Watch On The Rhine

by John Ringo

  Borominskar still stepped briskly. His trunk Ro'moloristen saw to be covered with some kind of blanket seemingly made of mid-length, light-colored thresh fur. The fur seemed very young and fresh, blowing as it did in the early spring sun. Since the People did not have the thresh art of weaving, Ro'moloristen made the logical assumption.

  I pity you, Borominskar, if the threshkreen ever capture you alive within a million measures of that blanket. They will not merely kill you; they will cut out your living entrails and roast them before your eyes, then leave your agonized remains for this planet's insects to devour. They will do the same to each of your followers, too, for nothing affects these thresh like the murder of their young.

  For you see, lord, that these people are not like us. We kill to eat, with no more pain given than necessary for that purpose. We are not a cruel race, merely a practical one.

  But the humans are a cruel species. They can revel in an enemy's agony. I pity you, Borominskar, when the thresh return in strength and break out from their fastnesses.

  And they will return, O Lord of the east. And they will break out. Our species, as it exists, is doomed.

  Chapter 20

  Tiger Brünnhilde

  The end

  I survived. How is it possible I survived?

  Groggy and disoriented, the Indowy Rinteel arose slowly and unsteadily to all fours from the deck where he had been thrown after the last Posleen hit on Brünnhilde. There was a coppery smell in the air, something unique in the Indowy's experience. To Rinteel it seemed to be coming from the thick, red liquid sloshing across the deck. He lowered his head and sniffed at the deck. Ah, so human blood smells like that.

  There was smoke in the air, bitter and acrid and easily overwhelming the smell of blood once the Indowy managed to drag himself to his feet. Some of that smoke poured from Rinteel's own damage control panel.

  If I had been in my chair leaning forward I would be dead now, he thought.

  He heard the faint whistle of the tank's blowers, apparently working on automatic once they detected dangerous material in the air. Soon it was clear enough for Rinteel to see around the combat cocoon.

  What he saw wrenched his heart. Lining both sides of the cocoon his human comrades slumped in death, hanging loosely against their straps. So many holes had been torn through most of the bodies by the shattering of Brünnhilde's armor that the bodies had gone pale.

  Looking back, Rinteel saw that the corpses of Schlüssel, Henschel, and Prael were more torn than most. The Posleen penetration had done its worst work at the rear of the cocoon. Bits of flesh and bone were stuck by blood all over that section.

  The horror of the scene seemed to make something go "click" in the Indowy's mind. Rinteel felt a portion of his sanity go gibbering away. With that portion gone, he found, he was able to feel things he had never felt before . . . anger, hate, a desire to punish. At the same time these things crept into Rinteel's mind he felt a deep pain in his body, his people's cultural and philosophical conditioning against violence coming to the fore.

  Frantically, the Indowy pushed aside the hateful thoughts. He did not regain his full sanity by doing so.

  Then came a low moan from the front of the cocoon, Mueller's driving station.

  Perhaps I am not alone after all, Rinteel thought. Friend Johann may live yet. He raced somewhat unsteadily on his short legs to Mueller's station and twisted the chair around.

  Mueller was alive, though barely. A red foam frothed from his chest as a red stream poured down his face.

  "Friend Johann, how may I help?"

  "Rinteel, is that you? I can't see you."

  "You are badly hurt, Johann."

  "Is there anyone . . . ?" Mueller began to ask.

  "No, I am sorry. All are dead but for you and me."

  With that grim news Mueller sank into a semi-torpor. "All dead. All . . . Rinteel, you must fight the tank. I am dying, and I cannot."

  "I cannot either, Johann. My people are not warriors."

  "There are warriors and then there are warriors, Rinteel. You must fight the tank." Mueller was overtaken by a spasm of coughing which brought blood and bloody gobbets forth from his mouth. When the spasm was finished he said, so low as barely to be heard, "Use your mind, Rinteel. Find a way . . . perhaps the tank can help you."

  Mueller began coughing again. When the fit ended, the Indowy could see, breathing had stopped.

