated message sent to us. They have lied to us time and time again. They said the geth would not turn, they covered up the geth intelligence, they allowed our race to be exiled in the first place, and then they waged three disastrous wars for a planet we will never, NEVER get back."
Yegar snorted and spat on the ground.
"I will not force anyone to stay. Not even my family," he continued, shooting his eyes to his wife and son, both of them stunned at his words. "I… won't go back… if that makes me a traitor, for no longer believing what they say, then I will die happily a traitor. I am done with our people."
With nothing left to say, Balao'Yegar pushed through the gathering and headed home. It was better to live as a free man in a slum than to die for nothing but a fantasy.
….
….
It did not take much to attract the Americans. Say what you will about that mongrel melting pot of a people, they certainly were quick to offence. So much so that it startled Hoch.
Light howitzer fire into the centre of the town was what caught their attention in the end. Joachim could not see them approach but knew they were there as he heard the sound of engines pushing up the hill, the cracks of the Fiat and Semovente tanks firing down on the advance.
One Fiat exploded, then another, making Hoch wince at his first losses. He instead turned his focus to the pack of engineers approaching him, all of them carefully laying down the wire to the explosives they planted in the first trench. Noticing attention from their leader, the head engineer, a Leutnant, handed the wheel of wire to his underling and approached the Obersturmbannführer.
"How large of a charge and how much of a much of delay?" he inquired as the Engineer stepped into the trench.
"We laid around one hundred and fifty-eight kilograms, Herr Commandant," the engineer replied as he retrieved his plunger from his satchel. "There will be a three-second time delay at the most."
Joachim nodded. One hundred and fifty-eight kilograms – three hundred and fifty pounds; that would be more than sufficient when combined with the barrels of gasoline planted in the trench as well. Nodding to the engineers, he turned his focus to said trench; they were firing borrowed Carcano rifles down on the encroaching enemy, even as shells landed around them.
"Set up the plunger close to me." He ordered, grabbing the radio set that stood in between him and Hanala who stood there, ready for the fight. Lighting up the radio, he said. "Peiper, pull back. Reister, Cutri, check your fire until my orders."
Handing the receiver back to Hanala, he glanced down the line. All of them were in a good state, ready for the incoming assault. He could see the Jäger, Oster fiddling with his scope. He could see Keinhorst, staring ahead as if the lead-up to the battle wasn't nerve-wracking. Christian and Tatiyana were setting up the finishing touches of a machine gun nest, Christian quickly shovelling sand into bags while the woman laid them in place around the MG emplacement set up.
The squeaking tracks of the Fiat's and Semovente's caught his attention as they fell back towards the main line. Running alongside them were the decoy troops, who jumped back into the trenches, threw their borrowed Italian weapons in the direction of the artillery and collected their STG-43s.
A small hand fell onto his shoulder, Joachim turned back round to find Hanala staring up at him, a nervous glint in her expression as her eyes darted from his to the battle approaching them.
"Just... try not to get killed, Joachim," she simply requested.
Slowly, Joachim allowed his fear to subside long enough to offer a shaky smile and nod. Satisfied, Hanala pulled the rifle hammer back and turned her focus, and her barrel at the direction of the attack.
…
…
"Dago bastards are fleeing, come on boys. E Company's going to be the first ones to skin those grease ball fuckers!"
Bolting in between the rolling Sherman's, his company pushed past the tanks as they chased the retreating Italians. Near him was Captain Bill Thomas of C Company, his men just as eager to get the Italians as Miller's men were. After a year of standing around in England, hoping that the air force would keep the Luftwaffe from bombing their asses they had been itching to join in the fight. After a relatively bloodless capture of Oran, the lust to bleed the Germans and Italians dry was growing more and more frantic.
Pushing past a burning Italian tank, its crew dead as they tried to escape the wreck, Miller grinned grimly at the sight. With any luck, they would meet up with more of these Fascist sons-of-bitches and offer them the same fate...
