Watch on the Rhine lota-7 Read online

  Wäller Kaserne, Westerburg, Germany, 27 March 2007

  Outside the headquarters snow fell, driven by the wind and collecting in drifts chaotically. Inside, paper and words flew in an equal blizzard. But inside, the will of one man reigned over the chaos of the frightful news.

  “Major landings at Ingolstadt, Tübingen, Aschaffenburg, Meissen, Schwerin, Nienburg, and Guemmersbach, Herr Generalleutnant,” announced the aide de camp, Rolf, finger stabbing down at each fresh Posleen infestation marked on the table-borne map. “Minor ones all over the map.”

  The phone rang. Neither Posleen invasion nor four years of steady allied bombing during the Second World War had ever quite succeeded in inconveniencing the Bundespost, the German telephone system.

  “Generalleutnant, it is the chancellor for you.”

  Mühlenkampf took the phone, announcing himself.

  He listened for several minutes before answering, “Yes, Herr Kanzler, I understand. You can count on the 47th Panzer Korps.”

  The general replaced the phone on its cradle, exhaling forcefully. To his staff he explained, “The infantry is folding and running almost everywhere. Some of the towns are holding though. Aschaffenburg has fallen, but Würzburg and Schweinfurt are holding out. We are going to move south, relieve those towns, and destroy the invaders utterly.”

  The aide listened for the remaining words. Those words remained unspoken. Finally, he asked, “What about our left and right units, Herr General?”

  Mühlenkampf shook his head. “The other twelve heavy Korps are already committed. The only infantry in range to have any effect is crushed… they were crushed in a matter of hours. We’re on our own in this.”

  * * *

  The autobahn was a steady-moving river of vehicles, both soft and armored. Civilians moved north in two streams to either side. Their faces were haggard, drawn, frightened.

  Mixed in among the civilians, mostly weaponless, trudged soldiers in the thousands. These were broken men, from broken formations. Leaderless, these men were also demoralized, dispirited and disheveled.

  Off from the autobahn, at a distance, Brasche stood in the turret of Anna, watching the mixed crowd pass. Their eyes filled briefly with hope at the Tiger’s imposing heft and incredibly vicious-looking gun. Then, one and all, the refugees would glance behind them, remember what they had seen, the horrors of Posleen on a feeding frenzy, and hopelessly trudge on.

  Hans understood. He had seen it before. He had been a part of it before.

  * * *

  It was a warm spring afternoon. Winter was past now, fully past. It had been a long one… and bitter.

  So had the march to escape Soviet captivity and near certain death been a bitter one. Brasche remembered it in all too much detail: the burning of the standards, the surrender of the other soldiers, the massacre of prisoners he had witnessed from nearby. Then came the wet cold nights racing through Austria to outrun the Reds’ inexorable advance.

  Amidst the debris of war and defeat, Brasche had searched for a uniform to fit him, finally finding one on the corpse of a dead Wehrmacht sergeant. Still, while he could burn his SS garb, he could not so easily remove the tattoo on his left side that marked him indelibly as a member.

  So west he headed, ever west into the setting sun. France was his goal, as it had become the goal of many of those who survived the surrender of the Wiking Division. The Legion was to become home for as many as could find shelter within it. The Legion asked no questions of a man who preferred, for the sake of his life, not to answer any.

  At length, Brasche came upon another group of German soldiers, sitting quietly in an open field by a road. Near Stuttgart this was. A noncom wearing a funny-looking, coffee can cap with a bill stood among the Germans nonchalantly taking names and writing them into a ledger.

  Hans recognized the cap, recognized too the calm and contentment of the German soldiers. Amidst the trash of defeat, Hans Brasche had found the Legion.

  Hammelburg, Germany, 27 March 2007

  The roadside was littered with everything from abandoned baby carriages to mattresses to cars that, out of gas, had been pushed aside to make room for the advancing Korps. Already drifting snow was beginning to cover the debris. It was also covering some bodies of those too faint of heart or weak in the will to live to go on.

