Blood Red Sand

PART 1:-3

From what he knew about Anna’s life, she grew up with a family that rubbed shoulders with the rich and the powerful. Funded by her British father’s aristocratic wealth and her American mother’s oil money, Anna had travelled the world, graced the highest social functions, and been the belle of every ball she ever attended. Her good humour and style lay matched by her beauty and wit. Her smile could turn even the most steadfast male to a drooling mess, while her charm could reduce him to putty in her hands. All of this and more rendered her the perfect MI6 operative. One capable of infiltrating the good graces of high-ranking Nazi party members before the war but now she paid the price for her treachery. Anna also held the key to advancing humanity’s fledgling grip on the stars.

The first guard took a step forward, his baton pointed at her, while he instructed Anna to step out of the room. She stood as motionless as a statue. Her gaze darted toward the baton, then towards the door, and finally to Wagner himself. A chill crept up his spine when those cold eyes looked through him, but his cheeks burned as she softened her gaze and flashed an endearing smile at him.

As swiftly as that smile appeared, it slipped from her face when one of the guards approached. In motions almost imperceptible to the human eye, Anna launched towards the guard in a lightning strike. Her fist slammed into his gut, and the bolt-like uppercut to his jaw lifted him off his feet. By the time the other guards reacted, Anna already held the first guard’s baton in her hand. In the blur of movement that followed, Wagner didn’t know whether to compare her to a sword fighter or a ballerina.

She smashed her baton into the nearest guard’s head, knocking him to the ground. Spinning about, she deflected an attack before ramming her knee into the groin of another SS soldier. The remaining three guards circled her and unleashed a simultaneous attack, but she swung about, slamming her elbow into the face of one while driving her foot into the chest of another with enough force to knock him halfway across the cell.

The last guard managed to react a split-second faster than Anna and caught her across the back of the head with his baton. She fell to her knees. The guards who managed to regain their composure, piled on top of her in a desperate bid to subdue her. Anna bucked and shouted. Every point in her body was a trained weapon as she bit at their arms and gouged at their eyes with her fingers.

In the end, it took all six of the wounded guards to hold her down and attach handcuffs and ankle restraints. Once they had her chained and on her knees, she ceased resistance. The guards slipped their batons into their belts, each one of them sporting bruises and cuts from her brutal attacks. Limping and wincing from pain, they lifted Anna to her feet and escorted her out of the cell.

“A fine workout today, Herr Reichsführer,” Anna said in perfect German as the SS guards walked her outside.

Wagner held up a gloved hand, stopping the guards in their tracks. He reached into his pocket and slipped out a silk handkerchief. After taking a step towards his prisoner, he dabbed it against her nose gently, wiping away a small trickle of blood.

“An unforgettable performance, as always, Miss Bailey,” he replied in English. “I’m glad you have your blood pumping. Today will require a lot more vigour than our usual endeavours.”

Anna flicked her head, moving stray hairs from her vision to look up at him with those deep, mesmerising eyes. Wagner tried to maintain his composure at the full force of her attention. He reminded himself to see past her soft, delicate features and remember that despite her natural beauty, she was his enemy. For as long as she had Jewish blood pumping through her veins, that was all she could ever be.

“So, today’s the day?” she said, without a hint of concern in her voice. “You’ve finally cracked it, Herr Reichsführer?”

“Yes.” With a smile, he slipped his handkerchief back into his pocket. “And you, Miss Bailey, will have the glory and honour of being our first successful test subject. You will be the first living subject of the Hollow Programme.”

He nodded at his guards to proceed when a door slammed open behind him. The guards flanked their prisoner and escorted her down a narrow hallway at the same time as Wagner spun about to see the enraged face of Generalfeldmarschall Seidel. Fury etched across the face of the leader of all Wehrmacht forces in the New Berlin military district.

Seidel’s eyes narrowed when they focused on him. His pounding steps echoed throughout the corridor as he marched towards Wagner. With a sweep of his hand, he opened his trench coat and unholstered his Walther P38. Grinding to a halt, he c****d the pistol and aimed it right at Wagner’s head.

“You have betrayed us all!” Seidel screamed, causing spittle to form at his mouth.

At the sound of his voice, several SS guards burst out of their offices with weapons drawn. Peering down the barrel of the gun, Wagner raised his hand. Without breaking eye contact with Seidel, he waited until the sound of doors closing signalled they were alone again.

“You question my loyalty, Herr Feldmarschall?”

Seidel took a step closer, pushing the gun to point-blank range. His hand remained firm and steady while his eyes burned with all the fires of hell. Under any other set of circumstances, Wagner held no doubts the veteran officer would shoot him dead on the spot.

“British soldiers have landed on Mars,” Seidel hissed.

“Yes, I read the reports, Herr Feldmarschall.”

Seidel’s face burned an even darker shade of red. “They would have had to travel for a year to get here. An entire year! And I heard nothing. Your SS ships engaged their ships. And I heard nothing. My entire force is hundreds of kilometres from here in the middle of a tactical training exercise. An exercise you were fully aware of! New Berlin is completely defenceless while British soldiers are landing, and still, I heard nothing. You have betrayed us all, Reichsführer Wagner. I will know why before I blow your brains out.”

From the look in his eyes, Wagner had no question about the generalfeldmarschall’s resolve.

“I have obeyed the Führer in all matters, this included, Herr Feldmarschall.”

A sliver of doubt cut across Seidel’s face at the mention of the Führer. Some of the red leaked from his cheeks, and his gaze flickered. His grip on the gun remained solid, but his finger loosened from the trigger.

“The Führer would never sanction this,” Seidel persisted with a slight shake of his head. “The Führer would never allow our enemies a foothold on this world and leave New Berlin defenceless.”

“It is not your place to question the will of the Führer,” Wagner said, putting steel into his own voice. He raised his hand in a slow, controlled motion until it approached the weapon centimetres from his forehead. With the tip of his gloved finger, he lowered the barrel of the gun until it pointed towards the floor.

Seidel kept on glaring at him, but his face no longer contorted in unbridled rage.

“The Führer has no desire to annihilate the British outright,” Wagner continued, adopting the tone of the school principal he once was. “The Führer wills them to be beaten by the force of German arms in honourable combat. Let them come to New Berlin, Herr Feldmarschall. Let them know suffering and defeat as they die on our doorstep.”

“I do not have adequate forces available to defend the colony. I’ve issued the recall order for all forces under my command, but it will be hours until they return. The British are already within the outer defensive parameter.”

“You have the garrison and my SS. If you need more, activate the Volkssturm.”

Seidel turned his head and spat in contempt. “The Volkssturm is filled with old men, invalids, and young boys. The British will cut them to pieces.”

Wagner took a step closer to the Wehrmacht commander. “You will fulfil the Führer’s orders, Herr Feldmarschall. If you are unable to do so, I suggest you put that gun into your mouth and pull the trigger. It would save us all a great deal of hassle. Your family included.”

Seidel’s face glowed red with rage once more. For a moment, his hand twitched on the gun. In the end, he did nothing. Wagner smirked, soaking up the blazing hatred in Seidel’s eyes.

“Good,” Wagner said with a clap of his hands to break the tension, “then it’s settled. Defend New Berlin, Herr Feldmarschall. Be ruthless. I look forward to reading your reports on our latest victory.”

With a smile on his face, Wagner turned away from his counterpart and made toward the long winding corridor.

“You won’t be joining us on the field of battle, I take it?” Seidel called after him in a mocking tone.

“No, Herr Feldmarschall,” Wagner said, without turning. “I’ll remain here building our legacy.”

LANDING ZONE ZULU - 200KM SOUTH-EAST OF NEW BERLIN

10.11 MST

DAY 1

Bullets snapped through the thin Martian atmosphere with savage precision. MEF soldiers screamed into their helmet mikes as they emerged from their shattered dropships and escape pods, only to be mowed down without seeing the faces of their killers. Rocket-propelled grenades from the enemy’s Panzerfausts slammed into the battered remnants of the downed MEF ships, murdering the survivors fighting to free themselves from the wreckage.

With battle-hardened determination, McCabe pushed aside the anger that rushed through him and focused on the job at hand. Bounding between the twisted hulls of the downed dropships and escape pods, bullets raced past, eager to cut him down. He paused at the airlock of a smashed craft, ducking as bullet ricochets pinged the metal-strewn landscape and yanked on the release catch. The airlock slid open, but in the dull light he saw piles of limbs and broken torsos thrown over each other in a grim testament to these soldiers’ final moments. With a shake of his head, he lifted himself up and scanned the rest of the battlefield.

What soldiers he could muster from the crash site had mobilised into firing positions, hastily making use of any cover they could find. Light machine guns chattered back at the enemy position ahead, but in the confusion he had yet to amass a force strong enough to go on the offensive. From the hundreds of columns of black smoke dotting the surrounding valley, it looked as though the entire battalion was scattered for kilometres in every direction. Dozens of EVA-clad soldiers ran toward McCabe’s rallying call, while more contacted him via their helmet comms advising of their ETAs and locations.

“Sergeant,” Corporal Brown called over the comm system, “I’ve confirmed our location. This isn’t our landing zone. It’s Landing Zone Zulu. We’re closer to New Berlin then we are to Germania colony. That’s the Russian Liberation Army shooting at us.”

Cursing under his breath, McCabe snatched up boxes of ammunition from the debris of a smashed dropship. Not only were they a thousand kilometres from their assigned landing zone, but they had landed point-blank on top of Russian collaborators who had defected to the Nazis during the war. These men feared being handed over to the Soviet authorities. To avoid that fate, they would fight to the death.

“Any sign of the Fifth or Sixth Battalion?” he called back. “This is their zone.”

“Negative, Sergeant. But there’s hundreds of crashed ships out there, and there’s some sort of jamming signal wreaking havoc with long range communications.”

“Of course there is,” McCabe said and sighed. “Hold tight, I’m coming back.”