Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Eighty-Six


14th April 1962

Tempelhof, Berlin

It was spring. Whatever that even meant. Zella had a lot of time to think about things over the last few weeks. Her life and how quickly and easily it had turned out for her to mess everything up. Aurora was still dating Helmut. Zella didn’t see the appeal that he had for her, Helmut was a bit of a stiff. Then there was Kiki. She liked Ben because he was safe, but how long was Kiki going to be happy with that? Then Kiki given Zella a whispered confession before she had left about how she had slept with him. She might have asked what on Earth Kiki was thinking to have done such a thing, but recent events had revealed that Zella was no better.

Leaning against her motorcycle Zella watched the house as events unfolded. He came home, looking smug and full of himself as he always did, so full of himself that it didn’t seem to occur to him as to why she was there. According to the University he had resigned his Professorship and had taken a new teaching job in Italy. He smirked when he saw Zella standing there as he walked up to his front door. It didn’t matter what Zella’s father had done to him or would do if he didn’t leave the country. He thought he had won. It was then that he discovered that his key no longer fit the lock on the door. He pounded on the door for a minute until his wife answered. It was too far away for Zella to hear the conversation, but it was clear that he was trying to sweettalk his way out of the predicament that he had suddenly found himself in. It clearly wasn’t working this time.

Earlier that day, Zella had talked to her, accompanied by a few other girls from Zella’s class who all said more or less the same story. Her husband had played on their fears and insecurities, gave them attention of the sort they were desperate for and then he had given them the boot when he tired of them. Apparently, his thing was to sabotage whatever contraception they used so that there was a chance he could always maintain one up on them even after he was gone. For the life of her, Zella couldn’t figure out how she had fallen for that sort of bullshit. She had learned her lesson and as it turned out he was about to get taught one.

There was a thud, and Zella saw him go down with blood and bits of his teeth flying through the air. His wife had just responded to his attempt to sweettalk her by hitting him in the face with a lead mallet. That was far more than Zella had imagined might happen. Then while he was there on the ground trying to get up his wife kept hitting him, in the crotch. The thud of the mallet striking the sidewalk and him as she did her best to systematically flatten his balls filled the air, along with the strangled noises he was making.

Looking over, Zella saw that the neighbors were watching and probably one or more of them would have called the police by now. Not wanting to stick around for that part of the show, Zella kicked her motorcycle to life. The last he saw of her was the satisfied smile she had as she rode away.

As it had turned out, John Elis was right about how to handle matters like this.


Washington D.C.

It was strange, Gloria felt completely unwelcome here even though everyone around her had done their best otherwise. This vast cemetery had originally been the estate of Robert E. Lee. The Union Army had used it to bury their dead as the Lee family had watched their property was turned to that purpose. It had taken time for Jonny’s body to be repatriated and in that time, Gloria had gotten a call from his parents wanting to know if she was going to be alright. The whole thing was just obscene. Gloria had known that the two of them had been drifting apart personally and professionally for a long time. She had just felt that abruptly breaking up with him by impersonal means while he was in China would have been wrong. Jonny deserved better than that. Then she had read in the newspaper that he had died while serving as an advisor to the Chinese Army. It was a bit late to settle things between the two them after that.

Gloria watched as the Military funeral played out. Parker should be here at least, Gloria thought to herself. The two of them went way back. There were the others as well. Cooper, Valenzuela, Mullens, Kravitz or Spooner. Jonny had talked a lot about them in his occasional letters. They had been as close as family to him. The mission in China, as was the official line though Gloria knew it was really in Korea, was ongoing, so they were all thousands of miles away as this unfolded. As the bugler concluded, that was it. There was nothing more to say or do.

As Gloria started to leave, she felt a hand touch her shoulder. Turning she saw that it was Mrs. Cassey. “Thank you for coming Gloria” She said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know if it’s right for me to be here” Gloria replied.

“You did your best” Mrs. Cassey said, “I had hoped that the two of you would eventually work out, but John was never the type to settle down. If not the Army or his cars, there would have always been something else to draw him away. I don’t know if you would have lasted much longer together.”

That almost made Gloria feel better about the situation.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Eighty-Seven


20th April 1962

Mitte, Berlin

There were times when Maria was reminded of just how much Zella had inherited from Emil. Unfortunately, those aspects of him could be incredibly aggravating when they were displayed by their daughter. Maria would have thought that she would be used to it after twenty-one years, but Zella always seemed to find some new way to be infuriating and worrisome in equal turns.

This time a strange story had broken about how an outraged housewife near the University’s Humboldt Campus had been arrested after savagely attacking her husband, a Classics Professor, with a mallet after she had learned of his infidelity. Apparently, she had rather effectively removed her husband from gene pool. It had been regarded with a great deal of humor by the Metro Desk and they had played up that angle. Zella had been gleeful at first as word about the story spread. But later, something about her reaction reminded Maria of the times that Emil had started something only to watch it get out of hand. The police were investigating the matter and there was word that the University of Berlin was conducting a review of its policies regarding fraternization between students and faculty as well. Maria didn’t need to make too many leaps of logic to figure out what Zella’s involvement must have been.

Because the dormitories were undergoing their quarterly fumigation over Easter, Zella was staying at home over the Easter Holiday. Though Maria got the impression that her daughter was hiding in the house, waiting for the trouble she had caused this time to go away. That meant that Maria couldn’t avoid her and that made processing the events of the previous months more difficult than it would have been otherwise. As much as Maria hated to admit it, Zella was easier to deal with when the option of her going back to the dormitory existed.

At the moment, Zella had a pencil in her hand sketching something in a notebook while humming to herself. That was something that she had done since she was a little girl and Maria found it a small mercy that it was an aspect of her that had not changed. Zella was ignoring the television which was on the Evening News at a time when Maria was finding that she couldn’t ignore it. Videos of fighting in Korea was being played along with graphics showing the regions affected. There was also word that the Luftwaffe, Kaiserliche Marine along with the Korean Air Force had announced that they were starting an air campaign in the coming days. Weighing on Maria was not just how the Berliner Tageblatt was going to cover it but how her son Walter was sixteen. If this went on for too long and the Government reinstituted conscription, then there was a good chance that he could get caught up in that mess. There was also the social pressure that he was under. As the son of a Markgraf and Field Marshal, Walter could easily be compelled to do something stupid. Because he lacked his older sister’s pigheaded nature, Maria was worried that it could easily happen.

Mercifully, the news switched to tomorrow’s weather.


Over the Yalu River

They looked like old-fashioned telegraph poles with flames shooting out the bottom. Or at least that was the impression that one had because the damned things moved so fast. Sitting in the cockpit Ben was discovering that he had only seconds to react after the alarm went off when a search radar was detected. None had been fired today, not yet anyway. Then there was the antiaircraft artillery, or it seemed like just anyone on the bank of the river with a rifle. The Chinese Air Force were proving not to be slouches either. The American designed Curtis Goshawk fighters that they flew could just keep up with a Pfeil in level flight but not for long. The Chinese pilots preferred to fly with the minimal fuel and ammunition load to accentuate the Goshawk’s already light wing-loading. The Goshawks carried only two of the heat-seeking missiles named after a sort of rattlesnake endemic to the South-Western American deserts. Ben had only flown a few missions, but he already knew that they only needed one to ruin his day.

What that meant in practice was that the Goshawk could be outpaced under any other scenario other than the one that they were currently flying. The bridges over the Yalu River had been deemed primary targets of SKG 18 as soon as they had landed in Korea. There were only so many attack vectors on those bridges and it seemed like they were all heavily defended. And the Chinese built Goshawks would be covering the likely approaches.

“Fuck!” Ben heard Wim, whose job it was to run the electronic countermeasures as well as being the Bombardier, exclaim from the back seat as a shell burst off to their left. Unlike the Canadian version of the Pfeil, Arado had gone with a full-length canopy, so Wim had a great view of everything outside and in.

Despite the danger lurking around every corner, Ben was finding Wim to be a bit over-excited at times. He tended to react that way whenever an alarm went off. There was supposed to be a wing of FW-270 Größerer Hühnerhabicht fighters providing top cover this time. Hopefully they would keep the Chinese fighters off then long enough to hit the pontoon bridge that they had been tasked with destroying.

As Ben commenced the attack run, entering a steep dive. Tracers flew past the canopy and Ben felt the plane lurch as the bombs fell away. Turning a hard left, he was crushed into his seat, levelling out, he raced for friendly territory. He had no clue if he had hit the bridge or not.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Eighty-Eight


30th April 1962

Yongpyong, Korea

As it had turned out, Ben had hit the stupid bridge and that had made him a hero of some kind. It had gotten him a medal and a few days off to be in the background as one of the Luftwaffe’s greatest heroes had come to Korea to help boost the morale of those posted overseas. At the moment that involved attending a lunch in the resort town of Yongpyong.

As it had turned out, it was like watching paint dry. Generalfeldmarschall Graf Manfred von Richthofen had wanted to surround himself with the those who had distinguished themselves in the present conflict, which was why Ben was here. Over the previous weekend the Graf had gone hunting and now he was talking about it at length with those who had been invited at the banquet had been prepared. They were talking the differences between German and Korean traditions of hunting and the Graf was trying to sell the Korean Emperor on his efforts towards International Conservation. Ben was having a hard time staying awake. In addition to the Korean Emperor, General Gang, the Commander of the Korean Army and General Choi, his counterpart in the Korean Airforce were present. As was General Hans von Mischner of the 2nd Panzer Corps, Generallieutenant Dietrich Schultz, the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Marine Infantry Division and Generallieutenant Franz Müller, Commander of Luftwaffe Operations in Korea, and Fregattenkapitän Albrecht von Richthofen, the Graf’s son who was also the Director of Flight Operations aboard the SMS Voss. It was a staggering amount of Brass to have in one place. Ben was just one in a small group of Junior Officers who were being ignored for now and now that the meal had concluded, there wasn’t a whole lot to do.

Worse, Kiki was here, somehow having run up an astonishing number of hours in the air as a Field Medic with FSR over just the last month and a half. It was rumored that her Commanding Officer had sent her to Yongpyong just to get her to take some real down time. Ben had seen instantly that she was not happy to see him in Korea. He had not realized that as a Reserve Officer his posting in Korea was entirely voluntary because there hadn’t been a formal declaration of war. No one had bothered to tell him that until Kiki had. Beyond that, just being in each other’s presence was rather awkward. Ben didn’t dare bring up the circumstances of when he had last seen her a couple months earlier. They had talked on the phone a few times between then and when she had left for Korea but entirely about inane things. They had avoided talking about what had happened and Ben was still trying to figure out what all it had meant.

Did he have feelings for Kiki? Yes. When he hadn’t been having all his thoughts devoted to keeping himself alive, he tended to start thinking about her. But how did she feel about him? And if she didn’t feel the same way, then Ben couldn’t understand her actions. In the past her only answer was to say that they were just impossible every time he had said anything about them as a couple. Just who was she trying to convince?


