Objekt 7

January 6th I think I may be protecting a war crime in the making and if I’m right I can’t keep quiet about it.

Granted, if I’m right I very likely will get into very hot water for posting this but I took some precautions so I should be safe for at least the immediate future. I am a member of my country's army. If you want to be dramatic you could say it’s Spec Ops or something like that but the official name is Garde, roughly translating to guard.

Me and my battalion, the 6th Garde are currently stationed at a military base in a very rural part of the country. The base, Kaserne Niederfelde, was constructed sometime in the late 1800s and has served as a training camp since the 1920s. But recently, I’m talking the last ten years or so, it has been reserved for the 6th Guard as a permanent station, officially for specialized training. Well, we do train a lot, but I don’t think that's why we’re here.

You see, actual guard duty, as in standing in a field and watching for the occasional car that may pass the road near the camp every two days or so, is usually passed down to the new guys. So my group is usually assigned the night shift. No fun business, standing in the pitch dark, cold and miserable for six hours straight every second night.

Since we are at the base for two months now and completed the first-stage training, we got assigned to Objekt 7 four nights ago. I had my first shift there two nights ago. Seems like nothing special right? That’s what me and Erik, my partner for the shift thought as well when we received our orders. The only weird thing was, there was no Objekt 7 on the base.

You see, since the complex was built in the times of the emperor and they wanted to sound fancy or whatever, the utility building on base are labeled Objekt 1 through 6 and 8. So we knew there should be a 7, but we assumed it was deconstructed or something. Turns out, 7 is a victorian-looking brick factory hall around twelve kilometers south of base proper in the middle of an empty field.

So imagine this: Erik, me and four guys who we didn’t really knew in a truck drive up to this building in the middle of nowhere at 2200 in the dark of night. Three-chimney old-timey building with windows sealed with concrete and an ominous brass label saying “Objekt 7” over the entrance gate. At closer inspection, you could even see an imprint of a swastika above the label, I guess one was mounted up there during the 1940s.

So we were told to patrol the perimeter, report everything unusual and to NOT enter the building, no matter what. Fair enough, maybe some top-secret James-Bond-bullshit is going on in there. So Erik and I started or rounds, passing the other four guys, who were also patrolling in pairs, every ten minutes or so. Nothing special happened on our first night there, just some chitchat to pass the time. At 0400 in the morning, we were picked up by a truck which delivered our relieve. Had a good night, or rather morning rest after a job well done.

The weird thing happened during tonight's shift. Like two days prior, Erik and I got the Objekt 7 night shift. Arrival and patrol were unremarkable, but around 2330 or so, an alarm sounded: “Warning; Leakage. Gas Hazard”. We scrambled to put on our gas masks, got it done in maybe 15 seconds. I looked around for the other guys while Erik radioed the command post for orders. Unsurprisingly, I didn't spot the others, they were probably on another side of the building, we were ordered to resume or patrol and to keep the masks on. So we did.

Until, a few minutes later, the chimneys started an unimaginable racket. You know the sound of a fire in a fireplace? The whooshing and cracking? Imagine that but with the volume of a jet engine on your shoulder. While we were busy shitting our pants, one of the other teams radioed us to get down so we hit the deck. Anticipating an explosion or something we lay there for maybe a minute. Then the alarm sounded again, this time saying: “Ventilation Complete. Resume Operation”. Erik and I looked at each other and discussed if we should get up and walk again. We did eventually, I mean, orders are orders, even when they come from a speaker on a creepy building, right?

The rest of the night went smoothly, although we didn’t take our masks off until the relief arrived, on time at 0400. One of the other guys, I think his name was Pascal, not sure though, told us to just forget about the chimneys, it tends to happen. A little bit concerning, considering it merits gas masks as standard equipment for the patrols, but what do I know?

Once we got back to the barracks we told the rest of our group, but since Objekt 7 was the talk of the new guys anyway, nobody believed our little ghost story. But one of the guys on shift after us, a nice fellow named Nikolas told us the grass around the building was all gray and dead during his shift. We are unsure if it was like that before, but if it wasn’t, good thing we got our mask on as fast as we did.

The one thing that's really disconcerting is that the unit attached to the 6th Garde is called the Sonderkommando Alternative Bewaffung (= special group alternative weaponry), but we have never seen one of these guys. They are supposed to be on base with us so we speculate they are the ones in Objekt 7. And with a name like alternative weaponry, in my opinion, that sounds a lot like chemical weapon development. I really hope I’m overreacting or misunderstanding and I can’t just go up to one of the guys in charge and ask, “Are we violating the Geneva Convention here?”, right? Well, Erik and I are assigned to 7-night again the day after tomorrow and a supply delivery for the SAB is scheduled to arrive this evening.

Depending on what will happen, I will update you guys on it.

January 6th (Evening) As scheduled, the SAB-supplies arrived about three hours earlier. So three groups, meaning thirty men were mobilized to unload and deliver the supplies to Objekt 7. Two of the three groups were newbies, meaning Erik, Nikolas and I were at it as well. So we rolled out as a convoy of five trucks and four Ulans.

An Ulan, for those who don’t know, so everyone I guess, are APCs. They can carry eight men, twelve if you cuddle, and are armed with a nasty 30mm autocannon. Not necessarily a tank, not really, but still, heavy machinery. Heavy indeed, considering we are currently just glorified Amazon.

