Chapter 12

I went through the door and found the standard Earth-type conference room. I sat down in one of the padded swivel chairs and leaned back. Almost immediately, the German came through the door. I stood up and extended my hand. "Good day, Sgt. Ferber. I am sorry that I don't speak German, so we will have to converse in English, which I am told you know fluently. I am Sgt. Haggerty, formerly of the United States Army."

"Good day, Sgt. Haggerty. I understand that you wish to interview me. I must say right now that you will only get my full name and pay-book number."

"That's OK. I am not after military information, anyway. I want to explain your current situation and to make you an offer I hope you won't refuse. Please sit down. Would you care for coffee? ... Excellent, Beth, please bring in our coffee ... Sgt. Ferber, I'd like for you to meet my wife, Beth. Beth, this is one of the Germans we met the other day."

After the greetings and a few moments of casual chit-chat, Beth left. When she left, Sgt. Ferber said, "My congratulations, Sgt. Haggerty. You have a beautiful wife, but I wonder why she is here in a war zone?"

"That's one of the things we have to talk about. Technically, this is not a war zone, but a laboratory testing facility. I had better give you a synopsis of how we got here and why.

"Three days after landing at Normandy, my squad and I were wiped out by a Panzer IV that caught us in one of those damned lanes in the hedge rows. When we woke up, we found ourselves here on the planet Augsen. We were offered the choice of taking part in a military exercise here or being returned to Earth where we would be dead within a second or two of arrival. Naturally, we chose to join our hosts.

"Our job turned out to be one of developing weapons for infantry to use against the monsters that you are very familiar with. So far, we have been very successful in our job, and you were on the receiving end of some of those weapons when we first met.

"We are developing those weapons to assist other beings in our galaxy to repel an invasion from the Andromeda galaxy. Why they are invading us and how they are getting here to do such a thing is something I don't know. Not because I have been refused the information, but simply because I never have got around to asking for it.

"The weapons we used against your people have been spread around the various planets under attack and have been quite successful in their application. We are still working on trying to develop even more useful weapons, and that is where you come in.

"I have been authorized by the ruling aliens to offer you and your people the same deal that they made for us. I'll give you a tour of our living quarters when we finish our talk. Basically, what we do is go out and fight the monsters. In doing so, we try to find ways to improve our weapons and to come up with new things that will give our allies a better chance in their fight against the invaders. We want you to join us simply because we don't want you to die unnecessarily, and we feel that more minds directed toward solving a problem would make it easier to find a good solution.

"That, in brief, is the situation you are facing. I realize that you don't have much of a choice: join us or die. But you can look upon it as a chance to help all of our Galaxy repel invaders. You will be helping Germany and all of the people of Earth by joining us. I'm going to give you a chance to explain the situation to your men, but I will want an answer within 24 hours. Look at it this way, my men and I had about 15 seconds to come up with a answer.

"Oh, before I forget, each one of us has a wife in residence, and the same would be supplied for you. Unfortunately, there is no way for you to bring in any previous wives or girlfriends, so you will have to start from scratch. In any case, I am sure that you people will have no problems finding a mate, considering how quickly we bonded with our women.

"Now, do you have any questions?"

"Ach, mein Gott! Oh, sorry. That is one hell of a proposition to offer to us just after we tried to kill you. I know my answer is to join you, since the alternative is hardly acceptable; however, I will explain the situation to my men and let each one decide. I really don't have any questions at this point, except to ask what will be done about the fact that some of my men do not speak English that well?"

"That will be no problem. I have been informed that the aliens have a device that can teach anyone to speak American English in only 10 minutes. I know that is amazing, but I have no reason to doubt them. Now, let's tour the living quarters."

I had Voice open a portal to the hotel and we joined the rest of my people. Hey, that's the first time I have thought of all of them in just that way! I introduced Ferber to everybody and then had Beth show him around. While he was gone, I told the other guys about the offer that had been tendered to the Germans. I asked if there were any objections, and every man said that he could go along with it, so that was where it stood while we waited for their answer.

The next day, we did not go out on a mission while we waited for the answer from the Germans. To a man, they made the sane decision and joined us after they had all five been through the teaching machine. Sgt. Ferber took the treatment, too, since he didn't want to be singled out as the only one of us without an American accent.

Once we got together, the new men were brought into the hotel dining room and were introduced to the rest of us. When that was done, five new women came in and chose a partner from the new men. All of the women were beautiful, just as were the original women we had met when we first showed up. All of the new women spoke English to their new husbands and were answered in English, so we were off to a great start.

The next item on the agenda was to get organized and to introduce the new men to their weapons. They all agreed that I was to be the platoon leader and Ferber would be a squad leader. Mason Bennett was appointed the leader of the other squad.

Five PIATs and five shotguns materialized on the table and were shown to the new men. Mason assigned one of his men to show the various features of the weapons to each of the new men. I asked Mason and Kurt to specialize in the shotgun, but to split up as evenly as possible the PIATs and the shotguns among the men. I assigned Sam Edwards to Kurt's squad to even up the manpower. Sam was agreeable, so there was no problem there.

It was getting close to supper time, so I asked Voice to start the music and to open the bar. Tonight, it was Tommy Dorsey, but I didn't hear any complaints about "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" from the former SSers. They were just as happy with their women as we were with ours, so things were going very well.