Breakthrough

by Scott H Washburn

  There were about thirty structures just ahead and more could be seen in small groups farther away. This appeared to be a junction of two of the transportation lines and some of the vehicles which ran on the rails were stopped there. And there appeared to be some prey-creature warriors defending the place. They had encountered a few of them riding draught animals earlier that day and a few had escaped. Perhaps they had spread a warning, because as soon as they drew near, fire erupted from several small, low structures, which appeared to be more heavily constructed, and then from inside some of the larger ones. None of the weapons were the large projectile throwers fortunately, but there were at least two weapons which fired very rapidly; and from the impacts Qetjnegartis feared that they might possibly be able to do damage if given the chance.

  “Destroy those weapons first!”

  The thirteen fighting machines strode forward, heat rays blazing. Where the rays hit the ground, the frozen water exploded into clouds of steam. Where they hit the prey-creatures’ structures, they exploded into balls of fire. Four machines concentrated their rays on the low structures where the heaviest fire was coming from and in moments they were obliterated. Then more rays swept across the other structures, turning them into infernos.

  They didn’t pause, and soon swept into the midst of the settlement. Prey-creatures were emerging from the burning structures, trying to escape. They were blasted down as they ran. One of the transport vehicles attempted to move away, black smoke puffing out of a cylinder on top, but it did not get far. Namatchgar led its group at top speed to get ahead of it and destroyed the rails it ran on. When the vehicle reached that spot it was disabled and then easily destroyed. Several of the box-like vehicles in the string exploded violently when the heat ray struck them.

  The settlement was completely in flames now and smoke drifted high into the sky. Uncontrolled fire was still a novelty to Davnitargus and Qetjnegartis found it stopped near a particularly large conflagration. “It is fascinating, is it not?” asked the bud.

  “Yes, but you will see much more of it soon. Much more. But come, we must not tarry.” Qetjnegartis summoned everyone together and then said: “At this point we must split into groups. Ixmaderna, you will take your group south following this transport line. Destroy as much of the rails and supports as you can without seriously delaying your movements or depleting your energy reserves. Namatchgar, you shall go north with the same instructions, and Utnaferdus, you will take your groups along the transport line to the northeast. I will take my group and Davnitargus and travel due east.

  “I emphasize again, that our mission is to cause confusion among the prey-creatures and do as much damage as possible without risking ourselves in a pitched battle. If you encounter serious resistance, you are to withdraw. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Subcommander!”

  “Very well, you will proceed as instructed until you receive orders to return. If your energy reserves fall to twenty-five percent you will contact me for instructions. Carry out your orders.”

  “I emphasize again, that our mission is to cause confusion among the prey-creatures and do as much damage as possible without risking ourselves in a pitched battle. If you encounter serious resistance, you are to withdraw. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Subcommander!”

  “Very well, you will proceed as instructed until you receive orders to return. If your energy reserves fall to twenty-five percent you will contact me for instructions. Carry out your orders.”

  The other three groups turned and began the operation. Heat rays blasted the transport lines as the fighting machines followed along them. Clouds of smoke and stream billowed up marking their route even as they dwindled in the distance. Qetjnegartis watched for some time and then addressed the three still with it. “Let us proceed.”

  They moved east.

  * * * * *

  February, 1910, Washington, D.C.

  “How much of this has been confirmed, Leonard?”

  The concern on the President’s face was quite plain as he leaned over the huge map. It showed the western United States from the Mississippi almost to California and from Mexico to Canada. The temporary arrangement which had been set up during the watch for the second wave of Martian cylinders had proved so useful that Wood had ordered a permanent one to be created by demolishing a half-dozen offices in the basement of the huge State, War, & Navy Building.

  The map was as detailed as could be accomplished, showing railroads, towns and roads, mountains, rivers, and swamps. Painted wooden blocks representing military units were scattered all over the surface showing how the army had been deployed. Men around the edge of the map had long poles to push the blocks around if necessary since the map was much too large to be able to reach the center. There were red blocks representing the enemy. Most of them were in clusters off to the west of the blue ones, but there were also some showing up in areas to the east of most of the blue ones. Those were the ones Roosevelt was staring at.

  “Some of this we have confirmation for, Mr. President,” replied Wood. “More information is coming in all the time.” He swept his arm around, indicating the dozens of officers and enlisted men sitting at desks along the walls. Most were on telephones and writing down information on paper. “But we know for sure that the report from south of Pueblo is real. A dozen tripods smashed the railroad depot there and then split up and went off in four different directions. The attack on Scott’s Bluff is also definite. Another large force, fifteen of them or more, blasted the town to bits. But the garrison there put up a good fight and when reinforcements from the 89th division arrived, the Martians pulled out. But they didn’t retreat west, they split into four or five groups and headed in easterly directions. We lost sight of them in a snowstorm and we aren’t sure where they are now. The sightings in Montana and North Dakota are not confirmed, but a number of telegraph connections have gone dead.”

  “So, do you think that these are raiding parties rather than a major attack?” asked Roosevelt. “Like Forrest and Mosby and Grierson during the Civil War? Strikes against our railroads and supply depots?”