Mitte, Berlin

Zella had used her Press credentials from the BT to get in though she had no intention of doing a story. There were a few other journalists in the gallery who were following this as a Human-Interest story, something that suggested a lot of ugly things about the interests of the humans in question.

As she watched the proceedings, Zella felt like there wasn’t a lot of justice being done. The woman who had been arrested for assault after Zella had informed her of what her husband had been up to had plead guilty after providing minimal defense. Her Solicitor had attempted to show that there were mitigating circumstances. The Judges didn’t let on if that had any influence on their decision and because she had admitted guilt to all charges the only thing that they would deliberate was how long a sentence she would get. It struck Zella as being grossly unfair, that scumbag had gotten what he deserved.

Disgusted, Zella walked out of the gallery and the Courthouse. As she walked back towards where her motorcycle was parked, she saw a familiar blue VW Föhn parked next to it.

“What do you want?” Zella asked through the open window.

“Is that any way to greet your Auntie?” Kat asked in reply, “We need to talk, so get in.”

The car had been Kat’s mobile office for a long time and Zella had never liked sitting in the passenger seat because of the mess in the footwell that Kat seldom cleaned out. Still, Zella couldn’t ignore Kat, so she opened the door and sat down. She was stewing in silence for a few minutes, waiting for Kat to start the conversation.

“I know that things in the Courthouse went exactly as expected” Kat said, “And I know you probably think that it wasn’t the way that it should have gone.”

“Nice understatement” Zella muttered.

“She attacked her husband with a hammer” Kat said, “Do you honestly think something like that can be excused?”

Zella certainly thought so.

“Would you be so sanguine if a man had done that to his wife?” Kat asked, “Or would you be calling for his head?”

“That is not…” Zella started to say.

“Not what?” Kat asked, cutting her off, “Not the same? You need to start thinking about how things affect more than just yourself and the people in your immediate circle.”

Zella was silent for a long minute before she asked, “What’s going to happen to her?”

“She’ll be fine” Kat said, “The irony is that she’s likely going to be sent to one of the few places in society that would applaud her actions. In prison there are a lot of women who have fantasized about doing that.”

That was an angle that Zella had not considered.

“And her husband isn’t getting off, not by a long shot. He’ll be in the Courtroom once he gets out of the hospital” Kat continued, “Still though Marcella, why the Hell did you tell her?”

“I was talking to John Elis and he said that it was a better plan than whatever I might have done to him personally” Zella replied.

“Do you have any idea who he is?” Kat asked in exasperation , “That man has always had a talent for causing spectacular scenes. I see he hasn’t lost his touch.”

Zella had known that John’s past was something a mystery. Kat’s reaction suggested that there was more to it than even she had realized.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Eighty-Nine


6th May 1962

Moscow, Russia

It wasn’t a wedding that Kat had ever thought that she would attend. Yet here she was, a part of the wedding party. Some accommodation was having to be made for Anya as a part of the procession. She was faced with having to make entirely different plans with her life at the age of seventeen. A couple months earlier, Anya had blown out one of her knees and torn ligaments and cartilage. This had required surgery to restore function to the joint. Doctors had told her that after it healed, she would be able to walk normally and dance at her wedding, but her career in the ballet was over. According to Gia she had not taken it well. When Kat arrived at Gia’s flat, she had seen that Anya was still walking with crutches and had a plaster cast on her leg from her hip to her ankle. She had been happy to see Kat and her family but had gone back to feeling sorry for herself minutes later. As Gia’s adopted daughter, she could hardly sit out the wedding. On the way to the church, Tatiana and Malcolm had a great time pushing the wheelchair.

As Kat watched the ceremony, traditional Russian Orthodox with family of Gia’s cousin Georgy in attendance as the official stamp of royal approval. The groom, Fyodor Volkov, was one of people in Russia who had grown wealthy as the riches and opportunities of the opening of Siberia and the Far East had become available for those with the means and ambition. Having Gia marry one of their own would cement their loyalty to the Czar. That was the political angle. The truth was that Gia would not have tolerated Fyodor under her roof if she didn’t care for him, Kat wasn’t sure if this was a marriage of convenience though, knowing what she did about Gia’s past. What was clear was that Gia was getting married with the blessing of the six of her generation of the sisterhood. They had come from Germany for this and even after all these years, the physical resemblance which had been the sole reason for them being thrust together in the first place still applied in that they all looked as if they were from the same family. It had not been Kat’s intention, but she had given Gia five wonderful sisters. Anne had come later of her own accord and the sisters had welcomed her. Aunt Marcella had come to Moscow to serve as one of Gia’s Witnesses alongside Fyodor’s older brother Arkadiy. She said that seeing the last of her girls married off was worth the trip.

Marie was fidgeting as Kat kept her hands on her daughter’s shoulders to keep her from causing trouble during the Crowning and the long-winded portion that followed. Kat’s mind kept wandering. She wasn’t going back to Berlin with Doug and the children. Instead, she was going on to Seoul where she would join her staff. The counter-offensive that had been hashed out in Wunsdorf was being executed in the coming days and the KSK was going to play a key role. No one had said anything to Kat, but thousands of scare cats had been stamped out in preparation. Having the Chinese Army too frightened to use their own roads was a rather laudable goal, just Kat wasn’t sure that it would be nearly as effective this time. The Chinese would learn that it was just one trick that they had up their sleeve.


Silesia

Manfred had returned home the previous night and had simply wanted to sleep in his own bed from the instant he had gotten home. The next morning, he was enjoying breakfast with his wife and discussing what he had seen while he was in Korea. The topic had gotten around to one of the banquets and what had happened down at the far end of the table.

“Are you certain about what you saw?” Käte asked delightedly, “Kristina and this boy?”

“They sat across the table from each other and didn’t speak once” Manfred replied, “But when they thought no one was looking he looked at her with love and she looked worried, which is understandable with the situation they are in.”

“They always try to hide what they are up to in the same way and they might as well wave a flag” Käte said, “Do you think that Louis knows?”

“I think that the Emperor knows more than he is letting on” Manfred said, “By now he knows that having daughters means knowing that there are some battles you just aren’t going to win.”

Käte gave Manfred a look. She knew that there had been plenty of times when their own daughters were growing up that he had failed to do that.

“Still” Käte said, “I think it’s wonderful that the Princess may have found someone.”

“The son of a Chemistry Professor at the University of Berlin is a bit of a step down” Manfred said.

“As opposed to a Nurse Practitioner?” Käte asked, “How did that work out?”

“This is a bit different” Manfred replied.

Käte just gave him a knowing smile. Later, she was planning on having a midday meal with those of her social circle and one of the Imperial Princesses perhaps finding a love match was the sort of thing that they would find particularly juicy. Manfred seemed to find the detail that the boy was from a middle-class family as opposed to being from one that was old and powerful a bit objectionable, but that was just who he was.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety


12th May 1962

Sinuiju, Korea

Ritchie was watching the SAM battery from a distance as he waited to cross the Yalu River back into China. The Air Defenses had increasingly been coming under attack themselves and for Americans the most dangerous job in Asia had come to be working as a Technician assisting the Chinese at the Radar and Missile sites. That was seen as the cost of doing business in China, where fortunes and sudden death seemed to go hand in hand.

The surface to air missile battery wasn’t doing anything, obviously because they didn’t want to risk shooting down friendlies. Ritchie could see the tracking radar was active though. That meant that the Chinese Air Force was in the air overhead, as if the long white curving contrails and distant screams of jet engines were not enough of a sign. The Curtis F-98 Goshawk IIIs that the Chinese were building under license were mostly used by Air National Guard Units back in the States, the USAF preferring the larger and more advanced Lockheed F-103 Bolt. Just the fact that the Chinese version of the Goshawk was keeping the German made Fock-Wulf and Heinkel fighters at bay might suggest that the current philosophy of the US Air Force might be flawed.

The German Arado Fighter/Bombers, dubbed Pfeil whatever that meant, had been attacking bridges over the Yalu relentlessly. Often, they had timed it to coincide with counterattacks so that reinforcements and supplies would be stuck on the wrong side of the river. He had seen them enough times, planes that looked like something from a Buck Rogers comic that could carry a dozen bombs that weighed five hundred kilograms. Ritchie had observed that even a near miss was bad news with those things. Just the speed with which they made their attack runs made them difficult to intercept and when they dropped strings of bombs, some bracketed the bridges while others flew the target and landed in the river or among the troops on the riverbank. That was why there was a mad dash for whatever cover was available as what they assumed was an attack run.

High overhead one of the Goshawks that was preparing to intercept, exploded into a ball of fire…

----------------------------------------------------------------

Ben saw that the F-LF VII Hermelin missile worked exactly as they had been told it would. Wim had gotten target lock on the plane and as soon as he had it, the radar guided missile had dropped out of the weapons bay and accelerated at the Goshawk before exploding and blowing it apart before Goshawk’s pilot had even realized what was going on.

The Brass had suddenly remembered that the Pfeil had originally been designed as an Interceptor before its potential as an Attack Bomber had been noticed. The ground crews that been ordered to optimize the airplanes for air to air role today and SKG 18 had flown what had become a predictable pattern to attack the bridges. The difference was that today’s target was the Chinese Air Force. Without the heavy load of ordnance weighing down, the Pfeil was actually quite nimble and Ben was finding that this was actually quite fun. He still had three more Hermelin missiles in the weapon’s bay, some of the short-range H-LFK Speer Missiles and a load of 30mm cannon shells. As he was vectored in towards the next target, he realized that he would get a chance to try them out.


Anju, Korea

The Hauptmann had said that he wanted to talk to Kiki, her falling asleep outside his office was partially a consequence of that. It was something that she had dealt with before. He would tell her that while she was setting a laudable example, she needed to rest and would order her to sleep for the rest of the day. He would know by now that she had spent the previous hours on a helicopter as it had made the run between the front and the hospital ship on the Yellow Sea. Mitzi and Rolf had been with her and Kiki had seen that they were asleep on their feet by the time the helicopter had landed in Anju to refuel and to spell out the crew. She had sent them to rest and had learned that Ingo was off with Valentin and Anton. That was why Kiki had been in the mess tent looking for what passed for coffee when word came that the Hauptmann wanted a word with her.

Kiki awoke when the chair she was sitting in was kicked by a Feldwebel whose name Kiki didn’t know. He didn’t say anything, going back to what he had been doing. Seeing that the door to the Hauptmann’s office was open. Kiki got to her feet, cursing the feeling of fogginess that she had.

“I had debated just letting you sleep” The Hauptmann said when he saw Kiki. If Kiki had been anyone else, she doubted that he would have considered that, even for an instant.

“Regardless, Sir” Kiki said, “You wanted to see me.”

“About this” The Hauptmann said, pointing to the sheets of paper that logged just how many hours she had spent in air.

