Tilting the Balance

“Better for us to shoot up the place and not need to than to need to and not do it,” Jager said. The Croat nodded. Taking no chances even so, Jager crawled back to the outer doorway. Just as he got there, a blast like a 500-kilo bomb went off to the north. When he ever so cautiously looked out of the doorway, he saw a great hole in the outwall to Diocletian’s palace. The antiquarian in him lamented. The soldier rejoiced-Skorzeny’s raiders had distracted the Lizards enough to let Petrovic’s men lay the explosives next to the wall.

He sprang to his feet, stormed forward. The best time to advance was while the enemy was momentarily stunned. Now the Lizards would have a doubly hard time: they’d have to fight Skorzeny’s men and keep Petrovic’s followers from. getting through the breach in the wall. This mad raid just might work.

Then a stuttering roar filled the sky. Jager dove for the nearest cover he could find. The. Lizard helicopters were coming back.

Split was in flames, with smoke mounting fast into the sky. Drefsab hissed in astonished disbelief-who could have imagined a town could go from peace to ruin in so short a time? “Oh, Skorzeny, how you will pay,” he whispered.

Even as the helicopters reached the outskirts of Split, a big explosion sent a great cloud of dust leaping into the air. “They’ve blown up part of the wall,” the pilot said in dismay, scanning the electronically amplified vision display. “How did they get all these munitions into town under our muzzles?”

“Some have probably been there all along-the Big Uglies were fighting among themselves when we got here, you know. As for the rest, they’re good at it,” Drefsab said bitterly. “We didn’t X-ray every bit of every single animal cart going in, and now we’re paying the price. But if we did that everywhere, we wouldn’t have enough males to do anything else. The fault here is mine; I accept it.”

That made him feel virtuous. Otherwise, it did nothing to change matters. Split kept on burning. Radio calls for help kept pouring in. Every one of them reported some fresh Tosevite gain. “What do we do, superior sir?” the weapons officer asked, fixing Drefsab with worried eyes. “We have no rockets left and our machine-gun ammunition is low.”

Worries about conserving ammunition, Drefsab thought, had cost the Race victories. If they lost here, it wouldn’t be on account of that. “If we don’t expend what we have, our ground position in Split falls,” he said. “Next to that, ammunition-or, come to that, three helicopters-counts for nothing. Maybe we can kill enough of the Big Uglies to make the rest break contact and give our males a chance. Let’s go try.”

“It shall be done, superior sir.” Neither the pilot nor the weapons officer sounded enthusiastic. Drefsab couldn’t blame them for that-even if the Big Uglies didn’t have antiaircraft guns, the helicopters were still going into danger: if they’d armored all the wires and hydraulics heavily enough to protect em from rifle fire, the aircraft would have been too heavy to fly. But the pilot didn’t hesitate. He radioed Drefsab’s orders to his two comrades.

The three helicopters skimmed low over the rooftops of Split. They started taking fire long before they got to the rectangular stone wall the Race had used as a perimeter for its base. Some bullets went spanng! off armored sections; others inched through sheet metal in less vital spots.

Drefsab quickly realized the ground fire away from the fortress came from Big Uglies who just happened to have rifles and pistols. It turned into a storm of bullets when the aircraft approached the fighting zone. “Shall I return fire against the Tosevite males outside the walls, superior sir?” the weapons officer asked.

“No,” Drefsab said. “The ones who got inside are even more important. If we have only limited ammunition, we’ll use at the point of decision.”

Again, the pilot relayed Drefsab’s will to the males flying the other two helicopters. All three machines hovered above the narrowing area inside the walls that the Race still held. The machine guns roared. Drefsab felt a savage surge of satisfaction, almost as good as ginger, as Big Uglies twisted and fell under assault from the air.

“We’ll get them out of there yet!” he cried.

Another doorway. This time, Jager didn’t think it would be cover enough. He kicked in the door and rolled inside, automatic rifle at the ready. No Lizard shot at him. He crawled toward a north-facing window.

Outside, death reigned. He’d hated the Lizards’ helicopters when he was in a panzer. Their rockets smashed through armor as if it were pasteboard. Against infantry, their machine guns were similarly destructive.

The fire wasn’t aimed. It didn’t need to be. As he’d seen in France in the last war, machine guns. put out so many bullets that if this one didn’t get you, the next one would. Without luck amounting to divine intervention, anyone caught on the street without cover would be dead.