… part two ...

Cap Matifo Peninsula, East of Algiers, Algeria, November 1942

Having regrouped and agreed that we do not have time to discover those other entrances that must exist based on the command to cover all of the doorways that was issued in German. We agree to blow the door and storm the room. I set up two charges on the door and run a wire back down the stairs to the ‘L’ shaped room. Sven then asks if I know what the enhanced beyond the door can do, I head back down and push out with my senses. I discover that he is also very resistant to damage but that he can also hold people in place with a gravitic force. I return and inform the others of this discovery.

Madeline, who has been at the top of the staircase listening, suddenly slides around the edge of the door to see what is in the room beyond. As soon as she does so we can hear a raised voice in German shout;

Was ist das? An der Tür!

Madeline quickly ducks back onto our side of the door and signals that she has spotted four soldiers on the other side of the room, behind a makeshift barrier, and that one of them is an officer of some kind. She then says that she is going to create darkness on the other side of the door and try something and that we are to hold position. With that she turns back to the door.

Seconds later we hear a burst of gunfire hitting the back of the door and Madeline slides in. Over the next few seconds we hear several raised voices in German shouting something about ‘die Schatten’ and more bursts of gunfire from within the room beyond the door, finally we spot Madeline sliding back to our side and signalling for me to blow the door. I flick the trigger and the double explosion blows the door off of it’s hinges and into the room.

It was at that moment that we discovered what die Schatten was referring to, Madeline gazes intently towards the top of the stairs and four, what I can only describe as living shadows, come into being from the darkness around the doorway and glide into the room. We are all stunned but are snapped out of it when we hear more gunfire from the room at the top of the stairs. We rush up the stairs to storm the room.

Sven gets to the top of the stairs first and throws a phosphorus grenade into the room, a second later there is a blinding flash of white light and the clap of an explosion. Frank reaches the top of the steps next and as soon as he has line of sight into the room he disappears, only to reappear a heartbeat later next to the Germans behind their barrier. It is at that moment that he spots two more Wolfenkorps troopers hidden behind within the doorway recesses. He also spots a second grenade thrown by Sven bouncing off of the rear wall of the room behind the barricade, fortunately for Frank it bounces away from him before detonating. He then cannot see much more as a patch of utter darkness appears in the middle of the barricade.

After their initial shock at our unconventional attack, the Wolfenkorps troops rally and open fire at Frank. They end up shooting at thin air as Frank reappears stood just behind one of the German troops in cover with his rifle raised. A squeeze of the trigger and the troops head explodes like a watermelon. It is then that the German Oberst locks eyes with Frank across the room, Frank feels a strange binding force clinging to his legs and he realises that he can’t move his feet. So he raises his rifle and puts three shots into the Oberst. But the Oberst does not go down.

Frank then spots that four more of the oil on water smoke creatures have issued forth from the area of utter black and are rushing to attack the Oberst. With his attention distracted, Frank tries to move again but finds that he can only move his legs very slowly. He then catches sight of a Wolfenkorps trooper in the other doorway raising his MP40 and aiming at him. But a shadow detaches itself from the ceiling and as it drops towards the floor transforms into a knife wielding Madeline. The Wolfenkorps trooper dies before he can pull his trigger.

The shadow creatures continue to attack the Oberst and eventually he falls to them, as soon as he is down they begin to move towards Madeline. But with a dismissive flick of her hand she sends them back to whatever hell they issued forth from. All is quiet.

While the others are regrouping I slide under the upper of the two doors and find myself in a long corridor. I continue to the end and up the spiral staircase and find it opening up into one of the gun emplacements. I can hear French voices, knowing that they can only belong to the traitorous Vichy French collaborators I materialise and draw my gun and a grenade. I lob the grenade in and as soon as it detonates I follow it in. I find two Vichy French troopers injured, which I quickly finish off with a couple of shots, and a further two dead. It is obvious that the main gun has had a catastrophic explosion in it’s breach. I guess that was Sven’s handiwork.

By the time that I arrive back in the main room the others have managed to search it briefly. They have discovered papers on the officer naming him Oberst Amsberg, Wolfenkorps Beta, and Sven has discovered that the scattered papers across the floor are the defensive plans for the area around Algiers. We quickly move onwards into the rest of the structure. We pass through a kitchen and into a dormitory with two doors leading off of it. Madeline takes the left hand door and Frank goes through the one straight ahead. Sven and I look at each other, and then he follows Frank and I head after Madeline.

