As the command car penetrated deeper into the park, it was suddenly set upon by perhaps two score of the enemy armed with clubs and long knives and apparently fired to self-sacrificing fanaticism by some nearby Dom. Half of them went down before the furious submachine guns of Render and Best; Feric dispatched five more with a single sweep of the Steel Commander. Then he spied a gray, crabbed creature with gleaming black rodential eyes hanging back at the rear of this attack force.
Holding onto the rim of the cabin with his left hand for purchase, Feric leaned far out over the fray, and brought the headball of his weapon straight down on the skull of this cowardly Dom, sending a fountain of gray brains into the air. Almost at once, the Universalist filth who a moment 'before had rushed fearlessly at the command car fled every which way screaming in fear and horror.
Seeing this, the SS fanatics concentrated their attack on what Doms they could spy, and soon the raggedness and speed of the rout was more than redoubled. The contest was never in doubt. Though the Universalists fought with animal ferocity in the vicinity of a Dom's person, they lacked the will and discipline, not to mention the inspira-tional leadership, to maintain even a show of overall resistance. In hand-to-hand combat the individual Knight was worth at least ten of these soulless creatures, and as for the SS men, their superiority in will and fighting ability to the rabble could only be measured in astronomical figures.
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It was not long before the rabble lost all hope of victory and even the Doms commanding the slave horde could think of nothing but escape. With a great rearward surge, the ranks of the Universalist filth broke and ran toward Ophal Street, the northern border of the park, and as far away from the fray as they could hope to get. All at once the Knights and the SS were pursuing a broken, formless, and terrified herd of stampeding human cattle northward through the park.
Feric's command car rode at the very point of this triumphant pursuit, the guns of Remler and Best decimat-ing the ranks of the rabble fleeing before the car, Feric's noble truncheon dispatching any and all stragglers. The fear-driven stampede could not outrun the motorized vanguard of the Swastika storm troops, and the command car and the motorized SS soon tore into the rear ranks, piling up great heaps of bloody and broken corpses.
Moreover, as the fleeing ruffians poured onto Ophal Street, Stopa's motorcyclists suddenly poured forth from every side street and alley, and behind them came Knights on foot with chains and truncheons. The rabble was caught between the hammer and the anvil.
Small groups of the enemy fled disjointedly in all directions, only to be run down by motorcycle squads and then knocked senseless by foot troopers. Those who managed to escape the immediate environs of Oak' Park into the flaming ruins of Borburg were not pursued. But all the Universalist scum still within the confines of the four streets bordering the park were broken down into smaller and smaller groups and smashed to pieces.
Since a few minutes of public television time remained after the last of the Universalists had been either slain, knocked senseless, or driven from the vicinity of Oak Park, Feric had the command car driven to the park's geometric center. Around him, the motorized SS, their engines idling, their black leather soiled with the honorable blood and dust of battle, formed a circle of honor. Facing their mounted comrades stood a rank of five hundred SS
foot soldiers at rigid attention. Behind this elite guard were first the ranks of Knight motorcyclists, and then the massed might of thousands of Knights of the Swastika, all heroic figures swaggering grandly in their uniforms of brown leather, most of which were liberally spattered with the blood of the enemy.'
All around this victorious army lay the evidence of its 116
prowess, ruthless fanaticism, and glorious victory. The bodies of Universalists and Dominators were strewn all over the park, singly and in great bloody heaps. Beyond the park, great billowing flames burned the last traces of pestilence out of the Borburg warrens.
Feric was handed a microphone as he stood on the seat of his command car to address his victorious troops. When he spoke, his voice reverberated throughout the High Republic as well as in the echoing streets of captured Borburg.
"Fellow Helder, I salute you! This great and glorious victory we have won today will live forever in the hearts of true humans everywhere. Hail Heldon! Hail the pure human genotype! Hail the total victory of the Swastika!"
The answering roar of "Hail Jaggar" shook all Heldon to its very foundations, and the men could not be restrained from repeating it a dozen times, each time with the jaunty clicking of the heels of thousands of boots, and a forest of Party salutes that challenged the heavens.