The Captain froze, his eyes widening at the sheer amount of men and guns waiting for them. There standing in front of a line of infantry stood an elaborately dressed Nazi. He looked almost aristocratic as he held his ground, one of his hands was high in the air as he stared down the stunned and out-manned infantry company, Not for long however, the Sherman's were now rolling over the edge of the hill.
As though his hand was a blade, the Nazi swung his arm down.
"FEUER FREI!" the Nazi screamed.
The entire line erupted into so much fire that the Captain could not believe it was possible. Not when all intelligence reports told them that German infantry was primarily armed with bolt action rifles, greatly inferior to the Garand and the carbines his boys were armed with. The intelligence failure cost him a dozen men, shattered by bullets as the rest of his men bolted forward into the abandoned trench left by the Italians.
Behind him came the Sherman's, which gave him a momentary hope as he opened fire on the well-hidden Infantry, but ducking as the German machine guns opened up on them. The hope did not hold; before the line of tanks could drop their barrels and target the enemy infantry, distant shots rumbled, then exploded against the tanks. The shots were devastating. The Sherman's were torn open, blown wide open and set on fire.
The fire was already incredibly on Miller's back, The Captain got several shots off before ducking to find his radioman, he was dead, a series of large bullet holes trailing from his stomach to neck. Winching, He wiped the blood off the receiver and tuned into Central command back in the town. They needed to halt the attack before anyone else died. They needed to either move on or flank the enemy. Anyone else going up the hill was going to get pulverized.
Judging from the whistling of intense artillery fire raining behind him, it was likely already happening. Just as he was about to glance over the trench line, the ripping of Hitler's Buzz saw shot over his head, kicking dirt into his eyes/
"This is Captain Miller, East Company Actual," he said as he wiped his eyes. "It's a deception! Krauts are here, repeat, we've made contact with German infantry! Forward armour is lit up. We need to pull back!"
He paused for a brief second as he noticed something shining sticking out of the soil, near the dead radioman. Miller narrowed his eyes as he wiped the dirt from off what appeared to be a label. Written in dark bold letters next to a symbol of skull and crossbones were the following words.
ACHTUNG! SPRENGSTOFFE: Mit Vorsicht zu handhaben!
Miller's eyes widened. He did not need to speak Kraut to know what it had meant.
"Oh GOD!" was he could get out.
….
…
Pulling his eyes from his binoculars, Joachim turned back. The second trap was ready to be sprung.
"HIT THE PLUNGER!" he screamed at the top of his lungs over top of the incoming rifle fire.
A deafening eruption of noise, fire, sand and smoke erupted from the first line and flew high across the battlefield. Two hundred metres of trench pushed upwards as five hundred pounds of TNT exploded outwards and into the sky. Thick black smoke from the oil and gasoline left behind in the trench billowed upwards, surrounding the burning American armour. Still, the fire spat out from the trap. Hoch could not help it, his stoic expression turned into one of great excitement and for a few long seconds, joy that it worked.
"Cease fire!" he called out to his men. "Let them burn."
The men complied and the Kampfgruppe firing line fell silent, only the artillery continued to blast behind the faltered American attack.
Through the smoke came several men, screaming and writhing as they tried to shake the fire off of them. Joachim raised his hand, a silent order that told his men not to fire and put them out of their misery. The screams of the men doused in fire would send a shiver out the spine of any infantryman stupid enough to pop over the ridge. From behind the wreckage of the line of destroyed armour, he could hear hidden infantrymen screaming futilely as they were watching their dying comrades as well.
"YOU FUCKING MONSTERS!" he heard one of them scream towards the Kampfgruppe. It might have been true, but Hoch ignored it. He ignored the murmuring belonging to Hanala, whispering something in her native language as she continued to look down the irons of her STG-43.
