The sun had barely begun its descent when the dark silhouette of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große loomed into view.
Bruno stood at the edge of the carrier's flight deck, coat whipping in the wind, boots planted firm against the steel beneath him.
The roar of turboprop engines echoed overhead as a formation of Focke-Wulf PTL-7 strike fighters screeched across the sky, banking hard over the Adriatic like hawks returning to the glove.
Below and around him stretched the heart of the German Reich's naval supremacy: the High Seas Fleet.
Two fully equipped carrier strike groups, centered around the Wilhelm and her sister ship Ludwig der Eiserne, both nuclear-powered behemoths with three runways apiece, each capable of launching sustained strikes against any enemy airspace on Earth.
