Off to one side of the road, an artillery piece barked, then another and another. "Eighty-eights," Jager said, identifying them by the report. "That's good."

Meinecke understood him without any more discussion than that: "So they can fire their salvo and then get the h.e.l.l out of there, you mean?"

"Right the first time, Sergeant. They're easy to shift to a new firing position-a lot easier than the bigger guns." Jager paused meditatively. "And Lizard counterbattery fire is better than anything we ever dreamt of."

"Isn't that the sad and sorry truth, sir?" Meinecke agreed with a mournful sigh. "They can drive nails into your coffin from halfway round the world, seems like sometimes. If there were more of them, and if they had the doctrine to go with all their fancy equipment-"

"-The likes of us would have been dead for quite a while now," Jager finished for him. Meinecke laughed, though again the colonel had spoken nothing but the truth. Down lower in the turret, Wolfgang Eschenbach, the loader, laughed, too. He was a big blond farm boy; getting more than half a dozen words out of him in the course of a day was just this side of miraculous.

For all their good points, 88s had drawbacks, too. They couldn't fire sh.e.l.ls as heavy as the larger guns, and they couldn't throw the sh.e.l.ls they did fire as far. That meant- "We'll probably see action in the next few kilometers," Jager said.

"b.u.mping up against whatever the artillery boys are shooting at, you mean, sir?" Meinecke said. At Jager's nod, he went on, "Makes sense to me. Besides, south of Rouffach is where they told us we'd start running into the enemy, isn't it? They have to be right once in a while."

"Your confidence in the High Command does you credit, Sergeant," Jager said dryly, which set the gunner and the loader to laughing again. "I just hope the Lizards use the same kind of flank guards we did when we got stretched thin fighting the Russians."

"How's that, Herr Oberst Herr Oberst?" Meinecke asked. "Me, I was playing games with the Tommies in the desert before they stuck me in the Flying Circus here." When Panther and Tiger panzers started rolling off the a.s.sembly lines, the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht put only the best crewmen into them. put only the best crewmen into them.

"You, you didn't miss a thing," Jager said, mimicking his gunner's diction. "But sometimes we'd have to concentrate our German troops at the Schwerpunkt, Schwerpunkt, the decisive place, and cover our flanks with Romanians or Hungarians or Italians." the decisive place, and cover our flanks with Romanians or Hungarians or Italians."

"G.o.d save us." Wolfgang Eschenbach used up half his daily quota of speech.

"They weren't the worst soldiers I've ever seen," Jager said. "They might not have been bad at all if they were decently equipped. But sometimes the Russians managed to hit them instead of us, and it got pretty ugly. I'm hoping the Lizards are concentrating all their best troops up where they're trying to advance. I'd just as soon not have to fight the first team all the time."

"Amen to that," Eschenbach said; Jager confidently expected him to fall silent till the morning.

The colonel stood up in the cupola again. That was a good way to get shot, but it was also far and away the best way to see what was going on, and if you didn't know what was going on, you had no business commanding a panzer, let alone a (rather battered) regiment of them. Slamming the lid down and peering through the periscopes made you feel safer, but it also made you miss things that were liable to get you killed.

Northbound sh.e.l.ls whistled overhead, undoubtedly the Lizards' response to the Germans' 88s. Jager hoped the artillerymen had moved their pieces elsewhere before the sh.e.l.ls came down on them.

The countryside began to have the look of a land at war: wrecked and burned farm buildings, smashed trees, bloated dead animals, sh.e.l.l craters pocking fields. Jager clucked sadly at the charred wreck of a German half-track. The Panther rolled past trenches and foxholes that showed the earlier limits of the German push to the south.

Stooping to get down into the turret for a moment, Jager said, "We're moving forward, anyhow." Against the Lizards, that was no small novelty, and boosted his hopes that they had only second-line troops on their flanks. Like a jack-in-the-box, he popped up out of the cupola again.

Through the rasping roar of the Panther's big Maybach engine came the rattle of small-arms fire ahead. A couple of German MG42s were in action, their rapid rate of fire unmistakable-they sounded as if a giant were ripping enormous bolts of thick, tough cloth between his hands. Jager was glad the German infantry had the machine guns; since all Lizard foot soldiers carried automatic weapons, the poor Landsers Landsers needed all the help they could get. needed all the help they could get.

