Birth of a Dynasty
Mother of all mountains. This is what the rugged peaks between Germany and Italy were called by mountaineers who felt at home here. The Alps were a landscape unto themselves. Barren, lunar-like deserts alternated with lush green valleys that rose hundreds and thousands of meters above sea level like floating islands of life. Every crevice, every slope, and every pass resembled a unique habitat teeming with life, perfectly adapted to the local climate and weather conditions. One refuge followed another. Most of them were only accessible for a short time each year because, in winter, ice and snow made the ascent a life-threatening balancing act. And even now, in late summer, with the heavy equipment on their backs, they had to take three steps with every step before they could truly shift their weight safely.
"Are you okay, Lena?" Michael had grown up in the shadow of the mountains and moved as sure-footed as a billy goat. The almost fifteen-year age difference between them was simply reversed up here: Lena felt as if she were currently the old geriatric, shuffling along, trying to keep up with the team's youngest member. Up here, experience makes youth, she thought as she took a deep breath and stretched her head upwards.
"Yeah, sure, everything's fine. I'm just enjoying the view a bit." Never show weakness, never, she'd learned that in her first year of university. The world of science knew no mercy; you'd be eaten alive. Don't let yourself be eaten, one of her classmates had jokingly advised her back then.
"Okay, but hang on, there's still a few meters to go."
"Yes, I know, I was there at the briefing, too."
"Then that's fine." The so-called Blaueis was the northernmost glacier in the Alps. It was located in the Ramsau area in the Bavarian part of the Berchtesgaden Alps. On the north side of the Blaueiskar. It was considered a hotspot in the Alps among mountaineers and gained increasingly sad, international notoriety among climate researchers as tangible evidence of man-made global warming. In 1820, the glacier measured over 25 hectares. In 1884, it was just under 20. And by 1953, it had shrunk to just 13.5. Today, the shrinking ice clung to an area of barely 8 hectares. That's why they were making the effort to climb it today. Glaciers were the Earth's early warning system. People could literally see with their own eyes how they were crumbling and dying. Photos from the last century compared to today's images were the best evidence of the greenhouse effect, because it was happening all over the world, and simultaneously. In Europe, in the Himalayas, in the Rockies, at the poles themselves...glaciers were dying everywhere. And in Germany, there wasn't even the opportunity to study the subject properly.
"I'll follow you, Andrew." Glaciology was a recognized science, but studying it per se wasn't. At the Alfred Wegener Institute, for example, where you could actually study glaciology as a subject leading to an MSc in Glaciology, it was unfortunately not possible. Only as a core topic within a geosciences degree program leading to a Master of Science. At her old university in Bremen, the AWI's glaciology professors and scientists in the Department of Geosciences had developed a comprehensive module that ranged from intensive training to a general introduction, theoretical foundations – with some mathematics and physics – to teaching field methods on a glacier. Today's ascent represented a precursor to the first major excursion with the university students.
"Up there, the scree is getting firmer again. But still, be careful."
"Apering" was what they called it when the ice on glaciers receded and the underlying soil layers reappeared. The last few meters to the glacier were therefore particularly impassable. For her as a geologist, it was a sight that moved her to tears. On the one hand, it was one of the first glaciers she had ever seen with her own eyes; on the other, it was an old, dying man whose decline they were researching here.
"I've been visiting this giant for almost twenty years now. It's always beautiful and frightening at the same time to stand up here," said Professor Waldegg when she caught up with him.
"I can understand that."
"But...much like in the Australian outback or the Amazon...destruction can also uncover new treasures. Fire...can also bring life." What emerged from the melting ice was nothing less than a scientific sensation. Just this year, the entrance to an open space appeared beneath the once meter-thick layers of the Blaueis ice sheet. An opening appeared, which, as they now knew, belonged to a still undiscovered cave system beneath the ice. The vent resembled a deep scar cutting through the membrane of the cirque. They wanted to find out exactly how deep today and in the coming days.
"We have enough rope for 200 meters. We'll first check whether it's safe to descend. The park administration has already checked the entrance, but... you know, don't trust a theory you haven't checked yourself," Andrew said as they prepared to enter. Thanks to the glacier above it, the cave would be accessible today for the first time since the last Ice Age. A window into the past, into an Earth from before humans.
"How deep do you think the cave goes?" Lena asked her professor.
"It's hard to say, the Risending Shaft Cave is over 26 kilometers long. Together with the Kolowrat Cave and the Windlochs, these three could form a cave system over 70 kilometers long that runs through the entire mountain. The fact that there are caves here under the Blaueisspitze was a huge surprise. There... are no limits upwards," Andrew said, smiling at her through his white beard.