What he could not ignore was the sudden buzzing roar of an MG-42, disobeying his orders and instead erupting not fifty metres from him, the rounds tearing through the dying men. Joachim rounded back and narrowed his eyes. Through the masses of his men, he noticed Christian Bohr; sprawled on the ground, behind the gun was the Russian bitch, her resolve broken as she gripped the machine gun tightly and her eyes wide.
Pushing Hanala off him, who reached out to keep him from leaving her. Hoch stormed over to where the woman was prone. Tearing her eyes away from the burning bodies, the woman looked up at the last moment to see Joachim standing over her, his hand stretched out as it reared back and slapped the stunned woman so hard, that she fell next to Bohr, who looked close to lunging at his Commander.
Without a second of reprieve, Hoch reached down and gripped the front of the woman's jacket, pulling her limply up.
"You want to play dress up, is that it?" Hoch hissed down at the woman, her nose trailing a stream of blood that touched her lips. "You want to play soldier, then you had better act like one. When I say cease-fire, you had better push your conscious away and listen!"
Joachim dropped her on top of Bohr, who reached out to hold her back. She looked close to taking a swing at him. His boot stepped down onto her fist, pinning it in the dirt and making her yelp. Unable to struggle under the much larger man's strain, Tatiyana looked up at him, her expression sour.
"They… they were dying!" she hissed.
"That's the point, you stupid woman. We simply haven't the strength to fight them conventionally. Terror has to be used!" Hoch growled at her, before dropping her once more. He turned back to Bohr and added. "Put your bitch on a leash or I'll send her right back to that shithole she came from."
Turning away and pushing through his men, and joined Hanala, who was staring at him, in one hand a radio receiver. Hoch took it as he turned back to face the battlefield.
"Hoch here."
"This is Reister, dust cloud building and coming towards your right flank," the panzer detachment leader informed his Commandant. "I estimate one hundred armour units flanking on your right. We would like to engage and thin their numbers."
Hoch pinched the bridge of his nose. He did not have time to celebrate the first part of their plan's success, not when nearly two hundred tanks were coming his way in a matter not dissimilar to a cavalry charge… or a page torn out of Guderian's Blitzkrieg playbook. Then again, what did he expect when he was ordered to engage an entire fucking division? A small fight.
Well… he would do what he could.
"The moment you get them in your gun sights, you're clear to fire," Joachim commanded to his men. "Get in touch with Cutri and get his artillery bottling them into the kill zone."
Closing the channel he cupped his hands over his mouth.
"FIRE FREELY!" he roared to his men.
With that, the Kampfgruppe infantry recommenced their engagement against the pinned Americans. With any luck, the effect on morale would last.
….
…
"This is Captain Miller, East Company Actual. It's a deception! Krauts are here, repeat, we've made contact with German infantry! Forward armour is lit up. We need to pull back! OH GO-!"
The radio transmission went to a screeching static, replacing it was a deafening boom that rattled the makeshift headquarters window. It shook desks and chairs, making the men gathered in the room jump.
Handing the receiver back to his radioman, Major General Orlando Ward kicked his chair aside as he bolted out of his offices and stood on the veranda, surrounded by his immediate subordinates. He stood there, his hands gripping the rails as his eyes watched the aftermath of the explosion. He could see the thick black smoke, the flame roaring high in the sky from a mile or so away from them.
Surrounding the explosion was dozens of smaller fires, caused by the artillery shells falling on the rear of the task force, or it came from the burning armour, mostly his. How could this have happened? He had been given assurances no Axis troops would be in any other sector than focused solely on holding Algiers. What seemed to have been a contingent of Italians had turned out to be the goddamn German Afrika Korps? His men had no experience. He had planned on training them on the Italians and French. Oran was captured in a matter of days, fought by infantry and only sporadically. His armour hadn't been needed.
It also didn't help he had to leave sixty-seven tanks and most of his mobile artillery at the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast of Portugal. So now, not only was his division was green, but relatively undermanned. Green he could beat out, a lack of equipment was a whole different matter altogether.
