Long Way from Home (Aussie & Jannah)

[The Australian]

Name: Konstantin Lindemann
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Appearance:


Rank (For me, obviously): Panzerobergrenadier (Basically, corporal)
Weapons (If any):
Kar98k(Four spare ammunition clips)
Bayonet (To go with the Kar98)
Model 24 Stielhandgranate

Biography:
Born in Leipzig to a Great War artillery officer and his wife, a baker, Konstantin was named after his father, and his father's father, and his father's father's father. He had three other siblings, two sister and a brother. His sisters were both older than he was, and his brother, Lothar, was born in 1936. His family lived in relative peace, and still stayed somewhat afloat during the Great Depression. They were never really a political family, with Hitler have a lukewarm reception with them. Konstantin was put into the Hitler Youth, in which he rather enjoyed, and enlisted in the Wehrmacht in '39.

He arrived a week into Fall Weiss, assigned to the 45th Infantry Division (Later reformed into the 45th Panzergrenader Division-Weltreich) where he fought with Polish forces to the end. Later, he was assigned to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. He served in the occupation force of France until Unternehmen Barbarossa where his division was reformed and sent towards Moscow. The friends he didn't lose to the Russians, he lost to the cold. Soon, all he had left was Reinhardt Streithorst, whom he had served with since basic training.

After they lost Moscow, and started on the gruelling retreat back, he had lost all hope in a German victory. Men in his platoon were quickly replaced by fresh-faced boys, and he became grim. However, when the elite elements of his company were handpicked for a 'Mission that will save the Reich' he just couldn't refuse.

And so, Konstantin Lindemann signed the book of history, and his name would be eternally sketched there.

In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.

20. Juli, 1944
1700

Panzerobergrenadier Konstantin Lindemann, of Leipzig, sat in an open-top Opel Blitz with men from his company. He knew all of these men personally. Erik, Oskar, Jakob, Heinz, Felix, Markus, Wolfgang, Claus, Reinhardt, and three other men who were obviously the commanders, but he did not know of. He sat at the very end, watching the truck's tires kick up dirt and pebbles behind them as the it sped towards an isolated harbour outside Königsberg. Next to him, sat Panzerobergrenadier Reinhardt Streithorst, his short brown hair peeking out of the Stalhelm. In front of him sat Unteroffizer Claus Amsel. Claus had been part of a suicidal charge against enemy positions at Moscow, and was promoted to Unteroffizer because of it, while Reinhardt and Konstantin were rather fine with their ranks.

Konstantin kept silent, while others talked, or prayed. He was never a religious man, and on the Eastern Front, he became even less so. Suddenly, a man, with the rank pips of Oberleutnant, stood up as the truck pulled into a compound along the coast, "Heraus!"

They grabbed their rifles and kit, rushing out to a lineup. However, the Oberleutnant had other ideas, "Nein! Get moving to the U-Boat!"

They marched out in a single-file to the modified U-Boat, U-871. Crewmembers were loading supplies on board, obviously for a long journey. They climbed up onto the bridge, where they was two machine guns, and lower, a Flak-38. Konstantin looked down off the bridge to the front of the U-Boat, where a Schnelladekanone sat, being loaded by crewmembers. He, impressed by the Kriegsmarine efficiency, climbed down and was greeted personally by the Captain, who wore a shiny Iron Cross.

"Herr Kaleun," Konstantin gave him a half-hearty salute, "When will we be departing?"

"In an hour, kameard." He replied, "For now, find your bunk and get some rest."

He climbed through a hole in the metal, and through another, reaching the sleeping quarters. He threw his kit up on the top bunk, and laid his rifle next to another man's. Reinhardt was on the top bunk across from him, sleeping rather peacefully. Konstantin opened a small cupboard, and stuffed his kit in there, and fell to the waiting arms of sleep.

21. Juli, 2144
0500

"Mein Gott..." The Captain muttered, staring out the periscope, "You're sure there isn't any signals?"

"Nein." The radioman said, "Nothing on the hydrophone. It's as if the entire Kriegsmarine is...gone."

"That's impossible! It should be 1940! There should be battleships lined up in Königsberg!" He pulled away from the periscope, "Surface us."

The sub surfaced as Konstantin, Reinhardt, and Claus shuffled in with their rifles. They had Feldmütze caps on, with their Stalhelms slung behind them. They were each carrying a backpack, filled with some supplies, just in case they had landed behind enemy lines. Men of the sub's crew ran up first, manning the flak, artillery piece, and machine guns, along with being observers. Two of them ran up with an inflatable raft, stuffing it up the way up and dropping it next to U-871. Finally, the three men could depart. They got into the raft, which required oars, and kept up a steady pace to the coast. After an hour of endless rowing, they reached the shores of East Prussia.

