Re: Blood and Iron

There was not the slightest hesitation. Not a moment wasted. Bruno didn't even bother alerting his family that he would be gone. He simply wrote a quick letter and pinned it to the refrigerator.

Then, he marched out of his house and took his personal vehicle directly to the airfield. No armed guards. No uniform. Luckily for him, he was a face even the lowliest private recognized, and the airbase security let him through instantly after he presented his valid military ID.

When he arrived at the airfield, a line of Junker light transport aircraft were already being prepped for takeoff. Standing before them in full Planetree camouflage uniform was the commander of the Werwolf Brigade: Ernst Röhm. He froze at the sight of Bruno—dressed in civilian clothes, walking toward him with cold determination in his eyes.

Röhm opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, but Bruno's tone cut through the air before he could speak.

"Get me some proper equipment. Let's take off already. We'll have to wait for armored support to arrive via rail to fully stabilize the region and secure the border. Our jump has one goal: save the Grand Duchess and the royal family of Luxembourg."

Before Röhm could object, a nearby soldier was already relaying Bruno's orders over the radio. A change of uniform and a prototype weapon were brought to him.

Over the past year, the Werwolf Brigade had been entrusted with testing advanced equipment in real field conditions—especially in the Mittelafrikan colonies undergoing decolonization. Among these were E-25 Panzer IIs and Sturmgewehr rifles, deployed in both a 16-inch carbine configuration with a fixed 4x optic mounted on an AK-style side rail, and an RPK-style squad automatic variant with matching optics.

While Röhm tried to lecture Bruno on the insanity of personally leading a combat jump, the man in question calmly stripped out of his civilian attire in the open airfield, completely unbothered by the eyes on him. He dressed swiftly in a full paratrooper kit, including the M38-pattern Stahlhelm—now upgraded with improved lining and a camouflage helmet cover.

Next came the canvas load-bearing rig, modeled on the Cold War-era ALICE system but dyed feldgrau and retrofitted with larger pouches to accept the 30-round STG-44 magazines. His chest rig followed—a modernized version of the Rhodesian Fereday & Sons design, adjusted to his specs.

Bruno took the rifle handed to him and gazed down the BDC reticle of the ZF-4-style optic. After a quick inspection and zero confirmation, he inserted a fresh magazine with calm precision.

And still, Röhm ranted.

"Sir, are you even listening? We are dropping into an active combat zone with zero intelligence on the ground! All we know is that an armored force of unknown size and capability has invaded Luxembourg.

Our reconnaissance flights are up right now, but we're still deploying blind! Far be it from me to question your orders—I understand your urgency—but I will not allow you to jump with us into the heat of battle! It's simply too dangerous! And with all due respect… while you may have been a force of nature in the trenches in your heyday, you are not airborne qualified!"

The words passed through Bruno like wind through shattered glass.

He had no fear of a primitive low-altitude jump. In his past life, he'd done far worse in the mountains of Afghanistan. He didn't just understand high-risk operations—he'd lived and bled in the shadows of them.

Still, he didn't humiliate Röhm. He gave him the courtesy of a commander addressing another with authority but respect.

"I understand your concerns. But this is something I have to do. I made a promise to that woman—a promise that if she was ever in danger, I would come to her aid. Maybe I made that promise to escape an awkward situation in the most diplomatic way possible. But I made it nonetheless. And I'm a man of my word."

He slung his rifle, tightened his gloves.

"So fetch me a goddamn parachute, and let's take off already. We're wasting daylight."

Despite knowing this was a terrible idea—and fearing what Bruno's death could mean for the entire Reich—Röhm knew the decision was not his to make. With a quiet nod, he gave the order.

Soon, the wolves had taken to the sky, flying toward the borders of Luxembourg faster than their armored support could follow. A few companies of airborne infantry, armed with experimental weapons—assault rifles, squad automatics, general-purpose machine guns, DMRs, fragmentation and anti-tank grenades, light mortars, and even anti-tank rifles—were about to jump blindly into a Warzone.

Bruno sat silently on the plane as night devoured the last light of day. He said nothing. Just stared past the soldier sitting across from him, eyes fixed on the distant horizon beyond the window.

And in that silence, the memory returned.

A different flight. A different war.

The air was thin over Helmand. The jump was high-altitude, low-opening. No backup. No visibility. No extraction if it went south.

But that had never stopped him.

Kampfschwimmer. Tier-1. Shadow of the Bundeswehr.

He had dropped behind enemy lines with nothing but silence and steel.Cleared compounds. Executed high-value targets. Ghosted back into the wind.

His was the life that hunted nightmares—until time and age pulled him from the field and placed him behind a desk, teaching general staff candidates how to wage war on a map instead of in the dirt.

But the instincts? They never faded.

That life had been meaningless in the end. But it gave him the skills to do what needed to be done—here and now, in the spring of 1918.

Bruno checked his watch.

The green light flicked on.

He stood, calm and steady, and clipped his parachute to the cable above. Behind him, his men watched in reverent silence—their commanding officer, the Wolf of Tyrol, preparing to lead from the front one last time.

He turned his head slightly. Just enough for them to hear.

"Gentlemen… he who dares—wins."

Then he dropped out of the plane. His chute deployed with a snap, catching the wind as he fell through the darkness toward the city of Luxembourg. Below, the lights of the city flickered between muzzle flashes.

The wolves had taken flight.And the brigands who preyed on the weak… were about to learn to fear the dark.