Ward shook the sudden chill that coursed through the back of his mind. What if Rommel was just beyond that ridge, toying with him, setting him up for destruction? He immediately shoved such thoughts aside. He was a General in the United States Army. He was better equipped, had fresh men and had the goddamn United States Army Air Force watching his back. Today he would be the first one to show that the invincibility of the Desert Fox was simply a hoax.
"This is General Ward," he said as he grabbed the radio and broadcast out to his waiting armour and infantry, "Today we will be beating the holy hell out of the Germans. I want the second task force to support the attack, third will hold ground! The second task force will manoeuvre to the left flank of the first task force!"
Dropping the radio he turned to his liaison to the USAAF.
"Get on the horn and contact Fredendall, get us some air support out here!"
"We're out of range-"
"Get us some air support!" Ward cut off the Major's excuses. "Any air support will do! Just get some goddamn planes in the sky!"
Watching the Major leave, the radio came to life, sound drowned out by static and gunfire.
"-This is Able Actual, forwards infantry units are down! Three companies' are dead, B, C and E companies are gone. Oh God, they're OBLITERATED! Fifty-plus Sherman's and Lee's are burning! We have anti-tank fire across the field incoming shells from further back and dug-in tanks waiting for armour to pop back over the ridge! I estimate a division is here! Pushing forward is a no-go!"
Wiping the sweat from off his Brow, Ward hit the send button.
"Now listen here Able Actual, this is General Ward," Orlando spoke evenly. "I know it's a hard spot you're in, but you need to pull yourself together. I want you to reorganize and hold your ground until the rest of the task force arrives, and by God as my witness, they shall arrive. Give those krauts all you can give!"
There was a brief pause.
"R-roger that, General Ward! Krauts are dug in. We'll see what we can do."The soldier said, his voice cautious and resigned to the issued commands. "Able actual out!"
Sighing as the channel died, Ward leaned against the railing, his eyes never leaving the battlefield. He should have been out there. He was sending these boys to the grave now… He should be at the very least risking his neck as well.
….
….
This didn't work; this could not possibly have worked. We did damage them…easily four hundred dead, dozens of tanks, pretty damn good work, besides, that was all Command had asked of him to do, bloody their nose and survive to fight another day. Perhaps they should pull out. Leave the Panthers and Panzer IVs on the rear covering the retreat… No fucking way the Americans would press an attack into a kill zone… Yes, it was time to sound the retreat, before we suffered any more losses-
"Hoch! They're pushing forward!"
Joachim's thought process was interrupted by Hanala. Hanala was firing down the line at the American infantry, who were on their bellies in the sand as they pushed forward in some sort of creeping advance. Behind them and the small arms coming from them, Joachim could hear the sound of tracks and engines approaching them; More American tin can tanks. Lightly armoured, but they had more than enough in numbers and firepower to overwhelm his Kampfgruppe.
Near the burning wrecks stood teams of two men, one carrying a shoulder-mounted cylindrical tube. It was peculiar, a very peculiar sight.
As he continued to look through his binoculars down the battlefield, Joachim was unaffected by the fire kicking around him. Before he knew it, a hand pulled him back down into the trench. It was Hanala, her eyes glaring at him as she reloaded her STG-43. He ignored her hard expression as he brushed the sand off his cap. He needed to buy some time for the retreat.
"Joachim, I think these Americans have constructed themselves shoulder launch anti-tank grenade launchers... quite clever of them," she spoke as she exchanged magazines. "They appear primitive and inaccurate, but your light tanks are going to be knocked out if they get too close."
Joachim nodded his head faintly. It was yet another weapon in the American arsenal to be utilized against him and his men, now if he could only capture a few of them. Have them sent back to the Fatherland for reverse engineering.
