The Iron Dream (21 page)

At least when they saw Feric, the ragged horde fell into some semblance of attention. A goodly number gave the Party salute and shouted "Hail Jaggar!" but for the most part there was naught but confusion.

Feric minced no words. "Commandant Stopa and his officers were traitors plotting with Zind and have been executed. High Commander Waffing is now in direct command of both the Knights of the Swastika and the regular army in his new capacity as Field Marshall High Commander of the Security Forces of Heldon."

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He paused for a moment, letting that sink in before giving them the good news; this would make it easier to pull them together.

"The Sons of the Swastika have seized complete control of Heldon," Feric went on. "I have assumed the title of Supreme Commander of Heldon and I now rule by decree."

At this, the Knights broke into ragged, but loud and enthusiastic cheering. Feric let it go on for several minutes.

When he judged that the men's exuberance had had sufficient opportunity for expression, he signaled to Waffing with a nod of his head.

"Attention!" Waffing bellowed like a bull. Almost at once, the cheering troop fell silent, formed into somewhat makeshift ranks, clicked heels, and stood rigidly at attention.

"We have work to do and lots of it!" Waffing told them. "I want this mess cleaned up and the entire camp fit and ready to pass the most rigorous inspection within half an hour. Hail Heldon! Hail Victory! Hail Jaggar!"

Now the response was a mass salute of true military precision, and a chant of "Hail Jaggar!" that left nothing to be desired in the way of spirit or force. The New Age had been bom; the Swastika ruled all Heldon. The threat from within had been crushed, once and for all, and the nation was united behind the Party.

But as he returned the salute, Feric knew full well that his sacred mission was only beginning. Like a vast gan-grenous monstrosity, the Empire of Zind loomed on the eastern horizon, ready to burst like a gigantic pustule and engulf humanity in its reeking poison. Tonight, the tentacles of this cancerous mutant mass within the body of Heldon had been lopped off with ruthless force, but there would be no rest for Feric Jaggar and no peace for true humanity until the last foul mutant and monstrous Dom had been expunged from the face of the earth. The entire globe must be purified of all contaminating elements as Heldon had been purified tonight.

Today Heldon, tomorrow the worldl

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10

Up on the high reviewing stand in front of the Palace of State, Feric Jaggar stood resplendent in bis black leather uniform, with its scarlet cloak flowing in the breeze, waiting for the grand parade to begin. To his right stood Lar Waffing in the new army uniform—light field-gray with a red swastika cape—and Seph Bogel in his Party uniform; to his left, Ludolf Best, also in trim black leather, and Bors Remler in black leather embellished with the twin red lightning strokes of the SS.

The sun was high in the clear blue sky, and the boulevard had been decorated all along its length with red, white, and black Swastika bunting. The walkways on either side of the street were crammed with robust Helder waving a red sea of Party flags. Television cameras would make the spectacle visible throughout the world, and Feric earnestly hoped its meaning would be loud and clear to the Dominators of Zind.

There was no doubt that Heldon had taken heroic strides during Feric's first two months as Supreme Commander, and all his High Commanders had a right to feel proud of what they had accomplished.

Bogel had ferreted scores of Universalist sympathizers and even some Doms out of the Ministry of Public Will

•and had transformed that nest of pallid pen-pushers into a true weapon of the racial consciousness.

Waffing had seized control of the army with an iron hand, purged the command structure of weaklings and troublemakers, and thoroughly integrated the old Knights into the ranks, where they inspired confidence, spirit, and a sense of patriotic fervor in the ordinary Helder soldier.

Under Feric's supervision. Best had written a new constitution which vested all power and responsibility in the Supreme Commander, who retained his office at the pleasure of the people of Heldon, who could recall him by 139

plebiscite at any time. Thus would the will of the Supreme Commander and the racial will of Heldon never fail to coincide.

Remler's task had only begun. Classification Camps were under construction in every region of Heldon and several were already in operation, but the job of reexamining every certificate holder in Heldon was a staggering one and would require a prolonged heroic effort.

The benefits, however, would be worth any sacrifice. When the task was completed, the last Dominator within the boundaries of Heldon would be slain, every inhabitant tainted by a mutated gene would be sterilized or exiled, and the very cream of the gene pool would be concentrated in the SS, which would become the purebred breeding stock of the next stage of true human evolution.

Although Feric could find no fault with the progress made under his leadership, there was little cause for rejoicing at this stage. This parade was not a true celebration, but a display of force primarily for the benefit of the Dominators of Zind. The rumblings from the east grew more ominous every day. SS intelligence had reported the massing of a great horde in the western reaches of Zind, not far from the Wolack border. Whether this mobilization had been meant to coincide with the failed Council plot was not clear, but the Dominators were obviously preparing to march west.

And Heldon was not properly prepared to greet them.

The size of the army had been doubled, but with the exception of the ex-Knights, most of the new soldiers were green recruits. The SS had been expanded to ten thousand men, and these prime specimens were of course more than ready for any task that might be set for them, but there were potentially ten thousand more SS purebreds to be gleaned from the general population through the Classification Camps, and this process would take another four months. A new armaments program had been set into motion, but only half the troops had as yet received the new submachine guns, no more than a score of aerial dreadnaughts had been tamed out, and as for the new light land dreadnaughts, volume production was only just beginning.

Moreover, ammunition for all the new weapons was still in somewhat short supply.

Heldon needed 'at least four more months before it would be ready to hurl its full force against the barbarian 140

vastness of Zind. It was Peric's fervent hope that today's display of armed might would generate enough fear and dismay among the Dominators to delay any westward march for several months; courage was hardly a Dominator strong point.

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 141

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 behe-moths. 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 142

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 him-143

self. 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.