by Джеффри Лорд
«And if there is fighting against Paron's androids,» Blade added, «you will be in combat. Combat gives incredibly vivid sensations, like nothing else in the world.» That was the truth, if not exactly the whole truth.
The new recruits were enthusiastic, but they had to be trained completely from scratch. «They hardly know which end of the rifle to hold and which to aim,» was the way Blade put it. He found himself having to spend several hours a day training the new recruits until they were at least as dangerous to the enemy as to their own comrades.
Fortunately, the rest of Geetro's developing army did not require Blade's help. With only a few orders and a minimum of supervision, the Power Guard androids could train other androids well enough. Geetro's personal followers spent so much time on patrol duty that they learned the business of soldiering almost in spite of themselves. Blade actually had time to spare, and he put that time into improving the weapons of Geetro's army.
The rifles and grenade throwers were good enough for the jobs they were designed to do. Paron's androids had carried away much of the reserve stocks of weapons and ammunition, so for the moment they were somewhat better armed than Geetro's people. But Geetro had the weapons factory, and the assembly lines were being reprogrammed and started up again. Geetro would soon have an advantage in «conventional» weaponry.
What Blade wanted to create was something unconventional-at least in terms of this war and this Dimension. So he reinvented the mortar.
As he explained it to Geetro:
«It's just a metal tube, closed at one end. You put a can of explosives-called a shell-into the tube. Then you fire it. The shell rises high into the air, so the mortar can even be hidden behind a building. When the shell lands, it explodes like a grenade, only it's much bigger and more destructive.»
«How can you know where the shell lands, if you fire from behind a building?» asked Sela. «Does someone stand up on top of the building and tell the mortar people?»
Blade grinned. «You've got it exactly right. Each mortar needs not only a crew, but what we call in England a 'forward observer.' We will have to train these, as well as build the mortars. So it's time we got started.»
The industrial computers could turn any set of specifications into workable designs and then program the machine tools in the factories to build it. The problem was the shortage of competent computer programmers, reliable computers, and well-maintained machinery. Blade knew he would not be exactly popular in Mak'loh if the first mortar blew up and took its crew with it, so he insisted on taking everything slowly and carefully.
It was two weeks before the first mortar and shell were ready for testing. The mortar was a heavy, monstrously ugly thing that looked as if it had been made in a boiler factory and needed four strong men to carry it. Any Home Dimension army would have taken one look at it and fired the inventor rather than the mortar.
Its only virtue was that it worked. Blade demonstrated this, firing the mortar by pulling on a long cord from the shelter of a wall of sandbags. The shell flew more than two miles and landed with a puff of dust-a dud. The second shell flew just as far and went off with a tremendous explosion that threw a cloud of dirt and smoke a hundred feet into the air.
«That will probably go right through the roof of any building in Mak'loh,» said Blade, after examining the hole in the ground. «If you land one in the middle of a group of androids-«
«Please,» said Geetro, wincing at the image, «I can imagine well enough. Do we really need to produce these-monstrosities?»
«Yes,» said Sela and Blade, almost together. Blade let the woman go on. «We have to. Otherwise Paron will make them, as soon as he knows they are possible.» Blade was silent. He couldn't have put it better himself.
So the mortars and their ammunition went into production, and Blade started training the firing crews and observers. He set up the training range on the far side of the city from Paron's camp and had it heavily patrolled by armed androids. Military security was another thing he was having to reinvent.
Before too long there were five mortars, more than a hundred shells for each one, and a slowly increasing number of trained people. Blade picked out five buildings near the power station and on top of each one put a mortar, its ammunition, and its crew.
Normally everything was kept out of sight, well down inside the spiral ramp from the roof. When Blade gave the signal, the mortar crews would pick up their weapons and shells, rush up to the roof, and be ready to open fire in a minute or two. Blade carefully picked and measured aiming points all around the power plant, to save time in getting the mortars onto their targets.
As Blade said:
«Even if the mortars don't do that much damage, they will certainly be a surprise for Paron. I don't think he's prepared to face one, and that will be half the battle for us.»
It was nearly midnight, and everyone in the command post on top of the power plant was asleep except Blade. He himself was leaning back in a folding chair, his feet propped on top of the radio. It had been a long day, starting with seeing two new mortars come out of the factory and go off to the testing range. It was time to call an end to the day and get some sleep.
Blade swung his feet off the radio and stood up. As he stood, the silence of the night suddenly fell apart. Blade recognized the crackle of shock rifles and the crash of grenades. The noise seemed to be coming from the north-toward the area held by Paron.
«Up and alert!» Blade shouted. The people assigned to the command post jerked themselves awake and lurched to their feet. Blade pushed them aside and dashed out onto the roof. He ran to the edge, raised his binoculars, and looked north.
Along half a dozen streets solid masses of moving figures were flowing south. Distance made them ant-like, but the binoculars clearly revealed the red coveralls of soldier androids. A few black dots-humans in Authority coveralls-moved along the fringes of the red masses.