  This is defeat, an old voice in Hans’ head reminded him. Avoid it.

  From somewhere behind his Tiger came the sound of artillery, lots of it, firing. The shells’ passage rattled the air with the racket of one hundred freight trains. In Brasche’s ears, the radio crackled with reports from the Korps’ forward reconnaissance unit, the Panzeraufklärungsbrigade, Florian Geyer.[34] The enemy was near at hand.

  Up just past the autobahn bridge over the river south of the town the lead panzer division, Hohenstauffen, sprang to more active life. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles pivot steered to get off of the road and into a semblance of order. Panicked civilians did their best to dodge the metal flood, though that best was not always good enough. The Hohenstauffen drivers did their best to avoid killing any of their own. That best was likewise not always good enough.

  Once clear of the autobahn and the refugees the tanks and infantry carriers raced forward to take up positions behind a low ridge, infantry moving closer in to hug the dead ground behind the military crest, tanks taking position further back to rake the area between the military crest and the top of the ridge.

  Though heavily armored enough to stand up to Posleen fire, from directly in front at least, Brasche’s tank Anna and her sister Tiger IIIs did not take the lead. Instead, spread out with almost two kilometers between tanks, they pulled in furthest from the ridgeline. Once halted the Tigers automatically analyzed their firing sectors. In a few cases minor adjustments in position were made. Once settled, each Tiger began to ooze out a quick-drying camouflage foam from a system built under license from the Americans. Brasche stood in the turret while a small mountain of foam rose and hardened around Anna, the main gun depressing fully to allow the foam to drip to and blend with the snow on the ground. Though the foam could be colored, in this case it remained its natural white to blend in with the falling snow.

  Brasche stood in the command hatch while foam settled below. A quick look around satisfied him with the progress of the camouflage job. He gave a command and Anna brought him safe into her womb below.

  “Commander on deck,” intoned Dieter, remaining in his gunner’s seat but bracing to a stiff, modified attention. The rest of the crew, minus Krueger who pretended not to notice, did likewise.

  Hans took over the command chair his assistant commander vacated for him and focused his attention on the situation display on the forward. The board was updated continuously with reports from the Florian Geyer Brigade, the other units forward of the Tigers and just now making contact, reports from towns now under siege and even one doomed sortie by the Luftwaffe that had managed to send back some information before being flash-burned from the sky.

  “Report,” Brasche ordered.

  From in front, in a position to take full advantage of the situation board when it was displayed as a forward view-screen, Krueger reported, “Driving station, full up, Herr Oberst.”

  Like clockwork, keying off of Krueger’s response, the secondary armament gunners reported down the line. Well trained by now, their eyes never left their own view-screens as they did so.

  The tank and battalion exec, Schmidt, reported on logistic status. The ammunition racks were full, fuel was only at about seventy-five percent but the refueling vehicles were within easy range. Brasche raised a quieting hand when the XO began to go into such mundane items as food and water.

  Engineering reported the tank was mechanically fully capable of movement, though actual movement must await the drying of the camouflage foam.

  Lastly Dieter Schultz answered that the main gun was ready, but unloaded.

  Hans looked again at the view-screen. The indicators were that the horde of Posl
een infantry would be the first to reach the hastily drawn line of defense. He keyed his microphone. “Odd numbered Tigers load antipersonnel. Even numbers load antispacecraft. Second rounds to be area denial. Third rounds to be antispacecraft.”

  There came the faint whining of machinery as Dieter’s loader selected three twelve-inch rounds from the fifty carried in a carousel well below the turret level. These moved upward under robotic control. Overhead, the metal breech opened with a clang faintly audible even behind the armor of the cocoon. There was more whining as the propellant was fed from its storage area behind the turret into the open breech. Then there came a final clang as the breech slammed home and locked into position.

  “Gun up,” announced Schultz as soon as the green light appeared on the gunner’s console in front of him. In Brasche’s earpiece his three companies of four Tigers each likewise reported ready for action.

