The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: Operation Arm Breaker, Part 5 of 17

Lucky knew the road to Eberkopf would be treacherous, but he has come face-to-face with one of Department Three’s most horrific creations: the trench shark. Armored like a tank with the disposition of a voracious grizzly bear, this creature was made for taking down entire bases. And it’s just the first speed bump.

The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: Operation Arm Breaker is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 5 of Operation Arm Breaker. If you haven’t read Parts 1, 2, 3, or 4 yet, check them out first.

Content Warnings: Tobacco Use, Death, Gore, Violence, Animal Violence, Gun Violence, Mild Swearing, Nazis

WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 14, 1943
TOWN SQUARE, SAULDORF
BADEN-ELSAß, NAZI GERMANY

The trench shark looked like the hellbound spawn of a battle tank and a dragon. Spiked armor plates covered its gray skin, running all the way down its spine, terminating at the ax-headed stump of its long tail. It scuttled like a massive insect on six backwards-bent legs that gleamed steel, though glass windows revealed strange pink musculature extending and retracting within. A segmented helmet covered its head, leaving no chance for this shark to get slugged in the nose.

Lucky could see its gleaming, obsidian-black eyes from where he lay. It did not blink. Rather, it sucked its beady eyeballs back into its skull every time it gnashed its rows of razor-steel teeth.

The trench shark's gills had been melted shut, Lucky could see the scars on its neck. It forced air into itself with a bone-quaking shudder and a hiss, then roared again, shaking accumulated dust from the rafters. Neither Bastedo or Lucky dared to breathe.

“Ruhe, Gertrude,” a woman's voice called out in German. Upon hearing her master, Gertrude the trench shark stopped her roaring and gnashing and settled onto her plated belly, not twenty yards away from the bakery. Her eerie, shuddering gasps subsided as well, calming to distressed wheezes.

There was a slight creaking on the bakery’s roof, no louder than the rattle of the dry wind against the damaged building. A shadow in mottled green dropped down to the street next to the resting shark. The figure's landing raised no cloud of ash, and didn't make a whisper of a sound. Lucky clenched his rifle harder, settling its sights on the new arrival.

The newcomer was a slender woman dressed head to toe in SS blurred-edge summer camouflage. Her boots were soft and flexible and she moved like a dancer. The thick leather glove over her right hand extended all the way to her shoulder. Her nose and mouth were hidden behind a vented mask, leaving the area around her blue eyes bare and exposed to the ash. A short ponytail bounced blonde beneath her helmet with every step.

From his hidden position, Lucky could see she carried a Luger on one hip, along with several magazines, two stick grenades, and a short dagger. She wore a long sword in a scabbard on her right side. An insulated wire curled out of the sword's hilt back and into a battery pack on her back. It reminded Lucky of the electrified spears that the bolseteros had used to shock the drugged I-soldiers in Spain.

The woman leaned in and scratched the trench shark behind her beady black eye. Gertrude slammed her bladed tail against the ground and grunted with pleasure. The whole bakery shook as she pounded the ground over and over, dislodging plaster from the ceiling that rained down on Bastedo and Lucky. After a minute of thunderous impacts and falling dust, she eased off of the shark's sweet spot. Gertrude nudged her master for more attention, but the woman ignored her. Instead, she surveyed the ruined town, then blew a quick whistle.

Eight more shadows dropped, more masked women, each dressed and armed identically to the first. They landed silently, circling around the trench shark. It took everything Lucky had to not jump six feet off the ground.

“Hold,” Bastedo hissed, so quiet Lucky wasn't sure he'd actually heard him or only imagined him speaking. Lucky didn't fire, but his finger sure as hell never lighted off that trigger.

A tenth shadow appeared sixty seconds later, dropping down onto Gertrude's head with inhuman grace. The shark didn't seem to notice.

This woman was shorter than the others, unmasked and dressed in all black rather than mottled green camo. She carried no pistol, and her sword lacked the wires of her companions' blades. Her weapon was simple but brutal, with an ebony scabbard and unadorned grip. Long, flowing hair hung over her shoulder, gleaming like black silk when she landed. Her face was somehow unstained by soot, and when she turned Lucky saw that she was Japanese.