Ahead of them, each street was vanishing under a blanket of silver-gray smoke. As Blade watched, he saw the flash of grenade throwers, and the smoke clouds grew thicker. The front rank of androids seemed to move behind a fringe of white flame, as they fried their rifles continuously into the smoke.
Not a bad plan, thought Blade. Fill the grenades with some sort of chemical compound and use them to lay down a smoke screen. Then blast the area with rifle fire. He doubted Paron could have retrained the androids to kill a clearly visible Master in this short time. He might very well have managed to train them to fire blindly into smoke that might hide a Master. That way they could kill a hundred Masters without having to see one of them die or knowing for certain that they'd killed one. That would certainly make the androids a great deal more dangerous during one decisive battle, without making them permanently dangerous.
It also made any effort by Geetro's army to meet the attack in the open streets much too dangerous. Fortunately, they would not have to do anything of the kind-at least not until the mortars had done their work. If they did it.
A woman was bringing the radio out to Blade. He picked it up, switched it on, and punched the General Comman frequency.
«This is Blade. General alert, all hands. Condition Red, Condition Red. Paron is launching a mass android attack from the north. All human and android foot troops, remain in your buildings. Repeat, remain in your buildings. All doors should be locked and, if possible, barricaded with furniture.
«Mortar crews, prepare to fire on my command. Good luck, everybody.»
Blade picked up his binoculars again. By now the head of each column was vanishing under its smoke screen. The smoke screens themselves were creeping toward Blade down each street.
There was a planned aiming point for the mortars in each of the six streets. There was another in the middle of the square into which all six streets ran. When the mortars opened up ….
Blade waited until the head of each column was well past the aiming point in each street. The mortar shells ought to be scattered up and down the column for a considerable
distance. Then he picked up the radio.
«Mortar teams-load and sound off.»
«Team One, loaded and ready!»
«Team Two, all ready!»
Then when all five had called in, Blade took a deep breath.
«All teams-Point 19. Fire on my signal. Five, four, three, two, one, FIRE!»
Five distant thumps came almost together, and then a long silence-mortar shells climb high and quietly. Then suddenly the street farthest to Blade's left spewed flame and smoke. Five shells plunged out of the sky, straight into the column of androids.
Blade did not hear the human and android screams and cries. He could imagine them well enough, for he knew what this kind of heavy fire did to infantry. Not just infantry, but infantry who'd never been trained to meet this kind of attack. None of them knew about mortar fire, and the explosions, the flying fragments, the smoke and the noise would be a nightmarish surprise to both humans and androids.
«Blade to all mortars. Shift to Point 17.» That would bring the shells down on the next column toward the right.
This time four shells were on target, while one plunged through the roof of a building on one side of the street. Even that shell wasn't completely wasted. Blade saw chunks of metal and stone from the roof hurled down on the androids below.
Four more times Blade shifted the fire of the mortars, moving steadily from left to right, hitting each of the six attacking columns in succession. Blade knew that it would be wise to shock and disorganize all six columns rather than wipe out one and leave the other five intact and advancing. Blade guessed Paron's androids outnumbered those of Geetro's army by three or four to one, apart from their new tactics with the smoke screens. Paron could not be allowed to get to close quarters, where those numbers might give him a decisive advantage.
So Blade worked the mortars across all six attacking columns before starting to concentrate on any one. The accuracy of the fire was even better than he'd expected. Authority people in Mak'loh might still have problems with Physical activity, but they knew their mathematics forward and backward.
Half the job of hitting the target with any long-range weapon was doing the calculations correctly, so they were off to a good start.
The first salvoes stopped only one of the columns. All six had large chunks blown out of them, and all six were slowed and badly shaken. The smoke screens began to break up as the grenade-throwing androids fell or stopped firing. Instead of the smoke screens, the streets began to vanish in the haze of smoke from the shell explosions.
Blade no longer had to imagine what was happening down there under all the smoke. He could see androids and pieces of androids flying a hundred feet into the air. He could hear extra explosions, as sacks of grenades carried on androids' backs went off. In moments when the smoke eddied, he could see whole sections of street paved from one side to the other with writhing androids. The buildings on either side confined the blast of the explosions and the flying fragments, increasing the effect.
Somehow four of the six attacking columns staggered out into the square. They mingled there like streams flowing into a lake. No one tried to take cover or cross the square. Blade wondered if there were any human beings alive and fit to give the necessary orders.
With grim determination he set out to take advantage of the target the enemy was offering. He ordered all the mortars to hit the square with five rounds apiece. The first salvo came down squarely on target. Before the second one hit, those still alive and on their feet were either running for the side streets or throwing themselves fiat. Neither helped very much. The remaining four salvoes walked back and forth across the square. The explosions caught those who were lying flat, blowing them high in the air. Flying fragments caught the runners and cut them down. By the third salvo, smoke from the explosions and from ruptured smoke grenades was spreading across the square, mercifully blotting out what was happening.
