Watch On The Rhine

by John Ringo

  "Fire!"

  As always, the tank was rocked back, shuddering under the recoil of the main gun. Ahead, a roughly spherical ball of light appeared as the depleted uranium sabot from Anna's gun first penetrated the Posleen ship, then released ten percent of its antimatter to react and annihilate itself with the DU, splitting the ship along its seams.

  To left and right, other Tigers fired to briefly light the night with muzzle flash and, often enough, impact on the selected target. There was no return fire from the Posleen ships, leading Hans to suspect they were more interested in flight than fight.

  "But that won't last," he muttered.

  "Sir?" asked the 1c.

  "They're trying to get away," he answered. "That would be fine; I'd encourage them in flying away. The problem is they won't stay away. The other problem is that if they see no escape they'll turn on us."

  "Yes, sir," replied the 1c. "But they are pretty bad at working together. We have a fair chance of taking them on, even all of them, if they come after us."

  "I concur, Intel. Orders remain unchanged. Kill 'em all."

  * * *

  Forward Headquarters

  Army Group Reserve

  Halle, Germany

  26 December 2007

  It had been a long night, as the rising sun promised another long day. Mühlenkampf barely listened to the reports of successful penetration of the Posleen lines, barely listened to reports of casualties and objectives taken.

  The worst part, thought he, looking out from a glassless window at the street below his commandeered headquarters building, is the emptiness of the town, that, and the piles of bones everywhere. He shook his head sadly. This town had a quarter of a million people in it even before the war, nearer to a third of a million since. Some got away to the south before the aliens entered it. But most did not and we have found not one living soul. God damn these aliens to the deepest pits of Hell! God damn whoever or whatever it was that made them come here.

  The town was still standing; the Posleen had not had time to begin deconstruction before the initial counterattack had driven them out on the twenty-second. But human beings were easier to kill and eat than buildings were to demolish.

  Below Mühlenkampf's lookout, a column of truck-borne infantry passed. He studied the faces carefully, looking for signs of panic or demoralization. He saw none. What he saw instead was simple hate, as the message of Halle's depopulation sank through even the thickest skulls.

  "Good," he whispered. "A little hate will give them the spine to go on a bit longer."

  An aide interrupted Mühlenkampf's reveries. "Herr General, we have reports from the 501st that they have reached the main concentration of enemy landers. General Brasche reports that his Tigers are destroying many of them on the ground and almost at will."

  * * *

  Tiger Anna

  Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

  26 December 2007

  Today it was a massacre. Unable safely to lift their ships to escape, the Posleen were fleeing to the north on their tenar or, more commonly, afoot. The 47th Panzer Korps was pursuing with as much speed and fury as the old SS had ever pursued routed Russians. While the SS pursued, the remainder of Army Group Reserve continued the drive to the northeast and northwest to relieve still embattled Magdeberg and Berlin.

  The trail of Brasche's mixed brigade was littered with the ruin of Posleen hopes. It was also littered with the ruin of hundreds upon hundreds of ships, large and small.

  More and more, though, the Posleen, individually, were turning at bay to go down fighting rather than be helplessly butchered from behind. Because this was, in every case, the decision of individuals or, occasionally, small groups, the ships facing Brasche's Tigers were, generally speaking, both outnumbered and, because they had to lift about the ground cover to move at all, easily spotted and shot down.

  This is not to say that the massacre was entirely one-sided. Five Tigers, three of them lifeless smoking hulks glowing cherry red in places, also dotted the path behind the brigade. Hans had hope that the other two might be recovered and recrewed.

  "Emanations. C-Dec. One o'clock. Eight thousand meters," announced the 1c.

  "Brigade halt," Brasche ordered. "Engage her as she shows."

  * * *

  East of Magdeberg, Germany

  26 December 2007

  Chaleeniskeeren knew it was the end, as it had been the end for each of his followers. He knew that he could run no further, certainly not in his weakened condition.