Well, we boarded the Ulans and drove to Gerberbach, the nearest village with a train station. The drive was an uneventful half hour. Once arrived, we unloaded forty-odd crates from a freight train into the trucks. I can’t list you the whole cargo, but some crates were labeled, here are the few I remember:

-Hydrocarbons (from what I remember that means oil and stuff, but the crate didn’t slosh around, maybe plastic?) -Sulfur oxide -Sulfuric acid (that one did slosh) -Sulfuric salts (is that a real thing, I don’t know jackshit about chemistry beyond don’t touch it if it’s called acid) -Fluor -Xenon -Random Supplies, mostly rations -One mystery chest labeled ᚲᛟᛗᛈ - ᚨᛋ

Before writing this “report” I researched these symbols; they are runes translating to “KOMP - AS”, so component AS I guess? Anyway, after packing the crates onto the trucks and reboarding the Ulans we drove down to Objekt 7, so half an hour to base and an additional fifteen minutes to O7.

Once we arrived I noticed two things; First, the grass was ok, but judging by his confused look, Nicolas didn’t lie when he told me everything was dead. Another mark on the suspicious-board I guess. Second, the gate to O7 was open. I don’t know what I expected, but I was kinda disappointed. The hall was empty, but on the floor, I could make out four platforms, elevators I guess. And a control panel by the entrance.

While we left the Ulans and shook out the stiffness from riding the bumpy road to O7 in a practically springless vehicle, the trucks drove into the hall. Once inside, we were to unload the crates again and so we did. We finished and drove home, nothing worth reporting there. But what I did notice was a strange smell in the hall; a mix of sulfur, fire and metal. Forgive my melodrama but it smelled like you would imagine hell to smell.

So now I’m pretty sure the SAB does some kind of chemical processing, but weapons? I hope not. If any of you can guess what these ingredients could be used for, tell me, please. If they just make new paint for our camo I would be overjoyed. As if it would be this harmless.

Back at base, the barrack gossip had new fuel so plenty of theorizing was happening, and still is, for that matter. Chemical weapons even came up in the discussion, but nobody took the notion seriously. Well, I need to head off, we have gunnery practice in a few minutes, and I wouldn’t want to miss that even if I wouldn’t get punished for going AWOL. I will update once something report-worthy happens.

January 7th Holy shit, there was an explosion at O7! Happened around noon, when I was on a training march (fuck Lt. I-need-to-fuck-over-my-men Renner). Keep in mind, from O7 to base it’s twelve kilometers, with a little forest between them, and we were two or three kilometers north of base, but we still saw the fireball.

I can’t say how high it was, but surely a three-digit number. We heard the sound too, a deep rumble, lasting a full two seconds, just thunder. Base dispatched two trucks with medics and an emergency-response-team (fully armed for whatever reason) and they even sent two of the Ulans.

They were back shortly before we returned from our march, and delivered six injured, the patrol crews. Since they didn’t bring any SAB-men I guess the explosion came through the chimneys and didn’t damage the underground part of O7, or they have their own separate medical station and quarantine themselves for security reasons. The damage didn’t seem to be excessive since we didn’t send any reinforcements or aid whatsoever, so situation under control? Yay?

There was a little briefing on the explosion, held by Major Köppl, the big boss of Niederfelde. Well, at least the official boss of the official part. He’s an older man, around fifty, and looks like a fit version of Santa Claus. Gives off some nice grandfatherly vibe, always nice and only treats his men like shit when he has to. Some of the guys even call him Gramps and I don’t think he would dislike that. As I said, nice guy.

The briefing didn’t tell us jackshit, it could be summarized with “a chimney going boom is a problem, but not yours, so don’t ask about it”. Well, in hindsight, that sounds very passive-aggressive. I think it’s better summarized with “you have to need to worry about enough things as is, let the pros take care of that one”. Yeah, that sounds better.

Bad news is, Nicolas was on O7-duty during the explosion, so he got hit. He’s currently unconscious in the med bay, heavy detonation trauma (I think that's the translation anyway). Doc expects him to wake up within twenty-four hours and he doesn’t expect lasting damage, except maybe hearing damage. They were lucky they were under the explosion, and not caught up in it. I guess that confirms the chimney-explosion-theory.

I really wonder what SAB is doing down there. Maybe developing a new gun propellant? New explosives? New kinds of fuel? Would explain the explosion, the secrecy, the chemicals, all that. And it would mean we abide by the Geneva Convention. I hope that’s it. I really do.

I just thought about the explosion some more. The chimneys are still standing, the medics saw them. But that's a problem. How can an explosion strong enough to knock out six guys, some even 200 meters away from the effective epicenter, not leave behind any traces. Again, according to the medics, everything looked normal. Not even the snow on the grass was disturbed. Just some dudes lying in the grass unconscious.

Wish me luck for tonight's shift, I fear I will need it.

January 8th So yesterday’s/today's 7-night was, well, interesting. Like the two previous times, Erik and I arrived at 2200, relieved the previous group and started our rounds. What I neglected to tell you in the first part, we aren’t walking circles for six hours straight.

Since we are three pairs and the building is relatively narrow and long, you only need two lookout positions to view just about everything. So, usually, two pairs are walking at any time in opposite directions and one pair is at the gate and takes a break. Sitting on a bench with a little roof that’s near the entrance, eating our drinking your ration, taking a piss, stuff like that.

These brakes take around ten minutes and then you do two rounds and twenty minutes later you have a break again. Fairly simple, not too bad, just cold as fuck, especially during the winter. So Erik and I were taking a break, I guess it was around one or two in the morning when a little door embedded into the gate opened and one of the SAB-guys came out.