  “It could be, sir.”

  “But how did they break through our lines so easily, Leonard?” He pointed at the string of blue blocks stretched along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains.

  Wood snorted. “Maps are deceptive, Mr. President. Our ‘line’ is almost thirteen hundred miles long—and that doesn’t even include the borders with Canada and Mexico. Our troops can’t begin to create a solid defense line over a distance that vast.” He picked up a long wooden pointer. “We’ve been reorganizing things since the movement west began. The First Army under General Bullard is responsible for the front from Great Falls, Montana, all the way down to Pueblo, Colorado. He’s got three corps with a total of fifteen divisions. That’s maybe 200,000 actual combat troops. Sounds like a lot, but spread out over seven hundred miles it comes to one man every six yards…”

  “I understand that, General,” said Roosevelt. “But a lot of that line is rugged mountains, we don’t have to guard every foot of it.”

  “And we’re not, we’ve concentrated our forces at the most critical points.” His stick began jabbing at wooden blocks. “I Corps at Denver, IV Corps at Casper, V Corps spread out up in Montana trying to look west and north. But they can’t hope to defend every pass over the mountains. The enemy machines are incredibly mobile and since they aren’t tied down by supply trains, they can cross at points that no human army could even attempt. That leaves a lot of weak points in our line.”

  Wood shifted his pointer. “Only Funston’s Second Army has been able to create a really solid line, but he’s only covering the distance from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, a mere eighty miles or so. Even that takes two strong corps, and the enemy can slip around either flank.”

  “Which they are obviously doing,” said Roosevelt. “So what do we do about it?”

  “We have Third Army assembling around St. Louis, with a corps at Omaha.
We can start pushing them forward to try and engage these raiding parties before they can do too much damage. But it’s the dead of winter and our troops are not going to be able to stray far from the railroads. Might be hard tracking them down.”

  “Well, if they are after the railroads, they may come to us.”

  “Maybe. But if they can do a lot of damage to the tracks we could be in real trouble. All those troops at the front need supplies and there’s not much they can hope to get locally. Do you realize that there are more soldiers in Montana right now than there are Montanans?”

  Roosevelt sighed and Captain Butt brought him a mug of coffee. He took a sip and looked at Wood. “So what do you need, Leonard?”

  Wood shrugged. “Everything. Men, tanks, guns, airplanes, ammunition, food. The list goes on and on.”

  “You’ll get it,” said Roosevelt. “The American people and American industry will give you what you need to win.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President. And in the meantime I’ll get what troops we’ve got into motion.”

  * * * * *

  February, 1910, Near Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory

  “Damn! It’s cold!”

  Lieutenant Frank Dolfen looked at his sergeant and couldn’t deny his statement. It was cold. Damn cold. But despite the cold, the 5th Cavalry, the 10th Cavalry, and two batteries of artillery were riding out of their warm and cozy camps in Santa Fe and up into the Glorieta Pass southeast of the town. The pass was the most direct route across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and then down to the plains which lay beyond. But the top of the pass was at almost eight thousand feet and was choked with snow except where the trains had plowed a path. The artillery was being carried on a train, but no one knew how far they’d be able to go.

  The word had come that the Martians had made it across the mountains farther to the north and were now raising Cain to the east. Somebody had to stop them and this scratch brigade was among the poor sods to have drawn the short straw.

  “Cheer up Sarge, if we catch some Martians I’m sure they’ll be happy to warm you up.”

  “Oh, very funny, sir! Very funny!”

  “Maybe, but if we do catch the bastards, this time the joke’s gonna be on them!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  February, 1910, Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory

  Major Andrew Comstock looked at the telegram and frowned.

  “So what’s the verdict, sir?” asked Sergeant McGill.

  “Looks like we’re stuck here, Sergeant. At least for the foreseeable future.”

  “The railroad south’s still open. We could get back through Texas.”

  “Yes, I know. And General Crozier knows that, too. But he thinks that since we’re here anyway, we may as well stay and see how the new weapons perform. So he wants me attached to General Funston’s staff.”

  “Oh joy. So what’s my job, sir? Kennedy’s your batman, but what do you want me to be doing?”

  “Same as before, Sergeant: keep me out of trouble.”

  “A pleasure, sir.”

  Andrew nodded and then paused to consider the situation. He’d completed the interview with the mysterious and rather disturbing Sam. He still needed to write up a report based on the furious scribblings he’d made. He typically did things like that on the long train journey home from wherever he’d been, but if he was going to be here a while, he’d better do it soon while it was still fresh. He didn’t think there was anything of critical importance in what Sam had told him, but every scrap of information they could accumulate about the Martians was valuable. And it was pretty damn disturbing information. They already knew the Martians fed off humans, but what Sam had experienced in the Martian fortress was just… obscene.