She spun in a slow circle, inspecting the coven of acrobatic women around her. She smiled with her eyes. The woman in black was proud of her retinue. Her orders were delivered in quick German, faster than Lucky could catch. After a moment she stood up straight on Gertrude's back and bowed low at the waist at each of the women in turn, rotating in a full circle as she did. Each bowed back, but lower.

She hopped off Gertrude and quickly spat out some orders. Lucky knew the tone of command in any language.

“Jawohl, Oberst Yūrei,” the woman replied in unison. Lucky could figure out that one, too.

Four of the women whistled, low and long. There was a rumble from the edge of town, like a carnivorous rockslide bowling through the ash, then a quartet of trench sharks burst through the gray. Each monster sidled up to one of the whistling women, huffing wetly as it did. Gertrude hauled herself to her feet as the rest of her pack crashed into the street.

When the trench sharks were all together with their masters, the Japanese swordswoman spoke:

“Ausschwärmen,” she ordered. The nine Germans and five sharks began to fan out, moving to search the ruined town.

“Merde,” Bastedo cursed, quieter than a breath. The first woman began a slow walk toward the blown-open front of the bakery, Gertrude in tow, chuffing at the dirty ground.

Lucky centered his sights on the Japanese woman's chest. He could only hope that if he had to shoot, Bastedo would be ready to light up Gertrude with rockets. His Garand would not cut it against the beast.

The Japanese commando took a small radio off her belt and fiddled with the dials until it crackled. Screaming voices, German men, began bark out of the little box. The women stopped sharp. Their trench sharks halted behind them, fidgety and excited by the sound of panic projected through the radio. The beasts began banging their bladed tails against the ground. The woman in black whistled sharply, silencing them in an instant.

Rattling gunfire chattered through the tiny speaker, followed by an explosion. There was more yelling, all in German. Lucky didn't understand a word of it.

“Umkreisen, Waldgeister,” the Japanese woman ordered. The nine Germans left their trench sharks where they stood and circled up around their leader.

The women listened to the chaos of the firefight in silence. Screams from the wounded, rattles of automatic fire, cracks of hand grenades, all squeezed through the small receiver.

It was like listening to boxing on the radio. Sure, Lucky couldn't understand German, but he could tell what was happening by the radio operator's voice.

The Nazis had been surprised, initially. They'd stumbled onto an enemy squad by pure chance and hadn't been prepared for the thorns they found themselves stepping on. The unprepared Nazis had been repulsed with extreme force at first, but then they got organized. Over the next few minutes the confidence and fervor in the radioman's voice rose and the sounds of gunfire died down around him. The man chattered excitedly for a moment after the last bullet was fired, right up until the Japanese woman cut off her handset.

She let her troops soak in the new information for a moment. They knew there were enemies in the field. From what Lucky could tell, the other team of officials was on the run, bloodied and beaten straight out of the gate.

Before she could issue new orders, a series of powerful explosions thundered out from the western woods, past the field Lucky’d crossed to get into town. Eight stuttering blasts: the self-destruct charges inside their DIVERT capsules. They had only been in Germany thirty minutes.

The Japanese woman pulled a white mask over her face and began directing her squad to move west faster than the explosions' echoes could quit bouncing off the cracked buildings. Their trench sharks led the way, whistles accelerating them into a five-fronted avalanche of steel, muscle, and teeth, crashing ahead on three pairs of legs each. Their roars sounded like train wrecks. The ten women sprinted close behind, their footfalls so light that they hardly raised puffs of ash in their wake.

The Japanese woman watched her people go, then glanced back at the town. Her mask was a shining face, sculpted with red tears streaming down the cheeks. Her hidden eyes lingered on the bakery for a long second, and then she bounded away, lost in the haze. As suddenly as they arrived, they were gone.

After a tense eternity, Cheddarwright flashed her torch once. One flash was the fall back signal. Bastedo and Lucky were on their feet and inside Goldbrick's hold-out position in seconds. The general covered their approach from the door, watching the long main street with deadly vigilance. In less than a minute, all eight officials were standing in Sauldorf's former town hall.

Goldbrick stalked past them, ripping a red and black Nazi flag off the wall as he did so. He took a seat on a wooden bench and used the flag to wipe the mud off his boots. When they were clean, he retrieved the ground-out cigar that he'd perched behind his cauliflower ear.