The German panzers deployed for action, moving into their blunt wedge formation: two companies forward, Jager's command panzer and another company in the middle to support them, and a fourth company in the rear as a reserve. They chewed brown, muddy lines through the green of growing crops.

Without warning, a streak of fire lanced through the air toward a Panzer IV in one of the lead companies. New Panzer IVs had long-barreled 75mm guns almost as good as the ones Panthers carried, but their armor, though thicker than in the earlier models, wasn't excellent protection even against terrestrial foes. Against a Lizard anti-panzer rocket, the armor might as well not have been there at all. The Panzer IV brewed up, orange flame billowing and a column of thick black smoke mounting swiftly into the air.

Confused, angry shouts filled the radio. Jager grabbed the headset, shoved the earphones into place, and shouted orders into the microphone. The nearest surviving panzer poured machine-gun fire into the thick clump of bushes from which the anti-panzer rocket had come, hoping to flush out or knock down the Lizards who had fired it.

Nothing without armor could have survived that hail of bullets. From more than four hundred meters farther to the rear, Jager watched the bushes writhe under it, as if under torture. But a moment later, another rocket incinerated a German panzer.

"They've got one of their troop carriers in there!" Jager shouted into the microphone. "Give 'em your main armament." Unlike German half-tracks, the Lizards' armored troop carriers bore light cannon that could chew up anything this side of a panzer, and carried those rockets on turret rails to either side of the cannon. With them, the troop carriers became deadly dangerous panzer killers.

But, while they were formidably armed, they were only lightly armored. They could withstand small-arms fire, but when a panzer sh.e.l.l came knocking, they opened up. The German panzer hit the brakes to fire into that stand of bushes. Moments later, the bushes went up in flames as part of the troop carrier's funeral pyre.

Jager whooped like a Red Indian. He remembered all too well the bad days of the summer before, when killing any Lizard armored vehicle seemed to require divine intervention. He'd done it himself once, with the 50mm cannon of a Panzer III, but he didn't pretend he'd been anything but lucky.

Yet another rocket streaked out from cover and smote a Panzer IV. The rocket exploded in a ball of flame, but the panzer did not brew up. Jager whooped again. "The Schurzen Schurzen work!" he shouted to the world at large. The hollow-charge warheads of the Lizards' anti-panzer rockets sent a jet of white-hot flame through armor and into a panzer. Some bright engineer had figured out that 5mm plates-"skirts," he called them-welded onto a panzer's turret and sides would make the rocket warhead go off prematurely and dissipate that jet. Now Jager saw that the bright idea actually worked in combat. work!" he shouted to the world at large. The hollow-charge warheads of the Lizards' anti-panzer rockets sent a jet of white-hot flame through armor and into a panzer. Some bright engineer had figured out that 5mm plates-"skirts," he called them-welded onto a panzer's turret and sides would make the rocket warhead go off prematurely and dissipate that jet. Now Jager saw that the bright idea actually worked in combat.

The advancing German panzers kept on spraying the Lizard infantry positions with machine-gun bullets. Covered by that, German infantrymen ran forward, too. The only opposing fire came from small arms. Jager's hopes rose, if the Lizards didn't have any panzers in this sector, the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht really could make some gains. He hadn't taken the bra.s.s seriously when they talked about getting Mulhouse back and cutting the Lizards off from the Rhine, but he was starting to think that just might happen. really could make some gains. He hadn't taken the bra.s.s seriously when they talked about getting Mulhouse back and cutting the Lizards off from the Rhine, but he was starting to think that just might happen.

Then three Lizard helicopters popped up from behind cover, two from out of clearings in the woods and the third from behind a barn. Jager's mouth went dry; helicopters were deadlier foes than panzers. They launched two rockets each. One blew a hole in the ground. The other five hit German panzers. Two of the machines survived, but the other three went up in flames. A couple of crewmen managed to bail out of escape hatches; most perished.