“I know” Kiki said, “But there is too much that needs to be done.”

“Not quite what I wanted to talk about” The Hauptmann said, he paused for a moment. “I am sure you know many of the Team Leaders feel that having us conducting Medical Evacuations is not our mission.”

Kiki nodded.

There had been little call for them to conduct the sort of operations that they had trained for. Most of the time either planes had been downed right over the lines or in places like over the Yalu where the crew would be captured almost immediately.

“You on the other hand, have created your own opportunities” The Hauptmann said, “I know that you feel that you have some thing to prove Fraulein von Preussen, but take your due for once. Hard work and dedication need to be rewarded.”

In her exhausted state, Kiki had hardly been aware what was on the Hauptmann’s desk until he had pushed them towards her. The small case that contained a medal and a citation was well as the rank epaulettes of a Lieutenant.

“Get some rest Lieutenant” The Hauptmann said, “And we will talk about your new role tomorrow.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-One


25th May 1962

Montreal, Canada

As the Director of the project that was overseeing the technology transfers to Canada, Sir Malcolm Blackwood was present when the studies of the Pfeil arrived in Montreal. It certainly made for an interesting afternoon.

The Engineers who had worked on the Avro CF-105 Arrow regarded the Arado Ar-414 Pfeil with horror since they had learned that the Germans had fitted it with Junkers Turbofan Engines with no afterburner. Turning a thoroughbred into a plough horse was how it had been termed. The Germans had ruined the clean lines of the Arrow by placing hardpoints on the wings and how the faring around the muzzle of a 30mm rotary-chamber cannon was protruding out the side of the nose. There was also armor that had been incorporated into the structure around the cockpit. The fear was that the Canadian Government would start asking questions about the priorities surrounding the development of the Arrow.

Now they were getting reems of data and reports about the Pfeil in action. It seemed that the Germans had not made it into a plough horse, they had made it into a vicious bloody-minded brute along the lines of the untamable Strawberry Roan in the old Cowboy song. Sir Malcolm was looking at photograph after photograph of airplanes returning to base with an astonishing amount of battle damage. The Engineers had commented about that damage, the airplanes being overloaded and flying at low altitude inside the range of hostile air defense. They didn’t seem to understand that these were planes that were returning from missions after sustaining that kind of damage.

Then there was what Malcolm was learning about the air-to-air missiles that the Germans were using, coupled with the fire control system. The Engineers were saying that it was at least a decade ahead of anything that they currently had. They were also grudgingly discussing how they could incorporate many of the changes that the Germans had made into the next variant of the Arrow.


Dresden, Saxony

They were sitting in the back of a car that was driving them to the center of Dresden. This visit was hardly a joyful occasion. Albert, the Crown Prince of Saxony had been killed in action while leading a Company with the 4th Panzer Division in Korea. He had been twenty-seven years of age and he had been the only surviving male heir to the Saxon throne, an older brother having been killed fighting the Soviets in 1944. Of the two daughters that Friedrich Christian had, only Anna was seen as a capable successor of her father. When the laws regarding Royal Succession had been changed at Louis Ferdinand’s prompting, this had always been a possibility, just he had no idea that it would happen so soon. In time, Saxony would have Queen Anna, the First of her name, and the House of Wettin was never going to be the same.

“They need to understand that these are consequences that every family in Germany has faced at some point and that I have children in harms way as well” Louis said looking out through the bullet-proof glass at the city that was in the middle of official mourning.

“People aren’t always rational when they’ve just lost a loved one” Charlotte replied, “And the entire ethos of service that you have been pushing was one of the things that caused Albert to volunteer when he left University.”

One of the things that Louis had always liked about Lotte is that she was always willing to tell him the truth. That didn’t mean that it was necessarily something that he was happy to hear.

“You think that they will be unhappy to see me?” Louis asked.

“Yes” Charlotte replied, “Not just you though, I think that they will be angry at the world. You just happen to be a part of it. However, they will appreciate that you came to offer condolences.”

“I’ll try to remember that” Louis said.

“Also, don’t bring up that you have children in Korea” Charlotte said, “They already know that, so it comes across as patronizing.”

Louis had been keeping tabs as best he could on them. Kristina had gotten herself promoted and received an Iron Cross, First Class with the Heer Air Service Clasp by running up staggering amounts of hours in the air running evacuation missions that brought wounded from the frontlines to hospital facilities. The promotion had resulted in her spending considerably more time managing others rather than taking on dangerous missions and working until she fell over. Louis had been happy to hear that, though knowing Kristina he figured that it was only a matter of time until she figured out a new way to ram herself into the ground. Michael was with the 5th Panzer Brigade but had yet to see much action. The 2nd Army Corps was saving its armored formations for something big that was in the offing. Louis just hoped that Michael wouldn’t do anything too crazy. Louis Junior was aboard the SMS Brandenburg. That ship could stand up to everything shy of an atomic bomb, so among Louis’ children he was probably in the safest position if he stayed there. That was a very big if. Louis feared that he would also volunteer for something crazy.

Of his children in Berlin, Louis had appointed Friedrich to be his representative in the effort to rebuild and improve the flood control in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. He had mentioned volunteering to go to Korea himself, but Louis had put him off and would continue to do so until Hell froze over if he had to. Rea was still continuing her lonely protest in front of the U.S. Embassy. This had finally caused a bit of a thaw in the relationship between Rea and Vicky, it seemed that Vicky agreed with what Rea was trying to do even if she didn’t agree with how she was going about doing it. Finally, there was Antonia. She was still a small child and considering the rumors that Louis had been hearing about Kristina dating and having possibly found someone who loved her, he hoped that Antonia remained a small child forever.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Two


4th June 1962

Beijing, China

It was with a great deal of disgust that Parker threw aside the latest missive from Washington D.C. There seemed to be a disconnect between what he along damn near everyone else posted to the Embassy in Beijing had to say and the official word that they were getting back from the United States. It felt like if they were believing their own line, the same one that had been articulated by the President months earlier. The Chinese had been very careful to stage manage just how they were seen in America with the mounting casualties in Korea and the horrific amount of graft that was happening in Beijing being glossed over.

Now today, Parker had received a query from the Pentagon asking if he had proposed cutting the rail links across the Tumen River. Yes, it would deny the Koreans and their Allies an important supply line, but the Chinese didn’t do that for the same reason the Germans were not blockading Chinese ports. They were corrupt and self-serving but not stupid or suicidal. Where the Germans understood that if they fired on an American vessel then they would be at war with another nuclear power, Chinese Intelligence estimated that the Russians had fifty Divisions just across the border. If the Chinese entered Russian Territory, which was what cutting those rail links would entail, then there would be an avalanche of Russian armor into Manchuria. Those Russian Divisions also gave the Generalissimo the perfect excuse to keep his best Divisions close to Beijing.

It was moments like this that Parker missed Jonny, he always had a swift, cutting remark about the absurdity of their situation. Recently he had received a letter from Jonny’s girlfriend saying that the absence of the 1st SFG had been noticeable when they had buried him. Parker put that at the end of a very long list of grievances that he had with the KMT.

Next was a memo about how the Chinese Air Force had not been completely aware of how the avionics packages of their airplanes had worked. The RF receiver that would have warned if the plane was subjected to radar lock and missile launch had not been configured properly when the Krauts had targeted them with medium to long-range missiles. Parker was having to deal with the war of words between Curtis Aircraft and the Chinese Government. The CIA was in a tizzy because they had no idea that the Luftwaffe had managed to field the Hermelin missile system. By now they should have realized that when it came to the goddamned Krauts, if you are reading about it then they have already found a way to stick it up your ass. That went double if it was something that went boom.


Tempelhof, Berlin

“I have to change something, because it seems like what I’ve been doing isn’t working” Zella said, which happened to be music to Nora Berg’s ears.

Where Kiki treated lunch with Berg like if it were an appointment. Zella drifted in when she knew that Berg would be present. Today, she had started by mentioning that her father’s racing team was on the Isle of Man for a motorcycle race. Zella had wanted to go, but her father had said that University was more important because quote, “Had the events of the last year taught her nothing?” That had been a few days earlier and Zella was still smarting over it.

“Exactly what do you have in mind?” Berg asked.

“No clue” Zella replied, “I was hoping that you could help with that.”

“Considering how life almost made some decisions for you, I would think that you would have put more thought into it” Berg said.

Zella frowned. She didn’t like to be reminded of the chapter of her life that she was trying to put behind her. Until Zella showed that she had absorbed the lessons from it, Berg would continue to bring it up.

“I’m thinking of putting my credentials from the BT to use this summer” Zella said changing the subject, “Far East, Vladivostok or Seoul. You know, where the action is. Perhaps even Beijing.”

“That would absolutely infuriate your mother.”

Zella just shrugged. “She wasn’t much older than I am when she went to Spain” She said, “Momma was cruising around the country with Robert Capa and Ernest Hemingway. Herr Capa is Aurora’s father and he has some stories to tell about my mother and how even then her relationship with my father wasn’t nearly as innocent as she pretends it was.”

“She could just have your credential revoked” Berg replied, “She is the Editor-in-Chief at the Berliner. It would only take her seconds to do that.”

“Only if I was stupid enough to tell her what I am up to before I do it” Zella said, “Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, that sort of thing.”

Berg heard that and one question occurred to her.

“Are you trying to change things or merely running from them?”

Zella just gave Berg a bit of a smile. “If you can run fast enough and those become the same thing” She replied.

Berg knew that was very seldom true, but that wouldn’t stop someone like Zella from trying. She seemed to regard speed and distance the same way that a woman in her position might have regarded a religious epiphany in an earlier era.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Three


18th June 1962

Anju, Korea

Meeting Kiki for lunch in Anju was wonderful, just sitting and talking like they had in the past. The entire time though, Ben was getting the impression that something was off with Kiki. She seemed tired and somewhat scattered, which was completely unlike her. Kiki was also not wearing her glasses. While Ben might have been tempted to tell her that her dark blue eyes were pretty, he knew better than to mention it. It was really a sign that she had mentally checked out for the day, it was still early afternoon.

“Oh” Kiki said, and with that reaction Ben discovered exactly what he had accomplished in Korea meant in the greater scheme of things, to her anyway. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, it was that she didn’t find it particularly impressive. Worse, she was giving him the impression that telling her about it had been a bit of a mistake.

He had been telling her about the incident a few weeks earlier when he had managed to become one of the rare “Aces in a day” when he had shot down five Chinese airplanes in that offensive where they had caught them with their proverbial pants down. This had been when she had just finished telling him a story about being on a helicopter a few days earlier with one of her teams struggling to keep a man alive who had basically been gutted by shell fragments. Kiki had described the bother of having to find new clothes aboard the SMS Prinzessin Marie and how they didn’t seem to have any small enough to fit her. That was when Ben had launched into his own story and Kiki had listened in silence.