"I understand… this fight is over… we need to run. They have to know that we're a small unit…" He murmured to the woman as she pulled back the rifle hammer. "It's the only reason they'd do it, attack in force. We need to scare them… hand me my radio."
Nodding, Hanala gave Joachim the radio set and stood up once more, her rifle blaring over his head, expended bullet casings' rained into his lap. Joachim tucked his binoculars away and got onto the radio frequency. He cleared his throat.
"CUTRI, INTENSIFY ARTILLERY FIRE, PULL ANY MAN OFF THE RESERVE TWENTY MILLIMETRES AND JOIN THE REST OF THE INFANTRY LINE!" he roared out as the fire around him intensified. "PEIPER, I WANT THE STUG'S, PANZER IIS, III AND IVS TO ADVANCE FIFTY METRES, NO HESITATION! REISTER… KEEP FIRING, BUT FIRE SMART! GET YOUR MEN ON THE MACHINE GUNS AND TARGET THE INFANTRY BEHIND THE WRECKS! THEY APPEAR TO HAVE SOME SORT OF ROCKET-BASED WEAPONRY!"
Closing the channel as soon as he received affirmations from his commanders, Hoch grabbed his rifle and stood up, firing twice into an American loading the strange-looking tube device being carried by a second man. Before that man could hide, shot him through his helmet, dropping him next. He turned to Hanala, who was firing on a jeep with a machine gun on it and pulled her back down with him.
"Listen Hanala, I need air support, get on the line with Falan and see what she can scrounge up from Rommel!" he ordered his voice significantly softer. He was in charge, but she probably didn't like him shouting at her.
Regardless of how he might have issued the order, the order itself made Hanala scowl.
"Rommel said-"
"Rommel says a lot of things!" Joachim cut her off, gripping her forearm to keep her from returning to the fight. "The Americans probably have an aerial armada in Oran and Morocco by now. They could have thousands of thousands of planes here already. They have probably sent word back to their command, which has sent whatever they can, even for brief strafing attacks. Ten… twenty out of the air fleet could devastate us utterly… I need air cover, and he had best find me something, anything!"
Staring at him for a long moment, Hanala finally nodded, her hand touching his knee briefly before she stood up and climbed over the back of the trench to bolt back behind Cutri's 8.8 centimetre guns. Watching until she vanished from view, Joachim turned back to face the front.
Perhaps a feint would send them running.
…
…
Swallowing down two tablets of Panzerschokolade, Reister ignored the near-immediate twitch running through his system caused by the relatively strong dose of methamphetamine now dissolving in his body.
Rubbing his eyes and moving out of the way for Ulrich Weber the driver grabbed another belt of MG-34 ammunition for the turret mount machine gun he was operating. Reister cracked his knuckles, His head leaning forward to peer out of the Tiger optics. He could feel his bottom lip quivering, his skin almost moved.
He looked through the optics and immediately spotted their first catch of the day. It was a light tank in his scopes… perhaps a medium tank at the very best. Americans had sacrificed armour and armaments for mobility. It was good if they were in a slugging match in an urban environment, or rough terrain. But they had invaded fucking North Africa. The whole goddamn region was flat and relatively rural; what in the hell were they thinking?
They reminded him of a heavier Panzer III, a quick and nice little tank, but like in 1941, these tanks were facing superior guns and armour. Having survived an encounter with a rather nasty KV-1 back in the early days of the Russian invasion, Reister could only now empathize with the amount of power the KV commander must have felt back then, harassing the light tanks that were caught off guard.
"Alright gentlemen, round two," he announced to his crew. "Rotate turret 10 degrees, depress gun 4 degrees."
The crew worked like a well-oiled machine. The turret moved and was now tracking an American tank rushing as quickly as it could up the side of the side of the line the Obersturmbannführer had built to catch them off guard. They were well-trained from the looks of it. Perhaps they were even over-prepared. They were using textbook tactics, old uninspired, tactics they tried copying from the first blitzkriegs in Poland and the Low Countries. Well… It would work if they had simply looked around their surroundings a tad more carefully and understood that the horrors of the eastern front had shaped the tankers they were facing off against.