Then 20mm rapid-fire antiaircraft guns started hammering at the helicopters. On the raid that captured the plutonium from the Lizards, the Germans who'd joined with the Russian partisans had carried a mountain version of one of those guns, which broke down into man-portable loads. Now the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht made a habit of posting the light guns as far forward as possible, to hold helicopters at bay. made a habit of posting the light guns as far forward as possible, to hold helicopters at bay.

The tactic worked. The helicopters sheered away from the antiaircraft guns. One of them was trailing smoke, though it kept flying. Jager prayed for it to fall from the sky, but it refused.

The two lead panzer companies were already through what had been the Lizards' front line. They hadn't cleared up all the holdouts; a bullet cracked past Jager's head and several more ricocheted off the Panther. Like any sensible soldiers, the Lizards were trying to pick off the panzer commanders. For the time being, Jager ducked down into the Panther turret.

"We're driving them," he said, fixing his eyes to the periscopes that gave him vision even when b.u.t.toned up. "With luck, maybe we can push far enough to get in among their artillery and do them some real harm."

Just then a Lizard troop carrier that had lain low opened up with a rocket and took out a panzer less than a hundred meters from Jager's. By luck, he was looking through the periscope that showed where the rocket had come from. "Panzer halt!" he shouted, and then, "Armor-piercing!"

"Armor-piercing." Wolfgang Eschenbach had a dispensation to exceed his daily word quota if in the line of duty. Grunting a little, he lifted a black-tipped sh.e.l.l and set it in the breech of the Panther's cannon.

"Bearing three hundred degrees, range seven hundred meters, maybe a little less," Jager said.

The turret slewed anticlockwise. "I see him, sir," Klaus Meinecke said. "Behind those bushes, ja ja?"

"That's the one," Jager said. "Fire at-"

Before he could say "will," Meinecke fired. With the turret closed, the noise was bearable, but recoil rocked the Panther. The sh.e.l.l casing leaped out of the breech; Eschenbach had to move smartly to keep it from mashing his toes. The acrid reek of burnt cordite filled the air.

"Hit!" Jager yelled. "Hit! Got him in one, Klaus. Forward!" That to the driver; stopped, the Panther was hideously vulnerable to enemy fire. The Maybach bellowed. The panzer leaped ahead. The advance went on.

.2.

Captain Rance Auerbach led his cavalry company out of Syracuse, Kansas, heading east along the north bank of the Arkansas River toward Garden City. Somewhere before he got there, he expected to run into the Lizards.

People in Syracuse waved to him and his command. Like him, they were up with the sun. Most of them were heading out to their farms. "G.o.d bless you, boys," a man in overalls called. "Give 'em h.e.l.l," somebody else said. Two people said, "Be careful."

"We'll do our best," Auerbach said, brushing the brim of his hat with the forefinger of his right hand. He was a big, rawboned man; years out in the open in all weather had tanned and lined his long face till he looked a good deal older than his actual thirty-two. That was true of most of the farmers, too, but amid their flat Kansas accents his Texas drawl stood out like a bobcat in a pack of coyotes.

His second-in-command, Lieutenant Bill Magruder, came out of Virginia and had a softer version of a Southern accent. "So't of hate to leave a nice little town like this," he remarked.

"It is pretty, isn't it?" Auerbach said. Syracuse boasted a cool, green profusion of poplars, willows, and other trees. On this stretch of the Great Plains, there wasn't much like it. Folks drove from miles around to relax under those trees. Or rather, folks had driven, in the days before the Lizards came.

"Your grandfather ride this way during the States War?" Magruder asked.

"Two of my great-grandfathers were Texas cavalrymen, sure enough," Auerbach answered. "One of 'em did some fighting in the Indian Territory-what's Oklahoma now-and up in Missouri, so I reckon he went through Kansas a time or two, but probably not this far west. Wasn't anything here to speak of back then."

"Mm, you're likely right," Magruder said.

They rode on a while in silence punctuated only by the occasional jingle of harness and the steady clopping of their horses' hooves. A little to the north, US 50 paralleled the Arkansas, but bare ground was easier on the horses' feet and legs than the asphalt would have been.

Every few hundred yards, a dead car or a clump of them sat on or alongside the highway. Some had just run out of gas with no hope for getting more. The Lizards had strafed others in the early days of their invasion, back when their fighter planes roamed everywhere and shot up everything. Farther east along the road, there would be dead tanks, too. The Great Plains were wonderful country for armor, too bad the Lizards had the wonderful armor to take advantage of the terrain.