"You mean downwards?" Lena corrected him. The entrance hall of the cave, which she thought could easily have been called an "atrium," was the size of a small cathedral. Only about half of the scar-like entrance had been cleared of ice. Above it, the membrane of the glacier still lay, through whose melting layer daylight filtered in. Despite the cave's north-facing orientation, the ice amplified the effect, refracting the sunlight like the cabinet glass of a church. This gave the hall a bluish-white glow. It was as if the ice above them were burning, but it was a cold fire, like the stars in the night sky. And beneath this leaded glass window lay a world made entirely of ice and stone, carved into the rock by water and erosion over millions of years. A petrified vein that led deep into the mountain. And where this cold light disappeared again into the darkness, they placed lamps. The deeper they went, the more the cave resembled a petrified forest. A museum of Earth's history, with dioramas and murals from all eras of their planet.
"Just look at this. Have you ever seen anything like this?"
"Yes, in my dreams," Andrew replied, suppressing a childlike laugh. Such wonders transformed even the oldest, most hardened, and grounded of the old hands back into small, amazed children. She almost missed how the situation around her changed. At first, it was just a slight tickle in her nose and a stale taste on her tongue, which she could easily have imagined or attributed to the thin air up here. But then something else happened.
"The air down here is getting quite warm. It...it's almost hot." Only now did Lena notice that she had begun to sweat under her heavy insulated jacket.
"Maybe there's some kind of geothermal spring down there?" Professor Waldegg suggested.
"And...can you smell it too?" Lena asked, instinctively wrinkling her nose.
"What?"
"Is...is that sulfur?" she asked, looking deeper into the cave shaft. Even with the beam of her strongest lamp, she saw only black darkness. She had to blink twice to realize that she wasn't shining a shaft on it, but on a wall. And she had to blink a third time to realize that this wall in front of her was moving.
"Andrew, that... there... up ahead..." A hissing sound like a snake's, only a thousand times louder, echoed in every nook and cranny of the cave. It came from everywhere. A strong wind, a real gust, hit her face like water and ripped her hat off. Her own hair obscured her vision for a moment. When she wiped the veil from her eyes, she looked straight into a giant blast furnace that was coming to life before her.
"Oh my..." Before she could finish the sentence, something hard and heavy slammed into her.
Only when he screamed did she realize it was Professor Waldegg covering her with his own body. Just seconds before flames engulfed her. Waldegg screamed as the fire burned his jacket, his sweater, and then his skin to ash. The fire burned so fast and hot that the shock stopped his heart before he burned alive. But that didn't stop the fire from licking at his hair, climbing down his sideburns, and following his beard growth, from melting his face. It was as if a wax figure were melting over her. A horrible mixture of bodily fluids, blood, drool, and eyewash hissed steaming down on her. The broth was boiling hot and painful to touch. Every drop left a sooty burn mark where he touched her. The smog that rose into her nose constricted her airways. She could no longer breathe, only scream and pray. The ground beneath her trembled as if the entire mountain on top of her were about to collapse. She almost wished the rock would simply bury her, then she wouldn't have to stare into Professor Waldegg's dead eyes anymore. Although, he no longer had eyes; they had simply burst from the heat. The fire had ripped open the back of his head like a welding gun, and now a smiling face with glowing red eyes stared down at her. A jack-o'-lantern made from a human skull.
"AAAAHHHH!" Was that Lena screaming? Was she even capable of such a macabre scream? She couldn't think; everything was moving. Everything seemed to be burning. Heavy blows thundered past her on both sides. A loud roar. Then an invisible force simply knocked Waldegg's burning corpse off her. The corpse broke into several pieces, the torso and limbs separated by the burning of the spine and flew in different directions. None of them would ever be seen again. Finally, Lena managed to catch her breath. Heavy, fetid air consisting almost entirely of carbon dioxide, but in desperation, she greedily inhaled every liter like a thirsty man in the desert.
"AAARRGGGHHHH!" She looked up above her toward the cave exit. Ice cracked like a thin eggshell. Daylight flooded the bruised descent, showing her the way out. She clung to that lifeline of sunshine and followed it to the top. Her whole body ached, half her face was scarred by burns, but she instinctively knew she had to keep crawling. Down here, she could barely breathe, but the higher she climbed, the cleaner and better the air became. She regained enough clarity to see the sky. The birds. The crowns of the snow-capped mountains, and in the midst of them, looming menacingly like a giant gargoyle, a monster from a nightmare. A beast from the dark ages of Earth's history. It spread its mighty wings and stretched its long, serpentine body toward the sky. From its gaping maw rose a thunderous roar that shook the mountains. Somewhere in the undamaged part of its head, a name formed, a designation for this creature that, due to a lack of scientific classification, it could not replace with anything.