After a very long corridor and a spiral staircase, Frank and Sven find themselves in the second gun emplacement. They quickly clear it with a grenade and machine gun fire. Once secure they head back to find us. I follow Madeline up yet another spiral staircase, but this one comes up in the middle of what would appear to be a local Algerian dining room. We quickly search around and discover that we are in a single storey residential building on the very edge of the local urban area, a very good disguise for the entrance to the bunker.

Leaving Madeline watching the entrance I head back into the bunker in search of a portable radio set. I meet up with Frank and Sven and send them up to support Madeline and, having found a radio, I join them in the house. We make radio contact with a Lieutenant Howards squad and inform him that the tower and bunker is secured and we issue him with the coordinates of the bunkers hidden entrance. He replies that Charlie beach is secure and that they are moving inland towards us meeting little resistance and should be at our location in twenty minutes.

He goes on to ask if we have any intel on the location of the Vichy French General Alphonse Juin. We inform him that we do not but that we will investigate. We leave Frank on guard at the entrance while Sven transforms into a bird and heads aloft for a birds eye view of the battle, and myself and Madeline head back into the bunker in search of information on the whereabouts of the Vichy French General. Madeline begins to sift through the papers in the main room while I head back up into the tower to see if there is anything there.

I head up to the top of the tower, planning to work my way back down searching, and remember that we had left the enhanced unconscious in the top room. With a tense nervousness creeping over me I reach out with my senses and discover that there are no enhanced within the tower. I rush up the stairs but discover the body of the Wolfenkorps enhanced laying dead in the top floor room. There is a large caliber bullet wound in the centre of his head, that definitely wasn’t there when we left him, the kind of wound that would be made by a rifle. And judging by the powder marks the gun was fired at point blank range. I quickly continue my search but find nothing of interest.

Madeline has far more success, she discovers lots of plans that are written in French but with very recent changes made in German. The changes look rushed and are written in pen all over the plans. But she does discover that it was intended that General Juin would be commanding from the central command bunker. Madeline stops short when she reads that line. Realising that this is the central command bunker, and that as far as she knows we are the only ones alive in it she has a good look at the bodies lying dead in the main room. And she discovers that one of them is wearing a French Generals uniform.

Madeline heads back and radios in that General Juin has died as a result of shrapnel wounds suffered in the capture of the bunker. She is asked to confirm and she does so. The radio goes dead. Madeline then radios in the location of the second in command of the French forces, so that the task force can receive their surrender. Ten minutes later and we are relieved by Lieutenant Howards squad, he tells us that it is practically over and that we are to return to the ship. We inform him that we will be taking the bodies of two Wolfenkorps officers, he asks us why and we say;

Need to know old boy! Need to know!

He shrugs but sends four of his squad with us to help carry the bodies. We head back to the landing craft and then back out to sea, we are informed that we will be heading back to HMS Malcolm as HMS Broke was hit during the invasion and has been sunk.

Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, England, December 1942

Five days later, having taken HMS Malcolm as far as Gibraltar and then flown back to Biggin Hill, we are sat in the Hanslope Park briefing room with Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman going through a through debrief. They focus on the relationship between the Vichy French and the Germans, which we are able to inform them was very poor, and then they quickly turn the questioning to the enhanced Germans and our own uses of powers.

Major Hoffman informs us that the commanding officers of Operation Torch were very pleased with how we accounted for ourselves, and that the mission is a potential turning point for the war in North Africa. Captain Ledman then informs us that the first test of the new British enhanced chemical process is to be tested tomorrow, and if successful then as planned they will progress with further exposure of us to the chemical. With that we are told by Ledman to take a couple of days off and recover.

With Christmas Day fast approaching the atmosphere at Hanslope is the most joyous it has been since we first arrived. We spend some time working up the bare bones of a plan for our mission to Schloss Neuschwanstein and in a moment of jovial mirth it is nicknamed Operation Reindeer, leading to Sven prancing around the briefing room transformed into a small reindeer. During that time we are informed by Captain Ledman that the initial test has yielded positive results and that the subject survived the procedure and is doing well. They are currently in a state similar to how we were after our initial exposure, but theirs is far milder in nature.