"Or maybe it's not too bad," Auerbach murmured, leaning forward to pat the side of his gelding's neck. "Otherwise you'd be out of a job and I'd be just another grease monkey."

The horse snorted softly. Auerbach patted it again, if you sent cavalry charging tanks, the way the Poles had against the n.a.z.is in 1939, you'd get yourself killed, but you wouldn't accomplish anything else. But if you used your horses to take you to places farther and faster than infantry could go, and if you made sure the garrisons you raided weren't big ones, you could still do some useful things.

"You know, we aren't really cavalry, not the way Jeb Stuart would have used the word," Auerbach said.

"I know. We're dragoons," Magruder answered calmly. If anything ever rattled him, he didn't let it show on the outside. "We use the horses to get from here to there, then get down and fight on foot. Jeb Stuart might not have done things that way, but Bedford Forrest sure as h.e.l.l did."

"He'd have done better if he'd had our firepower, too," Auerbach said. "Every trooper with an M-1 except for the boys with BARs, a couple of nice, light Browning 1919A2 machine guns and a mortar on our packhorses... give 'em to Forrest and we'd all be singin' 'Dixie' instead of 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' "

"If Forrest had 'em, the d.a.m.nyankees would've had 'em, too," Magruder said. "It'd just ratchet the slaughter up a notch without doin' anything else much, seems to me. Right now, I'm not much worried about what we sing for the national anthem, as long as it's not the song the Lizards use."

To that, Auerbach could only nod. The company rode past the ruins of Fort Aubrey, about four miles east of Syracuse. After the Civil War, the Army had used it as a base from which to fight Indians. There hadn't been any fighting in these parts since. There was now.

High overhead, a westbound Lizard airplane scribed a white contrail, straight as if drawn by a draftsman, across the blue sky-a blueprint for somebody catching h.e.l.l, Auerbach thought. The deadly roar of the plane's jet engines came down to the ground as a thin, attenuated whisper. Auerbach thought. The deadly roar of the plane's jet engines came down to the ground as a thin, attenuated whisper.

Bill Magruder shook his fist at the flying silver speck. Auerbach understood that only too well. He said, "I'm just glad it's not after us."

"Yes, sir," Magruder said. They'd both been through a.s.saults by ground-attack aircraft. Those chewed up horse cavalry as bad as tanks did. Helicopters were even worse. They didn't just make strafing runs and leave; they stayed around and hunted you no matter which way you ran. If cavalry flew instead of riding, it would be mounted on helicopters.

Auerbach turned his head to follow the Lizard plane as it disappeared into the west. "These days, I can't help wondering what those sons of b.i.t.c.hes carry," he said. "I keep worrying it's another one of those bombs like the one they used on Washington or the Russians used on them south of Moscow. Once the gloves for that kind of fight come off, how do you put 'em back on again?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know," Magruder answered. "I just wish to Jesus we had some of those bombs ourselves. You think we can make 'em?"

"I sure hope so," Auerbach answered. He thought back to the knapsack that colonel-what was his name? Groves, that was it-had toted from Boston all the way to Denver, complete with a detour into Canada. He'd commanded the company that had escorted Groves on the cross-country jaunt. He didn't know for sure what was in that knapsack; Groves had been mighty tight-lipped about the whole business, like any good officer. But if it wasn't something to do with one of those fancy bombs, Auerbach figured his guesser needed repairing.

He didn't say anything about that to Magruder, who hadn't been with the company then. If Groves couldn't talk to him about it, he didn't figure he could talk to anybody else.

The company rode into Kendall, twelve miles east of Syracuse, a couple of hours before noon. If Syracuse had been a small town, Kendall was a dusty hamlet dozing by the Arkansas River. Auerbach let the horses rest, crop some gra.s.s, and drink from the river. He walked into the general store to see if it had anything worth getting, but the 150 Kendallians had pretty much picked it clean over the past year. They were living on whatever they got from their farms, the way their grandparents and great-grandparents had just after the War Between the States.

