Watch On The Rhine

by John Ringo

  Only one spoke any German, and that little he spoke very badly. The man seemed quite frantic to Hans, pointing and gesturing at some new threat, real or imagined, coming from the other side.

  Reluctantly, after the Poles had been fed, Hans directed Harz to guide them to the rear. Maybe they did have useful information, maybe they didn't. If so, only one of the interpreters in the rear could hope to ferret it out.

  Still, Hans had to credit the intensity of the Pole's frantic and failed attempts at communication. He resolved to order an increased alert level as soon as he returned to Anna's warm hold.

  * * *

  Though the night was cold, Borominskar, standing by and facing a fire, and with a patchwork blanket made of carefully chewed and sewn thresh-pelt, was warm enough. A cosslain had summoned forth the needed skills to make the blanket from his internal store. Going from feed lot to feed lot he had selected the best of the thresh, those with the longest, finest, brightest hair to make this offering to his God. Carefully trimming and cleaning the freshly gathered pelts, the cosslain had chewed them gently for days to make them change from putrescible flesh to soft, long haired, impervious suede.

  The fire was warm, pleasingly so. Its random flashes, the sparks and flickering shadows it cast, brought to the Posleen's mind a sense of peace; of relaxation, quiet and ease. Equally comforting, the blanket was bright and fluffy, the thresh would have called its fibers "blonde." It insulated the God King well from the frozen wind, coming unbroken off of the steppes to the east.

  The God King found stroking the long, thick fibers of the blanket to be strangely pleasant, almost as pleasant as contemplation of revenge upon the cowardly, never to be sufficiently dammed thresh who had half broken his host.

  And the day of that revenge was near at hand.

  Borominskar had had a terrible time keeping his Kessentai and their oolt'os under discipline. Hungry, the people were; hungry, frightened and furious at the cowardly thresh's use of floating fire to defeat the last attack. They were also terrified, at some deep inner level, of facing such a death as had befallen their brethren.

  The memory of all those oolt'os burning and suffocating in flame, their piteous cries breaking the sky, still made Borominskar shudder, his flesh crawl.

  Still, a few more days and the gathering parties, hungry as they were, would have gathered enough living thresh to make Borominskar's plan work. The thresh had shown no pity for his people. They might have some for their own.

  * * *

  Tiger Brünnhilde

  Kitzingen, Germany

  17 January 2008

  "The pity of it is," said a sleepy Mueller to an exhausted Schlüssel, "with just two of these, we would be three times more effective. With a half a dozen, the enemy could be hunted as if by a wolf pack, and destroyed before they could mass effective return fire. A half dozen like our 'girl' here, and the Posleen could not live over Germany."

  "Yes," agreed Schlüssel. "And then our cities would not be smashed from the air, our fortifications would have held longer, maybe indefinitely, and the poor bastards on the ground would have a better chance."

  "Is there any chance of getting at least a second Model B Tiger?"

  "No, Johann," Prael interrupted. "The information is on the Net for download; the factory and most of the raw material are being moved to one of the Sub-Urbs in Switzerland. But that process is going to take months to complete the move and prepare for manufacture. No telling how long before they begin to produce."

  "The Swedes?" Mueller asked.

  "They have the plans," answered Prael. "They have the raw materials. They even have some railguns we shipped to them and all of the plans for Tiger A and B, both. But, again, more months, perhaps as long as a year, until the first model rolls off."

  "We do not have a year," Henschel observed from the little cocoon of blankets he had rolled himself into to seek a few moments' rest.

  * * *

  Each day in the Tiger seemed like a year of normal time to Rinteel. Besides the constant work, work, work keeping the beast running, work which, because of his dexterity, skill and instincts fell more and more upon the Indowy's broad shoulders, there was the ever present danger, the psychic torment whenever he let it get through to him that this tank, this crew, were gleefully slaughtering sentient beings.

