Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream

A great massed cheer went up as ten SS motorcyclists bearing huge Party flags on great brass standards roared past the reviewing stand, signaling the beginning of the parade. Immediately behind them marched a square of a hundred SS troops, half bearing Party flags, the other half bearing the banner of the SS, all dressed in gleaming black leather that sparkled in the sun. As the color guard passed the reviewing stand, the scarlet Party flags were dipped.

Feric answered this honorific by shooting out his right arm in the Party salute and maintaining it there with rigid precision as the troops continued to parade by.

A thousand more high-stepping SS troops followed, turning a smart eyes-right and giving massed Party salutes as they passed the reviewing stand, their chrome uniform trim flashing in the sun, their boots falling with the gunfire slap of steel on concrete. What a sight to strike terror into the enemies of Heldon!

Now a huge army contingent in field-gray began marching past the reviewing stand, rank after rank, the end of the formation hidden by a bend far up the boulevard.

These troops, with their scarlet swastika capes, trim new uniforms, gleaming submachine guns, and revitalized esprit were a far cry from the sorry and slovenly rabble with which Feric had been confronted at his Inaugural Parade. They might be green and unblooded, but these lads represented the finest qualities of the true human genotype. The pride and dash with which they slammed the pavement with their boots at every step and the fervent precision of their saluting left no doubt in the mind of the beholder as to their devotion to their sacred cause. Even the filth of Zind must realize that they faced an army of true racial heroes.

After the ranks of regular infantry, the first squadron of the new land dreadnaughts rolled by on their segmented treads. This score of speedy gas-powered tanks was a far cry from the huge and cumbersome steam dreadnaughts that still formed the bulk of Heldon’s armor. A quarter the size of the lumbering old turtles, they moved at thrice the speed. Instead of a huge armored cabin bristling with fixed gunports, these tanks boasted revolving turrets fitted out with repeating cannon and heavy machine guns, with two more machine guns at the fingertips of the driver and his observer, and a lone gunner defending the rear. Within three months, the army would have hundreds of these speedy tanks, and once the oil fields of southwestern Zind were within reach and fuel was no longer a problem, thousands could be turned out. The Army of Heldon would advance across Zind behind an unpenetrable shield of powerful and speedy armor.

As the last of the tanks passed the reviewing stand, five great aerial dreadnaughts lumbered overhead, filling the air with prolonged thunder. As Feric watched these huge flying fortresses, each propelled by a bank of ten airscrews driven by individual gas engines, a sudden inspiration struck him. Why not apply the same principle of speed, size, and number as obtained with the new armor to the fighting machines of the air? Aerial dreadnaughts took forever to build and were monstrously expensive. Small aerial fighters a tenth their size would need only one engine, would be twice as fast, and could be mass-produced for a twentieth of the cost. Heldon could have a vast aerial armada instead of a few score clumsy behemoths. Yes, production must start on such fighters at once!

Behind the tanks came a thousand motorcycle SS, and behind them a similar contingent from the regular army, a flashing spectacle of power and bridled speed. The incredible din of the massed engines was a battle cry that shook the earth.

After the motorcyclists, a group of fast troop-carrying trucks rolled by. The key to the new-style army that Feric was building was power and speed. An army that had the ability to bring an overwhelming concentration of power to bear on a given objective before the enemy could react would be able to make mincemeat out of a foe ten times its size.

Behind the trucks came a large formation of marching SS troops, then the second formation of regular infantry, which wound up the parade. As the first of these men in field-gray high-stepped past the reviewing stand holding massed salutes, Feric saw an SS captain dash excitedly up onto the reviewmg stand and whisper a few terse words to Render. Instantly, the SS Commandant bounded to Feric’s side with a look of feverish fervor lighting up his sharp-boned face.

“Well Remler, what is it?” Feric asked, still holding his salute for the benefit of the troops marching by.

“My Commander, the hordes of Zind have crossed the border of Wolack. They are sweeping through the eastern regions of that country with irresistible force.”

Though this news jolted Peric to the core, the rigidity of his salute did not for an instant waver; it would be disasterous for the leadership to display anything but glacial calm on a public occasion such as this. He drew Waning and Remler closer to him, and had the SS captain approach, though no outward sign of what was going on was visible to the great throng below.

“What is the precise situation, Captain?” Feric asked.

“My Commander, our latest reports put a vast Zind horde at no more than five days’ march from Lumb.”

“Once they overrun the capital, there will be no resistance between them and the Helder border,” Waning pointed out. “In nine days they can be upon us. We should immediately fortify our border with Wolack with our best troops, mainly SS, and hold the horde off there until our new armies are ready.”

From what Feric knew, the western reaches of Wolack were perfectly good uncontaminated farmland that cried out for human colonization. That such rightfully Helder territory was held by such as the Wolacks was bad enough; to allow the pus of Zind to inundate such land was unthinkable to a true patriot, aside from the military threat such a Zind occupation would impose.

“There can be no question of assuming a defensive position while Zind overruns Wolack,” Feric declared firmly. “We must attack, we must attack at once, and we must attack with blinding speed and crushing force.”

“But my Commander, we’re not ready to fight Zind now; in four months—”

“My mind is made up. Waning!” Feric snapped. “We simply cannot allow Zind to march into Wolack unopposed. We will attack at once with whatever we have.”

A scant thirty-six hours later, a great Helder army stood poised at the border, ready to storm into western Wolack. Feric had mobilized the cream of the army and the finest SS units and would lead them into battle himself. Since the key to the situation was concentrated power and lightning speed, Feric had assembled a wholly motorized striking force, divided up into two main columns.

Lar Waffing led the army contingent which consisted of two divisions of motorized infantry packed into every gas truck that Heldon could muster, escorted by three thousand motorcycle troops and a score of the huge steam dreadnaughts. This force would roll straight across the western fens of Wolack, to meet the Zind horde head on somewhere in the vicinity of the capital, Lumb, on the western bank of the River Roul. Heavily outnumbered, Waffing’s troops would have little chance of stopping the horde by themselves.

However, Feric himself, with the loyal Best at his side, would lead a division of the finest motorcycle SS shock troops backed up by a score of the new fast tanks in a wide flanking maneuver to the northeast. If all went as planned, Feric’s force would dash up and around the set battle at Lumb, then sweep down to attack the rear of the Zind forces on the east bank of the Roul while the whole unwieldy horde was in the process of crossing the river via one comparatively narrow bridge. The plan required the SS troops to make quick mincemeat out of forces outnumbering them by as much as a hundred to one, but the shock and surprise would cut down the odds, and the innate superiority of the SS fired to a fanatic fervor by the inspiration of their Supreme Commander fighting at their head should do the rest.