A few of the androids were still moving on to the attack, south from the square toward Geetro's perimeter. Blade surveyed them through his binoculars. He counted no more than a hundred. Geetro's humans and androids could sweep them away like a broom. Then it would be time to push north. A determined counterattack could finish off Paron's army for good and win Mak'loh's civil war in a single night. Even if it didn't do that well, it would give Geetro's army the combat experience and the self-confidence it badly needed. Certainly it would do no harm, as long as the mortars kept hammering at Paron's army to keep it from rallying.
Blade was about to order the mortars to bring their shells down along the enemy's line of retreat, when a sudden frantic voice shouted over the radio:
«Blade, Blade! Mortar Four, help! We're being attacked from the air. We're-«The sound of an exploding grenade cut off the voice.
Blade didn't recognize the voice, but a chill hand seemed to be squeezing his stomach. Mortar Four was Sela's assigned battle station.
Sela was half-blinded by the continual sheets of flame from the mortar and more than half-deafened by the roar of the firing. Suddenly the three flyers were there, coming at her out of the darkness.
The mortar crew and the riflemen guarding them were even less aware of the world around them. Sela shouted, but her voice was lost as the mortar fired again. Before she could shout a second time, the flyers swept in over the railing. Rifles flared white from them, half a dozen firing almost together, knocking out the mortar crew and the riflemen.
The flyers landed, close enough that Sela could recognize the man at the controls of one as Paron himself. A man sprang down from Paron's flyer and from the one to the left. Each man pulled a cable with loops and hooks on it after him.
Sela crouched in the shadows, seeing the flyer crews too intent on their business to pay any attention to her. If she kept quiet, they would probably take what they wanted and leave without noticing her.
What they wanted could only be the mortar. Blade said the mortars were the backbone of Geetro's army, and tonight she'd seen how right he was. If Paron got the secret of the mortars ….
Sela brought her rifle up in a single, smooth motion, squeezing the trigger as the muzzle came to bear on the men with the cables. The rifle was set to maximum power, and the men went down as if they'd been clubbed, smoking patches of flesh showing on their backs. She was aiming at Paron, when another man whirled in his seat and fired at her.
The beam missed, but it was set to kill, and it came close enough for her to feel it. It was as though someone had pressed white-hot metal wires into her back and neck. It seemed for a moment that her hair itself had taken fire. She screamed, her hands clutching the rifle convulsively, her finger twitching on the trigger, but unable to close on it to shoot Paron out of his seat.
Paron himself turned, saw her, shouted out in incoherent delight, and leaped toward her. He was a stout man who normally moved slowly, but now he seemed to fly toward her as if he'd been shot out of one of the mortars. Sela tried to get to her feet, to meet him with her bare hands if she couldn't fire her rifle. She'd still be able to take him; he was strong but too slow to meet her, he-
Then a grenade went off between two of the flyers, and all the men on or around them went down. Paron cried out, in rage rather than pain. He towered over Sela as she struggled to her knees. He kicked her wildly in the right shoulder, sending her sprawling on her left side. One of Paron's surviving men fired a grenade into the entrance of the downward ramp, and screams followed the explosion.
Paron kicked Sela hard in the stomach, and she doubled up with the world around her fading in a haze of pain. She was aware of him picking her up like a child and heaving her over his shoulder. The movement made her scream, then vomit all over Paron's back.
She knew that he was loading her into the seat of a flyer; then she heard a distant hiss that she recognized as the sound of a spray injector. The last of her knowledge of the world began to slip away. Just before it vanished entirely, she heard the whine of the flyer's fans and felt it stir under her.
Then th
ere was nothing.
Geetro's army stormed out of the buildings where they'd been waiting. There were five hundred of them, mostly the new recruits from the Houses of Peace, organized in platoons and companies led by Geetro's people from the Authority. The recruits carried rifles, while the officers carried grenade throwers. High above them, Geetro himself rode in a flyer, while from his command post Blade listened in on the radio.
He listened, but he heard very little, Mak'loh's new soldiers were too busy experiencing the powerfully Physical sensations of their first combat. They had no time to waste telling anybody about it.
One group barricaded themselves so thoroughly that by the time they cleared away all the furniture and broken robots from in front of the door the battle was over. The rest dashed forward. They struck the battered remnants of Paron's columns of androids, and the last stage of the battle exploded through the streets of Mak'loh.
The androids had been slaughtered, confused, and disorganized by the mortar fire. They still would not lie down and die. They could not shoot to kill a clearly visible Master, but they could shoot to stun, and they shot, fast and well. The first Physical sensation many of the new recruits felt in combat was being knocked unconscious by android sharpshooters. Some of them felt grenade fragments slicing into their flesh, their own blood flowing, their own internal organs ripped and mangled. Not all of Paron's humans were dead.
In an hour Geetro knew that his human recruits weren't going to win the battle by themselves. He landed his flyer and personally led the reserve of androids into the battle. Slowly they pushed the enemy north, back up the six streets, back to the robot and android plant, back still farther to the wall of the city.
Blade controlled the mortars from his command post until the last of the enemy retreated out of range. Then he went down to the street, climbed into a truck, and rolled forward to join the battle. There was still more than enough battle left for him to join.