“I’ll take the jets,” he told the other males. “You two handle the ones with the revolving airfoils. Knock down a few and keep going; we haven’t any time to waste toying with them.”
He chose targets for his missiles, gave them to the computer.
When the tone from the speaker taped to his hearing diaphragm told him the computer had acquired them, he touched the firing button. The killercraft bucked slightly as the wingtip missiles leapt away.
One of the jets never knew what hit it. He watched electronically as a missile swatted it out of the air. The other Tosevite pilot must have spotted the missile meant for him. He tried to dive away from it, but his aircraft wasn’t fast enough for that. He went down, too.
Gefron’s wingmales salvoed all their missiles, wingtip and pylon both, at the Deutsch aircraft That blasted a gaping hole in their formation, through which the killercraft flew. Rolvar and Xarol shouted excitedly; they hadn’t seen so much opposition since the war was new.
Gefron was pleased, too, but also a little worried. The Big Ugly pilots weren’t fleeing; they were trying to regroup in the wake of the killercraft. Returning to base, only he would have missiles left to fire at them.
It shouldn’t matter, Gefron told himself. If we can’t get by them with our speed, altitude, radar and cannon, we don’t deserve to conquer this planet. But it was one more thing to worry about.
He studied the radar display. “Approaching target,” he said. “Remember, the Deutsche have set up a dummy target north of the real installation. If you bomb that one, by mistake, I promise that you’ll never get your, tailstumps into a killercraft again as long as you live.”
The real Ploesti lay in a little vale. Gefron had it on his radar set. He peered through the windscreen, ready to paint the assigned refineries with his laser to guide the bombs in. But instead of the towers of the refineries and petroleum wells, the big squat cylinders that stored refined hydrocarbons, all he saw was a spreading, thickening cloud of gray-black smoke. He hissed. The Deutsche weren’t playing fair.
His wingmales noticed the problem at the same time he did. “What are we stupposed to do now?” Rolyar asked. “How can we light up the targets through all that junk?”
Gefron wanted to abort the mission and fly back to base. But, because he was the flight leader, anything that went wrong would get blamed on him. “We’ll bomb anyway,” he declared. “Whatever in the smoke we hit will hurt the Deutsche somehow.”
“Truth,” Xarol declared. The flight went on. Gefron turned on the laser targeting system in the hope it would penetrate the smoke or find some clear patches through which to acquire accurate targets for the bombs his killercraft carried under its wings. No luck—instead of the steady tone he wanted to hear, all he got was the complaining warble of a system that couldn’t lock on.
The Deutsch antiaircraft guns that lined the ridges on either side of the petroleum wells and refineries opened up with everything they had. More smoke dotted the sky, now in big black puffs around and mostly behind the flight of killercraft: the Big Uglies at the guns weren’t leading the Race’s aircraft quite enough.
Even so, the display of firepower was impressive. The bursts from exploding Tosevite shells seemed close enough together for Gefron to get out of his aircraft and walk across them. Once or twice he heard sharp rattles, like gravel bouncing off sheet metal. It wasn’t gravel, though; it was fragments of shell casing punching holes in his fuselage and wing. He anxiously scanned the instrument panel for damage lights. None came on.
The Deutsche were defending Ploesti every way they knew how. Above the clotted smoke floated balloons tethered to stout cables that might wreck an aircraft that ran into them. More antiaircraft guns, some cannons like those on the high ground to either side, others mere machine guns that spat glowing tracers, fired out of the smoke. They had no radar control and so could not see what they hoped to hit, but they added more metal to an already crowded sky.
“Does anyone have laser lock-on?” Gefron asked hopefully. Both wingmales denied it. Gefron sighed. The results would not be what his superiors had hoped for. “Proceed on purely visual bombing run.”
“It shall be done, Flight Leader,” Xarol and Rolvar chorused.
Then they were over the billowing smoke. Gefron poised a claw at the bomb-release button. The killercraft lost both weight and drag as the ordnance fell away. All at once it seemed a much better performer.
