Christopher Nuttall - Axis of Evil

“The British caught the dummy spaceplane,” Roth said. It wasn’t his first briefing, not even his first in front of the Fuhrer , but he had never gotten used to it. “The mock-up was destroyed in the ground and blasted to atoms.”

“Then the British have become convinced that we have rockets and the ability to access space,” Himmler said. The schoolmaster-like man still chilled Roth, whatever the fact of their long acquaintance. “This will serve to intimidate them more.”

“And then the rockets will sweep Britain with a brush of fire,” Hitler said. The Fuhrer , a short man with an impressive glare, had become more… unstable lately. The unquestioned ruler of Germany had not been happy to learn of his own fate in the shadowy alternate future, nor of how his current subjects would react to the knowledge.

Roth sighed. The V2, even the ideal design that Von Braun was working on, would lack the capability to haul the warheads the Fuhrer would need for his grand plan. The V1s, small jet-propelled cruise missiles, were far more capable, and they would force the RAF to keep some of its units in Britain, instead of in the Middle East.

“Thank you, Roth,” Himmler said. “You may go.”

Roth saluted the Fuhrer , and left the room. As soon as he had passed Hitler’s formidable secretary, he allowed himself a moment to catch his breath. He’d had a good war, so far, but Himmler was finding more and more work for him to do. Fortunately, he’d been able to pass responsibility for the atomic program to another of Himmler’s protégées; that, at least, had been taken from him.

I wonder why Goring wanted everything , he thought wryly, as he moved purposefully along the corridors. The former head of the Luffwaffe , Herman Goring, had been active recently, snapping up estates in the remains of Poland for his cronies. Poland, now being settled by proper Nordic stock from Germany and Norway, had been purged of the subhuman primitives who had used to live there, growing fat off the Reich .

Roth shuddered and hoped that the omnipresent cameras hadn’t seen the motion. The exact amount of 2015 technology in the Reich was a state secret, but Roth knew just how much had been pulled off the plane, and then smuggled in from America, courtesy of Jim Oliver. The British… criminal had been more than willing to supply the Reich with equipment; Roth had been sent to encourage him to cooperate himself. It was a shame that he hadn’t been able to obtain any nuclear equipment, but that was apparently kept under strict controls. The British were scared of their own weapons, Stewart, his lover, had told him once.

Roth shook his head. The single nuclear strike of the war hadn’t been targeted on the Fuhrerbunker , or even the German or Soviet invasion forces within the Middle East, but on a single oil-producing complex. It had cost the Reich , hurt it, but it hadn’t crippled it. With the aid of the Soviets and the Turks, the Reich had managed to survive… and there were other options for extracting revenge.

Smiling, Roth entered the suite he shared with Stewart – with Himmler’s permission – and blinked. His lover wasn’t there. After a moment, he remembered that she had been invited to visit the hospital, where children injured by the latest air raid had been taking. Shaking his head, he sat down in front of the laptop and opened the hidden compartment, reading the latest files from Oliver. The Americans, it seemed, were finally getting their act together… and once they had managed that , then they would come for Germany.

“We are running out of time,” Kesselring, master strategist and commander, reported. “If our sources are accurate, then the Americans are preparing their army for a move to Britain, or to the Middle East. Either way, we have to make our gains in the Middle East permanent.”

He spoke urgently, convincingly, hoping that Hitler would listen. The gains in the Middle East were remarkable, particularly given the shoestring logistics, but they were illusionary. As long as the British could fall back to their Republic of Arabia, they would be able to mount a counter-offensive… and spies within Arabia suggested that that was what they were doing. If they managed to get back on their feet, and defeat the German commander in the Middle East, the Turks would switch sides. He was as certain of it as he was of his own name.

“What can such a mongrel nation do against us?” Hitler demanded. Kesselring winced; the Fuhrer had read of the future, of the defeat, of the Soviet occupation – and of the nation called Israel – and discarded it. He refused to accept it as a very real possible outcome.

“They can provide weapons to real fighters,” Himmler said. Himmler believed; that was why SS Einsatzgruppen forces had provided weapons to the Arabs, weapons that had been turned on the German forces in some cases. Germans from Bavaria and Prussia could hardly tell the difference between a good Arab from Palestine and an evil communist Jew from Palestine. Naturally, the Arabs had declared a truce with the Jews, while even working together to fight the Nazis.

“In any case, working from the history files, we can expect them to be weak and untrained for the first few battles,” Kesselring commented. “In the Battle for Kasserine Pass, for example, they were soundly thrashed by a German general.” Himmler twitched; the general in question was the arch-traitor Erwin Rommel. “Unfortunately, they improved rapidly after that… little debacle.”

Himmler smiled wryly; Kesselring shuddered. Those who knew the truth about Rommel found it prudent to believe that Rommel had underestimated the Americans on purpose. It was hard to use the history files if everything had to be filtered through what Professor Horton referred to as Political Correctness. He’d sniggered after explaining it to the Field Marshall.

“Therefore, our priority should be to fight and defeat – utterly destroy – the first American force to take the field against us,” Kesselring continued. “Fortunately, their options are limited; they can only attack us in the Middle East, Norway, or by direct invasion across the channel. From our point of view, the Middle East would be the best option, but unfortunately the Americans get a vote in the matter.”

Hitler chuckled at the weak joke. “From our agents in America,” Kesselring said, nodding at Himmler, “we know that their commanders are working on drawing up plans for all three. As yet, they themselves haven’t made any decision, at least not one that we know about.” He coughed. “Given what they did to us in the other timeline, we will have to prepare for all three options.”

Himmler smiled darkly. “The Americans want to have the war over and done with,” he said. “If we can lure them into a killing zone, they will lose heart and leave the war. Naturally, we will offer them good terms; nothing too onerous.”

“I do not believe that the Americans will be capable of jumping across the channel this year,” Kesselring said. The strategist smiled. “As it happens, we have several more divisions in France, and of course Petain will fight for us. Spain is a possibility – our logistics would be dreadfully complicated – but it would provide a rallying point for the Spanish.”

He nodded to himself. The Spanish had regained their lost fortress of Gibraltar, but at a stiff price; the British had picked off some of their Atlantic territory and had systematically smashed up the Spanish navy. Spain had become dependent upon the Germans, and some of them resented it.

“The other possibilities are Norway and the Middle East,” Kesselring said. “As we have been preparing a major offensive with the Soviets, we can expect, I think, for the British to press for that option. Although it means that they will be unable to dictate a peace settlement that suits them, it will at least save them from inevitable defeat. I suspect that they will be offered the Egypt-Palestine-Jordan region as a base; they would probably be unwilling to provoke an incident with the Soviets.”