John G. Evans

GALACTIC LEBENSRAUM

CHAPTER ONE

April 2083

A range of mountains towered over a beautiful alpine valley. Below the forested escarpments a lake glowed, its calm waters stretching far into the distance. Konrad lay amongst the tall wild flowers and grasses which filled the meadow high above the beautiful backdrop. A butterfly appeared before him, its wings shimmering like oil on water. He followed the butterfly as it flew across the meadow, stopping occasionally as it did to land upon a bright flower and suckle upon the nectar within.

For a few moments the little insect continued its merry dance until it appeared to stop mid-air and change direction. It headed towards another figure, who like Konrad, lay amongst the swaying grass. Flowers decorated the woman’s long black hair and a relaxed smile dominated her face. She too watched the butterfly, her hypnotic green eyes drawing the little creature towards her until eventually it landed on her out-stretched hand, fanning its wings slowly as it rested on her elegant fingers. After a moment it flew away again, playfully circling around the laughing woman as it left.

Then at that moment, an icy breeze rose.

The breeze’s presence was insidious at first, but its growing power soon buffeted the little butterfly far into the distance.

As the breeze grew in strength, the blue sky darkened to become a threatening veil above the mountains. The temperature dropped, then a beat, heavy and powerful, began to accompany the strengthening wind. Konrad frowned as he clambered to his feet, listening to the sound. It seemed as if the entire valley was stirring into life.

Concerned now, he headed towards the mysterious woman. But she had already stood and walked down the meadow, seemingly hypnotised by the sound.

Ominously, and unseen by Konrad, his footprints left strange stains in the grass. They spread like a malignant cancer across the meadow, the grass wilting and decaying in its wake.

The mysterious woman drew further away from Konrad. In response, he tried to quicken his pace to catch up to her, but his limbs became like laden weights, pinning him to the ground. He shouted, but once again the woman ignored him as she reached the lake’s shore below and disappeared.

Meanwhile the deadly smear spread its black throngs further. It smothered the meadows, the lake, and the mountains, until the entire landscape was in its dark shroud. The blackness seeped up the immobile Konrad’s feet and around his legs, crystallising as it rose to form an ebony chrysalis around him. He was now imprisoned and at the mercy of the power that was slowly revealing itself before him.

At the bottom of the valley a structure started to form. It dragged itself into the laden sky, feeding upon the sea of blackness as it grew and grew. The hills and mountains rumbled thunderously as they too were cannibalised by the emerging shape. Eventually, the entire landscape was scoured of its natural contours, wiped clean by this ravenous force which fed upon the land until all that remained was a flat, endless horizon and a single black spire, its scale vast and god-like. Konrad’s heart trembled at the sight as the beating that triggered the demise of the heavenly scene reached its deafening crescendo. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

Then the sound ceased.

Konrad slowly opened his eyes and gazed up at the towering spire. His insignificance before it magnified by its silence.

Then a new sound, a voice, filled the void.

‘Your destiny lies with me!’ it screamed.

Konrad shot up from his bunk. This man, this prisoner, was a far cry from the healthy figure that had just appeared in the haunting dream. Relief overcame Konrad as he settled back onto his sweat-soaked pillow when he realised the hellish drama had been merely a nightmare.

Lying in the darkness, he sighed as he wiped his thin face, his fingers running over his protruding cheekbones and sunken eye-sockets. As he did, he saw the tattoo on his wrist, the permanent mark that forever reminded him of his lowly status. Branded into his flesh was a bar-code and it denoted that he was a prisoner of the Third Reich.

When the camps were first created in 1930’s Germany, each prisoner had been handed a simple numbered tunic, then, as the camp system grew during the following decade and during the war, the numbering system evolved into basic tattoos. At first, the tattoo comprised on a series of numbers, but over time other pieces of information such as the class of crime the prisoner had committed were added. This was usually symbolised by a coloured shape; a red triangle for a political prisoner, a yellow Star of David for a Jew, a green triangle for a criminal, a pink triangle for a homosexual and so on. Eventually all these various pieces of information were incorporated into a sophisticated bar-code that was introduced during the 1970’s, and this form of numbering, despite flirtations with technology such as microchips planted under the skin and data-collars, remained the favoured method of cataloguing the Third Reich’s prisoners.

He now looked around the gloomy dormitory that he called his home. Hundreds of bunks were packed into the room. Its cold concrete walls were slick with damp and scarred with hundreds of pieces of graffiti. The names of prisoners, sexual imagery, football team badges, even defiant anti-Nazi slogans were scratched into the cement and this tableaux of graffiti reminded Konrad of Stone-Age cave paintings. Perhaps it was fitting that the crude drawings were so similar to those ancient ones because in the eyes of Nazis both were the work of barbarians.

A series of small stoves stood between the bunks like silent guards, their faint orange glow providing the dormitory’s only source of illumination. The dancing light exposed the slumbering bodies that were squeezed head to toe on the bunks. The natural noises of the night – wheezing, coughing, crying, even the odd scream – generated an animal-like atmosphere rather like a zoo after hours. At the same time, the camp’s mechanical noises also added to the acoustic mixture. Utility-pipes slung from the ceiling dripped and gurgled, while the room’s support beams creaked and its air-vents hissed and whined.

Konrad had been imprisoned at Neu Magdeburg camp for three years. The overt bitterness at his predicament that had consumed him at the start of his sentence had long ago drained from him, instead, his focus was now firmly fixed on surviving in the camp as long as possible. He was determined that the numerous ways of death that stalked the camp’s corridors such as malnutrition, sickness, exhaustion and cruelty would not claim him too. But his motive to survive had nothing to do with wanting to escape or to prove his innocence, instead, what drove this all-encompassing survival instinct was to live long enough to see the Nazis destroyed and their damned swastika wiped from history. Realistically he knew it was a forlorn hope, but to have any hope of achieving this seemingly impossible goal, Konrad had to stay alive and the best way to stay alive in this harsh konzentrationslager or concentration camp was to be an asset to his Nazi masters. He knew the most dangerous thing for a prisoner to do was to appear to be expendable. Being sick or weak were guaranteed tickets to the camp’s gas chamber.

Konrad stared at the bottom of the bunk above him for a few moments. The bunk creaked every so often under the weight of its unseen occupant, the wooden slats shifting and bending. The grain of the wood slats reminded him of the black clouds that ran across the laden sky depicted in his nightmare. Another natural line formed a horizon and a simulacra image formed in the wood. It was an image of the spire. He traced this phantom with his finger, scratching the shape into the soft wood with his grubby fingernail.

‘Your destiny lies with me,’ Konrad quietly said to himself as he fingered the shape.

A shrill buzzer sounded before the dormitory’s light’s flickered on. Automatically Konrad rose from his bunk. It didn’t pay to loiter too long in your bunk because soon the Kapos would enter. The Kapos were inmates just like Konrad and the others, but in exchange for extra rations and preferential treatment, these prisoners brutally kept order in the dormitories and were usually drawn from the ranks of the camp’s criminal population and not from the political prisoners. As a result, the Kapos were resented by the other prisoners, but Konrad himself couldn’t blame them for selling out because all these men were doing was simply finding a way to survive just like him.

Now dressed, Konrad looked down the dormitory and saw that a large scrum had already formed outside the latrine. He scurried between the stoves to join the jostling mass of bodies. Outside the latrine the dreaded Kapos stood encouraging the waiting prisoners inside.

‘Keep moving, you filthy bastards!’ the Kapos cried. ‘Keep moving!’

Konrad successfully avoided their swinging fists and batons and entered the latrine. On one side of the poorly-lit room was a bank of wash-basins over which a prisoner was hunched, swilling their faces and bodies with the foul water that spat from the rusting taps. Opposite the basins and hidden behind a waist-high screen were a series of metal drums. The nauseating smell that emanated from these drums indicated what they contained. Suddenly a space appeared at the side of one of these containers. Konrad took his chance and deposited himself over it. He pulled down his pants and carefully rolled up the old newspaper that had clung to his bony body. This was his treasured insulation paper and a god-send in the cold environment. The last thing he wanted was for it to fall into the shit and piss below. It was an old newspaper, a copy of the popular Völkischer Beobachter which he had stolen long ago from the camp’s sickbay when he was part of a work-party that redecorated the facility. But the newspaper was a constant reminder to Konrad as to why he was stuck in the prison. By some terrible coincidence one of the stories in the edition he possessed reported his own court case. He could have discarded the mocking article, with its half-truths and down-right lies, but he had decided to keep it. The newspaper was a reminder of his previous life.

BRAINWASHER THWARTED BY PUPILS.

A Bremen schoolteacher who attempted to brainwash his pupils was yesterday jailed for life by the People’s Court. During the course of the week long trial, the court heard how Hans Konrad attempted to instil in his innocent pupils, some as young as 10-years-old, the warped and twisted notion of an alternative world in which Germany lost the war to the Bolsheviks and their Jewish-backed Western Allies.

Prosecutor Vogel said: “Konrad, despite his lack of violence, proved to be an extremely dangerous individual. The Reich is now, thankfully, a safer place now that he has been removed from society. His attempt to corrupt his own pupils with his venomous and insidious subversion has turned the stomach of every good and loyal German. He tried to foist his ludicrous and blasphemous fantasies upon the Reich’s most innocent members, its children, that if left unchecked could have bred an illogical belief of an alternative world without the power and beauty of Nazism and that of our beloved Überführer.”

The prosecutor went on to describe how it was one of Konrad’s own pupils who reported him to the authorities and brought his perverted career to an end. The young boy was rewarded with a 10 Reichsmark book token.

In the past, men’s lives had been destroyed in exchange for countries or great wealth, but Konrad’s was destroyed simply for the sake of a book token.

As he completed his natural duties, some prisoners, not bothering to wait for an empty drum, simply urinated against the screen or onto the tiled floor in front of him. The lack of shame from his fellow inmates wasn’t a surprise to him, and he was thankful that he hadn’t yet sunk to that level. The steaming liquid splashed Konrad as he pulled his pants back up. Moving past the screen he claimed a spot in front of an empty basin. Again he safely tucked his jacket and paper between his legs, then cupped his hands to catch the cool, brown water and used it to quickly wipe his face and body. He finished washing and then took another scoop of water. For a moment he considered swallowing the dirty liquid to wash away his constant thirst, but he restrained himself and allowed the gnawing thirst to remain his relentless companion. It was better to remain thirsty and alive than risk taking a drink and die from dysentery. Pulling away from the basin, Konrad eased himself back into the saggy jacket and reached down to retrieve the paper, but as he did the buzzer sounded once again, prompting a final rush to the basins and the latrines. The rush of bodies knocked Konrad forward into the dividing screen, and as he clattered into the tiled partition the newspaper slipped from his grasp and landed on the floor. He pushed several prisoners out of the way as he stooped to retrieve the paper, but it was already too late. A pool of urine had soaked into the newspaper. As a result the headlines that had been previously so stark and unchanging were transformed into smudged and distorted gibberish. He lifted the wet paper from the floor but it broke apart messily in his hands and so the last traces of his previous life and his most treasured possession in this god-forsaken place had now been taken from him too, just like the life that had been described in the headlines and the story.

Filing out of the dormitory, a downcast Konrad and his fellow prisoners, escorted by the Kapos, headed down a mine-like corridor whose surface twinkled with icy condensation. The rusting grating beneath their feet rattled rhythmically as they marched. As Konrad marched along he passed several port-holes set in the corridor’s wall. If he had been offered the chance to look out beyond the cold, blank walls he would have seen a spectacular sight, this was because the camp in which Konrad was imprisoned wasn’t located in some god-forsaken corner of Eastern Europe, or in the depths of the deserts of Africa, instead, it was to be found at the Reich’s most outer edge, it’s furthest extreme. The camp was housed within a captured asteroid that orbited the moon of Titan, one and half billion kilometres from the heart of Germany. The swastika now flew far beyond the borders of Europe, and it was hoped through the sweat and tears of Konrad and the other inmates that the swastika would soon fly over a land even further away.

CHAPTER TWO

Stahl’s breath smoked as he gazed down upon the giant glass sphere which dominated the room. The shining globe cast its light upon Stahl’s blue eyes and his slicked-back blonde hair. It also illuminated his black SS uniform. The solitude that the dark chamber afforded Stahl was welcomed and embraced by the Nazi officer. Its isolation and silence was in stark contrast to the hectic activity of the rest of the shuttle in which Stahl travelled. The chamber, deep within the hold of the craft, was a sanctuary away from the constant whine of the engines and the chatter of the crew.

A great amorphous sac was suspended inside the milky interior of the sphere. Its translucent skin undulated gently, distorting the light that played around the chamber. The flickering glow of this hibernation tank added a sacred touch to the chamber, it was like being within the confines of a church or temple illuminated by candlelight. And within the futuristic altarpiece and the amniotic mass floated hundreds of bodies. Men, women and children. They were engineers, scientists, soldiers, administrators, farmers, mothers, nurses; a vast cross-section of every profession and class of Nazi Germany. They were in hibernation in preparation for the great mission that awaited them and Stahl.

Stahl was still groggy from his own stint in hibernation. His arms and legs were weak from the inactivity they had endured during the four month journey from Earth. But as soon as he had clambered from his own hibernation pod, he had been drawn down here to this cold, gloomy chamber. He had been drawn here by an unspoken and irresistible compulsion. All his thoughts had been focussed upon seeing the hibernating colonists, and at the same time being in their presence drew Stahl into his own past, in particular his own birth. His SS uniform was the most obvious symbol of his position in the Reich, but his body also exhibited a potent symbol of his superiority. He possessed a unique and wholly artificial birthmark. An imperial eagle rested upon a set of the infamous double-lightning SS runes, along which was his own unique identification number. This man-made birthmark proved that he had been conceived in a test-tube and had been gestated in a synthetic womb rather like the container below him. His first moments in the world had not been in the arms of a loving mother but in the arms of a face-less technician. A cold and soulless birth to match his cold and soulless character.

Stahl was the culmination of decades of genetic engineering. For decades the Nazis, in particular the SS, had dreamed of creating the ultimate master race. This racially pure Aryan breed would be the warriors, administrators, scholars and leaders of the Third Reich and they would appear to be like gods to the servile populations they would eventually rule over. To achieve this goal, the Nazis first turned to the science of eugenics, the selective breeding of suitable subjects. During the pre-war years, the Lebensborn branch of the SS set up racial stud farms all over the country and populated them with specially selected women, all of whom outwardly portrayed the necessary physical attributes required, namely being blonde, blue-eyed and loyal to the Party. These women would then be impregnated by various visiting SS officers, and their offspring, in theory at least, would be perfect little Nazis. The boys taken under the wing of the SS, the girls trained to be like their mothers. However, eugenics is a long and clumsy process; its achievements years in the making, and even then, the desired results were never guaranteed because the sins of previous generations would still effect the present. In the years that followed seemingly perfect Aryan children were produced, but some children exhibited physical and mental disabilities, while others displayed Slavic characteristics or Mediterranean features, even of all horrors, Jewish features. The so-called racially pure volunteers of the Lebensborn program were nothing of the sort because hidden away in their genes were these unwanted racial legacies. And it was the women who took part in the program who were blamed. How could SS officers, who had to prove their Germanic lineages before joining the elite unit, possibly be the source of these “deformities”? So when the new science of genetic engineering was developed in the post-war years it presented the Nazis with the tool to finally achieve their goal, and as a bonus, it further belittled the role of women in their male-dominated society. This perfectly engineered master-race would not be bred or issue forth from the polluted bodies of women and they would be free of the unwanted bodily and mental fragilities that had plagued the previous generations. The “impure blood” would be removed at the source and the genes of so-called inferior sub-human races be forever eliminated just like the peoples who had once exhibited them and who had long been consumed by the regime’s gas-chambers and crematorium.

This Nazi genetic engineering not only enhanced the physical characteristics of their elite offspring, but it also enhanced the sinister aspects of their personalities that in any other culture would have been discouraged and suppressed. Hatred, cruelty, malice and ruthlessness were all magnified in these new generations, these attributes being seen as virtues by the Nazis and not the evils that they were.

Behind Stahl a door hissed open and a yeoman entered. The yeoman coughed hesitantly as if he was unsure whether to raise his voice in the hallowed chamber.

‘Sturmbannführer Stahl.’

There was no reply from the SS officer. He was still entranced by the colonists.

‘Herr Sturmbannführer.’ This time the yeoman’s voice was a little louder, a little more firmer.

This time Stahl turned to face the young man.

‘You wanted to be told when we were on our final approach to the camp,’ the yeoman said nervously. He had probably never addressed a SS officer in person before in his life because even amongst the German population members of the SS were treated with god-like awe.

Stahl nodded in response.

His errand apparently complete, the yeoman raised his arm in a Nazi salute, then he quickly exited, visibly relived at completing his task. But Stahl lingered in the chamber. He chose to gaze one final time at the glowing sphere and the peaceful colonists. It pleased him to know that he would one day watch over them all, his knowledge guiding them, his will directing them, his strength protecting them. That was for the future, now he had other tasks. Eventually he pulled himself away and followed the yeoman out.

CHAPTER THREE

A ruddy glow illuminated the clouds of steam and noxious smoke that filled the rocky factory. The noise within the vaulted chamber was terrific as the dragon-like furnaces’ roar mixed with the constant rumble of overhead cranes as they lifted and transported giant vats of molten metal here and there. Within this hellish grotto gangs of prisoners directed the molten pots and manoeuvred the vats over various moulds that sat waiting. But amongst the swinging vats and cranes was a constant reminder to the prisoners of the fate that awaited them if they stepped out of line. A large swastika banner hung across the cave, below which was suspended a metal girder from which dangled several dead prisoners. A placard was slung from each of their stretched and twisted necks. It read: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO SABOTEURS!

With a series of mighty clangs the vats tipped over and poured out the molten metal. The glowing stream was directed around the compacted sand moulds, then, once cooled, the metal was drawn away into the jaws of the presses which battered the sheets into their final shapes. The factory, the very camp itself, was here for the sole purpose of building something. Building a space-ship. For years the prisoners had toiled within the vast gallery first making the craft’s engines with its endless pipes and tanks, then the craft’s support-beams and flooring were created, and finally its outer-plating. Stories abounded throughout the camp over the years as to what the ship was like and what its final purpose was to be. Sleek rocket designs like those conjured up by science-fiction adventures tended to dominate the discussions, while the reasons for its construction ranged from the astute such as the further colonisation of the solar system to the fanciful notion that it was an elaborate escape vehicle for leading Nazis who knew their imminent overthrow by the barbarian hordes from the East was upon them. Whatever the true reason for the construction of the spaceship, its purpose and shape would always remain hidden from them. For all they knew the equipment they built was just simply dumped into space while they were forever trapped inside the hellish factory to endlessly toil away like Sisyphus.

Konrad stood at his work-station and operated his welding machine. He manned a large array of levers and joysticks, their rubber sheathes worn down to the bare metal after years of use. They controlled the spider-like machine which worked upon the plating, fixing various girders and supports onto the thick metal. Konrad completed his task and flipped a toggle. Another insect-like robot lowered and grabbed the completed sheeting from the station before it rattled away through a set of doors at the far end of the chamber. From there, Konrad presumed, it would trundle out into the void outside and to the newborn ship. He then waited for his next piece of work to glide down the rollers toward him. As he waited he took the opportunity to remove his goggles and rub his tired eyes. Most of his face was stained by the ever present smoke, but his eyes were highlighted by the rings of clean skin. He cast his gaze up and happened to see the dangling corpses. In the flickering light cast by the welding sparks and the furnaces, the corpses’ faces switched between darkness and light. They appeared to watch Konrad enviously. In Konrad’s mind they were envious of him because he had survived the selections that had condemned them and so, perhaps with a tinge of guilt, he quickly averted his gaze and lowered his goggles back into place, their smoked glass once again shining bright in the blue glare of his equipment.

Konrad continued with his work, letting the long hours pass by until the klaxon to end the working day would sound. It appeared to be going to plan until Brutus, the Chief Kapo, made his entrance. He towered over his entourage of fellow Kapos as he prowled the factory gallery. While his underlings simply carried rubber truncheons, Brutus was afforded the luxury of a unique cat o’ nine tails whip. Its lashes were made not of leather, but from a set of motor-chains which jangled horribly as he brushed the brutal weapon against the machines. This savage sign of authority reflected its owner perfectly. Brutus, like all the other Kapos, was a simple criminal. He had been a pimp back in Germany, his territory being the vibrant docklands of Hamburg. The name was, of course, not his real one, it was probably something common and insignificant like Hans or Heinz, but the blunt, uncompromising title he had acquired at Neu Magdeburg suited his personality perfectly. Many a prostitute in the port had felt the power of Brutus’ fists. But Brutus’ cruel and mean nature had also manifested itself physically upon him. His face was dominated by a large bulbous scar that the Kapo had obtained at the hands of some vengeful prostitutes years before. Most men would have cringed and tried to hide the injury, but Brutus wore it like a badge of honour.

As was customary when ever Konrad spotted Brutus, he hoped to melt into the other blank faces. As the Kapos wandered closer and closer, they stopped occasionally to grab a prisoner by the scruff of the neck and frog-march him away – the selected prisoner’s fate, for the moment, unknown. After a few moments Brutus and his acolytes had collected twelve men and this number appeared to be enough to satisfy them, but Brutus, almost inevitably, lingered close to Konrad’s own work-station like a ravenous hyena loitering around a stricken animal. Konrad increased his concentration levels to keep his focus on his job. Working was the best way to avoid being selected by the Kapos, but the presence of any Kapo, but especially that of Brutus, was totally unnerving. The longer Brutus waited, the greater the tension weighed down upon Konrad. It was such that he started to feel an uncomfortable urge to turn around and see exactly what Brutus was doing. He turned his head and instantly met the glare of the bull-like Kapo whose face was twisted with a sinister smile. Brutus had found another volunteer. Whether this was the Kapo’s ultimate plan was unknown, but with devilish relish his square fingers dug painfully into Konrad’s bony shoulders.

‘I just knew you wanted to help me,’ Brutus said with that sly grin on his face. ‘All you had to do was ask. I’m not wrong, am I?’

Konrad sensibly said nothing.

‘I want to hear you say it,’ Brutus said.

Again Konrad said nothing.

‘Say it,’ Brutus said as he slapped Konrad heavily across face, bursting his lip and rocking him back on his heels.

The Chief Kapo then  grabbed one of Konrad’s arms and pressed it against the sheet metal that rested on the work-station.

‘It appears that the cat’s got your tongue.’ Brutus lifted his savage weapon under Konrad’s chin. ‘Shall we ask the help of my cat o’ tails?’

Brutus then let his own eyes wander from the weapon and up above Konrad. They lingered upon the welding equipment which hung impotently awaiting Konrad’s commands. ‘I’ve a better idea!’

Brutus cackled as he ignited the welder’s blinding white-hot flame. He then slowly drew the hot flame towards Konrad’s helpless hand.

‘Are you going to ask to help me?’ Brutus hissed. ‘Are you going to beg?’

Even through the thick gauntlet that protected his hand Konrad could feel the flame’s approach, and yet, he said nothing. Stoicism held his tongue for the time being. He didn’t want to give in to the bully.

‘Just imagine the mess this welder will make of that precious hand of yours. It’ll just be a fucking lump of meat once I’ve finished with it. You’ll be no use to anyone! It’ll be the gas chamber for you with all the other fucking cripples and mongrels.’

The welder edged closer. The flame started to singe the gauntlet.

‘Please can I help you,’ Konrad finally announced much to Brutus’ pleasure.

The welder was switched off and his hand was released. As his goggles and apron were yanked off him and he was corralled with the other unfortunate volunteers selected by Brutus, Konrad cast his eyes back up towards the ceiling and the corpses that swung there. Was his fate now to replace them? Only Brutus and his acolytes knew for sure as they dragged him from the gallery and out into the darkness of the corridor outside.

CHAPTER FOUR

Stahl made his way towards the shuttle’s observation-suite. In the labyrinth of passageways that snaked through the bowels of the shuttle he passed its crew hurrying here and there as they prepared the craft for its rendezvous. The shuttle’s unseen engines vibrated and hummed under his feet, their pitch changing tone as the deck angled and banked. Orders from the shuttle’s crew echoed down the cramped corridors, but their voices were relaxed and the orders were interspersed with banter and laughter. The crew knew this stage of their journey was nearly complete and as soon as the shuttle had deposited its human cargo they would turn tail and return to Pennemünde. In contrast for Stahl, this was the end of his first stage of a long journey. For him, it was the deep breath before the plunge into the unknown.

His journey had first started on a winter morning six months previously. Stahl remembered every detail of that morning that changed his life. He had risen at around six and taken his usual simple breakfast of coffee and fruit in the dining room of his lodge. Alone, he ate and looked over a number of official papers which detailed mundane issues such as the building of a new road and the payments for various supplies and sundries at the nearby army fort. After breakfast he headed to his stables, passing the traditional morning line-up of his native servants who all bowed their heads in reverence as he passed by, collecting his hat, overcoat and riding-whip along the way. In the snow-lined courtyard Stahl mounted his favourite stallion, Dragonfire, and passed out through the covered portcullis and out onto his vast estate. The estate, a gift from the local Gauleiter, stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see. One could have been fooled into thinking that Stahl owned the entire world.

Snow smothered the landscape which during the spring and summer would have been covered with undulating fields of wheat; now the barren fields only hosted Stahl and Dragonfire as they galloped towards the river Volga which bordered one end of Stahl’s estate. As he neared the wide river, which glittered in the harsh winter sunshine, Stahl could see the distant outline of the Reich’s great Eastern Wall. He knew that beyond the impassive bulwark, chaos and barbarism reigned. The remnants of the Bolshevik empire that Stahl’s forefathers had destroyed over a century before stretched further into the East. As far as Stahl was concerned the wall marked the end of civilisation, a fence, both figuratively and in reality, that highlighted the boundary of Nazism.

It was from this bleak and colourless landscape that a dark smudge, at first, indistinct and distant, appeared. Stahl pulled up and watched as the smudge steadily transformed into a Volkswagen which rattled along the road that ran beside the river, swiftly passing the skeletal trees which lined the road, their pink summer blossom now long gone. The occupants of the car eventually spotted Stahl and the motor-car stopped, but its engine remained running for fear that if it was switched off it would never start again and the occupants would be stranded on the bleak road. The exhaust steamed into the air as the passenger-door opened and an official stepped out. Even at this distance Stahl saw that the man had pulled his overcoat up around his ears and his hat was perched low over his rat-like eyes. The official stepped off the road and trudged across the snowy field towards the Nazi and his horse. At the same time, Stahl pulled on the reins and wheeled the horse towards the approaching official. Eventually the two men met and stood facing each-other like two lonely pieces on a vast chessboard; one undoubtedly a knight, the other a lowly pawn.

‘Sturmbannführer Stahl?’ the official asked.

Stahl simply nodded from atop the horse.

‘I’ve been sent from Berlin to pass a message to you.’

‘It seems a long way to come to simply deliver a message. Have you never heard of telephones or e-mail?’ Stahl replied.

‘In normal circumstances the ministry I represent would employ such wonders of technology, but not today.’

This time Dragonfire replied for Stahl with a loud snort from its inflamed nostrils. Unperturbed, the official reached into his overcoat and held out a slim electronic-tablet. A wax seal dangled from the black device. This finally drew Stahl down from the horse’s saddle.

‘My companion and I have orders to escort you back to the aerodrome at Hitlerstadt and then accompany you on your journey thereafter,’ the official said between his chattering teeth.

Stahl carefully took the tablet and removed the seal. Removing the seal activated a scrolling message which appeared on the tablet’s screen.

As Stahl read, the official pointed to the waiting car. ‘Perhaps it would be more comfortable if you retired to the warmth of our car to read. It is bitterly cold out here.’

Stahl ignored him as he dismounted the horse to contemplate what the message said. He paced back and forth in front of the freezing bureaucrat who was handed Dragonfire’s slack reins by Stahl. The bewildered official held the leather straps as if the fate of world depended upon it.

‘The message says that all my duties and obligations out here are to be passed onto my deputy.’ Stahl looked at the official. ‘It’s a redundancy notice in other words.’

‘It’s not for me to say,’ the official struggled to say as he tried to keep Dragonfire under control.

‘I could always ignore you, but the message’s final line compels me to obey your pleasant request,’ Stahl said as he handed the tablet back to the official, exchanging it for the reins. ‘It is the will of the Führer.’

Stahl then stared wistfully across his now former snowbound estate. In the distance, smoke rose from the warm confines of his lodge. Inside, his servants, oblivious to his changed circumstances, had no doubt lit the fire in the entrance hall ready for his arrival back from his ride and be busy preparing lunch. Would they mourn his abrupt departure, or would they, as he suspected, quietly readjust to their changed circumstances and pledge their undying allegiance to his fortunate deputy. He gently patted Dragonfire, removed its bridle and the heavy leather saddle and dumped them into the snow. Stahl then gently slapped the horse, urging the animal away. But Dragonfire stood firm. The horse, unlike Stahl’s human slaves, was reluctant to leave its master’s side, but Stahl persisted, until eventually the horse turned and galloped into the distance as Stahl followed the official to the waiting car.

Once Stahl had arrived in Berlin following the plane journey from Hitlerstadt he had stared impassively out at the Reich’s capital as it passed by the car window. First, Stahl passed the Arch of Triumph with its walls adorned with the names of Germany’s war dead from not only the Great War of 1914 to 1918, but also the Second World War and the numerous campaigns fought in the East since the Nazi victory of 1943. In front of the giant arch, the car turned onto the 5km long Avenue of Splendours and the heart of the capital. Numerous government buildings such as the Ministry of War, the Nazi Party headquarters and the Propaganda Ministry, with their granite and marble façades and neo-classical columns, lined the wide boulevard. At this hour of the morning the car that carried Stahl had the avenue all to itself, and so, its scale and grandeur was only enhanced by the lonely vehicle as it sped northward. Eventually, the car turned alongside the Tiergarten, a great expanse of greenery amidst the grey concrete and granite, and stopped in front of Stahl’s destination, the Space Ministry.

The Space Ministry was housed in the impressive palace that had been built for Reichsmarshal Goering in the years after the war. The grand building reflected the extravagant nature of its first owner. Its design had been based upon the Emperor Nero’s great Golden House in ancient Rome, but this Teutonic copy of that building did not house any giant gold statues of Nero or its impressive lakes and gardens, nor the famous reception rooms perfumed with rose water, however, equally spectacular decorations lay within the Nazi building, which like its original owner displayed a confident, ostentatious view of the world. Huge golden statues depicting muscle-bound Aryan warriors vanquishing the twin dragons of Bolshevism and Judaism decorated the ministry’s grand entrance hall. Stahl and his escort passed beneath the colossal warriors and the hall’s newer additions that were more in keeping with the current tenant’s history. Statues of Adolf Bergmann, the first man in space; Hans Böhm, the first man on the moon and that of Otto Richter, Stahl’s childhood hero and the first man to set foot on Mars, lined the hall’s walls. The statues stared into the distance, their helmets under their arms, their bulky space-suits streamlined and heroic. But one other decoration dominated the hall, a colossal stone swastika. This being the capital of the Third Reich, hundreds, if not thousands, of swastikas decorated every building, road, park and home in the city. But what made this adornment so unique was the fact that it was carved from red Martian rock, a gift from the first Nazi colonists on that planet.

Finally, after walking down a series of seemingly endless corridors, Stahl’s escort halted and gestured to him to enter an office. No name plate indicated who it belonged to, but once the heavy door swung open, he knew the office did-not belong to some common bureaucrat or official. Removing his cap, Stahl entered the office slowly. The door shut silently behind him as his escorts melted away.

Like the rest of the ministry, marble dominated the office, but in addition a large panoramic window filled the room’s exterior wall. It exposed the mist-shrouded skyline outside. He walked over to the window with his hands clasped behind his back and admired the view. As the sun rose into the morning sky, Berlin exposed itself. On the other side of the Tiergarten park, the Army Headquarters straddled the apex of the Avenue of Splendours. beyond which was the wide expanse of the Grand Plaza. The empty square, the scene of countless torchlight Party rallies, was now only populated by a flock of pigeons. Either side of the plaza stood the rebuilt Reichstag and the Führer’s palace. A series of black-clad SS guards stood motionless at the top of the palace steps, their robotic stares seemingly oblivious to the rising sun. And, of course, on the far side, beyond the palace and the parliament building, was the colossal Great Hall. Its four-hundred metre high dome slowly unveiled itself from the darkness as the morning light caressed its mammoth stonework and the golden Imperial eagle that capped the giant building. But one other monument dominated even the Great Hall. It stood beyond hall, its colossal silhouette towering far in the sky and dwarfing the surrounding buildings clustered at the foot of the giant plinth it stood upon. It was a statue of the Überführer himself, Adolf Hitler. The stone figure faced the rising sun and the empire with a look of determination.

A voice suddenly sounded behind Stahl. ‘Do you think the legend is true?’

Stahl whipped his head towards the voice and found that he was face to face with one of the very men whose statue stood in the ministry’s hall. The man was Otto Richter, the first man on Mars. Long retired from exploring the cosmos, Richter now headed the Space Ministry, yet another bureaucrat in this great city of bureaucrats. Even though Stahl instantly recognised him, it was still a shock to see Richter in the flesh, and not as the heroic astronaut of his memories. Richter was no longer the young and virile figure depicted in the marble and gold. He was now an elderly man, well into his nineties and he stood stooped before the young Nazi, supporting himself with an ebony walking stick. His body may have aged, but the old astronaut’s eyes shone as brightly as the countless military decorations that adorned his uniform. And his voice, as Stahl could testify, remained strong and commanding. To Stahl it was still the voice of a hero.

‘The legend?’ asked Stahl nervously.

Richter smiled as he pointed a bony finger towards the distant statue. ‘Have you never heard of the legend that surrounds that glorious statue of our beloved Lord and saviour?’

‘I can’t say that I have, Herr Richter,’ Stahl replied. ‘To tell you the truth I’ve only ever seen it once before when I was a child. I’ve never been to the capital since. My duties ever since have kept me far from here in the East. It’s a beautiful monument, never the less.’

‘Indeed it is, Stahl.’ Richter said. ‘The legend I spoke of says that the statue will come alive if the Reich is ever threatened and destroy our enemies.’

Stahl gazed at the monument and wondered if the legend was true. He imagined the rocky deity stepping from the plinth and smiting countless enemy warriors with a single blow. Richter correctly sensed what Stahl was thinking.

‘Tell me, do you think that inert piece of rock out there can really come alive? Do you think that it can be possessed by the spirit of the Almighty Führer?’

‘It would be an incredible miracle if it was ever to come to pass, but anything is possible if it has been imbued with the power of the Überführer,’ Stahl answered. ‘Is it not written that the power of the Überführer’s will was overwhelming. Countries, empires, even continents bowed to its power. Therefore, if the Überführer willed that statue to come alive, it would happen. If he willed the sun to stop rising, it would happen. He may have left this earthly realm decades ago, but his spirit is still alive in all of us.’

‘This talk of the spirit reminds me of the stories that surround the holy blood-banner,’ Richter smiled.

The artefact Richter spoke of was a simple swastika flag that had been carried in Munich during the Nazis’ first attempt to seize power in 1923. When they were stopped by force by the police that day, several Nazis were shot, including the man who held the banner. His blood, along with that of his fellow Nazi martyrs, had soaked into the flag, transforming it into a potent and powerful relic. Indeed, it was a tradition during the years that followed for other Nazi banners and decorations to be blessed by this relic, its power transferred by the Überführer himself as he held the holy banner and decoration together. In fact, most items associated with the early days of the Reich possessed supernatural reverence in the eyes of Stahl and his fellow countrymen. But what made the blood-banner so unique amongst the Nazi relics was that it was the first.

‘I remember when I was asked to attend a ceremony at the Reich Chancellery just before my own mission to Mars all those years ago. The banner was brought out before my companions and I in a large case. In those days it was kept under lock and key in the Party headquarters, and not where it is now in its own shrine in the Führer’s palace. What struck me the most was the silence that settled over everybody who attended that ceremony when the case was opened and the banner itself was displayed. And then I had to kiss it,’ Richter’s voice turned breathless at this point. ‘I felt the power surge through me as my lips touched it. It was as if the hand of the Überführer and all those martyrs were upon my shoulder, and at that moment I knew that I would succeed in my mission and return from Mars safely.’

Stahl could have listened to Richter all day, but he had to change the subject. He turned his gaze towards the frail Nazi. ‘With all due respect, may I ask why I was  brought all the way here from Hitlerstadt? It wasn’t for a religious debate, was it?’

Richter smiled and shook his head. ‘No. I do ramble these days, but you’re right, Stahl. You were brought here to the ministry because the Party has a new task for you.’

‘Have I done something wrong?’

Again Richter shook his head. ‘No. You’ve done quite the opposite. You’ll be going somewhere even more challenging than those featureless steppes you call home. The place you’ll be going to is somewhere where the skills and experience that you’ve gathered taming that unforgiving territory will be greatly required and appreciated.’

‘Men like me are always in great demand in the East.’ Stahl gestured to the cityscape outside. ‘I would be wasted in this capital. Bureaucracy dulls the senses.’

‘You sound to me like you’re a wolf confronted with the prospect of being tamed. Have no fear, domesticity doesn’t await you. But you must understand, Stahl, you leaving the Eastern territories is not a request; it is an order. An order direct from the Führer’s palace.’

‘I understand, Herr Richter,’ Stahl said, stiffening his shoulders to attention.

Richter moved away from the window and shuffled towards a holographic projector in the centre of the room.

‘The Reich is overcrowded. The need for lebensraum has once again become our major concern. When we last confronted this issue it was solved by our Great Crusade in the East. We could continue our march eastward, but it has been decided that we will follow a more imaginative path to salvation. Therefore, the Führer, in his wisdom, has tasked the Space Ministry with solving this problem. We have decades of experience colonising the Moon and the other worlds, including my beloved Mars. He has envisioned the Reich stretching beyond these worlds and into the stars themselves. He sees the Fatherland being as infinite and endless as the universe itself. This glorious task will be long and arduous, and I have no doubt that there will be sacrifices along the way, but they will still have to be made if we are to ultimately succeed, and you will be there from the outset, Stahl.’

Richter then activated the projector. A high-resolution image of a lush planet appeared above the two Nazis. Stahl slowly circled the hologram. He gazed at the white clouds which progressed across the globe as information such as atmosphere’s oxygen content, wind speeds and air temperature appeared next to it.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it,’ Richter said proudly.

Stahl nodded in agreement.

‘Our lunar observatory first located this world ten years ago, but it was only last year that its life-sustaining qualities were discovered. Strangely this was around the same time that our beloved Führer formulated our policy to colonise the stars.’ A wistful smile filled Richter’s face as he stared beyond the hologram. ‘If was as if destiny was preparing the way for us.’

‘The planet looks similar to Earth.’

‘Indeed it does. It has roughly the same mass as Earth and it appears from the information we have gathered about it to be tranquil and fertile, its atmosphere comparable with our own. It is perfect for colonisation. It is perfect for colonisation by us,’ Richter said.

Stahl crossed his hands behind his back and contemplated the stunning hologram. Green fertile continents decorated the world, while giant oceans completed the image. Then a thought suddenly struck Stahl. ‘If this world offers such a hospitable environment does that mean that it is already inhabited?’

‘That is one question we cannot answer, Stahl. Does it matter, even it was?’

‘No. ’ Stahl pressed on with his point. ‘But what if we find intelligent life on this world?’ he asked.

‘The chances are remote my friend.’

‘But, in theory, the life we discover could have intelligence, and an intelligence that could oppose our plans.’

‘You fear we will encounter intergalactic Bolsheviks!’ Richter smiled thinly. ‘We will do what we Nazis have always done with all those who have opposed us. We will liquidate them.’

Satisfied with the answer, Stahl moved on.

‘Rocket science was never on my curriculum at the academy at Wewelsburg, but I presume we have some means of getting to this new world.’

‘Again the Space Ministry has taken care of that problem. For the last three years the Neu Magdeburg colony in the Outer Territories has been constructing, at great expense, our chariot to the stars,’ said Richter. ‘Soon the craft will be finished and you’ll be aboard. The time-line is almost heaven sent. Next year is, as you know, the one-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the creation of our glorious Nazi state. So it is only apt that we create a new chapter in our Reich’s history to celebrate that upcoming occasion.’

Stahl smiled as he peered closer at the hologram. Richter’s words had hooked him. He may have been under orders, but his enthusiasm for his new mission was growing by the second.

‘Imagine it, Stahl, a new nation of German colonists working in its fields,’ Richter said wistfully as he too stared at the spinning globe. ‘Harvesting wheat below that alien sky and raising their children on that far off world. I do so envy you.’

‘Does the planet have a name?’

‘Vanaheim,’ Richter said.

Stahl smiled. The name was steeped in Aryan mythology and it seemed the perfect name for this proposed Nazi colony.

‘According to legend the kingdom of Vanaheim was the home of the Vanir, gods of fertility and wisdom.’

‘The Vanir supposedly had the power to see into the future too,’ Stahl said.

Richter nodded. ‘Let’s hope the Vanir foresee a successful mission.’

‘And what is to be my role there, Herr Admiral?’

Richter moved closer to the younger Nazi officer. ‘You will be the Party’s eyes and ears out there, Stahl. You, my friend, will ensure that the Party is still obeyed and that there are no lapses of discipline. Your experience in the East should serve you well,’ Richter said. ‘Our people out there are the salt of the earth and most, as you know, are the back-bone of the country, but when times are hard especially with those harsh winters and the incessant native problems, doubts can arise about the regime. Dangerous doubts. Doubts that must be stamped out once they surface. The selection committee is well aware of your sterling work in Hitlerstadt during the past few years. We were certainly aware of how you suppressed that farmer’s revolt last winter. They can act like troublesome children at times.’

In the city of Hitlerstadt and surrounding countryside Stahl ruled. He was a feudal lord, only answerable to the province’s Gauleiter. His word was law as he was ruler, judge and executioner for the entire area. Not only for the German colonists who paid tribute to him, but also to the natives that worked the fields. His black uniform was the embodiment of the might of their masters, a god-like figure with the power of life and death over them all. One particular incident sprang to mind. The event that marked the end of the farmer’s revolt the Admiral spoke of. The farmers of the area had long complained about the unfair advantage the farms that belonged to the likes of Stahl and other Party officials had over them. The Nazi-controlled farms were manned by unpaid slaves and were able to undercut the produce from the colonists’ farms. This had been the case for decades, but following a couple of disastrous harvests things came to a head. The crops of Nazi-owned farms were burnt and protests held, much to the embarrassment of the regime, so in response, men like Stahl ruthlessly quashed the protests. Most of the leaders were deported to camps all around the Reich such as Neu Magdeburg, but Stahl took particular pleasure in personally executing the leader of the revolt. In the courtyard of his lodge the farmer was dragged, battered and bruised. He had knelt before Stahl and pleaded his case. Stahl listened, but once the man had finished, he was summarily shot. Stahl remembered the pool of blood that coursed from the farmer’s blasted head, the bright red liquid a declaration of victory over the disgruntled colonists.

‘There is one other reason why we are embarking on this epic trek. A more, may I say it, romantic reason,’ Richter said. ‘This thought first gripped me the moment I left the Earth and I looked down upon the surface.’

‘What was that?’ Stahl asked like an eager schoolboy.

‘That one cannot remain in the cradle forever.’

Stahl smiled as he remembered Richter’s final words as he finally reached the shuttle’s observation-suite. From the shuttle’s windows he could see the chariot that Richter had spoken of.

The Odin.

Richter had hinted at the vessel’s immense size, but only now, after seeing it finally in the flesh, could Stahl appreciate its scale. The ship was two kilometres long from bow to stern and it easily dwarfed the rocky colony of Neu Magdeburg which hung above it like some parasitic fly attached to its host via numerous connections and gantries. The main structure was made up of intricate lattice-work, the metal twisted like barb-wire. The stern sections which housed its fuel-tanks and power-plants were dominated by a cluster of graceful engine bells, their gigantic gaping maws, for the moment, dark and silent. Sweeping closer, Stahl made out on the structure microscopic figures. These were the construction engineers who were still working furiously upon the ship, their life-lines pictured briefly in the blue sparks of their welding equipment. At the opposite end of the ship were the crew’s quarters, command module and cargo carriers. Compared to the elegant engine section, the bow was an ugly carbuncle, a mass of bulky containers and communication dishes and masts, and as the shuttle jetted closer to the construction site a thought suddenly struck Stahl. The thought was not particularly complementary towards the vast vessel, and hardly the most patriotic regarding its design, but to the neutral eye it perfectly summed up the design of the spacecraft. If the devil had built a spacecraft this would be it.

CHAPTER FIVE

The lift rose up the dark shaft. Inside the rickety cage Konrad was trapped in a corner, smothered on one side by the cage’s wall and on the other by a mass of bodies. As the lift climbed, the temperature inside the rocking cage dropped as it neared the outer limits of the vast installation. Konrad’s body was too cramped to shiver with the cold, but his breath turned into a silver mist which eventually froze to form tiny ice particles. They attached themselves to everything within the cage, metal, cloth and skin, forming a frosty veneer on them all.

After Konrad had been bundled out the construction gallery by Brutus he passed several empty warehouses that had once been filled floor to ceiling with mammoth parts for the ship. But now they were eerily dark and quiet like long abandoned cathedrals. Alongside the empty warehouses were more factory galleries now also redundant, their furnaces and machinery lying in state in the darkness. All around Konrad the colony was winding down as the vessel outside neared completion. As the craft grew and neared its explosive birth, the rocky camp was approaching its doom and these sights generated a great deal of fear in Konrad. He knew once the space-craft was complete he and the other prisoners, like the redundant pieces of machinery, would no longer be needed. But unlike the foundries and production lines which would be moth-balled and sent to another camp or sold as scrap, the unwanted prisoners would all end up inside the colony’s gas chambers.

The fear that the gas chambers would be Konrad’s destination grew stronger as the lift abruptly shuddered to a halt. Its gates loudly rattled open and the Kapos, who had accompanied the prisoners, were the first to emerge. They secured the lift and locked the swinging gates in place, after which the order was given to Konrad and the prisoners to leave the cage and file into two columns. Pointedly, now that Konrad was free from the suffocating confines of the cage, a mixture of the cold and fear caused him to shiver uncontrollable.

After a few moments of standing and shivering in line Konrad spotted a familiar face amongst the lines of anonymous faces. Gigolo.

Gigolo, despite the years of hunger and work at the camp, still cut a dashing figure amongst the prisoners, and at his side was his constant companion, Erik. Konrad had formed a business relationship with Gigolo months previously. Between them they would exchange food, clothing and most important, information. If you wanted to know when the next selections for the gas chambers were due or where there was a stash of pilfered food-packs or how many sugars the Commandant took in his coffee, Gigolo was the man in the know. But standing in the line, here in the cold and the gloom, it would appear that Gigolo’s fabled line of communication had failed spectacularly.

Gigolo himself had once been a famous actor back in Germany. Unfortunately for him, he was remembered more for his good looks rather than for his acting skills. His most famous role had been that of “Heinz” in the epic Eastern film (the Nazi version of the American Westerns) Land Of My Fathers. The popular film told of a small SS unit battling to protect a family of German settlers from a ferocious band of Bolsheviks. After a rollicking battle, during which most of the SS men sacrifice themselves to protect the colonists, the villainous natives are defeated. The most famous scene from the film was when Gigolo’s character, who at the start of the film appeared to be cowardly, but who eventually proved his bravery during the climatic battle at the besieged farmhouse, hoisted the family’s swastika flag above a pile of bloody Bolshevik bodies. After the film proved to be a success, Gigolo appeared in dozens of films and television shows, usually playing dashing heroic characters in numerous Easterns, war epics and glitzy dramas. But during the filming of what turned out to be his final production, a romantic comedy set on board a Strength-Through-Joy cruise ship called A Matter of Taste, Gigolo set in motion a course of events that would eventually lead him to prison.

The film studios in Munich where Gigolo was making his latest film were paid a visit by the local Gauleiter along with his family. They were shown around the set by the film’s producers and, of course, introduced to the film’s stars. Publicity shots of the Gauleiter and Gigolo were taken. As the actor and Nazi stood side by side the star-struck official beckoned his pretty wife forward and squeezed her in between himself and Gigolo. Unfortunately for Gigolo, women had always been his vice. Star or extra, all fell under his spell. So when the Gauleiter’s wife brushed herself against Gigolo and their eyes met, he knew he would have to have her – Gauleiter’s wife or not. His opportunity came soon after as the Gauleiter naively allowed the film star to take his wife on an alternative tour of the studios. The Nazi assumed the actor was showing his beloved around the huge promenade-deck set or even the space-station sets that were being constructed on the stage next door for an upcoming science-fiction film, but he was wrong. Instead, his wife was busy in Gigolo’s dressing-room giving the actor a blow-job. When the Gauleiter found out after his wife drunkenly confessed all, he unleashed all the forces at his disposal against Gigolo as if the film star was a mass murderer or a political dissident.

Yet Gigolo’s story did-not end there.

How Gigolo fell in with Erik demonstrated how captivity can make strange bedfellows. Before, during his old life, Gigolo had never harboured any homosexual feelings. It was strictly female flesh that had aroused him. But this attitude changed, like so many things, after he had been confined upon the rock in space. At the same time, his new feelings were restricted and exclusive, their focus on only one person – Erik. Gigolo had first spotted Erik shuffling into his dormitory. Erik, no doubt, would have been totally disorientated after being cast into the circle of Hell he found himself in, surrounded as he was by all manner of unfamiliar faces, both good and bad. It was this palpable disorientation experienced by the youngster that made Gigolo feel sorry for him as he had settled on the bunk opposite. It was first time that Gigolo had experienced that feeling for any other prisoner, be it a freshman or veteran. He usually felt resentment for new arrivals because new faces meant new competition for the already scarce resources of the camp, however, his sorrow soon turned into desire.

At first, during work details, Gigolo would snatch glimpses of the young prisoner. But Gigolo always found it was at night, when they were in the dormitory, that his new lust dominated his thoughts. He would stare at Erik for hours as he slept, the darkness fuelling his fantasies. However, Erik wasn’t the innocent he appeared to be. He was fully aware of the affections lavished upon him by Gigolo, and after all, he needed a guardian angel to protect him from the predators, so one night, after waiting for the other prisoners to fall asleep, Erik dropped from his bunk and crept across the dormitory and joined Gigolo in the darkness.

‘Gigolo,’ Konrad whispered. ‘Gigolo, what’s the story? Do you know what we’re doing up here?’

Gigolo turned and whispered his reply. ‘There’s no need to fret, my friend. I’ve heard that the Nazis are expecting the arrival of some special guests.’

‘Guests, eh?’ The relief was evident in Konrad’s voice. ‘I was expecting the worst.’

‘Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to be tricked into those damned gas chambers,’ Gigolo said triumphantly. ‘I don’t think so. This is Gigolo you’re talking to, not those other saps in the dormitories. As soon as word spread on the grapevine that we were expecting visitors, I quickly got Erik and I onto the work-detail. Whatever those Nazis want us to do, it’ll most certainly beat working in that damned foundry. The smoke does so ruin my looks and that will never do!’

‘Do you know if these guests we’re expecting will be in striped uniforms like ours?’ Konrad then asked.

Gigolo shook his head. ‘Very different uniforms, I’m afraid. Black uniforms with a swastika motif,’ he stopped for a moment as a Kapo walked by. ‘I believe a whole bloody nest of them are arriving,’ Gigolo said once the Kapo was out of range. ‘And we’ve been brought up here into the attic to be their baggage handlers.’

As Gigolo finished, a set of heavy gates opened. A steep ramp lay beyond, at the top of which stood a number of SS guards. Their breath smoked like dragons as they roared at the prisoners to come up inside the cavernous hanger. Konrad always thought the factory galleries were large, but the hanger dwarfed even those industrial chambers. To him, who was so accustomed to the claustrophobic confines of his dormitory and the dank corridors of the colony and the artificial heat of the foundries, the hanger was the closest to being outside the camp’s suffocating walls.

After being escorted up the ramp, Konrad and the prisoners were herded into a corner of the giant hanger and left to their own devices. The Nazi guards, meanwhile, gathered around a portable heater that had been erected for their benefit. Its orange glow illuminated their banter which was in stark contrast to the almost arctic conditions Konrad and his comrades had to endure as they stood around kicking their heels. But the guards’ jovial behaviour was soon cut short when the camp’s Commandant made his way up the ramp.

The Commandant, a short man, around the same age as Konrad, strode across the hanger towards the posse of guards. He may have lacked height, but the Commandant was compensated with an overdose of petty-mindedness and aggression. No detail or error, no matter how small in the camp’s management, be it the construction of the spacecraft or in the discipline that was meted out escaped his attention. The camp, in his mind, was a showcase to his bureaucratic skills – a stepping stone to a job closer to home. Commandants based in the Outer Territories were usually there to serve out their time before retirement or as a punishment for crimes ranging from corruption to mere incompetence, but he was determined to use this small outpost to shine and the successful completion of the Odin would certainly help his cause. The price for his enthusiasm for the job was, of course, to be paid by the prisoners.

Beyond the hanger’s protective door, a series of dull thuds grew in volume. This muffled activity acted as a prompt to the hanger’s ground-crew to power up their equipment in anticipation and to adjust their radio-mikes and ear-protectors. At the same time, the Commandant gave his final orders to the guards who nodded, then saluted, and the prisoners, correctly sensing that their brief respite was over, automatically formed themselves into columns again as the guards headed towards them.

A klaxon heralded the appearance of the shuttle as the doors heaved open. A blast of freezing air accompanied the movable apron that carried the craft into the hanger. Konrad watched and the image that instantly sprang to mind was that of the helpless Gulliver being hauled, captive and bound, into the Lilliputian capital. Once the apron came to a halt, the ground-crew scurried about the shuttle’s underbelly attaching various cables and power-plugs. As the crew worked, the artificial atmosphere condensed on the shuttle’s super-chilled plating, the icy sheet fogging the dark metal, the icy tendrils snaking over the craft’s identification number and the large swastika painted on its side.

Eventually the shuttle’s gang-plank lowered and slammed into the deck, its ringing concussion causing the guards to snap to attention. Then led by the Odin’s commander, Admiral Bauer, the crew emerged to be immediately greeted by the Commandant who raised his arm in salute.

‘Heil Hitler!’ cried the Commandant.

But conspicuous by his absence amongst the crew was Stahl. He was no where to be seen.

Bauer returned the greeting. Gentle eyes shone from beneath the Astrokorp cap, but his face and manner displayed a man of authority and action. Konrad noticed this from the far side of the hanger as he watched. He also noted that arm raised in salute was robotic. The metallic hand clicked as the artificial ligaments and digits performed the Hitler salute.