“We did hurt them, by the spirits of departed Emperors!” Xarol said exultantly.
The wingmale was right. Sudden new angry clouds of black, greasy smoke roiled up through the screen the Deutsche had stretched above Ploesti. Through new smoke and old, Gefron saw sullen orange fireballs blooming like so many huge, terrible flowers.
“The Big Uglies will be a long time repairing that,” the flight leader agreed happily. He radioed a report of success to the base from which he’d set out, then returned to the intraflight frequency: “Now we go home.”
“As if we had any real home on this cold ball of mud,” Rolvar said.
“Part of it—the more southerly latitudes—can be quite pleasant,” Gefron replied. “And even this area’s not too bad in local summer. Present conditions, of course, are something else again—I assure you, I find frozen water as revolting as does any other male in his right mind.”
He brought his killercraft onto the reciprocal of the course he’d flown to Ploesti. As he did so, his radar picked up the Big Ugly aircraft through which his flight had barreled on the way to the refinery complex. They hadn’t come straight after the killercraft; instead, they’d loitered along the likely return route and used the time while he and his wingmales were making their bombing run to gain altitude.
Gefron would have been just as glad to scoot past unnoticed, but one of the Big Uglies spotted him and his comrades. They might have been radarless, but they had radios. What one of them saw, the others learned in moments. Their aircraft turned toward the flight for an attack run.
The range closed frighteningly fast. The Big Uglies flew inadequate aircraft, but they flew them with panache and courage, darting straight at Gefron and his wingmales. The flight leader fired his next-to-last missile and then, a moment later, his last one. Two Tosevite-planes tumbled in ruins. The rest kept coming.
On the head-up display, Gefron saw another enemy aircraft break up, and yet another: Rolvar and Xarol were using their cannon to good effect. But the Big Uglies were firing, too; through the windscreen, past the headup display, the flight leader watched the pale flashes from their guns. He turned the nose of his killercraft toward the nearest Big Ugly, fired a short burst. Smoke poured from the enemy’s engine; the plane began to fall.
Then the flight was through the horde of Tosevites. Gefron let out a long sigh of relief: the Big Uglies could not hope to pursue. He keyed his radio: “All well, wingmales?”
“All well, Flight Leader,” Rolvar answered. But Xarol said, “Not all well, superior sir. I took several hits as we mixed it up with the Big Uglies. I’ve lost electrical power to some of my control surfaces, and I’m losing hydraulic pressure in the backup system. I am not certain I will be able to complete return to base.”
“I will inspect visually.” Gefron gained altitude and lost speed, letting Xarol pull ahead of him: What he saw made him hiss in dismay: part of the tail surface of his wingmale’s killercraft had been shot away, and two lines of dismayingly large holes stitched the right wing and fuselage. “You didn’t just take several hits; you got yourself chewed up. Can you keep it flying?”
“For the time being, superior sir, but altitude control grows increasingly difficult.”
“Do the best you can. If you are able to set down on one of our airstrips, the Race will have the opportunity to repair your aircraft rather than writing it off.”
“I understand, superior sir.”
The Race had lost far more equipment on Tosev 3 than even the most pessimistic forecasts allowed for. Keeping what was left operati
onal was a priority that grew higher every day.
But luck was not with Xarol. He did manage to keep his killercraft airborne until the flight reached territory the Race controlled. Gefron had just radioed the nearest landing strip of his wingmale’s predicament when Xarol announced, “I regret, superior sir, that I have no choice but to abandon the aircraft.”
Moments later, a blue-white fireball marked the machine’s impact point. When Gefron landed back at Warsaw, he learned his wingmale had ejected safely and been rescued. That pleased him—but the next time Xarol needed to fly, what aircraft would he use?
Small-arms fire rattled through Naperville. Mutt Daniels crouched in the trench in front of the ruins of the Preemption House. Every so often, when the firing slackened, he’d stick his tommy gun up over the forward rim of the trench, squeeze off a short burst in the direction of the Lizards, and then yank it back down again.
