The Texas Front: Salient Read online

  The Great Martian War: Texas Front

  Salient

  by Scott Washburn and Jonathan Cresswell

  The Great Martian War: Texas Front - Salient

  Cover by Michael Nigro

  This edition published in 2018

  Zmok Books is an imprint of

  Pike and Powder Publishing Group LLC

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  Copyright © Zmok Books

  ISBN 978-1-945430-95-4

  Bibliographical References and Index

  1. Science Fiction. 2. Alternate History. 3. Alien Invaders

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  Dramatis Personae

  Primary Characters

  Emmet O. Smith, Texas Special Ranger

  Captain Willard Lang, US Army

  Lt. Henri Gamelin, Marine Nationale

  Dr. Ronald T. Gorman, LL, business entrepreneur and Martian prisoner

  Taldarnilis, Martian Colony Group 31

  Secondary and Historical (*) Characters of Significance

  Washington US:

  Frederick Russell Burnham, scout and adventurer *

  Granville Woods, inventor *

  Leonard Wood, Army Chief of Staff *

  Colonel William ‘Billy’ Mitchell *

  Captain George Patton *

  Texas US:

  Oscar B. Colquitt, Governor of Texas *

  Henry Hutchings, Adjutant-General of Rangers and Brigadier-General of Texas National Guard *

  General Frederick Funston, commanding Second Army *

  Captain Otto Prendergast, Funston’s head of staff

  Jovita Idar, journalist, ex-schoolteacher, and mutualista *

  Randolph Hicks, Texas Ranger

  Major Daniel Plainview, commanding Long Range Scouting Company

  Private Edward Painewick

  Corporal Reginald ‘Cooter’ Stimson

  Mexico North:

  Francisco Madero, revolutionary leader and Provisional President of Mexico *

  Maximo Castillo, bodyguard to Madero *

  Felix Sommerfeld, German expatriate *

  Divisional-General Victoriano Huerta, Expeditionary General for Diaz government *

  General Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa, revolutionary military leader of the Northern Division *

  Enrique de Gama Magana, former theology student, Martian prisonor and “priest”

  Juan Mendez, rail engineer

  Mexico South:

  Emiliano Zapata, rebel leader based in Mexico City *

  Manuel Palafox, secretary and adjutant-general to Zapata *

  Colonel Felipe Angeles, artillery specialist *

  Rear-Admiral Charles Favereau, commanding French 4th Light Cruiser Division, Veracruz *

  General Charles E. M. Mangin, commanding French 12th Division, Veracruz *

  Prologue

  March 1910, South of Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory

  Lieutenant Willard Lang stood on the roof plating of Davy’s Sow, the twenty-eight ton Mark II tank that he commanded, and peered north through binoculars. The predawn sky shaded from indigo to blue; the air was crisp and cool, with spring’s promise of warmth to come. A light breeze kept the coal smoke of the Sow’s firebox from troubling him and carried the dry scent of sagebrush from the top of the low ridgeline the tank faced.

  Lang was vividly aware of his situation; he expected to die shortly.

  The binoculars’ view trembled along with his hands. His eyes were gritty with fatigue; no survivor from the 304th Tank Battalion had slept within the past day and a half. Not since the night battle at Albuquerque, when the Martian tripods, more than eighty strong, had punched through the lines of the 33rd Division in a concentration that Lang hadn’t known was possible. Most of the battalion had been wiped out in half an hour of nightmare, with heat rays slashing out of a darkness lit only by gun flashes and burning tanks. The few tanks still mobile had scattered, most heading southeast; the Sow had trundled through the outskirts of the town, ignored once by a fast-striding tripod, often passed by running men and horses, with plenty of light to steer by from the burning buildings. It was then that they’d joined up with The Judge, a Mark I under Second Lieutenant Baker, and finally gotten word from a dispatch rider to rally with other elements of the 33rd at a depot located along the rail line to the south.

  Hours later, before they’d made it there, another rider showed up – from General Funston, he said, ‘Fearless Freddie’ himself, the author of all this misery – and directed Lang to form a rearguard on the low ridge a mile northeast of the crude depot buildings where a few hundred men milled about. There was a train loading there. There were wounded; a few artillery pieces, most without their munition limbers; and of course Funston to oversee it all. Too much for two tanks to protect, but he had his orders, and Lang had never much liked running anyway, even if they could have made another five miles without breaking down. He was afraid but determined. The Sow wouldn’t come cheap.

  The two tanks were backed below the ridge; Lang’s driver, Eddie Painewick, had done so expertly despite his misgivings about the loose dry dirt along the slope. Now Lang watched and waited. The day continued to brighten. The sun warmed his back, sharpened the horizon – and glinted off the three tripods that rose into view a mile to the northeast.

  Lang swallowed in a dry throat and waved to Baker two hundred yards along the slope. The answering wave was as jerky as his own, but Baker had seemed steady enough and knew what to do. Lang stepped to the roof hatch, gripped the raised edges, and lowered himself into the tank, ignoring the ladder, to drop onto the decking with a clang of boots on iron.

