Dragon Hunters

Briefing

12 hours earlier.

"Welcome to Madagascar!" Lieutenant Erik Hartmann exclaimed. The whole troop sat on several wood benches arranged in neat rows. 17 men sat facing the Lieutenant as he paced back and forth in front of a large paper map pinned to a board. The map showed a wide area around southern Africa, extending all the way down to Antarctica where New Swabia was prominently highlighted.

"I know what you all are thinking right now, 'I want to try some of that tropical fruit on the funny looking trees over there,'" this got a laugh out of a few soldiers. "But you must stay focused on the more important question at hand. 'What are we doing all the way down here in Madagascar of all places when all the fighting is going on in Europe?'" Hartmann was a charismatic man, always keeping morale high and briefings interesting.

Someone piped up from the back row, "They must have finally decided to give us a well earned vacation."

"That would be nice, but sadly we are not on vacation. We are, however, not going to be doing any fighting for the next few months, so that's something." Hartmann turned his attention to the map and pointed at a seemingly random spot between South Africa and Antarctica. "Quiet down now so I can tell you the mission and maybe you can get some rest before takeoff."

The troop settled in, full attention now directed towards Hartmann. "The Schwabenland discovered a new island in the south Atlantic during the third German Antarctic Expedition a few years ago. Personally, I don't believe there's an island left in the world that the Tommies haven't found. I'll believe it when I see it, but that doesn't change our mission. Based on photos captured by the Schwabenland, Command believes this island could make a good air base to harass Allied shipping. Getting to the island and setting up the base, now that is one hell of a problem. Can't get there by ship or the whole Royal Navy would be on us. So they're sending in the specialists, the Fallschirmjägers. We're going to sneak onto the island by plane."

Hartmann pointed over at the huge plane sitting on the nearby airstrip, a Junkers Ju 290. A wingspan of 40 meters, length of 30, 4 engines, range of 6000 km, and a cargo capacity of 3000 kg, the thing was a monster. "We are going to be dropped onto the island by that shiny new plane right there. They had to rush it out of the factory to get it here in time, no other plane has the range. So wave goodbye to old Aunt Ju, she's not coming with us on this mission." Hartmann was referring to the troop's usual plane, the Junkers Ju 52.

"Our job once we're on the island," Hartmann continued, "is to find a good place to set up a temporary airfield so that the real engineers can be flown in. A load of supplies will be dropped along with us to make our job easier.

"There's a powerful radio in the supply crate. So when we finish the airstrip, we'll let command know they can send the next plane. I want to make this very clear, we only use the radio once the airstrip is complete. As soon as we send that message, the Tommies are going to be all over it trying to figure out where we are. Once the message is sent, it's up to command to get the airbase set up before our plans are figured out."

"The second plane will be carrying all of the engineers and loads of supplies. Once that second plane lands, our job is done and we get to go home. Lukas, Dieter, see me after for further instruction, you guys finally get to put those engineering degrees to good use. Any questions?"

"Do we have an escort?"

Hartmann shook his head, "no escort for this mission, higher chance of being spotted, and there aren't any fighters with the range anyway. We're going in alone. If worse comes to worst, we've got 8 machine guns on the plane for self defense. Any other questions?"

When no one spoke up, Hartmann clapped his hands, "Alright, we leave at 21:00. Get some rest, we've got an eight hour flight ahead of us. Dismissed."

Peter followed the lieutenant's advice on getting some shuteye, he was not looking forward to trying to sleep on the plane. There were still about three hours until takeoff, and Peter planned on spending every minute with his eyes closed.