The Texas Front: Salient

by Jonathan Cresswell

  “Yes.”

  “Well. If things go wrong – just keep one bullet for yourself. I can’t stand the thought of Martians – that is– ”

  “No,” said Idar. She eased the flat weapon from the folds of her dress and offered it to him. “This is your trade, not mine. You will use it better. And I would rather die horribly than waste a bullet that might have killed one of them.”

  “You’ll do, Miss Idar. You’ll do.” Emmet took the piece and checked it.

  She smiled. “You may call me Jovita, Emmet. After all, I won’t be ‘royalty’ much longer.”

  “Amen to –”

  “What the hell is that?” rasped Hicks. “Is that another goddamned train?”

  Emmet looked up – and ahead. The landscape here, getting closer to Laredo, was flat and wide open, and the track ran line-straight for miles. Tripods strode up there, fighting their way into the town, wreaking havoc about them – but at the distant end of the rail line, a dot of black smoke showed, a glint of metal beneath it.

  “Aw, hell, it is.”

  “Well, it sure ain’t the 8:25 from Laredo! More collaborators?”

  Emmet chilled. “No. Probably Villa’s boys got hold of a loco. I heard about that trick. Even if they brake this train and go in reverse, it’ll catch us – and if they don’t, we’ve only got a few minutes. Quick, now!”

  Idar was already climbing down and dropped to the balcony moments before the two men joined her. They crossed in turn and flattened beside the private car’s door. Emmet slipped the Browning into his belt and drew his borrowed revolver. “No noise if you can help.” He unlatched the door and swung it inward; they entered quickly and quietly, creeping forward into the vestibule on its soft carpeting. A partition mostly blocked off the rest of the car, with a narrow gap at one side that Emmet watched carefully. Even this utilitarian part of the car was decked out in red brocade curtains and gold trim; but it was the plain sturdy cabinet on one wall that Idar rushed to.

  Emmet gestured Hicks to cover the door they’d entered through; he kept his own eyes forward. “Is it locked?” he whispered.

  “It is!” She rattled the padlock. “You must shoot it off.”

  “Okay.” He half-turned. “Hicks, you do it –”

  The door’s small window shattered at a gunshot; Hicks grunted and lurched into the wall. Motion caught at the edge of Emmet’s vision. He snapped a shot without aiming, turned and fired twice more at the man flinching from the first quick round, hitting him solidly. Another man’s arm flailed around the partition, shooting blindly. Someone was shouting, overwhelmed by the gunshots. Emmet took a careful moment to aim and clipped the man’s arm; he yanked it back. Hicks fired behind him, returning fire at whoever had shot him through the door.

  “Stop shooting, idiots!” yelled the same voice in Spanish. Emmet recognized it. The gunfire stopped. Cordite reeked in the car’s confines.

  “Hicks, how are you?” he hissed.

  “I’m hit hard, Emmet.” Hicks’ strained voice sounded from floor level, and that told Emmet a lot. “Covering that car roof behind us. Rifleman – up there, in cover.”

  Idar shifted. “Let me see that.”

  Emmet stared over the sights of his half-empty revolver for the slightest movement. No chance to reload in this...

  “My old friends!” called out Ronald Gorman. “My priest told me you were coming – we even put on a show for you in that Pullman car. I know why you are here! There is no need for this violence! My man on the roof was too eager. I can give you what you wish, Miss Idar – your abdication. And I’ll even spare your life! But I must warn you, as a commoner, you will ride in that last car. Do you –”

  “We don’t have time for this, Gorman!” yelled Emmet. “There’s another loco closing on this track, probably packed with explosives! Everyone on this train needs to bail out, now!”

  “A clumsy lie!” answered Gorman. He spoke in Spanish as Emmet had – and for the same reason. A couple of other voices began murmuring nervously. “Mendez would have stopped us by now!”

  “You sure of that? I’m sure that it’s coming!”

  “Or, you may keep your crown,” continued Gorman. “Come back to Mexico and rule with me! I will be merciful, with you at my side.”

  “Maybe you should,” rasped Hicks.

