Breakthrough

by Scott H Washburn

  “The general’s chief of staff, Hinckley. Says he’s got a job for us.”

  That got through and Andrew came awake. “What time is it?”

  “A little after nine, sir. Looks like things are happening.”

  Andrew struggled to his feet and grabbed his hat. Colonel Hinckley was waiting outside the tent. He looked very busy, very harried. Why’d he want to see him? He saluted. “Sir?”

  “Comstock, we’re pulling out. The 30th and 82nd, which are north and west of town, will go first. They’re already on the move. The service units will go next and then the 28th and 77th - if there’s anything left of them - will form the rear guard. The enemy is hitting them hard and we’re not sure how long they’ll be able to hold.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “But…” Hinckley frowned. “We’ve gotten word that there’s a Martian force on the other side of the pass - the damn report was hours old before it got to us! We’re not sure how many, we think it’s just a small raiding force, and we’ve got a brigade of cavalry in place to hold them back. But we need to clear them out so they don’t delay our withdrawal. We’ve managed to scrape together a small force, including a battery of those new anti-tripod guns, and put them on a train to send to the pass. You’re in Ordnance, right? You know about those guns, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yes, sir, I’m familiar with them, but…”

  “Good! We’re short-handed here, so the general wants you to see that those guns get up there and do the job! Can you do that?”

  Andrew’s head was spinning. A combat command? Was he crazy? But his mouth said: “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good man! The train will be ready in just a few minutes. Get over to the depot and make sure you’re on it!”

  “Yes, sir!” Andrew saluted again and Hinckley was gone. He looked at McGill and Kennedy and Bill White, who was still there. “Well, gentlemen, we have our orders. Let’s get to it. Where are the horses?”

  * * * * *

  Cycle 597,844.1, East of Holdfast 32-1

  Qetjnegartis swept the heat ray across the group of prey-creatures and watched as they were consumed. Their destruction was satisfying, but there didn’t seem to be any end to the miserable creatures. It and its fellows had attacked one group of them and wiped them out, only to encounter a second group a half telequel farther up the pass. This too had been destroyed, but now here was a third!

  And each new group seemed undismayed by the destruction of the previous group. They attacked with a fanaticism Qetjnegartis had not encountered before. Experience from the first invasion, and again in the second, had shown again and again that if the prey-creatures were subjected to sufficient violence, if enough of them were slain, then the remainder would succumb to their animalistic instinct for self-preservation and flee. They had shown none of the Race’s willingness to make whatever sacrifice was necessary for the good of the group.

  But the ones they were fighting now were nearly at that point. True, some would flee, but the rest were hurling themselves into battle with an almost complete disregard for their losses. And the close-quarter nature of the current fight was allowing them to use their numbers to good effect. The narrow passage, with the jumbled rocks and close-set plant-growth, provided many hiding places from which they could spring. And while they did not have any of the large projectile throwers, most were carrying the explosive devices which had proved very dangerous. Qetjnegartis’ own machine had suffered minor damage and two of the others in the group had been so badly damaged as to be unusable.

  They moved forward another hundred quel, only to encounter more of the creatures. They emerged from some of the tall plants and threw their explosives. Qetjnegartis and the others burned them down, but the charges detonated and debris rattled off the skin of its machine. The plants provided concealment and despite repeated attempts to set them ablaze, they appeared so sodden with moisture that they would only burn as long as the heat rays were trained on them. The fires would not spread or continue on their own.

  They killed this newest batch and continued up the pass. Qetjnegartis caught a brief glimpse of the top, still five or six telequel away, and urged its force onward. Valprandar had said it would drive the enemy army into this narrow pass and Qetjnegartis was to block it from this side, trapping the enemy. But if the prey-creatures got over the pass in strength while Qetjnegartis was still on the lower ground it might prove impossible to hold them. If they had room to deploy their large projectile throwers up there, out of range of the heat rays, it could be very bad. “Move quickly!” it urged. “We must advance faster!”

  They broke through another line of prey-creatures and then reached a section of the pass where the rock walls closed in on the north side. Suddenly, Qetjnegartis saw movement. “Cablantna! Beware!” It sent an urgent message to one of its subordinates, but it was too late. Ten of the prey-creatures launched themselves off the top of an outcropping toward Cablantna’s fighting machine. Half of them missed or bounced off and fell to their deaths, but four managed to grab hold. It was inevitable that they would have the explosive devices!

  Qetjnegartis activated its heat ray and swept it over Cablantna’s machine. They had learned in earlier battles that by reducing the power of the ray and widening the focus, it was possible to produce a ray which, while still more than capable of destroying the prey-creature foot warriors, was weak enough to pose no threat to a fighting machine for a brief exposure. The beam was also wider and thus able to hit more targets. Qetjnegartis’ ray set three of the enemy ablaze and they fell off like tiny meteors. But the fourth was on the other side—outside the reach of the ray! “Cablantna! Turn your machine around!”

