Slimenian Rebirth

(Continuing the story of the Slimenians, from here and, later, here.)

We put the treads in reverse, and kept them there for days. The army jogged to keep pace with us at first; eventually they fell behind. They stopped at nightfall. We didn't. I had smashed the Schwartzmann's treads, but it could not be long before they were repaired, and not long after that until the Schwartzmann pursued us. We needed all the time we could get, if we were to stop the Schwartzmann Tank.

As we traveled, some of the braver of the surviving crew members climbed out onto the front of the tank, to try to clear away the junk we'd improvised for armor and salvage what munitions we might. I dared it twice myself. On the second attempt, a sudden lurch nearly severed my tenuous grip on the hull and tossed me down to the ground a hundred feet below. After that, I stayed in the command room, supervising, barely able to keep myself from bouncing in frustration and powerlessness. Every delay, every cliff too high to roll over and every tree that jammed the treads brought the Schwartzmann Tank closer to us, as it followed in our tracks.

At the seventh daybreak after the great battle, after seven days of sleepless, ceaseless travel, the rebel tank rolled back to the wreckage of the Emperor's shield, the Schliemann Tank. Dr. Cid was still there, tinkering with the wreckage. As we approached, he waved to us, grinning broadly, and shouted things we could not hear. As the tank came to a halt, and all the crew walked out to greet our beloved leader, Dr. Cid's grin faded. "Where are all the others?" he asked.

I was too slow in answering. He answered his own question. "Lost. I had not thought that in victory, even against Slival, you should lose so many..."

I approached him, and slumped down sadly. "No," I said. "We didn't win. The Schwartzmann Tank is coming. And if we don't stop it this time, everything we have won is dust; Slival shall be a worse dictator than the Emperors ever were."

It did not take long after that to explain all the rest to him. Unlike the rest of us, he was not cowed for long. He rose to his feet, asked rhetorically "If you could go so far, destroy half the Empire's might, when you did not even possess (at first) a tank of any sort, what cannot you do with one?" and immediately set to work. We were all ordered to our positions, as we were when first we set out to repair the tank; attach this cable! Fetch a wrench! Test these links before I put them to use! We kept a ready crew in the tank for fear that the Schwartzmann Tank might appear without warning; but the sun fell below the horizon without his coming. We labored beyond the sunset, for as long as we could in the twilight's dim night; then, at last, all of us set to sleep.

We were awakened by the dreaded sound of tremendous treads rolling across the land; the Schwartzmann Tank, come for us at last. It was too dark to see as anything but an outline; still, we set to fight, rousing the sounder sleepers and preparing for battle. We fired the first shot, by some miracle - a rocket arced out of the cannon and lit it briefly by the sputtering light of its exhaust.

In return, the Schwartzmann fired a large iron plate, knocking our rocket (saved from the time of the War, as all of our weapons more advanced than rocks were) from the sky. Then it launched a barrage of tumbling bombs, each twice the size of a slime by diameter. We rushed to counter, and fire lit the night sky.

Our armor was in tatters after the first battle with the Schwartzmann tank, but in a single day, Dr. Cid had worked miracles to repair it. The side armor from the Schliemann Tank, only somewhat warped by the blast that destroyed the Schliemann, was levered up and bolted to the front of our own tank. It was a crude solution, but it saved us from certain destruction. Slival's bombs and rockets were largely deflected. The few that made it through our counter-fire damaged our re-armored hull, but did not destroy it. And as our guns took their toll on Slival's still-damaged hull, we thought that he depleted his own supply of archaic munitions; for his fire slackened and slowed as we continued undaunted.

Of course, then he sent in the infiltrators. They had served him so well in the last battle; why not again? As they arced over behind their iron shields, Dr. Cid, seized by a fit of inspiration, shoveled poison-gas shells (looted from the wreckage of the Schliemann Tank) into the cannon. Our enemy's weapons burst against the protections of their own; and, in so doing, left deadly clouds that the infiltrators sailed through mere moments later. The results were predictable; blinded and weakened, the infiltrators bounced off the hull and fell to a grisly end. Slival's ploy had failed.

He knew better than to try another wave of infiltrators - Dr. Cid was ready with more gas canisters. Instead, he launched one last desperate barrage, blowing great holes in our armor as we struggled to knock his shells out of the sky. It was very, very close, and one rocket actually blew so far through the armor that parts of its shattered nose-cap lodged in the floor of the command room. But he exhausted his weapons, and we were still firing.

