be it,” He said confidently as they set off across the courtyard again, “we should be safe, now.”
However, they had travelled no more than a few steps more, before their second rescue attempt came to an abrupt and bloody end.
Above them, on the third floor of the chancellery building, a young soldier was nervously patrolling the corridor. Gripped with anxiety, as the sound of Russian shellfire grew ever closer, he walked with his rifle in hand, loaded and cocked. In his nervous state, he failed to notice that one of the many rug that lined the corridor floors, had become slightly creased, leaving a jack-boot sized fold at its edge.
With incredible precision, the guard’s right foot caught the fold in the rug, sending him lurching forward. Instinctively he threw his hands out, sending his rifle tumbling across the floor. With a deafening crack the weapon discharged, the bullet whistling up at an angle and hitting the top of the window frame. The window shattered as the bullet ricocheted through it, heading down, directly towards the Hitler’s head with unerring accuracy.
Neither, Gillitzer or any of the others in the group had heard the shot, drowned out as it was by the distant din of the battle for Berlin. The first they knew of it was the moment the bullet ripped through the Fuhrer’s skull, just above his cheek, with a dull, wet thud. Hitler’s corpse then fell abruptly to the ground, his shattered head coming to rest in a pool of blood and brain.
“Goddamn it!” exclaimed Gillitzer, angrily as he looked down at the Fuhrer’s freshly ventilated face, “Is there any chance you could stay alive for more than five bloody minutes?”
“What, the hell, was that?” said Braal desperately trying to make sense of the situation.
“Don’t know,” said Harris, “it came from above us.”
“There,” said Braal, pointing up at the newly broken window “It came from up there.”
They all instinctively drew their weapons and took up firing positions. For a few tense seconds, their eyes, as well as the barrels of their pistols, didn’t leave the broken window.
“I don’t see the shooter,” said Braal.
“He may have relocated,” said Gillitzer, “Move to the wall, if it’s a sniper, he won’t have an angle on us, there.”
Leaving Hitler’s body where it lay, the four of them quickly moved to the chancellery wall. They paused for a moment, still warily scanning to surrounding buildings for possible danger. Once satisfied that they were not being targeted, they moved cautiously along the wall, before setting off for Goerring Strasse, once again.
“How can this happen twice?” thought Gillitzer, aloud, “I mean, happening once was unfortunate, but twice...”
“That shot sounded like a ricochet,” said Braal, “Just a freak occurrence, like last time”
“I beginning to think that there’s more to it than that,” said Gillitzer, “You may well have been right when you said that bad luck seems to be following us, Commander...I think we may be cursed.”
“Then, for all our sakes,” replied Braal soberly. “let’s hope that I was wrong.”
A few paces behind them, Schultz couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. Like Gillitzer, she too was beginning to think that there was more to the Fuhrer’s deaths, than mere bad fortune; or curses, come to that. Whilst she was beginning to have her suspicions about the true cause of their misfortune, she wasn’t certain enough to say anything...at least, not yet.
When they returned to the landing site, Major Richtofen’s reaction was predictably venomous.
“Please tell me that this is some kind of joke, Gillitzer.” he growled upon seeing that their attempt had, once again, been fruitless, “Please tell me that you haven’t messed things up twice.”
“He was shot,” Gillitzer replied, “a freak ricochet. We had-”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses,” interrupted Richtofen, shaking with rage, “what I want is results!”
“But there was nothing we could do,” protested Braal, “it all happened so fast.”
“And when I want your opinion, Commander,” hissed the Major, “I will damn well ask for it. You two had better get your heads in the game. This isn’t an exercise...this is the Korp’s ultimate goal and the future of the Reich depends upon it! Now get yourselves hooked back up to the generator, and this time, try to act like Zeit Korp Officers!”
With Richtofen’s outburst at an end, Gillitzer and his team moved over to the Turmfalke and connected themselves to the reversal generator again. Once the process was complete, the four of them picked up the stretcher once more, and left the concealment of the cloaking field.
“We had better get it right, this time,” mused Gillitzer, as they made their way through the trees of the Tiergarten, “or I think, the major may give himself a heart attack.”
