“And, Hansi, I can’t even put you in ‘the tank’ for a Galactic tech repair. The only one near here was taken out by an alien kinetic energy strike from space.”
“Where is the rest of Army Group Reserve going?” Brasche asked.
“There is a spot of trouble in the west. The defenses are still holding but the enemy is acting… funny. Almost clever. Clever aliens worry me, Hans.”
Hans nodded solemnly, then immediately had to reach for his bucket again. Even such a little movement was… difficult.
“Hans, I would not ask if I didn’t need you.”
“I understand,” Brasche said. Rising, unsteadily, he continued, “I will leave tonight.”
“That’s my Hansi,” said Mühlenkampf. “After the east is stabilized, and a certain bridge in the west retaken, we will assemble, likely around Hanau. In the interim, I am heading west.”
Mainz, Germany, 4 January 2008
In this ancient city just west of the Rhein, Isabelle and her two children had finally settled into something resembling normalcy.
There was a tremendous housing shortage of course, so much so that the French civilians who had escaped to Germany were forced to live in, in Isabelle’s case, a large indoor gymnasium. But blankets had been hung near the walls, separate living spaces arranged, a modicum of privacy granted.
Isabelle had never been fond of German food. Now, though, she wished she could have twice as much of it, more especially for her boys than for herself. But food, like living space, was in short supply.
There was a bustle of murmuring coming from the mess, the central common area of the gymnasium. This low bee-like hum grew until it was loud enough to attract Isabelle’s interest. Leaving the boys behind, she twisted her way through other cloth cubicles and the long benches at which many of the French refugees sat, dawdling over the meager and bland lunch repast.
A man, in gray uniform, was addressing the people while standing a top one of the benches. Isabelle took a second look to confirm that it was the same Captain Hennessey who had earlier led her and the boys to safety. It took two looks because the captain had turned from tall and robust to the very essence of exhaustion, with deep, dust-filled lines engraved on his face, sunken eyes and the slouch of bone-weariness.
She could not hear what Hennessey was saying from this distance. She approached closer, using her imposing height and personal vigor to force her way through the throng.
She was soon close enough to hear the captain’s words. “We need more men,” he said, as loudly as able. “Division Charlemagne started this fight with over twenty-eight thousand men before we covered your retreat. One in twenty combat soldiers crossed to safety. We are the last French formation in this war and, if we are to have any bargaining power with the Boche, we must grow again.” The captain then said something too softly to be heard, but Isabelle thought she could make out the words on his lips, “We need to grow again if any of our people are to deserve to live.”
An adolescent voice rang out from just behind her, and Isabelle cringed. “How old must a man be to volunteer?” asked her son, Thomas, in a clear, ringing voice.
“Fifteen,” answered Hennessey, perhaps slightly less wearily than he had spoken before.
“I am fifteen. I will go.”
But, NO! Isabelle wished to scream. Not my baby! He is only fourteen, she wanted to lie. She turned pleading eyes to the boy, Oh, please do not, my son. You will be killed and what will your poor mother do then?
Mother, I am old enough to be eaten. I am old enough to fight. And I am French, too, the boy answered, soundlessly.
Hanging her head to let her hair hide her tears, Isabelle gave a shuddering nod. Then go, damn you, and take your mother’s heart with you.
Behind Hennessey a little pool of willing humanity, and not all of it of the male persuasion, began to grow.
Tiger Anna, Niesse River, South of Frankfurt am Oder,
Germany, 8 January 2008
On the eastern bank, now the enemy bank, of the river, the Posleen horde had been growing all day. Hans had counted each day they had not crossed previously as a special blessing since he and his brigade had arrived here.
His return had been a joyous one, despite his injuries. The men of his own Tiger had clustered around, overjoyed to see their commander again. They had feared the worst.
They had all been overjoyed except for Krueger, the unrepentant Nazi, that is. He made a polite showing of face, but retired immediately to his driving station, thinking all the while dark thoughts about pseudo-Nazis and Jew lovers.
Hans’ lighter panzers and panzer grenadiers, plus three other Tigers and Anna, he had placed into the line after using them as a field gendarmerie to round up stragglers. The twenty-five remaining Tigers — yes one had been recovered — he had stretched along the river to lend their fire to the defense and cover the recongealing defenders from any of the alien ships that might lift to join the attack.
The winter had been relatively mild so far. Thus, the enemy was presented not with seemingly crossable ice, but apparently impassable water. The Posleen were nonswimmers to a being, heavier than water, and if they were immune to any known poisons they still needed oxygen to survive.
In short, they drowned easily, and fear of being drowned had kept them to their side of the river… for a while.
Hans didn’t know how they had discovered that this part of the Niesse was easily fordable. Perhaps it was nothing more than a normal who had gotten lost and returned to gesture and point. On such chances hung the fates of peoples and empires, at times.
There was no doubt they knew know, however. The horde, literally tens of millions of ravenous, hexapodal aliens, massing opposite told that surely, they knew their way was not barred by water.
But the precious time gained by alien ignorance had been put to good use. Other liquids besides water could choke off oxygen from alien lungs.
There was a communal snarl from the other side. To Hans it sounded not too different from a Russian mass infantry assault from the early days of World War Two. Not that the languages bore any similarity, indeed the Posleen normals didn’t really have a language. But eloquent language, in a charge like this, was irrelevant anyway. Russian, Posleen… German for all that, the message was the same. “We are here and we’re coming to kill you.”
“Not just yet, you won’t, you bastards; not just yet,” Hans muttered, under his breath.
“Sir?” asked Schultz.
“Never mind, Dieter. Just prepare to use canister at the preselected targets. It’s beginning.”
Not as one, that was not the People’s way, but in fits and starts at first, the number of normals entering the icy water grew. Soon it was a solid mass of yellow flesh crawling to gain the other side and rend the hated threshkreen.
Oolt’ondai Borominskar urged his People forward with words exalting ancient days and heroes. The God King wondered, absently, at the lack of enemy resistance. Here and there a junior Kessentai, living the tales of his ancestors, danced his tenar ahead of the horde, baiting the threshkreen. The problem was that the threshkreen often enough took the bait and send the tenar into a sphere of actinic light. That, or simply blasted the daring God King’s chest or head to ruin.