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 Posleen 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.