The Iron Dream (34 page)

The incredible feats of heroism performed by tens of thousands of ordinary Helder soldiers inspired the SS elite guard around Feric to ever greater fanaticism and ferocity, which in turn spurred on the masses of the troops to redouble their already superhuman efforts, further inspiring the SS elite—an ever-increasing feedback of racial heroism which turned a whole section of the army into a juggernaut before which no power on earth could stand.

As for Feric, there were not Zind Warriors enough in the universe to adequately quench his thirst for blood.

The center of the Helder line became a bulge, then a great dagger ripping straight through the body of the great Zind horde, seeking out its vitals. This irresistible 220

racial juggernaut tore through the sea of drooling monstrosities with greater and greater force and speed, plunging deeper and deeper, opening the gap up wider and wider, as the inspiration to superhuman fighting frenzy spread among more and more Helder troops.

Feric himself was filled with an energy and exhilaration that transcended the flesh and filled the soul as he hacked his way through a score of Warriors with the smell of impending victory sweet in his nostrils and suddenly found himself standing on open ground. Before him were forty dull green Zind tanks in tight formation, and nothing else.

As Best made his way to his side, Feric realized the true import of the situation. "We've done it, Best!" he cried, clapping his great arm around the lad's shoulders. "We've cut the Zind horde in half!" Moreover, there was no doubt whatever that the formation of tanks, situated as it was in what minutes before had been the safest position on the battlefield, held the craven Doms controlling the entire horde.

Hundreds of tall blond SS heroes emerged through the rent in the Zind ranks, then a dozen Holder tanks, their cannon roaring. Ten of the Zind tanks exploded in great pillars of reddish-orange fire and billowing black smoke. A few of the remaining Zind tanks got off panicked shots.

Then a score more Helder tanks poured through the gap with thousands of motorcyclists in their van; three more quick massed fusillades cracked open the rest of the Zind tanks like so many walnuts. Feric waved the Great Truncheon wildly overhead, sending spatters of Warrior blood flying, then led Best and his SS elite guard forward as dozens of humanoid figures in gray uniforms scuttled from the wreckage. Behind came the entire Helder army.

Feric was the first to reach the smoking ruins, with Best hot on his heels. Two rodent-eyed Doms dashed out from behind the smoldering wreckage of a tank with submachine guns in their hands, slobbering in anger and dread and shrilling "Die human filth!" As Feric reached for his submachine gun, a hail of bullets whistled close by him and tore the loathsome Doms to pieces. Feric turned and saw Ludolf Best grinning at him, with his smoking submachine gun in his hands.

Three more Dominators scuttled amidst the rubble to Feric's left, seeking to escape; Feric cut them to ribbons with his submachine gun in a shower of blood and flesh, then grinned back at Best. Following this example, the SS

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made short work indeed of the remaining Doms, with a few short seconds of relentless submachine-gun fire.

Even as the sound of this firing died, an incredible shattering thunderclap rent the air as if the heavens themselves had opened up to shout in triumph, and forty sleek black jets, streaked across the sky, then executed a 'one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to swoop down with blinding speed and a deafening shriek upon the enemy.

"Waffing's troops have arrived, my Commanderi" Best whooped with joy.

Indeed, the significance of this splended aerial promenade was not lost upon a single Helder soldier. Throughout the vast battlefield, a cheer went up that drowned out even the roar of the jets as they fired their rockets into what was left of the enemy.

As for the Warriors of Zind, the sudden loss of their Dominators, combined with the sudden apparition in the skies and the massive feral roar of the Helder army, completely unnerved them. Still enslaved by the murderous rage that had been programmed into their very genes, but bereft of any overall mental guidance, these submoronic protoplasmic killing machines flew into a senseless frenzy, running about in all directions shrieking and howling, bashing their comrades with truncheons, tearing at the throats of their own fellows, sinking their teeth into the first available flesh, and throwing themselves ineffectu-ally at the disciplined Helder troops almost as an afterthought.

