Watch On The Rhine

by John Ringo

  Lastly he knew he was unworthy . . . so that whenever Anna made to get closer he withdrew. Withdrew? Rather it was more like he fled in barely concealed terror whenever the girl approached on any but professional matters. Hans could not bring himself, ever, to look into those green eyes. He avoided the north side of the camp, the women's area, like the very plague.

  "You are a fool, Hans," said Sol one day as the two sat on barracks steps over an evening's friendly beer.

  At Hans' quizzical look the Israeli laughed. "The girl follows you like a puppy. Why do you always run the other way?"

  Heaving a deep sigh was Hans' only answer.

  "Don't lie to me, old son," said Sol, taking a quick sip of warm and insipid beer, "not even by refusing to answer. I see your face when you look in her direction. I can practically hear your heart race when she walks by upwind."

  "I know," Hans whispered, softly. "But I just can't."

  "In the name of God, why not?"

  "Because I am unworthy," Hans answered, simply.

  * * *

  "You little shits think you are worthy to become SS?" demanded Krueger, still strutting. "I've ass-fucked quivering little Yid whores at Ravensbrück who were more worthy than you, you filth.

  "They, at least, had staying power. It remains to be seen if you turds do."

  At which, much self-satisfied, statement Krueger commanded, "Right, face . . . Forward, march . . . Double-time . . ."

  Interlude

  Ro'moloristen hesitated, doubting whether it was his place to criticize his lord of that lord's own hesitation. With all eyes upon him, feeling his own weak position in the fiber of his being, he summoned his courage and said, "My lord, we might be losing the race."

  "Race? What race, puppy?" Athenalras demanded, crest rising.

  "The race to finish the conquest of this peninsula, this Europe."

  "How so? We sit on everything useful to us except the central area, Deutschland it is called, yes? . . . that, and the mountains to the south of it. They will fall soon enough . . . except perhaps for the mountains."

  "I am thinking of orna'adar, my lord, and our clan's position when this world finally descends into it. The longer we take here, now, the worse our position then. Also . . ." The young God King hesitated.

  "Also, what?"

  "My lord, the gray thresh are preparing for us with everything they have. We had advantages earlier that are fast disappearing. Information made available to us through the Net, dissension and confusion in the gray thresh's ruling bodies, unwillingness or inability to really marshal their strength, lack of fortification . . . all these are no longer true, no longer there to work for us.

  "Their forces are expanding radically. New fortifications are being built and old ones restored. Every fiber of their society is being twisted and knitted for the needs of defense it seems. Perhaps worst of all, my lord, they have scrapped hundreds upon hundreds of landers for their on-board weapons. My lord . . . it is no longer safe to travel over this 'Germany' except in orbit so far out as to be useless."

  Athenalras allowed his crest to go flaccid as he contemplated. "You think then the original plan must be scrapped, that those of our clan coming in the next wave should not be landed directly into the central area, that we should attack overland?"

  Ro'moloristen shook his head in negation. "No lord, we must continue to follow the original plan . . . but the cost makes me shudder."

  Chapter 11

  Headquarters, Army Group Reserve

  Kapellendorf Castle, Thuringia

  17 December 2007

  Hans shuddered with the cold. Though snow lay all around, covering castle, land and ice in the moat, the sky was, for the nonce, clear. Christmas carols—sung by a local group of schoolchildren for the benefit of the headquarters staff—carried far in the dense, icy air, ringing off castle stone and leafless tree.

  Standing on an arched stone bridge over the moat, leaning on its stone wall guardrail, Hans stared into the sky at the twinkling stars. He willed his mind to blankness, seeking rest in temporary oblivion.

  In this Hans was successful, so much so that he never noticed the tapping of boots on the stones of the bridge.

  It was only when Mühlenkampf laid a hand on his shoulder and announced, "The next wave is here, Hansi," that Hans awoke from his reverie.

  "So soon? I had hoped we would have more time. Maybe even get half equipped with the new-model Tigers. Get a few of them, at least."

  "They only just finished putting the prototype through its tests, Hans. The only way we will ever see them is if we can hang on for at least a year."

