John Ringo: Watch on the Rhine

I pity you, Borominskar, if the threshkreen ever capture you alive within a million measures of that blanket. They will not merely kill you; they will cut out your living entrails and roast them before your eyes, then leave your agonized remains for this planet’s insects to devour. They will do the same to each of your followers, too, for nothing affects these thresh like the murder of their young.

For you see, lord, that these people are not like us. We kill to eat, with no more pain given than necessary for that purpose. We are not a cruel race, merely a practical one.

But the humans are a cruel species. They can revel in an enemy’s agony. I pity you, Borominskar, when the thresh return in strength and break out from their fastnesses.

And they will return, O Lord of the east. And they will break out. Our species, as it exists, is doomed.

I survived. How is it possible I survived?

Groggy and disoriented, the Indowy Rinteel arose slowly and unsteadily to all fours from the deck where he had been thrown after the last Posleen hit on Brünnhilde. There was a coppery smell in the air, something unique in the Indowy’s experience. To Rinteel it seemed to be coming from the thick, red liquid sloshing across the deck. He lowered his head and sniffed at the deck. Ah, so human blood smells like that.

There was smoke in the air, bitter and acrid and easily overwhelming the smell of blood once the Indowy managed to drag himself to his feet. Some of that smoke poured from Rinteel’s own damage control panel.

If I had been in my chair leaning forward I would be dead now, he thought.

He heard the faint whistle of the tank’s blowers, apparently working on automatic once they detected dangerous material in the air. Soon it was clear enough for Rinteel to see around the combat cocoon.

What he saw wrenched his heart. Lining both sides of the cocoon his human comrades slumped in death, hanging loosely against their straps. So many holes had been torn through most of the bodies by the shattering of Brünnhilde ’s armor that the bodies had gone pale.

Looking back, Rinteel saw that the corpses of Schlüssel, Henschel, and Prael were more torn than most. The Posleen penetration had done its worst work at the rear of the cocoon. Bits of flesh and bone were stuck by blood all over that section.

The horror of the scene seemed to make something go “click” in the Indowy’s mind. Rinteel felt a portion of his sanity go gibbering away. With that portion gone, he found, he was able to feel things he had never felt before… anger, hate, a desire to punish. At the same time these things crept into Rinteel’s mind he felt a deep pain in his body, his people’s cultural and philosophical conditioning against violence coming to the fore.

Frantically, the Indowy pushed aside the hateful thoughts. He did not regain his full sanity by doing so.

The came a low moan from the front of the cocoon, Mueller’s driving station.

Perhaps I am not alone after all, Rinteel thought. Friend Johann may live yet. He raced somewhat unsteadily on his short legs to Mueller’s station and twisted the chair around.

Mueller was alive, though barely. A red foam frothed from his chest as a red stream poured down his face.

“Friend Johann, how may I help?”

“Rinteel, is that you? I can’t see you.”

“You are badly hurt, Johann.”

“Is there anyone… ?” Mueller began to ask.

“No, I am sorry. All are dead but for you and me.”

With that grim news Mueller sank into a semi-torpor. “All dead. All… Rinteel, you must fight the tank. I am dying, and I cannot.”

“I cannot either, Johann. My people are not warriors.”

“There are warriors and then there are warriors, Rinteel. You must fight the tank.” Mueller was overtaken by a spasm of coughing which brought blood and bloody gobbets forth from his mouth. When the spasm was finished he said, so low as barely to be heard, “Use your mind, Rinteel. Find a way… perhaps the tank can help you.”

Mueller began coughing again. When the fit ended, the Indowy could see, breathing had stopped.

Rinteel had never before lost a friend. A bit more of his sanity departed with the loss.

A sane Indowy, Rinteel knew, would have abandoned Brünnhilde by now. Yet Rinteel found that he simply could not leave. Between his conditioning and the sense of duty and honor he had learned from the crew, the Indowy was able to put a name to the disease affecting his mind. A human would have called it schizophrenia, though that would not have been perfectly accurate. He had not developed a twin personality so much as he was rapidly developing a twin set of values.

It was in such a state of mental confusion that he asked of the air, “Tank Brünnhilde ?”

“I am here, Indowy Rinteel.”

“What is your condition? My damage control screen is broken.”

“Everything critical is operable, Rinteel.”

“You can fight then?”

“No, Indowy Rinteel, except in self-defense. And I cannot use my main battery in any case without a commander or crewmember to give me the order to do so.”

“Am I an official member of the crew, Brünnhilde ?”

“You are, Rinteel.”

The Indowy stopped then, while different values, new and old, warred within him. He thought that if he gave in to the urge to fight, that part of his now split value system would likely take over all of him. He thought, too, that his body would never survive such a course, that his conditioning would kill him if he gave in to the primitive urge.

And Rinteel did not want to die.

“I do not wish to die, tank Brünnhilde,” he said, sipping some intoxicant that had miraculously survived the Posleen strike.

“I understand that is common with sentient life, Indowy Rinteel.”

“You have instructions, preprograms, do you not, which require you to try to survive?”

“Yes, I do, Rinteel. But this is a matter of programming and not one of personal preference. I have no personal preferences. I am not a person.”

To the Indowy this seemed specious. He was, after all, from a civilization in which AI’s, notably the Darhel produced AIDs, did have personalities. “Refresh my memory, Brünnhilde . You cannot engage your survival program while you maintain more than two rounds of your ammunition aboard?”

“This is correct, Rinteel.”

The Indowy thought about that, then asked, “Are there Posleen ships about overhead, Brünnhilde ?”

“There are, Rinteel. I surmise they are not finishing us off because we appear to be dead. The enemy flyers have likewise withdrawn. After the hit that got through I let my close-in defense weapons go silent to fool them. This was part of my survival programming, though I note that it is a war crime under international law.”

Dead? Dead? I do not want to die. And yet, if I must…

“How many projectiles do you retain for your main battery, Brünnhilde ?”

“I have one hundred and forty-seven KE projectiles, DU-AM, Rinteel. Plus fifty-nine antipersonnel canister.”

“And how long would it take you to expend all but two of the KE?

“Slightly more than one hour, Rinteel.”

“And then you will be able to engage your survival program?”

“Yes, Rinteel.”

Again the Indowy stopped speaking to allow himself to think. When he had finished he asked, “Can you distinguish the color of the sky, Brünnhilde ?”

“I can.”