Chapter 73: A King’s Ransom, an Ocean’s Fury, a Mutant’s Echo
The news from the Ardennes – Miller captured, Captain America presumed lost, Strucker wounded but alive and undergoing Hydra augmentation – plunged Elias Thorne into a state of cold, analytical fury. He had lost key assets and inadvertently contributed to a catastrophic blow against Allied morale (though Captain America's true fate was still a closely guarded secret by the OSS). The "victory" at Schloss Adler, if it could even be called that, felt hollow, tainted by the bitter taste of strategic miscalculation.
His immediate priority was Samuel Miller. The Trauma Variant Feral Striker, fiercely loyal and forged in near-death, was too valuable an asset, too potent a symbol of Elias's ability to bestow and preserve power, to be left in Hydra's clutches. Anya Petrova's network, working in overdrive, managed to intercept fragmented Hydra communications. Miller was reportedly being held at a heavily fortified, subterranean medical research facility in occupied Poland, codenamed "Krankenhaus X" (Hospital X), where Hydra scientists, likely under Strucker's remote direction, were attempting to study and replicate his unique regenerative abilities and the Feral Striker template itself. They were, in effect, trying to reverse-engineer Elias's own creation. This could not be allowed.
The System confirmed: [HOST ASSET (MILLER, SAMUEL) LOCATION: KRANKENHAUS X (POLAND – HYDRA BIO-RESEARCH FACILITY). STATUS: ALIVE (RESTRAINED, UNDER HEAVY SEDATION, SUBJECTED TO INVASIVE EXPERIMENTATION). OBJECTIVE: IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION OR NEUTRALIZATION (TO PREVENT TEMPLATE COMPROMISE). PRIME ESSENCE SHARD POTENTIAL FROM FACILITY/PERSONNEL: MODERATE.]
Neutralization was a last resort. Elias wanted Miller back. He wanted his soldier.
Retrieving Miller from a deep-Hydra facility in occupied Poland was a task far beyond conventional means. This required a convergence of Elias's most powerful assets.
His Feral Striker "Adamantium Guard" pack – Dubois, Macgregor, Lemaire, and Beaulieu – along with Thomas MacIntyre, were immediately recalled from their successful but now secondary Pacific operations. Their journey back to Europe aboard the Sea Serpent was expedited, the trawler pushing its upgraded engines to their limits. They were now a seasoned, brutally efficient Tier 2+ unit, their loyalty absolute, their skills honed against monstrous threats. Elias knew they would tear through half of Europe to reach one of their own.
But even they might not be enough against a dedicated Hydra research fortress. Elias needed an overwhelming force, a shock and awe assault that would leave no room for failure. He turned to his most powerful, most unpredictable ally: Namor.
Through their amplified psionic link, Elias presented the situation to the Atlantean King, currently patrolling the mid-Atlantic, a self-appointed guardian against U-boat and Hydra incursions into what he considered his sovereign domain.
"Prince Namor," Elias projected, his mental voice infused with cold urgency. "One of my... land-walker warriors... has been taken by Hydra. He is being held in a coastal facility in their northern territories, a place where they commit abominations against nature and living flesh. They seek to replicate the enhancements I bestowed upon him. This cannot be permitted. His recovery is paramount." He was careful to frame it in terms Namor would understand: Hydra's unnatural meddling, a warrior captured by a common foe.
Namor's mental response was a surge of icy disdain, but also a flicker of something akin to predatory interest. "Your surface squabbles continue to spill their filth into my realm, Thorne. This 'Hydra'... their stench is pervasive. This facility... is it near the sea? Does their pollution touch my waters?"
Elias confirmed that Krankenhaus X, while inland, was reportedly supplied via a heavily fortified subterranean canal system that led to a disguised U-boat pen on the Baltic coast. This was Namor's entry point.