Chapter 1: Blood dawn part 4

Seeing as the blog is alive again I'll start updating a bit as well. Perhaps I'll find something else to write about once in a while, but for now lets just continue with the story. Enjoy!

Vladimir was staring at the mirror. He had been standing there for over 15 minutes, without moving a muscle. Behind him there was the soft sound of water streaming. The mirror was completely misted up. But Vladimir didn't care about that. He always looked beyond the mirror, gazing into infinity. His breath and heartbeat were perfectly tuned. Slowly and rhythmic his lungs filled with a new load of oxygen, needed for his brain to order what he had just seen. His memory was trying to capture everything, but left and right fragments went missing. He wasn't going to loose anything. He focused again and harder this time, forcing his thoughts to recall everything. The big picture was growing in his mind. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by footsteps. Faster than any eye could see he grabbed a gun from under the sink, pulled open the door and pointed the gun at the face of whoever was standing behind it.
Marshall Edwards was surprised to see his boss out of bed already. He saw a look in his boss his eyes saying that he'd be death by now if his boss wanted too. Slowly Vladimir looked down until finally his eye fell on Edwards' left hand. In it there was a one shot pen pistol, aimed at his heart. After a short approving look in Edwards' direction he turned back into his bathroom. Edwards followed him in.
“Well the good news is that the apocalypse brigade is fully in order. It appears general Von Essen refused to have his tanks dismantled. The bad news is that it will take a least 2 weeks to reassemble one plasma artillery brigade.”
Vladimir now interrupted his high commander: “Are there any artillery brigades left?”
“Just one” was the reply.
“send it together with the apocalypse brigade to Danzig, under control of Von Essen of course. Also send a garrison with to secure the harbour area. Have our sub fleet prepare for transportation to any location of the earth. Order the militias in Copenhagen to be at full alert. If Denmark interferes with our plans they must be overthrown as quickly as possible. I do not want a small semi retarded Scandinavian country delaying our plans. As a matter of fact take full military control over Danzig and Copenhagen right now, and make sure that they are under martial law. Any questions?”
“With all respect, sir.” Edwards started “I don't think that the Polish government will allow ...”
Before he could finish the sentence Edwards found himself pinned against the wall with Vladimir holding him in a choke hold.
“Okay, here comes the clue train.” Vladimir hissed, “I AM the Polish government. And if I'm not the Polish government, then there is no Polish government. Understood?”
“loud and clear, sir!”
Edwards was released from his precarious situation. He rubbed his sore neck, still surprised of the immense strength and small man like his boss could have.
“Now do as I ordered you!” commanded Vladimir.
A short bow later Edwards was gone and Vladimir was alone with his thoughts again. This vivid conversation with his marshal however, had seriously disturbed his train of thoughts. Vladimir noticed he was slightly shaking and his heartbeat was out of control. He tried focusing on his breathing again to calm down. It didn't seem to be working now. To much was going through his head to calm down. After several fruitless minutes he decided that enough time was wasted already. He was a professional and he had work to do. He took a quick shower, just long enough to wash of the sweat of the past night. All freshened up he set out for the dining hall. To regain control of himself, Vladimir started to draw out plans for what needed to be done when they arrived in America.

When he arrived in the dining hall he saw the Edwards already passed by here, his breakfast was already ready. He took the tray with the exaggerated English breakfast and disappeared into the eating mass. After a while he found a place beside a young engineer. Vladimir sat down and switched the trays. The young engineer watched her grand master eat her humble breakfast with great disbelieve.
“Eat.” Vladimir said.
The young woman was even more confused now.
“I don't need all that fancy stuff,” Vladimir explained, “but I dare not tell the chef, he's very sensitive about this. He spends a lot of time making something special for me every day. If he'd knew I don't want it ... Well lets just say I'm not that mean.”
“This is good” the girl said while digging into the royal meal.
Vladimir informed about her name and what she did. He listened to tales of thermodynamics and theories of new powercouplings and their potentials. Even though he wasn't a highly schooled engineer, he got the gist of it. He also realised that this girl wasn't just another by-the-book employee. When he was finished eating he quickly wrote down her name.
“Well Marishka, I had a wonderful time.” said Vladimir, while standing up. “But I have to go now. I trust we will see each other again soon.”

Vladimir was now heading to the information centre. He was supposed to pick up his morning briefing there, but he also had something extra to do now. Under the way he refined his plans for in America. He always used short trips and walks like this to plot and plan. Without all the thinking he did while moving from one room to the other he probably would have never come this far. There was also not much else to do when walking around. The standard bare grey walls made it hard to appreciate them from an aesthetic point of view. Of course this place was never built for beauty, it was designed from a functional point of view. Efficiency was their primary goal and it seems they succeeded in this, but nothing more than that. In the I&C room Vladimir dropped a paper on the nearest desk, stating that he wanted her file. Then he picked up his laptop and the folder marked with 'morning briefing'. He took one last look at the room, but nobody spoke. Thus Vladimir turned around and left the room and traded it for the garage where his car was waiting to take him to his airport.

Everything at the airport was of course also properly organised. Only a few minutes after he arrived he was sitting in his private jet and a few minutes later the plane was well on it's way to the free skies. Once they were flying nice and stable, Vladimir decided it was time to get back to work. He first opened his morning briefing, just like last night there was not much unexpected information in it. The only thing that was concerning him was the oil supply. During the night three major and over a dozen minor depots had been attacked and burnt. If things continued like this their forces would probably run out of oil in one and a half week from now. Maybe they could take control of Baku and it's oil fields, but it might not be a good idea to wake a sleeping giant. Importing oil was simply impossible. They were on the verge of war with almost every oil exporting country in the world, they actually were on the verge of war with almost every country in the world. They had only one option now. First of all they needed to increase the security of all their oil fields and depots. Secondly they had to learn to use their oil more efficiently. This last thing would be a task for their new chief engineer. He now took out his laptop to take a quick look at Marishka's records. Vladimir was really pleased with what he saw in their, she was the best student of the year for many years during her education, her IQ was even higher than his own, and Vladimir was not a dumb person at all. The only thing she might lack was experience. She was young and has only been with them for 4 months (7 if you count the basic training). But she isn't going to get any experience by doing nothing, Vladimir thought. He permitted himself a faint smile as he remembered an ancient wisdom living under his men: “Promotions in this place are numerous and quick. But beware, for the highest rank is death.” But almost as fast as the smile came, it disappeared again. Vladimir turned back into his serious self and got back to work. He wrote a short memo for himself and then typed out an order for promotion and replacement. (needless to say, the one being replaced could at best serve as fertiliser afterwards.) He set the order to be sent at 1300h GMT +2, when he should also be receiving his next report. It was always best to limit the connection times. Their enemy wasn't dumb and it would be stupid to be tracked and killed because of this.
Vladimir's timing was perfect as always, as he put away his laptop the pilot announced that they would be landing in approximately 20 minutes from now. Their short journey to America was coming to an end, but soon a much longer and bigger journey would start. One that would change the world forever.