Introduction

- - Hammelburg, Germany - -

It was a beautiful spring morning; the chestnut trees that lined the Löwengasse were in full bloom, and a warm, gentle breeze carried the scent of sweet bread from the ovens of Müller's Bäckerei throughout the town. Gefreiter Uwe Lehmann, the junior member of the tiny, tragically understaffed Hammelburg Feldpostamt, stood by the open window and sighed. Days like this one made him wish he had virtually any other job.

After a few more minutes of ineffectual yearning, Lehmann trudged back into the mail room, where a bag full of letters sat on the long desk, waiting to be sorted. There were a number of military installations in the Hammelburg area, and all of them took full advantage of the Feldpost's free service. Which meant that he would be here, rooting through this pile of correspondence and giving himself papercuts, for a very long time, spending what was quite possibly the most beautiful day of the year in a dusty mail room. War was cruel.

He reached into the bag and pulled out a few letters and postcards, sorting them into piles based on the destinations indicated by their FPNs. As he began to dig deeper into the bag, his hand struck something large and comparatively heavy. He pulled it out onto the desk and discovered that it was a thick packet of papers, encased in a light brown envelope, the volume of whose contents made it look more like a box at first glance. He turned it over in his hands, looking for an address. Someone had apparently written the FPN 56014/L, then crossed it out and written "Das Internet" instead. That, in turn, had been crossed out and replaced with "Al Gore," which had also been crossed out. The final address appeared to be someplace called "Fan Fiction Dot Net." Lehmann's brow furrowed. He'd never seen anything like this before. Was it a civilian address? The Feldpost wasn't supposed to be used for anything other than military purposes.

He checked the return address. The packet had come from the local prison camp, Luftstalag 13. Somehow, he wasn't surprised. They got a lot of strange mail from there.

He set the packet down on the table, staring at it, biting his lip. It was a crime to open mail, but he was dying to know what was inside. The mystery, combined with his own boredom, was too strong for him to resist. He reached for the packet. He was fairly good at resealing envelopes. And if he was caught, he could always say that he'd thought it was suspicious.

Lehmann pulled a letter opener from his pocket and carefully slid it under the flap of the envelope. Glancing briefly around the room, he tipped the stack of papers out of the envelope and onto the surface of the desk. He picked up a typewritten letter from off the top of the pile. It was printed in English. He frowned slightly. He could read English alright, but he wasn't sure why the letter was in English at all. Had he actually found something suspicious? He supposed he wouldn't know until he read the contents.

Lehmann pulled a wooden stool up to the table, sat down, and began to read.

Dear Authors,

We here at Stalag 13 have, somehow, through mysterious forces that seem to bridge time and space and maybe even the fabric of reality itself, had the opportunity to read the stories you've written about us. You've been sending us your work for years, in fact more years than any of us have even been here, and we all agree, that's a pretty impressive feat.

Most of your stories really are good fun to read. Granted, you seem to enjoy putting us through a lot of grief, and many of us have even died a couple of times, but Kinch says it's all in the name of 'character development,' so I suppose it's alright. I'll be honest, a lot of us thought this whole thing was a little silly at first, but at the end of the day, it's good to know somebody cares. Cares enough about you to take the time to send you out on new adventures, tell your story in a whole new way, or even just ship you with Legolas. What I'm trying to say is, we appreciate it.

We've been meaning to find a way to return the favor for a while now, but of course with a group like ours it's hard to get everyone to agree. Plus, there are so many of you, and we have no idea what you like. I think it was Carter who suggested that we write some stories for you for a change. We all liked the idea, so we got everyone to chip in. Your medium's a little hard to pin down, but we all did our best to write the way you do. Of course, we don't know anything about you, so we had to write about ourselves. What we came up with… well, some of it is good. Some of it is not-so-good. Some of it is… unspeakable. But from what you've sent us over the years, that's just the way it is with this sort of thing, right?

Anyway, here's the end result of what we've dubbed 'Operation: Unsung Authors.' Some of us put a lot of work into this, and some of us… didn't… but we hope you get a kick out of it all the same.

Sincerely,

Col. Robert E. Hogan
and the rest of the guys at Stalag 13

P.S. If this ends up in the wrong place and you're reading this and don't have any idea what's going on, you're probably a framing device.

Lehmann stared at the letter for a few more moments. It was true, he didn't have any idea what was going on, but the post-script had not helped. Whatever this was, it was definitely suspicious. He placed the letter face-down on the desk and picked up the next sheet of paper off the top of the stack, a page from a yellow legal pad filled with a neat, if sprawling, handwriting.

He would just have to read the rest of it.