Watch On The Rhine

by John Ringo

  Once in his perch high above the Tiger's hull, Hans breathed better. Yes, the air down in the crew's fighting compartment was clean enough. But a tank commander needs to see.

  "To see and hear," Brasche corrected himself, aloud, "not take some bloody glorified television screen's word for things." And hear he did. From the other side of the ridge came the sounds of Schiffer's uneven fight with the landers, the sonic booms of incoming Posleen kinetic energy weapons, the crash of the Tiger's mighty twelve-inchers, the faint rattle of treads and the steady whine of Posleen antigravity drives.

  Then, there it was, the outline of the top of one of Number One company's two remaining Tigers breaking the outline of the ridge. The tank crossed over and stopped just Brasche's side of the topographical crest. It stopped to fire and the sheer shock of firing was like a dual slap to Brasche's face.

  He watched the turret turn, and then fire yet again. Hans assumed, from the lack of any antimatter or secondary explosion, that both shots were misses.

  There was a sudden flurry of the Posleen's weapons. On the far side, arising over the ridge, a dark and dirty cloud appeared, the cloud stretching a kilometer across. The hull down Tiger fired a single shot which was rewarded with a major flash and sound of detonation; a dead Posleen C-Dec.

  Then came another flurry of kinetic energy projectiles incoming to the far side of the ridge. There was also another huge flash and grand bang. Brasche thought he saw, dimly through the snow, the monstrous bulk of a Tiger turret flying approximately straight up.

  Filled with dread, Hans touched a switch on his headphones, "Schiffer, Brasche."

  "That was Leutnant Schiffer, Herr Oberst. Feldwebel Weinig speaking . . . commanding Third Platoon . . . correction, commanding Number One company . . . now."

  Brasche closed his eyes against the pain of losing such a fine young officer. Releasing a sigh of regret, he ordered, "Run for it, Weinig. Run for it now."

  "No quarrel with those orders, sir. Tiger 103, running fast."

  * * *

  Three Tigers, sixty-nine of my men, lost irredeemably, fumed Brasche, a newfound hatred for his foe growing in his heart. He recognized the hate, recognized that he had felt it grow before—against Russians and Vietnamese and some few others. He recognized, too, that the hate was the steel his soul needed to do that which could brook no soft and tender feelings.

  * * *

  The cold steel, glowing faintly in the dim jungle light, never descended. From one side of the jungle trail into which he had led his Communist pursuers, Hans saw—and curiously did not really hear, to such a detached state had his wounding brought him—the yellow flowers of rifle and machine gun fire. The two Communists poised to end his life fell first, their bodies twisting and dancing under the hammering of the machine gun, their very dance of death given ghastly illumination by the flashing of the legionnaire weapons.

  The firing kept up for a very long time, it seemed, causing Hans to wonder if a stray bullet of a friend and comrade might yet find him. Even in his pain he took the thought with amused detachment. He never even heard the blaring of the whistle that his assistant squad leader used to quell the fire and send the killer team out to search out the kill zone . . . and to make sure those bodies lying there were bodies in fact. It was legionnaire bayonets, not Communist ones, that bathed in crimson that night.

  * * *

  Unseen, the Tiger, Schiffer's Tiger, burned hot and crimson beyond the crest of the ridge. The glow of the fire, a fire consuming fuel and munitions and men—causing the very steel of its armor to glow cherry red, made the lowest levels of the falling snow themselves to glow.

  Three flashes, coming in rapid succession from a single point somewhere beyond view, lit the very edge of the crest in brief bursts of strobelike light.

  "Wait for it," cautioned Brasche when he saw Schultz tense suddenly.

  "Right, Dieter," piped in Harz, with a snickering tone to his voice. "Just like your little blonde girlfriend, we don't want you firing too soon."

  The thought of Gudrun, waiting for him safe and warm in Giessen, brought a momentary smile and a wistful yearning. Harz's guffaw ensured that the eagerness Schultz was certain shone from his features was followed quickly by a flush of embarrassment. "Fuck you, Harz," the boy whispered softly, albeit not quite softly enough.

