Tilting the Balance

Ussmak wondered about that. Had his previous crew, their wits cooked on ginger and their tactics and even their commands full of drug-induced sloppiness, really been so inept? He had trouble believing it, but here was an ambush that would have thrown them into fits, brushed away like any minor annoyance.

On the highway, black smoke rose from burning trucks that formed a barricade across the paved surface. The landcruisers in front of Ussmak’s peeled off to the grassy verge to the left to bypass the obstacle. Ussmak was about to swing his handlebar controller to follow them when dirt fountained up under one and it slewed sideways to a stop.

He. hit the brakes, hard. “Mines! ” he shouted.

Concealed Deutsch landcruisers and guns opened up on the crippled vehicle. No armor could take that pounding for long. Blue flames spurted from the engine compartment as a hydrogen line began to burn. Then the landcruiser went up in a ball of fire.

Big Ugly males with satchel charges burst from cover to attack the vehicles that had stopped. Machine guns cut down most of them, but a couple managed to fling the explosives either under the rear of a turret or through an open cupola hatch. The roars from those explosions shook Ussmak even inside his armored eggshell.

“Driver, I apologize, ” Nejas said. But then, a moment later, he was all business again: “Gunner… Sabot! ” The cannon spoke, and killed a Big Ugly landcruiser. Nejas gave his attention back to Ussmak. “Driver, there’s a narrow space of ground on the right between the road and the trees. Take it-if we can get by, we’ll put ourselves in the Tosevites’ rear. ”

“Superior sir, that space is probably mined, too, ” Ussmak said.

“I know, ” Nejas answered calmly. “The gain we win by passing is worth the risk. Steer as close to the burning vehicles as you can without making our own paint catch fire. ”

“It shall be done. ” Ussmak tramped down hard on the accelerator. The sooner the passage was over, the sooner his scales would stop itching with anticipation of the blast that would put his landcruiser out of commission. With a hiss of relief loud as an air brake, he was through and back on the road again. Big Uglies turned a machine gun on his landcruiser. He let his mouth fall open in scornful laughter that wouldn’t do them any good. Nor did it; from the turret, the coaxial machine gun scythed down the Tosevites.

“Keep advancing, ” Nejas said urgently. “We have more landcruisers behind us, and mechanized infantry combat vehicles as well, If we can deploy in the Big Uglies’ rear, we ruin their whole position. ”

Ussmak stepped on it again. The landcruiser bounded ahead. Speed, sometimes, was as important a weapon as a cannon. He spied a Deutsch landcruiser barreling through the undergrowth, trying to find a place from which to block the onslaught of the Race’s armor.

“Gunner! .. Sabot! ” Nejas shouted-he’d seen it, too. But before Skoob could acknowledge the order and crank the round into the cannon, a streak of fire off to one side took the Big Ugly vehicle, in the engine compartment. Red and yellow flames shot up from it, setting the bushes afire.

“Superior, sir, I think the infantry’s dismounted from their carriers, ” Ussmak said. “That was an antilandcruiser rocket. ”

“You’re right, ” Nejas said, and then, “Steer right, away from the road. ” Ussmak obeyed, and caught sight of another Tosevite landcruiser. Nejas gave orders to Skoob, the cannon barked, the landcruiser jerked with the recoil… and the Deutsch machine brewed up.

Before long, Ussmak saw something he hadn’t seen much of since the early days on the endless plains of the SSSR: Big Uglies coming out of their overrun hiding places with arms raised in token of surrender. He hissed in wonder. Just for a moment, the sense of inevitable triumph he’d felt then-before the Race really understood how the Big Uglies could fight-came flooding back. He doubted anything was inevitable any more, but the way to Belfort and, with luck, beyond lay open.

When the landcruiser finally stopped for the evening, he thought, he’d have a taste of ginger to celebrate. Just a small one, of course.

Mutt Daniels tasted the rich black earth just outside Danforth, Illinois. He knew soil; he’d grown up as a dirt farmer, after all. If he hadn’t had a talent for baseball, he’d have spent his life eastbound behind the west end of a mule. This was soil as good as he’d ever come across; no wonder the corn grew here in great green waves.

All the same, he wished he weren’t making its acquaintance under these circumstances. He tasted it because he lay flat on his belly between the rows, his face jammed into the dirt so he wouldn’t get a shell splinter in the eye. With the coming of spring, the Lizards were driving hard. He didn’t know how the Army would hold them out of Chicago this time. “Gotta try, though, ” he muttered, and tasted dirt again.

More shells came in. They lifted Mutt up, slammed him back to the ground like a wrestler putting on a show in a tank town. Unlike a wrestler, they didn’t pull any punches-he’d be black and blue all over.

“Medic! ” somebody shouted, not far away. The tone wasn’t anguish; surprise was more like it. That meant one of two things: either the wound wasn’t bad or the fellow who’d got it didn’t realize how bad it was. Mutt had seen that before, men perfectly calm and rational with their guts hanging out and blood soaking into the dark dirt and making it blacker than it already was.