  The God King rested against the metallic side of a C-Dec, a Posleen Command Dodecahedron. The C-Dec was unmanned, and Chaleeniskeeren strongly suspected he knew why. The waves of heavy gamma radiation cutting through his body like knives told him this ship had fallen to one of the threshkreen's radiation weapons.

  "No matter," he snarled. "I am dead anyway."

  Arising, he walked unsteadily on his four legs until he reached the main hatch.

  "Halt and announce yourself," the ship commanded.

  The God King knew the drill. All Posleen Kessentai knew the drill for taking over abandoned property without incurring edas, the often crushing debt that was the common lot of all but the most senior and richest of the People.

  "I am Oolt'ondai Chaleeniskeeren, son of Ni'imiturna, of the line of Faltrinskera, of the clan Turnisteran. Is there anyone aboard?"

  "My internal sensors show no life aboard this vessel, Chaleeniskeeren of the Turnisteran. I am called 'Feast-deliverer.'"

  "What is your radiation count, Feast-deliverer?" he asked.

  "In the range of certain death in less than one twenty-fifth of this planet's revolution about its axis," the ship answered.

  "I claim this ship for myself and my clan, in the name of the Net and of the Knowers; in the name of the People, and of survival."

  "This is the way of the Path," the ship answered, as it lowered the ramp.

  Chaleeniskeeren's olfactory organs were immediately assaulted by the smell of feces and vomit. Clearly, those of the People who had died within were many, to raise such a stench. Steeling himself, he entered the ship.

  Near the ramp, just inside of the hatchway, Posleen lay everywhere in every manner of undignified death. Here a cosslain had ripped open his own torso to get at the source of his pain. There another lay in a pool of mixed vomit and feces. Some few had, apparently, gone feral, lashing out at each other in their death agonies.

  Stepping over bodies with every third lurch forward, Chaleeniskeeren made his own tortured way to the control chamber. There he found God Kings slumped in death, their faces twisted with the horror of their passing. Staggering, the sole living being aboard, Chaleeniskeeren reached the command panel. He had to tear away the God King who clutched it fast in full rigor mortis.

  Standing in the command position, Chaleeniskeeren heard the ship intone, "Oolt'ondai Chaleeniskeeren, son of Ni'imiturna, of the line of Faltrinskera, of the clan Turnisteran, I recognize you under the Law of the Net, and the Ways of the Path and of the Knowers, as rightful lord of this vessel. What is your command?"

  "Lift off," answered the new commander, unsteadily. Already the edges of his vision were darkening. "Lift off and head generally for the human forces. Control to me."

  * * *

  Tiger Anna

  Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

  26 December 2007

  "I can't get a lock, sir," shouted a frantic Dieter Schultz. "That ship is behaving like I have never seen an alien ship act before."

  Hans saw that this was true. Weaving, bobbing, even skating along the ground, the ship was an impossible target. A few rounds from other Tigers of the brigade passed nearby the target; passed, and missed. Suddenly, the alien ship shot straight up, moving faster than Anna's elevating mechanism could follow, moving eventually further than it could follow.

  "That ship shrieks gamma radiation," announced the 1c.

  "It's gotten away," exclaimed Schultz, in frustration.

  Hans shook his head in short
, violent jerks. "No. The Posleen never act that way. That ship had a dying alien at the helm. Anna, send the message to the brigade. All hands, brace for impact and a major antimatter explosion."

  * * *

  Aboard Feast-deliverer

  12 miles above

  Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

  26 December 2007

  "Take control . . . Take control, Feast-deliverer, for I no longer can hold the helm."

  "Your orders, Oolt'ondai? Shall I head for some safe planet?"

  "No, ship. There can be none, not in the long run. Can you identify the huge threshkreen war machines below?"

  "There are more than twenty, Oolt'ondai."

  "Pick one, ship; one that is near others."

  "I have done so."

  "Good," said Chaleeniskeeren, crest gone flaccid and head hanging in pain and shame. "Crash us into it."

  * * *

  Tiger Anna

  Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

  26 December 2007

  Hans dreamt of happier times . . .

