Tiger Anna, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, 25 December 2007
God, this is worse than Kursk, Hans thought as he watched on the main screen as infantry and tanks, locked in a close-quarters death struggle with the alien enemy, rolled back the shoulders of the eleven narrow lanes the artillery had torn in the Posleen line. For the Germans, this was a combined arms fight with a literal vengeance. Their lighter panzers, Leopard IIA7’s, blasted apart bunkers, lent their machine guns to the fray, and ran over individual aliens to squeeze out their lives like overripe grapes. In close support, carrying the detailed fight to the foe, the German infantry, heedless of loss, cut, slashed, blasted and burnt their way through the trenches. Meanwhile, the artillery concentrated on sealing the areas of penetration off and pureeing any large groups of the enemy that attempted to mass for a counterattack.
But the affair was hardly a massacre. Stunned, demoralized and weakened though they were, the Posleen still fought back with more ferocity than any human enemy, even the mindlessly brave Russians, would have shown after the pummeling they had received.
Part of this, Hans suspected, was merely a matter of numbers. Given more defenders, there simply had to be, as a statistical matter, more who would be capable of rising above the shell-spawned terror. While Posleen trenches were being filled with alien bodies, more than a few German soldiers richened the manure.
On Anna’s main screen, Hans saw a Leopard take a direct hit from a Posleen hypervelocity missile. The tank seemed to belch fire as the turret, propelled by its own on-board ammunition and fuel, was hurled nearly a hundred meters into the air. That the Posleen firing almost certainly succumbed to return fire within instants could have been scant comfort to the spirits of the disintegrated Leopard crew.
Brashe’s 1c, or intelligence officer reported, “Sir, we are getting emanations consistent with the movement of between twelve and twenty enemy landers, C-Decs, B-Decs, and Lampreys, all.”
“All Tigers,” Hans ordered over the radio. “Targets appearing in the next few seconds. If they are joining the battle, kill them. If they are fleeing, kill them. When you reach them on the ground, kill them.”
South of Magdeberg, Germany, 25 December 2007
Chaleeniskeeren and his oolt’os had held their line as long as possible, even inflicting some losses on the enemy. That period of time had not been long enough. Now, engaged in something like a fighting withdrawal, with his children being mercilessly butchered alongside him, the God King once again cursed both the evil, heartless and merciless threshkreen even as he cursed this planet and everything which had led to it.
Cowering in a deep crater, peering over its lip, Chaleeniskeeren was lifted bodily and slammed down by an explosion of a power he had not imagined outside of the major weapons. The night sky, for the battle had already lasted through the day and into the night, was briefly illuminated by some monstrous, incredible thing. From off to the left, another massive explosion shook the earth and by its momentary light Chaleeniskeeren caught a clearer glimpse of the monster to his front.
“Demon shit,” he whispered, wide-eyed and awe-struck.
Tiger Anna, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, 25 December 2007
“Clear emanations, C-Dec, Eleven O’clock, Six thousand, five hundred meters,” intoned the 1c.
“I see it,” answered Brasche. “Gunner!” he ordered, “Sabot! DU-AM… point one kiloton. C-Dec!”
“Target,” Schultz responded, robotlike, as he swung Anna’s turret to the left, elevating her gun until a tone told him he had a target lock.
“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.