Mark

No wonder they’re so angry all the time, Mark thought to himself. These clothes are awful.

Mark fought back a nervous giggle, forcing it down his throat. It wasn’t actually that the uniform was uncomfortable; it was just…stiff. And parts of it didn’t fit right. His feet slid back and forth in the too large jackboots with every step, and the visor of the bottle green, peaked officer’s cap kept slipping down over his eyes. He let it rest there; constantly adjusting it would call more attention to him than just letting it droop, with the heavy silver eagle and oak wreath insignia dragging it lower with every step. Look mom, I’ve been promoted! And the skull! It had an honest-to-God skull and crossbones on it, underneath the eagle. He coughed down another laugh. It was so…over the top. Distantly, he remembered hearing somewhere that putting on an enemy’s uniform classed him as a spy, and thus consigned him to execution if he was caught. But they’d said that about being a saboteur too, so hey, he was no worse off than before.

He hadn’t worn a uniform since arriving in France, and it felt doubly strange to be wearing this ash-grey officer’s regalia. The trousers were a little large, but tucking them into his boots hid their excess length. The coat at least fit fairly well, buttoned up the front; Liliane had hit on the idea of padding out his back and shoulders with spare cloth. It gave him the bulky upper body of a circus strongman or a gorilla, but that could only help. Epilates on the collar and shoulders marked him as an officer, though he had no idea what rank. Probably something junior, based on the silver stripes and single bronze diamond they bore in the center. He told himself that it made him a high enough rank to bully enlisted men, but low enough not to seem out of place. Perfect. He brushed at the coat, trying to smooth some of the wrinkles out of it.

The Walther he’d taken from the dead German in Paris completed the ensemble, riding holstered at his hip. He patted it to reassure himself that it still hung there, loaded and ready. If it came to shooting, he was a dead man, but it gave him some comfort. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulder, lifted his chin, and rounded the hedge towards the gatehouse.

Two men stood alongside the cinderblock structure, smoking cigarettes and talking in low voices. One was running a hand through his hair, his helmet off, but he jammed it back on hastily when he saw the officer’s insignia on Mark’s shoulders. Mark grinned wolfishly at them and made his walk a swagger.

“Gentlemen,” he said, returning their crisp salutes with a lazy one of his own. “I need directions to Werner von Braun’s office.” That was the man who Arcturus said was in charge. Hopefully the name carried enough weight to get him through the gate.

They exchanged a confused look, and he felt sweat prickling his forehead. Good thing the stupid hat covered it. “Sometime today, preferably,” he snapped, trying to cover whatever misstep he’d made with a sense of command. “Are you in the habit of keeping officers waiting?”

The shorter of the two flinched at the lash of Mark’s voice. He had deep laugh lines at the corners of his mouth and sagging jowls, and Mark thought he had probably lost a good bit of weight since joining the army. “N-no sir!” he stuttered. Mark fixed him with what he hoped was a good imitation of MacDougal’s glare, and the man shrank back into himself. “It’s the three-story building to the north there; he’s on the first floor. Will you require an escort, or any assistance?”

“No, thank you,” Mark said, striding towards the gate. “A cup of coffee would be nice, if there’s a decent roast to be had around here. I’d be shocked if there were, given the state of things. I’ve half a mind to-”

He cut off as the taller man stepped in front of him, blocking his path and interrupting his blustering. Thin and hawkish, with a big beak of a nose, he put his hand out to stop Mark. The man wore the unmistakable expression of a soldier forced to tell a superior officer no; carefully respectful, with a tinge of contrition.

“I’m terribly sorry sir, but can I see your identification?”

Mark didn’t think his fake French papers would satisfy the man. “No, you can’t,” he said with a snap. “Now get out of my way.”

The man gaped at him, confused, as though he’d never received such a response before. “Uh…All visitors must present identification before entry, sir.”

“Oh, I see,” Mark stared hard at him, holding his eyes. “I’ll just waltz back to the Führer and tell him that then, shall I?”

The man’s eyes widened. Defying a personal agent of Hitler would be career suicide, but he pressed gamely on. “I understand the difficulty, sir, but our orders…” he trailed off at the dangerous gleam in Mark’s eye, swallowing hard.

Mark stepped forward, glaring up at the taller man. If the look lost any of its threat for the height difference, Mark couldn’t tell. The man still shrank back away from him. “Your orders? And what of the Führer’s orders that I carry? What’s your name, soldier?”

“My what?”

“Your. Name.” Mark bit out the words, as though the man were slow.

“Ernst…Private Ernst Meyer.”

“Well then, Meyer,” Mark hissed, low and threatening and omitting the man’s rank as a deliberate insult. “When I return to give my report to the Führer, and he asks why I was not allowed inside, I will be sure to tell him how diligently you discharged your duties.” He paused, gauging the man’s reactions. Ernst looked miserable, teetering on the edge. Mark understood; the poor soldier was caught on the precipice, and whichever way he fell, it was a long way down.

One more push, then. Mark leaned in close to the guard, whispering. He made his voice a knife on satin, soft and dangerous. “You would tell the Führer…no?”

