by Mary Gentle
“I’ve got more than enough problems,” the big combat-clad orc snarled, “without fighting through built-up areas. Get those lily-livered sons of bitches down there! Those Bugs are throwing fuck-knows-what against us! You’re gonna hold ’em up enough so’s we can take ’em on their way north out of the city, here on this line of hills. Any questions?”
There was silence in the command tent. The nameless necromancer slobbered and hissed, standing and drawing himself up to his full height.
“Sir?”
A hand went up at the back.
“Sergeant Stryker?” Ashnak said.
The blond Man stood. New combats and weaponry made him the very image of a marine. His muscular frame bulked as large as any there, except the largest orcs. The nameless necromancer sniffed suspiciously. That would be the Otherworld marine’s aura, Ashnak guessed. He gestured for the Man to continue.
“Well, it’s just this, sir.” John Stryker shifted his feet uncomfortably. His blue eyes met Ashnak’s.
“I know the Bugs are supposed to be these homicidal, mindless, alien psychopaths and killing-machines,” John Stryker said, “but has anyone ever tried just talking to them?”
Some thirty minutes later, at a forward gun position on the edge of the line of hills, the small orc major said, “It might work, sir.”
Ashnak ducked down behind the sandbag walls. “Are you out of your mind, Major?”
“Nossir!” Barashkukor protested. His cyborg-eye whirred, left its socket, and extended on a jointed steel rod. With some care the small orc extended it over the sandbags of the hillside gun emplacement.
Having chewed up the Light’s armoured infantry in the streets of Ferenzia and mangled the crack elf cavalry on the plain beyond, the Bug soldiers were just becoming visible through the haze. Walking towards them, carrying a white flag on a pole, Sergeant John H. Stryker of the U.S. Marine Corps strode down the track from the hills.
“A brave Man!” Barashkukor enthused. “A true marine! Don’t you think so, Supreme Commander?”
“I think the Dragon’s Curse has a lot to answer for.” Supreme Commander Ashnak lowered his binoculars and grunted, crouching over the orc marine with an RT backpack, phoneset in his other taloned hand. “At odds of fifteen to one against us, I’ll try anything. Let’s hope the Visible College’s translation talismans work, soldier.”
The distant figure of John Stryker reached his goal.
Barashkukor focused his extended eye.
“I see him, Supreme Commander! He’s…he’s talking to them!”
Heat haze jumbled the air. As if through running water, Major Barashkukor watched the blond crewcut Man sergeant.
The Man stood before a semicircle of Bugs, gathering around him. They towered over his six-foot height by eighteen inches or more. The sun gleamed blue from their black carapaces and dripping jaws. Dust stained their hard exoskeletons, and their black living-metal weapons were dull shapes of menace.
Stryker drove the pole of the truce flag into the dirt.
Barashkukor watched the Man wave his arms. Through the heat haze, it was visible how his lips moved. The great carapaced heads of the Bugs dipped and swayed. One extruded foot-long inner jaws and salivated.
The saliva burned holes in the earth.
“They’re not attacking him, sir! They’re listening to him!”
Barashkukor’s cyborg-eye tracked left and right. Through the dust, the light kept flashing back from harness, weapons, and chitin shells. The advance line of Bugs wavered, slowed…
“It’s working!” Barashkukor jumped up and down on the spot. His eye-stilt jerked to and fro.
The Supreme Commander (Dark and Light Forces) lifted his head from the radio set. “Mission successful, Major?”
In the sharply focussed view of Barashkukor’s metal eye, the Bugs around Sergeant John H. Stryker stepped towards the Man on their skeletal hind legs. Their shining heads rose up, and they raised their clawed forefeet patiently. Stryker turned. Even over the long distance Barashkukor could see the broad smile on the Man’s face.
The orc’s long ears perked up and his small tusks gleamed. “Supreme Commander, sir, mission successful!—oh.”
Stryker’s head exploded in a rain of meat.
The Bug who had impaled him on an extensible rigid tongue let the body drop. The other Bugs moved in, jaws dripping, feeding quickly and messily.
“Oh, well.” The small orc sighed. His eye whirred, sank down, and clicked home into its socket. “Not entirely successful, sir. They ate him. Incoming!”
CRAAAACK!