  Hans nodded then looked skyward. "Up to the navy for now, though," he said.

  Already new stars began to appear and quickly die as the two fleets met in a dance of destruction.

  * * *

  Battle cruiser Lütjens

  Sol-ward from Pluto's orbit

  17 December 2007

  The ship's commander, Kapitän Mölders, could not help but be amused at his ship's station. Being a part of Task Fleet 7.1 was unremarkable. But, along with another battle cruiser, the Almirante Guillermo Brown, and half a dozen of the ad hoc frigates converted out of Galactic courier vessels, being an escort for Supermonitor Moscow certainly was worth a minor chuckle. What would Lindemann or Lütjens have said? he wondered, thinking of those two brave and worthy German seamen who had gone down with the original Bismarck early in World War Two. Mölders would have chuckled too, except that he, Moscow, those half dozen frigates and two more task fleets were racing at breakneck pace into a death absolutely certain.

  There was no chance of victory in any sense except that of taking a few with them. The Posleen wave, sixty-five globes, each composed of hundreds of smaller ships connected for interstellar travel, was simply too great, unimaginably great. And Earth's defending fleet was simply too small.

  Victory, if it came, depended on the ground forces. Victory, for the fleet, would be giving those ground forces the greatest possible chance. Final victory was something not one man or woman aboard the ships had any hope of ever seeing. No more so did Mölders.

  On Lütjens' view-screen Mölders saw a brilliant new sun appear for a long moment. A message from Moscow poured into his ear through an earpiece kept there. Mölders' eyes widened, then turned suddenly soft.

  "Gentlemen," he announced in a breaking voice to the bridge crew, "that sun was the Japanese battle cruiser Genjiro Shirakami.38 It has rammed an enemy globe and detonated itself. Supermonitor Honshu believes that that globe was completely destroyed."

  "So we only have another sixty-four or so to go, eh, sir?" whispered Mölder's exec.

  * * *

  Headquarters, Army Group Reserve

  Kapellendorf Castle, Thuringia

  17 December 2007

  Lightning flashed and new-born suns flared in space over head. Hans wondered idly at the details, but knew deep down that the details could not matter. He had seen the estimates; Mühlenkampf had shared them with his senior officers. The human fleet was doomed and was not going to do all that much good, either. Still anything was better than nothing and the blooming suns of destroyed ships, coupled with the silvery streaks of hypervelocity anti-ship missiles, made for quite a show.

  But he had seen similar shows before, ones that had kept his attention even more raptly . . .

  * * *

  The attack seemed to come from nowhere and from everywhere. One moment found Hans fast asleep in his barracks. The next thunder-crashing moment found him leaping from his bunk, fully alert as only a very combat experienced veteran could come alert. He reached instinctively for the Schmeisser he had acquired on his own ticket as well as the combat harness that held an extra half dozen magazines for the submachine gun. Carrying both in his hands and shouting in his wretched Hebrew for the dozen men who shared the small hut with him to take their positions along the camp's perimeter, Hans stumbled to the shelter's door. Jacking the Schmeisser's bolt once, Hans left the hut
with Sol's shouts ringing behind him, directing the others.

  Outside was bedlam. Mortar rounds splashed down to briefly light the area with sudden lightning and lingering thunder. Tracers arced through the camp, seemingly from all around. Though this was the first attack it was not the first time Hans had cursed the sloppiness of the amateur, ad hoc, wretchedly trained Israeli army. No wonder the Arabs had gotten through somewhere along the none-too-distant front and come here for easy pickings.

  Fierce cries of "Allahu akbar" resounded from a shallow streambed to the north as the volume of fire began to pick up from that direction Not quite sure why, Hans began moving in that direction. Half dressed, more importantly perhaps half undressed, shrieking women began to streak by in their flight. He called out repeatedly, "Anna? Anna?"

  One Israeli girl shouted to him, "Anna stayed behind to fight and cover us!" Hans moved out, alone, into the night.