“This isn’t a game Ben” Kiki said tiredly.

A bit late it had occurred to him that there had been a reason why Kiki had needed to find new clothes once she was aboard the hospital ship. One she had not mentioned because it was so profoundly obvious. He had missed it and had launched into a stupid story instead.

“That man?” Ben asked, “The one you brought in, did he make it?”

“I have no idea” Kiki replied, “It’s always the messy ones that I seem to remember.”

“I had no idea” Ben said, inadvertently repeating Kiki’s words.

Kiki just shrugged, “I don’t know why I told you about that” She said, “It wasn’t the worst one I’ve had to deal with.”

“You’ve had to deal with worse?” Ben asked, somewhat aghast.

“I had to deal with the triage and evacuation after an incident a few weeks ago where close air support went wrong” Kiki replied, “SC500s, you know what those are? Several of them landed in the wrong spot and one of our Companies was cut to pieces.”

With that Kiki went back to her meal while Ben sat there feeling sick to his stomach. How could she eat after mentioning something like that? Twelve of the SC500 bombs were carried as part of the routine load of Ben’s Pfeil and he had flown close air support missions.


Near Jonchon, Korea

He was nobody’s fool. General Pan knew that the Generalissimo had sent him here with the intention of having this become an inevitable failure. Even in face of potential military defeat, Chiang Kai-shek still came out ahead. Still, Pan Yong had plans of his own that didn’t involve being the scapegoat for what wasn’t even another man’s ambitions. Instead all of this had been so that the Generalissimo could retain the power that he had held since he had defeated the northern warlords almost four decades earlier. Pan had a different take; a good crisis was not something that he would allow to go to waste. When all was said and done, he wanted credit in victory or if in defeat he wanted blame to be placed squarely where it belonged, in Beijing.

To Pan it seemed like the Chinese Army was waiting for their enemies to attack in a time and place of their choosing. He had other ideas. At Pan’s disposal were dozens of the newish American built Buford Tanks as well as several companies from the Dare-to-Die Corps. He had no idea who this Buford was, he had been told that Buford had been a General at Gettysburg when he had asked and couldn’t remember enough about that battle to comment. Instead, Pan understood that they were far superior to the obsolescent locally produced Panther variants that the Chinese Army had been using.

Looking through his binoculars, he observed the Mundeok Line. The first of the defensive lines that the Koreans had built. This portion of the line was occupied by soldiers from other sectors who needed rest after hard fighting. This was seen as a quiet sector because the rugged terrain would likely make offensive operations difficult. Pan saw it differently though. The headwaters of the Taedong River were in this region and that was the gateway into Korea proper. If he could punch through here, then he would be threatening Pyongyang and Seoul itself. The Koreans would have no choice but to throw themselves into an open battle to turn him back, the sort of fight that favored Pan’s own forces.

As he watched, the volunteers from the Dare-to-Die Corps started their advance. As they streamed towards the Korean lines Pan saluted their bravery and willingness to martyr themselves in the name of the Republic. He was going to rip a hole through these lines or die trying.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Four


21st June 1962

Over Tongsin, Korea

Ben was dimly aware of the flares and Düppel that was flying out the back of the airplane as he was trying to keep them alive by climbing right at the sun. Wim reacted like he always did in situations like this by leaning on the button that dispensed the countermeasures. He could see the red light that signified that there had been a launch as well as hearing Wim yelling in his ear about it.

It had started out simple enough, the Chinese had broken through at Jonchon and there had been a desperate scramble to stabilize the lines. The fact that the enemy had punched through the lines in a place that that was supposed to be impossible had inspired a great deal of cynical laughter. Assuming that your enemy couldn’t do something was asking to have your balls kicked up between your ears.

That was also perfectly in keeping with the current situation that Ben had found himself in.

Returning to the airfield after that horrendous conversation with Kiki had been difficult. He had seen a side of her that he had found deeply disturbing. Not that she was angry, rather she simply didn’t care and the way she talked about what he did… The Oberst in charge of SKG 18 must have caught wind of it somehow because he had told Ben to “Get his head back in the game.” Not the best choice of words because it echoed Kiki’s words about how this wasn’t a game. Something she ought to know because one of those who had to clean up the mess.

Today Ben’s Squadron had been assigned to provide top cover for SKG 15 with their planes configured for the air-to-role. What many considered the greatest strength of the Pfeil was that it had the range to loiter over a given region without need to refuel and the Goshawks couldn’t just wait them out.

That was why when the search radar had detected four Goshawks over the area of operations Ben and his wingman had been raced along an intercept vector. Wim had gotten target lock and Ben had fired at the same time his wingman had. Eight of the Hermelin missiles had raced out and as Ben watched, the Goshawks had scrambled to get out of the way. One of them was hit and tumbled out of the air but the others had flown right at them. The plane flown by Ben’s wingman had eaten one of the sidewinders seconds later and Ben had found himself alone facing three Goshawks in what amounted to a World War One style knife fight. The warning about never getting into a turning fight with a Goshawk applied here as he used the greater lift and engine thrust of the Pfeil to engage them separately using the advantages that he had.

He had managed to get one with one of the heat-seeking Speer missiles and another with the 30mm but that had given the third a chance to get a launch on him. He might have told Wim that the Düppel was useless against the missile in question. At what Ben thought was the right second, he rolled the Pfeil over as hard as he could into a tight loop and his vision narrowed down to a narrow point. There came a hard kick and the whole plane shuddered. As Ben rolled out of the loop, he caught the reflection of where the missile had exploded in the mirror mounted in the faring above the canopy.

The Goshawk that had launched it was headed right at them. The thought that occurred to Ben in that second was that the Chinese pilot was to aggressive and lucky to be allowed to get away. Ben slammed the throttle all the way forward and flew into a head on pass. Both planes passed within a couple hundred meters of each other but from Ben’s perception it felt like considerably less. He rolled into a tight turn deploying the spoilers to drop the speed and cut inside the Goshawk. He tried to get a deflection shot but the opposing pilot anticipated that and dove for the deck with Ben following closely. He got target lock with one of the Speer missiles only to see it go wide. A puff of black smoke revealed that he had strayed too close to the Chinese air defenses and he was getting targeted by AAA, so he was forced to break off.

Later, following debrief, Ben was sitting in the Officer’s Club at the airfield with Wim as they were still trying to process what had happened. The mechanics were pissed that Ben had may have damaged their airplane and had given him an earful about it. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but Wim hung out with him because that was what was expected.

For lack of anything better to do some of the others had tuned into the Chinese German language radio broadcasts. The propaganda was always good for a laugh. Today was no different. The Chinese always depicted military actions as victories no matter what the outcome actually was. They were going off on how their Captain Zhao had foiled a trap set by the Luftwaffe and had found himself going head to head against an infamous German sky pirate called the “Black Knight.” It was a complete and utter load of crap. Ben gave it that much.

Wim looked stricken though.

“Don’t you know what is painted on the nose of our plane?” Wim asked, “A black knight.”

On the nose of their plane was a chess piece with the words Respice de Inferius! painted across it. That had meant something to the ground crew and Ben had let them do it because he had been unable to think of anything better.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Five


18th July 1962

Anju, Korea

It being the hottest part of the day, Kiki was at the bottom of a deep portion of the creek. Her lungs were burning for air, but it was almost cold two meters down. Looking up at the sun through the green tinged water, Kiki rose to the surface and took in a lungful of air. She saw Mitzi and Sigi sitting in the shade on the bank with a couple of other women from the 5th KHF who Kiki didn’t know. Autumn was a couple months off still and that felt like an eternity. Especially in light of what was going on just an hour or so up the road. Floating on her back, she looked up at the blue sky and saw a long white contrail arcing across it. A reminder of the most recent letter from Ben. He had apologized for his behavior when they’d had lunch a month earlier and said that he should have understood where she would be coming from. It was a bit of a surprise. Kiki remembered that she had not been feeling well that day and had felt obligated to be there. She had apparently taken it out on him. He had also mentioned the harrowing incident over the front lines where he had taken on one of the best pilots the Chinese had in an inconclusive engagement. The Chinese response via their propaganda broadcasts had brought him a bit of fame as had him running up the score be three more airplanes. Manfred von Richthofen had caught wind of the incident and had suggested that he paint his plane completely black to scare any Chinese pilots who go against him in the future. Ben had said that he had thought that it was a horrible idea and that he already felt like he had a target on his back. Kiki was the only one who he felt might understand that.

Diving back under the water and settling on the bottom, she could feel the current on her bare skin and that was a reminder of something else. Something she was still trying to put out of her mind. The latest thing that Rolf, that idiot, had said to her. Because of the heat and boredom making everyone a bit loopy, the men had compared the physical aspects of the women in the FSR Company and they had reached some conclusions. By then she had noticed that the other men were practically fleeing from the Mess Tent. Whatever Rolf had been going to say, they wanted no part of it. As Kiki had listened quietly, she found it was a doozy. Kiki then calmly reminded Rolf of the danger involved in telling his Commanding Officer what he thought of her ass. Apparently, it made up for the where she was lacking in other areas. Ingo had told her that the whole thing was the result of a bet that Rolf had not been able to get out of, whether or not he had the balls to tell her that. He’d won the bet but had been given the most unpleasant tasks that Kiki could think of for the foreseeable future.

Swimming to the bank, Kiki grabbed her towel and wrapped it around herself. Sitting down in the shade, she listened to what the others were talking about.

The front had stabilized again, except this time the fighting was happening elsewhere. The sector of the front that the 5th KHF covered had actually gotten quiet because of that. The Chinese offensive had reached Buseong before it had run out of steam, but Intelligence was saying that they were consolidating their gains before starting the next offensive. Summer had also arrived in Korea and it was every bit as hot and sticky as Kiki had recalled. The difference was that she was spending the summer in the lowlands on the Northwestern Coast of the peninsula as opposed to the mountains in the east. It didn’t cool down at night here in the west. While they were sitting and waiting to see if they would get sent out, they spent a lot of time roasting with their gear. That was why they wanted to get as far from that as they could during their off hours if they were not sleeping.

The only relief from the heat was to go swimming in the creek that was outside the perimeter wire or take a shower. Both had their disadvantages. To take a shower involved waiting in line in the heat and there was always very limited amount of water available. It was particularly ironic when it rained, like it seemed to every other day while they were waiting in line. The issue with the creek were all the obvious problems that entailed. Beyond the insects and weeds, it depended entirely on how bold the swimmer was. This was entirely because a swimsuit wasn’t a part of the kit they had been issued. You either got over having to go without or else there was a good chance you might end up in the hospital with heatstroke. The Oberst had made his opinion known that landing in the hospital like that was asking to be hit with charges of dereliction and reiterated the regulation about how there was to be no fraternization. Ingo summed that up nicely. “You might see fellow members of the Fifth in the buff who happen to be girls, but no fucking” To that he just shrugged. That was far cruder than Kiki would have said it, but it was basically what the Oberst had said.