The guard’s will broke. Ernst swallowed hard and dropped Mark’s gaze, staring at the floor. “My apologies for the delay sir. Welcome to Peenemunde.”

“About time,” Mark grunted, shouldering his way past the man. He stalked off, resuming the assured, arrogant walk of a German officer and fighting not to laugh. He hadn’t had this much fun since he’d blown up that manure cart in Paris.

Mark swaggered into the base, relaxing fractionally as he went. Discovery at any moment was still a possibility, but he felt, paradoxically, much safer on this side of the gate. He headed away from the building that the first guard had pointed him towards, walking instead towards the hangars to the south. Now that he was inside, no one paid him any mind as they rushed about. A steady stream of people flowed towards the hangars, and he slipped onto the path with them, dropping his haughty posture for something more unobtrusive.

He studied them from under the brim of his hat as he walked, careful not to let them see his stares. Their expressions ranged from anxious, to focused, to excited, touching every emotion in between those as they went. The stream grew to a veritable crowd, curving not to the hangars but around behind them, the people chattering animatedly as they went. Mark caught snippets of conversation of “engine test”, “prototype”, and “superweapon.”

He hesitated for half a step. It wasn’t precisely what he’d come to find out, but it might prove to be valuable information. It put him close to where they thought Reel’s ship would be, without drawing undue attention to himself. Besides, a superweapon? That, he had to see.

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Rounding the corner of the closest hangar, Mark came to a stunned stop, the man behind him nearly bowling him over. “Hey! Watch it!” The lab-coated figure said, blowing out a drooping mustache as he shouldered around Mark.

“Sorry,” Mark mumbled, without really noticing. All his attention was fixed on the source of all the excitement.

A hulking bomber dominated the green between the hangars. It was the biggest plane Mark had ever seen in person, a massive four engine, high wing design. It was hard to believe that such a thing could ever fly, particularly since they’d ripped the propellers off it. Mark caught a glimpse of white in the engine housings, the telltale egg shape just like the ones he’d seen on Arcturus’ lander. But could they stabilize it? He squinted, and saw that they’d bolted lander engines into the front and rear gunner turrets, sacrificing the armaments for additional flight power.

So, they hadn’t been able to fly Reel’s lander, and had instead come up with this…monstrosity. They could certainly load a larger payload onto it than they could possibly fit into the lander, but there was no way it could actually fly. Could it? The people around him certainly seemed to think so. A hush fell over the field as someone sounded off a countdown from ten, bellowing the numbers across the green. At five the engines spun up, vibrating in their housings, and Mark’s breath caught in his throat. At zero the whole damn thing floated up, off the ground, and hovered there.

Now that’s just plain unfair, Mark thought to himself. At ten feet off the ground, the pilot stopped his ascent, holding it like a gargantuan hummingbird. The ship flew forward ten feet, then straight back to its starting point with barely a wobble. The pilot turned it in a slow, stately circle as though testing his control, which Mark had to admit, was superb. Whoever was flying it was good, and they touched the franken-plane back down on the grass as light as a dandelion seed, facing the assembled audience.

Applause and whoops broke out as the pilot, dimly visible in the center cockpit, gave the assembled men a broad grin and thumbs up. Mark clapped along with them, feeling slightly worried. If they’d taken the engines from Reel’s lander to make this monstrosity, the lander wouldn’t be flying anywhere. Worse, the plane looked like it could fly to London tomorrow, today even, loaded with enough explosives to turn Buckingham Palace and half the city into a smoking ruin. Hell, maybe even more, he realized. Given the power Arcturus’ ship had shown before the crash, who knew what the weight limit was for this thing.

He turned, sick to his stomach, just in time to see a man striding towards him, lab coat billowing behind him. He walked with purpose, his eyes glinting over a beaky nose and a sharp, pointed chin. He had three soldiers in tow, flanking him, while the guard from the gatehouse trailed sheepishly behind them. Mark groaned inwardly. Wonderful time to develop a sense of initiative, Ernst.

Running would gain him nothing, so instead he walked towards the men, pasting the friendliest smile on his face that he could muster. “Dr. von Braun, I presume!” he exclaimed, extending his hand.

The man took it, returning Mark’s insincere smile with a small, nasty one of his own. “Dr. Lusser, actually. And you are, Lieutenant…?”

“Lieutenant Muller,” Mark said, grabbing the first name he could think of. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise, Lieutenant.” Dr. Lusser dropped his hand, stepping back. “This man is a spy, seize him.”

Mark blinked in surprise, and that was all he had time to do before the three men were on him. He got his hands up, catching the first baton on his wrist. It cracked against the bone, and he screamed as pain lanced up the arm. He didn’t even see the next soldier swing, and the blow landed on his kidney, pain blossoming through his back, and the next clubbed him straight to the dirt. He turned over weakly, spitting dust, and another thudded across his mouth and cheek with an ear-splitting crack, white fire lancing through his head. He went limp, ears ringing, vision fading.