Grease was muttering something about monsters under his breath. He was shaking his head slowly, staring into the gray that the enemy had evaporated into. It took a lot to leave him with so little to say. He had thought that Vargulf and I-soldiers were the worst things he'd ever see.

“Did we know there would be Waldgeister here?” Cheddarwright asked.

“It was a possibility,” Miller said. “And it seems the rumors were true concerning Yūrei Mikiko's disappearance from the Pacific theater. The Black Dragons sent her west to train the Nazis' assassins.”

“She showed her face again,” Benjamin said quietly. “Finally.”

“Waldgeister, they call themselves,” Bastedo snorted. “The ego.”

“What are Waldgeister's...” Lucky started, but Goldbrick cut him off.

“The Russian clock is ticking,” the general growled. “You two were closest to the dames, you catch any of that radio chatter?”

“They were talking too fast for my ear, sir,” Lucky mumbled.

Bastedo snorted, drawing a glare from Grease.

“A Bartkauz platoon happened upon the other team,” Bastedo reported. His German was evidently far better than Lucky's.

“Give me the headline version,” Goldbrick ordered. He lit his cigar back up with a Zippo and puffed it back to life while Bastedo spoke.

“The Bartkäuze suffered moderate casualties, including to one of their officers, before the Colonel's team escaped under cover of the Germans' overcasters.”

“Any friendlies down?” Goldbrick asked between puffs.

“One, an African male. He covered the team's retreat with a bazooka. He killed six Bartkauze with a single shell,” Bastedo said. He lit his own cigarette and exhaled slowly.

“Bollocks,” Grand muttered.

“Official First Class Farisi,” Miller stated.

“The Nazis shot him to death,” Bastedo told them.

Everyone stood in silence for a moment. The Belgian-Congolese official had been an experienced and deadly guerrilla warrior. For the Nazis to take his life within moments of the mission's start was unthinkable. Goldbrick took one last big drag, savoring it with a slow exhale before he spoke:

“We save mourning until after the debriefing, you all know that.”

The old boxer dragged himself off the bench and ground the cigar back out again, twisting it into the center of the Nazi flag's crooked cross. He tucked the extinguished nub back behind his burled ear, then pointed out the open door.

“Far as we know, there are at least three special operations forces between us and our objective, and we don't have time to deal with any of them. The Bartkäuze sound distracted, and those damn Waldgeister and their trench sharks are still close, and whatever’s left of the Vargulf after Vesuvius.”

He stared down his team, one at a time, then said:

“Be ready for all of them.”

Everyone double-checked their gear. Lucky patted his webbing. The clips of silver bullets that Woody had given him were in his front ammo pouches. Lucky needed them close at hand: the Vargulf would not give them much warning, and the sheriff's cross could not protect him every time. Goldbrick loosened his shotgun in its holster, then gave his orders.

“Grand, you're on point, Grease backs him up. Miller stays on the map with me, Ford, and Benjamin. Cheddarwright and Bastedo are on rear guard.”

He turned and walked into the swirling gray. No one hesitated. Each of them filled their hands, then followed Goldbrick outside.

Grand and Grease moved ahead, walking until they nearly melted into the ash. They kept their guns leveled, as if their small arms would be of any use against a hungry trench shark. The general held up a fist until the point men were a good hundred yards ahead.

“Let's go, boys,” Goldbrick ordered. His hand dropped to his Thompson's forward grip. He and Miller set out. Lucky brought his Garand to his shoulder, and followed close behind the general. A wiry talon hooked him by the shoulder and yanked him back. It was Lieutenant Benjamin.

“Not so close, Orphan Annie,” Benjamin hissed. “Give them five meters, 'less you want everyone bunched up tight enough to go down from one lucky mortar.”

Lucky almost had something smart to say, but the frogman was right. They couldn't afford to crowd each other, couldn't afford any mistakes. Grease and Lucky were greener than grass compared to the rest of them. A couple close shaves were a start, but Lucky's few days on the job didn't make him a true official yet, and Benjamin wasn't inclined to let him forget it. All Lucky could do would be to keep his ears up and his eyes open. Benjamin would take the lead, Lucky would learn everything he could from him, and do his best to stay alive.