  The interior was dim and stank of coal smoke, oil, and five exhausted men. The breech of a four-inch gun, mounted forward, took up much of the space; the firebox glowed to the rear. Three faces looked at him bleakly; Eddie was tucked forward in his driver’s seat. All were even younger than Lang’s twenty-two years, and Albuqerque had been their first battle.

  “Yeah,” said Lang, “they’re here. Three of ’em in the northeast. Eddie! When I give the word, advance us just up to the ridgeline.”

  “Will do, Loot.” The driver had named the tank for its clumsiness after his first trials – ‘as drunk as Davy’s Sow!’ – but Lang knew he would perform the movement perfectly.

  “Carson, take whichever one is on the right. The Judge will be shooting from the left.” The gunner nodded; his loader, Billings, already cradled a shell to follow the one loaded in the four-inch. Eight more were racked at his feet; they’d fired most of their ammunition during the night battle, but that would be enough one way or the other... “Make it count,” he added softly. Carson patted the gun’s sights withou
t speaking.

  “Jed, bank the firebox, would you? I don’t want the smoke to give us away.”

  “Yes, sir. There’s plenty of steam up for – for what we’ll need.”

  “Won’t be long now.” Lang clambered back out into the morning light, crouched, and cautiously raised the binoculars – there. Even without standing he could see them now, closing fast with that alien, undulating gait. He waited long minutes, tensely calculating time and range. They’d pass maybe four hundred yards ahead – if they didn’t change direction.

  Oh, dad, I should have stayed on our farm. But they’d be there some time anyway, burning you and ma and Jill right along with me.

  They were close enough. He dropped back into the Sow’s iron belly, swung the roof hatch shut, grabbed a handhold, and reached forward and down to clap Eddie on the shoulder. “Move her up!”

  Painewick wrenched his levers; Davy’s Sow let out a hissing grunt of steam, jerked, and began to clamber up the slope with rhythmic chuffs and clanks and the syncopated clang of treads. The compartment lurched around them; Lang hung on, peering out the view slits cut into the raised hatch coaming. The ground ahead slowly sank from view, then abruptly reappeared as the tank lurched over the ridgeline, halting in a gush of steam that vanished to reveal the tripods looming over the sagebrush.

  “Target tripod, four hundred yards, straight ahead!” yelled Lang by rote, but Carson was already cranking the handwheels to traverse his gun the few degrees necessary; he squinted through his sights for an eternity, making fine adjustments, then pulled the firing lever. The four-inch slammed deafeningly, its breech recoiling; the shell casing clanged onto the deck. Outside, the third tripod was beginning to turn toward them when the shell exploded on its central cylinder. It seemed to stagger but kept turning, a black streak showing on its casing. Far downrange, a spurt of soil indicated that the Judge had missed. Its target was already loping to the left.

  The gun breech rumbled into battery. “Loaded!” cried Billings. After a moment, Carson fired again. Lang was looking directly into the red eye of the tripod, his guts clenched for the searing flash that would blind and char him, when the second shell hit dead at the joint of globe and cylinder. The explosion was muted as though some of it went inside – and yes! The legs buckled and the tripod spiraled down to crash into the dirt.

  The one adjoining it fired its heat ray. The world dissolved in a buzz-saw shriek that drove Lang to his knees, hands over his eyes, despite his determination. Molten iron speckled his back, burning holes in his crew jacket, as the hatch cupola began to melt. Iron plates groaned, expanding and buckling, and Lang opened his eyes. The crew needed him, they had only seconds now.

  “Loaded!” Billings’ voice was an octave higher.

  “I’m out of traverse!” cried Carson.

  Lang reached forward and slapped Eddie’s left shoulder. “Neutral left!”

  Eddie cranked both levers in opposition, twisting with his whole body. The Sow’s treads hammered into motion, right forward, left backward. The tank pivoted left, lurching in the loose soil. The interior was a furnace, hotter every second. White-hot iron trickled from seams on the forward slope, spattering the deck. The sudden concussion of the four-inch splashed more droplets free; Billings yelled as some struck him.

  Lang risked a glance; two tripods up, one with a hit showing. He turned to Carson. “Did–”

  Carson screamed and doubled over in his seat, a hand covering his eyes. The Sow shrieked along with him as two heat rays converged on the forward and right sides. Everyone staggered; the right tread had jammed.

  “Eddie, halt!” shouted Lang, but fresh welds were already popping in the tread links, the soil was giving way beneath the tank’s weight as the left tread churned it, and the Sow’s right flank was exposed to the double attack focused onto it. The thinner sheet iron erupted in a curtain of red-hot destruction and a heat ray flickered through it, incinerating Billings and Jed in an instant and lighting the rear interior in flames.

  The Sow tilted left, sliding uncontrolled back down the slope. Eddie shouted “I can’t–” and two armor plates collapsed inward, disintegrating in a splash of red-hot metal. Carson gave a queer grunt; Lang grabbed his shoulder, but the twenty-pound chunk of plate had already melted halfway into his belly, and his eyes were going blank with shock. The ripsaw sound of the heat rays cut off as the Sow disappeared from their line of fire; then the tank crunched into hard soil at the base of the slope and halted, gouting clouds of steam like its dying breath.