  He found her spitting and cursing defiance at the three Arabs who had her pinned and spread-eagled for a fourth crouching between her legs, tugging at whatever covered the lower half of her body. His experienced finger caressed the trigger four times, then a fifth to make sure of one still-twitching, towel-headed form.

  Hans reached down and grabbed the girl's shirt. As he did so he noticed that she was trouserless and that her rifle, bolt jammed open, was empty. Standing erect again, Hans began to half trot backwards, dragging the girl and firing backwards to discourage pursuit.

  Mortar fire was still falling, making life on the surface unsafe for man or girl. Coming to a narrow slit trench, Hans jumped in and dragged Anna down with him, pushing her gently to the trench's dusty floor.

  "You'll be safe here, Anna. I won't let anything happen to you."

  It was only then that she began to cry, small half-stifled whimpers at first, growing with time to great wracking sobs. Hans tried his poor best to comfort her with little soft pats while keeping a watch topside for approaching dangers. The raid seemed to be ending, the Arab's fire slacking off. The camp was better lit now, what with half a dozen buildings burning brightly. Perhaps that was what had driven the Arabs off. Natural raiders and almost hopeless as soldiers, they would rarely press an attack without every conceivable advantage.

  In time, under Hans' gentle care, Anna's sobs subsided. "They were going to rape me," she announced, needlessly. "You should not have risked yourself. It would not have killed me."

  Hans shrugged. "Perhaps it would not have, girl. They very well might have though, their fun once done."

  Anna echoed Hans' shrug. With an unaccountable angry tone she said, "I have a name, you know? Anyway, little matter if they had."

  "Don't say that!" he shouted with unusual ferocity, then, more gently, almost a whisper, "I know you have a name, Anna."

  "Why?" she asked. "You've never shown you care. Not until tonight anyway."

  "I care, Anna. I always have."

  "You never showed," she accused.

  "I couldn't."

  "Why not? Because I was a camp whore? Because I have a tattoo?"

  Hans felt a wave of sickness wash over him. "I knew about the tattoo. I never knew about the . . . other."

  "I was though, for years. For the guards at Ravensbrück."

  Hans remembered some disgusted words from another SS man during a very brief sojourn at Birkenau. His sense of sickness grew greater still, great enough to show.

  Misinterpreting, Anna turned her face away to hide forming tears. "It was not by my choice, never by my choice. But I understand why you won't want anything to do with me . . ."

  "Stop that," Hans commanded. "It isn't your tattoo and it isn't a past you had no choice in. It's . . . that I have a tattoo as well."

  "No, you don't," Anna insisted. "I've seen your arm."

  "Mine," Hans sighed wearily, "isn't on my arm."

  "But . . ." Anna covered her mouth under eyes gone wide with too much understanding. She turned and fled the trench and went alone into the fire-flickered night.

  * * *

  There were no more "tracers" in space, no new suns that burst brilliantly before fading into nothingness. The battle there was over and Hans had no doubt who had won—more importantly, lost—it. Earth's skies, once briefly recovered, were once again in the possession of the invader.

  Mühlenkampf cleared his throat. "They will be on us tomorrow, gentlemen, if not sooner. Best return to your units now."

  Silently, sullenly, perhaps a bit fearfully the men began to separate and depart, each to his division, brigade or regiment.

  * * *

  Kraus-Maffei-Wegmann Plant

  Munich, Germany

  Midnight, December 18 2007

  The shining behemoth positively gleamed with menace. Where Anna and her sisters dazzled, the new model stunned. From the tip of her railgun to the back of her turret, from the top of that narrow, sharklike turret to the treads resting on the concrete floor, from the twin mounds housing close-in defense weapons on her front glacis to the slanted rear, Tiger III, Ausführung B was a dream come true.

  "She'll be a nightmare to the enemy," observed Mueller, for once satisfied with the armament.

  Indowy Rinteel, at loose ends since the Darhel Tir's withdrawal, had joined the team to help with the railgun. He had no human-recognized degree in engineering, but many Indowy, and he was one, had an almost genetic ability to tinker. Rinteel agreed entirely about the "nightmare" part.