  Dieter Schultz, good man that he was, scanned his screen for targets continuously. He had done this so much in training that it barely took a fraction of his concentration to do so. This was a good thing as the bulk of his mind was occupied with thoughts of Gudrun.

  Giessen, Germany, 27 March 2007

  The first letter had been hard to write. Gudrun despised herself for having to hurt a boy who had done his best to bring her only happiness. Yet, hateful or not, it had had to be done, Gudrun knew. She had been close to Pieter, very close. But one look at Dieter had been enough for her to know that here was the one, the perfect one for her.

  And to her own heart she had to be true.

  So she had written the letter, putting in her wishes that a boy somewhere to the north could somehow understand and forgive that she had found another. Then she had sealed it, shed a small tear for the pain she knew it was to bring a boy who had never done or wished her anything but good.

  The second letter was easier, a joy in fact. Though she had Dieter’s e-mail address, and the tank he had said he fought in had integral e-mail, there was no way to send her little gift, a lock of golden hair — freshly clipped and tied with a ribbon, via electrons. She searched through her desk for a picture and came up with a wallet-sized color photo, a high school picture. This, too, she placed in the letter.

  Writing finished, Gudrun walked the short distance to the post, purchased and attached stamps, and deposited the missive through the slot. Then she returned to her parents’ house.

  Once there, she turned on the television. The news — and news was all the stations were carrying — was full of the fighting raging across Europe and Germany. Little of that news was good. Especially to the north was there cause for concern.

  Marburg an der Lahn, Germany, 27 March 2007

  Fulungsteeriot was not among the brightest of the Posleen Kessentai. He suspected, in his somewhat dim way, that that was what had gotten his oolt’pos assigned to the central sector of this wave’s intended conquest.

  Though the thresh here ran, sometimes, leaving their open backs to the Posleen’s railguns and boma blades, often enough they fought bitterly. Especially was this true of the men who drove and fought from the thresh’s ground tenaral. Fortunately, in his sector, Fulungsteeriot’s oolt had met few of the nasty, hateful, cowardly threshkreen machines. Those few, usually taking positions in dead space to rake over the People as they galloped over crests or around hills or buildings, had taken a fearful toll. Only leading the horde of ground-bound normals with the God Kings’ own tenar or with armed landing vessels could flush out these disgustingly cowardly prey in a usefully timely fashion. And that had its own attendant risks, as the wretches refused to come out and fight in the open like warriors. That, and that their hand weapons, while generally primitive and inferior to those of the people, were not to be despised, either. And they seemed to seek out the tenar-riding God Kings with single-minded ferocity.

  Moreover, there were scattered reports, frightening ones, of actions by huge thresh fighting machines that arose, seemingly, from the ground to smash down the People’s vessels with brutal and deadly accurate fire. Fulungsteeriot was more than a little happy that his group had not yet met any of the thresh “Tigers,” as they were called.

  Fulungsteeriot was more than happy, as well, that he had the use of his landers to crush resistance in the path of his horde.

  Hammelburg, Germany, 28 March 2007

  Though in the rear of the defensive line, the lay of the land dictated that it would be the Tigers who first saw the oncoming tidal wave of Posleen cresting the ridge.

  Schultz’s eyes opened wide as first a horde of flyers ascended over the mass, followed by a solid phalanx of centaur flesh. “Liebe Gott im Himmel.” Dear God in Heaven.

  Hans calmly issued an order to the battalion, “Odd numbered Tigers stand by to unmask and engage on my command.”

  At his words, Schultz took a firmer grip of the control spades from which he ran the gun, whispering, “Magnification 24x.” The tank’s human-built artificial intelligence system immediately closed the apparent range. Schultz repeated, “Liebe Gott,” as the mass of aliens sprang suddenly into sharp relief. His hands visibly tightened on the controls.

  “Do not fire until I give the command,” reminded Brasche, forcing his mind to intense concentration.