  At least he wasn't hungry, as he had been for a few days when the food he had carried aboard ran out. He had managed to cobble together a food synthesizer in an unused space between Brünnhilde's fighting compartment and the exterior hull. It stood right next to what the human crew had dubbed "the Nibelung's still."

  Rinteel found himself growing more and more dependent upon the product of that still. Through the long days and nights of battle, he had come to seek its relaxation—even the oblivion it could provide taken in excess quantities—as a respite from the horrors he endured.

  He noticed too that the German crew never lost a chance to loot any alcohol they could find in any abandoned town. Though, being German and therefore almost as neat as an Indowy, the trail behind the über-tank was marked by neat piles of amber and green bottles anywhere Brünnhilde had found a half a day's safety to stop and rest.

  Right now the tank sat idle and quiet under a thick blanket of camouflage foam and snow. She needed resupply, she needed maintenance, and she needed them now.

  Fortunately, the trucks carrying spare parts, ammunition and food had already begun to queue up, under cover of the snow-clad woods nearby. Already the first of the ammunition trucks was parked beside the massive hull, pallets of ammunition being lifted by Brünnhilde's external crane and stowed below.

  While resupply was ongoing, below a large crew of mechanics worked repairs to the massive yet intricate mechanisms of the tank. Still others gauged and, in teams, tightened track, checked the suspension, or performed any number of other tasks required under the fleeting supervision of Rinteel.

  The Indowy had nothing to do with the resupply. Instead, he spent his time alternating between rest, food, drink, repairs and reading the manual. Much of the sleep was catch as catch can. The food was usually wolfed down. The drink imbibed served to relax him enough, if just enough, to sleep. The repairs were never ending.

  And the manual was . . . obtuse.

  * * *

  Tiger Anna

  Oder-Niesse line

  17 January 2008

  The shallow valley of the Niesse was covered in dense thick fog. Anna's thermals could pierce the fog easily, of course, and to a considerable distance. Even so, Hans had left his operations officer in charge below, seated in the command chair to view the screen and keep watch over the rest of the area via his virtual reality helmet.

  Hans, instead, stood in the commander's hatch atop the turret listening for . . . he knew not what. There were no targets for the artillery, not given that observers could not see through enough of the fog to justify using shells that were becoming slightly harder to find than they had been. There was no rifle fire from the near bank, nor railgun fire from the Posleen. Only the occasional rumble from fore or rear told of artillery laying down sporadic "harassment and interdiction," or H and I, fires.

  H and I fires could be said to be the price one pays for making the enemy's life miserable and uncertain . . . and keeping him from becoming too bold.

  Hans' mind dialed out the artillery's intermittent rumbling. His eyes he let go out of focus. His ears, enhanced by the same process that had returned him to youth, strained to find something, some hint or sign, of what had so terrified that Pole.

  His ears, enhanced or not, picked up nothing. Hans cursed the fog that kept him from seeing.

  * * *

  Borominskar cursed the damnable weather of this world. He needed for the humans to be able to see!

  And he needed them able to see well . . . and soon. All his plans depended on the threshkreen being able to see what they were facing. Only that, the God King was sure, would take his host to the far bank and beyond.

 
; Would this fog never lift? Would he be forced to feed his host on the thresh gathered, to feed them before the thresh had fulfilled their purpose? The thought was just too depressing. Already he had ordered the male thresh so far gathered slaughtered to feed his oolt'os. That was of little moment. But he needed the young and the females to see his purpose through to completion. If the fog did not disappear within a few days, Borominskar knew he would have to order the slaughter of even these.

  The God King tried to relax. Unconsciously his hand reached to stroke the thick, soft pelt of the blanket that warmed his haunches.

  * * *

  Frustrated and half frozen in the fog, Hans left the commander's hatch and descended by the Anna's elevator to the heavily armored, and properly heated, battle deck below.

  "Commander on deck," the 1a announced, quickly vacating Han's command chair.

  Wordlessly, Hans took the chair and placed his VR helmet on his head. The crew, their battle stations, the main view-screen, all disappeared instantly.