  “I will not–”

  The car jolted forward as a grinding screech tore out. Men staggered; Emmet fired instinctively at the figure that swayed out of cover, fired again blindly through the partition, and dropped his revolver. He drew the Browning and moved up along the wall, trading a couple of shots with the remaining men. More pistol shots sounded behind him; Hicks crowed weakly, “Got ’im! Dropped right in m’lap!”

  “Come back, you–” shouted Gorman. Another shot cracked out. “Coward! He’s lying!” Their locomotive’s locked wheels continued to howl, grinding on the rails as the loaded ore cars’ inertia drove it onward.

  “He is not,” said someone else. A man stepped calmly around the partition. Emmet’s finger squeezed – and stopped. It was the so-called priest, de Gama, hands spread. A ring of keys dangled from his left fingers. He took another step forward, eerily calm, as though he did not stand unarmed in the middle of a gunfight. “I know truth when I hear it. And she will never leave with her crown. She must find the light on her own, Gorman. Let her go.”

  “I won’t!”

  “She isn’t yours to keep!” yelled Emmet. “Not a possession. And I want mine back! My horse, my belt–”

  The screeching wheels cut off abruptly, although the train was still moving. After a moment, the car jolted everyone rearward – someone was trying to speed up.

  “What t’hell are they doin’?” said Hicks.

  “Your horse? I fed your horse to the Martians!”

  “You trust this man to open that, Jovita?” Emmet figured he had all three men in the compartment placed by now. With more in the car behind, their best route out was forward – through these jaspers.

  “I – yes. I do.”

  Emmet waved de Gama past him. “If you turn on her, I’m coming back for you.” He took a couple of fast breaths, went in low around the partition.

  July 1912, Laredo, Texas

  The breeze drifting in off the street was acrid with smoke. It smelled to Lang like defeat.

  If the máquina loca had distracted the Martians, it hadn’t for long. They were closing in on the rail bridge, the lure, the goal. The noise of rocket fire had dwindled as the truck racks emptied; the heat rays played on. The LRSC had hurt them badly, but they were too agile for a killing blow, and they’d cut the defenders to pieces.

  Not just the LRSC, though... He turned to General Villa, who waited stolidly beside him despite the losses his own force must be taking.

  “There’s nothing left for you to do here, General. They’ll send their spiders into the town any time now and clear it house to house. Best take whatever men you can gather and try to slip out to the south...”

  Villa smiled and shook his head. “The time for that is long past, Captain. It would be desertion, by my own rule. If it is to be street fighting, my men will give a good account of themselves. And you?”

  Lang wanted very badly to slip out himself. He looked around at the clerks hunched over telephones; the sole runner waiting by the doorway, still sweaty from his previous dash; Jenkins and two other privates, their rifles aimed toward the gaping windows that a spider could vault through in an eyeblink. Two of the muzzles were shaking visibly; Jenkins’ wasn’t. “If there’s anyone still fighting and they need orders... well, even if it doesn’t change anything, I don’t want the last thing they do – I don’t want them to call for General Funston’s voice, and hear nothing.”

  Villa clapped him on the shoulder. “I have lost battles before. As long as you still breathe, you are not defeated.”

  “I shouldn’t have pushed them so hard.”

  “Vehicles break, horses die. Men break too. But although we call
the Mar-ti-ans diablos, I do not truly think they are supernatural beings. They will break as well. If we cannot do it, someone else can, some other day.”

  “Who?” snarled Lang.

  Villa shrugged. “Someone else.”

  The A Company telephone jangled. Lang jerked, then snatched up the handset before the clerk could.

  “Anyone there?” said a hoarse voice.

  “Stivers!” cried Lang. “What happened?”

  “They got right in the HQ,” said Stivers. “Hell of a fight, sir. At least six dead I can see. Lost eight trucks for sure to the tripods. They were too close together – there’s two trucks damaged in explosions that I think we could fix. But, sir, that’s not it. I called ’cause I can see vehicles coming up behind the Martians. We got anything out a few miles east of the town?”

  “No! Nothing. Are they tanks?”

  “Sir... I don’t rightly know what they are.”