Regardless, for their lack of foresight, the armour column would pay for it.
"FIRING LINE, OPEN FIRE!" Reister roared over the radio line to his Panzer detachment.
Sixteen high-velocity guns rained hell down on the flanking American tank section. It was almost like the battles from the Napoleonic era, except the Americans simply hadn't known it happened until it was too late. A dozen exploded in the barrage almost all of them immediately engulfed in flames that no crew could escape from. Burning caskets for the four or five men inside. Reister tried to ignore the pang in his gut as he watched the sight. It had very nearly happened to him in Russia. His Panzer III had taken a hit and was set alight by the KV-1. Rolf, his radioman was badly burned.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to become professional once more; he turned the optics once more and said. "Re-target, turret rotation by 13 degrees, gun depression down by two degrees… FIRE!"
The gun went off and the round connected against the second tank, lower than Reister had expected. The round blew the tank off its track so hard that the wheels of the armoured vehicle appeared to have bent inwards. Reister nodded, proud of the second kill made, this was becoming a one-sided battle. There was no possible way for this flanking manoeuvre to survive. He would probably have to call up the supply trucks to bring the detachment more ammunition at this rate.
By the second volley, the American tank attack had either halted or in its chaos, scattered, some charging towards the German defence, many others, going in all different directions. It was human nature to do it. Reister remembered his first serious tank battle outside of Calais ended up a mess like the one he was seeing. If they were talented, the American survivors would not make the same mistake again.
"Good hit knocked that bastard's track right off, rotate turret by thirty-three degrees!" Reister ordered once more.
As soon as they lined up on a third tank and tore it open, a sudden loud clank smashed against the front armour, pinging hard enough to make Reister wince hard. It made Friedrich Thomsen, the loader fly back into the commander. His eyes were wide and frightened.
"WE'VE BEEN HIT!" he screamed like a woman, who had witnessed a murder. Reister growled as he shoved Thomsen back in place and took a swipe at the back of his head.
"They have pea shooters, we have twelve centimetres of plate-wielded steel and improvised we wielded on," he reminded the driver. "Now shut up and focus."
Reister looked through the optics once more and found that the attacker had been the tank they knocked off the track. It appeared that the crew decided to stick around and fight. Brave, but foolish. When a tank was knocked out and there was a chance for survival, he would usually allow the crew to exit the disabled armour and flee. It was that sort of behaviour that Reister would hope to be extended to him should the situation arise.
Next to him was Rolf, who snorted derisively.
"Might I remind you that we have twelve centimetres of cracked and damaged armour?" Rolf muttered just loud enough over the buzzing of MG-34 fire over their heads.
Reister paused himself from issuing any further orders., silently cursing Rolf for reminding him that one lucky hit on the crack could penetrate the tank. It was an off chance, but one he wasn't about to risk. The crew would simply have to die for hitting them.
"Alright…" Reister agreed, changing his policy. "Re-target that crippled tank, finish that bastard off. No one shoots at us."
Before the order could be completed, the crippled tank's back port side exploded inwards. Reister banged his forehead against the back of the driver seat; so much for adding another kill to the roster. He paid no attention to the radio coming to life until a low chuckle erupted.
"Tiger 222 reporting in, you're welcome for the save, Sigrid II…" A voice crackled over the radio, histone sly. "Your Panzer is an eyesore, by the way. Anymore paint scratches on your vehicle and I'm reporting it to the Commandant."
The radio went dead, leaving Reister stunned by the arrogance and humour shot at him and his faithful Tiger. Growling lowly, he grabbed his binoculars and pushed his way out of the turret. His binoculars raised, he scanned each of the Tigers until his eyes fell on a Tiger with the number 222 stencilled on the side of the turret.