That didn’t mean that Kiki was putting up with any looky-loos. A forested section of the creek had been put aside for the two dozen women who were either the part of helicopter crews in the 5th KHF, FSR or in the support staff. Word had spread that any man who ventured there without good reason was asking to get shot. Among others, Kiki and Mitzi had debated about whether or not they should be seen with their rifles slung over their shoulders if that was where they were going. Sigi had just laughed and said that she hoped the men enjoyed the show, because that would be all they would be getting, while carrying a towel. That was when it occurred to Kiki just how silly it would be to treat this like if it were them going to war. There was already enough of that going around.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Six


29th July 1962

Mitte, Berlin

It was in the early morning hours, with the house still asleep that Zella packed the bags that would go on the back of her motorcycle. Making sure that she had her cash, press credentials and her passport in the inner pockets of her leather jacket. She left her room and quietly walked down the hall past her parent’s bedroom. If her mother caught her leaving, then it would raise a whole lot of questions that she didn’t want to answer.

Remembering to avoid stepping on the third step from the bottom, the one that creaked loudest, Zella made her way down the stairs. When the University’s dormitories had closed for the Summer Holiday Zella’s mother had assumed that she was coming home for the next few weeks for lack of anything better to do. She had suggested that Zella come work at the BT, the Metro Desk would be more than happy to have her. Zella had held her composure, but Zella remembered all the times her mother had talked about how desperate she had been to find whatever stories she could to escape the Metro Desk. That was what had set her on a course that would eventually lead her to Spain and Australia, meeting Zella’s father along the way. Zella had realized that her mother had taken charge of her own life and that it was up to her to do the same thing unless she wanted to find herself contained in smaller and smaller boxes as she got older. She had almost been hemmed in to one of those, motherhood. It was something that Zella knew that she was not ready for and might never be, but she had been paralyzed into indecision by the enormity of that. It was time to change things, that included making certain that she wasn’t as likely to be taken advantage of again.

Pulling her father’s keys out of the vase in the parlor Zella went into his study and unlocked the bottom right-hand drawer…

“I would prefer it if you asked my permission before you borrow something potentially dangerous from me” Zella heard a voice say. Looking up she saw her father standing in the doorway of the study.

“I can explain” Zella said, though she could hear that her voice lacked confidence. Like if she didn’t buy into the explanation for her behavior that she might try to give him.

“You bought a train ticket to the Russian Far East a couple weeks ago that departs this morning” Emil said, “Doctor Berg also told me how you took steps to not have a repeat of the events of a few months ago. I just hope that you can explain all the sneaking around.”

Zella had seriously considered having an IUD put in, learning the hard way that some people couldn’t be trusted in certain matters the first time had been enough for her. It was entirely about control.

“I’m surprised Berg told you about that” Zella replied.

“You still have me down as your emergency contact and next of kin” Emil replied, “Berg didn’t tell me any specifics, just that you had a minor procedure done that related to her specialty.”

He stared at her for a moment. It was the same as when she had been a little girl and he had caught her doing something she ought not to be doing. Then as now, there was really only one way out.

“I need to go do something before I go insane” Zella said, “Playing the part of a journalist in Korea for a few weeks, being different from how I normally am is what I need. I didn’t tell anyone because I don’t know how Momma will react to me doing this, she still thinks I’m twelve.”

“You cannot change the fact that you will always be her child” Emil said, “And exactly how much trouble are you expecting in Korea?”

“I’ll be travelling alone” Zella replied, “And it seemed like a good idea…” She trailed off. Zella didn’t know what her father might make of that.

“Have you put much money aside?” Emil asked.

“I’ve a couple hundred Reichsmarks.”

Emil just shook his head, “That won’t do” He said, “If you really had the BT behind you then they would cover your hotel and some of your other expenses. No one is going to want to talk to you if you look like you slept under a bridge.”

Getting the BT behind her would have involved telling her mother her plans. Zella knew that Maria Acker would have gone through the roof if she had been told of that.

“I hadn’t thought about that” Zella said, “I figured that I would improvise.”

Her father found something about that amusing. “I ended up in Verdun because of a plan like that” He said, “I have a better idea.”

Stepping around Zella, he reached into the drawer. He pulled out an envelope that he removed a bank card from. Handing it to Zella, “This is worthless as a charge card pretty much everywhere outside of Europe, you can use it to get money at the Embassy in Seoul though and possibly to get a room in a nicer hotel though” He said, “It is probably worth more to you than a pistol you haven’t been trained to use.”

With that, he closed the drawer and locked it.

“Thank you” Zella said. She was a bit embarrassed by all this.

“Don’t you have a train to catch?” Emil asked.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Seven


6th August 1962

Seoul, Korea

Looking at the photograph of Nizhoni and Elke on his desk reminded Stefan that he was a long way from home. Nizhoni had said that she would send him a telegram if there was anything that he needed to know about that was going on at home. So far, he was interpreting her silence for good news. Beyond the continued difficulties that Nizhoni’s father was having with his health, Nizhoni was expecting again. Both of them were watching it with bated breath because they remembered the times prior to Elke. Nizhoni was delighted at the thought of Elke having a little brother or sister next year.

Their brief happiness had been interrupted by world events. Stefan had intended to leave the Heer once he had gotten his University Degree in Business Administration only to discover that they had other plans and they were prepared to offer him a great deal to make those plans happen. The 4th Division’s Administrative Affairs Battalion had been prepared to offer him a promotion and other enticements to stay. He would no longer be leading a Company but instead would be using his Degree in the service of the Division. Nizhoni had said that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that he would be insane to pass up. Unfortunately, when the 2nd Army Corps had been called away, the 4th Division, along with Stefan, had been called away with it.

Nizhoni didn’t need to worry about Stefan’s personal safety, he was in Seoul along the rest of the 4th Division Headquarters. Just the two of them would remain separate for as long as the stupidity in the Far East continued. Seeing that the Chinese seemed to have a nearly bottomless pool of cannon fodder to pull from, the stupidity would continue for a while yet. Looking at the current map, he could see that the Chinese had pushed back the Koreans everywhere but the area that the war was supposedly being fought over, the territory south of the Tumen River that now was the border between Korea and Russia. The Chinese wanted that land because it would make it so that they would control the entire northern border of Korea. That meant that nothing the was moved by road or rail could leave or enter the country without their say-so. That would effectively give the China a veto on the economic policies of what many considered a rising power in this region. Regardless of the high-minded language that politicians use, it always seemed to come down to money.


Mitte, Berlin

If you want to understand Berlin, talk to Marie.

That seemed like an absurd thing to say. How much could a seventeen-year-old reveal about a city? LeRoy Collins, former Governor of the State of Florida and current United States Ambassador to Germany looked down from his office window at the girl. She was out there for a couple hours every afternoon, rain or shine, passing out leaflets and talking to anyone who would listen. As near as Collins could tell, she was against war in general and the one being fought on the Korean Peninsula in particular. Marie also said that of her six brothers and sisters, three were over there and a fourth had volunteered to go but had been declined. Her contention was that without American involvement, there would not be a war in Korea. Apparently, that was the perspective of the people who lived in this strange City-State at the center of an Empire.

Most of the time, Marie was alone. Other times there were others with her, a boy her age or a small crowd who might have been considered beatniks back in the United States. The Marines who guarded the Embassy looked at her with good natured affection, mostly because she was a pretty girl who didn’t cause them a great deal of trouble. She didn’t make threats, if something was happening in the Embassy she didn’t interfere. She just wanted the Government of the United States to understand her perspective. However, Marie was a distraction for the Marines because she was a pretty girl, most of whom were only a few years older than her. She also happened to be one of the daughters of the Kaiser, something that made her nearly impossible to ignore. It was doubtless that her father knew that Marie was here and what she was doing clearly served his agenda or else he would have put a stop to it.

There was also the matter of her security detail. She had to be aware that there were a half dozen Agents from the Germen Federal Internal Intelligence service that followed her? It gave the CIA fits because they were certain that the BND was watching the Embassy and it was difficult to tell if it was the BND or BII who were out there at any given time. Marie didn’t need to cause them trouble because she did that just by being present.

Turning towards his desk, he pressed a button. “Invite her in” Collins said into the intercom. Annoyed that it had come to this.

Looking out the window, Collins saw one of the Secretaries talking to Marie. Looking up at the window, she gave him a smile and walked into the Embassy with the Secretary. In a few minutes she would be in his office and he was trying desperately to think of some way to buy her off. He couldn’t very well change U.S. Government policy, he couldn’t promise her anything and worst of all she came from one of the wealthiest families in the world, so bribery wouldn’t work. What could he say to Marie that would convince her to just go away?

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Eight


7th August 1962

Vladivostok, Russia

What Zella found when she had arrived in the Russian Far East was a series of boom towns, Vladivostok included. There had been visible change from when she had been through two years prior. The less welcome observation was Soren Yount. The Oberstabsfeldwebel had been sent by Hans von Mischner as a favor to Zella’s father with the stated purpose of keeping Zella from getting into any official trouble crossing the river that was the border between Russia and Korea.

At first Zella had been amused by what she had assumed would be Soren’s dismay at her as she walked her motorcycle off the rail platform. It turned out that Soren was completely unflappable. Somewhere along the line he had acquired a civilian Mercedes-Benz short-hood lorry that he was using to take a considerable amount of grey market contraband back to the headquarters of the 2nd Army Corps. There was still plenty of room for her motorcycle though. That meant that Zella’s arrival in Korea didn’t play out how she thought it would. She was sitting in the cab of the lorry, listening as Soren flipped shit to the Korean troops guarding the bridge. At some point, Soren handed one of them her passport, he glanced at her and then stamped it with no questions asked. It was then that it occurred to her that Soren must make this trip regularly and her father telling her that the entire military had to tolerate a certain amount of grift to function applied here. It wasn’t until she took a look at the map that Zella realized that there was a long drive down mountain roads. It was starting to rain, and Soren said it was a good thing they had four-wheel drive. So, it was probably just as well that she hadn’t tried to ride it by herself.

As Zella settled in, she looked out the window as rain danced across the window in the wind. It was an uncomfortably warm night, so having the windows up made the cab of the lorry feel like a sauna. Soren had turned on the radio, it was pop music that was obviously of a different sensibility than what Zella was used to. As Zella listened to the music and how it clashed in a discordant rhythm with the windshield wipers, she knew it was going to be an extraordinarily long night.


Potsdam, Germany

It was just like Rea to act without coming up with a plan. She had been trying to get the Americans to respond to her for months. Vicky had tried to warn her that she might not like it when they did but listening to others had never been something that Rea had ever been good at. Now, Rea was fuming and Japik was saying that it was the funniest thing that he had ever seen. The Americans certainly had her number, that much was for certain. They could have attempted to chase her off easily enough, but had done something else instead.