  The helmet took its input directly from Anna. Where all was clear she used her external cameras to send clear images. Where only her thermal, radar and lidar vision could reach she supplied what could only be called a best guess. In those circumstances, the images she projected were somewhat simplified, iconic and even cartoonish.

  "Anna," Hans whispered.

  "Yes, Herr Oberst," the tank replied in his audio receivers.

  "I am sorry, Anna, I was talking to someone else."

  "Yes, Herr Oberst."

  Hans' hand stroked the little package in his left breast pocket. Anna, I have a very bad feeling about tomorrow. No, not that they will defeat me here. That, they will do, eventually, anyway. But there is something going on, something different . . . something I do not think my men can face. I wish so very much you could be here with me. I think you were always as much braver and smarter than I as you were better looking. And I am alone and afraid.

  Interlude

  Flying their tenar side by side across the moonscaped land, Athenalras and his aide, Ro'moloristen, surveyed the mass of People following the thresh-built roads and trails to the sausage grinder of the front.

  "I fear you were wrong, puppy. We have not managed to break out from the bridgehead held by Arlingas and his host."

  "Not yet, lord. And yet I think I can retain my head, and my reproductive organs a bit longer." Unaccountably, Ro'moloristen gave the Posleen equivalent of a grin, most unusual for one ever so near to meeting the Demons of Sky and Fire.

  "You seem quite pleased with yourself for one about to make a long journey with an unpleasant beginning," growled Athenalras.

  "Did I expect to make that journey, lord, I would no doubt be more subdued."

  "You know something you have not told me?" Athenalras accused.

  "Yes, lord." The junior God King positively grinned. "Borominskar is almost ready to move. And this time, I think he will get across the obstacle to his front. When he does, it will suck the threshkreen away from this front like a magnet pulls iron filings. And, then, my lord, then we shall have our breakout here.

  "The host of Arlingas is relieved now," Ro'moloristen continued. "We are feeding them thresh from our store . . . and the edas I am charging Arlingas is going a long way towards eliminating our edas to him. And without pressure from all sides being placed on Arlingas there is little chance the threshkreen can recover the far bank of the river."

  "Perhaps not, but there is always something held in reserve, some new unscrupulous trick with these humans. Have we tracked down and destroyed this new threshkreen fighting machine, the one that can strike our people's ships even in space?" Athenalras asked.

  "Sadly, no, lord. The hunter killer group we sent disappeared without a trace and the machine escaped our grasp. I have begun to assemble another, bigger and more powerful, hunting party. As for whether they can close the breach Arlingas made in their walls . . . I begin to suspect there is only the one machine, and it will not be able to do much on its own."

  Ro'moloristen continued, "The Rheinland is almost entirely cleared of thresh, and millions have been rounded up to feed our host, though the thresh thus gathered tends to be old, tough and stringy. This is only part of why Borominskar has decided to move. The other half is . . . well, lord . . . he has a great grudge he bears against the threshkreen to his front.

  "And great will be the manner of his revenge for the foul way they fought him.

  "Lord . . . with a little preparation, we ourselves might use Borominskar's trick to grab yet another bridge."

  Chapter 16

  Wiesbaden, Germany

  18 January 2008

  Through the long days and nights the stream of people fleeing the Posleen hordes never completely let up, though night, weather, and enemy fire occasionally caused it to slacken. Thomas marveled that so many could have made it out of the west to safety here.

  He knew one reason why so many civilians were still pouring over to safety. To meet and pass the flood of refugees, a thin continuous column of gray-green clad men and boys crossed in the opposite direction, an offering of military blood to save civilian blood.

  "It's the Germans, boy," pronounced Gribeauval. "Give the bastards their due. When their blood is up, when it really matters, they know how to die."

  Thomas knew this was so. He knew it from the eerie flares illuminating the town of Mainz to the southwest, and from the red tracers that flew upward to meet those flares after ricocheting off of some hard surface. The German boys—boys no different from himself and his mates—still fighting and dying to hold an arc around the bridge and around the hundreds of thousands of civilians still waiting the word to cross to the north, wrote grim testimony to their own courage and determination to hang on to the bitterest end.