It was my first time seeing one of them, ever. The guy was in uniform, boots trousers and jacket just like us, but with a different patch. His looked like a watchtower with wings in the background, while the patch of the 6th Garde looks like two crossed swords with three bullets in the background. I know, both designs are cheesy, but I didn’t design them and ours is pretty much the norm, while the SABs was, well, odd.

A watchtower is just an odd motive for an army patch and wings, especially eagle-looking wings like the ones on the patch are frowned upon since some certain fellow with a nice beard was around. Patch aside, he also wore a long coat, not the kind of combat coat we were wearing, but a more laboratory-ish looking one. It wasn’t white, but a bright grey instead of the usual drab green tones for regular uniforms.

But the weirdest thing about the guy's loadout was the heavy-duty gas mask he had clipped onto his belt. Not the regular masks, like ours, but one with integrated headset, flashlight, and quick-swap filters. I guess they have to wear those a lot of the time, considering he just carries around such a high-end mask like it’s nothing special.

Seeing a pistol on his hip wasn’t surprising considering O7s high-security nature. But it was the .50cal pistol, Grizzly I think it’s called, and not the standard Glock. That was, say it with me now, weird.

So this guy just pops out of O7 in the middle of the night, greets us with a little nod and takes out a smoke. Fair enough, in a bunker smoking is prohibited, double so if they store ammo and I guess triple so if they experiment on said ammo and had an explosion earlier that day. Or yesterday I guess.

So there he was and I decided to seize the opportunity to learn at least something about O7. Being the conversational genius I am, I tried to start a conversation with “Cold night, huh?”. He just turned his head at me nodded, and kept quiet. I wouldn’t give up this easily. “Everything ok after the accident today?” And again, turn of the head, nod, that was it. Being at the ends of my wits, I looked at Erik who asked, if something like the explosion could happen again. And again, turn of the head, nod, acknowledging the possibility of our immediate demise and nothing.

Out of options, I tried a more direct approach: “What the hell are you doing down there anyway?”. He turned his head and seemingly wanting to answer my question with yet another nod, but surprisingly, after a short pause, he gave an answer. “Probing ET, building a nuke, creating zombies, whatever you like. Listen here, if you ever learn something you were not supposed to learn you will get in trouble. Big time. Maybe you will even end here. So don’t ask questions you don’t want an answer for.”

And with that, he took a last drag on the cigarette, threw it against the wall and went back inside. I think I heard him say “good night fellas” on the way inside, but I may have imagined that. We sat there stunned until one patrol pair showed up and we had to do our rounds again. I don’t think we said one word the entire remaining night.

Back at base our comrades, well, the ones who were awake at 0420 (insert stupid weed joke here), asked us about the newest happenings at O7, a tradition that had developed over the last week and was empathized by the (maybe literal) bombshell of gossip sparked by the explosion yesterday. Erik and I seemed to nonverbally agree to withhold our meeting with mysterious mister SAB, since our last O7-story was apparently just a ghost story anyway.

You may call me salty for no telling them because they didn’t believe me, but well, maybe I am. So what if I am. Our nice chat with mister SAB had assured me that I have to be careful with telling what to whom. Well, on second thought, I knew that before that already. Tomorrow is my free day and I plan on researching this place. Maybe I’ll learn something about it. Judging by the architecture it must have at least a hundred years of history, somewhere something useful must have fallen through the cracks of security. I doubt I will find an immediate answer to all my questions but here’s hoping.

Oh and if I’m already talking about cracks (no, this is not a setup for a butt joke), I noticed a little crack in the gate of O7. Today it was empty, I guess our delivery was hauled down, but maybe it isn’t always like that. If I can manage to sneak a peek during the patrol breaks, maybe I’ll see something interesting.

Next update will hopefully be about Nikolas waking up and telling us about the explosion. Until then, your friendly neighborhood information leak signs off.

January 9th Hi, your friendly neighborhood information leak is at it again, publishing government secrets and possibly earning himself a court-martialing. Jokes aside, today is/was my free day, and I used it on researching Niederfelde. I’ve compiled some interesting data, so here’s the rundown.

Kaserne Niederfelde was erected between 1895 and ‘97. It was built as an artillery school, housing and training three battalions at once. From it’s opening in early ‘98 until it shut down in late 1916 it trained 50 artillery battalions, roughly a third of the regular artillery troops deployed in WWI (note: battalion does not mean division). Therefore some nice sums were invested into it, expanding the originally only five utility buildings (Objekt 1-5 are; Kitchen, Medical Station, Garage, Power & Radio Plant, Office & Instruction Room Block). Added in 1906 were: O6 - Additional Storage Building, O7- //blank//, O8 - Gun Workshop (for the artillery guns).

That’s right, even in the original construction plans O7 does not have an expressed purpose and in the plans itself it’s only mentioned as “20x140 meters workshop hall at point Niederfelde-7”. Not even blueprints for the damn thing. I guess the underground part, however it may look was there since the beginning. An empty hall in the middle of nowhere serves no purpose after all. The six barracks were there from the beginning but got modernized from 1905-’08.

I couldn’t find any delivery papers for pretty much anything that wasn’t accounted for by the regular buildings, so judging by the documents I could find, O7 has no interior equipment. Probably was a black site fro the very start. The only question is; was it always a lab?