Tiger 222's hatch opened and out climbed the Commander. His lapel held the same sort of marks Herr Hoch had. Several Waffen-SS tank crews had been dispatched to the Kampfgruppe to keep Peiper from going nuts. There sitting on the turret, a bottle in his hand as he drank and commanded his Tiger from outside of his Tiger was Untersturmführer Michael Wittmann.
Michael Wittmann, A Stugcommander with a rather large kill record from his time hunting Soviet tanks, had been personally recommended by Sepp Dietrich to be the first Waffen-SS panzer commander to fight the Americans. With Tiger in his helm, one could only hope he could handle the heavy tank with the same sort of finesse.
Reaching down into the turret to grab the radio receiver, he held his eyes on the cocky, somewhat younger man.
"Herr Wittmann, you son of a bitch; Look to your left." He called out to the SS panzer commander. As soon as Wittmann did so, Reister waved his arm, adding. "Welcome to the professional league… Things are a bit different when you have an actual Panzer in your hands."
Through the binocular lends, Reister could see Wittmann shoot him a charming grin and a salute before he packed his water canister away and dived back into his tan, leaving Reister glowering slightly.
"Next target." He grumbled to Hanke and Lehrmann, his gunner and loader team. Both men looked somewhat exhausted.
Clearing his throat, Lehrmann said. "We just smoked another tank, give us a moment-"
Reister pulled the tablet bottle out of his medical kit and handed it to the team.
"Take your Panzerschokolade and get ready for the NEXT TARGET!" he shouted at them.
Glowering, Reister went back to his spotting, determined not to be bested by that pansy SS man. He did not for long. Not when he heard the loud droning overhead. The officer looked up and watched the wave of American planes forming up into attack positions. He heard the radio explode with activity as the anti-aircraft units began coordinating counterfire against the encroaching planes.
Reister ducked back into the Tiger turret and slammed the hatch shut. Silently he prayed as he heard the supercharged American engines grow closer and closer.
…
…
Fifty seconds.
Fifty seconds was all that it had taken for his plans to unravel. The air attack, as brief as it might have been had been devastating. One Panzer IV, Three Panzer IIIs, all of the Panzer IIs, and half of the Fiats were scrap metal now. God knows how many infantrymen had fallen. Fifty seconds of air cover had brought the devastated American division to hit reversal and begin the slow retreat back into the city.
The Kampfgruppe was reorganizing. The Tigers and the Panthers fired the last of their rounds and joined the rest of the armour group for resupply for whatever lay ahead. For whatever Joachim Hoch had on his mind next. Attack, fall back, it did not matter. Their objectives had been complete regardless, the Division had been shattered. It was now up to Joachim Hoch to make a decision.
Unfortunately for the Kampfgruppe, Hoch's focus was diverted away.
"Come, on come on, come on!" Joachim moaned, until finally the figure of a quarian woman stood before him on his omni-tool. "Falan, this is Hoch. I need medical transportation at my location. Follow Hanala's omni-tool. She's… she's been hurt…"
Barely paying attention to the affirmative, his were wide in terror. Lying underneath him was Hanala. Her chest was torn open with shrapnel and what appeared to have been small calibre bullet wounds. Crying as Joachim sloppily wrapped bandage after bandage around her torn-open uniform, his hand digging into her flesh to stop the bleeding.
Joachim had found her sprawled out next to a burnt-out Opel Blitz ammunition carrier, which had been parked near his shot-to-shit staff car. Perhaps the exploding bullets did the damage. Whatever the case, she was bleeding badly… she needed to get out of there. She needed to... She needed to leave.
"Jo-Joachim…." she sobbed.
Joachim slapped her across the cheek, trying his best to keep her focus on him and not the wounds that she was hurt by… hurt not dying from, hurt. Hanala was incapable of dying. She did not understand the concept. Noticing the sand sticking against her back, caused by burns of some kind, Joachim carefully rolled her onto her side, making her scream out as he wrapped the wounds.
