Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 117

Where was the lieutenant? There was no answer. He was simply gazing around at the sky. He could see anti-aircraft ammunition chains and searchlights on the ground, still busily heading towards the heavens after a whole night. In the sky, there were also a few flying puppets, entangled with these equally few night fighters, their engine roars long since unable to suppress the surging waves of anti-aircraft fire.

But what drove him to despair the most was not the unpredictable air battle.

I wonder if the lieutenant was a participant in Operation Barbarossa, and whether he had the chance to watch hundreds or thousands of Nazi warplanes fly over his head, dropping bombs on his hometown and staining his homeland red with the blood of his compatriots.

Four years later, he was "fortunate" enough to see another enemy flying over the Soviet Union, but this time it was not bombers that came to sow the seeds of war on the ground.

There was a faint purplish-red doll, also flying in the sky, also with green lights on its back, but its body was much bulkier. It could fly through the air at an astonishing speed and then suddenly come to a slow stop in the air.

Everything happened too fast! Before the anti-aircraft guns could catch up, a dazzling crimson tornado erupted from its chest. What chance did the train station on the ground have against it? With each shift of the gun barrels, houses, vehicles, and piles of goods were torn apart and shredded by the tornado, like fruits and vegetables in a blender. Nothing could stop the storm's advance; everything in its path was devastated.

Just as several fighter jets were about to rush over, the puppet retracted its storm, turned around, and sped away. The fighter jets left behind only a few rows of bullet belts that brushed past it, and were unable to catch up with it.

Looking back at the train station, it resembled a tree trunk stripped of large chunks of bark, emitting thick black smoke and leaving behind a sea of ​​fire that imprisoned the survivors.

"This is terrifying... this is terrifying..." The lieutenant saw once again this aircraft, which was not much larger than his own, but could cause a more astonishing scene than after dozens of Stukas had dived into the ground—this was definitely a powerful opponent that the motherland had never heard of before!

"Hey! Lieutenant!" A shout from his wingman brought him back to his senses. Just then, he suddenly heard something flash past his head.

"Did you find anything?"

"I couldn't see it clearly! It looked like a doll! Blue and white! It was moving too fast for me to see clearly!"

The lieutenant hesitated for a moment.

"You to the left, I to the right! Spread out!"

Just as the two Pe-3 fighter jets were slowly moving away from each other, preparing for the tactics they were about to use, they were unaware that the sound of the air currents that had just cut through the sky was returning from a place they couldn't see!

"Blyat!—"

The lieutenant was stunned. The blue and white plane described by his wingman had somehow returned to above him without him noticing, and this time, it was swooping down with a huge red scythe in its hand!

In the blink of an eye, his aircraft had its right wing cleanly severed. At the same time, the puppet managed to stop its speed, its two feet firmly planted in the center of the swaying aircraft, shattering the cockpit windshield in the process.

"Comrade!—"

The wingman panicked and quickly swerved his plane around, firing at the tall, brightly colored uninvited guest. The puppet, as if deliberately waiting for him, raised a large blue grappling hook on a mechanical arm the instant it fired, and with a spewing steel cable, wrapped it around the still-intact left wing of the plane beneath it. Then, it tilted to the right, spinning the plane around and delivering the already doomed bird right to the wingman's gun.

"this?……"

Before the wingman could calm down from this damned "brilliant plan," the dummy flew out from under the lieutenant's overturned aircraft, along with the grappling hook on its other arm, and rushed towards the wingman.

……

Two sparks flew in the sky as the blue and white puppet flew away to find its prey—a prey named Tristan.

"Aha! This reaction is still not quite enough, hehe!" The pilot in the cockpit was naturally Gino Weinberger, whose identity probably doesn't need further explanation.

He and his beloved Tristan raced across the vast sky, their eyes following the railway on the ground. Swaying, rolling, and dodging anti-aircraft gunfire were effortless tasks; the only annoying thing was that the double-headed sickle in his hand was slightly dulled.

While Mordred was still busy channeling the remaining energy from the hadron cannons onto the Soviet troops in the distance, he could do something small right now—something right in front of him. He saw a train slowly pulling into a short fork in the road, seemingly trying to hide.

"Huh? Can dodging something this slow?" Gino chuckled softly, pushed the stick, and charged down.

The soldiers on the ground who were still guiding the train had their hats blown off by the blast wave generated by Tristan's nearly 1,000 km/h flight.

