Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(15)
James wasn’t sure if he should shoot this guy or not. If he were a true SS officer, that might be the right thing to do. However, he wasn’t sure if the guard was supposed to survive the war. While most time lines self-healed, it was better not to take chances. He did the next best thing.
With one hand, he knocked the flask out of the guard’s hand. With the other, he powered the exo just a tad and threw a right cross at the soldier’s chin. It was just hard enough to knock him unconscious without breaking his jaw, though this wasn’t an exact science. The soldier’s knees went noodly and he collapsed into a heap.
James looked at the other two guards. “Anyone else want to speak ill of the Führer?” Both of them shook their heads and stood at attention. “Good,” said James. “Where are they? Take me to the panels before this place burns down around us!” His words were accentuated by another explosion.
“James, hurry up. We don’t have data on when the castle burns down but we do know both the Allies and Soviets stop their offensive at roughly seventeen hundred hours, which is twenty minutes from now. Get a move on.”
One of the guards gestured down the hallway. “It’s in the north wing, first floor, northwest corner. I will take you there.”
The other hesitated. “Can I see your papers, sir?” he said.
Another explosion, this time closer, rocked the castle. In the distance, he heard dozens of windows shatter.
James pushed past the man demanding the papers. “Lead on.”
He was three steps past the guard when he heard the click of the MP40. “Halt!” the guard barked. James wouldn’t be able to talk his way through this. He turned around slowly and stared the guard down, ignoring the gun pointed at his chest. “Your papers, sir,” the guard said with a harder edge to his voice as he aimed his gun at James’s chest. To James’s left, the other guard took a step backward, looking unsure.
“He wants to see my papers,” James thought.
“Well, we don’t have any. Try not to kill them.”
The exo sprang to life, creating a hardened kinetic shell around James’s body. To the guards, it would look like his body suddenly shimmered and took on a translucent blocky yellow shape. He sped forward before the guard could pull the trigger, slipped past the barrel and gripped the man’s wrist. He squeezed until he heard bone crack. Then he swung left, tossing the screaming Nazi like a rag doll at the remaining guard, who was still frozen in shock. The two collided, the impact slamming them against the wall. James walked up to them and checked their vitals. The one with the broken wrist was unconscious. The other was groaning softly. A downward punch to the temple silenced him.
James looked up just in time to see the east wing of the castle explode in a plume of smoke. The window shattered into his face and the shock wave knocked him off his feet. He quickly picked himself up and took off running, speeding through the hallways past panicked groups of huddled soldiers and civilians. He paid them no attention. In a matter of minutes, this castle was going to burn to the ground.
He burst into the Amber Room and startled three plain-dressed workers dismantling the gold and amber panels on the walls. The room was covered in a layer of dust, but James could see the beauty underneath the grime. The workers were less than halfway done taking the room apart. In the center were two crates filled with large blocks of panels.
They withered under his gaze as he pointed at the door and barked, “The three of you. Out. Now!”
The three civilians weren’t about to argue with an SS officer and scampered out of the room. He closed the door behind them and activated several coils, kinetically tearing the panels out one by one and floating them into a neat bunch. When he had six floating, he stacked them and activated his netherstore container, expanding the ring until it was large enough for all six panels to slide through.
His power levels dipped. Netherstore containers used a tremendous amount of energy, and his power levels were already down from absorbing the impact of the airdrop. In the distance, more explosions rocked the castle; debris and dust showered from the ceiling. He could hear panicked soldiers running down the hallway on the other side of the door, shouting, “Fire!” K?nigsberg Castle groaned and his atmos blipped, indicating environmental dangers from the increased heat.
James kept working, slicing and ripping a dozen of the amber panels at once, floating them into neat stacks, and moving them into his netherstore. He moved as quickly as he safely could, but it was a slow process; several of the panels were very delicate. While not a surgeon or a craftsman, he had plenty of experience dealing with Titan generators, which were infinitely more delicate than these indulgent trinkets.
He was almost done when the door burst open and a scared Nazi ran in. The soldier, barely old enough to shave, gaped at the nine panels floating in the air above his head. Then his eyes moved down to the figure at the center of the strange scene. James’s exo made the air near his skin shimmer with a yellow hue. He walked toward the boy, his energy still focused on hovering the panels.
The young Nazi’s voice broke as he raised his rifle. “It’s the work of the devil.”
James lashed out with a kinetic swing and knocked the rifle out of the soldier’s hands. When he reached the boy, he grabbed him by the collar and, with exo-enhanced strength, threw him across the room. The boy hit the wall awkwardly and collapsed to the ground with a bone protruding out of his leg. He howled and tried to crawl away.