  “But they’re not Martians.” Lang blinked hard. “Ah, get on repairing those trucks, but stay low in case a tripod swings back.” He hung up, rested his palms on the dusty counter, breathed, and looked at Villa. “Someone else just got here.”

  Cycle 597,845.2, Approaching River 3-12, South Texas

  The imaging transmitted to Taldarnilis from the minefast showed a lost but still useful battle, as the remotely operated defense towers continued to keep the prey massed about there occupied. Another of the towers collapsed as a prey projectile scored a hit on a vital part of the structure. That left only two still functioning. But it had delayed the pursuit significantly. Machinery was easily replaced; the mounting losses from this expedition would not be.

  Ahead to the west, Gantaldarjir’s Group One, reinforced by additional machines, had nearly secured the habitation center. More machines flowed westward; the ones detached to defend against the mobile force to the north were rejoining as well. A persistent, more mobile prey force continued to pursue them, and would regain contact shortly. But Gantaldarjir would prevail before that. Once across River 3-12, they would leave behind any surviving prey...

  “Commander! There is an incoming threat from the west along the transport system!”

  Taldarnilis echoed the data in its screens. Imaging showed a propulsion vehicle similar to the one they were employing, but moving at a higher speed.

  Further inquiry was logically unnecessary; Taldarnilis switched links. “All group members able to, concentrate fire on the transport vehicle approaching from the west.”

  Its own machine was well out of range. Indeed, no one was located in a position to fire at it effectively. Taldarnilis slowed and then halted its advance northward. In the screens, the vehicle began to leave an even larger trail of combustion products as several weapons bore on it at their extreme ranges, but none seemed able to obtain a killing concentration and disable it. If anything, it was gradually accelerating. Of course, these vehicles are heat engines.

  “Cease fire! Move to intercept that vehicle, disrupt the rail system in its path!” But the ratios and distances on the screens already had a cold answer. While the skirmishing against the prey force interfering from the north – one slower, weaker, more primitive than any that Taldarnilis had encountered – had gone overwhelmingly in their favor, this new threat could not be stopped.

  Still, it was a single vehicle, and their own transport assembly outmassed it by several times. Taldarnilis zeroed onto the collision point.

  July 1912, East of Laredo, Texas

  Three enraged men confronted Emmet within the luxurious car interior. One man open-mouthed and already firing wildly; Emmet put two shots into him, dodged sideways behind a settee, saw the second man shifting halfway behind Gorman, fired again, and clipped the man’s shoulder. Gorman shoved him away, lifting the Colt – but it was flipped open to load, spilling a single bullet. Emmet shot the third man once more. The Browning locked open, empty. He had no reloads; but Gorman jerked the Colt uselessly, momentarily panicked.

  Emmet clubbed the Browning and charged around the settee. Gorman flung down the pistol and drew a knife from his belt – the Ranger scout belt. He cut in a vicious overhand; Emmet dodged past him and forthrightly backed away. No loose furniture in the compartment to snatch up. Captain Hughes used to say, ‘A man is meat, and when meat fights steel, steel wins.’ He backed further. There’d be a shovel in the coal tender – and every slash and duck moved them further away from Idar and the wounded Hicks.

  His back bumped the door; he pitched the automatic at Gorman’s face, spun, and yanked open the latch. He got through a split-second before the knife clanged on the doorframe. The low metal wall of the tender blocked him; he set a foot, lunged up toward the heaped coal – but the tender was nearly empty, and his hand swept through open air. He twisted, pivoting on the edge, and scrabbled a foot onto a grip bar.

  A hard blow in his left calf; the foot went out from under his weight. He pitched down into the tender, landing on his right side and crunching into the low layer of coal, leg spasming as the calf pounded with pain as though the knife were still inside.

  Before he could gather himself to move, Gorman appeared over the tender’s wall, livid, clutching the knife overhand. “You are not welcome here,” he wheezed. He braced to cross over the wall, lunged upward – and jerked to a halt.

  Gorman twisted, his face a perfect study of surprise. It changed back to rage instantly. “You bitch!” he howled, and lunged back toward his car.