While Vicky did not approve of Japik, she found some of the things he was into to be unnatural, she did however like how he was able to get Rea to focus on one thing for more than five minutes. He certainly wasn’t afraid to tell her when she was acting stupid or was taking herself too seriously. This situation was no different from any of the many others that Rea had gotten herself wrapped up in. The Americans had given Rea a Civic Award for her efforts to achieve peace between their nations. Japik was reading out Rea’s extensive actual name as it had been put down on the plaque that she had been given. He found it funny.

“They only did this so that I’ll go away and stop bothering them” Rea said to Vicky in a language that only they could understand. It had only been a recent development that Vicky had heard the term Cryptophasia and it just showed exactly how distressed Rea was over these matters. She hadn’t talked this way since they had fallen out with each other. Japik looked at Rea, bewildered.

“You are missing the forest for the trees” Vicky replied in kind, “This is actually a sign of how your efforts have been successful.”

Rea gave Vicky a baneful look. She was too busy feeling sorry for herself to listen. It was the same as always, Rea had always loved theatrics and drama. Getting results was so foreign of an experience that she didn’t know how to handle it.

“You can understand that?” Japik asked.

“It’s just something that is what it is” Vicky replied, “It used to drive our mother insane.”

“Kat loved it though” Rea said, “She was disappointed when Tat and Kol didn’t do anything like that.”

“Despite everything else, the Gräfin is still a spy at heart” Vicky said, “Secret languages are the sort of thing that she adores.”

“You mean Lady Katherine, the Tigress?” Japik asked. He had seen the her at a distance but had never ventured too close. The stories that he had heard, it was hard to imagine her adoring anything.

“You need to get to know Kat” Rea replied, “Most of the things that people say about her simply aren’t true.”

“And don’t ever call her the Tigress where she might overhear” Vicky said, “She really doesn’t like being called that.”

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Nine


10th August 1962

Irkutsk Oblast, Russia

“What do you think of it?” Fyodor asked as they stood on the ridge looking down into a peaceful valley.

“This place beautiful” Gia said, “Though it is very isolated.”

“It is” Fyodor replied, “It also belongs to us, everything you see all the way to the shore of the lake, and it will not be empty in the future.”

“That’s good, I think” Gia replied, knowing that he was referring to Lake Baikal. It was a few kilometers from here and suggesting just how big this piece of land was, fairly vast apparently.

“It’s more than just a piece of land” Fyodor said, “It changes everything, it means that we have means in this world.”

It was his enthusiasm for things like this that Gia liked about Fyodor. It was the rest of it that she was still trying to work out for herself. Fyodor was one of her cousin’s favorites, that was a serious mark against him from Gia’s perspective and that had caused her to keep him at arm’s length for a long time. It had been that stupid trick he had pulled with the scare cats that had convinced people that they had seen her work a genuine miracle. It had been the argument over that in the Cathedral that had convinced the Orthodox Church that they were a couple. In the end the Church had said that they could care less that the supposed miracle was mere trickery and had basically told her to keep that information to herself. Shortly after that Fyodor had been called away again by Georgy to do something that had him away from Moscow for several months, much to Gia’s relief.

When he came back though, he had suggested to Gia that perhaps they ought to make it official and she threw him out of her flat. Anya had said that she felt that Gia was being entirely unreasonable, Fyodor could have any woman he wanted, and he had picked her.

In the end, it had been Asia coming to visit that had finally caused Gia to come around. When Asia had something to say, it was usually bluntly stated and straight to the point. “Why not just fuck him and get it over with?” Was what she had said after listening to Gia’s take on what had been going on. Gia had been understandably aghast that she would say such a thing. Gia’s response was that if she did that all she would do would be doing was messing up the relationship that she had with Fyodor. Asia had just smiled and said how wonderful that Gia had developed a relationship with man that was more than just physical first. That seemed completely absurd, but the longer Gia thought about the more she realized that Asia was right. Still though, there were several large elephants in the room. Family legacy, the chance that Gia was carrier of hemophilia, as well as the matter of her relationship with Asia years earlier. Asia had just looked annoyed, saying that there is no requirement that she continue the family legacy, hemophilia was treatable these days if she decide to do that and lastly. Was she using her past as an excuse to distance herself for a man who was crazy about her?

Once Gia had started asking questions and discussing things with Fyodor it had all just snowballed. Next thing she knew she was planning a wedding and life happened. Anya suffered an injury that was personally devastating, dancers seldom came back from serious knee injuries. Gia’s hope would be that she would start taking her studies a lot more seriously than she had in the past because she had the rest of her life to consider.

After the wedding, Gia had come east with Fyodor. It was to her surprise that everywhere she went here, people held her in high regard. She just worried that she was disappointing them somehow. How did her being married affect the way that they saw her? Would they suddenly remember that she was actually foreign born? Fyodor said not to dwell on that because East of the Urals, everyone not born there was foreign. Just the fact that the Imperial Grand Duchess Alexandra, Princess Royal of Russia was spending her summer with them meant a lot.

“What do you have in mind for this place?” Gia asked.

“A house, someplace to escape to in the summertime” Fyodor replied, “Far away from the politics of Moscow and the sort of games your cousin likes to play.”

It didn’t get much further from Moscow than this. Gia had realized that Fyodor didn’t always like the tasks that her cousin sent him on. Having somewhere to go where he couldn’t easily be reached had been a fantasy of his for a long time. Gia smiled at the idea.

“We can set it up however we want” Fyodor said, “A space for your office where you can type the next great Russian epic. A vegetable garden, a goat or two. We could have everything we need and seldom have to go into town. Perhaps we could even tempt Anya away from the capital to join us and whatever other additions we might have.”

That last sentence brought reality crashing back into Gia’s mind. They had talked about that, but Gia wasn’t sure that he really understood the full implications of how that pleasant fantasy of his could all come apart if her worst fears materialized.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred


11th August 1962

Potsdam

Neither Aki nor Frost would chase after a tennis ball, something about how they were wired made it so that they weren’t interested in playing fetch. Freddy wished that it were otherwise because the simple pleasure of throwing the ball and watching them run after it was exactly what he needed to put his mind at ease after what he had heard at the security briefing that had been given to his father. Instead, they were trying without success to sneak up on a squirrel that was watching them from around a tree trunk. Freddy could hear it barking at the two dogs as if to taunt them.

Then something else caught their ear and they turned to face the direction of the palace. Their wariness turned to unbridled joy as Nella came running towards them, he was expecting Charlotte to be following his youngest sister but instead it was Suga and one of Nella’s Nannies.

“Your Step-Mother looked like she needed a break from Nella” Suga said when she got close, “And Nella wanted her fuzzies.”

Charlotte wanted to be as much of a mother to Nella as she possibly could, not liking the idea of her daughter being raised by other people. Still, there were times when Lotte wanted a little bit of time for herself. That was when she handed her off to a number of people who she trusted to give Nella an enriching experience. Apparently, Suga was one of those people and Freddy wondered if that was Charlotte’s way of sending them a message.

Both Aki and Frost were a lot bigger than Nella, that was why Freddy had been careful to keep an eye on their interactions with her. While Nella saw them as akin to giant plush toys, she never pulled on their fur or ears. Instead she liked to snuggle with Aki, falling asleep with him as a pillow or running around in circles with Frost. Today was no different. Nella and Frost started playing their game and her face was pure bliss, even when she tripped and fell. Frost ran up and started licking her face even as she rolled onto her back and was trying to scratch behind his ears. Eventually, Nella got back to her feet and started running with her arms out and Frost ran ahead her. Aki stayed by Freddy, watching intently.

“It wasn’t far from here that we first met” Freddy said to Suga who must have been thinking the same thing. He had been playing fetch with his old foxound when he had met her, this strange girl who wore strange clothes and spoke a language he didn’t understand.

“Ages ago” Suga replied, with a slight smile.

“Life was easier back then. I’ll give it that.”

“Did something happen?” Suga asked.

“More of the same things happening” Freddy replied, “According to the prognosticators whose job it is to tell my father what the future holds we are all in for rough time in the coming months because of Korea.”

Freddy had mentioned this to Suga before. What many considered Augustus Lang’s masterpiece, the interlocking treaties that encouraged trade across Europe and Asia for the benefit of everyone involved. What Lang had not foreseen was what might happen if one of their treaty partners went to war with another one and had effectively shut down rail transport across their country. That was what the Chinese had done after the Military High Command had shifted additional forces to Korea to enforce the League of Nations mandate regarding the sovereignty of the borders of member nations. Freddy had volunteered to rejoin the Pioneer Corps but instead of sending him to Korea he had gone to Hamburg. He had been encouraged to continue on at University and “learning the ropes” at his father’s side. “You’ve already played your part” was what the Generaloberst in charge of the Pioneers had said. Freddy disagreed with that and suspected that his father was who was really behind that but couldn’t prove it. All his father would say was that he worried about having three of his children over there as well as whatever madness Rea was stirring up at any given moment.

“Too bad you don’t have a camera” Suga said as they watched Nella playing with Frost. “The public eats this sort of thing up.”

“All my sisters were adorable when they were little” Freddy said, “Then something always goes wrong.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Kiki taught herself to read because it gave her loads of new uncomfortable questions to ask adults” Freddy replied, “Rea and Vicky played cruel pranks on anyone who intruded into their little world from the time they could walk.”

“I am sure that you and your brothers were always a great joy to be around” Suga said with mock solemnity. “I love the fact that you all lived as a family. That includes silly questions and pranks.”

That gave Freddy pause, he frequently forgot that Suga had grown up in a very different environment. The relentless formality of the Japanese Imperial Court had been her entire world. Until she had found herself having to adjust to the culture shock of the HMY Hohenzollern and the Marine Infantry Sealions who had been tasked with protecting her family, Suga had no idea that another way of life existed.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred One


16th August 1962

Seoul, Korea

The letters were the sort of thing that Kat needed to feel like she was still connected to the real world. She had spent every day since she had arrived in Korea thinking of ways to make life uncomfortable for the Chinese on either side of the Yalu River. Even knowing the sort of damage that her people were committing didn’t bring a whole lot of joy to her. Somewhere along the line, her career had just become a regular job that kept her away from her family at times when it felt like her presence was sorely missed. Doug had said that the children missed her terribly but because they had gone to Canada with him to visit his parents, they didn’t really have a whole lot of time to miss her. Kat just hoped that Margot was wasn’t acting the way she had in the past by being cold to Kat’s children, Marie in particular. She didn’t feel she needed to concern herself with Sir Malcolm though. Doug said that Malcolm had taken the children on a trip to a farm in New Brunswick that had once belonged to Doug’s grandfather and now was home to some of their cousins.

The letter from Ilse was full of enthusiasm, she had been contributing to a book that was being published by an American author. The book was due out in September. Kat hoped that Ilse wouldn’t be disappointed by the result of this. Ilse desperately wanted to change the world and Kat feared that she would be an easy mark for a charlatan for that reason. Kat had never heard of this Rachel Carson before Ilse had started corresponding with her.