Then, before they could even wipe the dust off their faces, a large group of Iron Knights had already circled around and stopped in mid-air in front of the locomotive.

Its arms outstretched, and the two grappling hooks on each mechanical arm flew out, entwining in the air for a few circles before joining together a few dozen meters in front of the doll. Then, a blinding, intense light erupted, whitening its armor and the surrounding trees and grass, transforming into a bolt of lightning that burst through the gate, igniting the hundred-meter-long military train section and exploding it into a raging wildfire in the jungle.

……

Anya? Over there?

"Let's go."

As they spoke, Gino activated something, turning the control lever on his right side to the center. Tristan's humanoid form suddenly began to structurally "collapse" in mid-air like a deflated inflatable doll—with a hissing of electromechanical components, his head, arms, and legs all shrank into a ball, his weapons and grappling hook retracting. Finally, against the backdrop of the still-burning train behind him, it transformed into something resembling a fighter jet and sped away.

With a speed that the KMF and propellers could hardly overcome, and before the Soviet anti-aircraft guns could even keep up with it, it rejoined the purplish-red bread man and flew towards the center of Berlin.

……

Meanwhile, to the east, a group of fighter jets painted with red five-pointed stars finally arrived late, facing the rising sun.

Within the formation, one can see a La-7 aircraft, entirely gray and white, painted with the number "27".

"Comrade Koridub! We're too late!"

“I know, you don’t need to remind me, Captain.”

He squinted, his eyes fixed intently on the green light flashing in the distance. Could he see fighter jets trying to give chase? No, not at all. The green light had left them far behind, with no chance to get close.

"Is this the enemy plane that our comrades north of Berlin mentioned, the one that's 'so fast that even the sound of gunfire can't keep up'?"

“There won’t be any more, Major. If these things continue to operate at night, we won’t even have a chance to find them or destroy them.”

"Hey, let's go back. This place is clearly not in dire need of us."

"Uh, Major, we..."

"Also, I think Marshal Zhukov will have something to discuss with me."

……

Back in the center of Berlin, beneath the Tristan and Mordred, the Duke and his entourage were personally led to greet them.

"Hey hey! Is it really necessary to get so worked up about bombing a few railway lines and train stations? Don't you think so, Anya?"

As Gino turned his head, Anya took out her camera, snapped a picture of the Capitol Building, and then gave the Duke and his party a close-up shot.

"Yes, record it."

"Lord Wienberg, thank you. The pressure on the salient outside the city is now much lower. In the name of the Emperor, our expeditionary force will pave a wider road for the future of Britannia through your great achievements."

"Oh, that's nothing, take it back, take it back." Gino quickly waved his hand. "Speaking of which, we still have time before we return to Area 11, so I'm thinking, as for future combat missions..."

"Ah? Is the task rather demanding, sir?"

"No, no, no, no, no! What I mean is, the battlefield in District 45 doesn't seem as scary as you guys say. Is it because it's nighttime? So, can we switch to daytime for the next sortie? I'm not saying we have to start with the hardest difficulty if we want to experience the thrill, but during the day, if we want to rest, we have to hide in a dark room. Unlike at night, we can just open the window and fall asleep!"

"This?" The Duke was both surprised and delighted. This was the answer.

"Well, if you're willing, we can do it."

Just as the two Knights of the Round Table were about to turn and leave, a thunderous roar of cannon fire came from the east of Berlin, reaching the Brandenburg Gate.

"Ah, excuse us, gentlemen. It seems the two legions in the east of the city are in trouble. Shall we take our leave?"

"Alright, you guys go ahead!"

Watching the crowd hurry back to the Capitol, Gino couldn't help but purse his lips. Then he looked at Anya pinching her nose and looking to the side. There was a pile of broken KMF components, stained with blood and dismembered bodies, piled up next to her. The logistics soldiers were preparing to sort out some of the usable parts. It was unbelievable that the stench of the electronic components and corpses had made the soldiers have to wear gas masks to work.

"Hmm..." His eyes darkened involuntarily in the eastern sunlight.

Chapter 183, Side Story (5): The Scattered Ashes of the Iron Cross, the Demise of the Swastika Banner

In a research institute in the Tokyo International Settlement in District 11, the Tiger II tank was abandoned in a peculiar way—a large chunk of armor had broken off from the front of the hull, like a hole in a wall smashed open by a sledgehammer; the dilapidated hull, apart from having less mud than when it was first discovered, looked even more weathered, like a long-rusted ship hull salvaged from a river, and was placed in a special container by the researchers.