Needless to say, the outcome of the battle was now a foregone conclusion. Inhaling deep drafts of the heady perfume of victory, the Helder troops surged through the gap that had been torn through the body of the horde, widening it further, then fell on the rioting Warriors on both flanks from behind, all but surrounding them.

To the south, a large phalanx of gleaming black SS

tanks led a long column of fresh motorcycle troops into the fray, as hundreds of jets roared overhead, blasting great holes in the dissolving Zind formations with rockets and machine guns.

Soon the Zind horde had been split into two huge encircled enclaves. The tanks poured a continuous barrage of high explosives and incendiaries into the ranks of the Warriors, while the infantry and motorcycle troops tore the frenzied giants to pieces with their submachine guns.

Unable to penetrate the Helder fire, the sordid creatures 222

turned their insatiable bloodlust entirely inward, smashing each other to fragments of pulped protoplasm even as the Helder army annihilated them.

The full might of the Helder air force soon soared out of the west to join Waffing's jets in the aerial assaults. The precision bombing of the dive-bomber pilots was flawless, and for this final destruction of the remnant of the Zind horde, the planes had been armed with napalm cannisters.

In a few short minutes of close-order bombing, the remaining Zind Warriors were reduced to a roasting sty of flaming protoplasm writhing and defecating in their death throes.

Watching the great pillars of greasy black smoke boiling into the sky, Feric knew that naught remained to complete the final and utter victory of the pure human genotype but to march across the now defenseless heartland of Zind on Bora and expunge this final nest of Dominators from the face of the earth.

Above the conflagration, hundreds of jets had formed themselves into an impromptu swastika formation, emblazoning the symbol of Helder victory on the very sky.

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The march on Bora was nothing less than a parade of triumph. The wounded had been shipped back to Heldon as infantry poured into Zind through Wolack to mop up stragglers and garrison the vast new conquered province, and the SS was already setting up Classification Camps for the mutant slaves of the Doms not two days after the annihilation of the Zind horde. Knowing that the last serious resistance in Zind had been crushed, Feric redeployed the vast forces at his command into a broad front several hundred miles wide sweeping eastward across the putrescent wastelands, pulverizing every installation, farmstead, breeding pit, diseased crop, and mutant in its path. Thus Heldon itself moved across the face of Zind, absorbing the territory and converting it forever to true 223

human soil as its heroic troops marched gloriously upon the last citadel of the Dominators on the face of the earth behind their Supreme Commander, Feric Jaggar.

For this final push, Feric had had his sleek black command car brought to the front so that he might ride into Bora at the head of his troops in the company of his trusted High Commanders, Best, Remler, Waning, and Bogel, for surely these fellows more than deserved the honor of accompanying their leader into the enemy capital.

These four men sat on the front seat of the command car's open cabin, and as the rotund Waning occupied the seat area of two normal men, they were jammed together like peas in a pod. Still, the mood was nothing less than jovial as the car drove eastward in the center of a vast line of tanks and motorcycles. Moreover, Waning had not neglected to provision the car with a keg of foaming beer to which they all had frequent recourse. Feric himself sat alone on the raised rear seat in easy sight of his troops, with the keg conveniently before him.

"We should be within sight of Bora soon," Waffing said.

"Or at least what's left of it. I'm afraid the air force isn't leaving very much for us to destroy."

Two more wings of dive-bombers roared eastward across the empty wastelands on their way to Bora.

"My only remaining desire is to kill the last Dominator on earth with the Great Truncheon of Held itself," Feric said. "This seems only fitting. I hope that our pilots spare the life of one Dominator so that this final war may be ended with appropriate ceremony. As for the rest of Bora, they can turn it into a steaming ruin before we reach it, for all I care."

Waffing laughed. "You question the total efficiency of our pilots?" he japed. "I really don't think that the chances of anything surviving our bombing are very good."

"Surely we will be left one Dominator?" Feric said.

"Are our bombers really as good as all that?"

Waning waved his arms in the air as if to take in all of conquered Zind in their sweep. Within sight of the command car, there was not a single trace of living protoplasm native to the putrid gray landscape, nor an intact artifact crafted by the minions of Zind. "The proof is all around you, my Commander," he said.

