Needless of what Mesler shouted, Konrad looked up and saw the giant dish shattering as it too imploded. Its groan as it crumpled into the ground even drowned out the painful ringing and prompted him to curl into a foetal position to protect himself from the avalanche of falling metal and plastic.
As soon as the cloud of disturbed dust cleared, Konrad realised that by a miracle he and Mesler had survived the destruction of the radar-dish. It was an obvious invitation to now escape, an invitation both men eagerly accepted.
A giant plume of dust roared past the men as they ran for their lives. They stumbled blindly back between the monstrous cargo-containers, their boots knocking and stepping on the bodies they had spotted earlier. The queasiness that accompanied their first encounter with the corpses was far from their minds as desperation and fear now dominated their minds. As the ringing in his ears subsided Konrad could hear the terrible sound of the god-like pounding that stalked their every step. Chunks of shrapnel-like wreckage spun and whizzed by them like angry insects. At the same time, larger, more deadly, pieces of wreckage wheeled out of the cloud of dust, their irregular outlines softened by the glow of the surrounding flames. These same flames then gave the officer and the prisoner hope of escaping the unseen horror because silhouetted in the vast pawl of smoke ahead was the giant battery. It stood like a welcoming temple or church at the end of a long and fraught pilgrimage. It meant that the rover wasn’t far away. It meant the chance to escape.
As the unseen blows grew in power and frequency, the men reached the tangled catwalk that ringed the battery. Mesler was the first to cross the catwalk and reach the pipe bridge across the quagmire. He stopped briefly to let Konrad pass him by.
‘Come on!’ Konrad shouted. ‘Now’s not the time to admire the view.’
Mesler nodded then gazed into the forest of wreckage they had just escaped from. Their unseen enemy was strangely quiet as its rampage had seemingly stopped. All both Konrad and Mesler could see was the spherical battery and the smoke that softened its bulbous outline.
‘I think whatever attacked us has gone,’ Mesler said hopefully.
Konrad, less convinced, pulled at the officer. ‘Let’s not bank on it.’ He pushed on and clambered onto the first overturned pipe.
Mesler loitered a moment longer before he, like Konrad, stepped onto the bent and twisted metal.
A great boom like the sound of flesh upon steel suddenly reverberated. It echoed off the giant battery and chimed off the surrounding wreckage making its source and location almost impossible to ascertain.
Konrad looked up and instantly wished he hadn’t.
Crashing through the debris before him appeared the mighty rover, its hull cutting through the useless machinery like an enraged animal crashing through the jungle. As he watched, time appeared to slow down as the battered vehicle spun inexorably towards him. His mind screamed at him to move, run, do anything to escape, but Konrad remained frozen on the spot. He would have remained rooted there and be torn down by the machine if it wasn’t for the violent shove applied by Mesler. The helpful push sent Konrad face first into the pipe, but if he remained standing he would have surely been decapitated. But he and Mesler’s torment was far from over.
The rover splashed into the quagmire and a great wave of acidic sludge erupted into the air. The black wave broke upon the pipe. Both men screamed as the foul mixture of acid and mud hissed and boiled as it landed on them and the pipe-work. Noxious fumes filled the air and the smell of burning flesh was pungent. Konrad felt his fingers burning as he struggled to wipe the sticky chemical mixture from his face and away from his eyes. He was lucky. Mesler had borne the brunt of the acidic wave after pushing Konrad to safety. His entire back was coated with the viscous liquid which fed ferociously upon him, the acid eating through his tunic, his shirt and his skin. He dropped onto the pipe and slipped down into the quagmire below with an acrid vapour trail in his wake.
Konrad dived across the slippery pipe to try and help the officer, but Mesler simply sank into the mud. Dazed from the pain, he pawed weakly at Konrad’s outstretched hand, but the quagmire’s pull on his body was relentless.
‘Grab my hand!’ Konrad desperately shouted.
Gritting his teeth, Konrad stretched his arms again. His blistered and raw fingers clawed at the pipe as they reached for Konrad, but it was to no avail. Panic set in as the sticky, oily mud kissed his lips like a cruel lover as the distance between them grew even further.
‘Help me!’ Mesler spluttered as the foul liquid flooded his open mouth. His eyes widened in fear.
Konrad reached out further in the hope of saving Mesler, but it was already too late. With a sickening gurgle, Mesler was sucked under.
A deathly silence fell upon the scene as Konrad impotently stared at the black surface. It was as if nothing had happened at all. No crash, no manic struggle – nothing. The only sound that broke the dreadful silence was the mournful moaning of the wrecked rover as it sank into the quagmire.
A new sound, menacing and direct, then broke over the alien landscape.
‘Rest upon this foreign shore and despair, my curious friend!’
The voice belonged to Stahl. Its source was unknown, but it seemed to Konrad that it emanated from the wind itself.
‘You will be allowed to live and rot here. You will not even be afforded the luxury of a quick death afforded like the good officer, because unlike the late Mesler, you are not a threat to me and this new Reich. You are just a slave, an animal at my command. You are insignificance personified.’
The Nazi’s disembodied voice faded away to be replaced by a faint static hiss that sounded from the rover’s open cab. Between the hiss and whistles, a voice, frantic and frightened, sounded.
‘Mesler, if you can hear me, you have to come back and help us!’ The desperate voice belonged to Blomberg. A wild cacophony of screams and gunfire accompanied the plea for help.
‘Can you hear me, Mesler? Help us!’ Blomberg cried. ‘It’s Stahl. He’s…’
An unbearable amount of feedback broke the connection to fill the air with static like the rain that started to fall on Konrad.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Blood sprayed the corridor wall as Blomberg scrambled over the twitching body parts that littered the gore-covered floor. He supported a colleague whose arm had been wrenched messily from its socket. The screams that emanated from this mutilated man symbolised the horror that was being played out throughout the wrecked module. Blomberg and his companion staggered into the control room, their bloody footprints acting like a beacon for the other survivors. Two Nazis, who like Blomberg were splattered with blood and cerebral matter, followed close behind. One was armed with a smoking Schmeisser, while the other held a jammed pistol. And with abject terror etched upon their faces, they peered constantly over their shoulders. Something was coming.
The Schmeisser-touting Nazi covered his breathless colleague as he slapped the entrance’s controls. He then defiantly flung the jammed pistol into the corridor beyond and at the unseen menace.
‘Die, you bastard!’ The gun-toting soldier screamed as his gun blasted.
When the door finally locked, the troops frantically pulled down pieces of junk in front of the door like defenders during a medieval siege, but no sooner had the space-age defenders completed their crude barricade, their work was undone. Wisps of acrid smoke started to rise from the sealed door. The volume of smoke grew as the door bubbled and melted, while drops of molten metal dropped onto the decking. The incessant dripping acted like a macabre countdown to the barricade’s imminent failure. The soldiers passed out what weapons they had left between themselves and stood poised and ready.