When the company left Kendall, Auerbach ordered a couple of scouts with radios well forward. He knew the Lizards were in Garden City, forty miles east. He didn't think they were in Lakin, fifteen miles east. He didn't want to find out he was wrong the hard way.

He also ordered the men to spread out wide. Even if the worst happened-the worst being attack from the air-some of them should escape.

One minute, one hour, melted into another. Sweat dripped from the end of Auerbach's pointed nose, soaked the armpits of his khaki jacket. He took off his hat and fanned himself with it. It didn't help much.

Just as if the world remained at peace, windmills spun, pumping water up from underground to nourish wheat and corn and sugar beets. Almost every farm had a big brooder house; every so often, Auerbach would hear chickens clucking. Cows and sheep cropped gra.s.s, while pigs wandered around eating anything that wasn't nailed down. Even though shipping had gone to the devil here no less than anywhere else, people still ate pretty well.

The company approached Lakin in the late afternoon. Auerbach didn't mind that at all: if the town did hold Lizards, they'd have the sun in their eyes when fighting started. "Sir!" The radioman brought his horse up next to Auerbach's. "Henry and Red, they say they've spotted razor wire like the Lizards use. They're dismounting and they'll wait for us."

"Right." Auerbach reined in and got out a pair of binoculars. He didn't see any razor wire, but the scouts were a lot closer than he was. Far and away the biggest set of buildings ahead looked at first distant glance like military barracks. Auerbach turned the binoculars on them, whereupon he laughed at himself-they let him read the words painted in big letters on the side of one building, which said KEARNY COUNTY CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL KEARNY COUNTY CONSOLIDATED HIGH SCHOOL. He turned back to the radioman. "Tell 'em we're on our way."

"Yes, sir." The radioman spoke into the microphone.

"Horse holders!" Auerbach called, hoping the sun would would keep the Lizards in Lakin from noticing him and his men. If it didn't, that could prove embarra.s.sing-maybe fatally embarra.s.sing. keep the Lizards in Lakin from noticing him and his men. If it didn't, that could prove embarra.s.sing-maybe fatally embarra.s.sing.

In the States War, one man in four had held horses while the others went up to fight on foot. Auerbach's company was already about ten men understrength; he couldn't afford to lose any more effectives than he could help. Letting one man hold five horses also let the company bring four or five extra weapons to the front.

Some of the horse holders resented the duty; he had to rotate it through all the troopers to make it seem fair. Some, though, looked just as well pleased not to be going up against the firepower the Lizards could throw at them. He pretended not to notice that. n.o.body had to be a hero all the time.

He wondered how big a garrison the Lizards had thrown into Lakin. They hadn't been there long; how well could they have fortified the place? He was bringing about seventy men with him; if they were going up against a battalion, they'd get slaughtered. But why in G.o.d's name would the Lizards stick a battalion into a G.o.dforsaken place like Lakin, Kansas? He hoped he wouldn't find out.

The company advanced at the best pace the crews for the machine guns and mortar could manage: they were the ones weighed down by their guns and ammunition. Auerbach would have liked to approach Lakin closer on horseback, but that was asking to get chewed up. Here on the plains, they could see you coming from a long way off.

About a mile outside of town, the mortar crew set up shop. A little bit closer, Red and Henry had tied their horses to fence posts. Red-his last name was O'Neill-pointed ahead. "See that, sir? They've got a perimeter out around the school."

"Mmhmm." Auerbach studied it. "Wire, yeah, and firing pits, too. I don't see anybody in 'em, though."

"No, sir," O'Neill agreed. "They're there, all right, but they don't look like they're expecting company."

"Which may mean they aren't, and which may mean they're laying for us." Auerbach rubbed his chin. Bristles rasped under his fingers. He was getting scruffy enough to make a good States War trooper, that was for sure. He sighed. "I think we better find out."

n.o.body argued, but then n.o.body would; he was the captain, the fellow who got paid to make the choices. He wished someone would have tried to talk him out of this one. Instead, the men fanned out and started moving in on the consolidated high school. At his murmured orders, one of the machine-gun crews went straight toward it while the other circled around to the left, away from the Arkansas River.

Auerbach went straight in, too. With every step he took, he wished Kansas wasn't so blinking flat. He felt like a bug on a plate, walking toward a man with a fly swatter the size of Dallas. Before long, he wasn't walking any more; he was crawling on his belly through the gra.s.s.

