Re: Blood and Iron

In an abandoned monastery turned forward operations post outside Aragon,

Night began to fall, and the sun was soon replaced by the moon.

The silence was almost sacred.

The old stones of the monastery still held the chill of vanished prayers, but now they harbored whispers of war.

The nave had become a map room; the altar replaced with a field table littered with wax-sealed envelopes, grease pencil diagrams, and hand-marked satellite prints.

A long-wave radio hummed faintly in the background, the signal clean; encrypted relay from Zaragoza.

Three men stood at attention as the message was read aloud, low and clinical:

"Directive... Immediate Redeployment:

Priority Alpha.

Werwolf elements to withdraw from northern Pyrenees corridor.

Reposition across Teruel and surrounding provinces.

Civilian interaction protocol: Humanitarian Cover.

Engagement rules unchanged.

Codename: Operation Balmung begins."

The speaker; an older Hauptmann with a silver-streaked beard and sunburnt skin; looked up after reading, meeting the eyes of the gathered cell leaders.

There were no questions. These were not men who asked why. Only how soon.

A younger operative, Frtiz, stepped forward. "Routes are already scouted. Three convoys can be broken up across civilian logistics. Trucks marked as Red Cross and aid from the International Legion. Locals in the mountain villages have been briefed. They'll shelter us."

The Hauptmann gave a slight nod. "Then it begins tonight. Cells two through five will split up and reinforce the 7th Spanish Division. There they will begin coordinating long-range patrols and in doing so, hunt the remaining reds in the region."

A second man; older, scarred, the kind of quiet that terrified even veterans, nodded once. He'd been with Werwolf since shortly after its founding.

"And the first cell?" Adler asked carefully.

The Hauptmann took a long moment before answering.

"They're headed west. Toward Zaragoza again. But this time, beneath it. Sabotage routes, counter intelligence, and... disposal of French assets."

Adler's eyes narrowed. "Operation Balmung.... We are to be the blade which pierces Fafnir's heart?"

A silent affirmation.

Beyond the stone archways, the wind blew dry and low across the plain. Dust. Olive groves. Distant church bells.

Without a word, the men dispersed.

Later That Night on the Road to Calamocha:

A convoy rolled in the darkness. Covered trucks marked with faded aid symbols. No headlights.

The men inside relied entirely on their own natural vision to navigate the dark countryside.

They moved like a whisper, their route following old shepherd trails and abandoned Republican tracks.

Inside one truck, a Werwolf operator cleaned his suppressed carbine in ritual silence.

Another checked a bundle of explosives no larger than a brick of bread. A third scratched coordinates into a dirt-caked notebook.

None of them spoke.

They were soldiers without a nation, weapons without fingerprints, myths armed with doctrine and patience.

Werwolf had moved. And with it, the shape of the Spanish war began to shift.

Not with tanks. Not with airstrikes. But with silence, surgical precision, and shadows that bled order into chaos; and made the victors look like saviors.

---

Off the coast of Spain that same night.

While shadows moved across the Aragon plains, something far more visible loomed just beyond the horizon; yet no less unnerving.

A silhouette against the moonlit sea. Vast. Inhuman. Calm.

The German battle fleet had arrived.

At the heart of the formation steamed the KMS Barbarossa; a carrier like no other. Officially labeled a "specialized maritime humanitarian support vessel" under the International Neutrality Treaty, her true nature was a myth whispered among naval circles.

The truth? Stranger still.

Built on a lengthened Graf Zeppelin chassis, but nearly matching the displacement of an American Nimitz-class prototype still a decade from public launch.

She was more cathedral than carrier; floating steel sanctified by doctrine and danger. No flags flew. No spotlights swept the decks. And yet, she was not still.

On her flight deck, rows of Bf-109T-3s sat folded and silent, wings clipped for naval deployment.

Near them, the new Dornier Do 217 K-2s, long-range naval strike bombers; outfitted for high-altitude reconnaissance, precision torpedo runs, or bunker-penetrating ordnance.

Though turboprops had long become the standard within the Reich, their existence remained hidden from the world at large.

Like the Dreyse Needle Rifle originally invented in 1841, the Germans had kept their latest weapon designs a secret from the world at large.

Only the Russians were privy to their existence, due to their aid in developing them through joint-research projects.

Because of this, the Germans stubbornly flow what they considered previous generation aircraft into current war zones, knowing they were still cutting edge compared to whatever their enemies might be fielding against them.

Below decks: systems no foreign spy had yet seen in detail.

Advanced 40s radar arrays, sonar mapping systems that could trace a coastline to the centimeter, analog targeting computers linked to electromagnetic stabilizers; guidance tech that outclassed anything fielded during the German-Japanese war.

And in her heart, a secret engine; twin naval reactors. Bruno had invested a significant sum in acquiring the world's foremost nuclear physicists starting as early as 1905.