Or, what was East Prussia.

The place was a barren wasteland, with only dead trees remaining of what was once the glorious forests.

"What the hell.." Claus muttered to himself, "Where are we?"

No one could answer. It certainly wasn't the East Prussia they knew.

[Jannah]

Name: Maria Fedorova

Age: 24

Gender: Female

Appearance:

Weapons (If any): A pair of Makarov pistols and a knife.

Biography: Born underground in a high security bomb shelter outside Moscow, Maria saw little of the outside world until she was much older. She later cast off from her own underground community in search of a new start. She joined up with a group with similar goals and eventually started migrating west in search of new colonies.

Maria eventually became acquainted with what would become like her family for the new few years. They continued migrating and salvaging what they could from the wreckage of each old city. Upon witnessing the destruction for herself she learned that fighting wasn't a solution and only something to do as a last resort. Instead her and her companions became scavengers until she was forcibly abandoned due to disagreements on tactics. Somewhere in what used to be Poland Maria was left to fend for herself.

It had been days and still Maria hadn't found adequate shelter. It seemed everywhere she went there was either little supplies or was already heavily guarded by gangs. Gangs she wanted little to do with. They had been the ones to leave her for dead afterall. Besides, there was no way she could take them on alone. They were like a pack of dogs.

Maria wasn't entirely sure where she was but there appeared to be a coastline in the distance. Was it a lake? That very idea excited her as her water supply was starting to run low. Most bodies of water had been vaporized during the war so the few that remained were valuable. She knew that if this was indeed a lake that it would be heavily guarded.

Armed and in a crouching position, Maria waited for her chance to approach. A few seconds passed and everything seemed clear, but then something in the distance caught her eye. There was some kind of machinery in the water and men. Men wearing uniforms of a kind she did not recognize. Who are they? Did I go further west than I intended? Maria had so many thoughts running through her head about the various possibilities until she heard them speak. Their language seemed to be incomprehensible too.

Upon closer examination the men seemed to be just as lost and confused as Maria was. Something was seriously wrong, but she was still wary to approach them. For now she would just have to continue examining from a distance. At least one thing was clear. Germans. The men were Germans. Maria knew this upon recognition of a few words from her time in the bunker. One of her closest companions had been from what used to be Germany. Of course that is what he was told. Everything was so indistinguishable these days so little things like that mattered not.

Finally deciding that the men were harmless Maria began approaching the water. It would be a stop on her journey to stock up on water anyway...except that it was saltwater. Ocean. Now Maria became confused again. Where exactly was she? The Baltic coast or something? Of course that was an educated guess based on old maps as there was no way of knowing for sure. It would be foolish to ask these men anything and instead she would just stand at this coastline waiting for them to shoot her dead.

[The Australian]

"Verdammt!" Konstantin shouted, "Not only have we wasted our resources to construct that blasted machine, but they've transported us to the wrong time! Was zur Hölle!?!"

"Calm down!" Reinhardt replied in the same shouting manner, "We will get nothing done this way! Obviously, something has gone wrong with the device. It's either transported us back far longer than it was intended, or, it has taken us into the future."

"The future?" Claus finally joined in after pulling the boat up onto the sand, "There is no Reich! Hell, there are no people! What could have possibly caused this...this...mass destruction? We should be in the middle of a base right now. Or at the very least, we should have run into some sort of Kriegsmarine ship, or any ship. Fisherman or something. What about planes!?! There aren't any planes in the sky!"

Konstantin walked over and sat on a rock, "I bet that infernal contraption isn't working. We'll never get back..." He threw a small stone on the ground.

"Hey, look on the bright side." Reinhardt gleamed, "I think, if the machine is broken, then the Weltkrieg is over for us."

A smile came across Konstantin's worn face. He stood up and look a look around. There were hills, and some dead-looking bushes, and the hills were covered with trees long dead. But, his eyes, trained to find the Bolshevik scum that laid in wait, saw a woman, crouching rather amateurishly. He raised his Kar98 to her, aiming it at her head.

"Achtung!" He shouted, but didn't fire. Reinhardt and Claus raised their rifles as well, but didn't fire. Konstantin took the woman's lack of return-fire as a good sign, "Heraustreten!"