Well, speculation doesn’t take us anywhere. Fast forward through the latter half of WWI and then some. Niederfelde was unused until late 1939 when the Wehrmacht took possession of it. Renovation and retrofits were accomplished until February ‘40 (that's where the nice memento over O7s gate comes from).

Officially Niederfelde was used to train AA crews and later assisted in jet engine research but, again, I couldn’t find any definite info regarding O7. I guess it could have been used for the jet stuff, but I don’t think so. Just a gut feeling tho. Immediately after the war, Niederfelde was stripped by the Soviets, leaving nothing remotely valuable behind. Except: they didn’t touch O7. I doubt they didn’t find it or couldn’t enter O7 proper (whatever that may be), and private letters suggest they were ordered to turn a blind eye south.

Niederfelde lay dormant a second time, until mid-1976 this time. The Bundesheer brought it up to tech and opened it in 1980, this time as a general purpose training facility. Over the years it housed AA, Artillery, Infantry, Tanks, APCs, Mechanized Infantry, pretty much anything we have. Until it was permanently assigned to the 6th Garde. Or rather we were assigned to Niederfelde.

Despite its opening in 1980, the volume of supplies delivered indicates O7 going back online as early as winter of 1977, and as par for the course, no documents, orders, anything suggesting the purpose of O7. In fact, the first delivery openly labeled as “Supply - Objekt 7” only was processed in 1991. The first delivery coming only six days after the collapse of the USSR may be a coincidence, but my gut tells me no. Sadly, I can’t grasp the connection. Maybe some security concerns, but that only works if you squint at it really hard.

That’s the history of Niederfelde, at least the official part. Unofficially there is a lot more to the complex. During its construction, a whopping twenty-one workers vanished, another eleven were killed, under very dubious circumstances I may add. In its artillery school-days, it stood out due to its high accident rate. Nothing lethal, the only two casualties were from a faulty shell, but a lot of shells were lost on the training grounds. And I mean a LOT of shells. Estimates on the supply documents range from two to three and a half thousand shells of various type and caliber.

In the WWII-timeframe, Niederfelde was bombed a total of zero times, highly uncharacteristic for its obviously military nature and complete lack of camouflage. It also wasn’t taken by force in the end, the Russians sieged it for a few days and after the promised help for the Germans didn’t come, the just went home. And the Russians let them, even giving them coats and rations. They even let them keep their weapons. Again, they were following orders from very high up, possibly even from Papa Stalin himself.

An additional, very unsettling WWII-time fact; Niederfelde received eighty prisoners, both political and POWs for “processing”. Since it doesn’t seem like they were released and the Russians didn’t see them in ‘45, well… you know history.

In the current “operational period” for the lack of a better term I could find anything interesting. Probably very highly secured and suppressed intel. The only, and I mean the only thing besides the supply deliveries, which by the way are never described at all, that ever entered O7 that we know of is a pack of around twenty wolves in 1981. Wolves + sulfuric bullshit = success? Is the delivery we handled three days ago even connected to the wolves from ‘81. Maybe. Maybe not. Officially we just brought rations and blankets.

I hoped I could learn something from this excursion into the past, but I’m just confused. I have less of an idea what the SAB is working on now than before I researched this stuff. And to top it off it seems O7 was well known and important enough to the Allies and the USSR that they spared it from essentially everything. I may sound like a conspiracy theorist here but was the work conducted here done in cooperation with wartime enemies? Was or maybe even is this a top-secret international project? Is this the real Area 51? Ok, the last one may be en exaggeration. But then again, it may not be. How should I know?

Any ideas o wise internet? I’m grasping at straws here.

Oh and if you did wonder how I could dig this much up in one day, I couldn’t. I practically enlisted two of my non-military friends for research back on Friday morning. I didn’t mention them out of security concerns but since I’m writing a good while now and I haven’t been reprimanded yet I guess I’m stealthy enough. Hope it stays that way.

January 10th Well anyway, as much fun yesterdays research session was, this nights O7 duty was very, well, interesting. The short of it is, we shot a ghost I guess. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, 7-night again. Arrived at 2200, started patrolling, nothing new. Until we spotted a figure in the distance. I don’t know if it was Erik or me who pointed it out first, doesn’t matter anyway. What we saw was only a vaguely human shape around 300 meters into the dark. To be honest, I originally thought it was a scarecrow or something. We are in the middle of a field after all.

So we radioed the figure in and were advised to monitor it. If it was to approach us we were autorized for lethal fire. So we unslung our rifles from our backs and got into this weird half-aiming stance, where you are not really pointing your gun at your target but you still aim down the length of the rifle's top. I don’t think you know what I mean but I can’t describe it better.

Anyway, we looked at the figure and, presuambly, it looked at us. One of the other teams, I guess they were on break when we radioed, stopped by us. “Ah, I see it. Movement?” “Not as of now.” With that short exchange, we welcomed or comrades and continued our staring contest.

Maybe a minute later one of the older guys said: “Alright, let’s get to work chaps”. And with that, we shouted to piss off and fired a warning shot. A bit extreme, but he was assigned here longer so he must know. After another minute of no reaction of the mystery man, he shot the figure. He just up and shot the guy. This time he hit. We could even see him topple over. Looking at him dumbstruck he answered, “Well, we warned ‘im”.

With that, the matter of casually murdering someone was settled and the four of us advanced to where the body should be. “Swarm out and find the asshat. Hopefully, it was just a civilian.” What the fuck could be worse than shooting your own people for just standing in a field that they probably even own?