"A... a dragon."
Home and Farm
"Is that really your final word in this discussion, Zerrener?"
"Yes, it is, Mr. Kaminski."
"Good, then for once I can finish in peace." The debate resembled the age-old ebb and flow of the tide. Day and night. Environmentalists and industrialists. Somehow, one never appeared without the other. Which came first? Well, people have been puzzling over this since the beginning of time. And when you argue about something so bitterly for so long, at some point it completely lost its meaning. Which, of course, was no reason not to continue arguing.
"I know they like to accuse me of being a caricature of a nature-destroying capitalist just because I live in the here and now and am practical."
"And they like to accuse me of being a caricature of an unworldly, privileged prosperity pacifist," Zerrener replied.
"Oh, you have more to say, don't you? Well, but this region and its inhabitants are very dear to both of us."
"Yes, and that's precisely why I must strongly oppose their efforts. Here on the border, we have some of the last intact nature reserves in Germany and all of Central Europe. Refuges from the last Ice Age. Beer, otters, wolves, black storks, peregrine falcons, lynxes... we have a unique opportunity to renaturalize the country's largest and most important protected area. Our breeding and reintroduction programs here in the region can look back on decades of cross-border work by countries, states, and individuals. And they're finally bearing their first results."
"Exactly, one more reason to bring the world closer to the region. To invite them to us so they can witness your hard work," Kaminski said.
"And so they can sell tickets?" Zerrener added.
"Why do they always feel cheated when both sides would benefit?"
"Because I have to ask myself how much nature will be left when the whole world is queuing up here, flooding the roads, hiking trails, hotels, and campsites. This park is the most important and reliable source of income in this region. Statistically, it secures the livelihood of almost 2,000 people in the country. If we litter and trample on everything, nature and humanity will suffer together."
"My father once said, two thousand is good, five thousand is better. And when you have ten thousand, you can open a bottle of wine," Kaminski said. Their heated argument was about nothing less than one of the country's most significant natural treasures. Some even called the Elbe Valley region the "Grand Canyon" of Germany: Saxon Switzerland. A place of extremes, wonders, and legends. Enormous table mountains like the high plateaus in the border triangle of Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil, which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once chose as the setting for his global bestseller "The Lost World." There were a thousand ways to describe them, each of them correct, and each of them simply not enough to do justice to reality, because Saxon Switzerland was one of the regions in Germany with well over a thousand faces. The rock domes that towered above the lush forests and deeply cut sandstone valleys were unparalleled in the rest of the country.
"The residents here will be best served if these wonders are preserved. For posterity, they will always be able to make money from them. Why don't they understand that? Restarting mining in the park, that…"
"That would create many jobs, both directly as workers in the tunnels and indirectly, for all the businesses that offer the products and services that, in turn, require the miners. That would triple the region's economic power in one fell swoop," Kaminski said convincingly.
"Yes, I don't want to deny that, but for how long exactly? Precious metals and mineral resources are NOT renewable resources. They only exist in certain quantities, and once they're used up, they never come back. Your 'leap forward', from zero to one hundred in one fell swoop, might create jobs and income for sixty or seventy years, but then what? You…you're talking about turning Saxon Switzerland into a gold rush claim. Things go well for a few years, but then, as soon as the veins are exhausted, people move away again, and all that's left are deserted ghost towns." Warned Zerrener, who had lived in Alaska for a few years himself and knew how quickly such a destructive "boom" could be over. For nature, this was good; as soon as there was no more gold to be mined, the stricken areas were left fallow again so they could heal themselves. But for the people who had invested all their future plans in these claims, it was a catastrophe. For them, the drying up of the veins meant the virtual end of their existence, and a microscopic internal exodus to the next claim began. Almost like with locusts.
"Sixty to seventy years, they act like it's nothing! That's almost an entire human lifetime. A man can live off it, his children can live off it, and, if you start early enough, even their grandchildren," Kaminski replied.
"Yes, maybe, just about. And then? What will our grandchildren do when we've harvested and cleared everything? How will they live?"
"It's hard for a person to think beyond timeframes that exceed their own existence. Many have children to feed and families to care for NOW. They need new sources of income."