  * * *

  The wedding was informal, as was to be expected in the austere Israeli compound. The girls had pooled their resources, come up with a makeshift dress and veil, some high heels. The only building suitable for the gathering was the mess. There was, of course, no organ to play the wedding march. Even so, a young Israeli trooper was managing a fair rendition on a violin.

  Looking back over his shoulder, to where his bride appeared, Hans noted with interest that his Anna wore no makeup anyway. Well, it wasn't as if she needed it.

  After that first night there had been no others. He had asked her to marry him as the sun arose the next morning and brought a filtered light for the hut. Lying there, the faint sun illuminating her hair spread across his one thin pillow, she had taken his breath away.

  Glimpsing her standing nervously at the entrance to the mess, she took his breath away now, too.

  The ceremony was conducted in Yiddish. If there was a living rabbi who spoke pure German he must have been far away. Curiously, though he still had to stumble through the ritual, he found he understood the rabbi better than Anna did. It must have been the Russian he had picked up on the eastern front.

  Another woman, a widow—Hans desperately didn't want to enquire as to the mechanism of her widowhood—had donated to the cause a simple gold ring. At the rabbi's command, he placed the ring on Anna's finger, then kissed her.

  In the ensuing party, deliriously happy, Hans still found time to talk to the rabbi in private.

  * * *

  Harz was the first of Anna's crew to regain consciousness. He was pleased to sense that the tank was still upright.

  First things first, Harz thought, groggily. On hands and knees he crawled to Schultz, checked him briefly for damage, and confirmed he was alive and, as near as cursory and inexpert examination could determine, unbroken.

  A few slaps across the face raised Dieter to a semblance of awareness.

  "Back to your station, old son, while I check on the commander."

  With the groggy Schultz climbing back into his gunner's station, and the main battery about to be, hopefully, functional, Harz went on to the second priority—the commander.

  Brasche was already awakening against the bulkhead of the inner fighting compartment when Harz reached him. Harz saw the commander's arm hanging at an odd angle, red fluid leaking through his uniform, and a red stream pouring from his head to cover his face and trickle onto the deck. "Casualties?" Hans croaked.

  "Dunno, sir," replied Harz. "No report."

  The brigade Ib, or logistics officer, arising from the tank's deck and climbing back into his secondary gunner's station under his own power, took one look at his screen and answered, "Heavy, sir. Very heavy, especially among the Tigers. I see five of them flashing black on my screen. Though whether they are dead or dying or what I cannot tell. And I suspect our panzer grenadiers will be in worse shape. The artillery seems to have come through well enough."

  "Damn," said the stunned Brasche, in a weak voice.

  Interlude

  "I have had enough!" exclaimed Athenalras. "Call off this multi-damned, demon-spawned attack."

  "My lord, no!" shouted Ro'moloristen, though the carnage along the front sickened him no less than his elder. "We cannot stop now! Think, my lord. The thresh are reeling in the east. And there is barely an obstacle to our brethren's continued progress into the very heart of this 'Deutschland.'"

  Ro'moloristen lowered his head and shook his crest. "The line 'Siegfried' is brittle, lord, brittle. Though the People may fall at a rate of twenty to one in chewing through it, fifty to one, one hundred to one—even, as we are in some places, it matters not. For we outnumber the thresh still by a factor of three hundred to one or more on this front.

  "And, lord, the bridge the host of Arlingas has captured near the gray thresh town of Mannheim? It is impacting severely on their ability to keep their damnable artillery resupplied. Even in the last few rotations of this planet our losses to this arm along that portion of the front have gone down drastically. Projections are that if we keep up the pressure, the threshkreen must break."

  Sadly, the senior laid one hand upon the very much junior's shoulder. "Let all this be true, young one. Still, I am sick of the slaughter. And would that it might end."

  "There can be no end, great one. Not until this species is utterly cast down. Come see."

  Gently, the junior led his lord to a data screen. "See the projections, lord." Quickly the screen jumped through well calculated close estimates of such things as population growth, technological progress, urbanization, advances in the military art, even psychiatric profiles of humans under stress.