So here we were, four dudes, searching a blank, snowy field with just our flashlights, the lights on O7 didn’t reach that far. Even after looking for what felt like five years, we still hadn’t found the body. One of the guys radioed what I presume to be some SAB-control station. “Perimeter patrol to O7. I think we got a shadow here. Requesting verification. Copy?”

”O7, we copy. Shadow you say? One second, we’ll send someone.” With that, we waited another two minutes, until our mysterious mister SAB himself joined us, with his probably signature cigarette in his mouth. We greeted him with a nod and he answered equally. After a short look around he asked, “Shadow, huh? You sure?” “As sure as you can be with the damn things.” Another short nod and he drew something looking like a Geiger counter. After a little round around the rough area we were occupying, he said all was clear and we were to resume our rounds. And with that, he was off, back into the building again.

Us four guys also made our way back, with one of the older guys telling us to have our break now, they would take over now. Well, sitting on a bench in the cold night beats wandering around in the cold night.

Erik and I used our break to discuss this “Shadow”-thingy, and if we should tell our barrack mates. We settled on no, since we were now entering actual ghost story territory. If they didn’t believe us before, they sure as hell ain’t gonna believe us now.

“But still, what was that thing?” “I think we can rule out civ. The most logical answer would be espionage? Something like that?” “Probably. But that doesn’t match up with the SAB-guy’s behavior. What kind of spy leaves radiation trails?” “An Ukrainian.” Dead silence for maybe three seconds, then raucous laughter. “Fuck man, your gonna go to hell for that one.” “If that’s what gets me the man up above does not have his priorities straight. Like at all.”

Laughter IS the best medicine after all, especially for post-paranormal bullshit PTSD. Given the little actual knowledge we had at the time, we stopped discussing the shadow. Why freak ourselves out even further with still more than half of our shift ahead of us. The rest of the shift was uneventful, yet tense.

However, the way back to base was doubly interesting to make up for it I guess. Although Pascal wasn’t with us during the shadow fun stuff, he was patrolling like expected, he still gave us a little rundown of the hairy parts of the job. If we see a figure, we knew what to do now. If the chimneys make any sound at all, hit the deck and wait until an all-clear sounds. If you hear a gas alarm, masks on, likely for the rest of the shift. There is an all-clear for that, but that doesn’t happen nearly as often as the actual alarm.

These three are the “common” weird shit things that can happen. Rare but still somewhat regular events include a little earthquake, nothing spectacular, we just have to stay clear of the chimneys, in the unlikely case they topple over. Strange grinding or dragging sounds from the building itself. That doesn’t mean anything for us, the SAB-guys are just moving stuff around in the hall.

The worst-case-scenario (as of yet) is an orange-ish smoke rising from the chimneys. That only happened once and they had to evacuate four villages which were in wind direction from O7, but nothing actually happened.

Since none of us knows what the SAB is doing, and most don’t bother to ask to begin with, Pascal warned us that there are probably a lot more things that can go wrong. And if that happens, abide by the alarms, take them literally. When in doubt radio O7. They gave us a frequency for them, but I won’t specify it here, for obvious reasons.

The only curious thing was, why not give us that “How to O7” at the beginning? So we asked. “You two haven’t had one normal night here yet, right?” “Well, 25% non-weird nights seem like a good quota to me.” “Absolutely not, any of the things that we know of that can happen, usually only happen every two, three weeks or so. The building has been going crazy the last month or so. Unlucky for you, but what can you do.“

With that friendly piece of advice, we arrived back home and the other guys hit the beds pretty much immediately. I, however, couldn’t sleep until I typed this here out. I’ll try to get some rest now and post this tomorrow. Maybe I think of something until then. Goodnight.

January 11th After yesterdays possible demon infestation we returned to O7 today, this time in daylight. By we, I mean a whole of six groups in trucks, loaded to the brink with light construction tools, wood, and scaffolding materials. So we are joining Bob the Builder today? Well, we can do it! Forgive my terrible joke, I’m still a little shaken from yesterday.

We arrived around 1100, this time we even got a personal welcome from mister SAB himself, and another guy in the same uniform. They held one clipboard each, which I assume held the plans for today's work, and immediately went for the officers. With our superiors being busy talking to the SAB guys, we didn’t have anything to do and just sat around.

But we weren’t bored for long. A collum of trucks, a cement mixer, and two crane trucks rolled up maybe a quarter of an hour later. With their arrival, the officers ended their chat and had us stand to attention. We were divided into groups and given tasks to essentially construct fortifications around O7. Usually, that’s a job for combat engineers, the 3rd Pionierdivision isn’t stationed that far from Niederfelde, but I guess they don’t want to involve anyone they can avoid.

Working in carousel shifts which involved about everybody on base, we finished work at 1830. The result of our hard work?

-A ring of concrete pillars, one every meter, around O7 (leaving an 8-meter gap at the gate) -Barbed wire put up between the pillars -An 2x2 meter trench directly in front of the pillars (again, except by the gate) -Little sandbag bays every thirty or so meters within the fenced-off area -60 anti-personnel mines in front of the trench (wtf, mines? Why? Bit overkill, no?) -The bench with a roof, our break “room”, was replaced by a sheet metal shed (we all approve) -In the shed, we got a weapon locker, filled with two MG-74s (plus belts)

What are we preparing O7 for? It wasn’t that heavily secured, ever. Not even during WWII. The official reason doesn’t exist and the unofficial reason is the increase in activity, as mentioned by Pascal yesterday night. Or today morning, I guess.