"So we're stuck here, Mr. Kaminski?"
"It seems so, Mr. Zerrener."
"Then the city council will probably rule on your concerns."
For some time now, there had been growing economic interest in the national park. Some wanted to revive the old mines in order to tap into long-forgotten veins, which for some aspiring candidates seemed like a good way to replenish their "war chest" for the upcoming election campaign. This led to some bitter debates throughout the town at the regulars' table, at the breakfast table, or at the lunch table in the break room. Somehow, there seemed to be only one topic in the town. Until another topic came up and began to displace this one in urgency.
"Have you seen this yet?" Lukas casually pushed the newspaper across the table to him. The cover showed a blurry photograph of an animal that even he, with his trained eyes, had difficulty classifying.
"Phantom spotted over Watzmann." He read the headline aloud.
"What do you think it is?" "Must be some large bird of prey or something. Maybe a bearded vulture or a griffon vulture?" Zerrener guessed, shrugging slightly.
"No, never, much too big for any bird of any kind. The animal is said to have had a wingspan of over eight meters," Julia said as she refilled her coffee. For two days now, there have been strange reports of unidentified flying objects all over Europe, or in general in the northern hemisphere. All in connection with simultaneous Forest and bush fires
"Even the largest eagle of modern times, the New Zealand Haast's Eagle, wasn't even half this size."
"And all these fires? Do you think they're connected? Are they aliens?"
"No, this is the new hot period. The Earth is approaching the 1.5-degree threshold ever faster. This, friends, is what it looks like when entire climate zones shift. Soon we'll be introducing bushfire risk warning levels here, like in Australia," said her station senior as she was revising the duty rosters for this week one last time. "Get used to it, friends, it's all downhill from here," he added promisingly.
"Unbelievable that you're giving the children's tours here in the park," said Lucas.
"Unbelievable that he's so popular with the children." Julia said, which they could only laugh about. That ended the conversation for them. As a team of thirteen, they had more than enough to do anyway, managing the entire park and keeping it running. And for two days, that was it. News from all over the world poured in until the world came to them. And it came in the form of fire and flames.
Rise of an Empire
The mood fluctuated from irritated to shocked, helpless to immensely frustrated. The latest BND reports lay before them in black and white, and each subsequent paragraph made the old and young officers increasingly grumpy. It was the final report from their reconnaissance units in the Caucasus. Within sixteen days, Russia had invaded Georgia and forced its military surrender. A lightning attack by NATO and the EU had taken them so by surprise that they hadn't even had a chance to react. Before their leaders in Brussels could put together a truly far-reaching sanctions package to combat Russia, The attempt to slow down the Caucasus had already won. The Caucasus War hit the EU's Eastern Front at an inopportune moment. In Berlin, they were waiting for a final assessment from the Operations Command in Potsdam on what impact this geopolitical upheaval could and would have on their operations in the Balkans and the Hindu Kush.
"With this attack, Russia is squandering its international reputation."
"Yes, but it is creating facts. Its kind of facts. The EU delegation faces no small challenge in mediating down there. The Chancellor and her staff expect our final report on the situation in the Caucasus by this evening."
"Well, then we must emphasize that de-escalation is the only sensible course of action in this situation."
"I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Colonel General Kowalski." He kept his hair and beard short and extremely neatly groomed since he had been promoted from the front to his desk. He was neither the youngest nor the oldest in the group. Neither the loudest nor the most reserved. And yet, time and again, in every meeting Ulrich Wegener attended, he stood out from the rest of the crowd as a "glitch in the matrix." In his own unique, hard-to-explain way, he was extremely perceptive. He was a master of calculated risk and stratagem, as well as enormously effective defensively in exercises and strategy games.
"A hard line is the only language the Russians understand."
"Do you expect us to invade Russia ourselves now? Surely you know that Russia cannot be conquered. That's one of the first lessons every strategist learns in college."
"With all due respect, sir, but I would advise against giving the Russians more credit than they actually possess."
"What do you mean, General of the Guard?"
"It is only our fear of THEM that keeps them alive. If we stop spreading their self-made stories, we deprive them of their sustenance. Throughout history, there are only a few threads that have truly endured over the centuries, one of which is: At all times, the Russians have had the worst generals in the world. From Tsar Ivan the Severe to the present, almost every victory the Russians have ever achieved in their history has been a Pyrrhic victory. The Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Berlin... every time they "win," it costs them almost half their army. Or have you ever looked at their numbers? The wounded? The dead? The missing? No self-respecting commander has such numbers! Russia buys its victories with the lives of its soldiers! Russian generals understand only one tactic: drown the enemy with superior numbers. There are only a few exceptions to this rule, such as Poltava or Borodino, but as I said, those are exceptions."