For a few moments the two men exchanged pleasantries and the crew were formally introduced to the Commandant and the Admiral, in return, inspected the gathered guards. Of course, the Admiral and his party paid no attention to Konrad and the prisoners. He then watched the conclave of Nazis disappear and correctly sensed that the respite the landing party’s presence provided was now at an end. He was proved correct as one of the guards shouted.

‘Now you fucking maggots, get on board that shuttle and break your backs for the Fatherland!’

Beyond the broad gangplank the prisoners were led directly into the shuttle’s hold. Between the deck and the low-ceiling, the cargo creaked as it settled after the long zero-gravity journey from Earth. Between the hundreds of boxes, cases and containers narrow thoroughfares ran through the cubic shapes making the hold look like an impressive scale model of a city. Once again, images from Gulliver’s Travels filled Konrad’s mind as he felt like a giant standing amongst the cityscape of cargo. A guard pushed his way past the prisoners and opened a small circular hatch in the decking. Inside the recess was a handle which the guard then turned to release the meshing that surrounded the cargo in a black, fibrous web. At the same time, the hold’s outer wall shifted to one side with a metallic sigh, exposing the gloomy hold to the bright cold of the hanger outside. As the wall moved aside, the plates of ice that had formed shattered and crashed from its surface.

‘Don’t just stand there gawping!’ the guard shouted. ‘Move your arses! The gentlemen want their belongings. And don’t any of you lot get any ideas about pocketing any goodies you find. If I find anyone thieving, I’ll cut their fucking balls off.’

The prisoners shuffled between the piles of cargo and selected suitable boxes to carry out. The lightest and less cumbersome pieces were inevitably unloaded first. Konrad, Gigolo and Erik missed out on these easy targets, and so instead, they moved deeper into the hold and further away from the guards who lounged lazily amongst the boxes.

Konrad clambered over a set of boxes and rested for a moment, safe in knowledge that he was out of sight of the guards. He looked at the angular boxes which he rested against and saw that a thick sheet of tarpaulin had been slung tightly over them, the intention obviously to hide the boxes’ contents. But the tarpaulin didn’t quite cover them totally, and so, a set of stencilled lettering could be made out. The stencilled writing read: ZYKLON-B! FOR USE BY AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY! POISONOUS – HANDLE WITH CARE!

Konrad dropped the cover back into place as if the poison within the container had seeped into it and into his fingers.

‘Look at this!’ Konrad hissed.

Gigolo and Erik crawled over and joined Konrad. Like him, they were reluctant to touch the poisonous container.

‘I bet none of us have been this close to this filth and lived!’ exclaimed Konrad.

Gigolo kept a protective arm around Erik. ‘It’s the nearest I ever want to get to that poison. Even looking at the box gives me the creeps.’

‘What is this poison? What’s it for?’ Erik asked naively.

Gigolo playfully slapped Erik on the cheek. ‘Dummkopf! Can’t you see what this box of delights contains? It’s Zyklon-B!’

Erik simply shrugged.

Gigolo rolled his eyes in frustration at his young comrade. ‘This, my friend, is what those Nazi bastards use in that god-forsaken gas-chamber they keep in the bowels of this place.’

Konrad nodded.

Erik gingerly lifted the tarpaulin. ‘There’s a tonne of that poison inside there. Why the hell do they need so much?’

‘Think about it, Erik,’ Konrad said. ‘A host of Nazi space-jockeys arrive here. The storehouses are practically empty. All the foundries are shutting down. All the guards are walking around with grins the size of the Rhine on their faces because they know they’re on their way home soon. All because the ship is virtually complete and that can only mean one thing. This damned poison is to be used on us. We’re to be made redundant – permanently.’

‘Did you expect it to end any other way?’ Gigolo asked looking at Konrad.

‘No,’ Konrad replied sadly.

Ignoring the deadly piece of cargo, Gigolo and Erik positioned themselves around a knee-high container opposite and grabbed the dangling hand-holds that jutted from its sides. Konrad eased himself over and joined the two other prisoners. After a count of three, they then lifted the cargo from its resting place and waddled towards the hanger. But as the little group drew closer to the exit through the narrow passages, a light from the rear of the hold caught Konrad’s eye – a pink iridescent light.

The light’s primeval radiance snared Konrad in its grasp; hypnotising him, seducing him. He dropped his end of the container and started to clamber across the payload, the pink light the only thing that filled his vision.

‘Konrad?’ Gigolo said anxiously as he too saw the light. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Konrad said. ‘But I’m going to find out.’

Gigolo’s eyes darted between the eerie glow and the guards. ‘Forget about that light. It’s nothing.’

Konrad continued to clamber away from Gigolo and Erik.

‘Come back before the guards see you,’ Erik pleaded.

Konrad turned to face his comrades as he appeared to consider their pleas.

‘Remember, it doesn’t pay to be curious around here,’ Gigolo said.

Konrad simply turned away.

‘Konrad.’ Gigolo desperately whispered. ‘Konrad!’

But he had already disappeared.

Konrad reached the other side of the hold. The radiant light still stood before him. It bled from a thick port-hole set in the centre of a circular hatch. Pawing at the wall like a blind man, he found the hatch’s control, which he then eagerly activated. It rose with a quiet hiss and revealed a short flight of spiral steps, at the top of which was located the apparent source of the mysterious light. He wound his way up and entered the very same spherical chamber that Stahl had occupied only hours before.

For a few moments Konrad simply gazed at the fogged-up sphere, which hummed impassively above him like a glittering deity in a temple. A series of controls ringed the lower half of the chamber. These, Konrad correctly assumed, monitored the sphere. Intriguingly, the controls displayed what he recognised as respiration and heart rates. There was something alive inside the sphere.

He cautiously approached the humming glass structure, his eyes narrowing with interest as he wiped away the condensation to expose the floating figures within. Recoiling, Konrad expected all the eyes to open at once to stare at the intruder, but thankfully for him, the eyes remained closed, the slumbering bodies apparently unconcerned by his presence. A new caution then prompted his steps to become softer and more tentative as the safety-net of the sounds of his colleagues working in the hold echoed less and less. This growing silence fed his fear of discovery and even threatened to overcome his innate curiosity. But despite this, Konrad stayed in the chamber.

Tracing his fingers across the sphere, he exposed the body of one of the female colonists. The prisoner paused. He was transfixed by the angelic body that swirled before him. It had been so long since he had seen a woman, any woman, that the sight of this Nazi colonist triggered emotions, feelings, urges that had long been suppressed and buried by the brutal all-male environment. He imagined his hands running over her breasts, his fingers kneading them slowly at first, then faster and more aggressively as his imaginary lust took hold of him. His hands drifted down her sensuous curves towards her buttocks and her pubic region. His bony body then entwined wantonly with hers. The fantasy intoxicated Konrad, totally wiping away his fear of being caught in this Nazi sanctum, but this lack of fear dulled his senses to such an extent that he was totally unprepared for what happened next.

A hand, strong and snake-like, suddenly whipped from the darkness and pushed Konrad to the floor.

‘Don’t touch them!’

Stahl emerged menacingly from the shadows and yanked the stunned prisoner to his feet and pinned him against the wall opposite the glass container.

‘Keep away from that sphere or you’ll contaminate it with your filthy hands!’ Stahl shouted. He slapped the disorientated prisoner. ‘Who are you? What are you doing up here?’ he then demanded.

The Nazi’s face totally dominated Konrad’s vision. It felt like Stahl was looking right into his soul. Konrad’s mind whirled as he pawed at the steel-grip around his throat as he realised with horror that the Nazi’s menacing voice was exactly the same as that terrible sound that had boomed from the spire in his dream!

‘It can’t be,’ Konrad muttered. ‘It can’t be the same voice.’

‘What did you say?’ Stahl asked, cocking his head like an inquisitive dog when he heard the strange answer provided by the cowering prisoner. He released Konrad.

‘I said nothing,’ Konrad said as he rubbed his throat.

‘Don’t treat me like a fool. What did you say?’

Konrad knew perfectly well that he couldn’t tell the truth. How could he explain that he had heard the Nazi’s voice in a nightmare. He breathed deeply as he tried to regain his composure and hoped his next answer would satisfy Stahl.

‘I said “Let me go.” That’s all I said.’

For a second, Stahl didn’t appear to be convinced by Konrad’s answer. His eyes narrowed into menacing slits as he considered the prisoner’s spluttered reply.

‘Are you sure that’s all you said?’ Stahl asked. ‘To my ear, you said, and I quote: “It can’t be the same voice.” So are you saying that it was I that heard you wrong? It was I who made the mistake.’

What could Konrad say? If he attempted to contradict the SS officer it would be a certain death-sentence. So, instead, he remained silent.

Again the Nazi’s eyes bored into the prisoner as he considered what to do next. A thin smile slowly crossed Stahl’s face. ‘Perhaps you were right, and I did mishear you.’

‘It’s not my place to say.’

‘At least we can agree on that!’ Stahl exclaimed. ‘As you say, this is indeed not your place. What were you doing in this chamber, you pig? I want the truth. Were you attempting to sabotage this hibernation tank?’

Konrad cried. ‘No, it wasn’t sabotage!’

‘Then why were you here?’

Konrad thought quickly for a suitable response. ‘I was in the hold looking for something amongst the cargo to steal.’

‘So you’re nothing more than a common thief,’ Stahl said with a note of disappointment.

‘I was looking for something valuable that I could trade for food back in the camp,’ Konrad said, thinking on his feet. He removed his cap, kneading it between his fingers to heighten his deference towards the Nazi. ‘But when I was in the hold, I saw the light from this chamber, and curious I decided to follow it.’

‘You were curious?’ Stahl smiled thinly.

He then slapped Konrad across the face.

‘Are you still curious?’ the Nazi then mockingly asked.

‘No,’ Konrad muttered.

‘I would have thought that curiosity would be a dangerous habit for a prisoner to possess, especially in a place like this. Curiosity in your kind usually ends in a trip to the gas chamber. And believe me when I say that’s a fate I would be more than happy to confer upon you for desecrating this place.’

Konrad bowed his head to avoid Stahl’s withering gaze.

‘Haven’t you anything to say to me?’ Stahl then asked. ‘Something you need to say that would stay your punishment.’

‘Please forgive me,’ Konrad mumbled.

Apparently satisfied, Stahl released him and turned to gaze at the container.

‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’ Stahl said proudly. It was obviously for Konrad’s benefit.

Konrad remained silent, lest any answer he now gave triggered the Nazi’s anger again.

‘Tell me, do you think they’re gods?’ Stahl asked. He looked at Konrad. ‘Would you worship them?’

‘If I was ordered to worship them, then I would,’ Konrad replied.

‘The answer of a true slave,’ Stahl smiled. ‘You’ve remembered your lesson after you became a prisoner, that all those who are adorned with the swastika are god-like in their magnificence.’ He pointed to his swastika arm-band. ‘This symbol means immortally, whereas your symbol – your prison ID – means death. However, since you have exhibited such a curious nature, perhaps I should take you with me. After all, we will need someone to grovel at our feet.’

After listening to Stahl, Konrad looked again at the tank. The thought of worshipping the likes of Stahl and the colonists was the last thing on his mind. Instead, he imagined smashing the glass-shell to pieces and the viscous fluid vomiting over the deck and the colonists spilling out helplessly at his feet and at his mercy. But again, like all his fantasies, it remained buried beneath his blank façade, joining his dreams of the destruction of the Nazis, his lust for the female colonist and the pleasant beginnings to that notorious nightmare.

‘Get the fuck out of here,’ Stahl said as pushed Konrad away like a spoilt child bored with a new toy.

Cut loose from the physical and mentally suffocating grasp of the Nazi, Konrad scurried back down the spiral staircase towards the safety of the hold. He only looked back once and saw Stahl standing silhouetted against the radiant sphere, erect and motionless just like the spire, and just like his terrible dream, this brief experience ended when he was swallowed by the darkness as the hatch hissed shut.

CHAPTER SIX

Stahl had stared into his drink for what had seemed hours. He stood oblivious to the decadent surroundings at the bar. For a brief moment he raised his eyes from the lifeless lager in front of him and looked around the dimly-lit salon. On one side of the room was the bar, its bright-neon shelves full of numerous bottles of lager, spirits and liqueurs. A bar-tender flitted between the various shelves, grabbing a tall slim bottle of vodka or a short, angular bottle of Jägermeister with one hand while dispensing a draught lager with the other, all the time joking and talking with the rabble of guards and crewmen swarmed around the bar. At the far end of the bar was a small stage which was ringed by a set of blue satin curtains. From this stage a runway projected which ran the length of the room. Opposite the bar, a backlit mural displaying images of Germany shone brightly. It depicted endless fields farmed by happy, smiling citizens and lush alpine forests and valleys. These romantic images, in turn, merged with those of German soldiers fighting Bolshevik barbarians and images of German rockets and lunar colonists. The German figures were, of course, depicted as heroic stereotypes, while the Bolsheviks were painted as brutish, sub-human creatures.

Silhouetted against this bright mural were dozens of tables and chairs, all of which were filled with partying Nazis, their loud drunken voices slurring the raucous party songs that accompanied their incessant drinking. Thanks to the Commandant, the salon had been opened up for the newly arrived crewmen. Here they would party before they left on their mission. Admiral Bauer had gracelessly accepted the offer on behalf of his men, but he had refused to join them. Other matters aboard the new craft drew attention, and it would have been unseemly for him, an Admiral of the Fleet, to be seen drinking with the ranks. He preferred for his men to let off steam here, rather than onboard. The prospect of being confined inside a hibernation tank for decades wasn’t the most attractive of propositions, the very idea filled the Admiral with dread, but it was something that had to be done as their journey wasn’t to be a year-long jaunt around the solar-system. The planet was twelve light-years away and as such, the journey itself, with their technology, would take up to fifty years. A one way ticket.

And the men weren’t alone. Here and there were dotted women, in all likelihood, the only women for millions of kilometres. They were the female inmates of Neu Magdeburg, and the decadent salon that Stahl now found himself was housed within the camp’s fraüenblock. The ghostly female inmates drifted amongst the Nazis, draping their arms around the men’s shoulders, sitting in their laps, or entwined in embraces. But their faces were blank and emotionless, their smiles as washed-out as their tacky make-up, or the faded dresses that covered their skeletal bodies. However, the women’s pleasures held no appeal to Stahl. Several of the inmates had attempted to entice him, but all had received short shrift from the SS officer. His cold withering gaze was enough to warn the women away. To him, all the female flesh that surrounded him and that was so readily available was contaminated. Their crimes, their nationalities, even their very beliefs, made them all strictly verboten to him. They were all untermenschen – sub-humans. He had been taught by the Party that copulating with these women would be bestial and unclean, and as such, he silently frowned upon his colleagues for even considering polluting themselves with these creatures. But he knew full well the prospect of not having a woman again could persuade any Nazi to abandon his sacred oath not to poison their bodies. This weakness of succumbing to this base temptation was something that Stahl was confident he would never succumb to.

Stahl’s ruminations were soon distracted by the presence at his side of Blomberg, the camp doctor. He was around the same age as Stahl, but unlike his strong appearance, Blomberg was weak and if it wasn’t for the Nazi uniform he wore he could have been easily mistaken for one of the prisoners. To complete the fragile look, the doctor wore a pair of rimless glasses which reflected the bright and garish bar. The doctor removed Stahl’s stale bottle from in front of him and caught the eye of the barman. ‘Another round here,’ he said loudly above the drunken din.

With his lonely drink gone, Stahl was finally stirred into action. He tried to prevent the barman preparing more drinks, but it was to no avail as two fresh lagers were instantly plonked onto the glowing bar. He turned towards his benefactor. ‘Thank you for the gesture, but it isn’t really necessary,’ he said. ‘I was about to retire for the night. There are too many things in this room that are not to my taste. The beer included!’

‘I hope my presence is not included amongst these things, Herr Stahl,’ Blomberg said hopefully. It was obvious he was eager to please.

Stahl smiled thinly as the man offered his hand. ‘You have no fears on that account, Doctor ..?’

‘I am Doctor Blomberg. Currently I am the camp’s medical officer. Will you please indulge me and accept, at least, this one drink. It’s not often that one can toast the health of a hero – and a sober hero to boot.’

Stahl accepted the drink and sipped from the bottle. Blomberg leaned against the bar and gestured around the salon.

‘It would appear that you and I are the only clear-headed men in this room at this time,’ Blomberg said with a note of distain. ‘Your comrades aren’t exactly setting a good example with this behaviour of theirs. I did expect more from such an illustrious collection of men.’

‘It was not my decision to allow them the use of the facilities here. That was Admiral Bauer’s decision. But I can understand it nevertheless. The men need to relax before we are sealed in our chariot. I just hoped that they would have shown less exuberance in their manner of relaxation.’

Blomberg removed his glasses and cleaned them on his black sleeve. ‘I’m sure the Admiral would also disapprove if he saw what was going on in here in the fraüenblock. I’ve seen it countless times. The females here always succeed in arousing the base instincts of our men, no matter their rank or status.’

‘I didn’t think a place like this would exist out here. A construction camp so far out in the Outer Territories,’ Stahl said.

‘The Space Ministry have spared no expense with this project of theirs, believe me,’ Blomberg said as he put the glasses back on. He adjusted them as he looked around the salon again. ‘Every whim is to be catered for to keep the construction workers, the guards, and now your crew, happy while they are stuck here in the arse-hole of the Reich. Still, the very idea of cavorting with those creatures of the night fills me with disgust. Shouldn’t their minds be focussed on the task ahead? Aren’t they meant to be spreading the majesty of the Reich and not the clap?’

Stahl finally cracked a smile and a small part of his passive shell fell away.

‘I fear that’ll be our own Doctor Huber’s concern when we reach Vanaheim,’ Stahl replied. ‘No doubt he’ll be treating intergalactic crabs and gonorrhoea for years to come,’ Stahl said. ‘Another first for Nazi Germany,’ he then added jokingly.

Both men laughed nervously because even here, amongst the boisterous atmosphere, the fear of saying the wrong thing still pervaded. Even someone as powerful as Stahl, someone who one would have thought had nothing to fear from such trivialities, had to watch every word he said, and so he sensibly decided to move the conversation onto more safer territory. Territory far from the lecherous behaviour of the Nazi astronauts.

‘What plans do you have once the camp is closed?’ Stahl asked. ‘Will you find another posting here in the Outer Territories?’

‘Not a chance!’ Blomberg exclaimed. ‘No offence to all those heroic colonists on the likes of the Moon, Europa, or on Mars, but I fully intend to return to my family back on Earth. I’ve had my fill of the Outer Territories. I’m fed up of recycled water, recycled air, recycled food. I want my feet back on the ground. For three years I’ve been stuck here in this camp away from my family. My child was born just before I was stationed out here. In fact, I’ve never seen her in the flesh, only on messages via the video-com.’

‘That must have been hard,’ Stahl said sympathetically.

‘It has been,’ Blomberg nodded. ‘I’m sure you understand my feelings on the matter. Have you been dragged away from your family, Herr Stahl?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Men of my rank in the SS aren’t allowed the privilege of a family. Our seed is seen to be precious and only allowed to be spread under the strict controls of the Lebensborn program.’

‘Forgive me for being so crass! I should have known.’

Stahl waved away the apology. He was far from offended. ‘Continue telling me about your plans, Blomberg.’

‘Once my family and I are reunited we plan to settle in the East. I know the government are always looking for volunteers to head out there. The incentives offered are endless. And considering all the time I’ve spent in this shit-hole, I think I could easily make a success on those steppes. It would be good to carry on the tradition of all those pioneers with my family.’

Stahl was tempted to say to Blomberg that the East was an over-rated experience, but thought better of it. He knew all about the harsh realities of those Eastern lands. It was far from the romantic Nazi vision presented to the masses. Life was hard, brutally hard, and Konrad knew that this young man’s obvious idealism and enthusiasm would soon disappear once he arrived in the settlements such as Hitlerstadt. These new towns and cities, built on the ruins of the pre-war cities of Kiev and Stalingrad, were bland and soul-less compared to the great cities of Germany. Their low-rise, concrete buildings, both civic and domestic, appeared as dull and depressing as the flat, featureless steppes that surrounded them. The East was the graveyard of countless Nazi romantics.

‘I’m sure you’ll do very well out there, Blomberg. But now, if you forgive me, I intend to do as I promised myself when we first met and retire for the evening.’

Stahl clicked his heels together politely, then downed the rest of the lager. But as he placed the empty bottle back on the bar, the lights dimmed and a spot-light shone into life. The light seemed to hypnotise the SS officer as for some reason he stood on the spot to watch what the bright beam heralded.

An introductory bass-drum thumped around the salon as a jackboot emerged from between the satin curtains, kicking in time with the jaunty beat. Then as the trumpets and tubas exalted, the curtains parted to reveal a Nazi wet-dream. Tight-fitting breeches rose from the gleaming jackboots and a pair of black braces stretched over the woman’s bare milky chest, while her gloved hands rested on her swinging hips. Her bright-red lips, which matched her swastika arm-band, parted as her tongue emerged to ring them suggestively. She then flicked the blonde hair from her shoulders and tapped the rim of her Nazi cap with a riding-crop and winked at the expectant Nazis who all exploded lustily in appreciation. The introduction complete, she strode down the runway, each step in time with the jovial march. Occasionally she would stop and spin on the spot, a thumb pulling at the elastic braces to briefly expose her breasts.

Like his comrades, Stahl was entranced and as he watched, the music, the cheering, the whistles, they all faded into the ether as his focus zeroed in on the exotic stormtrooper. This reaction was unexpected considering the calibre of the other women who occupied the fräuenblock, and to Stahl this attraction was disturbing considering his low opinion of the female inmates and their place in the scheme of things, but he let his prejudices drift away on a sea of desire as he continued to watch the routine. The dancer stepped off the stage and squeezed between the aroused men, patting cheeks and grabbing hardened crotches, and even occasionally selecting a lucky volunteer whose lap she would grind into erotically. As Stahl watched from across the room and his loins stirred, a sense of jealously suddenly took a hold of him. He wanted this girl for himself. He wanted her to be offering herself to him, and him alone.

But this voyeuristic spell was suddenly broken as the Odin’s own medical officer made an unwelcome appearance. The very drunk Doctor Huber staggered before Stahl and blocked the view of his dream woman. With Huber was a female inmate. Her scruffy hair was highlighted with pink streaks that matched the lipstick that was smeared across her gaunt face. Her tired looking eyes were ringed by thick black make-up, which like the lipstick, had been smudged like some disfigured painting. Stahl noticed that the girl was not happy to be the doctor’s object of desire as she squirmed to fight off the wandering hands.

‘Why aren’t you enjoying yourself with one these delicious girls, Stahl?’ Huber asked. ‘You can’t stand at that bar all night like an old maid. Enjoy yourself before it’s too late and we’re all cooped up in those damned hibernation tanks.’

Stahl waved him away dismissively. ‘No, thanks. But don’t let me stand in your way,’ he said as he craned his neck to look over Huber’s shoulder and re-focus on his own object of desire.

Blomberg now chipped in. ‘How many of these creatures have you fornicated with tonight, Doctor?’

Huber shrugged. ‘I lost count hours ago. But who cares? All I know is it could be fifty years, fifty long years, before I have any kind of woman again, so I might as well enjoy myself here while I still can.’ He raised the bottle of schnapps he was holding and poured some over the girl’s blouse. The drink soaked right in and exposed her breasts through the sodden material. Hungrily, Huber sucked upon the soaked blouse, his mouth enveloping each breast in turn.

Stahl seized the girl by the arm and looked her over as if he were examining an animal at a cattle market. ‘She is a pretty one, I grant you that, Huber,’ he said. ‘She could almost be passed off as a human. Still, I think it’s dangerous to consort with these animals. Bestiality holds no appeal for me.’

‘Bah!’ Huber shouted. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’ He whispered something into the girl’s ear, and she moved towards Stahl. She pressed herself against him and cupped a hand over his groin, her fingers squeezing him gently in the hope of eliciting his interest.

‘The answer’s still no,’ Stahl said as he pulled the girl’s expectant fingers away.

‘Are you telling me that there’s not one piece of meat in this fraüenblock that appeals to you?’ Huber cried.

Stahl’s eyes flashed towards the dancer on the stage. ‘Nothing at all,’ he lied.

Giving up, Huber shook his head as he pushed his female companion towards the privacy of the salon’s brothel. But before he disappeared, he shouted back at Stahl and Blomberg. ‘The things I do for the Fatherland!’

Stahl turned back to the runway, but by now the song had finished and the dancer was gone. In desperation, he spun around searching the salon for her. A sense of dread overcame Stahl as he searched. What if she had retired to the shadows of the unseen brothel with another member of the crew?

‘Where is she?’ he muttered. ‘Where is she?’

For a moment, Stahl contemplated barging into the brothel to see for himself if his unspoken fears were true, but he let his eyes return to the stage. There he saw a crack of light beyond the satin curtain, and so, just like a moth to a flame, he pushed himself from the bar and left Doctor Blomberg alone with his thoughts of Germany, the East and his family. He hurriedly pushed past men and women, kicked empty bottles, stepped over vomit and bounded onto the runway to slip through the silky barrier like Alice passing through the looking-glass.

On the other side of the curtain Stahl passed down a short corridor and found a similar sized room to the salon, but its appearance couldn’t be more different. The white-washed room was divided into a series of cells and the smell of bleach and perfume hung heavy in the air. The drunken roar from the salon, now muffled by the heavy curtains, faded the further down the corridor he went. It was unnervingly quiet, a mocking contrast to the giddy atmosphere of the salon. Stahl made his way through until he eventually found what he was looking for.

The dancer sat in her cell with her back towards Stahl. He stopped and then stood silently at the cell’s door and watched as she removed the blonde wig and cap. Removing the wig exposed her shaven skull and revealed her true nature to Stahl. The fantasy baubles of the Nazi cap, the swastika arm-band and all the other items that had been used to enhance the fantasy, all now lay strewn on the cell’s small bed. On the dresser at which the dancer sat were other props. An alpine milk-maid’s smock and apron sat in a round box and a brown Hitler-Youth uniform hung next to a set of childish pig-tails. These props, no doubt, would arouse the sexual fantasies of some other Nazi or technician, but at this moment in time, they held no appeal to Stahl. It was the sexualised stormtrooper that had aroused his loins. The dancer, still seemingly oblivious to the Nazi’s presence, then started to wash off her gaudy make-off over a bowl of water. The black eye-liner and the bright-red lipstick formed inky rivulets that dripped from her face and into the bowl and down her chest. The washings clung messily to her small breasts, the colourful stains tracing their shapes and, in Stahl’s eyes, adding an erotically charged edge to the seemingly mundane task the dancer was performing.

After she erased the make-up, the dancer suddenly froze as the Nazi appeared in her small mirror. Fumbling with the damp cloth that hung from the side of the bowl, she turned and stood.

‘I thought it was too good to be true,’ Stahl said quietly.

The dancer symbolically held her arms across her body, hiding it from the imposing SS officer. The glamorous beauty of the salon was now long gone. The figure that stood before Stahl was what she really was – an emaciated, forlorn woman. This apparent transformation from fantasy to revulsion should have dissipated the lust that had consumed Stahl, but instead of storming away, he remained where he was, and even stepped closer to the girl.

‘You’re not supposed to be back stage,’ she said defiantly.

Stahl ignored her. Instead, he settled onto the cell’s cot, which protested noisily under his weight, and lounged back, his eyes never leaving the dancer.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

Like Konrad before her, the dancer remained silent in the presence of the Nazi overlord.

Stahl smiled. ‘There’s no need to be shy with me. You weren’t shy out there in the salon. That was quite a performance you did. I was very impressed.’ He leaned forward. ‘I just want to know your name, that’s all.’

‘Does it matter, Herr Sturmbannführer?’ The fear was evident in her voice.

‘It matters to me,’ he said. ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Elsa,’ she stated.

‘Elsa will do for now. Now tell me, how did you end up out here?’

She avoided Stahl’s gaze and remained silent. A refusal to answer any of his questions usually would have raised the hackles of Stahl, but instead, he let this small note of defiance pass. He moved onto his next question.

‘Since you have chosen to remain silent on that matter, I’ll ask you another question,’ Stahl said. ‘What did you do before you committed your crime? You can indulge me with that answer, at least. I could order you to tell me, but I’d would much prefer it if you offered the answer to me.’

‘I was a musician in Nuremburg,’ Elsa finally said.

Stahl raised his eyebrows in admiration. ‘A musician, no less. Now that is a pleasant surprise. What did you play?’

But before she could answer, he suddenly raised his hands to stop her. ‘No, let me guess. You don’t appear to suit the piano, or a wind-instrument. Perhaps your expertise was with a string instrument?’

Elsa nodded.

‘Not the cello.’

Again Elsa nodded.

‘Excellent!’ Stahl exclaimed. He peered closer at the woman. ‘In that case, was it the violin?’

Elsa didn’t need to say yes for Stahl to know that he was right. He slapped his thigh triumphantly.

‘I knew it! I looked into your heart and I knew I was right,’ Stahl nodded. ‘Which orchestra was it?’

‘I performed with the Wagner orchestra,’ Elsa said with a small hint of pride.

‘The Wagner orchestra. But they are the best orchestra in all of Germany. Only the best musicians in all of Germany are allowed to play for them. I am impressed.’ Stahl then stood up off the bed and approached Elsa. ‘Yet despite for all your musical skills, my beauty, you have still ended up here to exhibit a new set of skills… much to my pleasure.’

He reached out and tucked his fingers into the waist-band of Elsa’s costume and pulled her toward him. His long fingers traced the contours of her sunken belly, her protruding ribs and up the braces, and then across her breasts. A shiver of revulsion overcame Elsa, but she sensibly controlled this nervous reaction and kept still as Stahl’s caresses continued. In contrast, revulsion was far from Stahl’s mind now. His lust totally consumed him. His excitement grew as he pressed himself against the frail figure, all the time whispering her name over and over again, faster and faster in time with the blood that was swelling his penis. Elsa closed her eyes as she felt the erect organ pressing into her and waited for Stahl to consummate his interest. It never came.

A piercing scream sounded.

Elsa’s eyes snapped open as the horrifying shriek erupted again, its source deep within the salon.

Stahl released Elsa. He cast an eye towards the sound, then back towards her. It was, as if, for that brief second, he would let his lust, his need to enter her, dictate him and hold him on that spot. Elsa could see the yearning, the desire that had dulled his harsh exterior. He dashed away and instead of remaining in her cell, Elsa followed.

The salon was in absolute chaos.

A drunken crowd made up of officers, stewards and prisoners had gathered outside the brothel’s entrance. Stahl, being the most senior officer present, took it upon himself to push his way through the swaying throng and into the room beyond.

Naked bodies screamed and shouted; their volume unbearable in the confines of the mirrored room. The walls multiplied the screaming faces ten-fold and for a moment Stahl was disorientated as he saw his own reflections in the wall. The reflections showed a man disgusted, not only with the scene in front of him, but also with himself. He approached the epicentre of all this turmoil, his boots crunching the remains of a smashed schnapps bottle along the way. As Stahl closed in, he ominously saw great streaks of blood on the walls and ceiling. Against the far wall, three officers struggled with a screeching shape. It was Ruby, the girl that only moments before had been shown off so proudly by Huber at the bar.

The girl gritted her teeth and shouted. ‘I hope you fucking die, you dirty bastard! I told him if he touched me again I’d kill him!’

Stahl turned and looked at a circular bed in the middle of the room. Its sheets were saturated by a sea of blood and amongst this gore lay Huber’s body. His throat had been slashed wide open, the broken neck of a bottle still imbedded in the wound. It was obvious he was dead, but such was the power of Huber’s sex-drive that his penis still stood erect, oblivious to the rest of the body’s demise.

Doctor Blomberg then appeared and pushed his way into the room; his multiple reflections joining the other shocked faces. He lifted Huber’s limp arm up and felt for a pulse.

‘Are you going to confirm what we all know, Blomberg,’ Stahl simply said.

He slowly nodded and forlornly dropped the dead arm back onto the blood-spattered body. He then yanked the shard of glass from the ugly wound and pulled a clean blanket from an adorning bed to carefully drape over the corpse, giving Huber some dignity, at last.

Upon the conformation of Huber’s demise, his murderer triumphantly laughed.

Stahl’s blood boiled at the sound. He balled his fists, his knuckles cracking as they turned white under the pressure. Then, quick as a flash, he swung his fist and hit the cackling prisoner full force in the face. She groaned pitifully as she slumped to the floor, helpless and now at the mercy of Stahl. Raising his jackboot, Stahl was poised above the girl’s head, ready to crack her skull wide open. Nothing could stop him. But at that split second, Stahl caught sight of Elsa reflected in the mirrored wall, and at that moment, his desire to be with her took hold of him again and it stayed the fatal stamp. He slowly lowered his jackboot to the floor and turned to the officers.

‘Take that bitch away before I change my mind,’ he said.

Guards from the camp rushed into the salon now. They ushered the shocked partygoers away and pushed the female inmates back into their cells. As the crewmen left it appeared that the death had suddenly focussed their minds on the mission ahead and the risks that were involved. Doubts, even thoughts of backing out, crossed the minds of many. It would have been understandable if you sat down and analysed all the problems that could, and would, arise during their journey and after they arrived at their far off destination. A single short-circuit or an incorrect computer code could cause the life support systems to fail; a single loose nut could compromise the fusion reactors or rattle its way through the massive engines, tearing open fuel-lines, exhausts and coolant pipes. But the more rational officers, in fact, the majority of the men selected for the mission, knew that their own bodies were as vulnerable as the great ship. A single faulty cell could trigger cancer or even a lone microbe could spread and infect their biological vessels. However, the shock of seeing one of their own been killed so swiftly by a prisoner as he lay helpless made them all feel even more fragile. Therefore, the Nazis shuffled out the salon and left the female inmates to return to the refuge of their cells. The barred environment felt strangely safe and familiar following the night’s bloody events, and naturally, Elsa followed her sisters.

Elsa had little sympathy for the victim or his, now, nervous comrades. She feared for herself and her sisters. Would a drunken colleague of the man return and take his revenge on them all? Perhaps the SS officer who had so wantonly pursued her and who had the chance to kill Ruby then and there would be the one who would have vengeance upon them. If that was the case would she too, like Ruby, protect herself. The thoughts filled Elsa’s mind to such an extent that she failed to foresee what happened next. Before she could make it back through the threshold of the satin curtains, Stahl appeared before her, his body barring her path to the cell-block. Her visions of him exploding violently flashed before her eyes. But instead, he slipped his fingers into her waist-band and once again reeled her in, her skin bristling as she felt the lust radiate from his body.

‘You didn’t really think that I’d forgotten about you.’ Stahl said quietly. ‘I have unfinished business with you, Elsa.’

He pushed her out of the fraüenblock in the direction of his own room. But as they passed the brothel, Elsa caught sight of Doctor Huber’s dead body. It still lay on the bed with the blood-soaked shroud and a host of multiple reflections as its only companions. At the sight of this macabre scene, Elsa imagined that body was not that of the unfortunate Huber, but that of Stahl.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the darkness Konrad stared at his crude etching of the nightmarish spire. During the hours that had passed after his work in the shuttle and while the barrack life of washing, eating and sleeping had continued around him, his thoughts had been dominated by that Nazi voice that had so gripped him in the shuttle’s hold. What was the connection between that brutish SS officer he encountered and his own dream? Why did the tower’s god-like tone match the Nazi’s? Was it simply coincidence? Or, as Konrad feared, was it something else; something more deliberate, more prophetic. Before this latest turn of events, his normally sceptical nature would have dismissed the dream as an unusual story if someone like Gigolo had confessed it to him. His scepticism would have grown even more once he learnt about voices and Nazis, but scepticism was far from Konrad’s mind now. Once again the feeling of being under the control of someone else, a force that he couldn’t control or alter held sway over him. The last time such feelings gripped Konrad was after his arrest. Then, the forces that assailed him were obvious, but no less brutal. However, his sense of helplessness was now even more frightening because whoever, or to be more accurate, whatever stood behind the events, they remained hidden.

But thoughts of the dream also brought back memories of the woman. Her features remained dim, but he knew that she wasn’t a representation of the colonist he has seen in the shuttle’s hold. There was gentleness to the dream figure’s face and demeanour when compared to the harsh, even arrogant, presence which shone from the German colonist. Even in her state of hibernation, the colonist, just like Stahl, looked down upon Konrad. He concentrated as he tried to remove the clouds that obscured his memories, but again the female colonist remained foremost in his mind’s eye, however, there was something different about this vision. The naked colonist still floated in the amniotic fluid, but now, the austere face had changed. It had been replaced by the face of the girl from the alpine meadow.

Unfortunately for Konrad the image was swept away from him as absolute chaos erupted all around him.

Led by the Kapos, the guards poured into the dormitory and dragged the bewildered prisoners from their bunks. As this force of nature made its way between the bunks, Stahl and the other Nazis waited at the open doorway with an apparent air of disinterest, but Stahl, unlike his colleague, watched the operation with a keen eye. Despite not displaying it or making it obvious, the SS officer took sweet sadistic pleasure in the overt hostility on display before him. His heart skipped with each swing of a Kapo’s truncheon and with every kick and punch. This in-bred attraction to violence was engrained deep within his soul.

One person tried to ignore the bedlam. Blomberg.

The scanner hung limply from his wrist, perfectly reflecting its owner’s state of mind; downcast and lifeless. His peaked cap was pulled down over his face as low as it could to help hide his red tear-smeared eyes. The news of his appointment as the Odin’s new medical officer had hit the doctor hard. Admiral Bauer had officially broken the news to him by handing him a brief radio message from the Space Ministry, but Blomberg had been secretly expecting the news as soon as the blood had stopped trickling from Huber’s neck in the brothel. Somehow, he hoped that he would avoid the appointment. He didn’t know what shape this intervention would take. He had prayed to the Überführer throughout the night hoping that the Almighty would act. In the end, however, his prayers remained unanswered, and even Blomberg could see that his appointment was the only sensible and viable solution. It would have taken weeks, even months, for a suitable candidate to be despatched to Neu Magdeburg, and considering that the Odin blasted off within a few hours, Blomberg accepted the Überführer’s lack of action and accepted his fate. Bauer had tried to soften the blow with a speech laced with platitudes such as “I understand” and “We all have to make sacrifices”, but Blomberg’s reaction was to shut out the voice and close the doors to the now harsh and cruel world that surrounded him.

But for Blomberg, the most heart-rending and upsetting aspect of his overnight promotion was telling his wife. He had stared at the holographic transmitter for what seemed like hours as he tried to summon up the courage to contact her, his hand lingering over the green transmit button. Eventually he pressed it and immediately regretted doing so. His wife’s reaction was as tearful, emotional and hysterical as he had feared. Between the tears, Blomberg had tried to splutter the same banal clichés as his commander, but no conviction or feeling drove his words. She in turn had screamed for him not to go. She pleaded for him to do the impossible and disobey his orders. As his wife cursed the Reich and even the Führer himself, she held their young daughter up before the transmitter, the image of his family twisting the knife even deeper in Blomberg’s heart. After his beloved wife faded away, Blomberg’s tears turned to rage. It was so unfair. How could the Reich do this to him? He had been loyal, he had served the Führer obediently and without question, never moaning about the path his life had led. He had never complained when he was originally posted to this shit-hole colony, but he never thought his loyalty would be so exploited. So at that moment, Blomberg decided to channel his new-found anger and sense of betrayal into an act of disloyalty. The ultimate act of disloyalty – he would take his own life.

In his cabin, barely minutes after his farewell to his wife, Blomberg unpacked the items he had collected from the colony’s infirmary and had hidden within his tunic. A syringe, a collection of sterile needles and a small vial of cyanide which was used in the infirmary to dispose of prisoners when beds were urgently needed. Taking a deep breath, he had lay down on his cot and filled the syringe, drawing the plunger towards himself. As he did, Blomberg thought how innocuous the drug looked inside the syringe. It looked so clear, so transparent, and so harmless. Tying a tourniquet around his arm, Blomberg watched as his veins distended before him. The needle sank easily into his arm, but then he hesitated. Even now, a sense of loyalty to the Party and his superiors prevented him from pumping the poison into his body. Tears began to flow again, but this time they were tears of frustration. They rolled down his face as he yanked the needle from his arm and flung it across the cabin.

Amidst the chaos, Konrad was thrown to the floor. A Kapo had tipped his bunk over and him with it. The filthy mattress and the prisoners who slept above Konrad landed painfully upon him. He squirmed from the bodies and bedding and attempted to clamber to his feet, but a disembodied hand shoved him back onto the cold dirty surface which quivered under the feet of the panicking inmates. Eventually, Konrad made it up and rested against his wrecked bed, where to his horror, he noticed that his etching of the spire was now exposed for all to see. But much to his relief, its strange shape remained unnoticed amidst the pandemonium.

Calming his frayed nerves with a deep breath, Konrad steadied himself and watched as two naked prisoners were dragged from under the covers of a bunk opposite by an indignant guard. For a split second, he thought the lovers were Gigolo and Erik. Luckily for them they had decided to forgo any nocturnal activities the previous night and retire to their own bunks. The punishment meted out on the unfortunate couple made Gigolo and Erik’s decision even more sensible and prudent. The guard and another outraged comrade pulled the prisoners toward the stove that stood in the middle of the room and seared their genitals on the hot griddle. The screams, like Konrad’s drawing, were fortunately lost in the mayhem.

Order eventually returned to the dormitory as the guards and Kapos lined up the prisoners at the end of their overturned bunks. The silence that descended was tinged with a palpable sense of tension. This tension was fuelled by the fear and apprehension that oozed from the prisoners like sweat. The men correctly guessed that something important was in the offing if the camp’s god-like officers had decided to venture down into this dungeon.

The Commandant stepped forward, pacing along the cluttered aisles like a strutting show-dog. All that was missing was his wagging tail.

‘Today, a new era begins here at Neu Magdeburg. Later today, the Odin, the vessel that you and your comrades have laboured upon for so long, will be launched on its historic mission, and some of you, a privileged few, will have the honour of accompanying this mission. Strong backs and stout hearts will still be needed by our Nazi pioneers,’ the Commandant announced. ‘However, those of you not granted this accolade will still serve the Reich in some capacity. You will be evacuated from this camp to places where you will be employed. The Reich still needs you. You still owe the Reich, remember that.’

Konrad eyed Gigolo briefly. They both knew that the Commandant was lying. They had seen the huge cache of Zyklon-B poison in the hold of the shuttle and both knew that it wasn’t going to be used to fumigate the prisoner’s uniforms.

The Commandant turned and paced back down the dormitory. ‘The same can be said about those selected. Even though you will be far from here, you will still remain subject to the rules that you have had to follow here. You will obey every order given to you. You will perform every task given to you, and you will always be prisoners of the Reich until you die. But we will inform your families of where you are heading. Therefore your families can lift some of the shame that you have placed upon them. Once again they can be proud of you as you help the Reich in our mission.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Let’s begin shall we.’

The senior guard now spoke. ‘When the order is given, you will strip and leave your uniforms at your feet. I want it done quickly and quietly. If any of you cock-suckers make a sound, the nearest man to me, be he innocent or guilty, will get some of this!’ He briefly waved his baton in the air to enforce the threat like a schoolmaster waving a bell. ‘When you are ordered forward you’ll remain silent and you’ll keep your fucking eyes to the floor and obey all the instructions given to you. Understood?’

‘Jawohl!’ the prisoners cried.

‘Strip!’

The prisoners moved to obey the first of the guard’s orders. They removed their ill-fitting uniforms and exposed their emaciated bodies as if the men were taking part in some grotesque beauty pageant. As they waited to be examined, a couple of Kapos hurried around the feet of the men, gathering up the discarded bundles of clothing and creating several large piles of trousers, boots, tunics and caps in the washroom. Out of sight of the guards, these same Kapos then took advantage and pocketed any contraband such as scraps of food, home-made weapons, drugs and mementos they found in the coarse clothing.

While the prisoners undressed, Blomberg went through his orders for the upcoming operation. Each prisoner was to be allocated one of two numbers: Eins or Zwei; one or two. Number one assigned its owner to the Odin, while number two would condemn its holder to the colony’s gas chambers. Blomberg’s guidelines regarding this selection process were equally clear and simple. Strong healthy prisoners who exhibited signs of intelligence were to be earmarked for the ship. The definition of intelligence in Nazi eyes being able to understand simple instructions, however, prisoners who passed this criterion but exhibited overt criminal or un-Aryan physical features were to be automatically excluded for propaganda reasons. Even the slaves for the new world would have to look heroic.

‘Are you ready to begin, Herr Blomberg?’ the Commandant asked.

Blomberg nodded as he snapped on a pair of latex gloves and switched on his scanner.

The lottery began, but the results of the initial examinations were disappointing. The first prisoner to be called forward had a severely crooked leg, the result of a recent break that had failed to knit together properly, while the second man looked painfully thin, even by the camp’s grim standards, and so the Blomberg was forced to grab their arms and with his scanner he branded a stark “2” into their bony arms. These unfortunate prisoners, the first of hundreds that day, were frog-marched out of the dormitory.

Time passed as the examinations continued and Blomberg made his way along the rows of shivering men. He waved the scanner across countless bodies and arms. If the scanner’s display was dominated by the colour red this indicated an unhealthy prisoner, while green was the colour of good health. Unfortunately, from the mission’s point of view, the colour red was dominating the day’s proceedings and a steady stream of men were exiting the dormitory. During all this time, Konrad waited patiently, listening to the electronic chimes of Blomberg’s scanner as it drew closer. Eventually he summoned up the courage to lean forward and look along the line of naked men. He saw that not only was the weary-looking Blomberg only a few prisoners away from waving his sinister wand over him, but at his side, looming like some feared winter storm, was his nemesis, Stahl.

‘Shit,’ he mumbled under his breath. He prayed that somehow he could magically render his flesh invisible to the sight of this approaching Nazi. Predictably it would prove to be a forlorn hope.

‘We meet again, my curious little friend,’ Stahl said with a sly, wolfish grin as he stopped before Konrad. He looked up at the Nazi, but he again employed silence as his reply. Stahl half-expected this and his grin grew even wider before he replied. ‘You never were the talkative type, were you?’ He looked around the dormitory. ‘I was wondering from which shit-hole you crawled from. It suits you,’ Stahl smiled. ‘Tell me, do you think that you’ll have the good luck to be selected to go on the mission?’

‘It’s not for me to say,’ Konrad answered.

‘Very wise words. But if I were you I’d pray that I was chosen. There must have been other items in the shuttle’s hold that you saw.’

‘I only saw the colonists, Herr Sturmbannführer.’

‘The Zyklon-B, for example.’

Konrad reacted to the words by lowering his gaze again.

‘I thought so,’ Stahl nodded. ‘I just hope for your own sake that you remained silent about any such discovery.’

‘I did. A man can still keep some secrets to himself. Even in a place like this.’

‘Very wise words,’ Stahl said. He then cupped his chin and quietly pondered. Once again, a devilish smile crossed his face. ‘In fact, I think that your astute attitude should be rewarded in some way.’

‘I’m to be rewarded?’ Konrad asked quietly.

‘Quite so. I have a proposition for you. A man of my stature will require a servant. A slave, you might say. I think you know that accompanying us on our mission is highly preferable to the fate that awaits you if you remain here, despite what the Commandant said.’

Konrad’s mind whirled. What should he say? The Nazi was absolutely correct in what he said. He knew full well that the Zyklon-B was to be used on the remaining prisoners. There was a chance that he’d be picked by Doctor Blomberg, but there was also a chance, a very real chance, that he’d be rejected. Some of his comrades may have been naive enough to believe the Commandant and his promises of a new life elsewhere, but he wasn’t so foolish after what he and Gigolo had found in the hold.

‘But what if the doctor doesn’t select me?’ Konrad asked Stahl anxiously.

‘Don’t worry, my friend, Doctor Blomberg is just like you. He will obey whatever orders are given to him.’ With that, Stahl spun on his heels and called to his colleague. ‘Herr Blomberg!’

The doctor joined Stahl in front of Konrad.

‘How goes the selections?’ Stahl asked.

‘Not very well, I’m afraid,’ Blomberg replied.

‘Well, if I were you, I’d fret no more,’ Stahl exclaimed. ‘I’ve a mind to select this prisoner here as my personal servant.’ He placed a brotherly arm around Konrad’s shoulder. ‘I need you to examine him as a priority. I have no doubts that he’d be well suited for our needs on Vanaheim.’

Blomberg eyed the prisoner sceptically as he waved his scanner and waited for the results to appear.

While he waited, Stahl looked across Konrad’s ruined bunk. Amongst the broken wood and torn bedding he spotted a single wooden beam. The beam of warped wood rose from the jumble of blankets, its position mirroring the image sketched upon it. It was the beam upon which Konrad had drawn his vision of the spire. Stahl cocked his head like a curious dog as he knelt to examine the primitive shape. Like Konrad before him, he traced the shape’s phallic outline with his hand. Konrad sensed this intrusion upon his, until now, secret gallery. He furtively glanced at the curious Nazi. Stahl’s eyes narrowed with interest as he continued to examine the plank of wood. The shape was somehow familiar. Had he seen it before?

The scanner then chimed and broke the spell.

Stahl cast the plank to one side and shot up from the floor. ‘Well, Blomberg, is he to accompany us or not?’

Blomberg lowered the scanner. ‘No.’

‘No?’ Stahl exclaimed. His disappointment was as obvious as Konrad’s.

‘I’m afraid he can’t be selected,’ Blomberg said. ‘He’s unfit and therefore not suitable for the mission. I have very specific orders in this regard.’

‘I beg to differ, Herr Blomberg,’ Stahl said, his gaze frozen upon Konrad. ‘Select him.’

The doctor offered the scanner to provide the evidence for his decision. ‘Take a look for yourself, Stahl. This prisoner has mild malnutrition and to be honest, his physical profile hardly fits the ideal profile of the worker we want to take with us. Perhaps there is another prisoner you can employ as your servant. I’m sure there are more suitable candidates from the pool of men we’ve already selected.’

‘I don’t care. I want you to select him,’ Stahl persisted.

‘I don’t understand? Why do you want this particular prisoner?’

‘Because I wish it,’ Stahl said distantly. ‘Isn’t that a good enough reason?’

‘In that case, are you willing to take the responsibility for his selection? I don’t want the Admiral on my back once he finds out I’ve selected this mongrel. It is against regulations.’

‘Yes, I’ll take the responsibility if it makes you any happier.’

Blomberg backed down with a simple shrug. Once again he felt that his loyalty had been taken for granted, perhaps not as dramatically as the circumstances that led to his appointment as the ship’s medical officer, but what little stomach Blomberg had for a fight had long deserted him. Arguing with the Sturmbannführer wouldn’t change the situation, and as he had learnt long ago what a Sturmbannführer wants, a Sturmbannführer gets. And so, the prized number one was branded in Konrad’s out-stretched arm.

‘Welcome aboard shipmate,’ Stahl said wryly as he gripped Konrad by the shoulders. But his touch wasn’t that of a comrade, it was still that of an enemy. His fingers dug deeply into the prisoner’s flesh. But nevertheless, he still looked at the new tattoo with relief. He was safe, for now.

Having offered Konrad up to the will of Stahl, Blomberg then moved on and encountered Gigolo. He stepped forward and presented himself before the doctor with a splendidly swelled chest. To Gigolo, these examinations felt just like an audition for a great part in a film or television show. It was appropriate that the ex-actor took this attitude towards the ordeal as elements of the examination echoed the dozens of auditions he had experienced as a young struggling actor. Blomberg’s scanner was simply a substitute for a camera, and finally the result, the numerical tattoo, was the alternative to a successful call-back from a producer. Gigolo looked down at his arm and saw that his audition was a success as “1” appeared on his arm.

Gigolo now waited for the result of his companion Erik’s audition.

Blomberg beckoned Erik toward him, but unlike the earnest Gigolo who clearly understood the need to make a good impression, the teenage prisoner shuffled forward with a note of indifference and apathy. It didn’t take Blomberg long to make his decision.

‘Zwei,’ Blomberg quickly announced.

Gigolo frowned when he heard the doctor’s pronouncement. The frown grew deeper when he saw Erik being escorted from the dormitory to join the unwanted group of men. He, like Konrad, knew full well that all the talk of “evacuation” was a typical Nazi smoke-screen for execution.

Gigolo cried out like an anguished father. ‘No, Erik. No!’ But a baton rammed into his shoulder, knocking the prisoner back on his heels.

Nobly or stupidly, depending on your point of view, Gigolo continued to object about his companion being taken from him. This time his actions were more forceful and physical. He now rushed towards Blomberg. The doctor cowered at the sight of the advancing bag of bones, but Gigolo didn’t strike, instead, he simply dropped to his knees and wrapped himself around the doctor’s legs like some amorous canine.

‘Herr Blomberg, please let Erik come with me,’ Gigolo sobbed. ‘He has nobody but me to protect him. He has to come with me. Please reconsider. Please! He works as hard as anybody else. I’m begging you, please!’

Blomberg, obviously embarrassed, attempted to push the desperate prisoner away. He smiled thinly as he did, but the smile soon turned into a grimace when he realised that his feeble efforts to shift Gigolo were failing miserably. Eventually a couple of guards came to the doctor’s rescue and dragged the prisoner away. Blomberg met the gaze of Stahl, who had watched the entire sad spectacle. He tapped his comrade on the shoulder.

‘What are you going to do with your overly affectionate friend?’ Stahl said ‘He appeared to be very passionate about his comrade. It’d be such a shame to separate them,’

Blomberg frowned.

‘If I was you, I’d acquiesce to that prisoner’s demands,’ Stahl stated. ‘Reunite them.’

‘Reunite them?’ Blomberg spluttered. ‘Impossible! It was bad enough letting your pet on board the Odin, it would be even worse if I passed that boy through too. He’s even more unfit. No, no! You ask too much, Stahl.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Stahl said soothingly. He then cocked his head in the direction of the doomed prisoners piled in the corridor outside. ‘Why not reunite the comrades out there.’

Blomberg nodded. Stahl stepped toward the weeping Gigolo. He gestured to the guards to let him go. His manner was soothing, even compassionate. It was, of course, just an act.

‘We’ll have no-more tears from you. I’ve taken pity and decided to overturn the doctor’s original decision.’

‘You have, Sturmbannführer?’ Gigolo said, wiping the tears away.

‘Yes, I have. You and your comrade are to be reunited.’

Gigolo smiled naively and looked into the corridor, expecting Erik to be returned to the dormitory. Unfortunately for him the guards dragged him from the room.

