The Sicilian sun hung low over the water, gold streaks running across the calm like spilled brass.

Bruno the Younger sat on the edge of a crumbling seawall, a cigarette in one hand and a cold bottle of beer in the other.

Around him, his men lazed in the sand; shirts off, boots half-laced, rifles propped against beach rocks like forgotten tools.

They were soldiers of the 12th Panzergrenadier Regiment, stationed near the Gulf of Gela, the place every intelligence officer swore the Americans would pick when they finally came.

For weeks, nothing. Just drills, heat, and the endless salt-slick air.

It was almost peaceful. Too peaceful.

Local Sicilian families wandered the promenade nearby, laughing in the dying light.

Children kicked a leather ball near the pier. A group of women in sunhats passed by, and one, bold, dark-eyed, young and unafraid, blew a kiss toward Bruno.

The men broke into laughter.

"Why is it always you, Herr Hauptmann?" called Leutnant Kruger from where he lay on a towel, sunglasses crooked on his face. "France, Corsica, Naples.. the girls practically throw themselves at you. What's your secret?"

Bruno exhaled smoke through his nose, looking out toward the horizon. "I'm a happily married man," he said simply.

The reply only earned more laughter.

Another voice called up from the sand below. "And what she doesn't know won't kill her! What's the point of deployment if you can't enjoy yourself a little before the next bombardment?"

Bruno didn't answer. His head tilted slightly upward, toward a shape half-lost in the glare.

For a moment, he thought it was a gull, then another streak crossed behind it, clean and deliberate. One, then two, then a dozen.

White ribbons lanced skyward from somewhere beyond the hills, arcing toward the sea.

He slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and muttered, almost to himself,

"…Missiles."

The laughter died instantly.

"Get your fucking gear on," he said.

"What?" Kruger blinked, halfway through a sip of beer.

"Surface-to-air intercepts. Our boys are already engaging something out there, and we weren't warned because we were too busy lazing about to check our fucking comms!"

A second later the horizon flashed white. The sound arrived like rolling thunder, the deep metallic roar of detonations miles away, far out over the Gulf.

The men froze, eyes wide. Then Bruno barked again, louder this time:

"Now! Move!"

He was already running, cigarette tossed aside, beer dropped, boots pounding the stone path as the sky above began to pulse with orange light.

The first explosions were distant, muffled thuds from somewhere over the water. Then the horizon bloomed white again, and the air began to tremble.

High-altitude interceptors, invisible in the glare, were dueling unseen targets miles up, and now the survivors were dropping their payloads.

Within seconds the serenity shattered.

The flak towers along the cliffs roared to life. Columns of smoke rose skyward as autocannons and SAM batteries spat tracer fire and missiles into the clouds.

The white contrails thickened, no longer clean arcs, but tangled nets of death, as incoming bombers broke formation, some vanishing in mid-air, others plummeting toward the water in burning spirals.

Bruno vaulted behind the seawall, yelling into his radio.

"This is Hauptmann Bruno von Hohenzollern! Gulf of Gela under air attack, intercepts in progress, probable landing force inbound! Confirm coastal readiness!"

Static. Then a burst of half-heard shouting before the sky drowned it out.

More detonations rolled in from the horizon as the downed bombers struck the sea, boiling geysers of fire and foam.

For every Allied aircraft torn apart, another formation pushed through the barrage, stubborn, relentless.

He ducked as a shockwave hit, sand whipping across the beach.

"Get up!" he barked, hauling one of his soldiers by the collar. "We're not on vacation anymore! Gear up and move to the defensive line!"

Men scrambled, some half-dressed, some barefoot, all driven by instinct and fear.

They pulled on tunics, strapped vests, loaded magazines, and stumbled toward the trenches carved into the dunes.

Within minutes, Bruno's little band of beachside loungers had transformed into a fighting unit, mismatched, dirty, but armed and alert.

By the time they reached the line, the defenders were already firing. German artillery thundered from behind the ridges, the deep percussion shaking the sand underfoot.

Bruno vaulted into the nearest trench, landing beside a communications officer screaming into his field phone. The man barely noticed him.

The regimental colonel turned from the bunker entrance, cigarette dangling from his lip. His uniform was immaculate even under bombardment.

"Well, Hauptmann," he drawled, voice dry as dust. "Seems the Americans decided to crash your farewell party. You were supposed to be rotated out in three hours, weren't you?"

Bruno gave a curt nod, wiping the grit from his face. "Guess they couldn't wait to say goodbye."

The colonel smirked faintly. "Try not to die in your swim trunks, son. It would be bad for morale if the future Kaiser met such a shameful end…."