"Nevertheless, Russia was able to bloodily repel both Napoleon and Hitler," replied one of the older generals in the room.
"Yes, but that wasn't achieved through tactical skill, but through simplicity. Scorched earth is based on destroying everything to poison wells, slaughter cattle, and retreat into the wilderness. This testifies to the collective defensive capacity of the Russian people, but not to the skill of its generals. Quite the opposite! And the downfall of Operation Barbarossa was thanks to Hitler, as we all know. Who prioritized bombing English cities over bombing English air bases? Who failed to invest in submarines and single-wing aircraft to use England's island status against them? Who didn't collude with Japan to clamp down on the Soviet Union? Who wouldn't forgive Franco's debts in order to bring Spain on board? Who ordered a two-front war and then forbade it to withdraw? You want to know why Nazi Germany lost the war? Well, it was led by an idiot who thought he was a master strategist.
"Be careful BILD doesn't hear you, Ulrich, otherwise we'll have another huge press scandal about the Bundeswehr being just the Wehrmacht in poor disguise," a friend warned him.
"We are. The Wehrmacht wasn't the SS. The Wehrmacht conquered, the SS were the exterminators who subsequently "cleansed" the invaded countries. Of course, our predecessors were by no means angels; they were soldiers. Good soldiers, some of the best strategists in history, who could have defeated the Soviet Union if Hitler had only stayed out of it. Recognizing that someone knew their craft isn't glorification. But you have to recognize when someone is simply better at something than you are. That doesn't mean throwing your ideals overboard or selling them out; no, you face reality to learn from it. To improve yourself. To win yourself. You don't have to approve of slavery or racial segregation just to recognize that Robert E. Lee was a capable commander. I mean, it only speaks volumes for General Grant that he managed to defeat such a skilled opponent."
"Then it also speaks volumes for the Russians and Americans that they defeated Mannstein, Rommel, Mackensen, and Guderian."
"Yes, I do too. I didn't say invincible, I said better. But both armies, Nazi Germany's and the Soviet Union's, were led by lousy high commands. Or why do you think Germany's and Russia's both suffered the most casualties in World War II? And please don't tell me that it was about restoring the honor and power of the Russian people after years of defeat with Stalin's relentless counterattack. You can't rebuild anything with dead men."
"And how would you have attacked Berlin back then, Ulrich?"
"Not at all! I would have besieged it, cut off its supplies, and starved it out. That would have taken six months, and I would have had to share the victory with the Americans, but I wouldn't have sacrificed a fifth of my soldiers for my pride." It was a poorly kept secret of his career that Ulrich stood by the legacy of the Bundeswehr. He openly admitted that he would have fought for Rommel or Mannstein and was currently writing a biography of his two great idols that transcended political parties and history.
"You can say what you will, and I find the term 'the Good Nazi' just as absurd and disrespectful as any other. There were no 'good' Nazis and there never will be. But there were good generals who took orders from Nazis. Rommel was what you call a good commander. Every one of his men captured by the Allies said they would fight for him again at any time. That is leadership, gentlemen, it is what distinguishes a leader from a superior."
"And what does that have to do with this, Leimbach?" The senior officer wanted to know.
"Well, General Luchs, studying history means trying to understand the present. Russia's aggressions in the Caucasus seem hasty, brutal, and ill-considered to our "Western" eyes, but they follow a bizarre kind of "Russian logic," a way of thinking that only makes sense to those who know and understand Russia's complex socio-economic history, from the Empire to the present day. For there is another thing that runs like a thread through Russian history, which is the real reason for the suspicion and distrust that Russia has always shown towards the West: Russia hates and fears the West because it so desperately wants to be a part of it." A wave of confused glances flitted back and forth among his listeners, who were visibly beginning to wonder if he was still in his right mind.
