In the Balance

“Yes, sir, Larssen, it won’t be long before you can head into Chicago as a conqueror,” Patton boomed. “If you’re going to do, by God, do it with style!”

Jens didn’t care anything about style. He would gladly have gone into Chicago naked and in blackface if that was the only way to get there. And if Patton insisted on holding him away much longer, he’d damn well take French leave and head into town on his own. Why not? he thought. It’s not like I’m really a soldier.

Atvar increased the magnification on the situation map. The Race’s movements appeared in red arrows, those of the Big Uglies in rather fuzzier white ones that reflected the uncertainties of reconnaissance. The fleetlord hissed in discontent. “I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to extricate our forces there or not.”

Kirel peered at the situation map, too. “This is the pocket in which the Tosevites on the lesser continental map have trapped our assault units, Exalted Fleetlord?”

“Yes,” Atvar said. “They have taught us a lesson here: never be so concerned about the point of an attack as to neglect the flanks.”

“Indeed.” Kirel left one eye on the map, turned the other toward Atvar. “Forgive me, Exalted Fleetlord, but I had not looked for you to be so, ah, sanguine over our misfortunes in the, ah, not-empire called the United States.”

“You mistake me, Shiplord,” Atvar said sharply, and Kirel lowered his eyes in apology. Atvar went on, “I do not enjoy seeing our brave males endangered by the Big Uglies under any circumstances. Moreover, I have hope we shall still be able to get many of them out. If the beastly weather would let up, our aircraft ought to be able to blast an escape corridor through which we could conduct our retreat. Failing that, the landcruisers will have to do the job.”

“Landcruiser losses have been unusually heavy in this action,” Kirel said.

“I know.” That did pain Atvar; without those landcruisers, his ground-based forces were going to have ever more trouble conducting needed operations. He said, “The Big Uglies have come up with something new again.”

“So they have.” The disgust with which Kirel freighted his words made it sound as if he were cursing the Tosevites for their ingenuity. The Race had had plenty of cause to do that; had the Big Uglies been less fiendishly ingenious, all of Tosev 3 would long since have been incorporated into the Empire.

Atvar said, “As with most of their innovations, we will need a certain amount of time to develop appropriate countermeasures.” They should be in place about the time the Big Uglies invent their next new weapon, he thought. And of course, they won’t work against that. Aloud, he continued, “Still, considering how different this world is from what our probe predicted, we, should count ourselves lucky that we’ve not got our tailstumps pinched in the doorway more often.”

“As you say, Exalted Fleetlord.” But Kirel sounded anything but convinced.

Atvar let his mouth fall open. “In case you’re wondering, Shiplord, I’ve not started tasting ginger; I don’t suffer from the insane self-confidence the drug induces. I have reason for being sanguine, as you termed it. Observe.”

He poked a control with a claw. The situation map vanished from the screen, to be replaced by images from a killercraft’s gun cameras. On the screen, bombs arced down into drifting, blowing smoke. Moments later, fireballs and more smoke mushroomed into the sky. The angle of the tape-jerked sharply as the killercraft dodged through desperate Tosevite efforts to shoot it down.

“That, Shiplord,” Atvar declared, “is a Tosevite petroleum refinery going up in flames. It happens to be the one that supplies Deutschland, but we have struck several in recent days. If we continue on that pattern, the embarrassments we have suffered around this town of Chicago should soon fade into insignificance as the Big Uglies run low on fuel.”

“How massive is this destruction when compared to the overall production of the facility?” Kirel asked.

Atvar replayed the tape. He enjoyed watching the enemy’s petroleum stocks going up in flames. “Do the images not speak for themselves? Smoke has shrouded this, ah, Ploesti place ever since our attack, which means the Big Uglies have yet to suppress the blazes we started.”

“But there was smoke around the facility before,” Kirel persisted. “Is this not part of the Tosevites’ ongoing camouflage efforts?”

“Infrared imaging indicates otherwise,” Atvar said. “Some of these hot spots have remained in place since our bombs ignited them.”

“That is good news,” Kirel admitted.