  Emmet rolled up onto his good leg, grabbed the wall edge – ignoring the instinct that screamed he’d lose his fingers to a knife stroke – and managed to haul and push himself up.

  Jovita Idar ducked back to the car’s doorway. Gorman slashed at her – but came up considerably short. His right leg was locked straight, holding him back. Between the pant leg and shoe, Emmet glimpsed a flash of Martian alloy linked around the grip bar.

  Idar laughed at Gorman. If that was meant to hold his attention, it worked; he howled inarticulately, pulling at the immovable pendant.

  Emmet looked around; the tender did indeed have a coal shovel. He slipped it out of the loop, wrenched around to where he could reach, and struck Gorman across the back of his head. Gorman collapsed to stillness.

  Idar straightened from her crouch; Emmet saw her exposed, unhindered neck. Free! Behind her, de Gama shouldered into the doorway, Hicks’ arm looped over his back. The Ranger’s face was chalk white; blood soaked his lower shirt and trousers.

  “Jump!” shouted Emmet. The landing might kill Hicks, but they had no choice –

  “No,” called back Idar. She got a grip on Hicks’ other arm, steered both men to the left side of the car balcony. “Here!” she screamed. “Right here!”

  The motorcar pacing the train edged up further, spraying dust and gravel as it pounded over the rail ties. What the hell?

  He glimpsed Painewick at the wheel. The driver nudged up next to the train, matching its speed precisely despite the visible hammering the car was soaking up. Idar and de Gama lowered the wounded man until he slipped out of their grasp and spilled limply into the side seat of the Peerless tourer. Painewick sped up slightly, bringing the back seat up to the balcony stair.

  Emmet shook off some of his shock and clambered back out of the tender. His calf was hurting badly; he ignored it. de Gama jumped down into the car. Idar was doing something to Gorman’s inert or dead body – not that Emmet cared, but he yelled, “No time! Jump!”

  She stood up, holding the scout belt. “Give me your hand!” He slipped down to land one-legged on the balcony with an involuntary gasp, steadied himself with her aid, and slid off ungracefully, letting go to thump into the waiting seat. She joined him a moment later.

  The motorcar peeled away from the train, Painewick braking gradually in the uncertain traction. It drew on ahead. The oncoming locomotive was only a few hundred yards and closing. It was a smoldering shambles, jetting steam and smoke from many points; the stack had slumped to one side; there was more smoke gushing from t
he burning cab and tender than boiled from the damaged stack.

  And someone had gotten hold of some paint and scrawled ‘BIENVENIDOS A MEXICO’ across the boiler’s iron bow.

  Painewick spotted a route and wrestled the car into a left turn. They jounced and crashed through low brush, putting distance between them and both of the titans about to collide.

  July 1912, East of Laredo, Texas

  Ronald Gorman managed to focus his vision. He pushed up from the car balcony as much as his trapped leg would allow, hands shaking on the iron grating. A man stepped down onto it. Gorman peered up through the aching haze and sighed relief. But there was so little time... “Mendez! You must cut this bar and free me!”

  Mendez settled himself just out of reach. He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it.

  “Go up to the cab and get a hacksaw! Now!”

  “Emilio tried to stop the train,” said Mendez in a monotone. He fastened the top button of his shirt. “I hit him with a wrench and rolled him off the side. I hope he lives. He was kind to me sometimes; he seemed the best of your lot.”

  Gorman gaped at him for a moment. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Get me out of here!”

  “I will. We shall leave together. And I shall explain to God what you did.” Mendez stared into an unknown distance. His lips moved as though praying – no, not praying.

  He was counting seconds.

  July 1912, East of Laredo, Texas

  Painewick braked the car to a skidding halt. He turned. “I gotta see this.”

  Emmet turned as well. Half a mile away, the charging, burning locomotive struck the Martians’ train head-on. The fronts of both locos crumpled; one boiler exploded an instant before the other. The heavier freight’s chassis crushed through Villa’s lighter engine, stopping its motion in a few yards but slowing sharply itself as the cars behind it started to buckle onto one another.