"Emperor Peter the Great forced a great leap forward on backward Russia. To do this, he traveled for years through the European principalities and states, studying their infrastructure and culture, and recruiting all kinds of experts. He hired experts and specialists for his new state apparatus. The cornerstone of the Petrine reforms. His entire war efforts, just like Ivan the Strict's, served on the one hand to develop Siberia and on the other hand to establish an ice-free port in the Baltic Sea. Russia wanted to be one of the great powers of Europe. Sweden, Prussia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire... three-quarters of all Russian military interventions were directed westward. The wars with Japan and Afghanistan were only a few exceptions. Otherwise, it was always westward. Russia had access to Siberia's wealth, and yet they sold Alaska to raise money to recapture Crimea. Do you understand? They are giving up an area of safe territory ten times larger than Germany, which was never in any danger, in order to raise money to hold onto a tiny peninsula whose inhabitants they openly reject? One that will never let them sleep in peace? Well, no one could have known about all that oil back then, and it was far away, but it clearly embodies what I'm trying to say here: Russia doesn't want to be part of Asia, it wants to be part of Europe. Three-quarters of the Russian population lives west of the Urals, Russia literally controls half of the largest landmass on Earth, and yet it's willing to give up all that just to move a few centimeters closer to Europe on the map."
"Really?"
"As a child, my grandfather once showed me a book about a Soviet soldier. He recounted in his own words his amazement when he first set foot on German soil. The houses there, even destroyed, had several floors, staircases, once had glass windows, electricity, running water... Of course, there were also soldiers from large Russian industrial cities like Moscow, Smolensk, or St. Petersburg who were already familiar with such things, but most came from rural regions. They were recruited peasants, some of whom still lived in small villages like in the Middle Ages and worked the fields. For them...Germany, even when it lay in ruins, was paradise. And then there were the fields! The lush green meadows, floodplains and forests. Not as barren and desolate and harsh as Siberia. The Russians asked themselves what the Germans wanted that they didn't already have in their own country. Why did they want Russia? They already had everything. And that's true. You can give the Russian leadership half the world and they still wouldn't know what to do with it. The endless resources of Siberia and they squander it all on pointless campaigns over a few mountain villages in the Caucasus. Why? Because it brings them just a tiny bit closer to Europe. The Russians are not to be feared, they are to be pitied, because when they are not waging war and thus do not hold a monopoly on peace, they have absolutely nothing to offer the international community. And that's not the fault of the Russian people themselves. No, they're resilient and extremely capable of learning. Otherwise, they would never have managed to develop and cultivate such a vast landmass. No, I'm talking solely about the Russian leadership. They... they have no future to offer their own people, no dreams, nothing beyond dying for the fatherland. Dying, that's what Russians are born for. At least when it comes to their own leaders."
"And where do the Americans fit into your calculations?"
"The same problem, they also have too much pride and are too concerned with political victories rather than strategic ones."
"That may be true, but the Russians are still advancing at the moment," General Krumbach reminded him.
"Yes, with how many soldiers? Sixty to seventy thousand of their own, plus a few thousand more from their satellite states? That's just under a hundred thousand men against how many Georgians? Ten thousand? Fifteen? Definitely not 20,000, and despite their total military superiority in virtually every respect, hundreds dead and wounded. Horrific command and control of communications and intelligence. Strong army, flawed systems. If the Georgians had only completed three weeks of reserve training like here in Germany, they would have kicked the Russians out straight away, just like they did with the Afghans."
"Yes, but unfortunately they didn't have that basic training, and Georgia is now de facto disarmed," Krumbach replied.
"Which is why we urgently need to formulate a suitable response from Germany, the EU, and NATO in this part of the world. The Caucasus is Europe's front yard. If Russia overcomes it, we all know what it will aim for next: Ukraine; Belarus, the Baltic states, and then, at some point, East Germany."
"So that..." Whatever the general wanted to say, his voice was cut through by a loud wail the likes of which most of the people in the room hadn't heard since basic training.
"That's the air raid warning. But how can...?"
"Generals, you must come immediately. The city is being bombed!"
No matter their age, as soon as they heard these words, all the officers' trained reflexes and instincts kicked in, making them jump like wound-up automatons. The HiBa was decades in the past for most of them, but it was certainly not forgotten. They followed the ensign, who, however, led them not to an observation room but to the nearest window. Looking west, they peered over the Kleiner Entenfängerteich and the Wildpark West toward the Havel River. Black soot darkened the sky. Giant flying objects, whose type and design didn't match any brand he had stored in his memory, shot down toward Potsdam, emitting bursts of flame. Wait, no, they matched a type, though not Lufthansa or Airbus, no, a design by Mother Nature. Bats, it flashed through his mind. These flying objects had huge wings and dark flaps of skin. Like giant bats, they descended on Potsdam in large swarms and began to wreak havoc on their city.
"What the hell…?" said one of the men as a squadron of swarmers broke away from the rest of the group and headed towards their barracks.