Origins: The Reich (3 page)

Mark felt the
aircraft make one final turn to point the plane straight along the open runway.  The pilot did not bother slowing down to make sure he had things perfectly aligned.  The plane maintained a rolling start, throttled up to full power, and tore off down the runway. 

The rapid acceleration caused Mark to slide forward in his seat where he sat facing the rear of the plane with Hastelloy and his brother Jeffrey seated across from him with a small table in between. Mark watched the two men relax into their plush leather seats as the pull of inertia and gravity intensified. 

For his part, Mark found himself engaging his leg and abdominal muscles to keep from sliding out of his slippery leather chair.  It was a nice little analogy of his entire life Mark thought as the aircraft took to the sky.  He was always,
always
left with the tougher assignment, situation, or decision; but that was just fine with him.  He took pride in being tough enough, smart enough, and strong enough to handle anything his chosen profession threw at him.

“Well, we reach DC in under three hours,” Mark said looking at Hastelloy.  “You have until then to convince me that I can trust you enough to grant an audience with either the President’s Scientific Advisor, or the President himself.”

Hastelloy looked somewhat bewildered as he gestured toward Mark’s hip.  “I returned that gun
after
disarming you and your men.  What more could I possibly do to earn your trust?”

“That’s a start,” Mark responded along with a flippant toss of his hands to let Hastelloy know how inadequate he considered that gesture of trust to be.  “In truth though, it was your Commander Gallono who took out my men and disarmed me.  Now, oddly enough, killing trained NSA operatives to escape custody doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies about you just yet.  What else you got?”

“What about everything Hastelloy and his men did back in Egypt, Rome, and the Renaissance?” Dr. Holmes countered on Hastelloy’s behalf.

“All we really have there are some historical outcomes and this man’s claim that he had a hand in all of it,” Mark fired back.  “Let me try that.  Hey, guess what.  I was alive in 1776 and drafted the Declaration of Independence.  Now don’t you think I’m just the greatest American patriot who ever lived?”

“You would have a tough time convincing me that you were Thomas Jefferson,” Hastelloy scoffed, “since I was he.  However, that is another story for another day.”

“See what I mean,” Mark said with a toss of his hands in disbelief.

Jeffrey threw his head back in frustration.  “You’re being ridiculous.  I know for a fact that you weren’t alive back then, but we both know that he was.”

“True, but we only have his word about his actions and outcomes during those ancient times,” Mark snapped toward his brother and then repositioned himself to stare down Hastelloy.  “What have you done for me lately?  Give me something to prove your good intentions from the last century that is verifiable and known by me.”

Hastelloy calmly held Mark’s stare long enough to formulate a cool and measured response.  “Those are some rather tight parameters you have established.”

“Do you have any idea about the vetting process that goes into anybody who steps into the same room as the President, let alone a private meeting with him?” Mark countered.  “Those are my conditions, now impress me.”

Hastelloy nodded his head in agreement and slowly leaned forward in his chair to bring his elbows to rest upon his knees.  He clasped his hands together and extended his paired index fingers toward Mark.  “How about Roswell and the space program that spawned from the incident?  As I’m sure you’re aware, your agency came into existence as a direct result of the ‘Roswell Incident’.  You have also personally examined the debris and conducted autopsies on the bodies recovered from that crash.  Would you like to hear about your agency’s formative years?  Will learning about the circumstances leading up to the crash and mankind reaching space for the first time suffice?”

Mark’s eyes widened a bit at the prospect of getting answers to those defining moments.  “I’m all ears.”

**********

Hastelloy was the first to arrive for the lunchtime reservations he arranged a week earlier.  The young German-speaking hostess pulled open a set of French doors leading to a private balcony with five chairs and place settings seated around a circular table, per his request.

The weather was picturesque:  warm but not hot for late summer, sunny with scattered clouds dotting the otherwise clear blue sky, and a gentle breeze carrying the scent of bread baking in the kitchen below.  The view from the third story balcony was without equal as it overlooked the Limmat River flowing into Lake Zurich.  Beyond the calm waters rose the snow-covered peaks of the Swiss Alps surrounding the tiny nation’s capital.  It was obvious to him now why the Swiss leaders chose neutrality in the conflict raging all around them; preserving this natural beauty was a must. 

Hastelloy quietly finished his visual inspection and turned his head toward his smiling hostess once more. “Vielen ou, das ist perfekt,” he said thanking her for the perfect accommodations.

“
Bitteschön,” came her polite acknowledgement of both the compliment and well-annunciated German.  The young woman let him know his server would be along in a moment and left him alone to enjoy the view.

Amid the tranquility of his present surroundings, it was amazing to think that only a few hundred miles to the north an entrenched war continued to rage for three years now with precious little to show for all of the bloodshed.  One would think that at some point the leadership from either side would invest in new technologies and military strategies to gain the upper hand.  Instead, they persisted in the antiquated tactic of throwing wave after wave of young men into no man’s land to face barbed wire, pre-ranged mortars, machine guns, and pinpoint accurate rifle fire.  What a ridiculous waste.

The approach of boots rapping against the hardwood floor planks drew Hastelloy’s gaze toward the door.  A man in his mid-twenties wearing common clothes approached, but the military boots on his feet gave him away.  “Gallono, I fully expected you to miss this meeting.  How on earth did you manage to get away from the front?”

“What good is earning a second Iron Cross medal for valor if I can’t secure a few days leave along with it?” Gallono joked while raising his arms to embrace his friend and commanding officer.  “Besides, not much is happening anyway.  They’ve finally learned enough not to order frontal assaults across the barriers between trenches.”

“Either that, or they know the men will likely turn around and shoot the officer issuing the ridiculous order rather than follow it,” Hastelloy suggested before accepting Gallono’s embrace.