  Even as Brasche spoke the snow began falling with renewed intensity, the external remote cameras going white with natural static.

  * * *

  “The command to fire will be the opening of the machine gun,” whispered sous-officier Brasche, of the Legion, to the squad assembled around him in the dank and fetid Indochinese jungle. “Any questions?”

  Seeing there would be none, Hans pointed northward towards a trail intersection known to be used by the Viet Minh. Wordlessly, the point man, a veteran of the Latvian SS Division once — now a veteran of the Legion Etranger, took the lead and disappeared into the green maze. Brasche followed directly, machine gun team in tow. The rest of the squad, moving single file, followed Brasche.

  Berlin, Germany, 28 March 2007

  The Tir’s AID projected a hologram in the air over his desk. The hologram showed a map of Europe and North Africa, centered on Germany.

  “Stupid centaurs,” the Tir muttered aloud. “Landing most of their force elsewhere and half leaving the Germans alone. Don’t they realize that delay could prove deadly, that these people are not to be underestimated?”

  Even as the Tir watched that portion of the map that showed the red of Posleen infestation expanded throughout most of the area, even while it reshaped and deformed, and in places shrank, in Germany. His superiors would be pleased, he knew, at the former. Yet explanations might be required for the latter, explanations he was by no means looking forward to giving.

  “Foolish reptiles. Taking the easy meat and ignoring the looming threat.”

  The strangely shaped human servant with the disgusting hair color knocked lightly on the Tir’s door. “Herr Stössel to see you, Herr Tir.”

  About time, thought the Darhel.

  Günter entered and, without taking a seat, placed a briefcase gently upon the Tir’s desktop. “These are the plans you required, Lord Tir,” Günter said.

  The Tir nodded. “These will be useful to our interests. Are they complete?” he asked.

  “Sadly, not, mein Herr. Oh, yes, we have gotten most of them. But one group refuses to so much as discuss their orders and intentions with anyone but the chancellor. And the chancellor refuses to discuss them with anyone at all.”

  “Those ancient warriors? The ones you call the SS?”

  Günter’s face twisted into a sneer. “Yes, them,” he answered. “They are out of control.”

  The sneer disappeared momentarily as Günter wondered at that. He had been so sure, so utterly certain, that the military mindset had had any forms of disobedience driven from it. After all, hadn’t the Bundeswehr rolled over for restrictions guaranteed and intended to be insulting beyond the endurance of mortal man? Oh, well. Perhaps they are not “soldiers like other soldiers,”
after all, as they claimed to be. They must be the madmen I have always considered them to be. Mad dogs, to be put down.

  “They are also out of… oversight,” observed the Tir. “With every other part of your force we have no trouble eavesdropping. But these SS refuse to so much as let one of our AIDs near them.”

  Günter agreed, “They are as out of step with technology as they are out of step socially. Even their colleagues in the regular Bundeswehr shake their heads with wonder. These old men think so much alike they barely even use their radios.”

  “And I have no idea what they are doing,” the Tir cursed.

  Interlude

  Athenalras cursed. He cursed the humans and their damned cowardly ways of fighting. He cursed the fetid grass and disgusting trees of this world, “Blech, what a disgusting color, green? Red, brown, blue. Those I could understand. But green?”

  Mostly, though, he cursed the Aldenata, those sticky-fingered players at godhood whose meddling had driven the People to one disgusting world after another. “Mindless, arrogant, self-righteous,” he muttered. “Stupid, vain and foolish…”

  Athenalras heard a faint coughlike sound, though coming as it did from a Posleen throat no human would have found it to be terribly coughlike. More like the hacking of a bird disgorging digestive stones, it was.

  “My lord?” interrupted Ro’moloristen.

  “What is it, puppy?” growled the senior, reaching forth a finger and pressing a button. In his view-screen a tall, spindly, four-legged metal tower with no obvious purpose began to waver and then melt. Athenalras grunted satisfaction; yet another example of the natives’ nauseating sense of aesthetics sent to perdition.