Kessler swore under his breath and called out on the communication network, “Who the hell remembers the all-comm line for shipping and trade?”
Ke spoke up at once, saying a sting of numbers as though she had been programed in her sleep. Kessler could have picked her up and spun her if she’d been in the same room as him and he quickly twisted the ancient looking radio dial until he had a matching frequency. He cranked on a few more activation dials and snagged up another set of Russian headphones with a mouthpiece and spoke into it, “To anyone who can hear this, this is Captain Kessler of the …” He paused for a moment, trying to think of how to call out his designation without raising alarm. He was, afterall, on a civilian frequency attempting to get a hold of the US Navy. “This is Captain Kessler on the German trade ship Broomhandle, mayday mayday.” The old captain leaned hard on the partially shot console and waited. An empty divers glove sailed over Kesslers head and landed lazily on the console, he turned to see Taylor shouting and pointing at the listening post.
“We just got a ping! That’s gotta be the Pennsylvania!” The SEAL said excitdedly.
Kessler turned back to the radio and keyed the transmitter, feeling his face burn with slight embarrassment, “This is Captain Kessler of the Broomhandle, we have received you on listening post, will respond in kind.” The old captain turned and gestured to Taylor to reply with one sonar ping. The high-pitched bobble ringing in the SEALs ears. A moment later the radio crackled to life, Kessler could instantly recognize Millers voice, “Broomhandle, Broomhandle, please move additional traffic to HF channels now.”
A hand snuck beside Kessler and Taylor shifted the knob into a much different frequency and gave his captain a cheerful thumb up and swat on the shoulder. Kessler nodded and spoke into the microphone as he keyed. “This is U-5918, under US Navy control, how copy?”
Millers voice reached out through the hissing static, “U-5918, this is the Pennsylvania, we have you lima-charlie. What’s your status, over.”
Kessler fought back his urge to cheer, thrilled that they would not immediately be blown out of the water. He clicked the mic to reply, “Coming topside now, many wounded, ship is not fully cleared, request additional team be placed on standby. Break.” His mind wandered to where his chief could be and he looked over at the status console that showed green-lights across all decks and compartments, he knew that Hochberg would have succeeded if the gyroscope chamber had a red light above it. He keyed the mic again, “prepare the surgical bay of immediate incoming. Over”
The pause on Millers end was staggering to Kessler, this entire long buried nightmare looked as though it could nearly be coming to a close when Taylor yelled, “Get down!” Kessler saw a spatter of his own blood dash across the console as a bullet tore through his belly from behind and he crumpled to the floor and a writhing heap. Taylors Gauss rifle mechanically chattered as he fired back and from far down the passageway one of the SEALs guarding the aid station fired into the back of an ancient dive suit that stood in the doorway. Kesslers world spun and he blinked hard to refocus. He snagged the mic down from the console and fumbled for a moment to hold an earphone to his head as he heard the last part of Millers transmission, “… -the dingy’s’ll be out to fairy the wounded, how copy?”
Kessler reported in his best, not in agony, voice, “Clear copy, out.” He set the mic and headset onto the console and his vision tunneled. He could see the diver who had just shot him had landed on the SEAL who had been face down. The bodies had made a little pile in front of the door. For a moment, Kesslers tired brain considered how the corpses were a bit of a trip hazard and he wondered if he should tell Taylor to move them into the corner with the rest of the bloody rubbish. The SEAL knelt down by the old captain and tore open his wetsuit to expose the wound; the 9mm had tumbled out sideways and took a considerable amount of flesh and organs with it. Hamburger protruded into Kesslers lap and he looked down at the mess and spat off to the side.
“Don’t get the doc,” he bartered with Taylor, “Just get a pressure dressing on it, quick. It’ll get strange if you don’t…” Kessler spat again and a pink tinged line of drool hung from his lips and he winced in agony, pushing on his organs to keep them in place. Taylor ripped open the little pouch on Kesslers side and pulled out a compression bandage, pushing the white cotton up to the bared and shredded flesh and he wrapped the elastic around his torso. Kessler could feel things settling back into place with the satisfying painful pop of knuckles finally giving way. The healing properties that Burton had gifted him with were quite good, but he’d had a terrible incident in which the flesh had healed up around a bone before it had quite been set back in the right spot. The follow on surgery had been agonizing. He reached out and braced a hand on Taylors shoulder, baring his teeth and groaning to fasten the bandage on as tightly as possible. The SEAL seemed vaguely confused; performing an intervention he had always been taught was incorrect. A moment later the blood had stopped welling up and dripping on the deck and Kessler was helped to his feet to sit in the radioman’s chair. The rifle clattered awkwardly on his back and he sighed deeply, trying to focus through the blackness that crept around the edge of his vision. He scanned around himself for his rebreather helmet and saw Taylor holding it; Kessler nodded a thanks and took it, gesturing with his head for the SEAL to cover the doorway for any more surprises. The old captain clipped the helmet in place and attempted to raise Hochberg on comms.