  "Surely not me, Dieter. Did your Gudrun leave you so frustrated you're already thinking about turning to boys?"

  "Enough," commanded Brasche in a voice that quelled all levity. "If anyone is getting fucked here, it is those lizards about to appear over the horizon."

  * * *

  Giessen, Germany

  29 March 2007

  Gudrun stared unblinking at the horizon. Nearby, a body was being rendered into easily portable ribs, chops and steaks. Loathe to waste any nutrient, the Posleen still had to let blood from the body spill to the snow covered ground. It contented itself, to a degree, with the instinctive understanding that even this would not be completely wasted; with the spring thaw and fall harvest the blood would bring forth finer crops from the enriched soil.

  But a head full of rich brains? That was too much to waste. The Posleen doing the rendering ceased work. Then it picked up Gudrun's pale, bloodless head by the bright blonde thatch. It neither noticed nor would have cared that a lock was missing. Once split open the disembodied head would make a fine feed.

  * * *

  Hammelburg, Germany

  29 March 2007

  The head of the airborne Posleen phalanx crept cautiously over the horizon. It apparently sensed the fleeing Tiger 103, for it rapidly increased its speed to catch the prey. The rest, perhaps better said the remainder, of the original Posleen airmobile force, some seventeen C-Decs and Lampreys, likewise hastened to be in on the kill. Attention concentrated on the fast-moving Tiger they could easily sense, they never noticed the still, stationary, steady idling of the other nine Tigers.

  * * *

  "Feuer!" shouted Brasche into the general circuit, once he was sure all the Posleen had fallen into his trap. Nine twelve-inch guns crashed as one; piercing seven of the spacecraft and splitting them apart amidst blinding flashes of antimatter. "Fire at will."

  Eleven remained. Those eleven began spitting back their fire in the form of kinetic energy projectiles, plasma beams and high-velocity missiles. But here the advantage lay with the humans. By coming over the ridge, the Posleen had at least temporarily confined themselves to an area within the humans' ability to sense and target.

  And the Tigers' heavy armor could take all but a very unlucky hit. The Posleen craft could not take any hit from those massive cannon.

  A second volley rang out, almost as solidly as had the first—mass-produced precision machinery remained something of a German specialty, after all. Despite return fire and jinking to avoid being targeted, a further five Posleen targets were smashed and split. Six remained.

  Used to having every advantage, from numbers to technology to sheer fighting heart, this was too much for the aliens. They attempted to make a run for it.

  Seeing the enemy flee, a most heartwarming sight, Hans Brasche had but a single command, "Pursue."

  Interlude

  "They pursue our people as if they were themselves thresh, these threshkreen," muttered Athenalras. "It's . . . it's . . . indecent!"

  Ro'moloristen repressed a Posleen chuckle; it would never do to annoy his chief and lord. Perhaps the junior was made of sterner stuff. Certainly he was of less senior stuff. Though somehow he thought himself to be less ruthless. Braver? He didn't know.

  Yet he felt brave as he answered, "They do what they do for their people, as we do for ours. Yes, they have many disgusting habits. Yes, their architecture is somewhat absurd, their industry and science primitive. Yes, they do not fight as we do, in the open for all our peers to see and the Rememberers to sing of."

  "But, my lord, they fight hard and they fight well. And there is something somehow touching in the way that their old will throw dow
n their lives for their young, their males for their females."

  Athenalras looked at Ro'moloristen as if the young God King had gone quite mad; for a human male to toss away his life for a female was as if a God King were to give itself up for a Posleen normal. It was very nearly the ultimate in obscene conduct, to a proper God King.

  Ro'moloristen backtracked quickly. "I did not say I approved, my lord. It's just that such courage is somehow moving. As if these lessers, these females and nestlings, embodied some value so infinite we cannot even guess at it."

