He watched as a human — a female he thought, based on the curious bumps on the creature’s chest — had her nestling torn from her arms. The human emitted an incomprehensible wailing shriek as the nestling was first beheaded, then sliced into six pieces.
Incomprehensible, thought the God King. After all, it was only a nestling.
He understood better why the human tried to escape her own end, twisting and fighting. Finally, the Posleen normal grew tired and annoyed of the game. He grabbed the human by the thatch on the top of its head and lopped its legs off. The shrieks briefly grew more intense, then ended suddenly as the normal removed the head.
After that, it seemed that the remaining humans grew much more cooperative, kneeling and bending their heads on the gestured command.
Ro’moloristen noticed that many of the humans uttered the same vocal deniaclass="underline" “This is impossible… this can’t be happening.” He thought it very curious that any sentient creature could deny something which was not only patently possible but was, in fact, happening.
“A most curious species,” he muttered, as he turned from the scene of slaughter to return to his post aboard ship.
Chapter 8
Hammelburg, Germany, 29 March 2007
Brasche’s fingers drummed the arm of his command chair nervously. It had been some time since the last report of a kill or an engagement had come in. “I am curious, 1c. How many have we accounted for?”
The intelligence officer turned from his weapons station to face Brasche. “Herr Oberst, the battalion has taken out forty-nine, so far. But all panzers report the same: there are no more to be found ahead.”
Schultz asked aloud, “Do you think they’re on to us, Herr Oberst?”
“I don’t know, Dieter. But I think that might be the way to bet it.”
Brasche considered for a moment, then touched the communication button built into his command chair. “All Tigers,” he commanded, “all Tigers. Halt and lager around this position. Number One company, you have from six to ten o’clock. Number Two, ten o’clock to two o’clock. Three, two to six. Two thousand meters between tanks.”
All three of Brasche’s company commanders answered “Wilco” instantaneously. Brasche was quite gratified to see all three companies begin moving across his tactical display nearly as quickly. And then…
The strain in the company commander’s voice was palpable, even over the radio. “Battalion this is Number One Company… Number one to Battalion. Enemy here… Too many to… Scheisse, Scheisse, Scheisse![36]… Turn this damned tank arou — ”
Brasche acted instantly. “All units, action left. Move it boys, Number One company’s in trouble.”
Without waiting for the order, a cursing Krueger cranked the steering as hard as it would go. With both tracks spinning in opposite directions at nearly top speed the Tiger’s turn was almost immediate. Even deep in the crew center the men could hear the high-pitched squealing of tortured tread. A few muttered prayers: Please, God, don’t let us throw a track.
The sudden turn tossed Harz from his seat to the metal floor and then bounced him across the deck. He gave off a painful grunt as the turn slammed him into the opposite side of the crew compartment. Harz managed to rise to his knees just in time for Krueger’s next maneuver, the sudden launching of the tank forward in its new direction. This sent him rolling to the rear.
Brasche looked down to where a stunned Harz had come to a bruising rest against the podium on which sat the command chair.
“Back to your station, Harz.”
Shaking his head to clear it, Harz -still on hands and knees — began working his way back to his duty position. As he reached it the radio crackled again.
The voice on the radio was preternaturally calm, “Battalion this is Leutnant Schiffer. Tiger 104 — and presumably Hauptmann Wohl and his crew — are dead. I have assumed command.”
“What happened to Wohl, Schiffer?” asked Brasche, then, on second thought, “Nevermind, tell me later. What is your condition?”
“Sir, I have three functional Tigers and about twelve to eighteen enemy ships trying to kill us. Visibility is rotten, even with the thermals. Every Tiger has taken at least one hit. The frontal armor is holding up well. The commander’s tank was hit in the rear with some kind of kinetic energy weapon. That immobilized it and the enemy were able to gang up and pound it to scrap.”
Hans Brasche’s mind drew a picture for him of one of his Tigers, helpless, while a force of the aliens’ landers took their time with taking it apart piece by piece.
Schiffer continued, “If they hadn’t stopped to finish off 104 they might well have gotten us all.”
Unseen by Schiffer, Hans nodded. He had seen such things before.
“I have the company facing the enemy and driving backwards towards you, Herr Oberst, but the enemy is damnably hard to engage in this weather when they know we are here. They are able to sense us, it seems, from further than we can sense them. If it weren’t for the quality of the frontal armor we’d all be dead by now.”
“Good lad, Schiffer,” Brasche answered. “We’re coming for you, son.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. But, sir? You had better hurry.”
Giessen, Germany, 29 March 2007
Fulungsteeriot rejoiced, “Onward my warriors. Hurry my children, lest the thresh escape.”
Like a yellow wave, broad and thick, the Posleen host lapped around the rock of Giessen, surrounding it. Occasionally a Posleen normal, or even a God King, would fall — the thresh trying their futile best to hold back the tide. Yet the wave diminished not at all. Soon, Giessen would be surrounded by the tide… and then the tide would come in… and the thresh drown in it.
Off to the south, along a road choked with escaping thresh, Fulungsteeriot observed with detachment the panic as the first of his warriors reached the crawling herd in their strange and primitive wheeled vehicles. The rendering soon began.
There was no time for an orderly butchering; the normals slaughtered the thresh as soon as they could reach them. The primitive vehicles were sliced open by boma blades to expose the rich flesh within. Amidst shrieks and plaintive pleas the thresh those vehicles contained were hauled forth, sometimes in pieces. Of those pulled out whole, a simple sweep of a blade ended their cries. Death for these thresh was sufficient for now; later others would do the detailed work.
Some thresh escaped, of course. Using the time unwillingly purchased by their brethren falling under the Posleen’s swords, these ran for their lives in stark terror across the snowy field to the east.
Gudrun saw a blade slice through the roof of the car in which she and her family had sought escape from the doom encircling the town. The blade passed through her wide-eyed, screaming mother from crown to hips before being withdrawn. Though the mother’s screams abruptly ceased, the sight of her separating neatly into two pieces, lengthwise, accompanied by a veritable wave of crimson brought forth an animal shriek from Gudrun. Then, as the iron smell of her own mother’s flooding blood assaulted her nostrils, instinct took over. She could not fight this; she must flee.