Apparatus 33 by Lawston Pettymore (bearly read books TXT) 📕

As the Soviets were crossing the German frontier towards Berlin, looting, and collecting trophies along the way, Todtenhausen demonstrated his entry. Remarkably, his prototype Apparatus 33 met the size and weight requirement, having been placed, he claimed into a mock-up of the warhead which was the size of a two-hundred-liter matte black oil drum, bulbous at the top and bottom. It had an instrument panel on the side with the usual knobs, buttons, and meters that allowing observers to watch the thoughts and decisions and thoughts of the mysterious machine inside as soon as the machine thought and made them.

With a bit of ceremony, Todtenhausen strutted beside the mockup in the conference room as proud as any father whose child made the winning football score. After a few minutes of connecting cables, checking meter readings against a notebook, and whatever mechanism might be inside the enclosure, the machine commenced working and correctly maneuvered the craft through a simulated mission. A meter followed the drainage of the batteries, to prove that they were sufficiently abstemious, and at the conclusion of the demo, there was even some power left unused.

With no time to discuss or disclose the secrets of the black device, the Reich Ministry of Armaments declared that the peculiar taxidermist had won the race. Todtenhausen’s Apparatus 33 would be installed on every A10 Amerika Rakete built and launched.

With the selection of the Todtenhausen solution for Apparatus 33 came some additional prestige and authority over other enhancements to the Wermut warhead, one of which was reportedly in collaboration with the Eispalast, the Die Kuppel-like facility in Reich territory to the south, that dramatically increased the duration of the rocket motor burn outside Earth atmosphere, referred to as the specific impulse, or Isp. If the development team at Eispalast could be trusted, a small increase in the hypergolic fuels on board could send the warhead not just to the other side of the planet, but into high orbit, and possibly even beyond, if the mass of Todtenhausen’s Apparatus 33 could somehow be cut by half.

Though his sequencer was not chosen for the warhead, esteem generally held for Zerrissen was not diminished, nor was his appropriated kinescope returned to its post in the VIP lounge, to the disappointment of its patrons, always ready for more Shirley Temple, if such could be smuggled in, or Leni Riefenstahl, if not. Instead, Zerrissen’s apparatus was elevated with a new moniker, Die Sequenzer, and repurposed for ground operations prior, during, and after each Amerika Rackete launch. These operations included fueling, preheating, precooling, ignition monitoring, timely cycling of the oculus and flame trench doors, and other pre- and post-launch housekeeping.

As Todtenhausen and Zerrissen repaired to their respective laboratories, word spread from the communication center that Die Kuppel was now completely on its own. The Wehrmacht troops guarding the perimeter had been withdrawn to support the defense of Berlin, as Soviet invaders were found to be only a few kilometers away, ruthlessly raiding farmhouses and shops as they oozed their way to the German capital, and who may or may not be fooled by Die Kuppel’s camouflage, now stripped a bit bare by the record-breaking winter cold on the surface.

While these messages were exchanged between Berlin and Die Kuppel over the associated antennas disguised as trees and coils within false rocks, the radio finding equipment of the 6th Trophy Battalion NKVD Motor was now within range, sniffing the electromagnetic spectrum as would a bull smelling a cow in heat.

Sixth Trophy Battalion NKVD Motor abruptly changed their drive off the roads towards Berlin, going off road instead towards the radio signals in middle of the Polish forest. Following their radio sensing equipment, they hacked their way through the dense brush and trees until finding the strange rounded concrete structure rising above the forest floor radiating radio signals on an unrecognized spectrum.

The curious orifice on top beckoned like spread legs in a German brothel to the sappers and their satchel charges. Comrade Kombrig14 ordered his men to set up a perimeter guard, and the lucky others to immediately “gang bang this bitch.”

Dead Man Switch, 1945

By now, even Todtenhausen conceded to himself that Die Kuppel would soon fall to the mongrel Slavs with their satchel charges and continuous detonations above. Such things were never uttered aloud, of course; the few SS guards still at their posts delighted in hanging “defeatists” from the exposed pipes running along the concrete ceilings of the corridors, using piano wire taken from the actual piano that was once used to entertain officers in the executive dining room, now stripped bare. The ivories on which songs of victory filled the corridors and inspired hope in the residents, now chipped, linkages broken, their voices as corrupted as the Nazi vision the melodies bolstered.

The low clearance of the underground corridors suspended the hanged victims just a centimeter above the concrete flooring. Each of these left for a few days wearing a hand-lettered pasteboard sign summarizing his or her particular offense to the Reich, to edify those whose own loyalty might be weakening. Those arrested and condemned of a more Teutonic stature joined their traitorous brethren only after their toe muscles, flexor, and adductor hallucis, collapsed from exhaustion. Regardless of body type, the abdominal muscles of each hanging victim spasmed at the moment of death, squirting the contents of bowel and bladder that accumulated in stockings, socks, shoes and eventually in puddles beneath their feet, adding to the mélange of unholy aromas already corrupting breathable Die Kuppel air.

The more chastened workers were forced to pick their way through the muck, they ducked and weaved around the corpses that hung like sides of beef in a cold storage locker, not an inapt comparison as the temperature in Die Kuppel was slowly deprived of body heat as it dropped to meet the sub-freezing temperatures outside.

Oblivious to the halls bedecked in death, Todtenhausen saw only brilliant invention and innovation to protect. He could not