Goldbrick and Miller had put a few yards between then, when Benjamin said: “Five meters apart, that's enough. Move your rear, Ford. Keep your eyes to port.”

Benjamin brought his suppressed de Lisle carbine to bear and followed in the general's already-filling footprints through the ash. Lucky covered the left with his Garand and kept close, but not too close.

Cheddarwright waited in the doorway. She had an arrow nocked in her longbow, ready to plunge its barbed, bladed head into anything that presented itself. Bastedo stood behind her, shifting the weight of his M13 rocket carbine from one hand to the other.

The pace Goldbrick had set dropped a gray haze between the four of them in minutes, but Lucky knew they were holding the rear, a hundred yards behind.

WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 14, 1943
EAST OF SAULDORF
BADEN-ELSAß, NAZI GERMANY

“What kind of idiot punches a vargulf?” Benjamin mumbled to himself, breaking the march's ominous silence.

“How's that, sir?” Lucky asked, startled to hear him utter a word.

“Pure luck,” Benjamin muttered. “Gerhardt should have torn your arm off and eaten it while you watched.”

“He almost did, sir,” Lucky replied.

“They have killed better men than you. Many better men,” Benjamin snarled.

“I know, I watched them do it,” Lucky said. His entire squad from the Eighty-Second had been shredded in front of him by the bastards.

“Four officials I trained were slaughtered by the things not a month ago. Brookfields, Sørenson, Nangolo, Hingeberry; remember their names. Good soldiers, good officials. And now you, a green boy, come out of nowhere, fight Gerhardt off single-handed, and get into the Colonel's good graces,” the Navy man said. “Seems convenient.”

“You and Dixon,” Lucky snapped, forgetting rank for the moment. “What is your issue with me?”

“Nothing comes that easy in this war.”

“I don't remember anything easy about it. I've killed I-don’t-know-how-many people since the Colonel picked me up. Germans, Italians, mercenaries.”

“Yes, and you went toe-to-toe with Gerhardt, twice, and with Hellbörg. How exactly did you kill them again?”

“Ask Gerhardt how the last time went,” Lucky snapped. That slavering cannibal had about a million tons of volcanic rock on top of him at that very moment. Benjamin smirked, twisting wrinkles into his leathery face.

“I see,” was all he said.

Lucky shut his trap. He would not win over Benjamin with words. Instead, he covered their left with his rifle.

The country outside Sauldorf was barren, even before it had been churned by Russian bombs and coated in Vesuvian ash. Department Three had scoured the whole region, driving their own people away from their massive base, consuming everything that was left. The most fortunate residents had been forced out of their homes. The rest had been buried in concrete years before, entombed in Eberkopf's roof and walls.

“How do you like that carbine, sir?” Lucky asked, trying to break the tension. Benjamin looked at his unique weapon.

“It's as close to silent as a gun can get,” he answered, tapping the British carbine's barrel-length suppressor.

“Doesn't it reduce muzzle velocity?” Lucky wondered.

“A quiet bullet'll kill you just as dead as a loud one,” the lieutenant said. He continued to scan the right side for trouble, his mouth screwed back shut.

Lucky followed suit, tracing tree trunks and ash-coated brush through his rifle sights. Benjamin, like the commodore, didn't like Lucky. Lucky was fine with that, but he had to work with them. Their job was bigger than they were.

“I understand it was a good hit, though,” Benjamin finally said.

“What?”

“On Gerhardt. I hear you laid him out, prettied him up a bit,” he replied.

“Scarred his face, sir,” Lucky said.

“A big cross burned into his left cheek. Bucket told me about it.”

“The silver burned him down to the meat,” Lucky replied.

“Couldn't have happened to a nicer person,” Benjamin said.

“I'll be ready if he shows his mug again, sir. Woody made sure I was set,” Lucky said. He patted the worn Colt 1911 on his hip. It was loaded with silver slugs. Though the cannibalistic freaks could shrug off normal bullets with their thick fur, silver reacted explosively with the chemicals that made their horrifying transformations possible. This time, Lucky'd cut them down before they got close.

“Chief Woodruff's a smart man. Take a look at this, one of his custom jobs,” Benjamin said. He handed Lucky a gleaming pineapple grenade that he had been carrying in his pocket. “Coated in molten silver.”

