Footprints in the Dust

<<Kiev, Ukraine 3:37 AM>>

Sturmkreiger Dieter Vogel settled as comfortably as he could among the rubble with his unit. His once glorious "Blitzwulf" armor was in the same sad state as his compatriots with its buckles rotting and half a dozen pockmarks from small arms fire and shrapnel. He flexed his hydraulic wrist, feeling the wires that had had been attached at his elbow pull on his bones. His tour of duty was almost over as the delicate Stadti engineering froze up when General Winter descended upon them and froze the very hydraulic fluid in its tubes.

They had made a makeshift grill from captured Red Bloc bayonets that they had criss-crossed over a fire that they had built inside the rim of a long abandoned wheel. Upon it was flesh. They had learned to stop asking where the cooks had found the meat, but the thin layer of charred hair indicated it was most likely donkey.

Satisfied that his prosthetic was in proper functioning order, he attended to the greenish-hued Zeiss manufactured "Nacht" lenses on his full-faced combat helmet. It bore the same sillouette as the standard Stahlhelm worn by the infantry, but incorporated a gas mask, the night optic lenses, and the miniature short wave radio that was so crucial for his mission. Sturmkrieger Max Von Malkin had donned his headset, and gave a nod when Vogel made two small clicking sounds with his tongue. His armor was in order.

Next, he turned to his Sturmgewehr 54 carbine and began field stripping it. It had been significantly lightened and suppressed for missions such as this as he wasn't to engage the enemy in a firefight if at all possible. That would be the job of the Mannheim brothers with their deadly MG-42s, which their Rhinewerk heavy prosthetic arms and shoulders easily carried. He hoped that he wouldn't need them. Indeed, he hoped for a quiet, uneventful night. Tonight, he was hunting snipers, and if he did his job properly, he wouldn't have to fire a single shot. He reassembled his rifle, loaded the 30 round 8mm magazine, and stood.

3:44 AM. One minute left. Vogel donned his helmet and closed his eyes. He thought of his wife Lena back in Berlinstadt. She was so radiant and beautiful that he thanked the Fuhrer she was his due to his rank, and his alone. When he had left, he made her promise to look after his new Dutch breeding girls in the kennel while he was away. She smiled as she kissed him goodbye, the riding crop ready for the task. he loved her dearly.

At precisely 3:45 AM, Sturmkreiger Vogel bent his knees, and slammed the ridge of his hand against his chest, activating the pneumatics of his jump boots. With a snap outward with his bladed hand, he was airborne, soaring out of the rubble-strewn shell hole and sailing into the night. He loved and feared this moment more than anything else. His "Nacht" lenses made it easy to find a suitable window ledge to land on, some four stories up. When his jump boots landed, he allowed himself to smile behind his sinister mask. Not one particle of dust was displaced.

The building was, as were all in the sector, supposedly abandoned. Still, he crouched low as he brought his rifle up. He was in some sort of a hotel from the looks of things. Old paintings of long-dead Soviets lined the walls with molding imperial wallpaper. Lamps and skeletons littered the hallways, dark stains betraying their fates. Von Malkin clicked his tongue once to let him know he had landed behind him. Vogel clicked back and waited until he felt the gloved hand of his teammate on his shoulder.

Together, they swept the rooms as they made their way to up the stairs and to far side of the hotel. Days before, an infantry unit had lost their squad leader. It had not been a quick ****. The sniper had shot him through the liver so it was long and painful, picking off the medic with a precise headshot as he attempted to reach him. The decision was made to call his team in to clear the area. The other teams were by now sweeping the surrounding buildings.

Vogel stopped. Something was wrong. He glanced back to see Von Malkin had sensed it too. No tripwires, no booby traps. A sniper was here. His heart began to race. Vogel grinned wickedly. At distance, the famed Sniper Girls were utterly lethal. Here, in the close confines of a hotel, he held the advantage. His leather glove creaked slightly at the thought of taking another one. He loved the feeling of staring down at these "untouchable" beauties with his rifle commanding compliance. Among their comrades, they were revered.

He imagined what it would be like. He'd kick open the door and catch her looking down her scope; her ragged attire hiding an exquisite beauty beneath. Von Malkin would hold her face to the floor with his heavy boot as he would tear her rags asunder. He had brought his straight razor to shave her almost certainly unkempt nethers before he showed this Slavic bitch her proper place. In truth, the shaving a necessity as he had to be sure to find the proper hole. He wouldn't risk breeding with such swine.

No, they would fill her mouth and bowels with their seed instead, as they had so many times before. It had been too long since he held the shapely hips of a Slavic girl and felt her asshole fight and fight before he was finally inside.

Vogel scanned the floor until he saw what he was looking for. Footprints in the dust. It would be a good night, indeed.