Then there was a letter from Gia, the issues that Kat had hoped that she had put behind her had come back to the surface.

Gia had made the decision years earlier that she should probably never have children of her own because of the fearful hereditary legacy of her family. Now that she was married, she was having second thoughts and her husband either didn’t seem to understand, or wasn’t too concerned with, the risks involved for not just them but her cousin Georgy as well. As Gia explained it, in Russia people’s memories ran long and if she had a son who was afflicted with Hemophilia then they would remember the role that it had played in the fall of her family decades earlier. Gia’s earliest memories were of watching her Uncle Alexei’s last agonizing years. After his death her Grandparents had died in the following months, giving in to grief and despair.

Anecdotal evidence suggested that Gia’s Aunt Maria and Aunt Anastasia had been symptomatic carriers of that disease. An incident when a tonsillectomy that had been performed on Maria that had resulted in excessive bleeding. The manner of Anastasia’s death had been by exsanguination as the result of a car accident that Doctors had been unable to treat. Her Aunt Olga had been left mentally broken, eventually had retreated into the fantasy that the revolution and exile to an isolated corner of British Columbia had never happened. It was still 1914 and she lived with her family in Saint Petersburg.

Tatiana, Gia’s mother, had tried to move on with her life but she had clearly had her own issues. She had decided that she would never allow the Bolsheviks to take her alive ever again. When gunmen in the service of Stalin had attacked the house that the Romanovs had lived in, she had not even tried to run. Tatiana had opened fire on her attackers after shoving Gia out the back door of their house. Kat had admired Tatiana since she had learned about what she had done and hoped that she would have had the courage to do the same thing under those circumstances.

Still, there was a huge question mark hanging over Olga and Tatiana. Had they been carriers? There was no way to know for certain. Supposedly, Tatiana had been greatly relieved that Gia had been born a girl for that very reason.

Kat didn’t have any answers for Gia. She remembered her fears in such matters, years earlier. The difference was that Gia’s reasons were much more tangible. Kat’s fears had revolved around a feeling that she would eventually share her mother’s fate. Fortunately, that had proven wrong.


Near Buseong, Korea

The lot of one of the Byeong was not one that most young men would aspire to. That was the reason why almost all of them were conscripts. Added to this was that Gang Ji shared the surname of a famous General. His instructors had enjoyed a great deal of sport because of that, even though they knew he was in no way related to General Gang. Ji was as far from a hero as one could imagine. Slight of build and introverted, he spent most of his time just trying to avoid being noticed. The Drillmasters had zeroed in on him for exactly those reasons. The idea was that they would make a man out of him and they had gone about that in the most sadistic ways. For the life of him, Ji couldn’t figure out what any of it had to do with masculinity, but he wasn’t in a position to argue with them. In the end, Ji was probably one of the few men who had welcomed it when they had been pulled from training and sent to the front as half trained cannon fodder.

The next surprise had been the German Soldaten. Big men who seemed to be completely fearless. Then there were the German Officers who were absolutely insane. Ji had been “volunteered” to be a stretcher bearer when he had seen a helicopter for the first time up close. A young Officer had jumped out of the machine and had started barking orders. The Officer came across like someone who was used to being obeyed, then Ji had seen the Officer up close and was shocked to see that the Officer was a woman just a couple years older than he was. The armor vest, helmet and sunglasses made it difficult to tell that about her. When she had glared at Ji over the top of her sunglasses, he had seen that her eyes were the color of an icy mountain lake. Completely unnerving.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Two


20th August 1962

Tongrim, Korea

There had been rumors of a counter offensive in the offing for weeks. Eventually Ritchie had simply dismissed them as so much chatter. There were other, far more tangible things to contend with.

General Pan had decided that his “grand victory” wasn’t going to be sullied by the presence of foreigners like the men of the 1st SFG being anywhere near it. Ritchie didn’t consider himself a master of strategy, but he had been able to see the failure that Pan had made when he had not exploited the initial breakthrough to the fullest extent possible. He had allowed the Korean Army to regroup and the advance had ground to a halt far short of the stated goals. Pan had not allowed that to bother him though. He had proclaimed it a great victory and had returned to Beijing to bask in the adoration of the crowds there. The underlings he had left behind had suffered several minor reverses in the days since and the General had been perfectly happy to heap the blame on them in his absence. It was so typical of what Ritchie had seen within the Chinese Army, it hardly merited mention. Today however, things had taken a turn in the sector that Ritchie was in.

An object that weighs twenty-eight kilograms and travels at three times the speed of sound has the ability to ruin your entire day like few other things. For the previous week, artillery from behind the positions that had been held by the German Marines had been lobbing shells over the hills. They sounded big and when Ritchie had seen a dud shell that had been recovered, it had turned out that they were 128mm guns. It was a bit of a surprise. He wasn’t aware that the Krauts had any 5-inch artillery in this theater that wasn't mounted on a ship. The Chinese had decided that with the Marines having been relieved by Korean Infantry, it was time to do something about those guns. As it had turned out, those were not howitzers. Instead they were anti-tank guns that had been employed cleverly.

Ritchie thought that the current operation was the result of asking the wrong questions. He had a bad feeling that wherever those Marines turned up next, he wasn’t going to like it. The General who led them went by an absurd nickname that sounded clownish to Ritchie’s ears, he was starting to think that man was the somehow the Devil incarnate.

They had also been told that the Panzergranate 39 that was favored by the Germans was obsolete, clearly no one had bothered to tell them that. The 128mm version was more than adequate in that they had enough mass and velocity to punch a hole through almost a foot of steel at distances of more than a klick. One struck the front glacis of one of their Buford Tanks. The tank was staggered by the blow and it was hit by a second shot through the turret ring. Ritchie watched as the Buford was ripped apart by internal explosions.

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Olli was looking down the hill at the Chinese advance that had just been stopped cold. The Skorpions had the element of surprise this time and with nearly every other engagement that he had been involved in, it was the side that got the first shot in that won the day. The American designed Bufords would have made short work of the open-topped Jagdpanzers if things had gone the other way. The 90mm main gun would have easily punched holes through the gun shield of a Skorpion.

This was just like the Second World War in that war tended to kill off the stupid and unwary at a fast clip. That was why Olli knew that a simple ambush like the one he had just conducted was unlikely to work in the future.


Seoul, Korea

It hadn’t taken her mother long to connect the dots the instant Zella sent a story via teletype back to the BT. Zella knew she was running out of time in Korea once word arrived that the charge card had been cancelled. Not like she was living high on the hog, just a small hotel room and meals was what she had been spending money on. Most of the time she had been working to get the big story that she knew was here, but there was a return train ticket for a train departing from Vladivostok that would get her back to Berlin in just enough time to get to University in just a few days. That was a hard deadline that she couldn’t do anything about unless she really wanted to end up living under a bridge. Though as she had discovered since she had arrived in Seoul, space under the bridge was at a premium because of the tens of thousands of internally displaced refugees from the agrarian northern part of the country. Those refugees and the negligent attitude of the Korean Government towards them was a story that Zella was sitting on until she was out of the country. She had a feeling that the Government was unlikely to be pleased with her observations.

Like every other day, she worked her way between the Headquarters of the Expeditionary Corps that housed the Offices of the Commander of Allied Forces under the League of Nations Mandate and the Headquarters of the 2nd Army Corps. Zella had tried a few other places but had swiftly discovered that as an unknown Western Journalist and as a woman, she simply wasn’t welcome in most of them. She had wasted an entire day waiting in the offices of the Korean Army Headquarters to get an interview through official channels, only to find that General Gang had already left, hours earlier.

With mounting frustration, Zella had realized that she was out of options and whatever she had fantasized was going to happen here simply wasn’t. That was why she packed her things and checked out of the hotel. While she wasn’t ready to admit defeat, not yet. She was going to use her remaining time in Korea to see a friend, perhaps that was simply what she should have been doing all along.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Three


22nd August 1962

Anju, Korea

It hadn’t taken Zella long to figure out that visiting Kiki in Anju had been a huge mistake on several levels. First there had been Kiki seeing her as an extra pair of hands that needed to help and there were the people who surrounded Kiki asking Zella to talk to her friend before she killed herself. As Zella found out, Kiki was stopping only long enough to sleep a few hours each night before going out and she had already gotten in trouble with her Commanding Officer several times for working until she collapsed in exhaustion. Over just the day that Zella had been shadowing Kiki, she had seen the kaleidoscope of horrible things that Kiki dealt with every day and she was starting to wonder if Kiki had left her sanity behind somewhere over the prior months. The absolutely staggering part was that when Zella talked to her, Kiki said she wasn’t doing enough. Not that the surroundings of the few times they could talk helped matters. Kiki’s job was to stabilize patients and to assist the surgeons. Zella had been dragooned into Kiki’s efforts and the sound of an electric saw cutting through bone was the sort of thing that she had realized would probably haunt her dreams forever.

Above all of that, Zella discovered that the 2nd Army Corps and Fallschirmjäger Corps were massing around Anju. Commanding the Fallschirmjäger Corps was General von Hanover, who had once been the Aide-de-Camp of Zella’s father, so he had cheerfully welcomed her and what he had told her had been nothing short of astonishing. A massive joint operation was about to happen, Zella had arrived at just the right time to cover it. He had hinted that she wouldn’t have to wait for long. That had left Zella in a bit of a quandary, leaving now, she would just barely make the train home. If she stayed here, she would have the story she had come halfway around the world for but would also be earning herself a double helping of her mother’s wrath in the process. It hadn’t been until after she had left General von Hanover’s office that she had seen a number of journalists glaring at her. She had gotten the interview that they all wanted because she had an “in” and that had angered them.

For lack of anywhere better to be, Zella had returned to the base that 5th KHF operated from and was typing up a transcript of her interview with Ernst von Hanover in the mess tent. As she finished Zella noticed that the tent was empty and there wasn’t a whole lot of movement in the compound. When Zella asked one of the Soldaten doing KP where everyone was, he told her that the entire Helicopter wing had been ordered to stand down and that a special meal was being prepared for them. As the daughter of a Field Marshal, Kiki understood what that meant. The entire Wing was preparing for movement, the big operation that von Hanover had hinted at was probably happening in a matter of hours. All thought of leaving for Vladivostok vanished from Zella’s mind. When she asked where Kiki was, Zella got a dumbfounded look. She then asked about Lieutenant von Preussen and the Soldat looked a touch embarrassed when he told Zella that Kiki was down at the creek with the rest of the women in the Helicopter Wing.

It seemed that Kiki had grown a lot bolder here even if she was working herself to death in the meantime. That was something that Zella was not going to include in her story, but she did have a bit of a laugh because it was simply something that would have been unimaginable just a couple years earlier.