  But it was too late. The last creature leapt off and an instant later an explosion tore loose one of the machine’s legs and it toppled over and crashed to the ground. Instruments said that Cablantna was still alive, but there was no possibility of transferring it to a transport pod. The entire way up the pass they had been under fire from prey-creatures with their small projectile throwers. While they were of no threat to a fighting machine—unless it had sustained previous damage to its armor—there would be too great a risk for Cablantna to emerge from its machine under these conditions. They would have to rescue it later.

  “Continue forward!” it commanded. Only six of us left! Can we reach the objective?

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory

  “Gotta hand it to them darkies: they put up a helluva fight!”

  Frank Dolfen glared at First Sergeant Barton, but then nodded. “Yeah, they sure as hell did. Took out three of the bastards.” The 10th Cavalry had held the Martians for an hour, but they’d paid for every minute. He didn’t think there were many of them left.

  “Now it’s our turn. Think we can stop ‘em, sir?”

  “We’re sure as hell gonna try!” He looked back toward the top of the pass. They’d been promised help, but the road and the tracks were empty.

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory

  The train depot was bedlam. There were at least twenty trains on sidings being loaded and huge crowds of people swarming around them. Becca guided Ninny through the throng, keeping pace with the ambulance wagons. It wasn’t complete chaos, there was still some sense of order—unlike that frantic retreat from the siege at Gallup. Provost officers and their men directed traffic and kept things moving, albeit at a slow pace. Nearly everyone she saw was a soldier, but there were a few civilian mixed in and Becca suddenly wondered if her aunt and uncle had made it out. If she saw them now, she’d find room for them on a wagon, but she did not; although a few made her take second looks. Thankfully she didn’t see any children, she wouldn’t be able to ignore those.

  They finally made it to the trains which would carry the wounded. She helped move them from the ambulances, keeping a close watch on Ninny where she’d tied him. Despite the seeming order, she wouldn’t put it past someo
ne to try and steal him. “Come on! Hurry it up!” cried one of the medical officers. “We need to get out of here!”

  They finished the transfer and then the horse-drawn traffic was directed onto a road leading to the pass over the mountains. The hospital trains were left sitting on their sidings as other trains were sent out first. Becca saw that the lead train was carrying artillery on flat cars and she was angered at the thought that mere equipment was being given priority over wounded men!

  The medical convoy started and stopped and inched forward. She could see columns of troops and wagons and guns ahead on another road that merged with the one she was on. There were more provost men at the intersection deciding who would be let through and in what order. The sounds of battle to the south were getting closer and closer. She nervously waited for their turn, and envied the streams of individuals who were ignoring the rules and sneaking past on the edge of the road.

  Finally, they reached the intersection and after waiting for a brigade of infantry to pass, they were allowed into the column. The road turned southeast and started up the long slope to the pass. There seemed to be a hundred voices all shouting the same message.

  “Close it up! Close it up! Keep moving!”

  * * * * *

  March 1910, West of Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory

  The train’s locomotive belched thick black smoke as it labored on the upgrade. Andrew and his comrades were in a passenger car right behind the coal tender with some of the men of the anti-tripod gun battery. Behind that were four flat cars, each one carrying a gun and its limber. The guns were all pointing backward, with the limbers just in front of them. Two more flat cars held caissons and then there were more carrying the horses to pull the guns. The rear of the train had a few more passenger cars carrying a company of infantry to support the battery.

  Behind them, a quarter mile back, was another train carrying a railroad repair crew with lots of equipment and three steam tanks which had been modified as work tractors, although they retained their guns.

  And to his amazement, Andrew was in command of the whole shebang.

  It still seemed slightly crazy to him, but it was true that a small grouping of a gun battery and an infantry company like this didn’t fall into any normal table of organization. The anti-tripod guns weren’t even in the normal divisional TO yet, they were just an attachment. The infantry company had been detached from a battalion of the 28th Infantry Division which was being used as a corps reserve. So there was no officer to whom a command like this would normally fall. It was completely ad hoc and any officer the higher command chose to assign to it would be ‘normal’. Andrew assumed Hinckley had chosen him simply because he couldn’t spare anyone else.

  The battery was a unit from the Missouri National Guard commanded by a lieutenant named Truman. He wore thick glasses and seemed very nervous. This was clearly his first time in combat. “What do you think we’ll be asked to do, Major?”

  “All I’ve been told is that there’s a cavalry brigade holding back a small Martian force on the other side of the pass. We need to kill them or drive them off so the army can get through. How much practice have your men had with those guns, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh, mostly just dry-firing, sir. We go through the motions, but haven’t been allowed to fire many live rounds. But they’re good men. We had the old M1897s before they gave us the new ones and my men were right sharp with them!”

  Andrew nodded. That was about typical for the other batteries he’d inspected. But it wasn’t good. Hitting a small target a mile away wasn’t easy and it took practice. These boys hadn’t gotten that practice it seemed. He tried to remember what the ground on the other side of the pass looked like. He’d come through that way two different times, but all that came to him was a long uphill climb with rocks and trees on either side and a road on the northern side of the tracks. He wished he had a map, but he didn’t.