‘No, Herr Sturmbannführer. No. No!’ Gigolo cried as he was dumped into the arms of Erik. His anguished protests were cut short as the dormitory door slammed shut in his face.

Stahl lingered briefly next to Konrad, his arms crossed behind his back in a contemplative pose. Yet beneath the black peaked cap, his eyes narrowed into menacing slits, the light drifting from them. Konrad could almost see the evil, the total lack of empathy that had driven the almost gleeful delight he took in deciding Gigolo’s fate.

Stahl seemed to sense the prisoner‘s disapproval. ‘Now, now, we’ll have no dirty looks from you. It was compassion that drove that decision I made. I would never have lived with myself if I allowed those two comrades to remain separated. At least now, they can die in each-other‘s arms,’ the Nazi then said as he gave Konrad a mocking salute. ‘See you soon, my friend.’ He turned away and marched from the dormitory.

With that, Konrad was left alone in the now strangely cavernous room. The dormitory reflected his new state of mind as it now echoed horribly, its previously claustrophobic contours replaced by a brutal emptiness that swamped Konrad. He shivered, not only with the cold, but also with apprehension. The fear gripped him like a vice, and for the first time he realised just how isolated and alone he now was.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Total and utter exhaustion gripped Klaus Mesler. Such was its hold over the Odin’s Executive Officer that he wondered if he even needed to enter the hibernation tanks that were at this very moment being prepared deep in the bowels of the ship. Mesler was around the same age as his fellow officer, Stahl, but unlike the SS officer, his features were softer, less hawkish and angular. This reflected his general attitude as Mesler was a member of the Astrokorp just like the Admiral, and like the Admiral his manner and outlook was markedly different to that of Stahl’s inhumane constitution. Whereas Stahl was primarily a political animal at heart, Mesler’s primary concern was the crew. This concern for his fellow shipmates had driven him to remain on board the vessel during the entire six weeks he had been at the prison colony. He had personally overseen the final preparations to such an extent that he practically knew every part of the ship right down to the screws that held the rail to the gantry he stood on. His only companions during all this time were not his fellow Nazi officers, but the civilian contractors from firms such as Krupp and BMW and his isolation within the Odin was such that he had only briefly met Admiral Bauer once and never even met Stahl. This could have been viewed as a problem by some since these three men constituted the primary trinity of command upon the ship, and eventually at their destination, but Mesler was glad that he didn’t have to face his comrades with reports and meetings that he believed would only delay his work, and consequently the launch. In fact, such was Mesler’s isolation inside the Odin that he was oblivious to the selections, the delights of the fraüenblock, even the murder of Doctor Huber.

During the final few hours the officer had supervised the crew as they pressurised the vessel’s voluminous fuel-tanks, the millions of litres of T-stoff and C-stoff within each condensing and pooling as they waited to be unleashed. The tanks containing these two chemicals, the T-stoff being concentrated hydrogen peroxide and the C-stoff being hydrazine hydrate in a solution of methyl alcohol, covered the entire rear-end of the vessel, their spherical structures, along with the countless cargo-containers and communication equipment, disfigured the clean straight lines of the ship’s frame. During the pressurising procedure, it was Mesler who felt the unease and fear that the operation entailed and not the Admiral or the SS officer. Perhaps this was a sensible precaution as the two chemicals when mixed would explode violently. It was this reaction that would initially power the giant vessel from the confines of the colony before the even more powerful, but less dangerous, ion-drive propulsion system kicked in and swept the Nazis away into the depths of space. If there was any mistake in this procedure, if these chemicals accidentally came into contact outside the confines of the cavernous combustion chamber in the engine room, it would spell disaster for the vessel.

All around Mesler the Odin’s crew stood around the spherical control room, its secondary lights bathing the technicians in a cold, blue light. A single column ringed with circular gantries ran through the centre of the room around which were fixed screens and monitors of various shapes and sizes. Some were switched on, their displays scrolling data, while others were blank or filled with hissing static, and every surface not covered by a visual display was adorned with dials, gauges, hand-wheels, buttons, switches and levers. Vein-like cables mingled with the equipment, their bio-mechanical roots heading to all parts of the ship. And despite the room’s modernity it still seemed strangely reminiscent of the control rooms of the legendary U-Boats of the 1940’s. Whether this was deliberate was open to debate.

Mesler, along with the Admiral and Stahl stood on the observation-deck that was housed at the pole of the command module. It looked down upon the rest of the control room and its myriad displays and gantries. Capping the deck was a clear glass roof, its convex shape displaying Titan in all its glory. Oak-leaf garlands were strung from the deck’s railings and a single Nazi standard was held above the expectant crew. Mesler gazed at the red, white and black flag, with its imperial eagle on top and the standard’s large name plate from which the word “Vanaheim” shone brightly. At the front of the party was the Odin’s chaplain, Lang. A silver swastika hung from his neck, its polished surface stark against his blood-red vestments. A set of watery blue eyes stood out from his puffy face. He seemed out of place amongst the technology. It appeared as if he was a throw-back, a caricature of a provincial schoolmaster from decades before. For a brief moment, just before he cleared his throat to speak, Lang, like Mesler, glanced at the unique Nazi standard. It, like all the standards used by the Nazis, had once been blessed by the holy blood-banner. He then lifted a corner of the flag and pressed it to his lips. He was now ready.

‘Today, our beloved Reich steps forth beyond the confines of our outer colonies and out into the mystery of the void beyond,’ Lang began. ‘The Reich personified by us, with this swastika banner riding high, will explore these new territories and in the process create new lebensraum for our people as we press further into the magnificence provided for us by God. At the same time, the Überführer’s guiding hand will be on our shoulders, his spirit living in our hearts as we boldly bring the brilliance of German civilisation to those dark worlds.

‘We will tread the same path of previous pioneers who have left the Fatherland to destroy the scourge of Bolshevism and Judaism. Wherever we Germans have set foot, life has been renewed, peace has reigned, fields have flourished and culture has prospered because as it is written upon every one of our belt-buckle’s, it is also written in our hearts: God is with us.’ Lang then cupped his hands and bowed his head. ‘Let us pray.’

The Nazi congregation followed suit.

‘O Lord; we pray that you give your blessing to this great undertaking,’ he said. ‘We thank you for sending the Überführer to us. He who saved the German people from the evils of Bolshevism, Judaism and Christianity, and so we pray that his spirit is called forth once again to join us here on board this mighty vessel and that his wondrous aspect enters everyone of us; his holy spirit cleansing our hearts and cleansing our blood of all doubt and fear.’ The chaplain continued. ‘We pray that the land we occupy will be fertile, its soil productive and life-giving, and we have faith that thy mighty sword and shield will protect us during our long slumber and then on our new world. Finally we pray for our Führer who, in his great wisdom, conceived this great endeavour . Hear our prayers, O Lord. Amen.’

Every right arm in the chamber swung up and a great click of heels preceded a mass “Sieg Heil!”

A door parted to expose a dark set of stairs, but as far as Gigolo and Erik were concerned this short flight of steps led to hell itself because they knew full well what lay beyond. It was the colony’s dreaded gas chamber.

As the prisoners stood there was no resistance, no shouts of defiance, only a silent, almost dignified silence. Any pleas for mercy or clemency they would have made would have been futile because there were no guards to listen. Outside this final chamber were only uncaring pieces of machinery and control panels. The gas chamber was totally automated.

The process began.

A piston ground from the end of the holding-pit and gently nudged the prisoners down into the claustrophobic gas chamber until it was full to bursting point and ready to begin its grim job. A door then lowered with a sickening thud, its locks cranking into place while an impermeable rubber-seal inflated to make the chamber totally and ominously air-tight.

Inside the killing house the atmosphere soon became warm and dank, the air stagnant and saturated with sweat and the overpowering smell of fresh urine. Some men sobbed, while others offered prayers, but most of the prisoners maintained their silence. Amongst them stood Ruby. Her face battered and bruised and Gigolo, for his part, simply placed his arm around young Erik’s shoulder, closed his eyes and waited.

After a few moments, the chamber’s lights flickered then switched off completely, plunging the prisoners into total darkness as the deadly procedure automatically rolled into motion.

Vents set in the chamber’s low ceiling opened, their metal slats snapping apart with a loud series of cracks, then a distant turbine rumbled as it slowly powered up, its shrill metallic whine rising like the approach of some foul, nightmarish demon. Gigolo gazed up at these open vents and willed them to malfunction somehow and close, thus saving them from death, but the dispassionate machinery ignored his prayers and simply obeyed their programs unclouded by any pangs of guilt or pity. Directly above the chamber, the blue crystals of Zyklon-B that Gigolo and Erik along with Konrad had found in the belly of the shuttle started to drop from their hopper through an elaborate screw-feeder and into the ventilation system. Here, the Zyklon-B crystals dissolved to release its poisonous gas. For a time, the noxious fumes lingered in the cylindrical vent as if reluctant to perform its duty, but the power of the turbine-pump soon pushed the gas out the vents, the deadly vapour flooding the entire chamber. Sickening coughs, then horrific death rattles sounded as the poison gas started its job. Once inhaled, the poison smothered its victim’s red blood cells, stopping them from carrying the oxygen around the body. As a result, the prisoners’ lips, hands and feet quickly drained of colour, the skin turning a nauseating blue in the process as their bodies fought to stay alive by withdrawing blood from the limbs and into the vital organs, but the biological resistance would prove to be in vain as the turbines relentlessly pumped more and more gas inside.

Eventually a misshapen carpet of twisted and contorted limbs covered the chamber’s floor and amongst the bodies, Gigolo still clung to Erik, their final embrace undisturbed even by their deaths.

The ventilation system now set itself into reverse and the deadly atmosphere was sucked out. The poisonous gas tendrils billowed back through the vents, escaping like a murderer from the scene of the crime. Once the gas had dispersed, indicated by a toxicity meter outside which changed from a dangerous looking red to a safe green, more hidden machinery stirred. Thin panels rose from the chamber’s floor and divided the bed of corpses into three distinct piles. Once complete, the floor dropped away and the bodies fell into the disposal compartment below. Slides deposited the prisoner’s bodies onto a funnelled carousel which had at its centre a sealed iris-style hatch. A klaxon blared as the hatch dilated, its dark plates screeching as it exposed the room to the vacuum of space. At that instant, the prisoner’s corpses were yanked out by the terrible suction generated, their arms flaying madly as if the bodies were protesting at their fate.

Eventually one last corpse was left to be spat out the underbelly of the colony – Gigolo’s. His body shot through the hatch which contracted silently behind him as if it were glad to be rid of the human refuge. However, Gigolo’s final journey did-not offer his body any lasting peace as it instantly became prey to the terrible, unforgiving laws of differential pressure. The corpse swelled and bloated to grotesque proportions until the outrageously taut skin exploded into a gory red mist.

The globules of blood and flesh of all the murdered inmates mixed with the glittering debris that had been spilt from the Odin as it uncoupled itself from the countless gantries and piping that had for so long supported and nourished it. Like a newborn animal, its first steps were cautious and unsteady as the mighty ship drifted and wheeled away from the colony, but on its surface, like a safe guiding hand from a mother, numerous manoeuvring jets flared, positioning the ship for its long journey. Once in position, its launch window open and ready, the vessel’s massive engines exhaled into life. The ocean-sized combustion chambers throbbed as the C-stoff and T-stoff fuel crashed, gushed and mixed, their violent marriage powering the craft into the dark, forbidding void.

CHAPTER NINE

June 2133

Shadows hung along the endless corridors of the Odin. The darkness appeared to seep from the countless metal panels, the grilled floors, the assorted pipes, cables and conduits that veined and burrowed around the vast metal machine. Silence also held sway over the ship; the lack of sound was complete and deafening. From the command module to the engine room, computers and monitors, motors and pumps, like the Odin’s crew, were deep in hibernation, an occasional flickering light or button being the only indication that the ship was still operational and not some lumbering derelict. At the same time, the ship’s exterior mirrored its monotone interior. The running lights that had heralded its launch all those years before had long been extinguished and most of the giant fuel-tanks that had encircled and fed the ravenous engines had been jettisoned during the voyage leaving only countless empty pylons that combed the emaciated super-structure.

However, the void was-not as empty as it first appeared because barely perceptible against the great curtain of glittering stars lay the planet, Vanaheim. Like the approaching ship, its surface was shrouded in darkness except for a hazy halo which surrounded the mysterious ebony pearl. A small moon, like its larger companion, hung in the void, its rocky surface glinting in the light of the system’s single star and against the dark backdrop a vast nebula of luminous gas and dust as dispassionate and magnificent as a god watched the approach of the vessel.

The stillness that dominated the void and the interior of the ship also held sway in its hibernation chamber. The chamber was similar to the one inside the shuttle, but here not only one sphere stood in the cool darkness, but several. One housed the colonists found by Konrad and protected by Stahl, while another contained the Nazi crew. Finally, at the rear of chamber, standing far away from the others like an unwanted relative, was the globe that the prisoners lay within. A carpet of ice encrusted each of the different globes like polar continents, their cracks and fractures exposing the floating human bodies who were stuck in the impasse of sleep and death.

Within the prisoner’s hibernation tank, a single body stirred amongst the mass of flesh and bone. It pushed itself forward towards the cold glass, pulling at the surrounding flesh, its fingers tearing skin and pulling hair. Eyes that blazed like fire shone from the prisoner’s face as what little light within the chamber exposed its features. It was Konrad. He pressed his face against the globe’s frozen shell. His fists pounded the curved surface impotently and his eyes closed as the futility of his situation, trapped inside the sphere with no apparent means of escape, overwhelmed him. But when he opened them once again, Konrad saw, much to his relief, that he was no longer inside the hibernation tank and its chamber, instead, he stood inside a dingy concrete stairwell. Looking at the walls he instantly recognised the graffiti that decorated the dull grey cement and the obligatory Nazi propaganda posters.

Konrad was home.

Intuitively, he climbed up the stairs until he reached the balcony he must have walked up and down countless times to reach his own apartment. Something, however, wasn’t right. Beyond the balcony should have been the welcoming sight of his neighbourhood with its gardens, the war memorial and the children’s brightly coloured playground, however, darkness, complete and utter darkness, dominated the background where Konrad expected to see these familiar landmarks. He headed towards his apartment which lay at the end of the open balcony, and as he approached he could see that the front door was already wide open. Only now did Konrad hear any kind of sound. Eerie voices, indistinct and muffled, floated from the rooms within.

Along the apartment’s narrow central passageway were several rooms, inside which were locales and layouts that were contrary to his memories and contrary to logic. In one room was the rocky gallery at Neu Magdeburg that housed the bubbling furnaces. The machinery was unmanned and the furnace glowed menacingly, not a ruddy red and orange, but a sickly green and yellow as if the machinery was rotting away to become putrid and rancid.

Konrad turned away and surprisingly saw in the room directly opposite a friendly face. Inside what should have been his kitchen a grand salon plucked seemingly from Versailles stretched into infinity. Ornate gold and marble decorations lined the mirrored walls, while grand pieces of furniture were dotted here and there in no particular pattern. On an oversized chaise-lounge was the familiar face of  Gigolo. He, like Konrad, was dressed in his prison uniform, but this version of his old comrade wasn’t the hunger-ravaged prisoner he knew, instead, his handsome film-star looks had been restored to him. The scene also, much to his delight, had surrounded him with a gaggle of ornately dressed and bewigged courtesans. But this fantasy, like so much else Konrad had seen so far, was tinged with a dark, malevolent edge. Each of the courtesans’ skin possessed a deathly, gangrene-like pallor, while their eyes were an oily black, devoid of all life. Nausea started to overcome Konrad as he watched as Gigolo busily untied the women’s mouldy corsets to expose the putrid breasts that lay beneath. He cupped and kissed these rancid lumps of flesh, his lips hungrily lingering upon the discoloured nipples. The ghoulish courtesans moaned and whimpered as they appeared to enjoy the attentions of the prisoner, but their faces showed no joy, no sexual excitement, instead, their horrific faces remained fixed like a set of chilling mannequins. Konrad reached out to try and attract Gigolo’s attention, but the prisoner failed to respond as he continued to strip the sinister creatures of their countless skirts, his hands exploring their rotten bodies.

Unable to attract his old friend and still plagued by his queasiness, Konrad had to turn away. At that instant he appeared in a vastly different setting that was far removed from the previous decadent vision.

It was a simple bedroom, modestly furnished with a single bed and a few functional cupboards and a wardrobe. This had been his own bedroom. All around it were dotted visions of hard-earned mementos: school diplomas, books, his treasured Werder Bremen scarf, they all stood to greet him with a sense of nostalgia. But like so much in this twisted vista, there was something out of place in the room – the person who stood in front of the window. At first, it was difficult to tell who this mysterious person actually was. Was it one of his long-dead parents? Eventually the shadowy figure turned to face Konrad. It was inevitably the same woman from his alpine dream. This time a brightly-coloured head-scarf covered her dark hair. She, unlike Konrad and Gigolo, and even the vile courtesans, wore modern civilian clothing, but like the courtesans, the woman seemed to be devoid of all life and emotion.

Konrad entered the room and joined the mysterious woman at the window and at that moment it was as if a switch has been suddenly thrown within the girl as she turned and looked at him with love and gentleness in her eyes. The woman then slowly reached out and caressed Konrad, her fingers tracing the lines of his face and lingering upon his lips. He stepped closer and as a response the girl pulled the scarf from her hair which cascaded across her shoulders. She smiled, but her gaze then drifted away. It was averted by something that she could see through the window. Konrad turned too and frowned when he saw nothing but the deep, suffocating darkness beyond. He wondered what so attracted her attention so lovingly, so seductively. It appeared that she was under the spell of some unseen lover as her chest heaved and swelled. This sudden lust was in contrast to the previously simple and unquestioning love that had emanated from her, and to Konrad, this sudden change was unnerving. He felt, once again, that the woman was being taken away from him, and this sense of loss was magnified and brought into shape as the comforting surroundings of the bedroom and the electric presence of the girl melted away as if the room and its contents had been withdrawn from a spotlight until all that remained was his solitary figure.

Within this new cold dark environment the invisible whispers still resonated and echoed, but their volume had grown, as if some unseen power had fed them. A distant shaft of light pierced the gloom. This white sword stretched far above Konrad almost to the point of infinity. Looking closer, he could see illuminated at the base of the shining column hundreds, if not thousands of shapes. These shapes were what appeared to be human figures. Beyond this congregation a single figure stood amidst the light.

Stahl.

His features were pale and drawn, his skin taut and stretched across his cheek-bones, and his shimmering blue eyes were set deep within their sunken sockets. Surrounding him was a halo of heat which distorted the dust that played and swirled within the ethereal column and a dangerous grin materialised across his ghostly face as he raised his hand and beckoned Konrad towards him. With that gesture, Konrad was pulled into the light to join the Nazi. Within the beam the temperature dropped to sub-zero levels. Whereas a hot steamy breath emanated from Konrad’s mouth, a rasping, razor-like pant exhaled from Stahl. Each breath soaked the heat from Konrad to such a point that he feared that if he stayed too long in the presence of this ghoul that this dreamy portal would forever remain his resting place. And when Stahl finally spoke, his voice matched his deliberating and malicious aspect.

‘Welcome, my curious little friend,’ he hissed. ‘You are yet another pilgrim to be welcomed here in this new world, this new kingdom – this new Reich!’

On that cue the glittering shaft of light exploded, the brilliant whiteness consuming Stahl, Konrad, everything.

After a few moments a multitude of fleshy shapes began to emerge from the blank, colourless view. Konrad collapsed onto his hands and knees and heaved up a stream of amniotic fluid, mucus, blood and spit. This foul mix of bodily and artificial liquids splashed onto the floor below him, the multi-coloured puddle becoming the focus of his still blurred vision. As his limbs trembled with the effort of bearing his weight, the geometric floor below him grew into focus, the lines of panelling growing sharper and straighter with each of his deep breaths. At the same time, the previously dreamy voices Konrad heard transformed into distinct words and phrases that could be made out and clearly understood.

‘Come on you! Move your fucking backside!’ a guttural voice cried.

Konrad was shoved against the hibernation chamber’s white padded walls. He saw the voice belonged to Doctor Blomberg, who was sheathed in a clear plastic suit. He stood at a pedestal which illuminated him in a series of blinking colours directing a group of similarly dressed technicians who stood above the glass-sphere. From the container the technicians yanked prisoners as groggy and bewildered as Konrad and let them slide down the side of the glassy globe. He moved past the other mucus-covered men and grabbed the pedestal to try and clamber up to his feet.

‘Move now!’ Blomberg hissed as he kicked Konrad off the post. ‘Make way. There are fifty more of you prisoners to come out of hibernation.’

Konrad splattered back onto the floor. Suddenly a helping hand grabbed him and pulled him away from the irate doctor.

‘Welcome back to the land of the living!’

Instinctively Konrad turned towards the male voice. For a second, he raised his hands to his ears as the normal volume of sound returned with a vengeance. It was as if the brief statement had been relayed via a set of titanic loudspeakers. As his other senses approached a sense of equilibrium, Konrad finally saw the person whose disembodied voice had greeted him. It belonged to a prisoner, and like himself, glistening fluid dripped from his naked body. The prisoner was surprisingly small and a friendly smile flashed across his round face, and despite being as thin as the other inmates, his body definition held the impression that his time at Neu Magdeburg had been a lot more comfortable than Konrad’s.

‘I feel like I’ve been through a meat-grinder arse first,’ Konrad groggily said as he spat out the remaining goo from his mouth.

‘Between ourselves, if you ask me, if I’d known what it would have been like sleeping for fifty years in the hold of this rust-bucket I would have been first in the queue for the gas chamber. At least my agonies would have been over in seconds,’ the prisoner chuckled.

Konrad frowned at the so-called joke.

‘I jest, of course, but I think you understand my meaning,’ the prisoner said as he correctly sensed Konrad’s displeasure. His tone was blackly comic as if he was familiar with gallows humour, or perhaps, more sinisterly, he took genuine pleasure in the plight of the condemned. A clue to the prisoner’s true nature was soon displayed.

As Konrad was pulled to his feet he spotted a tattoo. On the inside of the prisoner’s upper arm was an imperial eagle; its wings spread triumphantly, its angular talons resting upon a swastika. The prisoner was a member of the Nazi party.

At the sight of this Nazi tattoo, Konrad recoiled from his new companion and dropped the hand on offer as if he’d been holding a slug of molten metal. Sheepishly, the prisoner attempted to hide the offending tattoo behind his back.

‘I wouldn’t let this old scribble put you off,’ the prisoner said sheepishly. ‘I fell from grace a long time ago.’

‘That tattoo of yours brought back some bad memories,’ Konrad replied.

‘I’m not surprised,’ the prisoner added. ‘With hindsight, I should’ve tried to removed it long ago. I know of others who did. They took razors to their tattoos and gouged them from their skin, but I’ve always had a low pain threshold and would never have had the nerve to inflict such horrors upon myself.’

Konrad said nothing. The silence appeared to indicate to the prisoner that his presence wasn’t going to be tolerated, and so like a chastised schoolboy he started to shuffle away.

Konrad didn’t quite know what to make of this curious little Nazi who stood before him as naked as himself, as much a prisoner as himself. At Neu Magdeburg any inmates who had once been Nazi officials, SS members, or just ordinary Party members would have been segregated from the general population in a block in the camp known as “The Ritz.” Here, their duties were restricted to non back-breaking duties such as working in the kitchens or in the administration blocks, chained to a desk and crushed by paperwork. In normal circumstances he would have totally ignored the old Nazi, and maybe even, if he had the courage, perhaps even attacked him, but he no longer found himself in normal circumstances. But like inside the camp, Konrad would still need to make allies in order to survive. Out here this need would have been even greater. The man appeared to have made the first move in establishing such an arrangement, so what was Konrad supposed to do? His hatred for all things associated with Nazism still existed, but deep down, Konrad’s innate goodness allowed his scepticism and fear to remain below the surface, after all, if his experience in the camps had taught him anything, it was that this new frontier called for new rules and new allies, even if they were branded with the very symbol that had oppressed and condemned him.

‘I suppose beggars can’t be choosers,’ Konrad said to himself. He called after the retreating prisoner to demonstrate this new sense of pragmatism. ‘My name is Konrad.’

Relieved that he wasn’t going to be shunned, the prisoner quickly turned and smiled. ‘I’m Ziegler.’

Understandably, Konrad hesitated before the two men shook hands.

‘No doubt that was a difficult step to take for someone of your ilk,’ Ziegler said. ‘But I am grateful that you did. It doesn’t pay to be a lone wolf in this forest.’

‘That is true,’ Konrad replied. ‘But if I were you I would consider removing that damned Nazi birthmark from your arm. You neck will be on the line. The problem I have is that other people may not discriminate between us.’

Ziegler fingered the offending tattoo. ‘If you think that’s best.’

‘Believe me, I do!’

Joining another group of prisoners, Konrad and Ziegler were directed towards a large shower at the centre of an adjoining tiled room. Above the gushing water a concentric walkway hung from the ceiling. Upon it prowled a couple of guards whose faceless shapes were shrouded in a cloud of steam. Konrad eagerly entered the warm watery curtain and let it wash over him. After so many years being at the mercy of the cold atmospheres of the prison this feeling of warmth was absolute bliss. After savouring the warm water, Konrad started to wash. Years of ingrained dirt and grim cascaded from his body as he scrubbed his arms, legs and torso. As he washed the glutinous fluid away, Konrad noticed the stubble that protruded from his face and the short hair that covered his skull. When he had entered the hibernation tank all those years ago, he was clean shaven and totally bald, but during his long slumber his hair had taken advantage and sprouted once again. He brushed his fingers over the crackling stubble on his chin and smiled. The last time his hair was this length was before he’d been arrested. It was as if he had been truly reborn, the prisoner who left Neu Magdeburg was gone. Something had changed.

As other prisoners left the showers, Konrad and Ziegler chose to remain in the gushing water and talk. Konrad wanted to know more about his new ally.

‘Which branch of the Party did you belong to?’ Konrad asked as he pointed to Ziegler’s tattoo. ‘Being a member of the local Hitler-Youth was the limit of my political ambitions.’

‘Don’t you recognise me?’ Ziegler asked. He turned side-on to show off his profile, obviously waiting to be exclaimed for who he was.

‘Should I?’ Konrad shrugged.

Ziegler was visibly disappointed by Konrad’s less than enthusiastic response.

‘I am… I was Gauleiter of Berlin. Gustav Ziegler. Doesn’t that ring any bells?’

Konrad kept his head under the spraying water as he finally recognised the Nazi. ‘Now I recognise you.’ He rinsed his mouth with more water and then spat it out as if speaking to the Nazi had contaminated him. ‘I certainly remember teaching my pupils about you,’ Konrad said. ‘And it was ancient history, I might add.’

‘Has it been that long since I fell from grace,’ Ziegler said to himself.

‘It had been ten years when I was arrested. It could be centuries ago for all we know now!’

Ziegler nodded. ‘No doubt, during my enforced absence, the Party rewrote history and all the good work I done on behalf of the Reich was censored and I became a non-person. I should know, I’ve seen it happen countless times to countless others. Here one minute, gone the next to some camp far in the East or simply despatched to a gas chamber somewhere. Unfortunately, that’s the price I paid for my ambition,’ Ziegler said pointing to his political birthmark. ‘I always took to heart the old Nazi saying that one should love the Fatherland more than his family. One must forsake any dreams of that when you rose through the Party. I worked hard and always showed the utmost loyalty and devotion to the Führer. First, like you, in the Hitler-Youth, then as a junior member of the Party, then eventually as a district leader. In time I eventually became a Gauleiter. Gauleiter of the capital of the Reich. Second only to the Führer himself! I was popular with the citizens and popular with my colleagues, and so when our last beloved Führer died, I assumed that my popularity would propel me into the Reich Chancellery itself. Unfortunately my own ambition blinded me to the ambition of others. Others who were more ruthless in achieving their goals than I.’

‘I assume you mean our current Führer, Albert Dietrich.’

Ziegler nodded. ‘Did you know that we were once friends?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes. We holidayed every year together at the Obersalzberg, and I even acted as his best man at his wedding. But what I came to learn, much too late, was beneath his brotherly exterior was a snake. A two-faced, treacherous pig. As my ambitions for the crown became apparent, he began plotting and whispering until the prize was his. As you know there was no antiquated democratic vote to select the Führer, my brother Gauleiters and I simply followed the old Nazi adage of if you wanted something you simply took it. And when I was about to take what I saw was rightfully mine, it was all taken away from me instead.’

‘You were arrested, I seem to remember,’ Konrad stated.

‘On charges of forming a terrorist organization with the purpose of killing Dietrich and the other Reich Gauleiters,’ Ziegler added bitterly. ‘I was supposedly in the pay of Bolshevik agents plotting to bring revolution to Germany. Still, perhaps I should have been grateful to my opponent. Dietrich could have, if he had so wished, woken me up in the middle of the night and had me executed in the cells of Prinz Albrechtstrasse. The public would have been none the wiser. However, I was to enjoy the dubious honour of having a show-trial at the People’s Court where countless witnesses queued up to denounce me. I can still remember my fellow colleagues who I’d know since I was child taking the stand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on a copy of Mein Kampf, and then hurling insults at me or going along with the lies. What hurt me most was that not one of them had the courage to look me in the eye as they parroted the same nonsense.’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Zeigler, but I’ve very little sympathy for you at this moment. I too had to endure similar lies. I too fell from grace. Maybe not as spectacularly as you, but we all felt the wrath of the Party,’ Konrad said.

‘That is true. But I will still curse our beloved Führer to my dying breath,’ Zeigler said bitterly.

‘Wouldn’t you have done exactly the same if you were in his place too?’ Konrad asked with a wry smile.

‘No, you’re wrong,’ Ziegler smiled. ‘If I did become Führer I would have lined Dietrich up against a wall and shot him the first chance I got.’

Konrad continued to wash himself down next to his new companion, but he still found it hard to believe that he stood next to a man who once wielded so much power, in fact, a man, if circumstances had been different, who could have been king. But these thoughts were put to one side as a new group of disorientated prisoners were herded into the wash-room.

At that instant, Konrad stopped and froze like a statue standing in the water. Amongst the prisoners, like a beacon of beauty amongst the sea of ugliness, was the woman from his dreams.

For a moment, Konrad thought he must have still been in that dream-world populated by his old friend, the grotesque courtesans and the hellish tower. During the confusion he expected the shower to disappear to reveal that beautiful alpine landscape to stretch out before him, but the interior of the vessel remained in place. This was no dream. The exactness of detail was frightening. Like the voice from his dream, the woman had manifested into reality. The fear stemmed from the fact that if the voice had found a human form in the SS officer and now the woman, what else would appear?

‘What’s the matter, Konrad?’ Ziegler asked as he noticed his state of confusion. ‘It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Perhaps I have,’ Konrad muttered.

The enigmatic woman entered the showers nearby and washed the congealed slime from her cropped hair, her thin face and from her body. Her actions were mundane, but to Konrad, they were highly erotic as her hands lingered upon her breasts, her legs, her hair. The tingle of excitement that coursed through Konrad as he watched finally shattered and swept away the remnants of his fear. He was close enough to reach out and touch her.

It was almost inevitable that this mysterious woman was Elsa.

Suddenly Konrad was pushed out of the way. And the culprit was also someone terribly familiar to him – Brutus.

‘Come on you lot,’ the Kapo cried. ‘Finish washing your dicks and get dried.’

Upon hearing the dreaded Kapo’s order, Konrad and other male prisoners obeyed and left the showers. A series of benches were arranged in an alcove. Konrad grabbed a large towel, but when he looked back he saw Brutus approaching the unsuspecting Elsa. He grabbed Elsa by the hair and pressed himself up against her exposed back. With a lecherous bellow, his large, bear-like hands groped clumsily over her breasts, his fingers pinching painfully at her flesh.

‘I like you,’ he slobbered. ‘I like you a lot. I want to be your friend. Do you want to be my friend too?’

Elsa struggled as Brutus maintained his grip and pulled her deeper into the clouds of steam.

Konrad paused as he watched the sexual assault. His eyes darted toward the shower and Brutus’ grunts. He flung the wet towel away and stepped forward to help, but the restraining hand of Ziegler held him back.

‘Have you got a death wish or something? Don’t ever get between a dog and its bone,’ Ziegler advised.

‘I can’t just stand here and let him do what he wants with that girl,’ Konrad said with an impressive note of indignation.

‘Why not? The female prisoner has nothing to do with you, does she?’

Konrad hesitated, unsure as to how to answer this question posed by Ziegler. ‘No, but I should do something.’

‘Are you mad! Brutus will kill you.’ Ziegler’s grip became even stronger around Konrad’s arm. ‘Haven’t you learnt anything since you were imprisoned?’

Konrad started to prise Ziegler’s fingers off.

‘Do nothing,’ Ziegler hissed, but his words fell on deaf ears as Konrad shrugged him off.

Deep within the shower, Brutus continued his assault upon Elsa. His muscular hands now lingered painfully between Elsa’s legs. The Kapo, like so many others in the prison, had been denied the comfort of the opposite sex. Even Brutus, despite being so vital to his Nazi masters and being rewarded with extra food and power, was never allowed to enter the fabled fraüenblock, and so all his frustrations, all his pent-up lust would be released by this prisoner’s body. Elsa, for her part, kept her eyes firmly closed as the animal clung to her body. She was used to drunken fondles and slobbering kisses from drunken Nazis, but this assault was different. Sleeping with the Nazis was expected if she was to survive, but not here. Also, it was so public, so open and so blatant. Even though her eyes were closed and she could smell the prisoner’s hot, stinking breath and his demonic voice in her ears, she could still sense the eyes of the other prisoners upon her who stood by and watched. The silence made Elsa wonder if they too were enjoying this violent, impromptu sex display?

Then as suddenly as it began, the attack appeared to be over. The strong arms no longer entwined her and she was free. Elsa opened her eyes and saw the reason why her ordeal was at an end. Two prisoners were grappling with one another. They rolled and splashed across the wet floor in front of her. One was Brutus, the other was Konrad. Brutus, his fist balled like a hammer, punched Konrad in the face over and over again, but the blows failed to quell Konrad’s protest. Instead, the smaller prisoner tried to fight Brutus off by grabbing at his throat and clawing at his face, his efforts weak and ineffectual compared to the brute force exhibited by his opponent, nevertheless, Konrad continued to resist.

‘Keep your hands off her!’ he repeated over and over again.

Brutus smiled wolfishly. ‘Are you jealous that I managed to get my hands on the pussy before you?’

Konrad continued his mantra, but he was met with yet another punch which left him sprawled on the floor. Then, with a bloody-mindedness that verged upon madness, he continued to mutter his mantra through his blood-stained teeth as Brutus reclaimed his spoils.

‘Make yourself comfortable and watch the fun!’ he said to Konrad as he slipped a finger into Elsa’s mouth. She took the hint and started to suck. Brutus obviously enjoyed the sensation to such an extent that he closed his eyes. At this point, Elsa’s own eyes shot open and turned towards Konrad. She then gave the beaten prisoner a mischievous wink as she then bit down into Brutus’s finger. Blood spurted from Elsa’s mouth as her teeth sliced through the flesh and bone. Brutus staggered backwards, clutching the crimson stump, a scream of pain emitting from his lips. Free from the bully, she then spat out the chunk of meat, which splattered messily between Konrad’s legs.

‘You should be thankful I was only sucking your finger!’ Elsa said as she wiped the blood from her mouth.

The Kapo’s painful defeat now prompted the guards to act. A truncheon cracked the catwalk rail violently, its metallic concussion bringing all the prisoners to their senses.

‘That’s enough!’ The guard said he pointed the truncheon at the prisoners below. ‘All of you get out the showers now.’ He rapped the rail again to emphasise the command.

Ziegler took hold of Konrad and doused his bloody face under the shower. He was sympathetic, but at the same time, ever the politician, he was scathing of his new friend’s actions.

‘I hope you’ve learnt your lesson,’ Ziegler said. ‘What the hell were you thinking? Getting your guts stomped out for that animal.’

‘Looking back now, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.’ Konrad held up the remains of Brutus’s finger.

Ziegler handed his comrade a towel. ‘What made you jump to her defence anyway?’

Konrad turned away. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Well, what-ever your reasons, no matter how noble, or in my opinion, how stupid they may have been, you’ll have to watch your back from now on. Remember this before you live to regret it, if one thing’s guaranteed with this mission is that the women will be as dangerous as any Nazi.’

Konrad nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. Instead, he watched a triumphant Elsa slinking out the chamber with the other female prisoners. As she disappeared into the crowded corridor their eyes met.

CHAPTER TEN

Vanaheim, its spherical shape still shrouded in darkness, dominated every monitor in the command module. These monitors were decorated with statistics such as course-projections, orbital envelopes, rotation speeds, pitch angles and thousands of other pieces of data that the ship’s computers supplied. Admiral Bauer and his crew hovered over the displays, their fingers dancing expertly across the coloured banks of buttons and gauges. Stahl ignored the activity as he stood at the very top of the command module on the observation-deck. Above him, beyond the thick glass cap, was the inhospitable void. Looking through the transparent barrier it appeared as if he had stepped beyond the safe metallic confines of the ship and into the vacuum. Free of the mechanical and electronic noise below in the control room, the planet and the colourless backdrop that surrounded it presented to Stahl their true scale and depth. The ancients had named the planets of the solar system after the gods they knew; Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, but they had only seen the great planetary bodies as pinpoints of light that had roamed across their night skies. They could only imagine the true god-like scale of these worlds. Stahl wondered how those same ancient astronomers would have reacted if they were in the same position as him. Perhaps they would have bowed and grovelled before the celestial bodies, convinced that they were truly face to face with those same gods.

As Stahl gazed out the domed window, a probe disengaged from its berth in the Odin’s hull and blasted its way towards the planet. The little pioneer, Siegfried, gunned into the darkness with an iridescent blue streak glowing in its wake.

Inside the probe sat its pilot, the Odin’s science officer, Petersen. The astronaut had prepared for this moment for years. During that time he had been destroyed countless times due to pilot error, computer malfunctions, defective engines and all manner of other faults or acts of god in the simulators, but in the end Petersen had always emerged unscathed. His time in the spotlight would be brief and relatively, it was hoped, uneventful, but the symbolism of his task, being the first to observe the planet’s surface was incalculable. Like the rest of the crew, Petersen had been shown replications of the planet’s surface, however, he would be the first to see the alien world in all its glory with his own eyes. He would gaze upon the mountain ranges, the valleys, the grasslands and its oceans, and perhaps even signs of life. A romantic vision of seeing fantastical birds wheeling around the probe filled his mind as he performed his final checks. The probe’s controls reflected upon his wide face-plate, the dials and buttons bent and distorted by the reinforced glass dome as he gently turned the pistol-grip sticks and angled the probe towards Vanaheim’s equator.

‘This is Siegfried,’ Petersen announced. ‘Distance to Vanaheim is one thousand kilometres and closing. All systems are nominal, Odin.’

The probe’s radio crackled into life. ‘Copy that, Siegfried.’ The voice belonged to Admiral Bauer, whose tone was friendly and parental. ‘Any problems and you can’t continue, remember, don’t hesitate to ask for the recall code. Once that code is transmitted the probe will automatically return – hopefully in one piece.’

‘With all due respect, Herr Admiral, you’re beginning to sound like my mother,’ Petersen replied. ‘And I know you; you’d transmit that code anyway simply so you could take my place!’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ Bauer said.

Petersen’s smile suddenly disappeared as one of his displays flashed. ‘Ten seconds to atmosphere entry,’ Petersen said as he braced himself in his seat. He was ready to face the new world.

The probe hurtled across the terminator between night and day. This transition between light and darkness marked the point where the little spacecraft hit the upper atmosphere, unleashing a fiery trail to mark its way. Great vibrations generated by the friction between the heat-resistant casing and the air molecules violently took hold of the probe. They grew stronger and stronger as if the alien world was trying valiantly to throttle this man-made invader.

Petersen’s determined face was illuminated by the brilliant display of ionised gases outside. He gripped his controls even tighter as he fought to guide the probe and push it on through the natural barrier that had manifested itself. Orange, yellow, blue, green and red gases bubbled and boiled until eventually an ethereal calm took hold of the little craft. The highly dangerous entry into the atmosphere was over and a vast and dark blanket of cloud presented itself to Petersen through the oval window. Forbidding columns twisted and jutted from the black deck like ghostly fingers as if these murky structures were the watch-towers of some hidden atmospheric camp situated in the heavens. The alien moon cast its light upon this mournful cloudscape which was far removed from the information he had been told about this world by his superiors.

In contrast to the fiery penetration of the atmosphere, the next stage of the probe’s descent took place in a suffocating darkness. Turbulence still gripped the craft, but it was the apparent blindness that concerned Petersen. To combat the gloom, he leaned forward and flipped on the probe’s powerful navigation lights, but the beams of light barely penetrated the swirling morass.

‘This is Siegfried,’ Petersen said into his open microphone. ‘I’m continuing my descent but I have to report that visibility is non-existent. Hopefully I’ll clear the cloud-deck and visibility will improve.’

‘Copy that, Siegfried,’ Bauer replied.

As the Admiral’s voice faded away, the dank cloud cover also disappeared to finally reveal the planet’s surface rushing up towards the probe. Petersen violently pulled on the sticks. His split-second reactions saved both himself and the craft as it reared steeply away from the ground, its hull grazing the surface. For a few moments the astronaut struggled with the bucking craft, but once he had control again a relevant calm returned and Petersen could look out and finally survey the alien world’s landscape.

An ebony dune sea rolled unending beneath the craft’s lights, its shapeless terrain merging into the stormy night-sky. It was obvious that the undulating sands harboured no life or vegetation. This was not the world Petersen had seen back at the pre-launch briefing so long ago on Earth. There were no rivers, no lakes, no forests, no prairies, nothing. Instead it was a world seemingly as harsh and lifeless as the void of space. Clouds of dust hung over the mountainous dunes, drifting and coiling as wisps of powdery soil blew from the ridges to increase the clouds in size grain by grain. Petersen manoeuvred the probe lower towards the hellish desert, its hull barely above the shifting sands. Rocky outcrops poked their way through the bland sand, their surfaces distorted and mutated like demons by the abrasive environment. These freak-like landmarks appeared to glisten in the dim moonlight as their unconventional escarpments had been polished smooth over hundreds, perhaps, thousands of years by the desert’s scouring breath.

Petersen flipped on the microphone. ‘If you are seeing this, Odin, I hope you’re going to tell me that this desert is only a small section of the planet. But I’ve a terrible feeling that this is the entire world’s true appearance. Do you copy, Odin?’

A blast of screaming static reverberated in the astronaut’s helmet before a shuddering, incomplete voice faded back and forth. ‘Siegfr… repeat… desce… Petersen!’

In response, Petersen fiddled with the radio, but his efforts were only met with another explosion of static howls.

‘Odin, do you copy?’ the astronaut asked. ‘Please respond.’ There wasn’t a hint of panic in Petersen’s voice or manner, he was far too professional, but it wasn’t far from the surface.

He now had one of two choices to make. Either pull back and abandon his descent or continue on. Perhaps he was wrong, and this desolate region was only a small part of the surface and maybe, just maybe, if he continued on with his journey the lush, green world he had seen would appear below him to prove him wrong. The dilemma reminded Petersen of his childhood adventures he would have on Lünenburg Heath. Every summer he would travel there with his family, exploring the sprawling wilderness. During the day he would wander off alone, playing and each day his adventures would take the young Petersen deeper into the heath. One day he ended up deep within a thicket, an island of trees in the grass and brush. The dense foliage and the tall trees disoriented the youngster as he stood in the intimidating forest cathedral. He cried out for his family, but no-one came. Eventually a forester emerged like a wood spirit. To the young Petersen’s eyes the elderly man looked like he had been carved from the same wood he harvested. The kindly forester had looked after him until his family eventually arrived. But before Petersen left the forest, the elderly man hurriedly pressed into his hand a small medal. As he wrapped Petersen’s little fingers around it, the old man put a single finger to his lips and winked. The youngster obeyed the old man’s advice and refused to look at the medal in his hands while he was around his family, but once he was safely back at the camp and inside his own tent. Petersen opened up his hand and found that it was a Saint Christopher medal he now possessed. Saint Christopher was the saint who protected all travellers and Petersen smiled as he opened up a pouch in his pressure-suit and pulled out that very same medal. It now no longer shone brightly as a dull patina covered the figure of the saint carrying the infant Christ on his shoulders. He had never shown the medal to anyone and since his circumstances had changed since that day, namely his association with the Nazi cause, it was an even wiser policy to keep its ownership secret given the Party’s persecution of the Christians. He gazed down at the medal and made up his mind to open up the probe’s throttle and maintain his course.

As Petersen continued on into the night he switched to the probe’s radar-scanner. The invisible signals pierced the cloud and darkness to artificially illuminate the landscape. The appearance of the desert slowly changed. Great cracks and fissures emerged; small, at first, but growing in size the further the probe flew. The fractures multiplied and concentrated like the surface of dry lake-bed until they eventually merged together into several immense canyons which burrowed deep into the surface. Over tens of kilometres, these canyons opened out into one single caldera whose breadth and scale was beyond anything that Petersen could comprehend. Beyond the caldera’s outer ridge its walls dropped away steeply, apparently right into the very core of the planet. Its jagged walls hinted that the crater had been created by some unimaginable cataclysm.

The astronaut operated a series of switches before him and brought the probe to a halt, its positioning jets spitting fitfully to keep the vehicle high above the caldera’s treacherous lip. At that moment he felt like he was before the mouth of a god whose terrible beauty was ready to swallow him. He rubbed his Saint Christopher again before engaging the engines and directing the probe over the outer ridge of the giant crater and down into its depths. An altimeter ticked monotonously as the probe dropped hundreds of meters until an electronic chime indicated that the probe had descended over five kilometres. Petersen eyed the radar to see if there was indication of how far from the bottom of the crater he was, but the radar’s sweeping arc became erratic and distorted. He tapped the illuminated scope hoping that this would bring the malfunctioning device back into line, but it was to no avail as the distortion grew worse and more pronounced.

‘Time to leave, I think,’ Petersen said to himself.

Despite the protection provided by his pagan medal, he decided to escape from the mysterious caldera and head back to the safety of the Odin. If the link between the probe and its mother-ship had been broken, as he suspected, he would have to describe in person everything he had seen, and it would be up to him to break the devastating news that Vanaheim was-not the paradise they had hoped for. How could they have been so wrong about this world? The images and data Petersen had seen in the lecture hall at Pennemünde along with the rest of the crew had been so final and precise – a world comparable to home. A second Earth. Everything they had brought with them in regard to supplies – farm equipment, shelters, even the finite amount of food they had brought – were all based upon the assumption that the world was life-sustaining; not this hellish wasteland. The next logical question would be what Petersen and his comrades do now?

Suddenly his thoughts were broken as the probe was rocked from side to side. At that same moment, every monitor, scope, light and switch died and plunged the astronaut into an unnerving darkness.

‘What’s going on?’ Petersen said. All traces of professionalism were fast disappearing. ‘Odin, if you can hear me I’ve lost all my systems.’

It was plain that his message had failed to get through. In desperation, he then thumbed numerous buttons, pressed numerous resets – all to no avail. It was as if the craft had been hypnotised by the planet. Its senses were now inert, disabled by the toxic embrace of the strange atmosphere within the caldera. Petersen felt the sweat pooling above his top lip, while his breathing resounded thunderously inside his helmet as he looked impotently at the useless display in front of him. The only movement he saw were the ugly clouds which still enveloped his little ship.

He started to pray. ‘Lord God in heaven, protector of the Fatherland, send thy sword to protect me from thy enemies. Let the Überführer’s strength course through me; his will filling my spirit and my heart. With thy powers let me smite all who oppose thy holy swastika and all those who wish to pollute my people’s blood. Cast thy holy light to show me the way, always and forever. Amen.’

As if answering his prayer the probe’s speaker screamed into life. Horst Wessel, the Nazi anthem blared, its volume painfully loud within the confines of the little vehicle. Petersen pawed at the panel, hoping to cut off the ghostly song, but the song continued, the singing and music distorted with static and feedback. Then, as quickly as it began, the Nazi martial tune shut-off to plunge the interior of the probe into silence again. At the same time, Petersen’s controls stiffened in his hands. One by one, he slowly pulled his fingers from the grips, and to his amazement, he watched as the controls angled and turned on their own. Was the hand of the Überführer at work here? Was his guiding hand saving him, guiding the probe and taking it to safety? Was he witnessing a miracle?

The probe moved forward, the clouds speeding past the window. As it accelerated, the g-forces started to push Petersen further and further back into his seat. He should have felt scared, but he was calmness personified. Petersen even had time to gaze at the medal, a content smile forming.

Out in the gloom a pair of lights appeared distantly. They hovered like stars, drawing the probe towards them.

Petersen continued to pray, his words sustaining the miraculous actions that had apparently taken hold of the craft. A modicum of hope infected his invocation as the lights bloated in front of him.

‘Thank you, my Führer,’ Petersen gasped. ‘Thank you.’

Then the terrible truth dawned.

Petersen realised that the miracle that had supposedly saved him had turned out to be a cruel joke as the clouds in front of him parted like the gates of Hell to reveal his own probe’s lights reflected in a vast polished wall that loomed before him. He desperately yanked at the controls, but they remained immobile like stone, their course permanently locked upon the black structure. He screamed briefly as the probe crashed into the towering wall, the small man-made object exploding and plunging into the swirling clouds. The glow of the fireball soon disappeared, its bright colours submerged by the shades of black and grey.

After a few moments, the smouldering remains of the probe crashed into the black, cinder-like soil. Petersen’s charred corpse still sat strapped in its overturned seat, his limbs drawn up like a defeated boxer, while a final gruesome grimace dominated the cadaver’s blackened features. This grimace was a silent recording of his last moments when he was confronted by the structure that robbed him of his life – the spire.

The vast tower stood alone within the caldera. The structure’s walls stretched far into the distance, and such was its size and scale that its true shape was lost in the swirling dust which was now starting to blanket the smoking wreckage and give Petersen, at last, some sort of dignified burial.

The probe’s destruction seemed to trigger something deep within the sinister structure as unseen machinery, which had perhaps lain dormant for aeons, groaned and creaked into life. The mechanical stirring which gripped the spire was soon accompanied by a more organic sound, a primeval vibration that coursed through its walls like the first breath of a child. But this sound would have been totally alien to human ears as it was without comparison to any earthly sound. Its sense of being, indeed, the sense of purpose that the sound bore was unmistakable. A great force was stirring, its strength and intensity growing with each passing moment.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The holding pen that housed Konrad was eerily like the cramped containers that had transported him around the various prison-camps around the Reich where he had served his sentence. First it was a camp situated in the mammoth oil-fields of the Caucasus. Here he had worked in one of the refineries ran by the conglomerate Deutsche Oil, then when labour was required on the colony of Neu Berlin located on the Jovian moon of Io he was transported there. For just over a year, Konrad endured the nightmarish conditions of the sulphur harvesting operation there. In almost medieval conditions, he dug out the noxious yellow soil. The containers that had taken Konrad to these diverse outposts of the Reich’s prison system were always devoid of natural light and either bone-numbingly cold or overwhelmingly hot. They were carried inside the bellies of freight-trains that trundled across the hinterland of the East, or the holds of space-going vessels, and his current location was no different.

Removed from the sterile hibernation areas of the vessel, Konrad and the prisoners were now housed within the Odin’s central shaft. This giant horizontal corridor connected the cerebral structures at the prow to the muscular engineering sections far off in the stern. A small section of the tunnel had been cordoned off into a makeshift holding pen. As a result, the prisoners’ bunks were slung beneath giant pieces of ducting and bulbous power-cables which ran along the length of the seemingly endless tube. Konrad sat on his own cot, his legs swinging child-like over the edge of the filthy mattress. If he had known that millions of volts surged through the cabling at his feet he may have been reluctant to continue. In fact, his greatest concerns at that moment were the fresh cuts and bruises that covered his face.

The effects of emerging from hibernation: his erratic body-clock, the tiredness and nausea all started to take their toll upon Konrad. He slumped down on the mattress and peered through the barred wall at the head of his cot. The barred section sealed the male prisoners from the females, and for once, Konrad understood the Nazi’s actions with this metallic partition. He had heard of a similar situation that had arisen during an infamous prisoner transfer some years before. A consignment of prisoners, both male and female, were being transported to a new camp in the shadow of the Ural mountains. Their journey started at the Reich’s main penal handling centre situated at Danzig. At the huge sprawling complex, the different sexes were normally kept well apart, but the transport situation meant that the different inmates would be in close contact. The train-carriages were divided between the sexes, however the Nazis underestimated the lust and ingenuity of the male prisoners. During the first night of the journey the male inmates like a pack of rabid rats worked the locks loose on their carriage and broke into the female prisoners’ compartments. Every woman inside was raped; some of them were even killed before the shocked Nazis took action. At first, truncheons were used to fend off the male prisoners, but such was the determination of the men to satisfy their pent-up desires that the Nazi guards were eventually forced to resort to fire-arms and even more blood-shed to quell the shocking sexual-insurrection. And so to prevent a similar situation aboard the Odin, not only was the barred wall deemed to be prisoner-proof, but as an extra precaution, the heavily locked gate that connected the two sections had an electric current running through it.

Through the bars Konrad could see in the gloom beyond the indistinct shapes of the female prisoners. They spoke quietly and moved rarely as if they were mindful of alerting the male inmates of their presence. After a few moments, he closed his eyes and tried to relax, hoping that a good sleep would bring equilibrium to his disrupted system, and after a few moments, it appeared to be succeeding as sleep took hold of him. Then something unexpected and pleasantly surprising happened. A hand reached through the bars and gently touched Konrad’s forehead.

He instantly opened his eyes and saw Elsa staring back at him from the other side of the bars. A friendly smile gleamed in the semi-darkness. For a few seconds, Konrad assumed he was still asleep and the vision before him had been conjured from yet another dreamscape. But when she spoke, he realised that the woman wasn’t some temporal apparition that would tease him before disappearing once again.

‘For a moment, I thought you were dead,’ Elsa said.

Konrad rose up and shifted uneasily on the cot. It had been a long time since he had heard the voice of a woman, any woman, and his apparent teenage-like nervousness appeared to amuse Elsa.

‘I’m not going to bite you,’ Elsa giggled as she patted the bars between them. ‘Even if I could.’

Konrad replied. ‘I assume those bars are there for your protection.’

‘I rather think they were designed to keep us girls away from you men!’