Near Sonchon, Korea

After a few hours of fitful sleep, Ji was kicked awake by the Hasa who looked at him banefully in the dim light of shelter that Ji had been sleeping in. The Noncommissioned Officer made it clear that he was perfectly happy to cut the throat of any man who spoke out of turn as Ji’s Company formed up and started walking towards the front. As they walked through the night, Ji saw the flash of artillery and the rumble of the guns and well as the explosions down range. The eastern sky was growing pale as dawn grew closer.

His hope was that whoever was on the receiving end of that was getting blown to bits and wouldn’t cause Ji any problems, but in the short time he had been a soldier he had learned that it never worked out the way he would have wanted. Ji knew for a fact that that it was true with his superiors and cold logic was that it was doubtlessly would be true with the enemy. The difference was that the Chinese would be trying to kill him, a complete stranger, on purpose. Try as he might, Ji could see no logic in that. Nor could he see any logic in what had caused the war itself. The Chinese had come over the border after they apparently had painted themselves into a corner after years of making threats.

As they got closer to the front itself, the ground grew rougher. This was one of the places where Tilo’s 3rd Marines had stood against the Chinese. They were highly regarded by the Korean Army, supposedly they were the dregs of German society but when push came to shove not a single one of them backed down, to defend a nation that none of them should have had a stake in. They called wherever they were home and fought for it as such. Ji had been told that no less would be expected of him. The zig-zagging trenches would have been instantly recognizable to soldiers of the First World War, they had come and gone out of fashion several times in that conflict and in the decades since. This conflict was no different. After a spell the artillery fire slackened and ceased. From here the artillery would be coordinated with the advance of frontline units. Ji had no idea where he knew that from, but it sounded right.

“Fix bayonets” The order came down the line. It had been debated about just how useful the weapons were. The Hasa made it clear that if the Chinese were able to dodge their bullets then it would be on the steel of the Korean bayonets that their luck would run out. “Await signal to start advance” Ji heard. What was that supposed to mean? What signal?

There came the thunderous scream of turbine engines as attack planes flew in low over the opposite lines and Ji was dimly aware of elongated oblong shapes tumbling away from the airplanes. The night was lit up brighter than day as clouds of white phosphorus ignited. Ji was pushed forward as one of thousands who went over the top in an action that would also have been instantly familiar to anyone who had been around in 1916.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Four


23rd August 1962

Yellow Sea off Andong, Yalu River

“You are a Coxswain, go do your job and enjoy your first command.” That was how Captain Hase had termed it.

All Louis could think about was the danger involved when he had been put in charge of not one, but three, of the Borkum Class Landing Craft. All of which were crewed by men far older than he was. They had told him to mind Landungsboot-932, the Landing Craft that Louis had been assigned to and to keep out of their way.

Compared to the 10-meter launch that Louis was used to, LB-932 was a great wallowing tub that was excruciatingly slow. The LC was an improved version of the LCs that had resulted when the Kaiserliche Marine had reverse engineered the Japanese Daihatsu Class of the Second World War. Better, more protected, accommodation for the crew had been seen as a must when the Navy had started operating them on the North Sea and the two 20mm Dual-purpose cannons and MG42/48 machine guns as armament were far and away superior to what they had replaced. In an ironic twist, LB-932 had been manufactured by Mitsubishi for use by the Marine Infantry in the Far East and the Pacific. Today, that came in the form of the Platoon of Marine Infantry and all of their gear that were aboard and they were not happy to be out in the rough seas in the LC and were keeping as low as they could manage as water slopped in. The water became calmer once they were on the river, but that didn’t mean a whole lot as the splashes from artillery started landing among the LCs.

Aircraft from the SMS Voss and SMS Wolff were orbiting overhead. They were keeping their distance because over the prior minutes the battle line of the KM had turned its guns on the shore and 42cm and 15cm shells were crashing into the port city a few kilometers up the Yalu River that was the destination of the Landing Craft.

That didn’t seem to be doing a whole lot about the river defenses. They opened up as soon as the LCs were within range. Louis could hear the sound of shrapnel hitting the armored cockpit that he was sitting in and the sound of the cannons and machine guns opening up. There wasn’t a whole lot of what passed for a beach here, mostly mudflats on either side of the river. That was why these landings were going to be unique.

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Sitting in an open-topped Landing Craft with shells exploding around it and their own side shooting over their heads was not Karl’s idea of fun. Especially because the water that was being kicked up smelled like dead fish and shit, in all likelihood it was because that was exactly what it was. Every city and village up the Yalu dumping their waste into the river and all of it passed through here.

After a couple weeks of rest and refit, the 3rd MID had been told that they were going to go do what they did best. Then when they had reached the embarkation point in Incheon, they had found that the 1st and 2nd Marine Infantry Divisions were there along with the Heer’s 13th Army Corps that had been shipped up from Taiwan. In recognition of his command of the 3rd MID, Uncle Tilo had been awarded a gold wreath device for his PLM and Promoted again so that he could take command of this circus. The plan was simple enough. Capture Andong and the bridge that crossed it there intact if they could. The three Marine Divisions were to kick the door open and 13th was to follow to exploit the opening. The Chinese had expended considerable resources defending the bridge and the General in charge of the 2nd Army Corps intended to use it to advance into Manchuria as repayment for their efforts.

Before, they had left Inchon, Reier had advised Karl to stick with his best mates. Whoever they were. That came in the form of Niko, but still this was the first time he had been going into a situation like this without Erik. He could imagine how his cousin would have handled this, making smartass comments and making everyone laugh except those who wanted to kick the shit out of him.

The gunfire from the Battleships shifted and there was a large splash as a shell fell short and landed a couple hundred meters from the LC, which doused everyone inside with water. In the long minute that followed the sound of the shells landing and the air ahead was filled with a wild assortment of brightly colored pyrotechnic smoke. A concrete bank loomed out of the smoke and the LC turned as it impacted against it. When Karl had first heard this plan, he had not liked the sounds of it because it was not exactly something that could be rehearsed and the term “fish in a barrel” had been thrown around a lot. The other men started climbing up the bank and predictably the first one to reach the top was immediately hit and fell back into the LC. As Karl reached the top, he kept expecting a bullet to come flying out of the smoke and hit him even as he reached the walls of a ruined building a dozen or so meters from the bank.

Looking around, he realized that he had no clue as to where in Andong he was. Niko had followed him, assuming that Karl knew where he was going. In the following minutes, the others made their way over the bank and after a spell Karl heard the sound of the LC pulling away from the bank.

“Where are the Chinese?” Niko asked. It was something that had not occurred to Karl yet. There was simply no way that they would leave a place like this undefended.

“Do you think that you’re going to like the answer to that question?” Karl asked in reply which shut Niko up. The mazelike streets of the Chinese city made that answer clear enough. They were going to have to dig them out and that was going to make for a very long, rotten day.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Five


26th August 1962

Sinuiju, Korea

Staring at the ceiling while laying on her cot, Kiki was thinking about the events both large and small that had played out over the prior two days.

Trying to take the bridge had turned out to be a bit of a mistake. That much was clear when the entire thing had blown up. After how the Koreans had botched the job months earlier, the Chinese had been taking no chances. When it looked like capture by either the Marines or the Paratroopers was inevitable, they had blown the thing into orbit. Though Kiki had been several kilometers away she had seen it clearly enough from near the landing zone in when bits of the bridge had been landing all around her. Bits that had crushed entire buildings when they landed. The FSR teams had gone in with the second wave into Sinuiju and had just arrived then that had happened. The Pioneers had built a new temporary bridge that the 13th Army had used to cross the river. They were also already preparing to build a replacement for the original bridge once the 2nd Army reached Sinuiju and the rail link with the rest of Korea could be restored.

While the 1st and 3rd Fallschirmjäger Divisions had been working on expanding the perimeter the FSR had been tasked with rescuing civilians trapped in the rubble. There were a small number of Chinese holdouts present so for the first time in this conflict, the FSR had needed to play the role of combat troops as well. Into this was what had become a constant source of aggravation for her, Zella.

Kiki loved her like a sister but with Zella’s connections, once she had decided to stay then not only was Kiki was unable to get rid of her but had her embedded with the FSR teams that Kiki was in charge of. Not even Kiki afford to anger General Ernst von Hanover, he had come out of retirement as the Prince of Hanover and presiding over the expansive family estate in Lower Saxony to lead this campaign. He played a large role in introducing Zella’s parents and he had a bit of affection for Zella for that reason. His orders to Kiki was that she had to cooperate with Zella, despite her many foibles. For starters, Zella had found out about Kiki swimming in the creek outside the base in Anju au naturel. Naturally she didn’t understand and had compared the situation here with the one back home. It was just one more thing added to the lengthy list of things that she didn’t understand because she hadn’t been in Korea for months trying to survive the climate as well the war itself. Kiki didn’t even want to think about some of the opinions Zella held about the food and sleeping accommodations before they had left Anju. Zella being Zella, she certainly hadn’t been shy about sharing those opinions.

The thing that bothered Kiki the most though was that Zella should have been on her way home by now. One word from her and she would be on the next plane home, so her presence was entirely optional, and Kiki was actually angry and jealous of her over the matter. She could go back to her art, the music scene, the Rock & Rollers and University with hardly a ripple. That much was made clear when Kiki had arranged for Zella to get her story back to Berlin and had seen the tersely worded response that had come back from her mother. It was obvious to Kiki that Zella had really stepped over the line with her latest actions.

Kiki had been about to confront Zella over this when she had told her that she was frightened that she might not have anything to return to after this. That her running away had been at the end of a long string of events where Zella had made what she now knew were stupid mistakes. At some point early this year things had started to go wrong. Kiki had been absolutely shocked when Zella said that she had found herself unexpectedly pregnant after one of her Professors had taken advantage of her at a low moment. She had tried going to her mother for help but had instead told her mother about everything beside that and it had caused a big row between them. Then came the miscarriage and the Professor getting his testicles pounded flat by his angry wife. Kiki tried not to laugh at that last part but couldn’t help herself, it was his just deserts. Zella didn’t think it was funny though because she had watched the wife get carted off to prison. That was when Kiki realized that Zella blamed herself for all of it and that running off to a warzone as a would-be Journalist hadn’t been about personal ambition. Zella was risking her neck so that she could talk with the one person on Earth who might understand her. It was a shocking admission for her to have made and Kiki wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Word just arrived that helicopters are inbound from the twins” Mitzi said, snapping Kiki out of her thoughts. “Anyone who can be moved, needs to be prepared to be evacuated.”

That was a reminder that the war was progressing merrily along, Kiki thought to herself as she swung her feet to the floor. Leaving the room where she mostly didn’t sleep, she saw that Zella was sitting on a crate with the sketchbook that she always had with her. Kiki remembered that that was how she had always processed things. She didn’t want to know what exactly was making it into those sketches, Kiki assumed that it was the same sorts of things that she saw every time she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.