A wavering bolt of blue fire impacted on the hillside forty yards away. The explosion threw up dirt and bedrock. Two or three pieces of debris bounced off Barashkukor’s helmet as the small orc crouched in the corner of the emplacement.
“Time we got serious about this,” Supreme Commander Ashnak announced. “Command group moving back. Go, go, go!”
“I’ll drive, sir!” Barashkukor leaped lopsidedly into the jeep after the rest of the grunts and pushed his cyborg-foot down on the accelerator. The vehicle jolted down the far side of the hill, spraying showers of dirt and grit. Barashkukor whooped, one steel hand and one orc-hand wrestling with the wheel. Ashnak tightened the strap on his helmet.
“Forward unit engaged!” the orc marine radio operator yelped. She listened to the headset and added, “Captain Hashnabul reports a problem, Supreme Commander—the grunts keep stopping to invent suitable tortures for Bug prisoners.”
Ashnak’s helmet cracked against the rollbar. “Dammit, tell them they’re not supposed to be taking prisoners anyway!”
“Oh, they don’t have any prisoners yet, sir. They’re just inventing the tortures…”
Barashkukor spun the wheel and ran the jeep up an impossible slope. The vehicle’s wheels spun. The small orc reached out and seized a juniper stump with his cyborg-arm and pulled, and the jeep pivoted and came down on a path made by the tracks of tanks. One of the orc marine runners left the vehicle on the bounce, and Major Barashkukor somewhat reluctantly stopped to let her climb back on board before he gunned the engine and shot off again.
“Isn’t this thrilling, sir?”
“Thrilling,” Ashnak growled, recovering his cigar from the body of the jolting vehicle. He jammed it in the side of his mouth. “Dammit, Major, can’t you get any speed out of this thing?”
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKK!
White plasma-fire split the dust and exploded against the cliff in front. One-handed, Major Barashkukor spun the wheel. The jeep swerved violently, successfully avoided the landslip, and jolted on towards the rear of the orc marine company.
“For you, Commander.” The RT orc passed the handset over to Ashnak.
“Lieutenant Chahkamnit here, sir. I say, what an absolutely cracking good show this is, sir!”
Ashnak chewed his cigar. “What’s your position, Lieutenant?”
“Directly over yours, sir.”
The big orc caught hold of a strut and leaned out of the jeep, gazing up at a blue afternoon sky that appeared completely empty. “Can’t see you, Chahkamnit.”
“No, sir, of course you can’t. I’m piloting the stealth dragon, sir.”
Barashkukor’s cyborg-eye whirred into the infrared. While his orc-eye watched the road, his lens swivelled to study the heat-outlined shape of a dragon large enough to cover Ferenzia itself.
“Painted it with blue radar-reflective paint,” the major approved. “Smart idea, sir.”
Ashnak spat out the remnants of his chewed cigar. “Take her down, Lieutenant Chahkamnit. Start giving me some fighter ground-attack!”
Another voice spluttered from the RT handset:
“Hai-yah, yo! Comin’ in NOW!”
The jeep swerved wildly as both Ashnak and Barashkukor attempted to watch the sky and the road simultaneously. The small orc pointed with his orc-hand, steering with the metal one.
“There, sir!”
A squadron of winged white horses wheeled
over the hills in perfect formation. Stark against the blue sky were the Hellfire missiles under each wing. Their riders, mail byrnies flashing in the sun, the wind whipping the fur of their leggings and their long yellow braids, dug their heels into the flanks of the pegasi, urging them on with shrieks and cries.
“Going in!”
The Valkyrie Marines peeled off and pitched down towards the plain. A laser-guided missile fired and left a searing trail across the sky. A bolt of blue light leaped up from the plain’s dust. The Valkyrie Marines folded their wings as one, dived for speed, and came in low and hard over the target area. A female voice crackled over the RT:
“Dah dah-dah DAH dah, Dah dah-dah DAH dah…”
Barashkukor dragged the jeep’s wheel round and steered behind a granite ridge, jouncing out into sunlight at the end of it. His commanding officer’s hand smacked him smartly across the back of the head. His helmet rang.
“—and stop when I tell you!” The great orc leapt from the slowing jeep and loped across to a squad of grunts at the end of the ridge. Sun glinted through the ribs of the Special Undead Services.