  After the interview he’d gone on with his secondary mission: observing the new tanks and guns. He’d traveled up and down the Second Army lines between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, stopping in at units which had received the Mark II and Mark III tanks and the High-Velocity Field Gun—which the troops were calling the ‘Anti-Tripod Gun’. Since there was no fighting going on, all he could observe were the drills the troops were doing and watch how well things went.

  The Mark II Steam Tank was a significant improvement over the Mark I. Baldwin had made it two feet longer which not only gave the crew more room, but helped with the balance. The Mark Is had been very nose heavy and on any significant downgrade they could tip forward and bury the gun muzzle in the ground. The Mark IIs didn’t have that problem despite carrying a heavier four-inch quick-firer in the nose. They were much more reliable mechanically, too. They still couldn’t stray far from a rail line which was necessary for any sort of long-distance move, but they didn’t break down every five minutes and the crews claimed they were a lot easier to fix in the field. Or maybe it was just that the crews were better trained. In any case, the men seemed to like them.

  The verdict was still out on the Mark III. There was no doubt that it looked impressive, with a gun in the nose and two more sticking out from the side sponsons, but it had the same chassis and engine as the Mark II, which meant that it was overloaded and underpowered. The two extra guns also meant that it was very crowded inside. Andrew had squeezed himself inside one of them with its crew and there was scarcely room to turn around. Still, the crews he’d talked to were enthusiastic about all the firepower they commanded. He’d bumped into that Lieutenant Patton again, his battalion had been moved from Kansas City to Santa Fe, and the man seemed thrilled with the platoon he commanded.

  Finally, there was the anti-tripod gun. The army had wanted something which could seriously hurt a Martian machine. The three-inch and four-inch guns in common use had proved incapable of punching a shell through the enemy’s armor. Concentrated fire could eventually batter holes in the machines, but getting multiple hits on the agile Martian tripods wasn’t easy. It was hoped that the new guns could kill the enemy with a single hit. The gun was only a 3.7-inch bore, but the barrel was over twice as long as a typical field gun, giving it an unprecedented muzzle velocity. That combined with the specially case-hardened projectiles made it a powerful weapon. Test firings had looked good.

  The problem was the carriage. A modified version of the standard field carriage had been designed for it, but it had proved an utter failure. The massive recoil of the gun had literally shaken the carriage to pieces after just a dozen shots. Attempts to reinforce the carriage had not worked satisfactorily and it was determined to design a new one from the ground up, but it wasn’t ready and the generals were demanding that the gun get into action right away. So they had taken the carriage from a much older siege gun and modified it for the anti-tripod gun. It was sturdy enough but the results looked… ridiculous. The thing had massive spoked wheels twice as tall as a man which lifted the gun up so high the crew had to stand on boxes to reach the breech and aiming controls. In addition, the gun also sported a massive shield to protect the crew made from that sandwich armor of steel and asbestos that the folks at MIT had developed. Put together, the contraption looked like a child’s idea of a toy cannon. It was hard to move and difficult to operate and the crews hated it. Andrew had watched them doing practice firings and had to agree that this stop-gap design was of questionable value.

  After finishing his observations, he was ready to head back to Washington. But then came word that the Martians had sent raiding parties through passes in the mountains into the army’s rear and the rail lines had been cut. At least the most direct routes east were cut. As Sergeant McGill had pointed out, they could still go due south to El Paso and then try to make their way east through Texas from there. But General Crozier seemed to think that these raids might presage a new Martian offensive and if that was the case, he wanted him here to observe.

  Yeah, I really should have burned that letter from Harding!

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory

  “You really ought to talk to them, Rebecca.”

  Becca Harding looked at Miss C
humley and sighed. “They aren’t going to listen to me. They’ve never listened to me. My aunt still doesn’t believe that there are any Martians!”

  “Well, you should at least try. Even if they refuse to listen, you can go away with a clear conscience. If you don’t try and then something happens, you’ll be second-guessing yourself for the rest of your life. Trust me, I know.” Rebecca looked into the older woman’s eyes. Against every expectation, she had come to think of Chumley as a friend. Someone she could confide in and someone she could trust. She’d trusted her enough to tell her the whole story about Sam and she hadn’t betrayed that trust. Eventually she nodded.

  “I guess you’re right. I suppose I could try to go see them tomorrow…”

  “Go now. Things are quiet for the moment; no telling what it might be like tomorrow. Take your horse and go, Becca.”

  She looked at her a moment longer and then smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” She got up, put on her overcoat, and went to saddle up Ninny. She didn’t have much hope that she could do any good, but as Miss Chumley had said, she had to at least try.

  Word had come down from headquarters the previous week that the Martians were rampaging behind the army to the east, cutting the rail lines and doing untold damage. There were also signs that there might be a direct assault on the defenses of Albuquerque and Santa Fe. General Funston was urging the civilian populations of both towns to evacuate. It wasn’t an order—not exactly—but with the warnings and restrictions that went along with it, it might as well have been an order. Martial Law had been declared and strict rationing of food and coal was in effect. Empty supply trains were being made available which would take people south to Texas. So far, a lot of people had left, but Becca was fairly certain her aunt and uncle were not among them. She needed to convince them to go.