It was only when Mühlenkampf laid a hand on his shoulder and announced, “The next wave is here, Hansi,” that Hans awoke from his reverie.
“So soon? I had hoped we would have more time. Maybe even get half equipped with the new-model Tigers. Get a few of them, at least.”
“They only just finished putting the prototype through its tests, Hans. The only way we will ever see them is if we can hang on for at least a year.”
Hans nodded then looked skyward. “Up to the navy for now, though,” he said.
Already new stars began to appear and quickly die as the two fleets met in a dance of destruction.
Battle cruiser Lütjens, Sol-ward from Pluto’s orbit, 17 December 2007
The ship’s commander, Kapitän Mölders, could not help but be amused at his ship’s station. Being a part of Task Fleet 7.1 was unremarkable. But, along with another battle cruiser, the Almirante Guillermo Brown, and half a dozen of the ad hoc frigates converted out of Galactic courier vessels, being an escort for Supermonitor Moscow certainly was worth a minor chuckle. What would Lindemann or Lütjens have said? he wondered, thinking of those two brave and worthy German seamen who had gone down with the original Bismarck early in World War Two. Mölders would have chuckled too, except that he, Moscow, those half dozen frigates and two more task fleets were racing at breakneck pace into a death absolutely certain.
There was no chance of victory in any sense except that of taking a few with them. The Posleen wave, sixty-five globes, each composed of hundreds of smaller ships connected for interstellar travel, was simply too great, unimaginably great. And Earth’s defending fleet was simply too small.
Victory, if it came, depended on the ground forces. Victory, for the fleet, would be giving those ground forces the greatest possible chance. Final victory was something not one man or woman aboard the ships had any hope of ever seeing. No more so did Mölders.
On Lütjens’ view-screen Mölders saw a brilliant new sun appear for a long moment. A message from Moscow poured into his ear through an earpiece kept there. Mölders’ eyes widened, then turned suddenly soft.
“Gentlemen,” he announced in a breaking voice to the bridge crew, “that sun was the Japanese battle cruiser Genjiro Shirakami.[38] It has rammed an enemy globe and detonated itself. Supermonitor Honshu believes that that globe was completely destroyed.”
“So we only have another sixty-four or so to go, eh, sir?” whispered Mölder’s exec.
Headquarters, Army Group Reserve, Kapellendorf Castle, Thuringia, 17 December 2007
Lightning flashed and new-born suns flared in space over head. Hans wondered idly at the details, but knew deep down that the details could not matter. He had seen the estimates; Mühlenkampf had shared them with his senior officers. The human fleet was doomed and was not going to do all that much good, either. Still anything was better than nothing and the blooming suns of destroyed ships, coupled with the silvery streaks of hypervelocity anti-ship missiles, made for quite a show.
But he had seen similar shows before, ones that had kept his attention even more raptly…
The attack seemed to come from nowhere and from everywhere. One moment found Hans fast asleep in his barracks. The next thunder-crashing moment found him leaping from his bunk, fully alert as only a very combat experienced veteran could come alert. He reached instinctively for the Schmeisser he had acquired on his own ticket as well as the combat harness that held an extra half dozen magazines for the sub-machine gun. Carrying both in his hands and shouting in his wretched Hebrew for the dozen men who shared the small hut with him to take their positions along the camp’s perimeter, Hans stumbled to the shelter’s door. Jacking the Schmeisser’s bolt once, Hans left the hut with Sol’s shouts ringing behind him, directing the others.
Outside was bedlam. Mortar rounds splashed down to briefly light the area with sudden lightning and lingering thunder. Tracers arced through the camp, seemingly from all around. Though this was the first attack it was not the first time Hans had cursed the sloppiness of the amateur, ad hoc, wretchedly trained Israeli army. No wonder the Arabs had gotten through somewhere along the none-too-distant front and come here for easy pickings.
Fierce cries of “Allahu akbar” resounded from a shallow streambed to the north as the volume of fire began to pick up from that direction Not quite sure why, Hans began moving in that direction. Half dressed, more importantly perhaps half undressed, shrieking women began to streak by in their flight. He called out repeatedly, “Anna? Anna?”
One Israeli girl shouted to him, “Anna stayed behind to fight and cover us!” Hans moved out, alone, into the night.
He found her spitting and cursing defiance at the three Arabs who had her pinned and spread-eagled for a fourth crouching between her legs, tugging at whatever covered the lower half of her body. His experienced finger caressed the trigger four times, then a fifth to make sure of one still-twitching, towel-headed form.
Hans reached down and grabbed the girl’s shirt. As he did so he noticed that she was trouserless and that her rifle, bolt jammed open, was empty. Standing erect again, Hans began to half trot backwards, dragging the girl and firing backwards to discourage pursuit.
Mortar fire was still falling, making life on the surface unsafe for man or girl. Coming to a narrow slit trench, Hans jumped in and dragged Anna down with him, pushing her gently to the trench’s dusty floor.
“You’ll be safe here, Anna. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It was only then that she began to cry, small half-stifled whimpers at first, growing with time to great wracking sobs. Hans tried his poor best to comfort her with little soft pats while keeping a watch topside for approaching dangers. The raid seemed to be ending, the Arab’s fire slacking off. The camp was better lit now, what with half a dozen buildings burning brightly. Perhaps that was what had driven the Arabs off. Natural raiders and almost hopeless as soldiers, they would rarely press an attack without every conceivable advantage.
In time, under Hans’ gentle care, Anna’s sobs subsided. “They were going to rape me,” she announced, needlessly. “You should not have risked yourself. It would not have killed me.”
Hans shrugged. “Perhaps it would not have, girl. They very well might have though, their fun once done.”
Anna echoed Hans’ shrug. With an unaccountable angry tone she said, “I have a name, you know? Anyway, little matter if they had.”
“Don’t say that!” he shouted with unusual ferocity, then, more gently, almost a whisper, “I know you have a name, Anna.”
“Why?” she asked. “You’ve never shown you care. Not until tonight anyway.”
“I care, Anna. I always have.”
“You never showed,” she accused.
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not? Because I was a camp whore? Because I have a tattoo?”
38
Private Genjiro Shirakami was a bugler with the Imperial Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War. Mortally wounded during an assault on Port Arthur’s defenses, Private Shirakami continued blowing the charge until he succumbed to his wounds. When his body was later found, the bugle — pointing heavenward — was still pressed to his lips.