  Prael snorted through his beard with disgust. "She might well be. But she is only one nightmare where we needed a veritable plague of them, dammit. It has been the old story. Too little, too late."

  "We pushed for too much," conceded Mueller. "We should have used the railguns we salvaged to upgrade the existing Tigers."

  "Maybe yes, maybe no," countered Nielsen. "They will still do good service supplementing the Planetary Defense Batteries."

  "This one could do as well," observed Breitenbach.

  "No," corrected Henschel, "for we do not even have a crew for her."

  "Be a shame to just let her be captured or destroyed to prevent capture," said Schlüssel. "And it is not entirely true that we do not have a crew. We, ourselves, know her as well as any crew could, and if we alone are not enough to man the secondary weapons . . . well . . . she is much more capable, her AI is much more capable, than the A model's."

  "You are suggesting we steal her?" asked Prael.

  Mueller smiled. "Not 'steal,' Karl. Just take her out for some combat testing is all. And I used to be a very good driver."

  * * *

  Assembly Area Wittmann

  Tiger Anna, Thuringia

  Germany, 18 December 2007

  Tonight's fireworks put those of the previous evening into the shade. Between roughly ten thousand individual Posleen ships, the globes having broken up, and the fires of several hundred Planetary Defense Batteries and Earth-bound railguns the skies were one continuous stream of pyrotechnic entertainment.

  What was it Admiral Nelson said? wondered Hans. Ah, I remember: "A ship's a fool to fight a fort." He was right, of course, a ship is. But get enough ships and it becomes only a matter of time, not of foolishness.

  There was no practical shielding, no defense, for ship or shore battery. The defenders had only the triple advantages of being able to choose when to unmask, to reveal their position by opening fire; that the Posleen had no cover whatsoever; and that, as a practical matter, they tended to handle their ships somewhat badly. They were, after all, a fairly stupid race. Still, these paltry favors were more than matched by Posleen numbers.

  Hans considered some folksy wisdom on the subject: "Quantity has a quality all its own," and Stalin's famous jibe, "Quantity becomes quality at some point in time."

  The Communist bastard was right about that one, too, thought Hans, remembering distantly, the sight of burning individual Panthers and Tigers, a collection of half a dozen or more Soviet machines dead before them, while endless columns of Russian T-34s passed the burning German machin
es by.

  A—relatively—nearby Planetary Defense Battery opened up with a furious fusillade of kinetic energy shots, the bolts leaving eye-burning trails of straight silver lightning in the sky. Overhead, a half dozen or more new stars blazed briefly. Then the combined might of hundreds of Posleen ships poured down onto the PDB, blasting it to ruin, raising a mushroom cloud, and even shaking Hans as he stood in his hatch atop Anna's turret.

  We are hurting them, maybe even hurting them badly. But it won't be enough.

  As if in confirmation, a veritable torrent of Posleen fire poured through down from the heavens to fall somewhere far to the west.

  That would be for the benefit of the French, I think.

  * * *

  Ouvrage du Hackenberg

  (Fortress Hackenberg)

  Thierville, Maginot Line, France

  18 December 2007

  Not for the first time, Major General Henri Merle cursed his government's pigheaded refusal to cooperate with anyone. On the remote television screen that adorned one wall of his command post he saw a nightmare he had somehow hoped he would never see again, a sea of reptilian centaurs chewing through wire, mines, and machine gun and artillery fire to get at the defenders. The actinic glare of the Posleen railguns crossed over and through the red tracers of France's last defenders.

  The command post shook slightly with the steady vibrations of the fort's three automatic cannon firing from their retractable turrets. On the screen the fire of the short-range guns, short ranged because the turrets were too small to permit much recoil, drew lines of mushrooming black clouds through the enemy host, leaving thousands of destroyed Posleen bodies in their wake. Each gun was capable of sending forth several dozen one-hundred-thirty-five-millimeter shells per minute by virtue of their unique chain-driven feeding system. All of that was done automatically except for feeding of the shells into the conveyor system that hoisted them aloft. That job was done by dozens of sweating, straining men in ammunition chambers far below.