The bomb's mirrored surface caught the low light. Every nook and cranny was filled in with reflective metal. It had been dipped in silver like a candy apple.

“I had to scrounge the silver myself, mostly old spoons,” Benjamin explained as he took the grenade back. “But when it pops, it'll shred vargulf like paper.”

“Could have finished off Gerhardt if we had one of those in Vesuvius,” Lucky said.

“Sure you could've,” Benjamin grunted. “But that little beauty is one of a kind.”

“Not for much longer, sir,” Lucky joked. Benjamin gave him a hard glare. Lucky continued, muttering: “Because it's going to get blown up.”

“Right,” the frogman replied, dry as a ships biscuit.

“You think we're going to need it?” Lucky asked. He wasn't going to walk all the way to Eberkopf weighed down by Benjamin's aggressive silence.

“You heard the briefing. Metzger will be there, and his boss, Abendroth. This July Arm, they're calling it.”

“The biological sciences,” Lucky recalled.

“Wherever Metzger goes, his creations go, too: the vargulf, gremlins, Brotherhood. We'll need everything we can carry to get through this, and probably more.”

“A small team, infiltrating Germany, facing unknown dangers. Sounds like what Miller told me about Castle Falkenstein, back in 1916,” Lucky said.

“That's all he told you?” Benjamin asked over his shoulder.

“I've been on the job for half a week, my lessons were abridged, sir,” Lucky replied.

“At the Bell Towers, the Bellegarde School, they spend days on the history of the Office, and even longer breaking down that mission,” Benjamin said. “If you had gone, you'd know that Falkenstein was a massacre.”

Lucky didn't have any response for that. Benjamin snorted and continued:

“That castle was guarded by soulless abominations, mindless slaves, and unhinged lunatics. Of the eleven men that walked into that castle, three died, one was crippled, one went flat-out crazy, one disappeared, and two are still drowning themselves in liquor, twenty-seven years later.”

Benjamin marched a little further, then stopped and said:

“Where we are going, we face zealots, geniuses, and the greedy. They are eager to stand against us and will not turn tail or be tricked. Eberkopf is not Falkenstein. It will not be that easy.”

He walked on, and Lucky stayed silent for a while.

“Dixon was one of the first officials, wasn't he?” Lucky finally asked. Benjamin nodded. “He's one of the drunks.”

“War wounds all men differently, and the commodore has fought many wars,” Benjamin said.

“How long have you been doing this, sir?” Lucky asked.

“Long enough to know that I can't do anything else,” Benjamin replied. He sighed and said over his shoulder: “I have been chief of security aboard the St. George for almost two years. Before that, I was an instructor at the Bell Towers.”

Lucky studied his weathered face. Lieutenant Benjamin was a wiry man, short, quick, lithe. He carried more blades than a Boy Scout and a carbine that barked no louder than a puppy's sneeze. He wasn't as old as he looked; he had been aged by a hard life. The lieutenant couldn't have been older than thirty-five, but he carried himself like an old man who wielded dangerous knowledge.

“Did you teach guerrilla tactics?” Lucky guessed.

“Some. Tracking, survival, evasion. I assisted Dangerous Dan with his hand-to-hand classes. The man himself gave me my tools,” Banjamin said. He patted a machete-sized blade on his hip, called a smatchet, and slipped a razor-sharp stiletto out of his shoulder sheath. He spun it on his rough palm; it was perfectly balanced. Lucky watched its edge shine. He all knew about William 'Dangerous Dan' Fairbairn; the sheriff had made him read Fairbairn's books. Dangerous Dan was a legend, a whirlwind of a cop who'd cleaned up the streets of Shanghai with nothing but a target on his back and a knife in his hand.

“Fairbairn teaches there?”

“As I said, you were given a disservice by being allowed to bypass training,” Benjamin said. He snapped the slender blade back into its sheath. “But you have handled yourself well despite that disadvantage.”

“Thanks,” Lucky said hesitantly.

“Many better-trained, better-prepared men than you have died,” Benjamin continued, “I didn't expect you back from Vesuvius, and I wrote you off when you were leaving for Spain.”

“You knew we were going?”

“Nobody steals a bread crumb off my ship, much less a plane. You went because the Colonel asked me to let you go.”

