Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 644: The Sun Sets on Peace

The world was changing. The Reich was leading the world in terms of innovation, dominance. And most of all prosperity.

A nation had begun to lead the world in all metrics. Military power, economic strength, average living conditions, healthcare quality and access, and of course infrastructure.

To travel from one side of the Reich’s fatherland to another was a short trip.

A dream that was virtually unreachable just thirty years prior.

High-speed rail crisscrossed the countryside, while newly built airfields allowed transport planes to bridge even greater distances.

At the same time, the autobahn made motor vehicle transport a daily reality for many families within the boundaries of the German Reich.

However, there was a fourth form of travel that many citizens made use of, especially those of a wealthier background.

Airships had made a comeback. With strategic pipelines for oil and natural gas flowing from the Urals and Siberia all the way to German lands. Germany had been extracting and refining helium for a variety of purposes.

And one of them was to fuel airships. Both for military and civilian applications.

However, these were not ordinary airships. Like many forms of travel in the German Reich, these airborne vessels made use of Tesla’s wireless transmission and resonance tower grid to act as the primary power source.

This meant that the moment the small supply of helium was in play, electricity was the primary propulsion system.

Considering helium was a finite source on Earth, and would require expanding into the stars to gain more, within a little over a century. Bruno wanted to conserve its use as much as possible where it wasn’t critical.

And with Tesla’s genius, Airships used just enough of it to justify its use.

Germany had changed in so many ways. But Bruno hadn’t. He stood on the balcony outside his master bedroom. A beer in hand as the sun slipped below the frosted crags of the Alps.

He stood there in silence. Staring off beyond the horizon. Hell beyond the boundaries of the Earth itself. And perhaps even the universe at large.

It was only after he heard a voice come from behind him, and felt a gentle touch on his shoulder from behind that he finally stirred back to life.

“Careful… You once told me that one may stare into the light until one becomes the light… And you Bruno von Zehntner, I forbid you to die…”

Bruno turned around with an amused smirk on his aging face.

He saw his wife there smirking at him, ever graceful, ever beautiful. Even if she had aged right behind him.

Bruno could help but laugh as he leaned back against the railing and took a sip from his mug. All the while shaking his head.

“Did you just merge two of my favorite quotes from the cinema of my past life into one?”

Heidi simply shrugged and used the bottle in her hand to refill it. Smirking as she did so.

“Drink… Your Queen commands it….”

Bruno couldn’t help but chuckle once more while he grabbed hold of his wife and dragged her in close. Kissing her on the forehead before doing as she had said.

As she leaned in close, she whispered something into his ear that he barely caught.

“It’s your own damned fault for trusting only me with your secret…”

Bruno held Heidi tight as he returned her jokes right back to her.

“That you know of….”

Bruno didn’t say any more while Heidi looked at him as if he were a scoundrel for a second. But she only broke out into laughter once more.

All the while he heard a voice coming from the courtyard below. It was none other than their own son, Erwin, who was standing next to his wife Alya.

“Get a room you two!”

Bruno couldn’t help but look down and see that Erwin and Alya were enjoying a moment of their own.

And when he saw that the old patriarch simply raised his mug in silence with a warm smile on his face.

Erwin did the same, as they both attended to their wives once more.

Heidi couldn’t help but bring up something to Bruno as an airship flew by in the background, catching their attention once more.

“The Reich has known peace for so long… Must there really be war? Can’t you avoid it?”

Bruno however shook his head. He, too, desired nothing more than for things to stay as they were.

But they couldn’t. Not forever, he knew it, and so too did Heidi.

She wasn’t asking out of genuine curiosity, but rather almost pleading with God, with the fates themselves not to interfere with the world just this once.

And yet, Bruno couldn’t let her have such a naïve dream. Even if it was a beautiful one.

When he sighed and looked to the setting sun once more, his words shattered that illusion.

“Not until France has learned its place beneath the boot of the Reich, the British have abandoned their dream of Empire, and the Americans have fractured into petty and squabbling states like their fragile democracy was always meant to. Only then can we truly have peace.”

Heidi sighed, knowing the truth in her husband’s words.

His judgement was always sound. And he knew the future better than any other. Because he had once lived it as his own.

Her words no longer appeared gentle; instead she cast a gaze to the west, where their enemies lay. A flicker of her past, and vengeful self within them as she stared in silence for a bit too long.

“Then I suppose all that is left now is to wait for the gunfire to begin….”

Bruno nodded his head in silence. There was nothing more to be said between him and his wife on the matter.

She had already made it clear, she would support him no matter what.

Even if the whole world became his enemy, she would stand by her side and damn herself with him.

That was their bond, their love. And nothing could shatter it.

Especially not by the brittle forces of a dying world order.