DEBRIEFING
Meanwhile, aboard the USS St. Elijah, somewhere in the Northern Atlantic.
"Alright, settle down everyone." Bone says as he stands atop a table in the mess hall. "I have some announcements. First off I have to congratulate our fine fighting men and women back from their mission behind enemy lines. You lot weren't content to blow a base to kingdom come, where you? Most men would probably capture classified information, save some children and then call it a day. But you lot went and stole the Kraut's fancy plane too, just to rub their noses in it."
There's a general murmur of excited assent and celebration. Bone waits till it passes.
"Well, glad to say that the kids you freed are alive. Some only just, though. Those pods you found were some sort of life support system; had their organs out and in those containers like Canopic jars." His face gets hard and his eyes narrow as he speaks. "We still don't know why. The children can't tell us much either, drugged through most of it."
"In any case, the plane and the rifles you brought back are things out of a Buck Rogers. Those Engines have no moving parts and are made of something we can't identify. They don't spark when you cut them, they don't melt under heat just fall to ash, and they throw off electricity like the fist of Zeus. Their connections to the plane are odd too, just metal plates pushing on their surfaces. Lab boys are saying something about Piezoelectric discharges or some such" He waves his hand, " But it pulls in air like a hard vacuum and can channel it in any direction. We need more like it to understand it; you boys have given us just enough to be frustrated at our own ignorance! The rifles aren't much better. They produce electrical arcs the same way but use them to drive one of those flechettes forward. No idea what their purpose is yet. They seem too mean to be a viable weapon, if that makes sense. They stick in you like a barbed arrowhead but they don't have enough force behind them to be fatal most times. We're still testing them."
"But the real cherry was that info you got us. These bastards stole an officer's entire room! Filing cabinet, desk and slightly used officer all in one go! Surprised you didn't take his chair. The papers in there give us a lot of useful local data but they also have references to something no one has ever heard about outside of rumors. Its a project of some kind; the sort of thing men eat cyanide to keep secret. The pages are all encoded and the officer ate his codebook. Mostly dissolved in his stomach before we got it out. We're working on the cipher now but we've got a name. Strumturm; Storm Tower."
When he says this he glances around the room watching everyone carefully. Watching their faces closely. After a moment he nods a bit to himself and continues.
"That name is the sort of thing the Nazis don't want to spread. Officers die when they learn that name. Don't speak it. Don't let anyone know you know it. Don't let it leave this room. But if you ever see it on anything, anything from a piece of paper to some shithead's pack of gum, you take that and you bring it back here to me."
Outside there is a distant roll of thunder and the boat shifts as a wave hits its side, the grumble of metal and water straining against one another echos through the room. Bone waits a few more seconds and then nods again.
"That's all." His face brightens by a few degrees, "Celebrate, men. You've done the Lords work tonight but I have no doubt He will have more for you tomorrow. The children send their thanks, as do I."
He steps off the table and walks out, two burly men at his sides as he does.
Hours pass until it is near midnight on the boat. Most have left the Mess hall, but our band of soldiers remain, gathered around talking, playing cards, poking at newly bandaged wounds and the like. The storm outside has gotten closer and rain pelts down with a constant ubiquitous ringing of drops striking metal somewhere on the decks above. Then the strikes becomes harder, tiny tinny bells ringing, Then thumps like a steel toed boot kicking an oil drum. You can hear shouting from above. Not fear, just outrage and pain. Then a heavy thud, one that rocks the whole boat back and forth, like ball of wet cloth the size of a man just struck the side of the ship.
And everything goes silent.
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Topic: 888th Brigade: DAY OF THE PURGE (Read 476163 times)