  “Loot, I can’t move her!”

  Lang hacked a cough and looked around the interior of his command. Daylight through the melted holes showed three corpses; the gunsights were wrecked. On the off chance it would help the Judge, he moved Carson’s limp hand from the firing lever and blasted out the last round into the sky. Choking on fumes, he undogged the left side hatch that mercifully hadn’t fused shut, shouldered it open, then grabbed Eddie’s jacket and hauled him bodily out of his seat. “We’re bailing!”

  “Carson–”

  “He’s dead! Move!” He shoved Eddie through the opening and climbed out after him. “Go! There!” He pointed to a dense clump of brush forty yards away, upslope. They scrambled down from the burning, crippled tank and punched boots into the dry soil in a ragged sprint. Lang glanced over his shoulder; still two tripods, both firing again, and the Judge exploded in a rising ball of flame-shot smoke and debris. Never knew Baker’s first name. He ran a few more gasping steps, dropped, and squirmed into the brush beside Eddie, looking out through the knotted branches that suddenly didn’t seem like much concealment at all... but the tripods were stepping down the ridgeline now, and it was too late to try for anything better.

  Flames gushed from the Sow’s open hatch. “Loot,” said Eddie in a tight voice, “there’s still ammo in there.”

  “Don’t you move, Eddie. Don’t you goddamned move.” Lang pinned his driver with an arm. Growing up on a hardscrabble farm had shaped him compact but very strong, and Eddie subsided. “Look, they’d burn you down in five steps.” The tripods had halted, seeming to peer down at the burning tank.

  “What are the bastards waiting for?” hissed Eddie.

  “I think they know she’s crippled. But they’re not shooting. Do you – do you think they’re short on ammo too? For that heat ray?”

  “How would I –” said Eddie, and the Sow exploded in a punching concussion that jolted the ground and sent fragments howling. Eddie twitched and yelped. “Dammit! Loot...”

  “Hold still! I see it. It’s not bad.” A shard stuck out of the driver’s left leg. Metal plates and pieces fell into the dirt around them, but nothing further struck either man. “Once they move off, we’ll see to that.”

  But the tripods didn’t move off yet. Instead they recrossed the ridgeline and huddled around the spot where Lang figured the downed tripod must be. One sank out of sight for a while, then rose up again with a canister latched onto its back.

  “Did they just rescue the critter out of that thing?” wondered Lang; his driver didn’t answer, just clutched his leg white-faced. It didn’t matter; Lang knew that he was just trying to focus his own mind on something other than what had happened to his crew. There wouldn’t be enough left of them to bury, and somehow that troubled him more than their deaths...

  Then one tripod moved off northward, and the other swung away to the west. There was something significant about that, but right now, Lang was more concerned with tearing the sleeve off his shirt and bandaging Eddie’s wound, which had soaked the pant leg with blood. He carefully did not pull out the fragment; that was a surgeon’s task.

  If a tripod came back...well, then it came back. He pulled Eddie upright, slung the man’s arm across his shoulders to take as much weight as possible, and they started to walk south.

  The twin funeral pyres behind them marked the last stand of the 304th.

  * * * * *

  They limped southward together for nearly an hour. Lang
was staggering with exhaustion by the time they reached the depot, but he still refused to allow Eddie to put weight on the bad leg. The wounded were marshaled under the shade of the depot buildings, suggesting that delays were expected. He dropped his driver off to the care of an orderly. Men rushed about, most with some seeming purpose. An improvised crane was hoisting an artillery piece onto a flatcar where others lay stacked like cordwood. No tanks to be seen. If there were any other survivors, they’d broken down on the way and been abandoned.

  He thought dully that he ought to report in to someone, but asking for the 304th ’s officers just drew blank stares. Finally an older sergeant said, “Son, there’s no one left from that outfit that I know of. If you’ve something to report, best find General Funston’s staff.”

  Lang followed the direction down the rail line to a knot of officers arguing with one another. As he came up, a colonel was saying, “I’ve told you, there’s not enough space in these cars for anything more than the wounded. Barely for them!”

  “I won’t leave the ammunition after we brought it this far. It’s irreplaceable.” The major who spoke adjusted the bandage over his eye with obvious discomfort.

  “Neither are my men! If –”

  “Gentlemen,” rasped a voice behind them. The two figures parted to reveal a man shorter than Lang, haggard, wearing a goatee and general’s stars. “We’ll carry every wounded man and whatever ammunition we can cram into the corners.”

  “Sir, we can only load the cars so much. They have limits.”

  “We’ll proceed slowly; they can carry a little more. No axle’s going to break at a marching pace.” He looked at Lang. “Who are you?”

  “Lieutenant Willard Lang, sir. Late of the 304th. My tank was part –”

  “Of the rearguard, yes. Report.”