[Jannah]

Maria looked up at the man in surprise. She wasn't dead? She was almost positive these men would shoot her dead as soon as they raised their weapons. All they did was continue shouting in German. They were angry, very angry. "Uh...privet?" Maria was doubtful these men would even understand the Russian greeting, but she wasn't sure what other way to communicate. English perhaps? Apparently everybody had spoken English before the war. "Sorry, hello. Are you lost?"

While waiting for a response Maria began to examine the strange contraptions of these men. They seemed so unusual compared to anything she had ever seen. They almost seemed like something out of the past, way in the past. It had to have been much before her time. "That's an interesting contraption you have there, like something out of the past I'm sure." Maria really hoped the men wouldn't think she was now mocking them now. She was genuinely curious about it. Did it just wash up on the coast or something?

[The Australian]

"Was ist los?" Claus asked, training his StG-44 on her, "Is she speaking Russian? English? What is with this time? Does she even speak German?"

"Fräulein," Konstantin shouted up, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

They looked at each other in curiosity. She was speaking English, all-right, but why? She had a Russian accent, that was clear enough. Did the British Lion overrun the Bolsheviks? The questions lingered inside each of the men's minds.

[Jannah]

Most of what this man said was incomprehensible but Maria at least caught one bit of it. "Do you speak German?" "No. I do not." she responded in English. It came pretty natural to her, due to the limited education within the underground community. The founders of the community had assumed they would be in there for generations so had set up an entire society. Of course most had moved to the surface within one generation, but some people still preferred their lives underground.

"What? Never heard a Russian speak English before?" Maria suspected the puzzled expressions on the mens' faces came from her speaking in English. These men were definitely from another world entirely. Sometime in the early 21st century English had been widespread in every corner of the world, that much was clear yet these men didn't seem to know. Why?

[The Australian]

"Step back, Bolshevik!" Konstantin shouted, taking a step forward and training his rifle once more, "Is this some kind of trap? Where's your shock troops? Where's the T-34s? Where is the partisans with the submachine guns that are suppose to rip us apart?!?"

He got more confused as she spoke more English, "How do you know English?"

[Jannah]

Maria froze in her tracks as the man's weapon stuck into her face. He seemed to be panicking about something, as if he was supposed to be attacked. Attacked by what or whom? There was so many puzzling things about these men from another world. It was almost intriguing yet she knew it was a good idea to be cautious.

Bolshevik? Maria's suspicions had been confirmed. These men really were from somewhere else. "Bolsheviks...The Soviet Union? It hasn't existed for over a century." She quickly recalled some of the stuff she had been taught about the old world and relayed it back to the man with the rifle. Of course she left out the part that it had been the Soviet Union that developed nuclear technology in the first place along with America. That had been the start of a long dangerous path down the road of destruction.

This man seemed to have distrust of "Bolsheviks" and of English so again Maria became suspicious. "English became universal sometime in the 21st century. Now it's spoken among the few remaining colonies of humans, colonies that were founded by survivors where everybody may not necessarily be of the same background. I'm surprised you don't know this, but at least it confirms some of my suspicions." Maria prepared for the worst and put her hands over her weapons. She still wasn't sure whether to trust this man.

[The Australian]

Konstantin was still struggling to understand her. It was clear she was speaking English, but he had never picked up on it, and neither had the rest of them. He nodded as she said Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union. She made a gesture suggesting that it was no more, with her shaking her head after saying the Soviet Union, "Don't be an idiot! The Soviet Union are fighting our troops at Narva and all along the Ostfront! They've just taken Minsk! You should know, as you are obviously a Bolshevik partisan!"

Then, he heard 21st century. They all turned to each other in disbelief, "Was ist los..." Claus reiterated from just a minute or two ago, "We obviously aren't in 1940."

"Or 1944." Reinhardt added, keeping his rifle trained on the woman, "Ask her what year it is?"

Konstantin turned back to the young woman, "Welches Jahr haben wir?"

[Jannah]

Much of the man's words were incomprehensible but Maria suspected he knew something was seriously wrong at her mention of the Soviet Union no longer existing. It had collapsed years ago, but so did every other country as they went up in flames. That was something this man seemed to not be aware of.

The idea that these men may be from another time finally occurred to Maria when she heard the one word she could distinguish. Year. They seem to not even know which year they were in either. Did that mean time travel was possible? Would people in the present be able to travel back and fix the past? It's a thought that quickly occurred to Maria despite just being more of a fantasy. Of course everybody longed to live in a better world. "2144. The year is 2144."