After a couple of swift pats to the back, Gallono broke away and stood at arm’s length.  “There’s more truth to that statement than you know.  On many occasions, soldiers up and down the line have outright refused to do it any longer and it’s left the generals dumbfounded about what to do next.  That leaves both sides sitting there taking turns testing the air filters on each other’s gas masks, all the while hoping a lucky mortar round will take out something important to provide a break.  With every person and bunker buried ten feet underground, there is no chance of that actually happening, which leaves the men sitting, smoking, and pissing the days away playing poker.”

Hastelloy collapsed into one of the chairs with a heavy sigh and gestured for Gallono to join him.  “Early on when I arranged the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, things looked so promising.  All of the alliances and mutual protection pacts daisy chained into nearly the entire globe going to war with itself, just as I expected.  Everything about war history dictates a technological explosion should have occurred in a desperate effort for one side to best the other.  How could I have so thoroughly misread the outcome?”

“Because the bravery of common men and the stupidity of an officer corps that attained its position through aristocratic birthrights rather than skill or experience took over,” Gallono grumbled.  “There is no innovation or creativity on either side, only the weight of sheer numbers.  At this point, the first side to receive an influx of fresh troops will win, and it’ll be about damned time.”

“Speaking of fresh troops, why aren’t your Americans here yet?” Gallono asked.  “They finally declared war back in April and it’s now August.  Why aren’t the French and British trenches overflowing with new arrivals to put this failed business to an end?”

“It takes time to mobilize an entire nation for war.  More so when that nation is half a globe removed from the fighting and therefore unprepared to participate,” Hastelloy answered.  “Next spring you’ll see a numerically unstoppable tidal wave of Americans wash over your German lines to finish things.”

“Then what?” asked a youthful voice entering the balcony.

“Tonwen!” Gallono bellowed on the way to his feet with his arms open wide.  The science officer was notorious for not liking to be touched; a quirk Gallono took great delight in violating every time they saw one another.  Tonwen kept his hands to his sides and stared emotionless at Hastelloy as Gallono wrapped him in a bear hug.  His eyes pleaded for release as Gallono hoisted him into the air and gave him a few good bounces before releasing his grip.

All Hastelloy could do was smile, shake his head, and laugh at the sight.  It was all in good fun of course, but it was also a microcosm for how the entire crew interacted with one another.  After serving with the same five individuals for nearly five thousand years, it was safe to say they were familiar.  They all knew each other’s buttons.  They knew how to tap them to lighten a mood or mash them down hard to darken a conflict.  That kind of familiarity had proven both beneficial and devastating over the years depending upon how it was employed.

Tonwen took it in stride with an emotionless response, “Thank you.  My back was in need of chiropractic adjustment.”

“Any time,” Gallono responded with one last cringe-inducing slap to the shoulder before taking his seat again to continue needling his target.  “Look at you. You’re barely old enough to grow a beard or mustache.  How old are you? Five? Ten?”

“This body is seventeen years of age, thank you.  Now, as I was asking before you accosted me, what happens when the Great War ends next year?  Do we move on to a second round?”

“Not without each of us assuming a strategic place of influence over the combatant nations,” Hastelloy answered.  “We tried it your way by lighting the match of conflict, then stepped back to let humanity resolve it without our undue interference.  I think we can all agree that didn’t work.”

“And time is running out,” a fourth voice chimed in from the balcony doorway to finish Hastelloy’s thought.  The twenty-year old entered the room with a gait that favored his right leg.  The deformed limb announced each step with a metallic clink of a brace holding the foot in position.

The unspoken question lingered over the balcony until Hastelloy finally asked, “What happened to your leg, Tomal?”

The limping young man came to a full stop on his trek around the table to look upon his commanding officer in disbelief.  It was as if simply bringing up the subject of his foot gave unforgivable offense.  “Osteomyelitis I believe is the clinical name, a bacterial infection of the bone marrow that causes deterioration until it is eradicated.  The glorified witch doctors on this planet didn’t find the cause early enough and now I am deformed for the rest of my life. I thank you so much for drawing everyone’s attention to my handicap; very polite of you.”

Hastelloy breathed a frustrated sigh through his nostrils. 
Tomal, what to do with you?
  At that moment, Gallono chose to push on one of Tomal’s buttons.

“Hmm,” Gallono huffed.  “It’s preferable to the agony of a war wound at least.  Now tell me, how are things back in Berlin while all the other able-bodied men are fighting to stay alive in the trenches?  Do your university studies into the profound subjects of literature and philosophy give you a headache or maybe keep you up past your bedtime?  Try sleeping with mortars bursting over your head while attempting to breathe through a gas mask and then tell me you have troubles.”

“I volunteered for service, but the army would not take me on account of this…deformity!” Tomal shouted in his defense.

“I’m sorry to hear about your leg,” Hastelloy interjected before Gallono could get going in earnest, and promptly changed the subject.  “To your earlier point, time is running out.  Based on last month’s scan results of this solar system, it appears the Alpha base on Mars has regained the technological ability to launch solid fuel rockets into space.  What’s more, the readings detected evidence of a thermonuclear detonation. 

“Pfft, nothing’s changed,” Gallono vented.  “We all knew it was close to happening, that’s why we provoked this Great War; to accelerate the rate of technological advancement for these humans.  That way we can take out the Alpha’s Mars base once and for all before they have the ability to attack us.”

“Are you kidding? It changes everything,” Tomal challenged.  “This is a race without a consolation prize, and now we’re behind; very far behind.”

“How much time do you think we have?” Hastelloy asked his science officer.

“They will need to miniaturize such a weapon, marry it to an interplanetary rocket, and devise a way to properly guide it there. It is hard to say, but I would give it perhaps fifty years.  Maybe less, but certainly not more,” Tonwen offered.