“Kinda quiet today, isn’t it, Sarge?” Kevin Donlan said just as one such burst was answered by a storm of fire from the aliens, whose forward outposts were only a few hundred yards to the east.
Mutt pressed his face against the dirt wall of the trench as bullets whined just overhead. “You call this here quiet?” he said, thinking he’d chill the kid with sarcasm.
But Donlan wouldn’t chill. “Yeah, Sarge. I mean, it is, isn’t it. Just rifle fire right now—just rifle fire all day long, pretty much. I don’t miss the artillery one little bit, let me tell you.”
“Me neither. Rifles are bad enough, but that other stuff, that’s what slaughters you.” Daniels paused, played back the day’s action in his head. “You know, you’re right, and I didn’t even notice. They ain’t done much with their big guns today, have they?”
“I didn’t think so. What do you suppose it means?”
“Damfino.” Mutt wished he had a. cigarette or a chew or even a pipe. “I ain’t sorry not to be on, this end of it either, though; don’t get me wrong about that. But why they’re off with it son, I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
The. more he thought about it, the more it worried him. The Lizards didn’t have numbers going for them; their strength had always lain in their guns: their tanks and self-propelled pieces; if they were easing off with those …
“Maybe our offensive really is putting the screws to them, making, them pull back,” Donlan said.
“Mebbe.” Daniels remained unconvinced. He’d been falling back before the invaders ever since he got strafed out. of his train. The idea that other troops could move forward against them was galling; it seemed to say nothing he’d done, nothing Sergeant Schneicier—as fine a soldier as ever lived—had done, was good enough. He didn’t like believing that.
Behind him, back toward Chicago, an American artillery barrage opened up on the Lizard position. It was an odd, pawky sort of shelling, on again, off again, nothing like the endless rains of projectiles that had punctuated combat in France. If you kept a gun in the same place for more than two or three rounds, the Lizards would figure out where it was and blast it. Mutt didn’t know how they did it, but he knew they did. He’d seen too many dead artillerymen and wrecked guns to have any doubt left.
He waited for counterbattery fire to start. With the cynical senst of selfpreservation soldiers soon develop, he would sooner have had the Lizards shelling positions miles behind him than lobbing their presents into his trench.
American shells kept falling on the Lizards. When half an hour went by without reply, Daniels said, “You know, kid, you might just be right. Feels mighty damn good to give it to ’em instead of taking it, don’t you reckon?”
“Hell yes, Sergeant,” Donlan said happily.
A runner came down heavily into the trench where the two men sheltered. He said, “Check your watches, Sergeant, soldier. We’re advancing against their lines in”—he glanced at his own watch—“nineteen minutes.” He ran down the trench toward the next knot of men. “You got a watch?” Donlan asked.
“Yeah,” Mutt answered absently. Advancing against the Lizards! He hadn’t heard orders like that since outside Shabbona, halfway across the state. That had been a disaster. This time, though…“Maybe we really are hurting ’em out there. God damn, I hope we are.”
General Patton’s personal vehicle was a big, ungainly Dodge command and reconnaissance car, one of the kind that had been nicknamed jeeps until the squarish little Willys vehicles took the name away from them. This one had been altered with a .50 caliber machine-gun mount that let Patton blaze away as well as command.
To Jens Larssen, who munched on crackers in the backseat and tried to stay inconspicuous, the gun seemed excessive. No one had asked his opinion. As far as he could see, no one ever asked anyone’s opinion in the Army. You either gave orders or you went out and did what you were told.
Patton turned to him and said, “I do regret that you were thrust into the front line, Dr. Larssen. You bear too much value to your country for you to have been so cavalierly risked.”
“It’s all right,” Larssen said. “I lived through it.” Somehow, he added to himself. “Where are we now, anyhow?’
“D’you see that hill there, the one with the tall building sprouting from it?” Patton asked, pointing through the Dodge jeep’s windshield. On the flat prairie country of central Illinois, any rise, no matter how slight, stood out. Patton went on, “The building is the State Farm Insurance headquarters, and the town”—he paused for dramatic effect—“the town, Dr. Larssen, is Bloomington.”