  "Read this," said Gribeauval. "It just came in . . . a radio message from some corporal over there."

  Thomas read:

  "There are seven of us left alive in this place. Four of us are wounded, two very badly, though each mans a post even so. We have been under siege for five days. For five days we have had no food. In ten minutes the enemy will attack; we can hear him massing now. I have only one magazine left for my rifle. The mines are expended. The machine gun is kaput. We are out of range of mortar support and I cannot raise the artillery. We have rigged a dead-man's switch on our last explosives to ensure our bodies do not go to feeding the enemy. Tell my family I have done my duty and will know how to die. May the German people live forever!"

  Thomas felt unwelcome tears. He forced them back only with difficulty. So gallant, so brave they were, those boys over there fighting and dying against such odds, and with so little hope.

  Gribeauval, seeing the boy's emotions written upon his twisted face, said, "Yes, son; give them their due. They are a great people, a magnificent people. And we are damned lucky to have them, now."

  Thomas agreed. And more; he thought of himself, alone, trying to save his mother and little brother from the alien harvesting machine. He wished to be a man, was becoming one, he knew. But alone he could never have made the slightest difference for his family's survival. That took an army, an army of brave men and boys, willing to give their all for the cause of their people.

  Perhaps for the first time, Thomas began to feel a deep pride, not so much in himself, but in the men he served with, in the army they served, and even in the black-clad, lightning bolt-signified, corps that was a part of that army.

  Thomas was learning.

  "Save that message, son. Keep it in your pocket. The day may come when you need a good example."

  * * *

  Isabelle had wanted to set a proper example. So, though she had no medical training, she had been married to one of France's premier surgeons. Much of medical lore she had picked up as if by osmosis, across the dinner table, at soirees, from visiting her husband's office. She thought she might be able to help, with scullery work if nothing else. And she knew to be clean in all things and all ways around
open flesh.

  She thought, at least, she could follow that part of the Hippocratic oath which said: "First of all, do no harm."

  Once assured that the Wiesbadener family would see to her youngest, once she saw him learning this new language, this new culture, she had made inquiries and set out on her quest.

  It had been difficult. For the most part, if Germans learned a foreign language it was much more likely to be English than French, a long legacy of cozying up to new allies and away from ancient enemies. In time, her own badly spoken, high school German had seen her to a French-staffed military hospital. She was surprised to see the Sigrunen framing the red cross, surprised to see the name in not Roman but Gothic letters: Field Hospital, SS Division Charlemagne.

  "You wish to join as a volunteer?" the one armed old sergeant had asked.

  "Oui. I think I may be of help. But, to help, monsieur, not to join. You have already taken one of my sons. The other needs me."

  "Have we? Taken one of your boys, that is? We could certainly use some help . . . well . . . let me show you around. As you will see, nothing here is by the book."

  * * *

  Tiger Brünnhilde

  Near Kitzingen, Germany

  18 January 2008

  Still reading the manual, that obtuse, damnable, almost incomprehensible operators and crewman's manual, a frustrated Rinteel spoke with the tank itself.

  "Tank Brünnhilde, I am confused."

  "What is the source of your confusion, Indowy Rinteel?"

  Rinteel took a sip of intoxicant from a metal, army-issue cup, before answering. Thus fortified, he continued, "Your programming does not allow you to fight on your own, is that correct?"

  "It is correct, Indowy Rinteel."

  "It does allow you to use your own abilities to escape, however, does it not?"

  "If my entire crew is dead or unconscious, I am required to bring them and myself to safety, yes. But I am still not allowed to fight the main gun without a colloidal sentience to order me to. I can use the close-defense weapons on my own, however, at targets within their range; that is within my self-defense programming. And I may not retreat while I carry more than two rounds of ammunition for the main gun."