Christmas Day is a wonderful oasis of fun in the face of the war. We have a wonderful dinner and Madeline gets me a beautiful box of chocolates. I gift her French cigarettes, and I also receive several gifts from numerous scientists and staff around Hanslope Park. Only some of whom I know. On Boxing Day we are informed by Captain Ledman that Subject H is conscious and is showing the first signs of enhanced abilities, with limited control as is to be expected. Madeline asks for more details but Captain Ledman remains tight lipped. Ledman looks around at us all and asks;

Do you still wish to proceed?

We all agree that we are still willing to go ahead. Captain Ledman looks pleased and tells us that we will begin with the first of us in forty eight hours. We agree to draw lots and end up with myself being the first, followed by Frank, Sven and then Madeline.

RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, England, December 1942

We undergo three days of preparation and medicals at RAF Halton, the location of the new enhanced facility, after which I am cleared to undergo the process. I am strapped to a surgical table, dressed only in a hospital gown, and two large injector arms are position above me. The doctors remove two glowing blue vials from an insulated container and insert them into the injector units, the units are then positioned one over each of my arms and the process is started. As the enhanced chemical is injected into both arms simultaneously I am gripped with intense pain.

I start to feel a warmth flowing from the injection sites and slowly my vision is tinged with a blue hue. Next the doctors trigger the x-ray process and the pain returns, tenfold. This is followed by what I know as a familiar blue pulsing emanating from my own body, it rapidly increases in intensity and the pain mounts to the point where I blue out.

I ‘wake’ up in a sea of blue. Slowly, ever so slowly, I become aware of my own body. I start to sense it as a three dimensional shape, with some areas pushed out or extended. After some time, but without any knowledge of time passing, I start to understand that those extended areas are representative of my enhanced abilities. I also realise that I have the power to change those areas by pushing them further, but not only that I have the power to alter other aspects of my being to create new enhanced powers.

I gently try and remove the requirement for physical contact on my ability to ‘borrow’ enhanced abilities and I succeed, but the effort exhausts me. After an undetermined length of time I feel able to try something else and so I try and push out the range of my ability to sense enhanced abilities. Again I am exhausted by the effort but I believe that I have managed it. I make several other attempts and have various levels of success, and eventually I wake up once more in the real world.

I am informed by the doctors that it has been five days and six hours since the initial injection. I undergo a barrage of checks and tests and am visited by Ledman. I ask him how the others are and am told not to worry and to just focus on getting stronger. I fall into a deep, proper sleep. The following day I am visited by Frank. He tells me that he was unconscious for almost five days and that Sven and Madeline are both still unconscious but that the doctors believe that everything was a success.

Sven wakes up later that day, but it is another two days before Madeline regains consciousnesses. After four days of tests at RAF Halton we are discharged and return back to Hanslope Park where we once again undergo training in order to master our new abilities. And after three days I have gained a good grip on what I can now do. I also seem to have developed the ability to mimic anything that I hear, from birdsong to voices. I’m just like a mockingbird.

We continue to receive briefings on Operation Reindeer and are given our mission priorities by Major Hoffman;

Right then chaps! Primarily you need to obtain details of any enhanced that the enemy have produced and destroy their ability to create anymore. Secondly, secure details on Wolfenkorps Alpha activities and in particular their timescales for testing. Thirdly you need to get details of the Wolfenkorps Beta demonstration to the German leadership and if at all possible, disrupt the demonstration.

At that point Captain Ledman cut in;

And disrupt the leadership if at all possible!

Major Hoffman looked a bit uncomfortable at that point, but carried on to inform us that the Schloss had been a low key military location for some time but recently it has seen a significant increase in activity with a buildup of up to two companies and supporting armour. Given how far behind enemy lines the target site is the only possible deployment will be by parachute from a stripped down Afro Lancaster. With that Major Hoffman leaves us and Captain Ledman takes control of the briefing;

If the opportunity arises, make sure that you disrupt the German leadership!

Ledman throws a folder onto the briefing table and as he does so some of the pictures spill out, we find ourselves looking at the face of Adolf Hitler.