Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream

JAGGAR! HAIL JAGGAR! HAIL JAGGAR!”

From the outset, the legalistic result of the election was a foregone conclusion. Since Feric was the sole candidate of the Swastika while the other parties ran full slates of nine candidates for the nine Council seats which were filled at large nationwide, his election to the Council was assured.

What was also assured was that he would be the only Swastika Councillor on a Council that would probably be dominated once more by the Libertarians, a result Feric considered altogether desirable. Far better to be a lone hero opposing a gang of traitors and poltroons than the leader of a minority political party!

Since the legalistic result of the election was not in question, the campaign could be used to further more absolute goals: to demonstrate the ruthless and forceful fanaticism with which the Sons of the Swastika pursued their sacred ends, and to show that the racial will spoke through Feric by assuring that he got more total votes than any other Councillor. Fortunately, these two election goals were entirely compatible; they could be pursued with undivided attention and total concentration of force.

Thus, three days before the election itself, Feric stood erect in the rear of his open command car, resplendent in his black leather uniform and scarlet cape, and holding the Steel Commander in his hand for all to see, ready to lead his men into the climactic battle of the election campaign.

Crouching before him in the car also in the black leather of the Party elite were Bors Render and Ludolf Best, armed with spanking new submachine guns.

The force that Feric led through the streets of Heldhime toward Oak Park was of necessity the largest and finest troop that the Sons of the Swastika had yet fielded, for Feric had deliberately challenged the Universalist filth to do their worst by grandly announcing that the final election rally of the Sons of the Swastika would be held in this grimy park located smack in the center of Borburg, a malodorous district notorious for being the largest and foulest nest of Doms and their Universalist lackeys in all Heldon. If the Universalists allowed such a rally to be staged without destroying it by force, they would be totally discredited as a serious contender for power, not only in Heldhime, but throughout the High Republic, since Peric had chosen to expend his final hour of public television time on coverage of this rally.

For his part, Feric knew that the Sons of the Swastika must maintain the safety and integrity of their rally in these utterly hostile surroundings, or suffer similar ignominy. Feric had therefore assembled a force fully capable of dealing with any eventuality. In front of his command car was a roadsteamer fitted out with a great iron plow; behind this shield lay three SS machine gunners, and inside the roadsteamer was a shock troop of the finest SS purebreds armed with truncheons and submachine guns.

Immediately surrounding Feric’s car was a squad of SS fanatics in snug black leather mounted on gleaming black motorcycles embellished with the shiniest of chrome brightwork. Behind Feric’s car marched five thousand Knights of the Swastika carrying truncheons, torches. Swastika flags, and lengths of heavy chain. To the rear of this foot troop were two thousand motorized Knights, and as rear guard five hundred fanatic SS on foot armed with submachine guns and truncheons.

Throughout the campaign, both the SS and the Knights had acquitted themselves nobly. The hecklers who plagued every Swastika rally no sooner opened their mouths than their heads were split open by SS truncheons; the Knights ranged far and wide, to the point where no Universalist or bourgeois orator could open his mouth in front of ten people at a time without making himself the hapless target of their iron fists. Three times the Universalists had attempted to hold giant rallies, and three times motorized storm troops had sent the vermin scattering.

Now, however, the Universalists and the Doms could be expected to do their very worst. As Feric’s car followed the armed roadsteamer down Torm Avenue, an ordure-strewn ditch surrounded on either side by reeking tenement slums, Feric gripped the handle of the Great Truncheon tightly, ready and eager for action.

“My Commander, look!” Best suddenly shouted, pointing up the avenue with the barrel of his submachine gun. A rude barricade of beams, crates, and all manner of garbage and rubbish had been thrown across the street up ahead to bar the passage of motorcycles. Behind this stood a mindless horde of filthy, pathetic, Dom-controlled rabble, armed with clubs, cleavers, knives, and whatever else came to hand; these wild-eyed wretches choked the street ahead as far as the eye could see. Fluttering above this sordid mob were greasy, tattered blue rags bearing the yellow star-in-circle—the battle flag of the Dom-controlled Universalists.

“Don’t worry. Best,” Feric said, “we’ll make short work of these vermin!” For indeed, he had fitted out the roadsteamer for dealing with just such tactics.

Twenty yards from the barricade, the machine gunners on the roadsteamer opened up. The jeering rabble behind the roadblock broke into shrieks of pain, fear, and dismay, as their ranks suddenly were bloodied and decimated by the hail of bullets. Scores of the creatures spurted blood from innumerable gaping wounds and fell. Their comrades crushed the wounded and the dead underfoot, pressing and clawing at each other in a frantic and futile attempt to fall back up the street away from the Swastika force; since the street was packed for its entire length, this action proved as impossible as it was craven.

The plow of the roadsteamer struck the rude barricade at twenty-five miles an hour, smashing it to flinders, and pushing the rubble aside. The SS gunners inside the roadsteamer began firing massed volleys into the grimy tenements on either side of the street, feeding the panic.

“Forward!” Feric shouted at the top of his lungs, waving the Great Truncheon of Held high overhead. As the guns of the roadsteamer fell silent, the command car, surrounded by its honor guard of SS motorcycles, led the huge formation of marching Knights around the steamer and straight into the press of Universalist scum.

The truncheons of the Knights rose and fell like pile drivers, pounding screaming Dom-controlled creatures into the ground; chains whirled through the air like windmills, cracking open Universalist heads like so many rotten eggs. A dozen huge fellows carrying long knives suddenly rushed through the screen of motorcycles straight at the command car, their eyes aglow with the mindless frenzy of Dominator slaves, flecks of slaver wetting their lips.

“My Commander!” Best shouted, as his submachine gun tore two of the wretches to pieces. Feric felt the limitless power of the Steel Commander course through his being; with a savage battle cry, he swung the truncheon effortlessly through the air. It struck the first two attackers on the chest and passed through their flesh as if it were so much cheese, cutting them in half in an eruption of organs and gore. Recovering, Feric smashed the skulls of three more, while Best and Remler dealt with the rest with their submachine guns.

Like a herd of stampeding cattle or a pack of fear-crazed swine, the rabble scrambled frantically backward, crushing scores of their own comrades in their cowardly frenzy to escape the irresistible wrath of the forces of the Swastika. As the Swastika column fought its way up Torm Avenue, squads of Knights and SS entered the foul warrens, and dragged out suspicious wretches who had held back from the fray; these were almost certainly Doms, and were summarily executed on the spot. Once they were cleared of these vermin, the tenements were put to the torch for good measure.