“Well, then thanks for that, too,” Lucky replied.

“There's something about you, Ford, something I like, but it infuriates me, too. You fight, you stick up for the guy beside you. You have the makings of a great official, but we haven't had the opportunity to make you one yet. The Colonel is a good prospector. Now you have to let us forge you into the official you can be.”

“How would you do that?”

“The first lull after this we send you to Canada. I'll write you a letter, and you'll be fast-tracked into the program. You come back into whichever bureau needs you and you get a mentor. You'll be leading ops in no time.”

“You think so?” Lucky asked.

“Well, if any of us survive this mission,” Benjamin replied.

A ravaged forest had closed in around them while they walked. The branches were heavy with ash, and bowed low as they passed.

“The Office has sent me to all corners of this small planet, but this is something else,” Benjamin muttered.

“Drink water, and keep your eyes clear,” Lucky advised. He pulled a kerchief from his pocket, wet it with stale canteen water, and tied it over his nose and mouth. Benjamin watched, then did the same.

“You fought through this in Spain,” the frogman said beneath the damp fabric.

“Yes, sir,” was all Lucky wanted to say. The dark woods, the gremlins and the smoke addicts, Espada, O'Laughlin, Jonesy, and Hellbörg had only been two days back.

“Miller told me what you faced,” Benjamin prodded. Seeing that Lucky wasn't about to offer anything up, he started talking himself: “Last winter, I spent two months with Albanian partisans.”

Benjamin looked around, making sure none of the other officials were within earshot.

“We fought through ice, through blizzards, up and down mountains, across frozen lakes. But this? Ha, this is new.” He trudged along as he spoke, never taking his trained eyes off their flanks. “I've fought before, lost men before. But there, there was a woman, the last daughter of a dead father. She fought by my side, fiercely. And she died, foolishly.”

“What was her name?” Lucky asked.

“Her name was Dren,” he said. “A commie girl with hair red as the pit and a temper to match, and stupid enough to love a soldier.”

“Stupid?” Lucky said.

“I am a married man, Ford,” Benjamin growled. “I never encouraged her, which made her want me more. One of her countrymen, a tanner with a chipped shoulder, took offense to that and sold us out. The Italians did the rest.”

He sighed and continued:

“They came down on us in a valley in the shadow of Mount Korab, in a blizzard. They found us sleeping and their Marconian commandos did the rest.” I could hear him grinding his teeth. “Have you seen a Marconian, Ford?”

“No, sir,” Lucky said. He hadn't even heard of one before.

“Italians killers, blade specialists. They only appear as ball lightning, a shimmering blur of crackling static electricity skimming six feet above the ground. They slide across all terrain, deflecting bullets, and you don't even know they are men until their spears come out.” Benjamin grunted and slapped the machete-sized dagger on his hip. “One of the bastards nearly had my arm off before I could slit his throat. I threw Dren on a horse and jumped on behind her, but it was too late, I was already bleeding. They were eager for the kill, and our horse was too slow.”

He inhaled deeply, then let it out in three short breaths.

“The damn fool knew we were too heavy, the two of us. She saw the Italians catching up. So she threw herself to them. I got away, and she was cut to pieces.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” was all Lucky thought to say.

“You an Italian, Ford?” Benjamin snapped. Lucky shut his trap. “It's no one's fault but theirs and mine. I should have held the perimeter myself, should've set more trip wires, should've known the escape routes better, should've been ready for the weather, should've set more sentries.”

Lucky knew that guilt.

He spoke while they walked. Benjamin knew most of Lucky's story, but he told him everything anyway. The lieutenant did interrupt, but only to ask practical questions. Lucky told him about the wreck, about Smith and Wilson and Doc and Sarge, his whole squad and the Vargulf. Benjamin asked about their defenses, the crossfire between the machine guns and the PaK 88. Lucky told him about Vesuvius, and Gerhardt putting a bullet through Lee's head to spite him. Lucky told him about Spain. About Jonesy and Grease. About Emilia, her fleeting smiles, her cut emerald eyes, her life lost to her cause. Benjamin asked about the failed ambush in the stream bed, and their flight from Espada and the bolseteros. Lucky talked about Father Mandario, O'Laughlin, vengeance, and justice. Benjamin asked about the final assault on the Romanian's bunker.