By the late 1920s he had an early prototype fission reactor, and now? The nuclear age had already become standard across much of the Reich.

It existed side-by-side with Tesla's harmonic resonance ushering in an era of abundant and clean energy for the German people, and most importantly their armed forces. The Barbarossa didn't refuel. She fed on the future.

From the bridge, Admiral Conrad Albrecht watched the shoreline with binoculars, flanked by aides and communications officers.

He wore the standard deep blue and golden embroidered uniform of the Kaiserliche Marine. A new cut, for a new era. But his mind was on land.

"The Werwolves have moved," one officer said, passing a sealed communique. "Balmung is live. Zaragoza will be consolidated within the week."

The Admiral gave no outward reaction. "And the French?"

"Still denying involvement. De Gaulle's faction is in damage control."

"Good," Albrecht muttered. "Let them lie. We'll make truth irrelevant."

A klaxon rang low and once; practice scramble.

Flight crews burst into motion below, readying a half-squadron of 109s for a midnight flyby over the Aragonese front; not to engage, but to be seen. To be heard.

Intimidation as doctrine. Deterrence without declaration.

The admiral stepped onto the observation platform as the night wind cut across the deck. His ship hummed beneath him; alive in a way only war machines could be.

"Spain," he whispered to no one in particular, "was always going to be the opening move."

He glanced toward the other silhouettes nearby: heavy cruisers, destroyers, even the experimental submarine tender Nautilus, still classified by most of the German admiralty.

Germany had won its war in the East.

Now, it intended to win the West without firing a shot; if possible.

But if war came again?

Then it would arrive already prepared.

---

Inside Berlin's Imperial Chancellery two days later....

Sunlight filtered through the tall stained-glass windows of the Reich's Foreign Wing, casting colored shards of gold and iron across the polished marble floor.

A roaring hearth warmed the otherwise cold reception hall, though the air between its occupants was anything but.

The French delegation stood stiffly, wool coats damp from the northern rain, fatigue and fury hidden behind diplomatic courtesies.

At their head, Ambassador Lucien Barrès, an aging veteran of the Great War turned statesman, did his best to remain composed.

Before them, seated on a raised dais in a chair carved from Tyrolean oak and inlaid with obsidian and eagles, was Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The monarch did not stand. He did not need to.

"You've come a long way, Ambassador," the Kaiser said, swirling a glass of brandy in one hand, the other flipping through a leather-bound portfolio of maps he clearly already knew by heart. "What is it you seek? Clarity? Or just comfort?"

Barrès tightened his jaw. "Your Majesty, France demands an explanation for the columns of armor, munitions, and men being funneled into Aragon and Zaragoza under banners marked 'Relief Corps.' This farce of 'humanitarian aid'—"

"Aid is being provided," Wilhelm interrupted, his tone even but unmistakably sardonic. "Medical supplies. Foodstuffs. Warm clothing for displaced civilians. Have I committed a crime by feeding the hungry?"

There was only the shortest of pauses.

"You're escorting those crates with motorized rifle battalions and mechanized infantry."

The Kaiser set his glass down with a soft clink. "Spain is a war zone, Ambassador. If I wish to bring aid to the poor people suffering under the madness and chaos spread by the Reds and the so-called Republican 'government,' then naturally, I must protect the men distributing that aid."

He leaned back, the throne creaking just enough to echo slightly in the vaulted chamber.

"Besides… peacekeeping is a form of humanitarianism, is it not?"

There was silence, so much so that one could only hear the sound of astonishment hiss through the teeth of the Frenchmen who stoood in awe at the Kaiser's shamelessness. And then... Thunderous reproach.

"You're escalating an international crisis!"

A smirk carved itself onto Wilhelm's lips. He was aging, and not gracefully so. One could easily tell he had but a few years left to live. A decade perhaps. And yet the power that emanated through his royal blood was as clear as crystal within his eyes.

"And yet you stand in my palace instead of your own," Wilhelm said with a polite smile. "Which one of us looks like he's escalating something?"

Ambassador Barrès glanced at the other French envoys, but none met his eyes.

"I will take this to-"

"You may take it to heaven, for all I care," the Kaiser cut him off now, eyes sharpening. "But should your nation choose to cross the Rhine in pursuit of ghosts… you will find that the Empire still remembers Ypres."

A long silence. And a sudden chill... Ypres had been a battle which claimed over a million lives of the British and French forces sent there. While the Germans had suffered a pittance in comparison.

The unspoken threat alone was enough to suffocate the Ambassador and his delegates.

Wilhelm rose finally, only to signal his adjutant to see the delegation out.

"Thank you for your visit, gentlemen. Rest assured the Reich will always welcome peace. We simply do not require others to define it for us."

As the great doors closed behind them, the Kaiser muttered to no one in particular:

"Bruno would've had them weeping in five sentences. I'm getting soft. Perhaps I am too old for the crown after all...."