Hochbergs body was flung against a bulkhead with enough force to bend the bar he bounced off of. As he pushed himself back up to his feet he could feel his old joints clicking and popping back into place. His healing abilities were not quite on par with Kesslers, but his strength was far beyond what Burton had gifted. Apparently, however, Burton had kept all the good tricks for himself. The mad scientist flashed out in a blur towards Hochberg again and caught the old chief square in the chest with both palms, the blast of impact cracking the ceramic plate vest and sending Hochberg smashing into another bulkhead. This time, Hochberg had to blink hard to get the scattering black dots to stop blocking his vision. The old man rose to his feet and rolled his shoulder back, eyeing Burton as the naked creature slowly squared up for another attack.
“C’mon ‘zen, welp. Show me what your master race can do.”
If his words were having any effect on Burton, it was difficult to tell, but the flash of red that closed distance was something. Hochberg timed the attack and decided to punch directly into the oncoming blow, feeling his fist connect hard with Burton’s cheekbones. Hochberg had always had to pull his punches in training, concerned that he might do more harm than good during sparing matches. During all of his deployments to the sandboxes around the world he’d never had to endure a hand to hand struggle, and his time before the mutations hardly counted, even in the POW camps with the Italians would corner Germans in the laundry rooms for a bit of vengeance. Now, Hochberg was free to stretch out his legs and see what his strength could really do. It was a shame, he thought, that it was against another super-mutant like him; it was hardly a fair experiment, but then again, Hochberg wasn’t a scientist. Burton’s head buckled backwards and his body flung out from under him as though he were caught in the neck by a clothesline. The chief brought his heavy foot down in a stomp that bent the deck inward but Burton had already scrambled to his feet and was releasing a torrent of strikes.
For a boxer, his form was terrible. His fists came in various styles of hammer blow or half wind milling schoolyard flail, but for his lack of form he made up with it by sheer speed and strength. Hochberg was able to absorb some of the strikes but more kept coming, faster and harder than the last. His arms and top of his head were absorbing most of the incoming fury but he could feel his limbs starting to rattle and weaken. Hochberg chanced his luck again with a kick leveled directly at the narrow knee joint in Burtons hulking legs. His toe connected just under the kneecap and he felt it pop and give way, the beast yelping like a swatted wolf, limbs halting their onslaught for a moment. Hochberg lashed out, seizing his opportunity. A clean and hefty right hook rocked into the side of Burtons head and if not for the monstrous amount of neck muscle cradling the appendage in place it might have been lopped off with the effort. Burton crumpled to the floor and lay limp.
For a moment, Hochberg’s mind raced with every conceivable vengeance he had ever wanted to bring to bear on the bastard that had stolen away a chance at a different world. Hatred and heat simmered up behind Hochbergs bloodied head and he drew out the old Kaiser Luger, calmly ejecting the magazine and inspecting that a bullet was ready at the top before slapping it back into the handle and yanking the bolt in a satisfying chink of metal synching into perfectly shaped place. Burton shifted slightly and Hochberg stomped on the side of his head, pushing the scientists fleshy surfaces into the deck under his boot.
“I carried ‘zis pistol wisz’ me for a century. I’ve never fired it in war. It’s been wisz’ me for every fight I’ve lived ‘szrough and sanks to your kettle I’ve lived ‘srough many. I sink it’s right you should be ‘za first ‘zing it kills.”
Burton moved more quickly than Hochberg had considered. The beast punched out at the only foot the old chief had on the ground and immediately knocked Hochberg to a kneel. As Burton rose up he punched away the pistol and snagged up his old chief by the throat, walking deliberately toward the gyroconsole. For all the work Burton had done for creating cells that healed rapidly, they still didn’t function well without much oxygen and Hochberg had to fight to keep his world from going dark. The old chief opted to hand his arms limply, pretending to have been beaten, waiting for another opportunity. Burton raised the chief up slightly to bash his body into the console when the chief stole his chance and grasped onto Burtons arm with both hands, swinging his legs up and over to lock and control the scientists entire arm. In a moment, Hochberg had Burtons elbow synched into his belly and was wrenching it backwards, the crackles of tendons and the join giving way. Burton yowled again and flailed, bringing the entire body down onto the console in a heavy smash. Hochberg focused through the agony of being crushed against the metal over and over and on the last strike he felt the elbow give way, quickly releasing the shattered limb and scrambling over Burtons face and neck. The four point chokehold is a tried and true, basic, ground fighting choke, and once it is in place by a skilled and strong fighter, impossible to break. Hochberg was suddenly wildly grateful for all the time he had spent in the bull-pen sparing for hours and hours. The old chiefs arms flexed and his spine arched while Burton flailed about, his muscles and strength for nothing as blood was kept from feeding his brain under the stranglehold. As Hochberg wrenched back as hard as he could he could feel Burton’s spine give way and click open.
They both fell to the ground in a heap and Hochberg synched his grip tighter, rolling his body away and feeling more of the tendons snap and slacken. He looked down into Burton’s opaque eyes and grunted. For a moment, he felt for a pulse, verifying the bloody work was completed. There was nothing. The old man’s body felt as though it were made of fractured glass. There was a trickled of blood coming down from his head, making a mess of his beard and filling his mouth with a coppery tang. The console was devastated; it wouldn’t be possible to deactivate the gyroscope with the switchboard. He turned and spied the old sheet of paper held down by the ancient grenade atop the gyroscope engine and then looked down at Burton’s corpse.
“Danke, arschloch.”