"I –I sorry..."
Yet again, Joachim backhanded her lightly.
"Shut up, just shut up, Hanala. You're going to be fine; it's just a couple of burns and scrapes." Joachim lied. His eyes looked up to find that Joachim Peiper had joined his CO, his eyebrow wide as he wordlessly watched; with a shaking voice, he said, "Peiper… Peiper, send word to the Kampfgruppe, we're pushing ahead... FUHRMANN."
Like a loyal dog, Fuhrmann rushed to his Obersturmbannführer, who had tenderly lifted her and was cradling Hanala in his arms. Paul's eyes darted from his boss to the alien woman who looked close to simply bleeding out. Together, Fuhrmann and Hoch bolted in the direction of Paul's Hanomag. Fuhrmann opened the back door and carefully helped Joachim slide the squirming and moaning quarian into the back of the open-top troop transport.
"C-cold..." he heard Hanala moan, nearly making Hoch lose all of his control. Breathing shallowly, he turned up to meet Fuhrmann's concerned eyes.
"Fuhrmann, take your squad and head straight east until the quarians send a drop-ship for her," Joachim spoke blankly as his shaking hands pulled off his bloodied jacket and draped it over her hastily bandaged body.
Fuhrmann nodded and, without asking permission, pulled the SS man off Hanala, her eyes darting back and forth as though she was wondering where he was going and why he wasn't joining her. Hoch stood there and watched as the Hanomag loaded up with the squad.
A shake on his shoulder caught his attention. It was Fuhrmann again.
"She's going to be fine, Herr Hoch..." Paul tried to comfort him. "but you have to get back to work. You have to finish this… for her."
Looking between his former adjutant and Hanala, who was still faintly moaning his name, Hoch took a long drawn-out breath and steeled himself just enough to nod his head. Slapping his shoulder, Fuhrmann let go of Hoch and climbed into the back of the Hanomag, banging his hand on the roof twice before taking a place at Hanala's side.
As the Hanomag rolled away, Joachim fell to the ground, his breathing was all shot. His eyes could not believe just how soaked his hands were by Hanala's cooling blood. This shouldn't have happened. This wasn't right. This wasn't fucking right.
A sudden sharp pain shot through his forearm. Joachim looked down and with wide eyes, found a hypodermic needle pricked into his veins, pumping a clear fluid that Hoch instantly knew was medical methamphetamine. His eyes looked up to find that it was JochenPeiper administering the shot; His expression somehow most bored and furious as he pulled the needle out of Hoch's forearm.
"A little pick me up was in order," Peiper explained as he dropped the needle into the bloodied dirt. "I mean all due respect to you Herr Hoch, but there is a good reason why women should stay off the battlefield. War should be waged with limited emotional conflict, and having love put at risk… well it's just plain stupid…"
Blinking furiously as the large injection of amphetamines was now coursing through his veins, he gestured to the Kampfgruppe now organized and preparing to follow the American retreat. Turning back, he looked up into Peiper's glare, his arms crossed. Slowly, the Obersturmbannführer lulled his head, bobbing it up and down.
There was only one thought that ran through Hoch's mind now.
Revenge. The Americans would pay for what they did to his Hanala. To think he was going to let them run away freely…
"Begin the attack…" Hoch breathed, his words poisonous. "I…I…I… I'll be a few moments behind you. Peiper, I want the Flamethrowers deployed. Bouïra burns tonight, are we clear?"
His eyebrow arched as Hoch's true colours reappeared for the first time in a year. The narcotic haze washed over him, freeing him of the guilt holding him back. Peiper smiled slightly, nodding his head in understanding. With that Peiper left to begin the assault on the retreating Americans. His departure left Hoch alone with his guilt.
Alone so that the meth-induced rage took control of him.
…
...