“Give me a sit-rep,” Supreme Commander Ashnak demanded.
Lieutenant Lugashaldim saluted, skeletal fingers touching his rotting beret. The lenses of his sunglasses reflected unearthly shapes in their curve.
“Setting up a crack sniper squad here, sir.” The lich orc marine indicated the rest of the Undead grunts nestling into hollows in the rock, overlooking the plain below. “See, sir, the main difference between an orc who’ll make a good sniper and an orc who won’t is heartbeat. Shakes the sights, sir. Well, naturally enough, Undead orcs make the best sniper-teams.”
Ashnak nodded his tusked head. “What results are you getting?”
“Following the standard procedure, sir. Shooting to maim, not kill, so that the enemy will have to risk fire to rescue the injured soldier, with subsequent effect on their morale.” The Undead orc removed his sunglasses. Pinpricks of red shone in his mummified eye-sockets. “All very well, sir, but these Bugs don’t seem at all bothered by their mates being wounded. They just leave them writhing, sir.”
“Keep shooting to maim, in any case,” Ashnak ordered. “It’ll have a good effect on our lads’ morale.”
“Sir, yes sir!” Lugashaldim sighed. “Only wish I had more of the SUS on hand here. As it is, sir, we’re only a skeleton staff.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Just the nine, sir.”
The crack and whumph of mortar and artillery fire shook the hills. Puffs of dirt shot up on the plain below. Major Barashkukor gunned the jeep’s motor as soon as his commanding officer vaulted back into the front seat, and sped off, overtaking a column of T54s deploying to the front.
Hooves thundered behind Barashkukor. The small orc jerked his attention back to the road. A troop of black horses split to gallop past the jeep, hooves cutting the earth. The riders, black cloaks swirling to disclose shining spiked black armour, spurred their thundering steeds. Barashkukor coaxed a tad more out of the engine, keeping level.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Ashnak bawled, deep orc-voice rising above hoofbeats and whining gears.
The hood of the last rider slid down. It disclosed rat’s-tail black hair and a piebald grey-and-black face snarling in a rictus of fear. The nameless necromancer freed one patchwork-gloved hand from the reins to point wildly down at Ferenzia and the plain.
“We’ve been overrun! We’re all going to die!”
Ashnak’s upper lip pulled back from his tusks in a snarl. “You’re a necromancer, dammit. It isn’t death—it’s a learning experience!”
The troop of black riders kept pace with the jeep, hooves kicking up the heavy golden dust. Barashkukor glanced sideways. His commanding orc, squat in urban camouflage battledress, held the front bar of the jeep with one hand, and with the other unbuckled the flap of his pistol holster.
“I’ve got a forty-five-calibre Colt automatic here that says you’re going back to the front line!”
The black riders wheeled and plunged away down a trail that led back into the hills, where any might conceal themselves and hide from catastrophic defeat. The nameless necromancer, his silver-threaded leather robe flying, snarled an obscenity at Ashnak.
“Fly, fool of an orc! Or stay here and die!”
FOOOM!
“Good shot, sir!”
Barashkukor’s metal eye extended above his helmet and stared back down the road. A riderless horse fell back, reins trailing. A dark figure slumped on the dirt track in a splash of intestines.
“He’ll be back,” Ashnak said. “Yo! Here, Major. I said here. I said—”
An orc fist impacted the side of Barashkukor’s helmet.
“—STOP!”
Airbursts and groundbursts shook the world as Barashkukor slewed the jeep to a halt in an artillery emplacement. Camouflage netting blocked the sky, filling in the gulley. The battery of guns faced the plain below. The small orc slipped the jeep’s ignition keys into his pocket and followed his commanding orc over to the forward observation post.
“Estimate—” whirrr-click! “—upwards of sixteen thousand hostiles, Supreme Commander.”
The radio orc and the runners clustered around Ashnak as the great orc surveyed the plain below through field glasses. Writhing lines of marines and Bugs became visible through the dust, then vanished again. Monitoring headquarters’ radio traffic brought a constant stream of situation reports. Barashkukor picked out an elvish voice among the radio traffic.
“I don’t care if it is orders, Sergeant! Marines never retreat!”
“No, L.t.,” Dakashnit’s laconic voice answered Lieutenant Gilmuriel. “’Course not. Think of it as ‘advancing to the rear.’”