Feric laughed. "It's very strange," he said, "to be 224

hoping that the Helder air force will be performing with something less than its accustomed efficiencyi"

An hour later, Waffing's boast concerning the efficiency of the bomber pilots proved to be more than justified. To the east, across a desolate gray plain studded with rank patches of radiation jungle, Feric saw a huge blotch of fire, like the mouth of some gigantic volcano. As the command car and its flanking lines of troops roared toward this massive conflagration, crushing the radiation jungle under steel tank treads and then setting the rubble ablaze with flamethrowers, Feric could see swarms of planes circling and swooping over the burning city, dropping yet more napalm cannisters and high explosives on the funeral pyre of the Dominators of Zind. Even at this distance, the heat given off by the fire was clearly discernible.

"Not much chance of anything surviving that, my Commander," Waning said, quaffing an entire mug of beer in three gulps. "I'm afraid I must apologize for the prowess of our pilots!"

Feric could not find it in his heart to be really angry.

Who could but rejoice at the sight of the last stronghold of the final enemy of true humanity going up in billowing flames! Beside the racial joy of this sight, his disappointment at not being able to dispatch the last Dominator on earth by his own hand was, after all, a trivial matter.

Across the plain, there was a sudden upsurge in the flames consuming Bora. The massive individual fires consuming the city seemed to merge into an enormous fireball, which the Helder planes had to hasten to avoid. This earthbound sun hovered over the doomed city for a long bright moment; then it soared upward as if seeking to return to its rightful place in the heavens. In its van, an enormous pillar of fire at least a mile wide and as tall as the clouds fountained into the sky. Amazingly enough, this flaming beacon persisted as the Helder army bore down on the city.

"Our planes have ignited a firestorm!" Waffing exclaimed. "Army scientists predicted such a possibility—that fierce enough bombing could generate a pillar of flame that would burn until all combustibles in the area are consumed. It seemed like an extravagance until now."

"It looks like the legendary Fire of the Ancients," Bogel whispered.

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Waffing nodded. "It's the next best thing," he said.

"For myself," said Remler, his blue eyes glistening, "the sight has an awesome beauty." He wet his lips with beer without for an instant taking his eyes off the great fountain of fire that gushed red-orange brilliance into the heavens.

Feric could well understand what the SS Commandant felt. For his part, the sight of the Bora Firestorm ignited two distinct pleasurable responses: the patriotic and the aesthetic. The total flaming destmction of the last scrap of resistance to complete Helder domination of the habitable earth was something that could only set any true human's heart to soaring. At the same time, the abstract spectacle of this magnificent, unthinkably huge gusher of fire turning the very universe a rich deep orange struck a deep chord in his aesthetic sensibilities, in and of itself. Thus Feric perceived the Bora Firestorm as a true and high work of art: noble and uplifting in its inner meaning for the true human spirit, and sensually stimulating in style and form. Only a final touch was needed to create a visual epic that would inspire the people of Heldon and immor-talize this pinnacle of human history for all time to come.

"Bogel, do you have camera planes in the air over Bora?"

"Of course, my Commander! What sort of High Commander of Public Will would be foolish enough to miss the opportunity to film the climactic moment of human history? We are now broadcasting to every public square in Heldon as well as preserving the spectacle for posterity."

"Very well then, Bogel, I'll give your cameras something to fit the dignity and significance of the moment that will delight the eye as welll"

Feric chose to view the spectacle from a camera plane with Bogel, for this would be the best possible vantage from which to observe the work of art he had wrought; moreover, this aerial view would be the image burned into the folklore of true humanity for all time.

The camera plane spiraled dizzyingly upward, high over the pillar of fire that was Bora, turning Bogel's face a sickly shade of green and giving Feric himself no little discomfort. Finally the plane reached a height of over ten thousand feet, leveled off, began circling the Firestorm, and turned its cameras on the spectacle below.

Ferie had used SS motorcyclists and freshly polished 226

black tanks to form an enormous swastika of men and machines centered on the fountain of fire that was the final funeral pyre of the putrescence that had been Zind.