  Chapter 9

  Giessen, Germany

  22 April 2007

  Dieter Schultz had held out hope, even after the news of Giessen's fall and the resulting massacre had come. But day after day passed with no news from his beloved Gudrun. Dieter began to believe that hope was forlorn.

  Each new day had brought a new fight for the Korps and for the Schwere Panzer Battalion 501(Michael Wittmann). Each day brought new losses. The battalion dropped to eight Tigers, then seven. With each loss twenty-three valiant souls had flickered away in the wind.

  Dieter the gunner had had the privilege of painting markings amounting to no fewer than eighty-eight kills—eight broad rings and eight narrow—on the barrel of Anna's twelve-inch gun. With no word of Gudrun, the painting was a thankless, even an unhappy, task.

  Briefly there was a respite as one new and two reclaimed Tigers joined the ranks. Then again the steady drain began, replacements never quite equaling losses. Brasche commanded a mere five tanks by the time the last infestation had been cleared from central Germany, said final infestation being the command of the senior God King, Fulungsteeriot, in and around the nearly scraped away ruins of the town of Giessen.

  As briefly, Dieter Schultz felt a moment's respite as the long-delayed field mail caught up with the often moving Tiger Battalion. The letter he received held something potentially grand for Dieter: a small wallet photo of Gudrun, looking much as she had the one night they had met; a short handwritten note, lightly scented; a small pack of golden, silken hair. He hoped with all his heart it was not a message from the grave.

  * * *

  Ouvrage du Hackenberg

  Thierville, France

  23 April 2007

  It was like a descent into the grave. From the spring just bursting forth into life above ground, from an open air scented with flowers, Isabelle and her sons entered through an arched concrete passageway into a dimly lit, damp, dank and malodorous sewer filled to overflowing with human refuse.

  Isabelle's spirits sank with each step into the fortress and down. To either side of her, arrayed on cramped cots pushed against damp walls, a mass of hopeless humanity stared at the newcomers with blank, disinterested faces. They seemed barely human in their indifference. Isabelle felt a chill run up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold, underground air.

  Still, the cold was there. She remembered back to a worse cold.

  The car had long since given up its ghost to lack of fuel. The reeling army had had fuel, of course, but had steadfastly refused to turn over so much as a liter to any of the begging, pleading refugees who had then to take to their feet. Isabelle had briefly thought of selling herself for some gasoline to save her boys. She had thought about it and then, realizing that younger women and girls could make better offers than she could, she had rejected the notion.

  Instead, repacking down to true minimum essentials, the family had left the auto abandoned by the road and trudged the last few hundred kilometers afoot.

  The cold had been terrible at first. There were moments when the shivering boys had made Isabelle think of ending it for them all then and there. Among the minimum essentials had been a pistol, after all. Though avidly in favor of gun control, as she was—being a liberal, and though, as a doctor, her husband had had a deep revulsion for weapons that harmed or could harm human bodies—yet still, humanly, they had kept her grandfather's service pistol from the First World War, ignoring all calls for turn in.

  But no, pistol or not, the maternal imperative had won out over mere misery. Her boys must live. To ensure this, she must live. The pistol remained unused.

  Curiously, never once had it occurred to her, when it might still have done some good, that the pistol, more readily than her body, might have obtained a bit of fuel. More than once, trudging through the bitter cold, she had cursed herself for not thinking of that.

  * * *

  Berlin, Germany

  24 April 2007

  The reprimand fresh in his hand, the Tir cursed the damnable and damned Germans with as much force as fear of lintatai would permit.

  Cannot the Ghin see that these are no ordinary opponents? the Tir fretted. Well, I have one thing left to use.

  To date the Tir had been very sparing as to which information, of that which he had received from Günter, he chose to download to the Net, in other words, to make available to the Posleen. Somehow, and the Tir did not understand the precise mechanism, he was being cut off from control. He feared, deep in his bones, that releasing all the information in one fell swoop would make the Germans—never among the least paranoid of humans—look to leaks that they might never otherwise have suspected.