  Rinteel had never before lost a friend. A bit more of his sanity departed with the loss.

  * * *

  A sane Indowy, Rinteel knew, would have abandoned Brünnhilde by now. Yet Rinteel found that he simply could not leave. Between his conditioning and the sense of duty and honor he had learned from the crew, the Indowy was able to put a name to the disease affecting his mind. A human would have called it schizophrenia, though that would not have been perfectly accurate. He had not developed a twin personality so much as he was rapidly developing a twin set of values.

  It was in such a state of mental confusion that he asked of the air, "Tank Brünnhilde?"

  "I am here, Indowy Rinteel."

  "What is your condition? My damage control screen is broken."

  "Everything critical is operable, Rinteel."

  "You can fight then?"

  "No, Indowy Rinteel, except in self-defense. And I cannot use my main battery in any case without a commander or crewmember to give me the order to do so."

  "Am I an official member of the crew, Brünnhilde?"

  "You are, Rinteel."

  The Indowy stopped then, while different values, new and old, warred within him. He thought that if he gave in to the urge to fight, that part of his now split value system would likely take over all of him. He thought, too, that his body would never survive such a course, that his conditioning would kill him if he gave in to the primitive urge.

  And Rinteel did not want to die.

  * * *

  "I do not wish to die, tank Brünnhilde," he said, sipping some intoxicant that had miraculously survived the Posleen strike.

  "I understand that is common with sentient life, Indowy Rinteel."

  "You have instructions, preprograms, do you not, which require you to try to survive?"

  "Yes, I do, Rinteel. But this is a matter of programming and not one of personal preference. I have no personal preferences. I am not a person."

  To the Indowy this seemed specious. He was, after all, from a civilization in which AI's, notably the Darhel produced AIDs, did have personalities. "Refresh my memory, Brünnhilde. You cannot engage your survival program while you maintain more than two rounds of your ammunition aboard?"

  "This is correct, Rinteel."

  The Indowy thought about that, then asked, "Are there Posleen ships about overhead, Brünnhilde?"

  "There are, Rinteel. I surmise they are not finishing us off because we appear to be dead. The enemy flyers have likewise withdrawn. After the hit that got through I let my close-in defense weapons go silent to fool them. This was part of my survival programming, though I note that it is a war crime under international law."

  Dead? Dead? I do not want to die. And yet, if I must . . .

  "How many projectiles do you retain for your main battery, Brünnhilde?"

  "I have one hundred and forty-seven KE projectiles, DU-AM, Rinteel. Plus fifty-nine antipersonnel canister."

  "And how long would it take you to expend all but two of the KE?

  "Slightly more than one hour, Rinteel."

  "And then you will be able to engage your survival program?"

  "Yes, Rinteel."

  Again the Indowy stopped speaking to allow himself to think. When he had finished he asked, "Can you distinguish the color of the sky, Brünnhilde?"

  "I can."

  "Can you note the color of the earth?"

  "Yes, Rinteel."

  "Can you change colors in your perceptions? Modify what you perceive?"

  "I can."

  "Good. I want you to modify your perceptio
ns such that the earth and sky are all green."

  "Very well, Rinteel. I have done so."

  "Good . . . very good. Thank you, Brünnhilde. What colors remain?"

  "Just the silver shapes of the Posleen warships."

  "Excellent. Now, Brünnhilde, I want you to expend all but two of your remaining KE projectiles. But you are not to aim at the green."

  Instantly the tank's railgun raised to near vertical, the turret swerved, and the tank itself began to shudder with the pulses of death being sent aloft.

  The Indowy smiled then; madness had overtaken him fully despite his philosophical sleight of hand. When the tank was finally destroyed by Posleen counterfire, he would still be smiling.

  * * *

  Spandau Prison

  Berlin, Germany

  5 March 2008

  The sound of alien claws on the concrete floors and reverberating off of the stone walls and steel doors of the ancient prison filled Günter Stössel with dread.