Bruno's men, freshly tanned, half-armored, wearing camouflage shorts under web gear, looked utterly out of place among the fully equipped infantry.

But no one laughed now.

The air above them screamed as the next wave of bombers released. The trenches shook. A line of palm trees behind them went up in flames.

Bruno ducked behind the parapet, gripping his rifle tight. His men followed, waiting for his signal. The younger ones whispered prayers.

He peeked over the ridge. The sea was on fire. The first surviving American landing craft were crawling through the smoke, their ramps dropping even before they touched shore.

He pressed his radio. "This is Hauptmann Bruno von Hohenzollern to all units! Defensive fire! Target landing craft and beach approaches! No one sets foot on this sand!"

His men obeyed instantly. The trench line erupted in muzzle flashes.

Machine guns rattled, mortars thumped, and the air filled with the smell of cordite and burning oil.

Bruno moved through the trench, shouting orders, correcting aim, dragging a wounded soldier to safety.

A shell burst twenty meters away, showering them with sand and shrapnel.

"Keep your heads down!" he roared.

One of his men screamed, clutching a mangled arm.

Bruno knelt, ripped open his med-kit, and tied a tourniquet with practiced precision.

"Hold it together, Karl. You'll live. Now get him to the med post!"

He didn't stop moving. His focus was absolute, cold, clear, instinctual.

At the next firing pit, Kruger was yelling into the radio again. "Command's gone silent! The rear lines are cut off!"

"Then we hold without them," Bruno said. "They'll expect us to break. Let's disappoint them."

He climbed up onto the trench lip, firing controlled bursts into the surf. Every shot, every shout, carried his grandfather's echo, discipline through the chaos.

Behind him, the colonel stepped up beside a gun crew, lighting another cigarette with a match trembling slightly in the wind.

"Well, Hauptmann," he muttered, "you might just make it through this war after all."

Bruno gave a sharp grin. "Luck's a family trait, sir."

The colonel snorted. "So is stubbornness."

An explosion interrupted them, a shell landing near the central bunker. Both men hit the dirt as debris rained down.

When Bruno looked up again, the colonel was gone. Just a smoking crater and a half-buried cap.

He clenched his jaw, grabbed his rifle, and took command without hesitation.

"All batteries! Focus fire on the central approach! Cut off their armor!"

He grabbed a field phone from a dead operator, connecting to the nearest artillery post. "Coordinates 47 by 9, open fire, repeat, open fire!"

Within seconds, the hillside guns responded. The beach turned into a hellscape of detonations. Landing tanks burned, twisted into molten shapes.

The men cheered, but Bruno didn't. His eyes stayed locked on the horizon. More landing craft were coming. Hundreds of them.

For every wave destroyed, two more followed. The sky darkened with aircraft. The bombardment was relentless.

Kruger crawled up beside him, breathing hard. "Sir! If this keeps up, we'll be overrun!"

Bruno didn't answer immediately. His gaze lingered on the wreckage floating in the bay, men and metal both, swallowed by the tide.

Finally, he said quietly but firmly, "Then we'll make them earn every meter they take."

He slid another magazine into his rifle and fired until the barrel smoked.

All around him, the defenders fought like wolves, bloodied, cornered, unyielding.

By late afternoon, the beach was a patchwork of flame and ruin.

The sky had turned orange again, as if mocking how it had begun.

Bruno wiped the sweat and soot from his face. His hands trembled, not from fear, but exhaustion. The radio crackled, voices overlapping in chaos.

"Enemy armor breaching southern flank!"

"Requesting air support!"

"Artillery's out of shells!"

He pressed his transmitter. "All units, hold positions. Reinforcements will arrive within the hour."

It was a lie, but a necessary one.

The men around him steadied. Orders mattered, even when hope didn't.

Another explosion rocked the trench, throwing Bruno to the ground. He coughed, spitting sand and blood, then pushed himself up.

Through the haze, he could just make out the German flag still flying above the command post, torn and smoke-stained but unfallen.

He stared at it for a moment, not as a symbol of empire, but as a promise: that his grandfather's work would not be undone so easily.

He adjusted his helmet, shoulders squared. "Kruger," he said quietly. "Get me a sitrep from the left flank."

"Yes, sir."

"And tell the men…" Bruno paused, glancing once more toward the inferno at sea. "…Tell them this beach is where we stop the tide."

Kruger nodded and disappeared into the smoke.

Bruno reloaded his weapon and climbed back to the trench lip. The horizon was ablaze, fire reflected in his sunglasses like a mirrored prophecy.

The sea kept coming, wave after wave, as if the ocean itself wanted to reclaim the land.

He raised his rifle and whispered to himself, the words carried off by the wind:

"Let them come."

And with that, he fired again, the first shot of the next battle.

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