  But this was a desperate time. The Ghin was threatening to cut off bonuses, withdraw promised stock options, reduce salary . . . to drop the Tir's rank to de'Tir.

  The Tir shivered, as much with the threatened disgrace as loss of income.

  He could leak the rest. It would cost him the use of Günter, of course. But then again, Günter had probably outlived his usefulness anyway.

  It was considered, even among the Darhel, bad business practice to mistreat an asset, to renege on a deal. Yet the only reward Günter had ever been promised had been the off-world evacuation of his family. No promise had even been made, indeed he had never asked, concerning moving himself to safety. The family was long since gone to a planet far from the path of the invaders.

  So be it then, the Tir resolved. The Posleen will be given access to all the information I have. I just hope the idiots can make good use of it.

  * * *

  Giessen, Germany

  27 April 2007

  From his thresh-built, gravelike shelter Fulungsteeriot cursed sibilantly. To fall so low, having come so high; this was the stuff of tragedy.

  But there was nothing to be done for it; the enemy ring had grown tight around this little enclave of Posleen-hood. Information gathered from the Net told of an encircling ring of fire and steel, even now closing about the throats of the People. Already the wrecked outskirts of the ruined town were, for the most part, back in the possession of the natives. And the natives seemed curiously effective and eager to flush away the last of the Posleen. Why, it was almost as if they took things personally!

  Three times Fulungsteeriot had sent his people against the ring of steel enchaining them. Not one breakout attempt had succeeded and the last attempt had not even reached the hated thresh before being broken to bits by their artillery.

  Idly, the God King wondered if perhaps he should have saved some of the thresh that had been entrapped here. Perhaps, he mused, these might have been traded for safe passage. Incomprehensible, yet the thresh seemed curiously solicitous of their nestling-bearers and nestlings.

  But the thought came far too late. In the first flush of victory what proper God King would think of eventual defeat, or would deny his people the fruits of their victories? Surely Fulungsteeriot was not one such. To the last little putrid nestling, the thresh of this town had been eaten. Not one, so the God King believed, had been allowed to escape.

  Yet now, neither was there escape to space, not even for a senior God King like Fulungsteeriot. In their anger and hate the gray-clad thresh had not only surrounded this place, they had moved up more than sufficient of the fighting machines they called "Tigers" to prevent any vertical egress. Fulungsteeriot had tried that route, with lesser characters than himself. The radioactive ruins of not less than seven ships dotte
d the landscape, victims of the humans' Tigers. There was no escape upward.

  A realist to the end, Fulungsteeriot made no effort to create an illusion of hope, though he had one more breakout attempt planned, one involving all of his remaining people. Still, with a mass of thresh artillery pummeling his people into scraps of flesh and rags of skin, he knew he really had nothing to look forward to except the end.

  A Kenstain approached the God King cautiously; there was danger in any of the people, even the normals, when they were in a fight for life. At a respectful distance, the Kenstain gave the Posleen equivalent of a cough, a sort of strained gagging sound.

  "My lord? There is something you must see, something I just noticed floating amid the ether."

  "Yes? What?" asked the God King crossly.

  "Just this, lord: of the threshkreen encircling us, one group is the remnant of that the People slaughtered near that place the humans called 'Marburg.'"

  * * *

  Desperately, Dieter grasped hard onto the threads of his illusions. Yet scanning though his gunner's sight across every spectrum, visible and invisible, and from one side of the Posleen-created desert to the next, merely served to crush whatever hope remained.

  Stroking the shielded picture within his breast pocket as was his wont, Brasche's heart went out to the boy, as did that of nearly every man of the crew.

  "Why?" asked the boy. "Why?"

  Krueger, who felt no sympathy at all, answered harshly from the driver's station. "Because some pussy in uniform ran, boy. Read the after-action reviews; they are available on the Net. Because some little pansy took to his heels rather than face the danger, your little girl died. We don't know who it was. We don't know exactly where it began. But someone ran and started the panic.

  "It was quite predictable, the way the pussy politicians shackled everyone's hands but ours," Krueger finished.