1634: Turn Your Radio On (22 page)

The last point of view tended to go along with other groups in the Germanies who didn't mind having the Swede for their emperor, but didn't understand why he was trying to force Saxony and Brandenburg into the USE against their will. It seemed to them that if other German principalities didn't want to join, that was their business. It wasn't like they were threatening to throw armies against the USE.

While the up-timers seemed uneasy about an emperor heading up their government as a matter of principle, Captain Gars had been a good ally and was generally respected by almost all of them. After all, the real power lay in the hands of the elected parliament that their man Mike was running with an iron fist.

Tonight, Fischer would address the issue of peace. This was also to be his first step in supporting his soon to be father-in-law and his friends. They could use this speech—it was coming to seem more of a speech than a sermon—being broadcast over the radio to set up an issue they could campaign around for the upcoming federal elections.

What Fischer didn't want to do was upset John Grover any further. He had reworked any remark that might have appeared to be critical of the emperor himself, rather than the political disagreement over whether the federal election should include or be followed by a reelection for the office of emperor itself.
Surely, John will see that difference

****

Checking one last time on the handiwork of the two locals he had hired for this job, Terrell went back to his equipment and put on his headset. He had set up a three mike array to cover this revival. One hanging over the lip of the canvas dome in front of the choir, one by the band, and the last one hanging off a boom he had built so his crew could swing it around the front of the altar to keep it close to Reverend Fischer. The wire for this one was wrapped around a spool so Fischer could pull it out when he needed to, and his crew could roll it back up to get it out of the way if necessary.

"Got you four by four, Art. Over."
Terrell released the switch on the relay in his broadcast booth set up on top of the wall overlooking the stage below him. Hitting it again, he added, "
Art, I want to apologize again for being way out of line back in Grantville. I had no business to say what I said. Over.
"

"
Don't worry about it, Terrell. I had my say with Roy Copenhaver and Fischer, and we've got that behind us. I guess I overreacted too. Your church is nothing like the ones I used to go to. Let's just get this job done and move on. Over? Out
!"

****

Colonel David Leslie was uncomfortable without his armor. I've been on the front too long, he thought. Big crowds don't automatically mean danger.

He heard his name called out down below. Scanning the crowd, he spotted a man waving his student's cap over his head and calling to get his attention. As he worked his way forward, he recognized the group.

Grinning, he propped his fists on his waist and commented, "Well, gentlemen, don't you look fine in your long robes and caps?"

The group had been cavalrymen under his command during the war. Now, having mustered out, they were pursuing their civilian goals.

"Yes, sir! We've enrolled here at the university. We have space, would you like to join us, Colonel?"

"I'd be honored, gentlemen." Leslie sat and took stock of the situation surrounding him. His former cavalrymen had picked a spot on the edge of the crowd, stage right as theater people referred to it, not quite in the front, but closer to it than the middle. Before him was the old curtain wall and a canvas quarter dome covering the stage. I audience continue to stream in. There were a number of small groups of students, dressed like his former troopers, but mostly the rest were old people and young women and children. What one would expect at a supposed religious meeting.

Then he spotted the group gathering a little higher up the side of Petersburg Hill, just opposite where he sat. Pilgrims they didn't seem to be, unless you counted the Crusaders of old. There was something about how they kept space open in their midst, as if they were expecting to have more join their ranks after sunset. They would bear watching.

Looking at the stage once more, he thought, It's not the ground I would have picked for my position. But, we're not at war any more. So they say.

****

Fischer smiled as the choir clapped and jumped to their hymn's big ending. This had been a wonderful stop on the way of the revival. There were still a few standing in line to be healed, and many more were preparing to come to the altar to accept their own personal Holy Spirit. The torches posted along the center aisle to mark it so it could be kept open were working very well. The music was as good as he'd ever heard it, and this dome of Slater's seemed to focus and magnify the sound on the stage and push it out to a much larger area.

Now, before the radio hour ended, was the time to speak about peace as he'd promised Herr Garb. Just this one last pilgrim looking to be healed, and he could begin.

"Sister, I still feel a little of the Power of the Holy Spirit within me. Would you come up and shed your burdens?"

As the older woman took the stage, Fischer reached out with his right hand to help her negotiate the stairs. As she turned to stand by Fischer, switching his microphone to his other hand, he wrapped his left arm around her shoulders and said, "Sister, what burden do you want to lay down tonight?"

As the crowd quieted down, she answered, "Pastor, the American doctor says I have the crab. Cancer, he calls it. All my family is dead and there's no one to take care of my child when I'm gone. Surely, the Lord wouldn't want it that way!"

Fischer made his best sympathetic face and squeezed her shoulders. He then asked his usual follow up question, "No, Sister. I don't believe that He would. What happened to your family?"

"It was the Swede, God damn his minions to hell!" Tears started to stream down from her eyes as if a damn had burst, and she continued to blurt out her story. "We were a good Lutheran family. When men from the Swedish army came to our village after Breitenfeld, waving their flag, my husband was the mayor, in charge of the village stores. He offered to furnish them all the supplies the village could spare, but they wanted them all. They killed him, then raped and killed and took everything."

Fischer knew he had a problem. As his mind raced with how to deal with it so John Grover wouldn't think he'd broken his word, he heard the shouting begin in the back of the crowd. It was already too late.

"Liar!"

"God save the emperor!"

"Kill this hate mongering devil!"