  The guards were gone; had left laughing, in fact, over the presumed fate of the charges they were deliberately abandoning to the Posleen. Neither pleas nor offers moved the warders. Though no Sigrunen flashed from their collars they were perhaps more in tune with the mindset of many of those who had worn the double lightning flashes in earlier times. Certainly they were pitiless with those of the prisoners who were serving sentences for collusion with the Darhel.

  Shivering in his cell, for without the prison staff the heat had shut down, Günter started at the sound of screaming coming from down the corridor and around a bend. The words of the screamer, to the extent there were words, were indistinct. Most of the sound, in any case, was a mindless howl, pleading for life.

  The howl suddenly cut off. Günter thought he might have heard the sound of something hitting the concrete floor, but could not be sure. He was sure that he did hear a concerto of snarling, snapping feasting. He also heard many more screams and pleas, and more articulate ones, coming from other prisoners.

  The sounds of claws on concrete came a bit closer. The screaming pleas, such as one might have heard in some nineteenth-century madhouse, grew ever louder and ever closer.

  The Posleen cosslain, when it came to Günter's cell and blasted the lock on the door, found him hiding under a blanket in a far corner of the cell. The cosslain simply removed the blanket and dragged him by the hair to the corridor outside, where all could feed without the jostling that often led to internal fighting among the People.

  After the terrified wait, after the growing concert of shrieking and pleading and the patter of falling heads, Günter was no doubt quite mad by the time the Posleen arrived at his cell. When the cosslain drew his boma blade and swept it through Günter's neck, severing head from torso, Günter was as indifferent as was the cosslain.

  * * *

  Stockholm, Sweden

  12 March 2008

  "All is lost," muttered the chancellor hopelessly.

  Mühlenkampf shrugged in his hospital bed. "We have lost a battle, Herr Kanzler. But we have not lost the war."

  What universe does this soldier live in? wondered the chancellor.

  Mühlenkampf as much as read the chancellor's thoughts. He answered them with, "A battle is not a war, nor is even a series of battles a war, Herr Kanzler. This war will not be over until the last of us is dragged, biting and kicking from the last trench or the last hole after we have expended the last round of ammunition."

  "We have saved nearly twenty million of our own people here; a like number have found safety in the Alps. Add to that several million more French and Poles and Czechs and Italians.

  "The people we saved, too, are the most precious: women to breed more soldiers in abundance, wise farmers, skilled workers. And enough soldiers have been saved to make a seed from which mighty armies will grow. North and south we shall grow again; we shall marshal and build our strength. And the enemy has no chance of digging us out from either Scandinavian snows or Alpine fortresses; they'll starve first.

  "But we will not starve, Herr Kanzler. Oh, yes, rations may be a little scant and bland until we can break out from our mountain fastnesses. So what? The Volk had become pudgy with prosperity, and a lean wolf is a fierce one.

  "No, Herr Kanzler, the war is not lost, but only beginning."

  * * *

  The remnants of Division Charlemagne had made it to safety; a mere two thousand from a division that had once boasted nearly twenty thousand, and had lost nearly twice that number in action. In a relatively small corner of a huge Stockholm Sub-Urb, the survivors among the French civilians warmed to and welcomed the tiny band that was all that remained of a once great and courageous army. Already, boys and girls as young as twelve were being turned into something their people needed to survive: soldiers.

  To Isabelle it was an abomination, to take those so young and twist their hearts and minds to make them killing machines. An abomination it was, but still, she knew, it was not the worst form of abomination. She could not like it; she could not even keep herself from hating it. And yet she knew she could accept it, for the alternative was far worse.

  She thought about an old American science fiction series, Journey to the Stars or some such title. She had once enjoyed it greatly, though she found few of the plots believable two minutes after a show had ended. Nor had much of the philosophy of the show really moved her.

  Yet two things had. The lesser of these was "having is not, after all, so pleasing a thing as wanting." Much more important, especially in her current circumstances, was the simple line, "Survival cancels out programming."