The construction work was an unbelievable pain in the ass, but as they say, it ain’t much but it’s honest work. The cool thing about it was because all of our trucks were busy at the construction site, the base couldn’t (or more likely didn’t want to) deliver our lunch, so we had to head home to eat.

Again, the trucks were occupied and the way is too long to walk, so we used the Ulans as taxis. We only have four of ‘em though. So we had to cram everybody and their grandma into them and some of the lucky (maybe stupid) ones were allowed to Mad-Max themselves onto the sides of the Ulans. I was one of them. Let me tell you, that is one scary ride, halfway hanging over the side of an eight-wheeler going a good 35 km/h on a road that’s essentially cross country. But it was cool as fuck.

Naturally, that violated about every rule concerning APCs, but Gramps told us, “If you think you can do it, do it. Just don’t be stupid.” Asking us not to be stupid? Who do you think we are? Anyway, no one went belly-up so everything worked out. Thankfully. I just now really realized how stupid and dangerous that was. Wow.

Since we can’t have anything nice out here, there also was bad news today. The six explosion victims should have woken up by now. But instead of being awake and happy, their blood oxygen levels are falling. Not by significant amounts, it won't be lethal for another 15 hours, but the docs have no idea why it’s happening.

Therefore, our six sleeping beauties were evacuated during we were building our fortress. I don’t know at which hospital they are at now, but it’s very likely better than our sickbay. Objekt 2 is a dark and damp building after all, definitively the best possible environment for any kind of recovery.

But the dark and damp part applies to pretty much any building in Niederfelde. Gets fucking cold this time of year too. I always thought the complex was modernized since it’s construction. In fact, I know of at least three big renovations, so shouldn’t it be livable here? How bad was it here in the beginning? What good times we are living in. Anyway, bye for now, tomorrow I’m on 7-night again. That will be funny with all the new architecture there.

January 12th Hello, I’m back from another 7-night. No shadows tonight but some other weird shit happened.

Like every second night, we arrived a little while before 2200 at O7. But unlike every second night, I wasn’t with Erik, he had his day off today/yesterday. Instead, I was paired with a guy called Michael. I haven’t spoken much with him before so I don’t know much about him, except that he was a trigger-happy fellow. Usually, that’s bad news, but here it might help.

Since I was still an O7-rookie I had to take care of him. That may sound weird since normally you pair the new ones with the old guard to accelerate the learning curve but at O7-duty it’s customary to use one rookie-pair and two seasoned.

I wasn’t told any reason but I guess it’s a contingency: if a rookie messes up, and I mean messes up royally, the patrol isn’t compromised. You’d still have two teams to fill the gap until reinforcements arrive. Not a pretty thought, you being the expendable resource. Not something uncommon in any military service I’d guess, but here you are extra aware of that fact.

When I say that guy was a rookie, that coming from me with my whopping four completed shifts, I mean it was his first time out here, discounting the supply run and construction work. But I don’t think there was any rookie who wasn’t involved in that last one.

So we pulled up to the now fortified gate and dismounted the truck. Starting to recognize some of the faces of our precursor shift I greeted them and wished them a good nights rest. They answered with wishing us a calm and silent shift. Since the odd things tend to almost exclusively happen at night, go figure, the good wishes sounded a bit hollow coming from the afternoon shift. Well, they like to call themselves the evening shift to claim at least some of the “spooky night”-vibes, but let’s be real, no ghost story starts at nine in the evening.

As soon as the afternoon shift (I’m not gonna acknowledge their claim on our monopoly of creepy shit) piled into the truck and headed off, we three teams decided on who had the first break using the best-suited method for any tactical disputes: a game of rock paper scissors. And for a change, I won.

The other two pairs headed off, one on each side of the building, and Michael and I got into the shack. I was pleasantly surprised to see a coffee machine installed there. There also was a note taped to the wall beside it to please pay around 30 cents per coffee dispensed to keep the thing stocked. The shack and all it’s interior fell under O7s direct jurisdiction and the cheap bastards weren’t even willing to pay for coffee. It’s a miracle we were allowed to use their electrical sockets. But I guess we need those for the lighting anyway.

So like the good comrades we are we deposited our share in a little sheet metal box beside the machine and got coffee. After sitting down and taking my first sip (including the mandatory “Fuck, that’s hot!” for instant coffee), Michael turned to me and asked, what this here was about.

“Well, we make our rounds around that building and play watchdog. If the eggheads tell us to, we may have to bite.” “That doesn’t explain anything.” “Not? I think it explains every guard duty ever.” “Well, yes, but I meant the ghost stories. Don’t play dumb, please, I need to know what I’m up against.” “Okay. First off, you are not up against anything. If any, WE are. And for what we might be up against, I have no clue. I only know the building likes to make noise and we may need to shoot shadows again.” “Shadows? What?” “I’ll tell you when you need to know. Wouldn’t believe me otherwise.”

With that, our break was over already and we headed out. Let me tell you, even if it was only my fifth shift, I already got accustomed to the empty, flat, dark landscape. Having all these pillars and sandbag dugouts around really didn’t feel right. Doubly so because it looked like we were expecting a wave charge straight out of ye olde times.

But fair enough, our first two rounds were eventless. Not our third, though. A gas alarm sounded, like back in my second night. “Warning; Leakage. Gas Hazard.” I put on my mask and so did Michael. I worked fast and methodical, but he was fuelled by panic. Don’t get me wrong, he put it on right and all, but he was finished by the time I got the frame under my helmet. He was all restless and looked around like he expected to be jumped by something but seeing my calm demeanor he slowed down a little and made a questioning “heh”.