A large group of men started to rush the stage, some holding battle axes, some grabbing torches along the way. The rest of the congregation started to scream and most tried to get out of the way, but some decided to block the group's path to the altar and their leader. When they stood facing the advancing group of armed men, they raised their right arms over their heads to summon the power of the Holy Spirit to protect them.

The woman called out at the top of her lungs. "In Camburg, that was. In Camburg."

****

Leslie had expected something to happen from the time the woman had opened her mouth, but he hadn't expected this. He pulled his saber from it's sheath, and turned to his group of cavalrymen/students. "Are you ready for the fight, my laddies?"

Not so remarkably considering how recently they had been under arms, all the men reached under their gowns and pulled out knives or short swords or some kind of defensive armament. They jumped in behind him as he forced his way between the stage and the other group fighting their way through the mob to the preacher and the old woman standing there.

****

Marc Kronzburg couldn't figure out what to do. The crowd here at the front of the congregation had nowhere to flee. Neither did the choir or the rest of the people up on the stage. The stage was set up to enhance the sound reflection properties of the old curtain wall; Slater and his roadies hadn't considered giving them an escape route from a situation like this.

But with the crowd pushing, Marc had no other option than to go along with the force of the bodies around him and go up to the stage himself. Suddenly, he heard a particularly high-pitched scream and the panic of the crowd intensified. He looked back.

The armed gang reached the men trying to block their way. One of the attackers swung his battle axe and lopped off the head of one of the pilgrims. Marc could just spot it as it disappeared into the mob. The rest of the men who had tried to hold the aisle open turned and ran, joining the rest of the mob that had no place to go.

****

Constanzia backed up. When the melee first started, she had worried about how Dieter would make it out unharmed. Now, as she was pushed and shoved along with the mob surrounding her, she was worrying about her own safety. Especially since there was nowhere to go and she was now standing in the middle of the aisle directly between these armed madmen and their objective.

The mob on one side of her parted and she stood face to face with one of those insane men coming after her Dieter. She couldn't move, even though she saw him raise his sword and prepare to deal her a life-ending blow.

As he began his downswing, seemingly in slow motion, a saber appeared and intercepted it.

Someone—Mark Kronzburg, from Grantville—grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side.

****

"Pick on someone your own size, laddie!" Colonel David Leslie shouted as he blocked the fatal blow.

He ran his steel down along the sword of the other and flicked it out of his stunned opponent's hand. He then thrust its point right into the exposed belly of the assailant.

By this time, the rest of his men were engaging others of this fellow's compatriots. With their years of training working as a unit, they were making equally swift work of them as well. However, there weren't enough of his men to totally block his opposition's advance as they continued to press forward.

****

Terrell could not believe what he was seeing, all the blood and screaming and fighting all through the congregation below him. It was a testament to his military training that he remembered to order his crew to pull the microphones up and out of danger. He then grabbed several ropes they had used in setting up, and tied them to hard points along the top of the wall, before throwing them down for the band and choir members to scramble up to safety.

Seeing no other way to contribute to what was happening below, he switched his microphone on and began.

"
This is an emergency! Send troops to the site of the Erfurt Revival encampment immediately! A group of armed men are attacking and killing people in the crowd.

"I repeat, emergency! They just chopped someone's head off down below."

He continued to call out his descriptions of the carnage below him, play by play, with tears streaming down his face. It was the first live combat reporting the down-timers had ever heard.

****

Fischer felt the arms tugging him away from the edge of the altar where he had stood transfixed at the violence forcing it's way toward him. The woman whose plea for help had started it all had long since abandoned her position at his side.

Funny. Usually, this would be a good time for the Other to show up to protect me. I wonder where he went?

Adding to the surrealism of the scene around him, it was Marc Kronzburg, the Jewish radio-advertising salesman, who was pulling his arm. Marc was also pulling on Constanzia.

"Herr Fischer," Marc screamed. "You must get to safety! There are ropes back here so you can climb."

"Marc! Thank you, my friend. You'd better take care of yourself. The Holy Spirit is watching over me on this day." Fischer looked back at the gang now making its way to the base of the altar.

He raised his right arm, bowed his head, and began to pray. He continued until he felt the blow to the side of his head.

****

It was the screams that woke him. Fischer regained consciousness, and saw the blood and the fire and fog around him, and steel grey skies above. Somewhere off in the distance, he heard the sounds of combat. A man stood before him, dressed in a white suit. It looked like the picture of that man in the book he had just read, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The man looked down at Fischer and began to speak.
"Dieter Fischer, a God who let us prove his existence would be an idol."

He pointed toward the fog.
"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy."

Fischer saw ten sailing ships appear out of the fog. As they reached the shore, soldiers stormed ashore followed by one man dressed like a king. This man grew larger and larger as the voice continued,
"And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast."

A spear hit the giant, but instead of blood, out of the wound poured six other heads all the same as his first. Fischer saw the giant grab a woman who appeared in front of him and stake her to a crucifix. As her blood poured out over her dress, the giant picked the cross out of the ground and the woman disappeared leaving her dress hanging from the four corners of the cross. All this time the apparition continued to quote from what Fischer now recognized as the Book of Revelations, Chapter 13,
"And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Fischer was amazed at what he saw. He finally recognized the beast that was holding the bloody red flag with a St. Andrews cross in its claws, just in time to see it take the crown off of one of its heads and mount it in the center of the flag.

The Beast of Revelations was Gustavus II Adophus, the king of Sweden and emperor of the United States of Europe! He had died in the original timeline, but with the Ring of Fire, he had been given life again. His deadly wound was healed and now he stood poised to command the entire world.