The couple laughed. The ice broken, Konrad began to relax. Pointedly he rested his legs upon his hands, an old trait he always exhibited when he was confronted with new companions and surroundings.

‘Can I ask then, why I’ve been lavished with your attention?’ he asked.

‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry,’ Elsa simply stated. Her eyes lingered upon his bruised cheeks and his swollen lips.

‘Sorry?’ Konrad said. ‘Sorry, for what?’

‘It was because of me that bastard Brutus nearly killed you.’

Konrad smiled. ‘For all my efforts, I seem to remember you successfully dealt with that animal in your own indubitable fashion.’

‘Being imprisoned at Neu Magdeburg taught me to be tough a long time ago,’ Elsa said flatly. ‘Still, I could have saved my guardian angel earlier than I did,’ she said as she reached through the bars once again to touch his face. Her fingers remained upon his wounds. Her movements weren’t erotic; in fact, her intentions were entirely the opposite, but Konrad’s skin crackled under her touch.

‘A guardian angel!’ Konrad chuckled. ‘I’m honoured. During all my life I’ve been called just about every name under the sun, but I have to admit being called a guardian angel is the most unusual.’

‘I’ve had numerous aliases since I was sentenced,’ she sighed. ‘Slut, bitch, whore, slag, pig, sow, animal.’ The resentment was clear in her voice. ‘I’ve been called them all, but what makes it so funny, so ironic, is the fact that the men who called me those things always abused me at the very moment when they were gaining the most pleasure from my body. I suppose they said it to make themselves feel better. If they abused me while they fucked me it would absolve them of any guilt they experienced. In their eyes they were performing bestiality.’

‘You were imprisoned in the fräuenblock then?’

Elsa nodded. ‘I gained an extensive knowledge of the guards of the camp, and the ship’s crew before we blasted off.’

‘And before you were there?’ Konrad asked.

Elsa sighed as she dredged up memories that perhaps she’d suppressed for years behind that erotic façade she exhibited up on stage. The memories of her past life would have normally stayed hidden away, but being confronted by Konrad her mask suddenly started to fall away. She felt she could open up and tell this man anything.

‘In the eyes of our beloved Reich I was a murderer. But in my own eyes I simply made a choice,’ Elsa said.

‘A choice?’

‘Between my head and my heart. I had an abortion,’ she said.

Konrad instantly regretted asking Elsa to reveal her past. This dose of harsh reality punctured his image of her that had been built up during the series of fantasies and dreams that involved this woman.

‘Before I committed my crime I was a violinist with the Wagner orchestra in Bayreuth.’ Elsa pressed herself closer to the bars like a pious parishioner inside a confessional box. ‘I was a member of the orchestra for over five years, performing all over Germany and the Eastern territories. We also had the pleasure of being asked to play in Paris, Rome and London. We even toured America on a goodwill tour shortly before I was arrested. The orchestra played Carnegie Hall in New York for a week to full houses every night. Standing ovations, cheers, endless encores. It was delightful.

‘Anyway, as you can imagine, I had to work very hard to gain my place on the orchestra. My mother and father saved every Reichsmark they had to send me to music classes, then to the correct schools to gain the necessary scholarships. Eventually we all moved from our home in Leipzig to Bayreuth to be nearer to the orchestra. To absorb the power of Wagner in the words of my father. But even after I had won my place I felt I had to work twice as hard to keep it. You have to remember that a woman’s place in the Reich is in the home, breeding the next generation of Nazis and not performing to the masses. Men can spread culture, but not women.’

‘So how did you end up having an abortion?’ Konrad asked.

‘I was content at the orchestra. I was happy. But over the years I’d seen numerous women gain coveted spots only for them to leave after they had become pregnant or married, so I decided early on, that both of these fates wouldn’t befall me. However, love reared its head and changed everything.

‘I met Gustav Volt at the orchestra,’ Elsa then continued. ‘He played in the wind section; I played in the string section. He was sweet, kind and handsome. Over time our eyes would meet while we played, then eventually, our eyes would meet in bed. Needless to say, I fell pregnant with his child. As you can imagine, I was horrified at the prospect, and so I decided to keep my pregnancy secret from Gustav. I knew full well how he’d react if he ever found out about the unborn child. He would have reacted like a good German. He would have expected me to leave the orchestra, marry him and care for the child at home while he continued to do what he loved – what I loved to do.

‘As I said, I knew of other woman who had found themselves in the same dilemma as I found myself in, so I discreetly asked around for help. Eventually I was pointed in the direction of a doctor who, for a price, would perform the abortion and rid me of the child. So, under the pretext of visiting some friends in Weimar, I made my way to the doctor’s clinic, signed in under a false name and ended the pregnancy there and then.’

‘I assume the authorities found out.’

‘They did,’ Elsa said sadly. ‘It turned out Gustav wasn’t as faithful a lover as I thought. I wasn’t the only woman in the orchestra who found him kind and handsome. My friend Geli, also fell for his charms. Her desire to be with Gustav far outweighed our friendship.

‘She just so happened to be one of the women who I confided my problem to, and I think out of sheer spite and to ensure that Gustav belonged solely to her she denounced me to the Gestapo.’ Tears started to well up as Elsa completed her confession. ‘I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had kept the child. I’d like to think that he or she would have loved me forever and not abandoned me like I abandoned them. Therefore, perhaps I do deserve my punishment; after all, I did choose to become a murderer.’

Konrad offered no reply. He quickly realised that nothing he could say or do would alleviate the pain and guilt evident in Elsa’s face. This moment of pain for her further changed the idealised image he’d built around her, and despite the revelations, his need to be with her remained as strong as ever.

For a few moments the prisoners remained silent until Elsa eventually turned to face Konrad again, the tears buried once again beneath her hard exterior. ‘Tell me something, and please be honest with me,’ she said.

‘I’ll try,’ Konrad replied.

‘Would you still have tried to help me if you had known what I had done?’

‘You want the truth?’

Elsa nodded firmly. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Yes,’ Konrad stated without hesitation.

‘Why?’

Konrad was tempted to confess all to Elsa about her haunting appearances in his dreams and with it, his unspoken attraction for her, but he settled for another underlying reason. A reason, that perhaps, when the animal instincts and emotion were removed from the equation, was the real reason he attempted to save her from Brutus. He reached through the bars and grabbed her hand. It felt shockingly warm in his grasp, and despite being as roughly hewn as his own, Elsa’s hand felt wonderfully feminine.

‘Because I had a choice too. A choice between right and wrong,’ he said. ‘It was the right thing to do,’ he whispered.

At that moment, an immense shudder convulsed through the tunnel as if the vessel was groaning in pain. Something horrible was about to happen.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The holographic blade flashed back and forth as the masked opponents fought. One of the dancing figures was calmness personified. His breathing was measured, his eyes fixed, and his instinct was to win at all costs. The opponent was far from the same. His lunges and parries were slow and laboured, and increasingly desperate as he battled to contain his illustrious adversary. The expert fencer, a hologram of the legendary 1988 Olympian, Max Gruber, stood poised once again, foil in hand, after he scored another point, his exhausted opponent was Stahl. He had retreated to the officer’s lounge after watching Petersen’s launch and activated the fencing program. For hours he had remained locked in combat, his attention solely focussed upon defeating the simulation. Such was his focus that when the Admiral’s voice suddenly boomed in the lounge he thought the holographic figure was speaking to him.

‘Attention all hands!’ The Admiral announced over the lounge’s speaker-system. ‘Attention all hands. In accordance with Astrokorp directives I have decided to leave orbit around this planet.’

Stahl couldn’t believe his ears. ‘What the hell was going on?’ he thought as he lowered the game-wand and the hologram of Baumann disappeared. The Sturmbannführer grabbed a nearby towel and wiped the sweat from his face as he continued to listen to the Admiral.

‘During the last few hours, as you all know, we lost a brave comrade, science officer Petersen after he bravely volunteered to explore the planet below. No doubt, he gave his life in the hope that the information from his pioneering vehicle would help his shipmates. It has. The weather systems we have observed make it impossible for us to attempt any sort of landing. Given this fact, we have decided with a heavy heart to make our decision.’ The Admiral continued. ‘My first priority is the safety of your lives and the safety of this ship. Anything that would jeopardise either of these must be avoided. I, unlike others, will not take reckless gambles with the Odin, or your lives.

‘However, the directive from our command also offers us an alternative. We cannot return home, but our mission to expand the Reich’s boundaries will continue. Instead, we will set course for our secondary destination. It is a planet similar in almost every respect to Vanaheim that is two lights years away. The launch window to reach this new haven will appear in approximately three hours, so time is of the essence. All hands, prepare to leave orbit.’

‘What the hell is he doing!’ Stahl screamed at the top of his voice.

They had come all this way, travelled so far, and now, all because they had lost a single crew-man due to bad weather, they were going to turn-tail and abandon this world. The idea of failure, of even admitting the possibility of defeat, was heresy to Stahl. This retreat, for that is what is was in his mind, was an idea so alien, so contemptuous to him that his blood boiled. What made it worse was he felt he was in the hands of a coward. Would the perceived cowardice of Admiral Bauer reflect upon him too? This, more than anything, fuelled his outrage. Tears of frustration, even a wave of nausea, took hold of Stahl as he pulled on his SS tunic. The feelings, real or not, started to disappear after he wrapped his belt around his waist and he felt the weight of his side-arm. He pulled the stream-lined pistol from the holster and considered if its power would compel the Admiral to reconsider his disastrous decision. All it would take was a single shot from the pistol to gain control of the ship and return it to its illustrious path. All his frustration, all his contempt, all his anger screamed at him to seize the moment. Stahl’s Nazi teachings also pointed him towards this show of force, but before the SS officer could act the tremors that disturbed Konrad and Elsa knocked him off his feet.

An urgent computerised voice screamed “Red Alert!” as Stahl picked himself up and raced towards the control room.

Deep within the spire, Bauer’s ghostly voice echoed from the coal-like walls. His earnest announcement filled every chamber, the German voice filling the unending darkness that dominated the vast interior. Bauer’s words rose up and down in volume, the pitch and accent distorted not only by the echoes, but also by unseen filters which made a mockery of the words. But amongst the booming cacophony, a distinct, and from the Odin’s crew’s point of view, disturbing pattern emerged. “All hands, prepare to leave orbit.” The sentence replayed endlessly.

The final words triggered something within the spire. Something violent.

Ribbons of light emerged from the black structure. This glittering display of energy boiled and seethed as the glowing shapes merged into a single, unbridled column of plasma. Then at an unspoken critical point, a powerful column powered up the spire screaming as it found a fierce, hellish voice. At the spire’s knife-like apex, the plasma exploded, its coiling fingers thrusting through the laden atmosphere towards the tiny pinpoint of light, the Odin, which wheeled across the sky.

Below the orbiting craft, the muggy cloudbanks were illuminated by a growing circle of light. The bright halo heralded the emergence of the demonic coil which spat from the atmosphere and shot straight at the Odin. The energy slammed into the giant swastika painted on the vessel’s hull and quickly disappeared. The hull shuddered fiercely as the light disappeared, its effect felt all over the ship, from the control room to the engine room, from Stahl to Konrad.

The energised plasma flooded and washed its way through the Odin’s countless ducts, pipes and corridors like the ejaculate of some god-like entity. But the fizzing, hissing column’s actions were deliberate, as if it was searching for a particular section of the vessel. Eventually, the plasma found its way into the engine room. The tremors still held the ship fast as the insidious fingers of power danced their way through the massive, cathedral-like interior. It coiled around the network of pipes and combustion chambers as the normal white lighting flickered out to be replaced by the blue emergency lighting which gave the engine room a disturbing gothic atmosphere. The invader lingered upon the swollen reservoirs of C-stoff and T-stoff, the Odin’s rocket fuels. Like a calculating predator, the finger of plasma hovered over the network of pressurised fuel-pipes that hung from the breast-like tanks as if analysing them for a weak point. The barbs of energy wrapped themselves around the network of piping and pulled its seals and gaskets apart. Liquid hydrogen peroxide spilt from the cracked metal and dripped into the compartment below.

Chief Engineer Roth clung to his rocking panel, amazed at the sheer number of red alert alarms that flashed in front of him. The tall and strong engineer looked shaken. Never before had he experienced such a situation. The ship was screaming to him in pain and like a father with his newborn, the mewing distressed him greatly. But as he pulled his hand back from the panel, something wet, something terribly cold, dripped on to it. The liquid tingled curiously upon his skin, its touch burning him as a wisp of vapour rose from the clear liquid. Roth looked up and followed the dripping chemical’s trajectory. His eyes widened in horror.

‘On my god,’ he said quietly when he saw the ruptured pipe above him.

Roth staggered backwards, retreating from the innocent-looking liquid which hissed and fizzed as it hit the catwalk. Thinking fast, the Chief Engineer turned and tried to find someone – anyone – to warn. Below him numerous technicians and engineers busied themselves about the throbbing engines, all of them seemingly oblivious to the fatal situation that was unfolding far above them.

‘Get out here! Get out!’ Roth frantically cried. ‘Can’t you hear me? Get out!’

Some of his men looked up quizzically, while others continued with their checks, but the din of the machinery muffled Roth’s dire warnings.

‘Move boys!’ Roth shouted again. ‘The C-stoff fuel is leaking. Get out! Get out!’

He ran down the quivering catwalk, his pace quickening when he suddenly spotted a vividly coloured emergency button at the far end. Roth slapped the button to unleash a whining klaxon. The job done, he now looked over the catwalk’s barrier and saw, one by one, his shipmates looking up and spotting the frantic Chief Engineer. But the crew would not only have seen Roth but also the ghostly finger of energy as it reappeared like some demonic theatrical effect. He stood frozen on the spot as he too saw the ethereal invader bubbling from the very metal of the ship. Its appearance this time was totally devoid of its previous insidious and creeping approach, now it was brazen and wanton as its claw-like throngs coiled around the leaking fuel-pipe. He screamed as the plasma viciously wrenched the pipe apart, releasing thousands of litres of C-stoff. Then in one single motion the sinister entity shot across the steaming chamber and pulled apart the pipes.

Roth gripped the barrier and closed his eyes as he was engulfed by the torrent of vapour and liquid, his defiant silhouette standing momentarily before the thunderous deluge.

Within seconds, the two chemicals splashed and mixed into one another and exploded spectacularly.

The mighty explosion consumed the entire engine room and along with it, the stern of the ship. The immense fire-ball expanded rapidly to devour the rest of the Odin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The explosion hit the prisoners within their claustrophobic prison. Almost instantly acrid smoke began to roll up the tubular chamber adding to the disorientation and confusion as they instinctively headed towards the only means of escape – a sealed airlock. Its polished surface reflected the terrified faces of the prisoners who had piled up against it. In front of the barrier their basic instincts, driven by fear and panic, overcame them as they fought and clawed like animals. Fingers gouged eyes, teeth bit into flesh.

The explosion had knocked Konrad from his cot and onto the grated floor. He could taste the smoke in his mouth, its barbs stinging his eyes and rooting into his lungs. He coughed and spluttered as he rose groggily. A ruddy glow in the distance stained the blackness that surrounded him. It was the glow of fire. The sight of the oncoming inferno cleared Konrad’s mind. What the hell had happened? What had caused the explosion? These questions would have to wait to be answered, if at all, for later. All that mattered now was escaping, and escaping with Elsa.

Konrad climbed to his feet and looked through the barred wall. She was gone. As he looked another figure lunged at the locked gate. The female figure, her face stained with blood and smoke desperately grabbed the lock. At that instant the electric current shot through her. After a few seconds, the female prisoner’s agonies were over and her smoking body slumped to the deck. The smell of her burnt flesh overcame even the pervasive stench of the smoke. He turned away in disgust and peered through the smoke and made out the shape of a young guard, baton in hand and panic in his eyes. The guard swung his baton wildly, using it to push the frightened women back into what appeared like the depths of Hell as the fire took hold. Konrad desperately searched the screaming faces and eventually saw Elsa still alive. Their eyes met and a small ray of hope spread across her face.

‘Hey! Open the gate,’ he shouted at the guard. ‘Have a heart and give the women a chance to escape!’

The guard simply ignored Konrad.

‘Let them through!’ Konrad shouted again.

This time the guard responded by swinging his baton at the barred wall, its sparking tip scraping Konrad’s knuckles. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ he hissed.

Just as the words left his mouth another blast reverberated. This time its source was closer to home.

A sheet of flame roared through the tunnel. It carried within it a giant piece of shrapnel and this jagged piece of metal cart-wheeled straight through the obstinate guard. After taking out the guard, it ploughed into the electric-gate, buckling the bars and creating a gap big enough for the petrified women to escape though without being electrocuted.

Konrad waited anxiously at the twisted bars for Elsa to emerge. His anxiety was heightened by the tremor of yet another distant explosion, but he continued to wait for his friend as the floor shuddered and shifted below him. Eventually Elsa’s small figure climbed through. For a few seconds, the two prisoners simply stared at one another, unsure as to how to react now that the barrier that had previously separated them was gone. She settled the impasse by grabbing his hand and squeezing it gently. They scrambled away from the flames that were now consuming the mutilated remains of the stubborn guard.

Mesler, the Odin’s Executive officer, pawed at a nearby handrail as the floor slipped away from under him. He watched helplessly as the ship pitched to and fro, flinging him across the clattering gantry and at the feet of the chaplain, Lang. He was wedged below a flaming panel, his knees pulled tightly against his chest and his swastika pendent pressed to his lips.

‘O beloved God, help thy warriors from the hell upon us!’ he cried. ‘Please hear our cries and deliver us from our plight. Please save us! Please save us!’

Mesler ignored the desperate prayer and rolled away as a monitor nearby exploded in a sheet of sparks and glass. He carefully made his way towards Admiral Bauer who clung to the same walkway. The Admiral had braced himself against the useless panel with his single good hand. His flesh and bone limb quivered under the strain while his other robotic arm hung uselessly as his side, obviously damaged beyond repair by the explosion. Its inner workings of valves, tubes and wires were spattered with the oily residue of the hydraulic fluid and his own natural blood.

‘Mesler!’ he shouted. ‘I need your help.’

The officer crawled his way to Bauer and braced himself against the room’s central column. It shuddered violently beneath him, demonstrating how much stress the mighty ship was experiencing. Mesler examined Bauer’s damaged arm and gingerly placed the disabled limb onto the Admiral’s lap.

‘I never have any luck with that damn arm,’ Bauer moaned. ‘There’s something I need your help with, Mesler.’

‘Of course, Admiral. What do you want me to do?’

Bauer directed Mesler to an object hidden within his shredded tunic. He pulled the jacket and shirt open to reveal a chain from which hung a short brass cylinder.

‘Take the key from my neck,’ Bauer said.

Mesler yanked the chain from the Admiral’s neck and deposited it into his grateful palm. The Admiral then looped the broken chain several times around his fingers, before falling onto a blank panel set in the central column.

‘What’s the key for?’ Mesler shouted as he joined the Admiral.

‘We need to disengage the command module from the rest of the ship before it’s too late,’ Bauer said as he fumbled with the key. ‘I can’t save everybody, but at least I’ll be able to save the crew in here.’ He tried desperately to place it into a lock set in the centre of the panel, but despite his best efforts the key bounced and scraped either side of the hole as more tremors shook the room. ‘You’ll have to do it,’ Bauer said as he slapped the key into Mesler’s hand. ‘Use the key to open this panel up. Then do as I say.’

Mesler obeyed and slotted the key into the shaking slot. With a quick twist of the barrel, the panel slid open to expose three oversized levers. Stencilled above each lever was written: ACTHUNG! COMMAND MODULE DISENGAGEMENT SYSTEM. USE ONLY IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY.

‘I think our present predicament qualifies!’ Bauer said as he grabbed the first of the levers.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Konrad and Elsa reached forward to grab the tunnel’s thick grated floor as it rose up. Slowly, but surely, the Odin’s devastated stern was sinking out of orbit and as a consequence its horrible momentum was raising the bow and with it the holding-cell, until eventually, the tunnel became a deadly vertical shaft. The pipes and cables creaked and groaned, even the ship’s very walls moaned mournfully. Once the tunnel straightened, the large pack of prisoners who had earlier rushed towards the sealed door now, in a ghastly single block, tumbled back down the shaft. Fingers clawed at the grating or at the greasy walls and pipes as screaming figures tumbled past Konrad and Elsa. She closed her eyes tightly and cringed as the heavy human objects swept past her, their fingers clawing at her flesh and clothes as they flew by. Thankfully for her, their ghostly touches were mercifully brief and fleeting. In her self-imposed darkness, all she could hear were the receding screams mixing with the sound of heads cracking against walls and limbs snapping on the lattice partitions. Konrad, in contrast, refused to shirk away from the horror. He looked down and saw the prisoners disappearing into the smoke and flames which glowed eerily at the bottom of the overturned tunnel.

They climbed up the rattling walkway, pausing only to dodge more of the falling bodies, until eventually, after what seemed an age, they reached the circular hatch at the head of the tunnel.

Just below the hatch was a last partition which acted as a ledge for what remained of the prisoners. They were cramped onto the lattice structure like sailors stuck on a ship’s mast-head during a storm. Konrad eased himself up onto the partition and helped Elsa up too. Once safely there, he spotted the familiar face of Ziegler standing across the smoking gap. Ziegler waved half-heartedly, but his eyes displayed the abject desperation, the absolute helplessness he and, no doubt, the other inmates felt. But Konrad didn’t display this feeling of helplessness. Instead, he searched the small space for some means of escape. He shimmied around the partition and pounded the hatch’s glowing controls which remained stubbornly inoperative.

‘We’ve already tried that, Konrad,’ Ziegler shouted. ‘And that’s the reason why,’ he said pointing to an impotent display. ‘The explosion must have activated the ship’s emergency circuits. We’re sealed in here.’

Obviously frustrated, Konrad punched the unblinking controls. ‘And there’s no chance that the rocket jockey’s will send anyone to rescue us.’

‘Why would they? Its every man for himself now,’ Zeigler said.

‘They could all be dead for all we know,’ Elsa added.

His rage spent, Konrad backed further onto the partition and looked deep into the coiling smoke. Within its billowing body flashes of blue and yellow flashed. Peering deeper, he could see the flashing was from a seared power cable. A host of metal barbs and fibre-optics hung from the cable, their decapitated ends viciously spitting sparks.

Elsa spotted the cable too. ‘Why don’t we use the cable to hot-wire the hatch?’

Konrad looked back and forth between the spitting wires and the stubborn door, then nodded in support. ‘It’s worth a try.’

Ziegler scowled at Elsa suspiciously. Even though he didn’t say it, his thoughts betrayed him. How could this girl come up with such an idea? In his eyes, women were only fit for two purposes – sex and home making. They couldn’t come up with solutions to problems. He may have been a prisoner now, but deep down, his Nazi prejudices still remained.

Konrad pushed back a pair of cowering men and sat on the edge of the partition. He reached down for the dangling wires. They remained agonisingly just out of reach. Thinking quickly, Konrad then lowered himself from the ledge and dangled down further. The smoke swirled around him, filling his vision, and from the smoke, unnatural sounds emanated. Metal scraping against metal, beams groaning, distant machinery shifting. He tried to ignore these as he reached out for the cable. Again, at first, the wires remained out of his reach, but Konrad stretched his arm, then his fingers until he eventually grabbed the writhing plastic tubing. With a satisfied groan, he coiled the wire around his arm and prepared to pull himself back up onto the partition but another sound sprang from the smoke. It was a cry for help.

Elsa spotted Konrad hesitating below her. ‘What is it?’

‘There’s someone down there,’ he replied.

The sound turned into a mewing voice. ‘Help me!’

A shadowy shape appeared in the smoke. It clung to the wall, climbing up the cables and pipes.

‘Here!’ Konrad shouted. ‘We’re up here.’

Ziegler shouted down with a sense of urgency. ‘Hurry up, Konrad! We don’t have time for this.’

Ignoring his comrade, Konrad leaned down to his very limit, his hand stretched wide open. The shadowy figure stretched out its own hand and grabbed Konrad’s. The hand’s grip was unnaturally strong, no doubt, in Konrad’s mind, amplified by the horrific situation. The hand was bandaged. A finger was missing.

‘Thank you,’ the figure said with a familiar voice. ‘Thank you.’

The figure finally emerged and Konrad’s heart sank. He had just saved Brutus. The Kapo smiled when he saw his saviour, and if he had any intention of being contrite or humble following his rescue, it was hard to see. The smile soon turned into his customary sneer. Konrad saw Elsa’s and Ziegler’s similar facial reactions as they too saw the Kapo climbing up to join them.

‘Come on, get this fucking hatch open!’ Brutus shouted at the prisoners. It was apparent the Kapo was back in charge.

‘Do as the good man orders,’ Ziegler said sarcastically to Konrad.

‘I’ll say it before you do, Zeigler. Why didn’t I listen to you and leave him to burn?’ Konrad muttered as he uncoiled the wire from his sweat-covered arm.

Ziegler had manoeuvred himself below the hatch and started to pull open a plastic fascia. ‘That’s why you’d never make a good Nazi.’ The fascia popped open and he smiled back at Konrad. ‘You’re too sentimental for your own good!’

Konrad plunged the cable inside and with a great shower of sparks the hatch sighed open to expose a brightly lit tunnel wall. The tunnel would have been a vertical companionway before the explosion, but now the horizontal tube offered the prisoners a welcome escape route. He hoisted himself inside cautiously and looked up and down the overturned tunnel. Like the shaft, smoke hung in the air, its thin wisps illuminated by a series of blue emergency bulbs which shimmered like welcoming fairy-lights. On the tunnel wall, which was now the ceiling above Konrad, a series of signs pointed to other areas of the vessel. The one that stood out was the one that read: MAIN AIRLOCK – COMMAND MODULE.

Konrad followed the sign’s photo-luminescent arrow and pointed the way to go.

Inside the bowels of the globe, Stahl headed towards the control room. He clambered through the inverted passageways, his movements calm and unhurried. Even though the ship was literally falling to pieces around him, Stahl seemed to ignore the blinding smoke as if the noxious flames were illusions in some virtual simulation. To reach safety, he had to first pass through the chamber that housed the most precious cargo aboard the Odin – the hibernating colonists.

A cylindrical passageway led Stahl through the chamber towards a companionway that he knew led directly into the control room. Like everything else in the chaotic ship, the glass walls that lined the tubular passage, now acted as its floor. Despite his obvious urge to escape, a silent call took hold of him. He stopped and knelt down, peering through the transparent floor into the gloomy chamber below. The hibernation tanks rested silently in their racking, apparently safe and sound despite all the traumas that had taken place. Apparently satisfied, the SS officer was about to move on and continue his escape when the glass floor suddenly cracked and collapsed beneath him. He landed heavily on one sphere and slid along its surface, the broken glass following him in his wake.

Stahl hit the floor below. Winded, he slowly picked himself up. Within the chamber a dead calm ruled. The chaos of the explosion seemed to be a million miles away as if the noise and unpredictability was unable to enter this silent sanctuary. On the floor were scattered resuscitation equipment and the ghostly gowns of the medical team who would have coaxed the slumbering colonists back to life. But despite the almost hallowed atmosphere something didn’t feel right because Stahl had the unnerving feeling that he was being watched, observed, scrutinised. The most obvious candidates were the hibernating Nazis, but their eyes remained closed, at peace. It was something else.

A slight movement caught Stahl’s eye. Perhaps this was the source of the insidious gaze that rested upon him? He turned and saw that it was only a piece of discarded machinery which vibrated slowly in time with the ship’s death throes. The smashed glass that had followed Stahl soon joined the strange and unnerving symphony. Then, as if confirming his judgement of the situation, the plasma bubbled into view. Stahl stood rooted to the spot as he watched the twisting tentacles snaking between the spheres. Unlike its previous manifestation, the alien plasma’s actions weren’t destructive. Instead, it gently caressed the glass containers as if the glowing tips were carefully examining the slumbering humans inside each.

Stahl drew his pistol and stepped forward to confront the entity. The ethereal presence whipped away from the containers and formed a bright vortex around the bewildered Nazi. A single barb of energy emerged from the glowing wall and hovered over Stahl. Like its examination of the colonists, its touch was gentle and devoid of threat. It eventually found his swastika arm-band. Here the plasma strangely lingered. Then, to his astonishment, the plasma appeared to caress the stark angular shape.

Eventually the plasma pulled away from the swastika as it directed its attention towards Stahl’s face. Instinctively, he raised his right hand to defend himself as the finger of energy drew nearer. Then, as it touched him, there was a brief flash of light and Stahl screamed in pain. His palm smoked as he clutched his injured hand against his chest.

As he collapsed to his knees, there was another flash. This larger explosion enveloped the entire chamber. After the blinding flash vanished, the plasma was gone, and so were all the precious colonists. Darkness swiftly overcame Stahl. But before he slipped into unconsciousness, all he could hear was the gentle ringing of the now empty racking.

Konrad and the other survivors pulled themselves along the passageway as it lurched and spun wildly. The violent movements mirrored the ship’s death throes. At the far end of the passage stood the large airlock they were searching for. It may have only been a few metres away, but to the exhausted prisoners it may as well have been kilometres away. What lay within was tantalising. The ship’s red alert lighting exposed the myriad equipment that was stored inside the large antechamber. Unused probes and a large, tank-like rover, all safely stowed in neat lines. Racks of empty pressure-suits, their large glass face-plates blankly observing the emergency. Compared to the claustrophobic, almost medieval conditions of their old quarters in the connecting tunnel, the airlock offered the prospect of a safe and modern sanctuary.

The red strobes beckoned the prisoners on, but unknown to them, inside the control room, Bauer had lowered the second lever into place. Once the final lever was lowered the explosive purge would be triggered and the globe would be free from the dying mother-ship, and once the process started, the door towards which Konrad, Elsa and Ziegler crawled would automatically seal and no amount of electrical sabotage would unlock it. Konrad grabbed the frame of the open hatchway and at that very second, the unseen and unannounced countdown reached its climax as Bauer lowered the third and final lever.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

With a loud pneumatic hiss, the airlock started to close above Konrad. At that instant the surviving prisoners rushed up the passageway. Konrad clung to the top of the ladder and let his fellow prisoners pass by. At first, he remained strangely calm as the men and woman clawed by, but soon, a sense of desperation took hold of him as he watched the hatch slowly slide shut. Due to its size and weight, its progress was slow and laboured, nevertheless, the hatch was as remorseless as the tides. By now, Ziegler and Elsa had climbed into the airlock too. Konrad was about to squeeze through the diminishing gap himself when yet another explosion rocked the module. The blast knocked him from the head of the passage and cast him several metres back down. His shoulders screamed in pain as he struggled to maintain his grip and save himself from falling further from the airlock whose closing hatch filled his mind. He knew he had no time to gather his senses; he had to get back up to the airlock before he was locked out. With determination and steel etched upon his face, Konrad climbed back up. But as he climbed, he saw the space between the hatch and the wall becoming smaller and smaller. His fingers slipped across the smooth metal as he reached out to grab the lip of the door as it slid shut.

Elsa appeared in the shrinking doorway and leaned through the closing gap and groped for Konrad’s outstretched hand.

‘Reach forward, Konrad!’ she screamed. ‘Hurry!’

After a few seconds of finger foreplay, Konrad managed to grab her hand, but the unforgiving hatch was determined to keep the couple apart. The barrier pushed Elsa further away. Elsa screamed Konrad’s name as she attempted to lean out further to help him.

‘Stay there!’ he shouted.

Suddenly a grotesque mechanical scream sounded. Its source was far below Konrad, and as he looked down, he quickly realised what had created the sickening sound. Beyond the companionway, the tunnel walls had ruptured and peeled open, exposing the interior of the ship to the vacuum of space.

As the structure collapsed off-stage, a new, even more terrifying sound then whistled into existence. A powerful hurricane of rushing air poured past Konrad as the space-ship started to decompress. The unyielding force pulled at Konrad’s arms and legs as if it was desperate for him to join it on its one way journey to oblivion. Screaming, he struggled to maintain his grip on the handrail, which, unlike him, was starting to succumb to the suction. The brackets which secured it to the warped wall started to buckle and pop.

Meanwhile, in the airlock above, the overwhelming suction took hold too. Anything that wasn’t securely fastened down such as pieces of cargo, spare parts, even prisoners, flew about the space like autumnal leaves in a breeze. The dull sound of their impacts added to the frightening din. The ravenous suction even attempted to pull heavier pieces of kit such as the disused probes from their moorings. The taut chains screeched under the strain, but they held.

The hellish suction pressed Elsa and Ziegler against the closing hatch. They cowered to protect themselves from the flying debris as it sparked and dented the large hatch, the pair of prisoners acting like a knife-thrower’s assistant. Brutus, however, wasn’t so lucky. As he cowered amongst the landing gear of one of the probes, his arms wrapped around the spindly supports, the wind yanked him from his vantage point and pulled him down the length of the rocking airlock. He grabbed at his fellow inmates, but he still slid relentlessly towards the hatch. One prisoner, unfortunately, collided with his twisting body – Elsa. Almost gleefully, the large male prisoner wrapped himself around her slight frame. She desperately attempted to beat him off as the suction pulled them both towards the gap in the hatch.

The open hatch first swallowed Brutus’ legs like the jaws of a prehistoric beast. He screamed in agony as the heavy door crunched into his torso, the unyielding metal slowly inching into his flesh. Even now, Brutus refused to let go of Elsa. In fact, he drew her in even closer, face to face, and eye to eye. ‘You’re coming with me, my pretty,’ Brutus hissed as a stream of frothy blood vomited from his mouth and across Elsa’s face.

The mocking statement stung Elsa into action. She snapped her head to one side and bit off a finger on Brutus’ other hand. Once again the bully bellowed in agony as blood spurted from the denuded stump.

‘That’s two fingers I’ve taken from you now, you bastard!’ she cried.

At that instant she was released, and Elsa was free to claw away and watch as Brutus was squashed even further by the hatch.

Below, in the passageway, Konrad saw the wedged body and cold-heartedly seized his chance. He carefully let go of the rattling hand-rail and reached out to grab hold of the Kapo’s dangling legs. The air around his hand felt solid, as if it was encased inside a block of glass, such was the force of the escaping air, but Konrad managed to push his hand through this transparent barrier and grab Brutus’ striped trousers. He repeated the laborious process with his other hand until all his weight was taken by Brutus’ legs. At that second, the hand-rail was wrenched away from under him, and so Konrad was left with little choice but to climb up the shrieking prisoner. As he climbed he could hear ribs cracking sickeningly as the hatch continued to cut a path through Brutus. Blood and internal organs started to ooze and bubble from the impact point, the red and sticky globules splashing and dancing in the suction.

Konrad squeezed through the gap into the airlock and rolled across the top of the blood-smeared hatch. He squeezed past Brutus, whose upper body still quivered in its death-throes. The two prisoners locked eyes. Even now, as the hatch crushed the life from him, the Kapo was still full of hatred for the prisoner. The hatch finally completed its messy journey through the prisoner. It slammed into place and the airlock’s red lights flicked to a reassuring white. As Konrad gathered his breath next to Elsa and Ziegler, Brutus’ upper torso tottered over, its wet impact deadened by the sound of the command module purging itself of its broken body.

A ring of explosive bolts fired as the globe’s pitted and smashed outer-casing peeled away. The spherical module within this damaged and scarred chrysalis then automatically fired another ring of engines which blasted it from the devastated remains of its mother ship. Twisted pieces of the Odin clung and spun with the escaping globe like pieces of mechanical after-birth disgorged from some grotesque machine, but they were soon flung aside as the globe’s escape-engines powered up to full speed and pushed it into the unforgiving atmosphere of Vanaheim.

Like the claws of some fiery demon, a glow slowly enveloped the plummeting globe. Luminescent gases of all colours popped and fizzled as the heat-resistant surface bore the brunt of the descent. A rain of flaming debris, both large and small, accompanied the globe on its journey, but unlike the sturdier module, these smaller pieces of wreckage were soon consumed by the inky clouds that swallowed the red-hot metal eagerly.

Eventually the globe broke through the atmospheric barrier. Now free of its shimmering shroud, the pre-programmed systems activated and fired a series of retro-rockets, their aim being to slow the globe’s ballistic descent. At first, their effect was imperceptible, but soon, the cloak of flaming flotsam that had survived the re-entry sped past the slowing module as the rocket’s successfully performed their job. The globe shuddered as its rockets blasted a large cloud of dust from the ground and into the air. The globe may have slowed down from its super-sonic dive, but it still ploughed into the ground – hard. A great groan resounded as the battered craft tumbled across the plain. As it did, a large mound of debris piled up in front of the wrecked globe, the massive volume of soil and rock slowing it down all the time. Then with a thunderous crash the globe abruptly halted against an endless black wall and a mighty peal rolled across the surface as the dust settled upon the crash-site.

Towering above all this destruction, its visage unmarked and unyielding, was the spire. It stood blankly as the dust from the impact rolled against its façade like the fingers of an expectant lover. It was as if the vast structure was looking down upon the command module which rested helplessly at its feet; poised to either destroy what remained of the once proud vessel or scoop it up and embrace it within its dark arms.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The first thing Admiral Bauer felt as he emerged from unconsciousness was the warm touch of the blood that trickled from his forehead. Soon, his other senses started to return. His taste detected the salty, metallic blood in his mouth, while the smell of smoke, burnt flesh, sweat and tears overpowered Bauer. Screaming, shouting, the sound of feet upon metal and the whine of alarms surrounded him. Finally his vision emerged from the ether to reveal the sources of the sounds, smells and tastes. But dominating all his senses was the excruciating, heart-rending, unbelievable pain he was in. A sheared catwalk pinned the Admiral down, its twisted frame digging deep into his legs. Bauer attempted to pull himself out from under the obstacle, but he soon stopped as the pain became too much. But the Admiral’s movements disturbed a body close by. The body was that of Mesler, and much to the Admiral’s relief, he was still alive. The officer groaned into life. For a moment, Mesler, like the Admiral, struggled to regain his senses, but unlike Bauer, he was free from injury and more importantly, he was free of the carpet of wreckage that surrounded them.

‘Mesler, you’re alright, thank the maker!’

‘My head doesn’t think so, Herr Admiral,’ Mesler winced. He looked down at his trapped commander and immediately clambered down to join him. ‘Are you alright?’

‘My legs are pinned beneath this damned catwalk. I can’t move.’

The Admiral gazed around the wrecked control room. A nest of misshapen metal and plastic obscured his view of the horror that the sound and smells hinted at.

‘Have we landed?’ Bauer asked. ‘I can’t remember anything after you activated the purge mechanism.’

Mesler squatted next to the catwalk and braced himself. ‘I have to assume that we have. We can check together once I remove this catwalk,’ he said pushing the obstruction to one side. The wreckage was surprisingly easy to move and Mesler wondered why the Admiral hadn’t simply done the same. Then he saw why. The Admiral’s remaining arm rested at an unnatural angle across his chest, obviously broken.

Bauer saw the concern in Mesler’s eyes, but ever the professional, ever the commander, he turned his gaze back to the surrounding mess and his crew. His concerns, as always, were with them. ‘I see the emergency lighting’s still on, that means the reactor didn’t kick in.’

Mesler nodded. ‘It looks that way, Admiral. At least, we still have power from the batteries. We can draw power for what systems we have left from them for a few days. After that…’

‘In that case, you’ll have to power up that reactor as soon as possible. Make that your number one priority, Mesler. Without power we can’t run the heaters. Without power we can’t run the atmosphere processors. Without power we’re all dead men,’ Bauer said as a bolt of pain shot through him.

‘I’ll stay and find Doctor Blomberg. He needs to look at your arm,’ a concerned Mesler said.

‘No,’ Bauer growled. ‘If he’s still alive, let him help the crew first. I can wait. Just you power up that damned reactor. Go!’

But despite the orders, Mesler still hesitated. He could clearly see the pain etched upon the Admiral’s face.

‘Do as I say!’ the Admiral insisted through gritted teeth.

This time Mesler obeyed.

Deep within the bowels of the module, wreckage, both human and mechanical, filled every chamber. The main airlock was no exception. A carpet of human debris had buried Konrad after the crash, and like Admiral Bauer, it had been the taste of blood that had drew him to his senses. In this case, the blood belonged to the dead bodies. In the moments that followed the module’s abrupt arrival upon Vanaheim, unlike the chaos of the control room, silence ruled the airlock. All Konrad remembered as he clawed his way out from under the dead prisoners was the thunderous sound of his own breathing as he struggled to disentangle himself from the arms and legs. All around him, the emergency lighting flickered on and off. Deep, forbidding shadows danced amongst the wreckage, distorting the jagged shapes into nightmarish images. The crash had fused metal, flesh, blood and oil together.

As Konrad wondered through this macabre diorama, his thoughts soon turned towards locating Elsa. He wiped the foreign blood from his face and slowly started to roll the bodies over looking for his friend. He exposed motionless faces, some miraculously intact, some smashed beyond recognition, but none, thankfully, belonged to Elsa. His search was eventually interrupted by a groan from the shadows.

Konrad headed straight to its source. He stepped over the buckled decking, smashed helmets and shredded space-suits and found a body wedged within the landing-struts of one of the intact space-craft. More groans emanated from the body as it shifted in the shadows, its movements painful and stiff. Konrad leaned in and pulled the moaning body out to reveal it to be Ziegler.

‘Have you seen Elsa?’ Konrad immediately asked.

Ziegler, his mind inevitably focussed upon his own safety and well-being, checked his face and limbs for any injuries. ‘I’m fine, Konrad, thank you for asking,’ he sarcastically said. ‘Your compassion for your fellow man is most gratifying.’

‘You obviously survived with all your faculties intact,’ Konrad replied. ‘That being the case, you can now get up off your arse and you can help me find Elsa.’ He helped his fellow prisoner to his feet.

Ziegler looked around the airlock. His blood froze at the sight of the devastation. It was a miracle that he survived, let alone anybody else. ‘Konrad, you’d do well to forget about that female. She’s probably dead along with all these others.’

Konrad scowled at his companion. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’

‘And so will I,’ Elsa said as she suddenly appeared from the debris.

Konrad embraced her like a husband seeing his wife after a long journey. She clung tightly to him, as if reluctant to let him go.

‘I must have bounced off every wall before I came to a rest,’ Elsa said with a weary note. ‘I ended up on the far side next to Klein here.’ She gestured to the prisoner next to her. The middle-aged prisoner smiled at his new companions. ‘We then heard Ziegler here bleating like a lamb. Any idea what happened?’ she asked.

Konrad shook his head. ‘All I know is that we’ve come to a rest. Where, god only knows.’

‘Perhaps it’s Hell,’ Zeigler said.

‘It’s possible, but I can’t imagine Hell being any worse than this!’ Konrad nodded.

‘I wonder what happened to the rest of the ship.’ Klein said. ‘That was some explosion that hit us. It’s a wonder anybody survived.’

‘Perhaps it’s still up there in orbit,’ Elsa added.

‘I don’t think so,’ Konrad said. ‘I imagine that the module we’re inside is some sort of elaborate lifeboat.’

‘In that case, what happened to all the Nazis?’ Elsa then asked. ‘Are they all dead too?’

The prisoners all looked at one another, daring not to utter their hope that Elsa’s statement was true.

‘I suppose there’s only way to find out.’ Konrad turned his gaze towards the airlock’s exit. He then turned to Ziegler. ‘Let’s go.’

Ziegler rolled his eyes in frustration. ‘I just knew you were going to ask me to come. Why not leave me here to look after these waif and strays. That would be the gallant thing to do before we find out if we’re alone in this god-forsaken ship on some god-forsaken planet lights years from Germany.’

‘You’re coming with me,’ Konrad insisted. ‘Do you really think I’m going out there into the wreck on my own? I need you to hold my hand,’ he said sarcastically.

Ziegler huffed like a petulant child as he stooped and picked up a rod of metal as a makeshift weapon. ‘Come on then, if we’re going.’

Konrad patted Ziegler on the shoulder. ‘Just think of our expedition as another proud chapter in the military history of the Third Reich.’ He pushed on with Ziegler following close behind, whose lack of enthusiasm was embarrassingly apparent.

They stepped before the buckled hatchway and peered into the dark passageway beyond. Once again, only silence drifted from the corridor, but along with the airlock it had returned to its proper upright orientation. Using the metal bar that Zeigler had brought along, together they heaved the hatch to one side. Konrad stepped into the corridor first, followed by his reluctant comrade.

‘Hello!’ Konrad shouted.

Ziegler restrained his companion. ‘Be careful!’ His voice, unlike Konrad’s stayed at the level of a whisper. ‘Anything could be waiting for us down here.’

‘I thought you of all people wouldn’t be bewitched by a fear of the dark.’

‘You’d be surprised of what scares me, my friend. There’s a very good reason why we humans have been blessed with a fear of the night and the darkness. You’d do well to heed that instinct too, Konrad.’

‘Perhaps I should have asked Elsa to accompany me,’ Konrad said. ‘If I knew you were that superstitious, I would have…’ He suddenly stopped.

What is it?’ Ziegler also felt Konrad’s unease. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t think we’re alone.’

‘You’re not!’ a voice suddenly cried.

At that second the module’s lighting system flickered into life. The light exposed Mesler standing in the corridor, his gun drawn and aimed at the two prisoners.

‘I told you we should have stayed in the airlock,’ Ziegler muttered.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Stahl drifted into the control room and sat like a robot amongst the debris. His thoughts and actions so far merely served to bring him back from the hibernation chamber to safety. And as his thoughts returned to some sort of equilibrium, he began to wonder why the entity he had encountered had taken such a keen interest in the colonists, and in particular, him. He looked at his injured hand. At the centre of his palm, right where the ribbon of energy had touched him, was a small circular blister. A ring of angry blood vessels encircled the wound and, at first, Stahl was reluctant to touch it, but he soon overcame his trepidation and gently pressed the soft mound of burnt flesh. He expected a sharp pain to follow, but there was no pain at all, instead, a strange sense of pleasure took hold of him as if he had taken a powerful narcotic. This unexpected reaction made him think that perhaps, in his mind, he had been blessed by the strange entity. It was a powerful conclusion to make, and the Nazi became even more convinced as he fingered the wound once again. He continued to ponder this as he closed his hand and rose from the deck.

All around him, Stahl saw the wounded and the bodies of the dead. One of the wounded, spotting his SS uniform, reached forward like a leper desperate for a blessing from Christ. He pawed at Stahl’s boots with his blood-smeared hands. ‘Help me, Herr Sturmbannführer,’ the wounded man cried. He clung to Stahl’s jackboots refusing to let go. Stahl was unmoved by the desperate plea for help. He shook the desperate fingers from his boot and moved on without once looking at the wounded man. Once again his SS persona was steeling him to the horrors that surrounded him. His job was to lead, not to show empathy. Empathy and compassion would be left to the likes of Chaplain Lang and Doctor Blomberg, who even now, worked amongst the crew. Lang was scurrying amongst the wounded, blessing them and listening to their final confessions. The wounded men who could respond clung to his dangling swastika, kissing the shining Nazi symbol as their lives drifted away in the hope of salvation. Meanwhile, Blomberg was busy setting broken arms and legs, stitching up gaping wounds and treating burns. But despite Blomberg’s best efforts, the pile of corpses continued to grow and grow and chillingly, not all the corpses had died from their wounds. Those crew-men whose wounds were considered by the doctor to be too severe and beyond the meagre facilities had been put to one side in a secluded area of the wrecked room. Here, Blomberg quietly used a syringe filled with cyanide to quickly end their suffering and free up his stretched resources. The process he used to select those for this extreme remedy was strangely reminiscent to the selections that he had performed back at Neu Magdeburg when he had chosen the prisoners for the mission and those to be disposed of inside the colony’s gas chambers. He believed that brutal experience had toughened him up; giving him the dispassionate façade to choose which of his comrades would live and die. In a perverse way it pleased Blomberg that he could be so ruthless and not succumb to emotional weakness. In his eyes this crisis was becoming his finest hour. At the same time, his actions also masked his own pain – his grief for his wife and family. Their loss still scarred him deeply and his sense of injustice at his exploitation by his superiors and by the Party still burned, but these feelings were swamped, for the moment, by this unerring sense of power he was experiencing. Blomberg’s warped sense of compassion would have been applauded by Stahl.

Stahl climbed onto what remained of a ladder attached to the room’s central-column. He clambered up towards his station and onto the distorted gantry. Here he spotted Admiral Bauer amongst the wreckage. The Admiral, unsurprisingly, given his injuries, remained where Mesler had left him. A film of sweat covered his pale face, while his eyes remained closed. For a moment, Stahl looked down at his commander and thought he was dead, but the Admiral’s shallow breathing indicated that he was still alive. Stahl also noted the broken arm across Bauer’s chest and the smashed mechanical stump of the artificial arm.

‘Admiral Bauer?’ Stahl whispered as he knelt down beside the stricken officer.

Bauer wearily opened his eyes. ‘So you survived.’

‘The Überführer appears to have blessed me during our troubles. I appear to have survived our landing without so much as a scratch, Admiral,’ Stahl said with a note of slyness in his voice. It pleased him to see the cowardly officer suffering. Perhaps it was the will of the Überführer to punish Bauer so. ‘Unlike you.’ Stahl pressed his finger into the Admiral’s swollen arm. ‘I’m no medical expert, but it’s safe to say you have a broken arm.’

Bauer nodded as coils of pain shot through his body. ‘I have to agree with your prognosis, Stahl. The amount of pain I’m in would suggest so!’

‘Now both sides of your body match!’ Stahl said slyly. Bauer ignored him. ‘You know, Admiral,’ Stahl continued, ‘if you had shown the courage that was expected of you by me, by the crew, and by the Party, I suspect we would have avoided this unfortunate accident that has befallen us.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Stahl?’

‘I know it’s not really my place to question your integrity, but we should have landed when we first arrived at Vanaheim.’

‘You know the reasons why we couldn’t land,’ Bauer replied. ‘Petersen’s probe was destroyed down there. We still don’t know why.’ He winced with the pain again as he grew more agitated. ‘And the likelihood is that it would have taken us days, perhaps, even weeks to find out. We couldn’t afford to linger in orbit for that amount of time. Our resources are finite, so I, as a good officer of the Astrokorp, put the safety of my crew above everything else. Political or otherwise.’

‘Your sentimental talk makes me sick! I have a different opinion of your decision, an alternative theory, if you will,’ Stahl said. He appeared to be enjoying this strange debate between himself and the Admiral. ‘It was cowardice that drove your decision. You decided to hitch up our skirts and run away at the first sign of trouble. Imagine if the Wehrmacht had that same attitude when invading Poland, or when we crossed the steppes to destroy the Bolsheviks all those years ago. You lack the steel, even the stomach, required to command this mission.’

‘I did what was in the best interests of the ship, and most important, the mission.’ Bauer turned to face Stahl, his obvious pain forgotten for the moment. ‘You saw what happened to poor Petersen. The other officers agreed with my decision.’

‘Your cowardice apparently infected them too. It’s like a disease! A disease I thought we Germans were long cured of.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Stahl.’

‘If I had my way we would have landed regardless.’

‘Don’t talk stupid. Such recklessness would have killed us all, Stahl!’

‘As opposed to your cowardice which has only killed half of us and lost us our ship,’ Stahl said.

‘I don’t have to justify myself to anyone, least of all, you. I am answerable to the Führer alone,’ Bauer cried as another wave of pain washed over him.

Stahl then looked down at his own injured hand. ‘You are blind. We were destined to land on this planet. The Führer himself willed it.’

‘It’s you who are blind. Can’t you see it? The mission’s fucked! We’re fucked! You’re fucked! Look around you, Stahl. Things have changed. We’re under no obligation to follow any orders now, no matter who issued them, even if it was the Überführer himself! Now spare me the sermon and leave me in peace.’

‘There is one other thing to consider, one other thing that compounds your failure, Admiral. We were invited to land.’

‘Invited?’ Bauer frowned. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Stahl leaned in closer to the Admiral. ‘Yes, an invitation. An invitation I intend to honour. But I’m afraid this invitation only applies to me, and not to you!’

Stahl pressed down on top of the helpless officer. He then turned Bauer’s face to one side. Directly below the Admiral’s throat was a jagged piece of metal. It reared from the broken deck like a miniature version of the spire itself. At the sight of the terrible spike, Bauer screamed, but his cries were muffled by Stahl’s iron-like hand across his mouth. Then like a lover, he gently pressed the Admiral’s throat into the knife-like metal. Bauer’s body quivered horribly beneath Stahl. He watched coolly as Bauer’s eyes widened pitifully as he silently screamed and gurgled, his blood spluttering from between Stahl’s fingers. Eventually, Bauer’s sickening spasms ceased as the make-shift blade punched its way out the other side of his neck.

Stahl pulled himself off the dead body like an exhausted lover and wiped his bloody hands on the corpse. Once clean, he then swept back his dishevelled blonde hair and straightened his tunic, the only sign of his murderous exertions being the sweat that covered his brow. He had killed countless other people before: traitors; partisans; criminals, but all of those had been despatched with bullets or via the noose, none had been killed with his own hands. The sense of power that surged from him was overwhelming. This perverted sense of achievement drew Stahl’s eyes towards his injured hand. It was if the wound was drawing strength from his reaction to the murder.

He cautiously stepped away from the body and clambered down from the gantry. Almost immediately, he ran into Mesler.

The first thing that caught the Nazi’s eye were the prisoners who were gathered close behind the officer. After discovering Konrad and the rest of the motley-crew, Mesler had escorted them all back to the control room and as soon as the prisoners had entered the Nazi-dominated chamber, they had reverted to their compliant and obedient selves. The brief moment of freedom the prisoners had experienced in the airlock had long gone. Stahl gazed over Mesler’s shoulder and spotted the familiar faces amongst the prisoners and he unexpectedly experienced a small note of satisfaction when he saw Konrad, but more importantly, Elsa. Despite the lack of make-up and the ill-fitting uniform, in his eyes, at least, she was still desirable. Memories of his night with her filled his mind.

‘I thought you were dead, Stahl,’ Mesler said as he grabbed the SS man by the arm.

Stahl slowly turned his gaze to his colleague. ‘You’re the second person today to sound disappointed having found that I’ve survived.’

‘I meant no offence,’ Mesler spluttered.

‘It’s a good job none was taken,’ Stahl replied coldly. ‘What are they doing here?’

‘I was on my way back to report to the Admiral,’ Mesler said. ‘The module’s reactor is now back on-line. The crash triggered its safety systems to cut the power and use the batteries. We lost ten of the thirty battery cells in the crash, but that shouldn’t be an issue now that the reactor’s working again.’

‘Excellent.’

‘The other good news is that the module’s life-support systems, along with the carbon-dioxide scrubbers check out.’

Stahl pointed to the prisoners. ‘Where did you locate the waifs and strays here?’