No one can move it, and no one wants to move it; it serves no purpose other than being left unused.

Only a few rolls of paper were taken out of the car before that thrilling and astonishing target practice.

……

Now, they are placed on a table in an office next door, with two people around them, one with a band-aid on his face and the other with a pipe in his mouth.

"Ugh, this is such a hassle, I'm exhausted," complained the band-aid vendor on the chair. "It took us almost half a day to translate such a short text?"

"It's not that we're not trying, it's just that this bunch of vocabulary is too difficult..." Pipe paused, "Damn it, it's one thing that such a large Tokyo concession can't even find a few people nearby who are fluent in German, but this whole bunch of unfamiliar words is just messing with us."

"Absolutely! What was that word we started with? Oh right, Schutzstaffel. We struggled for ages trying to figure out how to translate it, and finally we had the Tokyo Armed Police Corps ask those arrested people from Ward 45A for answers."

"Yes, the SS, that's what they're called, right?"

"Yeah! And from now on, I won't use that in my diary anymore, I'll just use the abbreviation SS, damn it..."

"Judging from their tone, does that mean the SS is some kind of arrogant force in their world, in their Germany?"

"Pretty much. Look at the way that person who numbered it handled it, chewing it like he had twenty pounds of gum stuck in his mouth for ages."

“Yes, it seems that Dr. Flock was right to tell us not to pay too much attention to place names and country names when translating.” He put his pipe to his lips and exhaled a puff of white smoke. “I have to say, apart from the country names and place names that sound familiar to us, this is just strange. This Germany is so different from our EU’s German province that the style is enough to span the entire American continent, and it’s even spanning north and south.”

"Really? I didn't notice it when I was translating before?"

"You translated it word by word, piece by piece, without connecting the sentences, so of course you don't think it's a problem. Well then, since we need to check the translation for any errors, let's have you do the full reading."

"okay……"

……

"April 1944, 12."

"I finally left the training company and traveled for several hours by truck to reach the garrison of the 103rd SS Panzer Battalion. It wasn't until I arrived at their gate that I learned they had been renamed the 503rd SS Panzer Battalion. It was strange that the higher-ups hadn't told me. Was it because they didn't have time? Indeed, they were quite late. In the blitzkrieg of fighting for Germany, it was necessary to omit some insignificant details. Why make a fuss?"

"I was fortunate enough to be assigned to a Tiger II tank. The commander was named Wagner. He didn't look much older than me, but he always looked very tired. He was like that when he talked to me, when he talked to the other crew members, and his expression didn't change when he talked to people outside the tank. He looked like a wilted eggplant. As for the rest of our crew? They didn't seem to be in much better shape either."

"Then I remembered that our battalion had participated in the Narva campaign in Estonia and had only recently been transported back here by train. In Sergeant Wagner's words, this was the first time he had experienced the meaning of being exhausted and about to die. He couldn't remember how many times he had vomited on the battlefield, nor could he remember how many Russian units he had destroyed but could only watch helplessly as they approached and broke through our lines. The gunners also told me that at that time, even breathing fresh air outside the tank was a luxury. Apart from putting all their energy into fighting inside the tank, they could only worry that the heavy Tiger II tanks under them wouldn't break down too soon, and they also hoped that the fuel tanks wouldn't run out too quickly—they were too difficult to maintain."

"This is utter nonsense! Why should we fear the petty thieves of the Slavs? Why should we surrender to their weapons and so-called beliefs? As the Führer said, we have torn apart hundreds of kilometers of Soviet borders. We don't mind crushing them completely with the noble will of Germany and the Aryans when they are about to make their move. Our war machine carries the glory of the German nation. We will reverse all the unfavorable events in the war. The Soviet Union in the East, which is all show and no substance, is just a trial given to us by the gods. We will give everything, even our lives, for the Führer's cause!"

……

"He seems like a good kid."

"Yes, full of vigor and high spirits. That's exactly how you should fight a war."

"Alright, let's look at the next one."

……

"April 1945, 2."