I replied with a brief explanation of my second nights' adventure and also warned him about the chimneys upcoming fury. Considering the explosion not even a week ago, he was considerably scared. I told him to not worry, that the racket is only a strong ventilation. I wasn’t sure about that myself, I still am not, but I liked the thought. You know, not to die in some minutes time.

And, as advertised, the whooshing and cracking started up around six and a half minutes later (this time I timed it on my phone). We hit the deck maybe a second before we were told to by one of the older ones. This time I also know why we should. Although the actual shockwave of the noise dissipated around twenty meters over our heads he still got, well not showered but sprayed with gravel and sand from around us. Nothing dangerous, but better safe than sorry. And as expected, after about a minute “Ventilation Complete. Resume Operation”, so we did.

What was new was an all-clear sounding about another five minutes later. “Perimeter Sensors zero. Air Clear. Resume Operation.” We double checked with one of the other teams, again, better safe than sorry, and took our masks off. I’m glad we could, otherwise, we couldn’t make use of our new god, the great Coffeesus.

When I said we double checked with only one. The second remained silent. And didn’t show up to take their break. And didn’t answer our calls after that. “Patrol to O7, we lost one team, do you copy?” “O7 copy, reinforcements inbound. Wait for relief, then search the vicinity. Consider it a combat patrol. O7 out.” Combat patrol? Well, ready our rifles we did.

It took about three-quarters of an hour for relief to arrive, a good time if you ask me. After prematurely ending our shift we four and six other guys arriving in addition to the new patrol crews went out into the night. If I didn’t tell you already, ten men are a group, meaning we got a LMG with us this time.Since it’s standard procedure it just made us feel safer, not worried about having to use it. And we didn’t, much to our relief. But we found as many clues as to the whereabouts of the two missing men as we fired bullets. Zero. Granted, we only searched for a little less than three hours, but it was still worrying.

At 0400 we were called back to O7 to head home, after all, we had a full night shift after us and base didn’t like to put unnecessary pressure on its men. And since about a third of all serving men at Niederfelde were already deployed at O7 as search commandos and more would follow suit, us four were not really needed. Our six reinforcement guys had to stay though.

With the explosion victims and now these two we were down eight men already. Not much, considering our size, but still. And that being in the time around us preparing defenses at O7, I don’t believe in coincidence. I’ll keep an eye out.

January 13th Today we continued our search of the two missing patrolmen. After five hours of sleep, give or take, we were woken up to get ready and deploy within an additional hour. We did, and with Erik coming back from his day off he joined us. Wait that sounds voluntary, he was ordered to join us.

We arrived back at O7 a wee bit after 1000, and there were already a lot of people around. A shift system seemed to be in place already since some guys boarded the truck back home. Not knowing what to do we reported to the shed-turned-command-center, where we met a worried and tired Major Köppl. He looked like he was up for at least a year and his worry was more than what was expected for two AWOLs.

We were added to an already existing search party combing through a bit of woods six kilometers south-east of O7. Only making six kilometers in what must have been at least six hours of full-out effort? We were very thorough. An Ulan dropped us off at our party's approximate location and we linked up with them in another handful of minutes.

I could tell our harrowing tale of how we scaled the highest hills and conquered the wildest of shrubbery but it suffices to say we found nothing. At ten kilometers radius, the search was to be accelerated to normal search-and-rescue standards (I don’t know what we were meant to find by turning over literally every rock) and continued on. And again we went to the most extreme lengths imaginable, but at twenty kilometers we were ordered to cease.

We were round up and brought back. It was around 1600 when we were all assembled in the bases court, where we were told that both the on-foot as well as the helicopter search were fruitless. We were also ordered to consider our missing colleagues as hostile if we spotted them. We should subdue and apprehend them if possible, but if we were about to lose them, we should fire. Not ordinary orders to be sure but I stopped taking situations at face value by then.

We deployed to different points of interest like crossroads, highway accesses, train tracks and the like to intercept the fugitives. I think helicopter search and sample patrols resumed, but I don’t know for sure. Would be a sensible choice for command so I guess it happened.

I was stationed at a crossing of a street and a train track. Well, I wasn’t alone. Erik and three other random guys were there with me. We waited for quite a while, took turns napping and even intercepted a car, but that was only a nice older lady, who apparently came home from a shopping trip. She even gave us two tetra packs of apple juice. Thank you, random nice lady.

We warned her that she would be stopped a few times more if she were to continue down that road an that she should take the detour over Kleinpichl, a village some ways away, and she thanked us for the heads-up and turned around. Nothing else of note happened the rest of the day.

January 14th I’m in a little bit of a hurry today and I have a lot to write so here goes.

This 7-night was very eventful. We arrived at 2200, this time Erik was with me again, and swapped out. The previous crew warned us that they had two gas alerts already, so we should keep our masks ready. They sadly could not give a reason for the drastic increase in activity. But that was to be expected.

And lo and behold, maybe half an hour into the shift: “Warning; Leakage. Gas Hazard”. Fast forward through the whooshing and to the all-clear maybe twenty minutes later. No one was new to the gas business but after the disappearances two nights ago we all called in and were glad to hear all the other voices.