We thought we'd won. We thought that Slival would retreat, or else fight it out to the desperate end, firing even as his tank burned around him. We misjudged him, and goggled in surprise as the doors to his tank opened and his men poured out around him as he charged across the battlefield toward us. The Schwartzmann, dread tank, terror of all for decades, was struck by our last rockets as he charged, and finally erupted in a column of black-rimmed flame, blasting Slival and his crew forward. We strove to aim our cannon downward as we loaded them with poison-shot; but he was already past our cannon's furthest depression before we could fire. We tried to run him over; but the jerry-rigged armor repairs dug into the ground, locking us in place. And Slival lowered his terrible black iron helm, gathered himself, and smashed through the door. The enemy was inside. All we could do was rush down to fight him, before he smashed our engine in the same way.

The fight was utter chaos. Our crew somewhat outnumbered Slival's, but Slival was an army in his own right, turning whatever slime he encountered into a fine spray of jelly. Our prospects looked poor as Slival barreled unhindered through our ranks toward the engine room; but then Dr. Cid stepped foward to block his way.

Slival stopped, then. He pinned Dr. Cid against the wall - not pressing - examining him curiously. In a voice somehow more normal than I'd imagined, he asked, "Why did you betray the Empire?"

Dr. Cid had no strength to match Slival's. He, as Slival, had lived through generations since the Empire's founding; but, in contrast to Slival's unholy longevity, the years had clearly marked Dr. Cid. All he had were his wits, and his courage. He said to Slival, "Why did you betray the Empire?"

Slival answered immediately. "Power. Immortal greatness, at last within my grasp. And you?"

Dr. Cid answered, with a long sigh: "Conscience."

Slival thought about this, as the fight raged behind him. Slival's crew were falling faster than ours; but it was all for naught if Slival struck our engine. He at last decided, "Conscience? A crutch for fools and weaklings. I set it aside long ago. You are no fool; thus, you are weak. And I have all I can bear of weakness." Then, with a twitch - a twitch! - the spikes of Slival's black iron helmet were in Dr. Cid; and the life drained from his eyes.

Slival was then, I believe, about to enter the engine room, and end all our efforts. The most courageous thing I ever did was to stand before him then and say, "You are weak."

Slival puffed up in fury, and I, stammering, continued. "Y-you lost your tank. You lost your crew-" who were, even now, surrendering to our superior numbers. "-and soon you will lose your Empire. I have destroyed tanks. I have toppled an Empire. Which of us, then, is weak?"

I was gambling everything on the old stories, telling of a Slival who, in the time of the War, fought for blood, for power, but most of all for primacy. I challenged him: "We will fight. Here. One on one; slime against slime. And the victor takes it all."

He did not bother to respond, but rather charged, nearly crushing me in his first attack. I dodged aside, and smashed him as he turned. He shouted in fury, and charged again, lightning-quick. Again, I dodged (losing a bit of slime off the side as he passed) and hit him.

Slival was not stupid. He recognized the pattern, and settled down into a more cautious attack, jabbing at me with his iron spikes. I dodged, but I could find no method of attack; any attempt would end with me spitting myself. I was near despair; but Dr. Cid's words came to me. "If you could go so far, destroy half the Empire's might, when you did not even possess a tank of any sort - what cannot you do with one?"

I had a plan now. I dodged back, leading Slival carefully towards the control room. He followed, twice nearly impaling me with unexpected strikes; but then I was there, and next to the cannon I lifted a bomb and tossed it at Slival in one smooth motion before he could react.

We were both knocked back by the force of the explosion. When I recovered, I saw him on the floor; helmet cracked and broken, spikes all snapped off. He was trapped, pinned by the helmet in a corner. I picked him up, and, acting on the spur of the moment, tilted the upper cannon as high as it could go and launched Slival out of it. As I watched him fly, I said, "The earth cannot welcome him; but perhaps the night can."

We worked for a little while, cleaning the mess, moving Dr. Cid's body in preparation for a proper ceremony. Then - all exhausted - we finally went to sleep. As I closed my eyes, I could see the sun rising at last.

-

It was all easy after that. Imperial resistance was token - nothing could resist the might of the tanks. The cities and towns welcomed us jubilantly. The Emperor was found trying to dredge another tank; we captured him and held him until we decided what to do with him. We also seized the Emperor's fleet - his last mad project, a fleet (on an island that has never had any ships larger than fishing-boats) designed to seek out new land. We thought to burn it - for in those days we were concerned with repairing the damage the Empire had wrought, not wasting precious resources on a hopeless search for land beyond the horizon. Ridding ourselves of two problems at once, we decided to launch the Emperor out to sea with a token crew, threatening him with death should he ever return. An execution, we thought, was a poor start for a new era; and exile was unlikely to cause complications.

Our government was, I think, wise and kind - imperfect, but better than what had preceded it. We ruled for many years. And sometimes I would gaze out at the night sky, and wonder if Dr. Cid had found any peace beyond us; and if Slival had found some strange redemption, before the end.