Lucky talked until his mouth went dry. Benjamin nodded and absorbed every word, taking in lessons for future engagements, formulating some to teach to Lucky.

“That's a long few days, Ford,” Benjamin finally said.

“It'll make a long week after this mission, sir,” Lucky sighed. He had a deep ache in his knees already.

“You can say that again,” Benjamin said.

“What are Waldgeist's?” Lucky asked. “They don't move like any person I've ever seen.”

“'Waldgeister' for more than one. And it means 'forest ghost,' some tall tale out of German folklore. Those women we saw are a Department Three infiltration and assassination unit. They are trained by and in the same manner as Tojo's ninjas, the Kuragarigirudo, to be snipers and blade fighters. They are not as good as me, though.”

He flipped his smatchet through the air and caught its grip. The heavy blade, like his combat stiletto, had been designed by Fairbairn as a modern warfare knife. It was shaped like a Roman short sword and almost as long. Its handle resembled that of a Bowie knife, and its steel was as heavy as a machete. It was made to slash, chop, and disembowel a human being.

“What about the Japanese woman?” Lucky asked.

“Yūrei Mikiko, you can tell by her mask. Only the highest-ranking Kuragari are given them, and each is unique. She probably trained those Waldgeister herself. She's also a kaiken, a leader within the Black Dragon Society. Cataloging says she's a little thing, just twenty-two years old. I've heard about missions she's pulled off, but nothing has been confirmed. Jap propaganda, I suspect. Some pretty girl who learned how to twirl a sword,” Benjamin smirked back at Lucky like he was supposed to agree. Lucky gave him a nod and he continued:

“Regardless, the East Asian bureau tracked her every movement until she disappeared in Manchuria a few months back. Nothing to worry about, ninjas are known to do that. Now that she's popped up again, I intend to dispel these damn persistent rumors about her myself.”

This was the most Lucky'd ever heard Benjamin speak and he wasn't about to cut him off, no matter how smug he sounded. Still, they couldn't afford to underestimate an enemy in the field; that's exactly how Lucky survived his encounter with Gerhardt.

“That sounds like pride,” Lucky muttered.

“It sounds like a promise,” Benjamin said. “If we're unfortunate enough to run into the Waldgeister, don't try to fight them. Shoot at them then run.”

“That's good advice for most of the things I've run into,” Lucky said.

“And if we run into Yūrei, stay out of my - !” Benjamin cut himself off and whipped around, carbine to his shoulder. A huge mass crashed through the woods to their right. Canted, twisted trees collapsed somewhere in the haze. A shuddering wet growl rattled the air. Benjamin's finger tightened around his trigger.

“Engaging right!” he shouted. Calls went up and down the line, alerting the officials lost in the volcanic fog.

A trench shark burst through a withered pine, sending up a cloud of ash and splinters. It was running like a bear, slamming its full tonnage down with every stride. Steel teeth clanged together. Lucky raised his rifle and fired, pinging an impotent round off its armored nose. It barreled forward, just a few dozen yards away.

Benjamin shoved Lucky aside and threw a circular anti-tank mine like a discus, dropping it square in the monster's path. He extended his arms outward, inviting the beast to a fresh meal. He shouted: “Come and get it!”

An alien roar from behind drowned him out. A second shark slammed through the forest from the other side, kicking up ash with every thunderous step. Its six legs pumped away, locomotive-fast.

“Engaging left!” Lucky yelled. He spun around and fired at the living cacophony, sinking a round into the second creature's leathery haunch. It didn't even do him the courtesy of bleeding.

“Lucky, down!” Bastedo shouted. He materialized out of the haze at Lucky's six, M13 at his shoulder. He pulled the carbine's trigger over and over, igniting the miniature rockets within with a ha, and expelling them into the charging shark's haunch with a shoo.

The sneeze gun sent rocket after rocket out, blasting six deep craters into the beast's gray flesh and thick armor. The warheads tore through the creature with white-hot jets of molten copper, shredding it as it charged. Two of its metal legs were blasted off, kicking as they landed yards away. The trench shark fell into the dirt, gnashing and roaring with animal rage. The carbine clicked empty.

