Upsetting the Balance

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. Nobody 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 God’s name would the Lizards stick a battalion into a godforsaken 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.”

Nobody argued, but then nobody 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 grass.

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, Auerbach thought. Then bombs started falling on the buildings. One of the rooftop machine guns suddenly fell silent. Auerbach yelled himself hoarse.

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 grass 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 pricked 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 scraped out for himself. The cavalry was going to have to get the hell 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?