Hammelburg, Germany, 29 March 2007
“Steady, Schultz. Steady,” intoned Brasche. “Wait for it.”
Dieter merely nodded, so intently was his gaze fixed on his sight.
The radio sounded, “Schiffer to battalion.”
Hans took a second to review the tactical display. “Brasche here, Schiffer.”
“Sir, we are about to ascend the ridge.”
“I see that, Schiffer. We are waiting in the woods on the far side, about four kilometers back. Pass through us and hold up about two kilometers behind.”
“As you command, Herr Oberst. But it is not going to be easy.”
“I understand, son,” Brasche answered.
Brasche turned to his 1a. “Take command of the tank for a moment, Major. I am going topside. Krueger hold the engines steady; no acceleration at all.”
Not waiting for either the major’s or Krueger’s acknowledgment, Hans stepped to the elevator that led up to the commander’s hatch atop the turret. The elevator whisked him skyward quietly, opening the hatches automatically, as the 1a took over the command chair below.
Once in his perch high above the Tiger’s hull, Hans breathed better. Yes, the air down in the crew’s fighting compartment was clean enough. But a tank commander needs to see.
“To see and hear,” Brasche corrected himself, aloud, “not take some bloody glorified television screen’s word for things.” And hear he did. From the other side of the ridge came the sounds of Schiffer’s uneven fight with the landers, the sonic booms of incoming Posleen kinetic energy weapons, the crash of the Tiger’s mighty twelve-inchers, the faint rattle of treads and the steady whine of Posleen antigravity drives.
Then, there it was, the outline of the top of one of Number One company’s two remaining Tigers breaking the outline of the ridge. The tank crossed over and stopped just Brasche’s side of the topographical crest. It stopped to fire and the sheer shock of firing was like a dual slap to Brasche’s face.
He watched the turret turn, and then fire yet again. Hans assumed, from the lack of any antimatter or secondary explosion, that both shots were misses.
There was a sudden flurry of the Posleen’s weapons. On the far side, arising over the ridge, a dark and dirty cloud appeared, the cloud stretching a kilometer across. The hull down Tiger fired a single shot which was rewarded with a major flash and sound of detonation; a dead Posleen C-Dec.
Then came another flurry of kinetic energy projectiles incoming to the far side of the ridge. There was also another huge flash and grand bang. Brasche thought he saw, dimly through the snow, the monstrous bulk of a Tiger turret flying approximately straight up.
Filled with dread, Hans touched a switch on his headphones, “Schiffer, Brasche.”
“That was Leutnant Schiffer, Herr Oberst. Feldwebel Weinig speaking… commanding Third Platoon… correction, commanding Number One company… now.”
Brasche closed his eyes against the pain of losing such a fine young officer. Releasing a sigh of regret, he ordered, “Run for it, Weinig. Run for it now.”
“No quarrel with those orders, sir. Tiger 103, running fast.”
Three Tigers, sixty-nine of my men, lost irredeemably, fumed Brasche, a newfound hatred for his foe growing in his heart. He recognized the hate, recognized that he had felt it grow before — against Russians and Vietnamese and some few others. He recognized, too, that the hate was the steel his soul needed to do that which could brook no soft and tender feelings.
The cold steel, glowing faintly in the dim jungle light, never descended. From one side of the jungle trail into which he had led his Communist pursuers, Hans saw — and curiously did not really hear, to such a detached state had his wounding brought him — the yellow flowers of rifle and machine gun fire. The two Communists poised to end his life fell first, their bodies twisting and dancing under the hammering of the machine gun, their very dance of death given ghastly illumination by the flashing of the legionnaire weapons.
The firing kept up for a very long time, it seemed, causing Hans to wonder if a stray bullet of a friend and comrade might yet find him. Even in his pain he took the thought with amused detachment. He never even heard the blaring of the whistle that his assistant squad leader used to quell the fire and send the killer team out to search out the kill zone… and to make sure those bodies lying there were bodies in fact. It was legionnaire bayonets, not Communist ones, that bathed in crimson that night.
Unseen, the Tiger, Schiffer’s Tiger, burned hot and crimson beyond the crest of the ridge. The glow of the fire, a fire consuming fuel and munitions and men — causing the very steel of its armor to glow cherry red, made the lowest levels of the falling snow themselves to glow.
Three flashes, coming in rapid succession from a single point somewhere beyond view, lit the very edge of the crest in brief bursts of strobelike light.
“Wait for it,” cautioned Brasche when he saw Schultz tense suddenly.
“Right, Dieter,” piped in Harz, with a snickering tone to his voice. “Just like your little blonde girlfriend, we don’t want you firing too soon.”
The thought of Gudrun, waiting for him safe and warm in Giessen, brought a momentary smile and a wistful yearning. Harz’s guffaw ensured that the eagerness Schultz was certain shone from his features was followed quickly by a flush of embarrassment. “Fuck you, Harz,” the boy whispered softly, albeit not quite softly enough.
“Surely not me, Dieter. Did your Gudrun leave you so frustrated you’re already thinking about turning to boys?”
“Enough,” commanded Brasche in a voice that quelled all levity. “If anyone is getting fucked here, it is those lizards about to appear over the horizon.”
Giessen, Germany, 29 March 2007
Gudrun stared unblinking at the horizon. Nearby, a body was being rendered into easily portable ribs, chops and steaks. Loathe to waste any nutrient, the Posleen still had to let blood from the body spill to the snow covered ground. It contented itself, to a degree, with the instinctive understanding that even this would not be completely wasted; with the spring thaw and fall harvest the blood would bring forth finer crops from the enriched soil.
But a head full of rich brains? That was too much to waste. The Posleen doing the rendering ceased work. Then it picked up Gudrun’s pale, bloodless head by the bright blonde thatch. It neither noticed nor would have cared that a lock was missing. Once split open the disembodied head would make a fine feed.
Hammelburg, Germany, 29 March 2007
The head of the airborne Posleen phalanx crept cautiously over the horizon. It apparently sensed the fleeing Tiger 103, for it rapidly increased its speed to catch the prey. The rest, perhaps better said the remainder, of the original Posleen airmobile force, some seventeen C-Decs and Lampreys, likewise hastened to be in on the kill. Attention concentrated on the fast-moving Tiger they could easily sense, they never noticed the still, stationary, steady idling of the other nine Tigers.