Something moved inside the perimeter ahead. Auerbach froze. Somebody fired. As if that were a signal, the whole company opened up. Some of the high school's windows had been broken before. Abruptly, just about all of them were.

The Lizards wasted no time shooting back. They had machine guns on the roofs of several high school buildings. Auerbach blew air out through his lips, making a snuffling noise amazingly like one a horse might produce. This wasn't going to be anything like a walkover.

A mortar bomb whistled through the air, landing about fifty yards short of the school buildings. Another round flew over the high school. Bracketed, Bracketed, Auerbach thought. Then bombs started falling on the buildings. One of the rooftop machine guns suddenly fell silent. Auerbach yelled himself hoa.r.s.e. Auerbach thought. Then bombs started falling on the buildings. One of the rooftop machine guns suddenly fell silent. Auerbach yelled himself hoa.r.s.e.

After about fifteen rounds, the mortar stopped shooting. That was painfully developed doctrine. If you kept banging away from the same place too long, the Lizards would get you. Besides, they were going to be calling in air support any minute now. You didn't want to lose artillery, even a little old mortar. If they couldn't find you, they couldn't shoot you.

One of the high school buildings had caught fire. Lizards skittered out of it. Auerbach drew a bead on one, fired. The Lizard sprawled on the ragged gra.s.s and lay there kicking. Auerbach shot at another one, to no visible effect. He swore.

Some of his men had got into Lakin itself, so fire came at the consolidated high school from three sides of a ring. Auerbach p.r.i.c.ked up his ears-some of the weapons firing from, that direction weren't regulation Army issue. That meant the locals had joined in the fight. Auerbach wanted to pound his head against the dirt of the shallow foxhole he'd sc.r.a.ped out for himself. The cavalry was going to have to get the h.e.l.l out in a couple of minutes. Did the Lakinites or whatever they called themselves think the Lizards would give them a big kiss on the cheek for trying to make like soldiers?

He turned to the radioman. "Call our boys in town and tell 'em to get out. Tell 'em to bring out as many of the townies with guns as they can." He laughed. "Those folks don't know it yet, but they just joined the Army." Several of his troopers had joined in the same highly informal way. If you were willing to put your neck on the line to fight the Lizards, Uncle Sam was more than willing to give you a chance to do it by the numbers.

When firing in Lakin began to die down, Auerbach also ordered his troops on the left to pull back. Now he used his machine guns to cover the retreat and keep the Lizards from getting too enthusiastic about pursuit. The troopers had made a lot of raids on Lizard-held small towns. They knew the drill. You wanted to get back to your horses and scatter before the Lizards brought in their planes and helicopters and splattered you all over the landscape.

You could tell at a glance the new fish the troopers were bringing out of Lakin, and uniforms or their absence had next to nothing to do with it. The civilians who'd taken up arms against the Lizards didn't know how to take cover, they didn't know how to move, they hesitated before doing what somebody told them. About what you'd expect from three or four farmers in bib overalls and... two girls?

Auerbach did a double take. Sure as h.e.l.l, a couple of young women toting .22s were trotting back with his soldiers. One of them wore overalls, too; the other was in a dress. He played back in his head the orders he'd given the radioman. He'd said townies; townies; he hadn't said he hadn't said men, men, if the troopers claimed they were just following orders, they'd have a point. if the troopers claimed they were just following orders, they'd have a point.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," he muttered. That sort of thing had happened before, but, like anybody, he hadn't expected it to happen to him. He hoped the girls could ride. He'd have horses for them; he'd seen a couple of his men go down. Companions were helping others along.

There were the horses, in a little hollow that shielded them from being spotted from the high school. The mortar was already broken down and packed away. Here came the machine gun crews. The 1919A2 had been developed especially for cavalry; with the weapons came light metal fittings that attached to the standard pack saddle and carried gun, tripod, a spare parts chest, a spare barrel, and three small ammunition chests. Getting everything ready for travel took bare moments.

Auerbach turned to the civilians who'd taken up arms against the Lizards. "Can you ride, people?" Even in farm country like this, it wasn't a given, the way it would have been a generation before.