Harry Turtledove - Down to Earth

“Superior sir!” Gorppet signaled for attention.

“Yes? What is it, Small-Unit Group Leader?” the officer asked.

“Superior sir, did you ever run up against the Deutsche during the last round of fighting?” Gorppet asked.

“No,” the regimental leader admitted. “I served on the lesser continental mass then.”

“Well, then, superior sir, all I can tell you is, don’t count them out of anything till you see them all dead. And be careful even then-they may be shamming,” Gorppet said. “They are much tougher, male for male, than the Russkis or than any other kind of Big Ugly I can think of.”

“I assure you, I have been thoroughly informed as to their proclivities,” the regiment leader said. “I can also assure you that I know whereof I speak. We shall deal with them here in short order.”

He spoke as if he knew everything there was to know. He probably thought he did. That meant he either hadn’t seen hard fighting over on the lesser continental mass or had forgotten what it was like. Knowing he was wasting his time, Gorppet tried again: “The Deutsche, superior sir-”

“Are broken,” the regiment leader said firmly. “Let us have no further doubts on that score. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, superior sir.” Gorppet knew he sounded resigned and imperfectly subordinate, but had trouble caring. The regiment leader outranked him, but that didn’t mean the fellow kept his brains anywhere but his cloaca.

And then, to Gorppet’s astonishment, another male spoke up: “Superior sir, the small-unit group leader is right. As long as the Deutsche are in the field, they are dangerous. Underestimating them will do nothing but get good males killed to no purpose. I mean no disrespect when I say this, for it is a manifest truth.”

In a deadly voice, the regiment leader said, “Give me your name, Mid-Group Leader. Your statement will go on the record.”

“Very well, superior sir: I am Shazzer,” the other male replied. The regiment leader spoke into a computer hookup. There, all too probably, went Shazzer’s reputation and hope for advancement. They would surely be gone if the regiment leader turned out to be right. They were also likely doomed even if the regiment leader turned out to be wrong. The Race did not like those who disagreed with duly constituted authority. The regiment leader’s eye turrets swung toward Gorppet. “Give me your name, too, Small-Unit Group Leader.”

“Superior sir, I am Gorppet,” he answered. He’d never expected to become an officer. If he stopped being one, the eggshell of his world wouldn’t shatter.

“Gorppet,” the regiment leader repeated, this time into the computer hookup. Having finished that, he continued, “Now let us turn to the business at hand: wiping out the surviving remnants of the Deutsche.”

“It shall be done, superior sir,” the assembled officers chorused. Gorppet mouthed the words along with the rest, though they were bitter on his tongue. He longed for ginger to rid himself of their taste, but made himself hold back.

Out of the barn trooped the officers. Gorppet checked his radiation meter. This particular area wasn’t doing too badly; he didn’t need a breathing mask, let alone protective wrappings. The winds blowing the radioactive wreckage of the Reich to the east had been relatively kind here.

As the officers began to scatter and return to their units, Gorppet hurried over to Shazzer and said, “I thank you, superior sir, for what you tried to do in there. I fear you did not help yourself by doing it.”

Shazzer shrugged. “You spoke plain truth, Gorppet. Any male who has ever fought the Deutsche knows you spoke plain truth. Only pity is, we could not make that male see it.” He sounded not in the least concerned about what would happen to him.

Before Gorppet could say how much he admired that, aircraft streaked toward him out of the west. Concern about careers suddenly evaporated. “Those are Deutsch!” he shouted, and dove into a shell crater.

Shazzer dove in right behind him. Some of the other males were slower to take cover. Flames rippled under the wings of the enemy killercraft. “Rockets!” Shazzer screamed. He tried to scrabble deeper into the earth. Gorppet didn’t blame him. He was trying to do the same thing.

The killercraft wailed past and were gone. Gorppet stuck up his head and looked around for the regiment leader who’d said the Deutsche were at the end of their tether. He didn’t spot him. Maybe that meant the optimistic officer had found himself a hole in the ground, too. Maybe it meant he’d been blown to bits. Gorppet didn’t much care, one way or the other.

He didn’t keep his head up very long, either. Hisses in the air rose swiftly to shrieks. He shrieked, too: “Artillery!” He dove down into the crater once more.

He thought the shells that burst around him were of heavier caliber than most of the ones the Big Uglies had thrown during the last round of fighting. He cursed. The Race’s artillery remained essentially the same as it had been when Home was unified a hundred thousand years before. Why change? It did the job well enough. The Big Uglies, unfortunately, didn’t think that way.

Splinters whined overhead. The ground shook under Gorppet’s prostrate body, reminding him of the earthquakes he’d known when stationed in Basra and Baghdad. Shazzer said, “I think these are all explosive shells. The ones with gas in them sound different when they burst.”

“Praise the spirits of Emperors past for small favors,” Gorppet said. “I truly hate the masks we have to wear to protect ourselves against the gas.”

“And who does not?” the other veteran officer replied. “But I hate dying even more.”

“Truth,” Gorppet agreed.

If the Deutsche were short on ammunition, the bombardment they laid down gave no sign of it. Shells fell from the sky like rain. Shazzer said, “They are going to try to break through here. They would not be pounding us so hard if they were not.”

“How can they do that?” Gorppet said mockingly. “We have smashed them. They are completely destroyed. The regiment leader has said so.”

Shazzer laughed-it was either laugh or curse. “I do not think the regiment leader bothered informing the Deutsche of this fact-if it is a fact.”

“I wish I could get back to my small group,” Gorppet said. “They should have their commander with them.”

“You would not last long if you climbed out of this hole,” Shazzer said. “Have you never seen that, without its officers, a small group often fights about as well under the command of its underofficers? I would not say that to every male, but you do not strike me as the sort it would insult.”

“No, superior sir, it does not insult me,” Gorppet answered. “I have been an ordinary trooper and an underofficer myself. I never expected to be anything more. My opinion of officers is not far removed from yours.”

“Then trust your soldiers,” Shazzer said. “I think we may have to do some fighting of our own here.”

Sure enough, Big Uglies started falling back past the barn where the regiment leader had held his briefing. They were not Deutsche: they were the local Tosevites, as loyal to the Race as any Big Uglies were. But if they had to retreat, that meant the Deutsche were advancing. “I wish we had more landcruisers in the neighborhood,” Gorppet said fretfully, “more landcruisers and more antilandcruiser rockets.”

With a shrug, Shazzer answered, “The Deutsche previously concentrated their efforts farther south, in the direction of the city of Lodz-or what was the city of Lodz. Naturally, we concentrated our resources there, too.”

“Naturally,” Gorppet said bitterly. “And then the Big Uglies shifted their forces and did something we failed to anticipate. This has happened too many times.”