Not good. He pawed at the Walther at his belt, but someone ripped it away before he could get it out of the holster. Rough hands hauled him to his feet, holding him there by a fistful of his hair. Dazed, he struggled feebly to see, to think.

Dr. Lusser’s angry face swam into view mere inches from his own. Mark considered spitting into it, but thought better of it. “How’d you know?” he asked, dribbling blood.

Smiling thinly, Dr. Lusser tapped the insignia on Mark’s purloined uniform. “Well, ‘Lieutenant’ Muller, these are the bars of an Oberleutnant. A petty distinction, but I’ve never met a military man who didn’t care deeply about such things.”

The sound of the Walther cocking by his ear froze Mark’s heart. “Shall we execute him, sir?”

“No,” Lusser snapped back, angrily. “A spy, here, now? This is no coincidence. Someone knows more than they should, and I want to know who and how.”

“To the brig, then?”

Lusser gave the man a venomous look. “No, not there either.” He fell silent for a moment, tapping a fingernail against the clipboard he carried, scowling. “Find a room that locks near my office and put him there. I want him close to hand.”

…

“Heave!”

Mark was distantly aware that someone had launched him through the air. A moment later, he landed head first on a concrete floor, skidding on his already bloodied face and bruised chest. They’d beaten him, searched him, stripped him naked, and then beaten him again for good measure. Sputtering, he struggled to rise to hands and knees. That proved too much effort, so he contented himself with turning feebly over onto his back. The floor froze his bare buttocks, and he stared dumbly at the ceiling until a bundle of cloth hit him in the face.

“Put that on,” A gruff voice ordered. One of the guards, he assumed.

Groping at the fabric, he pulled it away from his face and squinted at it through eyes rapidly swelling shut. A black and white striped uniform, with an inverted black triangle on the breast. A prisoner’s uniform.

“What if I don’t?” Mark slurred back at the guard, with considerably more fire than he actually felt.

“Then I come in there and hit you until you do.” There was a deep and menacing thud as the man smacked his baton against the door’s frame to illustrate his point. “If I have to put it on for you, then I hit you twice as much as I would have.” The guard sounded more bored than angry.

“Fair enough,” Mark coughed out, as he struggled up to a sitting position and started to pull the shirt on. The guard watched him through hooded eyes for a moment before turning and slamming the door shut behind him, content that Mark would do as he’d been told. The heavy bolt slid home in the frame with a conclusive sort of click.

That left Mark alone in a bare room only a dozen feet wide, empty of furnishings. Judging by the scuffmarks, they’d dragged out all of the furniture in a hurry, probably just to make room for him. He got the last button closed on his shirt and sagged against the closest wall, his head drooping. They hadn’t even left him a chair.

The black triangle caught his eye again. He pinched it between two fingers and peered at it, squinting. Some way of marking prisoners? He had no idea what it might mean, so he let it drop with a sigh and tipped his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. His one consolation was that Liliane and the others were expecting him back before dark; they’d come for him. Of course, they’d have to find him. In the dark, in an unfamiliar camp. Since he’d come precisely to avoid the kind of blind groping saving him would require, it didn’t seem a hopeful prospect.

He tested his limbs one at a time, taking stock of his injuries. Nothing broken, though he’d have bruises from head to toe. They hadn’t cut him up either, so he wasn’t even going to get any good scars out of this. He could move, if he had to, though he wouldn’t be running very fast or winning any fights. He needed to get out of here, or find some way to let his friends know where he was. He forced his swollen, blackened eyes back open and looked around the room. The only obvious features were a small window on one wall, too small for him to wriggle through, and the heavy oak door, bolted and locked from the outside.

Could he break apart the sill on the window and make a hole large enough to escape through? Maybe, but he’d be sure to attract attention doing so. Maybe he’d be better off hiding behind the door and trying to ambush the next guard to come in? Nope, not an option either; the door opened out into the hall. Come to that, was there anywhere he could hide in the room to escape detection, and then escape by making them think he’d already escaped? He liked that idea a lot, but the room was stripped bare, right down to the carpet, offering nothing in the way of cover.

He discarded idea after idea until no more came to him, and he was left staring at the blank wall across from him, defeated. He was well and truly stuck, and worse, if his friends came for him now they’d likely be captured too. Unless they came with the ship. If they just flew in and flew out, they might be able to get away.

Even that seemed like a long shot. He’d need to signal them. That was the ticket. He didn’t see how he could, but it at least gave him something to think about. Settling himself lower against the wall, he folded his arms across his chest and hugged himself for warmth. He wasn’t dead yet. He could…

Could what? He shivered on the floor, blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth, and the enormity of the situation came crashing down on him. He wasn’t getting out of here. Even if, by some miracle, he got out of this prison, what next? That would leave him surrounded, alone, and nearly naked in a base full of crazed Nazi’s. He wouldn’t make it ten feet. A sense of hopelessness washed over him, worse then he’d felt even when MacDougal had died.

The grizzled old Sergeant’s words echoed in his head. “You figured it would just bloody well work out, ‘cause things always do, right?” Not this time, Mark thought dully. He pulled his knees to his chest. At least now it’s only me I’m getting killed.