‘They were in the airlock,’ Mesler replied. ‘They’re all what’s left of the prison population.’

‘No others?’

Mesler shook his head. ‘They’re all dead.’

‘Its good to see that these rats, at least, found their way off a sinking ship.’

Mesler then started to move on in the direction of the gantry. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, I have to pass the news of the ship to the Admiral.’

Now it was Stahl’s turn to restrain his comrade, but his grip wasn’t full of camaraderie. ‘You can’t. The Admiral’s dead.’

Mesler’s shoulders slumped when he heard the news. Stahl stepped closer, a grave look and tone upon him. ‘I’m afraid so. He must have died in the crash.’

Upon hearing this statement, a cold shiver shot through Mesler. For a moment his mind froze as he consumed Stahl’s words. ‘That was impossible!’ he thought.  The Admiral was injured, but he was hardly on death’s door when he left him for the reactor. Stahl must have been mistaken. He had to see for himself. He motioned to climb up the gantry, but Stahl’s grip on his arm grew even stronger.

‘But the Admiral was…’

‘Was what?’ Stahl asked.

Mesler was about to blurt out what he knew about the Admiral, but something made him stop. He had cast his eyes down to Stahl’s restraining hands and spotted the small drops of blood that covered them. He looked back into Stahl’s eyes and knew what he feared was true – Stahl had killed the Admiral.

Mesler remained silent. There would be no accusations. Discretion would indeed be the better part of valour, especially if any accusation was aimed at an officer of the SS.

‘The Admiral’s dead, believe me,’ Stahl continued. ‘I’ve seen his body and it’s not a pretty sight.’

Mesler started to pull away. ‘I need to see him.’

But Stahl continued to bar his path. ‘It’s not a pretty sight, Mesler. The Admiral was impaled on a support-beam. Take my word and leave the Admiral to rest in peace,’ Stahl insisted. ‘We’ll inform the doctor and let him tend to our former leader. Then we can bury him with our other fallen heroes.’ Stahl pushed the officer away. His manner was gentle and fatherly, but the guiding hand was firm and determined. ‘We now have other priorities under my command,’ he then announced.

Mesler nodded.

‘First we will put the farm animals to work,’ Stahl said. ‘I don’t want idle hands making mischief.’

‘Yes, Stahl.’

The SS officer’s eyes flared with anger. The obvious reaction prompted Mesler to correct himself with a prompt click of his heels. ‘Jawohl, Herr Sturmbannführer!’

The prisoners were ushered away, except for Konrad.

‘No! Not you,’ Stahl pointed.

Konrad remained where he stood and waited as Stahl slowly approached.

‘I have another task for you, my slave. Nothing too taxing, you’ll be pleased to hear, but I still want it done to the best of your ability. Understand?’

Konrad nodded.

Stahl removed his battered SS jacket and handed it to the prisoner. ‘Clean it.’

He then disappeared amongst the wreckage.

Alone, Konrad flung the tunic across this shoulder. But as he did, a blood-soaked sleeve grazed his face. He then looked at the twisted gantry that Stahl was so reluctant for Mesler to climb. A rivulet of blood dripped steadily from the metal.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dust devils skipped and played across the gloomy landscape. The tiny vortexes seemed to dance together like lovers before they faded back into the constant winds before a light entered this dark world. The outer casing of the module cracked open and lowered into the banks of spilt soil that had piled up around the battered globe. A gust of wind fizzed across the glowing opening as if warning the pressure-suited explorers who emerged to stay inside. Stahl, now firmly in command and leading from the front, stood at the ramp’s summit and wiped his spherical visor clean of the fine dust that had quickly accumulated upon it. The dust stained his bulky gauntlet, the grit rooting deep into every crease and fold of the pressure-suit which was decorated with his name, rank and the usual Nazi decorations of swastika and SS runes. Another gust of wind cracked against his visor as he gingerly descended the angled ramp which had already started to become lost beneath a layer of dust. A small group of three Waffen-SS soldiers followed close behind the Sturmbannführer. Like Stahl, they too were safely protected from the noxious atmosphere inside their own pressure-suits, but the soldier’s garb bristled with firearms which clattered in time with each of their awkward steps. And last, and very least, at the rear like a pair of mangy dogs were Konrad and Ziegler.

Only a few hours before, Konrad had been safe inside the globe, working. Along with Ziegler and Klein, they were busy clearing the control room of the corpses of the crew. First, the wrecked equipment had to be removed. The twisted catwalks, ruined monitors and electrical equipment were picked up and placed in the corridors outside. Some were stained with blood or snagged with torn uniforms, but the wreckage was nothing compared to the corpses. Konrad had dragged a number of the body-bags into the airlock. He carried it to the far side of the chamber and dropped the rubber bag with a sickening slap. Here it joined twenty or so other bags, some of which contained intact bodies, while others only held body-parts or just lumps of flesh, and despite the bags being well sealed, there was still a malodorous smell of death which hung over the bodies like a grotesque brand of perfume.

As Konrad pushed the limp bag into the growing pile to make room for the other bags carried by his fellow prisoners, a sound emanated from the airlock’s sealed hatch. It intruded upon the deathly silence like a sombre chorus. Konrad could hear the faint whistle of the wind outside the capsule. Its howls and groans hinted at the cruel world that lay beyond the metal hatch. It also proved to Konrad, once again, how vulnerable they were inside this vessel. The wind clawed and scrapped at the hatch as it searched for a way inside like a ravenous creature. At the same time, the sound brought back childhood memories of nightmarish nights clinging to his bed-covers as a winter storm tore past his bedroom window. Undaunted by the hellish sounds, Konrad drew nearer to the hatch and its triangular port-hole. He squinted through the thick glass. All he saw was the night-time scene of swirling dust. He angled his head to look further into the gloom, and as he looked something caught his eye – a wall.

Within a few seconds the dust smudged Konrad’s view once again and the wall disappeared from view.

Ziegler joined him at the port-hole. But he, unlike Konrad, only saw the gloom.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve seen something out there?’ Ziegler asked.

Konrad stepped away from the hatch and started to return to the control room for another body. ‘No. I must have only seen shapes in the storm outside. Just my imagination playing tricks on me.’

But as he turned back to the passageway, he ran straight into Stahl.

‘I believe you were admiring the view outside, my curious friend,’ Stahl said.

Konrad, along with Ziegler and Klein, stopped dead as Stahl passed by them toward the hatch. Alongside him were Mesler and a couple of soldiers. One of the troops wore a bloody bandage around his head like a Dickensian corpse. He deliberately positioned himself between the prisoners and the group of Nazis.

‘Well?’ Stahl asked Konrad. ‘Did you see anything interesting on this new piece of the Reich?’

Konrad shook his head.

Stahl looked out again. ‘I thought not. You lack the imagination. I, however, see so many possibilities.’

Mesler approached the port-hole too and gazed at the unforgiving view. ‘I wished I shared your enthusiasm,’ he said gloomily. ‘It’s not exactly the paradise we were told we were coming to back on Earth. Endless grasslands. Lush vegetation. A world fit for colonization. All the navigational data is correct, so something has gone spectacularly wrong.’

‘Appearances can be deceptive, Mesler,’ Stahl replied. ‘Once the sun rises we’ll have a better idea of what our new home really looks like.’

‘But I still don’t understand your urgency to step out there,’ Mesler sighed. ‘With all due respect, I feel we have greater concerns in here inside this module, rather than out there. The atmosphere-scrubber needs to be repaired and there’s the food situation. I’m sure I could list tens of other problems that should take precedence over a jaunt on the surface.’

Stahl turned to face Mesler. ‘You have no sense of history about you,’ he said. ‘Like so many others, you simply occupy the mundane.’

Mesler quashed his temper. If he was a braver man he would have attempted to wrest control from the SS officer. Deep down, he knew that Stahl had murdered the Admiral. There was no way he could prove it, but he knew full well that the Admiral was alive when he left him. But a combination of his lack of nerve and the brutal fact that the Waffen-SS troops were loyal to Stahl, and would remain so unto death, prevented any sort of action. ‘It’s mundane issues that should rule us now given our current circumstances,’ he said. ‘The most obvious being whether the atmosphere is breathable? Everything about this planet we’ve discovered so far has been wrong.’

‘And that’s why we are down here,’ Stahl said. ‘I may have been called reckless in the past, but even I’m not stupid enough to simply walk out there and plant the flag without knowing whether we can breath the air. I believe there is a testing facility in this airlock?’

Mesler headed to a panel of instruments. He twisted a dial and a column of lights blinked. The lights remained forlornly at the lower end of the scale before a bright red indicator started to flash.

Frustrated, Mesler slapped the panel. ‘Damn it!’ he cried.

‘What’s the problem?’ Stahl asked.

‘Does nothing in this damn capsule work?’ Mesler stated with obvious frustration. ‘The atmosphere detector can now be added to the inventory of damaged equipment. I’m afraid that we have no means of ascertaining what the atmosphere is like.’

Stahl shook his head. ‘Your lack of faith really disappoints me, Mesler. I thought you would have learnt by now that there’s always ways and means to achieve anything.’

‘In that case,’ said Mesler as he pointed to the panel, ‘you will have to enlighten me to these ways and means.’

Stahl cocked his head slightly in the direction of the prisoners. ‘An intrepid volunteer from this group here will help us. He will answer our questions about the planet’s atmosphere with the minimum of fuss.’

Mesler raised his eyebrows in surprise to Stahl’s brutal proposal, but he didn’t protest. ‘As you wish, Herr Stahl.’ He then abruptly left the chamber.

‘Aren’t you staying to witness my experiment?’

‘I’d rather not,’ Mesler said as he hesitated at the exit. ‘I believe there are other, more critical, tasks for me, and the air down here makes me feels nauseous.’ He disappeared into the module.

Stahl pursed his lips as he dismissed Mesler’s thinly-veiled insult. He would have to keep an eye on the Executive officer. His small notes of disloyalty could be tolerated for now, but if the man persisted, and if they grew and started to infect others, Stahl knew he would have to deal with him too. Moving on, he now pondered which prisoner he was going to select for the test. He stood motionless, the only movement coming from his eyes as they darted between Konrad and the others. He considered the obvious choice of selecting Konrad, but Stahl quickly dismissed this notion. He had developed a certain fondness for this prisoner, like that for a pet. So, he would spare him.

The next prisoner, was strangely familiar to Stahl. For a time, the prisoner’s face nagged at his memory until he finally realised who the prisoner was – he was the former Gauleiter of Berlin, Gustav Ziegler. He always wondered what had become of the disgraced official. Stahl always assumed he had been executed for his appalling crimes against the Party and the Führer, and it was a surprise to see him still alive. But it wasn’t the numerous official images of Ziegler that Stahl remembered, no, it was the time when the still powerful Gauleiter had visited his SS academy at Wewelsburg. For days before the visit, the teenage Stahl and his fellow pupils had cleaned and scrubbed every nook and cranny of their barracks and the castle’s halls and corridors. It was also one of the few times during his childhood that Stahl could remember meeting normal German civilians. Normally, he and his fellow students were safely separated from the population, lest they were influenced or even contaminated with their weaknesses. Even though they were taught that the German people ruled the world and were superior in every way to every other race on the planet, the SS men and boys were taught that they were even superior to them. A master race within a master race. So, it was quite a novelty to see the families who gathered in the castle’s courtyard to cheer the Gauleiter with their little swastika flags in their hands. Like the civilians, he had stood in line too, his black uniform pressed as sharp as a knife, his face eager and expectant. The Gauleiter appeared in the hall with a phalanx of officials and propaganda cameramen. But as the Gauleiter approached, the young Stahl saw that the official’s face looked bored and uninterested. He inspected the lines of pupils, including Stahl, and shook hands and performed numerous Nazi-salutes, but his crushing lack of interest was painfully obvious. All the school’s efforts, indeed, all Stahl’s efforts had been wasted upon him. The memory of that day brought a wry smile to his face because then Ziegler had possessed all the trappings of power, but now, all he possessed was a limp body-bag in his hands. And at this moment in time, Stahl’s power over Ziegler was infinitely more deadly. He possessed the power of life and death over the ex-Gauleiter, and so he felt the need to prolong this sense of power and for this reason he disqualified Ziegler from the selection process.

By default, Stahl finally had his guinea-pig. He stepped forward and with a warm welcoming smile he stopped in front of Klein. The Nazi placed his hands on the bewildered prisoner’s shoulders. ‘How I envy you,’ Stahl said proudly. ‘I envy the sights you will be the first to see.’ He then turned to the two soldiers beside him. ‘Remove the other prisoners.’

The soldiers obeyed the order and ushered Konrad and Ziegler away.

Stahl, with one hand on Klein’s shoulder, cranked open a single hatch. It squeaked horribly as it rose to reveal the dingy auxiliary airlock. This airlock was situated next to the main hatch and was the size of a small elevator cab. Stahl again smiled at the unsuspecting prisoner as he was gently manoeuvred across the threshold. The entire charade was like a futuristic version of the dreaded “Path to Heaven” when the Jews of Europe were helped to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka by smiling and friendly Nazi guards.

Once Klein was inside, Stahl lowered the door and stood motionless at the hatch’s triangular port-hole and depressed a recessed lever.

Opposite Klein, another hatch parted. At that instant, a thunderous howl filled the small airlock. Klein barely had time to cover his face when the toxic atmosphere filled his lungs. He collapsed to his knees, gasping and choking. His swollen tongue lolled from his mouth as his skin marbleised and bubbled, and most sickeningly, his eyes oozed bloodily from their sockets. Thankfully for Klein, his death was quick, and the dust, perhaps offended by this profane sight, moved quickly to hide his corpse.

Konrad considered Klein’s fate as he rested on the ramp and gazed at the pre-dawn scene before him. In the distance, a small flicker of light, Vanaheim’s distant sun, started to emerge from the rim of the vast caldera. The smudge of colour rose above the rocky wall, but its power was lost amidst the dust that still hung in the air. As he looked, a sudden gust knocked the prisoner forward. It was as if an invisible hand had mischievously reached out from the storm to welcome Konrad to Vanaheim.

Meanwhile, at the foot of the ramp, Stahl was handed a ceremonial Nazi banner, pristine and brilliantly colourful amidst the drab scene. The gold eagle that stood upon the banner’s name plate glistened in the airlock’s artificial lights. Then, with a single solemn step, he left the ramp and planted his boot into the alien soil.

‘With these steps I claim this world in the name of the Führer,’ Stahl stated. ‘I claim this land for the Reich. I claim this land for my people. These few steps I have taken will have forever transformed this alien soil into German soil.’ Stahl then planted the banner into the dirt like a knight shoving his blade into a hapless, prone opponent and stood back. ‘Sieg!’ Stahl cried proudly.

‘Heil!’ the soldiers replied. Two more times Stahl signalled the salute, and two more times the party obediently replied.

Konrad watched the ceremony with mixed emotions. It was, after all, an important moment in history – man’s first step on an alien world, but at the same time, he wondered if history would or could ignore the politics? Only time would tell. As he contemplated this, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of an extra hand rising in salute. It belonged to Ziegler.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he exclaimed, turning to his comrade indignantly.

Ziegler sheepishly lowered his out-stretched arm and looked at his hand like it belonged to another person. ‘Old habits die hard, I guess, Konrad,’ he said.

In response, Ziegler placed his arm firmly back at his side, lest it sprung back into the air in adulation once again, but his gaze lingered upon the flapping banner.

Konrad turned away and wondered how loyal his “comrade” truly was. It was true that Ziegler was a prisoner now, but deep down, beneath his down-trodden and captive exterior Nazi blood still flowed in his veins. Konrad considered if he was like a wild animal that had been tamed, but was waiting for the right moment for its true nature to re-emerge. It was an uncomfortable thought. To push the disturbing idea from his head, again he pondered the historical significance of the ceremony he and Ziegler had witnessed. Few men could say that they had been privy to the first footsteps on another world. However, he thought that even if this ceremony was ever written about, their place in it, small that it was, would be air-brushed away.

‘Does it feel like we’re watching a great moment in history?’ Konrad asked Zeigler.

‘I don’t think it will live long in the memory. Still, its significance may yet be felt, probably after we’re long dead and gone.’

‘Let’s just hope that it’s not too soon,’ Konrad added with a note of trepidation.

Then, as the two prisoners watched, a sudden violent gust took hold of the banner and tore the flag away. In desperation, Stahl attempted to grab the flailing swastika, but within a few seconds the red flag was far from his grasp, twisting and swirling in the mist like a wheeling bird. Stahl and the Nazi soldiers scrambled across the mound, chasing the flag, running one way, then the other, until the fluttering standard disappeared from view.

‘I don’t know whether to call that a good omen or a bad omen,’ Konrad said mischievously.

Stahl continued with the pursuit. He climbed up the earthen mound, his boots sinking deeply into the soil which rolled and slipped with each step. The flag had long disappeared from sight, but as Stahl climbed into the mist, a shape slowly emerged before him. He slowed as caution took hold, and all thoughts of finding the missing banner disappeared. ‘What the hell was up here?’ he thought. He started forward again, his pace quickening, the amount of dirt cascading behind him growing.

Konrad stepped off the ramp and watched the glare from Stahl’s helmet rising up the mound, then disappearing beyond its crest. His impish smile left him when, after a moment, Stahl’s voice erupted over his radio. ‘Unbelievable!’

‘Herr Sturmbannführer?’ the lead soldier, Wolff, asked.

‘Bring the men up here,’ Stahl replied. ‘Hurry!’

‘Are you injured?’ Wolff anxiously enquired. ‘Do you require any help?’

‘No! No!’ Stahl breathlessly cried. ‘Just obey my orders and bring the men up here with all the equipment.’

‘Jawohl, Herr Sturmbannführer!’ Wolff shouted.

A Schmeisser machine-gun prodded Konrad and Ziegler from the ramp and up the mound of earth. ‘You heard the Sturmbannführer,’ Wolff barked. ‘Get your arses up there. Move!’

‘What does the Sturmbannführer want with us up there?’ Ziegler asked. ‘Can’t we return to the module?’

Wolff pushed Ziegler forward. ‘Just do as you’re told, you pig, and get up there.’

The rest of the party climbed up the mound, and as they did, the second soldier, Haas, sensibly took from his utility-belt a series of thin posts. Every few metres he shoved one deeply into the soil and with a hard slap to its crown, he activated a powerful blinking light. These beacons would act as a visual lifeline for the explorers back to the wreck; a modern version of Theseus’ string in the Minoan labyrinth.

Eventually the men reached the top of the mound and found an excited Stahl waiting for them. More importantly, and much to their astonishment, they saw behind the Nazi a large angular shape emerging from the amorphous hill.

Peering at the obstacle, Konrad could see that the distinct sharp outline was a wide terrace, its flat surface reflecting the faint sunlight. Looking either side of him, he then gazed agog at the towering walls which stretched endlessly in either direction. Great vortexes spun and rolled against the black ramparts as the storm crashed into the massive, immobile barrier.

Stahl beckoned the party forward onto the terrace. Konrad craned his head up to survey its height. Like the walls, the structure stretched far above the prisoner, its peak lost in the low clouds and dust, but its shape, dull and faded, could still be made out. It was a tower. A spire! Suddenly the image from his dreams sprung into his mind, and much to his horror he realised that both were the same.

‘Amazing!’ Konrad quietly said. ‘It’s real. It really exists.’

Being so close to the monstrosity from his dreams brought a terrible sense of helplessness upon him. He felt naked and isolated before the tower, the feeling reminiscent to his nightmarish confrontations with the structure. Averting his gaze, Konrad looked back and followed the line of lights trailing off back into the gloom. At the end of the line he could see the hazy glare of the module’s open airlock. The open doorway represented the only safe haven on this harsh, unrelenting world. He also knew that the lights were the only pathway back to Elsa. She had remained in the module with Doctor Blomberg, helping him in the sickbay and tending to the many wounded crewmen.

The explorers stood still and silent like statues at the foot of an ancient temple. The wind had dropped and on the far side of the terrace an imposing triangular opening in the wall had exposed itself. The dark aperture dwarfed the human explorers as did the large pile of dirt that had blown in and filled the lower half of the apparent entrance.

Tentatively at first, the astronauts then clambered up this second hurdle. At its crest, they stood and stared into the gaping maw. Their helmet-mounted torches, tiny against the black expanse, barely penetrated the gloom.

Stahl pointed into the entrance. ‘Haas, use you data-stick and let’s see what’s down there. I don’t want to experience any nasty surprises before we go inside there.’

‘We’re going inside?!’ Konrad exclaimed.

Stahl looked into the opening. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ he said. ‘It’s just a building of some-kind.’ He ignored the fact that the prisoner has raised his voice to him and he let the shocking lapse in discipline go unpunished.

‘Anything could be inside there, Herr Sturmbannführer,’ Konrad persisted.

‘I’m sure my comrade is only thinking of your safety,’ Ziegler helpfully added.

‘I’m touched by your concern,’ Stahl smiled as he turned to face the men. ‘But do you really think this building holds any fears for me? Besides, we can’t ignore such a discovery? Can you imagine what treasures could be within these walls? This tower is inviting us to enter its confines. Destiny is pointing the way!’

‘I’m not disputing that, but can’t it wait until we can get more help from your officers and men back in the module?’ Konrad said. His confidence to speak out was growing at the same rate that his fear of what lay within the walls grew.

‘No,’ Stahl said. ‘Now, that’s enough talk from you! Silence!’

Konrad obeyed. But Zeigler was almost incandescent with rage with his comrade. ‘What are you doing? Trying to get us shot? You know as well as I do that you never, never, question a SS man. Do you have a death wish?’

‘I need to warn someone – anyone.’

‘Why?’

‘Entering that spire is a bad idea,’ Konrad said. ‘Believe me.’

‘Well, in future, keep any doubts like that to yourself!’ Zeigler hissed. ‘I don’t want to be found guilty by association after another one of your ill-advised rants.’

‘Loud and clear,‘ Konrad replied.

As the prisoners spoke, Haas unclipped the boxy data-stick from his belt. He then pointed the device down the gaping tunnel. At that moment the data-stick abruptly blanked out and died. He fiddled with the clunky hand-held device, turning its dials and pressing its reset button. He turned away from the entrance as yet another abrasive gust swooped by, and as he did so he pointed the stick away from the tunnel. This act stirred the data-stick back into life.

‘What the hell?!’ a mystified Haas said. He quickly ran a diagnostic check and its visual checklist displayed numerous positive ticks. The data-stick was in perfect working order. And so, with its apparent moment of madness behind it, the device was pointed back down the tunnel. But once again, it spluttered and died.

‘Perhaps it’s all this dust in the air,’ Wolff stated. ‘I’d imagine it’s blown into the circuits just like it has with everything else on this damn planet.’

‘Maybe Haas just doesn’t know how to use it,’ Busch, the third soldier, sarcastically said.

Stahl snatched the data-stick from the soldier and crudely examined it. ‘No,’ Stahl said as he aimed the malfunctioning machine away from the spire. ‘It’s not the dust. See, its works fine when you point it away from the structure. It’s this building.’

This response triggered Konrad to speak again. ‘There’s a reason why we’re being prevented from seeing inside,’ Konrad said as he gazed over the Nazis’ shoulders. ‘I suppose you’ve heard of the curses that protected ancient Egyptian tombs. “Death will follow thee on swift wings all those who disturb thy tomb!” Perhaps there is a similar curse upon this tower.’

The SS officer spun to face the defiant prisoner. Konrad and, indeed, Zeigler expected the worse, but the Nazi simply narrowed his eyes with interest. ‘That’s a little melodramatic,’ Stahl said. ‘But, there may be a grain of truth in what you say.’ He handed the useless device back to Haas. ‘However, it won’t be us who incurs this tower’s wrath.’ He looked straight at Konrad. ‘It will be you.’

Konrad froze when he heard the rasping voice reverberate shrilly around his helmet. For a few seconds he thought the spire had singled him out for a special greeting, a carbon-copy of his dreams back at Neu Magdeburg.

Stahl wolfishly smiled as he stepped closer. ‘You and I know that this structure looks familiar to you. I don’t know how, but you’ve seen it before.’

‘That’s impossible, Sturmbannführer!’ Konrad spluttered.

‘You don’t have to be coy now. This tower looks just like the etching you made in your bunk back at Neu Magdeburg. Both are exactly the same.’

Konrad gazed up at the walls above him and remained silent.

‘Am I correct or not?’

‘Yes, you are correct, Sturmbannführer,’ Konrad relented.

‘Now you can serve your master, and at the same time, you can answer your own questions about this building. It’s time that curiosity of yours was put to good use,’ Stahl said. ‘You can have the honour of entering the tower first.’

Konrad looked up at the intimidating gateway.

‘That’s unless you know what’s inside there already. Do you bare that secret too, my slave?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Konrad replied.

‘Good! It’s settled then,’ Stahl exclaimed. ‘You’ll be our brave pioneer.’

Ziegler patted his fellow prisoner on his humming life-pack. ‘Rather you than me!’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be keeping you on a tight leash while you’re inside,’ Stahl said as he snapped a life-line from a small pack at his feet to a clip that dangled from the webbing across Konrad’s chest. ‘I can’t have you wondering off like a disobedient hound on a hunt.’

Konrad silently accepting his mission because perhaps more than anyone else who stood on this wind-swept terrace he needed to know what was inside the spire. Its clarion calls to him in his dreams needed to be answered. This unspoken feeling to find out the truth swept away his fear.

Stahl placed his hand on Konrad’s shoulder. ‘We’ll be listening, so report everything you see inside, no matter how small and insignificant you think it may be. Understand?’

Konrad nodded as he tested the tether.

‘And no tricks,’ Stahl added. ‘Explore and report, simple as that.’

‘I understand,’ Konrad said.

‘If you deviate from that path, I swear I’ll cut you loose and let this tower become your tomb,’ Stahl said with a snake-like smile.

Konrad turned, took a deep breath and then waded into the darkness.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Konrad crawled through the earthen tunnel, his backpack scraping softly along the solid peak of the entrance, while his visor and chest controls burrowed through the compacted dirt below him. As he clambered deeper, the light-beams of his Nazi masters grew dimmer, until only his single helmet-mounted torch remained to illuminate the cramped tunnel. From his awkward point of view the tunnel seemed endless, its narrow tube stretching to infinity. The feeling of claustrophobia was acute as his arms and legs struggled to manoeuvre his swollen form along, while his laboured breathing sounded deafening inside the helmet. His dust-smeared visor pressed deeply into the grimy earth, his lamp magnifying the particles into forbidding rocks and boulders. Breathing deeply, Konrad reached forward and crawled at the compacted dust until a furrow appeared that was deep enough for him to slither through like a maggot rooting through a rotten piece of meat.

Eventually Konrad made it past the peak of the mound and encountered a gentle incline beyond. After a few moments, Konrad could clamber to his feet and carefully walk his way down the mound. Swirls of dust erupted with each foot-fall, while a steady stream of disturbed material followed down in his wake. In normal circumstances the gentle incline would have presented no problem to the prisoner, but the energy-sapping powder and the bulk of the space-suit soon took their toll upon him. The cool artificial air within the suit clung to his sweat-covered features like a blanket. Eventually, Konrad reached solid ground, and after gathering his thoughts and wiping his dirty visor clean, he waited for the dusty cloud that had accompanied him down the slope like an irritating salesman to settle.

The prisoner glanced at his suit’s controls. He checked its air-tanks and saw that their volumes, including the emergency back-up, were well within the safe green section of the display. Satisfied that he could continue, Konrad looked ahead and widened the lamp’s beam. He still remained in the large triangular tunnel and outside the halo of light, the darkness still completely isolated him. He reached out and touched the tunnel’s wall to gain some sense of perspective, but for all he knew, a set of treacherous stairs, an impenetrable wall or even a bottomless pit was but a single step away, and so in place of any visual stimuli, his imagination conjured up all manner of abominations hiding in the gloom.

Pressing into the darkness, his lamp played across the angular walls of the hidden corridor and a featureless floor, the surface of which was covered by a powdery veneer. The layer of dust was smooth and virginal, apparently untouched for years, perhaps even centuries.

Konrad stepped closer to the wall and saw his own reflection standing before him. His gaunt face stared back at him, his eyes tired, yet focussed. His reflection triggered a mischievous reaction from Konrad. Carefully he crouched down and used his gloved finger to scrawl in the dust: KONRAD WAS HERE! Ever since he was a child, Konrad had been unable to resist walking by a patch of wet cement without scrawling his name or initials into the sticky material. Even as an adult at the school he taught, there were numerous examples of his handiwork; in the schoolyard, the toilets, even at the base of the new memorial to the Überführer that had been erected at the school gates. This practice had even continued at Neu Magdeburg, the most obvious example at the camp being the initials he had scrawled next to his crude depiction of the spire above his bunk.

He stood back and admired his latest piece of graffiti, but as he gazed proudly at the crude scrawl, a ghostly glow briefly emanated from the writing. For a few seconds he thought his eyes had deceived him, but when the haze shone again he realised it was not a figment of his imagination. He reached forward and swept his gauntlet across the dust like some manic house-maid. For a moment, the floor showed no signs of the ethereal glow, but then eventually the ribbons of light flowed again, swirling along the length of the corridor like pieces of flotsam on an ocean swell.

Scrambling to his feet, Konrad moved further down the corridor and swept more dust away from the floor. Again the mysterious shapes swirled back into view, this time, Konrad kept his hand pressed to the smooth floor. The ethereal ribbons appeared to be attracted to his glove, dancing around his fingers like fish clustering around a source of food. Then, as soon as Konrad pulled his hand away, the enigmatic objects sank back out of sight.

He laughed with delight at the beautiful, but somehow disturbing display until after a short time, he ran into a seemingly solid wall. It would appear that Konrad had reached a dead end. His child-like smile disappeared as he found it hard to believe that his adventure would end so quickly and so disappointedly. He looked at the featureless barrier and reached forward to touch it, and much to his surprise, the wall reacted. At the point where Konrad touched, a small gap appeared in the ebony structure. The gap grew in size, and as Konrad watched, he saw it was no random, shapeless opening. Complex geometric shapes ringed the growing partition, the angular patterns devouring the black wall and allowing Konrad passage deeper into the spire.

Before the motley astronaut was a wide chamber which appeared to ring the entire spire. But the chamber was far from empty. Thousands of pipes, conduits, vessels and pieces of machinery filled the vast room. The machinery, like the chamber itself, were colossal in scale, easily dwarfing their equivalent in the engine room of the now destroyed Odin. Glancing up and down from the ledge he stood on, Konrad could see the machine room stretched far above and far below him. But straight ahead was what appeared to be a wall of some-sort. He decided to make for that.

As he wandered across the causeway that ran across the giant room he noticed that the constant whine of the winds outside and pervasive presence of the dust were now gone. Instead, an eerie silence ruled. But the silence wasn’t total. The distant sound of shifting machinery occasionally echoed. The sound added an eerie, almost organic soundtrack to the jungle of machinery that was exposed by his lamp-beam. The light reflected off the polished surfaces like a series of star constellations, their positions shifting as he wandered through. Halfway across, Konrad once again looked at his suit’s air-reservoir display. It was still within the green zone, but he knew the longer he remained inside the spire, the further he would be from the “safety” of the module. Caution should have stayed his progress, but being inside this cathedral of machinery heightened his sense of freedom.

But then as he attempted to move on, the prisoner was nearly yanked off his feet. The taut life-line held him back like a cautious colleague. He leaned forward, but the line remained tight and unyielding as if it had crystallised into the same ebony materials as the spire. He pondered what to do next. It was obvious something tantalizing lay beyond the confines of the room, but he also remembered the orders given to him by the Sturmbannführer about not detaching the life-line. He made up his mind and unclipped the life-line from the bracket on his life-support pack. It chimed loudly as it bounced on the causeway, its echo reverberating endlessly off the machinery as if the sound was reluctant to fade away and leave Konrad alone.

Now free of the restraint, Konrad proceeded to negotiate the final steps of the causeway. He could see the curved wall that he had first seen in the distance was, in fact, a forest of rectangular slabs which stretched into an unseen chamber beyond the machine room. He stepped off the causeway and started to weave his way between the metre-wide monoliths like a Nordic hero creeping through an enchanted forest. As he delved deeper Konrad was taken aback as each slab appeared to disappear from sight as he stood side on to it. Amazingly, each slab was only a few molecules or even a few atoms thick, but they felt as solid as a sheet of steel as he ran his enclosed fingers across a number of the hanging monoliths. They swayed back and forth silently as if they welcomed the tactile communication and yearned to be caressed again. But that was not all. He saw that the surface of each of these slabs was decorated with a myriad assortment of distinct alien symbols and pictograms of all shapes and sizes. Konrad looked at the shapes and speculated that the culture that created them must have been savage and brutal. There were few curves amongst the symbols, only strong jagged lines like the slash wounds of some grotesque blade. He wondered if he would meet the authors of these strange decorations.

Konrad delved deeper, passing more of the slabs and more of the symbols, all unfamiliar, all alien, until eventually he emerged from the artificial forest. He stopped dead in his tracks and wondered if he was correct to continue his adventure. It appeared that he had stepped into the depths of Hell itself.

He stood deathly still, fearful that any movement from him would bring about his doom. All around Konrad were dozens, if not, hundreds of glass-like vessels, myriad in size and shape. Some were scattered across the deck, while others were slung from the chamber’s dark walls and ceiling. The torch-beam quivered in Konrad’s grasp as the light revealed the contents and the reasons for his abject terror.

In each vessel was a creature, an animal, a specimen, an abomination.

Of course, none were human in shape or form. They ranged from squid-like creatures straight from some Lovecraftian abyss to twisted insect-like shapes whose innumerable limbs were contorted like barb-wire. A giant container, the size of a Zeppelin airship, emerged from the shadows above Konrad as he pressed deeper into the hellish menagerie, but unlike the smaller containers, whose glutinous contents were discoloured with age, a huge crack snaked around its walls. Exposed for millennia, the creature within, like an ancient titan, had fossilised, while the liquid had leaked out and crystallised into spectacular stalagmites which shimmered in the torch-beam.

Steeling himself, Konrad approached a nearby vessel. He ran his gloved hand across the glassy surface and disturbed a thin layer of dust. Within was yet another specimen. Its scale, unlike the monstrous titan, made it easier for him to relate to. Its skin was a sickly white and a set of dead eyes, their colour shifting as Konrad moved his lamp, stared back at him. As he lingered, another shape emerged from the slime. It shared similar characteristics to the original creature, but faintly feminine features were prominent. Konrad swept more dust away and his suspicions were confirmed as he saw a large grotesque vulva-like opening dominating the second figure’s body. Looking closer, he saw that the first figure was emerging from its companion’s deformed sexual-lips. He pondered the strange set of creatures, disturbed by the apparent perpetual interplay of the pitiful corpses; one giving birth to its lover. The savage faces were contorted and stretched in pain, their wide mouths agape and twisted. The creatures eyes seemed to be pleading to be spared the terrible torments that they obviously experienced during their final moments. However, there was something artificial about the bodies. No doubt, somewhere in the universe, this perverted union was perfectly natural, but this display was not a creation from nature. In Konrad’s mind, it was the result of some diabolical experiment and this suspicion was reinforced even more as he looked further into the menagerie and saw even more conjoined specimens. Whoever, or to be more exact, whatever had created them was evidently obsessed with duality. And it was at this point that Konrad wondered about the mentality of the creator of the poor creatures he had found. In his eyes, the unseen hand was gifted, but nevertheless, it was still mad. Only madness could have driven these experiments, these wanton acts of desecration against nature.

Konrad lowered the torch-beam and caught sight of something else in the gloom. It was something familiar. Standing intact before the bewildered astronaut, and obviously still operational, was the missing hibernation tank containing the colonists.

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘I told you that destiny was pointing the way for us!’ Stahl exclaimed when he was reunited with the colonists’ container.

After receiving the radio-message from Konrad about his discovery, the SS officer had wasted very little time before he too entered the spire. Within the cavernous interior, Stahl had driven his colleagues on, setting an exhausting pace as he scrambled down the earthen tunnel and along the imposing corridor and across the machine room beyond. An almost super-human drive possessed the Sturmbannführer, and such was Stahl’s myopic determination to probe deeper and deeper, that he and the troops, including the forlorn figure of Ziegler at the rear, failed to appreciate the sheer scale and magnificence of their surroundings. It was as if they had been taken into the beauty of the Sistine chapel and simply averted their gaze to the floor and admired the workmanship of the tiling. It was a typical Nazi reaction to anything outside their narrow-minded view of culture.

The Nazis encircled the container, their torch beams projecting a circle of light upon the colonists like a nest of searchlights with an enemy warplane in their sights.

‘How the hell did the colonists get down here?’ Haas asked.

‘Who cares?’ Stahl replied. ‘All that matters is that we’ve found them again.’

‘Found them again? That would suppose that they were lost in the first place.’

‘And…’

‘With all due respect, I think most of us assumed that the colonists were destroyed in the crash,’ Haas said as he gestured to the glowing container.

‘Evidently not, by the look of it,’ Stahl said. ‘But like I’ve already said to all of you, destiny has guided our path inside here. Perhaps recovering the colonists is what destiny always intended for us.’

‘Perhaps you’re confusing coincidence with destiny, Herr Sturmbannführer.’

This show of insubordination was too much for Stahl. He swung his gun into Haas’ belly. Despite the protection of the thick pressure-suit, the blow still winded him.

‘And I think you’re confusing sarcasm with disobedience.’ Stahl left his displeasure at that.

Konrad and Zeigler watched silently. They were still under the guard of Wolff, while Busch had disappeared into the darkness to reconnoitre the chamber further.

‘What do you make of this chamber we’ve stumbled upon?’ Zeigler asked.

‘It looks like some-sort of zoo or menagerie to me,’ Konrad said as his light played across the strange life forms that surrounded them.

‘Your description is most apt, Konrad, because I’ve seen something like this before,’ Ziegler confessed in a hushed voice.

‘That’s impossible!’

Zeigler shook his head. ‘There was a museum in Berlin. A medical museum. It belonged to the Reich Institute of Medicine and inside were dozens of dissected specimens in jars similar to these ones we’ve found here and prominent in the museum was a gallery where examples of the work performed by a doctor called Mengele were exhibited. He worked in the East decades ago. He was apparently a great authority on the physiology of all sub-humans. Inside the gallery there were bodies of negros, gypsies, cripples, dwarfs. I even remember there were examples of Bolsheviks on display. I seem to remember that they had Stalin’s pickled body for all to see too,’ Ziegler said. ‘But the centrepiece of this gallery was a case that contained a single body. It was the body of a Jew. It was supposedly the last that ever existed in the Reich. I’d forgotten all about that place until now, until I was here. The galleries in that museum were exactly like this chamber.’

Konrad shivered. ‘This place makes my skin crawl.’

‘Perhaps that might be the case for you and I, but I think in the eyes of whoever created this collection, each of these specimens is a vision of beauty,’ Zeigler said.

Konrad lowered the torch away from the gallery of freaks and illuminated the Nazi colonists. ‘But if we accept your description and this chamber is a depository for some sort of medical experiment, then why are the colonists here in this god-forsaken place too?’

The question hung heavy in the air. Zeigler said nothing.

‘And there’s something else,’ Konrad then said. ‘Another question that remains in regard to the colonists.’

‘What is that?’

‘Who or what stole them?’

‘That does deserve an answer,’ Zeigler replied. ‘But do we really want to find out…’

Their helmet radios suddenly chimed to bring their discussion to a close.

‘Busch here,’ the radio said. ‘There’s something here you should see, Herr Sturmbannführer.’

‘Like what?’ Stahl’s voice crackled over the speaker in reply.

There was a brief pause before the reply crackled back.

‘I’m not sure…’

Led by Stahl, Konrad and the other astronauts emerged from the menagerie and found Busch standing cautiously before yet another black expanse. But it wasn’t completely empty. In the distance was a single ring of light. It hung far above the explorers encircling a giant column that rose from the distant centre of this chimney-like chamber. In the shadows that surrounded the column stood other immense structures, their true scale shrouded by the darkness. In Konrad’s mind it felt like he and the others were on the cusp of an immeasurable wilderness, a place without borders and boundaries.

Stahl stepped first into the new chamber. Now free from the confines of the menagerie, the officer was buffeted by a gentle wind that blew and swirled within the centre of the building. He turned to Wolff. ‘How far would you say that column is?’

‘Without the aid of the data-stick, it’ll be hard to judge and it’s been a long time since I estimated the distance of something down range by eye alone. Certainly not since my Hitler-Youth days,’ Wolff said. ‘However, since I did earn that badge I would say its about one-hundred, maybe two-hundred metres away.’

‘And how much air do we all have left in our life-support tanks?’ Stahl then asked.

‘The tanks are certified for four hours. We’ve been away from the module about an hour, I would say.’

‘Good,’ Stahl smiled.

Wolff correctly guessed that the SS officer was determined to continue exploring the spire interior. ‘Wouldn’t it be more prudent to return to the module and arrange for the recover of the colonists? We can always return with reinforcements, if necessary.’

‘The colonists can wait,’ Stahl said in his usual unemotional tones. ‘This chamber is now our priority.’ The Nazi astronaut moved forward with a determined spring in his step. ‘It is the will of the Führer!’

In the background, Konrad muttered. ‘In my opinion, it’s more like by the will of Stahl.’

Leaving the menagerie far behind, the astronauts descended a seemingly endless series of concentric steps. The shallow stairs pulled the men further and further towards the centre of the chamber, but the toll of their journey, magnified by their bulky pressure-suits, started to wear the men down as long, drawn out breaths started to dominate the airwaves. Stahl led from the front like an eager schoolmaster leading a group of pupils on some field-trip, and keeping the school-trip in mind, Konrad and Ziegler lingered at the rear of the group like a pair of disinterested malcontents.

‘Why do I sense we are being led to our doom without a note of protest from anybody,’ Ziegler said with one eye on his surroundings. ‘I thought seeing that chamber of horrors would have been enough for them. This, in my mind, smacks of SS recklessness.’

‘Things have changed since the crash. We all have a new master now. His word is the law,’ Konrad said quietly. ‘In fact, I feel like one of the children of Hamlin and he’s the Pied Piper,’ he then added.

‘What did happen to the Pied Piper in the end of the story? I know all about the rats and the children, but the Piper’s fate escapes me.’

‘A former minister of state, a so-called man of culture, and he forgets a good old-fashioned German story like that,’ Konrad smiled. ‘You really disappoint me, Ziegler.’

‘You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve forgotten.’

Konrad pondered what his friend had just said. He sensed something else lay behind the words. ‘Is this amnesia related to your previous incarnation?’

‘Amnesia was as much a part of my job as goose-stepping and Hitler salutes. Old comrades, who you grew up with, who you worked with all your life, all of them had to be wiped from your memory simply because they had fallen from grace and became non-persons. This lack of memory had to be absolute, Konrad. If you remembered anything about them you would be as guilty as they.’

Konrad remembered Ziegler’s Nazi salute outside the module and wondered if his actions then were the first signs that his selective amnesia was returning. Was he starting to forget his current status as a prisoner, his non-person persona, and beginning to return his Nazi roots.

‘So,’ Ziegler continued. ‘What did happen to the fabled Piper?’

‘The Piper done all what was asked of him. He had rid Hamlin of all the rats, but in the end, the town-fathers refused to pay him, and so in revenge, he used his magical pipe to lure all the children of the town into a cave, never to be seen again. His revenge complete, he too disappeared into the same cave,’ Konrad said.

‘Let’s just hope we don’t share the same fate as those poor children,’ Zeigler said with a note of fear.

Out in front, Stahl reached the bottom of the steps, but such was his determination to drive forward he almost stepped headlong into the wide funnel that opened up at his feet. His boots squeaked loudly as he stopped abruptly, but as he did his pistol span from its holster and cart-wheeled into the oily mist that filled the funnel’s depths. For a moment silence only drifted from the maw until a metallic peal eventually rose from the bottom of the funnel.

The giant column they had sighted from the far side of the chamber drove unhindered into the dark pit. The men remained motionless on the cusp of the mammoth structure as if they were uncertain as to their next move. In the case of Konrad this caution was absolute. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as a palpable sense of being watched emitted from the pit. Something was down there watching them; waiting for them. Eager to pull himself away from the unseen presence, Konrad stepped away from the rim. But as he did so, his boot dislodged a section of the floor beneath him. The crystal-like material was no longer hard and rigid, instead, it had become friable and cracked like the surface of a dry lake-bed, and looking around Konrad could see that the decaying material ringed the edge of the entire rim. In his mind the pervasive presence was leeching from its hiding place in the darkness and poisoning and rotting the very structure itself.

Then, as if angered by the presence of Konrad and the others, the rim suddenly, and without warning, crumbled away from under them.

They all tumbled down the funnel’s angled walls. Konrad desperately clawed at the wall as it sped by, his gauntlets skimming and bouncing off the hard surface as he slid deeper. All around him, the funnel simply became a dizzying mixture of light and darkness.

Eventually Konrad slammed into solid ground.

Momentarily stunned, he slowly heaved himself up. A think carpet of dust and several chunks of rubble continued to settle all around the astronaut, the particles mixing with the strange metallic mist which swirled and twisted like mercury. He clawed away from the rubble, huffing and puffing like a beached whale given his appearance with the air-tanks upon his back. As he moved, Konrad pawed at his helmet’s visor, checking for any cracks; fortunately for him the visor was intact. This may have been the case with himself, but for others, the opposite was true.

An outstretched hand lay close by, and as Konrad moved closer, he saw Busch. He lay face down between the jagged pieces of wreckage. Ominously, the soldier remained completely still as Konrad reached out and attempted to rouse him. Moving closer, he then pulled the soldier’s body over and instantly regretted doing so. Unlike Konrad, Busch’s visor had been smashed open. His face, or to be more precise, what was left of it, was now just a bloody pulp. Muscle, skin, teeth and bone had been pulverised into a single caricature of a human face. The horrific sight sent a shiver of revulsion down Konrad’s back. As a result, he quickly released the body and let it roll back, but as he did so, something else caught his eye among the blood, glass and rubble on the floor – the soldier’s gun. Konrad eyed the discarded weapon and glanced furtively all around him. No-one else had yet emerged from the mist, and as far as he was concerned he was totally alone here at the bottom of the funnel. Perhaps he was the only one who survived the catastrophic fall. Ziegler, Haas, perhaps even Stahl were all dead, and so, with this thought in mind, Konrad cautiously reached out and fingered the butt of the weapon.

A boot then appeared out the mist and slammed down on both the rifle and Konrad’s hand. It belonged to Stahl.

‘I don’t think so,’ he smiled. The SS officer reached down and picked the rifle up off the floor. ‘We can’t have such dangerous items falling into the hands of such childish and undeserving hands.’

Stahl slung the rifle over his shoulder and coldly stepped over the soldier’s mutilated body. His interest was now solely focussed upon a new set of pictograms which decorated the funnel’s wall. Unlike the designs they had found on the slabs, these shapes and symbols were monstrous in comparison.

While Stahl was enraptured by the pictograms, Konrad sheepishly moved away from the Nazi, the corpse and the rubble, and crawled across the glassy deck. As his eyes adjusted to the mist and dim light, he could see that the base of the funnel simply consisted of the flat, featureless deck and the column. Also within the haze were the rest of the party. He could see the two other soldiers and, much to his relief, Ziegler. Like him, they were trying to understand what this part of the complex represented. To Konrad, it felt he was standing on top of a lake of black ice as he slipped across the floor’s surface. It didn’t feel like he was standing on solid ground. This feeling was confirmed when he saw that the chunks of debris appeared to float several centimetres above the deck as if a barrier, or, using a more scientific term, a force-field enveloped the floor.

He peered deeper at the floor and saw something below the glossy surface. The shape, indistinct through the panels, was unlike the ethereal streams he had observed elsewhere in the spire; instead the shape was more organic, more bestial.

‘Have you found something?’ Ziegler asked as he was reunited with his comrade.

‘I’m not sure. I just thought I saw something below us,’ Konrad replied with a quizzical frown.

‘Have you found another creature?’ Ziegler said as he knelt down and cupped his hands in front of the helmet to peer into the panel. But all the prisoner could see was a sea of darkness.

‘I don’t know,’ Konrad shrugged. ‘There was nothing that I saw that was distinct. But I’m convinced that I saw something down there.’

Ziegler looked again without success. ‘Even if you’re right, my friend, I doubt it would be a good idea to disturb it.’

‘I beg to differ.’ The voice belonged to Stahl.

Konrad and Ziegler looked at one another and spun around to see the SS officer standing over them. He had been listening to the prisoners’ conversation from the start. He gestured to the column behind him. ‘We’ve found a mechanism,’ Stahl stated. ‘Perhaps it controls access to the chamber below. If it does, we can find out if there’s indeed something down there.’

Stahl grabbed Konrad and roughly shoved him towards the column. The surviving soldiers stood waiting, their torches focussed upon a cavity set in the structure’s surface. As Konrad approached he saw that the column’s basalt-like skin was cracked and damaged just like the funnel’s rim. The damage, however, was more extensive as large sections had fallen away obliterating the hieroglyphs that decorated its surface.

‘The mechanism is inside,’ Stahl indicated.

Konrad eyed the black portal in the fragmented rock and wondered what lay within. Was Stahl being honest with him? Did a mechanism really lie within the hole? In his imagination all many of horrific devices awaited him, so it was with a sense of trepidation that he raised his gauntlet and placed it inside the hole. His hand slid forward until his shoulder met the column wall. Within the hole he could see a series of silver discs which glittered in the shadows. His bulky gloved fingers pawed at these discs until they connected with a number of bars on their surfaces. They allowed Konrad to turn the mechanism.

‘Can you operate it?’ Stahl asked.

‘I think so,’ Konrad replied. ‘But I think it’s still a bad idea to…’

‘Silence!’ Stahl cried as he cut off the prisoner. ‘I don‘t give a damn what you think. Just you operate that mechanism. Hurry!‘

Konrad slowly turned his arm. There was resistance from the mechanism at first, but the discs soon moved with a satisfying click. At first, there was no reaction from the obelisk-like column. After a few seconds, a barely audible ticking then began, at which point, Konrad withdrew his arm. The ticking continued, growing in strength. The ticking morphed into a thumping, and then eventually it transformed into a deep rumble. Then, with a loud god-like sigh, the column started to move. At the same time, the invisible barrier above the floor dissipated, dropping the hunks of rubble and the men the short distance onto the glassy surface which shook violently beneath their feet.

The giant column slowly rose from the funnel floor, its remorseless movement like that of a giant rising from a century-long slumber. Fissures appeared in the crystalline floor, splitting and dividing it into a number of diagonal sections, which in turn were then drawn into the air by the rising column. The explorers sensibly backed away and clambered onto the lower walls of the funnel, using the intricate pictogram designs as hand-holds as the entire structure shook and groaned all around them.

After a few moments, the panels were perpendicular and the column screeched to a halt. The terrible sound echoed endlessly around the bowels of the spire, and the silence that followed was perversely even louder in volume such was its power.

Huddling together, Konrad and the others cautiously craned to look inside the newly exposed chamber below them. Disappointingly for them, a combination of detritus from the operation and the now vertical floor-panels prevented a clear view.

Stahl was the first to venture forward. ‘Haas! Wolff! Come with me,’ he said.

Konrad and Ziegler motioned to move forward, but Stahl’s voice cut them off.

‘You prisoners stay there.’

They obeyed. And as Stahl and the soldiers carefully approached the large triangular panels, Ziegler turned to Konrad. ‘I thank the maker he said that.’

Konrad didn’t reply. Instead, frustrated and eager to see more, he inched forward to the new walls for a better look.

‘Are you brain-dead?!’ Ziegler cried. ‘You heard the Sturmbannführer, he wants us to stay right here.’

‘Do you really think I can sit up here and miss out on what those damned Nazis are going to find down there.’

‘They‘re welcome to whatever they find as far as I‘m concerned, Konrad,’ Ziegler hissed. ‘From what we‘ve seen inside this bloody tower so far, there was probably a good reason why it was locked away in there. Think about that before you do anything foolish.’

‘I need to know…’

Ziegler tried to restrain Konrad, but the prisoner squirmed free.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Stahl ventured down into the newly exposed chamber. He was followed by the two soldiers, whose carbines were drawn and ready. Their lamps were reflected in a dark pool of liquid that seemingly filled the new chamber. Stahl’s boots sloshed through the sticky, viscous liquid which was draining rapidly away before his eyes. As the liquid disappeared, more steps were exposed which Stahl descended, his pace matching the retreating liquid. Finally, the Nazi reached the final step, at which point, he spotted a series of holes in the chamber’s floor. It was down these that the liquid drained. Stahl stepped onto the honey-combed deck, sweeping his torch around. He spotted an indistinct shape in the middle of the chamber.

The shape was obviously organic in origin, but as the draining liquid exposed it, the spire’s toxic atmosphere started to affect the mass of flesh. The tissue bubbled and fell as a stream of bodily fluid flowed away and disappeared into the same drainage holes as the mysterious liquid. The amorphous mass, similar in size to a beached whale, hinted at a creature that was powerful, even god-like, but its true appearance was being erased by the rapid and unpleasant decomposition process. The decomposing body, the disappearing liquid, even the sealed nature of the chamber pointed to one conclusion in Stahl’s mind. He was standing inside a hibernation tank. Its scale was immense in comparison to the one that housed the Nazi colonists, but its design, its operation appeared to be exactly alike.

The soldiers joined Stahl before the body, which by now had collapsed and almost totally liquefied. This didn’t prevent Stahl from bending down and scooping up a handful of the decomposing flesh.

‘I wonder what it was?’ Wolff asked.

‘Was it another one of those monstrosities like back in that chamber of horrors?’ Haas then commented.

‘No,’ Stahl quietly said. ‘This one was different. It was hibernating.’

‘Hibernating? Like we were?’ Wolff said.

‘Yes, hibernating just like us,’ Stahl replied. ‘This new chamber is a hibernation tank. Bigger in scale, but just the same. This entire spire must be a vessel of some-kind!’

‘Well, it didn’t do it any good. It looks like it’s been dead as long as those other monsters,’ Hass sniggered.

Wolff nodded. ‘Centuries by the way it decomposed that quick when the air got at it.’ He prodded the disgusting pile of flesh with his gun’s muzzle. ‘Maybe the creature was travelling somewhere when the hibernation systems failed. Perhaps it was an explorer, like us.’

‘Perhaps it was another reason,’ Stahl quietly said as he gained a true insight to the enigmatic creature’s past. ‘Perhaps it was escaping…’

‘Escaping?’ Wolff asked, shaken by his commander’s theory. ‘Escaping from what?’

Stahl suddenly stood and shook the foul material from his glove as if he had suddenly awoken from a dream or a vision. ‘Who knows or cares,’ he said with a cold, disinterested tone.

But as he finished speaking, something was exposed within the putrefied flesh.

A bright red orb.

Like the luminescent lure of a deep-sea predator, the marble-sized orb was hugely tantalizing as it sat in the mound of discoloured flesh, its lustre enticing Stahl back to the body.

‘Wunderbar!’ Stahl gasped as the orb’s reflection loomed in his face-plate. ‘It’s just like finding a pearl inside an oyster.’ He excitedly turned to Haas next to him. ‘Pick it up.’

Haas obediently shouldered his carbine and with a slight look of apprehension he cupped his gauntlet around the orb and pulled. It remained stubbornly still and immobile in its coat of matter despite the soldier’s best efforts.

‘Try again,’ Stahl barked.

Again the soldier obeyed. This time he placed both hands around the object, and once again the orb refused to budge.

‘It’s no good,’ Haas wheezed. ‘You might as well try and move the tower above us with your bare hands.’

Next, Wolff attempted to extract the orb. He first cut away at the blubber-like meat and managed to pull a fleshy film that surrounded the orb away. But like Haas, he too couldn’t free the orb.

Stahl calmly stepped forward. ‘Let me try.’

‘Why bother, Sturmbannführer, you’ve no chance,’ Haas said.

Stahl pushed the soldier out of the way and grabbed the sphere. Strangely, even through his thick gauntlets, he could feel a tingling sensation; a hint of something latent within the little object. He pressed his closed fingers together tightly and pulled. The orb easily left its fleshy resting place and nestled in Stahl’s right palm.

‘Just like King Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone!’ Wolff exclaimed.

Stahl smiled as he approved at the romantic description. He lifted the seemingly insignificant object to his face-plate for a closer look. Tiny details, previously unseen and hidden, appeared inside the orb. Ribbons of light – ribbons of energy – similar to the ones glimpsed briefly by Konrad in the spire’s corridor, rippled and swirled inside, and as Stahl watched, more and more appeared until they swarmed into a single mass, a glowing jewel within the ruby globe.

‘Its beautiful! Simply beautiful,’ he gasped.

The orb then flashed brilliantly.

The blinding flash threw each of the Nazis soldiers into the air, while Stahl remained on his feet. He stood transfixed within the brilliance, his features calm and still. But his calmness soon turned to terror. The glowing orb began to smoke and bubble like a ball of molten rock. It cut through the gauntlet and pierced his skin, burning and melting flesh and bone, and a hellish scream sounded from Stahl as he fell to the ground clutching his smoking hand.

Now that the orb was buried deep within Stahl’s hand, the blinding light subsided and the two soldiers staggered to their feet. They rushed towards the prone Nazi, who was now ominously quiet. At first, Haas inspected Stahl’s chest-pack. The gauges flashed wildly. He then looked inside the helmet and saw that Stahl appeared to be completely lifeless, his blood-shot eyes staring blankly into the distance.

‘Herr Sturmbannführer,’ Haas cried. ‘Can you hear me?’

Haas then noticed Stahl’s sizzling gauntlet and saw all that remained of the orb was a small, penny-sized hole, within which lay blackened flesh and bone.

At that moment, a great groan rumbled around the chamber like a warship powering up its engines. Startled by the menacing sound, Haas dropped Stahl’s lifeless hand and reverting to their natural battle mindset, he and Wolff raised and aimed their carbines. Their filtered breathing was fast and shallow, obviously fuelled by fear and trepidation. Haas moved closer to his colleague and abruptly yanked him towards the steps and the apparent safety of the funnel, no mean feat given the pressure-suit and its accompanying equipment.

‘Let’s get the fuck out of here!’ Haas cried.

‘What about Stahl?’ Wolff asked. ‘We can’t leave him.’

Haas pushed his comrade away again. ‘Fuck the Sturmbannführer! Leave him, he’s dead.’

Wolff lingered over the Stahl’s body and pointed to the flashing chest-pack. ‘But his life-support system’s still working.’

‘Fuck his life-support system too. I’ve seen plenty of corpses in my time. Believe me, he’s dead. Come on!’

Haas moved on as the rumbling grew in strength. But Wolff wasn’t persuaded by Haas’ statement. For a moment, the soldier let his gaze drift down towards the body at his feet. The chest-pack was now dark and inert, the dials still and the Nazi’s eyes remained blank, but then, all of a sudden, they snapped to one side, focussing chillingly upon the bemused soldier. At the same time, the thunderous shifting of machinery abruptly stopped.

‘Herr Stahl?’ Wolff hesitantly asked.

Stahl’s eyes remained fixed on Wolff, but as he stared, his pupils started to dilate, and dilate, and dilate, until the whites of his eyes were swamped by the ravenous black pupil.

‘What the hell?’ Wolff exclaimed.

Suddenly the soldier was blasted off his feet.

He slammed into the chamber’s circular wall and slid limply to the deck. His chest-pack, like Stahl’s, now indicated a dead inhabitant inside the suit.

Konrad and Ziegler saw the muzzle flashes peppering the darkness below them.

‘Herr Sturmbannführer. Herr Sturmbannführer!’ Ziegler cried.

Another burst of gunfire roared in response. Its rattling mixed with the harsh static that emanated from the prisoners’ radios.

‘What are we going to do?’ Ziegler said as he looked towards his friend as if waiting for some sort of response, but Konrad remained still. ‘Well?’

Konrad continued to stare down into the pit, seemingly oblivious to his comrade.

‘Aren’t we going to help them?’ Ziegler asked again as another burst of fire reverberated from the darkness.

Thinking fast, Konrad then pushed past Ziegler and clambered blindly into the chamber below.

‘I never thought I’d see the day when I saw you risk your scrawny neck in the service of the swastika,’ Ziegler smiled.

Konrad raised a single finger to his face-plate. ‘Ssssh! It can be our little secret!’ He then smiled bravely as he started to climb down. ‘May fortune favour the foolish,’ he whispered as the gunfire once again sounded.

The smoking Schmeisser pointed towards the centre of the chamber as Haas waited for a response from his comrade’s invisible assailant. The soldier cautiously stepped forward, his boots ploughing through a field of spent cartridges.

The unseen foe struck again.

It slapped the weapon from the soldier’s grasp. It clattered agonisingly away as Haas crashed into the chamber’s wall. He painfully eased himself up and saw a small light-beam waving and shaking toward him from above. For a moment he hesitated to move, unsure as to what was approaching. He toyed with the idea of running away from this mysterious light-source, but after a moment, he saw Konrad appearing from the gloom.

‘Quickly, reach up here,’ Konrad shouted. ‘Up here!’

Haas hesitated before the prisoner’s inviting hand.

‘I promise not to tell a soul that you were rescued by a prisoner,’ Konrad said quietly.

Only now after his irrational snobbery had been satisfied did Haas attempt to grab Konrad’s hand. But just as their hands met, the soldier was pulled back down into the chamber. He didn’t scream. He didn’t cry for help. It was as if the officer fully expected the darkness to reclaim him. For a moment, Konrad was frozen on the spot, his hand held out impotently, but his resolve soon returned and so he continued to climb down.

Haas splashed into the rotting carcass and rolled down onto the ebony floor. He reached for his side-arm, but like his carbine, the invisible enemy smacked it from his grasp. He frantically searched the surrounding area for his lost weapon. Fear was now starting to take over, his coolness and professionalism ebbing away. His eyes darted around the smothering darkness that surrounded him until eventually he made out the angular shape of his precious pistol. He lowered himself to the floor and pawed at the weapon’s butt. His fingers wrapped themselves around the weapon, which he then pulled towards him, but with the chamber now devoid of all noise, the gun’s metal casing scrapped thunderously across its surface. Nevertheless, relief flashed across his face as the weapon inched closer. Eventually he grabbed the pistol and pressed it tightly to his chest.

But the relief soon disappeared as he saw a ghostly shape standing nearby. In front of him was a figure in a space-suit.

‘Stahl?’ Haas asked. ‘Is that you?’

The figure didn’t react.

Haas cocked the pistol, its shrill whine building in volume as the quivering weapon powered-up. ‘Who are you?’ he now demanded.

A rasping voice crackled over Haas’ radio. The voice sounded like it belonged to Stahl, but there was something different in its tone, something menacing and evil.

‘Stahl is indeed here, Haas. Unfortunately for you, so am I.’

The figure raised its hand and Haas shot off the floor. He floated in mid-air, his boots kicking impotently in all directions. The figure then slowly stepped forward into the glare of Haas’ lamp. It was indeed Stahl, his eyes pitch-black orbs, who smiled back at the soldier.

‘Stahl!’ Haas gasped. ‘Help me, in the name of the Führer.’

The soldier’s helmet shook as it was struck by the unseen force again.

‘Help me, Stahl!’ Haas begged.

Another blow hit the face-plate. This time a small crack appeared and air started to fizz.

As his precious air supply escaped, Haas pointed his now charged pistol at his statuesque tormenter and fired.

The brilliant particle beam shot towards Stahl like a tracer bullet. Ordinarily the bolt would have smashed into Stahl’s sneering face, but it simply swerved away from its target.

Haas fired again. And again. And again.

Not one blast hit its intended target. At the same time, the blows continued to rain upon the helpless soldier. The crack in his face-plate grew and more air escaped, the shrill whistle transforming into a banshee-like screech. Haas dropped the pistol and raised his hand in front of his helmet to try and somehow block the relentless attack, but it was to no avail. With one final destructive blow, the face-plate shattered. He thrashed wildly as the pressure-suit was flooded by the poisonous atmosphere. Skin stretched and marbleised as his grotesquely distended veins ballooned and burst. Soon, blood gurgled and vomited in all directions.

Stahl, silent and motionless during all this, cocked his head like a curious dog as he watched the gory tableaux. Then with an almost sadist lust, the soldier was smashed over and over again against the chamber’s walls and floor. Bones shattered, ligaments snapped and organs ruptured until all that remained of Haas was a soft, shapeless space-suit.

The Nazi’s death-throes sounded shrilly in Konrad’s helmet as he reached the base of the chamber. At that moment he wished the static that had previously fizzed over his headphones would return to drown out the sickening shrieks. When the screams eventually stopped, a haunting silence followed as he pressed across the now blood-splattered floor.

‘Sturmbannführer Stahl, can you hear me?’ Konrad asked. ‘Can anybody hear me?’

As if drawn to the sound, Haas’ dead body suddenly flew out of the darkness and landed with a bloody splat at Konrad’s feet. It was as if whatever had killed the soldier was toying with the prisoner, daring him to continue into the forbidding darkness. If it was a challenge, Konrad took it up. He pressed on. Beyond the soft glow of his torch, he saw a single figure lying on the floor. Unlike the lump of meat that was Haas, this body was intact, and apparently unharmed. It was Stahl. He lay spread-eagled on the floor. His eyes were now closed, his new found power hidden within his apparently unconscious body. Konrad knelt and examined the Nazi’s body.

‘He’s still alive!’ Konrad said to himself. He stood and pondered what to do next. ‘I just know I’m going to regret this…’

He reached down and eased the unconscious Stahl up off the floor and dragged him away to safety.

But as Konrad performed this unselfish, humanitarian act on behalf of the SS officer, a deep rumble, its pitch unheard by Konrad, or by the waiting Ziegler, began. Deep below the funnel, inside another infinitely sized chamber, huge pieces of machinery grinded into life. Great pistons rose and fell, driving impossibly sized billows which pumped like the disembowelled lungs of a butchered giant. If was as if the blood had fertilized the black and lifeless stone, acting like a grotesque version of sperm. Whatever the reasons, the spire was now alive; its timeless hibernation finally at an end.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The airlock remained blurred before Konrad’s eyes as he slumped to its deck. His pressure-suit, now stained with blood and dirt, weighed heavy upon his shoulders as his exhausted body finally gave in.

Only minutes before, both he and Ziegler had scrambled from the spire’s entrance with Stahl’s body, rolling and slithering down the mass of dirt like a pair of snakes in the desert as their suits’ internal systems incessantly warned about low air supplies. Inside his cumbersome pressure-suit, Stahl’s body felt like it weighed a tonne, and as such, the prisoners cursed the Nazi as they heaved and pulled their way to safety. At the same time, their task was made even more formidable by the walls of the funnel. At first, they attempted to drag the body out by hand, but the pit’s angled walls made this impossible. However, they eventually met with success after Ziegler climbed out the funnel and recovered Konrad’s discarded life-line. Gathering up the steel-line, he lowered it down into the funnel and the strong wire was then looped and knotted around the unconscious Nazi’s chest. Then rather ungainly, and after Konrad had managed to join Ziegler at the funnel’s lip, they pulled Stahl’s body out. Shortening the wire, the prisoners then dragged Stahl behind them like a pair of polar explorers pulling a sled. But as Konrad and Ziegler crossed the black expanse of the open chamber, then through the hellish menagerie, a palpable sense of being watched, and more frighteningly being pursued, gripped the two men. Each urged the other on, their eyes either locked on what lay ahead or on each other. They dared not look behind them in case they saw the mysterious abomination that had killed the soldiers stalking them too. But what the prisoners didn’t know of course, was that the source of the destruction lay dormant within the unconscious Nazi whose life they had saved.

Outside, at the foot of the spire, the prisoners eventually succumbed to exhaustion and the thinning air in their tanks. At first, Konrad had tried to fight the dizziness and the suffocating darkness that started to cloud his vision. He remembered gazing at Ziegler as he drooped in the dust next to Stahl, the swirling particles smothering his body as if the alien dirt was anxious to swallow him whole. He offered a helping hand to his companion, but such was his lack of strength, his arm impotently drooped in the wind and eventually, like his friend, he collapsed. As he lay in the cold soil he cast his eyes up at the monstrous structure. Were his dreams foretelling this moment all the time? Did they simply predict his cold death at the foot of this cruel alien tower? He pondered this as the dust then started to smother his prone body too. But as the lethal blackness filled his vision a light as bright as an angel’s halo appeared in the gloom. It drew nearer and swallowed him, and when his vision cleared he saw that he was resting on the deck of the airlock.

Konrad looked up and saw Mesler standing over him. The officer swept the dust from the prisoner’s helmet and looked him over. Satisfied that Konrad was in rude health, Mesler patted him on the shoulder and moved onto Ziegler, then the unconscious Stahl. As he examined them, the airlock’s wall of metal rose agonisingly into place. The hostile atmosphere still raged outside, but its horrific soundtrack was shut off the instant the airlock closed with a final hiss. At that moment relief surged through the prisoner when he realised that the hatch had also shut out the unseen presence.

Pink ultra-violet lights came on throughout the airlock to disinfect the exhausted astronauts. Once they faded away and the harsh, white lighting returned, Mesler hurriedly removed his own helmet. He drew in a huge lungful of the cool, artificial air and wiped away the sweat that dripped from his face. He then stood up and activated the intercom.

‘Doctor Blomberg, this is an emergency. Sturmbannführer Stahl is injured. I need to take him to the sickbay straight away. The UV shower’s over, so we’re clean now of any contaminants.’

‘Understood. What’s the matter with the Sturmbannführer?’ Blomberg asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘We’ll be waiting. Out.’

Meanwhile, Konrad had managed to remove his helmet, and along with Ziegler, they cautiously unclipped Stahl’s blood-smeared helmet and gently removed the round neck brace from the Nazi’s shoulder-harness. Stahl remained unconscious, but his pant-like breathing showed the signs that his body was working furiously. Sweat rolled down his flushed face, its heat steaming into the freezing airlock. Before they moved the body, Konrad saw Stahl’s charred gauntlet and lifted it up. ‘What happened here?’ he said as he showed off the scorched hole.

Like a curious toddler, Ziegler poked the damaged glove. He then twisted the gauntlet’s release catch and pulled it from Stahl’s hand. They expected to reveal blackened flesh, swollen blisters or exposed bone, but instead, Stahl’s palm was pristine and injury-free.

Mesler examined the singed glove and handed it back to the prisoners. ‘It doesn’t make sense. A hole like that would have caused his suit to depressurise. He should be dead,’ he said.

Ziegler caught a glimpse of his own suit’s air-tank gauge and gulped. It was virtually empty. ‘So should we!’

‘You’re lucky I found you at all in that storm outside,’ Mesler said. ‘Everyone else had given you up for dead. But I need as many hands as possible, so I couldn‘t afford to leave you out there to share our exalted leader‘s fate.’

‘We’re grateful, Herr Mesler,’ Konrad replied, but he noticed the pointed comment about the unconscious Nazi.

‘What the hell happened to you all in that building?’ the officer then asked as he lifted Stahl’s gore-smeared helmet. ‘What about the soldiers?’

‘They’re dead,’ Ziegler coldly whispered.

Mesler glanced out the airlock’s porthole at the dark wall and a look of fear filled his eyes. Genuine fear.

The three men moved onto the sickbay where Konrad disentangled himself from the cumbersome pressure-suit and gulped deeply on the air from an oxygen mask given to him by Doctor Blomberg. Ziegler, like himself, rested in an empty medical pod, slurping messily from a tumbler of water. The pod’s soft-cushioned padding was a luxury the two men had not encountered in years. Stahl still remained unconscious. He now lay on a raised dais in the middle of the circular room like a king or emperor lying in state. Standing over him was Blomberg, whose face was dominated by a quizzical frown as he waved his scanner over Stahl’s bare, sweat-smeared chest.

Beyond the examination room was the sickbay’s single ward. Cots lined its pristine, antiseptic walls, while monitors and other equipment hung overhead, the screens black or cracked. But each cot was occupied by a wounded patient. Those who could were clustered at the examination room’s large window, their eyes trained upon the body of Sturmbannführer Stahl. No doubt, the news of the prisoners’ return from the mysterious spire had circulated around the module, in particular, the news of Stahl’s seemingly miraculous survival; no mention was made of the sterling efforts of both Konrad and Ziegler to rescue the Nazi. Like so much about this mission, when the final version of the events were presented, the prisoners’ contribution would be downplayed.

There was another face at the room’s window. A face infinitely more welcoming than the various crew-men and soldiers who congregated at the glass – Elsa.

Upon seeing Konrad awake, she pushed her way to the examination room’s doorway and entered. Konrad admired her boldness, but on reflection the bandaged and beat-up men were in no condition to stop her. She scurried around the room towards him, her eyes fixed solely upon him. She gently pulled the mask from Konrad’s face and caressed his cheek, her affection for him unrestrained by the surroundings and circumstances.

‘I thought you were dead,’ she gushed.

‘Well, given all what we’ve been through, I think your initial assessment wasn’t far wrong.’

‘Are you hurt?’

Konrad shook his head.

Ziegler leaned in and added his own thoughts. ‘I’m alright too, thank you for asking,’ he said sarcastically.

Elsa ignored him. ‘It was pandemonium after you returned. You would have thought the Führer himself had been injured.’

‘I told you we were right in rescuing Sturmbannführer Stahl.’ Konrad glanced at Ziegler. ‘Imagine what they would have done to us if we returned from that god-forsaken place without him.’

Ziegler nodded as he looked at the frenzy of activity that surrounded Stahl.

At that moment, Blomberg concluded his examination of the comatose Stahl. He pawed his tired, unshaven features as he digested the information provided by the scanner. The little screen displayed Stahl’s slow pulse and steady breathing. There was no indication of injury or anything that was causing the Nazi distress. The green indicators told Blomberg that apart from being unconscious, the Nazi was healthy and unharmed.

‘Will Stahl die?’ Mesler asked.

‘Far from it,’ Blomberg replied. ‘All his life functions are satisfactory. He’s just in a coma. But I can tell you this: it’s a miracle that he’s alive at all. If it’s true what those prisoners said, and his suit did decompress, he should have died instantly. What happened to him inside that building?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Mesler pointed to Konrad and Ziegler. ‘But these two prisoners claim they found him like this at the bottom of a pit of some kind they found inside that tower.’

‘What about the others from the expedition? Where are they?’ Blomberg asked.

‘Apparently they’re dead,’ Mesler announced. His coldness and lack of emotion was a surprise, even to the doctor. He expected the officer to exhibit some sort of emotion at losing his comrades. Perhaps, he surmised that this stoic reaction was Mesler’s way of coping with the loss, but he suspected that his commanding instincts had already taken over; after all, with Stahl incapacitated, he was now in command. ‘There’s something else. The prisoners also claim they found the colonists inside that building.’

‘The colonists?’ exclaimed Blomberg. ‘That’s not possible. They’re mistaken. The colonist’s hibernation tank was surely destroyed in the explosion and crash. They’re gone.’

‘Not according to them.’ Mesler turned to Konrad. ‘Isn’t that so?’

Konrad hopped off the pad and approached. ‘We did find your colonists. Every single one of them. They were located in some-sort of storage chamber.’

‘A veritable chamber of horrors, it was!’ Ziegler helpfully added. ‘It was full of all manner of monstrosities.’

‘Life-forms, apparently,’ Konrad added.

‘Life-forms? Alien life-forms?’ Blomberg asked excitedly.

‘God only knows,’ Konrad said.

‘Was it one of these life-forms that attacked Stahl and the soldiers?’ Mesler asked.

Konrad looked at Ziegler and shrugged. ‘No, Herr Mesler. We think it was something else.’

Mesler drooped against the dais. Confusion and amazement swirled through his mind. ‘What is going on here? It’s like a bad dream. I keep thinking we’re still in hibernation and I’m going to wake up. We’ll find an inhabitable version of Vanaheim, the ship will be operational, the Admiral and the others will be alive and all would be well.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Blomberg asked.

Mesler thought silently for a moment as he considered what to do. ‘Unlike Stahl, my primary consideration has been, and will always be, what’s left of us. Nothing else matters – not the colonists, not the spire. First, we’ll batten down the hatches and secure the module. There are still a number of repairs to the reactor and the battery system. Once achieved, we should make this module habitable for the long term.

‘Next, we’ll send a party out to see what’s left of the ship. We should be able to scavenge an amount of food and supplies to keep us going. Then we’ll seal up the entrance of the spire,’ Mesler said.

‘But, Mesler, what about the colonists?’ Blomberg exclaimed. ‘There are hundreds inside that unit. You can’t possibly abandon them inside that damned tower. It’ll be tantamount to murder!’

‘Spare me the dramatics,’ Mesler coldly replied. ‘I know exactly what my decision will entail. But, Blomberg, I have to balance their fate with the fate of all us who are breathing and living now. If we recovered the colonists that would be hundreds of extra mouths to feed, and if that was the case, it would be the death sentence for us all.’

‘Your logic, despite its ruthlessness, does appear to be sound,’ Blomberg said after he considered his colleague’s words.

Mesler pawed his face and sighed. ‘Such are the demands of command.’ He then turned to the body of the former commander and considered if the SS officer would have made the same decision. Perhaps he would have made a sacrifice to save the mission, but Mesler suspected that he would have chosen to save his Aryan colonists and sacrificed the crew. He pondered this as he headed to the room’s communication-panel and flipped on the microphone.

‘Control room, this is Mesler. I need Karl and Unger to join me at the reactor.’

He released the toggle and expected an eager voice to reply, but instead a worrying scream of static sounded from the speaker. The aural warning caught the attention of Konrad and the others.

‘Control room?’ Mesler asked again. ‘Control room?’ Without thinking, he pulled his pistol from his holster and called to Konrad.

‘I’m going to need your help.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Konrad, Mesler and Elsa reached the control room’s entrance. They had passed no-one on their short journey, and at the same time, the normal sounds associated with the module such as voices, footsteps, computer announcements, were all absent. The fact that the lights, air-systems and gentle hum of the power-lines remained intact and operational only added to the disconcerting atmosphere. They were inside a ghost ship. Mesler stepped in front of the shut door and waited for it to automatically open, but the metal door remained closed.

Mesler stepped forward and banged his fist on the door. There was still no response from inside. He found the door’s controls and rooted inside. As the officer examined the stubborn mechanism, Elsa suddenly shivered.

‘Are you feeling alright?’ Konrad asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Something doesn’t feel right,’ she then said through her quivering teeth.

Mesler opened a small service panel. ‘The power breakers have probably blown,’ he said hopefully. His tone sounded confident, but like the two prisoners his sense of foreboding of what lay beyond the door was intense. ‘That’s what probably cut-off the intercom system and locked the door. We’ve been getting power spikes from the reactor system for a few hours now. I’m not surprised given the way we had to re-rig its lines to the main network. But, it was the best we could do.’

He rearranged the breaker switches inside the panel and attempted to operate the intercom connected to the room beyond, but predictably only static sounded from the small speaker. He then pressed the door toggles below. Once again an abrupt tone indicated the door’s refusal to co-operate.

The sense of foreboding was now overwhelming.

‘We shouldn’t have come here,’ Elsa said. ‘We should’ve stayed in the sickbay.’

Mesler tried to ignore Elsa. However, part of him agreed with her. He too wanted to return to the apparent safety of the sickbay, and no doubt, Konrad agreed with that sentiment too, but until he found out why communications had been lost, his burden of command refused to allow any retreat. He beckoned Konrad toward him. A hand-wheel sat next to the sealed door which together they started to turn.

With a creaking groan, the door started to crank open and an indistinct shape flopped from inside. Another form rolled on top of the first, then another, and another.

Elsa screamed as the shapes rolled to a halt at her feet. Konrad quickly stepped away from Mesler and pulled her away. Both prisoners had to cover their noses at the nauseating sight in front of them.

The room had vomited out a host of dead bodies, their limp limbs twisted and tangled together like a pathetic pile of discarded clothing. Their fingers were denuded and bloody, a sign that they had pawed desperately at the sealed door as they died. But most shocking of all were the looks of terror that were etched upon each of the corpses’ faces.

Konrad switched on the torch they had brought with them and slowly raised it past the initial pile of bodies. Inside the short passage that lay beyond were more bodies. The room’s eerie blue lighting softened the corpses’ outlines, while a noxious mist of steam and gas hung, its broiling shape forming a phantom-like shroud upon them. Konrad, Elsa and Mesler remained as silent as the corpses as they carefully stepped inside. Their progress was slow as they constantly adjusted their footing to avoid stepping on the dead crew. Building up a little courage, Konrad stooped and turned the face of a nearby body towards him. Only dull lifeless eyes stared back. But as he looked, he realised that the pallor and the positions of the corpses were strangely familiar. He remembered a scene from years before when he and a group of other prisoners had been woken in the middle of the night and herded into the bowels of the prison-satellite. They were pushed into a room, its ceiling low and slick with damp. Then, like now, he had stumbled over dozens of corpses, their limbs similarly distorted and warped. The reason for this foul assignment that night was simple. The machinery that usually operated the gas chamber’s automatic disposal system had failed and they were needed to drag the bodies from the chamber and into the colony’s air-lock.

‘They’ve all been gassed,’ Konrad exclaimed.

‘That’s impossible,’ Mesler said angrily. ‘How could they have been gassed to death?’

‘I was at Neu Magdeburg long enough to know what the bodies looked like inside the gas chambers,’ Konrad countered. ‘Believe me, that’s how the crew were killed.’

Mesler appeared to bow to the prisoners better judgement. He, himself, had never seen such horrors. Stuff like that were safely hidden from the general populace, and that included officers in the Astrokorp.

Following the trail of bodies, they emerged from the passage into the control room proper, and again more corpses were found. Inside the spherical chamber they were draped on the catwalks or slumped across the room’s blank controls. Mesler walked amongst the bodies, recognising old friends and comrades. Konrad and Elsa looked over the devastation too, but unlike Mesler, they possessed no sense of grief. The swastikas that decorated the corpses’ uniforms were the reason for their lack of pity and sorrow, and so, for once, it was they who acted coldly and inhumanely. This Nazi-perceived show of strength was now the domain of the former prisoners as they acted just like the Nazi guards that had dragged Konrad down into the gas chamber that night. He silently wondered to himself whether Mesler would have acted as he did if the host of bodies had been those of the prisoners and not his Nazi shipmates.

Behind Konrad and Elsa, something dark and malevolent moved amongst the still bodies. It was no spirit, no imperceptibly ethereal shape, but a man. It was the chaplain, Lang.

Like an agile creature of the night he leapt from his hiding place amongst the bodies and attacked. He landed on Konrad’s back and knocked the prisoner to the floor. The Nazi cleric then quickly reached up, his claw-like fingers digging into Konrad’s eyes. Konrad rolled over onto his back and attempted to knock the crazed Lang off, but his grip was immense, his strength amplified by his rage to that of ten men. His eyes, like orbs of flame, gazed angrily into Konrad’s.

‘Die, you sub-human fuck!’ Lang shrieked as he lifted into the light his SS dagger. It glittered like ice in the ghostly light.

Mesler spun and aimed his Luger pistol at the crazed Lang, but just as he fired Elsa desperately pushed his arm out of the way. As a result the thunderous round spat impotently into the darkness.

Elsa rushed forward and beat the Nazi about the head and shoulders, but the cleric appeared to be impervious to her countless punches and kicks. Her blows grew in strength, each matching her desperation to free Konrad. Mesler also came to Konrad’s aid too. Like Elsa, he attempted to pull Lang off, but he soon realised that an almost demonic will possessed the cleric. As they attempted to free Konrad they noticed Lang’s strange pallor. His skin was like alabaster, but a sickly blue tint ringed his mouth like thickened and caked make-up.

The knife plunged closer towards Konrad’s throat. He turned his head and managed to sink his teeth into the mad-man’s hand. Thankfully, Lang could still feel pain and so he dropped the knife. What Konrad thought was blood oozed over his lips and filled his mouth, but its taste wasn’t warm and metallic, instead, it was cold and acidic in taste.

Deprived of his prized weapon, Lang now wrapped his hands around Konrad’s unprotected throat. The cleric’s face appeared to soften as Konrad coughed and spluttered, his resistance ebbing away.

‘I destroy the beast in thy name, O Lord,’ Lang then cried triumphantly. It was as if the Nazi was becoming overcome by some miraculous revelation. ‘Watch as I smite his foul spirit from thy new kingdom. This new Fatherland! This new Germany!’

Konrad’s head drooped in the steel grip, his face melting into the discoloured flesh on the floor. Lang opened his mouth. His teeth and tongue were the same ghastly colour as his lips. Fumes, foul and acrid, started to bubble from his throat. He leaned in closer…

Suddenly a horrific shriek erupted from Lang.

He released Konrad from his death-grip as he sprang up to his feet, his noxious breath spurting into the air.

Konrad immediately rolled away over the bodies, fearful that this momentarily respite would end and the crazed holy man would resume his attack. His eyes darted towards Lang. Despite his vision being blurred and tinted with blood, he managed to see him reaching desperately for his own dagger that now stood embedded in his shoulder. Elsa stood triumphantly over him with her hand on the ornate hilt.

Satisfied that his agony was over, Konrad slumped against a nearby ladder, his chin resting lazily upon the bottom rung. He seemed oblivious to the childish screams as he gazed up and saw the room’s emergency lighting twinkling above him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The laser moved swiftly across the open gash as its shimmering beam cauterised the knife wound in Lang’s shoulder. Its path, attended by Blomberg, was controlled and logical unlike the ravings that Lang shouted. His cries reverberated around the isolation-room in which Lang was both being treated and being imprisoned. At the same time, as an extra precaution against the cleric’s seemingly poisonous attributes, the doctor was enclosed inside a contamination-suit. The gas-mask and rubber suit also muffled Lang’s voice. By now, his initial sobs of pain had mutated into the shrieks of anger and rage.

‘Let me go, damn you!’ he cried. ‘Time is being wasted! Time I should be spending answering our Führer’s call!’

The doctor pulled his surgical tool away from the wound as Lang violently pulled at the restraints which held him down to the bench. His muscles bulged and trembled with the effort.

‘Keep still, damn it!’ Blomberg said as he wiped the wound clean with a small alcoholic wipe. ‘I’ll end up slicing your arm from your shoulder, if you’re not careful. Now behave,’ he said as he repositioned the laser and pressed the trigger.

Undeterred by Blomberg’s warning, the cleric continued with his warped sermon. ‘How could a fool like you understand my urgency to be free of these crude restraints? Surely you must know that you’ve imprisoned the Überführer’s instrument. He will smite you down as surely as he destroyed the crew!’

Mesler, who had discreetly listened to the conversation between Blomberg and Lang nearby, now made his presence known. He, like Blomberg, was encased in a contamination-suit. He approached the bench and took a gauze-pad from a nearby drawer and wiped the strange crystalline material that was smeared around the cleric’s mouth. Acrid fumes emanated from the blue powder. The same fumes appeared to emanate from the discoloured blood which seeped from Lang’s gaping wound.

‘What do you make of this?’ Mesler asked, gesturing to the colourful gauze on his glove.

‘You must have lived a very sheltered life in the Astrokorp if you can’t recognise that chemical,’ Blomberg smiled. ‘It’s hydrogen cyanide – Prussic Acid – Zyklon-B.’

The scepticism that had gripped Mesler ever since the discovery of the crew’s bodies was now swept away. It appeared that Konrad’s initial assessment was right, after all. The crew had been gassed to death.

‘How did this Zyklon-B poison come to be on Lang? We carried no stocks of that chemicals onboard the Odin.’ Mesler then asked. ‘And shouldn’t he be dead too? That chemical needs to be handled using suits like what we’re wearing.’

‘That’s correct, Herr Mesler, but as you can see, our errant priest is still very much alive,’ Blomberg commented. ‘The biggest paradox is how did this chemical come to be inside his blood stream and inside his body?’ The doctor waved away a small whiff of smoke and steam that rose from the burnt skin. ‘Lang, perhaps you can indulge us with an explanation as to why that is.’

Lang visibly relaxed as he considered Blomberg’s request, and as a consequence, the leather restraints slackened. ‘You truly wish to hear the truth?’

‘I do,’ Mesler said as he moved closer to the bench.

‘Oh, for you to have seen the heavenly aspect whose presence visited this humble module. How can you describe the indescribable, Herr Mesler?’

‘Try…’ Mesler persisted.

‘I was inside the control room praying for our deliverance from the disaster that had befallen us. I prayed to the Überführer to save us, and particular to save the life of our beloved Sturmbannführer,’ Lang said. His excitement then suddenly grew. ‘Then he appeared before me, his magnificence transformed the corridors and rooms into a temple and a cathedral to his glory. He smiled upon me, and then his most holy spirit entered me. It filled my heart and it filled my soul! Then he spoke to me and explained that the crew had been judged and deemed unworthy to participate in his grand plan for this world. They were to be sacrificed for the greater good!

‘To achieve this, he transformed my breath into that most holy of poisons. It was transformed into the same Zyklon-B that had purged and destroyed the Reich’s enemies since its birth.’

As Mesler listened he gazed down upon the angry flesh which surrounded Lang’s wound. ‘Why did you kill the crew?’ he asked quietly.

‘Have you not been listening?’ Lang angrily replied. ‘It was not I who performed that task. It was the Überführer who executed those men. I was but his instrument.’

Mesler stepped closer. ‘You can drop all your religious mumbo-jumbo and give me a clear, concise answer and tell me the truth.’ Mesler pressed his thumb into the cleric’s injured shoulder. ‘Why did you kill the crew?’

A hellish shriek erupted from Lang.

‘Tell me the truth?’ Mesler said.

‘Stop this,’ Blomberg said as he tried to push his colleague away. ‘You’ll get no sense out of him by torturing him.’

Mesler ignored Blomberg and continued to press the wound. It was as if the pressure he wielded was a potent release for all his frustrations and all his fear. ‘Why were our comrades murdered?’ He pressed his thumb deeper into the wound.

The cleric’s screams grew even louder, but mixed amongst the screams was a mocking laugh. He turned towards the officer. Sweat covered his face, while hate filled his eyes. ‘The Überführer murdered no-one,’ he hissed.

Frustrated at the lack of sense from Lang, Mesler released his grip. However, the small act of mercy appeared to have the desired effect upon the crazed priest. Now that his mind was free of the pain, he turned and calmly addressed Mesler and Blomberg.

‘Like I said, no-one was murdered. The crew were simply liquidated. The Überführer deemed them all to be unworthy to participate is what is to come. They were not needed. Why keep those extra mouths to feed alive? Only those who are required for his plan shall breath and suckle in our new Reich. The Überführer knew this, as do I.’

Understandably Blomberg appeared to be puzzled by Lang’s statement. ‘They were the crew, Lang. You talk as if they were sub-humans. According to the Party, only sub-humans wear the striped uniforms, not the swastika.’

‘Even those who have the most holy swastika upon them can have sub-human aspects to them,’ Lang continued. ‘But these traits are hidden; their pollution buried deep within their hearts. You must remember that a single drop of this depraved blood can render one guilty in the eyes of the Überführer, no matter how good a National Socialist he is. I have no doubt that if you were in the control room, Herr Mesler, you would have been judged unworthy too. The same could be said about various members of the penal population. No doubt, there were devout followers of the swastika amongst them, but this foul stain within you negates all the good deeds that you may have done for the Party and for the Fatherland, and it is only the Überführer who can see into one’s heart and see if it is truly pure. Only the pure were chosen.’

‘I suppose you are pure of blood then, Lang, otherwise you would have met the same fate as our comrades,’ Blomberg said.

‘Your assumption is quite correct. I alone amongst the crew showed no traces of the foul blood which condemned the others to damnation,’ Lang proudly said. ‘And thus, I was given the great task by the Überführer. But I was hindered before I could complete my duty here in the sickbay.’

Mesler pressed his entire hand over Lang’s wound and pushed down deeply. The screams resounded loudly, their volume growing the deeper the officer pushed into the cauterized wound.

Mesler hissed. ‘You can consider this as a down-payment because I swear once this crisis has abated, I’m going to kill you.’

Blomberg pushed his comrade away. ‘That’s enough! I told you we’d get no sense from him.’

‘One last question. What about the spire?’ Mesler now asked. ‘Did the Überführer come from there?’

Lang ignored the officer.

‘Answer him…’ Blomberg said.

‘The Überführer is everywhere,’ Lang replied. ‘He is the land. He is the sky. He is the stars. He is the spire too!’

‘The sooner that damned tower is sealed off from the outside world the better,’ Mesler said. ‘That spire is the key to all the misfortunes that have befallen us here on this god-forsaken world.’

‘Haven’t we more pressing issues before you go back outside gallivanting around with grenades,’ Blomberg said. ‘Shouldn’t we consider giving our comrades a descent burial first? It sounds unseemly to be acting like heroes while they lie unburied. Their memories can be honoured after they’re laid to rest.’

‘You’re right,’ Mesler nodded after he considered his colleague‘s words.

Then at that moment, the lights in the entire sickbay flickered, then went out. The blue emergency lights immediately cut in. Nevertheless, Mesler still swore under his breath. ‘That’s all we need,’ he said.

‘It is work of the Überführer!’ Lang suddenly announced.

‘That may well be, but I haven’t got time to meet his holiness. I’ve an appointment with the reactor. No doubt the breakers have gone again.’ He turned to Blomberg. ‘In any case, finish tending his wound and then sedate him. I’ve had enough of his ravings for one day. We’ll tend to the bodies of the crew once I’ve finished.’

‘Jawohl, Herr Mesler,’ Blomberg replied.

‘And if you just happen to accidentally over-dose him with that sedative, you’ll personally receive the Iron Cross from me,’ Mesler said as he hurried from the isolation-room and towards the reactor.

Blomberg sat back down next to Lang and knitted together the last few millimetres of open flesh. As he did so, Lang gazed at the comatose Stahl outside in the sickbay.

‘Will Herr Stahl survive?’ Lang asked.

The question seemed to surprise Blomberg. After his previous religious ramblings, the normal and humane question seemed to be totally out of character and emanate from another person.

‘I don’t know at the moment,’ Blomberg answered. ‘But I think that the Sturmbannführer will eventually wake from his coma. All we can do for now is make him comfortable.’

‘I’ll pray for him.’

‘You do that, Lang,’ Blomberg said as he completed dressing the sealed wound. ‘And while you’re at it, pray for us all!’

He pushed himself away from the cot and crossed the room to place his soiled tools into a sonic-bath mounted in a bench-top. It hummed rhythmically filling the room with its gentle melody.

As Blomberg tended to his tools, behind him, Lang turned once again toward the slumbering Stahl. He strained at the restraints as he tried to peer closer at his fellow Nazi. ‘What would you have me do now?’

Beyond the thick glass partition that separated them, Stahl unsurprisingly remained silent.

Lang cocked his head as his listened to an unheard voice, but it was obvious that this unheard message emanated from the comatose officer. ‘I understand,’ he nodded.

He then settled back on the table and waited.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Konrad sat in front of the radio-set with his head cupped in his hands listening to the faint whistles that emanated from the circular speaker. The fizzing radio had obsessed Konrad ever since he, Ziegler and Elsa had returned reluctantly to the control room. Following Blomberg’s prudent advice, Mesler had instructed the prisoners to clear Lang’s victims away. Like the victims of the crash, the bodies were placed inside the air-lock, but taking the bodies here was the extent of the prisoner’s participation. From then on the Nazis took over. It was they who buried the bodies in the grave they had prepared at the foot of the mound, and it was they who prayed as the alien soil swallowed their colleagues. But it was ironic (an attitude Nazis seldom saw in themselves) that they still prayed to the same Überführer in whose name the crew had been murdered.

Being banished from the Nazi funeral allowed Konrad to seek out the source of the sounds he had heard as he moved the bodies. It was merely a whisper in the debris, an almost imperceptible voice, but nevertheless, the sound had instantly hooked him. At first, Konrad thought the voice may have belonged to a ghost of one of the murdered crew, or perhaps, it belonged to the wrecked ship itself. But his imagination soon gave way to his more rational side, and he quickly guessed that the indistinct voice emanated from some sort of radio-receiver. He looked at each overturned panel and each smashed station until eventually he found the still glowing radio-set. It was literally a diamond in the rough. But now that he had found his prize, the voice he had heard had frustratingly faded away into the ether. He had remained at the radio-set for hours continually twisting its dial back and forth in the hope of finding the enigmatic voice once again. A chorus of white-noise accompanied each turn.

Konrad still sat at the set, but he let his eyes wander around his new home. Mesler had allowed the prisoners to decamp to the control room. Given its spooky atmosphere with the blue emergency lighting and the open observation-deck with its view of the imposing spire, it was far from ideal. If he had been given a choice, Konrad would have rather stayed in the relative comfort of the sickbay with its comfortable beds and clean sheets, but the old hierarchy of Nazi and prisoner, master and slave, despite all the disasters that had befallen all of them, remained stubbornly in place. Ziegler meanwhile had taken advantage of the new situation and had managed to remain in the sickbay. He had volunteered to watch over Lang and the still comatose Stahl. At first, Konrad has assumed that this apparent act of duty was borne from a desire to remain in the cushy Nazi domain, but as he thought deeper, he slowly realised that maybe the reason Ziegler had volunteered was simply to be back with his own kind. The Nazi salute that Ziegler gave outside the module could now be seen as an unsubtle indication of his true nature.

To keep comfortable, the prisoners had scavenged mattresses, along with a small portable heater. It was a colony within a colony. Nevertheless, it remained the nearest to anything he could call home for a long time. However, the all-pervasive presence of the spire outside and the control room’s recent murderous history lent the space a morbid atmosphere. Elsa had fallen asleep following their meagre meal of ration-packs. A delicious combination of rehydrated stew, vegetables and ice-cream. Konrad had been tempted to remain in the den along with Elsa and the warm glow of the heater, but the draw of the radio was too much. He left them to clamber into the debris.

Without warning, the unremitting sea of static suddenly cleared, and much to his delight, Konrad could hear a stream of familiar earthly sounds. The sudden change from white noise to speech was startling. Imagine a deaf man suddenly being to able to hear the sound of his child laughing. The music that sang from the radio-speaker was unfamiliar to Konrad. It was foreign, and thankfully not the Nazi approved “muzak” he had grown up listening to. Instead, the music he heard was American jazz. The last time he had heard such music was when he was a child. Like now, he and his father had sat in the darkness around the radio-set in their sitting-room searching the airwaves for contraband signals such as The Voice of Freedom or Volksemfänger. The former was an American radio-station that transmitted, it was rumoured, from a fleet of ships anchored in the Atlantic, while the latter was a home-grown pirate radio-station that simply played banned music and sensibly cut out all the political propaganda and evangelical sermons that interspersed the American transmissions. As Konrad listened, other voices, other music, other sounds spoke to him. They were old, their sources long dead and gone. They spoke from a time before the Odin was built and launched, before Neu Magdeburg was colonised, even long before he was born. Since Konrad sat over fifty light years from Earth, the signals tantalisingly described a world not viewed through the prism of the Nazis. These ethereal transmissions were a mixture of languages such as French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin and English, a babble of incomprehensible voices and sounds. The snatches of sentences or phrases that he could understand spoke of Allied armies, Western fronts, royal visits and Hollywood actors. He heard what he assumed were shows from British music-halls or heart-broken French crooners and Arabic calls to prayer. Konrad could have continued to listen to these captivating transmissions, but instead, he wanted a taste of the familiar, a taste of home. He fine-tuned the radio until more familiar German signals drifted from the galactic ether like ghosts emerging from the shadows of a haunted house. Like his furtive childhood searches, he tried to ignore the standard Nazi fare of martial music, Wagnerian operas and inane cookery programs that dominated the German radio-waves until he was rewarded with something that appealed to his sporting nature: a football match. The roar of the expectant crowd buzzed below the excited commentator’s voice as he described the action. The clubs who were taking part in the match, Bayern Munich and Borussia Monchengladbach, were well-known to Konrad, but unfamiliar players vied for the ball. Naturally drawn into the action of the long forgotten football match, the images of the players tackling, running and scoring filled his mind, and such was Konrad’s enthusiasm for the game that when Borussia scored he leapt from his seat and punched the air as if he was in the ground amongst the cheering fans. Eventually the excited commentator mentioned when the match was taking place – April 1950. And so all the players, the officials, the commentator, everybody in the crowd, old and young, were long gone. He was truly listening to ghosts. The football match soon faded away and something even more fascinating was heard.

It was a speech given apparently by the Überführer himself.

Konrad locked the dial in place and listened intently. At first, he was mesmerised with the crackling speech as few men alive could say they had heard the voice of a god. The Austrian-accented voice that boomed from the speaker wasn’t what he expected as its vulgar, shrill tones soon started to grate. He realised the voice was simply that of a man, and not that of a god. The speech was full of mundane issues such as reversing post-war treaties, attacking obscure political movements and blaming all the country’s ills upon the Jews. It was relentless. An uncompromising monologue of hate. Could this man really have saved Germany as he had been taught all his life? Could this man have really single-handedly led the armies of Germany against the Bolshevik hordes during the war? His image of the god-like figure just couldn’t be reconciled with the voice that sounded like a trumped up corporal on a parade ground, and so, even before the speech had ended, Konrad slowly turned the dial until a sweeter sound met his ears.

It was a woman, her voice sultry and suggestive, singing. It was as if the distant voice was imploring Konrad to remain with her, to listen to her. For a few moments her voice thankfully remained free of the annoying electronic hisses and whistles and so the sweet song echoed around the abandoned displays and overturned catwalks. He listened like a content schoolboy, his hand sweeping along with the words. Ultimately the static triumphed over the music and swamped the song, the words drowned within a cloud of white noise, but much to Konrad’s surprise the singing continued.

‘Up in the fields we will love one another. Until then I will count the days because I cannot wait to be with my beloved mountain boy!’

Konrad looked up and saw that it was Elsa who had completed the song.

‘Beautiful,’ he simply said as he flipped off the radio and climbed up to join Elsa. She still sat next to the heater with a blanket wrapped around her shivering body. As Konrad sat next to her she waved away the compliment.

‘You flatter me, Konrad,’ she said. ‘I’m not a patch on that singer.’

‘It was just another voice from the past,’ Konrad sighed. ‘Still, it was a pleasant surprise to hear such an angelic sound amongst all this devastation – even if your voice was a little out of tune,’ he said mischievously.

Elsa playfully slapped Konrad across the face. ‘What do you expect from a glorified amateur like me? I was a violinist, not a singer, remember.’

‘If the music you produced on your violin was half as good as your voice, it must have been wondrous to behold,’ Konrad said.

Elsa smiled at the continuing compliments. She decided to move on. ‘What were you listening to down there. I heard chatter.’

‘Old radio traffic. American music. Sport and an old political speech,’ Konrad said as he stared wistfully at the glowing heater. ‘It’s strange hearing all those voices from the ether. It was like listening to ghosts speaking to me.’

‘I wonder how many more ghosts will now want to speak to us from here,’ Elsa said with one eye on their surroundings. ‘Perhaps if we listened to that radio long enough maybe that tower will start to speak to us too.

‘Perhaps it already has.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Konrad?’ Elsa frowned. ‘What are you hiding?’

‘Elsa,’ Konrad said with a note of caution. ‘I saw this spire long before we arrived on this damned planet. You do believe me, don’t you?’

‘Nothing surprises me anymore. But if that is the case, how was that possible?’

‘I can’t explain it. I’ve seen it in dreams, visions, call it what you will. But I’m not mistaken, Elsa. The tower has haunted me ever since I was at Neu Magdeburg. I saw those same black walls and felt the same sense of dread I feel now as I look upon it.’

‘That is interesting,’ Elsa said.

‘But there’s more.’

‘What?’ Elsa asked.

‘You, Elsa,’ Konrad said. ‘I saw you in my dreams too.’

Elsa raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘That is an unexpected surprise!’

Konrad continued; apparently relived that he could, at last, unburden himself before her. All his secrets, all his confusion, could now be exposed and perhaps explained. ‘You’ve appeared in all these dreams, Elsa. Every single one. Why, I don’t know. Perhaps, like the spire, our meeting was always meant to be. Call it fate, if you will. Its hand shaped my arrest, just like it shaped other events so I was selected for this journey, and perhaps fate even shaped the crash. I think it also brought us together.’

Elsa’s eyes were glassy with tears. They rolled down her face, the rivulets washing the dirt from her face. ‘That was perhaps the strangest declaration of love I’ve ever heard in my life,’ she smiled.

Konrad blushed like a schoolboy as he awkwardly tired to hold Elsa’s gaze.

‘If it was fate or destiny that has brought us together, it makes no difference to me, Konrad,’ she said. ‘But if you’re right, and we’re just slaves of some higher force, I don’t want to be free. Not if it robs me of the chance of being with you.’

This single statement broke down the final barrier between the two prisoners.

Konrad and Elsa embraced, but as he motioned to pull away, she clung onto him, her grip around him like a steel ring. She then silently opened the blanket and allowed Konrad to place his arms around her. He felt her bony frame through her uniform and the warmth that radiated from her body. It moved through his own skeletal hands as if he was absorbing Elsa’s unseen radiance; her goodness, perhaps, even her love. He also felt her torso gently rise and fall, a demonstration of the joy she was experiencing.

Lowering his head to hers, they finally kissed. At first, the moment was tender, but soon, as each became more aroused, the kiss transformed into a physical, animal-like embrace. Elsa pulled herself away breathlessly and frantically unbuttoned her ill-fitting tunic to expose her breasts. She then took hold of Konrad’s trembling hands and pressed them around the small mounds of flesh. She used his hands to caress and massage herself until Konrad’s nervousness left him and he was in full control. Like the kiss, the fondling moved from a gentle start to an almost brutal finish as he eagerly took her erect nipples into his mouth. Elsa moaned her appreciation as Konrad feasted upon her body. Soon his hands moved down her heaving breasts and slipped into her loosened trousers, where they explored, his fingers probing between her legs and around her buttocks.

After a few moments, she signalled Konrad to stop while she kicked off the baggy trousers. Undressed, she now pushed him down onto the deck and hungrily pulled him from his prison uniform. Once that was done she straddled him. Her lips lingered upon his, her tongue matching the movement of her hips as she ground her naked body against him. He cupped her buttocks and pulled her even closer, feeling her pubic hair against his. He also felt the welcoming warmth beyond. As a result, all thoughts of the devastation around them, even his dread of the damned spire, disappeared in a dizzying sea of lust.

Alert to his sense of contentment, she stroked his rough stubble and smiled warmly. ‘Did we ever reach this point in those dreams of yours, Konrad?’ She kissed him again.

‘No,’ he breathlessly replied. ‘I was always rudely woken up before we could kiss.’

‘Then I guess there’s no time to waste then…’ Elsa whispered as she helped Konrad penetrate her body.

The sense of freedom, indeed, the sense of elation Konrad felt was overwhelming. All the images of Elsa he had seen – on the alpine mountainside, the chateau, the apartment – each of her radically different appearances appeared before him as she hungrily rose back and forth above him.

Despite the cold atmosphere, sweat started to glisten and roll across Elsa’s heaving chest. Konrad’s hands remained locked around her body, one upon her rolling hips, the other resting around one of her breasts. His grip of both tightened as her excited movements grew in intensity, until finally, the two lovers climaxed together, their bodies now as finely tuned as their minds. They kissed one final time, their lips locked in a long, lingering embrace. The kiss also helped dampen the sound of their joint orgasm.

Spent and exhausted, Elsa collapsed upon Konrad’s chest. Her fingers continued to stroke him, but they slowly ebbed away as she fell into a contented sleep. Konrad, for his part, pulled the shabby blanket back over them to hide their modesty from the freezing atmosphere which drifted as smoothly across the lover’s bodies as each other’s hands.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mesler was blissfully unaware of the lovers as he toiled in the cramped reactor compartment. Except for the glow of his welding equipment and the sweat on his brow, he worked totally alone. For hours he had worked to reset the reactor’s control rods. Immediately after the crash, the reactor’s safety-systems had kicked in and automatically dropped a host of cooling-rods into the heart of the atomic pile to stop any reaction. However, the crash had damaged the motors which should have raised the rods and allowed the reactor to activate once again. Because this had failed, the module had been running on its small bank of batteries, which had now reached the point of exhaustion. But adding to the problem was the fact that half of these precious batteries were damaged too. First, Mesler had reset the cooling-rod motor and successfully reactivated the reactor; its gentle hum, almost imperceptibly through the thick lead-plating, was like the welcome return of an old friend. Now that the reactor was operating again, Mesler turned his attentions to the damaged ring of batteries that encircled the chamber.

Behind the welding-goggles, the exhausted officer felt content and focussed. The work filled his mind totally; the concentration needed to weld the wires into their connections and thread the metal threads into place washed away all his concerns and anxieties. More importantly, his concerns about the spire were also forgotten. Mesler took hold of a length of heavy wire and looped it through the large eye-fitting fixed to the top of the last battery to be repaired.

After he fixed the final cable into place, Mesler flipped off his laser-welder and snapped off the opaque goggles. He wiped his brow with a greasy rag and stepped gingerly between the bulbous canisters towards the short ladder between the sunken pit and the gantry above. The grating beneath his feet was cluttered with smashed couplings and scorched wires, while beneath this debris, the chamber’s bilge smoked and bubbled as a result of being contaminated by the damaged batteries’ acidic contents.

Mesler slung the welding equipment over his shoulder as he mounted the ladder and climbed up onto the rattling gantry. As he pulled himself up, he suddenly slipped and fell forward, knocking the welder from his shoulder. The tool dropped and bounced off the batteries below. The fall triggered the device into the life, its pin-point beam shining in the gloom. But as it hit the bilge’s floor, its protective cowl shattered, freeing the laser-blade within. The previous thin-beam exploded into a wide, blinding sphere, its destructive power now unbridled and rampant. The smashed welder rolled on until it hit the compartment’s curved wall. The white-hot blade burrowed deeply into the bilge’s metal wall, its surface becoming loose and molten.

Mesler dived desperately after the device, but he was too late. The undimmed welder plunged through the molten patch. He braced himself for the inevitable rush of poisonous air, but nothing happened. Instead, all that entered the module was a thin gust of dusty air which cooled the red-hot metal of the hole into a scab-like shell.

The officer frowned. He should have been dead the instant the deadly atmosphere poured inside. Totally perplexed, he reached forward and held his hand in front of the hole and felt a cold breeze across his skin. The air that passed over the hairs on his hands was totally harmless. He clenched his hand and rubbed his apparently unblemished skin.

Mesler quickly clambered to his feet. ‘Everybody to the airlock!’ he shouted as he climbed up the ladder.

Moments later, Blomberg shoved Mesler against the airlock door. ‘Are you out of your goddamn mind?!’

Mesler shook his head. ‘No. No, I’m not, Blomberg.’ He once again reached for the sealed airlock’s controls, but the doctor slapped his hand away and pressed him even harder against the wall.

‘You can’t open that airlock,’ Blomberg cried. ‘It’ll be the death of us all!’

‘I need to open that airlock to prove to you that I’m right. The atmosphere’s breathable!’

Blomberg grabbed Mesler’s out-stretched arm and twisted it violently behind his back. This violent reaction was unsurprising given the circumstance, but even Mesler was surprised by the power of his comrade. It was a power fuelled by desperation and fear. ‘I won’t let you kill us, Mesler,’ Blomberg cried.

By now, Konrad, Elsa and Ziegler and a few of the injured crew arrived in the corridor. At the sound of Mesler’s cries, Konrad and Elsa had hurriedly untangled themselves from one another. Like a scene from a domestic comedy, the lovers had gathered their discarded uniforms together and attempted to dress as quickly as possible. But in their haste, Elsa had accidentally put Konrad’s tunic on, while he abandoned his modesty and travelled bare-chested to the airlock, after he had tried and failed to put on Elsa’s smaller jacket. Both of them managed to appear calm and collected, but while Ziegler may have been innocent to that night’s activities, when he saw the ill-fitting tunic hanging from Elsa’s shoulders, it didn’t take the wily prisoner long to work out what had happened between them.

‘I presume you’ve finished what you were doing,’ Ziegler said as he pushed by.

Both Konrad and Elsa blushed at the comment.

Blomberg scowled at the prisoners. ‘You there!’ He zeroed in on Ziegler. ‘Help me here.’

Ziegler pointed at himself innocently.

‘What’s the matter?’ Blomberg shouted again. ‘Did the prison gruel make you deaf? Come on, help me restrain the officer before he kills us all!’

Ziegler did as he was instructed and joined the doctor. He pressed himself against the squirming Mesler. But now that he had a new audience, Mesler spoke up again.

‘There’s a hole in the hull,’ he shouted. ‘I was in the reactor when I dropped the welder. It melted through the wall and I’m not dead. Don’t you see? The air should have killed me. The air should have killed you too! Something has happened out on the surface.’

‘Calm yourself,’ Blomberg gently took hold of Mesler’s shaking shoulders. ‘You need to sleep and rest, my friend. You’ve been working on those batteries and in that reactor for too long. You’re burnt out, exhausted.’

Mesler violently shook his head. ‘I’ll prove you wrong. I’ll prove you all wrong.’

Konrad listened to the enraged officer with keen interest. The sheer conviction of Mesler’s words was intriguing because ever since the crash, Konrad had found the officer to be the only voice of reason amidst the chaos and carnage. In normal circumstances, the officer’s apparent collapse would have been a terrible omen, if one was needed that the end was near, but what intrigued Konrad the most was what if Mesler was telling the truth, and by some unfathomable miracle the air was breathable? They would be free of the metal tomb they were in. They could truly venture forth from the module, and even escape the suffocating presence of the spire and its mysterious contents. He knew what he had to do.

With a sense of trepidation, Konrad inched forward toward the airlock. Elsa saw what he was doing and grabbed his wrist tightly as she attempted to pull him back.

‘What are you doing?!’ she whispered with an understandable sense of fear.

‘Trust me…’ Konrad replied as he gently pried Elsa’s small fingers from his arm and stepped into the airlock. Once inside he triggered the hatch to close behind him.

When Ziegler saw what his friend was doing, he released Mesler and raced towards the descending doorway. ‘Konrad! What are doing?’

Blomberg did the same. ‘What’s that idiot doing? Get out of there. Get out!’ He played with the airlock’s controls, but they remained inoperative while the door was closing. There was no turning back for Konrad now. Blomberg slapped the door angrily as its locks hissed into place. ‘Dummkopf!’ he shouted angrily.

With a stomach-churning bang, the hatch slammed shut behind Konrad. It left him alone inside the airlock. He looked back at the sealed door and saw Mesler huddled behind the thick port-hole. The officer eagerly waved Konrad forward towards the chamber’s imposing floor to ceiling door.

At that moment, a siren screeched as a set of pistons heaved and creaked, and Konrad watched the hissing cylinders push the outer wall in the night air. Every muscle in Konrad’s body tensed up, his breathing growing shorter and shorter, until eventually, his breathing stopped altogether as he held his breath. As soon as the metallic barrier slammed into the dusty ground, the air, poisonous or not, swirled around Konrad, its freezing gusts playing across his face and body. He then inhaled deeply.

He waited for the poisonous effects to violently take hold of his body, but nothing happened. No burning of his throat and lungs, no coughing or choking. All he felt was the sensation of breathing in good old-fashioned fresh air.

For a time Konrad simply stood still, breathing in and out. His head whirled as his body absorbed the nourishing atmosphere, gorging itself like a ravenous man at a feast. For years he had only breathed the sterile, industrial atmospheres of Nazi space-craft and satellites such as Neu Magdeburg, but here in contrast, the air he now inhaled was natural and fresh, its touch upon his skin like that of Elsa’s.

Emboldened, Konrad made his way down the ramp into the darkness. His bare feet pressed into the alien soil, the gritty particles feeling impossible large between his toes as he playfully kicked up the soil like an excited child. He then gazed around the night landscape. A small portion of the spire stood starkly in the light cast from the airlock, a grandiose tombstone standing over the pile of earth that marked the graves of the Odin’s crew, but far in the distance, Konrad saw something quite unexpected.

A light started to flower on the distant horizon.

As this new dawn broke, the drab night melted away into a cascade of colours: purples, oranges, yellows and blues. He raised his hand over his eyes to shield them from the unfamiliar sun that rose above him, its virginal rays reflecting dazzlingly off the tower’s endless walls whose true scale was now free from the suffocating dust. Bending down, he scooped up a handful of dirt and rubbed the particles between his hands, the gun-metal soil staining his palms, the smell of ozone wafting on the wind around him beneath the now blue sky. It was as if Konrad had been transported back in time to be given the honour of witnessing dawn on the day of creation. This honour had, of course, previously belonged solely to God, but Konrad felt ecstatic as he now joined this unique fellowship.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

With a triumphant clang, the chain-link moorings were released from the rover. “Rover” was perhaps the wrong word to describe the giant tank-like vehicle. An angular chassis was slung between four huge tyres, while a two-man cab sat above the vehicle’s muscular engine and bulbous cargo-compartment. A large red and white registration number adorned one side of the rover, while a Teutonic cross and the obligatory swastika graced the opposite side of its dull grey hull. Mesler sat in the cab, his hands hovering over a bewildering series of joysticks and gauges. He pressed the start-stop button to activate the monstrous diesel engine, which spluttered and coughed as it filled the open airlock with a thick fog of acrid exhaust fumes like some bronchial giant rising from a deep sleep. As the cab rocked, Konrad appeared below the vehicle and clambered on board. After his bold and dramatic actions that revealed the atmosphere’s current life-sustaining qualities he had sensibly dressed in a discarded tunic from the crew. He had wisely removed the uniform’s swastika and decorative cuff-band. Nevertheless, it still looked odd to see the prisoner standing with the field-grey tunic draped over his baggy stripped trousers and scuffed boots like a mangy pirate. He adjusted the tunic and the leather-belt, noting its infamous motto: God is with us. He wondered if that was true as he dropped into the rover’s cramped cab.

With the prisoner safely sitting next to him, Mesler pulled on a number of the levers and turned a hand-wheel. In response, the rover shuddered and roared, then as he lifted his foot from the clutch, the giant rover rumbled down onto the surface like a dragon emerging from its lair.

As the rover powered away from the module, Konrad glanced out the cab’s window at the activity outside. Ever since the atmosphere was found to be breathable, the surviving crew had emerged from the module like ants emerging from their nest. Most of the crew had found an excuse to leave the stuffy, dark confines of the module to bask in the bright sunshine and the clean air. A new Nazi flag fluttered prominently above the burial mound as the crew cleared away the debris from the ship’s interior as they started the process of converting the wreck into a hospitable home. Others, meanwhile, toiled within the entrance of the giant spire. Following Mesler’s orders, they had raided the module’s magazine and had started to plant a series of explosives. The black wall remained blank and inactive as the men placed the wax-paper packages along the connecting tunnel. A series of fuse-wires fixed to the explosives snaked through the dirt away from the entrance and down towards a complex-looking firing-box which stood poised by the airlock. The spire had failed to respond to the presence of the men, but unsurprisingly, given the stories of the horrors that lay within the building, some of the crew kept watch over their companions with machine-guns. One eye on the dormant building, the other on the innocuous looking explosives. It felt strange to some of the crewmen that they were busy trying to seal off the strange structure, rather than attempting to confront what lay within. Some men, however, saw the spire as a thing of beauty just like the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Überführer’s tomb, and it disturbed them that they were willing to desecrate the massive and mysterious structure. Perhaps their actions would incur the wrath of what lay within. Others simply saw the spire as another immovable structure to be destroyed on the orders of the Reich.

Away from the demolition-crew, Blomberg gazed up at the azure sky and the banks of perfectly white clouds which rolled beneath it. He also looked across the bleak and featureless landscape. In the distance, streaking across the horizon, was the immeasurable crater wall, its crags and escarpments blurred by the haze. But it was the results of the apparent miracle that fascinated Blomberg. The glorious new environment. He had spent most of his time out on the surface manning various sensors he had set up to analyse the atmosphere that wafted about the wreck. Theories as to the cause of the dramatic change worked through Blomberg’s mind like the clouds that rolled overhead. Instrumentation error was perhaps the most obvious explanation, but how could that explain the terrible storm that had engulfed them before and after they’d arrived and the results of the original experiment performed with the prisoner in the airlock. No, he had seen the noxious results, so that left one other, perhaps more unsettling, conclusion. The spire was the source of the oxygen that filled his lungs over and over again. This theory was also seemingly confirmed by the vast vortex of cloud that swirled about the spire’s peak far above him.

However, these new conditions reminded Blomberg of conditions more personal to him. They were of memories of the Reich, of Germany, and of home. The bright sunshine and the blue sky, along with the gentle breeze, brought back recollections of days spent at the beach on the Baltic with his wife, their feet buried beneath the sugary sand and their arms wrapped around each-other. That particular afternoon they had simply sat under their parasol watching the world go by. A platoon of Hitler-Youth played in the dunes, while elderly couples wandered through the surf. This was perhaps his final, truly happy memory because only days later, he was strapped in a cramped shuttle rocketing from Pennemünde; itself, like his wife, located on the same shores of the Baltic. But these happy memories inevitably led Blomberg down a path to more recent, and in his mind, more painful memories, namely the grief that had overcome him after being told of his enforced exile from her.

These painful memories were put aside as the rover rumbled loudly into view to come to a rest close to the mass grave. Blomberg ambled round the earthen mound and stood next to the idling vehicle. Mesler opened the hatch as his comrade approached, his head popping into view like a jack-in-a-box.

‘Good luck hunting down those cargo-containers,’ Blomberg shouted above the engine’s din. ‘You know it’ll be like searching for a needle in a haystack inside what’s left of the ship.’

Mesler replied confidently. ‘I wager there are hundreds of the containers out there just waiting for us to recover them. And you know as well as I do, we need them more than ever now. It’s no good having this good fortune about the atmosphere only to starve to death.’

Blomberg once again gazed up at the sky. ‘Do you still believe it was a miracle that the atmosphere suddenly became breathable overnight?’

‘What do your various gizmos tell you?’

‘They tell me that we now possess a near-earth atmosphere. Same levels of nitrogen. Same levels of oxygen. It’s perfect. Perhaps, too perfect!’

‘But they still don’t tell you how it came about…’

‘No,’ Blomberg said.

Mesler shrugged. ‘At this point in time and after all the horrors that have befallen us since we arrived at this god-forsaken place I’ll accept any miracle – despite its source.’

‘To me, it just feels a little too convenient,’ Blomberg said sceptically.

Mesler’s eyes fell upon the earthen mound next to the rover and his tone became serious. ‘How long till the explosives are in place?’

‘Not much longer.’

‘Good,’ Mesler nodded. ‘Radio me once the task is completed. You then have my permission to trigger the explosives. I want that tower sealed off forever.’

‘I still think it’s a mistake not to recover the colonists.’

‘We’ll agree to differ on that matter, Doctor. Our resources are stretched as it is, we cannot afford even more mouths to feed. My decision simplifies this.’

‘It’s the type of decision I would have expected from Sturmbannführer Stahl – not from you,’ the doctor countered.

Mesler appeared to be hurt by the comparison with the feared SS officer.

Blomberg quickly tried to backtrack. ‘Perhaps that was uncalled for…’

‘No, you’re right,’ Mesler sighed. ‘Things have certainly changed since we landed on this damned rock.’

The optimism returned to Blomberg. ‘Anyway, away with you!’ he cried. ‘The daylight’s disappearing.’ Mesler motioned to close the cab’s hatch, but before he sealed the plate Blomberg shouted one last time. ‘You’ll have to make me a promise.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It was rumoured that there was a container just full of lager – hundreds of thousands of bottles of the stuff. So just you make sure that you find that container first!’

‘Always do what the doctor orders!’ Mesler smiled as he finally sealed the hatch.

Blomberg stepped away and gave a rushed Nazi salute as the rover heaved its heavy frame away, a cloud of dust and fossil-fuels billowing in its wake. The noxious wind buffeted Blomberg as he returned to his instruments. He watched the rover as it wheeled into the deep furrow made by the module’s forced landing and disappeared into the distance, its path across the landscape highlighted by the plume of dust which hung and lingered eerily behind it. He turned away and inevitably confronted the unmoving spire, which like him unerringly watched the rover’s journey. Scrambling back up the mound, he passed the waiting firing-box and checked its circuits. A welcoming green light flashed, indicating everything was in working order. Satisfied, he returned to his own scientific instruments and the welcoming breeze. But unseen by Blomberg, the firing-box suddenly began to quiver and shake in the grip of some invisible assailant. The leather-bound box then bent and twisted savagely, the metal plunger as pliable as a rotten plant stem. Then with a final crunch, the deformed and useless box tumbled into the ground, a horrible omen for what was to come.

The Nazi song, Horst Wessel, drifted through the module like smoke. It sounded from the surviving speaker system and bounced off the walls and floated down the corridors. The only person who was listening to Horst Wessel with any degree of eagerness was Ziegler. He had remained alone in the sickbay to watch over Stahl’s body and like a familiar childhood memory, the Nazi music relaxed the prisoner. Laziness had played a part in his decision to remain with Stahl. This was partially due to the legacy of his previous bureaucratic life working for the Party and to the work-shy life he had managed to develop back at Neu Magdeburg where he had worked in the Commandant’s office, safe from the foundries and the guards. In fact, the only time that Ziegler had ever volunteered at the camp was when he lobbied the Commandant to be selected for the Odin. It may have seemed irrational at the time given his own history, but then Ziegler was far from the bosom of the Party with no prospect of rehabilitation, so in his eyes, there was nothing to lose by stowing aboard the spaceship and starting a new life. He may have still been a prisoner, but at least he was far from the sense of shame he felt every moment he was in the prison-camp, and more important to him, he was far away from his failure to obtain his ultimate goal. But that was in the past, a million years in the past as far as he was concerned, because there was another reason why he had lingered in the module. A reason he couldn’t divulge to his fellow prisoners. His love for the swastika, his love for the Nazi party, for so long forsaken and forgotten, had stirred once again. The sense of duty he had felt towards these symbols of power, for so long dormant and suppressed by his anger and sense of betrayal had once again come to dominate him. This urge to obey had already started to re-emerge like debris from a drained lake ever since their disastrous arrival upon Vanaheim, but now it consumed him like an insatiable lust. Perhaps it was lust – a lust for power. In Ziegler’s mind, it was as if the force of the crash, its violence and horror, had freed this submissive compulsion from its prison, the most blatant demonstration of its freedom being his proud Nazi salute at the flag-raising ceremony. Strangely, Ziegler had sensed this duty grow stronger and stronger the longer he remained in the presence of the comatose Nazi. He could have left this glow of obedience, but he remained, revelling in the sense of power that invisibly fogged the area.

As Ziegler sat in the gloom humming along to the Nazi anthem, fond memories were pulled from him, their shape and form coalescing vividly before his eyes. His office overlooking the lush greenery of the Tiergarten in Berlin. Standing on the podium at the annual Nuremburg rallies, first in the sunshine, then at night, the hordes of troops, officials and dignitaries illuminated either by the bright spring sunshine, or by the famous cathedrals of light. He remembered walking through these vast crowds as he made his way across the floor of the stadium, the unceasing and deafening cries of “Sieg Heil!” or “Heil Hitler!” ringing in his ears, and to him, ringing in his soul.

But a more vivid and stronger series of images then filled Ziegler’s vision. The vision was from a time when he first tasted the power he once so took for granted and which he secretly still sought. He remembered entering the Reich Chancellery in the capital for the first time as an eager, naïve party official. One by one, he slowly climbed the steps outside into the columned entrance to enter the endless marble-lined halls. He passed ambassadors from various client states and administrators from the far-flung corners of the Reich. It was like a scene from an exotic court of some long forgotten Roman emperor or a medieval king. Black dress-uniforms mixed with gold-braid, while riding-crops swung side by side with ivory batons. Some paced anxiously back and forth rehearsing what they were to say to their Führer, while others laughed and gossiped. But outside the Führer’s office at the heart of the building it was unnervingly quiet like the interior of a church. Only hushed voices spoke here. It was as if the inherent power that lurked beyond the tall wooden doors stifled all emotion like some suffocating blanket. The stifling atmosphere was policed by two Nazi praetorian-guards, the Leibstandarte-SS. They snapped to attention as the doors parted to allow Ziegler into the Nazi holy of holies.

At the far end of the grand office was the exalted Führer himself. Upon seeing Ziegler, he slowly rose from behind his desk and beckoned Ziegler toward him. Ziegler remembered being frozen on the spot by the unbelievable sense of anticipation he felt. Eventually he crossed the seemingly endless room like a moth to the flame. The same sense of anticipation he had felt that day so long ago refilled Ziegler as he cast the vision to one side.

But something had changed in the sickbay during that time.

The cot at the centre of the room was empty. Stahl was gone.

The screens that had monitored the Nazi were now blank and mute, the life-lines as flat and featureless as the landscape outside. Ziegler reached out and brushed his hand across the bed as if unsure what he was looking at as if perhaps the empty bed was still a vibrant element of his visions, but once his hand touched the white leather upholstery, his own life-signs were displayed on the monitors. His growing sense of dread was visualised on the screens as a series of jagged peaks. Turning, he saw that Lang’s cot inside the isolation-room was empty too. The thick leather straps that had restrained him hung loosely from the bed, chiming as they swayed against the bed’s metal frame.

Ziegler turned once again and sensed that someone, or something, resided in the darkness with him.

He stepped away from the empty cots, then, much to his amazement, he heard someone singing along with the tinny Nazi anthem. The voice was hoarse, barely above that of a whisper, but to Ziegler’s ears the voice possessed a rasping, malevolent quality, its sound imbued with a palpable sense of power. It sounded like the voice of the Devil, the tones scarred by his descent from heaven. As he listened, all his senses told him to escape from the darkness and seek safety in the bright daylight outside, but something about the voice drew him closer. But what struck the former Nazi was the fact that he experienced the very same sense of anticipation he felt as he crossed the Führer’s office all those years before.

In front of Ziegler were two figures, their outlines highlighted by a bank of blinking monitors. One stood, while the second figure appeared to be kneeling before the other like a supplicant receiving a blessing. And much to the astonishment of Zeigler, the standing figure was revealed to be Stahl, and it was Lang who grovelled at his feet. Stahl’s hands clung tightly to Lang’s face, whose loving gaze remained upon the seemingly resurrected Nazi. The priest’s eyes were full of adulation, like that of a lover staring at a long lost love.

Stahl was seemingly oblivious to Ziegler as he continued to coo over the holy man, but in the weak light, Ziegler could see the change in Stahl’s appearance. His skin was deathly pale, while his hair, which before the incident inside the spire, was a natural golden blonde now appeared to be drained of all its colour. It was as if the Nazi had passed through the hands of an alchemist. But the biggest change was the Nazi’s eyes. They had already transmuted from his natural blue to a sickening tar-like black inside the spire, now they shone a bright azure-blue, their gaze feral and cold. He was now a caricature of the perfect Aryan, the aspects previously thought to be perfect and pure – the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the fair skin – all had been stretched and warped to their absolute extreme, in fact, he was no longer Aryan, but an Über-Aryan.

Lang fully immersed himself within the halo of power that seemed to emanate from Stahl. He revelled in the invisible ambiance, the touch and intimacy between himself and the Sturmbannführer fuelling the joy he obviously felt.

‘Forgive me, Herr Sturmbannführer Stahl, but what’s happened to you?’ Ziegler asked.

Stahl’s icy gaze zeroed in on Ziegler who shivered with revulsion as the grotesque eyes settled upon him. But somewhat unexpectedly, a confused frown formed on the SS officer’s brow. ‘Stahl..?’

His reactions and manner were like that of someone who had a black veil removed from their face. He looked at his hands; his frown growing deeper as he slowly flexed his fingers and rubbed the tips together.

‘Shall I alert Doctor Blomberg?’

Stahl returned his gaze back to Ziegler and shook his head. ‘Now I remember!’

He suddenly grabbed Ziegler’s hand. The Nazi’s skin was hot and clammy, feverish even. Ziegler attempted to pull away, but after a short time he started to relax, and instead, like Lang, he started to feed off the manifest energy that emanated from Stahl. It pumped and coursed through his veins, mixing with his blood to root into every bone in his body. It also cast off the hunched aspect that had for so long ruled Ziegler the prisoner. That Ziegler was now dead. He was now Ziegler the Gauleiter. Ziegler the Nazi.

Stahl sensed the change in the former prisoner and smiled. ‘I, like you, have changed,’ he said. ‘My form and appearance may have altered since I escaped, but this new vessel certainly has its advantages, as does its drives and doctrines. It confirms that I was right to reach out to your kind.’

‘What has happened?’ Ziegler breathlessly asked like an eager pupil anxious to learn from its master.

‘Isn’t it obvious? We have undergone a majestic metamorphosis! The impure racial aspects which contaminated and poisoned the whole – all what suffocated and imprisoned my greatness – have been cleansed away.’

Ziegler remained silent, as if unsure what to say or do to this Nazi monstrosity. The prisoner motioned to pull away, but Stahl’s grip remained strong, the heat growing stronger, the pain it inflicted more damaging. To Ziegler, the heat was fusing and melting their flesh together to create a bizarre blood pact between them.

‘You’re right to fear me, but don’t let your fear blind you to what is to come.’ Stahl pulled Ziegler closer. ‘You do trust me?’

The bright blue eyes bored right into Zeigler’s soul.

‘Of course,’ he breathlessly cried.

‘But can I trust you?’ Stahl then asked pointedly.

Ziegler felt a spark of fear rise up his spine as he heard those words. Stahl smiled again to reassure the Nazi as he witnessed the fear in his companion.

‘Let me ask you this: why do we believe in Germany and the Führer?’ Stahl said.

The words instantly struck a nerve and took Ziegler back to his Party days. His shoulders stiffened and his chest swelled as he suddenly stood to attention before the Sturmbannführer. He barked back his response like an eager recruit. ‘Because we believe in God, we believe in Germany which He created in His world and in the Überführer, whom He has sent us!’

‘Who do we serve?’

‘I swear to thee Adolf Hitler loyalty and bravery. I swear to thee and the superiors thou shalt appoint obedience unto death. So help me God!’

‘It is I who feels the will of the Überführer within,’ Stahl stated. ‘It is I, who you will serve. It is I, who you will obey.’

Now it was the turn of Ziegler to smile when he realised that he was truly back within the Party. ‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment,’ Ziegler gasped. ‘I never lost hope that I would serve the swastika once again. It is my joy of joys!’

‘My burdens are many, my comrade,’ Stahl said. ‘That is why you must help me. Before I became one with the swastika, I slumbered in this wilderness, locked in the darkness and smothered within the unending silence. I was an exile, shunned by my own kind because of my munificence! Their small minds refused to comprehend the beauty of my creations. They said they were crimes! I say they were progress! Eventually, their jealously drove me from my home into the vastness of space. I slumbered with my creations until our vessel fell from the sky onto this world. But as you can see my patience eventually paid off. I sensed your radio transmissions and signals decades ago. I listened attentively to your words, to all your triumphs and to your power, and I knew at that moment that I had found kindred spirits. But given your biological requirements, I knew that you would never attempt an expedition to my place of exile as it was, and so with a slight of hand, I projected what you wanted to see out here. But it wasn’t a trick: it was vision of what will happen here on this planet once our plans come to fruition.

‘We are to forge something special on this small world, Ziegler. Nothing less than a new Reich will be raised from these shores. It will be a new Fatherland!’ Stahl exclaimed. ‘Imagine this world reshaped by us, its very geography shaped by National Socialism. Pure Nazi crops will prosper and grow across these alien steppes, just as your forefathers spread the Nazi seed across the barbaric East. And these fields will be tended by pure, unadulterated Nazi colonists, all free of the corruption and poison and decadence of our brothers back home. Here on Vanaheim we will return to the true Nazi path, a path to greatness, a path to purity. Out here amongst the stars, the Reich will be renewed under a new swastika banner held by a new Überführer.’

Stahl smiled as Lang then took up the blasphemous, from a Nazi point of view, sermon.

‘An Überführer we can touch. An Überführer we can feel,’ Lang gasped. ‘Even you have seen the power he possesses. He gave me the power to exterminate the untermenshen who filled this vessel! Can you not see that his power overwhelms even that of the little Corporal whose earthly empire merely covered Europe? This new Reich of iron and blood will cover the entire universe!’ he shouted as he performed a Nazi salute over and over again.

Stahl cupped Lang’s expectant face, kissing the priest full on the lips.

At first, Lang’s eyes remained closed, but after a short time they snapped open. They were full of pain. They were full of confusion. Lang then stifled a scream as he tried to pull away from the embrace, his hands desperately pawing at his master’s, but Stahl’s hands and lips remained locked in place. Eventually Stahl released Lang from his embrace. The Nazi priest collapsed lifelessly at the feet of Zeigler, while blue fumes smoked from Stahl’s smiling lips.

Ziegler knelt down to examine Lang’s body. The blue stain from the Zyklon-B poison had spread from his lips and blotted his entire face. It was obvious that the immunity that had been conveyed upon Lang to wipe out the crew had been painfully and fatally removed by this new version of Stahl.

‘The little priest had served his purpose,’ Stahl coldly said as he turned towards his new acolyte. ‘I hope you’re not squeamish about such matters.’

‘Of course not! Have no fear that I have the stomach for what is needed to be done,’ Zeigler said with a note of steel.

‘Spoken like a good Nazi!’ smiled Stahl. ‘Come, we have much work to do.’

Ziegler now knelt before Stahl, and at that moment, the last vestiges of the friendship he had developed with Konrad disappeared.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The rover wheeled across the featureless landscape leaving a pawl of diesel fumes and dust swirling in its wake. Its tracks, fresh and gratuitous in the pristine alien soil, recorded the rover’s journey from the module towards the great column of smoke that rose above the undisturbed horizon. For several kilometres, the lonely vehicle had trundled parallel to the deep groove left behind by the module, but the furrow’s path was not straight, instead, it had deviated from its natural path and turned sharply towards its eventual resting place at the foot of the spire. It was as if the module had been dragged towards the structure on purpose.

Inside the rover’s rocking cab, Konrad looked ahead and saw the smoke hanging heavily in the sky. Black plumes of swirling ash obscured the planet’s new blue sky and brought back memories of the previous dull and colourless atmosphere, while a line of fire, the smoke’s source, was splashed across the landscape, its bright orange glow smudging the rolling cloud. The ground in front of the rover was scorched and blackened and littered with countless pieces of metal. All traces of their previous angular designs had been erased either by their descent through the atmosphere, or by their impact with the ground.

As the rover crunched its way through the debris field, the carpet of junk thickened and concentrated, and amidst the flickering flames stood more imposing and titanic pieces of debris. Entire sections of the Odin’s lattice super-structure lay spread out like a decaying carcass, the framework twisted and distorted amongst the dust, while the cavernous remains of an engine bell lay amidst its metal throngs.

With a pneumatic sigh the rover halted. The thick wreckage now prevented any further progress into the mutilated remains of the Nazi spacecraft. Konrad and Mesler clambered from the idle rover and from a compartment in the vehicle’s hull they pulled out two torches and a case of rattling tools. Mesler kept the case for himself as he tossed one of the torches to Konrad, who instantly activated the device. Its beam shone like a sword in the smoke. The prisoner then followed the officer as he pointed his torch-beam into the forest of metal which encircled them like a shadowy haunted house.

‘What do these containers actually look like?’ Konrad asked as he stumbled over a piece of junk.

Mesler helped the prisoner up. ‘The containers we want, namely those which contain food rations, are yellow in colour and hexagonal in shape. If you see any other types just ignore them. I’m only interested in the food containers.’ He stooped to avoid a large tubular stanchion. ‘Remember, hexagonal in shape.’

Konrad looked back and saw the rover obscured in the distance by the lattice forest. A red revolving light on its hull acted as a beacon and from his point of view, the cramped cab was now a luxurious home from home. He turned back into the gloom and hurried after Mesler who had emerged from the initial wall to stop in a wide football-pitch sized clearing amongst the wreckage. A cathedral-sized battery stood on the far side. It was the larger brother of the ones which now powered the module, but unlike its scaled-down brethren, its spherical walls had cracked open. In the fissure the two men could see the battery’s tall conductive plates, while its acidic power source had poured out and turned the scorched soil into a foul quagmire; a quagmire across which the explorers had to cross.

Konrad stepped to the edge of this industrial swamp, snorted loudly and spat into the mud. The sputum hissed and fizzed as it made contact with the highly acidic soil. ‘Do we try and find another way around?’

Mesler looked across the acidic barrier and saw that several pipes lay in the mud, if used correctly could be used as stepping-stones to the far side of the clearing and to the sanctuary of the open battery.

‘No,’ the officer said confidently. ‘See the fuel-pipes submerged over there…’

Konrad nodded.

‘We’ll use them to cross over to the other side.’

But to achieve this, the pair had to make it to the first pipe and that would not be easy. A large gap existed between the quagmire’s shoreline and the bent and battered pipes. It was capable of being jumped over, but it still looked difficult nevertheless.

Konrad was the first to attempt the leap. He passed his torch to Mesler, prepared his run up and ran. At the edge of the shoreline he leapt, his spring worthy of any Olympic long-jumper and landed heavily on the nearest pipe. The impact winded the prisoner, but he managed to remain on the slippery curved metal and beckoned Mesler to follow. This, he succeeded in doing, perhaps with a little less grace than the more athletic prisoner, but with equally effective results.

Safe on the overturned pipe-work, the two men scurried across to a catwalk that lay near to the vast breached battery. The catwalk snaked out of sight beyond the structure. Konrad looked at the rickety platform and was filled with an understandable sense of trepidation. It appeared that only more fire, smoke and danger lay beyond. If Mesler felt the same he didn’t show it. The two men worked their way round the bulbous battery and disappeared into a drifting bank of smoke.

In the roiling cloud their sense of isolation grew even more acute. This sense of isolation was heightened even more by the groaning of the metal wreckage that surrounded them. It was as if the remains of the vessel were pleading for help from the two explorers, begging to be put out of its misery. At the end of the platform, which rocked dangerously under each of their steps, a large multi-storied cubic structure emerged from the curtain of smoke. The structure was one of the Odin’s vast storage containers. These skyscraper-sized structures would have originally been attached to the side of the vessel and their contents would have been the building blocks of the Nazi colony planned for the planet. This was obviously before the crash, before the horror. One side of the container remained relatively intact, but the opposite side appeared to have been sliced open with a giant knife. An entire forest of weed-like cables and ducting hung from the vast gash like torn flesh, while equipment such as motorised tractors, ploughs, silos and other pieces of farming equipment lay scattered across the buckled decks.

‘Such a waste,’ Mesler said wistfully, waving his hand across the metallic vista. ‘All the farming equipment the colonists were to use to transform this planet. All that will happen to it now is that it’ll rust away and be swallowed by the soil.’

Konrad refused to buy into the romantic vista being described by Mesler; instead, more practical matters dominated his thoughts. ‘Could the food containers be nearby?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have made sense to store the food close to the farm?’

‘Perhaps,’ Mesler replied. He turned and surveyed the endless debris field. ‘We could be out here for months and not stumble upon one container. But that’s my pessimistic side talking, my optimistic side, however, tells me we will be successful.’

Konrad looked out across the sea of wreckage and sided with the officer’s pessimistic side.

The two men pushed on. They walked between more of the titanic containers. Some like the agricultural themed containers stood like metallic tombstones, giant memorials to the Nazis’ hubris, while others were smashed beyond recognition like presents discarded by a spoilt child. Amongst the visual devastation an acrid smell hung. Burning rocket-fuel dominated, but alongside this, an earthy under-taste – the planet’s disturbed soil – drifted through the smoke. The fine alien dirt along with the smoke stained their faces and clothes, but the need to find the precious food drove the two men on. And as they trawled amongst the dirt and metal they saw the remains of the Odin’s crew who were unable to reach the safety of the command module. Some were miraculously intact, while other bodies were smashed or burnt beyond recognition.

But something amongst this mass of junk, flesh and flame caught Konrad’s eye – a distinct hexagonal shape.

Konrad’s eyes narrowed as he peered again, hoping, even praying, that his initial assessment was correct. Hidden between the remains of a parabolic communication dish was a single food container. It swung forlornly from the structure like a forgotten piece of fruit, all the while creaking mournfully in the hope of being plucked from its uncomfortable branch.

‘Herr Mesler!’ Konrad cried. ‘I’ve found a container.’ He directed the officer towards the overturned dish.

In response, Mesler hurriedly unpacked a pair of binoculars and swept the debris field in the direction Konrad excitedly pointed. Mesler’s eyes widened with delight when he too spotted the precious container.

‘Wunderbar!’ he exclaimed.

After what seemed an age, the two men with their tired limbs and smoke-stained faces eventually reached the dish. Deep, exhausting gasps filled the stillness as they rested a few minutes before attempting their final assault upon the container which they could see hung several metres above them.

‘Who gets to go up there and actually retrieve the box?’ Konrad breathlessly enquired.

‘It should really be me, but…’

‘What’s the matter?’ Konrad asked.

‘Would you believe me if I told you I was scared of heights,’ Mesler replied with a guilty smile.

Konrad rolled his eyes and stood up. ‘I just knew you were going to say that. I’ll go, shall I?’ he said sarcastically before looping the torch around his wrist and pulling himself up over the dish’s lip.

A pile of dirt, the result of the dish ploughing into the ground, filled the bottom of the voluminous bowl, but instead of being a hindrance to Konrad the churned up soil would, in fact, aid his ascent to the central antennae and its prize. The antenna was housed upon a twisted tripod, the bottom leg of which hung preciously above the two men.

Konrad scrambled up the curved floor of the dish and mounted the bottom strut which squeaked and groaned loudly in protest. He cautiously tested its integrity by swinging from it. Much to his relief, the strut remained quite sturdy, and so Konrad climbed up and straddled the horizontal support, which he then shimmied along towards the cylindrical antenna and the box. From his vantage point he could see a panel attached to the dented and pock-marked yellow container. The stencilled writing upon the panel indicated that the box contained two thousand freeze-dried meals. But as Konrad neared, like a moment in a tragic comedy, his weight upon the tripod caused the container to tip away. An angry creak warned Konrad to halt.

He slowly turned to look over his shoulder. ‘What do I do now?’ he shouted down to Mesler. ‘If I move any closer the container will drop!’

‘Good,’ Mesler waved him on. ‘The quicker it’s down here the better.’

Konrad continued, but he was clearly unhappy. ‘You wouldn’t be saying that if it was your arse hanging up here like some demented cuckoo,’ he muttered to himself.

Again the food container winced at his approach, but Konrad carefully closed in until his grubby hands eventually rested upon the brightly coloured box. Konrad pulled at the coffin-sized box, but it remained stubbornly wedged in the antenna. It appeared that this last part of the recovery was going to be the most difficult.

Konrad turned down to Mesler. ‘I don’t think it’ll move…’

As the last word left his mouth, the container abruptly slipped and dropped. To save his hands from being torn from his wrists, Konrad pulled them back and held onto the rocking support for dear life. The container, meanwhile, slammed into the ground below, narrowly missing Mesler. It rolled to a rest amidst a cloud of soil and rubbish.

One by one, Konrad pried his frozen fingers from the strut, climbed down from the tripod and slid back down the dome to the safety of the ground below. By now, Mesler had scrambled after the container and disappeared out of sight. Konrad picked himself up off the ground and staggered after them both.

Konrad found Mesler on top of the yellow box, the torch in one hand, a small pry-bar in the other, which he was attempting to use to open the container’s lid. However, this proved to be totally fruitless as the box’s lid remained stubbornly in place. In the end, the officer resorted to more brutal methods. He clubbed the lid like some crazed native attacking a helpless animal. At the same time, Konrad skipped around the container, avoiding the swinging metal bar, and pulled at the lid too.

Eventually the pair’s comical efforts paid off, and with a welcoming pop, the container cracked open. A host of plastic packages flooded onto the ground.

Mesler dropped to his knees and pawed his way through the glistening envelopes. ‘Hurry, come this side,’ he instructed. ‘Shine your light over here!’

Konrad obeyed and scurried behind the stooping officer. His light exposed the packages in Mesler’s hands and his heart instantly sank.

Inside each plastic envelope, instead of the hoped for food, were medals – thousands of medals. Iron Crosses attached to red, black and white ribbons, decorative cuff-bands, neatly folded swastika arm-bands and gold Nazi Party pin-badges. No meat, no vegetables, no fruit, just worthless Nazi trinkets and decorations. Mesler shook his head in disbelief as he desperately raked his hands through the pile of useless objects.

‘This can’t be true,’ he cried as he delved deeper into the container. ‘There has to be some food in here. The container said so. The container said so!’

Konrad fingered the container’s misleading label which appeared to smile mockingly at them. He then stooped down himself and picked up a packet which contained a gold Nazi badge. These particular badges were normally reversed for the elite of the Party, and were destined to have been awarded to the Odin’s crew and the future colonists. They were now simply useless pieces of junk. Konrad was about to drop the badge back into the pile when he hesitated. He fingered the plastic bag and the harsh swastika within and decided to keep the ornate badge. It was an unconscious decision, not motivated by any selfish need to keep the trinket, all he could say if asked was perhaps it was motivated by some traces of his previous life at the prison camp to steal any valuables that weren’t nailed down.

Whatever his reasons, he pocketed the bag and watched as Mesler pounced up from the ground to kick and punch the container. Again and again he hit the scarred surface, his screams of frustration mixing with the dull thuds of his blows. Blood soon smeared his knuckles, the red rivulets running down his hands, their scarlet drops spattering the useless medals.

‘Fuck the Party! Fuck the SS! Fuck the Astrokorp! Fuck Germany! Fuck the Reich! Fuck all of them!’ Mesler screamed at the top of his voice. His anguish added a terrible note to his cries as he dropped to the ground with tears streaming down his cheeks. The tears mixed with the blood on the useless packages.

Suddenly the container imploded before them as if hit by an invisible fist.

The two men staggered backwards away from the crumpled box unsure as to what had just happened.

Another blow exploded in front of them, this time sending a great shower of dirt and metal in all directions. The force of this blow catapulted both Konrad and Mesler into the surrounding wreckage. Stunned, Konrad rolled onto his side and pawed at his ringing ears. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him that his ears were perforated by the explosive concussion. He felt the warm trickle of blood between his fingers and saw it mix with the dirt and grime that had impregnated every pore. The red blood shone brightly in the gloom and seemed to hypnotise the prisoner. Another shower of dirt landed on Konrad and seemed to draw him from his state of contemplation. He looked up and saw Mesler crawling toward him. He appeared to word something, but the persistent ringing in his ears transformed the officer’s screams into dull and muffled gibberish.

Needless of what Mesler shouted, Konrad looked up and saw the giant dish shattering as it too imploded. Its groan as it crumpled into the ground even drowned out the painful ringing and prompted him to curl into a foetal position to protect himself from the avalanche of falling metal and plastic.

As soon as the cloud of disturbed dust cleared, Konrad realised that by a miracle he and Mesler had survived the destruction of the radar-dish. It was an obvious invitation to now escape, an invitation both men eagerly accepted.

A giant plume of dust roared past the men as they ran for their lives. They stumbled blindly back between the monstrous cargo-containers, their boots knocking and stepping on the bodies they had spotted earlier. The queasiness that accompanied their first encounter with the corpses was far from their minds as desperation and fear now dominated their minds. As the ringing in his ears subsided Konrad could hear the terrible sound of the god-like pounding that stalked their every step. Chunks of shrapnel-like wreckage spun and whizzed by them like angry insects. At the same time, larger, more deadly, pieces of wreckage wheeled out of the cloud of dust, their irregular outlines softened by the glow of the surrounding flames. These same flames then gave the officer and the prisoner hope of escaping the unseen horror because silhouetted in the vast pawl of smoke ahead was the giant battery. It stood like a welcoming temple or church at the end of a long and fraught pilgrimage. It meant that the rover wasn’t far away. It meant the chance to escape.

As the unseen blows grew in power and frequency, the men reached the tangled catwalk that ringed the battery. Mesler was the first to cross the catwalk and reach the pipe bridge across the quagmire. He stopped briefly to let Konrad pass him by.

‘Come on!’ Konrad shouted. ‘Now’s not the time to admire the view.’

Mesler nodded then gazed into the forest of wreckage they had just escaped from. Their unseen enemy was strangely quiet as its rampage had seemingly stopped. All both Konrad and Mesler could see was the spherical battery and the smoke that softened its bulbous outline.

‘I think whatever attacked us has gone,’ Mesler said hopefully.

Konrad, less convinced, pulled at the officer. ‘Let’s not bank on it.’ He pushed on and clambered onto the first overturned pipe.

Mesler loitered a moment longer before he, like Konrad, stepped onto the bent and twisted metal.

A great boom like the sound of flesh upon steel suddenly reverberated. It echoed off the giant battery and chimed off the surrounding wreckage making its source and location almost impossible to ascertain.

Konrad looked up and instantly wished he hadn’t.

Crashing through the debris before him appeared the mighty rover, its hull cutting through the useless machinery like an enraged animal crashing through the jungle. As he watched, time appeared to slow down as the battered vehicle spun inexorably towards him. His mind screamed at him to move, run, do anything to escape, but Konrad remained frozen on the spot. He would have remained rooted there and be torn down by the machine if it wasn’t for the violent shove applied by Mesler. The helpful push sent Konrad face first into the pipe, but if he remained standing he would have surely been decapitated. But he and Mesler’s torment was far from over.

The rover splashed into the quagmire and a great wave of acidic sludge erupted into the air. The black wave broke upon the pipe. Both men screamed as the foul mixture of acid and mud hissed and boiled as it landed on them and the pipe-work. Noxious fumes filled the air and the smell of burning flesh was pungent. Konrad felt his fingers burning as he struggled to wipe the sticky chemical mixture from his face and away from his eyes. He was lucky. Mesler had borne the brunt of the acidic wave after pushing Konrad to safety. His entire back was coated with the viscous liquid which fed ferociously upon him, the acid eating through his tunic, his shirt and his skin. He dropped onto the pipe and slipped down into the quagmire below with an acrid vapour trail in his wake.

Konrad dived across the slippery pipe to try and help the officer, but Mesler simply sank into the mud. Dazed from the pain, he pawed weakly at Konrad’s outstretched hand, but the quagmire’s pull on his body was relentless.

‘Grab my hand!’ Konrad desperately shouted.

Gritting his teeth, Konrad stretched his arms again. His blistered and raw fingers clawed at the pipe as they reached for Konrad, but it was to no avail. Panic set in as the sticky, oily mud kissed his lips like a cruel lover as the distance between them grew even further.

‘Help me!’ Mesler spluttered as the foul liquid flooded his open mouth. His eyes widened in fear.

Konrad reached out further in the hope of saving Mesler, but it was already too late. With a sickening gurgle, Mesler was sucked under.

A deathly silence fell upon the scene as Konrad impotently stared at the black surface. It was as if nothing had happened at all. No crash, no manic struggle – nothing. The only sound that broke the dreadful silence was the mournful moaning of the wrecked rover as it sank into the quagmire.

A new sound, menacing and direct, then broke over the alien landscape.

‘Rest upon this foreign shore and despair, my curious friend!’

The voice belonged to Stahl. Its source was unknown, but it seemed to Konrad that it emanated from the wind itself.

‘You will be allowed to live and rot here. You will not even be afforded the luxury of a quick death afforded like the good officer, because unlike the late Mesler, you are not a threat to me and this new Reich. You are just a slave, an animal at my command. You are insignificance personified.’

The Nazi’s disembodied voice faded away to be replaced by a faint static hiss that sounded from the rover’s open cab. Between the hiss and whistles, a voice, frantic and frightened, sounded.

‘Mesler, if you can hear me, you have to come back and help us!’ The desperate voice belonged to Blomberg. A wild cacophony of screams and gunfire accompanied the plea for help.

‘Can you hear me, Mesler? Help us!’ Blomberg cried. ‘It’s Stahl. He’s…’

An unbearable amount of feedback broke the connection to fill the air with static like the rain that started to fall on Konrad.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Blood sprayed the corridor wall as Blomberg scrambled over the twitching body parts that littered the gore-covered floor. He supported a colleague whose arm had been wrenched messily from its socket. The screams that emanated from this mutilated man symbolised the horror that was being played out throughout the wrecked module. Blomberg and his companion staggered into the control room, their bloody footprints acting like a beacon for the other survivors. Two Nazis, who like Blomberg were splattered with blood and cerebral matter, followed close behind. One was armed with a smoking Schmeisser, while the other held a jammed pistol. And with abject terror etched upon their faces, they peered constantly over their shoulders. Something was coming.

The Schmeisser-touting Nazi covered his breathless colleague as he slapped the entrance’s controls. He then defiantly flung the jammed pistol into the corridor beyond and at the unseen menace.

‘Die, you bastard!’ The gun-toting soldier screamed as his gun blasted.

When the door finally locked, the troops frantically pulled down pieces of junk in front of the door like defenders during a medieval siege, but no sooner had the space-age defenders completed their crude barricade, their work was undone. Wisps of acrid smoke started to rise from the sealed door. The volume of smoke grew as the door bubbled and melted, while drops of molten metal dropped onto the decking. The incessant dripping acted like a macabre countdown to the barricade’s imminent  failure. The soldiers passed out what weapons they had left between themselves and stood poised and ready.

The sudden noise of shifting metal within the room distracted the defenders. The soldiers instantly spun around. But before guns were fired, a frightened voice cried out.

‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ It was Elsa.

Blomberg rushed forward and pulled Elsa from her hiding place. Like a frightened rabbit she had cowered between a series of bent catwalks.

‘What are you doing down there?!’ he cried. His voice betrayed the fear that coursed through him.

‘I’m hiding, just like you,’ Elsa stated. Like the doctor, fear ruled over her.

Blomberg pushed her roughly onto a nearby ladder. ‘Goddamn it! Acting like Red Riding Hood won’t save you from him!’ He pointed up the ladder. ‘Get to the observation-deck. Hurry, if you value your life.’

The doctor returned to the injured soldier, his boots sloshing through the growing pool of blood on the floor. He reached into his pocket to pull out a small metal tube. Inside were a number of glass vials which contained poisonous cyanide. Kneeling down, he slipped his hand underneath his friend’s head and gently lifted it up. He looked back at the melting door one final time as if to reaffirm his grim decision. At the same time, his colleague seemed to sense Blomberg’s actions and smiled approvingly. Blomberg then popped the vial into the man’s mouth and pressed his jaws together. A dull crunch indicated that the vial had been successfully crushed, and the man’s body went limp.

Meanwhile, Elsa ran to the central-column. But as she grabbed the ladder’s rail, she hesitated. Her eyes were drawn towards the pending battle – the desperate soldiers on one side, the rapidly melting door on the other. And as she watched, and to her horror, two hands started to push their way through the bubbling metal.

‘Move!’ Blomberg shouted at the prisoner.

Elsa finally did as she was told and scurried up the ladder. She too knew exactly who was coming through that door.

Like the inevitability of an unloved season, Stahl pushed his way through the viscous, amorphous metal as if he was clawing his way through an embryonic sac. Once through the melted door, he bashed the makeshift barricade out of the way and smiled gently at the two soldiers who opened fire upon him. Again, tracer bullets impotently swung away and avoided their target. Then, like a wizard, Stahl waved his hand and the soldier’s weapons instantly sagged and became as pliable as plastic. The stringy guns poured through the screaming soldiers’ hands, the red-hot metal melting flesh and muscle, scorching bone and boiling blood.

Moving forward, Stahl savagely wrenched the first soldier’s head messily from his shoulders. The gore sprayed Stahl’s smiling face and the second solider who wept bitterly as he awaited his fate. It soon came when the resurrected Nazi reached out and pressed his fingers upon the tear-smeared face. A gut-wrenching scream emitted as he squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. A wet crunch sounded when the gory task was complete.

Blomberg didn’t stay to greet his former colleague. He followed Elsa and climbed up the room’s central column without a backward glance.

By now, Zeigler had entered the control room to cringe before his master like a mingy dog. Ziegler had watched as Stahl murdered the injured crewmen in the sickbay soon after his resurrection, then the soldiers who had attempted to destroy the spire’s entrance. Like the soldiers inside the module, their deaths at the hands of Stahl were painful and bloody. Men were torn limb from limb, entrails were spilt and blood had filled the air. All this horror had been witnessed enthusiastically by Ziegler, and so in Stahl’s eyes, these sights had further tempered the former Nazi Gauleiter. This man was pure once again; his thoughts and actions devoid of emotion and unpolluted by human weaknesses such as compassion or understanding. He was once again a man of iron – his man of iron. And so to reward Zeigler’s devotion, Stahl reached down and racked his hands through a pool of blood on the deck. He then drew a crude bloody swastika upon Zeigler’s forehead.

‘Rejoice, my comrade,’ Stahl said. ‘The last of the sub-humans have been cleansed from our new Fatherland! The pestilence has been wiped away. Soon their blood will be a distant memory after we write our new history. If we had spared even one of them and allowed one drop of their blood to survive, all of our plans would be in danger.’

‘This will be a day long remembered,’ Zeigler cried. ‘A day to cherish!’

‘Indeed, it shall. But first we have other matters to attend to.’

Stahl’s head snapped towards the module’s upper level. A pounding resonated, its echoes bouncing around the spherical, misshapen walls. It was the sound of metal upon glass.

Stahl smiled. ‘The last of our congregation awaits our pleasure…’

Blomberg swung a metal bar wildly at the domed window. The bar bounced off the thick glass, its sickening concussion running down his arms and painfully jarring his body. The pain he felt should have acted as a deterrent, but if anything the pain encouraged Blomberg to continue. Elsa stood forlornly nearby. She was imprisoned again, not in a jail cell, but locked within this glass cage. She knew that beyond the dust-smeared dome was Konrad. Praying, she hoped that he would come back and somehow break into the module. Elsa didn’t expect a dramatic rescue with all its swashbuckling clichés; she just wanted Konrad to be here with her. But it was sadly apparent that her end would take place alone amongst these Nazis.

Then, with a whoop of success, Blomberg managed to crack the window. He reached up and ran his fingers along the spidery fissure. This small success encouraged Blomberg. He heaved the bar above his head again, and with a great grunt, he smashed the crack. The white line skittered across the glass surface as the fissure grew in size.

Sensing victory, Elsa moved closer. She smiled hopefully as Blomberg readied himself for one final blow, but he suddenly stopped mid-swing and stared at something behind her. She saw the quivering bar and slowly turned around.

Stahl and Zeigler stood before her like the angels of death.

‘Here we all are,’ Stahl said, ‘just like one big happy family!’

Blomberg bravely stepped forward to confront the abomination. He pulled the bar above his head again. This time the brutal weapon was aimed at his fellow Nazi.

Stahl wagged his finger. ‘I’d delay your actions, my comrade, if I were you. Any actions on your part would be foolish,’ he hissed.

‘ I should kill you right now! It’s my duty!’ Blomberg shouted.

‘Your duty is to listen to your superior officer and listen to my offer.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Herr Blomberg,’ Elsa cried. ‘Kill him. Kill him now!’

Blomberg’s eyes darted toward the prisoner as he considered her brutal suggestion; however, there was something in Stahl’s voice, an unheard note which hooked him. As a result, he now hesitated, his eyes narrowing with interest.

This sudden hesitation emboldened Stahl. He slowly moved forward and waved his hand briefly in the air. The drops of blood that lay scattered across the deck and across Stahl’s pale features started to roll and pool together. The growing bloody mass rose and hung in the air above the deck, the gore rising up in inverted rivulets, twisting and swirling together. Eventually the scarlet liquid coalesced into a shape, a shape horribly familiar to the doctor. Tears coated his eyes when he finally realised that the grotesque tableaux was transforming into his wife.