“The objective.” Larssen hoped General Patton would not take offense at the surprise in his voice. The Lizards had seemed so nearly invincible ever since they came to Earth. He hadn’t dared believe Patton could not only force a breakthrough but exploit it once made.
“The objective,” Patton agreed proudly. As if answering the thought Jens hadn’t spoken, he added, “Once we broke through their crust, they were hollow behind it. No doubt we were confused and scared, attacking such a formidable foe. But they showed confusion and fright themselves, sir, not least because they were being attacked.”
The bulky radio console set into the space behind the rear seat of the Dodge jeep let out a squawk. Patton grabbed for the earphones and mike. He listened for a minute or so, then softly breathed one word: “Outstanding.” He stowed the radio gear, gave his attention back to Larssen: “Our scouts, sir, have met advance parties from General Bradley’s army north of Bloomington. We now have the force which was attacking Chicago trapped within our ring of steel.”
“That’s—wonderful,” Larssen said. “But will they stay trapped?’
“A legitimate question,” Patton said. “We will learn soon: reports indicated that the armor they had been using to spearhead their advance into Chicago has now reversed its direction.”
“It’s bearing down on us?’ Jens felt some of the bladder-loosening fear he’d known while diverting the Lizard tank so the fellow with the bazooka could stalk and kill it. He remembered the gaggle of American tanks the monster had taken out, and the wrecked fighting vehicles that littered the snowy plains of Indiana and Illinois. If lots of those tanks were heading this way, how was Second Armor supposed to stop them?
Patton said, “I understand your concern, Dr. Larssen, but fighting aggressively while holding the strategic defensive should let us inflict heavy losses on them. And infantry teams firing antitank rockets from ambush will present a challenge they have not previously experienced,”
“I sure hope so,” Larssen said. He went on, “If they’re coming from Chicago, sir, when will I be able to go into the city to find out what’s become of the Metallurgical Laboratory?” And even more important, what’s become of Barbara, he thought. But he’d learned he was more likely to get what he wanted from Patton by leaving personal concerns out of the equation.
“As soon as we have destroyed the Lizard tank forces, of course,” Patton said grandly. “We’ll do to them what Rommel did to the British time and again in the desert: make them charge down lines of fire w
e’ll already have preregistered. Not only that, our forces farther east have gone over to the attack and are pursuing them out of Chicago. It should be a slaughter.”
Of whom? Jens wondered. The Lizard tanks were not the slow, balky, unreliable machines England used. Would any defenses be enough to hold them back when they wanted to go somewhere?
As if to underscore his concern, half a mile ahead a helicopter skimmed low over the ground like a mechanized shark. A rocket lanced out to obliterate an American halftrack and however many men it was carrying. Patton swore and started hammering away with his heavy machine gun. The noise was overpowering, like standing next to a triphammer. Tracers showed he was scoring hits, but the tough machine ignored them.
Then, without warning, something heavier than a .50 caliber slug must have hit it. It heeled awkwardly in the air; Patton almost shot off his driver’s ear as he tried to keep a bead on it. The helicopter scurried away, back toward the west where the Lizards still held the countryside.
Maybe another shell found it then. Maybe the cumulative damage from all the bullets Patton and every other American in range poured into it took a toll. Or maybe the Lizard pilot, fleeing under heavy fire, just made a mistake. The helicopter’s rotor clipped a tree. The machine did a twisting somersault straight into the ground.
Patton yelled like a madman. So did Jens and the jeep driver. Patton pounded the physicist on the back. “Do you see, Dr. Larssen? Do you see?” he shouted. “They’re not invulnerable, not even slightly.”
“So they’re not,” Jens admitted. Lizard tanks, though, carried more firepower and more armor than their helicopters. They might not be invulnerable, but they sure had seemed close to it until that crazy bazooka thing took one out. Even then, the rocket round hadn’t wrecked it with a frontal hit, but with one to the less heavily protected engine compartment.
In the Balance & Tilting the Balance Page 70