Bastedo slapped a new magazine into its top-loading breach in less than a second and pumped six more rounds into the fallen creature's face. Its thick armor folded inward and its head was reduced to hot mush. Even so, Bastedo had to dive away from the spasming corpse as its bladed tail whipped around with the posthumous urge to take him with it.

As he hit the dirt, a devastating crack shook the air. The first shark had found Benjamin's anti-tank mine. Its concussive blast knocked Lucky off his feet, sending him rolling across the root-knotted ground. It was too many excruciating seconds before he could gather himself to take a shot. Lucky's sights didn't find anything left of the shark except a rain of salty organs and a hot plume of ash and smoke.

“They know we're here!” Benjamin shouted. He popped up from where he'd dropped. Thin shark blood ran in black rivers down the runnels in his face. He dropped his carbine into its sling and unsheathed his real weapons. The wide-bladed smatchet gleamed in his left hand like a Roman gladius, the stiletto he kept clutched in his right.

A third trench shark roared through the gray, then a fourth and a fifth. Lucky swung his Garand around, trying to choose which hidden monster was closest.

“Regroup, regroup!” Benjamin was yelling in my ear. Bastedo ran past, towards where Goldbrick and Miller must have been.

“Suivez-moi!” Bastedo shouted. Lucky didn't need to speak French to know that Bastedo wanted him to follow. He called out to their rear: “Cheddar!”

Cheddarwright appeared out of the gloom, more a mass of walking vegetation in her game warden cloak than a woman. She held her bow tight, a barbed arrow nocked.

“The Waldgeister won't be far,” she warned.

“Not far at all,” Benjamin grated. A shark roared in response. It was close enough to smell their sweat.

“Go,” Bastedo urged. A slender shadow appeared at his six.

“Behind you!” Lucky shouted. Bastedo spun on his heel, firing his M13 from the hip. Two rockets lanced out, but the shadow melted into the ashen fog, and the rocket tails' bright stars disappeared into the gray.

“You go, now,” Benjamin urged. The figure had reappeared before him. Cheddarwright snapped her bow up and loosed the arrow in one deadly motion. The shadow stepped into the shot, whipping a sword around and slapping the arrow out of the air. The deflected shaft punched into a tree trunk with a hollow thud.

“They are mine,” Benjamin growled. His knuckles were white around his knife grips. Two more shadows had joined the first. The silhouettes lifted their swords and a low hum filled the gray air. The edges of their blades took on an orange glow, and Lucky felt intense heat radiating off of them.

“Knochensäge swords,” Cheddarwright said between clenched teeth. She had another barbed arrow nocked, ready to let it fly. “They can slice clean through bone. Do not let those swords touch you.”

“I try not to let any swords touch me,” Lucky muttered.

A strong wind howled through and cleared the gritty air, revealing that the four officials were surrounded.

Nine Waldgeister held their glowing blades before them, hemming them in. They split ranks, allowing the Japanese woman to waltz into the circle. Her black eyes were hidden behind her unnerving porcelain mask, and she had yet to draw her blade.

The three remaining trench sharks paced behind the stoic women, awaiting permission to attack. They growled with hunger and anticipation.

“Holy hell,” Lucky said. Heat radiated off the humming swords.

“Bollocks,” Cheddarwright whispered.

“Putain,” Bastedo cursed.

“Kaiken Yūrei Mikiko,” Benjamin called her, defiance in his voice. “The little lady in black.”

The Japanese woman drew her sword. The flat of its blade was matte black, unreflective and darker still than her ebony outfit. Its razor edge was gleaming, raw steel. It cut the wind that gusted past. She raised the sword and pointed it at Benjamin's chest.

“Don't make any moves,” Benjamin whispered out of the corner of his mouth. Lucky's finger slid away from his trigger. “These women have a warrior's honor, to an extent. If you interfere, they will kill us all in an instant.”

“Zuerst,” the Japanese woman ordered her squad, her voice flat and emotionless. Benjamin's eyes lit up when he heard her command.

“No, Yūrei,” Benjamin growled. “You're first.”

The woman gave Benjamin a curt nod, then stepped backward. Two of her Waldgeister leapt past her into the air, swords drawing murderous orange arcs through the gray.

Benjamin grinned and charged them, his own blades in hand.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres.