Christopher Nuttall - Axis of Evil

“Fire more shells,” Student commanded. The powerful cannons were targeting using one of the stolen laptops to compensate for the targeting; by combing the two systems the targeting was far more precise than had been possible before.

“Firing,” the technician said. The screen changed. “Sir, I think they just caught on; their radars have been deactivated.”

“Crease fire,” Student said. “Order the Luffwaffe to start the attack.”

It had become obvious the minute a small cruiser had been struck – directly on its radardome. Tom couldn’t understand it – British radars operated on a far more advanced system than the German radars and should have been practically undetectable – but there was no doubt about what was happening. The German fire fell away as the radar net was weakened; everything depended upon the AWACS radars now.

“Here comes the Luffwaffe ,” Tom said. Somerville cursed; he’d wanted to take Crete back from the Germans. As a base, it would really mess up the German supply lines, to say nothing of the ongoing attempts to repair Plosti. The Germans were using prisoners from the Balkans to do the hard work of clearing the radioactive ruins, using information that some of the British had provided to him.

Somerville cursed again. Who in their right mind would tell the enemy how to clear up the ruins and get their oil back? He didn’t understand it at all; the future seemed to be scared of its own weapons. Now… nearly a thousand German aircraft were bearing down on the small fleet, which was already battered with the V1 attack.

At least I know when to cut my losses , he thought. “Order the fleet to withdraw,” he said. There was still time before the German aircraft caught up with the fleet. “Time to leave, I think.”

“Aye, sir,” Captain Jameson said. “Now leaving Crete behind.”

“We’ll be back,” Somerville vowed, and wondered why Tom was smiling. He ignored it; after such a defeat, it really didn’t matter. At least the future British were more forgiving of failure than Winston Churchill had been, before he’d vanished.

General Student watched grimly as the British fleet fled in the face of the Luffwaffe . He scowled; he’d hoped to do more damage to the ships than he had done, even though he’d nearly crippled the ships. The new armour, which spies in Alexandria had quite happily reported upon, was tougher than it looked; one of the battleships had been struck with enough explosive to sink it – and remained afloat.

Still, it was a victory, and it should serve the main purpose, as well as the ones that Student was not meant to know about. The supply lines through Turkey would remain intact, and the grand plan could go ahead. That all of the new weapons worked as planned was a bonus… and one that Student found both delightful and chilling. War wasn’t meant to be this way, not when someone could just push a button and condemn thousands of people to death, people who had no hope of ever seeing their tormentor.

He shook his head. It wasn’t his concern any longer. Now that they’d proven themselves, his paratroopers had another mission, one that would have to be launched without much in the way of preparation. It would be difficult, dangerous… and honourable. He was quite looking forward to it.

Right after discovering what had happened to Britain, Admiral Somerville had found reporting to a woman… strange, if not outright ludicrous. Women were bad luck on a ship; everyone knew that – except the Royal Navy of 2015. And most of the other navies of that era, if the future British were to be believed. Six months later, he had revised his opinion; not even Churchill could have diverted Admiral Grisham, First Sea Lord, from whatever she wanted. She was a very formidable person indeed.

Somerville had wondered about the crewmen and women; how did they get along in a professional manner? After the Battle of the Indian Ocean, when some of the feared Japanese fleet had been sunk, he knew that they were professional, maybe more professional than his own people. Their way of fighting was different, less rough, than that of the Contemporaries, but the finest traditions of the Navy were maintained.

Except the Damn the French toast , Somerville thought wryly. Perhaps, given how close Vichy France and Germany were now, it would be brought back. The Contemporaries still used it, and the 2015 crewmen joined in with gusto.

“So the fleet was badly damaged,” Grisham said thoughtfully. Her bulldog face scowled through the video link. “Exactly how many ships were lost?”

“Four destroyers and a cruiser were lost,” Somerville said. Somehow, she always reminded him of his teacher. “ Resolution was very badly damaged; her Captain and most of her command crew are dead. If it hadn’t been for the new systems, we might have had to abandon her. The other ships were all damaged to some extent.”

“It rather reads like a trap for our ships,” Grisham said. “Your fleet, Force H, is the main force in the Mediterranean. They wanted to sink you, making the task of harassing their supply lines much harder.”

“It certainly seems that way, madam,” Somerville agreed. The Germans had been known to launch attacks across the Mediterranean from time to time; knocking out Force H would have been a step to regaining control of the disputed sea-lanes. “Now that they’ve secured Gibraltar, they have to be thinking about placing an attack right across the Mediterranean.”

“It would seem suicidal,” Grisham said. “Except… they’ve clearly progressed faster than we dared fear. These radar-homing weapons, they were developed by the Nazis, but only towards the end of the war, and they should not have been capable of tracking our radars. MI5 is going to have to work on it.”

“You think that we have a traitor somewhere?” Somerville asked. “It might be just a rag-head from Egypt.”

Grisham frowned. The Royal Navy of 2015 wasn’t keen on what they called racist language. Somerville, who knew that the Egyptians would have quite happily have knifed Britain in the back, didn’t care two figs.

“Perhaps,” she said finally. “Or perhaps it’s a source in America; we have given them a lot of our technology to study.”

“Foolish, in my opinion,” Somerville said.

“Perhaps,” Grisham said again. “Still, keep your eyes on the ball; the war will be over before you know it.”

She signed off. Somerville allowed himself a chuckle, before heading out of his stateroom. There was work to be done, and he couldn’t stay in his room forever, no matter how much he wanted to do so.

Free Germany Army Base

Nr Algiers, Algeria

28 thMarch 1941

The room was air conditioned, with all the computers and equipment that a techno-geek could possibly want. It was an oasis of modern technology in the desert of primitive – formerly French-occupied – Algeria; it served as a duplicate command centre for the Free German Army. General Rommel, the commander of the army, hated it on sight.

Shaking his head softly, he picked up the printouts – he’d never learned to read off the screens – and skimmed though Somerville’s reports on the recent battle. He scowled; contemplating fighting other Germans was… unpleasant, even though he knew that it had to be done. Ever since the SAS had rescued him from the SS, after he’d been arrested for a crime he hadn’t yet committed, he’d seen too much of the true face of the Third Reich . Hiding wasn’t possible; the only option was to fight.