Keying his throat mike an exhausted Brasche answered, “Yes, sir. Five Tigers left.”
“Proceed to sector Valkyrie Three. Jugend Division will follow. But Brasche, you will get there first. You must hold the ridge until Jugend arrives.”
“On the way, sir… Ummm… Herr General… what the fuck is going on? What am I to do?”
Mühlenkampf hesitated. Finally he answered, his voice tinged with sad determination, “Your duty, Herr Oberst.”
The remnants of the 33rd Korps had not waited for the Posleen to arrive even within effective engagement range. At the first sign — sound, rather — of the approach of the teeming alien mass the Korps had taken to its heels.
Of course they had taken to their heels. These were the fleet-footed remnants, the early deciders, the least brave of all. Any good men, any good leaders? These were those most likely to have held on that fatal few seconds too long before, during the wretched rout at Marburg. In short, these were long since stuffed, in butchered parts, down alien gullets; and then, long since, deposited in malodorous lumps onto the soil thus soiled.
The good of the 33rd Korps had become shit… while the shit had become a sort of human diarrhea. This loose shit ran.
With a pronounced crunching sound Anna slid over a long line of civilian vehicles that appeared to have met up with the world’s greatest mincing machine. Just past the line of chopped-up metallic scrap, with a deft twist, Krueger spun the Tiger Anna into a position on a military crest blocking the flight of the rump of the 33rd Korps. Like clockwork the other four remaining Tigers took their own positions, two to either side along the same crest. Between them, the five heavies covered an area approximately eight kilometers across.
Krueger, more than any other member of the crew, was required by his duties to look carefully at the close ground. Just after the line of scrap had been an open field. The driver had seen that it contained scattered piles of bones, none with any flesh remaining to them. Briefly, his eyes saw and turned past a skull from which the top had been removed as neatly as might a coconut harvester have prepared a coconut for a quick drink. Krueger was unmoved by the skull.
Ahead were the signs of panic.
Krueger and Brasche, old veterans, had seen this type of panic before. Krueger cursed, “Useless fucking shits!” Brasche simply uttered a half whisper, “501st Schwere Panzer? Stabsunteroffizier Schultz…”
From his gunner’s station Dieter peered through the sight for the main gun. In the distance he could make out portions of the Posleen mass, pouring from the nearly erased town. Nearer, appearing as individuals and in little knots, without order or discipline, Dieter saw the fleeing remnants on the ruined Korps. His unneeded left hand reached unconsciously for a folded envelope in his right breast pocket. Pulling it out, his fingers deftly opened the envelope and reached in to caress the human spun gold contained therein. A little bright spark of pure hatred burst into flame in the boy’s heart.
“… fire ahead of that mob. Use your coaxial Mausers. Let them know that they have run as far as they are going to. Draw a line in the earth,” finished Brasche.
“And if they won’t stop, Herr Oberst? If they cross that line?”
“Then the rot cannot be allowed to spread. You will kill them.”
Flame, a smaller flame than the Tiger’s usual cataclysmic belch, began to leap out. About two and a half kilometers ahead, just in front of the first of the routing grenadiers, a line of small, dark, angry clouds erupted at ground level.
To the fleeing sea of wit-robbed men of the 33rd Korps the advent of the highly visible Tigers seemed like the opening of Heaven’s gates. Instinctively they turned towards the wide-spaced line of the remnants of the 501 st, each as if he were a boy fleeing a bully and racing to hide behind his mother’s skirts.
Each man of the mob — for that is what they were now — thought only safety, safety at the sight of the immovable mass of the Tigers. Each man was shocked quite speechless when that fortress-gate-of-security, mama’s proffered — milk laden — breast, began to pour fire into those foremost in flight.
Some of the fugitives assumed, indeed had to assume, such was the innocence of their childhood upbringing, such had been the kidskin gloves approach to their military training, that the Mauser light cannon fire devastating the knots of those closest to the Tigers could only be a mistake. That was their mistake… and the last many of them ever made.
Others, no less spoiled by mama’s teat and weakened military training, went into momentary shock, freezing in place.
Then they heard the voice, Brasche’s voice…
“Anna, give me external speakers,” ordered Brasche of the tank’s integral voice recognition speakers.
“Yes, Herr Oberst,” the tank’s AI responded.
“Order the other tanks to broadcast me as well.” Immediately, small hatches in each of Brasche’s five Tigers opened to permit the erection of three substantial loudspeakers each. Across a span of a dozen kilometers or more, Hans’ voice rang out clearly.
“Halt, you cowardly fucking bastards, or we’ll cut you down where you stand.”
Hans repeated that message twice more, then elaborated. “We are the 47th Panzer Korps. That’s right you shits, the SS. Believe… believe in your hearts. We will kill you with no more thought then we’d give to shooting a dog. Your only chance to live is to fight with whatever you have in your hands to hold the enemy. The enemy you can still hurt… and we will help you in it. Us? You cannot scratch us and we will butcher you if you try… or if you run.”
Among the fugitive mass, some took the hint, reshouldered arms and began to fight back. Others, perhaps half or a bit more, just froze in panic. A few, however, judging that five widely spaced Tigers could not hope to cover every little bit of dead space, elected to try to exfiltrate through the low ground, or at least to seek a patch of cover which, while safe from the Posleen because of the Tigers’ fire, was also safe from the Tigers and the obvious madmen they contained. The largest number of the fugitives who so chose were those who had thrown away their weapons and could not see any point anymore in fighting, given they had nothing left to fight with.
Several thousand of these were successful in their quest… for a time.
“Gunner, eleven o’clock, canister, time fuse, Posleen mass!” ordered Brasche.
Dutifully the loader had a round of canister loaded.
Some would have preferred flechettes for the Tiger’s main gun antipersonnel round. It was indeed a very close call. What had decided the issue was, in essence, Teutonic thoroughness. Both were quite capable of killing Posleen. Packed in a twelve-inch shell both munitions could inundate a bit over a grid square, one square kilometer, with deadly hail.