  She walked to the small cubicle in her apartment, barely more than a large closet really, where Thomas slept when he had no duties with Charlemagne. Opening the door slightly, she peered in on her resting son.

  Sensing that Thomas was asleep, she risked opening the door wide enough to enter. Not wanting to take a chance on awakening him, as she might have had she sat on the bed, Isabelle instead sat on the floor. She was tall enough, and the bed low enough, that she could still reach out easily to gently stroke her son's hair.

  "Survival cancels out programming," she thought. I was programmed by my mother who had seen France lose three wars in a row and thought that the entire exercise was futile. My mother was programmed by her mother who had feared she would never marry because the Great War had created such a shortage of men. And you, my dear son, were programmed by me.

  I made you to be a fine boy, warm and kindhearted and good. And so, when the time came, and you needed to do something horrible to prevent something worse, you could not. But it was my hand that froze yours, my loving mother's heart that pierced your own. The guilt, my son, is all mine. And none of the blame is yours.

  And so, tomorrow when you awaken to breakfast . . . and for every morning to come, you will find a mother who will give her heart and soul into making you what I never wanted you to be: a soldier. You will find a mother who will advise you and prompt you and support you in becoming the best French soldier in a century.

  For "Survival cancels out programming."

  * * *

  Tiger Anna

  The end

  Es ist zu ende, thought Hans. It is over: the pain, the war, the struggle. Well, there are still a few things to do.

  Hans looked around the combat cocoon. Every man turned a questioning face towards him. We have followed you to the end. Now there is nothing more to do. What now, commander?

  Hans turned his own face from his followers, put on his VR helmet, and said, "Anna, situation map please, strategic situation."

  "Yes, Herr Oberst," the tank answered, and it seemed to Hans there was a deep yet inexpressible sadness in the artificial voice. Perhaps that was merely because the tank's words were filtered through Hans' own, weary and hopeless, mind.

  The enemy suddenly appeared on the map Anna's VR placed before Hans' eyes, a great red splotch covering Germany from Munich to Hamburg. A thin, irregular line of blue remained at the passes into the
Bavarian and Swiss Alps and in Schleswig-Holstein. This line represented the last holdouts among the defenders. All the rest who had not found secure flanks in the mountains were even now drowning under the alien tide.

  Passing through the blue line, even as its rear was being overwhelmed and engulfed by the red tide, were the last fleeing million of civilians, showing on the VR map as evaporating pools of green.

  "Anna, end image."

  Hans' removed his VR helmet and turned his attention back to the crew. "There is nothing more most of you can do. Schultz, Harz, grab your bags and go. Find safety in the north."

  Both Dieter and Rudi began to object, but Hans silenced them. "Just go, gentlemen. Your country, which is more than a collection of fields and hills and towns and rivers, needs you alive. Find wives; raise families. Bring up sons as good and brave as yourselves, sons that will someday take our homeland back for us. And if you would be so good as to take my hand as you leave . . ."

  With similar words, similar handshakes, Hans dismissed all the crew, one by one and two by two, until only he and Krueger were left. Krueger kept his vision carefully fixed on his driver's screen, hoping the commander would find no more use for him and would release him to flee for safety.

  But Hans just sat silent in his command chair, his hand stroking a little packet in his left breast pocket, his eyes staring at Krueger's back.

  * * *

  Outside of the tank, Schultz and Harz joined the swelling stream of refugees and scraps of units retreating to the north. It was a sight they had seen too many times before. Yet familiarity had not dulled the pain of watching old men and women struggling to keep ahead of the alien hordes, had never accustomed them to the sight of hungry mothers pushing and leading hungry children for some distant, hoped for, safety.

  "We should go back," said Schultz. "No matter what the commander says, he should not be left to die alone. And I am ashamed to be running with these people when we should be standing on the line and fighting to give them half a chance." Dieter turned to go back when Harz's restraining hand gripped his shoulder.

  * * *

  Krueger started when he first felt Brasche's hand on his shoulder. The commander had made no sound in his approach, had made no sound since releasing the last other member of the crew.