John Ringo: Watch on the Rhine

Cordelia stank to the heavens.

She was also, just possibly, the sweetest sight Oberstleutnant David Benjamin, Judas Maccabeus Brigade, had ever seen… and to hell with the stench.

In command of the remnants of the brigade, some three hundred twelve worn-out and filthy men and women, sans heavy weapons or other equipment, and in control of about fifteen thousand Israeli refugees, Benjamin oversaw the loading of these tattered remnants of his people as they boarded ship.

Benjamin turned his attention from the loading at the approach of a Mercedes staff car bearing the insignia of a German field marshal. He had saluted, something Israeli soldiers did rarely in any case, before he recognized the gray-clad, young-looking man who emerged bearing a white baton.

“Where are your Sigrunen ?” he asked confrontationally. Hans Brasche was the only man in the world who wore the double lightning flashes that Benjamin could really stand to be around. He and Mühlenkampf had never quite managed cordiality, despite what the Israeli recognized as the German’s sincere attempts at amends.

“I didn’t need them anymore,” the German answered, simply. “I had made my point, given my former followers and comrades back their self-respect. And now, commanding far more regular troops than SS, I have dispensed with them for myself. They were only a symbol, after all, one that meant different things to different people.”

To this Benjamin had no response. He could accept that the Sigrunen meant something different now — the lightning sword of vengeance — to most Germans, to most Europeans, and even to a fair number of Israelis. But to him they were just hateful and nothing would ever change that.

“Your destination is Stockholm, I believe?” queried Mühlenkampf.

“Yes, Stockholm and then by rail north to a Sub-Urb. They are collecting all that remains of Israel at the same place.”

“I wonder if that is wise,” mused the field marshal.

“Wise or not,” quipped Benjamin, “it is still necessary. Mixed in with you lot and you and the Posleen would end up accomplishing what Hitler never could, the extinction of the Jewish people as we all interbred. There are just too few of us left.”

“That’s what I mean. Maybe we should all be extinguished as separate peoples. Maybe we should become just a human race.”

The Israeli shook his head in negation, looked the German straight in the eyes and answered, “I remain a Jew.”

Mühlenkampf glanced at the Jew’s Iron Cross. “You remain, my friend, a lunatic. But I am glad all the same that we are of the same species.

“Good luck to you anyway, lunatic. Good luck and Godspeed.” Mühlenkampf held out his right hand in friendship.

For reasons he could not at the time understand, Benjamin — standing not far from the Israeli flag fluttering at Cordelia ’s stern, and only after a moment’s hesitation, accepted.

Isabelle looked over the stern at the receding German coastline. She wondered whether they would manage to get everyone out in time or if, as seemed likely, some other woman might have to wander hospital wards murdering the hurt and sick to save them from a worse fate.

It was a moment of inexpressible loneliness. Part of this was the voyage and the loneliness of the sea. But the greater part was that there was no one she could talk to, not one person to whom she could unburden the sickness in her soul. The chaplain? She had left the church long ago; there was no salvation there for her. The psychiatrists? Her husband, and she was certain now that he was her late husband, as Thomas must by now be her late son, had been a real doctor. She had picked up his attitudes towards those he deemed “quacks.”

The others among the hospital staff were also out of bounds. They all knew what she had had to do. Perhaps they even understood. But she had heard the whispering. She would never find a friend among them. She was unclean now.

The sea beckoned to her. A short plunge and the icy waters would clean her. She had no fear of death for herself, not anymore. Yet her remaining son held her to this world as if by chains stretching like an umbilical across the generations.

She shook her head, no. The sun was setting, the sea was calm. She thought she might risk a meal. Isabelle turned from the stern, walked the deck, and reentered the ship.

Isabelle barely noticed the slump-shouldered youth being fed by a nurse in the ship’s galley. Lost in her own miseries she walked to the line along which food was dispensed. Then she turned, dropped her tray and ran.

She reached the youth and dropped to her knees beside him, wrapping arms tightly around neck and torso. “Oh, Thomas, my son, my baby!”

To the surprise of the nurse feeding him, for the boy had slipped ever deeper into some hell of his own, Thomas’ eyes showed a little life for the first time in days. He even turned his head towards this strange woman.

“Mama?”

“Motherfuckers,” muttered Prael as he counted the numbers against him and selected a priority target for Schlüssel. Brünnhilde ’s railgun once again thrummed .

“Hit,” announced Schlüssel, without energy or enthusiasm.

Prael had no new target for Schlüssel. The enemy had become clever, staying out of Brünnhilde ’s range until they could assemble a group and then driving into to unleash a furious attack. It was hell on the commander to both scan the skies for priority targets and direct Mueller, the driver, out of the likely impact area of incoming Posleen fire.

But that was the intermittent threat. The imminent danger to the tank were the hordes of enemy normals and God Kings roaming unhindered through Germany’s heartland. Though Brünnhilde and her crew had, so far, crushed and scattered all comers.

The price of that had been the wearing away of the tank’s ablative armor to the point where several spots might well permit a high-velocity missile, or plasma cannon burst, to get through.

If the Posleen were not so poor at cooperating, thought Prael, we’d have all been dead long before now. But, no. The dumb shits come with their ships and they come with their infantry and flyers. But they never manage to do so at the same time. Still, eventually they will do so by chance and then we are dead with our armor in the state it is. Hmmm. Maybe something can be done about that.

The screens showed blank for the nonce, a condition unlikely to continue for long. Prael said, “Rinteel, we seem to have a little quiet time. Take Schmidt and go topside to see if you can’t undo some ablative plates and fix them where they are most needed.”

“Wilco,” answered the alien, with unconscious irony. More manually dexterous than Schmidt, he unbuckled himself quickly.

“Fifty-seven enemy ships inbound,” announced the tank in her usual monotone. “At current rates of closure they will be in range in six seconds. Several hundred enemy flyers closing as well, in range in fifty-two seconds. I have no information on infantry…”

My lord and chief is not the same as once he was, Ro’moloristen thought. These humans have broken his heart.

On an intact bridge over the river the humans called the “Elbe” Athenalras advanced on foot to meet Borominskar. Ro’moloristen’s chief, though senior as the People reckoned things, walked unsteadily, like an old Kessentai ready to enter “the Way of the Knowers.”

Borominskar still stepped briskly. His trunk Ro’moloristen saw to be covered with some kind of blanket seemingly made of mid-length, light-colored thresh fur. The fur seemed very young and fresh, blowing as it did in the early spring sun. Since the People did not have the thresh art of weaving, Ro’moloristen made the logical assumption.