The activity increase of O7 was real. At 2300 we had the whole alarm and all-clear thing again and at 0230 another alarm. According to Pascal, who was also on shift that was a new record for at least fifteen years. He doesn’t know of guys who knew of guys that far back but still. A record is a record.

The third alarm wasn’t normal though. Normal by O7-standards that is. After laying down to wait out the whoosh another alarm sounded. “Containment Breach. Assemble at the gate and ready for defense.” Worried we got up and ran to the entrance. Maybe halfway through the whoosh hit. I can’t say if it was the strongest one yet. Erik stumbled and I fell and we both got blasted with gravel. Nothing critical but still, not pleasant either.

We were the last to arrive, with the other two teams standing in the already open gate and with but MGs deployed and pointing in. We wordlessly fell into line beside them and trained our rifles at the elevator platforms. We didn’t have to wait long, another announcement sounded, this one seemingly not prerecorded since it was a new voice and it sounded agitated.

“We’ll flush it out the maintenance hatches of the chimneys. It should be up by you guys in twenty seconds. Good luck.” And with that, small hatches opened in the chimneys. They were about one meter squared and were located at hip height. We adjusted the MGs and our rifles aim and waited.

The seconds noticeably stretched. Each of us wore a watch on our left wrists, intended for gas hazards, but as I glanced down at them waiting I swear they counted minutes not seconds. What could come out the hatches? Since we would have to fire at “it”, it would have to be a lifeform and a hostile one at that. Did mister SAB even bullshit when he talked about aliens and zombies when we met him? I acutely remembered reading about the pack of wolves that were brought here sometime in the past. What happened to them? And that where just the things I heard of.

Didn’t the SAB-guy threaten us by claiming we might come here? Was “it” a human? Formerly or still?

At the sound of rustling and what may be wheezing from the hatches, my conscious thoughts stopped. There was no me. There were only us and it. And then it burst out. It is hard to describe this thing. It was six-legged and about the size of a small adult. Its head was perfectly round and it didn’t have any facial features, just a grey sponge-like surface. It also had two tails about as long as its entire body, giving it a look of an enormous spider the first moment we saw it.

Most people would probably freeze up at the sight of this, I included, but the knowledge and faith in our weapons caused us to let all hell loose at it instead. And it took it like a champ. It made about thirty meters under the fire of two MG-74s and four AUGs. Though fucker, we only had maybe fifteen meters to spare. But down he went and we gave him some more.

The belts of the MGs were empty at the time we put the second mags into our rifles. But we held fire while the MGs reloaded. Once finished we parcelled out a bit, forming a quarter circle around the carcass. Its original skin color and texture seemed to be a gray, smooth, blank skin, except for the “face”.

After maybe a minute of staring the body down to make sure it was dead we radioed down. “O7, patrol here. One target down, do you copy?” “Copy, one down. Stay alert for further movement of the target. No additional hostiles. Stand by for support. Keep the masks on.”

We waited for another minute until six SAB-guys with their masks on and pistols drawn came up one of the elevators. They advanced to the body and checked for vital signs. One of them also checked for radiation, like back at the shadow-incident. After confirming the effectiveness of our weapons, one of them set down a backpack we didn’t realize he had on before and pulled out some kind of little barrel. It was dark brown and could hold 15, maybe 20 liters. He emptied it on and around the body while everyone else stepped back. He then threw a lit match on it.

It ignited, but it was no gasoline. It burned green and we could feel the heat with a nearly unbearable intensity even fifteen meters away. Before it completely burned down two Ulans pulled up and unloaded two whole groups who quickly secured the gate and perimeter. The SABs forbid them from entering the hall and inspecting the heap of burning flesh further.

One of the SABs stepped forwards, he was the infamous mister SAB himself and beckoned us six further into the building, to chat without the others outside listening in. We followed him and he held a short speech.

The long and short of it was: “You’re gonna have to sign a NDA. One of the kind where you can be happy if you get a livelong sentence if you break them. No way around it. And you have two choices for your future. Resume your service as normal and be under close observation for the rest of your life. If you're suspected of having broken the NDA, your life will end, figuratively or literally. If you don’t want that future, you can transfer to us. We’re short on personnel now anyways. Don’t get me wrong, this is no good job. You won’t see much of the world out there and you will probably die before sixty, not to speak of a family. But you will do your country the biggest service you ever could.”

I was the only one to accept his offer. The other ones were understandably put off by their grim future at SAB, but I need to know what this is all about. What happened to the two missing guys. What happened to Nikolas.

The other five guys were ordered back to base for “quarantine”, but I’m sure it was confinement, to not let them spill anything in the shock of the moment. I was given orders to collect my stuff and report back for service at 0800. We were quickly hushed into the Ulans after that and wordlessly drove back to base. Erik stared wordlessly at me the whole time, a questioning look in his eyes.

Back at base, I had around three hours to pack my stuff and take a break before, for the first time, truly arriving at O7. Packing didn’t take long and I decided to use the rest of my time to write this down. I am sure I will have enough news to fill an entire week worth of reports in the first hour I arrive, but I doubt I can upload it. I have no idea when I will be able to write again. If I will be able to write again.

In a little more than an hour, I will be on my way down those elevators, maybe to never return. Maybe to crawl up the chimneys and get filled with bullets by my comrades. Let’s not hope for that. Even though you just read what I had to say, even though you very likely do not believe a word I say, I thank you. For listening to my story. For knowing my fate, may it turn out for the good or the bad. I thank you.

A lonely, frightened new SAB recruit, Niederfelde, Barracke 2, over and out.