"Yes, this must be the toughest test I've faced since joining the army. We're currently following orders, attacking the Soviet forces from Arnswald alongside the 3rd SS Panzer Corps, and have driven them back about 10 kilometers. However, the 23rd Panzer Corps next door isn't doing so well. It seems Sergeant Wagner's words came true; our Tiger II tanks keep breaking down, forced to stay put and fire in the direction the Soviet tanks are coming from. They really can't penetrate our armor; the shells hit the tanks with a sound like iron spoons hitting a pot. I know they can't do anything to the tanks beneath me, but..."

"This feeling is really unbearable. All I can do is sit in the tank and listen to this annoying noise. We can't do anything except fire, fire with the other crews, and wait for the mechanics to fix our problems. More than once, I've wanted to step on the pedals and let the tank soar across the land like a Stuka bomber, but the reality is just so unreasonable. So unreasonable! Germany needs us! The Führer needs us! How can we waste time on these things?"

……

"February 19, 1945, Reitz."

"It's terrible! The Soviets have launched a counter-offensive against us. Just a few days ago, our fighting reached a stalemate. Our Tiger II tanks are constantly being destroyed by Soviet tanks and anti-tank guns. And there's the Black Death in the sky; if they don't like us, they'll wipe us out. I can hardly imagine how we've survived these past two days. Thankfully, the tanks haven't broken down, but the Soviet forces are increasing, increasing, increasing. Sergeant Wagner is on the verge of collapse, just like me. Why is it so hard to fulfill our desire to fight for Germany? Why do we have to pave the way for the Soviets here, letting them easily march into our land?"

"Besides, we were so hungry. Sometimes our entire camp was running out of food, and we had to dig up things from nearby fields to fill our stomachs. Canned food? It was empty long ago. Even the faint aroma of meat left inside was used to our advantage. We would nibble on these things that couldn't really be called food, smelling them as we imagined how delicious they would be..."

"But my tongue and stomach won't lie to me..."

……

"My God, is the war so fierce that we can't even eat?"

"Eating wild vegetables? Well, if wild vegetables are cooked well, they still taste pretty good..."

"What are you thinking? Using the heat from the engine to cook food?"

"Oh, I was just kidding... But seriously, there are quite a few missing pages. The next letter jumps a long way off."

"There's nothing we can do; we were adopted."

……

"April 10, 1945, Berlin."

"I haven't been able to sleep for three days..."

“In a conversation I had with Sergeant Wagner, he mentioned a habit he used to have. If he couldn't sleep, he'd count things. What could he choose? Our SS insignia, helmets, or even tanks. One Aryan soldier, two Black Steel helmets, three Tiger tanks rumbling, four inferior ones dead. I never imagined that a tank commander with a normally serious face could actually make up some jokes, even though such loose behavior wasn't allowed in the military.”

"And now, the dark circles under the tank commander's eyes are getting heavier and heavier. He doesn't dare to close his eyes at all. He can count them, and he can indeed count one tank, two tanks, three tanks... But in his mind, it's no longer the tough Tiger II or Tiger II, but the Soviet army's green T-34s. They are a bunch of reckless nightmares tormenting our dreams."

"I have also woken up from such nightmares many times. Every time during the day, when I want to rest and put my head on the ground, I can't calm down even if there is the slightest breeze or noise. When a water glass falls on the table, it sounds like the bullets of a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle flying over; when someone drags a stool, I think Stalin's organ is playing again; and when an engineer is repairing an engine and makes a whirring sound, I always think that the Grim Reaper has come to our camp again."

"What disturbed me even more was that every time I was disturbed by such noise, I would wake up but I dared not open my eyes—I was afraid that if I looked up I would see a Russian pointing a gun at me... As a result, I would always shout out in a slightly panicked manner... I don't know if I was lucky or if my superiors thought I was loyal to the Führer, but they didn't say much about my reaction, as if it didn't exist. But it was different for others—many of them would be executed for disturbing the morale of the army."

“I didn’t know what to do, or what kind of expression to make… until one day I watched them forcibly dress a group of boys and girls in military uniforms, arm them with guns, and make them stand in formation. I couldn’t say anything anymore… just a second ago, some of them were children happily playing with wooden trains…”

"Mom...should I grieve for you or be happy for you? If you hadn't left me the year the war broke out, and if you had given birth to my little brother safely...maybe today, he would be standing in front of me, and I would be handing him a rifle or an iron fist, and he would be blankly reaching out, taking it, and giving me his final answer with helpless eyes...while you, by the streetlamp, are watching us with lifeless eyes..."

……

At this point, even the Band-Aid and the pipe couldn't take it anymore.