‘Heidi!’ The grief was evident in Blomberg’s voice.

The apparition developed further. In the woman’s arms rested a small child. The child pulled itself from its mother’s breast and turned toward Blomberg, its blank-lifeless eyes softened by a warm smile of recognition. As a result the metal bar wavered, then it slowly lowered as the doctor’s rage evaporated away.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Blomberg asked.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Stahl replied. ‘They are your wife and child.’

‘But they’re on Earth.’

Stahl nodded. ‘But by now, your wife is dead and your daughter is now grown up. I’ll wager your wife died of a broken heart, while your daughter grew up possessing no memories of you. This is all because you are here at the behest of the Reich.’ Stahl stepped closer. ‘Blomberg, I know you better than you think. I know of your pain. I know the grief that engulfed you when you were consigned against your will on this mission. I know of your sense of betrayal.’

The metal bar lowered even further. Sensing victory, Stahl offered his hand.

‘But I can bring her back in the flesh for you, Blomberg. You’ll be reunited with your wife and your child.’

Elsa tried to intervene. ‘I know how he’ll reunite you. He’ll kill you just like the others.’

Stahl ignored her. ‘All that the old discredited regime took from you would be restored.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Blomberg whispered. But his words were disconnected with the apparition that stood before him.

‘Nothing is impossible were I am concerned. Here on this world, my will is absolute. All you have to do is to submit.’

‘And if I do, you promise to give Heidi back to me?’ Blomberg asked anxiously.

‘I swear it,’ Stahl said without hesitation. ‘I need you. Our new Reich needs you. The colonists need you. They slumber within the spire waiting for you to awaken them just like Brünnhilde within her ring of fire. Remember the quotation from that Wagnerian legend. “Work the deed that redeems the world.” It applies to you! You will resurrect the colonists from their long hibernation, and then you will tend over them in my name. You will become a legend.’

The confusion was evident upon the doctor’s face. Stahl turned the screw even further.

‘You’d do well to remember how the old Reich took your loyalty for granted,’ he continued. ‘They sent you out here, light years away from her. All you could do was say good-bye, and as a consequence, you weren’t there when Heidi cried for you on her death-bed all those years ago. It was the Reich of Germany that did that to you. It was the Reich of Germany that exploited you. The Reich of Vanaheim, however, will reward your loyalty. Think on that before you decide.’

Elsa sensed that Blomberg’s conversion would soon be complete. She grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him away. ‘Please don’t listen to him. He only offers you death and destruction.’

Blomberg turned to face Elsa. ‘I’ll have my wife and child back. Everything I lost. The family that was taken away from me because I obeyed my orders like a good little Nazi, all of it will be returned to me.’

‘He’s lying to you,’ Elsa said shaking her head sadly.

‘But what if he’s telling the truth?’

‘I am, Blomberg,’ Stahl insisted. ‘Believe your own eyes.’ He pointed to the bloody apparition which smiled approvingly again.

Elsa let go of Blomberg’s arm. She knew that no arguments from her would now change his mind. But at the same time, deep down, she didn’t blame him. In her mind, she asked herself what she would have done if the Nazi fiend had offered to save Konrad in exchange for her loyalty. Wouldn’t she have submitted too?

The metal bar dropped to the deck, announcing Blomberg’s decision to the world. He stood before the Nazi and bowed his head in submission. ‘What is thy will, my Führer?’

‘Good. Good, good,’ Stahl said as he patted Blomberg on the cheek. He turned his attention towards Elsa, whose forlorn figure now stood alone beneath the cracked window and the titanic tower outside.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The spire’s dark shape appeared in the swirling rain before the sodden Konrad. He was hungry, foot-sore and weary as a result of the forced march he had endured from the vast wreckage site here to the landing sight. He had tramped his way across the sodden landscape, the mud sapping what little energy he had, for hours. What little sunlight that had bathed the alien world had long disappeared until only a ruddy red stain remained along the straight horizon. The rain was as relentless as it was unexpected. It drove painfully into Konrad’s face adding to the planet’s resistance to his presence. At first the rain, the first he had felt since his days in Germany, was refreshing, even intoxicating. The pure drops of water had helped to wash away the sense of helplessness that had gripped him in the aftermath of Mesler’s death. He was on a world light-years away from any help, stranded with a entity totally consumed with hatred and malice. He was marooned upon Hell itself. But deep down, he still wanted to resist. How this resistance would manifest itself he did-not know, but he knew he had to discover the fate of Elsa and the others at the module. The radio-transmission didn’t bode well, but he was determined to find out. This determination drove him back into the rain-storm. But he would not return to the module empty-handed. First, he had climbed back out across the quagmire to return to the rover’s wreck which had nearly sunk without a trace under the acidic mud. The cab remained above the surface, the static from its radio acting as its lonely death rattle. He leapt from the pipe and crawled into the overturned cab. Mud already sloshed about its interior, but he managed to locate the storage-cage behind the cab’s seats. Stepping awkwardly on its smashed dashboard, he managed to break open the cage’s lock and clamber into the mini-arsenal beyond. A host of the latest Schmeisser machine-guns and a formidable collection of stick-grenades welcomed him.

Konrad wiped the rain from his eyes and peered into the gloom. Even though the mighty spire could be seen, the rain continued to hide the module from his view. Puddles of inky water had already developed on the ground in front of him, while more rain-water cascaded down the mound of dirt that covered the mass grave. The Nazi standard still stood, but the flag hung forlornly, soaked and frayed in the wind. But new objects, new landmarks, could now be seen across the water-logged crash-site. The mysterious objects stood like sentries, but they remained silent as they let Konrad approach unchallenged.

He called into the darkness. ‘Elsa! Elsa, where are you?’

He wiped his face again and saw that the sentry-like figures were in fact, large pieces of debris that protruded from the soil like tombstones in front of him. The largest was the exterior hatch from the module’s airlock, its pistons and workings bent and twisted as it appeared that the entire hatch had been wrenched from its housing and discarded like a child’s toy. He then groped for his torch and swept its beam around. Floor and wall panels, and pipes and switches joined the discarded clutter that lay strewn everywhere. A terrible sense of dread ensnared Konrad, its cold touch coiling around him and freezing his limbs. Slogging further through the sodden mud, Konrad searched the debris field. Given his single-minded and relentless efforts, he blindly stumbled over the debris at his feet, but each time he fell, he simply picked himself up, wiped his hands upon his soaked tunic and plunged on.

An even greater light then shone starkly across the land as a racking shaft of lightning cracked. The bright vertical beam exposed the spire from the murk. Its walls were slick with rain, the liquid-sheen adding an organic, almost phallic, touch to the ebony structure, but the lightning strike also illuminated a misshapen object at the foot of the spire. The shape was, of course, the module. But it was no longer the module he knew and recognised. The spherical module had been deformed, compressed, ruined, pulverised. All these words, and more, described its new grossly altered appearance. The previously multi-storied sphere had been squashed together until all traces of its man-made construction were gone.

Konrad skipped through the remaining debris and scrambled up the mound to confront the amorphous mass. He ran his fingers across the contorted metal from which the rain dripped mournfully until he found another, more human, liquid dripping into the soil. He cupped his hands beneath the fold of metal to capture the blood that trickled out.

Sickened by the sight, he snapped to his feet and shook the blood from his hands, which transformed from open palms into tight, clenched fists. These fists now pounded the mud, the blood and the metal. These three elements, so vital and talismanic to the Nazis, bore the brunt of his anger. He wanted to destroy these unholy elements and scatter them to the four winds. The earthy, metallic liquid splashed upon his face, its bitter taste matching his poisonous mood.

After his anger and grief reached its crescendo, a strange calmness then overcame the prisoner, and for what seemed like hours, he knelt before the wreck, his eyes fixed upon the blood-soaked soil. If Elsa was gone, what else was there to keep him on this world? Wasn’t it better to leave this tearful place and end it all? These dark thoughts, the opposite of the feelings of determination he had only felt moments before, reminded him of another item that he had recovered from the rover’s cab. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a vial of poison – the same poison used by Blomberg upon his patients. The skull and cross-bones stared back at Konrad. He rolled the capsule around his palm as he contemplated its use. Then, as he pressed his thumb upon the capsule’s tapered neck, something caught his eye, something that drained the anger from him instantly…

A set of footprints in the mud.

The tracks weren’t his because they led from the wrecked module and zigzagged up the slope towards the spire, where they disappeared out of sight upon the terrace. Intrigued, Konrad pressed his hand into the footprint and racked the soil. At that moment, he knew exactly who these tracks belonged to.

‘Elsa!’ he cried. ‘She’s still alive. She’s still alive!’

He gazed up defiantly at the imposing tower. He would enter the structure and confront the beast within, only then would he have any chance of being reunited with Elsa. At the same time, Konrad knew for sure that destiny had conspired to draw him to this spot. His present situation was the final link of an unseen chain. This chain had been played out and hinted at within his dreams. He concluded that his original conviction was one link, his selection to come to this damn planet another. This chain of events had continued with the explosion upon the Odin and the crash, then finally at this point in time. Some people would have called it providence, some, less romantically-minded would have called it synchronicity, a series of seemingly random events which all direct the observer to one ultimate goal. But whatever its name, and its reasoning for placing Konrad at its command, its power over him was totally overwhelming. He was its willing servant now.

Konrad chucked the vial of poison away, and headed up the slope.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Crimson light bathed Elsa as she eased herself up from the cold floor. Unbeknown to her, she now stood at the centre of the spire, in the heart of the hibernation chamber within which the entity had lain in wait for the Nazis to arrive for thousands, possibly millions of years. Looking up, she saw the chamber’s great column suspended above her, but beyond the lip of the great pit was an even greater sight. A great cathedral of light, its scale only imaginable in Albert Speer’s wildest dreams, encircled the centre of the spire. The columns of iridescent light towered far above her, their endpoint lost seemingly in the darkness. Beyond the glare, a giant Imperial eagle, and opposite, a similar-sized swastika, hung in the gloom. The spire had been transformed into a Nazi temple. Elsa was now a pilgrim in an unholy land, a witness to the spire’s new form and purpose. Adjusting to the gory glow, Elsa’s eyes now caught sight of distinct shapes moving around the dark chamber. Blomberg stood at a podium in front of the sea of red, while nearby, stood the solitary figure of Stahl. He was now dressed in full Nazi regalia; black SS uniform, peaked-cap and jackboots – the full works. But at this moment he seemed oblivious to her presence as he stared at the object at the centre of the room and the source of the ruddy glow.

The sight of Stahl also reminded Elsa of the bruises that covered her body, and most especially, the pain that throbbed between her legs. Below the unmoving gaze of the monstrosities in the menagerie, she remembered Stahl wrapping his arms around her, pressing himself against her like he did the first time they met at the camp so long ago. Stahl’s aroused flesh slid messily across her body while his fingers painfully cupped her breasts. His arousal this time was even more animal-like and frenzied as if the pleasure he was partaking was for the benefit of not only him, but also the putrid spirit that had joined with him. Despite all his talk of cleansing the new world, namely by killing what remained of the Odin’s crew, the abomination still lay with her. It was hypocrisy of the highest order; a trait the Nazi fully understood, and so too seemingly the entity that possessed him.

She pulled her tunic tightly around her aching body like a child with its favourite comfort-blanket as Stahl started to address an unseen congregation.

‘Exalted amongst all my worshippers are thee,’ Stahl said, his gaze fixed upon the red shroud before him. ‘Your power slumbers before me, but soon to be released. Soon your efforts will be directed into creating a new Reich here on this world. Your resolve, tempered like Krupp steel, will bend and reshape this barren world into the foundation, a launch-pad, for a new Reich that will stretch far across this universe. The old Reich may, no doubt, last for one-thousand years, but our Reich, our new Germany, will last not one-thousand years, not a million years, but for all time!’

Elsa ignored the Nazi. She looked deeper into the chamber and the object of Stahl’s adoration. A large spherical shape, its outlines obscured by the enormous Nazi flag that was draped over it. Peering closer, she saw ghostly shapes stirring beneath the silken flag. Now even more curious, she crouched down and took hold of the flag and pulled it up to reveal the colonist’s hibernation tank.

A hand suddenly shot from the darkness and snatched the flag from Elsa’s grasp.

Ziegler stepped into the light and carefully replaced the flag. In his hand he held a shining SS dagger which shone eerily in the gloom as it hovered dangerously over her throat. At the same time she noticed the swastika arm-band that now adorned Ziegler’s battered prison tunic.

‘Is that your reward for murdering the crew, and for betraying Konrad?’ Elsa said as she jabbed the Nazi insignia.

‘We all receive a small reward from whatever leader we follow,’ Ziegler smugly said. ‘Some crave wealth, while others the flesh of the opposite sex. My price, Elsa, was quite modest. It was simply to wear the swastika once again.’ He stepped closer. ‘I will also help to create this new Reich. I will endeavour to write the history of this world, and the great deeds we will undoubtedly perform. All that has happened during the last few days, Elsa, is but a foretaste of what is to come.’ He now looked longingly at Stahl. ‘He is no ordinary man. He is beyond such a petty and small concept. He is a god. A true god. Terrible and vengeful.’

Elsa glanced at the doctor as he worked at the podium. ‘I can’t believe Blomberg believed Stahl when he spoke about resurrecting his dead wife and child.’

Ziegler beckoned Elsa forward, then like a stage magician he pulled the flag away and pointed to a single colonist within the nebulous liquid. Elsa drew closer and smeared her hand across the fogged glass. The hibernating colonist was strangely familiar to her. In fact, the female was an exact copy of Blomberg’s wife. She was no longer a bloody apparition conjured up by Stahl, a gory sprite to tempt Blomberg, but a real, breathing person. And in addition, this doppelganger’s belly was beautifully swollen with an unborn child.

‘This, once again, demonstrates the power of our new Führer,’ Ziegler proudly said. ‘You may have surrendered your body to him, but you now need to surrender your spirit too.’

Elsa listened, but didn’t react. She remained at the glass, fascinated.

‘If you did this and joined us, perhaps the Führer would confer a similar gift upon you, Elsa,’ Ziegler continued. ‘Maybe he could create a more loyal, less troublesome version of Konrad for you.’

Elsa considered Zeigler’s offer as a chime echoed around the chamber.

‘My Führer,’ Blomberg announced. ‘It’s time.’

A devilish smile cracked across Stahl’s face as the spire’s unseen machinery abruptly became silent and still. All that sounded in the silence that followed was the hibernation tank’s systems as its pumps and switches clicked open and shut. A message appeared upon its display: ACTHUNG! HIBERNATION TERMINATED. The instruction prompted Blomberg to turn a large dial. A series of valves then snapped open around the base of the tank to release the glutinous fluid within. As the fluid drained away, the colonists started to sink. Limbs twitched or shook as the bodies slowly emerged from the long slumber that had shrouded them for so long.

Stahl’s lips trembled as he watched this artificial birth. ‘Soon I will be complete.’

Elsa heard Stahl’s comment, and despite the knife at her throat, she questioned the Nazi. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, my Führer?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘I thought all you had to do was click your fingers, and you could have anything you wished.’

Ziegler pressed the knife deeper and actually drew blood, but Stahl simply raised a single finger, and the knife was withdrawn.

‘Are you really that blind, Elsa?’ Stahl replied. ‘It is true that I am a god, perhaps more than a god. Nevertheless, it remains a fact that a god is nothing without someone to worship him. These colonists and their descendents will serve that purpose. They will venerate and worship me. But my ambitions know no bounds. Eventually I want the entire universe to grovel at my feet.

‘I’ve played god before; those creatures within my menagerie were my first attempts to create a congregation. As a result I was exiled. But this time I will succeed. I will not make the same mistake twice.’

Blomberg and Ziegler also watched the birth proudly. Blomberg, understandably, remained focussed upon his wife’s duplicate, his gift from his new master. His eyes lowered in time with her body as it drifted towards the bottom of the tank, and as she sank, her hands appeared to move and maternally cover the unborn child that slumbered within her. In contrast, Ziegler’s motivation was less paternal than Blomberg’s, but at the same time he too felt like an expectant father, obviously not in a biological sense, but purely in a political sense. He felt like he was a father to a new political order, and as he stood watching, Ziegler knew this single moment would be the defining moment of this new Reich. For the first time he sensed that Stahl’s enticing words, his grand vision of a Reich encompassing the entire universe, would become a reality. He knew this rebirth would pass into the history that he would write, and then ultimately into legend.

But Elsa, the reluctant witness to this highly political, and in some ways unholy birth, cast her gaze away such was her disgust at the grotesque sight. As she did so, she caught sight of something moving in the surrounding darkness. She tried not to move too much lest it alerted Ziegler, but she peered deeper into the gloom. Her heart lifted when she realized that the shadowy shape which slithered around her was Konrad.

Slowly, and inch by inch, Konrad had wearily clambered down the pit and into the hibernation chamber. He remembered the last time he had stood in this mighty space; then Konrad had his nemesis Stahl in his arms as helpless and defenceless as a child, but compassion, his own compassion, had allowed Stahl to survive then. What would have happened if Konrad had ironically listened to Ziegler and abandoned the Nazi bastard at the bottom of the pit? How things had changed since that decisive and pivotal moment in the darkness. Konrad was now alone, destined to face a resurrected Stahl who now appeared to be empowered beyond comprehension.

Konrad saw Elsa, smiled then raised a finger to his lips. Elsa did as she was instructed, and remained silent, but she struggled to contain her excitement. All she wanted to do was cast off the dreaded knife at her throat and join Konrad. However, she managed to keep her composure. Konrad winked at her before he moved on around the angled walls. Then, with a determined and stoic face, he unclipped a single stick-grenade from his belt. A dial set at the bottom of the handle was turned until 20 seconds shone brightly from the grenade’s small display. He then gently pulled out the fuse-pin and released the explosive device.

The grenade rattled down the steps, rolled across the floor and clattered into the base of the tank, where it spun for a few seconds in the gushing fluid that continued to flow from the tank. The grenade remained hidden at the rear of the hibernation tank, safely out of sight of the gathered Nazis – that is, all expect one.

Blomberg had heard the quiet jangle of the explosive device. Curious, he left the podium and walked around to the rear of the tank. At first, he saw nothing in the darkness; perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him. But then he saw a shape at his feet. He crouched down, and immediately a look of horror crossed his face. He had found the weapon! His eyes darted between the grenade and his resurrected wife inside the tank…

‘Heidi!’ he cried. His grief and pain were painfully evident. But there was no escape. Not for him, and not for his wife.

The explosion reverberated around the hibernation chamber. Chunks of flesh belonging to both Blomberg and the colonists mixed with the exploding flames. This foul mixture showered the floor and the walls, decorating the chamber with its hellish spray. The tank, now shattered and cast to the four winds, vomited the remaining colonists across the floor, their bodies spattering wildly in the fluid like fish.

Konrad swiftly climbed down into the wrecked chamber. His face was set with a look of stoic determination as he prepared the next step in his attack. But before he moved forward he quickly glanced in the direction of Elsa and Ziegler, and saw that they had been stunned by the explosion and evidently knocked unconscious. He then pulled the machine-gun from off his shoulder and stepped amongst the twitching bodies, then without hesitation, he aimed and fired. More blood and flesh exploded into the air as he waved the gun back and forth. The gore splattered Konrad, staining his face and clothes, and despite the obvious revulsion he felt, he continued to pump bullet after bullet into the colonists. But one face drove Konrad on. One face that he needed to annihilate before the task was truly complete – Stahl’s. A thunderous bellow sounded to indicate his presence to Konrad.

Stahl knelt over the mangled bodies of his beloved colonists. He cradled a young man in his arms whose bullet-ridden body bled copious amounts of blood over the Nazi. The young colonist somehow clung to life as he drew in a number of breaths, but his torment was soon ended by a single, brutal blast from Konrad’s gun.

‘Perhaps I underestimated your will to survive,’ Stahl said as he gazed down upon the body. He then raised his gaze and zeroed in upon his nemesis. ‘A regrettable oversight on my part. But even a god can make a mistake.’

Konrad remained silent as he refused to acknowledge his enemy. Instead, he tightened his grip on the Schmeisser. Its sights were trained unerringly upon the Nazi.

‘Nothing to say?’ Stahl said. ‘No triumphant speech about how you’ve saved the universe? It’s not often that a creature as low as you can claim to have robbed a god of everything he loved.’

Konrad sensed the weakness in his opponent. ‘I’ve no speech. But at least I have the satisfaction that you finally know the feeling of having everything you’ve loved brutally taken away from you.’

Now it was the turn of Stahl to remain silent.

‘You’re no longer a god – you’re just like me. Afraid, and alone,’ Konrad said.  ‘That’s how it feels to live under your damned swastika!’

Only now did the Nazi react. A grimace fuelled by pure, unadulterated hatred distorted his face. It was as if the last vestiges of his human soul had disappeared in that instant. He coiled his body like a lion preparing to pounce on its prey. ‘Now you’re going to experience how it feels to die under the swastika!’ Stahl roared as he leapt at Konrad.

Konrad fired the machine-gun.

The blasts raked Stahl’s chest and face, disgorging huge rivulets of blood from the wounds. Swatted out the air by Konrad’s barrage, Stahl’s body dropped to the floor.

But the Nazi wasn’t defeated – far from it. He staggered back to his feet and motioned to attack Konrad again. He was weak, but his hatred and malice drove him on.

Konrad quickly re-aimed the machine-gun again and fired. Again more flesh and blood exploded into the air.

The second blast slowed Stahl down; however, such was his inexhaustible will to attack, his mangled body continued to plough forward. Nevertheless, Konrad kept his cool and pulled the trigger one last time. The final shot blasted away the Nazi’s gaunt face, and with it, his menace. The Nazi’s body finally slumped into the amniotic fluid.

With a huge sigh of relief, Konrad slowly lowered the smoking gun and stepped over the mutilated body, accidentally knocking Stahl’s right hand off his mutilated chest and into the blood-stained pool. For a moment, the hand remained still, but unseen by Konrad, the skin in his palm stretched, then tore open as the orb, for so long hidden within the Nazi, freed itself from the corpse. It sunk out of sight, absorbed once again by the spire. And as the unearthly object abandoned the Nazi corpse, an imperceptible rumble started to build, and build, and build.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Elsa, groggy and aching, eased herself up from the glass and gore carpet that covered the floor. She coughed as she breathed in the smoke which smelt horribly of burnt flesh. She then glanced to her side and saw Ziegler’s body next to her. He lay on his side, his back to her, motionless. Gingerly, she stood and saw a shape moving in the smoke. The dull orange glow from the fire played with the shape’s outline, distorting the silhouetted figure as it approached. For a moment she assumed it was Stahl who stood in the hellish glow, but much to her relief, it was Konrad who eventually walked into view. She ran over and embraced him.

‘I knew you’d come back,’ Elsa breathlessly said. ‘Deep down in my heart, I knew you’d return.’

Konrad forced a smile. ‘Did you ever doubt me?’

She shook her head, but at the same time she noted the almost defeated look in his eyes. He didn’t look like a man who had vanquished his enemy.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘You’ve killed Stahl, haven’t you?’

Konrad led Elsa over to Stahl’s body. ‘See for yourself,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s quite dead.’

Elsa cautiously knelt and prodded the corpse. Turning the shattered head to one side for a better look, she quickly averted her gaze. This revulsion wasn’t at the sight of Stahl’s wounds, it was because of his eyes. They remained intact, and still shone iridescently. She glanced at Konrad and saw the worry in his eyes.

Konrad announced. ‘With all his powers he could have easily destroyed me, but in the end I won. It was too easy, and that’s what scares me.’

‘Konrad,’ Elsa said, ‘you make it sound like you’ve done something wrong. He’s dead. That’s all that matters. It’s over.’

He appeared to ignore Elsa; instead, he looked down upon his vanquished enemy and the hypnotic eyes. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ It didn’t sound convincing.

‘What about us, Konrad?’ Elsa asked as she turned her back on the corpse. ‘What do we do now?’

Konrad gestured to the top of the funnel. ‘First, we’ll get the hell out of this damn spire, and then…’ His voice trailed off when he realised that outside this alien structure there was little hope for them. They had won their freedom, but the freedom to do what? Konrad and Elsa could return to the wreck to continue foraging for the precious food packs, but how long would that take? And apart from the problem of food and water, there was also the question of the spire’s influence upon the planet. Now that it had been robbed of its champion, would it transform the atmosphere back to its previous poisonous state and wreak its revenge upon the couple. Should he admit this uncomfortable reality to Elsa, or should he hide the truth from her.

She answered the question for him. ‘I can see the answer in your eyes, Konrad. We may not have much time together, but at least we’ll be free.’

Konrad smiled at Elsa’s fortitude, but he too recognised the sadness in her eyes. They embraced and kissed warmly. The longer they kissed, the longer the seemingly hopeless situation that lay ahead for them was kept at bay. Eventually this tender moment had to end, and so the two prisoners released each other.

‘Now that we’re the only living things on this planet,’ Konrad said, ‘I think it’s safe to assume we no longer need these.’ He pulled the redundant weapons from his shoulder, and flung the rifle and the spare grenades into the darkness.

Unfortunately, the idyllic world of Konrad and Elsa ended at that moment.

‘I never thought that over-confidence would be one of your vices, Konrad, but I’m afraid to say that stupidity always was!’

It was Ziegler’s voice which boomed from the swirling smoke and flames.

Konrad took hold of Elsa and pushed her behind him as if safeguarding her from the disembodied voice. It seemed that Ziegler had scattered himself around the darkness, the two of them forming an unholy alliance. ‘I just hope you’re prepared for the consequences of your actions, my old friend,’ he hissed.

‘Stahl was evil, the same way that this entire place is evil. You’re blind if you can’t see that too!’ Konrad defiantly shouted back.

Ziegler cackled. ‘How wrong you are, Konrad. I was once blind, but it has been lifted by this wondrous world.’

Konrad ignored his old comrade. ‘Elsa, move! Go!’ He pushed her away to safety.

‘But what about Ziegler?’ Elsa asked anxiously.

‘It’s me that he wants,’ he replied.

Elsa reluctantly ran towards the steps and climbed out of sight.

Knowing that Elsa was now out of harm’s way, Konrad called after his old friend.

‘You should come out into the open, Ziegler, and kneel before me!’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘I’ve performed an act that no human in history has ever done. I’ve murdered a god!’

Ziegler didn’t rise to the bait.

‘I’ve avenged all the prisoners who built that damned ship that brought us to this shit-hole,’ Konrad declared. ‘I’ve avenged the crew who paid with their lives for this Nazi folly, and I’ve avenged the poor creatures who that bastard experimented upon.’

‘Ha! Pride always comes before a fall, my old friend. Your new-found hubris has blinded you to the reality of this world,’ Ziegler cackled. ‘Who are you to make such blasphemous statements? No, not statements – lies!’

‘It’s the truth. I killed him.’

‘Do you really think that you, a mere animal, could really kill a god?’

Konrad pointed at the bodies that lay all around him like scattered pieces on a chessboard. ‘Look around you, Ziegler, here lies the remains of your glorious new Reich!’

The reality of the situation, so blatantly demonstrated by Konrad, failed to compute with Ziegler. His mocking tones continued to scream from the gloom. ‘Stahl lives, you fool! He is now like the original Überführer. He may have cast off his fleshy shell, but his spirit endures. It exists all around us, Konrad. Stahl is this spire! Stahl is this planet! Stahl is this universe!’ Ziegler exalted. ‘Can you not see the truth in my words? Can you not see that you’ve failed?’

The words gnawed at Konrad as they spoke to the nagging sense of trepidation that had gripped him ever since he had shot the Nazi creature.

‘You’re wrong,’ Konrad said unconvincingly.

‘No, you’re wrong,’ Ziegler hissed as he suddenly appeared behind Konrad, his knife at his old friend’s throat. ‘It’s such a pity you can’t rejoice with me,’ Ziegler said, twisting Konrad around to face him. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be appropriate for your stinking carcass to witness the resurrection.’

‘What are you talking about? What resurrection?’

Ziegler pressed the knife deeper into Konrad’s throat. Blood oozed from beneath the blade.

‘Can you not see it happening now? Everything you see is part of him! The walls, the floor, even the air are all part of him. They are one and the same,’ Ziegler babbled. ‘I’ve remained loyal, even after I was exiled to Neu Magdeburg. My loyalty may not have been overt, but in my heart of hearts, my love for the Party remained. But loyalty is a word you’ve never understood. And you never will. You have to be one of us – a Nazi – to really understand the meaning of the word. It is etched into my heart, the same way it is etched into this knife: my honour is loyalty.’

‘You’re right, Zeigler, I would never understand your loyalty to that diseased creed you follow. Your devotion to that perverted swastika has made you just like Stahl. You may look human, but beneath the surface you’re simply an abomination.’

Ziegler pressed the knife deeper.

‘Last word…’ Konrad croaked as he struggled to get his words out with the knife so deep in his throat.

‘And what is that?’

‘Fuck you, and fuck your Reich!’

Zeigler’s eyes widened with rage. He drew the knife back to deliver the fatal blow. ‘I slay thee, in the name of the Führer!’

Konrad’s eyes slammed shut as he prepared to meet his fate. He waited for the hard, sharp point to slam into his exposed throat. Instead, a great boom resounded, and a warm metallic-tasting spray hit him in his face. He slowly opened his eyes.

Ziegler stood in front of Konrad, his eyes wide not with anger, but with pain and shock. He zeroed in on the cause of Ziegler’s pain, and the source of the sickly spray that dripped off him. Ziegler held his arm out in front of him, but the knife was now gone, as well as his hand. Only blood spat from the ragged stump. On the floor were the remains of the missing hand, the bloody digits still clung to the knife, whose surface reflected Ziegler’s agonised face.

Confusion filled Konrad’s mind. But as the wounded Zeigler collapsed out of sight to the floor, Konrad saw the smoking gun floating in the darkness. Then, much to his relief, Elsa stepped into view with Konrad’s discarded weapon. A steely look dominated her face. It was the face of a warrior.

Konrad ignored the gibbering prisoner at his feet and grabbed the gun from her.

‘There was nothing else I could do,’ Elsa said staring at Ziegler. She then looked at Konrad as if seeking approval for her brutal actions. ‘Ziegler would’ve killed you if I didn’t fire. He would’ve killed you! I’d be damned if I allowed him to rob you from me.’

‘You don’t have to justify anything to me,’ he said as ushered her toward the steps and safety.

Zeigler, meanwhile, let his head slump to the floor. His skewed view of the devastation made him forget the terrible pain that overwhelmed him. Stahl’s disfigured body lay nearby amidst the fires that burnt undisturbed. Could it really be over? Could his dream of creating a glorious new Reich really have been destroyed? If it was, at least he had the satisfaction of knowing that he would die next to his new Führer. It would be the ultimate act of loyalty. With his intact hand, he reached forward and pressed it into Stahl’s open palm. He gripped the cold flesh tightly like a child holding the hand of its father. But then, and much to his surprise, Ziegler felt the tremors that quietly pulsed below him. The vibrations grew in strength the longer he listened.

‘My Führer!’ he whispered with a childish grin.

Konrad slowly pulled himself onto the smooth floor beyond the funnel’s rim. For a few seconds he let his aching body rest. Above him the spectacular cathedral of light had disappeared as darkness once again returned to the spire. The vast chamber’s breeze still blew, its cooling touch a welcome relief after his recent excretions, but he soon rolled back to the ledge and held out his arms to Elsa, who wearily approached the funnel’s lip. Her small hands slipped into Konrad’s and their eyes met. Hope spread between them both.

But as their fingers locked tightly together, a painful frown suddenly displaced her confident smile.

‘It’s not fair,’ she gasped. ‘It’s not…’

‘Elsa?’ Konrad asked with a note of concern in his voice. A sick sensation filled his stomach when he saw the blood trickling from her mouth. ‘No!’ Konrad screamed as Elsa’s body slumped in his grasp.

He pulled Elsa fully onto the ledge only to see the horribly familiar SS blade protruding from her back. Desperately he pressed his blood-smeared hands around the knife to try and stem the blood’s flow, but the spurting wound had slowed until only a trickle of ruddy fluid oozed from between his fingers. It was obvious that Elsa was dead.

A shadow enveloped the grieving prisoner as Ziegler crept into view like the serpent as it entered Eden.

Ziegler held his bloody stump to his chest, but the obvious pain he must have been experiencing appeared not to permeate his face, instead, a ghastly satisfied-smile shone. He reached down and snatched his knife from Elsa’s blood-soaked back, wiping the blood-stained blade on his tunic.

‘As always, Konrad, you’ve underestimated the power of those who follow the swastika,’ Ziegler said.

Konrad said nothing. In his mind, Ziegler was invisible to him. The old Nazi prisoner had, like Stahl before him, become part of the surrounding spire. His grief made them invisible.

Ziegler stepped closer towards Konrad. ‘Now I will complete my task,’ he cried as he raised the knife above his head. ‘And this time your bestial whore will not save you!’

Suddenly, the entire spire shook.

Clouds of dust, along with great pieces of rubble, started to rain down from the gloom. The floor below them fractured and shattered as it heaved into life, buckling and rippling as the level surface tore itself apart.

Amidst this chaos, Konrad took the opportunity to sweep his old comrade off his feet. The Nazi prisoner clattered onto the rocking floor, his beloved SS dagger spilling from his hand and into the darkness. But as Konrad scrambled away, he caught sight of something else moving within the dust.

It was something large.

It was something powerful.

Konrad still clung to Elsa’s dead body, but his grip grew even tighter as he watched the indistinct shape emerge from its titanic womb. The abomination towered over the tiny human figures; the chaos of its birth – the sound, the dust, the debris, the sheer shock – all contributed to prevent a cool analysis of the rocky giant, but one thing was certain, its features were unmistakable. The colossal figure that the spire had just given birth to was Stahl. But this was a new Stahl. This was now Über-Stahl.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The giant figure shook it shoulders to free itself of its rocky afterbirth, while ribbons of energy spat and fizzled across the monster’s body. Its eyes, an eerie glowing blue, surveyed the disaster area. The living statue seemed to be searching for something, or to be more precise, someone – Konrad.

Ziegler, as any man would if he was face to face with his god, loudly and proudly displayed his loyalty. ‘Oh, joy of joys!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Heaven has showed itself to me!’ He then raised his arm in a Nazi salute. ‘Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!’

The god-like figure appeared to hear Ziegler’s blissful calls and moved towards him. More debris crashed to the floor, but this unearthly shower failed to dissuade Ziegler from his exultations, in fact, this display of raw power only made his shouts even more joyous.

‘I always had faith that your spirit survived the demise of your earthly shell!’ Ziegler shouted. ‘I heard the spire preparing for your second coming. It was like a drummer preparing for battle. Your presence is like the old Nazi legend about the Überführer’s statue. You heard my prayers, and now you have appeared in all your terrible glory to finally destroy all those who oppose you!’

Accompanied by the thunderous grinding and cracking of its mountainous body, the monster slowly stooped, bringing its sharp, angular face closer to Ziegler. Confronted with the living wall of rock, Ziegler’s face was lit with an almost orgasmic light.

‘Who can say that they have stood face to face with God – only I,’ Ziegler triumphantly shouted. Then, another thought occurred to him. Stahl’s resurrection had also defeated Konrad. All his former comrade’s actions inside the spire such as the murder of the colonists and his apparent destruction of Stahl had all apparently been in vain. Once again, it was a physical demonstration that the swastika had triumphed, and in Ziegler’s eyes, its power had also appeared to have even conquered death itself. The swastika had won. Stahl had won. Ziegler had won.

He excitedly pointed Konrad out to Über-Stahl.

‘See what I’ve done! I’ve trapped your mortal enemy, my Führer. He stands defenceless before you. He is beaten. He is my gift to you,’ Ziegler said triumphantly.

The stone face remained unmoved.

Ziegler then pointed to Elsa’s body. ‘I’ve taken everything he loved from him. I’ve liquidated his woman. A sacrifice to your glory!’ He stepped closer to his master, his pride all too evident. ‘I’ve rid our new Fatherland of her feminine filth,’ he cried. ‘Her pestilence will no longer pollute this world, nor will her repulsive charms corrupt and distract you from your great mission.’

Only now did Über-Stahl show any sort of emotion. Its eyes suddenly widened and flamed even brighter as if overcome with anger at what Ziegler had done. The streamers of energy flared and howled. In contrast, Ziegler seemed blissfully, and dangerously, unaware of the change in his hellish master.

‘What further do you wish for me?’ Ziegler asked. ‘I am but your humble servant.’

Über-Stahl replied. It raised one of its great fists, and with a mighty swoosh, it brought it down on top of Ziegler, squashing him instantly to a pulp.

The Nazi abomination raised its gore-covered fist into the air again before punching the floor again. This time his target was Konrad. A crown of jagged rubble sprang up around the fist as it drove deeply into the floor. Razor sharp splinters, varying in size from pebbles to cars, swirled into the air. These sharp projectiles rained down around Konrad, exploding and shattering all around him.

A second blow narrowly missed Konrad. The giant rocky fingers raked the floor, releasing a tangle of energy in its wake. The contorted, glowing plasma threatened to swamp Konrad, but he managed to roll away and escape. But the monster spotted the prisoner’s move, and in response, another set of raking fingers smashed and fragmented the floor. With a blinding flash, it started to collapse thunderously. A giant spear of the shattered floor sprang up below Konrad, separating him from Elsa’s body. It rolled away safely onto a shelf of the still-intact floor.

Stumbling forward, Konrad jumped from the ruined piece of flooring below him and landed on a horizontal slab close by. But at that moment, this too started to fall away below him. Once again he attempted to leap closer to Elsa’s undisturbed body – this time his luck ran out. The slab broke in half and threw him totally off balance. He slipped off his feet and landed painfully, catching his head on the edge of the cracked flooring. Disorientated by the fall, and blinded by the blood that streamed from his head-wound, Konrad pawed at the polished surface as he desperately tried to climb back towards Elsa. His blood-smeared fingers frantically clawed at the burnished rubble, but despite his best efforts, he slipped down the pitching slab into the gaping hole below.

Konrad smacked into the bottom of the crater. He howled in pain from the searing pain in his side. He rolled onto his back and pulled at his wet tunic. A rocky splinter stuck out from just above his hip. Thinking quickly, Konrad pulled at the razor-sharp splinter, stifling his screams as best he could. Flinging the blood-soaked piece of rock away, Konrad then waited for the inevitable claw to follow and finish him off. And as if answering his worst fears, the giant hand hovered into view. A bloody smear, the remains of Zeigler, dripped upon Konrad as he cowered, but when he expected the claw to swoop down and destroy him too, it hesitated…

Then, slowly, ever so slowly, the great hand withdrew into the darkness.

In the moments that followed Konrad lay amongst the rubble and listened to the eerie silence that had descended upon the spire. Was it the quiet before the storm, or the silence of a tomb? He decided to find out.

Cautiously he pulled himself up and climbed up the craggy wall that entombed him, but at the top of the wall caution took hold of Konrad. Was the silence simply a ruse by the monster to lure him to his death? He gazed up once again and only saw the endless darkness above him with its lack of movement and shape. It refused or was unwilling to give any hints as to what lay in wait for Konrad. And so despite this uncertainty, he popped his head up and let fate take over.

A large cloud of dust still hung in the air, but amidst the swirling cloud, Konrad could see Über-Stahl kneeling down over something. Konrad carefully clawed his way out of the fissure. He looked across the shattered floor to where Elsa’s body lay, and saw to his horror that her body was now gone. Confused, he then quickly looked at where Über-Stahl’s attention was focussed. A gut-wrenching realisation overcame him when he realised that Über-Stahl had taken Elsa’s body. He would be damned if he would allow the monster rob her from him, even in death. He would confront his mortal enemy here and now.

Emboldened, Konrad clambered from the crater and slowly stood. He moved forward. The damage wrought by the Nazi monster now started to work to his advantage. The large pieces of rubble acted as a series of covering screens for Konrad to hide behind as he crept closer, but each step he took sounded like a thunderclap in the silence. However, luck continued to be with him as it appeared that Über-Stahl failed to hear his approach.

A single triangular piece of rubble now separated the two protagonists. Konrad edged along the overturned piece of flooring, and a saw a glittering shape in its shadow. Stooping down, he found Ziegler’s discarded dagger, its blade still stained with Elsa’s blood. At first he planned to ignore the murder weapon, but he soon realised that he was blindly approaching the monster without any weapon of any kind. So, with this is mind, he quickly picked the knife up. It was better than nothing. But it was now only part of the plan he was quickly formulating. He turned and saw the entrance to the spire’s menagerie.

Meanwhile, the Nazi abomination gazed down at the body that lay in its open palm. A single giant finger gently rocked Elsa’s body perhaps in the hope that it could resurrect her. Über-Stahl’s movements were like that of an expert watch-maker, small and incremental, and in contrast to his violent birth and his attack upon Ziegler and Konrad, it was as if the colossal ebony figure, like a river of molten lava far from its volcanic source, had solidified into a true statue. But it was his blazing eyes that betrayed that the Nazi entity was still very much alive. They gazed longingly at the body. His desire for her, triggered long ago by her appearance on the dance floor of Neu Magdeburg’s fräuenblock, had failed to abate. His violence, his lust, his desire – these emotions that had dwelled within his human-self had now fused and amplified into one, all encompassing, sensation that fuelled his divine incarnation. This violently strong emotion tapped into the spire, feeding off the energy that crackled and danced from the floor and walls, but at this moment the monster’s single over-riding feeling was regret. Yes, this god-like creature now regretted the powers that the spire had bestowed upon him because his lust, his desire, his yearning for Elsa would remain unfulfilled.

‘Keep away from her!’ Konrad shouted from the menagerie. His voice was determined and strong – a stark contrast to his tired and injured body.

The leviathan reacted. Spotting Konrad amongst the rubble, Über-Stahl let Elsa’s body slip from his palm. A terrifying howl emitted as a vast cloud of plasma erupted from the monsters body. Its eyes bristled with rage as it started to move forward toward Konrad. Seeing that Elsa was safe from Stahl’s grasp, Konrad backed further into the menagerie to draw the monster closer to him and further away from the body.

Konrad appeared to be confident as he staggered backwards with a mocking smile upon his face. But inside, fear totally gripped him. In front of him, Über-Stahl continued to follow him like a lion stalking its prey.

‘That’s right, follow me you bastard,’ Konrad muttered.

Then abruptly, the Nazi monster stopped. Its gaze remained focussed upon Konrad as it slowly balled its fists and positioned itself like a predator preparing to pounce. The floor then quivered as Über-Stahl charged, unleashing vast volumes of trapped energy from the spire’s structure. It clung and danced across the large crystalline body, feeding the monster, feeding its rage, its power.

Konrad immediately dashed back between the gruesome exhibits. He blindly manoeuvred between the glass cases, his own reflection as distorted as the creatures within. It may have seemed crazy to attract the attention of an enraged monster, but Konrad did have a plan. He wanted to draw Über-Stahl towards the twisted innards of the spire’s vast machine room and hope to entangle it amongst the forest of pipes and pistons. But for the plan to work he had to make it there in one piece.

A great roar thundered behind Konrad. It was the sound of the countless specimen containers being smashed by the pursuing Über-Stahl. Its hellish power and volume gaining upon him like an invisible avalanche. Konrad somehow quickened his pace. But despite his almost super-human efforts, the relentless primeval wall of sound closed in upon him.

Eventually the cascade of glass and liquid caught up with Konrad, the shattered shards and glutinous fluid overtaking him. He somehow managed to remain on his feet, but his pace slowed as the volume of liquid rose from his feet up to his knees. But the sheer volume of the viscous avalanche swept him up and blasted him into the confines of the monolith forest. Here, the gossamer-thin panels snapped like trees before a natural avalanche; but the monoliths weakened the power of the liquid-cascade, its power drawn like poison from a wound.

Konrad stumbled from the surviving monoliths, which swung and clattered together; their eerie chimes giving a voice to the chaos. Desperation started to overcome Konrad, but up ahead he could see the machine room. At this point he risked a quick look back and instantly regretted it.

Über-Stahl was almost on top of him!

The sight of the Nazi beast unbalanced Konrad, and he fell in full sight of the advancing monster. The dregs of the foul fluid cascaded over the prone prisoner as he emerged coughing and spluttering. Instantly he rose to his feet and saw the knife on the floor as it emerged from the slick floor like Excalibur from the lake. He grabbed the weapon, but as he did so, his hands clung strangely to the floor. Using all his strength he managed to pry his hands off the tacky surface, but he then realised that his legs were now stuck. His fear grew as the black floor then started to stretch and roll organically, snaking up his legs and torso.

The memory of his original nightmare – the black mass that emerged from the idyllic landscape and the vile, animal-like throngs that had overcome him, holding him fast as the spire’s apparition rose into that distant sky – filled his mind. It was all happening again, but his time it was all too real.

The malevolent amorphous floor coiled swiftly around Konrad as he screamed in terror. It rose past his thighs and groin, and twisted around his belly and up his back like a shadowy serpent. The floor’s touch was cold, its clammy caresses pressing though his blood-splattered tunic and across his sweat-smeared skin. In sheer desperation, Konrad slashed at the rising mass but he blows simply glanced off the broiling shell.

Now held fast by the dark bonds, Konrad gazed up at Über-Stahl who loomed slowly into view. The monster heaved its titanic body through the remains of its beloved menagerie. The Nazi hybrid now took its time, safe in the knowledge that its quarry was immobile and helpless. Countless other people, races, even countries had stood as helpless as Konrad. These victims of Nazism had been beaten, persecuted, shot, starved, gassed, butchered and forgotten during the decades since the swastika rose above the ruins of Europe. Those earthly horrors had stained that world, and now, with the assistance of this evil structure and its mysterious creator, whose nature mirrored that of the Nazis, their bile and hatred had spread amongst the stars.

Über-Stahl’s intense blue eyes looked deeply into Konrad’s own. There were no signs of emotion, no empathy, no soul – nothing. They were perfect Nazi eyes.

Then the monster spoke. ‘You have caused me so much trouble. But now, I will rid thee from this Reich. Then I will seek out those who follow the swastika and they will send more followers here, and I will begin again. This new Reich will rise long after you’ve turned to dust,’ Über-Stahl said in a cold booming voice. ‘I ask myself, how could such an insignificant creature like you ever hope to defeat a god like myself?’

Konrad squirmed in the grasp of his evil prison. ‘Then kill me! Destroy this insignificance that has plagued you. Kill me.’ He then screamed. ‘Kill me!’

A cruel smile crossed Über-Stahl’s face in response. ‘With pleasure…’

And with that, the abomination brought its right-hand forward, the stone claw spreading itself before the helpless prisoner. But as the giant fingers widened, Konrad suddenly noticed something embedded in the centre of the monster’s out-stretched palm. The sphere! The orb hung tantalizingly before him like a banner proudly displayed by an advancing army. If, as Konrad suspected, this spherical object was the source of both the spire’s, and ultimately, Stahl’s powers, why did the Über-Nazi expose it so openly to him? Did his arrogance blind him? Konrad couldn’t miss the opportunity.

He gritted his teeth and let his eyes dart toward Ziegler’s knife in his hand. By now the oily mass had coalesced around the length of his arm and wrist. Konrad closed his eyes and summoned the strength to move his arm. The black mass reacted by wrapping itself around his throat. But Konrad urged his tired, broken body to fight back against the suffocating mass.

Eventually his arm snapped free from the black prison. His shoulders were next to be freed, then his neck and his chest. A new found strength flowed from him and into the blade. The weapon was now an extension of this focussed and unbridled will to attack. He swung the knife and stabbed the precious orb with all his might.

A terrible look of anguish crossed the creature’s face as a fountain of plasma violently vomited from the breeched sphere. Desperately, Über-Stahl tried to pull its hand away, but the limb remained immobile as if all its strength, all its power, had drained away with the escaping plasma.

Konrad dropped to the floor as his black prison crumbled away. He curled up on the floor to protect himself from the fizzing light, but when he saw the impotent hand hanging motionless above him, a strange bloodlust then took hold. It consumed Konrad as he stood and relentlessly stabbed what remained of the orb. The glassy surface of Über-Stahl’s hand shattered under the flurry of blows from the knife. Between each of these blows, Konrad glanced at the immobile giant’s face. Pain and anguish dominated, but Konrad felt no pity, his hatred for the monster saw to that. Soon the blue light faded from the evil eyes, until all that remained were two lifeless sockets.

Exhausted, Konrad dropped the smoking dagger which still brimmed with tiny coils of energy. An abrupt, all encompassing silence now cleansed the spire of all the violence and horror. This silence signalled that it was over. Über-Stahl and the spire, their destinies so entwined, their sinister goals and desires so linked together, were both dead, and it was all thanks to an unremarkable prisoner who stood shivering in the gloom.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Konrad sat upon the spire’s terrace with Elsa’s body in his arms, watching the threatening clouds that bubbled around the sunset like a pack of wolves closing upon their prey. In the aftermath of the battle, Konrad was drawn back inside the spire’s devastated inner sanctum. Logic dictated that Elsa’s body would be lost to the debris which littered the interior. Jagged fingers of rock pierced the flooring, while entire sections of the high walls had broken away to expose the hall to the outside, and the great shafts of light which pierced the shattered structure seemed to soften the previously stark and intimidating building. The spire was now like a church that had been consecrated again following a terrible tragedy, and in the ethereal daylight, Elsa’s body lay undisturbed. It was only at this point, at the sight of his lover, that Konrad realised how hollow his victory over Stahl really was.

He turned away from the sunset and breathed deeply. The wound in his side was as numb as the rest of his body, but it was of no consequence to him now. He knew the end was near. The air he drew into his lungs was now tinged with a faint trace of the planet’s original lethal atmosphere. Its noxious touch grew with each breath. The planet was reverting back to its state before the arrival of the Nazis. It was as if the planet was purging itself of this unwanted piece of its history. The members of many a propaganda ministry would have been proud of Vanaheim’s efforts as the process would be complete and totally irreversible. Perhaps the planet preferred the darkness and loneliness, and as such the spring that had briefly blossomed may have been as alien and uncomfortable to it as the human visitors. But Konrad was convinced that he sensed a note of regret in the breeze that played across his face and across the landscape that faded into darkness before him.

He glanced down at Elsa one final time, and watched as her beautiful features melted away into the gathering gloom.

The colourful butterfly led Konrad down the grassy path towards the shimmering lake below. Once again he stood below the lush mountainside and its azure sky. Like the wrecked spire, there were no hints of the malicious force that had previously lay hidden within the idyllic landscape, instead, only a sense of satisfaction and contentment existed. Konrad followed the dancing insect further down the alpine hill until he reached the mirror-like waters. At this point, the butterfly swung away and continued its dance amongst the wild grass and flowers that decorated the shore. His reflection in the lake showed how he too had changed. The prison tunic was gone, as was the harsh shaven head and his emaciated features. Now, Konrad looked healthy and young. It was the reflection of the man before his arrest.

Another reflection silently joined Konrad’s – Elsa.

Like Konrad, she too had been transformed and rejuvenated. Lush brown hair cascaded over her shoulders and her face was lit by a beautiful smile. She beckoned Konrad forward and opened her arms.

EPILOGUE

January 3033

Dust swirled in the spacecraft’s powerful floodlights as they materialised in the noxious atmosphere. The galleon-like craft hung in the inky storm, its myriad running-lights twinkling in the gloom. The floodlights swept back and forth across the land until their intelligent beams settled upon a particular piece of ground. They then suddenly grew to a blinding intensity before fading away to leave two human figures on the black soil. These astronauts, whose pressure-suits glittered and shimmered like Arthurian knights, stared out through their gold-tinted helmets at the alien landscape of Vanaheim. It had only been a week since they left Earth, their space-galleon riding the directed burst of energy from the Sun to this god-forsaken spot in the galaxy.

The elegant astronauts effortlessly pushed their way through the unending storm towards the battered remains of the Odin’s command module. Banks of soil had buried the wreckage, softening its artificial shapes into almost organic lines. The female astronaut ran her gloves over the decaying metal as if simply touching the vehicle would imbue her with the knowledge of its origins and adventures upon the planet’s surface all those years before.

As the female astronaut examined the wreck, her male companion moved on silently, his steps slow and deliberate. Several angular boulders, obviously sections of the spire, lay strewn up the earthen bank. He looked ahead and saw the spire’s unending wall before him. He followed the wall’s contours and found the structure’s escarpments were shattered and broken. The spire that had for so long dominated Vanaheim had been razed to the ground.

Intrigued by the ruin, the male floated up the bank like a ghost for a closer look. The eerie figure paused at the bank’s summit. Something had caught the attention of his iridescent eyes. Lying in the dust at the astronaut’s feet was a body.

To be more exact, Konrad’s body.

The striped uniform was torn and tattered by years of exposure to the harsh winds, and beneath the gaping holes, mummified flesh clung grimly to his skeletal remains in whose arms lay Elsa’s corpse.

The male astronaut turned his head slightly. This simple gesture acted as an intuitive signal to his companion because at that instant she materialised magically next to him. Like the male, her interest was piqued by the two corpses. She reached down and gently touched Konrad’s ancient corpse. In response, his body slumped over Elsa’s remains as if it was protecting her from the crude fumbles of the futuristic astronauts, and as the body fell forward, an object as equally strange and alien to the explorers, dropped from Konrad’s uniform.

The male astronaut stooped down and picked the object up. It was the gold Nazi badge that Konrad had found in the wreckage of the Odin. The badge gleamed hypnotically between the explorer’s fingers. ‘Do you recognise this symbol?’ he asked his companion.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before.’ She leaned in closer to peer at the swastika which dominated the trinket. ‘Maybe it was an ancient religious symbol, or a token of friendship. Possibly it represented his tribe. But it certainly doesn’t match anything in the data-matrix. Whoever they were, history has long forgotten them.’

‘A worthless trinket, then,’ he said before dropping it to the ground.

Within a few moments, the swirling dust buried the swastika decoration forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John G. Evans has recently published his first novel Galactic Lebensraum and the short story, This Film Is Dedicated To…

As well as writing a number of screenplays – Spring-Heeled Jack, The Gulag Chronicle, The Pilgrims, Dark Dispatches and The Savage Sea – he is currently working upon the “Jasper Palin Adventures” a WW2/Supernatural series inspired by an unproduced screenplay he has written.

In his spare time, apart from spending time with his family, he is an avid follower of Liverpool F.C.

Also by John G. Evans

This Film Is Dedicated To…

Copyright

Copyright © 2014 John G. Evans

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Content

John G. Evans
GALACTIC LEBENSRAUM

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Also by John G. Evans

Copyright