Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream

There was not the slightest doubt in Feric’s mind that the key to victory over Zind was the lightning seizure of the great oil fields to the southeast. With this vast reservoir of petrol in the hands of Zind, the mighty mechanized army of Heldon would expire within a month of all-out combat from thirst, whereas the early capture of the oil fields would enable Heldon to grind the forces of Zind to gruel with massive armor and air power.

Unfortunately, this situation must be as obvious to the Doms as anyone else. Therefore, the only course open to Feric was to feign an all-out dash across nortTiem Zind for the capital of Bora; if the Dominators were convinced that the Helder strategy was to win the war quickly by rolling across the northern Zind heartland and sacking the capital, the bulk of their forces could be tied down in an effort to protect Bora in the north. A task force of tanks and motorcycle troops backed up by the first squadrons of the new jets could then sweep south and east out of Borgravia and seize and secure the oil fields before Zind could properly react.

The key to this strategy was the credibility of the Helder march on Bora in the eyes of the Doms; this would have to be an all-out attack by the major part of the army upon the very stronghold of the enemy. Heavy casualties, fighting of incredible ferocity, and massive resistance were certain. A spectacular display of fanaticism and heroism on the part of the Helder forces would surely be called for.

For this reason alone, Peric knew that he would have to lead this attack and leave the seizure of the oil fields to Waning. Further, his conspicuous presence in the forefront of the march on Bora would lend the final touch of credibility to the operation in the eyes of the masters of Zind.

Thus, as the first rays of dawn began to light up the sky over the rolling hills of east central Heldon, Feric sat anxiously beside Best in his tank at the head of the greatest armed host Heldon had ever fielded, awaiting the penultimate moment. A hundred and fifty miles to the north, two Helder armored divisions were even now crossing the Roul on pontoon bridges in the vicinity of Lumb.

This small force had been augmented by hundreds of empty motorized troop carriers, giving the appearance of a much larger army; by now the Doms would be convinced that the main Helder assault would be through Wolack and would be marching west to meet the attack.

Thus when the real attack came from a hundred and fifty miles to the south through the rump state of Malax, the Helder army would be able to fall on the exposed southern flank of the horde a hundred miles or more inside Zind itself. Feric hoped that this feint-within-a-feint would lend even more credibility to his strategem, while at the same time allowing the war to begin with a fine flourish and a stunning defeat for Zind.

“Two minutes’ to zero hour, my Commander!” Best called out. Feric nodded, and peered up through the open hatch of the command tank, behind which was an army that surely would have made even the Ancients cringe.

Seven hundred swift black-and-red tanks—most of them equipped with the new flamethrowers—formed the forward phalanx, a front fifty tanks wide. Behind this wall of steel, and flanking it on both sides, were two full divisions of motorcycle SS, and then three divisions of regular army motorcycle troops surrounding hundreds of fast armored troop carriers and supply trucks. Completing the totally motorized vanguard force were two score of the old heavy dreadnaughts. A vast aerial armada operating from safe fields inside Heldon would fill the skies at the first sign of serious resistance. In the van of the motorized troops, a quarter of a million .infantrymen would march into Zind, ready to add their weight to any fixed battle, and meanwhile carrying out Feric’s order to leave no artificial structure standing and nothing left alive. Quite literally, all that was Zind would be scoured from the face of the earth!

“One minute, my Commander,” Best called out as the upper edge of the sun peered up over the eastern horizon, painting the rolling hills in scarlet and orange as if in anticipation of the battles to come. Feric dogged the hatch shut, adjusted his harness, thumbed his microphone, and ordered: “Start your engines!” The roar of the starting engines was all but drowned out by the thunder of wave after wave of fighter-bombers sweeping low over the great Helder army and soaring into the sunrise.

Best nodded to Feric. “Forward!” Feric shouted.

Best engaged the throttle, and with a mighty lurch, the command tank hurtled eastward, and the earth shook with the weight of the massed Helder armor sweeping forward behind it. To the east, fountains of thick black smoke and rich red flame spouted along a wide front as the planes atomized the paultry fortifications along the Malax border. A few moments later, the long rolling rumbles of the bombardment could be heard even above the terrible din of treads and wheels and engines.

The planes continued to wheel and dance in the sky as Feric led his juggernaut forward across the rolling hills and gentle valleys, pulverizing everything that grew in its path, sending a captive thunderstorm of dust miles in extent into the air above it. The bombs continued to fall as the motorized attack force rumbled and roared like an avalanche of men and steel toward the border; it seemed to Feric as if he were leading his troops straight into a wall of billowing smoke and sudden explosions.

When Feric’s tank was a mile or two from this terrible inferno, the thunder of planes could once more be heard overhead as wave after wave of Helder dive-bombers flew westward back to their bases, their bombloads expended, their work well done.

A few minutes later Feric led his forces across the Malax border and into a surreal landscape of destruction.

“Thus might the surface of the Moon have appeared to the Ancients,” Best whispered.

Feric nodded. As far as he could see, the land was torn and pitted with great steaming craters, strewn with jagged fragments of rock, metal, and trees; every inch of the soil was overturned and naked as if some gargantuan plow had prepared it for seeding. A dense pall of acrid smoke gave the air a chemical reek, completing the other-worldly illusion. As for the rabble of Malax, nothing was in evidence save a red smear here and there.

“The air force has certainly done its job to perfectioni”

Best exclaimed.

“Yes, Best,” Feric said, “a new era in warfare has begun—lightning from the skies, then an irresistible surge of armor, the two mighty steel fists of Heldon acting in close coordination.”

“It appears that one fist alone was enough to dispatch Malax, my Commander!”

Feric chuckled wryly, but he knew full well that the vast hordes of Zind would not be swept away from the sky with such foolish ease. Before long, the new style of warfare he had developed would be tested to the ultimate.

He anticipated with relish the thought of bringing his air power and armor fully to bear against the might of Zind, for here was an enemy more worthy of the immense destructive power now at his command.

Feric found the unopposed sweep across Malax an exercise in boredom; there was nothing to be seen but rolling hills, pockets of cancerous radiation jungle which grew ever more numerous and larger in extent as the army moved eastward, fields of pathetically twisted crops, occasional pens of six-legged cattle or grossly bloated swine with vile mottled skin, and here and there a collection of reeking mud huts. Organized resistance simply did not Sexist; indeed hardly a Malaxian was to be seen since the t 196 l dust cloud of the Helder army alone was enough to scatter the mongrels long before Feric’s lead tank hove into sight.

Intelligence had indicated that a modest Zind force had occupied the eastern regions of Malax; it was these Warriors that Feric expected to be the first to quench the keen thirst for combat that was building in every Helder soul.