Without looking, Supreme Commander Ashnak snapped his talons for the handset. “Ashnak to command post, Ashnak to command post. Commissar Razitshakra—keep pulling ’em back. Get ’em out of there. Over.”
“I copy, Commander.” Razitshakra’s voice crackled. “Command post to all units, repeat, command post to all units. Fall back. Repeat, fall back now!”
Orc gun crews pounded past Barashkukor to their stations but did not fire. Bio-tech-Captain Ugarit emerged from the back of one of several Bedford trucks parked under the camouflage netting. The skinny orc spotted Barashkukor, stared fixedly at the major’s metal arm and leg, and began to drool.
“Tech-Captain!”
Bio-tech-Captain Ugarit sidled past Barashkukor and approached Ashnak. Dust, oil, and less recognisable stains covered his long white coat and the uniform beneath. A succession of studs, chains, and feathers dangled from his pierced, pointed ears.
“Sir!” The skinny orc tugged at Ashnak’s sleeve. The Supreme Commander lowered his field glasses. Ugarit grabbed, “May I try it, sir, please may I; never get another chance like this, sir, please?”
“Wait.” Ashnak lifted his field glasses again, studying the plain.
The roiling dust began to clear now, a light breeze blowing from the east. Thin lines of light seared crisscross. The woodpecker-rattle of automatic fire sounded incessantly. Cordite stung. The heavy cough of artillery rang out further down the line of hills.
Sixteen thousand Bugs advanced towards the orc marine defensive positions.
Supreme Commander Ashnak regarded the battle.
“Captain Ugarit, are we loaded up?”
The skinny orc saluted with the wrong hand. “Yes, Lord General!”
Ashnak lifted the radio orc’s handset to his tusked mouth. “Artillery crew, on my mark—fire!”
A thunderous barrage broke out over Barashkukor’s head. The small orc rapidly retrieved the chunks of cotton wool from his uniform jacket and stuffed them into his ears. The gun muzzles recoiled, carriages jolting; and the suck and concussion of the air beat at him, the noise resounding in his torso and testicles.
WHOMMMMPH!
The bright afternoon shook. Barashkukor staggered to the fo
rward observation post and peered through the gaps between the sandbags.
At first the battlefield appeared so different. Then, from the craters of the artillery strikes, Barashkukor noticed a yellow mist drifting across the plain.
Helicopter gunships whipped overhead, rocket motors spurting from the missiles they fired. Barashkukor followed their tracks to the earth below. More sluggish and low-lying yellow fog caught the breeze and drifted away from the missile strike areas.
“Ranging shots are good.” Supreme Commander Ashnak’s voice approved. “Bio-tech-Captain Ugarit, continue to target according to previous strikes.”
“You got it, Commander!”
Barashkukor stared at Ashnak. The big orc leaned his elbows on the sandbags and turned his glasses on the uneven ground between Ferenzia and the hills. The sun, hardly an hour past noon, filtered in beams through the slowly drifting mists.
The small orc thumbed his helmet radio. “Sir, what is that, sir?”
“That, Major,” Ashnak’s voice crackled over the radio, in Barashkukor’s cotton-blocked ear, “is chemical warfare. Mustard and nerve gas. That over there is sarin and tabun, mostly, with some lewisite, and a little anthrax for entertainment value.”
WHOMPH! FOOM! WHOMMPH!
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Took it from Dagurashibanipal’s hoard, I did. Adapted it! Lots of lovely dead Bugs to play with. I’ve genetically tailored it for them and not us, we’re safe, but they’re not!”
Filled with irresistible emotion, Major Barashkukor seized the gibbering Ugarit’s hand and shook it firmly. “Oh, well done!”
“Thank you…” Ugarit retained a vicelike grip on Barashkukor’s metal hand, whipped out a magnifying glass, and began to subject it to close scrutiny. Barashkukor wrenched it away.
“Commander Ashnak to command post—give me the field units’ situation reports.”
Commissar Razitshakra’s deep orcish tones over the open channel broke with emotion. “Commander, the Bugs are dropping right, left, and centre!”
The small orc major leaped for the sandbagged wall, his cyborg-leg propelling him smartly upwards. Clinging to the top of the emplacement, Barashkukor focussed his long-distance sight on the battlefield.