  “I’m hoping we’ll have room to deploy your guns where we’ll have a good field of fire looking down on them. If the cavalry can hold them, maybe you can pick them off like clay pigeons.”

  “That’s a very appealing picture, Major,” said Bill White. “I much prefer it to dropping burning buildings on them.”

  “Amen to that!” said McGill. Truman looked between them, apparently trying to determine if they were joking.

  “Can’t see a damned thing from in here,” said Andrew. “I’m going back to one of the flat cars to get a better look. We may have to unload and go into action quickly.” He led the way to the rear of the car and opened the door. The transfer to the flat car involved a gut-churning jump, but he and the others made it. From there he could lean out and get a better view.

  The first time he’d come this way had been in ’08 and the railroad had gone southwest from the pass, by-passing Santa Fe completely. You had to take a branch line back north to get there. But since then they’d built a connection directly from Santa Fe to the pass to try and reduce congestion on the tracks. It was good thing, too; Andrew suspected that that other line which went toward Albuquerque was probably in the middle of a battle right now. There was a cloud of smoke rising to the southwest and the sound of the guns could be heard above the puffing of their locomotive.

  Leaning out and looking forward, he could see they were still a couple of miles from the top of the pass. But was that smoke he could see rising up from beyond? The others saw it, too.

  “What are we runnin’ into here, d’you think, sir?” asked McGill.

  “I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon enough.”

  * * * * *

  March, 1910, Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory

  “Here they come! Get ready!”

  “God help us!” said First Sergeant Barton.

  Frank Dolfen took one last look at the top of the pass and snarled, “Looks like He’s the only one who will today!”

  “Maybe we ought to think about gettin’ out of here, sir!” said Barton. “The rest of the regiment couldn’t hold those bastards and there’s still five of ‘em left! What can we do with fifty men?”

  The sergeant was probably right, it probably was hopeless. The enemy had smashed their way through the 10th, and then through the two companies of the 109th, and then through two squadrons of the 5th. They were in the process of smashing the third squadron and then it would be their turn.

  “Run if you want to, Barton. I won’t stop you.” The sergeant cursed vilely, but stayed there behind a boulder with Dolfen.

  Dolfen clutched his pistol in one hand and a bomb in the other. He doubted he’d live to see the end of this day, but he was determined to make his death count for something. The Martians were still slaughtering the third squadron in line, but that wouldn’t take much longer. Then they’d march right up here and finish the job. Damn! If they’d just gotten any sort of help at all!

  But the third squadron wasn’t quite finished. As Dolfen looked in delight, a half-dozen bombs exploded. Not on the Martian machines, but on a stand of tall pines right next to the road. The branches of the trees were already on fire, but the thick trunks were intact and now three of them leaned outward and then toppled over, right onto one of the enemy tripods! The first tree made it stagger and then the other two knocked it right over and pinned it on the ground. Several other tripods came over to it and dragged the trees off their comrade, but after several attempts to get it on its legs again failed, they left it and continued on up the pass—right toward Dolfen and his men.

  “Only four left now!”

  “Shame there aren’t any big trees here close enough to the road to do that again,” said Barton.

  “Nope, we’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. Get ready!”

  Dolfen had positioned his forces near the little village of Glorieta, but he hadn’t put any of his troops in the building. They were mostly flimsy shacks for one thing which would provide little protection. But he was also hoping that the Martians would be distracted by those buildings, and while
they were busy burning them he and his men might be able to hit them unexpectedly. “Keep down until you get the signal!” He had their remaining bugler nearby and the man nodded nervously.

  The enemy was getting closer, only a few hundred yards away now. Rifle bullets were still pinging off the machines; there must be hundreds of survivors from the smashed units who’d fled up into the hills on either side of the pass. Some of them were still fighting. None of them had any chance of stopping them.

  As if we do!

  Closer and closer they came. Two hundred yards, one hundred yards, fifty yards, the first machine in line stomped past Dolfen’s hiding place—and then turned toward the houses. The other three joined it and they all opened fire at once on the buildings, which exploded into flames.

  “Now!” The bugler sounded the charge.

  Dolfen sprang up from his spot and sprinted toward the nearest Martian. The rest of his men were doing the same, screaming battle cries as they came. Barton held back for a moment and then came forward, too.

  But the Martians were on alert and noticed the attack immediately. The heat rays swung around and men started dying. Barton vanished in a flash of smoke and flame with three other troopers.

  The distance was down to a few dozen yards and Dolfen, screaming with all the rest, pulled the ring on the fuse of his bomb. Smoke spurted out as it burned. He swung his arm back to throw and…

  An explosion - someone’s bomb - blew up right in front of him. The blast flung him through the air and he landed among some very hard rocks. Pain shot through every part of him. Stunned, he tried to pull himself up, but a second explosion—probably his own bomb—slammed him flat and consciousness fled.

  * * * * *

  Cycle 597, 844.1, East of Holdfast 32-1