  "As you can see, lord, our muzzles are plainly hitched to the breeding post."

  Athenalras answered, slowly and deliberately, "We are being well and truly fucked anyway, young one. We have tossed away the flower of the People in futile assaults against this Siegfried line, and have gained nothing by it except to reduce our numbers by one hundred million on this front alone."

  "I know, lord," said Ro'moloristen. "I know. But I have been thinking . . ."

  "A dangerous pastime."

  "Yes, lord, I know that, too. Nonetheless I have been thinking. We . . . the People as a whole . . . make war as we hunt. These threshkreen do not. Or, at least, they do not do so as we do. They have what they call 'Principles of War.' The lists of these principles vary among them but I have discovered twelve that seem to cover everything."

  "Twelve?"

  "Yes, Lord: they are Mass, Objective, Security, Surprise, Maneuver, Offensive, Unity of Command, Simplicity, Economy of Force, Attrition, Annihilation and Shape. Using these principles I have determined upon a plan that may grant us the victory. Instead of attacking all along the front, we will concentrate our efforts towards the sector nearest to the bridge held by the host of Arlingas. We have no clue how even to use any of the thresh artillery we have captured, let alone build or resupply our own. But we do have ships. From space we will pound—"

  "They will butcher our ships in space!"

  Ro'moloristen gave the Posleen equivalent of a sigh. "Yes, lord, surely they will, for a while. But before our ships are destroyed they will, in turn, kill. They will beat for us a flat road through a narrow lane in the Siegfried line.

  "Lord, if we don't our people are dead!"

  Coming to a sudden decision, Athenalras lifted his crest slightly. "Show me the projections of loss," he demanded.

  Athenalras looked over Ro'moloristen's figures. Frightful, frightful. And yet the puppy is right. What else can we do, if the People are not to perish? "It will take several revolutions of this planet about its axis for us to prepare. See to it. And prepare a special hunting group of ships to see to this reported super-tenaral. And reduce the level of the current offensive to no more than is needed to keep the thresh's attention."

  PART IV

  Chapter 14

  Tiger Brünnhilde

&nb
sp; Hanau, Germany

  1 January 2008

  "Oh, God, I'll never drink schnapps again," moaned Mueller from underneath bloodshot eyes.

  "Stop making so much damned noise, Johann," insisted Prael. "We're all as hung over as you."

  "Franz and I are not," insisted Schlüssel. "Neither is Herr Henschel. With age comes a certain wisdom and restraint, after all."

  "My little round ass," answered Breitenbach, blearily. "You three packed it away as well as any of us. You have just had more years to get in training."

  The combat compartment of the tank grew silent with that, largely out of deference to the "dying."

  For ten days Prael had run the crew through drill after drill, simulated engagement after simulated engagement. Occasionally, when circumstances seemed right, they had taken a potshot at an unwary Posleen vessel passing overhead. Already Schlüssel had painted six kill markers around the lower part of the railgun's rail, mute but eloquent testimony to the efficacy of the railgun, even against Posleen ships in orbit.

  Ten days and six kills. It would have been an utterly and futilely short period of training but for two factors. The first of these was the tank's AI; which had both reduced the need for training and made whatever training was given precisely appropriate need.

  But the second factor was within the purview of the more subtle part of training: building comradeship. And years of working together, designing and building the two versions of Tiger, had long since welded the men, and one woman, who crewed Brünnhilde into a team. They knew each other, had eaten and drank together. They knew each other's families, and hopes and dreams. They cared.

  Though they didn't talk much about dreams.

  * * *

  Though he liked these humans, especially the one with the funny bumps, so reminiscent of Brünnhilde's armored front, who usually made them their food, Rinteel did not feel a part of the team, not even as the token Nibelung, whatever a Nibelung was.

  Not that he was useless, far from it. Unlike Indowy machines this one had awesome defects to it; awesome at least for one born into a civilization where perfection was the minimum standard for tools and machines. The little bat-faced sentient spent full and busy days helping to fix one crisis fault after another. He had a genuine knack for it, even with, to him, alien machinery.