“I’m sure it will be okay,” replied Braal confidently, “third time lucky!”
Except the third attempted wasn’t lucky. It wasn’t lucky in the slightest. It came to an unceremonious end soon after the group reached the chancellery building, just a few yards beyond the site of the Fuhrer’s second death.
Gillitzer and his team had repeated the first steps of the rescue once more, until they reached the bunker courtyard. Taking a wider route than before, to avoid the path of the ricochet, Gillitzer led to group to the south side of the chancellery building and began making their way carefully alongside the wall.
However, despite their caution, it was not long before disaster struck once again.
As they neared the corner of the building, Gillitzer heard a crumbling sound over the din of the distant battle. Above them, a large slab of brickwork, loosened by the tremors from countless artillery strikes, dislodged itself and began, slowly at first, to crumble away from the building. Within an instant, a cascade of rubble was tumbling down, straight towards them.
Seeing the danger, Gillitzer reacted instantly.
“Move!” he yelled, as he barrelled into Commander Braal, knocking them both free from the impending impact.
Schultz and Harris both responded immediately to his warning, throwing themselves in the opposite direction. Hitler, however, did not react at all, instead just standing there, haplessly rooted to the spot. Less than a second later, the falling masonry hit the him like a proverbial, and literal, ton of bricks, crushing him in an instant.
Gillitzer picked himself up as he watched what was left of the Fuhrer begin to ooze out of the pile of rubble that now lay before him.
“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, “Would someone please explain to me, why the hell, this keeps happening?”
“It m-must be the Hertzog effect,” suggested Ensign Schultz, a moment later.
“The What?” said Gillitzer, slightly surprised that he had received an answer.
“You mean, you’ve never heard of it?” Schultz said in a mildly patronising tone.
“If I had, then I wouldn’t have need of a temporal theory advisor, would I?” replied Gillitzer, in a majorly patronising one.
“Doctor Hertzog developed a hypothesis about the reinforcing effects of fixed causality. It states that any fixed quantum event that is altered, will quickly find an alternative medium for state reversion.”
“Would you mind repeating that in plain German?” replied a perplexed looking, Braal.
“What Hertzog was trying to say, is that you can’t change fate!” said Schultz raising her voice slightly, if you do, it will fight back. Simply put, Adolf Hitler was supposed to die today and we’ve stopped it...and so now, fate is fighting back. That’s what seems to be happening here, Captain...that’s the Hertzog effect.”
“So, all of this is pointless, is that what you’re saying?” said Gillitzer, after pondering her words for a moment, “that we’re destined to fail, no matter what we do?”
“Not necessarily,” said Schultz, “Hertzog theorised that the further away you get from the point of change, the less the strength of the effect. By using the quantum reversal suits we can learn fates hand, step by step. Each t
ime we return we will be better prepared to deal with whatever fate throws at us. If we can get the Fuhrer safely back to the ship, and out of this time zone, the effect should have completely worn off.”
“So, there is still a chance we can pull this off?” asked Braal, which Schultz answered with an enthusiastic nod of the head.
“Alright then,” said Gillitzer, before taking a deep breath, “We try again. And we keep trying... until we succeed.”
“What about Richtofen?” asked Braal, “He’s was angry enough, after the last attempt failed, what’s he going to say if it takes us another four, or five, attempts?”
“Sod, Richtofen,” replied Gillitzer, “he’s the least of our worries, we have a far greater problem on our hands.”
“Which is?” Asked Braal.
“Fate seems to have it in for our liquefied friend, here.” said Gillitzer staring down at bloody mess that had formerly been the Fuhrer, “and all of us are in the line of fire. Whilst the reversal suits may give him, a number of chances of surviving this, if any one of us gets killed, we’ll be just as dead when the suits reset. So, remember, whilst we must do everything we can to complete the mission, for God’s sake... don’t any of you go giving up your lives to save his. Now let’s get back to the ship, and give it another try.”
“If destiny wants a fight,” he added, with a steely determination in his voice, “we’re bloody well going to give her one!”
VI
To Die a Dozen Deaths
On